*** 18 ***

Right after getting out of there, Red Two started a transmission with Blowhole's lair. On the screens surrounding him, the dolphin could see all the footage of what had happened some minutes before. He and the lobsters were staring at the screen not understanding, their faces reddened to infinity (for being lobsters). Blowhole activated the microphone.

"Red Two... is this all what you've got? This is just gossip! What can I clear up about a snog?"

"It's not that, Doc," they heard from the voice at the other side. "It's just that she's leaving, and -"

"Well, great, let her leave... what do I care?"

"Well... when she leaves, she wants to have the penguin transferred."

"Can you repeat that?"

"Yes, Doc... she wants to take her to South Africa."

Blowhole face-flippered. He knew that saying about not putting all the eggs in the same basket... and he had made that beginner's mistake. He couldn't focus so much in a swivel of that chain, if he wanted to break it he should deal the blow on several places. But the easiest thing was doing it there. Although, to be honest, he didn't know how to do it yet. To make her an enemy of the others? That kind of intervention was easy. To make her tell him about them what he couldn't get by other means? It would be more difficult, yet more effective. And what would he do with the others?

"Red Two, when is the zookeeper leaving?"

"She has to be there on Monday."

"She'll surely go by plane." Blowhole raised his voice. "Attention, everybody. I need to know if there are flights to South Africa on Sunday and Monday."

"I've got it," Red Eight said raising his claw. "On Sunday there's a flight at seven o'clock in the morning. On Monday there are no flights."

"Red Eight, get ready. Next Sunday you'll go in that plane. Your mission will be to prevent that zookeeper from requesting the pen-gu-in's transfer. Manage as you can." Blowhole reactivated the microphone. "Red Two, look for documents about the pen-gu-in and take photos. Go to the computer and get all what you can."

"Yes, sir," Red Two replied while he went again into the building.

On his way to the office he went past the door he had gone through some minutes earlier. It was ajar. He leaned feeling curiosity and on the floor he saw, spread, the exoskeletons (or something like that) of those two humans. He leaned a bit more and saw them in full swing. They were too busy to notice his presence and their voices sounded dislocated. So this is how humans do it? He would have nightmares that night.

.

The atmosphere in the penguin HQ wasn't the same as always. The usual Skipper's paranoia seemed to have spread to the others. Blake looked at them silently: they were nervous, distracted, worried. The previous night they had attended a long meeting from which they hadn't cleared up anything. The only thing they agreed about was that the threat was different from all the others they had faced as a commando. Their rivals never had shown Blowhole's attitude... they were usual enemies, who could be defeated by using strength and strategy.

She was worried too, she knew that the situation was delicate. Nobody had planned anything, nobody had found a solution for the ambush made by Blowhole. To squeeze their brains hadn't given anything to anyone.

What she found more disturbing was that she had never felt that way. She remembered the cat and the night when she got away through the tunnel. In those two occasions she had felt fear, but little by little it dissipated. This was different... it was like a dense yet invisible fog filtering in their lungs. Why wasn't she calm? And they, who were used to danger?

She was observing them sitting in her bunk, with her head leaning on her flippers. Rico approached and sat next to her. Both stared at their teammates silently, as if trying to guess their thoughts.

"Is this so serious?" she asked him.

Rico nodded.

"Is that because we don't know him?"

"Maybe."

"But he wants us to go and meet him... that doesn't make sense."

"Trap."

"I'm also afraid it's a trap. Why would someone want to see his enemies?"

Rico shrugged his shoulders.

"Yes... I don't know either," Blake said.

Really, she knew it... but she didn't want to talk about that. Much less in front of Rico. She knew that her past in Bronx Zoo should remain unknown for him, Skipper had already warned her that Rico would lose control completely if he knew the truth about what had happened there. So she couldn't tell him that she had tried to go not to meet her enemies, but despite them. She hadn't thought again about going there. What could she have lost in that zoo? She knew that Nell would leave some day, and then nothing would tie her to that place. Longing would disappear when the longed person disappeared. What would remain then?

Anger, hatred. She was a good penguin not allowed to hate, that wasn't typical of a good penguin. What would she become if she succumbed to hatred? But it was true that she felt it. That she became enraged with her memories, that she hated those three penguins. Sometimes she thought that she would do anything to them if she could, if she wasn't afraid of them. But she didn't understand the ones who lived with hatred. She didn't want to be that. Sometimes she envied Private... he was parked in the lane of innocence and things were right. She had been expelled from that lane forever and an invisible wall was preventing her from going back there. She understood that he wanted to live forever in his naivety, that he didn't want to lean his head out to see beyond... she wished she could do the same.

She looked at Rico and caressed his scar with care and curiosity. She had wanted to ask him many times, but she had never dared.

"How did you get it?"

"Mission," he answered.

"So dangerous are missions? And..." she had a lump in her throat, "might we die?"

"Yes."

He hadn't nodded as he always did... he had said an unmistakable "yes". Blake shivered.

"Aren't you afraid of dying?"

"No."

Rico's voice was hoarse and calm. Blake was really surprised. Until then, Rico had been the owner of their shared silences. But, when he spoke, he said much more than what he seemed to say. Rico had accepted his fate resigned or even convinced that he wanted things to go that way.

"I am really afraid," Blake recognized.

Rico caressed her head. Blake closed her eyes, leaned her head on his neck and gave in to her thoughts.

"Rico... do you hate the one who did you that?"

She felt on her head that Rico shook his. Blake moved away and looked at him incredulous.

"Are you saying that someone did you something horrible and you don't feel hate... or anything? How can that be?"

Rico shrugged his shoulders.

"I cannot believe it," she said. "I hate... I know it is wrong, but if they harm me... I hate them."

Rico took her right flipper between his. The same she had done with the scar on his face, he was caressing the surgery cut.

"I hate," he recognized.

"Whom? The two penguins?"

Rico answered even more emphatically: "Yes."

"You don't hate the one who did you that... and you hate them, whom you even don't know?"

Rico nodded.

"It makes no sense," she replied. "I would kill them if I could. The three of them."

Blake hadn't noticed that Skipper was staring at them and had heard what she had just said. He grabbed her by her flipper, took her out of the bunk and carried her next to the ladder. Blake complained. Rico got up but, after a sign by Skipper, he didn't move. Skipper made Blake a sign to climb up the ladder and both went out to the concrete island.

"You've hurt me!" she complained massaging her flipper.

"Be careful with what you say," Skipper told him very serious. "Don't give Rico ideas. You cannot take revenge and he cannot either. Get this in your head. And be careful... he only knows about the two females, nothing about him. Don't even name him, I don't want him to ask."

"And what happens if he asks?"

"He'll come after him! I had to convince him of not intervening on the attack issue... he mustn't know the other thing! He'd lose his head if he knew it!"

"So what?"

"What... So what?!" Skipper was about to lose his nerves. "He cannot avenge you! We cannot attack civilians, get it in your head!"

"He won't avenge me," she said with her flippers crossed. "I have to do that myself."

Skipper hissed annoyed. He should watch Blake very carefully, and that was what he needed with an enemy ready for setting a mortal trap for them at any moment.

"Neither of you," he said finally. "If any of you attacks some of those three penguins, you will have to face the court-martial. Don't look at me that way, I don't make the rules. And you wouldn't like the court-martial. Private's interrogation would be for you as a wonderful coffee chat compared to what they would ask you. And the punishment would be draconian."

Blake lowered her stare.

"You understand it, don't you?" Skipper asked her.

Blake didn't want to answer. Skipper continued staring at her severely.

"You and he won't do anything crazy, okay?"

"He won't do anything... why would he do that?"

Skipper shook his head incredulous. Didn't Blake really see something so evident? They all knew except her.

"Don't you really know that Rico is in lo-"

In that exact moment Rico and the other penguins went out. Skipper hadn't noticed that the visits time had arrived. He let it be... maybe it was better that Blake didn't know it.

.

That very night, Nell started to organize her baggage. She had already bought the plane ticket for Sunday. She had told Steve that she had accepted a temporal transfer to a zoo in Washington State and that, surely, she would return in less than six months. Not that Steve had liked the idea, but he had accepted it. Those months outside may help Nell center herself a bit... and he needed to reflect too.

He placed himself behind her and cuddled her.

"Not now, Steve," she said sharply, making him loose her.

"Come on... I won't see you in some months. Let's enjoy the two odd days that we still have."

"Later. We'll see."

"Oh, come on..." Steve made puppy dog eyes. "A little moment..."

He got close to the bed to push the suitcase aside, just enough. And then he noticed.

"Nell... you go to Washington State." His tone was serious.

Nell gulped. "That's right."

"You come back in March or April at the latest."

"Yes."

"Then... why are you taking summer clothes?"

"I'm not taking summer clothes."

Steve took from the suitcase a sleeveless dress with a colorful flower pattern.

"And what is this?"

"This is for being at home."

"That's a lie. You never wear this at home." He threw the dress into the suitcase.

Nell had never seen him so serious. She noticed that she had made a total mess of it. She didn't have another option but to tell him the truth. Or part of the truth.

"Okay..." how difficult that was. "I'm not going to Washington. I'm going... to South Africa."

"To South Africa?!" The shout frightened Nell, who shed some tears.

"It's temporal, okay?" Nell was praying deep down for Steve to fall for that. "Yes, I'm going to South Africa."

"And why haven't you told me the truth since the beginning?!" Steve's voice was really thunderous.

"Because I knew you wouldn't like it!" Nell didn't dare look at Steve's eyes.

"I don't like you to hide it! It would be different if you had told me! If you leave... I don't care if it's to another state or to another country! But a lie... neither I tolerate it nor I forgive you!"

Nell cowered scared to death. Steve had never laid a hand on her, but she feared that he was about to do it. She was surprised as the blow didn't occur and she stood up trembling. Steve noticed the gesture.

"What?! I'm not that kind of guy!"

Nell folded and kept the dress in a hurry, utterly scared. But Steve saw something else in the suitcase and took it. It was a pills box. He opened it and started to read the leaflet.

"And this, too?! Who are you cheating on me?!"

"No-one!" she yelled. That had been the truth... until that very morning. "I don't want to live the same for the fourth time!"

"Then tell me and we'll stop trying!"

"I tell you constantly!"

Both were face to face, their faces blushing with the anger of the argument. For Steve it was difficult to breath.

"Get away from here, slut," he finally said. "Finish your baggage and get the hell out of this house as soon as possible." He slammed the door.

Nell took her phone from her trouser pocket and sat down. She looked for a number among her contacts and waited for a tone.

"Sandy..." she was so difficult to understand due to her grief and tears. "Could I stay in your house for three days? I'll tell you later..."

She needed some minutes to end her luggage and left the room silently. When she crossed the corridor she saw Steve lying on the coach, watching TV or sleeping... she couldn't know. On the auxiliary table there were a bottle and an empty glass. She closed the door and called a taxi. Several years of her life, the best and worst moments... were left behind forever.