In Colonel Klink's office, a panicked Schultz's detailed description of the kidnapping of Gustav Holtzmann was one hundred percent accurate in every minute aspect… if the kidnapping had been committed by ten men with grenade launchers. Major Hochstetter wasn't sure whether or not to take him at his word, but at least this time there was a witness to the abduction. And he certainly hoped there were that many commandos out there for him to apprehend. He could imagine his stock going up with Heinrich Himmler with every additional hyperbole Schultz threw into his narrative.
"And you are certain that the kidnappers said they were bringing Holtzmann to the Führer, Schultz?"
Schultz nodded so hard his features were momentarily blurred. "Ja, Herr Major! I am absolutely certain!"
"The Führer could not possibly be anywhere near Stalag 13 without my knowledge," Klink stated unequivocally.
"Ah, so the Führer checks in with you regularly, does he?" Hochstetter challenged. "He makes his travel plans only with your approval, ja?" Before Klink could think up a reply to that completely rhetorical question, he continued. "The Führer is in Berchtesgaden; I have already confirmed that with his personal aides. That is at least an eight-hour trip by car."
"They may have come by plane," Klink offered helpfully.
"Thank you…" Hochstetter growled. "I would never have thought of that possibility."
"You're entirely welcome," Klink smiled ingratiatingly.
"I have also confirmed that he did not summon Holtzmann; what do you have to say to that, Klink?"
The Kommandant had once again drawn one of his frequent blanks; he stood silently and awkwardly by for a few seconds. "Well… I… uh…"
"I say that this entire kidnapping was a farce!"
"You mean they lied?" Schultz asked, sounding sincerely astonished.
"Ja, they lied."
Schultz gave a disapproving shake of his head. "You cannot depend on anybody these days."
"Holtzmann obviously engaged some of his own workers to stage this so-called 'abduction' so he could escape being delivered into my custody! He knows something about the destruction of his factory and the disappearance of the Russian woman that he does not want me to discover! He could be a saboteur, a traitor, a spy!"
"You really think he would go to all that trouble?" Klink inquired.
Hochstetter leaned closer until he could practically read the hallmark stamped on the narrow silver rim of the Kommandant's monocle. "Tell me, Klink: how much trouble would you go to in order to avoid rigorous interrogation by the Gestapo?"
"Now that you put it that way…" Klink quivered, suddenly seeing the situation in a whole new light, "you may be right…"
"I have surrounded this entire area with a ring of steel! The Gestapo is in charge of everything outside the wire! I will tolerate no interference from you, Klink! There will be sentries! Roadblocks! I will find those 'kidnappers' and bring them and Holtzmann in for questioning! They will not escape! If they cannot be taken alive they and Holtzmann will be shot on sight!"
Hogan and his men crowded around the coffeepot listening device, monitoring every word that was being said… or screamed. "Shot on sight," Hogan mused. "Marya told us he was unpopular, but that's kind of taking it to a whole new level."
"Lucky for Holtzmann he's not on any of those roads," said Kinch.
"Safe in the cooler," Newkirk nodded. "Like a babe in his mum's arms."
"Yeah, but for how long? Hochstetter might be focusing outside the wire now, but sooner or later he's liable to start looking around inside, where there's more stuff to find." Hogan thought for a few moments. "All right, let's leave Holtzmann right where he is until tomorrow after roll call. Let him sweat it out overnight. By then maybe he'll be more ready to see things our way… well, the way Marya's going to explain it to him at any rate. Hit the sack, fellas. We've got a lot of work to do tomorrow."
oo 0 oo
Once again, Hogan found himself at the Aragon Ballroom. Spike Jones and his City Slickers played Cocktails for Two.
It was impossible to dance to that, but it didn't matter in the least. He sat with his elbows on the table, chin resting on his cupped hands, restlessly tapping his cheek, completely resigned to the fact that there was no way this was going to get any better.
Directly across from him, kneeling on her chair so she could reach the table, Shirley Temple took a long pull on the straw in her milkshake. After sucking up the last few drops, she giggled at the loud, wet, hollow sound the rushing air made in the bottom of her glass. Interestingly, Hogan mused, that was about the only ridiculous noise Jones hadn't managed to work into his arrangement of the song his band was playing.
He raised his hand to signal LeBeau, approaching their table not a moment too soon. "Check, please."
"Don't ask," Hogan warned the French corporal as he responded to the wake-up call and began to get out of his bunk. "Just don't ask."
oo 0 oo
It might not have come as much of a comfort to Hogan, but there was someone who'd passed a night worse than his. Gustav Holtzmann was exactly where they'd left him the night before, tied to a straight-back chair in the middle of the solitary-confinement cell in the otherwise vacant cooler. He appeared to be dozing behind the blindfold, but his head snapped up when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps on the concrete floor. "Who's there?" he called out, sounding as if he were more afraid of the answer than of anything that had already happened to him thus far.
Hogan nodded to Marya to go ahead. After a brief 'must I?' gesture, she wrapped her long fingers around the bars, the outsized diamond still sparkling on the fourth finger of her left hand, and rested her chin against her curled thumbs. "Guess," was the single breathy word she chose to lead with.
For perhaps the first time, Holtzmann realized he was genuinely happy to know she was there. "Marya! Where is this place? What are you doing here? How did…"
"Enough!" she cut him off abruptly.
It might have been a good time to turn on the charm, rather than hit him with a bucket of cold water, Hogan mused. But he decided to keep out of it. Somehow, the Russian seemed to get the results she wanted even if she didn't use a method he might have chosen for himself.
"I saw the Führer, Marya…" Holtzmann breathed, sounding awe-struck even this many hours later. "He was mesmerizing. The power… the presence…"
"I know, I know," she nodded. "I had dinner with him last night. He is quite charming. He tells amusing stories. He told me one about you, Gussie."
Holtzmann brightened. "What did he say?"
"He said that he would have you shot for being so inept. I'm surprised you are still here; Adolf must be sleeping late this morning."
"What is amusing about that?" he demanded.
Marya shrugged an indifferent shoulder. "It got me to laugh." Before he could think of a response, she continued. "Listen to me, Gussie. I am sure he means it. Your only hope is to leave the country immediately."
"Where would I go?"
"England."
"I am a loyal German!" he bristled.
"So what, they promise to shoot you with a Luger and not with import?"
"My work is vital to the war effort! I must rebuild my factory!"
"Please; Hitler will give you not a single Mark for more research. He now intends to focus again on the old methods of waging war."
"How would you know that?"
She gave a low, sultry laugh. "We had several cocktails after an excellent dinner… he boasted that he took Poland and France with just tanks and planes and he will do the same thing on the current front. He does not need your formula to win the war."
"Then he is a fool!"
"I would lower my voice if I were you, Gussie… he may be a fool but he is in the next room. And he has… how you say… hangover."
Could it be true? Holtzmann himself had had more than his share of Marya's cocktails… yes, the thought pained him, but he had to admit that it was entirely possible that a few of her special after-dinner drinks could have loosened even the Führer's tongue to the point where he might tell her just about anything she wanted to know. He might be regretting it this morning, but that wouldn't change whatever had happened last night. "Then I am a dead man…" he groaned.
"Not if you escape to England, Gussie. There the Allies would give you the money you need to continue your work."
"How could you possibly know all of this, Marya? Have you managed to ply the entire Allied High Command with your cocktails in addition to the Abwehr? That would be a challenge even for you!"
"Trust me," she smiled.
Those words spelled nothing but his doom. But Holtzmann was beginning to accept that his back was up against the wall… and that wall might already have a bunch of bullet holes in it from those who had displeased the Führer before now. It was against his better judgment, but it was beginning to look like Marya might well be his only hope of not only resuming his life's work, but of simply escaping this war with his skin intact. Both those things mattered to him a great deal, in almost equal measure. "Even if I wanted to go to England, it would be impossible. There would be a price on my head."
"Leave the details to me."
"Why do you even want to help me?"
"The first time we met, in Berlin. You… amused me."
Right about now Holtzmann was regretting not having headed straight for the door when the tall exotic woman in the leopard-skin coat had batted her heavy lashes in his direction and beckoned to him for a light for her cigarette. He had long ago figured out that it had been no chance meeting; she had obviously known exactly who he was and what he was working on, and she had arrived at that soiree already determined to use him and his work for her own purposes. But he had fallen for it, and now he would have to suffer the consequences. It was little comfort for him to know that he would never allow himself to be tricked like this again, because it stood to reason that there was no one else out there to equal Marya. He was hardly likely to run up against the likes of her twice in one lifetime. Nobody was that unlucky.
"And if I refuse?"
"You have other choice? Live in England or die in Germany, Gussie. I can accept either when it comes to you. Which do you prefer?"
Holtzmann hung his head in defeat. "Make the arrangements. Can whatever happens possibly be worse than this?"
"You will love England. The weather they tell me is dark and gloomy always, exactly like you are. You will not be sorry."
He already was, about a lot of things, but it was too late to take any of it back.
Marya struck a pose for Hogan to indicate that her part of the operation was finished, and he obliged her with a couple of silent claps of his hands. Then the two of them exited the cooler and went back down into the tunnel, leaving Holtzmann to wait for the next step in what was becoming a more and more complicated plan by the hour. They had his cooperation. Now all they needed was an airplane. Small potatoes, right?
Never one for false modesty, once they were safely down in the tunnel Marya turned to Hogan. "No praise?"
"Maybe later."
"But I have put Gussie and his diamond manufacturing process right into your pocket!"
"Boy, you really lie like a rug… all that stuff about having dinner with Hitler; you almost had me buying it."
"How can you be so sure that I have not had dinner with Hitler?" she challenged smoothly.
"Oh, come on. Next you'll be trying to tell me you're best friends with Stalin."
"Stalin? But I know him very well. A pussycat!"
Hogan nodded unconvincingly. "Sure. Right."
"But I do. How tragic that you still do not trust me."
"Oh, I trust you all right. I trust you to sell me and my boys out in a heartbeat if things start going bad."
"Never! Particularly not my small one."
"Him too! You'd sell out your mother to save your own neck."
Her mother, no. That had never been necessary. But there were one or two first cousins who had been relocated to a remote area in the Siberian steppe where they would remain safely out of her hair for the rest of the war… and probably for the next war as well. Somewhat regrettable. But it didn't keep her up nights. How charming that Hogan had sensed that… she was becoming more and more convinced, every time she worked with the handsome American, that they were destined to be together.
"You may be right," was all she was willing to say.
This Hogan was indeed fascinating. He knew her inside and out, and he never hesitated to call her on the less conventionally attractive aspects of her character. He understood her. So few men ever had. Certainly not Gussie, who would never understand anything unless it was written out for him on a blackboard in endless rows of figures and formulas. Marya had used her smoldering sex appeal on countless enemy agents during this war, but not one of them had half of Hogan's incisive intelligence. He saw her coming a mile away, and rather strangely she adored him for it instead of being annoyed by it. That conundrum had always intrigued her. It was entirely unique to Hogan.
Hogan realized, not for the first time, that being right wasn't always all that satisfying. Hadn't Marya just basically agreed that she would be happy to sell him and his whole unit up the river if it suited her purposes? "Someday I'm gonna learn to keep my big mouth shut."