Empire and Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

  “No.”

  “Yes. I mean it. Get used to it. You don’t have a choice. Think it through and you’ll see I’m right.”

  Frade turned and walked out of the room.

  “Shit,” Jimmy said aloud.

  He started again to undress. He had his shoes and necktie off and was unbuttoning his shirt when the door opened again.

  “Now what?” he snarled, then raised his eyes and saw it was Marjie.

  “Jesus Christ!” he said.

  “No. Not even the Virgin Mary.”

  “What the hell do you want?”

  “I thought you could use a little tenderness.”

  “Marjie, get out of here.”

  “Relax. Clete didn’t see me come in.”

  When he didn’t reply to that, she added, “Not that I really care.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “There’s something I think I should tell you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like when we first got word that you’d been attacked, but nobody knew what happened to you. My reaction to that.”

  “Which was?”

  “‘Oh, my God, he’s dead and I never got to tell him I love him. That I’ve always loved him.’”

  “Weren’t you listening when I told you about Elsa? And the other things I’ve done?”

  “Okay. Let’s get that out of the way. If you ever do something like that again, or even think about doing something like that again, I’ll cut off your dingus and feed it to the hogs.”

  “You never had hogs on your spread, Squirt, and we never had them on ours. So how do you know that hogs would eat it?”

  “Maybe with mustard? Or sauerkraut?”

  “You’re crazy. Absolutely bonkers.”

  “I think you’re supposed to be crazy if you’re in love,” Marjie said, and then asked, “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

  He did so.

  When they broke apart, he said, “Jesus H. Christ, Marjie!”

  “My God, you stink! What have you been doing, eating garlic?”

  “That’s the smell of terror. I get it when I’m flying airplanes—and when people shoot at me.”

  “Go take a shower,” she ordered. “Right now. I’ll wait.”

  He tried to kiss her again. She avoided him.

  “And so will that have to wait,” she said.

  —

  Jimmy had just finished soaping his armpits for the fourth time and was wondering what was the best way to go back into the bedroom—With a towel around my waist? Or maybe I could open the door a crack, stick my hand out, say my underwear is in the top drawer of the dresser and would she please hand it to me?—when the glass door of the shower opened and Marjie joined him.

  “I got tired of waiting,” she said.

  She was naked.

  —

  “I wondered if that was true,” Marjie said about six minutes later.

  “You wondered if what was true?”

  “They say that when a man takes a virgin to bed, afterward there’s blood on the sheets.”

  She pointed and he looked and there was indeed a bloody stain.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head and kissed him as she ran her fingertips down his face.

  “No, but thank you for asking.”

  And then she had a second thought: “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  She slipped out of bed and trotted to the bathroom.

  When she came out, she was in her underwear, and thirty seconds after that had her skirt and sweater on and was slipping her feet into her loafers.

  She went to the door, and turned.

  “Wait a couple of minutes,” she said, blew him a kiss, and then went through the door.

  Well, she seems to have taken this in stride.

  Won’t people be able to tell, just looking at us?

  Jesus Christ, I didn’t use a rubber!

  What if I made her pregnant?

  You hear all the time about pregnant girls who did it just once.

  He swung his feet out of bed. As he did, he saw the bloodstain.

  Maybe if I left my razor and shaving cream on the sheet the maid will think I cut myself shaving.

  [SEVEN]

  When Jimmy went in the dining room, Father Welner was there. When the priest saw Jimmy, he quickly stood and went to him.

  “Let me have a minute, my son,” Welner said, and took Jimmy’s arm and led him out a door into a corridor.

  “I heard what happened. Are you all right, my son?”

  “Yes, sir. They missed.”

  “I mean, all right about taking the lives of those four men. Are you disturbed about that?”

  “Jesus Christ! They were shooting at me. What was I supposed to do?” He paused. “Sorry about the language.”

  “You feel you had no choice, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then I’m sure God will understand. Bless you, my son.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  —

  When Jimmy went back in the dining room, Martha Howell waved him to an empty seat at the table beside her. Marjie was sitting next to the empty seat.

  “Are you okay, Jimmy?” Martha Howell asked when he had taken the seat.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m fine.”

  “We were wondering what happened to you. You were gone a long time. I was getting worried.”

  “I’m fine, Miz Howell.”

  “Good,” she said, and patted his hand.

  Jimmy felt the sole of Marjie’s foot running up and down his calf.

  When he looked at her, she smiled.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked innocently. “For some reason, I’m starved.”

  There was a pinging noise.

  Jimmy looked at the head of the table. Cletus was tapping his knife on a wine bottle.

  When he thought he had everyone’s attention, he said, “General Nervo just sent word from the barrier at the foot of the hill. He wants everybody to be on the veranda when his convoy arrives here. I figure that will be in about five or so minutes.”

  “What’s that all about, my darling?” Doña Dorotea asked.

  “I have no idea, my love. But I treat him the way I treat you. When he asks me to do something, I give him the benefit of the doubt and do it.”

  —

  The first vehicle to appear was a gendarmerie Ford pickup truck carrying a half-dozen heavily armed gendarmes. Second in line was General Nervo’s Buick Roadmaster.

  I guess they met on Route 60, Frade thought, and Nervo reclaimed it.

  The third vehicle in line was another gendarmerie pickup. Strapped to a chair in the bed was Captain Guillermo O’Reilley. Three more gendarmerie pickups followed it.

  “What’s that all about?” Father Welner said. “I don’t care what that fellow has done, he should not be humiliated that way.”

  “I think his humiliation is what General Nervo wants, Father,” General Martín said.

  The convoy stopped with the pickup carrying Captain O’Reilley directly in front of the steps to the Casa Montagna veranda, and the Buick just in front of it.

  Captain O’Reilley, who could move nothing but his head, quickly examined the two dozen or so people on the veranda, and then looked straight ahead.

  Nervo’s driver opened the rear door of the Buick. Nervo and Nolasco got out. They walked onto the veranda, greeting first Father Welner, then moving to the women, then everybody else and finally Clete, Jimmy, Martín, and Garcia.

  The two gendarmerie officers greeted each of them effusively.

  The entire process took perhaps three minutes but it seemed longer.

  Finally, Nervo pointed to Captain O’Reilley.

  “That’s one of yours, General,” he said to Martín. “He said that as an army officer he’s not required to answer questions posed by the gendarmerie.”

  “That’s the chap you caught spying on us?”

&n
bsp; “That’s him.”

  “Get him out of there,” Martín ordered. “Perhaps he’ll tell me what you want to know.”

  Nervo gestured to two gendarmes, who then jumped into the bed of the truck, unstrapped O’Reilley, and walked him to the end of the bed and lowered him onto the ground.

  Martín gestured for him to approach.

  He began to do so, in tiny steps.

  “Why are you walking that way?” Martín asked.

  “They’ve tied my boot laces together,” O’Reilley proclaimed indignantly.

  “Standard gendarmerie procedure, General,” Nolasco said. “You can’t run very fast when your boot laces are tied together.”

  “I suppose that’s so,” Martín said.

  O’Reilley finally came close to Martín and came to attention.

  “You’ve forgotten how to report, Captain?” Martín asked.

  O’Reilley saluted.

  “Captain O’Reilley, Guillermo, Tenth Mountain, mi General.”

  “You recognize me, then?” Martín asked. “I’m not in uniform. Who do you think I am?”

  “Mi General, you are General de Brigada Bernardo Martín.”

  “And my assignment?”

  “Mi General, you are chief of the Bureau of Internal Security.”

  “What happened to your cap, Captain?” Martín asked, pointing to O’Reilley’s head.

  “It blew off in the truck, mi General.”

  “Perhaps you should have put it on more carefully. An officer should always be in proper uniform. What were you doing in the back of the truck, Captain?”

  “The gendarmes put me there,” O’Reilley said indignantly. “Mi General, may I have a word with you in private?”

  Martín considered that a moment.

  “Why not?” he said finally. “Put him back in the truck and take him to the officers’ mess.”

  O’Reilley saluted again and started to shuffle back to the truck. Nervo gestured to two gendarmes, who then caught up with O’Reilley, picked him up, carried him to the pickup, lowered the tailgate, and sat him in the bed, with his feet dangling.

  When the truck was halfway across the lawn and O’Reilley out of earshot, Frade asked, “What are you up to, Bernardo?”

  “To quote you, ‘I’m playing this by ear,’” Martín said. “Garcia, have you got that copy of La Nacíon?”

  “In my room,” Garcia said.

  “Please get it and then join us in the mess,” Martín said. “‘Us’ being Generals Nolasco and Nervo, plus Don Cletus . . . and Subteniente Cronley and Father Welner, now that I think about it.”

  “You sure you want to walk—hobble—all the way over there on your crutches?” Frade asked.

  “Think about it, Cletus,” Martín said. “Only a cretin would want to. One does what one must.”

  He began lurching across the lawn, and the others followed.

  [EIGHT]

  Captain O’Reilley had been installed in a chair facing the “senior officers” table in the mess.

  If that table wasn’t loaded with the stuff I brought from Kloster Grünau, Cronley thought, it would look like this room had been set up for a court-martial.

  All that’s missing is an American flag, a Bible, and the Manual for Courts-Martial 1928.

  And a couple of MPs.

  When Martín waved everybody into chairs at the table, Jimmy started to put the material in stacks.

  O’Reilley stood.

  “With respect, mi General, I asked for a moment of your time in private.”

  “I remember,” Martín said. “Perhaps a little later. You may stand if you wish, but you have my permission to sit.”

  O’Reilley sat down.

  “Frankly, O’Reilley, you puzzle me,” Martín then said. “I really can’t understand how an officer like you, with a fine record and a career to look forward to, got involved in something shameful like this.”

  “With respect, mi General, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The next time you lie to me, Captain,” Martín said conversationally, “one of General Nervo’s gendarmes will smash your left hand with his truncheon. If you’re unwilling to tell me the truth, it would behoove you to say nothing.”

  He let that sink in for a moment.

  “Is this the first time you’ve actually seen Don Cletus, O’Reilley?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You saw him while surveilling Casa Montagna? Or perhaps as he went up and down Route 60?”

  For a long moment it looked as if O’Reilley wasn’t going to reply, but then, as if he had carefully composed his reply before uttering it, he said, “I saw Don Cletus on several occasions while carrying out my lawful orders to report on any suspicious activity I saw here.”

  “Lawful orders from el Coronel Klausberger, you mean?”

  This time O’Reilley didn’t reply.

  “Who else could issue an order like that but el Coronel Klausberger?” Martín asked. “Or did this ‘lawful order’ come from someone else? And if so, whom?”

  It took a long time for O’Reilley to consider the answer he finally gave.

  “Yes, sir. I was ordered to surveille Casa Montagna by el Coronel Klausberger.”

  “And did el Coronel Klausberger order you to protect the SS men as they looked for, and ultimately found, a spot along Route 60 from which they could attack Don Cletus?”

  O’Reilley didn’t reply.

  “If I were in your shoes, O’Reilley, faced with the choice between lying and betraying your commander, I wouldn’t have answered that question either,” Martín said, almost kindly.

  “May I suggest, General,” Frade said, “that you tell the captain that in the failed attempt on my life, all of the SS men involved died?”

  “Don Cletus speaks the truth, Captain O’Reilley,” Martín said. “But I suggest it would not be wise for you to heave a sigh of relief because dead men tell no tales and thus you can’t be tied to them. We should know their identities shortly, in a matter of days.”

  Again there was no response from O’Reilley.

  “Cronley,” Martín said, “tell the captain how we are going to identify the SS men who tried to assassinate you and Don Cletus earlier today.”

  How the hell am I going to do that?

  He looked at Martín, who directed him with his eyes to the stack of dossiers Cronley was still in the process of straightening.

  “Yes, sir,” Jimmy said. “Actually it’s quite simple.”

  And I will explain how simple once I figure it out.

  “We have dossiers, like these,” Jimmy said, holding one up.

  “Who is ‘we’?” O’Reilley blurted.

  “The U.S. Army,” Jimmy answered.

  “Señor Cronley is Don Cletus’s liaison officer with the U.S. Army in Germany,” Martín clarified.

  “He’s an American officer?” O’Reilley asked incredulously.

  “Yes, I am,” Jimmy said. “We captured all the records of the SS, all their dossiers like this. They include photographs and fingerprints. Now as I understand how this is going to work, General Nervo’s people have photographed the people we killed and taken their fingerprints. The photographs and prints will be sent as priority cargo on SAA to Germany, where they will be matched with the SS dossiers. I think we’ll have answers in less than a week, and certainly in ten days.”

  Jimmy looked at O’Reilley and decided, to his genuine surprise, that O’Reilley wasn’t questioning anything he had said.

  “Thank you,” Martín said. “So, O’Reilley, these dead men will tell tales.”

  O’Reilley didn’t reply.

  “What I don’t understand, O’Reilley,” Martín said reasonably, “is why el Coronel Klausberger wanted to kill Don Cletus. He must know who he is.”

  “I am afraid I do not know what that means, mi General.”

  “Well, he’s one of el Coronel Perón’s closest advisers. You don’t know that? I’m sure Klausberger does.”


  “Sir, with respect, I find that very hard to believe,” O’Reilley said.

  “Garcia, you don’t happen to have that copy of La Nacíon, do you?” Martín asked. “Did you throw it away?”

  “Let me check my briefcase, mi General. But I’m almost sure I threw it away.”

  After a twenty-second search, Garcia said, “Well, I’ll be damned, here it is!”

  He handed the newspaper to Martín, who held it up to O’Reilley.

  “Recognize anybody standing with President Farrell and el Coronel Perón, Captain? On the balcony of Casa Rosada? How about Father Welner? Maybe Don Cletus?”

  O’Reilley’s genuine shock was visible on his face.

  “Why do you think, Captain O’Reilley, that el Coronel Klausberger wants Don Cletus dead—and el Coronel Perón, too? Were you aware an attempt was made on el Coronel Perón’s life?”

  “And your life, General,” Frade offered. “Attempts that nearly succeeded.”

  “I can’t imagine why he would want to do that,” Martín went on. “But it’s clearly not in the best interests of our beloved Argentine Republic.”

  “It looks to me, Captain,” Frade said, “that Colonel Klausberger has made a fool of you, appealing to your patriotism and your officer’s Code of Honor.”

  O’Reilley looked at him and after a long moment asked, plaintively, “What can I do now?”

  “You can go to President Farrell, my son,” Father Welner said, “and to el Coronel Perón and make a clean breast of everything. Perhaps they will be able to find it in their hearts to forgive you.”

  “How would I do that?” O’Reilley asked.

  “If you’re sure that’s what you want to do, we’ll fly you to Buenos Aires tonight,” Martín said. “Father Welner will go with you.”

  O’Reilley nodded solemnly.

  “It’s clearly my duty, mi General,” he said.

  [NINE]

  The interrogators went from the officers’ mess to the bar in Casa Montagna.

  Cletus Marcus Howell, Doña Dorotea, Martha Howell, Marjie, Beth, Alicia von Wachtstein, Elsa von Wachtstein, Karl Boltitz, and Willi von Dattenberg were sitting in small armchairs around a huge, circular table.

  Jimmy saw that Marjie was looking curiously at Elsa.

  To judge her reaction to me coming into the room?

  Hans-Peter von Wachtstein was behind the bar, opening a bottle of wine.