Carter jumped at the sound of a branch snapping. He hated being on mission alone. It rarely happened, but the few times it did, it seemed it had to be on a dark and stormy night when they couldn't verify if there were any Germans in the woods and all of the night animals came out at once to snuffle around under logs and rustle through the leaves and break twigs off. He shook himself and kept moving. He had to make it to that munitions dump.

As he walked through the cold and wet, he thought about Newkirk and LeBeau, sitting comfortably in the infirmary. They weren't sick, but they had pretended to be for their last mission, and were still playing out their recoveries. One of them would have been out here with him if Klink hadn't had a sudden softening of heart and made it his duty to make sure they fully recovered and were attended to at all hours of the night. They were stuck in a warm infirmary with the kommandant's favor, and in Carter's opinion Newkirk was liking it too much. They could have been out of there and back on missions by now, but Newkirk kept insisting they had to play a convincing role. So the Ammunition Inspector of Hammelberg had no aide tonight. Kinch was waiting at the radio for their next set of orders from London and Hogan was covering for Carter and Kinch's absence.

Carter sighed in frustration and readjusted the bomb under his coat. It was a patch job, but he did those a lot, especially when he couldn't get a drop of dynamite from London and had to work with what the Underground could get to him from the black market. It didn't have to be too big a bomb anyway. The munitions dump would do most of the work of blowing itself up. He smiled at the thought before he froze at a whistling noise. It held, whispery and sustained, and Carter crouched, looking for its source. It waned, and when it started again, Carter noticed it came from above and corresponded with the wind. He carefully stepped toward it and found the offending, strangely-shaped branch the wind was whistling through. Geez, I need to calm down, he thought. I'm never going to get there this way.

Rubbing his arms and shaking what little rain fell from the threatening clouds off his hat, he continued on. Twenty minutes further on, he saw a wall of greenery through the trees that marked the edge of the forest. He slowed his place and listened. Footsteps and flapping canvas. That would be the dump. Carter crept up and got a good look through the leaves. This was a big one. He could blow it up just fine, but he'd have to get out of here fast. His timer wasn't the longest-setting kind. And there was the entrance, on the opposite side of the dump. He'd have to make his way around to the north side.

When he finally made it around, glad that the wind was covering much of his noise, he stopped just before he stepped into the road to brush off any leaves and straighten his appearance.

He stepped out of his currently skittish self and into his incensed superior act, then made his way resolutely down the road. He walked straight to the guard at the gates and handed over his papers.

"Ammunitions Chief Inspector. I am here to conduct an inspection of your facilities."

"Inspection? I was not told of this."

Carter turned a glare on him. "Do the Gestapo often make it a habit to tell you about their surprises?"

"The Gestapo?"

"Ja, I was ordered to make a surprise inspection by Major Hohenheim himself. You would do well to be surprised."

The guard looked behind Carter. "That is why you left your truck back on the road?"

"And came without an aide? Yes. Now hurry and let me in or it will no longer be much of a surprise to your men, now will it?"

"I suppose not." He hurriedly checked the papers again and saluted, opening the gates. Carter walked through, not waiting for an escort, with the air of a man late to an appointment and mad at the whole world for making him so.

He walked through the first several rows with a critical eye and distinct look of disappointment, noticing the word of his arrival spread. He took a more direct route to the back of the compound where he only had to keep an eye on two or three directions, not four. As soon as he was able to look around and see no one in sight, he undid his jacket and pulled out the bomb. He lifted a canvas cover and set it carefully on the edge of a crate. Just a twist here, a pull there—he checked his watch—and...set.

Now he headed straight back to the entrance, walking along the edge instead of straight up the middle, pretending to inspect the fence. It was for this reason that he caught the guard's conversation before he appeared in view.

"...heard of a Major Hohenheim?"

"Nein, but there are many people at the Gestapo I don't know."

"And why are we having an inspection in the middle of the night?"

The second guard answered tiredly, "It was a surprise."

"Alone? And—ah, that's it!—his pants were wet at the knees. He's been walking through underbrush."

Carter cursed his absent-mindedness.

"You mean he is Underground?"

The first man sounded exasperated. "Yes."

"Sound the alarm, then!"

Carter abruptly changed course. He was not going out through the front gates, and if he didn't hurry, he wasn't going out at all. He checked his watch and looked for a spot along the fence that couldn't be viewed. Then the alarms went off. He ducked into a side alley and stayed on the side shadowed from the moonlight. He headed south. He was about to turn the corner when footsteps made him crouch. He prayed what Newkirk had told him was true about not moving and held as still as he could, heart pattering, and watched several guards run past him. Then he poked his head out into the next passage and, seeing no one, stood up and began to walk. He forced himself not to outright run. That's what the guards were looking for. He strode purposefully across the compound, rerouting as he spotted groups of guards he could not possibly walk through without being identified, all the time his heart in his throat. He stopped in another shadow and pulled up his sleeve to see his watch. Explatives in every language he had become familiar with sounded off in his head, but the only thing that came out was a whispered, "Oh man."

He had been held up too long. He wasn't going to get far enough away in time. He had to disable his bomb.

Carter made his way back to the bomb, taking several wrong turns that made the panic rise and his feet move faster. Finally, he found it. He crouched and pressed against the crate it was on. He looked both ways. No one for the moment. He reached up and pulled the bomb down, immediately pulling the wires apart and searching in the dark for the right one. His fingers found it. This one was clamped between two plates. He tugged, but it didn't budge. Fingers shaking with adrenaline, he pinned it down with his knee, got both hands around the wire, and pulled for all he was worth.

A snap was followed by a strange sizzling and puffing noise and a sudden pain in Carter's left knee. He bit his tongue and almost yelled out. He frantically tried to wipe the chemicals away, forgetting he didn't have his gloves on. A yell in German snapped back his attention. A guard a good sixty yards away had spotted him. He looked down at the leaking bomb. He couldn't leave it. The material in this thing could easily be traced back to their Underground suppliers. He looked back at the guard, now running at him, and suddenly, the adrenaline was just enough.

He picked up the bomb and ran to the fence, his knee slowing him considerably. But he knew he was safe from gunfire until he got to the trees. No one dared shoot within a munitions dump. He ran, and when he got to the fence, he hugged the bomb tight and rolled under the wire, tearing his uniform. He got within the brush just as the gunfire started.

~~HH~

Hogan paced. He knew he was supposed to be sleeping, but that wasn't going to be happening with Carter outside on his own. Especially not now that he was overdue. He looked at his watch. Way overdue. But what was worrying him more was that he hadn't heard an explosion. At this distance, he knew he wouldn't be able to hear a bridge go up, but surely a munitions dump?

He was stopped in his pacing by a tap on the roof, followed shortly by another one. Hogan moved immediately to his window and cracked it open, surveying the fence line. He couldn't see anyone, but... There was the third tap. And this time, he saw an acorn fall off the roof in front of him.

Hogan rushed out of his quarters and to the bunk tunnel. He hardly acknowledged Kinch as he passed the radio, rushing out to their stump exit. He checked for guards with the periscope, and quickly ascended the ladder. He stepped out of the stump and crouched down, scanning the woods around him.

"Here, Colonel!" he heard a hiss. Hogan stepped around a bushy shrub and drew up short.

Carter, sitting against a tree, uniform ripped and burned, face scratched up, gave him a weak smile. He lifted his slingshot and whispered, "I needed help getting down the ladder."

"Carter, what happened?" Hogan asked, dropping beside him and checking the rips for any blood.

"Not now. Quick. You gotta me to my lab."

It was then that Hogan spotted the mess of machinery sitting next to Carter. "Is that your bomb?"

"Hurry up!" Carter hissed more urgently.

Hogan did as he was told. He helped Carter up and moved him over to the stump when the lights had passed. "I'll go down first and support you, okay?"

Carter nodded. Hogan went to grab the bomb, and Carter pulled away from him. "No! Don't touch it!"

Hogan would have argued if they'd had more time. Instead he got into the stump and halfway down the ladder, then helped Carter place his feet. They got the lid closed and Hogan on the ground before Carter fell. Hogan caught him as best he could, and Carter was still hugging the bomb, not even trying to catch himself. "My lab," Carter mumbled, and began to limp down the tunnel. That alarmed Hogan and he put himself against Carter's side, putting a hand under his elbow to support him. What happened to you, Carter?

When they made it to the lab, Carter set the bomb on the table and immediately got to work with his tools. "Colonel, this thing's a mess. You gotta get out of here in case it blows," he said adamantly. Hogan didn't move. "We've been over this before." He tried two tactics at once. "Please! That's an order!"

Hogan ignored the impossibility of the last sentence and left. He went a healthy distance down the tunnel, where he could still hear Carter if he needed help. He tried to review what he had seen. Carter was limping, the bomb was leaking, the scratches on his face could have been from running through the woods—Was someone chasing him? Had he led them back here? And wait. Hogan saw Carter picking up his tools in his mind's eye. What had happened to his hands?

He was about to go check the periscope when Carter called, "You can come back now, Colonel."

Hogan got back to the lab and asked, "Anyone following you?"

"I lost 'em," said Carter. Hogan saw Carter's work table. It was littered with tools, metal pieces, a clear liquid, and a neat pile of granulated something-or-other to the side. Carter himself was sitting on the floor with his hands in a bucket of water. He looked up at his commander. "Could you get me some more water?" he asked childishly, as if it really were a question.

Hogan could finally put something together. "Chemical burn?"

Carter nodded. Hogan was off. He made it most of the way to the radio when Kinch came up to him.

"What's up? Is Carter back?"

"Get Wilson."

"What? What happened?"

"Now." Hogan was already gone, hurrying to find another bucket and fill it at the barracks sink. As Wilson's barracks were a good distance away—something Hogan decided he ought to fix—he made it back well before the two sergeants did. Carter's eyes, which had been closed, opened when he heard Hogan. The look in them made his heart twinge.

"Got you some water, Carter."

"I failed my mission," he said, looking at his commander.

"Don't worry. Here." Hogan put the new bucket down next to the old one and tried to move Carter's hands to the next one. He resisted.

"My knee," he said. What about a knee? Hogan thought. "I didn't complete it. And now they suspect the Underground."

"Carter, don't worry about that. I'll fix it. We'll get that dump. Now let me fix you. Where are you hurt?"

Carter looked like he really wanted to believe that, then decided he did. "My hands, my knee, my chest. The acid got all on my shirt. I need to take it off before it burns more."

"Carter, why didn't you say something?" Hogan scolded, carefully but quickly undoing Carter's buttons and getting his shirt off while trying not to touch the acid himself.

"I had to deactivate—" Carter quit speaking as Hogan pulled the undershirt over his head. Hogan took stock of the red burns on Carter's chest, and the glistening acid that was still there. "The second bucket," Carter prompted. "Pour it on."

"Lay down," Hogan instructed, helping Carter get on his side. When he was positioned so the water would roll off onto the floor, Hogan brought the bucket up and carefully poured it on all of the burned areas. Carter gasped at the cold and urgently said, "Wait! Save some. For my knee."

Hogan put down the bucket and Carter fell back onto the floor, breathing heavily. Hogan found the burned knee and began tearing Carter's pant leg away from it. He discarded it to the side and lifted the bucket again to begin pouring slowly.

Carter jerked slightly at the contact of the water, but didn't make a noise. Hogan concentrated on washing off all of the chemical and stretching the bucket as much as he could. It was a good thing they had an absorbent floor, he thought. His mind moved on to inventing ways to explain away this injury when Carter interrupted his thoughts. "Hogan?" Hogan looked at his young tech sergeant. "Thanks. And, I'll go back and get that dump."

Hogan sighed. "Carter—"

"When you send for me, maybe you can tell me what's wrong," Wilson grumped. He and Kinch had come in behind Hogan, and now Wilson was kneeling next to the Colonel and situating a blanket over Carter's upper body. "Judging by the state of the work desk, we've got chemical burns?"

"Yeah," Hogan confirmed. "We've been rinsing them."

"Good," said Wilson. "You and Kinch go get more water. Warm. Wish we had faucets down here."

Hogan nodded and got up to follow Kinch out. He stole a look at Carter before he left. Carter was watching him go with big eyes. "I'll be back, Carter," he said. "Wilson's got you."

Carter nodded hesitantly and Hogan left in search of more buckets.

After Wilson was done cleaning and bandaging, and they had gotten Carter comfortably situated on the tunnel cot, Hogan took Wilson aside. "How is he? For real?" he asked.

Wilson was putting together his tools on the floor of the lab and looked up at Hogan. "It was a lot of surface area to attend to quickly, but it's not as bad you might think." He started folding up his blanket. "First degree burns on his chest, some second degree on his hands. Really the worst part is his knee. Apparently there was a miniature explosion there."

"Miniature—?"

"I'm not sure. But there's no structural damage. Keep it clean, keep it elevated, and keep him from walking."

Hogan paused. "I guess that means getting caught by the guards is out of the question?"

"What?"