Victory and Honor
Page 27
“How are you going to help them, Herr Graf, your royal fucking majesty, if you’re nailed skinless and upside down to the fucking castle door?”
“What I am going to do, Cletus, is let my people know—”
“You sound like Moses, for Christ’s sake. You should hear yourself ! ‘Let my people go!’ Jesus!”
“Moses said, ‘Let my people go.’ What I said was that I intend to let my people know that the Graf von Wachtstein has not deserted them and will do everything in his power . . .”
“There’s that regal fucking third person! Mattingly, do you believe this?”
“. . . everything in his power to get them out from under the Communists and to a new life in Argentina.”
“Send them a fucking telegram!”
“They have to see me. Once they have seen me, and I have spoken with them, I will come here.”
“Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that doesn’t work. What am I supposed to tell your wife?”
“If something should happen to me, my dear friend, I would want you to tell the Countess von Wachtstein that I loved her as I have never loved any other woman, and that I regret that she must now assume the responsibilities that come with the title. And remind her that if I am no longer alive, our son is the Graf von Wachtstein.”
Clete looked at him but, feeling his throat constrict and knowing his voice simply wasn’t going to work, said nothing more.
“I have treasured your friendship, Cletus,” von Wachtstein said. “Will you not shake my hand and wish me luck?”
Peter put out his hand.
After a long moment, Clete took it.
Their eyes met. The handshake turned into an embrace.
When Colonel Robert Mattingly and Lieutenant Colonel Archer W. Dooley Jr. heard Frade, his voice breaking, say, “You better come back, you crazy Kraut sonofabitch, or I’ll come to that goddamn castle of yours and kick your ass all the way back to Argentina,” they averted their faces and dabbed at their eyes with their handkerchiefs.
[SIX]
Tempelhof Air Base Berlin, Germany 1005 21 May 1945
“Tempelhof Departure Control. South American Airways Double Zero Four on the threshold of Twenty-seven.”
“Tempelhof Departure Control clears South American Airways Zero Zero Four as Number One for takeoff on Runway Two Seven. South American Double Zero Four is cleared Direct Rhein-Main Air Base. On takeoff, when on course two-three-two-point-two degrees, climb to twenty thousand feet. When possible, change to Helmstedt Area Control on Ground-Air Channel Two. Be aware, P-38 aircraft are, and Soviet aircraft may be, active on your route. Acknowledge.”
Clete repeated the clearance.
“Takeoff power, please,” Chief Pilot Delgano ordered.
“Tempelhof,” Clete reported a moment later. “South American Double Zero Four Rolling.”
“Helmstedt Area Control, South American Double Zero Four,” Frade radioed.
“Double Zero Four, Helmstedt reads you five by five. How me?”
“Helmstedt, also five by five. South American Double Zero Four at twenty thousand indicating three-fifty on a course of two-three-two-point-two. Leaving Soviet zone and entering American zone at this time.”
“Helmstedt understands Zero Zero Four has entered American zone.”
“Affirmative. Helmstedt, South American. En route change of destination. Please close out my Rhein-Main flight plan, and note that we are changing course to two-three-seven-point-three at this time. Direct ultimate destination Lisbon, Portugal.”
“Double Zero Four, I’m not sure you can do that.”
“Don’t be silly,” Frade said. “Of course we can.”
Dooley’s voice then came across Frade’s headset: “Hey, hotshot. Try not to run into the Pyrenees.”
“Little Brother,” Frade replied, “I wondered where you were.”
“I’ve been covering your ass from above and behind.”
Sixty seconds later, Colonel Dooley demonstrated this by suddenly appearing—coming out of a high-speed dive—in front of the Ciudad de Rosario. Then he twice rolled the Lockheed Lightning and made a steep descending turn out of their path.
“So long, hotshot!” Dooley said. “Write if you find work.”
When Dooley was out of sight, Frade said, “Gonzo, when Dooley gets out of the Air Forces after the war, I was thinking he’d make a fine SAA pilot.”
“Is that an order or an observation?”
“Right now, just an observation.”
“In that case, I quite agree,” Delgano said, then his tone softened as he added: “Clete, Mario told me about Peter von Wachtstein.”
“And?”
“I knew when we had dinner with General Gehlen that Peter was going to Pomerania, and that there was nothing you or anyone else could do to stop him.”
“You’re pretty perceptive. Maybe you should consider giving up driving airplanes and becoming, oh, I don’t know, maybe an intelligence officer.”
[ONE]
4730 Avenida Libertador General San Martín Buenos Aires, Argentina 1900 25 May 1945
It is times like this, Cletus H. Frade thought as he surveyed the scene taking place in the library, that I very much miss my father.
And that I curse those goddamn Nazi bastards for taking him away from me . . . from us . . . from this.
Clete felt his throat constrict.
Damn it! He would’ve been so proud.
Doña Dorotea Mallín de Frade stood beside him as they watched her mother, la Señora Pamela Holworth-Talley de Mallín, formerly of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, and Clete’s “mother,” Mrs. Martha Howell of Midland, Texas. The two grandmothers were playing with Dorotea and Clete’s sons—Jorge Howell Frade, eighteen months old, and five-month-old Cletus Howell Frade Jr.
Also watching them were Miss Beth Howell and Miss Marjorie Howell, and Clete suspected his “sisters” were daydreaming of adding offspring to the family.
Clete looked over at the svelte woman in her fifties with gray-flecked hair who was standing near the girls. She was Doña Claudia Carzino-Cormano, who was one of Argentina’s wealthiest women and who had lived for decades with el Coronel Jorge Frade until he’d been assassinated. She held a small child on her hip. He was known as Karlchen, which meant “Little Karl” in German—and not as Carlito, which meant the same thing in Spanish. His mother—Countess Alicia von Wachtstein, the former Señorita Alicia Carzino-Cormano—had insisted on that.
As General Gehlen had so graphically described, Karlchen’s grandfather and namesake, Generalleutnant Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein, had died in July of 1944 after hanging for twenty-three minutes from a meat hook by piano wire wrapped around his neck.
Allen W. Dulles had agreed to get Clete a copy of the motion pictures SS photographers had made of the executions of those involved in the failed 1944 bomb plot so that Adolf Hitler could watch them over and over.
Clete had intended to give von Wachtstein the films.
But not now. Not ever.
His mind went off at a tangent: I suppose now that his father is dead, Hansel is the Graf von Wachtstein, Gretel is the Gräfin, and Karlchen is the baron.
I wonder why I never thought of that before?
Then Karl Friedrich Baron von Wachtstein made a face and threw up on the neck and bosom of his grandmother.
“Oh, Karlchen!” his mother said, and rushed to take the child.
Holding the infant at arm’s length—Karlchen now was screaming—she ordered that towels and water be brought to clean up the mess.
After everyone was cleansed of Karlchen’s present, Alicia announced, “Mother, shouldn’t we be getting back so we can prepare for your cocktail?” She scanned the crowd and said, “Everybody is coming, right? Everyone except, of course, my missing husband.”
“And me,” Cletus said.
“Cletus, are you sure you don’t want to come? You’ll be missed.”
“Not if my Tío Juan and Señor Rodolfo Nulder are there,” Clete said
. “I’ll pass, thank you.”
“What am I supposed to say when people ask about Peter? And they will.”
“When all else fails, Alicia, tell the truth. Peter stayed in Germany to take care of some family business.”
Alicia nodded. Then she went to Dorotea, who had Karlchen on her lap, took him, kissed Dorotea and Clete, and walked out of the library.
Dorotea walked to the window and looked out to see that Alicia actually got into her mother’s Rolls-Royce.
Then she walked to where her husband was sitting in a red leather armchair and holding a glass dark with Chivas Regal. She sat in the matching armchair.
“It is now truth time, my darling.”
“You sure you want to hear this?”
“I’m sure I want to hear everything.”
Clete took a healthy swallow of the Chivas Regal.
“We had dinner, with General Gehlen, in a castle belonging to the Prince of Hesse. General Gehlen told Peter—in great detail—how his father had died. Peter said he wanted to go to Schloss Wachtstein in Pomerania. General Gehlen told him that if the Russians caught him, they would nail him to the wall and skin him alive.
“We then went to Berlin, where we met, among other people, two women who had been repeatedly raped for days by the Russians—actually, some kind of Asiatics in the Red Army; they use them as assault troops—and a fourteen-year-old boy named Heinrich who had killed a Russian tank with a rocket grenade and then wet his pants.
“All of this convinced Peter that the Russians would indeed skin him alive if he went to Pomerania and they caught him.”
Dorotea inhaled.
“And he went anyway,” she said.
“Don Cletus did everything he could to stop him, Doña Dorotea,” Enrico said.
“Oh, my God!”
“Yeah, oh, my God,” Clete said.
“Why?”
“Noblesse oblige, sweetheart. Hansel, Graf von Wachtstein is doing his duty. The stupid sonofabitch.”
“You don’t think he’ll be coming back?”
“I’ve always had a lousy memory, baby, but for the rest of my life I will remember every goddamned word Peter said just before we left Berlin.”
Dorotea made a go ahead signal with both of her hands.
“‘If something should happen to me, my dear friend, I would want you to tell the Countess von Wachtstein that I loved her as I have never loved any other woman, and that I regret that she must now assume the responsibilities that come with the title. And remind her that if I am no longer alive, our son is the Graf von Wachtstein.’”
When she saw her husband’s chest heave, and the tears form, Doña Dorotea got out of her chair, knelt beside his, and pulled his head to her breast.
A long moment later, she asked, “When are you going to tell her, darling?”
“Not until I see a picture of the sonofabitch nailed to the wall of his goddamn castle,” Clete said, his voice unsteady. He cleared his throat. “Miracles happen. You ever hear that God takes care of fools and drunks? The sonofabitch Hansel qualifies on both counts.”
“You’re not going back to Berlin?” Dorotea asked incredulously.
Clete met her eyes and nodded. “The next SAA flight to Lisbon is on the twenty-eighth. Enrico and I will be on it.”
“Oh, God!”
“We’re taking with us that half million dollars. That’s needed to set Gehlen and his people up.”
“I wondered what that money was for.”
“And a suitcase full of clothes for a couple of teenage boys, which Enrico is right now going to go out and buy.”
“Sí, Don Cletus.”
[TWO]
Tempelhof Air Base Berlin, Germany 1635 1 June 1945
Immediately after Cletus Frade and Enrico Rodríguez had gotten off the Douglas C-47 that had flown them from Rhein-Main, they’d been ushered into the presence of a U.S. Army Military Police officer of the Second Armored Division. Frade announced: “Major, we’re going to need a ride to Roonstrasse in Zehlendorf.”
“With respect, Colonel, what you’re going to get is a ride back to Rhein-Main. Nobody gets into Berlin unless they’re on orders and cleared by SHAEF. You don’t have any orders, and there’s is no Marine officer or civilian employee on my list. I can’t believe that Gooney Bird pilot let you two on his aircraft.”
“Maybe because I showed him this,” Frade said, and handed him the spurious credentials identifying OSS Area Commander Cletus H. Frade.
“Some of Colonel Mattingly’s people, huh? I should have guessed. What else could a Marine lieutenant colonel and a civilian with a riot gun and carrying a briefcase be but the OSS?”
“We were hoping you’d think we were the Salvation Army,” Frade said.
The MP officer chuckled and picked up his telephone.
“Send a jeep over here,” he ordered, then hung up. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what’s in those bags that’s so important that you need to guard it with a riot gun?”
“Would you believe me, Major, if I told you that one contains clothing for the orphanage Colonel Mattingly is running and that there’s half a million dollars in the other one?”
“I’ve learned to believe just about anything I’ve heard about Colonel Mattingly and the OSS. But that one’s stretching it a little too far.”
Frade found the commanding officer of OSS Europe Forward in the garden behind the house. He was sitting at a table and drinking a glass of wine that Frade suspected had fallen off Ciudad de Rosario the last time he was in Berlin.
“May I say that you look dashing in your Marine Corps suit, Colonel Frade?” Mattingly announced by way of greeting. “You could be on a recruiting poster.”
“If you’re not nice, you don’t get the half million,” Frade said.
“I think I would kill for that half million,” Mattingly said. “And now that I’ve said that and thought it over, you may take that literally. We need it bad, and I was getting worried that they’d found you before you could get it back over here.”
“Who they?”
“Sit down and have a glass of this excellent grape the Argentine diplomats graciously shared with us, and I will bring you up to date on what’s happened. Good news and bad news. Mostly bad.”
“Don Cletus?” Enrico asked, holding up a duffel and nodding toward it.
“Go ahead,” Frade said.
“What’s he got in the bag?”
“Clothing for Heinrich and the other one.”
“Gerhard’s the other one. On that subject, Siggie Stein says that if we can get them to Argentina, he knows a nun that’ll take care of them until better arrangements can be made. Good idea?”
“Damn good idea, Bob. I even know the nun. But how are we going to get them to Argentina?”
“Through the compassion of the Vatican, Clete. They owe me a couple of big favors, so for once the pitiful orphaned German children getting off the airplane to find succor in Argentina will actually be pitiful orphaned children. And I really want to get them out of here. I don’t think the trouble we’re getting from the Russians is going to stop. It’s probably going to get much worse.”
“Is that the bad news?”
“That’s the good news, Clete. The bad news is that David Bruce told me he had a private chat with the Supreme Commander. Ike told him that when he talked with General Marshall about keeping the OSS alive, Marshall told him that President Truman has decided to shut us down. Further, Ike told Bruce that he told Marshall that he wanted to bring up keeping us alive to Truman himself, whereupon Marshall told him to butt out, or words to that effect.”
“Does Ike know about Gehlen?”
“He does now. David said he felt he had to tell him.”
“And?”
“Reduced to basics: He’s not going to tell Marshall. If we get caught, Ike will have to own up, which would blow the entire Gehlen project out of the water.”
“So?”
“We need a sacrificial lam
b.”
“Whose name is Frade?”
Mattingly nodded.
“This was less a callous decision on the part of Dulles, Graham, and myself than the fact that the secretary of the Treasury is already on your case. Remember what I told you about he who laughs last?”
“I didn’t hear me volunteering to be a sacrificial lamb.”
“And you don’t have to be, Clete. You are perfectly free to tell Morgenthau’s people whatever they want to know.”
“And that’s who’s looking for me?”
Mattingly nodded.
“You can fess up and say that all you were doing was obeying orders.”
When Frade didn’t reply, Mattingly said: “‘All I was doing is obeying my orders’ is really the last refuge of the scoundrel. I never thought of that until I started reading the first interrogation reports of some really despicable Nazis. They admitted gassing people—how could they deny it?—but said all they were doing was obeying orders. If it works for them, it would follow that it would work for you.”
“And what are my other options?”
“You really don’t have any. They’re going to find you sooner or later. As a practical matter—because of your dual citizenship, your Navy Cross, and Cletus Marcus Howell—there’s a good chance it will never get as far as a court-martial.”
“Oh, now that is good news!” Frade blurted sarcastically.
“What Morgenthau is after is two things. He wants the Nazis in Germany and he wants to make an example of somebody so that no one else will be tempted to be nice to the Nazis.”
“Oh? Why shouldn’t I like Nazis? I mean, all they did was murder my father and try to murder me on several occasions. Not to forget they strangled my best friend’s father to death.”
Mattingly shrugged. “You were involved in getting Nazis to Argentina, and that’s all Morgenthau will care about. And so far as he’s concerned, every German you helped get to Argentina is as bad as Himmler.”