Jean fell against the bed as the ropes were cut and the springs in the mattress all sounded off to having her full weight against them. She opened her eyes again and tried to talk, the first coherent word they were able to get out of her was 'water'. Face doubled back to the kitchen and filled a glass up and returned to the bedroom; Jean was working on getting the feeling back into her hands but she grabbed the glass and drained it in two seconds.

"Are you alright?" Murdock asked her as he placed a hand on her cheek, noting that she looked about ready to pass out again and wanting to make sure she knew they were there and that she wasn't alone.

Jean tiredly nodded her head as she reached up with one hand and grabbed the two parts of her shirt that had been ripped open and bunched them together in her hand to keep it closed. "Uh-huh."

"What happened?" Face asked.

Jean couldn't get her mouth open the first couple of times she tried to speak but on the third try she was able to get out clear enough for them to hear, "Army."

"Who, Decker?" Murdock asked.

Jean shook her head, "Not Decker."

"Who then?" Face asked.

She shook her head again and said, "Don't know…doesn't matter."

"Come on, Murdock, let's get her out of here," Face suggested.

"Right!" Murdock jumped up as the thought just occurred to him.

He grabbed Jean's arm and slung it over his shoulders for support, but flinched when he felt her wrist rub against his neck. He started to apologize, then realized that something was amiss, there weren't any rope burns on her hands, and he rolled the cuff of her sleeve up and saw there weren't any on her wrist either. Instead he saw a metal band on her wrist where the ropes had been tied over. He realized there would be time to ask about that later and right now he just focused on getting his wife the hell out of this place, right now he didn't even care who or what was going on out here, they would deal with that later.

Face was just as anxious to get them out of there but he had the foresight to hope they didn't run into anymore enemy fire on the way out. He had been tempted to ask Jean who had been shooting at them in the first place but realized the futility of that idea since she wouldn't know either most likely. Jean had one arm over Murdock's back and her other hand held her shirt closed, so Face just lightly grabbed her other arm, more to just keep her evenly balanced than to actually keep a hold of her as they headed for the door.

"You take her car back, I'll follow in the 'Vette," he told Murdock.

Murdock nodded and walked Jean over to where she'd hidden her car. He talked to her as he got her in on her side, not so much anything coherent as just trying to keep her going, to get any kind of response out of her.

"Just hang on, hon," he told her as he closed the door on her side and stepped over it and made his way over to the driver's seat, "We'll get you back home and you're gonna be alright, alright?"

She was slow to respond and Murdock took that as a sign, not so much that she was going into shock, but she was suffering a delayed reaction and when it fully hit her what had happened, whatever it was, she was going to go through the roof, and he just hoped they got her back to the house before that happened.


"After 9 o' clock," Hannibal said as he glanced at his watch, "I wonder what the holdup is."

"Knowing that crazy fool, could be anything," B.A. said.

"What about his wife?" Hannibal asked.

"She married to him, she got to be as crazy as Murdock is by now," B.A. told him.

"Hmm, good point," Hannibal said as he puffed on his cigar.

B.A. grunted and shook his head, "I feel sorry for Faceman, stuck with those two crazy people, they taking him along for the ride until he's just as bad as both of them."

Hannibal shrugged coyly and said, "I could think of worse things to be."

"I can't," B.A. told him, "You know that fool Murdock keeps trying to make me as crazy as he is just so he'll have some company."

Hannibal chuckled and said, "He's been trying for 10 years, B.A., hasn't worked yet, has it?"

"Not yet," B.A. answered, "But the fool keeps trying."

They heard a car pull up outside and Hannibal went to the window, "Ah ha, here they come now." He saw Face's corvette was right behind the Firebird and parked beside it in the driveway. But Hannibal watched from the window and was surprised when he saw they weren't heading for the door, either at the front or the back.

"What is it, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.

"They're heading upstairs and they're not bothering to come in here first," Hannibal said, "Come on, let's see what it is."

They went to the hall and ran up the stairs to beat the others to the entrance in the storage room; Hannibal got there first and was waiting at the window for the other three to come up, and he called down to them, "What's going on?"

That took them by surprise and Face and Murdock looked up, but Jean kept her head low and one hand clutched to her chest.

"Colonel!" Murdock exclaimed in shock, not knowing what more to say.

"What's the matter?" Hannibal called down to them.

Jean looked up and Hannibal saw what the matter was. He saw the blood on Jean's face and he saw that both her jacket and her shirt had practically been ripped off of her, the pants to her uniform had also been torn up, only the boots remained in tact. Now she really looked the part of a psychotic guinea pig escapee from the army.

Hannibal felt the blood drain out of his face as he asked, "What happened?"


What happened? What happened. That was the million dollar question and unfortunately for everybody involved, Jean would not answer. Once they got in the room, Jean kept her head low and her gaze to the floor as she walked past Hannibal without a single word. She'd managed to get past all four of them before making a beeline into the bathroom where she locked herself in after tossing her clothes out into the hall. Hannibal pressed Murdock and Face for answers but they came up just as short on them as he was. They were able to tell him about the cabin and the firefight with whoever had been inside but managed to do a disappearing trick before they got in, and about finding Jean, and that was all the further they could explain anything.

Hannibal tried to process the information they gave him, which wasn't much to go on but it was all they had at the moment. And he remembered the way Jean wouldn't look at him, looking, he thought, like a beaten dog. No, it was worse than that, she looked like a woman from a third world country who had brought shame to the whole family, but why? That was the part he couldn't figure out, and it was driving him crazy. He saw the pile of laundry outside the bathroom door and picked the clothes up.

"Is this what she was wearing when you found her?"

"Yeah," Murdock answered, "That's her new uniform."

"Not anymore," Hannibal pointed out as he pulled on the material to see how torn up it was. He pulled on the two ends of the jacket as if it was an accordion. Murdock couldn't help joking, "I don't think you're going to be able to get any music out of it, Colonel."

"No, but maybe some answers as to what happened back there," Hannibal replied, "Murdock, when Jean comes out of there, you're the most likely person she'll talk to, see if you can get her to talk…in the meantime…I need to think." He took the clothes with him and headed downstairs.

"What do you think that's about?" Face asked.

"I don't know," B.A. said, "But I think the fool's craziness is starting to rub off on Hannibal."

"B.A.," Face pointed the direction Hannibal had gone, "Why don't you see what he's up to?"

"Might as well," he replied, "Don't think I wanna stick around for the fireworks up here."

"Thanks a lot!" Face sarcastically bellowed down after the man.

"Face, you might as well go with them," Murdock told him, "If she is going to tell us anything, she'll tell me first."

"More of that marital privilege I'm always hearing so much about, eh?" Face asked, "Alright, good luck. I have a feeling you're going to need it."


Face was starting to think B.A. might be right about Hannibal losing his mind. He found the colonel at the dining room table with Jean's Air Force uniform laid out before him, he had the jacket in his hands and was sniffing the material.

"What're you doing, Hannibal?" he asked.

"Just checking," he answered.

"For what?" Face asked.

"For what?" Hannibal repeated, "Anything, anything that might explain what the hell has been going on. Now I don't know what happened, or what was planned to happen, but so far I'm not coming up with any odors similar to gasoline or oil or kerosene or turpentine, or anything else that might be used to set her on fire, so that's one advantage. Also I noticed there aren't any bloodstains on the clothes, so clearly Jean wasn't roughed up too badly."

"For once," Face noted as he sat down at the table.

"You said that her wrists were tied up and suspended above her head," Hannibal said, "I'll admit I didn't get a very good look at her but I didn't see any rope burns on her hands or her arms, did you?"

"I didn't really notice," Face confessed, "But I don't think so."

Hannibal was scratching his head on that one. "Then she couldn't have been there for too long."

"She had to be, Hannibal," Face said, "If I had to guess I'd say she'd been there two hours at least before we found her."

"Then something's not making sense," he replied.

"Something?" B.A. snorted, "Try everything, man."

"Was there anything on her wrists under the ropes?" Hannibal asked, "Something that would block the indentions?"

"I don't think so," Face said, "No wait, I remember, the cuffs on her jacket…the ropes were tied over them."

Hannibal grunted and turned his nose up and commented, "Amateur…any torturer worth his weight in sadism knows you never leave anything to soften the blow, or to lessen the burn. Anybody who knew what he was doing would've wrapped the rope directly around her wrists until they were bleeding from the fibers cutting into her skin."

"You learn that in the army?" Face asked cynically.

"No actually, when I was a kid and tried to reenact the westerns I saw every Saturday," he answered.

"Hannibal," Face said, trying to sound nonchalant, "Remind me never to go camping with you. I don't want to know what you learned back when you were an Eagle Scout."

Hannibal let out a slight chuckle but returned his attention to the uniform Jean had worn in. He knew that there was something about it that he should've noticed, something was wrong here and it was looking at him right in the face, but he couldn't put his finger on what was the matter with it, and he was determined to go over every inch of it until he did.


After Face had gone downstairs, Murdock had stayed by the bathroom door so he could hear if anything seemed to be wrong. He had to give Jean credit, when she wanted to be alone, she could be as quiet as a corpse; he'd heard the shower running but that was the only thing he'd heard. He pressed his ear against the door, trying to hear any little sound from the next room, but there was nothing. He tapped his fingernail against the door and quietly called in, "Saint, you alright?" There wasn't any answer and he raised his voice a bit and said, "I know you're in there, I can hear you breathing." Of course he knew she was in there, there wasn't any place for her to go, there wasn't any window in the bathroom.

He heard the knob turn and he stepped away from the door so it didn't open on him, Jean stepped out wrapped in a towel that practically swallowed her whole. She looked up at Murdock, but he noted, only slightly.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

"Yeah, sure," she answered, not sounding convincing, "Just fine…"

"What happened back there?" he asked.

"I'll explain," she shook her head, "But I was sure as hell hoping that Hannibal didn't have to find out about this."

"Why?" Murdock asked.

"He didn't need this," she said, "Why is it every time you guys come around, something like this has to happen? Something always happens, you guys always have to get involved with my problem."

"Well let me ask you a question," he said to her, "Does stuff like this happen when we're not here?"

Jean looked at him as if she hadn't thought of that, and she answered, "Not usually."

"Maybe there's a connection," Murdock told her.

"Yeah, maybe," she didn't sound like she believed it though, "Look, why don't you go on downstairs and find the others…and I'll be there in a minute and I'll tell everybody at the same time what happened?"

Murdock reached over and supportively placed his hand on her back and he asked her, "Are you sure you're alright, Saint?"

"As I explained the last time you guys found me," she told him, "I'm more embarrassed than anything."

With that, she broke away from him and went to their room and shut the door on him. He wondered what she meant by that but he decided to join the others and await her explanation. He had a bad feeling about this whole thing and he got an idea that it was only going to get worse.


Hannibal could've kicked himself that the answer he was looking for didn't dawn on him sooner. It hit him when he was jerking on the material to Jean's jacket for about the hundredth time. "I've got it!"

"Got what?" the others asked as Murdock joined them in the dining room.

"I knew that there was something wrong with this," Hannibal said as he stood up, "Face, come over here and look at this."

All of them hovered around the dining room table as Hannibal pulled on the fabric to the jacket again.

"What is it, Hannibal?" Face asked.

"Look at this," Hannibal showed how the buttons had been torn from the jacket and it was completely ripped alongside where the buttons were, "Whoever attacked Jean grabbed her jacket like this, and ripped it apart, ripped the buttons clean off…all but the bottom one."

"Yeah, and?" he asked.

Hannibal put the jacket down and picked up the white shirt Jean had worn with it. It too had been torn right down the middle. He pulled on its fabric likewise and explained, "This is heavier than those shirts she usually wears, so it would take a little more muscle to just rip this open."

"I'm following you so far but I'm not getting it," Face told him.

Hannibal picked the jacket back up and held it alongside the shirt, "Look at this, Face, on the jacket, the material starts to fray and fringe where it was ripped, see that? But on the shirt, there aren't any frays in the material."

"It wasn't torn," Murdock realized, "It was cut open."

"Precisely," Hannibal said, "The material would remain well intact after being cut, usually until it was run through the washer and then it starts to fall apart, but ripped fabric frays from the start, that's the difference."

"Okay," it was still clear as mud to Face, "So the guy rips her jacket and cuts her shirt, I think I'm missing something here."

"The shirt would be easier to rip than the jacket would," Hannibal told him, "But the guy didn't do that, why?" While Face was contemplating that, Hannibal put them down and picked up the pants she'd worn, showing that they had been torn at the seams going all the way up to the knees. "See how neatly the material holds together?"

"They were cut open too," Murdock realized.

"That's right," Hannibal grabbed the material of one leg and ripped it the rest of the way up to the thigh and said, "That's how you can tell, see all the loose threads already hanging out of it? Now…if it were just one leg, I'd say that maybe whoever it was had been planning to try a little electrocution."

Murdock considered what the colonel meant and he said, "Not like electro-shock therapy in the hospital, like when they strap you into the electric chair and fry you, they shave your head and your leg and place an electrode on each end."

"Something like that," Hannibal said, "But why cut open the other leg then?"

"Oh it's very easy to explain it all, Hannibal," Jean said as she entered the room, dressed in a sleeveless shirt and a pair of jean shorts. When all eyes were on her, she held her head up high and tilted it back so they could see her neck in full details, and see the handprint bruises that had wrapped around the flesh and re-colored it.

"Oh my God," Hannibal said as he went over to her to see how bad it was. However, when he was able to get a better look at the bruises, he realized something didn't look right.

Jean caught on to what he was thinking and she nodded and said, "Something's wrong with it, alright, but it's not what you're thinking."

Hannibal placed his hands on her neck and saw that his hands were bigger than the prints; the others tried as well, both Face and Murdock's hands were too big, and B.A.'s hands were twice the size of the bruises. Hannibal was starting to figure out what it meant and he shook his head in disbelief, "Now wait a minute, you don't mean to tell me that…"

Jean nodded, "That's right, Hannibal."

Hannibal felt his eyes bug out as he asked, "A woman did that to you?"

"Well," Jean said, "She definitely had her share of the fun at my expense."

This came as a shock to all of them, but Face especially felt like he'd just fallen through the looking glass, slipped right past the hands of the Twilight Zone and had made a crash landing on another planet entirely. "Say what?"

"I went to that place," Jean explained, "Because I saw one of the MP cars heading past here, I followed it and on the way three army trucks came onto the road and followed the car."

"What were they carrying?" Hannibal asked.

"I don't know," she said, "They had those canvas backs and I was watching for them to open them up and that's when they caught me."

"Who?"

"I don't know," Jean said, "But if I had to guess, I'd say that Decker's gone and found himself a girlfriend."

"What!?" Face asked.

"Are you serious?" Hannibal asked her.

"Hannibal, I only know what I saw and what I saw was a woman wearing a Colonel's uniform like Decker wears…she personally requested to take over when they were interrogating me."

"That explains it then," Hannibal realized.

Jean nodded, "They had a bunch of gorillas there…gorillas, guerillas, it's all the same with these dopes, I don't know what they were all there for, but one of them caught me and he was the one that ripped my jacket apart after I was tied up, that's when the broad took over."

"Who tied you up?" Hannibal asked.

"She did."

"Alright, why don't you have any rope burns on your hands or your wrists?" Hannibal asked.

Jean explained, "When I work in films, during fight scenes and stuff like that, lately I've taken to wearing these cheap metal bands under the cuffs. It's not much protection but it does block some of the damage to my wrists when I'm hitting things and nobody ever notices. I was wearing them under my jacket when I went out today, and she tied the rope over the cuffs."

"Ah, then I was right, it is an amateur."

"Of course she's an amateur, if she had any real military training in her, she would've killed me when she had the chance," Jean said, "I know I would've if it was me."

Face shrugged and asked, "Then what the hell is going on?"

"I don't know," Jean told him, "All I know is what I saw."

"Right, but what happened?" Hannibal asked.

"Well, she said that she'd take over, and she grabbed a pair of scissors and used them to cut my shirt apart and cut open the seams on the pants I was wearing…I don't know why, I guess it's some new scare tactic they're using to coerce confessions out of prisoners or something…anyway I got the feeling that she was aiming to start cutting deeper if I didn't tell them what they wanted to hear, which was why was I there and what I knew, and all that usual stuff."

"What did you tell them?"

"Nothing," Jean said, "I'm not an amateur at this stuff, I know to keep my mouth shut, no matter what happens."

"And what did?" Hannibal asked.

"Nothing," she repeated, "That dame probably would've gotten a lot further, but one of the gorillas came in and said they had to clear out, because they were already falling behind schedule. I guess that was an hour before Face and Murdock came in and found me."

"But then who was shooting at us?" Face asked.

Jean shrugged and said, "Sorry, wish I could tell you."

"There's one thing that hasn't been cleared up," Murdock said to her, "When did she try to strangle you?"

"Oh that!" she suddenly remembered, "Well, when she found out they had to leave, she said something about making it short and sweet and she throttled me, I don't know if she thought I was dead or not, but she left right after, they all did."

"Would you know any of them if you saw them again?" Hannibal asked.

"I'd know that woman anywhere, that's for sure," Jean answered, "And I'll tell you something else, Hannibal, if you don't have it in you to knock her cold, then I will."

Face was the first to respond. It was obvious from the look on his face that he was still trying to grasp this information, and he said, "I'm still having a hard time believing this…"

"So noted," Jean replied, "But so what? I know that you guys have a problem with the idea of going around beating up on women like you do on men because you think that for whatever reason, that women are gentler, weaker creatures to be handled with kid gloves. Anytime there's a woman involved with some hood you think she's always just a pawn, that she was lured in or strong armed in, but the truth of the matter is some women are just evil, just like men, and some of them even worse, and they're every bit as bloodthirsty, believe me, I know."

Face cleared his throat and said, "You'll excuse me, Jean, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence to support that idea."

"Isn't there?" she returned, a little Cheshire cat showing through in her now as she replied, "Face, it is a known fact that women have fought in every army ever since the beginning of time. It's only been in the last century when complete physicals became necessary for enlisting that it became an impossibility for them to do so. They disguised themselves as men and fought alongside them, some of them went to prison and were sentenced to death as men for crimes nobody would ever think a woman capable of committing, nobody found out. The fact that nobody ever questioned their ability to fight or kill just as the male soldiers who fought alongside them did, ought to tell you something."

"She has a point," Hannibal said to Face.

"I suppose so," Face reluctantly agreed, "It's just that when I was growing up…"

"When you were growing up, the world was still flat," Jean told him, "I think it's safe to say that the whole world has changed since you were growing up."

"Another point," Murdock murmured to Face.

"As I said," Jean told them, "If we find this woman and you don't have it in you to beat the hell out of her like she deserves, then I will, I'm not overly familiar with knocking the stuffing out of my own kind but I'm not against it either."

Hannibal decided it would be best to keep his answer to that in reserve for now. Right now there were other matters to deal with and he asked Jean, "Do you remember the way you went that you found that cabin?"

"Yeah, sure," she said, "They swept the place before they left though, you won't find anything out there."

"Maybe not," Hannibal told her, "But there's no harm in looking…who knows? Maybe one of the house apes wasn't as careful in picking up after himself as the rest."

Jean nodded, "We'll go, but I'm telling you, Hannibal, it's a waste of time."

"Hannibal, do you really think that Decker could be involved in this?" Face asked.

"Well…anything is possible, however…it sounds like whoever they were might be involved in some illegal activities, or at the very least, immoral even by the military's standards…in which case I can't see Decker being involved, though he might find it very interesting if somebody were to fill him in on the details once we get them ourselves."

"Well what about the woman?" Face asked, "What do you think about that?"

"Jean could tell us better because she was there…" Hannibal turned to Jean and asked, "What do you say, kid?"

Jean shook her head, "She could be a squeeze for old Roddy, but I'd say it's a safe bet that she never even attended basic training, let alone finished. I think she's a little egomaniac just like a lot of men and she likes the idea of playing the big tough soldier. She seems to get a real kick out of torturing people."

"Definitely not Decker's style," Hannibal said, "He likes to just go in straight for the kill."

"Probably so," Jean replied, "But I've got to tell you, Hannibal, I've known a lot of nuts in my life, and this woman's a piece of work all her own…if we do see her again, I'm going to enjoy tearing her apart."


"I think she was right, Hannibal," B.A. said after they'd spent an hour searching every room of the cabin, and still hadn't found anything to prove it was currently being used by anybody, "We been over this place twice now, ain't nothing here that's gonna tell anything about the fools that was here."

"Well, obviously nobody's living here long term," Hannibal concurred, "But it's got running water and working lights, so that means somebody's staying here, also means somebody has their name on this place so they can pay the bills to keep the utilities running." He turned to the next room and called in, "Face!"

"Yeah I know," Face replied as he entered the room, "I'll find out who's paying to keep this place up and running and we'll go from there. Jean said that the car was Military Police, but the trucks were regular army, so whatever we find we'll run the names against anybody who is currently serving in the army and see if anything matches."

Hannibal saw Murdock poking his head in and asked the captain, "Where's Jean?"

Murdock pointed to the window, "Outside…said that she needed to get some air."

"She alright?" Hannibal asked.

"Uh…" Murdock gave up trying to answer and asked in return, "How do you know, Colonel? I mean I thought she was alright on the trip out here, but now…"

"She say anything?"

Murdock shook his head, "She's hardly said anything since we got out here."

Hannibal considered what this meant, and he said to them, matter-of-factly, "Something more happened out here than she's telling us."

"It doesn't make sense though," Murdock said, "No matter what's happened to her, she always tells us everything."

Hannibal gave a combination nod and shrug and replied, "Then we know it was something really bad."

Murdock's head drooped like a sad puppy and he walked out of the room without another word. Face went after him and asked, "You alright, Murdock?"

"Nah, Face, I'm torn," he answered as he picked his head up to look at his best friend, "On one hand, I want to find the person responsible for this and I want to reach down their throat, rip their heart out and hand it to them with it still beating…but on the other hand, I keep thinking about what Jean said, and what you said…" he shook his head and said, "We just weren't raised to believe women could be as capable of evil as men are, that they could commit the same atrocious acts. Jean's right, it's not right to assume that, but nevertheless that's how the men of our generation were raised, and it's hard to break away from that mindset."

"And we also weren't raised to hit women, even if they deserved it," Face recalled that lesson that he'd been reminded of many times as a kid.

"And if anyone does deserve it," Murdock nodded, "It's the woman who's responsible for this mess. But again, I'm torn, say we find her, do I bash her head through the wall like I would any man in the same position, or do I let Jean have that honor since she's the victim and it would make the fight fairer?"

"Why don't you ask Jean what she thinks?" Face asked.

Murdock shook his head, "Wouldn't do any good, Faceman, she's not talking to me right now, and I feel bad because I want to help her but I can't help if I don't know how to help her, and I can't find out how I can help her if she won't talk to me. You see what my problem is?"

"Yeah, and it's dizzying," Face told him.

"Face, I just don't know what I'm going to do," Murdock confessed to him, "I just can't figure out what else could've happened that she wouldn't tell us about."

"And then the next question," Face added, "Is it something the woman did, or something one of the men did?"

"I'll kill them all and sort it out later," Murdock decided.

An idea occurred to Face and he suggested to Murdock, "Maybe we'd get some more answers if we took her to a doctor."

Murdock shook his head, "Naw, Facey, I'm with Hannibal, I don't think they hurt her that badly."

"No, I mean maybe a psychiatric doctor…maybe if we took her to see Dr. Richter at the V.A. that he could get her to tell what…" Face stopped when he saw Murdock shaking his head again.

"Wouldn't do any good, Face," Murdock said, "If she ain't gonna tell us what happened, then she won't tell Dr. Richter what happened and it wouldn't matter anyway because I've sat through Dr. Richter's sessions and lectures for 10 years, I know everything he could possibly say to her, we could cut out the middle man and I could ask her myself, but she won't talk to us about it."

Face hated to admit it, but he was out of ideas. He clapped his hand on Murdock's shoulder supportively and told him, "I guess then we're just going to have to wait until Jean's ready to tell us what all happened here."

"Yeah," Murdock agreed, "I just hope she tells us soon, I think I'd feel better once I knew the whole story…course she's probably thinking just the opposite right now."

They went over to the window and looked out and saw Jean with her back to them, seated on a large tree stump out in the yard, just looking around, not really at anything in particular, Murdock knew. More like she was trying to see past this place, past everything as far as the eye could see, she was looking ahead to when they found the people who had been here and the number one motive for retaliation: revenge.


All they'd found inside the cabin was proof that somebody had frequented the place recently; there was no buildup of dust, the sheets on the bed looked remotely fresh and there was some food and a few beers in the fridge. Outside they found enough tire tracks in the dirt to lend credit towards Jean's story about the trucks, but once they ran the length back onto the main, paved road, then there was no way to tell which way they had gone or where to. Hannibal was hesitant to admit the trip had been a waste, but they didn't have much of anything to go on, so they piled into the van and headed back to civilization.

In the back of the van, Jean had seated herself next to Murdock, drawn her knees up near her chest and fell asleep with her head leaning against his shoulder. It was obvious from watching the captain that he wasn't comfortable with the close contact but he didn't try to push her away; he knew that right now she needed to have some sense of security, and apparently he was it. He didn't say anything for a while to let her sleep, though on the way back he did finally speak up and say to nobody in particular, "You know, I've been thinking about what she said…"

Hannibal turned around in the front seat and asked, "About what, Murdock?"

"Well I was thinking, Colonel, about when she said that women could be just as evil as men…I mean we never thought about it really, but it makes sense, doesn't it?"

Nobody spoke but he could see that they were all considering the possibility, and he continued, trying to make his point, "In every predatory species of animals, the female is always described as being the more aggressive of the two…alright, so it works that way in the animal kingdom, why not people too? After all, people can be a very predatory bunch of animals, as we well know." He turned to Face and added, "Something else I thought of, you know how in some species the male and female animals look very different from each other? You know, male lions have the big manes, male cardinals are pretty and red while the females are a dull brown…male peacocks have the great big colorful feathers…"

"Okay," Face said, "So what's the point?"

"Well it seems to me that nature has done to the animals the opposite of what society does with people, in society it's the women who spend hours every day trying to look fancy and show off and get all the attention drawn to them, whereas men are usually far less maintenance and don't bother trying to show off. You of course are our exception to that rule." Face rolled his eyes at that comment, but Murdock carried on, "But where animals are concerned, it's the males that always get more attention drawn to them for their beauty, it's like the order of nature is to gaudy up all the males and not so much with the females."

"It's an interesting point, Murdock, but what is the point?" Hannibal asked.

Murdock shrugged and said, "Just seems funny that if mankind is supposed to be so evolved, it seems to be doing a backward roll from the animal kingdom. I mean exactly who did decree that women were delicate little creatures?"

"I think the women themselves did it," Face told him, "Right after they beat the hell out of the men for not agreeing with it."

Murdock shrugged and slipped his arm around Jean and held her while she slept, and he thought back to the differences in the animals and remembered the red and brown cardinals, and it took him back. He remembered shortly after they'd been married and he had just gotten his stuff moved into her room with her, Jean had found a Mother Goose book among his belongings, and he remembered a poem they'd each recited a line of before falling asleep one night. For some reason it was now that he remembered the full rhyme:

'Twas once upon a time, when Jenny Wren was young,
So daintily she danced and so prettily she sung,
Robin Redbreast lost his heart, for he was a gallant bird.
So he doffed his hat to Jenny Wren, requesting to be heard.

"Oh, dearest Jenny Wren, if you will but be mine,
You shall feed on cherry pie and drink new currant wine,
I'll dress you like a goldfinch or any peacock gay,
So, dearest Jen, if you'll be mine, let us appoint the day."

Jenny blushed behind her fan and thus declared her mind:
"Since, dearest Bob, I love you well, I'll take your offer kind.
Cherry pie is very nice and so is currant wine,
But I must wear my plain brown gown and never go too fine."

Murdock turned and looked at Jean, who was still asleep, and in turn he leaned his head over and pressed it lightly against hers and he closed his eyes as well.


Hannibal knocked on the door and opened it anyway when he didn't hear anything. Once they had gotten back to Jean's house, Hannibal had declared himself well enough to move back to his regular room, so Jean could return to her own where he felt she could probably get the most rest. They still didn't know the full story of what had happened that day but he did know that Jean had been put through one hell of an ordeal and needed to know that it was over and that she could now rest and recover. It had been decided, though Hannibal wasn't sure by who exactly, that Murdock would stay with Face for the night and Jean would have her room and her bed to herself. Hannibal went in to make sure she was alright before he turned in for the night; Jean had been absent from dinner that night and still had hardly spoken to anyone since they returned.

He saw her laying in bed, the blankets pulled halfway up, and she already changed into her pajamas for the night. It didn't look like she'd been asleep or was anywhere near it yet, though Hannibal thought he could see some improvement from looking at her eyes.

"How're you feeling, kid?" he asked as he stepped lightly into the room.

She smiled at him and said, "I'm fine, Hannibal."

"I take it you're feeling better then?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said sheepishly, "I'm sorry about earlier."

"No problem," he told her as he went over to the bed and stared down at her. He looked at her for a minute before adding, "You do know that the offer's still good, right?"

"What offer?" she asked.

He gave her a little smile and said, "Remember I told you if you ever need help, any kind of help, we can get it for you."

She smiled weakly in return and told him, "I don't need help, I've already got the four of you."

"If we have to, we can expand that department," he said.

"I don't think it'll be necessary," she said, "But I appreciate your concern."

"Alright," Hannibal replied, he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek and gave her hand a slight squeeze and said, "Goodnight, kid."

"Goodnight, Hannibal," she responded.

He closed the door on his way out and headed over to his own room for the night, stopping in at the room next to his first to see how Murdock was holding up.

Murdock and Face were already in bed but they weren't asleep; instead they'd propped the pillows up against the headboard and were watching reruns on TV when Hannibal came in. The first words out of Murdock's mouth were, "How is she?"

"Seems to be doing alright," Hannibal answered, "She's talking again, that's a good start."

"You think she'll be alright, Hannibal?" Murdock asked.

Hannibal said in his Mr. Lee philosophy, "The human spirit can bend and bend and bend like origami, but takes more to break than just being stepped on several times."

"I think that's a yes, Murdock," Face told him.

"I think that whatever happened," Hannibal told them both, "She will tell us in time, it's just a matter now of getting to that point."

"Hope it's a short line between the two points," Murdock commented.

"I know, I do too," Hannibal said as he reached for the light switch, "Goodnight, boys."

"Goodnight, Grandpa," they chorused behind him.


B.A. wasn't sure what it was that woke him up, but he found himself sitting up in bed only to discover it was still dark. He found the clock on the nightstand and saw that it was 2:30 in the morning. He picked up on a faint sound from one of the next rooms and immediately thought it was somebody breaking in. Then logic set in and he realized more likely than not, Murdock or somebody had come down to get something to eat. All the same, he wasn't going to take a chance. He got out of bed, opened his door and stepped out and looked around in the dark to see where the noise was coming from.

He heard a sound coming from the kitchen, it sounded like somebody trying to open the door. He felt his way along into the kitchen, found the light switch and threw it up, revealing Jean standing at the back door.

B.A. let out a small sigh of relief. "Hey mama," he said, "What you sneaking around your own house for?" She didn't answer him and he knew that wasn't normal by any stretch of the imagination. He watched at the way Jean was feeling her hands over the door, trying to find the knob and the lock. B.A. put his hand on her shoulder and forced her to turn around and he saw her eyes weren't even open.

"Oh great," he grumbled to himself, "A sleepwalker, that's all we need." He grabbed Jean's hand and walked her out of the kitchen with him and said, "Come on, mama, let's get you back in bed."

Jean followed after him at first but then she tried to get away from him and over to the back door again. B.A. snagged her back again, and realized Jean was going to be more trouble than he thought. He wrapped his arm around her waist and kept a tight grip on her so she couldn't get away from him; this was especially so since when he grabbed her, he lifted her up so that her feet hung three inches off the ground. With her in tow, B.A. walked over to the foot of the stairs, and called up, though not loud enough to wake up the whole house, "Murdock!"

There was a slight pause before he heard the pilot call down the stairs, "Huh?"

"Hey Murdock, you got your pants on?"

"Yeah."

"Well come on down here, I need your help, man," B.A. told him.

Jean was squirming in his grasp and he never loosened his hold on her but he noticed that since she wasn't touching the floor, her feet and legs were swinging back and forth like a clock pendulum, and he wondered just what she thought she was doing.

Murdock came down the stairs, dressed in his pajamas, and when he saw B.A. hoisting Jean off the ground like King Kong and Fay Wray, he immediately asked, "Hey B.A, what're you doing to my wife?"

"I ain't doing anything to her," he said, "I'm trying to keep her from doing anything to herself. She' sleepwalking, man, I caught her trying to head out the back door."

Murdock went over to them and put his arms around Jean as B.A. put her down, and he talked to her, "Hey sweetheart, what's the matter, huh?"

"Hey man, she can't hear you," B.A. told him.

"B.A., please, I have a lot of experience with somnambulism," Murdock replied, "Somebody was always having it at the V.A. whenever they weren't tied to their beds."

B.A. didn't like thinking about that, so he decided to leave it alone since Murdock would have more experience with it than he would, so he stood back and watched as Murdock walked Jean into the living room and gently pushed her down on the couch as he tried waking her up.

"Come on, Saint," he said as he patted her cheek lightly, "What's the matter, huh? Is this your way of telling me you want a divorce?" he didn't laugh but it was obvious by his light tone that he was trying to be funny.

"This what you did with those people in the hospital?" B.A. asked curiously.

"Well all sleepwalkers are different, just like snowflakes," Murdock said, "But they all suffer from confusion and disorientation upon awakening because they have no recollection how they got out of their beds to wherever they are…however I've found it helps if you can establish contact with them so they know who's with them when they wake up, it's a lot more progressive than just grabbing them and shaking them until they wake up screaming." He placed his hands on the sides of her face and asked her, "Come on, Jean, what's the matter?"

Jean didn't wake up and she didn't open her eyes, but her mouth started moving and both men were able to hear her talking, very quietly so they could only hear about half of the words. The part that they were able to make out came to, "Shouldn't have found out, shouldn't have found out, he shouldn't have come…"

"What's she talking about?" B.A. asked.

"Shh," Murdock lowered his ear next to her mouth so he could hear her better.

He could hear Jean murmuring, "They'll kill him, they'll kill him…colonel, they said if I got away, if my colonel finds out, he will die…my colonel? He's not my colonel, he shouldn't have found out."

Murdock bit his bottom lip and rested his chin on the crown of her head as he put together what she was saying. B.A. could tell by Murdock's reaction that he knew what it meant, and he asked, "What is it?"

"That's it," Murdock said, quietly, then he pulled away from Jean and stood up and said, much louder, "That's why she said not to tell Hannibal. That's why she said he didn't need to know!"

"What're you talking about, man?" B.A. asked.

He nodded his head mechanically like he was blindly agreeing with someone, and he told B.A., "We figured that one of those goons in green had to do something to Jean that she wasn't telling us about, and they did, I don't know how they did it but they told Jean if Hannibal found out what they did to her, they'd kill him."

"Then that means that whoever they are, they know Hannibal," B.A. realized.

"And they know that she knows us," Murdock added, "So now we have to find out who they are, then we gotta find out where they are, and what they're planning."

B.A. rolled his eyes and said, "Alright, I'll go get Hannibal and Faceman up, and you better get her up so she can tell them the whole story this time."

Murdock nodded, but once B.A. had left the room, he let out a long, heavy sigh and felt sorry for Jean for what she'd been put through. Now things were starting to make sense, sort of. Jean didn't want Hannibal finding out what had happened because his life had been threatened; that part of it made sense but it still didn't make sense at the same time, but Murdock had a feeling that they'd get the whole ugly story soon enough.