The Murdock and the Mudsucker
Author's note: As many bizarre and zany situations the A-Team always got involved in, I always figured they would've done well in an old-dark-house movie type scenario. Hope everyone enjoys!
"I'll like it when we get home," Face half commented, half mumbled as he rested his chin on his balled up hand and was just about to fall asleep, "Two weeks back and forth on the road, six days in Virginia trying to find a kidnapped heiress and getting her abductors all tied up nice for the police to haul off, and now it's taking an extra six hours to get back to Los Angeles because we tried crossing an unfinished bridge and had to get the van fixed, at this rate it'll be midnight before we finally get back home."
"Yep, all in a day's work for the A-Team," Murdock proudly said in the seat beside him, causing Face to slowly turn his head and glare at him.
"Oh come on, Face, admit it, you got a kick out of watching them run when they thought we had actually set off that bomb," Hannibal said in a smirk from where he sat up front with B.A.
"Yeah it was funny when it happened, but that was three days ago, I'm hungry and tired, I just want to get back to my house…"
"You mean the old movie actress's summer home you're watching while she's in the hospital?" Murdock smirked.
Face continued, "Crawl into bed and forget that the last two weeks ever happened." He gazed tiredly out the van window and saw the city passing him by in the first tinted color of twilight, before long the sun would be down and it would be nice and dark.
"Hey man, at least we got paid this time," B.A. said, then added under his breath, "Even if it wasn't as much as it should've been."
"So we each had to take a small cut for the damages," Hannibal brushed it off.
"A small cut, Hannibal?" Face repeated.
"$850 a piece up front is better than we've done on the last few jobs," Hannibal reminded him.
"Home again," Murdock said as he pointed to the sign up ahead showing they were back in Los Angeles.
"Hallelujah," Face dryly commented.
B.A. managed to keep from laughing and just kept his eyes on the road ahead; Faceman turned complaining into an art form and always found new ways to be annoying as he whined about something he didn't like on a mission.
"Well I'm looking forward to getting back home too," Murdock said, "I want to make sure they're not relocating me to another room at the V.A."
"Now why would they do that, Murdock?" Hannibal asked.
"Who knows, Colonel? I like the one they got me in because I'm on the ground floor and it's very easy to just step out of the window once the power's cut," Murdock said.
The sun was about down and the road was almost dark, but B.A. could see very well as a woman ran blindly out into the street in front of their van.
"Hey man!" he exclaimed as he jerked the wheel and swerved the van to the side to avoid hitting the woman.
"What was that about?" Face asked.
"Look!" Hannibal pointed and they saw a man run out into the street after the woman, and a second woman was chasing after him.
"Oh this should be a good one to hear," Face cynically commented as he reached for the door on his side.
"Come on, let's see what it is," Hannibal told them.
Though it was getting dark out, they could see the man dressed in a black suit had caught up with the first woman who had red shoulder length hair, and was wearing a yellow dress. He grabbed her by the back of her dress, jerked her back and slapped her and threw her down on the street. The second woman, who had short blonde hair and wore blue jeans, a T-shirt and jean jacket, jumped on the man's back and locked her arm around his neck and told him, "You leave her alone!"
The man was screaming at the second woman and tried to throw her off of him, and finally succeeded, but his victory was short lived because when he turned around he found himself staring down the barrel end of a gun.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Hannibal warned the man.
"That's right, Jack," B.A. said, also holding a gun on the man, "Didn't your mama ever teach you that you don't put your hands on a woman?"
The man was shocked by their sudden appearance but otherwise was unfazed and he told them, "Look, I don't know…who you are, but this is a private matter."
"Not out here," Hannibal calmly told him, "See you're outside, this is public property, so that makes it a public affair. So if I were you, I'd leave these two ladies alone before you wind up getting hurt."
The man could see that he was outnumbered and knew he wouldn't get anywhere like this, so he resorted to a slow and angry retreat, he glared at the two women who stood side by side, the one in the dress half shielding herself behind the one in the jeans, and he told them, "This isn't over yet. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into."
"Well I appreciate your concern," the woman in blue jeans sarcastically remarked, "However I've made it this far without anybody helping me and I trust we'll do just fine without your assistance either. Good day, Roland."
With that, the man turned on his heel and walked off back the way they had come. Hannibal went over to the women with his hand out to shake to let them know he wasn't their enemy and he asked them, "Are you ladies alright?"
"We're fine," the woman in blue said.
B.A. came over to them and the woman in the dress further pushed herself behind the other woman as if for protection.
"It's alright, ladies, we ain't gonna hurt you," B.A. assured them.
"Yeah, but what was that whole spectacle about?" Face asked them, "If you don't mind us asking."
"Well it's like the man said," the woman in blue told them, "It's a private affair."
"I get it," Hannibal smirked at them, "It's a private matter and you don't know us so you won't tell us anything that's private. I understand perfectly, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Hannibal Smith," he pointed to the others, "These are my friends, Templeton Peck, H.M. Murdock, and that's B.A. Baracus."
The timid young woman in the yellow dress said, "I'm Annabelle Wiest, and this is my sister, Nora."
"Well since we're all acquainted now," Hannibal said, "Why don't you tell us why that," he scrunched his face up in as sarcastic an expression as he could manage, "Nice young man…was chasing you."
"He's our cousin, Roland Wiest," Nora answered, "You could say that we've never exactly been close."
"Well that's one thing, but that doesn't amount to chasing someone through the street trying to kill them," Face said.
"It does when there's money at stake," Nora said.
"Nora, please," Annabelle clearly didn't want to get into this.
But Nora pushed her hand off her shoulder and told the men, "If you want the sordid details, I would suggest you check the late night movie channel. You see we found out a few weeks ago that we had some rich grandfather that we never knew about, he hated people and despised his own family, but apparently not enough to cut his relatives out of the will. His lawyer came to see us and told us that we each stood to gain part of the family fortune."
"Is it a large one?" Face couldn't help asking.
"Is twenty million dollars large enough for your liking, gold digger?" Nora asked him.
Face's eyes bugged out and he took a step back when he heard that.
"I'm sensing a catch," Hannibal commented.
"There is," Nora nodded and then shook her head sadly, "Grandpa disappoints me, he never was a very original person, I'll swear he took his idea from some old haunted house movie."
"You see," Annabelle decided to help fill them in on the situation, "The will calls for all remaining relatives to come up to his house and spend the night in each other's company. Based on what happens over the night, that will determine who inherits what."
"Ahhh," Murdock's eyes lit up, "Just like that movie, One Body Too Many…eh…your granddaddy didn't want to be put in an observatory vault, did he?"
"What're you jabbering about now, fool?" B.A. asked.
"Well in that movie, the old man didn't want to be put in the ground, and if he was, then all inheritances were reversed, whoever would get the least amount would get the most and vice versa, so one of the lesser relatives read the will early and hid the body to crisscross the inheritances."
"Well I don't know anything about that," Annabelle said, "But we have to spend a night in his old house, in the company of relatives we've hardly ever met."
"And ours is not the most prestigious family as you may have guessed," Nora added, "Just about everybody in it would do anything to get their hands on the money."
"But not you two ladies, of course," Hannibal said with a knowing smirk.
"Hey, it's not that we can't use the money," Nora told him, "But we ain't gonna do anything crooked to get it, we got our limits."
"Unfortunately, nobody else in the family seems to," Annabelle said, "We've been threatened to stay away from the house and not to go tonight."
"Tonight?" Face repeated, "You're going there tonight?"
"We were," Annabelle said.
"But I doubt we'll be able to now," Nora added, and nodded her head to the side, "Somebody's seen to that."
The four men went over to the car Nora was gesturing at and they saw that somebody had slashed the tires.
"Let me guess, your charming cousin?" Hannibal asked.
"If not him, there are plenty more like him," Nora said, "We came out with our bags and found the car like that," she reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, "And I found this placed under the windshield wiper."
Hannibal took the paper and unfolded it and read the warning, "If you have any brains in your head, and value your lives more than money, heed this warning and stay away from Wiest Manor tonight."
"I'm guessing this guy didn't major in poetry when he was in school," Face said.
"There are more," Nora told him, "Since we saw the lawyer, we've gotten three other notes, one slipped under the front door, one of them thrown through the window tied to a rock." She looked back at the punctured car and sighed, "And now it seems they've ultimately seen that we won't get there. We have to arrive before nine o' clock and traveling on foot we're never going to make it."
"Where is this place?" Hannibal asked.
Annabelle took the address out of her pocket and read, "6609 Crescent Hill Drive, the only house in the area, up on a hill away from civilization, isn't that convenient?"
"It is if you're planning to bump somebody off," Murdock murmured to the others.
"Ladies," Hannibal told the sisters as he stuffed the warning note into his jacket pocket, "I think you just hired yourselves a ride to the party."
They both looked stunned.
"We won't take you out of your way," Nora told him, "This is our own bad luck."
"You won't be, we weren't doing anything tonight," Hannibal told them.
"So much for getting some sleep," Face grumbled to Murdock.
"You're serious?" Nora asked Hannibal, "You'd give us a ride?"
"We'll even stay for the reception," he added, flashing his toothy grin that Face unfortunately knew only too well.
The two sisters looked at each other curiously and Hannibal explained, "Look ladies, you said it yourself that you've been threatened…and I can imagine this meeting of the minds is going to occur within the realm that's beyond any and all outside help. It's already out of the way of anybody who you could call on for help, and if there are phones in the house, I could easily see them coming up with their lines cut in the middle of the night." He turned and looked to the other three men and said, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I wouldn't sleep too well tonight knowing that we tossed these two young women over to a pack of money hungry wolves." He looked at the sisters again and said, "It seems to me that you could use a friend, for some protection."
"You?" Nora almost laughed.
"Don't knock it," Face warned her, "We know what we're doing."
"You can't do it," Annabelle told him, "How would we ever explain the four of you staying at the house with us?"
"Well is there any rule in the invitations against bringing company?" Hannibal asked, "Or your boyfriends for that matter?"
"Boyfriends?" Annabelle asked.
"Certainly," Hannibal told them, and explained, "You want the family to meet the new men in your lives." He pointed over to Face and Murdock, "And their father," he pointed to himself, and then to B.A., "And my driver."
B.A. scoffed and rolled his eyes at that. "Aw man, Hannibal, when you get on the jazz you really get on it, you know?"
"Come on, B.A., it's a perfect plan," Hannibal said.
"Yours never are," Face reminded him.
"Face please," Hannibal said to him, "It works out perfectly, they show up at the house as ordered, but they have four other people with them…and if the family thinks you and Murdock are going to be marrying into the family…"
"Then they'd try and kill us to keep the fortune from being divided any further," Murdock concluded.
"Naturally," Hannibal grinned.
Face already knew he was going to regret this plan.
"Now, what time is it?" Hannibal asked.
Murdock consulted the watch he was wearing on his ankle and said, "8:30, Colonel."
"Alright, we know where the party is, let's go crash it," Hannibal told them, "Ladies you can ride with us."
"Somehow I get the feeling we're going to regret this," Nora replied.
"If we live long enough," her sister reminded her.
"Have no fear, ladies," Murdock said as he came between them and offered them his arms, "You'll be perfectly safe with us around."
"Yeah," Face jokingly added as he followed behind them, "If anybody tries to give us trouble, B.A. can just jump out at them and say 'boo'."
B.A.'s only response to that was a low, continuous growl.
Nora and Annabelle stopped in their tracks when they saw the van up ahead, and Murdock still had his arms hooked between theirs and when they stopped he tried moving forward and tripped. "Did the light change already?"
"I'm sure," Hannibal told the sisters, "When you were little your mother told you never to get into a stranger's van, well I can assure you that you'll be perfectly safe traveling with us."
Nora pointed to the gun he held and said, "I'm sure the security is nothing to sneeze at…however if you don't mind I'd like to check the inside before we go anywhere with you."
"I have no objections," Hannibal told her, "But I'm going to tell you up front there are plenty more where this gun came from."
"What for?" Nora asked.
"Because we like a little protection as well," he answered, "Now I'd suggest we get moving if we want to make it in time for the party."
Hannibal got in the front seat with B.A. while Murdock, Face and the Wiest sisters piled into the back, and it was one long, awkward ride for all involved. On the way, Hannibal recommended that before they reach the house, they needed to decide who would be paired up with which sister so they all had their stories straight. Annabelle was seated between Face and Murdock and she looked from one to the other, then she looked at Murdock and asked him, "Mr. Murdock, are you a married man?"
Murdock looked at her sheepishly like she had caught him off guard and he said in a quiet voice with a coy look on his face, "No," and looked like he was going to turn red.
"Well, fancy that, neither am I," Annabelle replied, then leaned over towards Face and murmured into his ear, "He's old enough, ain't he?" To which Face just nodded in response.
"I still don't get why you guys want to help us," Nora leaned over and told Hannibal, "What're you getting out of it?"
"What's the matter, Miss Wiest?" Hannibal asked, "Don't you believe in good Samaritans?"
"No," she shook her head.
"Well aren't you the little optimist?" he replied cynically.
It didn't take them long to find out what the story was with the sisters; Nora was the older sister and had practically raised herself and Annabelle all their lives, the only family they'd had growing up was their mother who had died a few years ago. And since then, they'd had a run of bad luck and encountered a lot of people over the years who only sought to do them harm, so Nora, who already played the role of big sister, had become Annabelle's protector and often relied on brute force to get them out of trouble.
"Well it sounds to me like we came along at just the right time," Hannibal told Nora, "If what we saw tonight was any indication of how you usually do…"
"I would've done fine if you hadn't shown up," she insisted.
"Nora, be nice," Annabelle told her.
"Tell me something, Miss Wiest," Hannibal said, "Are you familiar with the A-Team?"
"What about them?" she asked, and that surprised the men.
"You've heard of them, haven't you?"
"Sure, everybody's heard of them, but nobody's seen them," Annabelle said.
"Myths and legends, that's all that is," Nora said, "Heroes for hire, bah…there ain't no heroes no more."
Hannibal couldn't resist turning in his seat to look back at her and saying in a low, mischievous voice, "Well now I wouldn't say that."
"How do you do?" Murdock held his hand out to Annabelle and said, pointing to himself and to Face, "I'm Myth and he's Legend."
The two sisters looked at each other in disbelief and awe, then back at the men and Nora asked, "Are you serious?"
"He rarely is, but he's correct," Face answered.
"How bout it, ladies?" Hannibal asked, "Think you're up for the company now?"
The sisters looked at each other again and exaggeratedly fell back and slumped against the seats in amazement. Hannibal watched their reaction and just laughed.