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

God, he's insolent! No one talks to me like that! Now watch what you say!

"Actually," Frade said, "it's not you. I just had an unpleasant confrontation with my sister. Your aunt Beatrice."

"I didn't know I had an Aunt Beatrice," Clete said quietly, and then asked flippantly, "And Aunt Beatrice drove you to drink whiskey at the noon hour?"

I'd like to slap his face! I'd like to punch him square in the nose! How dare he talk in that manner about Beatrice?

And again the words came out of control.

"She's ill, Cletus. Emotionally disturbed," Frade heard himself say. "She's on something, God only knows what, that her psychiatrist prescribed."

"I'm sorry," Clete said. "I didn't know ..."

"You had no way of knowing. You didn't even know she exists," Frade said.

"No, Sir, I didn't."

"Beatrice lost her son, her only son, your cousin Jorge," Frade heard himself saying.

"I'm sorry," Clete said.

"He was killed at Stalingrad. Beatrice has... been disturbed since."

I had a cousin in the German Army?Clete thought Jesus H. Christ! The Old Man was right. They're all Nazis down here!

"Stalingrad?What was he doing at Stalingrad?"

"He was assigned as an observer," Frade said. "He was not supposed to be at Stalingrad, much less involved in anything that would place him in danger. He gave me his word to that effect before I agreed to his assignment."

Well, there were for sure no Argentine "observers" on Guadalcanal. What did he say? "Before I agreed to his assignment"?

"Before you agreed to his assignment?"

Frade met his son's eyes.

"I have a certain influence within the Argentinean Army," he said. "Jorge would not have been given that assignment without my approval."

"And now you're blaming yourself because he was killed?"

"Obviously, to a certain degree, I feel responsible."

"What was he? What rank?"

"A captain."

"People get killed in wars. If he didn't know that, he shouldn't have been a captain."

Frade looked at Clete, thinking: That's damned cold-blooded. When I told myself the same thing, I was ashamed of myself.

"How was he killed?"

"As I understand it, he was flying a Storch on a reconnaissance mission, and was shot down."

He was a pilot?Clete thought.

"He was flying a what?"

"A Fieseler Storch. A small, high-wing, two-place observation airplane," Frade explained. "Something like the Piper Cub, except larger and more powerful."

Clete shook his head, signifying he had never heard of the Storch.

"What ever happened to your plans, Cletus, to become a pilot? A Marine pilot?"

How the hell did he hear about that?

Clete looked at his father. For the first time, their eyes met.

I don't want to lie to this man.

"I was discharged about three weeks ago," Clete said. "They found a heart murmur. You can't be a Marine Aviator with a heart murmur."

"They discovered it when you were in training?"

Clete met his father's eyes and saw genuine concern in them. And realized that he could not lie to him.

"No."

"You saw active service, then?" his father asked.

"They discovered the heart condition when I came back from the Pacific. From Guadalcanal."

"You flew at Guadalcanal?"

"Yes. And I was at Midway, too."

"I didn't know that," Frade said. "We read about Midway and Guadalcanal in the newspapers, of course. And there have been newsreels in the cinema."

The father saw the newsreels again in his mind's eye. American fighter planes, and their young pilots, rising into the sky from a jungle airstrip.

Did I see Cletus? Was he one of those tired-looking young men?

He was one of them, whether or not I saw him. And that explains why he can be so cold-blooded about Jorge. He is a soldier. He has the right to think that way, and say what he thinks.

"What about your heart? A murmur, you said?"

"Nothing serious," Clete said. "It just disqualified me from flying for the Marines. Thank you for your service, and don't let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out."

He's bitter. That's understandable.

"Otherwise you weren't injured?"

"I got dinged a couple of times. Nothing serious."

Spoken like an officer. And why not? The blood of Pueyrred?n runs in his veins.

"Would it be impolite of me to ask what you are doing in Argentina?"

Clete met his father's eyes. "No. Why should it be? I'm working for my grandfather..."

"And how is Mr. Howell? Well, I hope?"

"Yes, he is, thank you," Clete said. The Old Man would shit a brick if he knew the two of us are sitting here like this.

"And your uncle James and your aunt Martha? They are well, I trust?"

"Uncle Jim died when I was in the Pacific. A heart attack."

"I am so sorry," Frade said.

He sounds as if he means that.

"And my aunt Martha is well, thank you."

Frade nodded. "You say you are working for your grandfather?"

"The U.S. government seems to think that somebody down here is diverting Howell petroleum products to the Germans. I was sent down to make sure they aren't."

"I can't believe Enrico Mallin would be involved in that kind of thing," Frade said. "Not only is he an honorable man, but I'm sure his sympathies lie with the English and the Americans in this war."

Well, I guess I am a pretty good liar, after all. He swallowed that hook, line, and sinker. And where do your sympathies lie, Dad?

"I don't think he is either," Clete said. "But the deal the Old Man worked out with the government meant sending me down here to make sure he isn't."

"I am glad you are here," Frade said. "To finally meet you."

"Yeah, me too," Clete said.

"Perhaps there will be an opportunity for us to know one another," Frade said.

"Yeah," Clete said. "Maybe there will be."

"But the immediate problem before us is lunch," Frade said. He pushed his glass of bourbon away from him. "I have had enough whiskey."

He beckoned, rather imperiously, for the bartender to bring the bill. When it came, he scrawled his name across it.

"Gracias, mi Colonel," the barman said.

"The Centro Naval—the Navy Officers' Club—is not very far from here. They usually serve a very nice lunch," Frade said. "How does that sound, Cletus?"

"That sounds fine."

"Well, then, I suggest we go," Frade said.

Clete slid off the barstool and followed his father up the circular staircase to the lobby. They were halfway across the lobby when his father suddenly veered to the right, toward the concierge's desk.

It looks like he's chasing that guy.

Frade caught up with a man who pretended, not too successfully, to be both delighted and surprised to see him. They shook hands, and then Frade propelled him across the lobby to where Clete stood.

"Coronel, I want you to meet my son. Cletus, this is Teniente Coronel Martin, of the Internal Security Service."

Teniente Coronel Martin could not conceal his discomfort.

"How do you do?" he said in English.

"A sus ?rdenes, mi Coronel," Clete replied.

"Welcome to Argentina," Martin said, still in English.

"Thank you," Clete said, switching to English.

There was a long, awkward silence.

"Well, it was very nice to make your acquaintance, Mr. Frade," Martin said. "And to see you, mi Coronel."

Frade nodded coldly but didn't speak.

Martin walked out of the lobby into the driveway.

"Who was that?" Clete asked.

"An officer of our intelligence service," Frade said. "The Bureau of Internal Security. It was from him that I learned you were here."

"Oh?"

"He was naturally curious why you were staying with Se?or Mallin and not me."

"I'm surprised he knew about me at all," Clete said.

"I thought it a bit odd myself," Frade said. "Unless, of course, you're not here for the reason you gave me."