Chapter Two:

"Another German pulling up, Colonel!" Garlotti shouted from his post by the door, interrupting Hogan mid-sentence.

"Well, that's not quite who I had in mind," Hogan sighed. "Anybody we know?"

Garlotti peered outside, squinting his eyes. "Dunno. He doesn't look familiar."

Hogan stood up and made for the window. A drab-colored Kübelwagen with some sort of insignia painted on its doors pulled up alongside Hochstetter's staff car. A Luftwaffe officer stepped out, slamming the door behind himself and rocking the small vehicle on its wheels. He tugged a worn officer's cap onto his head, setting it at the angle favored by combat flyers, and jogged up the steps to Klink's office, barely acknowledging the private keeping guard at the door, who was standing at attention as if his life depended on it.

"And so the plot thickens," Hogan observed. "What do you fellas say to a cup of coffee?"

"Sounds good," Kinch said. "Though I'm wondering how good."

"Let's go find out."

The door to Klink's office flew open, making the perpetually nervous Kommandant start in his chair. Hochstetter, anticipating the return of the insufferable Hogan, turned round with his teeth already grating together, and found himself confronted with a cross-looking Luftwaffe officer.

"Are you Major Wolfgang Hochstetter?"

"Yes, I am," the man in question growled, none too happily. "Who wants to know?"

"Colonel Franz Kohlrausch. I'm in command of the fighter wing two districts over," the man said irritably, throwing up a hand in bored acknowledgement of Klink's salute. "Are you the one responsible for that blasted radio car that's being towed around the area?"

"Yes, why?"

"You have to shut it down. It's interfering with the radios in our aircraft. Communications get scrambled every time we fly over the wretched thing and so do location transmissions."

"Pity. I recommend you fly around it next time." Hochstetter snipped, in no mood for further delays.

Kohlrausch's eyebrows lowered. "Major, that was an order."

"The Gestapo does not take orders from the Luftwaffe, much less field officers."

Klink, eager to dissolve the growing tension and noting the lack of any additional staff milling about the office, asked what he took to be a neutral question. "Colonel Kohlrausch, you can't have driven yourself all the way here?"

"Yes, I did!" Kohlrausch snapped, verbally rounding on the hapless Kommandant. "Because all of my staff are currently filling bomb craters in our runways, as are my off-duty pilots. Some of us are actually busy fighting a war, instead of polishing chairs with our backsides or running about playing spy."

"Playing spy! Bah! I am in close pursuit of the single greatest threat to German national security!"

"The greatest threat to German security crossed the Rhine yesterday afternoon, Major," Kohlrausch said, his voice like acid.

"No doubt thanks to the Luftwaffe! You fighter pilots are so useless you can't even protect your own airfields from bombing raids!"

Kohlrausch lost his composure at the insult. He barked a retort at Hochstetter, comparing members of the Gestapo to various species of invertebrates. Hochstetter, not to be outdone, accused the collective Luftwaffe of a detailed list of vices. The argument continued to rise in volume and viciousness, threatening to overwhelm the coffee pot's limited capabilities with a deluge of furious German.

"Domestic quarrels. Such a tragedy," Newkirk said, shaking his head.

Hogan grinned. "I would go watch the fireworks myself, but something tells me I wouldn't be welcome."

"Entertaining as it is to listen to the Krauts rip each other apart, weren't you going to tell us about your plan for Nimrod, Colonel?" queried Baker.

"That I was. But our family quarrel here has put a new spin on things," Hogan said, remembering the schematic of the jet.

Carter made a face. "We're not going to have one of the Germans play Nimrod, are we, sir?"

"Not necessarily. Of course, that all depends on a few different puzzle pieces…and who ever said Nimrod was only one person?"

Kinch waited nervously for Newkirk to finish picking the lock. Colonel Hogan's plan to create multiple possible Nimrods was equal parts brilliant and insane. The plan had no business working but Kinch had no doubts that it would—Hogan's plans somehow always did.

Hat pulled as low as it would go, Kinch peeked around the corner of a hallway in the Luftwaffe base they had snuck into. No one was in sight. Good.

"Got it," Newkirk said as he pushed open the door to Kohlrausch's office.

Slipping inside, the two POWs quickly got to work. Newkirk pulled out a camera and began searching for any intelligence that would be valuable to London. Kinch set down his bag and pulled out a transmitter radio. He just needed a place to hide it.

A fake plant provided the perfect cover, especially once he realized that the radio would fit under the pot. Now he just had to connect the wires to the building's system and run the antenna up the back up the plant. Taking out his tools, Kinch got to work.

"Jackpot!" Newkirk exclaimed in a loud whisper. "A map of the anti-aircraft batteries for the whole area."

Kinch smiled as he connected the final wires. "Got it. You have everything you need?"

Newkirk replied by patting his pocket.

"Be ready to move quick." Kinch turned the dials so that they were set up to talk to a very special set. Then he turned the radio on so that it could receive. His final task was to hide a well-read British novel next to the radio before following the English POW out the door. Anyone who worked in communications knew that the most secure codes were those that used numbers to designate which word on a specific page, paragraph and line that one was referring to. The code only worked if both parties had access to the same edition of a novel, and anyone who saw an English book next to a hidden radio would assume the worst.

And if there was one thing they could count on, it was Hochstetter assuming the worst.

LeBeau did his best to look calm and in control as he followed Carter into Gestapo headquarters. They knew the building well—they'd been inside plenty of times before—and they knew that as long as you were in uniform and acted like you had a reason for being there, you were rarely questioned. Colonel Hogan liked to joke that the Keystone Cops had better security, whatever that meant.

When they arrived at Hochstetter's office the hallway was clear. So pulling out a key that Newkirk had borrowed ages ago, LeBeau unlocked the door and stepped inside. The place gave him the spooks. It was basic: desk, chairs, file cabinets. The only decorations were the photos of Hitler and other party leaders on the walls.

Wordlessly, Carter moved to the desk and began looking through the papers, while LeBeau inspected the file cabinets. He pulled out anything that looked interesting and handed it over to the American to photograph, taking careful note of where he got it from to make sure that it was returned to the same spot. Meanwhile, he carefully added new files to the stacks.

Those files were the main reason for their mission this night. The files contained high level intelligence: some fake, some real but outdated. And all of the files concerned intelligence that Hochstetter was not authorized to see; if they were discovered they would make people wonder if the Gestapo officer was entirely loyal.

Finished, LeBeau looked over at Carter who was photographing papers at Hochstetter's desk. "Find anything useful?"

"Locations of some checkpoints and ammo dumps in the area."

"Finish up. I do not want to be found in here."

"No kidding."

It didn't Carter long to put the camera away and tidy up the desk. Once they were safely out of the building, LeBeau looked at his friend and said, "I wonder how Colonel Hogan is doing?"

At that very moment, Hogan was doing what he did best: conning poor Klink. The Kommandant was suffering from shattered nerves after the visits of Kohlrausch and the increasingly irascible Hochstetter, and he had begged the American colonel to spend the evening playing chess.

"As if I didn't have enough to worry about, Colonel Hogan," Klink said as he morosely viewed the chess pieces lined up on the board. "Your American bombers are flying day and night laying waste to the countryside, while here at Stalag 13 I struggle to keep you and hundreds of your comrades safe and fed. There is no justice in this war."

"No justice in any war, Kommandant," Hogan said absently as he reached for one of his knights. Too bad Newkirk isn't here, he thought, caressing the smooth wooden surface of the playing piece. I'm not exactly the greatest at this sleight-of-hand stuff.

But fortunately at that moment the telephone on Klink's desk jangled. As the Kommandant crossed the room to answer it, Hogan swiftly exchanged the knight for one he pulled from his pocket.

"Kommandant Klink here...Oh! General Burkhalter, how nice of you to call...Yes, yes, I know, nothing is nice in Germany right now...Tomorrow? Well, of course, but…." He pulled the receiver from his ear and stared at it blankly. "He didn't even say Heil Hitler."

Hogan shook his head. "Risky business to forget that, with the Gestapo so jumpy right now and all. Do I take it we will be receiving a visitor tomorrow at our little resort here?"

Klink dropped the receiver into its cradle and came back to his chair to drop himself in it. "Yes, and I am not looking forward to it. Things are going from very, very bad to unimaginably bad, Hogan. "

"Oh, I don't know about that," Hogan replied with a casual shrug. "The General might even tone down Hochstetter a bit, since he can't stand the guy." He paused, frowning. "Or not. Funny how Hochstetter is trying to track down this Nimrod character, and Burkhalter just happens to show up. Not that I know anything about it; I never even heard of Nimrod before Hochstetter started ranting about him."

"I wish I had never heard of him!" Klink said bitterly. "Would you believe that eighteen months ago Hochstetter and General Burkhalter were in this very office, accusing ME of being Nimrod! Such nonsense!"

Hogan linked his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. "Hmmm."

"What?" Instantly alarmed, Klink looked up from the chessboard. "Hogan, what do you mean by that?"

Hogan gave a sigh and leaned toward his opponent, concern written all over his face. "There's never smoke without fire, Kommandant. If those two suspected you then, I wouldn't be surprised if they still suspect you."

"Why not?" the Kommandant said with a voice of utter despair. "If the Russians don't get here soon the Americans will, so what does it matter if Hochstetter has me executed before that happens?"

"Take it easy, okay?" Hogan soothed. "Put yourself in my hands, Colonel Klink, and I'll make sure you're around to hand over the camp when that nineteen-year-old second lieutenant drives through the front gates with his Sherman tank. You remember—the high school senior from Wichita, Kansas? I might even put in a good word for you."

Klink fixed his anxious blue gaze on the man seated across from him. "You promise?"

"I promise. Word of an officer and a gentleman."

Back in Barracks 2, Hogan entered the common room and looked around. He noted with relief that Kinch and Newkirk had returned, flushed with success from their part of the mission. But two men were still missing, and Hogan frowned. "LeBeau and Carter not back yet?"

"No," said Kinch. "But it shouldn't be long now."

"They had to take Klink's motorcycle, you know," Olsen offered. "That thing's been acting up lately."

"Yeah, I know." Hogan began to pace as the entire barracks watched. "Okay, Kohlrausch and Hochstetter are accounted for. I've left a phony microfilm in a chess piece in Klink's office, so that takes care of the Kommandant. Plus we've got Burkhalter coming tomorrow. If he's carrying any intel, we'll switch it out with papers that finger him as a British spy."

"Hoo-boy," Baker said. "Then we'll have yet another candidate for Nimrod on the premises!"

"Don't forget Schultz," said LeBeau. "His overcoat is now carrying maps of troop movements."

Kinch grinned. "And Captain Gruber, Lieutenant Bergmann and Corporal Langenscheidt all have incriminating evidence in their footlockers. Nimrods galore, Colonel."

Baker tossed aside the worn paperback he'd been reading. "Looks like all the bases are covered, sir. Seems like the only thing we're missing is…"

The bunk entrance flew up at that moment and LeBeau and Carter climbed out. Hogan noted with alarm that they didn't look too happy. "What's wrong, fellas? Didn't you manage to get into Hochstetter's office?"

"Oui, certainement! We did, mon Colonel, but we had difficulties coming back here."

"Boy, did we ever," Carter interjected. "First we had a flat tire, then when we got to the tree stump, somebody was waiting for us!"

A premonition of disaster swept over Hogan, and he said bluntly, "Who?"

A third person climbed out of the bunk entrance and Hogan's premonition was fulfilled. In spades.

"Hogan, darling!"