"I don't trust him," LeBeau said, arms folded across his chest as he stood near the stove.

Hogan looked up at him thoughtfully from where he was sitting at the head of the table. "Okay, why?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Carter. "All the rest of us just agreed he's all right." He got supporting nods from Newkirk and Jim Meadows, the barracks chief of Barracks 8, also sitting at the table drinking what passed for coffee these days at Stalag 13.

"Plus London said he matched the description they had of him," Kinch added in.

LeBeau shook his head, frustrated. "Oui, I know all that. But he's just . . . not right. I haven't put my finger on it yet. But I'll swear that our new Corporal Beaulieu is not French."

"He's fluent," Kinch said. "You spent half the morning talking with him today, and you said he didn't make any mistakes in the language—or miss any cultural references."

"I know, I know," LeBeau answered, shifting his arms to put his hands on his hips. "But still . . . something is not right. As you Americans would say, I have a 'gut feeling' about him."

Hogan nodded sharply. "Gut feelings come from somewhere. We'll follow LeBeau's hunch, play it safe for the moment, and keep Beaulieu out of the loop. Shouldn't be too hard to do for a bit longer with him assigned to Barracks 8. Meadows, you'll keep an eye on him."

"Of course," Meadows nodded with a small shrug.

"Make sure no one says anything about the operation to him. And LeBeau, you need to spend more time with him to try to figure out what's 'off' about him, or see if he makes any noticeable mistakes."

LeBeau nodded.

"Is it maybe something about his accent?" Olsen asked from his place on his bunk.

LeBeau shrugged. "Unfortunately, he is from Saint-Étienne, though he says he lived in Paris more recently. I have not been to that area of France and know no one from there. I can hear some Parisian in his accent, but it is not true Parisian. But I would be easy to fool on whether his accent is authentic to Saint-Étienne."

"So," said Newkirk, restless now that the prospect of immediate action seemed off the table, "if we're leaving 'im be for a bit, anyone interested in a round of poker?"

"I'm in," answered Carter.

"And me," said Meadows.

"Non, not you," said LeBeau abruptly, putting his hand on Meadows's shoulder.

Meadows looked up at him in surprise.

"I think you and I should go ask Corporal Beaulieu to play," LeBeau continued, a gleam in his eyes.

ooOoo

A quarter of an hour later, Meadows and LeBeau returned to Barracks 2 with Beaulieu in tow. Newkirk, Carter, Kinch, Hogan, and Olsen were wrapping up a round of poker as they came in the door. Kinch and Olsen had already folded; Hogan and Newkirk seemed engaged in a staring contest; Carter was fidgeting as he looked nervously from each of them and back down to his cards.

"You remember our new arrival, Corporal Beaulieu?" LeBeau asked by way of introduction, as he leaned carelessly against Carter and Newkirk's bunk and angled to see Carter's hand. Beaulieu stood easily beside him, hands clasped behind his back. Meadows circled around to the other side of the table.

"Call," Hogan said, tossing in his last bit of camp scrip and looking steadily at Newkirk. The Englishman smiled and put down a straight.

Carter sighed and showed three of a kind. "I don't like this game!" he said plaintively.

Hogan laid down a flush with an elaborate flourish, prompting a grimace from Newkirk and chuckles from Kinch and Olsen.

"Oh blimey, look what the cat dragged in," Newkirk grumbled while glaring at his commanding officer, as Hogan cheerfully raked towards himself the small mound of camp scrip that constituted his winnings. The Englishman glanced up at the two Frenchmen. "Oi, Beaulieu, you play cards?"

"Of course." Beaulieu smiled. "Doesn't everyone?"

"I hope you're not going to start insisting on playing that vanilla game Louie's always on about, are you?" Newkirk added as he gathered the deck together.

"Manille," LeBeau corrected with a long-suffering sigh.

"Actually, I prefer Belote," Beaulieu answered politely. "Manille is becoming less fashionable."

"Very au courant of you," LeBeau replied, sliding his eyes slightly toward his fellow countryman. "But the only game you'll get out of these fellows is poker, or maybe gin rummy."

"Only because no one will play Old Maid and Go Fish with me," Carter complained.

Newkirk rolled his eyes at Carter then looked straight at Beaulieu. "So, do you play poker? Or just that Belote thing?"

"Oui, I learned poker in Stalag 8 before I was transferred here," Beaulieu said easily. "It was very popular—although I am not very good at it yet."

"Well, you can have my seat," Carter said, rising. "I'm out of money."

"But I have nothing with which to bet," Beaulieu replied, frowning.

"That's okay, I'll stake you," Hogan answered. "Have a seat." He gestured toward Carter's spot and counted off some of his winnings from the last round, sliding them over to Beaulieu. As he did so, LeBeau switched out with Kinch, who leaned back against Carter and Newkirk's bunk, standing behind the two Frenchmen. Meadows continued to watch from behind Olsen and Newkirk on the other side.

"You dealt the last hand, Newkirk. Let LeBeau have a turn," Hogan suggested, stretching and yawning.

"Fine," Newkirk groused, passing the deck to LeBeau. Everyone put in their antes, then LeBeau cut and shuffled the deck once more before dealing out cards, starting with Beaulieu on his right, then moving around the table to Hogan, Olsen, Newkirk, and himself.

They played through the hand. Beaulieu folded early. "Cautious player, huh?" Hogan said to him with a grin.

"I thought you might appreciate me not throwing away your money, sir," Beaulieu answered with just a slight turn up of his own mouth.

"Good answer," Hogan replied. "Especially given that Newkirk'll take the shirt off your back if you're not careful."

Newkirk did in fact win the hand, but no one pushed far to see if he was bluffing so it went quickly. LeBeau collected the cards and passed the deck to Beaulieu. "Your turn to deal," he said cheerfully.

Beaulieu cut and shuffled the deck, then dealt the cards, to LeBeau, Newkirk, Olsen, and Hogan.

LeBeau picked up his cards and stared down at his hand, holding them so tight that his knuckles whitened. Then he looked over at Colonel Hogan, his jaw tight, and he nodded. Hogan glanced up at Kinch, whose hands came down heavily on Beaulieu's shoulders, holding him in place, as Carter pulled Beaulieu's arms behind his back, scattering his cards, and bound his wrists together with a leather strap.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" Beaulieu protested, but his expression looked trapped, not outraged.

"Do not bother to speak en français!" LeBeau spat. "You deal like a Boche, not a Frenchman. Keep my language out of your filthy mouth."

Beaulieu stared at him, then relaxed. "I see. I was warned by my handlers: it is always the smallest things that trip one up. Fine: you have caught me. Take me to your Kommandant."

"This was Klink's idea?" Hogan asked skeptically.

"No," Beaulieu replied coolly. "I was sent here by the Abwehr. They will not be pleased with my failure. But Kommandant Klink can return me to them."

"I don't think so," Hogan answered, standing up and looking down at their prisoner. "We're the ones holding all the aces now. And I think it's time to put all our cards on the table and show you our full hand. Take him downstairs and set a guard on him. Since London has a courier plane coming tonight, we'll have them pick him up."

LeBeau slapped the hidden button on the bunk near him, enjoying the look of shock on Beaulieu's face as the spy caught sight of the yawning tunnel. Kinch, Meadows, and Olsen bundled him down the ladder.

"You played your cards well, LeBeau," Hogan said, clapping the Frenchman on the shoulder.

"The stakes were high," LeBeau answered, looking up at the colonel. "What will you tell Kommandant Klink about the missing prisoner?"

"I don't know yet," Hogan answered thoughtfully. "Maybe that he's gotten a raw deal on this one?"

ooOoo

Author's Note: The origin of this story lies in this Wikipedia page: "Most regions have a traditional direction of play, such as: Counter-clockwise in most of Asia and in Latin America; Clockwise in North America and Australia. Europe is roughly divided into a clockwise area in the north and a counterclockwise area in the south. The boundary runs between Ireland, Great Britain, Netherlands, Germany, Austria (mostly), Slovakia, Ukraine and Russia (clockwise) and France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey (counterclockwise)." In case some readers didn't pick it up, LeBeau deals the cards French fashion to his right (counterclockwise), but the ersatz Beaulieu deals them to his left (clockwise), unconsciously revealing his German origin.

Corporal Jim Meadows is an OC from an earlier story ("Swapping Generals").