Victory and Honor Page 4

  “. . . I haven’t worn a uniform in years. Anyway, I got to Washington two days ago. Good Marine and fellow Aggie that I am, I immediately reported to the Terrible Tiger of A&M. Colonel Graham showed me a chair, handed me copies of Time and Life, and said to read them while he looked around for something for me to do. An hour ago, he handed me the names of these two Krauts and told me to go fetch them.”

  “Colonel, how do I know that’s true?” Kellogg asked.

  “Well, you could trust my honest face. Or you could ask yourself, ‘If Colonel Graham didn’t send this guy, how come he’s riding in the colonel’s chauffeur-driven Cadillac?’ Or you could call the Terrible Tiger and ask him. I would recommend Options One and/or Two.”

  Kellogg considered that a moment, then said, “Excuse us a moment, will you, please, Colonel?”

  “Certainly.”

  The lieutenant colonel and the master sergeant went inside the headquarters building.

  If they’re calling Graham, I’m screwed.

  But why do I think they won’t call him?

  Because, with a little bit of luck, one or both of them has been on the receiving end of one of Graham’s fits of temper.

  The fits are rare but spectacular, and usually triggered by someone insisting on complete compliance with a petty bureaucratic regulation.

  Never wake a sleeping tiger!

  And I’m on a roll!

  Not quite two minutes after the pair had walked into the headquarters building, the master sergeant came out.

  “Sir, Colonel Kellogg suggests you go inside and have a cup of coffee with him while I go fetch the Krauts for you.”

  “Fine. Thank you very much.”

  “What we’re going to do is send an MP escort with you to the Institute of Health, in case the Krauts try to escape or anything.”

  Oh, shit! Frade thought.

  He nodded. “Good idea.”

  The Office of Strategic Services had taken over the National Institutes of Health building in the District of Columbia “for the duration.”

  In the headquarters building, Frade quickly found the light bird’s office. It had a sign hanging over the door: LTCOL D. G. KELLOGG. PROVOST MARSHAL.

  Several minutes later, about the time Kellogg had poured coffee into a chipped but clean china mug for Frade, Kapitän zur See Karl Boltitz and Major Freiherr Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein were escorted into the office by two military policemen.

  They marched up to Lieutenant Colonel Kellogg’s desk and came to attention and clicked their heels.

  Boltitz—a tall, rather good-looking, blond young man—was dressed in the white uniform worn by officers of the German navy at sea. He paid little attention to the officer in the Marine Corps uniform. Von Wachtstein, also blond, was smaller and stockier. He was wearing U.S. Army khakis, to which had been affixed the insignia of a Luftwaffe major and his pilot’s wings. When he saw the Marine Corps officer, he gave what could have been a double take, but quickly cut it off to stand at attention.

  Kellogg began: “Gentlemen, this is Colonel—”

  “Cletus Frade,” Clete interrupted in a commanding tone, “lieutenant colonel, U.S. Marine Corps. We’re going to take a little ride. And if you’re even thinking of trying to get away from me, don’t. I’d like nothing better than the chance to shoot either or both of you Nazi bastards.”

  To add visual support to his statement, he took a Model 1911-A1 Colt from the small of his back.

  “I always carry this with a round in the chamber.”

  “Colonel Frade,” Colonel Kellogg said quickly and nervously, “I can assure you that both of these officers have been very cooperative and . . .”

  Frade snorted his disbelief.

  “. . . I’m sure they will give you no problems.”

  “Their choice,” Frade said. “They either behave or they’re dead men.”

  Neither German officer said a word.

  [FIVE]

  The Office of Strategic Services 2340 E Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 1535 10 May 1945

  Preceded by an MP jeep and trailed by an MP weapons carrier, the Cadillac turned off E Street and stopped before a Colonial-style building that would have been quite at home on a college campus. Frade was in the front with the chauffeur; Boltitz and von Wachtstein rode in the back.

  Frade surveyed the area and thought, What the hell do I do now? I never wanted to be here in the first place—and damn sure not with POWs I just broke out of the slam.

  I’ve got to get rid of these MPs. . . .

  Frade rolled down his window and commanded the driver of the lead jeep, “Drive around to the rear.”

  In the back of the building were parking spaces. One of the two nearest the door was empty. It had a neatly lettered sign: RESERVED FOR THE DIRECTOR.

  Frade pointed to it and ordered, “Pull in there, Tom.”

  After Tom parked, Clete told Peter and Karl to wait in the car and then got out.

  Two men in police-type uniforms came quickly—almost ran—from the building.

  Clete intercepted them and announced, “Colonel Frade to see Colonel Graham.”

  He did not offer his credentials. The security officers would know they weren’t bona fide.

  “That’s General Donovan’s parking spot, Colonel,” the shorter of the security officers said. “You—”

  “He told me to use it,” Frade cut him off, and started walking toward the building entrance.

  Then he had a sudden idea.

  He stopped, turned, and pointed to the jeep and weapons carrier.

  “Have those escort vehicles moved to the front of the building,” he ordered the security men.

  Frade heard them barking orders to the drivers of the MP vehicles as he entered the building. He came to two other security officers who were sitting behind a curved reception desk.

  “Colonel Frade to see Colonel Graham,” Frade announced. “I do not have an appointment.”

  One of the security guards automatically reached for a telephone and dialed a number.

  With a little bit of luck, Frade thought, Graham won’t be here.

  Then I will make sure the MPs have moved, and go back outside and see if there’s another way to get out of that parking lot.

  Frade could quite clearly hear the voice of the male who answered the call snap: “What?”

  Dammit—he’s here!

  “Who is this, please?” the security guard said into the phone.

  “Who did you expect to get when you called this number?” the voice on the phone demanded incredulously.

  “Colonel Graham, sir.”

  “Okay. You got him. What? ”

  “There’s a Marine officer here, Colonel. Lieutenant Colonel Frade. He says he doesn’t have an appointment—”

  “He damn sure doesn’t!” the voice said, then before hanging up added: “Send him up.”

  Colonel Alejandro Federico Graham, USMCR, the deputy director of the OSS for Western Hemisphere Operations, was standing in the corridor when Frade got off the elevator. He wore his usual immaculate uniform.

  “Well, look what the tide floated in!” Graham said in Spanish.

  “Mi coronel,” Frade said, and saluted.

  Graham returned the salute, shook his head, and said, still in Spanish, “We are Marines. Naval custom proscribes the exchange of hand salutes indoors unless under arms. Try to remember that in the future.”

  Then he gestured for Frade to follow him into his office.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask what you’re doing here,” he said, waving Frade into an inner office and then into a chair.

  “A personnel matter, mi coronel. A personal personnel matter.”

  “What kind of a personnel matter?”

  “I am in receipt, mi coronel, of a letter from the Finance Officer, Headquarters, USMC, informing me that inasmuch as I have not provided the appropriate proof that I have flown any aircraft the required four hours per month for the past twenty months, I am therefore not
entitled to flight pay, and it will therefore be necessary for them to deduct the appropriate amount from my next check.”

  “¡Jesúcristo!”

  “And since I have not received any paycheck at all for the past twenty-some months, I thought I’d come and see if I couldn’t clear the matter up.”

  “Well, I’d probably be more sympathetic if I didn’t know how far removed from the welfare rolls you are, Colonel. What’s that phrase, ‘Rich as an Argentine’?”

  “That, mi coronel, is what they call the pot calling the kettle black.”

  Graham shook his head.

  “So, what really brings you up here, Clete?”

  “On the way back from Portugal with yet another load of Teutonic people carrying Vatican passports, as I sat there watching the needles on the fuel gauges drop, I wondered what was going to happen to Boltitz and von Wachtstein once the Germans surrendered.”

  “And?”

  “I thought that they would probably be loaded onto a troopship, returned to the former German Thousand-Year Reich, and then locked up in a POW enclosure until somebody decided their fate. If they survived that long.”

  “And that’s probably what will happen.”

  “So I figured I’d better come up here and get them.”

  “The injustice of the Nazis getting to go to Argentina, and the good guys getting locked up—and possibly worse—is that, more or less, what you were thinking?”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking. We owe them, and you know it.”

  “You did give just a little thought to their being locked up at Fort Hunt and getting them out of there would be impossible?”

  “Next to impossible, mi coronel.”

  Graham raised an eyebrow. “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning that at this moment, they’re sitting in my grandfather’s Cadillac, which is waiting in General Donovan’s reserved parking spot.”

  “You got them out of Fort Hunt?” Graham asked incredulously.

  Clete nodded.

  “I told them you wanted to talk to them; had sent me out there to fetch them.”

  “And what the hell do you plan to do with them now?” Graham said. But before Frade could reply, he asked, “Why the hell did you bring them here? To me?”

  “Well, the guy at Fort Hunt didn’t entirely believe me. So he took the path of least resistance.”

  “Explain that to me.”

  “He was afraid I was telling the truth, so that made him afraid to call you and check. And he was afraid I was a phony. So he sent a jeep and a weapons carrier loaded with MPs with me, to make sure I came here.”

  “And now what, Clete? Now that you’ve painted yourself into one hell of a corner?”

  “Well, I had the security guards order the MPs to the front of the building. If there’s another way to get out of the parking lot behind the building, I get in my car and we’re gone.”

  “To where?”

  “Gravelly Point.”

  “What did you do, fly your Red Lodestar into there?”

  “No. What I have is a South American Airways Constellation.”

  “You flew a Constellation into National Airport?”

  Clete nodded.

  “¡Jesúcristo!”

  “I’ve now got about fifteen hundred hours in Connies. I’m getting pretty good at it.”

  “And what do you want me to do? Bring you cigarettes and magazines when you’re in the Portsmouth Navy Prison?”

  “I want you to do what you know is the right thing,” Frade said seriously. “Help me get to the airport.”

  Graham exhaled audibly.

  He met Frade’s eyes, then spun around in his chair. Then he turned so that he was facing Frade again.

  “You’re way ahead of me, aren’t you, you clever bastard?” he said icily. “You know that if Donovan himself walked in right now, the chances of you being court-martialed—which you richly deserve—are damned slim. You know too much. And the same applies to me.”

  “I wouldn’t have come here if that light bird at Fort Hunt hadn’t sent the MPs with me. I had no intention of involving you in this at all.”

  “And what did you think was going to happen when you got away with it? If you got away with it?”

  “I’m going to drop off my resignation from the Corps at the embassy in Buenos Aires the day I get back. Then I’m going to disappear in Argentina. I saw Mr. Dulles in Lisbon. He said I’m going to have to decide what to do, and what I’ve decided is to disappear. I’m getting pretty good about helping other people disappear there.”

  “You can’t just resign from the Corps, you goddamned fool! You’ll get out of the Corps only when the Corps permits you to get out of the Corps!”

  Frade stared at Graham and thought, I wondered about that. He’s probably right—if I wasn’t also an Argentine citizen.

  Graham picked up one of the telephones on his desk and dialed a single number.

  “Security chief, please,” he said, then looked at Frade and added, “Sit there, Colonel, and don’t say one goddamn word.”

  Well, Frade thought, I tried.

  At least I didn’t tell Beth I was going to get Karl.

  “This is Graham. There are two MP vehicles from Fort Hunt in front of the building. Go out there and find whoever’s in charge and bring him up here.”

  He hung up the phone.

  He turned to Frade and said, “Continue to sit there with your mouth shut, Colonel. I have no interest in hearing anything you might be tempted to say.”

  He waited ten seconds, then said, “The proper Marine officer’s response to that, Colonel, is ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ And for the moment at least, you are still a serving officer in the Corps.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  An MP captain, this one festooned with all the proper MP accoutrements, came into the office three minutes later. He saluted.

  “Captain,” Graham said, almost cordially, “I’ll see to it that the prisoners get back to Fort Hunt. I can see no need for you to wait around here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s all, Captain,” Graham said. “You are dismissed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The captain left and closed the door.

  “That’s all, Colonel Frade,” Graham said. “You are dismissed.”

  Clete stood, and, remembering what Graham had said about Naval custom proscribing the exchange of hand salutes indoors unless under arms, didn’t.

  He met Graham’s eyes for a moment, then marched toward the door.

  “Clete,” Graham called.

  Frade turned.

  “You were right, Clete. Wild Bill will throw one of his famous Irish fits when he hears about this, but that’ll be the end of it. We both know too much, and he is fully aware that we do.”

  “I hope that’s the case, sir.”

  “Please present my compliments to Kapitän Boltitz and Major von Wachtstein. And my best regards to Doña Dorotea.”

  “I’ll do that, sir. Thank you.”

  “Maybe we’ll see one another one day. Strange things happen in this business we’re in. Belay that. Were in.”

  “Were in, sir?”

  “The reason Donovan’s parking spot was so conveniently open for you is that he’s over in the Pentagon begging General Marshall not to shut down the OSS this afternoon.”

  “But if they shut down the OSS right now, what about . . .”

  “All the ongoing projects? Several of which you’re running?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “God only knows, Colonel Frade. Have a nice flight. Vaya con Dios.”

  [SIX]

  Washington National Airport Arlington, Virginia 1705 10 May 1945

  The public address loudspeakers of South American Airways Constellation Ciudad de Córdoba blared in the passenger compartment: “Passenger von Wachtstein to the cockpit. Passenger von Wachtstein to the cockpit.”

  Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein made his way up the aisle and entered th
e cockpit.

  “Sit there, Hansel,” Frade said in German, pointing to a jump seat. “Don’t touch anything, and pay attention. You might learn something.”

  Von Wachtstein sat down and strapped in.

  “National,” Frade said in English into his microphone, “South American Double Zero Two rolling.”

  Frade advanced the throttles to takeoff power.

  “Gear up and locked. Flaps to zero,” Chief Pilot Gonzalo Delgano reported a few minutes later.

  Frade pointed out the window, and von Wachstein looked, then nodded. They were passing over the White House.

  Then Frade looked at von Wachtstein and said, “This ends your flight-deck familiarization of the Connie for now.”

  As Peter unbuckled his harness, Clete gestured with his thumb toward the passenger compartment.

  “Karl and Beth . . .”

  “What about them?” von Wachtstein said.

  “Go back there, Hansel, and throw ice water on Romeo and Juliet before they embarrass my aunt Martha and everybody else with a shameless exhibition of their mutual lust.”

  “Ah,” von Wachtstein said. “Too late.”

  [ONE]

  Aeropuerto Coronel Jorge G. Frade Morón, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina 1235 11 May 1945

  Washington, D.C., was a long way—just over five thousand miles—from Buenos Aires. It had been necessary for South American Airways Double Zero Two Ciudad de Córdoba to refuel at Belém, Brazil, after a nine-hour flight from Washington. Refueling had taken two hours. Then it had been a just-over-eight-hour flight to Buenos Aires.

  The Ciudad de Córdoba completed its landing roll and turned off the runway onto a taxiway. A tug—it had been surprisingly easy to convert John Deere tractors, ones fitted with enormous double tires for use in rice fields, into aircraft tugs powerful enough to move Constellations—painted in SAA’s powder blue and gold color scheme came down the taxiway toward the Constellation.