Honor Bound Read online

  There were groans. Some of these were genuine, Clete thought—including his own. And some of them were pro forma. There was really nothing wrong with being identified as a hero. For one thing, as one said with a certain fascination in his voice, it would probably get them laid. Clete Frade had absolutely nothing against getting laid, but he was uncomfortable with the notion of considering himself a hero. In his mind, what he’d done was only what he had been ordered to do.

  He had not volunteered to fly at Midway, where he shot down his first Japanese shortly before being shot down himself and earning his first Purple Heart. And he had not volunteered to go to Guadalcanal. He was sent there, and he flew off Henderson and Fighter One because he was ordered to. So far as he was concerned, with one exception, he owed his seven victories to luck. He could just as easily have been killed. He was not a hero.

  On the chartered Greyhound bus from San Diego to Los Angeles, a public relations major stood in the aisle and delivered a little speech, the straight scoop about what was going on, Clete Frade realized then.

  “What this is all about, gentlemen,” the major said, “is civilian morale. The powers that be have decided that civilian morale needs a shot in the arm. You may have noticed that so far in this war, we haven’t done very well: The Japanese took Wake Island away from the Marine Corps, and the Philippines away from the Army. In other words, we have had our ass kicked—with two exceptions.

  “The two exceptions, the only times we have at least hurt the Japanese a little, were Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25 raid on Tokyo and the Corps’ invasion of Guadalcanal. From what I’ve heard, we almost got pushed back into the sea at Guadalcanal, and that fight, as you all well know, is by no means over. But at least it looks to the public as if the Armed Forces, especially the Marine Corps, have finally done something right.

  “So what has this got to do with you? You’re Marine officers. You will carry out the orders you are given cheerfully and to the best of your ability. Your orders in this instance are to comply with whatever orders we feather merchants in Public Affairs give you. Generally speaking, this will mean being where you are told to be, sober, in the proper uniform, and wearing a smile. This will, it is hoped, convince the civilian populace that after some initial setbacks, the Marines finally have the situation under control. This, in turn, may encourage people to buy War Bonds, and it may even convince some of our innocent youth to rush to the recruiting station so they can share in the glory.

  “An effort will be made to have someone from Public Affairs present whenever you are interviewed by the press. Keep in mind that the purpose of this operation is to bolster civilian morale. I don’t want to hear that any of you have been telling the press about what went wrong on Guadalcanal, and that certainly means you are not at liberty to say anything unflattering about the Navy, or the Army, or indeed the Corps.

  “The tour will last two weeks, and possibly three. When it is over, you will be given a fifteen-day delay en route to your new assignments. The tour will start on Monday, which will give you an opportunity to get your uniforms in shape. Tonight you are free. Which does not mean you are at liberty to get drunk and chase skirts. Use the time to call home, if you like, to have a good meal, and—repeating myself—to have your uniforms pressed and your shoes shined. Sometime early tomorrow morning, you will be informed where you are to gather for specific instruction in what will be expected of you.”

  After the bus delivered them to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and the senior officer among them had received the Key To The City from the Mayor, they were assigned to rooms. Clete Frade’s first priority then was a long, hot shower.

  “Is there anything else I can get for you, Lieutenant?” the bellman asked.

  “How about a large-breasted, sex-starved blonde?” Clete asked with a smile.

  From the look on the bellman’s face it was evident that he thought Clete meant it.

  “Just kidding,” Clete said.

  “Lieutenant,” the bellman said, “I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble finding women.”

  “I hope not,” Clete said.

  Clete went back to the bedside table, took another dollar, and gave it to the bellman.

  Then he made himself a drink—carefully—savoring that luxury too. Just a little water and one large ice cube, which he twirled around the glass with his finger. He took a sip.

  Then he put the glass down and got dressed. He was not pleased with his reflection in the mirror. His shirt collar was not only limp, it was too large. The tunic, for which he paid so much money, hung loosely on him. He looked like a stranger, wearing somebody else’s uniform.

  How the hell much weight did I lose over there?

  The new set of shiny gold Naval Aviator’s wings displeased him. In a moment, he decided that was because they added to the illusion that whoever was looking back at him from the mirror was not Clete Frade.

  He took the tunic off and replaced the new wings with his old ones. Then he put the tunic back on and looked at his reflection again.

  Better, he thought. Much better. They are a connection with reality, with the past.

  Finally, he sat down on the bed, reached inside Francis Xavier Sullivan’s left Half Wellington boot, and pulled out the wad of twenty-dollar bills he had been paid in Pearl Harbor. They were folded in half. He took three of these, put them in his trousers pocket, then flattened out the stack that remained and put them in the left lower pocket of his tunic. After that, he pulled the boots on and walked around the room until they settled around his feet.

  He picked up his drink and raised it.

  “Francis Xavier, old pal. Thank you,” he said aloud, and took a healthy sip of the bourbon.

  He started for the window, intending to push the drape aside to see what was outside. Before he reached it, there was a double knock at the door. He turned and went to it and opened it.

  A Marine officer stood there. He was a short, trim, tanned, barrel-chested, bald-headed, bird colonel wearing a pencil-line mustache. He carried an expensive, if somewhat battered, civilian briefcase. There was something vaguely Latino about him.

  Hell, yes, he spoke to me in Spanish. I’ll bet three-to-five that Colonel A. F. Graham’s first name is either Alejandro or Antonio. And the “F” is for “Francisco.”

  “Buenas noches, mi Coronel,” Clete said.

  “May I come in?” Colonel A. F. Graham asked in Spanish.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Clete stood out of the way, let Colonel Graham into the room, and closed the door.

  “I thought I asked you to hold off on the drink until we had a chance to talk,” Graham said, still in Spanish.

  “With all respect, Sir, the operative word was ‘asked.’”

  “Then I shall have to remember to choose my words carefully when dealing with you,” Graham said, smiling.

  “May I offer you a drink, Colonel?”

  “Yes, thank you. Bourbon?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Clete made the drink and handed it to Colonel Graham.

  “For the record, Sir, this is my first,” Clete said.

  “Good,” Graham said.

  “I have no intention of disgracing the Corps on this War Bond Tour, Colonel.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” Graham said.

  “Why are we speaking Spanish, Sir? May I ask?”

  “I wanted to confirm that you spoke Spanish, and that it wasn’t pure Mex-Tex Spanish.”

  “I can speak pretty good Mex-Tex, Colonel.”

  Is that what he wants? This War Bond tour is going to Texas, the Southwest, and the Corps’s looking for somebody who speaks Spanish to give patriotic speeches to the Mexican-Americans? Good God!

  “Sir,” Clete said in English, “my Spanish isn’t all that good and I am a lousy public speaker.”

  Graham looked at him for a moment in confusion, and then, understanding, he smiled.

  “Very nice. Jack Daniel’s?” he said, now in Eng
lish.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Actually your linguistic ability has nothing to do with the War Bond Tour,” Graham said, and took a sip of his drink. “And for that matter, neither do I.”

  “Sir, I don’t understand…”

  “Adding you to the War Bond Tour roster seemed a convenient way of bringing you back from Guadalcanal without raising any awkward questions. Conveniently for me, you turned out to be a bona fide hero.”

  What the hell is he talking about?

  “I don’t consider myself any kind of a hero, Sir.”

  “In my experience, few bona fide heroes do,” Graham said matter-of-factly, meeting his eyes. “What it is, Frade—why I asked you to hold off on the whiskey—is that I wanted to have a talk with you, to ask you a couple of important questions. And I wanted you to be sober when I did.”

  “A talk about what, Sir?”

  “Let me ask the important question first, to save your time and mine,” Graham said. “Would you be willing to undertake a mission involving great personal risk?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The nature of which I am not at liberty to discuss right now,” Graham went on, “beyond saying that it’s outside the continental limits of the United States and is considered of great importance to the war effort.”

  This man is absolutely serious. What the hell is this all about?

  “Colonel, Sir, with respect, I have no idea what you’re asking of me.”

  “Then I’ll repeat the question: Are you willing to undertake a mission involving great personal risk outside the continental limits of the United States?”

  He didn’t say “overseas.” He said “outside the continental limits of the United States.”

  Oh!

  “Has this something to do with my father?” Clete asked.

  “You weren’t listening, Lieutenant,” Graham said. “I said I was not at liberty to discuss the nature of this operation.”

  Sure, it has to do with my father. I could see that in your face, and the only possible thing about me that would interest an intelligence type like you is my father—and that’s certainly what you are, Colonel, an intelligence type. And Argentina is “outside the continental limits of the United States,” as opposed to “overseas.”

  “Colonel, are you aware that I hardly know my father, that I wouldn’t recognize him if he walked into this room?”

  “Yes, I am,” Graham said. “But that’s the last question on that subject I’m going to answer. Or let you ask.”

  “Until I volunteer for this mission of yours, you mean?”

  Graham nodded.

  “Colonel, I just got home from Guadalcanal.”

  Graham nodded. “I told you, I arranged that. To save me a trip over there to have this conversation.”

  “This—mission. It’s that important?”

  Graham nodded, then said, “It’s that important.”

  “Do I have to decide right now?”

  “That would make things more convenient for both of us.”

  “And what if I say yes now, hear what you have to say, and then change my mind?”

  “I wondered if that possibility would occur to you. The answer, frankly, is that there’s really nothing I can do but appeal to your patriotism.”

  “Isn’t patriotism supposed to be the last refuge of the scoundrel?” Clete asked, smiling.

  “I’ve heard that said,” Graham replied, smiling back at him. “I’m not sure if I believe it. I’m an Aggie—just as you were once, for a while. We Aggies take words like ‘patriotism’ and ‘honor’ seriously.” (An Aggie is an alumnus of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical Institute.)

  “At least some of us do,” Clete said. He met Graham’s eyes for a moment, then said, evenly, “OK.”

  Graham nodded, then walked to the chest of drawers and laid his briefcase on it. He opened the briefcase, took out a form, closed the briefcase, laid the form on it, then took a fountain pen from his shirt pocket and extended it to Frade.

  “Would you please sign this?”

  Clete walked to the chest of drawers, then bent over Graham’s briefcase and read the form.

  * * *

  The United States of America Office of Strategic Services Washington, D.C.

  Acknowledgment of Penalties Provided by the United States Code for the Unauthorized Disclosure of National Security Information

  The undersigned acknowledge that the unauthorized disclosure of any information made available to him by any officer of Strategic Services will result in his prosecution under applicable provisions of the United States Code (including, where applicable, The Manual For Courts-Martial, 1917) and that the penalties provided by law provide on conviction for the death penalty, or such other punishment as the court may decide.

  Cletus Howell Frade

  Executed at Los Angeles, Calofornia,

  this 12th day of October 1942

  Witness:

  A. F. Graham

  Colonel, USMCR.

  * * *

  He knew I was going to sign this, didn’t he? My name and the date are already typed in on the form, Clete thought, and then, This is a little melodramatic, isn’t it? And then, What the hell is the Office of Strategic Services?

  After a moment’s hesitation, he asked that aloud.

  “What’s the Office of Strategic Services?”

  “Sign that, Lieutenant, or don’t sign it,” Graham said, and now there was a tone of annoyance in his voice. “Make up your mind.”

  Clete scrawled his name on the form. Graham retrieved the form and his pen and signed his name as witness, then put the form into his briefcase.

  “OK, Lieutenant Frade, now you can ask questions,” he said.

  “What is the Office of Strategic Services?”

  “An agency of the federal government which reports directly to the President. It performs what are somewhat euphemistically known as strategic services for the government.”

  “In other words, you’re not going to tell me.”

  “You will be told what you have the need to know.”

  “What does the Office of Strategic Services want from me?”

  “As you guessed, it wants you to go to Argentina. You will command a three-man team with the mission of taking out a merchant vessel—a merchant vessel of a neutral country, which we have determined is replenishing German submarines operating off the coast of South America. These submarines are doing considerable damage to shipping down there. We have to lessen that. But additionally, if you can find the time, we’d like you to dream up other ways to make things difficult for the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese in Argentina.”

  “I don’t know anything about…sabotage…that sort of thing.”

  “The other members of your team do,” Graham interrupted.

  “So the only reason I can think of that you want me for something like this is because of my father. You know my father is an Argentine…Argentinean, right?”

  “Of course. And you’re right.”

  “Did you hear what I said a minute ago, that I wouldn’t recognize my father if he walked into this room?”

  “We know that too. Actually, we know more about you, Frade, than you probably know yourself. For example, are you aware that you hold Argentine citizenship?”

  “I’ve always been told that Americans can’t hold dual citizenship.”

  “So far as our government is concerned, we can’t. So far as the Argentine government is concerned, you were born there, therefore you are an Argentine citizen.”

  “I haven’t been there since I was an infant,” Clete said.

  “Yes, we know,” Colonel Graham said, a touch of impatience in his voice.

  He turned to his briefcase and came out with a five-by-seven-inch photograph and handed it to Clete.

  “El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade,” Graham said, pronouncing it “Frah-day.” “He looks rather like you, or vice versa, wouldn’t you say?”

  Clete exam
ined the photograph. It showed a tall, solid-looking man with a full mustache. He was wearing a rather ornate, somewhat Germanic uniform, and stepping into the backseat of an open Mercedes-Benz sedan. In the background, against a row of Doric columns, was a rank of soldiers armed with rifles standing at what the Marine Corps would call “Parade Rest.” Their uniforms, too, looked Germanic, and they were wearing German helmets.

  Christ, he does look like me. Or, as Colonel Graham puts it, vice versa.

  Well, it looks as if I will finally get to meet my father.

  Do I want to? I don’t feel a thing looking at this picture. He’s a stranger. And he certainly has made it pretty goddamned plain that he doesn’t give a damn for me. I’m the result of a youthful indiscretion, as far as he’s concerned. Maybe, probably, even an embarrassment.

  I wonder how he will react when I show up down there.

  “Excuse me, Señor. I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I happen to be what they call the fruit of your loins.”

  “That was taken last summer,” Graham said after a moment.

  “Where?” Clete asked. “In Berlin?”

  “No.” Graham chuckled. “That’s Buenos Aires. On Independence Day. Their Independence Day—July ninth. They make just about as much of a fuss over theirs as we do over ours.”

  “I wasn’t aware he was in the Army,” Clete said.

  “He’s retired. They—people of a certain class and influence-wear uniforms on suitable occasions. This was taken before the traditional Independence Day Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral. José de San Martín, El Libertador, is buried there. Do you recognize the insignia? Your father’s a colonel of cavalry. And like Generalleutnant Hasso von Manteuffel of the Wehrmacht and our own Major General George S. Patton, he’s a graduate of the French Cavalry School at Saint-Cyr. And the German Kriegsschule.”

  Clete looked at Colonel Graham and saw amusement in his eyes.

  “And whose side is he on in this war?” Clete asked.

  “Argentina, as you probably know, is trying to sit this war out as. a neutral. Generally speaking, their Navy, which was trained by the English, is pro-Allies. The Army, which is trained by the Germans, is generally pro-Axis. We don’t know exactly where your father stands. If, ‘in addition to your other duties,’ you could tilt him toward our side, that would be nice.”