A/N: First multi-chapter A-Team fic! I'm excited :) I'm not sure whether to cite some episodes or not, since there are a lot of oblique references, but if you have questions let me know. Any foreign languages spoken in this fic are translated using Bing Translator, so if anything is wrong, forgive me. I'm not fluent in everything. English translations are at the bottom. I don't own the A-Team. Enjoy!

The file was thick with papers, yet seemed to contain very little information. Decker frowned, pouring over the accumulated accounts of Lynch, and the occasional fink "clients" concerning the infamous A-Team. These papers were added to his own, but for all their damning evidence very little of it could be proven. Besides, no matter the number of photographs they had on the three members, none of them amounted to the same as actually having the men in custody.

Decker didn't like how this case was dragging out month after month. At first it'd been hard to believe that Lynch had kept up this game for ten years- now, it was looking like a short stretch. The A-Team was probably the most slippery fugitive case to ever grace American history.

Going in hard and strong didn't work. No matter how many men and firepower he commanded, the A-Team always managed to sneak away under their noses. Tricking them didn't work either; somehow they got wise to the plan. And even when he had the A-Team in his very clutches, under heavy guard- being transported for Christ's sake!- they still somehow managed to escape.

And then disappear.

Usually, the only way Decker could get any kind of lead on them was when they went on a moral trip, helping out the good citizens of America. That was when they were all together. Apart, it was very easy for them to disperse and glide away into their separate lives. Three men are easier to track when they're all bunched together than when they're all spread out doing different things.

Blast it all.

He snapped the file closed and glared at the neat font on the cover for a while. It was just filled with vague accounts from clients unwilling to hand over the men who helped them, the sketchy reports of known crooks trying to describe how the heck they got caught, and fuzzy photographs taken from around corners and over rooftops. Rumors perforated all the reports- the A-Team had defeated them with a cabbage cannon, the A-Team owned a hotel, a restaurant, the A-Team had three men, four men, an army of winos at their command!

Who could believe any of this?

Half of it may be true, all of it may be false, all of it could be real, or someone was just playing a very bad joke. Decker wouldn't put it past Smith to start some rumors of his own out there to confuse him. Well, enough with "eye-witness" accounts- they were too unreliable. Decker preferred to focus on what they actually knew.

He had detailed records of their time in 'Nam. He even managed to get his hands on more classified missions, trying to figure out what tricks they liked to use to get work done. He knew most of their backgrounds- Baracus had a mother up in Chicago whom he loved, but rarely contacted; Smith had a nephew who was married with a kid and into racing cars- the rising profile of the man also prevented a lot of contact; and Peck had the orphanage where he grew up, and most of the people who knew him there were, at best, just acquaintances.

With family a dead-end, Decker turned to friends. There had to be something or someone they maintained contact with! He quickly found that Peck had a long string of girls and high-profile "friends" all over the city, but they were next to useless, as most of them didn't know Lt. Templeton Peck, but instead a Sammy Deacon, or Mr. Moreau, or "Butch". He couldn't always be sure they were talking about the same man. Even when he confirmed it was Peck they were discussing, no useful information was forthcoming- the ladies had an annoying tendency to get starry-eyed and start relaying in uncomfortably explicit detail just how they knew him.

He did know that Smith acted in movies playing a lot of monsters. Those costumes, however, did a pretty good job of hiding the men inside, though. And it certainly didn't help that he was going by his real name, John Smith. Decker got a headache whenever he thought about how many John Smiths he ran into tracking down the colonel. And whenever he was hot on the tail of the real man, he ran into a lot of irate directors and impatient agents spinning him around in circles over red tape. But that's Hollywood.

One constant fact was that B.A. Baracus did volunteer at various youth shelters. However, Decker had been explicitly ordered not to make any, repeat, any kind of move against those shelters. If something went wrong and it came out that children were involved, it would be an incident that the military might never recover from.

Frustrated, fed-up, and almost thoroughly f*-ed, Decker decided it was time to switch tactics. No, he wasn't going to chase the A-Team this time.

He was going to wait for them.

Not like a trap, where the prey needed to be lured into its clutches, but simply waiting. For all their moving about and shifting identities, there was one place that all the men visited at some point on occasion: the Veteran's Administration Hospital.

Going back to their 'Nam files, it was well-known that Captain H.M. Murdock had flown the unit on multiple occasions. It was also well-known that the A-Team still visited their former comrade. Decker did have high suspicions that Murdock actually worked with the A-Team and that his numerous disappearances were them breaking him out, but that was another something that he couldn't actually prove. There was always some kind of alibi for the man.

Part of the team or not, Murdock was the only stationary key in the A-Team's lives. One or all of them would show up eventually, whether to visit or break him out. He knew it; he'd seen Peck at the hospital before, and Baracus's van parked outside- it was certain.

They'll show up… and he would be waiting.

"Mr. Decker, I-"

"That's Colonel Decker to you, ma'am," he corrected, not slowing his pace.

"Colonel Decker, sorry," the nurse amended, still trying to keep up with him. "But I really don't think you should be doing this; this is a hospital, not a prison, and we have security-"

"And a wonderful job they're doing if your patients keep escaping," he cut her off. "Ma'am, I'm only going to say this once: this is part of an extended military operation. Any attempt to disrupt us or in other ways hinder us will result in your getting charged for obstruction of the military and treason. We need to place a 24-hour watch on Patient Murdock, and we will do so by our methods."

"But sir, and I mean no disrespect, but I don't think you're considering the possible ramifications of your constant scrutinizing," she continued worriedly.

"Oh, I'm sure that Captain Murdock will find a way to weave us into another harmless fantasy," Decker answered, rounding the corner and finally reaching the door to Murdock's room.

"Captain Crane, I want a man posted here 24-7. I want another man posted down at the back entrance to this wing. If you feel you need to double the watch, do so." He turned back to the protesting nurse, never stopping in his orders. "Nurse, I'm also going to need complete access to any video feeds you might have. If you don't have any, I'm going to have to implement my own, namely in the elevators and the outside of the building, understood?"

"Oh, but Colonel, I-"

"Understood, nurse?" he repeated, bringing out his full military voice.

"Yes!" she jumped. "I- oh…" she moved off, anxiously writing on a clipboard.

"Finally," Decker muttered. "Crane, have you selected the man to take first watch?"

"Yes sir," Crane replied, putting away his radio. "He's coming up from the car now."

"Good, we'll wait for him to get here," Decker groused, looking down the hall.

"Shh! Oh, stop that barking, Billy, it's just someone at the door! Quiet down, boy! There, there, see? Now if you keep up the good behavior, I'll let you have some of my grapes at suppertime, m'kay?"

A face appeared at the little window in the door to the room, and Crane and Decker twisted to see Murdock's wide grin and frizzled hair pressed up against it. The captain batted his eyelashes at them.

"Well, my, my, gentlemen, how lovely of you to stop by! Would you fine chaps like to come inside? I've just made some tea and it would be dreadfully impolite of me to drink it all by myself."

"Ah, no thanks, Captain, we are not here on a social visit," Decker answered, trying to maintain an official demeanor.

Murdock stuck out his lower lip and tsked. "Aw, what a shame." He looked up and sighed dramatically, giving a little shake of his head. "It's been so long since I've had visitors. And here I've made all this tea- I guess Billy and I will have to finish it off again."

Spotting an opportunity for possible information, Decker decided to continue the conversation. "When was the last visit, Captain?"

"Oh, it was some two weeks ago, lad," he answered, a pleasant smile still on his face. "He stayed for around four hours."

"Who?" Decker asked.

"Why, Neil Armstrong, of course!" Murdock chirped. "We had a delightful conversation about the phases of the moon and werewolf circadian rhythms."

Crane smirked, and promptly stuck his fist in his mouth, turning away from Decker's glare.

"Are you sure, that was who last visited you, Captain?" he asked the insane man.

"Well," Murdock frowned. "Sort of. I mean, I don't really count the last one as a visit here so much as I visited them. See, the thing with aliens is that they never knock or stop by; they take you up to their place."

Decker raised his eyes up to the ceiling.

"Sgt. Turner reporting, sir!"

Decker turned to see the new man standing at attention. "At ease, Sergeant," he replied, returning the salute. "Your orders are to watch this man," he lowered his voice so that the captain wouldn't hear. "I want a report on what he does, what goes in and out of his room, and most importantly, who visits him. Are we clear, Sergeant?"

"Yes sir!" Turner answered.

"Good." Decker turned back around and faced where Murdock and Crane were talking. "Captain," he said, and both turned. "Murdock," he addressed. "This is Sgt. Turner, and he, among a few others, will be looking after you."

Murdock giddily clapped his hands. "I've always wanted my very own, personalized room service! Let's see, for starters I would like a lobster. It doesn't have to be fried; a live one will do just as well. And then I'd like-"

Decker tuned out the man's ramblings and faced Turner. "Good luck, Sgt."

"I'll need it, sir," he replied, eyeing the man was still rattling off a menu, only now in a French accent. "What happened to him?"

"Lots of things," Decker ground out. He signaled Crane and they left the two men to their conversation.

Murdock kept badgering the man- Sgt. Turner, was it?- until he was sure the man wasn't leaving. Whatever Decker was up to, he had the growing feeling that he wouldn't like it.

He'd wandered around his room and casually checked out the window. Quickly, his trained eyes spotted another MP out in the common area, and another closer to the main entrance of the hospital. Decker was covering this place pretty well.

Or maybe, just covering him.

Well, he had to get a message out to the guys. Who knew how much more time he had?

He picked up the phone to his room and rapidly dialed a number. It rang a few times before a confused voice answered. "Hola?"

"María, mi buen amigo! ¿Cómo estás? Escucha, no puedo tomar los niños este fin de semana, he tropezado con algunos problemas en el trabajo. ¿Está bien con usted? ¿Es? Gracias, querida! Te veré más tarde!"* He promptly hung up before dialing another number.

...

Turner was confused by the burst of Spanish from the room behind him, so he turned around to see the patient talking animatedly on a phone. Alarmed, he pulled his radio and hurriedly raised Decker.

"Decker here."

"Sir?" Turner reported. "Did you know that Captain Murdock has a phone in his room?"

"In his room?"

"Yes sir, seems to have it all to himself. Anyway, he's making a bunch of weird calls…"

He held the radio away from his ear as Decker cursed. "Captain, get a tap on that phone line immediately! I want to know who he calls and what he says!" The shouted orders continued on the other line until the colonel remembered to take his finger off the button.

Turner turned back to the room. Murdock had already made three other calls in various voices and languages. He couldn't be sure who all he was talking to.

...

"Lou's Delivery," came a gruff voice.

"This is your friendly neighborhood pentatonic scale, you say it again, we'll play it twice. I'm thinking of getting a steak out at a restaurant; know any near here? Not an upscale place to stay, low-down places save my budget. Okay thanks, buh-buy." Murdock hung that one up too before pausing for a moment to think. A wicked grin spread across his face. Yes, this would do nicely, he though as he picked the phone up again.

"Hurry up, hurry up," Decker demanded from the van. They'd positioned it by a phone pole nearest to the hospital, ready to track Murdock's next call.

"Here it comes, sir," an MP reported.

"Find out where it's going," Decker ordered. He leaned forward. Somewhere in this mess of phone calls, Murdock had to contact the A-Team.

"Call's coming through," the MP mentioned. "Do you want audio?"

"Let's hear it," he said firmly.

A high-pitched giggle erupted throughout the van. "Gooooood morning, Mister Sir! I'd love to send you cake, but it doesn't travel well over the phone, so how about a biiiiiiiig kiss instead, eh?" A loud sucking sound commenced afterward for a couple seconds. "-mwah! Have a good day!" The line clicked off.

Decker whirled on the MP. "Corporal, where'd that call go to?"

The MP's face had gone absolutely white as the address came back over the computer. He coughed a little and tugged nervously at his collar. "Sir…"

"Where'd he call, Corporal?" he shouted.

The MP shrank a little and pointed at the screen. "Well, the White House, sir. He just phoned the White House."

Hannibal hung up the phone when he heard the line click off. He frowned. That had been Murdock's voice, and nobody else knew the number to the van. Well, aside from Mrs. Baracus, that was. The message had been strange, and definitely needed to be looked over.

"B.A., grab the tape machine and pull over. I think we all need to hear this."

After the sergeant had done as requested, the three crowded around the recording and listened again. Face leaned back as it ended. "Must be some kind of code, Colonel."

"Right," Hannibal pointed. "And the instructions were at the beginning. Now, first he mentions the pentatonic scale."

"That's ah, five notes, often done on the black keys," Face informed.

"And then he said something about goin' twice," B.A. added. "Sayin' it again."

"Twice is two," Hannibal said. "That's fairly simple: after every five words, read the next two. Play it again, Face."

They listened to the message once more as Hannibal scribbled down the notes on a piece of paper. When it was done, they looked at him expectantly.

"Okay, so we've got steak, out, near, here, stay, low. Well, alright then. Stake-out near here, stay low. Looks like somebody's got their eye on Murdock."

"Could it be Decker, Colonel?" Face asked.

"Probably. He's been due for an appearance. I want nobody near the hospital until he gets bored and leaves- or until Murdock drives him away. Whichever comes first," he finished with a grin.

B.A. shook his head as he started up the van again. "Ain't nobody can stand that crazy fool for long."

*Maria, my good friend! How are you? Listen, I can't take the kids this weekend, I've run into some trouble at work. Is that okay with you? It is? Thank you, darling! I'll see you later!

Reviews are appreciated!