Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1)

ook at your faces when you greeted one another, I would never have guessed,” Frade said. “But the way you said that makes the other things I intended to say to you unnecessary.” He paused. “You will be taking Dorotea into dinner—sitting with her. I had the butler rearrange the seating arrangements.”

Frade looked at his watch.

“Dress quickly; your odd Norteamericano notion of appropriate dinner dress is delaying the serving of dinner.”

“Sorry about that.”

“You should be,” Clete’s father said, and walked out of the room.

Clete was at the bathroom mirror tying his bow tie, when he heard the door to his father’s apartment creak open. He’d had his choice among dress shirts—too large or too small. He opted for a loose collar. After he adjusted the tie as best he could, he returned to the bedroom, expecting to see his father, or maybe the butler, sent to help him dress.

He found instead Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, leaning on the closed door, holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other. Peter held out the glasses to him.

“Hold these,” he ordered, “while I open the bottle.”

“I’m grateful, mi Comandante, especially since this act of Christian charity obviously tore you away from the magnificent Alicia…and her magnificent…” He made a curving motion above his chest to indicate what he meant.

Peter popped the cork.

“If you were a real officer and gentleman, which fortunately you are not,” Peter said as he poured the champagne, “I would be forced to challenge you to a duel for insulting the lady with whom I intend to share my life.”

“I’ll be goddamned, you sound serious.”

“The duel, no. The lady, possibly. She has, certainly, a splendid body. But she also has qualities I’ve never encountered before.”

“I’ll be damned,” Clete said.

Peter raised his glass.

“Fighter pilots,” he said.

“Fighter pilots,” Clete replied, tapping Peter’s glass with his. “And their ladies.”

“Since I am an officer and a gentleman, I will refrain from commenting that yours has a rather attractive mammary development herself, even if she is so recently out of the cradle.”

“Go fuck yourself, Peter.”

“I had an ulterior motive in bringing the wine to you,” Peter said. “Actually, several of them.”

Now he wants the favor.

“I’m not surprised.”

“Oberst Grüner called me into his office this afternoon.”

“The military attaché?”

Peter nodded. “He wanted to make sure that everyone here tonight sees that we have become friends…”

“And the champagne is intended to do that?”

“…because he has good reason to believe you will not be among us much longer.”

“Really?”

What the hell is this all about?

“He has learned from a reliable source in Internal Security that you are about to engage in a very foolish, amateurish operation…and that it is doomed to failure.”