Chapter 14:

"Blimey, Andrew; aren't you done with those fliers yet?" Newkirk nagged, hovering over the young sergeant like a hawk. Starting at the crack of dawn, Hogan's men and Kalina were making dozens and dozens of missing fliers to hang all around Downtown Stuttgart while listening to Christmas music play on the hotel radio. Partly to find their beloved friend easier, the other being an excuse to meet with their contact at Agatha's later that evening. It was approaching 10:30, and the group of five were still down by a third of their goal. Mostly due to Carter having trouble on deciding what color construction paper to use as each flier's background.

"Just give me a minute, won't yah?" Carter remarked tersely, holding a glue stick in one hand and a missing Hogan flier in the other while staring down at two different colored construction papers. "I can't decide whether to use blue or pink for the next one."

"What bloomin' difference does it make to you? Just pick one already!"

Carter made a long frown before answering. "I just don't wanna make the other colors feel neglected is all."

Newkirk removed his cap and threw it at his best friend's face. "Just go with blue, and put a ruddy sock in it."

Carter gave the Englishman a pouty glare as Newkirk walked off to where Kinch was neatly organizing completed fliers, LeBeau was writing all the information down on blank sheets of paper, and Kalina was coloring cartoon pictures of Hogan above LeBeau's handwritten work. Between all of them, the process was rather speedy, and Kalina's art skills made Hogan's cartoon picture resemble more of a photograph than a comic strip character.

Newkirk leaned over Kalina's shoulder and grinned impressively down at her cartoon work. "Little mate, those drawings are incredible. Why, if Colonel Hogan could see these himself, he'd be knocked right off his feet." He praised the young girl, getting a bashful smile in response.

"I might keep one of them to show him when we finally find him," she answered softly, turning her eyes back to her artwork.

"Where do you guys think he might be at anyways?" Carter asked, gluing another flier to a green colored construction paper.

"Well, if he's as badly injured as we all assume he is, then he's probably not too far from a doctor's care," Kinch said, crossing his arms thoughtfully.

"Yeah, but what bloomin' doctor?" Newkirk asked, with a shake of his head. "This city's gigantic, mates; there's probably hundreds of doctors roamin' around this place, and we only got 48 hours left to find the right one."

Kalina pursed her lips, when the five of them were abruptly taken out of their thoughts by the hotel room door opening. Hochstetter made his way inside unannounced while wearing his infamous grumpy expression. He stopped a few feet in front of Kinch, who turned to the major with a questioning gaze.

"Any luck, Major?" The radioman asked.

"If you consider dead ends 'luck', then I've had plenty all morning," Hochstetter answered back, with a growl. "I have interviewed every guest and employee in this hotel, and not a single one of them have seen a man fitting Hogan's description. How can it be this difficult to find an American prisoner among a group of German citizens?"

Newkirk took his cigarette out of his mouth and blew a puff of smoke. "You do realize we're in a city with over 400,000 people in it, right Sir?"

Hochstetter muttered something under his breath and shook his head with frustration. "How did I get assigned to this mess in the first place?" He asked himself.

"Well, I think it all goes back to when Colonel Hogan was kidnapped by one of…" Carter was cut off by LeBeau, who gave the young sergeant a glare from the table.

"Andrѐ, blue or pink for the next flier?"

Carter fell dead silent, looked back down at the colored construction paper, then put his hand to his chin and began to deeply contemplate the 'huge' decision.

LeBeau made his eyes back to his friends and Hochstetter. "There," he said, returning to his writing. "He will be quiet for a few minutes now."

Newkirk turned his attention to Kinch after taking a drag on his cigarette. "Kinch mate, we got all these ideas on how to find the Gov'nor, but what the bloody hell are we gonna do with that Williams bloke? He's gotta be stopped before he really does kill the Gov'nor."

"And once we find the Colonel, we'll think of something," Kinch said, crossing his arms. "Right now, though, my main concern is finding Colonel Hogan. 'Cause if we don't find him first, Williams will. And if Williams finds him...then we won't need to find Colonel Hogan anymore."

Hours had passed, and night had finally fallen. At approximately 7:45 p.m. Hogan's men, Kalina, and Hochstetter left the comfort of their hotel rooms and took a taxi to Downtown Stuttgart and headed inside Agatha's Hofbrau. They were immediately greeted with dim lighting, live music, and officers of all kinds dancing to the songs being performed on stage. Other patrons sat at the bar table drinking alcohol or shamelessly flirting with the bartenders and waitresses.

"I don't understand why you had to pick the noisiest place in the entire city to hand out fliers to people." Hochstetter scowled, a headache beginning to form inside his skull.

"Well, they do say the noisiest places are the busiest places," Carter said, already going to work with passing out copies to other patrons.

"And busy places means more people that might have seen the Gov'nor around the area." Newkirk added.

"Major Hochstetter," Kalina said, stretching out a pile of papers towards him. "Would you like to hand out some fliers, too?"

Hochstetter gnarled his teeth as he yanked his stack out of the girl's hand and stormed over to the bar table, grabbing the nearest available stool. He placed the papers in front of him and made his gaze to one of the bartenders. "Get me something extra strong and extra large," he ordered, placing a few marks on the table. "Possibly something that will make me forget tonight ever happened."

The bartender nodded, deep concern written all over his face, then walked over to where the drinks were stored and looked for something that would fulfill the major's request.

While Hochstetter drank his problems away, LeBeau leaned towards Kinch, who was observing Newkirk, Carter, and Kalina hand out as many fliers as possible to incoming and outgoing patrons. "When is this contact of ours supposed to come, mon ami?" He asked, having to speak up a bit with the loud music muffling his voice.

Kinch looked down at his watch briefly, then back up at LeBeau. "Otto said he would be here in another ten minutes or less," he answered. "He'll give us the initial contact signal, and we'll go from there."

"But how will we know it is him? We do not even know what he looks like."

As if on cue, a tall man wearing a suit and tie, black trench coat, and fedora entered inside the restaurant with his hands stuffed inside his jacket pockets. He let his eyes wander among the crowd of people for a long while before spotting Kinch and LeBeau standing near the front of the building. Kinch lifted his eyes once sensing someone was staring at him and spotted the stranger across the room. He watched as the man lifted one of his hands and ran his fingers across the edge of his black hat as a type of code. A type of signal. The contact signal. It was him.

Kinch and LeBeau looked at one another, nodded, then approached the mysterious man, who they could see had dark brown hair and emerald green eyes once in close distance of him. Kinch checked to see if anyone was watching them, then leaned over a bit to the man's left once certain no one was paying them any attention. "You're the man Night Owl sent here?" He asked quietly.

The man did the same security measures, then stuck his right hand out to the left, his eyes never leaving sight of what was ahead of him. "Adolph Eckerle, Special Operations Unit of the underground."

"Sergeant Kinchloe, second-in-command to Papa Bear," Kinch said, taking the hand in for a shake.

"Night Owl says you had a code red assignment for me."

"Papa Bear is in real danger currently. He's been critically injured by a rogue Gestapo Kraut, and we have a rabid cub trying to find and assassinate him. We need you to locate said rabid cub and alert us of his whereabouts ASAP. Papa Bear's life depends on it."

"Does this cub have a name?"

"Williams. Sergeant Jack Williams of the United States Army Air Force. He's an escaped convict from London and former POW of Stalag 13. We're in some serious hot water if he succeeds with this homicide plot of his."

Eckerle narrowed his eyes at the radioman. "Williams…" he repeated to himself. "I've heard of him. He tried to sell us out last time he was here in order to gain his freedom."

"You've got the right cockroach in mind, my friend," Kinch said, with a reaffirming nod.

"How long do I have to locate him?"

"After tomorrow morning, about 24 hours. We're in a bit of a time crunch."

Eckerle nodded in acknowledgement, his expression remaining completely neutral. "That is a time crunch indeed," he answered. "I will put my two best men on it immediately. One of them will contact you the minute they find out something. Where are you and the others currently staying?"

As Kinch opened his mouth to speak, the sound of another man's voice interrupted his train of thought.

"This man," he said. "I know this man, I've seen him before."

Completely forgetting their current tasks at hand, Hogan's men and Kalina hurried to the voice's owner, a Gestapo captain who was sitting at a table with a colleague and a few glasses of beer in the center of the table. The captain had his finger pointed at the cartoon drawing of Hogan on the flier and showing it to the officer sitting beside him.

"Excuse me," Newkirk said, bringing both Germans' attention to the group. Newkirk pointed at the flier. "Did you just say you've seen this man before?"

"Ja, he was on the same train I was on over a week ago. He was with two medics trying to perform emergency surgery on him right on the car's floor." The captain replied, then he shook his head. "He did not look too good, either. Very pale; lots of blood."

"Do you know where he is?" Carter asked, his spirits rising with hope.

"He was rushed off the train once we arrived in the city and into an ambulance. Took him to the hospital, I believe."

"What's the name of the hospital?" Kinch asked urgently.

The captain shook his head. "I don't know," he answered. "There are over 20 hospitals in this city."

"20?!" Kalina gasped.

"40, if you count military hospitals." The captain added.

"Guys, what are we gonna do?" Carter asked. "We don't have time to search 40 hospitals. Colonel Hogan could be anywhere in this city."

Kinch rubbed his chin as he began to pace back and forth, his brain scrambling for a solution. Just as all hope was about to be lost, it hit him. He snapped his fingers and turned back to face his friends. "I got it. We'll compile a list of all of the hospitals in Stuttgart, then we'll split it up among the four of us and call each of them one by one to see if the Colonel's a patient there. Newkirk, you'll take A-G. LeBeau, you have H-N. Carter, you take O-T, and I'll take U-Z."

The captain narrowed his gaze at the five of them, then his eyes widened up as he realized who these men were before him. "Wait a minute," he said. "You four are prisoners of war. What are you doing here? And where is your kommandant?"

"Forgive us, Herr Hauptmann," Kalina said softly. "We're here on a search and rescue mission with Major Hochstetter of the Hammelburg Gestapo. Orders of General Burkhalter."

"Major Hochstetter," the captain repeated, the name ringing a bell. He looked around the building and spotted a man fitting the major's description, but his eyes nearly fell out of his head when he saw what Hochstetter's current mental state was. "Is that him over there drunk dancing?" He asked, pointing his finger to where the bar table was located.

Hogan's men and Kalina turned their attention in the direction of the captain's finger and momentarily felt their hearts stop when they saw the sight before them. Hochstetter was swaying back and forth with a few other drunk SS-officers, all of them poorly singing to the Christmas songs being performed on stage while spilling their drinks every now and then on the floor.

Kinch was the first one to come out of shock and pinched the bridge of his nose while closing his eyes in misery. "Geezus," he muttered to himself. He opened his eyes and signaled for Newkirk to follow him. "Newkirk, help me get the Major outside, and call a taxi back to the hotel, won't you?"

"Right, mate," the English corporal answered, and walked over to the bar table with Kinch, leaving Carter, LeBeau, and Kalina to themselves. They exchanged looks with one another, shrugged their shoulders, then waved 'goodbye' to the Gestapo captain before following Kinch, Newkirk, and a staggering Hochstetter out the door.