Blood and Honor (Honor Bound 2)

"Aye, aye, Sir."

Graham waited until he had left the room and then turned to Mr. Ralph Stevenson, the Cultural Attach‚ of the Embassy of the United States of Amer-ica in Montevideo, Uruguay.

"I want to ask you an off-the-record question, Ralph," he said, "which I promise you I will never remember asking. If I weren't here, and because of the three team chiefs we have down here, you're the only one who comes close to being what a team chief should be, you were faced with making the decision, what would you do?".

"Decision about what?"

"'Let's give Frade the benefit of the doubt a moment. Let's say his source is good. Early tomorrow, the Germans will attempt to smuggle into Argentina a large sum of money-I have trouble with that one-hundred-million-dollar fig-ure, but let's say a very large sum of money. Five million. Ten million. This money we know has been stolen in some despicable way from Jews in Ger-many. Not only that, but it will be used to purchase safe houses for-an infrastructure designed to give sanctuary to-any number of characters for whom skinning alive is too good. What do we do about that? Try to prevent them from smuggling it in? Try to grab the money? If we do that, we are probably also go-ing to interfere with Lindbergh. Lindbergh is filthy, but on the other hand, peo-ple otherwise doomed to be shot in the head or gassed or starved to death, including, of course, women and children, are getting out of the camps. The third option is to do nothing, let them bring the money into the country and try to keep an eye on what happens to it, in the hope that when the war is over we can make things right."

"I'd rather not answer that question, Colonel," Stevenson said immediately.

"Answer it. What wo

uld you do in my shoes?"

Stevenson met Graham's eyes for a moment, then shrugged.

"Let it in," he said. "Try to keep an eye on it. Spend whatever it takes to have enough FBI accountants and whatever else is needed to follow the money trail sent down here. Otherwise the people in the camps won't get out. Isn't life worth more than money?"

Graham didn't reply directly.

"This conversation never took place," he said. "You're welcome to stick around, of course, Ralph. But if you want to return to Montevideo..."

"I think I'll wait and see what happens tomorrow morning," Stevenson said.

"In that case, good night, Ralph," Graham said. "Sleep well."

Graham walked with him to the door and then turned to face Milton Leibermann.

"That makes it two to one, doesn't it?" Leibermann said.

"Maybe three to one. But I have other thoughts. If we grabbed this money, wouldn't it let them know we're onto them?"

"To what end?"

"It might make them consider that this sanctuary nonsense is a dream," Graham said.

"I'm not sure it is," Leibermann said. "Money talks, to coin a phrase."

"Could you follow the money trail Stevenson talked about?"

"Yes and no. Yes, if I had enough people, and we could-the U.S. govern-ment could-put sufficient pressure on the government of Argentina-on all the governments down here-to let us into their banking records. I don't think either is likely."

"So your objection to grabbing the money is based on this filthy scheme saving some lives?"

"Yeah. But I'm not sure if that's Milton Leibermann, Philosopher, talking, or Milton Leibermann, Jew."

"That doesn't make it two to one, Milton. It makes it one for letting the money in because it saves lives; one for letting it in because things can be made right later-which is unlikely; and one for grabbing the money and letting the bastards know we know what they're up to."

"I still count that two to one for letting it in," Leibermann said. "So what are you going to do about Frade?"

"You mean about Galahad and Cavalry?"

Leibermann nodded.

"Galahad is obviously the Luftwaffe pilot. The confirmation of that we got tonight. Frade leaves the room to see the Carzino-Cormano girl. He comes back three minutes after seeing her with the location of the Oceano Pacifico and the information that the Germans are going to smuggle the money ashore in the morning, and where they're going to land it. And you tell me she is running around with a Luftwaffe pilot-what's his name?"

"Hans-Peter von Wachtstein."