*** 17 ***
As always, Skipper's gut instinct had hit the target. That very day it has told him that something bad would happen... and there were the seven penguins, gathered in the garage and listening to their enemy's voice for the first time. There were concern and expectation. The background music that the mysterious enemy had chosen had put them on edge, despite being at the very background, as elevator music. There was something sinister in it, at least because it had been chosen by the villain.
Blake was very surprised, more than the others. Until then, she had thought that everything was her teammates' inventions... but that Blowhole, even if he couldn't be seen, was real. Maybe all the other things that she had been told were too. Except the stories by Manfredi and Johnson. Those couldn't be true.
"Get out of where you are, villain," Skipper said enraged.
"I cannot... I'm not with you. Moreover, it's not the moment. I still have things to do," Blowhole replied.
"What things?"
"Many things... I just wanted to talk with you because it's our first anniversary." He laughed again, confusing Kowalski. "I'm still astonished by how fast you were. I sent to your agency my first message in the morning and that very same night you were already at the zoo."
"And you had us here for an exact year... and you did and say nothing?" Johnson asked.
"Of course, insolent pen-gu-in. I take the time."
"What do you play?" Skipper asked.
"The cat and the mice. But I'm not a cat and you're not mice, but that's minor. You'll have time to know me... and to come and see me, of course."
"You have said that before," Kowalski commented, just awakened from a short trance. "He wants us to go. Isn't that weird?"
"A lot," Skipper answered.
"Not so weird... I only want to introduce myself and to make you know my plans."
"So... why don't you show your face for us to break it?" Skipper had his flippers clenched as fists.
"I've just told you. I can't yet. I still have loose ends to revise... to be a villain takes much time, I cannot destroy the Universe in a quarter of an hour."
"And what have you done so far?" Private asked curious.
"You must be the little one... well, listen. I've had to build and set up my lair... and that can't be done in two days, of course. But, as well as you, I'm not alone. I need employees, many of them. I had to hire them... and that can't be done any which way. After considering different possibilities, I opted for a mixed selection system based on the criteria of equality, merit and capability. A competitive examinations system. Some countries do it for choosing their public workers. And it's a long process... with its announcements, allegations... just that took several months. And it's true that all my employees belong to the same species, but... I assure you, they are the best."
The penguins looked at each other. They didn't know what Blowhole was talking about.
"Really?" Blake asked. "What are you?"
"Aw... the female!" Blowhole's voice tone had changed, now it had a disturbingly seductive shade. "I feel like seeing you... until now, the only thing I've seen are photos. You were very spoilt at the beginning, but you have changed a lot. Do you know something, Blake? Your teammates are like the agents in movies, dressed with their elegant black suits... But you're not less than them, with your spotted plumage... it's as if you wore a sequin dress. And, as you'll imagine, I like you more than them." He was speaking slowly, savoring his words.
Blake hid behind Rico, who was growling irritated by the comment. She was as scared as ashamed by the comment by Blowhole.
"Have you contacted us for threatening us or for flirting?"
They all turned to Manfredi. Unless it was for telling one of his jokes, it was unusual to hear him say something. Sometimes his comments were welcome as witty, sometimes they were inopportune... but never as much as in that very moment. To piss off an arch-enemy is not the best idea in the world.
Blowhole laughed. "Neither this nor that. I've contacted you for a rendez-vous. Since tomorrow, I want to talk a bit with you. Every day at nine o'clock in the evening. To talk, simply... I'm not going to attack you by surprise or something like that. I want to establish a routine with you. It's a part of my game. Until the day I'll make you come."
"To come... where?" Skipper asked impatient.
"To come... from there to here, that's what the verb to come means. Same as ever," Blowhole answered.
"And how will we go if we don't know where you are?" Skipper asked again.
"Oh, there's no problem for that. I'll give you directions on the chosen day. I still don't know when, but I know how. For now, look after that engine."
The engine! Kowalski understood it. There was the transmitter that Blowhole had used! Then... had Blowhole heard all the things said in the lab practically since they were seven in the team? His conversations with Eva, too, which were personal... Kowalski was furious for that, but at least he was convinced that it was unlikely for Blowhole to have heard all the classified intel that Skipper transmitted to them, as he did that in the main room of the HQ... but who knows the microphone scope. ¿And how hadn't he seen it? He and Johnson had dismantled the engine with their own flippers!
"Are you saying..." he intervened, "that you have been spying on us all this time? That this car is a Trojan horse?"
"Well... said that way it's a bit rough. I'd better say that I have been learning about you. But not enough, I have lots of questions to ask," Blowhole answered.
"Questions that we won't answer," Skipper cut him.
"We'll see about that. You are temperamental and direct, but I have... psychology. And I'm a bit gossip sometimes. It has been entertaining to hear you, but you locked my transmission system and I have missed all the best. I should have foreseen... and put a camera. I'd like to have seen that lab."
"Kowalski, this is your task. Dismantle that engine and take out the transmitter."
"Yes, si-"
"No, no way," Blowhole interrupted. "You'll leave the transmitter where it is. You'll need the car. Don't ever dare taking it out... I'll know it. I've also put a locator, and it has sensors. If you move the car, I'll know it. Not that I care where you go as long as I don't call you, but I'll notice if you disconnect something. And then I'll have to change my tactic... and I hate having to change my tactic, it's an important detail about me that you must know. I remind you that I'm a villain, and you wouldn't like to be late to stop a villain's plan. You wouldn't forgive yourselves."
"Don't listen, Kowalski," Skipper said.
"If you want to come to me, leave things as they are. I can locate you... but you can locate me too. Not until I allow it, but... I want to see you, and I know you'll also want to come and see me. Hear you tomorrow."
Right after his last words, that disturbing music stopped being heard. The penguins remained silent and immersed in worrying. They were in the hands, paws, wings or flippers of what that Doctor Blowhole was.
.
In the HQ, Skipper was sitting at the table visibly worried. It wasn't surprising. In his first contact with the enemy he had been waiting for a whole year, the only thing he had cleared up was that the enemy called the shots and he would decide how, where and when they could act.
"Does anybody know what lunacy was that?" It was a rhetorical question.
"Of course, Skipper," Kowalski answered. "Rendez-Vous, by Jean-Michel Jarre. It was going to include the first song recorded in space but the chosen one, an astronaut and saxophonist called Ron McNair, died in the Challenger explosion."
"Really, Kowalski?" Skipper stared at him incredulous.
"Oh, what has just happened..." Kowalski let out a nervous giggle after his slip-up. He got serious. "In plain English, that Blowhole has got us by the balls. My analysis ends here so far."
"This doesn't make sense at all," Skipper protested. "This is not how this game works: we investigate and catch the bad guy on the brink of doing something or when doing it. We beat him to a pulp, we avoid a disaster and we get the glory. That's our job."
"All that's left is to innovate," Private said.
"Innovate? Private... do I have an innovator's face? I don't innovate, I beat up my enemies' ribs. I accept explosions, pursuits... not to give my flipper for an insane to dance with me."
"But, Skipper..." Private replied. "You always say that you dance with danger."
"Yes... but with the same old danger. I hate to find my song changed."
"We'll have to play his game until we find a way to turn it against him," Johnson said.
"Yes, but... how?"
"No idea," they all said in unison. They could only wait.
.
After finishing his first call, Blowhole rubbed his flippers. He knew that he had the penguins where he wanted. He was strolling on his segway in the main room of his submarine secret lair, where two dozens of lobsters were working diligently on their computers. He pressed a button with his flipper on his segway handlebar and turned up the music volume until it got annoying for his employees. One of them approached him with his claws on his earholes, yelling.
"Doc! Turn it down, please!"
Blowhole guessed what the lobster was trying to tell him and turned down the volume a bit. The lobster continued covering his earholes, so Blowhole went on turning down the volume until he saw him lowering his claws.
"Yeah? Happy, Red One? You know I hate to be interrupted when I'm listening to music!"
"Music? That's deafening!"
"This is delight for my earholes... and a warning for my enemies. Tomorrow they'll listen to the second part."
"But... Doc, the project is done. We could start the plan."
"Yes... we could. But I want to have a little fun. Tomorrow, the second rendez-vous... and the second part of the record. And then I have Vangelis, Mike Oldfield... I could spend days, weeks, months pulling the pen-gu-ins' legs."
"If you'll pardon the expression, Doc, you are a freak."
Blowhole leaned the segway forward until his face was some inches from Red One's.
"Listen, irreverent crustacean. You may be the best of the class, you may be my helper... but I don't allow you to insult me. Do it again and I'll boil you slow cooked. And you know I'm capable of doing it."
"Yes, Doc..." Red One replied frightened by the threat.
"That's the spirit. We understand each other perfectly."
"And, exactly... what is the plan?"
"I'll go on calling them, trying to know about their things... I want to find their weak spots. And the best of all: I want them to be the ones who reveal them. It will be a triple triumph. It's not enough to accomplish my plan... do you know? Or to make them the impotent witnesses of my victory. Besides, I want them to discover that they are the ones who have dug their own graves."
Red Two approached him.
"But Doc... they're just penguins. They're one of the most adorable species on Earth... just like you."
"Well... I don't care. I'm not a pen-gu-in, I'm a dolphin."
"Precisely for that -"
"I'm a resentful dolphin, thirsty for revenge, okay?! And, if on my path I find a commando of adorable pen-gu-ins, I'll wipe them off the map ruthlessly."
"And the female? You have been flirting with her..."
"Simple strategy. The probability of her being some of them's weak spot is high. I've heard a little about them... but enough."
Red Two went back to his place. Blowhole followed him.
"Ah, before I forget it, Red Two... I have a mission for you in Bronx Zoo."
.
The next morning, Red Two was in Bronx Zoo. Hidden among the bushes, he saw the zookeepers doing their job. No-one noticed his presence. That was good... and bad, as someone went running out of the office and was about to tread on him when he was crossing the path to change his hiding place.
"Nell!" that someone shouted. "You have a call!"
"I'm with the penguins! Tell them I'll go right away!" she replied.
Penguins... Red Two decided to follow her. Stealthily, he sneaked in the office. He didn't clear up anything about the call because Nell only answered with monosyllables.
"Was it important?" the same as before asked. He was a young man with a white coat. Red Two deduced he was a vet.
"Yes. Next Monday I'll start to work in another place. In South Africa."
The vet's reaction was to guide her to an adjacent room. He tried to close the door, catching Red Two's claw. He got to close it at the second attempt, not noticing that the lobster was inside with them.
"Nell, you're crazy," he told her. "It's incredible what you are able to do for that penguin."
"Why do you care, Mike?" she told him indignant. "You didn't want to help me... well, I didn't care. I can do things by myself."
"And you go to the other end of the world... why? For her?" Mike was staring at her.
Nell bowed her head.
"No, not only for her. I know it's unlikely to get her out of where she is, but at least I know she's okay. It's just that..." she looked at Mike and bowed her head again.
"What?" Mike looked impatient.
"Well... my sentimental life sucks, okay? The only thing I do with Steve is to argue, and the only thing he does with me is -"
"Don't tell me."
"No, I don't want to tell you."
"And the solution is to flee, just like that, to another continent... not trying to amend things with him. Sure you haven't told him."
"Hey! You don't care about that!" she complained.
"I do care!" he replied.
"Well, you shouldn't!"
"But well, I care!"
"And why?" she wanted to know.
"Because..."
Mike was unable to tell her. He had been with her for years, saving her ass every time she risked her job. That was over, only a week remained. She was leaving. And he knew her well: when she got an idea into her head, she finally accomplished it no matter how crazy it was. But she had never gone so far. He neither.
Nell was leaving. And Mike respected Steve. But what did it matter... if it was going to end. Mike didn't resist. He cornered Nell and, without her expecting it, he kissed her hungrily and desperately.
Red Two, hidden behind a shelf, had registered everything.