W. IV - Honor Bound 05 - The Honor of Spies

You bet your ass he does!

And are they wondering the same thing?

You bet your ass they are!

"If I don't know his name, how am I going to get in touch with him if I need him?" Clete asked.

"Through me."

"I don't like that," Clete said flatly.

They locked eyes for a moment.

"Cletus," Welner said finally, "this is Father Francisco Silva. Also of the Society of Jesus."

Clete went to Silva and shook his hand.

"Make sure I have your phone number before you leave, Father," he said. "But right now let's get some breakfast."

He walked to the door to the dining room, but before he reached the door, it opened.

Elisa Gomez--Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo's chief housekeeper, a plump female in her late forties who was wearing a severe black dress and had a large wooden cross hanging around her neck--stood there.

"Don Cletus?" she said.

But Clete saw that Elisa was looking at the priests, and with great curiosity.

"We're going to need breakfast," Clete said. "A lot of it." He looked at Welner and asked, "Where are the others?"

"They should be here soon," Welner said. "They're coming in a Little Sisters of the Poor bus."

And when Aguirre and whoever Nervo has watching me see a busload of priests, nuns, and orphan children showing up here in a Little Sisters of the Poor bus, then me flying everybody off in the Lodestar, they're going to say, "How nice! Don Cletus has found religion!"

In a pig's ass they are!

On a scale of one to ten, Major Frade, you have fucked up to at least twelve!

"For a dozen people, Elisa," Clete went on.

" Si, Don Cletus."

"And bring coffee and sweet rolls while we're waiting, please."

The first people to arrive--unexpectedly--were Lieutenant Oscar J. Schultz, USNR, in his gaucho clothing, and Staff Sergeant Jerry O'Sullivan of the United States Army, who was in uniform except that he was wearing neither a necktie nor any headgear. He had a Thompson submachine gun hanging from his shoulder.

Schultz took one look around the room and said, "Oops! Sorry."

Clete waved them into the dining room.

"Padre," Schultz said to Welner.

"Father," O'Sullivan said.

"Jefe," Welner replied. "Jerry."

Clete saw Niedermeyer looking at Schultz with interest bordering on in credulity.

"Say hello to Otto Niedermeyer," Clete said, pointing to him. "When he's not dressed up like a Jesuit priest, he's an SS sergeant major."

Schultz crossed to Niedermeyer and offered his hand.

"I never know when he's kidding," Schultz said in German.

"I kid you not," Frade said.

"And sometimes he even explains things to me," Schultz added, then glanced at Clete. "Is this one of those times?"

"In a minute," Clete said. "Had your breakfast?"

"Cup of coffee is all," Schultz said. "The Other Dorotea spent the night with her mother. The perimeter gauchos said you'd just driven onto the estancia. We thought we'd welcome you home." He looked at Niedermeyer. "Not one of those from the U-boat?"

"There was SS on the U-boat?" Frade asked.

"About a dozen of them, the best I could see," O'Sullivan said.

"Anybody see you while you were looking?" Clete asked.

O'Sullivan shook his head.

"No, sir," he said, and with a smile added, "And there was some kind of big shot. All dressed up. Complete to homburg hat and briefcase. His rubber boat struck something and sank like a rock. He got soaked."

Looking at Niedermeyer, Frade said, "That was probably SS-Brigadefuhrer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg. You know who he is?"

Niedermeyer nodded, then blurted, "He's here? He came here by U-boat?"

Clete nodded.

"Which makes me wonder how he came here," Schultz said, nodding toward Niedermeyer.

"On my airplane," Clete said.

"You are going to tell us what's going on, right?" Schultz said.

Clete looked at Schultz.

Maybe, after I figure out how I'm going to explain everything to everybody.

Right now, I don't have a clue how to do that.

"I'm going to wait until everybody is here," Frade said, stalling. "I don't want to do it twice."

Someone else almost immediately appeared at the dining room door, but it wasn't whom Clete expected. It was a svelte, formidable woman in her mid-fifties who had gray-flecked, luxuriant black hair and wore a simple black dress with a triple strand of pearls.

Shit!

I should have realized that Claudia was likely to show up!

But why the hell couldn't she have invited herself for a late lunch? By then, I'd be out of here.

And how am I going to explain any of this to her?

He said: "Senora Claudia Carzino-Cormano! What an unexpected pleasure."

Claudia went to Dorotea and embraced her affectionately. Then she looked at Cletus: "I've got a message for you, Senor Sarcastic. Can I give it to you now?"

"Whisper it in my ear," Clete said.

"You're serious, aren't you?" she asked.

He nodded.

She went to him.

"I probably shouldn't kiss you," she said, "but I will. I missed you at the airport."

Then she kissed him and, covering her mouth with her hand, whispered in his ear.

He immediately parroted it out loud.

" 'Von Wachtstein's on his way in his Storch to meet von Deitzberg at the airport in Carrasco,'" he said, then added rhetorically: "I wonder what the hell that's about? Von Deitzberg went over there on the SAA flight yesterday afternoon. You'd think he would come back that way."

"Unless," Dorotea offered, "he wanted to take advantage of Peter's diplomatic immunity and have him fly something back here he didn't want to risk carrying through customs."

"Yeah," Clete said, accepting that immediately. He gave Dorotea a thumbs-up.

She smiled and shrugged as if to say, Well, what did you expect?

"That's all Peter said to tell you," Claudia said, then went to the priests, kissing Welner first.

"I passed a Little Sisters of the Poor bus on the way over here," Claudia said. "That yours, Father Kurt?"

He nodded.

"It's nice to see you again, Father," she said, offering her hand to the bona fide Jesuit. Then she turned to Niedermeyer. "I'm afraid I don't know your name, Father."

"His name is Niedermeyer," Clete said. "He's not a priest."

"What did you say?" Claudia asked, but before Clete could respond, she looked at Welner.

"What is going on here, Father Kurt?" she demanded.

"Claudia, I think Cletus would much prefer to answer that."

She looked at Cletus.

"What I would much prefer is not to answer at all," Clete said. "But pull up a chair, Claudia, and I'll think of something."

Why the hell didn't you think of a story to tell all these people, Senor Superspy?

You didn't think anybody would be curious?

Claudia sat at the table, looked at him, waited all of thirty seconds, and then asked, "Well?"

"I'm waiting for the others to arrive."

"What others?"

"They should be here any minute," Clete said.

"Why can't you tell me now?" she demanded.

Because I don't know what to say.

"They should be here any minute," Clete repeated.

"I think I just heard somebody drive up," Schultz said.

A minute later, one of the maids opened the door from the foyer.

"Sister Maria Isabel of the Little Sisters of the Poor asks to see you, Father," the maid announced to Welner.

Welner looked at Clete, who nodded.

"Ask the sister to come in, please," Welner said.

"There are nuns and a priest and children with her, Father," the maid said.

"The more the merrier," Clete said. "Bring them all in."

When the nun came into the room, she had with her a priest wearing a brown cassock with a rope belt, his bare feet in sandals-- That has to be SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer Alois Strubel; I remember him from the plane-- two boys Clete decided were about ten, a girl he thought was probably a year or two younger, and three other nuns.