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

"I said, before, 'the original idea.' All of this planning, of course, was before we became aware of Lindbergh, and of the intelligence Clete came up with last night," Graham went on. "Now there are two issues involved here. The, quote, neutral status, unquote, of the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico, and the money Clete's source says they are going to smuggle ashore this morning."

"I don't quite understand," Dorotea said.

Graham glanced at Clete.

"What's the new idea?" Clete said.

"Maybe killing two birds with one stone," Graham said. "Or at least with one set of photographs. Tell me about this Air Service Captain . . . Delgano?"

"Delgano," Clete confirmed. "What about him?"

"I have the feeling he's more than just a pilot," Graham said.

"He's BIS," Clete said. "He works for Coronel Martin."

"You're sure?"

"He told me."

"OK. New plan. Tell me what you find wrong with it," Graham said. "You go pick up the Lockheed. Digression: Presumably Captain Delgano is going to help you fly it here, right? You cannot fly the Lockheed alone?"

"No. I mean, yes, I can fly the Lockheed alone. And I got Mart?n to agree that I didn't need Delgano's help. It took some doing. He wanted Delgano to see what I planned to do with the Lockheed."

Is that one more proof,Graham wondered, that Cavalry is el Coronel Martin?

"So do I," Graham said. "Damn!"

"I'm not following any of this," Dorotea announced.

"What I wanted to do, Dorotea," Graham said, "was have Capitan Delgano aboard the Lockheed when we took the pictures of a boat leaving the Oceano Pacifico to smuggle something into Argentina. Of the boat leaving the Oceano Pacifico, of the boat landing on the shore of Samboromb?n Bay, and returning to the Oceano Pacifico. Lieutenant Pelosi would take two photographs of everything, giving us a duplicate set of negatives. One set of negatives would be given to Capitan Delgano, together with the necessary special chemicals to develop them."

"Yeah," Clete said appreciatively. "He goes to Mart?n and says, 'I know these are legitimate. I was there when they were taken.'"

"And the Americans have copies," Graham said. "So they couldn't simply ignore them—'What photographs?' Actually, it gives them a way out. Nobody has mentioned the other reason why the Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico is in Samboromb?n Bay resupplying German submarines. The Argentines could then go to the Spanish ambassador and tell him they were ordering the Oceano Pacifico out of Argentine waters because it was caught in the act of smuggling, and here's the photographs to prove it."

"Delgano's probably still at Campo de Mayo," Clete said. "For two reasons: to keep people from getting curious about the Lockheed being there in the first place, and because I told Mart?n I would probably fly over there in one of the Cubs here to pick it up. I'm sure, to be a nice guy, he was planning on flying the Cub back here to see if the Lockheed was here. And/or see what else he could find out."

"And you could politely ask him to help you fly the Lockheed?" Graham asked.

"Yeah."

"You'll have to come here to load the camera platform on the Lockheed," Graham said. "Will you have any trouble persuading him to go with you from here?"

"Oh, I don't think I'll have any trouble at all," Clete said.

"And then you'll go out and photograph this ship, the same way you photographed the first one, when you were shot down?" Dorotea asked.

Uh-oh,Graham thought, this is where she's going to say, "Over my dead, pregnant body you will!"

"If we're two miles away, honey," Clete said, "I don't think they'll start shooting at us."

"And if they do?" Dorotea asked.

"Then I leave," Clete said, as much to Graham as to Dorotea.

"You promise?" she challenged.

Clete hesitated before replying. "Honey, I promise you I won't do anything stupid out there."

Please, God,Graham thought, let that be enough to satisfy her.

"You understand, Colonel," Dorotea said, "that this is the last time Cletus is doing anything like this?"

"If this works, Dorotea," Graham said, hoping he sounded far more sincere than he felt, "there won't be anything more like this for him to do."

"You could be expected to say something like that," she said.

"The truth, Dorotea, is that Clete is far more valuable to the United States government for his influence on General Rawson—on the new Argentine government—than as an OSS agent. If something like this comes up again, we'll send other people in to do it."

"You don't know my . . . Cletus very well, obviously, Colonel," she said. She almost said "my husband," Graham realized. "If 'something like this comes up again,' Cletus will play the damn fool again. I want you to understand, Colonel, that the next time, I'm fighting you tooth and nail."

"Fair enough," Graham said.

"And in Dorotea, mi Coronel," Clete said, smiling, obviously proud of her, "you can expect to meet your match."

"I have already figured that out, Major Frade," Graham said. "OK, let me get into the rest of it. The materiel the Germans will unload from the Oceano Pacifico."

"We're letting them unload the money?" Clete asked, surprised.

Graham didn't reply directly.

"Leibermann has the entire staff of the Office of the Legal Attach? of the Embassy—and some of their local hires—on the way out here. They'll follow the materiel from the beach to its ultimate destination."

"You're letting those bastards bring that dirty money into Argentina?" Clete demanded incredulously. "You know what they're going to do with it!"

"I decided there was a strong possibility that if we grabbed the money today, there would be several unfortunate consequences," Graham said. "And I don't mean only that the only escape route I've ever heard of from German extermination camps would probably be closed for good."

Clete considered that a moment and grunted.

"And, aside from that, I decided that it posed an unacceptable risk to Galahad," Graham went on. "There would be questions asked, on their side, about how we knew precisely where and when the materiel—the money—was to be landed. Only a few people were privy to that information, among them, obviously, Galahad. The Germans have the nasty habit of eliminating people they suspect are guilty. I don't want Galahad eliminated."

"So you can use him again, right?" Clete said bitterly.

"Right."

Their eyes met for a moment, and then Graham went on: "When Lieutenant Sawyer was at Yale—"

"Lieutenant Sawyer?" Dorotea interrupted. "Who's he?"

"Lieutenant Madison R. Sawyer the Third," Clete furnished, his tone mocking Sawyer's Oh, So Social-sounding name. "He's on Ashton's team. Ashton calls him 'the gorilla.'"

"When Lieutenant Sawyer was at Yale, he was a photographer for the Yale Daily News," Graham went on. "He tells Ashton, and we have no choice but to take him at his word, that he will have no problem photographing, on the ground, the landing of the materiel from the Oceano Pacifico. With a little bit of luck, we will furnish your friend Mart?n not only photographs of the materiel actually being unloaded on the beach, but of our friend Standartenf?hrer Goltz and/or Colonel Gr?ner supervising the unloading. That will give the Argentine government sufficient cause to persona non grata either of them, hopefully both."

"What does that mean?" Dorotea asked.

The idea of having Gr?ner booted out of the country didn't seem to bother Clete at all,Graham thought, thereby eliminating Gr?ner as Galahad, and confirming, if it needed confirming, that Galahad is von Wachtstein.

"When someone on a diplomatic passport does something wrong," Graham said, "such as smuggling, the host government declares him persona non grata—a person not welcome—and asks him to leave the country."