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

"I saw that boat you were talking about, the one you're thinking of buying? Reine de la Mer,'' Clete said.

"I'd really rather hear it from you in person, Clete. Why don't you come here?"

"Certainly."

"You have your car?"

"Yeah."

"We can take a ride."

"I'm on my way," Clete said.

[FIVE]

Jasper C. Nestor came out of his house and got in the Buick. As soon as he was seated, Clete said, "There's a Fiat parked down the street that was parked across the street from the Guest House when I drove out of the garage."

"Well, they can't hear us as long as we're driving. You implied that you know where the Reine de la Mer is?"

"She's at anchor twenty miles or so offshore in the Bay of Samboromb?n."

"How do you know that?"

"I saw her there. I was flying my father's airplane."

"You're sure it's the Reine de la Mer? How can you be sure?"

"Because I flew close enough to read her sternboard. And as a bonus, I got a good look at all the nice searchlights and machine-gun mounts on her superstructure."

"You ... flew close enough to read her sternboard?"

"I buzzed her, all right? That was the only way I could get close enough to read the sternboard."

"I'm not sure that was wise."

"Why?" Clete asked incredulously.

"We would have found her."

"You didn't, did you?"

"And now they know you've found her."

"Mr. Nestor, I don't think there's any way to get close enough to her to blow her up. At least, I can't think of one."

"Point one, Frade, is that you're not to blow her up, you are to disable her. And as quickly as possible, certainly within the next week or ten days. If she replenishes one German submarine, that's one too many. Point two is that you seem to have forgotten that it is not your function to question your orders, but to obey them."

"Did you hear what I said? There is no way to get close to her where she lies. And even if we could, I don't believe that the explosives we have would do much damage."

"There's enough explosives—you have more than twenty pounds. If judiciously placed, that's more than enough to disable her. That's what we're after."

"If we could get to her steering ... or to her engines, and had an hour or so to do it, possibly. Pelosi is very good at what he does, but..."

"But what?"

"There's no way to get close to that ship, much less get aboard her."

"You have to try."

"I'll have a shot at anything that looks like it has a chance of succeeding, but I'm not going to commit suicide."

"What did you say?"

"I said I'm not going to commit suicide. I respectfully suggest you send a message to Colonel Graham ..."

"Colonel Graham is the Deputy Director of the OSS. I have no intention of bothering him with something like this. What he expects from me, and what I expect from you, is that we carry out the mission assigned by the OSS."

"I respectfully request, Sir, that you send a message to Colonel Graham and tell him that I said there's no way to take the Reine de la Mer out with the men and materiel I have."

"It doesn't work that way, Frade," Nestor said. "We receive our orders and we carry them out to the best of our ability."

What is this "we" crap? You'll be in your office in the Bank of Boston.

"Why didn't we, or the English, sink the Reine de la Mer off Lisbon, once she was identified? Or here, as she came into the Rio de la Plata estuary? The Navy is operating in the South Atlantic. And there's even a destroyer, the Alfred Thomas, making a port call here the day before Christmas."

"Where did you hear about the Alfred Thomas?" Nestor interrupted.

"Apparently it's common knowledge."

"I asked you how you heard about it. Did Ettinger tell you?"

You don't like it that Ettinger told me about the destroyer and didn't tell you. And that I didn't tell you either. But screw that. I'm not going to let you get on Ettinger's back for that.

"No, I heard it from Enrico Mallin. Why can't this destroyer sink the Reine de la Mer?"

"It's not your business to question decisions like that, if I have to point that out to you. But the reasons seem self-evident. The Reine de la Mer is a Portuguese ship. Portugal is neutral. The United States does not torpedo neutral ships."

"But it's all right for the three of us to sink it? What's the difference? Aside from the fact that a destroyer has the capability to take it out, and we don't?" Clete asked, and then went on without waiting for a reply: "I'd like to plead my case up the chain of command."

"It doesn't work that way. You're in the OSS now. You take your orders from me, and you don't have the privilege of questioning them. What's the matter with you, Frade?"

Clete felt frustration and anger sweep through him. "I know what orders are, Mr. Nestor, and I'll" try to obey mine," he said. "All I'm asking you to do is pass the word up the chain of command. Tell them that I told you that I'll need more to take out the Reine de la Mer than good intentions and twenty pounds of explosives. A very fast powerboat, maybe. Certainly another two hundred pounds of high explosive. Or a TBF from Brazil. Something."

"A what from Brazil?"

"A TBF," Clete repeated. And then, when he realized that Nestor had no idea what a TBF was, he added, "A torpedo bomber."

"A torpedo bomber?" Nestor asked sarcastically.

"I'm a fighter pilot, but I can fly TBFs. I could go to Brazil, pick up the plane, fly it to that dirt strip we used for the airdrop in Uruguay, where Pelosi would be waiting with enough avgas to get me to the Reine de la Mer ..."

Nestor looked at him with incredulous contempt.

"... and put a torpedo in her."

Nestor shook his head sadly, as if he had failed to make a point to a backward child.

"Frade, that would be just as much an act of war as the Alfred Thomas attacking the Reine de la Mer.''

"I could then fly over my father's estancia, put the plane on a course that would carry it out over the Atlantic, and bail out," Clete said.

"And that's what you want me to suggest to my superiors?"

"Yes, Sir."

"You simply refuse to understand the situation. Sinking the Reine de la Mer with a torpedo bomber was, I am quite sure, one of the options considered. It was obviously discarded. It's out of the question. Quite impossible."

"So is doing the Reine de la Mer any harm with twenty pounds of explosive. And I will not order my men to do something that has no chance of success, and that will get them killed," Clete said. "I respectfully request that you pass that up the chain of command."

"I don't think there is any point in continuing this conversation, Lieutenant Frade," Nestor said. "You leave me no choice but to report your insubordination—if that's all it is—up, as you put it, 'the chain of command.' "

"What do you mean, 'if that's all it is'?" Clete demanded, coldly angry.

"What would you call it when an officer refuses to obey an order because there is an element of personal risk involved?"

Clete pulled to the curb and slammed on the brakes.

"Get out," he ordered. "Before I punch you into next week."

Nestor looked at him in surprise, then opened the door and stepped out.

[SIX]

Avenida Alvear

Buenos Aires

1815 17 December 1942

"And here we are at the Alvear Palace Hotel," Oberst Karl-Heinz Gr?ner, military attach? of the Embassy of the German Reich to the Republic of Argentina, said quite unnecessarily to Hauptmann Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, who was residing there. "Just a few minutes' walk from the Duarte mansion."

They were both in civilian clothing, and had just come from Peter's formal introduction to Ambassador von Lutzenberger at the embassy.

"I estimate a three-minute walk, Herr Oberst," Peter said

straight-faced.