Two days had passed since DuBois' arrival. He was improving, though still in no condition to attempt to rejoin his own unit, even if he had known where to find them.
In the barracks, Newkirk and Carter were sitting a hand of gin rummy. Nearby, at one of the lockers by the door, LeBeau rummaged with increasing frustration, and finally spoke up. "Where's my egg?"
"I didn't know you'd laid one," Newkirk remarked, not even bothering to lift his gaze from the cards in his hand.
"Very funny," the Frenchman scowled. "I got one from Herman this morning; I was going to make a meringue… but it's gone. Okay, who took it?"
"What's anybody gonna do with a raw egg?"
"Cook it, maybe?" Louis snapped impatiently.
"Right… well, the first bloke we see boilin' an egg right here in the middle of the barracks on the only stove we got, we'll have your thief, won't we?"
That wasn't what the frustrated chef wanted to hear. "Ça, c'est pas de rigolo… is there nothing the English won't boil?"
"Y'know," Carter spoke up, "I read in a magazine that some guys swallow raw eggs to build up their muscles."
LeBeau gave Carter's left bicep a firm squeeze through his shirtsleeve. It felt like a pipe cleaner in there; all sinew. "Congratulations, you're not the guilty one."
"I think I should resent that."
"Are you gonna finish this hand or what?" Newkirk asked with growing impatience.
"It's true," Carter went on. "That body-builder Jack LaLanne does it."
Kinch joined the conversation from his seat on his bunk. "You know, speaking of missing stuff, I'm down a pair of socks."
"From raw eggs to socks with holes in 'em…" Newkirk grumbled. "Jack LaLanne's probably got 'em; I think I saw him double-timin' barefoot this mornin' outside the wire. Who bleedin' cares?"
"How would you know the socks Kinch lost had holes in 'em?" Carter challenged.
"All our socks got holes in 'em! Play a card!"
Carter set his entire hand face-up on the table. "Gin."
"What's going on, fellas?" Hogan asked as he entered the barracks from his office.
"We seem to be missing a couple of small things, Colonel," Kinch explained. "There's a pair of socks gone from my footlocker, and LeBeau says he's missing an egg from the food stock."
Oh great. Another round of petty thievery. Just what they needed, on top of everything else. It had happened before; it was a standard problem in a living situation like theirs, with a lot of men living practically on top of each other and necessities in short supply, but always in the past it had been traced to a new prisoner in the barracks, someone unaware that this wasn't exactly your standard POW camp. At the moment, though, everyone living in Barracks Two had been there for at least six months, most of them much longer, and everyone knew the score. That didn't figure. Why now?
"Whoever's doing it, knock it off," was all he had to say on the subject. "And pass the word along to the guys who aren't here right now. We've got lots more important matters to worry about."
Nobody had to ask what. "London will still want that rail tunnel out of commission," Kinch put in.
"We'll take care of that. We're going out tonight, all of us."
"Wouldn't it be better if only two of us went?" LeBeau asked. "If all five of us go, we'll be easier to spot… we already know the Krauts are out there, and they'll be waiting for another group to try for the railroad tunnel."
"I didn't say we were going to link arms and go out there like a marching band at halftime. We'll split up… Carter, you and I will lay the charges; the rest of you fan out and cover us. If we run into trouble, hopefully they won't get more than one of us."
"Charmin'," Newkirk grumbled under his breath, still steamed over the hefty pot Andrew had just raked in. "So you figure that only one of us gettin' knocked off is the best-case outcome, then?"
"You want an easier assignment, join the USO." Hogan glanced at his watch. "We go out at twenty-one-hundred hours. Be ready. I don't want any slip-ups."
oo 0 oo
Everything went fine, like clockwork, perfectly according to plan… until they got there.
It looked too easy, and, Hogan mused as they surveyed the area of the railway tunnel from a safe distance, that was a real good reason to be suspicious from the get-go.
"Looks like a clear shot, sir," Newkirk said as they crouched together in the darkness.
"What it looks like and what it is can be two different things," the colonel reminded him. "How come there's no welcoming committee?"
"You're disappointed there aren't any patrols?" LeBeau asked.
"In a way, yeah… they caught an Underground band out here just a couple nights ago, the tunnel is a high-profile target, so how come they're not guarding it anymore?"
"Maybe they figure DuBois' group is the only Underground cel operating in this area," Kinch suggested.
"They'd have to be pretty short-sighted to think that… and it's not exactly what the Gestapo is known for. They usually like to drive in a two-foot spike when a thumbtack would do the job, not the other way around." Another few seconds of quiet while he did his best to assess the situation… it just didn't smell right.
"Maybe we should call it off, then."
Now Hogan had something else to occupy his thoughts… Kinch, suggesting that they scrub the mission? That wasn't like him. He knew how important this strike was; he'd been in on all the briefings. Kinch was no coward; of that Hogan was sure.
But double-agent…?
"I think Kinch is right," LeBeau chimed in. "Let's get back to camp and leave this for another night."
Great, now there were two of them in dissention. "I say we go for it… but be on your toes; there are bound to be patrols out there even if we can't see 'em, and they probably wouldn't mind picking off a few more saboteurs as long as they're out here."
"Thank you… I needed that," Newkirk put in. Well Newkirk, at least, was as predictable as ever. In a way, that was a relief.
Hogan checked his weapon. "Let's go… cross your fingers."
"I'd rather cross town, if it's all the same with you."
They fanned out in all directions: Kinch, Newkirk and LeBeau each on his own, and Hogan and Carter waited together to give them time to disperse before heading for the opening of the rail tunnel. It would be up to the two of them to set the charges beneath the tracks just inside the opening; it was the most critical part of the operation, so Hogan wanted to keep his own eyes on everything that went on, every moment, personally.
"Ready, Carter?"
Andrew nodded eagerly… this was his favorite part. "I sure am, boy… uh, sir."
"Let's move."
Hogan got to his feet and took two steps in the direction of the tunnel; the next thing he heard was a loud thud right behind him. Carter lay flat on his face on the ground, tripped up by a loose shoelace. The man carrying the explosives was the one who had the most to lose by falling down. But the guy next to him had almost as much.
Hogan grabbed the young sergeant's arm with undisguised impatience and hauled him upright. "Tie your shoe, and that's an order!"
The huge knot Carter hastily made in his laces would probably take a pocketknife to undo, but that was a problem for later on.
It didn't get any better from there. Oh, Carter had the charges all right, and he and the colonel swiftly and expertly buried them beneath the track, exactly as planned. When Carter twisted the knob to set the time-delay fuse, however, they heard a sharp ping and a small silver-colored object flew out of the timing mechanism and lost itself in the crushed-rock ballast between the railroad ties. "Oops."
What part of I don't want any slip-ups hadn't Carter understood? "What was that?" the colonel demanded.
"Uh… I think it was part of the timing mechanism… I must've over-wound it."
Of all the missions, why this one? "Can you do without it?"
Carter took a closer look. "Not really… it was a kinda important part."
"How important?"
"The, um… the timing spring…"
"You don't have a spare, do you?"
Carter gave an enthusiastic nod. "Oh, you bet I do."
Thank goodness. "Then let's have it."
Now Carter looked suddenly ill. "It's… back at camp…"
That was that. They were through, and they might as well admit defeat and head back to Stalag 13.
Hogan would have been willing to bet things couldn't get any worse at that point, but just as he and Carter began to run back to the cover of the surrounding forest, one of those patrols he'd been sure was there but hadn't seen yet stepped out in front of Carter, rifle leveled squarely at his chest. "Halt!"
Carter stopped in his tracks and stuck both hands straight up in the air. Ten paces ahead and behind a sturdy tree, Hogan was thankful for one thing: that they'd left the charges in place instead of taking the time to remove them. Being found with that kind of thing on them would not bode well if they were searched. But maybe they weren't completely sunk yet. "Hey, Fritz!" the colonel yelled, hoping to distract the soldier before things went any more wrong. "Over here!"
It was a cue for Carter to break and run, and he didn't disappoint. But the guard did… although he called out halt a couple more times, there wasn't one shot fired in Carter's direction. Not a single one. Not even a frustrated random spraying that often happened when a sentry didn't know what he was shooting at or where, and didn't care. Carter was free and clear. Great. But…
…why wasn't that Kraut firing at him?
There was one possible reason that occurred to Hogan as he made his own headlong dash through the woods to get away… maybe that sentry knew Carter.
Maybe Carter was their traitor.
