B.A. felt his head swimming and he started to wake up and realized they were in his van, but Hannibal was driving it.
"What's going on, man, where are we?" he asked as he looked around.
"Well unless somebody put up the road signs just to be funny, we should be entering Chicago soon," Hannibal told him, "You conked out on us as soon as we got back to the van."
B.A. turned around and saw they were the only two people in the van, "Where everybody else?"
"Back in the chopper," Hannibal told him, "I thought it might be a good idea to let them travel separately from us for a while."
"Well at least I don't have to hear that crazy fool ramble on about his invisible dog," B.A. commented, "So what's the plan now?"
"That plane doesn't go out until tomorrow night, it's getting late now so we're going to find a place to stop off for the night. Murdock said he was going to land the helicopter near the first airport he saw, and then they were going to find a place for us to stay and we can swing by and pick them up."
A few minutes later the phone rang and B.A. picked it up. Face had found a hotel in the phone book that was close by and affordable and gotten them two rooms for the night, though this time they were clear across the hall. They were at the airport and waiting for the others to come and get them.
"Okay, we' be there soon," B.A. told him, hung up, and told Hannibal, "Step on it, I ain't gonna linger around the airport, might give you ideas."
"You know, B.A.," Hannibal said coyly, "If I didn't know you better I might think that you didn't trust me."
The only response he got was a low growl from B.A., so he decided not to press the issue.
As it turned out they didn't have long to wait for anything, Face, Murdock and Jean were at the front gate waiting and as soon as they saw the van they ran for it. They went to the hotel where Face got them reservations, and the unanimous opinion was thank God they were only staying there one night; the place looked like it was falling apart and they could all guess that there wasn't much size difference in the cockroaches and the bellhops. They hadn't gone in yet because Hannibal didn't even want to take a chance on the food there so they found a restaurant a couple blocks away and went there for dinner. They parked the van around the back and went in; it wasn't by any means a fancy place to eat or particularly clean, but it would do for the night.
"So what's the plan for tomorrow, Colonel?" Murdock asked.
Hannibal reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, "You remember our friends back at the checkpoint? One of them was only too happy to give me the exact directions of where Saunders is hiding out in this city. And as it turns out it's right next to the airstrip where the transport plane is going to take off tomorrow night. Now, I don't know where Saunders is going to be tomorrow, but we're going out there tomorrow morning to find that plane and make sure it never takes off."
"Ohhh Hannibal do I have to take it apart too?" Murdock groaned.
"Not necessarily, if you'd rather show us what you can do as a crash pilot."
"Aw Hannibal," B.A. spoke up, "You know this fool been crazy ever since he crashed his plane back in Vietnam, you want him to go and get even crazier?"
"The main thing is that they can't fly that plane out tomorrow night because it's going to have the recruits on it," Hannibal reminded them.
"But where are they in the meantime?" Face asked.
"That's a good question," Hannibal turned to Jean, "I'm going to go on a limb and guess you have some idea about that one?"
"They're being brought in from the base in New York," Jean answered.
"Why?"
She shrugged and explained, "Their training's begun, they go wherever Saunders is and he checks them over one last time and sends them on the plane out with a case of drugs and a bunch of the weapons they'll be using over there to kill the rival cartel members. Don't ask me to explain it, Smith, I've seen this stuff going on for six months and it doesn't make anymore sense now than it did. But I just can't figure out how he built it all up again so fast."
"Well don't take it personally," Hannibal told her, "When business is good, nothing can stop it, and the smuggling business within the military has been going strong since the body bags in Vietnam. It only makes sense it wouldn't have stopped when the war did, and would only escalate."
"Then they really did die for nothing," Jean said as she hit her head against the table.
"Not exactly," Hannibal said as he reached over and patted the back of her head, "You had them scared, if only for a while, you managed to create doubt between Grant and Saunders, I think that their trust with each other is starting to weaken."
"It doesn't matter, they're still working together," she told him as she picked her head up again.
"Not for long," Hannibal replied, "After tomorrow they're all going to be out of business. All we have to do now is make sure we don't run into…"
"MPs again!" Murdock said as he saw the men in green come in the front of the restaurant.
Face turned to Hannibal and asked, "How did they find out where we were this time?"
"I don't know but they're not gonna catch us yet," Hannibal told him, "Let's go."
They made a break for the kitchen and managed to avoid colliding with any of the staff and get out the back exit but as soon as they got to the street, they were blinded by several lights popping on simultaneously. When they were able to see again, they could see 20 MPs and Lynch standing in the center, and Lynch was looking very pleased with himself.
"Well well well Smith," he said with a sickening smirk, "It looks like your game is up this time."
"Somehow I doubt that, Lynch," Hannibal replied, "Ours is a game that never ends incase you forgot."
"Except there's no way out for you now," Lynch told him, "So I…"
All eyes had been focused on the A-Team so nobody had been watching behind Lynch, so nobody saw Jean rush up behind him and she put a gun to his head and screamed into his ear, "You move and you're dead, colonel!" The MPs turned and had their guns drawn but Jean kept the gun pressed to the back of Lynch's skull and told them, "You drop your weapons or your colonel dies, NOW!"
Nobody was willing to press their luck. Rifles and handguns hit the street into a macabre collection of firepower.
"Now get your hands up, ALL of you!" Jean ordered them.
Everybody's hands went up, including the A-Team's. It was Hannibal who took the risk to speak to her.
"Brutus," he told her with a shake of his head, "Don't do this, he's not worth it."
"Sorry, Smith," Jean told him, "But it has to be done, this insanity has to end, and if somebody's going to die, it is going to be the precious colonel Lynch here." She looked at the back of Lynch's head and addressed him personally, "Never saw anybody waste so much time and manpower and taxpayers money on something so stupid as hunting down four men who are not a threat to anybody but the criminals. You're good people, Smith, you help people, you save lives, you save the innocent people that the police can't and the military won't because they don't give a damn about helping anybody innocent." She said the last part directly into Lynch's ear, then shook her head and grinned sinisterly, "Not me, all I do is cause death and destruction everywhere I go!"
Lynch heard the gun cock as she added, "And it's going to happen again here tonight, and it's going to happen to the precious colonel. This is where your titles and your formalities get you, gentlemen, the same place as honor, dignity, loyalty and all that bull they feed you in the army…" she lowered the aim of the gun and used it as a pointer, "Into the ground, it's what it all amounts to." She had the gun back to Lynch's head as she said, "You love to serve your country, you want to die for your country, Colonel? You were aware when you took this job that that was one of the risks that went along with it, weren't you? Aren't you proud of yourself, Lynch? It's a proud man who dies for the sake of his country, isn't that right?"
"Brutus!" Hannibal screamed at her, "I don't enjoy killing anybody, but if somebody does have to die tonight, it's going to be you, not Lynch."
"You can't be serious," Jean was practically laughing.
"I am," Hannibal told her, "You let him go, or I'll shoot you."
"No, they're going to let you go, or I'm shooting him," Jean corrected him, and she addressed the MPs, "It's either the four of them go, or you're going to bury your colonel, I'll let you decide which is more important. Now, everybody keep your hands up, get away from the van, let them pass through, nobody even breathe funny or the colonel gets it."
Slowly, one by one, they got to the van and got in it, Hannibal turned back and hollered to Jean, "That's enough, Brutus, let him go."
"Nothing doing, Smith," she replied, "Nobody's moving until you're gone, or he dies."
"No," Hannibal told her, "You do."
Quicker than the eye could see, Hannibal raised a gun and fired at them; nobody saw her get hit because there was an explosion and a curtain of smoke where she had been standing. Lynch yelped and turned around and saw his assailant was gone and he about passed out with relief. As everybody scrambled to find out what had happened and where she had gone, Jean ran over to the van and was practically hauled into it as they sped out of there.
"Oh you're good, kid, you're very good," Hannibal said once they left the MPs behind them, "But it was one hell of a risk you were taking. How did you know that I keep blanks in this gun?"
"You keep blanks in there?" she asked with a knowing smirk, "How did you know that it was a setup?"
"Well I remembered you kept smoke flares and firecrackers in one of your bags, I figured they'd probably be seeing use sooner or later," Hannibal told her, "And I figured there was another reason you were standing behind Lynch besides using him as a shield, you stayed out of sight so nobody could see the fuse being lit."
"But we're back to square one, how did Lynch find out where we were?" Face asked.
"I don't know but we ain't going back to that roach motel now," B.A. told him.
"Just figures," Murdock commented, "We finally get to our proper destination and in comes the army to wreck our plans."
"Hannibal, is it possible that that guy Burgess you dumped out of state got out of jail and got hold of Lynch?" Face asked.
"I wouldn't think so already, but I suppose anything's possible," Hannibal remarked, and he turned to Jean and added, "And speaking of which, you can be a pretty good actor when you want to be, can't you?"
"It's a gift," she replied sarcastically, "They certainly weren't expecting that."
"Neither were we," Face told her. He personally had about had a heart attack when he saw her pull the gun on Lynch; he had just known it would be the end for all of them.
"It was a hell of a risk to take," Hannibal told her.
"Not really," Jean said, "They were waiting for you at the back, they didn't see me come around front and double back there, and they weren't going to take a risk of their colonel getting shot either, you know that. So actually, ironically enough, behind Lynch is one of the safest places to be because nobody's going to take a chance on hitting him."
"Well do us a favor and don't try it again," he warned her.
"So where're we going now, Colonel?" Murdock asked.
"It would seem we've run out of places to go," Jean said, "This whole time they've been chasing us, we kept heading towards Chicago, now we're in it and they're still behind us."
"I guess it wouldn't help if we tried staying at B.A.'s mom's for the night," Face commented.
"That would be the first place the MPs would look," Hannibal said.
"Alright," Murdock said, "Then let them go there and look first, and then when they can't find us, then we go there."
"Have to admit there's something to that idea," Face told Hannibal.
"That might be but I don't like the idea of dragging her into this as well," Hannibal replied, "We'll just get out of the area and find a place to stop off for the night, and come back tomorrow."
Another night in a sleazy motel, this time there had only been one room available with two double beds; they had taken it and Hannibal had figured either Face or both he and Murdock would be bunking with him tonight, everybody naturally knew to leave B.A. alone when he was trying to sleep. But he had been surprised, instead the two of them and the Saint piled the extra pillows and sheets on the floor and fell asleep there, the three of them practically piled on top of each other like a football game.
By this time tomorrow night, Hannibal anticipated for the whole damn mess to finally be over; all the deaths, all the trafficking, all the lives bought and sold for blood money, it was all going to come crashing down on Saunders' head, they would see to that. And when that was over, they would put Jean back in the chopper with Murdock and have him fly her back to New York; the pilot knew the skies enough to know it was a five hour flight providing they didn't run into any trouble. Hannibal started doing the math in his head of what hour in the morning it would be when they got her back to her parents, hopefully they were early risers, otherwise it would be one hell of a wakeup call, but it would be worth it, he knew that also.
This had certainly been one of their more interesting missions, Hannibal felt certain that never again in any of their lives would they ever work a case that was anything like this one. He looked over the foot of his bed to the three lumps on the floor and was almost sorry that they had to be broken up; he couldn't explain it but over the last couple of weeks, those three had practically become triplets. But Hannibal knew they were doing the right thing, they simply couldn't keep the kid with them; it wasn't just a matter of returning her to her parents, she didn't belong with them, she didn't belong in this life. She had held her own very well when she was alone and had no choice, but they just about had her out of it completely now. In spite of everything, she wasn't too far gone that she couldn't go home again and have a normal life; one where she didn't have to look over her shoulder and always be on the lookout for MPs and cars with red lights and wonder if every day was her last or if she would rot in a military prison.
He could accept that as his own fate, all four of them could and did, but there was still time enough to get Jean out of this mess before she completely sank in the quicksand. It wasn't in his nature to let on when he liked new people, he always kept them reserved at arm's length for a while after he decided, but he did like this kid, and he liked her parents from what he'd seen of them. He had been there in the dark alleys, the late nights, the pouring down rain, one disguise after another after another, putting them through one test after another, each more ridiculous and strenuous than the last, to see if they were worthy of the team's services. That had been before they even knew what the case was, they knew it involved a problem within the family but not the details; not one of their finer moments since they were always supposed to know more about their would-be clients than they knew about the team, but even so he thought it had turned out well.
He had no children, and knew that the three men on his team were the closest he would ever come to being a father; but he knew if he had any kids and one of them had come up missing as the Saint had, if he wasn't able to do anything himself, he would've done exactly the same things that her parents had done if it meant finding somebody that could bring them back. And he remembered Jean's warning to him in the beginning, they were nice people but couldn't afford the Team's rates; and they'd said they would pay any price if it meant getting their daughter back. He could tell they were good people, they truly loved their daughter or they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble and sacrifices that they had made; that was all the proof he needed to deflect anything Jean had had to say about herself and the worth or lack thereof that she meant to anybody while she was alive. Due to situations beyond any person's control she had considered herself a coward and a failure, but to that middle aged couple back in New York, she meant the whole world; and that was what made so many of their missions worth the time and money and danger. Jean had been right about that, they helped people, and more times than not they had been charity cases; soldiers of fortune may have been an impressive title, but it was no way to get rich, but it was what they did.
Face, Murdock and Jean had been tossing and turning over on the floor in their sleep and now Murdock and Jean were piled on top of Face and had their elbows and their feet in direct contact with his nose and his mouth, and he was completely oblivious to it all. Hannibal would've laughed but he wasn't about to wake anybody up. The girl didn't fool him; she could act like their presence was a burden on her work but he knew she didn't resent having them around like she pretended to. In her mind, he supposed, she still saw it as an attempt to protect them, to keep them safe, now that was the real joke. They were four soldiers who had lived in hell for years before coming back home and she thought they needed protecting. But it did prove one thing, she had a heart somewhere in that armored chest and it was obviously in the right place; right or wrong, anything she had done she had done for what she believed was a greater good. And it was hard to dispute; on the surface it seemed very black and white, she murdered men she never even knew, so she must be a cold blooded murderer. Then you chip beneath the surface, and find out why she did it; motive might not have been a requirement for a trial but when it came to street justice, a motive was everything and she had a damn good one to back up her actions.
In war there was no black or white, two sides were thrown together for reasons beyond anybody's explanation or control and told to wipe out as many people on the other side as was possible, but all without ever being given a reason why. In war, people died every day, people killed every day, it was no crime so long as the 'right' people died; and how did you determine who that was in a war? You didn't, somebody in a higher authority told you who that was and you had to act on those orders or you were a traitor. He remembered back to those days in Vietnam; he had seen things that he would never forget and that he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy. He had seen American soldiers torture and murder Vietnamese women and children, and the ones that tried to put a stop to it…well they were just put on a plane and flown back for a dishonorable discharge for disobeying their commanding officers' orders, and the slaughters continued as soon as the plane was off the ground. Those had been the memories that about drove him crazy, about drove them all crazy; they had all been affected the same way by the massacres.
Thinking about it, given all the horrors that they were witness to and on occasion forced to take part in every single day for whole periods of time, it was a wonder that among them Murdock was the only one who went insane. And why then, since he was, had he been the only thing keeping the Rhodes girl teetering on the brink of her own sanity? Murdock might know crazy but Hannibal had watched too many men from the war lose their minds, he had seen the events slowly building up before finally boiling over; and he had been able to see it with this girl as well. The life she'd lived for six months, the people she'd killed, the people she had seen killed, it all worked together to slowly drain her own sanity from her and she was just about to take a nose dive off the edge when they met her. After the first few days passed, Murdock was the only thing keeping her afloat; the fact that these two could communicate so perfectly while they each stood on opposite sides of the borderline did nothing short of amaze Hannibal, though naturally he never let on.
Of course there was always the age old question that everybody had been asking for 10 long years, was Murdock faking it? Nobody could answer that one, and Hannibal had decided it really didn't matter. If Murdock was faking being crazy, then let him have his fun, if he wasn't, so what? He had proven it in no way compromised his ability to work in the Team, either way he wasn't hurting anybody, and he knew B.A. had a higher tolerance of Murdock's antics than he ever really let on. But crazy or not, this man had been able to speak the same language of this kid, something that Hannibal knew none of the rest of them would ever be able to accomplish. How did that work? Out of the four of them, how did she pick this man to trust before anyone else?
The more Hannibal thought about it, it seemed a bit odd; small children always trusted B.A., always wiser than adults they could see past the intimidating size and appearance and knew they could trust this large man and count on him for help, and women always trusted Face, it was a direct result of his neverending conman charm, though his sincerity where a lot of them were concerned was often genuine since his heart had a tendency to flop out anytime a lady was in need of assistance. But few people actually trusted Murdock and instead most just became nervous after listening to him talk or seeing the things he did. But for some reason, this kid picked Murdock of all people to latch onto as somebody to trust. That was something else he couldn't figure out, and he decided it was too late in the night to bother trying. They already had their hands full for tomorrow, he would ponder that particular mystery of the universe another time.
"You know, I just thought of something," Face said the next morning as they headed out to Saunders' hideout, he turned to Jean and told her, "I don't think any of us has ever even seen a picture of this guy, Saunders. You have the photographs of all the men who were in the ring, don't you have one of him too?"
"Sure I got a picture of Saunders, hang on, I'll get it," Jean replied as she grabbed one of her bags and opened it up.
"One thing about it, Grant certainly is a punctual man," Hannibal pointed to the radar screen, "He should beat us to the place by a good ten minutes."
"And then we crash the party," Murdock said.
"Right, but how are the recruits being brought here?" Face asked, "That's what I'd like to know."
"Well it wouldn't make much sense to fly them here on one plane and then put them on another," Murdock noted, "So they must be driving them in."
"On what, a tour bus?" Face asked.
Murdock shrugged in response.
"Ah, here it is," Jean took a photograph out of her bag and handed it over to Face, "Here's Saunders, since I know it's going to come up again."
He looked at the photo and tried to see if he recognized this man from anywhere; the face didn't ring a bell, Saunders looked about 50 with short black hair, gray eyes, lightly tanned skin and a scar going down one cheek.
"Ugly guy," Face said as he passed the picture to Murdock, who barked at it and handed it to Hannibal up front.
Hannibal took the cigar out of his mouth and froze. His eyebrows knitted together and he said, "This is Saunders? This is the guy that shot Jean Rhodes?"
"Yeah, why?" Jean asked.
Hannibal kept his eyes low to focus on the picture and he answered, "I think I know this man. I remember him from Vietnam, only he didn't go by the name Jack Saunders back then."
"I don't recognize him," Face said.
"No, that was before I met you, any of you," Hannibal told him, "Back then this guy went by the name Frank Carter, he was a commanding officer when we first reached the jungle, he personally ordered the troops to round up the mothers and children from the village and execute them. The way he saw it, since we were at war with the Vietnamese, then all the people there deserved to die, and unfortunately he had a lot of men in brass backing him on that one. Anybody tried to stop it, he had them flown out and discharged, branded a traitor because they questioned his authority and interfered with his orders, and that was good enough for the courts-martial." He turned back to Jean and told her, "They like to make it sound like dishonorable discharges only happen under extremist circumstances, murder, rape, that sort of thing, but try telling a CO he can't butcher women and children, you'll be thrown out of there faster than a fly ball at a Dodgers game."
"So what did you do?" Jean asked him.
"Well there wasn't anybody that could stop him or have him court-martialed, but you better believe as long as we were in the same area, I made his daily life an overall misery. Nothing he could ever actually pin on me, but he knew who was responsible. Finally he wound up in a field hospital after he was shot half a dozen times."
"They should've reloaded," Jean commented.
"After that, he was sent back home, of course he was made out to be a damn hero, what else could they do with him?" Hannibal replied, "But I sure never thought I'd see his face again, and you're telling me this is the head of the ring?"
"That's right," she answered, "So how did this guy become a drill sergeant?"
"Most likely he was just playing the role of one, was he there all the time?" Hannibal asked.
"I wouldn't know, of all the people I had screaming at me, he wasn't one of them, remember he was for the SEALs," Jean answered.
"Well he probably just identified himself as one so the recruits wouldn't get suspicious," Hannibal said, "Odds are he probably only showed up when they decided who was going across the border."
"So tell me something, Smith," Jean said, "If I'd shown you this guy's picture before now, would it have made any difference about anything?"
"Not much of one, no," Hannibal shook his head.
"Well," Face suddenly had a bad feeling about this, "This should be very interesting."
"That's the place?" Face asked an hour later when they stopped a couple hundred yards away from the place where Grant was supposed to be arriving.
The building up ahead looked like a cross between a castle and a hospital, it stood three stories tall in tan and white brick and looked like there should be bars in the windows and a moat surrounding it instead of a paved driveway leading practically up to the front door.
"Must be, you don't see anything else around here, do you?" Jean asked.
"And I'll bet if you go behind the house, you'll find the path leading out to the airstrip and the plane."
Face could already see the gears turning in Murdock's head on that one.
"Well I don't see Saunders anywhere," Face commented, "Or whatever his name is."
"Probably inside waiting on Grant," Jean said, "You can be sure he's got about a hundred cameras all over this place."
"He probably does," Hannibal answered nonchalantly.
"And all of them running on TV monitors so he can see everything that's going on around here."
"Most likely," Hannibal added.
"And knowing him he's probably got the place booby trapped so if anybody comes around who shouldn't be here, they get mowed down by a hidden machine gun or something," Jean also thought.
"I would too if I lived in a place like this," Hannibal told her, "But, when Grant gets here in a few minutes, he's going to have to turn the system to those traps off. He wouldn't take a chance on his partner getting killed accidentally."
"Speak of the devil and up he pops," Murdock said as he looked out the back, "Here comes the car now."
Of course the van had been well concealed so when the Eldorado convertible drove up, the driver never noticed that somebody was watching him. They watched the car drive up to the house and the front door opened and a man stepped out; they were too far away to see it clearly but Hannibal was certain the man on the stairs was the same egotistical crackpot he knew back in the army. B.A. buried the accelerator into the floor of the van and they sped up so fast that they about drove through the front window and into the house. The van swerved out to the side and in a crooked U-turn and the doors were thrown open and the five occupants stepped out with guns aimed at the two men.
There wasn't any doubt for Hannibal now, yes, this man, the apparent ringleader of the whole blood trade was Commanding Officer Frank Carter, who apparently had only gotten worse with age. And the recognition was mutual.
"Hannibal Smith," the man said haughtily, "I guess it's true what they say, if you wait long enough, everything comes back."
"Yeah, well I'll let you know when disco's king again," Hannibal replied as he restrained from moving a single muscle, or adjusting his aim one inch in any direction other than straight ahead at Carter.
The man wasn't fazed in the least by having five rifles aimed at him and he seemed to subtly be egging Hannibal on to try something. "I shouldn't be surprised you'd show up, John," he said, "You never could stay out of other people's business."
"Buddy when you're ordering the torture of mothers and kids for information you know they don't have, it is my business," Hannibal replied, "And I see like a banana you've only rotted as time's gone by. Selling army recruits as drug runners for cartels and blowing out the brains of anybody who's got the guts to say no. Oh you've come a long way alright, and you're going to keep going a long way, all the way down to that final southern residence."
"And I see you haven't changed any," he replied, and looked past the A-Team, to the woman who stood alongside them as he added, "Still taking the word of unreliable pieces of trash over that of somebody who actually knows what they're doing."
"Oh I trust you know what you're doing, Carter," Hannibal told him, "Just like Josef Mengele always knew what he was doing, your problem was you were from the wrong generation and put in the wrong war, you would've done well in the concentration camps."
"Same old John Smith," Frank said with a sickening smirk on his face, "Still trying to save every poor wretch in the world instead of accepting that survival of the fittest is the only law that counts."
"If that's the case," Hannibal said to the man, "We should've buried you years ago."
"And I suppose you think that you're going to stop me now?" Carter asked.
"That was the general idea," Hannibal answered, "Though you shouldn't be surprised, you always knew how I worked."
"So I did, pity you were never able to learn how I worked."
Hannibal realized that they weren't alone and there were several more pairs of eyes on them than there had been at the beginning. Coming out of hiding from the sides of the house were a dozen other men all with guns drawn and aimed at the team.
"No, I always knew how you worked, Carter," Hannibal replied, "You always needed a hundred flunkies under you to do your dirty work while you gave the orders and watched. That's why you were such a great CO, you weren't capable of doing any of the actual work yourself."
But nothing he said seemed to have any effect on the man, he laughed at all of Hannibal's remarks and accusations and told the colonel, "John, you're just like me, you've just never been able to admit it."
"Like you?" Hannibal got a look on his face like that statement left a bad taste in his mouth, "That's where you're wrong, Carter, I'm nothing like you."
"You don't think so?"
"No," Hannibal firmly answered, "I remember exactly what kind of man you were…and I gotta tell you, compared to the tyrant you used to be, you're a joke now. The dirt bag I knew back in 'Nam didn't need greed to persuade him to do anything, his need to be dominant and overpowering and his hatred of anybody weaker than himself was enough to go on. It used to be when you killed, it was just for your own sick amusement, now you're turning a profit on it."
"It's all a business, John," the man said, "Just like what you do now."
Jean let out a guffaw and said, "You clearly don't know him."
But Frank Carter stood his ground and reminded Hannibal, "I wasn't the one caught with a million dollars from a robbed bank during the war, I guess money's always been a motivating factor for you, John."
Hannibal had kept one eye on Carter and tried to keep his other eye on all the other men and he must've blinked because they seemed to be closer now.
"Once again, John, you had to come meddling in where you had no business, and now you have to answer for it," Carter told him, "Drop your weapons, now."
The others watched Hannibal who gave the slightest nod and one by one they dropped their guns. Five of the men came closer to Face and Murdock; Face tried to think of someway to get out of there while Murdock sniffed the air and said, "Hey Face, you smell that?"
"What is it?" Jean asked.
"It's nothing, nothing, Murdock," Face told him, and he leaned over to Jean and told her, "Murdock gets dangerous sometimes when he hears certain words so make sure whatever you do, don't say…" he saw Murdock turn and smile at him and he smiled in return but whispered the word into Jean's ear.
"Don't say ammonia?" she repeated.
"AMMONIA!" Murdock howled like an animal and threw himself at the armed men, managing to knock his body against three of them and cause them to fall down. The other two tried to shoot him but B.A. grabbed them and bashed their heads together.
Hannibal, Face and Jean managed to rush the other gunmen and between the five of them, it quickly became a knock down drag out fight that if it weren't so serious, would've looked perfectly in place with the 3 Stooges. B.A. grabbed men and threw them clear over his head, Hannibal knocked Grant in the jaw and knocked him down and then set his sights on Carter, who beat him to the punch and instead kicked Hannibal in the mouth and knocked him back. Murdock used his body as a projectile to throw at anybody in the way and he wound up taking several people down at once like bowling pins, after which they were caught in a pretzel of limbs and he went through all the feet and arms he came across, twisting them and bending them back to see who yelled. Face snagged one guy by the back of his shirt and tossed him before also getting knocked down; but he jumped back up and kneed the man closest to him and kicked him and sent him to the ground.
During the fight, a gun went off but whoever was the intended target had been missed and instead the bullet hit Grant, and he slumped over with a groan and was dead as soon as he hit the ground. The sight of his corpse set something off in Jean and she turned her attention, like Hannibal, to Carter, who at this moment was evenly pitted against Hannibal and trying to knock his head off. Jean came up behind him and threw her weight against him and used all of her strength to grab him from the back and pull him off Hannibal and she slammed him against the side of the house. She jumped back before he could grab her and she grabbed him by the arm and threw him on the ground and twisted his arm until she heard something snap, but just to make sure he couldn't use it she stomped her foot on his hand and heard something crack and Carter let out a brief yelp of pain but otherwise didn't respond.
"Come on you," Jean said as she grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and pulled his upper body up and slammed his head against the side of the house again, "Huh? You didn't have any problem killing Jean at the base, or anybody else who got in your way but you can't take the same medicine, can you?" She wrapped her hands around Carter's neck and was throttling him to the point she was about to snap it like a twig when she felt a set of leather gloves wrap around her and pull her back from the man, and she realized it was Hannibal.
"Let him go, kid, he's not worth it," Hannibal told her.
"You don't know what you're talking about, Smith!" she said as she struggled against him and continued choking Carter.
"I do!" Hannibal replied as he jerked her whole body back and forced her away from Carter, "I saw him kill more people than you have, and he's still not worth it. I know you don't have any faith in the army's system and I know it well enough to understand why and I can't blame you, but this isn't the answer." He was in her face now so she could see his eyes as he spoke to her and there wasn't anywhere else for her to look. "It's people like this that give the army its bad reputation, but it's the same with every group in the world, for all the people in it to do good by it, there are always a few who hide behind it for their own purposes and bring the whole organization down by their own actions."
"This is more than a few, Smith!" Jean told him.
"I know it! And you believe me, Lynch and his boys are going to hear every word about what's been going on here and that is going to take precedence over him catching us and he is going to make sure that this guy never sees the light of day again, any of them. Death is too easy for these people because they face it every day as part of the job anyway, let them live and suffer as they rot, that's the real justice."
Jean looked back at Carter who by now was laying on the ground in his own blood and hardly conscious anymore. She didn't say anything but Hannibal could tell she believed him. Hannibal turned to see how the others were doing and he couldn't help laughing; all the gunmen had been knocked down, disarmed and were all lined up and getting tied up.
"That's unbelievable," Jean said.
"No," Face pointed, "That is."
Apparently Murdock hadn't realized the fight was over because he was still rolling around on the ground screaming bloody murder, and he had practically managed to wrap his body up into a pretzel as he continued the one man melee, acting like he was still taking on a whole pack of men.
"Get up, fool!" B.A. told him, "And quit twisting your foot!"
"Huh?" Murdock looked over at B.A. and looked back at the shoe he had tried to turn clear around with the foot still attached to it and realized it was his own Converse sneaker. He let go of it and started to get up and he asked Hannibal, "Where'd everybody go, Colonel?"
Hannibal pointed, "Over there."
Murdock saw the men lined up on the ground and asked, "Did I do that?"
"Well," Face said, "Part of it anyway."
"We'll check out the house and see what we find there," Hannibal said, "Murdock, you go find the plane, check it out."
"I'm going with him," Jean told him.
"Fine with me," Hannibal replied, "Murdock should be able to keep you out of trouble."
B.A. groaned and shook his head at that suggestion.
They collected their guns again and Murdock and Jean went around to the back of the house and they could see the plane off in the distance.
"So what're you going to do?" Jean asked him, "Take it apart?"
"I'm going to take a look inside first," he told her.
"Murdock," Jean called behind him, "Could you fly this thing?"
"Sure I could," he answered, "I can fly anything."
"Murdock, look!"
Murdock turned back to see what was the matter and saw she was pointing over to the side and he looked and saw another black helicopter a couple hundred feet away.
"Boy these babies are everywhere!" Murdock said.
Jean poked him in the back and asked him, "You think these were leftover from Vietnam?"
"Could be, if I had to guess I'd say they're about that old, everything's exactly as I remember them being," Murdock replied, "I guess they found a way to smuggle the choppers that weren't crashed beyond repair out of there as well and fix them up to use for another day."
"Then how did Carter get his hands on them?" she asked.
"Well he was a CO, I'm sure he had connections with somebody when he left," Murdock thought as he walked around the Huey and examined every inch, "Unfortunately people like him always have someone to help them. Sickos like him never walk alone."
Murdock heard Jean scream behind him and as he turned to see what was the matter, he felt something hit him in the back of the head and then everything went black.
When Murdock woke up, he saw Face standing over him.
"Murdock, what happened?" he asked, "Are you alright?'
What did happen? He tried to remember. He sat up and saw Hannibal was there also.
"Somebody hit me in the back of the head, I didn't see who it was," he told them, "How long have I been out?" He noticed that the position of the sun had changed since he last saw it.
"About an hour," Face said.
"Where's Jean?" Hannibal asked.
"I don't know, I heard her scream, then I got knocked out," Murdock said as he stood up.
"Then somebody else is here," Face told Hannibal, "Everybody else is tied up around front."
"But where did they take her?" Hannibal asked, "We've already looked through that whole house, there wasn't anybody there either, and I don't see any other place around here that anybody could be hiding."
Murdock waited for the dizziness to pass, then he went over to the airplane and opened the cargo hold to see if anybody was in it, there wasn't.
"You thought they were in there?" Face asked.
"Well she might've been," he answered, "I'll check inside, since they knew we were going to tamper with it, they might've put her in there so she'd be killed in the crash."
As soon as Murdock was gone, Hannibal told Face, "We'll let him look to make sure but I don't think she's in there, take a look," and he nodded his head down.
Face saw what Hannibal saw; the ground below them was of an extremely sandy texture, and perfectly showed several sets of footprints, including one set that stopped, and then was dragged away, and two other sets walked in the same direction.
"That leads back to the house," Hannibal said, "We'll go check it out again."
On the way back to the house, they saw B.A. coming around from the front.
"Everybody secure?" Hannibal asked.
"Yeah man, they ain't going nowhere," B.A. answered.
"Fine," Hannibal nodded to the airstrip and said, "Go tell Murdock to forget about the plane, we need him to get that chopper started."
"What for?" B.A. asked suspiciously.
"When we find Jean we're going to have him fly her out of here and take her back to her parents in New York," Hannibal answered, "And I've got a feeling she's somewhere in that house, we're going to go find her."
B.A. looked like he didn't fully trust Hannibal's explanation but he said, "Alright, I'll go get the fool."
"And we'll go get the Saint," Face added.
They returned to the house but found the footprints disappeared once the sand came to an end and instead the ground ahead of them was covered in half dead grass that was too short to determine where anybody stepped on it.
"If anybody is in there," Hannibal said, "They wouldn't have had time to set any traps for us."
They went to the back door and threw it open and busted in with their guns ready, but they saw no one, though Hannibal heard something, and so did Face.
"What's that noise?" he asked.
Hannibal reached over for the light switch and got a jolt through his glove and they heard the overhead lights buzz and crackle as the power surged. From somewhere off in the house, they could hear a muffled scream that coincided with the electricity crackling in the house.
"Oh my God," Face realized.
They ran up the stairs and busted in every door, tore apart every room, there was nothing and nobody to be found, a few minutes later the crackling stopped and the power was back to normal again.
"Where the hell are they?" Face wanted to know.
"Shhh," Hannibal told him, and both men listened and were able to hear somebody talking, but the voices sounded miles away.
"Where is it?" a man's voice asked.
"I don't know," they could hear Jean's weak response.
"WHERE IS IT?" another voice asked.
"I told you already I DON'T KNOW!" Jean answered. They could hear her struggling and she said, "You people never learn! Do you really think if you up the voltage I'll be anymore inclined to tell you something that I don't know anything about than I must be already? I DON'T KNOW what you're talking about and I can't tell you something that I don't know the answer to and no matter what you do, it can't change that!"
"Where are they?" Face asked.
Hannibal looked around the room and got the answer, "It's coming out of the air vent, so there must be a basement to this house and we never saw the way down, come on."
They doubled down the stairs and checked the downstairs for a door that they had missed, but found none. Hannibal checked the walls and found one had a faulty panel in it that opened up and revealed a doorway leading down a narrow set of stairs. He and Face quietly made their way down and couldn't hear anything now; at the foot of the stairs they saw a light from off to the right, so they went that way and saw a room where the door was open, and the view from where the two commandos stood showed only the backs of two men in the room, and between them they saw a third person tied to a metal table. Face and Hannibal rushed the two men and knocked them out and while Hannibal tied them up, Face moved over to the table and he stopped and gasped at what he saw.
The only way they could without doubt identify the person tied spread eagle to the table with four leather restraints was Jean, was by the clothes she wore; her face had been covered with a sort of hooded mask that made both men flash on when prisoners were executed in the gas chamber, the face was covered so those watching the execution wouldn't be able to see the last expressions on the condemned's face as the cyanide choked the life out of them. Face was almost afraid to touch her because he could only guess what had been happening to her, but he put his hand on her chest to make sure she was still breathing. She was breathing but she was not moving, Face could tell it wasn't from fear because she didn't stiffen up under his touch; instead she just remained still, somewhere between limp and petrified, the only way she could prove difficult in this position, she would've made it as hard as she could for them to move her or get any physical response from her.
"Jean," he said, "It's Face and Hannibal, we're going to get you out of here, alright?"
The only response he got was some low muffled sound. He grabbed the hood and pulled it off of her face and both men saw she had been blindfolded with a black scarf and was gagged with a piece of rubber tubing in her mouth. Face took the blindfold off first so she could see them and see her surroundings and as he took the gag out he asked her, "Are you alright?"
She grumbled another response as the tube came out. She looked past Face, over to Hannibal and she smirked sourly and said, "How bout it, Smith? This ring a bell from any of your pictures?"
Hannibal maintained his usual disposition and replied, "I don't do horror movies."
"And there's a difference of course," she said as Face undid the restraints on her arms.
"Of course," Hannibal repeated. He went over to the table and asked her, "Are you alright, kid? What did they do to you?"
"Oh not much," she answered as she sat up while Face untied her feet, "There really isn't too much you can do to torture someone in an hour, especially when you start with psychological first."
"What did they do?" Hannibal repeated.
"They were yelling at me, asking me a bunch of questions about stuff I had no idea what they were talking about. And every time I didn't answer or told them I didn't know, they'd do something different. First they tied me up and blindfolded me and pushed me down several times so I got disoriented and couldn't tell where I was. Then they knocked me down and threw buckets of water on me. I kind of figured that they might…you see I kept thinking back to B.A. and he won't get in anything that flies because even after being in the army, he's still scared of flying. And when I first went into the army, I let it 'slip' that I had a lot of problems that I hadn't gotten over yet, like claustrophobia, I told them I was afraid of the water, afraid of this, afraid of that, stuff that they should've known they had no business keeping me in there if any of it was true."
"But it wasn't," Face said.
"Oh no, I said it because I knew sooner or later somebody would try and use it against me, which they just have, but I don't remember seeing these guys from anywhere before, and I certainly have no idea what they were babbling about."
"It's no surprise," Hannibal told her, "If they worked under Carter's orders, he specialized on that, he would come up with the craziest accusations he could and torture people until they admitted to them, it gave him an excuse to torture them."
"Well anyway," Jean continued, "After a while I guess they realized that wasn't going to work, so they tried electroshock to get me to talk instead."
"We knew about that one," Hannibal told her, "How bad was it?"
"Ohhh, not too bad," she said, "You're old enough to remember those penny arcade games where you grabbed onto two knobs and tried to see how long you could hold on while getting shocked? It was about like that."
Hannibal knew she was downplaying it for their benefit, they had been able to hear her screaming clear through the house; but he wasn't going to push the issue now, she seemed alright, she could move and talk normally and there wasn't blood coming out of her mouth or her ear or anything, and he didn't see any burn marks on her skin. For the time being he figured she was in good enough shape that they could move her out, and then when she was back in Rotgut he would recommend she see a doctor, all things considered.
"Well kid," Hannibal told her, "If you think you can endure five hours in an enclosed space with a crazy person," he saw the small smirk on her face at the mention of Murdock, and he smiled in return knowing the nightmare was finally over, "We've got Murdock outside with a ready chopper and he's going to airmail you back to your parents. He's going to take you home."
"Home," she said as if it was a foreign word, "That's got a nice ring to it. Maybe once I get there, I won't want to leave again, I think I've done enough traveling to last me the rest of my life."
"Come on, kid," Hannibal said as he took her hand, "We'll walk you out."
Face took out his walkie talkie and told the others, "Alright guys, we've got her, have Murdock get the chopper started."
Outside B.A. and Murdock had been waiting by the plane, and B.A. turned to Murdock and said, "You heard him fool, get it going."
"Right!" Murdock ran over to the Huey and hopped into the cockpit.
As Face, Hannibal and Jean came out the back door of the house, they saw the blades start spinning on the chopper, and they saw Murdock jump out and come over to them.
"This has certainly been quite an experience," Jean told Hannibal as they walked out to the airstrip, "And now that it's over, I hope Jean and the others can rest in peace."
"I'm sure they will," Hannibal assured her, "I don't believe Heaven gets crowded but I think they'll be pleased to know they're not getting anymore roommates."
"Hannibal, what about Lynch?" Face asked.
"I already called him and gave him the anonymous tip about what's been going on out here, and he and the whole militia should be arriving within the hour."
"Great, then we can get out of here," B.A. said.
Jean turned around on her heel while she walked to say something to Hannibal, but the words never came.
The two shots that rang out were as loud as a bomb exploding.
They heard Jean's moan as she fell back and her body fell to the ground. The front of her shirt was already covered in blood.
Hannibal spun around and saw Carter standing a few feet behind them, armed with a rifle that was still smoking.
"You…son…of a bitch!" Hannibal said as he drew the gun out of his pocket.
Carter fired once again but missed Hannibal, but the single round that Hannibal let off did not miss its target and shot Carter in the forehead and killed him instantly, his lifeless body slumped over and hit the ground.
Hannibal felt like he had left his own body and was watching somebody else, like he was watching a movie and somebody had slowed down the reel, everything seemed to be at a standstill. He shook it off and turned back and saw Face, Murdock and B.A. were all on the ground hovered around Jean, trying to save her. Her blood was on their hands, all over her shirt, and on the ground beneath her. Hannibal knelt down beside the others to see for himself how bad it was. Jean's face had become pale as a ghost and she wasn't moving; her eyes looked straight up and saw nothing, she had four commandos screaming at her and she said nothing, gave no indication that she heard anything.
"Come on kid, don't do this now," Hannibal told her, the panic starting to build in him, trying to get some small movement of acknowledgement from her, but he was getting none, "Jean, look at me, can you hear me? Jean…JEAN!"