"They're on their way, Colonel. Marya and Hase." The warning call came from Carter, who was on watch at the barracks door.

"Just those two? Nobody else?"

Carter's brow wrinkled as he thought about it. "Well, that depends," he said at last. "Does Schultz count?"

"I guess it was too much to hope there wouldn't be at least one guard with them," sighed Hogan. "At least it's only Schultz. If Sitzer had decided to tag along, it might have gotten awkward. LeBeau, Addison, you know what to do."

"Oui, Colonel." LeBeau dumped a basket of vegetables on the table. A few of them tumbled out and rolled away, but he had more pressing matters on his mind. "Do you think maybe she will stay for lunch?"

"Haven't we got enough trouble?" grumbled Newkirk, fielding a runaway onion and tossing it back.

"Yeah, before we go issuing invitations, we'd better make sure she hasn't asked the Gestapo to come round for dessert," added Kinch.

LeBeau bridled, but swallowed his indignation on seeing Carter make a hasty retreat from his post at the door, which flew open a few seconds later.

"Achtung! Fräulein Marya is here." Schultz sounded unusually apologetic, and the hangdog look on his face showed how deeply he disapproved of this kind of ill-treatment of prisoners.

Hogan squared his shoulders, and turned a steady, uncompromising gaze on the cause of so much aggravation. She had abandoned her leopard-skin coat in favour of a soft pale chinchilla, and he found himself wondering exactly how many fur coats one woman needed. She certainly wore them as though someone else had paid for them.

She stopped just inside the door, holding out her arms, serenely confident of an enthusiastic reception. "Darling," she crowed, "we have arrived."

"You sure have," said Hogan. He had meant to keep his voice neutral, but he was all too aware of how churlish he sounded, and the glitter in Marya's eyes showed that she had heard it, too.

She responded with one of those sweet, ingenuous smiles of hers. "Dodo insisted on coming here straight after breakfast," she said. "He is very excited about his new project, and can't wait to make a start."

Resolutely, Hogan adopted a more amiable manner, and set the diversion in motion. "Well, we're ready to go. That is, just as soon as we get the legal stuff sorted out. Kinch, where's that contract?"

"Right here, Colonel." Kinch dumped a thick bundle of paper, held together with tape, onto the table with a thud which sent vegetables bouncing in all directions.

"Oi, don't forget the addendum," said Newkirk, dropping another, even weightier pile next to the first.

Instantly, Marya's mood wilted into despondent reproach. "Hogan, you disappoint me. Why do you need Dodo to sign a contract? I thought we trusted each other."

"In my experience," replied Hogan brusquely, "trust works better when it's down in writing."

"But, darling, so many pages?"

"What do you mean? It's just a perfectly normal contract, covering the usual things. Disclaimers, acknowledgements, accreditations, attributions, limitations, exceptions, permissions, terms of use, waivers, conventions, contraventions, beneficial interests and a little pro loco et tempore." Hogan counted off each inclusion on his fingers, as though working his way through a mental check list.

At the last item, Marya uttered a soft gurgle: "You have found out my weakness, Hogan. If there's one thing I can't resist, it's a little pro loco et tempore."

"Thought you'd like it. Mr Hase, if you'd just like to read it through before signing…"

Hase regarded the twin stacks of pages in perplexity. "My agent normally deals with these matters."

"Sure, if that's the way you want it," said Hogan. "Where can I contact him?"

"The last address I had was somewhere in Brazil," replied Dodo, with a sigh. "But that was some years ago, and he may have moved to Cuba by now. He always wanted to learn the rumba."

"Well, that's not gonna leave him much time for any other business," observed Hogan. "Tell you what – since you seem like a guy we can trust, I'm willing to consider a more informal agreement. Would you like to step into my office and discuss it? Or perhaps you'd rather let Marya negotiate on your behalf."

He was doubtful whether Hase would understand what was required of him; but the writer came good. "Oh, my dear Marya, would you? But of course you will. You have never once failed me. Thank you, my angel. I know you will come to some satisfactory arrangement."

Marya's smile had a touch of calculation about it. "Negotiating with Hogan? In private? How could I refuse?" She slid past Hogan, close enough to make him feel uncomfortably warm, and went on into his office.

Hogan nodded to Dodo. "You stay here, and talk to the guys." Then he took a deep breath, and followed her.

Left in charge, Kinch took a moment to see what Schultz was up to. But Schultz had already found his way into a completely different conversation. As expected, within moments of his arrival he had gravitated towards the stove, where LeBeau and Addison, over the top of a simmering stew, were engaged in a low-voiced debate.

"…then you cook it up with some chopped onion and carrots and celery, mix in a can of chicken soup, and then make it into a pie."

"Canned soup? Abominable!"

"Oh, yeah? Well, how would you fix it?"

"I would cook it very slowly with white wine and thyme, and then serve it with a mustard and cream sauce."

"Mustard? Like what goes on hot dogs? LeBeau, you're crazy."

"And you Americans are all barbarians."

"What's going on?" interrupted Schultz.

Without losing a beat, the two cooks formed a united front, though it was LeBeau who answered: "We're just discussing the best way of cooking a rabbit."

Schultz's eyes brightened. "You're going to cook a rabbit?"

LeBeau and Addison exchanged looks. "He thinks we're going to cook a rabbit," remarked Addison.

"As if Carter would let us cook a rabbit." LeBeau gave a sniff. "Ever since we caught one, and it fluttered its eyelashes at him, he won't even hear of it. Rabbits are off the menu, for good."

"Then why are you talking about how to cook rabbits?" asked Schultz.

"Because neither of us has a recipe for cooking a hedgehog," replied LeBeau. "We thought maybe it could be done the same way, once we worked out how to get the prickles off."

The guard's bemusement deepened. "Why would you want to cook a hedgehog?"

Addison shrugged, with a kind of fatalistic resignation. "Round here, you take what you can get."

"And you have got a hedgehog?"

"No," said LeBeau. "But if we can figure out how to cook a hedgehog, then we could use the same recipe for a squirrel."

"Ah, so you have a squirrel?"

Addison's eyes narrowed menacingly. "Not yet," he said.

Kinch, seeing that Schultz was fully occupied, touched Hase's shoulder, and spoke very quietly "It's kind of stuffy in here. Why don't we go wait outside? Colonel Hogan's going to be busy for a while, and Schultz won't miss us. So anything you want to talk about, now's the time to do it."

"But..." Hase stood gazing at the closed door of Hogan's quarters, looking not unlike a beagle unexpectedly excluded from a family celebration.

"Yeah, I know. But anything you want him to know about, you can tell me. I'll see he gets the message."

"And don't bother yourself about Marya," Newkirk put in. "She's a tricky piece, but Colonel Hogan knows how to handle her. Schultzie, we're just going out for a bit of fresh air, all right?"

Schultz gave him a vague wave by way of permission. Then, as the prisoners left the barracks, taking Dodo with them, he turned back to LeBeau: "Well, I know a lot about food. But I don't think I've ever heard of vole stroganoff, and somehow I don't like the sound of it…"

Newkirk's opinion notwithstanding, Hogan had his hands full, quite literally. As soon as he'd closed the door and turned round, Marya had flung herself at him. His arms, by pure reflex, closed around her, which didn't seem to worry her at all.

"Alone at last." She gave a languorous, contented purr, and snuggled, pinning him against the door with surprising strength. It took some force for him to shake her off and free himself.

"Is that what you said to Sitzer last night?" he growled.

He didn't have any real hopes of disconcerting her, and he wasn't surprised by her gleeful response: "I knew you would be there! Are you jealous?"

"Let's get one thing straight. I couldn't care less where you go for your kicks. All I care about is why you've put my whole operation on the line, again."

"But darling, we work so well together. And I need your help. Only let me explain what my mission is, and then everything will be clear to you."

A firm refusal rose to Hogan's lips, but he held it back. She'd let the mask drop, so briefly that he had only just caught the fleeting change in expression. For once in her life, she was serious. More than that; she was worried. This wasn't the first time she'd roped him into one of her crazy schemes, but if the momentary hint of trouble he'd seen on her face was real, it might well be the first time she had ever had misgivings.

"Okay, I'll listen," he said curtly. "But it better be good, because for the life of me I can't figure out what Hase's got that makes it worth all this."

"I will tell you. But you must pay attention, because it is complicated."

"Have you ever come up with anything that wasn't?" Hogan folded his arms, regarding her with weary exasperation.

His annoyance made no impression on her; she brushed it off, and proceeded: "Now, listen to me. You, of all people, know that one of the most effective weapons we have against the Germans is intelligence. We must take every chance of gaining reliable information. But we can't just wait for it to fall into our hands, sometimes we have to go and find it - or convince someone who has access to it to pass it on to us."

"So, you're on a recruiting mission?"

"Exactly."

"And you want me to help."

"Of course not. It's going perfectly. By the end of the week, he will be putty in my hands."

"So where do we come in? And while you're at it, you might explain what possible use you think Hase could be to you as an informant." Hogan spoke with deliberate emphasis, watching closely for her reaction.

Sure enough, she cast up her eyes. "Sometimes, Hogan, I despair of you."

"Don't give up on me yet. I've already figured that part out." He met her deceptively candid gaze with a grim smile. "You're not recruiting Hase. You're after Sitzer."

"An agent inside the Propaganda Ministry could be very useful," observed Marya.

Hogan could see that. There could hardly be a department with greater access to the facts than the ministry responsible for twisting them. The potential for intelligence gathering, and even for spreading disinformation and rumour, was definitely worth the effort of setting it up. "So where does Dodo fit in?" he asked.

Marya gave a tiny shrug. "I needed an excuse to get close to Sitzer, and Dodo was the perfect foil. A famous author, admired by the public and a favourite of the Führer, would be welcomed with open arms, and I thought it would do no harm, to him or to the German public, if he wrote another of his innocent little books." She paused, and her aspect turned grave again. "It never occurred to me to wonder why he had stopped writing in the first place. So I didn't realise that by bringing him to their attention, I was putting him at risk. Now he does not trust me, and it is impossible for me to help him. That's why I gave him the idea for his great novel, so that I could bring him to you."

She laid her hand on Hogan's arm, and looked him straight in the eye. "Hogan, I am relying on you. If you can't save poor Dodo, nobody can."

Note: Just to clarify my stance on Marya's wearing of animal furs, I strongly disapprove; but she's going to wear them whether I like it or not.