"At least you managed to arrive," Clete's father said as he took his arm and led him out of the room, "at the dinner I gave at your request. I suppose that's something."
"What I had in mind was just the Mallins," Clete said. "Sorry."
"You should be glad that didn't happen."
"Excuse me?"
"Mallin came early," his father said as he led him down a wide corridor and then through a double door. "I have some clothing in here that should fit you."
"I don't think so," Clete said. His father was forty pounds heavier than he was. "Mallin came early and ... ?"
"I bought much of this when I was your age," his father said, throwing open a closet that looked like a rack in a formal clothing store. "There's a dinner jacket in here from Close and Marsh in London that should do."
He found what he was looking for and thrust it at Clete.
"I don't know about a shirt," he said. "But there's a drawer of them over there, and you'll find studs and so on on my dresser. And now, the entertainment of the evening finished, I will return to your guests."
Clete put his hand on his father's arm and stopped him.
"Answer the question. Mallin was here, and ... ?"
He wished to talk to me privately, man-to-man, as one father to another," Frade said. "About your relationship with his daughter. While he assured me that he felt you were a fine young man of sterling character, who would never take advantage of an innocent young girl, as men of the world, we both knew that when two young people fancy themselves in love ... et cetera, et cetera ... and that he hoped I would be good enough to have a word with you. I told him that you are a man, and that I have no control over your romantic life." "That's it?"
"I also told him that I rather understood your interest in his innocent young daughter. I suggested that you perhaps acquired your interest in young girls in the bar at the Plaza Hotel, watching middle-aged men fawning over Mi?as young enough to be their daughters."
"You didn't!"
Frade nodded. "And I also told him that he should be glad that you are both my son and an officer and a gentleman, who therefore can be expected to do the right thing by his innocent daughter, rather than one of the middle-aged men in the Plaza bar who behave despicably toward their young women."
"He took this?"
"He seemed rather discomfited," Frade said, obviously pleased with himself. Then his tone changed. Cletus, I looked at Dorotea tonight for the first time as a young woman, not as a girl."
"I'm in love with her, Dad."
"To look at your faces when you greeted one another, I would never have guessed," Frade said. "But the way you said that makes the other things I intended to say to you unnecessary." He paused. "You will be taking Dorotea into dinnersitting with her. I had the butler rearrange the seating arrangements." Frade looked at his watch.
"Dress quickly; your odd Norteamericano notion of appropriate dinner dress is delaying the serving of dinner."
"Sorry about that."
"You should be," Clete's father said, and walked out of the room.
Clete was at the bathroom mirror tying his bow tie, when he heard the door to his father's apartment creak open. He'd had his choice among dress shirtstoo large or too small. He opted for a loose collar. After he adjusted the tie as best he could, he returned to the bedroom, expecting to see his father, or maybe the butler, sent to help him dress.
He found instead Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, leaning on the closed door, holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and two glasses in the other. Peter held out the glasses to him.
"Hold these," he ordered, "while I open the bottle."
"I'm grateful, mi Comandante, especially since this act of Christian charity obviously tore you away from the magnificent Alicia ... and her magnificent..." He made a curving motion above his chest to indicate what he meant.
Peter popped the cork.
"If you were a real officer and gentleman, which fortunately you are not," Peter said as he poured the champagne, "I would be forced to challenge you to a duel for insulting the lady with whom I intend to share my life."
"I'll be goddamned, you sound serious."
"The duel, no. The lady, possibly. She has, certainly, a splendid body. But she also has qualities I've never encountered before."
"I'll be damned," Clete said.
Peter raised his glass.
"Fighter pilots," he said.
"Fighter pilots," Clete replied, tapping Peter's glass with his. "And their ladies."
"Since I am an officer and a gentleman, I will refrain from commenting that yours has a rather attractive mammary development herself, even if she is so recently out of the cradle."
"Go fuck yourself, Peter."
"I had an ulterior motive in bringing the wine to you," Peter said. "Actually, several of them."
Now he wants the favor.
"I'm not surprised."
"Oberst Gr?ner called me into his office this afternoon."
"The military attach??"
Peter nodded. "He wanted to make sure that everyone here tonight sees that we have become friends ..."
"And the champagne is intended to do that?"
"... because he has good reason to believe you will not be among us much longer."
"Really?"
What the hell is this all about?
He has learned from a reliable source in Internal Security that you are about to engage in a very foolish, amateurish operation ... and that it is doomed to failure."
"I can't imagine what he's talking about."
"If his information is correct, you are about to use your father's airplane to make a bombing run on a neutral ship in the Bay of Samboromb6n, with the hope of igniting her fuel tanks with homemade incendiary bombs."
Shit, if Oberst Whatsisname knows, they'll be waiting for us.
That miserable sonofabitch Delgano!
What is this "homemade incendiary bomb" bullshit?
Christ, they mean the flares. Which means they haven't thought of a submarine!
"I think your Oberst Whatsisname has been at the schnapps," Clete said.
"Oberst Gr?ner went on to say that the ship, the Reine de la Mer, is armed with two dual forty-millimeter Bofors and some heavy machine guns. It will have no trouble at all shooting you down."
Clete met Peter's eyes but said nothing.
"Now I personally felt that the Oberst's information was wrong," Peter went on. "For one thing, a pilot with your experience would know that if the pilot on such a mission were actually lucky enough to hit the ship with an incendiary bomb, the only thing the bomb would do is lie around on thick steel plates and burn itself out."
"I never gave the subject much thought," Clete said. "But now that you mention it, I think you're right."
"I did not offer my opinion on the subject to Oberst Gr?ner," Peter said. "I suppose that I should have. And I daresay in some quarters that my failure to do so would constitute treason."
"Why are you telling me all this, Peter?" Clete asked.
"Treason is a subject I've given a good deal of thought to, lately," Peter said.
"Where are we going with this conversation?" Clete asked.
"That remains to be seen," Peter said. "Did you mean what you said?"
"Said about what?"
"You said, if memory serves, that I have 'a blank check' with you."