Hogan did his best not to react, but the information sank in too fast, the anger building exponentially, too swiftly for him to ignore. He kept the truck on the road, struggling not to let his emotions run them into a ditch.
"You'd best explain." He said, through gritted teeth.
"It's a long st-"
Hogan overrode the mouse-like voice furiously. "It could take years to explain and I would still want to hear it. In a minute you're going to explain exactly why you betrayed your family for that mind-boggling idiot, but first I want you to understand two things. You're done in Germany. This is the last you're ever going to see of it, so take a good look around."
"And the other thing."
"That all depends on how good your story is." Hogan said then focused on the road waiting for the girl to begin.
The radio on the desk crackled, drawing the attention of every man in Klink's office. A moment later Corporal Langenschiedt's voice broke over the hiss of noise. "Stalag 13, come in please. Stalag 13."
Klink hefted the hand set and toggled the button. "Yes, Corporal Langenscheidt, this Colonel Klink speaking."
"Herr Kommandant, I would not disturb you but...we had something strange pass through our road block."
The comment was met briefly by silence. Louie and Peter exchanged a glance, intently focused now on the hesitant voice coming through the tiny speaker.
"Go on." Klink urged.
"There was a truck, Herr Kommandant, full of young men. They were dressed in SS uniforms, and they were armed."
"Young men?" Klink asked, his mind slowly catching up to the other important pieces of information in the coporal's report. SS uniforms. Armed. Their age aside there was only one reason that a truck full of SS men would have for being out and about at that hour.
"How long ago, Corporal?"
"Ten minutes. Perhaps fifteen." Langenscheidt responded.
"Did you see where they went?"
"One of my men thinks that he knows whe-"
"Follow them. Follow them and report back to me as soon as you know where they are headed."
"You don't know what it's like."
How many times had he heard that line?
"I was happy. I had a life. I was the smartest girl in my school. I was popular. We were rich."
War changes people, Hogan thought, pressing his lips tighter together. War changes the status quo and alters the food chain. Losers are suddenly winners, winners are losers. The people in the middle get tossed around and dumped head over heels.
Sometimes the change is good.
"Joseph's parents were rich. We were going to marry. We even applied for a marriage license. Then stupid Hans Yoder. He was always jealous of Joseph and I. He told his girlfriend at the public health office that Joseph's grandfather was a Jew. Hans told them about my father, and the way he walks, and I too was deemed racially impure and unfit for marriage."
Sometimes it changed a spoiled rich kid into a sadistic killer.
Then there was Hitler. The Nuremberg Laws. The stupidity of a regime focused on wiping out what it felt didn't belong in the gene pool. Hogan could feel Helen's eyes on him but he refused to look at her, slowing the truck to a crawl as the conditions of the road began to deteriorate.
"Joseph always wanted to be in the Wehrmacht, but because of that stupid woman his family was being harassed and were going to go into hiding. He wanted to be in the Gestapo too. He liked the uniforms and the work."
At such a low speed Hogan felt like he was riding the clutch and it was getting harder and harder. He was sweating heavily and every jolt of the truck sent ice fire up his leg. He wasn't going to last much longer. He pushed the truck faster.
"We decided to run away together. To go to America. Joseph was always good at acting. If he couldn't be a spy, he wanted to be in the movies. But we needed money."
Was that love, Hogan wondered? Unerring devotion to an ideal no matter how insane it was. Devotion to a boy that "liked movies" just as much as he "liked the SS" or "liked beating a man with a shotgun"? How long had Helen been unconsciously justifying her own actions just to keep this one thing in her life unchanged?
Hogan had begun to pick up speed and missed seeing a deep crater on the right side of the road. The truck jolted and dived into the hole and Hogan jerked the wheel just in time to keep the truck from tipping. The jolt had cracked his ankle against the sidewall of the cab however and the pain instantly blinded him. Letting go of the clutch he slammed on the brake with his good foot and clung hard to the wheel, breathing desperately.
Helen was silent beside him. He could feel her eyes on his face, but she kept her hands to herself, bracing against the door frame.
When Hogan could talk again he forced the words out around gritted teeth. "How many people has your boyfriend turned in?"
"I don't know."
"How much money does the Gestapo give him?"
"I don't know."
"How did your brother die?"
"I don-"
Hogan threw the truck into park and snapped the engine off, nearly breaking the weathered key in half.
"Where is your father and sister-in-law?"
"He doesn't know about them." Helen stuttered. "Where they go. He doesn't know where she lives."
"Where...are they?"
"Stalag 13, come in. Stalag 13!"
Klink woke with a start at the sound of Langenscheidt's voice. He hadn't realized that he was dozing, and jerked his hand, spilling schnapps down his front. Thankfully he hadn't yet lit the cigar, but it too was knocked to the floor as he lurched in his chair to get to the handset.
"Langenscheidt, report."
"Herr Kommandant...there has been a murder."
"What?" Klink whispered, remembering a second later to depress the button. "Explain, Corporal."
"We found the SS men but...they are just boys. They claim they are a special unit dispatched to hunt down a war criminal. They say that they caught the criminal, but he killed one of their men and kidnapped a girl. He stole the oldest boy's truck."
Klink felt something uncomfortable and solid settling in his gut. It took residence there at the about the same time that he wondered why Langenscheidt was telling him this information instead of radioing the authorities. He was taking a breath to berate the corporal for wasting time when the man's voice came back to him.
"Kommandant...the boys claim that the murderer is an American. Colonel Hogan."
LeBeau's head snapped up when the name came faintly over the coffee pot speaker. Langenschiedt was hard to hear over the office bug but there was no denying the name they'd all been waiting to hear. Carter suddenly looked ten shades paler and Newkirk shot to his feet.
"You two better get back to the cooler." Kinch said, first, and received two twin nods before LeBeau and Newkirk rushed out the door.
"Kinch, we gotta get out there." Carter said, keeping his voice low so that the staff sergeant could still hear the string of hasty orders Klink was giving to his corporal.
"We're gonna have Gestapo and a ton of extra guards crawling all over camp by mornin'. You can bet the next call Klink makes is gonna be to Burkhalter. We leave camp and we'll be calling down half of Germany on our heads." Kinch said, staring thoughtfully at the glowing red light on the coffee pot. "We've been in contact with Max in town and Snitzer. Neither one of them has seen or heard anything from Hogan. The absolute best we can do is warn them about this and..hope."
"This is just awful." Carter said, a few minutes after Klink's call to Burkhalter ended. It had been painful to hear, almost has painful as it must have been for Klink to make the call. "First Schultz and now Colonel Hogan."
"What're ya gonna do, Carter. It's war." Kinch said, unplugging the pot. Klink was undoubtedly going to pay them a visit very soon and it wouldn't do to be in the wrong room when he did.
"Do you think Colonel Hogan really murdered somebody?"
Kinch didn't respond, holding the door for Carter as they snuck back into the darkened barrack. Instead of going to bed, Kinchloe hurried to the elevating bunk, intent on getting into the tunnels quickly to retrieve Baker, and send one last message.
The truck made it as far as five blocks away from Max's grocery in Hammelburg before either the gears gave out, or Hogan's ability to depress the clutch did. The squealing and grinding were indication enough that he had pushed the truck too far but the inconvenient placement of the truck became a blessing in disguise once Hogan and Helen made it into the basement of the grocer.
Max seemed to be expecting him, and the news he had was not good.
"Murder. Of course I'm being accused of murder. Clearly I had nothing better to do with my evening. A broken ankle and a couple hundred bruises weren't abuse enough. Not to mention that a man is now fighting for his life because of my decisions. I've got Junior Miss Mata Hari of 1943 and her all boy band reeking havoc in the underground and half my men are in the cooler! The only thing left to go wrong was a murder charge hanging over my head!"
Max listened to the rant sitting in what would appear to anyone else as a casual position near the secret radio hidden in his basement. Hogan, however, had caught the continuous furtive glances that Max sent toward the teen girl slumped in the corner. She had far too readily accepted the small glass of schnapps that Max had given her, and the knock out drug had taken affect quickly.
Max recognized her easily. He knew her as Liza and knew her family history, and the obnoxious gang of rich kids she had once been associated with. He also had known her brother. Hogan's explanation of what had really happened at the safe house that Max had gone to great pains to set up had not gone over well. Like Hogan, he was blaming himself for the situation.
"I thought they were ready, Robert. The boy, Paul, was so passionate about defying Hitler. He went through our training quickly and had convinced his father that the risks were overwhelmed by the benefits."
"It would have been a huge boon to have a doc on the outside too, I know, Max."
"This group of boys. Do you think they were the ones responsible for our people disappearing?"
"Maybe, in part. Whoever they were selling information or informants to wasn't Hochstetter though. We would have heard about it from the horse's mouth if that were the case. Knowing the name of their Gestapo contact would be helpful but it's not vital."
Max lifted his hands in the air and shook his head miserably. "I don't know who we can trust anymore, Colonel. I don't know who I could put on it that won't turn."
Hogan sighed then nodded. "I'll get my own boys on it once we've cleared this mess up."
Max's head lifted, a look of stunned surprise on his face. "Your boys!? Your boys should be packing bags and running for the border!"
Hogan shifted with a tight grimace on the chair he'd been resting in, then favored Max with a smirk. "You know, you're right. But I'd have to give the order with a gun in my hand to get most of them to even consider the idea."
"They're all crazy!"
"They aren't the only ones."
The two men were silent for a moment, listening to the stillness of the basement and the still sleeping city beyond it.
"So...you have a plan, Colonel?"
Hogan considered his distantly throbbing ankle, the puzzle pieces in his head fitting together in rhythm with the beat. "I do."
"And it involves me?"
Hogan raised his eyes and focused on the man who seemed reluctant but resigned. It was a familiar expression. "It does."
"Will it restore my faith in humanity?"
"Maybe not...but it'll make for a great story after the war."