W E B Griffin - Honor 2 - Blood and Honor

by Blood

  The maitre d' picked up the telephone. Peter gave him a number, which the maitre d' repeated, then handed the receiver to Peter.

  "This is the Duarte residence," a male voice announced.

  "Se¤orita Alicia, please," he said. "Se¤or Condor is calling."

  "I will see if the lady is at home, Se¤or," the butler said.

  He didn't know if there were listening devices on the Duarte line; there might be. There were almost certainly listening devices on the line in Goltz's hotel room. But even if someone was listening to the Duarte line, no suspicions would be aroused, unless Alicia, in her naivet‚, said something she should not. He had arrived in Buenos Aires speaking fluent Spanish. Since then he had worked very hard to acquire the Porteno (Buenos Aires Native) accent and id-iom. Condor-which they had chosen as a nom d'amour from the Argentine na-tional bird, and because he was a pilot-was a fairly common name. It was unlikely that any telephone monitor would find one more call from a young man to Se¤orita Alicia Carzino-Cormano suspicious, or that Se¤or Condor was a German officer.

  "Hola?"

  Every time he heard her soft, somehow hesitant voice, his heart jumped.

  "How are you?"

  "How do you think I am? Where are you?"

  "In the roof garden of the Alvear."

  "I mean, really?"

  "I mean, really."

  "I thought you said you had to go to work."

  "I am working. I am carrying the luggage of a distinguished personage. Later, I'm part of the official party which will go to the Edificio Libertador to pay our respects to el Coronel Frade...."

  "Oh, Peter!"

  "I should be free after that. About ten, I think."

  "Well, I can't leave here, obviously, and you can't come here."

  "The Duartes have told me I am always welcome," he teased.

  "Cletus is here," Alicia said.

  "Cletus is there?"

  I've got to see him. How the hell am I going to arrange that?

  That was the last thing in the world he expected to hear.

  "Not here. Right now, no one seems to know where he is. But he's in Buenos Aires. He'll probably, certainly, come here sooner or later. In addition to everything else, Mother is frantic."

  "How do you know he's in Buenos Aires?"

  "Someone called Beatrice Duarte and said that she saw him at the cas-ket... at Edificio Libertador. He was with General Ramirez."

  Well, if he's with Ramirez, everybody in Buenos Aires will know he's back.

  "If you see him before I do, would you tell him to get in touch with me, please?"

  "Of course," Alicia said, then: "Carino,(*Porteiio: Sweetheart, darling, or equivalent.) he's not in danger, is he?"

  "I don't think so."

  Not as long as he's with Ramirez, anyway. And maybe not for a day or two, until Gr�ner has time to set up another assassination.

  "Peter, I'm worried for him."

  You and me both, Schatzie. (Berlinerische: Sweetheart, darling, or equivalent.)

  "He'll be all right," von Wachtstein said.

  "I'll see you tomorrow," she said.

  "I love you."

  "Yes, of course, I feel the same way."

  "Somebody's there?"

  "Yes, certainly."

  "Isabela?"

  "Yes."

  Isabela was the elder of the two daughters of Se¤ora Claudia Carzino-Cormano. Clete referred to her as "El Bitcho," Peter remembered with a smile. The feeling was mutual. Isabela loathed Clete, and she was not very fond of Pe-ter either, which he suspected was because he had shown no interest in her from the moment he had laid eyes on Alicia.

  "Stick your finger in her eye," Peter said.

  "That's a very good idea, if somewhat impractical. Thank you for calling. Goodbye."

  He hung up and looked up and saw the maitre d' examining his extended index finger. Then he mimed sticking it in his eye.

  "Mother or sister?" the maitre d' inquired.

  "The sister."

  "I will pray for you. Sisters are more dangerous than mothers."

  "Thank you," Peter said. He slipped the maitre d'hotel a bill and got back on the elevator. He rode to the main floor, took a seat in the lobby bar, ordered a beer, and waited for either the maid or a bellman to bring him Standartenf�hrer Goltz's luggage.

  [FOUR]

  1420 Avenida Alvear

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  2105 9 April 1943

  The Mercedes pulled up to the heavy gate in the twelve-foot-tall wrought-iron fence. As it did so, a police sergeant, one of three policemen standing on the sidewalk before the mansion, put out his hand and ordered it to stop.

  An officer in the uniform of the Husares de Pueyrred¢n was not an ordinary citizen, but the sergeant's orders had been explicit. He was to ensure that no one intruded on the privacy of the mourning Duarte family.

  "Are you expected, mi Capitan?" he asked politely when Lauffer rolled down the window.

  "We are expected," Lauffer replied, and added: "This is Se¤or Frade."

  "Thank you, Sir," the sergeant said, saluted, and signaled for one of his men to open the gate.

  The door to the mansion was opened by a maid; but a butler, a black mourn-ing band on his arm, appeared the next moment.

  "Se¤or Frade," Lauffer announced. "To see Se¤or Duarte."

  "I will announce you," the butler said. "May I show you into the recep-tion (The day-to-day Spanish of middle- and upper-class Argentines is heavily laden with British terms. Liv-ing rooms are called "the living"; dining rooms, "the dining"; reception rooms, "the reception," et cetera.) ?" He met Clete's eyes. "You have my most sincere condolences on the loss of your father, Se¤or Frade."

  "Thank you," Clete said.

  Clete and Lauffer followed the butler across the foyer to a double door. He opened the door and bowed them through it, then closed the door after them and began to climb the stairs to the second floor.

  "Cletus!" a svelte woman in her fifties cried, rising out of one of the armchairs and walking quickly to him. She was dressed in a black dress with a rope of pearls its only ornamentation. Her luxuriant black, gray-flecked hair was parted in the middle and done up in a bun at the neck.

  Se¤ora Claudia de Carzino-Cormano kissed Clete on the cheek.

  "I'm not entirely sure I'm glad to see you," she said, and then changed her mind. "Yes, I am. Oh, Cletus!"

  She wrapped her arms around him and rested her face on his chest.

  His hand on her back could feel her stifling a sob, then she got control of herself.

  "What are we going to do without him, Cletus?" she asked.

  He shrugged and made a helpless gesture with his hands.

  Claudia then acknowledged the presence of Capitan Lauffer.

  "Good evening," she said. "Despite the circumstances, it is good to see you."

  "It is always a pleasure to see you, Se¤ora," Lauffer said.

  When Claudia stepped away from Clete, she was replaced by Alicia, who was dressed and made up almost identically to her mother. The only difference Clete could see was that instead of pearls she wore a golden cross on a chain around her neck.

  "Oh, Clete, I'm so sorry," she said.

  She kissed Clete somewhat wetly on the cheek and then, while hugging him, whispered, "Peter wants you to call him."

  "OK," he said very softly, so that her sister, Isabela, who was approaching, could not hear him.

  Isabela, two years older than Alicia, wore her black hair piled on top of her head. A diamond-and-emerald brooch was pinned to her black dress. She was tall, lithe, and finely featured. Isabela was even better looking than Alicia, Clete often thought, but unfortunately knew it.

  She did not embrace Clete, and her kiss, he thought, was the sort of kiss a bitch like Isabela would give to an alligator when good manners required her to go through the motion.

  "Cletus," she said.

  "Isabela," he replied.

  "Would you like something to eat
? Drink?" Claudia asked.

  "Yes, I would," he said. "To drink."

  "I'll ring," Alicia said.

  "There's whiskey here," Claudia said. "In that cabinet. Whiskey, Clete? Capitan?"

  "Please," Clete said.

  Claudia went to a huge cabinet, which opened to reveal a complete bar.

  "You'll have to ring," Claudia said. "There's no ice."

  "Straight's fine," Clete said.

  "Maybe for you," Claudia said. "Send for ice, Alicia." She looked at Clete. "I don't think I've ever seen you looking so elegant."

  "I bought this to be my diplomat's uniform," he said.

  "You will stay now? At your embassy, I mean?"

  "I declined the appointment. But I will stay."

  "Meaning what, Cletus?"

  "I entered Argentina on my Argentine passport," he said. "I have, in a sense, come home."

  "Oh, my!" Claudia said.

  "Your Argentine passport?" Isabela said. "But you're a norteamericano."

  "Isabela, I was born here," Clete said. "I'm as entitled to an Argentine pass-port as you are."

  "I never heard of such a thing!" Isabela snorted.

  "I'm sure there's a lot of things you haven't heard about," Clete said.

  "Don't you two start!" Claudia said. "I couldn't stand that."

  "Sorry," Clete said.

  "Your father is in the Edificio Libertador," Claudia said.

  "We just came from there."

  "I'm sure he would like it, but I found it rather macabre."

  "It was impressive," Clete said. "But, yeah, I think el Coronel would like it."

  A maid appeared with a bucket of ice.

  Too soon to be in response to Alicia's sending for someone, Clete decided. Somebody decided we would need a drink.

  "Your aunt Beatrice was over there all day. She came back not an hour ago. We are to have a small-family, I suppose-dinner."

  "How is she?" Clete asked.

  "She's not here," Claudia said. "She's in the arms of Jesus and/or morphia."

  "Mother!" Alicia said, shocked.

  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me."

  There was a barely audible tap on the corridor door, and when Humberto Valdez Duarte turned his head to it, he saw the door open just wide enough to show his butler's face, his eyebrows asking permission to enter.

  Duarte, a tall, slender man of forty-seven, who wore his thick black hair long at the sides and brushed slickly back, held out his hand, palm outward, and shook his head "no."

  He quickly swung his feet off his wife's delicate, pink and pale-blue silk-upholstered chaise longue, on which he had been resting with a cup of coffee, and walked out of the bedroom and through the sitting, to the door.

  "Se¤or Frade is here, Se¤or," the butler said.

  "Thank God!" Duarte said softly.

  "I put him, and Capitan Lauffer of the Husares, in the reception, with the Carzino-Cormanos."

  "Fine. Please offer them whatever they wish, and tell them the Se¤ora and I will join them shortly.

  The butler nodded, then withdrew his head from the door and closed it softly.

  Duarte went back into the bedroom. Beatrice Frade de Duarte was sitting before her vanity in her slip, brushing her long black hair. She smiled at him in the mirror. His wife was six months older than he was, a tall, slim woman with large dark eyes and a dazzling smile.

  "What was that, carino?" she asked.

  "Cletus is here."

  "Oh, good! In time for dinner."

  "He has Capitan Lauffer of the Husares with him. What would you like me to do about him?"

  "Invite the Capitan to join us, of course. I've always liked him, and you know how fond Jorge was of him."

  "Would you like me to go to them now, or wait until you're ready?"

  "You go down now, of course, offer my apologies, and tell them I'll be there shortly."

  He walked to the vanity, smiled at his wife in the mirror, touched her head, and finally bent over and kissed it. She smiled and put up her hand and caught his.

  Then he turned and left the room.

  The fact that his wife had developed serious emotional problems did not cause Humberto Valdez Duarte to love her less, he often thought, but rather the opposite. Sometimes-like now-he felt a tenderness for her that was surpris-ing in its intensity... a desire to wrap her, figuratively and literally, in his arms and to continue to protect her from all unpleasantness.

  They had known each other all of their lives, and had married at twenty-one, on Humberto's graduation from the University of Buenos Aires. While everyone agreed that the marriage was a good one, uniting two of Argentina's most prominent families, there were some raised eyebrows at the time-even some whispers-about their tender ages. People of their social position usually married no younger than twenty-five, and often later. Unless, of course, there was a reason.

  The whispers died thirteen months after their marriage when Beatrice gave birth to their first-and as it turned out, only-child, Jorge Alejandro.

  The first indication of emotional problems came when Beatrice's postpartum depression required the attention of a psychiatrist.

  Now that he thought about it, there had been indications of emotional diffi-culty all along, most often manifested in Beatrice's detachment from reality- her unwillingness to accept the existence of anything unpleasant-coupled with a growing religious fervor. She began to go to mass daily about the time Jorge started school, and developed an unusually close relationship with her confes-sor, Padre (later Monsignor) Patrick Kelly.

  Humberto often wondered what she had to confess. When he went, infre-quently, to confession, there was generally some act or thought for which he re-ally needed absolution. Try as he could, however, he could think of nothing Beatrice might want to confess more sinful than possible unkind thoughts about one of her friends, Jorge's teachers, or her brother, Jorge Guillermo Frade. The latter seemed most likely. Having un-Christian thoughts about her brother was very understandable.

  During the six months since Jorge Alejandro had been killed, he had con-fessed the same thing many times.

  Jorge Alejandro idolized his uncle from the time he could walk. Children are prone to adore indulgent uncles, especially when the uncles are dashing cavalry officers and superb horsemen, and who delight in making available to nephews the toys-fast cars, highly spirited horses, firearms, airplanes-their parents would just as soon they not have so early in life, or ever.

  But neither he nor Beatrice could bring themselves to deny Beatrice's brother the company of his nephew. After Jorge Guillermo Frade lost his wife- and for all practical purposes, their son-he never remarried. And it was clear that he really loved Jorge Alejandro... saw him as a substitute for the son he had lost.

  In his third year at St. George's School, Jorge Alejandro firmly announced that he had no intention of becoming a banker-with the clear implication that in his view banking was a profession about as masculine as hairdressing and in-terior decorating. He announced that instead he intended to follow his uncle to the Military Academy and become an officer-after all, he carried the blood of Pueyrred¢n in his veins. There was nothing Humberto, who was Managing Di-rector (In Argentina, as in Europe, the term is equivalent to "President" or "Chief Executive Officer.") of the Anglo-Argentine Bank, could do about it except hope that Jorge Alejandro would find the discipline at Campo de Mayo too much to take.

  That hope did not materialize. Like his uncle, Jorge Alejandro was ap-pointed Cadet Coronel during his last year at Campo de Mayo. And like his un-cle-by then el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, commanding the Husares de Pueyrred¢n Cavalry Regiment-he was commissioned into the cavalry. Almost certainly because of his uncle's influence, he was "routinely" assigned to the Husares.

  All that was well and good, but what el Coronel also did was arrange for Capitan Duarte to be posted to the German Army as an observer. For this Hum-berto vowed he would never forgive him-now, of course, he was sorry about that.
Logic told Humberto that el Coronel would rather die himself than see any harm come to Jorge Alejandro, but the facts were that el Coronel arranged for Jorge Alejandro to go to Germany as an observer, and that he was killed at Stal-ingrad. The godless Communists shot down an observation aircraft that he was flying, against regulations for a neutral observer.