"You want me to what?" Decker glared across his desk and up at Jean, who had taken the courtesy not to have a seat to discuss this with him.
Jean stood by the opposite side of the desk dressed as usual in the MP gear she'd taken from the studio and she told him, "I don't make a habit of stuttering, Roddy, I think you heard me. You round up all of your men and you have them lying in wait near that air base tomorrow night."
"Based on what?" Decker wanted to know.
Jean seated herself on the edge of the desk and answered, "Based on the fact that Stockwell was supposed to be meeting someone there and with him currently indisposed things could turn ugly very quickly, this is a very powerful man we're dealing with."
"Not from what I saw the other night," Decker shook his head, "All I saw was you mopping the floor with a man who is entering the downward golden spiral of his life. I saw four Green Berets fight to pull you off of that man."
"And did you wait to see what the Cong soldiers would do to prove they were dangerous before you decided to bomb their hospitals?" Jean asked him, "You strike when the iron's hot and you strike before the other guy knows about it, everybody knows that."
Decker leaned forward and looked at her in a squinting glare and said, "You still think we have something in common."
"We do," Jean said, "Otherwise we wouldn't work together as well as we do, that's the scary part. You know what's really scary, Roddy, in another life we would make a great married couple…the kind that ends up killing each other rather than divorce. That's merely the kind of people we are, we're passionate, but we're only passionate when we're causing destruction, hate can be a wonderful thing if you use it right."
Jean stood up and added, "Decker, if anything happens to any of those men tomorrow night, I'm placing it on your head…if any of them die...I'm coming after you and I won't be playing around like I was with the General."
Decker's face was hard as stone and completely unreadable, but he looked to her and simply stated, rather than asked, "You're really serious."
"You know it," she answered proudly, and added, "Decker, if you get Hannibal riled up enough, he's just liable to describe himself as 'a nut-burger', and he'll take it so far as to add 'I have no fear of death, I may even be a homicidal maniac'. I'm a nut-burger too, and I also have no fear of death, the difference between him and me though is that I am a homicidal maniac, and I have no qualms with doing it all again. Divine intervention is the only thing that's kept your head on your shoulders several times that we've run into one another, instead of being splattered on a wall or in the street." She shook her head, "I have no qualms about killing Stockwell, the man is too dangerous to be kept alive."
Decker took his time to answer, but when he did he slowly seemed to be coming around to her train of thought, "Let's say I happen to agree with that opinion."
"I think you do," Jean told him, "I know how much you don't take kindly to having your men infiltrated without your knowledge. If he was willing to do that, there's really no telling where he's going to draw a line, is there?"
Decker gritted his teeth and huffed and turned his head one way and the other before looking at Jean again and said as he realized she had a point, "I hate you."
"Good, then we're on the same page," Jean said.
"And just where," Decker asked her, "Do you plan to be for the fireworks?"
"Right in the middle, as I always am," Jean said, tugging on the jacket to her MP uniform, "Hiding in plain sight, something Hannibal and I are both very good at, but for different reasons." She moved towards the door and concluded, "Goodnight, Roddy, see you tomorrow."
Decker stayed behind in his office for a few minutes after she had gone, before he too decided to close up shop and call it a night. How in the hell had he ever gotten into this mess? And anymore he had to wonder, was it even worth furthering his rank if he ever actually managed to capture the A-Team?
He left the Federal Building and was just about to his car when he heard a sound from somewhere out in the dark. It sounded like somebody violently choking, no, not choking, it was more the sound that escaped when you were being strangled and could still make a noise. And then, he heard a familiar noise of a rifle being struck against human flesh, followed by a loud groan, and the sound of a body hitting the ground. Decker followed the sounds and saw that Jean had barely gotten a block from the Federal Building when she'd been attacked by a pack of men also in uniform. More men dressed like MPs who were not MPs. Decker wasn't sure what was going on, but he decided to follow behind and see where this went; it wouldn't be enough to bust them now, he had to find out what this was about.
Jean regained consciousness and immediately started choking violently on something stuck in her throat, after a few tries she managed to cough it up on the ground beneath her and with the light from the moon shining down on everything, she was able to see that it was a wad of bloody phlegm. She tried stretching her arms since they felt asleep but found she couldn't move them, and looking up, she realized why.
"Ohhh no," she said in a whining tone that she was sure would match Face's, "Not the old two-truck wishbone game, not that old gag."
But it seemed so, her hands were bound together and tied to the back of one truck and her feet had been tied together and tied to the back of another truck, and standing around both trucks were about five men who looked like MPs, but she knew they weren't.
One of them, who barely looked any older than her, came over to her with a rifle at his side and tapped her once in the ribs for good measure and asked her, "Where's the General?"
Jean would just bet 5 would get her 10 that it was Stockwell he was asking about, but she decided to play dumb, and she didn't answer, and in fact she did her best to act like she hadn't understood the question.
She got a couple more knocks from the rifle stock because she wouldn't answer. Another man spat in her face, Jean felt the phlegm hit her cheek, and she acted unimpressed and told him, "I can do that trick too, come down here and I'll show you."
That earned her another bunt from the rifle, this one to the stomach, she groaned and told the man, "Do that again and I'll show you a better trick, you'll get to see my dinner from 6 hours ago."
"Your last chance," one of them told her, "Where is the General?"
Jean's response wasn't by choice, her nose had been itching and she let loose with an earth shattering, "AHH-HOO!" right in his face, and repeated.
"And now we're gonna play 'Grab an end and make a wish'," she said to herself.
And she seemed to be right, the men started heading for the driver seats of the trucks, but before either one got in, a noise ripped through the night air and Jean felt the restraints on her legs suddenly give way and she slammed her backside against the hard ground and her back against the truck directly behind her.
Another noise, identified now as a second rifle shot, rang out in the night and Jean felt her arms come down too, she looked up and saw that the bullet had severed the ropes enough to get her untied from the bumper, but her hands were still tied together. She looked around to see where the shots had come from, and got her answer when she saw Decker walking towards them, his rifle still in hand.
"Never thought I'd be glad to see you," she said as she got up awkwardly.
As soon as Decker came within spitting distance of the man nearest him, he rammed his own rifle into that man's gut and watched him double over, then told him, "You're under arrest," he looked to the others and amended his statement, "You're all under arrest."
"For what?" one of them asked.
Decker gutted that one with his rifle as well and answered, "For attempted murder." He hit another one and sent him to his knees, "For aggravated assault." He forewent his rifle and just punched the next one in the stomach and sent him down, "For impersonating officers of the United States military." He came to the last one and grabbed him and threw him up against the side of the truck and added, "And for any other damn thing I can think of."
Jean tried to applaud but with her hands still tied the best she could do was clap her fingertips together. "Nice show, Roddy, now how about getting me out of this?"
By that time, everybody heard sirens approaching and saw the spinning blue lights. Jean looked behind her and saw several MP cars come to a screeching halt behind them.
"Should've known you'd bring the cavalry in on this," she told Decker.
Decker took a knife out of his pocket and sliced through the ropes around her wrists and hands. As she shook them off she said to him, "You know, Roddy, if you weren't mean, stupid and evil, you'd have no personality whatsoever…but boy it sure is fun to watch you when someone gets you mad, now I know why Hannibal's always pushing your buttons."
Decker noticed the strange way Jean moved as she breathed and he asked her, "Are you alright?"
"Oh yeah, I'm fine," she said, but the first step she tried to take had her doubling over and clutching her ribs.
Decker grabbed her by the arm and pulled her upright again and tried feeling her ribs for himself but she squirmed away from him.
"That does it, I'm taking you to the hospital myself," he said.
Jean laughed, "You're becoming my own personal ambulance taxi, every time I have a little accident you're rushing me off to the doctor's…"
A coughing fit wracked through her body and she doubled over again and was spitting blood clots on the ground.
"That's it, we're doing a rush job," Decker told her as he pushed her over to his car.
"You're wasting your time, Decker," Jean said, "They're going to tell you it's nothing."
"How can there be nothing?" Decker asked the doctor.
"You can see for yourself the x-rays came back fine, there're no fractures, no breaks, no dislocations, nothing dislodged, there'll be some bruising but that seems to be the extent of it," the doctor showed him.
"That doesn't make any sense whatsoever," Decker said.
The doctor snorted and replied, "Welcome to the world of medicine."
"What about the blood?" Decker pointed out.
"People get nosebleeds, they swallow the blood, they cough it up, if you've ever blown your nose after a massive nosebleed you'd see stuff just like that." The doctor shook his head, "Nothing to worry about, maybe a little petroleum jelly up the nostrils…"
"I told you, Roddy, you were wasting your time," Jean said as she came out of the exam room and finished adjusting her shirt, "Now we got bigger problems, those men knew something happened to Stockwell."
"Yeah well they're not a problem anymore," Decker told her, "Where they're going, they're not going to have any contact with him or anyone else they work for."
"But how did they know?" Jean asked.
"Possibly his being hospitalized made him miss an appointment with somebody else," Decker said, "The better question is how they knew you were responsible."
"That's not rocket science, if I knew to watch for an MP who wasn't an MP, they could too," she said, "They apparently do this for a living, they're experts on the subject. It would just figure, first time I don't wear the bandages and I get cocky enough to walk out where there's light, and this happens. Hey," she turned to Decker, "What time is it?"
Decker looked to his watch and said, "Quarter to 3."
"I've got to get back to the house," Jean said as she headed for the door, "I told Murdock I'd be working late tonight, if he wakes up and finds out I haven't been home, he's going to freak out."
"Are you nuts?" Decker asked her, "You were just about killed tonight."
"Yeah," she said as she thrust her arms into her jacket, "And the idea is that he's never going to know it. He worries about me enough as a stunt man and believe it or not, Roddy, I can just brush this off as a night of shooting stunts that just got out of hand, as is wont to happen when you get 30 extras in close quarters and have them pretending to beat the crap out of each other with blunt objects. Stunts are just about as dangerous as actual combat, fingers and toes get broken, fingers get cut to the bone, harness cables break, jeeps turn over and pin you under them, explosions go off prematurely, real knives get left on the prop table for stabbing sequences, we don't have the budget to use prop guns so real firearms are brought in from the prop storage and it's easy for someone to forget and accidentally load them with live rounds instead of blanks. It's a gamble of a way to make a living. Especially if you get a dictator of a director, you remember that case in the news a few years ago, director got 2 kids and his leading man killed when a helicopter crashed and decapitated them? Found out he violated so many regulations, makes you wonder how he's still in business. And there are times I wish I worked for that guy because it'd be easier than some of the jerks I get stuck with."
Decker looked at her with a confused look on his face and said, "Quite frankly, I don't get it."
Smugly she replied, "It's a very funny thing, Roddy, when you actually care about somebody other than yourself, you find yourself doing things for their benefit that you never thought you'd be doing in a million years, you ought to try it sometime, it's a very interesting experience. Now about tomorrow night."
"Alright," Decker raised one hand in half a surrendering gesture, "I'm convinced. I'll round the MPs up and we'll be there."
"Good." She was just about out the door when she turned around and told him, "Oh, and don't be surprised if you spot a couple familiar faces among your men tomorrow night."
Late the next afternoon, Face, Jean and Murdock sat on her couch in matching MP uniforms, Face looked at the other two and concluded that they all looked like the military version of the 'Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' monkeys. How appropriate, he thought.
"What's taking so long?" Jean asked as she slumped forward and pressed her hands against her thighs.
"It ain't easy finding an MP suit that fits the big guy," Murdock said.
"I still say it's a mistake," Jean shook her head, "Decker doesn't have any MPs B.A.'s size, anybody who sees him is going to know he's a fake."
"Well they gotta do something with the angry mudsucker because his usual look is far more conspicuous," Murdock said as he reached over and rubbed her back.
Jean hissed and stiffened like a board, "Don't do that."
"What happened to you last night anyway?" Face asked.
"Ah, rough night at the studio," Jean said, "I told you before this movie doesn't have the budget for prop guns, only blank rounds."
"Heh, low budget people," Face commented with a mocking sneer.
"Anyway," Jean told him, "There were about 20 of us in this brawl scene and somebody hit me in the back with his rifle. Accidentally mind you."
"Of course," Face sarcastically replied, "Now you remember what Hannibal said."
"Yeah-yeah, I go with you to the eastern side opposite the runway, Murdock and B.A. will come in from the northwest, and we all blend in nicely with Decker and his men while Hannibal plays Stockwell for whoever is coming to see him," Jean said.
"And if it looks like there's going to be any trouble," Murdock added, "We just rush on in."
"Front door approach," Face noted, "Just like Hannibal."
They heard the others coming down the hall and first into the living room was B.A., dressed in a surprisingly very well fitting MP uniform, Jean couldn't help laughing because she'd never seen B.A. dressed like that before, the man always insisted he didn't go for disguises.
"Where's Hannibal?" Face asked.
"You mean General Hunt Stockwell?" Hannibal asked as he entered the room behind the Staff Sergeant, his face more wrinkled and fatter than before, his hair black and just tinged white on the sides, a pair of red tinted sunglasses over his eyes.
Jean shook her head, "All the king's horses and all Hollywood's men…"
"It'll only have to work for a minute," Hannibal reminded her as he buttoned the sleeves on his jacket, "In any case it'll be dark."
"I just hope it works, Hannibal," Jean said as she stood up.
"It will," he replied, "Now come on, let's go."
"How did you ever talk Decker into helping us?" Face asked Jean as he drove their jeep out to the intended destination, "It's one thing for him to work with us alone, but to drag the MPs along, and to give direct orders for them to leave us alone?"
"Oh…I have my ways," Jean said as she rubbed one shoulder still sore from the night before, "Face, you think this idea is going to work?"
"I don't know, I'd feel better if I knew who was going to be here tonight," Face glanced at his watch and said, "But I guess we'll find out in about 25 minutes."
Jean glanced up to the sky. No moonlight tonight, no stars either. In the city, that was one thing, but out here…the sky was pitch black with clouds. There hadn't been anything on the weather forecast but she wouldn't be surprised if a sudden rainstorm came out of nowhere.
"I wish this night were over," she murmured to herself.
Face glanced over to her and said, "You're really worried, aren't you?"
She said nothing in response, and Face didn't know what to make of it.
"Get on the radio and see if Murdock and B.A. are in place yet," he told her.
Jean nodded and managed to pick up the Captain and the Sergeant from their own radio. Murdock apparently had free reign of it while B.A. drove, but after several seconds of listening to Murdock's exaggerated radio talk, they could hear a choking squeezed breath come from the pilot and could hear B.A. yelling at him to sign off already.
"Sounds like everything's normal for them," Jean commented.
Face came up to a rocky hilltop overlooking the airstrip and stopped the jeep. They looked around at all sides and concluded that there was one MP car about 100 feet to their right and another about 150 feet to their left. Even without it being a clear night it seemed they could see forever.
"You think these guys will do as they're told?" Face whispered.
"If they don't, they answer to Decker," Jena said, "I think they'll obey."
"Unless somebody got to them," Face replied, "It's possible, it's also possible…"
Jean turned and looked at him questioningly as he trailed off.
"It's also possible," he added, "That they were swapped with fake MPs and this is all a big setup for all of us."
Jean nodded slightly in agreement, that was another definite possibility. Decker wouldn't have had time to check them all out and see if they were the genuine articles.
"Where's Hannibal?" she asked.
"Should be down near the runway by now," Face said.
"What time is it?" she asked him.
Face looked at his watch again and said, "15 minutes till."
They waited anxiously. After a couple minutes they both heard something but weren't sure at first what it was. Then they realized what it was, and looked up as they saw a jet plane coming down for a landing.
"What is that?" Jean asked.
"Private jet," Face realized. He half looked to Jean and told her, "I got a bad feeling about this."
Jean nodded. She got back on the radio and asked Murdock if he and B.A. were in position and ready to move out, and when he confirmed that they were, she switched the radio frequencies to pick up Decker and asked him the same, "How bout it, Roddy? You ready to move out?"
"Whenever you are," was the Colonel's response.
"Okay," Face leaned over and said into the radio, "We're going to head on down and see if we can get a better look of what's going on, everybody knows the signal?"
"Of course they do, Face, let's just go," Jean told him.
He put the jeep in gear and they started down the hill, it was a very rough and bumpy trip, but fortunately they couldn't be heard over the noise the jet was making as its landing was completed. Face stopped the jeep when they were about halfway to the plane and he told Jean as he got out and took his rifle with him, "I'm going to go on ahead and make sure nobody set a booby trap for us, if I run into any trouble or I don't come back in…ten minutes, get the others."
"Right," Jean nodded, and moved over to the driver's side.
She looked around and kept a constant vigil herself to make sure nothing in her sight looked suspicious. She also kept an ear open for anything that might sound unusual too. So far everything seemed status quo, nothing looked or sounded out of the ordinary. And then, she heard something. It was the sound of another vehicle approaching not far off. She looked around and was able to spot a car that had just pulled up a couple hundred feet off to the southeast from the jeep. Jean was just about to reach for the radio and ask Decker if one of his cars had moved on when she saw the car light up from the inside as one of the doors opened. She was able to see who got out of the car, and her blood just ran cold.
Fulbright.
Jean's mind went blank after that realization and she couldn't even begin to figure out how he was connected to all this. What she was able to consciously think of was if she tried to warn Face, Fulbright would know it too and he might catch Face, and if he didn't, he could very well find out about the rest of the A-Team's involvement here tonight and regardless of what happened to him when he was drummed out of the Federal Building, he could very well bring the higher powers into this and then they'd all be locked up. And if she tried going after Fulbright herself, Face might follow and the end results would be the same. And she couldn't clue Decker in to what was going on, because for all she knew, Fulbright had the same radio in his car and would pick it up.
So what else was there to do? She tried to think and do it quickly, she hit herself in the head, think! She needed a plan, she needed to be like Hannibal, no! She got it, she needed to be like B.A. Granted, not B.A. of his own volition but still, it could work, it had to work. Jean snapped her fingers and then slumped forward and hit her head against the jeep's horn and let it blare for all it was worth. Whoever followed the direction of the sound first, so much the better, and just in case, she reached her right hand into her jacket and latched onto the small, easily concealable gun she'd stored in it. Not much bigger than one of those junk pocket pistols but, it would put a nice sized hole in someone if the situation called for it.
It was the wrong footsteps heading her way. She'd heard Face march off, these footsteps were much heavier, had to be Fulbright, unless there was someone else stalking around here in the dark. Jean let the gun drop down towards her left hand which was also concealed in her jacket, long enough to turn the keys and get the jeep ready to go at the right moment. She opened one eye a crack and looked towards the sound of the approaching footsteps and saw it was in fact Fulbright coming her way. Springing up quick as a flash, Jean got two rounds off at him and when he jumped for cover, she buried her foot and the accelerator to the floor of the jeep and took off at top speed, and had just enough time to put enough feet between she and the General that Face didn't even realize the danger he'd come close to being in as he ran towards the jeep.
"What happened?" he yelled over the noise.
"Get in!" Jean told him as she let go of her gun and put both hands on the wheel to steer them down the rest of the way.
"Let's go see if Hannibal needs a ride," Face cynically commented as he braced himself for the rough trip down.
Being raised in a Catholic orphanage, Face had learned and forgotten a lot of prayers over the years taught to him by the nuns and the priests, he started to recall a few of them, hoping against all hope just that the jeep didn't turn over and pin them, or blow up. They reached the airstrip and got around to the right side of the plane just in time to see Hannibal firing at the man who had stepped off of it, though they couldn't make out who that was, and he started running towards them and jumped into the back of the jeep and told Jean to speed up.
"So what's the word, Hannibal?" Face asked, "Recognize anybody we know?"
"Yeah," Hannibal nodded grimly, "And nobody we want to remember either."
"We got more problems," Jean told him, "Fulbright's here too!"
"Fulbright?!" Hannibal about fell out of the jeep from shock alone, "What's he doing here?"
Jean just shrugged in response. Hannibal reached over Face for the radio and told Murdock and B.A. to double around and get out of there, a rarity for them, they had to retreat. Then he switched frequencies and told Decker about their extra, uninvited company and advised the Colonel to be on the lookout for the General since there was no telling what he was doing out there.
"So now what do we do?" Jean asked Hannibal as they raced along the deserted road at the jeep's absolute speed limit.
"We need to get B.A. and Murdock and figure out a new plan," Hannibal said.
"What's wrong?" Face asked.
"Old business," was the only thing Hannibal was willing to say at that time.
"Hey," Jean pressed a hand into Face's side to get his attention as they watched Hannibal change from his Stockwell disguise into a fellow MP outfit, and asked the Lieutenant, "What's wrong with Hannibal? He really seems shaken up this time."
Face shrugged, "I don't know, he hasn't told me what it's all about."
Nothing about the last half hour of the Colonel's behavior was typical for Hannibal, and neither one of them knew what to make of it. Jean went over towards him and spoke up to get his attention before she tried getting close to him, "Hannibal?"
"Yeah?" he turned to her as he frantically did up the buttons on his jacket.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Nothing—nothing you need to worry about," Hannibal told her, "You're not involved in this business, kid. So I'd advise you to get out while you can, get lost, go home, we'll catch up."
"Hannibal," she tried to speak.
"Just do it, Jean!" he told her, "You don't want any part of this one, believe me."
Jean grabbed him by his jacket to get his attention as he started to walk away and she said to him, "Now wait a minute, Hannibal, you can't give me the brush off like that!"
"I can, I will, I just did, Corporal," he told her, "Help Face get the rest of the supplies and then get out of here."
Living in California, it almost got easy after a while to forget what true cold was, but his words hit Jean like she'd been stabbed with sharp ice during a subzero blizzard. She knew there wasn't any reasoning or arguing with him, his mind was made up. So she walked off to help Face get the rest of the crates of grenades and other explosives that they'd brought out earlier in the day when they scoped out the area, and stuffed near some thick foresting, and were now transporting them to a small cave they'd found not far off, just in case they'd actually need them.
"You sure this is the right way, fool?" B.A. asked as they made their way through the wooded area past the abandoned airport in the dark.
"I followed Faceman's directions exactly," Murdock insisted, "They ought to be around here somewhere."
B.A. felt something wet on the side of his face and he turned to Murdock and told him, "That better not have been you, ya crazy fool."
"Huh?" Murdock asked, and then he felt it too. He looked up and told B.A., "It's starting to rain."
B.A. snorted and replied, "Don't that just figure?"
"Stop here," Murdock told the Sergeant, "This is where we brought those crates of dynamite out to earlier, they should be around here somewhere."
B.A. hadn't anymore stopped the jeep and they stepped out when they heard a loud scream from somewhere off in the night, and it was with much horror that they realized it was Face screaming. Murdock took off running in the direction of the scream and B.A. was chasing right behind him. They weren't able to see Face anywhere but about 100 feet ahead they were able to see some lights and saw it was from a group of men who looked like regular military, and they seemed to be loading up an armored truck, only in the back of the truck the uniformed men were forcing…
"Hannibal!" Murdock exclaimed in horror and disbelief.
"Come on, fool!" B.A. grabbed him and the two started back towards the jeep.
B.A. buried the gas pedal to the floor and Murdock stood up on his side of the jeep with his rifle ready to go as soon as they got within firing distance of the truck. The truck was already moving but the Sergeant and Captain gave chase for a few minutes at 70 miles an hour and Murdock tried shooting out the truck's tires, but to no avail. A few shots were returned at them and he threw himself back in his seat and they wound up going off the road to avoid the jeep flipping over on them. Murdock beat his hand against the dashboard and angrily cried out, "They got away!"
The two men could hear a strange sound that didn't seem to be coming from very far off, after listening to it a few seconds they realized it was somebody moaning. They got out of the jeep and took a couple flashlights with them and shone their lights along the ground as they looked to find the source, and they did…
"Faceman!" Murdock ran over to the other green-clad man who lay sprawled on the rocky ground below and turned him over to face them, "Are you alright?"
Face had a couple bruises on his face and a trickle of blood coming down one temple and one sleeve of his MP jacket was stained red and he held one hand over another that was curled up, but overall he seemed to be alright, physically. Whether he was trying to speak through pain, or some emotions of anger and fury, he gritted his teeth and told them, "They got Hannibal!"
"We know, buddy, we know," Murdock said as he tried to help the Lieutenant to his feet.
Face grimaced in pain and covered his good hand over his bloody arm where it seemed to be at its worst and he told the other two men, "They also got Jean, they thought she was me!"
"What?" B.A. asked.
Face pointed to where the crates were and explained, "I tripped and started to go down the hill, I grabbed onto one of the rocks to pull myself up, she stomped on my hand and kicked me downhill, a few seconds later I heard them grab her, but they didn't see me. They took her off with Hannibal."
"Aw man, and we don't even know where they went!" B.A. said.
"We don't even know who they are!" Murdock added in despair as he threw his head back and looked up at the black skies that were now pouring out a rain that seemed very familiar and took him back to the rains that had haunted and would haunted millions of former young men for the rest of their lives. Coming home never meant coming out of the jungle.
"Well," Face groaned as he felt his arm, "I don't know who they are…but I did find out something about them when they came for Jean, I could hear them talking."
"What'd you find out, Faceman?" Murdock asked anxiously.
Hannibal kept his eyes shut against the bright lights above pouring down on him. He was sore, he was exhausted, he would've liked nothing better than to just go to sleep but he knew that wasn't an option now. He could hear someone else in the room with him, and he could hear that person clicking his thick tongue and say something mockingly, but the words didn't come out clear, not until the second sentence.
"Mr. Smith, we meet again."
The accent was thick but he could understand the words perfectly. He finally opened his eyes, at first seeing everything almost like a photo negative, dark on light, light on dark, then once his eyes adjusted he looked around at the several men in the room with him.
The one who was speaking to him was someone Hannibal knew he'd never forget though he often wished he could. The man was about as old as he was, a little taller, a little more sturdily built, still with plenty of black in his hair, dressed, as he was the last time Hannibal saw him several years ago, in a very expensive finely tailored suit, custom fit slime ball.
"It has been a long time, no?" the man asked.
Hannibal offered one of his trademark smiles though there was no conviction behind it as he said, "Not long enough apparently, I haven't yet blotted you out from my memory yet."
Hannibal heard some noises coming from somewhere nearby, a few seconds later he saw something that made his stomach drop out. He saw two more goons coming in, standing on either side of the man in an MP uniform that they were all but dragging in, the man's head had been concealed with a bag, though there were some muffled sounds coming from under it. He was afraid to even guess who…
The two men grabbed the sides of the bag and pulled it up and revealed it was Jean they'd captured, Hannibal couldn't let out a sigh of relief, and he also willed his eyes not to react, all of his facial features to give nothing away. Jean looked at him and didn't say anything, her eyes were hard at stone, and her top jaw was brought up enough to give the first indications of a snarl under her closed lips.
The man in the, roughly 500 ruble suit, looked to Hannibal and asked him, "Who is this?"
Hannibal shook his head, "Never saw her before in my life. She's nothing to you, let her go."
"I think not," the Russian man replied, he walked over to Jean and gave her a good once over and noted, "She dress like your man," and mockingly, almost laughing, he asked, "Is A-Team taking women now?"
Jean knew it wouldn't do much good to pretend they didn't know each other so she spoke up for the first time since her capture and said coyly in response, mocking his accent, "There have been two others previously," and flashed a fake toothy grin like a shark's at him.
The leading man on the opposing time gave a single chuckle and commented, "Cute," before backhanding Jean hard enough to send her to the floor, which wasn't hard since she'd been handcuffed and couldn't break her fall.
"Let her go," Hannibal told the man, "She's got nothing you're interested in."
The other man turned back to Hannibal and told him, "I'll be judge of that." And to his men he added, "Take them to the truck."
Jean groaned as she was pulled to her feet and dragged out alongside Hannibal, who had also been handcuffed and also had his own two-man escort. They were taken outside where it was pouring down rain, and Hannibal suddenly started to get a strange feeling of déjà vu. Except he knew they'd never been in this predicament back in Vietnam; still, the rain, that awful, relentless, pouring down rain, always knew the worst times to strike, no exceptions, no regards for the living or the dead.
"So what's this?" Jean asked him over the cold pouring rain, "the KGB?"
"Uh, something like it," Hannibal answered.
Jean tried again, "The Russian mob?"
Hannibal nodded, "A close second."
"So," Jean tried to look back but the sheets of rain were too thick to see through, "Who's that schmuck back there?"
Hannibal looked to her through the corners of his eyes and answered, "A very powerful man, his name's Dimitri Pedavich."
"Never heard of him before," Jean said as they were herded into the back of the truck.
"With good reason," Hannibal said, "Our business with him is about six years in the past."
"What'd you do that he hates you so much?" Jean asked as the doors were slammed shut and locked behind them and they were out of the rain, except for what had already soaked them through to the bone.
"Well it started out as a simple job to go over to Russia and liberate an American reporter who had been arrested on some trumped up charges," Hannibal started to explain.
Jean rolled her eyes, "Another person framed for a crime they didn't commit, that seems to be the running gag of the week around here."
"Anyway," Hannibal said as they felt the truck start up and start to move, "To make a long story short, we got that guy and all of his business partners into a lot of trouble with a lot of people, and I guess he just can't let go of a grudge."
"Do you think Fulbright's working with him?" Jean asked.
"Pedavich doesn't work with anybody, he especially wouldn't work with the American military, I don't know why Fulbright was out there tonight, but unless we get out of here, it isn't going to make much difference either way," Hannibal told her.
"And Stockwell?" Jean asked, "If he's not going to negotiate with U.S. Army..."
"We're assuming Stockwell is U.S. Army, Amy couldn't even find any proof he'd ever enlisted," Hannibal said, "Not that I think any of it matters much now."
"Well why do you hate this Russian guy so much?" Jean asked, "He's the guy from the airport, right? I've never seen you act like that before."
Hannibal chuckled humorlessly and told her, "You know there are a lot of stereotypes about Russians, just like there are any group of people…"
"But in this case they're true?" Jean asked.
"Well they are with this guy," Hannibal said, "You know how the mob handles people?"
"I heard how the American Italian mob did it in Capone's time," Jean told him, "With those stiletto knives, cut people's throats and then cut off their…"
"Yeah well," Hannibal cut her off, "That's kid's stuff compared to what this guy's done. You know what you said a while back about the Croatians in World War II?" He watched Jean nod before he told her, "I think this guy took lessons from them, except he never needed the excuse of a war to brutally kill people, he did it on a regular basis if he thought anybody posed a threat or a potential obstacle or he just wanted to make someone suffer; and he's indiscriminate about it: men, women and children, he prefers the latter two though he'll take anybody he can find who gets in his way, on occasions he likes a challenge."
Jean let Hannibal's words sink in and she looked like she was getting a migraine. The truck hit a large bump in the road and they got knocked about a bit and she asked Hannibal, "Where do you think they're taking us?"
"Pedavich likes a lot of room for his work," Hannibal explained, "My guess, someplace nice, quiet, secluded."
"Where nobody can hear you scream," Jean finished and looked at the paneled wall across from them, "We're gonna die this time, aren't we, Hannibal?"
"Don't be ridiculous," he told her as he adjusted himself against the wall, "The others will find us soon enough."
Jean looked to him through one eye and asked him in a tone that suggested she already knew the answer, "You don't really believe that, do you, Hannibal?"
A few seconds passed in silence before he finally answered with a sighing huff, "Maybe."
Jean said nothing in response and the rest of the ride passed in complete silence on their parts.
Author's Note: The series is to be continued in a future installment, but this story has come to - THE END.