Death and Honor

“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.