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

"Air-dropped from where?"

"Prom Brazil, onto a rice field we have used before."

"How do I get the explosives past Argentine customs when we come back? Or past Uruguayan customs leaving Uruguay?"

"The explosives themselves should pose no problem. They have been molded into a substance that looks exactly like wood, and precut to form the parts of a wooden crate. You will assemble the crates—there will be two of them, with a total weight of just over twenty-two pounds—and fill them with souvenirs of your holiday... not too heavy souvenirs; the explosives only look like wood and don't have wood's strength. They make some rather attractive doodads of straw, in the shape of chickens, horses, cows, et cetera. These would be ideal. You will quite openly carry the crates onto and off the ferry and through Argentine customs."

Now this is more like Errol Flynn battling the Dirty Nazis. The problem is, although I know Nestor is dead serious, I'm having trouble believing that I am about to go to some field near the Brazilian border and have explosives air-dropped to me.

"The detonators will pose a problem. There will be a dozen of them. They're quite sensitive. Probably the best way is for one of you to tape them to your body. Argentine Customs is very unlikely to submit you to a body search." He paused and smiled. "Or perhaps you could wear your cowboy boots. I'm sure you could conceal them in your boots."

And blow my goddamned leg off!

"Is there any way I could take Ettinger instead of Pelosi?" Clete asked. "Pelosi is young. Excitable. And doesn't speak Spanish well."

"But knows about explosives and airdrops," Nestor said, shaking his head no. "Besides, I want Ettinger to continue what he's doing with the Hebrew community here."

"We've discussed that. He knew only one family on that list of names, and they told him to bug off."

"He's going to have to go back to Klausner and try again."

"He's convinced me that would be a waste of time, and that Klausner would very possibly turn him in. Or at least report to Internal Security that Ettinger has contacted him."

"He'll have to go back."

"You tell him."

"I have information that may change Klausner's attitude," Nestor answered, ignoring Clete's last remark.

He took what looked like several sheets of folded yellow paper from the inside pocket of his seersucker jacket and handed them to Clete. When Clete started to unfold them, he saw it was really one long sheet of paper, and recognized the carbon copy from a radio-teletype machine.

"This will be released to the Argentinean press in the morning. Even if they run it, Herr Klausner might not see it," Nestor said as Clete started to read it.

FROM SECSTATE WASHINGTON 0645 28 NOVEMBER 1942

VIA PANAMA TO ALL AMEMBASSIES SOUTHAMERICA FOR IMMEDIATE PERSONAL ATTENTION AMBASSADORS

(1) SECSTATE DESIRES IMMEDIATE TRANSMTTTAL AT AMBASSADORIAL LEVEL TO HIGHEST POSSIBLE LEVEL HOST GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL, FOLLOWED BY WIDEST POSSIBLE DISSEMI?ATION TO ALL CHANNELS OF PUBLIC INFORMATION.

DECLARATION BEGINS:

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE

WASHINGTON, DC

28 NOVEMBER 1942

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; HIS MAJESTY GEORGE VI, KING OF ENGLAND AND EMPEROR OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE; JOSEF STALIN, CHAIRMAN OF THE SUPREME SOVIET OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS; AND GENERAL CHARLES DE GAULLE, CHAIRMAN OF THE FRENCH NATIONAL COMMITTEE, ON BEHALF OF THEIR GOVERNMENTS, AND IN THE NAME OF THEIR PEOPLE, HEREWITH DECLARE :

THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT, NOT CONTENT WITH DENYING TO PERSONS OF JEWISH RACE IN ALL THE TERRITORIES OVER WHICH THEIR BARBAROUS RULE HAS BEEN EXTENDED THE MOST ELEMENTARY HUMAN RIGHTS, ARE NOW CARRYING INTO EFFECT HITLER'S OFT-REPEATED INTENTION TO EXTERMI?ATE THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN EUROPE.

FROM ALL THE OCCUPIED COUNTRIES, JEWS ARE BEING TRANSPORTED, IN CONDITIONS OF APPALLING HORROR AND BRUTALITY, TO EASTERN EUROPE. IN POLAND, WHICH HAS BEEN MADE THE PRINCIPAL NAZI SLAUGHTERHOUSE, THE GHETTOS ESTABLISHED BY THE GERMAN INVADERS ARE BEING SYSTEMATICALLY EMPTIED OF ALL JEWS EXCEPT A FEW HIGHLY SKILLED WORKERS REQUIRED FOR WAR INDUSTRIES.

NONE OF THOSE TAKEN ARE EVER HEARD OF AGAIN. THE ABLE-BODIED ARE SLOWLY WORKED TO DEATH IN LAROR CAMPS. THE-INFIRM APE LEFT TO DIE OF EXPOSURE AND STARVATION, OR ARE DELIBERATELY MASSACRED IN MASS EXECUTIONS.

THE NUMBER OF VICTIMS OF THESE BLOODY CRUELTIES IS RECKONED IN MANY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF ENTIRELY INNOCENT MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN.

THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; THE KINGDOM OF ENGLAND AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE; THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS; AND THE FRENCH NATIONAL COMMITTEE CONDEMN IN THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE TERMS THIS BESTIAL POLICY OF COLD-BLOODED EXTERMI?ATION.

DECLARATION ENDS.

(2) SECSTATE DESIRES NOTIFICATION BY MOST EXPEDITIOUS MEANS OF COMPLIANCE, TO INCLUDE NAME AND TITLE OF FOREIGN OFFICIAL TO WHOM DECLARATION DELIVERED, AND DATE AND TIME.

CORDELL HULL SECRETARY OF STATE

"Jesus H. Christ!" Clete said.

"Rather nauseating, isn't it?" Nestor said.

“Hundreds of thousandsof people murdered?” Clete asked incredulously.

“The ambassador said he's been led to believe it's many more than that," Nestor said evenly. "He thinks there was probably quite a discussion in Foggy Bottom ..."

"What?"

"... at the Department of State," Nestor explained somewhat condescendingly. "They call it 'Foggy Bottom' in Washington. The ambassador thinks there was probably quite a discussion— with the decision made at the highest levels, perhaps by the Secretary himself—before they came up with the 'hundreds of thousands' language. Even that boggles credulity. One's mind can accept the death of one person, a hundred persons, even a thousand. Credulity is strained at tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. The death, much less the murder, of millions is simply—beyond human comprehension."

"In other words, you believe this?"

"We know it to be a fact; our people have seen the death camps."

"Jesus!"

"Give me a call when you return from Punta del Este. Have a good time. I've been there. The women on the beach are stunning; made me wish I was a bachelor."

He put his beer bottle down on the banister.

"I can find my way out," he said.

Chapter Eleven

[ONE]

La Boca

Buenos Aires

1630 3 December 1942

Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, Corps of Engineers, Army of the United States, wearing a short-sleeved white shirt and dark-blue cotton trousers, was wet with sweat when the bus finally arrived in La Boca. The bus was old, battered, noisy, and as crowded as the El at the Loop during rush hour— more crowded; I feel like a goddamned sardine.

Lieutenant Frade had ordered him to spend as much time as possible riding the buses, "to get an idea of the terrain." The mentors in New Orleans had suggested the idea, and it was a good one, but Pelosi couldn't help but notice that Frade wasn't riding around in fucking buses himself; he was either getting chauffeured in one of Mallin's cars or catching cabs.

Pelosi stepped off the bus, took half a dozen steps, and then pulled the sweat-soaked shirt away from his chest and back.

Lieutenant Frade had also ordered him to start "laying in whatever you think you're going to need to blow a hole in a ship. No explosives, no detonators, they'll be provided. Everything else."

What the fuck is everything else? You need five things to blow something: explosives, detonators, wire, damping material— sandbags are usually best— and a source of juice to blow the detonators. A proper magneto controller is best. You hook up the wires, give it a crank, and boom!

I'm not as dumb as Lieutenant Frade— and for that matter, Ettinger— think I am. Laying in everything else does not mean I should find some engineer supply store and walk in and announce, "Hola! I'm interested in a good high-explosives controller. A Matson and Hardy Model Seven would be nice. What am I going to do with it? Why, I'm going to blow the bottom out of a ship in your harbor, that's what I'm going to do."