The Honor of Spies

"You've obviously had more of it than you should," she said.

"You're right, Clete," Sawyer said. "Mother Superior would make a fine gunnery sergeant."

"May I offer you a glass?" Clete said.

"What is it?" she asked, and went to the bar, picked up the bottle, and examined the label.

"This has to be vinegar," she said.

Clete shook his head. He poured wine an inch deep in a glass and offered it to her.

Surprising him, she took it, smelled it, took a small sip, swirled it around in her mouth, then swallowed. She pushed the glass to him.

He poured three inches of wine into the glass.

"'Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake,'" he said. "That's from Saint Timothy."

"Yes, I know," she said. "You took that from there?"

She indicated the wine rack.

He nodded.

"It's hard to believe, but that wine must have been there the last time I was in this room. The last time you and I were in this room."

"I've never been in this room before in my life," Clete said.

"Yes, you have. Your mother put you on that couch"--she pointed--"and then put two of those chairs"--she pointed again--"up against it so you wouldn't roll over and fall on the floor. You were a very active baby."

Frade didn't say anything.

"It was the night your mother and father took the train to Buenos Aires to take the Panagra flight to Miami. The train left at eight, so we had an early supper in here. That was the last time I saw you until you came to the convent today."

Clete didn't reply.

Mother Superior didn't quite gulp the wine, but the glass was nearly empty much sooner than Clete expected it to be. Clete picked up the bottle, but she put her hand over the glass.

"I have to drive," she said.

"Why don't you take a couple of bottles--hell, a dozen bottles--with you?"

She didn't reply to that. Instead, she said, "I was just thinking that despite what you think, rather than coming here for the first time, you are really coming home. And that Casa Montagna, after waiting so long for that to happen, has really been expecting you, is prepared for you."

What the hell is she talking about?

Mother Superior turned to Dorotea.

"How far are you along?"

"Six months," Dorotea said.

"I'll have a look at you tomorrow. Everything, so far as you know, is going well?"

Dorotea nodded.

Mother Superior went behind the bar, took two bottles of the Cabernet Sauvignon from the rack, and put them into her medical bag.

"Sister Caroline is not impressed with the wisdom of Saint Timothy," Mother Superior said. "And I don't like to upset her."

Clete chuckled.

"Enrico," Mother Superior said, "if you were to somehow wrap or box or whatever a half-dozen bottles of the wine so that it doesn't look like half a dozen bottles of wine, and put them in the van when I come here tomorrow, I would be grateful to you."

"Si, Reverend Mother. I will do it."

There was half an inch of wine left in Mother Superior's glass. She drained it and walked out of the room.

"That is a very nice woman," Dorotea said.

"That is a very tough woman," Frade said admiringly.

He turned to Sawyer.

"Do they teach Army officers how to lay in a machine gun? Fields of fire, that sort of thing?"

"Only the brighter ones," Sawyer said. "Parachute officers, for example."

"First thing in the morning, get with Enrico, see what's available, reconnoiter the area, and let me know what you think should be done."

"Yes, sir," Sawyer said.

"I have already done that, Don Cletus," Enrico said.

"Okay, then show Captain Sawyer how things are done by the Husares de Pueyrredon."

Enrico nodded.

"When do we eat?" Frade asked.

"Half an hour, Don Cletus."

"Which I will spend writing the after-action report for Colonel Graham."

"Do you have to do that tonight?" Dorotea asked.

"Yeah, baby, I do."

Sending the report was a three-stage process. First, Clete wrote it on a typewriter. Then he edited what he had written, using a pencil. Dorotea then took this and re typed it on the keyboard of the SIGABA device. This caused a strip of perforated paper, which now held the encrypted report, to stream out of the SIGABA. Siggie Stein, after making sure that the SIGABA device at Vint Hill Farms Station was ready to receive, fed the strip of paper to the Collins transceiver.

Not quite a minute later, Stein reported that the message had been received in Virginia.

Frade nodded. "Good. Now, let's eat."

Clete had the same uncomfortable feeling--one of intrusion--as he entered the master suite--now his--of Casa Montagna that he had felt the first time he had moved into his father's bedroom in the big house on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

But now it was worse.

There had been nothing of his mother's in the master suite at the estancia.

Here, before a mirrored dressing table, were vials of perfume, jars of cosmetics, a comb, and a hairbrush with blond hair still on it.

And that got worse.

He pulled open a drawer in a chest of drawers and found himself looking at underwear that had to be his mother's.

He slammed the drawer closed.

Dorotea came out of the bathroom in a negligee.