Around noon, everybody was getting stir crazy from waiting, Face paced around the room and checked his watch again, then he went over to Hannibal and said, "I just thought of something."
"What's that?" Hannibal asked.
The door opened and Jean stepped in from the other bedroom.
"Uh Hannibal," Face said, "Can you give me a hand in the bathroom? I think one of B.A.'s rings fell down the drain."
"No it didn't, sucker," B.A. told him.
"Well something is clogging it up, B.A., and I want to get a shower, Hannibal, you mind?"
Hannibal wasn't sure what was going on but he got up and said, "Okay, Face," and followed him into the bathroom.
Face pushed the door half closed and went over with Hannibal to the tub and said loud enough for the people outside to hear, "I'll run the water a little and you can see that it won't drain!"
"Okay!" Hannibal cluelessly replied.
Face turned on the taps for the shower and as the water ran he said into Hannibal's ear, "Exactly what is the plan, Colonel, for when Grant actually shows up and we catch him? You don't think that Jean isn't going to try to kill him the second she sees him?"
"Not here in the hotel, Lieutenant," Hannibal told him, "She'd want to get him out to a dark alley somewhere."
"Well things change, she may get a new idea," Face reminded him.
"I know, I've thought of that too," he said, "That's why somebody has to stay with her at all times, we won't let her kill him and we won't let her get away to try."
"In that case," Face replied, "What do you think the chances are maybe we could get out of this room for a couple of hours? We're all going stir crazy in here."
"Except Murdock," Hannibal noted, "Might be a good idea though, if and when Grant does show up, I'm not sure I want Brutus to be among the first to know it. You think you and Murdock could get her out of here and make sure nothing happens?"
"I guess," he said, "But what are we supposed to do with her?"
"You brought it up, Lieutenant," Hannibal smirked, "I'm sure you can figure something out."
Face turned off the water and they headed back into the bedroom but as they exited the bathroom they heard B.A. and Jean arguing, and saw the two of them standing in the center of the room.
"You just don't get it, do you?" Jean asked, "There is no other way! They have to die, to put an end to this mess once and for all."
"They need to be stopped, on that we agree," B.A. responded, "But what you're planning to do is just crazy."
"You really think so?" Jean asked, and she reached around to grab somebody and she saw she'd grabbed Face by the arm. He didn't know why she did it but since all eyes were now on him he tried to be humorous about it and smiled; Jean's response was to shove him to the back and she tried again. This time she stepped forward with Hannibal.
"Alright, B.A., you think I'm crazy?" she asked, and shoved Hannibal forward, "This man, Saunders and his men take this guy and blow his brains out and bury him directly under the ground where the new recruits are going to be doing their physical training the next day. Are you just going to let that go? Or are you going to seek retribution?"
"I know what you're getting at but this still isn't the right way to go about it," B.A. told her.
"There's no choice, B.A., we can't turn them over to the police, they're not going to be court-martialed and anything else is just going to put them back at the heart of their business and setting up countless other young men to be killed. They have to be stopped and the only way to do that is to kill them. There's nothing else you can do, you can't knock them out and put them on a boat heading to another country, any place they go they could still be in business because anywhere you go there is a big drug market, and they know how to get the supplies for the jobs."
"The problem," Hannibal told her, "Is you keep thinking like you're in this alone, you're not, now you've got the four of us to help."
She turned to him and said, "You're not my friend, none of you are…you're only here because it's a job, a job that it's turning out you can't even afford to take, so why in God's name are you even still here, Smith?"
The others watched Hannibal to see what his response was, and they were surprised because he remained calm and acted as if he hadn't heard that, and answered, "Because right now, you need a plan, and I always have a plan."
"But you don't have one now, do you?" she asked smugly.
"Of course I do," he said as he took out a cigar and bit down on it, "But it's a secret."
"And those are always the worst kind," Face grunted.
"I heard that, Face," Hannibal said.
"Sorry, Colonel," he replied, and inched his way over to Jean and murmured into her ear, "Hey look, Miss Rhodes, you want to get out of here for a while and get some air?"
"Why? Where're we going?" she asked.
"Well I thought you and Murdock and I," he pointed to the three of them, "Might go out for lunch, as you said this is largely a charity case and a diner won't be as expensive as room service. Besides, there's nothing going on around here and I'm sure that if Grant would show up while we're gone, that it wouldn't take Hannibal and B.A. long to track us down and get us back here."
"Fine with me," she said, "How bout you, Murdock?"
"Oh yeah that's just fiiiiine with me," he said, "Oh but first I need to," he pointed to the other bedroom and half whispered, "Take Billy for a walk, then I'll bring him back here and we can go."
"Tell you what, Murdock," Face said and took out a map of the city, "You walk Billy and give us a head start and we'll be waiting for you on 9th street by the café."
Murdock made a throaty sound of amazement and awe and gestured towards Face with his hands as if he were unveiling a statue and said in a funny voice and equally funny accent, "Ze man iz a genius!" he pressed his fingertips to his mouth and kissed them and threw it at Face and added, "Zimple, unconcentrated zenius! I could kiss this man!"
"Hold that thought, Pierre," Face said as he put his hands on Murdock's shoulders and held him back, "Go walk Billy first."
"He really is crazy, isn't he?" Jean asked.
The adjoining door swung open as Murdock came back, stuck his head into the room and told her, "And don't you forget it!"
Face and Jean headed out the door and when it was just the two of them, B.A. asked Hannibal, "What's the idea, Hannibal?"
"Face is right, if Grant does come here we don't want Jean being the first to know or she will try and kill him, and also if he shows up, it would do us some good if he didn't spot her right away either."
"And if he doesn't come here?" B.A. asked.
"We'll also get out of Dodge and head for Chicago next," Hannibal explained.
"I still don't like this, Hannibal," B.A. told him, "I don't like this whole thing, something still ain't right here."
"I know it," Hannibal responded, "I've been trying to figure it out also, and I haven't gotten anywhere yet. I'm still not convinced that the kid's not going to try and kill herself, either anytime soon, or even once this whole mess is over, because the odds are when that happens, then she'll see it as her job is done. She doesn't seem to place much value on her own life, only to bring down everybody in the trafficking ring." Hannibal bit down on his cigar and tried to think for a minute. "You know, B.A., even given the seriousness of the situation, I'd like sometime before our job is done to be able to crack one real smile out of her, and see if she can even remember having fun. She's too young to be this hopeless."
"So explain this to me again," Jean said to the two men as they talked over a lunch of burgers and fries, "How is it that this Colonel Lynch has so little to do with his time that he spends over 10 years trying to track down four men from Vietnam? Just because they escaped? The army really doesn't have anything better to do with their time, something a little more pressing than finding four American soldiers who are not a threat to themselves or the public and who have been spending the last 10 years doing nothing but helping people that nobody else can or will?"
"That's what I'd like to know too," Face admitted, "For all that we get chased after you'd think we killed somebody." Then he was sorry he'd said that.
Jean lowered her gaze to the table for a moment but she didn't say anything and neither did anyone else. When she looked up again she looked at Murdock and said, "So tell me how it is that you've been broken out of the VA about a hundred times for different reasons and nobody there is putting the dots together on that one?"
"What can I say?" Murdock said, "I got luck on my side. Hey Faceman, next time we get a job, let's find a client in Las Vegas, that way I can try my luck at the casinos on the way." He mimed shaking dice and called out, "Snake eyes! Or the slots," he pulled an imaginary lever and called out, "Lemon, lemon, lemon! Jackpot!"
"And he's always like this?" Jean asked Face.
"Pretty much," Face said.
"But do you really think he's crazy?" she asked.
"I am certifiably cuckoo!" Murdock replied, flapping his hands and whistling like a bird.
"They've run every test on him imaginable at the VA," Face told her, "Some of them six times, if he isn't, he's got it down cold enough they can't crack it."
"Uh…" Jean pointed across the table and Face turned and saw what she saw; Murdock had stolen a plate of lady fingers off the dessert tray and was cutting them open and squirting ketchup in them.
Murdock realized he was being watched and he said, "Oh, sorry, did you want some?"
"No thanks," Face replied.
"So tell me more about this Colonel Lynch," Jean said, "You wanted to know what David Grant looks like, well what does this Lynch guy look like? How would I know him if we ran into him?"
"Well let me see," Face pressed the palms of his hands together and tried to think, "How do I describe it…he looks…"
"Like that!" Murdock said and they saw he was turned around in his chair and pointing towards the window.
"Oh boy," Face said as he recognized the mustached face right outside the main window turned at a profile. Though it didn't look like Lynch had seen them, both men turned back around so their backs would be facing the colonel.
"What's he doing here?" Jean asked.
"I don't know but I have an idea we're going to be skipping out on the check," Face told her, "Come on."
"Where're we going?" Murdock asked.
"The ladies room," Face answered.
"Ah I don't like going in there," Murdock told him, "Makes me nervous."
But as it was the three of them got up and headed to the back towards the restroom, went in the women's bathroom and one by one they climbed out of the window and hit the ground running, headed back for the hotel.
"You know something, Peck," Jean said as they rounded a corner, "I just had a thought."
"Terrific," Face gasped in response, "Tell it to me later!"
Murdock got ahead of the others and he came to a sudden stop and the other two about crashed into him.
"I got it, I got it!" he said, turning to the others, "I know how we lose the Colonel, look over there!"
They saw he was pointing to a movie theater that was showing a children's double feature: The Rescuers and 101 Dalmatians.
"In the theater?" Face asked.
"Oh come on, Facey, I never got to see The Rescuers when they came out, you know that," Murdock said.
"It's a dark theater, hundreds of kids, nobody would look for the A-Team in there," Jean pointed out, "Let's go, I'll buy the tickets."
"Yeah we've got to get word to Hannibal and B.A.!" Face reminded her.
"I told you!" Jean said as they sprinted across the street to the theater, "It's a family reunion at the hotel, 500 Smiths, let him look for them, it'll be a needle in a haystack."
They about broke down the revolving glass door to get in the building and once they were in they quickly got their tickets and disappeared from the lobby. On the way into the theater room, Jean found a payphone, put a quarter in and dialed one of the two rooms at the hotel.
"Hello?" it was Hannibal.
"Lynch is in town, don't leave the hotel," she whispered into the receiver.
"What? Where are you?" Hannibal asked.
"Hiding," she answered, "We'll be back in a few hours, don't run off." And she slammed the receiver down and ran to catch up with Face and Murdock in theater room #4 for the double feature.
After the second movie let out, Murdock, Face and Jean detoured through the room's fire exit and cautiously checked the surrounding area for any sight of Lynch, or any other man in uniform. Finding none, they were relieved but not ready to admit victory, they hailed a cab and had it take them halfway to the hotel but got out prematurely and instead hopped onto a bus that was just starting to move. When they reached the street the hotel was on they made another quick exit and entered the hotel through the side door leading to the dining room and from there hotfooted it to the stairs and jumped them two at a time to get up to their room. They weren't going to take a chance on an elevator and have the doors open up to reveal Lynch and the whole damn army standing in the hall waiting for them.
Upon reaching the door to their room, all three of them were ready to break it down to get in but instead they wound up falling on top of each other like the Marx Brothers when B.A. threw the door open just before they could bust it open.
"Where's Lynch?" B.A. asked as he slammed the door behind them.
"We don't know," Face answered as they got up, "We lost him in the theater."
"And ain't seen him since," Murdock added.
Hannibal crossed over to the center of the room and was staring daggers at Jean who only returned the same murderous glare at him, and both apparently were thinking the same thing.
"What's Lynch doing here?" they both asked at the same time.
"The van probably tipped somebody off during the four hour drive since we couldn't spend one hour flying from New York to here," Hannibal said, not looking at B.A. but directing his comment straight at the big guy.
"I told you not to come and you wouldn't listen," Jean told him, "You should've stayed where you belonged and instead worried about helping nuns and orphans and farmers, business as usual."
"That's enough out of you," B.A. warned her, "We're here because we promised our services to your parents, to find you and bring you back, which we have every intention of doing, whether you like it or not. We're all in this mess and we're going to be in it until it's over, so stop picking your fights with us."
"Or what?" Jean demanded to know as she turned and looked at him, "You gonna hit me? You gonna punch my lights out, B.A.? Go ahead, that won't be anything new for me, I'm used to that by now."
B.A. shook his head and answered, "Not by me, not any of us."
Murdock came up behind Jean and put his hand on her arm as he asked her, "Who beat you up?"
"Never mind, Murdock," she said as she shoved his hand away, "That's none of your concern, none of this is your concern, I told you from the start to get out while you had the chance, that you didn't belong, did you listen? No. So the question is now, what do we do since we're stuck in this together?"
"B.A., go look out the window, is the National Guard here yet?" Hannibal asked.
B.A. looked down to the street and replied, "Na, ain't anybody down there that shouldn't be."
"Okay, so we can probably guess that Lynch hasn't figured out we're checked into this hotel yet," Hannibal said, "We'll watch for him, if he comes, we'll make a break for it. We'll stay one more night, and we're going to see if Grant shows up tonight, and if he doesn't, first thing tomorrow we're out of here and heading for Chicago. If Lynch is able to follow the trail, we'll figure out what to do about that when we cross that bridge."
"I never asked you to come," Jean told Face later that afternoon as they were getting ready for dinner.
"I know it," Face said.
"I didn't want you here, I told you that," she reminded him.
"We know," Face replied, "Nobody is blaming you for anything that's going on here. This isn't the first time Lynch has caught up with us, and it won't be the last."
"So it's just going to continue for 20 more years until he dies?" Jean asked, "Or you do?"
"That's probably about the size of it," Face nodded, "But I find the future too depressing to think about, I prefer to just live in the moment, try not to think about what's going to happen too far ahead, I probably wouldn't like it."
"I can see that," Jean said, "None of you guys is married, are you?"
"No, we're not," Face answered.
"Well?"
"If you're asking if I regret that, no I don't," Face told her.
"I don't mind it so much," Murdock said as he came out of the bathroom, "Though I do get to thinking about having kids."
"Oh boy," Face said with a slight roll of his eyes.
Jean took it a step further and started laughing uncontrollably to the point she was holding her stomach.
"I can just see that," she said, "You and a wife and a houseful of little Murdocks."
"That's right," he said, sounding a bit defensive about it, "Build up my own army, dozens of them!"
"Yeah but how're you going to do that if you're still staying at the VA?" Jean asked.
"Turkey wasn't built in a day, my dear," he replied.
"That's Rome," Face told him, "Rome wasn't built in a day."
"It still burnt though," Murdock said, "Probably wouldn't have made any difference if it was. So are we going downstairs for dinner or just ordering up here again?"
"Downstairs," Face answered, "Hannibal figures if Lynch or Grant drops in, we'd have a better advantage downstairs by the doors. B.A.'s already taken all the luggage down and put it in the van so we'll be ready to leave in the morning."
Murdock watched Jean as Face spoke and he noticed she looked distracted, and also as if she had just traded places with Atlas and was about to have the globe balancing on her shoulders.
"You alright?" he asked her.
She snapped out of it and insisted she was fine. They went into the next room and met with Hannibal and B.A. and headed downstairs for dinner. Once again the hotel's dining room was crowded and they checked every table they passed to see if Grant was among the diners, but it was to some relief that they didn't see him anywhere. They wound up at the same table again tonight and this time were able to get everybody seated without a riot breaking out. But tonight the A-Team noticed there was something very different about their case in point; whereas last night Jean had made a big deal about watching the side entrance for Grant, tonight she wasn't even watching the door. She simultaneously slightly rocked back and forth and bobbed up and down in her chair and looked off to the side at apparently nothing. When the waiter came to take their orders, she hadn't even been aware of his presence and even once she realized he was there, she came up blank on anything to eat.
Nobody said anything but Hannibal looked across the table inquiringly at Face, who only shook his head in response. They didn't know what was wrong with her but determined she couldn't have been on anything because somebody had been with her all day and she'd never had her pills, Murdock still had them hidden somewhere; at least they thought he did.
"Did you eat something at the movie?" Hannibal asked.
"No," Jean answered, "Just as well," she pointed to Murdock and said, "This thing was ogling all the candy at the concession stand."
Murdock looked to the others, shrugged his shoulders and asked, "What?"
They were halfway through dinner when Hannibal suddenly stiffened and, hoping he had the right foot, tapped his foot against Face's to get his attention but not to let on to the others, especially Jean. Face turned his head ever so slightly to see back and he saw what Hannibal did; they'd never seen him in person but they'd seen his photograph enough over the last couple of days to realize that David Grant had finally shown up at the hotel. B.A. hadn't moved a muscle but he was seated at just the right angle that he didn't have to and he could still see what they also saw. Hannibal watched as the man made his way through the dining room and after a few minutes back at the lobby, he went over to the elevator and headed up to another floor. Hannibal threw his chair back a couple of inches and doubled over groaning, and suddenly everybody at the table was jumping up to see what was the matter.
"It must've been that lousy dinner," he said, "I feel sick. Face, go upstairs and get my pills, will you?"
"Sure, Hannibal, sure," Face raced for the stairs.
"Hannibal, you don't…" Murdock started to say but quickly shut up when somebody's foot kicked him under the table.
"I know, it doesn't happen often but when it does," Hannibal put his hand on his stomach and looked like instead he was suffering from a migraine, "Ironic thing is this never happened back in Vietnam," he looked to Jean, "And you'd never believe the stuff we had to eat there. Actually, I don't think I want to stay down here any longer, let's go upstairs and save Face the trip."
"Right," Murdock said, not getting what was going on.
B.A. 'helped' Hannibal up and over to the elevator and Murdock and Jean followed right behind them, but Hannibal stopped and turned to Jean and said, "Jean, I want you and Murdock to do me a favor. Do you remember where B.A. parked the van so nobody would find it?"
"Yeah."
"Good, go check on it and make sure nobody's found it still," he said, "If we're leaving tomorrow it has to be just as we left it. There's a small piece of tape on the hood, if the tape's broken, don't touch it, just come back here and get us. Check out everything else and make sure nothing's happened to it."
"Will do, Colonel," Murdock saluted, and he and Jean headed for the front door.
The two walked out into the night and the cold evening air hit them like a bucket of ice water.
"Sure gets cold at this time of the year, don't it?" Jean asked.
He couldn't say much from experience because most of his nights were spent in a temperature controlled room at the VA hospital. But this was fall and it did get cooler now, he knew that much, just not how cold it was supposed to be for normalcy. They found the van stashed away in a back alley far enough away from the hotel that nobody would think to come here and look to connect the two. On the surface it looked alright, they checked the hood and saw the tape was still in place.
"No bomb," Jean said.
Murdock looked at her and said, "You saw that movie too?"
She nodded slightly.
Murdock went around the van several times inspecting every square inch to make sure there wasn't so much as a scratch in the paint that didn't belong there. While he did that, Jean went to the corner and looked out to see if anybody was coming their way, and nobody was. She went back to the van just as Murdock came out of it and declared, "Everything is in tiptop shape here and ready to roll."
"Great," she said, pressing her arms tighter against her chest, "Murdock, you remember the other night when I asked if I could count on you for help?"
"Yeah, sure I do," he answered.
"Well, now's the time," she said, "I need to borrow your jacket and your cap."
"What for?" he asked.
"I can't explain," she said, "I'm going to take a little walk and I need to be by myself, but it's freezing out here."
Somehow this wasn't what Murdock had gotten in his mind when Jean had mentioned calling on him for help, but he was willing to go along with it.
"You know," he said as he took his jacket off and helped her into it, "Hannibal don't think you ought to be alone right now, especially out here."
"I know," she said as she took the cap off his head and put it on, "But I don't need a babysitter with me all the time, I'll be alright. You go on ahead back to the hotel, I'll catch up soon."
He didn't like the way that sounded, he felt like he was blindly taking the latch off of Pandora's Box for someone else to just raise the lid and let the evil out. But he agreed, he started to walk back to the hotel, but after turning the corner he stayed behind and listened to her walk off, to see if anything happened, if she would need him. Her footsteps finally disappeared and he had heard nothing else, so he took that as a sign that things had to be okay, and he continued on his way back to the hotel.
He was slow in returning, and slow in making his way up to their room, he still felt that if he lagged behind for a while, if anything happened he would be close enough to do something if needed. But he'd dragged his feet for over 20 minutes and nothing had happened. He tried to convince himself that this was a good thing and in the same slow pace, walked up the stairs to their rooms. When he got there he quickly found out that he'd missed something big; he hadn't been informed when David Grant first got to the hotel that evening but they had the equipment playing back the tape that started running when Grant had made a phone call.
There had been another man on the other end of the line, "Hello?"
"Saunders."
"Grant, where are you?"
"Right where we decided on."
"Were you followed?"
"No."
"Good. Now remember the plan, don't screw this up."
"I'm not the one getting our own men killed off, Saunders, remember that."
"You have your own job in this to do, Grant, don't blow it, you remember your orders?"
"Yes, yes, in three days I hit the road again, but I make sure that I take my time getting out to Chicago, six more days, that way the trail is too cold for anybody to follow." He read off a list of streets and interstates he was to get on to make the trip out there, and the names of a few hotels to stop off at along the way. "Just remember, Saunders if you screw this up, your head is on the chopping block right alongside mine."
"I told you before to quit worrying, nothing is going to happen."
"Everybody we worked with is dead, Jack, that's not nothing."
"It doesn't matter because the same thing is not going to happen to us, just remember your part and make sure you don't blow it for us!"
That was when the phone call had ended. The four men stood in the room not saying anything, just looking around from the phone to the tape to one another, until Face finally broke the silence and said, "Friendly bunch, aren't they?"
"Well, now we know what we're doing," Hannibal said, "Murdock, go bring our bags back up, we're going to be staying here for a couple more days."
"Alright, Colonel," Murdock quietly replied as he moved for the door.
"Wait a minute, Murdock," Hannibal said, "Where's Jean?"
This was the part he had been dreading, but he knew there was no way around it.
"Well…" he started to say, and stopped when they heard the door open in the next room. They cut through the adjoining doorway and saw Jean enter with her back to them, wearing Murdock's jacket and blue cap. She closed the door and turned on the lights.
"Miss Rhodes," Hannibal said, "Where were you?"
Jean didn't answer right away. She slowly took off Murdock's cap and put it on the table beside her, she reached up with one hand and ran her nails over the hair on top of her head to straighten it out. Then she took off Murdock's jacket and put it on the table also. She slowly turned around and when she was 180 degrees from where she was, they saw her in full and all four men were at a loss for words. Jean was a mess of blood and bruises, half of her shirt was torn and falling off the shoulder and she looked like a mangy cat that lost an alley fight; her whole face was cut up and blue and black already.
"I think," she said, the words coming slowly because it hurt her to talk, "I managed to get Colonel Lynch off your backs for a few days."