"Oh get the hell out of my way, Decker! We don't have time for you!"

Decker ignored him. "Drop your guns all of you." Looking past Face, he frowned. "What happened to Captain Murdock?"

"Decker, listen," Hannibal said, his voice calmer than Face's, but talking fast. "We sent in Amy and Murdock to try to make the killer show himself, but he got the drop on us. He's taken Amy Allen. We can track her, but we need to move now or she'll be out of range. Now stand aside or I'll shoot you."

Face gasped at the calmly spoken threat and glanced back to see Hannibal had his gun drawn. Decker still held his on Face.

"You're lying."

"Don't be an idiot!" Hannibal snapped. "Who do you think beat the crap out of Murdock?"

Decker looked uncertain now, studying them. Face, still itching to move, wished Decker were closer, so he could jump him.

"You can track her? Then I'll bring the police to --"

"There's no time!" Face yelled, "She'll be out of range by the time they get here!"

"Decker," Hannibal said, his gun pointed at Decker now. "He's right, there's no time. Besides, this is personal. I know you understand all about personal."

Decker looked torn. Face knew he had no love for Amy, whose newspaper stories humiliated him on a regular basis. But even he wouldn't want to see her murdered. He had to let them go. Not even he could be such a hardass.

"Dammit!" Decker scowled. "I don't have a lot of choice, do I?"

"Not if you want to hang onto your membership of the human race," Hannibal said. "Right, guys, let's go." They started to move, Face turning, to run for the car, but Decker took advantage of that momentary distraction, jumped forward, and grabbed Face's arm.

"You just said we could go!" Face protested as the others spun back around, Hannibal and BA letting go of Murdock, who wobbled and grabbed at BA to stay on his feet.

"You can go, but I'm coming with you. You three will lead and you, Peck, will ride with me."

"What, I'm your hostage now?"

"You're my prisoner. That's the way this is going to work, deal with it."

"Hannibal," Face said, seeing Hannibal about to speak, knowing they didn't have time for an argument. "It's fine, let's just go, for god's sake!"

Hannibal nodded and the three of them turned back for their car, ran, Hannibal and BA dragging the stumbling Murdock. Decker pulled Face away towards his unmarked Army sedan.

"You'll drive, Peck. That way your hands are where I can see them."

"I've got more important things to do than pick your damn pocket." Nevertheless, Face slid into the driver's seat and as he pulled away, he tuned in the CB radio to their frequency. Decker took the microphone from him.

"Smith? Are you receiving me?"

"Yeah." Hannibal sounded somewhat freaked. Not the voice he'd expect to hear over their radio. "You see us? Okay, keep up."

Face followed their car out of the parking lot and put his foot down as it sped on ahead.

"You should probably put on your seatbelt." Face couldn't resist a tiny smirk at Decker. Decker just snorted. "What the hell were you doing there anyway?" Face went on. "It can't have been for us, not  with no backup."

"I came to check their employment records. Looks like we both figured out the killer is a hotel employee."

"You mean, you've actually been investigating?" Face said, amazed, then added in a sly voice. "And we thought you just drove around all day hoping to spot the van."

Decker ignored the dig. "Someone had to investigate. That damn police detective was only interested in catching you."

"Isn't that all you're interested in?"

"Don't flatter yourselves," Decker growled. "Miss Allen gave Turner the other cases to follow up. I followed them up."

"And you reached the same conclusion we did?"

"Yes. Of course, I didn't then come up with some insanely dangerous scheme to catch the killer by using my friends as bait. But I'm not Smith after all."

Face scowled. "No you're not!" Then he pulled himself together, determined not to let Decker needle him. "I guess this means you don't believe I did it."

Decker didn't answer for a moment. When he did, his voice was quieter than usual. "I've read your file going right back to when you were a boy. Nothing in it makes me believe you would do something like this. You're a lot of things, but a killer of women isn't one of them."

"That's the nicest thing you'll ever say to me, isn't it?"

Decker cleared his throat and gave Face a dirty look. "Make no mistake, Peck, I'm still going to lock you up. But not for something you didn't do."

"Damn, and you were doing so well."

+-+-+

In the leading car, BA drove while Hannibal sat in the back with Murdock, cleaning him up.

"How's it going, BA?" Hannibal asked, grabbing at the back of the passenger seat as BA took a corner.

"Fine. Signal still coming in strong. We're heading north."

Hannibal glanced out of the window, to see lights rushing past, couldn't identify where they were, and didn't care too much. He turned back to Murdock, and positioned a dressing on his head. Murdock looked a lot better now Hannibal had cleaned the blood off him.

"Decker saw me," Murdock said. "Guess that's that then. Can't go back to the VA now and say I just felt like a vacation."

Taking Decker along wasn't exactly Plan A for Hannibal, but hell at least he'd be an extra pair of hands. They just had to make sure they got away from him afterwards. But even if they did, that didn't help Murdock much.

"Sorry, Murdock."

"Doesn't matter. Was my choice. But forget it just now. We'll talk about it later. Gotta get Amy first." He winced. "I can't believe I let it happen. If he hurts her, I'll... well, I'll kill him." He frowned for a moment. "In fact, let's be smart about this. If it comes to that, it's best I do it. Better in court. Everyone already knows I'm crazy."

"Hush, fool," BA said, not looking round. "Ain't killing no-one."

His protest wasn't for the sake of the man who'd taken Amy, Hannibal knew, but for Murdock's own sake. For his sanity. Something they would have to guard very carefully now. Murdock couldn't go back to the VA and if he got sick again... Hannibal didn't want to think about that. No time. No damn time.

"Murdock, when we get to wherever he's leading us, you need to stay out of the fight. You're concussed, you lost a lot of blood and..." He stopped, but Murdock finished for him.

"We already know he can take me?"

"I didn't say that. He took you by surprise back there. But you're hurt. If he is trained, like you said yourself, then you won't have a chance against him in this state. At best you'll give him another hostage." And at worst another victim.

Murdock sat back in the seat, frowning, arms folded.

"Murdock, I mean it."

"Sure, Colonel, anything you say."

"Hang on, man," BA said, and picked up the CB mike. "Keep up, Face. We're getting onto the freeway."

+-+-+

Amy muttered a curse as she woke up. Her head felt about three times the size it should be. However, when hazy memories came back, of a man lunging at her, a needle jabbed into her arm, then she stopped worrying about her headache and started trembling instead.

Raising her head, she found she was lying on a cot, her ankles and wrists bound, hands behind her. Risking a little more movement, she looked around. The room reminded her of the team's warehouse. It had a workbench with electronics gear lying on it, more equipment standing around, tools, welding torches. Several bare fluorescent tubes illuminated the room with a harsh bright light. The whole room was concrete and windowless. For all she knew it could be under the ground.

She was alone, so and took a moment to try to calm down and think. Okay, kid. She tried to imagine Hannibal's voice in her head, instead of her own. Panic and you're dead meat. Think. What's the situation?

Item. Tied up. Not good. She tested the ropes in the way Face had taught her, but couldn't feel any give to them. Well with long enough alone she could hop around and find something to cut them.

Item. Clothes still on. Good. Though her shoes were gone. Couldn't have run in those heels anyway.

Item. Wire still on, she could feel it around her ribcage, the power pack tucked in her bra. Good. Could it still be transmitting? She couldn't know of course, but Hannibal had taught her that when faced with an apparently dead radio, keep talking, just in case they can hear you. For one thing, they could maybe triangulate the transmission. She wasn't entirely surely what triangulate meant, but the team did, that's what mattered.

"Guys." She kept her voice low, bending her head, talking to her own chest. That made her smile for a second. If she wore the right dress, Face tended to talk to her chest. Then tears sprang into her eyes as fear wiped the smile away. Once again, Hannibal's voice in her mind told her 'panic and you're dead.' She took a breath and spoke again.

"I'm in a concrete room. Don't know where. I'm not hurt. Nobody is with me. I'm bound hand and foot, but not gagged." She stopped, blushed. Idiot. "Well, you can tell I'm not gagged. I... I don't know if you can hear, but I guess I just keep transmitting in case you can, in case you can trace it and find me and, guys, please find me. I'm..." scared, she wanted to say. But if they were listening, she didn't want to make it harder for them. Something occurred to her. "Oh! If anyone else can hear me, please help me, call the cops, trace this transmission. My name is Amy Allen and I'm being held prisoner by a serial killer."

"They're probably still out of range."

Amy gasped and started so violently that she almost fell off the cot. She looked around wildly and saw a man come in through a doorway to her left. Damn, how long had he been listening there?

She shivered. Him. The man - the waiter - who'd taken her from the hotel. Tall and brown haired, no older than forty, at her guess. He looked strong and fit and when she remembered how quickly and professionally he'd taken Murdock down, she shivered again.

His words penetrated her mind at last as he walked over to the workbench, not looking at her. He knew about the wire. What the hell? Then why hadn't he taken it from her?

"You should let me go." She made her voice as strong as she could, but it still quivered. "Don't you know who my friends are? What they'll do to you?"

"Of course. I suppose I'm a dead man? I'm walking around and breathing still, but I'm basically a dead man?"

"You bet you are!" The way her voice squeaked spoiled the effect she was going for.

"I knew it." He walked towards the cot and Amy shrank back towards the wall, but he stopped a few steps away. "As soon as I saw the news report about Templeton Peck. I knew then I'd made a mistake."

"Your last mistake. But if... if you don't hurt me, if you let me go, maybe they won't actually kill you."

He didn't seem to hear that. His eyes stayed blank while she spoke. Just waiting for the noise to stop so he could talk again.

"If I'd recognised him I would never have done it. Not to him."

Amy frowned, thinking about the other men whose cases she'd found, the things they had in common. "He's not the sort you were going after, is he?"

He did hear that and looked down at her.

"No. He pretended to be though, didn't he? He fooled me. He fooled her. The girl."

"Her name was Celia." Amy's voice didn't shake this time. "In fact, no, her real name was Claire. She came from Wisconsin." Information Amy had found out for the news story filled her head and started to tumble out. "Her parents divorced when she was ten. She had a C grade point average in high school, where she was a cheerleader and Homecoming queen and Prom queen."

The photos came to mind. A smile and a tiara and lots of shiny hair. Looking up at the man who'd killed Celia - Claire - while she lay helpless to resist, Amy thought she saw a sneer on his face and she wanted to get free and kill him herself for that.

"Yeah, so she wasn't that smart, but she was beautiful and she came to Hollywood, because being beautiful gets you somewhere in that town. What's wrong with using what you have to get somewhere? And you know something else? Everyone who's had something to say about her says she was good and kind and she worked hard."

He looked amused. "Well, Miss Allen, that sounds rather naïve of you. Does anyone ever say about a dead person that they were a real bitch?"

They didn't of course, Amy had soon learnt that when she'd joined the paper. It seemed that all murder victims were the nicest people you could hope to meet, who would do anything for you. But Amy chose to believe them this time, because that thought helped keep her angry. She almost lost the anger for a second when her captor bent down by the cot, putting one hand on it, making her flinch back.

"You're right, Amy. She was beautiful and she used that and that's exactly the problem. Peck had to fool her, because she wouldn't waste her time with him otherwise. She'd find someone less worthy, some rich bastard, because she thought that was more..." His cheeks flushed now, his voice rose. "More useful to her than a war hero, a brave soldier! She would prefer one of those bastards that make the movies that show men like us, as murderers, baby killers, all that shit!"

Amy cringed away from his yell, her heart pounding. Seeing her flinch, he spoke more quietly, gritting his teeth. However, his voice rose again, he couldn't help it, she knew. Couldn't control it.

"Don't you see how wrong that is, Amy? That a man like Peck has to lie so he can screw a woman who doesn't see that he's worth ten of those other bastards? Don't you see how perverted the values of this town are? Don't you see?"

"Yes!" Amy yelled back, because she had to make him shut up, terrified of the frenzy he was working up. She lowered her voice, tried to stop it shaking. "I understand." She suspected she'd just heard his manifesto. "You... you have to punish them. The men and the girls."

"Of course." He rocked back, the flush draining from his face. "The men are the real guilty ones. So they have to really suffer, in prison." His face twisted into a grimace. "Let them understand what it's like to live in a cage."

"And the women?"

He shrugged. "Casualties."

Amy really hoped the guys could hear the transmission. If BA heard that, the casual tone of voice, he'd volunteer to be winched down from a helicopter to get in at this bastard.

"So, well, I don't really understand why you've kidnapped me." Amy gulped, scared of the answer. "Are you going to kill me?"

"Of course not!"

"Then why?"

"I need to bring them to me, to bring Peck to me."

"Why?"

"To apologise to him, of course."

If she hadn't been certain of his insanity before that convinced her. That and the look on his face, as if he couldn't understand why she didn't see how totally obvious that was.

Something started beeping on his workbench then and he rose, and walked away from the cot, making Amy sigh and relax as he moved away from her. He turned on a TV monitor. The picture fuzzed and he banged the battered old set a couple of times. A clearer picture appeared, black and white, too far away for Amy to make out properly, but she saw several moving figures.

After a long moment studying the monitor, Amy's captor turned back to her with a smile.