Death and Honor

To the military mind, this was only a minor problem in executing an order of the commander in chief. The order was immediately amended to provide that an airplane of at least equal quality be obtained, painted Beechcraft red, and sent by the most expeditious means to Colonel Frade. It was soon discovered that Lockheed had delivered a number of Lodestar aircraft to the Air Forces. They were inarguably of at least equal quality, and moreover could be flown down there. A dozen Lodestars had recently been configured as airliners, sold to Varig, the national airline of Brazil, and flown down there by USAAF pilots.

“Colonel,” the order had been issued to the procurement officer, “make sure the Lodestar you send to Colonel Frade be painted Beechcraft red, be as nicely configured as the ones we sold to the Brazilians, and get it on its way within forty-eight hours.”

Three minutes later, they reached the main house. There were a number of people standing on the verandah.

Somehow, Graham decided, they knew exactly when we would be here. Which means that he has people—his gauchos—stationed where they can watch the highway.

One of the men on the verandah was wearing what clearly identified him as a gaucho: a black, wide, flat-brimmed hat; billowing black bombachas tucked into calf-high black boots; a wide, red, coin-studded leather belt; a leather vest; and a horn-handled foot-long knife in a silver scabbard at the back of the belt.

Most of the others were armed with Colt .45 ACP semiautomatic pistols carried in leather holsters hanging from web belts.

The gaucho came quickly off the porch, walked up to the Ford wagon, came to attention, and saluted.

“Happy Fourth of July, sir,” Chief Radioman Oscar J. Schultz, USN, said. “If the colonel will give me his gear, I’ll take care of it.”

Graham returned the salute as a Pavlovian reaction, then smiled as it occurred to him that if there was a more blatant violation of the Navy regulation that “naval personnel will not render the hand salute while in civilian attire” he couldn’t imagine what it would be.

“Good to see you, Chief,” Graham said. “My suitcase is in the Horch.”

“I’ll handle it for the colonel,” Chief Schultz announced, and went to the Horch.

As Graham got out of the Ford, he saw that the other men—two in the uniform of U.S. Army officers, several of the others wearing parts of U.S. Army uniforms, and the rest in the clothing of gauchos—had come to attention. He wondered if someone had actually called “Attention!” or whether popping to attention had been the Pavlovian response on the part of one of the sergeants to the presence of a full-bull colonel, and the others had joined in.

“As you were,” Graham ordered, and he walked toward the verandah, smiling and with his hand extended.

There were four sergeants on the roster of what, in a document classified Top Secret in OSS headquarters, was officially known as OSS Western Hemisphere Team 17, code name Team Turtle. A sunken ship is sometimes said to have “turned turtle.” The original mission of the team had been to cause the sinking of the Reine de la Mer, an ostensibly neutral Spanish merchantman actually engaged in replenishing German submarines in Argentina.

There had been five sergeants until Technical Sergeant David G. Ettinger had been murdered and mutilated in Montevideo. He had been killed with an ice pick in the ear, and his penis had been cut off and inserted into his mouth. Agents of the German SS-SD had correctly decided that the discovery of his mutilated body would make it clear to the German-Jewish communities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo that any contact with a fellow Jewish refugee from Germany now working for the Americans would become known and both would be punished.

Ettinger’s assassination had deeply saddened and angered the members of Team Turtle. Especially the team’s other Jewish member, Sergeant Sigfried Stein, their explosives expert. Stein, also a refugee from Nazi Germany, said he was not surprised, however, at anything done by the Gottverdammt Nazis.

The other two sergeants were Technical Sergeant William Ferris, who was the weapons and parachute expert, and Staff Sergeant Jerry O’Sullivan, who operated the team’s highly secret radar.

Standing on the verandah with them were the officers: Captain Maxwell Ashton III and First Lieutenants Anthony J. Pelosi and Madison R. Sawyer III. Ashton and Pelosi, both assistant military attachés at the U.S. embassy, were in uniform, complete to the silver aiguillette of military attachés. Sawyer, whom Graham was about to tell he had just been promoted to captain, was wearing U.S. Army riding breeches, boots, and a blue polo shirt.