The Second Objective

by Mark Frost

  Bernie tossed the gun away and knelt down beside Grannit. He didn’t like what he saw.

  “They’re coming,” he said. “You’re going to be all right. They’ll be here soon.”

  “How’s the other guy?”

  Grannit nodded toward the man in the overcoat. Bernie went to check on him, a young military policeman.

  “He’s gone,” said Bernie.

  “Get out of here now,” said Grannit. “Before they find you.”

  “I’m not leaving you here.”

  “Go on—”

  “Forget that. Forget it. I’m not leaving you alone.”

  Grannit closed his eyes and struggled to breathe. They could hear shouts and footsteps entering a far end of the reservoir, voices echoing over the stone. Grannit pointed toward the left pocket of his coat.

  “Here. In here.”

  Bernie helped him reach in, and they pulled out Ole Carlson’s dog tags. Grannit pressed them into Bernie’s hands, held his hand over them, and squeezed hard.

  “You’re with me, Bernie,” said Grannit, fading away. “Tell ’em you’re my partner. We came here together. We finished the job. You tell ’em that.”

  “All right.”

  “He dropped a case near the water. Make sure you get it first. There’s papers in there you can use.”

  “Okay, Earl.”

  “Promise me you’ll do that.”

  “I promise.”

  Grannit closed his eyes, but didn’t loose his grip on Bernie’s hand until the first soldiers arrived.

  37

  Late on the morning of December 22, General Eisenhower issued his Order of the Day to all the Allied troops in Europe, his first public acknowledgment of the seriousness and scale of the Battle of the Bulge.

  The enemy is making his supreme effort to break out of the desperate plight into which you forced him by your brilliant victories of the summer and fall. He is fighting savagely to take back all that you have won and is using every treacherous trick to deceive and kill you. He is gambling everything, but already, in this battle, your unparalleled gallantry has done much to foil his plans. In the face of your proven bravery and fortitude, he will completely fail.

  But we cannot be content with mere repulse.

  By rushing out from his fixed defenses the enemy has given us the chance to turn his great gamble into his worst defeat. So I call upon every man, of all the Allies, to rise now to new heights of courage, of resolution, and of effort. Let everyone hold before him a single thought—to destroy the enemy on the ground, in the air, everywhere—destroy him. United in this determination and with unshakable faith in the cause for which we fight, we will, with God’s help, go forward to our greatest victory.

  Later that same day, for reasons that have never been adequately explained, the extraordinary security detail surrounding General Eisenhower at the Grand Trianon in Versailles was ordered to stand down. He soon returned to his former patterns of free movement behind the lines and among his forward troops.

  On the morning of December 23, the weather over Belgium and the Ardennes Forest cleared. For the first time in the week since the battle had begun, combined Allied air forces took to the sky and entered the fight against the invading German armies with devastating effect. Within three days, elements of Patton’s Thi

  rd Amy reached the exhausted American defenders who had resisted the ferocious siege of Bastogne. Hitler’s last gamble had reached its high-water mark. Within days, his bold offensive would devolve into a desperate retreat toward the German border to save what remained of his battered divisions from utter destruction. Although intense fighting would continue for weeks into the New Year, generating for both sides the highest casualty rate of the entire war, initiative and momentum had shifted back toward the Allies for the final time. Less than five months later, at SHAEF’s field headquarters outside Reims, German field commanders signed the official articles of surrender.

  After watching his staff struggle and fail to produce a satisfactory statement to commemorate the moment, with characteristic modesty General Eisenhower summed up the entire war effort in a single sentence:

  “The mission of this Allied force was fulfilled at 0241 local time, May 7, 1945.”

  38

  Brooklyn, New York

  OCTOBER 4, 1955, 2:00 P.M.

  Each afternoon, outside the urgent-care wing of the Veterans Administration Hospital on Seventh Avenue, nurses wheeled their patients out onto a western-facing plaza overlooking a public golf course, to soak up the last heat of Indian summer. The play-by-play broadcast of the World Series could be heard from a dozen different radios, the voices of Red Barber and young Vin Scully setting the scene. After losing two of the last three championships to the despised Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers had once again carried the Series into a seventh and deciding game.

  When Bernie arrived for his visit, he expected to find Earl on the plaza, but didn’t see him there and went back to look for him in his room. A young, friendly nurse whom he didn’t recognize was working the floor. They met just outside of the room, as Bernie glanced in at Earl.

  “How’s he doing today?”

  “Feeling a little poorly this morning,” she said.

  “You’re new, aren’t you? What’s your name?”

  “Charlene. I’ve been here a few weeks.”

  “Charlene, I’m Bernie.”

  Bernie held out the small bouquet he always brought to brighten up the room and asked if she could help him find a vase. He walked with her to the nurses’

  station.

  “Where you from, Bernie?”

  “Here. Brooklyn.”

  “Yeah? Me, too,” she said. “Mr. Grannit doesn’t get many visitors.”

  “I come by every Sunday.”

  “See, that’s why, I don’t usually work weekends.”

  “Anyway, kind of a local holiday today, isn’t it? For a Tuesday.”

  “For any day, you kidding? I’m living and dying with every pitch.”

  “You want to listen to the game with us? We’ll put it on in his room.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be in and out. Just about everybody in here’s got it on the radio.”

  “They say you could walk from one end of Brooklyn to the other today and never miss a pitch,” said Bernie.

  “I believe that.”

  She held out the small vase she’d filled with water, and he nestled the flowers inside. She noticed the worked-in dirt and grime on his hands and under the nails. They walked back to the room.

  “You a relative, Bernie?”

  “No, just a friend.”

  “I don’t believe Mr. Grannit has any immediate family, does he?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  They entered the room. Earl sat propped up in the bed, his face turned to the single window. He showed no sign that he’d noticed their arrival. Charlene set the flowers on the bedside counter. Bernie switched on the radio, and the sounds of the warm-up show came across, Red and Vinny running down the lineups as the crowd settled into Yankee Stadium. Bernie pulled up a chair beside the bed.

  “What do you think?” asked Bernie. “You think today’s the day, Earl? I really think we’re going to do it. With Podres going for us, he had their number last game. I don’t think they can touch him.”

  Earl’s right arm sat folded up beside him, atrophied and useless. He had some movement in the left hand, to signal for things he wanted or needed. Bernie and the staff had learned how to read most of those requests. This time, as the game started, he gestured in a way Bernie couldn’t decipher. Finally, he realized Earl wanted to hold his hand for a while as they listened. Earl looked directly at him, which he didn’t usually do. His features had been twisted by the series of strokes he’d suffered, and some days his eyes stayed dull, but today Bernie could see a spark. When Gil Hodges singled in the game’s first run in the top of the fourth and Brooklyn took the lead, Earl slapped his hand on the bed a few times and nodded his head
.

  It looked like a sure thing. Podres was too strong. This time they were going to do it. After fifty-five years Brooklyn was finally going to win the Series.

  Three weeks later, two days after Earl died, Bernie received a call at the station from an attorney named Jack Meyer, who worked out of a small storefront near Grand Army Plaza in downtown Brooklyn. He mentioned that he was handling the details of Earl’s estate and had a couple of questions for him. Bernie arranged a time to see him during his lunch hour and took the trolley to his office.

  Meyer worked alone in a cramped single room, piled halfway up the walls with accordion files and loose paperwork. A round, balding man in his mid-sixties with a welcoming smile, he welcomed Bernie in and gestured toward the chair in front of his desk, the only other place to sit.

  “Apologies in advance for my filing system,” said Meyer. “I’m a few weeks behind on my paperwork.”

  Bernie said he didn’t mind, uncomfortable as always in an encounter with any form of authority.

  “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you know Earl Grannit?” asked Meyer.

  “We met during the war.”

  “Did you serve together?”

  “Not in the same unit. But that’s where we met.”

  “Where are you from originally?”

  “Brooklyn. That’s what we realized. That we were from the same neighborhood.”

  Something of Bernie’s reticence came across. “I don’t mean to pry,” said Meyer. “I’m just trying to understand the relationship. I knew Earl’s father; I represented the family for many years. I never heard Earl mention you.”

  “He was never much of a talker,” said Bernie.

  “No,” said Meyer, with a warm smile. “But he made the most of the words he let go of.”

  “Yes, sir. After the war, we stayed in touch. When he had the stroke, I started helping out at the gas station. I’m a mechanic.”

  “I see.”

  “Earl had a rough time of it.”

  “I know he was badly wounded over there. Took him years to recover.”

  “See, I don’t think he ever really did.”

  “It’s a blessing his suffering is over,” said Meyer. “So our business here today is short and simple. If you knew him as well as you say, you won’t be surprised to hear that Earl took very precise care of his affairs.”

  Bernie smiled slightly.

  “I have his will here. He’s left everything to you.”

  Bernie couldn’t speak for a moment. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re his sole heir. Don’t run right out and move to West chester; there’s not a lot, aside from the gas station and a few savings bonds.”

  “I thought...He had no other family at all?”

  “He had a sister growing up.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She was killed. There was a robbery at the station. Some punk emptied the till, she walked in on him. A long time ago now, over twenty-five years. She couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen.”

  Bernie’s own vivid impressions of that day came flooding back and his eyes filled with involuntary tears. He could even pick a young policeman out of the crowd in his memory who might have been...

  “As I understand it, Earl had just joined the police force. Had to work a double shift that day when he would normally have been at the station. Terrible, terrible business. They never found the killer. Family never got over it. Two years later Earl’s father dies of a heart attack. His wife went the next year. There’s one theory that she killed herself. Didn’t he ever tell you any of this?”

  “No, sir. He never did.”

  “Well,” said Meyer, sympathetic to Bernie’s show of emotion. “He was a hard man to know.”

  Bernie composed himself before he spoke again. “You have no idea what he did. Over there. Nobody knows what he did. More than any man I know. Did he ever tell you what happened?”

  “No. And I never asked. Nor, in putting this document together, and this is a little awkward, could I find any mention of your service record. No entry or discharge. Nothing with the Veterans Administration.” He let that sink in for a moment, then turned to a legal pad. “I did verify that your family lived in Park Slope, as you say. Then it appears you moved away for some time in ’38? Eight years later you’re back in the area. Alone. Living in a one-room apartment. Unmarried. No trace of your family.”

  Meyer appeared to be waiting for an explanation, but when none was forthcoming he showed no disappointment.

  “The fact is Earl Grannit vouched for you,” said Meyer. “And that is as far as my curiosity extends. I require your signature here, and here.”

  Meyer set two copies of the will down in front of him and handed Bernie a pen.

  “I owe him my life,” said Bernie, about to elaborate.

  “Please, feel no obligation to say anything more. Earl obviously had his reasons as well.”

  Bernie signed the documents. Meyer efficiently gathered them from him and showed him to the door.

  “Anyway, one hopes that’s what we’ve learned about what happened over there, isn’t it?” he said. “In those black hours.”

  As Meyer looked at him over his glasses, behind the easy congeniality, Bernie wondered exactly how much he did know.

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “What we were fighting for. And against.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Not every hero came home with a medal.”

  They shook hands, and Bernie stepped out onto the quiet tree-lined street, a chill in the wind, the leaves just starting to turn, and walked all the way back to Park Slope.

  AFTERWORD

  On May 19, 1945, near Salzburg, Austria, where he had led his commandos into the Alps to mount a final defense, Oberstürmbannführer Otto Skorzeny turned himself in to American forces. News of the surrender of “the most dangerous man in Europe” created a sensation throughout the Continent, America, and the rest of the world. When General Eisenhower learned of Skorzeny’s capture, he sent his personal chief of security to interview him and ordered a film crew from Army Counter Intelligence to record the interrogation. Eisenhower reviewed the resulting footage personally, but his reaction was never made public. Skorzeny would spend the next two years in prisoner-of-war camps at Nuremberg and later at Dachau, awaiting trial in the Allies’ war crimes court. Although he was universally described in newspaper accounts as “the man who tried to kill Eisenhower,” Skorzeny skillfully defused the accusation through the English-speaking press. Charming and formidable, easily the most charismatic of the surviving Nazi hierarchy, in dozens of interviews he claimed that he had never seriously intended to assassinate the Allied commander, adding, with a sly smile, that if he had, “no one would have been left in doubt about what I was trying to do.”

  Despite working steadily for the next two years, Allied officials were unable to produce any written orders or compelling eyewitnesses who would testify to Skorzeny’s direct involvement in the plot to kill Eisenhower. Skorzeny had received his orders directly from Hitler, and had made certain that no paper trail survived. The only other men with direct knowledge of the Second Objective had all been killed in combat or shot by American firing squads. Only the interrogation of the unfortunate Karl Heinz Schmidt and a few others testified to its existence, and those files would remain classified by Army Counter Intelligence for the next fifty years. The reason for that had something to do with the fact that, while in custody, after weeks of fruitless interrogations about Operation Greif by Allied interrogators, Skorzeny was visited by the legendary Bill Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA, and Skorzeny’s opposite number on the American side. Donovan recognized a k

  indred spirit in Skorzeny, and although no record of their discussions remain, they were apparently amiable and far-reaching. What they shared in earnest, besides an appetite for spy craft, was a serious dread of the Soviet Union and its emerging designs on Eastern Europe. Sh
ortly after their encounter, all pursuit of charges against Skorzeny in the Eisenhower assassination attempt was dropped. For a while, frustrated prosecutors considered including Skorzeny with the dozens of soldiers and officers responsible for the massacre of American troops near Malmédy, but the idea was dismissed for an obvious lack of evidence.

  Skorzeny was finally brought to trial before a military tribunal in 1947 on a lesser charge that his deployment of German commandos disguised as Allied soldiers during the Ardennes offensive constituted a war crime. Press from around the world gathered to cover the proceedings. With the help of a tenacious American defense attorney, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Durst, Skorzeny argued that every side in the war had at one time or another employed the exact same tactic. If his actions were considered a war crime, any similar Allied effort would have to be held to the same criminal standard. At the eleventh hour, Skorzeny’s attorney called a surprise defense witness to the stand, a decorated British RAF war hero who testified that he and his commando unit had worn German uniforms on a number of missions during the war. The tribunal acquitted Otto Skorzeny of all charges. Afterward, the thwarted and furious chief prosecutor told the press: “I still think Skorzeny is the most dangerous man in Europe.”

  Although technically free, Skorzeny remained in American custody while they debated what to do with him. Attempts by the Soviets and the Czechs to extradite him for war crimes in their own tribunals, where he faced certain execution, clouded the issue. While those efforts were tied up in the courts, he was finally transferred to a German detention camp in early 1948. A few months later, with help from agents of the recently formed Central Intelligence Agency, three former SS officers arrived at the camp disguised as American military policemen and presented forged documents that authorized them to transport Skorzeny to a hearing at Nuremberg the following day. The American soldiers on duty signed the release, and Skorzeny walked out of the prison in the custody of the disguised MPs. He promptly disappeared. When his absence was discovered and his cell searched later that day, officials found a letter Skorzeny had left behind, addressed to the German court, explaining his actions: