“A little warm in here, isn’t it?” the MP said.
“Howard, say hello to Second Lieutenant Len Fischer of the Signal Corps,” Frade said.
Hughes did not appear to be surprised to learn Fischer was neither a major nor an MP. The two wordlessly shook hands.
“Actually, it’s first lieutenant,” Fischer said. “As of two days ago.”
Hughes relieved Fischer of the bottle of whiskey and the glasses and began to pour.
“You are going to tell us where you got the MP uniform? And the major’s leaf?” Frade asked.
“At Fort Myer,” Fischer said. “Early this morning. Two guys from the OSS showed up at Vint Hill Farms with a letter of instructions and the photographs we took of the Froggers at Casa Chica—”
“Where?” Hughes interrupted.
“Casa Chica,” Frade explained, “a small estancia where we’ve stashed the Froggers.” He turned to Fischer and asked, “What instructions?”
“The letter said I was to go to Camp Clinton, as an MP major, give the photographs to Colonel Frogger, say nothing, answer no questions, and wait for him there.”
“You’ve seen Frogger?” Clete asked.
Fischer nodded. Hughes handed him a drink.
“What’s he like?”
“More like his father than his mother. Smaller than I expected him to be. Anyway, they took me to the MP battalion at Fort Myer, got me suited up like this, and then took me to Bolling Air Force Base, loaded me on a B-26—that was an experience—and flew me down here.
“A light colonel from Camp Clinton met me, and took me out there, and put me together with Frogger. They had him in a room in a small wooden building. He had a duffel bag with him.”
“And?” Clete asked.
“I did what Colonel Graham’s letter said to do. I walked in and saluted, and said, in German, ‘Colonel Frogger, I have been instructed to give you these photographs, ’ and gave them to him. They shook him up, obviously, and he asked what was going on. I told him he would be informed in good time, saluted him again, and left. And waited for Colonel Graham to show up.”
“You think he recognized you in the pictures?” Clete said. “You were in civvies.”
Fischer shrugged, then took a close look at Hughes.
“You’re Howard Hughes,” he said.
“Yeah, I know,” Hughes said.
“The pilot, the movie guy,” Fischer went on.
“Right again, Len,” Frade said. “You have just won the cement bicycle for celebrity spotting. Give him your autograph, Howard.”
Hughes gave Frade the finger.
“What are you doing here?” Fischer asked.
“The same thing you are, pal,” Hughes said. “Waiting for Graham to tell me what to do.”
“Welcome to the OSS, Len,” Frade said.
“You’re in the OSS?” Fischer asked Hughes.
“Sometimes it feels that way, but, technically, no.”
“And I am?” Fischer asked.
“I don’t know if you are, technically,” Frade said. “But if I had to bet, I’d say you are.”
“I’m out of Vint Hill Farms? Out of the ASA?”
“I think when this is over,” Frade said, “Graham will send you back there. You’re very useful there. Unless something unexpected comes up, of course, and something unexpected will probably come up.”
“So what happens now?” Fischer asked.
Now Frade shrugged.
“I know not what course others may take,” Hughes intoned solemnly, “but as for me, give me rye whiskey when bourbon and scotch are not available.”
He reached for the bottle.
Colonel A. F. Graham came into BOQ Room 7 ninety minutes later, just as Howard Hughes was shaking the last drops of the rye whiskey into his glass.
“You’re out of luck, Alex, the booze is all gone,” Hughes said.
“You two are going to have to fly tomorrow,” Graham said. “And you’re drinking?”
“Only this one bottle,” Hughes said. “And it was nowhere near full when Len here brought it to us.”
Graham didn’t reply. He turned to Frade.
“I really wish you had a uniform. And a haircut. But there wasn’t time, so we’ll have to go with what we have.”
“Go where? And what do we have?” Frade asked.
“Don’t push me, Clete,” Graham said. “I’m not in a very good mood.”
“You couldn’t turn the Kraut?” Hughes asked.
Graham shook his head. “I’m still working on shaking him up. And I haven’t done well at that. He knows all about the Geneva Convention and enough about the United States to know we scrupulously follow them.”
“A real Nazi, huh?” Frade said. “A chip off the ol’ block—his mother’s block?”
“No. He’s more like his father. Go by the book. The book says don’t cooperate with the enemy, and that’s it, so far as he’s concerned.”
“What did he have to say about us having his parents?”
“I refused to discuss that. And when I asked him how familiar he was with Putzi Hanfstaengl, he said he’d never heard of him. Where he is now is in a room, alone, guarded by a couple of MPs. I told him he is not going back into the camp as a prisoner. I wouldn’t discuss that, either. I’m going to let him stew there overnight, and let you have a go at him in the morning. You, or you and Fischer. Your call.”
“I want Len there.”
“Okay. Now, why don’t we all go to bed?”
XV
[ONE]
Senior German Officer Prisoner of War Detention Facility Camp Clinton, Mississippi 0915 6 August 1943
It had been a thirty-minute drive in a 1941 Chevrolet Army staff car from Jackson Army Air Base to the POW camp, down a narrow macadam road that cut through the loblolly pine trees of rural central Mississippi.
When they got close to the base—signs on what had been a farmer’s fence read KEEP OUT! U.S. GOVERNMENT PROPERTY—Frade started looking for the barbed-wire fences and observation towers of a POW camp. There were none.
Their driver turned off of the macadam onto a rutted red clay road, and two hundred yards down that saw a guard shack in the center of the road manned by a pair of armed MPs in uniform. A curved sign erected over the shack read PRISONER OF WAR CAMP. Below that, in smaller letters, it said CLINTON, MISSISSIPPI, and below that was a square sign reading, VISITING PROHIBITED.
Frade noted that now there was a single coil of concertina marking the perimeter.
“Not much barbed wire,” he observed aloud as the staff car pulled to a stop at the guard shack.
“Yeah,” Fischer said. “Why is that?”
“Where are they going to go if they escape?” Graham replied. “This is the middle of nowhere. The wire’s more of a psychological barrier; it serves as a reminder of where they are.”
One of the guards in the shack came out, looked into the car, and then sort of came to attention and saluted. Graham was in uniform, as was Fischer, who was riding in the front seat.
Frade was annoyed: If a Marine saluted a full bull colonel that sloppily, he’d find himself suddenly practicing the rendering of the hand salute for the next two weekends.
“We’re expected,” Graham said as he returned the salute.
“Yes, sir,” the guard said, and walked to a counterbalanced striped barrier pole and raised it. Then he gestured somewhat impatiently for the staff car to pass.
Five hundred yards from the gate was a copse of trees and beyond that another fence. It was a standard chain-link fence that looked as if it belonged in someone’s backyard and might, Clete thought, pose a problem for a six-year-old to climb over.
Inside the fence line were small groups of German officers, perhaps two dozen men in all, apparently out for a morning stroll.
“The little one with the big nose,” Graham offered, “is General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, who has the dubious distinction of having surrendered the Afrikakorps.”