As Clete approached the custom-bodied Cadillac, his grandfather’s chauffeur got out and opened the rear door. Tom, a silver-haired black man, had been driving Cletus Marcus Howell around Washington for as long as Clete could remember.
The Cadillac had a gasoline ration sticker affixed to its windshield. The otherwise glistening door had stripes of dull black tape on it, obviously to cover something on the door. Until that morning, the door had shown a legend required by the Office of Price Administration.
There had been gasoline rationing in the United States since early 1942, not because there was any shortage of gas but because there was a critical shortage of rubber to make tires.
A fairly complicated distribution system had been set up. At the bottom end were ordinary citizens who received two gallons of gas a week. At the top were politicians, from local mayors to members of Congress, who got all the gasoline they said they needed. Ordinary citizens got an “A” sticker, whereas congressmen and other important politicians got an “X” sticker.
In between were those who were issued “B” or “C” or “D” stickers. “B” meant the car was being driven by someone essential to the war effort; somebody driving to work in a tank factory, for example. A “B” sticker was worth eight gallons a week. “C” stickers were worth as many gallons of gas as clergymen, doctors, and “others essential to the war effort” could convince the ration board to give them. “D” was for motorcycles, which got two gallons per week.
There was a “C” on the windshield of the custom-bodied Cadillac, which was registered in the name of the Howell Petroleum Corporation. Cletus Marcus Howell was chairman of the board of Howell Petroleum, and he had been more than a little annoyed that he had to go to a ration board and beg for gas so that he could conduct the business of Howell Petroleum, whose oil wells and refineries in Texas, Louisiana, and Venezuela were turning out many millions of gallons of gasoline every day.
But he had put up with the regulations of the Office of Price Administration because he thought of himself as a patriotic American, and because his only grandson, Cletus Howell Frade, a Marine hero of Guadalcanal, was still serving his country.
He had, however—almost literally—gone through the roof when the Office of Price Administration decreed that passenger vehicles enjoying the privilege of extra gasoline because they were being used for business had to paint the name of that business and its address on doors on both sides of said vehicle, so that the citizenry would know that no one was getting around the system. The Office of Price Administration had helpfully provided the size of the lettering and the color that had to be used.
The dull black stripes on the door of the Cadillac had been applied to conceal the legend painted in canary yellow that was prescribed by the Office of Price Administration: Howell Petroleum Corp.
16th & H Streets, NW
Wash., DC
Sixteenth and H Streets Northwest was the address of the Hay-Adams Hotel, where Cletus Marcus Howell kept an apartment—and the Cadillac—for use when he was in Washington. It was across from the White House.
The universally loathed gas rationing had ended almost immediately after the Germans had surrendered unconditionally on May 7, 1945. As soon as that news had reached Cletus Marcus Howell, at his home in New Orleans, he had telephoned Tom, the chauffeur, and told him to cover the goddamn door sign immediately, until the door could be repainted.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Clete,” Tom said.
“Nice to see you, too, Tom.”
“Where we going?” Tom said as he got in behind the wheel.
“Fort Hunt,” Clete replied from the backseat. “You know where it is?”
“Never heard of it.”
“You weren’t supposed to have heard of it, Tom.”
“Where is it?”
“I haven’t a clue. Somewhere around Alexandria.”
[FOUR]
Fort Hunt Alexandria, Virginia 1405 10 May 1945
Finding Fort Hunt, it turned out, wasn’t at all difficult. Surprisingly, there had in fact been a highway sign with an arrow pointing the way.
Getting into Fort Hunt was another story.
One hundred yards off the highway, there had been another sign, this one very large: STOP AND TURN AROUND NOW
RESTRICTED NATIONAL DEFENSE ESTABLISHMENT
ENTRANCE TO FORT HUNT STRICTLY FORBIDDEN
WITHOUT PRIOR CLEARANCE
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
BY ORDER OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL
MILITARY DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON
“What do I do, Mr. Clete?” Tom asked.
“Let’s see what happens if we ignore that,” Clete said.
What happened a half-mile down the road was the appearance of two MPs, both sergeants and both armed with Thompson submachine guns. They stood in the middle of the road. One of them held out his hand in an unmistakable
Tom stopped the Cadillac. Almost immediately, an Army ton-and-a-half truck, commonly called a weapons carrier, appeared behind the Cadillac. An MP jumped from the passenger seat, and two more MPs from the truck bed. They all had Thompsons, and they were clearly determined to do their duty to keep interlopers not only from getting into Fort Hunt, but also from escaping now that they had been captured.
The sergeant who had made the
He had almost reached the car when he saw that the passenger was in uniform, and that the insignia of a lieutenant colonel was on his collar points and epaulets.
He went to the rear door and saluted. Clete returned it as the window rolled down.
The MP said, “Sir, may I have your prior clearance?”
“Take me to the commanding officer, Sergeant,” Clete replied, then nodded at the MP standing behind him. “And tell the sergeant there that if he intends to fire that Thompson, he’d better work the action.”
That didn’t have to be repeated. The sergeant immediately looked down at his weapon and clearly recalled that the Thompson submachine gun fired from an open bolt. Looking more than a little chagrined, he pulled back the bolt, thus rendering it operable.
Frade met the eyes of the MP at his window, smiled, then said, “Have you a vehicle we can follow, or would you rather ride with us?”
“Just a moment, Colonel, please, sir,” the sergeant said.
