LeBeau, with one last look at Stephens, turned away and sat down, his eyes burning holes into the wall, and hands tensely folded in his lap, not saying a word. After all, what was there to say? Hogan had made a choice. It was probably even the objectively right choice; letting the Nazis break Stephens was not an option. Stephens, at least in the eyes of the people running the war, was priceless. Newkirk, conversely, was worthless, and no one outside of Barracks 2 (and, possibly, a flat in Stepney,) would have said otherwise.

Not even Newkirk himself, and somehow that hurt LeBeau more than anything else. He said nothing.

It was the loudest silence Hogan thought he had ever heard.

It was getting so late that it was almost early, Hogan thought. He calculated that they had something like two hours, perhaps three at most, before they had to be back in camp, and it wasn't enough time. Just getting back was going to take the better part of an hour.

There were several smart ways to play this, Hogan thought. Several ways to salvage the situation. Several ways they might manage to save what they had left. It was all a matter of looking at the bigger picture, thinking three moves ahead, and planning for the long run. Like a chess game. Chess is a bloodless war, straightforward and clean. Pawns don't suffer when they're taken, and all that really counts is whose king is struck down in the end. Everything else is negligible. Hitler could not be allowed to checkmate the free world, no matter who or what they had to sacrifice to prevent it. That was the cold, hard truth.

Just off the top of his head, Hogan could think of several smart ways to play this.

To hell with all of them.

Hogan nodded once. "Right. Olsen, you and LeBeau get Stephens back to camp. Stash him in the tunnel, get some food into him, have Wilson give him a quick once-over, and play dumb for the Krauts. I'm going after Newkirk. If we're not back before they call out the hounds, well… just say we went over the wire, and neither of you have any idea where we might have gone."

Olsen bit his lip, glanced at LeBeau, still sitting on his hay bale. Under his breath, he murmured to Hogan, "Sir? No one will ever believe that Newkirk would take off without LeBeau. Or vice versa."

"Maybe the kriegies won't believe it, but they don't matter just now. Klink's new enough that he might not know about our resident Damon and Pythias," Hogan muttered back. "Do it. That's an order!"

At that inauspicious moment, the barn door creaked; all four men dove for cover. If it was the Gestapo, being in the open would do them no good, and if it was Newkirk, taking cover would do them no harm. There was no gunfire as the man pushed the door open.

"Jack and Jill went up the hill to see what had gone wrong," said the newcomer.

Hogan sighed. Well, it wasn't the enemy, but that was not the voice he'd hoped to hear. He'd never been so sorry to hear anyone enunciating the letter H. He replied anyway. "Jack had to go, with a friend in tow, and Jill will come along."

Horner came in all the way; his eyes lit up when he saw Stephens. "It's a miracle. You did it, Colonel! I wouldn't have believed it possible."

"Don't congratulate us yet," said Hogan. "My guy's still back there. Do you think you can find somewhere safer than this rattrap to take Stephens? We were going to bring him back to camp, but if you've got a better place for him to do his recuperating, that would spare us the trouble of sneaking him back out once he's back to his old happy self again. Meanwhile, I'm going back for Newkirk."

Horner blinked. "Going back? You can't do that."

"The hell I can't. I left camp this morning with three men, I'm damned well going back with three. The same three, thank you very much. Don't you dare try to tell me I can't—"

"Colonel, there's nothing to go back to. The building is on fire, and everyone is gone. I…" Horner paused, shook his head minutely. "I thought that perhaps you'd done that yourself. To cover your tracks."

Hogan clenched his hands together, thinking hard. "No. Not me. We got out smooth as silk. Maybe he did it himself to cover his own escape. I wouldn't put it past him."

"He would have had his briquette, his lighter, in his pocket," said LeBeau, a flicker of hope brightening his eyes. "He goes nowhere without it."

They turned, simultaneously, towards Stephens, who obligingly dug a hand into his— or, rather, Newkirk's— pocket. Empty.

"There is a chance it was him, then," said Hogan. "Okay. I'll give the firebug another fifteen minutes. If he doesn't show up… I'm going after him anyway. Kapitan Weiss shouldn't have much trouble blending in with the Herrenvolk, and I've got a decent set of identity papers if anyone's brave enough to ask to see them. Even so, Olsen, you and LeBeau should get back to camp before anyone notices we're gone. Worst comes to worst, the others will need someone who knows the protocol and can help them run for it." He looked the smaller man straight in the eye. "No betrayals, LeBeau. Maybe I can't save him. But I can damn well choose to try."

History, it is said, repeats itself; once as tragedy, later as farce; the barn door creaked once more. This time all five of them dove for cover. It was possible that Newkirk was at the door; it was equally possible that the Gestapo had trailed one or all of them. This miserable excuse for a hideout was starting to look like Grand Central Station at rush hour, Hogan thought irritably. His hand tightened on his sidearm.

Well, it wasn't Gestapo. It also wasn't Newkirk. Something like a dozen winded, battered people were at the door, looking desperate. Horner stared at them for a moment, then stood up.

"Cole? King Cole? Is that you?"

Vogel, who was also known as Old King Cole, and who did not at all appreciate the 'old' part of the code name, gaped at him. "Horner? Jack Horner? Gott sei Dank!—yes, yes, it is I."

"Why did— what are you doing here? Who are these people?"

"We—all of us, we have just escaped from the Gestapo. We need help," he said simply. "We must get out of the country."

"You escaped? I hadn't known you were captured…! But how? And what are you doing here? This is not one of our usual locations."

The man's eyes jumped from one man to the next; he finally landed on LeBeau and cleared his throat. "We were told to come here. Told that we would find someone here to help us. You, mein Herr. We were told to find you. "

Hogan shook his head minutely. This was all too convenient. It could be a setup. He edged between LeBeau and this alleged King Cole. "I don't know about that," he said. "Who told you about us?"

"Your friend. An Englander," said Vogel, flicking a glance at him, then returning his hungry, desperate gaze to LeBeau, who got up from his hay bale and came closer, his own eyes equally intense.

"I know a lot of Englanders," said Hogan, poker-faced. "So does he. I'm told there's a whole island full of them. I'll need more proof than that."

"Ja. I know." Vogel bit his lip. "He would not tell us his name. Or yours. But he helped us escape, and told us to come here, to this place, to find you. To ask you for help." He looked straight at LeBeau. "He said to tell you that, er… well… he said to tell you that he was sure you'd like to screw us all."

Hogan choked. "He said what?"

Vogel actually squirmed. "Not you. Him," he said, nodding towards LeBeau. The clarification didn't do much to make Hogan feel any better. "He said that he felt sure that you'd like to screw us. That you would know what he meant."

Hogan looked quizzically at LeBeau; the young chef looked as though he'd been hit with a board. "They're telling the truth, Colonel. They… they really did speak with Pierre."

"Huh. That has some sort of meaning for the two of you?"

"It is an old joke. At his own expense. When I was first teaching him French… I told him to say that to strangers, to ask if they would like to screw him. But I said that it was a polite greeting, and that it meant 'pleasure to make your acquaintance.' This was years ago. No one else could possibly know that story." Well, no one aside from a long-gone handful of French POWs, who had laughed themselves sick and promptly forgotten the whole incident. And possibly a Gestapo interrogator. He would not think about that now.

"Well, that makes a little bit more sense," Hogan said slowly. Prison had its own rules, and he didn't feel that what other people did in their spare time was any business of his, but there were limits, and turning a rescue mission into a lonely-hearts club just about breached them. He returned his attention to Vogel. "So what exactly happened? He just walked into your cell and invited you out for a casual walk in the countryside?"

"Yes, actually," said Vogel. "He was dressed in a Gestapo uniform; I thought for a moment that he was there to kill me. Instead he offered me—all of us—a chance to escape."

"So, on the spur of the moment, he sprung all of you out of jail," Hogan said slowly, looking at the rest of the escapees, noting the bruises, the hollow cheeks, and the sunken eyes. Newkirk, he mused, had been just in the nick of time for more than a few of them. "Yeah, that sounds like the kind of thing he'd do. I'm going to kill that crazy Brit. Where is he now?"

Vogel looked away. "Gone. He stole a truck for our getaway, but they were shooting at us as we pulled into the road. He must have been hit; he collapsed, and fell from the truck. If he was not killed immediately, he was certainly captured."

The hope—and all the color—drained from LeBeau's face. It was replaced almost instantaneously by incandescent fury. "So you… you just left him behind? He rescued you from Hell itself, and you abandoned him? You left him to die in the road like a stray dog? Cowards, you damned cowards! I am ashamed to be on the same side of the war as you—"

"Easy there," said Hogan, because LeBeau showed no signs of stopping anytime soon of his own accord. "Time for that later. Cole. You say you 'suppose' he was killed? You didn't see for certain?"

"I saw very little of anything but the road ahead. I was driving. If I had stopped to retrieve him—or his body—they would have recaptured the rest of us, and he would have died for nothing." Vogel's voice cracked on the last word, and he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry."

Hogan closed his eyes for a moment. "So am I," he said, and cleared his throat. "Right. First things first. Horner, I think that all of these people could use a nice vacation in foreign climes. Do you agree?"

Horner nodded. "That would probably be best," he said. "I can get them to the next link in the chain—" He stopped, turned a startled look to Vogel and the other Underground prisoners. "Forgive me for asking, but I must. Is the escape route still safe? What did you tell them?"

They looked at one another. "I told them nothing," said one of them quietly. "Another day, perhaps maybe only another hour or two, and I would have, but not yet."

One by one, the others made similar confessions. Nothing of terribly vital importance had been shared, it seemed. Even so, they looked haunted enough— guilty enough— that Hogan knew that it must have been a damned close thing. They would carry that shame to the grave.

Now it was just a matter of making sure that those graves were sufficiently far in the future. "Sounds like we're clear," he said, as bracingly as he could. "Good work. Okay, Horner, these folks have a train to catch; let's get them to the station."

"Right now?" Those of the prisoners who had been involved in less-than-legal activities, if not precisely thrilled at the prospect of a hasty emigration with only the clothes on their backs, leaving their families, homes, and possessions behind, had been at least prepared for the possibility. The ones who, a day or two ago, had woken up in their own beds with every expectation that they would return to them that evening, were less so, and began to babble about wives, or parents, or, God help them all, children.

"Please. Please! I assure you—we will get them out if it is possible," said Horner. "We will do what we can for them. But first, we need to get you all to safety."

That didn't help much.

"My brother gave his life for yours," said LeBeau, in a low, intense voice that cut through the panicky chatter. "Do not dishonor his sacrifice. Go. Go now, and we will see to your families. You trusted him; you can trust us now. We will finish the task he began. But you must go now… and so must we."

Hogan looked at Horner, at Vogel. "You can get them to safety?"

"We can," Horner said. "Your man is right. Go now. We will be in touch."

"Copy that," said Hogan, and looked at his men. "Come on. It's been a long, crappy day, and it's going to be an even longer, crappier night. We have to move. Roll call is in ninety minutes."

"We will make it in time," said LeBeau, with a serene assurance entirely at odds with the storm in his eyes. "We must not dishonor his sacrifice either."

*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Author's note: LeBeau's long-ago misinformation has certainly had implications he could never have imagined at the time. Yet again, words are being used in such a way that their actual meanings have little or nothing to do with what they're actually saying. It's one hell of a backwards way to say 'I trust you,' but that's our boys, I suppose.