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sonora_conejaPairing: Face/Hannibal (implied)
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: overt “24” references?
Summary: Fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
I don't know if I'm making this up or if I saw it... I think I saw it... Oh well, I still haven't seen a fill for it so I'll request it again.
Hannibal betrays the team.
Or so Face is led to believe. The truth is that bad guy of the week has something that he can use against the other three. Bad guy makes Hannibal help him with something or he'll do whatever to the other three (hurt, kill, give location to feds. idk). Hannibal has no choice but to accept. (I know this might seem difficult since Hannibal always has a plan. :C)
But what I really want to see is the confrontation. Maybe the baddie threatened to end everything if he told his team what was going on. The scene I've imagined it something where Hannibal starts fighting with the guys while they try to get him to stop. Face is not convinced that Hannibal betrayed them until his colonel puts a gun to his.
...This is really tl;dr but if it was made possible, I would love you forever. Hell, I'll fill any prompt the author wants if they write this.
Hannibal’s working with a local al-Qaeda cell. Or is he? Face, pissed as all hell, tries to figure out what could possibly make Hannibal betray the team.
It’s nearly 0300 when Face hears it.
Breaking glass.
Face doesn’t know why he’s hearing that, not at first, but it’s not subtle. It’s loud and unmistakable.
He’s awake, on his feet. Grabs blindly for his pants and his shoes and is out. In the hall. Just in time. White smoke. Tear gas. Everywhere.
Who’s found them? There’s no telling, not right now. It could be anybody. Tear gas means is that the aggressors, whoever they are, don’t know who they’re dealing with or aren’t willing to start with deadly force. Or a bunch of sadists, waiting outside.
His brain starts racing for the answer, and then he remembers how BA and Murdock fell asleep on the couch.
He hits the floor and low-crawls to the railing of the upstairs hallway, just in time to hear the door get kicked in. Men coming in. Gas masks. Black combat gear. Police logos.
SWAT.
He can hear Murdock screaming.
Movement. Something brushes past his leg and Face throws himself around, onto his back, sweeping out as he does it. The muted grunt is unmistakable.
“Hannibal?” he asks softly.
The older man doesn’t say anything, just tosses Face a wet towel and his gun, vanishing off again down the hall.
The lieutenant takes that as a sign to follow, claps the rag over his stinging nose, and scrambles to his feet. Hannibal’s got a plan, Hannibal knows how they got found out, Hannibal’s not going to let Murdock and BA go to jail.
He's got faith in the boss. Hell, the boss is the last person he's got faith in.
The bathroom window’s small enough, just small enough, for Face to push himself out of and half-shimmy, half-fall, into the shrubs on the ground floor. Two of the SWAT guys are stunned on the lawn, kevlar registering straight-on .45 shots, and Face takes off after Hannibal’s retreating form.
What the hell? That is not the right way, Face wants to scream, but there’s no air and no time, and he can still hear the sirens as he chases Hannibal another eight blocks. Doesn’t take long. The old man can run.
He’s nearing a main corner, clears a low brick wall, heading up the backside parking lot of some strip mall. Everything’s bathed in that awful orange light and Face wants to throw up. Tear gas is one thing. Running through it, lungs fighting for air, is quite another.
He can’t take it anymore, and stops for just a moment. “Smith!” he yells at the top of his lungs, hoping that might do the trick.
Hannibal stops, turns around slowly. He’s got a cell phone in one raised hand, and something inside Face is clawing the conenctive tissue between the ribs. He doesn’t think it’s cramps.
Hannibal’s been weird the last couple of weeks.
Face finds his hand on the butt of his .308. He’s a little surprised, but he doesn’t move it away, either, as he slowly approaches the other man.
“What the hell’s going on here, Hannibal?” he asks slowly.
“Shouldn’t have followed me, Face,” and there’s a threat there. Face has to fight to keep from stepping back. Hannibal’s the one with his back to the wall, but right then, Face feels the more trapped of the two. “Get your hand off your gun, lieutenant.”
“Not until you tell me how they found us.”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“You think I don’t know you’ve been sneaking out at night? You think I don’t know when you come back smelling like...”
Hannibal gives a short little laugh, mirthless and hard. “We’re not married, kid.”
Anger. It’s crystallizing in his guts, cutting and cold. “I want to know what’s been going on. We’ve all noticed. Something’s been wrong.”
“You’re paranoid, Face.”
“You remember that day, with the general, boss? Do you?” Face takes another step and Hannibal moves, just enough, so that they’re both parallel to the wall. Face can still hear the sirens. louder now, the screech of tires around the corner of the complex. “You’re doing it, aren’t you?”
“No.” But Hannibal’s face contorts a little, something that nobody else would even notice clear as day to Face, and the former lieutenant clenches a fist.
“What’d they offer you, Hannibal?” Face asks, moving forward. The colonel doesn’t try to stop him. “What’s the price here?”
“It’s a long story, kid, and you don’t have time,” Hannibal growls.
“Goddamn it, boss, what's the pla...” Face says, and then the words catch and die as he suddenly realizes that’s a gun. Hannibal’s gun. Ten feet between them. There’s no way he can disarm the other man before the trigger is pulled.
Would Hannibal pull the trigger? He takes a step forward. "Boss..."
He can feel the breeze from the bullet, see the muzzle flash, smell the cordite. It hangs there.
The police cars are rounding the corner now. Tearing over speedbumps. Disgorging officers. He's knocked to the ground. But even as he's thrown in the back of the cab, knees bleeding through jeans, Face doesn't fight it, doesn't fight them.
Why would he?
Hannibal is gone.
+++++
The first night is uncomfortable. Face strongly suspects the second night will be worse.
The station house doctor patches him up as some uniform takes his prints. He doesn’t bother fighting this, although there’s nothing much really that the police can do to him. He’s been shot at on five continents. Local cops aren’t much of a threat anymore.
They ask him some questions, don’t get the answers they want. Face pushes himself out of shock little by little, trying to get the full picture.
It’s not comforting, but it could be worse. Nothing about being on a DoD wanted list. Bullshit charges, illegal weapons possession, something like that. There was a fifty-cal, big crate of AKs, Sentax, primer cord, that kind of stuff, in the basement that definitely wasn’t part of the team’s normal arsenal.
Somebody called in a tip on them.
“Do you want an attorney?” they ask him at one point. He just starts laughing.
Way after sun-up, the night shift switches out and he gets thrown into a holding cell. BA’s there, nursing a massive contusion on his forehead. His eyes are still puffy from the tear gas, but Face knows better than to ask about that.
“You seen Murdock?”
“Not yet.”
“You seen Hannibal?”
“It’s his fault we’re in here,” Face says it with no joy. Because that’s what he’s concluded. Hannibal called in the tip, Hannibal planted the evidence, Hannibal did this to them. But Face can’t figure out why.
The anger’s still grating inside his body cavity. They’re offered food at one point. BA has to make him eat. They’re told Murdock’s been sent to a psychiatric facility. BA has to hold him down.
“Why do you think Hannibal did this?”
“Other than the whole gun-to-my-head thing?”
“Yeah, fool, other than that.”
“I’ve been following him.”
They haven’t had a job in weeks. This kind of thing makes them all a little antsy, makes them all spread out a little more than they technically should. BA’s got some orphanage he’s started to work with when they’re in the LA area, Murdock spends a lot of his time around their house, cooking or communing with the dry wall. Face gets bored and tans. Hannibal’s got his own hobbies, but he’s usually around.
Lately, he’s been disappearing at night. Just an hour or two at a time, always after the rest of them should have been asleep. This normally wouldn’t have been a huge deal. Could have been a client. Could have been a lover.
Face wasn’t convinced of either. Hannibal would have told them about any job. And the second one, the second one hurt too much to even think about.
They’d been building towards something, Face thought, these past few months. Nothing much, the first tentative little steps, maybe. Nothing discussed. A few dinners out that could have been dates, a few awkward moments on jobs and in hotel rooms and at bars. Small touches that lingered a little longer than usual. Glances. An undercurrent.
And the one night, about four weeks ago, when Face had found the nerve and a t-shirt with which to make his quiet way to Hannibal’s room. The night he wanted to ask.
That’s how he’d discovered the man was sneaking out on them.
“Followed him?” BA asks incredulously.
“Some old bowling alley, twice a week, for about an hour or so,” which was not the real location or time, but the point was there and who knew if the goddamn cell was bugged anyway?
“For a month?” BA whistles. “What do you think he was doing?”
“Checked out the building, the bowling teams, the employees.”
“Find anything?”
Face shrugs. He’s mostly cut off from that information, but there’s still one number he feels comfortable calling. In cases of extreme emergency. Hannibal qualified. She’d been helpful. “From what limited info I could gather? Found some ties to Saudi.”
“Doesn’t mean anything.”
“The money trail’s pretty cut and dry, big guy.”
BA looks grim but resolute. “Hannibal wouldn’t...”
“He had a fucking gun on me.”
“So what? He shot me one time.”
Face has never told BA what he know about that. That Hannibal wasn’t capable of shooting a stranger in cold blood. That Hannibal had thrown up after they got back to base. That Hannibal had talked to the chaplain about it. Three times. That Hannibal confessed all to Face over a fifth of vodka one night, too drunk to remember even saying it the next morning.
It probably had been the vodka making him say that, though. At best. At worst, he'd been manipulating him, working over the impressionable young lieutenant, buying his trust with a cheap story about humanity and regrets.
Face thinks everything the man's ever said to him was probably a lie.
Hannibal’s gun, on his chest, that hadn’t been a joke, hadn’t been a bluff. Did Hannibal even know those two cops were wearing body armor? Had he cared?
“It’s not quite the same, BA.”
“He’s got no reason to betray us. Don’t make sense, Face.”
“It’s what happened.”
“Not, it ain’t.”
Face considers asking BA if he’s changed his mind a few days later, as they’re sitting in the interview room again, chained to the floor, wrist and ankle, as Captain Charisa Sosa drags a chair across the concrete floor in her ridiculous red pumps and upends a thick envelop of surveillance photos on the metal table.
“Care to enlighten me, gentlemen?”
Face and BA share a look. Some of the men in the photographs are familiar, from an Arab family they'd helped a few months back. They'd seemed normal.
A couple of the surveillance photos were from those Pakistani training camps. So, not normal. Answered that question right there.
And opened another.
With the exception of the training camps, Hannibal's in every single one of these.
“You been keeping tabs on us, Sosa?” BA demands, shoving the stack back towards her.
“I promised Face I’d ignore any leads that came up. There, uh, haven’t been too many.”
“Hooray for us,” Face says, and turns to BA. “I called her.”
“I’m not here because you called me.” She points at the photographs. “I got these from the local FBI field office.”
Ba’s staring at her, like he can’t quite believe it. Face doesn’t want to, but he does. “Those motherfuckers, right?”
Charisa doesn’t quite answer, just folds her hands on the table and looks back and forth between them slowly. “Guys, let me be clear about this. Hannibal Smith, as a former special forces commander, has more privileged information locked up in that brain of his...”
“We ain’t traitors!” BA protests.
“I don’t really give a shit whether he’s there willingly, under coercion, or otherwise. It’s a problem. I need to deal with it.”
Face focuses on the wall behind her head. Wasn't coercion. Hannibal was too smart for that. So, what had they offered? A bunch of fucking Taliban they used to shoot at. What was it?
Had the team meant so little? Had he?
He knows the answer. There it is.
“You need it dealt with.” It’s bitter. No other way.
The woman turns sharp eyes on him. She’s trying to dig something out. Face doesn’t let her. She’s lost that privilege. Seeing him.
“Face, what the fuck, man?”
“DIA can’t operate on American soil. How’s that new assignment, by the way?”
“I can leave, you all can go back to your cells. The FBI processes those fingerprints, hello Leavenworth.”
“Worth it.” That’s BA. Face is still thinking about.
She smiles and stands up. Classic. Nicely done. “And Murdock can stay in the psych ward downtown.”
Murdock. She’s really going to use Murdock. But it’s not her fault. It’s Hannibal’s, and Face can’t let himself forget that.
“With all due respect, ma'am, go fuc...”
“What do you need?”
She stops. “What do you?”
“Where’s Murdock?”
+++++
Tires screech as she puts on the brakes too hard. BA’s getting the van out of impound. Visiting hours are almost over. Face needs to move, but she’s got that look.
Like she’s going to say something really stupid.
“Face, about before...”
And there it is. He slams the door so hard the car shakes.
There are gates and guards and rooms full of drugs that come in little paper cups. Face moves easily past all that.
Murdock’s in the day room. He’s either faking or buzzing. Face can’t tell, and can’t risk the time to find out.
“Buddy,” he says. Murdock’s fingers don’t respond.
Face squeezes a little harded. How many PSI does it take, before the pilot raises his eyes.
“You really here, Facey?”
“We gotta go.”
A fake ID helps. Snatched from the evidence locker on the way out. One of his good ones. Sosa’s shield. His imagination. The staff’s. Bluffs them out.
The car’s in a different part of the parking lot. She’s got those damn aviators on. Murdock starts panicking a little, slippery-slick from whatever he’s hyped up on. It gets worse.
Years of practice get him in the car.
“This thing got child safety locks?” Face asks, in the back with the pilot.
There’s a click. At least he can’t get away. Hands, feet, are everywhere. It’s a blur. Sosa grips the steering wheel. Face can’t worry about her. Murdock’s got a hand tangling up in his shirt, tearing it. Hyperventilating now. It’s noisy in the enclosed space.
A couple of things work. Shrugging down to his wifebeater, Face tries one of them, rubbing a hand under Murdock’s hospital rags, pulling it away. Flat circles on his chest, his back. Seems to work. Sweaty hair rubs into his neck, dry palms cling to him.
“Are you real, Face?”
“Yeah, buddy, I’m real.” He plants a kiss on the pilot’s head. Like he’s calming a dog.
He can see those aviators in the rear-view mirror. “I always had you pegged for Hannibal.”
Face ignores that. Why can’t she shut up? “He gets like this when he’s shot up with ziprasidone.” Institutions were always misdiagnosing the pilot. His system was so fucked up. Couldn’t take it very well these days.
Hannibal knew that. Hannibal has to know that. And yet, here they are.
“That’s a bit specific, Face.”
“Just drive, would you?”
Breathing slowed, the pilot’s eyes are wide, dilated, colorless. As the car rumbles out, Face pulls him in a little closer. The skin on skin contact calms him down.
He wishes it was that easy for him.
"I'm going to make this okay, buddy. I promise."
+++++
Face doesn’t let Sosa drop them off at a motel. Or anywhere that’s recognizable. She tries again, as she pulls up next to the van.
The door opens, and Murdock springs out. BA manages to catch him. Just in time.
Sosa gives him a packet. Their fingers touch. It’s a bit too cliche for his frayed nerves. Jerks away.
“Face, about before, what you said about me leaving...”
“Jesus Christ, Charisa, right now?”
“I left because of Hannibal,” she said quietly. Can’t be an easy thing for her to admit. “He wouldn’t hurt you.”
BA’s got Murdock tucked into his shoulder. The man’s sobbing. Face swallows. “Doesn’t look like you’re right.”
“He wouldn’t, Face.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s got her packet of information. Why can’t the damn woman go away, instead of standing there like that? Like she’s got something to say that matters? “There anything else?”
“Do you need anything for Murdock?”
“We’ve got a system.”
She nods. “I don’t have much time to give you here, Face...”
“I told you I’d deal with it. I ever lie to you?”
“All the time,” she says with a slight, guilty smile.
BA watches her drive off. Face is left with a manila envelop and a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Okay, Bosco, we’ve got five or six different places to check out...”
“Not until we get Murdock settled.”
The pilot’s progressed from panic right down to catatonia. Shit. “I’d never suggest otherwise.”
BA and Face load Murdock up and head off.
It takes them about an hour to get to the RV park. BA had brought up a rental as an option, as it was something Face would never agree to, and he does hate the idea, but it’s going to make it harder for Hannibal, or those jackals he’s colluding with, to find them. It’s not a bad place, as far as RV parks go, and at least the RV they got isn’t suspiciously small for three men to be sharing.
The showers here are shared, and in the clubhouse, which is a bit of a walk away, so Face and BA clean Murdock up as best they can in the vehicle’s bathroom unit. Murdock freaks out again halfway through it, which is actually a good thing, and BA’s left with the task of talking him back out into reality. Face is soaked.
He sits down at the tiny kitchen table with a cup of instant coffee - horrid - and starts flipping through Sosa’s information. It’s even worse than he thought.
Hannibal, he asks himself, what the hell got into you?
+++++
There are six places on the list. Six likely places they operate out of, six places Hannibal might be hiding. Face recognizes some of the names in the files. High-placed men in the organization, in the US on fake visas, phony passports, forged IDs. Recruiting, probably, or intelligence gathering. Other things.
Those are the main concerns the DIA has - what these assholes are gathering on military ops. It’s easier to get that information stateside. Soldiers let their guard down on home station. Fact of life. No way of knowing what they’re getting. What kind of damage it’s doing.
Face doesn’t really care about that. At least, he tells himself he doesn’t, sitting in a small room across a local bowling alley. BA’s supposed to relieve him soon. Murdock’s with him. They don’t want to leave the pilot alone. The first few days are always the worst. Takes a lot to get him back.
“How’s it lookin’, faceman?” the pilot asks. “See the boss yet?”
Face has told Murdock a version of the truth. “No sign on if they’re holding him or not,” he replies, and slumps back from the window a little. Twelve hour shifts are murder, but he’s managed to eliminate everywhere else on the list. The bowling alley’s what’s left.
“Do you think they’re treating him okay?”
Hannibal in handcuffs, Hannibal, trussed up, some of those Northern Alliance fighters they’d find by the roads in Afghanistan...Face cringes a little. That’s not what’s going on here. “I certainly hope so.”
“Being captured’s no cakewalk, face...”
“I’m sure he’s fine, Murdock. For chrissakes, let me focus!” He didn’t mean to snap.
Murdock lets loose a little whimper, and BA comes in with sandwiches. He looks over at the pilot, sets the bag down, and starts rubbing the man’s shoulders. “Shouldn’t be nasty with him, Face.” There’s a barely-veiled warning in that.
“I know, BA.”
“It’s okay, facey,” Murdock says, reaching out a limp hand. “Hannibal’s going to be okay.”
Face feels horrible about lying to the pilot. If it wasn’t for the drug withdrawal... “Thanks, buddy.”
BA takes over the stake-out, Murdock curls up on a cot in the corner to catch some sleep. The night air feels good, feels clean, clearing his head, removing him from that stuffy little room and all the doubts. Face takes the back alley, just in case, but he hears voices. Pashtun. The accent’s familiar, not quite native.
It’s Hannibal.
Sounds like an argument. It’s carrying down the brick passage, louder than it should be from this far away. They’re coming towards him. He drops behind a dumpster, flicks the safety on his gun, and waits.
Another voice breaks in, this time in Persian, and Hannibal switches to English mid-conversation.
“...and there’s no way I can give you those duress words. They change every couple of weeks.”
“You know what they like to use. We need a list.”
“I can’t guarantee that’s going to work.”
“Three of our fighters were sent to Paradise last week during an assault on one of your former bases, colonel. You want to help? I think you can get a little more specific.”
Hannibal’s footfalls are close now, passing by. “I can give you some guidelines, for radio calls only. Beyond that, I’m going to need to make some calls.”
“That’s good, colonel...”
He’s sweating now, cold and clammy. If they look over, he’s dead. Face presses himself back into the shadows, hopes for the best.
He thinks he hears a slight scrape in Hannibal’s step, looks up. Hannibal’s half-hidden in the poor light, but Face swears the boss’s gaze sweeps over him. Does he see him? There’s something there, something he can’t quite decipher. It’s familiar and frightening, and Face has this sudden urge.
No, that’s not it at all.
It takes all of Face’s willpower not to just shoot him right there.
The moment’s gone, Hannibal moves on, followed by those men. Face hazards a look, rolling off the wall. License plate number, four of six digits, make and model of the car. That’s good. That’ll work.
+++++
BA’s dating some girl who works down at the Motor Vehicle Department, and given a nice night out, she hooks him up with everything they could possibly want to know.
Face finds the car, finds another safehouse that the DIA doesn’t know about. It’s one of those three-story monstrosities out in the suburbs, well-kept, rock yard raked and weeded. There’s a Middle Eastern couple living there. They own a dog. Nothing suspicious about it.
That’s the whole point, though.
“I’m going over there tonight,” Face tells BA.
The big man’s face is dark, disturbed. “Face, I don’t think you should go over there without back-up.”
“Too bad, Bosco, I’m going.”
“I oughta be goin’...”
Murdock leans over the counter. “Face, you’re gonna bring him back, right?”
No.
Face has been watching the news. Online, not the bullshit on TV. There was a convoy blown up a few days ago. Six men, one reporter, killed. The report didn’t cover this, but those humvees were sporting the new armor. Only a specifically designed shaped charge would have done it.
Face still isn’t as angry about that as he is at what happened to Murdock. The pilot hasn’t stopped shaking for the last three days. He knows it’s selfish. He doesn’t care.
“Yeah, Murdock. No problem, buddy.”
The basement windows are locked, the house dar, and it’s not nearly as hard to get in as it needs to be to satsify him. Haven’t these people heard of security? Maybe that’s too suspicious in this neighborhood.
It smells like curry, and something else Face can’t quite identify. The basement’s unfinished, the pilot light on under the water heater. He’s inside. Where are the stairs?
“Face?”
The word’s soft, gentle, incredulous. It batters against all of Face’s resolve, and there’s a hand, rough on the stubble at his cheek. He lets himself fall into it.
But only for a second. The gun’s up between them, locking all that away. “They’re making you room in the basement, boss? Doesn’t seem very charitable of them.”
“There’s a meeting in a few minutes, kid.”
“I’m sure there is. Won’t that be fun?”
“You need to get out of here. Now.”
Face has to resist the urge to follow that command. It’s so automatic, Hannibal’s voice so full of authority, so certain. Face misses that. “Tell me why I shouldn’t just kill you.”
“You’re not a killer, Face.”
“We kill all the time, Hannibal. Like your little convoy outside Kabul. What was tha...”
Hannibal pulls him in, that hand running behind his neck and tightening. His lips brush Face’s. “You know it’s always been you, kid,” he whispers. Don’t give into it, Face tells himself. Don’t believe him. “I’d do anything for you, you know that.”
“Don’t...”
The lights come on. His gun’s out of his hand, his neck burns from a sudden twist. His knees are kicked out from under him, he spins as he falls and connects with a hard thud on the floor.
Vision swimming, all Face can see is Hannibal. The colonel’s face is hard, set. He yells something to the owners of the footsteps on the rough wooden stairs, and looks back down at Face.
Oh, there’s his gun. For a crazy second, Face wonders if he’s got hollow points in that thing or not, if the round will go clean through and ricochet and hit one of these bastards. Hit Hannibal.
“You shouldn’t have come here, lieutenant,” Hannibal rasps, and then Face is hauled away.
That smell, Face knows what it is. It’s nothing as melodramatic as blood, although he can smell that, too. It’s chemical. Definitely chemical. Nauseating.
They’ve got him in the back of a van. A fucking van. He kicks at the opposite wall, hands trussed up above his head to a bolt above. It doesn’t do anything. He’s not going anywhere. His arms are going numb. He’s bleeding from a cut in his scalp. Of course he fought back, he thinks smugly.
Hannibal’s sitting across from him. One of the douchbags from the basement, gun level. There’s a driver up front, a passenger, behind a grate. Car behind.
Hannibal says something to the man next to him in Pashtun, and then leans back, looks at Face, completely casual. The same body language they use, they used to use, on the bad guys. Says something. Twice, before Face understands.
“Do you know where they’re taking you?”
Face stares at Hannibal, trying to remember. “We’re going to a place where they can kill me,” he thinks he says.
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to let them?”
There’s no answer, just a long, sad look. Face looks pointedly up.
He grinds his teeth. “Why Japanese?”
“They don’t know how to speak it.”
“Kill me?”
“Yes.”
Hannibal tries to tell him something else, but Face reached the end of his skill in the language. And he doesn’t really care.
It feels like they’re driving for a long, long time. The van climbs. The sound of other cars fades. They’re in the mountains somewhere. Stands to reason.
It’s freezing, dark, after midnight, by the time they stop and open the back. There’s a floodlight in his eyes as they unlock the chain and yank him out. He can’t see and his knees hit the ground, scrape along the dirt. He’s struggling. They’re screaming at him, a sounds that makes his blood run cold, something he hasn’t heard since their last tour in Afghanistan, something primal, designed to scare.
Face gets a few hits in. And then he looks up.
Hannibal’s leaning up against a tree, casually talking to one of the guys from Sosa’s intel package. One of the higher-ups in this particular organization.
Handing him a revolver.
The metal-tipped handle of a shovel catches Face in the stomach, knocking him into the dirt. In the twisting, polluted light, streaming out of the van’s headlights, Hannibal’s walking towards him and Face suddenly can’t stand.
“Never betray us, hey boss?”
“Shut the fuck up, Face,” Hannibal snaps and mutters something in Japanese. He snaps the chamber open, spins it, snaps it shut. Aims.
“Boss...” and Face hates how his voice wavers.
The trigger clicks.
Nothing.
The shovel hits him in the back, hard, and he can’t stop the scream that escapes him, falling forward. Or the next one. Or the next, as his mouth fills with dirt
Hannibal doesn’t back away. Face can still see his shoes, not moving, watching this.
But he’s not mad.
All of Face’s anger is gone. All of it. Can’t be angry at a stranger. The past week is gone. The past ten years. The look on Hannibal’s face drives it away. There’s nothing between them now.
+++++
They’ll be back soon. They’ll drive into the garage, pull him out, throw him back into the basement, all the lights off in the house. Dog asleep in the back yard. Neighbors none the wiser. Maybe do this again tomorrow. Maybe kill him.
Face is prepared for anything
Except tea.
The kitchen’s warm, inviting. The woman who lives here has a kettle on the stove. Maps are spread out, computer screens up. Three of them. Hannibal. Face, hobbled, bleeding.
“Nice countertops,” Face quips.
“Granite,” one of his captors smiles back.
Face is looking for it, but the knife block is conspicuously absent.
She makes tea. Eyes down. Chai. Lots of milk. Hannibal gets a cup. So does Face. One them says something to her, and she leaves.
They offer him a stool. The tea smells really good.
“Where is the rest of your team?”
Ah, so that’s it. There’s some kind of implication, a threat maybe, in that. Face isn’t sure what it is.
His eyes flicker over to Hannibal. Nothing. Worth a shot.
“I don’t roll over on my friends,” he says, smiling blandly at his former boss. If he only had a gun right now. Or piano wire. A fork. A fucking ballpoint pen.
“He’s not going to tell you,” Hannibal sighs.
“More moral than you, colonel?”
Hannibal doesn’t respond.
“Where is the rest of your team?”
Face leans back, as smoothly as he can in leg irons, a mass of spreading bruises. “Up your ass. One of your other guys might have to dig them out, but you’re into that sort of thing, right?”
He’s knocked off the stool, a fist bursting against his temple, the floor surprisingly hard after all that dirt.
One of them grabs Face by the collar and pushes him against the stove. The kettle’s still on, the gas still burning. Handcuffs come out. Gas goes up to high. He freezes.
“So, Colonel Smith, do we need to go through your boys, one by one?”
Hot breath prickles Face’s neck, and the handcuffs click down around the handle of the over door. Hands around his waist, tugging. Ripping.
Mother
Fucker
A stool pushes back. “This is not what we agreed.”
“I did not ask your opinion, colonel.”
“How about my permission?”
“Cute, Hannibal,” Face interrupts. “You’ll let them fucking kill me but rape’s over the line?”
“The only person who gets to kill you is me, Face,” Hannibal says wearily.
“Why, cause you own me?”
“You better fucking believe it, kid, and if you’d listened to me...”
“Oh, it’s my fault you decided...”
“Stop lying to me!” one of the other men yells, slamming a fist down on those nice countertops. “You have been giving us nothing!”
His skin’s cold, exposed, pants down as far as the bands on his legs will allow. It almost hurts. He hisses. The man behind him chuckles.
“You mention, taking it up the ass?”
Face can hear the man behind him unbuckling his belt, the smooth slide of a zipper, and there’s the anger again. Feels good. Feels clean. Helps him ignore the bubbling fear.
“Colonel Smith. I want that strategic...”
“I already told you, I don’t have access to that information any more!” Is Face imagining the desperate tone in Hannibal’s voice?
The argument gets heated, switches to Farsi, and Face feels a hand forcing him open. He doesn’t care about the burner anymore, doesn’t care what Hannibal isn’t going to do, doesn’t care, and he starts struggling, fighting, kicking, anything, but he’s got no leverage, none, and a finger’s right there, forcing its way in.
Then it’s gone.
And everything explodes.
For the rest of his life, Face will never remember how, exactly, it happens. The guy’s pulled off him, thrown off him, and he ends up on the floor, under the oven door, gunfire louder than it’s ever been before, trapped in the stone of the kitchen, the world over for long seconds, until the door’s jerked back up.
Hannibal. Blue eyes burning. A gun, locked open in his hand, dangling loose. A long streak of arterial red on his torn shirt.
“Guess you can’t shoot me now,” Face observes, and Hannibal stares at him a moment more, before fishing the key from a dead man’s pocket and tossing it over to him. His arm doesn’t move quite right.
Arterial red.
“Face,” Hannibal whispers, voice weak. Something’s wrong. Tickles against the edge of his thoughts. He cares that there’s something wrong. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” And Hannibal hits the ground.
A puddle begins to spread on the tile, and even though Face isn’t capable of it himself, something deeper down nudges him to wrap a hasty bandage, dish towel, around that bullet-shredded arm. Pick him up. Hotwire the car in the garage that isn’t that damn van.
Leaving the bodies behind. Some of the anger.
Hannibal writhes in the back. Face floors it.
The doctor at the hospital doesn’t ask any questions. Hannibal disappears into the double doors of the ICU. A nurse comes out at one point and offers Face a clean shirt and a bed behind a curtain where she scrubs the gravel out of his elbows and puts about two dozen stitches in five different places.
“Are you family?” the doctor asks, well after the sun’s risen and Face is watching the story about a daring FBI early-morning raid on an al-Qaeda safehouse in northern LA.
“Can you take my word for it? They took our IDs.”
They let him back. Tell him what’s wrong. Face doesn’t know whether to celebrate or cry.
“He's going to pull through. Lost a lot of blood, though. He could still lose the arm, but he’s tough old guy. He's got a chance of keeping it.”
“You have no idea,” Face says.
“Retired Ranger, right?”
Of course. That tattoo. “Right.”
In the small room, Hannibal’s hooked up to far too much machinery for Face’s comfort. He sinks into a chair next to the bed. His brain doesn't want to process last night, this morning, the mess in the kitchen, the anguish, creased and weary as Face desperately tried to stem the flood, tried to stop the blood, the outwelling of life.
He wasn't prepared to let Hannibal go yet. And wasn't that a nice surprise?
A hand’s in his hair. Feels good. He pushes up into in, not really thinking, lost in an old dream. Something he can’t have. Right now? Any more? Ever? He doesn’t know, so he opens his eyes. It’s nine hours later and Hannibal’s watching him with a little smirk. Still weak, but nonetheless, a smirk.
“Should have left you on the floor. But who knows what you would have told the police?” Face is ashamed as soon as he says it.
Hannibal’s smile falters. The hand leaves his hair. There’s just pain. “They threatened to kill you...”
“Don’t tell me you did this for the team,” the lieutenant warns. “People died, soldiers died, Hannibal...”
“You, Face. Threatened to kill you. You know how they work. I couldn’t let that happen, but... then, then you showed up anyway. Kid...” The hand’s reaching back out for him, hanging off the bed. His other arm’s a mess, Face knows, under that clean white. Two bullets shattered through the bone. May never work again. May come off. Will need surgery.
Face feels his guts clench up. All those weeks. Alone, all this time. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“And done what, kid? What would you have done?”
Face knows exactly what he would have done. Yeah. “That’s incredibly condescending.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean... fucking painkillers...” It’s soft, sad, thickened.
“Hannibal,” he begins, not knowing quite what he can, should, will say. “Hannibal, if we can’t trust each other, how can we have anything?”
“You... you still want something?”
Face doesn’t know how long it takes him to reach back, letting his fingers twine into Hannibal’s, right where they belong, and it would be so easy, so easy, to let himself believe that everything’s just fine. That nothing’s changed. But this is Hannibal’s gun hand, uninjured, whole.
Saved his life. Again.
The man he’s followed since he was twenty four.
“Someday, sure. I still want something.”
Hannibal smiles tightly, presses a button, slips back under the drugs. How much had it cost him to stay that lucid for that long?
And after he falls asleep again, after Face knows that he’s okay, only then does the lieutenant dare to leave and charm a phone away from a nurse.
“Face? How’s the boss?”
“I found him, Murdock.” His knuckles go white, wrapped around the receiver. “I’m bringing him home.”
Rating: pg-13
Warnings: overt “24” references?
Summary: Fill for this prompt on the kink meme.
I don't know if I'm making this up or if I saw it... I think I saw it... Oh well, I still haven't seen a fill for it so I'll request it again.
Hannibal betrays the team.
Or so Face is led to believe. The truth is that bad guy of the week has something that he can use against the other three. Bad guy makes Hannibal help him with something or he'll do whatever to the other three (hurt, kill, give location to feds. idk). Hannibal has no choice but to accept. (I know this might seem difficult since Hannibal always has a plan. :C)
But what I really want to see is the confrontation. Maybe the baddie threatened to end everything if he told his team what was going on. The scene I've imagined it something where Hannibal starts fighting with the guys while they try to get him to stop. Face is not convinced that Hannibal betrayed them until his colonel puts a gun to his.
...This is really tl;dr but if it was made possible, I would love you forever. Hell, I'll fill any prompt the author wants if they write this.
Hannibal’s working with a local al-Qaeda cell. Or is he? Face, pissed as all hell, tries to figure out what could possibly make Hannibal betray the team.
It’s nearly 0300 when Face hears it.
Breaking glass.
Face doesn’t know why he’s hearing that, not at first, but it’s not subtle. It’s loud and unmistakable.
He’s awake, on his feet. Grabs blindly for his pants and his shoes and is out. In the hall. Just in time. White smoke. Tear gas. Everywhere.
Who’s found them? There’s no telling, not right now. It could be anybody. Tear gas means is that the aggressors, whoever they are, don’t know who they’re dealing with or aren’t willing to start with deadly force. Or a bunch of sadists, waiting outside.
His brain starts racing for the answer, and then he remembers how BA and Murdock fell asleep on the couch.
He hits the floor and low-crawls to the railing of the upstairs hallway, just in time to hear the door get kicked in. Men coming in. Gas masks. Black combat gear. Police logos.
SWAT.
He can hear Murdock screaming.
Movement. Something brushes past his leg and Face throws himself around, onto his back, sweeping out as he does it. The muted grunt is unmistakable.
“Hannibal?” he asks softly.
The older man doesn’t say anything, just tosses Face a wet towel and his gun, vanishing off again down the hall.
The lieutenant takes that as a sign to follow, claps the rag over his stinging nose, and scrambles to his feet. Hannibal’s got a plan, Hannibal knows how they got found out, Hannibal’s not going to let Murdock and BA go to jail.
He's got faith in the boss. Hell, the boss is the last person he's got faith in.
The bathroom window’s small enough, just small enough, for Face to push himself out of and half-shimmy, half-fall, into the shrubs on the ground floor. Two of the SWAT guys are stunned on the lawn, kevlar registering straight-on .45 shots, and Face takes off after Hannibal’s retreating form.
What the hell? That is not the right way, Face wants to scream, but there’s no air and no time, and he can still hear the sirens as he chases Hannibal another eight blocks. Doesn’t take long. The old man can run.
He’s nearing a main corner, clears a low brick wall, heading up the backside parking lot of some strip mall. Everything’s bathed in that awful orange light and Face wants to throw up. Tear gas is one thing. Running through it, lungs fighting for air, is quite another.
He can’t take it anymore, and stops for just a moment. “Smith!” he yells at the top of his lungs, hoping that might do the trick.
Hannibal stops, turns around slowly. He’s got a cell phone in one raised hand, and something inside Face is clawing the conenctive tissue between the ribs. He doesn’t think it’s cramps.
Hannibal’s been weird the last couple of weeks.
Face finds his hand on the butt of his .308. He’s a little surprised, but he doesn’t move it away, either, as he slowly approaches the other man.
“What the hell’s going on here, Hannibal?” he asks slowly.
“Shouldn’t have followed me, Face,” and there’s a threat there. Face has to fight to keep from stepping back. Hannibal’s the one with his back to the wall, but right then, Face feels the more trapped of the two. “Get your hand off your gun, lieutenant.”
“Not until you tell me how they found us.”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“You think I don’t know you’ve been sneaking out at night? You think I don’t know when you come back smelling like...”
Hannibal gives a short little laugh, mirthless and hard. “We’re not married, kid.”
Anger. It’s crystallizing in his guts, cutting and cold. “I want to know what’s been going on. We’ve all noticed. Something’s been wrong.”
“You’re paranoid, Face.”
“You remember that day, with the general, boss? Do you?” Face takes another step and Hannibal moves, just enough, so that they’re both parallel to the wall. Face can still hear the sirens. louder now, the screech of tires around the corner of the complex. “You’re doing it, aren’t you?”
“No.” But Hannibal’s face contorts a little, something that nobody else would even notice clear as day to Face, and the former lieutenant clenches a fist.
“What’d they offer you, Hannibal?” Face asks, moving forward. The colonel doesn’t try to stop him. “What’s the price here?”
“It’s a long story, kid, and you don’t have time,” Hannibal growls.
“Goddamn it, boss, what's the pla...” Face says, and then the words catch and die as he suddenly realizes that’s a gun. Hannibal’s gun. Ten feet between them. There’s no way he can disarm the other man before the trigger is pulled.
Would Hannibal pull the trigger? He takes a step forward. "Boss..."
He can feel the breeze from the bullet, see the muzzle flash, smell the cordite. It hangs there.
The police cars are rounding the corner now. Tearing over speedbumps. Disgorging officers. He's knocked to the ground. But even as he's thrown in the back of the cab, knees bleeding through jeans, Face doesn't fight it, doesn't fight them.
Why would he?
Hannibal is gone.
+++++
The first night is uncomfortable. Face strongly suspects the second night will be worse.
The station house doctor patches him up as some uniform takes his prints. He doesn’t bother fighting this, although there’s nothing much really that the police can do to him. He’s been shot at on five continents. Local cops aren’t much of a threat anymore.
They ask him some questions, don’t get the answers they want. Face pushes himself out of shock little by little, trying to get the full picture.
It’s not comforting, but it could be worse. Nothing about being on a DoD wanted list. Bullshit charges, illegal weapons possession, something like that. There was a fifty-cal, big crate of AKs, Sentax, primer cord, that kind of stuff, in the basement that definitely wasn’t part of the team’s normal arsenal.
Somebody called in a tip on them.
“Do you want an attorney?” they ask him at one point. He just starts laughing.
Way after sun-up, the night shift switches out and he gets thrown into a holding cell. BA’s there, nursing a massive contusion on his forehead. His eyes are still puffy from the tear gas, but Face knows better than to ask about that.
“You seen Murdock?”
“Not yet.”
“You seen Hannibal?”
“It’s his fault we’re in here,” Face says it with no joy. Because that’s what he’s concluded. Hannibal called in the tip, Hannibal planted the evidence, Hannibal did this to them. But Face can’t figure out why.
The anger’s still grating inside his body cavity. They’re offered food at one point. BA has to make him eat. They’re told Murdock’s been sent to a psychiatric facility. BA has to hold him down.
“Why do you think Hannibal did this?”
“Other than the whole gun-to-my-head thing?”
“Yeah, fool, other than that.”
“I’ve been following him.”
They haven’t had a job in weeks. This kind of thing makes them all a little antsy, makes them all spread out a little more than they technically should. BA’s got some orphanage he’s started to work with when they’re in the LA area, Murdock spends a lot of his time around their house, cooking or communing with the dry wall. Face gets bored and tans. Hannibal’s got his own hobbies, but he’s usually around.
Lately, he’s been disappearing at night. Just an hour or two at a time, always after the rest of them should have been asleep. This normally wouldn’t have been a huge deal. Could have been a client. Could have been a lover.
Face wasn’t convinced of either. Hannibal would have told them about any job. And the second one, the second one hurt too much to even think about.
They’d been building towards something, Face thought, these past few months. Nothing much, the first tentative little steps, maybe. Nothing discussed. A few dinners out that could have been dates, a few awkward moments on jobs and in hotel rooms and at bars. Small touches that lingered a little longer than usual. Glances. An undercurrent.
And the one night, about four weeks ago, when Face had found the nerve and a t-shirt with which to make his quiet way to Hannibal’s room. The night he wanted to ask.
That’s how he’d discovered the man was sneaking out on them.
“Followed him?” BA asks incredulously.
“Some old bowling alley, twice a week, for about an hour or so,” which was not the real location or time, but the point was there and who knew if the goddamn cell was bugged anyway?
“For a month?” BA whistles. “What do you think he was doing?”
“Checked out the building, the bowling teams, the employees.”
“Find anything?”
Face shrugs. He’s mostly cut off from that information, but there’s still one number he feels comfortable calling. In cases of extreme emergency. Hannibal qualified. She’d been helpful. “From what limited info I could gather? Found some ties to Saudi.”
“Doesn’t mean anything.”
“The money trail’s pretty cut and dry, big guy.”
BA looks grim but resolute. “Hannibal wouldn’t...”
“He had a fucking gun on me.”
“So what? He shot me one time.”
Face has never told BA what he know about that. That Hannibal wasn’t capable of shooting a stranger in cold blood. That Hannibal had thrown up after they got back to base. That Hannibal had talked to the chaplain about it. Three times. That Hannibal confessed all to Face over a fifth of vodka one night, too drunk to remember even saying it the next morning.
It probably had been the vodka making him say that, though. At best. At worst, he'd been manipulating him, working over the impressionable young lieutenant, buying his trust with a cheap story about humanity and regrets.
Face thinks everything the man's ever said to him was probably a lie.
Hannibal’s gun, on his chest, that hadn’t been a joke, hadn’t been a bluff. Did Hannibal even know those two cops were wearing body armor? Had he cared?
“It’s not quite the same, BA.”
“He’s got no reason to betray us. Don’t make sense, Face.”
“It’s what happened.”
“Not, it ain’t.”
Face considers asking BA if he’s changed his mind a few days later, as they’re sitting in the interview room again, chained to the floor, wrist and ankle, as Captain Charisa Sosa drags a chair across the concrete floor in her ridiculous red pumps and upends a thick envelop of surveillance photos on the metal table.
“Care to enlighten me, gentlemen?”
Face and BA share a look. Some of the men in the photographs are familiar, from an Arab family they'd helped a few months back. They'd seemed normal.
A couple of the surveillance photos were from those Pakistani training camps. So, not normal. Answered that question right there.
And opened another.
With the exception of the training camps, Hannibal's in every single one of these.
“You been keeping tabs on us, Sosa?” BA demands, shoving the stack back towards her.
“I promised Face I’d ignore any leads that came up. There, uh, haven’t been too many.”
“Hooray for us,” Face says, and turns to BA. “I called her.”
“I’m not here because you called me.” She points at the photographs. “I got these from the local FBI field office.”
Ba’s staring at her, like he can’t quite believe it. Face doesn’t want to, but he does. “Those motherfuckers, right?”
Charisa doesn’t quite answer, just folds her hands on the table and looks back and forth between them slowly. “Guys, let me be clear about this. Hannibal Smith, as a former special forces commander, has more privileged information locked up in that brain of his...”
“We ain’t traitors!” BA protests.
“I don’t really give a shit whether he’s there willingly, under coercion, or otherwise. It’s a problem. I need to deal with it.”
Face focuses on the wall behind her head. Wasn't coercion. Hannibal was too smart for that. So, what had they offered? A bunch of fucking Taliban they used to shoot at. What was it?
Had the team meant so little? Had he?
He knows the answer. There it is.
“You need it dealt with.” It’s bitter. No other way.
The woman turns sharp eyes on him. She’s trying to dig something out. Face doesn’t let her. She’s lost that privilege. Seeing him.
“Face, what the fuck, man?”
“DIA can’t operate on American soil. How’s that new assignment, by the way?”
“I can leave, you all can go back to your cells. The FBI processes those fingerprints, hello Leavenworth.”
“Worth it.” That’s BA. Face is still thinking about.
She smiles and stands up. Classic. Nicely done. “And Murdock can stay in the psych ward downtown.”
Murdock. She’s really going to use Murdock. But it’s not her fault. It’s Hannibal’s, and Face can’t let himself forget that.
“With all due respect, ma'am, go fuc...”
“What do you need?”
She stops. “What do you?”
“Where’s Murdock?”
+++++
Tires screech as she puts on the brakes too hard. BA’s getting the van out of impound. Visiting hours are almost over. Face needs to move, but she’s got that look.
Like she’s going to say something really stupid.
“Face, about before...”
And there it is. He slams the door so hard the car shakes.
There are gates and guards and rooms full of drugs that come in little paper cups. Face moves easily past all that.
Murdock’s in the day room. He’s either faking or buzzing. Face can’t tell, and can’t risk the time to find out.
“Buddy,” he says. Murdock’s fingers don’t respond.
Face squeezes a little harded. How many PSI does it take, before the pilot raises his eyes.
“You really here, Facey?”
“We gotta go.”
A fake ID helps. Snatched from the evidence locker on the way out. One of his good ones. Sosa’s shield. His imagination. The staff’s. Bluffs them out.
The car’s in a different part of the parking lot. She’s got those damn aviators on. Murdock starts panicking a little, slippery-slick from whatever he’s hyped up on. It gets worse.
Years of practice get him in the car.
“This thing got child safety locks?” Face asks, in the back with the pilot.
There’s a click. At least he can’t get away. Hands, feet, are everywhere. It’s a blur. Sosa grips the steering wheel. Face can’t worry about her. Murdock’s got a hand tangling up in his shirt, tearing it. Hyperventilating now. It’s noisy in the enclosed space.
A couple of things work. Shrugging down to his wifebeater, Face tries one of them, rubbing a hand under Murdock’s hospital rags, pulling it away. Flat circles on his chest, his back. Seems to work. Sweaty hair rubs into his neck, dry palms cling to him.
“Are you real, Face?”
“Yeah, buddy, I’m real.” He plants a kiss on the pilot’s head. Like he’s calming a dog.
He can see those aviators in the rear-view mirror. “I always had you pegged for Hannibal.”
Face ignores that. Why can’t she shut up? “He gets like this when he’s shot up with ziprasidone.” Institutions were always misdiagnosing the pilot. His system was so fucked up. Couldn’t take it very well these days.
Hannibal knew that. Hannibal has to know that. And yet, here they are.
“That’s a bit specific, Face.”
“Just drive, would you?”
Breathing slowed, the pilot’s eyes are wide, dilated, colorless. As the car rumbles out, Face pulls him in a little closer. The skin on skin contact calms him down.
He wishes it was that easy for him.
"I'm going to make this okay, buddy. I promise."
+++++
Face doesn’t let Sosa drop them off at a motel. Or anywhere that’s recognizable. She tries again, as she pulls up next to the van.
The door opens, and Murdock springs out. BA manages to catch him. Just in time.
Sosa gives him a packet. Their fingers touch. It’s a bit too cliche for his frayed nerves. Jerks away.
“Face, about before, what you said about me leaving...”
“Jesus Christ, Charisa, right now?”
“I left because of Hannibal,” she said quietly. Can’t be an easy thing for her to admit. “He wouldn’t hurt you.”
BA’s got Murdock tucked into his shoulder. The man’s sobbing. Face swallows. “Doesn’t look like you’re right.”
“He wouldn’t, Face.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s got her packet of information. Why can’t the damn woman go away, instead of standing there like that? Like she’s got something to say that matters? “There anything else?”
“Do you need anything for Murdock?”
“We’ve got a system.”
She nods. “I don’t have much time to give you here, Face...”
“I told you I’d deal with it. I ever lie to you?”
“All the time,” she says with a slight, guilty smile.
BA watches her drive off. Face is left with a manila envelop and a sinking feeling in his stomach. “Okay, Bosco, we’ve got five or six different places to check out...”
“Not until we get Murdock settled.”
The pilot’s progressed from panic right down to catatonia. Shit. “I’d never suggest otherwise.”
BA and Face load Murdock up and head off.
It takes them about an hour to get to the RV park. BA had brought up a rental as an option, as it was something Face would never agree to, and he does hate the idea, but it’s going to make it harder for Hannibal, or those jackals he’s colluding with, to find them. It’s not a bad place, as far as RV parks go, and at least the RV they got isn’t suspiciously small for three men to be sharing.
The showers here are shared, and in the clubhouse, which is a bit of a walk away, so Face and BA clean Murdock up as best they can in the vehicle’s bathroom unit. Murdock freaks out again halfway through it, which is actually a good thing, and BA’s left with the task of talking him back out into reality. Face is soaked.
He sits down at the tiny kitchen table with a cup of instant coffee - horrid - and starts flipping through Sosa’s information. It’s even worse than he thought.
Hannibal, he asks himself, what the hell got into you?
+++++
There are six places on the list. Six likely places they operate out of, six places Hannibal might be hiding. Face recognizes some of the names in the files. High-placed men in the organization, in the US on fake visas, phony passports, forged IDs. Recruiting, probably, or intelligence gathering. Other things.
Those are the main concerns the DIA has - what these assholes are gathering on military ops. It’s easier to get that information stateside. Soldiers let their guard down on home station. Fact of life. No way of knowing what they’re getting. What kind of damage it’s doing.
Face doesn’t really care about that. At least, he tells himself he doesn’t, sitting in a small room across a local bowling alley. BA’s supposed to relieve him soon. Murdock’s with him. They don’t want to leave the pilot alone. The first few days are always the worst. Takes a lot to get him back.
“How’s it lookin’, faceman?” the pilot asks. “See the boss yet?”
Face has told Murdock a version of the truth. “No sign on if they’re holding him or not,” he replies, and slumps back from the window a little. Twelve hour shifts are murder, but he’s managed to eliminate everywhere else on the list. The bowling alley’s what’s left.
“Do you think they’re treating him okay?”
Hannibal in handcuffs, Hannibal, trussed up, some of those Northern Alliance fighters they’d find by the roads in Afghanistan...Face cringes a little. That’s not what’s going on here. “I certainly hope so.”
“Being captured’s no cakewalk, face...”
“I’m sure he’s fine, Murdock. For chrissakes, let me focus!” He didn’t mean to snap.
Murdock lets loose a little whimper, and BA comes in with sandwiches. He looks over at the pilot, sets the bag down, and starts rubbing the man’s shoulders. “Shouldn’t be nasty with him, Face.” There’s a barely-veiled warning in that.
“I know, BA.”
“It’s okay, facey,” Murdock says, reaching out a limp hand. “Hannibal’s going to be okay.”
Face feels horrible about lying to the pilot. If it wasn’t for the drug withdrawal... “Thanks, buddy.”
BA takes over the stake-out, Murdock curls up on a cot in the corner to catch some sleep. The night air feels good, feels clean, clearing his head, removing him from that stuffy little room and all the doubts. Face takes the back alley, just in case, but he hears voices. Pashtun. The accent’s familiar, not quite native.
It’s Hannibal.
Sounds like an argument. It’s carrying down the brick passage, louder than it should be from this far away. They’re coming towards him. He drops behind a dumpster, flicks the safety on his gun, and waits.
Another voice breaks in, this time in Persian, and Hannibal switches to English mid-conversation.
“...and there’s no way I can give you those duress words. They change every couple of weeks.”
“You know what they like to use. We need a list.”
“I can’t guarantee that’s going to work.”
“Three of our fighters were sent to Paradise last week during an assault on one of your former bases, colonel. You want to help? I think you can get a little more specific.”
Hannibal’s footfalls are close now, passing by. “I can give you some guidelines, for radio calls only. Beyond that, I’m going to need to make some calls.”
“That’s good, colonel...”
He’s sweating now, cold and clammy. If they look over, he’s dead. Face presses himself back into the shadows, hopes for the best.
He thinks he hears a slight scrape in Hannibal’s step, looks up. Hannibal’s half-hidden in the poor light, but Face swears the boss’s gaze sweeps over him. Does he see him? There’s something there, something he can’t quite decipher. It’s familiar and frightening, and Face has this sudden urge.
No, that’s not it at all.
It takes all of Face’s willpower not to just shoot him right there.
The moment’s gone, Hannibal moves on, followed by those men. Face hazards a look, rolling off the wall. License plate number, four of six digits, make and model of the car. That’s good. That’ll work.
+++++
BA’s dating some girl who works down at the Motor Vehicle Department, and given a nice night out, she hooks him up with everything they could possibly want to know.
Face finds the car, finds another safehouse that the DIA doesn’t know about. It’s one of those three-story monstrosities out in the suburbs, well-kept, rock yard raked and weeded. There’s a Middle Eastern couple living there. They own a dog. Nothing suspicious about it.
That’s the whole point, though.
“I’m going over there tonight,” Face tells BA.
The big man’s face is dark, disturbed. “Face, I don’t think you should go over there without back-up.”
“Too bad, Bosco, I’m going.”
“I oughta be goin’...”
Murdock leans over the counter. “Face, you’re gonna bring him back, right?”
No.
Face has been watching the news. Online, not the bullshit on TV. There was a convoy blown up a few days ago. Six men, one reporter, killed. The report didn’t cover this, but those humvees were sporting the new armor. Only a specifically designed shaped charge would have done it.
Face still isn’t as angry about that as he is at what happened to Murdock. The pilot hasn’t stopped shaking for the last three days. He knows it’s selfish. He doesn’t care.
“Yeah, Murdock. No problem, buddy.”
The basement windows are locked, the house dar, and it’s not nearly as hard to get in as it needs to be to satsify him. Haven’t these people heard of security? Maybe that’s too suspicious in this neighborhood.
It smells like curry, and something else Face can’t quite identify. The basement’s unfinished, the pilot light on under the water heater. He’s inside. Where are the stairs?
“Face?”
The word’s soft, gentle, incredulous. It batters against all of Face’s resolve, and there’s a hand, rough on the stubble at his cheek. He lets himself fall into it.
But only for a second. The gun’s up between them, locking all that away. “They’re making you room in the basement, boss? Doesn’t seem very charitable of them.”
“There’s a meeting in a few minutes, kid.”
“I’m sure there is. Won’t that be fun?”
“You need to get out of here. Now.”
Face has to resist the urge to follow that command. It’s so automatic, Hannibal’s voice so full of authority, so certain. Face misses that. “Tell me why I shouldn’t just kill you.”
“You’re not a killer, Face.”
“We kill all the time, Hannibal. Like your little convoy outside Kabul. What was tha...”
Hannibal pulls him in, that hand running behind his neck and tightening. His lips brush Face’s. “You know it’s always been you, kid,” he whispers. Don’t give into it, Face tells himself. Don’t believe him. “I’d do anything for you, you know that.”
“Don’t...”
The lights come on. His gun’s out of his hand, his neck burns from a sudden twist. His knees are kicked out from under him, he spins as he falls and connects with a hard thud on the floor.
Vision swimming, all Face can see is Hannibal. The colonel’s face is hard, set. He yells something to the owners of the footsteps on the rough wooden stairs, and looks back down at Face.
Oh, there’s his gun. For a crazy second, Face wonders if he’s got hollow points in that thing or not, if the round will go clean through and ricochet and hit one of these bastards. Hit Hannibal.
“You shouldn’t have come here, lieutenant,” Hannibal rasps, and then Face is hauled away.
That smell, Face knows what it is. It’s nothing as melodramatic as blood, although he can smell that, too. It’s chemical. Definitely chemical. Nauseating.
They’ve got him in the back of a van. A fucking van. He kicks at the opposite wall, hands trussed up above his head to a bolt above. It doesn’t do anything. He’s not going anywhere. His arms are going numb. He’s bleeding from a cut in his scalp. Of course he fought back, he thinks smugly.
Hannibal’s sitting across from him. One of the douchbags from the basement, gun level. There’s a driver up front, a passenger, behind a grate. Car behind.
Hannibal says something to the man next to him in Pashtun, and then leans back, looks at Face, completely casual. The same body language they use, they used to use, on the bad guys. Says something. Twice, before Face understands.
“Do you know where they’re taking you?”
Face stares at Hannibal, trying to remember. “We’re going to a place where they can kill me,” he thinks he says.
“Yes.”
“And you’re going to let them?”
There’s no answer, just a long, sad look. Face looks pointedly up.
He grinds his teeth. “Why Japanese?”
“They don’t know how to speak it.”
“Kill me?”
“Yes.”
Hannibal tries to tell him something else, but Face reached the end of his skill in the language. And he doesn’t really care.
It feels like they’re driving for a long, long time. The van climbs. The sound of other cars fades. They’re in the mountains somewhere. Stands to reason.
It’s freezing, dark, after midnight, by the time they stop and open the back. There’s a floodlight in his eyes as they unlock the chain and yank him out. He can’t see and his knees hit the ground, scrape along the dirt. He’s struggling. They’re screaming at him, a sounds that makes his blood run cold, something he hasn’t heard since their last tour in Afghanistan, something primal, designed to scare.
Face gets a few hits in. And then he looks up.
Hannibal’s leaning up against a tree, casually talking to one of the guys from Sosa’s intel package. One of the higher-ups in this particular organization.
Handing him a revolver.
The metal-tipped handle of a shovel catches Face in the stomach, knocking him into the dirt. In the twisting, polluted light, streaming out of the van’s headlights, Hannibal’s walking towards him and Face suddenly can’t stand.
“Never betray us, hey boss?”
“Shut the fuck up, Face,” Hannibal snaps and mutters something in Japanese. He snaps the chamber open, spins it, snaps it shut. Aims.
“Boss...” and Face hates how his voice wavers.
The trigger clicks.
Nothing.
The shovel hits him in the back, hard, and he can’t stop the scream that escapes him, falling forward. Or the next one. Or the next, as his mouth fills with dirt
Hannibal doesn’t back away. Face can still see his shoes, not moving, watching this.
But he’s not mad.
All of Face’s anger is gone. All of it. Can’t be angry at a stranger. The past week is gone. The past ten years. The look on Hannibal’s face drives it away. There’s nothing between them now.
+++++
They’ll be back soon. They’ll drive into the garage, pull him out, throw him back into the basement, all the lights off in the house. Dog asleep in the back yard. Neighbors none the wiser. Maybe do this again tomorrow. Maybe kill him.
Face is prepared for anything
Except tea.
The kitchen’s warm, inviting. The woman who lives here has a kettle on the stove. Maps are spread out, computer screens up. Three of them. Hannibal. Face, hobbled, bleeding.
“Nice countertops,” Face quips.
“Granite,” one of his captors smiles back.
Face is looking for it, but the knife block is conspicuously absent.
She makes tea. Eyes down. Chai. Lots of milk. Hannibal gets a cup. So does Face. One them says something to her, and she leaves.
They offer him a stool. The tea smells really good.
“Where is the rest of your team?”
Ah, so that’s it. There’s some kind of implication, a threat maybe, in that. Face isn’t sure what it is.
His eyes flicker over to Hannibal. Nothing. Worth a shot.
“I don’t roll over on my friends,” he says, smiling blandly at his former boss. If he only had a gun right now. Or piano wire. A fork. A fucking ballpoint pen.
“He’s not going to tell you,” Hannibal sighs.
“More moral than you, colonel?”
Hannibal doesn’t respond.
“Where is the rest of your team?”
Face leans back, as smoothly as he can in leg irons, a mass of spreading bruises. “Up your ass. One of your other guys might have to dig them out, but you’re into that sort of thing, right?”
He’s knocked off the stool, a fist bursting against his temple, the floor surprisingly hard after all that dirt.
One of them grabs Face by the collar and pushes him against the stove. The kettle’s still on, the gas still burning. Handcuffs come out. Gas goes up to high. He freezes.
“So, Colonel Smith, do we need to go through your boys, one by one?”
Hot breath prickles Face’s neck, and the handcuffs click down around the handle of the over door. Hands around his waist, tugging. Ripping.
Mother
Fucker
A stool pushes back. “This is not what we agreed.”
“I did not ask your opinion, colonel.”
“How about my permission?”
“Cute, Hannibal,” Face interrupts. “You’ll let them fucking kill me but rape’s over the line?”
“The only person who gets to kill you is me, Face,” Hannibal says wearily.
“Why, cause you own me?”
“You better fucking believe it, kid, and if you’d listened to me...”
“Oh, it’s my fault you decided...”
“Stop lying to me!” one of the other men yells, slamming a fist down on those nice countertops. “You have been giving us nothing!”
His skin’s cold, exposed, pants down as far as the bands on his legs will allow. It almost hurts. He hisses. The man behind him chuckles.
“You mention, taking it up the ass?”
Face can hear the man behind him unbuckling his belt, the smooth slide of a zipper, and there’s the anger again. Feels good. Feels clean. Helps him ignore the bubbling fear.
“Colonel Smith. I want that strategic...”
“I already told you, I don’t have access to that information any more!” Is Face imagining the desperate tone in Hannibal’s voice?
The argument gets heated, switches to Farsi, and Face feels a hand forcing him open. He doesn’t care about the burner anymore, doesn’t care what Hannibal isn’t going to do, doesn’t care, and he starts struggling, fighting, kicking, anything, but he’s got no leverage, none, and a finger’s right there, forcing its way in.
Then it’s gone.
And everything explodes.
For the rest of his life, Face will never remember how, exactly, it happens. The guy’s pulled off him, thrown off him, and he ends up on the floor, under the oven door, gunfire louder than it’s ever been before, trapped in the stone of the kitchen, the world over for long seconds, until the door’s jerked back up.
Hannibal. Blue eyes burning. A gun, locked open in his hand, dangling loose. A long streak of arterial red on his torn shirt.
“Guess you can’t shoot me now,” Face observes, and Hannibal stares at him a moment more, before fishing the key from a dead man’s pocket and tossing it over to him. His arm doesn’t move quite right.
Arterial red.
“Face,” Hannibal whispers, voice weak. Something’s wrong. Tickles against the edge of his thoughts. He cares that there’s something wrong. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” And Hannibal hits the ground.
A puddle begins to spread on the tile, and even though Face isn’t capable of it himself, something deeper down nudges him to wrap a hasty bandage, dish towel, around that bullet-shredded arm. Pick him up. Hotwire the car in the garage that isn’t that damn van.
Leaving the bodies behind. Some of the anger.
Hannibal writhes in the back. Face floors it.
The doctor at the hospital doesn’t ask any questions. Hannibal disappears into the double doors of the ICU. A nurse comes out at one point and offers Face a clean shirt and a bed behind a curtain where she scrubs the gravel out of his elbows and puts about two dozen stitches in five different places.
“Are you family?” the doctor asks, well after the sun’s risen and Face is watching the story about a daring FBI early-morning raid on an al-Qaeda safehouse in northern LA.
“Can you take my word for it? They took our IDs.”
They let him back. Tell him what’s wrong. Face doesn’t know whether to celebrate or cry.
“He's going to pull through. Lost a lot of blood, though. He could still lose the arm, but he’s tough old guy. He's got a chance of keeping it.”
“You have no idea,” Face says.
“Retired Ranger, right?”
Of course. That tattoo. “Right.”
In the small room, Hannibal’s hooked up to far too much machinery for Face’s comfort. He sinks into a chair next to the bed. His brain doesn't want to process last night, this morning, the mess in the kitchen, the anguish, creased and weary as Face desperately tried to stem the flood, tried to stop the blood, the outwelling of life.
He wasn't prepared to let Hannibal go yet. And wasn't that a nice surprise?
A hand’s in his hair. Feels good. He pushes up into in, not really thinking, lost in an old dream. Something he can’t have. Right now? Any more? Ever? He doesn’t know, so he opens his eyes. It’s nine hours later and Hannibal’s watching him with a little smirk. Still weak, but nonetheless, a smirk.
“Should have left you on the floor. But who knows what you would have told the police?” Face is ashamed as soon as he says it.
Hannibal’s smile falters. The hand leaves his hair. There’s just pain. “They threatened to kill you...”
“Don’t tell me you did this for the team,” the lieutenant warns. “People died, soldiers died, Hannibal...”
“You, Face. Threatened to kill you. You know how they work. I couldn’t let that happen, but... then, then you showed up anyway. Kid...” The hand’s reaching back out for him, hanging off the bed. His other arm’s a mess, Face knows, under that clean white. Two bullets shattered through the bone. May never work again. May come off. Will need surgery.
Face feels his guts clench up. All those weeks. Alone, all this time. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“And done what, kid? What would you have done?”
Face knows exactly what he would have done. Yeah. “That’s incredibly condescending.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean... fucking painkillers...” It’s soft, sad, thickened.
“Hannibal,” he begins, not knowing quite what he can, should, will say. “Hannibal, if we can’t trust each other, how can we have anything?”
“You... you still want something?”
Face doesn’t know how long it takes him to reach back, letting his fingers twine into Hannibal’s, right where they belong, and it would be so easy, so easy, to let himself believe that everything’s just fine. That nothing’s changed. But this is Hannibal’s gun hand, uninjured, whole.
Saved his life. Again.
The man he’s followed since he was twenty four.
“Someday, sure. I still want something.”
Hannibal smiles tightly, presses a button, slips back under the drugs. How much had it cost him to stay that lucid for that long?
And after he falls asleep again, after Face knows that he’s okay, only then does the lieutenant dare to leave and charm a phone away from a nurse.
“Face? How’s the boss?”
“I found him, Murdock.” His knuckles go white, wrapped around the receiver. “I’m bringing him home.”
