Page 19 of Cutter’s Lady

“Pardon me,” he retorted sarcastically. “I realize that makes me lower than the low, but I do have a few principles.”

“No! I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that I don’t have any claim on you.”

“However stupid it was of me to do it, I agreed to bring you into this country. You’re my responsibility,” he replied shortly.

“I can’t believe you’re arguing with me even when I try to thank you.”

They were escorted to a small black sedan, also a vintage Saab but in better condition than the taxi they had ridden in the day before. The officers sat rigidly in the front seat, and Leslie and Cutter took the back. Not a word was said throughout the entire trip. The car pulled up in front of an imposing gray building, and the junior officer hopped out to open his superior’s door. The senior officer walked with them into the building and up the elevator to the fifth floor, where he left them with a slightly built, expressionless young man whom Leslie assumed must be Maldenado’s assistant. It seemed rather anticlimactic, she thought, to have been brought by the fearsome Policía Nacional and then be delivered to an ordinary clerk.

It was thirty minutes before Maldenado appeared, and Leslie was thinking with some irritation of the breakfast they had been forced to abandon. However, just as she was building up to giving the assistant a piece of her mind, the door to the inner office opened, and a short, pudgy individual emerged, smiling and smoothing his moustache nervously. “Ah, Señora Harper. Excuse, I have much remorse for my ah, lateness.It is word, si?”

“Good thing I came along,” Cutter murmured, and Leslie couldn’t suppress a smile.

“Yes, that’s the word. How do you do, Mr. Maldenado?” Leslie extended her hand to the man. “It’s nice to meet you after speaking to you on the phone so often over the past weeks.” At that time his English had been much surer and she had a feeling this was some sort of manipulation on his part, though she didn’t fully understand the purpose. “May I introduce Mr. Cutter? He was good enough to come along to interpret for us. I’m afraid I know almost no Spanish.”

“I see.” He gave Cutter an appraising stare, his eyes betraying a shrewdness that his acquiescing manner seemed tailored to hide. “Such kind consideration. But I am able to speak English. There is no need for an interpreter.” His syntax suddenly improved by leaps and bounds.

“Still, I prefer to have an interpreter, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings.” Leslie gave him her most charming smile.

“Of course. Mr. Cutter is welcome. Come in, please.”

He ushered them into his office and sat down behind the imposing desk. “Now. How can I help you?”

“I don’t know. You are the one who ordered us to come here,” Leslie responded.

“Oh, no, no, no. You must not consider it as that. These policemen, sometimes they give the wrong impression.” Maldenado made a deprecating face. “When I was notified you had arrived in La Luz, I was most surprised and concerned. I wish only to assist you.” He turned his shrewd gaze on Cutter. “You are Mrs. Harper’s traveling companion?”

“Yes.”

“Your name is familiar to some of my associates.”

“I imagine it would be,” Cutter replied evenly. “I lived here for several years.”

“You worked for the dictators who ruled our country in the past.”

“I worked for the United States,” Cutter corrected quietly. “There are others like me now working for your government.”

“Not exactly like you, I think.”

“Close enough.”

“One of your trainees was Vicente Mora, no?” Maldenado went on.

“Yes. He was on the opposite side then.”

“Have you seen him currently?”

Cutter shook his head. “Not in many years.”

Maldenado’s mouth turned downward in a sneer. “A foolish man. A boaster. The army will destroy him. The newspapers make much of him, but they are mistaken. He has few followers.”

“Surely the San Cristóbalian newspapers don’t praise him.”

“No, of course it is not that. They have too much sense to be taken in. It is the foreign journalists—they believe too much.” He paused, then asked abruptly. “Why did you bring the señora here? It is very dangerous.”

“Like you, we are confident that the army has things well in hand. Mrs. Harper wants to be here to pay the ransom as soon as the terrorists demand it.”

They were talking about her as if she wasn’t even there, Leslie thought irritably and jumped into the conversation, “Mr. Cutter did not bring me anywhere. Payment of the ransom will be much easier if I am here. ”