Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 02 - Blood and Honor

"Don't be evasive."

"I flew a Piper Cub for them."

"You participated in the coup d’?tat?" Delojo asked incredulously. "Took an active role in it?"

Graham ignored him.

"Where did you fly the Piper Cub?" he asked.

"I flew General Rawson around," Clete said. "One of the columns was stalled at the School of Naval Engineering. So we landed there, and he told them to bypass it. And then we flew to the other column, which had stopped because the first column was stalled, and dropped a message to them telling them to start moving. And then we flew over the Casa Rosada and watched both columns converge on it."

"General Rawson was with you?" Graham asked.

"Yes, he was," Clete said, and then added, "They offered me a commission. I turned it down."

"You would have lost your citizenship. You would have . . . ," Delojo fumed.

"I thought about that," Clete said. "Which is why I didn't take the commission."

"Where's the airplane now?" Graham asked.

There was a knock at the door. Clete thought that it was very likely Dorotea, wondering what was holding him up.

It was a maid.

"Se?or Frade," she announced. "Se?orita Carzino-Cormano is here and asks to see you."

"Enrico, see what that's all about, will you?" Clete said, and then replied to Graham. "I wasn't turned loose until after dark. I didn't want to try to land the Lockheed here at night. So I asked them to take me into town, picked up the car. and came out here."

"Stopping only long enough, correct, to pick up your fianc?e?" Commander Delojo asked sarcastically.

"Why didn't you stay in Buenos Aires?" Graham asked quickly, in time to shut off Clete's reply to Delojo. "So that you could deal with the plane in the morning?"

Clete hesitated, obviously considering the wisdom of saying something rude to Delojo, and then replied, his voice showing that his temper was simmering close to the surface:

"The reason I came out here was to see if anybody here knew any more about what happened to Dave Ettinger than I did. And I thought Ashton might need me for something. And I even thought about messaging you, back in the States, to tell you thatOutline Blue worked. I'll fly over there in one of the Cubs in the morning and pick up the plane."

Enrico put his head in the door—surprising Clete, for he had been gone only a moment.

"Se?or Clete?" he said, and motioned for him to leave the room.

Clete walked through the door and closed it after him.

"If you don't mind my saying so, Colonel, I don't like his attitude," Commander Delojo said.

"I don't mind you saying so, Commander—frankly, I'm not thrilled with it myself—but when he comes back in here, you're directed not to open your mouth until I tell you to," Graham said.

"If your purpose in sending Frade down here, Alejandro," Leibermann said, "was to see if he could get close to the new government, that has certainly succeeded."

Graham nodded.

"If he hadn't flown us here on that plane," Ashton said, "my team and I and the radar would still be in Porto Alegre."

"Sir," Tony Pelosi said, "I want to make it clear that when I told Major Frade I wanted to rig Goltz's telephone, he told me right away to forget it."'

"Apparently the Cletus H. Frade Fan Club is holding its annual convention?" Graham said, but there was a smile on his lips. He then added. "God, wait till I tell Donovan that he was flying Rawson around during the revolution."

Clete and Enrico came back in the room three minutes later.

"What was that all about?" Graham asked.

"I have the position where the Oceano Pacifico will drop anchor in Samboromb?n Bay. If she's not already there."

"Where did you get that?" Graham asked.

"And the location of the place where Goltz will land what is probably all that money we've heard about from the Oceano Pacifico."

"What's your source?" Graham asked.

"The landing will take place tomorrow morning. A boat will leave Magdalena at first light, go out to the Oceano Pacifico, take on the cargo, and then head to shore. So it will land however long after daybreak it takes the boat to go out to the Oceano Pacifico and back. Figure forty minutes each way, eighty minutes, an hour and twenty minutes, make it an hour and a half, make it any time between an hour and a quarter to two hours after sunrise."

"I need to know your source, Clete, " Graham said.

"This is from the horse's mouth, Colonel, but that's all I can tell you and still look myself in the mirror when I shave."

Graham looked as if was about to reply, then changed his mind.

"How long will it take you to fly that airplane here ... or over this position in Samboromb?n Bay in the morning?"

"About an hour from here to Campo de Mayo, figure twenty, thirty minutes on the ground there, and then thirty minutes to fly the Lockheed back here."

"And over the Oceano Pacifico?"

"About the same time."

"One thing I know for sure is that we have to have our hands on that airplane. So that's settled. You be ready to take off at first light for Campo de Mayo."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"That's all, Clete," Graham said. "Get a good night's sleep. Set your alarm so you're up in time to have breakfast and be ready to take off at first light."

Clete nodded.

Christ, I've been dismissed!

He looked at Graham, who made it official.

"That will be all, Major, thank you," Graham said. "You are dismissed."

Clete's face reddened, but he kept his mouth shut and walked out of the room. Enrico followed him.

THREE

Colonel A. F. Graham glanced in turn at all the officers remaining in the room, and finally settled his gaze on First Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi.

"I think you should take one more trip out to the radio station, Pelosi," he ordered, "to see if anything new has come in. After that, I don't think we'll need you any more tonight. Set your alarm early, too. I want you up when Frade gets up."

"Yes, Sir."

"So far as you're concerned, Commander, I can't see any reason for you to stay out here, now that we've found Frade. Or vice versa. So you can go back to Buenos Aires."

"Yes, Sir. Sir, I'm willing to stick around—"

"What I want you to do is make sure that I can get in contact with the Ambassador at any time tomorrow," Graham cut him off. "It's entirely possible that it will be necessary to do just that."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"Both of you can go," Graham said, and they left the room.

"Ashton, presumably your radar can verify the existence of a vessel—not necessarily the Oceano Pacifico —at the position we got from Frade?"

"Yes, Sir, if there's a vessel there, we will have already picked it up."

"Where's the camera?"

"At the radar site, Sir."

"OK. You go out there, check to see if a vessel is where Frade says it is— stick around until say oh three hundred if there isn't one there when you get there—and then come back here with the camera. You can use the camera in the Lockheed?"

"Yes, Sir. I'll have to take a side window out for the best results."

"But you can use the camera in the Lockheed?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Be prepared to do so."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

"You're dismissed, Captain."

"Aye, aye, Sir."

Graham waited until he had left the room and then turned to Mr. Ralph Stevenson, the Cultural Attach? of the Embassy of the United States of America in Montevideo, Uruguay.

"I want to ask you an off-the-record question, Ralph," he said, "which I promise you I will never remember asking. If I weren't here, and because of the three team chiefs we have down here, you're the only one who comes close to being what a team chief should be, you were faced with making the decision, what would you do?".

"Decision about what?"

"'Let's give Frade the benefit of the doubt a moment. Let's say his source is good. Early tomorrow, the Germans will attempt to smuggle into Argentina a large sum of money—I have trouble with that one-hundred-million-dollar figure, but let's say a very large sum of money. Five million. Ten million. This money we know has been stolen in some despicable way from Jews in Germany. Not only that, but it will be used to purchase safe houses for—an infrastructure designed to give sanctuary to—any number of characters for whom skinning alive is too good. What do we do about that? Try to prevent them from smuggling it in? Try to grab the money? If we do that, we are probably also going to interfere with Lindbergh. Lindbergh is filthy, but on the other hand, people otherwise doomed to be shot in the head or gassed or starved to death, including, of course, women and children, are getting out of the camps. The third option is to do nothing, let them bring the money into the country and try to keep an eye on what happens to it, in the hope that when the war is over we can make things right."