Victory and Honor

After consultation with the others, the sergeant returned to the Cadillac and got in the front seat. The sergeant with the now-functioning weapon walked to the weapons carrier, got in the front seat, and signaled for all but two of the others to get in the back. The two exceptions started walking in the direction of a guard post mostly hidden in the heavily treed roadside.

The weapons carrier moved to the front of the Cadillac.

“If you’ll just follow the truck, please?” the sergeant sitting beside Tom said.

Frade knew the highly secret mission of Fort Hunt—the interrogation of very senior enemy officer prisoners, predominantly German, but including a few Italians and even, Colonel Graham had told him, two Japanese—but he had never been here before.

It was not an imposing military installation, just a collection of built-in-a-hurry-to-last-four-years single-and two-story frame, tarpaper-roofed buildings. Clete wondered why it was called a fort. Most for-the-duration military installations—like the senior officer POW Camp Clinton he had visited in Mississippi—were called camps.

The two-vehicle convoy stopped at one of the two-story frame buildings. It bore the sign HEADQUARTERS, FORT HUNT. Standing in front were two U.S. Army soldiers, a slight, slim, bespectacled lieutenant colonel in a somewhat mussed uniform, and a stocky, crisply uniformed master sergeant. Both wore MP brassards on their sleeves and carried 1911-A1 pistols in holsters dangling cowboy-like from web belts, instead of the white Sam Browne belts that MPs usually wore.

Both looked with frank curiosity at the little convoy.

“Wait here, please, Colonel,” the MP sergeant sitting beside Tom said as he opened his door.

Screw you, Clete thought. I want to hear what you tell those two.

Frade was out of the Cadillac before the MP had reached the soldiers standing in front of Headquarters, Fort Hunt.

The two looked curiously at him. The master sergeant, apparently having spotted Frade’s silver oak leaves, said something behind his hand to the lieutenant colonel, whereupon both saluted.

“Good afternoon,” Clete said cheerfully as he returned the salute. “Why do they call this place a fort? It looks as if it was built yesterday.”

The question was obviously unexpected.

Clete saw on the Army lieutenant colonel’s uniform his name: KELLOGG.

After a moment, Kellogg said: “Actually, it was a fort. It was built for the Coast Artillery just before the Spanish-American War.”

“No kidding?”

“And the land once was part of George Washington’s farm,” Kellogg added.

“I’ll be damned!”

“How can we help you, Colonel?” Kellogg then said cordially but with authority.

“My boss wants to chat with a couple of your guests,” Frade replied.

“Colonel, may I see some identification?” Kellogg said.

Frade handed him the leather wallet holding his spurious credentials.

The lieutenant colonel examined them carefully, then handed them to the master sergeant, who did the same before handing them back to Frade.

“We don’t see many credentials like those,” Kellogg admitted.

“Well, so far we’ve managed to keep them off the cover of Time,” Frade said.

“And your . . . boss . . . your boss is who?”

“Colonel Alejandro F. Graham, USMCR—”

“I know Colonel Graham,” Kellogg interrupted.

“—sometimes known as the Terrible Tiger of Texas A&M,” Frade finished. “Whose bite is far more deadly than his growl.”

Kellogg smiled somewhat uncomfortably.

“And you say Colonel Graham sent you out here to chat with two of our prisoners?”

“No. What I said was that he wants to chat with two of them, and sent me out here to fetch them.”

Frade went into a pocket on his tunic and came out with a sheet of paper.

“One of them is a Kapitan zur See Karl Boltitz and the other is Major Freiherr Hans-Peter Baron von Wachtstein. Now, that’s what I call a mouthful! I wonder how they get all that on his identification card?”

The master sergeant smiled.

“It’s not easy, Colonel,” he said. “And some of these Krauts have names that are even worse than that.”

“Colonel, this is more than a little unusual,” Kellogg said. “We didn’t even know you were coming. Do you have any kind of authority—written authority?”

“You mean, you want me to sign for them? Sure. Be happy to.”

“No, I meant a document authorizing you to take these officers with you.”

Frade sighed. “Colonel, let me explain how I came to be here. I got to Washington two days ago. I can’t tell you . . . Hell, why can’t I? The Germans have surrendered. I was in Portugal . . .

That’s true. I was in Lisbon not long ago, smuggling even more Nazis out of Europe.

“. . . as area commander . . .

Now I’m lying again. I’ve done so much of that it comes as natural to me as it did to Baron Munchausen.

“. . . I haven’t worn a uniform in years. Anyway, I got to Washington two days ago. Good Marine and fellow Aggie that I am, I immediately reported to the Terrible Tiger of A&M. Colonel Graham showed me a chair, handed me copies of Time and Life, and said to read them while he looked around for something for me to do. An hour ago, he handed me the names of these two Krauts and told me to go fetch them.”

“Colonel, how do I know that’s true?” Kellogg asked.

“Well, you could trust my honest face. Or you could ask yourself, ‘If Colonel Graham didn’t send this guy, how come he’s riding in the colonel’s chauffeur-driven Cadillac?’ Or you could call the Terrible Tiger and ask him. I would recommend Options One and/or Two.”

Kellogg considered that a moment, then said, “Excuse us a moment, will you, please, Colonel?”

“Certainly.”

The lieutenant colonel and the master sergeant went inside the headquarters building.

If they’re calling Graham, I’m screwed.

But why do I think they won’t call him?

Because, with a little bit of luck, one or both of them has been on the receiving end of one of Graham’s fits of temper.

The fits are rare but spectacular, and usually triggered by someone insisting on complete compliance with a petty bureaucratic regulation.

Never wake a sleeping tiger!

And I’m on a roll!

Not quite two minutes after the pair had walked into the headquarters building, the master sergeant came out.

“Sir, Colonel Kellogg suggests you go inside and have a cup of coffee with him while I go fetch the Krauts for you.”

“Fine. Thank you very much.”

“What we’re going to do is send an MP escort with you to the Institute of Health, in case the Krauts try to escape or anything.”

Oh, shit! Frade thought.