Death and Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

  Delgano shook his head in disbelief.

  “If I didn’t know better, I would think you’re a lunatic.”

  The stewardess returned with their wine.

  “My friend here tells me you can’t get to be a Varig stewardess unless you are forty years old or the mother of three or more children,” Frade said to her. “I told my friend that couldn’t possibly be true. Is it?”

  “Do I look like I’m forty? Or have children?”

  “That’s what I told him,” Frade said, nodding agreeably. “As I said, I didn’t believe it.”

  “You will have to excuse him, señorita,” Delgano said, his face flushed with embarrassment. “He’s a norteamericano, and they’re all crazy.”

  Frade pulled his Argentine passport from his suit jacket and held it out to the stewardess.

  “Two glasses of wine and he gets like that. I wouldn’t give him any more, if I were you.”

  The stewardess smiled brightly at Frade, gave Delgano a dirty look, and retreated down the aisle.

  Delgano shook his head again.

  “I’m glad I did that,” Clete said.

  “You mean, made an ass of yourself?”

  “A chief pilot is not permitted to lose his temper. You might want to write that down. No, what I meant was take my passport out.”

  “I’m afraid to ask why.”

  “Because it reminded me I’m an Argentine citizen.”

  “You remembered! But what does that mean?”

  “When we get to Pôrto Alegre, I think it would be best if you dealt with the local officials.”

  “Now I’m really afraid to ask why.”

  “Well, the last time I was here—when I picked up my Lodestar—I left under something less than ideal conditions.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I now understand that the tower was ordering me to return immediately. But I don’t speak Portuguese, so I didn’t understand him, and kept going.”

  “Holy Mother of Christ!”

  “Well, actually, I did understand him, but I really didn’t want to go back and have to explain who the people I had aboard were, and why we hadn’t gone through immigration.”

  “Ashton and the others and the radar,” Delgano said, shaking his head.

  El Capitán Gonzalo Delgano of the Bureau of Internal Security had been waiting at the landing strip of the Second Cavalry Regiment in Santo Tomé when Cletus Frade had landed the Lodestar after flying it there from Pôrto Alegre.

  There had been an unofficial arrangement with senior officers involved with Operation Blue for Clete to use the Santo Tomé airstrip to get the Lodestar into Argentina against Brazilian wishes. They wanted it available to Generals Ramírez and Rawson—and other senior officers—so they could flee the country if the coup d’état failed.

  Clete had seen this as an opportunity to get Team Turtle—and more important, the radar—off the American air base in Pôrto Alegre and into Argentina surreptitiously and without running the risk of having the radar grabbed by either Brazilian or Argentine authorities.

  It would have worked had not the decision to put Operation Blue into action been made. This meant that the Operation Blue officers needed the airplane at Campo de Mayo as soon as possible, and Delgano had been sent to Santo Tomé to make sure they got it.

  The discovery that the Lodestar carried a heavily armed OSS team and a radar set complicated things more than a little. Clete announced that if Delgano and the BIS arrested Team Turtle they could get someone else to fly the Lodestar—knowing they had no one qualified to do so.

  In the end, in the opinion of then-Lieutenant Colonel Martín of BIS, who by then had allied himself with Generals Ramírez and Rawson, having the plane available overrode all other considerations. Team Turtle and its radar had gone to Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, and Clete had flown the Lodestar to Campo de Mayo.

  The coup d’état was successful. Martín and Delgano were promoted for their contributions, and neither of them seemed to recall that there were half a dozen American OSS agents operating a radar station and doing only God knew what else on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo.

  “Yeah,” Clete said. “Ashton and the others and the radar.”

  “I didn’t know this before,” Delgano said.

  “Yeah, I know. For all I know, the Brazilians have stopped looking for an American name C. Frade. And I am now an Argentinean businessman with the same name, a passport to prove it, and intend to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s when we go through immigration at Pôrto Alegre. Having said that, I still think it would be best if you dealt with the Brazilian authorities.”

  Delgano considered that and nodded.

  “You’re an amazing man, Cletus. Nothing you do surprises me anymore. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had Frogger and his wife in your luggage.”

  “Who?” Clete asked, smiled, and raised his glass of merlot to Delgano.

  [TWO]

  Canoas Air Base Pôrto Alegre, Brazil 1935 17 July 1943

  As Frade got out of the taxi, he saw that there were four military policemen in the guard shack at the brightly lit entrance to the base, two Brazilian and two American.

  As he walked up to the shack, one of the Brazilian MPs stepped out of the booth and none too courteously inquired, “Señor?”

  Well, I guess with this haircut, I look like a Latin American.

  Is that good or bad?

  His hairstyle had been among the other things that changed with marriage. Dorotea had announced that the trim—a crew cut he’d worn since his first haircut at the U.S. Navy Flight Training Facility at Pensacola, Florida—made him look like a criminal. His current cut hung over his collar and partially concealed his ears. He thought it made him look like a pimp, but he found that a newlywed, one giddy with love, will make all sorts of sacrifices to retain the affection of his bride.

  He saw one of the American MPs glance at him, then dismiss him as unimportant.

  “I would like to see Colonel Wallace. My name is Frade,” he said in Spanish.

  Colonel J. B. Wallace, U.S. Army Air Forces, commanded the 2035th Training Wing—and the American portion of the Canoas Air Base—and Clete was reasonably sure that Colonel Wallace would be less than overjoyed to see him. But he had to establish contact with someone who knew who he was, and Wallace was the only name he knew or had been given.

  And he couldn’t expect any immediate help from Colonel Graham. There had been no reply to the half-dozen messages Frade had just sent to Graham— one about the money being on its way to Lockheed’s account in California; another a report of progress on the registry of the Lodestars; then one asking that Graham arrange for him to get sent the airframe numbers of the planes that by then were en route to Brazil; two follow-up messages, then the final one saying that he would be aboard Varig Flight 525.

  “Who, señor?”

  “El Coronel Wallace. Norteamericano,” Clete said.

  He knew there was enough similarity between Portuguese and Spanish that the MP understood him.

  “There is no such person, señor,” the MP said.

  Oh, shit. Now what?

  He tried again. “El Coronel Wallace?”

  The Brazilian MP shrugged.

  “Then any American officer.”

  “Tomás,” one of the American MPs asked in really bad Portuguese, “what did the señor say his name was?”

  The Brazilian MP obviously didn’t understand.

  “El Coronel Wallace,” he said, and shrugged to show he had no idea what the señor wanted.

  “Hey, pal, you speak any English?”

  Clete nodded, and said, “Frade.”

  “Oh, shit,” the MP said. “Major Frade, U.S. Marine Corps?”

  Clete nodded. “But I’d rather people didn’t know that.”

  “You got some ID, sir?”

  I have a very fancy gold badge identifying me as an OSS area commander. Even has a photo ID.

  But I left it in my safe, as I am here
masquerading as an Argentine.

  Besides, I don’t think I’m supposed to show it to anyone anyway.

  But next time, I’ll bring it. It would have solved this problem.

  Clete shook his head.

  “Just a minute, please, sir,” the MP said, and went into the guard shack.

  In about sixty seconds, the MP came back out of the shack and repeated, “Just a minute, please, sir.”

  Three minutes after that, the headlights of a 1942 Ford sedan appeared as it raced up to the guard shack. Frade saw that it had a covered plate on the front bumper, and a chrome pole on the right fender, covered with an oilcloth sleeve. He had just put everything together and concluded that this was the personal auto of a general officer when the proof came: Out jumped a young Air Forces captain wearing wings, a fur felt cap with a crushed crown, and the aiguillette of an aide-de-camp.

  He looked at Frade, almost visibly decided the man in the rather elegant suit whose hair now covered the collar and most of his ears could not possibly be a major of Marines, looked at the MP, then back at Frade after the MP pointed to him.

  “Major Frade?”

  Clete nodded.

  “You have some identification, sir?”

  Clete shook his head.

  It clearly was not the answer the captain hoped for.

  “Sir, I’m General Wallace’s aide . . .”

  “He got promoted, did he?”

  “Sir, if you’ll come with me, please?”

  He held open the Ford’s rear door.

  Three minutes later, the Ford pulled into the driveway of a pleasant-looking Mediterranean-style cottage with a red tile roof. A neat little sign on the neatly trimmed lawn read: BRIG. GEN. J. B. WALLACE, U.S. ARMY AIR FORCES.

  “If you’ll come with me, Major?” the aide asked, and led him into the house, then to a closed interior door, on which he knocked.

  “Come in, please,” a male voice, somewhat nasal, called.

  “Right in there, sir,” the aide said, opened the door, then closed it after Frade had passed through.

  Frade expected General Wallace. He got instead a white-haired civilian of about fifty who had a somewhat baggy suit, a bow tie, and a mustache that would have been Hitlerian had it not been almost white. He looked very much like the Reverend Richard Cobbs Lacey, headmaster of Saint Mark’s of Texas, an Episcopal preparatory school in Dallas at which a fourteen-year-old Clete had had a brief—five months—and ultimately disastrous association.

  “Ah,” the man said. “Major Frade. I have just helped myself to some of the general’s whiskey. May I offer you one?”

  It’s almost eight p.m. Why not?

  “Thank you,” Frade said.

  But who the hell is this guy?

  The man walked to a table on which were bottles of whiskey, glasses, bottles of soda, and a silver ice bowl.

  “What’s your preference, Major?”

  “Is that Jack Daniel’s?”

  “Indeed. And how do you take it?”

  “Straight, with a couple of ice cubes.”

  The man made the drink, then handed it to Clete and put out his hand.

  “Allen Welsh Dulles,” he said.

  “Cletus Frade.”

  The man’s grip was firm.

  “Yes, I know,” the man said. “How was your flight?”

  “Very nice, thank you. Who are you?”

  “I told you. My name is Allen Welsh Dulles.”

  “That’s your name”—your three-part name, just like Richard Cobbs Lacey, and it’s for some reason vaguely familiar—“not who you are.”

  Dulles smiled.

  “We have mutual friends.”

  “We do?”

  “Your grandfather, for one.”

  Clete’s eyebrows rose.

  “That’s not precise,” Dulles said. He raised his glass. “Cheers!”

  Clete tapped the glass and took a sip.

  Taking this drink is probably not very smart.

  This guy wants something from me, and I’ve already decided he’s smarter than I am.

  What the hell is going on?

  “Actually, my brother—John Foster Dulles—is an attorney in New York City. Among his firm’s clients are Cletus Marcus Howell and Howell Petroleum.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I’ve never had the privilege of meeting Mr. Howell—which I am led to believe is often an interesting experience—but nevertheless I relay, through my brother, your grandfather’s best wishes.”

  Okay. Now I know what’s going on.

  This guy wants to know who Galahad is.

  As a friend of the Old Man, he thinks he’s got an in with me.

  Fuck you, you three-name sonofabitch!

  “And as does, of course, Alejandro Graham,” Dulles added.

  Jesus!

  “I had dinner with Alex several nights ago in Washington,” Dulles went on. “We have been friends for a long time.”

  Frade didn’t reply.

  “Major Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein,” Dulles said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Is Galahad,” Dulles said.

  That’s nothing but a guess.

  “Who?”

  Dulles smiled at him.

  “Major Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein is Galahad,” Dulles said. “Which is something the FBI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Army’s Chief of Intelligence, and of course SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg—and others—would dearly like to know.”

  Jesus, he knows about von Deitzberg?

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Frade said.

  Dulles smiled at him, then took a sip of his drink.

  “Well, they won’t hear it from me,” Dulles said.

  “Hear what from you?”

  “The identity of Galahad.”

  “We’re back to the fact that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Dulles smiled at him.

  “Let me tell you about my dinner with Alex Graham,” Dulles said. “Your drink all right? Need a little top-off?”

  “My drink is fine, thank you.”

  “It was in the Hotel Washington,” Dulles said. “You know it?”

  Frade shook his head.

  “Right around the corner from the White House,” Dulles said, “which is convenient when the President, as he did a couple of nights ago, wants to have a private dinner away from the White House.”

  “The President?” Frade blurted.

  “The Secret Service just rolls his wheelchair into a laundry van, drives it around the corner to the service entrance of the Washington, then rolls him through the kitchen in the basement to the service elevator, and on up to an apartment they keep for him there.”

  “He can’t walk?” Frade blurted.

  Dulles shook his head. “Not much farther than that door”—he pointed— “and that’s pretty exhausting for him.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Not many people do,” Dulles said. “Anyway, it was a small dinner. Just the President, Graham, Donovan, Putzi Hanfstaengl, and me.”

  “Am I supposed to know who Putzi Haf . . . whatever you said . . . is?”

  “I’d be surprised if you did. Putzi Hanfstaengl—Ernst is his name; we just call him ‘Putzi’—is a German. He was at Columbia with Roosevelt and Donovan. Got pretty close to Hitler. He was smart enough to get out just in time— before they were going to see he had a fatal accident. As an enemy alien in the U.S., he’s under arrest, of course. The Army has posted guards on him in his quote cell end quote at the Washington, which just happens to be down the corridor from the President’s apartment. Staff Sergeant Ernst Hanfstaengl—same name as his father, you might note—is in charge of that guard detail. So far Putzi hasn’t tried to escape.”

  “This all sounds . . . fantastic!”

  “And I have barely begun, Major Frade. You sure you wouldn’t like me to refresh your drink?”

  “I think that would be a
very bad idea, Mr. Dulles.”

  “Please call me ‘Allen.’ And if I may, I’d like to call you ‘Cletus.’ ”

  “I could no more call you Allen, sir, than I could call Colonel Graham by his first name.”

  “Give it a shot. It may not be as difficult as you might think. But may I call you ‘Cletus’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you. Well, the reason Putzi was there was because we were talking about the war against Germany—”

  “Who the hell are you?” Frade blurted.

  “I do, in Bern, Switzerland, what you are doing in Buenos Aires. I keep an eye on the Germans and try to make trouble for them. I’m the OSS station chief in Switzerland.”

  That’s it! Graham told me about a Dulles!

  So this could all be true, of course.

  But it could also be some sort of trap.

  Have I admitted Galahad is von Wachtstein?

  Cletus, ol’ pal, you’re way in over your depth here.

  “The regional commander?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re the OSS regional commander?”

  “I suppose you could phrase it that way. But I concentrate on the German and Italian high commands. The sabotage and espionage, that sort of thing, is run by David Bruce out of London.”

  I’ve got a badge. All my people have badges.

  How come you don’t?

  What have I got to lose by asking?

  “I don’t suppose you have your credentials handy, do you, Mr. Dulles?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your credentials. Your badge.”

  “Now I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then how do I know you’re who you say you are?”

  “I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it. May I continue?”

  Frade raised both hands in a Have at it gesture.

  “Your name came up,” Dulles went on. “We talked of other things, of course, but your name came up.”

  Frade didn’t reply.

  “The President said that Alex had a loose cannon running around in Argentina, who—believe it or not—refused to share the name of his mole in the German embassy in Buenos Aires with his commander in chief.”