Before BA rushed to his nearest friend, he reached back outside and pulled his oxygen tank into the safe room. He ran to kneel next to Murdock and placed the mouthpiece he had used to get through the water onto his friend's face, pushing the crazy man's chest to force him to breathe the oxygen being pumped into him. After several heartrending seconds, Murdock's eyes fluttered and he stared up groggily at BA, clearly confused at how BA had gotten to be kneeling over him.

BA didn't let him ask anything, instead rushing to the metal safe door and to Face, repeating his actions without bothering to check for a pulse. When Face didn't immediately respond, BA only continued pumping air into him, until when at last he stirred. BA gave a huge sigh of relief but left the oxygen pumping into his friend's system. By the time that Face had opened his eyes with a moan, Murdock had managed to scoot over to them, leaning against the wall next to the recovering con man.

"Thanks, BA." Murdock sounded really out of breath, which BA understood, since they had both been basically dead when he found them.

"Uhhh. . ." Face pushed the oxygen mask away from his face as he voiced his discomfort, "I feel. . . like I just. . . just got run over. . . by a tank. . ."

"What happened? Are you guys OK?" BA helped the two of them get on their feet, and Face leaned on him. Hard. After a moment of heavy breathing, the con man continued to input the safe password that he had almost completed. He had memorized the combination when they had recorded it from Amy's magical bill. BA watched as the door made a loud click, and then slowly swung open after the three of them shuffled out of its way.

BA almost expected there to be something else, a bunch of guards or a machine gun triggered by the door, but nothing happened. They stood in silence for a moment together and recovered from the last several stressful minutes, on both their parts, BA was sure.

Finally, Murdock spoke up, taking a slightly shaky step towards the large duffle bag that BA had found him by, leaning down and gingerly pulling out a small and tightly packed explosive, "Weel, comrades. . ." He gulped another breath but managed to stay in character, "eet looks as eef we haf-haf but to set a timer and then. . . we can finally leaf dees place forever." He gave an open smile and breathed as held the bomb in his hand up for them to see.

BA could only growl at his lanky friend, still waiting for his answer on what had happened but too happy that the pilot was still alive to be really angry, and so he strode over and grabbed the bomb from Murdock's hand. He turned and walked carefully into the vault, still a little unsure that there wasn't some kind of trap waiting for him.

It seemed safe enough, and was a relatively small room—a table filling most of it—piled high with counterfeit money, some of it spilling onto the floor. He knelt and carefully set the timer on the explosive before tucking it under the table. Some sort of large metal computer looking thing was also sitting under the table, and BA grabbed it and hauled it out of the small vault with him, figuring it must be the device-"The D-Machine"- that they were supposed to try and recover.

"Looks-looks like that's everything." Face gave a very obvious sigh of relief, and Murdock nodded to himself, clearly agreeing.

"Yeah-let's get out of here. Hannibal and Amy should be out by now." BA and his two friends all automatically gave one another the same look: the look that said there was no way that Hannibal and Amy had both made it out of the casino without something going wrong.

And so without needing to say any more, they all walked to the wall, and BA shoved the device out the hole he had made in the wall before hoisting himself up and out. He helped each of his still relatively breathless friends out, and Face picked up his gear for him. Making sure they had everything and also that they didn't accidentally step on one of the mines that BA had carefully flagged, they started to make their way back to the water. BA thought that it had felt like an eternity ago when he had placed the flashers, when in reality it hadn't even been an hour.

After they made it through the minefield, BA set The D-Machine down on the ground and retrieved his bag from Face, grabbing the rubber raft and wading through the hole he had made in the chain link fence to blow it up. He hadn't needed the raft on his way in, since it had been too early in the night to risk rafting to the safe room, but now that the three of them were heading back together, they would use it.

By the time the raft was filled with air, Face and Murdock had gotten The D-Machine into his water-proof bag and closed it, which they gave to BA and then followed him into the water, through the fence, and onto the raft. They would have to loop around to get back to the casino, and it would probably take them closer to 15 minutes.

"What time is it?" BA asked, and Murdock answered while Face rubbed his face,

"12:11 PM, comrade."

BA just hoped that Hannibal didn't get into too much trouble before they got there so he could smack some heads together for himself.

As they rode in their small motor-powered raft, water occasionally splashed towards them, keeping the three of them soaked and awake—as if they could fall asleep now. BA glanced to see Face looking much more thoughtful than usual, as if something was really bothering him. Murdock was sitting in the front, hands cupped around his eyes like binoculars, doing what he did best—act like a nut.

By the time that they had made it back out of the raft and onto dry ground again, it was 12:25.

"Hannibal and Amy should both be out of the Casino by now and at the garage." BA looked at his two friends With a question in his mind.

Face wrung himself out as he queried, "So, back to the casino?" And Murdock responded,

"Back to de casino." The three of them turned away from the rocky shore and didn't even bother taking care of their transportation before they were off up a steep slope and a short walk in the California night air to the van. The three of them hopped in, and Face began nervously changing his wet clothes, silent in troubled thought once again. Murdock followed suit, eyeing his nervous friend suspiciously.

It only took a minute before they were out in front of the casino again, and though all the lights were on and lively, there wasn't a person or a car in sight save for a few dormant vehicles closer to the casino in the parking lot.

"Ain't nobody here anymore-where did everybody go?" BA voiced his question as they rolled to a stop.

"That can't be a good sign…" Face complained, almost to himself, and before Murdock could say anything crazy, BA shushed them both and pulled out the radio inside their van, trying to make contact with Face's Corvette.

"Hannibal? Hannibal, are you there?" The three of them sat completely still listening for any kind of answer, immediately hearing what sounded like a scared squeak and then rustling. "Hannibal?" After what felt like an eternity had passed, a voice crackled to life from BA's hand.

"BA? I'm gonna assume that everything went as planned then?" There was a crazed smile in Hannibal's voice, and BA could feel the Jazz coming through the radio.

Face was the one who answered with a sigh of long-suffering, "If you mean we almost suffocated right outside the vault, then yes, Hannibal, everything went according to plan."

"Great! We've got a little bit of a situation here on our end, bring the van back to the garage and I'll brief you guys."

"Great?! Great?!" Face looked ready to strangle the radio, "Hannibal, what do you mean sit-" but Hannibal was gone and Face never got an answer, except from Murdock, who took pity on his expression of disbelief and placed a hand on his shoulder,

"Dees… 'situation'? We must hurry comrades, before our commander plays de game without us." Ignoring them, BA had already started driving away from the casino and back towards the scientist's garage that was a few more minutes away. Clearly not willing to sit in any more tense silence, Murdock spoke up again, "Thees casino? Is not much. Back at my Russian headquarters, there ees a much larger casino to fund our operation. Is a grand casino, de likes of which would make dis little place seem like a-"

"Shut up, ya crazy foo!" Though Murdock did not seem to care for silence, BA preffered it, and cut the crazy man off with an angry growl.

After a minute of silence, Face spoke up, "Hey, what do you guys think about this Castellano guy anyway?"

BA could hear the raised eyebrows in Murdock's answer as he responded dramatically, "Agent, you come to me as a child asking who de boogieman ees." He patted Face's arm to reassure him, and then continued, "Though he ees not dee boogieman, he ees still a formeedable foe, tovarich."

"Ah, right." Face clearly wasn't surprised by the completely unsatisfactory answer he had received, and after another moment of silence, he awkwardly prodded again, "I mean, I know he's a bad guy, he tried to suffocate us for Pete's sake, but he wouldn't-" Face stopped himself as they came to a standstill at their destination, and shook his head, following BA in exiting the van, "Nevermind."

"Comrade?" Murdock followed them both but never got an answer as they walked up to Hannibal who was waiting by the Corvette.

"Hey! Glad you made it, guys! Now listen-"

"Where's Amy?" Face interrupted their Colonel to ask the question, and when Hannibal didn't answer, he shook his head, "Hannibal, you didn't leave her-Hannibal she's not one of us! She doesn't know what she's doing!" Hannibal raised his eyebrows with a knowing look, and Face stopped talking again, angrily.

"Vito got wize somehow, he was waiting for me and Mrs. Parton, we got nabbed, but we were able to make it out thanks to Amy's distraction. Problem is, now Vito's got Amy."

"How weel we be saving dee damsel een distress, Colonel?" Murdock asked in his crazy voice, and Hannibal gave him a grin, grabbing him by the shoulder and leading them all inside and to the elevator.

"You see, Agent, we are going to give our friend Vito a little visit." BA rolled his eyes as Hannibal gave him a jazz-fully serious side glance

and led them into the scientist's garage, finishing gleefully, "Of course, we wouldn't want to go without taking a gift for him, now would we?" BA heard Face make some sort of anxious noise from behind him, but he couldn't stop himself from smiling at seeing the scientists working. Their leader gave them a Hannibal-like cackle, and walked them forward.

BA broke off from the group to run and change his own soaked clothes since he hadn't been able to, yet. He hurried so he wouldn't miss the fun, and because he–like the rest of his team–was worried about Amy.

Hope y'all are enjoying the story so far :) were getting close to the end so stay tuned!

-Queen