Death and Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

  “I didn’t think he was. Who is he?”

  “A very senior OSS officer.”

  “Who works for Colonel Graham?”

  “Who works with Colonel Graham.”

  “An important man,” Delgano said.

  Frade nodded. “When I told him about the Froggers . . . I have to go off on a tangent here, Gonzo. What do you know about Operation Phoenix?”

  Delgano gestured with his hand toward Frade. “Why don’t you tell me about Operation Phoenix?”

  “I will if you tell me whether or not you’ve heard about it, Major Delgano.”

  Delgano shrugged. “Very well. I’ve heard about it.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you everything I know about it, and you can then tell me if it’s what you’ve heard.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Just about everybody in Hitler’s circle but Hitler himself has realized that the war essentially is over, and that most of them are going to get hung. So Martin Bormann came up with a plan—Operation Phoenix—to buy a sanctuary in South America. Primarily in Argentina, but also in Brazil, Paraguay . . .”

  “That’s pretty much what we’ve heard,” Delgano said when Frade had finished.

  “What have you heard about the ransoming of Jews out of the concentration camps and arranging for them to get out of Germany and come to Argentina and Uruguay?”

  Delgano didn’t reply immediately.

  “Nothing,” he finally said. “But it would certainly explain something that’s been bothering us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two things: Where all those pathetic ‘Spanish and Portuguese’ Jews are coming from—pathetic meaning undernourished, showing signs of abuse, and looking very frightened. And with numbers tattooed on their inner arms.” He pointed to his own arm. “We checked their passports. They’re valid.”

  “You said two things,” Frade said.

  “And the passage of large amounts of dollars and pounds sterling through Argentina and into Uruguay.”

  Frade smiled knowingly. He said, “The operation is run by Himmler’s adjutant, SS-Brigadeführer Manfred von Deitzberg, who was recently in Argentina wearing the uniform of a Wehrmacht major general.”

  “We knew that—that he was really SS—but never quite understood what he was doing in Argentina.”

  “Looking for Galahad and protecting the ransoming operation.”

  “From you?”

  Frade nodded, and said, “But he really has nothing to worry about for the moment. President Roosevelt has decided that my shutting it down would have the effect of sending more Jews to the ovens or being worked—or starved—to death. So the plan is that we’ll deal with those bastards once the Germans have surrendered.”

  “One of the problems you—the United States and England—have in Argentina, Cletus, is that very few people are willing to believe the Germans are capable of cruelty—mass murder—on that scale.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Frade said, and went on: “My orders are to keep track of both Operation Phoenix and the ransoming money.”

  “This is where you have to tell me about South American Airways. Alejandro Martín doesn’t believe much—in fact, anything—about the story you’ve given about why the U.S. suddenly is willing to provide us airplanes that Brazil—and other of your allies—would very much like to have.”

  Delgano paused, chuckled, then went on: “But his philosophy is much like yours, Cletus: Let the bastards get away with whatever it is for now. We’ll deal with them later, and in the meantime we’ll have the airplanes.”

  “And Gonzo Delgano is watching the bastards like a condor?”

  Delgano smiled and nodded.

  “The true story is pretty incredible,” Frade said. “You want to hear it anyway?”

  Delgano nodded.

  “You know who Colonel Charles Lindbergh is?”

  Delgano’s face showed he found the question unnecessary to the point of being insulting.

  “Well, Lindbergh went to Germany, where Göring gave him a medal, then Lindbergh came home and announced that the Luftwaffe was the most advanced . . .”

  “You’re right,” Delgano said. “That story is so incredible that I don’t think you could have made it up. Really?”

  Frade nodded. “That’s it. Believe it or not. Okay. Getting back to the Froggers.”

  “Okay.”

  “You want the short version or the long one?” Clete asked.

  “Try the short one first.”

  “The Froggers had three sons. Two of them were killed. Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Frogger was captured with General von Arnim when the Afrikakorps surrendered, and was taken to America. When I was gone—ostensibly getting my ATR check ride in a Lodestar—I actually flew a Constellation to the POW cage in Mississippi. I showed Frogger pictures of his parents with me and Len Fischer. I told him why his parents—at least his father—had fled the German embassy—”

  “ ‘At least his father’?”

  “La Señora Frogger is a dedicated Nazi. And, as such, too much of a zealot to believe that the Nazis would kill her and her husband without blinking an eye.”

  Delgano’s face showed surprise, but he said nothing.

  “Anyway, I told Frogger about Operation Phoenix—”

  “And he believed you?”

  Frade nodded. “And he’s willing to talk to his father about helping me keep track of the Operation Phoenix and ransoming money.”

  “Two questions about that. First, why would he do that? Second, how could he do that from a prisoner camp in . . . where did you say? Mississippi?”

  “He’s not in Mississippi,” Frade said.

  Delgano considered that a moment, then an eyebrow went up. “Canoas?”

  Frade nodded again.

  “How did he get there?”

  “In a Constellation.”

  “The same one you flew to Mississippi to see him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It doesn’t add up, Cletus. I don’t think you’re lying to me, but I’m sure you’re not telling me everything.”

  Clete smiled. “I’m not and I’m not.”

  “You’re going to have to tell me everything.”

  “Tell me what doesn’t add up, and I’ll try.”

  “Let’s go back to SAA’s insurance being canceled,” Delgano said. “Martín doesn’t believe that. He thinks it was arranged to give you a credible excuse to come to the United States. To see this Colonel Frogger?”

  "It was.”

  Delgano squinted his eyes. He looked a little mad . . . or maybe hurt.

  “Your anger was very convincing,” he said. “I told Martín I believed you.”

  “I didn’t know until we got to the Chateau Marmont. Graham was there.”

  Delgano considered that, then asked, “Who arranged the scenario?”

  “The man you met in Canoas. His name is Allen Dulles. He does in Europe what Graham does in the Western Hemisphere.”

  “As important as keeping a track on the German money in Argentina may be to you, I don’t think it’s important enough for all of this. And I find it very hard to believe that a German lieutenant colonel is going to change sides simply because you have his parents.”

  Frade didn’t reply for a long moment. Then he said, “Frogger had changed sides, to use your term, before I saw him. Before he was captured. I didn’t know this when I went to see him, and he was everything you’d expect an officer to be. He wouldn’t give me anything but his name and his rank and his service number.”

  “What happened?”

  “I really don’t want to tell you this, and after I do you will probably— almost certainly—wish I hadn’t told you.”

  “We won’t know that, will we, until you do? So tell me.”

  Frade made a grunt. “Okay. There is a plot involving a number of senior German officers to kill Hitler and end the war they know they have no chance of winning before more people are killed. Frogger has been part of it for some t
ime. When it came out that we knew about it—”

  “You told him?”

  “It came out almost accidentally. He threw a name at me and saw on my face that I knew it.”

  “That tells me, you know, that the Germans you’re working with in Buenos Aires—Galahad certainly, the ambassador maybe, and probably others—are involved in this assassination plot.”

  “I don’t want to answer that, Gonzo.”

  Delgano looked Frade in the eyes a long moment.

  “You don’t have to, Cletus. And you’re right, my friend. My life would be a lot more comfortable from now on if I didn’t know about this.”

  “If it gets out, a lot of good, decent officers are going to wind up with piano wire around their necks and hanging from butcher hooks.”

  “And if it doesn’t get out, Hitler is assassinated.”

  “That’s what we’re hoping for.”

  It was another long moment before Delgano went on: “The rest of the scenario is that we fly to Canoas, then smuggle Frogger into the country. And I tell no one. Is that it?”

  “That’s part of it. The other part is that we smuggle the Froggers out of Argentina into Brazil, where they will be seen boarding a British warship or airplane—that hasn’t been worked out completely yet—then smuggle them back into Argentina.”

  “To call off the hunt for them in Argentina?”

  Frade nodded.

  “And you’re asking me to help you with this?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You realize that I am honor bound to tell Colonel Martín everything you’ve told me.”

  “That’s the call you have to make, Gonzo. What does your honor demand of you?”

  “Goddamn you, Cletus!”

  Delgano stood up.

  “If I walk out of here without giving you an answer, are you going to shoot me?”

  “I should, but I couldn’t, and I think you know that.”

  “I’m going to take a walk. I think better when I’m walking. And I also pray better while walking, rather than on my knees.”

  He walked quickly to the door, then turned back toward Frade.

  “Don’t come after me,” he said. “And for Christ’s sake, don’t try to reason with me.”

  When Delgano had been gone for twenty minutes, Frade relit the cigar he had been holding unlit for most of that time and walked to the door. He spotted Delgano on the threshold of the runway, walking slowly back and forth across the markings. Delgano could have been talking to himself.

  Finally, Delgano threw his hands up in what could have been a gesture of frustration—or one of decision—and started walking purposefully back toward the terminal building.

  He walked up to Frade, who had stepped out of the building.

  They locked eyes for a long moment.

  “May God damn you, Cletus. And may God forgive me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Delgano said, his voice strained with emotion, “that if you promise to try to remember the Lodestar is not a fighter, I’ll let you fly to Canoas.”

  Clete nodded. “Muchas gracias, mi amigo.”

  Then he saw tears in Delgano’s eyes and felt them well up in his own. He grabbed Delgano and hugged him tightly.

  [TWO]

  Canoas Air Base Pôrto Alegre, Brazil 2135 11 August 1943

  Canoas ground control told them to turn off the runway onto Taxiway 6 and hold; a Follow-Me would meet them.

  The checkerboard-painted truck appeared two minutes later and led them to a remote corner of the field, across the runway complex from Base Operations. A Constellation was parked there, and before they could bring the Lodestar to a stop next to it, a MP jeep—a red light on its fender flashing brightly in the night—came racing up, followed by a staff car on the bumper of which was the starred plate of a general officer.

  United States Army Air Forces Brigadier General J. B. Wallace, his aide-de-camp, and two MPs, one of them a captain, were standing on the tarmac when Frade opened the passenger door and got out.

  Frade resisted the Pavlovian impulse to salute.

  “Welcome back to Canoas, Señor Frade,” Wallace said.

  “I didn’t expect to be met by the base commander, sir,” Frade said.

  “Well, I would think the circumstances rather dictated that I should, wouldn’t you?”

  “Very kind of you, sir.”

  Delgano came out of the Lodestar somewhat awkwardly, carrying a canvas overnight bag in each hand.

  Wallace eyed him warily, glanced at the Connie, then said, “The . . . others . . . arrived a few hours ago. May I ask who this gentleman is?”

  “El Señor Delgano is South American Airways’ chief pilot.”

  “And will he be going with us to meet . . . the others?”

  “Oh, yes,” Frade said.

  General Wallace made a rather grand gesture toward the staff car.

  Wallace’s aide indicated that Frade and Delgano should get in the backseat. As the general got in the front passenger seat, the aide extended his hand for the overnight bags, then put them in the trunk and got in the car behind the wheel.

  “Blow the horn at them,” General Wallace ordered, then reached over and did it himself. “Let’s get the show on the road!”

  The siren on the MP jeep began to howl, and both vehicles took off.

  General Wallace turned in his seat to face Frade. “May I speak with Mr. . . . Delgano, you said? . . . here?”

  “Anything you have to say to me, sir, you can say to Captain Delgano.”

  “I had a personal message from General Arnold directing me to place all my facilities at the disposal of the OSS for this operation of yours.”

  “Did you?”

  And General Arnold didn’t mention that this operation of mine is sort of a secret, and that running us around the base behind a MP jeep with its siren and strobe going might not be such a good idea?

  You didn’t think that might make people wonder what the hell is going on?

  “What I’ve done is put the crew of the Constellation in the visiting officers’ BOQ. I’ve put you—and the others—in a senior officers’ quarters—a rather nice little cottage that was, fortunately, vacant. I hope that’s all right, Mr. Frade?”

  “Fine. Thank you, sir.”

  “And put it under secure guard, of course,” General Wallace concluded.

  There was another MP jeep in the driveway of a red-tile-roofed cottage. It was parked nose out, and its headlights illuminated the lawn of the adjacent cottage, where two Brazilian women—obviously maids of some sort—stood with their arms folded, almost visibly wondering what all the activity was about. As the general’s escort jeep pulled to a stop and its siren died, the MPs in the parked jeep jumped out, popped to attention, and saluted the staff car.

  “Would you like me to come in with you, Mr. Frade?” General Wallace asked. He already had his front passenger door open.

  “That won’t be necessary, General, thank you. What I want you to do, if you’d be so kind, is to get us a car and driver to use while we’re here. It’s getting late, and we still have to go to the officers’ club for dinner.”

  “I can arrange for the club to deliver your dinner, if you’d like. Security might be a problem there.”

  “We’d rather go to the club, if that would be all right. And speaking of security, you can send the MPs away, please.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “I think so. I appreciate your concern, but we’re all armed.”

  “Whatever you say, Mr. Frade. Can you give me some idea how long you’ll be here?”

  “We’ll leave at first light. And as soon as we break ground, the Constellation will go back to the States. I presume that if I need anything, I can get in touch with you by asking the operator for the commanding general?”

  Wallace nodded, then said rather formally, “I’ll be available around the clock, Mr. Frade.”

  “I’ll make sure General Arnold know
s of my appreciation of all your efforts, General.”

  “That’s kind of you, Mr. Frade. But unnecessary. I am just doing my duty.”

  “And doing it in an outstanding manner, in my opinion. Thank you again, General.”

  Frade reached across the seat, shook Wallace’s hand, and got out of the staff car. Delgano followed him and they walked to the door of the cottage. There Frade turned and waved to General Wallace as he drove off.

  He looked at Delgano and shook his head.

  Delgano smiled. “We have officers like that in the Ejército Argentino, too. Many of them are colonels and generals.”

  “Shame on you, Major Delgano.”

  Frade lifted the knocker on the door and let it fall.

  One of Howard Hughes’s Saints pulled the door open a crack and, when he recognized Frade, opened it all the way.

  "Be on your guard,” Frade announced. “I sent the MPs away.”

  He intended it to be a joke. If it amused Howard’s Saint, there was no sign of it on his face.

  “They’re in the kitchen,” Howard’s Saint said.

  Len Fischer was still wearing major’s leaves and MP insignia on his uniform, but the white leather accoutrements were gone. Oberstleutnant Wilhelm Frogger was wearing suit pants and a white shirt with the tie pulled down. Frade saw Frogger’s suit jacket on the back of a chair.

  Frade said, “What happened to your pistol, Len? And the fancy holster?”

  “Good evening, sir. It’s nice to see you again, sir. I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Don’t let that major’s leaf go to your head, Len,” Frade said, then motioned toward Delgano. “You remember Captain Delgano, right?”

  The two wordlessly shook hands.

  Fischer turned around. He had a Model 1911-A1 Colt pistol in the small of his back.

  “And who is this gentleman?” Frade asked about Frogger.

  “My name is Wilhelm Fischer,” Frogger said formally. “I am a South African.”

  “And presumably you have a passport to prove it?”

  Frogger reached into an interior pocket of the suit jacket and came out with a passport, which he handed to Frade.

  Frade studied it carefully for almost a minute, then handed it to Delgano.

  “This is Mr. Fischer, of Durban, South Africa,” Frade said. “He’ll be flying to Buenos Aires with us.”