W.E.B. Griffin: Victory and Honor

After everyone was cleansed of Karlchen’s present, Alicia announced, “Mother, shouldn’t we be getting back so we can prepare for your cocktail?” She scanned the crowd and said, “Everybody is coming, right? Everyone except, of course, my missing husband.”

“And me,” Cletus said.

“Cletus, are you sure you don’t want to come? You’ll be missed.”

“Not if my Tío Juan and Señor Rodolfo Nulder are there,” Clete said. “I’ll pass, thank you.”

“What am I supposed to say when people ask about Peter? And they will.”

“When all else fails, Alicia, tell the truth. Peter stayed in Germany to take care of some family business.”

Alicia nodded. Then she went to Dorotea, who had Karlchen on her lap, took him, kissed Dorotea and Clete, and walked out of the library.

Dorotea walked to the window and looked out to see that Alicia actually got into her mother’s Rolls-Royce.

Then she walked to where her husband was sitting in a red leather armchair and holding a glass dark with Chivas Regal. She sat in the matching armchair.

“It is now truth time, my darling.”

“You sure you want to hear this?”

“I’m sure I want to hear everything.”

Clete took a healthy swallow of the Chivas Regal.

“We had dinner, with General Gehlen, in a castle belonging to the Prince of Hesse. General Gehlen told Peter—in great detail—how his father had died. Peter said he wanted to go to Schloss Wachtstein in Pomerania. General Gehlen told him that if the Russians caught him, they would nail him to the wall and skin him alive.

“We then went to Berlin, where we met, among other people, two women who had been repeatedly raped for days by the Russians—actually, some kind of Asiatics in the Red Army; they use them as assault troops—and a fourteen-year-old boy named Heinrich who had killed a Russian tank with a rocket grenade and then wet his pants.

“All of this convinced Peter that the Russians would indeed skin him alive if he went to Pomerania and they caught him.”

Dorotea inhaled.

“And he went anyway,” she said.

“Don Cletus did everything he could to stop him, Doña Dorotea,” Enrico said.

“Oh, my God!”

“Yeah, oh, my God,” Clete said.

“Why?”

“Noblesse oblige, sweetheart. Hansel, Graf von Wachtstein is doing his duty. The stupid sonofabitch.”

“You don’t think he’ll be coming back?”

“I’ve always had a lousy memory, baby, but for the rest of my life I will remember every goddamned word Peter said just before we left Berlin.”

Dorotea made a go ahead signal with both of her hands.

“‘If something should happen to me, my dear friend, I would want you to tell the Countess von Wachtstein that I loved her as I have never loved any other woman, and that I regret that she must now assume the responsibilities that come with the title. And remind her that if I am no longer alive, our son is the Graf von Wachtstein.’”

When she saw her husband’s chest heave, and the tears form, Doña Dorotea got out of her chair, knelt beside his, and pulled his head to her breast.

A long moment later, she asked, “When are you going to tell her, darling?”

“Not until I see a picture of the sonofabitch nailed to the wall of his goddamn castle,” Clete said, his voice unsteady. He cleared his throat. “Miracles happen. You ever hear that God takes care of fools and drunks? The sonofabitch Hansel qualifies on both counts.”

“You’re not going back to Berlin?” Dorotea asked incredulously.

Clete met her eyes and nodded. “The next SAA flight to Lisbon is on the twenty-eighth. Enrico and I will be on it.”

“Oh, God!”

“We’re taking with us that half million dollars. That’s needed to set Gehlen and his people up.”

“I wondered what that money was for.”

“And a suitcase full of clothes for a couple of teenage boys, which Enrico is right now going to go out and buy.”

“ Sí, Don Cletus.”

Tempelhof Air Base Berlin, Germany 1635 1 June 1945

Immediately after Cletus Frade and Enrico Rodríguez had gotten off the Douglas C-47 that had flown them from Rhein-Main, they’d been ushered into the presence of a U.S. Army Military Police officer of the Second Armored Division. Frade announced: “Major, we’re going to need a ride to Roonstrasse in Zehlendorf.”

“With respect, Colonel, what you’re going to get is a ride back to Rhein-Main. Nobody gets into Berlin unless they’re on orders and cleared by SHAEF. You don’t have any orders, and there’s is no Marine officer or civilian employee on my list. I can’t believe that Gooney Bird pilot let you two on his aircraft.”

“Maybe because I showed him this,” Frade said, and handed him the spurious credentials identifying OSS Area Commander Cletus H. Frade.

“Some of Colonel Mattingly’s people, huh? I should have guessed. What else could a Marine lieutenant colonel and a civilian with a riot gun and carrying a briefcase be but the OSS?”

“We were hoping you’d think we were the Salvation Army,” Frade said.

The MP officer chuckled and picked up his telephone.

“Send a jeep over here,” he ordered, then hung up. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what’s in those bags that’s so important that you need to guard it with a riot gun?”

“Would you believe me, Major, if I told you that one contains clothing for the orphanage Colonel Mattingly is running and that there’s half a million dollars in the other one?”

“I’ve learned to believe just about anything I’ve heard about Colonel Mattingly and the OSS. But that one’s stretching it a little too far.”

Frade found the commanding officer of OSS Europe Forward in the garden behind the house. He was sitting at a table and drinking a glass of wine that Frade suspected had fallen off Ciudad de Rosario the last time he was in Berlin.

“May I say that you look dashing in your Marine Corps suit, Colonel Frade?” Mattingly announced by way of greeting. “You could be on a recruiting poster.”

“If you’re not nice, you don’t get the half million,” Frade said.

“I think I would kill for that half million,” Mattingly said. “And now that I’ve said that and thought it over, you may take that literally. We need it bad, and I was getting worried that they’d found you before you could get it back over here.”

“Who they?”

“Sit down and have a glass of this excellent grape the Argentine diplomats graciously shared with us, and I will bring you up to date on what’s happened. Good news and bad news. Mostly bad.”

“Don Cletus?” Enrico asked, holding up a duffel and nodding toward it.

“Go ahead,” Frade said.

“What’s he got in the bag?”

“Clothing for Heinrich and the other one.”

“Gerhard’s the other one. On that subject, Siggie Stein says that if we can get them to Argentina, he knows a nun that’ll take care of them until better arrangements can be made. Good idea?”

“Damn good idea, Bob. I even know the nun. But how are we going to get them to Argentina?”

“Through the compassion of the Vatican, Clete. They owe me a couple of big favors, so for once the pitiful orphaned German children getting off the airplane to find succor in Argentina will actually be pitiful orphaned children. And I really want to get them out of here. I don’t think the trouble we’re getting from the Russians is going to stop. It’s probably going to get much worse.”

“Is that the bad news?”

“That’s the good news, Clete. The bad news is that David Bruce told me he had a private chat with the Supreme Commander. Ike told him that when he talked with General Marshall about keeping the OSS alive, Marshall told him that President Truman has decided to shut us down. Further, Ike told Bruce that he told Marshall that he wanted to bring up keeping us alive to Truman himself, whereupon Marshall told him to butt out, or words to that effect.”