Secret Honor (Honor Bound 3)

“Why would you want me to tell you?”

“I’ll throw that question in with the others,” Clete said. “Because at that time, I could tell you things I think would color whatever decisions you had to make.”

“OK,” Martín said. “I make no promises beyond telling you before I do anything with Galahad’s identity.”

“Deal. We’re now even.”

“I’ll give you an answer without a question. Almond offered me twenty thousand dollars for Galahad’s identity.”

“I know,?

?? Clete said.

“Señor,” Sargento Lascano said. “We are at Señor Frade’s home. Shall I drive around the block?”

“No, just pull up in front,” Martín ordered. He put out his hand to Cletus. “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Don Cletus.”

“And you, Bernardo.”

“One more question,” Martín said. “If for some reason—suspicious behavior, for example, like his mysterious appearance in San Carlos de Bariloche—Colonel Almond was determined to be persona non grata, would that please you?”

Clete hesitated a moment before saying, “No.”

“Because they would send someone with the same mission?”

Clete nodded, and opened the car’s door.

[THREE]

La Case Grande

Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

2205 29 May 1943

Señora Dorotéa Mallín de Frade was in the small sitting, knitting blue baby booties—she was convinced she was carrying a boy—when she heard the wheels of an auto crunching the gravel on the driveway.

This was followed by the slam of an automobile door, which made her suspect that it was her husband. He had never learned to close a door. He always slammed automobile doors as if he hated the cars they were attached to.

She rose from the chair in anticipation of having a word with her husband.

In a moment, the door to the small sitting opened.

Don Cletus Frade’s heart swelled when he saw his wife, the picture of a young mother-to-be, actually knitting whatever they called those things they put on baby’s feet. “Hey, precious,” he said emotionally.

“You bah-stud,” Dorotéa said with precise English pronunciation. “You miserable bah-stud!”

“It was too dark to fly it back here. We had to drive.”

“You left here, you bah-stud, at the crack of dawn, telling me you were going to get a few hours’ instruction in the Lodestar. You did not tell me, you bah-stud, that you were going to fly the plane alone to Buenos Aires to get that instruction. You implied that Colonel Whatsisname was here.”

“I said nothing of the kind.”

“I quote you, Cletus Frade. A few hours from whenever the hell you got out of bed in the middle of the night—”

“It was after six. It was light.”