Hannibal frowned down at the phone as once again his call to Face's cell went straight to voicemail. It was odd; the first few calls had rang a dozen times before being diverted, now it didn't even bother to ring. Had Face turned off the phone to better avoid the incessant ringing? To escape the request, no, order of his commanding officer? Ok, so they were technically no longer in the military, but ever since their run from the authorities began, the only way they had survived was to run together, work together, just like Nam.
Setting the phone back on its cradle, Hannibal looked across to B.A who met the colonel's eyes briefly before watching the road once more.
"It's not right." B.A said, his large hands gripping the wheel tighter. At first Hannibal thought that B.A meant how unfair it was, that Face was simply ditching them, but the next words elaborated what the burly mechanic really meant. "No way would Faceman ignore us like that, not even for a skirt."
"You're right B.A," Hannibal said as he put out his cigar and looked back at Murdock who was dressing Alfie in a piece of cloth that was meant to be a dress jacket.
"I told you guys, Face will be with us momentarily, he's just getting dressed for the occasion."
"Shut up, fool! Faceman isn't your damn puppet! He could be in real trouble, pull yourself together!" Murdock scowled and with his free hand hit the side of his head, like something was in there buzzing around.
"Why do you have to shout so loudly, I swear your voice just stays inside my head ringing around for hours and hours!" The outburst worried Hannibal, and B.A if his reaction was anything to go by, as rather than shout back, B.A looked in the rear-view mirror, real concern in his eyes. They'd only been on the road a few hours and while Murdock's behaviour was never ordinary, it was never this irrational. Like Face had once said, it was a good kind of crazy, but this, this was anything but good. "I'm gonna have to get something to open her up and let all this noise out, I can't think anymore!"
"Pull over B.A," Hannibal ordered and the team's driver quickly found a side road to pull into and got off the motor way while the colonel eased himself into the back and knelt before the highly strung pilot. "Murdock," the colonel spoke softly, not wanting to irritate the younger man even more. "Look at me, captain." He urged when Murdock kept his head down, hands clasped either side of his face. Slowly but surely his soldier lifted his gaze and let his hands drop. "Now, I need you to try and hold it together son, and tell me everything that's been going on with you since we last saw you. Think you can do that?"
"Sure can do, colonel. Not much really," Murdock began, his words coming out in fast mumbles; it took all of the colonel's focus just to be able to keep up with him. "You guys dropped me off on Monday, made it back just in time for meat-balls. I saved some for B.A because he said he could smell something good when we pulled up. I kept them under my bed for you, but I think they must be bad now because the cleaning fella keeps spraying my room with some kinda sweet, smelling…"
"Murdock, focus." Hannibal urged seeing the pilot look back at his co and nod before squeezing his eyes shut.
"Right you are colonel. I'm sorry this buzzin' is getting so loud." He shook his head and sighed obviously trying to ignore the distraction, even if it was just in the guy's head, it still counted as one. "Tuesday was kinda odd, Dr McKenzie didn't turn up and we got a replacement real fast. Dr Morgan, he's nice enough, looks real tired though. He started me on some new meds."
"Is that so," Hannibal smiled and checked Murdock's pockets, finding the bottles he kept there.
"It's the little white ones that are new colonel."
"You've been on these a day and you're already like this?" Hannibal looked to B.A who shook his head.
"Thought medicine was supposed to make you better, not worse." B.A huffed from the driver's seat with a shake of his head.
"Change of plan, some thing isn't right. I could feel it the second I set foot in the place, but I couldn't put my finger on it."
"It's the loony-bin, Hannibal, what kinda vibes were you expectin?"
"Definitely not the ones I felt." The silver haired colonel slipped back into the passenger seat leaving Murdock continuing to dress his puppet, but rather than hand back the suspiciously, unstamped little white pills, he slipped them into his pocket. "Head back to the VA," he ordered as he picked up the phone once again.
"You trying Faceman again?" B.A asked as he kicked the van into gear.
"No, Amy. We're gonna need her in on this." Hannibal quickly dialled up their reporter friends number and after a few shrill rings, her familiar voice greeted him. "Amy, it's Hannibal. Listen, can you meet us at the VA hospital in twenty minutes."
"Sure, is everything alright with Murdock?"
"I'm not sure yet, I'll explain everything when you get there."
If years of being on the run had taught him anything, it was to never leave home without his lock picks. Even without a lock to pick, most of his tools were multifunctional and small enough to be concealed anywhere. While the men had rid him of his clothes and all his belongings, they had over looked his shorts. Most men were loathe to strip another man right down to the bare-bones and it was that rule that had the veteran hustler sew a spare set of tools into his underwear. The seam of his shorts was thin and it took very little coaxing for the sharp end of the tool to protrude through the fabric.
Face managed a weak smile as he concealed the metal slither in his palm and with bleary blue eyes he began to inspect the walls closely. Buildings often had a particular symmetry when it came to the layout of their rooms and even though he had never been in this one before now, he had seen Murdock's room on many occasions and knew the layout by heart. While Murdock's room had a window for ventilation, he also had air conditioning and ultimately the systems would be connected. After taking a moment to figure out which wall the vent was likely to be on, he moved towards it, keeping one steadying hand on the wall as he did so and it wasn't long before he felt the subtle drop in temperature and a faint click, muffled by the padding that lined the room.
Now that he'd located the vent, all he had to do was cut through the padding, undo a coupe of screws and he was home free, but all that was going to take quite some time with such a small tool and he figured his hosts would take issue with vandalism, so he carefully made the first cuts into the seam of the section of padding. If he could make the cuts to follow the pattern of the padding, he could push the freed section back into the wall, disguising his 'tunnel' when ever his captors came calling.
Facing his back to the door, he placed himself between the part of the wall he was working on and the window in the door, to obscure what he was doing to anyone who happened to look in. He'd just about got the first corner cut away when he heard the door handle turn… Face deftly pushed the exposed padding back and slipped the metal tool up the seam of his sleeve just in time for the doc and one of the orderlies to walk in.
Both men stood there looking down at the lieutenant, who was hunched over feigning lethargy. Sure, Face was still feeling the effects of the happy juice but not as much as he was making out. He hoped it would be a convincing enough act to deter any further use of the drugs.
"Who are you? You're not Dr Howard, I checked. There is no such company as Howard and Lowe." Morgan asked, kneeling down to meet the sleepy blue eyes of his prisoner.
"You got me," Face said with a grin, doing his best to roll his eyes like he was still miles high. "The names… Hemmingway." He faked a snigger and turned away. "I was just looking to score a hit."
"Well, you certainly scored more than you bargained for." Morgan said in a disappointed tone.
"Oh hell yeah," Face smirked. "You got some good stuff in that needle of yours."
"Look, this is very important. What else did you take before you came here?" Face was caught a little by surprise by the concern in Morgan's voice but he quickly recovered with a giggle and started to rise as best he could from the floor.
"I don't know, man, lots of different stuff. Never hit the same place twice." At that moment, Face lurched forward as if to fall seeing Morgan reach out to help but the sluggish patient had vanished leaving a deadly soldier in its place and within a couple of second, Face had floored the good doctor and left the orderly nursing his groin. Before they could recover, the lieutenant raced out of the room, swaying only a little as he closed the door and locked them inside with the keys he'd lifted from the orderly.
It had all happened so fast and Face was genuinely surprised he had pulled it off. Blinking the blurry vision away, Face gave a cheery wave inside the padded cell before trying to walk in a straight line towards the nearest exit.
After meeting up with Amy and handing her the suspicious pills, Hannibal set to work generating another disguise so he could infiltrate the hospital once again, this time he needed one that would grant him more access than before, not to mention the fact people were now looking for Dr Lowe who had assisted in a patients escape.
Murdock was still enjoying the company of Alfie and given his state, B.A was patiently putting up with it.
They had parked the van up around the back of the hospital, away from the main road and most of the human traffic coming in and out of the building. They had to keep a low profile as possible while they conducted their stakeout and took a closer look at Dr Morgan.
The completed disguise would hopefully allow him to pass relatively unnoticed as a janitor cleaning the offices and plant a bug so they could listen in to any conversations taking place that would give them some clue as to what was really going on in there.
"Amy said she'd call as soon as her contact in the lab can get the pills analysed, until then we need to try and piece together what's going on and confirm where Face is, if he is being held here at all." Hannibal summarised looking back at Murdock who continued to mumble.
"I'm probably the best to go in and look, they know me, I know them and I know the halls and the rooms…"
"Soon as you're feeling better captain," Hannibal got out of the van and immediately fell into character, hunching over like his back had seen better days. The balding, white haired wig and long, untrimmed, white moustache done a wonderful job of disguising his features, while the jump suit had the name of a well known cleaning company that the hospital outsourced. It was more than enough to fool those working the hospital.
"Soon as this buzzin stops, soon as it quits its motion." Murdock nodded and started once more preening the well groomed sock puppet.
"Keep an eye on Murdock, if I'm right about what's going on here, it's just lucky we sprung him when we did."
"What about the job, Hannibal? We're never gonna make it in time for the pick up if we meant to drive."
"Forget about it for now, this is more important. The wellbeing of my men is my one and only concern."