"Um…" Kowalski glanced guiltily at the open safe behind him. Well, the plan was fool proof, but apparently not evil genius proof.

"Well?"

Kowalski had been in a lot of uncomfortable situations, but this took the cake. He'd been caught searching files more times than he could count, and honestly didn't care about that, but the uncomfortable part was his girlfriend was in the next room and probably wouldn't take kindly to being used, even if only partially used, though she seemed to be okay about it when the person using her was her brother.

"Doris?" Blowhole shouted, never taking his eyes off Kowalski.

"Yes Little B?" was the woman's muffled reply.

"I'm afraid Kowalski won't be able to make the movie," Blowhole continued, "We will be going down to one of the storage locations. I recommend you call a friend if you do not wish to waste the second ticket."

"Alright," Doris answered after the short amount of time needed to digest the information, though she didn't seem to be too bothered by the statement, "I think Blue's free tonight."

Rico walked down to the garage and was about to enter the car when the headlights switched on. Rico should have been surprised, but then Kowalski 'modified' anything he could get his hands on, so it was probably just set to turn on when a motion sensor he probably passed on his way in was activated. Thus Rico continued towards the car, opened the door, and began to drive.

He'd only driven about fifteen minutes when the roof suddenly opened.

"'amn sci'ntist." Rico cursed. He was about to press the button to close the roof, when the car suddenly stopped. Rico looked down at the handbrake. He certainly hadn't moved it. Rico barely had time to begin puzzling it out, when he was thrown from the car by ejector seat. The parachute opened above him, and he was got a good view of the screaming civilians below. Well, it wasn't every day, at least for them, that someone was catapulted from their car in front of them. When he got closer to the ground he undid his seatbelt and jumped down to the street below, where the traffic had stopped, the drivers speechless. The seat landed with a soft thud behind him.

Well, that was a waste of a good seat Rico thought, slowly approaching the car. Suddenly, the headlights turned blood red, glowing eerily in the night-time cityscape, and Rico barely had time to dive out of the way before the car sped over the ground he had previously stood on. Rico picked himself up from the road, as the sound of the approaching automobile once again reached his ears. This wasn't good.

The room seemed quiet. Almost… too quiet. Well, that was what was going through the back of Skipper's mind as he sorted through, you guessed it, more papers. That was all he ever seemed to do these days. He remembered having to write mission reports, but he hadn't actually had to read through files since he was a junior agent, and that, to him, was a long time ago.

Suddenly Skipper was alert. His gut told him something was wrong. If his gut had only been more specific, then Skipper probably wouldn't have been surprised as he felt the cold and yet all too familiar prickle of the point of a knife against the back of his neck. Though the attacker had yet to disclose his identity, it was probably one of his many enemies, who'd somehow found out he was still alive. Then another thought crossed his mind: if one of the team realised he'd discovered what they were up to, it could be one of them. He was pretty sure they were all out, but one of them could have snuck back in to catch him by surprise.

"Why'd you do it, Skippah," Private barely choked back his anger, "She might not have been good to me, but she was my mother."

"Are you sure you don't want a turn, Geert?" a high-pitched, almost dolphin-like voice asked.

"No, I don't want to spoil my appetite before I get to Skipper." Geert replied.

"What about me, why can't I have him?" a Delaware accented voice protested.

"No." Blowhole answered, as if he'd already been asked this a thousand times. Kowalski knew he had, it was just hard to keep count as his body shook violently with every shock. There may have been more people in the room, but Blowhole hadn't removed the blindfold since he was driven away from the apartment.

"Now, shall we try this again," Blowhole continued after two pairs of footsteps receded into the distance, "How close is Skipper to discovering the location of the money?" Kowalski said nothing; "You can't possibly hold out forever," Kowalski continued to remain silent. He'd learned from both Skipper, and previous encounters with Blowhole, that his arrogance could easily be manipulated to force him to spill even the most sensitive secrets. On the topic of Skipper, Kowalski was surprise he and the team hadn't come after him yet, "I have been incredibly gentle, pen-gu-in, as I would prefer your mind clear so you can give me details. However…" suddenly Kowalski screamed as his body interrupted into more pain that he had ever experienced, it's source indiscernible, "now, if this were a scale of one to a hundred (it's actually a scale of minus three to one hundred and twelve point three to be exact) what you were previously experiencing would be one. You are now experiencing two. May I emphasize that you are only one fiftieth from the point at which I have to revert to plan B, and I have a contingency after that for every letter of the alphabet, all twenty six of them."

Kowalski knew better than to believe such threats. Blowhole was at the end of his rope, he just didn't want Kowalski to know it.

"Ah, you think I'm out of options and simply do not wish you to know it," Blowhole deduced with frightening accuracy, "Alright, we'll try number three." Kowalski had thought the first was bad. The second, unbearable. This was beyond his vocabulary. He could hear Blowhole's laughter, harsh on his ears, like icicles stabbing at his brain. He didn't know how long he could keep this up. He wasn't Skipper, he was a scientist. Well, he was just sorry he'd failed. He could try to wait till he blacked out, but Blowhole would just wait for him to wake up and start again. He'd just have to hope his body was as weakened by pain as his mind, and he would at least find an end to this in death.

Suddenly the laughter stopped. The pain stopped. His blindfold was removed and the metal restraints binding his wrists to the table snapped off. He found himself lifted by several pairs of hands and moved to a stretcher. Only an hour and a half later, his wounds patched, he was released on the very roof of the HQ, still blindfolded.

Skipper went to turn around but the cold blade was pressed harder against his neck, and a single drop of blood trickled down from the point where the tip of the blade touched his skin.

"Answer my question 'Skippah'." Private demanded.

"It was for the best." Was all skipper could say. He'd hoped Private would never find out. He'd wanted to believe a mistake he'd made in anger could be hidden away forever.

"She wasn't evil Skippah," Private continued his search for answers. He hated violence, but Barry convinced him there was probably no other way to get Skipper to admit it, never mind tell him why. Barry had even given him his knife to use, as Private couldn't bear to use the one Skipper had given him for his tenth birthday, "she just couldn't deal with what happened." Still, he didn't intend to kill or even hurt him, but Skipper obviously only understood the language of violence, so Private had no choice but to speak to him on that level.

"She nearly got you killed," skipper replied. He'd felt guilty the moment he'd calmed down, the blood on the blade he'd used to inflict the non-fatal wounds on Private's mother still warm, his gun in need of reloading. Nevertheless, he couldn't admit that. He was a leader, and a leader couldn't show remorse for his actions. It would destroy the chain of command, "That was reason enough for me."

"Then you have a very one dimensional view of the world."

"No, you just don't…" Why was he even arguing this? Private shouldn't be questioning his decision, even if he was wrong. He was the senior officer and Private was… the enemy? Immediately that train of thought quashed all the others going through his head.

No matter how good the files made Private AKA Agent Flynn-Godfrey seem, it was clear he wouldn't be able to take Skipper on and win. Not at the top of his game. So, obviously the plan was that the guilt he felt towards his mistake, which was probably planned as some kind of failsafe by LEOPARDSEAL, would throw him off long enough to get the job done. Well, they'd forgotten two things: one, that he was on to them and two, that remorse could turn to anger very fast. The room began to blur slightly. The cut on his finger throbbed. Of course, Flynn probably coated the papers in a tranquilizer which would be transferred into his blood stream via the paper cut, which when dealing with that many papers would inevitably happen, just in case. He had to work fast.

Skipper lifted his foot, which he'd managed to wedge under the coffee table in front of him, sending the object hurtling to the ground. For a split second Flynn's guard dropped, and a split second was all Skipper needed. He ducked down, anticipating a possible attack, twisting around to face the LEOPARDSEAL agent, and grabbed the knife and twisting it backwards. However, Flynn knew the move, ironically Skipper had probably taught it to him, and rolled under his knife arm, so his back was now to Skipper, and threw the already semi-off balance man over his shoulder. However, Skipper wasn't prepared to lose that fast and kept hold of Flynn's wrist, him over with him.

The two agents fought viciously over the weapon. Flynn would dodge Skipper's blunt attacks, and attempt to turn them back on him, but Skipper would quickly overpower him, despite the fact his eyes saw two attackers, as well as two of everything else in the room, and his brain seemed to be made of wool. Was he at his best, he would be anticipating his opponent's moves long before they happened, and the young assassin wouldn't have a chance.

"What are you doing Skippah?!" Flynn panicked. He was a good actor, he actually sounded confused and almost terrified.

"Do you really expect me to believe that one?" Skipper replied through clenched teeth as he fought to turn the blade away from him, "I know who you are." Suddenly the two agents froze, looking down at the knife, as blood started to pool on the floor.