My computer is fixed, communication is restored with my Beta/room-mate who just moved 4400 km and three time zones to the east, and this story is back on track! Much thanks for everyone's patience and encouragement. - Thaddeus

Chapter Four:

No French Toast at Midnight

"This is where we stop." Hogan whispered, quietly switching off the engine. "I want to push the car into the bushes so it can't be seen from the road."

"Sounds good, Colonel." Carter whispered back. "Do you want me to leave the explosives in the back?"

"You brought explosives?"

Carter nodded. "I thought them might come in handy."

"Why are we whispering?" Kinch hissed. "We're still a good five minute walk from the barn."

"Don't look at me," Carter protested. "The Colonel started it."

Hogan switched the truck into neutral with an unnecessarily violent tug at the gear shift. "Just get out and push, please."

Kinch and Carter shared a grin as they clambered out and started pushing the truck off the side of the road. Once it was well hidden, Hogan joined them, tugging at his long black turtle neck. "Alright boys, everyone ready? Carter, you've got the chloroform?"

The young chemist slapped the side of his pack, causing Kinch to wince. "Right here."

"And both of you remembered to load your pistols?"

Carter looked surprised. "With bullets?

Hogan held up a hand for silence. "I don't want us to use these unless it's really necessary. So let's just think of them as the back up to our back up plan."

They trudged along the edge of the road in the dark. The moon was out, but shifting clouds gave them some cover. Soon Hogan placed a finger to his lips and motioned to cut into the fields and clumps of trees so they could approach the barn from the back with better cover. They weren't that far away when Kinch caught the edge of Hogan's sleeve, pulling him close to speak softly.

"Do you smell that? Something's really off."

Hogan raised his head, turning a little till he caught the stench. "It smells like wet burnt wood and it's pretty strong too."

They crept forward slower now, until they were on the edge of a clearing that hadn't been there before.

"Where's the barn?" Carter exclaimed before Hogan clapped a hand over his mouth.

They were all staring at the mound of crumbling ash and wreckage that used to be their meeting place. It had been razed almost to the ground. Only a couple of the giant ceilings beams remained, blackened and strewn across the foul smelling ash.

"Was ist das?"

The three Heroes ducked down. "Get out the chloroform," Hogan hissed.

The poor guard never knew what hit him. One minute he was checking out a mysterious noise in the bushes, and the next he was jumped from behind, slipping off to sleep before he even hit the ground.

Hogan stood up, brushing off his hands. "I'll dump him in the bushes. Kinch, I want you to circle the, um... barn, to the right, Carter to the left. Make sure there aren't any more guards. Our contacts from the underground should be here any minute now."

Watching them disappear into the night, Hogan slowly approached the edge of the former barn. He kicked at a stray chuck of burnt shingle. The wreckage was stone cold now. It had been cooling for some time.

"Probably since last night," Hogan muttered. "Damn those two. You're going to turn me grey before my time, Newkirk and LeBeau."

Hogan dropped his pack to the ground and began to carefully pick his way through the ruins of the barn. He approached the couple large piles of debris and scouted around the perimeter of the massive rafters.

"Well what do we have here?" Hogan asked as he hopped down beside one of the giant beams. The ground around it had been cleared out, and several numbered markers were scattered about. Sighing, he crouched beside the markers. Hogan had seen them once before, when there had been an explosion at the air field where he trained and several men were killed.

The little numbered markers pinpointed the place where a body had been found.

"Colonel."

Glancing up, Hogan spotted the shadowy figure of Carter approaching. A couple steps behind him were Herr Wolfe and Herr Vogt, two of their local contacts for the previous mission. Hogan got to his feet, offering a hand which the two men shook heartily.

Wolfe was an older man, with bristly grey hair that always made Hogan think of the man's namesake. Herr Vogt was a younger fellow, with a long face and matching long legs. Right now both men were wearing an expression of concern.

"It is good to see you, Papa Bear," Wolfe said. "But I wish this meeting wasn't necessary. The information your two men were bringing us was vital for the safety of every local member of the underground."

Hogan grinned wryly. "Don't I know it? That's why I put two of my best men on the job, and now all we're left with is this."

He indicated the ruins around them.

"What happened here?" Vogt asked.

Carter broke into the conversation. "We were kind of hoping you guys had some answers. Last time we were here, there was a barn right about where I'm standing."

"Where's Kinch?" Hogan looked around.

"Found some stuff on the driveway that he wanted to look at, Colonel. There's a bunch of funny little markers on the ground."

Dark eyebrows knitting, the POW's commanding officer nodded. He was beginning to form some idea of what had happened the night before.

"You still haven't received any word from Herr Astor?" Hogan confirmed.

"Not a word."

There was rustling in the bushes to their side, and all four men froze. A second later, Kinch emerged, his face grim. He nodded a greeting to their underground associates and turned to Hogan. "There are markers on the ground out front, Colonel. If I'm not mistaken there was some kind of fight. It looks like four bodies were collected. They didn't leave anything else behind, so I don't know if they're theirs or ours..."

Wolfe frowned. "What does this mean?"

Beckoning them to follow, Hogan moved through the debris of the barn back towards the ceiling beams. "It means some sort of confrontation went down here last night and our boys got messed up in it."

He pointed at the markers and a couple empty shells on the ground. "Two more bodies lay here, but we don't have any way of knowing who exactly."

The night air seemed much colder as they stood looking at the ashy ground.

"Colonel?" Everyone looked over to see Carter's white moonlit face. "If Newkirk and LeBeau, and Herr Astor too – if they had made it out, they would have come home, wouldn't they?"

Try as hard as he might, Hogan couldn't think of something comforting to say. He glanced over at his second in command, but Kinch couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from the empty shotgun shells. The radioman was gripping his rucksack straps so hard his knuckles had paled with tension.

"Well - we would have heard something if the Nazis had got them. So it does seem more likely that, mm..." Hogan scanned the rubble around them desperately searching for some other explanation. If somebody had survived the shootout and the fire, then they would have been discovered in the morning.

"Herr Hogan," Vogt said soberly. "If we do not have the list of suspected Underground Agents from Herr Astor and your men, then all of us will have to stop operating. You will be alone at Stalag 13 because we will not know which of our people Major Hochstetter has under surveillance."

Sighing, Hogan rubbed a hand over his face. "I know. But I'm short some men right now, and until we know for certain what happened to them, I don't even know if our operations at Stalag 13 have been compromised."

He hated to think what might have gone on in the barn before it had burnt down. At least it looked like Newkirk and LeBeau had taken a few Nazis with them.

"Perhaps they left us a copy in the tunnel for safe keeping." Herr Wolfe said.

"What tunnel?" Carter asked, rubbing his gloved hands together. "We told you they haven't come back to Stalag 13 yet."

Herr Wolfe shook his head and nodded towards the back end of the barn's remains. "No. The tunnel under the barn. Did you check to see if they had left a copy inside?"

In the stunned silence that followed, Kinch finally wrenched his gaze from the spent bullets. "Are you telling us that there's a secret tunnel under here that we never knew about?"

Wolfe's bushy grey eyebrows shot up. "You didn't know? It was our escape route in case the barn was watched."

Kinch was looming right in the older man's face half a second later.

"Where is the entrance?"

The underground member carefully pointed to the side. "One entrance is under that pile over there, and the other is out the back."

Hogan strode over and tugged Kinch to the side. "Can you show us the outside entrance, Herr Wolfe?"

Giving Kinch a strange look, Wolfe led the way around the back of the barn to a clump of bushes. "It's right ther – oh."

A huge section of the back wall had collapsed outwards, and was now covering any potential exit from the secret tunnel.

Herr Vogt's long face stretched into a hopeful look. "Do you think they could be trapped under there?"

Hogan gave a tight twitch of a smile.

"Let's find out."

0 0 0

"Hello? Anybody there? Newkirk? LeBeau? Herr Astor?"

Twenty minutes later, they had dragged away the last piece of lumber, and uncovered a well-disguised trap door. With Carter and Kinch, Wolfe and Vogt anxiously hovering at the top, Colonel Hogan lowered himself into the hole.

Hogan stepped down the ladder gingerly, peering into the darkness. He couldn't even see his own hand on the ladder rungs.

"Hello?"

Silence reverberated around him.

Finally Hogan reached the bottom of the tunnel, feeling something in his stomach descend as well. Was no one here? Not one of his men?

"Is anyone down there?" Vogt called from above.

Hogan fumbled at his belt for his torch. "I don't know. It's too dark to-"

"Freeze, maudit Boche!" A sudden flash of light sent Hogan stumbling back into the ladder, throwing up his hands against the light.

"What the?"

The next moment Hogan had the air driven out of his lungs as someone kicked him square in the stomach.

"Take that!" A familiar voice shouted in his face. "Now how do you feel, you dirty, treacherous, répugnant... Hogan?"

Hogan couldn't help smiling around a groan of pain. "If I say yes will you get that light out of my face?"

"Mon colonel!" The torch light swung away and Hogan was enveloped in a fierce hug.

"I did not realise it was you!" LeBeau stepped back, smiling widely.

"So that's why you kicked me. You didn't clue in when I called your name?"

LeBeau ignored him, calling back into the tunnel. "Come forward, Astor it is Colonel Hogan, arrived to find us."

Hogan switched on his torch, shining it around his surroundings. The narrow dirt tunnel was still quite intact, but he could see a pile of dirt further up its length. A middle aged man with a thick salt and pepper moustache stepped from behind the pile.

The colonel nodded to him. "Nice to meet you, Astor." Then he turned to LeBeau. "Where's Newkirk?"

LeBeau went white and waved his hands around with uncoordinated emotion. "You do not have him with you? I thought you would save him, mon colonel. They dragged him away and I knew Hochstetter would call you and how you say, gloat, and you must come up with one of your plans to get him back or else they will hurt him, and I just let them get away, and we can't let them have Newkirk, we just could not manage without him, mon colonel-"

"LeBeau." Hogan grabbed the little Frenchman firmly by the arms. "Take a deep breath. Stop hyperventilating. You're acting like a hysterical old lady." He smiled briefly at the annoyed look he got in response. "I need you to tell me what happened last night. I haven't heard anything from Major Hochstetter, or Newkirk, or you, so I need to know what happened."

"Beg your pardon." Herr Astor interrupted in a thickly accented voice. "Can we get out of this tunnel first? It's been quite a while since we got fresh air."

Hogan nodded, rubbing at his face again. "Of course. I forgot. Do either of you need a hand?"

LeBeau shook his head determinedly, but he looked a little shaky. Hogan let him go first, in case he fell.

The Colonel emerged from the trap door a few minutes later to find Astor shaking his colleagues' hands and LeBeau receiving a firm hug from Carter. Kinch slapped the Frenchman on the back and turned to Hogan. "Newkirk?"

Their commanding officer shook his head.

"We have the list of names." Astor told them all, pulling out a paper from his pocket. "It is not as bad as it could be. But there are some of our people on here. They will have to cease all sabotage activity so they are not caught."

Herr Wolfe nodded, accepting the paper from Astor. "This is good news. But we still don't understand what went wrong with the operation."

"Why don't you start from the beginning, LeBeau?" Hogan said quietly.

"Well, the first part of the mission went according to plan." LeBeau sat down on a nearbye rock, took a very deep breath and tucked his hands between his knees. "Schultz dropped us off to the hospital and Doctor Rosenthal helped us change into our disguises."

The Frenchman grinned weakly up at his commanding officer. "You should have seen Newkirk when we were done with him. I do not think his own mother would have recognized him. What with the hair dye, the padding and those shoes..."

Hogan nodded grimly.

"Anyways. We picked up the officer at the train station like you said. Newkirk explained that Hochstetter had organised the ride, and then put the officer's suitcase in the trunk, where I was hiding."

"He didn't suspect anything?" Kinch asked.

LeBeau shook his head vigorously. "No. I copied the list, returned it to the suitcase, and when we reached the headquarters he went off with it, happy as an oyster."

"So what went wrong?" Hogan knelt down in front of LeBeau.

"Well Newkirk dialed up Astor and gave him the code to let him know the pick-up was on for last night. We parked the Doctor's car in some trees not far away and then waited for dark. There were no lights on in the barn when we arrived..."

0 0 0

LeBeau was not in a good mood as they fumbled their way forward in the dark scrub brush. There was nothing enjoyable about lying in the trunk of a Nazi staff car for forty minutes, especially when half of that time also involved scrambling to copy a list of names in at least a semi-legible scrawl while your flashlight smacked you in the face with every bump in the road.

To top it off, Newkirk had been the picture of gloomy cynicism for most of the evening. He never liked to play what he called a 'toff' for very long. He said it made him feel dirty.

LeBeau was not feeling particularly sympathetic.

"If you complain one more time about something you had to endure while sitting in the front seat of the car, Newkirk, I am going to strangle you with your own tie."

Newkirk looked at his shorter friend suspiciously. "I'm not wearin' a tie."

"Exactement!" LeBeau snarled. "So stop complaining about the fancy dress. You are only wearing a uniform, and we wear those every day."

"Fine." Newkirk held up his hands in surrender. "Don't get your knickers in a knot. It's not the same thing, but I won't bring it up again. I know a grumpy Frenchman when I see one. Forgot to take your nap, did you?"

"Just shut up." LeBeau grumbled as the wooden slats of the barn wall formed in the darkness in front of them. He trudged along the edge of the building until they found the door. Newkirk held the flashlight steady while he pushed on the wooden door, letting it swing into the darkness.

The Englander peered over his shoulder. "You know... the business with the list isn't as bad is it could be. They could 'ave 'ad the names of an awful lot more of our men."

It was true, but LeBeau was in the mood to be in a bad mood, so it was easier to view their mission in a less rosy light.

"Yes. But it is still wrong that so many courageous Germans will have to give up their work just because of a few suspicious espèces d' idiot." He pulled out his torch, slowly sweeping the light across the interior of the barn. It was as lifeless as expected, and they both stepped through the doorway.

Newkirk smirked. "Language, language, LeBeau. That's 'ardly kind of you."

The Frenchman sent him an incredulous look. "I did not know more than six insults in English before I met you. Now I can probably out-curse a sailor."

Shutting the door behind him, Newkirk strolled further into the barn, clapping LeBeau on the back as he passed. "It's true, ain't it? What would you do without me, Louis?"

"Get into a lot less trouble," LeBeau grumbled to himself as he switched on the light by the door.

A string of uncovered light bulbs high on the ceiling flickered to life.

Although it was no longer in use, the huge one-room barn was still scattered with old crates and bales of musty hay. The large sliding doors at one end had been nailed shut years ago, but there was still one small door at each end of the building that opened. It wasn't one of LeBeau's favourite meeting spots, considering it was unheated, boring, a barn, dirty, and also, a barn. He would always be a city boy, of the opinion that farm animals should be eaten and not fraternized with. Therefore, barns were highly suspicious.

Hogan, of course, had no such concerns. He and the Underground leaders had been won over by the fact that a clump of trees obscured the barn from the road, and yet it was still close enough for easy access. The Colonel was completely unaffected by the fact that the first time they used the barn Carter actually stepped on a mouse. Instead he just agreed to let Carter keep the pest.

"If you keep making that face, it's goin' to stick like that."

Newkirk gave him lazy grin, amused by LeBeau's reluctance to touch anything. The Frenchman had discovered early on that his friend was a different kind of city boy, completely at home among dirty, rodent filled decay.

Now the Englander meandered around the room for a few minutes, languidly checking that nothing and no one was hiding behind any of the abandoned junk. Finally satisfied, he flopped back on one of the shorter bales.

"'m tired."

"What?"

"Said 'I'm tired'." Newkirk answered. "This ruddy uniform is too stiff to walk in properly."

LeBeau glanced over at his friend. "I think that is the point, mon ami."

"Well I'm not a fan o'-"

Suddenly Newkirk was on his feet, and LeBeau swung around, aiming his pistol at the back door, where a man had emerged.

It was a stout middle-aged German with a thick greying moustache dominating his face. He was also carrying a pistol and his eyes widened when he took in Newkirk's uniform.

LeBeau nodded when his friend caught his eye. As hard as the smaller POW had tried, which wasn't actually very hard, he had never managed to lose the thick French accent that coated his English, and worked its way into his attempts at German as well. As difficult as Newkirk's English could sometimes be to understand, he was an excellent mimic, and had become the closest of their bunch to sound like a local.

The Englander pulled himself together and ground out a question for the intruder. "Don't you think this is an odd place to be, at this time of night?"

"It's not the oddest place I've been," the man returned hesitantly.

"Can you top Buckingham Palace?"

"Mongolia was very odd."

LeBeau lowered his pistol, smiling as the German gave the correct response. "You are Herr Astor, I presume?"

Astor moved forward, offering his hand for LeBeau to shake. "Guten Abend. Yes I am Astor. I didn't realise one of the guards was part of your operation at Stalag 13."

Seeing the Englander's smirk out the corner of his eye, LeBeau couldn't help but grin.

Newkirk strolled forward and offered Astor a salute. "No guards, mate. Just 'air dye and some right good tailor-work."

LeBeau crossed his arms, laughing at Astor's astonished look.

"Newkirk at your service, H-err Astor."

He overemphasised the h, the way he always did when trying to sound 'normal'. "Think I worked a job with you once before." The obviously English Nazi shook Astor's hand heartily.

"Corporal Newkirk?" Astor peered at the other man's face more closely. "I would not recognise you. You look like Count Dracula, all white and black."

Newkirk batted his eyelashes, "Why thank you, kind sir. I think the colour brings out the green in me eyes."

LeBeau elbowed him in the gut, and took over the conversation while Newkirk groaned pathetically. "I am Corporal LeBeau. We were able to make a copy of their list without raising the suspicions of the Gestapo officer. Here it is."

Holding out his hand, the underground member took the paper gratefully. "This is of utmost importance for us. You must give Papa Bear our thanks. If we know who is being watched, we can continue to operate without fear of their arrest."

"You are very welcome, mon collègue. Since the Gestapo do not know we have the list, they will most likely believe they have the wrong suspects when your men do nothing more suspicious."

"Maybe," Newkirk grunted out. "But I think those damn Nazis were born suspicious."

LeBeau turned to smile malevolently at his friend, so he was the first one to see the front door of the barn open behind them.

His eyebrows shot up, and Newkirk twisted to see what he was looking at.

"Damn!"

The same curse echoed in his own head as he whipped out his pistol.

Four uniformed Nazis burst in the door. Three of them were wearing the dark grey suits and markings of a second lieutenant, and the fourth was a Gestapo officer.

LeBeau's stomach dropped.

It was the Gestapo officer.