The Honor of Spies

I have every right in the world to have my tail dragging. Not only did I just fly from the States across Central and South America, and then fly down here, I also just threw Tio Juan out of Uncle Willy's house, had people try to kill me, and--and what else?

Doesn't matter what else.

I have every right to be tired, and I damn sure am.

What does matter, however, is that when my tail is really dragging, I tend to do really stupid things. Like, for example, being a little less than charming to Mother Superior at the convent and then actually getting ready to walk out of her office.

If Dorotea and Welner hadn't stopped me, I think I would have, and that would have really screwed up things.

Watch it, Little Cletus. You just can't afford to screw something up.

Ten seconds later, the Lincoln slowed and turned off the highway. Fifty meters off the road, there was a gate in a wire fence. Beyond the fence, the headlights lit up rows of grapevines as far as he could see.

There was a Ford Model A pickup truck inside the fence. A man got out of it, walked to the gate, and swung it open. The Lincoln's lights flashed over the pickup as they drove through the gate, and Frade saw there was a second man standing by the side of the truck, a Mauser rifle cradled in his arms. This one he recognized. He was one of the peones he'd brought from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

When they drove past, the man saluted. Clete returned it.

They drove for a kilometer, perhaps a little more, through endless rows of grapevines. The road suddenly became quite steep--the resident manager had to shift into second gear--and made a winding ascent of a mountainside.

And then there was a massive wooden gate blocking the road.

But there's no fence or anything to the right of the gate.

Why have a gate if people can just drive around it?

He looked out his side window and saw why people could not just drive around this gate. Three feet from the side of the car a stone curb marked the side of the road. Beyond the curb there was a precipitous drop-off; he could not see the bottom.

Well, since there's a granite mountain on the left and nothing but air on the right.

I guess that if they don't open the gate, you either blow it up or you don't get in.

The gate swung inward as they approached it.

There was another Model A pickup with another man holding a rifle just inside the gate, and again Clete recognized him as one of his men from Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo. This one didn't salute as the Lincoln inched carefully past the Ford.

The road now was so steep that the estancia manager did not shift out of low.

They turned a curve and suddenly were on a level plateau perhaps three hundred meters wide and two hundred meters long. A low stone wall on three sides suggested--it was too dark to see--a drop-off like the one beside the gate.

At the far end of the plateau, with what looked like a light in every window--and there were a lot of windows--was the house and its outbuildings.

The main house was three stories and red-tile-roofed. The third floor had dormer windows, and the roof extended over a verandah whose pillars seemed vine-covered. The Andes Mountains were on the horizon behind it, bathed in moonlight.

And now we know why they call it Casa Montagna.

That is indeed a mountain house.

"It's beautiful!" Dorotea said from the backseat.

Enrico Rodriguez, Madison Sawyer, and Gonzalo Delgano were standing on the verandah.

If they're waiting for us, they knew we were coming, and that means there's a telephone at either or both gates.

Nobody's going to get in here by surprise.

"No nuns?" Sawyer greeted them as he waved them into the house.

Inside the door was a foyer. In the center was a fountain in a circular pool.

"Classy," Frade said.