Once Upon an Us

In Which Our Local Non-Penguin Uncovers a Conspiracy

Despite the fact that Marie, Carol, Thea, and Tony had managed to keep all civilians out of harm's way and prevent Hoffman’s agents from hurting anyone or getting away, Pengin looked upset.  Tony was pretty sure that if Pengin had a superpower it would be the ability to blow steam out of his ears. Pengin glared at each of them from the head of the table, arms crossed and visibly angry.  He hadn’t said anything yet, but it was obvious they were in for a lecture as soon as he stopped powering steamboats on the Mississippi River.

“It hasn’t even been a day since Brannon and Gelfand started working at the Reich’s Headquarters here,”  Pengin said quietly. He walked around the table, continuing to stare at each of them as if they would crack just because he made eye contact.  “There’s no way we were found out that quickly. Not only that, but neither Brannon nor Gelfand were here tonight which leads me to believe they came for something else.”

“Obviously they did,”  Carol said, turning to look up at him.  “They were snooping around my office and I don’t keep two full-grown men in my filing cabinets.”  Pengin ignored her retort and continued around the table. He hesitated the tiniest bit when he stepped behind Thea, but she kept her stare straight ahead.  Tony could tell she was almost as angry as Pengin was, but she didn’t show it aside from keeping her arms crossed and her face in a hard stare.

“What could they possibly want in your office?”  Marie asked, turning to Carol. “As far as they know, you just run a bar.  You’ve never had any connections to something that could make you a target.”  Carol shrugged and they continued to quietly discuss what the agents could have been after while Pengin continued to walk around the table.  Each time he passed Thea and Tony, he would hesitate just enough they noticed. Thea’s nails were digging into her arms, leaving marks but not quite drawing blood.

When Pengin paused longer than before on his third time around, Marie and Carol looked up.  Thea’s demeanor hadn’t changed, but Tony was vibrating with irritation. He refused to tell Pengin anything, already having resorted to letting Thea do all the talking no matter what when they’d first seen Pengin in the vault.  Thea said nothing, though. Even when Pengin stared down at her for a full two minutes, she didn’t react. Tony, on the other hand, was about to erupt in a frenzy of anger and irritation and he knew Pengin knew it.

“Don’t do it,”  Thea told Tony sharply in Italian.  Tony’s leg stopped bouncing and he glanced at her.  She turned her head to look at him, the only movement she’d made since arriving in the meeting room.  “It’s just what he wants; don’t do anything.”  Tony huffed but forced himself to relax and ignore Pengin.  The next step Pengin took was harsher, a testament to how annoyed Thea and Tony were making him.

“So no one knows why six agents—who could probably be traced back to Hoffman—attacked the bar tonight?”  Pengin asked, stopping at the head of the table and looking at the four of them once more.

“Unless he wanted my order receipts or old employee files, no,”  Carol answered, glancing across the table at Thea. She didn’t so much as blink and Carol turned back to Pengin.  “It’s possible they were looking to get into the back rooms, but that’s impossible without all the codes.”

“Maybe they were looking for the codes?”  Thea suggested, silently daring Pengin to argue with her.  “Who’s to say they don’t already know what goes on back here and wanted a way in?”

“I feel like it goes a little deeper than just some codes,”  Pengin replied. Thea didn’t respond and Pengin sighed when he realized she wasn’t going to keep arguing.  “Here’s what I see: six agents appear the day after we tag Hoffman and try to get into your back rooms,” he said, pointing at Carol.  She immediately sat forward to argue, but Pengin interrupted her. “I’m not saying you’re in cahoots with the Nazis, but I am saying someone is.  Someone told them where to find the entrance and who to expect. I’d think it was one of you except clearly all four of you were busy killing or otherwise maiming them to the best of your abilities.”  Pengin’s gaze paused over Tony who just rolled his eyes. Screw him for not knowing how to fight; at least he’d done something.

“You think it’s Brannon or Gelfand,”  Marie stated. Pengin neither confirmed nor denied her accusation, but they could all tell that’s what he wanted to say.  “That’s absurd. We saw Brannon this afternoon and Gelfand is so pure he screamed when Thea stepped on a spider the other day.”

“I’m not saying it’s true,”  Pengin denied, raising his hands in surrender.  “I’m saying that something is going on and until we find out what, we can’t keep telling everyone everything.  I don’t want anyone else knowing the codes to this place and that includes Gelfand now. I don’t care if you have to set up a bell so every time he wants to leave he just rings it and you let him out.  No one else learns about this place or has the codes until I give the all-clear understood?”

“Yes, sir,”  they all echoed.  Pengin nodded in content then looked around the kitchen.

“Now, does anyone have chips because I am starving,”  he said, pillaging the cabinets and pantry in search of a bag of chips.

Fritz could tell something had changed over the three days since he’d been hired as a janitor.  When he and Jude returned from the Nazi embassy and entered through the back tunnel, Carol had narrowed her eyes ever so slightly.  Thea still acted the same, but Fritz got the feeling he wasn’t welcomed anymore. He glanced at Jude questioningly, wondering if there had been a big argument earlier they had missed, but Jude just shrugged helplessly.  He was as clueless as to what was going on as Fritz was, but he couldn’t let it affect him too much if he was going to work with these people to take down Hoffman. After what he and Thea had heard the other night on the pier, he was more determined than ever to find out who the man with Hoffman had been and to stop him before it was too late.  Cliche, Jude thought to himself with a frown.  He sounded like every main character to ever come into existence.

“I’m going to talk to Tony,”  Jude told Fritz, getting up from the table where he’d just finished a very late lunch.  Apparently, Hoffman’s secretary was expected to be alright with skipping lunch sometimes and as much as Jude hated that, he had to pretend it was alright.

“Should I come along?”  Fritz asked, standing up as well.  The last thing he wanted to do was be left alone in the dining room.  He doubted Carol or Thea would kill him for whatever had gone down earlier, but he didn’t want to run the risk considering he didn’t know the two girls very well.

“Um, no offense,”  Jude began. Fritz stopped pushing his chair in and looked at Jude who was scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably.  “I just—I don’t think Tony likes you all that much and clearly something happened earlier, so it might be best if you just hung out here until I finished.”

“Sure,”  Fritz nodded, trying no to show just how much he hated that idea.  “No problem. Do you mind if I wander around?”

“I don’t,”  Jude replied.  Fritz narrowed his eyes at Jude as he heard the ‘but’ in his voice.  “I don’t know about Carol, though. Maybe take Thea with you or something so she doesn’t try to throw you out.”  Fritz decided he’d just stay in the kitchen. Thea gave off a weird vibe and he didn’t want to give her any reason to dislike him.  Besides, he was pretty good at self-entertaining if he did say so himself (and he did). “Whatever you want, man,” Jude shrugged.  

He left the dining room without another word, heading straight for Tony’s den where he found both Rossis talking in rapid Italian.  They stopped as soon as he stepped into the den despite the fact that he didn’t know Italian.

“What?”  Tony asked a little harsher than necessary.  Jude gave him a look but Tony didn’t look sorry for snapping at him.  “We’re busy, Brannon.”

“Yeah, well I figured you’d want my report after three days with Hoffman,”  Jude replied, sounding just as annoyed as Tony had. If Tony wanted to be rude, Jude would beat him at his own game.

“Figured wrong,”  Tony said shortly, turning back in his chair so he was working on his computers again.  Jude rolled his eyes and relayed the information anyway. It didn’t take long before Tony was actually listening, typing up a few notes as Jude spoke.  Thea remained neutral in the corner, picking at her nails on the bean bag she was seated on.

When Jude finished, he turned to leave them alone but was stopped.  Tony called him back but was still focused on his computer. He scrolled through the document of notes he’d typed during Jude’s report and frowned as he searched for what he wanted.  Jude waited impatiently, well aware that Fritz wasn’t comfortable being left alone in the dining room. Tony’s face lit up in victory when he found what he wanted and waved Jude over to him.

“You said something about a ‘Sasha Markovich’?”  Tony asked, typing the name into his computer. Jude frowned, trying to think back on the past three days and nodded slowly.

“Yeah, I heard the name once, I think,”  he replied, watching Tony flip through files that had popped up when he’d searched “Sasha Markovich”.  “There was no official indicator he was visiting and I walked into Hoffman’s office while he was in there.  He must have arrived when I was gone, but he and Hoffman seemed like they were having an intense conversation.  Hoffman might have said something else—the doors were closed and I was worried I’d get caught eavesdropping—but I’m pretty sure—hey!  That’s him!” Jude exclaimed, pointing at the screen as Tony pulled up a file with a blurry photo he’d labeled with Sasha Markovich’s name.

Before Jude could process what had happened, Thea had appeared beside him to peer over Tony’s shoulder.  Her breath caught in her throat and Tony closed out of the file. Thea immediately demanded he pull it back up, doing it herself when he tried to argue with her.  She stepped back as she stared at the photo on his screen and crossed her arms. Jude and Tony shared a look before twisting to face Thea.

“That’s our in,”  she told them, pointing at the computer.  “Markovich is our way in when it comes to finding out who Hoffman was meeting with in the photo.”

“How do you know?”  Tony asked, glancing over his shoulder at the photo still displayed on his screen.  Thea was staring at the photo without blinking. Tony waved a hand in front of her and she jumped.  Tony frowned, immediately worried, and repeated his question.

“Markovich was one of my trainers,”  she told him, finally looking away from the photo.  Tony closed it as soon as she’d averted her eyes and locked his computer.  “If he’s sending agents to Hoffman, then either he knows I’m involved and not dead like we made it seem years ago or this is much more complicated than we originally thought.”