Honor Bound

by W. E. B Griffin

  And then he felt a little absurd, again.

  “Why don’t I do this right?” he asked himself aloud. “If this is going to be a replay of the Gunfight at the OK Corral, why not do it with a Colt six-shooter?”

  He went to the desk and took out the felt-lined walnut box containing the old Hog Leg, the Colt Army .44-40 revolver that his grandfather carried while commanding the Husares de Pueyrredón.

  You’d be proud of me, Grandpa, sitting here with your Hog-Leg about to defend myself against the Argentine equivalent of the Apaches.

  Jesus Christ, it’s hot in here with those goddamned blinds closed!

  He stood up and walked to the rear of the apartment, where there was a second balcony behind the elevator shaft and the steep stairway. It was barely wide enough for two simple wooden chairs with leather seats and backs. And it offered a far-from-charming view of the service entrances of other houses—and to judge from the smell of it, the Buenos Aires version of a privy.

  But it was in the open, and there was a small breeze. He started to sit down, but decided a warm beer was better than no beer, and returned to Uncle Guillermo’s playroom.

  Feeling more than a little sheepish, he turned off the lights, opened one of the vertical blinds, and crept onto the balcony. He took two beers from the ice chest, then crept back inside. He lowered the blind again, then started back toward the other balcony.

  The .45 automatic was on the desk, beside the .44-40 Hog Leg.

  I should put that away before Señora Pellano comes in here with my breakfast and sees it.

  Ah, to hell with it. I’ll take it with me and put it away before I go to bed.

  He went to the rear balcony and laid the pistol on the floor of the balcony. Then he settled himself as comfortably as he could—sitting in one of the chairs, resting his booted feet on the other—and opened one of the beers.

  Warm beer is better than no beer at all.

  While he sipped the beer, thoughts of the Virgin Princess passed pleasantly across his mind.

  Can I tell her I love her?

  Why the hell not, she already said that to me…probably.

  And she looked at me out of those beautiful eyes and pursed her lips in a kiss….

  Jesus Christ, I’d give my left nut to put my arms around her and kiss her!

  He heard the sound of feet on the stone stairs.

  What the hell is that?

  A cat or something? Rats?

  What the hell is it?

  He carefully lowered his booted feet to the floor and stood up. He had left the door to the rear balcony slightly ajar. He approached it, put his hand on the knob, and started to open it. Then he changed his mind, dropped to his knees, and felt around the floor until his fingers touched the Argentine .45.

  He went back to the door. He heard feet on the stone stairs again, then his heart jumped as he realized someone was coming up the stairs.

  No. Someone is already on the top floor; and somebody else is coming up the stairs. And it goddamned sure isn’t Señora Pellano. Then who the hell is it?

  He smelled a man.

  A man who hasn’t had a bath in a long time. Smells like an infantry Marine from the ’Canal.

  The second man walked toward Uncle Guillermo’s playroom.

  What the hell do I do now?

  Clete eased the door open. Walking on his tiptoes, he left the balcony and walked toward the playroom.

  It was absolutely dark inside.

  He found the light switch, closed his eyes, and turned the lights on.

  He opened his eyes. In the time it took them to adjust to the sudden glare, he saw two men.

  What the hell is he doing next to my bed?

  The second man was closer, shielding his eyes. He held a long, curved knife. When he saw Clete, he brought the arm holding the knife up across his chest, so he could slash at Clete when he moved in.

  The man next to Clete’s bed turned—he had an even larger knife—and assumed a crouching position.

  Clete glanced at the closer man, in time to see him start to rush at him.

  Did I chamber a round in this thing?

  The .45 kicked in his hand, and then again and again. The noise was deafening.

  The man rushing him staggered, with a look of surprise on his face. He fell to the ground. The back of his head was a horrible, bloody mess, shattered like a watermelon.

  Where the hell did I hit him? In the mouth? I had to; there’s no other mark on his face.

  The other man was now rushing at him with his knife held high over his shoulders.

  The .45 bucked again and again and again and again. The man rushing him started to fall.

  Clete pulled the trigger again. The pistol didn’t fire. He checked it. The slide was locked in the rear position. He had emptied the magazine.

  The man he had just hit was now screaming in agony, holding his right leg with both hands.

  Jesus Christ, when Señora Pellano hears all this noise, she’ll be terrified!

  Señora Pellano! How did these bastards get past her?

  He looked at the man screaming in pain. The way his leg was bent, it was clearly broken. Blood covered the man’s hands.

  I shot at him four times and only hit him once, in the lower leg?

  He walked to him, kicked his knife across the room, then went to the desk. He picked up a loaded .45 magazine, ejected the empty one in the pistol, loaded the fresh one, and let the slide go forward.

  He went to the stairs and started down them.

  There were no lights.

  He went down carefully, rubbing his back against the wall, desperately hoping he wouldn’t fall.

  He reached the first floor and found the handle to the kitchen door.

  He raised the pistol and pushed the door open. The kitchen, too, was dark. He felt around for the switch, found it, and snapped on the lights.

  Señora Pellano, in a black bathrobe, was sitting at the kitchen table. Her eyes were open and her head was thrown back.

  Her throat had been cut. Through the gaping wound he could see bone and her slashed throat. Blood soaked her bathrobe and dripped onto the floor.

  “You miserable sonsofbitches!” Clete said, his voice breaking.

  He ran back up the stairs to Uncle Guillermo’s playroom. Halfway up, he could hear the man screaming again.

  “For the love of the Blessed Virgin, please help me!”

  He reached the playroom. The man had crawled to the bathroom, where he had pulled a towel from the rack and was attempting to make a tourniquet with it.

  He looked at Clete.

  “Please, Señor, for the love of God, help me!”

  Clete raised the pistol and shot him in his good leg. And then, when the man looked at him in surprise and terror, he shot him again, aiming between his eyes. His aim was a little off; he hit him in the center of his forehead.

  [THREE]

  4730 Avenida Libertador

  Buenos Aires

  0115 20 December 1942

  El Teniente Coronel Bernardo Martín made an illegal U-turn in the middle of Avenida Libertador and pulled up behind one of the five Policía Federal police cars parked in front of the Frade Guest House.

  His action attracted the attention of two uniformed Policía Federal officers—the one assigned to make sure that traffic continued to flow along Avenida Libertador, and the one assigned to make sure that no unauthorized persons entered the scene of the crime. Both greeted him as he left his car.

  “Yo soy el Coronel Martín, del Servicio de Seguridad del Interior,” he said. Though he was out of uniform—he was wearing only the shirt he had worn that day and a pair of casual trousers—he spoke with such authority that one of the policemen saluted and the other begged his pardon for stopping him.

  He entered the foyer of the Guest House and found el Comandante Habanzo in animated conversation with several Policía Federal officers—two uniformed senior officers, one a capitán, the other a teniente, and two plainclothe
s detectives, most probably from the Homicide Bureau.

  Habanzo looked enormously relieved to see him.

  “Mi Coronel,” he said.

  Interesting that he is here, Martín thought as Habanzo briefly described the carnage at the Guest House. Is this a manifestation of his devotion to duty, inspired by our little chat earlier? Or is there another reason?

  “You are?” the Capitán asked, not at all friendly, when Habanzo finished.

  “Mi jefe, el Coronel Martín,” Habanzo introduced him.

  “¿Credenciales?”

  Christ! They are in my jacket pocket.

  “Capitán,” Martín said. “You have two choices. You may accept the word of el Comandante Habanzo, whose credentials I presume you have seen, that I am who I say I am…”

  “Credenciales, por favor.”

  “…or we will all stand here while I telephone my office and have an agent dispatched to my home to pick up my credentials. While we are waiting, I will telephone my friend el Coronel Savia-Gonzalez, wake him from a sound sleep, and tell him that one of his capitáns is interfering with Internal Security.”

  “With respect, mi Coronel,” the Capitán said. “We have three murders here. Murder is the responsibility of my office.”

  “What we have here, according to el Comandante Habanzo, is three bodies. If my investigation indicates that there were in fact three murders, and that these murders have no connection with Internal Security, then I will happily turn over the investigation to the Policía Federal.”

  He locked eyes with the Capitán, who after a moment backed down.

  “Sí, mi Coronel.”

  “Where is the American?” Martín asked.

  “In there, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said, pointing to a closed door, before which stood a uniformed Policía Federal. “It is the library.”

  “Has he been interrogated?”

  “No, mi Coronel. He refuses to answer any questions.”

  “I have placed him under arrest,” the Capitán said.

  “No, you haven’t,” Martín said. “Be good enough, Capitán, to accompany el Comandante and me on a preliminary survey of the crime scene.”

  “There are two,” Habanzo said. “The kitchen, and the apartment on the upper floor.”

  “We will begin with the kitchen,” Martín said. “Where is it?”

  “Through that door, mi Coronel.”

  Martín’s stomach nearly turned when he saw the body sitting at the kitchen table. There was already the sickly sweet smell of blood, and flies.

  “Get a towel, or a sheet or something, and cover the body.”

  “Photographs have not been taken,” the Capitán protested.

  “If I decide photographs are in order, the sheet can be removed,” Martín said, and went to the doors leading outside from the kitchen to examine them for marks of forcible entry. There were none.

  Which means nothing. People will remove dead bolts and chains to open doors to complete strangers.

  He turned from the door to the basement.

  “Habanzo, have you examined the door from the street to the garage, and the front door, for signs of forcible entry?”

  “I have,” the Capitán answered for him. “Or rather, one of the Homicide Bureau investigators has,” he corrected himself. “There were none.”

  “Thank you,” Martín said. “How do we reach the—you said ‘upper-floor apartment’?”

  “There is a stairway and an elevator, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said.

  “We will use the elevator,” Martín said. “It may be necessary to seek evidence on the stairway. I don’t think robbers would use the elevator; they make noise.” He turned to the Capitán: “To judge from the position of the woman’s body, I would say that she was sitting there when her throat was cut; that she was not moved there. Would you agree?”

  The Capitán nodded. “Which suggests she was taken by surprise,” he said. “Which in turn suggests she knew the people who murdered her.”

  “Possibly,” Martín agreed. “Where is the elevator?”

  The smell of blood in the apartment was even stronger than in the kitchen. And there were more flies.

  Martín examined both bodies, then the trail of blood leading to the bathroom, and the towel used as a tourniquet. The tiles surrounding the bathtub were shattered, as well as the tub itself, which sat inside the tile base.

  He returned to the bedroom and saw the Colt single-action revolver on the desk. A holster for a .45 automatic and an empty clip lay on the table. A bowl for pencils was on the desk. Martín picked up a pencil, hooked the trigger guard of the Colt revolver, and sniffed at the barrel. It had not been fired.

  “Other weapons?” he asked.

  “There is a .45 automatic, mi Coronel,” Habanzo said. “It has been fired. It is in my possession.”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “When the young Norteamericano opened the door to me, he had it in his hand. He gave it to me.”

  “A stolen Army pistol,” the Capitán said.

  “Not necessarily,” Martín said. “This house is owned by el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade. The pistol may be his. It is conceivable that he loaned it to his son for protection.”

  “That is illegal.”

  “You tell el Coronel that, Capitán,” Martín said.

  He looked around the room again.

  “I now wish to speak to the Norteamericano,” he said. “Here. Habanzo, will you bring him up?”

  “You wish to talk to him here, in the scene of the murders?” the Capitán asked.

  “It sometimes makes people uneasy to be brought to the scene of the crime,” Martín said. “Uneasy people often say more than they wish. Habanzo, just put him on the elevator. I’d like to speak to him alone.”

  “I’d prefer to be here, mi Coronel, when you speak with the suspect,” the Capitán said.

  “First of all, he is not a suspect. Secondly, he has refused to answer your questions. Perhaps he will answer mine.”

  “I respectfully protest, mi Coronel.”

  Martín shrugged.

  “And when you have put the Norteamericano on the elevator, Habanzo, please telephone to el Coronel Savia-Gonzalez, apologize for waking him at this house, and tell him that I consider it very important, in a matter of Internal Security, that he come here immediately.”

  “Sí, mi Coronel.”

  “Thank you, Comandante,” Martín said.

  He had a second thought.

  “Where is the .45 automatic, did you say?”

  “In my possession,” Habanzo said.

  “Can you give it to the Norteamericano and have him bring it up here?”

  Habanzo’s face registered surprise.

  “Presumably you unloaded it?” Martín asked.

  “Yes, mi Coronel.”

  “Then I don’t think he will try to hold me at gunpoint, do you?”

  “His fingerprints will be all over it!” the Capitán protested.

  “Since el Comandante Habanzo has told us the Norteamericano was carrying the pistol when he opened the door to him, his fingerprints are already all over it,” Martín said, with sarcastic patience. “Please have him bring the pistol.”

  “Sí, mi Coronel.”

  When Cletus Howell Frade stepped off the elevator, Martín was somewhat shocked at his appearance. He was naked, except for a pair of bloodstained white boxer shorts and cowboy boots. His face, chest, and legs were bloodstained, and there were finger marks where he had tried to wipe them. And he was carrying the .45 automatic by lopping a finger through the trigger guard.

  “Teniente Frade, I am el Teniente Coronel Martín of Internal Security. We have met. Do you remember that?”

  Clete nodded. He handed the pistol to Martín.

  “This is the weapon you used to do that?” Martín asked, nodding toward the two bodies.

  Clete was silent.

  “We must talk seriously and quickly,” Martín said. “Let me begin by saying I k
now you are an intelligence officer of the OSS. I am presuming that you are a very good one, or otherwise your government would not have sent you to Argentina.”

  Clete met his eyes but did not reply.

  That was a shot in the dark, Teniente Frade. And, while I am not very good at judging reactions by watching people’s eyes and other body signals, I’m not all that bad, either. I would wager three-to-one now that you are an OSS agent.

  “I like to think that I am also a competent intelligence officer. A good intelligence officer does not choose sides. He simply gathers information and passes it to his superiors for their decisions. That luxury is no longer available to me. Because of who you are, I must either choose to offend your father…which may prove very costly to me in the future, I’m sure you know what I mean…or I must ally myself with him. I have decided to ally myself with your father.”

  Clete said nothing.

  “You have no response?”

  “Could I go in the bathroom and wash myself?” Clete asked.

  “Not just yet,” Martín said. “What I want from you now is for you to tell me what happened here tonight.”

  “Mi Coronel, I think I would prefer to wait until my father can find me a lawyer.”

  “You don’t have that luxury,” Martín said. “We need a credible story, and we need it before the Chief of the Policía Federal arrives. He’s on his way. Just tell me what happened. We’re alone, and you can deny anything you tell me now later.”

  Clete said nothing.

  “I’m sure this doesn’t frighten you, but I think I should tell you that unless we can come up with a credible story for el Coronel Savia-Gonzalez, he will insist that you be taken to police headquarters for interrogation. They won’t kill you, but they will make you very uncomfortable, and it may be days before even your father can get you released.”

  What the hell have I got to lose?

  “I was at the home of my uncle, Humberto Valdez Duarte, following the funeral of my cousin. Later, I drove my father home, then returned here with Señora Pellano. I came up to my apartment. The blinds had not been raised, and it was very hot in here. I took a beer and went out onto the servants’ balcony on the rear. I heard noises, came in here to investigate, and found two men, armed with knives. They attacked me, so I shot them. I went downstairs and found Señora Pellano with her throat cut. There was a pounding at the door, and I opened it. A man who said he was Comandante Habbabo…”