W E B Griffin - Honor 2 - Blood and Honor

by Blood

  "I'm sure he's considered that."

  "And decided not to tell you?"

  Graham nodded. "That's possible. Maybe even likely. I think I have to give Frade the benefit of the doubt on something like this."

  "You understand the implications of that 'safe haven,' Alex?"

  "It suggests someone high up in Berlin isn't quite as sure of the 'Final Vic-tory' as they would have people believe?"

  "I'd like to go to the President with this safe haven business, but I'm not do-ing that on the basis of a 'reliable source' without a name."

  "I'll ask him again," Graham said.

  "No. You will tell him again."

  They locked eyes for a long moment, then Graham shrugged. "You're the boss," he said.

  "Yes, I am," Donovan said, and resumed reading.

  "Are you going to the President with the name of the German vessel?" Gra-ham asked.

  "If we board, much less sink, a Spanish ship on the high seas," Donovan said, visibly annoyed at the interruption, "we'll have to have a more reliable source than somebody we know only as 'Galahad.' No. I'm not going to the President with that."

  "The Comerciante del Oceano Pacifico is one of the ships on our list," Gra-ham said.

  "You're not listening, Alex. We need to know who Galahad is, how he came by this information, and why he's telling us. Now, can I finish reading this, please?"

  2. IN RE AIRCRAFT: REQUIREMENTS TO MOVE AIRCRAFT HERE FOLLOW:

  A. ENTIRE AIRCRAFT IS TO BE PAINTED IN COLOR KNOWN AS BEECHCRAFT STAGGER WING RED.

  B. REGISTRATION NUMBERS Z DASH 5 8 4 3 REPEAT Z DASH 5 8 4 3 ARE TO BE PAINTED

  (1) EIGHT INCH BLACK BLOCK LETTERS ON OUTWARD FACING SURFACES VERTICAL STABILIZERS APPROXIMATELY ONE FOOT FROM TOP.

  (2) TWENTY-FOUR INCH BLACK BLOCK LETTERS CENTERED ON TOP SURFACE RIGHT WING

  (3) AS (2) ABOVE EXCEPT UNDER SURFACE LEFT WING

  C. LOCATION OF AIRFIELD FROM WHICH COVERT TAKEOFF PREFERABLY IN HOURS OF DARKNESS CAN BE MADE. WOULD APPRECIATE ONE HOUR OF COCKPIT FAMILIARIZATION AND TOUCH AND GOES.

  D. AIRCRAFT SHOULD BE AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY ON ARRIVAL OF UNDERSIGNED AT AIRFIELD THEREFORE WILL NEED NAME OF 24 HOURADAY CONTACT OFFICER WITH AUTHORITY TO TRANSFER AIRCRAFT TO UNDERSIGNED AND CLEAR COVERT TAKEOFF.

  E. WILL REQUIRE 48 TO 72 HOURS FROM RECEIPT YOUR NOTIFICATION FOR TRAVEL TO AIRFIELD. URGE SOONEST POSSIBLE ACTION YOUR PART.

  STACHIEF END

  TOP SECRET

  LINDBERGH

  "Well, it looks as if he's figured out how to take the airplane into Argentina, doesn't it?" Donovan asked. "Can we handle what he wants, painting it?"

  "That shouldn't pose a problem," Graham said.

  "He wants it painted. Painted red. 'Beechcraft Stagger-wing Red.' That's a color? What the hell's that all about?"

  "I have no idea. But I'm sure he has his reasons."

  "Wait a minute, " Donovan said. "There was something about that air-plane!"

  "What about it?'"

  "Helen!" Donovan raised his voice. "Can you lay your hands on the file about that airplane we sent to Brazil, Direction of the President?"

  Donovan's middle-aged but still very attractive secretary laid a file folder stamped TOP SECRET on his desk two minutes later. Donovan flipped through it quickly.

  "Yeah, I knew there was something," he said, a slight triumphant tone in his voice. "It was not a Beechcraft. They couldn't come up with a Beechcraft on such short notice."

  "And?"

  "When we asked the goddamned Air Corps for an airplane, they said they could give us a C-45. We said fine. Then they said they couldn't give us a C-45, after all, how about a C-56?"

  "What's a C-56?" Graham asked. "I can't keep those model numbers straight."

  "The Air Corps man I asked," Helen offered, "said they were about the same thing. Both twin-engine small transports."

  "How small?" Donovan asked. "Compared to the C-47, for example?"

  "Smaller," Helen said. "The Air Corps man, I can't think of his name off-hand, he was a brigadier general, it should be in there somewhere, said they were both smaller than the C-47."

  "Is that a problem?" Graham asked.

  "Not for me, Alex," Donovan said. "For you. You'll have to find this Air Corps general's name, and then, without telling him why, tell him he has to arrange for the Air Corps in Brazil to paint this C-56, or whatever the hell it is, fire-engine red, and then have somebody available around the clock down there who can show Frade how to fly it. But you can't, of course, tell him who Frade is, when he's showing up, or where he's going with the airplane. Good luck!"

  "Thank you," Graham said, chuckling.

  "I'm not really trying to be funny," Donovan said. "After we go through all this, how do we know that Frade can really fly this airplane? Have you consid-ered that?"

  "He's a Marine aviator, Bill," Graham said. "Of course he can fly it!"

  "Oh, God!" Donovan groaned. "Get out of here, Alex, and let me do some work."

  [THREE]

  Above Nueva Helvecia

  Uruguay

  1105 13 April 1943

  Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein turned and looked into the backseat of the Storch to see if Standartenf�hrer Josef Goltz was awake.

  He was. He was wearing a gray flight suit, a coverall-like garment that he had reluctantly crawled into at La Palomar airfield an hour and a half before. He had earphones on his head.

  Peter gestured with his hand out the window and down. When he saw that Goltz was looking at the small town under their right wing, he picked up his mi-crophone.

  "New Switzerland, Herr Standartenf�hrer," Peter said.

  It took Goltz some time to locate his microphone and push its transmit but-ton.

  "What?"

  "New Switzerland, Herr Standartenf�hrer," Peter repeated. "They call it Nueva Helvecia. A little further up the river, there is Nueva Berlin."

  Goltz did not seem grateful for this recitation of travel lore.

  "How far to Montevideo?" Goltz asked impatiently.

  "Approximately fifty-minutes, Herr Standartenf�hrer," Peter replied, then gave in to the impulse and added, "unless we pick up some more headwinds, which may delay us another twenty minutes or so."

  There were no headwinds. Peter had invented them for the same reason he'd made a full-flaps, full-power takeoff from La Palomar, which he knew would cause an unpleasant sinking feeling in the Herr Standartenf�hrer's stom-ach. Likewise, whenever he'd glanced in the rear seat and noticed that the Herr Standartenf�hrer was about to doze off, he'd made sudden small attitude and di-rectional changes that he knew would wake him up.

  We would be touching down right about now at Carrasco, Schiesskopf, if you hadn't insisted we fly the overland route.

  He'd taken off from La Palomar and headed north-Montevideo was to the east. Avoiding the Restricted Zone around Campo de Mayo, he'd flown over El Tigre and the Delta, then turned east and crossed the Rio Uruguay into Uruguay, south of a small town called Carmelo.

  "Have we sufficient fuel?" Goltz asked.

  Peter looked at the fuel gauges and did the mental arithmetic. They had at least two hours to make the airfield at Carrasco, ten miles or so east of Monte-video.

  "I'm sure we'll make it all right, Herr Standartenf�hrer," Peter said with what he hoped was a detectable lack of conviction in his voice. "But there's nothing to worry about, Herr Standartenf�hrer. I can set this thing down almost anywhere, on the road or in a field."

  He then picked up his chart and studied it carefully-and wholly unneces-sarily. He was going to use Uruguay's Route Nacionale Number One, below him, to find Montevideo. But with a little bit of luck, Herr Schiesskopf might think they were lost.

  When he lined up with the one paved runway of Carrasco's airfield, it occurred to Peter that this was the ninth time he had been to Uruguay. But it would be the first time-Goltz said he was going to spend the night-that he would be able to see more of it than the airport.

&
nbsp; Most of his previous flights had been to deliver or pick up a diplomatic pouch or other correspondence between the Embassy in Buenos Aires and the German Embassy here. There had been only a few passengers. Most of the Em-bassy staff of sufficient importance to have access to the Storch preferred the comfort of the overnight ship to Montevideo to the un-upholstered backseat of the Storch. Always before, Peter had landed at Carrasco, turned over or picked up his cargo, refueled, and flown back to Buenos Aires.

  The Condor Dieter von und zu Aschenburg had flown in on Friday carried a pouch for the German Embassy in Montevideo. Ordinarily, Peter would have flown it across the river the same day; but Gradny-Sawz's insistence that Peter attend the services for Oberst Frade had delayed that until today. That pouch was now under Goltz's seat. And tomorrow, when he returned to Buenos Aires, he would almost certainly have a pouch-two or more pouches, he hoped, heavy ones that he could look at with great concern as Goltz watched-to take to Buenos Aires and put aboard the Condor when it returned to Germany to-morrow afternoon.

  He taxied to the terminal, and Uruguayan Customs and Immigration offi-cers came out to the plane. There was no problem. They had diplomatic status and were immune to all local laws.

  "Your orders, Herr Standartenf�hrer?" Peter asked as he waited for Goltz to take off the flight suit.

  "What do you normally do, von Wachtstein?"

  "Ordinarily, Herr Standartenf�hrer, I exchange packages with whoever comes out here from the Embassy, refuel the aircraft, and fly back to Buenos Aires."

  "So you will need someplace to stay tonight, is that it?"

  "Oberst Gr�ner suggested I stay at the Casino Hotel here in Carrasco, Herr Standartenf�hrer."

  "And the diplomatic pouch, what do you plan to do with that?"

  "Ordinarily, Herr Standartenf�hrer, someone from the Embassy is here to take it off my hands."

  "I wish I had given thought to that damned pouch before this," Goltz said. "Arranged for someone to meet you here."

  "Is there a problem, Herr Standartenf�hrer?"

  "I hadn't planned to visit the Embassy. My business here is with the Secu-rity Officer of the Embassy, an old friend. My plan was to conduct our business at his home, and then spend the night with him."

  "I'm sure I could take a taxi to the Embassy, Herr Standartenf�hrer, and then another to the Casino Hotel, if that meets with your approval."

  "No. I know what to do. I'll telephone him that I'm here. He will come out to meet me. Presumably, you can turn over the pouch to him?"

  "To the Security Officer? Of course, Herr Standartenf�hrer."

  "And then he can drop you at the hotel, we can go about our business, and we will pick you up at the hotel in the morning. How does that sound?"

  "Whatever the Herr Standartenf�hrer wishes."

  "Where is a telephone?"

  "Just inside the terminal, Herr Standartenf�hrer."

  "Well, I'll make the call, and you do whatever you have to do to the airplane."

  "Jawohl, Herr Standartenf�hrer!"

  While they waited, Peter took the opportunity to refuel the Storch. As he was doing that, he wondered why Goltz's old friend the Embassy Security Officer, or at least someone from the Embassy, was not waiting for them at the airport when they landed. Thirty minutes later a canary-yellow 1941 Chevrolet con-vertible, roof down, raced up to the entrance of the terminal building.

  A nattily dressed, somewhat portly man in his forties, sporting a neatly manicured full-a la Adolf Hitler-mustache jumped from behind the wheel and walked quickly to Goltz.

  "Herr Standartenf�hrer, how good it is to see you!"

  "Werner, how are you?" Goltz said, enthusiastically shaking his hand, then asking admiringly, "Where did you get that car?"

  "Inge saw it," the portly man said, gesturing to the woman stepping out of the car. "Said it matched her hair, and absolutely had to have it."

  "My dear Inge," Goltz said. "As lovely as ever!"

  Christ, I know her!

  "Josef, how good to see you. Welcome to Uruguay."

  "May I present Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein?" Goltz said. "Sturmbannf�hrer von Tresmarck and his lovely bride."

  "I believe," Frau von Tresmarck said coyly, "that the Major and I have met. Isn't that so, Herr Major?"

  Frau von Tresmarck was a tall, slim blonde perhaps fifteen years younger than her husband.

  Indeed, we have met-if memory serves, in the bar at the Hotel am Zoo- and then spent two days in the Hotel am Wansee, leaving bed only to meet the calls of nature. I returned to the Squadron with just barely enough energy to crawl into the cockpit.

  "I believe we have, Frau Sturmbannf�hrer," Peter said, bobbing his head and clicking his heels. "I've been trying to recall where."

  "Me too," she said. "It'll come to me, where we met."

  Peter offered his hand to von Tresmarck, who smiled when he took it but looked at him oddly.

  Are you aware, Herr Sturmbannf�hrer, that your wife has probably taken to bed one in four of the fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe? Is that why you're looking at me that way ?

  "We have a small problem, Werner," Goltz said. "Von Wachtstein has a pouch for the Embassy, and presumably there will be another for him to take back to Buenos Aires tomorrow...."

  "That shouldn't be a problem, Josef," Inge von Tresmarck said. "When we reach the house, Werner can call the Embassy and have someone come for it."

  "Unfortunately, Inge," Goltz said, "arrangements have been made for von Wachtstein to stay at the Casino Hotel. He has business of his own to transact."

  You either know the Gn dige Frau von Tresmarck fucks like a mink and are trying to avoid Inge and me causing a social problem, or you don't want me around with you and von Tresmarck. One or the other. Or both.

  "What a pity," Inge said.

  "I can take the pouch off your hands, von Wachtstein," von Tresmarck said. "And we can drop you at the Casino Hotel. It's not far from here."

  "You're very kind, Herr Sturmbannf�hrer."

  "And we'll work out how to deal with the outgoing pouch sometime today," Goltz said.

  "I am at your orders, Herr Standartenf�hrer."

  Peter took the receipt form for the pouch from his jacket pocket and gave it to von Tresmarck to sign. When he put the signed receipt in his pocket, he saw that Inge had climbed back into the car, into the rear seat.

  "My dear Inge," Goltz said, "I will ride in the back with von Wachtstein."

  "No, you're our honored guest," Inge said.

  Von Tresmarck gave Peter another strange look as he climbed in the back with Inge.

  As soon as they were moving, Inge slid forward on her seat and rested her elbows on the back of the seat between her husband and Goltz.

  "I can't tell you how delighted I am to see you, Josef," she said. "Now, don't go running to the Ambassador to tell him I said this, but those Foreign Ministry people are dull, dull, dull."

  "This isn't Berlin, is it?"

  "And one feels... oh, I don't know how to say this, and I know Werner is doing important things, but I feel... guilty I guess is the word... guilty about being away from the home front, where I could do something for the cause!"

  "But my dear Inge," Goltz said. "You are doing something for the cause! Your very presence here helps Werner in the accomplishment of his responsi-bilities."

  "I wish I could do more," Inge said.

  She pushed herself off the seat back and slid back into the rear seat. The fin-gers of her right hand moved slowly and provocatively up Peter's leg.

  With a little bit of luck, we are almost at the Casino Hotel and I can bid auf wedersehn to the lovely Frau Sturmbannf�hrer von Tresmarck before anything happens.

  Ten minutes later, after passing through a residential area that reminded Pe-ter of the Zehlendorf section of Berlin, they came to a large, ornate, stone, bal-conied, turn-of-the-century building. It sat alone, where three streets converged in a half-circle.

  "Ther
e it is!" Inge announced, squeezed his inner thigh almost painfully, and withdrew her hand.

  As von Tresmarck drove up to the main entrance, Peter saw a sandy beach and a large body of water on the other side of a four-lane divided highway.

  Muddy brown water, which probably means that's still the Rio de la Plata.