Frade said: “Your original question, Bob, was something like ‘Why should I trust Boltitz?’”
Bendick met Frade’s eyes. “Has it occurred to you, Colonel Frade, that the smart thing for me to do is pick up that telephone and tell my provost marshal to come running? That two escaped German POWs and the guy who helped them escape are in flight planning?”
Frade held the gaze and said, “You could do that, General. It’s known as ‘covering your ass.’ But you won’t.”
“And why won’t I?”
“Two reasons. One is that you know that if you did, you’d be helping the Nazis get away with sending their submarines to South America, and you don’t want to do that. Two, you’re not that kind—the CYA kind—of an officer.”
“How do you know? Was telling me all this smart?”
“Probably not. But in my business, every once in a while you have to take a chance. I took it. I’d take it again.”
“Taking a chance like putting a shot-up B-17 down on a fighter strip? Because it wasn’t really an option?”
“Yes, sir.”
General Bendick turned to his aide-de-camp.
“Jimmy,” he ordered, “get on the horn and get Colonel DuBois and Colonel Nathan down here. Tell them I’m running a middle-of-the-night training program in how to find submarines.”
[TWO]
Transient Mess Val de Cans Airfield Belém do Pará, Brazil 0405 17 May 1945
SAA Chief Pilot Gonzalo Delgano, Captain Mario Peralta, and a flight engineer whose name Clete could never remember—he thought of him as “the chubby flight engineer, who, three-to-one, also works for the BIS”—were sitting over coffee at a table near the door when Clete and the others walked in.
The diplomats were sitting at various tables around the nearly empty mess.
“We wondered where you were,” Delgano greeted them.
“We all set to go?” Clete replied.
“Anytime you are. Weather looks good, and we may even get that tailwind.”
“Just as soon we have some breakfast,” Clete said.
“You haven’t eaten?” Delgano asked.
“No. That’s why we’re going to eat now,” Clete said.
If you’d have come out and just asked, “What have you been up to?” I probably would have told you.
“El Señor Nulder wondered what had happened to you,” Delgano said.
“And asked you?”
Delgano nodded.
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth. I didn’t know.”
Clete ordered: “Enrico, why don’t you go ask Señor Nulder if he can spare a moment for me?”
It was the first time that Frade had gotten a good look at Rodolfo Nulder, the director of security at the Secretariat of Labor and Retirement Plans. He thought there was something about him—his carriage, a hint of arrogance—that suggested a military background.
Nulder smiled and put out his hand as he approached the table.