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

" 'Pro-British'? As differentiated from 'Pro-Allies'? Or 'Pro-American'?"

"They don't particularly like us; they like to think they should be the doMi?ant power in this hemisphere. And we've never had a presence down there the way the British have. And they're a practical people, Bill. After Dunkirk, noble sentiment aside, who would you have bet would win the war in Europe? After Pearl Harbor, or especially after Singapore and the Philippines fell to the Japanese—patriotism aside—who would you have bet on to win the war in the Pacific?"

"The question of the moral right and wrong is not in the equation, so far as they're concerned?"

"As it is in ours, you mean? We violated every description of neutrality I've ever heard when we had the U.S. Navy looking for German submarines in the North Atlantic, long before we were in the war."

"You disapprove of what we did, Alex?"

"No. The point I'm making here is that the Argentine government has taken greater pains to be neutral than we ever did— even the one now in place, under Castill?, who is a fascist."

"Then you weren't at the briefing where I heard that they're closing their eyes to the Germans' refueling and replenishing their submarines in the River Plate."

"I set up that briefing for you," Graham said. "I hoped you would pay attention when Major Kellerman made the point that the German submarines are being supplied by neutral—not German—vessels," Graham countered. "And not by the Argentines."

"That's splitting hairs," Donovan said.

Graham met Donovan's eyes and shrugged. Then he said, "If it were not for those U-boats, Bill, Brazil almost certainly would still be neutral." (In January 1942, Brazil broke diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy, and Japan. Within weeks, German submarines began attacking Brazilian shipping. The United States immediately started to equip the one-year-old Brazilian Air Force with North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, Consolidated Catalinas, Lockheed Hudsons, and PV-1 Venturas for antisubmarine warfare. In August 1942, following a major submarine effort against Brazilian shipping (seventeen ships were lost), Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy.)

"The trouble with that," Donovan countered, "is the feeling in Argentina that whatever Brazil does, Argentina should take the other side."

"That's only among some people in Argentina," Graham argued. "I still have hopes that we can get Argentina to see the light."

"What we don't want down there is a war between Brazil and Argentina. That strikes me as a real possibility. They don't like each other, and I'm afraid that one of your Argentine coronels is going to decide that if they get in a war with Brazil, Germany will have to help them."

"I think Germany likes things just as they are. They're getting Argentine beef, leather, wool, other foodstuffs," Graham said. "And they have their hands full in Africa and Russia. And I really don't think Argentina wants to pick a fight with Brazil. They know that we can supply Brazil a lot easier than Germany can supply them."

"You hope," Donovan said.

"I think they know, Bill. From what I have seen, they have pretty good intelligence."

"So I heard at the briefing," Donovan said.

"What we will see now," Graham went on, "is whether they are wise enough to close their eyes to our blowing up one—or more—of the neutral ships who are replenishing the German submarines. Which we have to do before the Brazilians start seriously thinking about doing it themselves. They know we would have to support them if they got into a war with Argentina; that certainly has a certain appeal to some of their coronels.''

Donovan nodded his agreement again.

"What I don't understand, Alex," he said, "is why you're devoting so much of your time and effort to this."

"It's my mission," Graham said, and then added, "Unless something has happened to change that?"

"I simply meant that Newton-Haddle has no doubt that his team down there will have no trouble in putting the German ship out of action."

" 'His' team?" Graham asked, and now there was ice in his voice.

"Newton-Haddle told me he trained them personally," Donovan said. "That's all I meant."

Colonel Baxter F. Newton-Haddle, U.S. Army Reserve, was the OSS's Assistant Director For Training, and ran the Country Club (the OSS operated a training school in Virginia at a requisitioned country club). He was a wealthy Philadelphia socialite, the archetypal WASP, as Donovan privately thought of him. Donovan was also aware that Graham, who had seen combat with the Marines in France in World War I, thought he was a strutting peacock.

Graham's face showed that Donovan's explanation hadn't mollified him.

"It may be replenishment ships, plural," he went on. "That wouldn't surprise me. Even if they take out the ship now in the River Plate..."

“Whenthey take it out, not if,” Donovan interrupted, with a smile he hoped would remove the tension. "Think positively, Alex."

"... there is little question in my mind," Graham went on as if he had not heard a word, "that die Germans will send another to replace it—or several others."

"OK," Donovan said. "And you think one team isn't enough? Your mission, Alex, your decision."

That satisfied him,Donovan thought, judging from the look on Graham's face. And then he developed the thought: If the bad blood between Newton-Haddle and Graham gets out of hand, and I have to choose between them, I need Graham more than I need Newton-Haddle.

"Thank you," Graham said. "Frankly, I wasn't sure where I stood."

"Your mission, Alex," Donovan repeated. "Just tell me about it."

"When I get the second team down there, the primary mission of both teams will remain the interruption of the replenishment of German submarines and any merchant raiders which may still be active there. I think we have to make two points to the Argentines: First, there is a limit to our patience; we won't let them look the other way while the Germans replenish their warships in their waters. And second, we are willing, and capable, of playing hardball ourselves."

"Who's on the second team besides the son of Colonel Whatsisname?"

"Frade," Graham furnished. "The second man is a second lieutenant I found in the 82nd Airborne Division. His family is in the industrial demolitions business in Chicago. I watched his father demolish a grain elevator next to my right-of-way in Wisconsin. Great big brick sonofabitch, eight stories high and a quarter of a mile long. He dropped it in on itself without getting so much as a loose brick on my tracks. If this kid is half as good as his father, he's just what I need."

"A second lieutenant?"

"And scarcely old enough to vote," Graham said. "The third man on the team will be a Spanish Jew with German connections whose family was in Dachau ... murdered there, it looks like. I found him in the Army's Counterintelligence Corps at Camp Holabird in Baltimore. He's an electrical engineer, and according to Dave Sarnoff at RCA, a pretty good one."

"When do you plan to send these people to Argentina?"

"As soon as the explosives kid, his name is Pelosi, and Ettinger the Jewish chap have gone through a quickie course at the Country Club. And after we take care of their papers and make their cover stories credible."

"Which are?" Donovan asked.

"Ettinger is well-educated, multilingual; and he's been through the CIC training program. I want to talk to him myself—I haven't done that yet. But I think he will fit unobtrusively into the Bank of Boston, if I can convince Nestor that he can't use him for anything else until the replenishment-ship problem is solved."

"Jasper Nestor's the Station Chief in Buenos Aires," Donovan thought out loud. "He may have other ideas where to use this fellow."

"And this is my mission," Graham said sharply. "Which I have been led to believe is the most important thing we have going down there right now. I hope Nestor understands that."