W.E.B. Griffin: Victory and Honor

“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.

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.”

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.