Honor Bound

by W. E. B Griffin

  Clete shrugged his shoulders.

  “Here and at your home. The Policía Federal are more than a little embarrassed that such a terrible incident could have happened on Avenida Libertador at the home of one of our more prominent citizens. I feel sure that for the next month, at least, the area will be heavily patrolled.”

  “You think it will take that long for my father to arrange to have me expelled?”

  “This is Argentina. Even under these circumstances, any administrative procedure takes a long time.”

  Martín put out his hand.

  “While I regret the circumstances, Mr. Frade, it has been a pleasure meeting you. Perhaps we will see one another again in the future.”

  Clete shook Martín’s hand.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Take care of yourself, Mr. Frade,” Martín said. He smiled at Enrico, offered him his hand, and then left the room. This time there was no sound of a key being turned in the lock.

  “Is it permitted to ask what that was all about?” Enrico asked.

  “Put the shotgun away, Enrico,” Clete said. “I’m about to be visited by an American diplomat, and it would frighten him. After that, we can leave.”

  Enrico nodded.

  “Out of sight,” he said. “Not away.”

  He moved his chair beside the bed, then slipped the shotgun under the sheet.

  “I’m going to take a shower and a shave,” Clete said. “If someone knocks, let him in.”

  [FIVE]

  “Mr. Frade, I’m H. Ronald Spiers, Vice Consul of the United States here in Buenos Aires.”

  He was a slightly built, thickly spectacled, somewhat hunch-shouldered man in his late twenties. He was wearing a seersucker suit and carrying a stiff-brimmed straw hat and a briefcase. He gave Clete a calling card.

  “How do you do?” Clete asked.

  He saw a question in Enrico’s eyes and nodded reassuringly at him.

  “I’m really sorry it took so long for me to visit you,” Spiers said. “Please believe me, we have been trying since the story appeared in the Herald.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” Clete said.

  “Frankly, you’re sort of a special case,” Spiers said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Senator Brewer sent a cable asking us to keep an eye on you,” Spiers said. “And to notify him immediately if you encountered any problems down here.”

  After a moment Clete remembered Senator Brewer. He was the senior senator from the state of Louisiana. “He is a pompous windbag of incredible stupidity,” Cletus Marcus Howell called him. “But he’s surprisingly useful to me if I have the time to explain in excruciating detail what I want done.”

  Just like the Old Man, Clete thought, smiling, having a word with the Senator, telling him to make sure the embassy looks out for me down here.

  And then another thought:

  I don’t think this Spiers guy has any idea what’s really going on.

  “Well, you can cable the Senator that I’m fine,” Clete said. “They have given me the best of treatment, and I have been told that the investigation is over. The people who robbed the house have been identified as known criminals.”

  “I’m delighted to hear that,” Spiers said. “And I’m sure the Ambassador will be.”

  “I was just about to leave, as a matter of fact.”

  “Could I drop you off?” Spiers asked. “I have a car and driver.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Clete said. “Are you sure it’s no imposition?”

  “Not at all. My pleasure.”

  Clete turned to Enrico.

  “We’re leaving,” he said in Spanish. “What are you going do about the shotgun?”

  “The shotgun?” Spiers asked, visibly surprised.

  Shit, he speaks Spanish. I should have thought of that. Diplomats aren’t very useful if they can’t speak the language.

  “Señor Rodríguez is my father’s gamekeeper,” Clete continued in Spanish. “We were looking at a shotgun—we’re going to my father’s estancia this afternoon—and we sort of hid it when we heard you were coming.”

  “The bird shooting here is supposed to be magnificent,” Spiers said. “I myself don’t hunt, but I have friends who do.”

  “You don’t hunt?”

  “I just can’t stand the thought of killing anything,” Spiers said.

  [SIX]

  4730 Avenida Libertador

  Buenos Aires

  1105 22 December 1942

  Two policemen were strolling down the sidewalk in front of the Guest House, and Clete saw a car that was almost certainly an unmarked police car parked farther down the street.

  Clete thanked Spiers for the ride, and for his concern, then passed through the gate and up to the door.

  A maid he didn’t recognize, a middle-aged woman, opened the door and looked at him dubiously.

  Señora Pellano will never open the door to me again. Shit!

  “This is Señor Frade,” Enrico said behind him.

  The woman stepped out of the way.

  Now that he was here, Clete was sorry he had come.

  “I don’t think I want to stay here,” he said to Enrico. “I think I’ll put some clothes in a bag and check into a hotel.”

  “It is better that you stay here,” Enrico said. “I can protect you better, and this is your home, mi Teniente.”

  “OK,” Clete said, deciding he was being a little overemotional.

  “Mi Teniente, when do you plan to go to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo? I must see that we have petrol, the air in the tires…”

  Christ, Señora Pellano’s funeral!

  I have to go. If I don’t, he won’t go with me. And he has the right to be at his sister’s funeral.

  “Let me put some things in a bag, Enrico. We might as well go now. There’s no point in hanging around here.”

  “Sí, mi Teniente.”

  [SEVEN]

  Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

  Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

  1615 22 December 1942

  El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade was sitting on the verandah of the ranch house with Señora Carzino-Cormano and her daughters, when Clete drove up in the Horche.

  When he saw Clete at the wheel, he quickly stood up and went inside the house.

  Señora Carzino-Cormano, shaking her head sadly, moved off the porch and up to Clete and kissed his cheek.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “You weren’t seriously injured?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Your father wasn’t expecting you. You and he had words?”

  “Yes,” Clete said simply. “We did. I’m here for Señora Pellano’s funeral.”

  “And you stay angry, don’t you, like him? Is that why you drove his car here…you know how he is about that damned automobile…to make him angry?”

  “My car is at the Duartes’, and when I telephoned to ask about it, there was no answer. I had the Old Man’s car, so I drove it.”

  “‘The Old Man’? Is that what you call him? To his face, I hope not.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “Is there a hotel, or somewhere else I can stay?”

  “Where? The hotel in Pila is…” She raised her hands helplessly. “You’re determined to go to the funeral?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good for you,” she said, and turned to Enrico. “Enrico, put Señor Cletus’s things in my car. He will be staying at my estancia for the night.”

  “Mi Teniente,” Enrico asked uncomfortably, “may I have an hour?”

  “I don’t understand, Enrico,” Claudia said.

  “I would like an hour with my family, Señora,” Enrico said.

  “Señor Cletus is going to my estancia, Enrico. Not you.”

  “With respect, Señora, where el Teniente goes, I go.”

  “I will speak to el Coronel about that, Enrico. It will be all right with him.”

  “With respect,
Señora, this has nothing to do with el Coronel.”

  She stuck her tongue in her cheek thoughtfully.

  “Very well, Enrico,” she said. “You go to your family. Take all the time you need. When you are finished, Señor Cletus will be here on the verandah, and then you can drive him and the señoritas to my home.”

  “Gracias, Señora,” Enrico said.

  “And for the next hour,” Claudia said, “the Old Man can sulk in the house while we have a coffee. Or perhaps something stronger, Cletus?”

  “Nothing, thank you,” he said.

  [EIGHT]

  Estancia Santa Catharina

  Buenos Aires Province

  2145 22 December 1942

  Clete was startled when he became aware of the human form standing next to him. A female human form, to judge by the perfume.

  He was lying on a chaise longue, examining the heavens with a pair of Zeiss 7 X 50 binoculars that he found in his bedroom. The room—actually an apartment—obviously served as the last repository of the personal property of the late Señor Carzino-Cormano; there were riding boots and a photo album and other things he suspected Claudia was unable to part with, even though her husband was long dead and she was in everything but law now married to his father.

  After dinner, a magnificent entire lomo, roasted whole with red sweet peppers, mushrooms, and two magnificent bottles of vino tinto, Clete went to his room and to its chaise longue for a look at the stars.

  He sat up. Enrico, the Remington on his lap, was about to allow himself to doze off again, satisfied that the visitor, whom Clete now recognized, posed no threat to Clete.

  “I am not disturbing you?” Alicia Carzino-Cormano asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Is he…is that, necessary?” Alicia asked, nodding at Enrico and his shotgun.

  “He thinks so.”

  “And do you?”

  “I don’t know,” Clete said. “I am willing to defer to his professional judgment.”

  “May I ask you a question?”

  “As long as it does not involve my love life. I am an officer and a gentleman, and officers and gentlemen do not kiss and tell.”

  “I heard my mother and your father talking.”

  “Eavesdropping on Mama and the Old Man? I am shocked, Alicia.”

  She smiled at him.

  “El Coronel said there is no doubt that the Germans were behind what happened at the Guest House.”

  “I’m sure they were,” Clete said.

  “Why did they kill Señora Pellano?”

  “Straight answer, Alicia? Because they are no-good sonsofbitches who are, perfectly willing to kill innocent people to get what they want.”

  “There was a story in La Nación,” Alicia said, “which said that the English and the Norteamericanos…which accuses the Germans of killing thousands of innocent people. You believe that too?”

  “Yes, I do,” Clete said, now seriously. “I’m afraid it’s even worse than that. That they have killed more than thousands. I think they’ve probably killed millions.”

  “It is impossible to believe!” she said, and made a strange noise. After a moment he recognized it was a stifled sob. She turned and walked—almost ran—away from him. The sudden motion woke Enrico from his doze. He jumped to his feet with the Remington at the ready.

  Suddenly understanding why she was doing that, Clete jumped off the chaise longue and ran after her and caught her arm.

  “Listen to me, honey,” Clete said. “I don’t believe for a minute that Peter von Wachtstein had anything at all to do with killing Señora Pellano, or with what they tried to do to me. And I know him well enough to be certain that if he was aware of what was going on in Germany, he would do anything he could to stop it.”

  She looked up at him. He could smell her breath.

  “Is that true?” she asked, just barely audibly.

  “Yeah, honey, it’s true. Ol’ Hans-Peter is an officer and a gentleman and a fighter pilot. We officers and gentlemen and fighter pilots don’t do things like that.”

  Alicia Carzino-Cormano then threw her arms around him, hugged him tightly, put her face on his chest, and said, “Oh, Cletus, thank you very much!”

  Then she kissed him square on the lips and ran from the room.

  [NINE]

  La Capilla de Nuestra Señora de los Milagros

  Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

  Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

  1105 23 December 1942

  The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miracles seems to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Saints Peter and Paul Ranch, thought First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR, onetime acolyte of Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church, Midland, Texas.

  Until he walked into this one, he assumed that a “chapel” was sort of an altar off to the side of the main part of the church. The chapel at Trinity, for example, was in fact a small church within a church used mostly by a small group of the unusually devout for the celebration of seven A.M. Sunday Morning Prayer before they hit the links of the Midland Country Club.

  Or once in a while, he thought, remembering two specific incidents, for the quiet, family-members-only marriage of a bride who wanted a church wedding but was reluctant to march down the main aisle to the strains of “Here Comes the Bride” in a white dress which could not entirely conceal the fact that she was about to add to the world’s population.

  La Capilla de Nuestra Señora de los Milagros was a large religious edifice, seating normally maybe three hundred people (it was almost as large as Trinity Episcopal, and a hell of a lot more ornate). Today it held more than that. It came fully equipped with an organ, a choir loft, a cemetery, and a rectory. And two priests in absolutely stunning vestments heavy with golden thread, one a doddering old man who seemed to have trouble staying awake, and the other who looked as if he was ordained last week.

  And there were three social classes of worshipers: First, there were two kinds of pews in the church itself. All but the first three rows were simple wooden benches. The first three rows were softly upholstered in red velvet.

  These were reserved for important worshipers, which today meant the family of the late Señora Marianna Maria Dolores Rodríguez de Pellano, whose beautifully carved solid cedar casket now rested just before the communion rail. And today, at the invitation of Suboficial Mayor Enrico Rodríguez, Cavalry, Argentine Army, Retired, included First Lieutenant Cletus H. Frade, USMCR.

  The Old Man, Señora Carzino-Cormano, the Carzino-Cormano girls, Uncle Humberto and Aunt Beatrice, and some people Clete did not recognize were seated in the VIP section of La Capilla de Nuestra Señora de los Milagros, a wing off the main body of the church, where there were individual prie-dieux and nicely upholstered chairs with arms.

  The healthy-looking young priest delivered an angry homily, promising eternal damnation for those who lived by the sword. Clete suspected that the homily was directed mostly at him and Enrico, who had his Remington with him, not at all well-concealed in a poncho.

  Just for the record, Padre, I didn’t come down here because I wanted to. I didn’t go in the goddamned Marine Corps because I get my rocks off shooting people. I would even have obeyed Christ’s “turn the other cheek” rule if those two bastards hadn’t come at me with knives.

  But what about the one I shot in the forehead while he was actually screaming, “Please, Señor, for the love of God, help me!”?

  Martín was right: That was murder, Cletus Frade. You didn’t have to kill that sonofabitch. You shouldn’t have killed him.

  Familiar words from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer came into his mind: “I have done those things that I ought not to have done, and I have not done those things I ought not to have done, and there is no help in me.”

  Come to think of it, Cletus, the only thing you have done lately that you ought to have done is to keep your hands off the Virgin Princess. You get a small gold star for that.

  His meditation on his own guilt and innocence was interrupte
d when Enrico nudged him. And then he saw that Enrico had not nudged him, and was in fact completely unaware of him. Enrico was weeping.

  More than a little awkwardly, Clete put his arm around him and held him comfortingly.

  [TEN]

  The Ranch House

  Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

  Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

  1425 23 December 1942

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Clete called. He was lying on the bed.

  El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade entered the room and stared at Clete without speaking.

  “Claudia called the Duarte house,” Clete said without getting up, “and arranged for my car to be driven to her estancia. In an unusual manifestation of Argentine efficiency, it was actually sent there. So she’s having it brought here. I’ll be out of here just as soon as it arrives.”

  “It’s here,” Frade said.

  Clete rose to his feet. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be on my way.”

  “Do you think we could have a small talk, as officers and gentlemen?”

  “We could have a shot at it. What’s on your mind?”

  “Enrico, leave us, please,” Frade ordered.

  “Mi Teniente, should I put your bags in the Buick?”

  “Please, Enrico. I’ll be right out.”

  Frade waited until Enrico picked up the bags and left the room. Then he checked to make sure the door was closed, and finally turned to Clete.

  “You are planning to leave without greeting your aunt Beatrice and your uncle Humberto?”

  “Well, I thought I would avoid a—a what?—a possibly awkward situation.”

  “I see.”

  “And the truth is, now that I think about it, blood aside, the two of them don’t really feel like my aunt and uncle. They’re just two nice people I feel sorry for because they lost their son. I just met them; I hardly know them.”

  “I had trouble with that too,” Frade said.

  “With what?”

  “Realizing, blood aside, that you are really my son. A flesh-and-blood creature…not a dream.”

  Clete could think of no reply to make.

  “After you arrived yesterday,” Frade said, “Enrico came to see me. He told me that honor requires that he leave my service.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” Clete said.

  “Enrico left Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo to enlist in the Army shortly before I was to be commissioned. That way he could complete his training by the time I became an officer, and he could be my batman.”