Blood and Honor (Honor Bound 2)

When Clete saw Beatrice turn to him, a dazzling smile on her face, he moved quickly after Dorotea.

The house was full of people; each of them had something to drink in one hand and something to eat in the other. He saw General Rawson and Colonel Per¢n.

I don't remember Per¢n coming through the line.

He saw Lauffer, who inclined his head in the direction of the safe and asked with his eyebrows if Clete was free to go there. Clete nodded.

Two well-dressed men-Army officers? Clete wondered, majors, maybe- were in civvies standing in the corridor by the door of the private study. Two large leather briefcases rested on the floor beside them. And both men obvi-ously carried pistols under their jackets.

Clete was fishing through his pockets for the key to the room when Enrico walked past him, his key in his hand.

Lauffer did not introduce Clete to the two officers, and they did not volun-teer their names.

"Open it, Enrico," Clete ordered, and Enrico pulled the bookcase away from the safe and worked the combination. Then he spun the spoked wheel and pulled the safe door open.

Clete looked at Lauffer and saw one of the briefcases in his hand.

"Help yourself," Clete said.

"I wouldn't wish to take anything I shouldn't," Lauffer said.

Clete went to the safe and handed Lauffer bundles of currency. They all would have fit easily into one of the briefcases, but when Lauffer apparently de-cided Clete had handed him about half, he put out his hand to stop Clete, then motioned for the second briefcase.

The entire business didn't take two minutes.

"That's it," Clete said.

"Gracias, Mayor Frade," one of the two men said.

"I will inform el Coronel that we have finished our business," Lauffer said.

OK, el Coronel is obviously Per¢n. The reason I didn't see him in the re-ception line, or, for that matter, in church, either, now that I think about it, is that he and these two guys were sitting on the safe.

"You're leaving, Roberto?" Clete asked.

That was dumb. Both of these guys picked up on my calling him by his first name.

"When it pleases el General Rawson to leave, Se¤or Frade."

"Well, if I don't see you again, thank you for everything you have done for me in the past few days, Roberto."

"It has been my privilege to be of service, Se¤or Frade." I think we did that perfectly. Roberto was properly formal with me, and I was the typical ill-mannered norteamericano who calls people he hardly knows by their first names.

The two men nodded to him and left the room. Clete now had no doubt they were officers. Lauffer left last.

Why do I have the idea I've made friends with that guy? Trust him? Feel comfortable that he's not going to run off at the mouth to anyone about Peter? Is that what you call masculine intuition? Or gross stupidity?

He gave in to his curiosity ten seconds after they left the room. He went out into the corridor in time to see them leaving the house by a door at the end of the corridor. He went into one of the rooms on the corridor and started to haul quickly on the canvas strip that raised the vertical wooden shutters.

He gave it one quick pull, and was about to give another, when Enrico stopped him.

"What?" Clete demanded impatiently.

Enrico gave him his El Winko Famoso, as Clete now thought of it, then showed him that if you pulled the canvas strip just a few inches, the shutter rose enough so you could see through the cracks. The message was clear. He could see out, and no one would notice an open shutter, or one being opened.

"Gracias," Clete said, and peered through a crack.

Three cars were parked on the service road that ran past the kitchen, two 1941 Chevrolets and a car of about the same size sandwiched between them- he thought it was an Opel. The Chevrolets each held four men.