“No, I don’t think there is,” Martín said.
“If there was,” Habanzo said, “the aircraft that periodically fly over the coast would have seen it.”
“It’s kind of hard to hide an airstrip,” Frade said.
“Tangential scenario,” Martín said. “If you were a Tenth Mountain officer, either a senior officer or maybe a major or even a captain, who knew about something involving a German submarine down there, what would you have done with the Signals people on the estancia after Colonel Schmidt was shot, and el Coronel Wattersly was en route with his broom to clean things up?”
“Left them there,” Cronley said. “This Wattersly didn’t know about U-234, and as long as those Signal Corps guys were on ice down there—how’s that for a metaphor?—it was not going to come out by mistake.”
Martín shook his index finger approvingly at Cronley.
“God, Bernardo, don’t encourage him,” Frade said. “He’s been enough of a wiseass.”
Is Clete going to ream me again? Jimmy thought.
“He’s right about what he just said, Cletus,” Martín said. “We’re going to have to get someone—Habanzo, maybe—down to Estancia Condor to see what he can find out.”
“But do it without my Tío Juan hearing about it,” Frade said. “We don’t know what he knows about U-234, and he’s liable to tell you—on general principles—to back off.”
“You think he might know about U-234?”
“I don’t know,” Clete said. “I do know that he and Schmidt were pals for a long time.”
“Then we’ll have to get Habanzo down there quickly,” Martín said.
“Do they have Piper Cubs down here?” Cronley asked.
The question silenced everybody as everybody looked at Cronley.
“Piper Cubs?” Frade then asked incredulously.
Oh, shit, Jimmy thought. Here it comes.
But what the hell . . .
“Yeah, Piper Cubs. J-3s. Or something like them.”
Frade glanced at Martín and said, “See what the hell you started by encouraging him?” then looked at Jimmy and added coldly, “Overwhelming curiosity causes me to ask: Why do you want, at this moment in time, to know if there are Piper Cubs, J-3s, down here?”
Fuck you, Clete.
“Sir, are there Cubs or not?” Cronley asked.
“Yes, there are. As a matter of fact, I have six of them. Why do you ask?”
“Take the wings off one—better, off two—load them on a flatbed trailer and send them down to Estancia Condor.”
“To use, I presume, to look for signs of a submarine having landed?” Frade asked sarcastically.
“Yeah.”
“You heard what General Martín said. There’s nothing down there but ice and snow. You can’t fly a Cub in those conditions.”
“You know better than that,” Cronley said.
“What did you say?” Frade snapped.
“I said you know better than that.”