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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"Carter, it's time for a break; you've been at it all night and half the morning, so I'm told," Hogan said. He held out a steaming cup of coffee to the young Sergeant and looked with cautious interest at the work he was doing with all these test tubes and beakers.

"Thanks." Carter took the cup from Hogan and took a quick sip, then put it down. "I won't be long, Colonel. I just want to make sure I've got everything right. We're gonna need to have plenty of explosives for that train coming through next week."

Hogan shook his head. "Look, I told you: everything's on hold until Oberholzer's gone."

"Oh, I know, Colonel," Carter said, nodding his head in agreement. "I just like to be prepared."

"Don't prepare yourself out of a good night's sleep," Hogan said, clapping the Sergeant on the shoulder. "I need you all to be on the alert. We don't know what's coming, and we need to be ready."

Carter turned for the first time away from his work and looked straight at his commanding officer. "I don't know how you do it, Colonel," he said. "I mean, that Oberholzer fella scares me, and I don't even have to get near him!"

Hogan tried to smile reassuringly. "You get used to it. Look, try not to worry; that's my job. I won't let you fellas do anything until this goon is out of the way. Now get outta here and get some shut-eye before I really need you. I'm no good at disentangling you from your chemistry set."

Carter grinned. "Okay, Colonel. Hey, Colonel, you should probably do the same thing yourself—I mean, you haven't had a lot of chance lately…" His voice trailed off as his smile faded.

Hogan smiled tiredly. "It's okay, Carter. I'll get there eventually." He watched as the young man headed upstairs to the barracks, then he moved into the main tunnel area and let his memories take over.

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"Come on, Mark, you've been at it all night. It's time for a break." Hogan handed the steaming cup of coffee to Lieutenant Bailey and sat down in the empty chair across the desk. "No one said you had to make this a twenty-four hour assignment, you know."

"I can't help it, Papa," the navigator said. "Once you said you weren't happy about the upcoming mission, I knew I needed to look at all the angles and see if there was anything I could do to help."

"I'm afraid it's bigger than both of us." Hogan smiled. "Look, I know you're anxious. I'm sorry I let on to you. It's not your job to do the worrying. Give me some time and I'll sort it all out. There's bound to be something I'm missing here. I won't let us head out until I'm sure we have a decent chance of success."

Bailey stood up and tried to stretch the kinks out of his back as he stifled a yawn. "I know you won't," he replied thoughtfully. "You know, I don't know how you do this kind of thing every day." He shook his head and looked back at the papers he had amassed on the desk, full of half-finished theories and ideas that he had abandoned even before he had finished writing them down. "It gives me a headache."

Hogan shrugged and offered a lopsided smile. "You get used to it," is all he said. "Go get some shut-eye before I have to carry you back to your quarters."

Bailey grinned. "I think I'll take you up on that, sir," he said. Hogan raised an eyebrow. "Just make sure you do the same, okay?"

"Eventually, Baby Bear… eventually."

Hogan watched as his navigator left the office. Then he picked up the coffee and started fishing through the papers himself. It was going to be a long day.

Hogan looked wistfully down the tunnel toward the exit, then sighed as he looked up the ladder to the barracks. The more things change, the more they stay the same…. "I won't let him get you, fellas," he said softly, as though they could hear him. "I won't let him get to you through me."

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"But Major Oberholzer, I don't know what you are doing with all that equipment; there are no radios in the camp." Klink turned away from the window and the radio detection truck outside, shaking his head doubtfully. This whole situation was leaving Klink shaken, and he wanted nothing more than for the Gestapo officer to leave Stalag 13. Seeing Hogan so clearly unwell at roll call today had been strangely disturbing to the Kommandant; even though he often said he wished Hogan weren't so boisterous, he couldn't help but feel a pang of what he could only describe as compassion that the senior POW was finding Oberholzer's tactics difficult to cope with, and Klink almost, almost, told the Gestapo Major to go away and find some place else to play his mind games.

"Aren't there?" Oberholzer answered curiously, his chin raised as if in defiance of the Kommandant's observation.

"No, there aren't," Klink answered again, this time his pride starting to feel a prick of anger. "My guards search the barracks for any contraband every day, and there is nothing to be found," he said with more than a touch of smugness.

"Then they are blind," Oberholzer said flatly. "With Hogan here, there will be many things to find. He simply hides them well."

Klink shook his head, bewildered, "Major Oberholzer, I must admit I find the Gestapo's interest in Colonel Hogan rather puzzling. He has never shown himself to be anything but a rather ordinary prisoner."

"You obviously don't know his background, Klink," the Major answered disdainfully. "Colonel Hogan was a very wanted man before he was shot down. There was never a question that he was holding some very sensitive military information—not to mention that the Third Reich was losing some very valuable installations thanks to his flying skills. One of the reasons Colonel Hogan was sent here was to keep him from trying to escape—we believe a man like Hogan is less likely to abandon men under his command for his own interests. And if we keep Hogan, we can still find out what is in his mind—and how it works."

Klink swallowed, hard. Yes, he had known that Hogan was a special case; officers were not sent to enlisted men's prison camps. And yes, he had known that Hogan was a good flyer—an extraordinary one, from all reports, though never from Hogan himself. But Klink had never dreamed that the questioning of the senior POW was to continue indefinitely, that there was something other than military curiosity that kept Berlin so interested in the American. "How it works?" he repeated lamely.

"Of course!" Oberholzer looked at Klink in amazement. "You see a cowed, broken prisoner of war trying to make it home sane. Because that is what you want to see, and what Hogan wants you to see. But there is much, much more to the good Colonel than that."

Maybe that is what you want to see, Klink thought unexpectedly. "Major Oberholzer, I cannot have you disrupt the running of this prison camp any longer," the Kommandant said, suddenly bolstered by the thought, and, somewhat righteously trying to look after his senior prisoner of war. "If you have no evidence that Colonel Hogan is involved in anything out of the ordinary, then I am going to have to ask you to cease this interrogation and leave the camp."

Klink nearly shuddered. Had he really said that to a member of the Gestapo?

Oberholzer smiled thinly. "That is exactly what I intend to do, Colonel Klink. We will be leaving tonight."

"We?"

"Of course! I will be taking Colonel Hogan with me. There is still much to learn from him."

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"Tomorrow's the day, Colonel," Kinch said, hoping to bring Hogan out of the world he had escaped to.

Hogan looked up almost disinterestedly from his desk and nodded, then looked back to the papers before him.

"That munitions plant is going to be history by tomorrow night; it'll sure make it harder to rush weapons and ammo to the German soldiers fighting in France."

Hogan nodded again, but this time didn't look back.

"Colonel—"

Hogan finally turned around. "Is there something you really want, Kinch?" he asked finally. The Sergeant grimaced. Hogan hadn't sounded angry, not even impatient. Just resigned to being watched, gauged, investigated by his own men.

"How long do you think Oberholzer's gonna keep this up? I mean he's been at you for the last two days and he hasn't gotten anywhere."

Hogan dropped his eyes. Maybe he has.

"The fellas, we… we just want to know if there's anything we can do to help, sir," Kinch said softly.

Hogan smiled wearily and looked his comrade in the eye. "Just don't give up on the operation, okay?" he said. Kinch felt a chill as he took in the intensity of Hogan's request. "Make a list of the hundred-and-one things London expects from us, and when this Gestapo creep is gone, we'll pick up where we left off."

"There won't be anything from London for awhile, Colonel," Kinch said almost reluctantly.

Hogan frowned. "Why not?"

Kinch shuffled his feet. "Well, that's the other reason I came in here, Colonel; Oberholzer's brought in a radio detection truck. It's parked just outside Klink's office."

Hogan's expression changed to one of exasperation. "He doesn't miss a trick," he said through his teeth.

"I've already shut down our radio and made sure everyone else knows not to try anything with the portables."

"Good man," Hogan said. He stood up, his energy suddenly renewed, and brushed past Kinch into the common room. "Where's Oberholzer?"

"I last saw him heading to Klink's office, Colonel."

Hogan glanced around the room, then over toward the bunk that hid the tunnel entrance, as though to make sure everything was secure. "Well, if there were any doubts about what he's after, there aren't any more. Get the others. We need to have a talk."

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"What do you think of my radio detection truck, Colonel Hogan?"

Oberholzer once again had Hogan in the solitary confinement cells and away from his men. Still restrained, but this time without the harsh, punishing light bearing down on him, Hogan felt better able to cope now that Oberholzer had tipped his hand. "I think you're wasting your time."

"Oh?" Oberholzer asked, surprised.

"Seems like a lot of trouble just to stop some poor GI from listening to the BBC."

Oberholzer smiled. Hogan had learned to hate and almost fear the expression. "Is that what you honestly think I'm after?"

"What else could it be?"

Oberholzer shook his head. "Tell me, Colonel Hogan, how do you get through the long days here at Stalag 13? An active man like yourself must find it hard to just sit back and watch the war pass by."

Hogan shrugged. "I do calisthenics. And there's a darned good ceramics group that meets twice a week in the Rec Hall."

Oberholzer's smile got wider. Hogan fought down the nausea that seeing it brought. "And what about the long nights, Colonel? A good-looking, up-and-coming young officer... you must have had quite a harem of beautiful ladies at your beck and call."

Hogan immediately grew quiet. He wouldn't get drawn into that—he couldn't. Sure, there had been a few lovely ladies in the Underground with whom he had shared tender moments. But neither he nor the woman involved at the time had ever been fooled into thinking they were anything but fleeting, desperate encounters in a time of great danger, and immense loneliness. And he hadn't had a harem—only a couple of special women when he was in London. But that was so long ago now...

"No?" Oberholzer came around to face the American once more, and this time, ran a finger down Hogan's jaw line. Hogan raised his chin to avoid the man's touch, but Oberholzer was persistent and he couldn't get away. "Don't worry, Colonel Hogan. Perhaps you will meet a lovely lady on our travels."

Hogan couldn't stop himself from answering. "'Our travels'?"

One final touch on Hogan's neck. The Colonel closed his eyes against the coldness growing inside him as he shuddered a breath. Oberholzer pulled his hand away. "Yes! We are going out, Colonel Hogan: you and I. I am taking you to a munitions factory near Hammelburg, where we will have a nice, long visit."