Stockwell hung up the phone in the hotel room and turned to Kate, who sat on the bed, the pistol still in her hand, though resting in her lap. Stockwell had stopped worrying about the gun hours ago. She couldn't shoot him while he was trying to rescue the team. Anyway she had to fall asleep eventually. It had been hours since they left the bank and she made him check them into a nearby hotel.

"I have good news and bad news," he said. "They've been rescued."

"And I suppose the bad news is that it's by the Meirion."

"No. It's by the same people who tried to take you from the ship. The organisation I used to run."

"Well, that's good, isn't it? They're safe?"

Stockwell doubted it. Also, he couldn't allow her to think it. Then she had no reason to keep him alive any longer and he'd have to start worrying about the gun again.

"No, they aren't. The organisation will want to know why the team took you from the Meirion and why I wanted you. They're in the hands of people who will do whatever it takes to extract that information. It might take some time - the team are trained men - but eventually..." He saw the expression of horror on her face and paused for the maximum effect to let her imagination do the work. "Eventually they'll break."

Stockwell felt something he rarely felt. Regret. He'd learned to suppress that a long time ago. When a chess grand master sacrificed a pawn did he weep for it? Perhaps retirement had made him soft.

He'd always intended to get the team off the Meirion, after Kate took him to the information - the damned information that didn't exist. They were pawns, but they didn't deserve to spend their lives on that ship, and they didn't deserve what they faced now.

If they'd only waited for him to get them back. But no, they had to escape on their own. This whole plan would have worked, if everyone else had done what they were supposed to and not run around following their own agenda. But he should have known - especially about the team. He'd never been able to predict what they'd do next. Perhaps he should have told them more details about the plan. Was this incompetence on his part? Retirement had made him more than soft.

"Okay, then," Kate said. "You have to get them away from those people. You can organise -"

"What?" he snapped, his irritation coming out now, too old and too damn tired for this. "What do you think I can do? Thanks to favours I could call in I was able to get the use of a boat, a jet and a few men to help me. But I don't have a squad of commandos at my disposal! There's nothing I can do." It sickened him to have to admit to such... impotence.

Kate stared at him, then raised her pistol again. "If that's true, then you're no use to me any more and I might as well finish this now."

"And then what?" Stockwell said. She hadn't planned for this part, he felt sure. She thought she'd shoot him and walk off into the sunset and trust to luck. Amateur. "Are you going to go on the run? At your age?"

"I'm just going to be free! I don't care if it's for a day or a year. I'll be free."

He snorted at that. People thought freedom was so easy. "Life out here is not what you might be imagining it to be, Kate. Many people would envy the life you had on the Meirion."

"Well they can change places with me!" She stood up, still pointing the gun, but not close enough for him to take it.

"Are you missing it yet?" Stockwell asked quietly.

"What? Missing what?"

Was the gun trembling in her hand? Could she actually do it? Shoot him in cold blood? Stockwell talked. He talked for his life.

"Your friends. Your routine. Your room. What about your books? Your work that you left behind? Building that radio wasn't only about the plan was it? You had to build a radio. That's what you do. That's who you are."

"I don't miss any of it!"

He shook his head, not believing her. A person became attached even to their prison walls. "You're an intellectual, Kate. Your type of mind can never be imprisoned, wherever the body might be. You just need to work and let others take care of the practicalities. Food, laundry, cleaning... all done for you."

"What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded. "Are you trying to persuade me to go back?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to do."

"Then you're crazy! Why would I ever go back?"

"Because I do have an idea for a way to get the team out. But in return - you need to go back to the Meirion."

"Why?" She shook her head. "Why do I need to go back? You can't get them out otherwise? I don't believe you!"

"You have to go back because I made certain deals in exchange for the help I needed. One of the conditions I agreed to was that you were to go back once it was all over. Basically that you would exchange yourself for the team. That's how it would have worked, if they hadn't escaped."

She stared at him for a few seconds, looking awe-struck at the manipulation he practiced. Eventually she spoke in a quiet voice.

"Me... The A-Team... We're just puppets on strings to you, aren't we?"

"Yes."

His frank answer took her aback. "Well... that's... wrong. It's just wrong."

"I'm afraid right and wrong are concepts that I haven't had much use for in some time."

"I really should kill you, but I'm starting to wonder if you would actually die. Unless I can get hold of some silver..."

"You have to go back, Kate. I gave my word that you would."

"Your word! What do I care about your word?"

"You care because I'll give it to you too. That I will free the A-Team - if you go back to the Meirion. Not manipulation this time. A deal."

"You said you can't free them, now you say you can! How? You said you don't have the men to mount a rescue."

"I don't. I intend to offer them an exchange. They free the team in return for the information you have about Zephyr."

"What?" She looked baffled. "You're planning to bluff them?"

"Not at all. That would be far too risky."

"But I don't have any information about Zephyr."

Stockwell smirked. "Yes - you have."

~~~~

After a session of futile questions and provocative answers, Carla had the Marines and a big squad of Ables take the team to the cargo hold. It held a barred cage for secure cargo that doubled nicely as a cell. The team started to file inside.

"Him," Randall said.

The twin Marines grabbed Face's arms right before he stepped into the cage, the last one. The Ables moved fast and slammed and locked the door, as the rest of the team spun around and tried to get back out.

"Aw, shit," Face muttered. "Never take the rear, never take the goddamn rear."

Randall smirked at him. "Good advice. Though in this case... well hell, doesn't matter. It's always you, isn't it?"

"Ain't that the truth." The glib tone helped him keep the fear at bay. God, no more. He'd had enough now. Life wasn't supposed to have this shit in it any more. It was supposed to be normal.

"Bring him," Randall ordered. The rest of the team yelled threats as the Marines dragged Face off. The Ables stayed behind. Carla and Blaine had stayed back in the mess - they wouldn't get their hands dirty, Face knew. Randall would be charged with getting the team to talk and report back when it was done.

"You have to be joking," Face said as the twins manhandled him down a companionway, the three of them awkward on the narrow metal steps. "It will take you days to make us talk. If you can."

"Sure, Peck," Randall said. "You'll hold out for that long to protect Stockwell, will you? You'll do that?"

Damn, this wasn't a case of it always being Face, or just grabbing the last man into the cell. No, they'd picked him out deliberately. That had to be on Carla's orders. She knew that none of team hated Stockwell more than Face did.

If only this was about protecting Stockwell. Because then Face would happily draw Carla a map of where to find the bastard - if he knew. But it wasn't that easy. He'd give up Stockwell in heartbeat. But Zephyr... Where might Stockwell be anyway? Holed up some place interrogating Miller? Being an old lady wouldn't spare her Stockwell's harshest methods, Face felt sure. That man would sacrifice his own mother on the altar of his sacred National Security.

They reached a rusty, dank compartment, right at the bottom of the ship. The other two Marines waited there, standing beside a round hatch made of toughened safety glass set into the deck. Face started to get a very appropriate sinking feeling at the sight of that hatch. Randall spun the wheel on top of it and heaved it open.

"Drop him," he ordered the twins. Face struggled, but they quickly shoved him into the hatch. Panic gave way to relief when his feet hit the bottom only about seven feet down, splashing into a few inches of water.

But panic took him again as he guessed that he was standing on another hatch that opened out into the sea. If they closed the top hatch and opened the bottom one... Could Face make it to the surface before he drowned? Or before he got sucked into the propellers? Randall turned a small wheel beside the airlock and Face yelled in shock as valves in the walls opened up, pouring cold water in at him.

"Okay, Peck, here's the deal," Randall explained. "This thing takes about ten minutes to fill up. If it gets to the top and you still won't talk, we close the lid, flush your body out and bring one of your friends down here for his turn."

Face glared up at the Marines. The twins watched with impassive faces. Randall had a grim and determined expression. The other two wore unhealthy smirks, enjoying the show.

When Hannibal had told them about the squad of Marines he and Stockwell had found living at the rebuilt Langley house he'd said, "They're a Marine Corps version of us."

He'd been wrong. These men were killers.