"So?"
"Colonel Wallace wants to do this by the book. Clear everything with the Brazilians. And he's not stupid. If he sees me loading you and your team aboard the Lockheed tonight, he'll suspect that I have no intention of meeting the Brazilians Customs people tomorrow morning."
"So what would he do?"
"Possibly he would give me a formal order not to leave the local area...."
"Fuck him. Let him write Graham a letter after you've gone. Subject: Dis-obedience of Direct Order by Frade, Major Cletus, USMCR."
"More likely he would either 'volunteer' to go with me, or send some other pilot with me, to make sure I came back."
"Fuck him again. Take him with us. Let him walk back here."
"That just wouldn't work," Clete said, smiling. "He can stop me from load-ing the team on the Lockheed. There's two problems. Getting the airplane with-out Wallace or one of his pilots in it, and getting you and your people on it without Wallace finding out."
"You're not suggesting, are you, mi Mayor, that two intrepid OSS agents, in the noble tradition of Errol Flynn and Alan Ladd, such as you and me, can-not outwit one chickenshit Air Corps colonel?"
"I would really feel more comfortable, Major Frade," Colonel J. B. Wallace, U.S. Army Air Corps, said, "if I went along with you and Colonel Rodriguez."
"What did he say?" Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, Cavalry, Argen-tine Army, Retired, asked in Spanish.
"The Colonel wishes us a safe flight," Clete replied in Spanish, then switched to English: "Colonel Rodriguez feels that it would be best if he were given the opportunity to ride in the right seat while we shoot some land-ings."
"But he doesn't have any C-56 time," Wallace argued.
"The Colonel has several thousand hours' multiengine time, Colonel,"
Clete said. "Mostly in Ford Tri-Motors, to be sure, but he really has more expe-rience than I do."
"What did you say, Se¤or Clete?" Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez asked.
"I told the Colonel you thanked him for all his courtesies to us," Clete said in Spanish.
Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez saluted.
"Muchas gracias, mi Coronel," he said.
Colonel Wallace knew that much Spanish.
"You're welcome, I'm sure," he said, returning the salute.
"Get in the airplane, Enrico. Walk up in front and sit down in the right seat," Clete said in Spanish, and then switched to English: "I don't think we'll need more than a couple of hours, Colonel. Is there someplace I can reach you if I get some warning lights on the panel and need a mechanic?"
"I'll either be at the Club or in my quarters," Colonel Wallace said as he watched, in obvious discomfort, Enrico climbing into the Lockheed. "Two hours, you say?"
"No more than three, certainly, Sir," Clete said.
He climbed into the Lockheed and closed the door. With the door closed, it was absolutely dark inside the fuselage. He painfully banged his knees twice and his shoulder once as he made his way through the cabin to the cockpit.
There was a little more light in the cockpit-enough for him to see Enrico's bafflement with his seat and shoulder harness-but not enough to be able to read the switch labels anywhere.
With the aid of his Zippo, it took him thirty seconds to find cockpit inte-rior lights. When he threw the switch, nothing happened. It took another fif-teen seconds to find the main buss switch. When he threw that, the panel lit up and the cockpit lights came on.
He put the earphones on his head. There was no hiss. Neither was there a hiss when he flipped the radio/intercom switch to radio. He left the seat, went to the engineer's station and turned on the radio, selected the tower frequency, and returned to his seat.
He leaned over and showed Enrico how the seat and shoulder harness went together, then put the earphones on. He could hear the tower.
He looked out the window and saw Colonel Wallace, standing uncomfort-ably by the ground crewman and his fire extinguisher. Clete smiled at both of them, and, raising his voice, shouted, "Clear!"