Death and Honor

Cletus Frade had been returned to the United States from Guadalcanal to perform two duties the brass considered more important than his shooting down any more Japanese aircraft or strafing Japanese infantry.

The first was to be exhibited—with half a dozen other pilots with five or more kills—on various platforms and theater stages on the West Coast. Seeing real-life aces, the brass reasoned, was almost certain to encourage people to buy war bonds.

The second purpose—for the combat-experienced pilots to serve as instructor pilots to pass on the lessons they had learned to new pilots—Frade thought was probably going to be more dangerous than taking on some Japanese pilot. A new Navy or Marine aviator trying to prove he was worthy of being sent off to do aerial battle was very likely to be as dangerous to his instructor pilot as a fourteen-year-old riding his first motorcycle in front of his girlfriend.

Frade therefore had been very receptive to the offer made to him in a San Francisco hotel room as he reluctantly was getting dressed to go on display again.

It had come from a stocky, well-dressed, mustachioed, middle-aged man who said his name was Graham. He had shown Frade his identification card, that of a Marine Corps colonel, and then said that if Frade would volunteer to undertake an unspecified “mission outside the United States involving great risk to his life” he could get off the war bond tour—right then, that night—and would not be assigned as an IP when the war bond tour was over.

Frade had already decided to do something outrageous to get himself relieved of his instructor pilot duties, but that almost certainly would have meant getting shipped back to the Pacific, which would also certainly involve great risk to his life. So, figuring that he didn’t have much to lose, he signed a vow-of-secrecy document promising all sorts of punishments for even talking about his new duties.

It was only after he had signed that Colonel Graham told him he was now in the Office of Strategic Services, and what the OSS expected of him was to go to Argentina and attempt to establish a relationship with his father.

Not sure if he was embarrassed or amused, Frade had explained to the colonel that that was probably going to be a little difficult, as he could not remember ever having seen his father, and had it on good authority that his father had absolutely no interest in seeing him.

“I know,” Graham said. “Your grandfather told me.”

“My grandfather?” Clete had blurted.

Graham nodded. “I saw him just before I flew out here to see you. The kindest words he used to describe el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade—”

“My father is a colonel?” Cletus Frade asked, astonished.

Graham nodded again, and handed him a photograph. It showed a large, tall, dark-skinned man with a full mustache. He wore a rather ornate, somewhat Germanic uniform, and was getting 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.

“That was taken several months ago,” Graham said. “The day he retired from command of the Húsares de Pueyrredón, Argentina’s most prestigious cavalry regiment.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“You’re the product of an unfortunate infatuation, and a hasty, equally unfortunate marriage, right?”

Frade had looked at him but said nothing.

“I’ll take your silence as agreement,” Graham went on. “If I go wrong, stop me.”

Frade nodded at Graham coldly but said nothing.

“Your mother converted to Roman Catholicism in order to marry your father, ” Graham continued. “Which ceremony was conducted in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the Cathedral of Saint Louis in Jackson Square, officiated by the Cardinal Archbishop of New Orleans. Your Aunt Martha was your mother’s matron of honor. Captain Juan Perón was your father’s best man.”

“You seem to know more about this than I do,” Frade had replied, more than a little sarcastically.

“ ‘Sir, with respect, you seem to know more about this than I do, sir,’ ” Graham said coldly. “Don’t let my charming smile and warm manner fool you. I’m a Marine colonel and you’re a first lieutenant. You have that straight in your mind, mister?”

“Yes, sir.”

Graham nodded.

“Yeah, now that you mention it, I probably do know more about this than you,” Graham went on conversationally. “Anyway, after a three-month honeymoon slash grand tour of Europe, during the last month of which your mother came to be with child, the newlywed couple went to Argentina, where a healthy boy—you—came into the world in the German Hospital in Buenos Aires. How’m I doing, Cletus?”

“Sir, from what I have heard before, that’s correct.”