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

"You expect me to swallow that whole?"

Graham did not respond directly. "I have my own most likely scenario about how this happened,” he said.

"I'll bet you do."

"Nestor got close to Newton-Haddle when he went through the Country Club."

"Nestor went through the Country Club?" Clete interrupted incredulously. It was difficult to imagine the banker running around the woods of Virginia with his face painted black, learning fine points of hand-to-hand combat and throat cutting.

Graham nodded. "And the two Brahmins of course found each other," he said. "Nestor saw in Newton-Haddle a powerful spy-master with access to Donovan—an obvious avenue to enhancing his own career. Newton-Haddle saw in Nestor a chance to prove he could do something more worthy of his talents than teaching people how to stab each other with daggers. When Nestor discovered that your father had an American son, he thought he hit his payload. He would be the man responsible for getting Argentina into the war. So he went to Newton-Haddle with his scenario; and Newton-Haddle thought it was a splendid idea. It wasn't difficult for him to find out where you were, and he managed to bring that information to my attention."

"We're back to question one," Clete said. "Why should I believe that?"

"We're back to answer one," Graham said. "Because it's the truth. If it makes you feel any better, Newton-Haddle is now at Fort Benning, Georgia, teaching knife fighting to parachutists; and Jasper Nestor has by now received a radiogram from the Bank of Boston ordering him home by the first ship. Donovan recruited him from the Bank of Boston. I don't think he'll send him back with a glowing letter of recommendation and appreciation. He— both of them—violated the First and Great Commandment of the OSS: Thou Shalt Not Deceive the Director."

Despite himself, Clete was aware that he was smiling.

"That's the truth, Clete," Graham said. "And essentially all of it."

" 'Essentially all of it'? What's the rest of it?"

"Donovan sent me down here to salvage what can be salvaged. I think he expects me to see that the Reine de la Mer is taken out of action."

"She's anchored twenty, twenty-five miles offshore, in the Bay of Samborombon," Clete said. "She's equipped with searchlights, heavy machine guns, almost certainly a couple of 20-mm Bofors automatic cannon, and probably has a five-inch cannon concealed in her superstructure. There's no way anybody can get near her."

He was surprised when he sensed Graham accepting his assessment without question.

"If you were God, how would you take her out?" Graham asked.

"With a B-17 from Brazil. But I'll settle for a TBF from Brazil."

"Both ideas went on the table and were shot down. Politically impossible."

"Colonel, if you can find me a TBF in Brazil, I can refuel it in Uruguay. That'll give me enough range to make the Bay of Samboromb?n. And then, after I put a torpedo in the Reine de la Mer, I'll have enough range to fly over my father's estancia. I'll put the TBF on a heading that will take her out over the Atlantic and bail out." He paused for a moment, thoughtful. Then he went on, "I could also take her back to Uruguay and refuel there again, if people want the TBF back."

"You can fly a TBF? That wasn't in your records."

"And it's official doctrine that a TBF needs a paved runway. And I've flown one a dozen times off Henderson Field, which is a lot rougher than the dirt road we used as a drop zone in Uruguay."

"That may be interesting information for the future. But using a TBF—or any warplane—has been decided against. The political price is considered too high."

"What are the Argentines going to do, bomb Miami?"

“No, but if we bombed a neutral ship in Argentine waters, that would blow your father's chances of becoming President of Argentina out of the water. The President says we can't do that."

"The President?" Clete asked incredulously. "President Roosevelt?"

Graham nodded. "Newton-Haddle went to him—they were at Harvard together—and complained about being relieved. The President called Donovan in for an explanation. The result was a compromise. They sent Newton-Haddle to Fort Benning instead of home, and Donovan was ordered to take out the replenishment ship by any means short of overt act of war. For this mission, an overt act of war has been defined as the use of military aircraft."

"What about the destroyer that's ..."

“The Alfred Thomas? Same answer. No overt act of war within Argentine waters, and no board-and-search of neutral vessels on the high seas."

"Then what?" Clete asked in frustration. "We're ordered to do something; and in the next breath we're told we can't carry out the orders. We're told we can't use anything that would actually get the job done."

“The President is the Commander in Chief,” Graham said. “He gives the orders, we obey them. And the only thing he'll let us use now is a submarine, but how we'd use it God only knows ..."

"I thought submarines were on the forbidden-to-use list too. I asked Nestor why they didn't sink the Reine de la Mer in the middle of the Atlantic, and—"

"In the middle of the Atlantic," Graham interrupted, "the Reine de la Mer was a peaceful merchant ship flying the flag of a neutral country. It's not against international law for a neutral ship to carry anything it wants to—fuel, torpedoes, anything. It is only when it uses its cargo to the benefit of a belligerent power that it loses its neutral status."

"I don't quite follow that."

"We routinely intercept radio messages between U-boats and the Oberkommando of the Kriegsmarine," Graham explained. "Not without difficulty—a lot of difficulty, I was there—Donovan managed to convince the President that the Reine de la Mer has already begun to replenish German U-boats, and in so doing has lost its neutral protection."

"The President says the Navy can send a submarine?"

"Yes. But don't get your hopes up high. We are still forbidden to attack replenishment vessels until we have convincing proof they have supplied at least one submarine, which means they can't be sunk on the high seas on the way here. And so far as sinking the Reine de la Mer in Samborombon Bay is concerned, the Navy says submarines can't operate in Samborombon Bay. It's too shallow."

"Submarines operated in some pretty shallow waters off Guadalcanal," Clete thought aloud. "Without any charts."

"That's what Admiral Leahy said," Graham said.

"Who?"

"The President's Chief of Staff," Graham said. "I think what we should do now, Clete, is go take a look at the charts."

"Where are we going to get charts?"

"According to the Navy, the Alfred Thomas has the most recent charts available."

"She was supposed to arrive here today," Clete said.

"She arrived at 0500 this morning," Graham said.

Clete's eyebrows rose, but he didn't say anything.

"She has, under the Geneva Convention, seventy-two hours to refuel and leave Argentinean waters. If she leaves slowly, maybe she can take soundings of the Bay of Samborombon that will answer the question of whether we can bring a submarine in there or not. A submarine is on the way."

"Jesus!"

"Is there any reason you can't come with me to the Alfred Thomas?”

"Give me ten minutes to get dressed."

His conversation with Colonel A. J. Graham, USMCR, so distracted First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, that he completely forgot the visitor in his apartment. When he returned to his apartment and found the visitor—clad only in one of his shirts, mostly unbuttoned—sitting on his bed combing her hair, he thereupon became so distracted that he completely forgot Colonel Graham was in the foyer, expecting his momentary return. Consequently, Colonel Graham was forced to cool his heels for thirty-five minutes before Lieutenant Frade returned to the foyer, neatly dressed, though bearing on his neck what looked to Colonel Graham like the teeth marks of another human being. This is sometimes called a "love hickey."