Capitán Frade’s copilot had no idea what a Chinese fire drill was, but he, too, had been thinking about the effect that the blast of air from the Constellation’s four engines was going to have on the band’s horses.
“Engineer, shut down Three and Four,” Frade ordered.
“Shutting down Three and Four,” the engineer replied. “What’s going on?”
The Ciudad de Rosario taxied toward the tarmac. The horses didn’t like the airplane, the noise it made, or the prop wash that had made its way around the Constellation from its left engines and was blowing the water from the rain-soaked tarmac at them. The tuba player and one of the kettle drummers lost their instruments when their mounts became unruly.
“Ah, ha!” Clete said. “Mystery explained. El Presidente is under one of those umbrellas.”
Twenty or more people were under a sea of umbrellas in front of the passenger terminal.
“And so is the Papal Nuncio,” Ramos replied.
“I’m going to stop it right here, Manuel,” Clete said. “We don’t want to drown the president.”
“Especially not now,” Ramos said.
“Why ‘especially not now’?”
“Cletus, El Presidente didn’t come out here with the band of the Second Cavalry to welcome us home. He came out to rub Brazil’s nose in SAA’s mud. We now have a transoceanic airline, and the Brazilians don’t.”
“If I knew you were so smart, Manuel, I would have let you land.”
“If you had let me land, it would’ve been because you know I am a Número Uno pilot,” Ramos said. He demonstrated Número Uno by holding up his left fist, balled, with the index finger extended.
Frade laughed.
“How about getting some ground power out here?” he said into his microphone.
A moment later, Clete saw the ground power generator being pushed toward them. And he could see something else in the sea of umbrellas that made his heart jump. Retired Sargento Rodolfo Gómez of the Húsares de Pueyrredón was holding an umbrella over the mother of Clete’s unborn child. Over only her. Rodolfo was getting soaked.
There is nothing in this world that I would rather do this instant than run down the aisle, open the door, and—the moment the stairway appears—run down it to Dorotea and wrap my arms around her.
But I can’t do that.
“Tell you what, Manuel: While I shut it down, you go back in the cabin and pick some unlucky soul to get off first and deal with El Presidente.”
“Cletus, that’s your honor,” Ramos said. “This would not have happened without you.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion. That’s what they call an order,” Frade said.
“I will be embarrassed. I was not the pilot in command.”
That embarrassment will last until El Presidente pumps your hand.
“Well, I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” Frade said. “Do it, Manuel, please, as a favor to me.”
“If you insist.”
And when your picture appears on the front page of La Nación, I will have one more good guy in my corner.
And if your picture is in the newspapers, the picture of Don Cletus Frade, master aviator and OSS agent, won’t be.
“We have auxiliary power,” the engineer reported.
“Shut down One and Two,” Clete ordered. “Go, Manuel! Don’t keep El Presidente waiting.”
When Clete finally came out of the cockpit, he saw that someone else already had decided who was going to deplane first. The nuns and orphans were standing at the door.