CHAPTER ELEVEN

August 28, 1978

It was hot in the living room. The window had been closed as a matter of security, but he opened it now and heaved a sigh of relief at the cool breeze.

Jessica was watching him. "You alright?" she asked quietly.

He didn't look at her as he walked back to the couch and sat down on the edge, head in hands. "You're supposed to be asleep," he reminded.

"My house just got blown up." Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her tip the bottle up and take a drink, not bothering with the glass. "What's your excuse?"

Flopping back against the sofa, he stared out at the night sky and wondered what time it was. He couldn't see his watch in the low light, but he didn't imagine he would be getting back to sleep tonight. At least, not anytime soon.

He heard the bottle swish again, and the scratch of a lighter. Adding another lungful of smoke to the haze that already hung in the room, Jessica sat back against the wall.

"For the record," she finally said, "Cipher and I were never really serious."

He sighed, turning to regard her with a disinterested look. Whatever relationship she did or didn't have with his former team member was the furthest thing from his mind right now. His curiosity in that regard had been trumped by much more serious matters in the past twelve hours.

"We were just friends," she continued. "Our paths would cross and we dated off and on. But he never even met the kids."

Face didn't answer, not wanting to encourage the discussion. He didn't care, and he certainly felt no need to take her confession.

Realizing his disinterest, she stopped speaking and deep silence filled the room. Too exhausted to think clearly but wide awake just the same, Face covered his eyes with his hand and tried to relax. His mind wandered, away from the kids and to the medic who'd never forgiven their killer. If he had to think of Cipher, that was how he wanted to remember him. He'd had a very clear mind about right and wrong, once upon a time. Even as a soldier who had undoubtedly killed his share of enemies, he was first and foremost a medic who saved lives. And more importantly, he was a member of Face's team. Either one of them would've died for the other without a second thought. That was Cipher's legacy. It was what Face wanted to remember.

Jessica finished her cigarette before the shuffle from her corner of the room signaled her rising. Letting his hand drop, Face watched her head to the window and perch silently on the ledge, drawing her knee up. Staring out at the parking lot below, silhouetted by the blue-grey light, she looked eerie - almost ghostly.

"I'm sorry," she finally whispered, not looking at him.

He hesitated before answering, aware that he was opening himself up to a conversation he didn't quite feel ready for. But the problem wasn't going to go away. With a sigh, he dropped both hands into his lap. "For what?" he asked.

"For dragging you into this." She took another very long drink from the near-empty bottle and shook her head with a tight, cynical laugh. "I really am a horrible person."

He frowned. "You couldn't have known."

"Well, I didn't blow up my own house, if that's what you're implying," she answered lightly. Then, lowering her head, she finished in a whisper, "But I did leave my purse."

For a moment, he was startled. But he hid it well, too tired to really show any emotion even if he'd wanted to. It was a good lie. He'd been looking for it and still didn't see it. "Why?" he asked simply.

"Because I didn't know how to tell you." She turned to look at him, burying a fist in her hair and half leaning over the raised knee. "I never wanted you to know. But when I saw you again, it would've been wrong not to tell you. And all night long, I tried. I swear, I tried everything I could think of to make it come out right. But I just... I wasn't even sure you'd want to know and I didn't want..."

He said nothing as she trailed off. Well, at least that explained her erratic behavior. It still left a lot of questions unanswered, though. Taking another drink, she finished the bottle and studied it for a long moment before giving another snort of humorless laughter. "Looks like I drank all your wine," she mumbled. "I'd offer to replace it but at the moment..."

"Don't worry about it," he answered with a shake of his head.

Studying her for a long moment, he felt a flash of sympathy for her attempted escape into the bottle. As she looked away again, hiding her face, he felt fairly certain she was covering up silent tears. Without a word, he stood and turned the corner into the kitchen, grabbing another bottle of blush wine from the cupboard nearest the refrigerator. He opened it, walked to the corner of the living room and retrieved the unused glass, and poured himself some before holding the bottle out to her.

She stared at it, not moving, for several lingering seconds before finally accepting with a soft, "Thank you."

Leaning his shoulder against the wall, he took a sip from his glass. It would've been better chilled, but he couldn't complain. It was a hell of a lot better than what he'd been drinking only a year ago, before business had really started to pick up.

"I didn't know how you'd react," Jessica finally continued. "I was afraid of making a scene and the restaurant was..."

She trailed off again, shaking her head. He had nothing to add to this conversation, and simply waited for her to start again. "That's why I wanted to go to the beach," she finally said. "It was private, informal. But still terrifying when I actually got there."

Taking a drink, she shook her head as though the words sounded wrong to her. "It was more than that, though," she continued with a hint of frustration in her tone. "I actually started to enjoy myself for the first time in..."

The memory failed her. She lit another cigarette - the last one in the pack. Avoiding his gaze, she curled in on herself as she finished in a whisper.

"I didn't want to ruin it," she admitted weakly. "And on the drive home, I just couldn't find the words."

Sensing she was finished, Face nodded slowly and turned his gaze out the window as well. "It does explain a lot," he replied simply. He wasn't prepared to confess just how confused he'd been by her mood swings, but he remembered it vividly.

"Maybe not as much as you think," she said with a sad smile. "I really am terrible at dating. It happens when you return from Vietnam carrying twins. I can count the number of dates I've been on with one hand. And those were…"

He studied her curiously as she trailed off. When she didn't offer more, he prodded gently. "When did you find out?"

"I knew I was pregnant almost right away," she said before pausing for another long drag. "It was only three days later when the morning sickness started. I thought it was just the flu at first – nausea, vomiting… It wasn't just in the morning; it was constant. And it went for all nine months - all day, every day. They sent me home from the war long before I started to show. I was useless. In and out of the hospital the whole time when I came back to the States, just trying to stay hydrated with IVs."

"I did look for you," he recalled. "They said you went home but didn't mention the reason why."

"Probably didn't want me to get in trouble for fraternizing." She glanced at him again and gave a tight smile. "The doctors wrote up the official report as a chronic illness of indeterminate origin. But they must have known. They would've had to have been complete idiots not to know. Hell, I knew…"

Face took a long drink and stared out at the dark shadows outside. It was nowhere near dawn, by the look of it. He sighed as he considered the thought of going back to sleep, and pushed off of the wall, heading back to the sofa. As he sat down, Jessica took another swig of wine. If she kept that up, she was going to be very drunk by morning.

"Who attacked us tonight, Jessica?" he asked quietly, wondering if she was drunk enough yet to talk to him about that.

Immediately, she straightened. "That's not your problem," she snapped, and he wondered how many bottles of wine it would take.

"They could've killed me, too," he reminded gently, not responding to her instant hostility. "Or your children. I'm making it my problem."

"Don't." She looked at him and glared. "You can't fix it, Face."

Not rising to the bait she hadn't even realized she'd cast, he lowered his gaze. "You might be surprised."
"No," she said again. "This isn't Vietnam. You're not in RT Cannon anymore, fixing the problems that nobody else can."

"Humor me," he prodded, glancing up at her again.

She didn't answer as she finished her cigarette and put it out in the full ashtray. Immediately, she reached for the pack again but found it empty. Fist tight around the neck of the bottle, she instead took a drink so long and deep she nearly gagged on it. Sighing, Face stood again. He'd get the story sooner or later, and he was willing to wait. There was more at stake here than her pride, and she'd realize that in time. What did she have to lose?

Ducking back into the kitchen, he finished his wine and set the empty glass in the sink. He opened the third cupboard on the right and reached into the back, behind the coffee mugs and the pistol hidden behind them, retrieving a half-full pack of cigarettes. They were weeks old and probably tasted like lawn clippings, but he guessed Jessica was just desperate enough to appreciate them anyway.

She looked up as he approached again and offered her the pack. Clearly wary of yet another gift, she hesitated before gingerly reaching out a hand. But unlike before, he didn't release his grip, letting his fingers rest beside hers as he studied the chaos of emotions in her eyes.

"Did you love him?" Face finally asked, drawing the conversation to a close with the very topic she'd used to open it.

"Who?" she replied, head shaking briefly in confusion.

"Cipher."

She swallowed hard, and he could almost feel the way she fought the urge to look away. It was the one she kept going back to, the only one she seemed to actually want to talk about. And he could direct conversation as long as they were talking. Finally, she released the pack, reached two fingers in to pull out a single cigarette, and lit it before answering.

"I loved what he represented to me," she said coolly.

He set the pack on the ledge beside her. "And what was that?"

She lowered her head, and shook it. "It doesn't matter," she answered, so quiet he could barely hear her. Taking another drag, she met his gaze again. "We're not friends anymore, if you're worried about that."

"Why should I be worried?" he asked, raising a brow.

She shrugged. "He never wanted to talk about you," she explained. "Any of you. I always figured it had to have been one hell of a fallout."

Face said nothing, holding her gaze for a long moment before finally nodding. He turned his gaze to the parking lot. "Yeah," he admitted reluctantly. "It was."

The soft brush of her fingers on his cheek caught him off guard, and he looked up to see her smiling weakly at him. "Get some sleep, Face," she whispered. "One of us should."

She was drunk and exhausted, and he'd get answers out of her sooner or later. Answering her smile with one of his own, he removed her hand gently and lightly kissed the backs of her fingers. Then, with a deep and heartfelt sigh, he returned to the sofa, lay down with his back to her, and pulled the blanket up around his chin before closing his eyes again.

November 18, 1968

"The KKK?" Face asked, bewildered as he stared at the map of the Ho Chi Minh trail spread across the table in the TOC. "I thought we were in South Vietnam, not South Carolina."

"That's what they call them," General Sandgone explained. "They're bandits who come across the border from Cambodia."

"Bandits?" Hannibal questioned, exchanging confused looks with Face. "Attacking an A-Team camp?"

"Why not just blow them to holy hell?" Face suggested simply.

"They don't attack the camp," Sandgone clarified. "They attack the patrols. They'll take on anyone they think they can overpower. Sometimes they succeed."

Face's befuddled stare turned slowly to a frown. After the recent chain of events with Colonel Decker, a month ago now but still entirely unresolved along the chain of command, he'd been slightly uneasy when he realized the chopper from Saigon held General Jeff Sandgone, Chief of SOG. Seeing him arrive was a lot like being called into the principal's office, and it was no surprise when he'd called RT Cannon's One-Zero and One-One to the TOC. Face had been expecting a dress down. Instead, he was receiving a briefing.

"They have no allegiance," Sandgone continued. "They're just in it for the money."

Again, Face and Hannibal exchanged glances. This time, Face shrugged. He'd never heard of them, but he wasn't exactly surprised. The number of parasites that fed off the war would boggle the mind of any sane man. He'd dealt with many of them personally, but certainly not all.

"What is it you want us to do?" Hannibal questioned, leaning against the sandbag wall, arms crossed. Stepping back from the table, Face reached into his pocket for a cigarette.

"Cripple them," Sandgone answered. "And... delicately."

"What do you mean, delicately?" Face demanded, flicking his Zippo and then dropping it back into his pocket as he took a deep, satisfying drag.

"We've been taking some heat lately for our operations in Cambodia." Sandgone looked at each of them in turn. "If we can't learn to be a little more careful, a little more quiet... we're going to have to limit our actions across the border."

"In other words," Hannibal sighed, "you need us to deal with this without ever setting foot in Cambodia."

Sandgone nodded. "That's a very good way of putting it, yes."

"So what happens if our bandits go back across the border?" Face asked.

"Which they will," Hannibal added, "if they have any brains at all. Especially if they know we won't chase them."

Sandgone shook his head. "I can't tell you how to deal with them. All I can say is that their dead bodies better not be strewn all over the Cambodian side of that border. I don't care if you have to drag them back into Vietnam one by one."

Face sighed. "Well, that just makes it a fun challenge, doesn't it?" He couldn't wait to see what sort of suicidal escapade Hannibal would come up with for this one.

"How many men are we talking about in this bandit group?" Hannibal demanded.

"That would be a question for Captain Locke, not me," Sandgone replied. "He's the camp commander at Duc Hue."

Face checked the map quietly, finding the camp's position near the Fishhook.

"They've lost almost every man on two different patrols," Sandgone continued. "But more importantly, these bandits are tying up the camp's resources. Duc Hue is right on the border, in dangerous territory. The VC can come across the border, hit the camp, and run back. We knew that when we sent them out there to build it, but we weren't anticipating this kind of interference."

Face blinked. "Wait a minute, are you telling me this camp's not built?" he asked, startled.

"They've been there four weeks," Sandgone replied. "But with the interruptions, they've only got their basic buildings situated. They're not dug in. If they get hit, they're going to have to evacuate. Especially if they keep losing men."

Hannibal drew in a deep, audible breath and moved closer to the map, inspecting it carefully. "This Captain Locke," he muttered. "How much experience does he have?"

"If you're asking my opinion of him, he's a damn good soldier," Sandgone said confidently. "And he's in a hell of a mess until he can get that camp fortified so he'll be happy to have any help you can give."

After taking a long moment to survey the terrain on the map around the red dot marking the camp, Hannibal finally stood up and smiled. "Alright, General," he said with a grin. "Don't suppose you've already assigned a chopper and crew for this?"

"They'll be waiting for you at the LZ in one hour," Sandgone replied. "Warrant Officer Jerry Carsky is your AC."

Hannibal glanced at Face. "Get everyone together," he directed. "We'll do a preliminary briefing in the chopper and a formal one after we get out there and see what we're dealing with."