Three hours later, as Cronley brought the Lodestar to the end of its landing roll, Frade said, “Well, Jimmy, that last landing wasn’t especially awful. Another ten hours or so of my expert instruction and I might be tempted to sign you off on this airplane.”
Wasn’t he listening in the station wagon?
Or was he listening and pretending that didn’t happen?
I can’t let it go.
“Clete, I will fly your airplane anywhere in the world—except maybe to the mouth of the Magellan Strait—just as long as you’re sitting right there in the left seat. Weren’t you listening before?”
Frade met his eyes for a long moment and then said, “Yeah, I was listening. I was trying to talk you out of what you said.”
“Don’t.”
After another long moment, Frade said, “Okay. Your call. But I think you’re wrong. Now park the airplane and then we’ll go see what the gendarmes found out.”
[THREE]
Gendarmería Nacional Barracks
Mendoza, Mendoza Province, Argentina
1415 21 October 1945
“Why do I think General Nervo is here?” Cletus Frade said, pointing to a glistening black 1942 Buick Roadmaster sitting in front of a large NO PARKING! sign by the front door of the building. A small Argentine flag flew from a mast on the right front fender and a small Gendarmería Nacional flag was similarly mounted on the left front fender.
“You’re just guessing that’s his car,” Jimmy Cronley said, playing along. “There must be . . . I don’t know . . . a hundred, maybe more, cars just like that around.”
When they got inside the building, Frade, von und zu Aschenburg, and Cronley were shown into the office of the commander of the Mendoza District of the Gendarmería.
General Santiago Nervo was sitting at the commander’s desk, and the commander, a gendarmerie comandante—major—was sitting backward on a folding chair. Both of them were looking through a plate glass window into a small room.
In the room, Subinspector General Pedro Nolasco and a pleasant-appearing young man were sitting at a metal table to which the young man was attached with handcuffs.
“Say hello to Comandante Sanchez,” Nervo greeted them.
“I know Don Cletus, of course,” Raul Sanchez said.
“Comandante,” Frade said, and they shook hands.
“Do you remember, Raul,” Nervo asked, “when the Germans, during the war, were flying that four-engined airplane here from Europe? The Condor?”
“Of course.”
“The pilot was this gentleman,” Nervo said, “Dieter von und zu Aschenburg, who came here to give Don Cletus flying lessons.”
Sanchez smiled.
“And this young man, James Cronley, is another gringo,” Nervo said. “A very unusual young man.”
“How is that, my general?” Sanchez asked.
“He is a subteniente who not only can find his ass with only one hand, but without assistance.”
“I can only hope, Teniente,” Sanchez said, smiling at Cronley, “that Don Cletus has warned you about General Nervo.”
Nervo looked at Cronley.
“How did the flying lesson go?” he asked.