Honor Bound

by W. E. B Griffin

  “And that the way you stay alive in combat is by making on-the-spot decisions what to do when unexpected things come up, things that were not covered in your training. You stay alive by thinking on your feet. You’ve proved you can do that.”

  “But I still don’t know anything about taking out ships.”

  “You’ve proved that you can think on your feet. You would be qualified for this job if your father didn’t exist.”

  “I feel like I’m going to find myself up to my ass in alligators,” Clete blurted.

  “You will be,” Graham said, smiling. “But you’ll be all right. If I didn’t think you would, I wouldn’t be sending you down there.

  “You might want to consider taking your car with you,” Graham said, changing the subject. “You’d be expected, I think, to do that.”

  “How do you know about my car?”

  “Your grandfather told me,” Graham said. “I told you, he’s been very helpful.”

  “How would I get it down there?”

  The idea of sending his car—a Buick convertible, as it happened—anywhere by ship, in wartime, came as a shock. The car belonged to another life, a life that ended when he went into the Corps.

  “I would recommend E.L.M.A.,” Graham said matter-of-factly. “It stands for Empresa Líneas Marítimas Argentinas. They have direct service between New Orleans and Buenos Aires.”

  He saw the look of surprise or confusion on Clete’s face, and added: “Argentina is neutral. Both we and the Germans scrupulously observe that neutrality. We don’t sink Argentinean flagged ships, and neither do they.”

  “And who’s going to pay for shipping my car?” Clete asked as that thought passed through his mind.

  “Howell Petroleum. We will reimburse them, of course. And we will reimburse them for your Howell Petroleum salaries and living allowances. Technically, you’re supposed to turn back to the government any excess over your military pay and allowances, but I don’t know of anyone in the OSS who has actually done that.”

  “If my grandfather thinks we’re going down there to kill Argentines, I’m sure he’d be willing to underwrite all costs,” Clete said.

  “I did get the feeling that he’s not overly fond of your father,” Graham said.

  Clete looked at him and smiled.

  “I really hope, Clete, that you won’t have to kill anyone,” Graham went on. “Killing people makes things sticky. And no matter what, just make sure of the main thing—if it comes down to your team having to do it—make sure that Pelosi and Ettinger keep the replenishment ship—ships—from replenishing German submarines.”

  “How am I going to know where those ships even are? Where will I get the explosives?”

  “The briefing team will cover most of that, and Nestor will be helpful, once you’re there.”

  Clete shook his head and shrugged.

  “Colonel, I really hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I believe we do. I’m sure you’ll live up to our expectations. Actually, telling you that was the main reason I wanted to see you before you go down there, the reason I ordered the refueling stop here.”

  “That sounds suspiciously like a pep talk.”

  “I hope so. That’s what it’s supposed to be,” Graham said. “And now that that’s done, I’d better get going.”

  He stood up and put out his hand. Clete got belatedly to his feet.

  “One more thing, to answer the question I suspect has been running through your mind: No, you would not be more useful flying for the Corps. This is more important.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good luck, son,” Colonel Graham said, shook his hand, and walked out of the lounge. Clete watched him go, and was surprised when he reappeared almost immediately.

  “I’m going to need a ride to the airport,” Graham said, somewhat sheepishly. “Can you call a cab for me?”

  “I’ve got a car,” Clete said. “I’ll take you.”

  [FOUR]

  35 Beerenstrasse

  Berlin/Zehlendorf

  1530 29 October 1942

  Hauptmann Freiherr—Captain Baron—Hans-Peter von Wachtstein swore when he saw a Feldgendarmerie (Military Police) roadblock barring access to the Avus, a four-lane superhighway leading into Berlin. The line of cars they were holding up was long. This translated to mean they were not only checking the vehicles to ensure the trip was authorized, but also the people in the cars to make sure they had proper documents. The check would take twenty minutes, perhaps longer.

  Von Wachtstein—his friends called him “Peter”—was a blond, blue-eyed, compact young man of twenty-four who was the commanding officer of Jagdstaffel 232 (Fighter Squadron 232). Peter slowed and started to pull to the left to enter the line of waiting cars, then changed his mind.

  “I am, after all, on official business,” he said aloud.

  He drove the Horche convertible sedan along the line of parked cars. A Feldgendarmerie Feldwebel, holding a stop sign on a short pole, stepped imperiously into the roadway and signaled for him to stop. He held up the sign and waved his free hand, palm out.

  Von Wachtstein applied the brakes as he rolled down the window. The Horche started to skid on the icy cobblestones of the entrance road. The Feldgendarmerie Feldwebel jumped out of the way. The Horche finally came to a rest, cocked on the road.

  Peter immediately opened the door and stepped out; the one thing he didn’t need was an annoyed Feldgendarmerie Feldwebel. That could keep him out here all afternoon.

  “Are you all right?” Peter asked, hoping he sounded genuinely concerned.

  The Feldwebel was annoyed, but he saw that he was dealing with an officer (and Peter was sure he had taken into account that the car was a Horche, and probably that the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross was hanging around his neck). He managed a tight smile as he saluted.

  “The one thing wrong with a Horche is that they are as unmanageable on ice as a cow,” Peter said, returning the salute with a smile. He reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and extended both his identity card and the teletype from the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (General Headquarters, Air Force), which ordered Hauptmann von Wachtstein to present himself as soon as the press of his duties permitted, but no longer than forty-eight hours from the time the message had been sent, to the office of the Chief of Protocol.

  “A magnificent vehicle, Herr Hauptmann,” the Feldwebel said. “Is it yours?”

  “My father’s,” Peter said.

  “And your father is?”

  “Generalmajor Graf von Wachtstein.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. The car had been Karl’s. Peter had been using it ever since word came that the eldest of the three von Wachtstein sons had laid down his life for the Führer and the Fatherland in some unknown Russian village. But Karl, his father’s namesake, had been only an Oberstleutnant (a lieutenant colonel); and Feldgendarmerie Feldwebels could be counted upon to be far more impressed with a Generalmajor than an Oberstleutnant.

  “Thank you, Herr Hauptmann,” the Feldwebel said, returning Peter’s identity card and the yellowish sheet of teletype paper. He turned and blew a small brass whistle. Peter had seen and heard them before; they reminded him of children’s whistles.

  “Pass the Herr Hauptmann,” the Feldwebel called loudly, then turned back to Peter and saluted. “Drive carefully,” he said. “All Berlin is a sheet of ice.”

  “Thank you for your courtesy,” Peter said, and stepped back into the Horche.

  The encounter made him feel a little better. Among people like the Feldwebel, there was still something left of their old attitude toward their betters, a certain respect.

  Driving reasonably carefully, it took him fifteen minutes to reach Sven Hedin Strasse in Zehlendorf, where he stopped the car and looked across the small park there—its grass had been raped to build a bomb shelter—toward the house, actually a small mansion, at 35 Beerenstrasse.

  Now that he was in Berlin, it was clearly his duty to t
urn off Sven Hedin Strasse onto Onkel Tom Allee and drive the three or four kilometers to Luftwaffe Headquarters and present himself to the Chief of Protocol for whatever nonsense that idiot had in mind.

  On the other hand, the teletype had said “no later than forty-eight hours” from the date-time seal on the message, and that gave him until 10:05 tomorrow morning. He’d been a soldier long enough to learn that one never reported in more than five minutes before the specified time.

  Furthermore, the house at 35 Beerenstrasse was occupied by a lady he’d recently met. The lady was a film actress at the UFA studios. She and some other women, a small band, and a juggler, of all things, visited the small field in the country where Jagdstaffel 232 was based in order to entertain the troops. Afterward, Hauptmann von Wachtstein considered it his duty to ask the troupe to dinner in the officers’ mess. The lady’s husband, who identified himself as a member of Propaganda Minister Goebbels’s staff in the Propaganda Ministry, sat on one side of him, and the lady on the other.

  The lady’s husband was an overfed, pompous little man, obviously some fifteen or twenty years older than his wife, who would probably have been still selling stamps in some rural post office had he not had the wisdom to join the National Socialist Party before the Austrian Corporal came to power.

  The moment he saw the lady, a tall, graceful blonde with a splendid bosom, Peter sensed that she found him attractive. Proof came at dinner, when her knee, then her shoe, and ultimately her shoeless foot came looking for him under the table.

  He of course asked her for the privilege of the first dance after dinner. Though the dance was brief, it gave her opportunity to rub her bosom against him and to suggest that he come see her the next time he came to Berlin.

  “Alois is very often out of town on Propaganda Ministry business,” she told him.

  Of course, it was possible that she may have had more to drink than she should have (she liked his cognac very much). Or, for that matter, she might simply have been teasing him. So Peter approached her invitation with understandable caution.

  One of the great shocks of his life occurred a year before, when he learned that what appeared to be an unquestioned invitation in the eyes and attitude of a stunning redhead was really nothing more than a desire for him to betray interest in her. That way she could complain to her husband and remind him that she was still attractive.

  He put the Horche in gear, turned toward Onkel Tom Allee, and then made two left turns back toward Beerenstrasse.

  The door was opened by a gray-haired woman. She was not in uniform, but she was clearly a servant.

  “I am Hauptmann Freiherr von Wachtstein,” Peter announced. “Is Frau Nussl at home?”

  Nussl was her husband’s name. Professionally, the lady was known as Lillian Hart.

  “I will see,” the gray-haired woman announced, and closed the door in his face.

  Frau Nussl appeared three minutes later.

  “God, I was afraid you’d do this,” she greeted him.

  Peter was prepared. He’d learned from the painful mistake with the redhead.

  “I’m visiting Berlin on official business, Frau Nussl,” he announced formally, and thrust a paper-wrapped parcel at her. “I hope you will accept this as a small token of the gratitude of the officers and men of Jagdstaffel 232 for your kindness in visiting us.”

  Laughing, she took the parcel and said, “Come back at five, or five-fifteen,” then closed the door in his face.

  Peter, sensing that his face was flushed, returned to the Horche and headed again for Onkel Tom Strasse.

  What I will do tonight, after I see the Protocol idiot, is go to the Hotel Adlon. The Knight’s Cross is usually enough to motivate some patriotic fräulein there to visit your room for its view.

  The way my luck is running, there will be no rooms in the Adlon. Maybe the Hotel am Zoo. The one thing I will not do is be back at 35 Beerenstrasse at five or five-fifteen.

  “Is that the only uniform you have with you, von Wachtstein?” Oberst Howze asked, annoyance in his voice.

  “Herr Oberst, I regret that it is. The teletype said nothing about uniforms.”

  “You are having luncheon at the Foreign Ministry tomorrow,” Howze said. “That uniform is inappropriate. Something will have to be done.”

  “Herr Oberst, if I may?” Oberstleutnant Huber said.

  Oberst Howze nodded.

  “May I suggest, Herr Oberst, that under the circumstances, his uniform may be very appropriate. It is the uniform worn by officers who are flying every day against the enemy. In that sense, it may be viewed as a token of respect for the late Hauptmann Duarte; that we are taking a man from the lines, so to speak, as a token of our respect.”

  Oberst Howze grunted.

  “At least get your trousers pressed and get rid of those boots,” Howze said to Peter.

  “Yes, Sir. Herr Oberst, may I inquire?”

  “All I know, von Wachtstein, is that if you pass muster at luncheon tomorrow, you will be traveling to Argentina as the Assistant Military Attaché for Air. And escorting the body of an Argentine who killed himself at Stalingrad, flying a Storch.”

  “Sir…”

  Howze held up his hand impatiently to stop him.

  “It will all be explained to you tomorrow, von Wachtstein,” he said, and added to Oberstleutnant Huber, “Go with him. Make sure he has at least decent shoes. He can’t have luncheon at the Foreign Ministry in flight boots!”

  At almost exactly five o’clock, after failing to obtain an explanation from Oberstleutnant Huber either about the luncheon or about Argentina, Peter went back to the Horche, dropped a new pair of low quarter shoes from the Officers’ Sales Store onto the passenger seat, and drove out of the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe complex.

  The more he thought about it, the chances of his finding a room at either the Adlon or the Hotel am Zoo seemed remote. If he’d had a couple of days to telephone ahead, it might have been different. That left taking a room in one of the smaller hotels around the Zoo, or off the Kurfürstendamm. They catered these days to a warm-sheets clientele; but that would be all right, in a pinch. Or he could go to the bar of one of the better hotels, and with luck he might find a patriotic fräulein with an apartment. Or as a last resort he could take her to a small hotel. But that would not solve the problem of the pressed trousers.

  There was, of course, always Frau Nussl. She had said to come back.

  Her maid! Certainly her maid could press my pants!

  He drove back down Onkel Tom Allee and ultimately to 35 Beerenstrasse.

  This time Frau Nussl herself opened the door to him.

  “I couldn’t have you in with Frau Leiss here,” Frau Nussl greeted him.

  “I understand,” Peter said.

  “The cognac is marvelous!” Frau Nussl said. “I started without you, the minute she was out of the door.”

  “I have a friend in Paris who sends it to me,” Peter replied idly, and then asked, “Your maid is gone, I take it?”

  “You seem disappointed,” Frau Nussl said.

  “I have to have my trousers pressed,” Peter said.

  “Really?”

  “Really. Is there a cleaner’s shop nearby?”

  “It’s probably closed,” she said. “But there’s an iron somewhere. All we have to do is find it. Can you do it yourself?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s probably in one of the closets upstairs, it and the board,” she said. “Let’s go see. One of those lovely bottles of cognac is already up there.”

  There was, in fact, a small but completely equipped linen closet. Peter set up the folding ironing board and plugged the iron in.

  Frau Nussl handed him a snifter generously served with cognac.

  “I’d offer to do that for you, but I honestly don’t know how,” she said.

  “Is there a robe or something I could borrow? You lose the crease unless you let them cool for fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  “That I can a
rrange,” she said, and went down the corridor.

  Peter took a healthy swallow of the cognac and felt it warm his body.

  Argentina? Assistant Military Attaché for Air? Accompanying a body? What the hell is going on?

  Frau Nussl returned with a heavy silk robe.

  “It’s Alois’s. Almost unworn,” she said. “When he puts it on, it drags on the floor.”

  “It’ll do fine,” Peter said. “It won’t take me long. Thank you.”

  He closed the door, took his trousers off, and laid them on the board while he waited for the iron to grow warm.

  The door opened.

  “I wondered,” Frau Nussl said, “what you would look like without your pants.”

  Frau Nussl had changed into a dressing robe.

  “Oh, really?”

  “And I thought you just might be idly curious to see what I looked like without mine,” Frau Nussl went on, flicking the opening of her gown back and forth to give him, however briefly, that opportunity.

  “Won’t that wait?” she asked. “Isn’t there something I could do to get you to put that off for a while?”

  “You just did it,” Peter said, and unplugged the iron.

  IV

  [ONE]

  The Diplomatic Reception Room

  The Foreign Ministry of the German Reich

  Berlin

  1205 30 October 1942

  “There he is,” Wilhelm von Ruppersdorf, Deputy Foreign Minister for South American Affairs, said softly to the three men sitting with him at a small table, and rose to his feet.

  The others followed suit. Hauptmann Hans-Peter von Wachtstein looked toward the door. A uniformed guard was leading a tall, dark-haired, and dark-skinned man in a business suit across the marble-floored reception area toward them.

  Von Ruppersdorf took a few steps forward, smiled, and put out his hand.

  “Buenas tardes, mi Coronel,” he said.

  Von Ruppersdorf’s Spanish, Peter had learned three quarters of an hour before, was impeccable. He had served for three years at the Embassy in Buenos Aires, he informed Peter then.

  The tall, dark-skinned man smiled, showing a handsome set of teeth, and shook von Ruppersdorf’s hand.