CHAPTER THREE

"Eighty-six bottles of beer on the wall, eighty six bottles of beer..."

"Hey!" BA was gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had turned white. "If you two don't shut up, I'm pullin' this van over and you're walkin'home!"

"Well, you'rethe one who didn't fix the radio before we started off on this little road trip," Murdock reminded him.

"So what?" BA demanded. "Silence is good! I like silence!"

"Give it a rest, Murdock," Hannibal said, offhandedly. He didn't bother including Face in his warning even though Face had startedthe singing.

A quick glance and shrug between the two men in the backseat, and Murdock quieted, humming the song instead of singing it loudly. Face glanced back at the woman who was sleeping through it all, curled up in the back of the van with the blankets they kept for just such an occasion. They'd been driving for about fifteen hours now, on US Route 66 instead of the interstates. Ashley had insisted they not drive on the freeway. He chalked it up to paranoia. At the same time, he realized they didn't know all the rules to the game they were playing. It was best just to play along until they knew what they were dealing with.

He closed his eyes and rested his head back against the seat. Fifteen hours of driving meant only short cat-naps throughout the day and night. He felt like hell. Probably looked like it, too, dressed in the same clothes he'd left LA in, eyes no doubt a bit bloodshot from the lack of sleep. Dawn had finally broken the horizon about thirty minutes ago, and it was already getting warm. Almost time to close the windows and turn the air conditioning on. The August heat was just as bad here as in LA. Luckily, it wasn't as humid.

He dozed off, but woke up as soon he heard Hannibal's voice. "What is that?"

That wasn't a good enough reason to open his eyes. "That" could be just about anything. But the long pause, and the way the van slowed, warned him that it wasn't just anything. He listened, but didn't move, still feigning sleep. "I don't like the looks of it," BA added.

The inclination to open his eyes was growing stronger. But after so many hours of dull travel, he could use a good surprise. "Oh my God..." If the panic in Ashley's voice was any indication, it wasn't a pleasant surprise. He sighed internally.

"Face?"

"Yeah, Colonel?" Finally, he opened his eyes.

"That's them," Ashley gasped. "My God, it's them!"

If Hannibal was concerned about "them", it didn't show in his voice. In fact, he sounded almost amused. "Face, reach back behind you and get those guns, will you?"

"Which ones?" he asked, sitting up a little and looking out the windshield briefly. Out in front of them was a roadblock, a line of black cars stretched out across the two-lane road and along the shoulder, with long gun barrels pointing over the hoods and trunks.

"Whichever." Hannibal was so casual, it was hard to believe he was seeing the same thing Ashley was. "It doesn't matter."

Face unbuckled his seatbelt and turned into the back of the van, suddenly face to face with Ashley. "You uh, might wanna get down," he suggested to Ashley, who was staring up at him in wide-eyed horror.

"Murdock, wake up!"

"Huh? Wha...?" He only had about two seconds to figure out where he was before Face was shoving a submachine gun into his hand.

Face passed another up to Hannibal and set the last one on the floor beside BA just as the first shots rang out. He blinked, surprised. Those shots had come without provocation, without any exchange of threats, without warning. Were they shooting to kill?

"Let's go around 'em, BA," Hannibal ordered. "Face? Murdock?"

They knew what to do. Face checked his ammunition before opening the side door, gripping the handle attached to the ceiling. He swung out at the same time Murdock shoved up through the sunroof to return fire.

There was a certain amount of adrenaline that came with hanging out the side of a van doing fifty miles an hour on the dirt shoulder, exchanging automatic gunfire with an unknown opponent. It made Face realize that he'd never truly lost the taste for danger he'd acquired in the war, even though he rarely had to think about dodging mortar rounds and indirect fire. The rush, the way his heart beat faster, the intense awareness of everything around him... it all brought a smile to his face.

The tires of the van ripped up the dirt on the shoulder, kicking up a cloud of dust as BA hit the gas, swerving off the road and down the slight incline. The shallow ditch was wide enough to drive in, but it was also full of mud from the recent rain. BA realized it too late. He floored the gas, but it only spun the wheels faster, throwing a waterfall of mud behind them.

There was no time for planned reaction, or even an exclamation of surprise. They were slowing fast and at this rate, they'd pass those guns at a crawl. The embankment wouldn't provide much cover when that happened. BA acted on instinct, turning the wheels toward the steep rise on the other side of the ditch – better than turning into the guns – but he knew the van couldn't take the slope. At least, not coming out of a foot and a half of mud while being shot at.

He got the front tires up and might have been able to use the grip to pull the van out of the mud if not for the dangerous angle... and the fact that there was a large tree stump directly in front of them. They were stuck. They were also wide open to incoming fire.

Face slammed the door shut hard as he fell over backwards, taking his finger off the trigger in time to keep from blowing gunshot holes through the roof of the van. And through Murdock, who fell back down into the van as Face collided with his legs.

The confusion demanded pure instinct. They were only a few yards from the roadblock, and the van would only provide cover for so long. "Out the driver's side door," Hannibal ordered. It was the only door that wouldn't require dancing through the hailstorm of bullets.

He rested his weapon in the open window and lay down a spray of gunfire as BA fell out the door and immediately positioned himself over the hood of the van to return fire. Face followed, and Murdock, then finally Ashley. Hannibal was the last to shift over to the driver's seat and stumble out onto the uneven ground of the steep incline.

"Alright, we need to move!" His voice had taken on an edge as the danger continued to escalate. He spoke fast, rattling orders so quickly it was hard to tell when one sentence ended and another began. "Head for the trees - Face! Take Ashley. We'll cover you. We get split up go east - next town!"

Face slung his weapon over his shoulder and grabbed Ashley's arm. "You come with me."

She had no time to protest, or even to think, before he pulled her off her feet. "Head down!" he ordered as he dragged her up the steep slope. He didn't look at his opponents. That job belonged to the rest of the team. Face would have his hands full with this girl.

They scrambled up the ridge and over the railroad tracks at top of it. The drop on the other side gave them cover, and they darted into the trees that lined the side of the road. At a safe distance, Face ducked around one of the wide trees and turned to look back, leveling his weapon at the ridge. The other three had just come over the top of the hill, and hit the dirt. They could defend from there, at least until they ran out of ammunition; they had the high ground.

A part of him wanted to go back, to join them. But Ashley was safer back here, and that had to be his primary concern. Besides, it would be over soon. Those guys in the cars could only take so much direct fire from the top of a hill...

Bullets. Closer than he'd been expecting. Ashley screamed. Instinct made him duck and cover before he even had a chance to see where they were coming from. He looked up, startled, head swiveling around to find the source. The team was still up on the ridge, focused on the road; no point shouting with the amount of racket from the machine guns. The enemy had split up. In addition to those on the road, there were two groups coming from either side, through the trees. Coming straight at them.

They had to move.

He shouldered his weapon and, grabbing Ashley's arm with his other hand, went further into the trees, away from the road. He was cut off from the team already, and if he could help them at all it would only be to lead away the men in the trees. A three front battle - and stranded on top of a hill, no less – would mean certain defeat.

He knew the men would follow. But he hadn't counted on the fact that on the other side of the tree line, there was a wide open field. He skidded to a stop, eyes darting back at the men who were still following.

Ashley screamed as she saw them too, and Face turned, firing into the trees and the advancing figures. They dropped to avoid the bullets, and returned fire. He didn't wait for them to regain their footing. "Come on, move!" he directed, breaking into a run and pulling Ashley behind him.

They didn't get far; she couldn't run as fast as he could. Especially in the awkward position with his grip on her arm. She stumbled, and he pulled her back to her feet. They weren't going to outrun the guns that were following them. Hide... But even for that, they still needed to get some distance.

In and out of the thin line of trees, through the brush, keeping low. His breathing was coming heavy when they finally reached a railroad trestle over a muddy, half-dried creek. He didn't take the time to look it over, to wonder if it was safe. He dove underneath it at the furthest point, pulling Ashley behind him into the mud, and leveling his weapon at the trees. He was laying flat on his back against the muddy embankment, heels dug in deep to try and keep himself from slipping. From this angle, if their pursuers would be open targets if, and when, they appeared.

Ashley was gasping for air, clutching her chest as she leaned back against him. The sound of her breathing and the pounding of his own heart in his ears were so loud that he didn't even hear the footsteps above him. He didn't realize until he saw the shadow fall between the spaces in the tracks above their head that their hunters were standing right on top of them. How had they gotten around them? Was this a different group? How many of these guys were there?

He had no shot. He knew that instinctively. But he held the gun up toward them anyways. With his free hand, he grabbed Ashley and pulled her against him hard, his hand over her mouth. She whimpered, eyes wide, her hands up around his forearm instinctively, and he pressed his mouth against her ear. "Shh!" She pulled hard on his arm, trying to get him to let go. But he didn't budge. And after a moment, he felt her go limp. A quick glance told him she'd passed out – probably from lack of oxygen - and he uttered a few choice words in his mind.

He loosened his grip a little, letting her breathe and shoved her weight off of him, depositing her less-than-gracefully into the mud beside him. Then he turned his full attention back up to the shadow as it moved over the tracks above them. He shifted his grip just slightly on his weapon, finger resting on the trigger, just at the point of resistance. He didn't have the shot. But God help them if they stepped into his line of fire. The fact that they had opened fire without a warning or demand made it clear that they were very probably shooting to kill. They'd have him at point blank range. He might not aim to kill them, but he wouldn't hesitate to shoot. And he'd have them at point blank, too.

Finally, without a word, the shadow went back the way it had come. Slowly, Face allowed his grip to relax, and lowered the barrel of the gun to the ground. Then he shut his eyes, and let himself breathe again. Deep, slow breaths. Calm. Collected. Gathered thoughts and a specific plan.

Go east.

He turned his attention to the woman lying beside him in the mud, and shook her roughly, tapping the side of her face a few times. "Ashley! Wake up!"

A few groggy, half-conscious moans, and her eyes suddenly snapped open. "Omigod!"

"Shh," Face ordered, turning to scan the tree line again. He still wasn't convinced that they were in the clear.

"Omigod we're... they... I..."

"Quiet!" he shot again. Maybe he should've left her unconscious a while longer.

She curled up into a ball in the mud, shuddering. He kept one eye on her and one eye on the trees. In a way, she surprised him. Not that he'd been expecting her to grab a gun and join in, but if she'd lived through the experience of getting shot at several times before – and gotten herself out without help – she had to have done it without panicking. The incapacitating terror, the loss of control... it didn't sit right with him.

He waited several minutes, then slowly shifted position, sliding the rest of the way down the muddy bank into a foot of sludge-filled water. "Wait here," he ordered as he crossed the creek and started up the other side. He slipped a few times, and finally completed the process of covering himself in mud as he lay down on his stomach and looked over top of the embankment. Nothing moved for several minutes. They'd either moved on or given up.

He thought about heading back towards the van. He wasn't sure how far it was but he knew that the tracks would take him there. But the orders had been to go east and as he thought about it, they made sense. That van was definitely stuck in the mud. There would be no getting it out without help. If he knew that, the enemy knew it too. It wouldn't do any good to take the client back to the van and make her a target, if and when they returned to finish the job.

Better to get to the next town, as ordered, and wait for them to show up. He wouldn't wait long – they'd make better time than he would while he was dragging Ashley along and they really should get there first. But even if they'd lost the firefight, he needed transportation, and some kind of advantage, if he was going to even think about mounting a rescue. And he needed to get rid of the girl.

He turned and slid back down, heading over to where she was still huddled, watching him. "Come on," he ordered as he slung the weapon over his shoulder again. "We need to get to the next town."

***

Three sets of eyes surveyed the damage done to the muddy, shot up van. "We're going to need a tow truck," Murdock declared, pointing out the obvious.

The back wheels were sunk almost completely down into the mud, the vehicle tilted at a bizarre angle as if it might tip over with a good gust of wind. "There was a junkyard a few miles back," BA recalled. "I saw a tow truck there."

Murdock broke away from BA and Hannibal and took a running leap to cross the mud at its narrowest spot, heading back up toward the road. The cars were all gone. They'd fled suddenly after a few minutes of shooting. Either they'd run out of ammo or – more likely – they just got tired of having their pretty Buicks blown to hell by someone with an obvious positioning advantage. The shooting hadn't accomplished much on either side, except that it had lasted just long enough to make it impossible to tell in which direction Face and Ashley had headed.

Murdock glanced both ways down the road, then stepped out onto it. The sun was already high enough and hot enough to make a shimmering heat wave rise up from the road all the way to his knees. Bits and pieces of tail lights and window glass littered the pavement, along with a puddle and a receding trail heading east.

"Man! Why they have to shoot up my van!"

Murdock turned and glanced over his shoulder at BA who was circling the vehicle, avoiding the mud as best he could. "You've fixed it before, BA," Hannibal reminded, lighting his cigar. "You'll do it again."

Hannibal opened up the side door and exchanged his rifle for a much smaller handgun. Then, glancing up, he locked eyes with Murdock. "What do you think, Captain?"

Murdock frowned deeply as he headed back. "They took some damage," Murdock relayed, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. "There's coolant on the road." He paused a few feet from where Hannibal was standing, looking down the long, empty highway.

"We haven't seen a single car pass since they drove off," Hannibal pointed out. "I think we'd better start walking."

"Which way?" Murdock asked, glancing in either direction.

"Back the way we came." Hannibal pointed. "BA says he saw a tow truck."

"Face will be heading east," Murdock reminded him.

"Well, we don't know exactly how far it is to the next town." Hannibal stared down the long, winding road. "Could be more or less of a walk than back to the junkyard. We know there's a tow truck there."

"What if he gets there and we ain't there yet?"

"He'll find a place to hole up and wait for us."

"You think they're okay?" The concern in his voice was evident.

"They're fine," Hannibal assured him.

Murdock sighed. Yeah, the colonel said that... but the fact that he wasn't gambling with this situation – taking his chances on the distance to the next town rather than what he knew was a five mile hike - told Murdock that he was worried, too.

"Well, maybe we should go try and find them." He glanced up quickly. "I mean..."

"Face can handle himself. He'll get to the next town. If he's not there by the time we get there – or within a reasonable amount of time – we'll go find him. The best thing we can do is be ready and waiting when he gets there. With transportation."

Murdock leaned against the front corner of the van, the part that wasn't sunk in the mud. "We should've had 'em come back to the van."

"No, we shouldn't have," Hannibal corrected, confidently. "Because we need to get the van towed out of here."

"But Hannibal, what if they -"

"Will you stop worrying, Murdock? It's Face. He'll be fine."

"I know, I know..." Murdock took the pistol that Hannibal was holding out to him and tucked it into the back of his pants, under his bomber jacket. "I just don't like that he's outnumbered twenty to one out there."

***

"Face, I don't think I can walk anymore." She'd been dragging a few steps behind for the past three miles. "How much farther?"

"You're asking me?" he replied. The lighthearted humor that might have otherwise accompanied a situation like this was not present. He was covered in mud - his clothes, his hair, his face - from the bank of the creek under the railroad tracks. He'd trudged through mucky water with leeches and God-knows-what-else to lose those guys a second time. They'd been walking for hours – they'd started in the morning and the sun was already going down - and they'd seen nothing but fields and cows and the occasional run-down house with nobody home. He was hot and sweaty and tired and he had no idea how far it was to the next town. It was a hundred and ten degrees out here. The lack of humidity didn't count for much when he was drenched in his own sweat. And to top it all off, they had no water except what they'd been able to get in a few, barely running streams of unsafe water off the side of the road. But even unsafe water was better than heat stroke, and that was a very real possibility in this heat.

"You're the one who had the great idea to follow Route 66 and stay away from the freeway," he reminded her, irritated. "I was assuming you knewthis area."

She stopped, crossing her arms over her chest. She was as filthy as he was, and the bitch-goddess pose was not impressive. "Well I don't," she shot.

He turned and made a sweeping gesture down the road as he bowed sarcastically. "Then I suggest we keep moving, princess, before we run out of daylight."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "And I suggest we get off these railroad tracks. They'll be able to see us from the road."

"There's been no sign of them for five miles," he reminded her. "And if you don't mind, this will move a lot faster if we're on even ground." Every mile was taking hours as it was. He didn't want to think about how long it would take if they had to pick their way through the brush in a less direct route.

"Not if we're dead, we won't."

He straightened, and shifted the heavy gun that was hanging over his shoulder before crossing his arms over his chest. "Look, do you have a problem?" he demanded. He was miserable. Irritable, even. The heat that had been beating down on them all day hadn't helped much to lighten his mood.

"Yes, as a matter of fact I do," she shot back. "Because I'm not payingyou to be stupidand take insane risks."

"Insane risks?"

"Walking along these tracks isan insane risk," she snapped. "That's what I just told you."

He let the gun fall off his shoulder and held it by the strap, gesturing broadly with his other hand. "Your whole case is an insane risk! If we didn't take insane risks, I would sipping champagne in a penthouse suite right now instead of trudging down some god-forsaken track in the middle of nowhere!"

"You were the one who was sleeping as we were coming up to that roadblock!" she reminded him.

"Which we wouldn't have even hit if we'd been on the interstate."

"No, if we'd been on the interstate, we would be dead."

"Well, I guess we'll never know that, will we?" He realized how childish they both sounded, but he was too damn hot and irritable to even care.

"You know what?" She crossed her arms over her chest and glared daggers at him. "I find it interesting that I'm paying you all this money just to be what you claim to be. And the whole time we were talking about this, you're sitting there all relaxed and casual like it's no big deal to you. And now that you're out here, now that you're actually having to get your handsa little dirty for the crazy amount of money I'm paying you, you're whining and bitchingat me like a fucking pussy!"

His reaction was instantaneous. He didn't hit her – if only for the fact that he remembered she was a woman – but he grabbed her shoulder just the same, jerking her almost off her feet. "Watch it, Ashley," he warned, his voice low and dangerous. "Or I will leave your ass right here and call the whole goddamn thing off. Don't think, even for a minute, that there's any amount of money in the worldthat could buy me into this unless I wanted to be here."

"Somehow I doubt that," she glared back.

He pulled her in closer until they were eye to eye, inches apart. "Then you just don't know me very well," he answered darkly. "So I suggest you keep your personal comments about my character to yourself."

If there had been any question in her mind that she had hired a man who'd long been regarded as very dangerous, it was gone in that instant. He watched for the flicker of fear to cross her eyes, and let her go the instant it did. He hadn't heard words like that - personal attacks like that – since basic training. And he wasn't about to take it from her.

She walked a few steps behind him as he started again, keeping a close eye on his surroundings. They couldn't have been more alone out here than if they'd been walking through the middle of the desert. For that matter, it couldn't have been much hotter.

"You realize we're not going to make it to the next town before it gets – Ow!"

He turned back in time to see her collapse, her foot twisted underneath her. He rolled his eyes. "How the hell did you manage to do that?" Was it that hard to walk on the ties?

He watched as she straightened her leg out, and dragged herself back up. But as she started walking again, she was limping. "You alright?" For some strange reason, he wasn't particularly concerned about her well-being at the moment.

She looked up at him and glared. "I'm fine!"

He kept walking.

It was clear, only about a quarter of a mile later, that she wasn't fine. Stubborn pride had set her jaw in place, but it was taking even longer than before with her limping. And a quick glance back at her face told him she really was in pain. He kept his irritation carefully guarded as he waited for her to catch up. "How's your ankle?"

He half expected her to keep up the determined, "I'm tougher than you are" attitude. But the pain of whatever she'd done to her foot had finally pushed her over the edge. It wasn't broken, or she wouldn't be able to walk on it at all. And if it was a sprain, it would be noticeably swollen. It was probably just twisted. But it was the straw that broke the camel's back, on top of the heat and the exhaustion.

"It hurts," she admitted, sitting down in the middle of the tracks and cradling the injury.

He sighed deeply, and crossed the few steps to her, kneeling down. "How'd you manage to do that anyways?" he asked, a little more compassionate now.

There were tears seeping from the corners of her eyes. "I just slipped," she answered, untying her shoe. "There were rocks on the track and they slipped out from under me."

"Don't take your shoe off," he ordered, taking her hands away from the laces. "If it's going to swell up, the shoe will keep it from getting too bad."

He knew it wasn't broken, but felt it just in case. Then he looked around as he brushed his hand through his dirty hair. They needed to find a place to stop for a while. At least a few hours if not for the night. It was already getting dark.

The railroad tracks ran next to the road and there was nothing beyond them but cows and fields. On the other side of the road there were trees. But up ahead in the distance, he saw a mailbox on the other side. A mailbox meant a house. Probably deserted, but it would be as good a place as any to stay. If they were lucky, maybe someone actually lived there, and was home.

"Come on," he sighed, standing up again and offering a hand down to her. "There's a house up there. Let's see if anyone's home."