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

Frade stepped back and motioned for Colonel Graham to precede him down the stairs. They both got into the limousine and it drove off.

As they left the air base, Frade said, “I don’t suppose there’s a radio in that van, is there? And one in here?”

“There is,” Graham said. “That is, there are. But if you’re thinking of telling them to drive the extra couple blocks to show Frogger the White House, I already have.”

The Packard stopped in front of the Hotel Washington. Graham got out with Frade on his heels, went through the revolving door, and walked purposefully to the bank of elevators. They got on one, and the operator, a burly black man with gray hair, closed the door.

“Good evening, Steve,” Graham said politely. “By now they should be waiting for us in the subbasement.”

“Excuse me, Colonel,” the operator said as he studied Frade and his long locks. “Who’s this gentleman?”

“This is Major Frade,” Graham said.

“My heads-up said you, an MP major, two of Mr. Hughes’s men, and a quote end quote special visitor.”

“And that while we’re in there nobody else is to be admitted?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The MP officer will be in the basement with the special visitor,” Graham explained. “I’ll vouch for this officer.”

“Yes, sir,” the elevator operator said, and reached for the elevator control. As he did so, Frade saw that the fabric of the operator’s black jacket was tightly stretched over what was almost certainly a 1911-A1 Colt .45 in the small of his back.

“Why do I suspect you’re one of us?” Frade asked him, smiling.

“No, sir. I’m Secret Service. We protect the President, the Vice President, their families, and select supposed ex-Nazis.”

The elevator stopped and the Secret Service man slid open the door.

Frogger was standing there with one of Hughes’s men on each side. Fischer stood to one side.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” the Secret Service man said. “I guess you’re waiting for the elevator to the Washington Berghof?”

Graham laughed.

“Get on, please, Oberstleutnant Frogger,” Graham ordered.

Frogger looked reluctant, almost as if he was going to refuse.

“Get on,” Graham repeated.

Frogger didn’t move.

“Colonel, you better get on,” the Secret Service man said in perfect German. “If I have to come out there and throw you on, you’re not going to like it at all.”

Frogger came into the elevator and the others crowded in after him.

The Secret Service man took a telephone from its hanger and said into it: “Six on the way up. Clear the corridor.”

The elevator began to rise. When the car stopped and its door was opened, there was a small sign announcing SEVENTH FLOOR.

There also were two men in civilian clothing waiting for them. From the respect with which they greeted Colonel Graham—and from their haircuts— Frade guessed they were soldiers, maybe even Marines.

“This way please, Colonel, gentlemen.”

They were led to a door at the end of the corridor. One of the men gestured at Howard’s Saints, signaling them that the corridor was as far as they were going to be allowed to go, and then opened the door and gestured for Graham, Frade, Fisher, and Frogger to go in. When they had done so, the door was closed after them.

Frade saw they were in a comfortably furnished corner sitting room. Its windows opened on both Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street. The White House, a block or so to the west, was clearly visible over the roof of the Treasury Department building.

An interior door opened and a tall man with somewhat sunken eyes and a prominent chin walked in. He was wearing a white shirt, no tie, and the cuffs were rolled up.

“Hello, Alex,” he said in Boston—or at least Harvard—accented English.

“How are you, Putzi?” Graham said as they shook hands.

Hanfstaengl looked at Frogger and said in German, “Colonel, I’m Ernst Hanfstaengl. And you can let your breath out. You are not about to be hung on a meat hook.”

Frogger glared at him but said nothing.

Hanfstaengl turned to Graham.

“I don’t need to know who these gentlemen are, Alex, but it probably would be quite helpful if I knew what it is they—or you—want from the colonel.”

“Putzi, I’m afraid that’s classified,” Graham said.

“Mr. Hanfstaengl,” Frade said, “what I would like for you to do is tell the colonel what scum are running Germany.”

Hanfstaengl looked at Frade, then raised his eyebrows.

“Well, that wouldn’t be hard—I know most of them—but what makes you think he’d believe me? Someone in my position would not be likely to say that Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Democratic Workers Party are the hope of Western civilization, now would he?”

“Give it a shot, please,” Frade said on the cusp of unpleasantness.

Hanfstaengl looked at Graham for guidance.

Graham said, “Tell the colonel, for example, where Hitler got the money to buy the Volkische Beobachter.”

“The people’s what?” Frade asked.

“ ‘The People’s Observer,’ literally translated,” Hanfstaengl said. “The Nazi party newspaper. Hitler got it from me. I gave him the money.”

“And why did you do that?” Graham asked softly.

“At the time, I believed Hitler was the hope of Germany and possibly the only thing standing between Germany, Europe, Western civilization, and the Communist hordes.”

“What made you change your mind?” Frade asked.

“Even if you don’t know it yet, the United States is the only hope the world has to stem the Communist hordes.”

“You haven’t changed your mind about Hitler?” Frade challenged.

“My position on that is a pox on both their houses,” Hanfstaengl said. “Goebbels and Himmler tried to have me murdered, as I suspect you know.”

“But I thought you were a good Nazi,” Frade said.

“Presumably you know what Lord Acton had to say about power. ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ What happened in Germany is unequivocal proof of that.”

“Then you would say that Hitler and the people around him are corrupt?” Graham asked.

“Well, if the bastard hadn’t murdered his niece, with whom he was having an incestuous relationship, I would say that Hitler is probably less personally corrupt than those around him. He’s paranoid, of course. And an egomaniac. Those around him are corrupt beyond description.”

He paused and looked at Frogger.

“You are a professional soldier, Herr Oberstleutnant?”

Frogger nodded.

“Then certainly you must be aware that your peers hold the ‘Austrian corporal’ in deep contempt?”

Frogger didn’t reply.

“Let me put it to you this way, Herr Oberstleutnant: Germany has lost the war. The sooner it’s over, the fewer soldiers—and civilians—will be killed or mutilated for life. Have you heard that Goebbels has gone on Radio Berlin and advised people to leave? So the sooner Germany surrenders, the better for Germany.”

Hanfstaengl looked at Frogger for a response and got none. He shrugged as if he expected that reaction.

Then he coldly added: “Herr Oberstleutnant, if whatever Colonel Graham here is asking you to do will hasten the end of the war, then it is your duty to do so.”

“What they are asking me to do has nothing to do with ending the war, Herr Hanfstaengl,” Frogger said.

“Perhaps you can’t see how whatever he’s asking you to do has to do with hastening the end of the war, but I know Colonel Graham well enough to know that unless he thought it was about ending the war, or something nearly that important, he wouldn’t have brought you here to me.”