Death and Honor

“Yes, he did. He also said that if I hadn’t called, he would have called me. Great minds, you may have heard, run in similar paths.”

“I’m getting the feeling, Alex, that you’re not in here asking my opinion of this idea of yours and Allen’s, much less for permission to carry it out.”

“That’s because you’re perceptive, Bill. Probably a result of your legal training.”

“But I am permitted to ask a question or two?”

“Certainly.”

“How are you going to get Frade to come here? I’ve always had the impression that he might ignore an order to come home. And how is he going to explain his absence to his Argentine friends?”

“Allen and I have a plan.”

“Which is?”

“If I told you, you would be in a position to say, ‘I told you so,’ should it not turn out as well as we hope it will.”

[TWO]

Office of the Managing Director Banco de Inglaterra y Argentina Bartolomé Mitre 300 Buenos Aires, Argentina 1650 30 July 1943

“Well, that was quick, Cletus,” Humberto Valdez Duarte said as he waved Frade into his office. “We didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

Frade came into the office trailed by Captain Gonzalo Delgano. Frade wore aviator sunglasses, a battered long-brimmed aviator’s cap, khaki trousers, an open-collared polo shirt, a fur-collared leather jacket bearing a leather patch with the golden wings of a Naval Aviator and the legend C.H. FRADE 1LT USMCR, and a battered pair of Western boots. Delgano was in his crisp SAA pilot’s uniform.

They crossed the office to Duarte’s desk and shook his hand.

“The message we got,” Frade said, “was that you wanted to see us as soon as possible. So here we are.”

“The message was addressed to you, Señor Frade,” a voice said behind them. “Captain Delgano will not be required.”

Frade was surprised. He hadn’t seen anyone but Duarte when he and Delgano came into the office. Then he realized that the voice had come from the adjacent conference room. He walked to its doorway and looked inside.

South American Airways corporate counsel Ernesto Dowling—a tall, ascetic-looking, superbly tailored fifty-odd-year-old—was sitting near the head of a long conference table. Next to him was Father Kurt Welner, S.J., and beside the superbly tailored cleric was Doña Claudia de Carzino-Cormano, who wore a simple black dress adorned with what looked like a two-meter-long string of flawless white pearls. El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón, in uniform, was sitting at the far end of the conference table.

“Not to worry, children,” Frade called to them cheerfully. “The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand.”

That earned him a very faint smile from Father Welner. No one else smiled, and Dowling looked at him with disapproval.

Either they have never heard that before, or they don’t know what it means.

Or they’re all constipated.

“If I’d known there was going to be a meeting of the board, I’d have worn a necktie,” Frade then added.

He went to Claudia and kissed her, meaning it; next kissed Perón, not meaning it; and shook Welner’s hand, telling him that the Lord’s distinguished representative was again surrounded by sinners and thus had his work cut out for him.

Then Frade offered his hand to Dowling.

Fortunately, I don’t know the sonofabitch well enough to have to kiss him.

And what an arrogant sonofabitch!

Delgano is SAA’s chief pilot, not some flunky who can be dismissed with: “Captain Delgano will not be required.”

“Captain Delgano!” Frade called. “The party’s in here. We’ve apparently missed the champagne, but no doubt the dancing girls are on the way!”

Claudia shook her head. Everyone else seemed uncomfortable or reproachful.

I think I have just failed inspection.

Well, I’m not running for office.

Delgano came into the office.

“Sit here beside Colonel Perón and me,” Frade ordered. “With a little luck, we won’t have to talk to the civilians.”

Perón smiled at that.

Duarte came into the room and took the seat at the head of the conference table.

“Can I get either of you coffee or anything?”

“No, thanks,” Frade said. “What I’m hoping is that whatever this is won’t take long, and Delgano and I can go to the Círculo Militar for a couple of well-deserved jolts of their best whiskey. We’ll take you along with us, Tío Juan, if you’ll pay.”

Perón laughed, which earned him disapproving looks from everybody but Father Welner.

“ ‘Well deserved,’ Cletus?” the Jesuit asked.

“Delgano and I spent the day flying.”

“When I spoke with Dorotea, she said you were in Uruguay,” the priest said.

Frade nodded. “Back and forth thereto. Three times. Each.”

“In this weather? I could hardly see to drive in the fog.”