Jim and Blair belong to PetFly and I'm not making money with them.

Eternal gratitude and kudos to out to Pumpkin, Destina Fortunato, Lapis Lazuli, Keelywolfe, Cedara, Graculus, April Valentine, BlackRose, LadyBD, Sheltie, Aaboe, Legion, AMD, and many others for consultation, support, and other assistance above and beyond the call of duty.
Previously published in *Warriors* by In Person Press.

Regarding the interior workings of Hoover Dam: research resources on the topic are astonishingly limited. In that and in other cases where I've been unable to verify details without taking expensive vacations, I've been forced to fall back on artistic license of the sort that dictates that Vancouver can be located at Seattle and called Cascade. To paraphrase MST3K, "If you're wondering 'bout the Hoover Dam and other science facts, repeat to yourself it's just a fic; I should really just relax."

"Sandburg, will you drop it already?" Jim Ellison snatched off the opaque goggles his partner had put on him. Underneath them he was wearing his most mulish look, the one he reserved for special occasions when he was determined to get his way: like Simon telling him to drop a case for lack of evidence, or his dad giving him grief. Or... well, any time Blair wanted his cooperation for empirical tests, like right now.

Blair pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose with an unconscious sigh, dropping his notebook and tossing his pen down on it with a frustrated snap of his wrist. There was nothing more frustrating than James Joseph Ellison in one of his obstinate moods. "Jim, we've been through this a thousand times, man. These tests don't just benefit me; they aren't some abstract thing that you never get anything out of. If it weren't for things like this, you'd have, like, zero control of your senses, you realize that?"

Jim set his chin stubbornly and Blair could see he wasn't getting anywhere. Picking up his pen, he rapped it against the tabletop irritably. "I designed this battery especially to hone your control, to challenge your limits and maybe extend them..." every word bounced right back at him off the Ellison Wall. "Never mind, whatever, you're the boss. Wanna go home? Let's just go home." Blair sighed and squirmed out of his borrowed lab coat, hanging it on its hook, and dragged his pack out from under the table. Sometimes it was hard to remember why he put up with the man, and even harder to remember why he cared so much for him.

Jim looked insufferably smug, carelessly discarding his goggles. They bounced once on the formica tabletop and Blair grimaced ruefully, glad they only cost him ten bucks and a good thick coat of black spray paint over the lenses. He scooped them up and stuffed them into his pack, hanging it off one elbow, then zipped and shouldered it. "Why do you hate this so much, Jim? Is it the clinical atmosphere? The measurements? The fact that I'm gonna use these results in my paper? Do the tests hurt? What?"

"Nah, they don't hurt, at least they didn't this time." Jim gave Blair a triumphant smirk. Jesus. Ellison was never going to let him forget that soured milk. Blair rolled his eyes.

"It's boring, Chief," Jim explained easily. "Can't you think of better things to do on a summer afternoon?"

"Well, yeah, about a thousand, but come on, Jim. This is important." Blair gestured emphatically, pointing finger nearly stabbing Jim's chest. "I want to see how much you've developed in the last few months. You've got to stay honed, keep things pushed to their limits and still be able to muster the control you need. When..." Blair hesitated for a moment, aware that the topic he was about to bring up was still a touchy one. "When Alex challenged you, you needed every edge you could get. She caught you flat-footed a few times, man. She knew what you could do and she used your abilities against you."

"We aren't going to run into Alex Barnes again." Jim's voice was abrupt, too curt, a sure-fire indicator that Blair was poking at a sore spot.

"Yeah, right." Blair had sore spots of his own regarding Alex, and no sympathy whatsoever for Jim's discomfort on the topic. He paused, giving Jim a momentary illusion of victory, then changed tracks. He was ready to press his point relentlessly even though Jim gave no indication of being receptive to it. "But what if another Sentinel shows up? Or somebody else who figures out what you can do? Even the Switchman jerked your chain, hiding bombs with patchouli oil and toxic gas next to them... Taggart and Carolyn thought they were to throw off the dogs with the demolitions team, but we both know she knew she could use your senses to manipulate you, Jim." His voice vibrated with sincere stress, but Jim was closed down, eyes forward, walking with that deceptively easy feline stride that Blair very nearly had to trot to match.

He fell silent, hitching his pack up as it threatened to slide down his shoulder, losing several inches' ground to Jim's determined walk. He let Jim keep the slight lead, staring speculatively at the back of his friend's head. Shit, Sandburg chided himself. I'm supposed to be the fucking anthropologist, here... the one who can figure out a cultural paradigm and fit myself into it, but I've been beating my head against his macho jerk routine instead of adapting myself to it....

Adapting himself to Jim instead of expecting him to be reasonable. It wasn't a half-bad idea. If you manipulate him, he will come. Blair smirked a little. Nothing nasty, of course, but he wasn't getting anywhere playing things absolutely straight with his partner. So why not make things easier on both of them? He'd been doing this the wrong way all along. What Jim needed was a challenge, a different environment, a whole new vibe.

"You know, I've got an idea." Blair felt the energetic spring return to his steps as he took a half-skip to catch up with Jim again. "I think you're gonna like it..."

Lee Brackett thumbed the controls of the directional microphone he held and dropped it in the seat next to him. Sandburg was babbling a mile a minute as he and Ellison left the fusty old laboratory building where they'd been conducting their experiments; the former CIA operative took one look at his expression and stifled a smirk. Always on the make, that one, convinced he was right and determined to have his way no matter what he wanted. To an objective observer he was something of an open book, totally focused on making Ellison toe the line. Brackett could sympathize with most of his methods, if not with all of his motives: Sandburg wanted Ellison so bad he could taste it. Lee had been able to tell that the first time he ever saw them together.

Ellison himself was a different matter; it took a while to learn how to tell what he really thought, especially if all you could do was listen to him. In keeping with the conversation Brackett had just overheard, he looked stubborn and inflexible, but there were a few dead giveaways. At the moment his expression and body language were at odds with his actions. For one thing, he'd shortened his stride enough that Sandburg could keep up. More incriminating, he was clearly listening in spite of himself, the subtle tilt of his head giving him away. He was whipped; the little fag still had him hooked through the bag and back. Brackett's lips curled for a moment in a contemptuous smirk.

He disciplined himself immediately, adjusting his sunglasses and schooling his expression to a bored forward stare. His eavesdropping had revealed that Ellison wasn't cooperating with any of Sandburg's experiments, but in spite of that Brackett knew he was alert, his heightened senses on a hair trigger. Getting spotted would end this little game real fast. He could read Blair's lips now anyway; he didn't need the microphone anymore.

He covered his mouth with his palm, seeming to lounge lazily in his nondescript beat-up green sedan. Just another bearded, scruffy, long-haired academic waiting for someone in the parking lot. Yeah. Nothing like the cool, tailored CIA agent they once knew. His palm covered a humorless, bitter grin. One of Ellison's astounding number of serious weaknesses was his overconfidence in the system. Even Federal prison hadn't been an insurmountable obstacle; a few favors called in, a bribe or two, some sly legal maneuvering, and Brackett had managed to get back out on the street in just under two years.

He had enough influence to reactivate a few of his old connections, but he needed capital in a hurry or his clout wouldn't last. So perforce, he had to pick up right where he left off-- only this time he had an extra item on his agenda.

His mirrored shades pointing away from them at an unchanging oblique angle, his hidden eyes nevertheless followed the two men, noting their closeness as they walked down the concrete sidewalk with their elbows bumping casually. They would come into earshot soon, and he catalogued their words automatically, memorizing them as they were spoken.

"...That way we both benefit. You use your senses against a fully aware, fully challenging opponent, and we see if I can stand up against the Covert Ops stuff. If I can evade you, nobody else would have a chance to catch me, right?"

That sounded intriguing. He watched sharply, not willing to miss a word.

"I dunno, Chief." Ellison looked intrigued in spite of his pessimistic words. "It sounds pretty far-out. Expensive, too."

"I can justify it as research expenses. My grant will cover it." Sandburg fairly bounced with excitement.

"So you'll take a head start and run, and I'll try to catch you?" Ellison casually laid his palm against the small of Sandburg's back to guide him around the fender of a car, squinting thoughtfully against the sun as the two men approached his pickup. Brackett could hear them now through his open window and was glad of it as the changing angle hid their faces.

"I'll use every technique I can think of to confuse and elude your senses," Blair elaborated enthusiastically. "And if you don't catch me after a week, I win."

"And if you win, I wind up on my ass back in that lab until you say I can go." Ellison sounded amused as he removed his possessive hand from Blair and they parted to enter separate sides of the truck.

"You got that right." Blair laughed, pleased.

"And if I win, no tests till the New Year."

"That's over six months! Aw, come on, not that long..." They scrambled into the truck together but Brackett didn't bother to follow as they pulled out of the parking lot. He'd seen and heard all he needed; Sandburg's foolish idea would tie in brilliantly with his plans. He'd just have to make a few extra arrangements.

He felt his mouth curl in a smirk of contempt. If Ellison's faith in the system was a serious weakness, his feelings for Sandburg were catastrophic. Things hadn't changed a bit on that front. They were thick as thieves, moving in and out of each other's personal space with ease, but with just enough restraint to reveal that they weren't quite lovers. No, they weren't as close as he'd expected them to be after all this time, but they were close enough. He could be sure Ellison would take the bait-- clearly the detective's feelings for his little hippie partner had only strengthened over time.

He shook his head, simultaneously amused and disgusted. You'd think after two years he'd work up enough balls to take the plunge. If he was half the detective he thinks he is, he'd see Sandburg wants it. Still, the distance that remained between them was convenient. Maybe he could exploit it and turn it to his advantage.

Brackett started the sedan and propped his elbow on the open window, cruising out of the parking lot casually and heading away from Prospect Street. They'd still be complacent since he hadn't taken the risk of revealing that someone was following them. After he made a couple of important calls to set his new arrangements in motion, he'd station himself in an alley across the street from their apartment and listen for more details of Sandburg's hare-brained scheme.

After two whole days spent on an exhilarated adrenaline high, Blair had to admit it: his idea was as stimulating to him as it was to Jim. Just the thought of taking such an active project into the field excited him, and he'd already spent hours making careful plans and defining the parameters of what he was and wasn't willing to do in order to evade Jim's pursuit. He didn't want to resort to anything that would physically harm Jim, though he supposed it would be necessary to cause his partner some discomfort if Jim caught up with him.

He shut his notebook, folded his legs into the lotus position, and closed his eyes to picture the chase. He could almost feel the heart-thumping rush of fear-based endorphins already. He shivered, titillated by the image of Jim pursuing him. Jim would be inexorable and determined and totally focused on catching his quarry, on capturing Blair-- God.

Blair licked his lips without realizing it, shifting slightly, enjoying the feel of his clothing moving over adrenaline-sensitized skin. There was something innately sexual about the chase of quarry; certain primitive tribes even incorporated symbolic pursuit into courtship and marriage rituals. Additionally, masculine status in a tribe often hinged on relative performance in the hunt, with the best hunters being regarded as the most desirable mates. Blair wondered momentarily who would prevail in this chase, then a wry smile tilted the corner of his lips. An ex-Army Ranger Captain and Covert Ops specialist with five superhuman senses versus an everyday run-of-the-mill hippie academic?

No contest, man.

That didn't bother Blair unduly; he wasn't so caught up in the need to be an alpha male that he couldn't appreciate the alternative. He opened his eyes just a slit, watching Jim clandestinely. The Sentinel moved with careless, predatory grace even as he puttered around the kitchen frying hamburgers and setting out salad.

Blair closed his eyes over the stolen peek. As wonderful as the idea of being chased was, it all paled beside his anticipation of being caught. He shivered with delight as he imagined the rush that would go through him when he was symbolically taken. He wouldn't say no to Jim's hard hand closing around his wrist unexpectedly in an airport. A flying tackle on the beach would be good. Handcuffs in a hotel room had a definite attraction. And it was all in the line of duty, almost completely above-board. Except...

Except that these feelings didn't belong in an academic experiment, and they sure as hell didn't belong in his relationship with his best friend. Jim had never given even the vaguest hint that they might be returned.

Blair sighed, familiar with every twist and turn of the long slide down into guilt and every torturous step back up into the land of denial and resolve. Neither guilt nor denial was helpful. He felt what he felt, that was all. Denying himself the experience of his emotions had proven pointless time after time. It was better to accept his feelings, experience them, and channel them into useful activity, always taking care to keep them concealed from Jim with a clever mixture of hidden and overt expression.

A poker face was a must. At least he'd managed that much today. He could certainly look at Jim on a regular basis with impunity, sometimes even when Jim was mostly unclothed, but things like stealing glimpses of a fully-clad Jim through his lashes were definitely contraindicated. That would set Jim's radar off in a hurry-- almost as fast as a combined and unexplainable respiratory/pheromone spike from being stupid enough to fantasize about him while they were both in the same room. Blair sighed.

He opened his eyes again, looking at his partner openly this time, and found himself wondering how much Jim actually picked up with his senses as he worked in the hot kitchen. They rarely needed air-conditioning in Cascade, but this was a particularly warm early summer day. Blair imagined that Jim could feel every subtle current from the blades of the exhaust fan pulling air over his body.

The Sentinel could probably perceive the scent of Blair's perspiration carried on that same air, could overhear his Guide's breathing and the circulation of his blood if he wanted, picked out against a billion noises of the city. He probably wouldn't be analyzing his surroundings for meaning, though. More likely Jim was preoccupied with the snap of meat frying, the chill of the refrigerator lingering around the salad as his arm passed over the bowl, or the sight of the knife and the bun he held in his hands. Instead of listening to Blair, he would be tuned in to the soft whisper of a golf tournament playing in the background on the nearly-silent TV.

By this time three days from now, their vacation time would have begun. Jim would be extending his every sense, as well as his formidable training and not inconsiderable intellect, to search for traces of Blair. No matter how guilty he might feel, Blair was determined to enjoy being the target of Jim's complete focus for as long as it lasted. It was going to be a challenge to make the chase last long enough to savor it, but Blair had a few tricks up his sleeve.

"Lunch is almost ready, Chief."

"Thanks, man." Blair levered himself up gracefully, leaving the lotus position with a single smooth unfolding motion. "I'm starved." He moved past Jim to take plates out of the cupboard, casually careful not to let their bodies touch in the confined space. Jim leaned past him to extract a glass from the cabinet over his shoulder, broad chest brushing Blair's back. So much for being circumspect. His back still turned to Jim, Blair smiled secretly. As long as he kept things hidden well enough that Jim didn't think it was necessary to avoid touching him, life was just fine.

They sat down at the table and dug in, several moments passing in companionable quiet. "So how much of a head start are you going to need?" Ellison finally asked around a mouthful of burger and bun.

The secretive smile escaped again, this time in Jim's view, but it had a lot of potential alternative explanations now so Blair didn't squash it. Jim's looking forward to this, too.

"Oh, I don't know. I was thinking half a day." Actually Blair had already begun his preparations, though he wasn't about to let Jim know that. Jim was supposed to start from scratch the moment he began pursuing Blair.

"Is that all?" Jim's voice warmed to tease him. "Don't you want a whole twenty-four hours?"

Blair grinned at Jim. "Pretty self-confident, aren't you?"

Jim tilted his head, amused, letting his obvious estimate of the situation speak for itself. "I've been fishing for a lot of years, Chief. I've caught plenty of guppies, some nice trout, and a few great big channel cats." His face was solemn, but his eyes practically danced with merriment.

Blair laughed and took a big bite of his salad. He liked things when they were like this. It gave him hope and strength to last through the times when Jim closed down and locked him out behind a shield of cold anger. That happened all too often, usually due to some out-of-proportion misunderstanding or because he was transferring negative emotions onto Blair from some other source. "Just as long as you don't throw me back or something." Blair concluded, and his inner sense of appropriate conversation and dangerous ground dinged an automatic warning. He shifted the conversation deftly. "A guppy can hide where a big fish can't," he warned cheerfully.

"I'm not gonna throw a prize guppy back when I've got him on my line." Jim seemed relaxed, mellow good humor still shining in his eyes. "And there is no guppy that's gonna keep hiding when I offer him the right bait."

"Is that so?" Keep the tone light, Sandburg, breathe, and NO double entendres about worms! "You're gonna have to come up with something pretty tempting to outweigh getting to test you to my heart's content with no complaints allowed." He wiped his mouth and took a sip of his iced tea.

Jim chuckled low in his chest, completely casual, apparently oblivious to the trajectory of Blair's mind: a serious southward dive toward Innuendo Gutter. "I'll dangle just enough to make you pause till the net comes down. Boom!" His palm smacked the tabletop. "Then your ass is mine, Sandburg."

Blair busied himself with another large mouthful of chewy greens, glad of the excuse to bolster his composure before responding. Yeah. It is, if you want it. "Pride goeth before a fall, and a haughty spirit before destruction," he misquoted archly, still teasing.

Jim snorted amiably and took a few minutes to concentrate on his juicy hamburger. His preoccupation left Blair an interlude of silence, and he used it to wonder for the umpteenth time if his roommate was aware that once again, a casual conversation between them had drifted into something... well, something pretty damned close to flirting. That thought stirred up the devil in him, and he spoke without thinking.

"Besides, if it's ass you want, I'm a pretty scrawny piece. Maybe you oughtta get out on the harbor and start trolling for sharks or something instead of trying your fly in my little stream." His accurate but tardy internal warning system shot straight up to the equivalent of a whooping siren. Jesus Christ, what the hell am I saying? Blair braced for the onset of World War III without the benefit of a fallout bunker. He made himself raise calm, humor-filled eyes to Ellison's face as though he'd said nothing out of the ordinary.

"But it's guppy season." Jim's response was immediate, deadpan, and maddeningly reasonable, sidestepping the 'ass' comment entirely and clinging to the firmer ground of the earlier joke. His inscrutable, level look didn't match his words or his tone and it lasted perhaps a fraction of a second longer than it should. Then he abruptly burst into nervous laughter, looking away as though the television had distracted him. "Smart-ass," he accused Blair, still chuckling. "I think it's time we upped the ante. Every hour you stay ahead of me translates into a day that you dont have to take your turn washing dishes."

"I say every hour equals a week!" Blair bantered, almost collapsing with relief at the change of subject.

"I'm not that confident," Jim laughed. "But if you keep ahead of me for the whole week, you get a free year." Something about Jim's voice was not quite right; there was a faint note of strain lingering there in the aftermath of Blair's wisecrack.

"Deal!" Ignoring the undercurrent of tension between them, they shook on the bargain. Jim squeezed Blair's hand a bit tighter than was strictly necessary and Blair gave back as good as he got.

"You're going down, guppy-boy." With that triumphant prediction, Jim left Blair to deal with the dishes and settled himself in front of ESPN, muttering an occasional comment on a particularly good-- or bad-- shot.

Blair took his time with the chore, scrubbing the iron skillet with half-hearted strokes, his nervousness flowing out of him slowly. Jim was still amiable and the world hadn't caved in; Blair's foolhardy remark was slowly falling behind them, being buried under drifting leaves of conversation.

"That Tiger Woods is something else," Jim commented with a touch of envy, his voice completely relaxed again, and just that easily Blair's world popped back into place and everything was normal.

"Yeah, he sure is." Leaving the pan to soak, Blair put the last glass in the cabinet and moved to join his partner on the couch, admiring the instant replay.

It was only later that night that Blair finally let himself dissect their conversation and examine its pieces. They'd been flirting, so of course his play-by-play wound up with him lying in bed clutching his erection in his fist.

This was downtime, this was his time, this was his room, and regardless of Jim's Sentinel senses, Blair had always done and thought what he liked while he was in here behind closed doors. For all Jim knew he spent his palm-time fantasizing about Elle MacPherson or Cindy Crawford or Shania Twain or heck, maybe Drew Barrymore if Jim had him figured for an interest in jail-bait. If Jim ever presumed to listen to him at all. Blair usually didn't let himself think about that very hard.

Guppy season. It made a good joke, had it been delivered like one. But Jim's eyes had been dead serious. No Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny reference to it at all, man. Still, it was probably just a reference to the game they had planned, that was it, nothing to do with his own stupid comment about Jim hunting himself a piece of ass. Guppy hunting season was soon to be opened exclusively for Sentinels in Cascade, after all.

But if it wasn't just the game... if only he had the courage... the fantasy that appeared behind his closed eyelids as he resettled his palm around the root of his erection was one that he'd already played out in a thousand variations.

Blair shed his clothing slowly, exposing his skin to the hot moonlit night. Naked and savoring the peculiar freedom of it, he brushed his hair until it stood out from his face in an electric, crackling mass, then wet the brush and brushed it again. He crunched it between his fingers, tamed it into ringlets, and let it hang heavy and cool against his neck and shoulders. The air was jungle-humid and oppressive, hanging still with a portent of faraway thunder.

He opened the French door, palm sweaty on the knob, and ghosted into the silent living room, avoiding the lake of brightness from the window. Pausing for a moment, he gazed out across the quiet vista of the city. His things lay in their places, mingled with Jim's, scattered throughout the room. All was as it should be, and he set his foot on the stair with a shiver of confidence and anticipation. He could feel the temperature of the air rising as he approached the higher level, and knew that Jim would be lying awake and naked in his bed, magnificent body bathed in the subtle glow from both skyline and skylight.

Jim's gaze was waiting for him as his head rose above the level of the floor, the Sentinel's wrist placed on his forehead as though he had been lying with his arm covering his eyes and then moved it just to watch Blair's approach. His chiseled features remained still as Blair took the last step, his expression expectant.

"Is it still guppy season?" Blair knew the answer before it came, stepping forward toward the edge of the wide bed, feeling a slight rush of vertigo from the nearness of the drop down into the living area and from the sight of Jim's massive erection. Heavy and thick and curved slightly, it lay against his washboard belly, ready and inviting Blair's touch.

"It's always guppy season, Chief." Jim's arm slid to his side and then lifted, beckoning him, reeling him in. Blair put a shaky knee on the bed and sank into Jim's arms willingly. Jim's hand slid behind his head and dragged him down into the incomparable wildness of a savage kiss, and then Jim rolled on top of him, drowning Blair in masculine hardness and sexual heat....

Blair came hard, barely biting back a shout, catching most of the mess in his palm. Usually he made it through a lengthy fantasy of penetration and mutual orgasm. However, the thread of reality underlying this one had boosted his arousal prematurely, catching him delightfully by surprise, much as he frequently yearned for Jim to do.

As he reached for tissues, he heard the creak of bedsprings and the faint groan of floorboards from upstairs. Jim was tossing, restless, and he had a strong suspicion he'd been overheard. There was no way for Jim to see inside his head and know who was the featured entertainment for the evening, so to hell with it. Tossing the wad of slimy tissues into his trash can, Blair lay back and resumed his fantasies defiantly. Something a little different this time...

Blair had been running for five days so far, and Jim was hot on his heels. He knew it, but he'd done without sleep for three of those five days and he had to risk some rest or he wasn't going to stay ahead of his Sentinel for much longer anyway. His eyes sank shut as soon as he flopped onto the pillow in the cheap, shabby hotel room, body going lax immediately. He didn't hear the door that opened an hour later or sense the presence crossing the room to stand at his bedside.

The quiet snick of steel cuffs was the first thing to penetrate the deep fog of REM sleep, and he struggled toward consciousness dully, half-panicked, feeling Jim's hard palm cover his mouth. "Game's over, Chief. You lose...." His eyes opened and he tried to move only to discover that his wrists were cuffed to the headboard. Jim's weight sank onto him, strong and dominant, his hardness pushing at Blair through the twin barrier of their jeans. Without pausing for permission or doubts, the Sentinel claimed what he'd captured, his tongue finding Blair's mouth and stabbing into him possessively, making him moan aloud.

He melted, all resistance gone, and let Jim devour him. Jim's clever hands opened his shirt to bare his chest, explored him briefly, then unbuttoned his jeans and delved inside. Jim pumped him hard once and then skinned jeans and underwear and shoes and socks off his body in an almost brutal series of motions, leaving only the shirt. Jim smiled wickedly, a predatory display of teeth, and opened his own fly. He pulled out his hard cock, deliberately letting Blair watch him as he readied himself without ever shedding a stitch of what he wore, not even the black leather jacket that Blair liked so much.

Blair moaned with pure lust and Jim reached for him, flipping him onto his belly and pushing his thighs apart. He could feel the cool smooth flaps of the leather jacket brushing his ass and the rough texture of denim covering the legs that held his own thighs pressed apart. Hard fingers probed him, slick with oil, then Jim's cock slammed all the way into him, grinding his hips violently into the mattress. Jim's searching fingertip threaded into his nipple ring and tugged it simultaneously. Blair arched and screamed, orgasm gushing forth in a fierce, blissful explosion....

Blair's eyes fluttered open; he pulled his fingers out of himself and let go of his nipple ring, breathing hard. He wasn't quite sure whether he'd managed to keep quiet that time. After the earlier noise and movement, the absolute silence that now emanated from above meant that he probably hadn't; without a doubt Jim was up there pretending to be asleep in order to spare Blair the embarrassment of knowing he'd been overheard.

He wondered wickedly whether his cry had aroused Jim and whether his roommate had extended his senses to indulge in Blair's scent and his breathing. Maybe Jim would take the cue and indulge in a few fantasies of his own. In a best-case scenario, Jim might even fantasize about him... this time Blair took himself in his fist with a deliberate deep sigh. His erection had completely flagged; this next one was going to take some time. If Jim was listening, he was in for a good show.

After seven days, one hour, and sixteen minutes on the run, Blair felt triumphant and dirty and ragged and exhausted to the point of giddiness and he didn't have to do the dishes for a whole year. Even better, Jim was stuck doing whatever tests he could dream up, and man, he was going to make the best of that. He booked the hotel room in his own name, using his own credit card-- as if Jim would need that kind of paper trail now that Blair wasn't running any longer. As an afterthought, he listed Ellison's name as an occupant and told the concierge to give him a key when he arrived.

Jim had almost caught Blair for the fifth time at the airport in Reno. In truth he probably could have if he'd used his police credentials to demand that the plane be stopped. Blair had seen him watching from the terminal when the small prop plane began to taxi onto the runway, but instead of interfering he'd just made his way out onto the tarmac and stood with his hands stuck in his pockets, watching Blair take off. Blair had been more than a little surprised not to find Jim already waiting for him when he stepped off his plane in Dallas, but he'd taken advantage of his Sentinel's continued absence to flee again, knowing that this time he might just make it. Digging out the dwindling remains of his cash, he'd snagged a quick rental and busted ass down I-45 heading for the coast.

Blair hunted up his room and inserted the key-card into the door. It was a nice hotel, unlike some of the dives he'd crashed in between Cascade and Galveston-- his headlong flight had brought them further than he originally anticipated; his grant wasn't going to cover this much expense, but it didn't matter right now because he'd won. He paused inside the room just long enough to dump his pack on the nearest bed and grab a much-needed shower, but he didn't feel like staying here and waiting for Jim to catch up. That'd be too much like surrender.

Instead Blair rode the elevator down to the lobby and went out to take a stroll along the waterfront, luxuriating in the brisk ocean wind that washed him with south Texas heat and cooled him at the same time, evaporating perspiration and drying his hair. It felt good to be strolling casually, no longer under the gun. The tankers bound for rigs in the distant haze of the horizon were a note of familiarity, reminding him of old times-- and some good times, some good memories in spite of all the stress and sorrow and hectic action he'd endured during their involvement with Cyclops Oil. Good memories like Jim standing purely naked and unselfconscious, drying himself with a towel while Blair leaned casually against the wall and tried to look him in the eyes and not be too obvious about a few stolen glances southward....

His over-used penis began to respond to that image and Blair shifted, groaning softly and pushing his hips up, sliding the hardening organ into the warm clasp of his fist to encourage the return of arousal. He stared up at the ceiling as though he could look through it and see Jim lying in his bed above. His mind slid back into his fantasy.

After a while the combination of sun and wind grew oppressive. Blair wandered back toward the hotel, dangling his shoes on his fingertips till he left the beach. Then he brushed off the clinging sand and put them back on before entering the foyer to take the elevator up to the tenth floor. He pushed the door open with pleased anticipation, expecting Jim's presence inside. Sure enough, Jim sat waiting on the empty bed, watching Blair enter.

"Gotcha, Chief." Jim sounded smug. "In the end, you came right to me."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Blair laughed. "It's been over for an hour and a half, man. Three and a half if you count the time change. Now if we'd been headed west, you might have a point, but here? No way! I win."

Jim's expression never altered; the curve of his lips faint and only half-there, a Mona Lisa smile. He stood up and opened the door out onto the balcony, where he stood overlooking the wide narrow strip of beach and the gleam of the westering sun on the water. "I watched you sleep in Seattle," his voice was so soft Blair very nearly couldn't hear him. "The motel had an awful checkered bedspread. I'm sure you remember it. You didn't rest very well that night, and I slipped out before dawn.

"Then in LA, I was the one who called the cops because there were two guys cooking crack next door to your hotel room. I was afraid they'd burn the place down with you in it, Chief. That day you spent at Disney Land was a great idea; you'd have been hard to pick out of all those people in the park, but I just hung around in Minnie Lot A till you came out again. Nevada was a nice try too-- I didn't think you'd be obvious enough to use that room you booked under a false name at the Sands, so I didn't even bother to look there before I found you crashed out in that dive up in North Vegas. You managed to get one sock off before you went to sleep with Nova still going on the TV. How much did you lose the next day while you hid out at the Circus-Circus?"

Blair just stood there with his mouth open, staring at Jim, mind working a mile a minute as he tried to decide whether his partner was just doing a really good piece of retro-detective work or if he actually had been with Blair every step of the way.

"I heard you make the plane reservations for Reno, so I took a risk and went on to the airport to wait for you. How the hell did you get them to let you board with a different name on your ticket than on your driver's license?" Jim didn't pause for an answer. "Must have been a female ticketing clerk, am I right? A little well-applied Sandburg charm at just the right moment, and she doesn't even read the name on the license. Smooth, Chief." Jim seemed to have wound down and he turned to look at Blair with amusement, the light of the setting sun gilding half his profile. "Close your mouth, Sandburg." He stepped forward casually, eclipsing the light.

Blair shifted to his side, breathing hard now, his penis fully recovered. Time to start with the good stuff.

"Why didn't you stop me?" His forehead wrinkled with bewilderment. "If you caught up in Seattle-- I'd hardly been running for six hours then, Jim. It would have saved us both a lot of time and expense, man."

Jim's head tilted, his body assuming that oddly still posture that meant he'd fully engaged one or more of his senses. "It was fun, Chief." His voice was slightly absent and Blair quickly scanned him for signs of a zone-out. "I enjoy a challenge. And it was doing what you wanted it to, it was making me sharpen my senses. Besides." The faintest note of humor entered his tone. "I didn't want to make you feel inadequate."

Blair tilted his head, frowning a little. Jim's lips were still curved in that faint, secretive smile. There was something he still wasn't telling. Blair could sense it in a myriad of tiny signals from the set of Jim's wide shoulders to the slight flare of his nostrils to the way he dominated the room with lazy, confident grace. Even now that Blair was no longer running and Jim was no longer chasing, every shift of the Sentinel's body brought him slightly closer to his prey, a subtle progression of cunning advance-- Jim was still in predator mode.

Blair swallowed, suddenly feeling like a captured mouse being toyed with by a very large house cat. No way to escape, he was doomed to-- to what? He took a step back and realized his shoulders were against the wall, then slid sideways with a casual gesture that suddenly felt oddly familiar. How often had this same scene replayed itself between them in varying degrees of overt threat? But Jim wasn't letting him go this time; his body swiveled easily to follow Blair's movement and Blair was left with the option of standing his ground or retreating out of the room. Swallowing hard, he chose the former, and Jim's small smile curved further, displaying open satisfaction.

Blair felt his heart begin to pick up speed in his chest as he watched the slowly deepening curve of the narrow lips. Instinctively he began to talk, his mind working on a way to defuse the situation. "So it was that easy to follow me, huh? That's interesting, Jim-- it doesn't tally with the results I've been keeping from your casework. I mean, yeah-- I know you tracked Quinn by following the scent of Simon's cigars, but that wasn't in the city among hundreds of other people. I've seen you lose trails, I know how it happens. Scents diffuse or get covered up. Sounds move out of your sphere of hearing, or get lost underneath white noise. You lose sight of the suspect and he vanishes into a bolt-hole. Somebody pulls a clever name-change and you lose track of his electronic information while he hops a plane to Timbuktu. The tricks of the detective trade don't always work out, and your senses aren't fool-proof. But this time... was there something else, something I'm not accounting for here, something about me that nobody else...?"

Oh, shit. Instead of digging his way out, he was digging himself in deeper. All the time Jim was just standing there with his hands in his pockets, tracking him with the turn of his head and body, smiling that self-satisfied little smile.

"Maybe it's an element of familiarity or something," Blair paused for breath. "You're so accustomed to me that you can pick up faint traces of scent that you wouldn't notice with somebody else, is that it?" He licked his lips nervously and Jim stepped forward.

"That's part of it," Jim's voice was thoughtful. "And I can hear you, too. I could tell where you were the whole time you were in Disney Land and at the casino. I could follow your sound, once I found it-- and it wasn't hard to find. There's a tone to your breathing. It's just as distinctive as... as the tone of a voice." Jim's forehead creased slightly as he explained. "Of course, I could hear that, too, whenever you talked. And sometimes I could smell the exact path you'd taken, when the air was still. It was smart to change your shampoo and all the other things you use; that threw me for about five minutes." There was admiration in Jim's tone.

Five minutes? This was praiseworthy?

Jim continued, disregarding Blair's dismay and taking another step closer. "I knew you'd been at the bus station, but I thought the actual trail out of it belonged to someone else until it kept being associated with traces of your scent. The different soaps couldn't change that basic chemistry. Then I found a strand of your hair on one of the outdoor benches." Jim's hand came up and lifted a curl to illustrate his point; the Sentinel leaned forward and scented slowly along its length, seeming oblivious to the idea that he was doing anything unusual.

Blair's heart flip-flopped, his stomach close behind, and Jim continued to hold the curl, rubbing his thumb along its length thoughtfully. "They told me the bus that had been parked where I was standing was bound for Seattle. I think they thought I was crazy," Jim confided, his voice a soft rumble.

"So what you're saying boils down to this: your sense of scent's been underutilized so far; it can do more than we've been asking of it. We'll have to work on incorporating that, come up with some tests--" Blair was babbling as he felt the low bureau against the back of his thighs. There weren't going to be any tests till after the New Year began and he knew it, but Jim wasn't interrupting to remind him of their bargain. "How did you know to go to the bus station in the first place? Lucky guess?"

"I just know you, Chief," Jim purred, still stroking the lock of hair. "That helped more than any of my senses." Blair swallowed hard and watched with disbelief as the Sentinel leaned forward, bringing his mouth to the curl he held, touching it with his tongue.

"Hey, man, you're freaking me out here." Blair's voice shook, but Jim ignored him, taking the tip of the curl between his lips. His throat worked and his eyes drifted shut, and Blair realized Jim was sucking on the end of the curl, tasting it. "Guess smell's not the only sense that weve been underutilizing, huh--" his voice gave out as Jim's free hand rose to curve around the side of his neck. Blair's knees gave way simultaneously and he sank against the bureau, bracing one hand on the silent TV. Jim's thumb rubbed the stubble on his jaw hypnotically in time to the soft sucking motions of his mouth and throat. "Come on, Jim. Don't zone on me, man." But that was exactly what Jim was doing: zoning on the taste of Blair's hair.

Blair whimpered and shifted his grip, tucking himself into a tight little ball. He burrowed his face into his pillow to muffle the small desperate sounds that escaped him. He shifted his grip to make the anticipation of orgasm last, loving the impossible fantasy he had spun, not wanting to miss a moment of its potential.

Jim released the lock at last, moving to touch its wet, spiked tip to Blair's mouth. "I'm with you, Chief," he murmured huskily, painting the curve of Blair's lips with his improvised brush. Blair realized he was panting heavily, his lips parted.

*"Is this some kind of punishment?" Blair managed. For losing?" "No." Jim's smile abruptly turned feral. "It's my reward. For winning." With that he leaned in and licked along the tendon in Blair's neck, beginning where it emerged from the collar of his shirt and moving all the way up to the lobe of his ear.*

Blair moaned and his head fell back, inadvertently exposing his throat to Jim's persistent tongue. Jim took advantage of the surrender, his body trapping Blair efficiently against the bureau and the television. One hand slid behind Blair's neck to support his head and the other palm rose to cover his face, pressing it to the side. Jim savored him with long, slow, burning licks, pausing only to tuck back his hair, ignoring his soft whimpers.

Licking between his own splayed fingers, Jim migrated, his mouth journeying onto Blair's face, then he moved his hand and let his tongue travel across the rounded arch of Blair's closed eyelids. Next Jim's tongue smoothed Blair's eyebrows, his lips hot and wet as he traced the faint horizontal crease that crossed Blair's forehead. Blair could feel Jim's deep, rhythmic inhalations and knew the Sentinel was carrying him inside his body on the soft gusts of air even as he devoured him with his tongue. It was unbelievably erotic, the slow persistent tasting mingling with the sweet cool evaporation as Jim's breath gusted across his skin.

Jim drew back after a long moment, his mouth wet and red, his eyes dilated until the ice-blue irises were nearly devoured by the black depths of his pupils. They were darker than even arousal could account for-- his vision was dialed all the way up, then. Blair wondered what Jim saw as he focused on him so intently and so closely, gaze flickering over his face again and again. Jim's fingertips worked lightly against Blair's scalp, an almost infinitesimal caress, and his face softened as Blair sighed out a slow breath-- apparently all five of his senses were tuned into Blair and cranked right off the scale.

Now that he was caught, it would be so easy to escape if he wanted. So easy to incapacitate Jim with a shout or whistle, by scrabbling for the devastating glare yielded by a light switch, or maybe even by slapping or scratching him. Instead Blair stayed perfectly still and watched Jim lick his lips, savoring the taste of skin that lingered on them. The moment of hesitation stretched, and Blair realized Jim needed something more, needed something from him.

"What the hell are you waiting for?" Blair barely moved his lips, words almost inaudible even to himself. "A court order?"

It was enough. Jim dove into him like a drowning man into an oasis, his mouth catching Blair's with an intense delicacy that overwhelmed Sandburg with the purity of its focus.

Lovemaking with a Sentinel. With his Sentinel. Blair had fantasized about it all too often, but he really had no idea what it would be like. Tending his aching shaft with an automatic, skillful caress, Blair licked his lips, staring up at the ceiling again. He couldn't taste himself, so he didn't know what Jim would taste or smell or hear or feel any more than he could guess what Jim would see. Maybe intimacy was so intense it would prove unpleasant for Jim even though he instinctively craved it: bitter body oils on his lips and tongue, even the smoothest skin appearing cratered and pocked to his eyes, morning breath times a million stinking in his nostrils. Maybe that was why he almost never dated a woman twice.

A man would be even worse-- coarse beard stubble scraping against Jim's unbelievably sensitive skin, strong male scents like sour sweat and semen burning his nostrils, the harsh scratch of wiry masculine hair abrading his body. Blair realized he was about to talk himself right out of the mood here if he didn't shut up. Maybe it wasn't like that for Jim at all; that was just pessimism talking. It probably wasn't as incredible for Jim as Blair's fevered imagination sometimes hypothesized that it could be, but it also probably wasn't as bad as the worst-case scenarios he cooked up, either.

Might as well go for the best-case instead. After all, it wasn't like he was ever going to get a chance to compare fantasy to reality and find reality wanting. Why torment himself with his imagination when he should be enjoying it, instead?

OK, fine. Back to the fantasy. To vindicate the selfishness of his decision that Jim would enjoy sex with him, he'd simply erase and correct. Add a shave to the earlier shower and use some unscented shampoo that didn't have a lot of chemicals for Jim to taste. It's not such a hot day in South Texas after all; no sweat to worry about. Where were we....

Jim sank against Blair and kissed him with the slow thoroughness of a man who had nowhere to go and nothing to do when he got there, completely centered in the moment and the sensation of their mouths moving together. Blair gave himself up to the kiss with a will, learning that Jim liked subtleties of movement... long slow licks, soft sucking, a gradual procession inward. There would be time later to battle for control. For now, Blair lost himself in the press of their mouths and the undulation of their bodies. He let Jim drive, following his lead-- a gradual, leisurely advance into Blair's mouth first, and then a slow, molten retreat into Jim's. Just enough motion to keep Jim from zoning on taste.

Blair dared to let his hands move, following the lines of the relaxed muscular form that lay under his palms until his hands rested at Jim's waistband. Jim pushed his hips forward with slow, firm pressure, nestling his thigh tightly between Blair's partly-spread legs. That was enough invitation for Blair to utter the softest of moans and slide his hands around to cover his partner's perfect ass. Just as tight and smooth as it looked, muscles hot and tense through soft denim. Jim pushed forward again, rocking his hips against Blair's groin slowly, and Blair savored the clench and release under his hands, kneading in time with the rhythm Jim set.

Their mouths never parted, breath coming awkwardly through their nostrils and rustling against their faces as they each tried to climb inside one another without ever taking off a stitch of clothing. Too long deferred, their passion devoured rational mind, for the moment too intense to permit the thought that separation might be desirable to allow the removal of clothing.

Eventually the kiss, all-consuming as it was, was no longer enough. Jim's hands plucked at the back of Blair's shirt. He tugged it out of Blair's jeans and slid underneath, moving up to his shoulders, crushing Blair's body against his chest. Blair purred low in his throat and followed suit, loving the silk-covered steel of Jim's torso under his hands, feeling the heat that was radiating off his new lover like a furnace, causing beads of sweat to gather in the hollow of his back.

Then Jim's hands slid back down and under his hips, and Jim was lifting him, carrying him awkwardly and tumbling him onto the bed, following him down. It separated their mouths at last, leaving them gasping. "Jim..." Blair moaned softly, and Jim's lashes sank shut as he practically inhaled the sound. Blair reached to his Sentinel's shoulders and gently turned him, pressing him to one side until Blair could slip onto him, covering him.

Jim let him, his strength held in check, his body passively entrusted to Blair. Jim's eyes stayed shut, his breath coming in low gasps as he let Blair touch him, apparently helpless against the flood of sensory input from his gentle nipping kisses and the light touch of his fingertips. Blair opened his Sentinel's shirt and stroked his broad chest lightly, amazed by Jim's response-- he was hard and trembling, moving with the dazed, determined air of a man who has been struck on the head unexpectedly and can only hold a single goal in mind.

How much would it take to make him come? How little? Blair stroked a nipple lightly and Jim's hips jerked hard, bucking up against him. Not much, then. Not much at all. He touched the nipple again, just brushing it with his fingertip. Jim's throat spasmed, small broken sounds leaving his lips, and Blair kissed him lightly, breathing them in. Blair felt himself smile. If Jim was this easy to bring off, maybe the women left him after one night, not the other way around-- but Blair Sandburg was no one-night stand. Jim wasn't getting off so easily; not in either sense of the term.

Blair drew back deliberately, gazing along the rippled plane of Jim's chest and belly, then leaned forward, letting his hair tumble over his shoulders. He bent until it touched Jim's skin, then swept his head back and forth, slowly caressing Jim with his curls.

"Blair!" That was it; that was what he wanted to hear. Needed to hear. Loved to hear. His name on Jim's lips. He slid his hips back without lifting his head, letting his hair trail over the denim of Jim's jeans, knowing the Sentinel could still feel each strand as it played over him, teasingly held away from his body by the thin barrier of cloth.

Jim quivered with tension, the muscles of his thighs locking tight, his hands tightening to fists in the bedclothes. Finding mercy for his Sentinel's plight, Blair opened the button and slid down the zipper. Jim's hands came to life, moving to push the jeans past his hips, and Blair let him help, knowing that the touch of cloth could be painful when Jim was dialed all the way up. He eased off Jim's shoes and socks, pulling the jeans and underwear carefully from Jim's ankles, then began to kiss his way upward, running lips and tongue along the blade of Jim's shin, then along the inside of his thigh. Jim quivered, helpless again, and Blair drew back to examine the tight-drawn testicles and the hard shaft that waited for him, purpling tip only inches from his lips. It seemed to beg. One touch. Just one.

Resting his palms on Jim's hips, Blair opened his mouth and leaned forward softly, very carefully, and let the head of Jim's cock settle against the wet plush cushion of his tongue. Jim came with a choked scream, penis jerking in violent release, and Blair forced his hips down, catching the pulses of fluid in his mouth, swallowing them, his heart filled with tenderness for his partner, his lover. So beautiful and so vulnerable, lost in passion, his most sensitive part in Blair's mouth....

Jim's orgasm subsided slowly, his body shuddering in the aftermath. Blair stroked his palms up Jim's sides and slid up to hold him, nuzzling against him in gentle, silent comfort.

"God..." Jim whispered, his voice shaken, threading his fingers into Blair's curls, and Blair's heart nearly burst with pride.

"Just me," he teased, hearing the husk of tenderness and desire in his own words.

Jim pulled him into a tight hug, nestling Blair against him, and slipped a hand between their bodies, stroking Blair's unrelieved hardness with loving fingers. "You're mine," Jim growled softly into his ear, and Blair shivered with delight, heat gathering in his belly. "Mine." Jim nipped his earlobe, tongue tugging on the rings there.

"Yes." The word escaped as an ecstatic whimper. Blair gave himself up to Jim as easily as Jim had just given himself. Jim's palm squeezed his heavy, aching cock, his thumb darting over the tip, and Blair gasped and lost himself, floating away on a starburst of bliss, a lazy tide of release that drained him of thought and pushed him toward sleep. Gently tucking him inside warm swaths of velvet comfort, Jim's strong arms cradled him until they both succumbed.

Blair woke up the next morning feeling a little disappointed to find himself alone. He also felt chafed, but in a good way. Jim maintained a casual and unconcerned attitude as they shared breakfast and then drove to the precinct; if he'd overheard Blair in the night he gave no sign.

The quiet morning set a pattern that they followed for the next several days. There was no recurrence of the momentary flirtation and they rarely spoke of their impending experiment as they worked extra hard to close a few cases before taking their planned week off.

Blair's clandestine arrangements continued as he called in some scattered personal favors on the sly and researched a variety of ways to confuse Jim's senses. When the morning of the day dawned, it found him more than a little hyper, psyched and ready to go.

"So where do you want me to go, what do you want me to do?" Jim sipped his coffee calmly, sounding for all the world as though they were planning to meet later in the park for an evening jog.

"Whatever you want, as long as you wait six hours to start looking." Blair sipped his usual morning shake-- nasty stuff, really, but when Jim's arteries hardened and Blair's didn't, it would be worth years of the taste to get to say "I told you so." He eyed the morning paper, not looking up at Jim.

"Six hours from when? I thought you'd be long gone when I got up this morning, Chief."

"What? Me cheat?" Blair grinned. "Six hours from the minute I walk out that door," he pointed for emphasis. "You can sit here and watch TV if you want, or fix the cracked pane in the French window, or go out and shop, or do whatever. I don't care."

"Can I watch out the window?"

"That'd be looking." Blair downed the dregs of his foul green concoction, deliberately smacking his lips in a way that he knew particularly annoyed his roommate.

"You know, I'm not so sure this is a good idea." Jim sat back, his eyes thoughtful.

"Chicken!" Blair protested, his high spirits falling a little. "If you forfeit, you pay the consequences." He knew his heart really wouldn't be in testing Jim if his partner gave up the ghost without a fight. "Besides, I'm not going to get extreme, here. Nothing that could really hurt either of us, okay? No unnecessary risks, no high-speed chases or weird shit."

"Promise?"

"I'm not gonna say I won't spray you with skunk juice or something and I've got plenty of flashbulbs ready in my camera," Blair warned him cheerfully, momentarily ignoring the solemnity in Jim's voice. "And I figure you wouldn't be above a flying tackle, using cuffs, running the siren and the lights, or flashing those police credentials around to get special treatment. But nothing worse than skinned knees and a little inconvenience. Deal?" His tone as he finished matched Jim's for sobriety.

Jim nodded, so Blair got up and put his empty glass in the sink. "Your day to wash," he reminded.

"If I can stand the stink." Jim laughed softly.

"For a year." Blair grinned back and shouldered his backpack, heading for the door. "Get used to it."

"Is that all you're taking?"

"Travel light, move fast."

"Synchronize our watches?" Jim stood up and moved near, laying his hand on Blair's shoulder. "Just so there's no argument about when this started or when it's over."

They did, Blair hovering in the opened door as he pushed the buttons on his battered Timex Expedition. "See you in a week."

"In your dreams, Sandburg."

The door closed between them. Jim, honorably keeping to his part of the bargain, didn't see the battered green sedan that fell in behind Blair's car immediately after he pulled out and headed down the block.

Blair occupied the first few minutes of headlong flight heading for a grimy hotel room where he could spray his backpack and jacket thoroughly with Febreze. It undoubtedly deposited a nearly-nonexistent chemical scent that Jim could easily detect, but Blair hoped it held true on its promise to remove traces of familiar scents that Jim would automatically know to follow. The next half-hour Blair dedicated to a thorough shower, scrubbing himself with a completely new selection of soaps and shampoos, just as he'd planned all along. New cologne, new toothpaste-- the works. When he was satisfied, he came out and dressed-- new clothes, unwashed, still bearing the mingled scents of store handling. He'd given Jeff a copy of his key and his buddy would be here inside twenty minutes or so to pick up Blair's car and return it to the loft, that much was already covered.

A knock on his door interrupted his concentration. Jeff. Blair paused in the process of cramming his stuff into his new bag. He released the chain and bolt on the door, turning the handle, and returned his attention to his preparations. "It's open."

He didn't realize anything was wrong till he heard the quiet metallic click. Raising his eyes slowly, his stomach sinking with dread, he stared straight down a gun barrel and into the highly amused, cold eyes of a very scruffy Lee Brackett.

Shit.

"Hello, Mr. Sandburg-- Blair," he purred, gesturing with the barrel of his gun. "You and I are going to enjoy this little vacation very much, don't you agree?"

Still over five hours remaining in his head start, too. Damn. Blair swallowed thickly. "Cut the crap, Brackett. We both know Jim's gonna do whatever it takes to find me." He had to hope Ellison would be as good and as fast as his fantasies had so frequently predicted he would be.

"Oh, but we'll lead him a merry chase first, won't we?" Brackett's eyes glittered. "Come on. We have plans to make." He stepped forward and caught Blair's arm, tucking the gun up against his ribs, its presence masked between their bodies. Brackett picked up Blair's bag, zipping it up with one awkward hand, and slung it over his own shoulder. Blair accompanied him out sullenly and let himself be shoved into Brackett's car.

Brackett prudently cuffed Blair to the combination shoulder/lap seat belt, ensuring that he wouldn't try to jump from the moving car, then started the vehicle. As they drove away, Blair spotted his friend Jeff rounding the corner on foot, on his way to get the Volvo in order to hide the traces that Blair had ever been present at the small motel where his careful, long-anticipated plans had backfired and crumbled so fucking fast.

"So, Sandburg. It's been interesting listening to you date Rosie and her daughters every night for the past week. You haven't left it alone for much over an hour at a time, have you." Brackett gestured casually toward Blair's lap, and he flushed. The rogue agent had always had a smart mouth and a dirty mind. "Still, if Ellison won't help you out..." the grin he gave Blair was feral and ugly.

Blair ignored the taunt, his shoulders hunched slightly.

"It's been a long time. I'd have thought you'd have gotten into his shorts or given up by now. Maybe I should have let you take that wire out of his pants for me after all. It'd have given you something to remember," Lee continued with conversational malice. "He listens to you, you know. He's a lot quieter than you are, but the two of you go at it together every night, just like clockwork. Whenever you get it out, he's right behind you. Whenever you come, he's already reaching for a clean set of sheets."

Blair couldn't keep from blushing, angry heat rising in his cheeks.

"He'd kill you if he knew who you think about." Brackett's voice was triumphant and oozing with coarsely familiar insinuation. "You get him started, but you know what he's thinking about when he finishes, don't you. Long-legged blondes and the latest issue of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition."

"Sounds good to me, man." Blair kept his voice quiet, stubbornly resisting defeat. "Shared fantasies about supermodels are no reason to kill anybody."

Brackett laughed again, with a note of genuine amusement. "Maybe it does sound pretty good to you, maybe you do think about that sometimes, but I know what you think sounds better, and I know who you've been fucking two, three times a night in your dreams for the past week. The thrill of the chase turn you on?" Blair just stared ahead, memorizing the twists and turns of the route they took through the city, refusing to give any indication that might confirm or deny the guess. The former CIA agent eventually grew tired of trying to bait him and fell silent, concentrating on traffic.

I hope Jim doesn't follow the false trail Jeff laid down for me. Blair stared out the window miserably, remembering his ill-fated promise that this game wouldn't turn dangerous: a promise that was possibly one of the stupidest ones he'd ever given. No doubt Brackett had heard it and would use it against Jim. Blair sighed. Worrying about Jim's ignorance of his predicament wouldn't help things now.

Moreover, Brackett didn't hold the monopoly on sharp psychological insight. Sandburg began to think hard, trying to analyze his position and find an advantage. Prison had changed Lee Brackett, and not for the better. He'd always been ruthless, even reckless, but now Blair sensed a brittle edge in him that hadn't been there before. His competent calm had eroded, his arrogant superiority outweighed by ill-concealed anger. What had once been subtle jabs intended to cause doubt had become an all-out frontal attack. Maybe Brackett's obvious grudge would make him careless; maybe it would make him lose perspective and miscalculate. He had something to prove now-- he had to prove that he could best Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg. Maybe it was even crucial to his self-esteem to do that.

"So. What are you planning this time? Unending wealth, mass death and destruction, a little personal payback..." he made his voice cuttingly casual. "Same old, same old?"

"You'll learn soon enough." His jibe didn't faze the other man. "End of the line."

They stopped abruptly in front of a small, run-down residence. Brackett got out and released Blair, pushing him toward the house with the gun tucked up sharp at the base of his spine. He paused on the porch to turn on the sprinkler system, which began to spray the weedy yard and concrete walk. "You've done part of my job for me by disguising your scent, and this should wash away any lingering traces Ellison might sense from the street." He smirked at Blair. "He'll be expecting you to run... you could probably hide from him here all week if that was what I had in mind for you."

"A lawn sprinkler system. In Cascade." Blair gave him a level, skeptical look, stalling in hopes that a neighbor might see the gun and phone the PD.

"Ellison's seen stranger things." Brackett smiled confidently. "By the time he starts looking for you, it'll be off and evaporated. That is, if it hasn't rained and covered the traces anyway. Now move." The sharp nudge of the gun barrel in Blair's back propelled him toward the door and then through it.

Indoors was as nondescript as out except for the back bedroom, which housed an impressive array of gadgetry and some frightening electronics that Blair was unable to identify with any degree of confidence. Brackett quickly cuffed him to one of the beds and tore off a short strip of duct tape, efficiently plastering it over his mouth. He took obvious pleasure in stretching the tape over Blair's lips and then pressing it on tight with his fingers; Blair jerked his head away and glared.

"In suburbia, no one can hear you scream," Brackett misquoted, standing back to watch Blair discover with dismay that the weak wooden headboard of the bed had been reinforced with a long metal pole. "And if they did, they probably wouldn't interfere." He smirked at the look in Blair's eyes: both headboard and pole had been fastened to the studs in the wall with sturdy metal staples, each nearly as thick as Blair's smallest finger.

"You could probably work one of those staples loose in a day or two, if you had the tools for it," Brackett commented. "But you aren't going to have the time or the opportunity." He grinned and shoved aside a few items on the other bed, sitting back and surveying Blair for a long moment, perfectly at ease. "In approximately two hours, my friend, I am going to release you from those cuffs, peel the tape off your mouth, and let you walk through the front door of this house Scot-free."

Blair surveyed him with narrowed eyes, keeping his legs positioned for strategic defensive kicking. Brackett watched him do some mental mathematics and leered to assist in their progress, enjoying the flush of fear and rage that rose in Blair's cheeks. "Don't worry. I'm not going to rape you," he finally mocked after giving Blair's fear time to build. "You think I'd want something even Ellison won't touch?"

Smirking at his captive's angry flush, he scrabbled on the bed, coming up with a tangle of wires, selecting a few small electronic chips and other gadgets that Blair had no immediate name for. Then he picked up a gym bag. Unzipping it revealed several long dull gray strips of explosive. "This stuff isn't your standard C4. It's pretty volatile." He tossed one from palm to palm. Its slap against his skin sounded heavier than such a slender item should account for. "If it landed hard enough on the floor..." Brackett grinned, face stretching into an ugly rictus. "This piece could level this whole block." He tossed it lightly onto the pillow next to Blair's head, and Sandburg shied from it involuntarily.

"You're going to be wearing ten pieces. It's as much as I could spare." Brackett finished gathering electronics and brandished the roll of duct tape again, slipping it over his fist to ride on his wrist. "The rest of it went... well. That would be telling." He fished a bottle out of his pocket and poured the contents into a rag. "This is ether. If you're very lucky, it may interest both you and Joel Taggart shortly after the next week is up to know that it can be used to dissolve adhesives and peel tape. Breathe deeply for me, Blair."

Blair scrabbled back across the bed defensively, ready to kick. Brackett sighed with exaggerated patience. "You want to do this the hard way? I have another sedative ready in a hypodermic. And rest assured, it's going to happen. Or not. Maybe you'll knock the explosives off the bed, and we'll both go up."

Sandburg stilled reluctantly and eyed the approaching rag with loathing, head jerking once as it settled over his nose. "Breathe." Brackett waited patiently until Blair was forced to do so, and then held the rag over his face until his body was limp and unresponsive. He watched Blair's glazed eyes with satisfaction as he skinned off the layered shirts. "I know you're still conscious," he spoke pleasantly. "But this will make it easier. Lie very still."

Through the haze of the ether, Blair felt the unpleasant chill of metal settle first over his heart, then against the side of his ribcage, feeling like cold stethoscopes at a doctor's office. The application of each was punctuated by pulling and ripping tape, and they warmed quickly. As the ether slowly ebbed from Blair's brain, Brackett methodically continued fastening wires to his body, occasionally pausing to strip insulation from the tip of a wire with pliers. He looked oddly peaceful as he worked, the self-contained professional distance returning to his face briefly as he distributed the heavy gray strips evenly across Blair's back and chest, securing them with one long piece of tape.

"Now it's active," Brackett thumbed a switch that lay on the end table and tossed it to the opposite bed, well out of Blair's reach. "Sit up. Carefully." He helped Blair control his uncooperative limbs, scooting him back toward the headboard so that he could sit upright, his arms stretching behind him.

"Your body is an essential component of this bomb," Brackett murmured, adjusting a wire and securing it with another piece of dull gray tape. He looked inordinately pleased with himself. "I've wired three electrodes into the detonation system here. They're connected to all the wiring, and the wiring is flush with your skin. Contact with your skin is what keeps it stable. The minute you lift a single piece of this off your body, the whole thing will go sky high. No fancy business trying to remove it. Got that? It's important. Remember it." His smile chilled Blair.

He began to wrap Blair tightly with duct tape, the efficient motions reminding Sandburg's disjointed mind of a time when Jim had done much the same thing, wrapping up his ribs after he took a bullet at close range, right in the kevlar. Though there was no pain this time, Brackett's fingers on him were much less pleasant than Jim's had been. Blair remembered how it had felt to try to get the medical tape off his hairy chest and winced automatically, not looking forward to a repeat of the experience.

"That's not all, though," Brackett continued, self-satisfied. I've included several monitoring devices, including a GPS, and there's a remote trigger. I'll be monitoring your activities continually and I can detonate the bomb any time I choose. If it detonates, there won't even be blood mist left for your old girlfriend in Forensics to find. Clear?"

Blair nodded sluggishly, the drug doing nothing to impair his understanding.

"Good. Additionally, this bomb is supplemented by more bombs, bombs also of my construction." Brackett slapped Blair's side lightly and kept winding the sticky tape around him. "If your bomb detonates, I'll be left with no option but to trigger them, too. Those bombs are placed somewhere of critical importance to the lives of a large number of innocent people. They might be in one of the dormitories at Rainier. They might be at Cascade Northside Junior High School. They might be at the Cascade General Hospital. They might be in the police department. They might be in all of those places, or somewhere much worse. You just don't know, do you?" The roll of tape ran out and he patted down the last turn neatly. It covered Blair from navel to armpit in a dull silver-gray sheath, making a sleek package of the hellish tangle of wires and transmitters and explosives that covered his torso.

"One last vital piece of information for you, Blair." Brackett smiled a tight, self-satisfied smile. "I planted a weak electronic transmitter on Ellison four days ago. It's keyed to the frequency that will trigger this detonator. If he comes within ten feet of you, you are both history. You got that?" he inquired sharply, no longer bothering to hide his hatred.

Blair's eyes widened and he nodded numbly.

"Good. Now, if I see or hear you communicating with Ellison, or with anyone else who can help you defuse this bomb or come after me, I'll trigger it and set off the other ones too. If you don't do what I say, you'll be taking plenty of innocent lives along for the ride. All you have to do to keep that from happening is run, Sandburg. Keep Ellison busy and out of my hair." Brackett smiled faintly and reached for the tape that covered Blair's mouth, yanking it away with a single vicious snap of his wrist.

Fear and adrenaline had speeded Blair's circulation, quickening the purgation of the ether from his body. He nodded understanding, heartsick. "What are you going to do?" Only faintly slurred, the words revealed his horror.

"You'll learn that in seven days. After it's over, you can go to Ellison or Taggart or whoever you want for help-- I want you to know you've got a fighting chance, so I give you my word I won't set it off if you wait till I'm done and gone. They might be able to figure out how to get it off without taking a one-way E-ticket straight to hell with you. Or they might not."

He un-cuffed one of Blair's arms, helping him untangle the shirts from around his wrists and pull them back on to cover the bomb. "Good thing you dress in loose clothes. I know you may need to take a shower or a dunking to keep ahead of Ellison, so everything should be waterproof. I'm going to give you one last piece of help and then speed you on your way." He rummaged in Blair's bag, coming up with his plane tickets. Laughing, he tore the packet in two. "You won't be making it through any airport security scans for the duration. You'll want to remember that. If you know you're about to get cornered, talk out loud to me and I'll think about whether or not it's worth it to me to yank your ass out of Ellison's path."

He reached into a pouch that lay on the other bed and came out with a hypo, chuckling as Blair's eyes went wide and he pushed back with his heels, remembering not to strike the wall just in time. Brackett's eyes narrowed with cold humor. "Gently, Blair. This is the help I mentioned." He inserted the hypodermic through the rubber diaphragm lid that covered a small clear glass jar. "This stuff will scramble your body chemistry, including your scent. You'll feel funny for a few days and you'll smell like a horse, but Ellison won't recognize your scent." Tapping the hypo and squirting out a few air bubbles, Brackett advanced and administered the injection. Blair watched him without uttering a sound, his eyes dulled with the lingering effects of ether and despair.

"I see you've got plenty of cash. I've secured you a rental and a full tank of gas." Brackett finished his search of Blair's bag, nodding with approval. "Let's go." He took the remote detonator in his hand, unlocked the remaining cuff, and watched as Blair stood up clumsily. "Try anything fancy and I'll push the button," he warned. "I've got someone waiting to pick you up and take you to your car. I'll be listening." The gun ushered Blair into the living room, where a stone-faced man sat awaiting them.

"Carl, Mr. Sandburg is at your service," Brackett's voice fairly bubbled with good humor. "See to it that he arrives at his vehicle promptly." He put a cell phone into Blair's hand. "Keep this with you at all times, in case our plans need to change." He favored Blair with a humorless smile. Carl stood, favoring Blair with an uninterested stare, and headed out without a word. As they climbed into the featureless blue van that awaited, Blair heard the sprinkler system come on again, washing away any lingering traces of his presence.

Ellison was bored when Blair left, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to concentrate well enough to work on anything effectively. This was it, then: the long-anticipated game. Blair was on the run, and shortly he would follow. Jim found it almost impossible to concentrate, the televised stock-car race he'd found on cable droning monotonously past him in a colorful flow of engine whine and monotonous sportscaster babble. He'd promised not to make any preparations, even insofar as planning strategies of pursuit, so he nursed a beer and made his mind wander more or less aimlessly. Standing up to stretch his muscles and investigate the possibility of lunch, Jim found his eyes wandering to the silent, open door of Sandburg's room.

Blair had been particularly... excitable for the past several days, masturbating regularly and copiously, and the scent of stale sex subtly permeated the air inside his room. Jim shut the door to imprison it inside, knowing that he'd be able to smell it anyway if he let himself. It made sense that Blair would have his adrenaline up, getting ready for the challenge of the chase. The tension had to go somewhere, and why not into solitary sex? If Blair hadn't lived with a Sentinel, it would have gone unnoticed, perfectly unremarkable.

Jim sighed, feeling a little guilty. He'd been drawn into the web of excitement and anticipation as well, shamefully listening in as arousal overtook him, prompting him to join Blair in what should have been a solitary pursuit. At least he had the cold comfort of knowing that Blair couldn't possibly have overheard him. One less shameful fact to have to acknowledge and live with.

He shifted uncomfortably, zeroing in on the television as one of the trailing cars clipped the wall during a treacherous pass and spun out, two more narrowly missing it as it limped down onto the lawn inside the track. Unfortunately, the sense of unease from his thoughts resisted his attempts to dissipate it by redirecting his attention. Just thinking about listening to Blair was threatening to set him off again; he shifted uncomfortably to ease his sensitive genitals away from the seam of his jeans.

He frowned a little, eyes locked intently to the set, his brain almost entirely unaware of the pit crew and safety personnel rushing to examine the driver and his battered car. He hadn't wanted to admit that listening to Blair had so much power to arouse him; he'd always been able to rationalize it at the time. But getting hard now, in broad daylight without the soft noises of Blair's pleasure as an excuse, without the scent of Blair's completion as a catalyst... Jim locked down on the train of thought mercilessly. He'd never been one for introspection. Looking too deeply always raised difficult questions that a man really didn't want to ask himself.

Stolidly watching the damaged car limp its wobbling way toward the pit, Jim absolutely refused to consider either the questions or the answers.

At 3:21 PM precisely, Jim Ellison rose from the sofa, turned off the television set, and headed downstairs. Blair's Volvo awaited him, sitting in its customary parking space, and he laid his hand on the hood. Probably warm enough to have been driven earlier-- there'd been very little sun for the hood to absorb. He looked inside, effortlessly finding fibers that matched the clothing Blair had worn out of the apartment. They were snagged in the seat-cover along with a few others that didn't look familiar, not matching any clothing Blair customarily wore. All right then-- Blair had driven away and arranged for someone to bring his car back.

There were a limited number of ways that Blair could leave Cascade: airplane, train, foot, boat, and automobile. Probably his friend had met him here and dropped him off at one of those alternatives. Jim's normal line of attack would be to locate this friend and shake him down for the information he wanted. That could take time, though.

He opened the car door and scented the air trapped inside. Blair, plus an unfamiliar masculine aftershave... as expected. It wouldn't be one of the guys from Major Crimes-- too easy. No, Blair would have chosen somebody from the university, and not one of his usual companions, either. However, knowing Blair, his accomplice wouldn't have any more idea where Blair was headed than the man in the moon. Heck, he might even have just dropped Blair off at the central hub for Cascade public transport, from which Blair could go to any ticketing or rental agency he liked.

Jim paused, thinking hard. This was going to be a contest of brain versus brain as much as it would be a test of his senses. Intellect was the area in which Blair would be at his most challenging.

So. He had to second-guess his hyper roommate, did he? Well, if that was the case, one thing Jim knew was that Blair had an almost unconscious sense of the dramatic. He might spend half a day leaving a variety of false trails through Cascade, but in the end, Jim would bet he'd wind up at the airport. It wasn't just drama-- it made good sense. Cascade International Airport was no smalltime operation, and it would take Jim hours to check out all the possible leads there. Worse, through his participation in police work, Blair knew at least half a dozen ways to get a false ID and get on a plane under an assumed name. His jaw firmed with certainty. In spite of the daunting size of the task, Jim would start his search at the airport.

Four absolutely fruitless hours later, it was too late to go to the university to hunt for the aftershave he'd scented in Blair's car and Jim was at something of a loss. Not a whiff of Blair, and not a ticketing clerk or a vendor or a boarding director had registered so much as an iota of recognition when he flashed his partner's picture. Well, maybe Sandburg had anticipated that Jim would figure him for an airplane kind of guy. That had to be it.

Frustrated, Jim drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his truck as he thought, then made his decision and headed for the adjacent Greyhound station. After that, he'd hit every auto rental agency in Cascade if he had to, including Ryder and U-Haul. It would be just like Blair to rent a truck, figuring Jim might forget that possibility.

By eleven PM, he had made his way through all the available options and found himself at a loss. Gritting his teeth, Jim wondered why the hell he'd ever thought this was going to be easy. Like he had some kind of mystical connection that would lead him straight to Blair or something? His partner was too canny; he knew too much about how crooks slipped up and got caught. He'd probably had the rental made in an alternate name and delivered to him by a friend. The same one who'd taken his car? Probably not. Another friend, then, one much harder to locate because Jim would have no scent of him-- or her.

With the airport eliminated, the rental idea just made sense. The more Jim thought about it the more he believed in it. To get on a bus or board a plane, Sandburg would have to be seen by maybe a dozen airport employees. By contrast, a rental would involve only one counter clerk, and then he could slide out of town slicker than goose grease, leaving practically no trace at all. If he was playing things this smart already, Blair had probably even primed his first accomplice, the one Jim had a good chance of finding, with a false lead on his whereabouts.

Hell. Sandburg was slippery as an eel, and the tower of blocks Jim was building in his mind was already in danger of getting too high to rely on. Worse, Jim had to put one more block atop the teetering stack of speculations before he could quit-- Blair's destination. He could no more check every gas station between here and where a normal tank would run out than he could fly-- and even if he could, convenience store clerks changed shifts regularly.

Less than a day had passed, and Jim was forced to admit that he was already just about stumped. He didn't want to, but he might just have to put an APB out on Sandburg. Already. Damn. He hadn't wanted to involve Simon in this, and Sandburg was going to give him a hard time for caving in so early. Jim sighed. With luck, his captain might be pulling a late shift. Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed with one hand and pointed the truck downtown with the other.

"Banks."

"Yeah, Simon-- I'm glad I caught you in. Are you gonna be there for awhile? I'm on my way downtown and I wanted to ask a favor."

"Yeah, I'm gonna be here. And you're just the man I wanted to talk to. Sandburg with you?"

"No, he's busy." Jim winced at the misdirection, but he didn't want to give Simon a chance to work up a head of steam before he ever got to the PD.

"Yeah. Well hurry up, Ellison, I don't want us to be here all night."

Simon had a three-page fax laid out on his desk when Jim walked into his office and was gnawing worriedly at an unlit cigar. "Sit." He didn't look up, shifting the paper with blunt but surprisingly agile fingertips. "I'm going first-- executive privilege."

Jim nodded calmly and settled back, waiting.

"This is our monthly dossier on prisoner status: a list of everybody originally busted by the Cascade PD who's been released from prison in the last four weeks." Simon stared fiercely at the document.

Jim nodded and hitched his chair forward. It was Simon's standard procedure to keep tabs on prisoner status in case a known grudge-holder might earn parole. "Trouble?"

"You might say that." Simon put down his cigar, picked up a yellow highlighter, and slashed it across the second page three quarters of the way down, then slid it across his desk.

Jim whistled, eyes widening. "Lee Brackett? I thought we'd put him away for good."

"So did the Federal judge who did the sentencing. But he got ranked. I don't know how the hell Brackett managed it, but he got an appeal through on an anomaly in court procedure and a higher judiciary signed his release papers three weeks ago." Banks sat back.

"Shit." Jim picked up the paper and stared at it as though it had more to tell him.

"His parole officer has filed the paperwork for a standard visitation pattern, but we both know better than to put any faith in that. Brackett's got plenty of ways of getting around the system. Personally, I think he might have his mind on other things, don't you? Revisiting old haunts, renewing old... acquaintances?" Simon's grim implicit message echoed Jim's own thoughts.

"Brackett's not the kind of man to take defeat lightly," Ellison agreed, pushing the paper back across Banks' desk. "We'll have to keep a sharp eye out for any signs that he's operating in Cascade."

"My thoughts exactly, and I wanted you to know it before anybody else." Banks paused. "So where's Sandburg? He needs to know too. I'm sure Lee Brackett doesn't remember him kindly."

Jim shifted his gaze to the ceiling. "Actually, Sandburg's whereabouts are what I wanted to talk to you about." Simon's eyes narrowed and Jim took the plunge hastily. "You see, he and I made a bet, and we're spending our vacation testing my senses. The plan is for him to run, and for me to find him."

"You WHAT?" It was a good thing Simon had laid his cigar in the ashtray, or he might have bitten it in two. "Of all the hare-brained schemes to come up with... don't tell me, it was Sandburg's idea." He waited for Jim's sheepish nod. "Of course it was." The captain picked up the fax papers and squared them automatically, stapling them together with a vicious snap of his wrist and shoving them in a drawer. "I don't like the timing on this, Jim. I'm going to postpone your vacation till we can get tabs on Brackett's whereabouts. Call Sandburg's game off. You'll have to play some other time."

"I'll leave a message on his office machine," Jim agreed. "He's supposed to check in there every twenty-four hours. Actually, I was just about to ask you to put out a state-wide APB on him so I could get some help on discovering his whereabouts." Simon gave him a dubious stare and Jim shrugged uncomfortably. "What can I say? He's good and he knows the tricks of the trade."

"You mean he's already given you the slip." Banks' voice was desert-dry.

"Of course not." Jim squirmed uncomfortably, knowing damn well that Blair had. "He's just got a head start, and I wanted to eliminate it."

Simon sighed and let the lie pass. "I'll put out the APB and you call his machine. Now. And keep looking! Maybe we'll get lucky and bring him back in before anything goes down."

"Maybe." Jim pulled out his cell phone and began dialing, listening to Sandburg's cheerful voice and waiting for the beep. "Sandburg, this is Jim. Simon's canceling our vacation and we need to stand down. There are old friends in town and they may pay us a surprise visit. We need you back ASAP, partner." He hung up and sat back, already feeling the helpless sensation of having done all that he could. Damn it, he hated waiting. He wasn't about to stop looking for Blair just because he'd recorded a message on Sandburg's machine.

"I already checked the airport and the bus station and damn near every car rental place in town," he mused when Banks hung up his own phone. "No luck at any of them. Whatever he did, he got somebody to do the legwork for him. I think he's in a rental. I'm pretty sure he'll stay in the United States. It's harder to get a phony passport than it is to get a fake license, and he wouldn't want to risk tangling with the feds."

"Good thinking," Banks nodded. He'll be almost impossible to find that way, especially if he pays cash for gas and lodging."

"He'll do that." Jim sighed wryly. "We agreed I could use police resources to hunt him, so there's no way he's going to use a credit card or his checkbook."

"Right." Simon shook his head with resigned disgust. "It's amazing the problems you two find to get yourselves into."

"What do you think Brackett might target?" Jim changed the subject deftly.

"Something high profile, that's for sure. And he won't scruple at endangering innocent citizens to get it." Banks pondered. "The Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibit's in town this month. Sandburg was badgering me to take Darryl to see it. There's a lot of gold in that. Brackett could melt it down and sell it without leaving any traces and you know he wouldn't give a damn about historical value. Or there are private collectors who might pay big bucks for a piece of it to call their own."

Jim nodded thoughtfully. "It's a possibility. We ought to pull records on treasury shipments and valuable military tech, too."

"Yeah. I think a pre-emptive strike is definitely in order. You hit the computer and I'll start making some phone calls, get people out of bed and on the job." Banks slumped in his chair slightly. "Looks like we're gonna be here all night after all."

Ellison emailed a contact in the military to start the ball rolling toward researching any local military tech Brackett might covet and had just managed to locate and input his police clearance to look at impending treasury shipments when his desk phone rang. Not bothering to wonder who might be calling at this hour, he picked it up. "Ellison."

"Jim." Blair's voice was high and nervous, sounding like something was wrong.

"Sandburg." Jim exhaled with relief, momentarily ignoring Blair's agitation. "You got my message already, that's good. I need you back here--"

"Sorry, Jim, it's not gonna happen that way."

Jim sat bolt upright, a frown already pinching his face, and he saw Simon notice his agitation, staring at him through the office window. He gestured and Banks rose, emerging to listen. Jim hit the speakerphone switch.

"What do you mean, Chief? This isn't a joke, we've got potential troub--"

Blair cut him off, his voice shaky, taking on a miserable, singsong tone as though he were reciting from memory. "I know you want it. Come and get it. If you don't, there won't be anything left. I'll leave a clue for you every few days, since you aren't smart enough to take me on your own."

"Sandburg, what the hell?!" He interrupted himself, gesturing fiercely at Simon. "Trace it," he mouthed silently. Simon punched buttons on his cell furiously and started to mutter instructions to whoever had picked up on the other end.

"Do your eyes work as well through smog?" Blair's flat recital didn't stop. "Maybe we'll find out in a day or two. Don't disappoint me, Jim, or you'll never get any, and that goes for a lot of other people, too." His voice hitched and the line went dead. Jim stared at the silent phone for a long moment, then put it away and directed a mute query toward Simon.

Banks shook his head slowly. "We didn't have time to complete a trace, but the call came in through the main switchboard, so it's been recorded. What the hell did he say before I came in?"

Jim just shook his head. "You heard the important part. Something's wrong. Very wrong." His eyes wandered to the window, and he scanned automatically, finding nothing unusual. "Come on. Let's get down to the switchboard and replay that recording."

Ten minutes later they sat in forensics, replaying Blair's brief message for the third time. Simon looked at Jim skeptically as he watched the reels of the recorder turn, doling out the magnetic tape steadily.

"His respiration's elevated and his voice is about as stressed as I've ever heard it. No footsteps, no other breathing. There's a faint hum, almost an electronic interference of some sort... I can't place it. I heard a vehicle or two passing outside, heavy engine noise, maybe tractor trailer trucks. I think he's in a motel. Probably somewhere between here and LA, according to the clue. It could be a true lead, or it could be a false one." Jim sighed. "He's definitely under duress, Simon. He wouldn't talk that way if he weren't."

"You mean the contents of the message." Banks hesitated. "Blair's not usually given to... innuendo. Is he?"

"Not that kind." Jim looked away awkwardly. "Simon, I think it's got to be Brackett. When we dealt with him before, he... made some implications about the two of us being in a less than professional relationship. I think he's gotten to Blair. He probably wrote that script for Sandburg to recite."

"There's no proof, but it gives us a place to start." Banks wiped sweat from his forehead and punched the stop button on the recorder.

"I'm leaving on the next plane to Sacramento," Jim's face set stubbornly as he scooped up his jacket. "There's no way he's gotten that far yet-- it'd take him over twenty hours in a car, and he's only been gone since nine-thirty this morning. Maybe I can spot him on I-5 and cut him off there. Forward my office phone to my cell. Have the phone company put a trace on every call that comes through it the second it connects."

"Jim, if this really is Brackett's plan, you're playing right into his hands."

"You heard what Sandburg said. There wouldn't be anything left, I wouldn't ever 'get any,' and neither would a lot of other people-- he's in danger, Simon, and I can't leave it at that. Or risk the possibility that innocent bystanders may get hurt because I didn't play along."

"Brackett wants you out of Cascade, busy chasing your tail!" Simon winced at his choice of words as Jim's gaze leveled on him coldly. "I mean it. He's a practical man. You can bet your ass he's got bigger fish to fry than just taking a little vengeance against you and Sandburg, Jim."

"He's probably got Sandburg's phone tapped at the U, and heard me ask him to come home," Jim agreed, pushing aside his anger. "I'll bet he's been listening in on us for weeks. That's how he knew what Blair and I were planning in the first place. That call was too much of a coincidence, coming as fast as it did. Brackett had just enough time to contact Sandburg and give him that spiel to recite. If we don't do what he wants, he'll hurt Sandburg. Or worse."

"But if he's out there eavesdropping and Sandburg's three hundred miles down the road, what's he holding over the kid's head? How did he make him call?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out." Jim's jaw set tight, the muscle in his cheek jumping.

"Maybe he's got Sandburg with him. They could be holed up right here in Cascade, Jim! If you fly off to California without being sure... Brackett's bluffed us before."

"I don't think he's bluffing this time, Simon." Jim shouldered into his jacket. "Sandburg's too agitated for that and Brackett never does things the easy way-- it just isn't how he plays ball. My partner's out there in trouble and he's the key to finding out what's going on. You watch over things here and I'll take care of finding Sandburg."

Before Captain Banks could renew his protests, his best detective was gone.

Jim caught the red-eye into Sacramento and rented a car, not bothering with a motel, and headed straight out to park on the verge of I-5. It was still early to catch Sandburg; he figured Blair had probably called from somewhere in Oregon-- maybe Portland or Eugene. He was betting on the interstate because Sandburg liked the kind of road where he could open it up and move fast. As nervous as he'd sounded on the phone, the constant stop-and-start of minor highways would drive him crazy.

Early or not, he stopped briefly for an Egg McMuffin and coffee, then ensconced himself on the southbound margin of the interstate about 20 miles north of Sacramento and began watching traffic. He opened up his hearing as much as he dared, wincing at the roar of engines, and wished he'd invested in a bottle of aspirin. It wasn't likely that Sandburg would be talking, but he couldn't take the chance that he might miss his partner on the strength of a simple omission.

His attention skimmed past cars with more than one occupant, and he made a conscious effort to keep his fingers or toes moving, changing position in the seat-- anything to avoid a zone on the babble and whine of traffic. He developed a blinding headache by noon, and as two approached he began to wish he'd thought to order an extra sausage biscuit for lunch. By four he was seriously thinking of packing it in; depending on how long he'd paused to rest the previous night Blair might already have passed him by.

Jim sighed and shifted sweatily against the vinyl seat, tapping at the car-keys and listening to their tinny jingle. He'd have to give it up when night fell. Though his vision was viable even in darkness, he couldn't cope with a constant stream of halogen headlights. His eyelids lowered wearily and his nostrils contracted with revulsion at the scent of exhaust. He'd had no sleep at all.

He kept his tired mind awake by cataloguing each car as it passed him. A busload of screeching kids wearing baseball uniforms rattled past. A few yuppies blasted by at about eighty miles per hour, following a guy in an expensive Beamer with a radar detector flashing on the dashboard. Tractor trailer trucks roared past, and each one might as well have plowed straight through his skull. His nose wrinkled at the smell from an ancient van carrying a pair of scruffy dopers. His eyes flickered past a station wagon carrying a family with a sleeping baby and a dark blue compact car with a guy in a baseball cap in the fast lane, passing a pair of motorcycles towing trailers.

Jim sat bolt upright and turned the keys so hard the engine whined a complaint. He waited for a window and jammed his car out onto the road, accelerating furiously.

It was Blair, his hair tucked up under the cap, his eyes shadowed with dark circles, and his mouth set in a hard line. Jim passed a few cars, letting a nice buffer stay between him and his fleeing partner. He could see Sandburg's eyes in the rear-view mirror of his car, his expression looking devastated, wiped out. Jim pulled back from the focused vision, concentrating on his driving, trying to keep up without being obvious. He dialed Simon quickly.

"Simon, I've got him. He's in a 1997 Ford Escort. Dark blue, Washington plate CZ12097. We're on I-5 heading south into Sacramento. No, I don't want backup to come and help get him stopped. I'd rather approach him on my own when he stops for the night. Right. I'll keep you posted. Look up the information on that rental, will you? You might find something useful... yeah. Later."

Jim slid the phone into his pocket and returned his concentration to the road. Blair had to be exhausted; he hadn't seemed to see Jim waiting on the edge of the road. Of course, it'd be hard to keep continually alert for pursuit during such a long drive, and Jim was grateful that Sandburg's attention had lapsed.

Blair stayed as far away from San Francisco traffic as he could, hugging the LA lanes in the interchanges. The lane changes forced Jim to reduce some of the distance between them, and eventually he realized Blair was accelerating. He looked up into the Escort's rear view mirror again, saw Sandburg checking it nervously, his expression haggard. Shit.

Jim swore again as a tractor trailer took advantage of Blair's sudden speed and forced its way into the space between them, beginning a steady but frustratingly gradual progression around a slower truck. Suddenly the slower truck's air horn blared and it swerved, almost striking the passing truck in the fast lane. The blare of horn and the scream of brakes sent a white spike of pain through Jim's temple, and he braked instinctively, locking down, feeling the car shimmy and threaten to go out of control. No!

Beneath the trailer of the swerving truck, a flash of dark blue nipped down an off-ramp that Blair couldn't possibly have made, but had. Jim cursed, fighting the sluggish steering, barely managing to keep from plowing into the truck in front of him. It put on a burst of speed to clear the potential accident the driver sensed building next to and behind his rig. The truck next to him straightened out even as he fought for control, tires running rough over junk that had collected on the inner rim of the median, fender scraping the concrete guard barrier and shooting sparks. The support of the guardrail was enough to put him on an even keel again, and he bumped to a stop in the median where the grass resumed just beyond the overpass.

Fuck. Lost him! Jim savagely gunned the gas and forced the car into a sharp turn, thumping in and out of the central ditch, not giving a damn about its suspension. He bulled his way into the northbound lane, causing more squealing tires, and floored it back across the overpass, taking the median again and jamming the car through three lanes of traffic onto the offramp at his first opportunity.

Not a sign of Blair at the bottom.

Jim turned right and headed into strip-mall suburbia, California-style. Maybe Sandburg was moving on automatic, taking the path of least resistance. It wasn't much of a hope, but he wasn't ready to give up on it yet.

Blair steered his car into hiding between an SUV and a U-Haul trailer that had parked behind a flea-trap motel and slumped to rest his forehead on the steering wheel, shaking. That little stunt had endangered innocent lives, but he'd had no choice. He couldn't be sure how sensitive the bomb was to the transmitter Jim was carrying. He couldn't even be sure when Ellison had picked him up; all he knew was that he'd looked up and seen the familiar silhouette two cars behind him shortly after he hit the third Sacramento interchange.

He'd tried to tell Brackett that giving Jim concrete hints without equally concrete warnings was a mistake, but the former CIA agent wouldn't listen. Blair grimaced, taking off the baseball cap he wore and running his hands through his sweat-soaked hair. He felt grimy and his eyes were grainy, like he'd been on the road for a month, not a day. He could smell himself like a farm animal. Even the clerk at the Wendy's he'd driven through earlier had given him a dirty look.

He couldn't stay here, that was for sure. Jim would have the local cops checking motels. He was going to have to load up on caffeine and bust ass for LA-- a roundabout route this time, so Jim wouldn't be able to second-guess him. He didn't dare not go to LA, not with this bomb on him... he didn't even dare go too far out of his way. Brackett's GPS would give him away very rapidly.

A part of him was surprised that Jim had followed him, considering the contents of the message Brackett had forced him to deliver. Blair sighed, a deep quavering breath that shook him from head to toe and strained against the tape that constricted his ribs. 'I know you want it... come and get it....' He knew nothing of the sort, but Jim hadn't let him down in spite of it all-- only Jim didn't know that refusing to give up was bad, very bad.

Blair struggled to gather his scrambled wits. It wasn't in his nature to run-- he preferred to face trouble head-on, but when it came to threatening Jim's life, no way. He had to collect himself in order to decide what to do next. He could be sure Jim had made his car and distributed the information, and now anywhere he went, cops would spot him in it. He was going to have to find some other way to get to LA.

Blair firmed his jaw defiantly. Time to think some more, Sandburg. He had to get some rest. He was about tapped out, both physically and emotionally-- carrying this bomb was a drain on his resources that made the kind of running/hiking he'd done when they pursued Quinn look like a picnic.

A bus, then. A bus to LA. Jim would be busy looking around here for the next hour or so in hopes Blair was too shaken to continue his drive. He'd sacrifice that much time making sure Blair hadn't just gone to ground. It might not be much of a head start, but it was the best he could muster.

Blair got out of his car and trotted to the lobby of the motel, tucking his hair back up under his hat again. "Where's the nearest bus station?"

He noted down the directions, which were fortunately uncomplicated, and hurried back out to the car. Running the considerable risk of passing Jim on the main strip, he headed into town till he spotted a taxi stopped on the roadside, letting out a passenger. Blair immediately stopped his car, leaving it on the edge of the road, and snagged his pack, dashing across traffic to jump in behind the startled cabbie.

"Take me to the bus station," he directed, then sank back against the seat as the car started to roll. Expelling an exhausted breath, Blair let his eyes shut.

"Sure you don't want a motel first?" The Hispanic-accented voice was sympathetic. "Get a shower and some sleep."

"Nah, not today."

"Somebody's after you." The cabbie speeded up. "Not too many fares leave a perfectly good car and come running to catch a cab."

"Yeah," Blair nodded warily. Shit. Was the guy gonna haul him to the police station?

"You look like a real desperate criminal." Good humor, no trace of threat.

"Desperate's one good word for it." Blair's hand went to run over the slick, alien sensation of tape beneath his shirt and one of the hard lethal lumps that lay beneath. He traced the faint ridge of a wire. He couldn't let himself think too hard about it, or he'd hyperventilate right here in the cab.

"You not pay your child support or somethin'?"

"Something like that," Blair agreed automatically. "Can you take the back way?"

"Sure thing. It's your dollar. You are gonna pay me, right?"

"Yeah." Blair grinned in spite of himself. "They're not after me for stiffing cabbies, man. You're on easy street."

"Then it's my lucky day." The cabbie swerved off the main drag and floored it.

Standing next to the abandoned blue Escort, Jim swore and took out his cell phone. "Simon? Yeah. I lost him in traffic, but I've found his car-- he's not in it anymore. Do me a favor and call some guys from the Sacramento PD to come out and get it, will you? Have them run a forensics check looking for any links to Brackett." Jim winced and held the phone away from his ear. "I know I said I could handle it without backup, Simon. Yes. Yes. We're wasting time here... I've got to scour the neighborhood. All right, just as soon as I learn something."

He hung up, squatting to look inside the car. It smelled rank of sweat and fear, but it didn't really smell like Blair. Still, it was definitely the right vehicle. There were plenty of fibers and lost hairs that confirmed it. Jim frowned, a thoughtful crease crinkling his high brow. It wasn't like Blair to abandon a sign of his whereabouts so visibly. He sniffed again, sinking into himself slightly. There were other scents in the car, too, beyond the strong unfamiliar body smell that somehow was Blair's. Car-cleaning detergents and solvents, the remnants of fast food, something pungent and artificial that tickled at his mind with familiarity. It lingered strongest at the driver's seat.

Jim reached out and touched fabric wet with sweat, rubbing moisture between his fingertips. Blair had been running scared, but there still wasn't any evidence that Brackett or anybody else was keeping tabs on him... what the hell was going on?

He straightened and slammed the door of the car. Across the road a curtain flicked, and Jim rose. A curious neighbor just might give him the information he needed. Crossing the street with a staggered jog timed to avoid traffic, he walked through a weed-infested lawn and stepped up onto the rickety porch. He rapped on the peeling mint-colored paint of the door, listening to the house fall silent.

A latch turned and the door opened a crack. "Yeah?"

"I'm with the Cascade Washington Police Department, in pursuit of a suspect." Jim flashed his badge and tried to look unthreatening. "That's his car abandoned across the road. You see anything?"

The door opened wider, revealing a seedy-looking rat-faced woman of about thirty. "Saw Alice come home next door in a taxi. Some guy jumped out of that car and got in it. It went up the street." She pointed vaguely. "I'd like to know where she gets the money for it. If you ask me, she's up to no good."

"The guy. Was he wearing a black baseball cap?"

"And a plaid flannel shirt and jeans." Her sharp dark eyes scanned Jim predatorily. "Average sized guy."

"That's the one." Jim didn't bother to flash a picture of Blair. "Can you tell me the name of the cab company?" Jim smiled patiently.

"Yellow Cab."

"Got a phone book with their number?"

She just looked at him like he'd grown an extra head, so Jim excused himself politely and thanked her for the help, then sprinted for his car and tore out looking for a pay phone where the attached phone book hadn't been ripped off its chain.

An hour and twenty-eight minutes after Blair's bus departed, Jim was trying to forget his brief interview with the hostile, uncooperative cabbie-- apparently the guy had taken a liking to Sandburg. Ten minutes after that, he stood in the bus terminal, where the ticketing clerk recognized Sandburg's picture right away. Jim smiled grimly, pocketing his copy of the bus's itinerary. He cursed every red light that caught him as he headed back toward the interstate. Once he was on the road for real, he pushed his battered car as hard as he dared. Blair had nearly two hours lead on him, and he'd have to check out every stop the bus was scheduled to make.

Sandburg wouldn't slip away from him so easily again.

Blair slumped in his seat at the rear of the bus, well aware that the other passengers were giving him a wide berth. He didn't care-- all the better. His relief was illogical, he knew that. The bomb would probably take out the whole bus and a respectable area around it. However, it still let him relax a little when people kept outside a certain radius. He didn't have to deal with their eyes or their questions, and that was a good thing.

It had been damned close with Jim on the road. All his nerves were jangling that Ellison wouldn't be far behind, and might even be waiting for him when this bus stopped. He had to do something to clue Jim in enough that he'd back off, and he had to do it without Brackett finding out.

Blair scrabbled in his pack, finding a near-empty red pen that he sometimes used for grading. No paper. Eventually he tore open the folded brochure his ticket had come in. His handwriting was bad, a shaky scrawl that testified to exhaustion and incipient, barely-deferred panic.

Jim. Brackett's wired me with a bomb. There are others in populated areas. Not sure where or why. You're wired to trigger mine. I'm rigged for sound so he can monitor me and set them off if I fuck up. STAY BACK, find him! He underlined the last four words emphatically, then signed his surname.

He surveyed his barely-legible scrawl. I can't leave that with anybody. They'd read it and they might call the news. Then there'd be a panic. He folded the note, his fingers shaking, and stuffed it in his back pocket. He'd have to drop it if Jim got close again. He should have thought of doing this before he left his rental, but there hadn't been any time.

Blair leaned his head back against the wear-shiny fabric of the seat and closed his eyes. He had to rest, had to be ready to run again when the bus stopped. Regulating his breathing with an effort, Blair began to run his mind through calming meditations, seeking the elusive and illusory refuge of sleep.

'I know you want it. Come and get it.' The words were Brackett's and they tasted foul on Blair's lips, but Ellison stepped forward anyway, oblivious to the small red blinking eye concealed under the tape that mummified Blair's chest. Blair tried to speak again but his mouth was thick and unresponsive, as though crammed with cotton wool. Jim's eyes were clear and peaceful; he seemed to be taking Blair's words at face value. His hands went to the button of his jeans in a shyly seductive gesture, his eyes soft with love, warm with promise. Jim, approaching Blair with love, ready to give himself. It was everything Blair had ever wanted--

Inside his mind Blair was screaming for Jim to get away, but his body was frozen and he couldn't move. The tape covered him from collar to ankle now, binding him in a fatal sarcophagus. Ellison's wrist brushed over the shiny surface of his badge where it lay clipped to his belt, and Blair realized the transmitter was hidden behind it. He took another step and Blair felt the bomb crackle with electricity, and Jim exploded in front of his eyes. Not him, Jim--

He jolted upright, only partly choking back a scream, and disgusted, frightened eyes rounded on him from nearby seats. "Bad dream." His throat was dry and chalky. "Sorry." They turned away hesitantly and he scrubbed his hand over his now badly stubbled face, wondering if he'd ever get a chance to shave again.

He checked his watch automatically. He'd slept for several hours. It was four AM and dark outside, with headlights rushing past in a never-ending stream. Jim was behind a set of those headlights, edging closer, working on making Blair's nightmare come true-- because even though Jim might not feel what he'd seemed to in the dream, it was his caring for Blair that was driving him to pursue this quest. Jim was drawing near; Blair could almost taste it. He needed to get off this bus before it reached its final destination. He needed to try something different, throw Jim off the scent for a while.

Blair raised himself and made his way to the front of the bus, crouching next to the driver, who regarded him for a moment out of the corner of a jaundiced eye. Blair smiled, aware that it looked more like a corpse's grin than a genuine friendly feeling. "Hey, I know you're not supposed to stop, man, but I'm getting carsick here. Really carsick. In a minute, I'm going to decorate the inside of this bus the likes of which you have never seen, okay? Would you stop for me at the next fast food joint? Or just the next ramp. Just slow down long enough to let me jump off. I'll never bother you again. Deal? Just let me get off the bus and out of your life."

The driver's mouth pinched as the rancid scent of Blair's body, sent haywire by Brackett's injection, swirled in his nostrils. He gave a curt nod and edged into the slow lane, looking for an off-ramp. "You're saving my life, man." Blair inhaled deliberately, steadying himself. A sign fled past, advertising an intersection with Highway 46 in a mile and a half, and Blair sighed his relief as it finally came in sight and they slowed to take it.

The bus paused at the bottom of the ramp and Blair jumped out, watching it accelerate across the road and head straight back up the diamond-design onramp, his debarkation just the faintest hiccup in its planned route.

He jammed his hands in his pockets, spared a minute to look up at the interstate, and started walking east. Let Brackett pinpoint him and fume-- he had to do what it took to avoid Jim, and leaving the bus at a non-scheduled stop had been a smooth move. Now if he could just avoid being picked up as a vagrant... not many cars were moving at four AM, but he was just close enough to LA to hope for commuter traffic. Hearing a motor in the distance, he lifted his thumb hopefully and began picking his way down the highway, persisting in his attempt to hitch even though car after car blew past him. At around four-thirty a battered pickup pulled over and as he ran to catch up, a thumb indicated the truck bed instead of the passenger cab.

Blair vaulted lightly into the back of the truck amidst an assortment of lawnmower parts and some half-filled cartons of gasoline. "Where you headed?" he called through the rear window-vent.

"Santa Barbara."

"Great." Blair gave a grateful wave. "I'll just grab a nap while you drive. Thanks, man. You're a saint."

The greasy black-haired man nodded and shut the vent. Blair scrounged down amidst the sad collection of disassembled lawn equipment, the wind from the road already biting at his ears and freezing his hands. Tucking his pack under his head, he tried to rest as the truck jolted along the road. This time it was easier, in spite of the chill-- his mind was calmer because he'd bought himself a little space. Two days down, and no telling how many left to go.

"He looked bad and smelled worse. Half the passengers refused to sit near him. I didn't want him to be sick all over the bus, so I just let him off." The bus driver eased his sweaty collar, looking at cold disappointed anger in the eyes of Detective James J. Ellison.

"Did you notice anything else?" Jim reminded himself not to take his anger out on the innocent driver.

"He was moving kinda stiff, like he was bandaged up or something. His hand kept fiddling with his ribs. I'd look in the observation mirror and he'd be rubbing his palm against his chest, like he hurt or like he was feeling of something he had under his shirt."

Jim frowned with concern, filing the information away for future reference. Something teased at his sluggish mind, but he was too weary to think straight, drained by lack of sleep and tormented by a thundering eyestrain headache.

"You've been very helpful. Thanks for your cooperation." Ellison tried to keep the dull worry out of his voice as he straightened and looked around the office of the desolate, pre-dawn bus station. The sky was just growing bright and Blair was out there somewhere, probably hitchhiking, and it sounded like he was injured, maybe even drugged. The bus driver gathered his things and left, leaving Jim to his own grim thoughts.

Sighing, Jim watched the driver hurry away and when he was out of earshot, he palmed his cell. He dialed Simon's home number regardless of the time.

"Banks." The voice was a little bleary, thick with sleep.

"I've got information on Sandburg's condition and possible whereabouts. I found a bus driver who talked to him a couple of hours ago. The guy let him off his bus at the intersection of I-5 and highway 46." Jim hesitated and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to ease his throbbing head. "The driver said he looked sick and hurt, Simon. Maybe Brackett had some goons work him over." They'd probably focused on his ribs, knowing the area would be hidden under his shirt. If Sandburg's ribs were broken, one might nick or puncture his lung. He could wind up bleeding to death under an overpass somewhere, and it'd be months before they found his body-- Jim shut that train of thought down with ruthless, vicious efficiency. He couldn't afford to let fear and other emotions further blunt the edge of his thinking.

"I'll notify the authorities to keep an eye out for Sandburg between LA and the area you indicated." Jim could hear the faint scratching of a pen as Simon noted down the details.

Jim nodded absently, forgetting Simon couldn't see him, and rubbed his grainy eyes. He was nearing forty-eight hours and counting since this had started, with no sleep to speak of. "Has Brackett gone public with any demands yet?"

"Not yet." Simon's voice was alert now, though still sleep-roughened. "I'll keep you apprised of any changes."

"He's probably still having too much fun watching us play out his wild goose-chase," Jim speculated dryly.

"Ellison, you in LA yet?"

"Yeah." Jim set his jaw and looked out the window at the grimy downtown skyline.

"Well, find someplace to hole up, get some rest, and sit tight. I think Brackett will make Sandburg call you again if he thinks you've lost him. We've got your phone run through half a dozen recorders at the PD, we'll analyze the call. He doesn't want you to give up. He knows he's got you dangling and he's not going to let either you or Sandburg go that easily."

"And meanwhile, he has us all right where he wants us." Jim's voice was matter-of-fact but bitter.

"You let me worry about that. Get some sleep. You're no good to the kid if you're too tired to think straight."

Though Jim chafed at Simon's order, he was too tired to resist any longer, especially when his captain was talking sense. "Yeah, I'll do that," he muttered, defeated. "Keep in touch." He folded the cell phone and squinted into the rising sun.

Ellison settled on a Holiday Inn near Santa Monica that stretched tall enough to give him a good eastward view of the city skyline. LA was a damned big place, way too big for a single Sentinel to have much hope of quickly locating one guy who wanted to stay hidden. However, it made Jim feel good to have the sweeping expanse of the city laid out where he could let his gaze roam, hoping that Blair might be somewhere out there under his eyes, invisible but present.

By the time he found his lodging the sun had risen far enough to glare down through the layer of dull brown haze that covered the city. Jim sighed, calculating speeds and times automatically, then gave up. Simon was right. He should get some rest.

He took a quick shower and put his undershorts back on since they were the only pair he had with him, arranging his cell phone within easy reach of the bed. Leaving the drapes open as though the vista of the city would give him some connection to Blair, he lay down wearily, staring up at the swirled plaster ceiling.

The next time Sandburg had an idea like this, Jim was going to cuff him to one of the support pillars in the loft and leave him there for at least two days. Ellison sighed. Not Blair's fault, really-- not even Jim's fault. It was just the damn twists of luck and karma that kept embroiling both of them in situations like this. Just the fact that Blair Jacob Sandburg was incapable of walking down the street to the convenience store without getting kidnapped by an escaped murderer or walking past a mugging or interrupting an armed robbery. Just