Carter was sitting up on his bunk, a pillow under his injured leg. Olsen sat on the other end of the bunk, his right leg curled under him and the left hanging off the edge. Newkirk was facing them sitting on the bench from the table dealing a hand of cards. They were the only ones in the hut, which Newkirk had ensured.
"You have no idea how good it feels to do something besides lay down," Carter said taking his cards and organizing them in his hand.
"I'm sure it does," Olsen picked his cards up.
"Haven't had a chance to thank both of you for going outside the wire and getting the drop from London," Carter started.
"No need to thank us, you'd done the same for either of us," Olsen said discarding a card.
"Were you scared out there?" Carter asked.
"Only when Waechter was pointing a gun at me. I couldn't believe he was Gestapo and we didn't 'ave a clue," Newkirk answered, shuffling his cards around picking up what Olsen discarded.
"Yeah, can't leave Newkirk alone for a minute or he finds trouble," Olsen teased.
"That's for sure," Carter winked at him.
"You buggers! That's not true," Newkirk groused. "There's been plenty of times when you've been in trouble."
"Usually cause you're along. Admit it, you're a trouble magnet," Carter said with a sly grin.
"Yep," Olsen agreed nodding his head.
"You're both barmy," Newkirk griped. Carter and Olsen laughed good-heartedly. "If I was the only one scared out there, then why aren't you sleeping?" Newkirk looked pointedly at Olsen.
"Hey I slept last night," Olsen defended himself.
"After LeBeau spiked your drink," Carter countered.
"Yeah, but you should have seen that coffee. He put about a third of a cup of coffee then finished filling the cup with Schnapps. Mmmm…it was good," Olsen said, licking his lips.
"So why aren't you sleeping?" Carter asked.
Olsen looked down picking at Carter's blanket, "Just can't fall asleep."
"Why not?" Newkirk questioned.
"My eyes just keep popping open."
"What do you see when you close your eyes? You have to see something; they just won't pop open if you weren't. I mean they could, but it would be weird and if that's what's happening, you need to talk to Wilson. I bet that would be some sort of medical miracle or something," Carter stopped, realizing he was babbling.
Olsen smiled; it felt good to hear Carter babble on about anything. The barracks had been too quiet with him so ill. "I keep seeing Waechter."
"What about 'im?" Newkirk asked; although concerned for Olsen, inside he was smiling too at Carter getting back to normal.
"I don't know," Olsen suddenly felt embarrassed about the situation.
"Close your eyes," Carter instructed.
Olsen took a deep breath and then a second one, finally closing his eyes. Seconds later, they flew open. Olsen started to hyperventilate.
"Hey, it's okay," Newkirk put a hand on Olsen's shoulder.
"I'm sorry," Olsen said, ashamed dropping his hand of cards.
"Don't apologize for anything but that hand. Blimey, I'm glad we didn't let you play it out," Newkirk said picking up the discarded cards.
"Every time I close my eyes I see him dead," Olsen said.
"How did he die?" Carter wanted to know.
"Broke his neck," Olsen answered, almost too quickly.
"Don't think I could ever do that. What's it like," Carter questioned.
"Like breaking a branch in two, they go fast. It's my preferred method. Simple, quiet, fast, and effective," Olsen took a drink of his coffee wishing it was schnapps instead.
"Never thought about having a preferred method," Newkirk shook his head. His own preference was not to kill.
"You have to remember, I'm out there alone a lot of the time. Yeah, sometimes Kinch backs me up, but not usually. If I find myself in a situation where my only way out is to take someone down I will. If it's avoidable I'll do anything feasible to avoid it, but this is war. And killing enemy soldiers is what we're trained to do. Gunshots can bring all sorts of unwanted attention; it's the same with a knife and all the blood that leaves behind. Breaking a neck can let me get out of there and sometimes it's hours or days before they know something is wrong," Olsen defended himself.
"No one is questioning what you have to do," Newkirk assured him. He shook his head, "I just never thought of it that way."
"If I have to kill, I prefer to use my bombs. That way I'm hopefully nowhere near when they go off," Carter stated. "And I get bad dreams from the detonations sometimes and I don't even see the aftermath. So I can only imagine the dreams you have. How many times have you had to do it?"
"More times than I even want to figure out; if I'm lucky the body's not found until the next air raid. Don't want to leave a trail for the Gestapo to get a wind up about. But why this one is different, I can't figure out," Olsen straightened his bent leg out that was going to sleep on him.
"You say you see Waechter. What do you see about him?" Carter knew the answer would be in that image.
"His face and his eyes, over and over again," Olsen blew out a deep breath.
"What specifically about them?"
Olsen thought for a moment before answering Carter. "I guess the shock on his face. He never saw it coming, and his last expression was utter shock."
"I guess I was too far away in the dark to see his expression, but he didn't know you were there until you were on him," Newkirk said thinking back to that night.
"His eyes," Olsen didn't finish the thought, looking down.
"You see one pair of Nazi blue eyes you've seen 'em all," Newkirk declared.
"They weren't blue, but green. Very shocked green eyes…like Paul's eyes," Olsen stopped taking a large gasping breath. Realization began to dawn on him.
"Who's Paul?" Carter asked, after he and Newkirk exchanged puzzled looks.
1935 Detroit Michigan
"How did you manage this? Wow!" Brian Olsen said to his best friend as he got out of a new car.
"Pops said we could use it to go to the lake tonight," seventeen-year-old Paul Ranger replied. "Did you get the beer?" Olsen showed him the box filled with alcohol, "Sweet!" Paul's father was an executive at Ford Motor Company while Brian's father owed a liquor store.
"Elizabeth's cousin, Alice, will be there, and I think you'll like her. She has fiery red hair," Olsen explained climbing in the car. The two teens made their way to the lake for a summer party that lasted late into the night. School would start the following week, where they'd be seniors this year.
They meet up with the girls and a large group of other friends enjoying the teenage party. About two in the morning, the boys drove back to town. Brian hadn't had as much to drink as Paul, but he didn't know how to drive so Paul got behind the wheel. Talking and laughing, neither paid much attention to the road.
"Hey, wanna see how fast this goes?" Paul asked stepping on the gas pedal.
"Yeah, let's go faster," Brian urged as they soared past sixty miles an hour, both boys laughing, enjoying the feeling of freedom.
Paul pushed the car to its limit as they came to a bend in the road. Unaccustomed to the speed, he wasn't able to compensate for the curve, and the car rolled down the embankment. Brian was thrown from the car landing in the marsh unconscious. Coming around, he slowly felt out his body determining nothing was broken, but everything hurt. He rolled over looking up at the stars breathing through the waves of nausea not knowing whether it was from the accident or the alcohol. Paul! His mind started working, where was Paul? He stood up on shaky legs looking around for the car finding it had come to a stop right side up about thirty feet away. He got to the car as quickly as he could, opening the passenger door. Paul was lying against the steering wheel with blood coming out of his mouth and chest.
"Was wondering where you went off too," he panted out.
"How bad are you hurt?" Brian asked trying to figure out what to do. He'd never seen anyone in a car accident and his own head was woozy.
"Not going to make it," Paul said quietly.
"Nonsense, of course you're going to be okay," Brian countered trying to stop the blood flow from his friend's chest.
"No, can't believe I'm dying tonight," were the last words Paul spoke. Brian had never seen death before; the shock on Paul's face overwhelmed him and he turned and vomited out the door.
"I passed out right afterwards; the next thing I knew it was dawn and someone was pulling me out of the car. For weeks, I couldn't close my eyes without seeing Paul dying in my arms," Olsen explained.
"Man that's rough," Newkirk shook his head sadly.
"We grew up together and had it all planned out. Our senior year, college, the rest of our lives, everything…," Olsen wiped away a tear.
"I'm sorry," Carter said leaning forward putting a hand on Olsen's shoulder.
"I put it behind me and hadn't thought of Paul in a very long time," he scrubbed both hands over his face.
"The shocked look Waechter had must have reminded you of your friend," Carter did his best to hide a yawn of fatigue.
"Yeah, I guess so," Olsen agreed suddenly feeling and looking very tired.
"I've a suggestion. Why don't both of you get some rest, it'll do you some good," Newkirk said picking all the cards up laying them on the table.
Both men agreed, Carter lay down and Olsen moved to his bunk turning and facing the wall. Remembering his childhood friend, tears overwhelmed his eyes, and soon grief and exhaustion took over pulling him into sleep. Four hours later, Olsen suddenly sat straight up in his bunk, "Paillasse!" There was another Gestapo mole in camp and he now knew who it was.