W E B Griffin - Honor 1 - Honor Bound

by Honor Bound(Lit)

  Clete said nothing. He sometimes felt a little disloyal that he couldn't share the old man's passionate loathing for his father. Based on his grandfather's frequent recounting, over the years, of that chapter of Howell family history, he understood the old man's hatred: He held el Coronel Frade accountable for the death of his only daughter. But Clete's mother died when he was an infant, and he had no memories of his father.

  That's about to change. I'll certainly meet him in Buenos Aires. And he probably won't have horns and foul breath. But he is obviously a sonofabitch of the first water. I've never known the old man to lie. And Uncle Jim and Aunt Martha have silently condemned him as long as I can remember. Both believed, and practiced, the principle that unless you can say something nice about someone, you say nothing. Anytime I asked them about my father, they answered with evasion and a quick change of subject.

  If nothing else, it should be interesting to finally see the man- how does the Bible put it?-from whose loins I have sprung.

  Been spranged?

  He smiled, just faintly, at his play on words.

  Clete saw in the old man's eyes that he had seen the smile, and hoped it wouldn't trigger anything unpleasant, The old man looked at him intently for a moment, then turned to the butler.

  "Jean-Jacques, would you please call the Monteleone and see if you can get Mr. Ettinger on the line for Mr. Cletus?"

  Clete took a healthy sip of his Sazerac.

  It is true, he thought, that the only place you can get one of these is here. Strange but true. You can take all the ingredients with you, right down to Peychaux's Bitters-as I did to Pensacola-but when you make one, it's just not a Sazerac.

  He looked up at his mother's portrait and had a thought that disturbed him a little: Jesus, she looks just like the brunette in Beth's sorority house, the one I think I could have jumped.

  "I have Mr. Ettinger for you, Mr. Cletus," Jean-Jacques said, handing him the telephone.

  "Ettinger?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "This is Clete Howell."

  "Yes, Sir. I was told that you would be arriving about now."

  "Is there anyone else there?"

  "No, Sir. There was a telegram several hours ago, saying that the... people from Virginia... will be here tomorrow morning. And I was told that Lieutenant Pelosi will be on the Crescent City Limited tomorrow. He'll be coming here. I don't know about the others."

  "Have you made plans for dinner?"

  "No, Sir."

  "Good, then you can have it with my grandfather and me. Would eight be convenient?"

  "Sir, I don't want to impose."

  "You won't be. Can you be in the lobby at eight, or maybe outside, if it's not raining?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "You have civvies?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Wear them," Clete said.

  "I was told to, Sir."

  "And one more thing, Ettinger... David... from here on out, we will dispense with the military courtesy."

  "Yes, S- All right," Ettinger said.

  Clete thought he heard a chuckle.

  "Eight o'clock," he said, and hung up.

  Cletus Marcus Howell nodded his approval.

  "Jean-Jacques, would you please tell Samuel we will need the car at seven-forty? And then call Arnaud's and tell them I will require a private dining room, for three, at about eight?"

  "Yes, Sir," Jean-Jacques said.

  "And finally, Mr. Cletus has left his luggage in his car. Would you bring it in and unpack it for him, please? And, as soon as you can, see to having his dress uniform pressed, or cleaned, or whatever it takes?"

  "Mr. Cletus's car is in the carriage house, Mr. Howell," Jean-Jacques said. "His luggage is in his room. Antoinette's already taking care of his laundry, and she heard what you said about painting Mr. Cletus's picture, so she's already working on the uniform."

  "Thank you."

  "Can you think of anything else, Cletus?"

  "I think I would like another Sazerac, Jean-Jacques, if you could find the time."

  "If you fill yourself with Sazeracs, Cletus, you won't be able to appreciate either the wine or the food at Arnaud's."

  "Grandfather, I am prepared to pay that price."

  "You might as well fetch two, please, Jean-Jacques," the old man said.

  "Yes, Sir," Jean-Jacques said. He turned and started out of the room. When his face was no longer visible to the old man, he smiled and winked at the young one.

  [FOUR]

  Schloss Wachtstein

  Pomerania

  1515 1 November 1942

  Generalmajor Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein, wearing a leather overcoat over his shoulders, walked into the library and found his son slumped in an armchair facing the fireplace, a co-gnac snifter in his hand.

  "It's a little early for that, isn't it, Peter?" he asked, tossing the overcoat and then his brimmed uniform cap onto a library table.

  Hauptmann Hans-Peter von Wachtstein turned and looked at his father but didn't reply or stand up. After a moment, he said, "I've just come from turning over my staffel."

  "You're celebrating, then? Peter, I really wish you hadn't started drinking," the Graf said.

  "I'm all right, Poppa. A little maudlin, perhaps, but sober. I was just telling myself I should be celebrating. But it doesn't feel that way."

  "My father once told me that the best duty in the service is as a Hauptmann, in command of a company. In your case, a staffel. Giving up such a command is always difficult. Perhaps you should consider that it was inevitable..."

  "Inevitable?"

  "You would have had to turn it over when your majority comes through; and that should be, I would think, any day now. With a little luck, before you go to Argentina."

  "I had the most disturbing feeling, as a matter of fact," Peter said, "particularly afterward, when we all had a cognac in the bar, that it was a funeral, or a wake, that we were all seeing each other for the last time."

  "I've had a bad day, a bad week, myself," Graf von Wacht-stein said.

  "I brought Karl's car out here," Peter said, changing the sub-ject. "I didn't know what to do with it. I thought perhaps you might want to use it."

  The Graf picked up the bottle of cognac and found a glass.

  "Now that I think about it," Generalmajor von Wachtstein said, "one of these might be in order." He raised the glass. "To your new assignment."

  "Thank you. Did you hear what I said about the Horche?"

  "I might as well use it, I suppose," the Graf said. "Otherwise it will be taken for the greater good of the German Reich. Fer-rying some Nazi peasant's mistress to the opera, for example."

  Peter grunted. "You must have had a bad week."

  "The Luftwaffe has not been able to-will not be able to- provide von Paulus's troops at Stalingrad with a tenth of the sup-plies he needs. But when this is brought to the attention of the Austrian Corporal, he replies, in effect, 'Nonsense, Goering has given me his word, the supplies will be delivered.' "

  "And you were the bearer of those bad tidings?"

  "No. Fortunately not. Unser Fhrer is made uncomfortable by people like me. I have been reliably informed that he has said that the Prussian officer class are defeatists to the last aristocrat."

  Peter laughed. "Aren't you? Aren't we? There's no way we can win this war, Poppa."

  "I really hope you are careful to whom you make such obser-vations."

  "I'm talking to you, Poppa. The war was lost when we were unable to invade England," Peter said. "Perhaps before that, when we were unable to destroy the Royal Air Force."

  "I think we should change the subject," Graf von Wachtstein said. "Have they told you when you're going?"

  "They are having trouble with the corpse," Peter said. "Or the casket for the corpse. They have to line it with lead, which apparently comes in sheets. But the Foreign Ministry can't seem to find any lead in sheets. They are working on the problem; I have been told to hold myself in readiness."

&n
bsp; "And are you ready?"

  "There is of course a rather detailed list of the uniforms a military attach‚ is required to have. I have been given the nec-essary priorities for such uniforms. Unfortunately, priority or no priority, there does not seem to be the material available in Berlin. The Foreign Ministry is working on the problem."

  "Perhaps you could have them made in Buenos Aires. It is a major city; there are military tailors, I'm sure. And God knows, they have woolen material. We buy it from them by the shipload. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone were making woolens dyed to Luftwaffe specifications there."

  "Dress-uniform specifications?" Peter asked. It struck him as unlikely.

  "If I were a Luftwaffe procurement officer," Generalmajor von Wachtstein said, "I think I would make sure that when unser grosse Hermann wanted yet another dress uniform, the material would be available." Unser grosse Hermann-Our Big Her-mann-was Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Commander of the Luftwaffe, and a man who was more than generously large.

  Peter chuckled.

  "Buttons and insignia might be a problem," Generalmajor von Wachtstein went on, in his usual thorough manner. "Make sure you take that sort of thing with you. Including major's insignia."

  "Jawohl, Poppa."

  "Don't mock me, Peter, please. These details are important. The last thing we want is to have you sent back here because the military attach‚ decides you are unsuitable for the assignment."

  "Sorry," Peter said, genuinely contrite. "I'm sure there will be tailors. Oberst Per¢n painted a fascinating picture of Buenos Aires for me."

  "Who?"

  "Argentine Oberst Juan Domingo Per¢n. He's attached to their embassy over here studying our welfare programs. He's a friend of the family of the Duarte fellow. I met him at the Foreign Ministry, and I've had dinner with him. He called me up."

  Generalmajor von Wachtstein nodded, then dismissed the Ar-gentine officer as unimportant.

  "Peter, we have to talk about money," he said.

  "A delicate subject, Poppa. One the son is glad the father brought up first. From what I'm told, Buenos Aires is a very expensive place to live. It was put to me that I would have dif-ficulty making ends meet, and that it was hoped I could somehow augment my pay."

  "That's not what I'm talking about," his father said. "But tell me about it. Would that be permitted?"

  "I think encouraged," Peter said.

  "Did you have the feeling there would be a limit on how much money you could take to Argentina?"

  "I had the feeling that the more you'd be willing to give me, the better they would like it."

  "Pay attention to me," the Graf said sharply.

  "Sir?" Peter responded, surprised at his father's tone, and baf-fled by his question.

  "There is money, Peter. A substantial amount here, most of it in English pounds and Swiss francs, and an even more substantial amount in Switzerland, in a bank. Actually, in two banks."

  Peter was now genuinely surprised. Simple possession of cur-rency of the Allied powers or neutral countries was a serious offense. Maintaining bank accounts out of Germany was even more stringently forbidden.

  "This war will pass," the Graf said, now sure that he had his son's attention. "This government will pass. We, you and I, will pass. What is important is that the family must not die, or that we, the family, don't lose our lands. We have been on these lands for more than five hundred years. My duty-our duty-is to see that we do not lose them. If we lose the war, and I agree we cannot win it, we will lose our lands... unless there is money. Not German money, which will be devalued and useless, but the currency of the victors, or a neutral power. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "First, the money in Switzerland. The accounts there are num-bered. I am going to give you the numbers. You must memorize the numbers. When you are settled in Argentina, I want you to have the money transferred there from Switzerland, secretly, and put somewhere safe, where we will have access to it after the war."

  "How will I do that?"

  "Von Lutzenberger will probably be able to help, but we can't bank on that."

  "Ambassador von Lutzenberger?" Peter asked. Someone had given him the name of the German Ambassador to Argentina during the last couple of days, but he hadn't expected to hear it from his father.

  "He's a friend," his father said. "But you would do well to consider him your last reserve, Peter, not to be used until you are sure you can't deal with a situation by yourself, without help."

  "But he knows about your money?"

  His father nodded, then corrected him. "Not my money, Peter. Von Wachtstein money. Money that has come down to us from our family, with the expectation that it will be used wisely and for the family."

  Peter nodded, accepting the correction.

  "A good man. We were at Marburg together. And he has as much to risk as we do. But keep in mind, Peter, that a situation may come where he will have to make a sacrifice for the common good, and you might be that sacrifice."

  "How is it you never told me about any of this?"

  "Because your possession of the knowledge would place you in jeopardy. If they found out you knew about it, you would be as culpable as I am. Your Knight's Cross notwithstanding, you would wind up in a concentration camp."

  Peter blurted what came into his mind: "But what if you had died? What would have happened to the money then?"

  "Dieter von Haas and I have an arrangement. If anything hap-pened to me, he would have told you. If anything happens to him, I will inform Frau von Haas of the similar arrangements he has made."

  Peter looked at his father for a long moment.

  "I'm not good at memorizing numbers," he said. "I never have been."

  "Then write the numbers down, make them look like telephone numbers or something. And then, to be sure, construct a simple code," the Graf von Wachtstein said, a touch of impatience in his voice. "One or two digits up from the actual numbers. Some-thing like that."

  "Yes," Peter said simply.

  "About the cash here," the Graf went on. "Do you think you will be searched when you leave the country?"

  Peter thought about that for a moment.

  "No," he said. "The body will be accompanied by an honor guard as far as the Spanish border. I don't think anyone will search me. And the moment I cross the border, I will have dip-lomatic status."

  He looked at his father.

  When I leave here, he thought with a sudden chilled certainty, I will never see him again.

  "I think it would be best if you took the money with you when you return to Berlin tomorrow. They may solve the problem of sheet lead for the casket, and you might not be able to come back here. And I wouldn't want to be seen passing anything to you at the train station. Do you have someplace safe to keep it? Where are you staying in Berlin?"

  "With a friend, in Zehlendorf."

  "Better than a hotel," the Graf said. "Well, I'll write the num-bers down for you, and while you're copying them into a code, I'll get the money. And then we'll see about finding something to eat."

  "You know what I would like for supper, Poppa?" Peter said. "I'd like to go into the gasthaus in the village and have sausage and potatoes and beer."

  Generalmajor Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein looked at his son. His left eyebrow rose.

  "Yes, Peter, I think I would too," he said after a moment.

  Chapter Five

  [ONE]

  The Vieux Carre

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  1955 1 November 1942

  It was still raining when the 1938 Durham-bodied Cadillac pulled to the curb across the street from the Monteleone Hotel in the Vieux Carre. Clete wiped his hand on the window to clear the condensation.

  "There he is. He even looks like the picture Graham showed me," Clete said.

  He started to open the door. His grandfather stopped him. He had a microphone in his hand.

  "Samuel, the gentleman we are meeting is standing to t
he left of the..."

  Clete took the microphone from him.

  "Samuel, pull up in front of the hotel. Don't get out of the car. I'll call to him."

  "Have it your way," the old man said, then leaned across Clete to look out the window he had cleared. "He doesn't look like a Jew."