CHAPTER TWENTY
December 4, 1971
Morrison's office wasn't hard to find. Murdock had been there before. Down at the end of a vacant hall was a door slightly ajar. From the single voice inside, Murdock concluded before he had a chance to knock that the colonel was on the phone. He decided to wait rather than interrupt.
Standing just outside, Murdock put his back to the wall and held his hands clasped in front of him, still gripping the jacket. He glanced down at it and felt his stomach do a strange, uncomfortable flip-flop. Alan had bought this? Hesitantly, he lifted it again, studying the lines and creases of the American-made material. On the back, above the tiger, was a scrawled "DaNang 1970" in yellow-orange letters. A bomber jacket. Obviously hand painted. Wherever he'd gotten it, it must've cost him a fortune.
"Listen..."
"They're whispering..."
He lowered the jacket again, glancing down the long, empty hall. The choppy sound of Colonel Morrison's voice was the only thing he heard. Colonel Morrison... speaking in Vietnamese? Suddenly curious, but very much aware he was eavesdropping, Murdock took a step closer to the crack in the door.
"Listen... listen..."
"Chung toi co mot thoa thuan!"
"Listen..."
"[We had a deal! I have upheld my end; now you will uphold yours!]"
Murdock could feel his posture straightening, shoulders pressed back. The tone of the colonel's voice made his skin crawl. The words didn't help ease the uncomfortable feeling.
"[No, you listen to me! I contacted you as soon as I was able. If it wasn't enough time, you just tell your men to move faster!]"
He paused. Murdock felt a flicker of guilt, and a growing awareness of what would happen if he should be caught eavesdropping on this conversation. He could feign ignorance and innocence as well as anyone, but it still wouldn't be pretty.
"[I could not possibly have known that Smith would leave so quickly.]"
Murdock's head snapped up so abruptly, he almost hit it on the door behind him. Suddenly, he cared very little about the consequences of being caught listening in on the private conversation. "[Listen, Cuyet,]" the angry tone was kept almost too low for Murdock to hear through the open door, "[you get your men out there to that bank, you take care of Smith's team, and you bring me my share of the money. I do not care how you do it. But if he comes back, how the hell am I supposed to explain those orders?]"
There was a tight feeling in Murdock's chest, gripping harder and harder with each passing second. He peeked around the corner of the door, staring in at the man in the desk chair who was gripping the phone so tightly, his hand shook. "[I gave you exactly what you asked for. I handed them to you on a silver platter! Ten million piastres is not much to ask - especially when you'll be collecting thirty. And for God's sake, don't let him get away!]"
He slammed the phone back into the cradle without another word.
The jacket had slipped out of Murdock's hand, and he let it fall as he pushed the door open a little and stepped inside. A middle-aged man with a full head of grey hair and fire in his eyes looked up and immediately locked stares with him. A look of surprise came instantly over his face.
"Who are you?" he demanded, startled.
Murdock knew his jaw was hanging open in shock at what he'd just heard. He was still processing the words very slowly. At the same time, he realized his hand was moving to the pistol on his belt. "I'm the pilot for the team you just sent to rob the Bank of Hanoi," he answered. His own voice sounded like it was echoing down a long, dark tunnel.
The look of surprise on Morrison's face was not without precedence. What One-Zero shared the details of their ground mission with the pilot? By all rights, Murdock should know nothing more than that they were dropped off in North Vietnam. The surprise mingled with a flicker of fear as the colonel saw where Murdock's hand was headed.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
As Morrison reached under his desk, Murdock's movement sped up. In an instant, he had the pistol aimed directly at the older man's forehead. "Don't even think about it," he warned.
Morrison froze, and slowly raised his hands in surrender. "Put the gun down, son," he ordered tensely.
"Listen..."
"He's a traitor... Treasonous bastard..."
"He sent them to die..."
"Deal with the devil..."
"You sent your own men," Murdock growled, wading through the voices that were echoing in his mind. "You deliberately sent your own men into an ambush?"
"No, it's not like that," Morrison protested, laughing anxiously.
Murdock's grip tightened on the pistol as he breathed slow and measured, staring the traitor in the eye. "What was the deal?"
"What deal?" Morrison asked, feigning ignorance. But he wasn't a very good liar.
Holding the gun straight out in front of him, Murdock cocked it back with his thumb, the barrel pointed right at the man's head. "What was the deal!" He was only vaguely aware of the way his voice echoed off of the walls.
The silence settled over the room like a heavy blanket, smothering Murdock's efforts to breathe. Finally accepting what Murdock already knew, Morrison set his palms on the table. "What are you going to do?" he asked in a tone dead set between fear and challenge. "It's not like you can just shoot me and walk out of here."
"Tell me," Murdock growled angrily, taking a step closer, "or I will blow your fucking head off here and now."
April 20, 1985
Hannibal and Face wouldn't have a chance to come to Murdock's aid before the bullet in Corrolini's gun found its mark. Confronted with his lie, the unfortunate oversight of Corrolini knowing what his mercenary looked like, Murdock's brain ran a mile a minute in a desperate attempt to find a plan B.
"You have three seconds," Corrolini said simply, supporting his elbow on the desk as he took aim directly between Murdock's eyes. "One."
He could run; he wouldn't get far. He could try to overpower him; he'd be dead as soon as he took a step. No distractions were readily available and the long silence precluded any possibility of salvaging his cover. The indignation at being unjustly called a liar would've spewed forth long ago if it had been true.
"Two."
The gun cocked. Murdock felt the sweat drip down the back of his neck. The voices in his head screamed at him in incoherent madness, drunk on nightmares and the memory of pain and loss and the pitch blackness of fear. He could die, or he could live. Those were the only two options he had.
His resolve to live was so powerful, it was almost tangible. Straightening his hunched posture and letting the facetious accent drop, he looked Corrolini directly in the eye.
"Alan Parker is my brother," he said icily, letting the slight accent and the facade of insanity drop suddenly.
He had the man's attention. With a slightly amused look, Corrolini tipped his head and waited for more.
"You want him dead," Murdock continued, void of emotion. "I want him dead. But killing him myself poses some... difficulties."
"I won't pretend to be interested in your sibling rivalry," Corrolini replied, his tone suggesting he was not entirely convinced of the truth. "What interests me is how you managed to intercept my communication with Joseph Linus."
"I didn't," Murdock answered coolly. "Joseph Linus and I served together in 'Nam. He knew how I felt about Alan then and he knows how I feel about him now." He tossed the envelope full of cash back onto the desk. "I told him he could have the money - that is, as long as you held up your end. All I wanted was the satisfaction of marching that son of a bitch in through the front door and handing him over."
Corrolini studied him long and hard. But there was far more honesty than lie in Murdock's carefully chosen words. After a long, scrutinizing silence, Corrolini lowered the gun and sat back slightly, but didn't let it go. "Why the elaborate ruse?" he demanded. "You might have gotten away with it if not for the crazy act."
A wicked smile crept over Murdock's face as he felt the darkness inside of him wrap its claws around his being. "What makes you think it was an act?" he intimated.
Sitting a bit straighter again, Corrolini nevertheless kept the gun at rest as Murdock took a half step forward.
"I said I was his brother," Murdock growled. "I said I wanted to kill him and believe me, I've thought of all kinds of intriguing ways to do it. I never said I was sane."
Corrolini shook his head with a shrug. "I don't care," he dismissed. "What I want to -"
Murdock was fast, and the man wasn't expecting him to vault over the desk, pinning the gun with his knee. The brief struggle ended when Corrolini was unwilling to let go of it, and Murdock crossed an arm over his throat to silence any cries for help. There were almost certainly guards on the other side of the door, and the problem posed by their station - how was he going to get out of here now that his cover was blown? - briefly flitted across his mind.
"What makes you think I could ever even pretend to be sane?" Murdock growled, letting the seconds tick by as he indulged in some hardcore honesty. It was therapeutic, and there would never be a better time or audience. "See, he survived a POW camp, just like me. The black, the starvation, the beatings... oh, but that was only a small part of it. Your mind gets stretched on the rack, the joints start to separate, the blood vessels start to burst and you scream but nobody can hear you. And then, you snap. Then it's not hell anymore, it's just... empty. No more voices in your head, just voices you can't make out, can't tell if they're real or make believe. Then you realize you never knew what hell was."
Corrolini choked, gagging on his attempt to breathe. Murdock eased off the pressure on his throat a little, but not before he wrenched the pistol out of his fingers and spun it around, barrel to the man's forehead.
"I want to kill you," he snarled. A flicker of genuine fear crossed Corrolini's eyes. "Not because you deserve it although, let's be honest, you really do. But no. I want to kill you just because you're not going to kill Alan Parker. And because even if you did, you wouldn't know how to do it right."
Still gasping for air, Corrolini stammered out a choked, "What do you mean?"
"You should've shot him in the head when you had a chance," Murdock declared. "Come to think of it, you should've shot me, too. You shouldn't have let him leave this room. But since you didn't have that kind of foresight, now it's just you with your failure, me with my unresolved anger -" He pulled Corrolini's tie from around his neck, wadded it up, and shoved it in his mouth before reaching behind him. Without looking back, he set the gun on the desk, exchanging it for a sharp, silver letter opener. "- and this very sharp blade."
The fear in the man's eyes was a bit more than a flicker this time as the sharp edge caught the light from the desk lamp.
December 4, 1971
Murdock felt nothing. Separated from his body by a haze of distant confusion, he stared at the scene unfolding before him without comprehending. He didn't hear the words that were spoken, as if they were in another language, and spoken to someone else very far away. Someone else was holding a gun aimed at his commanding officer, whispering something about hell and agony. As the colonel's hand darted under the desk again, someone else pulled the trigger of the Smith & Wesson .38, then stood still, staring at a lifeless body, blood pouring from two holes in his forehead.
A moment later, someone else was running down the hallway, then turning back to pick up something - he wasn't sure what - from off the floor just outside the colonel's door. Someone else felt the floor shake and the walls rattle, and felt the burning heat of an explosion as he sprinted outside. Finding cooler air, it was someone else who pulled a resting pilot out of a chopper by his shirt. Someone else closed the door and cranked without even looking to see if he had fuel, then lifted and headed north in the unfamiliar chopper without even radioing for clearance or radar contact.
In seconds, the base was only a hazy memory.
Chopper blades and rattling guns echoed in his ears. He had no gunner, no crew, but he could hear laughter from the cargo bay. He was lost, but the map seemed to glow. "Follow the yellow brick road," Alan sang, sitting comfortably in the copilot's seat. "Follow the yellow brick road."
"You shouldn't be there," Murdock answered. It took him a minute to remember why. "You don't know how to fly a helicopter."
"I could learn," Alan answered with a casual shrug.
Green carpet stretched out below - a million jungle trees in a never-ending expanse of enemy territory. "How many klicks from Hanoi are we?" Alan asked.
"What?" Murdock stared at him, confused. "Hanoi is in the North. That's nowhere near here."
Alan smiled. "I know. Funny how that happens. Somebody must have moved it."
This was a bad dream. He had to be dreaming. He frowned at the controls and realized he wanted to wake up.
"You know," Alan started contemplatively. "There's supposed to be one thing you can't do in a dream."
Increasingly desperate to find his way back to a safe, comfortable bed he hadn't visited in years, Murdock was ready to try anything. "What's that?"
"Die," Alan replied.
Murdock stared out the cockpit at the trees passing below with some apprehension. "So, if I crash... I'll wake up?"
"First, you have to go to Hanoi," Alan chided. "Otherwise they'll die too."
The brief memory of his team added to the hazy confusion, and he shook his head. "I thought people couldn't die in a dream."
"You can't," Alan corrected. "But they can."
Murdock frowned. "I don't know the way to Hanoi."
"Let me fly, then," Alan offered enthusiastically. "I know the way."
Breathing a sigh of relief, Murdock closed his eyes and relaxed. It was all going to be fine. Alan knew the way.
Gunshots startled him awake - Ping! Ping! - and voices on the radio made him realize he'd woken up into another circle of hell rather than that nice soft bed. Voices in the cargo area of the chopper made him want to look back, but for the first time since training, he was having a hard time keeping her level.
"Go, Murdock! Go!"
Hannibal? Murdock couldn't be sure, but it sounded like him.
"Can I wake up now?" he yelled back. "You guys won't die on me, right?"
Finally, he turned to glance back. He found the cargo bay was empty. Even Alan had abandoned the copilot's chair. Facing forward again, he heard incoherent sounds of victory from his invisible passengers.
His hands were on the controls, but he couldn't feel them as he eyed the green canvas below longingly. The confusion was a nightmare - everything happening so fast, the timeline so disjointed. The voices were screaming... Screaming...
Then the chopper was empty. Had he landed? Had they jumped out? Had they ever been here? Where was his team? He looked around at the fires of hell, blazing in the jungle below him and all around him. Screaming soldiers and secondary explosions. He didn't like this scene. The rotors were still turning. He was still flying. Fly away, to another section of Never Never Land. So many sections to explore. So little time.
Voices on the intercom, voices in his head, voices in the back of the chopper from long-dead ghosts. As he looked back, he could see them - bloody, mangled bodies oozing with the scent of death. Dead eyes staring at him. Colonel Morrison... "Murderer. You're a murderer."
Murdock faced forward again, turning his back on the horror of the scene behind him. He was ready to wake up now, a child safe in his own bed with his favorite blue blanket. Safe in his own home...
Murderer!
Only vaguely aware that he'd lost control of the chopper, the pain of hitting his helmet-less head against the Plexiglas window came as a shock. The sound of his own scream was the last thing he heard as the darkness engulfed him.
December 10, 1971
"Where the hell would he have gone?" Face asked as he followed a step behind Hannibal.
The fires had all gone out at the camp in Da Nang long ago. The bodies had all been pulled from the wreckage - both the dead and the dying. The shelling had nearly leveled the GHQ; it had smoldered for days. Now, it was old news.
When Murdock hadn't showed up at the LZ, they'd started walking. It had taken almost a week to make it through to the DMZ, with only their survival training, a few meager supplies, and whatever they could confiscate along the way. And a limited supply of ammo.
"I don't know," Hannibal said quickly. "But he's not here. And I just talked to ground control. They don't know anything. There's a chopper that's been missing since the shelling. It's not his, but he might have taken it."
"What do you mean 'missing'?" Face asked. "That doesn't even make any sense."
It made even less sense that Murdock would fly anything but his own bird if he had the choice. Hannibal locked eyes on a man in a flight suit, staring at the sky with a slightly glazed look. "Hey!" Hannibal yelled, walking right up to him.
The man jumped to attention. "Sir?"
Hannibal eyed the wings pinned to his chest, then pointed to the chopper he was standing beside. "Can you fly that?"
Startled, the man stared for a moment. "I... yes. I just..."
"Colonel Smith," Hannibal introduced impatiently, shaking the man's hand. He used his other hand to throw his gear into the back of the chopper. "Get in and get your clearance."
The man stared at him, stunned. The two beside him - presumably the engineer and the gunner since they didn't have the telltale pilot's wings - exchanged glances and jumped up into the back of the Huey as the pilot called to another man. In seconds, he'd recruited a right-side co-pilot, and they began pre-flight check.
"Why wouldn't he get clearance?" Face asked again, setting his gear aside.
"Maybe it had something to do with the shelling," Hannibal suggested. "If I had to guess."
Face glanced around, feeling like he was missing something. "Where's BA?"
"Shit..." Hannibal growled. "He's looking for Colonel Morrison. Go find him, will you?"
Face vaulted out of the back of the chopper and Hannibal grabbed the headset off of the wall. "Where are we going, sir?" the AC called back.
"We're looking for a downed Huey," he called. "Somewhere between here and Nha Trang."
It made no sense, but Hannibal had learned long ago to trust that gut feeling. And right now, his gut was telling him Murdock had headed for Nha Trang - the one place in the world that he shouldn't have wanted to go.
*X*X*X*
There had been a battle here. Huge craters from artillery shells dotted the ground below - each twenty yards wide and at least ten feet deep. Some were much deeper, depending on what they'd hit. The torrential rains from the past week had filled the bottoms of the craters, soaking the sand with more water than it could absorb. It didn't help that they were so close to a flooding river, and a high water table. There were tiny little lakes at the bottom of each hole. In the middle of the devastated landscape, on its side in a mess of mangled trees, was a helicopter. It was a vision from hell, an alien landscape, strange and foreign and reeking of death and destruction.
The unfamiliar pilot had set them down a few hundred yards away in an LZ that had been hacked out of the underbrush some time ago. "What, uh...?" Without any orders except from the colonel who was jumping out of the back of the landed Huey, he wasn't entirely sure where to go now. "What do you want me to do?"
"Just stay here!" Hannibal yelled back over the deafening sound of the rotors. "If you have any trouble, get off the ground, stay close by. We'll be in contact!"
He didn't give the pilot a chance to protest. M-16 in hand, he followed a few steps behind Face and BA as they took off toward the downed chopper. By the time he reached the mangled remains, Face was already crawling up into it. Hannibal and BA scanned the trees as he searched it, then dropped back down.
"He's not in there," Face said quickly. "No blood, no sign of him. If it's the chopper he took, he got out."
"Sweep the area," Hannibal ordered. "And make it fast. No telling how long that LZ will stay green for us."
They split into three directions, and searched at a pace none of them were used to. Caution had always taken precedence over speed. But since they'd just spent a week in North Vietnam, sprinting through the jungle in a mad dash to get back to friendly soil, it wasn't the most dangerous thing they'd done lately. Not by a long shot.
Hannibal stopped at the top of one of the craters, and looked down. Bodies floated in the bloody water, propped against the sloping sides towards the bottom. NVA uniforms. Hannibal frowned as he studied the scene. What had killed them? If it had been the shelling itself, they would be burned, broken, blown apart. They weren't. They were bloody. Some kind of dump site?
As he narrowed his eyes at the scene, he suddenly realized that amidst the rapidly decomposing heap of corpses, a set of eyes stared directly at him. Instantly, he had his weapon pointed and ready. He didn't shoot, just watched. "Anyone alive down there?"
The face around the eyes was covered in blood and mud and filth; it was impossible to tell if he was looking at a friend or foe. It was impossible to tell for certain if he was even alive. Corpses with their eyes open always seemed to stare blankly at survivors. It could just be a coincidence that he was standing in the line of sight.
The eyes blinked.
Hannibal whistled sharply, three times. Within seconds, Face skidded to a stop beside him. BA was not far behind. "One of those bodies is alive." Hannibal shrugged his M-16 off of his shoulder and set it on the ground at his feet.
Face stared. "Are you fucking kidding?" He stared down into the deep crater. "Hey! We're Americans! Either answer or start shooting!"
"You keep that up, Face," Hannibal said quickly, unfastening his pack, "and they probably will. From the trees." He pointed back over Face's shoulder, reminding him that they were in enemy territory. If a battle had taken place here recently, the area was probably still swarming with enemy soldiers. He was surprised they hadn't been shot at yet. It was as if even the killers in the trees feared the thing in the dump.
"You ain't really goin' down in there," BA pleaded, his voice filled with worry and disbelief in equal amounts. He watched as Hannibal's pack hit the ground. "All those uniforms down there are NVA. That's probably another one of 'em."
"Or it could be Murdock."
BA's eyes widened at that. Hannibal knew that he hadn't even considered the thought. He'd been so distracted by the bloody sight, and the putrid smell, that he just assumed the carnage was left over from the battle - the same way Hannibal had when he'd first seen it.
"If it was Murdock, why wouldn't he answer?" Face asked quietly, solemnly.
Hannibal pulled a rope from his pack. It wouldn't hold two men, but it would hold one. It also wasn't long enough to tie to any of the trees and still reach all the way down into the hole. He handed it to BA, taking one end. BA shot him a worried look as he shouldered his M-16.
"Face, you keep a close eye on those trees," Hannibal ordered, slipping his gloves over his hands and pulling the pistol from his ankle holster. "I'll watch this guy."
Face turned to face the trees, wordlessly.
"You better make it quick, Hannibal," BA warned, kneeling down.
Hannibal clapped a hand over his shoulder and wrapped the rope twice around his hand before backing towards the edge of the crater. BA let him down a few feet at a time. This sort of rappelling had been both practiced and used before, and it was nothing new. As Hannibal came within a few feet of the bloody water's surface, he whistled sharply and the rope went taut, no longer lowering him.
He kept his pistol pointed directly at the eyes that were most definitely tracking him. Brown eyes. But the shape of the head didn't match the bodies that lay all around him. They were all dead - throats slit, blood drained into the pool that the lone survivor lay submerged in, peeking out only enough to breathe... and watch.
The smell nearly made Hannibal sick. He choked back the rising bile and took a breath. "Murdock," he said softly. The eyes blinked again. There was otherwise no response. "Murdock, it's Hannibal." He still couldn't be sure if the man he was speaking to was, in fact, HM Murdock. He wasn't even sure the eyes were human.
He gave another quick whistle and was lowered a few more feet, into the water. He was standing on bodies. Rotting, bloated bodies, decaying all around him. The water was deep red - a thick sludge of blood, also decomposing. He ignored it as he lowered down further, halfway up his chest before he finally touched the bottom of the crater. He let out a sigh of relief as his feet found solid ground.
Suddenly, movement. It came without warning - a figure launching at him and a knife. Instinct said to shoot. He didn't shoot. That was most definitely not a Vietnamese. Too tall. He met the attack head on, disregarding fear as he grabbed the arm that was slashing at him with the knife. He lost the gun as he grabbed the man's arm. The pistol hit the surface of the blood-water and sank before he could even think to grab for it. But his attacker had lost his grip on the knife as well, and Hannibal twisted his arm behind him as he slammed him - face first, into the dirt wall.
"Hannibal!" BA sounded almost frantic. "Hannibal, you okay?"
"Just fine, BA!" Hannibal called back, preoccupied by the amount of strength it took to keep the struggling man pinned. "Murdock, listen to me! It's okay!"
Murdock was not listening. But it was Murdock. He knew that for certain now.
Hannibal grabbed the rope, and set to the task of tying it around an unwilling subject who was thrashing violently. He kept him facing the wall; it was the only advantage he had.
"Is it him, Hannibal?" BA called down. "Is it Murdock?"
"It's him," Hannibal answered. "Pull him up, but be careful! He's violent!"
Instantly, BA pulled the rope that Hannibal had secured around Murdock's waist. Hannibal jumped back to avoid the flailing arms and legs. As he left the water, the traumatized man let out the most blood-curdling scream Hannibal had ever heard in his life. It was enough to make Face turn and look over the side of the crater.
"What in fucking hell is -" He saw Murdock before he had a chance to finish. "Jesus!"
"Face, get the morphine out of the front of my pack!" Hannibal ordered. Face disappeared again.
Hannibal stood in the bloody water, submerged up to his chest, and shut his eyes as he tried to gather his thoughts. Murdock was still screaming. As Hannibal looked around him, he counted ten bodies. There were more beneath the surface of the water, piled on top of each other. How many men had he killed down here? How many men had stumbled into it the same way he most likely had? How long had he been down here, unable to climb out, with no food, no water, surrounded by the men whose throats he'd cut?
Hannibal shut his eyes hard. Taking himself away from the sight, away from the smell, away from the thoughts of what it would be like to spend a week down here. It had been a week since he'd crashed... and he wasn't very far from the crash site. Seven days in this pit - six long, dark nights, entombed with the bodies of those he'd killed. He didn't want to think about it. He couldn't think about it.
"Hannibal!"
He looked up suddenly. Face had lowered the rope again. "Come on, Colonel, I don't know how long BA can hold him."
Hannibal was all too happy to grab the rope and climb out of the pit. As he reached the level ground, he immediately and instinctively scanned the trees. There was nothing. There would be, though. It wouldn't take long before Murdock's screaming would attract them.
"Morphine," he ordered, before he'd even hoisted himself fully out of the crater. Face had a hold of his arm, and helped him find his balance.
"It's going to take all three of us to hold him down, Hannibal," Face warned.
Murdock fought against BA's grip with fists and feet and teeth. As Hannibal approached with the syrette, he stopped screaming and put all of his energy into his struggle. "Get him on the ground," Hannibal ordered.
It was easier said than done. Finally, they pinned him facedown, and BA pulled one arm behind his back before he sat on it. Face held his feet. Hannibal used his knees to hold down his wrist, turning his arm and shoving the dripping, blood-soaked sleeve up as far as he could. Murdock howled in agony. Hannibal ignored him.
"Don't let him move his shoulder, BA."
It was inhumane. It was brutal and appalling. And it was the only thing that they could do. If they couldn't calm him down, he would get them killed. And there was no way to get through to him in his current state. Better to dope him up.
Hannibal had to find a vein. Morphine was far more immediately effective if given intravenously, and they needed him quiet now. As the only medic on the team now, it was up to Hannibal and the kit of basic supplies he carried in his pack. Each time Murdock screamed at the needle's insertion, each time Hannibal failed to see the blood flash and wiped the sweat out of his eyes before trying again, he found himself cursing Cipher for his absence. Damn him for escaping this. Damn him for not being here, even if he was injured. Damn Face for those injuries, and anyone that might've stopped him – including Hannibal himself. Damn Cipher for being the one among them who could've gotten the vein on the first stick, even in spite of Murdock's dehydration and thrashing.
It took Hannibal four tries before he finally got the cannula inserted, twisted on an IV line, and filled the tube with a syringe full of morphine - the maximum dose he could safely give. With practiced efficiency, he threw the used needle aside and taped the hell out of the line so it would neither fall nor be pulled out, then stood and picked up his pack, quickly fastening it.
"Come on," he said roughly, putting his M-16 over his shoulder again. "Bring him."
Dragging the struggling, violent man through the jungle to the LZ was no easy task. The only thing they had on their side was the apparent lack of enemy soldiers in the immediate area. The morphine didn't even seem to affect him. Hannibal had never seen anything like it. After a week in that pit, any man should've been almost dead. How did he even have the energy to fight, much less to fight three grown men? To fight BA...
The chopper was still on the ground, rotors still spinning. Hannibal could see the look of relief on the pilot's face... until he saw the blood that both Hannibal and Murdock were soaked in, and realized that they were not merely escorting Murdock; they were holding him down.
"Is that your man?" the pilot yelled as Hannibal ran ahead.
"Yeah."
Wide eyed, the pilot shook his head. "Sir, I'll only take him if you tie him down! If he gets into the cockpit, he could kill us all."
Hannibal nodded his understanding, and slid the seven-foot aluminum pole out of the canvas seat in the cargo area of the Huey. Before they loaded their passenger into the Huey, they tied him to it. It didn't escape Hannibal's notice, as they lifted off the ground, that the crew's gunner had an M-16 pointed straight at Murdock as he lay on the floor of the chopper, still thrashing. He screamed and cursed and cried nonsensical threats in every language known to him, loud enough to be understood clearly even over the sounds of the Huey.
"Hannibal, are you okay?"
Startled by the question, he turned and looked up at Face, who had a hand on his shoulder. "I'm fine, Lieutenant."
As Face withdrew and knelt on the floor next to Murdock, Hannibal watched. Suddenly, he was not fine. He'd been submerged in blood, and could still smell the decay and bodily fluids that completely saturated his clothing. Shaking with adrenaline, coherent thought impaired by sleep deprivation, he was led by instinct alone. The instinct to survive had faded; he was safe. Now came the instinct to react to the sights and smells and perception of the situation. Finally - and too suddenly - he was sick.
He turned away from the bloody, broken shell of a man who was still screaming and thrashing in spite of Face's best efforts to calm him. Leaning as far forward as he could, Hannibal put his head between his knees and heaved. He knew then that he would never escape the memory of that pit, even in the brief time that he'd been in it. The bloated bodies, throats all cut. The smell that still saturated him, choking him. He clutched his stomach as it twisted painfully. The screams of his own man - not dead, but not alive - were echoing in his ears as he shook violently.
He felt a hand on his back - BA, if he had to guess - but ignored him.
"I assume you want me to take you to Nha Trang," the AC called over the intercom.
Hannibal didn't answer. His stomach emptied, and still dripping blood and bodily fluids from his drenched fatigues, he sat up a little and hugged himself. Surrounded by the smell of death and Murdock's agonized screams, and finally reaching the end of his endurance in a way he had never done in his life, Hannibal covered his eyes with his blood-soaked hands, leaned forward, and wept for the first time in years.
April 20, 1985
Murdock stepped out through the front door of the mansion with his hands buried deep in his pockets. He didn't hesitate, didn't look back as Face pulled the car forward, meeting him at the bottom of the steps. Wordlessly, he slipped into the passenger seat and slammed the door behind him. Face knew instantly something was very wrong. He could see it and smell it and feel it radiating from Murdock more clearly than if he'd been carrying a neon sign. But neither of them said a word as Face pulled away, focusing on staying in character.
"Alan and Tia are in the trunk," he finally offered, in the hope of breaching the subject of what part of the plan hadn't gone so well. Best to discuss it now since it was likely to come back and hit them squarely in the jaw.
Murdock didn't acknowledge the success. With an uneasy sigh, Face tried again.
"Now we just have to get through these gates." Twisting his palms around the steering wheel, Face put his tension into his grip and kept it out of his tone. "Shouldn't be a problem unless they check the trunk."
Still, Murdock said nothing.
The first gate was easy - a smile and a wave from Face, a threatening look from Murdock that seemed a little too real, and they were on their merry way. But as they approached the second one, Face knew their luck had run out when the guard came out to flag them down, rifle in hand.
"Don't stop," Murdock warned, his tone as dark and dangerous as Face had ever heard it. Blinking in surprise at the shift from acting to a very real psychosis, Face looked back and forth between his passenger and the tightly closed iron gate.
"This car won't make it through those gates," Face said, shifting nervously as he slowed his approach. No way the sedan could plow through those bars even if there weren't armed men standing in front of them. He was going to have to stop.
"If you stop, we die," Murdock rehearsed, like prefabricated lines from someone else's story, completely void of emotion.
Face glanced at him, taking his foot off the gas to let the car slow before they came close enough for that threat to be carried out. Grabbing the handheld radio from between the two seats, he kept his eyes on the heavily armed guards as he opened the mic. "BA? You there?" Then he took his finger off the trigger and prayed.
"Yeah, I'm here."
Face let out a sigh of relief. "Where did you say those charges were planted?"
"At the second gate. Why?"
A much deeper sigh of relief was followed by a natural and relaxed smile as Face saw the way out illuminated like a bright red exit sign. "Would you mind blowing those for me?"
Face put the car in reverse and backed up a few yards. Startled, the guards all leveled their weapons at his car. But they never had a chance to fire.
The damage done by a few well-placed claymore mines was impressive. As the gate blew off its hinges and landed a good five feet away, crashing against a tree, the guards all hit the dirt and Face hit the gas. By the time the smoke cleared, they were halfway to the next gate.
"Don't suppose I could get you to convince the guard at gate three to open up, could you?" Face asked into the radio.
"Yeah."
Face set the radio on the seat and slowed a little, giving BA time to accomplish his assignment. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Face gave Murdock a hard look and asked the question that was eating him.
"What happened in there?"
Murdock's jaw twitched, but his eyes remained forward, hands shoved awkwardly into his pockets. He had to scrunch up against the door to find a place for his elbows, but whatever he was hiding, it was completely concealed. Or maybe it was just part of the leftover crazy from his act. Uneasy, but not sure whether or not he actually had a reason to be, Face tried to focus on the dirt driveway in front of him.
Before the third gate was even in sight, Face heard the rattle of gunfire from an M-16. Gate three was wide open when they passed, and the van - with BA and his assault rifle staring out the driver's seat - peeled out ahead of them. Gas pedals to the floor, Face and BA drove evenly spaced, putting as much distance between themselves and Corrolini as possible.