Face and Murdock sat on one bed, BA on the other, watching Hannibal pace as he talked.

"Assuming you were drugged, Face, the girl too."

"Celia," Face snapped. "Not 'the girl'." Hannibal looked back at him as Face glared, then he nodded.

"Celia. Sorry."

Should be Claire really, Face supposed, that's the name her mother gave her. But maybe Celia was who she wanted to become. Maybe that's how she'd like people to remember her. Of course, she'd wanted to be a famous actress, not a famous murder victim.

"Face?" Hannibal said, breaking Face out of his thoughts, waiting to go on. Face nodded and Hannibal continued.

"I'm assuming Face and Celia were both drugged. Face didn't wake up and she didn't look as if she struggled much." When they all frowned at him, he added. "She had long fingernails and they weren't broken."

"Observant," Face said. More than me. He hadn't noticed that.

"You should be a detective," Murdock said.

Hannibal snorted, took out a cigar and lit it himself.

"To drug you in the hotel it takes someone on the inside. Someone who could get something into the champagne, or the glasses. Did the wine taste odd at all?"

"I... don't think so," Face said.

"Thought you was a connoisseur?" BA said.

Face shrugged. No, I'm a fake. I know what to ask for, but I haven't had the chance to drink enough of it to actually know what it should taste like.

"Okay, what about the waiter who brought it to the room, could he have slipped something into it?"

Face frowned, trying to remember, trying to picture it.

"Close your eyes," Murdock suggested, quietly.

Face didn't, shook his head. "He opened it... I guess he could have done it then."

"Right," Hannibal said, nodding. "You'll need to give us the best description of him that you can."

"I'll try... Not sure how well I can remember him. He was just a waiter."

Hannibal started pacing again, chomping on his cigar. "So to get a man on the inside takes organisation. If someone is coming after us, someone out for revenge, then we're looking at someone who's not happy with just having us killed. This is someone who wants to make us suffer. Maybe someone who wants to destroy our reputation."

"We've made a lot of enemies over the years," Murdock said and sighed.

"And a lot of 'em is in jail." BA pointed out.

"Someone with enough money, enough friends, can put out a contract on us from inside prison," Hannibal said. He dropped into a chair by the dresser and knocked the ash off his cigar into a saucer.

"Martin James?" Murdock said. They all looked at him and he went on. "He's still got plenty of nut followers who aren't in jail and the FBI is still trying to track down all his money. And we destroyed his reputation. Makes a sick kind of sense he'd try to do the same thing back."

Martin James? Face thought about it, and it made some sense, but there were a dozen others, some of them not in jail either.

"Speculation," Face muttered.

"Speculation doesn't do us much good," Hannibal said. "We need some solid facts. I'm going to check in with Amy when I can, from a payphone, and see if she's got anything new from the cops. And BA, we're going out. We're going to go talk to people who might have heard if someone has put a hit out on the A-Team." He glanced at Face and Murdock. "You two stay here."

"I think we should move," Face said. "We've been here too long. And we need to get the van and my car out of sight." He took a breath, tried to sound more confident than he felt, tried to show he had his act together, now his head had started to clear. "I know without the van phone there's no way for Amy to contact us --"

"No, but you're right," Hannibal said. "We'll move, and use the spare cars. Right." He stood up. "BA, we'll go hide the van and Corvette and get the other cars. Keys, Face."

Face handed them over, with a certain amount of reluctance, but no argument. He had bigger worries than Hannibal's abusive driving. Hannibal tossed the keys in the air and caught them.

"Pack our stuff; we'll be back in twenty minutes."

Hannibal and BA left and Face and Murdock started to gather up the few possessions the team had in the room.

"Face," Murdock said, "I had a thought. You said you don't remember the waiter very well."

Face shrugged, tried again to recall the man's face, but he'd been more interested in Celia at the time. He shook his head.

"He was a white guy, erm... Maybe brown or blonde hair... Sorry, that's all I can think of."

"What is there was a way to make you remember?" Face looked at him, puzzled and Murdock spoke again. "Hypnosis."

"What?" Face stared at him.

"The docs at the hospital use it all the time. It's not weird or anything, they've even used it on me. It can help you to remember stuff. You can... It's like you can see it all again, like you're there..."

Face shivered, not certain he wanted to be back there. Murdock saw the shudder and frowned, bit his lip.

"I don't mean like it's happening again, like a flashback, I mean, well more like watching it on TV."

"Hypnosis." Face stood with a shirt in his hands that he'd been about to fold up. What exactly could they make you remember? Things that you'd repressed, not just hadn't taken in properly, like the waiter's face? If he had done it and forgotten, could a hypnotist make him remember? That made him feel ice cold. Would he want to remember? Even supposing someone could prove to him that he did it, would he prefer not to remember? Was it better to live with a hole in his mind than to have the memory?

But if he didn't kill her, then remembering more details of that evening could help them figure out who did it. There could be some detail, something he'd seen but not consciously noticed, something important. He could have evidence he didn't even know about, evidence useful to the team, evidence useful to the police investigation.

"Face?" Murdock said. "What do you think?"

Face looked up, took a deep breath. "I guess, well we could try it, but how?" He smiled weakly. "I think Doctor Richter might be a little bit ticked with you right now."

Murdock waggled his eyebrows. "You never know. He'll do anything for his favourite patient." He shrugged. "Heck, Face, this is LA, there's a ton of therapists of all kinds out there, and some of them use hypnosis."

"I don't want to put my brain in the hands of some quack," Face said scowling. "I've seen some of those nuts on TV talking about their hypnotist taking them back to a past life."

Murdock took the shirt out of Face's hands and rolled his eyes.

"On the other hand, there's a chance you just might not be a good hypnotic subject."

Face couldn't imagine that he would be. Handing over that much control to someone else? How could anyone trust a stranger that way? He couldn't. At this point in his life, he could quite literally count on one hand the number of people he trusted.

+-+-+

"Evening, Larry."

The man bringing a bag of trash into the alleyway, jumped as Hannibal walked out of the dark. He glanced around as BA loomed out of the shadows on his other side.

"Oh hey." Larry smiled nervously and wiped his hands on his apron. "Colonel Smith." He glanced at the scowling BA. "Sergeant Baracus."

"Why don't you close the door and we'll have a nice quiet chat." Hannibal nodded at the open door spilling fluorescent light and TV noise out into the alley.

"Oh, sure!" Larry closed the door. Only a dim light above the door illuminated the three men now.

The bar Larry had just closed the door on wasn't one the team went into very often. The clientele were the kind of people the team dealt with on behalf of their clients. Nobody in that bar wished the team well, so Hannibal found it very useful to have a contact inside with his ear to the ground.

"So what have you heard, Larry? Anything on the grapevine about us?"

"Only what I see on the TV, Colonel. And you know I never believe that stuff! When I saw that story about Mr Peck..."

"Yeah?" BA prompted when Larry trailed off.

"Well, I know it's gotta be a mistake, don't I?" He glanced from BA to Hannibal. "I know Mr Peck; he'd never do something like that."

"A mistake, Larry, or a frame job," Hannibal said. "If you hear anything, you drop a message at the usual place and I'll come to you."

"Right, will do." Larry gave a sickly grin. "You know you can rely on me, Colonel."

"I know that, Larry."

"Mr Peck, well if he walked in here now and asked for a date with my daughter, I wouldn't have a problem."

"How is your daughter?" Hannibal asked

"Ten months for check fraud right now." Larry shrugged. "Minimum security, she's fine."

"Right." Hannibal resisted the urge to smile. "And Sam?"

Larry nodded. "Fine, fine. He got one of those new electric wheelchairs. Thinks he's in the Indy 500! Says he'd love to see you guys again some time."

"We'll try, Larry. Things are kind of tricky right now."

"Sure, sure. Well, you say hi to Mr Peck for me, and if I hear anything you'll be the first to know."

Hannibal and BA walked away from Larry's fixed and scared smile. That smile still reminded Hannibal of the one Larry's brother Sam wore right before they set out on a patrol. A patrol the team carried him back from without his legs. Hannibal sometimes felt guilty about using Larry's gratitude to them for saving his little brother. But he couldn't worry about that now. He had to use every advantage he had.

+-+-+

In a new motel room, Murdock and Face sat on a bed and ate take-out while the TV played quietly in the background. The TV was the only light in the room and Murdock found himself enjoying an interesting combination of tastes as he chose randomly from the dimly lit cartons.

"Murdock," Face said, stirring a carton with his chopsticks. "I've been thinking about what you were saying about hypnosis."

Murdock frowned. "What? You want to try it?"

"No, not exactly. Maybe. No, what I mean is, it's possible that somewhere in my memory there's a clue to what happened, to who did it. And maybe not just there. Maybe on the clothes I was wearing, even on me." He shivered. "God knows what he did while I was out of it. I mean if that's the way it happened --"

Murdock sat up, suddenly spotting the disturbing direction this conversation was heading. "Face, what are you saying, exactly?"

Face looked at him. Murdock could barely make out his expression, the ghostly light of the TV picking out only the edges of his features.

"I'm saying I could have evidence I don't even know about."

"Yeah..." Murdock knew there was more and he waited until Face spoke again, more quietly.

"Evidence that could be useful to the police."

"Whoa!" Murdock jumped up, knocking over cartons of food onto the towel they'd laid on the bed. Face protested and righted the little boxes hastily.

"Face, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, well you'd better start thinking something else right now."

"If I gave myself up --"

"No way!"

"Will you shut up for one second and let me finish!"

Murdock heard real impatience in his voice, real anger and he did shut up. He remained standing, looking down at Face.

"Look, at the very least I'm a material witness in this case. If I have evidence the cops need --"

"You're a suspect, the prime suspect and that's what the cops will treat you as!" Murdock folded his arms. "Once they've got you, they'll stop looking for anyone else."

"And while they are looking for me then they aren't looking for anyone else." He tossed the chopsticks down. "I should have gone to them right away. They could have done a drug test that would stand up in court."

"Hannibal will --"

"Hannibal is not Sherlock Holmes!"

"Well you called him." Murdock pointed out. "You needed help and your first thought was to call him, right?" Would I have done the same? Different for me though, I'm not on the run. Or, well, I wasn't on the run.

"Yeah," Face said. "I called him."

"Then, well, stick with it, keep the faith." Murdock came back to sit on the bed, one leg curled under himself, one on the floor. "Has he ever let you down?"

Face shook his head. "Of course not. I mean... well no, not really."

"And he won't this time."

"I guess." Face looked down, and found his chop sticks again.

"Anyway," Murdock went on. "Even if you handed yourself in and the cops found evidence to clear you of this, well, hell, they wouldn't let you go with a pat on the back would they? They'd just hand you over to Decker."

"Yeah, but..." He looked up and smiled. "Well, you guys would bust me out."

"Face, you can't put your neck on the line expecting that to work out every time. Supposing we couldn't get to you? Supposing we tried and failed? I mean, we've been lucky so far, but luck may be something we're short of right now."

"Yeah." Face rummaged around in the cartons, looking for one with some food left in it. "Poor Celia sure ran out of luck when she hooked up with me."

"If it hadn't been her it would have been someone else." Murdock suppressed a yawn. He needed some coffee, because he planned to stay awake until Hannibal and BA got back. Though he seemed to have headed Face off that dangerous path he'd started down, there was no sense in taking chances.

"You can sleep first," Murdock said, "I'll take the first watch."

Face shook his head. "I've slept enough."

+-+-+

Hannibal got back into the non-descript car parked at the mouth of an alley.

"Any good?" BA asked.

"Nothing." Hannibal shook his head, frustrated. The night was almost over, dawn tinged the sky, and BA and Hannibal had rousted many of their underground contacts, but nobody had heard anything about any plot against the A-Team. Plenty of them had reported that some people were very glad to see it happening, but nobody seemed to be going around boasting that they'd made it happen.

Hannibal sighed. With the people they'd helped over the years, they had many useful and loyal allies, but many enemies too. Some of them weren't in jail, but even those who were had allies outside.

"Pull over, BA," Hannibal said, spotting a catering truck outside a construction site. He'd grab some breakfast to take back to the motel. "You want some milk?"

"Thanks, man."

As Hannibal bought food, coffee, and milk, he noticed the truck sold newspapers too. Naturally, he grabbed himself a copy of the LA Courier Express. Though he spotted a picture of Face on the front page, he folded the paper under his arm as he took the cardboard tray of food and paper cups. Walking casually, he went back to the car.

Only once safely inside and on the road did he unfold the newspaper and start to read the story that, of course, bore the by-line of Amy Allen.

After a moment, he smiled and nodded, kept nodding as he read.

"That's our girl."