AN: By the way all of the facts in this chapter are pretty much fake. I mean, derived from truth, but fake nonetheless.
CHAPTER 2
Twenty minutes later Face and Murdock were out of the calming yellow halls of the mental ward and in the back seats of BA's van, with the big man driving and their leader sitting in the passenger seat; the usual formation. Hannibal was chewing a cigar while explaining the details of their first official mission as renegade civilian helpers.
The A-Team was available for hire to anyone who could pay (and who wouldn't give them up to the military), but Hannibal didn't make it easy to find them. He had several disguises, some better than others, which he used to filter through potential clients, all of whom had somehow heard of the freelance soldiers. He looked for clients who had a real need, who had no other options, and of course who seemed like they could deliver monetarily. And he had found one at last, while pretending to be a peddler of Alcatraz merchandise. David Wrotham, a young man from the Chinook tribe in Northwest Washington State, had been thoroughly vetted by the Colonel, and had hired the A-Team.
The mission was this: Commercial whaling had long been banned in the United States, and Native American whaling had been severely limited with many specific regulations in place. It was a system which preserved treasured tribal traditions (limitedly), while making sure that the endangered whale populations were not threatened. However recent hunts by David's tribe had been unusually difficult because the whale pods were oddly hard to find, and when they did find them they were often too small to hunt from. It was a mystery until one day three members of his tribe, including his brother Paul, encountered a large commercial fishing vessel while on a hunt. Ships are not allowed within 500 yards of whales, but this one was dangerously close. The three tried to warn the vessel, until a sinister metal harpoon shot down from the deck and pierced a small whale, hauling it up carelessly.
The three tried to paddle back to shore to inform the police, but they were intercepted by several speedboats, loaded with men carrying rifles, all pointing at the canoers. At gunpoint, they took Paul hostage. The remaining two were informed that if they turned in the whaling ship to the police or to the media, Paul would be killed.
Terrified, unsure of what to do, they told David what had happened.
"And he found us," Hannibal concluded, craning his neck back to see the rest of his team. "Lucky him."
"How we getting to Seattle anyway, Hannibal?" B.A. asked, giving his boss a warning glance. "It's only a two day drive from here if I-"
"Sorry B.A. but we haven't got 2 days," Hannibal interrupted. "I've booked us a charter vessel in Seattle that we need to pick up tomorrow morning, and four tickets for a plane we need to get to by 10:45pm tonight."
"No way Hannibal, no way you are getting my ass on that plane. I'll meet you guys in two days, I'll swim to you if I have to," B.A. said angrily. Hannibal rolled his eyes.
"It's dangerous swimmin' in open water B.A.!" warned Murdock from the back seat. "Could be krakens. 'Sides, what if one of them whales mistakes you for its baby, big guy?" Laughing manically he danced out of B.A.'s reach as the driver tried to grab for his throat.
"That's rude, you crazy-ass fool," B.A. bellowed, nearly getting them into an accident as he attempted to strangle the pilot.
"Hannibal, I'll drop you guys off at the airport, but there ain't no way I'm going with you." He put both hands back on the steering wheel as Murdock started humming the theme from Free Willy. "Second thought, I'll drop him off a cliff instead," he grumbled.