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

"But as Pedro pointed out, we cannot putOutline Blue into operation without the money. We're going to have to get into that safe," he said. "Blowing it open is a last resort. Which means we have to deal with the son. Agreed?"

“S?, mi General." Rawson said.

"The possibility exists, Se?or, that Suboficial Mayor Rodriguez has the combination," Querro said. "If he does, it would solve a lot of problems."

"As I understand it, he is in the hospital being guarded by the Polic?a Federal. Any conversation any of us might have with him would be recorded," Raw-son said.

"It's agreed, then," Ramirez said, "that we will deal with the son, through Claudia. Is that correct?"

Rawson nodded.

"And now I suggest, gentlemen," Ramirez said, closing the discussion, "that we have our dinner."

“S?, mi General," Lauffer said, then walked to the door and pushed the button that would summon the waiters.

Chapter Four

[ONE]

Avenida Pueyrred?n 1706, Piso 10

Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina

0755 9 April 1943

While there were many things in Argentina Hans-Peter Freiherr (Baron) von Wachtstein had come to admire, from the food to—especially—the women, the Argentine concept of time was not among them. It was not a question of whether an Argentine would ever be on time, but instead, of how late an Argentine was going to be, a period that ranged from a minimum of fifteen minutes to an hour.

Argentines ascribed this character flaw to their Spanish heritage, but that was so much nonsense. Peter had been to Spain. He knew Spaniards regarded their timepieces as instruments of civilization rather than as decorations for the wall and/or jewelry for the wrist.

When this casual disregard for an agreed-upon schedule was tied in with another national character flaw, forgetfulness—such as forgetting the door key to the place where they were supposed to be long minutes before—Peter, normally a placid, sometimes quite charming young man, tended to lose his temper.

In the situation at hand, his maid—a Paraguayan Amazon who outweighed him by at least thirty pounds—had agreed to daily present herself at his apartment at 0700, to prepare coffee according to the ratio of beans to water that he had laid out, to awaken him at 0715, and to have coffee, two soft-boiled eggs, rolls and/or bread, marmalade, and butter waiting for him when he came into the dining room at 0730.

He did not think it was too much to ask, and consequently was more than a little annoyed when his slumber was disturbed by the unpleasant grinding of the service-elevator door opening on his floor, followed almost immediately by the unpleasant clanging of the service-entrance doorbell. When he consulted his wristwatch, it indicated 07:54:45.

The facts spoke for themselves. She was not only fifty-four minutes late, again, but she had forgotten her key, again.

Peter, who was a blond, blue-eyed, compactly built twenty-four-year-old, jumped out of bed. Pausing only long enough to snatch a towel from where he had dropped it on the bedroom floor and wrap it around his waist—he slept naked—he walked quickly out of his bedroom.

The apartment was furnished with heavy, Germanic-looking furniture, rented, like the apartment itself, from an Ethnic German-Argentine family who were happy to make these available at a very reasonable price to a man like von Wachtstein. They considered this act a small contribution to the war effort and the Thousand Year Reich.

He walked quickly through the living room to the kitchen and finally reached the service-entrance door, rehearsing all the harsh and unkind things he was going to say to Se?ora Dora.

After some trouble with the lock—during which the bell clanged twice, impatiently, in his ear—he got the door open, swung it wide, and was struck dumb.

His caller was not his maid, but a black-haired twenty-year old Argentine female of extraordinary beauty named Alicia Carzino-Cormano. He had known Alicia socially since the previous December and in the biblical sense for approximately fifteen days.

"Liebchen!" he finally blurted.

"May I come in?"

He stepped back from the door and she walked past him. He closed the door, reached out his hand, and touched her shoulder, whereupon she turned to him, came into his arms, rested her face against his chest, and clung to him desperately.

"Liebchen, what's wrong?"

"I'm frightened," she said.

"About what?"

"Everything," she said.

Well, that makes two of us.

She pushed away from him and smiled up at him.

"Sorry," she said.

"Don't be silly," he said. "Sorry for what?"

"I'm supposed to be at mass," she said. "Confession and then mass. That's what I told Isabela. Mother really sent me here."

"Why?"

"Humberto called Mother very late last night. Cletus arrives here this afternoon. Mother thought you'd want to know, and she didn't want to use the telephone."

I don't suppose it's very likely Cletus has the combination to his father's safe, but I'm grasping for straws.

"Yes, of course."

He leaned down and kissed her, very chastely, on the forehead.

"I'd better put some clothes on," he said. "Dora is an hour late. She's liable to walk in any second."

She nodded.

"You want to make some coffee? I won't be a minute."

She nodded again, and smiled.

He walked back to his bedroom and began to take clothing from his closet. He sensed he was not alone, and turned.

Alicia was standing in the bedroom door.

"Do you think they're going to try to kill Cletus, too?" she asked.

Probably. And this time they may succeed. Coming back here was insanity.

"I don't think so, sweetheart," he said. "And Cletus can take care of himself."

"They will, you know they will," Alicia said, and he heard her voice starting to break. And then she ran into his arms again.

"He'll be all right, baby," Peter said, stroking her hair, hoping he sounded far more confident than he felt.

"I've been thinking," Alicia said. "About Brazil."

"That's just not possible, sweetheart," Peter said. "We've talked about that."

They had talked about it in her mother's apartment immediately after the murder of el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade. She wept then, too. It was the second time he had seen her weep. The first time was the afternoon at Estancia Santo Catalina, when she became a woman and told him she was weeping with happiness.

In her mother's apartment she wept with grief over the loss of el Coronel Frade. Understandably. For most of her life he had filled the role of father for her. But that wasn't the only reason she wept. The primary cause of her misery was that Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, whom she loved, was a German, a German officer, and she could see nothing in their future but grief and misery and probably death.

She announced through her tears that the only hope they had was for him to desert, to cross the border into Brazil, and turn himself in. Brazil would treat him as a prisoner of war. Though this would separate them for now, he would live through the war; and after the war, they would be together.

He knew then that Alicia, who was as hardheaded as her mother, would not be satisfied with a "Sorry, that's just not possible" answer. He had to tell her why it was not possible for him to desert. Not everything, of course, not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But some truths, and some major omissions.

He told her that he had been charged by his father with salvaging a portion of what was already becoming the ashes and rubble of Germany, so that the people who lived on the von Wachtstein estates in Pomerania would have enough to rebuild their lives once the war was over.

He told her that it was a matter of honor for his father and himself to do so; that they had an obligation, as von Wachtsteins, to do what they could for the several thousand people who depended on the von Wachtsteins to care for them, as von Wachtsteins had cared for their people for centuries.