Hogan got up to his feet and stood back to glare at the first picture he found in the small light that his quarters allowed him. He realized that it was the picture of her coming-of-age party that her Russian father held in their yard, which was next to where he lived…at least for a while, until she moved in with him after her father left America, on suspicion of being a Socialist and sending government secrets to the Russians. She was only sixteen years old in the picture Hogan held and she was already at the height of her womanhood in it, gorgeous in her long, conservative Russian summer dress and smiling at her father, who was holding his old, wizened hand out to her as she climbed down from the table she was standing on with that matchmaker. Her eventual movement down the table was frozen in time.
God! Was she so innocent then or what? Ted was right in sitting out there and taking her pictures. How I wish I could have taken one of her face when she found them pasted around the house. Hogan smiled at that particular memory. He recalled sneaking into her house as she was working outside and helping her father and his friends post them around the house, just to annoy her, and watching her grow in anger as she ripped one after another off the doors, walls and even off a mirror in her bedroom, cutting her arms as the mirror shattered in taking down the picture. (Did she punch that mirror in anger?) Her father and his friends could only laugh at her as she shredded every one of them down and then search for the one person who could have done such a thing to her, only to find Hogan missing and probably on the docks with his brothers fishing with the Navy captain who ported in Bridgeport, nicknamed "Magic." Hogan felt lucky, as he chuckled as he briefly recalled her stomping to the docks searching for him, that he saved a few precious photos of that day and kept them in a photo album for later use. He felt blessed to have seen her again, if only in a picture, in her beauty and forever encased in something.
His love could never end for her and both of them knew it well.
Hogan clutched that picture and was lost in his thoughts of her until a knock on the door suddenly disrupted his thoughts. Seeing his quarters a mess from everything being thrown about, Hogan quickly became paranoid about who was at the other side of that door. For all he knew, it could be the Gestapo…or it could be his men or even Schultz, the bumbling guard who watched his barracks. He couldn't take that chance to be caught with suspicious and messy barracks and was speedily hurling everything messily back into his footlocker before he could answer the door. After reassuring himself that everything was in order after closing his footlocker, he answered his door.
"Come in," Hogan yelled in his bass voice.
The door opened slightly and a prisoner of medium height and self-indulgent looks came in. Hogan could only sigh in relief for it was only Andrew Carter, his main man in working with the explosives. "Colonel Hogan, L-London just radioed a message here. K-Kinch said it was urgent and was a personal message for you. It's being decoded now."
"Thank you, Carter, I'll be done in a few minutes," Hogan answered, baffled about what could have been sent to him at such a time. He already heard news from home through his family letters only a few hours ago, censured as they may be, but what could London have for him that could be considered urgent to him? Hogan deliberated this over as he exited his quarters with Carter, and, watching for any guards around, tapped the bunk in the main room of the barracks that led to their complex tunnel system.
Carter followed his commanding officer down to the radio room, where his colleagues, James Kinchloe, Louis LeBeau and Peter Newkirk stood. Boy, the Colonel isn't going to be happy with this message, Carter thought and he knew what sadness this could cause him. Kinchloe, Kinch to everyone, already deciphered the message and read it to them before asking him to get Colonel Hogan, and then they knew, with certainty, that Colonel Hogan should be informed of this message even though it'll hurt him more than not receiving it.