Every Thought Captive
Disclaimer: I do not own The A Team movie or television series or any of the delightful characters found on The A Team.
Chapter 21 In Hiding
Face was first to see the distracted doctor limping toward them.
"Hannibal," he hissed.
"Already saw him, Lieutenant." The older man moved quickly toward the approaching scientist before he noticed them.
Stafford looked up, saw the two men and spun around to go back toward the laboratories. His unsteady gait was no match for a furious Colonel intent on rescuing his pilot and friend.
Reaching out, Hannibal took Stafford's elbow in a viselike grip and jerked him backward.
With Face training his M-16 on the doctor, Hannibal growled a single question. "Where's Captain Murdock?"
Stafford glared silently at his two captors.
"I'll take you at gunpoint out into the salt flats and let my Sergeant take out his and our frustrations on your miserable carcass if you don't tell us what we want to know. And with no tricks this time." Hannibal's eyes turned a gun metal gray as he issued the threat.
Face gave the doctor an equally cold appraisal. "Aw, why let B. A. have all the fun, Colonel? And why wait to do it? Any one of these rooms will do as an interrogation room." He shoved his nose closer to the scientist, his voice a vicious snarl. "We know the best techniques the VC and the NVA used in Nam. Trust me. We will get our friend's location out of you."
Stafford tore his arm out of Hannibal's grip and thrust his hands in his pants pockets. "He escaped."
"So he left the installation?" The Colonel put a hand out to halt Face. The Lieutenant looked ready to rush headlong down the corridor toward the rooms where he last heard Murdock's voice.
"No. He escaped deeper into this facility." Stafford removed his glasses. "Look. The ketamine I gave him pushed him into a psychotic state. He tackled a guard and took his rifle."
"Ketamine? What's that for?" Face probed the doctor's ribs with his weapon.
"Lieutenant." Hannibal shot him a warning glance and turned his attention back to the scientist. "Why would you need to give Murdock anesthesia? What kind of surgery did you do?"
"Part of his preparation to fulfill the mission for the government." Stafford's eyes shifted toward the front entrance to the installation. "Your Captain Murdock is already too far into the project for you to get him out now. If you know what's good for you, you'll get away while you can and forget about your friend. After he has completed his mission for his government, you'll see him again but not before." He was lying but he knew the two men confronting him did not know that. They didn't have the psychic abilities Jackson trained himself to use.
"You know we can't do that, doctor." The Colonel grasped the scientist by the back of his collar and forced him to face the direction where the laboratories were located. "Shall we take you to Jackson at gunpoint and see how valuable you are to his team or will you cooperate with us and help us extract our friend?"
Stafford swallowed and shifted his eyes down to his feet. Jackson knew everything necessary to conduct the remaining remote viewing sessions. The Colonel had been one of those trained in it himself back in the 70s.
He didn't really need the doctor that much now that most of the secrets of the neuroelectromagnetic device implanted in Murdock's skull had been spilled. Stafford also had no doubt the military man would program the implant with a set of instructions designed to set Murdock on a course of actions which would fulfill the mission and Jackson's own agenda.
Jackson did need him to be the scientific name on the project, to lend authenticity to the work. In that respect he was useful. But not essential.
"There's no escape for Captain Murdock. Jackson already has too much of a hold on him. He has men covering the only doors he could use to get through to the outside. For all I know, they already have him back in custody. If they do, there's little I can do."
"Where would they take him if they did recapture him?" Hannibal began to push the doctor ahead of him down the hall.
"Laboratory Two. That's where the sessions take place."
"Then that's where we'll be waiting." The two A-team members exchanged determined glances as they escorted the doctor to the lab.
oooooo
The weapon in his hands wasn't a .22 or a 12 gauge shotgun. He'd used both to shoot squirrels and quail back home in Hardin County, Texas. He frowned down at the rifle. A vision of a shooting range and other soldiers flashed briefly in his mind.
It ain' Pa 'n' his drinkin' buddies chasin' me. It's . . . who?
Whoever was pursuing him must be military. He knew he couldn't stop to puzzle it out. Another bright photograph-like image emerged to replace the rifle range. He shuddered involuntarily.
Jackson.
Murdock heard at least two sets of footsteps pursuing him and urged his legs to move faster. Clutching the M-16 tightly to his chest and making sure it was set to fully automatic, he debated whether to spin around in a quarter circle and spray the hallway ceiling behind him with bullets.
Won' buy me any time 'n' might get me killed on top o' it if they fire back. But Jackson wants me 'live. Would he shoot or wouldn' he?
Whatever the doctor gave him was still working its way through his system. He had to concentrate harder on making his feet continue to move him forward. There was a huge disconnected feeling between his brain and his limbs. He couldn't trust his own mind to tell him the truth.
His muscles twitched uncontrollably as if someone was periodically shooting an electric current through his body. His heart beat an irregular rapid tempo inside his chest. He remembered those two feelings.
Messin' 'round with the dark side o' the Company's business does that t' ya. Too much programmin'.
He wildly peered at each doorway he passed. Any one of the doors could open and he would be recaptured.
There're monsters b'hind those doors.
The panicked thought that rose in his mind wasn't reasonable. He knew that.
"There ain' no monsters. There ain' no monsters."
He repeated the sentence over and over under his breath until he had himself almost convinced. A series of images flashed into his mind, each one affirming to him that there were indeed monsters in the world and they had human faces and names.
Pa . . . Hollis Latreque . . . Connors . . . Major Trinh . . . Ferret and the other guards . . .
He swallowed back the frightened howl that burned his throat at the thought of the men from his past who had either abused him, wanted him dead or both. Men who delighted in the amount of pain they could afflict, the number of whimpers and screams they could induce.
He skidded to a halt in an intersection of corridors leading to his right and to his left. Ahead of him were two double doors with emergency exit labeling. He took one step toward them and stopped.
His intuition prickled at the thought of bursting through the doors. Over the years he had learned to obey his gut instincts. They were seldom wrong.
They're waitin' fer me out there. Armed men. I'm cornered 'tween the guys b'hind me and the ones out there.
Taking a deep breath he bolted down the corridor to his left. If he could only have some time to focus, he could "see" where he had to go to evade his captors and get away. Maybe he could even "see" where the guys were so they could all escape together.
A voice that sounded suspiciously like that of Jackson's overrode every other thought and voice in his head.
You have just made your next remote viewing session one you will dislike immensely.
Murdock shivered in response to the threat. Jackson would put him in the ropes again in the interrogation hut of Major Trinh's POW camp. He would make him relive the agony of shoulder joints dislocating, his skin being shredded by a broken rubber fan belt, all of the torture of the camp.
Or maybe he would make him relive one of Pa's beatings. Would he be made to feel his arm being broken all over again, his face being punched so many times it was nothing but a bleeding painful mass of cuts and bruises? Or worse?
You know you can't hide from me. Make it easier on yourself and surrender now.
"Go t' hell," Murdock murmured under his breath. His eyes fell upon the row of doors lining the hallway.
Which door? Which one's gonna open t' the perfect hidin' place? Is it Door Number One? Door Number Two? Or Door Number Three?
He shook his head to rid himself of the image of Monty Hall, the "Let's Make a Deal" host, maybe standing behind one of the doors with a prize just for him.
Can I even 'scape? Jackson knows what I'm thinkin' 'n' he's gotta be tryin' t' figure out where I disappeared to.
Murdock drew in a shaky breath and chose the third door he came to on his left. Trying the knob, he breathed out a relieved sob as it opened to him.
He hugged the M-16 to himself and huddled inside the doorway of the tiny room, waiting for his eyes to adjust.
The Invisible Woman's cloak'd come in real handy 'bout now.
An angry voice shouted out an order just outside the room in which he was hiding.
"He can't have gone very far. Find him."
Footsteps went past in the hallway and faded as they kept going.
Only then did he allow himself to relax somewhat. He never appreciated the dark as much as he did now.
The room he found himself in reeked of ammonia and other cleaning chemicals. He could faintly make out a large sink opposite the door. A janitor's cleaning cart sat close by it. Pushbrooms and dust mops were propped against the wall.
Trembling, he staggered to the sink and crouched beneath it. He wrapped his left arm around the drain pipe, laying the weapon across his lap and curling his finger around the trigger.
All I need's a li'l time t' focus, try t' find the guys. Try t' find Amy.
He attempted to slow his breathing, to allow his brain waves to descend into the theta wave pattern.
I'm sunk if Jackson detects what I'm doin'.
In his mind he "saw" an image of Hannibal and Face leaving a room. Both carried an M-16. They were coming down the corridor toward the remote viewing laboratory.
Thank God, they got 'way. But they gotta leave me. They ain' ever gonna get pas' the hornet's nest I stirred up.
He "saw" a white-coated scientist, the one who had given him the drugs, the one he called Limpy, recognize them and turn to walk in the other direction.
Jackson's taunting voice intruded. Come out, come out, wherever you are. We have many more things to do to prepare you, Captain. Where are you?
Uneasy he had not "seen" Amy with his friends, Murdock squeezed his eyes shut to force his mind to become a blank screen.
Maybe Jackson won' figure out where I am if I don' think anythin'.
He could not resist a last remote view of Hannibal and Face, the Colonel gripping the doctor by his elbow and demanding answers.
The door opened. After the comforting darkness of the janitor's utility room, the fluorescent lighting streaming in blinded him. Moments later the light was blocked by the shadow of a figure in the doorway.
Murdock propped the stock of the M-16 against his right shoulder and aimed.