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“I took the liberty of borrowing the Storch to fly to Puerto Belgrano,” Martín said, “and then from there to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo with von Dattenberg.”

Frade shook his head. “And then, flushed with success, and with the complete confidence of pilots with maybe thirty hours’ total time usually have, you flew it here?”

Martín nodded.

“You are a devious and dangerous man, mi General,” Frade said. “I say that with the greatest admiration.”

Frade set his glass down.

“Let’s go before the wives come back. It’s always easier to beg forgiveness after doing something than it is to ask for permission that’ll probably be denied to do it.”

IV

[ONE]

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

Near Pila

Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

1315 10 October 1945

Lieutenant Oscar Schultz, USNR, at the wheel of a wood-paneled 1937 Ford station wagon, pulled up in front of the Big House of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. Fregattenkapitän Wilhelm von Dattenberg, in the front passenger seat, noted that the eight-year-ol

d vehicle, with its steering wheel on the right, was unbelievably well maintained—it looked as if it had left the showroom last week.

Schultz then motioned for his passenger to get out.

—

Von Dattenberg no longer believed he was having a dream, but that did not mean he had any idea what was going on, or even where he was. Everything seemed surreal.

Schultz had driven him from the airstrip out onto the Pampas to a small cluster of buildings.

There he had introduced him to a man who rode up to them on a really beautiful horse. He was wearing boots, riding breeches, and a polo shirt. A polo mallet rested on his right shoulder.

“Kapitän, this is Technical Sergeant Jerry O’Sullivan, U.S. Army,” Schultz said. “And this, Sergeant, is Fregattenkapitän von Dattenberg. He is our prisoner. I have told him there’s little point in trying to escape as he can’t possibly know where to try to escape to. But he may not believe me. Get the Winchester .22, and if he tries to run, shoot him in the leg. We want him alive.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when you’re in the house, tell my Dorotea to start lunch and to bring us a bottle of the ’41 Estancia Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon. We’ll be on the veranda.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fully aware that he should not allow himself to become besotted in the situation in which he found himself, von Dattenberg nevertheless accepted a glass of wine. It had been a long time since he had had anything alcoholic to drink; he had finished his “emergency bottle” of cognac more than a month before.

And then luncheon was served. It consisted of the largest filet mignon he had ever seen, a baked potato, a tomato and onion salad, and some freshly baked hard-crusted bread. There was a bowl holding at least a half kilo of butter and another holding that much thick cream. It had been a long time since he’d seen either.

When the polo-playing sergeant extended to him the bottle of the great Cabernet Sauvignon to refill his glass, he accepted.

He was eating dessert—a pear soaked in wine—when a flaming red Fieseler Storch flashed over the house at no more than fifty meters off the ground.

“That has to be the colonel,” Schultz announced. “I don’t think the general would try to fly that low—he just learned how to fly. As soon as we kill the rest of the Cabernet, we’d better get up to the Big House.”

—

The red-tile-roofed building had looked large when von Dattenberg had gotten a quick look at it when they first flew over it. Now it looked huge.