Martín’s face was questioning.
“But if you flew here from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo . . .”
You clever sonofabitch, you!
“Why do I need more gas to fly back than I did to get here?”
Martín nodded.
“It’s known as ‘winds aloft,’ ” Frade said. “If the wind is blowing on your tail, ‘a tailwind,’ you add the speed of the wind to the speed of the airplane to get your speed over the ground. However, if it is blowing against your nose, a ‘headwind,’ then you subtract the speed of the wind from the speed of the aircraft over the ground. I had a tailwind coming here, which meant that I had more than enough fuel. But I expect a headwind on the way back.”
“And what if you had had a headwind on your way here?”
“Then I would have had to turn back, come by car, and miss getting my license.”
“So, if you have to refuel on your way home, you will land on the pampas?”
“If I have to refuel, I will land on a road on the pampas, if I can find one. If not, then I would have to take a chance landing on the grassland.”
“Fascinating!”
“You must come fly with me sometime, Colonel.”
“I would like that, Don Cletus,” Martín said. “Actually, I came here for a quiet word with Colonel Perón. Normally, I would ask for a moment of the colonel’s time in private, but after that sterling tribute to your Argentine patriotism by General Rawson, I can see no reason I shouldn’t share this with you as well.”
“Share what, Martín?” Perón asked, more than a little impatiently.
“It would seem, sir, that the commercial attaché of the German embassy has disappeared.”
“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?” Perón asked.
“They can’t find him or his wife,” Martín said, looking directly at Frade.
“What do you think happened to them?” Frade asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea right now, Don Cletus, but I think we’ll find out something soon.”
“If I happen to run into them,” Frade said, “you’ll be the first to know.”
“This is not a joke, Cletus,” Perón said sternly. “This is serious business. I need to find a telephone to call Generalmajor von Deitzberg and assure him the Argentine government will do everything in its power to get to the bottom of this.”
[SIX]
Near Olavarría Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1540 14 July 1943
The navigation chart being used by newly licensed commercial aviation pilot Don Cletus Frade did not have, so far as he could see, the location of any airfield marked on it. It had been published by the Automobile Club of Argentina for the use of touring motorists.
It had proved perfectly adequate, however, to get him where he was now, at an indicated altitude of fifteen hundred feet and about that far to the right of National Route Three.
The only man-made break in the sea of grass that was the pampas was Route Three, and he had seen very few cars and trucks on that narrow two-lane highway.
Clete put the Cub in a gentle climbing bank to the right, taking him farther away from Route Three. When he no longer could see the highway, he saw that the altimeter showed he was at thirty-five hundred feet. He straightened out and looked slowly at the pampas from horizon to horizon. There was absolutely nothing down there but cattle, clumps of trees, and grass.
He put the nose down and dropped to five hundred feet.
Then, as he looked over his shoulder and indicated with a pointing finger that they were going down, Enrico smiled wanly and made the sign of the cross.
Clete retarded the throttle until he felt the little airplane show the first signs of a stall.