[ONE]
1420 Avenue Alvear
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1430 19 December 1942
Clete Howell wasn’t able to get anywhere near Aunt Beatrice’s house in the Buick. So he parked three blocks away. As he uneasily left the car, the maid’s lecture on crime in the streets of Buenos Aires was very much on his mind. Then he stood in line. When he reached its head, he encountered a polite but firm plainclothes policeman, who seemed deeply saddened to inform him that without an invitation he could not enter the mansion.
Everything is going splendidly, Clete thought. Getting better and better every day in every way. Not only did that bastard Nestor as much as accuse me of cowardice for telling him the truth, but now they won’t let me into a funeral I don’t want to go to in the first place.
The more he thought about flying a TBF down from Brazil to torpedo the Reine de la Mer, the more it seemed like a good idea…the best he could come up with.
Or do I like it mostly because Nestor thinks it is a bad idea?
Nestor was probably right when he said that the OSS brass decided against taking out the Reine de la Mer with a torpedo-carrying airplane…just as they must have turned down the idea of taking it out with a B-17 from Brazil.
The problem with the B-17 is that it has a lousy record against shipping. And the TBF idea was rejected, in all probability, because it does not have the range to make it from wherever they are operating in Brazil to the Reine de la Mer in Samborombón Bay.
It doesn’t. And since Uruguay is neutral, the brass obviously concluded that a TBF could not file a flight plan to an en route airport, where the pilot could sit down and tell the ground crew to top off the tanks, and then ask for the weather between there and Samborombón Bay. And the brass also understandably decided that it could not sit down on a dirt road somewhere in the middle of nowhere and get refueled. The landing gear of a TBF was designed for use on the paved runways of an airfield, or else on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
But what it was designed for is not the same thing as what it is capable of doing. That was proved at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. Henderson was a hell of a lot rougher than the dirt road where the guy put down his Piper Cub—especially after the Japanese spent all night shelling it, and the holes were quickly and not too neatly filled in by Marine bulldozers.
But the Cactus Air Force—including yours truly, on occasion—operated TBFs out of there just about every day. Even with a torpedo in its belly, I could sit a TBF down on that dirt road. Nice, long, slow approach to grease it in. And I only have to make that one landing.
Or why not? Maybe two. After I put the torpedo into the Reine de la Mer, I could go back to the dirt strip, take on some more fuel, and fly back to Brazil. The second landing would be easier; the torpedo would be gone. God knows that would be better than jumping out over the estancia. I really don’t want to do that. Tony may think that parachute jumping is the next-greatest thing to sex, but it scared the hell out of me when I bailed out.
Could I hit the Reine de la Mer? Why not? All you have to do is fly close enough so there’s no chance to miss. You’ve been shot at before; you just don’t pay attention to it. And I don’t think that people on the Bofors and the machine guns will have had much experience. A low-flying airplane has a much better chance against them than against Japanese gunners.
I think I could reason with Colonel Graham about this, tell him I know what I’m talking about, and convince him that my idea stands a much better chance of working than anything else I can think of.
The question then becomes, how do I get in touch with Colonel Graham? I can’t use commercial, Mackay or RCA, to send him a cable. Argentine Intelligence certainly reads commercial cables. And Nestor won’t let me use the Embassy’s communications or codes.
That leaves the destroyer. “Good afternoon, Captain. I’m Lieutenant Frade of the Marine Corps down here on a classified mission, and I need your radios to complain about my orders.”
Hell, just tell him the truth. Let him see the message to Colonel Graham. He may understand it and send it for me. Or he may think I’m some kind of lunatic and throw me off his destroyer. In which case, I’d be no worse off than I am now.
The Alfred Thomas gets here Christmas Eve. I’ll be waiting for her. That’s the only real option I have, convincing her captain to let me get in touch with Colonel Graham.
Do I really have the balls to fly close enough to her to make absolutely sure the torpedo strikes? Into all that antiaircraft? Watching the TBF guys do that, I was perfectly willing to admit they had much bigger balls than I do.
I don’t have any choice; that’s the only way…
“This is the son of el Coronel Frade,” he heard Enrico indignantly announce to the plainclothes policeman who wouldn’t let him in. “He does not need an invitation!”
Enrico led him into the reception hall, where an honor guard of the Husares de Pueyrredón stood guard at the corners of the casket.
His father and his aunt and uncle were nowhere in sight. They were probably in the library. He decided against trying to find them. Uncle Humberto’s “why Jorge and not you” look made him very uncomfortable.
A hand touched his arm.
“Cletus!” Dorotea Mallín said.
He turned to her. She kissed his cheek, really kissed it, not the air kiss American women give to casual acquaintances. As she came close to him, her breast pressed against his arm.
Jesus Christ, don’t do that! Even if you don’t know what you’re doing.
He next accepted a kiss from Señora Mallín, then a kiss from the Mallín boy, Enrico—an Argentinean custom that bothered him a little. And he finally shook hands with Señor Mallín himself. Mallín smiled broadly, but Clete had a strange feeling that he was not nearly as delighted to see him as he claimed he was.
“On our way here, we saw a Buick convertible,” Dorotea said. “A beautiful machine. Was that yours, Cletus?”
“If it was parked three blocks away, it probably was.”
“But you promised to take me for a ride just as soon as it arrived,” she pouted.
“Soon, Princess,” he said.
To judge by the look in his eyes, Big Ernie considers calling her “Princess” about on a par with calling her a Miña.
“Tomorrow?” the Virgin Princess pursued.
“Tomorrow, Dorotea, is out of the question,” Mallín said quickly. “You know we are going to Punta del Este this afternoon.”
“I loathe and detest Punta del Este,” Dorotea announced.
“And Señor Frade has more important things to do than take a young girl like you riding in his car,” Mallín added. “People would talk.”
“Henry!” his wife protested. “What a thing to say!”
“People can talk about me all night and all day, for all I care,” Dorotea said.
“Perhaps when you come back from Punta del Este, Princess,” Clete said.
Why the hell did I say that?
“And I would love to have a ride in your car, Clete,” Señora Mallín said.
“And myself as well,” Little Henry said.
“Certainly,” Clete said.
“If you will excuse us, Señor?” Mallín said. “I see your aunt. We should pay our respects.”
“I will telephone the moment we come back from Uruguay,” Dorotea said, and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek again, thereby once more pressing her breasts against his chest.
Oh, Jesus Christ, I wish you wouldn’t do that, Princess!
“You will see, Pamela,” Mallín said, “that she does no such thing.”
Pamela de Mallín winked at him.
A moment later, Enrico came out of a corridor, followed by Peter von Wachtstein, with Alicia Carzino-Cormano holding his arm, an arrangement both seemed to find delightful. Isabela trailed along behind them, looking more than a little unhappy.
Unhappy, Clete thought, as in pissed, because Alicia is on Peter’s arm, where she realizes she doubtless wants to be…rather than playing the role she’s chosen for herself as the grief-stricken near-fiancée of the late Captain Duarte.
When Clete’s eyes met his, von Wachtstein changed course.
“Buenos días, Teniente,” he said.
“Mi Capitán,” Clete said. “That’s quite a uniform. And the Señoritas Carzino-Cormano, what a joy it is to see you again!”
Alicia smiled warmly; Isabela icily. Neither said anything.
“Your father, Teniente, has been explaining to the Señoritas Carzino-Cormano and her mother that while we are officers of opposing military forces, we bear each other no personal ill will. I thought I would greet you to make that point.”
“In other words, Señoritas,” Clete said with a slow grin, “while it would give me the greatest of professional pleasure to shoot el Capitán down, I would hope to do so while smiling with warm affection at him.”
“Precisely,” Peter said. “But I would be unhappy in such an encounter because it would be ungentlemanly of me to take advantage of an inferior foe.”
“We will have to try it sometime,” Clete said. “In a spirit, of course, of friendship and professional admiration, mi Capitán.”
“Teniente, I would not have it otherwise.”
“El Capitán is a credit to the officer corps,” Clete said.
“How kind of you, Teniente, to say so.”
“De nada, mi Capitán.”
It occurred to Isabela Carzino-Cormano that they both were mocking her. For a moment, Clete thought she was about to storm away angrily, but she didn’t. Her smile, however, became even more icy.
“I saw your little friend around here a moment ago,” she said. “I can’t imagine what happened to her.”
“What little friend?” Peter asked.
I think you’re crocked, Peter. And now that I’ve thought about that, that cloud of fumes around you is not eau de cologne.
“I think, Señorita Carzino-Cormano,” Clete said, “that it was time for the lady in question’s bottle. But I appreciate your interest in my personal life.”
Hauptmann Freiherr von Wachtstein bowed and clicked his heels.
“It has been a pleasure to see you again, Teniente,” he said. “But now duty calls.”
“The pleasure has been mine, mi Capitán,” Clete said.
“Watch out for bandits coming out of the sun, Clete,” Peter said.
He is crocked. Why else would he say something like that? And why the hell is he shitfaced now? At this hour, and with all the brass around?
“What did you say?” Isabela asked.
“I will try, mi Capitán,” Clete said.
“We always say, in the Luftwaffe, that it is the ones you don’t see that get you,” Peter said.
“We say much the same thing in the Marine Corps,” Clete said. “And that has been my personal experience.”
Peter made another curt bow of his head and clicked his heels, and let Alicia lead him to the library. Clete saw Enrico waiting for them there.
[TWO]
Wearing a splendiferous uniform complete with saber, el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade appeared then, under the firm control of Señora Carzino-Cormano.
“Cletus, what are you doing standing out here?” Claudia demanded. “Your place is with the family.”
“Probably counting his blessings,” Frade said, and before Claudia could stop him, went on. “I rather hoped you would wear your uniform with your decorations.”
“I don’t have my uniforms with me,” Clete said.
“Pity,” he said. “I took the trouble to look it up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Corps of Marines dress uniform is splendid.”
He’s crocked too. Is that the local custom? Is this thing going to be sort of an Argentinean Irish wake?
“Come with us, Cletus,” Claudia said, taking his arm and leading them both across the room.
[THREE]
The Basilica of St. Pilar
Recoleta Square
Buenos Aires
1325 19 December 1942
In the ecumenical belief that any religion is better than none, when Martha Howell was for some reason unavailable to drag Clete and the girls to Midland’s Trinity Episcopal Church, she permitted Juanita the housekeeper to drag them to the Roman Catholic parish known in Midland as the Mexican Catholic Church. Clete was therefore no stranger to a Roman Catholic mass celebrated by Spanish-speaking clergy.
It was, however, his first high requiem mass; and while he expected the ceremony to run long—the personal participation of the Cardinal Archbishop brought at least five other bishops, an abbot, and a platoon of other magnificently robed clergy to the Basilica—he never imagined it would go on as long as it did.
Everyone was seated European style on hardback chairs. He was seated in the third row from the altar. The other chairs in the first rows were occupied by the other members of the family, and by dignitaries of church and state. For the first forty minutes or so of the mass, he studied their uniforms and regalia with a mild interest, and then he wondered where the Virgin Princess was sitting.
Both Big Henry and Little Henry Mallín walked in the ranks behind the caisson after they carried Jorge’s casket out of the house, but he didn’t see Dorotea there or her mother.
The women bring up the rear in this society. I wonder how Claudia Carzino-Cormano puts up with that.
Answer: She gets no gold stars to take home to Mommy for perfect attendance at mass.
There was a mirror behind the choir. Its function, Clete knew from painful experience, was to permit the choir director, the organist, and the priest to observe which of the choirboys was at that moment offending the dignity of the House of God and taking that first step down the slippery path to hell.
From where he was sitting, it reflected the rows of chairs just behind his.
Reflected there, her mother beside her, sat the Virgin Princess, a black lace shawl modestly covering her head.
Just before he came to understand that she was mouthing something to him—meaning she could obviously see his reflection, too—he was enjoying an erotic fantasy in which the Virgin Princess was wearing her loosely woven shawl and nothing else.
She is obviously paying no more attention to the Cardinal Archbishop than I am, and as obviously staring directly at me as I am staring directly at her. So what the hell is she saying with those exaggerated motions of those soft beautiful lips?
“I love you”…?
Oh, shit, Cletus, you’re letting your imagination run wild. She wouldn’t do that. You have given her no reason to believe that you consider her anything but a child. It is absolutely absurd to imagine that when she—twice—rubbed her breasts against you, it was anything but innocent. So what else could her lips be saying?
It sure looks like “I love you.”
And Jesus H. Christ, even if it is—and it goddamned sure looks like it—a relationship with that girl is idiotic.
So what do I do?
Obviously, I purposefully misunderstand what she’s saying.
Clete just finished giving the Virgin Princess a happy, platonic, absolutely innocent “And how are you, Little Girl?” smile and wave of the hand when everybody around him suddenly stood up.
Preceded by the Cardinal Archbishop, the casket was carried from its place in front of the altar down the aisle and out of the church, trailed by the family members and the dignitaries of church and state.
Then the people in the first chairs followed, which meant that Clete proceeded down the aisle before the Mallin family did. As he passed the Virgin Princess, she smiled at him with those goddamned fall-into-them eyes, then pursed her lips in a kiss.
Oh, shit!
Outside, the German Ambassador expressed the profound sympathy of the German Führer und Volk over the tragic price paid by this heroic son of Argentina in the noble war against godless communism.
Behind him, Clete saw Peter, holding a pillow.
What the hell is that? Oh, yeah. The posthumous decoration.
A German colonel stepped to the casket, read the citation, then turned to Peter and took a decoration from the pillow and pinned it to the Argentinean flag that was draped cockeyed across the casket.
He and Peter then rendered the Nazi salute.
Fuck you, Peter.
What the hell is that decoration they just gave Cousin Jorge for what amounts to gross stupidity?
It looks just like the one Peter is wearing. And the one Peter is wearing is a no-bullshit medal—I pulled that out of him during the Christmas Eve armistice. It ranks right up there with the Navy Cross, maybe even the Medal of Honor.
And Cousin Jorge gets it because he got killed flying an artillery spotter he wasn’t supposed to be flying in the first place?
Bullshit!
Peter and the German colonel did an about-face and marched back behind the German Ambassador. Six large troopers of the Husares de Pueyrredón picked up the casket, and the procession started off again.
Clete watched them go, exhaled audibly, and said softly, “A Dios, Cousin Jorge. Vaya con Dios.” And then turned and walked in the opposite direction.
I don’t have to watch the end of this. And I certainly don’t want to go back to the house and face Uncle Humberto’s sad eyes again. Or the Virgin Princess…Did she really just tell me she loves me?
I will find the Buick and drive back to the house.
And write a message that will be the sort of thing the skipper of a U.S. Navy destroyer might accept as genuine and that will convince Colonel Graham that letting me have a TBF is the only way I can take out the Reine de la Mer.
[FOUR]
4730 Avenida Libertador
Buenos Aires
1420 19 December 1942
Clete entered the house via the kitchen, after parking the car in the basement garage.
He was a little surprised that Señora Pellano did not show up in the basement to silently chide him for opening the garage door himself, until he remembered that she was at the Big House. He was surprised again that none of the maids appeared in the kitchen while he prepared a wine cooler with two trays of ice from the refrigerator, then stuffed it with bottles of beer.
But one did appear as he was trying without much success to open the sliding elevator door with his elbow. His hands were occupied with the wine cooler and the necks of two additional bottles of beer he was taking upstairs now so he wouldn’t have to come back for them later.
She slid the door open for him.
“Gracias,” he said. “And could you please fix me a sandwich? Ham and cheese and tomato? Something like that?”
“Sí, Señor Cletus,” she said, wrestling the wine cooler away from him. “Señor, there are two norteamericanos waiting for you in the library.”
“Who are they? Did you get their names?”
“No, Señor Cletus,” she said, as if this caused her great sorrow.
When he pushed open the door to the library, Second Lieutenant Anthony J. Pelosi and Staff Sergeant David G. Ettinger, both neatly dressed in seersucker suits, quickly rose to their feet.
“Good afternoon, Sir,” Tony said formally.
“Tony. David. To what do I owe the honor? Can I offer you a beer?”
“No, thank you, Sir,” Tony said, and then, “Clete, I met Mr. Nestor.”
“How did that happen?”
“Dave brought him to the apartment and introduced him.”
“You’re talking about Mr. Nestor of the Bank of Boston?”
“I know he’s the OSS Station Chief,” Tony said.
“He told you that?” Clete asked, looking at Ettinger for confirmation. Ettinger nodded, just perceptibly.
“And he also gave a line of bullshit that you have proved yourself…What did he say, Dave?”
“Unsuitable,” Ettinger furnished.
“Unsuitable for the mission, and that he is now relying on me to carry it out. Real bullshit speech. Like in the movie where Pat O’Brien played Knute Rockne, and whatsisname, Ronald Reagan, played the football player.” He stopped, then looked at Clete. “What’s going on, Lieutenant?” Tony asked.
“I found the Reine de la Mer,” Clete said. “That’s the German replenishment ship.”
“So did Ettinger,” Tony said. “He told me on the way over here.”
Clete looked at Ettinger.
“I finally found one of the Jewish refugees with some balls,” Ettinger explained. “He told me that an agent of the Hamburg-Amerika Line contacted his firm—he works for a ship chandler—and asked them to furnish an extraordinary quantity of meat, fresh and frozen, plus other foodstuffs and supplies, for delivery by lighter to the Reine de la Mer in Samborombón Bay, where she is at anchor with ‘mechanical difficulties.’ The name matched the list. I figured this had to be the ship.”
“It is,” Clete said. “She’s anchored twenty miles offshore in Samborombón Bay.”
“How did you find her?” Tony asked.
“I went looking for her in my father’s airplane.”
“So what’s this all about?” Tony asked. “If we know where it is, why don’t we just go sink the sonofabitch?”
“This isn’t the movies, Tony, and I’m not John Wayne, and neither are you two,” Clete said.
“Well,” Tony said. “Maybe Dave isn’t John Wayne, but I always thought that I…”
“Tony,” Clete said, smiling, “I got a good look at the ship. Not only is she twenty miles or so offshore, but she’s equipped with searchlights and machine guns, and probably with twenty-millimeter Bofors autoloading cannon. There is no way to get near her. Or none that I can think of.”
“A small boat, at night?” Ettinger suggested.
“You can hear the sound of a small boat’s engine a long way off from a ship at anchor, Dave,” Clete said. “And they’re certainly taking at least routine precautions; I’m sure that they sweep the area with floodlights at night, post lookouts, that sort of thing.”
Ettinger shrugged, accepting Clete’s arguments.
“I went to see Nestor as soon as I could when I came back,” Clete continued.
“You didn’t say anything to us,” Tony interrupted, and looked at Ettinger for confirmation.
“I didn’t have anything to tell you, except that I’d found her. And that could wait until I talked to Nestor, and listened to what he had to say when I told him there was no way we could damage the ship where she lies—not with just twenty-odd pounds of explosive.”
“I can do a lot with twenty pounds of explosive,” Tony said.
“Presuming you can lay your charges, right? I’m telling you, there is no way to get close enough to that ship to do that.”
“What about the airplane you found her with?” Ettinger asked. “Lieutenant, I don’t want to sound like I’m questioning your judgment, but I really would like to put that ship out of action.”
“The airplane I found her with is my father’s Beechcraft stagger-wing. It’s a small civilian airplane. I couldn’t carry in it more than three or four hundred-pound bombs—if I had three or four hundred-pound bombs—and I don’t think I could hit…”
“Then what was Nestor talking about? He said you had some wild idea about torpedoing the Reine de la Mer.”
“What I told Nestor was that if he could get me a TBF from Brazil…”
“A what?” Tony asked.
You don’t know what a TBF is either?
“A torpedo bomber. A single-engine Navy airplane with a bomb bay that can handle a torpedo.”
“They have them in Brazil?”
“We’re equipping the Brazilian Navy. It seems logical to me that we’d give them TBFs.”
“You could sink the ship if you had one?”
Clete nodded. “Yeah. I think the reason they haven’t thought of putting out the Reine de la Mer with one is that they don’t have the range to reach here from Brazil.”
“You’re thinking of refueling it where we were in Uruguay?” Tony asked.
Clete nodded and waited for his reaction.
“Where are we going to get the aviation gas for that?”
Damn, I didn’t think of that!
“I don’t know. But there is aviation gas in Uruguay, and so are the people who loaned us the walkie-talkies we lost. They can get avgas for me.”
Tony nodded.
“Nestor didn’t say anything about a torpedo bomber,” Ettinger said. “Why is that a wild idea?”
“I don’t know,” Clete said. “He said something like that had already been considered and rejected by the OSS. I told him I wanted to appeal the order up the chain of command to Colonel Graham. I think I can convince Graham that getting me into a TBF would be the best way—hell, the only way that I can see—to put the Reine de la Mer out of action.”
“And?” Tony asked.
“He said that was out of the question. I had my orders and I would carry them out. And then I lost my temper, told him I had no intention of committing suicide, and then, I’m sorry to say, I threw him out of the car.”
“Lieutenant,” Ettinger said carefully, “I can’t think of a delicate way to put this…. Did Nestor suggest you were overly concerned with your own skin? Is that why you lost your temper?”
Clete met Ettinger’s eyes, then nodded.
“What?” Tony exploded incredulously. “That sonofabitch! You’ve been in combat. You’re an Ace, for Christ’s sake, a fucking hero, and he knows that.”
“Cowardice is apparently in the eyes of the beholder,” Clete said.
Ettinger, recognizing the wordplay, smiled. Tony looked confused.
“Well, fuck him, and his orders,” Tony fumed on.
“So what happens now, Lieutenant?” Ettinger asked.
“The only thing I can think of is to keep trying to reach Colonel Graham,” Clete said.
“How are you going to do that?” Ettinger asked.
“David, would the Alfred Thomas have a radio capable of communicating with—hell, I don’t know—some Navy radio station in Washington? Or with a station that could relay a message to Washington?”
Ettinger shrugged doubtfully, but then nodded and smiled.
“It’s possible, Lieutenant,” he said. “When Admiral Byrd was down in Antarctica, which isn’t far from here relatively speaking, he was unable to communicate with the Navy. But there was a radio ham, an amateur in Cedar Rapids, who could talk to him—I think on the twenty-meter band. The Navy was very embarrassed—I got this story from Mr. Sarnoff at RCA—but they had to swallow their pride and go to this fellow Collins and ask him how he did it. He started a company to build his equipment for the Navy, and it seems logical to assume that the Navy would at least try to equip their vessels in the South Atlantic with such equipment. But I don’t understand…”
“When the destroyer arrives, I’m going aboard. I’ll identify myself as a Marine officer and ask her captain to send a message to Colonel Graham.”
“And if he doesn’t have the right kind of radios, or let you send Colonel Graham a message, then what?” Tony asked.
Clete shrugged. “If you can think of anything else, Tony, I’m wide open to suggestions,” Clete said, then turned to Ettinger. “Unless you could set up a radio here?”
Ettinger shook his head no. And then explained: “I don’t have the equipment. And I don’t think I could find it here. I asked around. Most of their equipment is pretty primitive. And from what I remember about what this fellow Collins used, it required a hell of an antenna. Nothing we could hide; it would attract a good deal of attention. Sorry, Lieutenant.”
“It never hurts to ask,” Clete said.
“So what do we do now?” Tony asked. “While we’re waiting for the destroyer to show up?”
“Try to think of some way to take out an armed merchantman besides using a TBF…or three lonely guys with twenty-odd pounds of explosive,” Clete said.
“One thing we absolutely must not do,” Ettinger said thoughtfully, “is tell Nestor about this little chat.”
“He’s the OSS Station Chief,” Clete said. “I don’t want to put you in the middle of the fight between the two of us.”
“I told you before, Clete, that a man can’t serve two masters,” Ettinger said. “And the oath I swore when I came into the Army was ‘to obey the orders of the officers appointed over me.’ I don’t think Nestor qualifies as an officer, Lieutenant. You do. That’s the philosophic argument. What Tony would call the gut reaction is: ‘If Lieutenant Frade doesn’t trust this man, why should we?’”
“No matter how this turns out, Clete,” Tony said, “we’re with you. OK? We decided that on the way over here.”
Christ, I’m no better than my father. I want to cry.
“Which brings us back to Tony’s question,” Ettinger said. “What should we do now, Tony and I?”
“Nothing. Unless someone comes to you and tries to order you to commit suicide by trying to take out the Reine de la Mer. This is a direct order, Lieutenant Pelosi: I forbid you to attempt any action against the Reine de la Mer without my specific approval. Clear?”
“Yes, Sir,” Tony said.
“If you want to get in touch with me, have David call and say he’s from American Express and I have mail there. I’ll then meet you at five o’clock the same afternoon. Where?”
“One of the hotel bars,” Ettinger said. “That would look coincidental.”
“The bar in the Plaza,” Tony decided.
“The bar in the Plaza,” Clete parroted. “And now get out of here.”
Pelosi and Ettinger both offered their hands.
Clete watched them as they walked to the library door.
Pelosi turned at Ettinger’s arm, surprising Clete, and then surprised him even more:
“Detail, Ten-hut!” Pelosi barked.
Ettinger came to attention.
Pelosi raised his hand in a crisp salute and held it.
“Permission to return to post, Sir?”
Clete returned the salute.
“Post, Lieutenant Pelosi.”
Pelosi brought his saluting hand crisply to his side, then barked, “Haa-bout, Face!” and “Faw-wud, Harch!” and marched out of the library.
Just in time. Otherwise they would have seen the tears running down my cheeks.
[FIVE]
Recoleta Cemetery
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1435 19 December 1942
As he observed the casket of el Capitán Jorge Alejandro Duarte being placed before the altar inside the Duartes’ enormous marble tomb, Hauptmann Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein decided that he was honor bound to inform Lieutenant Cletus Howell Frade that an attempt would be made to murder him.
He reached this conclusion by a circuitous route, starting from a moment when he glanced down at the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross around his neck and at the other one on the red velvet pillow.
His first thoughts were unkind: This goddamned fool does not deserve the Knight’s Cross. He got himself killed flying an airplane that he was not supposed to be flying in the first place, in a war that wasn’t his.
Other thoughts immediately followed: Furthermore, he was probably unqualified to fly the Storch at all. It is a relatively simple, stable aircraft; but like all airplanes, it has its peculiarities. The Storche I’ve flown have gone from the first faint, barely detectable indication of a low-speed stall condition to a full stall in the time it takes to spit.
Whereupon, the sonofabitch drops through the sky like a stone. Standard stall-recovery procedures work, of course, providing you have several hundred feet of altitude to play with. If not, you encounter the ground in an out-of-control attitude, and with consequent loud crashing noises.
There are two ways to enter a stall condition—in addition to on purpose, which is what the instructor pilot does to you during Transition Training, which it is safe to assume the late Capitán Duarte did not have, the Luftwaffe not being in the habit of teaching Cavalry officers from South American countries to fly its airplanes. An airplane goes into an unplanned stall either because the pilot is stupid enough to allow the airfoils to run out of lift, or because the propeller has stopped turning and pulling the airplane through the air with enough velocity for the airflow over the airfoils to provide sufficient lift. Propellers stop turning usually because the engine has stopped turning. Engines are fairly reliable. They seldom stop turning unless they are broken, as when, for example, they are hit by small-arms fire.
The rule to be drawn from this is that if you are flying a Storch near the ground someplace, you pay particular attention to airspeed and engine RPM, so that if the engine is struck by small-arms fire and shows indications of stopping, you can make a dead-stick landing someplace without stalling.
Capitán Duarte did not do this. The documents accompanying the remains gave the cause of death as “severe trauma to the body caused by sudden deceleration.” If he was hit, the documents would have said so.
The late Capitán Duarte crashed the sonofabitch, because he didn’t know how to fly the sonofabitch. And he took some poor bastard with him.
He therefore deserves the posthumous award of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross about as much as Winston S. Churchill does. And awarding it to him is a slap in the face to every pilot who has earned it, including, of course, Hauptmann Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein.
By the time the funeral procession moved from the courtyard outside the Basilica to the cemetery, Peter was having second thoughts:
Wait. Am I being fair to the poor bastard? Is the coffee cup full of brandy I had for breakfast talking? Or the monumental ego of Hauptmann von Wachtstein, fighter pilot extraordinary? Or both?
Bullshit. Clete Frade was contemptuous when he heard they were awarding this clown—his cousin, by the by—the Knight’s Cross. Christ, even Oberst Grüner was disgusted.
From that point, Peter became less unkind.
On the other hand, even if he was a Hauptmann, Duarte was an inexperienced officer. Inexperienced officers do dumb things, especially before they learn that all the talk of the glory of war is pure bullshit. I did. To save Germany from godless communism, and to bring glory to the Luftwaffe and Der Führer, I did some pretty goddamn dumb things in Spain myself. And in Poland. And in France.
Cletus told me that he went on his first combat mission determined to personally avenge the humiliation the United States suffered at Pearl Harbor.
“It took about fifteen seconds with a Zero on my tail,” Clete said, “to realize that all I wanted out of the war was Clete Frade’s skin in one piece; somebody else was welcome to the glory of avenging Pearl Harbor.”
Clete is an honest man, more honest than I am. I would find it hard to publicly admit a sentiment like that, even though I felt it. And Clete is no coward. He told me that he thought his “chances of getting off Guadalcanal alive ranged from zero to none,” but he continued to fly.
El Capitán Duarte presumably was not a stupid man. He would have learned that lesson probably as quickly as Clete, and surely more quickly than I. It’s a pity he killed himself before he acquired a little wisdom.
An officer is honor bound to face whatever hazards his duty requires; not throw his life, or that of his men, away.
And that brings me back to Cletus Howell Frade.
On one hand, if Clete is in fact an OSS agent, he knows full well the risks he is running coming down here. It may not be spelled out in neat paragraphs in the Geneva Convention, but everyone understands that spies operating in neutral countries get killed by the other side’s spies.
In war, the Geneva Convention permits the out-of-hand execution of spies and saboteurs. The Geneva Convention is quite clear on the subject: A soldier found out of uniform behind enemy lines loses the protection afforded a soldier in uniform. He is presumed to be a spy or saboteur.
But Grüner—he said so—doesn’t know if Clete is an OSS agent or not. And even if he is, he may just be down here to influence his father, or as some kind of high-level message deliverer.
And if Clete is not a spy, where does Grüner get the authority to order his execution?
And if Clete is a spy, what then is Grüner? He is certainly not functioning as an officer of a belligerent army, facing his enemy on a battlefield. He is an agent of an intelligence service. In other words, they are both out of uniform; both are outside the protection—and the restrictions—of the Geneva Convention.
But if Grüner is caught for ordering the murder of Clete—or of his own hired assassins, for that matter—he will escape prosecution…not because his actions are permitted by the Rules of Land Warfare, but because he is carrying a diplomatic passport, which renders him immune to the laws of Argentina.
On the other hand, if Clete killed Grüner on his country’s orders, and was caught, he would face an Argentine judge on a charge of murder. That’s unfair.
Can I thus conclude that since Grüner’s conduct fails to meet the small print in the Geneva Convention, as well as the German Officer’s Code of Honor, I am therefore at liberty to violate the German Officer’s Code of Honor and warn Clete?
By stretching the point, yes I can.
But be honest with yourself, Peter. You don’t want to warn him because you have put yourself through this exercise in moral philosophy, but because you like him. We thought we were witty when we told each other we would like to shoot each other down, meanwhile smiling at each other with warm affection. But beneath the warmth there is also the cold truth. If duty requires, we would try to shoot each other down. Yet there would be no smile on the victor’s face—his or mine.
I wonder which of us would be good enough to shoot down the other. I have more victories, but until recently, most of my opponents were inexperienced pilots flying inferior machines.
Clete’s kills were experienced pilots, flying aircraft at least as good as his own. He’s probably a damned good fighter pilot.
I like him, but I would be willing to kill him in the air; as he would me. That would be an honorable death for a warrior. And my conscience, like his, would be untroubled. But for me to stand by silently waiting to hear that his throat has been cut by Grüner’s hired assassins would not be honorable, and I could never find an excuse to forgive myself.
A final thought came to him:
My father would understand my decision.
That brings me back to how do I tell him?
He will almost certainly be at the Duarte mansion for the reception after the funeral. I will somehow manage a minute alone with him.
[SIX]
1420 Avenue Alvear
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1605 19 December 1942
“I wondered what happened to you,” Señorita Alicia Carzino-Cormano said, walking up to Hauptmann Freiherr von Wachtstein and smiling at him over the rim of her teacup. “Is this pretty awful for you?”
Peter bowed and clicked his heels, but there was not time for him to reply before Señorita Isabela Carzino-Cormano walked up to them.
“Señorita,” he said.
Isabela gave him her hand to be kissed, and he kissed it.
“I was deeply moved when the decoration was given to Poor Jorge,” Isabela said.
Peter nodded.
“Isn’t that decoration the one your government gave our Poor Jorge?” she asked, touching Peter’s Knight’s Cross.
“Yes, it is,” Peter replied. “I wondered if either of you charming ladies have seen el Teniente Frade?”
“I don’t think he’s here,” Isabela said. “I think his father’s disgraceful behavior embarrassed him and he left.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Isabela!” Alicia protested.
“Of course,” Isabela said. “You are too much of a gentleman to have noticed him.”
“Noticed him doing what?”
“Weeping in the church, like a child. And, of course, quite drunk.”
“I understand he was quite close to el Capitán Duarte,” Peter said.
And holds himself responsible for the poor bastard’s death.
“If Cletus is not here, then he’s probably at the Guest House,” Alicia volunteered.
If I can get to a telephone, I can call him.
“Señorita, do you happen to know where I could find a telephone?”
“Finding the telephone is easy,” she said. “There are two lines here. But if you intend to make a call…”
She inclined her head. Peter saw a group of people near a telephone set in an alcove in the wall. A gentleman was speaking excitedly into it, and he was oblivious to the dirty looks of the others waiting for it.
“I was thinking of calling a friend,” Alicia said. “But it was no use, so I gave up.”
“Señorita, I am staying at the Alvear Palace. My call is important. Official business. Might I suggest that you walk down there with me and make your call from one of the telephones in the lobby?”
Inspiration! I don’t know where that idea came from, but it was divinely inspired. I can walk out of here with her—if I can get rid of the older sister, that would not be a bad idea, in any case—which will satisfy Grüner’s curiosity about what happened to me. And I can telephone Clete from my room.
I don’t have his goddamned number! How the hell do I get the number?
“In Argentina, Capitán, young ladies of a certain position do not go to a gentleman’s hotel,” Isabela said.
Shit!
“Señorita, I am a stranger to your country. No offense was intended.”
“And none should have been taken,” Alicia said. “If you need to make a telephone call from the hotel, I’ll be happy to walk there with you. It would be nice to leave here anyway.”
“You are very gracious.”
And you have marvelous eyes. I wonder why I never noticed that before.
“Señorita, what are the customs of Argentina? May a stranger to your country telephone a young lady of a certain class and ask her to take dinner with him?”
“If the stranger is a gentleman, and you certainly are,” Alicia said, “and they have been properly introduced, and we have, in the presence of the young lady’s mother, then it is acceptable.”
“Wonderful! And might I presume to avail myself of this acceptable custom in the next day or two?”
“You may call, and I will see if I am free.”
“You can’t tell me that now?”
“You may call,” Alicia teased, “and I will see if I am free.”
“I will adjust my schedule to yours,” Peter said. I will, as a matter of fact, now that the subject has come up, do everything necessary, including standing on my head, to see that fantastic hair undone and spread out on my pillow. “But for now, Señorita, may I accept your gracious offer to walk to the hotel with me, so that I can use the telephone.”
“You may not care about your reputation, Alicia,” Isabela said. “But I do. I can’t let you go to the Alvear alone with el Capitán von Wachtstein.”
“How do you propose to stop me?” Alicia said. “Wrestle me to the ground?”
She has a spark too. I like that.
“Perhaps,” Isabela said, “under the circumstances—I would have to ask Mother—we could escort an honored guest of our country to the Alvear.”
“I’ll ask Mother,” Alicia said firmly, and turned to Peter. “You will wait for me?”
“With my heart beating frantically in anticipation of your return.”
He watched her move across the foyer. The curve of her hips is magnificent too, and she has a delightful walk. When she disappeared behind a door, he turned to Isabela. “And will you excuse me a moment, Señorita?”
“Certainly,” Isabela said.
And with a little bit of luck, you won’t be here when I come back.
He walked quickly across the foyer toward a corridor.
One of the servants surely knows the number of the Guest House. I just hope this corridor leads me to the kitchen.
He was in luck in the kitchen, which he hoped would turn out to be an omen: The first person to notice him there was the housekeeper from the Guest House.
“May I help you, mi Capitán?” Señora Pellano asked, smiling as she walked up to him.
“I was wondering if you could give me the telephone number of the Guest House, Señora?”
“Is there anything I can do for you there, mi Capitán? I’m afraid the telephones here are all tied up. And in just a few minutes I will be returning to the house on Libertador myself. I would be happy…”
“Thank you, no, Señora. If you would just give me the number, please, Señora.”
“I will write it down for you,” Señora Pellano said.
As he came back into the foyer, Oberst Grüner was waiting for him.
“I was about to organize a search-and-rescue party for you, von Wachtstein,” Grüner said. “What were you doing in the kitchen?”
“Looking for someone, Herr Oberst.”
“For whom?”
Peter gestured across the foyer to where the Carzino-Cormano sisters were standing.
“For them. Or at least for the younger one. They come in pairs down here, I have just learned.”
“With a little bit of skill, I’m told, they can be separated,” Grüner said with a smile. “Which answers my second question for you.”
“Which was, Herr Oberst?”
“If you would like to come by my quarters for a light supper with myself and Frau Grüner.”
“Herr Oberst is most kind.”
“There is always something for you to eat at my quarters, Peter,” Grüner said. “But that fräulein is, I would judge, a rare opportunity. Good luck!”
“Thank you, Herr Oberst, for your understanding.”
He bowed and clicked his heels and walked away, toward Isabela and Alicia Carzino-Cormano.
A little gemütlich family gathering, Herr Oberst? A little Apfelstrudel mit Schlagobers, and a little glass of schnapps, while you await word that your thugs have murdered a very decent human being? Fuck you, Herr Oberst. Willi would understand what I’m doing.
“Mother said it’s all right if both of us go,” Alicia reported.
“How very gracious of you to join us, Señorita Isabela,” Peter said.
Shit!
[SEVEN]
Suite 701
The Alvear Palace Hotel
Buenos Aires
1705 19 December 1942
The odds are that my telephone is not tapped, Peter von Wachtstein thought as he waited for the hotel operator to connect him with the Frade Guest House. What reason would Grüner—or anyone else—have to tap it?
“Hola?” Cletus’s voice came on the line.
Not this phone line, but his! Grüner has a man—Comandante Habanzo, or something like that—in Argentine Internal Security. And Grüner has him thinking that Clete is an American agent, which means he almost certainly will have tapped Clete’s line. And if Grüner’s man hears about this conversation, then Grüner will hear about it!
Shit!
“Is that Leutnant Frade?”
It’s Peter. What the hell does he want?
“Former Lieutenant Frade, Hauptmann von Wachtstein. What can I do for you?”
“I am taking tea with two ladies, Teniente,” Peter said. “The sisters Carzino-Cormano. At the Alvear Plaza. I thought you might care to join us.”
He’s drunk. What the hell is he doing with the Carzino-Cormano girls?
“The invitation is most gracious, mi Capitán, but just between us fighter pilots, Isabela Carzino-Cormano cannot be numbered among my legion of female admirers. In English we would say that my presence would piss on your parade. I’ll pass, thank you, and in the morning you will be most grateful that I did.”
“I would like to impose on your well-known good nature, and ask that you reconsider.”
What the hell is going on? Oh, shit. He wants me to get El Bitcho off his hands; he has carnal desires for Alicia.
“Peter, I don’t think you can separate them.”
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”
“What if someone sees us together, Peter? I don’t think that would look wise to that boss of yours.”
“We are in a neutral country. I will simply be acting as an officer and a gentleman, asking you to join us when you happen to walk in and pass our table. We’re in the lobby restaurant. You know it?”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“So do I, Cletus.”
[EIGHT]
As soon as he was out of the garage, Clete stopped the Buick and put the top down. His uncle Jim spent a good deal of time during Clete’s last year at Tulane listing the many inconveniences of owning and driving a convertible. But you could sum up his entire list under one heading: the top. The mechanism was delicate, he told Clete fifty times; and once it was out of alignment it was almost impossible to repair. That meant the roof would leak, and that meant the floor pan would rust out. And it meant that the leather upholstery would rot, or else get stiff and crack.
And if the top was wet, and you put it down before it dried, it would shrink. So when you tried to put it up, the mechanism would not be up to the strain of stretching it and would pull itself out of alignment. Whereupon the roof would leak, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
“Only idiots own convertibles,” Uncle Jim said. “Why anybody smart enough to graduate from college would even think of wanting one, I’ll never know.”
That lecture came the day Uncle Jim told him to get off his lazy ass and help Martha weed the tulips by the driveway. When he got there, he found the Buick Roadmaster convertible with a large yellow bow tied to the bull’s-eye hood ornament.
Clete thought of Uncle Jim every time he put the roof up or down. Now he thought of Uncle Jim and the Virgin Princess. On the one hand, she was a kid who wanted a ride in the convertible. On the other hand, she was a perfectly gorgeous woman who mouthed “I love you” to him in the Basilica of Our Lady of Pilar. And pursed her lips at him as he walked out.
What the hell am I going to do about her?
A man was standing under a tree fifty yards from the Guest House, studiously looking the other way. Twenty yards farther down Avenida Libertador, the momentary glow as he took a drag on his cigarette revealed another man sitting at the wheel of a small Mercedes sedan parked with its lights out.
If those two guys are not cops—what do they call them, “Internal Security”?—watching me, then I’m the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
I will do nothing about the Virgin Princess, except ignore her like she has hoof-and-mouth disease. As long as Internal Security is interested in me, I have to stay away from her. I certainly can’t let them get interested in her.
Jesus H. Christ, she was so beautiful in the church!
When the top was down, he turned up Avenida Libertador toward the two watchers. When he was parallel with the one under the tree, he blew “Shave and a Haircut Two Bits” on the Buick’s loud horn, waved cheerfully, and called out, “Buenas noches, Señor!”
Then, impulsively, he floored the accelerator and roared down Avenida Libertador. In the rearview mirror, he saw the parking lights of the Mercedes come on, and the man under the tree running toward it.
“Earn your money, fellows,” he said aloud.
[NINE]
Alicia Carzino-Cormano was delighted to see Clete walking toward their table in the lobby restaurant of the Alvear Palace. Her sister was not.
“Well, what a pleasant coincidence,” Clete said. “Alicia. Isabela. Mi Capitán.”
“Teniente,” Peter said, standing up, bowing, and clicking his heels. “Perhaps you would care to join us?”
“I would hate to intrude.”
“Nonsense,” Peter said. “I insist.”
“Well, if you’re sure it will be no imposition,” Clete said, and pulled up a chair.
He met Alicia’s eyes as he sat down and then winked at her. She smiled back.
“You really should be at the Duartes’,” Isabela said.
“Why?” Clete asked simply.
“Jorge was your cousin. It was unseemly of you not to be there with the family.”
“Isabela, I never met the man. I didn’t even know I had a Cousin Jorge until a couple of weeks ago.”
“If you had been there, your father might not have gotten so drunk.”
“Isabela!” Alicia protested.
“Well, he is,” Isabela said. “Disgustingly drunk. Weeping drunk. Telling everyone who’ll listen it’s his fault that Jorge is dead. Making a spectacle of himself. Humiliating Mother.”
“My father,” Clete said, coldly angry, “buried his nephew today. He loved him very much. Maybe that’s why he got drunk.”
“He had no right to make a spectacle of himself. To humiliate my mother. Everyone important in Argentina was there.”
Clete stared hard at her, then stood up and looked down at Peter. “I had the feeling I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Oh, Clete, you’re not leaving. Please don’t leave!” Alicia said.
“Alicia, it’s always a pleasure to see you,” he said, and smiled at her. Then he extended a hand to Peter. “Sorry, mi Capitán,” he said.
“Please,” Alicia pleaded. “Isabela, say you’re sorry!”
Clete nodded at Peter and started down the corridor toward the lobby. As he reached the center of the lobby, Peter caught up with him and touched his arm.
“Cletus, my friend, listen carefully to me. An attempt will be made on your life, probably tonight.”
“What?” Clete asked incredulously.
“Don’t go back to the Guest House tonight. Better yet, go to your father’s estancia.”
Clete looked into Peter’s eyes.
“Jesus Christ! You’re serious.”
“On my word of honor.”
Peter touched Clete’s arm, then turned and walked back toward the restaurant in the corridor.