Honor Bound

by W. E. B Griffin

  Alicia Carzino-Cormano walked up to them.

  Remarkably beautiful young woman!

  “Cletus is here,” Alicia said to her mother, then turned to Frade: “I think he’s looking for you.”

  “Captain, this is my daughter, Alicia,” Claudia Carzino-Cormano said.

  “Hauptmann Freiherr von Wachtstein at your service, Señorita.”

  Isabela Carzino-Cormano walked up and smiled dazzlingly at Peter.

  “I don’t believe I have the privilege of this gentleman’s acquaintance,” she said.

  Frade, ignoring her, took Peter’s arm.

  “Perhaps you would like to meet my son,” he said.

  “Jorge, damn you!” Claudia said. “How much have you had?” Then she turned and smiled at Peter. “And my other daughter, Capitán, Isabela,” Claudia said.

  “Encantado, Señorita,” Peter said.

  Not nearly as beautiful as the sister.

  Frade tugged at his arm.

  “I have the privilege of the Herr Lieutenant Frade’s acquaintance, mi Coronel.”

  “The privilege of his acquaintance?” Isabela asked incredulously. “Isn’t he your enemy?”

  “I met him briefly,” Peter went on, “when enjoying the hospitality of your Guest House, mi Coronel.”

  Not briefly. We got drunk together. We were not enemies, but pilots talking about flying.

  “Though el Capitán and my son, Isabela,” Frade proclaimed, “are officers of opposing military services, they are first and foremost officers and gentlemen. They bear each other no personal animosity. Isn’t that so, Capitán?”

  “Sí, mi Coronel.”

  “That’s outrageous!” Isabela said. “The Capitán is agreeing with you to be polite.”

  Frade snorted.

  “Tell her, Capitán. She has her mother’s inability to conceive that she could possibly be wrong.”

  “No tea for you,” Claudia said. “Coffee. Several cups. Right now. You must again forgive el Coronel, Capitán. His behavior is inexcusable.”

  “Forgive me, Señora,” Peter said. “El Coronel is quite correct. I bear Herr Lieutenant Frade no ill will. In other circumstances, I feel sure we could become friends.”

  On the other hand, I am obviously perfectly willing to sit here with my finger in my ass doing nothing to warn him that he’s going to be murdered.

  But, of course, I can’t do that. From the moment Grüner told me his plans, I knew I wouldn’t be able to just let things happen. I will warn him.

  But how?

  Perhaps if I went to von Lutzenberger and told him, he would order Grüner to call off his thugs. But Grüner would certainly work out where von Lutzenberger got his information. And if von Lutzenberger decides that Cletus is expendable, and that I should just stay out of it, then I could not warn Cletus; Grüner and von Lutzenberger would both know I told him.

  And Grüner would call that “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”

  Enrico appeared.

  “Mi Coronel, there is a German officer looking for el Capitán. I put him in the small office off the library.”

  Grüner with the Knight’s Cross and the goddamned pillow, Peter thought.

  “I will take you to him,” Frade announced.

  “No, you won’t,” Claudia said. “You will stay here and have coffee. Alicia, would you please take el Capitán to the library?”

  Alicia took von Wachtstein’s arm.

  “Yes, of course, Mother,” she said, smiling sweetly at her sister.

  XVI

  [ONE]

  1420 Avenue Alvear

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  1430 19 December 1942

  Clete Howell wasn’t able to get anywhere near Aunt Beatrice’s house in the Buick. So he parked three blocks away. As he uneasily left the car, the maid’s lecture on crime in the streets of Buenos Aires was very much on his mind. Then he stood in line. When he reached its head, he encountered a polite but firm plainclothes policeman, who seemed deeply saddened to inform him that without an invitation he could not enter the mansion.

  Everything is going splendidly, Clete thought. Getting better and better every day in every way. Not only did that bastard Nestor as much as accuse me of cowardice for telling him the truth, but now they won’t let me into a funeral I don’t want to go to in the first place.

  The more he thought about flying a TBF down from Brazil to torpedo the Reine de la Mer, the more it seemed like a good idea…the best he could come up with.

  Or do I like it mostly because Nestor thinks it is a bad idea?

  Nestor was probably right when he said that the OSS brass decided against taking out the Reine de la Mer with a torpedo-carrying airplane…just as they must have turned down the idea of taking it out with a B-17 from Brazil.

  The problem with the B-17 is that it has a lousy record against shipping. And the TBF idea was rejected, in all probability, because it does not have the range to make it from wherever they are operating in Brazil to the Reine de la Mer in Samborombón Bay.

  It doesn’t. And since Uruguay is neutral, the brass obviously concluded that a TBF could not file a flight plan to an en route airport, where the pilot could sit down and tell the ground crew to top off the tanks, and then ask for the weather between there and Samborombón Bay. And the brass also understandably decided that it could not sit down on a dirt road somewhere in the middle of nowhere and get refueled. The landing gear of a TBF was designed for use on the paved runways of an airfield, or else on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

  But what it was designed for is not the same thing as what it is capable of doing. That was proved at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. Henderson was a hell of a lot rougher than the dirt road where the guy put down his Piper Cub—especially after the Japanese spent all night shelling it, and the holes were quickly and not too neatly filled in by Marine bulldozers.

  But the Cactus Air Force—including yours truly, on occasion—operated TBFs out of there just about every day. Even with a torpedo in its belly, I could sit a TBF down on that dirt road. Nice, long, slow approach to grease it in. And I only have to make that one landing.

  Or why not? Maybe two. After I put the torpedo into the Reine de la Mer, I could go back to the dirt strip, take on some more fuel, and fly back to Brazil. The second landing would be easier; the torpedo would be gone. God knows that would be better than jumping out over the estancia. I really don’t want to do that. Tony may think that parachute jumping is the next-greatest thing to sex, but it scared the hell out of me when I bailed out.

  Could I hit the Reine de la Mer? Why not? All you have to do is fly close enough so there’s no chance to miss. You’ve been shot at before; you just don’t pay attention to it. And I don’t think that people on the Bofors and the machine guns will have had much experience. A low-flying airplane has a much better chance against them than against Japanese gunners.

  I think I could reason with Colonel Graham about this, tell him I know what I’m talking about, and convince him that my idea stands a much better chance of working than anything else I can think of.

  The question then becomes, how do I get in touch with Colonel Graham? I can’t use commercial, Mackay or RCA, to send him a cable. Argentine Intelligence certainly reads commercial cables. And Nestor won’t let me use the Embassy’s communications or codes.

  That leaves the destroyer. “Good afternoon, Captain. I’m Lieutenant Frade of the Marine Corps down here on a classified mission, and I need your radios to complain about my orders.”

  Hell, just tell him the truth. Let him see the message to Colonel Graham. He may understand it and send it for me. Or he may think I’m some kind of lunatic and throw me off his destroyer. In which case, I’d be no worse off than I am now.

  The Alfred Thomas gets here Christmas Eve. I’ll be waiting for her. That’s the only real option I have, convincing her captain to let me get in touch with Colonel Graham.

  Do I really have the balls to fly close enough to her
to make absolutely sure the torpedo strikes? Into all that antiaircraft? Watching the TBF guys do that, I was perfectly willing to admit they had much bigger balls than I do.

  I don’t have any choice; that’s the only way…

  “This is the son of el Coronel Frade,” he heard Enrico indignantly announce to the plainclothes policeman who wouldn’t let him in. “He does not need an invitation!”

  Enrico led him into the reception hall, where an honor guard of the Husares de Pueyrredón stood guard at the corners of the casket.

  His father and his aunt and uncle were nowhere in sight. They were probably in the library. He decided against trying to find them. Uncle Humberto’s “why Jorge and not you” look made him very uncomfortable.

  A hand touched his arm.

  “Cletus!” Dorotea Mallín said.

  He turned to her. She kissed his cheek, really kissed it, not the air kiss American women give to casual acquaintances. As she came close to him, her breast pressed against his arm.

  Jesus Christ, don’t do that! Even if you don’t know what you’re doing.

  He next accepted a kiss from Señora Mallín, then a kiss from the Mallín boy, Enrico—an Argentinean custom that bothered him a little. And he finally shook hands with Señor Mallín himself. Mallín smiled broadly, but Clete had a strange feeling that he was not nearly as delighted to see him as he claimed he was.

  “On our way here, we saw a Buick convertible,” Dorotea said. “A beautiful machine. Was that yours, Cletus?”

  “If it was parked three blocks away, it probably was.”

  “But you promised to take me for a ride just as soon as it arrived,” she pouted.

  “Soon, Princess,” he said.

  To judge by the look in his eyes, Big Ernie considers calling her “Princess” about on a par with calling her a Miña.

  “Tomorrow?” the Virgin Princess pursued.

  “Tomorrow, Dorotea, is out of the question,” Mallín said quickly. “You know we are going to Punta del Este this afternoon.”

  “I loathe and detest Punta del Este,” Dorotea announced.

  “And Señor Frade has more important things to do than take a young girl like you riding in his car,” Mallín added. “People would talk.”

  “Henry!” his wife protested. “What a thing to say!”

  “People can talk about me all night and all day, for all I care,” Dorotea said.

  “Perhaps when you come back from Punta del Este, Princess,” Clete said.

  Why the hell did I say that?

  “And I would love to have a ride in your car, Clete,” Señora Mallín said.

  “And myself as well,” Little Henry said.

  “Certainly,” Clete said.

  “If you will excuse us, Señor?” Mallín said. “I see your aunt. We should pay our respects.”

  “I will telephone the moment we come back from Uruguay,” Dorotea said, and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek again, thereby once more pressing her breasts against his chest.

  Oh, Jesus Christ, I wish you wouldn’t do that, Princess!

  “You will see, Pamela,” Mallín said, “that she does no such thing.”

  Pamela de Mallín winked at him.

  A moment later, Enrico came out of a corridor, followed by Peter von Wachtstein, with Alicia Carzino-Cormano holding his arm, an arrangement both seemed to find delightful. Isabela trailed along behind them, looking more than a little unhappy.

  Unhappy, Clete thought, as in pissed, because Alicia is on Peter’s arm, where she realizes she doubtless wants to be…rather than playing the role she’s chosen for herself as the grief-stricken near-fiancée of the late Captain Duarte.

  When Clete’s eyes met his, von Wachtstein changed course.

  “Buenos días, Teniente,” he said.

  “Mi Capitán,” Clete said. “That’s quite a uniform. And the Señoritas Carzino-Cormano, what a joy it is to see you again!”

  Alicia smiled warmly; Isabela icily. Neither said anything.

  “Your father, Teniente, has been explaining to the Señoritas Carzino-Cormano and her mother that while we are officers of opposing military forces, we bear each other no personal ill will. I thought I would greet you to make that point.”

  “In other words, Señoritas,” Clete said with a slow grin, “while it would give me the greatest of professional pleasure to shoot el Capitán down, I would hope to do so while smiling with warm affection at him.”

  “Precisely,” Peter said. “But I would be unhappy in such an encounter because it would be ungentlemanly of me to take advantage of an inferior foe.”

  “We will have to try it sometime,” Clete said. “In a spirit, of course, of friendship and professional admiration, mi Capitán.”

  “Teniente, I would not have it otherwise.”

  “El Capitán is a credit to the officer corps,” Clete said.

  “How kind of you, Teniente, to say so.”

  “De nada, mi Capitán.”

  It occurred to Isabela Carzino-Cormano that they both were mocking her. For a moment, Clete thought she was about to storm away angrily, but she didn’t. Her smile, however, became even more icy.

  “I saw your little friend around here a moment ago,” she said. “I can’t imagine what happened to her.”

  “What little friend?” Peter asked.

  I think you’re crocked, Peter. And now that I’ve thought about that, that cloud of fumes around you is not eau de cologne.

  “I think, Señorita Carzino-Cormano,” Clete said, “that it was time for the lady in question’s bottle. But I appreciate your interest in my personal life.”

  Hauptmann Freiherr von Wachtstein bowed and clicked his heels.

  “It has been a pleasure to see you again, Teniente,” he said. “But now duty calls.”

  “The pleasure has been mine, mi Capitán,” Clete said.

  “Watch out for bandits coming out of the sun, Clete,” Peter said.

  He is crocked. Why else would he say something like that? And why the hell is he shitfaced now? At this hour, and with all the brass around?

  “What did you say?” Isabela asked.

  “I will try, mi Capitán,” Clete said.

  “We always say, in the Luftwaffe, that it is the ones you don’t see that get you,” Peter said.

  “We say much the same thing in the Marine Corps,” Clete said. “And that has been my personal experience.”

  Peter made another curt bow of his head and clicked his heels, and let Alicia lead him to the library. Clete saw Enrico waiting for them there.

  [TWO]

  Wearing a splendiferous uniform complete with saber, el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade appeared then, under the firm control of Señora Carzino-Cormano.

  “Cletus, what are you doing standing out here?” Claudia demanded. “Your place is with the family.”

  “Probably counting his blessings,” Frade said, and before Claudia could stop him, went on. “I rather hoped you would wear your uniform with your decorations.”

  “I don’t have my uniforms with me,” Clete said.

  “Pity,” he said. “I took the trouble to look it up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Corps of Marines dress uniform is splendid.”

  He’s crocked too. Is that the local custom? Is this thing going to be sort of an Argentinean Irish wake?

  “Come with us, Cletus,” Claudia said, taking his arm and leading them both across the room.

  [THREE]

  The Basilica of St. Pilar

  Recoleta Square

  Buenos Aires

  1325 19 December 1942

  In the ecumenical belief that any religion is better than none, when Martha Howell was for some reason unavailable to drag Clete and the girls to Midland’s Trinity Episcopal Church, she permitted Juanita the housekeeper to drag them to the Roman Catholic parish known in Midland as the Mexican Catholic Church. Clete was therefore no stranger to a Roman Catholic mass celebrated by Spanish-speaking clergy.

  It w
as, however, his first high requiem mass; and while he expected the ceremony to run long—the personal participation of the Cardinal Archbishop brought at least five other bishops, an abbot, and a platoon of other magnificently robed clergy to the Basilica—he never imagined it would go on as long as it did.

  Everyone was seated European style on hardback chairs. He was seated in the third row from the altar. The other chairs in the first rows were occupied by the other members of the family, and by dignitaries of church and state. For the first forty minutes or so of the mass, he studied their uniforms and regalia with a mild interest, and then he wondered where the Virgin Princess was sitting.

  Both Big Henry and Little Henry Mallín walked in the ranks behind the caisson after they carried Jorge’s casket out of the house, but he didn’t see Dorotea there or her mother.

  The women bring up the rear in this society. I wonder how Claudia Carzino-Cormano puts up with that.

  Answer: She gets no gold stars to take home to Mommy for perfect attendance at mass.

  There was a mirror behind the choir. Its function, Clete knew from painful experience, was to permit the choir director, the organist, and the priest to observe which of the choirboys was at that moment offending the dignity of the House of God and taking that first step down the slippery path to hell.

  From where he was sitting, it reflected the rows of chairs just behind his.

  Reflected there, her mother beside her, sat the Virgin Princess, a black lace shawl modestly covering her head.

  Just before he came to understand that she was mouthing something to him—meaning she could obviously see his reflection, too—he was enjoying an erotic fantasy in which the Virgin Princess was wearing her loosely woven shawl and nothing else.

  She is obviously paying no more attention to the Cardinal Archbishop than I am, and as obviously staring directly at me as I am staring directly at her. So what the hell is she saying with those exaggerated motions of those soft beautiful lips?

  “I love you”…?

  Oh, shit, Cletus, you’re letting your imagination run wild. She wouldn’t do that. You have given her no reason to believe that you consider her anything but a child. It is absolutely absurd to imagine that when she—twice—rubbed her breasts against you, it was anything but innocent. So what else could her lips be saying?