Death and Honor

“A decision 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.”

“And you’re holding them.”

“I have no choice. They have seen too much for me to let them go. But that’s moot, Colonel. The SS will kill them where and when found.”

“How do you know that?”

“You’ll have to take my word for that, too.”

Frogger thought about that a moment, then said, “What exactly is it that you want from me?”

“I want you to come to Argentina and convince your father that his—and your mother’s—only hope to stay alive is to cooperate fully with me in tracking the Operation Phoenix and ransoming money.”

“I thought you have spies—traitors—in the embassy. They can’t provide that information?”

Frade shook his head.

“If they could, I wouldn’t be wasting time here talking to you.”

Frogger considered that a moment, then carefully extinguished his cigarette and stood.

“Very imaginative,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

Frogger popped to attention.

“Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

“Sit down, Frogger. I’m not through with you.”

“Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

“I’m not going to tell you again,” Frade said softly.

“Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

“You’re back in the plot for a bad movie, are you?”

“Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

“Then this is the place in that movie where the interrogator loses his temper and starts punching you? Or puts burning matches under your fingernails?”

“Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

“The place where the hero decides that his parents and he himself must die painfully and bravely for the good of the Thousand-Year Reich, the Fatherland, and of course the Führer?”

“Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Identity Number 19-700045.”

“And then the Berlin Philharmonic starts playing ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles’?”

Frogger glowered at him.

As if leading the Berlin Philharmonic with both hands, Frade began to loudly sing: “ ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt . . .’ ” He stopped, then added in German, “Nice melody. But no, Willi, that’s not going to happen.”

Frade walked to the door and opened it.

“Major, will you please come in and handcuff Colonel Frogger? Put him in the car.” As Fischer entered, Frade pointed at the table. “And have someone bring all that stuff. He’s going to need it in the Aleutians.”

“Yes, sir,” Fischer said.

Frogger stiffened.

As Fischer approched, Frogger announced, “Under the Geneva Convention, I am entitled to an audience with the camp commander.”

Frade walked out of the room.

[THREE]

“Well, I’m not surprised that you gave up,” Colonel A. F. Graham said to Major Cletus Frade as they stood out of the sun in the cool shade of a magnificent magnolia tree and watched Fischer load Frogger in the backseat of the staff car. “That sonofabitch is tougher than he looks. But I wonder if maybe you quit a little too soon.”

“Colonel, I haven’t quit. I’m just starting.”

“What do you have in mind?”