The next day brought the dawn, and to Dietrich, a more than slight hangover.

After he had witnessed roll call of the prisoners and then inspected his own staff, Dietrich had quickly enjoyed a cup of coffee. It was real coffee at that, which Wagner had brewed for him that morning, and every morning. Apparently, there had been no end to the illicit goods that his predecessor had stockpiled. Dietrich was certain that that the cache had not been worth the man's honor, and ultimately, his life. However, if Dietrich was anything, he was a pragmatist and he was not averse to enjoying the ill gotten gains while he could.

Dietrich had showered and then shaved. He was going to see Wilhelm and he was going to have answers. After all, Dietrich told himself as he buttoned his blouse, it was his camp. He had every right to know what was going on it.

All the while as he completed his toilet, Dietrich thought about what he was going to say to Wilhelm. He resolved that he would not be turned away as he had been the night before. The Gestapo goons would have to kill him to stop him from getting the answers that he wanted, and deserved.

There was a knock at the door of his quarters.

"Yes?" Dietrich called.

"Herr Hauptmann, Kriminalkomissar Freitag has requested that you join him at the Infirmary. What shall I tell him?" Wagner asked.

Dietrich raised an eyebrow at his own reflection as he combed his hair. "Tell him that I will be right there."

Dietrich walked to the infirmary and wondered why he was being summoned. He was not sure that he cared. He cared only about getting answers from Wilhelm. Whatever Wilhelm wanted could wait until he had received his due.

Dietrich went to the room where he knew Moffitt was being kept. Kauffmann was still standing outside of the door. The man gave Dietrich the party salute.

Dietrich pointedly ignored it. "Please tell Kriminalkomissar Freitag that I am here as he requested."

"Yes, Herr Hauptmann." Kauffmann disappeared down the hallway.

Dietrich waited impatiently for a few moments. When a few more minutes had passed, he looked at his watch. As the seconds ticked by, Dietrich's irritation grew. Finally, Dietrich decided the hell with waiting. He put his hand on the doorknob, wondering if the door was locked.

"Looking for me?" Wilhelm asked.

Dietrich nearly jumped. "I was." He turned to face Wilhelm.

"Curiosity getting the better of you, Hans?" Wilhelm nodded at the closed door. "You are very interested in the identity of my prisoner, are you not?"

"I believe that I may already know who your prisoner is. What I am very interested in is confirming if I am correct."

Wilhelm nodded and rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. "I believe that you may be. Which is why I wanted to see you. Come with me."

Dietrich followed Wilhelm to the infirmary's clinic. From the look of it, Wilhelm had been using it as an office.

Wilhelm pointed to something that Dietrich recognized as an audio recording device. "I need for you to listen to this and translate it for me. Or at the very least, to tell me what language it is." He pushed a button and the reels of tape began to spin.

Puzzled, Dietrich listened. At first, he was distracted by the sound of the voice. It was with no small triumph that he recognized it as Moffitt's. Satisfied that he finally had absolute proof that Moffitt was alive, Dietrich made an effort to concentrate on what the man was saying.

Wilhelm stopped the playback of the recording. He looked at Dietrich with expectant eyes. "Well?"

"I am very sorry to disappoint you, Wilhelm." Dietrich shook his head. "I do not recognize the language that he is speaking."

"God damn it! I was really hoping you would." Wilhelm sat down on the examination table. He ran his hands through his hair and then nodded at the machine. "Keep listening until you figure it out," he ordered.

Frowning, Dietrich knew that he would be listening for a very long time. All the same, he pressed the button as Wilhelm had, and the tapes began to whirl. As Moffitt's rich voice filled the room, Dietrich again tried to comprehend the words that were being spoken. Again, none of it made any sense to him. It was merely a collection of sounds and intonations.

It was pointless, Dietrich knew. "It is the same. I have no idea what he is saying."

"Is it even a language? Or is it just gibberish?"

Dietrich considered. "I believe it to be an actual language," he said, finally. "There are patterns there, repeats of words, and phrases. Based on that I would say that it is not just something that the man made up."

"And it is not any of the native Afrikan dialects?"

"No, at least not one that I recognize."

"How many do you know?"

Dietrich shrugged. "Four. Maybe a stretch, and we could call it five."

"How many other languages would you recognize if you heard them? At least well enough to know what they were?"

Mentally, Dietrich counted, considering both the languages that were still spoken and the ones that were not. "Not counting the native dialects, I would say ten."

"You would recognize ten languages, and you have been all over the world, Hans. In all of your travels, you've never heard anything like this?"

"No. Not that I recall. I am sorry."

Wilhelm banged his hand against the metal table in frustration. The sound rang through the room. "What other languages do you think that my prisoner would know? Any that you would not?"

Dietrich narrowed his eyes at Wilhelm. "Why do you not admit to me exactly who your prisoner is? And then perhaps I will know better what he would or would not know."

"Oh for God's sake, Hans. You have obviously discovered my ruse, even before you listened to the recordings. When I saw you today, I could tell by the look in your eyes that you knew the prisoner was Sergeant Moffitt." Wilhelm slid from the table and went to the window. "I was aware that it would only be a matter of time before you figured it out. I only took the precautions that I that I felt that I needed to take for the short term."

"I would be interested in knowing why you felt that you needed to take any precaution at all with me?"

"Must we go through this now?" Wilhelm glared at Dietrich. "The lives of so many men, perhaps even our own, are at stake here. The very future success of the Reich could be dependent on the information that we have gotten from this prisoner."

Dietrich could hardly give a damn about the Reich, but what did matter to him was saving German lives. With effort, Dietrich put away his own anger and confusion for what he knew to be a much bigger thing. "Fine. I agree." Dietrich looked Wilhelm in the eye. "But later, we are discussing in great detail exactly why you felt the need to deceive me."

"Yes, yes, of course. I will be happy to explain everything."

Dietrich snorted. "I am sure that you will be, Wilhelm. Because I am not going to give you any choice."

"Understood, Hans. Now, back to the matter at hand. You do not recognize the language at all?" Wilhelm turned the machine on again. "Please? Listen again?"

Dietrich listened to the recording, Wilhelm's voice asking the question in English, and then Moffitt answering in whatever language he had chosen to use.

Closing his eyes, Dietrich concentrated on the intonation, the diction, the flow of the syllables.

The more that he listened, the more familiar that he found it. Gradually, a memory began to form.

Cool dry air, a rifle in his hands, his father walking beside of him, a shot fired and a creature falling. The realization that he for the first time he had killed something. Blood in the snow, and blood on his hands, a dead body growing cold as his father glowed warmly with pride.

Dietrich's eyes flew open.

"Yes? Did you recognize it?" Wilhelm asked eagerly, grabbing Dietrich by the shoulders. "You did, did you not, Hans? Tell me! What is it?"

"I cannot be sure," Dietrich said slowly, Moffitt's voice still playing in the background. "But I think that it is an American Indian dialect.

Wilhelm looked skeptical. "Why would you think that? That seems highly unlikely."

Dietrich continued to listen. He nodded, nearly certain that he was correct. "Do you remember when we were twelve, I travelled with my family to the United States?"

"That was nearly a dozen years ago, Hans. But yes, I remember. You missed three weeks of the school term, you lucky bastard. I, unfortunately, got beaten every day in your absence." Wilhelm winced at the memory.

"When we were there, my father arranged a hunting expedition for us. Our guides were American Indians. When they were not speaking to us, or when they did not want us to understand their conversation, they would talk amongst themselves in their own language. I remember listening to them and thinking how interesting it was, and how that it was likely older than any other language I knew. Even perhaps older than Latin or Greek."

"And with all these years gone, you believe this to be the same language?"

"I do, and if perhaps not exactly the same, it is very similar. Too similar to be a coincidence."

"I hope that you are right, Hans. If so, that would be good news."

"Why is that?"

"After the last war, at the Fuhrer's direction, Germany took great pains to learn as much about the Indians as we could. Certainly we will be able to translate what he is saying." Wilhelm shook his head. "How did an Englander learn to speak a Native American language?"

Another memory surfaced for Dietrich. This time, it was of the day that Troy had come to the camp to retrieve the body that Dietrich now knew not to be Jack Moffitt's. He recalled the appearance of the man that had been waiting for Troy and Pettigrew outside of the camp.

Dietrich frowned at Wilhelm. "How do you even know that what Moffitt was saying would even be true? In any language?"

"After he received the first injection, the Englander began answering every question that I put to him. He had the same reaction as everyone does when they are injected with the serum."

"And what is that?"

"As I told you previously, the drug makes the subject incapable of even considering lying in answer to a direct question. It shuts down the part of the mind that would shield or falsify information. It lowers inhibitions and allows the subject to speak freely. This man in particular would hardly shut up."

While Dietrich could believe that Moffitt had been extremely verbose in his answers, again, he couldn't help but to be skeptical of anything that sounded as fanciful as this miracle drug. "Really, Wilhelm, how do you know for certain that this method works?"

"I know because I have taken the drug myself, Hans. It really was the most amazing thing. The questions that I would answer without a blink of an eye! It did not even occur to me to even be embarrassed about what I had said until well after the drug wore off."

Dietrich was still not certain that he believed in the drug's power as much as Wilhelm did, but he nodded anyway.

His continued disbelief must have been evident because Wilhelm gave Dietrich a devilish look. "I would be happy to let you try it, if you like? My only condition is that I get to ask you any questions I want. I do have some in mind."

"No, thank you. I like my secrets exactly as they are. Secret." Despite himself, Dietrich smiled. "Have you had positive verified results with any prisoners?"

"Quite a few. In Germany and in France, I successfully gained a great deal of information with the drug. It is one of the reasons why I was sent here. And then the America colonel that we questioned, he gave all of his information to me under the influence of the drug.

"So when you began questioning Moffitt, you said that he behaved as expected? As the others had?"

"Oh yes! The first questions I asked him were questions about his home, his childhood, his family, his friends, his background, favorite colors, foods, music, and the love of his life." Wilhelm looked thoughtful. "Which oddly enough, he seemed to be genuinely conflicted over if it was a woman, or, his pre-war career."

That did ring true about Moffitt, thought Dietrich. Perhaps Wilhelm was on to something after all.

Wilhelm gave a small smile. "All very simple things. In the next part of the introduction of the drug, we increase the dose and ask more . . . intimate questions. The kind of thing a man would never share, not even with his friends."

"And he answered you?"

"Yes, without hesitation."

Dietrich could only imagine what the more intimate questions might entail. He almost felt embarrassed on Moffitt's behalf. "When did he stop answering you in English?"

"He switched tongues the minute that the questioning became more detailed about the military operations in which he is involved."

Dietrich considered what Wilhelm was telling him. "If what you say is true, then Sergeant Moffitt must have realized that he was unable to stop himself from answering your questions. Instead, he had the presence of mind to choose the language in which he answered?"

"I have never seen that happen before, but yes, I would say that is exactly what occurred. It is an interesting case. He would make a fine research subject." Wilhelm began rewinding the tape on the machine. "Unfortunately, I do not have the kind of time that would be required to poke around inside of his head."

Knowing what he did about Moffitt, Dietrich would guarantee that none of them had that kind of time. He watched Wilhelm as he began to pack up the recording equipment. "What are you going to do now?"

"Radio Berlin and find an expert in American Indian languages. I will have them listen to the tapes and translate the conversation." Wilhelm looked up with satisfaction. "And then? The Reich will be well on the way to winning the war."