Victory and Honor

Cletus Frade, All-American Boy. Now here’s how it’s going to work.”

He told them.

Karl Boltitz asked dubiously, “Cletus, do you really think that’s going to work?”

“It’ll either work or we’ll add new meaning to the Army Air Corps’ song.”

He then sang, “We live in fame or go down in flames, nothing can stop the OSS Air Corps . . .”

Frade now was standing between the pilot and copilot seats. The lights of the huge Brazilian airfield were in sight.

Mario Peralta had been in the pilot’s seat during the seven-hour flight from Buenos Aires, as Clete had instructed, and another SAA backup pilot was flying as copilot.

“Give it to him, Mario,” Frade ordered, “and then let me sit there.”

Peralta did as ordered, but it was obvious he had been looking forward to making the approach and landing himself.

When Frade had strapped himself in and put on the headset, he gave another order, this time to the copilot: “I’ll take it. You go back and send von Wachtstein up here.”

“Si, senor,” the copilot said, his tone making it clear that he also had been looking forward to the approach and landing.

I knew that was going to piss them off. So why did I do it?

Because Peter needs more landing practice, and I’m the most qualified person to sit in the left seat to keep him out of trouble while he does it.

So fuck the both of you.

“Sit down, Hansel, and strap yourself in.”

Von Wachtstein complied.

“You feel qualified to land this?”

Von Wachtstein considered the question and then nodded.

“Got the checklist?”

Von Wachtstein nodded again.

Frade keyed the microphone.

“Val de Cans tower, this is South American Airways Double Zero Nine. This is a Lockheed Constellation. I am ten miles south, at five thousand feet, indicating Two Nine Zero. Request approach and landing.”

“SAA Double Zero Nine, I have you on radar. Descend on present course reporting when at three thousand feet.”

“You have the aircraft, First Officer,” Clete said, and took his hands off the yoke.

“He sounded like an American,” von Wachtstein said.

“This is an American air base,” Frade replied. “One of our smaller ones.”

After they touched down, von Wachtstein looked around in awe, and said, “One of your smaller airfields?”

They were trailing a FOLLOW ME jeep down a taxiway lined on both sides as far as they could see with far- too-many-to-count four-engined Consolidated B-24 bombers parked wingtip to wingtip.

“The larger ones are really crowded,” Clete replied.

“What’s going on here?”

“This base served two major roles,” Clete said. “One, as a home base for B-24s looking for submarines and German—or allegedly neutral—merchant vessels, and, two, as a jump-off point for aircraft headed for Europe via Sierra Leone in West Africa.”

“There’s another Connie,” von Wachtstein said as they came close to the transient aircraft tarmac.

The airplane bore the markings of the U.S. Army Air Forces.

Frade thought: I wonder what the hell that’s doing here?

Did Graham or Dulles—or even Donovan—come down here to see me?

If that’s the case, the odds are I’m not going to like what they have to say.

As ground handlers wanded the Ciudad de Rosario into a parking spot beside the other Connie, Frade picked up his microphone again.

“Val de Cans tower, this is South American Airways Double Zero Nine. I’m sitting on the transient tarmac. Can you get a ladder out here to the cockpit door before, repeat before, you put a ladder up to the passenger door?”

“No problem, South American Double Zero Nine. Where’d you get the American accent?”

[FOUR]

The flight-planning room was deserted except for an Air Forces lieutenant and a plump sergeant. They were sitting at sort of a counter. A weather map and a flight schedule chart were mounted on the wall behind them.

“Sorry,” the sergeant greeted them, more or less courteously, “but this is for Americans only.”

“Not a problem,” Frade said, then looked at the officer. “Are you the AOD, Lieutenant?”

Frade was wearing the red-striped powder-blue trousers of an SAA captain, but had replaced the SAA tunic with a fur-collared leather jacket on which was a leather patch with Naval Aviator Wings and the legend FRADE, C H ILT, USMCR. He also had replaced the ornate, high-crowned SAA uniform cap with the Stetson hat his uncle Jim had been wearing when he dropped dead in the Midland Petroleum Club.

The lieutenant, whose face showed his confusion at what stood before him, shook his head and then asked, “You’re from that Argentine airliner?”

“Figured that out, did you?” Clete said. “How about getting the AOD down here for me?”

Clete, who had done many tours as an AOD—aerodrome officer of the day—understood that at a little after two in the morning most AODs would be curled up on a cot and would tend to be annoyed if awakened to deal with anything less than the field being attacked by Martians. And AODs were usually senior to the officer in charge of the flight-planning room.

One of the stage directions Director Frade had issued to his cast was that when he issued an order, the reply would be in the same language used to issue the order. So, when he next said in German, “Hansel, you and Karl take a look at the weather map,” von Wachtstein replied, “Jawohl, Herr Oberst.” Then both headed for the weather map behind the counter.

This tended to further confuse the lieutenant and the sergeant. But the former retained enough of his composure to proclaim, “Hey, you can’t go back there!”

“Don’t be absurd, Sergeant,” Frade said.

“The colonel told you to get the AOD down here, Lieutenant,” Siggie Stein snapped. “Do it.”

“Easy, Siggie,” Frade said.

Frade then extended to the lieutenant the credentials identifying him as an OSS area director.

“Not only weren’t we here, but I didn’t show you that,” Frade said. “Understood, Lieutenant?”

The lieutenant was clearly dazzled by the spurious credentials.

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said. “Sergeant, go get Major Cronin.”

Frade impatiently gestured for the lieutenant to return his credentials. The lieutenant hastily did so.

Major Cronin, a nice-looking young officer wearing pilot’s wings, appeared two minutes later, looking somewhat sleepy eyed.

“You’re off that Argentine Constellation, right?” he said.

“Correct,” Frade said. He extended his credentials. “Take a quick look at that, please, Major, and then forget you ever saw it or us.”

Major Cronin looked, then said, “Yes, sir. And what can Val de Cans do for the OSS?”

“You can start, Major, first things first, by getting someone from your radio maintenance section familiar