Tully stuck a matchstick in his mouth, and glanced back up at the entrance to HQ.

Moffitt had been gone for awhile, night was coming on, and if he didn't come soon, they'd have to either stay at HQ for the night or do some night driving to get back to camp. Night driving. He couldn't say that he hated a lot of things, but night driving wasn't the best habit to get into.

The door opened and Moffitt came out, walking quickly to the jeeps. He was probably thinking of night coming on too. When he was in speaking distance, Troy asked, "What did Boggs want?"

Moffitt hesitated for just a moment, then smiled a little. "He wanted to commend me for a job well done. The last mission." He didn't say anything else, just got in the jeep Tully was already sitting in and relaxed back against the seat. Tully gunned the engine, same as Hitch, and the two jeeps took off.

Tully kept his eyes on the road, but he could see Moffitt out of the corner of his eye. He seemed tense, nervous even. His hand kept tapping the side of the jeep, and his posture was rigid. Riding or driving a jeep, with all the noise and dust didn't exactly make for easy conversation, so Tully didn't say anything. He concentrated on driving fast as possible, intent on getting to camp before they ran into problems with the dark coming on.

:::

Moffitt stretched a little as he left the jeep for the tiny fire Troy had going. They'd made it to the tiny oasis they spent some nights at – after approaching it cautiously in case a German patrol had decided to stay the night – and now Troy was making coffee, Tully was getting some blankets from the jeeps, and Hitch was cooking up some beans or something of that sort.

The lie he'd told rankled in his mind, even if it was a little thing. He understood now just how difficult this mission would be when it came to the rest of his teammates. He was used to keeping little to no secrets from them – and, of course, never outright lying. Reading his letters from home to Tully, sharing opinions with Troy, or teaching Hitch Arabic. And now he'd have to conceal everything from them, even lie to them, in order to protect the mission.

Tully reached the fire about the same time he did, having shook out the blankets they kept in the back of the jeeps, and they both sat down opposite Troy. He was nearly done with the coffee, and Moffitt accepted a tin mug of it. He'd never had much taste for the drink, but it was hard to get tea, for one reason or another, so he'd started drinking coffee more often.

Beside him, Tully unscrewed the lid of his canteen and drained it in a couple of gulps. Driving was thirsty work.

His fingers worked in the sand, rubbing grains between his fingers, pushing his hand into the softness of it over and over again. Once he realized what he was doing, he stopped. It was yet another example of his worry. Worry about deceiving Tully and Hitch and Troy, worry about what they'd think when he escaped with one of the jeeps, but even more, worry about the coming mission.

It would be difficult, simply because he'd never once even thought of defecting, so his part would be that much harder to play. His last undercover mission, the one he'd told Troy Boggs had been congratulating him on, hadn't gone well. Posing as an electrician to gain access to important documents had gone horribly awry, so he understood why was a 'come as you are' sort of thing. Slightly less risk. Still, every time he thought about that mission, he felt sick.

"What's on your mind?" Troy asked, pouring himself another cup. Hitch was stirring beans a little off to the side of the fire's centre. Tully's chin rested on his knees, the picture of relaxation. But Moffitt knew he was listening intently to everything that was said. Tully had an uncanny ability to sense things, and he probably had felt a little of the tension that he was experiencing.

Moffitt shrugged. "Nothing, really." He held his mug up a little. "Good coffee."

Troy looked at him, puzzled, and Moffitt realized that he hadn't taken one sip.

Night. Dark and cold.

Moffitt had taken the first watch – something he regularly did anyway – and now that everyone else was sleeping, it was time to act. A simple matter of starting one of the jeeps and driving away as fast as he could. If he made a quick enough getaway, then the others wouldn't be able to catch him before he made it to German HQ. Once he was within walking distance of the building, he'd leave the jeep and approach on foot. Less threatening that way. Simple and easy.

Only it didn't seem all that simple to him.

He was sure that the others wouldn't think of him as a traitor, but they needed to at least be surprised and alarmed so that any German spies lurking around would be satisfied that he had, in all actuality, defected. But the thought of stealing a jeep, leaving without a word, and possibly leaking information to the Germans that would make the team's war a lot harder to fight, made his stomach churn.

It had to be done though, so he slid into the driver's seat of Tully's jeep, and after a moment – just to steel himself – he started the engine and blasted out of the camp.

No looking back, no hesitation. Although he'd found the loud engine annoying many times, he was glad for it now. He couldn't hear anyone shouting after him. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, foot on the gas, he concentrated on putting as much distance between himself and the camp possible. There was no time to think about what lay ahead in the next few hours, which was good.

Because if he'd thought long and hard about it, his resolve might have faltered.

First there was silence, then the next moment that silence was broken by the sound of a jeep engine.

:::

Tully sat up, blinking, unable to see anything through the darkness and sleepiness that fogged his brain, not to mention his eyesight. By the time his head cleared, all he could make out was a little dot of a jeep moving further and further away at a killing speed.

Troy and Hitch were up too. But Moffitt wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"He...he took the jeep," Hitch said after a few moments of stunned silence.

Yawning, even though the situation was anything but casual – he just couldn't help it – Tully stood up. He was still half-asleep and none of it really made sense. Moffitt wouldn't go off like that, would he? That was stupid, wasn't it? What possible reason would he have? Unless he was sleep walking. Or sleep driving.

"Did you see anything Tully?" Troy asked.

Tully shook his head.

"Let's go." Troy jumped onto the remaining jeep, Hitch got into the shotgun seat, and Tully started the engine. In a moment, they were after Moffitt, taking the same route he had. Straight across the desert.

:::

At one point, Moffitt thought he heard another jeep, but he pushed the vehicle a little harder, and soon the sound died away.

He was actually doing it. Getting away from the Rat Patrol was next to impossible, unless you were a member of it yourself. He wasn't exactly happy with how everything was turning out, but at least there was a little relief in the fact that his mission wasn't a failure. Yet. The adrenaline that had poured through him during the first few minutes of the getaway had subsided and he felt calm. Calmer, at least.

It was always like this at the start of undercover work. If he was nervous and distraught, the enemy would catch that immediately and be suspicious. So he'd trained himself to always be calm and in control as much as he could. Of course, turning himself over to the enemy as a defector didn't really leave many areas for him to be in control of.

A couple more hours of driving brought him within a mile of German headquarters.

He drove the jeep into some scrubby trees and underbrush, and then continued on foot. Tully's never going to forgive me for abandoning the jeep, he thought, more as a joke than anything else, but the humour in the situation died away quickly. He was heading straight into the jaws of the lion, to become another one of its jackals.