A/N: I hope to make this into a continuous fiction, and any reviews you can give are much appreciated. Thank you for taking the time to read this - it means a lot!
Disclaimer: I don't own the A-Team.
Chapter 1: Kate Pearse.
Thursday July 10th, 1986. Patton Village, Texas.
"This is strange, Colonel," Murdock said immediately as Hannibal climbed back into the passenger seat of the van, not looking happy at all.
"Yeah," agreed Face, "the case doesn't even make any sense. A girl whose brother left a note saying he'd gone away on vacation with his friends doesn't mean that he's been kidnapped, or that he's gone missing."
"That's not the only thing that's strange," Hannibal finally said with a grim expression on his face, "Miss Pearse didn't show up."
A silence fell amongst the boys as the stared at their commanding officer. It wasn't often that a client that seemed so desperate in the beginning didn't show up, especially after going through meeting all of Hannibal's alias' to check if they're legitimate. Usually, if they wanted to find somebody, or they really needed a job doing, they'd go to almost any extent to get the help from the A Team.
"She was either wasting our time or she found her brother," Face shrugged as B.A. started up the van's engine so they could get out of there, "but it doesn't make sense that she paid the deposit we asked her for."
It wasn't the first time somebody had messed the team around but Hannibal felt like this time was different. Although they didn't really buy the case, Kate Pearse had seemed desperate to find her brother. She said it wasn't like him to just make spontaneous trips out with his friends like he had. She'd gone on to explain that her brother, Michael, was very shy and didn't have that many friends. It explained why the spontaneous trip making didn't make sense. After much debating the team had decided to take the case and go to the town where her and her brother lived. They received the deposit of $1,000 that they'd asked for and she hadn't showed up. She couldn't have just been wasting time. Not many people had a grand to just throw away.
Hannibal sighed as he looked out of the window and pulled a cigar from the front pocket of his jacket. He chewed the bottom in thought and finally sighed. Something about this entire thing wasn't quite right and he hated that he couldn't put his finger on it.
"Where to, Hannibal?" B.A. asked with a glance to his right, noting (but choosing not to mention) that the Colonel was in deep thought. He'd have to ask about it later on.
"Take a left up ahead and we can check into a motel for the night. Then we'll go back tomorrow and see if she shows up."
The Sergeant nodded and turned left at the next junction, pulling up neatly into a parking space. Murdock and Face both stretched happily when they were out of the van, glad that they could get some walking time. They'd been sat down for so long waiting for Hannibal to come back to the van that their bums had gone numb and their legs were stiff.
"I dunno about you, but I'm beat," the pilot mumbled with a small yawn that passed onto Face like an infection. The conman smiled and put his arm around his friend, patting his shoulder before walking off in front of him silently, ready to work his magic.
They waited outside until Face was done, and when he came back outside looking confused, it was obvious that something wasn't quite right.
"There was no one at the desk," Face explained, confusion in his voice that was reflected in his features, " I rang the bell a couple times and went round the back and everywhere was empty."
"Maybe they went out for some coffee?" Murdock suggested, his hands in his pockets.
"No…" Hannibal said quietly, the cigar in his hand. He puffed on it slowly as he thought, "nothing makes sense around here. It's too quiet, even for a small town like this. Something's going on around here that we don't know about."
"An over controllin' Sheriff?" The pilot wondered and followed the rest of his team into the motel when Hannibal walked through the door. It was time to do some investigating.
Inside, the motel seemed pretty normal. There was the small reception area and, like Face had said, there was nobody around at all. Behind the desk, a voice was playing on a radio. Hannibal went around and picked it up, listening to the quiet voice.
"...Most major towns and cities within Texas have been infected with the virus. Doctors currently have no cure and urge people to stay inside…" Was all the Colonel needed to listen to before setting the radio back down where he found it, turning back to his team.
"Some kind of virus spreading around," He explained to the men, "apparently it's spreading fast so it's best if we stay here and store as much food as we can to last until it dies down. We don't want to get sick. Face, grab a set of keys and get us a room, Murdock you stay with him just in case anything happens. B.A. you and I will go and get some supplies and we'll meet back here in an hour."
The Colonel checked his watch for the time and walked back out of the motel door, B.A. close behind him. Murdock turned to Face, who was looking through a drawer for keys.
"I'll go see if any of the rooms are open already, just in case ya can't find any keys," Murdock said.
"You don't need to do that. If I can't find any keys I'll just pick the lock open," Face replied, not looking up from the drawer but the pilot had already disappeared outside.
The first four motel room doors that he tried were no good. It seemed that nobody was in them either, because there weren't any frustrated lodgers coming to see what the rattling on the doors were. The pilot thought all of this was very odd and the best thing to do would be to get out of town, but he trusted Hannibal's plan. After all, they were hired by somebody, even if she hadn't showed up.
The fifth door Murdock got to opened easily, and there was a shuffle from inside as the door squeaked from the movement.
"Hello?" He said quietly, poking his head around the door, squinting from the darkness. The curtains had been closed and there were no lights on at all, but there was definitely someone (or something) inside. After a moment of hesitation, he stepped inside properly, although he kept the door open so he got some light.
"Who… Who's there?" A woman's voice stuttered, clearly scared of anyone entering.
"It's alright… I'm not gonna hurt ya." Murdock muttered, looking around for the source of the voice, "my name's Murdock. My friends and I were wonderin' where everyone is…"
"Gone," the voice replied shakily, "they're all g-gone…"
He frowned. Gone? Gone where?
"What do you mean?" He asked gently, not wanting to startle her. She was clearly distressed by something.
There was movement again, and the groan from the bed suggested that whoever was in the room had just stood up.
Face still hadn't had much luck at finding keys and he was just about to give up searching when he heard Murdock's voice calling his name. Without a moment's hesitation, the conman darted out of the reception towards where Murdock's voice was still calling for him. He found him in the doorway of number five with a woman who looked very familiar, and very scared.
It was Kate Pearse.
