Death and Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

“And you’re holding them.”

  “I have no choice. They have seen too much for me to let them go. But that’s moot, Colonel. The SS will kill them where and when found.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “You’ll have to take my word for that, too.”

  Frogger thought about that a moment, then said, “What exactly is it that you want from me?”

  “I want you to come to Argentina and convince your father that his—and your mother’s—only hope to stay alive is to cooperate fully with me in tracking the Operation Phoenix and ransoming money.”

  “I thought you have spies—traitors—in the embassy. They can’t provide that information?”

  Frade shook his head.

  “If they could, I wouldn’t be wasting time here talking to you.”

  Frogger considered that a moment, then carefully extinguished his cigarette and stood.

  “Very imaginative,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Frogger popped to attention.

  “Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

  “Sit down, Frogger. I’m not through with you.”

  “Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

  “I’m not going to tell you again,” Frade said softly.

  “Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

  “You’re back in the plot for a bad movie, are you?”

  “Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

  “Then this is the place in that movie where the interrogator loses his temper and starts punching you? Or puts burning matches under your fingernails?”

  “Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

  “The place where the hero decides that his parents and he himself must die painfully and bravely for the good of the Thousand-Year Reich, the Fatherland, and of course the Führer?”

  “Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

  “And then the Berlin Philharmonic starts playing ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles’?”

  Frogger glowered at him.

  As if leading the Berlin Philharmonic with both hands, Frade began to loudly sing: “ ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt . . .’ ” He stopped, then added in German, “Nice melody. But no, Willi, that’s not going to happen.”

  Frade walked to the door and opened it.

  “Major, will you please come in and handcuff Colonel Frogger? Put him in the car.” As Fischer entered, Frade pointed at the table. “And have someone bring all that stuff. He’s going to need it in the Aleutians.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fischer said.

  Frogger stiffened.

  As Fischer approched, Frogger announced, “Under the Geneva Convention, I am entitled to an audience with the camp commander.”

  Frade walked out of the room.

  [THREE]

  “Well, I’m not surprised that you gave up,” Colonel A. F. Graham said to Major Cletus Frade as they stood out of the sun in the cool shade of a magnificent magnolia tree and watched Fischer load Frogger in the backseat of the staff car. “That sonofabitch is tougher than he looks. But I wonder if maybe you quit a little too soon.”

  “Colonel, I haven’t quit. I’m just starting.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “The Kraut who Roosevelt has stashed in the Hotel Washington.”

  “You want to take him to Washington to see Hanfstaengl?”

  Frade nodded. “By way of Fort Bragg.”

  “What’s at Fort Bragg?”

  “I heard it’s even bigger than Camp Pendleton, and there should be a lot of planes on the air base because of the paratroopers.”

  “You’re trying to impress Frogger?”

  Frade nodded again.

  “I don’t think that will work, and I don’t think taking him to see Putzi Hanfstaengl in Washington is a good idea.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ!” Frade said in exasperation.

  “By now, you should know that the way this works is I make the decisions and you make them happen.”

  “Colonel, what you said was, ‘Use your best judgment. I’ll back whatever you decide to do.’ This is my best judgment. If you don’t want to do it, Colonel, sir, that’s your call.”

  “I don’t like your tone of voice, Major,” Graham said coldly.

  Frade’s face showed that he didn’t much care whether Colonel Graham liked the tone of his voice or not.

  After a long moment, Graham said, “You showed him that Office of War Information radioteletype about warning people to get out of Berlin?” When Frade nodded, Graham added, “If you really want to impress him, we could quote refuel end quote at Newark.”

  “What’s going on at Newark?”

  “It’s the jump-off point for B-17s, B-24s, and whatever else can make it across the Atlantic. The last time I was there, it was a sea of bombers.”

  Frade nodded his understanding.

  “And on the way,” Graham said, warming to his own idea, “we could fly over Manhattan—which has not been bombed—and then over the shipyards in New Jersey and around Baltimore . . . and finally Washington, the White House, and all those buildings untouched by the war.”

  He saw the look on Frade’s face.

  “Okay, Clete, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Allen Dulles thinks turning the Froggers is important.”

  Frade did not reply.

  “This isn’t the first time that I’ve given you the benefit of my very serious doubts, is it?”

  “I don’t think I’d better answer that.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” Graham said.

  Frade didn’t respond.

  “There are several problems with taking him to see Putzi at the Hotel Washington,” Graham went on. “For one thing, Frogger says he never heard of him—”

  “He’s heard of him,” Frade said flatly.

  Graham grinned. “Odd, we’ve found something we agree on. I’ll have to give Putzi a heads-up we’re coming, and why.”

  “Just tell him we want him to convince Willi that Putzi was a pal of Adolf and his cronies, and—”

  “I know what to tell him,” Graham cut him off. “What I’m thinking is that taking a German officer, in Afrikakorps uniform, into the Hotel Washington may raise some eyebrows.”

  “If anybody asks, tell them he’s a character in one of Howard’s movies.”

  Graham shook his head.

  “And speaking of Howard,” Frade said, “are those guys in the white jackets on the Constellation his or yours? They’re the same ones who were in the Chateau Marmont, right?”

  “You mean Howard’s Saints? I wondered how long it was going to take you to get around to asking about them.”

  “ ‘Howard’s Saints’?”

  “They’re Mormons. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They don’t drink, they don’t smoke, they don’t even drink coffee. They protect Howard from all sorts of threats—some real, some imagined. He pays them very well.”

  “Do they carry guns? Can they help Fischer guard Frogger?”

  Graham nodded.

  “Can we get Howard on the phone while Fischer and Frogger are on their way to the airport? Give him a heads-up?”

  Graham nodded and said, “You’re not going with them?”

  “Let him worry what you and I are up to,” Frade said. “And then be dazzled by the airplane while he’s waiting for us.”

  Graham considered that, then nodded. “Okay.”

  Frade walked to the staff car. Frogger was in the backseat, his hands handcuffed behind him. Fischer was standing by the door.

  “Get Colonel Frogger out of the hot sun, Major,” Frade ordered. “Put him on the plane. Cuff him to one of the seats halfway down the fuselage. If he tries to escape, shoot him in the foot; try very hard not to kill him. What I don’t need right now is a noble martyr to the
Nazi cause.”

  “Yes, sir,” Fischer said.

  [FOUR]

  Bolling Air Force Base Washington, D.C. 1730 6 August 1943

  Clete didn’t know, of course, whether Oberstleutnant Frogger was impressed with his tour of the Eastern Seaboard from Connecticut to Washington, D.C.— with a side trip to North Carolina to Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg—but as Frade lined up the Constellation with the runway at Bolling, he didn’t see how Frogger could not be. He had been dazzled himself.

  After the flyover of Bragg and Pope—and they had been lucky there; an enormous fleet of C-47s was in the process of disgorging a regiment of paratroopers as they flew over—they had flown to north of New York City, where Hughes had called Air Traffic Control and reported they were having pressurization problems, and requested an approach to the field at Newark at no higher than five thousand feet.

  That allowed them to fly at that altitude over Manhattan Island. The Hudson River was full of ships, and they got a look at the bustling shipyards in New Jersey. Taking on fuel at Newark gave them forty minutes on the ground, which in turn gave them—and, more important, Frogger—that long of a time to see row after row of glistening new B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers preparing to fly to Europe.

  Hughes again called Air Traffic Control, reported they were still having pressurization problems, and requested—and received—permission to fly to Bolling at five thousand feet.

  Their routing took them over Delaware, then Baltimore, and finally Washington. It was a sunny day and all the buildings of the capital were on clear display, every one untouched by any sign of bombing.

  They were third in the pattern to land at Bolling, after a B-26 light bomber and a four-engine Douglas C-54 transport. Frade then greased in the Constellation. He really thought it was a combination of a nice day, a low, slow approach, and a lot of beginner’s luck, but was nonetheless pleased when he heard Howard Hughes say over the intercom, “Not bad, Little Cletus.”

  The tower directed them to the tarmac before a remote hangar on the opposite side of the field from Base Operations. The hangar was under heavy guard—submachine-gun armed MPs on foot and others in a three-quarter-ton weapons carrier and a jeep. Frade was curious about that and even more curious to see that a dozen or more men were in the hangar polishing the aluminum skin of a C-54.

  Hughes answered his question before Frade could put it into words.

  “The Sacred Cow,” he said.

  “The what?”

  “The Sacred Cow,” Hughes explained, “is the President’s personal aircraft. He really should have one of these; they’re faster, have a longer range, and are more comfortable. But Lockheed makes these, Charley Lindbergh works for Lockheed, and our commander in chief is cutting off his nose to spite his face because he’s got a hard-on for Charley.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Don’t tell anyone, Little Cletus, but our noble commander in chief can be a vindictive sonofabitch. Ask your grandfather.”

  Ground handlers pushed steps against the Constellation’s rear and behind the cockpit doors. A closed van backed up to the steps rising to the door behind the cockpit. On its sides was a sign: CAPITOL CATERING. A 1940 Packard limousine pulled up to the stairs leading to the passenger compartment. A chauffeur got out and the rear door opened.

  Frade walked down the aisle to Frogger, who was handcuffed to one of the seats. A fold-down shelf on the rear of the seat ahead of him held a coffee cup and an ashtray.

  Frade squatted in the aisle.

  “Welcome to Washington, Herr Oberstleutnant.”

  Frogger did not reply.

  “One of two things is going to happen now,” Frade said. “I’m going to have the major remove your handcuffs. Then you have your choice of walking forward and going down the stairs and into the van. Or you can be difficult about this, and the handcuffs will be put back on your wrists and you will be led— or carried, if you choose to be difficult—down the wider stairs at the passenger compartment door and put into the van.”

  “Where am I being taken?”

  “To see Herr Hanfstaengl. He’s a former close friend of your Führer.”

  “This entire situation, sir, is a violation of my rights under the Geneva Convention! I demand to see a representative of the International Red Cross!”

  Frade stood and looked at Fischer.

  “Have them cuff Herr Oberstleutnant’s hands behind his back and put him in the van.”

  Frade stood in the passenger door and watched as two of Howard’s Saints marched Frogger down the stairs and to the rear door of the CAPITOL CATERING van. Fischer followed them. The van’s door closed and it drove off.

  Frade stepped back and motioned for Colonel Graham to precede him down the stairs. They both got into the limousine and it drove off.

  As they left the air base, Frade said, “I don’t suppose there’s a radio in that van, is there? And one in here?”

  “There is,” Graham said. “That is, there are. But if you’re thinking of telling them to drive the extra couple blocks to show Frogger the White House, I already have.”

  The Packard stopped in front of the Hotel Washington. Graham got out with Frade on his heels, went through the revolving door, and walked purposefully to the bank of elevators. They got on one, and the operator, a burly black man with gray hair, closed the door.

  “Good evening, Steve,” Graham said politely. “By now they should be waiting for us in the subbasement.”

  “Excuse me, Colonel,” the operator said as he studied Frade and his long locks. “Who’s this gentleman?”

  “This is Major Frade,” Graham said.

  “My heads-up said you, an MP major, two of Mr. Hughes’s men, and a quote end quote special visitor.”

  “And that while we’re in there nobody else is to be admitted?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The MP officer will be in the basement with the special visitor,” Graham explained. “I’ll vouch for this officer.”

  “Yes, sir,” the elevator operator said, and reached for the elevator control. As he did so, Frade saw that the fabric of the operator’s black jacket was tightly stretched over what was almost certainly a 1911-A1 Colt .45 in the small of his back.

  “Why do I suspect you’re one of us?” Frade asked him, smiling.

  “No, sir. I’m Secret Service. We protect the President, the Vice President, their families, and select supposed ex-Nazis.”

  The elevator stopped and the Secret Service man slid open the door.

  Frogger was standing there with one of Hughes’s men on each side. Fischer stood to one side.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” the Secret Service man said. “I guess you’re waiting for the elevator to the Washington Berghof?”

  Graham laughed.

  “Get on, please, Oberstleutnant Frogger,” Graham ordered.

  Frogger looked reluctant, almost as if he was going to refuse.

  “Get on,” Graham repeated.

  Frogger didn’t move.

  “Colonel, you better get on,” the Secret Service man said in perfect German. “If I have to come out there and throw you on, you’re not going to like it at all.”

  Frogger came into the elevator and the others crowded in after him.

  The Secret Service man took a telephone from its hanger and said into it: “Six on the way up. Clear the corridor.”

  The elevator began to rise. When the car stopped and its door was opened, there was a small sign announcing SEVENTH FLOOR.

  There also were two men in civilian clothing waiting for them. From the respect with which they greeted Colonel Graham—and from their haircuts— Frade guessed they were soldiers, maybe even Marines.

  “This way please, Colonel, gentlemen.”

  They were led to a door at the end of the corridor. One of the men gestured at Howard’s Saints, signaling them that the corridor was as far as they were going to be allowed to go, and then opened the door and gestured for Graham, Frade, Fis
her, and Frogger to go in. When they had done so, the door was closed after them.

  Frade saw they were in a comfortably furnished corner sitting room. Its windows opened on both Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street. The White House, a block or so to the west, was clearly visible over the roof of the Treasury Department building.

  An interior door opened and a tall man with somewhat sunken eyes and a prominent chin walked in. He was wearing a white shirt, no tie, and the cuffs were rolled up.

  “Hello, Alex,” he said in Boston—or at least Harvard—accented English.

  “How are you, Putzi?” Graham said as they shook hands.

  Hanfstaengl looked at Frogger and said in German, “Colonel, I’m Ernst Hanfstaengl. And you can let your breath out. You are not about to be hung on a meat hook.”

  Frogger glared at him but said nothing.

  Hanfstaengl turned to Graham.

  “I don’t need to know who these gentlemen are, Alex, but it probably would be quite helpful if I knew what it is they—or you—want from the colonel.”

  “Putzi, I’m afraid that’s classified,” Graham said.

  “Mr. Hanfstaengl,” Frade said, “what I would like for you to do is tell the colonel what scum are running Germany.”

  Hanfstaengl looked at Frade, then raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, that wouldn’t be hard—I know most of them—but what makes you think he’d believe me? Someone in my position would not be likely to say that Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Democratic Workers Party are the hope of Western civilization, now would he?”

  “Give it a shot, please,” Frade said on the cusp of unpleasantness.

  Hanfstaengl looked at Graham for guidance.

  Graham said, “Tell the colonel, for example, where Hitler got the money to buy the Volkische Beobachter.”

  “The people’s what?” Frade asked.

  “ ‘The People’s Observer,’ literally translated,” Hanfstaengl said. “The Nazi party newspaper. Hitler got it from me. I gave him the money.”

  “And why did you do that?” Graham asked softly.

  “At the time, I believed Hitler was the hope of Germany and possibly the only thing standing between Germany, Europe, Western civilization, and the Communist hordes.”