Death and Honor

We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

If there is some OSS need for these airplanes, we’ll damn well use them for it.

Frade said: “Varig has got a bunch of Lodestars. Where’d they get them?”

“I have no idea.”

But I would not be at all surprised if Roosevelt was involved.

Frade raised an eyebrow, then drained his glass and said, “Lockheed must have some kind of operation in Brazil. Americans, I mean. Engineers, mechanics. And somebody in charge. What about having Lockheed send the guy in charge down here to try to sell Don Cletus Frade their airplanes? No mention of the OSS, of course, or that I’m an American. I’m a rich Argentine who Roosevelt, for his own reasons, wants to be nice to, and already gave me one Lodestar to prove it. And can get Don Cletus export licenses to buy some more now that I want to start an airline?”

“Sounds good, but slow down. All I really know about this is that Donovan—the President—wanted to know if it could be done—”

“You made it sound like an order.”

Graham ignored the interruption. He went on: “—and now that you tell me you think it can, I’ll get into the details when I get back to Washington.”

“When’s that going to be?”

“I’d like to leave tomorrow.”

“This airline’s that important, is it?”

“No. But everything else you’ve told me is. I want to get back to Washington as quickly as I can.”

“Okay.”

“And the sooner I get back, the sooner I can get a replacement for Commander Delojo down here.”

That didn’t produce the reaction Graham expected.

“I’d rather you leave him where he is,” Frade said. “Just watch him. And I’ll have Ashton and Pelosi watch him. And don’t tell him about this agent business with the badges. I’d rather have him there than somebody I don’t know. I told Delojo if he snoops around here or my people, I’ll kill him. I think he believes me. A new guy might not.”

“Your call,” Graham said.

These credentials really got to him.

And when you’re on a roll . . .

“There’s the oath of office to be administered to your officers and men,” Graham said. “It’s too late—and there’s been too much beer—to do that tonight. First thing in the morning?”

“Fine,” Frade said.

He also swallowed that hook, line, and sinker.

“I’d like to do it in the field,” Graham went on, “rather than here. Would that cause problems?”

“Where they are now is about five kilometers from here. Except Schultz, who never leaves the radar. But he can leave that for an hour or so. What I could do is tell him to meet us at the house, and you and I could go there.”

“Fine.”

“You up to riding a horse, Theater Commander, sir?”

“Do I have to remind you that I’m a Texan and an Aggie?”

“Okay. Breakfast at seven-thirty, then we’ll ride out there.”

“Seven-thirty. And now I’m going to go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah,” Frade agreed.

Before he took a shower and went to bed, Graham sat at the desk in his room and tried to recall the words of the oath an officer swore when he accepted the commission. He started to write them down. He had a good memory, but he knew when he looked at what he had written that he didn’t have it all, and that what he did have was not right.

It doesn’t matter. I’ll change the wording anyway.

[THREE]

Casa Núrmero Veintidós Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province Republic of Argentina 0925 5 July 1943

There were more than seventy numbered casas scattered around the three hundred forty square miles of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. The term casa, meaning “house,” was somewhat misleading. There was always more than just a house. There were stables and barns and all the other facilities required to operate what were in effect the seventy farming subdivisions of the estancia. And on each casa there was always more than one house; sometimes there were as many as four.

Some of them were permanently occupied by the supervisor—and, of course, his family—of the surrounding area, the people who worked its land. And some of them were used only when there was a good deal of work to be done in the area, and the workers were too far from their houses or the village near the Big House to, so to speak, commute.