Secret Honor

by W. E. B Griffin

  Obersturmbannführer Cranz kept Galland’s orderly from refilling his wineglass by covering it with his palm. “To get to the sad business before us,” he said. “Specifically, Hauptmann Grüner, the details of the interment of your father.”

  Willi Grüner looked at him and just perceptibly nodded his head.

  “It has been proposed by Reichsprotektor Himmler, in consideration of your late father’s distinguished service to the SS, that his interment and the accompanying ceremonies be joined with those of the late Standartenführer Goltz. Have you any objection to that, Herr Hauptmann?”

  Willi shook his head.

  “The Reichsprotektor also suggests that an appropriate place for the interment of both of these fallen heroes would be in the SS section of the Munich military cemetery. He has ordered that two grave places immediately adjacent to the Horst Wessel monument be made available. Does this also meet your approval, Hauptmann Grüner?”

  Willi knew that was meant to be an honor. Horst Wessel, a student, who had been in trouble with the police “for rowdyism,” had joined the Nazi party in 1926, and become a storm trooper. In 1930, political enemies, possibly Communists, had killed him in a brawl in his room in the Berlin slums. Nazi propagandists had blamed three Jews for his murder, executed them, and elevated Wessel to martyrdom. “The Horst Wessel Lied” was now the anthem of the Nazi party.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “The arrangements haven’t been finalized, of course, but it is anticipated that company-size units from each of the armed forces will participate. Would providing such a unit, to represent the Luftwaffe, pose any problems for you, General Galland?”

  “No,” Galland said simply.

  “I know the SS unit at Dachau can be counted upon,” Cranz said. “And that leaves the Wehrmacht and the Navy. Boltitz?”

  “There’s a Navy Signals school at the air base at Fürstenfeldbruck,” Boltitz said. “I’m not sure how large…”

  “Why don’t you call them after lunch and find out?” Cranz said.

  Boltitz nodded.

  “The Munich military garrison has the troops, obviously,” Cranz said thoughtfully. “And now that I think about it, a quite good band. I’ll get on the telephone to them.”

  “When is this going to happen?” Willi Grüner asked.

  “Reichsmarschall Göring has made an aircraft available—a Junkers Ju-52. It should be here sometime today. It will take Korvettenkapitän Boltitz, Major von Wachtstein, me, and, if General Galland permits…” Cranz paused and looked at Galland, “…you to Cadiz to meet the Océano Pacífico.”

  Galland nodded. “Of course,” he said.

  “The remains of your father and Standartenführer Goltz will be flown here,” Cranz went on. “The actual date and time of the interment ceremonies will depend on whether Reichsprotektor Himmler or Admiral Canaris, either or both, feel they can take the time from their duties to participate. Both, Hauptmann Grüner, really wish to do so.”

  Grüner nodded.

  Major Freiherr Hans-Peter von Wachtstein thought: This is insane.

  These people are insane.

  Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers are in unmarked graves in Russia, hundreds of thousands more are in Russian POW enclosures because Unser Hermann failed on his promise to supply von Paulus by air.

  On 19 November 1943, the Soviets had launched pincer movements north and south of Stalingrad. By 23 January they had encircled General Friedrich von Paulus’s 6th Army. German attempts to relieve and resupply von Paulus failed. Under orders from Adolf Hitler, von Paulus continued to fight on, but on 31 January 1943, von Paulus disobeyed Hitler and surrendered the last of his remaining (91,000) troops. The Soviets recovered 250,000 German and Romanian corpses in and around Stalingrad, and total Axis losses (Germans, Romanians, Italians, and Hungarians) were estimated at 800,000 dead.

  And here we sit, at a table loaded with food and wine, served by orderlies in white jackets, talking about a funeral parade for two people, whose bodies we are going to fly here in an airplane desperately needed in Russia, so they can be buried in the shadow of a monument of a storm trooper who never heard a shot fired in anger.

  These people are insane.

  And they are taking Germany down with them.

  XVII

  [ONE]

  Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

  Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

  0805 May 18, 1943

  El Patrón of Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo, Don Cletus Frade, had left instructions with the butler, Antonio La Valle, that, following his morning ride, he wished to take breakfast at eight A.M. with Señora Frade in the gazebo in the formal garden. He had also specified, in some detail, what he wished to eat.

  Señora Frade had left instructions with her maid that she wished to be awakened at half past seven (which she frankly thought was an obscene hour to rise), in the belief that thirty minutes would give her time to perform her toilette and arrive at the gazebo in time to make sure her husband’s wishes vis-à-vis his breakfast had been met.

  At five minutes to eight, Señora Frade arrived at the gazebo, wearing a light blue dressing gown over a pink peignoir, her blond hair perfectly coiffured in a modest bun appropriate to her status as an expectant young matron. At the gazebo, she found everything to her satisfaction.

  Two places had been set with silver and crystal on the central round table. There were two large silver pitchers, one containing coffee and the other tea. A smaller silver pitcher held cream. Crystal pitchers contained orange juice, grapefruit juice, and water. Just outside the gazebo, two portable grills had been set up, fueled by coals from the wood fire of the parilla in the kitchen. A cook was prepared to fry eggs, make toast, and broil a bife de chorizo for the master of the house. A housemaid stood by to serve.

  It was, she thought, actually rather elegant.

  When her husband rode into the formal garden on Julius Caesar, he was not at all elegant. He was wearing a red polo shirt, khaki trousers, a Stetson hat, and battered Western boots he had owned since he was sixteen and his feet had stopped growing, at which point a good pair of boots made by a Mexican boot maker was justified.

  He was followed by Enrico Rodríguez, on a magnificent roan. Enrico was wearing the billowing shirt, trousers, wide-brimmed black hat, and wide leather belt of a gaucho. The stock of a Mauser 7mm cavalry-model carbine rested on his thigh, and a .45 ACP pistol was in his wide belt.

  When Señora Frade examined her husband more closely, she saw that he, too, was armed. An old Colt six-shooter was stuck in his waistband (he had shown her the weapon with great pride; it had belonged to his grandfather, el Coronel Guillermo Alejandro, and it had been his “working gun”—whatever that meant), and he had what Señora thought of as another “cowboy gun” in a scabbard attached to Julius Caesar’s saddle. This weapon, she had learned when her husband had found it in the estancia armory—with all the joy of a ten-year-old finding an electric train under his Christmas tree—was a Winchester Model 94 30.30 lever action.

  One just like it—“my first high-power”—had been presented to Clete by his uncle Jim on his thirteenth birthday. This occasion had also been marked by “my first whitetail six-point buck.” He had explained to her this meant a deer with an unusually large rack of horns.

  Dorotéa Frade could not imagine a responsible adult making a present of a dangerous weapon to a thirteen-year-old, much less taking him out to slaughter a helpless animal with it the same day—and this provided her with yet another opportunity to remind herself that she had married a Texan, not an Argentine, and that a Texan could not be expected to behave like an Argentine.

  Don Cletus Frade dismounted from Julius Caesar with what Dorotéa Frade thought was effortless grace, tied his reins to one of the supporting poles of the gazebo, and walked to his wife. “Goddamn, you’re beautiful,” he
said, then kissed her.

  Julius Caesar began to munch on the flowers that grew up on the supporting pole of the gazebo.

  “We’re going to need a place set for Enrico,” Clete said.

  “Oh, no, Señor Clete,” Enrico said.

  “I thought we had been over this,” Clete said. “You’re my best friend, right?”

  “Sí, Señor.”

  “When I eat, my best friend eats,” Clete said. “Get off that ugly nag and sit down.”

  Enrico looked at Dorotéa.

  “Please, Enrico,” Dorotéa said.

  “Sí, Señora. Gracias.”

  “I’ll have a small glass of grapefruit juice, please,” Dorotéa ordered, “and a piece of toast. And tea with milk and two lumps of sugar, please.”

  Enrico ordered a café cortado and helped himself to a croissant.

  “I don’t understand how you people manage without a real breakfast,” Clete announced as the maid served him orange juice, milk, the steak, two eggs fried sunny-side up, home-fried potatoes, and toast. “A good breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  Dorotéa glanced at Enrico, who rolled his eyes.

  “What I’m going to do, baby,” Clete announced, “is run some tests.”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “I’m going to put in about twenty acres—eight hectares—”

  “I know what an acre is, darling.”

  “—of corn. That’s where I was this morning, looking at the soil. Enrico and I found a place. I don’t know where I’m going to get the seed—good seed—but I’ll deal with that somehow. And then, when the corn has come in, I’m going to segregate maybe two hundred, maybe three, of calves when they’re weaned. There will be two groups of calves. One will eat nothing but grass. The other I’ll start on corn and grass. We’ll weigh them once a week.”

  “You’re going to weigh three hundred calves once a week?” Dorotéa asked incredulously.

  “And keep accurate records, to see if I’m right or not.”

  In his mind, Dorotéa thought, the chances of his being wrong about this are about the same as those of the sun not setting this afternoon.

  Antonio appeared, carrying a telephone on a silver tray. “Pardon the interruption, Señor Clete. Are you at home to Señor Leibermann?”

  Clete gave the question some thought before replying. “Sure,” he said finally. “Why not? Plug it in.”

  Antonio plugged the telephone into a jack mounted on one of the supporting poles.

  Clete, smiling smugly at Dorotéa, picked it up.

  With the assistance of Chief Schultz, Clete had “fixed” the telephone service at the estancia. One “fix” was to install jacks all over the main house and the outbuildings, including the gazebo, and another was to replace the short cords that connected the instruments to the wall with cords at least four meters long.

  It was no longer necessary to return to the house from the gazebo, for example, to take a telephone call. The telephone went to the gazebo.

  Clete was proud of the improvements—just a little childishly proud, Dorotéa thought.

  Dorotéa could hear both sides of the conversation.

  “Hello, Milton,” Clete said cheerfully into the mouthpiece. “Why do I suspect I’m not going to like this call?”

  “I had hoped marriage would reduce your cynicism,” Leibermann chuckled. “How was the wedding trip?”

  “Compared to what?”

  “What did I do, wake you up?”

  “Actually no. I got up at first light and had a little ride on the pampas. I am now just finishing my breakfast. Until you called, I didn’t think I had a care in the world.”

  “You fell off the horse?”

  “I’m an Aggie, Milton. We don’t fall off horses.”

  “Never?”

  “Never,” Clete said firmly. “So what’s new, Milton?”

  “There’s a story making the rounds in Buenos Aires that Señor and Señora Frade, following their return from their wedding trip to Bariloche, are going to have a little “we’re back” soiree tonight for their many friends.”

  “Why do I suspect that you suspect that my good señora and I, despite the stories making the rounds in Buenos Aires, could not find time to fit Bariloche into our busy social schedule?”

  “Because by nature you are a suspicious cynic who fell off his horse before breakfast?”

  Clete laughed heartily. “Then may I cynically suspect that you’ve mentioned the intimate little soiree my señora is having tonight—there won’t be more than five thousand or so people here—because you would like to come?”

  “I thought perhaps you didn’t like me anymore,” Leibermann said.

  “My house is your house, Milton. I thought you understood that.”

  “I’d like to bring someone with me,” Leibermann said.

  “Male or female?”

  “Male. The new assistant military attaché for air. I thought you would like to meet him. He tells me that he’s a multiengine instructor pilot.”

  “That’s fascinating!” Clete said. “By all means, bring him. While he and I are exchanging lies about flying, you can share social notes with el Coronel Martín.”

  “You invited Bernardo, and you didn’t invite me?”

  “My Tío Juan suggested I should.”

  “Your Tío Juan will be there?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you so much for thinking of me, Don Cletus.”

  “Don’t mention it, Milton.”

  Clete was still smiling when he put the telephone back in its cradle.

  “What was that all about?” Dorotéa asked. “And there will be no more than fifty people, not five thousand.”

  “I think Milton is bringing someone who can give me the time I need in the Lockheed,” Clete said. “There’s a new attaché for air at the American Embassy.”

  “You like him, don’t you?” Dorotéa said, and went on without giving him a chance to reply. “It doesn’t sound like it.”

  “Yeah, I like him,” Clete said. “Don’t you?”

  “If you like him, I do,” Dorotéa said, then changed the subject: “I really hope you can find time in your ‘busy social schedule’ to be here for lunch. At one sharp. Mother and Claudia—and most likely Alicia and Isabela—will be here.”

  “OK, baby,” Clete said. “I’ll be here, and I will even try to smile at Isabela.”

  [TWO]

  The Airstrip

  Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo

  Near Pila, Buenos Aires Province

  1240 18 May 1943

  Clete didn’t see Dorotéa and Alicia Carzino-Cormano standing by the hangar until he had almost reached the spot beside the hangar where he was going to park the Lockheed Lodestar.

  And from the looks on both their faces, he knew something was wrong.

  He very carefully turned the Lodestar around and went through the procedure for shutting it down, and then got out of the pilot’s seat and started to walk through the cabin.

  Dorotéa and Alicia were standing outside when he opened the door. They were both dressed in sweaters and skirts, and each wore a single strand of pearls. He had the idle thought that both of them would look quite at home on the porch of a Tulane sorority house.

  “I was afraid for a moment you were going flying,” Dorotéa said. It was an accusation. He had made the mistake of telling her he wasn’t really well qualified to fly the transport. To which her wifely response had been “then don’t fly it again until you are.”

  “With something this big,” he explained patiently, “the tires get flat on the bottom if it sits for a while. Since it’s too big to push, I had to start the engines. Since I had the engines started—which is something
else you have to do, every couple of days, to keep a little oil circulating—I figured I might as well get some taxi practice. OK?”

  She nodded her acceptance of the explanation, then asked: “Can we talk in there?”

  “I’ll have to put the steps down,” he thought aloud. He was reluctant to use the electrically powered steps more than he had to. They were making a funny noise. He had no idea what it was, but he suspected that something in the mechanism was about to fail, and he didn’t think there were replacement parts available in Argentina.

  “Yes, darling, I guess you will,” Dorotéa said, a little impatiently.

  He found the switch, and the stairs began to unfold. He heard the funny noise again.

  Dorotéa waved Alicia up the stairs, and she gave Clete’s cheek the ritual kiss as she walked past him. Dorotéa passed him. He patted her buttocks.

  “What’s up?” he asked softly.

  She didn’t reply.

  He followed her up the aisle.

  Alicia had taken one of the seats on the left. Dorotéa slipped into the seat across the aisle.

  He faced them, then squatted in the aisle. “What’s up?”

  Alicia sobbed and looked out the window.

  “Alicia thinks she’s in the family way,” Dorotéa announced.

  “Oh, shit!” Clete blurted, and then asked, “Are you sure?”

  Alicia bobbed her head and put her hand to her mouth.

  “She thinks it happened that night at the Alvear,” Dorotéa said.

  Clete had been married long enough to Dorotéa to understand what she was not saying: “If you hadn’t put them together in your apartment in the Alvear, you stupid man, this wouldn’t have happened.” And he had a selfish thought: My God, Claudia will kill me!

  “Does your mother know?” Clete asked, realizing it was a stupid question even as the words left his mouth.

  If Claudia knew about this, Alicia wouldn’t be here.

  Alicia turned to look at him and shook her head. “Cletus, what am I going to do?” she asked plaintively.

  “The first thing you’re not going to do is tell your mother,” he said, “until we work this out. Can you handle that?”