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Men At War, Book 3
by W.E.B. Griffin
Also, Müller understood that his one great ambition in life--to retire to the Hessian
farm where he had been born--would not be possible if he were tried as a war criminal and
hanged.
This being not only the real world, but also the real world at war, Helmut von
Heurten-Mitnitz's noble offer could not be accepted at face value. His intentions had to
be tested. He was offered a choice: He could do a job for the Americans, at genuine risk
to himself; or he could choose to satisfy other needs.
Enter the pawns:
There were in French Morocco a number of French officers, Army, Service de l'aire, and
Navy, who did not regard it as their duty to obey the terms of the Franco-German
Armistice. Rather, they saw it as their duty as officers to continue the fight against
Germany. These officers had provided considerable information and other assistance to
curious Americans. And they were fully aware that what they were doing was considered
treason.
Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz's controller told him that he would be expected to round up
twenty "treasonous" French officers whom the Americans wished to protect from
French forces loyal to Vichy, and from the Germans themselves, and take them to the palace
of the Pasha of Ksar es Souk, where they would be turned over to an American officer.
The American officer was to be parachuted into Morocco shortly before the invasion
began. As soon as possible after the ships of the American force appeared off the Moroccan
coast, he would contact Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz to furnish the names of the twenty
officers.
Finally, Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz was informed that the American officer's name was
Second Lieutenant Eric Fulmar. Von Heurten-Mitnitz would not fail to take note of this. A
U.S. Army second lieutenant, even one assigned to the Office of Strategic Services, was
small potatoes. But Second Lieutenant Fulmar, Infantry, United States Army, held dual
citizenship. His father, the Baron von Fulmar, was not only highly placed in the Nazi
Party, but was General Director of Fulmar Elektrische G.m.b.H.
For months Eric Fulmar had been a thorn in the side of his father and of many highly
placed Party officials. When the war began, Eric had been a student of electrical
engineering at the University of Marburg an der Lahn. But he had not remained in Germany
to accept his duty to don a uniform to fight for the Fatherland. Young Fulmar's departure
was of course seen as a mighty thumbing of his nose at the Thousand-Year Reich. In other
words, he was a messy embarrassment to his father and the Party.
Worse yet, he had not dignified his desertion by going to the United States. That could
have been more or less explained. But he had gone to Morocco, of all places, as the guest
of his classmate, Sidi Hassan el Ferruch, Pasha of Ksar es Souk.
Once there, he promptly made matters even worse by entering into the profitable
business of smuggling gold, currency, and precious gems out of France through Morocco. His
American passport and a diplomatic passport issued to him by the Pasha of Ksar es Souk
saved him from arrest and prosecution.
When Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz was named to the Franco-German Armistice Commission,
one of his missions had been to see that young Fulmar was returned to Germany. His best
efforts (really those of Obersturmbannführer Müller) had been to no avail. And when the
Americans entered the war--when he could have been arrested without offending American
neutrality--Eric von Fulmar had simply disappeared.
In the American vernacular, then, Helmut von Heurten-Mitnitz and Obersturmbannführer
Müller were now offered the choice of putting up or shutting up.
Reprinted from THE SOLDIER SPIES by W.E.B. Griffin by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 1986 by W.E.B. Griffin. Originally published under the pseudonym Alex Baldwin. First G.P. Putnam's Sons edition 1999. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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