Griffin W.E.B. - Honor Bound 04 - Death and Honor

“Operation Phoenix can be defined as setting up places where the big shots— maybe even Hitler himself—can hide here when the war is lost?” Frade asked.

“Yes,” Boltitz said simply.

“Did you share any of your suspicions of Peter with von Deitzberg?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“As I told you, I serve Admiral Canaris,” Boltitz said.

“But you were going to tell him after Peter here committed suicide by airplane?”

“No. I thought I had made that clear. Once Peter had done the honorable thing, I would have done what I could to divert any suspicion from him.”

“ ‘The honorable thing’?” Frade parroted sarcastically. “Jesus H. Christ!” Then he asked, “Did you share your suspicions, even hint at them, with anyone else? Anyone? ”

“No,” Boltitz said simply, meeting Frade’s eyes.

“Let me turn the question around,” Frade said. “Did anyone, von Deitzberg, what’s that fairy SS guy’s name in Montevideo? Oh, yeah, Sturmbannführer Werner von Tresmarck . Or that fat Austrian diplomat, looks like somebody stuffed him? Gradny-Sawz? Did anyone confide in you their thoughts that Peter was the fox in the chicken coop?”

Despite himself, Boltitz had to smile at the happy Texas cowboy’s characterizations of von Tresmarck and First Secretary of the German Embassy Anton von Gradny-Sawz.

And he knows them, not only by name, but also by their sexual preferences and appearance.

The Americans have really penetrated not only the embassy but Operation Phoenix, and that filthy SS operation ransoming Jews from the concentration camps.

“Both von Tresmarck and Gradny-Sawz, Major Frade,” Boltitz said, “came to me and suggested that since they were not the traitor, it had to be one of the other two. But neither was able to provide anything concrete.”

Frade, obviously in deep thought, said nothing for a long moment.

“Okay,” he said, finally. “Now let’s get to the heart of this. What happened, Captain, to change your mind about all this? When Peter failed to do the honorable thing and kill himself, why didn’t you turn him in?”

“Ambassador Lutzenberger sent for me and showed me two letters,” Boltitz said. “They had been smuggled to him on the last Condor flight. One was from my father and the other from Admiral Canaris. My father said he knew I would follow, without question, whatever orders I received from Admiral Canaris.”

“Why should he bother to tell you that?” Frade asked. “You’re an officer. You obey the orders you’re given, right?”

“My father knew what those orders probably would be. He wanted me to know he knew.”

“Who is your father? Where does he fit in here?”

“My father, Major Frade, is a navy officer. Vizeadmiral Kurt Boltitz.”

“And what were the orders your father the admiral was talking about? Were they in Canaris’s letter?”

“Yes, sir,” Boltitz replied, and heard himself.

I just called him “sir.” And for a second time.

What does that mean? That I have subconsciously recognized his authority over me?

“And they were?” Frade pursued.

“Admiral Canaris’s letter ordered me to accept any order from Ambassador Lutzenberger as if they had come from him,” Boltitz said.

“And then what?”

“Excuse me?”

“What were Lutzenberger’s orders? ‘Leave Wachtstein alone’?”

“He told me he knew I had been to see von Wachtstein, and then that von Wachtstein was then in Montevideo, that he had told him to be careful, and that I should make an effort to know him better, as we had more in common than I might have previously realized.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes, sir”—Christ, I did it again—“but his meaning was clear.”

“What happened to the letters?” Frade asked.

“Ambassador Lutzenberger burned them.”

“You saw that?”

Boltitz nodded.

“And then you went to see Wachtstein and he really let his mouth run?” Frade replied, and then turned to von Wachtstein. “What did you tell him, motormouth? And why?”

“The korvettenkapitän told me he had seen the ambassador, Cletus,” von Wachtstein said, “and what had been said—”

“According to him,” Frade said, pointing at Boltitz, “the ambassador didn’t say very much, just implied that he didn’t think you nose-diving onto the runway was a very good idea.”

Boltitz said: “We both interpreted his remark that I should make an effort to know him better, that we had a good deal in common, to mean that we should confide in each other.”

Frade didn’t reply for a moment.

“What you’re asking me to believe, Captain, is that all it took to get you to change sides, to become a traitor to Germany, to turn your back on that code of honor you keep throwing at me, was a quick look at the letters Lutzenberger showed you. That’s a hell of lot to ask me to swallow. Even if you believe, right now, what you’re telling me, how do I know that you won’t change your mind again tomorrow? Or, more likely, when you get back to Germany? You are going back to Germany?”

“Yes, of course, I’m going back—”

“Clete,” von Wachtstein interrupted, “as embarrassing as it is for me to bring this up, you have benefited from the code of honor the korvettenkapitän and I believe in.”

Frade glared at him for a moment, then shrugged, and smiled, and said, “Touché, Peter. I guess you told him about that, too?”

“He asked me how I had come to be close to you,” von Wachtstein said.

“Look at me, Captain,” Frade ordered. When his eyes were locked with Boltitz’s, he asked: “In that circumstance, knowing that it was the intention of your military attaché to . . . hell, the word is assassinate . . . to assassinate an enemy officer—this one—would you have done what Peter did? Warn me?”

“I’d like to think I would have,” Boltitz said. “Assassination is not something to which an honorable officer can be a party.”

Frade shrugged.

He looked at his wife. “I’m probably losing my mind, but I’m tempted to believe him.”

“Peter does,” Dorotea Frade said. “I guess I do, too.”

Frade exhaled audibly.

“I’m going to have to think this over,” he said, and looked at Boltitz. “In other words, the jury is still out, Captain Boltitz.” He moved his look to von Wachtstein. “I was about to say watch your back, Peter. But since you already trust this guy, I don’t suppose that’s necessary, is it?”

“The korvettenkapitän is a brother officer, Clete,” von Wachtstein said. “And we have decided that what our fathers have decided, that our code of honor dictates that our duty is to Germany, not to Hitler and National Socialism. So, yes, Clete, I trust the korvettenkapitän.”

Frade was silent again for a long moment.

“Okay,” he said. “You were headed for Santa Catalina, right?”

Von Wachtstein nodded.

“How long had you planned on staying there?”

“I’d hoped to spend the night,” von Wachtstein said.

“Spoken like a true newlywed,” Frade replied. “Okay. Whatever is wrong with that ugly little airplane of yours is fixed. Get in it, go there, and tell either your mother-in-law or your bride that Dorotea and I accept their kind invitation for cocktails and dinner.”

Boltitz wondered what that was all about when Frade, as if reading his mind, went on: “That may—but probably won’t—explain your presence here to El Coronel Martín. It’s worth a shot.”

“I’ll take you to the airstrip,” Dorotea said.

“No,” Frade said flatly. “Have Antonio take them in one of the Model A’s. And while Carlos is being helpful, one of you say something—in German— about not liking me and/or how unfortunate it was that you had to stop here.”