37 The Hideout
Disclaimer: I do not own The A Team movie or television series or any of the delightful characters found on The A Team.
The Colonel hadn't wanted to leave B. A. at the hospital with no vehicle. There was no other way to get to Face and Melody wherever they were being held.
B. A.'s resourceful. He knows how to hot wire a vehicle if he needs to get away.
But with an ever-increasing anxiety, Hannibal knew B. A. would not leave Murdock before he knew the pilot was out of danger. If that meant being captured himself, he might risk it just to be there when Murdock . . .
His passenger interrupted his thoughts.
"Jack told us to bring you three there as soon as we had you." Scott pointed across a field a half mile from the county road he had instructed Hannibal to follow out of Alturas. Rays of flickering light seeped out around the double doors and from the lower windows of a barn. The open loft showed a fainter glow from whatever light there was in the stall area downstairs.
Great. A barn in the middle of a wide open field where they can hear anything coming. Classic.
If there was no other way to get to the barn, he would have to get close enough to the structure to run the remaining distance and hope no one stepped outside for a cigarette while he did it. It meant he had to travel light . . . maybe two or three grenades, his pistol, a carbine . . .
The Colonel drove past the grassy ruts that led to the structure. Ahead of them, that side of the road dipped into a shallow ditch before rising again into a series of gently sloping hills that overlooked the field.
A great vantage point to figure out how I'm going to get closer.
"Your boss underestimated us if all he sent was you and your partner up to the cabin to get us," Hannibal sneered. Once he was certain the van would not be easily seen by the occupants of the barn, he shut off the headlights and turned off into the ditch. Driving almost to the top of the first hill, he parked and dug a pair of binoculars out from between the seats.
"Frankie radioed the other four guys before he shot through the window. He thought you'd try to get to your van and escape. He didn't figure you'd stay and fight it out." The kid peered at the barn and shrugged, failing in his attempt to act nonchalant. Hannibal could hear the slight tremor in the young man's voice.
"And then your friends would run us off the road and capture us. Like I said, your boss doesn't know us very well if he thought it would be that easy." The older man adjusted the binoculars and scanned the barn and surrounding field. Nothing was moving.
But it was almost that easy. If Murdock was struggling to stay alive as soon as he was hit, we would have been quicker about getting him on his way to a doctor. We would have taken our chances to get to the van. And we may have all been caught.
The half-moon had just begun to peek over the horizon, struggling to be free from the remaining rain clouds in the sky. Hannibal glared at it for a few seconds, cursing under his breath as he did.
If the moon cleared the clouds, there would be enough light for the men who had Face and Melody captive to see anything that moved outside.
That is, if they think we'll be coming after them. And they have to know we . . . no, I, . . . would.
Leading from the ground to the loft, a hay elevator's skeletal ladder-like frame gave Hannibal an idea for a convenient access point.
Almost too convenient. Well, it isn't exactly a front door approach but it'll do.
There were no cars parked outside which meant that any vehicles belonging to Jack or his henchmen were parked either inside or on the other side of the barn where the Colonel could not see.
Would it be too much to ask for one of them to be easy to get to?
Making up his plan as he went along was nothing new for Hannibal. There were always small obstructions that got in the way of his strategies.
Putting the binoculars back where they belonged, the older man ushered Scott back to the rear compartment of the van. Pushing him face first on the floor, he tightened the handcuffs around the young stalker's wrists and bound his feet. As he tore off a swatch of duct tape, Scott begged, "Is that really necessary?"
Hannibal taped the other man's mouth shut and said curtly, "Yes."
Tucking as many grenades away as his safari jacket pockets would hold and swinging the strap of the semi-automatic carbine over his shoulder, he left the van and crept over the hill toward the barn.
From the distance they were to the barn and with all the van's windows and doors closed, Scott would not be able to attract the attention of his employer or his men. Hannibal knew if he succeeded in this rescue, B. A.'s beloved van would have to be picked up much later after the hornets stopped buzzing around the disturbed nest.
That can't be helped and B. A. will understand . . . I hope.
Taking one last deep breath before he headed toward the barn and the hay elevator, the Colonel grinned as a large dark cloud covered the moon. Maybe luck was with him after all and this plan would work exactly as he wished.
"What would Face say? There's always a first time?" he muttered under his breath, crouching and hurrying down the hill as quickly as he could without being detected.