The Honor of Spies

Pelosi was one of the very few officers--perhaps the only one--to have been awarded the nation's third-highest medal for valor in combat in the American Theatre of Operations. There was virtually no combat action in the American Theatre of Operations. The citation for the medal was rather vague. It said he had performed with valor above and beyond the call of duty at great risk to his life in a classified combat action against enemies of the United States, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself, the United States Army, the United States of America, and the State of Illinois.

He could not discuss--especially in Argentina--what he had done to earn the Silver Star.

Pelosi had earned the medal while flying in a Beechcraft Staggerwing aircraft piloted by then-First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR. What they had done--getting shot down in the process--was illuminate with flares a Spanish-registered merchant vessel then at anchor in Samborombon Bay.

Illuminating the ship, which was then in the process of replenishing the fuel and food supplies of a German submarine, had permitted the U.S. submarine Devil Fish to cause both the submarine and the ship to disappear in a spectacular series of explosions.

All of this naval activity--German, Spanish, and American--was in gross violation of the neutrality of the Republic of Argentina. Samborombon Bay, on the River Plate, was well within Argentine waters. After some lengthy consideration, the government of Argentina decided the wisest course of action was to pretend the engagement had never happened.

But of course the story had gotten out. The officers with whom Lieutenant Pelosi had shared an official lunch for military and naval attaches of the various embassies at the Officers' Casino at Campo de Mayo--the reason he was wearing his uniform--knew not only the story but also of Pelosi's role in it.

No one had mentioned it, of course, but it sort of hung in the air. Pelosi had been understandably invisible to the German naval attache, Kapitan zur See Boltitz; the German assistant military attache for air, Major Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein; and to their Japanese counterparts.

Peter von Wachtstein had managed to discreetly acknowledge Tony Pelosi while they were standing at adjacent urinals, and some Argentine officers--all naval officers but one--had been quite cordial, as had the Italian naval and military attaches. That, Tony reasoned, was probably because King Victor Emmanuel had bounced Il Duce and had the bastard locked up someplace.

South American Airways Lodestar tail number 007 was wanded into a parking spot beside almost a dozen of its identical brothers.

The rear door opened and Sergeant Major Enrico Rodriguez (Ret'd) came down the stairs, carrying his shotgun. When he saw Pelosi, he smiled.

"Don Cletus will be out in a minute," he announced. "I have to find a truck."

Pelosi asked with hand gestures if he could go into the aircraft. Enrico replied with a thumbs-up gesture, and as he walked away, Pelosi marched toward the aircraft and went inside.

The chief pilot of South American Airways, Gonzalo Delgano, and the managing director of the airline, Cletus Frade, were in the passenger compartment. Pelosi saw that all but two of the seats had been removed. There were two enormous aluminum boxes strapped in place.

Delgano was in uniform: The uniform prescribed for SAA captains was a woolen powder blue tunic with four gold stripes on the sleeves, darker blue trousers with a golden stripe down the seam, a white shirt with powder blue necktie, and a leather brimmed cap with a huge crown. On the tunic's breast were outsized golden wings, in the center of which, superimposed on the Argentine sunburst, were the letters SAA.

Chief Pilot Delgano, as was probably to be expected, had five golden stripes on his tunic sleeves and the band around his brimmed cap was of gold cloth.

The managing director of SAA, who was bent over one of the aluminum crates, was wearing khaki trousers, battered Western boots, and a fur-collared leather jacket that had once been the property of the United States Marine Corps.

Cletus Frade came out of the box holding a lobster by its tail. Pelosi decided the lobster had to weigh five pounds, maybe more.

"You're still alive, you great big ugly sonofabitch!" Frade proclaimed happily. "God rewards the virtuous. Remember that, Gonzo."

Delgano shook his head.

Frade spotted Pelosi.

"And, by God, we're safe! The 82nd Airborne is here!"

"Where'd you get the lobster?" Pelosi inquired.

"Santiago, Chile, from which Delgano and I have flown in three hours and thirteen minutes. At an average speed of approximately 228 miles per hour, while attaining an altitude of nearly 24,000 feet in the process. We had to go on oxygen over most of the Andes, and it was as cold as a witch's teat up there. But neither seems to have affected my friend here, despite the dire predictions of my chief pilot."

"I thought the cold and/or lack of oxygen would kill them," Delgano said.