"Well, I'll ask him, but I can't promise anything. Okay, thanks for your help, Amy."
Face wandered back through to the living room, where Hannibal and Murdock were waiting, flicking through the notes he had made during his phone call. Mike also came in with a tray of coffee cups, Face held the door open for him.
"Hannibal, Amy wants to come up here, she's dying to get her teeth into this story." Face said.
"Maybe in a couple of days," Hannibal said.
"The Press, Hannibal,
is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it. " Murdock
said.
"Very good point, Holmes." Hannibal said. He turned back to Face. "Did she find out anything useful on Alan Chen?"
"Yeah, he's not practicing as a dentist anywhere in California. She's got a check going on the whole country, but that could take a while. The guy's parents are both deceased and no siblings, so there's no relatives to wonder where he's gone. Oh, thanks, Mike," he said, taking a cup of coffee that Mike had just handed him. "He didn't register a change of address with anybody a year ago. Amy's checking to see if she can get information on his bank account, and credit card, see if he's used them in the last year."
"He won’t have." Hannibal said. He sounded very certain. They were all quiet and thoughtful for a few moments.
"Do we let the Heinemann's know that we know?" Face asked.
"I think we do, yeah," Hannibal said. "I think it'll push them into making a move, doing something stupid. And then we nail them."
"Hannibal," BA's voice came over Hannibal's walkie-talkie. "They comin' again."
"Speaking of doing something stupid," Hannibal said. He grinned. "Face go up and relieve BA, I'd like him downstairs."
"Hannibal, are you implying I don't look intimidating enough for a confrontation?" Face asked.
"No, I want my best marksman up there, that's all." Face looked happier and left. "Mike, you and the kid stay inside," Hannibal said. He went out front with Murdock. BA joined them a moment later. Looking up Hannibal saw Face at the window, his rifle ready.
It was a little after six o'clock in the evening and the work crew were getting into their van to leave. Mr Greene the carpenter was with them, having been promised a lift back into town. Jed's shiny truck pulled up and Jed, Zeke and Aaron got out of the front, two of their friends got out of the back. Only two henchmen, Hannibal noticed, wondered if the rest were too scared to come back up here. Jed saw Greene getting in the worker's van.
"What are you doing here?" He demanded.
"They made me, Mr Heinemann," Greene protested. "I didn't have a choice."
"I'll settle with you later." Jed told him.
"No you won't." Hannibal said. "Mr Greene is now under my protection. He gets as much as a splinter in his finger, you're gonna get your ass kicked, Jed."
"Colonel," Murdock said. "Since Mr Greene's occupation is carpentry I deduce that splinters are probably inevitable."
"Then I guess an ass kicking is probably inevitable, isn't it?" Hannibal replied. Jed glared at him, then at the workers.
"You boys don't wanna be working for this man." Jed said, nodding past Hannibal.
Hannibal glanced over his shoulder, the door was open behind him and Mike was standing there, David behind him.
"Close the door." Hannibal said quietly to them. He nodded at BA who moved to stand in front of the door.
"Who's this jerk?" One of the workers asked.
"Hey, real fancy truck, mister." Another one said. "My sister has one that colour." The rest of the workers sniggered. Jed looked a little flummoxed.
"What's wrong, Jed? Not used to people talking to you that way?" Hannibal asked. "Better get used to it. Oh and these guys are from out of town, so they could care less about your big fish small pond crap. Fellas, you can get Mr Greene home okay? Great, see you in the morning."
"You need us to stick around?" One of them asked, looking at Jed and his group.
"Thanks, but we can handle these girl scouts," Hannibal said. The workers got into their van and drove off. "Now, what can we do for you, Jed?" Hannibal asked. "Can we offer you some coffee?" BA giggled, which made Murdock look a little puzzled.
"I know who you are," Jed said, smirking. He was as smug as if he was playing the ace of spades. "You're the A-Team. You're wanted. Now I'm willing to forget to call the military police so long as you take off and never come back."
"Yeah, sure, Jed." Hannibal said in a mocking tone. "You're going to call the MPs. You're going to bring outside law enforcement into this town. Am I supposed to believe that? Am I supposed to believe that you don't mind me telling them to do a little digging into your affairs?" He was watching them very closely, especially when he said the word 'digging' and was sure he saw all three brothers twitch. Zeke and Aaron looked at each other nervously.
"Let's get out of here," Zeke said, quietly.
"I mean it, Smith." Jed said. "You've got till midnight, to leave. Then I call the MP's."
"You need a dime?" Hannibal asked, flicking one from his pocket to Jed, who tried to catch it on instinct and fumbled it. The coin fell to the ground. "Heads," Hannibal called as it fell. Jed looked down at it. It was heads. He snarled, turned away towards the truck.
"Er, Jed." Hannibal said. "I didn't say you could leave yet." Jed turned back to him. "Now I told you this morning," Hannibal went on, "that I was a high stakes player. I advised you to fold, but instead you come back up here, making threats. That was your bid. Now it's mine." Hannibal grinned, savouring the moment. He'd been waiting for this. "So I'll see your threats and I'll raise you one shiny truck. Face!"
Face put a bullet into the pick up's gas tank with pinpoint accuracy. The gas tank exploded, engulfing the truck in a huge ball of flame and throwing it several feet into the air
"Oh shit!" Face threw himself to the floor, arms over his head as the window above him shattered. Everyone outside was knocked off his feet by the blast. Several windows smashed.
Hannibal sat up, unhurt, a hand up to shield his eyes from the light of the flames.
"I think getting his nails done improved his aim," he said to himself. He looked around to see BA and Murdock getting back to their feet. Jed and his brothers and their two friends seemed uninjured too, though very shaken. Jed staggered up and stared in horror at the burning remains of his truck. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sound came out. He was literally speechless.
"Yeah, I know," Hannibal said. "'You're dead, Smith.'" He growled, in a mocking imitation of Jed's voice. "Now get out of here. Oh and if you even think about sending the sheriff up here I'll knock your teeth out. And it's so inconvenient getting an appointment with a dentist isn't it?" His eyes were bright and malicious. He watched their reactions again, this time to the word 'dentist'. Twitch city.
The two friends had already recovered their wits, turned tail and run. Jed was dragged away by his brothers, still trying to form words.
"Er, could anyone use one of these?" Face came out of the door, carrying two fire extinguishers. BA grabbed one off him and went to tackle the blaze. Hannibal turned as Mike and David came outside. David looked at Hannibal. He appeared considerably more impressed than he had at their first meeting.
"That was awesome." He said, with deep admiration. Mike frowned.
"Inside, David, you have homework to do." David tore himself away reluctantly, went inside looking over his shoulder at the burning truck for as long as possible. Hannibal grinned, then made his face serious as he saw Mike looking at the broken windows.
"Sorry about that. The explosion was a little bigger than I expected. Well about twice as big actually. We'll deduct the repair costs of the broken windows from our fee." Mike shook his head, started to refuse the offer, but Hannibal went on. "I insist. It was worth it just to see Jed gulping like a fish." He noticed his dime on the ground, bent to pick it up. "Here," he tossed it to Mike, who caught it. "Give that to David, he’ll get a kick out of it." He went over to help the others put out the fire. Mike looked at the coin and chuckled. Both sides were heads.
"By the way, Face, I forgot to say it before, but nice shot."
"Thanks, Hannibal." Face said, looking pleased. The whole team were in the van, hidden in trees near the Heinemann's roadhouse. The brothers had gone straight there after the confrontation and told Al to close the place to other customers then told him to get out. The team had heard all this over the bug the brothers were still unaware of.
"Get me another whisky." Jed's voice was shaking. He'd already had three whiskys and there was no telling how big they'd been. The brothers had all also drunk several beers. It was almost ten o'clock.
"Seems he's still a little upset about his truck." Hannibal said. He grinned, picturing the explosion in his head again. Then he pulled himself together before he stepped over the line into gloating territory.
"They're dead. Smith especially, I'll kill him slow." Jed sounded as if he was pacing up and down.
"We really gonna call the military?" That was Zeke. "You heard what Smith said. They know something."
"They don't know anything!" Jed snapped. "How the hell could they know anything?"
"I dunno, but I think Zeke's right." Aaron said. "My Maddie said that Linda from the beauty parlour said this fag from LA came in to get his nails buffed today."
In the van Face gave a resigned sigh. Yep, should have known that was going to happen. He glared at Murdock's grin.
"Is there any point to that bit of information, Aaron, or you just passing on gossip?" Jed demanded.
"I think it was one of them, one of Smith's guys. Maddie says Linda said this guy was talking to her boss for ages. He must have been asking about the Chink, he must have been." The team exchanged glances. BA checked the transmission was recording. If they said anything incriminating it would be taped.
"Shut up, Aaron. You got no idea if it was even one of them." Zeke said.
"Well he was in town
today. The fag looking one. Mama had a cup of coffee with him."
They heard the sound of chairs scraping and toppling and Zeke shouting "Let him go, Jed!"
"You were planning on telling me this when?"
"I'm sorry, Jed," Aaron gasped. "I forgot."
"You forgot? What did she say to him?"
"I dunno, I dunno, I couldn't hear!"
"Come on, Jed, let him go!" There was some scuffling, some silence for a few minutes then the scraping of chairs, presumably people sitting down.
"You were supposed to
be looking after Mama today and you let her go talking to Smith's people."
"How could I stop her?" There was more silence. Then more chair scraping
"Where are you going, Jed?" Zeke called.
"The woods. I want to check, see if anyone's been there." Their voices faded out of range and a moment later the team saw them emerging from the bar apparently arguing. They crossed the road and went into the dense trees.
"Damn," Hannibal said. "Grab your radios, we'd better follow." They all took walkie-talkies and their handguns, got out of the van and hurried across the road to where the brothers had gone into the woods.
"Split up," Hannibal ordered, "Pick up their trail." It was dark now and the Heinemann's had the advantage of being on local ground. On the other hand his team had the advantage of being sober. After a few minutes Face's voice came through the radio.
"I think I've picked
up their trail. I've found some footprints."
"Are they the footprints of a gigantic hound?" Murdock's question made Hannibal grin. The growl he heard over the walkie-talkie from BA made him grin even wider.
"Converge on Face's position," he ordered. In a moment they were all together and they began to follow the evidence of the Heinemann's passage, which they'd made no attempt to conceal. Hannibal was on point. In a few moments he heard voices and turned to the team, put a finger to his lips and gestured to his men to spread out left and right.
In a moment they were all looking into a small clearing. Jed, carrying a whisky bottle, was rummaging around in the bushes and undergrowth. The other two were standing around not doing much, watching their brother and occasionally exchanging glances.
"There's nothing here, Jed." Zeke said. Jed ignored him.
Aaron looked around. "Which tree was it? I can't even remember."
Hidden in the undergrowth Hannibal unconsciously raised a hand to his throat.
"It was that one." Zeke said, pointing at a large oak. He shook his head. "You could hardly stand up, no wonder you can't remember."
"Can you?" Aaron asked.
"Yeah. I… I dream about it sometimes," Zeke said. "About… the noises he made." He looked away then said. "Didn't realise it would take so long, you know."
Blood roared in Hannibal's ears and he felt as if his brain was suddenly on fire. He took a calming breath, and then lifted his walkie-talkie very close to his mouth. He spoke very quietly.
"Anybody raising their weapon lower it right now. " He paused for a beat. "Stay cool." None of the team answered him. There was a sudden crash as Jed flung the now empty bottle against a tree.
"No one's been here." He said. "Those guys don’t know squat." He started to walk into the trees. Aaron and Zeke grabbed him and steered him back in the right direction to head back towards the road. They passed no more than six feet from Hannibal's position, entirely oblivious to his presence. The team followed them back to the roadhouse then got back into the van. The brother's voices were coming through loud and clear again and being recorded. For another three hours the team listened to the Heinemann's drink themselves into oblivion.
His men were so quiet Hannibal kept checking to see if they had fallen asleep. No one had spoken since they had come out of the woods. When the Heinemann's had been quiet for nearly an hour Hannibal decided they were passed out.
"Take us back to the hotel, BA," he said. BA started the van. "In the morning we'll rent a couple of cars and stay on these guys wherever they go."
"Right." Murdock said. Face and BA didn't answer.
"They're ready," Hannibal said. "They're right on the edge now and one of them is going to crack."
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