Honor Bound (Honor Bound 1)

“You think it will take that long for my father to arrange to have me expelled?”

“This is Argentina. Even under these circumstances, any administrative procedure takes a long time.”

Martín put out his hand.

“While I regret the circumstances, Mr. Frade, it has been a pleasure meeting you. Perhaps we will see one another again in the future.”

Clete shook Martín’s hand.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Take care of yourself, Mr. Frade,” Martín said. He smiled at Enrico, offered him his hand, and then left the room. This time there was no sound of a key being turned in the lock.

“Is it permitted to ask what that was all about?” Enrico asked.

“Put the shotgun away, Enrico,” Clete said. “I’m about to be visited by an American diplomat, and it would frighten him. After that, we can leave.”

Enrico nodded.

“Out of sight,” he said. “Not away.”

He moved his chair beside the bed, then slipped the shotgun under the sheet.

“I’m going to take a shower and a shave,” Clete said. “If someone knocks, let him in.”

[FIVE]

“Mr. Frade, I’m H. Ronald Spiers, Vice Consul of the United States here in Buenos Aires.”

He was a slightly built, thickly spectacled, somewhat hunch-shouldered man in his late twenties. He was wearing a seersucker suit and carrying a stiff-brimmed straw hat and a briefcase. He gave Clete a calling card.

“How do you do?” Clete asked.

He saw a question in Enrico’s eyes and nodded reassuringly at him.

“I’m really sorry it took so long for me to visit you,” Spiers said. “Please believe me, we have been trying since the story appeared in the Herald.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Clete said.

“Frankly, you’re sort of a special case,” Spiers said.

“How’s that?”

“Senator Brewer sent a cable asking us to keep an eye on you,” Spiers said. “And to notify him immediately if you encountered any problems down here.”

After a moment Clete remembered Senator Brewer. He was the senior senator from the state of Louisiana. “He is a pompous windbag of incredible stupidity,” Cletus Marcus Howell called him. “But he’s surprisingly useful to me if I have the time to explain in excruciating detail what I want done.”

Just like the Old Man, Clete thought, smiling, having a word with the Senator, telling him to make sure the embassy looks out for me down here.

And then another thought:

I don’t think this Spiers guy has any idea what’s really going on.

“Well, you can cable the Senator that I’m fine,” Clete said. “They have given me the best of treatment, and I have been told that the investigation is over. The people who robbed the house have been identified as known criminals.”

“I’m delighted to hear that,” Spiers said. “And I’m sure the Ambassador will be.”

“I was just about to leave, as a matter of fact.”