P is for Pacify
"To cause (someone who is angry or upset) to become calm or quiet; to cause a force (a country, a violent group of people, etc.) to become peaceful"
Robert stole the camp truck when he kidnapped Newkirk, but Edward left with LeBeau before Marya arrived at the star ship. Thankfully Marya had the sense to drive, and Hogan had a determination not to question whether she was qualified, so there was no need to walk back to camp. Langenscheidt however, concussed though he was, did not find the situation favorable.
"What will I tell Gruber?" he moaned. "A missing broken gonculator is not hard to explain since we can say we got rid of it, but how do I explain an entire truck to him?"
"Just tell him Klink took it with him when he vanished. That makes more sense than the truth," Hogan decided, muttering the last bit under his breath while Marya made her car careen around a corner, looking over her shoulder so she could enjoy her passengers' expressions.
"Danke," Langenscheidt muttered confusedly before settling back into silence.
"You can thank me by not reporting Newkirk and LeBeau missing."
"But we cannot let your men escape."
"I know that, and you know that, but you know what else we both know?"
"What?"
"They didn't escape. They were kidnapped. Do you want to try explaining to Gruber how you let some of the prisoners you were supposed to be guarding get kidnapped?"
"No, Colonel Hogan," Langenscheidt agreed. "But what if he asks why they are not in the roll call formation?"
"Everyone knows that Gruber does not know the prisoner's as well as Klink. If he asks why people are missing, just tell him they aren't. He won't know the difference."
"Ja, he will believe that." Langenscheidt did not seem to be very with the conversation, and Hogan only hoped that he remembered what to say when the time came.
"We are almost here," Marya called over her shoulder. "You should hide while I drive the car into the camp." Hogan quickly ducked down beneath the windows, then pulled Langenscheidt down too for good measure. It would not do to have anyone see Langenscheidt being driven into camp by Marya. There would just be too many questions. Marya noticed what was happening and casually threw her coat into the back on top of them, blanketing them in a cloud of heavy perfume that Hogan did not recognize. It would be just perfect if it was an alien perfume from the planet of Moscow.
"Good morning," Marya greeted the guards at the gates.
"Ma'am," one of them said nervously, "we cannot let you in."
"Why not? I am just here for a small visit, and I am such good friends with everyone that they will not mind me dropping in unexpectedly."
"It's just after three A.M., Ma'am. You should get a room in Hammelburg and come back in the morning. I'm sure it would be much more comfortable there."
"But I am already here," Marya said, as if that settled everything, and to add finality to the statement, she started the car moving forward. The guard yelped a bit, and Hogan imagined that he must have been standing very close to the car.
"Open the gate!" the guard shouted to someone, presumably a fellow guard. "She's going to crash through it!"
Hogan could hear Marya chuckling a bit, and then the car surged forward, and raced into the camp before coming suddenly to a stop. "This is your barracks, Hogan. You should get inside." Marya did not seem at all concerned with anyone seeing her drop him off at his front door, so Hogan scrambled out of the car as fast as he could, deciding that she must have driven off from the gate so quickly that the guards could not see him. The moment he shut the door, though, Marya began to race off again, and Hogan made a quick dash to the barracks door before anyone could see him.
As soon as he was inside the barracks, he saw nine worried-looking men sitting around the table. The glow from the stove reflected off their faces, and he could tell that they were concerned by the odd way he had gotten back inside. He made a beeline for the tunnel, where he left his regular clothes, but paused just long enough to call out, "Marya is here. Be ready for a surprise roll call."
He did not take time to get a response, and simply dropped into the tunnel instead. Baker came out of the radio room, and Hogan walked over to him. "Get upstairs. Marya is here, and she may make Gruber have a surprise roll call for fun."
"That may be a problem, Sir," Baker replied.
"What do you mean?"
"Kinch got a message from the underground, so he and Carter went to make contact. I'm not sure of all the details, but when they got back, Colonel Crittendon was with them. Apparently the underground made contact about an ammo dump, and Colonel Crittendon wanted them to take care of it tonight. They left half an hour ago."
Hogan set his jaw, resisting the urge to groan as he thought about all the trouble the British man had caused them in the past twenty-four hours. It would not be a good idea to send anyone else out to try to get the others to come back, but that meant there would be four people, four people with records as troublemakers, missing if Gruber and Marya had a surprise roll call. Even if they did not, there was every chance that no one—not Newkirk and LeBeau with their duplicate Hogans, or Carter and Kinch with their British Colonel—would make it back on time. He could only hope that Langenscheidt would not tell on them. Besides, being taken by Crittendon had to be almost as bad as being taken by crazy duplicates, so if Langenscheidt asked, he would just say they were kidnapped too.
It was to everyone's great relief that there was no surprise roll call. It was Foster who reminded everyone that they gave Gruber a sedative the night before, so he might not have woken up enough to think of it, and Hogan was glad they had taken the precaution, unnecessary as it had seemed at first. Still, Hogan was sure that the guards had woken Gruber up to tell him about Marya as soon as she arrived, and he had to marvel at how strong the sedative must have been for Gruber to not call a surprise check as an excuse to get away from her. After all, it would not be like Marya at all to go straight to the guest quarters when there was a chance of causing chaos.
Still, by the time they had been called out for roll call, none of the missing men were back yet. The men there tried to arrange themselves to fill in the gaps left by the others, but it was a miserable disguise, and even Gruber saw through it.
"All present and accounted for," the concussed and very tired Langenscheidt told him, and Gruber gave him a look of surprise.
"That is not fifteen men," he said, waving a hand at the men in front of Barracks Two.
"But sir," Langenscheidt began, and Hogan saw at once that he was not going to be able to cover well.
"What he means to say," Hogan broke in, "is that there was another round of disappearances this morning."
"You mean escapes?" Gruber asked, alarmed.
"No, not escapes. I mean that when Langenscheidt here was rounding us up, four of my men vanished. Right, Corporal?"
Langenscheidt looked a little confused, but he nodded his head a couple of times, wincing and looking uncomfortable. "Ja, the men were kidnapped. The Kommandant went missing and then the truck and the gonculators went missing and now the prisoners are missing."
"This is bad," Gruber muttered to himself. "You are all dismissed to your barracks," he finally decided. "No one is to be seen wandering around the compound until we know more about what is happening to everyone."
Most of the men started following his orders right away, but Hogan stayed where he was a few moments longer to see if he would need to explain anything more. He could see Marya watching him from the porch, and he knew that he would need to stay on top of anything she was up to in camp. She of all people knew he was lying, and he needed to make sure she did not try anything to make the situation more entertaining to her.
As it turned out, Marya did not have to do anything. Just as Hogan was turning away, a staff car pulled up to the gate, and inside was General Burkhalter.
"Herr General," Gruber exclaimed as he nervously greeted the officer. "It is a surprise to see you here."
"That is because this is a surprise inspection. Now where is Klink? He needs to explain what she is doing here," he said, motioning towards Marya.
Marya was of course the first one to respond. "Herr General," she said, draping herself on one of his shoulders, "he went to visit Stalag V. Didn't he tell you?"
"He did not. Is there a reason for him to be at Stalag V instead of his own stalag?" Burkhalter asked, and Hogan got the distinct impression he was remembering a failed assassination attempt from a while back. General Burkhalter did not like the kommandants meeting with each other.
"The kommandant there wanted him to explain how he made Stalag XIII escape-proof," Marya replied as if it were the most simple thing in the world."
"Is that so?" Burkhalter asked. "Then I'm sure he won't mind me going through his records to try to find the same thing myself."
Hogan felt a bit panicked. With all the chaos in the camp, there was no telling what Burkhalter would find in an inspection. So he turned to Langenscheidt, missing the reliability of Schultz. "This is boring," he complained. "Why don't you start telling me about that new lady's club again?"
Langenscheidt just looked confused, and Hogan could only hope he would catch on. There was nothing like mentioning women to distract Burkhalter. "I was telling you about a new lady's club?" Langenscheidt asked.
"Yes, and boy did you make it sound special."
"But I do not know about many lady's clubs," he protested. "There is just one that I know about. It is an art club that all the most artistic women from Hammelburg join."
"And by artistic you mean beautiful, right?"
"What is this all about?" Burkhalter asked. "A women's club? And Klink lets you go meet women there?"
"Oh yes," Hogan replied for Langenscheidt. "And if we don't cause any trouble, sometimes the guards tell us about it."
"I see," said Burkhalter. "If Klink is letting his guards visit this club, it seems it is something I should check into. What was its name again?"
"The Hammelburg Women of Wartime Art Society," Marya replied, and Burkhalter decided that was a good moment to get back into his car.
Hogan breathed a sigh of relief. They managed to get rid of Burkhalter far easier than they usually did. Now he would just be going to look at an art club, and there was no way that could possibly lead back to what was happening at the camp.
"Hang on, Newkirk, we're almost there!" Robert the Romantic exclaimed in pure joy as he took a sharp curve at far too high a speed. The entire trip had been one nightmare driving scenario after another, and every time Newkirk tried to get Robert to slow down, the duplicate would just exclaim something like, "And be separated from my true love for a moment longer than I need? Fie!"
Throughout the drive, it became clear to Newkirk that Robert had absolutely no idea where any of the German roads led, and he refused to tell Newkirk where he was trying to go, other than "To Tiger, of course," which was not a useful response. But that was not the worst of the drive. It was not that Robert was a bad driver—it would actually take either an exceptionally skilled or exceptionally lucky driver to get them through the journey in one piece—it was merely that Newkirk himself did not like Robert's driving. There was of course a certain amount of risk he was willing to take—his whole lifestyle for as long as he could remember revolved around that fact, but everyone knew he did not like too much risk, especially when it could be avoided. And Robert taking every curve on two wheels, sending the truck flying after every bump, and even smashing through a checkpoint was too much. Newkirk did not know whether to be more impressed or terrified that Robert had lost the checkpoint guards only minutes after they started chasing them.
But for now, all Newkirk could do was hold on and hope that Robert did not get them both killed before they got wherever it was that they were going.