The Honor of Spies (Honor Bound 5)

Clete had looked at Inspector Peralta and saw that he was looking at Subinspector Nowicki, who after a thoughtful moment made a subtle thumbs-up gesture, which caused Inspector Peralta to nod in Clete’s direction.

Translation: The Gendarmería Nacional can and will protect the bus.

“I can’t think of one,” Clete said. “It sounds like a very good idea.”

“And for the first few days,” Mother Superior said, “I suggest that it would be a very good idea if Señora Möller and Señora Körtig came to school, too. Would that be all right?”

As long as I’ve got their husbands under my thumb here, why not?

“I think that would be a very good idea,” Clete said.

“And now, so as to leave you gentlemen to your wine, I suggest that I take the ladies and the children to their apartments. I’ll see what things they’ll need for school, and answer any questions they might have.”

“I think the fathers would like to be in on that,” Clete said. “Would that be all right?”

“I think that would be a very good idea,” Mother Superior said.

“Would you like to come along, Dorotea?” Mother Superior asked.

“What I think I am going to do is have a little lie-down,” Dorotea said. “I’m tired from the flight.”

Translation: I am now going to stand behind a partially open door and listen to what the men will say that they probably wouldn’t say if I was in the room.

“Well, I can certainly understand why you’re tired,” Mother Superior said, flashing Clete an icy smile.

A minute later, Clete saw that the bar held men only. Stein was missing.

He’s sitting on the SIGABA and waiting—probably in vain—for the graven-on-stone messages from Mount Sinai.

What was it Graham said about the more people knowing about a secret the less chance there is that it will remain a secret?

I trust Nervo and Martín. I trust Inspector Peralta because Nervo trusts him. And I suppose I can trust Subinspector Navarro because he works for Peralta.

That’s a hell of a lot of people being told a hell of a lot of secrets.

Not to mention the local Gendarmería boss, Subinspector Nowicki. I don’t know him, or where he comes from.

“Don Cletus, did Inspector General Nervo tell you I can read faces?” Inspector Peralta asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I can look at a face and tell what that person is thinking,” Peralta said seriously.

What the hell is this?

“Really?”

“Would you like me to tell you what you’re thinking?” Peralta said, and then went on without giving Clete a chance to reply. “Who the hell are all these people? How the hell do I know I can trust them? Am I close?”

“That thought has run through my mind, now that you mention it,” Clete said.

“Don’t be embarrassed, Don Cletus. I would have been worried if you were not worried. So let’s deal with it: Me, you can trust, because the inspector general said you can, and you trust the inspector general. Subinspector Navarro can be trusted because I tell you he can. That leaves Subinspector Nowicki, whom you keep looking at through the corner of your eye. Despite his shifty eyes, I have learned he is trustworthy. But let him speak for himself. Estanislao?”

Subinspector Nowicki—a burly, totally bald, muscular man in his early forties, who had been sitting slumped in an armchair while sipping steadily at a glass of wine—stood.

“Don Cletus, I am a Pole. I hate Nazis and Communists. I know what they have done to Poland and I don’t want either taking over in Argentina. Before I came here, I commanded the Gendarmería squadron in Pila. I was privileged to call your father my friend. When the Nazi bastards murdered him and nearly killed my old friend Enrico, I prayed to God for the chance to avenge el Coronel’s murder. I swear before God and on my mother’s grave that you can trust me.”

He nodded once, then sat down.