“The little one with the big nose,” Graham offered, “is General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, who has the dubious distinction of having surrendered the Afrikakorps.”
Frade found General von Arnim—who wore a khaki uniform and had his hands folded on his back—marching purposefully over the sparse grass, trailed by four other officers.
Graham went on: “He’s not looking at us, of course, but I’m sure he’s wondering what’s going on. By now, he knows we’ve taken Frogger from the general population.”
“He’s not the only one wondering what’s going on,” Clete said. “Are you going to tell me what I’m supposed to do? Or am I supposed to wing it?”
“Actually, Major Frade, I’ve given the question of how you should handle this a good deal of thought. If I knew what you should do, I’d tell you. But I don’t know. I could tell you to wing it, but that’s a little too casual. So I think that you should use your best judgment. I’ll back whatever you decide to do.”
Clete didn’t reply.
“The expected response, Major, was, ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ ”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
There was another copse of trees on the other side of the field, where the Germans were having their morning constitutional, and then the camp itself. It looked like any other hurriedly-built-to-last-five-years temporary military installation, like Jackson Army Air Base.
There were no hangars, of course, but there were many more “colonel’s quarters” than Frade expected to see. These were small, one-story frame buildings intended for the use of senior officers. They held two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a bath.
The staff car pulled up before one of them, and the driver got out to open Graham’s door.
Graham looked at Frade. “Do you want us to come in with you?”
It was a moment before Clete had time to consider the question.
“You go in first,” he finally said. “Then Len goes in—I want this guy to recognize him from the photos—then I’ll come in. Neither one of you say anything to him. If I give you a signal, leave us alone.”
Graham’s face tightened. He had just been given an order, not a suggestion. Marine majors do not give orders to Marine colonels.
He decided this was not the time to raise the subject.
After a moment, he nodded and said, “Okay.”
[TWO]
Inside the larger bedroom of Building T-402, Oberstleutnant Wilhelm Frogger heard the crunch of tires on the pebbles on the driveway. He stood up and went to the window and looked out through the steel mesh.
Frogger was dressed, like General von Arnim, in the tan desert uniform of the Afrikakorps. It was nearly new. The Americans had captured matériel as well as prisoners, shipped it to the United States, and now were issuing it to their prisoners.
The room was furnished with a standard U.S. Army steel cot, a simple wooden table, and a folding metal chair. A door led to a basic bath with a sink, a water closet, and a shower. On the table were an ashtray fashioned from a can of Planters peanuts, a stainless-steel water pitcher, a china mug, and a Masonite tray holding the remnants of the breakfast—scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, milk, and apple jelly—he had been served at half past seven.
There also was a cardboard box; today was Ration Day, and his ration had been delivered with his breakfast.
The cardboard box held a box of kitchen matches; a carton of Wings cigarettes; an unopened can of Planters Peanuts; a tube of Colgate toothpaste; two Hershey chocolate bars; two bars of soap; a pad of lined paper; a Prisoner’s Mail form, which, when filled in, would serve as his weekly letter home; and two pencils.
Frogger had taken nothing from the box but a package of cigarettes. When they had brought him to Camp Clinton, he had been ordered to bring all his personal property, and the U.S. Army duffel bag on the floor held all the things he had needed except cigarettes. The carton-a-week ration always ran out a day or two before Ration Day, no matter how hard he tried to make it last the whole week.
Next to the ration carton was the manila envelope filled to capacity with eight-by-ten-inch photographs of his family that the military police major had given him yesterday.
Frogger saw through the window that the same military police officer was getting out of the front seat of the staff car. And, a moment later, the man who had come to see him early last evening got out of the backseat.
Now he’s in uniform.
But it’s not a U.S. Army uniform.
What do they call their naval infantry—Marines?
Ja . . . the man is wearing the uniform of a colonel of the Corps of Marines.
And then another got out of the car. A civilian with long hair.
He’s the other man in the photographs of my parents.
That confirms it. The military police major is the other man in the photographs.
I have no idea who they are, or what they want from me, but I am going to have to be very careful.
Frogger looked at the table. He had taken several photographs from the envelope to look at them again, and had not returned them. He turned from the window, walked quickly to the table, put the photographs back in the envelope, then arranged it neatly beside the ration box.
He took a pack of Wings cigarettes from his shirt pocket, removed one cigarette and lit it with a kitchen match, then sat down in the metal folding chair to wait for whatever was going to happen next.
Oberstleutnant Wilhelm Frogger stood up and came to attention as military courtesy dictated when Colonel A. F. Graham, USMC, walked into the room followed by the military police major. A moment later, Frade entered the room.
“Guten Morgen, Herr Oberstleutnant,” Frade said.
“Guten Morgen.”
“My name is Frade.”
“Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”
Frade gestured with his hand for Graham and Fischer to leave.
“And please close the door,” Frade said.
Graham and Fischer left the room and the door clicked shut.
Frogger picked up on that.
This man is younger than the Corps of Marines Oberst.
But apparently he is in charge.
Frade looked Frogger square in the eye.
“Do you speak English, Colonel? My German is not that good.”
“Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Frogger, Identity Number 19-700045.”
“The way you said that, Colonel, suggests you think you are about to be interrogated.”
“I believe that under the Geneva Convention,” Frogger said in vaguely British-accented English, “by which both our nations are bound, giving my name, rank, and identity number is all that can be required of me.”
“I’m not going to question you because you have no information I need. The Afrikakorps no longer exists. You may sit if you like.”
Frogger decided that standing at attention served no useful purpose, sat down, and picked up his cigarette from the Planters peanuts ashtray.
Frade took a cigar from a leather case, bit off one end, took a kitchen match from the box and struck it on the tabletop, then carefully lit the cigar.
“You’ve heard, no doubt, that we have taken Sicily,” Frade said after exhaling a large cloud of cigar smoke, “and that Mussolini has been removed from office and replaced by Marshal Badoglio. If I were a betting man, and I am, I’d bet that negotiations for Italy’s surrender are under way as we speak.”
Frogger did not reply.
Frade puffed his cigar, then added, “But you probably have not heard about this. It just came in.”
He handed a sheet of teletype paper to Frogger:
OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION
WASHINGTON
2305 5 AUGUST 1943
UNCLASSIFIED
DISTRIBUTION LIST A—GENERAL
GERMAN PROPAGANDA MINISTER JOSEF GOEBBELS IN A 2130 (BERLIN TIME) 5 AUGUST 1943 NATIONWIDE BROADCAST RECOMMENDED THE IMMEDIATE EVACUATION OF ALL NON-ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL FROM
BERLIN.
THIS IS THE FIRST ADMISSION THAT BERLIN WILL SHORTLY BE UNDER HEAVY AERIAL BOMBARDMENT ATTACK WHICH THE GERMANS BELIEVE NEITHER ANTI-AIRCRAFT NOR THE LUFTWAFFE WILL BE ABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY RESIST.
A FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE GOEBBELS BROADCAST HAS BEEN TRANSMITTED TO DISTRIBUTION LIST A—HEADS OF AGENCIES AND WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO INTERESTED PARTIES BY CONTACTING OWI ATTENTION: OFFICIAL GERMAN BROADCASTS SECTION.
END
UNCLASSIFIED
After Frogger read the teletype, he wordlessly laid it on the table, then puffed at his cigarette.
Frade said: “That doesn’t have much personal impact on you, does it? You have no family remaining in Berlin—in Germany, for that matter. Your brothers are dead, and we have your parents.”
Frogger didn’t respond in any way.
“As a professional soldier, of course, it might suggest to you—if you haven’t already come to this conclusion—that you’ve lost the war.”
Frogger met Frade’s eyes but didn’t reply.
“I said a moment ago that this is not an interrogation. Quite the opposite. I’m going to tell you about myself and about your parents. I’m free to do this, because as of now you are not going to be in a position to pass what I tell you to anyone who could pass it on. Have you ever heard of the Aleutian Islands?”
Frogger frowned as he considered the question.
“North Pacific Ocean?” he said.
Frade nodded. “Sort of a tail coming off Alaska.”
Frogger nodded.
“You’re a field-grade officer,” Frade said. “A staff officer, so it will probably come as no surprise to you that we have people in uniform we don’t completely trust. Communists, in particular—especially people who fought in Spain with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade—but others as well. We think that some are Germans who still consider Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party the hope of the world, just as some Italians feel the same way about Mussolini. I’m sure you understand what I mean.”
Frogger remained silent.
“I suppose in Germany that these sort of threats to the common good would be shot out of hand, if they were not lucky enough to be put in a concentration camp.”
Frade let that sink in, then went on: “We, however, don’t shoot people out of hand, and with the exception of what we did to Japanese-Americans right after we got in the war, we don’t put them in concentration camps. That was something that shouldn’t have happened, and most Americans are ashamed that it did.
“Still, we have a saying that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that little green men from Mars aren’t after you with evil intent.”
A smile flickered briefly across Frogger’s lips.
“So we had the problem of what to do with people we have concerns about. Does Sergeant A, or Major B, feel his allegiance is to the Kremlin or the Pentagon? Since we have no proof, we can’t just shoot them, but on the other hand, we can’t just let them run free, which might pose a threat to national security.
“So what we do with them is send them to defend the Aleutian Islands, which I suppose could fairly be described as a concentration camp. No barbed wire or guard towers—much like Camp Clinton. Those sort of things are not needed. The only way to get to the Aleutian Islands is by ship or airplane. All we have to do is make sure that when a ship or airplane leaves the Aleutians no one’s on it who’s not supposed to be on it. Getting the picture?”
Frogger nodded curtly as he lit another cigarette.
“If we can’t come to some sort of agreement here, Colonel Frogger, you will be flown to the Aleutians and kept there until the war is over, when we will decide what to do with you.”
“That would bring us back to the Geneva Convention, wouldn’t it?” Frogger said, unmoved. “What you have described to me would be in violation of the convention.”
“Probably, it is. It also almost certainly violates our own constitution. But in wartime, winning is what counts, not the fine points of law. During our own Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus.”
He took a puff of his cigar, exhaled a gray-blue cloud, then went on:
“Now, let me tell you who I am. I’m an American. An intelligence officer. I’m half-Argentine. My father was not only a colonel in the Ejército Argentino, but active in politics. He was a graduate of your Kriegsschule, and until I finally opened his eyes to what scum are running Germany he was really hoping the Axis would win this war.
“What I’m doing in Argentina is—”
“Apparently kidnapping German diplomats and their wives,” Frogger blurted.
“—going to be hard for you to believe. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.”
Frogger’s eyes showed how likely that was going to be.
Frade continued: “With the possible exception of Hitler himself, and perhaps a handful of his intimates, a number of senior German officials—Martin Bormann, for one—realize that the war is lost. They have a contingency plan for this. It’s called Operation Phoenix. What they are trying to do is purchase sanctuary in South America, primarily in Argentina but in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil as well, to which the senior Nazis will escape and hide until such time as they can rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes.”
“You don’t really expect me to believe that.”
“I told you that you were going to have to take my word for it. And it gets even more sordid and unbelievable. A number of senior SS officers close to Himmler, although we don’t think he’s personally involved, saw a chance to make lots of money and took it.
“Jews in concentration camps can buy their way out. They are taken to the Spanish border, then given passports and passage on neutral ships to Argentina and Uruguay. The ransom money goes into the pockets of the SS officers involved. ”
Frogger shook his head in disbelief.
Frade went on: “When it came to the attention of the SS in Buenos Aires that I was investigating both Operation Phoenix and the ransoming operation, they decided to have me assassinated. An officer in the German embassy, a decent man, decided his officer’s honor would not permit him to stand silent while this happened. He warned me. When the people—local gangsters—came to assassinate me, I was ready for them and eliminated them. But not before they had slit the throat of my housekeeper.”
“You will forgive me, sir, for saying this sounds like the plot of a bad movie.”
“It does indeed. Is there a saying in German, ‘Truth is stranger than fiction’?”
Frogger snorted.
“The next thing the Germans decided was that the assassination of my father would serve two purposes. One, it would remove him from power, which was important, because following a planned coup he was to become president of Argentina, and having an Argentine president who was no longer pro-Nazi was unacceptable. And two, it would also, they believed, send a message to the Argentine officer corps that Germany would not hesitate to eliminate any officer who got in their way.
“That assassination was successful. My father was shot to death—two twelve-gauge, double-ought-buckshot loads to the head—and his driver, his former sergeant major, was severely wounded.”
They now locked eyes.
“The assassination of my father did not cow the Argentine officer corps. Almost to a man they were offended and angry. More important, they did everything but cheer when the German military attaché and the senior SS officer in the German embassy were shot to death while trying to unload from a U-boat crates of currency, gold, and other valuables intended to finance Operation Phoenix.”
“You shot them?” Frogger blurted.
“No. They were shot by my father’s former sergeant major—whose sister, by the way, was my housekeeper the assassins murdered—and another old sergeant who had served with my father.”
“Forgive me, but I get back to the bad movie plot,” Frogger said.
Frade studied Frogger and decided he hadn’t said that with much conviction.
“A decisi
on was made at the highest level of our government—hell, by President Roosevelt himself—that as sordid as the ransoming of Jews is—and I was prepared to stop it—it should be allowed to continue because at least some Jews were being saved from the gas chambers.”
Frade didn’t like the look in Frogger’s eyes.
“If you think the stories of the gas chambers are fantasy, I’m probably wasting my time with you. But I suggest you hear me out, as we’re getting to your parents.”
They locked eyes again.
“Go on, please,” Frogger said finally.
“My orders now are to let both operations, Phoenix and the ransoming, continue. I am to find out as much as I can about how the Operation Phoenix funds are being spent. And there’s a great many of them. A U-boat successfully landed the crates they had previously failed to, and I’m sure more are on the way. We will deal with the situation after the German surrender.”
Frogger looked at him intently but said nothing.
“And then God, so to speak, dumped your parents in my lap.”
“What, exactly, does that mean?”
“By now, the Germans understood there was a traitor, or traitors, in the embassy. And of course there are. But no one in the embassy has been able to identify the traitors, and the pressure from Berlin to find them is enormous.
“Your father, who is not one of the traitors, was ordered back to Germany. He thought that once he was in Germany—he knows how these people think, how they operate—he and your mother would be thoroughly interrogated and then shot. Or hung from a butcher’s hook.”
“But you just said he isn’t a traitor.”
“He’s not. But these people needed to find a traitor, and your father was available. I think—but do not know—that your father also knows many details of Operation Phoenix and maybe of the ransoming operation as well. That would be enough for these people to kill him. And your mother.”
Frogger said nothing.
“So your father, knowing the alternative was the meat hook, took off.”
“And they went to you?”
“Not directly. To someone else who brought them to me.”
Death and Honor Page 51
