Once Decker and Crane had left, Frankie started to calm down and she drew back into herself and started to think about what she was going to do next. Right now there wasn't a whole lot she could do because they'd left her handcuffed in an empty room. If anybody came in now there wouldn't be much she could do to them other than talk them to death.
Surprisingly, that seemed to be on the program for tonight. A young MP came in with a paper cup of water and inquired as to how she was doing. Frankie got a good feeling from this guy, so she was willing to let her guard down some. She spoke more honestly with him than she had been willing to with Decker, though she still didn't give away any incriminating or revealing details, which oddly enough worked out just fine because he didn't seem to be digging for any. Through a little effort, Frankie managed to grab the cup and drink the water. The MP stayed and chatted it up with Frankie, and if truth be told she was starting to enjoy it. It was nice having somebody around here to talk to who didn't spit in her face demanding answers he wasn't going to get.
After a while, Frankie got curious and asked the MP, "Hey, what happened to that blowhard?"
"You mean Colonel Decker?"
"Well I don't mean Sergeant Guedo," she replied.
"He went out, got a tip on where the A-Team is."
Frankie remained unresponsive outwardly to this news but inside she could feel a familiar 'uh-oh' tugging at the back of her mind. Instead she just smiled and asked the MP, "He do this often? Drag in random people just for the hell of it saying they're in cahoots with the A-Team?"
"No, actually, I think you're the first," he told her.
Frankie managed a very cynical grin and said, "Well it's always nice to be unique."
Meanwhile, another incoming call rang through and another MP on duty answered it.
"This is Colonel Decker," the gruff voice on the other end of the line said, "You still have that woman in custody?"
"Yes sir, Colonel," the MP answered.
"Fine, let her go."
The MP did a double take at the receiver, "Let her go?"
"You heard me, now you release that woman or I'm going to come back there and bust you down to your socks, you got that?"
The MP saluted and said, "Yes sir, Colonel Decker, right away, sir."
Anxiously, the young man hung up the phone and ran to the holding room and informed the other MP of the colonel's order. It didn't make much sense to Frankie, but she was taking this as a good thing. She smiled at the MP who got the key to unlock her handcuffs and she told him, "Sorry to run out on you like this, but I do have a previous engagement."
"We'll escort you to the exit," the first MP told her.
Frankie didn't feel convinced about this whole scenario; she couldn't believe that that pighead Decker would just order them to let her go, but who was she to argue? She kept her mouth shut until they reached the doors leading out of the building and she told the MPs, "This has certainly been an interesting night…I may have to do something for your Colonel Decker someday," as she walked out the door she added under her breath, "Or to him."
Now that she was out in the open again, Frankie resumed being alert and aware for anything out of the ordinary; she looked up and down the property and the street and listened for the sound of anybody nearby. By now it was beyond dark outside so she could only make out outlines of things in the dark and if they moved. She heard people and saw a few MPs walking up to the building but other than that Frankie didn't see anyone. So, convinced that it was safe, she stepped down the stairs and slowly made her way out towards the street.
Revenge was a very time consuming hobby, the actual execution of a plan took a very short amount of time, it was all the plotting that put it all together and into action that took so long. Frankie had spent three years plotting revenge for one man, but given the treatment she'd faced tonight, she was starting to consider adding another name to her list. That little power hungry fruitcake, Decker, ooh she was going to have to think of something particularly nasty for him. It hadn't been a consciously premeditated move to slash Lynch's chest open when she had him at her mercy back at the airport, but it had been necessary and it had worked, unfortunately they just traded up from one idiot to a slightly more competent one. On one hand she hated to think if something were to happen to Decker who could possibly be brought in to replace him, but for the moment it wasn't something that she even could think about. All she could think about was a way to get this colonel off the A-Team's trail as well. Hannibal had said something about Decker being very good at what he did back in the jungle, somehow she didn't get the idea that he was a very primitive type of person. Without his guns and his authority she really doubted he'd be in much position to do anything. So then, Frankie thought, it was just a matter of taking those away from him, but how?
She'd let her guard down long enough to not pay attention to where she was going and she bumped into an MP coming her way. She started to say "excuse me" when the man grabbed her arm and told her, "You'll be coming with me, miss."
"What?" she asked.
The M.P. raised his helmet so she could see his face clearer, even in the dark she was able to see it was Hannibal in disguise.
"Come on," he murmured as he pulled her off to one of the MP sedans by the curb.
"You did this," Frankie realized, "You were the one who called Decker out."
"You got it," Hannibal said as he opened the back door of the car and let her in. Frankie squeezed into the backseat between Face and Murdock. Face had been crouched down in the backseat so he wouldn't be seen, but Murdock had also been dressed up as an MP. Mad Dog sat in the front beside Hannibal, he turned to see Frankie and reached his hand out to grab hers, "Frankie, you alright?"
"Oh sure, I'm fine," she said, "They couldn't do anything with me."
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yeah," Frankie turned to Murdock and told him, "Your advice worked great, Murdock."
"What advice?" Hannibal asked.
"Murdock was giving me pointers earlier on how to convince people I was insane, and I think they bought it," Frankie explained. She leaned over to the front seat and asked Hannibal, "So how'd you get the MPs to let me go?"
"That wasn't me," Hannibal told her, and jerked a thumb back to the captain behind him.
Frankie looked to Murdock who smiled and said in a gruff voice, "This is Colonel Decker, release that prisoner right now!"
Frankie looked to Murdoch in the front seat and said with a surprised look on her face, "He sounds almost exactly like Decker."
Murdock laughed and hugged Frankie and said, "And now when the real Decker gets back he's going to see somebody has played him for a codfish."
"You are a genius, Murdock I could kiss you," Frankie said.
Murdock put his hands on her and said, "Not me," and pushed her over to Mad Dog, "Kiss him, he's your boyfriend."
"Where's B.A.?" Frankie asked.
"Back with the van, we could only squeeze so many people in here," Hannibal told her.
"Speaking of which, how did you get an MP car?" Frankie asked.
"We didn't," Hannibal said, "We just did a rush custom job on a police car from the movie studio."
Frankie's eyes widened at that revelation and she laughed as they sped out of there. Then another thought occurred to her and she stopped laughing and fell back in her seat and said grimly, "We lost Masterson."
"Yeah I know," Hannibal replied from the driver's seat, "Minor setback, we'll just have to go back to his place and wait for him to come home again. I'm guessing he will, we checked his closet, his clothes are still there."
A disturbing thought occurred to Frankie and she reached over to the front seat again and tapped Hannibal on his helmet and asked him, "Why did you get me out of there? Because you were worried I'd talk?"
"No," Hannibal said as he took his cigar out of his mouth and held it in one hand and steered with the other, "Because if we didn't, your boyfriend over there would never let us get any sleep tonight."
Frankie moved back and slowly nodded, apparently that was an acceptable answer.
"Uh-oh!" Face exclaimed as he noticed a car very similar to the one they were driving coming up the opposite side of the road and it did a sharp U turn and came at them.
"Well that couldn't have been timed any better, could it?" Murdock asked.
"Hang on," Hannibal told them as he buried the accelerator to the floor.
"What're you going to do?" Frankie asked.
"We're gonna try and lose them," Hannibal answered calmly as the car swerved and went off the main road.
Frankie looked back and saw the other car in hot pursuit with its lights on and they could hear the siren wailing.
"Well this ought to wake everybody up," Face dryly remarked to mask his growing anxiety.
Frankie bit down on the tips of two of her fingers as she watched the car speed up and start to catch up with them. She glanced over to Murdock and noticed the bulge under his jacket, his gun, if she could only grab it fast enough maybe she could…but Frankie knew that wasn't possible. Even if they might have the same views about Decker she knew there was no way they'd let her pull off anything that involved him. The car swerved again and everybody got thrown against everybody else and Frankie, in one split second, saw her opportunity, she reached over and pulled Murdock's gun out, in the confusion he didn't even seem to notice. Everybody heard one shot ring out from behind them, and then everybody heard a much louder shot ring out from the backseat of their own car.
Face and Murdock covered their heads and pushed forward as a hole was blown through the back window of the car. Frankie, backward in the backseat, leaned forward towards the window she'd just shot through and proceeded to empty the clip as she fired back at Decker's car.
"What the hell are you doing!?" Face demanded once he realized what was going on, he grabbed the gun with both hands over hers and struggled with her and told her, "Give me that!"
Murdock chanced a look back and pointed, "Hey, look!"
Face looked and saw Decker's car skid to the side and come to a sudden stop.
"She must've got one of the tires," Murdock said.
"Dumb luck," Face said over his fuming, he jerked the gun out of Frankie's gasp so hard he about pulled her hands off.
"Exactly what the hell were you thinking, Frankie?" Hannibal asked, seemingly unfazed by what they'd just been through but his men knew him better than that.
Frankie heard the question but didn't really acknowledge it. Instead she just looked out the back window and looked back at her handiwork.
"Well," she finally said, her voice distant and vague, "At least we're getting away from them."
Face and Murdock looked to each other both wearing the same confused and worried expression on their faces. Mad Dog also bore a similar look, Hannibal glanced at the rear view mirror but otherwise kept his eyes on the road straight ahead and seemed unmoved by what had just happened. He wasn't known for being an easy person to read and that's how he preferred it, helped to get the drop on people in situations like this.
It had been decided that Frankie had to be temporarily put out of commission so they knew they didn't have to worry about her getting any new ideas; they hadn't gotten any straight answers out of her about why she had tried shooting Decker, and it seemed to Hannibal that they weren't going to. Not tonight anyway, not while she was as wired as she was. He figured after a solid night's sleep she might come around the next morning and explain herself better after she'd been subjected to a forced rest. Of course pinning her down and jabbing her with a needle full of B.A.'s knockout drug, efficient though it may have been, was strongly decided against. Instead Hannibal took a couple of the knockout pills and crushed them into a drink for Frankie. Like clockwork, a few minutes after she swallowed it she was knocked out. And, though it wasn't viewed as quite a pressing matter, they decided it would be best to do the same with Mad Dog, they didn't need him getting any bright ideas either and they also didn't need him sitting up all night worrying about Frankie. Soon both of them were out cold and side by side in the back of B.A.'s van.
"So what're we going to do now, Hannibal?" Face asked.
"Nothing changes," Hannibal explained, "We're going to watch Masterson's house until he returns, when he does we're going to bug his car, we have to pick a time when we know he's not going to be coming back to get that server out for the police. If we get a confession out of Masterson, that's good, but if we can supply the cops with the murder weapon, that ought to really cement it, and I want to catch this guy when he's least expecting it, we can get the drop on him, not the other way around."
"Assuming he ain't got rid of it already," B.A. pointed out.
"Unlikely, B.A.," Hannibal said as he shook his head, "Masterson doesn't know anybody's been in his home, he has no reason to suspect his cover's about to be blown, he'd have no reason to get rid of it now."
"Except now he knows Frankie's out of the hospital, she could talk," Face reminded him.
"She could've talked at any time for the three years before she got put in the hospital, Masterson knows nobody would believe her," Hannibal insisted, "He's not worried about that."
"Sucker's gonna have plenty to worry about by the time I get done with him," B.A. said.
Hannibal caught a glimpse of Murdock standing off to the side, the pilot had his hands shoved deep into his jacket pockets and had a grim look on his face.
"Something wrong, Captain?" Hannibal asked.
"What're we going to do with them?" Murdock asked, nodding his head towards the van.
Hannibal's facial expression softened slightly as he took the cigar out of his mouth and asked the pilot, "You got any ideas, Murdock?"
"All due respect, Colonel…I think Frankie's close to a psychiatric break."
"A break?" Face repeated confusedly, "As in 'through' or 'down'?"
Murdock whistled and twirled his finger straight down by way of answering.
"I see," Face glumly replied.
"I'd feel better if we could get her in to see Dr. Richter," Murdock said, "But I…I don't think…" the pilot was struggling to explain what he was thinking, "First thing's gotta be first, Colonel, and that has to be the fall of this guy's empire, and she has to be a witness to that, that…that will help speed the healing process along, for both of them."
Hannibal nodded understandingly and responded, "So noted, Captain, but from now one we're going to have to keep a closer eye on both of them."
Murdock nodded sadly and said, "I know." He tried perking up his expression and opened his puppy dog eyes wider, but it only made him look even more haunted by the facts at hand as he explained, "It's my family, Colonel, my responsibility."
"No one is disputing that, Murdock, but I think you're going to need help, they do have you outnumbered," Hannibal reminded him.
Again, Murdock only nodded in acknowledgment, and his silence was worse than anything he could've said. Face saw all of this and felt like he was standing near the blasting area and somebody had one foot on the plunger.
Frankie heard the sound of people's breathing and snoring and she woke up. It was still dark out, but they were in somewhere. She tried sitting up and realized she, Mad Dog and Murdock were all asleep in the back of the van on the floor. Hannibal, B.A. and Face weren't anywhere to be seen, not from where she laid anyway. She tried getting up without waking the others. She was no idiot, she knew that Hannibal had laced her drink, that's why she had spat half of it out when he wasn't watching. Mad Dog wasn't as fortunate, he would be out for a while still…that just left Murdock to get past. She tested him, she nudged him with her foot, poked him on his shoulder, nothing, she tried pushing him, he just rolled over onto his side and resumed snoring.
That just left the matter of the others, Hannibal, B.A. and Face, how would she ever be able to get past them? They had to be out there somewhere, and they'd hear or see something if she tried making a break for it. Still, it was something that she had to try. She got up on her knees and reached to open the back doors of the van. To do so quietly was no easy task, but she did, and worked one door open and slowly slipped out and looked around.
It was dark but the moon was out, she didn't see Hannibal or Face or B.A. anywhere, though she thought if she held her breath long enough that she could hear them off in a distance somewhere. If she left now, they'd never be able to catch her, not in time to stop her anyway. She closed the door about as quietly as she opened it and took off in the direction off from the voices. Once she was sure she was far enough away they couldn't see her, she started running.
They were already back in her hometown, it was a very short trip to reach her home. She stopped in the middle of the street in front of the house she had left two months ago and looked at it. From the outside nothing seemed to have changed, there were no lights on so she couldn't see inside; no doubt at this time of night everybody was asleep, it had to be going on 3 in the morning. Frankie walked up to the curb, up the sidewalk and went around to the back porch, this was the door they often forgot to lock at night since it couldn't be seen from the street. Opening and closing the kitchen door had never been a task that could be performed quietly, still, they were upstairs, the windows were closed, what would they hear?
The kitchen was dark but not completely. There was a small light kept on over the sink, it helped her to see that nothing here had changed since she last saw it either. Frankie knew what she had come here for. She went over to the sink and opened a drawer underneath the countertop. Simultaneously, she looked to the ceiling above her, as if trying to listen for her parents, or as if trying to see them through the ceiling. When she got what she had come here for, she was going to go upstairs and pay them a little visit that they'd never forget. She had almost grabbed what she was reaching for when she heard a car outside. Curiously, she shut the drawer and sneaked back out the door and took a look around front. There she could see Decker's car stopping, and he and Crane were getting out. Well, Frankie thought with a grin, now it was time for Act II. She smiled like a maniac and swaggered around front to meet the two men.
"Hello again," she said cheerily.
The two men jerked around at the sudden presence of another person and Decker looked like he wanted to kill her, "You!"
"Yeah," Frankie smugly replied as she walked over to him, "Me, in the flesh, and thankfully not nude." She wasn't finished with him yet, she still had a few tricks up her sleeve in the way of an insanity act, and she was going to use them here and now.
"How did you get out of custody?" Decker wanted to know.
Frankie grinned as she folded her arms and told him, "I whittled a gun out of soap and painted it with black shoe polish and tricked the guard into letting me out."
"Crazy, you really are," Decker noted.
"You don't know the half of it," she said as she went over to him, and suddenly it was like she was channeling Murdock again, "We are also immune to fear; we cannot connect emotionally to the concept of cerebral damage."
Decker wasn't amused, "What are you doing here?"
"Well I thought I could smell something burning so I thought I'd see what's on your mind," Frankie said, "And my guess is nothing much. Looking for someone? Someone besides me?"
"For once you're right," he said.
Frankie nodded condescendingly and said, "Let me just take a guess, shall I?" She stood facing them with her feet as far apart as her shoulders, getting ready for a fight, she spoke slowly, leaving a gap between each word as if it was a command, "Operational – Detachment – Alpha." She laughed maniacally at the look on Decker's face when she said that, and added, "Say hello to Operational Detachment Bravo. The B-Team is the support team and that's what I'm here for." She slowly inched her way closer to Decker and told him, "You try going after the A-Team again and you're going to have more trouble than you can handle."
For some reason Frankie didn't remember being this much shorter than Decker, but it was like he was King Kong towering over her, and he must've noticed this too because for one fleeting instance a sense of humor seemed to overtake him and he asked her, "You going to come up here and say that to me?"
Frankie got on her toes to get as close to in his face as she could and told him, "Nope, you're gonna come down here," and she kneed him in the groin. Decker doubled over and Frankie took advantage of it and latched onto him; she grabbed one shoulder and one side of his face and leaned in and bit his nose. Decker screamed in pain and quicker than they could see, Frankie let go of him and grabbed the gun out of his pocket and held it on them.
"Drop your weapon," she told Crane, "And if either of you are carrying a second gun, drop that too and kick it over, now or I shoot."
Crane put his gun down and kicked it over, Frankie picked it up and pocketed it and told them both to put their hands up.
"Forget it," Decker told her.
Frankie laughed and told him in response, "You really picked the wrong crazy to mess with, you know that, Decker? You think that Captain Howling Mad Murdock is a person of interest, somebody you ought to concern yourself with, that the A-Team is a bunch of somebodies you need to chase after?" She spat at him, "You know nothing, you don't know what dangerous is."
"And I suppose you're going to say that you're it?" he asked.
"You got it," she said as she aimed the gun towards him, "You know they busted me out of a crazy hospital just like Murdock? Only the one they had me in was for the criminally insane, and they didn't put me away on some petty charge like million dollar bank robbery like those Alpha boys you're hunting."
"Oh?" Decker felt like testing the waters, and his luck, "And what were you put away for?"
"Murder!" Frankie told him, "I got the greatest criminal mind that ever existed and I've always used it to my advantage, I've got more dead bodies under my belt than a VC sniper, and I know that you can appreciate what that means. I'm well trained in all the arts of murder, it's just a matter of which one I'll be using on you two tonight."
They didn't seem to react much but Frankie was able to see she had both of them right where she wanted them, it almost seemed too good to be true. Decker moved to grab a second gun he had on him and Frankie fired at him.
Frankie wasn't sure what it was that woke her up but as soon as it did, she was furious to find that it had only been a dream. She was back at the van, on its floor with Murdoch and Murdock. Realizing that it had just been a dream, Frankie felt like somebody let the hot air out of her balloon and she felt worse now than when she'd gone to sleep last night. She pulled herself up to a sitting position and tried to realize what had just happened.
"You alright, Frankie?" Mad Dog asked.
She shook her head from side to side to loosen out a kink in her neck and she rubbed one eye as she started to fully awaken. She looked and saw he had also just gotten up, but was still lying on the floor, and looked just about as confused as she did.
"Yeah," she tiredly responded. She wasn't about to go into the details of that dream with him.
"You have weird dreams too?" he asked.
She might've known. "Yeah," she quietly told him.
"What about?" Mad Dog asked.
What could she tell him? She smiled down at him and cupped his chin in her hand and she told him, "I dreamt that we were married."
He choked on a laugh and said, "I guess Murdock's really getting to us."
"I think they all are," Frankie replied as she looked and saw Face and B.A. were asleep in the front of the van, "I think they all are." She moved to the door and told him, "I'm gonna get some air."
Stepping outside Frankie could see that it was light out and the sun was just starting to rise off in the distance east.
"Morning," Hannibal said as he came up to her.
"Morning," she tiredly replied, "He ever come home?"
"Yeah, we got his car bugged," Hannibal answered, "As soon as the others wake up we can leave…you doing better today?"
"I guess so," she said, "Hey look, Hannibal, I'm sorry about what I did last night."
Hannibal seemed dismissive about it and only replied, "Once in a lifetime opportunity, I guess you had to take it."
"I guess I'm finally going crazy," Frankie said.
"Masterson's making you crazy," Hannibal corrected her.
"He's gaslighting me without even trying," she realized.
Hannibal was nothing if not sympathetic it seemed. He spoke to her in a lower tone than usual, like a father assuring his kid that there wasn't anything hiding under the bed trying to kill them. "His luck's just about run out, we're going to get him and we're going to make sure he never sees the light of day again."
Frankie nodded sadly and replied, "I hope so, Hannibal, I'd hate for everything I've done up till now to be for nothing, just to lose everything that ever meant anything to me, my mind included."
Hannibal nodded in response and said, "His time's almost here. Now come on, let's go get the others up."