Hannibal had known from the time everybody got up that morning that there was something wrong with Murdock, something more than usual. He went through the day looking like a zombie and just seemed to be functioning on autopilot. If Face and B.A. noticed it they didn't say anything, but Hannibal wondered how they couldn't notice it. All day long he seemed drawn into himself, like he hid himself behind something he'd built up in front of himself to protect him from the others; he didn't want the others to be able to read them, but he also didn't think that they could, or he just didn't care. If he did, he would've tried to cover it by acting like his 'normal' self. But today, there was no talking to Billy, or to any bugs, invisible or otherwise, no cartoon voices, no foreign accents, no randomly bursting into song, and no mention of subjects like Bigfoot, golf balls, trash bags, or ammonia. It worried Hannibal. Finally after lunch he took the captain aside to have a few words with him.
"Is there something you'd like to tell me, Murdock?" he asked.
Murdock kept his gaze about a foot lower than Hannibal's eyes and seemed to genuinely be considering the question. Despite sleeping most of the night, he had dark rings starting to form under his eyes and it was making him look the part of a zombie.
"Something troubling you, Captain?" Hannibal asked.
Now Murdock looked up at him, "Yeah, I guess so, Colonel."
Hannibal looked over to Frankie and Mad Dog, who seemed to be doing alright today. They didn't exactly have any place to go or that they needed to be so they decided to stay out in the open incase Decker would track them down again so they could make a quick escape. They'd parked the van close to a park that nobody was frequenting today, Face had gone to a diner in town and came back with sandwiches, chips and sodas for lunch and they'd eaten at one of the park's picnic tables that was overdue for a couple new shades of paint, and some new screws to hold it together. Hiding in plain sight, something Hannibal was good at, and so far they seemed to be doing alright here. Nobody saw them, nobody was around to hear them, it was just the six of them and the wide open space covered with green grass, full bloom flowers, and a bunch of trees that were most likely already 50 years old when all of them were kids. There wasn't much of anything to do there except check the monitor to see if Masterson was on the move or not, and walk around the park in circles. M.D. and Frankie had currently chosen the latter, though they were too far off to hear distinctly, Hannibal could hear them laughing as they talked about something. He also noticed that Murdock was watching them just as intently.
"About them?" Hannibal asked.
Murdock lowered his gaze to the grass and replied, "About her."
Hannibal looked back at Frankie and didn't see anything at face value that seemed worthy of alarm, "What about her?"
Murdock kicked a pebble in the middle of the grass and explained, "When she does go to see Dr. Richter, or any doctor for that matter, it's very likely that she will be committed, for real this time."
"Certifiably," Hannibal realized.
"Yeah," Murdock said, "She'll probably go away for a few months at least, she needs a lot of help."
"And like you said before," Hannibal guessed, "No trips outside."
"No," Murdock agreed, "I know we gotta do it, Hannibal, and I'll agree to be the one that takes her in…but, since we're already outside, can't I take her somewhere, show her one last good time before she has to go in to the hospital?"
Hannibal considered it and asked him, "Where?"
"I don't know, but anything's gotta be better than going in circles around here with all of us."
"What about Mad Dog?" Hannibal asked.
"He won't go back to the hospital most likely, his traumas are something that can be dealt with as an out-patient," Murdock said, "He can stay here with Face and the angry mudsucker, that way I only have to watch one person, I can't be outnumbered that way."
"Hmm," Hannibal thought about it, "That's certainly true…alright, but you'll take a walkie-talkie with you, and if anything happens, report back to us."
Murdock nodded, "I will, Colonel." His overall spirit seemed to have picked up a little, but there was no giveaway of this indicated on his face. Hannibal still wasn't sure about this, but apparently this meant a lot to the captain, and he could certainly understand it. He knew that Murdock had taken a long time to get adapted to life at the V.A. and it was several months before he finally started to feel at home there and actually enjoy it, if anybody could actually enjoy living at the V.A., Hannibal still had his doubts about that.
Hannibal watched Murdock go over to the other two and steal Frankie away from her boyfriend and he watched the two of them walk down the road, practically hand in hand. It might've been a touching sight, but Hannibal couldn't help feeling the least bit suspicious. He inhaled on his cigar and crossed his arms as he watched them disappear from sight, and he couldn't help wondering about the captain's true motives. Somehow, Hannibal just couldn't shake the feeling that Murdock might just help his cousin, feeling a sense of familial responsibility and guilt, to escape if things went south. He'd like to think he knew Murdock better than that, but a sinking feeling in his gut told Hannibal that if Frankie did something now, if she snapped, if she lashed out and attacked somebody, anybody, innocent or guilty, that Murdock would help her disappear, least of all from the A-Team's reach. It wasn't something he enjoyed considering but he was starting to realize just how likely it could be. She was already out for blood, and if she sank her teeth in and drew back a mouthful of O+, as much as it killed Hannibal to admit, he could just see Murdock helping her to elude retribution.
Hannibal tried to ignore the feeling of a million pins and needles drilling their way up and down his back. He'd never before had any reason to doubt any of his men, not even Murdock, not even with all his eccentricities and psychoses…now every fiber of him was telling him to keep an eye on his captain, to shadow him to make sure nothing was being plotted under his nose. With a strength he never before had known he'd possessed or had to test, he forced himself to forget what his gut was telling him; never before had he ever doubted any of his men, and if he did that now, if he questioned their trust, they would have every reason to question his, and a Team that couldn't trust its leader could never function. He never had any reason to question Murdock's loyalty in the 15 years he'd known the man, and he wasn't about to start now.
Getting Frankie away from the others, if anything, had only made her own disposition worse, once they left the park she started to look like Murdock had earlier. They walked until they were back in a suburban area and as they went down the street, Frankie looked to him and said out of nowhere, "You know something, don't you?"
Murdock turned to her and looked genuinely surprised, "What're you talking about, cous? You know I don't know anything."
"Yes you do, and you know it's something bad, and you know it's about me, and that's why we're here, isn't it?" Frankie asked.
Hmmm, so he was going to have to work on that, he was starting to become readable. Maybe next time, Murdock thought, he ought to work on making himself invisible, because you can't read something you can't see.
"I wanted to talk with you and I wanted to do it without the others listening in," he explained, he reached over and squeezed her hand gently and told her, "I like you, Frankie, but I know that you know you're gonna need to get some help when this is over."
Frankie opened and closed her mouth through gritted teeth as she sucked in a short breath, "You're gonna have me put away?"
Murdock was starting to get worried, turning himself invisible might not be enough. "You got a lot of issues you need help addressing, dealing with Masterson ain't gonna make them all go away, it will some of them, but you still need to see somebody who knows about this stuff, and it takes a while…it won't be like prison, let me talk to Dr. Richter, he can find somebody at someplace you can go to see."
"They can't help me," Frankie shook her head, "Nobody can help me." Before Murdock had a chance to say anything in response, she said to him, "Murdock, if anything happens to me, I want you to promise me that you'll look after Mad Dog for me."
Any discussion that went like that never ended well. He stopped walking and pulled her back towards him and he asked her, "What do you mean by that?"
Frankie shrugged and told him, "Just that I may not be around for a while when this is done…" almost as an afterthought she said, "After all if I do go into the hospital, they'll keep me locked in there for a while."
Murdock decided at the moment, it was better to say less, he reached over, placed his hands against Frankie's temples, kissed her on the forehead and told her, "It's going to be alright, Frankie cous, I give you my word as a mental patient."
Frankie looked straight ahead, a blank expression on her face, and she replied, "I'll just like it when this whole thing's over."
Murdock reached over and placed his hand on the side of her head and pulled her towards him to rest her head against his shoulder as he momentarily stroked her head. Then he pulled back and told her, "Of course you realize, we're going to have to find some way to get Mad Dog away from the others if our plan's going to work."
"Got any ideas?" she asked.
"I'm working on it," he said, "Come on."
"Where're we going?"
Murdock pointed to a building down on the next block, a theater, "How 'bout a movie?"
"Why not?" Frankie asked, "Probably be the last one I see outside of a schizo room for a long time."
"Hannibal, the screen shows that Masterson's car is still at the house," Face said, "Now Frankie never said anything about what days this guy stays home, you think he's actually still there or do you think there's a chance he found the tracking device and got rid of it?"
"Well I know one way to find out," Hannibal said as he thumped through a large volume of the telephone directory.
"What're you doing?" Face asked.
Hannibal ignored the question and puffed on his cigar as he ran a gloved finger down the line, "M…Mabbitt, Macadam…Malcolm, Mallender, Mansfield…Martinez, Massey, Masson…Masterson, here we go, Richard Masterson." He kept one finger on the page and with the other hand picked up the van's mobile phone and dialed the number in the book.
"Hannibal, what're you doing?" Face tried again.
"Only one way to see if our friend Masterson is at home," Hannibal said, and a second later his eyes lit up and he got a weird smile on his face as he said into the telephone receiver, "Hello, would you be interested in buying a set of encyclopedias? No? Okay, thank you, sir." He hung up the phone and told the others, "Well we know he's there, I doubt he could've found out about the car, let alone this quickly."
"So now we just have to find a way to get him out of the house and keep him out," Face said.
"How're you going to do that?" Mad Dog asked.
"We'll get to that soon enough," Hannibal told him, "First of all we're going to have a little fun at his expense. Turnabout is fair play after all." He consulted his watch and told the others, "We'll give it about 20 minutes, and then Masterson is going to get a very unusual phone call regarding the not so late Alice Arden."
Mad Dog looked at the three members of the A-Team in complete and total curiosity and suspicion. Were they really going to be able to pull this off? Apparently they'd find out in a few minutes.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" he asked Hannibal a few minutes before the colonel made the call.
"Something's going to," Hannibal answered.
"But you're sure he won't recognize it's you?"
"Why should he?" Hannibal asked, "Until 20 minutes ago the man and I had never spoken to one another." All the same he wrapped an old rag around the mouthpiece of the receiver before he redialed the number, and signaled for everybody else to be quiet. The others practically held their breath as they heard the phone ringing.
"Hello?"
Hannibal smirked and said into the phone in a low, gravelly voice, "Masterson…"
"Who is this?"
"I know what you did to Alice Arden."
There was a slight pause on the other end of the line, "What do you mean?"
"Masterson…you might be interested to know that Alice is not resting peacefully, she's here, and she's anxious to see you again."
"What are you talking about?"
"She's here with us, and she has big plans for you, she says that she's going to come back and see you really soon." Hannibal laughed ominously and then disconnected the call.
"Well that ought to get the little gears turning in his head," Face said.
"Think he'll believe it?" Mad Dog asked.
"Even if he doesn't, he knows that there's somebody out there who can tie him in with the murder, that's got to be making him panic right about now," Hannibal explained.
"Yeah, but what'll we do now, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.
"Oh, I'd say we wait a couple of hours and call again," Hannibal said, "Eventually, if this guy operates like I think he does and I think he does operate like I think he does…"
"Did you get that?" Face asked Mad Dog.
"Nope."
"Then," Hannibal continued, ignoring them, "Eventually when we call he's going to see if he can work out a deal, pay whoever the mysterious caller is to go away and forget about his involvement with the murder."
"And that's when we step in?" Mad Dog asked.
"No…that's when we agree to meet him, lure him out of the house and get the server," Hannibal said, "If he thinks he's being watched he won't dare try taking it with him, if he would happen to be caught with the murder weapon on him, then he knows he'd fry."
It sounded like a great plan, but Mad Dog still wanted to be able to meet up with Murdock and Frankie for their other plan. But how were they going to pull it off now?"
As they left the theater, Murdock froze in his tracks and started squawking frantically like a chicken on caffeine.
"What is it?" Frankie asked.
"Look," Murdock pointed and Frankie saw an MP car parked out by the curb. More specifically, it was Decker's car and he and Crane were there talking amongst themselves.
"How'd they find out we were here?" Frankie asked.
"They couldn't have, Decker would have no problem interrupting a movie," Murdock told her, and grabbed her and started to inch away around the corner.
"So now what do we do?" Frankie asked him.
Murdock wrapped his hand around hers and said, "We gotta get word back to Hannibal…we gotta warn them incase Decker can pick the trail we came from."
They turned to head around to the next corner and see if there was a payphone but doubled back when they saw another MP car and two more men in green over there.
"This is getting ridiculous," Murdock noted.
Frankie felt her heart in her throat and she was finding it hard to breathe, but she told Murdock, "I've got an idea, I'm going to try something, you stay out of sight."
"Frankie, what're you going to do?"
"Murdock, trust me, please," she said.
He didn't like it, but he complied with her wishes. He backed himself into a gap between two buildings on the block and watched from the shadows as Frankie went back around to Decker's car. By now the crowd had scattered and most people had gone back home or wherever they spend their afternoons, so the block was largely empty and right now it just seemed to be the three of them, no witnesses.
"Well fancy running into you here," she said.
Both men looked at her and Decker looked surprised, but quickly recovered. "What're you doing here?"
"I came to see the movie," she pointed to the theater, "How about you? Did you come to see if you qualify for the senior citizen ticket discount?"
Decker walked over to her and hovered over her and said, "You've got a lot of nerve coming around here, how did you get out of the Federal Building?"
"Why, your men walked me to the front door," Frankie explained, "They said you called and told them to let me go."
"I never did any such thing," Decker told her.
"So you're saying somebody else called up the Federal Building pretending to be you, and fooled everybody working there?" Frankie laughed hard and said, "That's the funniest thing I've heard since Fonzie said he was going to fall on his snails. How could anybody possibly convincingly sound like you?"
"I can take a few guesses," he told her, "And they all involve the A-Team."
"Again with this A-Team," Frankie said, "You're chasing your tail over a myth, a group of men who don't exist."
"Oh I know they exist, and what more I'm convinced that you are working with them," Decker grabbed two fistfuls of her T-shirt so she couldn't get away and added, "And now that I've got you, I'm going to bring them in and put them on the first plane heading back to Fort Bragg…" a sickening grin formed on his face and he concluded, "And when that happens, life is going to be good."
"Yeah? Well not from this side of your face," Frankie told him, "Don't you ever brush your teeth?"
Decker let go of her with such force that he about knocked her down, and he started to growl at her like B.A. growled when the others made a joke he didn't find funny. Frankie reached into her pocket before he could notice, and when he moved towards her again, she used her free hand to clamp down on his nose. On a pure instinct, Decker opened his mouth to breathe and Frankie shoved the spout of a small spray bottle in and pressed the button, releasing whatever was in the bottle. Crane moved to ambush her, but he found himself ambushed as Murdock jumped him from behind and put him in a sleeper hold. Crane passed out and Decker joined him a few seconds later and both men fell to the sidewalk.
"What did you do to him?" each asked the other.
"I put him in a sleeper hold, what did you do?" Murdock asked, "What's in that bottle?"
Frankie showed it to him and said, "I stole it from Face. I overheard him say this was the new way they could knock B.A. out before a flight, whatever they give him, they put it in a breath freshener bottle."
"Very ingenuous," Murdock noted as he took the radios from both men and stomped them to pieces, "But now we gotta get out of here."
Frankie looked down at the two men and dropped down beside Crane's body and rifled through his pockets, and quickly came up with a set of car keys.
"Ask and ye shall receive," Murdock said as they ran to Decker's car.
Frankie hopped into the driver's seat and said as they got ready to peel out, "I love driving, and this could very well be the last time I do."
"Greatest ride is the last ride!" Murdock yelled to be heard over the roar of the engine as they sped out of there.
"Well we lost them," Frankie said when they got a few blocks and twists and turns away, "But now what do we do?"
"I've got an idea," Murdock told her, and picked up the car radio microphone. As Decker, he barked out a bunch of orders and directions for all MP cars to follow in pursuit of the A-Team, and once he had them off on a wild goose chase, he picked up the car phone instead and dialed the number to the van's mobile phone.
"Hello?" Hannibal answered.
"Hannibal, there's bad news, Decker and his little green men are in the area and they're heading your way, you gotta get out of there now!"
"Where are you?"
"Don't worry, we're fine, they can't find us," Murdock assured him, "But you guys better get out of there before the army parade shows up." With that, he hung up the phone.
"You think that's going to work?" Frankie asked.
"Well, it gets the ball rolling anyway," Murdock told her, "We just have to make sure we keep our window of opportunity open so we can get to Masterson's house tonight."
"And how're we going to do that?" she wanted to know.
"I'm thinking," he said.
"Well think faster," she replied.
Hannibal pressed the button on his radio again and tried contacting the pilot again, "Murdock, do you read me? Come in."
"Crazy fool ain't gonna answer, Hannibal, something happened," B.A. told him.
"Yeah," Hannibal reluctantly admitted as he hung the radio up, "Just wish I knew what it was."
"You don't think Decker got them, do you?" Face asked hesitantly.
Hannibal shook his head, "I don't think so, Face."
Mad Dog was only paying half attention to them talk. He rolled down the window on his side of the van and looked out; the sky was turning a strange color and it looked like it might storm. Hannibal saw him in the rear view mirror and also glanced out to see what looked so interesting. He realized that this was very similar to how the sky looked when he and B.A. first went to the V.A. to bust him out. Even for Los Angeles it was weird weather and weird also that it could occur again so soon. There was going to be a storm soon, it was on everybody's minds.
A short while later they had a break in the radio from Murdock.
"What's going on, Captain?" Hannibal asked.
"We managed to get hold of one of the MP cars," Murdock answered, "And we took care of the two guys who were with it, but I think they'll be coming around soon."
"Where are you?" Hannibal asked.
Murdock told him where they could reach them and added, "Hey Hannibal, I don't know about all of us getting together, you know?"
Hannibal hated to admit it but he replied, "Yeah, might be too risky."
"Hannibal, we going to go back to the old plan?" Murdock asked.
"Which one?"
"Say we meet long enough for Mad Dog to come over to our side, I can keep them with me and we could lay low until further notice, and if Decker manages to nab you guys, we can come in to the rescue."
B.A. snorted and told Hannibal, "The fool's getting a swelled head, Hannibal."
"He's got a point, B.A., we can keep in touch with each other and if one group gets caught, the other side will step in," Hannibal said, "And it's the safest bet putting them together, Murdock's not wanted by the military, it's better for a guy wanted for murder and escape to be with him than three fugitives if we do get ambushed."
It was decided and agreed upon, within a few minutes the two vehicles met up in a vacant area where there wasn't anybody else around. Everybody got out of the van and went over to the two occupants of the MP car.
"You alright, M.D.?" Frankie asked as he came over to her.
"I'm alright," he answered as he put his arms around her, "You alright, Frankie?"
"Yeah sure, never better," she said.
"We'll leave the car here," Hannibal told Murdock, "The three of you will ride with us long enough to find a place to hide out at, then we'll split up for the time being."
Murdock nodded. Frankie and Mad Dog were the first ones into the van, Frankie took the spray bottle out of her pocket and put it back in Face's jacket that was left in the back. Everybody else piled in and as they pulled out, Hannibal dug out a map and looked over it and told the others, "There are two motels here with only six blocks between them, Murdock can take one and we'll take the other, we'll be close enough to stay in contact."
"Works for me," Face said.
Murdock was already gathering up his bags to take when they stopped at the first motel. Same routine, remove any evidence that the pilot was ever here, Decker still didn't have any proof that Murdock was with the A-Team, and they were going to keep it that way as long as they could.
When the van stopped to drop them off, Murdock, Frankie and Mad Dog got out of the back and Murdock waved the others off as they drove away.
"Are you sure this is going to work, Murdock?" Frankie asked.
"What could go wrong?" he replied, "Come on, I'll get us checked in."
Mad Dog stood by the window and gazed out at the yellow sky and the large clouds that were moving in.
"Think it's gonna rain?" he asked Frankie.
She shook her head, "Don't know."
Murdock sorted through his bags and then looked up and over at them and said, "Sorry, guys, I could only get us the one bed so it's going to be a bit crowded."
They looked back to him and he was pulling the covers down on the bed.
"Come on," he said as he patted the mattress, "We gotta get some rest because we're going to be stepping out tonight."
Mad Dog and Frankie looked at each other and seemed to be thinking the same thing. They were both breathing harder now and moved as if somebody put molasses under their feet.
"You sure about this, Murdock?" Mad Dog asked.
"Come on, Mad Dog, this was your idea after all," Murdock pointed out.
"Yeah in the beginning…now that we're getting down to zero hour I'm starting to wonder."
"Ah, it'll be fine," Murdock said, and pointed over to his duffel bag.
Mad Dog went over and reached into the bag and pulled out what was on top, which was the wedding dress.
"Tonight Masterson's going to have a date with a young bride from beyond the grave," Murdock said as he laughed slowly and maniacally.