Honorable Lies
Honorable Lies
The Honor Series
By Robert N. Macomber
At the Edge of Honor
Point of Honor
Honorable Mention
A Dishonorable Few
An Affair of Honor
A Different Kind of Honor
The Honored Dead
The Darkest Shade of Honor
Honor Bound
Honorable Lies
Commander Peter Wake,
Office of Naval Intelligence, United States Navy,
and
His Five Perilous Days Inside Spanish Cuba
1888
Tenth Novel in the Honor Series
Robert N. Macomber
Copyright © 2012 by Robert N. Macomber
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Inquiries should be addressed to:
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P.O. Box 3889
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Macomber, Robert N., 1953–
Honorable lies : Commander Peter Wake, Office of Naval Intelligence, United States Navy, and his five perilous days inside Spanish Cuba 1888 / Robert N. Macomber.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56164-802-3
1. Wake, Peter (Fictitious character)--Fiction. 2. United States. Navy--Officers--Fiction. 3. Cuba--Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.A28H657 2012
813’.6--dc23
2012014579
Design by Shé Hicks
This novel is respectfully dedicated to two of Cuba’s most
legendary sons:
José Martí
and
Antonio Maceo
One was a white poet;
the other, a black warrior.
Together,
they were the soul of Cuba.
An introductory word with my readers about the Honor Series and this novel
I believe some background on the fictional hero of the Honor Series, Peter Wake, might be helpful for both new and longtime readers. Wake was born just east of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, on 26 June, 1839, to a family in the coastal schooner trade, and he went to sea full-time at age sixteen. He volunteered for the U.S. Navy in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, and his career lasted until 1908. He married Linda Donahue at Key West in 1864; the couple’s daughter, Useppa, was born at Useppa Island, Florida, in 1865; son Sean, at Pensacola in 1867.
After serving as a deck officer for sixteen years, Wake began his intelligence work while observing the War of the Pacific on South America’s west coast from 1879 to 1881. He then joined the newly formed Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) in 1882. As one of the few officers who was not a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, his career path was without major ship commands, and he remained in ONI for the next twenty-six years. Most of his efforts were for the clandestine Special Assignments Section (SAS), which worked directly for the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation (parent command of ONI) until 1889, and subsequently for the Assistant Secretary of the Navy himself. There has never been any record of the SAS’s existence.
The first six novels in the Honor Series were told in the third person, but in the 2009 novel, The Honored Dead, a fascinating discovery was described: Wake’s collection of memoirs were purportedly found in the spring of 2007 inside a 124-year-old, ornately engraved, Imperial Vietnamese trunk, hidden away in the attic of a bungalow on Peacon Lane in Key West. It was owned by Agnes Whitehead, who had recently died at age ninety-seven. There has been much speculation among Honor Series fans about Agnes Whitehead, her relationship to the Wake family, and how she came to possess that special trunk. With each novel after The Honored Dead, another facet of that puzzle is revealed.
The individual accounts in the trunk (more than a dozen were found) were typed by Wake himself in the 1890s and early 1900s, usually a few years after the events within occurred. Each contained an explanatory letter to his son (who became a naval officer) or daughter. Wake did all this because he wanted his children and their descendants to understand what he endured and accomplished in his career, since the official records of most of it were sequestered in the ONI vault in the State, War, and Navy Building, now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. A note in the trunk requested that none of the material be made public by the family until fifty years after the death of his children. Sean died in 1942; Useppa, in 1947.
Sean Rork, an Irish-born boatswain in the U.S. Navy and best friend of Wake, served with him in the naval service until 1908 and shared ownership of Patricio Island, on the lower gulf coast of Florida. He was eight years older than Peter, and Sean Wake was his namesake.
This volume of Wake’s memoirs was written in 1896, eight years after the events in the account. It must be explained here that Wake was a product of his times, and his descriptions of people and events may not be considered “politically correct” in a modern context. He was, however, also remarkably tolerant and culturally astute, and his political observations were usually proven accurate. Much of his rather arcane academic knowledge was gained through an international network of intriguing individuals met during his assignments, with whom he kept a lasting correspondence. Few military men of the period had as diverse a selection of intelligence sources as Peter Wake.
I have corrected only the most egregious mistakes in Wake’s grammar and have kept his spellings of foreign words, though they may be debated by twenty-first-century scholars.
An important note about this novel: After finishing a chapter, I strongly suggest that readers peruse that chapter’s endnotes at the back of the book, where they will find interesting background details I’ve discovered while researching this project. My goal is to educate as well as entertain.
Thus, with the Honor Series, we have the unique opportunity to see inside the events, places, and personalities of a critical period of American and world history, through the eyes of a man who was there and secretly helped make much of it happen.
Onward and upward . . .
Robert N. Macomber
Twin Palm Cottage
Matlacha Island
Florida
Contents
1 A Matter of Naval Honor
2 Anticipation
3 Naval Intelligence
4 Passata, Sotto!
5 Instinct
6 Hotel Florida
7 Aficionados de Ron
8 For the Honor of a Lady
9 Mobilization
10 Distinguished Visitors
11 Imported Talent
12 Ruses de Guerre
13 The Ever-Faithful Isle
14 A Riddle Solved
15 Exhaustion
16 The Bigamist
17 The Carrot and tke Stick
18 Irish Suspicions
19 Remembering Marengo
20 Façades and Candor
21 Le Croix Huguenot
22 Nom de Combat
23 Eyeball Reconnaissance
24 A Most Revealing Sight
25 The Final Round
26 Parque Reina Isabella
27 Anarchy
28 Descent into Hell
29 A Swedish Enigma
30 The Dead and the Dying
31 A Thin Tendril of Smoke
32 Each Target Gets One Shot
33 Lost Causes
34 La Cámara de Minusválidos
35 Double-Tap
36 Help for a Brother’s Friend
37 Into the Lion’s Den
38 A Scientific Deception
39 Matanzas
40 A Lady Scorned . . .
41 Viva la Bandera de Cuba Libre!
42 The Fastest Bloody Cruiser in the World!
43 A Double-False Flag
44 Martí
A Final Word with My Readers
Endnotes
Acknowledgments
1
A Matter of Naval Honor
Palace of His Excellency
Don Sabas Marin y Gonzalez
The Captain-General of Cuba
Plaza de Armas, Havana
Tuesday, 25 September 1888
The man was there to kill me.
I knew it the instant he turned those smoldering black eyes toward me. Two minutes later, when his name was announced, I saw the resemblance and understood exactly why he was going to kill me. Two years earlier, I’d faced another enemy with those same eyes.
Then, seeing the satisfied sneer on the face of another man at the back of the crowd, I realized how my “accidental” death had been orchestrated.
It was the perfect trap.
None of this was in my hastily conceived plan, of course. The affair was supposed to be a “friendly” fencing competition between professional naval officers of equal age and rank, representing their respective navies.
Following my request, on the preceding afternoon, Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, commander of the North Atlantic Squadron, had planted the idea of an internaval competition with his Spanish counterpart, the senior admiral of the Spanish West Indies. Steering the conversation toward the difference between American and European fencing, he artfully managed to get the Spaniard to challenge the U.S. Navy to a match.
Luce then dutifully accepted, as if it was entirely the Spanish admiral’s idea in the first place, and volunteered me on the spot as the American participant. In similar fashion, a middle-aged officer from the staff of the naval arsenal in Havana was volunteered by his admiral to be my competitor. It would be a ritualized demonstration of archaic martial skills performed in front of an appreciative audience: the gathered social elite of Havana and the senior Spanish and American naval officers in the West Indies.
The thing would be over in fifteen minutes. No matter which of us won more fencing points, national honor would be preserved and perhaps even a little international camaraderie could be gained. God knows we needed something to calm the tension that had been building in Havana, Madrid, and Washington in recent years.
The important thing was that no matter who won, there would be, de rigueur, several days’ worth of social events afterward to celebrate the occasion, as the culture of Spanish hospitality demands. Those legitimate entrées into Havana would allow me—persona non grata with Spanish counterintelligence—enough time to accomplish my mission while staying ashore at Hotel Inglaterra. Their intelligence could try to watch me, but they dared not do much else, since I was there quite overtly representing my country, as the honored guest of their country’s navy.
This was much better, and far more comfortable, than the original plan hatched in Washington: surreptitiously make my way ashore in a small boat through the harbor, accomplish my mission, and flee quietly back to the ship with several fugitives. This way, I would be the personal guest of the senior Spanish leadership and therefore have greater protection and freedom, not to mention some very decent food and drink.
But now that strategy, ad hoc though it was, had been superseded by the very enemy I sought to avoid, an enemy who had grasped my intentions from the outset and introduced an element designed to end one of their thornier problems—me. My options were limited: Violate the fencing conventions and fight for my life at the outset, killing the man before me, or hope I was wrong and follow the rules, to be killed myself in what would be ruled a random twist of fate in the sport of gentlemen. I fleetingly wondered how many in the Spanish leadership outside of Spanish counterintelligence knew of the trap set for me. Probably few, if any, I decided. If the plan to intentionally kill a U.S. naval officer ever got out to the American press, there would be war within days.
Or was that part of their scheme? One never knew for sure with foreign secret services, especially the Spanish. Machiavelli had nothing on them.
Whatever the extent of the conspiracy to kill me, I was certain that, after the fact, the Spanish would arrange a magnificent display of military respects for my casket as it was rowed out to the ship, right after they expressed their profound condolences to my admiral. The officer who killed me, ostensibly through an accidental sword thrust, probably through my throat, would be called away on a distant assignment, probably to a colony on the other side of the globe, in Africa or the Philippines. He would regrettably be unable to appear before an American inquiry. My demise would not be a stain on his career, merely an official embarrassment. After all, it wasn’t as if it was a murder, right?
I was trying to come up with a suitable counter to all this when I suddenly realized that everyone was looking at me.
“Commander Peter Wake, of the United States Navy, if you are ready to begin the formalities of the combat, we will commence in five minutes’ time. Your opponent is ready. Are you ready, sir?” inquired a Spanish naval lieutenant in fluent British English, complete even to his condescending tone.
The fellow had the gold, braided shoulder loop of a staff officer and was serving as the official translator. I could tell by his pale, unlined face that he’d never spent any time at sea, and his smug scorn told me he didn’t think much of my chances in the upcoming contest.
“Yes, Lieutenant. I am ready,” I replied, glancing at Admiral Luce. Beside him stood none other than the exulted Captain-General of Cuba, Don Sabas Marin y Gonzalez, personal representative of the king of Spain. Luce looked apprehensive. Don Sabas looked faintly amused.
We were in the central courtyard of the captain-general’s palace, a centuries-old citadel in the heart of the ancient quarter of Havana. Around us were dozens of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen, the social elite of the city, not a single one of whom considered himself or herself Cuban. They were Spaniards—or peninsulares in the local jargon—protectors of the ancient global empire of Castile and Leon, and damned proud of it. Invited by their friend the captain-general to watch the event that morning, they’d already shared a sumptuous breakfast in his private apartments. For my part, I’d endured some sort of egg and pork souse aboard the ship. That may have been a mistake, for it was now congealed into a disagreeable lump that seemed to be getting larger by the second.
The staff lieutenant acknowledged my reply with a curt nod. He then paused long enough to make sure he had everyone’s attention and proclaimed melodramatically, first to the crowd in Spanish, afterward to me in English: “Then you may take this time to compose yourself, Commander, as we bring out the weapons, a pair of beautifully matched foils—personally provided by His Excellency, Don Sabas Marin y Gonzalez, Captain-General of His Majesty’s Most Faithful Isle of Cuba and personal representative of His Majesty Alfonso León Fernando Maria Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Austria-Lorena, King of Spain and all her dominions across the Ocean Seas.”
Predictably, a huge cheer went up from the assembly, eagerly awaiting the chance to see the Yankee ruffians get a shellacking from the home team in the fine art of sword fighting. Fencing was the art of gentlemen, and, as every true son of Spain knew, norteamericanos were mere barbarians without an iota of gentility among the lot of them. Gonzalez bowed in appreciation for the mass adulation and raised an imperial hand to wave at his minions.
And what of the king who was named in such flamboyant fashion? Alfonso was a two-year-old toddler. The real royal power was his Austrian-born mother, Queen Maria Christiana, widow of the king’s father and regent over the king until he turned twenty-one. It all was a ridiculous indication of the true state of the Spanish empire.
I glanced over at Boatswain Sean Rork, my petty officer assistant, who stood behind the American naval officers. His face w
as grim—he’d seen the look in my opponent’s eyes too.
Standing the regulation four yards away from me, my newly arrived adversary continued glowering in my direction, muttering something under his breath about sangre—blood. He wasn’t the man I’d been told the evening before would be my opponent. It seemed that fellow had mysteriously contracted a sudden illness at the last moment and couldn’t attend the match. Not to worry, the staff lieutenant had informed me fifteen minutes before, for another officer had been found as a replacement. I remembered the staff lieutenant smiling as he said that.
The substitute fencer, a lieutenant commander, was junior to me in rank and age and possessed an intimidating physique. I bowed politely to him. His expression changed, the eyes losing the hatred, becoming animal-like and devoid of emotion. He was evaluating me . . . noting my weaknesses . . . savoring what was coming.
It was at that moment that the reason behind the trap was revealed to me. The staff lieutenant gestured to us and spoke softly so only we could hear. “Commander Wake, please meet your opponent, Lieutenant Commander Julio Cesar Boreau y Morales.”
Boreau?
Could it be? There weren’t many in Havana with the name of that family, French planter refugees from the Haitian slave revolt who’d settled in Oriente, the province in the eastern end of Cuba, in 1803.
Yes, it must be. I’d heard that the Boreau I had the misfortune to know had a son in the navy. And there was no mistaking the eerie similarity of those close-set, coal-black eyes and the thin-lipped mouth, which showed that same curl of disgust on its left side. It was true. Lieutenant Commander Julio Cesar Boreau was the son of the Spanish agent sent to assassinate me and my family in Florida in 1886—the man I strangled to death six months later in New York harbor.
Lieutenant Commander Boreau proceeded to exhibit his prowess with a foil, slicing it through the air in various patterns with lightning-quick speed, the whole time gauging my reaction. It was obvious he was good, very good, with a foil, the lightest of fencing weapons. Nevertheless, observing him, something registered in my mind. His movements were classical but flamboyant—not the stuff of one who has actually used a blade to kill an armed man.