“By the time you’re ready to move Frogger from Brazil, we’ll get him into civilian clothing and get him a passport. Probably South African.”
Graham looked between them.
“Any questions?”
Both Frade and Hughes shook their heads.
“Okay,” Graham said, “then have a nice flight.”
XVI
[ONE]
Aeropuerto El Alto La Paz, Bolivia 1230 11 August 1943
The airfield at La Paz left a good deal to be desired. The single runway was short and paved with gravel. The customs officials who met the SAA Lodestar were in ill-fitting khaki uniforms and expected to receive—and did—a little gift in appreciation of their professional services.
The fuel truck was a 1935 Ford ton-and-a-half stake-bodied truck—not a tanker—sagging under the weight of a dozen fifty-five-gallon barrels of aviation fuel. The pump was hand-cranked.
There was a small silver lining to that, however. When Frade examined the barrels, he saw from the intact paint on the openings that they hadn’t been opened since leaving the Howell Petroleum Refinery in Louisiana. The fuel would be safe to use.
Cletus Howell Frade did not mention to Gonzalo Delgano his connection with Howell Petroleum.
The weather station was “temporarily” out of communication with anybody else, which meant that they would have to rely on the weather report they’d gotten just before taking off from Guayaquil, Ecuador, not quite six hours before. That one had reported good weather all over the eastern half of South America, and from what they’d seen in the air, the report was valid.
They both were tired. It had been a very long flight. They’d left Burbank at six in the morning on August ninth and flown nonstop to Mexico City. They’d taken on fuel there and flown on to Guatemala City, whose airfield was downtown and surrounded by hills. The final approach was a dive at the threshold.
Frade and Delgano spent the night in Guatemala City in a charming old hotel, which apparently had not replaced the mattresses since they were first installed. But nevertheless both had overslept. They had planned to leave at six a.m., but it was a few minutes after eight before they broke ground on the next leg, to Guayaquil, Ecuador.
They didn’t want to try to go any farther, so they spent the night there, just about on the equator, which meant tropical temperatures and hordes of biting insects—many of them mosquitoes—that the somewhat ragged mosquito nets did little to discourage.
The next morning, they were wide awake at five a.m. and took off for La Paz as intended, at six a.m., without availing themselves of anything more than coffee for breakfast.
It had been a nearly six-hour flight, and as soon as they could after landing they headed for the airport restaurant.
The tableware was dirty, the papas fritas limp and greasy, and the lomo— filet mignon—was thin and had the tenderness of a boot sole.
“I don’t mean to be critical, Gonzo, but I have had better lomo,” Frade said as he pushed his plate away and reached for another piece of bread.
“Patience is a virtue, as you may have heard. In just a matter of hours, Cletus, my friend, we will be in Argentina, where, as you have learned, the women are beautiful and the beef magnificent.”
Delgano saw something in Frade’s eyes.
“What?” he asked.
“Gonzo, we have to talk.”
“I thought this would be coming.”
“Truth time?” Frade asked.
“That’s always useful. But one of the truths here is that I’m afraid we have different loyalties.”
“Different isn’t the same as opposing.”
“Would your admitting that you are a serving officer—a major—of the U.S. Corps of Marines attached to the OSS be the kind of truth you’re talking about?”
“Not really,” Frade said. “Colonel Martín has known that for some time, and so have you, Major Gonzalo Delgano of the Ethical Standards Office of the Bureau of Internal Security.”