"Was that a truck engine?" Out of breath, and doing his best to ignore the pain radiating from his ankle, Hogan pulled Kinch and Carter to a stop and turned his head and torso back toward the road.
"Yeah." Kinch said, just as breathless from the exertion and adrenaline. "Do you think Schultz sent somebody back to camp?"
"That doesn't sound like him." Carter said, his face contorting in concern.
"Those guys were supposed to keep everybody at the road!" Hogan shifted, moving his arm from Andrew's shoulder and grasping hold of the man's collarbone. "Carter, get back there, fast as you can. Make sure you aren't seen, but give me an idea of what's going on. Kinch and I will keep moving."
"You got it!" Carter said, snapping a salute before he took off through the undergrowth.
"Come on, Kinch."
"Don't you think you should r-"
"Don't start with me..." Hogan warned, reaching for a slender trunk in front of him and pulling himself and Kinch forward.
It took Carter about ten minutes to get to the road and back. In that time Hogan had managed another hundred feet or so. He was keeping the pain from his voice, but couldn't do much about the excess sweat on his brow, or the occasional wince. Kinch was about ready to once more push the boundaries when Carter scrambled through the bushes. He was coming from the wrong direction, but his apparent ability to consistently get himself lost went unnoticed when he started spouting.
"Boy, you're not gonna believe it. I heard one of the guard's talkin'. They're packin' everybody up into that extra truck and headin' back for camp. Langenscheidt is in charge and he says that.."
"Wait a minute, Langenscheidt? What happened to Schultz?"
"He fell down." Carter said.
"So was it a truck we heard, or an earthquake." Hogan quipped, then immediately regretted it when Carter's face fell. "What happened, Carter?"
"Schultz had an attack of some kind. LeBeau and Newkirk got him into one of the trucks and ordered the new guard to take them to a hospital."
"Aw no." All the energy that Hogan had been storing up for this final leg of their mission drained out of him in one go and he leaned a little heavier on Kinch.
"What do we do, Colonel?" Carter asked, looking sullen.
"Hope." Hogan said finally after a long silence. They couldn't turn back. He was the only one that could locate the supplies and information that he had hastily buried. Their contact had demanded that Papa Bear, personally, be the one to make the drop. The underground had been walking on egg shells lately and there had been too many leaks. Too many deaths. The end justified the means, but not if something permanent had happened to Schultz. "Come on, let's get this over with."
The arrival of the ailing German sergeant at the hospital inspired a rush of action from nurses, orderlies and doctors. The new guard looked like he was going to wilt under the pressure. Newkirk almost felt sorry for the man as he was bombarded by questions from the doctor, harassed about the weapon that he kept brandished at Newkirk and LeBeau, then pestered about the truck that they had left parked directly in front of the main entrance.
LeBeau and Newkirk were torn between concern for Schultz and concern for the mission that had just become all the more complicated by the medical emergency.
"What more can we do?" LeBeau was saying under his breath. "We're still officially under guard, and Corporal Willmutt doesn't have the backbone to do anything on his own."
"Not without somebody else orderin' him to do it." Newkirk agreed squinting at the white faced corporal who was still trying to explain what had happened. Newkirk had tried more than a few times to explain the situation but his English had been ignored. Prattling in fluent German was likely to draw too much attention.
"Shouldn't be long before somebody puts in a call to the ol' stalag." Newkirk muttered, pointing leisurely toward the reception desk where a stout, brown-haired and be-spectacled Frau loomed.
"Do you think Klink will come out?"
Newkirk felt a shiver go through him, remembering the look on Schultz's face. The color draining from his head, his eyes frozen open. He was a Kraut, but Newkirk couldn't help remembering that he was also a father and a husband. "It's bad enough, he just might."
The Brit felt LeBeau make himself a little smaller, tucking his chin to his chest to stare at his idle feet.
Newkirk glanced to the down turned head fairly certain he knew what was going on in the Frenchman's head. He slung his arm over the smaller man's shoulder and heard Louie sigh.
"It's war, you know? People get hurt, people die. Sometimes because of us. But..."
"We hardly ever see the white's of their eyes..." Newkirk said thoughtfully, realizing a second later that he had meant it literally as well.
A few minutes later Corporal Willmutt, finally released from the grilling, wandered in mild shock over to where the two prisoners stood, and leaned against the wall beside them taking a slow deep breath.
"You haven't been in the army long, have you, Fritz?" Newkirk asked, not sure why he felt the need to poke at the man.
It wouldn't have mattered. Wilmutt gave him a blank look, clearly not an English speaker, then paced away from the wall to salute the Frau at reception. The woman gave him a stern disapproving glare, waiting silently as the guard made his request. A moment later she stepped away from the desk and waved the guard behind it, giving him access to the phone.
"Like a proper non-com, makin' a call to the kommandant the first chance he gets." Newkirk commented, crossing his arms over his chest.
"What do we say about Kinch, Carter and le colonel?" LeBeau asked.
"Maybe we can cover for them in the confusion."
"And if we can't?"
"Hope for somethin' better."
The goods were right where they were supposed to have been.
"They're soggy, but the water tight packing held up well enough." Hogan settled the rubber-band wrapped pack inside his zipped jacket, wincing at the cold mud that started to soak into his shirt.
Kinch stood, wiping his hands free of mud and wet leaves. "Did you bury the parachute here too?"
"Nah. I crash-landed about a mile up that way. Didn't bother to bury this stuff until I was certain I wasn't going make it back for roll call."
"Do you want me to go lookin' for it?" Carter offered, sounding all too eager to go running off again.
"No. A parachute buried in the woods isn't as suspicious as a parachute being unburied by escaped POWs. It's fine where it is." Hogan shifted, felt pain blaze hard up his leg and once again regretted how long he'd been stationary.
Kinch watched the colonel's face pale then said, "How far to the rendezvous?"
"Not far. Half a mile. Come on." Carter and Kinch both got under the colonel's arms, supporting him and dutifully ignoring the sounds of pain emanating from his tightly clenched lips.
A half mile later Kinch spotted the red checkered scarf hanging from a tree branch seconds before Carter had a misstep and Hogan's ankle swung against a fallen log that none of the three men had seen.
Hogan let out a cry that he couldn't stop and collapsed against Carter, falling away from the source of pain. The sudden weight plus the misstep tipped Carter into a briar bush and Hogan went in after him, his hands flying out and straight into the thorns.
Hogan did everything he could to keep his weight off the sergeant while fighting his way back out of the briars, their winter hardened barbs sharp as needles. By the time Kinch had extracted the colonel and Carter, both were covered in tiny bleeding punctures and scratches.
Hogan could barely feel them. His ankle had gone numb with pain at first, but now it was throbbing to beat the band, making remembering to breathe a struggle. He didn't hear Kinch anxiously asking if he was okay, nor did he hear Carter give a shout when Kinch's hurried extraction caused him yet more discomfort.
By the time the throbbing began to die Carter had seated himself in front of the colonel, gingerly plucking out thorns and cradling his right wrist.
"How'd you manage to get the branch wrapped around your wrist, Andrew?" Kinch was demanding, inspecting the cuts.
"The colonel was goin' down. I was just trying to keep him from squashin' me."
"Papa Bear?"
All three men jerked their heads up toward the sound of the soft feminine voice. The young woman who had asked the question was in her late teens. Her hair had been shoved under a leather cap, and she wore boy's clothing that didn't do much to hide her developing curves. At first Hogan thought, with some alarm, that she was armed. But the shining object tucked into her hands was a small pair of black theater glasses.
Hogan sucked oxygen into his lungs and fought against the pain and dizziness getting to his feet with Kinch's help. He couldn't put any weight on his leg anymore. Even holding it aloft hurt like the dickens. He was even more aware of the leaves, thorns and dirt that now covered his uniform, and the effect his appearance might have on a nervous underground contact.
Forgoing the usual exchange of phrases and forcing as much confidence as he could manage into his tone, Hogan asked. "You're Mozart?"
"I am. At least, I am now."
"What do you mean now?" Hogan asked, hopping forward a few feet with Kinch's help until he could lean against the solid trunk of a tree, his hand inches from the red scarf that marked the rendezvous point.
"Mozart was captured by Gestapo, two nights ago." The girl said, blue eyes filling quietly with tears. "He escaped and was shot."
"Dead?" Kinch asked, quietly.
The girl nodded, sniffled, then jutted her chin out proudly. "I am here to carry on his work."
"Are you sure the rest of your organization is safe? If you need out, now's the time to do it." Hogan said, trying to remember what he had been told about the late Mozart. The man hadn't been very old. Twenty-four or twenty-five. He couldn't have been this girl's father. Her brother perhaps? Boyfriend? She didn't look old enough to be married. She certainly didn't look old enough to be a representative of the underground.
But then there were soldiers under his command that weren't that much older than she was.
"We are. For now. We have moved our home base and-"
Kinch was fidgeting beside him and Hogan knew why even as he put a hand up to stall the explanation. "The less we know about each other, the better." We already know a little too much, he thought.
Dragging the dirt caked pack out of his jacket Hogan handed it over to the girl. "Those need to get through your organization and to Nesting Doll as quickly as possible. Don't spend a lot of time dreaming up schemes on how to get it out of Germany. Just get it to your next contact and pay attention."
The girl readily accepted the advice, hungrily waiting for more and Hogan winced, extremely hesitant to leave her to her own devices.
"Once these are out of your hands, you and your people should probably lay low for a while. Wait for us to contact you again. We'll do what we can to get you some supplies and support in the mean time."
Again the girl nodded, intently hanging on Hogan's every word. Nudging at the back of his mind was the constant reminder that he had left a mess behind him while trying to pull this caper. The sooner they got back the fewer explanations he would have to come up with, and the fewer miracles he would have to rely on. Yet it was clear that the new Mozart was inexperienced and terrified.
"Are you out here alone?"
The girl nodded again and Hogan wondered how much wider her eyes could get. Experimentally he put a little pressure on his ankle and almost blacked out at the rush of pain that greeted him. He'd done too much, too soon. Just getting back to camp was going to be a nightmare. A glance behind him told him that both of his men were ready, but Carter looked like a pin cushion. The bloody collection of scratches ripped into his wrist were likely to get infected if they weren't treated.
"How far are you from home?" Hogan finally asked, sighing.
This time the girl hesitated before answering and Hogan had to smile. She was learning. "It's alright. We're changing the plan a little." Hogan urged her.
"Three miles. Not that far." The girl said, gesturing over her shoulder.
"Three miles" sounded more like fifty, but Hogan nodded then said, "Hang on a minute."
Instinctively both of his men crowded closer as Hogan turned away from the contact.
"She doesn't know what she's doin'.." Carter said, even before Hogan could bring the topic up. The colonel nodded.
"It sounds like their group is younger and more inexperienced then we were led to believe. If we're going to get those plans through we may have to do it ourselves."
"Can you make three miles?" Kinch asked, carefully.
Hogan flashed him a glare, but he knew just as well as the staff sergeant, that he didn't have three miles in him.
Carter fidgeted beside him, his lips molding around words that he was stifling intentionally. Hogan gave him an expectant look and the young man asked, "What about Schultz?"
"That's the other problem." Hogan agreed nodding his head. It had been foolish to assume that this would be simple. Even more foolish of him to assume that injured or not he could carry it out. Given new developments, however, he was grateful he had. "Alright, the two of you need to get back to camp. If you can sneak in unnoticed, do it. Get things settled there, and see if you can't contact Newkirk and LeBeau at the hospital."
The orders were met with immediate and vehement disagreement but Hogan waited patiently until the protests died. "I'm not sending either one of you back on your own. We're in damage control mode right now, I'm relying on the two of you to keep the home fires burning until I can get back there."
"But Colonel, how do we cont-"
"In twelve hours try radio contact with Mozart. If I don't answer you can start putting Plan E into action."
Both of his men stiffened and exchanged glances at that but remained quiet. Hogan watched them, not liking that he'd had to say it, anymore than they liked hearing it.
"Get back to camp. Do what you can to keep Klink calm."
"Where do we say you are Colonel?"
Hogan thought about it a moment then took in a breath-