Chapter 5

"So we converted it into a canon, and used the cabbages as ammunition."

Face, Murdock and Chris had just got off a bus and were walking towards the Stewart's home. Hannibal and BA had stayed behind at the warehouse to start the search and to stand guard. They had kept the car.

"A cabbage canon?" Chris was fascinated with Face and Murdock's tales of the team's past exploits.

"Then there was that slingshot thing BA made out of a cot." Face said.

"Yeah, that was good," Murdock agreed, "though of course you messed up on your end." He smirked at Face's predictable reaction.

"Messed up?" Face sounded outraged. "So it's my fault the cigarette didn't ignite the gasoline, is it?"

"You didn't get it lit properly." Murdock said.

"Oh well excuse me for being a bit nervous while standing in front of a firing squad."

"Firing squad?" Chris looked alarmed.

"Yeah, they were… hey, isn't that Jenny's car?" Murdock said as they approached the house. The small car was parked outside. They hurried on and Chris let them in.

"Jen?" Chris called out.

"In the utility," Jenny's voice answered. Face and Murdock followed Chris as he hurried through the kitchen and into the small utility room. Jenny was busily taking clothes out of the dryer.

"Why are you back?" Chris asked, "Where are the kids?"

"The kids are with your mum and dad," she answered, calmly. "I wanted to come back and help out."

"Jenny…" Chris glanced at Face and Murdock. "Can we, um, go into the kitchen and talk?" The two of them went out. Murdock pulled himself up to sit on the washing machine. He was grinning.

"I knew she'd be back," he said.

"You mean you hoped she'd be back." Face sat on the dryer. Since the only exit from the room was into the kitchen they were effectively trapped in here for now.

"No, I knew." Murdock argued. "She can be feisty. Remember that time that dumb-ass major called the kids she was looking after 'gooks'?"

Face grinned too. "Oh yeah. She took lumps outta him."

They were quiet for a moment. Face glanced sidelong at Murdock, who was watching the closed kitchen door.

"Murdock, just between you and me, no joking around. How serious were you about her?"

Murdock turned to look at him, his face going solemn.

"I haven't been pining away for her for the last fifteen years, if that's what you mean," he said. He paused, looking thoughtful then went on. "Look, she was a nice girl I knew for a few weeks a long time ago. I liked her a lot at the time, I wanted it to go further but she just wanted to be friends. Then she left. End of story." He gave a small shrug.

"End of story, but here we are all these years later, helping her out."

"That's not because of how I felt about her." Murdock answered. "No, I mean that!" He protested as Face gave him a dubious look. "I just thought, well, she was a volunteer, wasn't she? She went to a war zone to help kids. And she's a nurse, her whole life is about helping people." He turned away from Face's gaze. "So now it's her turn to need help she deserves to have some, that’s all." He shrugged again. "That’s the reason."

"Sounds fair to me, Murdock," Face said, sincerely. They sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Ever think about what might have been?" Face asked eventually. "I don’t mean with Jenny, not specifically. Just generally. You know, if our lives had been different, if we'd had a chance for some kind of normality?"

"Yeah," Murdock said quietly, looking at Face. "Yeah, I think about that."

Face looked at his watch, said, "Want to check those shotguns?"

"Hmm?"

"The guns. Since we're stuck in here, might as well do something useful." He got down off the machine and opened one of the bags. Murdock followed him and they soon had the guns laid out on a table. There were cleaning kits in the bags and they got to work making sure the guns were ready for use.

After a few minutes the door opened and Jenny came in. "Sorry we left you stuck in here, I didn’t think." She looked at the shotguns with interest. "Nice."

"You know shotguns?" Face said surprised.

"My dad kept a few." She didn’t seem bothered or nervous about the guns; Face supposed she'd seen plenty, scarier ones than these, in Vietnam.

He hefted the one he'd adopted. When Hannibal and Chris had turned up with the shotguns and shown them to the others Face had said, "Can I have the Winchester?" But one look at the way Hannibal had picked it up and hung on to it had given him his answer. "Or no, that Remington, that's nice, I'll have that instead." The gun felt reassuringly heavy in his hands. Face did like a big gun.

Jenny turned to the washing machine and started pulling clothes out of it into a basket.

"Are you sure it's a good idea for you to be here, Jenny?" Murdock asked. "It probably was best for you to get out of town for a while."

"I'll be fine," she smiled reassuringly. "You know I've been in dangerous places before. I know when to keep my head down and follow orders."

"Never follow mine." Chris grumbled from the doorway where he had quietly appeared.

"I'm your wife." She grinned. "I outrank you."

"She's got you there." Face said, with a wry smile.

"Come on, let's have some dinner," Jenny said.

"Come on, BA, dinner." Hannibal called as he came back into the warehouse. BA carefully marked where he was up to in his search and found Hannibal in the small staff break room beside the offices. Hannibal was unwrapping parcels of fish and chips. The smell of hot vinegar wafted from them. They kept with what they were assured was British tradition and ate the food with their hands out of the paper. Since this also meant no washing up they both liked the tradition. They drank big mugs of tea with their meal and afterwards sat for a while in contented silence, Hannibal smoking a cigar.

"That was good." BA commented eventually. He wondered if there were any authentic fish and chip shops in LA and if not whether he could get someone to open one.

"Find anything interesting while I was out?" Hannibal asked.

"Nah, just more pipes and drain covers under the floor." He finished off his second mug of tea. "You got any ideas on what we might be looking for?"

"Something metal, or in a metal box." Hannibal said, with a shrug. He didn't speculate further.

BA did speculate just a little. "Think it could be a body?"

"I hope not." Hannibal replied. "Okay, I'm going on patrol. You get on with searching, but keep your walkie-talkie handy."

Hannibal yawned and stretched. Getting a little old for these all-nighters, Colonel, he thought to himself. The sun was up now; the night had passed without incident, from inside or outside the warehouse.

He was wondering where he could rustle up some breakfast when he heard the sound of a car approaching. Quickly he went to the front of the building and was surprised to see Face, Murdock, Chris and Jenny getting out of her car.

"What…?" He began.

"Don't start." Jenny said. "I'm back. I'm staying." She handed him a Styrofoam box. "Have a bacon sandwich." She walked past him towards the warehouse. Hannibal looked at the men, who just shrugged. Hannibal shrugged too and ate his breakfast.

"So have you found anything?" Chris asked as they all went inside. BA was getting outside of the bacon sandwich Jenny had handed him.

"Pipes and drain covers mostly." Hannibal said. "We're marking them on these floor plans. We used your photocopier."

"Used it how?" Chris asked, intrigued. "Did you turn it into some kind of weapon that fires reams of paper at the bad guys? Or dazzles them with its flash?"

"Er, no." Hannibal said. "We made some copies. Of the floor plans." Face and Murdock were grinning. Hannibal suspected they'd been telling a few very tall tales.

Chris looked quite disappointed. "Oh, right, yeah, that's fine."

Hannibal and BA stuck around until lunchtime, continuing searching, then they left to go back to the hotel for some rest, leaving Face and Murdock to continue the search and stand guard overnight.

Around three in the afternoon Murdock decided to have a break. He'd spent the last two hours squeezing through vents and crawlspaces and both his clothes and his temper were now absolutely filthy. He'd found nothing except the occasional dead rodent and a lot of dust. Rather a lot of that dust was now up his nose and in his throat and hair.

Grumbling he headed for the staff break room, desperate for a drink.

"Oh hi, Murdock, kettle's on." Face said. He was sitting with the two women from the office, drinking tea.

"Am I the only one doing any work around here?" Murdock snapped, testily. The sight of Face's immaculately clean clothes irritated him beyond all reason. The two office workers stared at him and he self-consciously tried to rub some of the dirt off his face.

"We'd better get back to work," one of them said.

"Oh, do you have to?" Face said, sounding disappointed.

"Sorry, Templeton," the youngest one said, smiling at him shyly. Face rose as they stood.

"Okay, we'll talk tomorrow, you two are definitely going to show me the nightlife around here before I go home, right?" He turned the Smile on full beam and they both blushed and assured him they couldn't wait. They hurried off back to the office.

"Having fun?" Murdock growled. Face looked at him surprised. Murdock was standing by the sink drinking a glass of water.

"Just chatting," Face said. "Nice girls." He went over to the kettle and made two mugs of instant coffee, handed one to Murdock. "And Hannibal said to question them about any unusual activity they might have seen."

"Like you doing some work?" Murdock asked. "That would be pretty unusual activity." He looked at the mug Face had handed him. It was emblazoned with the words 'You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.' "And I suppose you think this is funny?" He asked indicating the mug.

"What?" Face hadn't even noticed the words. "What's your problem, Murdock?"

"Problem? You spending all afternoon flirting while I'm doing all the work? What makes you think that would be a problem?"

"Okay, I'm not even going to talk to you while you're in this mood." Face picked up the metal detector that was leaning against the wall. "I'll be working on the south east quarter." He left.

Murdock sat down with his coffee. He glowered at a newspaper for a while, and then opened it.

"Wow. We don’t get this back home." He said out loud at the sight of the semi naked young woman on the third page.

After the office workers and the warehouse staff went home Face, Murdock Chris and Jenny continued the search, then about eight o'clock Chris went off to get them some food. They all ate, and then Chris and Jenny went home, leaving Face and Murdock to guard the place overnight.

"I'll patrol first," Face said, as it got dark. "Check your walkie-talkie frequency." They tested the radios. "Okay, we'll swap over about two." Murdock was still in a snappy mood and Face didn't want him to feel he was being made to do all the work while Face stood guard.

"Okay," Murdock said a little shortly.

Face sighed and went outside with the Remington, his pockets loaded with cartridges. Probably jet lag catching up with Murdock he thought, either that or being around Jenny is unsettling him more than he'll admit. Possibly his feelings were stronger than he'd admitted back there in the utility room. Though he'd seemed sincere. Face shrugged a little. He started his sweep.

Murdock quite liked using the metal detector. Better than crawling around inside the walls anyway. He guessed the search was going to end up being a process of elimination as he followed a concealed pipe along the floor and marked it on the plans. He glanced at his watch, it was nearly one o'clock. Another hour then he took over patrolling. He'd better have some coffee before that or he'd be sleepwalking. He took a sweet out of his pocket, unwrapped it and popped it in his mouth.

He almost choked on it when he heard the gunshot. A second later Face's voice came from his walkie-talkie. "Murdock! Get out here! Out back!" Another boom of a shotgun blast. Murdock was running flat out, snagging his shotgun from its position near the door. He loaded the Purdey as he ran out of the doors into the night, headed around the building to the back.

"Face, come in! Face!" No answer. "I'm on my way!" He stopped before rounding the corner to the back and took a quick glance. No sign of anyone, either Face or hostiles. He moved cautiously out of cover, his gun ready.

"Face? Face, can you hear me?" He tried the radio. He got no reply, but he could hear something. He moved closer to the sound.

"Face?"

"Face?"

His own voice echoed back at him at the same instant as he spoke. He bent down and picked up Face's walkie-talkie from the grass. Two spent shotgun cartridges were lying nearby, along with one unused one. Murdock picked it up. Face had been reloading, but not fast enough.

Murdock spun suddenly at the sound of a car, engine gunning, tyres screeching. He ran back round to the front of the building, in time to see a car disappearing into the darkness. For a second he raised his shotgun, but knew he didn't dare fire. He ran back into the building, into the office, found the hotel phone number on a scrap of paper in his pocket and dialled. He cursed silently, drumming his fingers on the desk as he waited to be put through to Hannibal and BA's room.

"Come on…come on… Hannibal? Hannibal, get out here fast, we were hit! Hannibal, they took Face!"

Chapter 6