CHAPTER TEN

April 19, 1985

The rest stop was unnecessary. BA pulled off of the road just to break the uneasy silence that had settled inside the van. As he pulled into the self-serve side of the pumps, there was still a long hesitation before anyone got out. Then Hannibal left, and Murdock stepped out to allow Face and Alan to exit before climbing back in and sitting down again. In the driver's seat, BA turned to face him.

"Man, why you let him talk to you like that?" The anger in his voice was palpable.

"Let him?" Murdock replied with a self-deprecating snort of laughter. He didn't look up. "Probably the same reason I let you."

"I ain't never said nothin' like that to you!" BA nearly shouted back, indignant. "Never!"

Murdock sighed deeply and leaned forward, hiding his eyes with a hand. "I know. I'm sorry."

"No one got a right to say stuff like that to you! You may be crazy, but you still a good soldier. Always were. And we all know it."

Murdock sighed again as he let his hand drop and flopped back against the grey leather. "BA, stay out of it," he pleaded. "It's got nothing to do with the kind of soldier I was."

"He still ain't go no right," BA continued, ignoring the request. "I thought you had more respect for yourself than that!"

"He's my brother," Murdock replied, closing his eyes in the hope that this bad dream might fade when he opened them again. He was used to making these excuses, even if they were usually only to himself. But he hated doing it all the same.

"That don't make it right," BA snapped back, not convinced. "An' if you can't tell him that, I'm gonna do it. With this!"

Opening his eyes, Murdock saw BA glaring over the top of his gold-studded fist. With a frustrated sigh, Murdock turned to look out the open side of the van. "Great," he said dryly. "You two should have a wonderful conversation. You speak the same language."

He could feel BA's glare boring into him. "All this time we spend teachin' people to stick up for themselves, an' you just gonna sit there and let him -"

"Yes!" Murdock interrupted, bundling all of his frustration into that one word. He threw up his hands as he whipped around to face BA again. "Yes, I'm going to let him! Now why don't you just... fuel up the van so we can get outta here, huh?"

BA didn't answer, seemingly caught off guard by the outburst. In the silence that followed, Murdock shook his head, and finally rested it back against the seat again, eyes closed. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean..."

He never finished. With another sigh, he let his eyes drift to the side of the gas station, where Alan was lighting up a cigarette, wandering around to stretch his legs. BA still hadn't left the driver's seat when Face stepped out of the gas station and glanced around, eliciting an invitational wave from Alan.

"He's half right, you know," Murdock mumbled, more to himself than BA. The anger expended, only sadness was in its place. "Not about the reason, but..."

He swallowed hard as he trailed off, shutting his eyes. Their lifelong history of trying to outdo each other went far beyond the bounds of normal sibling rivalry. Ultimately, Murdock knew there was nothing he could say or do to gain his brother's respect - not for his accomplishments, or for the person he'd ultimately become. It didn't matter if he was a pilot or if he'd gone hardcore infantry. He would never measure up - not in Alan's eyes.

"When he joined the Army, I hated him for it," Murdock admitted sadly. "I went Air Force just to... to be something different, something better than him. I wanted to outrank him, outperform him. I sure as hell never thought he'd be good enough to get into Special Forces, but... that's just how it worked out."

"Man, what's wrong with you?" BA demanded. But the harsh tone had dropped from his voice. "You ain't gotta prove nothin' to nobody!"

"He used to pound the living daylights out of me," Murdock continued absently. "I spent my teenage years in his shadow. The teachers loved me - a relief after they'd had to deal with him. But everybody else..."

Murdock sighed deeply and watched Face and Alan's casual chat. He knew something wasn't right when Face accepted a cigarette before turning to walk with Alan in the opposite direction from the van. Face hadn't smoked cigarettes since Vietnam, and he was intentionally leading Alan away from the public eye. But rather than investigate, Murdock looked away. Face could handle himself. So could Alan.

"When he joined the Army, it was all about how he was bored with life in the States, and he was heading off to the only place in the world where he could get paid to kill people." Murdock shook his head, half-laughing at the ridiculousness of his own words. "I didn't find out 'til years later about his parole officer scarin' him shitless with the possibility that he could get drafted and have no say about how he was going. So I did him one better. He went into infantry and I went to the Air Force Academy."

"Hey, man," BA answered. "You coulda done Special Forces if you wanted to. You wanted to fly. An' we needed you to fly. You were good at it. You saved our lives. Lots of times."

Murdock knew that. He also knew explaining it to Alan would be a waste of his breath. Nothing had changed, and Alan was very predictable. Murdock outranked his older brother by a mile, so Alan would have to prove his rank it wasn't as difficult to achieve, or worth as much. And frankly, as satisfying as it had been to watch the surprise on Alan's face, Murdock had known he would pay for it later, with some crude, cruel comment intended to cut him down to size.

He knew this game well. He'd been playing it his whole life. He just never in a million years thought he'd have to play it in front of his team.

*X*X*X*

Alan wasn't expecting an attack. And Face was fast. His fist connected with Alan's jaw so hard he felt teeth give way under his knuckles. As the man stumbled back in stunned confusion, Face was on him in a flash, an arm across his throat. It didn't matter that Alan was twice his size; Face's footing was solid and even giants needed air.

"I know you think your blood relation gives you certain rights," Face growled, "but if I ever hear you talk that way about Murdock again, you'll have more than my fist to worry about; are we clear?"

Still stunned and choking as he pulled on Face's arm, he gasped out something that sounded vaguely like, "Yeah," and Face took a step back, letting him breathe. He knew Alan's type - hardcore and proud of it. From the tattoo on his arm to the way he walked, he reeked of it. It was in the tone of his voice and the arrogant look in his eye. It was also in the way that he pushed his brother around - and Face had no words to describe just how much that pissed him off. His lack of respect for a man Face owed his life to - hundreds of times over - had been evident from word one, and it was starting to get under Face's skin.

Expecting a retaliation, Face watched the man's every move as he rubbed his neck, then his jaw. But no retaliation came. Either he knew he deserved it or he didn't want to make enemies of the only people who could help him find his daughter. Taking a swing at Face was likely to draw unwanted attention.

"I know Murdock is trying to keep the peace," Face continued, watching Alan regain his composure, "and we respect that. We'll wait until he's not around if we ever need to have this conversation again. But next time, you won't just be talking to me."

Alan cleared his throat and shook his head, turning to spit blood into the dirt. "Murdock ain't the only one who wants to keep peace," he assured gruffly.

"Good."

Face didn't turn his back until he was well out of range. Murdock was standing outside the van now, his spirits seemingly lifted by the bottle of Coke in his hand. The indistinguishable chatter between him and Hannibal was followed by a brief laugh. Hannibal caught Face's gaze just briefly, and a nod passed between them - all of the communication necessary. By the time Face reached the van, BA had stalked back to the driver's seat from inside the store with a menacing glare in Alan's direction. It seemed their friendship, such as it was, had met an untimely end.

"Let's go!" BA ordered.

"We'll need to get as close to this place as we can tonight," Hannibal added as Alan moved quickly to join them. "So that we can get a good night's sleep before we go in."

Alan clapped a hand over his brother's shoulder as he passed. "You alright, Murdock?"

A tight smile answered him, and Murdock looked away.

June 7, 1970

You can't train a man for Special Forces. That's what his brother used to say. A man is either born for it, or he's not. As Murdock's eyes opened slowly, the oversimplified assertion was the very first thing in his mind. Where was he? Head throbbing and vision blurred, he realized with no small amount of panic that the last thing he remembered clearly was bedding down in the barracks tents of a brand spanking new camp just south of Hue. Now, he was in the eerily quiet jungle, waking up with a throbbing pain in his head, completely disoriented and missing a good chunk of memory.

"Everybody okay?"

Hannibal's voice was reassuring; Murdock wasn't alone. Still, he fumbled for the seatbelt harness with shaking hands. It was instinct to try and pull free of the restraints, even though he had no idea why he was strapped in. Completely disoriented, he had no idea what country he was even in. It was only just beginning to sink in that he hadn't landed the chopper here, he'd crashed. The chopper was suspended, nose to the sky, a few feet up in the trees amid five-inch-thick vines.

He stopped struggling with the harness, shut his eyes, and tried to remember as a thin trickle of blood snaked its way down the side of his face. Five days ago, he'd dropped off his team in North Vietnam. He remembered that. Concentrating hard, he could also remember the call for the extraction. Had he picked them up? He must have, if Hannibal was with him.

"Murdock?"

He jumped, craning his neck to see the cargo bay. It was still empty. The voice had come from outside, down on the ground where Hannibal was looking up at him. "Huh? What?"

"You okay?" the colonel asked calmly.

Murdock swallowed hard. So blurry. He'd lost control of the chopper. Why had he lost control? Something had gone very wrong. He remembered pulling the nose of the helicopter up to the sky... falling through the trees... What had happened to make him go down? Had they been shot? Unable to put the pieces together was, in and of itself, almost enough to initiate panic. But that wasn't the question.

Focus! he chided silently. Was he okay? Was he hurt? He took a few seconds to evaluate, then nodded. "Yeah. I'm okay."

"Is the radio still operational?" Hannibal asked, calmly moving on to the next order of business.

Murdock looked. The radio was smashed, along with the entire dashboard... and the co-pilot on his right. Murdock didn't check for a pulse. He didn't need to. "Jesus," he mumbled under his breath.

"Murdock!"

His head snapped back to where Hannibal was standing straight and still, just a few feet away. "Huh?"

"I need you to focus, Murdock," he said patiently, and Murdock suddenly wondered where the rest of the team was. "The radio. Is it working?"

Murdock shook his head. "No. No way in hell, Colonel. It's smashed."

"Did you get out a call before we went down?"

His thoughts were so clouded, so muddled by panic at his complete disorientation, he wasn't even sure how to answer that question. He forced the racing terror in his head to quiet down and shut his eyes, composing himself. He'd been flying. Where had they even been going?

"I did, yes," he answered confidently. The memories were returning in a hodgepodge of snapshots. He'd talked to Covey. He'd said... that they had taken enemy fire? That they had engine trouble? What the hell had happened? Where were they?

"Then they know where to start looking for us," Hannibal concluded. "How far are we from the nearest base?"

Finally, Murdock managed to unlatch the harness that held him. He almost fell out of the chair, realizing too late just how steep the pitch was and how much the chopper leaned to the right. He grabbed his maps and his SOI - it was a court-martial offense to lose one of those - as he pulled himself up to the door and then out of the mangled chopper, jumping down to the ground. Immediately, his eyes were darting over the trees all around them. There were enemy soldiers somewhere in those trees, with AK-47s. He was not used to seeing the jungle from this angle...

"Murdock!"

"Sorry," he answered quickly, turning and unrolling the map he'd been using. He placed it up against the skid of the chopper and held one side while Hannibal held the other. Seeing the map helped to reorient him. "We're somewhere in here," he pointed. They'd taken enemy fire. He remembered the rockets... "We were right about here when we started having problems."

"Which means we can either go north to Hue or south to Da Nang," Hannibal observed.

Murdock swallowed hard as he put the map into perspective. "Da Nang is closer. Ten clicks, maybe. We're about forty-five from the DMZ."

Out of the corner of his eye, Murdock saw BA climbing up into the chopper. What was he doing? "This is a river?" Hannibal asked, directing his attention back to the map.

"I wouldn't call it a river," Murdock answered. "It's a stream. I caught a few glimpses of it from the air but it's mostly covered over."

"We'll have water, then," Hannibal concluded. "It flows straight south."

Murdock suddenly realized they wouldn't be waiting for a rescue. Swallowing hard and pulling himself up to his full height, he made peace with the very good possibility of dying today. He wasn't going to be afraid. Fear would only slow them down, and he would sooner put a bullet in his own head than endanger the rest of his team.

"Hannibal!" The hoarse whisper made both the team's One-Zero and the pilot turn. Face was running low, head down with a weapon tucked up against his chest as he came close. Right behind him were two Nungs with eyes wide as saucers. "We gotta move!" Face whispered. "There's NVA about a hundred yards west. They heard us come down and they've got dogs."

Murdock was unprepared for the sudden rush of adrenaline that surged through his veins. Hannibal didn't even flinch. "Where's Cipher?"

"Right here!" Cipher hissed back. "We got a few trackers to the north at seventy yards."

"Either of you seen?"

Both men shook their heads.

"I put a few toe poppers behind me," Face continued quickly. "But that won't hold them off."

"How many of them?"

"At least one platoon, maybe two," the young lieutenant whispered. "There's a north-south trail over there. They must've been close by already."

BA poked his head out of the chopper as if materializing out of thin air. "There's no way I'm fixin' this radio."

"Forget it," Hannibal answered, casting a long look at Bulldog as he, too, returned from a quick sweep and gave a thumbs up. "Grab the ammo and blow the guns. Let's go."

Murdock stared as BA ducked back inside and emerged only seconds later.

"Face, take point," Hannibal ordered. "BA, rear guard. Murdock, you stay with me. Are you armed?"

"Standard issue Smith & Wesson .38," Murdock answered, matching Hannibal's stride as they headed into the trees.

Hannibal laughed. He actually laughed. Amazed that anyone could laugh at a time like this, Murdock stared at him. "Do you know how to fire an M-16?"

Murdock blinked for a minute at the question Hannibal should've known the answer to. Either he wasn't thinking or Murdock was really making a complete fool of himself with his inability to hide that fear that kept creeping up the back of his neck.

"What I mean is," Hannibal corrected, reading the expression, "are you confident with an M-16?"

Murdock nodded and shook his head at the same time, snapping out of his brief haze of worry to properly acknowledge the question. "Yeah, yeah, of course."

"Good."

Cipher jogged up beside them and passed an assault rifle to Hannibal, who in turn thrust it into Murdock's chest, nearly knocking him over with the force of it. "Watch your ammo," Hannibal warned. "Remember, they have more of it than we do."

Taking the proffered two extra clips, Murdock drew in a deep, calming breath and flexed his fist around the warm metal of the weapon he now held. A sudden, earth-shattering explosion behind them made his legs instantly and instinctively give out. But instead of hitting the dirt, he was jerked forward by Hannibal's firm grip on his arm. "Walk, Lieutenant," Hannibal ordered. "And don't stop."

Looking back behind him, through the trees, Murdock saw a ball of flame where the chopper had been moments before. As the gas tanks ignited, the plume of fiery smoke reached well above the first canopy and into the second. Hannibal hadn't been kidding when he'd given the order to "blow the guns" that were mounted in the back of the UH-1.

They walked single file, three feet apart, very quickly. Then, suddenly, a single shot from the back of the line instigated a well-rehearsed "about face" from everyone, in perfect sync. "Go to the back!" Hannibal yelled at Murdock as the line divided, half of them taking a step right and the other stepping left.

Trusting the order even more than his instinct, Murdock fled to what was now the back of the line and stood behind Face as the gunshots echoed through the trees. He couldn't see the enemy. All he could see was his own team. In three-round bursts of full-auto gunfire, BA sprayed the trees until his weapon was empty, then turned and ran down the center of the two lines as the next man repeated the same. Cries of pain and rattling return fire from AK-47s were lost in the confusion that followed.

"Run, Murdock!"

Murdock was already running.

He ran until he thought his lungs would burst, and then he ran harder. Then, suddenly, BA pulled up short. Murdock almost plowed right into him. They were at the edge of the stream. Gasping for air - god damn, were these M-16s always this heavy? - Murdock leaned forward, bracing on his knees. "Where...? What...?"

"Quiet!" BA ordered.

Murdock spun as he heard a sound behind him. Cipher stepped forward, followed by two Nungs. "Why are we stopping?" Murdock whispered between gasped breaths.

"It's wide open out there," Bulldog pointed out. He was out of breath too, but better at hiding it. "Not quite as bad as a road, but still dangerous."

A second later, Hannibal approached the front of the team. Drenched in sweat and breathing hard, he looked both ways. "See anything?"

"Looks clear," BA said.

"Yeah," Bulldog agreed.

How could they tell?

"Face? Cipher?"

"Clear," Cipher agreed.

"Give me a second," Face gasped, still scanning the trees.

"Come on, Face," Hannibal prodded impatiently. "You're holding us up."

"Alright, yeah. It's clear."

The rapid-fire question and answer sounded like well-rehearsed lines from a play. None of them missed a beat.

"This river runs north-south," Hannibal stated. He pointed to one of the Nungs and directed them to go on ahead at point. The order received a nod and instant obedience. "It runs west of Da Nang. But we should be able to follow it until we get as far south as we need."

Face frowned deeply. "Hannibal, you don't really expect to follow this stream for six miles."

Murdock wasn't exactly sure why following the stream was such a horrific idea - other than the fact that they would be walking through the jungle - but the look exchanged by Face and Hannibal said more than words. A whole conversation was contained in that quick glance, and Murdock wasn't privy to the contents.

"Cipher, let's go!" Hannibal called as he stepped down into the water.

Murdock looked back and saw Cipher spilling white powder along their tracks. "Right behind you!" he called, emptying the last of a small bag.

The stream was only about two feet deep, and had a rocky bottom. They walked in the water, more quietly than quickly. About a hundred yards downstream, Cipher climbed out of the water and sprinkled more white powder on the bank and a few feet into the trees. Then he returned to the creek and followed behind again, heading up the rear next to BA. Everything about their movements had suddenly changed rather dramatically from engaging the enemy to evading them. Every man on the team seemed to know this. They moved slowly now, with the utmost precision and not a single word. Terrified of making some absurdly loud noise - like slipping and splashing into the water - Murdock watched every step he made and walked no more than two feet behind Hannibal. He could feel the sweat running down the back of his neck, soaking his collar in spite of the cool water he was knee deep in.

The pained yelp of a dog from somewhere behind them made Hannibal pause and look back, but the winding curves of the stream blocked their view. More importantly, it blocked the dog's view of them. Murdock wanted to ask what the white powder was, but he didn't dare make a sound.

As they climbed back out of the water, more than an hour downstream, the careful precision continued into the jungle. Again, Murdock found himself watching every step, but his attention was equally on the trees all around him. He hadn't seen the enemy when they'd engaged before. It suddenly occurred to him to wonder if Hannibal had somehow anticipated this scenario when he'd demanded that Murdock wear camo fatigues instead of the traditional flight suit. It had seemed like an insane request at first. Now, Murdock was glad for it.

He lost track of hours. It felt like they'd walked a thousand miles when Hannibal clicked his tongue against his teeth - a sound that made the whole line stop and look at him. In the dim light of the setting sun, he pointed to a small hill on their left, overgrown with thick foliage, and made a hand gesture Murdock was not familiar with. The other men seemed to understand it perfectly. As Hannibal headed to the hill, the others swept a wide perimeter, guns ready.

"Why are we stopping?" Murdock dared to whisper as he moved up alongside Hannibal.

"Because unlike you," Hannibal whispered back, "we've been doing this for five days already. We need to sleep before we start getting sloppy."

Murdock's eyes widened. "Sleep? Here?"

"Relax, Murdock." Hannibal must have heard the fear in his voice, in spite of the fact that he was trying his damnedest to keep it suppressed. "They haven't been following us since the stream."

Trying to take comfort in the certainty of his tone, Murdock nodded slowly, took a deep and slightly trembling breath, and swallowed back the fear threatening to surface again. He could do this, he reminded himself. After all, what did he really have to lose?