Nobody had followed them to Jean's house and they spent the afternoon getting settled back into the place and back into the guestrooms. Night came and Decker still hadn't shown up, so everybody was willing to believe that maybe Hannibal had been wrong, even he had admitted it, a rarity for him. Still, it didn't mean nobody would ever come, but he didn't buy that Decker would be smart enough to ambush them in the middle of the night so everybody was willing to let their guards down long enough to get some sleep.
That turned out to be easier said than done however. Murdock kept tossing and turning in the double bed he was sharing with Face and just couldn't get comfortable. Face on the other hand was as unconscious as a person could be and still be alive; all the pilot's flipping and flopping around like a fish out of water didn't disturb his slumber one bit. After a while Murdock was ready to give up on trying to sleep, and he realized he wasn't the only one having a problem tonight. The walls in the house weren't particularly thin but he could hear Jean pacing around in her room next door; Murdock made sure that Face didn't wake up as he shifted his weight off the mattress, and decided to see what her major malfunction was tonight.
Always the gentleman, or a facsimile thereof, Murdock stopped at the door and listened in, to make sure he wasn't walking in at a bad time. He couldn't hear anything other than Jean walking around the room, it sounded like she was following the edge of the floor straight around the length of the four walls. He stepped back from the door and lightly rapped on it a couple of times and called out quietly, "Saint, you okay?"
He heard Jean walk over to the door and it opened up and he saw she hadn't even been to bed yet.
"Sorry, Murdock, did I wake you?" she asked.
"No," he answered, "I can't sleep either, but why can't you?"
Jean sighed and opened the door wider and said, "Suppose you might as well come in."
He did, and she closed the door behind him. Murdock realized that there weren't any lights on in the room, though he was able to see well enough in the dark to make out where the main furniture was and he followed Jean over to the bed and they both sat down on the edge.
She looked at him and asked, "Murdock, do you ever wonder about your sanity? Do you ever worry about actually going crazy?"
"I am crazy, Saint," he answered, "Everybody knows that."
She shook her head, "You know what I mean, Murdock."
He had a good idea of it anyway, he asked her, "What's wrong?"
Even in the dark she wouldn't look at him and she said, "I suppose Face told you what happened in the restaurant today after you'd come out and I went back in."
"He told me I missed one hell of a food fight," Murdock told her, "Why?"
She looked up again and saw him as she told him about trying to stab the MP with the broken piece of a glass bottle. "I didn't even know this guy and I could've killed him, Murdock, I wanted to so badly and I don't even know why…if I would've killed anybody it should've been Decker, he's the cause of all this trouble."
"That won't do any good," Murdock shook his head, "If Decker dies, somebody else will just be sent in to replace him, and the next one would be even worse."
"I know," she responded, "But I still wanted to, it was like…" her hand clenched up into a fist like she was trying to draw blood from her own palm, "It was like Brutus, Murdock…after what happened last year I thought he was gone for good, but now I'm starting to wonder if it's possible that he could come back."
"Brutus is dead," Murdock told her, "Once he left you he had no life source anymore, and he disintegrated into the nothingness he deserves to be."
"I know that, Murdock," she said in a ragged whisper, "But I'm still worried that he may not actually be gone for good. What do you think the odds are of that, that he could come back?"
Murdock wasn't sure about the possibility of that, but he could tell that the idea had Jean worried plenty because she practically threw herself at him and threw her arms around his lower back, desperate for someone else to know what was going on as she explained, "It scares me, Murdock, I don't want to go back to that, I don't want to kill anyone again, but when I saw that guy lying on the floor and I had that piece of glass in my hand, all I could think of was how easy it would've been to just jab it into his stinking heart. I remember when I did use to think like that, and I don't like it."
"Come up here," he said softly as he tugged on her sleeve. Jean pulled herself up so she was as close to his own current height as she could be. Murdock slipped an arm around her back and held her close to him and told her sympathetically, "My dear, you are finding out what the downside is of being a soldier, you can't ever become a civilian again, not totally. You spend every day with the knowledge of a whole other way of life where right and wrong don't mean the same things that they mean here in the civilian sector. And you find yourself in positions where you revert back to your old training and your old mindset, and you do think of things like that, how easy it would be to kill someone, how to do it in such a way nobody here would ever think about it, believe me, I know."
"You too, Murdock?" she asked.
"Sometimes," he answered, "In between my intermittent memory loss and when the doctors say that I have flashbacks."
Jean allowed her head to rest on his shoulder for a minute and neither spoke for a while, until finally Jean looked up at Murdock and asked him, "Murdock, who do you think killed General Morrison?"
"Huh?" Murdock pulled back and asked her, "What brought that up?"
"Just wondering," she said, "You've had 10 years to think about it, did you ever come up with a likely suspect?"
Murdock shook his head and resumed his previous position of holding her against him with her head on his shoulder, "No, nobody knows what happened to General Morrison, he was just gone with the wind in the fire."
"Murdock," she said, quieter than their whole conversation had been, "I just thought of something, what if he's not dead?"
"What?" he pulled back again, "What're you talking about?"
"What if Morrison's not dead, Murdock?" she asked as she made eye contact with him in the dark, "What if he had it all planned? What if he deliberately sent you guys in to rob the bank, and he destroyed all evidence implicating him in it and he got away and framed you guys?"
Murdock chuckled quietly and asked her, "Where'd you get a crazy idea like that?"
"It's possible isn't it?" Jean asked, "They never found his body."
"It's also possible that death rays from Mars sucked him up but I wouldn't put my money on that one either," Murdock told her, "Not without some proof anyway."
The next day Jean heard someone knocking at the door and she ran down the stairs and looked out the window in the door and saw Decker and a couple other men standing on the front porch. Acting curious but nonchalant about it, she opened the door and said, "Yes?"
It had been a while since she'd seen Decker and been this close to him, in person the man put out a very intimidating presence wherever he went; still Jean managed to appear completely clueless as to what was going on as if he was anyone else who came to her door and interrupted what she was doing.
"My name is Colonel Roderick Decker of the United States Army, do you remember me?" he asked her.
She squinted and looked him up and down and answered, "I don't think so, should I?"
"Well that's not important," he told her, "We need to come in and check your home, we're looking for three fugitives."
"In this house, are you kidding me?" Jean asked him, "Nobody's here, I live alone, and I've been here all day so I know nobody sneaked in."
"You'll understand if I don't take your word for that," Decker said as he walked past her and headed into the front hall, with the two MPs following behind him.
Jean brought up the rear and slammed the door shut behind her and responded, "Not at all, feel free to come in and tear the place up why don't you? Fugitives in this house, of all the absurd…just what are you expecting to find, three jail breakers handcuffed together?"
"No," Decker replied firmly, "We're searching for three men who escaped from a military prison 10 years ago."
Jean did an exaggerated double take and about fell back, "10 years ago, big priority ain't it?"
"It is with these men," Decker told her as he moved left and right and checked every door he came to, and the MPs went off to the other parts of the house to do the same.
"And perhaps you'd care to explain just why in the hell they'd be in this house of all places," Jean said.
Decker closed the closet door and stared her down and answered, "They were spotted in a Hollywood restaurant yesterday and several witnesses described a red haired woman in the same vicinity when they made their escape."
"And you look up every redhead woman in the vicinity to check them out?" she asked.
"Miss Rhodes, you work in Hollywood, don't you?" he asked dismissively.
Jean stuck her fists on her sides and cocked her head from one side to the other arrogantly and said, "That's right, I'm in stunt work, tell the world why don't you? I could use the publicity, maybe I'll finally get promoted to furniture that speaks."
"Were you at the restaurant yesterday?" he asked her.
"Which restaurant? There're 300 restaurants in Hollywood," Jean told him, "And to answer, yes I was at one, until I broke a tooth on a chicken bone and had to find a dentist to do an emergency bond job, you want to see it?" she opened her mouth and poked an eyetooth.
"That won't be necessary," Decker assured her, then his gaze moved downwards and he looked at the jacket she was wearing.
Jean folded her arms against her chest and said, "If you don't pick them eyeballs up, Colonel, they're going to be hanging loose in a minute, I don't care if you are Army or not, or maybe were is the better term. 10 years ago that would've been your timeline too, wouldn't it?" She snickered and added, "Getting a little old to be chasing runaways, ain't you?"
"Were you in the army, Rhodes?" he asked her.
"No," she answered.
Decker grabbed her by the cuff of the sleeve and pushed her arm back and saw the medals on the jacket, "Where did you get those medals from then?"
"Costume junk shop in Hollywood," Jean answered as she refolded her arms, "Why? You want to get some?"
Decker moved her arm again and examined the four medals, "An Air Medal, a United Nations Korean Medal, an Army Commendation Medal, and a Purple Heart." He looked up at her face again and commented, "They look real to me."
Jean hawed and told him, "Of course they do, don't you know anything about the business of Hollywood? Everything has to look real or the public won't buy it. Do you know how many times some joker steals a studio cop car to go around playing policeman in? And how many people buy it before he gets caught?"
Decker was not amused nor did he seem to be buying it, he closed in on Jean until his face was practically smashed into hers and asked her, "Would you mind coming with us to answer some questions?"
"Oh I don't particularly mind, Mr. Decker," she replied smugly, "But it's going to cost you overtime because I'm on the clock, and I'm a union man and I work 24 hours a day."
Without realizing the obvious to state, Decker told her in an almost automatic response, "A union man only works 8 hours a day."
Jean stood up on the tips of the toes on one foot so she could look him square in the eye as she told him point blank, "I belong to 3 unions."
Decker never cracked but he glared at her as if she was inconveniencing him. Then he decided she wasn't worth the trouble and told her, "We have some pictures of these men, I want you to tell me if you've ever seen any of them."
Decker handed her three large black and white photographs, the top one was Hannibal.
"Oh yeah this guy looks familiar," Jean said.
"Good, where?" Decker asked.
"Oh from that movie with Audrey Hepburn," Jean answered, "What's that guy's name?"
"This man's name is John 'Hannibal' Smith," Decker told her.
"No no no, that's not it, I'll think of it," she said.
Decker showed her the next picture of Face and told her, "This man is Templeton Peck."
Jean snorted at the picture and remarked, "Boy now there's an ugly one, isn't he?"
And then she was shown the picture of B.A. and said, "Now there's a guy you'd remember seeing…he certainly is fat isn't he? You said these men escaped from a military prison?"
"Right out of the stockade," Decker said matter-of-factly.
Jean looked down at the picture again and said, "Well, this one's too fat to slip down a rat hole, but maybe he chewed through the wall."
"Do you mean to say you've never seen any of these men before?" he asked her.
"Look, Mr. Decker," Jean said in a dismissive tone.
"Colonel Decker," he reminded her.
"You are an uninvited guest who barged into my house, I'll call you whatever the hell I want and you're lucky I'm showing you as much respect as I am," Jean told him, "Do you have any idea how many thousands of people I see every day in this city? You expect me to remember 3 faces in an ongoing parading crowd of freaks? That is the fruitiest thing I've ever heard and believe me living in California I've heard a lot of it. Now if I were you," she took a step towards him, "I would get out of here before I call the police and have you arrested for criminal trespass and harassment." She took another step towards him and surprisingly Decker took one step back, Jean got up on her toes and was practically in his face as she summed it up, "Do-I-make-myself-clear?"
Decker saw the MPs come back empty handed and shaking their heads and he said, "We'll leave now, Miss Rhodes, but I would advise you not to leave town, I may call on you again if I see a need to."
"You do, Decker, and I'll sue you for harassment, my lawyer can beat up your lawyer any day of the week," Jean told him as she showed the men to the door and practically booted them out, "Goodbye Mr. Decker, and don't think it hasn't been fun, because it hasn't!"
She slammed the door behind them, locked it and laughed as soon as they were out to their cars; a minute after they pulled out of her driveway and left, Hannibal, Face and Murdock came down the stairs, all grinning from ear to ear. Murdock's grin though was concealed due to the fact that he had his face hidden behind the movie camera he had resumed filming with.
"That was terrific, just brilliant!" he told Jean, "The camera loved it, no retakes!"
"I told you it would work," Hannibal said to her, "You were great, kid."
"Thanks, Hannibal," she replied, "I hope it was convincing enough."
"Ugly!" was the first and only word out of Face's mouth, he looked at Jean with wide unbelieving eyes and said, "You called me ugly!"
"It worked, didn't it?" Jean asked him, "If Decker knows you guys as well as he thinks he does, then he knows you're a man of vanity and anybody who knows that would've expected you to bust out then and there screaming about it, so that further proved that you weren't here, besides, it was Hannibal's idea."
Face looked at Hannibal with a shocked expression like a fish that had just been yanked out of his tank.
"Murdock, go get B.A. and tell him the coast is clear," Hannibal said.
"How did you know they wouldn't find you?" Jean asked, "That was a damn stupid risk to take, Hannibal."
"Hannibal knows what he's doing," Face assured her, "He could fit under his cot and convince the guard that he'd escaped from his cell, what he did this time was not beyond his area of expertise."
"I still think you guys would be better off getting out of here for a while," Jean said, "Decker seems pretty persistent."
"I told you before," Hannibal said, "He knows he's never going to catch us, but he lives for the chase so he must have that much. Besides, as you pointed out, you're virtually in the middle of nowhere, and since Decker was already here, and had a disappointing turnout at that, it's unlikely he'll come back here, so if we just stay low in your place for a few days, we should do just fine."
Jean couldn't help smiling at him and she said, "I'm always glad to have the company," and she did something that shocked Hannibal, she hugged him.
Wide-eyed, Hannibal hung onto his cigar with one hand and patted Jean on the back with the other and replied, a bit startled by her action, "Don't mention it, kid."
That night after dinner, Jean found B.A. in the living room and asked him if he could switch with Face and Murdock and sleep in their room and they would take his downstairs.
"How come?" he wanted to know.
"Because now that Murdock has Billy back, he insists on letting him sleep in the bed with him, and I don't want that dog up on the second floor coming into my room in the middle of the night," she explained.
B.A. was starting to get the idea that he was the meat stuck in the middle of a crazy sandwich, but he was a guest and he wasn't going to argue with Jean, so he told her that he would switch with Faceman and the crazy fool.
"Oh thanks, B.A., you don't know how much I appreciate this," she told him.
He didn't say anything but later in the night he took his stuff and went upstairs while Murdock and Face brought their stuff downstairs and dumped it in that guestroom instead.
"Hey Saint," Murdock called out from the bedroom, "Does the noise down here travel much upstairs?"
"That depends," she answered, "But unless you plan to bay at the moon, I don't think Hannibal and B.A. will be losing any sleep over what goes on down here tonight."
"Perfect," Murdock came out of the guestroom wearing a black and white striped referee's shirt and was holding a spoon in his hand.
"Murdock," Jean laughed, "What are you doing now?"
Murdock raised the spoon to his lips and broadcasted into it like it was a microphone, "This is Howling Mad Murdock coming to you tonight from the Spleen Auditorium where in a few minutes two of the prized middleweight fighters of the country are going to go head to head and toe to toe in a knock down, drag out, battle royale."
Jean looked at him inquisitively and said, "You want me to beat up Face? Okay, I can do that."
"Ha-ha…ha," Face dryly remarked as he came out of the guest room and entered the living room, "Murdock had an idea that since Hannibal broke up our argument in the restaurant the other day, that we could settle the score here and now."
Jean smiled like she just swallowed a whole flock of canaries and asked, "Does the great Templeton Peck intend to hit a girl?"
"If there was one in the room I'd have something to say about it," he replied.
"Oooohhhh," Jean remarked sarcastically.
"Did you hear that, ladies and gentlemen?" Murdock said, "The two contestants have just made their opening exchanges before they get into the ring and pummel each other bloody."
"Jean," Face pointed at her, "I'm going to mop the floor with you."
Jean turned to Murdock and said, "He's been drinking, hasn't he?"
"A little," Murdock answered, "But I don't think it'll interfere with his fighting skills any."
"We'll see about that," Jean replied.
"Alright you two," Murdock got between them and practically shouted into his spoon, "In this corner, weighing in at 135 pounds, the Saint, and in this corner, weighing enough to go past zero on a postage scale, the great Faceman!" He put his spoon down and got right between them as he explained, "Now I want a clean fight," he alternated from looking to one and then to the other as he explained the rules, "No eye gouging, no hitting below the belt, no hitting a man when he's down, no uppercuts to the nose, no wearing white after labor day, no wearing black socks with those shorts, and stop – turn right on red, you got that?"
Face and Jean nodded and Murdock walked out from between them and let them go at each other. It was a tame fight by any standards and largely consisted of them throwing punches at each other and missing more times than not; sometime during the fight Jean grabbed Face and tried to throw him against the wall but instead they both tripped and hit the floor. Murdock went over to them and slammed the floor as he counted, "One, two, three, you're both out!"
"Oh yeah?" they asked, and they each reached up and grabbed Murdock and pulled him down with them as Face said, "Why don't you come down here and say that?"
Hannibal watched from the other room as the three of them rolled around on the floor, screaming and giggling like children and he smiled at the sight of it. He quietly stepped back and made his way to the kitchen for a glass of water as he'd originally come down for when he heard the melee in the living room. This was something that had been missing since they'd met up again. He could still see Jean a year ago, the brazened person she had become, who had lost faith in almost everything. It was a sight he never wanted to see again, he'd already seen it too many times in the army.
That was one reason why he loved Murdock, the man was unflappable, no matter what happened he was always overly optimistic about everything; he loved everything and just about everybody, and his high spirits were unbelievably contagious. Face thought Murdock was often the only one of them tuned in to reality, Hannibal believed Murdock was the only thing keeping the rest of them sane. That was why it about killed him when the pilot had to go back to the V.A., life resumed something resembling 'normalcy' for that time but it was never the same, with Murdock out of the picture there was always something key missing from their everyday life.
He and Face had discussed before if Murdock would ever really get discharged, what then? Of course it wouldn't be any problem for him to stay with Face, he was always able to scam a place big enough for company; but Hannibal had also considered this, his place was nothing much and it wasn't terribly comfortable for the four of them to spend the night on a moment's notice, but there was room enough for Murdock to move in, if he wanted to. That was the next thing; B.A. always looked at it as they had to put up with Murdock, but maybe the truth of the matter was that Murdock was stuck putting up with the rest of them. Would he still if he wasn't in the V.A.? If he was declared sane tomorrow and discharged, would he even want to be around the rest of them? Hannibal hoped that Murdock would, but he wouldn't bet his life on it. They were a great team, they were a family, but that didn't mean Murdock would want to spend all his free time with them if he'd actually had a choice in the matter.
He still woke up in the night flashing back to last year when Murdock and Jean had been trapped in the diner when it was firebombed. When he thought Murdock had died, Hannibal had felt himself age 50 years in two minutes; he never wanted to be put through that again, for anyone on the team, he might not admit his true age but he was getting too old to take many more scares like that. And he knew Face and B.A. hadn't fared much better at that time; maybe it was just his age, maybe it was because he was their commanding officer, whatever it was, he knew there was no shaking the feeling that he was the father looking out for his three boys, that was something that had never gone away since they'd first joined together in 'Nam.
All three of them had their obvious contributions to the team; B.A. was the muscle and the mechanical genius, Face was the conman, he could get them anything they needed at a moment's notice, and Murdock was the pilot, he could fly them anywhere in anything. But each had their other strong points that were only seen below the surface; B.A. was the heart and the protector, he might not always get along with the others but he would never let anyone hurt them, that's why whenever a fight broke out, Face always called for him to help, because B.A. could take on anyone they went up against and he would mess up anyone who tried to mess with his little brother. Face liked to act like he was above certain jobs, the grunt work and the dirty jobs that went with every mission, but Hannibal knew that when it counted, Face would do anything they needed, any way that he could help them, and would do it with his full effort and not a word of complaint.
And Murdock, his position was easy to sum up but difficult to explain; with his excessive optimism and his undying spirit, he was what kept the other three going. He kept Face grounded and hanging on to his own sanity, something that was never discussed among the team but the importance of it was very obvious to Hannibal. And Murdock's undying worship of B.A. reminded the sergeant of his own humility and how he was an inspiration to others through his constant attempts to live right and to do right by others and by himself. And finally, Murdock, through his neverending cheerfulness and crackpot antics kept Hannibal young; something that he needed when he was still leading his men on missions that otherwise would be led by men much younger than himself, and for all of these reasons he was grateful beyond words to all of their involvement in the team, but especially to Murdock.
Hannibal couldn't explain what it was, and he wasn't sure he fully understood it himself, but there was something about Murdock. He was a very easy person to get along with and given enough time there was hardly anyone who didn't come to like him. It was like he had a universal language all his own that he could connect with almost anyone with; apparently he too had the calming effect to soothe the savage beast, he had proven that back in Fort Gulch with the little girl. Murdock was good with normal people and he was exceptional with people who had suffered mental or nervous breakdowns as well; maybe that was because he knew it so well himself. Hannibal never knew the extent of just what horrors Murdock himself had been exposed to in Vietnam, clearly he saw his fair share just like everyone else, but what was it that finally made him lose it? Whatever it was, Hannibal thought it might've been a blessing in disguise; Murdock had walked the road himself, and he could help others through it as well.
He had proven that last year with Jean; they knew now that she had only been as spiteful to them as she was because she was desperate to get them off her case because they might be killed, something they never saw from a client, or a hostage, he had to admire that. All the same, she was a cold, hard person when they met her, who had just about given up on everything and would rip someone's throat out if she had the chance. Her own traumas had driven her to the tip of her sanity and Murdock was the only thing that kept her from teetering off the edge; if she hated the others or if it was just an act, Hannibal didn't know, then and now she seemed to be two entirely separate people, but no matter what her feelings towards the rest of them had been, she liked Murdock almost from the beginning. Of course he had that effect on a lot of people but there were some who he first put through a bout of nervousness due to the things he thought, and said, and saw.
That was the difference though, Face was right; Jean could see Murdock's dog Billy when nobody else could, that had to prove something. Maybe he was right, maybe whatever Murdock had gone through in 'Nam and what she had gone through at the training base had taken them both to the same level of traumatic overload and they both walked away with a similar end result. The difference was Murdock was not a violent person by nature, he only fought when he had to, and Jean's reaction to her ordeal had been to become unbelievably violent towards the people she found responsible. Still, it was almost eerie how well they both connected on the mental level, it was something that Murdock did not have in common with most people they encountered. Still, the fact that he could put up with people like that so well, and actually help them, that spoke volumes about how underestimated he was by most who knew him. He still saw Murdock restraining Murtaugh's daughter during her breakdown and comforting her afterwards because he was the only person in the house who she felt safe with; and he was convinced that Murdock would be great with kids and would be a great father someday, and he wanted Murdock to have that chance. He wanted all of them to have that chance, through them was the only way he was ever going to be a grandfather and he knew it.
He got his glass of water and quietly made his way back through the dining room and chanced to look in at what was occurring now; and he saw that the fight had resumed but now Face and Jean were whopping each other with throw pillows from the couch gripped in their hands. Murdock was narrating the fight as well as refereeing to what was allowed and what wasn't, when finally they both turned to him and started hitting him with the pillows instead. Murdock covered his head and screamed mutiny as they walloped him with the pillows.
"Play nice you three," Hannibal playfully warned them as he headed for the stairs to go back to bed.
Hannibal was the first one up the next morning and decided to cook breakfast for the others. He just poured the scrambled eggs into the hot skillet when Jean came into the kitchen, apparently having just woken up from where she'd spent the night on the couch.
"Why didn't you tell me you were up? I could've started breakfast," she said as she rubbed her eyes and headed over to the table.
"That's alright, I know how to cook," he told her.
"I know you do, that's why I offered," she replied as she sat down.
"Ha ha," Hannibal remarked, "Hey kid, I've got a question for you, you know there's always the chance that someday, Murdock is going to be discharged from the V.A., and when that happens he's going to need a place to stay."
"Yeah."
"Well if that happens, do you think you could put him up here for a while until we found something more permanent?" he asked her.
Jean's eyes widened and she seemed shocked for a second before she answered, "Yeah, sure he could stay here, all of you guys can stay here as long as you need to, you know that, Hannibal."
"I know, but Murdock's situation would be the most pressing because outside of the V.A. he doesn't have a permanent place to stay, and I'm not sure that when he had a choice he would necessarily want to stay with us. And, he would be pretty safe here, Decker's already been here, I doubt he's going to want to come back anytime soon, he probably thinks there's rabies in the drinking water here."
"Sure, if he wanted to stay that's fine with me," Jean said, "But what about that woman reporter who you work with, Amy Allen? Wouldn't he be better suited to stay with her? I mean she's in Jakarta now so at least when she's gone she'd have someone to water her plants, talk to them, play cards with them, I don't know what it is that Murdock does with plants but I'm sure he does something."
Hannibal grinned at that thought and replied, "I don't think that would necessarily be a good idea, you see Decker knows about Amy and knows that she's assisted us on missions before."
"But she wasn't arrested for obstructing or aiding and abetting," Jean noted.
"No, because Decker can't prove the reason why she always pops up in the same places as us," Hannibal said, "He knows, but he can't take it before a judge or he would, believe me."
"He might also know that I'm involved, he just can't prove that either," Jean reminded Hannibal.
"I don't think so," he replied, "I think your performance yesterday shook him up enough that he won't be able to put two and two together on that one. By the way, I hope you're not too sore about us letting him find you here, but I figured that way he'll be able to cross you off his suspect list."
"I'm not worried about myself," she said, "If he would've found you here the other day…"
"But he didn't," Hannibal said with a self assured grin on his face, "You see it was just too perfect, we were right in front of his nose and he didn't find a thing, sort of a Purloined Letter situation, played out perfectly."
A few days later, Hannibal found out that someone else was looking to hire the A-Team, he went back to the house to get the others but found out Murdock wasn't there. Face said he and B.A. had come back to the house and found a note from Jean that Murdock had broken a tooth and they got him an emergency spot at the dentist's office.
"It doesn't say when they left, there's no telling how long they'll be," Hannibal said, "We'll have to go on without him."
"That's fine with me," B.A. told Hannibal, "If Murdock ain't coming, then I know we ain't flying."
"B.A. who said anything about flying?" Face asked cynically.
"You ain't fooling me," B.A. told him, "Only reason we do bring that crazy fool along is so he can fly us somewhere."
"Now B.A. you know that's not true," Hannibal said, "And it's a good thing Murdock's not here to hear that, you'd hurt his feelings."
B.A. scoffed and said, "Man's too crazy to even know what it means, Hannibal."
Face would've thought B.A. would be in a good mood without Murdock around, but by the time they actually met their client, which was eight hours later in an abandoned warehouse, as soon as he heard their new job was going to take them back to Mexico, B.A. started going off again about he wasn't flying anywhere.
"Now calm down, B.A.," Hannibal told him, "Nobody said anything about flying anywhere, there is a road leading into Mexico, we just have to make sure we don't get stopped at the border, at least not without the right equipment."
"Hannibal," Face leaned over to the colonel and whispered an idea into his ear.
"Face, I think I'm starting to rub off on you," Hannibal said with a knowing smirk.
B.A. glared over at them and asked, "What is it?"
"Face suggested he could get us a bus," Hannibal said, "And we touch up the bus so it looks like a Greyhound, they run to and from Mexico all the time with few questions asked, and anything we need we just store in the cargo hold underneath." He slapped Face on the back congratulatory and saw the pleased grin on the lieutenant's face.
"Fine," B.A. said, "So long as we ain't flying."
They left the warehouse and walked out into the middle of a downpour and all three of them quickly became drenched to the bone.
"Well I don't know what Murdock's doing, but I'm sure he's glad he missed out on becoming a drowned rat," Face said as they ran to the van.
Hannibal consulted his watch and he told B.A., "We'll stop at a motel for the night and head back in the morning, we'll only wake the whole house up when we get back at this rate, and besides that I don't like the look of this storm."
B.A. nodded and pulled off at the first neon sign they found and got two rooms for the night. Even though Hannibal hadn't wanted to wake Murdock and Jean up, once in the night Face tried calling Jean's house but nobody answered. He didn't give it too much thought because in a few hours they'd be back at the house anyway. The next morning at a little after 8, they got loaded into the van and 20 minutes later were back at Jean's house, but Face noticed as they pulled in that the blue car was gone.
"I wonder where they went?" he said.
"I don't know, let's check the house and make sure nothing went on here while we were gone," Hannibal told them.
They found the front door unlocked but upon entering they searched the house from top to bottom and didn't find anything out of place, and didn't find anything that didn't belong either.
"Find anything, Face?" Hannibal asked as he walked down the hall and opened the doors and turned on the lights.
"Either Jean got up early this morning, or she never went to bed last night," Face said, "Her bed's made."
"Well it doesn't mean she didn't sleep on the couch," Hannibal told him, "How about you, B.A.?"
"Na man, there ain't nothing here that says anything happened," he answered as he came up the stairs.
A thought occurred to Face and he told Hannibal, "Maybe she took Murdock to the studio with her."
"That's a thought, we'll go down there and check," Hannibal agreed.
They went downstairs and had just gotten outside when they saw Jean's blue convertible coming up the street and pull up into the driveway. Hannibal let out a sigh of relief he didn't know he'd been holding in.
"Hey Colonel, Faceman, you guys just getting in?" Murdock asked.
"Yeah, and you?" Face asked.
They got out of the car and Jean had a flat box in one hand, "We went out and got some doughnuts for breakfast, thought it'd be a nice change from Hannibal's cooking."
"How's your tooth?" Hannibal asked Murdock.
"Huh?"
"Your tooth," Hannibal said, "We found the note about the dentist, how's your tooth, Murdock?"
"His are fine," Jean told him, "I was the one that had to have all my wisdom teeth cut, yanked and drilled out."
Hannibal, Face and B.A. all absentmindedly raised their hands and wrapped them around their mouths in response to that mental image.
"Are you alright?" Face asked.
"Yeah sure," Jean said, "four hours in surgery, $500 for extractions, x-rays and nitrous oxide."
"Isn't that a bit much?" Face asked.
"You know how much laughing gas you go through in four hours?" Jean asked, "I was begging that doctor to knock me out but he wouldn't. I'm just glad Murdock was there the whole time otherwise I would've gone through the roof."
Murdock put a hand on her back supportively and replied, "She's exaggerating, she was the picture of sedation, you know, once she stopped biting the doctor."
"Well I'm sorry to rain on anybody's parade, but I'm afraid we're going to have to cut this visit short," Hannibal told Jean, "We've got another client, and we've been hired to go to Mexico and recover somebody's stolen briefcase before the thieves can crack the combination lock on it."
"How come?" Jean asked.
"Because that briefcase contains $50,000 to pay off the ransom for the guy to get his daughter back," Hannibal explained.
"When're we leaving, Colonel?" Murdock asked.
"Oh we have a little time, Murdock," Hannibal assured him, "We're going to take a bus down there."
"A bus?" Jean and Murdock asked simultaneously.
"That's right," B.A. went over to Murdock and got into his face, "We' taking a bus that's gonna stay on the ground, we ain't flying, you got that, fool?"
Murdock backed away nervously and twiddled his thumbs for a minute and asked Hannibal, "If I bring Billy, can he ride with me instead of going in the cargo bin?"
B.A. grabbed Murdock by the jacket and warned him, "You start talking to your invisible friends, I'ma stuff you in the cargo bin, Murdock."
"Got it," Murdock replied quietly.
Author's note: If anybody still likes this story, I would appreciate hearing it.