CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
March 20, 1968
Hannibal awoke with a gasp, eyes flying open and fists clenched hard around the blankets beneath him. The visions flashed behind his eyes. He could feel eyes on him, an unnerving tickling of his sixth sense, and he drew in a long, painful breath before taking a proper look around the room. In the corner, seated quite comfortably in what looked like a very uncomfortable chair, a young soldier sat watching him. Dressed in clean but well-worn fatigues and sporting the classic green beret, the man looked passively amused as he sat with one ankle up on his opposite knee, watching.
It took several tries before Hannibal's dry lips were able to move in time with the words he wanted to speak. "Who the hell are you?" he croaked, eyes sliding closed involuntarily in the drugged haze of morphine and lifesaving endorphins.
The young man was in no hurry to respond. He stood, and the sound of his footsteps on the hard floor seemed to echo in the tiny room. A lighter clinked, and Hannibal opened his eyes again as he was greeted by the smell of smoke. The young soldier held out a cigarette - a much-appreciated offering. But it was more difficult than he'd been expecting to lift a hand and receive the gift. After several attempts, the man finally realized the dilemma and set the cigarette between his lips.
"Sergeant Jack Harring," he finally answered, lighting a cigarette of his own. "Call me Cipher."
Hannibal took a few weak drags and felt the blessed nicotine fill his lungs. "Do I know you?" he asked when there was no further explanation.
"No," the man answered simply. "But I know you. Or, at least, I know about you."
Memories came back quite suddenly - who he was, how he'd ended up here… and just how alone he was. Suddenly, all those rumors of his reputation meant everything and nothing at once. All of those predictions of his ultimate failure, how he was bound to get every one of his men killed, had culminated in one big "I told you so" to end his career. What was worse, he didn't even care. He wasn't even sure he wanted to live, much less did he have anything to prove with all the people who were undoubtedly shaking their heads in silent disapproval.
Walking back to his chair, Cipher resumed the same oh-so-casual, reclined position, gaze firmly fixed on Hannibal. For a moment, they stared at each other. Then, too tired to keep up with the charade, Hannibal closed his eyes again and turned his head to let the cigarette ashes fall to the pillow rather than his face.
"You really wanna die?" the young soldier asked suddenly.
Hannibal blinked in frank shock at the blunt force of the question. He didn't even know how to respond.
"You been saying it for days, in and out of consciousness. But I gotta say, if you do -" he paused for a drag on his cigarette "- it seems strange you're trying so hard to survive. You never should've made it off the operating table, much less this far. And yet, here you are."
A flicker of anger sparked somewhere deep inside of Hannibal. The young soldier's tone was so casual it was almost mocking. How could he dare to speak like that to a man whose entire life - let alone his career - had just catapulted into hell? Too exhausted to give voice to those thoughts, Hannibal instead demanded with as much authority as he could manage in his weakened state, "Do you have a reason for being here, sergeant?"
"Sheer stubborn pride," Cipher answered honestly, with a hint of a smile. Hannibal waited expectantly for more, but the young soldier made him wait longer than what might be consider courteous before continuing. "See, you're the only one who lived through that extraction and if you die, I don't count that as a win. So I'm here to make sure you live."
"A win?" Hannibal repeated in disbelief.
"I pulled you out of that jungle when you wanted to stay there and turn into fertilizer," Cipher said tactlessly. "But if you die anyway, what good are my rescue skills?"
Hannibal frowned deeply, and spat the remaining butt of the cigarette onto the floor. "I didn't want your rescue," he growled. "And I don't need you to babysit me, either."
"Yeah, I know," Cipher answered lightly. "But here we are. And now that you're fully conscious, I'd say chances are pretty good you're gonna pull through."
Patience already worn thin, Hannibal growled under his breath. "Get out."
Cipher remained still for a long moment, then finally rose with a halfhearted, "Yeah, okay."
He only took a single step towards the door before turning back to Hannibal. When he spoke again, his voice held none of that casual, devil-may-care lightness. "Look, I don't know what happened out there, but I can guess." The somber tone made Hannibal wonder, just for a moment, if he knew more than he was letting on. What had he seen of this failure that had cost the lives of everyone Hannibal cared about? How much did he manage to figure out? It would, perhaps, be a good gauge of how much the rest of the world would learn.
"We both know people are gonna talk," Cipher continued. "You're gonna have to learn how to tell them to go fuck off."
Hannibal's eyes narrowed. "What is this, a counseling session?" he demanded, bitterly. "Next you're going to tell me you're a qualified psychiatrist."
Cipher gave a half-smile. "Just a medic," he answered. "But I've seen plenty of guys where you're at - ones that made it and ones that didn't. If you decide you don't want to live through this, I get that. Just make sure it's for the right reason."
"Your 'win' -" he spat the word with disgust "- is the least of my concerns, sergeant."
With the shrug he gave, that carefree attitude Hannibal had initially seen poked its head back through his serious tone. But he didn't merely shrug off the rest of what he wanted to say. He kept going, in that same authoritative tone far above his rank.
"You're a soldier, or you're not," he stated, looking Hannibal straight in the eye. "If you're not, who cares what they say about you. But if you are, then get your ass up out of that sickbed and go kill the motherfuckers who did this to your men." He paused just long enough for a respectful nod before adding an appended, "Sir," and leaving the tent without another word.
Lying still in the pain-filled silence that followed, Hannibal suddenly felt more alone than he'd felt in his entire life.
November 13, 1982
A clock was ticking, and Hannibal could hear the breathing of several people. He felt the hard floor beneath him, blankets, pillow, and was hit with the smell of coffee almost as quickly as the nicotine craving kicked in. Finally opening his eyes, he sat up. Face and BA were both wrapped in blankets on the living room floor of Pete's too-quiet house. Suzanne was on the couch. Asleep - all of them. It had been late by the time they'd finished last night.
Hannibal looked around for the source of the ticking and found the clock on the wall. He was barely able to make it out in the dim, early-morning light. Stretching his stiff muscles, he pushed himself up, grabbing his pistol out from under his pillow and tucking it into the back of his pants. He was sure he smelled coffee. Without taking the time to really get his brain in working order, he wandered towards the kitchen – the logical place where one would find coffee. The light over the kitchen sink was on. Coffee was brewed. The back door was open.
He poured a mug and stepped out through the screen door into the cool, early morning air. His eyes immediately came to rest on the man sitting in the lawn chair with a cigarette and his own cup of coffee. Staring off into the distance, Pete was looking out from the back porch, past the trees, past the horizon to some unknown point in eternity. Behind the large back yard was a small creek and a wide open field, untouched by the developers that had built up the suburbs to the south. It was calm and peaceful, unfenced in the back and privacy-blocked from the neighbors on either side with trees and bushes rather than fences.
Eyes unfocused, Pete was holding on to a forgotten mug, and a cigarette that was mostly a trail of ash. Hannibal recognized all the signs of a man reliving the past, and he was careful to make a bit of noise as he approached, not wanting to startle him. Even though his eyes never left that far off place he was looking at, Hannibal knew that Pete was aware of his presence.
"It's going to be a beautiful sunrise." The man's voice was gravely from too little sleep and too much history. It was low and quiet, carried on the heavy air of dawn.
Hannibal sighed as he sat down in the lawn chair beside him, not speaking. Like so many times before - every time he was forced to confront long-buried memories of war, in fact - the silence often spoke louder than the words.
"It's funny the things you remember," Pete said quietly. "Like… I remember that the sun never really rose or set there. It just appeared. And the only way we knew it was there was because things were lighter. You couldn't see it through the trees. And when the rains came you never saw it at all."
"Could see it in the camps," Hannibal said quietly. "The bases. CCN at Da Nang, watch it come out of the ocean."
"Da Nang," Pete repeated. "Where those goddamn sappers came in out of the ocean and massacred all the guys in their sleep."
Reaching into his pocket for a cigar, Hannibal avoided eye contact. "You weren't even there for that."
"No." Pete glanced up, and Hannibal could feel his stare as the end of the cigar caught light from the Zippo. "But you were."
Cigar lit, Hannibal replaced the lighter and nodded slightly, but didn't glance back at the man. "Right smack in the middle of it," he said, staring out at the empty field with the trees sprouting up here and there.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pete shake his head slowly and raise his cigarette. He took a deep, slow drag. "Sometimes I really wonder how in the hell it is that you're still alive, Hannibal."
Hannibal smiled, but the cocky, self-satisfaction that would have normally gone along with the smile was absent. "Me too," he admitted quietly.
There were several long moments of comfortable silence as he took a few sips of coffee, waiting for his brain to engage. He wasn't surprised to see Pete awake; he'd never had trouble with mornings. But there was no feeling that they needed to fill the silence.
"So which one of those two was my replacement?" Pete finally asked.
Hannibal gave a brief snort of laughter. "What makes you think you could ever be replaced?"
Pete rolled his eyes. "Fuck, I don't need your flattery," he said with a knowing smile.
Taking a sip from his mug, Hannibal let the silence linger a moment longer before replying. "They all died, Breaker," he finally admitted, barely louder than a whisper. "The whole team. I was the only one who survived."
Pete said nothing, letting the silence serve as a memorial. But the way he lit another cigarette with the end of the first made it clear that it was no easier for him to hear than for Hannibal to say.
"Sorry," he finally managed, pausing to draw deeply from the smoke. "I didn't know."
"Never looked them up?" Hannibal asked, genuinely surprised.
Pete shrugged. The silence lingered. Finally, he took another drag and answered softly. "Guess it was just easier to pretend it was… another life or something. I don't know."
"I understand," Hannibal lied.
Sitting up straighter to try and mask his uncomfortable squirm, Pete changed the subject abruptly. "So these two," he said gruffly. "SOG?"
It was almost a rhetorical question, an invitation to talk about less painful topics.
"Face and BA came from a second team," Hannibal explained. "We were together about four years before we got burned on a mission up in Hanoi."
"Yeah, I heard about that," Pete admitted. Tapping the ashes from his smoke, he took another long drag. Hannibal put his head back, breathing in the damp morning air. Conversation felt more awkward than the silence. For the moment, he was content to just sit still and feel the cool breeze. It was going to be hot today, he could already tell.
It was several minutes before Pete moved. Shifting forward slightly, he stretched out just far enough to stub out his cigarette in the ash tray on the patio table. With a soft sigh he leaned back into his chair and put his legs out in front of him, making himself comfortable before looking for the first time that morning at Hannibal.
"I hear you went into freelance work," he said lightly.
Hannibal nodded. "You might say that."
There was no demand, no question, in Pete's words; just an interest. It was his way to try and bridge that empty void between Breaker, the rock solid soldier, and Pete, the quiet family man.
Hannibal took a puff his cigar, letting the smoke roll around his mouth. "It's not what I'd call lucrative, nine times out of ten." He shot Pete a grin. "But it sure is fun."
Pete chuckled. "Knowing your idea of fun, I never thought I'd hear you found it back in the civilized world." There was a raised eyebrow and a questioning look as he took a sip of his coffee. "Word is, you're the ones to go to when no one else can help."
That pretty much described the missions they had in the Army, too, except this was different. They didn't have to follow anyone else's orders or rules. More importantly they didn't have to risk their lives for pointless political jockeying.
"They say you're... helping" Pete had searched for that last word. The wrinkle in his forehead was back as he watched Hannibal, trying to find a place for the pieces of his past which were now tied into his present and future
Hannibal cast a brief, knowing smile in Pete's direction. "I'm not made for a quiet life and a picket fence, Pete. The army doesn't want us and we're just too damn good to hire out as mercenaries." He smirked at that. "So what else is there?"
Pete smiled back. Clearly he agreed with Hannibal's well-earned cocky take on how good the team was. It was something he would understand; Pete knew how well his own team had functioned. It was almost like a heart. All the separate parts and chambers, each doing their own thing, but still functioning and working in unison, making one seamless whole.
"To be honest, Hannibal, I have a hard time imagining you doing anything else," he admitted.
It was more than just a casual statement. Hannibal could hear the approval and the hint of pride in Pete's voice. The team and being a part of it was something Pete was still proud of—even if it was only a memory to him, an accomplishment. No matter how the Army had tried to take that away from him - from all of them - nothing would ever completely erase the satisfaction of knowing they were the best of the best.
Hannibal watched Pete out of the corner of his eye as he drained his coffee cup and turned his attention to the land around them. By the way Pete was furrowing his brow, Hannibal could tell he was taking time, trying to find his words.
"You know Hannibal, twenty-four hours ago my biggest fear was that I wouldn't have the rent this month," he said uneasily. "Now I'm wondering if some fucked up pencil pusher at the CIA has finally lost his shit and is going to try and kill me over something that happened fifteen years ago."
Hannibal lowered his eyes. "I know."
"It scares the piss out of me," Pete admitted softly. "Because I've got a lot to lose. On the other hand, makes me think how lucky I am to have so much to lose."
There was nothing Hannibal could say to that. He didn't try.
"You think Suzanne is going to really be able to do something about this?" he asked.
Hannibal didn't bother to try bullshitting him. "I don't know," he said flatly. "But she'll either fix it or she'll hit a brick wall. Once I know where the brick wall is, I'll set a charge underneath it."
Pete laughed. "Now that sounds like the Hannibal I remember."
"Keeping tabs on her will at least help me to find out who's responsible for this whole mess," Hannibal continued.
"She seemed surprised to hear Ekhart was the one who gave us the orders," Pete noted. "You didn't tell her our orders came from the same guy who wrote up her orders?"
"I didn't tell her anything," Hannibal sighed. "It was more credible to hear it from you."
Pete snickered to himself. "The way she dove for that phone makes it a little hard to think she'll do anything other than make a bigger mess of this."
Hannibal smiled. The moment she'd heard the name, she'd wanted to make the call. It took a few moments of calming her down to make her realize that she wouldn't have a damn thing to say. Calling right now would just give Ekhart a heads up and so far, there was nothing to prove that he'd acted out of line. Or, more importantly, that his superiors didn't already know.
"Anything we attempt is risky as hell when we don't know who knows what," Hannibal said quietly. "Suzanne will clear that up for us. Then we –" He cut off suddenly as a quick flash out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He shouldn't have even seen it - shouldn't have noticed it. But his eyes snapped to it like a magnet.
"What the hell?" Pete eyes were locked on it, too, confirming that Hannibal hadn't been imagining things. "Did you see that?"
"I did," Hannibal answered flatly.
It was only a quick flash, the rising sun reflecting off of something very small. Hannibal cut his gaze away, searching out of the corner of his eye for a repeat, rather than staring directly at it. It could be nothing. But if it was something, it was best not to stare at it.
"You got anything in those trees that might make a reflection like that?" he asked quickly.
"Like a rifle scope, you mean?" Pete replied, also watching out of the corner of his eye, head down. "Hell, no."
It could've been nothing. "In that case, I say we go in."
"I think –"
Another flash as the sun caught scope just right. Instinct. Hannibal was moving before he had any idea why, grabbing Pete and falling on top of him to the floorboards of the porch. He cried out in pain, but was already scrambling for the door almost before Hannibal had a chance to register the smell of blood. If he was moving, he wasn't dead. Without thought, Hannibal followed him, through the open back door and around the counter, backs to the cabinets and out of line of sight for that scope.
"Face! BA!" Hannibal yelled. "We got a sniper in the back yard!"
November 13, 1982
Suzanne was on the floor and reaching for a gun she didn't have before she even managed to process the words that came with Hannibal's startling yell. When the hand that went to her hip came up empty, she muttered a low, "Shit," before crawling after Face and BA, who were already halfway to the kitchen.
"Where?" Face asked, hesitating at the doorway. The back door was still open, and whoever was out there - a sniper, had she heard that right? - still had a potential shot if they crossed to where Hannibal and Pete were crouched.
"Two hundred yards, one o'clock," Hannibal reported coolly.
Pete was both conscious and moving, holding his hand to his shoulder as the blood seeped through his fingers. Startled at the sight of the blood - they'd opened fire on a civilian? - and standing in an oversized T-shirt and boxers, Suzanne blinked a few times and tried to get her brain to engage. Thankfully, Hannibal seemed fully alert, setting his pistol on the floor as he slipped his outer shirt off and pressed it against the wound. He didn't have to tell Pete what to do.
"Where's Tanny?" he demanded as Pete applied the necessary pressure, wincing at the pain.
"She's asleep on the second floor," Pete gasped through the pain. "Along with the kids. Safest place for them right now."
Ignoring the exchange, Face turned to Suzanne. "Friends of yours?" he challenged, bitterly.
"If they're my guys, then there's four of them," she answered automatically, watching Hannibal grab his backup weapon off of his ankle. "One on each side. They'll hold their position and one will move in to try and force us out. Maybe with a fire." She was surprised she managed to get so much coherence out at once, but chalked it up to the adrenaline of suddenly realizing she was in a life or death situation.
"Why'd they shoot?" BA demanded. "Your snipers that bad they can't hit a mark from a hundred yards?"
Was she really supposed to have an answer for that? At a loss, she simply glared back and quipped, "Lucky for you."
"Alright, enough." Hannibal's order silenced everyone and everything, including the confusion in Suzanne's own head. Suddenly, he had the complete and undivided attention of everyone in the room.
"Guns," Hannibal said, focused completely on Pete. "Where?"
Pete winced as he tried to shift position. "Hall closet, upstairs."
"Walkie talkies?" Hannibal demanded.
The blood was seeping through the shirt as Pete shook his head weakly. "No."
"Face, get those guns loaded," Hannibal ordered quickly. "BA, check the perimeter from the windows. I want to know where they are. Assume we've got them on all four sides."
The two members of Hannibal's team were moving instantly. "What kind of guns?" he asked Pete as they disappeared. He talked fast, and it was clear that he expected fast answers and fast compliance. Casting her a sideways glance, he snapped his fingers and she just about jumped. "Suzanne, get over here," he commanded, pointing to the floor beside where she was crouched as if instructing a dog to heel.
Oddly enough, she didn't think twice before scrambling over to him.
"There's a 12 gauge and a 30.06, M1C," Pete struggled. The way his head lulled to the side made Suzanne wonder just how long he'd be able to maintain consciousness. "I was just about to sell the damn thing for –"
"Ammo?" Hannibal cut him off, withdrawing a pair of black leather gloves from his pocket and slipping them over his hands.
"In the orange ammo box in the top of the closet. There's a pistol too. 9-mil." The words came out between clenched teeth. Pete gave a weak smile. "Man, I don't miss getting shot."
Hannibal smirked, as if bullet wounds were about as commonplace in his world as scraped knees on playgrounds. Finished now with the gloves, he seemed perfectly at ease in spite of the fact that they were most definitely under attack. And a serious one too. If that was a sweeper team out there, their mission was as do-or-die as it was illegal.
"At least it gets the adrenaline pumping," Hannibal said with a grin.
Hannibal handed his pistol to Suzanne, and his backup to Pete. "Anyone comes through that door," he nodded to the open back door, "shoot first and ask questions later. Got it?"
Suzanne nodded as she took the pistol and checked to see if a round was chambered.
"Keep pressure on that wound and keep your back to the wall," Hannibal ordered Pete. He looked like he was struggling to remain conscious, but he nodded just the same. "They won't fire at what they can't see."
"Hannibal!" BA's voice was just loud enough to hear, hardly a shout but no less intense for the lack of volume. "I got one movin' in slow."
Hannibal exchanged glances with Pete, then with Suzanne. "Stay here; don't move."
Then he was gone.
November 13, 1982
"Face, you got those guns?"
The question came up the stairs just as Face finished loading the ammunition into the M1C. It had been a hell of a long time since he'd fired this model. Not that he was complaining; given the current circumstances, it couldn't have been more perfect. He was surprised Pete had it – that he hadn't simply classified his weapons training with those things he would rather forget about. But hell, maybe he used it for hunting. It seemed a bit of overkill, but who knew?
"Guns are on the floor and loaded, Colonel," Face reported. "Where's your runner?"
"Northeast corner at about a hundred fifty yards," BA answered. "Other side of the creek. He laying low."
Hannibal was coming up the steps as Face looked around to orient himself with directions. There was a closed door – he suspected bedroom – on the north wall. Tanny was probably asleep in there, and the school aged boy and baby in another. Any or all of them would probably wake up to the sound of the gunshot. But he'd deal with that problem when it came.
He knocked on her door, but didn't wait for a response before pushing the door open. "Tanny, I gotta come in."
He didn't even look at the bed, instead heading straight for the window - a nice alcove that matched the one downstairs. Perfect. Pressing his back against the wall, he silently cracked the window open. His target was easy to spot as he crawled through the tall grass of the field, not even in camo, and Face could feel an unnatural calm sinking in to the core of his being as he raised the rifle. Positioning it on the windowsill, he grabbed a book off of the nearby shelf to brace it and sighted it off of the tree that the advancing figure was just coming up to.
The man was on his feet as the warning shot hit the ground only a few inches to his right, exchanging the pitiful attempt at stealth for speed as he bolted toward the house. Face heard Tanny stir as he tracked the running target, feeling nothing as he slowly exhaled. He didn't kill now, as a rule. But these men were dangerous, and they'd slaughter Pete and his whole family without a choice if they weren't stopped. A bullet in the leg ought to make short work of that.
It was still perfectly natural, second nature to handle the sniper rifle. As he readied his finger on the trigger, he felt that heady, disconnected sense of surety. He fired without thought and the man fell, hitting the ground at the same moment. Face pulled the barrel in. Until they knew where the others were, staying in the open window any longer than he had to was risky. They could get a bead on him more easily than he could on them.
"What's going on?" Disoriented and confused, Tanny was sitting up in her bed, pushing her hair back with one hand.
Face headed back to the hallway. "Do me a favor and stay in bed," he said, smiling cordially as he passed.
He didn't give her a chance to respond before slipping out of the room and shutting the door behind him. Maybe she was still half asleep, but at the very least, she'd seen the rifle in his hand. If she had any sense at all, she'd know when to follow orders.
Hannibal was tucking the pistol into his belt as Face approached. "One down," Face reported proudly.
"That means probably three to go," Hannibal answered, grabbing the shotgun.
BA frowned deeply. "You think she tellin' the truth that this is a sweeper team?"
"I don't know how much she knows," Hannibal said. "But I wouldn't be entirely surprised if when she dropped off the grid, whoever's calling the shots moved to a plan B."
"Plan B?" Face repeated, amused. "Break every jurisdictional law in existence and kill a few innocent American citizens? You know, I'm starting to develop a real opinion about this supervisor of hers…"
"Three more," Hannibal said again ignoring the sarcasm. "We need to get them to move."
"Or at least give away their position," Face added. He gestured loosely around him. "We got windows on all four sides. I can hit whatever you can shake up in those trees. And it's a hell of a lot better than playing on turf they've had time to scope out."
"We've got a path out the front," Hannibal said. "If we stay low, we should be able to get out without too much of a risk."
BA nodded, unquestioningly. "Which one you wanna draw out first?"
"The one that shot at Pete couldn't have moved far," Face suggested.
Hannibal grinned. "Why settle for drawing out just one?"
Something about that glint in his eye and the way his smile broadened made Face exceptionally wary of the impending jazz-filled orders. "What are you thinkin', Hannibal?" BA asked.
Hannibal turned, smile still full. "Face, where's your car keys?"
With an audible groan, Face shook his head. "Damn it, that's not funny, Hannibal," he protested. "What is it you don't understand about loaner?"
Hannibal's grin widened. "We'll give it back."
"Yeah, riddled with bullet holes!" Face cried.
BA shook his head, wearing a small grin he couldn't quite hide as Hannibal held out a hand expectantly for the keys. Face glared as he fished the key out of his pocket and smacked them down into Hannibal's waiting palm. Then, without even a moment's pause, Hannibal handed them over to BA and declared, "Let's go!"