"How are you going to do that?" Martha asked.
Graham pointed at Commander Delojo.
"He'll get you out. He'll take your place as Naval Attach‚... and that will still be cover for the OSS Station Chief in Buenos Aires."
"How?" Clete asked, looking at Delojo.
"Whatever it takes, Major," Delojo said. "Hopefully, we can still get that airplane into Argentina. That would make things easier, of course. But if neces-sary, I'll get you out, airplane or no airplane. Into Paraguay, Uruguay, or most likely Brazil. If anything goes sour, Colonel Graham has made getting you and your team out my first priority."
The airplane-a Beechcraft Expediter (The Beech Aircraft C-45 Expediter was a small (six-passenger) transport aircraft, powered by two Pratt & Whitney "Wasp Junior" 450-horsepower engines. It had a maximum speed of 215 m.p.h. and a range of 700 miles.)-was to have been a gift from the President of the United States to Colonel Jorge Guillermo Frade. Officially it was an expression of Roosevelt's admiration for Colonel Frade as an Argentine leader. It was also intended to replace Colonel Frade's Beechcraft stagger-wing-now on the bottom of Samboromb¢n Bay; for that aircraft had been '"in the service of the United States" when Clete was shot down flying it. And inci-dentally it would give Clete wings to look for the next "neutral" merchant ship the Germans would send to supply their submarines.
Clete thought that whole idea was bizarre, and had told Colonel Graham so: His father was virtually certain to reject the "gift" the moment he heard about it. And if the chances, with his father alive, of getting the airplane into Ar-gentina had been a hundred to one against, now, with his father dead, they were nonexistent.
"Cletus," Martha asked incredulously, "you're not actually considering go-ing along with this?"
"Martha, I'm a serving Marine officer," Clete said. "I go where I'm ordered to go."
"Cletus, I absolutely forbid you to have anything to do with this," the Old Man said.
"Grandfather, I'll tell you what Uncle Jim would have told you. This is my decision, no one else's." He looked at Martha. "Martha, you know that."
"I know I wish neither one of you had ever heard of the Marine Corps," she said.
"My wife said much the same thing when I came back on active duty," Gra-ham said.
"And she probably suspected, at your age, that you would be behind a desk, wouldn't you say, and not involved in something like this?" Martha said acidly.
"Martha, that was a cheap shot!" Clete said.
"I'm surprised that a 'serving Marine officer' like you, honey, hasn't heard what they say about 'all's fair in love and war,'" she said. But then she added, "But you're right. I had no right to say that. I'm sorry, Colonel."
"No apology is necessary, Mrs. Howell," Graham said. There was a mo-ment's silence, and then he went on. "You're not being ordered, Clete. If you go under these changed circumstances, you go as a volunteer."
"There you go!" the Old Man said.
"When do I go?" Clete asked.
"Tomorrow. As scheduled. Commander Delojo will be on the plane day af-ter tomorrow. We sent a cablegram, in your name, asking that your father's fu-neral be delayed until you can get there."
"You were pretty sure that he'd go along with this," Martha said.
"I was," Graham said.
"You're not going, Cletus," the Old Man said. "That's that."
"I'm going, Grandfather," Clete said, and turned to Graham. "How am I supposed to have heard about what happened to my father?"
"In a Reuters news story, which we made sure was picked up by both the New York Times and the Washington Post."
"OK," Clete said. "And who did I send the cablegram to?"
"Your uncle Humberto," Graham said. He turned to the Old Man. "You may have noticed, Mrs. Howell, that your nephew is very good at this sort of thing. He can take care of himself. He'll be all right."
"I pray to God he will be," the Old Man said. "But right now I think he's as insanely irresponsible as his father was."
"Goddamn it!" Clete flared angrily. "Grandfather, not one more nasty god-damned word from you about my father! Not tonight! For Christ's sake!"
The Old Man did not back down.