Death and Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Okay,” Fischer said without much enthusiasm as Schultz locked the weapon and handed it to him.

  “Now that he’s got a loaded pistol, what’s he going to do with it?” Frade asked.

  “He’s coming with me in the truck. To the house. Give us a ten-minute head start, then drive slow. See what Delgano’s up to. If he gives you the ‘come with me’ business, you make a signal—scratch your ear, something like that—and we come out of the garden and tie him up. Then you take off.”

  “That’s your suggestion?” Dorotea asked, her tone on the edge of sarcasm.

  “You got a better one, Dorotea?” Schultz asked.

  “You come out of the bushes,” Frade added thoughtfully, “tie Delgano up, and then you go out to the house, torch the radar, bring everybody to the hangar, and I fly everybody to Uruguay.”

  “That’d work,” Schultz said.

  “Everybody presumably includes me?” Dorotea asked.

  “Of course,” Frade said. “Jesus! Did you think I’d leave you here?”

  She didn’t respond directly.

  “And the Froggers?” she asked softly.

  Enrico said, “I will send a gaucho to Casa Chica and have Rodolfo take them out on the pampas. For the time being, Sargento Stein can stay there.”

  Frade looked doubtful.

  “We don’t have time to go back and get them,” Dorotea said. “And if we did manage to get them to Uruguay, what would we do with them there?”

  Clete felt a chill.

  She’s right. But I’m supposed to make that decision, and she’s supposed to be horrified.

  “When we get to Uruguay, I’ll contact the OSS guy in the embassy there,” he said, speaking slowly. “Maybe he can think of some way to get them to Uruguay, and what to do with them there. They’re important to Dulles, and I don’t want to kill them unless I have to.”

  Did I mean that? Or am I just unable to order their assassination?

  “That’s risky, Cletus,” Dorotea said.

  “Maybe. But the last time I looked, I’m in charge. Enrico, you will stay on the estancia. I’ll get word to you one way or the other.”

  “I will go with you,” Enrico said.

  “No one will be trying to kill me in Uruguay. And once this is over, one way or the other, you can come to Uruguay with Sargento Stein.”

  “Don Cletus . . .”

  “I’m not going to argue with you, Enrico. You will do what I say.”

  After a long moment, Enrico said, "Sí, señor.”

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Frade said. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes. If, when you get to the big house, something smells, send somebody to warn us.”

  Enrico nodded.

  “Don’t shoot yourself in the foot with that .45, Fischer,” Frade said.

  Captain Gonzalo Delgano, chief pilot of South American Airways, who was sitting in a wicker chair on the verandah of the big house and resting his feet on a wicker stool, got up when he saw the Horch with Don Cletus Frade at the wheel and Doña Dorotea Frade beside him roll majestically up the driveway.

  Clete saw that Delgano was wearing a well-cut double-breasted suit.

  Implying that he’s really not Major Delgano of the Argentina Army Air Service, Retired.

  Except that he’s not—and never has been—retired from the army and, more important, has never severed his connection with the Ethical Standards Office of the Bureau of Internal Security.

  And that, charming or not, he is one dangerous sonofabitch.

  Dorotea waved cheerfully at him as Clete stopped the car.

  Delgano came down the shallow flight of stairs from the verandah.

  “Gonzalo! What a pleasant surprise!” Dorotea said.

  “I’m sorry to intrude, Doña Dorotea,” Delgano said. “But something important has come up.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “What’s up, Gonzo?” Frade asked as they embraced and kissed.

  “I had hoped to see Mr. Fischer,” Delgano said.

  “He’s not here?” Dorotea asked.

  Delgano shook his head.

  “Well, he’s probably taking a ride,” she said. “He’s quite a horseman.”

  “Why do you want to see Fischer?” Clete asked.

  Antonio Lavallé appeared. He was wearing a crisp white jacket.

  “May I get you something, Doña Dorotea? Don Cletus?”

  “I’d like some coffee, please,” Dorotea said. “Darling?”

  “That’d be fine,” Clete said.

  “I was hoping Mr. Fischer would demonstrate his machine for me,” Delgano said. “The one that cuts the paper tapes so that air base transmitters can endlessly repeat the station identifier.”

  “Why would you want him to do that?” Clete asked.

  “Well, El Coronel Jorge G. Frade Airfield needs one,” Delgano said.

  “Excuse me?” Dorotea asked.

  “A tape that will permit the transmitter to endlessly send ‘JGF, JGF, JGF, JGF,’ ” Delgano said, meeting Clete’s eyes. “So that pilots can find the field.”

  “You’ve lost me, Gonzo,” Frade said.

  “After you left El Palomar yesterday, Cletus, El Coronel Perón and I drove over to the airfield. It’s amazing how much work has been done. One hangar is almost up and a good deal of work has been done on the terminal building. One runway is just about complete—not paved, but ready for the pavement, with whatever they call what goes under the concrete.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

  “And El Coronel Perón said, ‘Delgano, this place needs a name. What would you suggest?’ ”

  “And I said, ‘Mi coronel, only one name comes to me.’ And he said, ‘I wonder if we are thinking the same thing? I was about to suggest Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade.’ And I said, ‘I think that would be entirely appropriate, mi coronel,’ and he said, ‘I will have a word with the president.’ ”

  Clete said nothing.

  “I was very fond of your father, Cletus,” Delgano said. “And I hope it will not embarrass you if I tell you how much the two of you are alike, and how much I value your friendship.”

  “Thank you,” Clete said.

  “And I thought it would be very nice when you and I return from Pôrto Alegre with the next Lodestar in a few days or a week, if we could home in on JGF, JGF, JGF. And think of your father.”

  “That would be very nice, Gonzo,” Clete said, his voice breaking.

  He heard himself.

  Shit, I can’t even talk!

  The next thing he knew, he was embracing Delgano.

  He found his voice ninety seconds later when Antonio appeared with a coffee service.

  “Is there champagne in the refrigerator, Antonio? If so, get us a couple of bottles! We have something to celebrate!”

  Dorotea went to Delgano and kissed him, then went to her husband and took his hand.

  [FIVE]

  Estancia Santa Catalina Near Pila Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 2015 20 July 1943

  Cletus Frade’s first reaction when he saw the black Mercedes drop-top sedan with a cuerpo diplomático license plate parked in front of the great house of the estancia was to think, Thank God, he’s here.

  Frade was carrying the information outlining the workings and personnel of the German embassy that Stein had obtained from Frogger. If Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein had not been at his wife’s mother’s home, Frade would have had to have given the papers to La Señora Alicia Carzino-Cormano de von Wachtstein to pass to her husband.

  Clete didn’t want to do that.

  Alicia was not Dorotea. And that was something Clete had known long before Dorotea had manifested that cold ruthlessness at Casa Chica that he hadn’t suspected she was capable of. The less Alicia was involved in the business between Clete and Peter, the better. For a number of reasons, not limited to her inability to handle—it bordered on sheer terror—what her husband was doing.

  And that presumed Alicia would be here. If
she wasn’t, that would have meant he would have had to give the material to Alicia’s mother, and have her pass it to Alicia to pass it to Peter. And he would have had to tell Claudia what it was, and how he had come by it. He didn’t want to do that either. Claudia Carzino-Cormano was tough, but there was no reason to bring her into a potentially dangerous situation unless it was absolutely necessary.

  Clete had another unpleasant thought. The Mercedes was the car assigned to the military attaché of the German embassy. It had been Peter’s to use—after Oberst Grüner, the military attaché, had been killed at Samborombón Bay— as the acting military attaché. But that had changed with the arrival of Korvettenkapitän Karl Boltitz, who had been named the military attaché.

  Is Boltitz here with Peter?

  As if reading his mind, Dorotea said, “That’s the official car. That means Boltitz is probably here, too.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and looked at her.

  Jesus Christ, she even thinks like I do!

  When they walked up on the verandah, they could see Korvettenkapitän Boltitz through the sitting-room window. He was in an armchair. La Señorita Isabela Carzino-Cormano was sitting on a footstool next to him, hanging on his every word.

  Looks like El Bitcho has become just another goddamn Nazi, Clete thought. She’s as bad as Frau Frogger.

  Alicia saw them through the same window and seemed less than overjoyed at their arrival. Although she and Dorotea had been close friends since childhood, and although she knew that if it hadn’t been for Clete going to El Coronel Perón, who had gone to some of his high-ranking Nazi friends to request a favor, right now Peter von Wachtstein would be in Germany flying the Me-262 jet fighter instead of here safe—relatively—in Argentina.

  Alicia got off the couch and was standing behind the Carzino-Cormano butler when he opened the door.

  “Peter is here,” she greeted them. “And Karl Boltitz.”

  That it was a warning showed in her eyes.

  “How nice,” Dorotea replied cheerfully. “Are you going to ask us in?”

  “Of course,” Alicia said, then raised her voice. “Mama, Dorotea and Cletus are here.”

  She led them into the sitting room.

  Von Wachtstein and Boltitz stood.

  “Oh, how nice,” Claudia Carzino-Cormano said, smiling bravely. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

  “Then our timing is perfect,” Cletus said, went to her, really kissed her cheek, and thought: I’m glad you don’t know there’s two other Nazis at Casa Chica, one of them sitting on your couch reading from my father’s copy of Goethe’s love poems.

  He turned to the men.

  “And how is the diplomatic corps tonight?”

  “Señor Frade,” Boltitz said. “How nice to see you. And you, señora.”

  “Hello, Frade,” Peter said. “How are you? Dorotea?”

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Claudia asked.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Clete said. “If that’s merlot that Major von Wachtstein is drinking, I’d love some of that.”

  He sensed Isabela’s eyes and looked at her. Her eyes were as hateful as he expected.

  “What a joy it is to see you, Isabela,” Clete said. “And you seem so happy. Been pulling the wings off flies again, have you?”

  “Cletus!” Dorotea and Claudia said, almost in unison.

  “Karl,” Claudia then said, “you’ll have to forgive him. He’s always teasing Isabela.”

  “I am not!” Cletus said.

  “Changing the subject,” Peter said. “There’s a rumor going around that your first airplane has arrived.”

  “Not a rumor at all,” Clete said. “It’s at El Palomar. After a two-hour-and-sixteen-minute flight from Pôrto Alegre.”

  “That’s fast.”

  “Fast and smooth,” Clete said. “American aviation genius at work.”

  That earned him, as he expected it would, another dirty look from Isabela.

  “Not as fast as the Condor, certainly,” Isabela said.

  “I don’t know,” Clete said innocently. “How fast is the Condor, Isabela?”

  Her expression showed that she did not have a clue. She looked at Peter.

  “It’ll do a little better than three hundred kph,” Peter furnished. “It cruises at around two fifty-five.”

  “The Lodestar tops out at a little better than three forty-five,” Clete said.

  “But it won’t cross an ocean, will it?” Isabela challenged.

  Gotcha, El Bitcho!

  “Isabela,” Clete explained politely, “the Lodestar, first, never was designed for long flights. And, second, it’s obsolete. That’s why they’ve sold them to South American Airways. We—the Americans—don’t need them anymore.”

  “Then you Americans don’t have an airplane like the Condor that will cross oceans?” she pursued.

  “I didn’t say that, Isabela,” Clete went on, trying not to sound condescending. “Right now, the Americans every day fly the Douglas DC-4 across both the Pacific and the Atlantic. And there’s a new Lockheed—”

  “There is?” Peter asked.

  Clete turned to him. “The Lockheed pilots who delivered the Lodestar to Pôrto Alegre told me their new one—they call it the ‘Constellation’—has just been certified. At cruise altitude, seventy-five hundred meters, it cruises at five hundred seventy kph. For eighty-seven hundred kilometers. With a full load. Thirty passengers.”

  “Very impressive,” Peter said, meaning it.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it land at El Palomar,” Isabela said.

  “That’s probably never going to happen, Isabela,” Clete said, paused, and when he saw she was about to snap back at him, added, “When the first Constellation lands here, it’ll belong to South American Airways, and will of course land at Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade.”

  “The two of you stop it!” Claudia said. After a moment, she asked, “What did you just say, Cletus?”

  “About where the Constellation will land when it comes here, you mean?”

  “You know very well that’s what I mean. What are you talking about?”

  “The chief pilot of South American Airways—you remember him, Claudia, Major Delgano?”

  She nodded. “And?”

  “He came to see us this morning to tell me that he and my Tío Juan”—he paused and looked at Boltitz—“El Coronel Juan Domingo Perón is not really my uncle, korvettenkapitän, but he likes me to call him that. Anyway, Tío Juan and Major Delgano thought it would be nice if we named our new airport after my father, and wanted to know what I thought of the idea.”

  “Damn you, Cletus!” Claudia said, having trouble with her voice. “You are just like him! Same awful sense of humor!”

  “Oh, I don’t think they were fooling, Claudia. Tío Juan told Delgano he was going to have a word with the president. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody’s already painting a temporary sign.”

  “If la señora is so pleased,” the butler announced from the door to the dining room, “dinner can now be served.”

  “As our hostess,” Clete said while the coffee was served, “already is offended by my bad manners—”

  “And with damned good cause,” Claudia interrupted, “thank you very much, Cletus.”

  Clete nodded once, then went on: “—I would not dare anger her further by filling the room with cigar smoke. I am therefore going to take my coffee onto the verandah for a smoke. If anyone would care to join me . . . you, perhaps, Isabela?”

  She snorted.

  “All are welcome,” Clete went on. “I have cigars but regrettably no cigarettes. ”

  “I’d like a smoke,” Boltitz said. “With your permission, la señora?”

  “Go,” Claudia said.

  The three men went not only onto the verandah but off it and into the garden, where they could not be overheard. There, Frade extended his cigar case.

  “I don’t use them, thank you,” Boltitz said.

&
nbsp; “Put one in your mouth anyway,” Frade said. “In case El Bitcho is watching us out the window, as I suspect she is. Or will be.”

  Boltitz nodded and took a cigar.

  Von Wachtstein took a cigar, lit it, and puffed appreciatively.

  “Nice,” he said.

  “They make them in Tampa, Florida,” Frade said between puffs on his. Then he added, “Peter, turn your back to the house. I’m going to give you an envelope, and I don’t want Isabela to see me doing it.”

  The transfer took perhaps thirty seconds.

  “What’s in the envelope?” von Wachtstein said.

  “Information about your embassy. I need to know how accurate it is.”

  “Where did you get it?” Boltitz asked.

  Frade didn’t reply.

  “So you have the Froggers, Cletus?” von Wachtstein asked, but it was more of a statement.

  “The who?”

  “You would be surprised to learn that the former commercial attaché of the embassy, Herr Wilhelm Frogger, and Frau Frogger have gone missing?” Boltitz asked.

  “You don’t say?” Frade said.

  “On Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo?” von Wachtstein asked.

  Frade shook his head.

  “Someplace where they will be hard to find, I hope?” Boltitz asked.

  Frade looked at him but did not reply.

  “Major Frade, if I’m not mistaken, SS-Brigadeführer von Deitzberg has ordered the present commercial attaché, the former Obersturmbannführer Karl Cranz, to eliminate them when and where found.”

  “Why would von Deitzberg want to do that?”

  “Because he could then tell Himmler that Frogger was the traitor in the embassy and that he had been eliminated.”

  “But that’s not true.”

  “And if von Deitzberg later found the real traitor, he could then tell Himmler that there were two traitors and he had found both. And I would guess that he would hope the currently unrevealed traitor, or traitors, would relax a bit after learning Frogger had been identified, and that would help him catch them.”

  “You’re pretty good at this, aren’t you, Boltitz?” Frade said. His tone of voice showed that he meant the compliment.