The rain came hours after the diner finished burning to the ground, ensuring that nothing was left burning, but the smolder that filled the air would stay hanging for a few days before finally clearing. B.A. and Hannibal sat in the front of the van, watching the rain beat down outside; Face was laid out in the backseat and blissfully unconscious and so unaware of what was going on. At least one of them could get some rest, even if it had been against his will. Hannibal still regretted doing it, knowing how much Face hated any and all drugs and how well they did not mix with him, but he and B.A. had decided it was best to give him an injection of the sedative they always used on B.A. before going on a plane.
"I'm sorry, kid," he could remember saying, "But it has to be done."
But Face had been so engulfed in his grief over Murdock that he had barely even noticed the shot in the arm, hardly had any strength left in him to even try and fight it. After a few minutes he had finally started to calm down and become quiet, eventually he closed his eyes and slumped over and both men were relieved that they would have silence for a few hours. But both knew that when the drug wore off, and he woke up the next morning, it would only start again.
Hannibal tried not to think about the events of that afternoon but his mind kept running back to them anyway; they had held onto a thread of hope that somehow Murdock and Jean had managed to get out of the building before it exploded, and they had waited around as long as they could, giving them the chance to come out of hiding and join them before they got out of there. But nobody had come except for the MPs and they knew they had no choice, they had to leave; Hannibal still thought that there might be a chance Murdock was alive, and if he was, somehow he would find a way to catch up with them. They'd managed to get away without being spotted, but after that they didn't have any idea where they should go. Hannibal had B.A. get them out of sight and that was where they stopped for the night; tomorrow he would have to figure out where they went on from here.
Once they stopped, Hannibal went around to the back where Face had collapsed and remained on his side with his face buried in his hands as he cried uncontrollably, still not able to accept that Murdock was dead. Hannibal grabbed him and held him, worried that Face might lash out and hurt himself in the process; this was one time where he hated feeling like a father to the others because how could you console one son over the death of his brother?
"Come on, Face, don't do that," he'd said as he tried to get the lieutenant to calm down, "It can't do any good now."
He hadn't been sure before if Face could hear them, but apparently he could because that statement only made him yell louder.
In the front seat, B.A. caught a glimpse of Hannibal and Face in the rear view mirror, but only for a minute. He held his head down and kept his gaze low, after a minute he balled his hand into a fist and beat the steering wheel a few times. He was not a man who was overly familiar with guilt, but he was sure feeling it now because he could hear Jean's words from the other day ringing in his ears, "You don't fool me. B.A., if anything bad were to ever happen to Murdock, you'd feel terrible and you know it." And he did, and now he was thinking back to all his threats against Murdock over the years.
Hannibal had likewise caught a glimpse of B.A. up front, his head down and though he never wore his emotions on his arm, the colonel could tell the sergeant was not feeling too proud of himself right now. He couldn't get mad at B.A., all the arguments he and Murdock had over the years were mostly talk and all amounted to little more than what he would consider to be sibling rivalry. They were brothers in the purest sense, always had been; blood hadn't been allowed to separate them, not in 'Nam, and not when they got back home either. Of course B.A. would never admit it but Hannibal knew he liked Murdock, despite all his empty threats to strangle him or knock him out.
And Face, Hannibal knew why he had been hit the hardest by the tragedy of that day; they were always a team but as far as actually being friends went, he and Murdock were two peas in a pod. Face was the one who always visited Murdock at the V.A., and always broke him out, the two couldn't have been closer if they'd been twins.
Face fed off of his grief like a junkie off a bag of heroin; for hours he stayed that way, wrapped in Hannibal's arms, screaming and crying his heart out, never weakening, never letting up. Finally it came to a point that B.A. couldn't listen to it anymore and he said, "He can't stay like this all night, Hannibal, give him a shot and put him to sleep."
Hannibal had been taken by surprise because none of them had spoken in over an hour and he wasn't sure he heard right, he looked up to the man in the front seat and asked, "What?"
"Give him the knockout stuff you' always slipping me, put him out of his misery already," B.A. told him.
Hannibal caught on and nodded; he kept one arm wrapped around Face and with his free hand reached into his pocket and pulled out a new syringe and a vial of the sedative, and handed them both to B.A. and told him, "Get it ready."
B.A. did and gave the syringe back to Hannibal; and after a few minutes when the drug took effect and Face started to wind down like an old music box, Hannibal laid him out on the backseat and covered him with his jacket, taking some solace in knowing they'd have a few hours at least before having to deal with this again.
Hannibal was drawn back to the here and now by a low grumbling coming from the driver's seat; he looked over and saw B.A. slumped down in his seat, he had also finally fallen asleep. Hannibal was glad for that, he needed to get out of the van and he didn't want either of his men knowing it. Absentmindedly as he opened the door on his side, he reached behind him and grabbed a bag from the backseat, Murdock's bag; he didn't know why he had grabbed it or why he was taking it with him, but he was.
He didn't know how far he walked in the rain, all he knew was he stopped under a streetlamp somewhere. He never let on to the others when something bothered him, even though he knew it didn't matter; he always tried to be reassuring for everybody else's benefit, even at times he was sure they were going to be killed. He felt like he had a right to be angry, he wanted to have somebody to be mad at but he knew that it wouldn't do any good and it just wasn't possible either. He couldn't be mad at Murdock for going back into the building; he reran the scene in his head over and over, trying to think of something to blame it on, something that could've been done differently, but there was nothing. He was proud of their captain for putting his own safety aside, to run back into a burning building to save an innocent life, but he couldn't get over the feeling that it should've been him instead.
In the rain, Hannibal looked up to the sky, and he saw nothing, no stars, no moonlight, only blackness and dreariness as far as the eye could see, how fitting, he thought.
"So what is this, some kind of sick joke?" he asked, "The last ten years of being hunted by the men who were supposed to be our own comrades wasn't bad enough, is that it? It was too easy for us to just adapt to being traitors to our own country for something we didn't do, so this? Why Murdock? Why that girl? Why not me? If somebody had to die today why not me?"
But he knew no answer would come; he hung his head low and realized he was stroking Murdock's bag with one hand as if it was a pet. He walked again until he came to a gas station and he stood by the door, out of the rain for the most part so that the contents in the bag wouldn't be ruined as he opened it. Drawing back the zipper, Hannibal pulled the bag open to see what was in it: a yoyo, a Walkman, a pair of sunglasses, a change of clothes, his prized Captain Bellybuster hat, a Polaroid camera, and a few photographs. Hannibal sorted through the pictures and saw some were older, taken when they were back in Vietnam, and others were more recent; he remembered the shutterbug phase Murdock had gone through a few months ago, randomly snapping pictures of them and usually blinding them with the flash. Luckily he had been able to save the roll of film before B.A. grabbed the camera away from him and broke it into two pieces with his hands.
At the back of the pile Hannibal saw some new photos that had to be from the Polaroid; he was mildly surprised to see that these photos had been taken back at the hotel, as the eccentric Tuttle family. Of course Face never allowed himself to be photographed, it was too risky that any picture could fall into the wrong hands; but there was one of Murdock and Jean standing side by side in matching jean shorts and Hawaiian T-shirts, obviously since Face wouldn't pose for the camera he had been made the photographer. Hannibal smiled grimly in remembrance of those days, he picked the picture up so he could see it closer, and he said quietly, "Sleep well you two, you've made your country, and your families proud."
Hannibal had no recollection of going back to the van, or of falling asleep, but the next thing he knew he was jerked awake by a sudden noise and realized he was back in the passenger seat of the van again. Beside him, B.A. was already awake and apparently had been for a while.
"You realize Hannibal, what we got to do, don't you?" he asked.
Hannibal's head was still foggy, he tried to remember where they were, what day it was, and then he turned around to see Face was still asleep in the back.
"We came close but it doesn't end here," B.A. told him, "We got to press on and bring the trafficking ring down hard, otherwise the girl and that crazy fool both died for nothing."
Hannibal found himself nodding before he actually realized what B.A. said, "You're right, B.A., they'd want it that way, it's too late to turn back now."
He still had the map, and they still knew the schedule; they would continue up to Chicago and bust the ring wide open and make sure the people still in it were put out of business and regretted ever being born. Once that was taken care of, then they would figure out some way to break the horrible news to Jean's parents, but one thing was certain; Hannibal knew when that moment came, he was going to make it clear that their daughter died a hero, serving her country.
But first, before they could do that, he told B.A. they were going to track down the men responsible for setting the diner on fire and deal with them first. He didn't care if they were military police, they were nothing more than cold blooded murderers and he was going to settle the score with them first.
Face was groggy upon awakening but he seemed to have a good memory of what had happened yesterday; though it apparently hadn't fully hit him yet what was going on because he was very calm as he explained to Hannibal about the MPs and the chopper and the base that they appeared to be working at, and he was able to show them the way he and Murdock and Jean had gone yesterday when they found it.
"There has to be a bridge for them to cross over but we couldn't find it," he said.
"Well we should be able to find it a bit faster today," Hannibal told him as they zoomed along the road at 60 miles an hour.
"Hannibal," Face tiredly said, "How did you guys know where to find us?"
"Well we found our way off the main road and down by the river like you'd told us," he explained, "And when you weren't there we figured you had gone on ahead for some reason so we just followed the path into town. We saw the jeeps and decided it might be a good idea to check out where they were going, but we followed on the road behind them, which leads to the back alley behind the buildings, including the diner."
Face didn't say anything and just tiredly nodded his head in understanding.
"Hannibal, you sure this is going to work?" B.A. asked.
"Two of us can do the job, B.A.," Hannibal assured him, "We just have to take them by surprise."
"Three," Face said, and when Hannibal turned to him in surprise he said, "I'm coming too, Hannibal."
"Face…"
"I know where I stand in the team, Colonel," Face told him defensively, "I've always been able to do my job and it's not going to be any different this time, and no matter what you say you're not keeping me out of it, you got that?"
Both men were dumbstruck by Face's sudden outburst; B.A. returned his attention to the road so he wasn't staring, and Hannibal moved back in his seat and surprised Face by saluting him and saying, in a somber tone, "Yes sir, Lieutenant."
They found the bridge and saw that across it the MPs were all loading up the armored cars and jeeps and getting ready to move out.
"That's our cue, everybody know the plan?" Hannibal asked.
They did. B.A. buried the accelerator in the floor and they crossed the bridge at full speed ahead; the noise and the sudden appearance of another vehicle taking the uniformed men by surprise. The van screeched to a sudden stop and the doors were thrown open as the three men jumped out and immediately opened fire; true to form they fired off hundreds of rounds of ammunition within a minute but they made sure not to hit anybody, yet.
"Gentlemen," Hannibal addressed the MPs when the gunfire ceased, "Kindly drop your weapons and raise your hands above your heads, and," he adjusted his aim so he would hit the man nearest him, "I'm not going to ask twice."
Assault rifles and Desert Eagles hit the ground and hands went up as the three commandoes made their way over to the MPs. Passing by them, B.A. grabbed the helmets off a couple of men and sent them flying, regretting only that he couldn't send the heads along with them. When he did he noticed there was something about the men that didn't seem right for being members of the military police of the United States.
What they found out when they got everybody disarmed and locked up and had a chance to search around the area for themselves surprised them all. They found about 50 men there, but a search turned up evidence that they were not authentic US army MPs, they were members of a terrorist organization that had gotten their hands on US military suits, weapons and transportation. A search of the vehicles turned up makeshift explosives and a map pointing out that several intended targets were going to be hit; the state capitol, the home of the state governor, and several churches and schools in the surrounding area as well. Apparently, the diner and the other buildings in that area that were hit the other day were only used as practice to see how much damage their bombs would be able to cause.
"It's people like you that give the US army a worse name than Lynch ever could," Hannibal sneered at one of the men as he dialed the phone he'd found inside one of the hangars.
"Hannibal," Face said, "You think there's a connection?"
"A connection?" Hannibal repeated as he turned to face the lieutenant.
"Between these guys and the trafficking ring," Face said, "Think about it, where did they get the weapons, the uniforms?"
"It's possible but I doubt it," Hannibal replied, then stopped when he heard the phone on the other end of the line get picked up, "Hello? Yes, this is Colonel Francis Lynch of the United States Army, I thought you might be interested in knowing there are about 50 terrorists disguised as American soldiers with enough firepower to blow up the state of Virginia, and they're holed up here at the old hangar base just across the river. Send a chopper, you won't be able to miss the place, believe me. Uh huh, yes, I'll be right here waiting."
"Who did you call?" Face asked when Hannibal hung up the phone.
"The local army branch," Hannibal answered, "I figure they should be here within half an hour, so that gives us about 25 minutes to put as much distance between here and Chicago as possible, let's go."
Face held his gun on some of the men as they walked past, even though they were all tied up and not going anywhere, and instead of his usual lighthearted jokes of department he issued a warning, "You better pray that I never see any one of your faces again, or you're dead."
He felt Hannibal's hand on his shoulder and he heard the older man saying, "It's alright, Face, let's go, it's over…"
Over, a day late to make much difference where he was concerned, but yes it was over, and it felt like a hollow victory; although, as they walked back to the van, Face looked up in the air, saw the blue sky and a few white clouds and the birds soaring up in the air, and for a moment he thought that Murdock would've been proud.
When they made their exit, Face sprawled out in the back of the van and within a few minutes of hitting the road, Hannibal was pleased to notice, he had blissfully fallen asleep. Good, maybe he would stay asleep for a while before it hit him again; they were already going to have enough trouble staying on target with their mission without Face falling apart on them again. Not that either of them could blame him if he did, but if they could at least put some distance between here and the next mark on the map, and stop somewhere for the night before the next storm hit, it would help them immensely.
The storm they anticipated was one of grief and the target that was going to be hit by it was Face, but as the afternoon turned into night, a real storm hit and they found themselves in the middle of another bout of pouring down rain.
"B.A.," Hannibal said after they had been driving through the mess for an hour, "You better find someplace to just park it for the night, we don't need any accidents happening."
B.A. would've preferred to keep going for most of the night, but he did as the colonel said. They pulled up in an abandoned gas station where there were no lights, no people, and with any luck nobody passing by would notice the van, and come morning they could hit the road again.
Hannibal turned in his seat and looked at Face who was still asleep and didn't show any sign of waking up anytime soon. He was dreading the next morning when the whole mess would start over again; for all the times they had stared danger in the eyes and faced death and walked back, he honestly never gave any thought to the possibility that there would be a time where one of them didn't come back from a mission. Idealistic, sure, unrealistic perhaps, but he never considered that one of them might be killed on the job. Maybe he should've anticipated it, but he honestly couldn't see any way that it could've changed how things turned out this time.
He didn't want to think about what had happened, and he also didn't want to think about the future, about what would happen once the mission was over. What could they do? They had no choice, they would have to carry on as a team of three; things would never be the same and they would be severely crippled now without Murdock's part filled, but despite this they still had a purpose to serve and that was to help people that nobody else would or could. He tried not thinking about it but it was inevitable, and it was depressing.
"Hannibal," the groggy voice drew him out of his thoughts, and he realized Face was awake.
"What is it, Face?"
He turned his head to look back at the lieutenant and saw the man barely even had his eyes open. But he reached his hand over to the front and grabbed Hannibal's arm to get his attention and asked, "What do you think happened to Murdock? I mean where do you think he is?"
Hannibal almost laughed. Apparently all the training he'd had in the orphanage with the nuns and the priests hadn't taken effect with him if he could question that now.
But it was B.A. who came to the rescue on that one, saying, "Don't worry, man, he's in the perfect place, now he can fly around all day, and he'll be happy."
The answer, simple though it was, seemed enough to please Face because he nodded and lay back down and went back to sleep. He was quiet for a while but after half an hour or so, the two men in the front could hear him mumbling again, and it was a bit straining to hear but they managed to listen as he said, "The other day when we went looking for the chopper, Murdock looked up and said 'she' was calling him, 'come home to the sky', said the chopper was calling him, I think it was his mother."
Hannibal couldn't tell if he'd been asleep, or if he was just on the verge of falling asleep; it seemed his head had been swimming for a while between the two points, but he was jerked awake and his heart did a pole vault up into his throat when he heard a loud ringing noise. B.A. and Face were also waking up at this time and Hannibal saw they were still in the van, and the noise that had scared him half to death and out of his sleep was the phone.
His hand was on the receiver in a second but he stalled before picking it up. His mind was starting to function logically and he was desperately trying to think who could possibly be calling them; he didn't dare give voice to the one thought he was hoping was the answer because it just didn't seem possible now. But if not that, then who was calling them? He noticed all eyes were on him and knew he had no choice, he picked up the receiver and, his hand shaking, he put it to his ear and said, "Hello?"
"Dr. Smith?"
He couldn't place the accent or the tone, but he knew that voice, and he about jumped out of his skin.
"Murdock!"
B.A.'s eyes were wide as he watched Hannibal and Face practically crawled over into the front seat when he heard the name spoken.
"Murdock, where are you?" Hannibal all but screamed into the phone, "Are you alright?"
"Doctor Smith," the voice repeated, not missing a beat. It was not Murdock's usual voice, any of his usual voices, this one was much more serious as he said, "Doctor Smith this is David Thompson, my wife asked me to call you, she said you would make a house call, do you make house calls to motels?"
Hannibal placed his hand over the mouth piece and his eyes were rolling back and forth in his head as he was trying to figure out what Murdock was saying.
"Joan and I are staying at the Shady Lake motel, don't bother looking on a map, it's in a small town just outside of Cisne. We're in cabin 8, she's been asking for you all night, she's very sick, so if you could come out here and take a look at her, I'd really appreciate it."
"Okay, okay, we'll be out there as soon as we can," Hannibal told him, "Just hang tight."
"Oh thank you, Doctor, I really appreciate it."
Hannibal hung up the phone and told B.A., "Hit it, B.A., we've got a location."
"Murdock's alive?" Face leaned over into the front and hovered over Hannibal like a vulture.
"And apparently so is Jean," Hannibal said as he tilted his head back to see Face, "Murdock says she's sick but I'm hoping that's just a cover. It sounded like he was on a public phone and didn't want to take any chances of giving himself away."
"So where we heading, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.
"Look for a sign that says Shady Lake Motel," Hannibal told him, "We go to room 8 and move them out."
Hannibal heard a noise coming from behind him that he could only describe as horrible; a low piercing whining scream, looking up again he realized that the sound was emanating from Face's mouth just before he collapsed against the front seat, fainted dead away. Hannibal turned around and carefully grabbed Face and pushed him back down across the backseat.
"Well he took that better than I thought," Hannibal said, desperate to lighten the mood now that they seemed to have latched onto a miracle.
B.A. didn't reply to him, a minute later he said, more to himself than to Hannibal, "Making us think he' dead, when I see that fool I'm gonna kill him myself."
Hannibal's trademark smile returned as he reached into his pocket and took out a cigar and he commented, "Nice to see things getting back to normal." Though he couldn't say he didn't sympathize with B.A.; he had half a mind to wrap his own hands around Murdock's neck and throttle the man himself for putting them through this. He was sure there was a good reason for what had happened, and he expected to hear it when they got to the motel.
Murdock held his breath as he returned to the street across from the motel, and he could see the man who had checked them in walking around outside while he smoked. Murdock slowly exhaled and sucked in another breath and stood straight and tall as if he was going to face down a bear instead of the motel manager; and he calmly walked back to the motel with the brown paper bag clutched in his hand. Maybe he would get lucky and he could just walk on by and get back to his room without being stopped, but that was a pipe dream. On his way back to room 8, he about collided with the manager, and he just smiled and said simply, "The little wife needed some more wine." He laughed sheepishly and headed back to his room; chancing one glance back to see if the man had returned to the front desk, and was relieved to see that he had.
"Lu-u-u-cy, I'm ho-o-o-o-me," Murdock called out as he took out his key and unlocked the door and went in, lowly singing a couple of notes from 'Red Red Wine' as he shut the door behind him and relocked it.
The lights were low but Murdock was able to see that the bed was empty and hadn't been slept in. He spotted his jacket draped over the footboard of the bed, and he put the paper bag down on the bed and went over to the bathroom. Pushing the door open, he turned on the light and saw Jean leaning against the tub with her feet on the floor and her knees up to her chest, and she truly looked sick.
"Did anybody come?" he asked as he went over to her.
Jean weakly shook her head. Murdock knelt down on the floor beside her and felt her forehead; still warm but it didn't feel serious. He helped her up and walked her back out to the bedroom and got her on the bed and put a cold cloth on her forehead and told her, "I talked to Hannibal, he said they're going to be here soon and they're going to pick us up."
"Good, then we can get out of here," Jean murmured.
Murdock went to the window, pulled back the curtains and looked out; no sign of anybody, no lights, no cars, no people, that suited him just fine. He closed the curtains again and went back to the bed and picked up his jacket, feeling around in the pocket he pulled out the handgun he always kept in it. He opened it up and checked the number of bullets still in it, obviously it hadn't seen any use since he'd left the room. He closed it up and stuck it back in his pocket; he doubted if even his teammates knew about the gun, that was one secret he liked to keep from people. He wasn't big on keeping secrets from the team but decided there were some things that the less they knew about, the better it would be for all of them; at least if none of them knew about his spare gun, nobody else could either. Every time Face helped him bust out of the VA he was always able to stop off somewhere and pick it up from wherever he had hidden it before returning to the VA the last time. Then he went over to the side of the bed and told Jean, "You might as well try and rest until they get here."
"Where're they coming from?" Jean asked.
"I don't know," Murdock answered as he tried to cover her with the top sheet, but she pushed it away.
Jean forced her eyes open, only slightly, and she said, "Think you were wrong?"
"It doesn't matter," Murdock told her, "Either way when we get out of here we're going to find those miserable excuses for mammals and decommission them."
Jean nodded slightly and closed her eyes again. Murdock sat down on the bed beside her and grabbed her hand in his and gave it a slight squeeze as he thought about everything that had happened in the last day.
"Murdock," Jean said weakly as she tilted her head back against the pillows.
"Yeah, Saint?" he asked, trying to smile for her benefit incase she opened her eyes.
"I'm sorry you got dragged into this mess," she said, "It was my problem from the beginning."
"No, darling," Murdock said as he lowered his head and lightly pressed his forehead against hers, "This is a lot bigger than just you, hell it's even bigger than B.A."
"Not…your…concern," she replied and he could tell she was almost asleep.
Murdock smiled as he removed the cloth and kissed her on the forehead and said, his customary lighthearted tone back in place to try and lighten the mood, "Oh honey you ought to know by now that that's never stopped us before."
All the same, he couldn't help but think about just how he was going to explain this one to the others; he wondered if they would believe him, if he hadn't lived through the events of the past 30 hours and seen it all with his own eyes, he would never believe it himself.