Yes, I am back! I'm sorry about not updating this story sooner. However, I did redo all of the other chapters. They have been updated, edited and clarified (for my sanity and yours). The story is now winding down, so you all will find out who the murderer is. And the murderer is...
Kellye was remotely worried when she woke up from a dreamless sleep, finding out that Hawkeye had vanished and without notifying anyone. Granted, the Swampman had pulled of tricks like that before, especially when he needed time alone to drink, but BJ seemed a little more worried than most, especially just hours after they had found Hawkeye and Klinger and he was hit in the head with a frying pan.
"What if he's lost?" BJ asked, practically biting into his fingernails as he kept opening and shutting the room door. "What if Major Floyd's men found him?"
"Hunnicutt, you're worried over a man who lost his hold on the leash?" Charles asked him incredulously. "Are you insane to even think of Pierce of being caught? Why, he's a master of tricks, remember. He's been avoiding the men for quite some time now and just recently, he escaped with Klinger's help."
"You have no idea…" Klinger moaned from his side of the bed.
"And someone is bound to find his collar tags some time," Charles then added with some poise.
"I agree with Captain Hunnicutt, Major," Kellye said. "Hawkeye has been known to disappear like this, but not being here is a little worrisome."
"We should go after him," BJ declared.
"No," Klinger said, getting up. "We shouldn't, Captain. Not unless we have a plan that would work. Not unless we figure out what Captain Pierce has been up to. I mean…shouldn't we?"
"I think the Lebanese twit has a point," Charles conceded.
"I say we should wait two hours before thinking about Hawkeye or ourselves," Kellye added.
BJ regarded his campmates with some contempt. He was frustrated that Hawkeye was not around and had somehow disappeared just after hitting him in the head with a frying pan. Still, they all were right. Hawkeye had been known to run off on occasion, when the timing was right, and had always found back some answers, either for himself or for others. And the answers he came back with were usually right for him and for all involved, even if it was a little whacked.
"All right, I give," BJ said. "Two hours, and nothing more. Afterward, if he's not here, we think of another plan and get moving. I don't want to be in this hotel tonight."
"I volunteer to find another hotel if Captain Pierce doesn't show up," Klinger automatically said, awake at last.
"And let you get lost and back to Toledo?" Kellye asked him. "I don't think so! We work together and we stay together."
"Right," BJ said, walking to the hotel window. "Just two more hours of this and we can work together on the next part of the plan."
~00~
After being let loose by Lucy and Wilhelm with the story and evidence to boot, Hawkeye ran as fast as he could back to the hotel, an envelope of papers and pictures in his hands that he had to wait for before leaving. He checked them before leaving Lucy and Wilhelm's capable hands, but not without telling them what had conspired, from the time Nurse Curtis had come to the 4077th until that hour he was captured by Lucy. Without leaving anything out, the CIA members quietly let him go, allowing him the evidence to blackened a name an rescue a camp.
Hawkeye, running without stopping, then passed the Rose Petal Hotel's door without considering other customers coming in and out and most certainly did not bother to ask Daichi how he was doing on the fine, sunny summer morning. Instead, he ran up the stairs to his room. He had to tell everyone what was going on and show the proof they needed to be exonerated. From there, they can all think of a plan to get back to Korea and back to normal.
If hell was normal to begin with.
BJ, of course, did not have to wait long before the door banged open, revealing Hawkeye, flashing a large yellow envelope in his hands.
"I got it!" Hawkeye yelled, laughing. "I got us back on the track to innocence!"
"Pierce, what are you talking about?" Charles asked, startled by the noise.
"Oh, no, we're not going through that again!" Hawkeye continued to laugh hysterically. "Not those questions! Ha, ha!"
"Hawk, care to enlighten us as to where you were and what happened?" BJ asked him in an irritated tone.
Kellye looked up to Hawkeye from her position on the bed. "Yeah, Hawkeye, let us know what's going on. I'd like to get back to Korea as soon as possible, believe it or not."
"Really?" Klinger asked Kellye, the former still in curlers and a nightgown. "I was rather enjoying our outing here in Tokyo."
"Enough of this!" Charles yelled. "All right, Pierce, let it out. Who is the murderer and why are we now so innocent?"
"Because, Charles and company," Hawkeye replied, "Claus Schultz's friends met with me at the park, quite by accident, I can assure you. And they practically handed me the evidence!"
"And you went out there why?!" BJ asked.
"I don't know. To find myself?" Hawkeye laughed again. "Well, listen up boys and girls, because this story is going to get a little rocky."
Charles found a chair in the corner and sat down, tipping himself back by its hind legs. "Entertain us, Pierce. And make it quick. We need to leave soon."
"Ok, ok, Winifred Curtis' politics, assassination attempts and spying aside…this is all about revenge," Hawkeye said seriously. "Back during the Great War, as we know, the Curtis' father accused one guy named Leonard Ploid of treason with his H21 note. Now, the guy Curtis reported it to was none other than Al Houlihan, Margaret's father!"
"You're kidding me, right?" Klinger looked incredulous.
"I wish he was joking," Kellye commented, seeing the seriousness on Hawkeye's face.
"Well, now, boys and girls, here's where it gets sticky. Curtis was put away for desertion and was set free eventually, but Ploid was sentenced to life imprisonment, with his family having visitation rights. It was humiliating, so the family changed its name and moved away. Leonard Ploid died in prison in 1929 by hanging. It was considered a suicide. Al Houlihan gets promoted for detecting treason and gets reassigned, married and having kids etc., etc.
"In the meantime, Mrs. Ploid and the kids change their name to Floyd, which rhymed with their original name, but also made them more normal. I mean, what family likes to have their faces and names in the newspaper, right? I mean, wouldn't you all like it?"
"I beg to differ, Pierce, but go one," Charles said, seeing the dots connecting finally.
"Yeah, and one of the sons of this Ploid guy went into the Army. Nobody really knew what happened to his father, but there was a nice entry in his personnel file about it." Here, Hawkeye pulled out some of the contents of the envelope and passed them around, the pictures of a personnel file. "Now, this file is none other than our very own Major Floyd."
BJ almost dropped some of the pictures. "Are you serious?"
"No, I am not, Beej. See for yourself."
"Yeah, I can see it, Hawk, but it's too simple to be true. I mean, how did Major Floyd get through to frame us and Margaret?"
"All in good time, Beej, all in good time," Hawkeye exclaimed eagerly. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Now, Claus mentioned that a General Hannibal of this Nazi organization thing helped Major Floyd in achieving what he wanted. That is true, in a way, but Hannibal did not anticipate one of his own agents being killed. In return for the resources needed to frame Margaret and the 4077th, Floyd was told to bring in some information regarding our positions in West Germany, not East Germany, where the Communists are. The information was not given to Hannibal though. He was double-crossed. So, now Floyd is being hunted down by Hannibal and his men, as well as the CIA, who are also getting Hannibal and his people. Under the orders on Colonel Flagg, they can't touch Floyd until he's arrested for something, like treason and conspiracy. Then, they would take him in their own custody."
"How did Nurse Curtis get to the 4077th though?" Kellye asked.
"Through Floyd," Hawkeye confirmed, reaching into the envelope again and handing out the copies of her transfer papers. "They were signed by not only Floyd, but also her sister. Gale Curtis, however, had no idea that her sister was going to be killed. She innocently signed her sister away to war, not murder. And Hannibal did not know either. He thought Curtis was just a tool to get Margaret into some trouble."
"He did everything on purpose," BJ stated plainly.
"Yes, Floyd was a sneak," Hawkeye confirmed. "But this is not the end of his troubles. He may have gotten his revenge, but we have the facts, ones that will bag him. Not to mention, Hannibal is not a kind man when he is cheated out of something."
"So, you're saying that, in revenge, Major Floyd got General Hannibal to assist him in getting Margaret and everyone here into trouble?" Klinger asked. "He got Hannibal to help in getting all his ducks in a row, to get all of us for simple revenge?"
"That's right." Hawkeye smiled insanely, then beaming.
"And it was Hannibal who helped Floyd get the position to condemn us all?"
"Yes."
"And steal Major Houlihan's gun, hair and fingerprints supposedly?"
"He did it all, Klinger."
"Captain Pierce...well, where does Sergeant Church fit into all of this?"
"He was a pawn who also did not expect to be killed off," Hawkeye revealed, taking out more photos and papers and showing them around. "Church was also a Nazi in the same organization named Manfred Schneider, who knew Nurse Curtis very well. Well enough, in fact, that he continuously went to Tokyo General before Winnie got the boot and competed with Claus for her attention. He won somehow, of course, and was transferred along with her to the 4077th."
"Where he was so brutally murdered afterward," Charles chimed in.
"By none other than Major Floyd," Kellye finished.
"That's right!" Hawkeye was so pleased that he soon dumped all of the rest of the evidence on the nearest bed. "Now, I have a phone call to make while you go through this."
"What? Why?" BJ asked, the first words he spoke for a while now. "Who do you need to call?"
"Why, the 4077th, if we get our cards right," Hawkeye replied calmly.
Questions soon popped out of BJ, Klinger and Kellye's mouths, but Charles sat there calmly, drumming his fingers against the other. He, of all the people there, knew exactly what Hawkeye was up to. And if they had enough sympathetic people at the camp, and he was sure that the guards there were one of them, then they had a chance to have Floyd arrested himself. The camp in an uproar would surely help, Army regulations or not.
"What do you mean, call home in Korea?" Klinger asked as soon as the outrage calmed down. "They'll track you here!"
"Like I said, not if we play our cards right," Hawkeye said with confidence. "I'm sure Radar is still there. And there's bound to be some people there who might help him and us."
"I sure hope you're right, Captain," Kellye said, afraid suddenly of the cold cell that was surely awaiting them when they were captured. "I surely hope that you're right this time."