Brutus

"Well Mr. Rhodes, we've come a long way and would like to know why you sought to hire us," Hannibal told the middle aged man and his wife, both of whom looked sick from worry.

The four commandos stood in the living room of a middle class home in the middle of a blue collar neighborhood in a small town just off from New York; they'd been contacted by the couple a while back, but had first to be subjected to the same tests as all the others to be judged if their case was worth taking. The man and his wife had met the demands of Hannibal through his various disguises and aliases, and now was the first time that he and the others had come face to face with the couple; but this time Hannibal had decided it would be better to meet the Rhodes' on their own ground and so the four fugitives had gathered at the couple's home instead of their usual method of having the clients come see them.

"We want you to try and find our daughter," Mrs. Rhodes answered.

"What, was she kidnapped?" Face asked.

"We don't know," Mr. Rhodes said, "Right now she's still just missing, but she's been missing for a very long time."

"The police couldn't find anything?" Murdock asked.

"They said it wasn't a police matter," Mrs. Rhodes answered, "You see, the military took it over and they never told us if they found anything."

"The military?" B.A. repeated, "What've they got to do with this?"

"Our daughter was training to become a Navy SEAL," the husband told them as he went over to a table and picked up a framed photograph of their daughter, "She joined six months ago but we found out that four months ago she disappeared from training, nobody has seen or heard from her since, and the army quickly shut it down and shut it up so we don't know if they ever found anything."

"The army?" Murdock asked.

"Army, Navy, it doesn't seem to matter," Mr. Rhodes told them, "Everybody's involved in it somehow. Everybody's in on it but nobody knows anything, if that's not a conspiracy I don't know what is."

Hannibal took the picture from the father and saw the daughter. Not a particularly good looking woman by any chance; still young, perhaps 21 at the time the picture was taken, short wavy red hair, small gaps in between her teeth, and she looked built a size larger than most women they'd encountered.

"What's her name?" he asked.

"She'd never tell you, it's Jean but she quit answering to that a long time ago, now…the last time we saw her, she was only answering to a nickname, the Saint."

Hannibal managed to muster half a smile as he commented, "Cute…so do you think your daughter went AWOL?"

"We don't know," Mrs. Rhodes said.

"The real reason I want to hire you," Mr. Rhodes told them, "Is because I want you to find a man who goes by the name Brutus."

"Who's he?"

"We don't know," he said, "But shortly after Jean went missing, there have been a string of murders occurring in the area, at several crime scenes the killer left a calling card of the SEAL insignia, he calls himself Brutus, nobody knows who he really is, what he looks like, or where he could possibly be, we think she might be involved with him somehow."

"Let me get this straight," Hannibal said, "You want us to try and track down a man who nobody's seen, nobody can identify, and nobody has any idea where to start looking for him?"

"With all due respect, Mr. Smith, we went through the same trouble trying to find you in the first place," Mrs. Rhodes told him.

Murdock let out a slow whistle, followed by a cynical and drawn out, "Zing."

"We've done what we could to help you out," Mr. Rhodes said as he picked up a pile of papers and handed them over to the team, "We've kept records of where all the Brutus murders were and may have been committed, and have them marked by the dates they occurred on, we've tried to establish a pattern but haven't found anything other than the fact that a few of the victims had also served in the military."

Face glanced over the papers and said, "Somebody's got it in for Uncle Sam's boys."

"We don't care how much you charge for your services," Mrs. Rhodes told them, "We'll pay it, just bring our daughter back to us, please."

"We'll do everything we can," Hannibal told them, "But you understand that this is a business for us, we'll have to ask for part of the money up front."

"We understand," Mr. Rhodes said.

"In cash of course."

"Of course."

"Murdock, I trust your opinion because currently you seem to be the craziest one among us," Hannibal said as they got out of their van, "How insane did we have to be to take this case? The military's all over this thing and where they're not the police will be, it's a suicide mission."

"Besides that," Face added, "We haven't been able to find anybody who can tell us anything about either the Rhodes' daughter or this Brutus guy, and since she went AWOL and we don't know that this guy even exists, there's very little that can be found out about them. But we also need to consider the possibility that this girl is already dead somewhere, that's the best reason everybody would be keeping quiet about what happened."

"If she did die then it's a matter of where did she die, and how, and what happened to the body?" Hannibal replied, "Either way there are too many questions unanswered for us to be comfortable with."

One by one they made their way into the narrow alley where one of the first Brutus murders had taken place, hoping there might be something found there that the police had overlooked but would link them to the missing girl. Here the police had found a 35-year-old SEAL sniper blown into Swiss cheese; dental records for identification had been out since most of the holes had gone through his face, the only saving grace the police had in finding the man's name was that his fingerprints were still intact. The man whose name had been Randall Murtaugh, they had found, couldn't have any connection to the Rhodes case because he had been sent home with a purple heart a year before. On the brick wall opposite them, they saw the SEAL trident scratched into one of the bricks.

"Lot of details," Face said as he saw the insignia, "Either a lot of patience or a lot of rage, or both, bad combination." He looked around the area and said, "I wonder if there's any significance in the places where these people died…for the victims, unlikely, but for this Brutus guy…I wonder what it is that's making him tick like this."

"I say if we ever find him," Hannibal said, "We sit him down with Murdock and let him find out."

"Nobody else in training at that time went AWOL," Face said, "But SEALs do have a high drop-out rate, maybe this Brutus guy is one of the rookies who couldn't take it, or thought he could and was drummed out. Either way, it's going to be a long list to sort through."

"And we've got to figure out a way to do it without getting the whole damn army involved," Murdock added, "That's the missing piece of this jigsaw puzzle."

"There's more than one, fool," B.A. said, the first thing he had said since they left the Rhodes' house.

"Whatcha thinking, B.A.?" Face asked.

He didn't say what he was thinking, he only explained, "I'm going to go pay the Rhodes' another visit, I don't think we asked the right questions the first time."

Mrs. Rhodes was taken aback when she opened the door and saw B.A. standing there.

"You can't have found anything yet," she said.

"Not yet," he replied as he came in, "I've got a few questions that might be helpful in finding your daughter."

Mrs. Rhodes closed the door behind her and asked, "Like what?"

"There's a possibility that your daughter may be working with this Brutus guy…would you describe her as a violent person? Could she kill someone if she had to?"

"She was in the Navy."

"I know, but most people who go into the military aren't born killers, they're trained to be, I know. Do you think she'd have it in her to kill a person?"

"If she had to, I suppose," Mrs. Rhodes was clearly not expecting a question like that, "She wasn't violent when we knew her."

"If we find her," B.A. continued, "She'll have to know that you hired us, is there anything we can take that she would recognize and know we're legitimate?"

"I'm not sure," Mrs. Rhodes said.

"Does she still have a room here?"

"Yes, upstairs, I'll show you."

B.A. followed the woman up the stairs and listened as she explained, "Everything of hers is still here…I go in once a week and clean everything, but nothing's out of place, when she comes home it'll be just like she left it."

She showed him into the room on the left. It was something to look at alright, the woman was apparently a packrat of some sort; the room was filled with comics and books and audio cassettes, a pair of bongo drums, a couple of mannequin heads, a motorcycle helmet, movie posters on the walls, a small radio, a few old toys of wooden trucks and plastic machine guns, model planes hanging from the ceiling, a baseball bat, and a bushel basket full of baseballs.

"Jean is very unique," Mrs. Rhodes said, "She collects the oddest things."

"No kidding," B.A. said as he looked around the room, "Anything in here that's one of a kind, that she would recognize?"

The nervous woman looked frantically around the room as though her life were depending on finding something. She went over to the bed and picked up a small teddy bear.

"She'd recognize this, it's not made anymore, and they weren't a chain, they were given out at a fundraiser the year she was born, impossible to find anymore."

Not exactly what he had in mind but if it would do the trick.

"We may also need some of her clothes when we find her," he added, "There's no telling where we'll find her and what condition she might be in."

As the worried mother cautiously tread through her daughter's room as though she were walking over a tomb without trying to disturb it, B.A. looked around at the room and got a closer look at everything. It didn't look like any 22-year-old would-be SEAL lived here, just about anything else perhaps, most likely a kid, but not a soldier. Something about the whole thing just rubbed him the wrong way, there was something about the case that wasn't right.

"Why did your daughter want to go into the SEALs?" he asked.

"I don't know," the woman replied as she went through the closet and sorted through the few outfits there were to pick from, "There wasn't much discussion about it, just seemed to be something she jumped into without really thinking it through…she never mentioned anything about the military before that, I never knew she had any interest in it."

"Maybe she didn't," B.A. replied.

Mrs. Rhodes stiffened at his words and turned around looking even more nervous than before, "What?"

"Nothing, ma'am," B.A. said, "I'm just thinking out loud."

"Anyway, before we could try and talk some sense into her, she had gone off and signed up for them, and they took her…but I don't get this at all," she continued.

"Is there anywhere you think your daughter might go if she was in trouble?" B.A. asked, "Someplace to hide out until the heat was off?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Rhodes replied, "I'd like to think if she were in any kind of trouble, she'd come back home to her father and I."

"No offense, Mrs. Rhodes, but if your daughter went AWOL, this house is the first place her superiors would be looking. Did she ever mention going somewhere?"

"I'm, I'm trying to think," she said, and shook her head, "No, I don't think so, I don't know. I…could I have missed something?"

"Calm down, mama, we'll find your little girl and bring her back," B.A. told her, "Alive."

"Okay, it's taken a while, but I think I've figured out the pattern to these murders," Face said as he put the map down in front of Hannibal and Murdock, "Going by the dates and labeling them in chronological order…"

"What about the victims?" Murdock asked.

"That's the only thing I couldn't crack," Face said, "However, it looks like if there's going to be another Brutus murder, it's going to occur somewhere along this street and this corner," he pointed to a marked section of the map, "…now there's an alley behind the street here, and that's where the bodies have been found lately, in back alleys…if this guy is going to attack again, this seems the most likely place for it, it's just a matter of when."

"And who," Hannibal added.

They heard the van pull up outside and saw B.A. get out carrying a large rolled up paper bag with him.

"It doesn't look like lunch," Face said.

"Hey B.A, where've you been?" Murdock asked as he came up to the man.

"Get out of my way, fool," B.A. told him, and explained, "I've been trying to get a handle on this girl we've got to find, and I think the whole thing's crazy, Hannibal."

"Well naturally, B.A., if it were a normal matter, the police would be handling it instead of us," Hannibal replied.

"I don't like this whole thing, man," B.A. told him, "Something about it all just ain't right."

"What do you mean?" Face asked.

B.A. just shook his head and replied, "This whole thing." He went over to Hannibal and pulled the picture of Jean Rhodes out of his chest pocket and explained, "There's no explanation why this woman would go into the SEALs in the first place, why would anybody join with having no previous interest in the military?"

"He's got a point, Hannibal," Face told him, "It's not generally a snap decision, especially since they got rid of the draft, some forethought has to go into it, and if she did, why didn't she tell her parents about it?"

"When we find her, we'll have to ask her," was Hannibal's response.

A few days passed with no news breaking of any new murders that could be tied in to the Brutus case; following Face's instinct on the matter, they staked out the alley behind the corner of 10th and Republican: B.A. on one end of the street in his van, Hannibal and Face in a rented car on the other end, and Murdock watched the surrounding area, generally residing in the park behind the alley, where all the crazy people went at night to talk to themselves. On the 5th night of their stakeout, it rained and came pouring down in sheets. Each vehicle had the windshield wipers running but knew they'd have a hard time seeing anybody coming or going from the alley without drawing any attention to themselves.

"B.A., you see anything?" Face asked into his walkie-talkie.

"Nah, man, ain't anybody around here," B.A. answered, "I think you got the wrong place."

"Or maybe this Brutus guy found out we're on his tail and got nervous and is taking a week off," Face replied.

"Maybe he just don't like committing murders in the rain," Murdock suggested from the backseat of the car where he was curled up in a blanket like a cocoon, "It's cold out there tonight."

There was a mutual silence between the three men for a few seconds before they heard the crackle of static on the walkie-talkie followed by B.A.'s voice, "Somebody just went into the alley."

"Can you tell if it's two people?" Hannibal asked.

"Nah, just the one," B.A. answered.

Considering there hadn't been so much as a drunk wino occupying the alley all week, they decided it was worth checking out. Hannibal started the car and rounded the corner and drove into the alley and stopped when they saw that there wasn't anybody in there. They got out of the car and looked around and they were immediately met with and blinded by the headlights on the van; B.A. was in position, so he would've seen if anybody had come out of the alley his way, and they knew nobody had gotten out before they swerved in. The door to the van opened and B.A. stepped out and he entered the alley from the opposite end and asked them, "What happened?"

Hannibal shrugged, "There's nobody here, B.A., you must've been seeing things."

"Hey man, I'm not the crazy one around here!" B.A. replied defensively.

"Aw no, that's my job," Murdock pointed out.

B.A. raised his arm over his eyes to block the rain from his eyes and he looked around, frustrated, "Man! What is going on around here?"

"It doesn't look like anything," Hannibal said, "Let's get back in the car."

"Hey Hannibal," Murdock grabbed the back of his jacket to get his attention, "When'd you get a parking ticket?"

"I didn't," Hannibal turned back towards the car to see what Murdock was talking about and he saw and the others saw, something had been stuck under one of the windshield wipers.

"What is this?" Face asked.

Hannibal went back to the car and pulled out an envelope from the windshield. He pulled out a note and read it by the light from the high beams on the van. "Smith, Peck, and Murdock," he read, "I know you're onto me but you're not even close to finding me. However I'm game for a little hunt and am willing to clue you in to my next appearance just to keep things interesting." He had to read it fast because the rain was soaking the paper and blurring out the ink, "Tomorrow night at 8 o' clock in a bar on 2nd Avenue, are you up on your Greek mythology? I'm looking forward to seeing you but good luck trying to spot me, signed, Brutus."

"Hannibal," Face managed to get out, "This guy had to have just placed that on the windshield, meaning he was here in this alley, that B.A. was right. But we couldn't find anybody here…so how did this guy stick this on the car and get out without being seen when we were all here?"

"He's a tricky Dickie, that's for sure," Murdock exclaimed in his usual annoying voice, "Either that, or he's the invisible man!"