THE TIES THAT BIND
No ownership of the Hogan's Heroes characters is implied or inferred and in no way intends to infringe upon the privileges of the holders of the copyrights, trademarks, or other legal rights of the Hogan's Heroes Universe.
Text and original characters copyright 2005 by Teresa Strati
CHAPTER TWO
FOR LIFE AND COUNTRY…
Flanked on either side by the German guards, Jeanine left the interrogation cell and her Gestapo interrogator to be escorted to solitary confinement. She laughed to herself at the absurdity of it all. Solitary confinement. Did the Gestapo believe that solitude would unnerve her? One guard walked ahead and opened the door to the cell then stood aside, motioning for her to enter. Jeanine derived great pleasure glaring at him as she walked past.
Newkirk opened the door to solitary confinement and then stood aside for Jeanine to enter. When she glared at him, Newkirk was so taken aback he wanted to confess who he was immediately. He felt like an English schoolboy about to be reprimanded.
Jeanine stopped short just inside the cell. In the far corner stood a Gestapo officer wiping a knife with what looked like mismatched pieces of material. "I guess the one hour interrogation intervals got shortened to none!" she said contemptuously. She could feel a sliver of trepidation slowly taking hold.
"You don't have to be insulting!" the officer said, ceasing his wiping of the knife and taking a good look at the young woman before him. He stared at the tourniquet on her injured right leg. "I'm what's between you keeping and losing your leg." he said threateningly. "I am a doctor. Please, lie on the bed and I will tend to your wound before you really do end up losing your leg."
Jeanine remained standing.
"The tourniquet you have applied has staunched the blood flow which means you don't walk around with blood dripping off your leg, but at the same time you are depriving the bottom part of your leg of its much needed blood supply. Hence, it will die." He stood directly before her, face to face. "You may lie; you may sit. You may not stand!"
"There is no bullet. It will close on its own." Jeanine stated purposefully avoiding his eyes.
"Very well. We both stand." Doc shrugged. "If there is a necessity for the tourniquet, there is a necessity for stitches," he said, continuing, "you will be good to no-one with a permanent limp!"
Now Jeanine stared at him. He bowed! She was flabbergasted. "Like I said, I am a doctor. Nothing more." He saw her eyes scan the German Gestapo uniform he wore. He hated this uniform! Finally, she relented and seated herself on the makeshift bed. Doc knelt before her and deftly removed the tourniquet, throwing the belt on the small table near the bed. He carefully began peeling off the bloodied material, conscious of the fact that the dried blood was acting as sealant and that the wound could begin bleeding uncontrollably.
The room was cold. The surface beneath his knees was cold. He shivered involuntarily. He hated this room.
The collar of his uniform was simulating a noose around his neck. He loosened the first two buttons on his jacket then noticed there was blood on his hands from the wound he was examining. Obviously he had now transferred some of that blood to the jacket lapel.
He hated this uniform.
...000…
Stratford allowed himself to be escorted into the interrogation cell. He stopped just inside the cell. Before him a Gestapo officer paced with his hands clenched behind his back. Newkirk nudged Stratford with his rifle to move forward but he remained where he stood.
Colonel Hogan turned abruptly, ceasing his pacing. He stared at the officer before him. There was a definite cockiness about him, arrogance. Hogan was familiar with the body language. How many times was he on the receiving end of a German's rifle? Stratford looked too confident, too smug with himself.
Stratford threw the two jackets he held in his hands at the Gestapo officer before him. "You don't know how close you came to stuffing up! No wonder you're losing the war!" Stratford screeched.
Hogan caught the two jackets, surprised, for the second time in so many hours. "Name!" he demanded.
"Captain Alan Stratford. That's all you need to know for now."
Hogan laughed, nervously, looking at the two jackets he held. "So, what do I do with these?"
"Make your career!" Stratford jubilantly announced and then he walked to the lone chair in the centre of the room, turned it around and casually straddled it. "And mine."
Hogan was stunned.
Stratford removed his tie and began loosening his shirt. "Got any cigarettes? American ones?"
Hogan nodded to Newkirk who disappeared, only to re-appear in no time with two cigarettes, no packet. Hogan lit both and handed one to Stratford. One he took himself.
"Danke." Stratford said then inhaled deeply. He stared at Hogan and the jackets, took another puff then crossed his arms over the high back of the wooden chair and relaxed. "What you hold in your arms are mission details of a strike offensive to be mounted by the British tomorrow at midnight. Amazingly, five targets have been selected for bombing. London office unfortunately could not get full confirmation of the co-ordinates. The mission is going ahead, however. So, to ensure their optimum success they want the Underground to set up beacons for their bombers."
"Why has our capturing you then caused a problem? The Underground do not get the co-ordinates and the bombers miss their mark."
Stratford stared at him, "You see only half the picture. What is your biggest problem here, now, right at your front door? The Underground. They have been causing you many headaches. I figured, if they have the coordinates and they set up the beacons, and your men discreetly, and I do mean discreetly, hide; you will be able to capture the biggest contingent of underground operatives yet!" He stared at the burning cigarette then savoured another puff, exhaled and smiled broadly. "Imagine the pool of information that can be gleaned from the many interrogations you would undoubtedly perform?"
It was so simple, it could work, Hogan thought to himself, alarmed. Their whole operation would have been revealed. Hogan threw his cigarette on the ground and stomped on it roughly. This whole thing was leaving a nasty taste in his mouth. "How were you going to get this information to us?" he asked.
"Either come to you first, or meet the Underground and come to you later. Either way, I would have gotten word to you somehow. The information was received only a short while ago so everything has been quite impromptu."
"You were not concerned that my men may have shot you."
"Your men may have shot me. Your men may have shot the girl. We would undoubtedly have been searched and you still would have had the mission details."
"And I am to believe that you were prepared to die for the Fatherland?" Hogan's hostility was mounting. It was getting very hard to remain calm. "Your plan is flawed. The Underground do not have the details."
"No thanks to you." Stratford accused. He got up, threw the cigarette stub in a corner of the room and stood directly before Hogan. He smirked, "Release the girl. She will make contact with the Underground. Give her the jackets. There is still time for all this to work."
"So the young Fraulein has been aiding you, no?" Hogan enquired half-heartedly. He didn't really want to know, but he had to.
"I do not work with incompetence and I do not work with women! She is part of some new strategy by London to appease the British females! London obviously needed some mission to send her on, so they tailed her to me. Once this mission goes askew, so much for the new strategy, amongst other things."
"You shot her," Hogan guessed.
Stratford shrugged his shoulder. "She was wearing the other half of the plans. I only wounded her. If I had wanted to kill her, she would be dead."
That was it. United States Army Air Corps Colonel Robert Hogan had had enough! He punched Captain Stratford in the jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground, his head hitting the chair. Captain Stratford sat up holding his jaw and sputtering.
"Believability, Captain," Hogan said, smiling, the first real smile since the interrogation began. "We do have to keep up appearances." He turned to Newkirk and Carter at attention near the door. From the corner of his eye he more than once caught them fidgeting nervously during the interrogation. "Return our very helpful Captain Stratford back to his cell."
Stratford rose, still rubbing his jaw. Hogan was still smiling. "We will examine this information that you so courageously have given us and then we will meet again."
"Schnell!" Newkirk yelled, pointing the rifle at him.
Stratford reluctantly walked out of the room, glancing one final time at the Gestapo officer in the room.
Hogan clutched the jackets to himself protectively. He noted with some satisfaction that the arrogance the Captain walked into the room with at the beginning had somewhat dissipated by the end. He looked down at his stinging knuckles. It was a very good punch. He walked out of the cell, clutching the jackets and still smiling.
...000…
Jeanine had been seated at the end of the makeshift bed for well over an hour. Doc was crouched before her, reminding her for the umpteenth time that he was almost finished with the stitching. Although he took every precaution to make it as painless as possible, the mere sight of him stitching her flesh unnerved her.
Doc completed the final stitch and sat back on his heels. He was sweating profusely. For the second time, Jeanine watched as he absentmindedly pulled at the collar of his uniform. It didn't matter that he had already loosened the two top buttons; the entire jacket seemed to be uncomfortable for him.
Colonel Hogan walked in carrying the two jackets he'd been given. He spied Jeanine sitting on the edge of the bed and his camp Doctor crouched at her feet! "New bedside manner, Doc?"
Startled, Doc pulled sharply at the collar. A button fell off and rolled, coming to rest at Colonel Hogan's feet. "Was going to have a word to you about that … the uniform that is..." Doc sputtered.
"I'm sure you were," Hogan said. He smiled at Jeanine, which left Jeanine genuinely confused. Before her stood the officer that had interrogated her and threatened to continue interrogating her every hour. This was the same German officer that she definitely harboured a death wish for. She cringed and Hogan noticed. "You're safe. We're not who you think we are," Hogan tried to explain.
"Although I am your doctor!" Doc said smugly, now choosing to unbutton his entire uniform jacket. Colonel Hogan glared at him.
"Well, I do have a reputation to maintain, and I still have to bandage that leg." Doc threw his jacket to a corner of the room, then grabbed the makeshift bandages off the table and crouched at Jeanine's feet, ready to bandage her stitched leg.
"Don't let me stop you, Doc," Hogan said sarcastically. Hogan returned his attention to Jeanine again, noting her confusion. "We're not really Gestapo. You were to meet us tonight. I'm Colonel Robert Hogan. Papa Bear."
"You're my contact?" She was so shocked she stood abruptly, simultaneously knocking Doc on his backside. "But the uniforms… All this… I don't understand." Jeanine stammered.
"London informed us that one of the contacts we were to meet was a double agent, they didn't tell us who."
"They suspected me?" she asked overwhelmed. She felt nauseous . The bile rose in her throat.
"And Captain Stratford," Hogan added.
Jeanine stared at him, dubiously. "You have the jackets. You explained to Captain Stratford who you are and he told you everything?"
"Captain Stratford volunteered everything to Major Overmier." Hogan said slowly, adding, "it was Captain Stratford that shot you. He needed to make sure you would stay close by. The papers were to be shown to the Gestapo and then passed on by you to the Underground. Once our people were in place, the Gestapo were to move in."
"They would have been slaughtered," she stammered, shaken. She was going to be sick! Jeanine immediately turned and rushed to the basin on the table where she loudly threw up.
"I'm sorry," Hogan said ruefully, gently rubbing her shoulders. She was shivering. He needed to get a change of clothes to her. "It's going to be alright. We've got what we need."
He helped her sit back on the bed. "Doc will give you something to rest a little. I need to get these jackets to my men. I'll call in later. It's fine, really…" he said, walking to the door.
Doc promptly resumed his bandaging.
Jeanine ran her fingers through her hair in frustration. Then, watching Colonel Robert Hogan head for the door took a deep breath and called out, "You won't find anything,"
Hogan abruptly stopped with his hand on the door.
She glanced at Doc, absorbed in his bandaging, then at the Colonel. "I have the mission coordinates…" she began carefully, "memorised."
Smart, Hogan thought to himself. Stratford had nothing to bargain with and he didn't even know it. "That's a risk. What if you were caught?" he asked, returning to her side.
"I was." She said, taking another deep breath. It didn't help. Spots were appearing before her eyes. "Captain Stratford and I didn't exactly see eye to eye. He was instrumental in undermining a lot of what I put forward to the Commander. His gratuitous remarks became a 'drink time' running joke. My reports to the Commander were dismissed and I was told it was just a severe case of letting off steam. When the orders came through for this mission, he badgered my Commander for someone else. I had reasons of my own to badger my Commander to go on this mission. He owed me. I won. Stratford went on a barrage of characteristic flaws to anyone who'd care to listen, about me. A constant in his appraisal of me was my so-called ineptitude." She shrugged nonchalantly. "I wanted to teach him a lesson. I removed the mission papers just before departure and memorised them."
Hogan found he wasn't as shocked as he should have been. He was, however, intrigued. "What did you do with the papers?"
"On my Commander's desk," she recollected. "I gathered, if he saw them maybe he'd assume we were both inept."
"I'd say you alerted your Commander to a possible double agent and didn't realise how close to the mark you were." Colonel Hogan laughed. "All right, what's this mission you memorised?"
"There will be an aerial offensive tomorrow night, hitting five major targets. London wants the Underground to construct beacons at these targets ensuring their bombers make direct hits."
"Do they have problems with the coordinates?"
"They couldn't be confirmed and it's essential that all five targets are hit."
"Why all five?"
"The coordinates are not recognisable sites. Two days ago a message was decoded that five farmhouses in remote proximity were really storage facilities of various degrees. One is a storage site for ammunition. Another houses parts for some type of new arsenal they're developing. Parts unidentifiable. Another one seems to have a wonderful collection of guns, packed and ready to be shipped out. We are not certain of the last two, as we received no further communication. They are not massive finds, by all means, but the word is out that Hitler is a little paranoid about the enemy hitting his smaller, seemingly insignificant yet important targets. With direct hits on these farmhouses, the message will be out to Hitler that his little secrets are being leaked to the enemy. Because confirmation of the coordinates could not be ascertained, they were to be confirmed in the next transmission, and because of their delicate nature, London thought beacons could ensure that they get their direct hits."
"Another nail in Hitler's coffin. Okay. Let's have the coordinates of these supposed sites."
"You give me your word that you and your men will help me with my mission, and I will give you the co-ordinates."
"We're not on the same mission?" Hogan asked flabbergasted.
"London had no way to verify the mission co-ordinates because the operatives in the field that procured them were betrayed to the Germans. London believes they're with Gestapo. Before boarding the flight over here, I received an anonymous message that they're alive and being held in one of the farmhouses. My Commander allowed me to join this mission on the pretence that I get some help getting my operatives out. However, it's unofficial."
"How were you going to achieve that? You don't know that your operatives are alive."
She winced. No one more than her was aware that her operatives might be dead. "I know that you wouldn't have these coordinates if not for them. I was going to join the Underground on the mission. I know the coordinates of the farm house they're being held in."
"We could be walking into a trap," Hogan argued. He didn't like messy missions.
"You could be doing that by setting up the beacons as well. This makes no difference."
"Setting up the beacons will be discreet. Rescuing your operatives…"
"…will not be such a big ask of Major Overmier…" Jeanine finished. She stood abruptly, sending Doc sprawling onto his backside again. "Please, Colonel Hogan," she begged, "I have to get them out"
"How many are we looking at?" he asked, already making a mental note of who to contact.
"Two. Only two." She silently prayed that there really would be two - two alive.
Watching her carefully, it suddenly dawned on Colonel Robert Hogan that he didn't know this woman's name. She never revealed it at interrogation and she did not reveal it in conversation now.
"I don't know your name," he said, almost embarrassed.
She smiled then said, "Jeanine Bruyere"
"Jeanine Bruyere, let's get those coordinates and both missions under way."
Jeanine breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, sir" she said softly.
Hogan nodded then smiled when he noticed Doc still sprawled at Jeanine's feet, massaging his backside. "You really do need to work on that bedside manner, Doc."
Jeanine looked down at the bandages falling limply from her leg and promptly sat on the bed, smiling awkwardly. Doc silently proceeded with the bandaging, again. She muttered a 'sorry' but didn't get a response. Maybe he didn't hear it. Then again, maybe he did.
...000…