Amy walked into the newspaper's archive room and dropped into a seat beside the desk of a young man, an especially enthusiastic intern who'd been around for a few months. She tried to recall his name. Joel? Carl?

Of course, a few weeks in the archives might have dampened Joel or Carl's enthusiasm, Amy thought. It had almost dampened hers back when she'd paid her dues, but she'd kept her eyes on the prize, a desk in the newsroom. A desk she just might lose if she didn't choose exactly who she worked for.

Is it even a question? Hannibal wants information on Celia Hartley and here I am getting it for him. Snaps his fingers and I jump. Of course, it's useful for the story too, but... She shook herself and Joel, or Carl, or Phil maybe, looked at her expectantly.

"Hi, erm, kid," she fell back on, even though she couldn't be much more than six or seven years older than him. "I need everything you can give me on Celia Hartley, the --"

"Victim in the A-Team murder case. Right." He handed her a folder and she smiled.

"Anticipated me?"

"I read your story, Miss Allen. I think you made some very valid criticisms of the police investigation."

"Oh, well thanks." She flicked through the folder, but then closed it and put it into her briefcase. This would only scratch the surface. She had a couple of police contacts who could fill in anything interesting the police had found out about Celia and not released yet.

"Miss Allen?" The intern put his hand on another folder on the desk. "I, um, I thought you might be interested in this. I do a lot of reading when it's quiet in here, and well, sometimes I start to see a thread in things that might seem unconnected."

Amy frowned at him, but took the folder he handed over. Inside she found several Xerox copies of old stories from the paper. She skimmed through several of them and then stared at the intern, making him blush.

"Joel, we'll make a reporter of you yet."

"Um, it's Will."

"Will, sorry!" She dropped the folder into her briefcase and slammed it shut. "Keep your eye on the prize, Will. By the end of the week you might have my desk."

Turning away from his baffled look, Amy hurried from the room.

+-+-+

"Face!"

Hannibal and BA ran from the grocery store and found Murdock sprawled on the sidewalk.

"What the hell?" Hannibal looked up the street to see the car Face and Murdock had been waiting in hurtling away.

"Hannibal!" Murdock scrambled to his feet. "We have to go after him, come on!"

No time to ask what had happened, the three of them ran to the other car, pushing aside anybody that got in the way, attracting far too much attention, no way to avoid it. They piled into the car and BA gunned the engine and roared off in pursuit as Face's car took a left turn up ahead.

"What happened, Murdock?" Hannibal demanded, turning from the front seat to look at Murdock in the back.

"He shoved me out of the car. Just... just shoved me out." Murdock looked half crazed and bounced around on the seat. "Hannibal, I think he's going to try and hand himself in to the cops!" He shook his head. "Oh man, I thought I'd headed him off that idea. After last night, he said --"

"What?" Hannibal scowled at him. "He said something about turning himself in? Why didn't you tell me that?"

"I said, I thought I'd headed him off," Murdock said, shaking his head again. "I was sure..."

Hannibal turned away from Murdock. BA took the same left Face had and Hannibal looked out of the windshield to see Face's car well ahead of them.

"Put your foot down, BA!" They couldn't lose him, whatever crazy idea he'd got into his head they could not lose him.

"What do you think I'm doing, man?"

The buildings and pedestrians and other cars flashed past in a blur and Hannibal felt profoundly grateful that they'd hidden the van and Corvette. Even with BA driving, he didn't think the van could have caught the 'vette, not if Face was really determined to escape.

He sure seemed to be. A sudden turn to the right almost sent him skidding off the road, his back wheels spinning off, smoke pouring from the tyres. Hannibal heard Murdock gasp, but Face controlled the skid and straightened the car out, accelerated away.

BA, with some warning for the turn, slowed just enough to take it without sliding and put his foot down as they found themselves on a long, wide, road. Now BA really opened it up and they started to catch up to Face fast. They had one advantage in that Face had to weave in and out of the traffic, but many of the drivers took him as a warning and moved in, giving BA a clearer road.

"We're catching him," BA said. "You'd better start thinking 'bout how we gonna stop him."

"I am thinking." Hannibal bit down hard on his cigar. The usual method of course involved a rifle and the rear tyres of the car they were chasing, but would he dare do that when Face was driving the car in question?

"Where do you think he's making for?" Murdock asked. "Which precinct I mean?"

"Hang on!" BA shouted as Face made another wild turn, to the left this time, leaving screeching brakes and horns in his wake. So close behind, BA had no time to slow down, just to heave on the steering wheel and force the car around as if dragging the whole weight of it with his bare hands.

Murdock yelped as he slammed into the door and Hannibal clung to the dash and bit right through his cigar. He spat out the end and grabbed at his seatbelt, pulled it across himself, fumbled with the catch. The car filled with the stink of burning tyres as they left long arcs of black rubber across the road.

A busier road now, forced them both to slow down. Hannibal tried to spot a street sign and orient himself, so he could see if he could make a guess to answer Murdock's question about where Face might be heading. Then he heard the sirens and Murdock's groan.

"He don't need to head to no police station," BA said, "All he has to do is keep this up and the cops is gonna come to him."

Flashing lights showed behind them, still well back.

"Come to us too," Hannibal said. The cops wouldn't just be chasing, they'd be converging, they'd be ahead, waiting to close a trap.

"Intersection," Murdock said, pointing ahead as they hurtled towards it. "Red light. Oh man, no, he's going through!" He turned away and Hannibal wanted to do the same, but couldn't force his eyes away as Face drove full pelt into the intersection and straight into the path of a car coming from the left.

"Oh my god."

Both drivers made last minute attempts to swerve. They didn't quite make it, but when the cars struck each other, they made only glancing contact, that sent both spinning off across the intersection. Hannibal watched wide eyed as Face's car skidded around and slid until it hit a street lamp broadside and came to rest.

BA, heading into the intersection almost as fast as Face and had to swerve to avoid the other car, as it spun past, before sliding to a halt against a set of traffic lights.

"Face!" Murdock yelled as BA stood on the brakes bringing them screeching to a halt beside Face's car.

"Stay in the car!" Hannibal ordered BA, as he and Murdock jumped out. They ran to the crashed car, and Hannibal could have cheered when he saw the passenger door open and Face climb out, falling to his knees, but getting up again at once.

"Face!" Murdock reached him first, grabbed his arms.

"Let me go!" Face yelled, pushing Murdock away. "Just get out of here."

Police cars were pulling up now, the whole intersection becoming a mass of flashing lights. Only one road from the intersection remained clear of cops, and Hannibal knew they had to take that road right now, before that changed.

Hannibal grabbed Face's arm, looked him over. A few cuts on his face and hands from flying glass, but no other obvious injuries. Face tried to pull away from the two of them.

"Face, are you hurt?" Hannibal asked. "Did you hit your head?"

"What? No, I didn't --"

"Good."

Hannibal hauled off and punched Face in the jaw. Murdock grabbed Face as he fell back against the car and started to slump down.

"Get him in the car," Hannibal ordered, and between the two of them, they heaved Face into the back seat.

"Hey! Stop!" A cop ran towards them.

Hannibal shoved Murdock inside and piled in after him.

"Go!"

BA didn't need the order. Even as Hannibal slammed the door, the car roared away.

+-+-+

"I need to see Detective Turner. My name's Amy Allen."

The cop manning the desk stared at her and her press pass, and then grinned. He turned and called to someone out of sight.

"Hey, Diane, guess who's here to see Turner? Amy Allen!"

"Amy Allen?" A woman's voice sounded from a room with an open door. A moment later, a woman officer carrying a coffee cup looked around the door, also grinning. "This oughta be good."

"It's quite urgent," Amy said.

The cop on the desk pointed, still grinning. "Left and then right. Near the back of the room."

As it turned out, Amy didn't need directions. As soon as she made the right turn in the squad room she got a landmark.

Decker.

The sight of him made her hesitate for a moment. However, she recovered herself and strode through the room to where Decker sat across a desk from Turner.

"Miss Allen." Decker stood up when he noticed her approaching.

"Colonel Decker." Keeping up a defiant front, she smiled at him, and then turned to the other man, who glowered at her. She offered her hand. "Detective Turner?"

He looked at her hand for a while, but didn't take it. She withdrew it.

"If you want an interview, Miss Allen, I think I'm far too busy with, what did you call it? Making hasty judgements?"

Amy saw Decker smirk as he sat back down. Perhaps someone else being the target of Amy's criticism for a change made him happy. Well Amy would be quite happy to include him too. Nobody had offered her a chair, so she pulled one across from another desk.

"I was just doing my job, Detective," she said as she sat. Decker snorted.

"And I'm busy doing mine," Turner said, picking up a folder. "So if you'd get the hell out of my precinct I'd appreciate it."

"Please, give me five minutes. I have something important to show you." She took the folder Will had given her out of her briefcase and dropped it in front of Turner. "Read it. They're from the paper, eight stories going back two years, of murder cases with remarkable similarities to this one. A young woman strangled in a hotel room, the man who was with her claiming he has no recollection of killing her."

"Of course they claim that." Turner did open the file and glance at a couple of the stories. "Here, this guy." He pointed at one of the stories. "See, he admitted it --"

"No, he pleaded guilty in court. Not the same thing is it?"

Decker made another snorting noise, but she ignored him and pressed on.

"Three of the men have already been convicted, five are awaiting trial, nobody's ever made a connection --"

"Because there isn't one." Turner closed the folder. "I could show you dozens of near identical murders without any connection. Fact is, Miss Allen, that people don't have that much imagination and there's plenty of men out there who'll strangle a girl."

"Templeton Peck isn't one of them. He's not capable of it."

Turner gave a short laugh. "He's a trained killer." He looked at the now scowling Decker. "Isn't that right, Colonel?"

"But he's not a murderer!"

"Everybody's capable of murder, Miss Allen," Turner said. "Everybody. Stick with your job as long as I've stuck with mine and you'll realise that."

Amy shook her head, looking down, and then looked back at Turner.

"At least read the file, please. And pull the rest of the information about the other killings. I said in my story that you were blinkered and only interested in tracking down Face - Lieutenant Peck - and not in finding out the truth. Right now you aren't giving me any reason to change my mind."

Turner frowned at her, but dropped her folder into his 'in' tray.

"I'll read it."

"That's all I ask." Amy stood up and held out her hand again. This time Turner rose and shook it briefly. As Amy turned to go, she heard a chair scrape and Decker appeared at her side.

"Let me walk you out, Miss Allen."

Surprised, she let him walk beside her. Once out of Turner's hearing Decker spoke to her.

"If you know anything about where they are, anything that you're not telling the police --"

"I don't know where they are!"

He didn't look convinced. "You've said that to me before."

"It's still true."

"Maybe, but things have changed, Miss Allen. You're protecting a murder suspect."

"I am not!" She stopped and turned to face him, studied him for a moment. "You know, I don't think you believe it yourself, Colonel. You're along for the ride, hoping you can drop the net on the whole team. But you don't really believe Face murdered that girl."

Decker shrugged. "Maybe not. But I've got an open mind about it, unlike you." His mouth quirked into a smile. "Seems things are a little topsy-turvy around here."

"Decker!"

Amy jumped as Turner pounded up to them. "Report of a high speed pursuit in Torrance. It's them! Come on!"