Murdock just had to stay with Face this weekend. Hannibal had insisted Murdock be out for the remainder of the month so they could spend Christmas together; all good and well, but where was Murdock going to stay for the night? He'd already stayed with Hannibal last time, and B.A. was an obvious no, so that meant it was Face's turn, and he knew it was a bad idea, and he became more convinced of that with every passing minute. Oh it had been fine in the daytime, in the afternoon, at dinner, but it just went on and on. Murdock was more wired than the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, it didn't matter how late in the night it got, he showed no signs of being tired, and was just as hyper as he had been when he first came over to the Lieutenant's latest scammed penthouse apartment.
Eventually Face just had to excuse himself and go to bed, it didn't bother Murdock, he stayed up wide awake in the living room, scribbling things on a little notepad and watching one of the lower channels rerun 'Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol'. The night dragged on, and through the bedroom walls Face could still hear Murdock, doing who knew what by that point. The hours dragged slowly, and all through the night Face had still been able to hear the records the pilot was playing from somewhere in the penthouse. How many times could a person listen to 'The Carol of the Bells' in one night? And Murdock had replayed 'The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies' so many times, that Face had actually fallen asleep at one point and dreamt he was a ballerina on stage during The Nutcracker, decked out complete in slippers, tights, pink tutu and all, sweeping across the stage on his toes and flailing his arms in the air. This was the last time Murdock was spending the night at his place.
And then suddenly, an earthquake! Everything was shaking! Face woke up and realized Murdock was jumping on the bed trying to wake him up, and clearly it had worked.
"Get up, Face!" Murdock told him, "We gotta get out to the grocery store, we've got a lot of shopping to do!"
"Shopping?" he tiredly asked as he tried to fully wake up.
"Come on, Face!" Murdock said as he grabbed the half awake man and pulled him out of the bed, "It's only one more week until Christmas, everybody's out shopping!"
"What's going on?" Face wanted to know.
"Don't you remember?" Murdock asked.
Face tried, and slowly it came back to him.
Last month they had come back from a big job that involved rescuing a billionaire's three grown daughters who had been kidnapped by terrorists hiding out in the Congo. It had been a long, tireless, miserable trip, but it had been worth it, they got the women back unharmed, and the A-Team was suddenly one million dollars richer. Face had to pinch himself. And now Hannibal announced there were plans for a portion of those finances, how much portion he hadn't said, Face just knew that Hannibal had given the order pull all stops with the money this time.
"Gentlemen," he'd said to them, "There is no crime in being humble, it is in fact a most commendable act."
"Amen to that," B.A. had grunted.
"But there is however," Hannibal had added, "A great sin in sitting on more money than you need, and putting it to no use where it's needed."
"Evil isn't just the things you do, it's the things you don't do," Murdock paraphrased.
"That is right," Hannibal said, "And with that said, there is a massive sin in sitting on a hoard of money, and only putting it to all out use towards people who don't need it, and not using it to go all out for people who not only need it, but who actually deserve it. And that's what we're going to do this time, we're pulling all the stops, we're going all out, we are going to be every bit extravagant and eccentric and out of proportion as all those two faced millionaires who drink themselves to sleep on $500 bottles of wine and stock their garages with 20 sports cars. Except that we are going to appropriate those funds towards the people who will benefit most from their use. Face, you and Murdock are going to get together on this one, we need everything: a tree, the biggest one you can find, lights, colorful ones, decorations, good ones, nothing tacky, silver garland, a dozen boxes of tinsel, the biggest star there is. And then I want you to pick up all the traditional food for Christmas: turkey, ham, apples, nuts, popcorn, oranges…"
"Fruitcake too, Colonel?" Murdock asked.
"Get it all," Hannibal said, and to Face, "And get whatever we're going to need for drinks, get champagne, the stuff you scam for yourself, get the best there is, and get plenty of it, and wine, all kinds."
"What about…" Murdock started to ask, but Hannibal seemed to be reading his mind.
"Rum too, Murdock, I'm trusting you to recreate your grandmother's rum punch, and when in doubt, use everything."
"Oh boy," Face hit himself in the side of the head. He leaned over to B.A. and asked him, "Do you get what's going on?"
B.A. just shook his head and kept his eyes on their kook of a Colonel.
"Do you mind if I ask what this is all for, Hannibal?" Face asked as he raised his voice enough for everyone to hear him.
"What it's for, Face, is that we're going to have a Christmas party," Hannibal answered gleefully with a knowing smirk on his face.
"Is that all?" Face asked.
"That's all!" Hannibal said in a grandstanding manner, "We're going to throw the biggest Christmas party anybody's ever seen, and the most important one there's ever been."
"Uh," Murdock raised his hand and said, "It sounds like we're going to have a big turnout, Colonel."
"Indeed we are, Captain!"
"Then there's the question of location," Murdock said, "Now I figured since Face is already always scamming large fancy mansions for himself…"
"Hey!" Face took offense at that.
Murdock ignored him and finished what he was trying to say, "Then it shouldn't be any trouble for him to scam one more that we can all hole up in and nobody will notice, it certainly won't be any trouble for us to clean up after ourselves when the party's through."
"That thought already entered my mind, Murdock," Hannibal said, "And it's certainly an option to keep open for future times."
"Future ti…you mean we're going to do this more than once?" Face asked.
"Face," Hannibal got up close to the younger man, clapped a hand on the Lieutenant's shoulder, and said to him, "We should've been doing this in the first place, if all goes well, I see no reason why we cannot or should not do it every year from now on."
"But where're we gonna do it, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.
"The holidays don't cut us any slack where the government is concerned," Hannibal said as he walked around the room with his hands behind his back, "That's why you can't ever get home to visit your mother for Christmas, B.A., because Decker and the MPs and the likes of all of them are still going to be out there looking for us any place we might be likely to go, any place there's a reasonable chance we might risk showing up. So then the question becomes, where is the one place they would never think to look for us?"
"Oh no," Face shook his head, "Forget it, Hannibal, uh-uh! No! I am not going to help you throw a Christmas party at Fort Bragg!"
"No, Face!" Hannibal told him, "Think closer, more local."
"At Colonel Decker's house?" Face asked.
"No, but you're close," Hannibal grinned.
"At Colonel Lynch's house?" Murdock asked.
"Murdock!" Face said to him, "He's been off our case for the last two years, he'll be at his home for Christmas."
"Oh," Murdock said.
"No, no, what I did," Hannibal told the others, "Was do some checking on how the military interweaves currently. Decker takes his orders from a higher up man named General Bullen, and General Bullen just so happens to be off on vacation this Christmas, and has shut up his own home and gone off for a three week retreat in Hawaii."
"Well Mele Kalikimaka, but you don't mean!"
"Yes, Face," Hannibal said with a large grin, "We're going to throw our Christmas party in General Bullen's home while he's away this Christmas season."
Face's eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted and hit the floor.
"What's his problem?" Murdock asked the Colonel.
This announcement had kept Murdock busy with a project of spending two days working on a shopping list of everything they were going to need, and Face already knew they were going to pay dearly for this idea, whatever it was. Still not quite awake, he got dressed, got the money they'd need at the store, he had no idea how much they'd need so had taken the liberty of getting it all in 100s, and went with Murdock out to the car and they headed to the first store on their stop. They got a cart and Murdock let Face push it while he took out his list that nearly touched the floor when it unraveled and he read off all the items they would need.
"10 big turkeys, 5 hams…"
"Murdock," Face said, "I'm going to talk to the meat department about getting a delivery made for that stuff," save his back the hernia of pushing it all around the store and then loading and unloading the car, "What else do we need?"
Murdock scrolled down, "Cranberry sauce, stuffing mix, potatoes, lot of potatoes, apples, grapefruits, oranges."
"How many?" Face asked.
"A lot," Murdock said, "We need a crate of oranges."
"A crate?" Face repeated as he stopped with the cart in his tracks.
"You're right," Murdock nodded, "It's not enough, two crates!"
"Oh brother," Face groaned.
"Mixed nuts, potato chips, Chex mix, cookies, boxes of candy: chocolates, chocolate cherries, ribbon candies, old fashioned candies, candy canes, spice drops."
"Murdock, nobody eats spice drops," Face reminded him as he started pushing the cart again.
"Well it's traditional," Murdock said, "We also need popcorn."
"What kind?" Face asked as he stopped again.
"What kind what?" Murdock asked.
"What kind of popcorn? Just the kernels, microwave, those tins they put out with 3 flavors, what?"
"The list just says popcorn."
"Murdock, you wrote the list, can't you remember?"
Murdock shook his head, "Hannibal didn't specify, so we'll just get some of everything, can't have too much stuff. And then, then Faceguy, we gotta go to a toy store and get a lot of toys, and we gotta get a lot of paper and tape to wrap them all up."
"What?" Face asked, "And put the holiday gift wrappers out of their fine line of work?" he shook his head, "Forget it."
"Face," Murdock told him, in a slightly firmer tone now, "We don't have time to stand around waiting for them all to get wrapped by somebody else, I got a whole list here!" He took a second list out of his pocket and it unraveled too and went down towards Murdock's knees.
"What's on that list?" Face was dreading knowing the answer.
Murdock started skimming off the top of it, "Baby dolls, laser guns, princess dolls, toy instruments, board games, remote control airplanes and tanks, building blocks, toy cars, toy trucks, toy bulldozers, cap guns, toy trains…"
"Murdock," Face said to the pilot, "Who are all those for anyway?"
"Well I don't rightly know," Murdock tucked the list back in his bomber jacket, "But the first idea off the top of my head would be kids."
"I know that!" Face told him, "Whose kids?"
Murdock just shrugged his shoulders.
"Who's coming to this party anyway?" Face asked, "Nobody's told me yet."
"Lot of people, that's all I know for sure," Murdock told him.
Face scratched the side of his head and said to himself, "I wonder what's going through Hannibal's mind…then again I probably don't want to know. I can't believe that we're going to break into a g…"
"Shhhh!" Murdock clapped a hand over the Lieutenant's mouth, "Not in public, Faceguy, you know that."
"I can't believe," Face repeated in an exasperated whisper, "That Hannibal is seriously considering breaking into a general's house to spend Christmas in."
"I think it's a brilliant idea," Murdock said, then something occurred to him, "Hey!"
"Now you shhh!" Face told him, "What is it?"
"That's that movie we were watching the other night," Murdock said.
"What movie?" Face asked.
"It Happened on Second Avenue, that was a good movie, I liked it," Murdock said, "I haven't seen that in many years."
"Second Avenue…" Face's eyes bugged wide open and his eyebrows lifted, "That's where all the bums invaded the millionaire's house."
"Not bums, Face, homeless GIs who served their country, and their wives and children," Murdock replied.
"Oh great!" Face said, "We'll pulling all stops, making a 12 course dinner in a General's home for a bunch of winos?" Murdock looked at him and Face realized he'd really stuck his foot in his mouth this time, then he calmed down and said, "We're going to need dessert too, let's see if we can get some Christmas cakes from the bakery section."
"Now you're talking," Murdock said, beaming from ear to ear, "It's a plan, Faceman."