"LeBeau, you stay here. Everybody stays under cover." Hogan snapped, his voice hard despite the damage that days of coughing up shrapnel had done. "Nobody makes any exceptions. What happens, happens. The goal is the men at Gusen, and then Stalag 13. You got it?"
When the Frenchman didn't respond, Hogan jerked his head over his shoulder to demand an answer only to find that he was alone in the barn. Then a shower of hay hit his shoulder and he looked up to see the small man scrambling across the hayloft with one of the Tokerav's in his hands.
"LEBEAU!" Hogan whispered as loud as he could manage, finally catching the determined and furious gaze of the one man French army. "DON'T SHOOT!" The colonel emphasized, as firmly as he could before he took a breath to brace himself. "Doesn't anybody listen to officers anymore..?" He wondered before he stepped out into the snow.
Hochstetter had just entered the clearing formed between the first bunkhouse and the barn, slowing to a halt as he studied the two SS men on duty. When Hogan stepped into the open the major's attention was solely on him.
"Colonel Hogan, you are…in better health than I was lead to believe."
"Your man missed a few important details." Hogan answered. He could feel the heat coming from LeBeau up in the loft. He caught a glimpse of Newkirk, armed and ready in an upstairs window of the house, and knew that Werner had been watching the radio in the second story of the windmill. He would be armed as well.
Killing Hochstetter would not be the way to make his plans happen, though. Hogan cleared his throat and deliberately looked towards a few of his men's hiding spots before he said, "It wasn't wise to come alone."
The major followed his gaze, but instead of anger, fear or alarm, Hogan saw mild amusement, concern and acceptance on the Gestapo man's face.
"No," He said, "It is never wise to be in the presence of Robert Hogan, alone."
Then Hochstetter's eyes fell on the face of his son. The uniform, yes. The gun, yes. But the gun wasn't pointed at Hogan, it was pointed at the major.
The farm wasn't in the control of the Gestapo, it was in Hogan's control.
Hochstetter fought the jubilant smile, an awkward grimace making its way onto his face that barely contained his relief.
No, his son had not been beaten. He was just a better liar than Hochstetter could ever have hoped to have been.
Taking in a breath that seemed to cleanse him from head to foot Hochstetter said, "Hogan, what I have to say will probably sound like the ramblings of a mad man. Or you may choose to believe that it is a trap, or the result of some sort of brain washing, but I assure you…I am sincere.
"I have a truck, waiting at the end of the road. I intend to use it to collect you, and your men, and take them to Stalag 13 where I will collect the rest of your staff. Then…God willing, I will take them to wherever you wish to go.
"On one condition…"
None of them had noticed the fur bundled pair slogging down the road. The focus had been on Hochstetter, the man that had been an undeniable threat from the first day they had crossed paths. They were trained to spot uniforms and the glint of guns. Not furs and poorly chosen high heeled shoes.
Carter and Caine noticed the pair of women first, snapping their guns up out of instinct before Caine took a second look. Hogan heard a muttered word come out of the young private's mouth before he dislodged his helmet and rushed down the hill, past Hochstetter and into the surprised arms of the older of the two women.
Suddenly Hochstetter didn't matter anymore as every armed man on the farm watched a boy reunited with his family. The major stood apart, trembling as all that remained of his composure fell to his feet in shattered pieces.
Mrs. Julia Hochstetter's face was awash with tears and rapture, her arms so tightly enclosing Caine that he disappeared behind the fur coat. His sister Freida stood beside the pair, staring dumbfounded, but interested, her hands reaching out for the figure hiding in the furry arms.
Once he was able to break free Caine met Freida's haunting, gaunt face, struggling to take in what his sister had become. What he blamed himself for having done, unthinking.
Then she smiled. In a voice that he had heard her use a hundred times, any time they had gone together to see a bootleg film at a friend's flat, Freida greeted him with a perfect English accent. "Hello 'Olf, darling. How lovely to see you again!" It was a joke, code, a secret message between brother and sister.
A phrase that neither of Frieda's parents had heard her say since her brother's disappearance.
Hearing it made Julia seek out her husband, to make certain that he had heard it too. She saw him smile, briefly. But it was there, and she hugged her children close to her, knowing that she was existing in a miracle.
"Miriam." Hogan's voice rose above the relatively silent confusion and the matron of the house appeared in the doorway, also armed. "Werner, these people are refugees. And they're coming….with us…" Hogan enunciated loudly, before he turned to Hochstetter.
"Stay right here, until I get back. I'll get your wife and daughter settled and then we'll talk."
Hochstetter didn't respond, beyond dropping his gaze to the snow and working at reeling the wild emotions back into check. Hogan didn't trust him, shouldn't trust him, couldn't trust him. Not yet. But he was a man who knew how to think on his feet, and if that meant that the major's family would be safe in the end, nothing else mattered.
Hogan reached Miriam at about the same time as Aldrich Werner and dropped his volume to a hurried whisper. "I don't have time to explain, and I hate to drop more in your laps than I already have, but I can promise you that I won't be leaving these people with you. For the time being they could use some food and a place to warm up."
Miriam nodded vigorously, not bothering to remind the colonel that she wasn't a barbarian given to leaving needy people in the cold.
"Aldrich, I'm going to have to have a conversation with this man, and as much as my gut is telling me it may end with me dead, I need you to keep your men, and my men in check. Keep a very close eye on that truck, and on the south pasture just in case this is a diversion, and if it all goes to hell…"
"Blast away…" Werner said, in confident English.
Hogan reached out a hand to clap the man on the shoulder and winced a little. "Maybe you should spend a little less time with Carter."
Werner favored him with a brief grin before moving with his wife to guide Julia and Freida Hochstetter into the house. Hogan waited until Werner had coaxed Newkirk away from the bedroom window before he turned to Hochstetter and nodded down the long country lane.
"Let's take a look at this truck, shall we."
"He's makin' a mistake."
"Don't you think he knows that?"
"The man sent the lot of us to blow up a convent, without carin' one bit who was in it. Just because he brings his women along this time, and sets up a real convincin' family reunion." Newkirk's voice had risen in volume enough to draw Caine's attention. The smaller man rose, from his seat by the hearth and quietly excused himself before walking into the front room of the house and shutting the door.
"If you're going to insult my father, please do it so that my mother and sister can not hear." Caine snapped, his voice in a harsh whisper that he hoped the others would emulate. "Freida is not well, and my mother can hardly be expected to cope with-"
"To cope?!" Newkirk demanded, his face flashing with a spring storm's ferocity. "You can take your family squabbles and stuff it down your schisse-hole, Fritz. Your pop is about to murder the govener and I won't-"
Newkirk cut himself off and brushed past the half-hearted attempt at restraint that Carter threw up.
On his way out the kitchen door, Newkirk picked up the rifle that Caine had left leaning, and checked the chamber and the firing pin as he strode out into the clearing.
Caine chased after him, followed by Carter and LeBeau, who were both shouting for him to stop, but with half the fervor they should have used.
The limp became more pronounced as Newkirk strode across the clearing, but he couldn't feel the pain anymore. It didn't matter anyway. All Newkirk could see were the frightened faces of the seven nuns that had lived with them in Stalag 13 for a short while. Each of them robbed of their homes because of the selfishness of one Gestapo man.
All he could see were his relatives. Living in terror, even the rare charms of the streets of London gone because this retched nation had decided to put their eggs in Hitler's basket and turn a blind eye.
Newkirk could only see the two hundred some men, probably more than that now, stuck in Gusen camp, starving to death in a German rat hole, instead of at least having the pleasure of starving to death in their own country. A country that they were going to die for. And not a heroic death, but a slow, horrible, agonizing death.
The sort of death that Hochstetter deserved, and every other man that so much as raised his arm to salute that nut in Berlin.
Newkirk had cocked the gun and taken the first shot before he'd even made the decision to kill Hochstetter.
The two men fifty yards ahead of him dove for the sides of the country lane, and Newkirk grunted in frustration, not sure why his shot had missed but perfectly willing to try again. Stalking closer to where he had last seen the major, Newkirk cranked another round into the chamber and fired again once he saw a corner of the dark black coat.
This time realization began to sink in, but it didn't matter because Hochstetter was angry. He was on his feet, and had a pistol pointed at Newkirk, and it looked exactly like the one the major had used to shoot him once before.
"Wait!" Hogan screamed, struggling to climb out the ditched, drenched in snow. He'd realized at about the same moment that Newkirk had, "They're blanks! The gun is loaded with blanks!" He insisted, his voice cracking like a pre-teen the louder he got.
Hochstetter jerked a glance his way, looking desperate and terrified and outraged.
Newkirk had lowered the gun, letting it drop and going to his knees in the snow. He looked submissive but in his mind he didn't care anymore. Shot for firing on a Gestapo man with blanks seemed like the perfect way for someone like him to leave the world.
Hochstetter was coming toward him, stomping through the snow with short, determined steps until the cold muzzle of the gun rested against Newkirk's forehead. He was seething like a bull in heat, unaware of the rapid footsteps of Caine jogging toward him.
Unaware of Hogan calling his name. Unaware of everything up until Hogan stepped between the major and his man and pushed the gun away.
The moment the pistol was pointing at nothing but dirt Caine slid to a halt in the snow and stood gasping, his own rifle harmlessly staring at the ground.
Newkirk sat back on his heels and closed his eyes, breathing again. He didn't remember not breathing.
Hogan jerked Hochstetter around, pointing him back toward the truck as if the whole thing hadn't happened.
He walked with the major long enough to finish their conversation, not taking more than two or three minutes, before he turned back around.
Hochstetter continued to the truck, climbing in and eventually maneuvering it so that he could point it down the country lane.
Hogan marched with a purpose back towards the farm, stopping only long enough to grit his teeth and order Newkirk to his feet.
Back in the clearing Hogan's lungs had begun to burn. Unused to the volume he'd been using and rapid intake of cold air he was losing steam fast, but he didn't have time for it. "Caine, LeBeau, Carter." He snapped rapidly, issuing orders for his men to begin loading guns, uniforms, supplies and personel as soon as the major and the truck entered the clearing.
He didn't have to tell Newkirk to go with him. The Brit followed on his own, eyes still blazing hot and hard.
Hogan's only thought was that he wished he had gloves as he rounded the windmill. Newkirk was two steps behind, at the perfect distance for the roundhouse that Hogan swung and landed on the man's jaw. Every remaining ounce of power that Hogan had left went into that punch and Newkirk went with it, splatting in the wet snow.
The punch hurt him just about as bad as it must have hurt the Englander, but Hogan was able to force his hand closed and open, so he ignored it.
When Newkirk picked himself up his lip was bloodied and his jaw already swelling. He eyed the colonel with a feral, streetwise sort of looseness that Hogan had never seen in the man. It made the Englander look taller somehow, and way more dangerous.
Hogan had never disrespected the man, but he had underestimated him this time, and he backed up one step as Newkirk rolled his shoulders and brought his fists to bear.