W E B Griffin - Honor 2 - Blood and Honor

by Blood

  "Oh? About what?"

  "If you succeeded in bringing the airplane across the border to Santo Tome, my orders were to take it directly from Santo Tome to Campo de Mayo."

  "OK," Clete said. "And my having my passengers screwed that up?"

  "That and the fact that it is not the C-45 light twin you told us it would be. I thought I would be able to fly the C-45 alone."

  "Alone?" Clete asked, not quite understanding what Delgano was talking about.

  "You were to become a guest of Colonel Porterman at Santo Tome for the next four or five days," Delgano said.

  "You... forgot... to mention that."

  "Coronel Mart¡n spoke with General Rawson," Delgano said. "Coronel Mart¡n believed that if you flew any airplane into Campo de Mayo, that would have put you in a delicate position-actually, I suppose, a more accurate term would be 'dangerous position.'"

  "How so?"

  "You would have played an active part in the revolution," Delgano said. "If Outline Blue failed, and for some reason you could not leave the country, you would almost certainly be one of the dozen or so officers who faced the most se-vere consequences."

  "You mean, they would shoot me?" Clete asked. "Just for loaning you an airplane?"

  "For flying the airplane to Campo de Mayo, and because you are your fa-ther's son," Delgano said, waited long enough for that to sink in, and then went on. "Your execution by Castillo's people under such circumstances would be- is-a real possibility."

  "Is?" Clete thought aloud.

  "So, on General Rawson's authority, it was decided that I would 'borrow' your airplane at Santo Tome, and leave you there. Two things, of course, made that impossible. You arrived in an airplane that I could not fly by myself, and you had your 'passengers' and their cargo with you."

  "If I had known about this," Clete said, "I would have thought twice about bringing Captain Ashton and his people with me."

  "Well, what is the expression? That's water under the dam. The reality I had to deal with is that you arrived at Santo Tome with an airplane I could not fly by myself, and with your passengers and the cargo aboard."

  "OK," Clete said, and waited for Delgano to go on.

  "I made a decision at Santo Tome," Delgano said, "without consulting with el Coronel Porterman, but on my own authority. Based on the facts that I had somehow to get the airplane to Campo de Mayo, that I could not do so alone, and that I could not leave your passengers and their cargo with the Second Cavalry, I decided that everybody would leave Santo Tome and that en route I would ask you to divert to Campo de Mayo."

  "Ask me?"

  "Insist."

  "How insist?" Clete asked, aware that he was getting angry.

  Delgano shrugged, making it clear he was sure Clete knew what he was talking about.

  "En route, I decided that brandishing a pistol would not only be melodra-matic but probably impractical. Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez would certainly try to stop me, for one thing. In any event, I decided that attempting to take con-trol of the airplane would be at best risky. It would also have been dishonorable on my part."

  "If you asked me to divert to Campo de Mayo, I would have flown there," Clete said.

  "Knowing that your 'passengers' would certainly be interned the moment we landed?"

  "They weren't interned at Posadas."

  "I needed you to fly the airplane out of Posadas," Delgano said. "If they ap-peared at Campo de Mayo, they would have been arrested."

  "So now what?"

  "The situation is now in your hands," Delgano said.

  "In other words, you're asking if I will fly the airplane to Campo de Mayo?"

  Delgano nodded.

  "Aware of what I said before," Delgano said. "That doing so constitutes more than simply ferrying an airplane."

  "Sure," Clete said. "I promised you the airplane. I'll deliver it. A deal's a deal, Delgano."

  "Thank you. I really thought that would be your reaction. On my part, un-less asked directly, I will not report that we made a passenger stop here."

  "Thank you."

  "I am, of course, honor bound to inform Coronel Martin. But I don't think that will be a problem for you. He already knows about your radio station, and I'm sure understands the mission of the second OSS team. If he wanted to shut you down, he could have done so before now."

  Clete nodded.

  "What about the people at Posadas?" Clete asked.

  "I may be wrong, but I don't think they will have anything to say. They know nothing except that you and I took on fuel and some unidentified passen-gers at Posadas in connection with Outline Blue. They may have thought that Captain Ashton's accent was odd, but he spoke Spanish-and you speak Spanish like an Argentine-and they have no reason to suspect that any of you are norteamericanos."

  "And Colonel Porterman?"

  "If the airplane appears at Campo de Mayo, he will presume that any prob-lems we faced were solved. He took my word that your passengers and their cargo do not pose any threat to Argentina. He was a friend of your father's. He wishes you no harm."

  "OK, Capitan," Clete said, putting out his hand to Delgano. "We have a deal. Now let's get the aircraft unloaded, and then we'll take it to Campo de Mayo."

  As Clete was walking Delgano through the preflight check of the Lockheed, Tony Pelosi arrived in the 1941 Studebaker Clete had seen at the radio station. Chief Schultz drove up fifteen minutes later at the wheel of a Model A truck.

  Ettinger, Clete decided, is probably monitoring the radio.

  Then he sensed that something was not as it should be. Neither the Chief nor Tony smiled when they came up. The reverse. They both looked uncom-fortable.

  "Where the hell is my brass band?" Clete asked.

  "Ettinger took off," Tony blurted.

  "He did what?"

  "He took off."

  "Took off to where?" Clete asked.

  Tony looked uncomfortably at Delgano, visibly wondering if he should continue talking in the presence of an Argentine.

  "I have two men here who were supposed to keep Sergeant Ettinger on the estancia," Delgano said.

  "How much does this guy know?" Tony blurted.

  "He knows the Germans are trying to kill Ettinger," Clete said.

  "He probably went to Uruguay," Chief Schultz said.

  "What the hell for?"

  "The Chief thinks it's got something to do with the message where you told Graham the name of the German in Montevideo," Tony said.

  "How did he see that?" Clete asked furiously.

  "That's my fault, Cle... Major," Tony said. "Ettinger was awake when I started to encrypt it. The Chief was asleep. Ettinger's better with that than I am. So, instead of fucking it up, or waking the Chief, I asked Ettinger if he would do it."

  "Jesus H. Christ, Tony! I can't believe you were that stupid!"

  "Neither can I, now," Tony said. "Anyway, the next morning, he wasn't there. He left this for you."

  Tony handed him a sheet of paper, on which Ettinger had typed:

  Clete:

  I think I can put Bagman's name together with a couple of names I already have. If I can, we'll have just about all the pieces of the chain identified.

  I hope your flight went smoothly. See you soon.

  Dave

  Clete read it, and then looked at Pelosi.

  "I was going to Uruguay to look for him," Pelosi said. "But the Chief said he thought I'd better wait until you got back."

  You ever hear about looking for a needle in a haystack, Tony?

  Delgano suddenly made an imperious waving "come here" motion in the direction of the tree line behind a hangar. A gaucho stepped out of the trees and walked quickly toward them.

  "Who's that?" Chief Schultz asked.

  "I told both of you I didn't want Ettinger to leave the estancia," Clete said coldly.

  Looking about as uncomfortable as Tony and the Chief, the gaucho ap-proached Delgano and almost came to attention.

  "S¡, Se¤or?"

&n
bsp; "The norteamericano?"

  "He left the estancia three nights ago, mi Capitan."

  "We know that. Where is he?" Delgano demanded impatiently.

  "He took the car ferry to Montevideo that same morning, mi Capitan."

  "You had people on him all the way to the boat ferry?"

  "S¡, Se¤or."

  "And presumably the borders are being watched? We would know if he has returned?"

  "S¡, Se¤or."

  "Presumably, mi Mayor," Delgano said, "Sergeant Ettinger is in Montev-ideo. I did not have authority to send any of my men across the border."

  "You tell me what you want me to do, Mr. Frade," the Chief said.

  "I don't know what the hell to do," Clete said.

  "I can be in Montevideo in the morning, if I leave now," the Chief said.

  "We don't know where the hell he is in Montevideo," Clete said. "If he got that far before the Germans got to him."

  "Clete, I'm sorry," Tony said.

  "You goddamned well should be, Tony!"

  Jumping on Tony's ass isn't going to do any good. The sonofabitch in this is Ettinger himself.

  If he gets his throat cut, it's his own goddamn fault!

  I don't mean that.

  What the hell am I going to do ?

  Oh, yeah!

  "Captain Ashton and his team, and the radar, are in the hangar," Clete said. "Get them and their stuff out of here. Our priority is to get that radar in place and set up."

  "What do we do about Dave?" Tony asked.

  "I'll deal with Dave," Clete said. "You two make yourself useful to Captain Ashton."

  "Aye, aye, Sir," the Chief said.

  "I'm sorry, Clete," Tony said.

  "You said that," Clete said somewhat unkindly, and then turned to Delgano. "I have to make a telephone call," he said. "It won't take long."

  Delgano was obviously curious, but asked no questions.

  Clete called the office number, the first of the three numbers Leibermann had given him.

  The man who answered the telephone did so by reciting the number called in Spanish.

  "This is Cowboy," Clete said. "I need to talk to him right now."

  "Can he call you back?" the man said, still speaking Spanish.

  "No."

  "Hold on," the man said, now in English.

  A long ninety seconds later, Milton Leibermann came on the line.

  "So how's things out in the country, Tex?"

  "Ettinger is in Uruguay. Probably Montevideo."

  "I thought he planned to stay in the country?"

  "So did I. Do you have any friends in Uruguay who could be useful?"

  "You're not going over there yourself?"

  "I wish I could, but I can't get away."

  "You wouldn't want to tell me why not?"

  "You remember that party we talked about?"

  "The big one? All the important people?"

  "Right. I've been invited. Under the circumstances, I can't turn down the invitation."

  "You will tell me all about the party, won't you, Tex? Just as soon as you can?"

  "What are we doing here, making a deal?"

  "You could put it that way."

  "OK, Milton. Deal."

  "Just for the record, Tex, I would have gone anyway," Leibermann said, and the phone went dead.

  [THREE]

  2035th U.S. Army Air Corps Support Wing

  Porto Alegre, Brazil

  1325 18 April 1943

  The pilot of the Douglas R5-D took his microphone from its cradle on the con-trol yoke, checked to see that his transmitter was set on the correct frequency, and depressed the transmit switch.

  "Porto Alegre, Navy Seven Niner Niner Seven."

  "Go ahead, Seven Niner Niner Seven."

  "Niner Seven passing through seven thousand estimate twenty miles north-west your station. Approach and landing, please."

  "Niner Seven, you are cleared for a straight-in approach to Runway One Seven. I say again One Seven. Ceiling and visibility unlimited. The winds are from the south at fifteen, gusting to twenty. The barometer is two niner niner. Re-port when passing through five thousand and when you have the field in sight."

  "Niner Seven understands One Seven."

  "Niner Seven, that is a Roger."

  "Porto Alegre, please advise your base commander we have a Code Six aboard."

  "Wilco, Niner Seven."

  The staff car-a 1942 Chevrolet sedan-assigned to Colonel J. B. Wallace, U.S. Army Air Corps, stopped at the side of the Base Operations building. The driver, a young, crew-cutted sergeant, jumped out. He went quickly to the trunk and removed a checkered flag rolled around a length of aluminum pipe. Un-rolling the flag as he walked, he went quickly to the front of the Chevrolet and inserted the pipe into a holder welded to the bumper. The purpose of the check-ered flag was to increase the chances that pilots of taxiing aircraft would see the Chevrolet and not run over it.

  Then he quickly slipped back behind the wheel, drove onto the tarmac in front of Base Ops, and waited for the Navy Transport that had just landed to turn off Runway One Seven and taxi to the Base Operations building.

  After it did that, ground crewmen pushed a flight of stairs up to the door of the aircraft.

  "Drive over there," Colonel Wallace ordered.

  "Yes, Sir."

  The sergeant drove to the rolling stairs, then jumped out and opened the rear door for Colonel Wallace.

  Colonel Wallace tugged at the skirt of his green tunic, adjusted his leather-brimmed cap-to signify his status as an active pilot, he had removed the crown stiffener from it-tucked his riding crop under his arm, and stood near the foot of the stairs to officially greet the Code Six passenger that Naval Air Transport Command flight 404, Panama-Brazil, had reported aboard.

  A Code Six was a Navy captain, or an Army (or Marine) colonel. Colonel Wallace believed that an officer who had achieved such a high rank, and was bearing the enormous responsibility that went with it, was entitled to the cour-tesy of being greeted by someone of equal rank when arriving at a military base. If an incoming aircraft, when asking for landing permission, did not volunteer the information that they did-or did not-have colonels or general (or flag) of-ficers aboard, the Porto Alegre tower was instructed to inquire.

  The passenger door-within the much wider cargo door-opened, and a Ma-rine colonel stepped out onto the landing at the head of the stairs. He immediately turned to the aircraft, and someone inside handed him two leather suitcases.

  "Take care of the Colonel's luggage," Wallace ordered, and his driver went quickly up the stairs, saluted, took the suitcases, and motioned for the Colonel to descend the stairs.

  Wallace stepped to the foot of the stairs, removed his riding crop from un-der his left arm, and touched the brim of his cap with it.

  "Welcome to Porto Alegre," he said with a smile.

  The Marine colonel returned the salute. He wore, as Marines did-Wallace thought it was a fine idea-the silver eagles denoting his rank both on the epaulets of his tunic and on the points of his collar.

  "Thank you," he said.

  The Marine colonel was not wearing any ribbons to indicate where he had served, or what, if any, decorations for valor or outstanding performance he had earned. Colonel Wallace thought the wearing of ribbons should be mandatory, and he did not like to hear them referred to depreciatingly as fruit salad.

  "I'm Colonel J. B. Wallace, commanding," Wallace announced.

  "Just the man I'm looking for," the Marine said. "My name is Graham."

  "How may I be of service, Colonel?"

  "You can point me in the direction of the nearest head," Graham said. "And then I would like a few minutes of your time."

  "I guess the Officers' Club is as close as anyplace," Wallace said, gesturing toward his car. "Unless you would prefer, Colonel, to let me have you set up in the VIP quarters?"

  "The Club would be fine, thank you," Graham said.

  "Can I still find something to eat h
ere?" Graham asked when he had come out of the restroom and joined Wallace at a table in the barroom.