Chapter 2

"So, you're collating all the sightings to try to track their movements?"

"Yes, ma'am," Benson said, watching Taylor, sitting at what had been Lynch's desk, going through papers. "To see if we can find a pattern, or make a prediction about where they'll go next."

"That's actually quite a good idea." She sounded surprised. Benson wondered if he should mention that it had been his idea, not Lynch's.

"It was working quite well, when all the sightings were good ones, from police reports and the like, but then Colonel Lynch said we weren't getting enough sightings and he decided to run that ad..."

"Ah yes, the ad." Taylor shook her head. Six months ago Lynch had placed an ad in every newspaper in the country inviting the public to write to him with details of sightings of the A-Team. Within days Benson's once quite neat desk had vanished under a mountain of paper.

Taylor stood up and walked back and forth. She had a few of the letters about so called sightings in her hand.

Benson watched her pace. He'd got over his shock at having a woman CO now. He'd also got over any urge to ogle her. He liked a tall girl with lots of blonde hair. Taylor was 5'4" and her brown hair was short. She was a little old for him anyway and didn't seem inclined to wear mini-skirts and boob tubes.

As he waited he remembered again, just for fun, the moment Lynch had come back from lunch to find Taylor in his office.

"This is my case! I've been chasing these men for five years!"

Benson wondered why he thought the length of time he had been chasing them was a positive argument for his remaining on the case. After twenty minutes of ranting Lynch must have realised that Taylor wasn't the person he should be arguing with. He announced he was going to take the matter up with the Pentagon.

"Benson, come with me," he said as he turned to go.

"Captain Benson had been assigned to bring me up to speed on the case."

"What?" Lynch's moustache quivered. "You're taking my job, moving into my office and now you're poaching my men as well? I won't stand for it! Don't worry, Benson, I'll get you transferred back to my staff as soon as I can."

That was exactly what Benson was worried about.

Lynch stamped out of the office, turned back only once.

"Smith and the A-Team will consider you a joke. You realise that?"

"As opposed to the enormous respect they have for you?"

Benson had almost suffered internal injuries stopping himself from laughing. Lynch spluttered for a while longer then marched out, slamming the door so hard that some of the many stacks of paper in the room fell over.

There were fewer stacks of paper now. Taylor had tidied the place up.

She turned back to Benson, held up the letters one after another.

"The Taj Mahal." She balled up the letter and tossed it at the waste paper basket. "The Eiffel Tower." Another slam dunk. "The Great Pyramid of Giza." This one bounced off the edge of the basket and landed on the floor. "All within a week. Get around don't they?"

Taylor picked more papers off the desk. Not letters this time, but the envelopes that the letters had come in.

"Posted from UCLA. Posted from MIT... Vassar... CalTech. There is a pattern here, all right. Templeton Peck has half the co-eds in the country working for him."

Benson agreed. If by some miracle Lynch had caught the team, if they'd walked into the office and surrendered, for example, Benson had hoped he would be assigned to interrogate Templeton Peck. The things that man would be able to teach him... The guy had to be getting so much tail it wasn't even funny. Benson didn't think he'd ever admired a man as much as he admired Peck. Of course Peck did have certain natural advantages...

"Captain are you listening to me?" Taylor's voice snapped him out of his reverie. He straightened up. It was this office. After a year of working under Lynch he had learned to drift off into another world as soon as he came in here. He didn't even wait to get bored any more, he just zoned out automatically. Better break that habit. He didn't want Taylor to happily sign him over to Lynch when the transfer request came through. She was potentially the saviour of his career, and he'd better shape up and start impressing her.

"Yes, Colonel."

"All right. Go and get rid of all that rubbish from your desk. Anything else?"

"Just some things to sign." He handed her a folder. She sat down and got out a pen. She signed a couple of documents, then stopped and frowned.

"Three day passes?"

"For Thanksgiving weekend, ma'am. Colonel Lynch always gave all the men leave for the holidays."

She stared at Benson.

"And it never occurred to him that Colonel Smith might do the same?"

~~~~

"No, miss, this isn't the Silver Streak. There's no such train as the Silver Streak except in the movie."

BA shook his head as he made his way back to his compartment from the dining car. He'd heard conductors say that same thing to about twenty people since they left LA. Why were all these fools running about loose if they didn't know the difference between real life and a movie?

"We on schedule?" BA asked the conductor as he passed.

"Yes, sir. We'll be in Chicago in just under three hours."

"Thanks, brother."

BA went into his compartment and packed all his things into his bag. Just under three hours. Plenty of time for a nap. He lay down on the berth and closed his eyes. The movement of the train soothed him, lulled him as his thoughts drifted.

Just a few hours and he'd be eating Thanksgiving dinner with his mother. He wished he could have talked Hannibal and Face into coming along. Face especially. BA could get sentimental around the holidays and start feeling sorry for Face, worrying that he'd never had a proper family Thanksgiving. But Face and Hannibal both said they had dates and obviously had other things on their minds besides turkey.

He hoped Murdock was getting a proper turkey dinner too in the hospital. Probably not. Probably mass produced frozen meals. BA sighed.

He went over in his head the arrangements he'd made to meet Mama. Hannibal had warned him to be extra careful with this new colonel in place. BA wasn't too worried though. He was familiar with the speed things happened in the army. Taylor was probably still picking out drapes for her office.

"Barbara Anne Taylor." Face's voice sounded clearly in BA's head, remembered from the meeting they'd had a couple of days ago. Face had been assigned to get the details about their new nemesis. "Barbara Anne, same initials as you, BA." He grinned. BA just growled.

"Age forty-two, so definitely you doing the seducing, Hannibal. If she's interested that is. Never married. No kids. Been in the army since college. Served in Vietnam and back home as an MP. Decorated twice in Vietnam."

"She's gonna throw away her career chasing us." Hannibal commented. "Almost feel sorry for her."

BA didn't. He saved his sympathy for them, didn't waste it on anybody whose job it was to make things their lives worse. Whose job it was to keep him from seeing his family. His cousin Travis got married last year. They'd been close when they were boys. Travis had always said BA would be the best man at his wedding. But of course it was impossible. BA hadn't even been able to attend. A few weeks later BA had managed to speak on the phone to Travis, had heard the disappointment in his voice, the hint of resentment as he'd told BA about the MP car that sat outside the church the whole time. They hadn't talked since then.

Not just family either. It would help Murdock to see the three of them more often. Face especially, the two of them had been so close in country. But showing up at the VA too often was going to get them noticed.

BA missed the fool. Not that he'd admit that. How do you miss someone who drives you crazy the whole time you're with them? Face really missed him, BA knew. The colonel it was hard to say about. He didn't show much, tried to be the strong leader all the time. He was always the one to say Murdock was in the best place, was getting the help he needed. That he'd be better soon.

Course he'd said the same about them being on the run. It wouldn't last forever, evidence would turn up to clear them. But it was five years now. Didn't look like anything was gonna show up.

But being on the run was better than prison. For Face especially. Face kept joking "I'm too pretty to go to prison" and laughing. A laugh that wasn't conning BA one bit. Face was a difficult person to get to know, he was all front, false front at that. But BA was sure of one thing. Prison scared Face to death.