Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 03 - Secret Honor

Frade had met. Clete had dubbed her "el bitcho." Though it was neither Spanish nor English, the term had immediately caught on. Alicia often caught herself thinking of Isabela that way, and she had even overheard one of the maids calling her that to another maid.

"Has she?" he pursued.

"I don't know what she did last night. She's been…" Alicia stopped herself just in time from saying "bitchy," "… difficult about the wedding. She really doesn't want to participate."

Alicia finished brushing her hair and started to make up her face.

"I like to watch you standing there in your underwear, doing that," Peter said.

She smiled at him. "Go back to bed," she said.

"Not alone," he said.

"Sweetheart, I have to go."

"I'll put you in a cab," he said.

She nodded.

[THREE]

The Embassy of the German Reich

Avenue Cordoba

Buenos Aires

0915 29 April 1943

"And a very good morning to you, Fraiilein Hassell," Peter von Wachtstein said to the Ambassador's secretary as he entered the Ambassador's outer office. He was wearing a well-cut, nearly black pin-striped double-breasted suit, a stiffly starched white shirt, and a striped silk necktie. She was a middle-aged spinster in a black dress, and wore her graying hair drawn tight and gathered in a bun at the nape of her neck.

"His Excellency wanted to see you the moment you arrived at the Embassy," Fraulein Ingebord Hassell said, sounding to Peter much like a scolding schoolteacher.

"And here I am," Peter said.

"It's sixteen past nine," she said. "He sent for you at eight twenty-five."

"I was caught in traffic," Peter said. "May I go in?"

"One moment, please, Herr Major," she said.

She pushed the TALK lever on her intercom box. "Excel lency, Major Freiherr von Wachtstein is here."

"Send him in, please, Fraulein Hassell," the ambassador replied. "And would you bring us some coffee?"

"Jawohl, Excellency," she said, and glared at Peter. "One day, you're going to try his Excellency's patience too much."

"Oh, I hope not," Peter said.

He walked to the Ambassador's door, knocked, and then entered without waiting for a reply. "Heil Hitler!" he barked so that Fraulein Hassell would hear him, but he did not give the requisite salute.

"Heil Hitler," the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipo tentiary of the Fiihrer of the German Reich to the Republic of

Argentina replied.

Manfred Alois Graf von Lutzenberger was a very slight man of fifty-three who wore his thinning hair plastered across his skull. He signaled for Peter to come in. "I sent for you forty-five minutes ago," he said.

"My apologies, Excellency, I was caught in traffic."

Fraulein Hassell scurried into the room with a tray holding coffee and sweets.

Von Lutzenberger waited until Fraulein Hassell had left and closed the door behind her, then pointed to the chair beside his desk, an order for Peter to sit down. "Traffic, eh? I thought perhaps you might have overslept." He pushed a sheet of paper across the desk to Peter.

"I wonder what Untersturmfuhrer Schneider did from ten fifteen to four A.M.," Peter said.

"His duty to his ambassador, von Wachtstein," von Lutzen berger said. "Making a report that will also be of great interest when the people arrive from Berlin."

Peter looked at von Lutzenberger with that question in his eyes.

"Not a word," von Lutzenberger said. "But it will come,

Peter, as inevitably as the sun rises."

Peter nodded.

"When do you next plan to see Senor Duarte?" von Lutzen berger asked. "I have something I want you to give him."

SECRET

ATTENTION OF AMBASSADOR AND FIRST

SECRETARY ONLY

SURVEILLANCE REPORT VON WACHTSTEIN,

MAJOR FREIHERR HANS-PETER

PERIOD 1735 28 APRIL 1943 TO 0630 29

APRIL 1943

28 APRIL

1700 SURVEILLANCE COMMENCED

1735 OFFICER LEFT THE EMBASSY IN

PERSONAL AUTO

1758 OFFICER ARRIVED AT HIS APART MENT

1805 OFFICER TELEPHONED 78342 AND

SPOKE WITH SENORITA ALICIA CARZINO CORMANO, ARRANGING RENDEZVOUS WITH

CARZINO-CORMANO AT RESTAURANT MUN CHEN RECOLETA FOR 1930

1915 OFFICER TOOK TAXICAB TO RESTAU RANT MUNCHEN

1932 OFFICER ARRIVED RESTAURANT MUN CHEN, MET CARZINO-CORMANO

2115 OFFICER DEPARTED RESTAURANT

MUNCHEN WITH CARZINO-CORMANO IN TAXI CAB

2148 OFFICER ARRIVED HIS APARTMENT

WITH CARZINO-CORMANO

2215 ALL VISIBLE LIGHTS IN APARTMENT

EXTINGUISHED.

29 APRIL

0353 LIGHT, MASTER BEDROOM ILLUMI NATED

0430 OTHER APARTMENT LIGHTS ILLUMI NATED

0442 OFFICER APPEARED WITH CARZINO CORMANO IN APARTMENT LOBBY AND

PLACED CARZINO-CORMANO IN TAXICAB

0600 SURVEILLANCE TERMINATED

SUMMARY:

DURING THE SURVEILLANCE PERIOD,

OFFICER MET WITH ONE (1) PERSON,

CARZINO-CORMANO AND MADE ONE (1)

TELEPHONE CALL, TO CARZINO-CORMANO.

HEIL HITLER!

SCHNEIDER, UNTERSTURMFUHRER, SS-SD

"I've been invited to the Carzino-Cormano estancia for the weekend. I'm sure he'll be there."

"Well, as we have had no word from Berlin, I think you should accept the invitation. Don't go out there before I give you what I have."

"No, Sir."

"That will be all, Peter, thank you."

"Yes, Sir."

Peter made it as far as opening the door when von

Lutzenberger called out to him, loud enough for Fraulein

Hassell to hear.

He turned.

"I expect you to be in the Embassy during normal duty hours, von Wachtstein. If traffic is a problem, then leave your apartment earlier."

"Jawohl, Excellency!"

[FOUR]

El Club De Belgrano

Barrancas Del Belgrano, Buenos Aires

1315 30 April 1943

The dark blue 1939 Dodge four-door sedan turned left off

Avenida Libertador onto Calle Jose Fernandez and drove up its steep-for Buenos Aires-incline to the first corner.

There the driver tried, and failed, to make a very sharp left turn into the drive of the Belgrano Club. He had to back up twice before he was lined up in the drive and the porter could open the gate.

If he had turned a block earlier and come down

Arribenos, the passenger in the rear seat of the car thought, he could have done this a lot easier.

The Belgrano Club occupied most of a block in Barrancas del Belgrano, an upper-class district of Buenos Aires-a dis trict that looked, its Deutsche-Argentinishe residents often commented, much like the Zehlendorf district of Berlin. Its tree-shaded streets were lined with large villas, and here and there a luxurious apartment building.

Once inside the compound, the driver (following the directions of his passenger) drove past the buildings housing the swimming pool and the restaurant, and finally stopped by the door to the men's dressing room, near the tennis courts.

The driver jumped from behind the wheel, came to attention by the rear door, and pulled it open.

A tall, fair-haired, light-skinned man in his middle thirties, wearing a well-cut gray business suit and a snap-brim felt hat, stepped out and looked at the driver, then at his watch.