“Enrico?” Clete called.
“Sí, Don Cletus?”
“Listen carefully. I want you to go out on the tarmac right now—without anyone seeing you. Go to the line of Lodestars. Go to the Lodestar nearest the runway. Untie the airplane and remove the wheel chocks. Then open the door.”
“Sí, Don Cletus.”
“What I’m going to do is land. Have Muñoz turn on the runway lights in five minutes—that should give you enough time to get out to the Lodestar. As soon as I’m on the ground, I’m going to taxi to the Lodestar and get out. I’ll have el Coronel Perón with me. General Martín will then slowly taxi the Storch to the terminal. El Coronel and I will get in the Lodestar and take off. Got it?”
“Where are we going, Don Cletus?”
“Mendoza.”
“Sí, Don Cletus.”
Clete switched to intercom.
“You heard all that, Bernardo? Including the part about taxiing slowly to the terminal? I’m going to need all the time I can get.”
“I understand.”
“Give the headset to el Coronel.”
—
“What’s going on, Cletus?” Perón demanded thirty seconds later.
“There’s a company of Horse Soldiers at the airfield looking for you.”
“What about the Patricios? Martín said the Patricios would be here to protect me.”
“When the Horse Soldiers came, they put the Patricios in Hangar Two.”
“So where are you going to take me now? Campo de Mayo? Or Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo? Your men there—they’re all ex–Húsares de Pueyrredón troopers—can protect me.”
Tío Juan, why do I think it’s finally sunk in that people are trying to kill you?
“I don’t have enough fuel to fly to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.”
“My God, what are you going to do?”
“I may be able to keep all three of us alive if you do exactly what I tell you and do it when I tell you to do it—not after you think it over. Agreed?”
That started out as bullshit, but now that I think about it, it’s right on the money.
Martín and I are no longer spectators. El Coronel Whatsisname—Lopez, Fernando Lopez—of the Horse Rifles is a good deal more competent than I would have thought.
Not only did he get the whole Shoot Perón Show actually under way, but he seems to know just what he’s doing.
Like covering his flanks.
He had to know that General Farrell was sending Martín and Father Welner to get me to fly Tío Juan off that island. Which means somebody told him. And since that wasn’t General Farrell, it had to be someone in Farrell’s inner circle.
The proof of that is the company of Horse Rifles showed up at the airfield twenty minutes or so after we took off for the island.
Even if Lopez had somebody here who called him the minute we had taken off, there’s no way he could have gotten a company of the Horse Rifles here in twenty minutes unless they were already formed somewhere close awaiting the order to get on the trucks and head for the airfield.
And where is Lopez?