W E B Griffin - Honor 2 - Blood and Honor

by Blood

  "Who's Savaronna?"

  "He was Castillo's Minister of Labor," Lauffer furnished, and then went on: "We expected something like that might happen, Coronel Mart¡n predicted it. The only thing that's changed is that General Ramirez has ordered us to move now."

  "Instead of when?"

  "Instead of tomorrow morning," Lauffer said. "I thought you read Outline Blue."

  "Not that carefully."

  "And under the circumstances, General Rawson feels that we should make sure the airplane will be ready. Just in case it's needed."

  Clete had put on clean underwear, stockings, and a clean shirt. He stood looking at the closet where Enrico had hung up his clothing. He had his choice of a business suit or the riding breeches and boots he wore flying the Lockheed into Campo de Mayo.

  "I don't think my diplomat's uniform is the appropriate uniform of the day," he thought aloud.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Nothing," Clete said, and reached for the riding breeches.

  "I don't know whether you will feel comfortable with these," Lauffer said when Clete had finished-with a loud grunt-pulling on his riding boots. "But General Ramirez said I should offer them to you."

  Lauffer extended to him a blue-and-white armband, together with two safety pins and an envelope. Clete opened it. It contained a single sheet of paper:

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  Campo de Mayo

  19 April 1943

  Se¤or Cletus Howell Frade is in the service of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Argentina, acting under the direct orders of the undersigned.

  Ramirez

  Teniente General Pedro P. Ramirez

  Minister of War

  Provisional Government of the Republic of Argentina

  Rawson

  General de Division Arturo Rawson

  Presidente of the Governing Council

  Provisional Government of the Republic of Argentina

  The point of his crack about being comfortable with these is that I turned down that temporary commission.

  Clete took his tweed jacket from its hanger, laid it on the bed, and pinned the blue-and-white-striped armband to it. He put it on, then looked at Lauffer.

  "'Rawson's the new President, huh?"

  "Until elections can be held," Lauffer said.

  Or until they stand us all in front of a wall wearing blindfolds and offer us a last cigarette, right? Whichever comes first?

  Enrico came into the room, wearing what apparently was the prescribed uniform for field service. This included a leather harness ringed with well-pol-ished leather clip holders for a rifle, a well-polished molded holster for his.45, and a cavalry saber in a scabbard.

  "You have one of these armbands for him?" Clete asked.

  Lauffer handed Enrico an armband. When it became apparent that Enrico was going to have trouble pinning it on without taking his jacket off-and that meant also unstrapping his leather harness and belt-Clete took it from him and pinned it on for him.

  "I have a car outside," Lauffer said.

  "Your pistol, Se¤or Cletus?" Enrico said.

  "Well, we can't forget that, can we?" Clete said, and bent over and took the pistol from where he had stored it under the bed.

  In a Marine Pavlovian reflex, he ejected the magazine, pulled the action back, saw that the chamber was empty, let the slide go forward, lowered the hammer, and replaced the magazine. Then he looked at the pistol.

  What the hell am I supposed to do with this? Not only don't I want to shoot anybody with it, but I don't have a holster.

  He remembered that Enrico often carried his pistol in the small of his back. He could not work the pistol under his waistband until he had loosened his belt.

  There is a very good chance that this thing will slip down my ass, into my pants leg, and clatter noisily onto the ground. What I should do is just leave it here.

  But I don't really want to do that.

  Lauffer was waving him through the door.

  A 1940 Chevrolet, painted in the Argentine shade of olive drab, was parked by the curb outside the building. The driver held open the door and saluted as Clete, Lauffer, and Enrico squeezed into the backseat. That was not easy, and both Enrico and Lauffer had trouble arranging their sabers.

  The two soldiers with Thompsons squeezed into the front seat beside the driver.

  It must be even more crowded up there with those tommy guns.

  Fifty-round drum magazines, too.

  I wonder if either of those kids knows how to shoot a Thompson?

  Here lies Major Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, who survived Guadalcanal but died in a South American revolution when he was shot by mistake by a nervous seventeen-year-old who didn't know that unless you let go of the trigger, the Thompson will keep shooting.

  The driver turned on the headlights and started off.

  "Turn off the lights!" Lauffer ordered sharply.

  "Why?" Clete asked as the lights faded.

  "We want to mobilize with as much secrecy as possible," Lauffer said seri-ously, and as if the question surprised him.

  Don't you think that Castillo has somebody out here with orders to report immediately when anything out of the ordinary happens?

  The Chevrolet crawled to the end of the block and turned right onto a row of two-story barracks.

  All the lights in the barracks were on, and soldiers were sleepily forming ranks in the street.

  Clete, with effort, said nothing about lights in the barracks.

  Five minutes later, they reached the airfield.

  The guard detail there was under the command of a nervous infantry ma-jor who ordered everybody out of the car. He examined the interior with the aid of a flashlight, and did not seem at all happy with the document signed by the President of the Governing Council of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Argentina and his Minister of War vis-a-vis a Se¤or Cletus H. Frade.

  Finally, however, he passed them through the barricade-fifty-five-gallon drums set in the middle of the street-into the airfield property.

  The lights inside both hangers were on, and so were the floodlights mounted on the hangers to illuminate the parking ramp. Clete saw a half-dozen small airplanes, including two Piper Cubs and a Fieseler Storch-that's proba-bly the one Mart¡n came to the estancia in. The others he thought were English, but he wasn't sure.

  There were also what looked like two platoons of infantrymen, in field gear, armed with Mauser rifles, standing at ease in ranks, with their officers, in riding breeches and high-crowned brimmed caps, standing in front of them, hands on their swords, smoking cigarettes and trying to look calm and noncha-lant.

  Not one of these guys, including Lauffer, has ever heard a shot fired in anger.

  I don't see any bigger airplanes. Are those half-dozen puddle jumpers all they keep out here ?

  "I don't see any larger airplanes than those Piper Cubs and the Storch," Clete said, making it a question.

  "The bombers and transport aircraft are on maneuvers in Tucuman Province," Lauffer said.

  "When did that happen?" Clete asked.

  "Four days ago," Lauffer said. "Coronel Mart¡n advised General Ramirez that the Air Service was not in sympathy with the G.O.U. General Ramirez then ordered them to Tucuman Province," Lauffer said.

  Well, that explains why it was so important to get the Lockheed here, doesn't it? No Lockheed, no way out.

  "You think they will stay there?"

  "We hope so. Orders were issued at midnight to detain their commanding officers until further orders."

  The Chevrolet stopped by the side door of the closest hangar. Everybody got out of the car.

  "There are supposed to be men here to push the airplane from the hangar," Lauffer said. "But something may have gone wrong, and they may not have ar-rived. We may have to push it ourselves."

  What's wrong with those infantrymen? Why can't they push the airplane out of the hangar?

  Capitan Delgano, in civilian clothing and weari
ng a blue-and-white-striped armband, walked out of the hangar.

  I wondered where you were.

  He then had another thought.

  "Roberto," he asked finally, and carefully. "Am I allowed to make a com-ment, a suggestion?"

  "Of course," Lauffer said.

  "Everybody seems a little nervous," Clete said.

  "I think that's to be expected, don't you?" Lauffer replied a little stiffly.

  "I was thinking that everybody is already wondering what that Lockheed is doing here in the first place. What I mean is that somebody has probably al-ready figured out it's intended to fly Rawson and Ramirez and the others out of here if this thing goes wrong."

  "I'm sure that thought has occurred to some people," Lauffer said.

  "Roberto, the moment we roll that airplane out of the hangar, and I start the engines, everybody's going to think the revolution is over and our side lost."

  "Why would they think that?"

  "That's what I would think if I were them," Delgano said, nodding at the in-fantrymen.

  "What do you suggest, Mayor Frade?" Lauffer asked formally.

  "Have you had the tanks topped off?" Clete asked.

  Delgano nodded.

  "Then there's no point in rolling it out of the hangar and making anybody nervous. If we need it, we can roll it out then."

  "General Rawson ordered me to make sure the aircraft is ready," Lauffer said.

  "Tell him it's ready, Delgano," Clete said. "All we need to get it out of here is to open the hangar doors." He thought of something else. "It would also be nice if I knew where we're going. Or don't you trust me with that information?"

  "You will be informed when-" Lauffer said.

  "Asuncion, Paraguay," Delgano interrupted. "It's thirteen hundred kilome-ters. Would you like to see the flight plan I laid out?"

  "If Capitan Lauffer thinks I can be trusted with it," Clete said. "I would like very much to see it.

  "It's inside," Delgano said, gesturing in the direction of the hangar.

  When they started to walk toward the hangar door, Clete saw the infantry officers watching carefully.

  Fifteen minutes later, after checking Delgano's flight plan and walking him through another preflight check, they came out of the hangar. When they did, there was visible relief on the faces of the infantry officers.

  But Lauffer was not through.

  "You do not wish to test the aircraft's engines? Could that be done inside the hangar?"

  "Not without opening the doors," Clete said. "The prop blast would very likely knock the doors off their tracks and then you'd never get it out of the hangar."

  "I'll go to General Rawson and tell him that it was my decision not to roll the aircraft from the hangar," Delgano said. "If that's what you'd like."

  Lauffer considered that a moment.

  "I think it would be best if Se¤or Frade did that," he said. "I suggest that you stay here and hold yourself in readiness."

  "Whatever you say, Capitan," Delgano said, his tone suggesting that he was at least as disappointed with Lauffer as Clete was. Lauffer seemed more inter-ested in making sure no one could criticize his actions tonight than anything else.

  [TWO]

  Officers' Casino

  Campo de Mayo

  Buenos Aires Province, Argentina

  0225 19 April 1943

  The muzzles of what looked like.30-caliber air-cooled Browning machine guns poked from upstairs windows in the Officers' Casino (which was what the Ar-gentine Army called their Officers' Club). There were two sandbagged machinegun positions on the lawn of the club, and there were a number of soldiers- mostly noncoms-guarding the door who looked as if they knew what they were supposed to do with their rifles and submachine guns.

  The capitan in charge of the building's guard detail would not pass Lauffer, Clete, and Enrico into the lobby of the building until one of his lieutenants had gone inside the building to "check with el Coronel Per¢n."

  They got inside as far as the door of what looked like the Main Dining Room, converted now to the command post where Ramirez and Rawson were directing the coup d'‚tat, before they were stopped again to wait further clear-ance.

  Clete looked inside, and decided that while this place looked like a com-mand post-there were maps on the wall; batteries of telephones; messengers coming and going and the like-there was something about it that reminded him of the command post training exercises he'd gone through during his offi-cer's training. Then the aviation cadets had played at being squadron and air group commanders and staff officers, and solemnly pretended they knew what they were doing. There was somehow the same flavor here. Everybody seemed to be playing a role, and only a few people seemed to act as if they really knew what they were doing.

  El Coronel Juan Domingo Per¢n himself, in an immaculate, splendidly tai-lored uniform, finally approached the door and waved them inside.

  "There is a problem with the aircraft?" he asked.

  "It will be available on five minutes' notice," Clete answered.

  Per¢n looked at Clete and then at Lauffer, his attitude making it clear that he wasn't interested in what Clete had to say.

  "Is the aircraft available?" Per¢n asked.

  Screw you, Coronel!

  "Se¤or Frade thought it best not to take the aircraft from the hangar," Lauf-fer said.

  "What?" Per¢n asked indignantly.

  "I thought it better to leave it in the hangar... ," Clete began, and stopped when he saw General Rawson walking toward them.

  "Is there a problem?" Rawson asked.

  "No problem," Clete said. "The aircraft is available on five minutes' notice. It will take me that long to get it out of the hangar and warm the engines."

  Rawson looked at Clete with his eyebrows raised questioningly.

  "My thought, General," Clete said, "was that-"

  "Lauffer, why did you bring Se¤or Frade here?" Per¢n interrupted.

  "Excuse me, Coronel," Clete said, "I was speaking to the General."

  Per¢n glared at him. Rawson made a face and then gestured for Clete to continue.

  "If we rolled the airplane out of the hangar and started the engines, it might give people the idea we were about to use it," Clete said. "Which seemed to me to be both unnecessary and unwise."

  Rawson considered that a moment, then said, "You're right. I should have thought of that."

  Per¢n's face tightened, but he didn't offer a comment.

  "Capitan Delgano is with the airplane?" Rawson asked.

  "S¡, mi General," Lauffer said.

  "Coronel Per¢n and I are about to have a final word with Coronel Tarramanno of the First Cavalry," Rawson said. "Outline Blue calls for them to be-gin their march at two-thirty. I suggest that you stay here with Capitan Lauffer, Se¤or Frade, in case we need you."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "With a little luck, we won't, but I'd like to have you available," Rawson said. "Take a look at the situation map. And if you have any other thoughts, please give them to me."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Per¢n's face was now as stiff as a board.

  "Your car is outside, Roberto?" Rawson asked.

  "S¡, mi General."

  "Then we'll use it," Rawson said. "Let's go, Coronel."

  The Situation Map was actually a collection of maps, all taped to a sectional sliding wall normally used to break the large dining room into smaller rooms. In the center were large maps of Argentina, one showing the upper half of the country, and the other the lower.

  On the maps flag pins located both provincial capitals and military bases. The pins were either black or red, and Clete wondered about the significance of the colors until he spotted a blue-and-white pin on the map of the upper half of Argentina, looked closer, and saw that it marked Campo de Mayo.

  The blue-and-white flag pin obviously identified locations under control of the revolutionaries.

  So far, there's only one blue-and-white flag.

  Confirmation of the m
eaning of the flag pins came almost immediately, when a lieutenant stepped to the map and replaced the black pins that marked Santo Tome and the Second Cavalry post outside Santo Tome with blue-and-white pins.

  Obviously, word had just come in that the Second Cavalry had not only joined the revolution, but had taken over the city of Santo Tome.