Looking further out over the grounds Hannibal saw the kids that Face had mentioned, and he was right, there were about a dozen of them with gardening tools working in the large patch of overturned dirt off on the other side of the property. A sudden gust of wind blew him off to the side a bit and he made a slightly rougher landing than he anticipated, but he made it on his feet and immediately started pulling off his parachute.

Two of the guards came up with their guns drawn and demanded to know, "Who the hell are you?"

Hannibal stood there with his hands on his sides and his feet spread out as far as his shoulders, and around the large shaggy beard he wore he managed to get out a simple answer, "I'm Santa Claus. The reindeer are sick this year so I've been practicing skydiving to make my deliveries."

He turned and saw the children had stopped toiling in the garden and were looking at this new intruder very curiously. They knew that he wasn't someone who was supposed to be there but they didn't know what it meant or what was going to happen next.

"My elf must've had the right address after all," Hannibal said, "Isn't this the St. Marie's Orphanage?" He looked to the kids and said with a smile, "Hello kiddies, would you like to go for a ride with Santa Claus?"

"No, it ain't," one of the guards bluntly said as he raised his gun, "But it's gonna be a funeral home if you don't get out of here."

"Oh now that's not a nice thing to do," Hannibal tsk-tsked him, "You wouldn't want to be naughty when Santa brought a present for you," he untied the knot on his sack and opened it up.

He heard a door slam shut and he saw another man coming towards him. At first glance the man vaguely reminded Hannibal of Martin James, he looked like the crazed self proclaimed prophet, he even wore the same kind of dark sunglasses. Well this time he was going to be the one issuing the obstacle run.

"What the hell's going on around here?" the man demanded to know, and looked ready to rip somebody's head off.

"Are you Liam Stone?" Hannibal asked.

"Yes, and who the hell are you?" he replied.

Hannibal ignored the question and said as he yanked off his beard, "Oh good, I was looking for you, you're on my list, and I wanted to make sure you got exactly what was coming to you."

Before anybody could make a move, Hannibal pulled a machine gun out and opened fire, the rounds went off several inches over the guards' heads but all the same it had them and their boss ducking for cover.

"The naughty list that is," Hannibal added, and before they could get a round off, he turned and took out the alarm system over the tool shed, and then raised his aim higher and shot down the power lines connected to the roof of the shed, severing the gate's electrical source, rendering the wiring on the fence completely useless except to prick people.

At that time, Hannibal could see the helicopter coming back and coming down for a landing. That also sent everybody ducking for cover, including the children. The chopper came down and as soon as the skids touched down, Murdock bailed out of the cockpit and came to Hannibal's aid firing back at the guards with an Uzi.

"Everything alright, Colonel?" Murdock yelled over the firing.

"So far so good, get the gate!" Hannibal told him as he took over distracting the gunmen.

Murdock took off running around to the front, undid the locks on the front gate doors and threw them open, and immediately scurried back as he saw the old army bus Face had managed to scam them barreling up the road at 60 miles an hour.

"Incoming, Colonel!" Murdock called.

The gate's doors had been left open but when the bus came through it half ripped them both off of their hinges.

"Watch it, B.A.!" Face said as he just avoided slamming his head into the dashboard, "This isn't the demolition derby, and this is too big to be playing bumper cars."

"Then what's left?" B.A. asked cynically.

"Technically this is still California," Face said, "Let's play Pedestrian Polo."

That brought a scary looking grin to the Sergeant's face as he pressed the accelerator to the floor and replied, "Yeah!"

If two trigger happy intruders with automatic weapons hadn't been enough to send Stone and his men running like a bunch of wild horses, a 14 ton bus coasting towards them at full speed did. Murdock had left his post covering Hannibal and went to round up the children to make sure none of them ran in the way of the bus in all the confusion as it swerved all over the land behind the house. Face put down one of the windows on the right side of the bus and stuck the barrel of his gun out and likewise opened fire at the men just to make sure they didn't get any funny ideas. Between he and Hannibal, they put plenty of bullets in the sheds, the house, and the trees, but that was about the extent of it.

Hannibal waved his arm high so B.A. could see it and he yelled to the driver, "Alright, B.A., kill it!"

B.A. let up on the gas and swerved to the side once more so he had room to work while the bus came to a gradual halt.

"Not bad, B.A.," Face said, "But I wouldn't recommend you taking your daycare class on a field trip."

"Shut up, Face," B.A. said as he stopped the bus, "Let's go get them."

"I told you boys you didn't want to be naughty," Hannibal said as he held his machine gun on Stone and his guards, all of whom had their hands high up in the air, "It's not nice to mess with Santa," he nodded his head to the group of terrified children, "Or little kids. And speaking of which, Stone, you're going to take us on a tour of your house and we're going to find all the other children you're keeping in this million dollar sweatshop of yours, and then you're going to show us all your paperwork showing who your clients are you've sold the others to, and how much you got for each child, and where they went, and then you're going to be very cooperative with the proper authorities so they can track down those other kids and return them to their parents, you got me?"

"And if I refuse?" Stone dared him.

Hannibal gave one of his less pleasant grins and said, "Then you just remember, I see you when you're sleeping, I know when you're awake, I know where you always are and I'll have no problem tracking you down and exacting on you the torture techniques I learned in Ho Chi Minh's death camp…you won't last 10 minutes, I promise you that."

"Colonel!" Murdock came up with three kids and said, "I got the ones we originally came for."

He looked and saw the children. They look like they hadn't been fed since they were kidnapped, and also looked like they hadn't slept in several days, they had dark circles under their wide eyes and they looked like they didn't know what to do anymore or who to trust.

"Allison, Danny, and Chloe, right?" Hannibal said, "Don't worry, we're the good guys, we've come to take you back home to your mothers."

The kids screamed and howled in delight, this little nugget of information restoring some of the life into them after God knew what had been inflicted upon them during their stay here.

Chloe looked past Hannibal to the two men getting off the bus and shied back, asking timidly, "Who are they?"

Hannibal turned back to see what she was looking at and said with a chuckle, "Oh them? Those are Santa's helpers. See he has a rule, he can't deliver his presents to all the good little children until they're back at their own homes, so we're going to load everybody up on the bus and take all of you back to your parents."

The rest of the children also yelped in excitement when they heard this revelation.

"But first," Hannibal told them, "We're going to go inside and get the others."

It was a long process. Once inside the house they found many more children and had Murdock and Face count them all and take all their names and ask the kids where they lived; they wound up with close to 50 children, and three quarters of them were all girls, most of the kids were between the ages of seven and twelve, and most of them had all been snatched up in the last two weeks from all over the state. Hannibal had noticed that in addition to being scared out of their little minds, they all looked half starved, and after asking a few of the kids, found out that they'd all been fed nothing but cornbread, celery and some powdered milk since they arrived. He mentioned that with as much money as Stone had, the refrigerator in the kitchen was sure to be full of plenty of real food and he put Murdock in charge of feeding them while he and Face went through Stone's paperwork, and B.A. tied up Stone and the guards and made sure they didn't get loose.

The office where all the records were kept was right next to the kitchen and Hannibal spent a couple minutes watching from the crack in the door. While kids were usually B.A.'s area of expertise, they all took very quickly to Murdock; he was tall but he wasn't intimidating and could and did hunch down whenever he found a particularly bashful child who better cooperated with someone closer to their own size. And with his own childlike qualities and his easygoing and fun personality he was able to gain the trust of even the most hardened of the kids because they knew he was safe. Hannibal felt his heart swell with pride, he knew that Murdock would be an exceptional father someday, and he also knew that were it possible, the Captain would take every one of those children home with him and care for them as if they were his own. He was capable of loving almost anybody and it was a process that usually took very little time; he could be fully devoted to someone in as little as 10 seconds depending on the person. Hannibal returned his attention to the matter at hand which was getting all of Stone's records, but he was able to hear the commotion in the kitchen as Murdock talked to the kids and sang with the smaller ones and enlisted the help of the older ones to make sure everybody got fed.

After about an hour, Murdock entered the office and Hannibal asked, "How's it going?"

"I think they're finally full," he answered, "About cleaned out the whole damn fridge to do it…Hannibal, may I have permission to drop a piano on this guy's head before we turn him over to the police?"

"Any particular reason, Captain, or just for the fun of it?" Hannibal asked.

"Bastard starved those kids on celery and powder milk while he's got $3000 worth of caviar in the house," Murdock explained, "The kids didn't like it, so I packed the rest of it in your bag to take as part of our payment since we're doing this pro bono."

Hannibal was still scanning over all the paperwork so while he'd heard Murdock and his own blood was boiling at the thought, he maintained a somewhat nonchalant stance as he replied, "Hmmm, that was thoughtful of you. What else did he have on hand?"

"Oh just about everything," Murdock said, "We ran out of bread so they each only got half a sandwich folded over, after that they ate all the fruit in the crisper, a gallon jar of pickles, three dozen eggs, they drank down every last drop of the real milk and also every can of soda pop including the ones that ain't got cold yet, they swallowed every last bit of meat that was thawed, I found some tuna fish in the cupboard so they had tuna salad on crackers, fortunately there were plenty of those. But if they kept this up any longer, we'd have to send out for pizza."

"We could afford it," Hannibal said, and picked up a small brown envelope and tossed it to Murdock, "We'll be taking that too for our payment."

Murdock opened the envelope and thumbed through it and found $25,000 in it.

"There's plenty more in this house that the cops will be able to put the dots together," Hannibal said.

"Those women said that the cops wouldn't help them though," Murdock said.

"No, but there's enough proof here to warrant standing Stone up against the wall and riddling him with bullets, whether the cops like it or not this has just become a very high profile case and they'll have to do their jobs right if they want to keep them at all."

Murdock raised his hand and asked, "What makes it high profile now, Colonel?"

Hannibal smirked at him and said, "You and Face are going to call up the local news stations and tell them all about it, that's what. Then we're going to get the kids loaded up and get them back to their parents."

"Uh," Murdock raised his hand again and asked, "How?"

"Well we've got all their names," Hannibal said, "We'll run them against the missing child posters that have been issued in the last couple of weeks and find out how to contact their parents to pick them up. Of course since the police are going to be brought into this it only makes sense we take them to a police station and let them help sort it all out, after all they're not getting Christmas off."

"It's going to be a long drive back home, Colonel," Murdock said.

"I know it will, fortunately I know a few shortcuts that ought to shave a couple hours off the trip," Hannibal told him, "What we're going to do is pick one precinct back in L.A., call the news stations and tell them to put an announcement on all the TV channels telling all the parents of missing children to come down there and see if their children are among the ones we found."

"Sounds like a good plan, Hannibal," Murdock nodded, "And I love it when a good plan comes together."

"Very funny, Murdock," Hannibal teasingly scowled at him.

"Lord knows we've had a lot of bad ones come together over the years," Murdock replied, "About time we had a good one."

Murdock left the office and went to the corner of the dining room where B.A. had the men tied up by the wrists and suspended by the ceiling.

"Nice work, big guy," Murdock said, "Just too bad this ain't over the lion pit at the zoo at feeding time."

"You don't really think you're going to get away with this, do you?" Stone asked defiantly.

Murdock got in his face and said firmly, "Never underestimate the potential of a crazy person. In fact you…" Murdock realized they had a guest watching them. One of the 7 year old girls had wandered into the room and looked at the sight before her curiously. Murdock smiled at her, grabbed her hands and placed them on her ears and turned her around while he screamed and yelled and cursed at the men doing a fine imitation of cow carcasses in the back of a butcher shop. The girl couldn't make out the words but she was almost laughing because his ranting was high pitched and sounded like a gerbil on helium. She took her hands off her ears in time to hear him as he summed it up, in midsentence, "…Or I'll bop you in the nose and tie your ears in a bow for Christmas!"

It took a long time to get everything tended to, but finally they had the kids loaded on the bus, the paperwork in hand, and the bad guys tied up and left waiting for the police to come and arrest them. Some of the children were still leery of these four men who had come to 'rescue' them but with a little work they managed to get the kids to trust them and they willingly got on the bus. The first place they went was back to the airplane to unload all of their supplies to take back with them. Face had already made the dreaded phone call to the airport about where they could find their missing plane in more or less the same condition it had left in. After that it was the long winding road back to Los Angeles. The kids were excited to be going home and even though they were told to stay in their seats, every so often a couple would get up and run around and Murdock or Hannibal or Face had to snatch them back.

After the first hour the kids started to get listless so Murdock kept them occupied by going around from seat to seat and getting them to sing Christmas carols, Face leaned over to Hannibal in the seat in front of him and said, "Any other time of the year I'd be the first one to shut him up."

"Second," Hannibal pointed to B.A. up front, "But because it's Christmas and it is important, we'll let him have his fun, and them too."

"Amen to that," Face said as he settled back into his seat.

Hannibal caught a rambunctious seven year old girl as she came running past him and he put her on his lap and said, "Whoa sweetie, you've got to sit still until the bus stops."

He blinked and looked at her again, he'd seen this little girl somewhere before. Ah yes, he remembered, a year back when he did the Universal Studios tour as the Aquamaniac while waiting on a client, walking around in that rubber suit getting his picture taken with little kids. This little girl had been there with her brother, he tried kicking the monster and she tried using his tail for a jump rope. After they had their picture taken she had suddenly turned over and told the creature she wanted to stay with him forever. He'd managed to talk her out of that and sent her back to her mother, yes Hannibal was certain, this was that same little girl. Unbelievable.

His attention was brought back to the here and now by the sight of Murdock walking up and down the rows of seats passing out candy canes and suckers to the kids. "Oh Captain!"

"You'll have to wait your turn, Hannibal," Murdock said.

"No thanks, it's probably the same flavor as last year," he jokingly replied as he stood up, "What're you doing?"

"Well I said it's a long ride back to L.A., I figured the kids could use something to nibble on, and besides there wasn't any food left at the house to take once we cleaned them out."

"So noted," Hannibal nodded, "Good thinking, Murdock."

Murdock nodded also and said, "Boy, I can't wait to get back and tell Jean all about this one…she's not going to believe it."

"I hardly believe it myself and I was there," Hannibal said, "This mission was definitely one for the books."

"Uh huh," Murdock replied, and snagged a 12-year-old boy that tried to run past him, "Now sit down and don't get up until the big angry mudsucker in the driver's seat stops the bus."

Nothing could make the ride back to town feel any shorter than it was, along the way every member of the A-team found out many details about the lives of the children they rescued, as well as their parents and their siblings back home. It helped them track down the neighborhoods where a lot of them lived, but it was still decided to go with Hannibal's original plan and drop them all off with the police since cracking the slave trade open was a matter for the police, as well as finding the rest of the missing children. And Hannibal reminded the others, also when they got home they had to pay a visit to a custody judge, a court reporter, and Eliza's ex-husband.

When they were a couple miles away from Los Angeles, they stopped long enough to phone the news stations and let them know what was going on, and also to phone the police station so they also knew what was going on, and who was responsible, and where who were so they could be arrested, and explained that all the proof they needed to shut Stone away was coming with them. This was going to be one hell of a welcome home ceremony for all the kids. Hannibal had changed back into his Santa suit, beard and all, so nobody would be able to recognize him when he went in. Of course that still left the matter of somebody maybe recognizing Face or B.A., but Hannibal had a solution for that. They'd park the bus a few blocks down from where the media circus would be and he'd get off with all the kids and walk them up to the precinct and hand them over to their parents. After that he'd go one way and they'd go another, ditch the bus, and then meet up later on and tend to the rest of their business for the night.

It was amazing how in a few short hours a child could latch onto somebody they hadn't known before. One was hard enough to say goodbye to, but 50 of them was about impossible. Though all the kids were thrilled to be going home, they hated saying goodbye to their new friends and several had to be pulled off of them. Murdock had been left embarrassed to death and at a momentary loss for words when one of the 12-year-old girls said she wanted to marry him, and he had to gently break the news that he was involved with someone else already. And Hannibal had had his own hands full particularly with the girl who had known him as the Aquamaniac; she hadn't said anything to imply she knew who he was, but she had refused to leave his side during the whole ride back and she was reluctant to leave him now as well.

Though it was difficult, one by one they managed to get the kids ready to go home, one by one they got the kids off the bus and lined up behind Hannibal who looked like a salvation army Santa Claus, and they marched off into the chilly night to meet their parents at the police station. Media circus had been an understatement, it was a stampede, the whole block was full of reporters, cameramen, people shoving microphones into the children's faces as they marched past them and into the front doors of the station. Hannibal had stopped for a minute to speak with the reporters, revealing absolutely nothing about how he rescued the children and got them back, saying only that Santa could work miracles in the strangest ways. Inside the station he went off to a private room with a couple of officers and a couple of men who had been called in from the FBI. Apparently the children Stone had already sold had been shipped overseas to their new 'owners' and it was going to take some time to get them back. However, after sorting through the paperwork Hannibal gave them, the men concluded that the records matched 50 cases they were in the process of solving, and estimated that those children would be returned to their families within the next few days.

"It's going to be a Merry Christmas for a lot of families," Hannibal commented, and resuming his Santa character he added in a gruffer voice, "Well you gentlemen will have to excuse me, I've got to get back to the North Pole, the reindeer games are running late and there's an elf work union debate going on that needs my tending to, ho ho ho and Merry Christmas, gentlemen."

He went back out into the squad room where the children were being reunited with their parents, it was a tearful and joyous event, and Hannibal immediately spotted the two women who hired them. They came up to him and threw their arms around him and sobbed in relief at having their children back.

"Thank you, Mr. Smith," Angela whispered, "You don't know how much we appreciate this."

"Oh I can take a guess," he replied, and turning to Eliza he added, "And if you and your lovely daughter will excuse me, Santa has one more visit to pay, to one particular naughty boy, you of course have his address?"

Eliza nodded and with a little sleight of hand, shoved a piece of paper with her ex's address into his coat pocket. Hannibal said one more goodbye to all the kids and excused himself to get back to his sleigh, and wished them all a happy holiday.

Losing the press hadn't been too hard, after a few reporters dogged him for several blocks, he turned a corner down a dark alley and quickly disappeared before anybody could spot him. He started peeling off his costume and stuffed it all into a galvanized garbage can and went off to find the others. He found them in an old run down garage that had gone out of business several years ago.

"How'd it go?" Face asked.

"Worked like a charm," he answered, "Who would ever make trouble for Santa Claus?"

"Did the parents come and get the kids?" Murdock asked.

"Yeah they're still in the process of sorting through everyone," Hannibal said, "I'm sure before the night's over they'll have everything straightened out."

"Cute kids," Murdock commented.

"Which reminds me," Face said, "What are they feeding kids these days? I mean what qualifies as brain food?"

Hannibal shrugged and said, "Beats me, Face, why?"

"During the drive back I had one six-year-old girl come up to me and say I look like a womanizer," he said.

Murdock laughed and replied, "Smart kid."

"Okay, okay," Hannibal got their attention and reminded them, "The job's not over yet. Eliza gave me the address of her ex, and the names of the judge and the court reporter who botched her custody hearing. I say it's time we go pay them a visit."

"I'll get the tar and feathers," Murdock volunteered.

The second plan had been a much simpler one. Under the cover of darkness, the A-Team had cut the power at Judge James Burnett's home as well as the home of soon to be retired court reporter Thom Gallagher, and at the home of Eliza's ex-husband, Mike Chambers. Once the power went out, four men in black ski masks barged in, ambushed the men, knocked them out, tied them up, dragged them out and one by one by one put them all together like a set of dominoes about to be knocked down.

"Well gentlemen," Hannibal said as he yanked his mask off, "If I had to guess, I'd wager that you three know each other, and by the looks of it I'd say pretty well too."

"Who are you and what do you want with us?" the judge asked.

"Well he certainly doesn't beat around the bush, does he?" Face asked as he removed his mask as well, followed by Murdock and B.A.

"Well it's all very simple, Judge," Hannibal said, "A few months ago you screwed up immensely on a custody hearing and awarded sole custody of an 8-year-old girl to this dirt bag," he pointed to Mike, "And either you or him or both you and him got a hold of this man," he pointed to Gallagher, "And told him to edit his stenography from that case, so upon appeal all damning testimony given by this man and his family would be removed, royally screwing up any chance the girl's mother had of regaining custody of her. Well we're very near Christmas, Judge, and Christmas is a time for righting wrongs, so what you're going to do is abort the custody order you granted, and return sole custody to the mother, one Ms. Eliza Breckenridge, with the court's apology, and with the back child support that her alleged father owes for time lost."

"You're crazy," Mike said, not giving the current situation the seriousness it deserved, "Did that old bat put you up to this?"

"Naw, I'm the crazy bat," Murdock said, and to prove his point he flapped his arms and screeched in a high pitch, "Think if I bit you you'd break out in rabies?"

"If you gentlemen don't want to cooperate, that's your business," Hannibal said, and turned around to the others and hollered, "B.A.!"

B.A. didn't get to break the bones in the three men's bodies but he did get a close second which was half an hour beating the living daylights out of all three men until they were all bloody and bruised and ready to surrender.

"You see, gentlemen," Hannibal said as he lit his cigar, "I knew we could come to an agreement. All it took was a bunch of rational adults putting their heads together."

"And through walls," Murdock added.

"And a word of warning," Hannibal told them, "If any of you gets the bright idea to bring the police into this once we're gone, they won't find us, but we will find you again, and next time we're going to get mean. The choice is yours, gentlemen."

"The perfect end to a perfect mission," Hannibal said over his cigar on the drive back to Jean's house.

"I don't know about you guys," Face said, "But I'm ready to crawl into bed and sleep like the dead."

"Speak for yourself, Face," Murdock replied, "Jean's going to want to know all the gory details and I'm going to be only too happy to give them to her."

"Well," Hannibal said as he looked up the block, "It sure is great to be home again, even if it's only home away from home."

B.A. pulled the van up into the driveway of Jean's house and everybody got out. But as they did, Murdock noticed something weird, "Hey Hannibal, the lights are out."

"Well it's late," Face said, "Maybe she went to bed already."

Murdock had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, "I don't know."

He went up the stairs and the others followed behind him and they all saw that the door was standing open. They went in with their guns drawn, threw on the lights and called out for Jean while they checked all the rooms.

"Jean!" Hannibal called, "Come out come out wherever you are, this isn't funny!"

"Hannibal!" Face yelled from the kitchen.

Hannibal ran in and saw bloodstains on the floor leading over to the back stairs. They ran up to the second floor and continued calling for Jean as they went in the rooms to look for her. One of the first rooms they checked was Murdock's game room, where the lights had been left on and the door was open.

"Oh my God," Murdock said.

Something had definitely happened in this room. Holes had been punched into the walls, several of the large game consoles had been unplugged and moved around the room as if to provide an obstacle or a block, bloodstains were scattered all over the floor, B.A.'s new toolbox that Murdock had gotten him for Christmas was open in the middle of the floor and near it was one of the large new wrenches, the top half also covered in blood. And over in the corner of the room, the jukebox stood broken, the glass front shattered and the interior letting out a slow trail of smoke, a hint of the oh-too-familiar-for-veterans scent of burning flesh filling the air.

Murdock buried his face in his hands and asked helplessly, "What happened here?"

"Two things we know for certain," Hannibal said, and pointed first to the smoking jukebox and then to the wrench, "Somebody got electrocuted, and somebody got their brains beat out of them, and I'm guessing that both of them were Jean's doing, otherwise she'd still be here."

"But where is she now?" Face asked.

"I don't know," Hannibal said, dreading what the answer might be.

Murdock left the room as the other three tried to piece together what must've happened while they were gone, and a moment later they heard Murdock let out a loud, long, distressed scream, and they ran down the hall to see what it was. They ran into Hannibal's room where they found Murdock collapsed on the floor, and all three of them felt their hearts drop in their stomachs and their backs impaled with a thousand pins and needles when they saw what had upset Murdock. On the wall over Hannibal's bed were bloody hand smudges that had hastily scrawled out a note in only two letters:

VC