Colonel Wallace’s office was on the ground floor of a single-story building that reminded him very much of the buildings at Maxwell Air Corps Base in Alabama. Obviously, since Brazil drew its culture from Portugal, it was ‘‘Portuguese-style’’ architecture, but Colonel Wallace could not help but think of it as Spanish. The buildings at Maxwell were always thought of as Spanish-style.
He walked to the window and peered around the edge of the heavy curtain for his first look at Major C. H. Frade of the Office of Strategic Services. It was always helpful to have a look at someone with whom one was to deal before actually meeting them.
A 1937 Buick Limited convertible touring sedan, which looked as if it had rolled off the showroom floor that morning, came down the street and pulled into the curved drive in front of the building. It was chauffeur driven, and when it came to a stop, it was close enough for Colonel Wallace to read the license plate. It was an Argentine plate, reading ‘‘Corrientes 11.’’ It was obviously the property of some prominent Argentine.
The chauffeur ran around the rear of the car and opened the rear door. A very young man stepped out. Colonel Wallace thought he was no older than twenty-two or twenty-three. He was wearing a tweed jacket, a yellow polo shirt with a red foulard filling the open collar, riding breeches, and glistening boots.
He did not look like a field-grade Marine Corps officer detailed to the Office of Strategic Services, Colonel Wallace decided. The older man with him, who had a pronounced military bearing, was probably Major Frade. The young man—Señor Rodríguez—was probably somehow connected with the chauffeur-driven Buick with the low-numbered licensed plate.
The more he thought about it, the more he was pleased. Not only was Major Frade obviously competent in what he was doing—establishing a good relationship with prominent natives was obviously both useful and difficult to accomplish —but Frade would likely be very interested to learn that Captain Maxwell Ashton had such contempt for military customs that he had installed his enlisted men in officers’ quarters.
And Frade would very possibly, at least unofficially, tell him what this whole irregular operation was all about.
Two minutes later, Colonel Wallace’s sergeant knocked at the door and informed him that Mr. Frade and another gentleman wished to see him.
‘‘Show the Major in, Sergeant,’’ Colonel Wallace said as he walked from the window toward the door.
‘‘Welcome to Pôrto Alegre, Major Frade,’’ Wallace said, offering his hand to Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodríguez, Cavalry, Argentine Army, Retired.
‘‘I’m afraid Enrico doesn’t speak English, Colonel,’’ Clete said. ‘‘I’m Major Frade.’’
‘‘Who is he?’’ Wallace blurted.
‘‘My friend,’’ Clete said.
Enrico came to attention.
‘‘A sus órdenes, mi Coronel,’’ he said.
‘‘What did he say?’’ Wallace asked.
‘‘It’s the Argentine military custom when a junior meets a superior to say that,’’ Clete said. ‘‘It means, ‘at your orders.’ Enrico spent some time in the Argentine Cavalry before he became a pilot.’’
‘‘May I see your identification, Major Frade?’’ Wallace asked.
‘‘I’ve got an Argentine passport,’’ Clete said. ‘‘But I was told that I was to identify myself by giving you a telephone number.’’
‘‘Quite right, quite right,’’ Wallace said, and took out his notebook and found the number he was told would identify the OSS agent to whom he was going to turn over the C- 56.
‘‘Ready, Major,’’ he said.
"CANal 5-4055,’’ Clete said.
‘‘Correct,’’ Colonel Wallace said.
‘‘I was also told that someone would be here who could give me an hour’s cockpit familiarization in the C-45, and then let me shoot a few touch-and-goes.’’
‘‘Yes. That is correct. Under the circumstances, Major, I thought it would be best if I performed that service. But it’s a C-56, not a C-45."
What the hell is a C-56?
‘‘I stand corrected, Colonel.’’
‘‘What I thought we could do, Major, is have luncheon in the Officers’ Club, a working luncheon, so to speak, to make sure all the paperwork is in order, and then go to the flight line.’’
What paperwork?
‘‘That’s very kind of you, Sir.’’
‘‘How much time do you have in the C-56?"
I don’t even know what the hell a C-56 is. Maybe it’s like that business with the Bell fighter the Air Corps had on Guadalcanal. The one Sullivan was flying when he went in was a P-39. Another model of the same airplane, for reasons known only to God and the Army Air Corps, was called the P-400. It has to be something like that. Graham wouldn’t have sent a plane down here he knew I couldn’t fly.
‘‘Not very much,’’ Clete said. ‘‘I’m a fighter pilot by trade. But there were a couple of them at Ewa, in the Hawaiian Islands, and two at Henderson Field. We used them as sort of aerial taxis, and I got to fly a couple of them.’’
‘‘As aerial taxis?’’ Colonel Wallace asked incredulously.
‘‘Yes, Sir.’’
‘‘You have not gone through a standard C-56 transition course?’’
‘‘No, Sir.’’
‘‘That’s very unusual. Presumably, this gentleman will function as your copilot?’’
I never had any trouble flying a C-45 by myself, but I suspect that is something I should not confide in this guy.
‘‘Yes, Sir.’’
‘‘Well, let’s go have our lunch. They do a very nice luncheon steak.’’
‘‘Thank you, Sir.’’
There were a half-dozen Marines having their lunch in the Officers’ Club, four of them wearing wings. None of them looked familiar. In other circumstances, this would not have bothered Clete; he would have walked over to them and said hello, and played Who Do You Know?
Going over to them now was obviously out of the question. What would happen ran through his mind:
‘‘Hey. Clete Frade’s my name. Used to fly Wildcats with VMF-221 on Guadalcanal.’’
‘‘Really? What are you doing here? And how come you’re in civvies?’’
‘‘Well, I’m in the OSS, and I’m here to pick up a C-56 I’m going to smuggle into Argentina so we can find a neutral ship that’s supplying German subs, and/or, depending on how the coup d’état goes, maybe to fly some Argentine generals out of the country. You don’t want to wear a uniform when you’re doing stuff like that. People would ask questions.’’
‘‘What are the Marines doing here, Colonel?’’ Clete asked.
‘‘They’re probably either Naval Air Transport Command pilots, IPs for the Catalinas we’ve given the Brazilian Navy, or they’re ferry pilots who’ve brought aircraft down from the States.’’
‘‘Colonel, I want you to do something for me,’’ Clete said.
‘‘What is it?’’
‘‘I want to have a word, in private, with the Marine Captain. You’re going to have to identify me as a Marine major; I don’t have an ID card.’’
Colonel Wallace looked at him, uncomfortably, for a long moment and then stood up and walked to the table where the Marines were sitting. He spoke to the Marine Captain, who rose to his feet and followed Wallace far enough from the table so they couldn’t be overheard, and spoke to him again.
The Captain looked at Clete with suspicion, but after a moment walked to the table.
‘‘You wanted to speak to me?’’
‘‘My name is Frade, Captain. I used to fly Wildcats with VMF-221 on Guadalcanal.’’
‘‘That Air Corps Colonel said you were a Marine major, ’’ the Captain said, his tone of voice making it clear he thought that highly improbable.
The Captain, Clete thought, was in his thirties.
‘‘That’s right.’’
‘‘Who was the MAG’’—Marine Air Group—‘‘Commander when you were on the ’Canal?
Colonel Stevenson? ’’
‘‘No,’’ Clete said, almost as a reflex action. ‘‘Dawkins, Lieutenant Colonel Clyde W., was skipper of MAG-21. I never heard of a Colonel Stevenson.’’
‘‘Neither did I, Major. Excuse me. I was just checking you out. You don’t expect to find a VMF-221 Wildcat pilot in riding clothes in a Navy Club in Brazil. I knew ‘The Dawk’; I used to fly R4Ds into Henderson from Espíritu Santo. How can I help you, Sir?’’
‘‘What’s a C-56?"
‘‘It’s the Lockheed Lodestar,’’ the Captain said.
‘‘Oh, shit,’’ Clete said.
He was familiar with the Lockheed Lodestar. It was a seventeen-passenger transport aircraft with a sixty-nine-foot wingspan powered by two 1,200-horsepower Wright Cyclone engines. It had a top speed of 250 m.p.h., a range of 1,600 miles, and a takeoff weight of 17,500 pounds.
‘‘Excuse me, Sir?’’
‘‘I was hoping it was another number for the C-45," Clete confessed.
‘‘Pardon me?’’
‘‘Remember the Bell fighters the Army had on Guadalcanal? ’’
‘‘Yes, Sir. Some of them were P-39s and some were P- 400s. I never understood that,’’ the Captain said, adding, ‘‘I guess you were on the ’Canal, Sir.’’
‘‘Right at this moment, I almost wish I still was,’’ Clete said. ‘‘Do you know how to fly a C-56, Captain?’’
‘‘Before I came into the Corps, I flew Lodestars for Transcontinental and Western Airways. Los Angeles to Dallas.’’
‘‘Are they hard to fly?’’ Clete asked. ‘‘Let me put that another way. How much time would it take you to teach someone who’s never even been in one how to fly one?’’
‘‘Give me someone with a thousand hours, including a couple of hundred hours’ twin-engine time, say, in the C- 45, three, four days, including six hours or so in the air.’’
‘‘How much could you teach me between now and dark?’’ Clete asked.
‘‘I don’t understand.’’
‘‘And I can’t explain very much, except that I’m here to pick up a C-56. I thought I was supposed to pick up a C- 45, which I can fly. If that Air Corps colonel who’s supposed to give me an hour of touch-and-goes sees that I don’t know my way around the cockpit, much less how to fly one, he’s going to give me trouble. I can’t blame him. But a lot depends on me taking off out of here in that airplane as soon as it’s dark.’’
The Captain looked at him for a good thirty seconds.
‘‘You’re OSS, right?’’
‘‘If I was, do you think I would say so?’’
‘‘There’s a Lodestar in a guarded hangar freshly painted red with Argentine numbers. There’s four guys in the BOQ, three of whom look suspiciously like sergeants, that don’t talk to anybody but themselves. And the first thing I heard when I landed here in my R5D was that the OSS was here.’’
R5D was Navy nomenclature for the Douglas DC-4 (Army C-54), a four-engine, fifty-passenger transport aircraft with a range of 3,900 miles and a takeoff weight of 63,000 pounds.
‘‘Maybe they are. I just wouldn’t know.’’
‘‘What makes you think that Air Corps colonel is going to let me try to teach you how to fly the Lodestar?’’
‘‘I’ll just tell him you are,’’ Clete said.
‘‘If I were a suspicious man, I would think that you must be OSS. Most majors don’t get to tell full bull colonels anything but ‘Yes, Sir.’ ’’
‘‘Don’t put me on a spot, please. And I’m sorry, but I have to tell you that if anyone hears you saying you think somebody’s in the OSS, or about how this C-56 is painted, or who is flying it, you’ll probably spend the rest of the war in the Aleutian Islands.’’
‘‘In four hours, Major, maybe I can teach you to make a normal takeoff and a normal landing under perfect conditions. That’s all.’’
‘‘What would you say if I said I have to put that airplane into a dirt strip?’’
‘‘I would say don’t try it.’’
‘‘What I said was ‘I have to put that airplane into a dirt strip.’ ’’
‘‘In that case, I think we should get to the flight line just as soon as we can.’’
‘‘What’s your name, Captain?’’
‘‘Finney.’’
Clete raised his hand and signaled Colonel Wallace to join them.
‘‘Colonel,’’ Clete said, ‘‘it turns out that Captain Finney is a C-56 IP. If you have no objection, I’ll shoot my touch-and -goes with him.’’
‘‘Whatever you wish, of course, Mr. Frade.’’
XX
[ONE] Bachelor Officers’ Quarters 2035th U.S. Army Air Corps Support Wing Pôrto Alegre, Brazil 1730 16 April 1943
Clete found Captain Maxwell Ashton III at the bar of the hotel. Ashton was in a tieless shirt and sweater, sipping a beer and examining with interest and obvious approval the long legs of a waitress as she bent over to deliver a round of drinks to a table across the room.
‘‘We have a problem,’’ Clete said as he slipped onto a bar stool beside him.
‘‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’’ Ashton said. ‘‘You want a beer, or is it the kind of bad news you would rather tell me sober?’’
Clete looked around the room and found a table where there was less chance to overhear their conversation than at the bar.
‘‘Let’s go over there,’’ he said.
‘‘You want to take a beer with you?’’ Ashton pursued.
‘‘No, I’m flying,’’ Clete said automatically.
‘‘I’m sorry to hear that,’’ Ashton said, sliding off his stool. ‘‘I was hoping the bad news was that something was wrong with the airplane and the operation was called off.’’
‘‘Nothing wrong with the airplane,’’ Clete said. ‘‘The problem is with the pilot.’’
‘‘What does that make you? The only modest Marine pilot in the Naval Service?’’
They sat down at the table. The long-legged waitress appeared. Clete ordered hot chocolate.
‘‘And I, my dear, will have another of this very excellent beer,’’ Ashton said.
He waited until she had walked out of hearing, then said, ‘‘Let’s have it, mi Mayor.’’
‘‘I don’t know how this happened, but the airplane they sent down here is a C-56, not a C-45."
‘‘What’s the problem?’’
‘‘The C-45 is a small twin. I know how to fly one. The C-56 is a Lockheed Lodestar. . . .’’
‘‘And you don’t know how to fly a Lodestar?’’
‘‘I just spent three hours in this one with a guy who used to fly them for Transcontinental and Western Airlines. He taught me how to start it, how to taxi it, how to get it in the air. No real problem there. Landing it, however, is something else. This is a great big airplane, Ashton. Almost all of my time is in small airplanes.’’
‘‘Which means?’’
‘‘That I had one hell of a time getting the Lockheed onto the ground. I missed three approaches.’’
‘‘I don’t know what that means,’’ Ashton confessed.
‘‘Three times I came in either too fast, or too high, or both—and it was daylight; I could see the runway. I could not get it onto the wide, long runways here and had to go around.’’
‘‘Why?’’ Ashton asked.
‘‘I just told you. I don’t have any experience in airplanes like that; I’m a fighter pilot.’’
‘‘So what are you telling me?’’
‘‘The strip in Santo Tomé is dirt and short. For one thing, I’m not sure if it will handle the weight of the Lockheed. Equally important, since I had trouble here, I’ll probably have more trouble at Santo Tomé. Where I’ll be landing at night, with jury-rigged runway lights.’’
‘‘ ‘Jury-rigged runway lights’?’’
‘‘When they hear me flying over the strip, a couple of guys on horses are going to ride down the sides of the runway and light the landing li
ghts, which are clay pots filled with sand and gasoline.’’
Ashton stroked his mustache with his index finger, then met Clete’s eyes.
‘‘I don’t know what the word is, maybe ‘practice.’ If you had more practice, could you learn to land the airplane the way you’re supposed to?’’
‘‘That’s not possible.’’
‘‘What’s not possible? Getting any better at landing it?’’
‘‘Getting more practice.’’
‘‘Why not?’’
‘‘Colonel Wallace has set up a meeting at 0900 tomorrow with the appropriate Brazilian Customs officials to handle the paperwork for an international flight. There cannot be a record of this flight; therefore, I have to get out of here tonight.’’
‘‘You can’t fix that? Get Graham to fix it?’’
‘‘It would take at least twenty-four—more likely forty-eight —hours to explain the problem to Colonel Graham and have him tell Wallace to butt out. I’ve got to get the airplane out of here tonight.’’
‘‘So what happens?’’
‘‘There’s a couple of possibilities. The basic problem is that there is maybe a fifty-fifty chance that I’ll wreck the airplane trying to land it. . . .’’
‘‘If that’s the odds, why are you going to try it?’’
‘‘I have to try. I can’t just chicken out. I told some people I’d get them an airplane.’’
‘‘If you crash it, it won’t do anybody any good.’’
‘‘I will have tried. And I may get lucky.’’
‘‘You are a dangerous man, mi Mayor.’’
‘‘And we now know that the submarine-supply vessel will be in Samborombón Bay in five or six days.’’
‘‘And if you wreck the airplane with the radar on it, where will that leave us?’’
‘‘No worse off than we are now, unless you can come up with some way to get your team and the radar into Argentina and to Samborombón Bay by yourself.’’
Blood and Honor Page 55
