Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1)

“Yes, Sir.”

“Pelosi’s cover, and yours, will be Howell Petroleum. This subject will be gone into in greater detail in New Orleans. But, in shorthand, the Argentines want more Howell Petroleum. The U.S. government wants to make sure they consume that petroleum and don’t sell it to the Germans. Conveniently, on your medical release from the Marine Corps…” He paused, then added: “You did not serve on Guadalcanal, by the way. Your heart murmur was discovered while you were in flight school.”

“My heart murmur?”

“Your heart murmur,” Graham confirmed. “Conveniently, anyhow, you were available to go to Buenos Aires to make sure the oil goes where it is supposed to go. You will very visibly occupy yourself with that, by the way. The BIS…you remember what that is?”

“Bureau of Internal Security.”

Graham nodded, and continued, “…will certainly be watching you. You and Pelosi will apply for Argentine visas at their consulate in New Orleans, and then fly down there. Pelosi has some other training, how to sink a ship, to go through first. But the sooner we can get you down there, the better.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“It is entirely likely that by the time you reach there, the team already in place will have taken care of the ‘neutral’ replenishment ship. But the Germans will certainly replace it, and that will have to be dealt with. As long as the Germans keep sending ships in, we are going to take them out.”

“Yes, Sir. But…”

“But what?”

“Colonel, I don’t…Colonel, from what you tell me, both Ettinger and Pelosi know how to do this sort of thing. I don’t know anything about it.”

“I wondered when you would consider that.”

“I started thinking about it on the train to Chicago,” Clete said. “And I haven’t stopped.”

“Why you, in other words?”

Clete nodded. “Because of my father?”

“Certainly because of your father,” Graham said. “But that’s not the only reason. Clete, by now you must have learned there’s no way to tell beforehand how a man is going to behave in combat.”

He waited until he saw acceptance of the premise on Clete’s face.

“And that the way you stay alive in combat is by making on-the-spot decisions what to do when unexpected things come up, things that were not covered in your training. You stay alive by thinking on your feet. You’ve proved you can do that.”

“But I still don’t know anything about taking out ships.”

“You’ve proved that you can think on your feet. You would be qualified for this job if your father didn’t exist.”

“I feel like I’m going to find myself up to my ass in alligators,” Clete blurted.

“You will be,” Graham said, smiling. “But you’ll be all right. If I didn’t think you would, I wouldn’t be sending you down there.

“You might want to consider taking your car with you,” Graham said, changing the subject. “You’d be expected, I think, to do that.”

“How do you know about my car?”

“Your grandfather told me,” Graham said. “I told you, he’s been very helpful.”

“How would I get it down there?”

The idea of sending his car—a Buick convertible, as it happened—anywhere by ship, in wartime, came as a shock. The car belonged to another life, a life that ended when he went into the Corps.

“I would recommend E.L.M.A.,” Graham said matter-of-factly. “It stands for Empresa Líneas Marítimas Argentinas. They have direct service between New Orleans and Buenos Aires.”

He saw the look of surprise or confusion on Clete’s face, and added: “Argentina is neutral. Both we and the Germans scrupulously observe that neutrality. We don’t sink Argentinean flagged ships, and neither do they.”

“And who’s going to pay for shipping my car?” Clete asked as that thought passed through his mind.