“Where the hell are they taking us? Italy?” Frade asked.
Von Wachtstein did not reply.
Eventually they were led to a remote corner of the airfield, where a collection of vehicles were waiting for them. There were two Mercedes-Benz buses; two fuel trucks; five jeeps (each carrying a pair of MPs); two Ford pickup trucks with stairways built on their beds; and two German passenger cars, now bearing U.S. Army markings. One was an Opel Admiral, a GM vehicle about the size of a Buick that was produced in Germany. The other was a Horch.
Frade knew that the Horch was the car of Colonel Robert Mattingly, who commanded OSS Forward. He had taught him how to get it out of low gear.
Every time Frade saw the Horch, he was painfully reminded of his father, el Coronel Jorge Frade, Cavalry, Ejército Argentino, who had brought one of the cars to Argentina before the war, loved it, and had died in it on his estancia, assassinated at the orders of the SS.
As soon as the aircraft engines had been stopped, one of the pickup trucks moved its stairs to the passenger door while the second pickup went to the smaller crew door behind the cockpit.
Colonel Mattingly rose from the Horch and walked—more accurately marched—toward the stairs leading to the crew door.
Mattingly was a tall, startlingly handsome, nattily uniformed officer. He had a yellow scarf around his neck. His sharply creased trousers were tucked into a pair of highly shined “tanker” boots. He carried a Model 1911-A1 Colt .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol in a shoulder holster. The eagles of a full colonel were pinned to his epaulets, and the triangular insignia of the Second Armored Division was sewn on his sleeve.
On the aircraft, a stocky, middle-aged man in a business suit entered the area behind the pilots’ seats and opened the crew door. He was Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodríguez, Cavalry, Ejército Argentino, Retired. He had served the late el Coronel Frade most of their lives, had been gravely wounded and left for dead when el Coronel Frade had been assassinated, and now regarded his mission in life as protecting el Coronel Frade’s only son, Cletus, from the same fate.
Mattingly entered the flight deck as Frade climbed out of the pilot’s seat.
“How did things go?” Mattingly said, as they shook hands.
“Well, we had Yak-9s for company most of the time,” Frade said. “But I was not afraid, as we have half of the Vatican in the back.”
Mattingly chuckled. “Don’t be cynical, Colonel.”
“What I was wondering is where they got all the—what do you call it?—clerical garb.”
“Never underestimate Holy Mother Church,” Mattingly said.
Von Wachtstein climbed out of the co-pilot’s seat and offered his hand to Mattingly.
“There is some interesting news to report,” Mattingly said. “The ASA intercepted a message to Pavel Egorov, the NKVD’s man in Mexico City . . .”
Frade formed a “T” with his hands, making a time-out gesture.
“Explanation needed, Bob,” Frade said. “You’re dealing with a couple of simple airplane drivers.”
“The NKVD is the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs,” Mattingly explained. “Pavel Egorov has been running things—dealing with both the Mexicans and us—in Mexico City.”
“Okay.”
“He was ordered to Buenos Aires to assume command of OPERATION G. OPERATION G is ‘find out what’s going on with the Americans and Gehlen.’”
“Assume command from whom?” Frade asked. “The Russians don’t even have an embassy in Buenos Aires.”
“They’re working on that,” Mattingly said. “In the meantime, they have a trade mission, one man working on buying things from Argentina, one man working on selling things to Argentina, and about forty people—including a dozen women—spying on Argentina. The man in charge has been Oleg Fedoseev.”
“I never heard any of this from Bernardo Martín.”
“I’m sure that even a simple airplane driver such as yourself,” Mattingly said sarcastically, “has considered the remote possibility that General Martín doesn’t tell you everything he knows.”
“He didn’t,” Frade said, just as sarcastically. “Does that mean I’ll have to turn in my cloak and dagger? Or will bowing my head and beating my breast in shame suffice?”
“Anyway,” Mattingly said, smiling, “Egorov has been ordered to take over from Fedoseev. That may pose some problems for you, as we can’t—can we?—have the Soviets learn what you’re doing.”
“I always thought that the Russians here already knew what we’re doing,” Frade said, now seriously. “The problem is going to be keeping them from finding out which of the Gehlens—Good Gehlens and Bad Gehlens—we have in Argentina and where we have them stashed.”
“To do that you may have to take out not only Egorov and Fedoseev, but whoever else is getting too close.”