Secret Honor (Honor Bound 3)

Clete was still smiling when he put the telephone back in its cradle.

“What was that all about?” Dorotéa asked. “And there will be no more than fifty people, not five thousand.”

“I think Milton is bringing someone who can give me the time I need in the Lockheed,” Clete said. “There’s a new attaché for air at the American Embassy.”

“You like him, don’t you?” Dorotéa said, and went on without giving him a chance to reply. “It doesn’t sound like it.”

“Yeah, I like him,” Clete said. “Don’t you?”

“If you like him, I do,” Dorotéa said, then changed the subject: “I really hope you can find time in your ‘busy social schedule’ to be here for lunch. At one sharp. Mother and Claudia—and most likely Alicia and Isabela—will be here.”

“OK, baby,” Clete said. “I’ll be here, and I will even try to smile at Isabela.”

[TWO]

The Airstrip

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

1240 18 May 1943

Clete didn’t see Dorotéa and Alicia Carzino-Cormano standing by the hangar until he had almost reached the spot beside the hangar where he was going to park the Lockheed Lodestar.

And from the looks on both their faces, he knew something was wrong.

He very carefully turned the Lodestar around and went through the procedure for shutting it down, and then got out of the pilot’s seat and started to walk through the cabin.

Dorotéa and Alicia were standing outside when he opened the door. They were both dressed in sweaters and skirts, and each wore a single strand of pearls. He had the idle thought that both of them would look quite at home on the porch of a Tulane sorority house.

“I was afraid for a moment you were going flying,” Dorotéa said. It was an accusation. He had made the mistake of telling her he wasn’t really well qualified to fly the transport. To which her wifely response had been “then don’t fly it again until you are.”

“With something this big,” he explained patiently, “the tires get flat on the bottom if it sits for a while. Since it’s too big to push, I had to start the engines. Since I had the engines started—which is something

else you have to do, every couple of days, to keep a little oil circulating—I figured I might as well get some taxi practice. OK?”

She nodded her acceptance of the explanation, then asked: “Can we talk in there?”

“I’ll have to put the steps down,” he thought aloud. He was reluctant to use the electrically powered steps more than he had to. They were making a funny noise. He had no idea what it was, but he suspected that something in the mechanism was about to fail, and he didn’t think there were replacement parts available in Argentina.

“Yes, darling, I guess you will,” Dorotéa said, a little impatiently.

He found the switch, and the stairs began to unfold. He heard the funny noise again.

Dorotéa waved Alicia up the stairs, and she gave Clete’s cheek the ritual kiss as she walked past him. Dorotéa passed him. He patted her buttocks.

“What’s up?” he asked softly.

She didn’t reply.

He followed her up the aisle.

Alicia had taken one of the seats on the left. Dorotéa slipped into the seat across the aisle.

He faced them, then squatted in the aisle. “What’s up?”

Alicia sobbed and looked out the window.