Frade said, “Talk about clever: You should have heard the line of bull he fed Martín and Tío Juan about this thing. Which they swallowed whole. Tell the chief, Fischer.”
Fischer related the story.
“And they believed that?” Schultz then said.
“Swallowed it hook, line, and sinker,” Frade confirmed.
“Well, then, they must not know a hell of a lot about the way RDF works.”
“What do you mean?” Frade asked.
“There’s no long message like that—‘South American Airways Zero Zero One’—what he said. What the field RDF transmitter sends is a couple of letters. Like P-A-L for Palomar. That’s all. You don’t know that?”
“I do,” Frade replied. “But so what? Martín and Perón don’t.”
Then he had a thought that chilled him, almost making him sick to his stomach.
Oh, shit!
Delgano was there when Fischer was handing that bullshit story to Perón and Martín!
He’s a pilot. He knows about RDF call signs as well as I do! Every time he goes into Palomar, he homes in on PAL.
He looked at Fischer.
Fischer looked embarrassed.
“I know about radios,” he said. “I don’t know much about airplanes.”
“Obviously,” Frade said, somewhat sharply. And was immediately sorry.
This is my fault, not his.
So why didn’t Delgano say anything?
Was he waiting until we were gone, and was going to tell Martín then?
That doesn’t make any sense.
If he was going to tell Martín, he would have told him when he was showing him and Perón around the airplane.
And if he had told Martín, Martín wouldn’t have been so obliging about us loading the SIGABA and the Collins transceivers on the truck and bringing them out here.
At the very least, Martín would have “suggested” we leave everything in the hangar at Palomar.
“Something you ate, darling?” Dorotea asked. “You look as if you’re about to be sick.”
“We didn’t fool Delgano with that story,” Clete said. “He’s a pilot.”
“Oh, shit!” Schultz said.
After a moment, Dorotea asked very softly, “You think he told Martín?”
“I think if he had, the SIGABA device now would be in Martín’s office, being examined by his technicians, and I would be explaining to Tío Juan why I was smuggling a cryptographic device into Argentina. Or I’d be in a cell.”
“Delgano’s a good guy, Clete,” Schultz said. “I know you don’t like him, but . . .”
“But what? The sonofabitch spied on my father for years.”