XII
[ONE]
Aeropuerto Internacional de Mendoza
Mendoza Province, Argentina
0405 21 October 1945
During the descent and approach to the airfield, Second Lieutenant James D. Cronley Jr., Cavalry, AUS, looking through the small window high in the navigation compartment, had enjoyed a spectacular view of the snowcapped Andes Mountains bathed in the light of a nearly full moon. But now, with the Constellation on the ground, he could see almost nothing out the window.
Cronley knew that Cletus Frade had put him in the navigation compartment because that provided the greatest distance between him and Marjie, whom Clete had seated in the far rear of the passenger compartment.
Jimmy had spent most of the flight thinking of her, mostly of the touch of her lips against his but also wondering if she knew that their airplane had been dubbed the Flying Brothel by the President of the United States and wondering what she thought about that.
And Jimmy wondered if Enrico Rodríguez, who sat on the navigation room’s other stool, was there to keep him away from Marjie or whether that stool was the only place Clete could find for the old soldier to sit.
—
After the aircraft engines had shut down, the door between the cockpit and the navigation compartment opened. Clete Frade appeared in it and, using his index finger, beckoned Jimmy out of the navigation room.
In the cockpit, Jimmy saw two new men with Clete. They were crowded in the space immediately behind the pilot’s and co-pilot’s seats. The men wore civilian clothing. Both also had .45 ACP Model 1911-A1 pistols in shoulder holsters—making no effort to conceal them.
“Max, Siggie, this is Second Lieutenant Cronley,” Frade said. “Jimmy, Major Maxwell Ashton and Master Sergeant Sigfried Stein.”
The three wordlessly shook hands.
“Jimmy, take your bags,” Clete then ordered, pointing to the aircraft crew door, “and put them in the back of one of the station wagons.”
Jimmy went to the door and saw the narrow stairway—not much more than a ladder—and the line of vehicles beside the airplane.
At the head of the lin
e was a Ford pickup. It had been converted to a small stake-bed truck. It was painted a darker shade of olive brown than U.S. Army vehicles were painted, but it was obviously an Army truck. There were half a dozen soldiers sitting on rack seats in the bed, and two more leaning against the pickup’s front fender. Most of them were armed with bolt-action rifles—probably Mausers, Jimmy decided—but there were at least three armed with Thompson submachine guns.
Immediately behind the pickup was a Mercedes-Benz sedan painted olive brown and with a soldier leaning against its fender. Behind that was a custom-bodied 1940 Lincoln Continental, then three 1941 Ford wood-sided station wagons, and finally another stake-bed pickup, this one painted dark blue. In its bed were half a dozen men armed primarily with Thompsons.
“There’s no way I can carry those bags down that narrow ladder,” Jimmy announced.
“Then toss them down,” Frade suggested.
“If I did that, they would burst,” Jimmy argued reasonably.
“Then when everybody is out of the passenger compartment, take them down the passenger stairway.”
Jimmy nodded. “Much better idea, Clete.”
Frade turned to Stein.
“Siggie, why don’t you take a quick look and see if the 7.2 will fit in there?”
Stein went into the navigation compartment and quickly reported, “The rack installation is identical to the SAA Connies. I can get a 7.2 in here, and up and running, in a couple of hours.”
“When can you start?”
“Right now, if you want.”
“I want. We need to get this plane out of here and to Santiago as quickly as we can.”