Murdock watched Face from the distance. His best buddy could not act well enough to fool him; there were changes.
He knew that Hannibal had noticed it too, and probably had made the mistake of trying to fix it. BA, at least, was not that meddling. He himself, he knew there was no sense in trying anything as long as Face worked so hard at hiding it.
He sighed. Whereas Hannibal felt less guilty since Face's return, he now felt guiltier than ever. So much he could have done, so much pain he could have lessened if... If only he had said something, done something.
He had not been imagining things that day, he had actually seen Face. But instead of speaking up, he had kept his mouth shut, too ashamed of his own state of mind. He never once stopped to think that Face may have survived after all. He had just accepted for a fact that Face was gone. It remained a mystery to him, how he could have given up on his friend so easily. Some friend he was.
And because of his failure Hannibal had beaten himself up, BA had grieved, and Face had gone through the aftermath all by himself, without his friends' help and support. He may have died, thinking there was no one left in the world caring for him. Unfortunately, Face dying had not been a hypothetical for a while. For him, the rescue had come just in time. A few hours later, and he might not have lived to see it. And even with events playing out the way they did, it had been touch and go for a week.
No wonder, all that blood...
This whole stupid plight had one upside however. Murdock was quite certain that neither Hannibal nor BA quite knew what Face had had to endure. Face was surely not going to put them into the picture.
If Face wanted to hide it, then for the time being, Murdock would help him hide it.
"Hey, Murdock, interested?" Suddenly, somehow Face stood in front of him.
Murdock managed to not jump out of his skin completely, just a little bit. "Jeez, Faceman, don't do this to me!" Captain Skymaster complained.
"Sorry, I guess," Face apologized half-heartedly, then held up a chess-set in question. He didn't play chess often, although he was pretty good at it. But, as he had once complained: It's so hard to cheat at chess.
Face waved the set a bit, still waiting for an answer.
"Sure, why not."
Face walked over to the small table, making space for the set.
Deep inside, Murdock shuddered guiltily under the image of an all red Face, carried through the chaos of battle. Murdock squeezed his eyes shut and screamed.
Captain Skmaster took a seat opposite of Face and confidently demanded: "I take black."
"Unlike all the other times," Face teased, already setting up the white pieces for himself.
Hannibal had gathered them in his little office, a map spread out on his desk, explaining their next mission to them.
It was the first real mission Face was going to be part of. So far, it had been only light stuff, hardly worth of being called a mission. But this one... it was importand and fairly risky, the kind of mission they had done on a regular basis before they had got caught. About time.
"So, what is this important information anyway?" BA asked.
Hannibal squared his shoulders and put a wide grin on.
Uh-oh, Face thought. Not good.
"We don't actually know", Hannibal said, still grinning broadly. "Coud be anything. Maps, codes, numbers, troop movements, supply channels..."
"Great," BA mumbled.
"All we know for sure: Charlie doesn't want this information in our hands."
"Which could be said about everything Vietcong, from information down to toiletpaper," BA stated.
Hannibal was stumped for a moment, then shrugged. "What's the difference? We got orders to go grab that info, so we go grab that info."
Right. There was an undisputable point.
"Can we move on then?" Hannibal asked irritably and went on to do just that. "Right. Face, you take post here." He pointed at a small rectangle on the map.
Face looked. "A shed?" He said testily. "Must I?"
"We need a man in there to overlook the scene."
"So, put BA in the shed, and..."
"Can't, I need BA here, next to me." Hannibal pointed at a piece of road. "Plus, you missed the keyword, Lieutenant: overlook. That makes it your job, you're the one with the sniper-eyes."
Face grimaced at the word. "I failed sniper-training," he pointed out.
"Only because you chose to," Hannibal countered.
"Yeah, well." Face couldn't argue with that, he had messed it up on purpose. But to know that he killed with pretty much every bullet he fired - no. As a regular grunt he could tell himself that most of his bullets missed their target, and he found that that did wonders for his peace of mind.
"So you are here," Hannibal repeated, and pointing at the rectangle on the map with more emphasis than the first time.
"How about Murdock, Murdock has good eyes," Face was not going to just give up.
"Too far from the chopper," Murdock answered instead of Hannibal. "This is the only sensible place to put the chopper down." He pointed at a tiny clearing in a small extention of the nearby wood. "Too far from where the action's gonna be."
Hannibal smiled at him proudly.
"Fine, me and the shed it is," Face sourly accepted his fate.
Murdock landed the chopper in the appointed clearing, and while it had already looked tiny on the map, in reality it was virtually non-existent.
"Job very well done, Captain," Hannibal commended and hopped off the chopper. He clearly had missed being on missions, proper missions.
"Hannibal, you know I still don't like this plan much," Face complained, following Hannibal out.
"What exactly don't you like about it?" Hannibal asked lightly.
"All of it?" Face asked back.
"But it's a perfect plan, what can possibly go wrong?" And he had the audacity to even wiggle his eyebrows at him.
"I just don't like this mission, ok? Who tells us this isn't a trap? I mean, if this information is so tremendously secret, why don't they just fly it over? Would be a lot faster."
"Because it is so tremendously secret, Face. They're trying to mislead us. – But they didn't count with the A-Team, the best of the best." Hannibal grinned self-satisfied.
"And planes can be shot down," BA contributed.
"Unless I fly them."
BA grunted at Murdock, Hannibal still grinned.
"Still don't like it." Face shook his head in resignation.
"Oh, you're just still miffed I made you take that post."
"It's a shed," Face accused.
"It's a good post, safest post of us all, except maybe for Murdock's."
Face reluctantly nodded his head. "Suppose so," he gave in.
"Good. I trust we're done griping? Fine, then can we finally get to doing this mission." Hannibal shouldered his rifle and set off westward with unnaturally happy determination.
"Man, I hate him when he is like that," BA said softly.
"You're not the only one," Face agreed, then shouldered his own rifle and followed Hannibal through the underbrush.
Their paths parted half an hour after leaving the treeline behind. Hannibal and BA went due south, Face made his way north.
About ten minutes later he reached the shed. There were a few bushes around it, and maybe he could hide in those? But no, they were too thin, too risky to stay outside.
Thankfully he still had a few more hours to spare, but sooner or later he would have to hide, and there really wasn't anything but the shed.
Maybe he should check it out. Hannibal had predicted that there would be gaps in the walls, and there were. From the outside they seemed big enough, but he could only get a conclusive picture if he looked at them from inside.
Taking a deep breath Face pulled the door open. He leaned forward a bit, sniffed. Seemed to be alright. It smelled of dust and bird poop. Good. Slowly Face stepped inside, pulled the door closed behind him.
The light dimmed considerably. The gaps created stripes of light and darkness that made it hard to see. But he didn't have to see anything on the inside anyway. Face walked to each wall, peered outside, pushed the muzzle of his rifle through the broader gaps, widened one.
Yes, this would indeed work fine. Hannibal had been right once again. He could see everybody coming from all sides without being seen himself. He could take care of them if need be, without ever being in danger of being shot himself. Well, not great danger.
Yes, this would work. He could wait for the action to begin, which would be soon if their intel was right, and everything would be fine.
He pulled back, switched walls. Out of the corner of his eyes something caught his attention. There, from the wall opposite the door, hung a rusty iron ring. Face was outside faster than he could even understand why he was dashing.
The panic abated immediately, once he stood in the bright early afternoon sun. This was not the crappy cell in the camp. He could leave it, as proven an instant earlier. This was not the camp. Nobody was going to do horrible things to him in there. He could do this.
Cautiously Face stepped back to the hut, peered inside. Earthen floor, patches of old straw, mainly in the corners, old, wooden tools hanging from the left-hand wall, two bird's-nests under the roof. And most importantly: No iron ring in the opposite wall. Just a trick of the mind, that one.
This was not his cell in the death-camp, it was just an old, abandoned agricultural shed.
He could do this. With slow, measured steps he stepped back inside, checked and re-checked that there was no stinking bucket in one corner, no rags in another and no iron rings on the walls anywhere.
He could do this.
TBC