Chapter 5: Finding Face!
At the same time as Murdock was rummaging through AJ's possessions, Face was sitting in the back of Able 8's car, on his way to liaise with his momma. It had been confirmed by Able 9, who was monitoring things at the motel, that both Samantha and the Marshal had arrived safely and were waiting for Face to turn up.
Dressed in a smart suit and tie, he had no idea that a double-cross was about to take place. Pouring over the file Stockwell had given him for about the umpteenth time, he was lost in his own world of eager anticipation and expectation about his meeting with his momma. It was only when he looked up and saw Able 9 opening the back-seat door that he realised they had reached their destination.
As he followed Able 9 into the low-budget motel, he was surprised that he felt giddy with nerves and even had a few butterflies in his stomach! But as he entered the room, he was not expecting to be met by a dazzling white light. As he peered blindly into his surroundings, a voice greeted him from the other side of the room.
"Ah, Lieutenant Peck," said the voice. "How nice of you to come. We've been waiting for you to arrive."
As Face was struck heavily at the back of the head, his last thoughts before he blacked out was that the voice sounded vaguely familiar.
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A quick phone call to Hannibal confirmed Murdock's fears that Face had been abducted. Able 9 had also been knocked out and had been found by the driver, Able 8, who got suspicious when there was no further contact from his colleague and came to investigate.
General Stockwell had already assigned officers to find out what had happened. But further investigations had shed no light on the matter. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed in the room which would indicate that a struggle had taken place and very little finger prints had been found. Samantha (or indeed, her sister, if Murdock had called it correctly), the Marshal and Face all just seemed to have disappeared.
As Hannibal relayed this information to Murdock, the pilot informed Hannibal about his suspicions with regards to Joanne and his concerns about Ellen. Hannibal said he would get Stockwell to take the appropriate actions in both cases.
Hannibal also told Murdock that Stockwell had forbidden any of the team from going to the motel. He wanted to establish whether this was just something personal against Face, or whether there was a chance that there would be a further ambush of the whole team.
"Hmm!" deliberated Murdock. "Well officially, I'm not actually a member of the team!"
"Do what you have to do, Captain," said Hannibal. "Just be careful and holler if you need us!"
As Hannibal hung up, Murdock grinned to himself as he could envisage a hint of the jazz twinkling in the Colonel's eyes!
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Arriving back in Washington, Murdock was aware that he was a good half a day behind his buddy going missing. He had been instructed by Stockwell to drive back to Langley once he arrived at the airfield. However, feeling a need to do something and knowing that Hannibal had more or less given him a green light to go it alone, Murdock decided to swing by the motel first.
Maybe he could dig up something the Ables had missed. If the chance had arisen, Face may have left a clue that only the A-Team would recognise. He knew Stockwell would be spitting mad about him disobeying his orders, but Murdock just had a gut feeling that the motel would hold the answer to Face's disappearance.
He pulled into the motel car park and switched off the engine. He didn't really know what his game plan was. He was sure the investigating officers would have gone over all the basic stuff, like talking to the desk clerk and banging on neighbouring doors looking for witnesses and information.
He needed to somehow blag his way into the motel room and have a good look around for himself. He knew most of the important investigations would have been completed by now, so he needed a good excuse to get back into the room again.
He rummaged around in the glove compartment and pulled out a name tag, which must have belonged to the Able assigned to lend Murdock the car. Rummaging further, he found a small compact camera and a notepad.
He pinned the name tag to his jacket and grabbed the camera and notepad. He got out the car and strolled over to the small, shabby reception area. The clerk behind the desk was reading a magazine and looked a bit grumpy and fed up as Murdock approached him.
"Good afternoon, Sir!" said Murdock, trying to sound as official and business-like as he could. "I'm the Conduct Scene and Initial Documentation Officer assigned to the investigation in Room 45."
The clerk barely looked up from the magazine he was reading as Murdock made his introductions.
"I thought you guys had finished your investigations?" he moaned. "I'm losing money whilst you are all fart-arsing around!"
"The walk-through procedure can only be done once the preliminary investigations are complete," explained Murdock. "It could provide us with a complete overview of the entire scene. We can establish if a light switch was left on or whether a window was forced open. We may even be able to detect odours such as cigarette smoke, gas, perfume or …."
The clerk yawned rudely at Murdock's ramblings. It was obvious he didn't have the slightest bit of interest in the investigation and was clearly only concerned about his loss of earnings whilst the room was out of bounds to the guests.
"Well, if you could just give me the key, I'll get out of your hair," said Murdock, glad that he didn't seem to have to justify to the clerk his reasons for wanting to get into the room in too much detail.
The clerk handed the key to Murdock, still grumbling under his breath about the inconvenience of it all. Murdock thanked him and hurried out of the reception area. He made his way to Room 45 and let himself in. He carefully made an inspection of the room, looking for any little thing Face could have left to alert the team where he had been taken or who his abductor was. He sighed in annoyance, as there appeared to be no clues as to his disappearance.
"Hey Mister! You involved in this investigation?"
Murdock jumped at the sound of the gruff voice coming from behind him. He looked round to see an old man fidgeting nervously in the doorway. From his scruffy appearance and slurring of his words, Murdock deduced he was probably a wino, living on the streets.
"Yeah, they've just called me in," replied Murdock.
"I've got some information about all the mysterious comings and goings," continued the wino.
"Really?" said Murdock, shutting the door discretely and leading the man away from the room, so as not to disturb the crime scene further. "Anything you could tell us would be a big help."
"Well, I was sitting under the trees yonder early this morning with my old pal, Jack Daniels," said the man. "The next thing I know, there's a couple of guys hot-footing out the fire escape entrance at the back of the motel, dragging a blonde guy in a smart suit with 'em. He looked like he had just gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson! They dumped him in a car and then a few seconds later I saw another guy with a woman also came out the back entrance."
The wino stopped for a second, fished out his bottle of whiskey from his raincoat pocket and took a big slug.
"What happened after that?" asked Murdock, anxiously waiting for the man to continue.
"The guy with the woman had a short conversation with the other guys," said the wino. "I couldn't hear what they were saying, but he seemed to be calling the shots. Then they got into their car and drove off with the Suit in the back. The other guy lit up a cigarette and then he and the woman got into a right swanky car and drove off."
"I don't suppose you got the registration number, did you?" asked Murdock hopefully.
"Naw!" said the man. "But it was a gold Pontiac Turbo Trans Am! I don't suppose you'd see too many of them driving around."
"Probably not," agreed Murdock. "Why didn't you mention any of this to the investigating officers this morning?"
"I guess I kinda got comfy sitting under those trees and dozed off!" said the wino, looking lovingly at his bottle. "Besides, if I reported every strange thing I saw out on the streets, I wouldn't live to tell the tale!"
"Point taken!" agreed Murdock. "Well that's been very helpful, thank-you."
"You're welcome, sonny," said the wino. He took another slug of his whiskey and then put the bottle back in his pocket. He started to move off whilst Murdock locked the motel door, when he suddenly stopped and brought out a box of matches from his pocket.
"Hey, wait a minute," he said to Murdock. "They guy who lit up the cigarette dropped these on the floor before he got into his car. Might be a clue as to where he went."
Murdock took the matches. He noticed that it had a picture and address of the Mayflower Hotel on the box.
"You may just have single-handedly solved this case, muchacho!" he said, forgetting his protocol for a moment as he slapped the old man excitedly on the back.
"I don't have to go to court or anything like that, do I?" asked the man, anxiously.
Murdock shook his head vigorously as he stuck a 5 dollar bill in the wino's hand.
"God bless ya guvnor!" said the man as he shuffled off. Murdock rushed back to the reception area. He handed back the key to the desk clerk and then returned to the car. He picked up the car phone and immediately called Hannibal.
"Hannibal, I've got a possible lead on Face," he said. "He maybe at The Mayflower Hotel. It's just a couple of blocks from here. But I'm gonna check it out first, coz I'm still not sure who we can trust on this one."
"You referring to Stockwell?" enquired Hannibal.
"Amongst others - a dead snake can still bite, you know!" warned Murdock. "The less people who know about the liaison the better until we can find out what's going on."
Hannibal chuckled at Murdock's comparison between Stockwell and the snake. Although the General did seem to be genuinely pulling out all the stops to find out what had happened to Face, he could understand why Murdock still had reservations about trusting him. There was no denying the man was as twisted as a factory full of pretzels!
"OK Captain," said Hannibal. "But I'm enforcing the contact code on you. If I don't hear from you after half an hour, we're coming in – with or without Stockwell!"
"Sure, Colonel," said Murdock. "But whatever happens I'm going after Face, so you better have a plan to get us out if the doggy-poo hits the fan!"