Blowhole took the story at face value, only cursing the guard for not letting Skipper go in with Archie and so preventing him from being caught in the explosion. He was in a very irritable mood after having only just recovered from his head ache to have someone run in and say one of his prisoners had blown himself up. That meant paperwork, and hopefully not an investigation. In the end he'd decided to blame it on mishandled explosives, then pretend it never happened and hope everyone else did.

Twenty four hours passed and Skipper had thought he was in the clear to resume working on the evening's escape when Blowhole started acting strangely. Observing him through the telescope showed him acting agitated and repeatedly walking over to the unfinished barracks and back. Guards started appearing at the door and removing some of the shadier and less social types in the barracks for questioning. Ironically, Blowhole never picked anyone who actually knew anything.

"Wonderful, just wonderful." Skipper groaned to the team, "Blowhole doubles security and starts questioning people just when we're about to escape."

"Clearly he'd left some kind of message for the informant which hasn't been answered." Kowalski pointed out.

"You're on some kind of a stating the obvious streak," Skipper snapped, "Hurry up and end it."

"In hindsight I suppose we should have kept Archie and used him as some sort of a distraction for our escape." Private added, "Or just given him some misinformation that would have sent Blowhole on a wild goose chase."

"'eah, blame i' all on me." Rico grumbled. Skipper stood up.

"Look at us all complaining," He spoke, "Operations hardly ever go to plan." He scoffed, "I'm losing my touch."

"You could try to get it back." Kowalski stated. Skipper glared at him.

"You didn't think I was about to say that?" Kowalski shrugged sheepishly, "Alright, I'm going to go back to what I used to do: Kowalski, options." Immediately Kowalski seemed to snap back into gear, pulling out his clipboard and writing feverously. A few seconds later, he seemed to be satisfied with his result.

"I've come up with some… well, an, option, sir." He reported, "It's a little risky…"

"Define 'a little risky'."

"97% chance of failure, sir, 83% chance we die horrible deaths and fail simultaneously." Skipper shrugged.

"Better than I was expecting." Maurice and Private looked at the two of them as if they were out of their minds.

The lobster narrowed his eyes with a puzzled kind of expression.

"I don't see nothin'." He reported.

"Neither do I," Blowhole answered, puzzling the guard further, "But they're up to something." He grabbed a pair of binoculars from his desk, focusing them on one of the windows of barracks three. Skipper seemed to be having some kind of argument, he couldn't see with whom. Oddly enough Skipper wasn't on the attacking side.

"Can you read lips, Red One?" He asked.

"Yes, doc." Blowhole handed him the binoculars.

"Tell me what he's saying." There was a short pause.

"Uh… I dunno, doc, it doesn't make sense…"

"Just tell me what he's saying." Blowhole snapped, "If you all understood half of what you saw they wouldn't need me."

"Yes doc," The lobster replied, "Uh… he seems to be denyin' some kinda accusation… Keeps sayin' "it wasn't me"…"

"And?"

"That's pretty much it… Uh, he just said somethin' about not makin' hasty decisions… Oh, he's talkin' to that Maurice guy. Maurice just said he's seen all he needs to see."

"What did he just say?" Blowhole asked when the lobster failed to report a split second of conversation.

""Kowalski, give me some options!""

"Hm," Blowhole muttered thoughtfully, "Whatever it is, he is in a lot of trouble…" In one of the other windows Blowhole noticed a brief flash of light, the flash of sunlight on a lens. Almost immediately a blanket was thrown over the window they were observing through. That damn telescope. How many of those had he confiscated? "Red one, bring Skipper here."

Five minutes later the same lobster returned looking even more out of his depth.

"He wouldn't go."

"What do you mean he wouldn't go?" Blowhole countered, "Drag him out of there kicking and screaming if you have to… tell him you'll shoot him if he doesn't move, then if he doesn't, shoot."

"I tried that, doc…" Blowhole's expression immediately brightened.

"So Skipper is…?"

"No, I think I mighta outlined the situation badly," The lobster now looked truly puzzled by what he had to report, "Skipper wanted to go."

"Then why isn't he here?"

"It was the other prisoners, doc, they wouldn't let him." Blowhole scowled.

"Then say you'll shoot the rest of the prisoners if he won't go!" Now Blowhole really wanted to know what they were up to.

Skipper walked in, for possibly the first time in history, completely willingly. In fact, he looked relieved.

"For someone who hates me so much, I think you've just saved my life for a second time," He spoke, entirely devoid of sarcasm, taking one of the seats across from Blowhole. "I guess I oughta thank you, but I figure you won't accept it." Now Blowhole was starting to feel about the same as the lobster.

"Have you completely taken leave of your senses?" Blowhole finally stuttered. "What are you up to?" He added suspiciously. Skipper's manner became more serious.

"They found out." He spoke gravely.

"Found out what?" Blowhole figured in all probability it was something simple like the father or brother of one of his many discarded girlfriends was in barracks three had "found out". Blowhole would simply throw him back and watch the fireworks. This promised to be a rather enjoyable morning.

"Found out that I'm the informant." Skipper spoke. Now this Blowhole found just too funny to keep to himself.

"Do you honestly think I was born yesterday?" He laughed, "What are you really up to?"

"I didn't expect you to believe me at first," Skipper replied, "I'll see if I can convince you: you always put what you wanted to know under the floorboards of those barracks that are under construction. I'd answer you within twenty four hours, piece of note paper, written in block capitals to disguise my handwriting in the pencil provided on the back of the note." Blowhole nodded, intrigued as to how Skipper had discovered that, but not convinced.

"Then you would have informed on yourself the other day." Blowhole countered.

"If I hadn't you would have known it was me," Skipper replied, "I made something up, you didn't honestly think I'd start a fight about a few comments about your sister?"

"Very well, then tell me what I asked you last night?"

"I didn't get that far," Skipper replied, "They worked it out when we were leaving your office after Archie's accident. Kept me confined to barracks until their little 'trial' that I figure you saw. They were about to get rid of me when you called me over."

"How did they work it out?"

"What happened to Archie wasn't an accident, if you use the traditional definition…"

"I knew that," Blowhole opened one of the drawers of his desk and placed what looked like a charred wire on the desk, "This was what I was asking about. I found it in the rubble. Archie didn't "trip holding a lighter and fall on a pile of explosives"."

"Archie worked out what I was up to. He said he'd tell Maurice unless I met certain demands," Skipper replied, "I set up the explosives in the tunnel, timed fuse, and then talked him into going down the mine. Told him I'd been saving the stuff I got from you down there. The rest's history. I didn't realize Archie had left a note behind. The kid found it, my secret was out."

"Ah, but Archie might have been the informant, and you killed him because of it."

"Well, I can't prove otherwise, but," Skipper didn't give Blowhole time to finalize his conclusion, "Did you get a cable this morning?"

"I get a dozen cables every morning."

"Did you get one about 'the Red Squirrel'?" Blowhole scowled.

"How did you know that?"

"Lucky guess." More like Kowalski and his mad science intercepting communications, "I figured you'd get one like it soon. It said intelligence reports the British have confirmed him missing in action or dead, since their spies say he never made it back to Berlin." Blowhole nodded, "They say he hijacked a plane with a couple of airmen, made them fly him over, but he got shot down around here about three days before you dragged me in." Skipper grinned, "Ever get a description of the Red Squirrel?"

"He wore an eye patch."

"Please," Skipper laughed, "Disguise 101, give yourself some kind of noticeable feature. Everybody remembers that, forgets just about everything else. Anyway, all my crazy escapes make sense now, I couldn't tell you who I am, you'd never believe me." Blowhole was sold, well, for a moment.

"The first piece of information you sold me was Manfredi and Johnson's escape. You had yet to be captured." There was a slight waver in Skipper's manner, well, he wasn't sure, but there had to have been because Blowhole knew he'd caught Skipper out on that one. The prisoner paused, and his eyes locked on a spot on the floor.

"Hey, a quarter…"

The arrow shot through the window, shattering one of the panes of glass and flying over Skipper's head. It grazed Blowhole's right shoulder and shot out the other window. Both men hit the deck fast, but no second arrow came as guards streamed out of the yard to investigate the source of the arrow.

"Believe me now?" Blowhole nodded shakily, then changed his mind.

"You still haven't answered my question."