September, 1952
Kowalski remembered the Zoo II before it had become a shell of its former self. In fact, it was unnervingly eerie to see the former bustling wartime HQ of Penguin silent. He distinctly remembered how uncomfortably it had reminded him of the end of his dearest friend and the finest soldier he'd ever served under. One minute it was another daring battle against Hans, a minute later it had all been over, just wreckage floating on the sea. For a split second a pang of fear, guilt and inadequacy urged him to give up the venture, but he quickly overcame it with an equal measure of ever harder to muster willpower. Nine minutes and thirty two seconds later, ironically, he'd wish he'd acted on that first impulse.
The time was 0052. The last two minutes of reconnaissance before an operation started, especially a solo operation – he wasn't getting the team involved in his mistake – Kowalski had always found the most unnerving. His equipment was double, quadruple and quintuple checked, and as he'd expected, nothing unexpected had moved on the airfield. Kowalski felt the usual pre-operation doubt rising up inside him, well, usual since his failing had allowed his friend to be spread across the bed of the North Sea, and forced his mind back to the reason why he was there. A smile contorted his taught expression as he considered how ludicrous it was for him to be sneaking into his old office in his old airfield. His and Alius' rivalry certainly was an odd one, like some kind of strange game of chess he wasn't entirely certain he enjoyed playing but wasn't entirely certain he didn't.
Kowalski hadn't really had a choice in the matter. He'd been certain his office was being searched, and it wasn't just the paranoia that had come with his recent inheritance of Skipper's job. Well, it was really a year since they'd formally stopped calling him 'Lieutenant Kowalski' – which did decrease confusion with Alius, who'd left the service at that rank – but he was still nervous enough that he seemed like he could could have gotten the promotion yesterday. He'd carefully arranged his files, making sure he was the last one to leave, and on a number of occasions the files had been slightly moved. Private had said it must have been a draft in the safe, after all, they were only off by an eighth of an inch or two. Then there had been the Shelly affair. Alius had acted as if he'd known Kowalski's moves before he even made them, almost as if he'd read Kowalski's plans. That had been enough evidence to bring it to Rockgut.
Rockgut had given him a simple solution: leave dummy papers in the safe in his office, and place the other papers in a secure enough location which would be the last place Alius would think to look, namely a set of offices Penguin hadn't used since 1946. The airfield had been returned to the Army Air Corps and subsequently the Air Force, but after some string pulling Kowalski had been able to reclaim his old untouched office, which quickly became a secret storage space for evidence, documents and inventions of importance. It had worked. For two months. It's end was swift, Kowalski and the team had been sent up to Alaska, and when they came back, the airfield had been decommissioned and sold to a private defence contractor owned by Alius. Naturally, Alius had had no idea Kowalski had set up there, but unfortunately classified testing had already begun at the site, though Kowalski could request his personal belonging brought out. However, all that wasn't in the secret storage place – which Kowalski knew was what Alius was really after – was nothing more than a cover. However, every minute Kowalski left Alius in charge of the facility, the greater the chance he'd find the hidden room.
Kowalski's current mission was simple: extract and photograph the most important pieces, then destroy it, and make it look like an accident. This was all strictly off the books.
The minute hand on Kowalski's wristwatch slowly crawled up to the centre of the '12' marking the time as 0100 hours. Like a racer who'd just heard the starter's gun fire, Kowalski dashed the two meters between the shrub he was crouched beneath and the barbed wire topped fence. Alius had gotten the fence wired with electricity and laced with vibration sensors, so Kowalski had simply dug a tunnel under it. He dived down the tunnel like a rabbit, covering it with a bit of shrubbery after him and giving the earth above and a meter beyond a good shove, Kowalski resurfaced on the other side of the fence. Never before had he been so glad Skipper had insisted on so many escape tunnels.
The next part was easy. Certainly, Alius had set up guards, but Kowalski had spent several years of his life evading guards to the point he claimed he'd mastered it to a fine art. He reminded himself of that as he dodged from cover to cover till he came to the door of the main building. He didn't bother with that since it was almost certainly alarmed, instead opting to climb to the roof of the single story building via a convenient tree and enter through a skylight. After that, it was a simple matter to find his old office. He had another fifteen minutes before the office would be checked, and by then he'd be safely behind the panel. Kowalski had the electronic key in his hand and had unpicked the lock on the door. What could possibly go wrong now?
Voices in the corridor negated the thought almost before it had crossed his mind. Kowalski dived into his office, not as silently as he'd hoped, and dived behind his desk. The voices were too close now, if he opened the panel, there was a chance they might walk in on him. Immediately afterwards he regretted that. What were the odds they weren't simply going to pass by? What was he so worried for, even if they poked their head in, it wasn't like they were going to make a thorough enough search of the room to even find him hidden behind the desk.
"… Damn, we're five minutes late searchin' the room, the boss is gonna be mad…" A voice outside the door fretted. The footsteps stopped. So did Kowalski's heart, or at least that was how he felt.
"How's he going to know? Anyway, there's never anyone in there, anyhow. I don't think he'd know even if we didn't check." Kowalski breathed a silent sigh of relief. You could always count on the incompetence and laziness of flunkies.
"Not a chance." A third voice countered, "Joey told me one time a pal of his took two minutes off a job to see his gal, not a chance anyone coulda known, but the moment he got back the boss knew from a smudge on his cuff or somethin' like that like he was psychic or something. No one's heard of him since."
"I heard he was sent back to loading boxes." Added the first voice gravely.
"Worse, a pal of mine told me the boss shot him dead on the spot. Not a moment of hesitation. Y'know, maybe we oughta check. Just in case. It won't hurt." Kowalski silently cursed Alius' ability to spread urban legends amongst his cannon fodder. The door opened slowly, shedding a beam of light across the room. "Cecil, you oughta cover the door just in case the boss finds out you didn't."
"I'd better search behind the desk first too. The boss said that was the most likely hiding place." Kowalski found himself captured within the next thirty seconds. There was only one thing left for him to do.
"You're wasting your time." Kowalski stated between gritted teeth, "The universe will implode on itself before I ever tell you where the safe is." Actually, he was almost certain he was about to tell them within the next two minutes. A high threshold for physical pain wasn't something he could lay claim to. The knife dug deeper into his skin and Kowalski gave a less than dignified yell of pain. "Great science! The safe's in the ceiling, the left corner closest to the door – no, not your left, my left!" Protons, he'd hoped he wouldn't talk that quickly.
"Hey, Brick, there is some kind of metal panel thing up here!" The enemy Kowalski had identified as 'Cecil' called down from where he was stood atop a chair. "Say, how do you get this thing open?" He demanded of Kowalski, but the scientist didn't seem to be entirely listening, "I asked how you open this thing!"
"Huh, yeah?" Kowalski replied distantly. He groaned, "Could you give me a glass of water, 's just over there on the table? I can't think… everything's kinda blurry."
"Yeah, I forgot nerds are delicate." Brick muttered as he obliged. He extended the beaker of clear liquid towards the scientist, who shakily extended a hand to accept it. His closed hand hovered limply above the glass for a moment like he had tried to grab it but went too high, but suddenly his hand opened and a small metal object dropped into the liquid and began to fizz and distort. In a second moment Kowalski went to push the acid onto Brick, but wasn't quite fast enough. He wasn't as weak as he was pretending, but he wasn't doing so well, "Hey, you tried to drink that acid so you couldn't talk!"
"No, you idiot, I dropped the electronic key in the acid, so now it's impossible to open the door." Kowalski replied victoriously. For a moment or two there was some intense shouting and flinging of objects at the metal ceiling, but nothing happened. Kowalski could see the two were quite seriously convinced of the vault's impenetrability as they sat down to rest. "You might as well turn yourself in. People are going to trace me here long before the technology is ever invented to open that door." Cecil began to nodded.
"He's right, Brick, it's impossible." Brick nodded in agreement, then frowned.
"If it's impossible, we should call the boss, then, he'll know how to get it open." Kowalski muttered something about the urban legend perpetuating, but Brick was too busy telephoning Alius' office, "… Yeah, boss, we're having some trouble with an unwelcome guest at the airfield… by the way, we have found the parcel… Fifteen minutes… Yes sir!" Brick hung up the phone, smiling smugly at Kowalski, then turned to Cecil. He whispered the following, unaware that Kowalski could read lips, "The boss says we should find out where he parked his car. If it's close we're supposed to drive it back here, cut the break line and wait for him. It's the best way to dispose of the body."
Kowalski wasn't entirely certain how long he sat there, though it didn't seem like long, reflecting over how horribly wrong everything had gone. He could practically hear Skipper's voice in his head lecturing him on why they worked as a team. He could hear Rico bemoaning his making exactly the same mistake as their leader and leaving him and Private alone. He could already imagine Private finding some illogical way to blame himself at his funeral.
And that was when the smoke grenade smashed through the window.
There wasn't much Kowalski could describe. The room had filled with thick white smoke and barely a second later he'd felt a sharp pain on the back of his head and he'd lost consciousness directly afterwards. When he woke again Kowalski lying on the floor of the office with a splitting headache, Cecil and Brick had been incapacitated, the vault was untouched, though the office looked like it had been hit by a tornado. According to Kowalski's watch the time was 0137, and five minutes later when Kowalski was just getting to his feet, the team arrived, having been tipped off by an anonymous informant. This would become known in subsequent weeks as the first of the 'Guardian Angel Incidents'.
"That was you, wasn't it?" Kowalski grinned giddily. Skipper nodded nonchalantly.
"Yeah, that was. I couldn't just listen to a plot to murder my best friend on what I thought was Hans' private telephone and just sit there. After that I figured it was a good idea to keep an eye on you." He replied offhandedly. When his eyes lifted from the table he'd been fixated on while he waited for Kowalski to ask that one awkward question he was certain the scientist would ask soon, he noticed Kowalski was still staring at him disbelievingly. "Well, go ahead, sit down while you're here," Skipper motioned to one of the chairs that surrounded the table in one of the back rooms of the Copacabana, "I appreciate your attempt to remain dignified and manly, Kowalski, instead of screamin' like a girl, but it ain't workin'."
"I know!" Kowalski barely squeaked with excitement and somehow found the initiative to sit down. "You know, I'd always thought the crash was a little too cut and dried, but I never let myself belive it!"
"Yeah, of course." Skipper muttered. He could see the question beginning to form in Kowalski's mind… there had been something Skipper had been upset about before, something he could change the subject to. "Marlene, what were you thinking bringing him here? You disobeyed a direct order from me!"
"I'm sorry Skipper, but he forced me." Marlene replied innocently. "And I still think it was for the best." She added. "Happy accidents happen."
"Kowalski forced you, huh?" Skipper replied, studying the two of them. He shrugged, "Well, command's made you more ruthless than I could have hoped, Kowalski." Skipper replied, keeping up the air of casualness. He had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't doing much better than Kowalski. However, as he was congratulating himself for a distraction well done, Kowalski's expression darkened.
"Why?"
