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

He ambled down the curving paths between (and sometimes under) the massive, ancient Gomero trees—some said to be four hundred years old—and then sat down on one side of a double bench. A tall, good-looking man in his twenties, who was wearing both the uniform of a Capitan of Cavalry and the de rigueur cavalry officer's mustache, sat on the other side of the bench, facing away from the Circulo Militar toward the River Plate.

Mart?n took a quick look at the Circulo Militar. The magnificent Italian-style building had been built in the late nineteen century as a private residence by the owners of La Prensa, the second of Argentina's major newspapers. They had subsequently given it to the Army, as a small token, some said, of the family's admiration for that body. Others snickered knowingly when this explanation for the donors' multi-million-dollar generosity was offered.

Mart?n picked up La Nation and opened it.

"Nothing," he said softly. "It is not in either the house on D?az, or in the guest house on Libertador."

The Capitan, whose name was Roberto Lauffer, could not resist shrugging, but he looked the other way and covered his mouth with his handkerchief before he replied.

"Then it has to be at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo," he said.

"I can't get anybody in there," Mart?n said. "And even if I could, I don't have the combination to the safe. And it's a Himpell, German, built like a battleship. The only way to open it without a combination would be with a blowtorch. Or explosives."

"The dealer?" Capitan Lauffer asked.

"Don't you think I tried that?" Mart?n said icily. "One of the many advantages of a Himpell safe is the ease with which the combination can be changed by its owner."

"You don't think anyone else has the combination? Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez?"

"I think el Coronel Frade had the only combination, and in his mind, not written down somewhere." Mart?n said.

"I will relay this to General Rawson," Capitan Lauffer said.

"I'll give you something else to ruin his dinner," Mart?n said. "Humberto Duarte got a cable an hour ago from el Coronel Frade's son, asking that the funeral be delayed until he gets here."

"He's coming back?"

"He will leave Miami tomorrow on the Panagra flight"—Pan-American Airways-Grace Airlines.

"And Duarte will delay the funeral?"

"Of course he will."

Capitan Lauffer exhaled audibly.

"I will so inform General Rawson," he said.

"The room has been inspected for listening devices, but. . ."

"I understand," Lauffer said.

"I think that's everything for now," Mart?n said.

"Yes, Sir," Lauffer said, rising. He then walked through the park toward the Circulo Militar.

When Teniente Coronel Mart?n assumed his duties with the Ministry of Defense's Bureau of Internal Security as "Chief, Ethical Standards Office," he was given responsibility for keeping an eye on the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos. For the G.O.U., it was correctly suspected, were planning a coup d'?tat against the regime of President Ramon S. Castillo.

In the meantime, Coronel Martin's relationship with the G.O.U. had changed. A new set of circumstances had forced him to choose sides. On the one hand, he now accepted that his hope to remain apolitical and perform his services for whoever was constitutionally in office was wishful and naive. And on the other hand, he realized that he had chosen the right side, at least morally. Whether right would prevail was entirely another question.

In this light, he saw that his duty now was to prevent those with ties to President Castillo from learning more than was absolutely necessary about the activities of the G.O.U.

The worst possible contingency was thatOutline Blue would fall into the hands of President Castillo's supporters. ForOutline Blue was the detailed plan for the coup d'?tat, complete in every detail, including the names of the officers involved and the roles they would play; everything except for the date and time of execution.

In view of the danger, only one complete copy ofOutline Blue was assembled. This was entrusted to el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade. who had written most of it and was el Presidente of G.O.U. Frade was now dead, assassinated, Mart?n believed, at the orders of the German Military Attach?, acting on orders from Germany. His assassination served two German purposes—to keep Frade from becoming President, and to remind other senior Argentine officers that Germany could punish its enemies as well as reward its friends.

But preventing Frade from becoming the next President of the Argentine Republic, Mart?n believed, was the primary cause of the assassination. For if the coup d’?tat succeeded, that would have happened. The Germans did not want the President of Argentina to lead the nation away from its current status, which was Neutral, leaning heavily toward the Axis, to Neutral, leaning toward the Allies. Or worse: leading Argentina to a declaration of war against the Axis.

Six months before, the Germans, with reason, considered el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade a friend. He was a graduate of the German Kriegsschule—literally, "War School." It was, roughly, the German military staff college, combining the American Command and General Staff College and the War College, and he was known to hate the United States in most of its aspects.

That changed within a matter of weeks, when the norteamericanos, in a brilliant ploy, dispatched to Argentina an Office of Strategic Services agent, who was, among other things, a Marine Corps aviation officer who had fought in the Pacific. More important, he was the son, estranged from infancy, of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade.

The Germans then made the tactical blunder of attempting to assassinate the son. The attempt failed, and the son went on to carry out his mission, the sinking of the Reine de la Mer.

For Frade, blood proved stronger than the political belief that the Germans were fighting a near holy war against godless communism. He not only assisted his son in the sinking of the Reine de la Mer— -by making his airplane available to find the ship—he also used his influence to ensure their escape from the country if they were caught trying to destroy the Reine de la Mer —by obtaining, for instance, Argentine passports for the OSS team.

Probably as bad, from the German point of view: el Coronel Frade was quoted in both La Nation and La Prensa as believing the Allied statement— which the Germans of course denied—that Germans had imprisoned several hundred thousand Jews for use as slave laborers. In fact, he went on to state he was convinced that the number of Jews in concentration camps was well over a million.

When el Coronel Frade's sudden, unexpected, and well-known change of sides became apparent to the Germans, Mart?n believed, the decision was made to assassinate him.

The death of Frade not only saddened Coronel Martin—he genuinely liked him—it brought with it serious problems. If, in the course of normal postmortem activities—which would include going into el Coronel Frade's safe-deposit boxes and personal safes—the Operations Order fell into the wrong hands, the coup d’?tat would fail and those involved would be exposed. People involved in a coup d’?tat are either saviors of their country or traitors.

Mart?n didn't think Castillo would actually stand all those involved against a wall, or even see that all of them would be tried by court-martial and sentenced to long prison terms. Just perhaps the dozen or so people of the inner circle. But however short the list of the inner circle, one of the names there would certainly be Teniente Coronel Alejandro Bernardo Martin's.

Mart?n forced this uncomfortable line of thought from his mind and turned to the business immediately at hand. He was too deeply involved now to get out, even if he went directly to Castillo and exposed everyone. And he knew he was simply incapable of doing that. It was a question of honor. He had made his choice, and he would have to live with it.