A spooky glow surrounded the team's boat as they rowed, still heading northeast towards the shipping lanes. Murdock looked over the side, into the water visible in the tiny halo of light cast by the lantern.

"Think there's any sharks around here?"

"Why not dangle your feet over the side and find out," Face suggested.

"Forget his feet," BA said. "Dangle his head over."

"That's..." Murdock began, and stopped. "I hear something."

"No you don't," Face snapped, too weary to go along with any more of Murdock's nonsense. "There's no such thing as mermaids, or sirens, so you don't hear any women singing, unless that heap of scrap..." he nodded at the radio, "...is picking up some music station..."

"Shut up! Stop rowing for a second." The seriousness in Murdock's voice this time shut all of them up and they stopped rowing. Face heard only the lapping of the water against the boat for a moment and then he gasped.

An engine.

BA must have heard it at the same second. The two of them rammed into each other as they started to scramble off their benches.

"I still don't hear..." Hannibal began. But he stopped and snapped, "Give me the flashlight." Face slapped the flashlight into his outstretched hand. "Switch off the lantern."

"I see a light!" Murdock cried when he turned off the lantern. Face saw it too. Blurred by mist, dim, but real.

Hannibal stood, accepting Face's hand and then shoulder for balance. Raising the flashlight over his head, he began to signal. Three short, three long, three short. A pause and he repeated it.

"They're coming this way!" Murdock said a couple of minutes later, sounding breathless.

It was hard to be sure in the mist, but Face agreed. The engine grew louder, the light brighter. When the light actually shone on the team it touched off a fuse, releasing all the anxiety of their long wait. As one man they started yelling and waving their arms. The boat rocked and Hannibal sat down fast to avoid falling overboard.

It wasn't the Meirion - too small for that. But Face didn't care what ship it was. It could be the Meirion, Noah's Ark or the Flying Dutchman. Didn't matter. It was rescue. Someone called to them, voice harsh and distorted by a megaphone, but still sounding like celestial music to Face.

"Ahoy there. Prepare to come alongside."

The team got a grip on themselves, stopped their frantic waving and yelling and manoeuvred their boat alongside the larger one. Two rope ladders dropped over the side and Hannibal and Face went up first, both groaning at the effort of the climb, muscles aching from all the rowing. At the top, hands reached down and Face took them gratefully, looking up into lights that made the men pulling him aboard mere dark silhouettes against them.

"Thanks, guys! Thanks!" he said, wondering if they even spoke English. Could be anyone. The megaphone man had spoken English though, so maybe. Who cared? The big smile he was giving them translated effortlessly. Stepping onto the deck, he tried to move away from the men helping him.

They didn't let go.

"What the hell?" Face tried to yank his arms away. "What's going on?"

Another man stepped forward, holding a pistol. Face recognised the man who'd led the Marines that the team had fought in the Meirion. Should have know, Face thought. Should have damn well known our luck hadn't changed.

"Randall?" Hannibal said.

"Welcome aboard, fellas," Randall said. "I think we have some unfinished business."

~~~~

The Marines handled the team roughly, probably looking for payback from the fight on the Meirion, Face thought. In a few seconds he and Hannibal were slammed face first on the deck and cuffed. Shouts and protests behind him told him Murdock and BA were getting the same treatment. Unseen hands started pawing him roughly, frisking him for weapons.

He had none, none of them did. On Randall's order the Marines dragged the team below decks, into a room with a couple of big tables spread with papers and a scattering of coffee mugs. A man and a woman sat at the table. The man was Blaine, the traitor from the Meirion. But Randall ignored him and spoke to the woman.

"We were right, Ms Frasier, it's them." His men hustled the team into the room.

"Hello, gentlemen," Carla said. "Nice to see you again after all this time. Colonel, I think you owe me an Uzi."

"An' you owe me a van, lady," BA said, his bitterness sounding as strong as it had been that day they found the burnt out shell of his van in the ruins of the Langley house.

"He's been waiting a couple of years to bring that up," Face told Carla.

"Aw, cut her some slack, BA," Murdock said. "She did you a favour. It really was past its prime."

"It was in perfect condition!"

"Perfect? The floor had so much rust I could have poked my finger through it."

Blaine was watching them with his mouth open, but Carla just wore her look of mildly amused cynicism that Face remembered well, and not fondly.

"I see you gentlemen haven't changed a bit."

She, on the other hand had changed a lot. Her power suits had given way to a cotton shirt and jeans, the heels to flat, sensible shoes. Her hair was straight and in a simple pony tail. She wore little make-up.

She wasn't anybody's Girl Friday any more, that was clear to Face. She may not be the boss of all of Stockwell's old organisation, but was certainly in charge of this team and this operation. And out in the field as well, not behind a desk. Had she wanted that all along? Face wondered. Been waiting for the chance to prove herself?

"Been promoted from 'coffee fetcher' then, Carla?" Hannibal asked, and got the same reaction to the provocative remark that the team used to get from Stockwell. That is to say - none at all.

"Major Randall," Carla said. "Uncuff them. Blaine, pour them some coffee."

"Yes, ma'am," Blaine said, going to the coffee urns bolted to a sideboard.

The Marines apparently didn't like this soft treatment of the team. Randall made no move to follow her order to uncuff the team.

"We should lock them up, right now. They're dangerous."

"You guys sure found that out," Hannibal said, smirking.

"Uncuff them," Carla repeated. "And please don't smoke in here."

Randall scowled more horribly than before, and his men glanced at him. But he dropped his cigarette and stamped on it, then gestured at the Marines to uncuff the team. They did that, then shoved them into chairs around the table.

"Thank you," Carla said. "Now, can you wait outside, please?"

Another slap in the face, telling him he's not important enough to hear what she had to say to the team, Face thought, enjoying the show, the evidence that the Marines were not ready to jump the instant she snapped her fingers.

"These men are dangerous," Randall objected. "If we leave you alone with them what's to stop them taking you and Blaine hostage?"

"What good would that do us?" Face said. "Are we going to demand you put us back in our small boat with its dwindling supplies of food and water?"

"Wait outside," Carla repeated the order, and this time had some impatience in her tone.

"Here come the new boss, just like the old boss," Murdock muttered.

No, Face thought, not just like. Stockwell never had to repeat his orders - except the ones he gave to the team of course.

"We'll be right outside," Randall said. He ordered his men out of the room, closing the door as he followed them.

Blaine, looking very nervous of the team, started handing mugs of steaming coffee around.

"How's your nose?" Face asked him as he took a mug. Blaine still had bruising visible.

"Um, better, thanks."

"Good. Sorry about that, but you know..." he shrugged, no real ill-will towards Blaine. Just another agent. "These things are all in the game."

"It was you?" Blaine looked disappointed. "Oh, I thought it must have been Sergeant Baracus."

"If I'd hit you you'd still be on your back." BA waved the proffered coffee cup away.

"Would you like cocoa instead?" Blaine asked him.

"I don't want nothing from you people," BA said.

"BA," Hannibal said, in a mock scolding tone, "where are your manners? Ms Frasier here is an old, old friend." Face chuckled at the way Hannibal played with the name like it was a new toy, drawing out the "Ms".

"Hannibal," he protested. "Don't be rude. She isn't that old." He smirked at Carla. Come on, ice queen, a smile, a frown, anything. But her armour had no chinks. She didn't react.

"Gentlemen, as much as I'm enjoying the nostalgia of this, if you're quite finished, we need to get down to business."

"I thought you'd never offer," Face said and Murdock spluttered into his coffee as he laughed.

"We know you're working for General Stockwell," Carla said. "We know your mission was to take Doctor Katherine Miller off the Meirion. But we don't know why. What does Stockwell want with Miller?"

"What, you think he told us?" Hannibal said. "Come on, Carla, you remember about 'need to know', right?"

"He has no hold over you any more that I'm aware of; he couldn't force you to go on that mission. So you volunteered. You wouldn't do that without knowing why. And there's something else. A word keeps coming up in connection with this mission, but nobody in the organisation knows what it means."

Face guessed the word, but had his own suggestion. "Ethics?"

"Integrity?" Hannibal said.

"Honesty?" BA contributed that one.

"Breath mints?" Murdock said.

"That's two words," Face pointed out, while BA giggled.

"The word is Zephyr."

No reaction, Face thought, keeping his expression carefully neutral. He didn't look at any of the others, hoped they were all wearing puzzled or neutral expressions too. Hannibal could do it - an actor of course. Face the con artist could do it. Murdock and BA - not so much.

"It means breeze, doesn't it?" Hannibal said. Face glanced at him. Was he deliberately drawing attention to himself, and distracting from any reactions Murdock and BA might be showing?

"There's a flower called a zephyr lily," Murdock said. "And I think the word must come from the Greek, after Zephyrus, the god of the west wind." The others looked at him, surprised at his obscure tidbits of knowledge. "I used to get a lot of time to read."

"Stockwell betrayed you," Carla said. "Why protect him?"

"We're not protecting him," Face snapped and bit his lip at the vehemence in his tone. Shut the hell up, Peck. Don't give her any clues. But the idea of protecting Stockwell was so offensive to him he couldn't help reacting.

"Then you're protecting Zephyr. And you're going to tell me what it is."