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

"Gracias," Peter said, picking up a stainless-steel-cased wrist-watch from the bedside table and with some effort focusing his eyes on it. It informed him that it was not nine, but 09:15:40.

"I will require immediately a pot of coffee," he ordered. The way his tongue felt, like a North African desert, he was surprised that he could speak at all.

"I will connect you with Room Service, Se?or. Un momento, por favor."

He looked at the watch again as he replaced it on the bedside table. It was a U.S. government-issue Hamilton chronograph identical to the one he had spotted on the wrist of Lieutenant Cletus Frade of the flying service of the Corps of U.S. Marines, who would have his throat cut tonight.

This Hamilton had been issued to the pilot of a U.S. Army Air Corps B-26 Peter shot down over Cherbourg. An Abwehr Hauptmann showed up at the squadron's officers' mess the same night and announced that Peter's brilliant aerial victory—having been witnessed by three reliable spectators—was confirmed and made a matter of official record; and the Hauptmann thought the Hauptmann Freiherr might like the watch as a souvenir (the Hauptmann took it from the pilot during interrogation).

Peter did not immediately reply. He was a little drunk at the time, but sober enough to recognize the foolhardiness of lecturing an Abwehr captain—who goddamned well should have known it—that stealing from prisoners of war was not only a violation of the Geneva Convention, but a pretty goddamned dishonorable thing for an officer to do.

"And where is the prisoner now, Herr Hauptmann?"

"He has been taken to the Central Detention Facility outside Paris, Herr Hauptmann Freiherr. At Senlis."

"And do you happen to have this officer's name, Herr Hauptmann?"

"Not at the moment, Herr Hauptmann Freiherr," the asshole replied, and then the confusion on his face was replaced by comprehension. "Of course, I should have thought of that myself. It will have more meaning to you if you know his name. I will find it for you."

It will also permit me to return this officer's watch to him, preferably in person, together with an apology from one officer to another for the shameful behavior of an asshole wearing a German officer's uniform.

"I would be very grateful, Herr Hauptmann." "My great pleasure, Herr Hauptmann Freiherr." I never got the poor bastard's watch back to him. When the Abwehr asshole never sent me his name, I just kept it. Good watch. I'm glad I wasn't wearing it when I met Cletus. He wouldn't have understood.

Yeah, Cletus would have understood.

And what the hell am I going to do about Cletus? Simply sit around with my finger in my ass waiting for Herr Oberst Gr?ner to happily inform me that his Argentine gangsters have followed his neat little Operational Plan and cut Clete's throat?

"Buenos dias, Room Service."

"This is Se?or von Wachtstein in 701. Will you send up a pot of coffee, please? Right away?" He looked at the Hamilton chronograph again. "How long will that take?"

"I will have it there within half an hour, Se?or."

That means an hour. I don't have an hour. Goddamn it!

"Forget it, thank you just the same."

He hung up, then walked quickly to the bathroom and stood under the cold shower for five minutes. Then he shaved, cutting himself twice in the process, put on his winter dress uniform, and left his suite.

In the elevator, he felt woozy.

I have to put something in my stomach, or I will be one of those poor bastards that fall on their face during the ceremony. Wasn't there a restaurant in the lobby?

There was, in a wide corridor to his right when he stepped off the elevator. He walked to it, found a small table, and sat down! He looked around for a waiter. Several of them were standing near a buffet table. He finally managed to attract one's attention.

"Coffee, por favor, and a pastry of some kind."

"Se?or," the waiter said. "It is a buffet. Complimentary to guests of the hotel. Se?or is a guest?"

"Yes, of course I am," Peter replied, and took a closer look at the buffet. A line of prosperous-looking people were there. A man inclined his head toward him and smiled. And another did the same.

What the hell is that all about? Oh, hell, of course. These people are here for the funeral, and they are being charming to the young man whose dress uniform and Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross tell them he is the man who brought poor Whatsisname 's body home for burial.

Peter smiled and nodded back.

Do I have that goddamned thing on right?

He looked down at his chest. He didn't have the goddamned thing on at all.

"Se?or," the waiter asked. "Would you be so kind as to give me your name and room number?"

Peter looked at him.

He reached in his pocket and came out with money.

"I am Hauptmann Freiherr von Wachtstein," he said. "I am now going to my room, Number 701, where I forgot something. When I return, if there is a glass of orange juice and a coffee cup with a double cognac in it on this table, this is yours."

"It will be my great pleasure," the waiter said with a smile.

Why the hell not? He works in a hotel. I am not the first painfully hung-over guest he has seen.

When he returned with his Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in its proper place on his uniform and walked as straight as he could to the table, even more people smiled at him.

And there was a large glass of orange juice on the table, plus a glass of soda water, and a coffee cup filled to the brim with a dark substance that was not coffee.

If anyone thought it was strange that the young German officer gulped down half the orange juice, mixed the rest of it with coffee poured from his cup, gulped that down, diluted the last of the coffee with soda water, and then gulped that down, he was of course too polite to remark on it.

Three minutes after he returned to the dining room, Hauptmann Freiherr von Wachtstein marched erectly out of the dining room, through the lobby, out the door, and turned left down Avenida Alvear toward the Duarte mansion.

A long line of people sought entrance to the mansion, many with their invitations in their hands. The line stretched from the door out onto Avenida Alvear. Mounted troopers of the Husare de Pueyrred?n, already showing signs of the heat, lined the driveway, while policemen—and men in civilian clothing who looked like plainclothes policemen—kept a watchful eye on those waiting to enter the mansion.

I don't have an invitation. I don't suppose I need one, but I don't think I should just go to the head of the line and announce my arrival. I'll stand in line and see what happens.

Just inside the gate, a large, smoothly shaved man in civilian clothing eyed Peter unabashedly for a full thirty seconds, then walked toward him.

"El Capitan von Wachtstein?"

"S?."

"Let this gentleman pass," the man ordered the policemen.

"He is with the family."

When Peter walked to him, he explained, "Mi Capitan, I am Enrico. If you will come with me, please, Sir, I will take you to el Coronel."

"Gracias," Peter said.

Enrico did not look entirely at ease in his blue business suit, and he had the somewhat stiff walk—as if on parade—of the long service sergeant.

Enrico was almost certainly Suboficial Mayor Enrico,Peter thought. Clete told me about him, an old soldier who worked for el Coronel Frade from the time el Coronel was a teniente. They are a type. For twenty-five years, my father had Oberfeldwebel Manntz running his errands, taking care of him, until Manntz's luck ran out in Norway.

Enrico marched him past the door of the house, where people were checking invitations against a typewritten list, then through the foyer, where the late Capitan Duarte's casket rested on a catafalque, and into a small sitting room.