Bismarck, North Dakota

Kinch fought the urge to slam the door shut behind him.

Fools.

Ignorant, stupid fools.

He hadn't expected them to welcome him with open arms, but their utter refusal to listen to him was galling. He should have known. He should have known.

Lucy hadn't helped things, he thought bitterly. He didn't blame her, of course, for the hug. When they had met all those years ago at her wedding, she hadn't seemed at all bothered by him and genuinely welcomed him as Carter's dear friend. And now, after this whole ordeal she had gone through, the stress must have made her completely forget herself. But it had served to put her family further on edge. Before he was simply an unwelcome intrusion. But that hug sealed in their minds that he was everything they feared about Negroes: that they were predators who were just waiting for an opportunity to snatch up and defile their women.

Kinch made a fist. Not for the first time in his life, he felt completely helpless while one of his friends was in danger. His mind instantly returned to the tunnels under Stalag 13 where he would pace, waiting for someone to return from a dangerous mission. He remembered the fear and panic whenever a mission turned sideways and someone had to be rescued. He rarely joined the efforts– not because he hadn't wanted to, but because his skin colour made it impossible in the middle of Nazi Germany. And now, here he was, ten years later, a free man in his own country, and he was still being held back from saving his friend.

Now what?

Kinch didn't have a lot of good options, but he knew he couldn't do nothing. Obviously he was unwelcome in Wetzel's investigation and he didn't hold out much hope that the FBI agents would be any more obliging. So if he wanted to do something, he would have to do it on his own.

Feeling completely dejected, Kinch headed down the street. In the distance, a tall building rose above the others perhaps marking what Kinch figured was the center of town. As he walked towards it, he hunched his shoulders and hid his face in his collar to protect it from the bitterly cold wind.

He finally reached what passed for downtown. It was tiny compared to Detroit. But there were several tall buildings and signs for more than a dozen businesses hanging over the sidewalk. One read 'Cafe' and Kinch decided to go there to warm up and plot his next move.

The bell above the door tinkled as he walked in. He took a moment to shake the snow off his jacket.

"Sit anywhere you want," the woman behind the counter said. Kinch pulled his face from his coat and looked at her. The woman seemed a little surprised, but didn't say anything. A few other people noticed him and, for a moment, silence fell over the busy cafe. But it soon passed as folks went back to their conversations. Kinch figured that was good enough.

He looked around. Most of the tables were full, as well as the counter. The tables that were empty were still covered with dirty plates.

"Go on, sit somewhere," the woman said impatiently. "There aren't any laws saying you can't." That was true. North Dakota wasn't a Jim Crow state, but that didn't mean folks would be comfortable with him eating with them. And it also didn't mean Kinch, himself, could get comfortable.

"Hey, I think I know you," someone said. Kinch spotted a man sitting at a bench with another man and a woman. He waved Kinch over.

"You know me?" Kinch repeated skeptically. He searched his memory to try and pin down just how he knew the man.

"Sure. You're kind of hard to forget. We don't get a lot of negroes around here, after all," the man said. "We met at Andy Carter's wedding, remember?" Kinch was drawing up and blank and it must have shown. "Joe Curtis. And you're Sergeant Kinchloe. I've seen that picture Andy has of all you guys in that POW camp. Come on, have a seat. Ruby! Ruby, we need some coffee over here!"

Kinch hesitated. The woman sitting beside Curtis looked at Kinch nervously and grabbed her purse off the table to put it on the bench beside her.

"Aw, c'mon, Mabel, he won't bite," Curtis said amiably.

"He's good people," the other man confirmed. Kinch arched an eyebrow, wondering how he had come to that conclusion. The man scooted over against the window, leaving room for Kinch to slide in. But he hesitated. Then the man looked up at Kinch and an old memory rushed back to him. The portly man was a little older and was balding, but he was one houseguest Kinch couldn't easily forget even if the name escaped him. He remembered more than once having to hold LeBeau back from killing the man who nearly ate them out of house and home.

"Have a seat," Curtis said. "It is Kinchloe right? Andy calls you Kinch. Mind if I call you Kinch? You must be here about the kidnapping, huh? We've been talking about it. Everyone has a theory. Except Del, here."

Now Kinch remembered his name. Sergeant Del Russell had escaped through Stalag 13 after they had rescued him from the Gestapo. Actually, from Major Hochstetter himself.

Kinch slipped into the booth. On the opposite bench, Mable moved closer to the window.

"You here for Spring training?" the waitress, whose name tag read 'Ruby', asked as she slipped a mug in front of Kinch and filled it with coffee.

"Spring training?" Kinch asked.

"Nah, he's an old buddy of Andrew Carter. You know, the one who got kidnapped," Curtis told her. "Could you bring this guy a breakfast special, Ruby?" He turned to Kinch. "You're hungry, right?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Yeah, he's hungry."

"You're incorrigible, Joe," Ruby said. But she marked something on her notepad and left.

Curtis leaned across the table. "I hear it's revenge," he whispered conspiratorially.

"Revenge?" Kinch echoed.

"The reason why that Nazi kidnapped Andy," Curtis explained. He wasn't wrong.

"But for what?" Mable asked. When Kinch looked at her, she put her head down and poked at her food.

"Dunno."

"The FBI will handle it," said someone from the next booth. "I hear they're coming to town."

"All I know is that that Nazi tipped well!" Ruby said from where she was pouring coffee from another patron.

"He was very polite," another man nearby said. "He stayed at the hotel for a week and didn't cause any trouble. Housekeeping barely had to do anything. Well, except for his shoes. He put them out to get shined, and I'm pretty sure he walked through a bunch of cow dung at some point."

"Didn't sound German, that's for sure," Ruby said.

"Say, did you hear about the note?" Curtis asked, though his question wasn't particularly directed towards Kinch. As Kinch had suspected, Carter's kidnapping was probably the biggest thing to happen in this town, so it wasn't a surprise that everyone was talking about it. It occurred to him that if he just sat quietly, he could learn a lot.

"No!" a woman sitting at the counter exclaimed. "There was a note?" She turned to the man beside her. "I feel like we're all detectives, don't you?!" The man just grunted in response and sipped his coffee.

"That Nazi left it for Colonel Hogan. That was your commanding officer at the camp, wasn't it?" Curtis asked.

Kinch nodded. "Do you know what it said?"

"No. Wish I did."

"I know," someone else chimed in. All eyes in the cafe turned to him and he blushed. "I… I was there when Sheriff Wetzel was telling his officers about it at the station."

"He's the town drunk," Curtis whispered to Kinch. "He was probably sitting in a cell."

Town drunk or not, Kinch was interested in what the man had to say. Considering Wetzel hadn't mentioned it, this was probably the only way he'd learn anything about it.

"So what did it say?" someone asked.

"Well… I don't quite remember. Maybe… maybe some pie would help me remember?"

"Get that man some pie!" more than one person shouted.

The waitress at the counter rolled her eyes and put a slice of pie on a plate. She pushed it towards the drunk. "Spill!"

The drunk happily tucked into the pie. Then, while chewing, he started to tell everyone what he knew. "It didn't say much. He wants to be contacted through the classified ads of all the major newspapers."

"Did Sheriff Wetzel put in an ad?" someone asked.

"Yep," the drunk replied. "But apparently that Nazi demanded it needed to be in code and Sheriff Wetzel didn't know what that meant."

Kinch did. He suspected Hochstetter wanted Papa Bear to contact him and the code was to ensure no one else tried to trick him.

"I need a pen and paper," Kinch said quickly.

"Ruby!" Curtis called.

Ruby appeared, Kinch's breakfast in hand. She set it on the table. "Hold your horses, Joe. I can only go so fast."

"No, not that. Give the man something to write with!"

Ruby handed over her pen and pad.

In search of lost Bear cub and wolf. Contact PB with information, extension 13. If found, return to Hammelburg zoo.

He tore off the paper. "I need someone to get this into the papers."

"I'll do it," Russell said quickly. He snatched the paper from Kinch's hand just as Curtis reached for it. "'Scuse me."

Kinch slid out of the booth and Russell grunted as he scooted out as well. Paper in hand, the older man hurried away.

"What did you write?" Curtis asked.

"Yeah, what did you write?" the man in the other booth asked.

"I… something that Hochstetter would recognize," Kinch replied.

Curtis gave him a curious look. "You know, Andy is a talker, but he's always pretty cagey about the war… There's something he hasn't told us, isn't there? I mean, Nazis? Kidnappings? Secret messages? What were you guys, some sort of spies?"

Kinch slipped back into the booth and cut into his breakfast. "We were prisoners, nothing more," he replied casually. "Easy targets for the Gestapo." He felt all the eyes in the cafe boring into him.

"Did you say Hochstetter?" someone finally said, breaking the silence. "He signed in at the hotel as Robert Logan."

"He said he was an oilman," Ruby said. "I guess that's why he could tip so well!"

"I saw him get into a car with Minnesota plates."

That made Kinch perk up. Minnesota. It wasn't much, but it was a lead. Had Hochstetter taken Carter to Minnesota? And if so, why? Did he have a contact there? Or perhaps Minneapolis was the closest city with an airport.

"Minnesota?" Curtis said. He snapped his fingers. "Mable, pass me that paper, would ya?" Mable grabbed the paper at the end of the table and passed it along. Curtis opened it and flipped past the first page. On the front page, Kinch could see the sketch of Hochstetter glaring back at him. The headline above it read, 'Nazi Suspect in Kidnapping!'

Curtis scanned the pages with his finger. "There. Huh, I wonder if it's related."

"If what's related?" Mable asked. A few more people leaned in curiously.

"That double homicide outside of Halstad," Curtis said. "That's on the North Dakota/Minnesota border," he informed Kinch. "See, look." Curtis handed over the paper and tapped the article he was referring to.

"What's it say?" someone demanded. Kinch quickly scanned the article and, as he did, his eyebrow crept up higher and higher.

"A couple was found murdered in their home outside of Halstad," Kinch said, summarizing the article. "Their little girl was asleep at the time when she heard gunshots. She hid under her bed for hours until she crawled out and found her mom and dad dead. She called the police… There aren't any suspects, but the couple's car is missing."

"That can't be a coincidence," Curtis said. "We don't get a lot of crime here, so a kidnapping and a double murder? All within 24 hours of each other? They're definitely connected."

Kinch was inclined to agree and so was everyone else, judging by the murmurs that circulated throughout the cafe. But why would Hochstetter kill two innocent civilians? The names in the paper didn't ring a bell, so it was probably random. And, if that were the case, the question remained: why had Hochstetter killed them?

"Did you talk to Lucy yet?" Curtis asked. "Or Sheriff Wetzel? We gotta show him this."

"I don't think he wants my help," Kinch replied.

Curtis frowned. "Yeah, you're probably right."

"I'm sure the FBI will put this all together themselves," the man in the other booth said. "They don't need us to solve it for them."

"Oh, but what if we did solve it!" the lady at the counter said excitedly.

"We're not," the man beside her grumbled.

"But if we did?!"

"Well there's no harm in speculating," someone else said.

Kinch quickly shovelled the rest of his food into his mouth. He didn't know how much more information he would get out of the local chatter. But he had a lead. Minnesota. An ad in the paper. But it would take too long to get a response. He had to get back to the Morgan's house and strong arm Wetzel into letting him in on the investigation.

"I've got to go," Kinch said to his companions. He reached into his pocket to pull out his wallet, but Curtis held up his hand.

"I've got it. You go."

Kinch nodded his thanks and quickly exited the cafe. The wind nearly knocked his hat off and he held it tightly to his head. He turned in the direction he had come.

"Hey, wait."

Kinch stopped and turned. Del Russell waved at him and then started to jog towards him, huffing and puffing as he went. He finally reached Kinch and bent over, hands on his knees as he gulped down air.

"Whew. I'm not as young as I used to be." He sucked in a deep breath through his nose and then straightened. "Where are you going?"

"The Morgan's," Kinch told him. "Sheriff Wetzel has to listen to me."

Russell shook his head. "But he won't. Look…" Russell hesitated.

"What is it?"

Russell rubbed his neck. "Look, I know that your guys' operation is top secret. Hell, Andy won't even let me mention Stalag 13 when we're together because he doesn't want either of us to accidentally say anything about what you guys did there. And I don't know if you can make an exception in this case, but, either way, Sheriff Wetzel won't listen to you. He's… like that."

"I've got to try," Kinch insisted.

"I know but… The thing is, I owe you guys. I owe you guys everything. The Gestapo was going to do terrible things to me and you all saved me. And Andy won't let me do anything more than buy him the occasional beer to thank him. So whatever you need me to do to help, let me help."

Kinch eyed him. He wasn't sure what he and this portly old man were supposed to do. But, again, he knew he had to do something.

"How do you feel about road trips?"

Okay, I wrote, erased, and rewrote this chapter a dozen times. I seriously wrote out close to 10,000 words trying to figure this one out. Finally, I decided to pull in some characters from True Heroes. And this is the result.