He'd taken off from La Palomar and headed north-Montevideo was to the east. Avoiding the Restricted Zone around Campo de Mayo, he'd flown over El Tigre and the Delta, then turned east and crossed the Rio Uruguay into Uruguay, south of a small town called Carmelo.
"Have we sufficient fuel?" Goltz asked.
Peter looked at the fuel gauges and did the mental arithmetic. They had at least two hours to make the airfield at Carrasco, ten miles or so east of Monte-video.
"I'm sure we'll make it all right, Herr Standartenf?hrer," Peter said with what he hoped was a detectable lack of conviction in his voice. "But there's nothing to worry about, Herr Standartenf?hrer. I can set this thing down almost anywhere, on the road or in a field."
He then picked up his chart and studied it carefully-and wholly unneces-sarily. He was going to use Uruguay's Route Nacionale Number One, below him, to find Montevideo. But with a little bit of luck, Herr Schiesskopf might think they were lost.
When he lined up with the one paved runway of Carrasco's airfield, it occurred to Peter that this was the ninth time he had been to Uruguay. But it would be the first time-Goltz said he was going to spend the night-that he would be able to see more of it than the airport.
&
nbsp; Most of his previous flights had been to deliver or pick up a diplomatic pouch or other correspondence between the Embassy in Buenos Aires and the German Embassy here. There had been only a few passengers. Most of the Em-bassy staff of sufficient importance to have access to the Storch preferred the comfort of the overnight ship to Montevideo to the un-upholstered backseat of the Storch. Always before, Peter had landed at Carrasco, turned over or picked up his cargo, refueled, and flown back to Buenos Aires.
The Condor Dieter von und zu Aschenburg had flown in on Friday carried a pouch for the German Embassy in Montevideo. Ordinarily, Peter would have flown it across the river the same day; but Gradny-Sawz's insistence that Peter attend the services for Oberst Frade had delayed that until today. That pouch was now under Goltz's seat. And tomorrow, when he returned to Buenos Aires, he would almost certainly have a pouch-two or more pouches, he hoped, heavy ones that he could look at with great concern as Goltz watched-to take to Buenos Aires and put aboard the Condor when it returned to Germany to-morrow afternoon.
He taxied to the terminal, and Uruguayan Customs and Immigration offi-cers came out to the plane. There was no problem. They had diplomatic status and were immune to all local laws.
"Your orders, Herr Standartenf?hrer?" Peter asked as he waited for Goltz to take off the flight suit.
"What do you normally do, von Wachtstein?"
"Ordinarily, Herr Standartenf?hrer, I exchange packages with whoever comes out here from the Embassy, refuel the aircraft, and fly back to Buenos Aires."
"So you will need someplace to stay tonight, is that it?"
"Oberst Gr?ner suggested I stay at the Casino Hotel here in Carrasco, Herr Standartenf?hrer."
"And the diplomatic pouch, what do you plan to do with that?"
"Ordinarily, Herr Standartenf?hrer, someone from the Embassy is here to take it off my hands."
"I wish I had given thought to that damned pouch before this," Goltz said. "Arranged for someone to meet you here."
"Is there a problem, Herr Standartenf?hrer?"
"I hadn't planned to visit the Embassy. My business here is with the Secu-rity Officer of the Embassy, an old friend. My plan was to conduct our business at his home, and then spend the night with him."
"I'm sure I could take a taxi to the Embassy, Herr Standartenf?hrer, and then another to the Casino Hotel, if that meets with your approval."
"No. I know what to do. I'll telephone him that I'm here. He will come out to meet me. Presumably, you can turn over the pouch to him?"
"To the Security Officer? Of course, Herr Standartenf?hrer."
"And then he can drop you at the hotel, we can go about our business, and we will pick you up at the hotel in the morning. How does that sound?"
"Whatever the Herr Standartenf?hrer wishes."
"Where is a telephone?"
"Just inside the terminal, Herr Standartenf?hrer."
"Well, I'll make the call, and you do whatever you have to do to the airplane."
"Jawohl, Herr Standartenf?hrer!"
While they waited, Peter took the opportunity to refuel the Storch. As he was doing that, he wondered why Goltz's old friend the Embassy Security Officer, or at least someone from the Embassy, was not waiting for them at the airport when they landed. Thirty minutes later a canary-yellow 1941 Chevrolet con-vertible, roof down, raced up to the entrance of the terminal building.