Frade then made an imperial gesture, allowing him to stand.
“Pick up their weapons, Stein,” Frade ordered, and then, in Spanish, ordered Enrico to take the Secret Service men to his room.
Enrico gestured with the shotgun.
When Frade saw on their faces that neither Special Service agent understood Spanish, he made the translation.
“I just told him to take you to my room,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to come across this happy scene. Through the door and up the steps.”
Frade sat on his bed and motioned for the Secret Service agents to stand against the wall.
“All right, Colonel Frade,” the Secret Service agent who had spoken first and had now recovered his composure said. “Don’t you think this charade has now gone far enough?”
Frade smiled at him.
“We know all about you, Colonel . . .”
Somehow, I don’t think so.
“. . . including, for example, the half million dollars you brought to Germany with you.”
Well, I don’t think you got that information from anybody else in the OSS except good ol’ Colonel Richmond C. Flowers, USA.
That sonofabitch!
“What did you say your name was?” Frade asked.
“Stevenson. Supervisory Special Agent Jerome T. Stevenson.”
“Well, Jerome, Boy Scout’s Honor, I didn’t bring a half million dollars from anywhere. Where’d you get that? What was I supposed to be going to do with all that money? And what makes you think I’m a colonel?”
“You’re going to have to turn us loose sooner or later, Colonel Frade,” Stevenson said.
“That, or shoot you for interfering with an OSS operation,” Frade said.
“Smuggling Nazis into Argentina is an OSS operation? Is that what you’re asking me to believe?”
“So, that’s what this is all about. What else did that asshole Flowers tell you?”
He saw the look on Stevenson’s face.
Bingo! Flowers is the one who ran off at the mouth.
Stevenson said: “You’re denying that you are assisting in the escape of Nazis to Argentina?”
Frade replied: “Supervisory Secret Service Agent Stevenson, say hello to OSS Special Agent Stein. Show Supervisory Special Agent Stevenson your credentials, Siggie.”
Stein produced his spurious OSS credentials and showed them to Stevenson.
“Now, Jerome, if I told you that Stein is a devout, practicing Hebrew who lost many members of his family to the concentration camp ovens after he barely got out of the Third Reich alive, what would you say the odds are that Siggie would be helping Nazis escape to anywhere?”
Stevenson, who looked more than a little confused, didn’t reply.
“Rephrasing the question, Jerome. What would you say the odds are that Special Agent Stein adds a certain enthusiasm to his present tasks that a non-Jew simply couldn’t muster?”
“You’re suggesting that what you’re doing is stopping Nazis from escaping?”
“I’m not suggesting that. I’m telling you that. And what it looks like to me is that you and your pal here are about to screw things up for us. The Secret Service was not on the list of cooperating agencies that SHAEF gave me. Which makes me suspect that you’re not telling me the truth, Jerome, which naturally makes me wonder what the hell the truth is.”
“The truth, Colonel Frade,” Stevenson said, “is that we have been sent here by Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau to prevent Nazis from escaping to South America.”
“Then why didn’t SHAEF tell me that?”
Stevenson didn’t answer.
“SHAEF doesn’t know Morgenthau sent you? Is that what you’re telling me—or not telling me, as the case may be?”
Again, Stevenson didn’t answer directly. He instead said, “Colonel Frade, when OSS has been disbanded, as I’m sure you know it is about to be, it would be in your interest to have friends in the Secret Service.”
“The OSS is about to be disbanded? I never heard that.”
“Take my word on it,” Stevenson said. “You’re about to be homeless, and it is not wise for homeless people to interfere with Secretary Morgenthau.”
“I certainly wouldn’t want to interfere with Secretary Morgenthau. So I’ll tell you what I am going to do: I’m going to move this problem up the chain of command. Do you know what that means?”
Again, Stevenson didn’t reply.
“What that means, Jerome, is that we’re going to wait here for my boss. He’s pretty far up the chain of command at SHAEF, and he’s in charge of keeping Nazis from escaping to South America. Maybe he knows something I don’t.”
Stevenson said nothing.
“He should be here in just a few minutes,” Frade said. “And while we’re waiting, Jerome, I think you and your pal should take off your shoes and socks and your trousers and underpants.”
“What?” Stevenson demanded incredulously.
“That should keep you from trying to run away,” Frade said.
“Fuck you!” Stevenson said.
“Well, if you’re shy, Jerome, I can have Siggie and Hansel pour water all over you. That would keep you from running, and you and your pal could keep your undersized equipment secret.”
“Frade, you’re going to pay for this!”
“Siggie, there’s a water pitcher under the sink,” Frade said, pointing.
Stein had just about filled the water pitcher when Supervisory Special Agent Stevenson started taking off his shoes.
[FOUR]
Colonel Robert Mattingly walked into the room fifteen minutes later. On his heels was Master Sergeant Dunwiddie, now wearing an officer equivalent civilian employee uniform, and with a Thompson submachine gun slung from his shoulder.
Stevenson’s eyes widened at the sight of him.
“Good, you’re still up,” Mattingly said. “The convoy couldn’t get past the Russians.” He paused and then asked, “What the hell?”
“Sir, the fat one with his hands covering his crotch tells me that he’s a Secret Service agent sent here by Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau to keep Nazis from escaping to South America. You ever hear anything about that?”
“No,” Mattingly said. “I haven’t.”
“Tell the colonel what you told me, Jerome,” Frade said.
“Who are you, Colonel?” Stevenson demanded.
“I’m the man asking the questions,” Mattingly said. “Question one: Why are you sitting there half naked?”
“That was my idea, sir. In case they decided to run,” Frade said.
“Good thinking!” Mattingly said. “Question two: What’s this about the secretary of the Treasury sending you over here?”
“We have been sent here by Secretary . . .” Stevenson began.
“If I am to believe you, Mr. Stevenson—and I’m finding it hard to do so, frankly—but what I am to understand,” Mattingly said, “is that without seeking the permission of SHAEF, the secretary of the Treasury has sent you here on a private Nazi-hunting operation. Does that about sum it up?”
“May we put our clothing on, Colonel?” Stevenson asked.
Mattingly made a gesture with his hand signaling that that was permissible.
“Thank you,” Stevenson said, and reached for his underpants.
“If what you have told me is true,” Mattingly said, “this will have to be brought to the attention of General Eisenhower—”
“Who will, I feel sure, be happy to accept, indeed be grateful for, the secretary’s desire to help—”
Mattingly silenced him by holding up his hand.
“A word of friendly advice, Mr. Stevenson,” Mattingly said. “Those of us who work closely with the Supreme Commander have learned that it is really ill-advised to predict what General Eisenhower will do in any circumstance.
“Now, there are several problems with bringing this situation to the Supreme Commander’s attention. One of these is the hour. It’s almost midnight. I’m sure th
e Supreme Commander, wherever he is, is sound asleep.”
“Wherever he is?”
Mattingly went on: “SHAEF is in the process of moving here from France, which is another problem. No telling where ol’ Ike has laid his head tonight. But the real problem is that you have arrived at a most unfortunate time. We are in the midst of solving a rather difficult problem . . .”
“What kind of a problem?”
“I’m afraid I can’t get into that with you. Suffice it to say, we are acting at the direct order of the Supreme Commander and the action he has ordered cannot be delayed by something like this.
“So, what I’m going to do, Mr. Stevenson, is get the provost marshal over here. What I’m going to tell him is that you—all the Secret Service people—are to be held incommunicado on the base here until seventeen hundred tomorrow. Your aircraft will not be available to you until that hour.”
“You can’t do that! You don’t have the authority.”
“Believe me, Mr. Stevenson, I do.”
He immediately proved that by picking up the telephone and dialing Operator.
“Colonel,” Mattingly said to the Rhein-Main Air Base provost marshal, “if I told you that these two gentlemen and everybody else who arrived with them on that Constellation have to be held incommunicado on the base until either someone from SHAEF comes to deal with them or until seventeen hundred hours tomorrow—whichever happens first—how would you do that?”
“Well, the simplest solution would be to put them in the stockade. Get the others out of the transient officers’ quarters and put them with these two in the stockade.”
“What, exactly, is the stockade?”
“The Krauts had sort of a police station, a police precinct. It wasn’t damaged much, and I took it over. There’s enough cells for all these people.”
Stevenson spoke up: “Colonel, what if I told you that I’m a supervisory special agent of the United States Secret Service?”
The provost marshal looked at Mattingly. “Is he?”
Mattingly nodded.
“And this man,” Stevenson went on, “has no authority whatever to detain us in any way.”
The arrogance of Stevenson’s tone was not lost on the provost marshal.
“To answer your first question,” the provost marshal told Stevenson, “I’d tell you that I don’t give a damn. If Colonel Mattingly wants you held incommunicado, you get held incommunicado.”
“But we are federal agents!” Stevenson protested.
“I really would rather not put them in cells,” Mattingly said. “What about just holding them in the transient officers’ quarters?”
“I could put MPs on the BOQ, I suppose.”
“And if you took everybody’s shoes and socks, trousers and underpants . . .” Frade suggested helpfully.
“I think just the shoes and trousers, Colonel Frade,” Mattingly said. “We don’t want to embarrass them any more than they already are for having been caught with Secretary Morgenthau’s hand in the cookie jar.”
“Then just shoes and trousers,” the provost marshal said.
“Mr. Dunwiddie,” Mattingly said. “Would you go with the provost marshal while he escorts these gentlemen to their quarters, please?”
“Yes, sir.”
With a casual skill that could have come only with a good deal of practice, Dunwiddie shrugged his shoulder, which caused the strap of the Thompson to slide off. Without looking at the submachine gun, he caught it with one hand in midair, then cradled it across his chest as a hunter would a shotgun.
“After you, gentlemen,” Dunwiddie said.
“You haven’t heard the end of this, Colonel,” Stevenson said.
“One more sign of lack of cooperation on your part and you lose your drawers,” Mattingly said.
It was only when they were sure the departing party was out of earshot that anyone even chuckled. But then the chuckles turned to giggles, and then—when Frade mocked Stevenson modestly covering his private parts with his hands—became outright laughter.
Mattingly sobered first.
“I can’t think of a better solution for the moment to these Secret Service people than the one we just reached,” he said. “But did you ever hear ‘He who laughs last laughs best’? I think this is probably going to come around and bite us on the gluteus maximus.”
Frade then remembered where he had heard the phrase most recently: when Colonel Richmond C. Flowers had given him the halfmillion dollars in Buenos Aires.
Mattingly then said: “With the Russians having stopped our convoy at Helmstedt, we now turn to Plan B. I think the best thing to do is get our show on the road as early as possible tomorrow morning. Dooley, I want you and your P-38s ready to escort the C-54 at first light. Any problem with you being in the air then?”
“No, sir.”
“Know that we do have a communications problem. We have no landlines to Tempelhof. I told the people at Helmstedt to set up the mobile control tower. What I’m hoping is that it will be able to communicate with Dooley’s aircraft, and that Dooley and his people can relay to both Rhein-Main and Tempelhof and with the C-54, and—if we get that far with Plan B—with the SAA Connie. We won’t know if this will work until we try it, which means there is now a Plan C.
“If things go well, I will depart Rhein-Main—from over Rhein-Main, not takeoff—in the C-54 at oh-seven-forty-five. That should put us on the ground at Tempelhof by oh-nine-hundred. While Dooley’s aircraft circle overhead, we will get the mobile control tower that the C-54 will have aboard up and running. I’m told they can do so in thirty minutes; all they need to do is erect some antennae. I’m going to give them an hour. The moment it’s up, the C-54 will be cleared to Rhein-Main.
“That should get us back through the Russian zone forty minutes later. The minute that word gets to Rhein-Main, the SAA Connie—which will have been, since ten-thirty hours, circling Rhein-Main at altitude—will then be cleared for departure to Tempelhof, and should arrive at Tempelhof in time for lunch. Got that, Clete?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think we’re going to be able to pull this off,” Mattingly said. “If not, I’ll see you in Siberia, the other side of the Pearly Gates, or, if Supervisory Special Agent Stevenson has any input, at Prisoner Reception at the Fort Leaven worth Prison.”
There was laughter, some of it a little strained.
“I will now see Colonel Stevens—the SHAEF military government guy—and tell him to have the diplomats out here to board the SAA Connie . . . when, Clete?”
“Well, if we’re going to have to be at ten thousand feet over Rhein-Main by ten-thirty, that means we’ll have to take off at, say, ten-fifteen. Tell him to have the diplomats out here ready to go no later than oh-five-thirty.”
Von Wachtstein laughed.
“Delgano is right, Cletus. You’re evil.”
[ONE]
Aboard Ciudad de Rosario Above Rhein-Main Air Base Frankfurt am Main, Germany 1025 20 May 1945
“We’re indicating ten thousand, Hansel,” Frade announced. “Commence three-minute three-sixty turn.”
“Commencing three-minute circle,” von Wachtstein replied.
“And here comes Dooley,” Clete said as a P-38 pulled alongside. “Hello there, Little Brother!”
“Why don’t you knock that Little Brother shit off, wiseass?”
“Aircraft with your wingtip in my pilot’s ear,” Frade replied mock-seriously, “be advised you are scaring our passengers.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dooley said, disgusted, then excitedly added: “The C-54 just crossed the border!”
“We heard.”
Communications had turned out to be much better than anyone had dared hope they would be. The Rhein-Main control tower could talk to the truck-mounted control tower at Helmstedt, and once the C-54 had landed at Tempelhof and put its control tower in operation, Helmstedt had communication with Berlin.
Whatever Rhein-Main wanted to say to Tempelhof—or vice versa—had
to be relayed via Helmstedt, but it was not necessary to relay messages between any tower via aircraft. And, of course, the airto-ground communications were also far better than expected.
Dooley asked Frade: “Then why did you just begin a turn? Aren’t you going to Berlin?”
“This is Rhein-Main. Clear this channel.”
“Yes, Mother,” Dooley said.
“South American Airways Double Zero Four, Rhein-Main. How do you read?”
“SAA Double Zero Four reads you five by five, Mother.”
“Rhein-Main Area Control clears SAA Double Zero Four direct Tempelhof U.S. Army Airfield Berlin on a heading of forty-eight-point-four degrees at ten thousand feet. Visual flight rules. Report to Helmstedt Area Control using Air-Ground Channel Two when crossing U.S.-Soviet zone border. Be advised that there are numerous USAF P-38 aircraft and possibly some Soviet aircraft operating along your route. Exercise appropriate caution. Acknowledge.”
Clete repeated, essentially verbatim, the Rhein-Main clearance.
“Double Zero Four, Rhein-Main. Affirmative.
“Mother, SAA Double Zero Four beginning climb to ten thousand and course change to forty-eight-point-four at this time.”
Since they were already at ten thousand feet, all von Wachtstein had to do was change course. He made the course correction as a fighter pilot, rather than the captain of an airliner, would—he shoved all four throttles forward as he cranked the yoke just about as far as it would go.
“SAA Double Zero Four, be advised the correct nomenclature of this airfield is Rhein-Main, not Mother.”
“Mother, SAA Double Zero Four, say again. Our pilot has been giving our passengers a thrill, and with all that screaming, I couldn’t hear you.”
Clete looked out the window at Archie Dooley.
Dooley signaled that he was going to fly ahead. Clete nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.
Dooley’s P-38, in a shallow climb, moved out.
Clete was still watching him pull away when he looked out his side window and saw another P-38 pull alongside. And then, through von Wachtstein’s—the pilot’s—side window, he saw a P-38 out there, too.
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