Chapter 2: An International Alliance

The Duchess completely ignored Klink as the operator connected her phone call to the number in Austria. They all still technically lived on their ancestral homelands. It didn't take very long for the phone to be answered. 'Count Karnstein. Heil Hitler.'

The Duchess immediately launched into the dialect she'd grown up speaking. 'Drop the Heil Hitler. It's me.'

'Oh, thank God,' the Count said in the dialect. 'Have you found our subject?'

'I have,' the Duchess said. 'I can see why they want rid of him.'

'Good to hear. What kind of preacher are we looking for?'

The Duchess snorted in an unladylike manner. 'No idea. Turns out he's not the type to bite. We'll need to get the Major and our Scottish laird on it.'

'He isn't? That's new. Which to do what?'

'The Major's due for shore leave tomorrow, isn't he?'

'Yes. He'll be docking at London.'

'Then have him check up on our special friend's personnel file. They always put your religion in. Then have our Scotsman head out to the church he attended to see if he was confirmed.'

'You suspect he wasn't?'

'He looked too bored.'

'Haw. Okay, well, we'll get on that. I need you to find out who Agent Tiger is.'

'Agent Tiger?'

'All we know is that she's a member of the Underground – we're assuming she's a she. Our soon-to-be new friend has been noted to really go the extra mile for her sake.'

HH

The men stared at the coffee pot.

'All right,' Hogan said. 'Anyone recognise the language?'

'It's all Greek to me,' Newkirk answered.

'Non, mon Colonel,' LeBeau said.

'Haven't got a clue,' Carter threw in.

'It's probably a backwater dialect,' Kinch said. 'She's got a Romanian accent, and he's Austrian so that opens up a fair few options.'

'Hm.' Hogan studied the coffee pot for a moment. 'A Romanian Duchess…There wouldn't be many of those hanging around.'

'I wouldn't think so,' Kinch said.

'She said she was visiting her brother in France and dropped by to wait on this Count on the way home,' Hogan mused. 'Kinch, get in touch with London. Find out if the Nazis have any Romanian Dukes stationed in France.'

'Why?' Carter asked.

'Because if we can identify her brother, we might be able to identify her.' Hogan turned back to Kinch. 'And when you're done with that, keep the phone tap going. If she uses that dialect again, I want it taken down and transmitted to London for translation.'

HH

London

A man in a Royal Navy uniform with the insignia for a Lieutenant-Commander slipped through the darkened corridors of Downing Street.

'Heck of a way to spend my shore leave,' he muttered to himself.

He soon found the room he'd been looking for. As the room contained nothing but personnel files, it was unlocked and he slipped in. Rightfully, he wasn't cleared to look at what he was looking for. That was why he expected it to be in one of the locked cabinets. And it was easier to find than he was expecting. The room was stale, but there was a new scent trailed through the room.

The Lt.-Com. followed the scent to the very back of the room to a large cabinet labelled. TOP SECRET and AUTHORISED ACCESS ONLY. Leaning in, the navy officer sniffed as if he was looking for blue cheese. The bottom drawer had been accessed last. With a talent born over years of practice, the officer picked the lock. Pulling it open, he began rifling through the compartments.

Jackpot. A compartment right at the back was labelled Luft-Stalag 13.

His hand dived in to the one file that was drenched in the scent. Sure enough, when he pulled it out he read, HOGAN, ROBERT E. Which meant, of course, that their opposition had already been here. That didn't give them a lot of time to move. The Lt.-Com. opened up the file and quickly found what he was looking for.

He put the file back as he found it and then closed the cabinet drawer. The lock clicked. Nodding to himself, the man left the room and left the building far too quickly for anyone to even notice he'd been there in the first place. When he returned to his hotel room, he sat down and picked up the phone.

'Hello,' he said to the operator. 'I'd like to call room 203 of the Ritz in New York City please.' He waited until the phone rang and was answered. 'Ruthven. Varney. Cleveland, Ohio. Born and raised a Methodist.'

'Roger that.'

HH

Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Ruthven didn't think much of this place but, fortunately, there was only one Methodist Church around here. It was a weird service for him. He'd been born and raised Roman Catholic. But he hung around after the fact. The nice thing about churches was that for a lot of old people, it was the height of their social interaction outside of their own families.

As such, the old dears did tend to wag their tongues…especially when meeting a Scotsman.

'Walter Ruthven,' he introduced himself as. It was his name, after all. Putting the Lord in front of it would draw too much attention.

There were the usual "where in Scotland are you from" questions. It actually look him a few hours to get the information he needed.

'Oh, the Hogans!' the old woman, whose name he'd already forgotten exclaimed. 'I haven't seen any of them in years.'

'Of course not, dear,' another said. 'Most of them died during the Depression. I think only young Robert survived. But he joined the army.'

'Air Force, dear,' another corrected him. 'He joined the Air Force.'

'Oh?' Ruthven asked.

'Yes, after his mother lost all employment in the Depression,' the first lady said. 'He always was such a good, dutiful son. I do often wonder how he pulled off most of what he did.'

One of her friends rolled her eyes. 'Come now, Agnes. He wasn't a little angel. He didn't even get himself confirmed!'

And that was vital information to Ruthven.

Once he extracted himself, Ruthven sped into the vestry. The preachers and other church staff had all removed themselves by this time. He could tell if anyone was coming anyway. It turned out all churches were set up the same way. He found the registrar very easily. Let's see…joined the Air Force during the Great Depression. Shoot! What are America's enlistment laws like?

Ruthven flicked through and quickly found what he was looking for.

A smile crossed his face.

If he hasn't been confirmed, and they get a Methodist preacher…

HH

Stalag 13, Germany

Hogan watched. For the last two days, the Duchess had been hanging around camp. From their phone taps, the Count (same guy she'd called and spoke in the odd language to), had called Klink and instructed him that the Duchess was to stay here. The Count claimed to be held up by red tape.

Maybe not in quite those words, but the idea was clear enough.

The Count had been tracked down by the allies. Count Vasilli Karnstein was an Austrian nobleman who was both reclusive and barely visible. There was little known about him and he was very hard to catch. Hogan couldn't see why, though, if he was taking so long to get there. But the Duchess's brother couldn't be found anywhere.

So…he was either operating under a false identity or the Duchess had lied.

Right now she was waiting by her car. Hilda came out of the office. As far as Hogan knew, the two women were heading into town. It was fair enough. They were the only women in camp, and they were on the same side. It made sense that they'd get along. Hilda handed the Duchess a note, though and said something. The Duchess read it and nodded as the two women got into the car.

As they drove away, though, the Duchess threw the paper out of the window.

Luckily, Newkirk was collecting rubbish at that spot. He scooped it up and pocketed it. Hogan waited and nodded his head to his other men. They gathered around him in a slow and natural-looking way, just as practiced. Then Newkirk fished the paper out of his pocket and handed it to Hogan.

Hogan had known that Hilda was fluent in English but not literate.

That was why it was a surprise to see the note written in English. But the spacing of the letters made Hogan chuckle.

'I thought Hilda never learned to write in English,' Kinch remarked.

'Really?' Carter asked. 'She speaks it just fine.'

'Speaking a language and writing in it are two different things,' Hogan said. 'She wasn't actually given the message. She was given a sequence of letters. That's why it's all blurred together.' And the Duchess had glanced at it and knew what it said, so she was clearly both fluent and literate in English.

'I can read English,' LeBeau said. 'But I can't make heads or tails of this.'

Suggesting it wasn't the first time, she'd communicated with someone like this.

Kinch had already put it together as Hogan had, though. 'It says "theory confirmed. No confirmation".'

'What?' Newkirk asked. 'Is the theory confirmed or is it not?'

Maybe…that wasn't what the message meant. If the two tenses for "confirm" meant different types of confirmation. In the English language, "confirm" had three different meanings. If he was right "confirmed" meant that they had established some theory to be correct. And that left "confirmation". It could either mean that something hadn't been made definite, or it meant that someone hadn't been confirmed into a religion.

Given the Duchess's interest in religion, he'd bet on the latter.

Of course, that threw his "looking for Jews" theory right out of the window. If she had confirmed that Jews hadn't been confirmed as Jews…well, that was a culture so it wouldn't make sense in context. So what, then, was her interest in religion? And why would she be interested in people like him (and possibly him) who hadn't been confirmed into the church he was born into?

(Hogan had just never been able to buy into the idea that there was an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-benevolent God looking out for the human race.)

I'm missing something crucial.