Victory and Honor

Bendick’s eyes showed he wasn’t satisfied with that answer.

Bendick said: “Let’s go back down Memory Lane, Colonel. What did Colonel Dawkins’s officers call him?”

“‘Sir,’” Clete blurted.

Clete thought he saw the hint of a smile on Bendick’s lips.

“And behind his back?”

“‘The Dawk,’ sir.”

“And so they did,” Bendick said, “something that would be known only to his officers.”

He handed Frade the spurious OSS credentials.

“We had been briefed, of course,” he said, “on using Henderson Field in an emergency. We had also been briefed on Fighter One, and told it was not suitable for emergency landings of B-17 aircraft. As I approached Guadalcanal, I came to the reluctant conclusion that I had neither the altitude nor the controls to make Henderson, so I put it down on Fighter One.

“I was a pretty good B-17 pilot, but not good enough to land on only one main gear, so shortly thereafter I found myself sitting at the side of the runway with, thank God, all of my crew. We were watching my aircraft burn when a feisty tall drink of water showed up. He was wearing shorts and shoes—no shirt, no cap—and in each hand he had four of those little bottles of medicinal bourbon.”

Bendick met Frade’s eyes. Frade nodded.

Bendick went on: “I shall never forget what he said to me on that memorable occasion: ‘When we saw you coming in, son, the odds were ten-to-one that nobody was going to walk away from your landing. You do know this isn’t Henderson Field?’”

“That sounds like The Dawk,” Clete said, smiling. “And fists full of medicinal bourbon bottles? Getting more than one little bottle from Colonel Dawkins meant he thought you had done good.”

“So I later learned,” General Bendick said. “So, welcome, welcome to Val de Cans. What do I call you?”

Colonel Dawkins, wherever you are, you have just saved my ass again.

How many times does that make?

“My name is Cletus Frade. My friends call me Clete. I wish you would.”

The general offered his hand. “Bob Bendick, Clete.”

Clete, pointing to them as he did so, said, “Peter von Wachtstein, Karl Boltitz, Enrico Rodriguez. My commo guy, Siggie Stein, is already in your radio shack; we have a Collins 7.2 aboard that needs fixing.”

“An airborne Collins 7.2?”

“Siggie Stein is an amazing commo guy,” Clete said.

“So, what can I do for you?”

“Tell me about the other Connie.”

“It’s classified Top Secret,” General Bendick replied.

“Manhattan Project?”

“Excuse me?”

“Excuse me, but are you saying ‘Excuse me’ because you don’t want to admit knowledge of the Manhattan Project?” Clete asked with a smile.

“I never heard of it,” General Bendick said. “What is it?”

“I can’t tell you. But it’s the only thing I know that would justify classifying a passenger flight Top Secret.”

General Bendick looked at Frade for a long moment.

“How about a planeload of Secret Service agents bound for Frankfurt?” he asked finally.

“Is that what it is?”

Bendick nodded.

“What would be so secret about that?” Clete asked.

“President Truman going to Germany?”

“I don’t think that’s very likely,” Clete said. “Why?”

Bendick shrugged.

“The Secret Service is under the Treasury Department,” Clete then said. “And the secretary of the Treasury suspects that Nazis are being smuggled out of Germany to Argentina.”

“I know,” Bendick said.

“You know that Nazis are being smuggled out of Germany, or that Morgenthau thinks they are?”

“These Secret Service agents have been nosing around the base flashing their badges and asking my junior officers and enlisted men if they know anything about Nazis being smuggled through here. Or even of mysterious airplanes passing through here. They are even threatening them with what happens when you lie to a Secret Service agent.” He chuckled, and added: “I wonder what they’re going to think about your mysterious airplane.”

“If they ask, what will they be told?”

“Same that we were told. That it’s a charter flight to rescue Argentine diplomats from Germany. Unless . . .”

“No. That’s fine. And it has the advantage of being the truth. Did these Secret Service people talk to you, tell you what they’re looking for?”

“No. I must look like somebody who would smuggle Nazis.”

“If they had asked you, General—”

“I thought we were on a first-name basis.”

“Sorry. Bob, if they had asked you . . .”

“What would I have told them? The truth. I’ve heard the rumors, and I think there’s something to them, but I don’t have any personal knowledge, and my counterintelligence people haven’t come up with anything concrete.”

“The rumors are true. One of my jobs is to try to stop fleeing Nazis trying to get to South America from getting there, or catch them. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. But before I get into that, how long has this planeload of Secret Service agents been here?”

“About forty-eight hours. All they were supposed to do was take on fuel, but there was a message saying ‘delay departure until further notice.’”

“Which conveniently provided time for their people to ask questions of your people.”

“That thought ran through my mind. What the hell is that all about?”

“I don’t know,” Clete said. “Maybe we’ll find out when we get to Germany. Let’s get back to the reason I wanted to see you. We have some pretty good intelligence that a number of German submarines are headed for Argentina. The number ranges from three we’re very sure about, to a fleet—as many as twenty-odd. A fleet seems unlikely but can’t be dismissed out of hand. The Nazis have a program called the Phoenix Project—”

“That’s real?” Bendick asked.

“I don’t know what you heard about it, so let me tell you what I know about it. Starting in 1943, the Nazis started sending money and things that can be easily converted to money—gold, diamonds, other precious stones, et cetera—to Argentina. The idea was to set up sanctuaries in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Brazil to which senior officers could flee, both escaping the trials we plan for them and using their new home as a base from which they can rise, rested and with large amounts of money, phoenix-like, and keep National Socialism going. Or bring it back to life.”

“That’s pretty much what I heard, but it sounded like the plot for a bad movie,” Bendick said.

“They sent a lot of money—hundreds of millions of dollars—to Argentina, plus some senior SS officers to run the program. We’ve managed to stop a lot of it, but by no means all.”

“What kind of senior SS officers?”

“Himmler’s adjutant, for one. Actually, the Reichsfuhrer-SS’s First Deputy Adjutant. SS-Brigadefuhrer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg. He came by submarine.”

“And this guy is already in Argentina?” Bendick asked incredulously.

“Yeah, but he’s no longer a problem,” Clete said.

“How so?”