"I wonder what he's doing with that fire." Kowalski mused. Marlene had to admit that was a good point. "Why are you here?" Kowalski asked. "And where's Skipper."
"I left Skipper behind with the doctor." Marlene whispered in reply, "He wasn't in very good shape when Rico got us out of here." Marlene's tone tried to make light of it, but whatever had happened to them wasn't something they were likely ever to forget. It was too obvious that Kowalski was about to ask why, if they'd just broken out, would they come back? "I had to come back here to burn Hans' files on us; hopefully he kept the little relatively unimportant stuff we had to give him to himself. I'm guessing you're here to try to find Doris and Private was getting cabin fever back in England." Was it really that obvious? "What did he mean about a third group?"
"Don't worry, there isn't one, it's just a clichéd interrogation technique." Kowalski countered hurriedly. Admitting he was working with Dr Blowhole was just going to result in complicated explanations he didn't need to go into at this time. Marlene frowned as if to say this was one she'd never heard of, but didn't dwell on it.
"Feel like talking yet?" That obnoxious voice asked.
"Me? No, this is fun." Marlene called back, though Julian seemed to be enjoying it the most out of all of them. Kowalski deliberately stepped on her toe.
"Are you crazy?" On second thought, if she was working with Skipper, she probably was.
"Good, because we're going to get to the really fun part." the Dart Frog picked up a small shovel next to the fireplace, pulling out about a half shovel of hot ashes. He threw these onto the carpet, some of which caught onto the carpet near their feet. The captives stamped several out, but the Dart Frog only threw some more down a little further out of range. The carpet started to burn.
"Are you crazy?" Phil demanded. "You're going to burn the place down!" A bullet embedded itself in the carpet inches from his foot.
"Did I tell you to stop dancing?" the Dart Frog snapped, "No, that's the point. You're going to dance till you burn, or till you talk. One of you's going to talk." The carpet around them was now really starting to catch fire. Kowalski was severely tempted to give in. After all, they weren't exactly hiding much, though Marlene seemed adamant not to say a word. Whatever that 'relatively unimportant stuff' was, it was important enough Marlene would rather not have it read by the Dart Frog.
The smoke was starting to actually become fairly significant now. This really wasn't how Kowalski had wanted to go out or even be hospitalized for: dancing to his death in a burning room, and with another one of those annoyingly ubiquitous suits of armour staring at him. Kowalski paused on the suit of armour thought, noticing that that clanking plumbing was there again too, which didn't make the situation any more pleasant or dignified. For some reason Kowalski's attention was once again drawn to that suit of armour. The suit of armour appeared to be moving, swaying slightly on its feet. Kowalski shook his head. It had to be the smoke inhalation. He looked again. No, it was moving, alright. Funnily enough, it looked drunk.
The metal man seemed to try to raise his hand - which definitely had to be his imagination - then swayed one last time, toppling forward and landing on the Dart Frog and a few other henchmen. Using the surprise and the smoke screen Kowalski and Marlene, who were closest, made a dive for the two trapped men's guns. A very brief firefight later and they had the place to themselves.
Kowalski was at first going to simply run for the door with the rest of them, but Marlene had stopped in the doorway, looking suspiciously at the suit of armour. After a few precious wasted seconds she approached the armour, paused a moment, then removed the helmet.
"Hey, Rico, Kowalski, give me a hand with him!" Marlene called. Under the helmet was Skipper, well and truly unconscious. Immediately the entire group rushed over, dragging Skipper, suit of armour and all, out of the building and out towards the cover of the trees. Someone at some point was going to notice the burning building and they didn't want to be found standing in front of it. "Skipper, come on, wake up!" she ordered, trying to sound annoyed, but clearly she was more worried, "I told him to stay with the doctor," Kowalski saw Blowhole and Kitka run out of the building and immediately start heading towards him. Kowalski motioned for them to stay out of sight, "he's weak and he shouldn't even be out of bed…" She seemed to notice Kowalski was staring back at the house. "Can't you get him to wake up?" She appealed.
"I'm a doctor of physics, not medicine." Kowalski countered. By his own admission he didn't know much about medicine, but looking at Skipper, he only seemed to have fainted from a combination of the smoke and his injuries. Julian's attempts to wake him up were more likely to do him more harm, "I'll try one thing." He finally agreed when Marlene didn't seem ready to give up on him, "Hey, Skipper, Blowhole's hiding in the trees over there!" Nobody but Kowalski and Private had any idea how correct that actually was.
As if this were some kind of magic word, Skipper's eyes opened though he didn't seem entirely awake, and he attempted weakly to get up, but Marlene held him down.
"Sorry Skipper, false alarm." Kowalski quickly added. Skipper fell back limply on the grass, clearly not too pleased with this. "Just had to wake you up to get Marlene to stop panicking." Skipper seemed to understand that, though it was hard to tell.
"Kowalski?" He mumbled, noticing for the first time the lieutenant's presence there. He groaned, "Lemme guess, you're after Doris and the kid wouldn't stay behind."
"Correct, sir." Kowalski sighed. "Again."
"Drag anyone else over here with you?"
"Just the two of us." Kowalski lied.
"Hm." Skipper's his eyes closed again, "Wake me up when Blowhole's really attacking. That doc wouldn't let me catch any sleep…" And he was gone again.
"I swear that guy scares me out of my wits twice a week." Marlene sighed, though her gaze showed nothing but love for him, "Let's get him back to bed, and this time somebody tie him down." Rico took the suit of armour off him then slung the unconscious Skipper dressed in a comical combination of several different uniforms and pyjamas over his shoulder and started after Marlene towards the car.
"One second, um…" Kowalski thought of an excuse, "Me and Private left some equipment out here before we went in. Where's the car?"
"In the trees just off the nearest road." Marlene called after Kowalski as he ran off into the forest.
The scientist first checked twice to see that no curious or helpful or suspicious members of the team had stayed behind for whatever reason before continuing on to Blowhole's hiding spot. Hopefully Private had gotten the message about Blowhole and would have the sense not to tell Marlene under 'honesty is always the best policy' or something like that.
"Well it's a good thing I still remember how to pick a lock," Blowhole spoke angrily on seeing Kowalski. "Or you'd have burned us to death!"
"Or I would have picked the lock." Kitka corrected. Blowhole was definitely behaving strangely since he didn't challenge this.
"I was going to go back for you if hadn't gotten out yourselves." A quick glance at the house showed the fire hadn't really spread out of the dining room, confirming that Kowalski could have gone back for them. "Listen, you two are going to have to stay out of sight."
"I've risked too much for you to give up on Doris…" Blowhole began, but Kowalski cut him off.
"I'm not." He glanced back at the trees Marlene and the others had disappeared into, "Look, I've just bumped into that friend," Blowhole knew exactly which friend that was, "he was the one they were carrying out in a suit of armour."
"Who, Skipper?" Kitka asked.
"Yes." Kowalski didn't have time to ask how she knew him, though she didn't look like one of Skipper's ex-girlfriends. He couldn't read what she thought of him, "But I think there's a good chance they'll be able to find Doris better than we can – they know the area better." He finished. Blowhole clearly had other plans for Skipper, "If Skipper turns up dead, I'll see that you never see Doris again, one way or another. You two are going to trail along behind us. I'll bring you food and stuff and keep you updated when I can."
"Essentially, you're using them as bait." Blowhole spoke, seeing through Kowalski's whole plan, "We really aren't that different at heart, Kowalski. You know Hans will be going after Skipper and Marlene, and where Hans goes Doris goes." Kowalski winced, but didn't deny it.
"Just stay out of sight."