The Mission from Oz 2/4
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Chapter 1
One Year Later
Stalag Luft XIIIc, Hammelburg, Germany
“Goodbye, Klink,” said Gen. Albert Burkhalter firmly in German, cutting off the voluble stream of babble from his host, Col. Wilhelm Klink. Both men were standing on the front steps of Stalag 13’s Kommandantur, in front of which stood the general’s command car, and Burkhalter was pulling on his gloves with an air that meant he was finally finished with his inspection of the camp and was definitely leaving for real this time.
Just within earshot, playing catch with his juniors in the center of the compound, Col. Robert Hogan watched the proceedings with a silent sigh of relief. Klink always tightened security whenever Burkhalter or any other high-ranking official came to stay overnight, and an intense wave of bombings during the full moon had made the roads between Hammelburg and Berlin impassible for several days, which had kept Burkhalter from leaving when planned. That, in turn, had prevented Hogan and his band of POWs from getting out to fulfill their usual round of espionage and sabotage missions, an especially frustrating turn when they hadn’t been available to help rescue a captured OSS agent, codenamed Glinda, over the weekend.
Klink, however, was still bowing and scraping. “Are you sure you won’t stay for dinner, Herr General?”
Please say no, Hogan pleaded silently. Please say no....
“If I spend one more minute in this camp,” Burkhalter replied, “I believe my wife will start thinking I’m having an affair with Fräulein Hilda.”
Hogan stifled another sigh, as well as a chuckle. Hilda, Klink’s beautiful blonde secretary, had been hit on by practically every man who’d walked into the camp, regardless of which side he was on. Her willingness to flirt back with the German officers seemed to be in the line of duty; her willingness to bill and coo with Hogan seemed more like pleasure, which put her on the short list of women he might decide to marry when the war was over.
“Oh,” said Klink, smile dimming briefly before brightening again with a nervous laugh. “Well, then let us avoid that.” He dutifully opened Burkhalter’s door for him and saluted as the portly general hefted himself into the car.
Satisfied that Burkhalter was truly on his way, Hogan fired a pitch past Sgt. Andrew Carter as a sign to move the game closer to Barracks 2. Carter and Cpl. Peter Newkirk both chased the ball, and Hogan and Sgt. James Kinchloe followed toward the barracks, watching subtly as the general’s car cleared the gate and sped off toward his next destination.
When the gates shut, Kinch didn’t hide his own sigh of relief. “Glad we’ve seen the last of him for the next month.”
“Tell me about it,” Hogan agreed. “Any word on what happened with Glinda?”
Kinch shook his head. “No, sir. Last I heard, London was flying in another agent, but that’s all I know. The other traffic must have been either on a different wavelength or at a time when I wasn’t monitoring.”
“Mm. Well, let’s hope everything went all right.”
Newkirk tossed the ball back to Hogan then, and the game continued for another ten minutes until the scheduled end of the prisoners’ exercise period. But before Sgt. Hans Schultz could come chase them back into the barracks, Hogan suddenly heard the noise of another engine approaching-three engines, really, two of them probably diesel. The prisoners turned to see two trucks and a command car pull up to the gate, stop briefly, and then drive into the compound as the gates opened. One of the trucks was a ton-and-a-half personnel carrier; the other was a large freight truck with a flatbed trailer, on which rested a fighter plane.
“Hey, that’s one of ours!” Carter exclaimed quietly.
Sure enough, while the shape wasn’t quite the same as the standard P-47 Thunderbolt Hogan had seen before his capture, it bore USAAF markings. And when the convoy parked in front of Klink’s office, a group of Luftwaffe guards got out of the smaller truck, herding with them an American officer-a captain, from his insignia, a stocky fellow with brown hair and mustache and bruises on the left side of his face. In fact, his left eye was swollen shut, and there was a freshly-scabbed cut on his lip.
“Gave ’im a right ol’ goin’ over, didn’t they?” Newkirk murmured.
“I’ll go talk to him,” Hogan murmured back. “Carter, Newkirk, get out the coffee pot. Don’t miss a word. Kinch, hook my wire recorder up to the tap on Klink’s phone, just in case.”
With a round of affirmative murmurs, the three men went inside, and Hogan crossed the compound to speak to the new arrival while his chief captor, a Luftwaffe lieutenant, was talking to Klink. The captain saw him coming and saluted.
“Hi!” said Hogan, returning the salute. “Col. Hogan. Welcome to the country club.”
“Capt. Jack Dalton, at you service, sir,” replied the newcomer.
“At ease, Dalton.” Hogan frowned slightly as something about Dalton’s accent registered. “Minnesota?”
Dalton nodded. “Mission City. Haven’t been home in a long time, though.”
“Thought so. You all right?”
“Yes, sir. Goons’ve been workin’ me over, but all they get’s name, rank, and serial number.”
“Good man.”
“’Course, they’re not interested in any of the really good stories-”
“Kein Gespräch,” snapped one of the guards.
“Hey, you don’t have to yell yourself purple,” Dalton snapped back. “I was just gonna tell the colonel about a gold mine I found in South-”
The guard slammed the butt of his rifle into Dalton’s stomach, and Dalton collapsed back against the truck and slid to the ground with a groan.
Furious, Hogan rounded on Klink and the lieutenant, who were just walking over to them. “Col. Klink, I protest this violation of the Geneva Convention!” he yelled, pointing at the offending guard.
“This matter is none of your concern,” the lieutenant returned in English before Klink, who looked properly shocked, could get a word out.
“I’m the senior POW officer,” Hogan shot back. “Capt. Dalton is an American prisoner. As long as he’s in this camp, he is my concern.”
“He will not be in this camp for more than eighteen hours.”
Hogan’s frown deepened. “You’re taking him to Berlin?”
“Enough questions, you-” The lieutenant raised his hand with the obvious intent of backhanding Hogan.
But Schultz, who’d been hanging back, stepped between the two men to form a tall, stout barrier as Klink barked something Hogan didn’t quite catch, possibly the lieutenant’s name. “You will stand down,” Klink continued in English, “or I will report this incident to the High Command!”
The lieutenant snarled.
“How you behave outside this camp may be your own responsibility, but here, I am in command, and you will not have dealings with any prisoner without my permission. Understood?”
“Then may I request,” the lieutenant said between clenched teeth (Hogan couldn’t see past Schultz, but the tone was obvious), “that you put my prisoner in solitary confinement until such time as we are ready to proceed?”
“Why?” Hogan demanded. “Dalton’s an officer, entitled to the privileges of his rank. Let him stay with me.”
The lieutenant inhaled noisily in an obvious attempt to keep his cool. “Dalton has vital military information and must be kept separate from the other prisoners. If he is not put in solitary, I will report it to the Gestapo.”
Those were the magic words where Klink was concerned, and even Hogan knew it. Sounding deflated, Klink said, “Schultz?”
As he turned toward Dalton, Schultz looked apologetically at Hogan. Hogan squeezed his shoulder in thanks.
“Thanks for trying, sir,” Dalton said with a grunt as Schultz helped him to his feet.
Hogan nodded once. “Keep your chin up, Dalton.”
“Yes, sir.” Dalton hobbled away toward the cooler with his guards, leaning heavily on Schultz.
As Hogan turned back to Klink, the lieutenant said, “Now, as for you-”
“Toeppich!” Klink barked again, and this time Hogan caught the name.
Hogan threw up his hands. “All right, I’m leaving. But you’d better believe the Red Cross is gonna hear about this.” And he stalked back to Barracks 2.
As the door slammed behind Hogan, the fifth member of his core team, Cpl. Louis LeBeau, looked up from the pot of rabbit ragout he was stirring on the wood-burning stove in the middle of the barracks. “Trouble, colonel?”
“Yeah,” Hogan growled. “I think Dalton’s all right, though we should check on him just to make sure.”
“He gave the recognition code?”
“Yep, ‘purple and gold,’ like a natural. But this kid who’s captured him is a real piece of work. I don’t like it.”
Carter poked his head out of the office. “Sir? Toeppich’s about to call the Gestapo.”
“Thanks, Carter,” Hogan replied with a nod and rushed down the ladder under a corner bunk to the radio room in the tunnel system that ran under the camp. There, Kinch had a line from the bug on Klink’s phone connected to the wire recorder disguised as a sewing basket, with the lid open so that both he and Hogan could hear the conversation through the speaker hidden in the quilted pincushion.
“Maj. Künzel speaking,” an unfamiliar voice was saying in German just as Hogan arrived and thanked Kinch with a pat on the shoulder.*
“Künzel?” Toeppich echoed, sounding confused. “I was told to report to Maj. Hochstetter.”
“Maj. Hochstetter is in Berlin on six weeks’ suspension,” replied the other. “I am in charge of the Düsseldorf office until his return.”**
“Suspension?” Kinch asked Hogan in English.
It took Hogan a second to think. “Hans Wagner,” he realized aloud. A few weeks earlier, Hochstetter had captured an Underground operative whose hotheaded brother insisted on rescuing him before Wagner could be transferred to Berlin for execution. Hogan’s attempt to force a prisoner exchange had gone completely wrong when the younger Wagner had captured Klink instead of Burkhalter, which in turn had required Hogan to trick Hochstetter into thinking Klink was a British agent just long enough for the exchange to go through. Apparently, Hochstetter had gotten into more trouble over it than Hogan had realized.
“It is none of your concern,” Künzel was stating icily as Hogan returned his attention to the conversation in progress, probably in answer to Toeppich asking the same thing Kinch had. “You will make your report to me and no one else.”
Toeppich huffed. “Very well. I have arrived at Stalag 13 with the prisoner Dalton and his captured plane. We will remain here overnight and proceed to Berlin in the morning.”
“You will do no such thing.”
That caught Hogan’s attention-and was he imagining the barest trace of a Midwestern American accent in Künzel’s voice?
“What do you mean-” Toeppich began to protest.
“Silence!” barked Künzel.
Toeppich shut up.
“Travel to Berlin has been suspended because of recent bombings. In view of the importance of your mission, I cannot allow you to continue your journey until it is certain that the roads are safe.”
Kinch and Hogan frowned at each other. Burkhalter had been allowed to leave-not that Toeppich knew that, even though he must have passed Burkhalter’s car on the way out to the camp. What on earth was Künzel doing?
“I am to stay here, then?” Toeppich asked.
“No. Your prisoner is to stay at Stalag 13. There has never been an escape from that camp; he will be perfectly secure there. You are to bring the plane to Düsseldorf for repairs.”
“Repairs?”
“Well, it is my understanding that you intend to present the prisoner and his aircraft to Field Marshal Goering. Much better to have the plane in perfect working order so that the Luftwaffe can study it properly, is it not?”
Kinch and Hogan stared at each other. Maybe that trace of accent wasn’t just Hogan’s imagination.
Toeppich tried to protest again, but Künzel cut him off. “Toeppich! I have had reports about you-reports of insubordination. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the importance of discipline and obedience to orders, do I?” And that was a veiled threat of a trip to the Russian Front if ever Hogan had heard one.
Toeppich gulped audibly. “No, Herr Major.”
“Then see to it at once. I will meet you at the airfield in one hour.”
“Yes, Herr Major. I will be there.” And Toeppich signed off, sounding properly cowed for a change.
Kinch blew the air out of his dark cheeks as he switched off the wire recorder and unplugged it. “This Maj. Künzel’s got guts, I’ll say that for him.”
“Yeah,” Hogan agreed. “Just wish I could figure out which side he’s on.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about Klink keeping security tight while Toeppich’s here. Might not make it any easier to help Dalton, though.”
“Not while he’s in camp, no. Toeppich said Dalton’s got vital military information, and it’s something important enough to take him straight to Goering.”
“Want me to ask London about him?”
“Yeah, I think you should. He had the right recognition code, but it never hurts to be sure.”
“What about Künzel?”
Hogan considered, then shook his head with a sigh. “No, not yet. We won’t worry about him unless he comes after us.”
Just then, LeBeau clattered down the ladder from the barracks with a tray with two bowls on it. “Want some food?” he offered Kinch.
“Hey, thanks,” Kinch replied, accepted a bowl of ragout, and set it to one side of the radio desk.
“Keep mine on the back burner,” Hogan said, taking the other bowl. “I’ll take this one to Dalton.”
LeBeau nodded. “Oui, mon colonel.”
“Want you to take some to Schultz, too, keep him distracted while I’m in there.”
“Oui d’accord.” LeBeau scurried up the ladder again.
“What do you think Dalton knows?” Kinch asked.
Hogan shrugged. “Won’t know ’til I ask him.”
Kinch shrugged his eyebrows in reply-Fair enough-and started tapping a message to London on the radio telegraph key while Hogan kept an eye on his watch. After giving LeBeau enough of a head start, Hogan made his way through the tunnels to the one that led up to the most secure solitary cell in the cooler. At the top of the ladder, he listened a moment to make sure the coast was clear, then opened the trap door and tilted the sink out of the way. He heard the cot creak when Dalton got up.
“Room service?” Dalton asked as Hogan set the bowl on the floor and climbed out of the tunnel.
“’S why the guide book gives us four stars with a skull and crossbones,” Hogan quipped. “Better eat it fast.”
Dalton nodded and picked up the bowl. “Thank you, sir.” He sat down on the cot again and began scarfing down the ragout while Hogan went to the door to double-check that the hall outside the cell was clear. “Mm. This is even better than the stuff I used to get in the French Quarter when I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.”
“I’ll give your compliments to our chef,” Hogan replied, unable to keep from smiling. “What outfit were you with?”
“What year?”
“I meant this one.”
Dalton swallowed a large bite of ragout. “Sixty-third Squadron, 56th Fighter Group. But I haven’t seen much action-front line stuff, I mean.”
“The 56th, huh? How’s old McNair doing?”
“Don’t know him, sir.”
“What about Maj. Campbell?”
Dalton took another bite and shook his head. “Must be thinking of another unit, sir.”
Hogan smiled. “Nah, just checking. So what have you been doing?”
“Test flights. Experimental aircraft.” Dalton wolfed down the last few bites and set the bowl on the floor with a happy sigh. “Man. That was almost worth gettin’ captured for.”
Hogan raised his chin and narrowed his eyes. “Captured. Not shot down?”
Dalton shook his head. “It was sabotage. I’m sure of it. This plane’s a new version of the Thunderbolt, adapted as a light bomber with a three-man crew. I’d just taken off on a test flight when we got a scramble order to hit a target in Calais, and Control sent me out with the rest of the squadron. Everything was fine until I started to turn to come home, and then my fuel line snapped. Brought her down just fine, but I didn’t even make it out of the plane before the Germans were on me like white on rice. It was almost like they knew I was coming.”
Hogan nodded slowly. “So all your bruises are....”
“From Toeppich, yeah-I mean, yes, sir. Called ’em carpet burns once; that’s when he gave me the black eye.”
Hogan couldn’t resist a snort at the pun.***
“Toeppich thinks I know more than I do about the Army’s research program,” Dalton continued, leaning back against the wall and closing his unswollen eye. “I... might accidentally have given him that idea myself. But like I said, he doesn’t want to hear any of the really good stories-I mean the ones from before the war. Not like I’d tell him anything he can actually use, even if I did know much,” he added in a grouchy mutter.
Hogan nodded slowly. “Well, the Gestapo’s ordered you to be held here for the next few days. We’ll use the time we have to try to arrange your escape when they move you again. And I am reporting Toeppich to the Red Cross.”
Dalton looked up at him again. “Thank you, sir. Heard a lot about you back in England. I know I can trust you.”
Just then, Carter poked his head up through the tunnel entrance. “Sir? Message from London.”
Hogan nodded, collected Dalton’s bowl, and handed it to Carter. “Thanks, Carter.”
Carter nodded back and hurried back down the ladder.
“Take it easy, Dalton,” Hogan said as he turned to back down the ladder himself. “You’ll be safe enough here.”
“Yes, sir,” Dalton replied, and Hogan pulled the sink back into place and closed the trap door before he could say any more.
Back in the radio room, Kinch handed Hogan a clipboard. “Here’s the details on Dalton-and there’s an OSS agent coming into Hammelburg on the train from Hannover, codename Tin Man. Orders are to assist him in any way possible.”
Hogan hummed thoughtfully. “Have Schnitzer pick him up, bring him in with the dog truck.” Oscar Schnitzer, the aging Hammelburg veterinarian, was both the man responsible for the camp’s rotation of guard dogs and an active member of the local Underground. Hogan had lost track of the number of people and amount of materiel Schnitzer had smuggled into camp for them over the last year and a half.
Kinch nodded, snagged a bite of ragout, and started tuning the radio to the wavelength Schnitzer used.
“Does Dalton check out, sir?” Carter asked as Hogan looked over the blue notepaper covered in Kinch’s neat shorthand.
Hogan nodded. “Yep, this confirms what he told me. London wants us to spring him. Guess we’ll find out tonight whether that’s Tin Man’s mission or whether he’s here about Glinda.”
“Toeppich left with Dalton’s plane just before LeBeau went to take Schultz his ragout.”
“Good.” Hogan picked up the wire recorder. “Want you guys to hear this. Might give us some clues as to how to help Dalton. We can listen to it in my office after supper.”
Carter nodded. “Yes, sir.”
With that, Carter and Hogan both went back up to the barracks, where LeBeau was just returning from having successfully distracted Schultz. They and the rest of the prisoners ate quickly and were just finishing when Kinch joined them to report that Schnitzer would deliver Tin Man shortly after dark. After assigning a couple of men to do the dishes, Hogan ushered his team into the office to summarize his conversation with Dalton and play back the recording of Toeppich’s conversation with Künzel.
“Could Künzel be a member of the Underground, sir?” Carter asked.
“Impossible,” LeBeau replied.
“No, not impossible,” Hogan countered, “but I can’t tell how likely it is. It could just be the Gestapo setting up Toeppich to take the fall when Dalton escapes, although I don’t know why they’d be willing to let Dalton get away. Or it could be that Künzel’s on the level, although I doubt it-the Gestapo never has taken Klink’s perfect record at face value.”
“Or it could be a trap for us, sir,” Newkirk noted.
“If it is, we’ll have to walk into it with our eyes open. London wants him sprung, and I already told him we’d see what we could do.” Hogan pulled his stash of hanging maps out of the wall above his desk and pulled down a map of the area, then traced a winding line of roadway with the end of his pen. “This is the route the convoy has to take to get from here to the Autobahn, given all the destruction on the other roads in the area. Here”-he indicated a particular curve several miles from the camp, which they could reach more quickly on foot by cutting across country than the convoy could reach it even at thirty miles an hour-“the road goes down a steep gradient as it goes around this bend. Especially with the plane, they’ll have to slow down well before the curve to avoid accidents. The trees come pretty close to the road at the curve, but if we can set up an ambush here”-he pointed to an area about a hundred yards further back-“Dalton should have enough of a clear, straight path to be able to take off from the back of the truck.”
“What kind of ambush did you have in mind, colonel?” LeBeau asked.
Hogan outlined his idea, and the others gave suggestions of greater or lesser value until evening roll call, which on this particular occasion was shortly before sunset. After that, it was just a matter of killing time and keeping watch until Schnitzer arrived and drove up to the kennel. Leaving one of the other prisoners to watch the door and create a diversion if needed, Hogan and his men headed down into the tunnel and around to the entrance that was hidden under one of the doghouses. Then LeBeau hurried up the ladder to open the entrance and usher Tin Man inside.
The man who jumped down about three feet from the bottom of the ladder to make way for LeBeau looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties and a good three inches taller than Hogan, though Hogan himself wasn’t sure whether that were his true height or just an illusion caused by the Luftwaffe mechanic’s jumpsuit and combat boots he was wearing. His shock of blond hair was longer than regulation, and his eyes were brown rather than the ideal Aryan blue, but odds were good that he could pass for a German even more easily than Hogan could. And once he’d made sure LeBeau was safely away from the tunnel entrance, he turned straight to Hogan and gave him a quick once-over.
“Tin Man?” Hogan asked.
The newcomer nodded once.
“Col. Hogan. Welcome to paradise.”
Tin Man gave an amused snort and offered his hand. “Name’s MacGyver. Nice to meet you, Colonel.”
Hogan shook hands and introduced MacGyver around. “You OSS?” he asked then.
“Nah, civilian contractor. I work for a group called the Phoenix Foundation. We mostly do philanthropic work, but we cooperate with the government sometimes-worked with the WPA in the early days, and sometimes we’ve had to coordinate with military intelligence when we’ve gone in to rescue civilians, Soviet defectors, that sort of thing. Some of us are seconded to the OSS these days... and that’s actually why I’m here.”
“To rescue Glinda?”
“Yes and no.” MacGyver took the seat Carter offered him with a sigh. “I would have come in on Saturday to get Glinda myself, but I was tied up gettin’ a bunch of deaf kids out of Norway.”
“We were the closest agents, but security was so tight, we couldn’t get out, either.”
“Yeah, well... Col. Conlon decided to send somebody else, a good friend of mine. His codename is Toto. My information is that he did get Glinda out, but when they met up with her Underground contacts outside of Düsseldorf, somebody betrayed them to the Gestapo. Glinda and the Underground guys got away. Toto didn’t.” MacGyver looked away and shook his head, clearly blaming himself. “I’d just delivered the deaf kids to the ship when I got the news, so I hopped the first flight from Trondheim to Hannover, and the Hannover Underground sent me here.”
“You coulda just asked, saved yourself the trip.”
MacGyver’s eyes were anguished when he looked up at Hogan again. “You don’t understand. Toto has glaucoma. If the Gestapo’s worked him over, there’s a good chance his vision’s taken a serious turn for the worse, or he may be completely blind. I know you’re a good outfit, and I’d appreciate havin’ some backup, but I can’t trust anyone to take this mission without me.” He took a deep breath and added more quietly, “I’m not gonna leave my best friend alone in the dark.”
Hogan nodded slowly. “All right. It’ll take a little time to get you a uniform and some papers and arrange for a car, and I’ll have to make sure Klink’s relaxed his security enough that we can get out. If all goes well, we can go tomorrow night.”
MacGyver relaxed and nodded. “Tomorrow night’s fine. But who’s ‘we’?”
“Think it should probably just be you and me. They don’t normally send more than two officers to pick up a prisoner transfer anyway. And there’s another high-security prisoner here in the cooler, so in case Klink orders a surprise bed check, it’ll be easiest to cover for just one man.”
MacGyver nodded his understanding.
“But sir, if Klink does order a bed check, he’ll want to see you personally,” Carter objected.
“Our dummy does not look enough like you to fool him,” LeBeau added.
Hogan shrugged. “Tell him I’ve got the flu.”
“In the summer?!”
“It’s been known to happen! Besides, this is Klink-you could tell him I’ve got the Martian vapors, and he’d believe it.”
MacGyver barked a laugh. “Give it some ridiculous Latin name, like Frontificus pasturalis, and say he’ll recover in twenty-four hours if it doesn’t kill him first.”
Impressed, Hogan pointed to him. “I like the way you think!”
“Hey, at noon tomorrow Mars is in Pisces at the same time Pluto’s in Cancer,” said Kinch, almanac in hand. “So if you start acting sick around noon....”
“Ought to get a few other chaps in on the act, sir,” said Newkirk. “Leastways, if we’re to blame it on an opposition o’ planets, it’ll look odd if it’s just you.”
Hogan nodded once. “LeBeau, Carter, round up some volunteers. We can work out the symptoms with Wilson first thing in the morning. In the meantime, Kinch, we’ll need ID papers for MacGyver and some papers for Toto’s transfer, as well as a car. Think we can use Klink’s?”
“Ten cents a mile,” Kinch replied.
“Good. Newkirk?”
“What ranks would you like, sir?” Newkirk asked.
“Let’s make MacGyver a major and me a captain. No need to go overboard.”
“Right, sir, will do.” Newkirk went to get his trusty tape measure.
“There’s just one thing, Colonel,” MacGyver said. “I’d prefer not to carry a gun.”
Hogan frowned. “Gestapo officers always carry guns unless they’re in civilian clothes.”
“I know. That’s why I said something now.”
Hogan exchanged a look with Newkirk. “You want to walk into Gestapo Headquarters unarmed?”
“Not unarmed-not totally.” MacGyver pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket.
“That’s not much of a weapon.”
“I don’t use it for a weapon. It allows me to improvise a non-lethal way out of a jam. I don’t kill unless I absolutely have to, and believe me, I hate those situations. So the more steps we can take now to ensure we can just walk into Gestapo Headquarters and walk out with Pete, the better I’ll be able to sleep tomorrow night.”
Hogan decided not to point out that MacGyver had just let Toto’s real first name slip. “All right, it’s a deal. Newkirk?”
“Civilian suit in black, sir,” Newkirk agreed and began taking MacGyver’s measurements.
The next day was the first in over a week that went completely according to plan, at least during daylight hours. The faked attack of Martian vapors, into which even Dalton threw himself with relish, not only convinced Klink and Schultz that Hogan was truly sick but also conned the hypochondriac Klink into thinking that he was sick himself. As a result, Klink never got around to re-tightening the security measures he’d relaxed between Burkhalter’s departure and Toeppich’s arrival the day before, and that night, Hogan and MacGyver were easily able to walk into the motor pool during shift change, drive out through one of the side gates, and get to Düsseldorf with a minimum of fuss.
When they presented themselves at the front desk of Gestapo Headquarters, however, the man on duty didn’t seem surprised to see them. “From Berlin?” he echoed when Hogan stated their cover story in German. “Yes, I believe Maj. Künzel’s expecting you. This way, please.”
It took every ounce of willpower Hogan had not to exchange a surprised glance with MacGyver. Instead, they followed the desk clerk down the hall to Hochstetter’s office, where the door was half open, revealing another man, this one with light brown hair and blue eyes, sitting behind the desk. When this guy stood at the clerk’s knock, he looked even taller than MacGyver.
“The officers from Berlin, Herr Major,” the clerk announced, opening the door the rest of the way.
“Thank you, Fitzner,” replied the major, walking around the desk toward the door, and Hogan recognized his voice as Künzel’s. “You may go.”
The clerk clicked his heels and started back down the hall.
“Come in, gentlemen,” Künzel said, ushering Hogan and MacGyver into the office and closing the door behind them. “Please be seated. May I get you any refreshments? I should need a drink after that drive, given the state the roads are in.”
“No, nothing for us, thank you,” MacGyver replied in flawless German as he and Hogan sat down. “We would prefer to discuss our business and be on our way at once.”
“Very well. Just a moment.” Künzel paused, then opened the door suddenly to reveal a very surprised Fitzner. “Was there something you needed, Fitzner?” Künzel growled.
“N-n-no, sir,” Fitzner replied and hurried back toward the front desk.
Künzel watched him go, then closed the door with a sigh. “We’re clear,” he said-in perfect American English.
“I shoulda known you’d be involved in this,” MacGyver grumbled in the same language as Künzel came back to the desk.
Künzel rolled his eyes. “Hello, Tin Man.”
Hogan looked at MacGyver, who sighed. “Papa Bear, meet Agent Scarecrow.”
“Lee Stetson, OSS,” Künzel-er, Scarecrow-stated, offering his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Col. Hogan.”
Hogan wasn’t sure whether the slight dizzy sensation he had as he shook Stetson’s hand was from relief or from reality warping a tad.
Next
* I’m following Hogan’s Heroes canon in using Heer ranks to refer to most Gestapo officers, despite Gestapo ranks having different titles in reality. There are a few times in canon, like “Two Nazis for the Price of One,” when actual Gestapo ranks like Gruppenführer are used, but mostly the dialogue refers to Gestapo captains, majors, etc.
** It’s not totally clear where Hochstetter’s office is in canon-sometimes it seems to be in Hammelburg (e.g., “Sgt. Schultz Meets Mata Hari”), but at other times it seems to be in Düsseldorf or even Berlin (e.g., “Will the Real Col. Klink Please Stand Up Against the Wall?”). For this story, at least, I’m putting it in Düsseldorf, which wouldn’t preclude his being moved into Hammelburg later.
Please note also that in HH-verse, Hammelburg is much closer to Düsseldorf than it is in our universe-“The Safecracker Suite” is the first of several episodes that establish Düsseldorf as the nearest big city to Hammelburg, but in our world, the closest city to Hammelburg is Würzburg.
*** Teppich literally means carpet or rug; Töppich, according to my German name dictionary, is a variant of Teppich as a name for rugmakers, and the Toeppichs I know pronounce their surname as “Teppich.”
Chapter 1
One Year Later
Stalag Luft XIIIc, Hammelburg, Germany
“Goodbye, Klink,” said Gen. Albert Burkhalter firmly in German, cutting off the voluble stream of babble from his host, Col. Wilhelm Klink. Both men were standing on the front steps of Stalag 13’s Kommandantur, in front of which stood the general’s command car, and Burkhalter was pulling on his gloves with an air that meant he was finally finished with his inspection of the camp and was definitely leaving for real this time.
Just within earshot, playing catch with his juniors in the center of the compound, Col. Robert Hogan watched the proceedings with a silent sigh of relief. Klink always tightened security whenever Burkhalter or any other high-ranking official came to stay overnight, and an intense wave of bombings during the full moon had made the roads between Hammelburg and Berlin impassible for several days, which had kept Burkhalter from leaving when planned. That, in turn, had prevented Hogan and his band of POWs from getting out to fulfill their usual round of espionage and sabotage missions, an especially frustrating turn when they hadn’t been available to help rescue a captured OSS agent, codenamed Glinda, over the weekend.
Klink, however, was still bowing and scraping. “Are you sure you won’t stay for dinner, Herr General?”
Please say no, Hogan pleaded silently. Please say no....
“If I spend one more minute in this camp,” Burkhalter replied, “I believe my wife will start thinking I’m having an affair with Fräulein Hilda.”
Hogan stifled another sigh, as well as a chuckle. Hilda, Klink’s beautiful blonde secretary, had been hit on by practically every man who’d walked into the camp, regardless of which side he was on. Her willingness to flirt back with the German officers seemed to be in the line of duty; her willingness to bill and coo with Hogan seemed more like pleasure, which put her on the short list of women he might decide to marry when the war was over.
“Oh,” said Klink, smile dimming briefly before brightening again with a nervous laugh. “Well, then let us avoid that.” He dutifully opened Burkhalter’s door for him and saluted as the portly general hefted himself into the car.
Satisfied that Burkhalter was truly on his way, Hogan fired a pitch past Sgt. Andrew Carter as a sign to move the game closer to Barracks 2. Carter and Cpl. Peter Newkirk both chased the ball, and Hogan and Sgt. James Kinchloe followed toward the barracks, watching subtly as the general’s car cleared the gate and sped off toward his next destination.
When the gates shut, Kinch didn’t hide his own sigh of relief. “Glad we’ve seen the last of him for the next month.”
“Tell me about it,” Hogan agreed. “Any word on what happened with Glinda?”
Kinch shook his head. “No, sir. Last I heard, London was flying in another agent, but that’s all I know. The other traffic must have been either on a different wavelength or at a time when I wasn’t monitoring.”
“Mm. Well, let’s hope everything went all right.”
Newkirk tossed the ball back to Hogan then, and the game continued for another ten minutes until the scheduled end of the prisoners’ exercise period. But before Sgt. Hans Schultz could come chase them back into the barracks, Hogan suddenly heard the noise of another engine approaching-three engines, really, two of them probably diesel. The prisoners turned to see two trucks and a command car pull up to the gate, stop briefly, and then drive into the compound as the gates opened. One of the trucks was a ton-and-a-half personnel carrier; the other was a large freight truck with a flatbed trailer, on which rested a fighter plane.
“Hey, that’s one of ours!” Carter exclaimed quietly.
Sure enough, while the shape wasn’t quite the same as the standard P-47 Thunderbolt Hogan had seen before his capture, it bore USAAF markings. And when the convoy parked in front of Klink’s office, a group of Luftwaffe guards got out of the smaller truck, herding with them an American officer-a captain, from his insignia, a stocky fellow with brown hair and mustache and bruises on the left side of his face. In fact, his left eye was swollen shut, and there was a freshly-scabbed cut on his lip.
“Gave ’im a right ol’ goin’ over, didn’t they?” Newkirk murmured.
“I’ll go talk to him,” Hogan murmured back. “Carter, Newkirk, get out the coffee pot. Don’t miss a word. Kinch, hook my wire recorder up to the tap on Klink’s phone, just in case.”
With a round of affirmative murmurs, the three men went inside, and Hogan crossed the compound to speak to the new arrival while his chief captor, a Luftwaffe lieutenant, was talking to Klink. The captain saw him coming and saluted.
“Hi!” said Hogan, returning the salute. “Col. Hogan. Welcome to the country club.”
“Capt. Jack Dalton, at you service, sir,” replied the newcomer.
“At ease, Dalton.” Hogan frowned slightly as something about Dalton’s accent registered. “Minnesota?”
Dalton nodded. “Mission City. Haven’t been home in a long time, though.”
“Thought so. You all right?”
“Yes, sir. Goons’ve been workin’ me over, but all they get’s name, rank, and serial number.”
“Good man.”
“’Course, they’re not interested in any of the really good stories-”
“Kein Gespräch,” snapped one of the guards.
“Hey, you don’t have to yell yourself purple,” Dalton snapped back. “I was just gonna tell the colonel about a gold mine I found in South-”
The guard slammed the butt of his rifle into Dalton’s stomach, and Dalton collapsed back against the truck and slid to the ground with a groan.
Furious, Hogan rounded on Klink and the lieutenant, who were just walking over to them. “Col. Klink, I protest this violation of the Geneva Convention!” he yelled, pointing at the offending guard.
“This matter is none of your concern,” the lieutenant returned in English before Klink, who looked properly shocked, could get a word out.
“I’m the senior POW officer,” Hogan shot back. “Capt. Dalton is an American prisoner. As long as he’s in this camp, he is my concern.”
“He will not be in this camp for more than eighteen hours.”
Hogan’s frown deepened. “You’re taking him to Berlin?”
“Enough questions, you-” The lieutenant raised his hand with the obvious intent of backhanding Hogan.
But Schultz, who’d been hanging back, stepped between the two men to form a tall, stout barrier as Klink barked something Hogan didn’t quite catch, possibly the lieutenant’s name. “You will stand down,” Klink continued in English, “or I will report this incident to the High Command!”
The lieutenant snarled.
“How you behave outside this camp may be your own responsibility, but here, I am in command, and you will not have dealings with any prisoner without my permission. Understood?”
“Then may I request,” the lieutenant said between clenched teeth (Hogan couldn’t see past Schultz, but the tone was obvious), “that you put my prisoner in solitary confinement until such time as we are ready to proceed?”
“Why?” Hogan demanded. “Dalton’s an officer, entitled to the privileges of his rank. Let him stay with me.”
The lieutenant inhaled noisily in an obvious attempt to keep his cool. “Dalton has vital military information and must be kept separate from the other prisoners. If he is not put in solitary, I will report it to the Gestapo.”
Those were the magic words where Klink was concerned, and even Hogan knew it. Sounding deflated, Klink said, “Schultz?”
As he turned toward Dalton, Schultz looked apologetically at Hogan. Hogan squeezed his shoulder in thanks.
“Thanks for trying, sir,” Dalton said with a grunt as Schultz helped him to his feet.
Hogan nodded once. “Keep your chin up, Dalton.”
“Yes, sir.” Dalton hobbled away toward the cooler with his guards, leaning heavily on Schultz.
As Hogan turned back to Klink, the lieutenant said, “Now, as for you-”
“Toeppich!” Klink barked again, and this time Hogan caught the name.
Hogan threw up his hands. “All right, I’m leaving. But you’d better believe the Red Cross is gonna hear about this.” And he stalked back to Barracks 2.
As the door slammed behind Hogan, the fifth member of his core team, Cpl. Louis LeBeau, looked up from the pot of rabbit ragout he was stirring on the wood-burning stove in the middle of the barracks. “Trouble, colonel?”
“Yeah,” Hogan growled. “I think Dalton’s all right, though we should check on him just to make sure.”
“He gave the recognition code?”
“Yep, ‘purple and gold,’ like a natural. But this kid who’s captured him is a real piece of work. I don’t like it.”
Carter poked his head out of the office. “Sir? Toeppich’s about to call the Gestapo.”
“Thanks, Carter,” Hogan replied with a nod and rushed down the ladder under a corner bunk to the radio room in the tunnel system that ran under the camp. There, Kinch had a line from the bug on Klink’s phone connected to the wire recorder disguised as a sewing basket, with the lid open so that both he and Hogan could hear the conversation through the speaker hidden in the quilted pincushion.
“Maj. Künzel speaking,” an unfamiliar voice was saying in German just as Hogan arrived and thanked Kinch with a pat on the shoulder.*
“Künzel?” Toeppich echoed, sounding confused. “I was told to report to Maj. Hochstetter.”
“Maj. Hochstetter is in Berlin on six weeks’ suspension,” replied the other. “I am in charge of the Düsseldorf office until his return.”**
“Suspension?” Kinch asked Hogan in English.
It took Hogan a second to think. “Hans Wagner,” he realized aloud. A few weeks earlier, Hochstetter had captured an Underground operative whose hotheaded brother insisted on rescuing him before Wagner could be transferred to Berlin for execution. Hogan’s attempt to force a prisoner exchange had gone completely wrong when the younger Wagner had captured Klink instead of Burkhalter, which in turn had required Hogan to trick Hochstetter into thinking Klink was a British agent just long enough for the exchange to go through. Apparently, Hochstetter had gotten into more trouble over it than Hogan had realized.
“It is none of your concern,” Künzel was stating icily as Hogan returned his attention to the conversation in progress, probably in answer to Toeppich asking the same thing Kinch had. “You will make your report to me and no one else.”
Toeppich huffed. “Very well. I have arrived at Stalag 13 with the prisoner Dalton and his captured plane. We will remain here overnight and proceed to Berlin in the morning.”
“You will do no such thing.”
That caught Hogan’s attention-and was he imagining the barest trace of a Midwestern American accent in Künzel’s voice?
“What do you mean-” Toeppich began to protest.
“Silence!” barked Künzel.
Toeppich shut up.
“Travel to Berlin has been suspended because of recent bombings. In view of the importance of your mission, I cannot allow you to continue your journey until it is certain that the roads are safe.”
Kinch and Hogan frowned at each other. Burkhalter had been allowed to leave-not that Toeppich knew that, even though he must have passed Burkhalter’s car on the way out to the camp. What on earth was Künzel doing?
“I am to stay here, then?” Toeppich asked.
“No. Your prisoner is to stay at Stalag 13. There has never been an escape from that camp; he will be perfectly secure there. You are to bring the plane to Düsseldorf for repairs.”
“Repairs?”
“Well, it is my understanding that you intend to present the prisoner and his aircraft to Field Marshal Goering. Much better to have the plane in perfect working order so that the Luftwaffe can study it properly, is it not?”
Kinch and Hogan stared at each other. Maybe that trace of accent wasn’t just Hogan’s imagination.
Toeppich tried to protest again, but Künzel cut him off. “Toeppich! I have had reports about you-reports of insubordination. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the importance of discipline and obedience to orders, do I?” And that was a veiled threat of a trip to the Russian Front if ever Hogan had heard one.
Toeppich gulped audibly. “No, Herr Major.”
“Then see to it at once. I will meet you at the airfield in one hour.”
“Yes, Herr Major. I will be there.” And Toeppich signed off, sounding properly cowed for a change.
Kinch blew the air out of his dark cheeks as he switched off the wire recorder and unplugged it. “This Maj. Künzel’s got guts, I’ll say that for him.”
“Yeah,” Hogan agreed. “Just wish I could figure out which side he’s on.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about Klink keeping security tight while Toeppich’s here. Might not make it any easier to help Dalton, though.”
“Not while he’s in camp, no. Toeppich said Dalton’s got vital military information, and it’s something important enough to take him straight to Goering.”
“Want me to ask London about him?”
“Yeah, I think you should. He had the right recognition code, but it never hurts to be sure.”
“What about Künzel?”
Hogan considered, then shook his head with a sigh. “No, not yet. We won’t worry about him unless he comes after us.”
Just then, LeBeau clattered down the ladder from the barracks with a tray with two bowls on it. “Want some food?” he offered Kinch.
“Hey, thanks,” Kinch replied, accepted a bowl of ragout, and set it to one side of the radio desk.
“Keep mine on the back burner,” Hogan said, taking the other bowl. “I’ll take this one to Dalton.”
LeBeau nodded. “Oui, mon colonel.”
“Want you to take some to Schultz, too, keep him distracted while I’m in there.”
“Oui d’accord.” LeBeau scurried up the ladder again.
“What do you think Dalton knows?” Kinch asked.
Hogan shrugged. “Won’t know ’til I ask him.”
Kinch shrugged his eyebrows in reply-Fair enough-and started tapping a message to London on the radio telegraph key while Hogan kept an eye on his watch. After giving LeBeau enough of a head start, Hogan made his way through the tunnels to the one that led up to the most secure solitary cell in the cooler. At the top of the ladder, he listened a moment to make sure the coast was clear, then opened the trap door and tilted the sink out of the way. He heard the cot creak when Dalton got up.
“Room service?” Dalton asked as Hogan set the bowl on the floor and climbed out of the tunnel.
“’S why the guide book gives us four stars with a skull and crossbones,” Hogan quipped. “Better eat it fast.”
Dalton nodded and picked up the bowl. “Thank you, sir.” He sat down on the cot again and began scarfing down the ragout while Hogan went to the door to double-check that the hall outside the cell was clear. “Mm. This is even better than the stuff I used to get in the French Quarter when I went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.”
“I’ll give your compliments to our chef,” Hogan replied, unable to keep from smiling. “What outfit were you with?”
“What year?”
“I meant this one.”
Dalton swallowed a large bite of ragout. “Sixty-third Squadron, 56th Fighter Group. But I haven’t seen much action-front line stuff, I mean.”
“The 56th, huh? How’s old McNair doing?”
“Don’t know him, sir.”
“What about Maj. Campbell?”
Dalton took another bite and shook his head. “Must be thinking of another unit, sir.”
Hogan smiled. “Nah, just checking. So what have you been doing?”
“Test flights. Experimental aircraft.” Dalton wolfed down the last few bites and set the bowl on the floor with a happy sigh. “Man. That was almost worth gettin’ captured for.”
Hogan raised his chin and narrowed his eyes. “Captured. Not shot down?”
Dalton shook his head. “It was sabotage. I’m sure of it. This plane’s a new version of the Thunderbolt, adapted as a light bomber with a three-man crew. I’d just taken off on a test flight when we got a scramble order to hit a target in Calais, and Control sent me out with the rest of the squadron. Everything was fine until I started to turn to come home, and then my fuel line snapped. Brought her down just fine, but I didn’t even make it out of the plane before the Germans were on me like white on rice. It was almost like they knew I was coming.”
Hogan nodded slowly. “So all your bruises are....”
“From Toeppich, yeah-I mean, yes, sir. Called ’em carpet burns once; that’s when he gave me the black eye.”
Hogan couldn’t resist a snort at the pun.***
“Toeppich thinks I know more than I do about the Army’s research program,” Dalton continued, leaning back against the wall and closing his unswollen eye. “I... might accidentally have given him that idea myself. But like I said, he doesn’t want to hear any of the really good stories-I mean the ones from before the war. Not like I’d tell him anything he can actually use, even if I did know much,” he added in a grouchy mutter.
Hogan nodded slowly. “Well, the Gestapo’s ordered you to be held here for the next few days. We’ll use the time we have to try to arrange your escape when they move you again. And I am reporting Toeppich to the Red Cross.”
Dalton looked up at him again. “Thank you, sir. Heard a lot about you back in England. I know I can trust you.”
Just then, Carter poked his head up through the tunnel entrance. “Sir? Message from London.”
Hogan nodded, collected Dalton’s bowl, and handed it to Carter. “Thanks, Carter.”
Carter nodded back and hurried back down the ladder.
“Take it easy, Dalton,” Hogan said as he turned to back down the ladder himself. “You’ll be safe enough here.”
“Yes, sir,” Dalton replied, and Hogan pulled the sink back into place and closed the trap door before he could say any more.
Back in the radio room, Kinch handed Hogan a clipboard. “Here’s the details on Dalton-and there’s an OSS agent coming into Hammelburg on the train from Hannover, codename Tin Man. Orders are to assist him in any way possible.”
Hogan hummed thoughtfully. “Have Schnitzer pick him up, bring him in with the dog truck.” Oscar Schnitzer, the aging Hammelburg veterinarian, was both the man responsible for the camp’s rotation of guard dogs and an active member of the local Underground. Hogan had lost track of the number of people and amount of materiel Schnitzer had smuggled into camp for them over the last year and a half.
Kinch nodded, snagged a bite of ragout, and started tuning the radio to the wavelength Schnitzer used.
“Does Dalton check out, sir?” Carter asked as Hogan looked over the blue notepaper covered in Kinch’s neat shorthand.
Hogan nodded. “Yep, this confirms what he told me. London wants us to spring him. Guess we’ll find out tonight whether that’s Tin Man’s mission or whether he’s here about Glinda.”
“Toeppich left with Dalton’s plane just before LeBeau went to take Schultz his ragout.”
“Good.” Hogan picked up the wire recorder. “Want you guys to hear this. Might give us some clues as to how to help Dalton. We can listen to it in my office after supper.”
Carter nodded. “Yes, sir.”
With that, Carter and Hogan both went back up to the barracks, where LeBeau was just returning from having successfully distracted Schultz. They and the rest of the prisoners ate quickly and were just finishing when Kinch joined them to report that Schnitzer would deliver Tin Man shortly after dark. After assigning a couple of men to do the dishes, Hogan ushered his team into the office to summarize his conversation with Dalton and play back the recording of Toeppich’s conversation with Künzel.
“Could Künzel be a member of the Underground, sir?” Carter asked.
“Impossible,” LeBeau replied.
“No, not impossible,” Hogan countered, “but I can’t tell how likely it is. It could just be the Gestapo setting up Toeppich to take the fall when Dalton escapes, although I don’t know why they’d be willing to let Dalton get away. Or it could be that Künzel’s on the level, although I doubt it-the Gestapo never has taken Klink’s perfect record at face value.”
“Or it could be a trap for us, sir,” Newkirk noted.
“If it is, we’ll have to walk into it with our eyes open. London wants him sprung, and I already told him we’d see what we could do.” Hogan pulled his stash of hanging maps out of the wall above his desk and pulled down a map of the area, then traced a winding line of roadway with the end of his pen. “This is the route the convoy has to take to get from here to the Autobahn, given all the destruction on the other roads in the area. Here”-he indicated a particular curve several miles from the camp, which they could reach more quickly on foot by cutting across country than the convoy could reach it even at thirty miles an hour-“the road goes down a steep gradient as it goes around this bend. Especially with the plane, they’ll have to slow down well before the curve to avoid accidents. The trees come pretty close to the road at the curve, but if we can set up an ambush here”-he pointed to an area about a hundred yards further back-“Dalton should have enough of a clear, straight path to be able to take off from the back of the truck.”
“What kind of ambush did you have in mind, colonel?” LeBeau asked.
Hogan outlined his idea, and the others gave suggestions of greater or lesser value until evening roll call, which on this particular occasion was shortly before sunset. After that, it was just a matter of killing time and keeping watch until Schnitzer arrived and drove up to the kennel. Leaving one of the other prisoners to watch the door and create a diversion if needed, Hogan and his men headed down into the tunnel and around to the entrance that was hidden under one of the doghouses. Then LeBeau hurried up the ladder to open the entrance and usher Tin Man inside.
The man who jumped down about three feet from the bottom of the ladder to make way for LeBeau looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties and a good three inches taller than Hogan, though Hogan himself wasn’t sure whether that were his true height or just an illusion caused by the Luftwaffe mechanic’s jumpsuit and combat boots he was wearing. His shock of blond hair was longer than regulation, and his eyes were brown rather than the ideal Aryan blue, but odds were good that he could pass for a German even more easily than Hogan could. And once he’d made sure LeBeau was safely away from the tunnel entrance, he turned straight to Hogan and gave him a quick once-over.
“Tin Man?” Hogan asked.
The newcomer nodded once.
“Col. Hogan. Welcome to paradise.”
Tin Man gave an amused snort and offered his hand. “Name’s MacGyver. Nice to meet you, Colonel.”
Hogan shook hands and introduced MacGyver around. “You OSS?” he asked then.
“Nah, civilian contractor. I work for a group called the Phoenix Foundation. We mostly do philanthropic work, but we cooperate with the government sometimes-worked with the WPA in the early days, and sometimes we’ve had to coordinate with military intelligence when we’ve gone in to rescue civilians, Soviet defectors, that sort of thing. Some of us are seconded to the OSS these days... and that’s actually why I’m here.”
“To rescue Glinda?”
“Yes and no.” MacGyver took the seat Carter offered him with a sigh. “I would have come in on Saturday to get Glinda myself, but I was tied up gettin’ a bunch of deaf kids out of Norway.”
“We were the closest agents, but security was so tight, we couldn’t get out, either.”
“Yeah, well... Col. Conlon decided to send somebody else, a good friend of mine. His codename is Toto. My information is that he did get Glinda out, but when they met up with her Underground contacts outside of Düsseldorf, somebody betrayed them to the Gestapo. Glinda and the Underground guys got away. Toto didn’t.” MacGyver looked away and shook his head, clearly blaming himself. “I’d just delivered the deaf kids to the ship when I got the news, so I hopped the first flight from Trondheim to Hannover, and the Hannover Underground sent me here.”
“You coulda just asked, saved yourself the trip.”
MacGyver’s eyes were anguished when he looked up at Hogan again. “You don’t understand. Toto has glaucoma. If the Gestapo’s worked him over, there’s a good chance his vision’s taken a serious turn for the worse, or he may be completely blind. I know you’re a good outfit, and I’d appreciate havin’ some backup, but I can’t trust anyone to take this mission without me.” He took a deep breath and added more quietly, “I’m not gonna leave my best friend alone in the dark.”
Hogan nodded slowly. “All right. It’ll take a little time to get you a uniform and some papers and arrange for a car, and I’ll have to make sure Klink’s relaxed his security enough that we can get out. If all goes well, we can go tomorrow night.”
MacGyver relaxed and nodded. “Tomorrow night’s fine. But who’s ‘we’?”
“Think it should probably just be you and me. They don’t normally send more than two officers to pick up a prisoner transfer anyway. And there’s another high-security prisoner here in the cooler, so in case Klink orders a surprise bed check, it’ll be easiest to cover for just one man.”
MacGyver nodded his understanding.
“But sir, if Klink does order a bed check, he’ll want to see you personally,” Carter objected.
“Our dummy does not look enough like you to fool him,” LeBeau added.
Hogan shrugged. “Tell him I’ve got the flu.”
“In the summer?!”
“It’s been known to happen! Besides, this is Klink-you could tell him I’ve got the Martian vapors, and he’d believe it.”
MacGyver barked a laugh. “Give it some ridiculous Latin name, like Frontificus pasturalis, and say he’ll recover in twenty-four hours if it doesn’t kill him first.”
Impressed, Hogan pointed to him. “I like the way you think!”
“Hey, at noon tomorrow Mars is in Pisces at the same time Pluto’s in Cancer,” said Kinch, almanac in hand. “So if you start acting sick around noon....”
“Ought to get a few other chaps in on the act, sir,” said Newkirk. “Leastways, if we’re to blame it on an opposition o’ planets, it’ll look odd if it’s just you.”
Hogan nodded once. “LeBeau, Carter, round up some volunteers. We can work out the symptoms with Wilson first thing in the morning. In the meantime, Kinch, we’ll need ID papers for MacGyver and some papers for Toto’s transfer, as well as a car. Think we can use Klink’s?”
“Ten cents a mile,” Kinch replied.
“Good. Newkirk?”
“What ranks would you like, sir?” Newkirk asked.
“Let’s make MacGyver a major and me a captain. No need to go overboard.”
“Right, sir, will do.” Newkirk went to get his trusty tape measure.
“There’s just one thing, Colonel,” MacGyver said. “I’d prefer not to carry a gun.”
Hogan frowned. “Gestapo officers always carry guns unless they’re in civilian clothes.”
“I know. That’s why I said something now.”
Hogan exchanged a look with Newkirk. “You want to walk into Gestapo Headquarters unarmed?”
“Not unarmed-not totally.” MacGyver pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket.
“That’s not much of a weapon.”
“I don’t use it for a weapon. It allows me to improvise a non-lethal way out of a jam. I don’t kill unless I absolutely have to, and believe me, I hate those situations. So the more steps we can take now to ensure we can just walk into Gestapo Headquarters and walk out with Pete, the better I’ll be able to sleep tomorrow night.”
Hogan decided not to point out that MacGyver had just let Toto’s real first name slip. “All right, it’s a deal. Newkirk?”
“Civilian suit in black, sir,” Newkirk agreed and began taking MacGyver’s measurements.
The next day was the first in over a week that went completely according to plan, at least during daylight hours. The faked attack of Martian vapors, into which even Dalton threw himself with relish, not only convinced Klink and Schultz that Hogan was truly sick but also conned the hypochondriac Klink into thinking that he was sick himself. As a result, Klink never got around to re-tightening the security measures he’d relaxed between Burkhalter’s departure and Toeppich’s arrival the day before, and that night, Hogan and MacGyver were easily able to walk into the motor pool during shift change, drive out through one of the side gates, and get to Düsseldorf with a minimum of fuss.
When they presented themselves at the front desk of Gestapo Headquarters, however, the man on duty didn’t seem surprised to see them. “From Berlin?” he echoed when Hogan stated their cover story in German. “Yes, I believe Maj. Künzel’s expecting you. This way, please.”
It took every ounce of willpower Hogan had not to exchange a surprised glance with MacGyver. Instead, they followed the desk clerk down the hall to Hochstetter’s office, where the door was half open, revealing another man, this one with light brown hair and blue eyes, sitting behind the desk. When this guy stood at the clerk’s knock, he looked even taller than MacGyver.
“The officers from Berlin, Herr Major,” the clerk announced, opening the door the rest of the way.
“Thank you, Fitzner,” replied the major, walking around the desk toward the door, and Hogan recognized his voice as Künzel’s. “You may go.”
The clerk clicked his heels and started back down the hall.
“Come in, gentlemen,” Künzel said, ushering Hogan and MacGyver into the office and closing the door behind them. “Please be seated. May I get you any refreshments? I should need a drink after that drive, given the state the roads are in.”
“No, nothing for us, thank you,” MacGyver replied in flawless German as he and Hogan sat down. “We would prefer to discuss our business and be on our way at once.”
“Very well. Just a moment.” Künzel paused, then opened the door suddenly to reveal a very surprised Fitzner. “Was there something you needed, Fitzner?” Künzel growled.
“N-n-no, sir,” Fitzner replied and hurried back toward the front desk.
Künzel watched him go, then closed the door with a sigh. “We’re clear,” he said-in perfect American English.
“I shoulda known you’d be involved in this,” MacGyver grumbled in the same language as Künzel came back to the desk.
Künzel rolled his eyes. “Hello, Tin Man.”
Hogan looked at MacGyver, who sighed. “Papa Bear, meet Agent Scarecrow.”
“Lee Stetson, OSS,” Künzel-er, Scarecrow-stated, offering his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Col. Hogan.”
Hogan wasn’t sure whether the slight dizzy sensation he had as he shook Stetson’s hand was from relief or from reality warping a tad.
Next
* I’m following Hogan’s Heroes canon in using Heer ranks to refer to most Gestapo officers, despite Gestapo ranks having different titles in reality. There are a few times in canon, like “Two Nazis for the Price of One,” when actual Gestapo ranks like Gruppenführer are used, but mostly the dialogue refers to Gestapo captains, majors, etc.
** It’s not totally clear where Hochstetter’s office is in canon-sometimes it seems to be in Hammelburg (e.g., “Sgt. Schultz Meets Mata Hari”), but at other times it seems to be in Düsseldorf or even Berlin (e.g., “Will the Real Col. Klink Please Stand Up Against the Wall?”). For this story, at least, I’m putting it in Düsseldorf, which wouldn’t preclude his being moved into Hammelburg later.
Please note also that in HH-verse, Hammelburg is much closer to Düsseldorf than it is in our universe-“The Safecracker Suite” is the first of several episodes that establish Düsseldorf as the nearest big city to Hammelburg, but in our world, the closest city to Hammelburg is Würzburg.
*** Teppich literally means carpet or rug; Töppich, according to my German name dictionary, is a variant of Teppich as a name for rugmakers, and the Toeppichs I know pronounce their surname as “Teppich.”