CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Vietnam

August 30, 1968

Clearly, Alex's thugs didn't want to have to move the bodies or explain them. It would be better if they were never found. Of course, if they were, no one would question their deaths as anything more or less than a simple act of VC violence. Soldiers died all the time and the questions were minimal, especially if rules were being broken when the deaths occurred. It was bad for morale, and bad for their CO's reputation.

Face wasn't entirely sure why the men hadn't simply shot up their jeep while driving by it rather than disconnecting the alternator. That would certainly be written off as an act of VC violence. Maybe it was just a little too public on a well-travelled road, a little too close to an American base and a club that Alex wanted not to draw attention to. Instead, he'd apparently ordered that they be driven out into the jungle, in the opposite direction from Da Nang.

Finally, the truck pulled off the road and came to a stop just before the dense tree line. The AK-47s that had been pointed at them the entire time were now raised slightly. "Out! Move!"

He exchanged glances with Cipher, then looked at the guards who were rising to their feet. Very slowly, Face rose to his feet as Cipher leaned forward for leverage to do the same. From the way he moved, Face could tell he was just as tense and ready for the last ditch effort. They would move in tandem, and they would only get one shot at it.

When the guards had to look down to find the edge of the truck, it was the first and only opportunity Face expected to have. He moved, quick and smooth, grabbing the pistol from his belt and dropping forward into a roll before the first retaliatory shots rang out. The two guards who were closest had to go first - anything he could hit to make them fall off the back of the truck in pain. Count the bullets - one in each of their foreheads. One more to the man on the right side of the truck.

AK bullets rattled and pinged into the truck, splintering the wooden sides. One cut through the metal and into his leg. He grit his teeth at the pain, but didn't stop to think about it. Aim, fire. Miss. Running out of bullets. At any second, just one of those bullets would end his life. He was expecting it. Last shot. He didn't look to see if it landed. Drop the pistol, grab the backup off his calf. More pain - or was it just because he was moving? - in his leg. He could feel the blood flowing, hot and sticky. Two more bullets, last man down. Then silence.

He lay still, breathing heavily, carefully watching the bodies on the ground for any signs of movement. "Cipher?"

It took a minute for Cipher to answer. "I'm gonna kill you myself for this."

Face glanced at him just long enough to check how much blood there was, then his eyes were immediately back on the men who were still unmoving on the ground. Some rustling, a gasp that released into a hiss, and then footsteps. A moment later Cipher rounded the front of the truck, gun in hand. There was blood running down the side of his fatigues where his hand was clutching.

"You hit?" he asked.

Lying flat in the back of the truck, Face finally let his concentration on the two men waver enough to glance at Cipher and nod. "Yeah." He grit his teeth as the attempt to move his leg shot excruciating pain through his entire body. "And unless you're prepared to do field surgery, I'm probably going to need a hospital."

Near Fort Bragg

January 23, 1972

Just after dawn, at the end of BA's three hour shift, Face had walked to the gas station next door for coffee. He'd returned three hours later with coffee... and keys. "Man, how'd you manage to con some dude out of his car?"

Face smirked. "You know, if I didn't know better," he set the keys on the dresser, "I'd say you were a bit ungrateful."

BA glared at him, but at the same time, he felt relieved that they wouldn't have to endure another day of walking through the snow.

Face shook the bed at Hannibal's feet. "Hey, Colonel. Sun's up."

Hannibal sat up abruptly, startled, and blinked at the cup of coffee Face held out in his direction. "Good morning," Face smiled.

"Morning," Hannibal slurred back, rubbing his eyes. With both hands and a shaky grip, he took the coffee. "What time is it?"

"Almost nine," Face answered, reaching into his pocket and producing two cigars.

Hannibal blinked, confused. "Why'd you let me sleep so long?" he asked. It took him a moment to realize what Face was offering him, and he managed a smile as he took them from his hand. "Thanks, kid."

"You were tired, man," BA answered, pointing out the obvious. "You been sleeping less than any of us lately."

As Hannibal slowly woke up, Face slipped into the bathroom. "I got us a car," he called out into the room as the water ran in the sink.

"Did you steal it?" Hannibal asked, sipping his coffee.

Face laughed as he stepped out of the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel. "What kind of a question is that?" He tossed the towel back into the bathroom.

Hannibal glanced up as Face pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "A logical one. And one we should know the answer to before we get pulled over."

"Nah, it's legal," Face answered. He tapped a cigarette out of the pack and set it between his lips. "For the moment, anyways."

"What do you mean, for the moment?"

Face flicked his lighter, then tossed it to Hannibal once the cigarette was lit. "I bought it," he explained. "On behalf of our lawyer friend."

BA's eyes widened. "You did what?"

Face shrugged, and leaned back on the dresser. "There's a used car dealership just up the road," he explained. "I figured if the guy was a lawyer, he probably had decent credit."

Hannibal bit the end of one of the cigars, and sat back against the headboard as he lit it. "Okay, kid, I'm curious." He dropped the lighter on the bed and the unlit cigar into his pocket before looking back up at Face. "How did you pass yourself off as a dark-haired, 5'6 lawyer? Which is what I'm sure was on his driver's license."

"People don't ever look at height and weight on a driver's license," Face grinned. "They look at picture and name. So I put my picture with his name."

"Where'd you get your picture?"

"At the post office." Face smiled, and took a quick hit off of his cigarette. "Passport photo. Only takes a few minutes."

"Right." Hannibal took one last sip of the coffee, then set it on the bedside table as set the cigar between his teeth and he rose to his feet. "I don't know why I ever would've considered that you didn't know how to make a fake ID."

Face pulled the license from his pocket and studied it. "Well, it wouldn't pass a cop," he granted. "I mean, all I had was a pocketknife and some superglue to put the thing together, and I was lucky to find that."

Hannibal took the ID as he passed, pausing to look at it, and shook his head slightly as he handed it back. "You're magic, kid," he determined, handing it back. "Pack it up. Let's get out of here."

Vietnam

August 31, 1968

Hannibal had gotten the call at 2300. His men were in the hospital with multiple bullet wounds - none of them life threatening - and they weren't talking. An American nurse was somehow involved. That sure hadn't taken long.

He was in a chopper and on his way to Da Nang in a matter of minutes - just as soon as he could secure one. They weren't even allowed to give the two of them morphine without him present, due to their security clearance. They'd keep them alive, but "comfortable" was another story altogether.

It was pretty clear, as he approached the side-by-side beds, surrounded by hanging curtains, that they'd gotten their hands on the morphine anyways. How, why, and who'd given it to them was irrelevant. Hell, Cipher carried the stuff on him most of the time. Hannibal didn't really care about the morphine. He cared much more for an explanation. And he stood still between the two beds, arms crossed, and not saying a word, just waiting to hear it.

Face had opened his eyes as soon as he heard the curtain pull back. But he didn't speak. He just watched. Whatever injuries he had were covered by the thin sheet over him. Which probably meant he wouldn't be walking anytime real soon. He held Hannibal's gaze for a long moment, then looked away. He wasn't offering to start this conversation.

Hannibal looked to Cipher. He was propped up against some pillows, pulling back the side of the gauze that was on his side to inspect the job they'd done with stitching him up. After a long moment of this, he glanced up, then away.

The silent stares that greeted him were telling and of themselves. Whatever trouble these two had gotten into was serious enough that they weren't talking. Not even to him. He wasn't surprised by that in Peck's case; he had only been with him a short while. Hannibal wasn't even sure if he could trust him yet. But Cipher's silence, that was something else all together. However bad the situation was, Cipher wouldn't be keeping silent for his own sake.

"I'm waiting for your report, gentlemen," Hannibal finally prodded.

His expression was unreadable but his tone was clear. They were under his command. He was responsible for them, and he would have the truth of just what had happened. Finally, Face took a deep, slow breath, and looked up, meeting his gaze.

"You want it here or someplace a little more secure?"

Hannibal glanced around, determined that there was no one within earshot, and looked back at Face again. "Right here is just fine."

Cipher glanced from one to the other and went back to inspecting his stomach, poking around it a bit as Face took a deep breath. "Going north on Route 7, probably about ten miles past where the city ends, you're going to find the bodies of four American soldiers, if you want to send someone to go pick them up."

Hannibal blinked in surprise. Whatever he'd been expecting to hear, that sure as hell wasn't it.

"If they do an investigation, they'll find out that the bullets that killed them came from my gun."

Hannibal's eyes narrowed. Even wounded and on morphine, the kid was careful with his words. "Shot with my gun" wasn't the same as "I killed them all." He waited a moment to hear the rest of the story. Just that fact that Cipher hadn't killed Peck meant there was a damn good reason for those men to be dead.

"There's a man at the DMZ Club - you'll run right into it on the way back into town - named Brian Alex. He's going to want to know that those four men are dead. He's a Sergeant Major. I don't know his unit; I never asked. He brings drugs - mostly heroin - into Da Nang for dispersion."

And there it was, the key word: drugs. Hannibal was no babe in the woods. He knew how many soldiers were using and he knew how many were lured into the drug trade. The fact that they were in a hell hole made the appeal of escape and profit all that much stronger. Hannibal also knew that Peck had been up to his neck in the trade. Hell, he had a signed confession to the effect. But it was still jarring to hear.

The kid sighed, and put his head back. His tone was completely resigned and relaxed. It was hard to tell how much of that was the morphine, and how much was the sound of a boy who had no hope or expectations of his life, or anyone in it.

"If you're going to burn him," Face continued, "I suggest you do it quietly because you won't get anyone to testify against him in a court martial. If you're not going to, he's going to keep coming after me until I'm dead. Which will be sooner rather than later if he finds out I killed those guys. That is, assuming a court martial doesn't do it for him."

Hannibal had heard enough. "So you knew about this threat that was going to come back on you and you saw no reason to mention it?"

Face looked up at him, expression serious. "It wasn't a threat until tonight. And I didn't think he'd move this fast."

"Bullshit," Cipher snapped. "It was a threat the whole goddamn time and you knew it."

Face's jaw clamped shut, and he looked away, not answering.

"I almost took a bullet to -"

"Secure that, Sergeant," Hannibal interrupted.

Cipher's glare turned to Hannibal for a moment, but he fell silent. After a brief pause, Hannibal looked back at Face and sighed. "You can't have it both ways, kid. Either he wasn't a threat or he was a threat that moved quicker than you thought."

In either case, Peck had to realize by now that Hannibal didn't take threats to his team lightly. He'd known bringing a drug runner on this team was a risk. But it had been two drops and the kid was in the hospital for something that happened on fucking stand down. Did he really have such complete disregard for his life and the lives of the people on this team, or did he just not understand how this team functioned?

"He wasn't a threat until I told him I wasn't working for him anymore," Face retorted with a glare. He glanced at Cipher, his voice dripping sarcasm as he continued. "My sincerest apologies that you got caught in the middle of it. 'Cause it wasn't your problem." He looked back at Hannibal. "And it's not yours. My decision, my consequences, and none of it really -"

"See, that's where you're wrong," Hannibal cut him off. "This is my problem. Half my damn team is in the hospital. How am I supposed to explain that?"

Cipher's anger was much less even. "You're a fuckin' son of a bitch, you know that? I couldn't give a fuck about getting shot! I expect it every goddamn day I'm out here. What pisses me the hell off is you can't get it through that head of yours that you made this everyone's problem the day you signed on to the god damn team! And you don't even give us all the fuckin' pieces to work with!"

By the time he was done, Cipher was almost at a full yell and ready to come off the bed. Face met that aggression with a yell of his own. "I didn't fucking risk my team! I risked my own neck because I signed off on a goddamn confession and told you," he pointed at Hannibal, "that I was done with that shit! You think I didn't know it could fucking kill me when I signed it? Or that I think you didn't know that? What the hell do you want from me!"

"I want you to get the goddamn chip off your shoulder," Hannibal said firmly. "It's not you against the world. Every member of this team would take a bullet for the other. That's how we function. I was willing to bring you on knowing you could be a target, but there's not a damn thing anyone of us can do if you're not going to trust us."

Face looked at him coldly. "Look. I signed on the dotted line. I knew what I was doing, and I don't regret it. As far as I'm concerned, I owe you, and this team, my freedom and, hell, my life. So whatever you want me to do, tell me and I will do it. Whatever you want me to say, I will say it. So what is it you want to hear, Hannibal? Because I can't imagine you'd be any more happy if I was sitting here telling you I got shot on a deal that went bad - even if the rest of my team was never at risk when it happened."

Hannibal had his answer. For a long moment, he just stood still, staring at Face. The kid didn't have a damn clue what being on a team really meant. "You know what I want?" he said, baiting him. "I want the name of every contact in the operation. Then we'll make sure that they are removed as threats."

Face's eyes widened. Clearly, he hadn't been expecting that. "The hell you will!" he cried. "The operation is fucking huge. You won't shut it down."

Hannibal turned to walk away, but paused at the curtain and looked back. "You're right, you know," he finally offered. "I wouldn't be any happier hearing you got shot without the others being at risk. Because it would still mean a member of this team got shot. You need to think about that good and hard."

He turned away again and headed out past the curtain. "I'll be back tomorrow afternoon for those names, Sergeant."

Behind him, there was no response from either of the two injured men. Hannibal was glad for that. He had one hell of a mess to clean up.