No ownership of the Hogan's Heroes characters is implied or inferred. Copyright belongs to others and no infringement is intended.

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Hogan tugged at the heavy container and gave a grunt as it only moved a few inches. "Diesmal ist es zu schwer. Max, Klaus, helft mir, das zum Verpackungsraumzu bringen." The supervisor looked up curiously, shaking his head at Johannes Schneider's apparent weakness. Needing two other people to move a container? "Unfall in der Kindheit," Hogan explained aloud for the benefit of the onlooker. A childhood accident? Possibly believable. "Brach meine beiden Arme. Seither bin ich nicht mehr derselbe." I'd like to break both of your arms, Hogan thought, still disproportionately angry with the man watching them. And it wouldn't be any accident, either.
Newkirk and Carter came forward, agreeing in mumbled German to help do whatever they had to. "Und dann ist es vielleicht Zeit für eine Pause, ja? Um uns durch eine Harte Arbeitsnacht zu helfen," Newkirk said. He shrugged at his companions. Might as well ask for a coffee break. I could use a cigarette. And we could use the freedom of movement.
"Nein," replied the supervisor, shaking his head. "Niemand macht hier irgend welche Pausen, bis die Arbeit getan ist. Rasten könnt ihr in der Freizeit; solange ihr hier seid, gehört eure Zeit dem Führer."

"I bet he doesn't pay very well," muttered Newkirk under his breath. "'You're on the Fuhrer's time,'" he mimicked. "What a load of—"

"Okay, okay, settle down," Hogan said, as they left the room behind. "You can join the union later. Right now we have to get that fence looked after."

They moved very slowly, watching carefully for any sign that someone was coming out of one of the rooms that lined the hall. Still looking around, Hogan pointed to a door near the packing room and nodded for the others to follow him in. They pushed the container so it was up against the wall and slipped away. "Newkirk—lookout," Hogan whispered. Newkirk nodded and posted himself near the door they had just entered. Carter and Hogan worked using only the dim light the moon provided through the high windows, with the Colonel taking Carter's lead in priming and manipulating the materials they had brought into this room in bits over the last ninety minutes. It had taken several trips down the hall to discover which room held the alarm systems, and several more trips to feel confident they were not being watched.

Hogan very carefully pulled one of the fuses off of his shoes, and with a pocketknife Carter cut it to the length he wanted. They continued their work quickly and quietly, until everything they had brought with them had been used. Hogan glanced toward where Newkirk was standing guard; satisfied all was still well, he moved toward a panel on the wall. "Eintragung verboten," was stenciled on the cover. Hogan ignored the warning and lifted the panel to reveal a strip of switches. Zaun, one read, in bold letters, with the indicator pointing toward Auf. Hogan hesitantly, cautiously, turned the indicator in the opposite direction, and waited. No alarm. No lights. No shouts.

Hogan let out a breath and looked toward the others. Carter was moving toward the door, arms loaded with newly charged explosives. Then they all moved back out into the hallway, and Newkirk carefully took one of the live pieces from Carter and gently buried it underneath some of the others in the container. "Allow me," he said with mock gallantry, as he took several more from Carter and headed into the packing room with it all.

Hogan bit his lip and looked at Carter. "One of those will set off the whole room," Carter said, nodding.

"And the timers?"

"First one's set for thirty minutes."

"Then we'd better get moving. We've been gone too long already."

Newkirk reappeared, making an "okay" signal to the others, and they headed quickly back to their assigned production room. Another cart quickly filled up and this time only Newkirk and Hogan left the room, as the supervisor seemed unhappy with their pace. This time, Hogan took some of the explosives that had been primed in the side room and placed them in two other unused equipment rooms along the corridor. Newkirk planted one more in the cart he was wheeling into the packing room, and then he met Hogan back in the hall.

"We're running out of time, sir," Newkirk said.

"I know. We've just got to get a couple more in place. See if you can find out where the bathroom is; Bruno can't refuse you that."

"Right, sir."

What followed was a stilted conversation between Newkirk and the German supervisor, while Newkirk tried to bring to bear all his charm and wiles on a man not interested in either. In the end, the man grunted and pointed to another door, and Newkirk nodded and smiled exaggeratedly, and headed out, another small explosive hidden under his shirt.

Hogan and Carter, meanwhile, brought out yet another container, careful not to cross paths with the other trio of men who had been doing the same. "Time?" Hogan asked.

Carter looked at his watch. "Sixteen minutes, Colonel," he answered.

"We haven't done enough. This plant won't blow completely, even with what we've done."

"We'll cripple it, Colonel. Maybe London'll bomb it while it's down?"

Hogan shook his head. "Maybe." There has to be something else. "What about the wiring?"

"What about it?"

"Do we have enough time to jury-rig the wiring so the whole place goes up?"

"Gee, Colonel, I don't know."

"It could blow sky high and the whole thing could look like an accident…. Maybe it's too ambitious," Hogan mused aloud. "The box is in the room with the alarms. I'll get the fire alarm going; you head back and start shouting. The Krauts will start evacuating the building. I'll plant the rest of the bombs as the rooms are evacuated and meet you back at camp. Kinch and Le Beau need time. We have to give them the signal now."

"Sounds awfully risky, Colonel."

Hogan paused and smiled wanly at Carter. "The whole night's been risky, Carter. Running out of the building's probably the safest thing we could do." He punched Carter lightly on the arm. "Go." Carter hesitated. "That's an order."

"Yes, sir." Carter turned away and slowly headed for the equipment room.

Hogan moved quickly into the room with the control panel and hit the switch marked Feuer. Then he got to work.

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The loud alarm bells emanating from the plant jolted Kinch and Le Beau into action. "That's gotta be the signal," Kinch said, tapping Le Beau.

The Frenchman was already on his feet. "C'est bon. Let's go."

The pair headed for the fence and started setting their charges, trying to keep their mind off the fact that they wouldn't know what had happened to their comrades until after they had already hurled grenades at the building, and did their best to reduce the structure to a pile of rubble.

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"Feuer! Feuer! Alle nach draußen, alle raus, schnell! Feuer!" Hogan heard the shouting from down the hall and pushed his hands to do their detailed work more quickly. Impatiently massaging his fingers quickly to relieve a sudden cramp, he mentally ticked off time. Eleven minutes. He imagined the two young women they had seen running out of the building, along with the mere teenagers who had looked so uncertain when they had entered ahead of him, Carter, and Newkirk. Come on, schnell, he thought, urging them out. Frowning with the effort, Hogan continued to tinker with the wiring. His mind blotting out the drone of the sirens and the sound of starting explosions from the outside, he grabbed the last of the explosives Carter had left behind, and headed out of the room.
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"Kommt—weiter, weiter!" the soldiers at the gate were saying. Carter had stopped dead in his tracks and was looking back at the building. "Raus!" Carter was pushed from behind.
"Come on," urged Newkirk through his teeth, hoping no one heard his English over the din. People were pouring out from the building, which had started blazing from what the pair could only presume were explosives set off by Kinch and Le Beau.
"The Colonel's not out yet," Carter said, unwilling to move. He was making a constant scan of the exit, but had not been able to spot their commanding officer.
"He'll come when he's ready, now come on!" Newkirk insisted, pulling Carter out of the path of the fleeing throng.
Bright flames waved at them from over the roof of the building, burning deep into Carter's mind. That's an order, is all he could hear. Tears that he wouldn't bother pretending had anything to do with the smoke burned his eyes, and he reluctantly followed Newkirk out of the gate and toward the agreed rendezvous point near the bridge they were to destroy. He would follow orders; that's what he had promised Colonel Hogan he would do.