The Honor of Spies

He could see nothing on the road that would keep him from landing, and also that the passengers in the Mercedes were looking up at him incredulously.

He went around, came in low and slow--and touched down.

The Mercedes was two hundred meters down the road. General Rawson got out, tugged on the skirt of his tunic, and then, with his back to the Mercedes, checked his pistol.

He had shown it to Clete just before they had taken off. It was a pretty little Colt short-barreled revolver chambered for the .32 Police cartridge. Clete thought it would probably be about as lethal as the Red Ryder Daisy BB gun he had been given for his fifth birthday.

He reached onto the floor of the Cub and picked up his Model 1911A1 .45 semiautomatic pistol and slipped that into the pocket of his JACKET. LEATHER, NAVAL AVIATORS W/FUR COLLAR, and then, to be sure he wasn't going to be out-gunned, took a Thompson .45 ACP submachine gun from where he had propped it between the fuselage skin and the instrument panel.

By then the other Cub was down, and General Nervo and the pilot--who looked more than a little nervous--had walked up to them.

Colonel Schmidt and several officers were standing in front of the Mercedes. They were wearing Wehrmacht steel helmets. Clete remembered that the first time he'd ever seen a picture of his father--Colonel Graham had shown it to him in the hotel in Hollywood--his father had been dressed just like this.

"Do we go there, or what?" Nervo asked.

"I'm the president of the Argentine Republic," Rawson said softly. "People come to me."

A very long sixty seconds later, the officers with Colonel Schmidt came to attention and marched toward the people standing by the airplanes.

"Do you think they've spotted the president?" Nervo asked quietly.

"We'll soon find out," Rawson himself answered.

The expression on el Coronel Schmidt's face didn't change even when he was so close to Rawson that it would have been impossible not to recognize him.

Schmidt saluted. Rawson returned it.

"All right, Colonel," Rawson said. "If you have an explanation, I'm ready to hear it."

"Mi general," Schmidt said, "I very much regret that I must ask you to consider yourself under arrest pending court-martial."

Clete saw that one of the officers with Schmidt--there were four of them--had his hand in his overcoat pocket.

That sonofabitch has one of those toy Colt revolvers in there!

"Arrest? Court-martial? I'll remind you, Colonel, that I am the president of the Argentine Republic."

"You are a traitor to the Argentine Republic, Gen--"

He did not get to finish the sentence. Seven 230-grain, solid-point bullets from Don Cletus Frade's Thompson struck him in his midsection, from just above his crotch on his right side to just below his shoulder joint on his left.

Schmidt fell backward.

Clete turned the Thompson on the officer he thought might have a little Colt revolver and, just as the pistol cleared the officer's pocket, put four rounds of .45 in him.

"Cletus! My God!" President Rawson exclaimed. "What have you done?"

"He kept us alive is what he did," Nervo said.

Nervo now had his pistol drawn.

"On the ground, the rest of you, or you're dead!" Cletus ordered, gesturing with the muzzle of the Thompson.

The others dropped to the ground, one of them trying without success to keep away from the blood now leaking from the bodies of el Coronel Schmidt and the man who had tried to use his little Colt revolver.

Clete turned to the pilot of the second Cub, who was ashen-faced.

"What you're going to do, Lieutenant, is first get yourself together, then go halfway to that convoy, put your hands on your hips, and bellow 'Senior noncommissioned officer, front and center,' or words to that effect. And when he presents himself, bring him to me."

The lieutenant didn't move.

"Lieutenant, do what Don Cletus has ordered," President Rawson said.

The lieutenant straightened, then walked around the bodies on the ground and toward the convoy.

Three minutes later, the lieutenant returned, following a large, middle-aged man who had a Thompson hanging from his shoulder.

Next time, Lieutenant, you might think of taking his fucking weapon away from him!

The man saluted. "Mi general, Suboficial Mayor Martinez of the 10th Mountain Regiment reporting as ordered."

Rawson returned the salute and then looked at Cletus with an Okay, now what? look on his face.

"Sergeant Major," Clete said, "I am Major Cletus--"

"I know who you are, Don Cletus," Suboficial Mayor Martinez said. "Enrico has been my lifelong friend. It was I who called him to warn him that el Coronel Schmidt was coming to your house in Tandil."

"With God as your witness, you are loyal to General Rawson?" Clete asked.

"With God as my witness, mi general."