Personal

Part 2

"If we want to get to the kids, we'll have to play this a little differently," said Hannibal, swiveling the van's front seat around so he could face the whole team. He had the "I have a plan and you're all going to hate it" spark in his eyes.

The team collectively groaned—with the exception of Face. Face stayed uncharacteristically silent. He should have groaned too, he realized, a moment later, but couldn't summon the voice for it. He was feeling impatient and itchy and was just happy Hannibal had already come up with something.

Hannibal, being Hannibal, let a theatrical silence stretch past the final complaints about his addiction to the jazz, holding his cigar at attention with a patient smile on his lips. Face could usually out wait his commander's theatrics, could usually play his part as dramatic cynic, but in this silence he leaned forward, clenched his jaw a little and tapped his foot anxiously.

"Different how?" Amy asked carefully.

Sitting straighter, Hannibal magically produced a building plan and spread it out between them.

Face frowned down at it. The layout was a nightmare, the positioning of personnel well thought out. It would be a true challenge for them to get past security unnoticed. He glanced up at Hannibal's focused eyebrows and waited.

The anxious tapping of his foot increased.

Murdock shot him a suspicious glance. Or was it annoyed? Face noticed what he was doing with his foot and stopped it, lacing his fingers together instead.

"Different because we'll have to adjust our usual style," explained Hannibal, theatricality temporarily abandoned.

The inhabitants of the van looked instantly dubious, with groans and coughs and lifted eyebrows. The latter from Amy.

Hannibal shrugged, meeting their eyes in turn. "Even the A-team can adjust. Now listen." He smiled and gestured at the layout. "This time, we're going to try a little subtlety."

"Great," said Amy. "We're doomed."

Face felt his own complaint spider up his spine. "Subtlety?" he scoffed, growing inexplicably annoyed. Annoyed in a way that made his skin feel grainy. Annoyed in a way that made him feel just a little insane. The anxious tapping of his foot was back.

Two days ago when Michael Carter contacted them with accusations about his former employer's hidden activities, adding the mystery of the missing video tapes holding the proof they required, Face had been bored. The case was too typical, too easy, too much like what they always did. They'd take the job, they'd finish it, and in another month they'd be looking for their next client. They'd never give Guerin Enterprises another thought. If Face were lucky, he'd have enough in between time to convince Ronda to front his health club idea.

Now it was... different.

Except that it wasn't. Not that different. Not that big of a deal. Missing kids ratcheted the investment up for all of them, sure, and that's all he was feeling. He wasn't the only one.

He wasn't really insane.

The gap in his chest wasn't anything personal. It was just…

It was just…

"Subtlety," confirmed Hannibal with a grin, chomping down on a lit cigar with B-movie flare.

Face locked his teeth together, swallowed hard, and felt a sudden surge of adrenaline charge up to his skull. After all the times Hannibal had opted to go through the front door, to make half-pincer movements inside guarded perimeters, to go for the full frontal assault, now he suddenly wanted to drag his feet?

From the corner of his eye, Face saw Murdock throw him another suspicious look. He glanced down and saw his toe still taping. Jittery. He stilled it without looking back at Murdock. Three seconds later he found himself fidgeting in his seat to compensate.

Hannibal cleared his throat.

Face refocused.

Hannibal was looking at him, a quirk in his eyebrow that made Face feel transparently sure Hannibal could see his sudden insanity. But when Hannibal's lips twitched, Face realized he was expecting something, a reaction of some sort, expecting Face to play along with his gleeful announcement or somehow offset the reckless enthusiasm.

He coughed tightly and fixed a bland smile on his face. It was about all he could muster but he lifted one eyebrow with it and held the expression still, re-lacing his fingers lazily with elbows on knees.

It must have fit expectation because Hannibal smiled in return, wide with the jazz, and continued detailing his plan. Sometimes for Hannibal, the more bad the bad guy, the more the jazz came out in him. "We have two objectives," he reiterated. "The missing kids and Mr. Carter's tape. The kids come first, but I don't want to compromise either objective if we don't have to. BA will be our pointman."

"BA?" Murdock sputtered. He'd been holding the Captain Belly Buster cap Hannibal had given him weeks earlier, flapping the attached wings while making alien noises out the side of his mouth. Somewhere along the way Face noted Murdock's latest kick had something to do with pod-people, government conspiracies, and convincing BA that the secret antennae covertly implanted in the cap's wings were there to facilitate communication with Saturn. But he let it all go to comment on BA's pointman status. "Hannibal, BA doesn't seem suited to your plan of subtlety. Our big angry mudsucker's got all the subtlety of a football team in a pet store."

Face tapped his fingers impatiently against the cap of his knee. Couldn't everyone be serious for once? At least long enough for Hannibal to finish explaining the plan?

"Pet store?" asked Amy.

Face rolled his eyes, scrubbing his molars together. Amy should know by now when to leave well enough alone.

"Yeah, pet store. See, I knew this guy—linebacker—nearly three hundred pounds and all of it muscle. He went to a pet store to pick out a mascot with his team, but he hadn't ever told them he was afraid of mice and—"

"Murdock," Face cut in. "Can we hear the story another time?"

"Oh, but it's a good one, Face, a real—"

"Shut up, Murdock, Hannibal's trying to tell us the plan."

Murdock was silenced, and Face was abruptly grateful for BA's powerful surliness. He spoke up before Murdock could get going again, "Hannibal, Murdock does have a point. BA's not the first person I think of when the center of the plan involves... uh... subtle."

BA glared.

Face shrugged apologetically, forced his expression to stay casual, ran shaky fingers over a loose string on his jeans, and willed his insides to calm.

Hannibal's eyes were on him again, readying to reply to his comment, and Face was smart enough to sort of stop lying to himself, to realize that this case was getting to him. He was smart enough to realize that if he couldn't feign casualness for the mere planning of the mission, Hannibal would start to think something was really wrong with him, or worse, see him as a liability. Hannibal relied on him to be the voice of reason in the maddening crowd, the level-headed and cautious backup for his crazy ideas. If Hannibal thought for a minute he couldn't do it he'd…

Face wasn't actually sure what approach Hannibal might take, but this job needed to be their focus. These kids. And Face needed to be a part of it.

He could handle it. Was handling it.

What he wouldn't be able to handle was a round of The Hannibal Inquisition. Not on top of everything else. Not when they had a job to do. Not when three kids were missing. Not when nobody else probably even cared.

And definitely not when he hadn't yet been able to tell what was wrong for himself.

Hannibal's hand rested solidly in the center of Face's chest, keeping him from moving. "Sitting is not a good idea right now, kid."

Face breathed out tiredly, giving it up. He hated this.

He hated having lost control. He hated having to explain. Most of all, he hated having to be the image of Face all the time and the ridiculous expectations that came with it. If BA got a little wild during a fight no one would turn it into an event. No one would badger him until he explained himself. No one would look at him as though trying to put together all the pieces in a complex puzzle.

No one would look at him as if he'd gone insane.

"I'm waiting, Lieutenant," said Hannibal. The referral to Face's rank meant he'd just lost whatever favor he might have gained through Hannibal's sympathy for his apparent insanity.

"Does it really matter?" Face asked, half hoping his commander would accept it, half hoping he could deflect his way out of this.

Hannibal's answer was found in the grim set of his jaw, reinforced by the hand he kept clamped on Face's shoulder, keeping him pinned to the sofa.

Face forcefully relaxed his body, but felt his mask slip, frustration curling around his eyes. He lifted an arm, rubbed ginger fingers into his hair, and stared at the white speckled ceiling.

Hannibal kept his hand on Face's shoulder a second longer before moving it back to his own knee.

Face kept himself still and didn't try to sit again, even though...

It wasn't like he'd been planning to run the Boston Marathon. He'd just wanted to sit up. This would be hard enough to explain without having to do it with Hannibal's face looming, stern and commander-like, two feet above.

BA looked ridiculous, standing before them in a three piece suit, the bright white collar a bold contrast against his dark neck and colorful feather earrings.

"Wow, BA, you look mag-ni-fic!" Murdock purred, pausing to bask in his suited-friend's scowl, reaching to smooth his hands over the dark jacket, changing his mind at BA's growl, drawing them back carefully.

"I don't like suits, Hannibal!" barked BA for the twelfth time in as many seconds while Amy nervously tried to straighten his three hundred dollar tie.

"It's for a good cause, BA," said Hannibal, moving close enough to drop an arm on the sergeant's shoulder while winking at Face. "I explained all this. We need someone imposing enough to distract the security personnel while the rest of us extract the tape from Guerin's office and learn where the kids are being held. None of the rest of us fit that description."

"I don't like suits!" BA persisted.

"I don't mean to question either, Hannibal," Amy spoke up from where she'd moved to check the reception on their mini-microphones, "but he does have a point. If you want him to look imposing and get security's attention, why not just have him go in with what he usually wears, or for that matter, wearing something more threatening than a three piece suit?"

"Because, Amy," Hannibal said patiently, and Face could tell he was getting annoyed that no one else seemed to get the intricate genius of his plan, "we want security on their guard, not on the job. BA walks in wearing street fatigues and Guerin's security guys will go straight into action. BA walks in wearing a three piece suit and not a single security guard in that building will take their eyes off him until he leaves or they figure out what he's there for. It's the time they spend trying to figure him out that will give the rest of us what we need."

"What if they don't go for it?" Amy asked. "Or what if they immediately swoop down and treat BA like a threat anyway?"

"That's what Face is for," smiled Hannibal.

Face tugged his jacket on and smoothed back his hair while Amy stared. The designer jeans he wore were comfortably worn but nice, matching the casual blue of his t-shirt and the cracked-brown of his leather jacket. "I am Harrison Williams the Third," he announced suavely. "The slightly rebellious son of Harrison Williams the Second. To the annoyance of my father, I refuse to conform to the family business expectations, but in a valiant effort to reform me he's sent me to learn a few tricks of the trade with his business advisor," Face paused to indicate BA, "and to hopefully work out a deal with Mr. Guerin and his associates regarding investments Guerin very much needs. Due to my negligent choice of attire, I'm supposed to wait in the car."

"Who's Harrison William the Second?"

Face had to admire Amy's persistence and realized somewhere along the way she'd missed a team meeting, probably when she took that other phone call from Stacy, who had talked to the other residents of the shelter again, who had told her absolutely nothing.

"I am," said Hannibal. "We sent a magazine with an article on the very wealthy and very pretend Williams family to Guerin's office yesterday—complete with pictures, and put out word that Williams is looking to invest in Guerin's next venture. Face will be waiting outside. If BA gets into trouble, Face will be on hand to bail him out, just in case. And if not, Face will move to phase two."

"What's phase two again?" Amy asked, handing them each their microphones.

Face cleared his throat. "Phase two is the part we get to make up as we go along."

"Right," she said. "Of course. You know, Hannibal, it's always the details of your plans that impress me most."

Hannibal grinned, then turned serious, checked his watch and dropped his arm away from his still-scowling sergeant.

"I still don't like suits, Hannibal," BA reiterated, blocking Hannibal's path to the van.

"Noted." Hannibal stepped deftly around him. "Now let's get going."

Amy climbed into the van with Hannibal, while Murdock—playing chauffeur—fixed his hat and jauntily moved around Face to the driver's seat of their appropriated limo, ignoring BA's barking claim that he should be the one driving.

While they argued, Face waved casually in the van's direction as it pulled out—nothing to see here, business as usual—then turned around to climb into the limo. As soon as his fingers touched the door's lever he was startled to feel BA's hand clamp down on his wrist.

He looked up in puzzlement.

BA's furrowed eyebrows framed piercing and serious eyes.

"BA?" Face questioned hesitantly.

"Face," BA's soft voice didn't match his scowl and he seemed to hesitate—something he almost never did. "You okay, man? You ain't been acting like yourself."

Face swallowed, a heavy lump rising abruptly to his throat. He felt his hand start to tremble and gripped harder at the limo's sleek handle to still it. "I'm fine," he said, carefully, and cursed himself because he almost stuttered. "I don't know what you're talking about."

BA's scowl deepened, but he let go of Face's wrist. He stalked around the rear of the car, climbed in the other side and slammed the door with a forceful clap.

Face watched him stupidly—stunned that BA had asked the question—stunned because he'd been pretending so well that he was okay he'd almost started to believe it himself.

If BA had noticed he was off... had Hannibal? Had Murdock?

tbc