Private wiped the tears away and took a deep breath.
So everyone thought that he was a traitor – with the possible exceptions of Kowalski and Marlene – and, on top of that, some animals even thought that he'd been a spy or something this whole time. He sighed. This would take some doing before he was trusted again. He picked up the bulky bag of equipment by his side and slung it over his back, securing it with the noiseless straps.
He needed a place to stay – a secure location which was defendable and hidden. He couldn't sleep in trees every night and expect to never be seen by a squirrel or a bird.
Hopefully there was an abandoned tree hollow nearby... small, but good enough for now.
He stopped. But wouldn't they be expecting that?
No... they would be expecting him to leave the city, or else hook up with some 'outside organisation'. They wouldn't expect him to stick around so close. They wouldn't look here.
Private opened the black bag of stolen equipment and removed the binoculars. He popped off the lens caps and scanned the park grounds, scouting out for signs of animal life. The pigeons were gone – they were probably flying over the city now, looking for food – but he could see a pair of squirrels and a few songbirds among the other trees. Getting back to his other bags would be tricky.
He put away the binoculars and secured the clasps on the bag. He swung it round and hefted it onto his back, stood up, and picked out a tree.
He ran along the branch, sprung, and grabbed a bunch of another tree's twigs. He pulled himself up and along the skinny branches towards a thicker one.
Hidden among the leaves, he glanced around at the animals he had scouted out. None of them seemed to have noticed.
His other bags were in a crook of the next tree over – he could just about see the grey material of one of them. The problem was, the gap between his tree and the next one was too great to jump across. Which meant he needed to descend and cross the grass.
The squirrels had their back to him and the songbirds weren't looking, but at the last moment, a female pigeon flapped over and roosted just in front of him. Private gulped. The bird was just a few inches away. If she moved her head even slightly, she would spot him. Then she would surely fly away and tell someone that she had seen the missing penguin, and word would get to Skipper that he was still in the park, and then it would be over.
He had to stun her. He raised his flipper and brought it down sharply on the back of her neck. She stiffened, then collapsed into his hold, unconscious.
"Sorry," he whispered to her as he laid her gently down on the branch. He straightened up and shuddered. It felt strange to knock out somebody without being ordered to.
Private glanced around again. Nobody had seen him. Nobody was looking his way. He readjusted a loose strap of the black bag and looked over the edge of the branch.
Spotting a route down, he hopped down onto a lower branch, and then dropped onto the ground. He swept across the grass into the shadow of the third tree. Another glance around showed him that he wasn't seen. There was a low-hanging branch to his left. In two bounds, he scaled the tree branches and dove into the cover of the leaves.
Panting more from anxiety than exertion, he approached his bags and lifted them. As both bags were about as big as him, he struggled to secure them. He held the grey decoy bag under one flipper and the brown bag went on his back, strapped to the black one.
With only one flipper free, he climbed higher.
He had been scanning the trees for about five minutes, seeking out a hollow in a trunk which he could defend. The pickings weren't very good.
He lowered his gaze slightly, adjusting the focus of the binoculars. Suddenly he saw it.
Between two roots, there was a barely-visible hole, just his size, which probably led down into a warren. It didn't look like it was in use by other animals. That looks perfect, he thought. He put the binoculars away, smiling, and began carefully descending through the branches with his bags.
Crouched on the lowest branch, he looked around once more, left and right, eyes scouring the trees and the grass for eyewitnesses. Then, seeing none, he jumped off and landed on the grass.
Sticking to the shadows, he edged closer to the roots, keeping out of sight of the park's residents.
A songbird flew over his head and he froze.
A few moments passed without sound. Then he relaxed and stared after it, hoping it hadn't seen him. He didn't think it had. Heart beating erratically, Private reached the hole in the roots and dug a penlight out of the black equipment bag. He flicked it on and aimed the narrow beam down the hole.
The tunnel was perfectly round and not as dirty as he had expected. It dipped sharply, then sloped gently downwards and curved to the right. It didn't look occupied. The tunnel wasn't wide enough to fit him in with two bags on his back and one under his arm. Private took off the bags and dragged them behind him as he entered.
A few feet down, Private dug out an electric lamp and switched it on to fully illuminate the surroundings. He tossed the penlight back into the bag. He walked forwards, treading on what felt like packed dust or clay. The tunnel was no longer than a couple of yards, but as he rounded the corner he found himself in a large, spacious room, roughly square, which was completely empty save for a rectangular lump of more solid dust or clay against the far wall. To the left, there was a doorway to another, far smaller room.
Private set down his bags and the light and smiled at the empty room. He had found his hideout. It was a small miracle that a warren like this would be available.
Suddenly he frowned. Surely rabbit warrens were smaller than this and contained more rooms. But then what made it?
An old phobia kicked in and he trembled. This had to be a badger den.
What if they came back? A whole family of badgers, moving back into an old den, wouldn't be too pleased to see that an unusual-looking bird had already claimed it. In his mind's eye, he saw many angry figures advancing on him. He pictured inch-long claws and incisors –
Private shook his head to clear the image. He was safe here. Whoever had left this place had moved on. This was his base now and he had to get rid of these fears, or he could just give up and turn himself in to the unit now. If he couldn't get over a fear of a hole in the ground, he wouldn't be able to survive. He took a deep breath and began unpacking some of the equipment from the bag he had taken from the bunkers.
He emptied the bags. The decoy penguin toy was shoved in the corner, and so were the black bag's radar, sonar, mini-screens and power packs. He didn't need those yet. He put the binoculars and the foam sleeping mat into the brown backpack from Marlene's.
The popcorn bag pillow and the handkerchief blanket were put on the bed. The mass of fluffy white stuffing he had tore out of some toys was put on the bed to sort out later, and some was spread sparsely on the floor. His footsteps were almost silent on the covered dust. He drove three plastic hooks blunt-end-first into the wall, looped half of the string into coils and hung them up on one. The first-aid kit hung by its handle from another, and from the third hung the empty black and grey bags. The six little stone turtle slabs were piled underneath it. The makeshift grappling hook and the rest of the rope and hooks stayed in the backpack.
Private stacked the small boxes of fish into the tiny side room. Food would be a problem in the near future, but Central Park had a huge lake that was probably teeming with fish. He could hunt at night.
The map of Central Park Zoo was pinned up using a couple of tacks shoved into the dusty walls. Gazing at it, Private felt a sudden wave of sadness encompass him. Who knew when it would become his home again? If it would become his home again? His eyes lingered on the otter habitat. He still felt guilty for borrowing her stuff. Still, it sounded like she had forgiven him. He turned back to the pile on the floor.
He wasn't sure what to do with the morphine and pill boxes so he put them aside in their own pile. The soap and cleaning utensils he put beside the bed, careful to not get any dust on the bar of soap. The knives he had taken from zoo storage were put back into the backpack, along with the money ($157 in total – something else he would have to repay), the waterproof plastic bags, and the pen and waterproof paper he didn't know what to do with. He tossed the roll of duct tape into the corner.
There was a small box with a blue water droplet printed on its lid. He opened it and dug out a bunch of tiny tablets and a variety of sieves, from one that looked like a grill to one made out of thick cloth. He lifted the cloth sieve and tried to peer through it. It didn't seem to have any visible holes. At the bottom of the box, Private found a water bottle with a sports cap. So it was a water purification kit.
Useful, seeing as he would be out here a while; the lake water was gritty and full of rubbish. He had seen the state of the water the last time he swam in it. That was the fishing trip they had taken as a unit... Private pushed the thought out of his mind.
He put the box aside and picked up something else from the pile. It was a lens from a magnifying glass, and as he looked through it he was surprised to see how powerful it was. He had no idea how or why he would ever use it, so he put it in the water box for safekeeping. He picked up something else and dropped it again with a small gasp of pain. He examined his flipper. Tiny drops of blood were oozing from a shallow cut.
Private frowned at the dropped object, which looked like a sharp wire saw. Usually they weren't very sharp.
He picked it up carefully by its handles. It was very light, serrated, and seemed to Private like it could cut through steel. Again, why would he ever need that? He wondered whether it was meant to be smuggled into prison cells in enemy territory or something.
Private checked before picking the next item up. It was a dark metal rod, kind of small, and Private had no idea what it was. Close examination showed a small F inscribed on each end. Still clueless, Private tossed it aside.
He spotted another item. Four of them, in fact.
Four military walkie-talkies lay in the dust a few feet away. The range was small compared to other kinds of walkie-talkie, but this version was waterproof and had a near-interminable battery life. He picked them up and bundled them over by the hooks.
A tiny compass and two cheap lighters were left. He put them all in the backpack and fastened it closed.
Now that he was unpacked, he next had to think about how he planned to get them to trust him again. Talking to Kowalski was a good idea. But communication would be difficult. Private knew he couldn't face Kowalski in person - Kowalski was loyal to Skipper, and was both stronger and faster than Private. He couldn't expect to get away if he was seen.
So the walkie-talkies could be of use. The signals couldn't be tracked in any way - useful for if one fell into enemy hands - and the range was large enough to put a safe distance between him and Kowalski while they talked.
If Private sent a message to a walkie-talkie and Kowalski found it, they could talk safely. Private could deny what he was accused of and refuse to return, and with a little persuasion Kowalski could agree to help him.
But the problem with walkie-talkies was that Kowalski could easily calculate distance from the range, and find out how far away the signal came from; even if he couldn't find exactly where Private was, he would know he was in a specific area. If he refused to speak to Private and told the others, Skipper would know Private was still in the park and they would mount a search. They'd be on him before he could pack up his stuff to leave.
But if he could communicate to Kowalski outside Central Park, even if he did blab to the other two, Private would be in the clear. His base wouldn't be in their search radius, and they might not even suspect he had set up his own base at all. The problem was: how to get Kowalski outside the park and into the city?
With his gear sorted and stored in the right places, he laid down on the fluff-covered bed to think. How could he get the scientist out of the park? Kowalski rarely travelled on his own, unless he was going into the city in the middle of the night to search for something. (Private knew of these night-time trips, but Skipper didn't and they hadn't told him. Skipper thought sleep was very important.) But Kowalski only looked for specific things - equipment or substances from labs, mostly - and it happened only occasionally so the chance of seeing him on one of his trips was very low.
Considering this, Private realised that he needn't just get Kowalski out - what if the whole team came into the city, and he somehow separated Kowalski from the group...?
It seemed plausible. And as for getting the team into the city, that could easily be done, but he needed them to not be on their guard. They couldn't suspect that Private was nearby, or he'd never be able to get Kowalski to listen. The second-in-command would be eager to pass on any and all information to Skipper.
No, it had to be unexpected...
Private knocked his heel rhythmically against the makeshift bed as he thought. The soft thunks permeated the air. It was the only sound he could hear. Private remembered how Skipper used to grumble at him when he hit the bunk with his heel in the middle of the night, during those odd times where he couldn't get to sleep. He used to blame those sleepless nights on the old generator under Kowalski's lab - you couldn't really hear it during the day, but the noise was audible after lights out. It thrummed and groaned for hours when it was left on, and it wasn't until it started to tear in places two months ago that Skipper finally allowed Kowalski to get a new-
Private sat bolt upright, struck by sudden inspiration. The temporary power source they currently had was linked to a circuit box in the city - if he could sabotage the machine, making it look like an accidental short-circuit or something, then they would be lured out to the city. It happened often enough - the machine they had connected on wasn't exactly made by experts. They would come out to repair it, or at least Kowalski and Skipper would, and nobody would suspect him to be nearby.
When could he do this? He got off the bed and began to pace around the room. Night time would have been ideal, but Skipper would probably put it off until later if power failed at a late hour. They wouldn't often leave base in the mornings, and lunchtime was when the people in the city were rushing around. The same went for early evening. Maybe at 2PM, or at dinnertime - after the workers left the building and there were few pedestrians. It seemed like a reasonable time for them to go out into the city.
Private checked the time on one of the walkie-talkies. It was half past noon.
He stretched and groaned. He was a little tired, but he felt able to do it today. Two in the afternoon didn't seem like a good time; too son for good preparation to be made. He stuffed two of the walkie-talkies into his rucksack (Marlene's rucksack, his mind told him accusingly) and began to plan how he would shut the machine down. It would be easy enough to get inside - they had secured several hidden entrances for their use. There was one Private remembered which they never used. This would be his way in.
As for the machine itself, he could just twiddle the dials until the built-in fusebox busted a few. The team would find the damage and blame it on a small power surge; sabotage would never cross their minds. Then, all he had to do was wait for Kowalski to wander off on his own in the direction of the power meters, like he always did, and send in a message using the walkie-talkie he would have stashed nearby. Then, if Kowalski was willing, they could talk.
Simple enough. A low-risk mission. He smiled, feeling confident it would all go to plan.
He decided to set off at five-thirty. That would give him enough time to get there, stash the walkie-talkie where Kowalski could find it, and start messing with the machine's voltages.
Private settled back down on the bed for more rest. He had several hours to kill before he needed to leave his base and begin his mission.
