The second they tried to reach her and get a look at her in the light, she slapped their hands away and warned them, "Don't touch me, I don't like being touched." She sat down on a chair in the middle of the room as they took turns holding the light towards her and seeing how extensive the damage was.

"What the hell happened to you?" Hannibal demanded to know.

"Well," she started to explain, "When we were out checking the van, I saw some guys in uniform a couple blocks away, and I decided to conduct a little experiment. I had Murdock give me his jacket and his cap and I walked down the block trying to pass myself off as him…apparently it worked. They spotted the jacket and they started yelling at me to freeze, I didn't, I started running, I never said anything though, I didn't try to do like he does and sing or anything…I just ran, but they caught up with me and before I knew it, they had me knocked on the ground and these two guys that look like soldiers, are taking turns beating me with the butts of their rifles. And then this Lynch comes up and he looks down at me and he's yelling at them to stop, that it's not Murdock. And I've got these lights blinding me and they're asking me who I am. I give them a fake name, they ask where I got this jacket from, I tell Lynch that I found it at a thrift shop when I was passing through Cleveland. I don't know if he believed me, but he knew they had screwed up. So he offers his sincerest apologies for the beating and explains that they are looking for four dangerous escapees, one of which wears a cap and jacket just like this."

"Dangerous?" Murdock took offense at that, "I resent that!"

"You resent what?" Face asked.

"I'm not dangerous, I'm just insane!"

"Anyway," Jean ran her tongue over her top lip that had been split open, "They let me go. And whoever Lynch has for a superior, I'll just bet they're going to kick his butt all up and down the block now. Letting an 'innocent civilian' be brutalized by his own men, because of a case of mistaken identity, the newspapers would just eat that one up. I'm sure that after that he's going to think twice before he tries to ambush somebody who looks like a member of the A-Team."

Hannibal took his cigar out of his mouth and pointed a finger at her as he said, "Now I know you're crazy. You intentionally tried to pass yourself off as Murdock to see what Lynch and his boys would do to you."

"Well I knew it wouldn't stick, once they got a good look at me and stopped beating me to death, they'd know that I wasn't him," she said, "And don't even think of getting angry at the little fruitcake, he didn't know anything about it, and as I told him, I don't need a babysitter, I'm 22 years old, Smith, I've been on my own for six months, I've killed 20 men, I can walk down a street alone if I want to."

"And now you look like a black and blue jack-o-lantern," Hannibal pointed out.

"Still my business," she told him, "Not yours."

She stood up and took one step before she doubled over, but unlike Hannibal's performance in the dining room they could tell that her pain was real; Face saw that she was clutching her left ribs, and it didn't go unnoticed by the others either. Hannibal went over and tried to put his hands on her but she jumped back screaming at him not to touch her. Hannibal tried to remain calm but his annoyance at her resistance was evident in his voice when he said, "Your ribs might be broken, I have to take a look."

"Forget it, Smith," she said, "The only way I'd let you examine me is I'd have to be knocked out cold. Murdock!" she turned to him, "Get my pills."

"What pills?" he asked.

"The pills Smith had you hide," she answered, "What did you think?"

"Alright, just calm down," Hannibal told her, "We have to know, now unfortunately I've had enough experience to know what broken bones feel like, you won't have to get undressed, alright?"

She didn't answer but she looked like she'd rather be facing a firing squad than doing this now. Hannibal had Face and Murdock get on either side of her and help hold her still; they crowded in on her and pressed on her shoulders so she couldn't move, while Hannibal felt her ribs through her T-shirt. She groaned and struggled and tried to move, but Hannibal concluded, "I don't think they're broken, more likely just bruised. Would you have any objection to lifting up your shirt?"

"Yes I mind very much," she replied as she stood back and pushed away from them, "I'm not having any dirty old man looking at me, like I said, Smith, I don't know where you've been." With that she backed away from all of them and went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

"Well anybody else got any ideas?" Face asked, "We don't want to run the risk of bringing in somebody who can remember seeing us here and report it to the authorities."

"What about Maggie Sullivan?" Hannibal asked.

"Maggie?" Face repeated.

"Jean probably wouldn't object so much to having a woman doctor examine her," Hannibal pointed out.

"You know how far away we are from Bad Rock?" Face asked, "And we don't have a plane to zip over there in."

"Murdock," Hannibal said, "Go listen at the door, hear any water running?"

Murdock placed his ear on the bathroom door and shook his head, "Quiet as a dead doornail," in one of his more theatrical grandstanding voices he marched away from the door and added, "Like Jacob Marley all those Christmas Eves ago when…"

"Shut up, fool!" B.A. yelled at him.

"Okay, when she comes out we'll check the bathroom for a blood trail," Hannibal told them, "No broken ribs, I'd wager it's a safe bet we don't have to worry about her succumbing to a punctured lung in the night. Unless she becomes a one-person bloodbath tonight, we'll wait and see how she's doing tomorrow and if it looks bad, we'll figure a way to either get Maggie here, or take a detour through Bad Rock."

"Uh, Colonel," Murdock spoke up, "When're we going to tell her that Grant's here?"

"What?" the bathroom door opened and Jean stepped out, "Grant's in the hotel? When?"

"Calm down," Hannibal advised her, "He got in a little while ago while you and Murdock were out, he contacted Saunders and you're right, they're going to meet up in Chicago, we have his schedule and his travel directions, so we know exactly where he's going and when…he's going to be here for three days so we're going to extend our stay and keep an eye on him."

Jean opened her mouth to respond but Hannibal cut her off, "You want to bring this whole thing to an end once and for all, alright, that's what we're going to do, but it would be better in the long run if we let the last two ring members meet up and we kill two birds with one stone, understand?"

She didn't like it but she slowly nodded her head in agreement, though she didn't say one word about it.

"Alright," Hannibal said, "Now we know he's here and we know he's going to stay for a while, so we can afford to relax a little…but one of us will be at that phone all night incase anybody pays Grant a visit or he tries to get in contact with Saunders again. But in the meantime, it would be in your best interest to take a couple of painkillers, lie down, and put some ice on your face."

"I have pills," Jean told him snidely, "You hid them."

"The only way you're going to get those back is if you let me examine you," Hannibal told her in response, "So we know that you actually need something that potent. Otherwise, I'll be very happy to send Face out to the drugstore to pick up some Tylenol."

"I can't take Tylenol, it makes me throw up," she said.

"Alright, ibuprofen," he told her, "Face."

"I'm on it, Hannibal," he said as he headed for the door.

"Murdock," Hannibal added, "There's got be an ice machine somewhere in a hotel this big, go find it and bring back some."

"Okey-dokey, Colonel," Murdock saluted as he followed Face out the door.

"B.A.," Hannibal turned to him, "Why don't you bring our bags back up since we won't be going anywhere for a few days?"

B.A. looked annoyed but he also left the room, leaving just Hannibal and Jean in it. Jean threw herself on the bed in one move and sat up against the headboard. "I can think of a few worse people to be stuck in a room with," she commented.

He ignored her comment and asked her, "Just what the hell were you thinking?"

She refused to meet his gaze for a few seconds, but when she finally did she answered very calmly, "I was thinking it's about time to cast some doubt on the oh so dutiful Colonel Lynch and his men. A guy spends more than 10 years hunting down four people that nobody knows, nobody sees, that's not healthy, it becomes an obsession, he may be starting to lose his mind…he may start doubting his own eyes, if nothing else, people are going to start doubting his credibility when word gets out about what happened tonight. Maybe somebody in the military will decide 'to hell with it, call the whole thing off, give them a pardon' before somebody winds up getting killed, somebody like an innocent bystander civilian." She picked up a small mirror Face left on the nightstand and looked at the work done on her face. "I ought to get some pictures taken of this and send them off to the newspaper to plaster all over the front page tomorrow morning."

"You know, you could've gotten yourself killed tonight doing something stupid like that," Hannibal told her.

"Oh come on, Smith…Lynch wouldn't kill you, he wants you to rot in prison for the rest of your unnatural life, you and your friends…he wouldn't take a chance on something like that, he needs you guys alive so you can suffer as he wants you to suffer. Between you and me, that colonel needs a new hobby," Jean said.

Hannibal just rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly, he picked up the small lamp on the nightstand, turned it on and held it out to the side to shine the light on her face. She was blinded by the light but otherwise didn't move and didn't inquire what he was doing.

"It looks worse than it really is," he said as he put the lamp down, "All the same, before Murdock gets back with the ice, it would be a good idea to clean that up. When B.A. gets back, I have a bottle of peroxide in my bag."

"You forget, Smith," she said as she folded her arms and looked up at him, "I've been on my own for six months, I know how to be prepared too."

"That may be, but given the sudden resemblance your face has to turned hamburger, I prefer our odds better," he told her.

B.A. was the first one to make it back, carrying everybody's bags at once and in turn dropping them all on the floor in one spot. Murdock came in a few minutes later, explaining that he didn't have much trouble finding the ice machine, but had trouble getting the ice because the machine's interior had been taken over by an army of midget alien space penguins. He wrapped a bunch of the ice in a hair towel from the bathroom and Jean kept it on the worst side of her face for about half an hour before Face finally made his way back into the room, and by that time everybody had well noticed his long absence.

"Lieutenant there is an all night drug store four blocks away from here and at this time of night in this town, traffic slows to a snail's crawl," Hannibal told him, "So what kept you? Were you making the ibuprofen?"

Face managed to keep from cracking though he couldn't help becoming a bit histrionic as he reached into the pharmacy bag and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it is at this time of night to find an oil based concealer that is a matching color to the skin tone of a person you don't have with you to check as a reference? And did you know that there are apparently some 50 different kinds of skin tone in the world now? And every single one of them has their own colored concealer and you have a choice between powder, water based or oil based. You try getting the right one and doing a hundred yard dash back."

Jean propped herself up on her spare elbow and saw Face through one eye and turned to Murdock and told him, "Your friend is wearing makeup, Murdock, this can't be good, next thing you know he'll be wearing those egg pantyhose and getting a perm."

Face came closer to breaking down laughing at her remark as he dropped the jar of makeup on the nightstand beside her and remarked, "It's for you."

"For me what?" she asked, "I don't wear makeup, never have."

"If we're going to be staying anywhere for any period of time and not draw attention to ourselves it would help if your face didn't look like a bowling ball," Face told her, "Maybe you're not aware, Miss Rhodes, but people have a problem when women start turning up looking like they've been used as an Everlast bag."

"Sure they do," she said, "And they also have a problem with trained soldiers armed to the teeth who start beating the daylights out of unarmed civilians without provocation. I am telling you guys, a little publicity on this is not going to hurt anybody except Lynch and his men."

Face ignored her comment and took a bottle of pills out of the bag and put them on the nightstand by her as well, "Those should help take the swelling out."

Jean picked up the bottle and said, "I suppose a little whiskey is out of the question."

Jean was moved into the second bedroom with Murdock and Face, in the hopes that being away from the audio spy equipment might help keep her asleep and shut up for the night.

"This guy's sawing logs, Hannibal," B.A. said as he put the headset down, "Ain't anything gonna happen tonight."

"Probably right," Hannibal said as he looked at the clock and saw it was going on 2 in the morning. He yawned and added, "And not a bad idea, we'll have to get up soon enough as it is." He crossed over to the door separating their room from the next and said, "I'm going to go check on the others first and make sure nothing's happened."

He slowly and quietly opened the door and peered in, Jean was asleep in one bed, half of her face bandaged up for the night and that was the side she was sleeping on. Murdock and Face were in the other bed, Murdock curled up with his Bogey Bear, half murmuring something in his sleep, and Face was turned on his side opposite Murdock and he was in a sleep so deep Hannibal had to watch closely to make sure he was still breathing. Hannibal was satisfied with what he saw and he pulled the door close behind him and returned to his own room.

As soon as the door was shut, Murdock and Face opened their eyes and sat up in bed. Face pointed over to the bathroom door and Murdock nodded, they got out of bed and crept along to the bathroom and shut the door and turned on the light.

"So what were you saying earlier, Murdock?" Face asked.

"Well I feel bad about what happened to the Saint tonight, Facey, I didn't know what she was going to do," he said, "But I think it's bothering the Colonel more. You know he ain't gonna admit it, but I think he might be worried."

It was certainly understandable, they both knew that for all their crazy chases with and escapes from Lynch over the years, that there had never been any innocent civilians getting caught in the crossfire. And this one didn't fall, she walked right into it with both eyes wide open; she sought out the enemy with a plan of her own, and, according to her, it worked, but it was still nuttier than hell. They'd used half a bottle of peroxide on her before bandaging her up for the night and she'd swallowed four pills before conking out; but never a word of complaint about any of it. The only way it could make any sense to Face was she had to be crazy; he could think of no other logical explanation, for any of it.

One thing he would admit, all things considered, the Saint, or perhaps rather Brutus, depending on how those identities split, had proven most sufficient in the last six months; 20 men dead, some of them trained SEALs, and none of their murders a simple matter either. From some perspective he had to confess it was an impressive record, especially for someone so young; but after serving in the war and seeing his share of killings, he knew that it wasn't anything to be proud of. And he knew, they both knew from her own confession that she wasn't, but she'd seen it as a necessary evil, and maybe it was. There was a reason that despite all the destruction they caused in their line of work, they went to extreme measures to try and guarantee that nobody got killed, no matter how horrible they were or what reprehensible things they'd done. Two wrongs didn't make a right, that's what he'd always been told growing up in the orphanage, maybe it was right, he tried to believe it but there were times he wondered.

When he and Murdock had returned to bed, Face looked up at the ceiling even though the whole room was pitch dark and he tried to think. He tried to imagine just what it had been like for this young woman, what hell she herself had gone through, and how it had shaped her final decision of what had to be done. Somehow, despite all the horrors they'd seen in Nam and been put through, he didn't think it could compare; it couldn't compare, because none of them had come back from the war with the sensation that murder was the only way to solve a problem.

He remembered when she grabbed him, and then shoved him back and brought Hannibal forth for her visual aid to B.A. and it made him think; what if it would've been Hannibal they killed and buried at the base? But he knew that was impossible, Hannibal might get caught from time to time, but he would never be killed. Murdock? He looked over at the other man in the bed and suddenly the mental image of a gun aimed at Murdock's head blowing his brains out and his lifeless body slumping forward onto the muddy ground became only too realistic in his mind. And if that had been the case, what would he do? If he'd been the only living witness to the murder, what would he do? If it weren't for Hannibal and B.A., where would he go? Unfortunately the more they were involved with this case, the more it was slowly starting to make sense to him, and he didn't like it. He didn't like any of it. The $5,000 they got from the Rhodes was barely going to cover their costs as it was already; he would be very happy once this job was over, they got the girl back home to her parents, and then they could move onto another client, somebody with a normal problem, maybe another small town cult with a homicidally psychotic leader like Jamestown. That was stuff that he could handle, those kind of things they knew what to do about it, he didn't have any idea what they were going to do this time.

Bright and early the next morning everybody was up and Murdock was stirring the contents in the makeup jar with a spoon as if he was stirring sugar into tea. "Oh Miss Garbo," he said in a throaty voice, "We're ready for your makeup test."

Jean was dressed and sitting on the bed leaning against the headboard again; Face had just removed the bandages and she'd been through another peroxide facial and now they were able to see that her face was not as bad as they'd thought, all the same the bruises simply had to be covered up.

"Murdock," she said warningly, "I swear you touch me with that stuff and I'm going to punch your lights out."

"Well that won't do you much good," Murdock told her, "The sun's up now, plenty more light where that came from."

"I'll do that, Murdock," Face said as he took the jar from him.

"Oh that makes me feel a whole lot better," Jean dryly responded.

"Just try and hold still, Miss Rhodes," Face told her as he put a small applicator brush into the cream, "This is going to sting."

"That's the least of my worries," she assured him, "It hurt like hell last night when those bulldogs were beating me with their rifles."

"Why did you do that?" Face asked as he started to apply the makeup to her face, "What could possibly possess somebody to do something as stupid as that?"

She scoffed and said, "You're the one playing makeup man and you're asking me who the stupid one is?"

Murdock piled the pillows behind her head so she sat up straighter and Face had easier access to put the concealer on.

"Look, I told your colonel last night, Lynch is not going to order a hit on any of you guys if he wants you guys to rot in a prison cell the rest of your lives…it was a sure thing, I knew that they'd eventually figure out that I wasn't Murdock and let me go. And with that line I fed them about the thrift shop they've probably all moved backwards towards Cleveland and are tearing apart every store there showing them your pictures saying 'have you seen these men?'" She seemed to be reveling in the image damage she had managed to do to Lynch and his men. "The only thing that could make this more perfect would be if they suddenly found a hundred grand in stolen cash on his person somewhere, let him explain that one!"

Face leaned in to Murdock and whispered, "We better feed her soon, she's sounding loopy."

"What about Grant?" she asked.

"Hannibal told you, we're going to stay on his trail, and we'll deal with him when he meets up with Saunders next week," Face told her as he resumed covering up her bruises.

"Why's it taking so long?" she asked.

"You mean to tell me you never had to wait to kill off the others?"

"Not like this," she said, "Not just sitting around waiting…plotting, planning, getting everything ready, into order, making sure nothing went wrong, that's what I did in between each kill. But now all this waiting around is just making me crazy."

"Aw honey," Murdock said with a southern twang as he sat down on the bed beside her, "Waiting around don't make you go crazy, it just helps you realize when you're there."

"Let me get this straight," Jean spun around to look at Face and asked him, "This guy flies the plane?"

"It takes a little getting used to," Face told her.

"I'll bet, but in the meantime, what are we supposed to do while we wait on Grant?" she asked.

They got something in the form of an answer of what to do with their time when later in the day, Face looked out the window and saw Colonel Lynch and several MPs talking to people out in the street.

"This guy is like a cockroach, you can't get rid of him," Face murmured to himself, and went to warn the others. "It looks like he might be coming here next, so if you've got another plan, Hannibal, we're all ears."

But Hannibal remained his usual calm, collective, nonchalant self as he lazily smoked a cigar and he said, "Face, we're not going anywhere."

"What?" Face asked.

"I told you before, Peck," Jean said, "This hotel is crawling with Smiths, let them look."

"Well she does have a point," Hannibal said to the others, "But I do have a plan that should guarantee Lynch doesn't find out we're here."

"What is it?" Face asked.

Hannibal went over to where B.A. dumped their bags and he picked up one large case and said, "Well Face, you're probably not going to like this."

It was very seldom he'd ever heard that in connection with one of Hannibal's plans, he'd said it himself plenty of times but nobody ever said it to him. "Already I don't," he replied, "But what's the plan?"

"I remembered the last time I left Hollywood I had 'accidentally' taken some makeup and costumes from the set for the movie Beach Party Monster, I'm thinking now it might come in handy." He opened the case and showed the contents to everybody in the room.

B.A. only grumbled and shook his head and said, "Hannibal, you' crazier than Murdock."

It took Lynch a good long while to come to the two rooms the A-Team was occupying; he had taken the liberty of inspecting every person checked into the hotel under the last name Smith, and it was an exhaustive search. An hour after entering the hotel, he came to room 108 and, showing professional courtesy incase this would prove another wild goose chase, knocked first.

"Who is it?" they heard a woman's voice from inside.

"Colonel Lynch of the United States Army, ma'am, I need you to open this door and let us in," he said.

"The army? My Lord," the woman replied, "Just a minute."

The door opened and a wrinkled, gray haired grandmother figure stood in the doorway, wearing horn rimmed glasses and a large unshapely dress that practically went down to the floor. Looking inside the room, Lynch could see two other girls sitting by the beds.

"Forgive us for intruding, ma'am," Lynch said, "But we're looking for four dangerous fugitives."

"Fugitives?" the old woman repeated, and scoffed, "Not in my room, sonny, there's nobody here but me and my granddaughters. But please, by all means, come in here and feel free to stomp on an old woman's privacy!"

"I apologize, ma'am, it'll only take a minute," Lynch assured her, "You took this room and the one next door?"

"That's right," the old lady told him, "I got three granddaughters, can't keep them all in the same room or nobody sleeps."

"Ma'am," Lynch said firmly, "Could you explain why you checked into this room under the name Joe Smith?"

"My dear departed husband, bless his heart," the woman pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes, "I'm Joanna Smith."

"I see."

"Joe and I were married for many happy years," the grandmother was now openly bawling into her handkerchief.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Colonel Lynch replied.

The grandmother sniffed and snorted and blew her nose and told him, "But you can see why I would put a man's name on the register, four poor defenseless women traveling alone."

"Yes ma'am, I see," Lynch told her, sorry now that he'd even come into this room.

"I still have his name listed in our telephone directory back home, you just never know who will try and take advantage of poor, vulnerable women."

"Yes ma'am," Lynch said, "If you don't mind, we'll just be a minute and then leave you alone."

"Oh I don't mind," 'Joanna' pocketed her handkerchief and took him over to the two girls, "This is my youngest granddaughter, Tammy."

"Hi," the teenaged girl with red hair dressed in a blue sparkle bathing suit and sunglasses said with a small wave.

"And this is my middle granddaughter, Ella."

Lynch saw the other girl had her head tilted back, wore a green cream mask, had her hair tucked under a shower cap, cucumber slices over her eyes, and was covered with a robe and a big towel, and had her hands tucked under it.

"I never shake hands," Ella said, "Especially when I just had my nails done." And for a half second she poked her ruby red painted nails out from under the towel before replacing them.

Joanna leaned in to the colonel's ear and confided in him, "We told her it's just an awkward stage but the truth of the matter is she's just plain ugly."

"Grandma!" the swamp monster in the bathrobe protested.

"And there's my oldest granddaughter, Lillian," Joanna told the colonel, "Now let me think, she is…"

A high pitched scream rang out from the bathroom in the room next door.

"Oh that's right, she's taking a bath."

A couple of the MPs had taken the liberty to search the second room while Lynch kept the old woman busy in the first one. One had opened the door and there was another woman wearing a shower cap, in the tub covered by a million white bubbles, with half of the shower curtain drawn, and she started screaming and splashing in the water as she grabbed a towel and held it up in front of her, screaming hysterically and exclaiming, "It's a Peeping Tom! Get him out! Get him out!"

The MP doubled back and slammed the door behind him; Murdock took off the shower cap and leaned against the side of the tub and giggled. The curtain was drawn back, revealing B.A. who had been sitting on the other edge of the tub, and he was not pleased by being soaked clear up to his knees. Just as B.A. reached over to strangle him, Murdock put a finger to his lips and signaled for B.A. to be quiet until Lynch left.

"Well I'm sorry we couldn't be of any help," Joanna told Lynch as he and his men were leaving, "But I hope you get your men, sugar."

Lynch visibly grimaced at that word, and he left the room and closed the door behind him and all but ran towards the elevator to get away from her.

Once all was clear, Hannibal pulled off his wig and glasses, Face removed the cucumber slices from his eyes and the shower cap off his hair and threw down the towel and took off the oversized bathrobe, and they all laughed at the plan working so well. The door to the next room opened and Murdock came in dressed in a pair of swimming trunks and a T-shirt, both of which were completely soaked through, and B.A. was right behind him, leaving large wet footprints with every step he took, like a drowned Sasquatch.

"That was a brilliant plan, Colonel!" Murdock said.

"Yeah," Face agreed as he started to peel off the red press-on nails that he didn't even want to know why they were made in his size, "I think you managed to scar Lynch for the rest of his life. Just too bad we couldn't buy ourselves some more time here to enjoy it."

"Well where would the fun be in that, Face?" Hannibal asked.