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 36 Whatever It Takes
When B. A. made no further threatening gestures, Murdock apprehensively stared up into Colonel Smith's cool blue-eyed gaze. He didn't stop trembling but seemed to relax a little when the Sergeant stayed where he was.
Smith motioned with his head at the pilot and gave Peck an unspoken order. The con man nodded his understanding.
It figures Hannibal would want me to do this. He knows Murdock won't let him or B. A. anywhere near him.
The Lieutenant kissed Amy on the top of her head and released her. "Duty calls," he whispered, leaving her by the bathroom door.
He held up his hands in a conciliatory manner as he approached and eased himself on the bed beside his friend. Gently Face removed the ear buds from around Murdock's neck and the transistor radio clipped to the waistband of his pants.
As he did, the pilot threw out a trembling hand to grab them. He caught the con man's wrist but Face just transferred the devices from one hand to the other. Murdock's reaction and the urgency in his grip surprised him.
He's had this radio on him ever since Granite Peak. It's time to find out why.
"Those're mine!" he choked out. "Th' Colonel gave 'em t' me! Give 'em back!"
"Just a minute." Face listened to the music over one of the ear pieces. His expression turned grim. He shut his eyes and swallowed heavily as he realized why Jackson gave Murdock the equipment. "Damn him!" he whispered before looking up at his CO.
"Hannibal. I think you'd better hear this." He handed the ear buds to the Colonel.
Face noticed Murdock tracked the passing of the device from one man to the other with desperation in his gaze. Fear was returning to his friend's expression and the con man knew the pilot was losing touch with reality again. There was nothing Face could do to stop it except murmur the words he always used in the past and hope they worked.
"It's alright, buddy. We're not in Nam anymore. You're safe. You're with friends." He couldn't touch him. Murdock met every move to do that by jerking away from the hand that reached out to him.
After a few seconds of listening, the older man frowned, handed the ear pieces and radio to B. A. and turned to Doctor Stafford again. He lit a fresh cigar before addressing the scientist.
"Some explanations are in order, doctor." His voice took on a hard angry tone.
"It's no wonder he's been having flashbacks and nightmares, Hannibal. If I listened to those songs over and over again, I'd be caught in the past, too." Peck gave the doctor a cold angry stare before looking back into his friend's haunted eyes. "It'll be alright, buddy. We know what's going on now." He reached out to grasp his friend's upper arm and sighed in frustration when the pilot flinched away from him again.
"Don'! Don' touch me!"
A snarling guttural sound rose from inside B. A.'s throat as he listened to the music and noticed Murdock's reactions to the Lieutenant's attempts to comfort him. He hurled the ear buds and radio onto the motel's dresser and, in two steps, had the doctor's shirt collar bunched up in one hand. It was another violent action the pilot took as a potential threat to himself.
Murdock pushed himself up into a sitting position and scrambled as far away from Baracus, Smith and Peck as he could.
"My turn . . . my turn . . . " His rapid low mutter drew Amy's sympathy. She focused on her friend's pain and moved toward him. With one quick glance, Face warned her to stay where she was. In helplessness, she hugged her arms to herself and watched.
Murdock huddled near the farthest corner of the bed against the head-board, his knees drawn up and head hidden under his arms. It was the posture of someone defending himself against a potential beating . . . or protecting his mind from the horrors of the war around him.
Seeing that, Smith shook his head at the Sergeant. "Let him go, B. A."
Baracus growled one more time and shoved the scientist away from him as he released his grip. Stafford fell on his knees on the floor and slowly pulled himself up to have a seat on the bed. In a way, he was relieved that the question of the music on the radio replaced the one of the mysterious stitched wound on the pilot's head.
"I'm not responsible for whatever Jackson chose for our test subject to listen to. The music was meant to lull the subject into a more relaxed state so we could work with him easier."
It was a lie but he knew they wouldn't be able to figure that out. They didn't have the abilities Jackson had to tell truth from fiction. As long as they didn't destroy the radio and ear pieces and Murdock could get access to them when the time came for the next part of the plan, the doctor would continue to plead innocence.
"Well, it's the wrong kind of music. Jackson had to know that when he selected it." Hannibal stood in front of Stafford. He rested his hands on his hips and waited for answers.
"Really? I don't know what he's been listening to." The scientist raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms. Another lie, but they don't know the difference, Stafford thought.
Face moved slowly around the end of the bed toward his friend. He didn't know how close he could get before Murdock would react. He shot an accusatory look at the medical man. "Songs from home we used to hear over Armed Forces Radio. Anti-war protest songs we heard when we came back. Songs meant to trigger memories, most of them bad, if you have any bad memories hidden away. And Murdock does."
Hannibal squinted at the doctor through a cloud of cigar smoke. "And you mean to tell me you didn't have a part in choosing that particular music for him to listen to?"
Murdock rocked back and forth slightly. He started humming quietly to himself. The Lieutenant recognized it as something he used to hum when the guards were coming for him and abruptly stopped where he was.
Don't go there, buddy. I don't know if we'll be able to get you back.
Face watched helplessly as the pilot's movements became more agitated and his breathing more ragged. Murdock's voice was shaky and he began to sing in a low voice.
"This ol' man,
He played one.
He played knick-knack on mah thumb . . . "
It was a song from Face's own childhood, one the sisters didn't like but which some of the kids knew before they came to live in the orphanage. They, in turn, taught the others when the sisters weren't listening.
He didn't know why Murdock sang it so often before and after beatings, when he withdrew into the darkness of his own mind. Some childhood thing? Something to do with the father Murdock never spoke about? Face didn't know for sure.
"I didn't choose the music. I told you. Jackson wants your pilot dead because of something in their past. Maybe that's why he chose that kind of music." Stafford took out his cigarettes and removed one with shaking fingers. He barely got it lit.
B. A. took a step toward him, his muscles tight with the pent-up rage he felt toward the men who did so much damage to his team mate's mind. As he did, Hannibal put out his hands to stop him. A warning was in his steel-gray eyes. "Don't." The single word seemed not to have any effect on the burly Sergeant as he tried to push past the Colonel to get to the doctor.
oooooo
As Jackson started on the road toward Hurricane, Utah, he kept his attention divided between the road ahead and what Murdock was thinking.
It was no surprise to him that the Lieutenant would remove the ear pieces and radio from the Captain. He knew it was a matter of time before someone on the team would find out about the music the pilot was listening to.
The next part of the plan will have to be through remote mind control. He has to get the radio and ear pieces back to complete the mission.
When Murdock slipped into the memory of the POW camp without any assistance from the music or from Jackson himself, he frowned. That meant the pilot was becoming more unstable than he planned.
That might become a problem when he goes to get that job piloting Cazador's plane.
Stafford was arguing with the white-haired Colonel. A small part of Murdock's mind was still engaged with what was going on around him. Jackson supposed he had done that in the POW camp as a defense mechanism: one part of his mind on alert while most of his mind retreated somewhere deeper inside.
"Jackson wants your pilot dead because of something in their past." Murdock heard that single sentence clearly.
The Colonel sensed the pilot turning it over in his mind, trying to make sense of the statement. Sooner or later Murdock might remember all the reasons Jackson wanted him eliminated. He might believe it and refuse to cooperate.
I can't let that happen. He has a job to do first.
The confrontation among Smith, Baracus and Stafford gave Jackson the distraction he needed. He focused his thoughts and gave the pilot a remote command.
You have to escape. Now, while the Lieutenant's attention is diverted.
oooooo
Face stared with horrified fascination at the impending situation. He was hardly aware when Murdock stopped his rocking and singing. Raising his head from his knees, the pilot looked around as if waking from a dream. His gaze settled on the man in front of him.
It all happened so suddenly that Face couldn't have reacted. One minute Murdock seemed to be trapped in his own memories. In the next, his left hand gripped the Lieutenant's arm and twisted it behind his back while his right forearm hooked around his throat.
"That's 'nough," the pilot snarled.
The other occupants of the room turned toward them and froze in place. For a few seconds Face's harsh breaths were all that could be heard.
"Toss yer weapons on th' bed." When Hannibal and B. A. didn't immediately respond, Face felt his friend's arm tighten around his windpipe. Sputtering and gasping, he reached up with his free hand and clawed at the arm around his throat. He had forgotten how strong Murdock could be when adrenaline was pumping through his system.
"Better do what he says," Hannibal muttered, his eyes not leaving the crazed expression on the Captain's face.
oooooo
It was working better than Jackson had anticipated. He wondered how far Murdock would go to make his escape. Could he be persuaded to kill the man he held as a prisoner? Jackson smiled.
Tell the doctor to gather the guns. Make sure he gets your duffel bag and the radio and ear buds. Then do whatever it takes to make sure these men do not follow you.