“From after six, if you insist, a few hours translates to ten or eleven o’clock in the morning. I had luncheon prepared. You didn’t arrive. I called El Palomar, where a very nice man at the petrol place told me that you had been there about seven, picked up Colonel Almond and Tony and Maxwell Ashton, and taken off about seven-thirty.”
“Correct.”
“You promised me you would not fly the aircraft by yourself until you were qualified to do so.”
“That will never happen again, I promise you,” Clete said.
“Why do I detect more deception in your tone of voice?”
“You’re suspicious by nature?”
“You bah-stud!” she said, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips.
He smiled at her.
“Cletus, I have been sitting here the entire afternoon and the entire evening, knitting these damned booties, with visions of you crashed somewhere. Where the hell have you been?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh, yes, I do!”
The telephone rang. Clete moved toward it.
“No, you don’t! Someone will answer it. Where were you, Cletus?”
“All over the country,” he said.
“Specifically.”
“Posadas, Córdoba, and Bariloche.”
“My God!” Dorotéa said. “I didn’t know there was an airfield at Bariloche. Damn it, Cletus, couldn’t you have learned how to fly that aircraft without flying all over Argentina? Is that why you lied to me, because you knew I would beg you not to?”
He saw the anger was gone, replaced by sadness.
“Baby…” Confirmation came when he saw tears form in her eyes.
“My God, you’re about to be a father! Doesn’t that mean anything to you at all?”
“I had a reason,” he said. “I don’t think you want to know what it was.”
“Our understanding, Cletus, was that you were to share everything with me.”
“I was dealing with Almond,” Clete said. “He was sent down here to find out Galahad’s identity.”
“Sent by whom?
There was a knock at the door, and Antonio entered without knocking. Dorotéa quickly turned away so that he would not see her tears. “I beg pardon, Don Cletus, but el Coronel Perón is on the line, and says it is very important.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I saw you drive up, Señor.”
Clete walked to the telephone and picked it up. “Tío Juan, how are you?”
“I have just learned from friends of mine that a friend of ours, as we speak, is on his way back to Argentina,” Perón said. “I thought you would like to know as soon as possible.”
“Jesus Christ, that’s good news!”