Simon stared at the stairwell door as it gradually swung closed, shutting out the sound of Jim Ellison's hasty exit.

Damn, this week hadn't been going well at all, and now it seemed to be getting worse. With a sigh, he went to the ICU nurse's station, where numerous monitors tracked the heart and respiration of the critical care patients. "Excuse me," he said, feeling a little lost and out of his depth over the rift between his two friends. "Blair Sandburg -- how's he doing?"

The nurse recognized Simon from his too-frequent visits to ICU over the years. "He's breathing on his own, Captain Banks," she told him. "Everything looks good, but we'll be keeping him here in ICU for awhile to closely monitor his respiration. We don't want him catching an infection."

"No," Simon agreed, then, "Is there a chance I could see him?"

The nurse pondered the request for a moment. "He and that other detective had an argument," she said, disapproval strong in her voice. "It upset Mr. Sandburg. I won't have that."

"I know. I don't plan to upset him."

She relented with a sigh. "All right, but you'll have to wear a face mask. The more precautions we take, the better it will be for him."

"Fine." I'll wear a damn biohazard suit if it will help him get better.

A minute later, he was standing at the bedside. "Hey, Sandburg, how're you doing?"

Blair had his back turned, but he rolled over and greeted the Captain. "Hi, Simon." His voice was listless, and his eyes glittered with the unshed tears of fierce emotion.

Quietly, Simon observed, "Guess you've had a rough couple of weeks."

"Yeah," Blair replied. His sore throat made his voice sound husky. "I think today took the prize though."

Simon smiled behind the facemask. "I guess a near death experience would be hard to beat."

"Clinical death," Blair explained calmly. "Not near death."

"OK," Simon said agreeably. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Thanks, but I guess I'll be here for a few days."

"I know. I meant, can I help with anything else?"

"Oh." Blair thought about it for a minute. "I don't think so."

Simon was quiet for awhile, his eyes roving aimlessly over the equipment monitoring Blair's condition. Finally, he said, "It's probably none of my business, but I don't think it's right that Jim's shut you out, especially now."

Blair didn't reply at first. Then he sighed guiltily. "Thanks, Simon, but it wasn't Jim. It was me."

Simon's brows knitted in confusion. "You?"

Haltingly, Blair confessed, "I was supposed to make a choice."

"Oh." Simon was more bemused than ever. "Then Jim shouldn't have pushed you to make it." Why am I blaming everything on Jim? he wondered idly. Because Jim had been a friend longer, because he was the one who'd been acting totally weird lately, because...well, because Simon just couldn't place blame on someone who looked so damned vulnerable in a hospital bed.

Blair smiled slightly. "It wasn't Jim."

"Who then?"

"The Shaman in my vision."

Uh-oh. This was going to be one of those conversations. "Sandburg, you know I'm not real good at this mystical stuff."

"Neither am I, obviously." Blair plucked idly at the bed covers. At last, he whispered, "I was afraid." It was the cliff, his little voice told him defensively. If the choice hadn't involved a cliff, you would have been just fine. Mentally, Blair shook his head. No, the cliff had been an excuse. "Uh, Simon, could you get me some paper and a pen?"

"Sure -- letter or notebook?" Simon replied, relieved to have something normal to talk about.

"Notebook please. I had a dream I'd like to write down, while it's still fresh."

Curious now, Simon asked, "About the Shaman?"

Blair shook his head. "No. Something with Jim." He thought about his vision with the Shaman. Had it happened while he was still technically dead beside the fountain or here, in the hospital? The only thing he knew for certain was that it had preceded the shared dream with Jim. It had been the catalyst that had compelled him to force Jim to pull away.

"OK, I'll get some paper from the shop downstairs and bring it right back," Simon promised. "You need to get some rest, you know."

"I will, after I write down the dream."

"OK. Anything else?"

Blair was silent for a long time, then asked softly, "Where's Jim?"

Simon shrugged. "Around, I guess. I don't know. He didn't act like a man who intended to go home."

"Oh." A very small word, spoken in a very small voice.

"You want me to try to find him?"

Blair shook his head. "No." We need a little time and distance. I need a little time and distance.

 

Jim walked out of the hospital and looked around in bemused surprise. Inside the hospital, the passage of time had been measured by the hands on his watch, ignored these many hours; out here, daylight had turned to dusk, and the deep crimson band on the horizon told him the sun had set long ago.

He looked around for a cab -- one usually could be found trolling the hospital for customers -- and spotted his truck parked in the nearby reserved lot. He'd left it parked at the university, keys in the ignition, early that morning. One of the others must have driven it here and forgotten to mention it.

He went to it and checked the door. Locked. There was no sign of a key in the ignition. Satisfied the truck was secure, he went back into the hospital to the security office. He knew the officer on duty. "Hey, Davis."

"Detective Ellison," the brawny young man greeted cheerfully. He'd wanted to be a cop once, but his eyesight hadn't met hiring standards. This setback hadn't fazed his optimistic outlook on life, and he was content with his present job. "Don't tell me you're back again."

Jim smiled slightly and shook his head. "My partner -- again," he answered.

Davis frowned. "Nuthin' serious, I hope."

"Could have been," Jim admitted, resolutely pushing back the memories of the morning. "He gonna be OK, but I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

"Sure. What is it?"

"My truck's parked in your reserved lot. I want to leave it there so my partner has something to drive when he gets out of here."

"No problem. You got the keys?"

Jim handed over his spare set of truck keys. "He's in ICU right now, but they'll move him in a couple of days."

Davis dropped the keys into an envelope, sealed it, and scrawled across the front: "Blair Sandburg, ICU". "There you go. I'll see he gets 'em."

"Thanks." What if he doesn't want them? What if he doesn't want anything to do with me? "Whatever happens, someone will move the truck when Sandburg checks out, OK?"

"No problem," Davis assured him again.

"OK, thanks again, Davis," Jim replied gratefully, glad one small detail was out of the way. "See you later."

"Goodbye, Detective Ellison," Davis said, pleased he could be of service to the police.

Outside once again, Jim found a taxi after only a minute of waiting. The western sky had lost its crimson radiance, but a thin layer of clouds reflected back the city's lights and made the night almost as bright as day.

He had the cab take him to the precinct. In the bullpen, he was not surprised to see most of the detectives still at work, the core team of investigators who had been at the fountain that morning working overtime to track down Alex Barnes.

"Jim, how's Sandburg doing?" Brown asked immediately.

"He'll be fine," Jim assured everyone, heading directly to his desk. His behavior over the past few days had made the others wary, so although most stopped what they were doing to glance at him and try to gage his mood, they left him alone. He switched on his computer; while he waited for it to boot up, he took out his wallet and searched through it until he found the scrap of paper he wanted. A telephone number was jotted beside a brief note, and he dialed it quickly, refusing to think about whether or not he was acting rashly.

"Mr. Burke?" he addressed the man who answered. "It's Jim Ellison again -- I talked to you a couple of weeks ago."

"Yes, Mr. Ellison," Burke replied, remembering.

Jim almost didn't dare hope to hear the answer he wanted. "I was wondering if you still have it?"

"Actually, I do." Burke laughed a little self-consciously. "After we talked, I realized what you said was true about the price I was asking. I obviously didn't want to sell it, so I didn't run the ad the next week."

"I'll pay your original asking price, in cash, tomorrow morning," Jim told him, anticipating a firm rejection.

There was silence for a long minute. "Well, it's no secret I can use the money," Burke admitted. "But you said yourself the price is too high." Jim didn't answer; he'd only talked to Burke twice on the telephone before tonight, but he knew the man was not the sort to respond to pressure. At last, the man spoke again, a chuckle in his voice. "All right, it's a deal. I need to start looking for something else to fix up anyway."

"I'll be at your place tomorrow at ten o'clock," Jim promised, took down the address, and hung up with a feeling of anticipation. Firmly, he ignored the practical side of his nature that told him he was about to embark on a very expensive, very foolish odyssey.

Dismissing tomorrow from his mind, he logged into the computer and typed up his report about the attempt on his life by Alex Barnes. It didn't sound so bad written in his dry, official-sounding prose. She'd had him dead to rights -- a little drum roll on the 'dead' part, please -- and only Megan's arrival had thwarted the plan. Then, of course, Alex had moved on to complete the second half of her plot, the murder of Blair Sandburg. If she'd been a little less diabolical and settled for a simple bullet through the back of the skull, she would have been successful.

The possibilities were too numerous and too painful to contemplate, so Jim pushed them aside while he finished his work. When he was through, he printed a copy for the file, saved his report to the hard drive, and closed the program. For several minutes, he stared blankly at the Cascade PD logo wallpaper on the monitor, his thoughts drifting to the dream -- or vision -- he might (or might not, the little voice inside him insisted) have shared with Blair. It had been an unnerving experience, well beyond his comprehension and threshold of belief. And yet...

...aren't you the Sentinel who has visions involving an animal spirit guide or the Shaman? What was so different about this particular vision? Well, Blair had been there. He's been in your visions before -- remember the wolf? That was a dream, not a vision. What's the difference, if they come true? You dreamed Blair's death, and he died. Who cares if the vision came from some great cosmic Western Union or from your own subconscious? Did either make it any less real? So, again, what was so different about this particular vision? OK, it was different because Sandburg had been an active part of it, asking questions, demanding answers, forcing you to confront truths you didn't want to face. Sandburg had been acting like...a shaman.

And Jim had shut him down.

Elbows on his desk, Jim heeled his eyes with his hands in an effort to rub away some of the gritty tiredness. It didn't work. He had to get some sleep tonight, certainly before his meeting with Burke tomorrow morning. But sleep meant dreams, and he really didn't want to dream.

There were a lot of things he had to think about, most of them involving his partner -- ex-partner, if he wanted to be brutally technical. If Blair made the commitment to be Guide and Shaman, what exactly did that mean? Was there some sort of training involved, some sort of mystical vision quest? And, perhaps more importantly, how much control would Jim have to give up in order to make this weird symbiosis work? Could he do it, or would he shut Blair out again, refusing his help on anything but the most superficial level?

Too damn many questions, not a single answer.

With a sigh, Jim opened the word processing application on his computer and started to type. Whatever the hell the answers turned out to be, he had to start rebuilding the bridges somewhere.

He had just finished his own little magnum opus when Megan and Rafe came in, both looking discouraged after a fruitless search for the elusive Alex. "We've checked every bus line, every train, every airline and car rental agency in the city," she grumbled, perhaps exaggerating just a bit but not too far off the mark. She thumped a thick file folder down on Jim's desk, as if defying him to make a comment about his "personal space." If she was spoiling for a fight, she wasn't going to get one.

Jim folded the printed copy of his message to Blair and put it in an envelope, which he sealed. "Connor, are you going to see Sandburg tomorrow?" he asked mildly.

Megan smiled. "Of course. Simon called with the good news that he's regained consciousness."

Jim handed her the envelope. "Will you see he gets this, please?"

She accepted it with a little frown of curiosity. "Why don't you give it to him?"

Jim shrugged. "Things haven't been going real well between us the last few days -- " -- weeks, months.... "It's better if I don't visit him right now, but I kind of want him to have that."

Megan hefted the thick envelope. "Only if you can promise me it won't upset him."

"It won't upset him," Jim assured her, smiling at her protectiveness. With Simon and Megan to look after his trouble-prone partner, Blair was in good hands. "I think it's something he'd want me to do."

"OK." She stuck the envelope in her purse.

Jim stood up and walked around his desk, where he half-sat on the corner. Everyone looked at him, conversation dropping off as they waited, wondering if he were going to say or do something else totally off the wall. Instead, he said, "I think by now it's pretty obvious Barnes has left the city. I don't think she smuggled the nerve gas canisters out separately -- she's the sort who'd want to keep them under her control. The airlines have gotten pretty leery about shipping canisters of any sort, so if she did use a commercial carrier, she would have had to get forged papers to give some innocent legitimacy to the shipment. Plus, someone still would have inspected them. The containers would have to be concealed inside other, less suspicious canisters. So that leaves us checking with document forgers, the airline inspectors, and with companies that specialize in containers for fragile or hazardous materials. Even if she left by bus or train, she probably disguised the VX as something else. And we need to check the private airports, see if someone flew her out of here. Does anyone know if she's a licensed pilot?"

"And here I thought we were running out of angles," Rafe murmured with a sigh.

"That's probably why they call us 'junior' detectives," Brown grumbled back good-naturedly, already reaching for the phone book. "I'll track down the container companies."

"I'll start checking with our local paper artists," Rafe replied.

"I guess that leaves me with the private airfields," Megan added, thinking her torn and creased area map was about to get another workout. To Jim, she said, "What will you be doing?"

His calm façade slipped just a little, barely enough for anyone to notice. "Uh, I'm going to cut out on you for a couple of days," he answered awkwardly, knowing everyone would think this behavior very strange in light of events. "I'm sorry, but I just need to take a little personal time."

Megan looked concerned, but she'd learned to recognize when the barriers were up. Lightly, she said, "OK, we'll hold down the fort, as you Yanks are so fond of saying."

"Thanks."

Leaving the bullpen a scant two minutes before Simon's return, he went down to the motor pool, where he checked out a car.

Reluctantly, he drove back to the loft. The interior was as cold and empty as he'd left it. Whatever his motivation had been for stripping it bare, the ambience matched his frame of mind perfectly. Ignoring the barren silence, he went upstairs and packed his carryon bag -- a couple of changes of clothes, some extra underwear. After a shower, he tossed his toilette articles into the bag, then dressed in several layers of warm clothing, which he could shed as needs dictated. As an afterthought, he slipped his passport into his coat pocket, not certain which direction his coming sojourn would take him. Lastly, he went down to his storage room and retrieved his sleeping bag.

Upstairs again, he was grateful his compulsion to remove any 'clutter' from his home had not extended to the bedroom. With a groan of exhaustion, he lay down atop the bed comforter and staunchly closed his eyes.

Although weary in every muscle, sleep would not come. A bit later, the ringing of the telephone shattered any illusion he had of resting.

He let it ring, the noise abnormally loud as it reverberated through the empty spaces of the loft. The answering machine finally picked up, and Simon's disembodied voice asked where the hell was he anyway? Jim didn't bother to answer him.

Instead, he got up, picked up his bag, and left the apartment. Simon would eventually come to check on him, and he didn't want to be there when it happened.

Back on the street, he looked at the police sedan for a minute and decided it would be too easy to track down. He knew from experience that a determined Simon had no qualms about tracing his movements, whether by APB or credit card transactions. And Jim wasn't in the mood to be found.

Instead, he did something totally unnatural -- he climbed aboard a bus going in the direction he wanted to go. When the route veered away from his destination, he got off again and finished his journey on foot, arriving at last at an all-night restaurant just a half-block from his bank. In the morning, when the bank opened, he would take out some cash.

After that, he would be gone.

 

Simon hung up the phone in disgust. He didn't bother to leave a message after yet another call to the loft produced only the sound of the answering machine. "Anything?" he asked Joel Taggart, who had volunteered his services while the other detectives spread the search net for Alex Barnes.

Taggart shook his head. "He took the unmarked back to his place and left it. But he's not there."

"OK, that leaves the taxi companies," Simon speculated, not thinking for one moment that Jim Ellison might actually deign to ride the bus. "I am not going to let him run out like this, not with Sandburg stuck in the hospital. They're gonna have to settle things."

"Maybe it's not a good idea to push it," Taggart observed calmly, not quite understanding why Simon felt so compelled to mend the rift between the detective and the anthropologist. Yes, they were friends, very close friends; but even the best of friends occasionally had a falling out, sometimes at what looked like the worst possible time. This was no different. They'd fix it after they'd given each other a little breathing room.

Simon thought about the advice for a minute, finally nodded. "Maybe so," he conceded.

His telephone rang, and he answered it. "Captain Banks." He listened for a minute, his expression becoming more and more worried. When he finally hung up the receiver, he looked like a man in shock.

"Simon, what's wrong?" Taggart asked anxiously.

Simon stood up and reached for his overcoat. "Sandburg's taken a turn for the worse. He's unresponsive, and they've got him back on oxygen." As he shrugged into his coat, he looked grimly at Joel. "Find Jim Ellison," was all he said before striding from his office.

In the bullpen, Megan stopped him. "Captain, are you going to the hospital to see Sandy?"

Simon halted at her desk. "As a matter of fact, I am," he answered, not reporting the alarming news he'd just received. He wanted to check out the situation for himself before he told his detectives any depressing developments.

Megan handed him the envelope Jim had given her. "Would you see he gets this, please? I probably won't get over there until tomorrow morning."

Simon accepted the thick envelope. "What is it?"

"I don't know. Something Jim wanted him to have."

Simon nodded. "OK, I'll take it to him. And don't stay here too late -- " He addressed this last to everyone in the bullpen. "I want you back here fresh tomorrow morning."

A chorus of acknowledgements followed him out the door.

Damnit, Jim, where are you? Simon raged to himself as he drove quickly to the hospital and parked directly in front. He stuck a "police business" placard on the dashboard before locking up and hurrying inside. Jim's truck was still parked in the reserved lot, so he hadn't come back for it. The sedan he had checked out of the motor pool was still in front of the loft. It looked as if Jim had simply walked away, which would make him just that much harder to find.

Feeling as if he'd never left the depressing confines of the hospital, he rode the elevator up to ICU and went to the nurse's station. "I'm here about Blair Sandburg," he said, introducing himself to a nurse he didn't recognize.

"Yes, Captain Banks," the nurse replied crisply. "Unfortunately, the doctor has ordered no visitors."

"But how is he?"

"Running a high fever," she reported. "There doesn't seem to be any fluid building up in his lungs, but the doctor has ordered an analysis of some water -- " She consulted the chart. " -- from a fountain, is that right? -- in order to track the source of the infection."

"Is he on any medication?" Simon persisted, desperate for information. The draped cubicle were Blair was resting loomed tantalizingly close, but he resisted the urge to go see for himself the condition of his young friend.

"Yes, the doctor has put him on some antibiotics. We're also working to bring down the fever."

"The person who phoned me said Sandburg was unconscious?"

"Yes, he appears to have slipped back into a coma. It has the doctor very worried -- it's not something we would associate with a pulmonary infection. He's ordered another EEG for tomorrow morning."

Simon sighed in frustration and handed her his business card. "OK. Will the doctor be checking on him again tonight?"

"I don't think so, not unless there's a radical change in Mr. Sandburg's condition," the nurse answered.

"If there is a change, please call me. My home phone number is on the card." Belatedly, he remembered the envelope and took it out of his pocket. "And would you leave this for him, please? Just in case he wakes up. I'm betting it's something he'll want to read." And if it upsets him, by God, I swear I'll beat Jim to a bloody pulp with my bare hands...

"I'll leave it beside his bed," the nurse promised, taking the envelope. "Good night, Captain Banks."

"Good night," Simon returned dispiritedly, heading back toward the elevator.

 

Damn, he didn't want to be here, not again. The cliff edge was in front of him, the dizzying drop into the abyss only inches away from his toes. Overcome with panic, he stumbled backwards to safer ground, then looked around, knowing the Shaman would be there. He wasn't disappointed.

"Why did you bring me back here?" he asked, bitterness and shame keeping his voice low. "I thought I'd already made my choice."

"You chose with your fears, not with your heart," the Shaman observed, not sounding the least disappointed or judgmental. "But the time is upon you now."

"A last chance to make the right choice," Blair retorted sarcastically.

"Why are you afraid?" The question was simple, but the words were filled with a portentous undercurrent.

Blair figured the Shaman could order a Biggie Fries and drink and make it sound like the Sermon on the Mount. "I don't like heights," he countered just as simply.

"Why are you afraid?"

OK, so he wasn't getting off the hook quite so easily. He thought about an answer, an honest answer. "I've never been responsible for anyone before," he admitted finally, the words coming in a rush. "I'm afraid of being responsible for the Sentinel. I'm afraid I'll screw up. I could get him killed. I'm afraid of being a shaman. I don't know what it means."

The Shaman dismissed these heartfelt truths with a single shrug. "You are afraid of yourself," he said.

"Afraid of myself?" Blair echoed, bewildered. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You have studied cultures throughout the world," the Shaman continued, unoffended by the outburst. "And yet, what beliefs have you embraced?"

Blair felt his emotional balance slip. "An anthropologist has to remain objective -- " Even to himself, the words sounded trite. The Shaman had not asked what he'd observed or what he'd learned. He'd asked what Blair believed. Suddenly feeling afraid and vulnerable, he mumbled, "I don't know."

"You are what you have always been." Riddle piled upon riddle.

Blair tried to quell the sudden trembling in his body. "I've always been a shaman?" he whispered at last, unable to comprehend the enormity of the revelation.

"Just as your Sentinel has always been a sentinel," came the calm reply. "You can choose the gifts or reject them, but you will remain as you have always been."

Just for a moment, hope glimmered at the edges of his mind before vanishing. "This is the twentieth, damn near the twenty-first, century. I live in the modern world. What am I supposed to do as a shaman -- live out of a cardboard box in an alley?" The image of Gabe, self-proclaimed angel and certainly nothing less than self-sacrificing hero, stabbed painfully into his memory. Did Blair have the resolve just to let go of all his ambitions and dreams? He'd never thought of himself as a material person before, but did he have the courage to reject every aspect of his life? Angrily, he said, "You want me to make a choice, but I'm not ready. This is like taking vows or something, like becoming a priest or a monk. It's not something I can decide so quickly." Besides, even priests and monks had a support structure to take care of them. What would he have? -- The fickle largesse of a sentinel and the spiritual guidance of a dream-plane apparition.

The Shaman actually appeared amused for a moment, and Blair though 'Uh-oh, he also reads minds.'

"What changes do you perceive by embracing your destiny?" the Shaman asked mildly, his fierce demeanor firmly back in place. "A shaman seeks knowledge and teaches others what he has learned. A shaman must be responsible for his own mortal needs and cannot rely on others for his food or clothing. If you have always been a shaman, have you not also always been a man?"

Blair remained skeptical. "You're saying nothing changes?"

"All things change," the Shaman countered. "You will learn what you must learn, just as you always have, only you must open yourself to embrace the lessons."

Oh, boy. Blair looked back toward the cliff edge, but the same giddy nausea swept over him. He knew he wasn't ready for this. Saddened by this realization, he turned to confess his doubts to the Shaman, but the stately figure had vanished, leaving him alone with his emptiness and despair. Maybe the Shaman had seen the fear in his soul and finally abandoned him in disgust.

Ahead, he saw something he hadn't noticed before: There was a clearing in the jungle.

A feeling of dread washed through him. He knew he didn't want to go near the clearing, but his footsteps carried him inevitably forward, as if he were trapped in a nightmare where his actions were controlled by unseen forces.

Oil wells crowded the arid plain, their pumping arms diligently raping the earth, their rusty casings leaking raw petroleum to poison the ground and destroy every living thing as far as the eye could see. The jungle had vanished -- the parched land stretched to the horizon, the rhythmic chugging of each well combining with the next to create one giant cacophony of noise, a symphony to industry run rampant with greed.

And there were bodies. Hundreds of them. Men, women and children sprawled awkwardly on the fetid ground, their limbs frozen with rigor, sightless eyes open to a sky they would never see again. Chopek. The decorations on skin and clothing told him they were Chopek. All dead. An entire civilization wiped out in a single moment of cataclysm.

Terror and revulsion consumed Blair, and he retched helplessly at the carnage, his mind unable to understand or comprehend the sheer scope of the annihilation. Shivering even in the warm tropical heat, he crossed his arms and gripped his elbows in unconscious denial.

And then he heard a sound. It rose above the monotonous thud of the pumping wells and thrust into his soul like a knife blade penetrating his heart:

The roar of a jaguar, arrogant and triumphant after the kill.

Weak and sick, Blair's emotions started to fold in on themselves, his wretchedness almost overpowering him. Then a sudden swell of anger claimed him, driving back the despair, and he glared defiantly toward his unseen enemy. Before he could change his mind, he turned away and started running, legs pumping strongly beneath him, accelerating until he was almost flying over the ground. The cliff edge yawned before him, but he didn't slow. With a howl as savage and primal as any beast, he launched himself into the air.

However, he did permit himself to close his eyes as he soared over the abyss.

 

It took a minute to reorient himself when he finally opened his eyes again. He was in the hospital, the beeping of his heart monitor a frantic staccato. Certain his scream must have woken all the other patients in ICU, he was a little surprised to hear only the snores and snuffles of peaceful slumber around him. Gradually, his breathing slowed.

A nurse parted the curtain and entered the cubicle. "Are you all right, Mr. Sandburg?" she asked calmly. "Your heart rate and respiration seem a little elevated."

A little elevated, Blair's thoughts echoed. There's a classic case of understatement. "Sorry, it was just a dream," he murmured in apology. I jumped off a cliff. It was wonderful! He grinned at her, but she was oblivious to his unabashed joy.

She took his blood pressure and temperature. "Your fever's down," she said proudly, as if it had been all her doing. "You had us worried for awhile. How are you feeling?"

"Weak," Blair admitted, his enthusiasm fading as he took inventory. "And my chest hurts when I breathe."

"Part of that comes from the CPR you received yesterday morning," the nurse explained. "And you have an infection in your lungs. Looks as if the antibiotics are taking care of it, though. Do you feel as if you're getting enough air?"

"Yeah, it just hurts a bit, that's all." Absently, Blair felt the narrow tube inside his nostrils. It was supplying extra oxygen to the air he was breathing. At least it wasn't a tube down his throat. "Can we get rid of this thing?"

"I'll ask the doctor," the nurse promised. She heard a commotion from the other end of the ward. "I need to check on another patient," she said. "I'll call the doctor in just a few minutes."

"Thank you." As soon as she had left, Blair removed the plastic tube from his nose and sat up. The sudden movement made him feel a little dizzy, but it did not deter him from carefully removing the IV needle from the back of his hand. The sharp discomfort made him wince. This mission accomplished, he eased out of bed and stood up, testing his balance cautiously. He made it to his feet, but had to lean against the side of the bed to gather strength. Damn, he had the flu. It wasn't a lung infection, or if it had been, the antibiotics had knocked it down. No, he had to go and catch the flu as well. Nothing could destroy the resolve of a superhero faster than a good old-fashioned virus. He chuckled at the silliness of the thought, and this bolstered his energy enough to straighten up and take stock of his surroundings.

Since no one knew where his clothes had gone after Jim had thrown him out of the loft, someone had bought him a terrycloth robe. It was inexpensive, but the thoughtfulness behind it was priceless. Gratefully, Blair slipped it on. As battle dress went, it lacked a certain menace, but at least he wouldn't have to leave the hospital with his bare bottom mooning the world. The hospital also provided certain necessities, and these were wrapped in clear plastic atop the small nightstand beside the bed. He unwrapped a pair of cheap, open-heeled slippers and put them on, then searched quickly through the small drawer in the nightstand. No wallet, and no money, but at least he found the keys to his office.

Then he saw the envelope addressed to him in Jim's handwriting. His fingers hesitated over it for a moment before picking it up and putting it in the pocket of his bathrobe. Whatever it was would have to wait until later. There was another envelope beneath it, also with his name on it, and he opened it. Keys. After a moment, he recognized them. They were the spare set to the truck. Was it parked nearby? Feeling more confident, he finally disconnected the leads to the heart monitor, knowing it would set off alarms at the nurse's station. He exited quickly before she returned from her mission down the ward and found out he was gone.

The hallways were deserted, so he was able to skulk undetected to the stairwell. Once inside, he held tightly to the railing and stumbled downward as quickly as his trembling legs would carry him. At the bottom was the entrance to a parking garage. It was dark and almost deserted, but Blair still moved cautiously, afraid his unauthorized departure would be noted at any moment and the alarms raised. A side door led outside and shut with finality behind him.

There were people out here, staff mostly, some getting off work, others coming in to start a shift. He skirted the employee parking lot and hid in some nearby bushes. Luckily, the lot was well lit, and it didn't take him long to locate the pickup. Still wary of being spotted, he crouched and crept from car to car until he reached the truck. Unlocking the door, he climbed inside. All the sneaking around had exhausted him, and he took a minute to catch his breath. Although none of his symptoms felt severe, the cumulative effects of dizziness, chills, sweating and headache made him long for a soft, warm bed. Damn, but he'd picked up a nasty bug from the water in the fountain. Trying to ignore his discomfort, he inserted the key in the ignition and started the truck.

Heading out of the parking lot, he turned on the radio and found a late-night disc jockey who obligingly told him it was five o'clock in the morning. In the darkness, Blair almost smiled. It had been slightly less than twenty-four hours since Alex had entered his office with a gun in her hand. It felt more like twenty-four years.

He drove quickly to the university and parked as near as he could to his office, finally stopping very close to the spot where Jim had parked the previous morning, although Blair did not know that. He glanced around, but the area was deserted. Resolutely, he refused to look at the fountain. Its pleasant associations were gone forever; now, it would always be the place where he had died.

Shaking off the morbid thought, he climbed out of the truck and went up to his office. Luck was still with him. He didn't see anyone at all. Of course, it was early. In another hour or so, people would be coming in. He didn't have much time.

When he'd finally locked his office door behind him, he allowed himself to relax a bit. Running around in a robe and slippers had made him feel uncomfortably ridiculous.

All of his boxes were stacked in front of his bookshelves. Ignoring them for the moment, he turned on his computer, waited while it booted, then set out to access the database at the university's biohazard labs. He knew he had no chance of accessing any critical data, but he assumed there would be some information on VX nerve gas, and he was a man badly in need of information. Although the documents were password protected, they weren't classified at the same high level of security any actual research data would possess, so he was able to hack in with only a little difficulty. He remembered when they'd investigated the theft of the Ebola virus. The head of the department had used his own birthdate for his password. Although the password had changed, it wasn't any trouble to pull up the man's personnel folder and find other significant dates he might be using now. The magic number turned out to be a combination of the birth months and days of his two youngest children. Piece of cake. He quickly accessed the data he wanted and hit the print key. After this, breaking into the administration office to retrieve the printed pages would be a simple matter.

It was time to think about getting dressed. Spotting the large box containing the bulk of his clothes, he pulled it out and began to dress. He found the sturdy backpack he used for camping and began to stuff it with the supplies he would need for a trip.

There was also a box that hadn't been unpacked from before he'd ever moved into Jim's loft. It was labeled 'field items'. Opening it, he found Band-Aids, antiseptic cream, insect repellent, sunblock, foot powder and other sundry items necessary for a trek through the wilderness. There were also some water purification tablets and a backpacker's water filtration unit with extra filters. The insect repellent had an expiration date for the previous year. He tossed it into his pack anyway. What the hell, he thought...he'd expired, too, but he was still working. Somewhat, at least...

The memories slammed back with agonizing force, causing him to crumple to the floor abruptly. Curling into himself, he hugged his knees and rolled onto his side. Distantly recognizing the symptoms of a panic attack, he knew the wildly racing heart and cold sweat were just physical manifestations of an emotional surge, but that didn't make them any easier to bear. Rocking back and forth, he trembled fearfully, his eyes closed tightly as he sought to fight back the terrifying images that reduced him to almost infantile helplessness. There was no one to hold onto this time, no one to murmur gentle words of comfort, no one to help him make it go away.

He didn't know how much time had passed. When he finally pushed himself shakily into a sitting position and wiped a hand across his sweat-soaked forehead, he figured it couldn't have been long. The halls outside were still quiet.

What the hell did he think he was doing, skulking out of the hospital to pursue a far superior adversary? He was in no condition to go after Alex. He must have been out of his mind with fever when he'd made the decision to try. The wisest course would be to call someone -- Simon, maybe -- to fetch him back to the hospital.

From his new vantage point on the floor, he saw the box containing his passport. It was mixed in with the contents of his small home desk. Home? That was another subject best left until another time. Abandoning all thoughts of quitting, he pocketed the passport and climbed back to his feet.

There only remained the problem of money.

Backpack in tow, he locked the office behind him and hurried down the empty corridor to the administration office. Picking the meager lock was a simple task, and he was inside in less than a minute. The printer had just coughed out the last of his document, so he rolled the thick stack tightly and shoved it into his pack. Taking out his pocketknife, he worked to pop the lock on the filing cabinet, his ears alert for sounds of anyone coming down the hall. He knew he had only minutes before professors and other staff would start arriving for the day.

The lock opened at last, and he pulled out the first drawer. He found what he was looking for in the third one down. It was filled with travel vouchers and other forms necessary for the smooth running of a field expedition. He pulled out a folder in the back and took out one of the three American Express credit cards issued to the anthropology department. Leaving everything else as he'd found it, he relocked the cabinet, said a silent apology to the administrative assistant responsible for the office, and vowed to have the card returned (with full reimbursement) before its theft could be discovered. Either that, or he'd be sending his apologies from a jail cell, his job and career in ruins.

He left the office, locking the door again, and headed for the truck. He was just exiting the building when he met another instructor coming in. The man looked at him oddly. "Oh," the teacher began awkwardly. "I thought you, umm -- "

Blair grinned disarmingly and kept moving. "Mark Twain already said it, so I won't bother to repeat it."

He didn't see the bemused look that followed him to the truck.

Four hours later, after some incredible luck buying a ticket on short notice and a lengthy wait at the airport, he was on a plane bound for Lima, Peru.

 

Jim's bank opened at 9 a.m. After a long, boring night spent drinking coffee in the all-night diner, he finished a meager breakfast, paid his bill to a waitress who'd assumed he'd become a permanent fixture, picked up his gear, and headed up the street.

He joined the queue of early-morning customers. When it was his turn at the teller window, he purchased a bank draft and ten thousand dollars in travelers checks, then withdrew a little extra in cash. He had no idea what prompted him to withdraw such a large amount, but he wasn't about to question the impulse; he could always cash in the unused checks later.

Outside again a few minutes later, his savings account badly depleted, he caught a taxi and gave the driver Burke's address.

It proved to be a modest, neatly maintained home in an older, well-kept middle-class neighborhood. As he paid off the taxi and picked up his belongings, Burke stepped onto the front porch to wait for him. He was a big man, middle-aged, his belly just starting to sag a little over the top of his belt. He grinned when he saw Jim's gear. "Looks as if you'll be setting out from here," he observed, a twinge of envy in his voice.

"Hope to," Jim admitted, rearranging his grip so he could shake the man's hand.

They went around the side of the house to the garage. Burke lifted the door. "There she is."

As before, the sight was enough to take Jim's breath away. A 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle, so lovingly restored it looked showroom new, gleamed in the dim interior of the garage. Even parked, it exuded power and a lust for the open road. To a purist, the luggage rack and non-standard rich burgundy paint job might have been eyesores, but Jim didn't care. It was perfect.

He touched the chrome handlebars almost lovingly. "You've done a helluva job," he admired.

Burke beamed with pride. "Thanks. She'll take you where you want to go."

"I hope so." Jim handed over the bank draft without a qualm, not caring that he'd overpaid by at least a couple of thousand. The man's artistry was evident, and his reluctance to sell understandable. Jim was only glad Burke had decided to part with his treasure. "I had an Indian when I was in high school," he revealed quietly. "Nothing like this, but I spent half of one summer restoring it. I spent the rest of the summer on a cross-country trip, put over ten thousand miles on it." He grinned suddenly. "Used to street race it when I was feeling particularly ornery."

Burke returned the grin. "Me, too. Had an old Motoguzzi when I was sixteen." He patted the Indian. "The ten thousand miles she can handle; don't know about the racing."

"No racing," Jim promised.

They concluded the necessary paperwork, and Jim strapped his gear in place.

Burke went to a nearby shelf and took down a couple of items. "Here, I'll throw in the helmet and wheel lock," he offered a little self-consciously, probably feeling a bit guilty for getting the high price he'd asked for the motorcycle.

"Thanks." The helmet matched the bike and sported the Indian logo on the front. It fit Jim as if it had been custom made for him. He added the wheel lock to his gear, and then straddled the big motorcycle. He knew he wasn't exactly dressed for touring -- his leather jacket wasn't a motorcycle style, and his hiking books fell far short of accepted couture, but it was the best he could do. Then again, he really didn't care.

Heeling off the kickstand, he walked the bike backwards out of the garage, then tromped on the starter. The engine roared to life on the first try, idling smoothly as it growled with suppressed power.

Grinning like a teenager, Jim nodded a farewell to Burke, put the bike in gear and made a tight turn in the drive. As he accelerated up the road, he quickly reacquainted himself with the handling of a big motorcycle. By the time he reached the freeway, he was completely confident maneuvering in traffic with nothing but air between himself and the tons of motorized boxes vying for position around him.

At a few minutes after eleven, just about the time Blair's jet was lifting off in Seattle, Jim turned the motorcycle onto Highway 20 eastbound.

The open road beckoned, and he opened the throttle.

 

"What do you mean, vanished!?" Simon Banks all but roared at Taggart, who remained unfazed by the Captain's ire. "Do you mean to tell me we've not only lost our suspect, but we've lost Ellison and Sandburg as well?"

Taggart nodded. "Sandburg apparently drove Jim's truck back to the university. A professor saw him about six-thirty this morning. Said Sandburg was carrying a backpack -- not his usual school bag, but a hiking one."

Sandburg going camping? Simon didn't buy that angle for a minute. "Put out an APB on the truck."

"Already done," Taggart assured. "As for Jim, he stopped by his bank when it opened at 9 a.m. and took out a hefty chunk of change. That's the last time we can trace him." Joel shook his head in confusion. "Simon, I broke into the loft. Did you know he took out all the furniture?"

Simon frowned. "No, but he said something about it at the hospital. I just didn't know what he meant."

"Yeah, the whole place is cleaned out except for the bedroom. Looks like Jim packed for a trip, too -- he left some stuff lying around. He left his cell phone, too. Do you think maybe they went after Alex Barnes together?"

Simon pondered the possibility. "They weren't even speaking to each other; how the hell did they have time to concoct a plan to go after Barnes?" The idea was just too bizarre. Damnit, he thought savagely, the two of you had better be together or I'm going to wring both your necks when I finally get my hands on you.

 

Blair had a window seat. Getting a pillow and blanket from the flight attendant, he turned his back on the passenger in the next seat and tried to make himself comfortable. His whole body ached, certainly the result of the CPR compressions (he felt lucky none of his ribs were broken), but also because he was sick. Breathing hurt, and coughing was agony, so he did as little of each as he could manage. His head throbbed with pain and fever, and even his stomach felt queasy. In short, he was thoroughly miserable, not feeling the least competent to carry out his plan to track down Alex Barnes and stop her from annihilating the Chopek. And he didn't care what the airlines claimed about the quality of air in their passenger cabins, flying always made him sick, so he felt doubly doomed.

Although he'd been lucky to get a ticket, his travel was going to be arduous. He had to change planes twice -- once in L.A., again in Mexico City. There would be a layover at each airport, so he wouldn't arrive in Lima until ten p.m., at which time he would have been travelling for almost twelve hours. He really hadn't thought about what he intended to do once he got there -- he didn't have any cash for a hotel, he didn't even have enough money for a decent meal. His finances consisted of the few dollars in "snack" change he'd kept in his office. The American Express card responsible for buying his ticket was not linked to any automated teller machines; Blair wouldn't have known the PIN anyway. He was broke, and since he didn't know when the theft of the card might be discovered, he was leery of using it again.

At first, he tried to read the paper on VX he'd printed out at the university. It was ponderous reading, and he just wasn't up to the challenge. Admitting defeat, he stuck the document back in his pack; wrestling the bulky carryon from under the seat almost proved his undoing, and he felt frail and light-headed when he finally succeeded. Slumping back, he rested his temple against the cold glass of the window and sought a little solace for his throbbing head. He really hated flu. Even a mild case of it -- and he gauged this bout as mild because he could still achieve a certain vertical stability for several minutes at a time -- could turn the strongest man into a whimpering cry-baby. He wanted to be snuggled up in his own bed, hot tea and soup within reach, someone close by to soothe his fever with a cool washcloth.

Instead, he was aboard a jumbo jet filled with strangers, the stuffy cabin air clogging his nostrils, and probably heading toward certain death.

He was nuts, there was no other answer. Here he was, risking his job, his health, and his life by going after an enemy he didn't have a prayer of defeating. And all because of a vision experienced during a feverish delirium. Furthermore he was doing it by himself. No one knew where he was going or what he hoped to do.

This time, there would be no Jim to rescue him from his own folly.

Oh, they'd find him eventually, he was certain. The credit card theft would be discovered, its use traced at least as far as the airlines (he hadn't decided if he was going to risk using the card again to get a hotel room or food). Jim would tear the jungle apart until he found Blair's rotting corpse and brought it home for a decent burial. Actually, that thought was somewhat comforting; it was better than thinking no one would ever know what had happened to him.

Damnit, I am not going to have another panic attack! Two in one day are more than enough, thank you very much! Your brain just hasn't coped with the whole dying thing yet, so your thinking is still a bit ragged.... OK, I can deal with that.

So he forced his thoughts to other things, and naturally, they went to Jim. How the hell were they going to work through this emotional morass? Jim -- private, iron-willed, temperamental, emotionally...what? Reserved, immature, guarded?...childish at times in his black-or-white convictions about right and wrong, independent, stubborn, controlling. And don't forget courageous, protective, funny, generous and smart. OK, Jim was all of those things and more. It had taken three years to get their friendship to this point, almost all because Blair would be the one to bend in the face of Jim's need to remain in control. Jim was always in charge -- whether on a case, behind the wheel, or in the house. Because he was in charge, he was comfortable letting down his guard sometimes, amenable to new things, sometimes a simple thing like a new food, sometimes something more complex like one of Blair's numerous experiments. But there was never a doubt in either of their minds who called the shots.

For the most part, Blair had been comfortable with the arrangement. After all, growing up as the boy genius usually stuck in a classroom full of older kids, he'd learned early how to ingratiate himself, how to manipulate with subtle finesse, how to cover his ass when he needed or wanted something badly enough. His life with Naomi might have been unstable, but it had taught him resourcefulness and quick thinking, taught him how to roll with the punches life threw his way. He always landed on his feet.

Except this approach would no longer work. It was no longer enough to bend himself to fit into Jim's world. Somehow, he had to earn an almost spiritual level of faith that would permit Jim to surrender some control when it became necessary. It was the only way Blair could follow his path as Shaman and Guide.

It all came down to trust -- not the trust between friends or partners, but the trust born of absolute blind faith. Blair still didn't feel worthy of that devotion, just as he was certain Jim would never feel such total faith in anyone or anything.

The obstacles appeared insurmountable.

It hadn't been clear to him before, during their argument in the hospital. Blair had deliberately pushed Jim by confronting him with their shared dream; he'd known Jim would resist and draw away first, leaving Blair the injured party. Yes, he'd acted like a manipulative bastard. Knowing he could push Jim's buttons so effectively had given him an intoxicating sense of power, had enabled him to block out his own fears. Even Simon had taken his side.

Recalling the whole, horrid incident just made him feel worse.

Remembering Jim's letter, he pulled it out of his pocket and opened the envelope. The top sheet was handwritten, just a few words: 'Maybe this will help you with your paper.'

No apology, no explanation. But the typed pages beneath were Jim's account of the vision they had shared. Writing it must have been difficult, and the very fact that he'd done it spoke volumes about Jim's willingness to try to make it right between them again.

The tears in Blair's eyes made it impossible to read anymore, so he folded it up and put the pages almost reverently back into their envelope.

The plane began its decent to LAX, and Blair sat up with a moan of agony.

Maybe he'd be able to get some rest on the next leg of the journey.

As he waited and conserved his strength while the rest of the passengers deplaned, he realized one thing with certainty: In a few short hours, the vastness of a continent would separate him from the safety and protection of the one person he'd ever trusted with his life.

On to Part Three