Death and Honor (Honor Bound 4)

He smiled and turned to the small, dark young woman. She reminded him very much of his late wife. She looked as Emelia had when he’d met her.

“We’ve never met,” he said, “but I suspect you are Señora Pelosi. My name is Graham.”

She smiled shyly, and her reply was so soft he couldn’t hear it.

And that, too, reminded him of Emelia.

“Okay, fireworks time,” Cletus Frade announced behind him, “after which we can get down to the serious drinking.”

Graham turned to look at him.

Frade handed him a bottle of beer.

“No glass,” Frade said. “No self-respecting Aggie would drink beer from a glass on the Fourth of July.”

“Absolutely not,” Graham said, and took the bottle.

They walked back to the airstrip through the formal gardens. Flaming torches lit the path paved with brick. Frade, holding his wife’s hand in his left hand and a bottle of Quilmes beer in the right, led the way with Graham at his side. Enrico walked behind them, his shotgun cradled in his arms. The others followed.

As they came out of the garden, just as Graham noticed that chairs and a table loaded with food had been set up, there was a roll of drums. A brass band began to play the song of the U.S. Army Artillery, “The Caissons Go Rolling Along.”

Graham saw a twenty-man-strong, ornately-uniformed band lined up next to the Lodestar.

“I’m impressed, Cletus,” Graham said, laughing.

“That’s the band of the Chapel of Our Lady of the Miracles,” Frade replied. “When I found out that most of its members were retired members of the Húsares de Pueyrredón regimental band, I decided to give them a chance.”

Graham shook his head and smiled. He knew that Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo was so large and so far from the nearest town and had so many workers that it had its own church, complete with two priests and a cemetery. And he was not surprised that El Coronel Frade had found employment for old soldiers of his regiment. In many ways, the large estancias were feudal fiefdoms, with El Patron—now Cletus Frade—acting as paterfamilias.

By the time they had reached the row of chairs, the band had segued into another march.

“What the hell is that?” Graham asked.

“ ‘Semper Paratus,’ the Coast Guard song,” Frade replied. “I’m surprised you didn’t know.”

“Where the hell did you get the music?”

“I told Pelosi to tell Delojo I needed it. He finally found it somewhere in the embassy’s storage. I don’t think they used it much; I don’t think the box the music came in ever had been opened.”

“Did you tell Commander Delojo what you wanted it for?”

Frade took a swig of beer, smiled, then shook his head.

By the time everyone had settled into their seats, the band had made another segue, this time to “The Aggie War Hymn.”

Frade and Graham immediately stood. Technical Sergeant

Ferris and Lieutenant Sawyer, seeing this, looked at them curiously.

“Atten-hut!” Graham barked. Everyone complied.

“And stay that way!” Frade snarled.

Next came “The Marines’ Hymn” and after that the opening bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The landing light of the Lodestar came on, illuminating the national colors on a pole, which hadn’t been visible before.

Graham put his hand over his heart. Then he saw that Frade was saluting.

You’re not supposed to salute in civilian clothing.