The Agreement
The motel room had seen better days.
Thin olive green carpet struggled to cover the concrete subfloor while dingy orange and red drapes curtained the cracked window. Flat, smelly pillows were tucked indifferently into the sagging queen-size beds blanketed with stained brown and yellow comforters so worn and lightweight as to be incapable of providing more than a hint of warmth. The bathroom featured missing tiles, loose knobs, and mid-size, ragged-edged towels bleached into white roughness. The now-open connecting door led to an identically shabby room that boasted an unsavory odor as well.
The four men gathered in the room had also seen better days.
A stocky black man, wearing a faded green Army jacket and cap, straddled the straight back chair he'd carried from the other room, big hands working over the chair back in agitation. An untrimmed beard disguised his face but was unable to conceal the haggard look in his eyes or the unnatural thinness of his cheeks. In contrast, the brown-haired man stretched out on one bed was clean shaven, unusually pale skin betraying months of confinement indoors. Arresting brown eyes darted from item to item in the room as he rested his chin on a folded up brown jacket at the foot of the bed, high-top tennis shoes bouncing lightly against the flaccid pillows at its head.
The other bed was occupied by an older man with prematurely white hair, leaning gingerly against the abused headboard and greasy wallpaper. The black polyester golf shirt and faded jeans revealed a body kept in military trim for most of a lifetime. His relaxed pose – legs outstretched, hands behind his head, blue eyes half-closed – was a sham that allowed him to evaluate the other three men in the room. In some ways, he knew these men better than they themselves did but the nature of the mission they were considering tested that knowledge.
The fourth man paced in the tight space left to him between the security-chained door and the beds. The brutally short military haircut he'd endured before being convicted some twenty months ago had grown out, dark blonde hair falling more naturally across his forehead now. His natural charisma and smart mouth had earned him a black eye a few nights and a few towns ago, disrupting his good looks temporarily. He checked the parking lot one more time, barely twitching the curtains aside to do so, before turning abruptly to face the others.
"I don't like it, Hannibal," he said finally.
"Exactly what don't you like, Lieutenant?" he asked, leaning forward. "It's a fairly basic operation. Locate the girl at the ranch, bundle her up, and return her to her parents. I figure a little bit of recon will tell us what we need to know about the setup and then we can swoop in at night for a snatch-and-grab. Nothing could be simpler." He paused, fingers wandering to a jacket pocket in search of a cigar he knew wasn't there. "In exchange, we get a hefty enough sum to provision us for six months."
"And if anyone tries t' stop us?" B. A. asked, stilled hands on the back of the chair as he waited for the answer.
"Ideally, we'd be in and out before they even know we're in the zip code, Sergeant, but we'll need to have sufficient firepower to neutralize any unfriendlies just in case. And, depending on the terrain, we might need to have Murdock standing by for extraction if we can find a bird."
"Think it'll be a hot LZ, Colonel?" the pilot queried, rolling onto his side and propping his head up on one hand to face the others. He continued to tap his foot softly against the headboard.
"Won't know that till we get there, Captain," Hannibal responded, "but I doubt it. We may not even need air support." He turned back to the first man, who was still fidgeting. "What's the problem, Face? The mission is well within our operational capabilities."
"I'm tired," he said.
"We all tired," B.A. grumbled half under his breath. Face ignored him as he ran one agitated hand through his hair, and posed a question of his own to his commander.
"Is this the only way?"
"The only way to what?"
"To survive, to … live."
"What do you mean?"
The conman fumbled for the right words, trying to explain, pacing once more, punctuating his sentences with abrupt about-faces. "Look, I'm not ashamed of, of having been a soldier. I'm not saying I regret my actions while in uniform. But I'm not sure I can continue on this path. It's different now. We're not soldiers anymore. I doubt I'll ever be a civilian again but, right now, I'm not a soldier fighting for my country."
"And?" Hannibal prompted when the other man's flow of words stopped. His question halted his lieutenant's agitated non-progress beside the windows.
"And," he drew out the word sarcastically, then sighed. "I just don't think I can … kill, in cold blood, not for any sum of money."
Silence dropped over the room, stilling even Murdock's feet.
"I don't know if it bothers you anymore," Peck continued after a moment with hesitant sincerity, "or if it's just second nature now, but … Hannibal, I'm tired … tired of killing." He found himself standing, more or less, at attention but unable to lift his head and look at the man who'd saved him more than once and in more than one sense. His betrayal of John Smith bit deep, because he knew the man wouldn't have suggested they turn mercenary without having considered the ramifications.
"Me, too, man," B.A. seconded Face, raising his head to look at the man who'd kept them together and alive against the odds, in the jungle, in the camps, in the aftermath of that last screwed-up mission. He'd follow the colonel wherever he led but the thought of not having more blood on his hands was intoxicating.
"I have to agree with the Big Guy and Face," Murdock added, eyes flicking from one man to another. He'd feigned sufficient stability to get a pass out of the V.A. Hospital by holding onto the memories of these men. They had become the essence of his sanity and he didn't want to lose it or them. "But, Colonel, I'm prepared to go in the direction you lead us." B.A. nodded his agreement with Murdock's statement. Face, on the other hand, seemed not to have heard, eyes fixed on an ugly stain in the carpet that reminded him of a pool of blood. Given the motel room's provenance, it probably had been caused by a violent act of some kind.
Hannibal Smith closed his eyes, not immediately sure how to respond. He'd spent his entire adult life in the military, living as a soldier, bound by the traditions and codes that implied. These were his men, more so than any others he had commanded, because of all the things they had done and endured and suffered together. He wanted to keep them alive, to help them survive, to eventually give them the opportunity to thrive.
It was what he owed them – his part of the bargain made between every commander and his troops since the beginning of time.
During the latter stages of the court martial, when he'd begun to suspect the outcome would go against him and his men despite their innocence, Hannibal had mulled over their situation, treating it like any other military scenario and working through the possible solutions methodically. Escaping from the stockade had been only the first step of the plan. Despite its importance, clearing them of all charges and restoring their honor was far down the list chronologically.
Between those two points lay a tactical and logistical minefield Smith had to navigate his men through. Disappearing into the boonies and living off the land would be easy enough but counterproductive in the long run, which meant they'd have to risk being in a populated area. Even if they could disappear into the diverse population of a major metropolitan area, being on the run limited their opportunities for regular gainful employment and other legitimate means of acquiring food and shelter. Becoming a common criminal, stealing to survive, was tactically imprudent and went against his own moral code as well. Operating on the fringes of the law as soldiers of fortune could be lucrative but, more importantly, would keep their survival skills sharp, something that could prevent a rapid transfer to a six-by-eight metal box or to a pine box six feet under. It wasn't ideal but in their world of rapidly shrinking options it was the best he had come up with.
Right now, it looked like his best wasn't good enough.
Although Face hadn't said it, Smith knew the kid would follow him despite his misgivings, stuffing away the ugly parts for as long as he could. When his breaking point had been reached – and no one really knew where that was, thanks to his slick operating style that masked so much of his inner turmoil – Peck would stick that shiny .357 Magnum in his mouth and pull the trigger, probably finding some way to make his death both classy and splashy. B.A. would continue stoically until someone else's bullet took his physical life, long after the tenderness and humanity inside him had died. As for Murdock, Hannibal would lay even odds on whether he'd take a final glorious flight into a mountainside or escape into permanent flight inside his own skull when he came to the end of his ability to cope with the dying and the killing.
The killing.
Hannibal's eyes popped open suddenly, gleaming.
"Is it just the killing that bothers you?" Hannibal asked them all, ignoring for the time being the question about whether it bothered him. "Or is there something else?"
"I wanna be on the side of the angels," Murdock said. "If we're gonna be hired guns, then I'd like to be hired by the right kind of people."
"I know we need t' earn money," B.A. added, "but I don' want that t' be all there is."
Face kept silent until the colonel prodded him. "Templeton?"
"That's it," he said, raising his eyes at last. He was surprised at the warmth in his mentor's regard, warmth when he'd expected condemnation and disdain for being a soldier reluctant to kill the enemy his commander pointed him toward.
"Right," Hannibal said with a crisp nod. He stood and motioned Peck to sit on the bed. "This is going to take a lot of hard work, gentlemen, but I think we can do it."
"Do what, exactly?" Face's question was short and to the point, as the man paused in the act of sitting.
"Be mercenaries but not killers," the colonel replied calmly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Are we agreed?"
"Count me in, Colonel," Murdock said, rolling off the bed to stand beside him, thrusting his hand out.
"I'm in," B.A. said and stood, covering Murdock's hand with his own.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Face said, coming nearer and piling on his hand. A small smile appeared on his face, mirroring the emotions of his teammates.
Hannibal topped the others' hands with his own, ratifying their agreement. Even as a feeling of peace settled over them, he identified a sweet, familiar eagerness welling up within him in response to the challenge this operational constraint would pose.
=+++= / =+++=
Bullets pepper the ground in front of the bad guys, forcing them back. Shots fired over their heads invite them to take cover. Things blow up but no one dies. Don't tell me you've never wondered why the team doesn't just kill the bad guys. Additional sketches may follow depending on real life and my muse's willingness to continue.
The characters are not mine; the mistakes are.