Hannibal found Murdock waiting for him at the airfield, beside a single engine plane. He was pacing up and down, the early morning light giving him a long shadow on the ground.

"I thought you were never getting here," Murdock groused as Hannibal strode up to him.

"It's not much use taking off in the dark," Hannibal said. "Have you eaten?"

"What? Yeah, sure."

Probably candy bars and coffee, Hannibal thought. He held out one of the two paper bags he carried.

"Here. Breakfast sandwiches and muffins." When Murdock scowled Hannibal shoved the bag into his hands. "Eat it while you're doing your pre-flight, but eat it."

Murdock climbed into the plane, muttering darkly, Hannibal only catching the word "mother". While Murdock completed his pre-flight check, Hannibal waited on the tarmac, preparing his map, and eating his own breakfast. After a few minutes Murdock called to him.

"Come and strap in. I'm ready for take off."

A few minutes later the small plane rose from the runway into the clear blue sky. It was a beautiful morning, with few clouds about. Hannibal had heard a weather forecast over the radio, and a fine day lay ahead. His plan was going perfectly. Murdock banked east and they flew into the morning sunshine.

>o<

Face sat resting his shoulder and head against the wall. His head throbbed, and he would have killed several dozen people for even a small cup of coffee right now. And water and food. And painkillers. And a bath and a bed and a massage...

Stop that. No sense in making himself crazy. He would be lucky if the Watkins fed him more than bread and water now. So what now? He could just behave himself and wait for the team, whether they showed up with the other two Watkins brothers or not. But that was too pathetic. He needed to get himself out, or the rest of the team would never let him live it down. So, Plan B.

B for Bonnie.

A couple of hours later he got the chance to put the plan into effect. He woke from a doze when the door opened and she came in with a tray of food. At once, Face let his head rest against the wall again and put on his most miserable expression.

Bonnie bent to put the tray on the floor and Face gave it only a disinterested glance.

"Are you okay?" Bonnie asked.

"Sure. Getting savaged by bloodthirsty hounds is my favourite way to start the day."

She looked away. "I'm sorry. Are you hurt bad?"

Face glanced past her and spoke softly, so Deke, who he could see guarding the door, couldn't hear.

"My arm will get infected if the wound isn't cleaned out. Can you bring some antiseptic?"

"I can't," she said, eyes wide, and speaking as quietly as him. "Ma won't let me."

"Does Ma want to cut off my arm when I get gangrene? Does Ma want me to die of blood poisoning?"

Fear crossed her face then. "That won't happen, will it?"

"I've seen it happen. Please, can't you do this for me?"

"I can't." She looked terrified now. But she wasn't shouting for Deke, and she wasn't leaving. Face wished he could reach for her hand, but the manacles kept him from doing that. Instead he dropped his voice even lower, so she had to lean closer to hear him.

"You're not like them, Bonnie. I see that. You're different. I don't know what hold they have on you, but you hate what they're doing."

She didn't speak, but she nodded, looking down and he saw tears in her eyes.

"If you help me," Face said, "even just by bringing me some antiseptic, I'll know that's true. And when my friends come..." She looked up, staring, but before Face could go on, Deke opened the door.

"Hey, you spoon feeding him? Get your ass back upstairs."

Bonnie hurried away, taking her tray, leaving Face's food on a paper plate. Deke sneered down at Face.

"Hey, Peck, does that sweet thing still hang out with your team? Maybe we shoulda added an extra condition to how they could get you back, huh?" He chuckled coarsely.

"No, she went to Jakarta."

"Jakarta? Where's that? Oregon?"

"It's in Indonesia. That's how far she had to go so that she couldn't smell you any more."

He'd miscalculated. Deke's face changed from sneering to enraged in a second and Face was defenceless against the kick Deke landed, right on his injured forearm. He cried out in agony as the pain lanced up his arm and curled around the arm protectively.

"You got a big mouth, Peck. Can't believe nobody's shut it for you."

"Better men than you have tried, Deke," Face panted out, pain and nausea making him gasp for breath, but still unable to resist baiting. He braced himself for another kick. But Deke laughed. His foot stamped down again, but this time onto the plate of toast. He ground his boot heel into the food, and then kicked the plate and its contents across the room, well beyond Face's reach.

"Guess breakfast is over, Peck."

"When my friends come," Face said, quietly, "you'll get yours first. I promise you that, Deke."

"Your friends are doing what we told 'em to do. When they come, they gonna bring Curly and Logan with 'em. Then you'll all get yours."

Deke slammed the door behind him.

Damn. Face couldn't believe it. How the hell did Hannibal think he could pull it off? Face had to get out of here and stop him. He sighed. Couldn't leave those guys alone for a minute.

So what about Plan B? If Bonnie brought him the antiseptic, that was the test. If she did that, then he believed he could talk her into helping him escape. Now he could only wait and see if she passed the test.

>o<

Murdock and Hannibal had been flying for hours now, going over the area systematically. They didn't talk much. Hannibal had experience of scoping out the ground from above, from doing recon during the war. But that had been years ago, and he needed all his concentration to get the job done.

But at last they were done. Pencilled-in marks on the map picked out the isolated houses. Face could be concealed inside any of them. As Murdock headed back to the airfield, late in the morning, he spoke up after saying nothing for a long time.

"It's scaring me how long this is gonna take, Colonel. What if they get suspicious?"

"I've made sure they think my prison break plan will take days. They're not going to get suspicious for a while yet."

Murdock shrugged. "Okay. But I guess I just can't stand the thought of Face stuck with those bastards. You know how vicious they are."

"Murdock, they have to keep him alive."

"Yeah, but they don't have to keep him happy."

"They know if they hurt him too badly they'll just make us mad and we'll want revenge."

"You're assuming they're rational enough to restrain themselves because of that," Murdock said. "But look at the way they've been behaving in town, drawing attention to themselves. Smart guys would have been lying low. But they can't even manage that. I don't think they can help themselves, Hannibal. What are guys like that going to do with a helpless prisoner?"

This time Hannibal smiled, despite the legitimate concerns Murdock was raising.

"Helpless prisoner? Oh, I'm sorry; I thought we were talking about Face."

>o<

Lunchtime, Face guessed. Meals were the only way he could gauge the passing time, his watch stolen right after they took him. Good thing it was a fake.

Bonnie came in with a tray as usual. She cast nervous glances back at the door and Face looked at her hopefully. His hopes were dashed though, when she put the tray down and hurried out again, under the watchful eye of CW.

Damn.

Face ate the sandwich left for him. Perhaps she was just under too close a watch. She might have had the antiseptic, but couldn't hand it over, with CW watching.

Or perhaps Face's charms weren't as powerful as he hoped. Well, hell, he must look a mess anyway. His face prickled with stubble, his hair felt pretty limp, his clothes were ripped and stained, and didn't smell too good. He hadn't cleaned his teeth in a couple of days. Yeah, he wasn't at his best, looks wise.

Of course, a girl stuck in a house with the Watkins brothers probably didn't have high standards to compare him to. That thought made Face chuckle briefly.

He stopped chuckling when he heard the bolts on the door sliding back. The brothers come to look for some fun tormenting the prisoner? He tensed in anticipation. But then he relaxed and stared as Bonnie slipped into the room. He looked past her, trying to see who was on guard out there. Bonnie saw where he was looking and shook her head.

"They're all upstairs having lunch. I managed to slip away." She knelt down by him and slid a small brown bottle out of her apron pocket. "I brought the antiseptic."

Face wanted to cheer, but instead just smiled, as he put the antiseptic into his pocket.

"Thank you, Bonnie. It was brave of you to do that."

She blushed and looked away. "I just don't want you to get sick from the bite."

"You aren't like them are you?" He asked. "Do you even want Curly and Logan to come home?"

The flinch she gave in reaction to their names told him the answer to that.

"I... I brought you this too." She reached into her apron pocket again and took out a cookie, handed it to Face. "You're not getting enough to eat."

"Bonnie, that's... thank you." He bit the cookie, too hungry to delay. "I know you'd get into trouble if they caught you. You're very brave." He was repeating himself, but he had to get his message home. You're a brave girl, brave enough to help me, not just with food, but escape.

She watched him eat the cookie, though still glancing back over her shoulder sometimes.

"They're not really my family," Bonnie said after a moment.

"You said your mom was their father's sister."

"Yes. She died and my uncle took me in. I was only twelve. But then he died too." She looked down. "He wasn't really a nice man, but he was... he was nicer than Ma."

Face imagined it would be hard to be less nice than Ma without actually being a crazed ax-murderer. He imagined something else too; that Ma hadn't been happy to be left with an extra mouth to feed after her husband died. A child not even related to her by blood.

"How come you stay here, Bonnie? You're old enough; you can go anywhere you like."

She shook her head, looking down.

"Ma says I gotta earn my keep, in exchange for her raising me. Says when I've paid her back for that, then I can leave."

"Earn your keep how?"

"Cooking, and cleaning and laundry and... whatever else."

Unpaid labour. No, worse than that. She couldn't leave. She got no wages. She was a slave.

"I tried to run off a couple of times," she said. "But they brought me back."

Face's eyes narrowed. "And punished you?"

She nodded and said nothing.

"If you help me, then when my friends come, we'll help you, get you out of here."

She didn't jump for joy, probably didn't believe him. She shook her head again. She did that a lot.

"Ma says I'd be a fool to leave. Says there's nothing for me. I'm not smart or pretty. Nobody would want me."

"Most people aren't smart or pretty. That doesn't matter. If you're honest and work hard, then there's a whole world out there for you." He took a breath. Okay, time for the next step. Would she believe him about this? Maybe. "Anyway, who says you're not pretty?"

"What?"

He raised a hand and brushed a strand of her tied back hair away from her face. She gasped at his touch.

"If you had nice clothes and make up and your hair done." She probably cut her own hair, he thought. Ma certainly wouldn't waste money letting her go to a salon. Today's dress was another cut down hand me down. And she'd probably never been allowed to buy as much as a lipstick. Face smiled. "Hey, back in LA, the experts could make you look like a movie star."

She laughed. "You're just teasing me."

"I'm not kidding. Heck, I've seen Goldie Hawn in the mornings; it's not a pretty sight."

"Oh, I've seen her on TV. She's beautiful. I couldn't look like that, ever."

"Maybe not, but believe me, none of them are as beautiful as they look on TV." He smiled and touched her hair again.

"I've seen you on the TV too."

"Well, there you go. Am I as good looking now as that picture?"

She didn't answer, looked away with a shy smile. Oh, that's it, Face thought. I'm in.

"Bonnie," he said, making her look at him again. "I've dated lots of girls who were no prettier than you. I'll bet you could look beautiful, and I'd be proud to take you out to a fancy restaurant, or a Hollywood party."

He leaned close then, hampered by the manacles, but he trailed his fingers gently over her neck and shoulder and then touched the buttons on the front of the dress.

"Do you think," he said softly, "that two people can find each other in the strangest of circumstances?"

He kissed her. This is when she should melt into his arms, he thought. That's how this goes. They all melt into his arms at this point.

She didn't melt. She froze. He pulled back and saw her eyes were still open and she was looking over his shoulder. But her hands moved. They moved to push aside his jacket and found the button on his pants. Face gasped and she stopped, looked him in the eye now.

"What are you doing?" Face said. Which probably counted as the stupidest question he'd ever asked.

"Don't you want...?" She didn't look embarrassed, just baffled. Face understood suddenly and he recalled his earlier thoughts that no man had ever paid any attention to her. Yes they had. Her cousins. And not the sort of attention that a teenage girl could do much about. The brothers would all have been full grown or nearly when she was still a young girl. She simply expected it now. Face was a man, and that's what men wanted.

"No," he said. "No. I don't want... that. I don't want to use you that way, I swear. I'm sorry."

And then he felt ashamed, because using her was exactly what he'd been planning to do. Not for sex, but as his ticket out of here. Well he'd have to find another ticket, because he couldn't do it, not now. She'd already been exploited enough.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I just talk a lot of crap. You should just ignore me. And you should get out of here, before one of them comes back."

Tears shone in her eyes. "I don't understand."

"You don't have to do anything for me, Bonnie. I won't ask you for anything else, I promise."

"But... I want to."

"No, you don't. Please, go. I've put you in enough danger already."

She stood up, still staring down at him. The tears in her eyes didn't fall. He didn't know for sure what her expression meant, but it didn't matter any more. Plan B was dead. It simply wasn't fair. After a moment he had to look away and heard her hurry from the room, bolting the door behind her.

Face slumped against the wall again. Sometimes, he hated the world. Sometimes he wished they'd drop the damn A-bombs and wipe the infestation of humanity off the planet and start over, with just the cockroaches. Though why should Harold be spared like that?

Well now he needed Plan C. And it needed to be a damn good plan, because now it wasn't just about him escaping. It was about her too. Face tried to be a cynic, but he knew deep down he was a damn soft-hearted fool. He wouldn't leave Bonnie here to be the Watkins's slave any longer. He wasn't a man if he did that. He wasn't an officer.