He laughed and took another drag.
The waiter brought the wine and uncorked it. Then he poured some into a glass and handed it to Henry.
Henry sipped it and nodded. “Bene,” he said in Italian.
The instant the waiter had left, Sarah mustered all her steel and said firmly, “What is going on? Tell me.”
“It was them.” His voice was barely audible.
“It was them,” he repeated. “It was them.”
Sarah stared at the buildings across the street.
“How can you be so sure?”
Just then the waiter came back with their food and an assortment of breads. He added that the wine was to be compliments of the house.
Delighted by the waiter’s apparent change of heart, Henry asked the boy a few questions about the food, the spices used — anything to get his mind off the apparent spectre he’d just witnessed. Maybe Sarah was right: he couldn’t be sure.
Except he knew in his bones he was right.
The waiter, who introduced himself as Antonio, was pleased to give them a blow-by-blow description of the food and its preparation. He told them he wanted to become a chef but had to finish his education before his father would allow him even to think about such a career.
Henry smiled and nodded, but every few seconds he glanced at the people walking in and out of the buildings across the street.
After Antonio had finally torn himself away, Henry moved his place setting to have a better view. “If it was those bastards, there’s more than just payback at stake. I’m the only one who…”
“Henry, the odds against it having been those same men are astronomical.”
They finished their meal, paid Antonio and gave him another twenty of President Frei’s cash, telling him to save it for cooking school. Then they walked back to the hotel and the limo, where Enrique still slept.
“Feel like tooling around Santiago, Enrique?” said Henry as he climbed in and slammed the door hard enough to waken the driver.
Enrique’s newspaper exploded onto the dashboard and he looked around in embarrassment.
“Sir Henry!” he shouted through the closed window. Then he lowered it and looked back at them, blinking sleepily but trying to seem awake.
Henry laughed and pointed to the driver’s mouth.
“Drooling a bit?”
The remark drew him a punch in the ribs from Sarah.
“Where shall we be going, Sir Henry?” asked Enrique, wiping his face with a handkerchief.
“I don’t know, just pick a direction and drive. God, you’re heavy,” he added to Shep, who was leaning hard against his leg.
Enrique adjusted his cap and started the engine. As they pulled away, Henry caught sight of the two agents across the street scrambling into a car to follow them.
“We have a convoy.”
Sarah looked out the rear window and studied the car pulling out into traffic behind them. “I’m sure they’re US military. It makes sense for them to tail us. You’re a primary player in the situation.”
Enrique followed a long straight thoroughfare that headed towards the Andes. “Have you decided where you’d like to go?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry. “Just drive. By the way, have you noticed we’re being followed?”
Enrique nodded. “I’ve been watching them. They’re the same two men who were watching the hotel, Sir Henry. I have talked with the President’s office. They are from the Enterprise. Naval intelligence. Actual y I was told there are five agents assigned to watch you.
Not counting myself, of course.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Sarah.
“I thought you knew about them, Miss Sarah. Were you not informed?”
Henry and Sarah looked at each other in disgust.
“Why tell us?” said Henry. “We’re just targets.”
He debated in his mind for a moment, then told Enrique they’d apparently eluded the surveillance team when they left the hotel. “Walked right by them.”
“And you eluded me too, Sir Henry. Forgive me, but I think that you should be more careful and let us know where you are going.”
Suddenly annoyed, Henry tersely explained that no one had bothered to tell them they were being tailed, and pointed out that it was their lack of communications that had made him avoid the surveillance team. “I saw them watching our window!” he said. “What was I supposed to think?” He went on to describe what had happened at the cantina.
Sarah was still a little sceptical, but all this did was increase his certainty. “I told you before that if I ever saw them again I’d know them. I remember specifically the big one’s moustache.”
Enrique listened with great interest, then told them he’d been alerted to watch for suspicious types hanging around the hotel. Then, to Henry and Sarah’s surprise, he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out two small automatic pistols. He handed them back to Henry through the window.
“These are for you, Sir Henry, Miss Sarah. Do you know how to use them? Be very careful to keep the red dot showing on the safety switch.”
Dumbfounded, Sarah looked at her gun for a moment before putting it in her bag. “A souvenir of our romantic trip to Chile. How nice.”
“Well, shit,” said Henry, “I was going to ask you how I could get a gun.”
“No problema,” said Enrique with a broad grin.
As the limo cruised aimlessly along the boulevard, Henry and Sarah sat wordlessly watching the passing shops and businesses. Henry slipped the little gun into his inside jacket pocket after double-checking the safety. “Now we’re at war again.”
“I guess it was just a matter of time,” said Sarah. “I still think the odds are that whoever it was who shot you is thousands of miles away.”
Enrique, listening, was overly aware that he hadn’t been altogether straightforward about his role. As an intelligence officer with the Chilean military, he’d been trained to keep a low profile at all times. It was necessary to maintain security.
“I believe I told you I was trained to protect you, Sir Henry,” he interrupted. “As President Frei’s driver, I am prepared to protect my passengers with my life. I am also part of Chile’s military intelligence. Like your CIA, you might say.”
Henry nodded. “Makes sense, I guess. Silly me. I was feeling like a typical tourist for a while there.”
Sarah didn’t comment. She stared out the window, obviously in deep thought.
Enrique broke the silence again. “Tell me about these men you saw, Sir Henry.”
“Gee, Enrique, it was only for a split second. I didn’t really have time to study them. Maybe it was the guy’s red moustache that tipped me off — but it was the other guy, the slick one, who spooked me.”
“ ‘ Slick’?” said Enrique.
“Yeah,” answered Henry. “You know, slick — smooth. Like he was, I don’t know, the man in charge or something.”
“I think I understand,” said Enrique, picking up the phone. “I must report this.”
That evening Hayes got a call from President Frei’s chief of security, who suggested he record the call.
Hayes listened as the man played an audio tape of Henry and Enrique’s conversation in the limo. When it was finished, the man on the line made no comment other than to say that he was just passing the information along.
Hayes thanked him and hung up. He stared at the wall map and considered the possibility that Grimes had been right all along. Yet the general also agreed with what he’d heard Sarah say — that the odds were astronomically against their running into Suarez like that. He didn’t want to cause an unnecessary scramble of military security around the lovebirds.