W E B Griffin - Honor 2 - Blood and Honor

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W E B Griffin - Honor 2 - Blood and Honor Page 23

by Blood

"Yes," Humberto said. "Cletus, that brings up a somewhat delicate matter."

  "What's that?"

  "The reception will start in about fifteen minutes. There are already people arriving."

  Clete nodded and waited for him to go on.

  "There will be a reception line..."

  "Can I get out of that?"

  "... and among the guests expected are Ambassador von Lutzenberger and members of his staff from the German Embassy. I believe Major von Wachtstein will be among them."

  Clete's eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing.

  "We see a good deal of Ambassador von Lutzenberger and his staff so-cially," Humberto went on. "Your aunt Beatrice added many of them to our list after their many courtesies to us when Jorge Alejandro was brought home. She is especially fond of Major von Wachtstein. There are, of course, certain ad-vantages to the situation."

  "I'm not sure I'm up to standing in a reception line and smiling at the mur-dering sonsofbitches."

  "I think everyone will understand that you are indisposed."

  "Is that what I am, 'indisposed'?" Clete said, and then, softly, "Speaking of Germans, I saw Peter von Wachtstein last night."

  "Was that wise? If you were seen..."

  "We weren't," Clete said. "He's very concerned that my father had some records..."

  "The records of certain financial transactions," Humberto said. "I'm very concerned myself."

  "Plus a personal letter from Peter's father."

  "I know about the letter, too."

  "But you don't know where they are?"

  "They're most likely in your father's safe at Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo," Humberto said. "God, I hope they are!"

  "I don't know what safe you're talking about."

  "It's in your father's study."

  "I'd like to get in it as soon as possible. Who has the combination?"

  "I was hoping you would have it."

  "No. I didn't even know there was a safe until just now."

  "Well, I know Claudia doesn't have the combination," Humberto said. "She asked me for it."

  "Why does she want it?"

  "I simply presumed there were personal things-letters perhaps-that she didn't want anybody else to see. Wanted to get them out of the safe before you started going through it."

  "So how do I get in it?"

  "Right now, I don't know. Let me think about it. But for the moment, un-less you want to see the Germans, you'd better get out of here."

  "Where do I go?"

  "The upstairs sitting," Humberto said. "I will instruct the servants who is to be taken there to pay their respects to you privately. The Mallins, for example. And there is an American officer..."

  "An American officer? Do you have his name?"

  "Teniente Pelosi," Humberto said. "I have his card." He handed it to Clete.

  Anthony Joseph Pelosi

  First Lieutenant, Corps of Engineers

  Army of the United States

  Assistant Military Attach‚

  Embassy of the United States of America

  "I really want to see him," Clete said. "But I don't want to make it obvious. Wait until the place is full of people, and then send him upstairs."

  "Certainly."

  "Make sure he doesn't get away. He may think I don't want to see him."

  "I understand," Humberto said.

  "Right," Clete said. "Humberto, thank you. And when this is all over, I re-ally need to talk to you."

  "I was about to say almost exactly those words," Humberto said. "There are business matters that need immediate decisions. Perhaps we can find the time over the weekend. We will have to find the time over the weekend. Can I show you the way?"

  "I know where it is, thank you."

  Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodriguez, in Husares de Pueyrred¢n uniform, jumped to attention when Clete walked into the upstairs sitting, startling Clete enough that in a Pavlovian Marine officer's reflex, he barked, "As you were!"

  "Mi Mayor?" Enrico asked, baffled.

  "One, stand at ease, Enrico, and two, stop calling me 'Major.'"

  "Por favor, mi Mayor," Enrico said. "My last service to mi Coronel."

  "What?"

  Enrico turned to the table beside him.

  "Mi Mayor," he said, "I present to you the saber and decorations of the late el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade!"

  He extended to Clete a saber, together with its accoutrements, and the pale-blue velvet medal-covered pillow that had lain on the casket.

  Clete's throat tightened and his eyes watered. He came to attention.

  "Muchas gracias, Suboficial Mayor," he said, and took them with as much military decorum as he could muster. When he looked at Enrico he saw tears running down his cheeks.

  Clete turned, found a table, and laid the saber and the pillow on it, then turned to Enrico, who was standing at the Argentine equivalent of Parade Rest.

  "I think that what my father would prefer now, Enrico, is that his friend and his son have a drink to him, rather than stand here weeping like women."

  "S¡, mi Mayor, I think he would," Enrico said. He snapped to attention and then relaxed, as if he had been dismissed. He walked to a small bar that had been set up. "English whiskey, Se¤or Clete, or norteamericano?"

  "Just as long as it's wet," Clete said.

  [THREE]

  The official delegation of the Embassy of Germany to the funeral mass and in-terment of the late el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade had arrived at the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar in two automobiles, and it was presumed that the sugges-tion that mourners walk the half-dozen blocks down Avenida Alvear to the re-ception at the Duarte mansion did not apply to them.

  Ambassador von Lutzenberger did not invite Standartenf�hrer Goltz to ride with him and Frau Ambassador in the Embassy Mercedes. On one hand, this surprised First Secretary Gradny-Sawz, for it would be the polite thing to do vis-a-vis a visiting dignitary of Goltz's stature, he thought. But on the other hand, it pleased him, for it allowed him to be with Goltz. Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein also rode with Gradny-Sawz and Goltz in the second, slightly smaller Embassy Mercedes.

  The police passed them through the barriers blocking Avenida Alvear with-out question, but the gates of the mansion were closed, and it was necessary for them to get out of the cars on the curb.

  A barrage of flashbulbs went off. Gradny-Sawz glanced around, saw an un-ruly crowd on the sidewalk, and quickly decided what was going on. Though the police had tried to keep the journalists from Buenos Aires newspapers a re-spectable distance from the mansion, the journalists had jumped over the police barricades and were overwhelming the half-dozen policemen at the fence gate. They saw a good picture, and were going to risk a policeman's angrily swung baton to get it.

  After paying what Gradny-Sawz thought was probably the shortest courtesy call possible. President Ramon Castillo was leaving the mansion with a small entourage just as the American Ambassador with his entourage-Gradny-Sawz saw Vice Consul Spiers and the American military Attach‚-started inside.

  An exchange of handshakes was of course required by protocol, and that in itself would be a good news photograph. But this act was taking place as Am-bassador von Lutzenberger also started to enter the mansion. A photograph of the President of Argentina shaking hands with the American Ambassador while the German Ambassador waited his turn was a photograph worthy of the front page, and would probably be seen all over the world.

  And God was with Germany, Gradny-Sawz decided, as the American Am-bassador walked into the mansion. At least three photographs got a shot of Castillo shaking hands with von Lutzenberger while, back to the camera, the American Ambassador, trailed by his staff, marched away.

  That photo would almost certainly appear on the front pages of La Nacion, La Prensa, and Clarin, the major Buenos Aires newspapers. With a little luck, it would be transmitted by cable all over the world.

  The American Embassy Press Officer had somehow managed to make the major Argentine news
papers aware that the late Oberst Frade was survived by his son, Cletus Howell Frade, of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA and Buenos Aires. La Nacion had further described the son as "Teniente Frade, USMC"; and La Prensa as "Major Frade, U.S. Navy." The Buenos Aires Herald-as ex-pected, considering their close connection to the Americans-had reported that Major Cletus H. Frade, USMC, Retired, a hero of the Battle of Guadalcanal, had flown from his home in Texas, USA, to attend his father's funeral. Major Frade was expected to remain in Argentina, the nation of his birth, and was, un-der Argentine law, an Argentine citizen.

  The photograph of President Castillo shaking Ambassador von Lutzen-berger's hand, in Gradny-Sawz's professional judgment, would affect Argen-tine public opinion far more effectively than the best public relations efforts of the Americans.

  It was, of course, a shame that Ambassador von Lutzenberger was not a more imposing figure physically. Von Lutzenberger's uniform was, of course, even more heavily gold-encrusted than that authorized for First Secretary Gradny-Sawz. It was, Gradny-Sawz thought, as he usually did on occasions like this, no fault of Graf von Lutzenberger that he was fifty-three, sharp-featured, small, skinny, and almost entire bald. But the result was inevitable: Von Lutzen-berger looked somehow comical in his uniform, like a member of the chorus in an operetta.

  The police soon managed to get the press back behind their barricades, and Gradny-Sawz, Goltz, and von Wachtstein walked quickly to the gate in the fence. And Ambassador Graf and Frau Grafin Ambassador von Lutzenberger were waiting for them just beyond the servants checking invitations at a table set up inside the door.

  There were only two people receiving. Se¤or and Se¤ora Duarte. Gradny-Sawz wondered where the son was; he had been at the church earlier, and it had been reported to him that he had also gone to the Edificio Libertador.

  "Permit me, Se¤or Duarte, and Se¤ora," von Lutzenberger said, "to offer the most profound expression of condolences on the tragic loss of el Coronel Frade on behalf of the German government, and my wife, and myself personally."

  "How kind of you," Humberto said.

  "My brother is now in heaven with the blessed Jesus and all the angels," Beatrice said, almost cheerfully.

  "You know my wife, of course," von Lutzenberger said. "And First Secre-tary Gradny-Sawz. May I present Standartenf�hrer Goltz? Herr Standartenf�hrer, these are my friends Se¤or and Se¤ora Duarte. Se¤or Duarte is the managing director of the Anglo-Argentine Bank."

  Goltz clicked his heels and bowed, then bent over Beatrice's gloved hand.

  "I am honored, Sir and Madam," he said, "to meet the parents of the coura-geous officer who gave his life in the war against Bolshevism."

  Beatrice did not seem to hear him.

  "Good afternoon, Peter," she cried happily.

  Peter von Wachtstein clicked his heels and bowed.

  "Se¤ora," he said.

  Beatrice pushed between Frau Ambassador von Lutzenberger and Stan-dartenf�hrer Goltz to clutch Peter's hand and offer him her cheek.

  "And we are going to see you over the weekend, aren't we?" Beatrice said. "You'll come to the estancia for the memorial mass?"

  "I hope to have that privilege, Se¤ora," Peter said.

  "You'll sit with us, of course. I'll tell Se¤ora Carzino-Cormano," she said, then kissed her cheek again before resuming her place in line to shake the hand of Gradny-Sawz.

  "Anton," she said, gushing sincerity. "Thank you for coming."

  "Thank you having me, my dear Se¤ora," Gradny-Sawz said, and the Ger-man delegation was through the line.

  A white-gloved servant showed them the door of the reception. Another servant stood just inside the door holding a tray of champagne glasses.

  "The bar, gentlemen, is at the rear of the room," he said.

  They all took champagne and moved into the reception.

  Goltz turned over his shoulder.

  "What was that about, von Wachtstein?" he asked. "With our hostess?"

  Ambassador von Lutzenberger answered for him: "There is to be a private memorial service, family and friends only, for Oberst Frade at his estancia on Sunday. To which, apparently, our von Wachtstein has been invited. Since he escorted the remains of Hauptmann Duarte to Buenos Aires, the Duartes seem to have almost adopted him."

  "How interesting," Goltz said.

  Fascinating. Von Wachtstein has developed a friendship, a close friendship, with the people who run the Anglo-Argentine Bank. That may prove very useful indeed.

  [FOUR]

  Clete's first visitors in the upstairs sitting were Se¤ora Claudia Carzino-Cormano and her daughters. He had been sitting slumped in an armchair with a drink, reading with disbelief the Buenos Aires Herald.

  It was clear to him that the front-page story-which described him as a hero of the Battle of Guadalcanal, retired from the Marine Corps as a Major, and an Argentine citizen-had come directly from the typewriter of the Infor-mation Officer at the American Embassy. He wondered if it had been written at the Ambassador's orders, or whether Colonel Graham had something to do with it. That seemed unlikely, but Graham routinely did unlikely things.

  Accordingly to other stories in the Herald, the Germans and the Japanese were retreating on all fronts after suffering severe losses. Hitler was about to fall on his knees and beg for mercy, and Emperor Hirohito was next in line.

  The last he had heard, the Germans were still occupying most of the land-mass of Europe. And the Japanese were still in Singapore, and for that matter, the Philippines, plus all the little Pacific islands from which the Marine Corps would have to remove them, in fighting that was going to be at least as bloody as it had been on Guadalcanal.

  He wondered how the readers of the Herald reconciled the optimistic news reports on the front page with the two and a half pages of obituaries, often with photographs, of the Anglo-Argentines who had been killed fighting with the His Britannic Majesty's Royal Army, Navy, and Air Force all over the world. Three Anglo-Argentines, he noticed, had been killed fighting with His Royal Aus-tralian Air Force in New Guinea, another place from which the Japanese obvi-ously had no plans of retreating.

  When he saw Claudia enter the room, he dropped the newspaper on the floor beside him, jumped to his feet, and went to her.

  "How're you holding up, sport?" he asked, although through her black veil he could see in her eyes and the strain oh her face the answer to that.

  She pushed the veil off her face and hugged him and tenderly kissed his cheek.

  "So far, not bad," she said. "At least I'm not drinking my way through it."

  She indicated the whiskey glass he had left on the wide arm of the chair.

  "My first," he lied, and she snorted.

  Alicia kissed him, and then Isabela made smacking noises as far from his cheek as she could manage.

  "You all right, Enrico?" Claudia asked, and went to the bar. "Do as I say, not as I do," she said, and poured a half-inch of scotch in a glass and tossed it down.

  "Life will be empty without el Coronel," Enrico said.

  "You have Se¤or Cletus to take care of now," Claudia said.

  "With my life, Se¤ora," Enrico said simply.

  "I wondered how you were going to handle Beatrice asking the Germans to come here," Claudia said.

  "I'm indisposed," Clete said. "Humberto set this up."

  "They're downstairs, exuding condolences and charm," she said.

  Clete looked at Alicia. She nodded, signifying that Peter von Wachtstein was among them.

  "We don't know that the Germans are responsible... ," Isabelle said.

  "Jesus Christ, Isabela, not you and el Coronel Per¢n... ," Clete flared.

  Claudia touched his arm to stop him.

  "What did you mean, about Colonel Per¢n?" Claudia asked.

  "I stopped by Uncle Willy's house last night. He was there. And having just come back from Germany, he finds it impossible to believe that..."

  "Juan Domingo was your father's best friend."

  "So he said."
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  "And you got off on the wrong foot."

  Clete shrugged.

  "He's going to be at the estancia over the weekend. You really should make an effort to get to know him."

  "You mean come out there? Why?"

  "You didn't know there's going to be a requiem mass at Nuestra Se¤ora de los Milagros for your father on Sunday?"

  "Not until just now, I didn't. What's that all about?"

 

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