Blessed are the peacemakers, as it says in the Good Book.
And Operation Ost cannot work in the middle of a civil war, and that’s your priority, Colonel Frade.
So, unless you have a better idea, Master Spy . . . ?
“Two things,” Clete said. “One, I’m going to have to tell Peter von Wachtstein what’s going on. He’ll want to know why I’m not going to Germany, and he’ll have to be told how to handle the Vatican passport people in Berlin and Frankfurt.
“Second, how am I going to explain my sudden disappearance from here?”
“I’ll have Captain Garcia get von Wachtstein out here,” Martín said.
“And how do we satisfy Claudia’s curiosity?” Clete asked. “And my wife’s? And Peter’s?”
Martín and Welner were still thinking about that when the answer came to Clete.
“You go in there, Your Eminence,” he said, “and tell the ladies that both Peter and I are, under your wise guidance, doing their Christian duty, and that you will explain things later, but not now.”
The priest considered that for a moment. “That’ll work.”
Then he walked out of the small office.
VII
[ONE]
Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade
Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1645 16 October 1945
The platoon of infantrymen from the Patricios Regiment that General Martín said he had ordered the regimental commander to send for the protection of el Coronel Perón were not at the airport when Clete Frade, General Martín, and Father Welner arrived.
This made Frade uneasy.
It was his professional opinion that the Patricios were not needed. The SAA security guards at the airfield were all former members of the Húsares de Pueyrredón. Thus, they were capable of guarding Perón—probably more so than the Patricios, because, most important, Frade’s Private Army was as loyal to Clete as they had been to his father.
Which brought up what really made him uneasy.
Frade wondered if Martín had considered the possibility that the Patricios’ commander would not really have his heart in protecting Perón. Frade thought it was just as likely the commander was one of the malcontents, one of those officers deeply offended by Perón’s relationships with Señorita Evita Duarte, the disgraced former Teniente Coronel Rodolfo Nulder, and the Nazis.
And—adding to Frade’s unease—since Martín obviously had ordered the troops to be sent before he had gone looking for Frade and finally finding him at the Jockey Club, there had been plenty of time for the Patricios to get to the airfield before the three of them had arrived there from the Hipódromo.
So why the hell aren’t they here?
Frade reminded himself that Martín usually knew what he was doing, and kept his mouth shut.
He did, however, take Enrico Rodríguez aside and told him to order whoever was in charge of the SAA security guards to avoid confronting the Patricios if and when they showed up. He also told the old soldier to get into a security guard uniform and to go to the control tower and wait there to see how the rescue operation played out.
It was also Frade’s professional opinion that the scenario to rescue el Coronel Perón had several problems. He chose not to share this with his fellow rescuers. He didn’t think they would understand what the hell he was talking about.
The biggest problem was that there were no maps of the island showing a suitable place where he could land—even in a Storch that could land damn near anywhere—or where he could take off.
The maps Frade did have showed where the island was—a few miles off the coast of Uruguay—which only gave him two options. He could either fly along the shore of the River Plate estuary and try finding it that way, or fly there directly.
The first option would require a flight at least twice as far as the second, adding problems of time and fuel consumption. The second option would require dead reckoning navigation over water, which carried with it the strong possibility of getting lost and not being able to find the goddamn island at all.
It would also be useful if he knew where General Necochea’s Own Horse Rifles—“the invasion force,” so to speak—was floating around on the River Plate Estuary. Martín knew only that they had left from La Plata. Martín did not know when they’d left and of course had no idea what kind of speed the invasion fleet was capable of making.