11. Fight the Demons
Disclaimer: I do not own The A Team movie or television series or any of the delightful characters found on The A Team.
Hannibal checked his wristwatch for what may have been the tenth time since sitting down in the recliner with a blanket over him.
3:15 in the morning. He sighed and stood up, stretching.
Attempting to be as quiet as he could, he crept into the kitchen of his apartment and started a pot of coffee. Murdock was still asleep on the hide-a-bed in the living room after a very restless nightmare-filled night. Bogey the Bear sat on the pillow beside the pilot's head. The flap on the stuffed animal's back was closed.
Hours before, Hannibal had removed Murdock's Browning Hi-Power from its secret compartment and removed the cartridge, returning the unloaded gun and pocketing the ammo.
There was no use tempting fate. When Murdock woke to see invisible demons surrounding him, he was inclined to use the weapon to drive them away.
It didn't happen often but the Colonel preferred not to have to explain a gunshot in the middle of the night or bullet holes in the wall. He wanted to have his damage deposit back at the end of his stay, if at all possible.
Hannibal poured himself a cup of coffee and padded out to the living room to sit again in the recliner in the corner. From there he could immediately intervene if the pilot woke screaming or fighting to protect himself. He took a sip and winced as he noted the beginnings of a frown on his friend's face.
He wouldn't be having nightmares like this again if I had been more careful in screening the client.
The latest mission had left all of them shaken but the one who seemed to have taken their client's betrayal the worst was Murdock. He trusted people more than any of the other three men.
He's always been more trusting, more optimistic, more innocent, than the rest of us.
Murdock was the one who believed the young Vietnamese-American woman with the pleading jet black eyes, the prosthetic leg and the tragic story. He had convinced the rest of them she needed help to find her long-lost brother. After all, how could someone who suffered so much not be telling the truth?
If I had known how this was going to turn out, who she worked for, I wouldn't have allowed any of my men to meet with her.
The Colonel himself felt some sympathy for the tale she spun about losing her leg to a well-hidden mine meant for American soldiers. She led them to the vengeful son of one of the POW camp guards. Hannibal and Murdock were both captured when they moved in to help the young man supposedly to escape.
Their confinement in a bamboo cage and subsequent torture was meant to simulate one of their POW experiences. It was too realistic for Murdock. After B. A. and Face rescued them, Hannibal had to use a sedative to calm him down.
I can still hear him.
The older man leaned back against the recliner's headrest and closed his eyes. The pilot had not recognized either of his rescuers and fought them with the furious strength of a trapped wildcat. When he woke from his forced nap, he was more coherent but the experience had still taken a toll on him.
Face and B. A. agreed with Hannibal that it was better for the traumatized pilot if he did not return to the VA hospital right away. Even if the two had not agreed, the Colonel would have refused to deliver him to the hands of the VA doctors.
All they would have done would be to sedate him, restrain him, lock him away in a padded cell and maybe even give him electroshock.
Watching the pilot in the bed begin to moan and move his head back and forth, the Colonel sighed and put his cup to the side.
He thought back over thirty years to his own return from the Korean War. If not for the devoted care someone had given him when he had nightmares that troubled his sleep, he would have been in the kind of condition this younger man was in after the Vietnam War.
I'm sorry I wasn't there as soon as you got back to the States. But I'm here now. However long it takes, I'm going to be here for you. We'll fight those demons together, you and me, Captain.
And maybe someday all of their demons would be destroyed, never to be conjured up again.