Every Thought Captive
Disclaimer: I do not own The A Team movie or television series or any of the delightful characters found on The A Team.
Chapter 22 Come Out, Come Out
"Amy, ya sure yer alright?" B. A. watched the reporter as she leaned her head back against Hannibal's seat in the van and swallowed.
"I'll be alright, B. A." Her voice was barely a whisper and the black Sergeant sensed her answer was laced with unspoken fear.
He stared toward the installation. Fifteen minutes had passed since they observed armed men approach a separate set of doors in another part of the Granite Peak underground installation. Hidden behind the rocky outcroppings a distance away, they appeared to be waiting for someone to come through the exit.
The reporter and the Sergeant sat in silence watching and waiting for any further drama but none happened.
"They're posted there for a reason," Amy mused. Then, "B. A.?" Her voice had a quaver to it that he wasn't accustomed to hearing.
Aw, damn! I don't know how ta take care of her if she falls apart on me now.
He opened a new bottle of water and offered it to her as a way of avoiding the question he felt sure she was going to ask.
She pushed aside the bottle and asked the question anyway.
"What if Hannibal and Face don't find him and none of them come back?"
The Sergeant hadn't thought all of that through. He wasn't normally the plan-maker. But now that the question was out there, he was forced to consider their options.
"First of all, Hannibal an' Faceman ain' gonna leave the fool in there. They'll tear the mountain down rock by rock 'til they find 'im." He nodded to himself, knowing that to be true. More silence.
Or am I jus' tryin' ta convince myself?
"You said 'first of all.' That usually means there's a second point." Amy gave him the faintest of smiles. Not a very happy look but even a small touch of humor was better than a mind- and body-paralyzing focus on worst case scenarios.
"Second, if Hannibal an' Faceman get caught, whoever's in charge'll send for Colonel Lynch." He didn't want to assume his team mates had been captured but he had to think it likely after all the activity they witnessed.
"How do you know?"
"He's the one assigned ta track us down." He noticed her small frown and reached over to grip one of her hands in his.
"That'll mean they'll be arrested and sent back to Fort Bragg."
No, it don't. Not as long as I'm still out here.
"Don't worry. It'll take Lynch time ta get here. We'll be waitin' for him. No way he's gonna take the Colonel and Faceman back to a military prison. Ya gotta trust me on this one, Amy." He added under his breath, "We just gotta have a good plan."
He was relieved when she pressed his hand in hers and gave him a more genuine smile.
"It won't be one of Hannibal's so maybe it has a chance of working." She paused, the sadness not quite disappeared from her tone. "Thanks, B. A."
"Don' mention it, li'l sis."
oooooo
Doctor Stafford paused before reaching for the doorknob to the remote viewing laboratory. How much this Colonel Smith saw and how much he understood of it when he had entered the room before being captured, the doctor did not know.
How much would these two men force him to divulge about Project Silent Arrow?
He had no doubts that the Captain had already been caught either inside the installation or by the armed men outside the power plant service doors.
Thank God, I made that little phone call to Lieutenant Parkins before these men found me. There's no escape for Number 47.
He had been on his way to the outside when he was intercepted. He intended to be there if Murdock should try to leave the facility via those doors.
I hope Parkins knows how valuable the test subject is and none of his men shoot first and ask questions later.
"When they bring Captain Murdock back here, he may not recognize you." He glanced at the grim-faced men on either side of him.
"We'll take our chances on that, Doc." The Lieutenant prodded the scientist in the ribs with his weapon and roughly pushed him with one hand through the door as soon as he opened it.
Giving the hallway one last careful scrutinizing look, Hannibal followed. Face already had Rollag and Stafford standing with their backs against the wall, the palms of their hands flat against its surface.
The Colonel's icy gaze took in the metal tray with the syringe of haloperidol and the remote viewing chair with its vital signs monitoring equipment as well as the booth where Jackson and Brandler had observed the first session.
"It may be a tight squeeze but suppose the four of us go into that little room and wait." Hannibal waved the M-16 toward the door of the observer's room and waited for Rollag and Stafford to dutifully go where directed. Once in the room, Face shut the door.
"We'll be hidden here under the console, Doctor. If you or your assistant say or do one thing to let Jackson or his men know what's happening, remember we have these guns pointed at you for good reason." Hannibal and Face crouched beneath the desk with its audiovisual recording and communications equipment.
Stafford glanced at Rollag and shrugged, then sat in one of the two chairs. "Might as well sit down, too, Mister Rollag. If Captain Murdock is as clever as I believe he is, Jackson will not find him very easily."
Unless Jackson uses his psychic abilities to track him down. And I'm certain Jackson will use every tool available to him to accomplish his agenda.
The scientist sighed and laced his fingers together in his lap. With a gun pointed at him, it felt like it might be a very long wait.
oooooo
Come out, come out, wherever you are. We have many more things to do to prepare you, Captain. Where are you?
Murdock cringed at the words Jackson projected into his brain. The Colonel read what he was thinking before. The Woody Woodpecker cartoon he tried to put up as a screen against the military man's mind probe served only to make his captor more determined. He knew Jackson would probably use his abilities again to search him out.
"Seeing" Hannibal and Face in his mind and noting they were armed and had the limping doctor with them was a relief.
But Hannibal don' leave anyone b'hind. He won' try t' escape b'fore they find me.
It was a disturbing as well as a comforting thought, all at the same time. Closing his eyes tightly, he focused on making his mind a blank screen. He wished Hannibal would find him before Jackson did.
One last remote view of his two friends brought him a small degree of hope.
Hol' down the fort. The cavalry's comin'.
And then the door opened. Someone stood in the doorway silently staring down at him as he lifted the M-16 to his shoulder.
He felt the light-obliterating figure's intense scrutiny, felt his mind being assaulted, his most recent thoughts being taken captive, before his captor spoke.
"You don't want to do that, Captain Murdock."
Jackson's face was in shadow. The fluorescent lighting behind him glinted dully off the pistol in his hand. It was impossible to see his expression clearly but the tone of his voice sent an electric shock down Murdock's spine.
Can' see his eyes t' know when he's gonna fire. 'N' he'll be more 'n happy t' do it.
Jackson responded to Murdock's thoughts with a sneer on his lips. "And you know I will if you give me trouble. Now, you don't really want to try to shoot me, do you?" The mocking quality of the man's words made Murdock's finger curl tighter around the trigger.
Gulping back his fear, the pilot muttered, "Sure I do, if jus' t' see ya die a painful death like ya did t' Sky, Henderson 'n' the others."
"Sky?" Jackson chuckled. "Oh, you mean Mai Thị Bầu Trời? Oh, yes. Your little Vietnamese girlfriend was delicious. So lovely until the very end." Murdock could hear the triumph in the other man's tone. For a blinding second he "saw" what Jackson wanted him to see: the violated body of the eighteen year old Vietnamese girl, bloodied, bruised, two fingers and one ear severed and discarded, dead.
He trembled but this time from the seething fury churning inside him. In 1972, no one wanted to tell him how she died but he forced the old Vietnamese doctor to tell him anyway. It was one more trauma that damaged his mind forever. But he had to know.
Sky. I killed ya jus' as surely as if I'd been the one rapin' 'n' beatin' ya.
"And Henderson? He gave you the wrong advice before he died. Getting yourself admitted to the VA hospital by acting crazy or actually going insane wasn't going to save you. I still knew where you were and how to get you when the time was right." Jackson's sneer was more pronounced. He took a confident step toward Murdock and pointed the barrel of his weapon directly at the pilot's forehead.
Murdock could clearly see the pistol, a Colt .45. Prob'ly a Government Model M1911A1. Guys like Jackson don' think outside o' the box.
He felt himself begin to hyperventilate and tried to slow his breathing. The waves of menace emanating from Jackson made the atmosphere in the small janitor's room smothering. The same kind of terror had driven him to the edge of his sanity between interrogations in the death camp.
He's doin' some o' that psychic shit with my mind. Gotta get outta here if I gotta get myself shot doin' it.
Murdock glared at his opponent and staggered to his feet, readying himself for attack.
"Either shoot me now 'r get outta my way," he growled.
Jackson's coal black eyes pierced him and made him falter.
A split second later a severe pain shot through his skull. The M-16 suddenly grew too heavy in his hands and he dropped it onto the floor. Seconds later his knees folded under him. He knelt, head bowed, his hands clasping either side of his head, eyes squeezed tightly against the intense migraine.
Jackson's silent voice mocked him. I knew you couldn't stand up against me. A student is never better than his teacher.
The Colonel lifted a walkie talkie to his mouth as he nudged the M-16 away from Murdock with his foot. "Florey. Nelson. Bring a gurney with full restraints to the janitor's utility room. I found him."
It took the two Privates a few minutes to locate a gurney to transport Murdock to the laboratory. Jackson had all the time he needed to mentally subdue the test subject.
By the time Private Florey stuck his head inside the doorway to the janitor's room, Murdock was lying curled up on his side on the floor. His body shook convulsively with barely controlled weeping. He wrapped his arms around his belly and muttered words in a foreign language . . . Florey guessed some kind of Oriental language . . . under his breath.
"Bạn không phải giết chết cô. Bạn không phải giết chết cô! (You don't have to kill her.)"
Jackson stepped back to allow his men into the room. Florey grasped Murdock's legs while Nelson slid his arms under the pilot's armpits. He hung like a dead weight between them, offering no resistance. With difficulty, the two Privates lifted the pilot onto the gurney and lashed him down with the restraints.
By the time they finished, Murdock had gone silent. Staring straight up at the hallway ceiling through clouded eyes, he seemed to have retreated into his own world.
Jackson preceded the gurney down the hall. Before opening the door to the utility room, he had obtained a fleeting glimpse from Murdock's mind of the two A-team men and the captive doctor.
They won't leave without the Captain. I'm certain of that. They chanced being caught and arrested to try to free him. No, they won't use the doctor for their own escape before they have Murdock with them.
He kept his mind focused on Stafford and where he might have been taken.
"Talking" to the doctor through his thoughts was out of the question. Stafford may have been monitoring the remote viewing session and implanting his own experiment into Murdock, but he had not volunteered his own mind to be utilized for remote viewing.
Or for any of the other psychic experiments we've been running through the years. His loss, my gain. He doesn't know how powerful these abilities can make a person.
Coming to Laboratory Two, Jackson hesitated. He sensed the presence of four people in the lab, two more than would be expected to be there. Making a quick decision, the Colonel walked on past and opened the door to Laboratory One.
"Bring him in here, gentlemen. Florey, tell Parkins I have the test subject but he is to keep his men on alert. Nelson, find me a lab assistant. Have him bring me a low dose sedative."
As Florey and Nelson left to their duties, Jackson folded his arms and contemplated Murdock's almost catatonic state.
"Just in case. But somehow, I think I'll be able to program you without having to use it." He nodded to himself with satisfaction. "And then we'll see how well that device works in your head."