Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 01 - Honor Bound

Marianna? Oh. He means Se?ora Pellano. I never knew her first name. And now she's dead, because of my stupidity.

"I was very fond of her. I am ashamed she is dead."

Enrico met his eyes again.

"I have asked the Blessed Virgin to let Marianna know that you avenged her death, so that she may find eternal peace in the company of the angels, knowing you are alive and they are dead.”

"Until just now, I didn't know you and Se?ora Pellano were close," Clete said.

"She was my sister," Enrico said simply. "I will now protect your life, mi Teniente, with my own. But I would also very much like to kill some Germans myself. Do you perhaps have a name? Or names?"

Jesus, he means all of that. If anyone tries to kill me in here, it would have to be over his dead body. And if I gave him the German ambassador's name, he'd kill him. Or die trying.

Clete shook his head no.

"I'll work on this," Enrico said. "Honor demands that I also avenge her death, even if that is against mi Coronel's wishes. I will help you in any way I can, especially if it means I can kill Germans."

And he means that too.

"Thank you, Enrico," Clete said.

I wonder if that means he would let me go, let me escape from my father's protection.

Having said his piece, Enrico went on to immediate, practical matters.

"Mi Teniente, where is the telephone?"

"They took it out," Clete said. And then, curiously: "Who did you want to call?"

"I thought we would have coffee, and perhaps the newspaper, mi Teniente. We will be here a long time.”

"I could use something to eat."

"Bueno, I will take care of everything," Enrico said. He walked to Clete and held out the shotgun. "Mi Teniente is familiar with this shotgun?"

"Yes. I've got a Browning. They're about identical."

"It is loaded, and the safety is off, mi Teniente," Enrico said, and handed the Remington to Clete.

He walked to the door, pounded on it, and left the room. Five minutes later, he was back.

"Coffee and some pastry is on the way," he announced. He walked to the window. "It's locked," Clete said. Enrico looked at him and winked.

"The clowns in the corridor asked where I was going. I told them for breakfast, a telephone, and the key to the window. They told me I could have neither the key to the window lock," he held up a small key, "or a telephone."

He removed the padlock, opened the vertical blind three feet, and then opened the window. He whistled. Moments later, a telephone appeared outside the window; it was hanging on a cord. Enrico hauled it in, untied the cord, then closed the window and the vertical blind.

He plugged the telephone in, picked up the handset, listened for a moment, nodded his head in satisfaction, then unplugged the telephone and put it in the cabinet beside the bed.

"We will keep it there until we need it, mi Teniente," he said. "In case the clowns in the corridor become curious."

"How did you do that, Enrico?"

"The Suboficial Mayor of the hospital was in the Husares de Pueyrred?n when el Coronel and I were with the regiment. He was injured in a bad fall, and is on limited duty."

"He gave you the telephone?"

“S?, mi Teniente, and he will see that we eat well, from the Sargento's mess."

"When they hear what happened on Avenida Libertador and cannot find me, my two friends will be worried about me. Can I call them, Enrico?"

Enrico met his eyes for a long moment.

He is not going to let me use the phone. All that talk about going against my father's wishes sounded great, but when push comes to shove.. .

"The clowns cannot listen to that line," Enrico said, pointing to the telephone wall plug. "I thought of that. But I think the clowns will be listening to the line of your friends."

"You're probably right."

Probably, shit! Of course he's right.

"It would be better to have them come here. Do you need both of them, or just one?"

“Just one. Could you do that? How would you bring him past the clowns?"

"You do not have suboficiales mayores in your army, mi Teniente?"

"I am a Marine, Sergeant Major, not a soldier. But yes, we have men like you in the Corps. They call them 'gunnys.' It means gunnery sergeant."

"And when your officers have a problem they cannot solve, do they turn to the 'gunnys'?"

"Yes, we do."

"It is the same here. This problem may take some time, but it can be solved. I suggest, mi Teniente, that you write a short note to your friend, telling him to accompany the man who gives him the note. And tell me the address."

Chapter Eighteen

[ONE]

Room 305

Dr. Cosme Argerich Military Hospital

Calle Luis Maria Campos

Buenos Aires

1745 20 December 1942

Wearing a somewhat soiled, loose-fitting white cotton uniform of the type issued by the Argerich Military Hospital to its maintenance personnel, Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, USAR, moved slowly down the third-floor corridor of the hospital. He was holding a large coil of black electric wire, and following a man moving a floor polisher in a slow sweeping motion from side to side.

The man with the floor polisher stopped in front of Room 305 and put a key to the locked door. The door was opened by a large man; he was holding a shotgun in one hand. The muzzle was eighteen inches from Tony's belly. The man motioned for him to enter.

First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, wearing a light-blue hospital gown, was seated at a small table. Tony could see a pot of coffee on it and the remnants of sandwiches and pastry.

"Jesus, what's that purple shit all over you, Lieutenant?"

"Some kind of antiseptic," Clete said, walking to Tony and shaking his hand. "How did you get past the clowns?"

"I'm holding the cord for the guy with the floor polisher," Tony said. "He said we have ten minutes, and the less time I'm in here, the better."

"That'll be enough. Tony, this is Suboficial Mayor—Sergeant Major—Rodriguez. Enrico, el Teniente Pelosi."

"A sus ?rdenes, mi Teniente."

Tony shook Enrico's hand.

"What the hell happened at your house? When I went by there, the place was surrounded by cops; I couldn't even get near. And when I tried to telephone, I got some guy on the line who was obviously a cop, and he wouldn't tell me shit."

"The Germans sent a couple of guys to kill me; the local mafiosi."

"No shit?"

"They killed Se?ora Pellano," Clete said.

"And then you killed them? With your grandfather's six-shooter?” Tony asked in a combination of admiration and incredulity.

"I thought you didn't know what happened."

Pelosi hoisted the hem of his white jacket and came out with a copy of the Buenos Aires Herald.

"You're on the front page," he said, handing it to him. "I suppose most of the story is bullshit."

ROBBERY ATTEMPT IN BELGRANO

LEAVES HOUSEKEEPER AND

TWO CRIMINALS DEAD

By C. Edward Whaley

Herald Staff Writer

Buenos Aires 20 Dec—An attempted robbery of the residence at 4730 Avenida Libertador just after midnight this morning left the housekeeper, Se?ora Marianna Pellano, 52, and two as yet unidentified criminals dead, according to Colonel Ricardo Savia-Gonzalez, Chief of the Polic?a Federal.

"These criminals," Colonel Savia-Gonzalez told the Herald, "apparently in the belief the residence was not occupied, broke into the house from the rear. Surprised by Se?ora Pellano, they cruelly took her life, then proceeded upstairs.

"There they encountered Se?or Cletus Frade, son of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, and attempted to murder him with a pistol it has been determined was stolen from the Argentine Navy.

"Se?or Frade, luckily, was in the process of cleaning an historic military firearm, a Colt revolver once carried by his grandfather, El Coronel Guillermo Alejandro Frade, who carried it while commanding the Husares de Pueyrred?n. Although wounded, he courageously managed to load the revolver and with it dispatched both criminals, killing both instantly.