“We should probably rejoin the ladies,” von Wachtstein said. “Before El Bitcho comes out to wag her tail at Karl.”
X
On 10 July 1943, Allied troops invaded the island of Sicily. General Bernard Montgomery’s Eighth British Army landed at five places on the southeastern tip of the island. Lieutenant General George S. Patton’s United States Seventh Army went ashore on three beaches to the west of the British.
There was little opposition, and Patton’s troops quickly took Gela, Licata, and Vittoria before nightfall. The British took Syracuse on the day of the landing, Palzzolo the next day, Augusta the day after that, and Vizzini on 14 July. On the same day, the Americans took Niscemi and the Biscani airfield.
Patton moved to the west and his II Corps, under Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley, struck out to the north. British forces were being held up by German forces under Field Marshal Albrecht Kesselring.
On 22 July 1943, the U.S. Seventh Army’s Third Infantry Division, under Major General Lucian Truscott, took Palermo, and in so doing cut off fifty thousand Italian troops from their intended path of retreat. Patton then started to move on to Messina, intending, he announced, to get there before General Montgomery.
[ONE]
Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 0915 22 July 1943
Clete Frade pointed out to the left to show Len Fischer that they were almost at the airfield. Fischer, his arms wrapped around his small suitcase, nodded and smiled somewhat wanly.
Frade had learned only that morning—just before they boarded the Piper Cub—that Fischer had about as much experience with light aircraft as he had with horses—none—and it was a toss-up which of the two made him more uncomfortable.
Frade now made gestures with his hand to show—if not warn—Fischer what he intended to do with the aircraft, which was make at least one low pass over the field to make sure that it would be safe to land.
Not on the runways. These were cluttered with heavy machinery, tractors, graders, dump trucks, and cement mixers. Instead, Frade planned to land— presuming he found nothing parked or dumped there—on the grass of what had only recently been a cattle-feeding lot.
He made two passes to ensure his intended “runway” was clear, then turned to signal Fischer that he was about to set down the airplane.
From the look on Fischer’s face, it was obvious that, until this moment, Fischer had never considered the possibility that they would not be landing on a wide and smoothly paved runway.
His concern—terror—was evident.
Frade felt sorry for him, but they had to land. Otherwise, none of the items on what Clete thought of as “the list” were going to be addressed.
And there were a number of critical items on the list, ones that Frade had been unable to neatly categorize as Priority One, Priority Two, and so on, because they were all interrelated with one another.
For example, they had to make sure they got electrical power run to the control tower, then make sure the Collins transceiver there worked, then use the Collins to call Delgano aboard SAA Zero Zero One.
Also high on the list: getting Second Lieutenant Len Fischer safely out of Argentina.
There had of course been the temptation to get Fischer out of the country immediately, but there were problems with that. One of them was that it would be suspicious if he left before the Collins transceivers were set up and operating at the field at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo and at what was now Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade.
Setting up the radios was what Fischer was supposed to be doing in Argentina. If he seemed to be fleeing, Martín would certainly wonder why—If someone warned him, who?—and that finger would point at Delgano.
Delgano was a card Frade was unwilling to play, because he simply didn’t know how far Delgano was willing to go to close his eyes to things Martín would (a) certainly want to know and (b) expect to hear from Delgano.
Delgano hadn’t told Martín what the SIGABA device was. But there was no guarantee he would do the same sort of thing ever again.
And, for that matter, it was possible—not likely, but possible—that Delgano had told Martín about the SIGABA device, and the two of them were in the clever process of lulling Señor Frade into thinking he had no problems.
What Clete had decided to do was keep Fischer around until the Collins radios were functioning—but only at the estancia and here, in the control tower of what he in aviator shorthand had already begun to think of as “Jorge Frade.”
The problem with that was there was no electrical power at the terminal building. In fact, the terminal building itself was nowhere near finished, and when it was electrical power would be about the last thing installed. And no power in the terminal meant no power in the tower.
Frade thought—indeed had been told—that he had solved the no-power problem by calling the electrical contractor and applying a West Texas business tactic: Clete had offered him a bonus if there was power to the unfinished control tower by quitting time—six p.m.—yesterday.
It was the same technique he had earlier used to get all the contractors working almost feverishly. And he’d done it over the objections of the SAA board of directors—“Cletus, things are just not done that way in Argentina” was the way Humberto Valdez Duarte, financial director of South American Airways, had put it.
As they were about to let the contracts, Frade had insisted that the contracts include bonus and penalty clauses. And so, there were generous bonuses provided for completion of the various aspects of the construction ahead of schedule, and increasingly heavy penalties if the work was not completed when it was promised.
Frade landed the Cub without incident—neither from the aircraft nor from his squeamish passenger—and taxied to the terminal building behind one of the three hangars under construction. This one was almost done. Workmen were hanging the sliding doors. More important, there was a gasoline-powered generator at the base of the still-unfinished control tower, with a cable snaking up the tower and through an opening that would eventually hold a window.