Hannibal's stomach had clenched uncomfortably when Face had finally shown up just shy of midnight. If he was surprised to see his CO sitting waiting for him in his quarters then he certainly didn't show it, just threw his kit bag down on the floor, collapsed on the cot and muttered, "Hey, Hannibal, can't whatever this is wait? I'm bushed..."
Hannibal slowly rose to his feet giving his lieutenant a quick visual once over. Russ had assured his old friend that Face was fine, 'relatively unscathed' was the actual phrase he had used, but Hannibal wouldn't believe it until he had seen it for himself. His eyes took it all in, the dirt and the grime, the scratches and the bruises, the grubby bandage around his head where the bullet had grazed his temple. "Well, you would be," Hannibal's voice was tightly bound but obviously bristling with anger, "I've heard all about your busy few days."
Face cracked an eye open, the one furthest from the bullet wound, to look at him. "You pissed at me, Boss? 'Cause Croxton said it was okay, said he would square it with you when we got back, it was all pretty last minute you know..." He yawned widely and Hannibal noted the wince as it obviously pulled at the graze on his head.
"Don't worry about that, kid, I'll talk to Croxton in the morning." He'd do more than talk to the devious old goat. Croxton knew damn well you weren't supposed to 'borrow' from another CO without squaring it with said CO first, he'd just moved in on Face to try and rub Hannibal up the wrong way, hell, they'd been doing that to each other since the academy, but this time he'd gone too far. Had he known that Sosa had dumped Face that very morning? Or had it just been a happy coincidence that had meant the lieutenant was only too happy to hare off on some half-arsed scheme of Croxton's less than twenty four hours after returning from one of his own? Hannibal supposed he would never know, but he certainly had his suspicions.
And then Hannibal also intended having a chat about said half-arsed scheme. The one that, according to Russ, had seen Face tearing, unarmed, through a village filled with insurgents, on a dirt bike, no helmet, no body armour, yelling and whooping like a mad man, just to provide Croxton with a diversionso he could sneak in and pick up a few targets that intel suggested had some interesting news to share.
Hannibal's blood boiled. It was a stupid, high risk plan, and Hannibal was frankly amazed that Face had come home at all. The whole thing could have been pulled off with so much more grace and finesse if he'd planned it. Hannibal had ranted at Russ, Croxton had lost so many men from his units over the years, what the hell was he doing, still planning shit like this and getting away with it? And while that fact alone was enough to fire Hannibal up and get his blood pressure rising, what really freaked him out and made his gut clench in absolute primal terror, was the fact that Face had actually agreed to do it...
He glanced back down at his now sleeping Lieutenant and ground his teeth in worry, there was some bad shit going on here, and Hannibal had the uncomfortable feeling that it was only going to get a lot worse.
Face wasn't around for breakfast and Hannibal was just about to go and pound on Croxton's head to get some answers when he showed up, short of breath, drenched in sweat, new, but already grubby bandage around his head. "Hey guys," he said, sliding onto the bench next to BA, "We got any bacon today?"
"Where've you been Face?" Murdock asked him, his voice the very model of open and inquisitive.
"Running," Face answered without making eye contact, "Decided to get up early, have a run, you know. Its good for you." He reached across the table and snagged the juice, filling a beaker and draining it in one.
"Sorry about Sosa, man." There. It was out. Trust BA to be the first one with balls enough to actually just come out and say it.
Hannibal had been watching carefully and had seen the flinch, the quick tightening around Face's eyes before it was gone, replaced with the easy smile, the one he used to con salesmen, depot managers oh... and women. "Hey," he beamed at BA, "Easy come easy go, big guy. Plenty more fish in the sea an' all that!"
Nobody smiled back. BA folded his arms across his chest. Murdock took his cap off and folded it nervously in his hands. And Hannibal leaned back against the wall from the end of the bench, one ankle resting on his knee, his eyes steady on Face. Face's grin faltered for a second before it was firmly back in place, "God," he said brightly as he rose to his feet, "I had no idea I was this sweaty! I must stink to high heaven... Gonna hit the showers. Later guys..." And he left.
There was ten seconds of silence before BA spoke up, "He's full of shit, Hannibal."
Hannibal nodded in reply as Murdock leant towards him, "Is he gonna be okay for the job, Boss?"
Silence descended as Hannibal thought this through. He could see from the desperate look in Murdock's eyes and BA's scowl that neither of them wanted to do this job without Face, and really neither did Hannibal. Added to that was what it would do to Face to be shunted off the mission; it would not only crush any dregs of self confidence he had left following his run in with the Ice Queen, it would probably send him running straight back to Croxton as well. But Hannibal needed to be careful, there was no way that he could risk taking Face out on a job if his head was off with Sosa some place. No way at all.
He realised that both his boys were looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer, some reassurance that Hannibal just couldn't give. He shook his head as he rose from the table. "I don't know. We'll have to see."
It wasn't the answer anyone wanted.
Tuesday night found them clustered round the table in Hannibal's quarters going over the plan for the last time before their pre-dawn start. Face was there, listening intently, playing his part very well. Hannibal ground his teeth together as he watched his lieutenant running his eyes over and over the map, committing every detail to memory, just like he always did. But this was not just like he always did. There were no quips, no snarky comments, no moans about how he always got the shit jobs to do, no congratulating Hannibal on the most badass plan ever, no bickering with the others over who did what. Nothing. Just silence, concentration and model soldier behaviour. That was not like Face.
He'd been like this since Sunday which is why Hannibal had kept him on the mission; he really had no solid evidence to defend a move otherwise. That's not to say that Hannibal wasn't worried, Face wasn't himself, it annoyed him that he didn't know what this meant, because he knew that the shit was going to hit the fan sooner or later.
They were about two thirds of the way through the plan before it all went FUBAR. It was no one's fault really, intel was never perfect and Hannibal couldn't blame the intel guys for not knowing that this particular band of insurgents had a stolen Russian tank hidden in a cave. Didn't mean he didn't want to blame them, mind.
So they found themselves hunkered down in a crater made by a long distant bombing raid while the tank made long curving sweeps backwards and forwards across the sand steadily hunting them down.
"Man, we are in the shit!" BA grumbled, risking a look over the edge of the crater as the tank swept away from them for now. He bent down to rub at his knee, twisted painfully from stumbling on the uneven ground and Hannibal tried not to let it freak him out.
"Focus, BA," he ordered, his voice calmer than it should be, given the circumstances.
Murdock's eyes were flicking frantically around him, looking a little too wild for Hannibal's comfort, while Face was crouched at the front of the crater, still and steady, his eyes on the tank the whole time.
Hannibal took his own advice and forced himself to focus as he listed their assets in his head. He made it; himself, Face, he really didn't feel he could count in either BA or Murdock at this point, some limited ammo and maybe five or six grenades. Fan-fucking-tastic.
Okay, he'd got it. They'd need to sit tight and hope the dark would hide them long enough for the tank to get by, and then once they were behind it, there was a rocky escarpment about half a mile away, and Hannibal knew if they reached that they would have some cover and somewhere to hide. If we reach it...Hannibal thought treacherously as he noted BA wincing as he moved his knee and Murdock's wild stare once more.
"Right, guys, listen up," he hissed at them, trying to make his voice sound a lot more confident than he felt.
But Face beat him to it, "It's alright Boss," he whispered over his shoulder, "I've got this one," and promptly leaped out of the crater.
"Face!" Hannibal yelled making a grab for his lieutenant's ankle, but he was too late and Face was suddenly zig zagging across the desert, running low and fast and heading straight for the tank. "Fucking IDIOT!" Hannibal stormed, checking his ammo and flicking his safety off as he shuffled to his feet in the crater, "What the FUCK does he think he is doing? Come on guys, we're moving out..." But at that point the tank changed direction yet again and started heading straight for them and Hannibal realised that the second anyone raised their heads from that crater, they'd be blown to pieces. "Shit!" he muttered and ducked down once more, dragging the other two with him and watching Face as he tracked nearer and nearer to the tank.
"Man! What's his plan?" BA stormed from next to him and Hannibal could almost taste the fear radiating off him.
Hannibal couldn't answer so they sat tight and watched instead as Face darted closer and closer.
It was obvious the exact second he was spotted as shouting could be heard from the inside of the tank and the gun barrel suddenly started to rotate towards him. Face was faster of course and kept ahead of the barrel's progress as he sprinted through the sand. Gunshots cracked out, echoing in the early morning air and Hannibal realised that the occupants of the tank had opened a pistol port and were blindly shooting rounds off into the darkness. Face, however, always kept himself carefully out of the range of both the turret and the pistol port and just kept moving, zigging and zagging as he went but continually eating up the sand between him and tank.
The shouts from inside the tank started to get more and more frantic as Face came closer. "Oh, shit..." Hannibal mouthed as a sixth sense suddenly told him what was coming. Right on cue, the hatch of the tank popped and a silhouette, clearly dressed in a keffiyeh and toting a machine gun, rose up out of the tank. Face threw himself to the side as bullet tore up the sand at his feet. Hannibal was right there though, and the next second the insurgent dived back into the tank as Hannibal's returning fire exploded around him.
Face was back on his feet even as Hannibal was still shooting. His tracking now abandoned, he sprinted at full pelt straight at the tank and at the last minute leapt up and clung tightly to the side of the thing itself.
"Motherfucker..." BA whispered as they watched Face reach up and toss something into the still open hatch of the tank. One... two... three... four... dark shapes left his hand, easily discernible in the quickly brightening dawn, before he jumped back down again and took off, sprinting for all he was worth back towards the crater.
"Get down," Hannibal yelled, pushing BA and Murdock to the bottom of the crater.
"Cover your ears!" BA added to Murdock, catching on much quicker than the pilot, "This is gonna be one helluva bang!"
"Come on, Face..." Hannibal whispered, peering cautiously over the rim of the crater, hands over his head, "Come on...!"
Face was sprinting towards them, his features alight with a manic grin, his eyes wide and totally jazzed up, "Alpha!" he yelled as he came closer, "Mike!" Hannibal ducked down into the crater, shuffling back so that Face had room to land, "Foxtrot!"
It sounded as if the world itself had exploded.
Hannibal had ended up on top of BA and Murdock and he held still as dirt and shrapnel rained down on them from above. It seemed to go on for hours and hours, but could only have been seconds before the onslaught from the skies stopped and he felt his team members shift underneath him.
"Murdock, BA, you okay?" Hannibal started coughing as he inhaled a whole lung full of dust.
"Yeah, Boss, yeah... we're fine." BA sat up, wiping the grit from his eyes and looking strange to be so pale skinned with all the fine dust covering him.
"That was one big firework," Murdock muttered, seemingly back with them for now.
"Where the hell is that crazy fool, Hannibal?" BA muttered as he and Hannibal hauled each other to their feet, and for once Hannibal knew he didn't mean Murdock.
Hannibal couldn't answer, he didn't trust his voice to speak as, like BA, he had already noticed that Face hadn't made it back to the crater in time. They lifted their heads up and peered through the dust and debris at the mangled caterpillar tracks that were all that was left of the tank. Hannibal's stomach rolled as he noticed lumps that could only be body parts littered around and wondered how long he could put off examining them.
"Hey!" BA suddenly shouted, and Hannibal whirled on the spot to see where BA was pointing. There, about twenty metres further behind them was the unmistakable outline of a person laid in the dirt. BA tried to scramble up the sides of the crater but hissed out in pain the second he put any weight onto his twisted knee. Murdock grabbed at him to stop him from falling but Hannibal just scrambled past them both. In seconds he was running across the desert, stumbling over chunks of rock and smoking metal, his ears ringing and his heart pounding.
It was Face. With ten metres to go Hannibal recognised his lieutenant and also registered that he did seem to be in one piece. So far so good. But with five meters to go, however, he noticed that he was shaking, he was laid on his side, back to Hannibal and convulsing strongly. Fear shot through Hannibal's system, he knew that serious head injuries could cause fits, and those type of head injuries weren't that easy to recover from either...
He skidded to his knees at his lieutenant's side and gently grabbed at his shoulder, leaning over to look into his features, "Face! Face! Can you hear me!"
The shuddering was still there, stronger even and Hannibal was confused because there was no blood, and Face's eyes were open and he was smiling and... suddenly it hit him.
"Oh, shit Boss!" Face was laughing so much that tears were running down his cheeks, leaving clean streaks through the dust, "You should have seen your face! I wish I'd had a camera!" He rolled onto his back, laughter ringing out across the desert.
Hannibal stood as if stung. He rose to his feet and strode away all in one fluid motion. "Fucking JACKASS!" he yelled as he stomped off, passing a thoroughly confused Murdock and BA.