Victory and Honor

by W. E. B. Griffin

  “Well, I’m not going to give up people like Niedermeyer,” Frade said. “Or Boltitz. Or von Wachtstein. Speaking of whom . . . ?”

  “Not a word, Clete. I’m sorry.”

  “Can we find out?”

  “Gehlen’s working on that for you.”

  “Boltitz?”

  “He went to Bremen, with Max, to work on the U-boat intel. Stein went with them. I think that will prove to be valuable.”

  “So, what do you want me to do?”

  “About the best thing you can do is stall for a while, give me some time to hide Gehlen and his people.”

  “Okay. I’ll stall in Argentina. They’ll never find me in Argentina.”

  “What I have to say to you now is delicate, Clete.”

  “So be delicate.”

  “Dulles believes, and Graham concurs, and I do, too, that you should let the Secret Service—Morgenthau—find you.”

  “What’s the reasoning behind that idiot notion?”

  “If they can’t find you, they’ll go after other members of Team Turtle. And they may reveal things we don’t want them to know.”

  “No fucking way. They’re good people. They’ll keep their mouths shut.”

  “Think that through, Clete. No one’s questioning their courage. But are they up to dealing with all the pressure Morgenthau and the Secret Service can throw at them? Threats of going to Leavenworth, et cetera?”

  Frade didn’t immediately reply.

  Mattingly went on: “One scenario is that if they have you, they won’t spend much effort in looking for people you’re hiding in Argentina. When they break you, you’ll tell them where they can be found.”

  “In a pig’s ass I will.”

  “If you can stall them, Clete, it will give us time to work out the Gehlen problem. Bruce has begun vague talks with the Brits, with MI6.”

  “So, what do I do? Go to Washington, knock on Morgenthau’s door, and say, ‘I understand you’re looking for me’?”

  “The military attaché in Buenos Aires, whom I believe you know, has told the Secret Service that he also believes you have been involved with helping Nazis get to Argentina. He also told them that you have received large amounts of money—more than six million dollars—from Colonel Graham, which you have refused to discuss with him, and that he suspects this is somehow connected with finding refuge for Nazis in Argentina. These charges are to be investigated by Naval Intelligence.”

  “Jesus H. Christ!”

  “The military attaché, his name is Flowers—”

  “Richmond C. Flowers. I know the miserable bastard’s name.”

  “—as the OSS station chief in Buenos Aires will be ordered by Director Donovan to present you with orders issued by the Navy Department to board the next U.S. Navy vessel calling at Buenos Aires—it will be a destroyer, the USS Bartram Greene, due to arrive in Buenos Aires June ninth—for transport to the Naval Air Station at Pensacola, Florida, where the charges laid against you will be investigated to determine if a court-martial is appropriate.”

  “How the hell do you know all that?”

  “While you will indeed be hanging in the wind, Colonel Frade, you will not be entirely alone.”

  “That’s pretty fucking cryptic. It sounds like you don’t entirely trust me.”

  “This is one of those situations where the less you know about friends of the OSS, the safer it will be for them.”

  “What about Donovan? What does he know about Gehlen?”

  “Dulles and/or Graham is going to have to tell him, if one of them hasn’t already.”

  “The destroyer ride is to kill time, right?”

  “Every hour I have to hide Gehlen and his people, the better,” Mattingly said. “By the way, the general has been arrested by the CIC and is currently undergoing interrogation. Just as soon as I can tear myself away from the duties here, I will go to Oberusel and interrogate Gehlen myself. Slowly and thoroughly.”

  “And the reason you’re in Berlin, not in that castle, is because you need permission—and a reason—to come to Berlin, and the Secret Service doesn’t want to come out and say they want to come to Berlin to interrogate you—the head of the OSS—about the OSS helping Nazis to get to Argentina?”

  “Oh, you can be clever, can’t you, Colonel Frade?”

  [ONE]

  Executive Officers’ Quarters USS Bartram Greene DD-201 River Plate Estuary, Argentina 1900 12 June 1945

  There came a knock at the stateroom door. Lieutenant Colonel Cletus H. Frade, USMC, who was lying on the bunk, called, “Come!”

  A very tall, very thin, ascetic-looking lieutenant commander opened the door and entered the stateroom.

  Frade put down his copy of that day’s Buenos Aires Herald and looked at him.

  The visitor said evenly, “Correct me if I’m wrong, Colonel, but I believe naval courtesy requires that all naval personnel come to attention when the captain of a man-o’-war enters a living space, even when said captain is junior.”

  Frade chuckled and pushed himself off the bunk.

  “Until just now, Commander, I didn’t know you were the captain.”

  “I have that honor, sir. My name is R. G. Prentiss, and I am the captain.”

  Frade nodded.

  Captain Prentiss said: “Colonel, we have a somewhat awkward situation here. I have been ordered by COMMATL—”

  “By who?”

  “Commander Atlantic,” Captain Prentiss furnished, “has ordered the Greene to transport you to NAS Pensacola. Colonel Flowers has informed me that you are the subject of an investigation by Naval Intelligence. Is that your understanding of the situation?”

  “That pretty much sums it up.”

  “Under these circumstances, Colonel, while you will be afforded the courtesies to which your rank entitles you, there are several conditions I feel necessary to impose.”

  “Shoot,” Frade said. “Figuratively speaking, of course, Captain.”

  “You will mess with the officers in the wardroom. Pushing that button”—he pointed—“will summon my steward, who will take care of your laundry, et cetera, and bring you, if you wish, coffee and doughnuts from the galley. You will not engage in conversation with the ship’s company—the sailors—at any time, and will converse with my officers only when I or my executive officer is present.”

  “That’s that sort of roly-poly lieutenant who brought me down here when I came aboard?”

  “His name is Lieutenant John Crosby, Colonel. You are not permitted to leave ‘officer’s country’—do you know what that means, Colonel?”

  “I’d hazard a wild guess that’s where your officers hang out.”

  Prentiss nodded. “And you are not permitted to be on the bridge. You may, should you desire, go to the flying bridges on either side of the bridge itself.”

  Frade waited for him to go on.

  “I think I’ve covered everything. Any questions, Colonel Frade?”

  “I guess I missed supper, huh, Captain?”

  Captain Prentiss turned and left the cabin without speaking.

  [TWO]

  Executive Officers’ Quarters USS Bartram Greene DD-201 South Atlantic Ocean off Brazil 0805 15 June 1945

  Captain Prentiss knocked at the door, was given permission to enter, and did so.

  Frade, who had been sitting at the fold-down desk, stood.

  “I had hoped to see you at breakfast, Colonel.”

  “It’s a little chilly in there for me, Captain.”

  “I had planned to read this aloud to the wardroom,” Prentiss said, and handed Frade a sheet of paper. “That was transmitted in the clear, Colonel.”

  FOR SLATS FROM LITTLE DICK

  POPPA SAYS YOUR SUPERCARGO REALLY GOOD GUY

  TREAT HIM ACCORDINGLY

  Frade handed the paper back without comment.

  “My roommate at Annapolis,” Captain Prentiss explained, “Colonel J. C. Wallace, was called ‘Little Dick.’ He called me ‘Slats.’”

&
nbsp; “I understand why people could call you Slats, Captain. But it would not behoove me as a field-grade Marine officer to ask why you called your roommate Little Dick.”

  Prentiss grinned. Then he said: “Actually, one of the reasons was because his father, Vice Admiral Wallace, is called Big Dick.”

  “Oh.”

  “Colonel, you now have freedom of the ship, including the bridge. And I would be pleased if you would join me now for breakfast. I assure you, it will be much warmer in the wardroom than it has been.”

  “Thank you.”

  “All of my officers, and me, have been wondering exactly what it was that caused you to give Colonel Flowers the finger as we let loose all lines.”

  [THREE]

  Navy Pier Pensacola, Florida 0915 25 June 1945

  Captain Prentiss and Lieutenant Colonel Frade were standing on the flying bridge of the USS Bartram Greene DD-201 as she was being tied up to the pier. Frade was in a Marine summer uniform he’d never worn before.

  “I would hazard the guess, Clete, that that’s your welcoming party,” Prentiss said, nodding toward an officer standing beside a Navy gray Plymouth sedan on the pier.

  “I’m crushed, Slats. I was expecting a brass band and a cheering crowd.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask,” Prentiss said, tapping the Navy Cross on Frade’s chest, “where you got that.”

  Frade glanced down at it, then replied: “In a hockshop on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. I bought a pair of those”—he tapped the binoculars hanging from Prentiss’s neck—“and the hockshop guy threw that in for free. I thought it looked nice, so I pinned it on.”

  “Is that also where you got the Wings of Gold? In a New Orleans pawnshop?”

  “No. A very long time ago, in another life, I got those here.”

  “I’ll walk you to the gangway,” Prentiss said.

  “Thanks for the ride, Slats.”

  “In other circumstances, Clete, I would have been delighted to have you aboard.”

  Prentiss and Frade reached the gangway just as it was lowered into place. The Navy officer—they were close enough for Frade to be able to see that he was a spectacles-wearing, mousy-looking lieutenant commander with the insignia of the Judge Advocate Corps where the star of a line officer would be, above the stripes on his sleeve—now stood waiting to come aboard.

  Frade said: “I don’t see any reason I can’t get off, do you?”

  Prentiss shook his head.

  “Permission to leave the ship, sir?” Frade said.

  “Granted.”

  Frade saluted Prentiss, then the colors flying aft.

  Prentiss offered his hand.

  “Good luck, Clete.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  The JAG officer saluted as Frade stepped off the gangway.

  Frade returned it.

  “You are Lieutenant Colonel C. H. Frade, sir?”

  “Guilty—for lack of a better word.”

  The JAG officer ignored that. He said, “I’m Lieutenant Commander McGrory, Colonel. I have been appointed your counsel.”

  He offered his hand. Frade was not surprised that McGrory’s grip was limp.

  “We have a car, sir,” McGrory said.

  A sailor opened the rear door of the Plymouth and Frade got in. As the car started down the pier, Frade saw that Prentiss was standing on the deck of the Greene watching them drive away.

  When they were on Navy Boulevard, which would take them to Main Side, Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Frade said, “Exactly what are you going to counsel me about, Commander?”

  “Certain allegations have been laid against you, Colonel . . .”

  “What kind of allegations?”

  “. . . and naval regulations provide that you are entitled to counsel while you are being interviewed with regard to these allegations.”

  “In other words, you’re not going to tell me?”

  “The specifics of the allegations will be made known to you in formal proceedings, Colonel.”

  “And when are these formal proceedings going to take place?”

  They were now at the gate to Main Side, Naval Air Station, Pensacola.

  A perfectly turned-out Marine corporal took a look at the Plymouth, popped to attention, saluted, and bellowed, “Good morning, Colonel! Pass.”

  Clete returned the salute, remembering the first time he’d come through this gate.

  Life had been much simpler then.

  All Second Lieutenant Frade, USMCR, had to do was learn how to fly the Marine Corps’ airplanes—and that wouldn’t be hard, as he had been flying since he was age twelve—then go to the Pacific and sweep the dirty Japs from the sky, whereupon all would be well with the world and he could go back to Big Foot Ranch, Midland, Texas, and get on with his life.

  The Plymouth entered Main Side.

  “What about the formal proceedings, Commander?” Frade asked.

  “Inasmuch as no charges have been laid against you, Colonel, your status is that of a Marine officer returning from service abroad. Regulations prescribe certain things must take place for all returning officers. We will deal with that first.”

  Two hours later, the medical staff of Naval Hospital, Pensacola, after a thorough examination of his body, determined that Lieutenant Colonel Frade not only was free of any infectious diseases—including sexual—that he might have encountered in his foreign service, but also that his general condition was such that he could engage in flight.

  An hour after that, the Disbursing Office, NAS Pensacola, determined that inasmuch as he had not flown for more than three years the minimum four hours per month that was necessary to qualify for flight play, and inasmuch as on several occasions he had been paid flight pay in error, that flight pay would have to be taken from the amount of pay he was now due.

  As would $102.85, the cost to the government of one Watch, Wrist, Hamilton, Naval Aviator’s Chronometer, which had been issued to First Lieutenant C. H. Frade, USMCR, VMF-221, on Guadalcanal and never been returned.

  He left the Disbursing Office $1,255.75 richer, most of it in new twenty-dollar bills. It made quite a bulge in his tunic pocket.

  The Housing Office, NAS Pensacola, took three of the twenties as a deposit against damage to Room Twenty-three, Senior Officers Quarters, and another twenty as a deposit for a telephone that they hoped to connect within seventy-two hours.

  The Housing Office also required him to sign a statement acknowledging he understood that the presence of female guests in his quarters at any time was proscribed, and that violation of the proscription could result in court-martial or such other disciplinary action as the base commander might elect to impose.

  Thirty minutes after that, Lieutenant Commander McGrory, sitting at his desk in a spotless office, said, “We have a little problem, Colonel.”

  “I’m breathless with anticipation, Commander.”

  “Your home of record is Big Foot Ranch, RFD Number 2, Box 131, Midland, Texas. Is that correct?”

  Well, some people think I live on Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo outside Buenos Aires, but what the hell!

  “That’s correct.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s outside the twenty-four-hour zone.”

  “What the hell is the twenty-four-hour zone?”

  “Officers in your status cannot be placed on leave to any address from which he cannot return, when so ordered, to NAS Pensacola within twenty-four hours. Hence ‘twenty-four-hour zone.’”

  “Am I going on leave?”

  “Officers returning from overseas service are automatically granted a thirty-day leave. Providing, of course, that their leave address is within the twenty-four-hour zone. Perhaps you might consider going to one of the fine hotels or motels on Pensacola Beach and having Mrs. Howell join you there. The beaches here are absolutely beautiful.”

  “Mrs. Howell?”

  “Mrs. Martha Howell, your adoptive mother, of the Midland address, is listed as your next of kin. Isn’t that correct?”


  I have a wife and two children, but I don’t think this is the time to get into that.

  “That’s correct. Tell me, Commander, how far is it, timewise, from here to New Orleans?”

  “You have a family member in New Orleans, Colonel?”

  “My grandfather.”

  And who is the last person in the world I need to see right now.

  If the Old Man hears what’s going on with me—and I would have to tell him—ten minutes after that two senators and his pal Colonel McCormack of the Chicago Tribune will be coming to my rescue.

  “I’ll need his name and address, Colonel. And his telephone number.”

  What the hell, I’ll call the house and see if the Old Man is there.

  If he is, I’ll hang up. If he’s not . . .

  “The address is 3470 Saint Charles Avenue, New Orleans. My grandfather’s name is Cletus Marcus Howell. I don’t know the phone, but I’m sure it’s in the book.”

  “And your grandfather is sure to be there?”

  “Absolutely. At his age, getting around is very difficult.”

  Please God, let the Old Man be in Washington, Venezuela, Dallas, San Francisco—anywhere but on Saint Charles Avenue.

  “You understand, Colonel, that I am taking your word as a Marine officer and gentleman about your grandfather and that address?”

  “I understand, Commander.”

  “Well, then, I happen to know there is a three-forty train to New Orleans. You’ll just have time to make it.”

  [FOUR]

  3470 Saint Charles Avenue New Orleans, Louisiana 1955 25 June 1945

  “The Howell Residence,” Jean-Jacques Jouvier said when he picked up the telephone. He was an elderly, erect, very light-skinned black man with silver hair. He wore a gray linen jacket. He had been Cletus Marcus Howell’s butler for forty-two years.

  “No, Mister Cletus, he’s in Venezuela.”