The large nurse nudged him again, and he slid off the operating table back onto the gurney. The thin cotton blanket was once more draped over him, and the gurney was wheeled out of the operating room and down the corridor.
The man with the barely concealed.45 marched alongside.
"Wait!" he ordered curtly.
"I have inspected the room, Sir," another man said.
The man with the.45 grunted, and went into a room to conduct his own inspection. He came back out, carrying a telephone.
"You inspected the room, did you?"
The second man looked sheepish. The man with the.45 shook his head at him in tolerant disgust, then motioned for the gurney attendant to push Clete into the room.
"In the bed, please, Se¤or," the man with the.45 said.
"I have to urinate," Clete said.
"Over there," the man said.
Clete walked naked to a small room equipped with a toilet, a bidet, and a shower.
When he returned, the room was empty.
It was also hot. The heavy vertical shutters had been lowered. When he went to them, he saw that the lowering belt had been padlocked. It could not now be moved.
Shit!
He went to the door. It was locked. He banged on it, and finally it was opened. There were two men, obviously armed, in the corridor. The man with the.45 who had been in the operating room was not there.
"I want the window open," Clete said. "It's as hot as a furnace in there."
"Sorry, Se¤or," the taller of the two men replied. "That is prohibited."
"By who?"
The man shrugged.
Clete went back inside, and as he walked to the bed, heard the door being locked.
He lay down on the bed, put his hands under his head, and started to wonder about what was going to happen next. Then he heard the door being unlocked again. It opened, admitting a hos-pital attendant who handed him a small gray paper-wrapped pack-age and left. The door was locked again.
Clete opened the package and found it contained a tiny bar of soap, a tiny towel, shaving cream, a razor, toothbrush (no tooth-paste), a glass, a hospital gown, and cotton slippers.
"To hell with it," he said aloud. "It's too hot in here to put that on."
He lay down on the bed, and again began to wonder what would happen next.
[FIVE]
Clete woke up suddenly, and with a reflex action, he looked at his Hamilton. It was eight-fifteen in the morning. On the crystal of the chronograph he noticed a small piece of whitish substance, flaked with now darkened blood. The large, unpleasant nurse did not look for brain tissue on his watch.
He left the bed, walked to the washbasin, and carefully scrubbed the watch clean. Then he glanced at himself in the mir-ror. His face was covered with violet patches-the disinfectant the nurse had painted him with-and so was the rest of his body.
I look like a clown. I wonder what the hell that purple stuff is.
He scrubbed at his face with no success, then tried a shower, which proved equally ineffective.
Maybe alcohol will get it off.
He went back to the bed and put on the hospital gown, then slipped his feet into the slippers. Another glance at the mirror confirmed his suspicion that his ass was hanging out.
And he was hungry. And thirsty. He banged on the door again, and in a moment it was unlocked and opened. Two strange men were in the corridor, cast from the same mold as the previous two. Though both were standing, now they had chairs. One waved forefinger at him as if he were a small child.
"You must remain in your room."
"I'm hungry and thirsty."
Both men shrugged helplessly.
He closed the door himself, heard it being locked, and then returned to the mirror to examine himself-with mingled shock and amusement. There came the sound of the door being unlocked again.
Breakfast?
The door opened. A little pale, but otherwise showing no signs of passing out drunk eight hours before, el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade entered the room, freshly shaven, perfectly dressed. He was trailed by Enrico, who was carrying a small leather suit case.
"Are you all right?" Clete's father demanded. "You are not seriously injured?"
"I'm pretty sick about what those bastards did to Se¤ora Pellano."
His father nodded.
"I will of course help you, Cletus, any way I can. But the time has come for you to tell me what you are really doing down here."
"I'm here to make sure that Howell Petro-"
"Refuse to answer me, if you must. But don't lie to me again," his father interrupted him.
Clete met his father's eyes. His father nodded, as if he was satisfied that he had gotten through to Clete.
"The Bureau of Internal Security believes you are an agent of the OSS," he said.
"Do they?" Clete said. And then he decided he didn't want to lie to his father anymore. That did not mean telling him every-thing; but he wouldn't lie about what he told him.
"I'm a serving officer of the U.S. Marine Corps," he said. "I'll tell you that much."
El Coronel Frade nodded again, as if he thought he was making progress.
"And you're here to damage the German ship in Bah¡a Samboromb¢n?" his father asked.
"If I were, I couldn't tell you that. You're an officer, you know what it is to be under orders."
"Or to try to influence me?" He gave Clete a hard look. "De-pending on who I talk to in the BIS, I am offered both possibil-ities."
"I'd like to influence you," Clete said. "Your neutrality, your alleged neutrality, in this war makes me sick to my stomach."
"Does it indeed?" his father asked, his face tightening.
"You-and the BIS-apparently know all about the Reine de la Mer. You even called it a German ship just now. And you close your eyes to it. If you were really neutral, you'd have done something about it."
"You seem to know a good deal about it yourself," Frade challenged. "You know its name... very informative."
"If you hadn't closed your eyes to the Germans' replenishing their submarines in your sacred neutral waters, it wouldn't have been necessary for the U.S. government to send people down here to do something about it."
"Has it occurred to you that if the United States government had not sent you down here, Se¤ora Pel-what happened to Se¤ora Pellano would not have happened?"
Clete felt anger welling up.
"I'm as sorry as you are that Se¤ora Pellano was killed. I was goddamned fond of her. She'll be on my conscience, all right. But not because I'm here doing what I was sent here to do, but because I forgot for a moment that the Germans have no qualms about killing innocent people. They kill innocent people by the millions. What's one more?"
"In the First World War, Allied propaganda showed German soldiers bayoneting babies in Belgium. That Allied Declaration, if that's what you're talking about, is the same sort of thing."
"If you believe that, I feel sorry for you." Clete said softly. He was aware that the flash of anger was replaced by a sad res-ignation, as if their roles were now reversed... as if he was now the parent talking to the child who would not accept the unpleas-ant truth.
"International law..." Colonel Frade began, and stopped.
"I should have protected her," Clete said, his voice calm and sad, "and I didn't. I'm ashamed of that. But I'm not ashamed of coming here to do what I was sent to do. If there's any shame, you should feel it, because Argentina is too stupid or selfish to know or care what this war is all about."
His father's face grew white. It was a moment before he spoke.
"El Almirante de Montoya believes it will be best for you, under the circumstances, to remain here in the hospital for the next few days."
"Who? Admiral who?"
"El Almirante de Montoya is Chief of the Bureau of Internal Security. He has assumed jurisdiction in your case. Fortunately, he and I are friends, because your fate is in his hands."
"And what exactly does that mean
?"
"When de Montoya feels it would be safe for you to leave the hospital, you will come to the estancia, until I can arrange to send you safely out of the country."
"I'm not leaving the country," Clete said.
His father met his eyes.
"You have no choice in the matter."
"I'm not finished here. I killed the men who killed Se¤ora Pellano," Clete said. "Now I want to get at the people who hired them. The Germans."
"You don't know for a fact that the Germans were behind this."
"Of course it was the Germans," Clete said, less angrily than sadly. "Don't tell me you closed your eyes to that too."
As if he had not heard a word, el Coronel Frade went on: "I have arranged for the release of Se¤ora Pellano's body. I will accompany it to the estancia, where she will be buried. De Mon-toya has agreed to release you from here in time to attend Se¤ora Pellano's funeral. That will provide a satisfactory reason for you to move to the estancia. You will stay there until I can make arrangements for you to leave the country. In the meantime, En-rico will stay with you."
"What? What for?"
"If one attempt to kill you was made, there will probably be another."
"But there are guards in the corridor."
"I know where Enrico's loyalties lie," Frade said simply. "En-rico will stay with you.
"You have disappointed me, Cletus," Frade went on carefully. "A good woman is dead on account of you. And you have lied to me. The estancia is large. You and I will only have to see a little of one another."
"I want very much to go to Se¤ora Pellano's funeral, Dad," Clete said. "But I don't think it would be a good idea for me to stay at the estancia."
El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade met his son's eyes, then turned on his heel and walked out of the room. After he passed through the door, Enrico locked it.
Enrico turned, met Clete's eyes for a moment, and then went to the bed, where he unzipped the suitcase and took from it what seemed to be a Browning twelve-bore self-loading shotgun. He assembled it, then loaded it with five Winchester 00-buck car-tridges.
"Browning?" Clete heard himself asking. "A Browning, or an Argentine copy?"
Enrico didn't reply for a moment, then held the shotgun out to Clete.
"A Remington Model Eleven, mi Teniente," he said.
Clete examined it and handed it back.
"Marianna was very fond of you, mi Teniente," Enrico said. "She was always talking to me about you, like you were her son."
Marianna? Oh. He means Se¤ora Pellano. I never knew her first name. And now she's dead, because of my stupidity.
"I was very fond of her. I am ashamed she is dead."
Enrico met his eyes again.
"I have asked the Blessed Virgin to let Marianna know that you avenged her death, so that she may find eternal peace in the company of the angels, knowing you are alive and they are dead."
"Until just now, I didn't know you and Se¤ora Pellano were close," Clete said.
"She was my sister," Enrico said simply. "I will now protect your life, mi Teniente, with my own. But I would also very much like to kill some Germans myself. Do you perhaps have a name? Or names?"
Jesus, he means all of that. If anyone tries to kill me in here, it would have to be over his dead body. And if I gave him the German ambassador's name, he'd kill him. Or die trying.
Clete shook his head no.
"I'll work on this," Enrico said. "Honor demands that I also avenge her death, even if that is against mi Coronel's wishes. I will help you in any way I can, especially if it means I can kill Germans."
And he means that too.
"Thank you, Enrico," Clete said.
I wonder if that means he would let me go, let me escape from my father's protection.
Having said his piece, Enrico went on to immediate, practical matters.
"Mi Teniente, where is the telephone?"
"They took it out," Clete said. And then, curiously: "Who did you want to call?"
"I thought we would have coffee, and perhaps the newspaper, mi Teniente. We will be here a long time."
"I could use something to eat."
"Bueno, I will take care of everything," Enrico said. He walked to Clete and held out the shotgun. "Mi Teniente is fa-miliar with this shotgun?"
"Yes. I've got a Browning. They're about identical."
"It is loaded, and the safety is off, mi Teniente," Enrico said, and handed the Remington to Clete.
He walked to the door, pounded on it, and left the room. Five minutes later, he was back.
"Coffee and some pastry is on the way," he announced. He walked to the window. "It's locked," Clete said. Enrico looked at him and winked.
"The clowns in the corridor asked where I was going. I told them for breakfast, a telephone, and the key to the window. They told me I could have neither the key to the window lock," he held up a small key, "or a telephone."
He removed the padlock, opened the vertical blind three feet, and then opened the window. He whistled. Moments later, a tel-ephone appeared outside the window; it was hanging on a cord. Enrico hauled it in, untied the cord, then closed the window and the vertical blind.
He plugged the telephone in, picked up the handset, listened for a moment, nodded his head in satisfaction, then unplugged the telephone and put it in the cabinet beside the bed.
"We will keep it there until we need it, mi Teniente," he said. "In case the clowns in the corridor become curious."
"How did you do that, Enrico?"
"The Suboficial Mayor of the hospital was in the Husares de Pueyrred¢n when el Coronel and I were with the regiment. He was injured in a bad fall, and is on limited duty."
"He gave you the telephone?"
"S¡, mi Teniente, and he will see that we eat well, from the Sargento's mess."
"When they hear what happened on Avenida Libertador and cannot find me, my two friends will be worried about me. Can I call them, Enrico?"
Enrico met his eyes for a long moment.
He is not going to let me use the phone. All that talk about going against my father's wishes sounded great, but when push comes to shove...
"The clowns cannot listen to that line," Enrico said, pointing to the telephone wall plug. "I thought of that. But I think the clowns will be listening to the line of your friends."
"You're probably right."
Probably, shit! Of course he's right.
"It would be better to have them come here. Do you need both of them, or just one?"
"Just one. Could you do that? How would you bring him past the clowns?"
"You do not have suboficiales mayores in your army, mi Ten-iente?"
"I am a Marine, Sergeant Major, not a soldier. But yes, we have men like you in the Corps. They call them 'gunnys.' It means gunnery sergeant."
"And when your officers have a problem they cannot solve, do they turn to the 'gunnys'?"
"Yes, we do."
"It is the same here. This problem may take some time, but it can be solved. I suggest, mi Teniente, that you write a short note to your friend, telling him to accompany the man who gives him the note. And tell me the address."
Chapter Eighteen
[ONE]
Room 305
Dr. Cosme Argerich Military Hospital
Calle Luis Maria Campos
Buenos Aires
1745 20 December 1942
Wearing a somewhat soiled, loose-fitting white cotton uniform of the type issued by the Argerich Military Hospital to its mainte-nance personnel, Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi, CE, USAR, moved slowly down the third-floor corridor of the hos-pital. He was holding a large coil of black electric wire, and following a man moving a floor polisher in a slow sweeping mo-tion from side to side.
The man with the floor polisher stopped in front of Room 305 and put a key to the locked door. The door was opened by a large man; he was holding a shotgun in one hand. The muzzle was eighteen inches from Tony's belly. The man motioned for him t
o enter.
First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, wearing a light-blue hospital gown, was seated at a small table. Tony could see a pot of coffee on it and the remnants of sandwiches and pastry.
"Jesus, what's that purple shit all over you, Lieutenant?"
W E B Griffin - Honor 1 - Honor Bound Page 54