Secret Honor (Honor Bound 3)

Chief Radioman Oscar J. Schultz was carried on the rolls of the United States Navy as being on “Temporary Duty (Indefinite Period) with OSS.” He had been drafted—together with a large stock of radio room supplies, including the all-capital-letters radio room typewriter—into the OSS off the destroyer USS Alfred Thomas, DD-107, when she had called at Buenos Aires two months before. Schultz had been her chief radioman (and cryptographer). In addition to his communication skills, Schultz was fluent in Spanish (after two tours at the U.S. Navy base at Cavite, in the Philippines).

“Where did you get those wheels, honey?” the chief asked admiringly. “They’re really something.”

“Clete’s giving it to me for my birthday present,” Marjorie said.

“The hell I am,” Clete said, and got out of the car.

“Welcome again to our happy little home away from home,” the small man with the cigar in his mouth said.

His name was Maxwell Ashton III, and he was carried on the rolls of the War Department as “Ashton, Maxwell III, Captain, Signal Corps, AUS (Detail OSS),” and on the rolls of the OSS as “Commander, OSS Western Hemisphere Team 17.”

“I was about to send somebody over to the main house,” he said to Clete in Spanish. “You see the Fieseler fly over?”

Spanish was Ashton’s mother tongue. He was the son of a Bostonian father and a Cuban mother, and had spent the first fourteen years of his life in Cuba, before going to the United States to attend Saint Andrew’s School in Maryland, the preparatory school alma mater of his father.

“We did, and so did my grandfather,” Marjorie said. “Swastikas and all. He gave Clete his ‘I hate the OSS’ speech.”

“I keep forgetting you speak Spanish,” Ashton said.

“Tex-Mex, anyway,” Marjorie said. “But don’t worry.”

When he looked at her, she put both hands over her eyes, then over her mouth, and finally covered her ears.

Ashton chuckled.

“He flew pretty low over here,” the muscular young man said, “But both the Chief and I were outside, and if he dropped anything, we didn’t see it.”

Pelosi, Anthony J., 1st Lt., Corps of Engineers, AUS, was carried on the rolls of the War Department as “Detail U.S. State Department”; on the personnel assignment charts of the State Department “as Assistant Military Attaché U.S. Embassy, Buenos Aires”; and on the rolls of the OSS as “Executive Officer, OSS Western Hemisphere Team 14.”

Team 14 had originally consisted of Cletus Frade, Tony Pelosi, and Staff Sergeant David Ettinger. Chief Schultz had been drafted into it. Ettinger had been murdered in Uruguay. Ashton’s Team 17 had been infiltrated into Argentina with a radar set.

“In that case, he’s probably just going to Estancia Santo Catalina to see his girlfriend,” Clete said. “In any event, my uncle is there for lunch; and if he has anything for us, he’ll bring it when he comes for dinner tonight.”

Pelosi grunted. Ashton shook his head in agreement.

“Anything for me? Clete asked.

“Uncle Milton said to say hello,” Pelosi said.

Milton Leibermann (who in fact looked like a fond uncle: he was plump, balding, and forty-nine) was accredited to the Republic of Argentina as the Legal Attaché of the United States Embassy. It was technically a secret that he was also the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Argentine operations.

“Tell him to keep next Saturday free for my wedding,” Clete said.

“The Archbishop came through, huh?” Tony Pelosi asked.

“I wish you two could be there,” Clete said to Ashton and the chief, “but you don’t exist, and there will be a lot of Argentine brass there. I even invited el Coronels Perón and Martín. Or I invited Martín and Father Welner, and Claudia invited Perón.”

“I don’t see how you could have not invited Perón,” Ashton said.

“Et tu, Brutus?” Clete said.

“I won’t be here anyhow,” Ashton said.

“Oh?”

“There’s one message,” Ashton said, inclining his head toward the house.

“Tony, will you entertain the girls while the chief and Ashton and I have a look at it?” Clete said.