Author's Note: I am posting two chapters back to back on Christmas Eve, instead of one on Christmas Eve and one on Christmas. If you have not yet read the one with LeBeau and the police officers, please go back to the previous chapter.
Merry Christmas, everyone (or whatever holiday you celebrate)!
U is for Umbrage
"A feeling of being offended by what someone has said or done"
Colonel Hogan—the real one—was all for going to find Carter, Kinch, and Crittendon the moment they were back in the barracks. No one had come to check on them yesterday, and even if someone did check and found him missing, they would just assume he vanished like Klink. If this were a normal prison camp, this would be the perfect opportunity to help people escape.
But when Hogan brought up the idea of going after the missing men to the others, he ran into a very thorough roadblock. "We don't know where they are, Sir." Baker told him.
"What do you mean you don't know where they are?"
"Colonel Crittendon is…well, he has a will of his own. When we asked where the ammo dump was, he just said it was in a field outside of town and that he knew where it was so we did not need to worry about it."
"And you let him go with that? You know we need to keep track of where our people are when they're outside the fence." Hogan was not actually upset at Baker or any of the other men. He was just frustrated at Crittendon, especially after Baker replied.
"He pulled rank, Sir. We couldn't stop him from going."
And so Colonel Hogan was left in the camp, able to go out and track down his men but with no clue as to where they would be. The fact was that they should have been back by now, unless something unexpected happened, and they needed to know what was going on. But with Marya in the camp, telling Gruber who knew what, perhaps it was for the best that he stay here. So instead he went into his office, plugged in the coffee pot, and sat down to listen for a while in case Marya did tell Gruber something he should know about.
"LeBeau," Carter asked quietly, "what is the Colonel doing in that field? I thought he was with you and Newkirk."
"That isn't the Colonel," LeBeau replied darkly, getting over his surprise at seeing the others there and remembering all the trouble that Edward caused him.
"What do you mean?" asked Kinch.
"I mean that Colonel Crittendon was right about the alien space ship, and the real colonel was duplicated. That is one of the duplicates."
"I say!" exclaimed Crittendon. "I had no idea it could do that. Imagine how much you could get done with two of you around. Hogan must be quite chuffed."
"Actually there are three of him, and the two duplicates are nothing but trouble. Look at that one! He is doing everything he can to make trouble for us! He is trying to film an American propaganda movie in the middle of Nazi Germany, and he does not even realize that it could go wrong." LeBeau could not understand how Crittendon could possibly think this was a good thing. "But what are you doing here? I thought you two would be back at the camp."
"We got a message from the Underground about meeting that contact that the Colonel did not meet the other day. When we got to the rendezvous point, we ran into Crittendon as well, and he decided we should act on the Underground's information immediately," Kinch told him.
"What was their information about?"
"There's an ammo dump in that field, and we need to blow it up. We had just finished planting the bombs, and Crittendon was going to give Carter and me time to get back to camp before he set them off, but then he showed up with all those women," Kinch motioned to the duplicate as he spoke.
"What do we call him?" Carter wondered.
"His name is Edward the Dramatic, and I say we should blow him up with the ammo dump," LeBeau muttered, seeing an easy way out of dealing with the crazy duplicate."
"I say! That is a horrible idea! He may be making a fool of himself, but he is still a duplicate of your commanding officer." All three looked shocked at LeBeau's suggestion, but it was Crittendon's scandalized tone that set LeBeau off.
"I do not care. Since he was created, that man has attacked the Colonel with a book, kidnaped me, forced me to lie for him, forced me to pretend to be a collaborator, dressed me like a fool, made me stand on a street corner all night, gotten me arrested, and made me lie for him all over again. He is nothing like the real Colonel, and he is nothing but trouble. He would not be the first person that we blew up, and he has done nothing to win my friendship."
"All that in one night?" Carter asked, wide-eyed.
"Oui, and who know what Newkirk went through after being kidnapped by the other one, Robert the Romantic."
"Still, I'm not sure that blowing him up is the best way to take care of him," Kinch replied cautiously. "For one thing, even if this Edward does deserve it, there are over a dozen other people out there with him. We don't want to kill civilians if we can avoid it."
"Then what do you recommend?" LeBeau fumed.
"I know," Carter answered. "He got you arrested, right? So why don't we go arrest him? We can take him back to camp with us and keep him in the cooler until the Colonel figures out what to do with him."
"That might work," Kinch agreed, looking to LeBeau to see if the Frenchman would have any objections.
LeBeau had to concede that the idea would work, and he even had something that might make it better. "When I was at the police station, I had a chance to look through a back room. I found this," he said, pulling a slightly rumpled uniform jacket and hat out of his own jacket. The jacket had a badge that read "security guard" on it, and the two had made an awkward bulge on one side until now. He was surprised that Keiner and Weir had not noticed when he left, but he figured they did not want to get on the wrong side of General Kinchmeyer. "I took them in case Newkirk wanted to use them to make us some police uniforms, but I think they might fit Carter."
Carter took them and held them up to himself. He pulled them on, and the fit was better than LeBeau realized. "Okay," he said, "so I just go up there and arrest him?"
"This was your idea," Kinch reminded him.
"If you like, I could do it," Crittendon suggested, and Carter hastily shook his head.
"No, I've got it. Just give me a minute to get ready." While Carter prepared himself to march onto the explosive-laden field, Kinch, LeBeau, and Crittendon moved further back into the trees in case someone looked over in the direction that Carter came from. But soon Carter was ready to move forward.
He set his shoulders and walked onto the field, trying to put as much authority into his posture as he could without coming too close to how he did his General impressions. Edward saw him and froze when Carter was about half-way there, and the other people in the field soon followed his gaze, looking nervous when they saw who they thought was an angry police officer coming towards them. Carter ignored them, however, and focused solely on Edward, trying not to feel too nervous about arresting a man who looked exactly like the Colonel.
"What is the meaning of this?" he asked, and Edward did his best to give him a charming smile.
"We are here to make a movie about how hard work instead of war is the road to peace and happiness. I am Edward, the director, and these are my actors, and this is my camera man. Would you like to be in it too?"
Carter ignored the question, refusing to start responding to Edward and therefore let him control the conversation. "And why are you filming here? Is this your field?"
"No, but—"
Carter cut him off. "Do you have permission from the people who own the field?"
"Not yet, but—"
"Then I am placing you under arrest for trespassing." Carter grasped Edward's shoulder with one hand, spinning him around and pushing him to the ground before the man could react and tense his muscles. Like the Colonel, Edward was bigger than Carter, and Carter knew that his best chance to get the man to do what he wanted was to do everything before Edward could prepare himself. In one more motion, Carter pulled out the handcuffs that he found in one of the jacket pockets and snapped one around one of the man's wrists. But Carter was not used to putting people in handcuffs, and he fumbled a bit. It was not long, but it was just long enough for Edward to realize what was happening and pull away.
"I will not accept this!" He yelled, a nasty glint in his eyes telling Carter that Edward knew exactly who he was and what he was doing, even if he was not actually the Colonel. "You are trying to censor artwork! You have no right to do this! You claim I am trespassing in this field, but you are the true criminal, trespassing on great art and preventing it from being made!" Edward then looked wildly around the crowd of his actors. "Join me in protesting! Together, we cannot be prevented from making great art!"
Several people moved towards them, and Carter's heart sank as he realized that he was badly outnumbered, especially since most of the people here were women and he knew better than to try to fight off women.
But then something surprising happened, and the women converged on Edward, forcing him to stay still with his hands behind his back. Carter, shocked though he was, used the opportunity to attach the second handcuff around Edward's wrist.
"Danke," one of the women said to him as he finished. "This man has kept us awake all night preparing for the film. He would not let us go home to get sleep. And now we find out that he did not have permission to film here. We do not want any trouble, Sir."
"That's alright," Carter responded. "None of you are in trouble—just him. But you should all go home now and get some rest."
The women thanked him and moved off, but Carter could have sworn he heard one of them ask another, "Should we tell the officer about the Frenchman, too?"
The other woman replied, "Nein, he was actually nice to us."
And then the women, and the camera man, were gone, leaving Carter and Edward standing alone in a field turned ammo dump turned film set. Carter nudged Edward forward, and to his surprise, Edward followed his lead easily. It seemed that as soon as his scheme failed, Edward lost heart very quickly. Carter hoped they could get him back to camp before he came up with another one.
"Well done," Kinch congratulated him when they reached the others, but Edward looked at LeBeau with a snarl.
"I should have known you would betray me. Even after all I did for you, you still turned on me. You should be ashamed and live the rest of your life ridiculed by others. This day I swear that the first film I make when I get out of this will be to expose you for the traitor you really are, and from that day forward, no one will be able to look at you without knowing what you have done."
"I say, I see where he got the title of 'Dramatic,'" Crittendon remarked, not seeming to sense the hostility radiating off Edward.
"We should get back to the camp," Kinch said, before anyone else could respond to Edward. "Colonel Crittendon, please remember to give us two hours before you set off the bombs."
"Two hours, right-o," the British man responded as he looked at his watch and settled down on a nearby rock to wait. Kinch, LeBeau, and Carter looked at each other briefly, hoping that Crittendon would not mess this up, and set off, surrounding Edward the best that they could to keep him from trying to run off.
For the most part, Edward was well-behaved, and they made good time getting back to camp. From what they could tell, Edward knew what the Colonel knew, so they did not have to hide the tunnels from him, and they got him below the camp without incident.
Olsen greeted them, looking shocked when he saw Edward. "He really was telling the truth," he muttered, and Kinch responded.
"Believe me, he's very different from the Colonel, and we don't want him running around unsupervised."
"Right. I'll go get the Colonel. He's in his office, listening to make sure Marya does not tell Gruber anything."
"Marya?" LeBeau perked up, feeling more and more like the day was finally starting to go in his favor. Kinch and Carter exchanged worried looks though. Edward, for his part, looked surprised and happy, like he thought he would finally be around someone who understood him.
"Carter," Kinch said, "you should go put Edward in the cooler. Make sure you put him in a cell without a tunnel."
"Right," Carter replied, and he started to lead Edward away. Edward still did not protest, and it worried Carter a little, but he took him to the cooler, removing the handcuffs only after the man was secure in his cell.
"I've never been locked up in jail before," Edward said despondently.
"Well, the Colonel has, and you have his memories, so it's almost the same thing, right?" Carter lay a comforting hand on the other man's arm as it extended through the bars.
"It's not the same. You've been in prison too long to realize it, though."
"Just think, you can make a dramatic movie about prison when you get out." Edward gave him a weak smile at that, but Carter was glad he could give the man at least a little comfort.