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 24 A Matter of Loyalty
Nappler gave Private Florey an impersonal nod and smile as he folded his arms and waited outside the door to Laboratory One. Leaning up against the wall, he attempted to stifle a yawn with the sleeve of his lab coat.
Doctor Wendling, the scientist to whom he was officially assigned, would be wondering where he had gone. He had been in the process of isolating a special deadly bacterial agent on an agar plate when Florey rapped on the door to Laboratory Four. He rushed the last step of his work to respond to the order.
It had been an hour and Colonel Jackson was still in Laboratory One with the lunatic test subject.
I'm definitely going to catch hell from Wendling if that bacterial culture is spoiled from a hurried job.
He restlessly shifted position and cleared his throat. The man on the gurney hadn't made any more sounds after he yelled at the military man conducting the session. There was no indication of trouble.
So why the hell am I supposed to wait? And where's Doctor Stafford and his assistant? They're the ones in charge of these psychological experiments.
Nappler sighed. There was no doubt in the lab assistant's mind that Jackson had, during his long military career, done some brutal things. The man creeped him out. "Bloodthirsty bastard," what the test subject shouted, seemed to fit the man if the atmosphere surrounding the Colonel was any indication of his character.
The lab assistant scuffed the tile floor of the hallway with one toe. The sooner he could return to Wendling and the bacterial cultures he was responsible for the better as far as he was concerned.
oooooo
"Your target coordinates are 31-56-200-42-70-03. Write them down. 31-56-200-42-70-03."
Murdock's eyes were closed, his expression blank. His breaths were slow and rhythmic. His brain settled into a state of relaxation that would have been comfortable if he didn't know it was necessary for serious government business.
Unlike the session when he "saw" Happy Valley in Vietnam, Jackson did not have to threaten him with his past this time. He didn't know exactly what Jackson said or did during the sedation and hypnosis, but his attitude toward the Colonel had changed. He knew that.
Still don' trust 'im completely but he showed me who's gotta be watched even more 'n him. Hard t' b'lieve.
But he couldn't think about betrayal right now. He had important work to do for his country.
His phantom spirit detached from his physical body and drifted through the ether, through the tunnel to the target site.
His hand moved the pen across the almost blank page. The line he drew was wavy with several high bumps.
"Mountains, solid," he murmured. Beside the letter A, he wrote "Busy. Moving. Guarded."
"What do you see, Number 47? Look around you."
He looked above into a bright robin's egg blue sky. Gazing down, he saw an expanse of desert sand, rounded mountains and various cacti and other desert plants. Parked on a dirt road at the foot of a hill was a white delivery truck. Men walked to and from a timber-reinforced hole in the side of the hill. They worked in pairs carrying long crates from the hillside to the truck.
"Air's hot, dry. Sun's beatin' down. Scrub oak, rosewood, agave, bear grass, prickly pear cactus . . . desert, maybe? A hill with a hole in its side. Logs 'round th' entrance. Looks like a cave. Men're workin'. Carryin' wood boxes t' a white truck like th' kind laundry's delivered in." Murdock paused as a man slammed the rear doors shut and walked around to the driver's side.
"Looks like it's gonna take off now."
"Okay. Good. Now I want you to go into the cave."
Murdock felt his phantom body move through the air and to the entrance.
"There're voices, men's voices. Air's a li'l cooler in the cave."
"Go toward the sound of the voices."
"They got a gas generator feedin' 'lectricity t' some lights inside. I see weapons. Grenade launchers, M-16s, Stingers, sniper rifles, mortar cannons, ammo. They look 'merican-made, like military issue. The guys talkin' 're packin' it in crates 'n' sealin' 'em. Buncha crates stacked 'gainst th' walls." He wrote down the names of the weapons he saw and waited for Jackson's next question. A series of letters and numbers came to him and he jotted them down: N31 89564W110 59286.
"Do the crates have any markings?"
"Let me get in closer." Murdock frowned where he sat. He lightly sketched the ornate 'C' and the crest surrounding it. "That don' make sense. Th' outside o' the crates says 'Fragile' 'n' 'Glass' but they ain' packin' glass."
"You aren't supposed to interpret yet what you're seeing, 47. Now I want you to locate the truck that left the site. Lift up high in the air and see if you can find it."
Murdock felt his body rise into the brilliant blue skies.
This's almost 's much fun as bein' in the cockpit.
The delivery truck was not difficult to see. He swooped down toward the dust trail it left behind, then tailed it as it left the dirt road and took to the highway.
"Found it. Tailin' it. Headin' west."
"Okay. I want you to think about that truck and go ahead in time to where the weapons are unloaded. See if you can find any location signs."
Murdock's phantom body entered the ether. When he came back out, he found the truck and several men unloading the contents into the cargo bay of a CH-34.
He knew what it was when he saw it. There were enough of those cargo helicopters sitting idle waiting for spare parts and maintenance in the waning years of the Vietnam War after they had been relinquished into the hands of the South Vietnamese military.
Jackson's impatient voice interrupted his train of thought. "What do you see?"
"Makes even less sense now. Crates're bein' loaded on a CH-34 Choctaw. Damn few o' those bein' used in the United States. They were mostly military . . . "
The Colonel's voice was sharp as if he wanted to redirect the path Murdock's exploration was taking. "Where is the chopper located? Look for signs. What airport?"
The pilot scanned the area. "Ain' an airfield. Looks like some kind o' ranch. Sign on th' main gate says 'Cielo Azul.'"
"That's good enough. I want you to come back now." Jackson sounded excited even over the top of the soothing soft voice he used for most of the session.
Murdock's muscles spasmed as he sped through the tunnel that led to his physical body and reality.
He was aware of images that appeared fuzzy at first, then came into sharp focus as they flew past him. A black man with a wealth of gold around his neck and an angry scowl on his face . . . a white-haired man with amused blue eyes and holding an unlit cigar in one black-gloved hand . . . a blonde-haired man around his own age poised beside a red and white Corvette . . . he knew now these three were a threat to Project Silent Arrow, and by threatening Silent Arrow, they threatened the security of the United States of America. Jackson had shown him things that convinced him they did not have his or his country's best interests in mind.
The first part of his mission would involve them but he didn't know how.
Won't know 'til someone tells me. Jus' gotta make sure they suspec' nothin' 'n' meantime wait for my orders.
Murdock felt his heart begin to hammer inside his chest and droplets of sweat form on his body. As soon as his psyche and physical body were reunited, the migraine headache slammed him with the force of a runaway garbage truck hitting a stone wall. He groaned with the severity of the blinding pain and clutched his forehead with both hands. Bending over double, his breath hissed out from between clenched teeth.
"Bad headache, huh?" Jackson left his monitoring station and appeared beside him. He sounded sincerely sympathetic. Murdock felt the Colonel place one hand on his shoulder and give it a tentative massage. "You know it'll pass in a while. The information you got was vital to Project Silent Arrow. You did a good job, Captain."
A voice inside his mind warned him not to trust this man who had proven himself untrustworthy in Nam.
Billy?
The voice quickly faded and was replaced by Jackson's own words. "You did an excellent job, Captain. Your country is grateful for your loyalty and service."
oooooo
As soon as Hannibal heard the door down the hall close he nodded to Rollag. "That's your cue, I believe. As soon as Captain Murdock is settled back in his room, give it about fifteen minutes, then find a reason to bring him here."
"What should I say if the guards ask me why I'm taking him?" Rollag's eyes shifted to Stafford and back to the Colonel.
"Tell them Stafford needs to adjust the meds he's been giving him or something. Just remember that your superior here has two guns on him." Hannibal's grim expression left no doubt he meant his orders to be obeyed to the letter.
Rollag numbly nodded his acknowledgment and walked to the laboratory door. Looking back once with concern for the doctor's safety, he disappeared into the hallway.
Stafford let out a frustrated sigh. "Jackson had your Captain in there a long time. Doesn't that worry you?"
Face glared at the doctor. "You don't know Murdock if you think he can be so easily manhandled. When we were in the POW camp he was in the interrogation hut for days at a time, came back to us so battered you'd think he'd been hit by a Mack truck. Pilots and officers always got it worse than anyone else. He never gave them good intelligence. When he finally cracked, it was things so obsolete and fake we couldn't believe they bought it."
"He cracked?" Stafford cocked his head.
"Almost every man who was interrogated as hard and often as we were did. You say just about anything, irrational, insane, anything but the truth, to get the pain to stop. I heard one guy told them the aircraft carriers had swimming pools on them that he was supposed to keep clean." Face swiped a hand across his eyes as if he were suddenly very tired. He gripped the M-16 tighter and focused his attention back on the man in front of him. "But it was only once. Nearly lost him to insanity when he came back that time. He thought he was a coward for giving them falsified information to stop the torture. If it wasn't for Hannibal talking to him, convincing him he wasn't a traitor, he would have let them kill him the next time he was taken."
Doctor Stafford frowned. "Jackson seems to believe Captain Murdock isn't as insane as he wants everyone to believe."
The Lieutenant stared hard at the scientist for a few moments before diverting his attention to the weapon in his hands. "Maybe he isn't now but when we first located him in the VA hospital . . . " Face let his words trail off before he shook his head. "Have you ever seen someone have to be restrained because if they weren't they would gouge their own eyes out? And that was after they got him to respond to external stimuli, after weeks, maybe months, of no response at all. He thought going blind would stop the memories from haunting him. It took weeks before they could trust him not to do serious harm to himself."
"If you're fugitives, how do you know all of this?" The doctor gazed down at the floor at his feet. He discovered with surprise a twinge of sympathy growing for the man in the next laboratory.
"Because we're the closest thing he has to real family. We found ways of keeping in touch, finding out information." Face gave Hannibal a quick glance. "I sometimes visited disguised as a doctor involved in research into veterans' mental health issues. I was there when he tried to tear out his own eyes. He didn't even recognize my voice." The Lieutenant closed his own eyes and shuddered with the memory. Keeping his weapon trained on the doctor, Hannibal reached over and gripped Face's shoulder in a reassuring gesture.
"So you see, Doc, we know how far Captain Murdock can be pushed before he reaches that point. The things Face and I have heard make us believe he's close to a full meltdown. If he gets that far, he will destroy himself and anyone he's with." Hannibal's cool blue eyes crumbled the doctor's attempt at professional detachment.
Stafford thought about the military's insistence that the test subject be an institutionalized mental health patient with no family and few friends. He remembered Jackson's insistence upon Captain Murdock as the test subject even though patients could have been found nearer to the Granite Peak installation. He considered what he had seen of Jackson's apparent hatred for the test subject.
"My God. What have I done?" Stafford whispered.