[ONE]
Schloss Wachtstein
Pomerania
8 October 1942
“You are talking treason, you realize,” Generalmajor Graf Karl-Friedrich von Wachtstein said softly, without emotion. The short, slight, nearly bald fifty-four-year-old very carefully placed his crystal cognac snifter on the heavy table in his library, then leaned back in his chair, raised his eyes to Generalmajor Dieter von Haas, and waited for his old friend to reply.
“I am talking about saving Germany, Karl,” von Haas said.
“The Austrian Corporal is protected by a regiment, each of whose members devoutly believes he is the salvation of Germany.”
“He will destroy Germany, and you know it.”
“You are not the first to come to me, Dieter,” von Wachtstein said.
“I am ashamed that I was not.”
“I told them all the same thing: I believe any attempt to assassinate Hitler is doomed to failure.”
“So is Freddy von Paulus’s mission at Stalingrad,” von Haas interrupted.
“And that in the unlikely happenstance that such an attempt did succeed,” von Wachtstein went on, ignoring him, “we might not—Germany might not—be at all better off. His successor would be Hermann Goering. We would exchange a psychopath for a drug addict. And upon the death of Herr Schicklgruber, the slime around him…and I include the entire inner circle…would immediately put into operation their own plans to get rid of Hermann. There would be chaos.”
“Wouldn’t anything be better than what we have now, Karl?” von Haas asked.
“I’m not at all sure,” von Wachtstein said.
“I thank you for hearing me out, Karl.”
“I have not turned you down,” von Wachtstein said.
“That’s what it sounded like.”
“I have a condition…a price.”
Von Haas could not quite mask his astonishment. And obviously to find time to carefully consider his reply, he leaned forward and picked up the bottle of Rémy Martin and poured from it carefully into his glass.
“There would be, of course,” von Haas began carefully, “a substantial realignment of the General Staff. I feel sure…”
“My God, Dieter!” von Wachtstein flared. “Have we grown so far apart that you really believed I was thinking of a promotion?”
Von Haas met his eyes.
“Karl!” he said, and shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
“I have given two sons to this war,” von Wachtstein said. “I am thinking of the third. I am thinking of the family. This insanity will pass. I want a von Wachtstein around when it does.”
“Peter,” von Haas said.
“Peter,” von Wachtstein repeated, nodding his head. “I have been thinking about honor. As strange and alien a concept as that has become. I have concluded that Peter has made all the contribution to this war, save giving his life, that honor demands.”
“The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross,” von Haas said.
“From the hands of the Austrian Corporal himself,” von Wachtstein said. “He was in Spain with the Condor Legion, in Poland, Russia, and France. He has been five times shot down, and twice wounded.”
“What do you want for him?”
“I want him out of the war and out of Germany.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“I want him assigned to some procurement mission, or some embassy as a military attaché. To some neutral country. Not Italy or Hungary or Japan. He speaks Spanish. Somewhere in Latin America.”
“That will be difficult to arrange,” von Haas said, thinking aloud.
“Dieter, if you don’t have anyone high up in the Foreign Ministry, your coup doesn’t have a chance. And I am not as important to your plans as you have suggested I am.”
“I will see what can be arranged, Karl.”
“You will arrange it, or this conversation never took place.”
“Where is he now?”
“He commands a Jaeger squadron near Berlin. Focke-Wulf 190s.”
“Oberstleutnant?”—First Lieutenant.
“Hauptmann”—Captain.
“He’s young to be a Hauptmann.”
“He was eighteen when he went to Spain as a Feldwebel”—a sergeant.
“After,” von Haas chuckled, “he was sent down from Marburg, * I recall.”
“You and I, Dieter, came very close to being sent down from Marburg,” von Wachtstein said.
“They were better times, weren’t they?” von Haas said. He looked at his watch. “It’s a long drive to Berlin. I’d better be going.”
Von Wachtstein stood up.
“Understand, Dieter, that my desires for Peter are not wishful thinking. Your telling me that you’re sorry, you tried, but it couldn’t be arranged will not be enough.”
“I understand,” von Haas said, and put out his hand.
“What do they say in Spanish? ‘Vaya con Dios’? Vaya con Dios, Dieter. Go with God.”
Von Haas met his eyes, nodded, and turned and walked out of the room.
[TWO]
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
Los Angeles, California
12 October 1942
When Lieutenant Cletus Howell Frade, USMCR, stepped out of the tub onto a bath mat, the telephone was ringing.
He walked quickly, naked and dripping, into the bedroom to answer it, wondering both who it could be and how long the telephone had been ringing. It had been a long time since he’d had access to either unlimited hot water or privacy; he’d been in the shower for a long time.
He picked up the telephone on the bedside table.
“Hello?”
“¿E1 Teniente Frade?”
“Sí, yo soy el Teniente Frade.”
“Yo soy Graham, Teniente, Coronel A. F. Graham.”
“Yes, Sir?”
“Are you alone, Lieutenant?” Graham asked, in Spanish.
“Sí, mi Coronel.”
“I’d like a word with you. Have you been drinking?”
“Not yet, mi Coronel.”
Hell of a question, Clete thought, and a reply that was a little too flip for a lieutenant talking to a colonel.
“See if you can hold off for half an hour or so,” Colonel Graham said, a chuckle in his voice. “I should be there by then. Nine twenty-one, right?”
“Yes, Sir.”
The telephone went dead. Clete put the handset back in the cradle and walked toward the bedroom.
Jesus, did he speak Spanish to me?
I’ll be damned if he didn’t. That entire conversation was in Spanish. Pretty good Spanish at that. What the hell was that all about?
Clete dried himself slowly and carefully, partly to take advantage of the stack of thick, soft towels the hotel had so graciously provided for his comfort, and partly because his long exposure to soap and hot water had softened and loosened the scabs—perhaps twenty-five of them—on his legs and chest.
An incredible number of insects lived on Guadalcanal, and each variety there became addicted to Cletus’s blood. Sometimes, it seemed as if they fought among themselves for the privilege of taking their dinner from him and leaving behind a wide variety of irritations. These ranged from small sting marks to thumbnail-size suppurating ulcers.
After he finished drying, Clete walked on the balls of his feet from the bathroom to the wood-and-canvas rack beside the chest of drawers that supported his suitcase. He took from it his toilet kit—once a gleaming brown leather affair, now looking like something a mechanic was about to discard. From this he took a jar of gray paste. Despite the assurances of the Medical Corps, U.S. Navy, that the stuff was the very latest miracle medicine to soothe what the doctors somewhat euphemistically called “minor skin irritations,” he suspected that it was Vaseline.
He returned to the bathroom and with a practiced skill applied just enough of the greasy substance to protect each “minor skin irritation” without leaving enough residue to leave greasy spots on his clothing. He then returned to his toilet kit, carried it back into the bathroom, and shaved—in the process slicing the top off several “minor skin irritations.” He dealt with these new wounds by applying small pieces of toilet paper to his face. When he examined himself in the mirror, he concluded that if he was going to look like a properly turned out officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, he’d need a haircut.
He went back into the bedroom and dug into a large brown Kraft paper bag, taking from it a brand-new T-shirt and cotton boxer shorts.
The Public Affairs Officer Escort had taken Clete and the other “heroes” to the Officers’ Sales Store almost directly from the Martin Mariner that had flown them from Espíritu Santo to Pearl Harbor. There, the Escort Officer suggested that they might wish to acquire new linen. Clete Frade bought six sets of underwear, six khaki shirts, six pairs of cotton socks, and two field scarves, which was what the Corps called neckties. And then, because the very idea that anyone would sleep in anything but his underwear or his birthday suit seemed absurd, he bought two sets of what their label identified as “Pajamas, Men’s, Cotton, Summer.”
Since there was no room in his one suitcase for his new acquisitions, he carried them in the paper bag the rest of the way—on a Pan American Clipper from Pearl Harbor to San Diego, and then on a chartered Greyhound bus from ’Diego to Los Angeles.
The new T-shirt was usable as is, and he put it on, but the boxer shorts reflected the Naval Service’s fascination with fastening small tags to garments with open staples. He sat down on the bed and removed eight of them—he counted—from various places on his shorts. He had just pulled the shorts on when there was a knock at the door.
It was a bellman, carrying a freshly pressed uniform. Clete went to the bedside table, opened the drawer where he had placed his wallet, his watch, and his Zippo lighter and cigarettes, and found a dollar bill. He gave it to the bellman, then hung the uniform on the closet door. When he turned, he noticed for the first time on the bedside table on the other side of the bed, an eight-by-ten-inch official-looking envelope. It wasn’t his, and he was sure that it hadn’t been there when he’d gone into the bathroom for his shower.
He picked it up. It contained something other than paper, something relatively heavy. He opened the flap and dumped the contents on the bed. Insignia spilled out: two sets of first lieutenant’s silver bars and a new set of gold Naval Aviator’s wings—and bars of ribbons, representing his decorations. There was the Distinguished Flying Cross, with its oak-leaf cluster signifying the second award; the Purple Heart Medal with its oak-leaf cluster; and the ribbons representing the I-Was-There medals: National Defense, and Pacific Theatre of Operations, the latter with two Battle Stars. The ribbons were mounted together.
The Public Affairs people again, Clete thought. The Corps doesn’t want its about-to-go-on-display heroes running around with single ribbons pinned unevenly, one at a time, to their chests; they should be mounted together. And God knows, I have never polished my first john’s bars from the day I got them. And my wings of gold are really a disgrace, when viewed from the perspective of some Corps press agent; they’re scratched, bent, and dirty.
I wonder if this stuff is a gift from the Corps, or whether they will deduct the cost from my next pay.
Clete dropped the brand-new set of glistening gold wings on the bed, then picked up the telephone.
“Room Service,” he ordered when the operator came on the line.
“Room Service,” a male voice said.
“This is Lieutenant Frade in nine twenty-one,” he said. “I would like a bottle of sour-mash bourbon, Jack Daniel’s if you have it, ice, water, and peanuts or potato chips, something to nibble on.”
His voice was soft, yet with something of a nasal twang. Most people he’d met in the Corps thought he was a Southerner, a Johnny Reb, but some with a more discerning ear heard Texas. Both were right. Clete Frade had been raised in New Orleans and in the cattle country (now cattle and oil) around Midland, Texas. He’d spent his first two years of college at Texas A&M, and then, when his grandfather had insisted, finished up (Bachelor of Arts) at Tulane.
“Lieutenant,” Room Service said, hesitantly, “you understand that only the room is complimentary?”
“I didn’t even know that,” Clete said. “But if you’re asking if I expect to pay for the bourbon, yes, of course I do.”
And I damned sure can afford it. There’s four months’ pay in Sullivan’s boots.
Sullivan was—had been—First Lieutenant Francis Xavier Sullivan, of Cleveland, Ohio, and the 167th Fighter Squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps. The Corps and the Navy had flown Grumman Wildcats off Henderson Field and Fighter One on the ’Canal. The Army Air Corps, those poor bastards, had flown Bell P-39s and P-40s. The story was, and Clete believed it, that the P-39s and P-40s had been offered to, and rejected by, both the English and the Russians before they had been given to the Army Air Corps and sent to the ’Canal. They were both essentially the same airplane, a weird one, with the engine mounted amidships behind the pilot. The one good thing they had was either a 20- or a 30-mm cannon that fired through the propeller hub. But they were not as fast or as maneuverable as the Wildcat, which meant they were not even in the same league as the Japanese Zero. And in a logistical foul-up that surprised Clete not at all, they had been sent to the ’Canal with the wrong oxygen-charging apparatus, so they could not be flown over 12,000 feet.
The pilots flying them fought, in other words, with one hand tied behind them. And one by one they were shot down, Francis Xavier Sullivan among them.
Clete and F.X. made a deal. If Clete didn’t come back, F.X. could have Clete’s two bottles of Jack Daniel’s sour-mash bourbon; and if F.X. didn’t come back, Clete could have F.X.’s Half Wellington boots, which, conveniently, fit him perfectly. The second part of the deal was that each had promised the other—presuming, of course, that one of them came through—that he would visit the other’s family and tell them a bullshit story about how the fallen hero had died—“quickly, without pain, he really didn’t know what hit him.”
F.X. went in while supporting the Marine Raiders on Edson’s Ridge. He got his P-40 on the ground in more or less one piece, and he was alive when it caught fire. The Raiders heard him screaming until finally, mercifully, the sonofabitch blew up.
Clete went to F.X.’s tent while F.X.’s Executive Officer was inventorying his personal gear. About the only thing that wasn’t worn out, or covered with green mold, was the boots. F.X. had spent a lot of time caring for his boots. They would, he claimed, get him laid a lot when they were given a rest leave in Australia. F.X. had heard that from a fellow who’d flown with the Eagle Squadron of the Royal Air Force before the United States had gotten into the war; women liked men who wore boots.
Clete was tempted not to claim the boots, but decided in the end that a deal was a deal. F.X. damned sure would have claimed the Jack Daniel’s.
While he waited for the bourbon, he pinned the new insignia to his new shirt and freshly pressed tunic. The new shirt, being new, was not stiff with starch. Before long, he knew, it would look limp and floppy, not shipshape.
Is there a regulation someplace that orders shirts to be washed and starched before wear? I wouldn’t be a damned bit surprised.
There was a knock at the door. When he opened it, a different bellman pushed in a tray on wheels; the tray held a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, a battered silver bowl full of ice, a silver pitcher that presumably contained water, and two glass bowls, one filled with mixed nuts and the other with pretzels. There was also a newspaper, which Clete thought was a nice touch.
He took the bill from the bellman and signed it. When he turned back to the bellman, he was holding the newspaper open, so that it was ready to read when Clete took it.
“Welcome home, Lieutenant,” the bellman said, meaning it.
“Thank you,” Clete said. “It’s good to be home.”
“You’re here,” the bellman said, pointing at the photograph on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. It showed a dozen Marines standing by the Greyhound bus in front of the hotel. The headline above them read:
Guadalcanal Heroes Receive
Key to City From Mayor
Clete looked at his photograph.
My God, I look like a cadaver! Do I really look that bad, or is it just the photograph?
“Thank you,” Clete said.
The bullshit begins.
After he joined the other returning pilots back on Espíritu Santo—in the absence of more deserving heroes, he decided, he was apparently a last-minute addition to the roster—and they were waiting for further air transportation, via Pearl Harbor, T.H., to U.S. Navy Base, San Diego, California, there was a lot of talk, naturally, about why they were being sent home.
No one believed that their pleasure, or comfort, or even physical well-being had anything to do with it. The Marine Corps did not act that way. It was certainly not a reward for a job well done, either.
All they’d been told, probably all that anyone knew, was that the orders came as a radio message from Eighth & I.
It wasn’t until they were actually given their orders at Espíritu (a twenty-copy stack of mimeographed paper), minutes before they boarded the Martin Mariner, that the words “War Bond Tour” came up. And these gave Clete little more information than Dawkins had already told him:
The following officers, the orders read, are detached from indicated organizations and temporarily attached to the USMC Public Affairs Office, Federal Building, Los Angeles, Cal., for the purpose of participating in a War Bond Tour.
That 1/Lt Frade, C. H., USMCR was detached from VMF-229 was sort of a joke, for little—if anything—of Marine Fighter Squadron Number 229 remained to be detached from. After Clete wrecked his Wildcat, VMF-229 was down to two airplanes and four pilots. There were almost no mechanics, or clerks, or cooks either. As more of VMF-229’s Wildcats and their pilots had been shot down, crashed, or simply disappeared than had been replaced, the mechanics and clerks had been transferred to other squadrons.
What, exactly, a baker’s dozen of battered fighter pilots who resembled not at all the handsome Marine aviators of the movies and recruiting posters could possibly have to do with a War Bond Tour was something of a mystery, until one of them realized that they all had one thing in common besides membership in the Cactus Air Force and their surprising presence among the living. They each—he polled the jury to make sure—had shot down at least five Japanese aircraft. They were all aces. Two were double aces, and one was working hard on being a triple.
“They’re putting us on fucking display, is what they’re doing!” one of them announced in disgust.
There were groans. Some of these were genuine, Clete thought—including his own. And some of them were pro forma. There was really nothing wrong with being identified as a hero. For one thing, as one said with a certain fascination in his voice, it would probably get them laid. Clete Frade had absolutely nothing against getting laid, but he was uncomfortable with the notion of considering himself a hero. In his mind, what he’d done was only what he had been ordered to do.
He had not volunteered to fly at Midway, where he shot down his first Japanese shortly before being shot down himself and earning his first Purple Heart. And he had not volunteered to go to Guadalcanal. He was sent there, and he flew off Henderson and Fighter One because he was ordered to. So far as he was concerned, with one exception, he owed his seven victories to luck. He could just as easily have been killed. He was not a hero.
On the chartered Greyhound bus from San Diego to Los Angeles, a public relations major stood in the aisle and delivered a little speech, the straight scoop about what was going on, Clete Frade realized then.
“What this is all about, gentlemen,” the major said, “is civilian morale. The powers that be have decided that civilian morale needs a shot in the arm. You may have noticed that so far in this war, we haven’t done very well: The Japanese took Wake Island away from the Marine Corps, and the Philippines away from the Army. In other words, we have had our ass kicked—with two exceptions.
“The two exceptions, the only times we have at least hurt the Japanese a little, were Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle’s B-25 raid on Tokyo and the Corps’ invasion of Guadalcanal. From what I’ve heard, we almost got pushed back into the sea at Guadalcanal, and that fight, as you all well know, is by no means over. But at least it looks to the public as if the Armed Forces, especially the Marine Corps, have finally done something right.
“So what has this got to do with you? You’re Marine officers. You will carry out the orders you are given cheerfully and to the best of your ability. Your orders in this instance are to comply with whatever orders we feather merchants in Public Affairs give you. Generally speaking, this will mean being where you are told to be, sober, in the proper uniform, and wearing a smile. This will, it is hoped, convince the civilian populace that after some initial setbacks, the Marines finally have the situation under control. This, in turn, may encourage people to buy War Bonds, and it may even convince some of our innocent youth to rush to the recruiting station so they can share in the glory.
“An effort will be made to have someone from Public Affairs present whenever you are interviewed by the press. Keep in mind that the purpose of this operation is to bolster civilian morale. I don’t want to hear that any of you have been telling the press about what went wrong on Guadalcanal, and that certainly means you are not at liberty to say anything unflattering about the Navy, or the Army, or indeed the Corps.
“The tour will last two weeks, and possibly three. When it is over, you will be given a fifteen-day delay en route to your new assignments. The tour will start on Monday, which will give you an opportunity to get your uniforms in shape. Tonight you are free. Which does not mean you are at liberty to get drunk and chase skirts. Use the time to call home, if you like, to have a good meal, and—repeating myself—to have your uniforms pressed and your shoes shined. Sometime early tomorrow morning, you will be informed where you are to gather for specific instruction in what will be expected of you.”
After the bus delivered them to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and the senior officer among them had received the Key To The City from the Mayor, they were assigned to rooms. Clete Frade’s first priority then was a long, hot shower.
“Is there anything else I can get for you, Lieutenant?” the bellman asked.
“How about a large-breasted, sex-starved blonde?” Clete asked with a smile.
From the look on the bellman’s face it was evident that he thought Clete meant it.
“Just kidding,” Clete said.
“Lieutenant,” the bellman said, “I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble finding women.”
“I hope not,” Clete said.
Clete went back to the bedside table, took another dollar, and gave it to the bellman.
Then he made himself a drink—carefully—savoring that luxury too. Just a little water and one large ice cube, which he twirled around the glass with his finger. He took a sip.
Then he put the glass down and got dressed. He was not pleased with his reflection in the mirror. His shirt collar was not only limp, it was too large. The tunic, for which he paid so much money, hung loosely on him. He looked like a stranger, wearing somebody else’s uniform.
How the hell much weight did I lose over there?
The new set of shiny gold Naval Aviator’s wings displeased him. In a moment, he decided that was because they added to the illusion that whoever was looking back at him from the mirror was not Clete Frade.
He took the tunic off and replaced the new wings with his old ones. Then he put the tunic back on and looked at his reflection again.
Better, he thought. Much better. They are a connection with reality, with the past.
Finally, he sat down on the bed, reached inside Francis Xavier Sullivan’s left Half Wellington boot, and pulled out the wad of twenty-dollar bills he had been paid in Pearl Harbor. They were folded in half. He took three of these, put them in his trousers pocket, then flattened out the stack that remained and put them in the left lower pocket of his tunic. After that, he pulled the boots on and walked around the room until they settled around his feet.
He picked up his drink and raised it.
“Francis Xavier, old pal. Thank you,” he said aloud, and took a healthy sip of the bourbon.
He started for the window, intending to push the drape aside to see what was outside. Before he reached it, there was a double knock at the door. He turned and went to it and opened it.
A Marine officer stood there. He was a short, trim, tanned, barrel-chested, bald-headed, bird colonel wearing a pencil-line mustache. He carried an expensive, if somewhat battered, civilian briefcase. There was something vaguely Latino about him.
Hell, yes, he spoke to me in Spanish. I’ll bet three-to-five that Colonel A. F. Graham’s first name is either Alejandro or Antonio. And the “F” is for “Francisco.”
“Buenas noches, mi Coronel,” Clete said.
“May I come in?” Colonel A. F. Graham asked in Spanish.
“Yes, Sir.”
Clete stood out of the way, let Colonel Graham into the room, and closed the door.
“I thought I asked you to hold off on the drink until we had a chance to talk,” Graham said, still in Spanish.
“With all respect, Sir, the operative word was ‘asked.’”
“Then I shall have to remember to choose my words carefully when dealing with you,” Graham said, smiling.
“May I offer you a drink, Colonel?”
“Yes, thank you. Bourbon?”
“Yes, Sir.”
Clete made the drink and handed it to Colonel Graham.
“For the record, Sir, this is my first,” Clete said.
“Good,” Graham said.
“I have no intention of disgracing the Corps on this War Bond Tour, Colonel.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” Graham said.
“Why are we speaking Spanish, Sir? May I ask?”
“I wanted to confirm that you spoke Spanish, and that it wasn’t pure Mex-Tex Spanish.”
“I can speak pretty good Mex-Tex, Colonel.”
Is that what he wants? This War Bond tour is going to Texas, the Southwest, and the Corps’s looking for somebody who speaks Spanish to give patriotic speeches to the Mexican-Americans? Good God!
“Sir,” Clete said in English, “my Spanish isn’t all that good and I am a lousy public speaker.”
Graham looked at him for a moment in confusion, and then, understanding, he smiled.
“Very nice. Jack Daniel’s?” he said, now in English.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Actually your linguistic ability has nothing to do with the War Bond Tour,” Graham said, and took a sip of his drink. “And for that matter, neither do I.”
“Sir, I don’t understand…”
“Adding you to the War Bond Tour roster seemed a convenient way of bringing you back from Guadalcanal without raising any awkward questions. Conveniently for me, you turned out to be a bona fide hero.”
What the hell is he talking about?
“I don’t consider myself any kind of a hero, Sir.”
“In my experience, few bona fide heroes do,” Graham said matter-of-factly, meeting his eyes. “What it is, Frade—why I asked you to hold off on the whiskey—is that I wanted to have a talk with you, to ask you a couple of important questions. And I wanted you to be sober when I did.”
“A talk about what, Sir?”
“Let me ask the important question first, to save your time and mine,” Graham said. “Would you be willing to undertake a mission involving great personal risk?”
“Excuse me?”
“The nature of which I am not at liberty to discuss right now,” Graham went on, “beyond saying that it’s outside the continental limits of the United States and is considered of great importance to the war effort.”
This man is absolutely serious. What the hell is this all about?
“Colonel, Sir, with respect, I have no idea what you’re asking of me.”
“Then I’ll repeat the question: Are you willing to undertake a mission involving great personal risk outside the continental limits of the United States?”
He didn’t say “overseas.” He said “outside the continental limits of the United States.”
Oh!
“Has this something to do with my father?” Clete asked.
“You weren’t listening, Lieutenant,” Graham said. “I said I was not at liberty to discuss the nature of this operation.”
Sure, it has to do with my father. I could see that in your face, and the only possible thing about me that would interest an intelligence type like you is my father—and that’s certainly what you are, Colonel, an intelligence type. And Argentina is “outside the continental limits of the United States,” as opposed to “overseas.”
“Colonel, are you aware that I hardly know my father, that I wouldn’t recognize him if he walked into this room?”
“Yes, I am,” Graham said. “But that’s the last question on that subject I’m going to answer. Or let you ask.”
“Until I volunteer for this mission of yours, you mean?”
Graham nodded.
“Colonel, I just got home from Guadalcanal.”
Graham nodded. “I told you, I arranged that. To save me a trip over there to have this conversation.”
“This—mission. It’s that important?”
Graham nodded, then said, “It’s that important.”
“Do I have to decide right now?”
“That would make things more convenient for both of us.”
“And what if I say yes now, hear what you have to say, and then change my mind?”
“I wondered if that possibility would occur to you. The answer, frankly, is that there’s really nothing I can do but appeal to your patriotism.”
“Isn’t patriotism supposed to be the last refuge of the scoundrel?” Clete asked, smiling.
“I’ve heard that said,” Graham replied, smiling back at him. “I’m not sure if I believe it. I’m an Aggie—just as you were once, for a while. We Aggies take words like ‘patriotism’ and ‘honor’ seriously.” (An Aggie is an alumnus of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical Institute.)
“At least some of us do,” Clete said. He met Graham’s eyes for a moment, then said, evenly, “OK.”
Graham nodded, then walked to the chest of drawers and laid his briefcase on it. He opened the briefcase, took out a form, closed the briefcase, laid the form on it, then took a fountain pen from his shirt pocket and extended it to Frade.
“Would you please sign this?”
Clete walked to the chest of drawers, then bent over Graham’s briefcase and read the form.
The United States of America Office of Strategic Services Washington, D.C.
Acknowledgment of Penalties Provided by the United States Code for the Unauthorized Disclosure of National Security Information
The undersigned acknowledge that the unauthorized disclosure of any information made available to him by any officer of Strategic Services will result in his prosecution under applicable provisions of the United States Code (including, where applicable, The Manual For Courts-Martial, 1917) and that the penalties provided by law provide on conviction for the death penalty, or such other punishment as the court may decide.
Cletus Howell Frade
Executed at Los Angeles, Calofornia,
this 12th day of October 1942
Witness:
A. F. Graham
Colonel, USMCR.
He knew I was going to sign this, didn’t he? My name and the date are already typed in on the form, Clete thought, and then, This is a little melodramatic, isn’t it? And then, What the hell is the Office of Strategic Services?
After a moment’s hesitation, he asked that aloud.
“What’s the Office of Strategic Services?”
“Sign that, Lieutenant, or don’t sign it,” Graham said, and now there was a tone of annoyance in his voice. “Make up your mind.”
Clete scrawled his name on the form. Graham retrieved the form and his pen and signed his name as witness, then put the form into his briefcase.
“OK, Lieutenant Frade, now you can ask questions,” he said.
“What is the Office of Strategic Services?”
“An agency of the federal government which reports directly to the President. It performs what are somewhat euphemistically known as strategic services for the government.”
“In other words, you’re not going to tell me.”
“You will be told what you have the need to know.”
“What does the Office of Strategic Services want from me?”
“As you guessed, it wants you to go to Argentina. You will command a three-man team with the mission of taking out a merchant vessel—a merchant vessel of a neutral country, which we have determined is replenishing German submarines operating off the coast of South America. These submarines are doing considerable damage to shipping down there. We have to lessen that. But additionally, if you can find the time, we’d like you to dream up other ways to make things difficult for the Germans, the Italians, and the Japanese in Argentina.”
“I don’t know anything about…sabotage…that sort of thing.”
“The other members of your team do,” Graham interrupted.
“So the only reason I can think of that you want me for something like this is because of my father. You know my father is an Argentine…Argentinean, right?”
“Of course. And you’re right.”
“Did you hear what I said a minute ago, that I wouldn’t recognize my father if he walked into this room?”
“We know that too. Actually, we know more about you, Frade, than you probably know yourself. For example, are you aware that you hold Argentine citizenship?”
“I’ve always been told that Americans can’t hold dual citizenship.”
“So far as our government is concerned, we can’t. So far as the Argentine government is concerned, you were born there, therefore you are an Argentine citizen.”
“I haven’t been there since I was an infant,” Clete said.
“Yes, we know,” Colonel Graham said, a touch of impatience in his voice.
He turned to his briefcase and came out with a five-by-seven-inch photograph and handed it to Clete.
“El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade,” Graham said, pronouncing it “Frah-day.” “He looks rather like you, or vice versa, wouldn’t you say?”
Clete examined the photograph. It showed a tall, solid-looking man with a full mustache. He was wearing a rather ornate, somewhat Germanic uniform, and stepping into the backseat of an open Mercedes-Benz sedan. In the background, against a row of Doric columns, was a rank of soldiers armed with rifles standing at what the Marine Corps would call “Parade Rest.” Their uniforms, too, looked Germanic, and they were wearing German helmets.
Christ, he does look like me. Or, as Colonel Graham puts it, vice versa.
Well, it looks as if I will finally get to meet my father.
Do I want to? I don’t feel a thing looking at this picture. He’s a stranger. And he certainly has made it pretty goddamned plain that he doesn’t give a damn for me. I’m the result of a youthful indiscretion, as far as he’s concerned. Maybe, probably, even an embarrassment.
I wonder how he will react when I show up down there.
“Excuse me, Señor. I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I happen to be what they call the fruit of your loins.”
“That was taken last summer,” Graham said after a moment.
“Where?” Clete asked. “In Berlin?”
“No.” Graham chuckled. “That’s Buenos Aires. On Independence Day. Their Independence Day—July ninth. They make just about as much of a fuss over theirs as we do over ours.”
“I wasn’t aware he was in the Army,” Clete said.
“He’s retired. They—people of a certain class and influence-wear uniforms on suitable occasions. This was taken before the traditional Independence Day Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral. José de San Martín, El Libertador, is buried there. Do you recognize the insignia? Your father’s a colonel of cavalry. And like Generalleutnant Hasso von Manteuffel of the Wehrmacht and our own Major General George S. Patton, he’s a graduate of the French Cavalry School at Saint-Cyr. And the German Kriegsschule.”
Clete looked at Colonel Graham and saw amusement in his eyes.
“And whose side is he on in this war?” Clete asked.
“Argentina, as you probably know, is trying to sit this war out as. a neutral. Generally speaking, their Navy, which was trained by the English, is pro-Allies. The Army, which is trained by the Germans, is generally pro-Axis. We don’t know exactly where your father stands. If, ‘in addition to your other duties,’ you could tilt him toward our side, that would be nice.”
“Is that the real reason you want me to go down there? To try to work on my father?”
“No. As I said, if you could tilt your father toward us, that would be a bonus. But you’re being sent down there to take out the ‘neutral’ submarine replenishment vessel. What we’re hoping—your father is a very powerful man down there—is that the BIS…”
“The what?”
“The Bureau of Internal Security, which is sort of their FBI, except that it’s under the Ministry of Defense. They’re very good, I understand, trained by the Germans. What we’re hoping is that once the BIS find out your father is el Coronel Frade, they may elect to be a little less enthusiastic, a little less efficient in investigating you, than they would ordinarily be.”
“How are they going to know he’s my father? Are you going to tell them?”
“They’ll find out. I told you, they’re very good.”
“When does all this start to happen? I was promised a leave. I want to go to Texas….”
“I understand,” he said. “We know about your uncle, too. That must have been tough….”
“Sir, do I get a leave or don’t I?”
“Yes, of course. There will be time for you to visit both Midland and New Orleans.”
“Thank you,” Clete said.
Graham looked into Clete’s eyes for a moment, then nodded. He looked at his watch.
“We have a compartment on the Chicago Limited,” he said. “We have an hour and a half to make it. I think you’d better start packing.”
“I just take off? What about the War Bond Tour? Won’t they miss me?”
“They will be told that you’re on emergency leave because of an illness in your family,” Graham said. “Do you suppose I could have another drink, while you pack?”
[THREE]
Office of the Director
Office of Strategic Services
National Institutes of Health Building
Washington, D.C.
15 October 1942
“You wanted to see me, Colonel?” Colonel A. F. Graham asked as he stood in the door. He was in civilian clothing.
“Come on in, Alex,” Colonel William J. Donovan, a stocky, well-tailored man in his fifties, replied. As Graham walked into the office, Donovan added, “Actually, I wanted to see you three days ago, and then the day before yesterday, and yest—”
“I was on the West Coast,” Graham said. “I sent you a memo.”
“Carefully timed to arrive after you left,” Donovan said. He was smiling, but there was a tone of rebuke in his voice.
“Amazing town, this Washington,” Graham said. “It only takes a couple of months for an honest man to become as devious as any lifelong bureaucrat.”
“Tell me something, Alex,” Donovan asked; he was clearly enjoying the exchange. “How did you manage to run the country’s second-largest railroad without knowing how to delegate responsibility?”
“The third or fourth largest, actually. Depending on how you count—by trackage or by income. The Pennsylvania and the New York Central make more money; and the Union Pacific, the Sante Fe, and the Chicago and Northwestern all have more trackage.”
Donovan smiled tolerantly at him. Unlike most of the upper echelon of the OSS, Colonel A. (for Alejandro) F. (for Fredrico) Graham was not awed by Colonel William R. Donovan, Director of the Office of Strategic Services—and World I Hero, spectacularly successful Wall Street lawyer, and intimate, longtime friend of his Harvard classmate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States.
Probably because Graham was himself a World War I hero, Donovan often reflected. And had an even greater income from running his railroad than he himself had. And had a loathing for politicians, even those who made it to the White House.
Donovan was pleased when he was able to recruit Graham for the OSS and to steal him from the President (Roosevelt was talking about making Graham “Transportation Czar”; the theft annoyed the President, but he got over it). There were a number of reasons why he was truly valuable; high among these was his reputation for not backing down from a position he believed to be the right one.
“But to answer your question, Colonel,” Graham went on. “By knowing what things should be delegated, and what things the boss should do himself.”
“We even have an Assistant Director for Recruitment around here. Did you know that?”
“Actually, he’s a Deputy Assistant Director,” Graham said. “He works for me. Did you ever really read the manning table?”
“No,” Donovan said, and laughed. “I have an Assistant Director named Graham who does that sort of thing for me. Whenever he comes to work.”
“I thought it was important, Bill,” Graham said. “That’s why I went myself.”
“Your memo said your trip was in connection with the Argentina problem,” Donovan said, his tone making it a question.
Graham nodded.
“Then let me clear the air. There will be no violation of Argentine neutrality by United States Naval or Army Air Corps forces. I took that all the way to the top. The State Department won.”
“The top” meant the President of the United States.
“I thought that’s what would happen,” Graham said. “That’s why I went recruiting in California. We need more assets down there.”
Donovan nodded his agreement and then asked, “Any luck?”
“A very interesting young Marine. Young fellow named Frade.”
“The Marine Corps…no, Holcomb himself…has been complaining that we’re taking too many of his officers.” Thomas Holcomb was then Major General Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.
“You’ll have to deal with Holcomb. This one we need.”
“Why?”
“This one—he flew at Midway, and they just gave him a second DFC—not only comes with a large set of balls, he speaks Spanish fluently. And his father is very interesting.”
“Who’s his father?”
“El Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade.”
“And who is el Coronel Jorge Guillermo Frade?”
“He is the éminence grise of the G.O.U.”
“It’s not nice, Alex, to force your boss to confess his ignorance.”
“It stands for Grupo de Oficiales Unidos,” Graham explained. “They are planning a coup against the President of Argentina. With a little bit of luck they’ll succeed.”
“This fellow’s father? The Argentine colonel?”
Graham nodded.
“The last briefing I had,” Donovan said, “claimed that the Argentinean military, to a man, supported the Axis. Or at least the Germans.”
“Then you weren’t listening closely. The ‘Argentines are Pro-Axis’ business is simply not so. Just because they wear German helmets doesn’t mean they’re all Nazis. There’s a good deal of pro-British sentiment among much of the officer corps, and the bureaucracy.”
“‘Pro-British’? As differentiated from ‘Pro-Allies’? Or ‘Pro-American’?”
“They don’t particularly like us; they like to think they should be the dominant power in this hemisphere. And we’ve never had a presence down there the way the British have. And they’re a practical people, Bill. After Dunkirk, noble sentiment aside, who would you have bet would win the war in Europe? After Pearl Harbor, or especially after Singapore and the Philippines fell to the Japanese—patriotism aside—who would you have bet on to win the war in the Pacific?”
“The question of the moral right and wrong is not in the equation, so far as they’re concerned?”
“As it is in ours, you mean? We violated every description of neutrality I’ve ever heard when we had the U.S. Navy looking for German submarines in the North Atlantic, long before we were in the war.”
“You disapprove of what we did, Alex?”
“No. The point I’m making here is that the Argentine government has taken greater pains to be neutral than we ever did—even the one now in place, under Castilló, who is a fascist.”
“Then you weren’t at the briefing where I heard that they’re closing their eyes to the Germans’ refueling and replenishing their submarines in the River Plate.”
“I set up that briefing for you,” Graham said. “I hoped you would pay attention when Major Kellerman made the point that the German submarines are being supplied by neutral—not German—vessels,” Graham countered. “And not by the Argentines.”
“That’s splitting hairs,” Donovan said.
Graham met Donovan’s eyes and shrugged. Then he said, “If it were not for those U-boats, Bill, Brazil almost certainly would still be neutral.”*
“The trouble with that,” Donovan countered, “is the feeling in Argentina that whatever Brazil does, Argentina should take the other side.”
“That’s only among some people in Argentina,” Graham argued. “I still have hopes that we can get Argentina to see the light.”
“What we don’t want down there is a war between Brazil and Argentina. That strikes me as a real possibility. They don’t like each other, and I’m afraid that one of your Argentine coronels is going to decide that if they get in a war with Brazil, Germany will have to help them.”
“I think Germany likes things just as they are. They’re getting Argentine beef, leather, wool, other foodstuffs,” Graham said. “And they have their hands full in Africa and Russia. And I really don’t think Argentina wants to pick a fight with Brazil. They know that we can supply Brazil a lot easier than Germany can supply them.”
“You hope,” Donovan said.
“I think they know, Bill. From what I have seen, they have pretty good intelligence.”
“So I heard at the briefing,” Donovan said.
“What we will see now,” Graham went on, “is whether they are wise enough to close their eyes to our blowing up one—or more—of the neutral ships who are replenishing the German submarines. Which we have to do before the Brazilians start seriously thinking about doing it themselves. They know we would have to support them if they got into a war with Argentina; that certainly has a certain appeal to some of their coronels.”
Donovan nodded his agreement again.
“What I don’t understand, Alex,” he said, “is why you’re devoting so much of your time and effort to this.”
“It’s my mission,” Graham said, and then added, “Unless something has happened to change that?”
“I simply meant that Newton-Haddle has no doubt that his team down there will have no trouble in putting the German ship out of action.”
“‘His’ team?” Graham asked, and now there was ice in his voice.
“Newton-Haddle told me he trained them personally,” Donovan said. “That’s all I meant.”
Colonel Baxter F. Newton-Haddle, U.S. Army Reserve, was the OSS’s Assistant Director For Training, and ran the Country Club (the OSS operated a training school in Virginia at a requisitioned country club). He was a wealthy Philadelphia socialite, the archetypal WASP, as Donovan privately thought of him. Donovan was also aware that Graham, who had seen combat with the Marines in France in World War I, thought he was a strutting peacock.
Graham’s face showed that Donovan’s explanation hadn’t mollified him.
“It may be replenishment ships, plural,” he went on. “That wouldn’t surprise me. Even if they take out the ship now in the River Plate…”
“When they take it out, not if,” Donovan interrupted, with a smile he hoped would remove the tension. “Think positively, Alex.”
“…there is little question in my mind,” Graham went on as if he had not heard a word, “that the Germans will send another to replace it—or several others.”
“OK,” Donovan said. “And you think one team isn’t enough? Your mission, Alex, your decision.”
That satisfied him, Donovan thought, judging from the look on Graham’s face. And then he developed the thought: If the bad blood between Newton-Haddle and Graham gets out of hand, and I have to choose between them, I need Graham more than I need Newton-Haddle.
“Thank you,” Graham said. “Frankly, I wasn’t sure where I stood.”
“Your mission, Alex,” Donovan repeated. “Just tell me about it.”
“When I get the second team down there, the primary mission of both teams will remain the interruption of the replenishment of German submarines and any merchant raiders which may still be active there. I think we have to make two points to the Argentines: First, there is a limit to our patience; we won’t let them look the other way while the Germans replenish their warships in their waters. And second, we are willing, and capable, of playing hardball ourselves.”
“Who’s on the second team besides the son of Colonel Whatsisname?”
“Frade,” Graham furnished. “The second man is a second lieutenant I found in the 82nd Airborne Division. His family is in the industrial demolitions business in Chicago. I watched his father demolish a grain elevator next to my right-of-way in Wisconsin. Great big brick sonofabitch, eight stories high and a quarter of a mile long. He dropped it in on itself without getting so much as a loose brick on my tracks. If this kid is half as good as his father, he’s just what I need.”
“A second lieutenant?”
“And scarcely old enough to vote,” Graham said. “The third man on the team will be a Spanish Jew with German connections whose family was in Dachau…murdered there, it looks like. I found him in the Army’s Counterintelligence Corps at Camp Holabird in Baltimore. He’s an electrical engineer, and according to Dave Sarnoff at RCA, a pretty good one.”
“When do you plan to send these people to Argentina?”
“As soon as the explosives kid, his name is Pelosi, and Ettinger the Jewish chap have gone through a quickie course at the Country Club. And after we take care of their papers and make their cover stories credible.”
“Which are?” Donovan asked.
“Ettinger is well-educated, multilingual; and he’s been through the CIC training program. I want to talk to him myself—I haven’t done that yet. But I think he will fit unobtrusively into the Bank of Boston, if I can convince Nestor that he can’t use him for anything else until the replenishment-ship problem is solved.”
“Jasper Nestor’s the Station Chief in Buenos Aires,” Donovan thought out loud. “He may have other ideas where to use this fellow.”
“And this is my mission,” Graham said sharply. “Which I have been led to believe is the most important thing we have going down there right now. I hope Nestor understands that.”
“I’m sure he does. Nestor is a good man,” Donovan said. Then, suddenly and perversely unable to resist the temptation to needle Graham, he added: “Colonel Newton-Haddle thinks very highly of him.”
Good God, why did I say that? The last thing I want to do is antagonize him!
Graham’s eyes, ice cold, locked on Donovan’s for a moment. Then, his eyes still cold, he flashed Donovan a gloriously insincere smile.
“What is it they say, Bill, about birds of a feather?”
Donovan laughed, hoping it sounded more genuinely hearty than it felt.
“And the explosives expert? What about his cover?”
“Frade’s family is in the oil business. Howell Petroleum. Mostly in West Texas and Louisiana, but with interests in Venezuela, including one conveniently known as Howell Petroleum (Venezuela). Conveniently, it sends two or three tankers a month to Argentina. Argentina would like to buy more oil. Howell Petroleum (Venezuela) is going to accommodate them. This will require the opening of an office in Buenos Aires to make sure the petroleum is not diverted. Meanwhile, the Germans are desperate for petroleum, especially for refined product, and don’t seem to care what it costs. Money talks. And especially loudly in Argentina, or so I’m told. So it’s credible to establish an office down there to make sure that Howell oil is consumed within Argentina. And that gives a credible cover to the Marine—his middle name is Howell—and to Pelosi, as well. He’s been around enough tank farms and refineries—if only to demolish them—to look like he knows what he’s doing.”
Donovan nodded.
“That should work,” he said. “Tell me more about your plans for the Marine vis-à-vis his father.”
“That’s a wild card. The boy was born there. But he was with his mother when she died in the United States. He was an infant then and stayed here. He was raised by an uncle and aunt, and later lived with his grandfather, Cletus Marcus Howell…”
“I know the name,” Donovan interrupted.
“…in New Orleans. The grandfather loathes and despises the father, and very possibly has poisoned the son against him. In any event, they don’t know each other. We’ll just have to see what happens when they get together.”
“Best case?”
“El Coronel is overcome by emotion at being united with his long-lost American son, and tilts our way, bringing the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos with him.”
“Worst?”
“He hasn’t been in touch with his son since he was in diapers. The child may be something el Coronel wishes never happened, and he won’t be at all happy to have his son show up down there.”
“But you think we should play the card?”
“Absolutely. I don’t like to think about the consequences in South America if we found ourselves involved in a war against Argentina. If somebody asked me, I wish Brazil had remained neutral.”
“You’re talking about J. Edgar Hoover’s major intelligence triumph,” Donovan said.
J. Edgar Hoover, the enormously politically powerful director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, claimed sole authority for all United States intelligence and counterintelligence activity in Latin and South America. While not publicly challenging Hoover’s position or authority, President Franklin Roosevelt had nonetheless authorized Donovan’s OSS to operate in South America.
“You’re not suggesting Hoover thinks we would be served by a war between Brazil and Argentina?” Graham asked, surprised.
“Of course not. Whatever Edgar is, he’s no fool.”
“Best scenario,” Graham went on, “Argentina sees the light and joins the Allies. Next best, Argentina remains neutral, leaning toward us. Next best, Argentina remains neutral, leaning the other way. Worst, Argentina gets in a war with Brazil and becomes a de facto if not de jure member of the Axis powers. Anything we can do to keep the worst scenario from coming into being seems to me to be worth the effort. The Frade father-son card isn’t much, but you play what you have. Sometimes you get lucky.”
“I agree,” Donovan said. “But be careful, Alex,” he said. “And keep me posted. Personally, not with one of your memorandums.”
“Right,” Graham said. He raised his eyebrows, asking, Is that all?
“It’s always a pleasure to see you, Alex,” Donovan said drolly. “We really should do this more often.”
Graham laughed. “The very next time I’m in town,” he said, and then walked out of Donovan’s office.