Victory and Honor (Honor Bound 6)

Frade left the cockpit and started walking through the just-about-empty passenger compartment. There were forty-one seats, only six of which were occupied. Among the passengers were two male South American Airways captains and three females. The women were Mrs. Martha Howell and her daughters, Elizabeth, twenty-one years old, and Marjorie, nineteen.

Beth Howell stopped Clete as he walked down the aisle.

“When you see Colonel Graham, ask him about Karl, please,” she said.

To Clete’s utter surprise—once again proving, he told himself, he could be blind to the obvious—he’d recently learned that Beth and Karl were romantically involved. They had been making the beast with two backs as recently as when they all had gathered for Jorge Howell Frade’s christening and maybe going all the way back to when Beth and Karl met at Clete and Dorotea’s wedding.

“Sure,” Clete said to Beth—but he thought, With a little bit of luck, Graham won’t learn I’ve been anywhere near Washington until sometime tomorrow.

The sixth passenger was a burly, middle-aged man wearing a suit. He was now carefully checking a rope ladder he’d tied to the aircraft’s floor at the rear door. Frade had figured it was highly unlikely that Washington National would have a set of steps—or even a ladder—tall enough to reach the fuselage of the new aircraft.

“Ready, Don Cletus,” the man said after he had hung the ladder out the door.

His name was Enrico Rodríguez. He was a retired suboficial mayor—a sergeant major—of the Húsares de Pueyrredón regiment of the Argentine Cavalry. All his adult life, he had served el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade, first as batman and chauffeur, then as bodyguard. He had been beside him—and left for dead—when el Coronel Frade had been assassinated, and now quite seriously believed God’s mission in life for him was to protect el Coronel’s only child.

Cletus went to the door and knelt to get on the ladder.

“Leave the shotgun, Enrico. And if you have a pistol, leave that, too.”

Enrico looked very unhappy.

“Or stay on the airplane,” Frade finished.

Rodríguez first took a Remington Model 11 twelve-gauge riot shotgun from where he had it suspended under his suit jacket and wrapped it in a woolen blanket on the aircraft floor.

He looked at Frade, who raised his eyebrows in question.

Rodríguez then reached under his jacket and came out with a Ballester Molina .45 ACP semiautomatic pistol, which was a variation of the 1911-A1 Colt pistol, manufactured in Argentina under license from Colt. He carefully added it to the blanket with the Remington and looked at Frade.

Frade’s eyebrows rose higher.

Rodríguez met his eyes for a moment, then shrugged. He raised the right leg of his trousers and took a snub-nosed Colt Police Positive .38 Special revolver from an ankle holster and hid it with the other weapons.

“This is America, Enrico. No one is going to shoot at us here.”

“You are the one, Don Cletus, who says that one never needs a gun until one needs it badly.”

Frade nodded, then quicky went down the rope ladder. Rodríguez followed.

[THREE]

On the tarmac, Frade and the welcoming committee examined each other.

Lieutenant Colonel Cletus H. Frade—one hundred ninety pounds on a trim six-foot frame—carried himself with the élan, some would say the arrogance, of a Marine fighter pilot.

The MPs—a captain, a sergeant, and a private first class—saluted when they saw his silver oak leaves. Frade returned the salute and handed the senior of the MPs a small leather wallet.

The MP captain examined it.

It contained a gold badge on one side and a sealed-in-plastic photo identification card in the other. The photo ID was clearly patterned after the Adjutant General’s Office identification cards issued to commissioned officers. There was space for a photo, a thumbprint, and the individual’s name, rank, and date of birth.

But this was not an AGO card. In its center was the Great Seal of the United States. In two curved lines at the top was the legend THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and under that, OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES. A rectangular block at the bottom, with space for the individual’s name and rank, identified Cletus H. Frade as an area commander.

The credentials were not exactly bona fide—although they had been manufactured by the OSS’s Document Section. A Princeton professor of psychology with three doctoral degrees recruited into the OSS thought it would be nice if OSS operators in the field had their own credentials.

Wild Bill Donovan had lost his famous Irish temper when he’d seen them.

Absolutely unbelievable! Who the hell does this academic think OSS agents would show these? They’re spies, for christsake!