The Honor of Spies Read online

  There had been a brief burst of gunfire from a concealed position near the beach. Two of the three German officers—SS-Oberst Karl-Heinz Grüner, the military attaché of the German Embassy, and his deputy, SS-Standartenführer Josef Luther Goltz, had been dropped in their tracks, their skulls exploded by the rifle fire.

  The snipers had missed the third officer, Major Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, the embassy’s deputy military attaché for air. Von Wachtstein had managed to get the crates—“the special shipment”—and the bodies of Grüner and Goltz onto the Comerciante del Océano Pacífico’s boats and back out to the ship.

  The captain of the Océano Pacífico, who had been in one of her boats, had been more than effusive in describing von Wachtstein’s cool courage under fire. Courage was something to be expected of an officer who had received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross from Hitler personally, of course, but Cranz wasn’t really sure if von Wachtstein had been extraordinarily lucky or whether the snipers had intentionally spared him.

  What Cranz was sure of was that the attack made clear that the embassy housed a traitor. And he was just about certain that that was the reason Frogger had deserted his post, taking his wife with him.

  Not that Frogger was the traitor. So far as Cranz knew, the Froggers were—or until their desertion, had been—patriotic Germans. They had lost two of their officer sons in Russia, and the third, the eldest, Frogger’s namesake, Oberstleutnant Wilhelm Frogger, had been captured when General von Arnim had surrendered the Afrikakorps.

  Furthermore, Cranz knew that Frau Else Frogger secretly had been on the payroll of the Sicherheitsdienst, the Secret Police of the SS, and had been charged with reporting on the other Germans in the embassy to Oberst Grüner.

  There was a downside to these faultless patriotic credentials. The Froggers had seen enough of the functioning of the SS-SD to know that with as much at stake as there was, if the actual traitor in the embassy could not be found, one would be created. Himmler and Bormann would want to be told the problem had been dealt with.

  The Froggers knew that if Cranz, who had replaced Grüner, and Naval Attaché Kapitän zur See Karl Boltitz, who had come to Argentina with Cranz, and almost certainly was working for Admiral Canaris, could not find the traitor, they would be replaced. In which case, they would be sent—if they were lucky—to the Eastern Front. Or to a concentration camp.

  Furthermore, Frogger was aware that while he was privy to the secrets of Operation Phoenix, he was by no means a member of the inner circle. He knew too much.

  Worse, he was privy to many of the details of an even more secret operation—which didn’t have a code name—run by SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg, first deputy adjutant to Reichsführer-SS Himmler. Von Deitzberg had charged Cranz with making sure that this operation—in which senior SS officers were enriching themselves by arranging the release of Jews from concentration camps, and their subsequent movement to Argentina, on payment of a substantial ransom—was kept running and kept secret.

  Cranz therefore thought it very likely that when the Froggers had been ordered to return on the next Condor flight to Berlin, Frogger had decided—or his wife had decided, or the both of them—that they had been set up as the scapegoats. And knowing what that meant, they had deserted their posts.

  Now they were going to have to be killed before they could barter their knowledge of Operation Phoenix and the ransoming operation for their own sanctuary.

  Perón said: “While I am fully aware of the problem the Froggers pose, Karl, I don’t want anything to happen to Cletus Frade. He is my godson. His father—my dearest friend—died unnecessarily and I don’t want the death of Cletus weighing on my soul as well.”

  “I understand your position, Juan Domingo. But—the reason I asked you to receive me on such short notice—I have come up with a rough plan that, since Cletus Frade is in the United States, poses no threat to him whatever.”

  “We don’t know when he will return,” Perón said.

  “But not within the next three or four days, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “No, of course not,” Perón said impatiently. “He just got there. He has to do what has to be done to get the SAA pilots the licenses Lloyd’s of London insists they have to have, however long—three or four days—that will take, and then fly back here.”

  “De Filippi will know,” Cranz said. “More important, will he tell you when Frade will actually be here?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you will tell me?”

  “Why would you want to know?”

  “As I said, Juan Domingo, I know, and respect, your feeling vis-à-vis your godson. If I know when he will return, I can either adjust my plan, or call it off completely, if it would in any way put Frade at risk.”

  “I’m glad we understand one another,” Perón said.

  “May I speak bluntly, Juan Domingo?”

  “Please do.”

  “I think you are as aware as I am of the problems the Froggers will cause both of us if we can’t return them to German control and get them out of Argentina.”

  “Let’s hear what you have in mind,” Perón said tartly.

  “The reason I’m sure the Froggers are in Tandil is that one of my men has seen them there.”

  “You sent someone from the SS to Tandil?” Perón asked on the edge of anger.

  “I sent an Argentine, an ethnic German who works for me, down there to see what he could learn. Would you like to hear from him what that is?”

  “How could I do that?

  “He’s here, in the foyer. May I get him?”

  Perón considered that for a long moment.

  “You did consider, of course, that Martín’s men would see you bringing him here? What that would mean?”

  “I’m sure they did,” Cranz said, smiling. “He was driving my car; he’s my chauffeur.”

  Perón considered that a moment, then smiled.

  “You are good at what you do, aren’t you, Karl? Yes. Bring him in.”

  [THREE]

  Building T-209

  Senior German Officer Prisoner of War Detention

  Facility

  Camp Clinton, Mississippi

  1850 6 August 1943

  Building T-209 had been erected in four days just over a year before. Sitting on concrete blocks, it was a one-story frame structure containing a living room, a kitchen, and two bedrooms.

  In each of the bedrooms, a curtained-off cubicle held a sink, a toilet, and a cement-floored shower. The furniture was what was prescribed in an Army Regulation titled “Colonels Through Major Generals, Temporary Bachelor Accommodations, Furnishings For.”

  That is to say, the single beds in the bedrooms were marginally larger and had more comfortable mattresses than the “Cots, Steel w/mattress” provided for officers of lower rank. And the living room held a simple, if comfortable, cloth-upholstered couch, two matching armchairs, and a coffee table. There was a refrigerator and a stove and a kitchen table with two chairs in the kitchen. Officers of lesser rank had none of these creature comforts.

  A very large fan on a pole had been placed in the open kitchen door so that it blew toward the open living room door. It didn’t cool the cottage much against the stifling heat of Mississippi in August, but it was much better than nothing.

  Colonel J. Stanton Ludlow, Sr., Corps of Military Police—a tall, gray-haired fifty-six-year-old; a “Retread,” having served in World War One—entered Building T-209. He was trailed by a serious-looking lieutenant, a wiry twenty-two-year-old with closely cropped black hair.

  They found six men in the living room, three of them in uniform.

  The officers in uniform rose and came to attention in respect to the presence of the Camp Clinton commander. Two of them, a lieutenant and a major, wore MP brassards and the other accoutrements of military policemen, including holstered Model 1911A1 .45 ACP pistols, on their khaki shirts-and-trousers uniforms. The third wore short khaki pants and a khaki tunic ont
o which had been pinned and sewn the insignia of an oberstleutnant—lieutenant colonel—of the Afrikakorps.

  The third was of course Oberstleutnant Wilhelm Frogger, who had been captured when General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim had surrendered the Afrikakorps, and who was the sole surviving son of Wilhelm and Else Frogger.

  “At ease,” Colonel Ludlow ordered, and turned to the eldest of the three civilians, who was sitting in one of the armchairs. He was wearing a sweat-soaked shirt. He had his sleeves rolled up and his tie pulled down. Gaily striped suspenders held up his pants.

  “Thank you for coming so quickly, Colonel,” Colonel A. F. Graham, USMCR, said.

  “What can I do for you, Colonel?” Colonel Ludlow said, and looked at the two other men in the room, both of whom were wearing sort of a uniform of knit polo shirts, khaki slacks, and aviator’s sunglasses as they leaned against the wall and held bottles of Coca-Cola.

  “I don’t mean to offend,” Colonel Ludlow said to the taller of the two, “but has anyone ever told you that you look like Howard Hughes?”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Hughes said.

  “Hughes is much better-looking, Colonel,” the man beside him—Major Cletus Frade, USMCR—said. “And isn’t going bald.”

  Colonel Graham flashed Frade an impatient look, then pushed himself out of the armchair.

  “With the caveat that the classification is Top Secret, Colonel,” Graham said, “would you please take a look at this?”

  He handed Ludlow a four-by-five-inch envelope.

  “Didn’t you show me this when you first came?” Colonel Ludlow asked as he opened the envelope.

  “What I showed you when I came was my authorization to see Colonel Frogger,” Graham said. “This is somewhat different.”

  Ludlow read the document:

  Ludlow’s face showed his surprise as he looked at Colonel Graham.

  “This is a blank check for anything, Colonel,” Ludlow said.

  “Yes, it is,” Graham said. “I have to ask about your lieutenant. Do you want him to participate in what I’m going to need, or would you rather I have Major Frade take him into the kitchen, tell him what certainly will happen to him if he breathes a word of this to anyone for the rest of his life, and send him away?”

  Ludlow considered that for a moment.

  “Colonel Graham, this is Lieutenant Mark Dalton. I trust him. The question is whether he wants to become further involved with what’s going on here.” Ludlow looked to the wiry lieutenant. “Dalton?”

  “You may show him that note,” Graham said.

  Ludlow handed the note to Dalton, who read it.

  “In or out, Lieutenant?” Graham asked.

  “In, sir,” Lieutenant Dalton said.

  “We don’t shoot people who run off at the mouth about things like this, Lieutenant,” Graham said. “But what we do, instead, is confine them in Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, where they stay incommunicado at least for the duration of the war, plus six months. If Colonel Ludlow trusts you, I’d like to have you, but I want you to be sure you know what you’re letting yourself in for.”

  “In, sir,” Lieutenant Dalton repeated.

  “Incommunicado means your family will be informed you are missing in action.”

  “In, sir,” Dalton said after a just-perceptible hesitation.

  Graham nodded, then introduced Frade, Hughes, and Frogger, then said: “All right. What we are going to do is give Colonel Frogger a polo shirt and long-legged khakis. Lieutenant Dalton, you are then going to back Colonel Ludlow’s staff car up to the back door and open the trunk. As the rest of us form as good a shield as we can, Colonel Frogger will then get in the trunk.

  “Colonel Ludlow and Colonel Frogger will then get in that car. Major Frade and Mr. Hughes and I will get in the other car. We will follow you to the Jackson Army Air Base, where we will drive directly to our airplane, a Constellation. We then will again make as good a quick shield as we can while the trunk is opened and Colonel Frogger gets out, then goes up the ladder and into the aircraft.

  “We will take off as soon as possible.” He looked between Ludlow and Dalton. “You two will return here, and at 2300 hours, you will—in addition to whatever else you do when there is an escape—notify your superior headquarters and the FBI that Colonel Frogger has escaped.”

  He let that sink in, then added: “Don’t let anyone—especially the FBI—know we were here at all.”

  “You’re asking me to lie to the FBI?” Colonel Ludlow asked.

  “I’m ordering you to lie to the FBI. I have the authority from the chief of staff to do so. It is important that the FBI believes that Colonel Frogger has actually escaped. If I didn’t send them—and everybody else—on a wild-goose chase looking for Frogger, then someone will smell a rat.”

  “God, Alex, you are really a master of the mixed metaphor,” Howard Hughes said.

  Frade chuckled.

  “What kind of an airplane did you say?” Lieutenant Dalton asked.

  “A Constellation,” Frade answered. “A Lockheed 1049, a great big four-engine, triple-tailed beautiful sonofabitch.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one,” Dalton said.

  “Not many people have,” Colonel Graham snapped. “Now, if it’s not too much trouble, can we get this show on the road?”

  [FOUR]

  Office of the Deputy Director for Western

  Hemisphere Operations

  Office of Strategic Services

  National Institutes of Health Building

  Washington, D.C.

  1630 8 August 1943

  There came a quick knock at the door.

  “I said ‘nobody,’ Alice,” Colonel A. F. Graham called. He was sitting behind his desk, his feet resting on an open drawer, holding a short squat glass dark with bourbon whiskey.

  “Does that include me?” a stocky, gray-haired, well-tailored man in his sixties asked as he entered the room.

  “I told you, Allen,” Graham said to the man sitting on his couch in the process of replenishing his martini glass, “that the other shoe was going to drop.”

  Allen Welsh Dulles chuckled. He was in his fifties, had a not-well-defined mustache on his lip, somewhat unkempt gray hair, and was wearing what members of his class thought of as a “sack suit,” a black single-breasted garment with little or no padding on the shoulders. He also wore a white button-down-collar shirt and a bow tie.

  “And Deputy Director Dulles,” the stocky, well-tailored man said, “my day is now complete. You were going to stop by my office and say hello, weren’t you, Allen?”

  “Not today, if I possibly could have avoided it,” Dulles said. “Bill, you have this remarkable ability to cause it to rain on any parade of mine.”

  “What are you celebrating? What is that, a martini?”

  “May I offer you a small libation, Mr. Director?” Graham asked.

  “No, thank you,” Colonel William J. Donovan said. “I try to set an example for my subordinates.”

  “Is that why you wear those gaudy neckties?” Graham asked.

  “How many of those have you had, Alex?”

  “Probably one-third to one-half of what I will ultimately have,” Graham said seriously.

  “And neither of you is going to tell me what it is that you’re celebrating?”

  “Actually, Bill,” Graham said, “what Allen and I were discussing when you burst uninvited in here was how little we could get away with telling you.”

  “I don’t think you’re kidding,” Donovan said not very pleasantly.

  “He wasn’t,” Dulles said. “You’ve heard, I’m sure, that the only way a secret known to three people can remain a secret is if two of the three are dead?”

  “But you agreed—in what we lawyers call ‘a condition of employment’—that there would be no secrets between us. Remember that?”

  “And if it were not for your buddy Franklin,” Graham said, “both Allen and I would happily live up to that co
ndition of employment. But you keep telling him things you shouldn’t.”

  “To rain on your parade, Alex,” Donovan said, “my buddy Franklin happens to be the President of the United States.”

  Dulles put in pointedly: “And who has in his immediate circle a number of people—especially the Vice President—who I would be reluctant to trust with any secret, much less this one, as far as I could throw the White House.”

  “This secret is one we really don’t want to get to Uncle Joe Stalin via Mr. Henry A. Wallace’s close friends in the Russian Embassy,” Graham said.

  They had had this argument, or ones very like it, many times before.

  In any conventional organization, in ordinary times, subordinates don’t challenge the boss; if they do, the boss gets rid of them. The Office of Strategic Services was not a conventional organization, and these were not ordinary times.

  William J. Donovan was the director of the Office of Strategic Services, which in theory answered to General George C. Marshall, the Army’s chief of staff, but in practice only to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

  Allen W. Dulles and Alejandro F. Graham were the OSS deputy directors for Europe and the Western Hemisphere, respectively. They were both uniquely qualified for their roles. Both were prepared—in other words, were privy to all of the OSS’s secrets—to take over at a moment’s notice if anything should happen to Donovan.

  The truth was that while all three had great admiration for one another, they often didn’t like one another very much, although Dulles and Graham liked each other much better than either did Donovan. For his part, Donovan, realizing how important Dulles and Graham were to the OSS, very often passed over clear insubordination from them that he absolutely would not have tolerated from anyone else.

  He was doing so now.