He tossed the sample credentials in his Shred and Burn wastebasket and tried to forget about them. But when Colonel A. F. Graham, his deputy director for the Western Hemisphere, showed up at his door, Donovan decided to share them for a laugh.
After inspecting them, Graham said, “May I have these, Bill?”
“You’re serious, Alec?”
“Yeah. It’s no secret in Argentina that Frade and his men are OSS. He may find a use for them. He’s resourceful.”
“He’s a damn dangerous loose cannon,” Donovan had replied, then pushed the credentials to Graham. “Get them out of here. Every time I see them, I get mad all over again.”
Graham had been right. Frade had successfully used them a few times—once to dazzle the stubborn commander of the Army Air Corps base in Brazil. When he saw Frade identified as an OSS area commander, the chickenshit had become the poster child for cooperation and goodwill. That experience had made Frade think they just might work at Washington National now.
“How may I help you, Colonel?” the MP captain, looking appropriately impressed, said.
Well, Frade thought as he took back the wallet, that worked.
So far, so good. Still on a roll . . .
“Presumably, Captain, you’re in charge of security?” Frade asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I will be here no more than three hours,” Frade said. “I’ll be loading five passengers. Three of them may already be here. I’ll get the ones who are not. I don’t want anyone to get near my aircraft.”
“Yes, sir,” the captain said. “I understand.”
Frade gestured toward Enrico. “Sergeant Major Rodríguez here is under strict orders to keep the aircraft secure.”
Clete noticed that Enrico read between the lines—that he was going to stay with the airplane and not accompany Clete—and was both surprised and glad that Enrico did not protest being left behind.
“Yes, sir,” the captain repeated. “There won’t be any problem.”
“We didn’t get any heads-up about this,” one of the civilians, a starchy heavyset man in a cheap suit, charged in an officious tone.
“Of course you didn’t,” Frade said. “You’re from the airport, right?”
“Yes, I am.”
“We’ll require fuel, of course. And enough food for a dozen people for a ten-hour flight. In Marmite cans. You can bill that to the OSS, right?”
“I’d have to have authorization.”
“From whom?”
“From the OSS.”
“Then you just got that authorization,” Frade said. “Now, has anybody seen a chauffeur-driven 1940 Cadillac?”
“As a matter of fact,” the MP captain said, “there’s a car like that in the parking lot.”
Frade turned to the civilian from the airport.
“See what you can do about a real ladder or stairs to get up there,” he said, pointing to the Constellation’s rear door. “I’m not sure my passengers will want to climb a rope ladder.”
“I’m sure I can come up with something,” the man said.
As Clete approached the custom-bodied Cadillac, his grandfather’s chauffeur got out and opened the rear door. Tom, a silver-haired black man, had been driving Cletus Marcus Howell around Washington for as long as Clete could remember.
The Cadillac had a gasoline ration sticker affixed to its windshield. The otherwise glistening door had stripes of dull black tape on it, obviously to cover something on the door. Until that morning, the door had shown a legend required by the Office of Price Administration.