Author's Note: I've loved the A-Team since it was first broadcast on television in the '80s and written reams of fanfic based on the original series. I also loved the movie and happily embraced the characters in their 2000s incarnation. I've tried to be true to the movie characters in this fic, though the lack of backstory and the thinness of the relationships between them made it necessary to mine the old series for details in some places. Hopefully it rings true to you movie fans, and hopefully you enjoy it.

- Chevy

Part One: Iraq

Face stared over the edge of the bluff, eyes narrowed in concentration as he watched the distant, olive-drab figures moving across the tarmac below. Lifting his field glasses, he scanned the row of aircraft, picking out the most modern and heavily-armed models instinctively.

"See one you like?" he asked the man sprawled beside him.

"I want that cute little desert camo number, right by the wire."

"You mean, the one that's more rust than metal? That one?"

Murdock grinned. "Yeah."

"Aww, come on, Murdock. How about the Apache with the heat-seekers? Or that black one on the left... the one that looks like it could take out an aircraft carrier?"

"This is about blending into the scenery, not blowing stuff up."

"It never hurts to be prepared."

Murdock grinned at his friend, hearing the familiar manic note in his voice that heralded a burst of violent heroics. Turning back to his study of the airfield, he murmured, "Stick to the plan, man."

"You sound just like Hannibal," Face chuckled, "except for the tendency to rhyme." He stuffed his field glasses back into their case and reached for the M5 that lay beside him. "Well, if you've got your heart set on the frump, let's go get her."

With that, he began slithering down the face of the bluff, keeping flat to the dun-colored ground where the thickening dusk and his camouflaged clothing offered some minimal protection. Murdock did not hesitate, but plunged headfirst down the incline after him. Together, the two men belly-crawled across the open space that surrounded the little airfield. To their left, a shed stood close to the razor wire barrier. They instinctively headed toward it and the meagre cover it provided.

In the shadow of this structure, they rose to a crouch and pulled wire-cutters from their belts. Face pointed to the nearest metal pin that anchored the razor wire to the ground, then flashed a familiar gesture at his teammate. Murdock nodded and moved to his left to find the next pin. It took them only a minute or two to snip the thinner wire loose from the pins and free a stretch of several feet. Face gave another signal, then carefully lifted the wire, leaving a space just barely large enough for a grown man to wriggle through without cutting his back to ribbons.

Murdock immediately dropped to the ground and crawled under the wire, catching his leather jacket only once before he rolled free of the ugly little blades. Thirty seconds later, Face had joined him inside the barrier.

The rest was routine for these veteran Rangers. They moved in complete silence, acting as if they shared the same brain, taking out the sentries with frightening efficiency. Murdock clambered into the aging OH-58 he had chosen, while Face covered him from the darkness beneath the nearby hulk of a Black Hawk. It all ran like clockwork, right up to the moment that Murdock fired up the chopper's engine.

Face was ready for it - the roaring, shattering noise that would expose their presence to the entire base - and sprinted full tilt for the OH at the first splutter of sound. He halted at the rear passenger door and turned to sweep the airfield with the muzzle of his weapon. They would come. Any second now, they would come running...

There was a flash of movement over near the control tower, and Face fired without hesitation, aiming high but making his point with devastating force. Shells ripped into the side of the tower, then shattered the windscreen on a jeep parked beside it, while three men flung themselves onto the ground and scrambled for cover. A dozen more uniformed figures spilled out of the nearest building, waving guns, and Face turned his fire on the engine of another strategically-placed jeep. It exploded in a very satisfactory manner that scattered the soldiers and brought a grin to the lieutenant's face.

Above his head, the chopper blades were picking up speed, filling the air with their comforting howl - a sound every combat veteran loved, because it meant reinforcements or rescue. The chopper lifted slightly then settled back on its skids, and Murdock bellowed above the roar of the engines, "Get in here, Face!"

Face laughed and fired another hail of bullets at the advancing soldiers. Several of them returned his fire, sending shells whizzing around him and pinging off the metal hulk at his back. Face pumped several rounds into a stack of fuel drums, igniting a gout of flame that billowed into the night sky, then stepped backward onto the skid and hooked his left hand through the door handle.

"Go, Murdock! Go!"

Murdock didn't argue. He eased the stick back, lifting off as gently as he dared with the U.S. Army pouring down on them, and heard Face laughing as he emptied his magazine in a last, farewell flourish. The pilot grinned in spite of himself. Leave it to Face to turn a simple raid into a chance to play the pirate. All he needed was a yardarm to swing from and a cutlass between his teeth to finish the picture.

They were swooping low over the desert, headed for an abandoned base and refuse dump on the outskirts of Baghdad, when Face wrenched the rear door open and climbed into the chopper. He slammed the door, reducing the howl of wind and noise to bearable proportions, and slid between the front seats.

"That was fun," he gasped, as he dropped, panting and grinning, into the co-pilot's chair.

Murdock rolled his eyes and grinned back.

"D'you like her, Murdock?"

"She's a beauty."

"Good, 'cause the Army has a no-return policy on stolen choppers." He pulled the magazine from his M5 and frowned at it, as if it had somehow let him down. "I'm empty."

"That's 'cause you were playin' Errol Flynn back there, showin' off for the grunts."

Face grinned irrepressibly at him, still visibly crackling with excitement, his eyes ablaze with the joy of the game. "Too bad it was so easy! Takes half the fun out of it." He paused, sobering very slightly. "One little coil of razor wire and a few kids wandering around with pop-guns... It's like they were asking us to come in and steal something."

"The war's over, remember?" Murdock said dryly. "They're just waitin' to ship this stuff home."

"Well, here's one less hunk of metal for them to worry about."

Murdock laughed.

Face stretched luxuriously, savoring the last traces of adrenaline in his system, and said lazily. "Step on it, would ya buddy? We've still got a mission briefing with Ahmed tonight, and I'm beat."

The tiny, shabby hotel room seemed barely able to hold the men crammed into it. Hannibal and Face sat on the narrow bed, a map spread out between them, while Murdock slouched in a rickety chair to Face's right and B.A. leaned his hands on the back of the chair to peer over the pilot's shoulder. Opposite Murdock sat a fifth man, a young, handsome Arab with angular features and worried eyes. Every other inch of space in the room was filled with gear - weapons, comm packs, kit bags, and a jumble of local clothing piled on a table shoved into the corner. A single fixture on the wall above the bed cast a circle of unfiltered light on the map and threw the faces bent so intently over it into high relief.

Hannibal stared at the map for a moment, then shifted his gaze to Face. "All our intel points to Tikrit as the insurgents' home base. We have to assume that's where they'll take you."

The young Arab seated to Hannibal's right nodded agreement without lifting his eyes from the map.

"But first you have to get out of Sadr City," Hannibal continued, poking his cigar-butt at a tangle of streets on the map that clearly represented Baghdad. "I don't like you going in there alone, kid."

Face shot him a gleaming smile. "I won't be alone. Ahmed will be with me, and he knows those streets better than any of us."

Both men turned to look at the Arab, who smiled shyly and said, in a soft, diffident voice, "I know the streets, but I will have no weapon. Perhaps I could hide you in the sewer if things go badly."

"Thanks, but no thanks. I've already visited the scenic sewers of Baghdad, and I still smell them in my nightmares."

"If Ahmed says it's time to hit the sewers," Hannibal retorted, now jabbing his cigar at his lieutenant instead of the map, "you'll hit the sewers. Understand?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. But Sadr City isn't going to be a problem."

"How do you figure that?"

"Simple. If these guys are planning to kill me, they won't do it in the middle of Baghdad - even that part of Baghdad." He fired another high-wattage smile at Hannibal, unable to contain his sense of fun even when discussing his own potential execution. "After all, it takes time to do these things properly. What if the locals interfere? Demand their share of the fun or, worse, of the cash?"

He shook his head decisively and went on with perfect aplomb, "No, they'll wait until we're out in the desert somewhere, then they'll take the money, punish the Western Infidel, and leave the pieces for the vultures."

Hannibal grinned in spite of his obvious worry. "And that doesn't bother you, I take it."

"Why should it? Outside the city, I've got you and Bosco tracking me on the ground, Murdock in the air, and Ahmed covering my sixes. What could go wrong?"

"With you? I shudder to think."

B.A. grunted with laughter and clouted Face on the shoulder, nearly sending him sprawling over the bed. "You'll mess it up somehow, Face. You always do."

"And you'll come blasting in to save my sorry hide, Bosco, like you always do."

"Okay," Hannibal conceded, a smile still twitching his lips as he spoke, "let's say Face is right and nothing happens until they're out of Baghdad. Run it down from there. Murdock?"

"I'm sitting four klicks north of the city limits, waiting till I see Face's signal."

"Where'd you put the transmitter, B.A.?"

"In the money belt," the corporal grunted. "I figure, no matter where they leave Faceman, that money belt'll end up with Al Fayed."

Ignoring Face's snort of amused disgust, Hannibal said, "Good call. And the body mic?"

"In his turban."

"Isn't that kinda dangerous?" Murdock asked. "Seems like it oughta be somewhere more protected."

"I can't wear it in my clothes," Face pointed out, "or they'll find it when they search me. And if I hide it too well, you won't be able to hear anything."

"I guess..."

"Have a little faith, Murdock," Hannibal chided.

"Huh. You're the one who's always riding Face about being too reckless."

"Have a little faith in B.A.'s skill, if not in Face's caution."

"Oh, that's nice!" Face interjected. "First I'm less important than a pile of euros, now I can't be trusted to look after myself on the mission! Why don't you just send B.A. in on point, instead of me?"

"Because he won't pass for a French journalist," Hannibal retorted. "And no one will buy him as a non-violent, idealistic crusader."

"I'll read 'em some Gandhi," the corporal said, with a sly grin at his teammate. "That'll sell my cover."

"Yeah, right up until you rip their arms off," Murdock offered.

Hannibal knew the signs that his boys were about to launch into an endless, spiraling game of baiting each other, and he decided it was time to get the briefing back on track. He silenced Murdock with a look and turned his attention to Ahmed.

"We're keeping you clean, son, just in case things go sour. If they don't find any electronics or weapons on you, they may believe that you thought Face was a harmless journalist. It could save your life."

"I understand," Ahmed murmured, but his expression was tense and his eyes frightened.

"You can still pull out."

"I'm Lt. Peck's translator, am I not? If I don't go with him..."

"Face speaks fluent Arabic."

"Yes, but the insurgents do not know this."

"I can tell them," Face assured him, "at the rendezvous. I can talk you out of going, if that's what you want."

Ahmed smiled convulsively. "I want to live through tomorrow. I want to live to be an old, old man. But I promised the Colonel to help, and I will do what I promised. You cannot go with these men alone, Lieutenant. They are the worst kind of people, brutal and without conscience. You do not know..."

"I do. I've met their kind before." Face clasped his arm for a moment in a gesture of comradeship and added, quietly, "But I'm grateful for the back-up."

"You're a good man, Ahmed." Hannibal switched gears instantly again, focusing his piercing gaze on his other two teammates. "Murdock, you're their primary support. B.A. and I will keep as close as possible, but we can't be visible to the truck, and on such flat ground, that means a few miles back. You stay within range of the tracking signal and mic. And I'd say no more than three minutes' flight time from Face's position."

"Got it. I play leap-frog with Face."

"B.A., we'll use Murdock as our eyes and ears. We shadow the target until it reaches Tikrit. Then we use the local traffic as cover and move in close. Murdock'll have to ditch the chopper outside of town."

"We got it, Boss Man. Ain't gonna be no trouble."

"As long as Face remembers his cover," Hannibal said, his eyes narrowing as they fastened on his lieutenant.

Face, who had been half listening and staring distantly at the map, caught the warning note in his commander's voice and looked up, startled out of his reverie. "What?"

"Your cover, kid."

"What about it?"

"Run it down for me."

Face sighed theatrically and recited, "I'm a French journalist on a crusade to expose corruption in the American Military Machine. I've got an interview lined up with this Al Fayed and his "Fists of Righteousness" loonies to get any dirt they have on American abuses and dirty business deals, and I'm prepared to pay handsomely for it." He looked challengingly at Hannibal. "Did I miss anything?"

"The key here is that you're a journalist, kid, not a soldier. You're an idealist who thinks his moral rectitude will protect him from all the Bad Things in this world."

"In other words, you're a pussy," B.A. informed him blandly.

Face rolled his eyes. "Thank you, I hadn't figure that out for myself." Cutting a sidelong glance at his commander, he added, tauntingly, "Who's the World Class conman here, anyway, Hannibal? Who came up with the cover in the first place? Who taught you how to run a scam? I know how to play a part and how to keep my cool, but if you're so sure I'll blow it, maybe you better send Bosco after all."

"I know you won't blow it, kid," Hannibal said quietly. "I just want you to understand how serious this is."

For the first time, Face looked genuinely annoyed. "Oh, that's rich! Remember who you're talking to, here, Hannibal! I'm the guy you always send in first to stir up the hornet's nest. I've met these bastards up close and personal more times than you can count, and I've got the scars to prove it! So don't tell me how to handle them, and don't pretend I can't take care of myself!"

"Fair enough. But I want you to remember this conversation when you get bored and decide that you'd rather bait the bad guys, or fight them, or seduce their women."

Face's expression changed instantly from hostile to hopeful. "Women?"

Murdock gave a snort of laughter and B.A. groaned. Hannibal just lifted an eyebrow at his lieutenant.

"Okay fine, no women," Face groused.

"Even if there's a pretty one without too many grenades on her belt," Murdock piped in, earning him a glare from Hannibal and a laugh from Face.

"Out!" Hannibal ordered. "All of you out! Get some sleep. We have to be up at daybreak. And Face..."

"I know, I know. No women."

Captain Sosa paused in the doorway to scan the room with cynical eyes. Every building in the Green Zone admin block was identical – a prefab brick of ugliness – and every room within them was the same utilitarian space, painted a nauseating dirty-beige, with walls too thin to keep Top Secret conversations even marginally private. This one was no different. It was the men working in this room who set it apart. They all wore unmarked fatigues and forage caps in an attempt to blend in with their surroundings, but they stood out like hula dancers among the real soldiers. Everyone knew they were spooks. If you scratched the desert camo on their bodies, you'd find a black suit and mirrored sunglasses underneath.

Smirking to herself at this thought, Sosa stepped through the door and made for the big desk at the back of the room. Agent Lynch – the second of that name she'd known personally – lifted his head and followed her approach with expressionless eyes. She couldn't tell with this one whether he lusted after her, loathed her, or held her in amused contempt. His face never cracked. She wasn't even sure whether he'd included her in this operation because he respected her abilities or because he wanted to use her connections, but in the end his motives didn't matter. She was where she wanted to be, thanks to Lynch.

Schooling her own features into bland impassibility, she stopped in front of his desk.

"This just came in from F.O.B. Raptor." She handed him a single sheet of paper but did not wait for him to read it. "Two men stole a decommissioned chopper from the Raptor airfield, and from the description, one was definitely Peck. The other flew the chopper, so it must have been Murdock. They were gone before personnel in the tower figured out what was happening, so they weren't able to track it."

"This is the Army we're talking about," Lynch said, sourly, as he scanned the short document. "Harris! Tap into the files at Raptor and get me a proper report! Pitt, find out who's in command out there."

Sosa watched the two eager young agents hop to their assignments, while Lynch continued to stare at the scrap of paper he held. "I take it you're pleased with this news."

This was a shot very much in the dark, since Lynch's expression had not changed in the slightest, but it was shrewdly aimed all the same. She may not know what he was thinking at any given moment, but she knew what his larger goals were, and this move by the A-Team could only mean one thing.

"Hm. Smith needs air support."

"They've made contact."

"About damned time. I was beginning to think Smith was losing his edge."

Sosa snorted derisively. "Fat chance."

"Agent Lynch?" one of the flunkies called, "I've got an ID on that chopper."

"Is it still wearing its numbers?"

"Yeah, and the radio is still tagged. If they use it, we'll know about it."

"They won't. Smith knows protocol better than we do and he'll know exactly how visible he is in that bird."

"Then why go for a U.S. Military chopper?" Sosa asked.

Lynch shrugged. "It's easy to get, it blends into the scenery, and his pilot can fly it in his sleep."

"Fly it where?"

"When we find the chopper, we'll know."

"What if we can't find the chopper?"

"Then your precious A-Team will be flying into a shit storm with no back-up."

"Smith will have planned for that. As far as he's concerned, he and his Team are on their own, so he'll build an escape hatch into his plan."

"You have a lot of confidence in him."

"I do. If he takes those men into any kind of storm, he'll bring them out again."

"Let's hope so, because if he doesn't, your pretty-boy ex could wind up as buzzard chow."

Sosa had long practice in not reacting to such digs. She merely smiled and raised her eyebrows at her would-be tormentor, completely unfazed by both his insinuations and his threats. She might care that Face was once again flirting with disaster – she might care very much – but she'd be damned if she let a cold-blooded bastard like Lynch see it.

"I'm not the one who bet his reputation that he could clean up this mess. It was your agent who conspired with Morrison, Pike and a group of Iraqi insurgents to steal billions of dollars. And it was your agent who leaked Government secrets to those same insurgents to win their trust."

"None of this is news to me, Captain," Lynch said dryly.

She leaned forward, placing her hands on his desk and bringing her face within a few inches of his. "Then it's not news to you that the A-Team is your best chance of finding and eliminating those insurgents before they use – or sell – what they know."

"That's why I leaked the information about Morrison to set them on the trail."

"Then you have a vested interest in the A-Team's success."

He nodded without letting his gaze shift from hers, and a hint of a smile twitched one side of his mouth. "Granted. But I wasn't the one sticking my tongue down Peck's throat on the L.A. docks."

Sosa backed off slightly to eye Lynch from a more circumspect distance. She toyed with the idea of making a crack about the agent's sexuality but decided, just in time, that discretion was the better part of valor and bit her tongue. "What's your point?"

"Simply that we both have a… vested interest in the success of this particular mission. So I suggest that we stop trying to skewer each other – verbally or otherwise – and work together."

"I thought we were."

The infinitesimal smile widened a bit. "You drop the remarks about Lynches past and I'll refrain from comment on your taste in boy-toys. And both of us will do our best to keep the A-Team alive. Agreed?"

Sosa studied his face intently, hoping for one tiny glimpse of what was truly simmering in his reptilian brain, and sighed in defeat. "Agreed."

"Hey," Murdock said.

The dark head in front of him, silhouetted against the star-strewn sky, turned and Face's voice answered him. "Hey, Murdock."

The pilot held up two bottles of beer, offering one to his teammate. "I found some of the good stuff."

"Cheers." Face took a bottle from his hand and raised it in a brief salute. Then he downed a third of it in one swallow. Turning back to prop his elbows on the battered cinderblock wall that divided their patch of littered ground from another identical one, he resumed his study of the night.

Murdock joined him, assuming the same posture and gazing out at the ragged city skyline.

Face took another slug of beer and tilted his head up, as if savoring the hot wind on his face. "I never thought I'd say this, but I actually missed this place."

"Hm."

"You don't believe me?"

"I do. I'm just wonderin'... what was it you missed? The heat? The smell? Or the locals carrying IEDs?"

Face laughed softly. "The feeling that we belong. That we have a job to do, and it matters."

"I get that." Murdock sipped his own beer thoughtfully. "Can you believe that Morrison really sold military secrets to these bastards?"

"Hannibal believes it. And with what we already know Morrison did... well it's not much of a stretch."

"I dunno. It's one thing to steal billions of dollars. It's another thing to endanger our country - a country he fought for all his adult life."

"And betrayed when it didn't give him what he thought he deserved. He sold us down the river fast enough, Murdock, and we were his men."

"Hmm. He let Hannibal go to prison."

"Right. If he'd do that to the colonel, then I guess he'd do pretty much anything."

They fell quiet again, both looking out at the city and turning over their private thoughts, until Murdock asked, "You worried about tomorrow?"

"Nah."

"Then what're you doin' out here alone?"

"Thinking."

"'Bout what?"

"My first mission with Hannibal." Face took another slug of beer and smiled dreamily at the stars over his head. "He sent me to North Africa. Tangier. I could speak French and blend in with the Europeans in the city, so I got point. My assignment was to locate the target and lead in the rest of the squad."

"What'd you do, Face?" the pilot demanded in a tone that said he already knew the answer.

Face just laughed.

"Was it a woman?"

"Nope. But I still managed to end up in the harbor with a lead weight strapped to my feet."

"Hannibal pulled you out."

"Doesn't he always? God bless Hannibal Smith!" He raised his beer bottle in a solemn toast, then drained it and tossed it into the rubbish heap on the far side of the wall.

Murdock shook his head in disbelief. "You and the colonel have been doin' this dance for a long time. Don't you ever get tired of it?"

The look Face turned on him was blank and disbelieving. "What else would I do?"

"I dunno... something that doesn't get you half-killed every time you go to work in the morning."

Face dismissed that with a disdainful gesture. "I haven't died yet."

"That's 'cause Hannibal always comes."

"And he always will, so what's the problem?"

Turning sideways to prop his hip against the wall and confront his teammate squarely, Murdock demanded, "You know you're my best friend, right?"

Face blinked at him, taken off guard by his change of tone. "Of course I do."

"And you know I'd go completely off the rails - for real, I mean - if something happened to you that we couldn't fix?"

"Murdock..."

"No, just listen to me for once. You're a crazy man, Face. People call me crazy, but that's 'cause they don't know you."

"What about Bosco? He knows both of us and he..."

Murdock ignored his interruption and went on earnestly, "Your brand of crazy gets you into serious trouble. So far, we've always shown up in time to pull you out of the shit, but what if we don't this time?"

"You will. I have complete faith in you."

"I wish you didn't."

Face cocked his head, frowning in confusion at his friend's words. "Why?"

"'Cause maybe then you'd be more careful."

When Face said nothing but continued to frown, Murdock changed tactics. Letting a note of pleading creep into his voice, he said, "Look, buddy, I'm just askin' you, this once, for me, be extra careful tomorrow. Stick to the plan. Don't improvise, don't get cocky or cute, and for Christ's sake, Face, don't start thinkin' you can take down these bastards alone!"

"I won't. Or I will. Whichever will make you happy," Face said placatingly.

"Seein' you climb outta that truck in Tikrit, with all your limbs still attached will make me happy."

An affectionate smile softened Face's features, and he reached over to punch Murdock lightly on the shoulder. "Just for you, buddy."

"Thanks."

The smile widened into a baiting grin. "But I'm still gonna rely on you to pull me out of the shit."

"It's what I live for, baby." Murdock smiled crookedly at his friend, then drained his beer bottle in a gesture of finality. "Come on, let's get some sleep. We got an early start tomorrow."

"Yeah."

Together, the two men crunched over the gravelly, trash-strewn ground and slipped into the tiny hotel.

Face sat in the rattling, jolting SUV, jammed in tightly between two Arabs, with three more crowded into the seat in front of him, speeding down a gravel and dirt road to nowhere. It was stiflingly hot, even for the Iraqi desert, and the men squashed up against him seemed to be sucking up all the available oxygen. He squirmed around to find a more comfortable position between his sweaty companions, trying to avoid the rifle butt jammed into his ribs, but only received an elbow to the head for his trouble.

"Watch where you put your hands, pretty whore," the man on his right said in passable French.

The one on the other side said something extremely rude in Arabic, assuming that Face could not understand him, and laughed. Face subsided into his place, scowling in pretended outrage at the first insult and ignoring the second much more potent one.

The fact that Face spoke fluent Arabic had so far escaped his escort, as had the fact that he was far more lethal – even unarmed and alone – than any of these desert rats slung about with guns and grenades. This suited the lieutenant just fine. Years of experience had taught him that a man who called him a "pretty whore", in any language, didn't consider him a threat. And a man who didn't consider him a threat was unlikely to put a bullet in his head before he had a chance to fight back.

The truck hit a large pothole, bouncing him against the ruder of his two companions and earning him another muttered crack about his sexual practices. He pretended not to understand, smiled and apologized in French. Then he shot a swift glance over his shoulder at the man crammed into the cargo space behind him.

Ahmed looked faintly green beneath the brown of his skin, as if sitting sideways in a truck careening through the Iraqi desert didn't quite agree with his digestion. The lieutenant shot him a wide, beguiling grin that sent a spasm over his dark features. It might have been an answering smile. On the other hand, it might have been a grimace of pain. It was hard to tell under the circumstances.

Face trusted Ahmed implicitly and recognized his importance to the mission, but he was beginning to wish that he'd left him in Sadr City instead of carting him along on this lunatic mission. Not only was the poor man about to lose his lunch, but his presence had an inhibiting effect on the other Arabs in the truck. They knew Ahmed understood them and wouldn't speak freely in front of him, so Face heard nothing more interesting than bawdy stories and insults.

The truck hit another pothole and lurched perilously onto two wheels. Ahmed groaned, and Face reached back to slap him on the shoulder.

"Ça va?" he asked, sympathetically.

Ahmed just rubbed his eyes with a shaking hand and shot Face a pleading look.

Turning to the man seated on his right, Face offered his most appealing smile and said, in perfect, idiomatic French, "How much farther are we going? My friend, here, is feeling pretty sick."

The man grinned, his teeth a startlingly white slash in his dark face, and remarked to his comrades in Arabic, "The faggot wants to know how much farther we're going."

This produced a round of laughter that made Face distinctly uneasy. He listened to his escort cracking rude jokes, a look of frowning confusion on his features, until he heard Ahmed groan again. Then he nudged the French speaker and asked more insistently, "How far?"

"Close your mouth before I shove something in it."

Face subsided into disgruntled silence, radiating wounded dignity, and turned his attention to figuring out exactly where they were headed. He could see a swath of the vast, dun-colored landscape between the heads of the men in the front seat. A line of low, rocky hills rose in the distance, the only notable feature in any direction. Face didn't recognize them, so he couldn't use them as a reference point, and he had long since lost any sense of direction. He only knew that they had left Baghdad on the highway that ran north, toward Tikrit, but had left it an hour ago. They might still be making for Tikrit, but how could he be sure? And if not Tikrit, then where?

The situation was remarkably frustrating. The adrenaline rush of his first meeting with the insurgents had long since faded. Now he was simply uncomfortable and bored. On any other mission, Face would have chosen this time to shake things up, throw a little kink into Hannibal's plan just to see what blew up as a result, but this was no ordinary mission and he had promised to behave. He couldn't break his word to Murdock, so he had to sit quietly in the truck and play the Idealistic French Pussy, no matter how badly he itched for a little action.

As he gazed dully at the emptiness around him, thoroughly regretting his promise, he caught himself wondering how Murdock could possibly follow him in his stolen chopper, when the desert offered no cover for anything bigger than a good-sized scorpion. Did he, in fact, have any back-up? Was Murdock listening to his comm signal? Or had he been forced so far out of range that Face and Ahmed were truly alone?

He was still pondering this question when the road swung to the right and the truck took an abrupt left turn, off of the minimal road surface. Bouncing viciously over rocks and ridges, it dove down into the bottom of a deep wadi and came to a halt in a cloud of dust.

Slumped in the pilot's couch of the stolen chopper, Murdock gazed idly at the GPS screen, watching the little green blip that marked Face's position and whistling a cheerful tune between his teeth. The headset fastened to his right ear was filled with chatter in Arabic, with an occasional interruption in French from Faceman. He understood both languages in a rudimentary way but couldn't catch more than a word or two of the conversation in the truck. This didn't worry him much. Face had a series of code words he could use if he needed help from his team, and Murdock would recognize any of those no matter how much noise surrounded them.

Another blip on the GPS screen marked Hannibal and B.A.'s position. Murdock watched it cruising along at a steady speed, holding a circumspect distance from the leading blip that was Face, and smiled to himself. Everything was going exactly as planned. Face was behaving himself. And in another hour, they'd be in Al Fayed's headquarters with those all-important documents. It seemed as though his fears were unfounded - for once.

When the GPS blip stopped moving, Murdock left off his whistling and took a moment to listen more closely to the voices in his ear. He still heard nothing but Arabic, but the speakers sounded different. Excited. Angry. Something was definitely up. His feeling of satisfaction evaporated, as all his warning antennae started humming.

He was frowning as he reached for the high-powered walkie-talkie on the seat beside him and hit the call switch. "Tweetie Bird to Sylvester. Come in Sylvester."

Hannibal's voice came crackling over the line almost instantly. "Go ahead, Tweetie."

"I think we got a situation, Boss."

"Out! Get out!" The order came from a man in the front seat whom Face had pegged as the leader of this squad. His name was Omar, and his men were clearly afraid of him.

The men on either side of him grabbed Face by the arms and began hauling him bodily out the door. Sticking to his cover, he reacted with mingled outrage and fear, demanding, "What is this? Take your hands off me!"

"Get them out!" Omar shouted.

Dragged and shoved by turns, Face tumbled out of the truck, staggering to keep his balance. One of his guards shoved him hard in the back, just as another kicked his feet out from under him, and he sprawled in the dirt, swearing in French. A knee landed heavily on his back, pinning him down.

"Find the money. Where's the other one?"

Face craned his neck to peer around him and saw Omar just a few feet away. The insurgent commander carried a pistol in one hand and a huge blade that looked like an old-fashioned bayonet in the other. He had more blades, an automatic weapon and a bandolier hung with ammo draped about his person, and even in his filthy, patched-up desert gear, he looked thoroughly dangerous.

Omar watched impassively, his dark face hard with contempt, as Ahmed was shoved and slapped forward. The young Arab fell awkwardly to his knees in front of Omar, visibly shaking with fear but still trying to play his part. "This is outrageous. Why have we stopped?"

"Because I ordered it," Omar snarled. Turning on one of his men, he added, "I told you to find that money!"

Hands grabbed Face and dragged him up to his knees. Then they began tearing at his clothing. The man directly in front of him leveled a rifle to point between his eyes. Face pretended to stare at it in paralytic terror while his mind raced, looking for a clue as to how to salvage the situation.

The search quickly revealed the money belt Face wore, and one of the men jerked it free. Ahmed tried again, mustering his courage to protest.

"That money is for Al Fayad! We came at his invitation, with a donation to his cause..."

"Silence!" Omar snapped, striking Ahmed a backhanded blow that sent blood spurting down his chin. Pointing his bayonet at Face, he ordered, "Search him."

Face tried to twist away from his guards' grabbing hands, still playing his helpless journalist role, until the one with the rifle decided to join in the fun. Stepping close, he jabbed at Face with the barrel, forcing his chin up until their eyes met. It was the man who had made such foul jokes in the truck, and from the smile he now wore, Face knew that things were about to get ugly. Another flick of the rifle snagged his turban and tossed it a few feet away to lie crumpled in the dirt.

In that split second, Face decided it was time to improvise. He feinted sharply to one side with his torso, throwing off the balance of the man frisking him, then he grabbed the barrel of the rifle and drove the butt into the grinning man's face with brutal force. The man let go of the weapon and howled in pain. For a miraculous moment, none of the insurgents reacted, and Face found himself on his feet with a rifle in his hands. In the next moment, two men slammed into him with fists and feet flying.

"Don't shoot that one, yet!" Omar shouted. "I want him alive!"

Face leapt into battle with a clear, hot, unholy joy filling him. This is what he'd been trained to do, what he did better than anyone else on the planet, and finally he was free to do it. To fight. To kill, if necessary. To hold evil at bay until the team showed up to save him. He knew, even as his hand first fastened on the rifle barrel, that he had crossed a line he could not uncross. He had broken his word and sent Hannibal's beautiful plan up in flames. Some small part of him was sorry, especially for breaking a promise to Murdock, but most of him was simply, gloriously happy to be free of restraint at last.

The insurgents didn't stand a chance. Face had reduced two of them to huddled piles of rags, even after one had relieved him of his weapon, and was about to disable the third when he was brought up short by a single, shattering pistol shot. He spun around, adrenaline pumping through him and making his heart race, to see Omar standing over Ahmed's body. The young Arab lay sprawled in the dust, a single bullet hole in the center of his forehead and a gory mess of blood, brain matter and bone fragments splashed across the ground behind his head.

Omar turned cold eyes on Face. They stared at each other for a moment, then the Iraqi shifted his pistol to point at his prisoner and said, in perfect English, "Now you will tell me the truth."

A blow from a rifle butt caught Face in the back of the head and the ground came up to meet him as he slammed, face first, into the blood-stained dirt. He lay there, stunned as much by Omar's words as by the force of his fall, struggling to breathe.

"Turn him over."

His guards, now bloodied and wary of their prisoner, heaved him onto his back. One of them whipped a wire garrote around his neck and cinched it painfully tight as a warning, while the other two sat on his legs.

The insurgent leader strode up to him and straddled his body, caressing his bayonet obscenely. Staring up into those feral brown eyes, Face knew that he was dead. They had blown his cover, taken his money and killed his friend. In another thirty seconds, his body parts would be spread across the desert with Ahmed's brains. He could think of precisely nothing to say.

"Who sent you to kill our leader?" Omar demanded in English. "How did you find us?"

Face gave it one, last, desperate try and answered him in French. "I don't understand. What do you want?"

"Speak English, you lying shit!" Omar howled. In the same instant, he stomped his booted foot down on Face's right wrist and drove the bayonet downward with all his strength, through the palm of Face's hand.

Deeper and deeper it sank. Bones crunched. Tendons split. Every nerve in his body seemed to explode with pain. And Face screamed in pure, heart-stopping agony.

There was the sound of laughter and a now-familiar voice hissing, "Tell me what I want to know!" Then another blade bit into him, another hideous crunch filled his ears as cold steel sank into his shoulder and drove through to the earth beneath, another explosion of pain sent him spinning out of rationality and into a place of black, mindless panic.

This time, he screamed a name. "Murdock!"

The insurgents broke off their laughter and looked at each other in consternation. Face distantly heard them jabbering questions at each other and Omar demanding to know who he was talking to, but Face ignored them. He had fastened onto his one hope of rescue, his one solid point in the shifting nightmare, and he called again, desperately.

"Murdock! Murdock!"

"Shut him up!" the leader snarled.

"Murdock!"

A rifle butt slammed into his left temple, rocking his head to one side and stunning him with its force. He fell still for a moment, staring blankly at the figures grouped around him, then mouthed the one word he was still capable of speaking. Murdock.

Another, more vicious blow struck his temple, smashing bone and tissue, sending blood spurting from his left eye. Mercifully, Face did not feel it. His wide, blue gaze had already gone blank, his face empty and his mind black.

The gunshot went through Murdock's body like an electric shock. A handful of seconds later he heard Face's voice, telling him that his teammate was alive, but the fear in it did nothing to reassure him. He began slapping switches, swearing at the chopper and shouting frantically at Hannibal, growing more hysterical by the second. Everything was noise and panic - Hannibal's demands for information, the whine of rotors spinning up to speed, Murdock's own attempts to coax and threaten the chopper into instant flight. But none of this could drown out the dreadful sound of Face screaming his name, over and over again, desperately, mindlessly, each cry a physical blow that struck Murdock with terrible force.

Then, as suddenly as they had started, the screams stopped.

"No! Noooo!" Murdock wailed, hauling back on the chopper's control stick until the poor old bird howled in sympathetic distress. "Don't do it, Face! Don't do it!" The skids reluctantly left the sand, and Murdock slammed the stick forward, sending the chopper skimming across the desert at full speed.

The voices coming through the headset were all unfamiliar now. They sounded afraid, and one was barking orders. Finally, in a burst of static, the microphone went dead.

"They found his mic!" Murdock cried, hoping Hannibal could hear him over the din made by an old chopper being pushed beyond its limits. "I've lost his signal!"

"Go, Murdock! Get there as fast as you can, but be careful! We don't know what we'll find out there!"

I know, Murdock thought, hearing Face's cries again and the deadly silence that followed, but all he said to Hannibal was, "Understood. Over and out."

Murdock saw the bodies lying in the dry riverbed as he came in over the wadi. There was no truck in sight and no sign of life. Just two figures sprawled in the dun-colored dirt, unmoving.

He landed at the edge of the gully and bounded out of his seat before the rotors had begun to slow. Pausing only long enough to wrench the first aid kit from its mounting on the bulkhead and grab a weapon, he jumped down from the cockpit and ran for the wadi, keeping low to avoid the whirring blades. The bank was too steep to climb, so he slid down it on the seat of his pants and landed at the bottom in a cloud of thick dust.

He reached Ahmed first and barely broke stride as he passed. One glance at the gaping hole in the young man's forehead told Murdock everything that mattered. Shaking in rage and fear, he sprinted over to the second body.

Face lay on his back, an enormous blade driven through his right shoulder, literally nailing him to the ground. Another blade pinned his right hand the same way, and blood soaked steadily into the pale dirt beneath him. His head was turned sharply to the side, and his familiar blue eyes seemed to watch Murdock intently, but the eyes were empty, the lashes motionless, and the entire left side of his face masked in blood. At the sight of the hideous, sunken wound behind his left eye, Murdock uttered a dreadful animal cry of pain and dropped to his knees beside his friend's body.

For a long moment, he could think of nothing to say, nothing to do. He could only kneel in a spreading pool of blood, feeling as if the blade rammed through Face's shoulder had just torn out his own guts as well and left him to die, with agonizing slowness, beside his friend. Then he saw, through a haze of pain, Face's chest rise in a slow, shallow breath, and suddenly, his own brain seemed to come back to life again. At the same moment, the grief that had frozen at his certainty of his friend's death now thawed, and tears began streaming, unchecked, down his cheeks.

Resting one hand lightly on the injured man's head, he bent close to the battered, gore-streaked face and said in a fierce whisper, "You gotta stay with me, Face... talk to me... Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus, Face, you gotta help me!"

A thick, gory, crimson tear slipped from Face's left eye and painted a bright track down his cheek in macabre imitation of Murdock's grief, drawing a curse and a sob from his friend. "Wake up and help me, damn you!"

Grabbing the hilt of the nearest bayonet, Murdock struggled to pull it free of the ground. It refused to budge, so he shifted his grip and tensed for another assault. After three or four attempts, he gave up, afraid that he'd only tear the wound in Face's shoulder wider if he kept this up. Instead, he turned his attention to the hideous wound on the other man's temple and the blood painting his face.

The first aid kit contained rolls of gauze and Murdock's canteen provided clean water. Positioning himself so that his body blocked the worst of the sun from falling on his injured friend, he began carefully cleaning around the wound to expose its full extent. What he saw darkened his expression and brought bile up in his throat. Clenching his teeth, he continued to wipe away the blood and gore from the crushed flesh and shattered bone behind Face's left eye.

The roar of an engine announced that Hannibal and B.A. had arrived, but Murdock did not turn to acknowledge them. He could not bear to see their faces when they realized what had happened. Their voices poured over him, full of horror and disbelief, without touching him, until he heard Bosco say, "Gimme some room, Crazy Man."

He looked up to see the big Corporal crouching over the bayonet that pierced Face's shoulder, preparing to wrench it free.

Murdock scooted around to kneel above Face's head, even as Hannibal called sharply, "No, the other one first!"

"He's bleedin' out, man."

"I know, but we have to free his hand before we can bandage that shoulder wound. The hand first, B.A. Murdock, throw me that field dressing."

Clicking into his accustomed role of soldier and unofficial medic, Murdock threw off his mental paralysis and moved to help Hannibal. Together, they braced Face's arm while B.A. drew out the bayonet, then they strapped a dressing tightly over the wound without allowing themselves to see the appalling damage done to the hand.

It took B.A. three tries to get the other blade out, sunk as it was through so many layers of dirt, flesh, bone and muscle, but it came free at last. Murdock lifted Face's torso gently in his arms so that Hannibal could reach the exit wound on his back, carefully cradling the wounded man's head against his shoulder to protect it and murmuring quietly to him in a useless effort at comfort. Face could not hear, but Murdock could not see him in this dreadful condition without trying to reach him and reassure him, even if he knew it was pointless.

Hannibal tied down the last bandage and lifted bleak eyes to his teammates. "Get him in the chopper, B.A. I'll take care of Ahmed."

"What're you gonna do?" B.A. asked, his voice rough with distress. "The chopper only holds four people."

"We don't have time to bury him. I'll put him in the jeep, under a tarp to slow down the scavengers. Maybe we can get back here to..."

He broke off, and both men looked away, knowing they would not be back to retrieve the body. Ahmed had died trying to help them, and now they must abandon him. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right for Rangers to leave their dead. But in that moment, the dead mattered less to Hannibal than the living.

"Move, Corporal," he said, in a gentle voice that belied the command in his words.

B.A. nodded once, rose to his feet, and stooped to lift Face's body from Murdock's arms. Together, the two men climbed the steep slope of the wadi and crossed to the chopper, handling their fragile burden as carefully as possible. The chopper's cabin was designed to hold four men, all seated upright, and it took them a few minutes to get Face into the small space. Finally they managed it, with B.A. in one seat, supporting Face's head and shoulders so that his feet could rest on the other seat.

By the time Murdock closed the rear door and climbed behind the controls, Hannibal was already sitting beside him.

"Get us in the air, Captain."

"Where are we going?" Murdock asked, as he fired up the engines.

"Baghdad."

Murdock twisted around to exchange a startled look with B.A., but neither man ventured a protest. This was not the time to argue with their commanding officer. It was the time for trust – for their own sakes as much as Face's.

"Right, Boss."

In another minute, they were soaring above the wadi, the jeep with its forlorn cargo dropping away beneath them, and Murdock heeled the chopper over on its side, making for Baghdad.

Captain Sosa stared at the video feed playing on Lynch's computer screen and shook her head in disbelief. "What do they think they're doing? Has Smith lost his mind?"

"Not if he's headed where I think he is."

From the desk across the room, a junior agent called, his voice cracking with strain, "Sir, we've picked up a radio signal from the chopper! It's broadcasting on the emergency frequency reserved for American and Iraqi military!"

"Which Smith would know," Lynch interjected dryly.

"They're requesting clearance to land on the roof of Saddam University Hospital."

Sosa looked as if someone had punched her in the stomach, and the glare she fixed on Lynch was distinctly hostile. "Something went wrong with the mission. It must be bad, for Smith to risk flying straight into Baghdad in a stolen chopper!"

"Obviously he needs medical care in a hurry. What I want to know is, why that hospital?"

"Does it matter?" she demanded, her rage at his cavalier attitude mounting with every second.

"It does to me. If we're going to maintain control of this mission, we need to stay a step ahead of Smith and his team. That means, we understand every move he makes." Turning to another underling, he said, "Harris, get me Smith's full dossier from his tours in Iraq. I want the names of all his known contacts, cross-matched against the staff of Saddam University Hospital. And I want it yesterday."

"What about the chopper, Sir?" the first agent asked.

"Contact all the necessary authorities – Iraqi and U.S. military, local civilian, whoever might make trouble for us – and tell them to let the chopper land. I want the A-Team safely in that hospital, where we can keep them under surveillance."

"Of course, you don't care whether they're alive or dead," Sosa interjected acidly.

"On the contrary, I care very much, but that's not under my immediate control. The best I can do is make sure they reach the hospital as quickly as possible."

She smirked humorlessly at him, then dropped her eyes to the video feed once more. "You're a real humanitarian, Lynch."

"I've got it, Sir!" Agent Harris called. "There's a doctor who's a known associate of Smith and the A-Team. A surgeon. He patched up Smith's boys more than once when they were injured on missions, and Smith used his influence to get him a position at SUH."

"Give me a name."

"Doctor Hadi Sajahdi."

Lynch smirked in triumph. "That's our man. Let's go, Sosa."

Murdock watched Hannibal prowling the wide spot in the corridor that passed as a waiting room with tired, strangely sane eyes. "Y'know," he said, as the colonel's well-worn path brought him within range of his voice, "pacing like that isn't gonna help Face. And it's gonna drive me nuts, if you keep it up."

"You're already nuts, fool," B.A. remarked, without lifting his eyes from the book in his hands.

Hannibal smiled bleakly and dropped into the nearest chair. "I can't seem to hold still. How long has it been?"

Murdock looked at the clock that hung on the opposite wall then checked it against his watch. "Four hours."

B.A. closed his book and gave Hannibal a long, frowning look. "You worried about somethin', Boss Man?"

"You mean, besides what's happing to Face in there?" He nodded toward the closed doors to the surgery wing.

"Yeah. Besides that."

Another small, grim smile lifted the corner of Hannibal's mouth – a smile that did not touch his eyes and only seemed to darken the shadows in his face. "I'm wondering how soon the Military Police will get here."

"What you talkin' about, man?" B.A. demanded. "Doc Hadi's our friend. He won't turn us in."

"He doesn't have to. We flew right through the middle of Baghdad in a stolen Army chopper. We might as well have called up the D.O.D. and invited them to come arrest us."

"Oh, jeez," Murdock groaned.

"Then why'd they let us land?" B.A. asked.

"I don't know, and that's what has me worried. We should be in a military prison right now, or blown to bits by a heat-seeking missile, but someone let us in. Someone told the military and civilian authorities to let us land. And that someone knows exactly where to find us when he wants us."

Murdock groaned again and scrubbed his hands over his face, as if trying to erase Hannibal's words. "This is bad. Really bad."

"What're we gonna do?"

Hannibal shrugged. "What can we do except wait?"

"Sitting ducks," Murdock said, miserably.

As if on cue, the elevator at the far end of the hallway chimed. The A-Team watched with eyes numbed by exhaustion as two people stepped out of the elevator and started down the corridor toward them. A man and a woman, both dressed in pristine desert camo, and both unpleasantly familiar to the waiting men. Agent Lynch and Captain Sosa.

Tired as he was, Hannibal could not muster either surprise or anger. He had spent the last four hours trying to deduce who had intervened on their behalf and given them safe passage through Baghdad airspace, and he had considered more than once that Lynch or Sosa may have been involved. But he had not expected both of them, and he was not happy to see them together now. Either one alone meant trouble; the two of them together was more than he thought his tired brain could handle right now.

They reached the row of chairs and halted a few paces from where Hannibal sat. Lynch studied him dispassionately, while Sosa glared at nothing in particular to avoid their hostile gazes.

"Agent Lynch, Captain Sosa. Always a pleasure," he said dryly.

Lynch nodded once. "Smith."

Sosa did not bother with a greeting but demanded, abruptly, "How's Face?"

"We don't know yet. He's still in surgery." Hannibal smiled fractionally at her. "Is this the part where I'm supposed to thank you for your concern? Or for not having us shot down this time?"

Her eyes narrowed in anger. "Don't get cute with me, Smith. It may be too late to shoot you down, but I can still have you thrown in the stockade."

Hannibal knew perfectly well that Charissa Sosa would not have them arrested – not after conniving in their escape less than a year before – but he didn't like her hard-as-nails, bad-ass attitude or her unsettling effect on his lieutenant, so he kept the iron in his voice when he asked, "So what brings you here, Captain? Not Face's health and welfare, I'm guessing, not with another Lynch in tow."

"Lynch is the man who got you here in one piece."

Hannibal gave the agent a long, considering look. Then he growled, "What do we owe you for the favor?"

"We'll discuss that later, when you can keep your mind on the job."

"Discuss what?"

"How you plan to salvage the mission."

Dead silence answered him, as the gears finally clicked into place in Hannibal's over-loaded brain and everything suddenly made sense. "You set us up." He shot to his feet, eyes blazing, muscles tensed for battle, weariness and caution burned away by the fury that filled him. "You son of a bitch! You brought us here! This was your mission!"

"No one forced you to accept it."

"You planted that story about Morrison to lure us here, then you sent us into a hot zone without proper intel, and now one of my men is down!"

"Do you think we did this deliberately?" Sosa demanded, distress and anger warring in her face. "We wanted you to retrieve those documents, not get yourselves killed!"

"So, now you're sorry that Face got his skull bashed in?! It's a little late for that, lady!"

"You're the great Colonel Smith," she shot back, anger winning out over any softer emotion, "the man with the plan who always brings his team home safely! How were we supposed to know you'd screw this one up?!"

"You better shut your mouth," B.A. growled, surging forward with fists clenched, too angry even to realize that he was threatening an officer and a woman.

"Stand down, Corporal," Hannibal barked.

"Murdock was right about you. You're nothin' but a devil in spike heels! Face won't be safe till he's a thousand miles away from you!"

"Let's not make this personal," Lynch interjected, bringing Hannibal's full wrath down on him.

"You don't think this is personal?" he snarled. "Think again! When you played on our personal feelings about Morrison to get us here, you put my boys in harm's way. Now I hold you personally responsible for what happened to Face, and I will personally see to it that you join him in Intensive Care with a machine to do your breathing for you, if you don't tell me the truth. Are we perfectly clear on that?"

Meeting the colonel's blazing eyes with as much aplomb as he could muster, Lynch answered, dryly, "Perfectly."

"Then start talking. Why did you trick us with fairy tales about Morrison selling secrets to the Iraqis?"

"They weren't fairy tales. Morrison did sell secrets to the insurgents, in exchange for their help in stealing the printing plates."

"That doesn't make any sense. The Iraqis already had the plates, and Morrison colluded with Pike and the other Lynch to steal them."

"The remnants of Saddam's Old Guard had the plates, but they had no plans to move them or the money they'd printed. They had the plates and the press well hidden. They planned to keep their operation under wraps until the U.S. pulled out and left the country to the vultures. Their vultures."

"So Morrison decided to poke the dragon," Hannibal said, grimly.

"Exactly. He bought the help of an insurgent group that had ties to the Old Guard. They weren't able to steal the plates, but they were able to plant rumors and convince the Guard that their hiding place was compromised. The Guard panicked and decided to take the plates out of the city. Morrison was warned of the move, and the rest is, as they say, history."

"Fair enough, but that still doesn't explain why you needed us. Iraq is crawling with U.S. Military, including plenty of Black Ops teams that could do this job for you."

"None as good as the A-Team and none with your history."

Hannibal grimaced in disgust. "We don't work for the government anymore. This wasn't our fight."

"Wasn't it?" Lynch raised a sardonic eyebrow and smirked in a way that made Hannibal long to hit him. "Then why are you here?"

The colonel just glared at him, knowing he was caught but too angry to admit it.

"You want someone to pay for what happened to Peck. I get that. But who sent him into that hot zone, Smith? Me?"

B.A. growled low in his throat. "I'm sick of hearin' how this is Hannibal's fault, and I'm gonna hurt the next person who says it!"

"It's true." Hannibal forced the words out through clenched teeth, driven by basic honesty to say them, no matter how they rankled. "Face was following my orders. It was my plan."

Into the heavy silence that followed this admission, Sosa murmured, "Even the best plans go wrong sometimes."

"Not mine," Hannibal growled.

Murdock tried to smile, but it came out as an agonized twitch. "Actually, Boss, your plans almost always go wrong. And it's almost always Faceman's fault. But you find a way to fix 'em 'cause you're the best."

"This one isn't on Face."

"It isn't on you either," B.A. insisted.

"It doesn't matter who is or isn't to blame," Lynch cut in. "What matters is how you plan to fix it."

All three men stared at him with varying degrees of disbelief and outrage. It was Hannibal who spoke, voicing what all of them were thinking.

"You were serious? You actually expect us to complete the mission?"

"Of course. We need those documents, and we need the leadership of the insurgency liquidated. You and your boys can do that, Smith."

Hannibal shook his head and answered very calmly, "This mess was yours to begin with, so you can clean it up yourself. The only thing that matters to me now is getting my men safely out of Iraq, and if you stand in my way, you could still end up on a ventilator."

At that moment, the double doors at the end of the corridor swung open and Dr. Sajahdi stepped through them. The entire A-Team turned as one man to start toward him, but Lynch caught Hannibal by the arm and held him back.

"We're not finished here, Smith."

Hannibal gave him a scathing look and wrenched his arm free. Lynch made as if to grab him again but Sosa hissed, "Let him go!" and chopped a hand down on his forearm. Hannibal strode off to join his teammates without sparing her so much as a glance.

"We can't just let Smith walk away," Lynch snapped, "and you know it."

"I'm not suggesting that we do, but he's got more important things on his mind at the moment."

"We're talking about national security! Military secrets in the hands of terrorists!"

"Terrorists who've held those secrets for nearly two years. A few more days won't make much difference."

"If Smith does his vanishing act now…"

"Are you really that stupid?" Sosa demanded, her beautiful face twisted with contempt. "He's not going anywhere without Face. And Face isn't going anywhere at all… except maybe to the morgue."

"With Peck in the morgue, there's nothing to hold the others here and we lose our leverage."

"Then you'd better pray he survives," she sneered as she stalked off down the hallway toward the elevators, leaving Lynch to stand alone, fuming, in the hallway.

Hannibal reached the others just in time to hear Hadi say, "He'll be in Recovery for another hour at least."

"He made it through the surgery?" Hannibal asked.

Hadi nodded and ran a hand through his sweat-matted hair. He was a tall, lanky, slightly stooped man with an artist's hands and eyes that belonged to a much older, sadder man. His blue scrubs were smeared with blood.

"Then he's gonna be all right," B.A. prompted hopefully.

"He's alive," Hadi said flatly, "and that's all I can tell you."

"Come on, Doc, you were in there for hours, diggin' around in his head. You must know something."

"I know we stopped him from bleeding to death, but I do not know if we saved any useful part of his brain."

Murdock blanched, looking as though a good deal of his own blood had just drained out of him, and Hannibal put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Hadi felt their distress beating at him, but he went on inexorably. "He needs very specialized care, more surgeries, a doctor who understands this type of injury better than I, but I do not know if anyone can help him now. He has suffered massive brain damage, and he is still bleeding into the brain."

"But this is Faceman we're talking about!" Murdock protested. "He's always getting beaten up and shot and tortured and stuff, but it never hurts him much. He always comes out of it smiling. You remember, don't you?"

Hadi smiled wanly. "I remember."

"So you go back in there, and you patch him up, and you tell him Murdock's out here waiting to see him. And tell him I got a double-shot cappuccino with extra foam for him! That'll put a smile on his face!"

Hadi just gazed at the distraught pilot helplessly.

"Take it easy, son," Hannibal murmured.

The eyes Murdock turned on Hannibal were hard with anger and bright with unacknowledged tears. "Don't talk to me like I'm a child, Colonel. I know what you're trying to say, and I'm not gonna listen to any more of it." He tore away from the colonel's restraining hand and strode toward the surgery wing doors. "I got somewhere I need to be."

"Face is in Recovery," Hadi protested. "They won't let you in."

Murdock halted with one hand on the swinging door, ready to push it open, and turned to glare at the doctor. "Yes, they will."

"C'mon, Crazy Man," B.A. urged, "don't do this now. You ain't helpin' Faceman any."

"He needs to know I'm here," Murdock insisted, his tone softening as he met B.A.'s pleading gaze. "You know how it works, Bosco. He expects me to be with him. I have to be with him. He won't die if…" The pilot broke off and his face contracted with pain, but in the next breath he regained control and said, firmly, "Face won't leave me." With that, he shoved the door open and slipped through it.

As the door swung shut behind Murdock, Hadi said, "They won't allow him in Recovery."

Hannibal gave him a bleak smile. "I don't think he'll give them a choice."

Hadi shrugged. "Well, maybe he's right. Maybe Face won't die while he's there."

"Murdock's right about a lot of things," B.A. rumbled softly, "but he's also crazy. And this is gonna kill 'im."

The others just stared at him, not knowing what to say. Finally Hannibal broke the silence to ask, "What's our next step?"

"We wait."

"Should we look for a better-equipped hospital?"

"This is the best hospital in Baghdad. It would only endanger Face to move him."

"What about another doctor? No offense, Hadi, but you said yourself that you can't treat his injuries."

"I cannot. Nor can any doctor in this city, except possibly for one of your military surgeons."

Hannibal chewed on that for a minute. "Would an expert neurosurgeon make a difference to Face's chances?"

"It might keep him alive longer. Beyond that," Hadi spread his hands helplessly, "I do not know."

"How're you gonna get your hands on a military surgeon?" B.A. asked. "Sneak into the Green Zone and kidnap one?"

"If that's what it takes."

"Don't do anything rash, Smith." They all turned in surprise to see Lynch standing just behind them. He smiled sardonically at their massed glares. "There are other ways to get what you want."

"Hey, Face. It's me." Murdock sat perched on the edge of the bed to Face's left, one hand braced on the other side of his still body so he could lean over him, bringing his presence and his voice close to his injured friend. "It's Murdock. Sorry it took me so long to get here, but you know what hospitals are like. Rules and more rules."

Face gave no sign that he heard. He lay against a heap of pillows, his left eye, cheekbone and temple covered in bloodstained bandages, with purple-black bruises circling his right eye and spilling down his face. His right shoulder and hand were also swathed in bandages, the hand tied into a splint and propped on yet more pillows. He looked worse than he had in the wadi, crushed and brutalized and lost among a mass of medical paraphernalia that could do nothing to help him.

Murdock saw all of this, and beneath his assumed layer of calm, he was howling in pain. But only the intentness of his gaze betrayed how deeply he suffered. His expression was bland, his voice edged with wry humor, his hand completely steady when he lifted it to touch the thick dressing over Face's eye.

"Now that everybody's where they're supposed to be, you can wake up and we can do this right. Come on, buddy. Time to face the music."

His fingers rested lightly on the bandage and his eyes brightened suspiciously, but he kept his voice level. "You know how this works. I sit here and listen while you swear and tell jokes and flirt with the nurses. And when you run out of tricks, I turn on the crazy a little to chase away the heebie-jeebies. We got this down, Faceguy. We're master-class. I can talk you through anything, no matter how bad it hurts, so let me talk you through this."

He studied his friend's sleeping face for a long moment, then went on in a low, intent voice that grew more desperate with every word. "I'm not mad, even though you broke your promise. I know that's what you're thinking… that you let me down and I'll give you Hell for it, but I won't. I swear. I'll forgive you for every stupid, reckless, careless thing you ever did. Every time you walked in front of a bullet when you could've ducked or got yourself stuffed in a stack of tires and lit on fire over some woman. I'll forget all the times you scared the crap outta me, then made me sit beside your hospital bed and laugh at your dumb jokes. I'll forget that you promised you'd come outta that truck in one piece, you promised you'd be careful, if you just wake up and talk to me.

"Wake up, Face." He waited, staring hungrily at his friend, for a sign that he knew wasn't coming. "Wake up!You gotta wake up and talk to me! This isn't right… this hiding in the dark, all alone, with no one to help you… I just wanna help you, Face! I just need to hear your voice!"

He waited for another long, tense minute, his eyes searching the face of his unconscious friend, then he sighed wearily and sagged in defeat. His gaze skated away from Face's bruised, bandaged features and searched for a place to rest that bore no signs of injury or suffering. He spotted Face's left hand lying on the blanket, the knuckles bloody where he'd split them on someone's teeth but otherwise undamaged. Shifting his weight off his right arm and straightening up, he clasped Face's hand in both of his own, staring down at it sadly, running his thumb over the torn knuckles.

"I get it," he murmured. "You're not ready. You think it's safer where you are. But you're wrong, buddy. You're wrong. We should be doing this together."

Reluctant tears began to slip down his cheeks. He bent his head and rested their clasped hands against his forehead, whispering, "Jesus, Face, I'm sorry. Sorry I let you down, sorry I didn't get there in time to stop this… I swear, if you just trust me and wake up, I'll never leave you alone again. But you gotta trust me… you gotta come back, 'cause I can't stand the silence anymore! Please, Face, pl…"

"Murdock."

The unexpected voice went through him like an electric shock, cutting him off in mid-word and bringing his head around with a snap to find Hannibal standing at the foot of the bed. He swiped hastily at his face with his sleeve, trying to erase the tear stains before his commander saw them. But it was clear from Hannibal's expression that he'd heard enough of the conversation to know what state Murdock was in.

"You okay, Captain?"

"Yeah, I'm… Yeah." He dropped his arm, giving up on the attempt to mask his distress.

"Maybe you should take a break. Let B.A. sit with him."

"No, I'm okay. I'm good. I… I promised Face I'd be here when he woke up."

Hannibal eyed him narrowly. "You need to hold it together, Murdock. I'm counting on you. Face is counting on you."

"I know. I will." Murdock straightened his shoulders in a show of resolve, and his clutch on Face's hand tightened.

Hannibal continued to study him for another long moment, then nodded once and dropped his gaze to the man in the bed. "I need to talk to you, Murdock. Outside."

"I can't leave 'im…"

"He won't know you're gone." Turning dark, hunted eyes on the pilot, he repeated, "Outside, Captain."

The authority in his voice was unmistakable and the message clear. He had serious team business to discuss. Murdock obediently rose from his seat, laid Face's hand on the blanket, and traipsed across the room with hunched shoulders.

As he stepped into the hallway, he found himself confronted by Hadi, B.A. and a smallish man dressed in a doctor's white coat over Army fatigues. The stranger had mild, smiling, green eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses that gazed blandly at Murdock as he stepped forward and held out one hand.

"Captain Murdock, I presume." His voice was as pleasant and colorless as the rest of him.

Murdock pointedly ignored the hand. "Who're you?"

"This is Doctor Finch," Hadi interjected. "He's the most respected neurologist in the U.S. military, and he's agreed to take over Face's treatment."

"Lynch sent him?" Murdock demanded, his eyes narrowed with suspicion as they jumped from Hannibal to Hadi to the patiently-smiling Finch.

Finch nodded and slipped his hand into his pocket, relieving Murdock of the need to decide whether or not he would shake it.

"He's the only doctor in Iraq who might be able to help Face."

"If he's who he says he is. I don't trust anyone sent by Lynch. And what's with the names, anyway? Lynch, Finch, it sounds like another Company trick to me."

"Just a coincidence, believe me," Finch assured him, with no sign of pique at his reception.

"He is Marcus Finch," Hadi assured the scowling pilot. "He used to do seminars at the University on treating combat injuries to the brain – amazing stuff. I attended them whenever I could. I recognized him immediately."

Doctor Finch looked faintly embarrassed by Hadi's praise and stepped in to say, "You're welcome to examine my bona fides, Captain. I would, in your place. But I will point out that Lieutenant Peck has gone several hours – very crucial hours – without proper treatment. He cannot afford to wait much longer."

"I believe he's the real Marcus Finch," Hannibal stated flatly, "and I've agreed to give him access to Face and all his medical records. But that doesn't mean I trust him."

All eyes swiveled toward the colonel, a variety of expressions from disbelief to amusement on their faces.

"That's what I want you for, Murdock. You're Finch's shadow, and you're Face's protection." Murdock grinned in relief. "When Finch is with Face, you're there. He tells you what he's doing and why he's doing it. And when you say stop, he stops."

"Hannibal, I do not think…" Hadi began, but Hannibal cut him off.

"Murdock has the medical knowledge to understand what's happening. And we can trust him implicitly to do what's best for Faceman, no matter what the cost to the rest of us. That's what I want."

Dr. Finch gazed thoughtfully at the pilot for a long moment, measuring him with deceptively bland eyes. Then he smiled. "I accept your terms, with one caveat."

Murdock's expression darkened. "What's that?"

"You may not accompany your friend into the operating room. That would distract me and endanger his life."

It was Murdock's turn to measure the other man and weigh his words. Finally, he nodded his agreement. "As long as I know what you're planning before you go in."

The two men started into Face's room, still negotiating terms and ignoring the others.

"I'll prepare you all I can, Captain, but I'm sure you know that emergency surgery of any kind, especially of the brain, requires improvisation. We must respond to what we find."

The others watched them until the door swung shut behind them, cutting off their view and their words. Then B.A. turned to his commander and asked, "You really think this is a good idea? Trustin' him?"

"Who? Finch or Murdock?"

"Finch."

"You can trust him, B.A.," Hadi put in. "He is the best combat surgeon I have ever seen."

"We can trust his skills, but what about his motives?"

"You have already threatened to tear his arms off, if he hurts Face." He smiled at the glowering corporal. "No one would take such a threat from you lightly."

"And Murdock is there to watch him," Hannibal added.

"Yeah." B.A. turned to stare at the closed door, his expression grim. "Crazy Man is on the edge. If somethin' happens to Face…"

"He'll do better now that he has a mission. It's the waiting that gets to him, and the silence."

B.A. nodded. After a moment's pause, he said, his voice low and rough, "Did you… How's he… ?"

"You can go in and see for yourself. I'm sure Hadi will bend the rules and let more than one visitor in there, for us. For Face."

The big man's shoulders hunched defensively and he turned away from the door. "Nah, let 'im rest. Let Murdock do his thing. Y'know they got this whole routine, when Face is hurt. I don't wanna mess that up."

Hannibal clasped his shoulder for a moment in silent understanding. "Just don't wait too long, Big Guy."

B.A. did not have to ask what he meant. "I won't."

Once again, Murdock sat beside his friend's bed and watched him sleep. Face had survived another marathon surgery, and the doctors claimed that he was better – that they'd stopped the bleeding, relieved the pressure on his brain and halted his rapid deterioration – but Murdock could not have known that by looking at him. The monitors still flashed, the IVs still dripped and Face still slept, unknowing and uncaring.

Only one thing had visibly changed – his hair was gone.

They had chopped off Face's hair before the surgery, demolishing the thick, dark, waving mane that was as much a part of his face as his wicked smile and incandescent eyes. Without it, he looked impossibly young and fragile, with a soft dusting of strangely light, bright hair covering his scalp. He still looked beautiful, Murdock thought. They could have peeled off his skin and turned it inside out, and Face would still look beautiful. But the sight of him made Murdock strangely sad.

Hannibal and B.A. stood at the foot of the bed, gazing grimly at their teammate and reminding Murdock that he had to hold it together. He couldn't come unglued, or Hannibal would send him away. And if that happened, if he couldn't be here for Face when his best friend needed him the most, he really would go crazy. So he carefully hid his fears and his wounds, satisfying himself by covering Face's hand with his own and murmuring, "It's gonna be all right now, Faceman, you just wait and see."

B.A. spoke up, his voice low and rough in the quiet room. "I wonder if he knows."

"That they cut off his hair?" Murdock asked.

"Any of it. What those animals in the truck did to him, what the doctors did to him after, any of it." He swallowed painfully. "They took his left eye out, y'know."

Murdock's fingers tightened convulsively around Face's but he held his composure. "We knew that was coming."

"And they've gone and cut off his hair. By the time they're done, he won't be our Faceman no more."

"Hair grows back," Hannibal said.

"And they can replace his eye," Murdock added.

"That's a lot to put him through for no reason," Hannibal murmured sadly.

"No reason?"

"You heard what the doctor said, Murdock. Thanks to the bleeding, he's blind, or nearly blind, in the right eye too. Between that and the brain damage, do you think he's going to care what his face looks like?"

"I'll care. I won't let them leave him like this, with his face all crushed and his eye gone. I won't let them do that to our Faceman."

Hannibal gave no answer to this, and all three of them fell quiet until the colonel finally broached the subject that had been foremost in all their minds since the moment Face came out of surgery alive.

"It's time for us to go, Murdock. To complete the mission as promised."

The pilot nodded without shifting his gaze from Face.

"Lynch did his part, now we have to do ours."

"When?"

"Tonight."

That finally got a reaction from Murdock. He looked up at the colonel in alarm and blurted out, "No! Not yet!"

"We gotta do this, Crazy Man," B.A. urged.

"I know, but not till Face wakes up."

B.A. gave a grunt of pain, and Hannibal quickly stepped in. "We can't wait. We have an obligation to fulfill our part of the bargain, even if you leave out the importance of the mission."

"But Doctor Finch said it would be soon. Eighteen hours, twenty four at the most..."

"If he wakes up, Murdock. If he stands any chance at all, it will happen soon. That's what Finch said, and we all know what it really means. He doesn't expect Face to wake up at all. He was just giving us a... a deadline of sorts."

"Then wait for the deadline," Murdock insisted.

"We can't. The battery in that tracking device will be dead in another day or two. If we don't go after Al Fayed now, we'll lose him for good. Then someone else will have to start all this again, putting yet another soldier in harm's way to find these bastards, while Al Fayed makes plans to use our Military secrets against us. Can you live with that?"

Murdock shook his head.

"I didn't think so. It has to be now."

"I know." The captain's eyes strayed back to the man in the bed and rested there, dwelling sadly on the familiar face that now seemed so battered and strange. After a long moment of silence, he murmured, "I can't go with you."

Unbelievably, the colonel chuckled. "I know that."

Murdock shot a disbelieving look at his commander, saw the affection and understanding in his face and demanded, perversely, "You don't need me?"

"Of course we do. We need you here. Someone has to stay with Face, and you don't think I'd abandon him to Captain Sosa's tender mercies, do you? Besides, you're his protection, and what good is protection when it's hundreds of miles away in a firefight?"

"But how will you handle the mission without a point man or air support?"

Hannibal's smile turned wry. "Are you trying to talk me out of letting you stay?"

"No! But..."

"Have a little faith in the Old Man," he chided. "Face already completed his part of the plan by getting that tracking device into the hands of the insurgents, so we don't need a point man, and I can adjust the plan for a lack of air support."

Murdock looked unconvinced and thoroughly unhappy. Hannibal placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "Trust me, we'll be fine as long as we know you're here with Face."

Murdock smiled – the first genuine smile he'd managed in days – and looked fondly at his teammates. "You guys better get moving and get this mission done. You want to be here when he wakes up."

A shadow crossed Hannibal's face, but he kept his voice level. "Don't start worrying if you don't hear from us for a few days. It may take some time to locate Al Fayed, especially if he isn't in Tikrit and we have to track him down."

"Can I contact you through Lynch?"

Hannibal shook his head dourly. "I don't trust Lynch or the Company as far as I can spit and I don't want him on our sixes. We're flying solo on this one. So are you, I'm afraid. And Murdock, watch out for Sosa. I don't know where she is - I haven't seen her around the hospital lately - but I don't want her anywhere near Face."

"Got it." Murdock stood up to shake Hannibal's hand and give B.A. a brief, fierce hug. "Stay safe, Big Guy."

"I will." He cuffed Murdock gently on the shoulder. "If Faceman wakes up before we get back, you tell him I said 'hey'."

"We'll be back before you know it," Hannibal said. "Take care, Captain."

"Yeah."

Then they were gone, and Murdock was alone in the little room, with no one but the comatose Face for company.

It was late, nearly two AM, and the hospital seemed to sleep. Captain Sosa knew this was an illusion and any disturbance would bring watchful staff running to investigate, so she was glad she'd worn soft-soled shoes that allowed her to walk quietly on the hard linoleum floors. Not that she cared if the hospital staff knew she was there. She had every right to be, and with Smith and the Team gone, she had no fear of being denied access to Face's room. But she wanted to spend the next hour with Face, not arguing with nurses and security guards, so she moved down the dim hallway with uncharacteristic stealth.

The little room was dark, except for the glowing displays on some of the machines that only seemed to deepen the surrounding night. Charissa paused in the doorway to let her eyes adjust. Something stirred in the shadows, and a figure uncoiled from a chair beside the bed, rising to confront her.

"Who's there?" she demanded.

The figure did not answer but drew instinctively closer to the bed at the sound of her voice, as if hoping to shield the man sleeping in it from her presence.

She could see him now - scruffy and lanky, dressed in a battered leather flight jacket with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. "Murdock," she said, an accusing note in her voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting a friend," Murdock answered in a flat, humorless voice that loaded his words with irony. "What do you want, Captain?"

Sosa hesitated, not sure how far she could push him. Then she abruptly decided to take the offensive. "I thought you would all be in the field, doing your jobs," she sneered. "I thought maybe Face could use some company, while his team was out cleaning up the mess they left when they abandoned the mission. But obviously I was wrong."

Murdock eyed her appreciatively, showing no sign that her attack had so much as scratched his armor. "Yeah, you were wrong," he said. "Face isn't alone, and he won't be, so you can slither on back to whatever rock you crawled out from under and tell Lynch that the A-Team has the situation under control."

"Why aren't you in the field with Smith?" she demanded.

"Why do you care?" he countered. Then he smiled beatifically, as if the truth had just dawned on him, and exclaimed, "Oh, right! 'Cause if I were in the field, no one would be here to stop you from sinking your sexy fangs into Faceman again. Sorry, Captain," his voice hardened, "no midnight snack for you."

Charissa stared at him in mingled anger and bewilderment. "Is that what you think I want? To make a meal out of Face?"

"That's what predators do."

"You're insane."

"You're not the first person to notice."

In her earnest desire to make him understand, she took a step closer to Murdock, hands lifted in a placating gesture. "I want to talk to Face, that's all. To sit with him for..." Charissa's words died in her throat as Murdock reacted instantly, stepping between her and the bed, blocking both her path and her view of the still figure in it. For the first time since she had met the erratic pilot, she felt the menace in him, the sense of danger that was so immediate and obvious in the rest of the team.

"You'd better go, Captain," he said, his voice once more devoid of emotion.

"Face would want me here," she insisted, too stubborn to give ground, even when she knew she was losing the battle.

"Maybe, but he's not in any condition to tell me that, so I'll just have to judge for myself."

"You have no right to keep me away from him. You're not his doctor or his family..."

She knew at once that she'd made another mistake when she saw Murdock's eyes narrow and heard the naked fury in his voice. "I'm not family, huh? Well, what are you, lady? A predator looking for a meal? Or just a selfish bitch who doesn't want him for herself but can't stand to have him care for anyone else?"

She gaped at him for a moment, then blurted out, "You're jealous! You want him!"

Murdock laughed, his rage fading as quickly as it had come. "Of course that's where you'd go. Ever heard of a friend, Captain? People who look out for each other? Watch each other's backs? It's nice. You oughta give it a try sometime, if you can find anyone who cares enough about your back to give it a second thought."

"If you're not jealous, why do you hate me so much?" she asked.

"I don't hate you. I just want you gone."

"Why?"

"Because the Colonel gave me orders, and I intend to follow 'em. And because I don't trust you as far as I can spit."

"I'm trying to help…"

Murdock grinned suddenly, his teeth flashing in the darkness. "That's a good one."

"I am!"

"The way you helped us to a Court Martial and prison sentence? Or the way you helped us into an ambush in the Iraqi desert? You're just all kinds of helpful, aren't you? Go on, now, Cap'n. Nobody's buying your concerned friend routine around here, so just go on back to your pretty little office in the Pentagon, and leave Face to us. We'll look after 'im."

"He would want me here," Sosa muttered stubbornly.

"When he wakes up and asks for you, I'll give you a call." At her scornful glance he added, "You have my word. Do you honestly think I'd deny Face anything he wanted? Even you?"

She hesitated, weighing his words, then reluctantly shook her head. Without another word, she turned on her heel and strode out of the room.

Murdock moved swiftly and quietly after her, halting in the doorway to peer down the hall. He watched Sosa disappear around a corner, then he waited for a full minute, staring suspiciously up and down the empty corridor, before he finally relaxed. Pulling off his baseball cap with a sigh, he scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "I'm sorry you had to hear that," he murmured, as he padded back over to the bed. "Some people just don't know when to leave."

He switched on the small light above the bed and stood gazing down at his unconscious friend. Gently, he rested the back of his hand against Face's undamaged cheek, then he stroked his fingers over what was left of his hair. "It's just you and me now, buddy."

Without waiting for an answer he knew wasn't coming, he circled the bed to his usual place on Face's left and sat down on the edge of the mattress. Lacing his fingers through the other man's, he propped their clasped hands on his knee and turned eyes on Face that were tired and sad and full of uncomplicated affection. "Y'know, if you want her here, you just gotta say so. Anything for you, Faceman. You just say the word."

He waited expectantly for a moment, then gave his friend a weary half smile. "No, huh? Okay. But if you change your mind… Whatever you want. Whatever it takes."

Reaching up to brush his fingertips over the bandage that covered Face's eye, he drew in a long, shaking breath and let it out slowly, fighting for control. "God, I miss you, Face," he murmured softly.

With that, he fell quiet. Lifting Face's hand, he clasped it tightly in both of his own, then he settled himself more comfortably in his seat on the mattress, obviously preparing for a long wait. As an afterthought, he switched off the light and plunged the room into darkness again.

Nothing moved for a very long time. Nothing disturbed the sleeping quiet of the room. Murdock was fighting sleep and wondering if he shouldn't move into a chair where he could nap without falling over, when he heard footsteps on the linoleum floor. Turning quickly, expecting to see Captain Sosa back for another skirmish, he found Hadi instead. The young doctor moved up to the opposite side of the bed and switched on the light. He cast a glance over his patient, then another over the man holding vigil beside him.

"You should rest, Murdock."

"Why is that the first thing anyone says to me when they come in here? They don't ask how Face is doing or if there's been any change. They just say 'get some rest'."

Hadi almost smiled. "That's because we can see how Face is doing, and he is resting. You are not."

"Face isn't resting. He's hiding."

"Hiding from what?"

"Me. You. What's under that bandage on his head. Everything."

"That does not sound like the Face I know." Hadi pulled another chair up to the bed and sank into it. Steepling his fingers, he propped his chin on them and gazed steadily across at Murdock. "Has he changed so much since you left this country?"

"No." Murdock looked away from the doctor uncomfortably. "He hasn't changed at all."

"You are tired, Murdock, and you are placing your own fears on Face."

"Then why doesn't he wake up and let me help?"

"Because he cannot. It's as simple as that."

The pilot shook his head stubbornly. "I don't accept that, doc. I can't. 'Cause if Face can't wake up, then I've killed him. Killed my best friend. And I can't live with that."

"I won't waste my time telling you not to blame yourself. No one in this place ever listens to a doctor when he says those words."

Murdock gave him a wan smile. "Between repeating 'get some rest' and 'it's not your fault' till you're blue in the face, you must get tired of talkin' to yourself."

"I do." Hadi leaned back in his chair and let his eyes drift shut. "Very tired."

"Okay, let's talk about somethin' we can…" Murdock broke off and stared down at where he held Face's hand clasped in both of his own. His expression turned quizzical. "Doc?"

"What?" Hadi demanded sleepily, cracking open one eye.

"Face's hand just moved." His eyes suddenly alight with hope and his posture tense with excitement, he called desperately, "Face? Are you with me? C'mon, buddy, gimme a sign!"

Hadi was up out of his chair in an instant, suddenly fully awake. "Comatose patients often move. It does not necessarily mean…"

"This is the first time he's twitched since we found him. It has to mean something!"

"Hm." Hadi studied the bank of machines at Face's head, frowning, then turned to examine his patient. At the same moment, Murdock gave a shout of mingled pain and surprise.

"Jesus, Face, ease up! You're gonna break my hand!"

Hadi reached over to break Face's white-knuckled grip on Murdock's hand. He laid Face's hand on his midriff, where it clutched convulsively at the blanket. "Keep talking to him."

"Is he waking up?"

"Yes."

"I'm right here, buddy." Murdock reached over to cover Face's hand with his own. "Hang onto me. Hang on." Face's fingers tightened around his once more. "It's gonna be okay, I promise. You're safe in the hospital with me and Doc Hadi."

"Nnngh!" Face stiffened, his head sinking into the pillow as his back arched in pain. As Murdock watched, appalled, hot tears began to slide through his lashes.

"No," Murdock sobbed in protest. "Don't, Face, please!" He clasped Face's head between his hands, lifting it away from the pillow, trying to ease the desperate tension in his muscles and draw his attention. "Listen to me, Face! Listen… You know you can do this. We can do it together. You just gotta hang onto me and ride it out."

Face took another shuddering breath and made a low, wordless sound in his throat that raised the hair on the nape of Murdock's neck.

"Shh-shh. I've got you, buddy. It's okay. It's me, Face. It's Murdock."

Face's reaction was immediate and shocking. He turned abruptly toward the sound of his friend's voice and lifted his hand to find him, scrabbling for a grip on the pilot's leather-clad sleeve.

"M-murddgh..."

"Holy shit!" Murdock breathed. He started to laugh, but it turned to a sob when Face tried once more to say his name.

"M-mm-murgh..."

"Yeah, it's me. It's Murdock. Jesus, Face, I knew you could do it! I knew you wouldn't leave me like this!" Shooting a wild, triumphant look at Hadi, he caught the doctor's grim expression and sobered instantly. "What is it? He said my name, Doc! You heard him!"

"I heard."

Before Hadi could explain his dour tone, Murdock was distracted by a low, agonized sound from the bed. He turned his attention back to Face and found the lieutenant struggling to breathe while his hand opened and closed convulsively on Murdock's arm.

"Can't you help him, Doc? Give him something for the pain?"

"Just enough to take the edge off," Hadi cautioned. "I don't want to put him under again."

"Anything. C'mon, Face, let it go. Breathe it out. You know how to do this, buddy. You've done it a hundred times. Listen to Murdock."

"M-mmm..."

"Yeah, that's right. Listen and trust me. Breathe."

Face shuddered and closed his eye. Tears pulsed from beneath his lashes and painted streaks on his bruised cheek. "Murd-dngh!"

"I'm here, Face. I'm here." Shooting a glance at Hadi, he asked, "Will it hurt him if I move him?"

Hadi brandished a needle in one hand, the other holding the tube of Face's IV. "I do not think it will make a difference in his current condition."

Turning back to Face, Murdock shifted his hold on the injured man and lifted him gently away from the mattress. Face gasped in pain, but when Murdock pulled him close and rested his weight against his own chest, Face seemed to relax. Murdock held him carefully, cradling his head against his shoulder, and murmured encouragement to him.

"That's it. You rest now. I've got you, Face. I've got you safe. Doc Hadi gave you something for the pain, and you'll feel better in a minute. Just hang onto ol' Murdock and ride it out."

Face clutched spasmodically at his jacket and gave another formless cry. But as the breath sobbed out of his lungs, his muscles began to loosen and Murdock felt his tension ease.

"Shh. That's it." He rocked ever so slightly, more to calm himself than the injured man in his arms, and repeated his quietly soothing noises in a whisper.

Hadi watched the read-outs on the machines until he was certain that Face slept. Then he placed a hand on Murdock's shoulder to still him and murmured, "Put him down. Make him comfortable."

"He is comfortable." Murdock made no move to release his friend. "He's just fine where he is."

Hadi gazed at them both for a moment, then offered a weary half-smile. "Yes, he is."

"You just rest now, Face," Murdock murmured to the top of Face's head. "Rest as long as you like. It's gonna be okay."

Hadi switched off the light and settled into the chair he had abandoned so abruptly a few minutes before.

"You stayin', Doc?"

"Until my shift starts, at least. I want to be here when he wakes again."

"Yeah." Murdock settled his sleeping burden a little more comfortably and propped his chin on Face's bent head. "Me, too."

Hannibal lay flat on the rooftop, the fierce Iraqi sun beating down on his back, and peered through his field glasses at the building across the alley. A row of three narrow windows opened on the corner room of the top floor. They were clearly designed to keep out the heat and sunlight, not to allow an unobstructed view of the room inside, but after hours of staring intently at the shadowed interior, Hannibal had a pretty good idea of what was going on in there.

Pitching his voice to carry no farther than the microphone at his throat, he said, "Target verified, B.A. The bastard's in there."

"Roger that," B.A. responded. "I've got a jeep approaching the front. Three men and a rear-mounted 30-calibre gun."

"Wait till they're past the guard post, then we'll move."

B.A. paused for a moment, watching the progress of the jeep, then muttered, "He's in."

"Go, B.A.!"

"Roger and out."

Hannibal set his field glasses aside and checked his watch. B.A. would be here in three minutes. That gave him plenty of time.

Taut with purpose but still utterly calm, he methodically checked all his weapons to make sure they were loaded and working. Then he did a sweep of the surrounding alleys and rooftops, mentally ticking off every living thing he saw as harmless or expected. Finally, after another glance at his watch, he slid the glasses into their case on his belt and reached for the grappling hook gun that lay beside him.

On cue, he heard the roar of an engine approaching and the shouts of angry men. A few seconds later, anger turned to fear, something heavy crashed through a barbed wire barrier, and the engine roar climbed to a whining, desperate pitch.

Hannibal got to his feet, bent double to keep himself hidden by the raised sandstone lip of the rooftop, and snugged the grappling hook gun into his shoulder. A tremendous explosion rocked the other building, and in the same instant, Hannibal fired.

B.A. rolled from the cab of the SUV a heartbeat before it crashed through the barrier at the front of Al Fayed's compound. No one saw him scramble into the shadows of the wall, with all eyes glued to the heavy truck bearing down on them. The metal bar he had wedged against the gas pedal held, and the truck just kept going, even when it plowed into the jeep and sent its rear-mounted gun crashing to the ground.

He edged around the wall to watch the progress of his distraction. The truck hit the front of the building and stopped, but its engine continued to strain. The corporal allowed himself one triumphant grin, then he lifted the little, black transmitter he held and pushed the button.

The car bomb exploded in a very satisfying ball of fire, as fifty pounds of explosives tried to rip the front off the building. B.A. took advantage of the resulting chaos and the pall of smoke that hid him from the upper windows, to pull himself over the wall and drop into the maelstrom on the other side.

His local dress gave him a modicum of cover. After more than a day of studying the men inside the compound, he had put together a uniform that matched the insurgents' dress very closely. And right now, they had no time for more than a cursory glance at the big man in the striped kaffiyeh. B.A. skirted the burning truck and scrambled over a pile of rubble where a stretch of wall with a barred window used to be. Inside, he found more rubble, a haze of burning smoke and a mob of men all shouting and waving their weapons. He pushed his way through them, ignoring their demands for information, and made for the stairs.

Hannibal slid down the nylon rope and hit the window feet first. It popped open, the wooden frame tearing free of the old, dry stone that made up the wall, and he tumbled through it. As he rolled to his feet, he swept the room with the muzzle of his M5 and barked in Arabic, "Hands up and don't move!"

The four men in the room froze, more from surprise than fear, and Hannibal took advantage of the moment to snatch the weapon from the hands of the nearest insurgent. He tossed the gun out of the window and put his back to the wall, once again sweeping them with his automatic rifle. They stared at him in disbelief, and when one turned to mutter a question at his companion, Hannibal fired a bullet past his head.

"Silence! Don't move!"

One man sat at the table, a pile of Euros, an empty money belt and a radio in front of him, a pistol only a foot from his right hand. He looked at Hannibal with no fear in his eyes, only keen intelligence and a healthy dose of hate. Hannibal had never seen a picture of Al Fayed, the leader of the Fists of Righteousness, but he knew him in an instant.

With the barrel of his gun, he motioned the three men who were standing to step back from the table. As he did so, he saw the shadows beyond the door move, and B.A. stepped into the room. Hannibal greeted him with a grin.

"Bind and gag them, Corporal, and put them in the next room. And relieve our friend here of his weapons."

B.A. slid Al Fayed's pistol into his own belt, then proceeded to search him from scalp to toenails. The other men watching were growing increasingly angry at this treatment of their revered leader, but Hannibal's rock-steady weapon and piercing gaze convinced them that discretion was the better part of valor and they remained still.

When Al Fayed was stripped of weapons and bound tightly to his chair, B.A. made short work of the others. In roughly a minute, the three men were trussed like turkeys, gagged with duct tape, and left on the floor of the next room. B.A. locked the door of their prison, then checked the hallway and locked the door, planting his back against it.

Hannibal scanned the room until he spotted a small, steel safe tucked into one corner. Ignoring Al Fayed, he strode over to it and knelt to examine the lock.

"An old piece of junk. Blow it, Corporal."

B.A. started for the safe, a canvas bag of explosives slung over his shoulder, while Hannibal returned to the table to examine the items resting on it.

As Hannibal lifted the money belt and worked at something behind the buckle, Al Fayed spoke for the first time, his voice dripping with scorn. "Your money is there. Take it and go."

Hannibal grinned appreciatively at him. "Not bad, for a guy who doesn't speak English. But this isn't about money."

"With you Westerners, it is always about money."

"You've been listening to your own propaganda for too long." Hannibal tossed the belt onto the table and held up a tiny tracking device. "We gave you the money. Why would we risk our lives to get it back?"

"You." Al Fayed's expression became, if possible, even more scornful. "You sent the assassin, with his weak lies and tainted money, to lure me to my death."

Hannibal turned a glare on him so fierce that it nearly flayed the skin from his bones. "He was no assassin. He was a soldier, doing his job, and he was a friend of mine." Leaning close to the other man, unfazed by the mad fire in his eyes, he went on in a hard, quiet, utterly threatening tone, "If I were you, I'd be thanking Allah that I am also a soldier, doing a job. Because if I were a soulless animal like you, I'd be staking you out in the desert with your skull bashed in to see how long it took the vultures to find you. Just like you did to my friend."

"He met the fate of all enemies of Allah, as will you."

"Not in your lifetime."

"So you will kill me. Assassins, after all."

"Whether you live or die is of no interest to me — though that whole vulture experiment is starting to look pretty good, now that I've met you."

"Better take cover, Boss," B.A. called from his place hunched over the safe.

Hannibal promptly abandoned his war of words with Al Fayed and dragged him, chair and all, over to the farthest corner of the room. There, he turned his back on the room, placing his body between the bound man and the promised explosion. B.A. joined them, clutching a radio detonator.

"Fire in the hole!"

He pressed the trigger, and a deafening blast of noise and heat rocked the little room. Before the echoes had died, Hannibal was across the room, wrenching the twisted door away to expose the interior of the safe. He pulled out a stack of papers and began rifling through them. B.A. joined him and offered the canvas bag.

"Just bring it all, man."

"We have to be sure the files are here. That's why I kept Al Fayed with us, instead of throwing him in with the others."

"Or shooting him in the head," B.A. growled.

"Or shooting him in the head, as he so richly deserves. If they aren't here, we need him for information."

B.A. cocked his head, listening to the pounding of feet and shouting on the stairs. "Or to use as a human shield. Let's get the Hell outta here, man."

The colonel paused and held up a file with the familiar Department of Defense seal on the front. "Bingo. Okay, let's bring it all."

"How 'bout the shield?"

"We'll move faster without him."

They shoved the entire contents of the safe into B.A.'s bag and jumped to their feet. Men were moving in the hallway outside the room, calling to their leader. Al Fayed opened his mouth to answer, but thought better of it when he saw Hannibal's rifle pointed at his forehead. The two Americans raced across the room to the window, pausing only to whack Al Fayed on the head to keep him quiet, and scrambled through. B.A. had to abandon his kaffiyeh and bandoliers and tore the front of his shirt as he squeezed through.

They were out the window and climbing hand-over-hand up the rope to the higher rooftop across the alley when the insurgents burst into the room. Hannibal reached the safety of the other roof and drew his knife, ready to cut the rope, but B.A. was still only halfway there. Changing his mind, he unslung his rifle and leveled it on the windows. The first head that poked out of the window jerked back again when a shell nearly carried away one ear. The others hung back, and Hannibal peppered the wall with shots to discourage them while B.A. finished his climb.

B.A. had only just reached the roof and drawn his own knife to cut the rope when they heard the shattering roar of a chopper engine approaching. B.A. craned his neck, searching for the source of the noise, while Hannibal continued to sweep the compound with covering fire.

"Cut the damned rope!" he shouted.

B.A. complied, but more than half his attention was on the unseen chopper. "How we gonna get outta here if they got air support?!"

Hannibal watched the rope drop away and sprayed the opposite building with bullets one more time. Then he bounded to his feet, ducked low to stay hidden, and clapped B.A. on the shoulder. "Let's go!"

They ran for the access door in the middle of the roof. Behind them, shouts and shots came from the insurgents' compound, while in the street below, someone was banging on the door of their own building and cursing loudly. Just as Hannibal reached the access door and slipped the bolt, he was hit by a wall of noise and wind that nearly threw him off his feet. B.A. screamed a warning and pointed at the huge, black helicopter rising up over the rooftop.

Both men swung their weapons around to defend themselves, but both hesitated when they saw a familiar figure in a black flight suit beckoning to them. Hannibal exchanged a look with B.A. then motioned him forward.

"Go!"

Together, they sprinted to the far edge of the roof, where Agent Lynch waited, poised in the open hatch of the chopper, a hand stretched out to pull them aboard. B.A. reached him first and tumbled through the hatch. Hannibal followed, and no sooner had his boots left the rooftop than the chopper lifted and slid away, tilted on its side.

Lynch handed Hannibal a headset and waited for him to fit it on. Suddenly, the colonel could hear his voice over the deafening roar of the rotors that filled the back of the bird.

"Did you get the files?"

Hannibal grabbed the bag from B.A. and tossed it to Lynch.

"What about Al Fayed?"

"You have your files. Al Fayed is no longer a threat."

"He had his hands on these for years." He lifted the bag of documents. "You don't think he read them?"

"We completed our mission, Lynch. Either get us out of here or drop us back on that rooftop and we'll make our own way back to Baghdad."

Lynch gave him a level stare from behind his mirrored sunglasses and a tight, cynical smile. "Sit back and enjoy the ride, gentlemen. Captain Forrest?"

"Aye, Sir," the pilot responded, his voice coming clearly through the headset to Hannibal's ear.

"Take out the target."

"Aye, Sir."

The chopper abruptly heeled over on its side and swept around in a tight circle to point its nose directly at the insurgent compound.

"What the Hell are you doing?!" Hannibal demanded.

"Finishing the job."

"You son of a…"

Hannibal's last word was swept away in a rush of noise as the pilot fired two rockets directly at the building. Without waiting for the missiles to strike their target, Forrest took them skimming over the rooftops, away from the compound and toward the city center. Ignoring the modern buildings and the lovely river curving below them, Hannibal leaned out of the side hatch to stare in bleak fury at the fireball rising from between the flat rooftops of the slum they had just left.

Hannibal Smith had no sympathy for terrorists. Al Fayed and his goons had destroyed - probably killed - a man he had fought beside through countless battles and loved like a son. They had fully intended to use government secrets to attack U.S. soldiers or even the country itself. Hannibal didn't flinch at the thought of their deaths. But he was a soldier, not a butcher, and he only killed men for a purpose. This was slaughter, and it was wrong.

"Don't tell me you're feelin' sorry for the guy!" B.A. bellowed in his ear, obviously having followed Hannibal's sight line and read his thoughts.

Hannibal shook his head and pulled his head back into the chopper. With B.A.'s help, he slid the hatch door closed, cutting the howl of noise down to a muted roar. They both dropped into metal-framed seats and confronted their combined rescuer and tormentor. Lynch gave them his tight, cynical smile again and pulled off his headset so the pilot wouldn't overhear their half-shouted conversation.

"Now you've completed the mission. And we're square, Colonel. All even."

"So we're on our own, now? No more Doc Finch? No free pass with the military authorities?"

Lynch gave him a distinctly sour look. "I agreed to protect your team and get them safely back to the States. I gave you my word."

"Yeah, and the last Agent Lynch who gave me his word framed us for treason and theft. Then he tried to kill us."

"Agent Burris does not reflect the attitudes of the CIA, any more than General Morrison reflects those of the U.S. Army."

Hannibal glared at him for one more long moment, then abruptly nodded his acceptance. "Fair enough."

He thought for another minute, weighing his options and his non-existent trust in Lynch, then decided that he had nothing to lose by asking. Leaning close to the other man so he wouldn't have to bellow, he said, "From one man of honor to another, I need a favor, Lynch."

Lynch cocked his head and regarded Hannibal with invisible eyes. "What kind of favor?"

"Take us back to the wadi."

"Where Peck was attacked? Why?"

"We left something there and I want to retrieve it."

"Be more specific."

"A body. A friend who tried to help us and died for it."

"The Rangers don't abandon their dead."

Hannibal couldn't tell if Lynch's tone carried accusation, sarcasm or sympathy, so he just waited.

"All right, Smith." Fitting on his headset again, he said calmly, "We're taking a little detour, Captain." Then turning back to Hannibal he added, "From one man of honor to another."

Face slept heavily, barely seeming to breathe. After two days of agony and mindless fear, this death-like quiet should have come as a relief, but Murdock found himself unsettled by it. He sat on Face's bed and watched him sleep with exhausted eyes, hoping for some sign of life and normalcy that would drive away his haunting visions.

Murdock could not look at Face without seeing that sun-drenched wadi and the broken figure sprawled in the bloody dust – the blank eyes opened onto nothing, staring at him in accusation; the blades driven through skin, muscle, bone and earth; the death in a familiar and much-loved face. He could not meet his friend's empty, one-eyed gaze without wanting to howl and weep. And sometimes, in his weakest moments, to curse death for not coming when it should. Face had lived, but for what? For this? Blind, crippled, unable to speak two words or understand even that much? Was this how his friend would want to live?

Then he would remember the last forty-eight hours, how Face had clung to his hand, struggling to say his name, or huddled trustingly against him while he held back the pain for a few precious minutes, and Murdock would curse himself for his doubts. Of course Face would want to live. He would want the chance to try again. That's who Face had always been and still was, Murdock was sure, under all the layers of damage and loss. He, Murdock, was weak and crazy. Face was not. He was the strongest person Murdock knew and somehow, even if it took a hundred years, he would find his way back.

As if in answer to his thoughts, Face stirred slightly. He took a longer breath, then sighed and settled more deeply into the pillow. It was the first time he had moved by even a hairsbreadth in hours, and it brought a weary, relieved smile to Murdock's face.

"Glad to see you're still with us, buddy," he murmured.

The door behind him opened, and Murdock twisted around to see the two doctors enter the room. Hadi looked lugubrious, as usual, but Finch had a spring in his step that cheered the pilot.

"Anything to report, Captain?" Finch asked as he crossed to the bed.

"Nothing new, Doc."

"We need to change those dressings. We'll try not to disturb him."

Murdock just nodded and watched in mingled fascination and disgust as they began peeling up crusted, sticky bandages. The wounds underneath, especially the sword-thrust through Face's shoulder, looked to be healing cleanly. The signs of infection had faded, and the wound no longer oozed around its stitches. The wound in his hand was messier, though it too seemed to be healing. And though Murdock couldn't bear to look at what was under the bandage on Face's eye, he heard the doctors making satisfied noises.

As Finch smoothed down the last piece of fresh tape, he said to Hadi, "We need to do the follow-up surgery in the next day. Two at the most."

Hadi frowned. "Are you sure that is necessary? He is still very weak. And he cannot see the damage to his face."

"It isn't purely cosmetic. The crushed bone is putting pressure on his brain, and the damage to his skull leaves him vulnerable to further injury. If we can rebuild his face while we're at it, so much the better."

"Can we not wait for Colonel Smith's return?"

"You don't have to wait for Hannibal," Murdock cut in. "He put me in charge of Face's care, and I say, do it."

"Murdock…" Hadi began, only to be rolled over by the anxious captain.

"I know what you're gonna say, Hadi. He can't see it, he doesn't care, it won't hurt him… But I'll see it! And every time I do, I'll know that I let my friend down. First I didn't have his back when he needed me, then I didn't fix the damage when I could. I'm not gonna do that to him. I'm not!"

Murdock's tirade was abruptly silenced when Face stirred beside him. All three men turned to stare at him for a moment, then headed for the door by unspoken agreement. Out in the hallway, with the door swinging shut behind them, Murdock continued in a lowered but fiercely certain tone.

"Do the surgery as soon as he's strong enough. Do whatever you've got to do. Just make him as whole and as healthy and as much like the old Faceman as you can. I'll take the heat from Hannibal, if it comes to that."

Finch nodded and turned a questioning glance on Hadi. "Will you assist me, Dr. Sajadhi?"

"Of course I will. I just wish that Hannibal…"

As if conjured by his words, a totally unexpected and utterly welcome voice called from the far end of the corridor, "Murdock!"

The pilot turned, with a cry of relief, to see Hannibal and B.A. bearing down on him. They looked filthy, exhausted and thoroughly disheveled – just as they ought to look upon successful completion of a mission – and blessedly unhurt. But the expression on Hannibal's face almost stopped Murdock's heart.

"Is it true?" the colonel demanded, as he sprinted up to the little group outside the door, his hunted eyes fixed intently on Murdock's face. "Is he alive? Is he…"

Hannibal broke off to clear the tightness from his throat, and Murdock stepped in quickly to end the suspense. "Yeah, he's awake. He woke up the night you left." Hannibal's fingers fastened on his arm with bruising force, and Murdock put up a hand to help steady him. "It's okay. He's really awake."

"Lynch told us," B.A. explained, "but we didn't know whether to believe 'im."

Hannibal abruptly pushed away from Murdock and turned toward the door to Face's room.

"Hannibal, wait," Murdock began, but the colonel cut him off, speaking over him to B.A. "You'll have your chance, Corporal, I promise. But I need some time with Face."

He was through the door before Murdock could do more than splutter, "But…"

B.A. rumbled softly behind him, "Let 'im be, Crazy Man."

"He shouldn't be in there alone. He doesn't know…"

"What? How to talk to a wounded soldier? C'mon, this is Hannibal we're talkin' about. Who knows better than he does?"

"Yeah." Murdock stared disconsolately at the shut door for another long moment, then muttered again, "Yeah, but I should be in there," and turned to confront the worried gaze of his teammate.

Hannibal moved restlessly around the tiny room, dodging chairs and equipment, unable to hold still. His gaze shifted constantly to the man sleeping so deeply in the bed, studying his pain-lined face, shorn hair and bandaged eye. He would halt for a moment to stare at his friend, then look away and begin moving again.

The third or fourth time his circuit of the room brought him up to the left side of the bed, he paused and reached down to touch Face's shoulder. His own expression was suddenly as drawn and tormented as the injured man's, and something perilously close to tears gleamed in his eyes before he blinked them away and returned to his pacing. When he spoke, he tossed the words over his shoulder without looking at the man in the bed.

"We completed the mission, Kid. The tracking signal worked like a charm. Led us straight to Al Fayed and the stolen files. Then Lynch blew the place to Hell and killed the lot of 'em. Maybe your friends from the wadi, too, if we're lucky."

He took another turn around the cramped space and added, his voice rough with strain, "I just thought you'd like to know that it's over."

He fell quiet again and continued to prowl the room, fighting the creeping dread that filled him at Face's continued silence. Hadi and Murdock both said that he was awake, recovering, but this deathly stillness was all too familiar to Hannibal. It frightened him. Finally, he forced himself to approach the bed again and stood at the foot, his hands braced on the metal frame.

From this angle, he could see both the heavy dressing that covered Face's left eye and the undamaged side of his face. He took a moment to absorb the purple shadows beneath his closed eye and strangely gaunt cheekbone, the furrow between his brows and the traces of tears on his cheek. Face looked exhausted, tormented and peaceful all at once, as if he had sunk into oblivion to escape an unbearable reality and was dreaming of pretty girls in expensive cars. The thought made Hannibal smile in spite of himself.

"It's been a Hell of ride, hasn't it, Kid? You and me. All the way from the harbor at Tangier to a military Court Martial. A Hell of a ride."

He let his head droop between his shoulders for a moment, then pulled himself upright again and continued, in a brisk tone, "You're the best soldier I ever had under my command. And the worst. Sometimes I don't know why I put up with the crap you pull, then you perform a miracle and I remember. You're the best - a royal pain in my ass, but still the best."

He cocked his head to one side, regarding his friend wistfully. "Does it have to end here? You and me, the team, the missions… I don't want it to end, Face. I don't know what else to do with my life, and I can't do it without you. Murdock thinks you'll give us another miracle. Maybe he's right. He usually is, where you're concerned, and God knows, I hope he is this time…"

Unable to contain his restless energy, Hannibal began to pace again. He had used up his words and his patience. The only thing left to do was move. As he circled the room and came back around to face the bed, he glanced down at his friend and saw that his eye was open. Face had not stirred or made a sound, had given no sign that he was aware of Hannibal's presence, but his eye was definitely open. Hannibal drew up close to the bed, his clothing rustling, and the empty, hauntingly blue eye tracked vaguely toward him.

"Face?" Years of practice in dealing with wounded, shattered, dying men allowed him to keep his voice level and calm, even now, and he betrayed none of his excitement as he sank down in a chair to Face's right and leaned close to him. "Face? Can you hear me? It's Hannibal."

"Mm… Murd-hngh…"

"No, Hannibal."

A spasm of pain passed over his features, and Face clutched briefly at the blanket with his good left hand, his blank gaze skating away from the colonel.

"Relax, Kid. I got you."

When he reached across to clasp Face's left wrist, the injured man tensed and tried to pull away, obviously frightened of the stranger beside him. He tried to speak again, uttering a mangled version of Murdock's name, and looked wildly around as if expecting to find his friend waiting in the darkness.

"Calm down, Face. It's Hannibal. Hannibal. You know me, Kid." But even as he said it, Hannibal realized that it wasn't true. Face did not know him, and his words gave no comfort or reassurance.

It took the veteran commander no more than an instant to shift gears and accept this new, unpalatable reality. He wasted no time with denials or hand-wringing, but simply pulled his hand away to minimize the threat of the unknown and dropped his voice into a soothing murmur.

"All right, it's all right. I'll find Murdock for you…"

"Murd-dngh…"

"Yes, Murdock, he's right outside. Take it easy, Face."

Pain washed over the lieutenant's face again and made his breath sob in his throat. Hannibal clasped his hand once more and this time Face did not try to pull away. "It hurts, I know, but you can take it. I'll help you."

"M-murdock… Mm…"

"Shh. He's here. He's close. Murdock is close." With his free hand, he rested his palm against Face's bruised cheek. "See, you're not afraid of me. You know I won't hurt you. Let me help you, Face. Let me help."

When Murdock and B.A. stepped into the room ten minutes later, they found Hannibal seated by the bed, holding Face's hand and talking softly to him while Face drifted toward sleep. The colonel glanced up and and met Murdock's somber gaze.

"He's been asking for you, but I didn't want to leave him to come find you."

Murdock nodded and crossed to his usual chair on Face's left. As he sank into it, Face opened his eye and turned in his direction.

"Murd-dngh…"

"Yeah, it's me, buddy. Me and Hannibal and Bosco."

"Mm-murddh…" His eye drifted closed.

"Yeah." Murdock waited until his breathing slowed into sleep, then he commented softly, "You never quite get the whole name out, do you?"

"He knows you," Hannibal commented in a near whisper.

Murdock shook his head. "He knows one word - Murdock - and I answer when he says it."

"Why that word?" B.A. asked.

"It was the last thing he said before he… died. Before his mind went blank. Now it's all he's got left."

"But he trusts you," Hannibal said.

"After the last two days, yeah. He trusts me, Hadi, Doc Finch, all of us who got him through." The other two men tactfully ignored the tears thickening his voice. "But mostly me, 'cause I'm Murdock and I answer when he calls." Shooting a look at Hannibal, he added, "He didn't recognize you, did he?"

Hannibal shook his head.

"He'll remember, Boss Man. He'll come back, I know he will."

Neither Hannibal nor B.A. had an answer for that. They both looked dourly at the man sleeping in the bed, revolving their private thoughts behind drawn faces, until Murdock added, with utter conviction, "He has to."

B.A. found Hannibal in the hospital cafeteria. He sat at a corner table, hunched over a plate of food, picking at it with a fork and staring blankly at the empty chair across from him. The corporal poured a cup of coffee and dumped several spoonfuls of sugar into it. Then he approached his commander.

"Hey, Boss. I been lookin' all over for you."

Hannibal glanced up, stiffening in instinctive alarm. "Is something wrong?"

"No." B.A. dropped into the empty chair and nodded at the plate of food in front of Hannibal. "You shouldn't eat that, man. It'll give you the runs. Here." He slid the coffee across the table to him.

Hannibal quirked a humorless smile and reached for the mug. "And this'll eat the lining of my stomach." He raised the cup in a salute. "Thanks, B.A."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, while Hannibal sipped his coffee and B.A. pondered the various scars on the table top. Finally Hannibal mustered the strength to speak.

"Where's Murdock?"

"D'you really need to ask?" B.A. retorted.

"Haunting the surgery wing."

The corporal shook his head and smiled slightly. "Face's room. He's sittin' there like he always does, lookin' at the empty bed, waitin' for Faceman to be in it again."

"Hm. No word from Hadi yet on the surgery?"

B.A. just shook his head. After another quiet moment, he said, "I know that look, Hannibal. You're worried about somethin'. What is it?"

"Lynch. And Finch. Lynch and Finch..." Hannibal leaned back in the chair and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment, laughing softly to himself. "What a pair!"

"I thought you trusted Finch."

"I do." He straightened up and dropped his hand, his sour humor evaporating as quickly as it had come. "He gave us a miracle. And he kept our secret while he was doing it."

"So what's got you worried? We gave Lynch what he wants, we finished the mission, and we got Doc Finch on our side. You should be happy."

"Happy." Hannibal's expression was bleak. "Please, B.A., tell me what in this whole hellish mess should make me happy."

"Okay, sorry. Wrong choice of words. But it looks to me like we're finally safe."

"For the moment. But Finch wants to send Face back to the States, to his clinic in Virginia."

"That's good, isn't it? Face is getting stronger..."

"He's not strong enough to travel yet, but Finch thinks he will be soon."

"Then what's the problem?" B.A. demanded in exasperation.

"Finch and his plans. Lynch pulling strings to get us home. The pair of them fixing things and getting us tangled up in their plots."

"I get it. You want to be the one who fixes it."

Hannibal looked startled, then he threw up his hand and said, laughing, "Touché! But that's not quite it.

"Yes, I'd like to be the one who makes things right - for Face and for all of us - but I'm not too proud to accept help. It's the source of that help that's bothering me. I simply don't trust Lynch. And I don't like placing ourselves in his hands this way. What if he decides that it's in his best interests to turn us over to the Military authorities? What if he decides he likes having his own Special Forces unit at his disposal? He could use Face as a hostage to force us into God knows what... and how could we stop him? Once Face is settled in Finch's clinic, we can't just pull him out without damaging him in all kinds of ways. But as long as he's there, where Lynch can pressure him - and us through him - we're all vulnerable."

B.A. digested that for a long minute, then said, "But we need both of 'em to get Face safely back home."

"Exactly."

"So we're screwed."

"That's about the size of it."

B.A. sighed and slumped wearily in his chair. "I thought we were finally getting a break."

Hannibal smiled crookedly at him, the expression making him look more tired and sad than ever.

Once again, they fell quiet, intent on their own thoughts, but this time Hannibal's musing clearly focused on his corporal. He gazed intently at B.A., sipping his coffee, wondering what was going on behind that impassive face. Finally, he decided that the only way to find out was to ask.

"How are you doing, B.A.?"

The dark, mohawked head came up in surprise. "Me?"

"Yes, you. How're you holding up?"

"I'm okay, I guess." He shifted uncomfortably and let his eyes skate away from Hannibal's gaze. "I wish they'd hurry up and tell us how Faceman is doing. Not that it..." He abruptly bit off his words and ducked his head.

"Not that it matters?" Hannibal finished for him, softly.

B.A. hesitated, then nodded.

"Tell me, Big Man. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I think... I think they're hurtin' Faceman for no reason. They're putting him through these surgeries, repairing his hand, giving him a fake eye, rebuilding the bones in his face, and pretending that he cares, but it's really for us. For Murdock."

"Finch says it's necessary for his recovery. That it's relieving the pressure on his brain. And he is getting better. He said my name yesterday - or tried to - and he sat up for a good ten minutes."

"He's getting stronger, like you said, but better? You're startin' to sound like Murdock."

"Is that such a bad thing? I didn't believe him when he said Face would wake up, but he was right. So now I'm trying to share a little of his hope."

B.A. scowled down at his folded hands. "You call it hope. I call it crazy. Murdock wants Face back so bad that he can't see the truth. He's even willing to make Face suffer, just so he can pretend for a while longer."

"Pretend?"

"That Face is comin' back to us."

"But you're sure he won't," Hannibal said quietly.

B.A. shook his head. "Face is gone, and he's takin' Murdock with 'im. That's what's killin' me about this. I see Murdock walkin' off the edge of a cliff, and I can't stop 'im. The only person he'll ever listen to when he's like this is Face, and Face can't help him. Hell, Face is the one pushing him over the edge!"

"Sounds like you're more worried about Murdock than Face."

"I guess I am. It's habit. Face never needs me; Murdock always does. I've just gotten used to letting Face do what Face is gonna do. Besides, Face... he isn't hurting the way Murdock is. He doesn't know or care how it's s'posed to be. He doesn't know what he's doing to his best friend."

Hannibal stared at him for a long, thoughtful moment, then he took a slug of his coffee and said, in a conversational tone, "You know what I think, Big Guy? You're so used to worrying about Murdock that you're missing the obvious."

"What's that?"

"Murdock isn't crazy. He isn't pretending that things are any different than they are. He sees all too clearly what's happened to Face, and he's coping with it better than either of us. Sure, he's hurting. His best friend is severely brain damaged and functioning at the level of a retarded three-year-old. He'd be crazy if he weren't hurting. But he's holding it together for Face."

B.A. blinked at him in surprise. "You really believe that?"

"I know it. And I also know that Face is improving every day. He isn't getting his memory back, and he probably never will, but maybe that's for the best."

"I don't believe I'm hearin' this."

"Think about it. As long as he doesn't remember, he doesn't know how much he's lost. He just learns what he can and gets by with what he has."

"But if he doesn't remember us…"

"He gets to know us again. As the friends who stand by him, look after him, love him… You do still love him, don't you? Even like this?"

"Course I do," B.A. answered roughly, dropping his eyes from Hannibal's piercing gaze. "He's family."

"Then he'll be fine. We all will, if we can just get back to the States without selling our souls to the Company."

"Hannibal…"

"What is it, B.A.?" When the corporal still hesitated, he urged, "Go on, say it. Whatever's on your mind, this is the time to say it, when Face and Murdock can't hear us."

"How can we still be a team - the A-Team - with Face like this and Murdock glued to his side? How can we do what we do?"

"I haven't figured that out, yet, but I will. I promise."

"But you think we can."

"I'm sure of it, as long as we remember that we are a team and we act like it."

"You mean, I gotta stop tellin' myself that Face isn't really Face and start treatin' him like my teammate again."

Hannibal gave him half a smile. "Well, that would be a good start."

"Did he really say your name?"

The smile spread over his tired face. "Something like it. He's up to five or six words now, if you cut him some slack on pronunciation."

B.A. tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. "Bosco ain't one of 'em."

"It will be, if you encourage him a little."

"It's hard. I don't know what to say. I mean, if it was really Face, I'd just…" He caught himself and shot Hannibal an embarrassed look. "Okay, it really is Face."

"So talk to him like you always do."

"Insult him and tell bad jokes?"

"If that's all you can come up with, but he doesn't laugh much."

"Yeah, I noticed," B.A. said glumly.

"Maybe you need to reintroduce him to the concept of humor. Make it your mission to get him laughing again."

"How do you make a retarded three-year-old laugh?"

Hannibal sobered instantly. "He'll learn, B.A."

"Yeah." B.A. pushed back his chair and stood up. Nodding to the plate of cold food in front of Hannibal, he said, "I'd chuck that, if I were you, and pick up somethin' from the falafel stand on the corner. I'm goin' upstairs to see if Murdock's heard anything."

With that, he strode out of the room.

B.A. took Hannibal's words to heart and tried his best to act more naturally around Face, but his teammate was never alone, and the big man found it hard to relax with Murdock or Hannibal or the doctors watching him. Another two weeks passed, Face recovered from his latest surgery, and life continued in the strange, stifling pattern it had assumed since their return from Tikrit. B.A. spent most of his time roaming the hospital corridors, looking for sick children to play with, or finding sources of food that didn't disrupt his digestion. He spent less time in Face's room than either of his teammates, though he made a point of speaking to him every time he did visit. Face hadn't yet attempted to say his name, but he seemed to recognize the deep voice as a friendly one and even smiled once or twice when B.A. approached him.

Dr. Finch had finally decided that Face was strong enough to travel, and Lynch had finagled them a private jet for the trip Stateside. B.A. didn't ask where he'd gotten it or how much trouble they would be in if someone figured out exactly who was aboard. That was for Hannibal to worry about. In fact, Hannibal and Murdock were both deep in conference with the Lynch Mob - as B.A. privately thought of the CIA Agent and doctors - which meant that Face was alone in his room.

Clutching a handful of fabric in one large hand, B.A. slipped through the door and let it close behind him, leaving him alone with Faceman for the first time since his injury. He paused just inside the door to get a good look at his friend.

Face was sitting up - lying against the raised head of the bed, to be exact - so that his empty gaze fixed on the wall, rather than the ceiling. He looked alert and showed no signs of pain, though the memory of what he had suffered over the last weeks was etched permanently into his face. At the sound of B.A.'s footsteps on the linoleum, he turned a vacant look on him but offered no greeting or sign of welcome.

"Hey, Faceman."

At the sound of the familiar voice, his expression softened into something like a smile.

"Did Hannibal tell you that we're goin' home today?" Face made no attempt to answer him, but B.A. hadn't expected any response, so he went on easily, "Well, not home, but closer than here. Virginia. To Doc Finch's clinic. Hannibal's workin' out the details now."

Stopping beside the bed, he said, with an attempt at humor, "I don't know 'bout you, buddy, but I'm done with this place. Bad weather, bad food, and no pretty nurses. Must be Hell for you."

He broke off and gazed down at his friend, at a loss. When Face did nothing but stare emptily at a point somewhere past B.A.'s shoulder, the corporal sighed and shuffled his feet.

"Okay. Well… I brought you somethin', man. A present." Unrolling the bundle in his hand, he held up a well-worn shirt made of soft, faded blue cotton, with a white peace sign on it. "You remember the day we met? You borrowed my favorite shirt and got gasoline all over it. Then Murdock lit you on fire." He rubbed his thumb over a brown mark on one long sleeve. "It took me a week to wash the smell of gas out of it, and the burn mark never went. But it's still my favorite shirt. And I want you to have it, Face, for luck and to remember us by. The day we became a team. I want you to wear it home."

Gently, so as not to startle his friend, he slid a hand behind Face's neck and pulled him away from the pillows that supported him, just enough that he could reach the ties of his hospital gown. "You don't wanna wear this thing to the airport anyway. It's got no style," he rumbled, as he opened the ties and pulled off the gown.

To the accompaniment of a running commentary that distracted Face from his actions, B.A. eased the shirt sleeve very gently over the various splints and bandages on his right side, then guided his left hand into the other sleeve and pulled the shirt over his head. Face winced when B.A. moved him but otherwise showed no sign of distress. B.A. settled him back against the pillows and straightened up to study his handiwork.

"You lost a lot of weight, man," he said, frowning at how the shirt, which had always been too big for Face's much slighter frame, now hung loose on him. "It figures, I guess, what with livin' on IVs and hospital food. When we get home, first thing we gotta do is get you some real food."

"Nngh…f-f-f…"

B.A. looked at him, startled, then broke out in a wide grin. "That's right. Can you say 'food'?"

"F… F-fff…"

"How 'bout 'Face'?"

"F-face."

"D'you know who that is?" Face just looked confused. B.A. chuckled. "Never mind, buddy. One step at a time."

The door swung open, and Hannibal and Murdock traipsed in, followed by Hadi pushing a wheelchair.

"Time to go," Hannibal announced. He halted when he caught sight of Face's shirt and smiled widely at B.A. "Good job, Corporal." Then, to Face he added, "You're looking more like yourself every day. Now all you need is some hair."

Face's confusion deepened, but B.A. so far forgot his nervousness around his brain-damaged friend that he ran an affectionate hand over his shorn head. "It's comin' back. If the docs would just stop draggin' you into surgery and choppin' it off again, you'd be back to normal by now."

"We must hurry if you are to reach the airport in time," Hadi interjected, his usually solemn manner more pronounced than ever at the thought of the risks his patient was running.

"It's a private flight. They'll wait for us. Okay, Face, let's get you into this chair."

"Does he have to sit up the whole way?" B.A. asked, frowning.

"Just to the airport. Finch has a stretcher for him on the plane, but we don't want to draw attention on the streets with an ambulance. He'll be fine. Won't you, Face?" Not waiting for an answer, Hannibal stripped the blankets back and reached to swing Face's feet off the side, but B.A. stopped him with a sharp gesture.

"I'll do it."

Gently, and with surprising ease, the big corporal scooped his friend up in his arms and transferred him to the wheelchair in one smooth move that barely jarred his various broken bones and wounds. Face gave one soft grunt of pain and was looking decidedly peaked, but he remained upright in the chair and when Murdock spoke to him, he smiled. Sitting up, he looked even thinner and more fragile than before, but also more like the Faceman they all knew. B.A. felt an unfamiliar tightness in his throat when he looked at him, and he quickly turned away to regain control of himself.

"Let's go," Hannibal said.

B.A. gave the wheelchair a shove toward the door. As he maneuvered it out of the room, he sent up a silent prayer that he would never see this room, this hospital or this godforsaken country again as long as he lived.

To be continued…