"The investigation was going exactly as planned, but K'walski still couldn't believe Doris was guilty despite all the evidence that pointed against her," Private sighed, "How terribly romantic. Anyhow, Blue's advances were rejected, I don't think K'walski actually realized at all, he just thought she was acting a bit odd. But Blue had prepared for the possibility that she might be rejected, which was why she didn't actually kill Hans."
"Blue returned to the woods and gave Hans another drug to counteract the first, intending that he'd wake up again in a few hours," Grant continued, "She'd known that with my team and Skipper's in the same camp an escape attempt was going to happen sooner rather than later. She'd heard about exactly when and where - we didn't exactly keep it a secret since that was part of the plan - and probably worked out the whole thing. Her specialty's prediction, so she might have even worked out the plan when she heard my team had been caught and was going to be transferred to Blowhole's camp, which, as we've mentioned before – I think – is why she left the car. We needed to find the car because conceivably we could have disappeared anywhere, and she needed us to find Hans. But if we took the car we'd have to head down to the main road, which was the direction Hans would head in if he was trying to find civilization and was too disoriented to work out where he was; he'd follow the sound of the road. Once we got him back to camp to question him…"
"Hans was thoroughly convinced that Doris had tried to kill him, but even then Kowalski had decided to ignore the seemingly solid evidence for the first time in his life," Skipper interrupted. No matter what, he was concluding the story, "I'm guessing Blue tipped off Barry after Hans failed to kill Doris as predicted." Skipper paused, building suspense before his carefully prepared closing statement, "Now…"
"You're quite right about all that," Blue interrupted, much to Skipper's dismay, "I'd thought, well, if anyone can convince him Doris was guilty, it was the victim himself. I thought it was a pretty ingenious plan."
"So you're admitting your guilt?" McSlade asked incredibly, "That whole story was true?"
"Yes." She replied, "It's not really all that unusual." Then her attention moved to Kowalski, "See, I did all that for you, don't you think it was clever?" she smiled as if that were supposed to be romantic, "See I'm more than worthy of your intelligence, and you can see I'm more than devoted. We'll be perfect together." Kowalski, however, looked the opposite of wooed by this. "So?"
"You are one very disturbed person." Kowalski barely managed to speak. His eyes rested on Doris with an apologetic kind of expression and Skipper could see he was already blaming himself for all of this. Skipper set aside a half hour that evening for trying to force him to realize the truth that it wasn't his fault the homicidal Miss Blue had picked him out of the crowd.
"Kowalski?!" Blue exclaimed her tone making it clear she did not want to believe what he'd just said, but Kowalski wasn't even reacting at this point, he'd receded into a corner of the room and it was clear he was still trying to figure the whole thing out. Skipper grimaced. Maybe he shouldn't have told his lieutenant it was only a ridiculous theory to get Doris off the hook.
"Skipper, permission to step outside?" Kowalski muttered, though he was already leaving. Skipper let him. Blue protested violently, but Kowalski shut the door behind him, heading back to the barracks.
"Well," Spoke Blowhole, finally snapping out of his shock, "I guess my sister is free to go?"
"Uh… yes, certainly. I trust we can keep this whole misunderstanding to ourselves?" McSlade replied, and seemed to finally get a grasp of the situation, "And, um, uh, somebody arrest Miss Blue." Two lobsters and one of McSlade's men who'd been listening at the key hole took this as their cue, cautiously approaching Blue who was now standing by herself in the centre of the room, everyone had quickly abandoned her. Blue didn't at all seem concerned about them; she was still staring in the direction of the door Kowalski had left from.
"Keep your hands where we can see them." One of the lobsters ordered while the other one took her gun from its holster. "Alright, get moving." It was on that command that Blue's attention suddenly snapped away from the door. Her eyes locked onto Private.
"Private, Red Squirrel. Code 378."
No sooner had the words left her mouth than Private snapped into that eerie trance. Almost in one motion he'd relieved one of the lobsters of his rifle and grabbed Doris roughly by the arm, holding the terrified woman between him and the weapons that everyone in the room had drawn. The rifle rested threateningly against Doris' neck, Blue cautiously began to move towards the automaton like Private and the hostage.
"Thank you Private." She smiled, "You all wanted to know who 'the accomplice' was?" She nodded to the brainwashed boy, "Between the two of us we were able to accomplish all the heavy lifting, and of course, it was helpful to be certain that someone would be able to describe the argument just how I wanted it."
"But I…!" Hans went to protest as half the room shot him a glare.
"Oh, you thought you'd undone it, but not before I'd gotten to him first." Blue countered. She noticed the two teams and their unwilling star witness were still stood in front of the door. "I'm going to leave now." She stated, "And Private here doesn't have any qualms about shooting Doris if you don't move within the next few seconds." The team looked at each other anxiously, which Blue took as doubt. She snatched the gun from Private, leaving the boy to stand unresponsive against the wall as she made her way towards the door. "That would be now." She prompted, a darker note entering her tone. Skipper still looked reluctant. He had no doubt Blue would kill Doris if he did nothing, but equally once Blue no longer needed a hostage she certainly wasn't going to let the woman she thought stood between her and Kowalski live.
"Why does everyone have to threaten Doris, never me or Kowalski or Marlene?" Hans sighed, "It's getting kind of boring actually." He snatched the catatonic Blowhole's pistol, disinterestedly aiming it at Blue.
"You should take it as a complement." Grant replied, "They really believe you're one of those self-sacrificing types where threatening you would t make much of a difference." Blue scoffed.
"Shows how much you know about him." She countered. Grant took that as a good reaction to his banter. Skipper could see him trying to work out how he could use the discovery that she was unable to leave an incorrect fact unchallenged to stall for more time.
"I'm really a pretty selfish guy." Hans concurred, "As Doris will tell you if she ever comes to her senses, I only married her father knows people and she was a good informant." Blue, however, was getting impatient.
"Out of the way." She ordered. The two teams moved, but Hans still stayed where he was.
"Alright, the fun's over, Blue," Hans spoke, now sounding slightly irritated, "I don't care one way or another if you kill her or not, but I don't like the idea of letting someone who nearly burned me alive walk out of here." Blue's eyes narrowed.
"Well if I'm not getting out of here, neither is Doris." She spoke simply. Her finger increased its pressure on the trigger.
"Stop!" Hans suddenly exclaimed much to the surprise of the whole room and Blue with more than a note of desperation in his voice, "Just don't…!" Blue paused, frowning as if this were an anomaly. Hans grimaced and seemed to make a decision. "Let her go, you can take me instead." He finally spoke. The majority of the room might actually want to kill him, but they also knew that if anything happened to him it would be a lot more trouble than it was worth. "And…" Hans started, but couldn't think of anything that would outdo Blue's desire to kill Doris.
"Drop the gun." She ordered. The weapon clattered to the floor. Retaining her grip on Doris, Blue took a step forward. Suddenly Doris was stumbling in the direction of her brother and Hans was caught in Blue's vice like grip. Skipper stared at the exchange in disbelief.
"Why did I ever doubt you?" Blue sighed, and Hans now looked thoroughly confused, "And I consider myself able to read you – you've cared about me all along, you just couldn't make yourself admit it because of that argument we had when we were fifteen."
"Uh, yes, that's correct." He replied, though his expression clearly betrayed the fact the last person in the world he wanted to be in the same room with was her. Blowhole moved to fire, but checked himself, realizing that Hans would still be directly in the crossfire. He really couldn't afford that kind of investigation and scrutiny. McSlade came to a similar conclusion.
"You've just made me realize how Kowalski was just a school girl crush," She continued, "It's just like in one of those movies, you've been there all the time…" Just Blue walked out the door Hans shot Doris one last look, a mixture of apology and fear. Then they were gone. A few seconds later they heard McSlade's staff car drive out of the camp.
"Birds of a feather." McSlade muttered dismissively, "I don't see what he was so worried about, though, he's found kindred spirit to run away to South America with."
"Oh, he's got reason to be worried," Blowhole countered, "Blue's clearly unstable but she's brilliant; how long before he does something she doesn't like?" At this Doris winced and Blowhole started back towards her quarters with her.
"They'll probably kill each other by the end of the week at the latest." Grant concurred, somewhat insensitively, "Hey, when are we going to wake up the kid? Kowalski, do something about him." Alius started to move towards Private to start the process of trying to work out how to snap him out of his trance, but Skipper stopped him.
"I just want us all to agree something before I wake up the kid." Skipper spoke gravely, "He never had anything to do with this."
"Agreed." Replied the room unanimously.