Schultz nodded his agreement.
“What would all that be about?” Clete asked. “And spare me that I’m Just an Old Chief and Simple Policeman crap.”
“If you’re watching Möller, you’re probably not going to be watching Körtig. Or at least as closely,” Schultz said. “If Körtig has another mission, one you don’t know about . . .”
“Do you think either one of them knows about Valkyrie?” Clete asked.
“I don’t know about Möller,” Nervo said. “But I’ll bet Körtig does. Gehlen may have sent him here to make sure Möller—if he doesn’t already know about Valkyrie—doesn’t find out; or if he does, that he doesn’t blow the whistle on Valkyrie to the German Embassy or von Deitzberg. You told me Körtig didn’t seem all that surprised to hear that von Deitzberg is here.”
Schultz was nodding. “Clete, I think you have to find out what the fuck these two Krauts are really up to.”
“Yeah,” Frade said. He pushed himself out of his chair. “And the sooner the better.”
Nervo stood. Clete waited until he had drained his glass, then said, “Tell me, Simple Policeman. In the Gendarmería, how would you do this? By pulling fingernails?”
Nervo looked at him stonefaced.
“Actually,” the inspector general then said, “I’ve found the best method is to dr
ag people across the pampas behind a horse for fifteen minutes before beginning the interrogation.”
[TWO]
Approaching El Plumerillo Airfield
Mendoza, Mendoza Province, Argentina
1410 3 October 1943
Doña Dorotea Frade, in the copilot seat of the Lodestar, pushed the intercom button on her microphone and said, “Let me land it, Cletus, please.”
Frade glanced at her, then returned his attention to outside the aircraft as he said, “No. You shouldn’t even be sitting there.”
“Nonsense. There’s nothing an eight-months-and-some-days pregnant woman can’t do except lead anything that comes close to a normal life.”
“You all right, baby?”
“No woman eight months pregnant is all right, Clete. But I can land this, and I want to. This will be my last flight for a while.”
He glanced at her again. “You just decide that?”
“No, I decided it on the plane on the way to Buenos Aires. Once I got back to Mendoza, that was it.”
He saw the airfield ahead and started to make a shallow descent to the right.
“I gather that means you are not going to grant the humble request of the mother of your unborn child?”
“No, it means I want to make a low pass over Casa Montagna.”
“Why?”
“It’s known as terrifying the natives. Puts a little excitement into their lives.”
“They know we’re coming, Cletus.”
“Let’s make sure,” he said as he headed for Estancia Don Guillermo.
He made two low-level passes over the house on the mountain side, one to the south and one to the north, and then raised the nose.