“Excuse me?” Duarte said.
“There are two accountants aboard the Ciudad de Buenos Aires,” Clete said, “dispatched by my grandfather to make sure I don’t squander his money on whiskey and wild women. Tonight, I’m going to put them up in the house on Coronel Díaz. But we’re going to have to find them someplace to live—someplace nice; they’re high-priced CPAs—maybe the Alvear or the Plaza. Can you deal with that?”
Duarte nodded.
“The immediate problem is to get them off the airplane, by which I mean we need the service of Immigration and Customs.”
Humberto pointed. Clete saw a half-dozen uniformed Immigration and Customs officers.
“But first we need a better way to get things off the Connie than that stepladder,” Frade said. “I wonder where Señor Mañana is.” He looked around and spotted him.
“Señor de Filippi?” he called.
Guillermo de Filippi, SAA’s chief of maintenance, walked to him.
“Our immediate problem, Guillermo,” Frade said, “is to unload our new aircraft. That stepladder won’t do. Any suggestions?”
“Señor Frade, we don’t have a ladder that tall.”
“We have wood, right?” Frade said. He pointed to two railroad flatcars, both bearing enormous stacks of lumber intended for the construction of a third hangar. “And carpenters? Does that suggest anything to you?”
“Señor Frade, the carpenters stop work at five o’clock, and it’s after that. There would be problems with the union.”
“I will deal with the workmen, Don Cletus,” Enrico Rodríguez said.
Frade turned and saw him standing behind him. Holding his shotgun.
How the hell did he get down the ladder with the shotgun?
I don’t think that being forced to build a stairway with a shotgun aimed at you would be good labor-management practice.
“Enrico, tell them it’s two days’ pay if they can build a stairway up to the plane in half an hour.”
Father Welner chuckled. Señor de Filippi looked confused.
“And I’ll throw in a case of beer,” Frade added, then turned to de Filippi. “And there’s a couple of other things that have to be done. On the airplane are airframe and engine engineers . . .”
He stopped in midsentence when a line of cars started to stream from behind the hangar onto the tarmac.
“What are we going to do, have a parade?” Frade quipped.
“We are having a cocktail and small buffet at your house on Coronel Díaz,” Claudia said. “To celebrate whatever is going on here.”
“You set that up, did you?”
“I was with your father for many years, Cletus. I didn’t think you would mind my using the house.”
“I was just about to say, ‘Thank you very much, that’s a great idea.’ ”
“And while that’s going on,” Claudia said, “we’re going to have a quick board of directors meeting in the upstairs sitting room.”
“We are?” he asked, smiling at her.
“We are,” Claudia said flatly. “And I mean right now.”
“There’s a lot that has to be done here,” Frade said.
“Aside from getting your passengers off that airplane and into the cars—and that can be dealt with by Señor de Filippi—there’s nothing you have to do here that won’t wait until tomorrow morning. Humberto and I have a right to know what’s going on here, and I insist you tell us. And right now.”