"Wait a minute, this is a really unofficial visit?" Blowhole suddenly realized. "As in, unofficial, even from Penguin?" As Kowalski moved towards the door of the cell, Blowhole took a step backwards.

"Rockgut never exactly said I couldn't break you out, specifically." Kowalski replied, "And don't worry, you're going right back here when you're done. Come on, I've only got a five minute window of error." Blowhole still didn't seem much more inclined to follow.

"When I signed those papers, I had assumed I was going to be able to walk out of here, albeit quietly." He countered. "I'm not exactly popular here, and frankly, your team's record of 53 attempts with only one successful escape doesn't reassure me."

"But we weren't just going up against anyone; we were matching wits with Dr Blowhole." Kowalski barely managed to force himself to reply.

"That's true." Blowhole agreed, taking a tentative half step in Kowalski's direction.

"And also, you knew we were going to try to escape, nobody knows I'm here. In fact, I'd say it's much harder to sneak into prison than out, and nobody was ever able to sneak into your camp." It was then Kowalski realized he'd gone too far on that one.

"Marlene and Hans did." Blowhole countered, taking a step backwards.

"Yeah, well Hans was Hans and Marlene's an exception because you were too busy trying to impress Kitka to notice gravity cease to exist." Taking advantage of Blowhole's brief moment of embarrassment which distracted him from adamantly digging his heels into the ground, Kowalski opened the door and stepped out.

"Where are you going?" Blowhole demanded.

"Lunch." Kowalski replied, and shut the door behind him before anything else could be said. He was back again two minutes later, the key in one hand, a hamburger and hot sauce bottle in the other. He discarded the hamburger, seemingly more interested in the bottle of hot sauce.

"As a concerned party, may I ask when your last psychological examination was…?"

"Let's go." Kowalski ordered, armed with his hot sauce bottle and ready to take on the world.

"Well, naturally I'd like to go with you, I mean, after all, who needs guns when you've got condiments, but…" Once again Kowalski had decided that actions spoke louder than words and continued anyway.

"If someone confronts us before we get out the door, run and don't inhale. I'm not going to carry you out of here." Blowhole once again went to protest, but already they were half way down the hall. Two thirds of the way along Kowalski saw one of the guards look towards them with a quizzical expression. Kowalski doubled his pace as the guard placed a cautious hand on his weapon, his confusion turning to suspicion. Blowhole was getting more and more uneasy. The guard yelled for them to halt, and this was too much for Blowhole. But once again Kowalski turned to his hot sauce bottle. He gave the top a half twist, and then threw it on the floor.

The moment the bottle hit the floor it exploded into a cloud of pink mist that enveloped the room. Kowalski ran for the door, Blowhole in tow. Kowalski sprinted the last third, racing after the mist that had spread through the bars and into the hallway beyond. Both escapees wanted nothing more than to gasp for air, but somehow their lungs made it to a second door which was more than a panel of steel bars on hinges. A few wisps of vapour slipped under the door, but Kowalski was breathing fine.

"Naturally, my formula would be potent enough we would have to worry about that, but I borrowed your counterfeit of the formula, so that's small enough it's diluted before it can cause any harm." Kowalski replied. Blowhole still looked blank, "It's amnesia spray. I was never here, remember? You manufactured your own crude amnesia spray in your cell, knocked out the entire block and ran."

"How'd you smuggle it in, and how'd it end up in the hot sauce?" Blowhole asked as Kowalski once again started moving after consulting his watch.

"Well, it was the only practical container I could think of to smuggle it in." Kowalski replied. He stopped about half way down the hall in front of a bucket and mop that had been left out. He paused there, removing his shoes. Then he kicked over the bucket, water spilling down the hall. "There's my trail gone unsuspiciously cold." Kowalski turned around, starting the other way down the corridor.

"But, even placing the hot sauce bottle in the shipment according to the probability of each bottle being sent to the desired location, you could only get it accurate to three different hot sauce bottles in the crate?"

"So there's three bottles." Kowalski replied. "The probabilities also indicated that should the bottle be discovered somewhere other than the intended target, the results would be similar to the first time Private mistook the amnesia spray for the hot sauce."

Kowalski ducked into another room, a storage closet of which the most striking feature was the foot of a white and gold statue poking out from under a brown tarp. Kowalski removed the tarp, opened the statue, which split in half with hinges like a humanoid closet, swapped shoes with a pair inside before tossing Blowhole an overcoat, hat and a rather ridiculous quick disguise, as Kowalski removed the guard's uniform and prison garb to reveal street clothing. He threw any evidence of their having been there into the statue, closed it, covered it again with the tarp and started pushing it out the door and down the hallway, turning a different way this time.

Abruptly Kowalski stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked at his watch.

"Look distinguished, and when I tap my watch, hit the ground." Kowalski hissed. Blowhole wanted to bolt as the two guards rounded the corner and Kowalski took a step towards them, smiling. "Ah, there you all are." He spoke. Following the guards was a group of civilians, seemingly on an inspection tour. "I'm afraid we were a bit late and got lost trying to catch up." One of the two guards frowned and consulted a clip board.

"Dr Smith…?" He began.

"Yes, this is my assistant, Mr Francis." Kowalski replied, and just then Blowhole Kowalski quietly tapped the face of his watch.

Both scientists hit the ground barely a second before the wall between them and the group exploded in dramatic flames and a deafening boom, vaporizing the statue that had stood almost exactly in the epicentre.

Nobody suffered more than minor cuts and bruises, and Blowhole was about to get up and run out through the hole in the wall out into the yard when Kowalski once again motioned for him to stay put. Just as the first guard was barely stumbling to his feet, through the dust of the explosion, Blowhole saw four figures climb through the hole carrying two stretchers. Blowhole was lifted on to one, Kowalski onto the other. By the time they were stopped by the guards at the perimeter, Blowhole had regained enough of his hearing to make out that they were still Dr Smith and assistant (fabricated identification was shown) and were in grave need of a hospital. They were quickly rushed through by the anxious guards who even assisted in moving them to the waiting ambulance, though Blowhole was quickly pronounced deceased and covered with a sheet before he could be looked at too closely.

The first stop the ambulance made was to drop off Phil and Mason, who'd carried Kowalski's stretcher. Fifteen minutes of driving later, and the ambulance stopped again and Rico, Private and Blowhole got out.

"Where are you going?" Blowhole demanded as Kowalski switched to the driver's seat.

"To complete my alibi."


Kowalski returned the ambulance, devoid of fingerprints, since Private and Rico had disposed of the truck. Fortunately it was a short walk to the building next door to Rockgut's office. Kowalski retraced his steps, jumping from one rooftop to the next then climbing down the building to the window outside Rockgut's office. He heard a car drive up below and saw Rockgut get out and enter the building. A second later a second car drove up and Kowalski saw a large man in a grey raincoat get out and run in after Rockgut. Kowalski gave them a minute or two, then climbed down onto the window sill and slipped his ankles through the bars. He took a deep breath, then let go.


Rockgut typed the code into the key pad then inserted the key into the security system's override box. Inside his office he could hear the mechanical whirr of the thick steel doors and bars on the windows retracting.

"You're accusation's crazy." He argued as he did this. The man in the grey raincoat seemed unconvinced, "It's impossible for Kowalski to have been breaking Blowhole out of prison. There's been no way out of this room since that 'so called' genius locked himself in here this morning." Rockgut turned the door knob, "I'll bet he's sitting on the desk right now trying to think of ways to not sound like an idiot when I ask him what the hell he was thinking when he…" Rockgut's voice trailed off as his eyes rested on an empty desk. His search then expanded to an empty room. The man in the grey raincoat had just opened his mouth to speak when a faint cry drew Rockgut's attention to the window.

There were two shoes balanced upside down on the window sill. Rockgut approached, and realized that the shoes were connected to feet and connected to those feet was Kowalski.

"Could you give me a hand up?" Kowalski asked weakly from his awkward position, seemingly suspended half from his left foot's grip on the windowsill and the curtain caught around his right ankle, and half from a bizarre kind of handstand on part of the stonework below.

"I guess you didn't count on falling while you were trying to get through those bars." The man in the grey raincoat commented as Kowalski was hauled back into the room.

"I have no idea what you mean, Burt." Kowalski replied, recognizing the man in the grey raincoat. He looked awkwardly down at his feet, "I guess I was kind of trying to pry the bars open in frustration, then, well, all of a sudden they weren't there." He grimaced.

"Or you were out breaking Dr Blowhole out of jail." Burt countered. Kowalski frowned.

"Dr Blowhole broke out of jail this afternoon?" He asked innocently.

"Yeah, and you did it." Burt replied, "The job's got your team written all over it." Kowalski shook his head.

"But I couldn't have." He countered. He motioned to the safe, "I think Rockgut will tell you that I had to have been touching the safe to activate the security system. So, unless I can run half way across the room faster than the room was locked down, and if I could do that it wouldn't be a state of the art security system, I've been here all afternoon."


"Why oo we 'ven need 'im?" Rico demanded the moment Kowalski walked into the temporary office, shooting Blowhole an extra glare for good measure. "'ee go' nothin' ta do wi' other 'Walski?"

"Though Kowalski is mostly focused on the first of the two victims, Doris Blowhole, Dr Blowhole Sr. was also killed." Private answered, drawing Rico's attention to the photograph of the crime scene that took centre stage on the crowded bulletin board.

"We don't know why Alius chose now to kill them." Kowalski took over, shutting the door behind him, "My theory is Doris decided to go to the police – she knew enough to get Alius on at least three murders and a bunch of other charges. The father was just an added bonus; from what I'd heard he'd been a real rival a couple of years ago, but now he'd just been reduced to an annoyance."

"an' 'im?" Rico persisted, giving Blowhole another look of extreme dislike before Blowhole could get too comfortable.

"Blowhole Sr. was pretty meticulous with his records, but they're in a code nobody's been able to break so far, so Alius isn't worried about it." Kowalski replied. "However…"

"Ah, so you've brought Blowhole in to crack the code and doubtless find something incriminating on Alius?" Private concluded. Blowhole suddenly looked a lot less confident.

"Well, I guess you might as well turn me in, then." Blowhole spoke after an uncomfortable pause, "I can't decode a word for you." He grimaced, "I was sort of considered the failure in the family. Nobody ever told me anything."

"I knew that." Kowalski replied, and he actually had, "It doesn't matter. Alius thinks you can break the code, that's all I need to force him into a confession."

"Confession?" Blowhole repeated suspiciously.

"Yes, a confession." Kowalski repeated, though Blowhole clearly didn't believe a confession was all Kowalski was going to stop at. Blowhole shrugged.

"He never struck me as the type who would just crack and confess, but I don't care, I'd actually strongly prefer the implied idea." It was a subtle expression, and Private was likely the only one that caught it, but it left him without a doubt that for his attempted nonchalance, Blowhole wasn't taking the news well.

Kowalski appeared to decide that the briefing was over, and the three agents returned to what they'd been doing before Kowalski had entered. And ignoring Blowhole.

"So, do I have to keep the handcuffs on the whole time?" Blowhole asked, interrupting the silence.

"Shut up." Kowalski snapped back at him from across the desk.

"Do I get to see Berlin a little before we fly out…?" Blowhole continued, reaching across the desk for a blank piece of paper and pen.

"Do you want to go back to prison?" Kowalski interrupted, "Because I can just find another relative or dig up an old friend of Doris' – don't think you're irreplaceable." Blowhole held the glare for a moment, but backed down, replacing the pen and paper, though he knew Kowalski was only bluffing. Blowhole was now the last of the family and an old friend of Doris' wouldn't be believable. Shame, he hadn't sketched inventions in weeks since he'd had his pencil confiscated after a failed escape attempt. Bored, he peered across the desk at what Kowalski was working on, but only achieved another warning glare. Kowalski was being uncharacteristically aggressive, even considering Doris, but there was a practiced ease to Kowalski's gruff manor and barked orders too.

"You're a very different Kowalski to the one I used to know." Blowhole commented. "You didn't even want to see what I was about to draw so you could steal the idea." Kowalski's glare returned, tenfold. But analysing and by extension aggravating Kowalski kept his mind off the topic of Doris, "You're reacting like I expected you would. You're behaving more like Skipper on a particularly vengeful day."

"Well I suppose the temperament goes with the job." Private concurred. Rico kicked him under the table, but it was too late.

"Job?" Blowhole repeated, studying Kowalski even more intently. It was then he noticed the conspicuous absence of his least favourite penguin. "Where's Skipper?"

"Rico, keep an eye on Blowhole, I'm going check on Burt's investigation." Kowalski started out the door.

"Looks like I hit a nerve there, most likely the blame/self-pity nerve." Blowhole deduced, "What happened to Skipper? Did he get himself fired or killed or something?" However, Kowalski's silence took the mirth out of Blowhole's joking tone, "Wait, he's actually dead?"

"MIA, 87.43% likely dead." Kowalski replied sharply. He stood up, starting towards the door. Maybe it was the ten cups of coffee over the last twelve hours or the jet lag, but he'd had just about all he could take without Blowhole's smirk or some mocking comment. "Late '49. He went after Hans. Skipper went one way, and his luck went the other." Kowalski slammed the door shut behind him. But if he'd looked back, he'd have noticed Blowhole wasn't smiling.

"I thought you'd been rather happy about that." Private commented quietly, interrupting Blowhole's oddly thoughtful moment of staring at the door Kowalski had vanished through.

"Hans even had to deprive me of finishing off my arch enemy." Blowhole replied, fiddling with the handcuff that held him to the chair, not once meeting Private's eyes, "Shame." He added, when it seemed Private didn't believe him.