This is the sequel to Do You Really Want to Know. It follows the rewritten date structure thus Operation: Join and Destroy started 1949/1950, Private (this Skipper) was born in 1952 and confronted Kowalski (the first Kowalski) in 1969.

November 3rd 1975

In the last few seconds before you die, your life's supposed to flash before your eyes, every last horrible and wonderful thing you've ever done. Me, well, I've got about half an hour to go, and I'm doing it on purpose to try to come to terms with just how the hell I got into this mess. It's not like I've got anything less depressing think about.

The overview of my predicament is this: I'm stuck in an air pocket fifteen meters underground, in which water is steadily rising from a burst pipe under a grate in what was once a floor. The walls and ceiling are made up of who knows how many feet of solid rubble that could collapse any minute. Above that, another sixty stories of sky scraper. Sounds like something from a movie, at least, that's what Private would say.

Alright, I'd say about two months ago would be roughly around when everything started to go south.

September 3rd 1975

"Boys, Operation: Simple Extraction, and I emphasise simple extraction, was a disaster." Skipper scolded, pacing in front of a blackboard in the main room of the HQ.

"Well, not entirely," Kowalski protested weakly, "we did complete the mission objective."

"The objective was to extract the agent whose cover had been blown," Skipper snapped, "not get one of our own captured, an you all know how much I hate letting the target get away."

"But the agent is safe." Private pointed out.

"It failed, Private, no amount of lunacorn fairy dust changes that," Skipper replied in a slightly gentler tone, then his attention returned to the rest of the group, "Lucky for you I don't leave my men behind, no matter what the cost, or Rico would be at the bottom of the Hudson," Skipper returned to his place at the front of the room, sitting down on the desk, "And now I have to explain to Special Agent Jones that we do, in fact, negotiate with hostage takers." Kowalski, Skipper's second in command ever since the two had met back in 'Nam, grimaced. That really wouldn't be pretty.

"Sorry sir, I shouldn't have hesitated when I did." Kowalski muttered.

"Y' think?" Skipper scoffed, "anyway, moving on, we have a new mission in which we will hopefully be able to prove we can accomplish something," the commander stood up from the desk, "It will be in the same format as Operation: Join and Destroy. At 0800 tomorrow we fly to Chicago. We are a group of contract killers, working on a single job, which will hopefully get us into the mysterious Delaunay family. From there we will shut it down."

"Skipper, we won't hold it against you if you refuse the mission…" Kowalski began to suggest.

"I've already accepted it," Skipper replied crisply. He didn't like it when people suggested he was weak, "The other part of the mission, is to discover what happened to the two agents who were first assigned this same mission, and haven't been heard of since, namely Manfredi and Johnson.

"But Skipper," Kowalski continued to question, "How do we get into the Delaunay family? Even Jones doesn't have any contacts in them; we don't even know who runs them."

"That's why I was picked, Kowalski," Skipper replied, "I've got contacts in them," then noticing his lieutenant's baffled expression continued: "Penguin, Kowalski. I had to shut it all down remember? And the one thing we do know is the Delaunays had some kind of link to the Penguins. Ok, dismissed." The team filed out of the briefing room, muttering uncomfortably.

"…Finally the most recent of America's great criminal masterminds is Peter Kowalski, who held the city in an iron grip for almost twenty years, after taking over the Grant empire after Blake Grant's fatal car accident, though many historians claim that he was the mastermind behind the empire even prior to…"

"Isn't there a lunicorn marathon on or something?" Skipper asked. Private nodded. Rico had left it on this channel after he'd seen an explosion or two in the beginning, but walked off as he'd gotten bored. Due to Kowalski's 'improvements' he had absolutely no idea how to change the channel himself. Still, it beat staring at a wall.

"Yes, but it's not on for another fifteen minutes."

"…To this day there still isn't enough evidence to convict him of anything more than a parking ticket, as in 1958 he was given a full pardon for his criminal activities under the late Blake Grant, claiming that he was under the impression he was part of an undercover mission, and though the infamous Penguins continued to operate…"

"Technically that would be slander to call him a criminal mastermind if you can't prove anything more than a parking ticket." The team's resident scientist commented from the makeshift lab.

"'ee no exactly aroun' no more oo figh' it." Rico replied. Skipper had no idea what they could do in an empty lab, all the equipment had already been shipped out to Chicago, though if it had anything to do with the contents of Rico's backpack, he didn't really want to know.

"…he was betrayed by his playboy/Colombia University student ward, William Grant, the son of Blake Grant, who recorded a complete confession of every criminal deed, and after a two minute fire fight with the NYPD Kowalski disappeared and has never been seen since…"

"Was that you, Skippah?" Private asked, "I didn't know you went to university."

"Three weeks doesn't count." Skipper replied, changing the channel. It was his turn now, anyway.

"…Adequate science in the education system is absolutely vital to a balanced curriculum!" Kowalski argued.

"Wha' oo suggest' ain' balanced!" Rico answered heatedly. Kowalski really must have been bored if he was resorting to arguing with Rico, which was a less than safe thing to do.

"Skippah?"

"Yes Private?"

"Do you ever, you know, wonder where he went?" Private asked, slightly nervously.

"If I remember the wounds correctly, there was almost no way he'd make it five blocks, but then you never know with my family," Skipper sighed wearily, "I don't really think about them a lot. They were different people, and thankfully, none of them are in any position to come back and haunt me. Even if I somehow got mixed up in it again, I'm happy to leave the past behind me and deal with it like any other mission."

"But aren't you… Angry that you never met your…"

"Yeah, I guess. People have told me and my dad would have gotten on well, apart from his being…" Skipper could see Private tense slightly, "Don't worry I'm not going to become a revenge driven maniac like Blowhole. Sure, I'm upset, but when you think about it, he had it coming to him. More than that."

September 4th 1975

"Real name please, Diego Garcia," the interviewer, who'd introduced himself as Barry Malone, an annoying little man with greying red hair prompted. However, as Skipper opened his mouth to speak, it was obvious he was going to say something along the lines of 'I have no idea what you're talking about', so the interviewer continued, "It's Will Grant, isn't it." There was a cocky smile on the man's face that skipper didn't like, and well, neither did most people.

"Alright, so it is," Skipper replied, "don't people have the right to change their names?"

"You seem unusually calm, despite so damning an admission?"

"What's so damning about it?" Skipper replied, mimicking Barry's smirk. Barry scowled. He apparently didn't like his own attitude thrown back at him.

"A certain incident at the Copacabana in '69," Barry replied, "I don't know how things are done in New York these days, but we tend to try to avoid hiring undercover police officers around here."

"I handed Kowalski over to the police," Skipper replied, "Because it was a whole lot cleaner to let them do my dirty work, and outright encourage my taking over the Penguins because they thought I was with them, than kill Kowalski myself and deal with a lot of revenges."

"But there seems to be a distinct lack of Penguins around, for your story to be true."

"Really Barry?" Skipper scoffed, "I thought you had better intel than that. I learned from Kowalski's mistakes, I wasn't just going to outright flaunt my power and influence. No, I made the police think I shut it down, keeping it all underground while they ran around chasing my competitors."

"Indeed," Barry muttered. It was true, after the Penguins had disappeared, and he'd jumped ship, no other gang stepped up to take their place, but crime went up. They'd always assumed it was a new player they'd dubbed the 'Sewer Rats', but it made sense for it to merely be the Penguins under a different name, "then why are you hiring out your team as contract killers?"

"Can you think of a better way to show less than hostile intentions? Uncle Kowalski may have ruined your extremely profitable relationship, but I'm willing to rekindle it."

"I'd have thought you'd be the last person to consider that."

"Money speaks louder than loyalty in this generation."

"Alright then, I suppose you have the job," Barry replied reluctantly, after looking up at one of the upper windows where he'd received some kind of signal. He then handed the team a large manila envelope, "You're target is a Rhonda Vreeland, better known in our circles as Agent 12…"

"'A went 'ell." Rico commented as the team exited the office building.

"We passed the first interview," Skipper admitted, "Our performance with Rhonda is our real test, though."

"What do you think happened to Manfredi and Johnson, Skippah?" Private asked.

"Not so loud, Private," Skipper reminded the rookie, "Anyway, lesson number one on investigations: don't make up any hypothesisis…"

"Hypothisi."

"Hypothesises, actually," Kowalski corrected smugly.

"Hypotho whatever, don't try and come up with a theory till you've got some decent facts. Otherwise you might as well pull random solutions out of a hat you'll be so…" Suddenly Skipper rushed forward, pulling a very confused looking young lady who'd just stepped out into the path of a car, her head buried in a map, back onto the sidewalk, "Careful, doll." Skipper half scolded, as she stumbled back onto the pavement.

The woman, about in her early twenties, possibly even Skipper's age, looked like she was about to faint. She was wearing jeans and a brown cardigan that matched her chocolate coloured hair; light clothing despite the fact an evening chill was starting to set in.

"Thanks," She stuttered, "Sorry, I'm kinda new 'round here."

"The first day in a big city is always quite overwhelming." Private reassured with one of his classic smiles. The woman smiled back.

"Well, thanks." She started walking, then, remembered she was still unsure of where she was going, and stopped to look at the gigantic map.

"You're holding that upside down." Skipper pointed out, walking over and turning it right side up.

"Thanks," She still seemed to be struggling to read the map.

"Where're you trying to find?" Skipper asked.

"Well, my friend, who I'm staying with, she marked the apartment on the map," The woman pointed to a black dot in a residential neighbourhood, "For the life of me I can't work out where it is."

"Alright, so you're going to go along this road, the one you're on, till you get to here," Skipper pointed down the street, trying to speak as clearly as possible, "then you're going to turn left, then keep going three blocks and…"

"Can you repeat that last part, I kinda missed…?"

"Head back to the HQ, boys," Skipper told his team, "I'll take the lady home, it's not far."

"This looks like it," The woman stated, looking up at the building, "thanks for, well, saving my life, um..."

"Tony," Skipper answered, instantly regretting his choice of name, "Tony Knight."

"Well, thanks for saving me, Tony."

"Don't mention it," Skipper replied, neglecting to mention it was his job. Their eye met for a split second and Skipper blushed slightly. He hadn't felt anything remotely similar since he'd met Cupid back when he was a kid, "I didn't catch your name…"

"Marlene, Marlene Adler," Skipper noticeably blanched at the name, "Is something wrong?"

"No nothing. Glad I could help out." Skipper set off down the road in the direction of the HQ.

"Hey, um Tony?" Skipper turned around, "I was wondering, there' a film on tomorrow night, probably wouldn't be your kind of thing, but I was wondering if you'd help me find my way there?"

"I…" Skipper paused, "Sorry, that's pretty much the one night I'll be working late." He once again started off down the street, though it was sorely tempting to turn around and say the meeting wouldn't be hard reschedule. In fact, only a few steps further along, he did turn around to do just that, only to find himself alone on the sidewalk.

"… And for tonight's news, two undercover police officers were found dead in a day spa…"

"Manfredi and…" Private gasped before Skipper could cover the team's youngest member's eyes.

"What a hideously un-gruesome way to go…" Skipper muttered, switching off the TV, before grabbing his coat.

"Is it alright to open my eyes now, Skippah?" Private asked, noticing the disappearance of Skipper's hands.

"Yeah," Skipper replied, still stunned by the news, "Go tell Kowalski we've found Manfredi and Johnson."