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

"That is the first time you have ever called me that," his father said.

Christ, he looks as if he's going to cry again!

He was touched by his father's emotion, and felt tightness in his throat. And his own eyes grew moist. Jesus.

As if the display of emotion embarrassed him, Frade looked around for Delgano.

"He probably had to relieve himself," he announced, and then indignantly, "He should have waited for you."

"No problem, Dad. All you have to do is stand there while I start the engine, and give it a shot if it catches fire."

It was immediately evident that el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade had no idea where he was to stand, or for that matter, how to operate the extinguisher.

Clete conducted a quick course in fire-extinguisher operation during aircraft engine start, then climbed back into the Beechcraft, strapped himself in, and slid the pilot's window open. "Clear!" "Clear!" his father responded, with obviously no idea what he

was saying.

Clete turned on themain switch, then pushedengine prime, and finallyengine start.

The engine coughed to life on the first try, and he saw his father smile triumphantly at Claudia, who had come to the airstrip from the house to watch him. Clete looked at her and gave her a thumbs-up. She crossed herself but smiled, making it a joke.

As the needles came off the peg, he removed the brakes, checked the wind sock, and began to taxi to the gravel strip, then down it. By the time he had turned it around, everything was in the green.

"Engage brain before beginning takeoff roll," he said aloud, and shoved the throttle forward.

At just about the moment the airspeed indicator began operating, indicating forty, he felt life come into the wheel. The tail wheel lifted off. He held it on the ground, deciding it would take off at sixty or seventy. At sixty, it lifted into the air of its own accord. He eased back on the wheel and saw the ground drop

away.

Claudia was waving cheerfully at him.

He put it into a shallow climb to the north, in the direction of Estancia Santa Catharina and Samboromb?n Bay. When he reached 4,000 feet, he played with it a little—more than he felt he could do with Delgano sitting beside him—to see how it flew. It wasn't a Wildcat, but it was a damned nice little airplane.

He found Claudia's estancia and landing strip without trouble. Giving in to the impulse, he made a low-level pass over it, rocking the wings as he did so. So far as he could tell, this dazzling display of airmanship went wholly unnoticed.

He looked at the elapsed time function on his Hamilton, and saw that it had taken him fifteen minutes to reach the estancia.

If I'm gone more than an hour, they will start shitting bricks. So I have to be back in forty-five minutes. Half of forty-five is twenty-two thirty. I can fly over the Bay for twenty-two thirty. If I can't find theReine de la Mer in twenty-two thirty, I'll have to

quit.

Eighteen minutes later, ten minutes after crossing the coastline, all alone on a vast expanse of bay, he spotted a ship dead in the water. He put the Beechcraft in a shallow descent from 5,000 feet, taking it right down to the waves. He retarded the throttle— watch it, Clete, you don't want to stall it into the drink —and approached her from the stem. Her sternboard had a legend, which at first he couldn't see.

He flew closer.

Don't run into the sonofabitch!

A flag was on her stern pole. The wind was such that it was flapping, fully extended. Surprising him, he recognized it as Portuguese from one of the briefings Adams had given them in New Orleans.

And then the letters on her sternboard came into focus: Reine DE LA MER—LISBOA.

There you are, you sonofabitch!

He banked sharply to pass her on her port side, and waved cheerfully as he flew past.

Twenty crewmen waved cheerfully back, most of them standing beside canvas-draped objects that he strongly suspected were searchlights and machine-gun mounts.

He put the Beechcraft into a shallow turning climb until he was, on a heading for Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

No wonder those other guys got themselves killed. There is no way to approach a ship like that, at anchor twenty miles offshore, without being detected. Certainly not in the daytime. And even at night if you rowed out there, so they wouldn't hear the sound of your engines, if that captain knows shit from shinola, he's going to use his searchlights every couple of minutes to see what else is floating around out there.

So how do we fix explosives to her hull?

It can't be done, not the way we've planned. I'll have to come up with something else.

What? Find some excuse to bring a boat alongside and have Tony fix his charges while I go on board and. . .

And what?

The last team was probably eliMi?ated trying something just like that.

By air?

Not with this airplane, certainly. Not even with a Wildcat. You can't take out something that large with .50-caliber machine guns. I know that for a fact. And that ship has more antiaircraft weaponry on it than any Jap freighter I ever strafed.

What the hell do I do now?

[TWO]

Estancia Santa Catharina

Buenos Aires Province

1425 15 December 1942

“Take a good look, my darlings,” Claudia said to the two very beautiful, black-haired, stylishly dressed young women who came out to the Beechcraft as Clete was tying it down, "this is Cletus. El Coronel has decided that Cletus will marry one of you. Which of you will have him?"

"I said nothing of the kind," el Coronel protested as the girls gave him their cheeks to be kissed.

The younger girl—she looked about twenty—blushed, giggled, and smiled. The other girl, who looked several years older, was obviously not amused.

"How do you do?" she said in English. "I have seen your pictures, of course. I am Isabela Carzino-Cormano. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance."

It sure doesn't sound like it.

"I am overwhelmed," Clete said. "How soon do you think we can schedule the wedding?"

"I see that you take after Uncle ... your father," Alicia, the younger one, said with a giggle.

Isabela treated both of them to an icy smile.

They started to walk toward the ranch house.

"Somehow, I don't think she intended that as a compliment," Claudia said. "You may have to settle for Alicia."

"Can't I have both?"

"That's an idea," el Coronel said. "That is an American custom. The Mormons in Utah can have as many wives as they wish."

"Really?" Alicia asked. "That's terrible!"

"A man must be prepared to make many sacrifices in life," el Coronel said. "Two wives, four, six ... whatever duty requires."

"Now, I am not amused," Claudia said. "Jorge, you always go too far!"

She said that because she's pissed that he hasn't proposed marriage to her. Why not? I have no idea.

The faces of Claudia's daughters showed that they had made the same interpretation.

"I saw you, Cletus," Alicia changed the subject quickly, "at the English Tennis Club, playing with Dorotea Mallin."

"If you two play hard to get," el Coronel said, "I am sure that Dorotea would be happy to have him."

"She's only a kid, Dad," Clete blurted.

"She's what, eighteen, nineteen years old," his father said. "That's old enough."

"And she looked at him as if he gives milk," Alicia said. "Everybody at the English was talking."

"That is quite enough!" Claudia Carzino-Cormano flared. "You're embarrassing Cletus. That includes you, Jorge!"

El Coronel did not seem at all repentant, but he moved to another subject.

“We have decided, your mother and I, about the travel arrangements for tomorrow," he announced to the girls, then stopped. "Why don't we go into the house? I don't suppose that you have any champagne chilled, Claudia?"