The name of the man, according to the ID card in his pocket, was Richard Burgess, and to make matters worse, the ID was a military one and further search of the unconscious man's pockets turned up proof that he had been a member of the army for 13 years.
"Now he's onto us," Hannibal said, "But do you recognize him, Jean?"
She shook her head, "I've never seen him before in my life."
"Well that's one thing in our favor," he said as he pocketed all of Burgess' papers. Getting rid of him would be hard enough and they knew it wouldn't be a permanent matter, but removing all forms of ID was one good start, it would take a while to confirm he was who he said he was by the time he woke up and remembered what happened.
"It's too bad we couldn't pump him full of vodka or something before dumping him," Jean commented, "He would be too drunk to tell anybody anything and by the time he sobered up, nobody would believe him, of course that's assuming he didn't succumb to alcohol poisoning first and do us all a favor and slump down dead."
Hannibal looked at her through the corner of his eyes and said, "Let me ask you a question, kid, where do you think up things like that?"
Her only response to him was, "You'd be surprised what I think about, Smith."
"You know the part I don't get," Face said, "How could this guy be following us and always one step ahead of Lynch? How was he able to tell where we were going?" He looked over to B.A. and added, "You checked the van to make sure we weren't being tracked, right?"
"That's right and there wasn't any," B.A. told him.
"Ingenious, through and through," Jean noted, and looking down at the unconscious man she said, "Maybe he flies at night in a straight line."
"What?" Face asked.
"Never mind," she replied, "So where're you going to dump him?"
"Well I figure since we left Lynch behind back east," Hannibal explained, "He would probably anticipate meeting up with our friend Burgess again somewhere between there and here, so we're going to drop him off somewhere a little further west where Lynch won't think to look for him, B.A., how much ground can you cover in about two hours?"
"Going west?" B.A. asked, "I can drop him off somewhere between the state lines of Missouri and Kansas."
"Sounds far enough west to me," Face said.
"Are we coming too?" Murdock asked.
"I don't see any need for that," Hannibal said, "B.A. and I can take care of it, after having the cops around it might look suspicious if anybody sees six people leaving this room together."
"Right but you guys weren't here when the cops came in either," Jean reminded them.
"Who's going to tell them?" Hannibal asked, "It's dark, the weather's still nasty, I doubt anybody's going to actually come out and see us off, if they only see two or three people from the window, that's not so unusual."
They hauled Burgess out with them and Hannibal closed the door behind them. A few minutes after the others heard the van leave, they went back to their own room, where they intended to stay until further notice.
"For their sake the weather better not get any worse or they're going to have the cops stopping them," Jean commented.
"That's what I like about you, always such an optimist," Face told her.
"So what do we do while we wait for them to get back?" Jean asked.
"Other than keep a lookout for the military bulldogs you mean?" he replied.
Murdock realized that Jean most likely had not been conscious when the revelation came that the others had thought she and he were killed in the fire, so he relayed that whole story for her benefit, after which she just said, "It sounds interesting, I wish I'd been awake for more of it, but about all I remember from that time is being hauled out of the room by King Kong," she pounded her chest with both fists for emphasis, "Good Lord that man is big, ain't he?"
"He's also heavy," Face told her, "You wouldn't believe how many times we have to carry him onto a plane once we get him knocked out."
Jean poked him and pointed behind him and he turned and saw Murdock sitting on the edge of the bed and he had a sad puppy dog look on his face and was starting to whimper like one.
"What is it now, Murdock?" he asked.
"That chopper, Face," he said with a distant look in his eyes, "I can still hear her calling me."
"Oh Murdock please, not again!" Face fell back against the bed.
"Wouldn't the cops have confiscated that too since it was evidence?" Jean asked.
"Maybe," Murdock considered it.
"Besides, how far back was that place?" Jean asked, "You'd never be able to get back there and find it."
"Don't tell him that," Face muttered to her, "It encourages him."
And indeed Murdock seemed to take that as a challenge, "They said I'd never make it in the Thunderbirds and I did, they said I'd never come back from 'Nam alive and I did. They said I'd never be able to hang myself by my heels from the water pipes on the ceiling in my room, and recite The Razor's Edge while playing a bass drum with my head, but I did it, now what does that tell you?"
"That you clearly have too much free time on your hands in that booby hatch," Jean answered without missing a beat.
"And apparently," Face added, more to himself than the others, "I've been in both your companies far too long, you're both starting to make sense, and I'm starting to get scared."
"Well that should be the end of that problem for a little while," Hannibal said when they pulled back in at the motel that night, "The way I figure it, Burgess should be in the drunk tank in that town for about a week, by which time we should be in Chicago and through with this whole ordeal."
"Either way, we shouldn't have to worry about Lynch crashing anymore of our plans for a while," B.A. agreed tiredly. It wasn't late yet but he was looking forward to just dropping on the bed and going to sleep.
"I'll be with you in a minute," Hannibal told him, "I'm going to check on Face and Murdock and make sure nothing else happened while we were gone."
Hannibal went over to the door of the room next to his and found it was unlocked and helped himself in. The lights were still on but he noticed before he ever opened the door that it was quiet inside. The only sound he heard was the door creaking as he pushed it and he found out why; Face was sprawled out in one bed asleep on top of the covers, and Murdock was in the other bed, under the covers, with his feet on the pillow and his head at the footboard, also asleep. Jean was the only one still up and she was facedown on the opposite side of Face's bed; like Murdock she was also down at the foot of the bed and had been hovered over a book, when she heard the door open her head came up and upon seeing Hannibal she raised a finger to her lips and pointed at the two sleeping men on her right. Hannibal smiled at the sight before him, nodded and quietly slipped back out and pulled the door shut behind him and went back to his own room.
"So what the crazy fool do this time while we weren't here?" B.A. wanted to know.
"B.A., you'll be very pleased to know that we've apparently missed a very boring evening, noting seems to have gone on while we were absent," Hannibal told him with a smug grin on his face.
But B.A. wasn't buying it, "If the fool ain't done something crazy before now, he just ain't got it planned yet, he's figuring out what the next crazy thing he's gonna do is."
"At least there's a break between them," Hannibal reminded him.
And he intended to enjoy it. B.A. flopped down on his bed and looked forward to a few hours of sleep without Murdock bursting into the room singing or hunting for dust bunnies under everybody's beds or whatever other crazy thing came to his mind. And if he did, B.A. was going to put him to sleep for a week.
Face rolled over onto his side and felt something press against him, he opened his eyes and saw he had rolled against Jean.
"Oh, excuse me," he said as he started to get up.
"That's alright," she replied.
Face sat up in the bed and yawned; he didn't know how long he'd been asleep but he could tell it had been a while. He turned his head and saw a lump under the covers in the other bed and realized the lump's head was down at the bottom and the feet were sticking up at the top of the covers. Just another routine night for the A-Team, he thought. He turned the other way to see Jean and a thought occurred to him. Maybe it would've been better if he'd asked Murdock this question, but he had an idea that maybe he'd get a straighter answer from Jean, instead of Murdock who usually found a way to not only tap dance but also cha-cha, rumba, and shimmy around any answers he didn't feel like giving when he thought the questions got too personal.
He reached over and tapped Jean on the shoulder and said to her, "Can I ask you a personal question?"
"Sure," she answered without a beat.
Actually asking the question was harder than he thought. In the last few days he had a strange feeling about this girl and Murdock; he didn't really think that there was anything going on between them, but all the same he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that there was something going on here that he wasn't aware of. He knew there was a perfectly logical reason for why they had done it, but when Murdock told them about checking into the motel as a husband and wife, something about it didn't set well with him. He didn't know why, he knew Murdock well enough to usually know what was going on inside his head, even if he didn't understand it. Maybe that was the problem; they all could tolerate Murdock's crazy antics up to a point, but Jean seemed to be the only one who could make any sense of the things he did and said.
That was what had really bothered him. Maybe the fact that she had been able to actually see Billy should've been a tipoff to something; it had certainly been weird when they found it out but they hadn't thought much of it. Well, why did she see Billy? If nobody else could and Murdock had always been the only one to see the dog, why could this woman? How did that work? And it wasn't just Billy, these two talked like they were of the same mindset, were it not for the age difference, he would almost swear they were twins separated at birth. He just couldn't figure it out, it didn't make any sense to him and that's why he had to know once and for all. Well, here went the $64,000 question.
Slowly, trying very hard not to crack because he was well aware just how ridiculous the whole thing was, he looked at her and asked her, "Is there something going on between you and Murdock?"
Jean only paused for a second before responding, "What do you mean something between him and me, something like what?" And then, slowly, it hit her, and her mouth fell open, and she fell against the bed laughing, and it grew until she was howling like a banshee. She bounced on the bed and hit her hands and her feet against the mattress, repeating over and over again between the laughter, "You thought…you thought Murdock and I…" that was always when she laughed too hard to make any other sounds, coherent or not. She flopped over onto her stomach to look over to the other bed and screamed at the lump, "Murdock!"
"Mm?"
"Hey Murdock!" she called again.
"What is it?" Murdock asked as he crawled out from under the covers at the foot of the bed and pulled himself up on the footboard.
"Murdock, get over here, you won't believe this!" Jean fell down laughing again, "You've got to hear this!"
Murdock was clearly not fully awake as he nonchalantly walked over to the other bed with his eyes closed and looked like he couldn't be rushed for anything. "Alright, what is it?" he asked as he sat down beside them.
Jean tried to tell Murdock but because she couldn't stop laughing it took her three times to fully say it, and took two more times for Murdock to fully hear it because that was when he opened his eyes and looked at Face. For a minute he didn't do anything but just sat there like a marble statue, and finally, he too fell down laughing.
"Well I guess that answers my question," Face said, trying hard to maintain a straight face and also to sound slightly annoyed by this response.
Jean and Murdock were beside each other paralyzed on the bed from laughing, it was several minutes before either of them could move and when they did they sat up again and tried to calm down, all the while small titters escaped them at every side.
"Well I just thought I'd ask!" Face told them, now very much annoyed by the sudden reception.
"Why?" Murdock managed to choke down a laugh and asked him, "You want her?"
"Hell no!" Face jumped to his feet, "I was just asking."
Murdock was howling with laughter again as he said, "We've discovered the eighth wonder of the world, a woman that Faceman is not attracted to!" He grabbed Jean by the arm and said, "Ohhh if only we could figure out how to bottle you and we could spray it so then we wouldn't have to keep taking jobs for pretty ladies who can't afford to pay us."
"Murdock," Jean was poking him to get his attention, "Murdock, can you imagine that? Can you imagine what that would be like?" She pointed at them and said, "Mr. and Mrs. Howling Mad Murdock." And both exploded into another fit of laughter as the thought took form.
"At least we know that you can wear white," Jean said.
Murdock let out one particularly loud howl and agreed, "Oh yes and I would make such a lovely bride, and stay at the aisle this time!"
By now Face had given up and was also laughing at the absurdity of it all; and it spread through them like pure intoxication.
"You must be fitted!" Jean said as she went over to the other bed and started pulling the covers off, and she told Face, "We must get the bride ready for her wedding dress!"
Face was officially as crazy as the others at this time, because he went over to her and said, "I'll help!"
That did it, that did it! B.A. said it before if Murdock didn't shut up for the night he was going to put the crazy fool to sleep for a week. And now, he didn't know what was going on next door but he could hear that fool's laughing clear through the wall; which was no surprise because he was being loud enough to wake the dead, and B.A. was about to make him a certified member. He went to the room next door and found the door unlocked, so that was one good thing; the motel wouldn't have to add the charge of a replacement door to their bill when they left. He opened the door and stepped in, and froze at the crazy sight before him.
The room was a mess from everything being thrown around and discarded, and in the center of the room, the beds had been stripped and Murdock was standing on a suitcase and a telephone book as Jean and Face stood on opposite sides of him, wrapping him in a white bed sheet over his jacket and khakis. All three of them were laughing and about to fall down, if they were drunk was anybody's guess but craziness definitely seemed to be contagious tonight. Murdock looked down at the sheet and how it fit around him and said, "But the real question is how do you hold a dress like this up?"
"Gaffer tape," Jean told him, and poked him in the chest as she added, "Right here."
"Ou-ch," Murdock said slowly and exaggeratedly, then he lifted up one foot and clicked his tongue, "It's no good dah'ling, I cannot get married in this, I do not have the right shoes to go with this dress, see?"
"Then take them off," Face said, "Nobody likes a tall bride anyway."
"Oh that's a good idea," Murdock replied.
Of course he couldn't take them off without untying them so he stayed in his sneakers, though now he seemed to have trouble maintaining his balance so Face grabbed him to help him stand up.
"I'm so nervous," Murdock said, "I've never been married before. I hope I don't get cold feet again, I simply won't be able to live with myself if I leave another man at the altar."
"Don't worry, Murdock," Face told him as he patted a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah, any guy would be lucky to have you," Jean added.
"Oh I just hope I'm doing the right thing," Murdock said, "I'm just thankful that there aren't any children yet. That always makes marriage so much more difficult."
B.A. was aware that sometime during this his bottom jaw had dropped slightly, and he knew that for all the crazy stuff Murdock had come up with over the years to try and drive them nuts as well, this one was too weird even for him. And, he also came to the conclusion that he didn't want any part of this one, because he was starting to wonder if the craziness really was contagious, in which case he wasn't going to let it spread to him too and make him like the fool. He backed out of the room, closed the door and headed back to bed where he was determined to forget that tonight ever happened, it was just too crazy to believe, even by Murdock's standards.
"Okay," Face said as Murdock stepped down from the suitcase, "Now we've got to get the bride to the chapel."
They each grabbed Murdock by the arm and walked him around the room humming the wedding march until they came to the same spot in front of the bed.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Murdock told him, "I can't get married now!"
"Why not?" they asked.
"There's no groom," he answered.
"Oh!" both turned away, clearly annoyed by this sudden inconvenience.
"Then we've got to find one," Face said.
"That's right," Jean looked at him, "And I know just the guy for the job."
Face caught on and couldn't help whining, "Oh why do I always let myself get talked into these things?"
When Face woke up the next morning, Murdock was gone. It was early enough that it was still dark out, and he couldn't figure where the captain had disappeared to during the night. Jean was also awake and apparently she too had been up for a while, and she told Face, "Murdock went out about 5 o' clock."
"Where?" he asked.
"I don't know," she answered, "But he said to make sure we didn't leave until he got back."
As if they would.
"And he didn't say anything about where he was going?"
Jean shook her head. "He just said when the others woke up to tell them to stay here until he got back later, but he didn't say when that would be."
"Are the others up yet?"
"I don't think so," she said.
"I'll go tell them," Face got dressed and put on his jacket and headed out the door. On the way out he was sure he could hear Jean snickering at him but he didn't stop to ask what was so funny.
Just as he reached to knock on the door, it swung open and Hannibal, also just getting up, stood in the doorway and said, "Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Did you know that Murdock's gone?" Face asked.
"Good riddance," B.A. grumbled as he got out of bed, "Too bad that fool always finds his way back, he's like a boomerang."
"Where'd he go?" Hannibal asked.
"I don't know, he ducked out before I woke up," Face explained, "He only told Jean and apparently he said for all of us wait here until he gets back."
"Oh brother," B.A. rolled his eyes, "Knowing that fool he probably found a trowel and started digging his way to China."
"Well, we'll wait and see what happens when he gets back," Hannibal said, "In the meantime, Face, why don't you go down to the diner and bring back some breakfast since we're all up?"
Sometimes the line between conman and errand boy was a slim one. Face turned around and walked away, and he stopped in his tracks and started to feel his cheeks turning red when he heard Hannibal and B.A. laughing under their breath as well. He turned around and was going to demand to know what was so funny, but as he turned around he caught a glimpse of something white on the back of his jacket. He turned around a couple of times trying to catch a better look at it, but finally just took his jacket off and turned it around, and he was not laughing at the sign taped onto the back of his blazer that read: Just Married.
"So what did happen last night?" Face asked Jean as he lay on the bed with his feet up on the footboard as he gazed out the window and waited for Murdock to return.
"Well it's a little blurry but as far as I can remember," she told him, "You and Murdock got married."
"To who?" he asked.
"Whom."
"Alright, to whom?" Face asked.
"Each other."
"Oh brother," Face covered his face with his hand, "Why did I do that?"
"Because somebody had to fill in for the groom and we took a vote you were more qualified for it than I was," Jean explained.
"So what did you do?"
"I married the two of you," she said, "If I were you, when Murdock gets back I would push for annulment, it would be so much easier than a divorce."
"Ha-ha-ha," Face dryly remarked, "Do you think he remembers?"
"Who do you think put the sign on your back?" she replied.
"Oh ga…" Face groaned, "If he tries tying cans to the back of the van, he won't have to worry about B.A., I'm going to kill him."
Jean turned back around to watch the TV and just laughed.
"Shhhh," Face said as he sat up, "You hear that?"
"What is it?" Jean asked as she turned back around and shut off the TV.
She saw Face was looking up to the ceiling and she looked as well, and after a few seconds she could hear it, a low, repetitive thwump-thwump-thwump-thwump in the distance.
"It couldn't be," Face said, "It just couldn't be."
But he knew it was. He sprang off the bed and ran out the door with Jean at his tail and they ran into Hannibal and B.A. who had also come out to see what the noise was. They all looked up in the air and didn't see anything, then Hannibal pointed further out to an area that was covered with trees and told them, "Look!"
Just rising above the treetops they saw the big black Huey heading their way.
"Holy cats, he did it!" Jean said.
They saw the chopper go down behind another cover of trees just across from the motel and they took off running to see what was going on. The rotor had slowed and finally came to a stop as the door opened and Murdock climbed out, looking very pleased with himself and he spread his arms out to emphasize the size of this accomplishment and said when they came up to him, "Well Colonel, what do you think?"
"Murdock you are crazy!" Jean said as she threw her arms around him.
"Well I already knew that!" he told her.
"How did you get it?" Face asked.
Murdock evaded the answer to that question, saying only, "They told me I'd never learn to juggle with my feet, and I did, they told me I'd never go around the Revolution's loop without a roller coaster and I did, they told me I'd never be able to go back and get the chopper, and I did!" And he jumped up and down in ecstasy at what he had done.
"Brilliant work, Captain," Hannibal said as he craned his neck back to see the copter better, "But what're you going to do with it?"
"Like you said, Colonel, half of us stays on the road in the van, and the other half takes to the skies, that way even if Lynch could catch up with us again, he couldn't catch all of us."
"Well," Hannibal looked up, "The weather looks better today, and since Lynch has no idea of what's going on or where we are, this would be the perfect time to hit the road again…" he dug the map out of his pocket and tapped their next stopping point. "That's the first checkpoint Grant's supposed to come to, and he should be catching up to us pretty soon. Now I think it's a safe bet there'll be a lot less traffic in the sky over the checkpoint, and since they don't have control of who comes that way, there'll be a lot less they can do about anybody passing overhead. So I think it would be a good idea if you could fly over the checkpoint and find out what it is exactly, what we'd be getting into. That just leaves the question of who goes," he gestured to the chopper, "And who stays?"
B.A. folded his arms and got in Hannibal's face and told him, "You already know what my answer is, Hannibal, I ain't getting in no planes, and I ain't getting in no helicopter, especially not one being flown by that crazy fool."
"I'll go," Jean spoke up, "I'm not afraid to fly."
"Hmm," B.A. grunted a dry laugh and told her, "You will be."
"How bout you, Face, you wanna come?" Murdock asked hopefully.
"Ah," Face tried to think how to turn him down without hurting his feelings, "I'll join you on the next trip. It's only a couple hundred miles away, right?"
Murdock's mouth drooped in a sad puppy pout and he looked down at his sneakers.
"Well, if we're checking out we better get our luggage before the maid steals it, right?" Jean asked.
"Right, let's clear out," Hannibal told them.
"Do we put our stuff in the van or the chopper?" Jean asked.
"We'll hold onto it for the time being," Hannibal answered, "If there's anything you want to grab out before we take off, I'd recommend doing it now."
"Murdock," Face said as they headed back for the motel, "How did you do it?"
"How did you get the '53 Caddy?" Murdock replied.
"Professional secret."
"Mine too," Murdock told him.
"If the chopper can fly faster than they can drive, why are we taking off before them?" Jean asked Murdock as they walked out to the helicopter.
"Oh it's strictly routine," Murdock said, "Incase something would happen and we'd crash right after takeoff, then they'd know it right away instead of waiting around for us to land."
Jean looked back to the three men standing by the van seeing them off. Murdock turned and waved back at them and called, "So long, fellas!"
Likewise Jean waved to them and bellowed, "Goodbye, suckers!" And with that, she climbed into the right side of the cockpit and Murdock on the left and they pulled the doors shut.
Once seated, Murdock fell over the control panel and nuzzled it like it was a cat, stroking the controls and crooning, "Hello, baby, did you miss me?"
Jean looked around at the cockpit and commented, "This isn't a particularly new model, is it?"
"No," Murdock shook his head as he picked it up off the gauges, "This is very similar to the ones I flew back in 'Nam." He looked at Jean and asked her, "Have you flown before?"
She paused for a second before answering, "Never."
That got Murdock's brain storming; just prior to takeoff was never a good time for true confessions although it was dramatically better than just after takeoff.
"Are you scared?" he asked her.
She looked at him and looked out the windshield and then out the window on her side and looked at the ground around them and said, "Not yet."
Murdock started to chuckle and said to himself, "This should be a very interesting experience."
Jean covered her ears as the engine whirred to life and looked up when she heard the blades start spinning. Out on the ground, the tension wasn't any lighter; Hannibal, B.A. and Face stood by the van watching as the copter started up and slowly took to the air, and once there it started to turn around, and took off heading north.
"Are you sure about this, Hannibal?" Face asked.
"What've we got to lose?" he replied, "Now let's get going, they're already going to beat us to the checkpoint, but let's not make it easy for them."