Once back in the barracks, LeBeau began gathering food for their guests' breakfast, starting with the big loaf of black bread Newkirk had surreptitiously been slipped by one of the chow line servers and had smuggled back under his long coat. LeBeau set Carter to carving it into slices while he looked to see what he could supplement it with. Extra supplies were scarce at the moment.

Hogan waved Kinch into his office, then slid onto the stool in front of his desk while Kinch leaned casually against the bunk bed.

"I want contact between this crew and the other men in camp kept to a minimum; the fewer that know about who's here this time, the better. Core team only."

Kinch nodded. "He does look unmistakably like you, Colonel."

"Yeah. While he was growing up, I kept looking for Katie in him, but mostly I just saw me. The Mahoneys sure would've liked him to look like them, but he's a Hogan through and through." Hogan shook his head slightly, then changed the subject. "The next message to London, let them know we've got Luck's crew here, so they'll head off notifying their families, then tell them we need a courier plane. Tell them we have a package whose price is too high for the usual channels."

Kinch raised his eyebrows. "A courier plane? They won't all fit. We'll get a couple in if we're lucky, three at the most.

Hogan nodded. "The others will go by the usual route."

"They seem pretty tight with each other. Won't like splitting up that way," Kinch added dubiously.

Hogan shrugged. "They don't have to like it. They just have to do it. It's too dangerous to have Bobby go the usual route. If he got captured, we could have the Gestapo on our doorstep in just a couple of hours, once his picture and his name got into the system, if they were seen by the wrong people."

"Right." Kinch paused, letting the plan settle in. "LeBeau should have breakfast sorted out. You going down below now?"

Hogan nodded, and the two went out into the main room. LeBeau and Carter were already below, with Newkirk on his way down. Hogan and Kinch followed them. They found Captain Luck and his crew all up, eyes lighting up at the sight of food, even if it was only black bread, some jam, and more ersatz coffee.

"How'd you fellas sleep?" Hogan inquired generally, though his eyes came to rest on his son.

"Okay," said Captain Luck answered for everyone, glancing around.

"We hear you run the best hotel in town—though I don't think much of your competition, sir," Watts wisecracked.

"Trust me, you don't want to try the other one," Newkirk chuckled, and got an assortment of muffled agreements as the crew tried to chew their way through the bread.

"Geez, this is tough," Toft complained. "What's in it, sawdust?"

"Possibly. The Kommandant's been trying to stretch the food budget recently." LeBeau's matter-of-fact assent clearly surprised them, and after trading uneasy glances, they all settled down to chewing.

Lieutenant Hogan kept his gaze down on his bread, Kinch noted: he hadn't met his father's eyes or said a word since they'd come down. That looked like trouble to him. But the Colonel wasn't pushing; he was playing it cool. Right approach or wrong one with that kid? Kinch wondered as he fiddled with the radio headset. The sound quality wasn't right, it seemed to be going dead off and on. A new radio problem was certainly trouble they didn't need at the moment.

Once everyone had finished eating, Hogan's men began clean up and arranging for the visiting crew to wash up and shave. Hogan beckoned Captain Luck down one of the side tunnels. "I'd like a word with you, Captain."

He led him a fair way down the tunnel, till he was sure they were out of earshot of the rest of the men.

Luck looked at him, curious but wary. "Yes, sir?"

"We're calling London for a courier plane," Hogan explained abruptly. "It'll take two, maybe three of your men back to London, depending on what plane they send. Lieutenant Hogan will be one of them; I need you to choose who the other two might be, and prioritize them. The rest of you will follow the usual escape route to the coast and be picked up by submarine there."

Luck frowned, and folded his arms across his chest. "I trust all of my men, Colonel. They can all handle the usual route. I don't want to split up my team."

Hogan frowned. "I trust all of mine too, Captain, but individual men have different strengths. There are some situations I'd send Newkirk into over Carter, and vice versa. It's not a matter of trust; it's choosing the man with the best talents for the assignment. We have a remarkable success rate on getting men to the coast, but it's no cakewalk. You'll have guides, and you'll be hidden for a lot of the trip, but sometimes you'll be out in the open, and more vulnerable to capture. So weigh their intelligence, their ability to think on their feet, and their patience. The ones who will do best overland will be street smart but patient, not too excitable or impulsive. If you have someone who speaks any German on your crew, he ought to go overland."

Luck shifted his jaw to the left momentarily, his eyes on Hogan. "Yes, I have one who knows some German, took it in high school. That'd be—well, to you, Colonel, I guess I should say Lieutenant Hogan."

Hogan couldn't help it; he rolled his eyes heavenward in exasperation, before fixing them back on the recalcitrant crew commander. "Captain Luck," he said, his tone impatient, "I'm asking for your professional evaluation of your men, officer to officer. Which three will cope best with the escape route? Which one will go on the plane with Lieutenant Hogan if there's space? And who is the reserve, if the plane's big enough?"

Luck scowled at him, but Hogan held his gaze firmly. "Captain? I don't have all day."

Luck finally dropped his eyes. "Watts. He can't resist smarting off to anyone, as you've already seen, and I suppose that could cause trouble. And if there's space, Toft. He's a bit more high-strung than Burgin, who's smart and calm, though pretty shy. Smoot and I will go overland with Burgin, and Toft if necessary, since that's more dangerous, sir." He looked back up at Hogan, as if expecting a challenge to his judgment.

Hogan shook his head, relieved that Luck's two picks were also the smallest of the team; that might help if they were crunched for space in a small plane. "The plane is more dangerous in some ways, since it could be shot down. But that's how B—I mean, Lieutenant Hogan's got to go. Till we have the okay from London, though, keep this between us, captain. I'll start Kinch drilling all of you on language; the others will work on civilian clothes and papers for you."

"What's the timeline on all this, sir?" Luck asked, glowering.

"We'll have to see what London says about the courier plane, and what the weather brings. I'd guess a day or two on that, if we're lucky, and another couple to get the rest of you ready to go."

Luck frowned. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Hogan raised his brows and folded his arms across his chest. "I was under the impression that you were already doing so, Captain."

Luck put his hands on his waist, elbows out. "Colonel, Lieutenant Hogan is going to figure that you're ordering that plane for him, even if there's one or two others on it. He's not going to go for being the reason we split up."

Hogan answered him coolly, "Then, Captain, I'll be depending on you as his commanding officer to make it clear that this is a benefit for your crew as a whole. Quite frankly, we couldn't send all six of you through usual channels as a single group anyway; it'll have to be in pairs. Maybe a trio, but that's more noticeable, so more risky."

"Why are you so set on the plane, if it's more dangerous, as you say? Looks like if you're trying to keep your boy out of harm's way, you'd send him the 'safer' route with the rest of us? . . . Sir," he added, belatedly.

Hogan glared at him. "This isn't preferential treatment, Captain. If Lieutenant Hogan gets caught on the overland route, it'd put a whole lot of people, most of them civilians, in danger—my whole underground network, which is going to be helping the rest of you escape. If he was caught, it wouldn't take much for him to be identified as my son by the Nazis, and he'd be a gold mine for the Gestapo if they saw the connection. They're already suspicious enough of this area in general and me in particular. The combination of his face and his name make him dangerous, Captain."

Luck gave him a long assessing look, then said, his tone level and deliberate, "Then I guess you should have let him carry the name of the family that raised him. Sir."

Hogan jerked slightly, like he'd been punched, then nodded grimly. "Yeah. Guess I should have," he snarled, then turned on his heel to stalk back down the tunnel.