“Pass that on to Ambassador Whatsisname, will you, Señor Nulder?” Clete called after him.
Nulder acknowledged the call with an impatient wave of his hand, but neither replied nor turned around.
Clete looked at Delgano.
“Gonzo, why do I think I just ruined Señor Nulder’s day? And why doesn’t that bother me?”
“You’re crazy, Cletus, that’s why,” Delgano said.
But Delgano was smiling.
And when Frade looked at Captain Peralta and the chubby flight engineer and saw their smiles, he knew it wasn’t probable they were officers of the BIS—but certain.
[THREE]
Portela Airport Lisbon, Portugal 1850 17 May 1945
The weather had not been good. And there had been no tailwind. There had been turbulence—some of it severe—several times.
Delgano had flown the entire leg with Peralta as his copilot. Frade knew that the smart thing for him to do was take over from Delgano to give him a rest. He also knew—although it wasn’t true—that Delgano would take being relieved as proof that Frade found his piloting wanting. And so would the other SAA pilots and flight engineers.
So he had let him fly.
There was also some electrical disturbance; they didn’t pick up Portela’s Radio Direction Finding signal until thirty-five minutes after the dead-reckoning flight plan said they should. Worse, when they finally heard it, it showed them to be about one hundred miles south of where they should have been.
They had been in no unusual danger. They had a little more than an hour’s fuel remaining when they touched down at Portela Airport in a driving rain.
Still, it had been anything but a pleasant flight, and Delgano’s face showed his fatigue when he looked up at Clete.
“Nice job, Gonzo,” Clete said.
The grateful look Delgano then made told Clete he had made the right decision in not trying to relieve him.
A FOLLOW ME pickup truck led them to the passenger terminal.
It was raining so hard that Clete ordered that they leave the cockpit door closed and exit the aircraft by the passenger door, up to which had been rolled a covered stairway.
When they walked into the terminal, Frade immediately saw Fernando Aragão—ostensibly the SAA director in Portugal but, more important, the Lisbon OSS station chief. He was in his fifties and chubby, with slicked-back black hair and a neatly kept pencil mustache.
With Aragão was a well-dressed, tall, slender, olive-skinned man with an arrogant air about him.
Frade disliked him on sight.
Aragão began: “Señor de Hernández, this is—”
“I am Claudio de Hernández, the ambassador,” the man cut him off. “Who’s in charge of the charter aircraft?”
Frade pointed to Delgano.
Delgano pointed to Frade.
“Well,” the ambassador immediately and more than a little arrogantly demanded, “which is it?”
Then, before anyone could reply, he demanded of Frade, who was wearing his Naval Aviator’s leather jacket, “Who are you, señor?”
“Who did you say you were?” Frade replied.
“I am Claudio de Hernández, the Argentine ambassador.”