Murdock: We're TRYING to have a team meeting, thank you very little.

B.A.: Yeah! Team ears only.

Colonel Decker: We're in the middle of a fight!

Col. John Hannibal Smith: Do you know what the question I get asked the most is?

A moment without any of our main characters...but not without their spirit >:) ~800 words of our favourite US Army duo, who surely, this time, have followed the right clues, and have their quarries right where they want them. Also, you know I had to build *that* song into this challenge somewhere ;)

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"Any movement yet, over?"

Captain Crane leant forward to look through his binoculars again, training them on a fourth-floor living room in the building across the quiet downtown Boston street. It was dark in there, save the colourful twinkle from a Christmas tree and the bright, flickering glow of a television. The couch had it's back to the net-curtained window, leaving only the silhouettes of the occupants visible from the outside, all three- wait, two of them.

"Yeah, Colonel, one of them's got up. The other two are still on the couch, though." Crane radioed, sitting back again. "Are we moving in, over?"

"I really wanted them all definitely in one place," Decker's voice replied, "but we're running out of time..."

In a car stationed outside the apartment building, the Colonel checked his watch. Half an hour to midnight, indeed to the end of the year; it would be a dramatic move to catch The A-Team right as the big ball dropped, but he knew it wouldn't be sensible to wait any longer. He looked around the three MPs in the car with him, then signalled them to get ready, radioing Crane as he got out himself.

"...alright, let's do it. I'll go up with my team, you be right behind. Out."

Decker led the three soldiers across the sidewalk at a jog, hurrying through the lobby and past the confused building super, then taking the stairs two at a time. When they reached the fourth floor, slightly out of breath, they hurried down the corridor until they reached 404, then paused outside the apartment's front door, listening.

The only sounds inside were from the TV, which seemed to be playing a musical, as the heard dialogue give way to music. Though it was indistinct, Decker thought he perhaps recognised the tune, but quickly put the thought aside. Turning to the men, he gave his final, whispered briefing.

"Now listen. I don't want any of them getting away, this is going to be clean and simple. This is the only exit, and Smith, Peck, and Baracus are only going through it in handcuffs."

"Yes, sir." the men chorused quietly, then went to their positions, one either side of the door and the last behind Decker, who took the safety off his handgun menacingly.

After a short hand-signal countdown, Decker placed a well-aimed, powerful kick to the door handle, which burst open at once. Leaping inside, he bought his gun to bear on the figures on the couch- and froze at what was inside.

"...wiedersehen, adieu!"

"Adieu! Adieu! To you and you and you!"

The tinny instrumental was lost in Decker's roar of frustration.

"Turn that off!" he shouted, and one of the men did so with a click.

Looking around, he took in the full picture. What Crane had described seeing from across the street was nothing more than a series of practical effects put on for their benefit. The TV had been real enough, the VCR loaded with a tape of 'The Sound Of Music', but the glow from the 'Christmas tree' in fact came from a string of lights hung sloppily on the wall, and the cigar smoke from a handful of cigarettes smouldering in an ashtray, responsibly placed in a dish of water to prevent a fire. It seemed that the distortion effect of the net curtains had done a lot of heavy lifting, as other than that, the flat was empty. 

The most important part, though, was that the couch only held two figures not because the third had got up: the third dummy had merely fallen forward, apparently pulled down by a weight timed by a home-made water clock. A sign in the 'laps' of the other two read 'Catch you next year! - The A Team' in bright red writing.

"Dammit!" Decker shouted, just as Crane and his contingent arrived in the doorway.

"Colonel, what's-"

"We've been duped, again!" He kicked the couch in frustration.

"What- but- where else can they be?" Crane asked, stupefied. "We tracked them all the way out here from LA, we've been on this for weeks, how did they-"

"I don't care how!" Decker cut in. "I want to know where they are now!"

The accompanying soldiers watched as Decker and Crane seemed to have the same thought at the same time, locking eyes. Crane shook his head a little in disbelief.

"Surely not, sir."

"I don't see where else, Captain."

"Right." Crane turned the nearest MP. "I need flights back to LA, as soon as possible."

"But sir, it's New Year's Ev-"

"Now, Corporal! And have a car waiting to take us to the VA hospital!" Crane looked back at Decker. "Your present might be a bit late, sir, but I'm sure we'll get them."

"I wish I had your faith, Captain." Decker replied, still annoyed. "Let's go."