Death and Honor

“Then certainly you must be aware that your peers hold the ‘Austrian corporal’ in deep contempt?”

Frogger didn’t reply.

“Let me put it to you this way, Herr Oberstleutnant: Germany has lost the war. The sooner it’s over, the fewer soldiers—and civilians—will be killed or mutilated for life. Have you heard that Goebbels has gone on Radio Berlin and advised people to leave? So the sooner Germany surrenders, the better for Germany.”

Hanfstaengl looked at Frogger for a response and got none. He shrugged as if he expected that reaction.

Then he coldly added: “Herr Oberstleutnant, if whatever Colonel Graham here is asking you to do will hasten the end of the war, then it is your duty to do so.”

“What they are asking me to do has nothing to do with ending the war, Herr Hanfstaengl,” Frogger said.

“Perhaps you can’t see how whatever he’s asking you to do has to do with hastening the end of the war, but I know Colonel Graham well enough to know that unless he thought it was about ending the war, or something nearly that important, he wouldn’t have brought you here to me.”

Frogger did not respond.

Without breaking eye contact with Frogger, Hanfstaengl said, “May I ask him a question, Alex?”

“Discreetly, Putzi.”

"Herr Oberstleutnant, does the term heavy water—”

“Stop right there, Putzi!” Graham said sharply.

“—mean anything to you? Because if it does, and you’re not giving Graham what he wants—”

“Shut up, Putzi!” Graham ordered loudly and furiously.

Graham looked at Frade. “Get Frogger the hell out of here. I knew this was a bad idea. . . .”

Hanfstaengl threw both hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Herr Hanfstaengl, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Frogger said without conviction as Frade reached for him.

“Putzi, you sonofabitch!” Graham said bitterly.

The door from the corridor suddenly opened.

A burly man stepped inside. He held a Smith & Wesson revolver in his hand, the arm extended parallel to his leg. He looked quickly around the room.

“You can put that away, Dennis,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt said as he rolled his wheelchair through the doorway. “I know both of them well enough to know it’s mostly bark without much bite.”

No one in the room spoke for a moment.

“Mr. President,” Graham said finally. “Your friend has just been talking about heavy water.” His voice was tense with anger.

“I heard you would be here, Alex,” the President said, ignoring the outburst entirely. He paused to take a cigarette from a gold case and fit it into an eight-inch-long silver holder. Dennis, the man who had entered the room holding a revolver at his side, quickly produced a cigarette lighter.

Roosevelt took a puff and exhaled thoughtfully.

“As I was saying, Alex, I heard you were paying Putzi a visit, but I didn’t hear anything about these gentlemen.”

He waved the cigarette holder like a pointer at Frade, Fogger, and Fischer, who had all, without thinking about it, come to attention. Then the cigarette holder pointed at Frogger.

“May I ask who you are, sir?”

Frogger grew even more stiffly erect. He bowed and clicked his heels.

“Oberstleutnant Frogger, Wilhelm, Excellency!” he barked.

“In whose presence Hanfstaengl has been—” Graham began, only to be shut off by Roosevelt’s extended palm.

Roosevelt’s cigarette holder was now aimed at Frade.

“Before anyone tells me, let me guess. You’re Cletus Frade.”

“Yes, I am, Mr. President.”

“I’m pleased that you finally have found time to come to Washington,” Roosevelt said. He turned to Frogger. “Mr. Frade is an interesting man, Colonel. At one time, he was a distinguished fighter pilot. Now he’s an intelligence officer who knows the names of the German officers who are planning to—how do I put this?—permanently and irrevocably remove Chancellor Hitler from office. Information he refuses to share with me, as difficult to believe as that may be.”

He paused and looked at Frade for a long moment.

FDR then went on: “And I have no idea, Colonel, why he’s brought you here to see my old friend Hanfstaengl. I’m not at all sure he’d tell me if I asked. But I do know that he would not have done so unless he thought it was rather important.”

He took another pull at his cigarette, then looked at Frogger as he slowly exhaled the smoke through his nostrils.

“The reason, Mr. Frogger, that I don’t insist that Frade share everything he knows with me is that he enjoys my absolute confidence. You might wish to keep that in mind in your dealings with him.”

The President kept his eyes locked with Frogger’s for a long moment, then swiveled the wheelchair to face Hanfstaengl.

“This would seem to be a poor time for a visit, Putzi, wouldn’t it? I’ll come back another time.” He paused, then said, “Good evening, gentlemen,” and swiveled his wheelchair around so that he faced the door.

The Secret Service agent was just able to get to the door and open it as Roosevelt rolled up to it. And then the President was through it and gone.

A long moment later, Frade said without thinking, “Jesus H. Christ!”