Shadows of the Past
Rated TEEN for language, violence, and angst
"Ellison," the low voice said in a French accent. Jim's hand froze an inch from the light switch. He ran a dozen operations in his head in the three seconds before he answered. In every one Michael had back up and in every one someone ended up dead. More specifically, he and Blair ended up dead.
After that brief hesitation, Jim finished the gesture and flipped the light on.
"Wait here, Chief," Jim said as he put a hand on his partner's shoulder before stepping into the loft. The less Blair saw the better. Blair shot him a confused look and opened his mouth to argue, but then he stopped. Jim had no idea what made his talkative partner suddenly fall silent, but he thanked god for it.
"Have him come in," Michael said softly, but then Jim had never heard Michael speak any other way.
"He's not part of this." Jim replied just as quietly. He really didn't need to have Blair in the middle of whatever problems Michael had brought.
"Have him come in," Michael repeated. Jim would have argued except that two men now appeared at the far end of the hallway.
"Jim?" Blair asked uncertainly as he looked from the two armed men coming down the hall to Jim.
"Come on in, Chief," Jim said as he stepped into the loft. He kept his body between Blair and Michael. The agent stood next to the window looking exactly like he had looked on that mission seven years earlier: a phantom who put fear into the hearts of even the most jaded covert ops soldier.
"Put your weapons on the table," Michael suggested in a voice that hid the danger under that calm exterior.
"What's this about?" Jim asked. He hesitated for just a second, listening to the sounds of agents moving around the loft, in the hallway, and on the roof. When Michael didn't react, Jim carefully as walked over to the kitchen table. Only then did the agent answer.
"They want to talk to you." Michael said as he turned toward the window and Jim carefully pulled his weapon from this holster and set it on the table. He wasn't fooled by Michael's appearance of inattentiveness.
"Jim, man. What are you doing?" Blair whispered incredulously, and Jim could hear the desperation in his voice. He didn't answer as he reached down and pulled his back-up gun and knife out of his boot and set them on the table next to his main weapon.
"Let's get this over with, then. Blair, just stay here and don't call anyone," Jim said as he took a step away from the table and back toward the door. Glancing at his partner's suddenly mutinous expression, Jim growled an order. "I mean it. No one!" He had no illusions about being able to fight his way past Michael, and he didn't want anyone else getting pulled into this.
"He's coming," Michael said, his voice barely a whisper, but to Jim, those words seemed louder than alarm bells.
"Leave him out of this."
"I can't. I have orders."
Jim felt his stomach knot at those words. If Michael had orders to bring in Blair, then Jim couldn't do anything to change his mind.
"Turn around," Michael said while still looking out the window. Jim knew what was coming, but he could hear multiple footsteps on the fire escape and hear the heavy breathing of the two goons in the hall. Jim stood still, struggling with his instincts that said to grab the guide and run and his logic that said they would both be dead within three steps. "Please," Michael added as he turned to look at Jim. In those cold hazel eyes, Jim could see the agent's willingness to kill both him and Blair without remorse.
Slowly, Jim turned around. Without waiting for the order, he put his hands behind his back. Turning left him facing Blair who watched with wide eyes from next to the square pillar that divided kitchen from dining room. Jim felt warm hands deftly slipping wide plastic straps around his wrists before pulling the loops tight enough that Jim knew he couldn't escape, not that he had even considered the possiblity with Michael.
"Just give me a second to talk to Blair," Jim asked quietly. He waited silently until finally Michael's hand let go of his forearm.
"Two minutes."
Jim walked over to Blair whose eyes stayed focused on Michael. Using his hip and shoulder, Jim herded his partner to the far side of the kitchen by the refrigerator.
"Jim? What the hell is going on?" Blair finally hissed, those blue eyes snapping to Jim's face.
"Blair, just calm down and listen," Jim whispered as he felt his own guilt rise at the panicked look in those blue eyes. It was his job to protect Blair, and he had obviously failed in a monumental way.
"Who is that guy?" Blair demanded.
"Michael. Look, I can't even tell you what branch of the government he works for, but our paths crossed before Peru. He's the boogey man that makes covert agents turn on the lights and check under the bed." Jim didn't want to panic his partner even more, but he couldn't let Blair underestimate these people. "Chief, I've seen him take out a dozen armed terrorists by himself, and I've seen him shoot one of his own people in the back of the head for breaking a rule. Don't argue with him."
"Oh god. Jim. Shit. Okay, we can get through this." Blair ran his hand over his face and then pushed his hair back out of his face in a nervous gesture.
"Chief, tell them whatever they want to know."
"Wha--. Oh man, you so do not want these people to know about your senses. I..."
"No!" Jim cut Blair off before he could say more.
"The very fact they want you means they probably know most of it, but you need to tell them the truth about any question they ask. I know you'd try to hold out, but Chief, no one holds out against these people. They'll get the truth anyway, and I don't want you hurt."
"But, Jim."
"Forget it , Darwin," Jim snapped, cutting Blair off. Blair looked up in surprise and Jim had some hope that Blair was finally listening. "You give them everything you know, everything you suspect, you tell them every theory that every crossed your mind about Sentinels about me about any damn subject they ask about."
"It's time," that soft voice with its deceptively tender tone announced, and Jim clenched his teeth as he realized that his choices had disappeared the minute Michael had reappeared in his life. For one second he leaned his body into Blair, trapping him between Jim's body and the refrigerator in a mimic of a hug. It was all Jim had to offer.
"Just tell them what they want to know and they'll have no reason to hurt you," Jim whispered as he rested his forehead against Blair's, fearing that he was lying even as he said the words. A hand closed around his forearm, pulling him away from Blair, and Jim cooperated since fighting Michael wasn't really an option if he wanted his guide to survive this.
Michael moved him to the wall by the door before letting go, and Jim waited, focusing on his hearing as he placed the sounds of at least a dozen unfamiliar bodies outside the loft.
"Turn around." Michael's voice ordered, and Jim could hear Blair's heart start to speed up. He flashed on the memory of Blair duct-taped by a militant survivalist and chained by a psychopath and tied up by a killer. Now a government assassin was putting plastic cuffs on his guide, and Jim just wished Blair would have never found him. He would rather be in an insane asylum trying to rub his own skin off than have to listen to Blair's heart speeding out of control as Michael pulled him toward the door.
"Chief, calm down. Deep breaths," Jim said as Michael stopped with Blair so close that Jim could reach out with shackled hands and brush the edge of Blair's flannel shirt with his fingertips.
"Sure, I'll get right on that," Blair said sarcastically, and Jim closed his eyes in pain. He had put Blair in this spot.
"Michael, Blair has panic attacks sometimes. You need to be aware of his heart and breathing," Jim said as he faced the coats hanging on the hooks by the door. He wouldn't be surprised if they were gagged, and he didn't want Blair choking accidentally. However, Michael didn't answer as he opened the door and gestured with a hand.
Jim stepped into the hall, not surprised to find his neighbors missing as he walked toward the two goons from earlier. When he reached them, each one gripped an arm and walked him down the stairs. As their hands closed over his arms tight enough to leave bruises, Jim was grateful that Michael seemed to be handling Blair whose speeding heart he could hear behind him.
Once they reached the street, Jim found a black van with the back doors open and the street empty. He climbed up awkwardly with his hands cuffed, and two agents in back pulled him up. Once he sat on a steel bench bolted to the side, he could see Michael half lifting Blair into the back of the van.
One of the goons pulled a chain across Jim's waist, locking him to the wall, and then Michael put Blair next to him before putting a chain around Blair's waist. Jim pushed with his leg into Blair's leg, and his guide looked at him with wide, desperate eyes and a weak smile that was meant to reassure him. Jim felt another stab of guilt as a blindfold went over his eyes.
Jim pushed out with his thigh, telling Blair he was here. Then a prick at his neck warned him only seconds before he started losing consciousness. He was only barely aware as the van pulled away from the curb.
Jim woke up stomach down on a simple bunk in a stark white room. A set of empty white shelves stood against the wall opposite the bunk and the third wall had a heavy door with a thick security glass port hole. A second bunk stood against the fourth wall right next to a prison-style sink and toilet combo, and Jim couldn't help clenching his teeth when he saw the room empty.
Even though pacing wouldn't help anything, Jim stood and started pacing. The window in the door only gave him a view of the white wall on the far side of the hall, and when he reached out with his hearing, he could only hear the sounds of water rushing through pipes and the distant thumping of pumps below him. The walls were so thick that he couldn’t even tell if he was hearing a mechanical room nearby or if it was a white noise generated intended to thwart his senses.
His covert ops training came back to him, and he reviewed the information he knew. When his team had run into Michael's people in Eastern Europe, they hadn't fared well. Jim just thanked God that he came out alive and that he hadn't been promoted yet so that the screw up went on someone else's record. That is, assuming there was a record. Jim's team had received the best training available, and they still hadn't stood a chance.
Strangely, during debriefing, the intelligence officers had not been very interested in any details. So he knew he was with people who had training that made his own obsolete. He knew they had some understanding of his senses because they took Blair. He knew they were probably questioning Blair right now, and Jim could only pray that his partner didn't try and play tough guy. Just because he'd ordered Blair to tell them everything didn't mean he trusted his guide to give up without a fight
Jim paced from the door to the second bunk, covering the distance dozens of times before he heard footsteps in the hall outside his door. He stopped in the middle of the room, arms crossed over his chest as he waited for the group that had stopped outside his room. The lock clicked open, and when three guards walked in, Jim felt as though his chest was being physically crushed. They didn't have Blair with them.
He wanted to demand information about Blair, but every question he asked gave them more information. In covert ops, information was the currency, and Jim didn't plan on giving any of his way. Unfortunately, he didn't have any illusions about being able to hold out against these people either. Under other circumstances he might consider a self-induced zone, but as long as Blair was here....Jim ordered himself to stop considering the possibilities when it came to Sandburg. He'd gotten his guide into this, and he would get his guide out. So instead of going into a self-induced zone and denying these people the chance to interrogate him, he stood with crossed arms, waiting.
A woman walked in the door behind the three guards, and from the way the guards moved to the side to make way for her, Jim knew he was looking at someone powerful. Her hair fell in long, perfectly groomed curls, and her face was both stunning and cold. Jim waited.
As minutes warped into an eternity, she stood with only her eyes moving, taking in every detail of Jim until he struggled to keep from flinching away from the glance. It must've been nearly five minutes before the woman started speaking in cultured tones.
"Welcome to Section. My name is Madeleine, and with some cooperation your stay here could be a pleasant one." The words were clipped and direct, and Jim didn't think he'd heard quite such a politely phrased threat in all his life. Jim continued to wait since really nothing she had said had changed his situation in the least. Madeleine tilted her head curiously and gave him a small smile.
"No questions?"
"None that I expect you to answer. Or if you did, none that I trust you to answer truthfully." Jim half expected her to react to such open defiance. But even if it cost him some pain, it would at least let him know where he stood with these people. It would tell him what to expect. But instead of reacting, her smile just widened.
"An honest answer, Captain Ellison. Now if you wouldn't mind accompanying us," she stepped to one side and waved her hand toward the door. Jim clenched his jaw as he considered his options. But the fact was, he didn't have any. Tightening his lips in frustration, he uncrossed his arms and started walking toward the door.
The guard on his left telegraphed his attack well ahead of time so that when Jim approached the man, he wasn't surprised to have the man grab his wrist and upper arm and used them to send him hurling towards the wall. Jim just caught himself using his free hand against the wall, and then stood with his cheek against the cold concrete as a second guard grabbed that arm.
Within three seconds Jim was cuffed and the heaviest guard took his arm. The original guard then walked ahead while Madeleine walked with the last guard behind. Jim was complimented. He'd been out of special ops long enough that he didn't think he rated this kind of attention. However it also meant these people were likely to be equally paranoid about everything. Like telling him where his guide had gone. Jim tried scenting the air, but all he could catch was the sharp scent of deodorizers and sanitizers and the occasional bitter odor of gunpowder. Even the damn guards smelled deodorized.
Jim didn't argue as he was led through a maze of corridors, but he did start forming a mental map as they led him in circles and ended up a couple of hallways over and a few floors up from his cell. Madeleine didn't ask if her ruse had worked, and Jim didn't bother telling her that he had a pretty good idea where he was in relation to his cell. Unfortunately, he also had a good idea that the internal security was such that he didn't have the skill or the equipment to break himself out.
And even if he could, he had no idea where to find Blair. As the guards opened another door, Jim tried the air again. This time the sharp, metallic odor of blood teased his senses. God, don't let that be Blair's, he silently prayed. Of course, an installation this size might have dozens of prisoners, but he didn't want to think of what would happen if Blair tried to hide something or mouthed off. With his stomach tightening at the thought that Blair couldn't help but mouth off, Jim allowed his guard to push him into a room with what appeared to be a dentist chair bolted in the middle.
"If you would have a seat," Madeleine said with a polite tilt of her head. Jim felt his own jaw pop as he ground his teeth a little too enthusiastically. The heavy vault-like door closed behind him and the guard behind him unlocked his cuffs before the guards backed off. Jim ignored the guards and focused his senses on Madeleine as he stepped forward and took a seat. Her heart beat remained steady, but as he and stepped forward, he had caught just a hint of a twitch in her eye. Possibly, he had surprised her by not fighting.
"Arms on the armrest, please," she said as she walked behind him. For him to put his arms down, he had to put his wrist under a metal strap, and he had no doubt what would happen next. Jim could feel his instincts scream at him to fight, to find the guide, to leave the guards permanently disabled. Instead of doing any of that, he put his arms on the armrest as asked. Sure enough, a clicking sound from behind warned him milliseconds before the restraints clamped down on his wrists.
Jim gnawed at the inside of his lower lip as the feeling of helplessness made his chest tighten. Even though he knew it was pointless, he couldn't help but flex his arms. The metal didn't yield.
"I will admit, I am curious about a number of rather surprising reports. Shall this we start with your debriefing after the Peru mission?" Madeleine asked as she tightened restraints around Jim's neck and forehead.
"You seem to be in charge here, lady," Jim pointed out even as Madeleine attached a number of sensors to him.
"Quite true." A guard handed her a file, and she opened it before flipping through few pages. "In your original debriefing, you reported that you had engaged enemy forces on no fewer than 15 separate occasions. Let us review the first."
Jim flinched as the guard pushed him into the room. Even telling the truth hadn't saved him from some punishing jolts to his system, electrical shocks and injections that left him writhing in pain. He definitely wasn't in any shape to fight them now. Jim stumbled forward, catching himself on the edge of the bed and then freezing, not sure that he wanted to move, not even enough to sit down on the cot.
The door closed with a dull metallic clang that suggested that nothing short of a nuclear explosion would open it without a key. Now that he was alone, Jim slowly shifted to the side--toward the bed. Every muscle ached from the electrical charges that had surged through his system even though he had no more information to share.
He clenched his teeth at the thought of what they had done to Blair especially given the man's ability to run his mouth. He remembered hearing Blair's voice echoing in this hearing as he mouthed off to Lash even though the serial killer had chained him to a chair. He'd vowed that day to never let Blair suffer like that again, but he had broken that silent promise a dozen times, and now he had broken it again. He'd failed Blair.
Jim slowly sank to the thin mattress and clenched his teeth again as the bile in his stomach threatened to erupt. The torture certainly wasn't the worst he'd endured, but it was the most painful... or maybe that was just because his control over his dials seemed to slip away leaving his system even more vulnerable to pain.
Jim looked up as the door lock thumped. The door opened, and two guards stepped in with a limp form held between them. Ignoring his own aches, Jim lunged forward only to find himself sent to the floor by the discharge of a stun gun that made every injection site flare and every muscle cramp in memory of the electrical torture he'd already endured.
As the gray faded from the edges of his vision, Jim glared up at Madeleine and struggled up to one elbow.
"Damn it, you didn't have to hurt him," Jim cursed as he reached out and pulled the unconscious body of his guide closer to him, a gesture that was as futile as the curse, but Jim couldn't ignore the need to get Blair away from this woman. Blair stirred fitfully, his head turning to the side so that Jim could see a fist-sized red mark on the side of his head.
"It was necessary to get a full psychological profile," Madeleine answered. Her gaze reminded Jim of Lash, the way she looked at Jim and Blair with that detached, curious expression. Blair stirred again, and Jim struggled up to bed, his muscles screaming with the effort as he pulled Blair closer so that the man's back was against Jim's left leg in a seated position.
"Look, just tell us what the hell you want," Jim demanded darkly despite the fact that he had absolutely no hope of intimidating this woman.
"I think you've already come up with that answer on your own."
"You want me to work for you."
"It would be in your best interest," she pointed out with a careless shrug even though her eyes never left him, that curious but detached expression remaining.
"And if I don't?"
"I think you've already come up with that answer as well. Which leads me to wonder why you're asking questions for which you already have answers." Her lips twitched up into a small smile as she cocked her head condescendingly. Jim's hands involuntarily closed into fists, and her guards shifted uneasily, but Madeleine herself simply stood watching without a hint of concern.
"What do you want done?" Jim asked, knowing that the question committed him to things he didn't want. However, the alternative included a quick bullet to the back of the head for him and Blair, and he couldn't risk that. If he could prove his value, he might be able to negotiate Blair free, and at this point, that was the best deal he could hope for.
"Michael will have the details," she said with a nod before turning and leaving, the guards following in her wake. Jim sat staring at the steel door trying to push his fear and anger and frustration and hatred to the back of his mind. Right now he needed a clear mind.
Bending down, he got his hands under Blair's arms and pulled. Blair groaned softly and made a gesture with his hand as though he was trying to brush away a fly.
"Just me, Chief. You're okay now," Jim lied. Normally he could handle Blair's weight, but with the aftershocks of the electricity still running through his body, every motion set his arms and back on fire as he pulled Blair up to the bunk, holding Blair in his arms when the smaller man started trembling.
"It's okay, Chief, just relax." Jim's legs complained at the weight of his guide resting in his lap, but Jim refused to move.
"Jim?" Blair asked, his voice rough, and considering how much screaming Jim had done, he imagined his own voice must sound the same.
"Yeah, it's me."
"Oh man, did you find the truck that hit me?" Blair's words temporarily robbed Jim of the ability to answer. He'd prepared himself for fear and for anger… either at their captors or at Jim for being the reason Blair got dragged into this mess. He hadn't expected Blair to be making jokes before his eyes even opened.
"Sorry, Chief. Didn't catch the license."
"And if I open my eyes, am I going to see white? Because I'm not really in the mood for white, ya know?" Blair's voice grew stronger even as he squirmed in ways that suggested his pain.
Jim didn't have an answer that Blair would like and so he remained silent, slowly rubbing Blair's arms to help the muscles relax since he suspected Blair had been subjected to the same questioning he had. Eventually, Blair's eyes blinked open, the blue irises surrounded by a cobweb of red veins.
"Ouch," Blair said quietly, and the understatement forced a smile out of Jim.
"Yeah, Darwin, that's one way to put it."
"You too?"
"Me too," Jim agreed.
"Oh man, where are your dials? Are you okay?" Blair demanded as he quickly pushed himself up with a grunt and an expression that pulled all of his features closer to the center of his face in a tight squint.
"I think I'm doing better than you are right now," Jim pointed out as he used his hands on Blair's arms to help support the weight.
"I'm fine," Blair protested, but he also didn't argue when Jim pulled him back to lean against the larger man's chest.
"Oh yeah, you're doing great, Darwin."
"Hey, for my first time being tortured, I think I'm holding up pretty well." Blair indignant tone and his improbable words made Jim laugh, but the sound soon turned into a sob, and Jim struggled to bring himself under control.
"You're doing great, Chief," Jim confirmed as soon as he could talk without having a tidal wave of pain overwhelm him, most of it coming from knowing he had caused Blair to get caught up in this. Blair's arms were warm under his hands, and Jim wondered if the kid was getting sick too. "You're going just great."
"I'd feel manlier if I hadn't just, you know, told them absolutely everything before begging them to stop."
"I told them everything too, Chief, so don't be so hard on yourself."
"Yeah, but I bet you skipped the begging part," Blair said as he slowly relaxed into Jim's grasp, sagging so that he leaned back into Jim's chest with a small sigh of either pain or relief from pain, Jim wasn't sure which.
"Only because I knew it wouldn't work, Chief. If I thought begging would have gotten them to stop, I would have begged."
"Yeah, what's up with that? I gave them every answer, and yeah, I gave them a piece of my mind along the way, but I didn't try to fight or hide anything. Why ask the same question fifty million times and shock me when I give the same answer?"
Jim hesitated. He had understood Madeleine's reasoning, but he wasn't sure Blair really wanted the truth.
"Man, that's the expression you get when you're about to do something stupid. I don't have the energy to deal with you in overprotective mode, so just spit it out," Blair complained as he twisted around to look up at Jim's face.
Leaving one arm around Blair's shoulders, Jim reached up and scrubbed his face with an open hand. "I'm supposed to be cold and unreadable," Jim said wryly.
"Not even, bucko, so spill."
"Madeleine is profiling us. Responses to pain, fear, being separated, being together. She'll record all our responses and then she'll use that to predict our behavior."
"Does that work?" Blair's voice took on a tone that told Jim that the man's academic curiosity had been triggered. Jim shook his head at his irrepressible guide.
"I'm not sure. I know some departments were working on it when I left special ops, but I don't know how accurate it is." Jim didn't comment on the fact that he had already revealed too much about Blair's importance to him. In hindsight, he should have left Blair on the floor, but he couldn't deny his own need to hold his guide and make sure he was safe and breathing. He needed to feel Blair's heat, Blair's heartbeat.
"I'm guessing they have it down because everything these people do is coming off as way too coordinated."
Jim didn't answer because he really didn't have one. Instead he tightened his arms around Blair and closed his eyes as he waited helplessly for whatever was going to happen next.
Still in that fuzzy, gray place that existed between asleep and awake, Jim heard the footsteps stop outside their cell door, and he opened his eyes immediately. At some time during the past few hours, Blair had tried to get up to go to the other bunk, and Jim had held tighter. They'd had a silent fight until Blair had given up, slumping down in Jim's embrace and now Jim woke with Blair curled against his stomach, Blair's head resting on his shoulder, and his drool leaving a damp patch on his t-shirt.
The lock on the door made an unusual whiny beep and then the door started creeping open with the sound of metal sliding against metal.
"Rise and shine, Junior," Jim said as he shook Blair's shoulder. Blair just shifted, throwing an arm around Jim's waist. "Come on, Chief. We have visitors." This time his words caused a single bloodshot eye to open and the arm retreated from Jim's waist.
"Huh?"
"Always the morning person," Jim said as he pushed the tangled mane of hair out of Blair's face. "Someone's here," Jim added, and that got the second eye open as Blair started struggling up.
"I'm awake," he insisted in a voice still slurred with sleep.
Jim opened his mouth to point out that Blair never woke up without frightening amounts of caffeine, but the door swung open and Michael walked in. Jim was surprised to see the man alone, but then Michael had already proved he could take Jim and that was before the torture and hunger and lack of sleep had left Jim feeling significantly under par. It had also been when Jim was still in peak form and well armed, so Jim didn't have any illusions about his chances of success now.
"Follow me," Michael said in that soft voice that was at odds with the man's deadly nature. Blair looked to Jim, and Jim could only shrug as he stood to follow. The lack of guards and shackles and weapons made him feel like he should do something even though common sense told him he'd fail.
"So, where exactly are we following to?" Blair asked as Jim made sure to keep his guide behind his own body as they followed into the corridor. Michael didn't answer, and Blair started to dart forward. Picturing Blair trying to tug at the man or get in front of him, Jim reached out and grabbed his guide's shoulder rather than have Blair slammed against some wall.
"Shower and then breakfast before training," Michael finally said as he stopped at a door, slipping a swipe card into a slot before pushing the door open. Inside Jim could see an empty locker room, and he could feel Blair's muscles tense under his hand. He understood Blair's reluctance. For whatever reason, Blair normally hid under layers of clothing and even slept in a t-shirt, but communal showering was a way of life for soldiers and prisoners, so Jim needed to stop the objection before Blair could make enough fuss to attract a pair of guards who would strip and forcibly wash him.
"We are starting to smell a little ripe," Jim said with a wrinkle of his nose as he pushed on Blair's shoulder to get him moving.
"Oh man, are you having trouble with your sense of smell?" Blair immediately asked as Jim's misdirection successfully sidetracked him.
"Just dialing down to avoid the sour smell," Jim said truthfully. The smell of Blair's sweat--and his own-- was tainted with the sharp bitterness of fear and a medicinal sweetness left behind by the injections.
"We'll need fresh clothes then," Blair told Michael even as Jim pushed him through to the room. Michael didn't answer, but Jim had no doubt that either the agent or the microphones that monitored them would pick up the request.
"Man, now that you mention it, even I can smell myself. I should have suggested at least washing up in the sink. This really is kinda bad."
"No problem, Chief," Jim answered as he pulled the shirt over his head. He ignored Michael, and after a couple of seconds, Blair followed his lead. He didn't mention that the need to hold Blair had overridden every other need so that Jim had twitched even the one time Blair had gotten up to pee, and he hadn't relaxed until his guide was in his arms again. This would be a whole new chapter in Blair's dissertation, and he really didn't want to explain his sudden and unexpected need to have Blair close.
Once he started stripping, Blair finished as quickly as possible, grabbing a towel and darting through the archway to the shower room where Michael's eyes couldn't easily see him from the sink area. Jim followed, his sudden possessiveness forcing him into keeping his guide in sight. As Blair turned the water on in the communal shower area, his hairy back caught individual drops of water from the spray so that Sentinel vision could see a rainbow of water-jewels clinging to his back before he stepped under the full spray which washed away the optical illusion of jewels along with the smell of fear and medicine.
Jim tore himself away from the near-zone and went to a shower nozzle on the opposite wall.
"So, how screwed are we?" Blair barely whispered as he washed his hair with soap out of an unmarked bottle.
"Screwed enough that I have no doubt they're recording every word," Jim answered in a normal tone of voice. Blair looked at him sharply, and Jim could see the alarm and confusion in that expression.
"What are they..." Blair stopped.
"They have a job for me, and you're leverage."
"Oh man, I am so sorry," Blair offered as he turned, his upper body clothed in the scummy cheap soap that all institutions seemed to use. The scent already reminded him of every army base where he'd ever lived.
"Not your fault, Chief," Jim insisted without saying whose fault it really was. He assumed Blair had already figured that out. Instead he focused on cleaning the stink of fear and Madeleine's drug off his own skin, carefully bottling the guilt so that he could take it out later when he wasn't quite as worried about things like getting them out of this alive. Unfortunately, he had no idea how he was going to do that.
Jim listened as Blair mumbled too softly for even him to hear, and only then did he realize that the sounds of the washcloth sliding over Blair's skin had stopped. Blair had finished and now stood under the spray of hot water, waiting. As quickly as possible, Jim finished up and grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist as he went out to face Michael.
As he expected, the man stood waiting, leaning against the white tile of the outer bathroom area. The four sinks sitting on their silver pipes lined up in military precision under four perfectly square mirrors across from four stall doors painted in an off-white that looked nearly gray after all the stark white Jim had seen in the last few hours.
Michael gestured toward a rack where someone had draped white cotton clothing over the rod. Jim grabbed the entire pile, sorting out the smaller items and passing them over to Blair who shrugged into them without even fully drying off. By the time Jim pulled the white sweats over his Section-issued cotton briefs, Blair had dressed and was glaring at Michael. For his part, Michael continued to stand statue still and silent.
"Razors?" Jim asked without much hope as he pulled on his shirt and felt the fibers snagging on his morning stubble. To his surprise Michael walked to a narrow tall cupboard and used the pass card to unlock it before holding out an electric razor. Jim took it and held it out for Blair.
"Man, when I finish, that thing isn't going to be sharp enough to shave peach fuzz," Blair said with a smile as he ran a hand over his own thick dark stubble. "You go ahead first." The whole time Blair kept his arms crossed over his stomach, and the gesture revealed all the fear Blair kept out of his steady voice and resolute face. Without a word, Jim flicked it on and shaved, feeling each hair pulled and sliced. He used the sensation to reset his dial for touch until he could only feel the vibrations of the machine and not the painful tugs. When he finished, he handed over the electric shaver to Blair as he turned to Michael.
"What sort of training is on the schedule?" Jim asked as though he were talking to some army buddy. He didn't expect the familiarity to make Michael lower his guard completely; however, if he could get the man to see him as a fellow soldier, he might get a sliver of advantage or a flicker of hesitation on the trigger. It could prove to be the difference between life or death.
"You need to qualify on weapons and hand to hand. Some simulation scenarios. Training with our equipment and support personnel." Michael spoke in fragments, a distracted expression on his face as though the question had interrupted some important internal conversation. Jim seriously hoped that part of that conversation included guilt over kidnapping innocent anthropologists.
"How long's the ramp up?" Jim asked, referring to the period of time he had to develop the skills specific to whatever mission they had in mind.
"One week. Birkhoff has the details." Michael still sounded polite, but the tone made it clear that he was through talking. Jim swallowed his questions, and gathered Blair to his side with a single hand under the man's upper arm, pulling him close. Rationally Jim knew that Blair was just as vulnerable standing next to him, but emotionally he couldn't deny the need to put himself between his guide and this world, a world which Blair had no way of understanding.
Blair surrendered the shaver, and Michael locked it away before leaving the bathroom, leaving Jim and Blair to follow, the bathroom door clicking shut behind them. The soap had washed away the sour stink of old terror, but Jim could still smell wisps of fear from Blair as they walked the sharply antiseptic hallways. Silence broken only by the echo of their footsteps off the concrete finally gave way to the sounds of life. After getting off one elevator, Jim could hear the clicking of a woman's high heels against the concrete and smell the earthy musk of someone who had walked though the hallway recently after working up a sweat. His senses had never been this sharp, but then he had never been in so much danger and needed them so badly.
As the hallway ended in a large octagon of a room, Jim tightened his grip on Blair's arm as he followed Michael around two huddled groups whose dirt smudged faces and grass stained black outfits smelled of car exhaust and gunpowder. From the tight faces, he guessed their mission hadn't gone well.
Jim remembered all those years before when his team had been captured. He'd been walking point through a stand of trees made brittle by drought, following a gash in the earth that would have been a creek in better years. Because he was walking point, he scanned the ground carefully, well aware that both sides of this ugly civil war had mined the country side. But there were always signs, an unusual mound of earth, a strangely symmetrical pile of rocks, a tangle of tree limbs that didn't match the way the dried stream had deposited other debris.
He checked his map. They were an hour from the target, an international spokesman taken hostage by a group that claimed to represent the people but really represented the bank accounts of a small group of men. Still a lieutenant, Jim's job was to provide cover for the demolitions expert and rescue team following with the rest of the team.
A sudden burst of gunfire sent him flying to the ground as he pulled up his weapon and thumbed off the safety in one smooth motion. The trees remained silent, not even a bird moving as the forest fell silent. Jim pushed himself up on one knee as he searched for some sign. If it had been Jones getting twitchy on the trigger finger, Captain Horne would have already called the all-clear, but the radio remained eerily silent.
Even though he wanted to rush back to his team, Jim moved cautiously through the forest, remaining in each new hiding place for long minutes as he circled back. Sliding from the shadow of a dead tree to the side of a boulder tilting drunkenly, he spotted a patch where the dead green color didn't quite match the landscape. Jim focused until the patch moved, and he could make out a shoulder and the side of a painted face.
Jim crept silently through the deep shadows, keeping low to the ground until he was within yards of the silent guard. As the man had knelt up to try and look north, Jim leapt, his gun held out as a battering ram as he ruthlessly slammed the man's head into the solid trunk of a green giant. Jim didn't even have time to check the man for weapons before his own head exploded with and lights that existed only in his own mind blinded him.
When Jim blinked his way back to consciousness, he found himself tied hand and foot with plastic straps that dug into his skin. He glanced around without fully opening his eyes as he tried to figure out who had captured him. Michael stood over him, and Jim remained as silent as possible as he hoped for a chance to free himself.
"He hit me," a deep voice complained. Jim finally opened his eyes as a heavy boot slammed into his side hard enough to make his stomach cramp as he twisted in his bonds.
"You were warned," answered that calm voice and French accent that Jim had learned to fear over the next few hours. At first Jim thought the man meant him, but then he looked up to see Michael aim a small handgun at the head of his attacker, a man dressed like Michael with a bandage on the side of his face. Jim flinched as Michael pulled the trigger before the man had a chance to even fully turn, his skull fragmented as bits of bone and blood and brain exploded across the landscape and across Jim's team members who were tied nearby.
"Oh man, that's gonna break if you don't chill out," a voice interrupted his memory, and Jim found that he had involuntarily tightened his grip on Blair's arm as he followed Michael through an arch that led to another hallway. Jim wondered whether everyone who failed faced the same cold judgment Michael had shown that nameless soldier. He wondered whether he and Blair would face the same.
"Sorry," Jim offered as he let go of Blair's arm, slipped his arm over Blair's shoulders as he resisted the irrational urge to give Blair a nuggie. "We're going to be okay, Chief," Jim added. From the incredulous look Blair gave him out of the side of his eyes, he knew Blair doubted him, but Jim just tightened his arm around Blair's shoulders in silent promise. At the very least he was going to make sure Blair was alright no matter what he had to sacrifice.
"Fuck, my bruises are bruised," Blair complained as he threw himself on his bunk. Six days had transformed the room with a small television and Sentinel soft blankets in muted blues and a radio with headphones for Blair. It had also transformed Blair into a walking canvas of blues and purples and ugly green-black blotches.
"You're doing good, Chief," Jim reassured him. He'd never doubted his guide's heart, but five days of training had proved the man had more talent with this line of work than Jim really wanted to think about. Of course Michael's habit of tazering Jim in the back whenever Blair wasn't covering him gave Blair incentive. Jim resorted to biting back his own bitter words as he watched Blair take hit after hit only to get up and help Jim through yet another exercise using his senses. However, considering Michael's habit of punishing him for Blair's mistakes, he wouldn't give Michael an excuse to punish Blair for his.
"Then why am I so bruised?" Blair asked as he rolled over on his back and pulled up his knee, yanking up his sweatpants leg up in order to examine it.
"Michael's being hard on you, but it might be the difference between life and death." Jim walked over and sat on the edge of bunk. Focusing on the skin of Blair's knee, Jim could see the pattern of swelling that made his knee hairs point every which way as the tissue puffed up. "We need ice for this," Jim finally announced as he went to the phone that connected them with Section's version of room service.
"Yeah, about that life and death stuff," Blair started the minute Jim hung up the phone. "Shooting at paper is one thing, but I'm not going to kill some poor guy walking to work. Hell, I'm not even sure I could pull the trigger on Hitler, so random killing is way out."
"I know," Jim said as he sat on his own bunk and turned on the television. The screen showed a number of options for pre-recorded shows, so Jim still had no idea where they were. He punched in the request for the Cascade news. He felt his stomach knot in a familiar way as he considered the many ugly possibilities that they might face. He found himself equally afraid that they would put Blair in the middle of an op and afraid that they would force him to leave Blair alone in Section as he did the op.
"Man, we need to talk about this," Blair said in a firm tone from his own bunk
"No, we don't. I don't expect you to shoot anyone, Chief."
"But what about all that stuff about covering your back and protecting you at all costs?"
Jim closed his eyes in frustration. All he wanted was to watch the news and push everything he couldn't control out of his mind. It was how he'd survived in the jungles of Peru after his team died: he'd just pushed the memory of their faces, their voices, their weird little habits out of his mind. In Peru he'd been just the Sentinel, the tribesman whose senses had been part of the tribe's lore. Once back from Peru, he'd shoved that memory out of his mind, and shoved the senses away at the same time. After the horrible mission where Michael had captured the team, none of them had spoken of the hours they'd been in Michael's care or the secrets they'd revealed. But now Jim couldn't push memories away with Blair in his face demanding that he think about their situation when Jim's instincts told him to go on autopilot until he had some chance of escape. He sighed as he tried to watch the news, ignoring Blair's frustrated voice.
"Oh, man. You don't get to just ignore me. I can annoy much better than you can ignore, so let's talk about this whole 'me covering your back' stuff."
"That's Michael's goal. He needs me to get whatever it is he wants to get. That makes me a tool worth protecting," Jim said with a sigh, realizing that Blair was right about the man's power to annoy him. "But I'll get you out safe and sound and without having to shoot anyone."
"Oh, I can shoot someone. I just can't *kill* them," Blair protested as he leaned forward.
"Chief, I've never expected you to."
"Talk about your short memories… you asked me to carry a gun, man," Blair snorted.
"I never asked you to use it," Jim answered peevishly as he remembered the discussion.
"Oh yeah, you just wanted me to have it for decoration?" Blair's sarcasm triggered a sudden anger that made Jim bite his lip just to keep from snapping back.
"I just wanted you to be able to protect yourself," he answered in a strained voice as he tried to keep calm.
Jim turned the volume up on the television to end the discussion. He loved his guide, but having to live, eat, sleep, train and shower with the man was driving him slowly insane.
"Zoning on the television pixels is not going to save you this time James Joseph Ellison," Blair threatened.
"Chief..." Jim used his tone to warn Blair but unfortunately his guide ignored his tone.
"I'm in the middle of this too, you know. Only I don't think you really know that."
"What?" Jim looked over at Blair who suddenly didn't seem to be making sense.
"Oh, man. You're talking about how you're going to get me out and about how they're after *you*," Blair waved a hand at the room in general as his voice rose in frustration. "You talk like I'm not here and this is all about you, but this is about us, man. Us."
"Chief, I know…"
"Obviously not. You're out there trying to show off your senses and still cover me. You're not focusing on the senses because you're too busy assuming I can't keep up my end of the simulation, and I can't cover you when you're trying to cover me. You know all that stuff Michael said about us needing to learn our parts…?"
"Chief, you're doing fine learning your part. We'll…"
"I *know* I'm doing fine. You're fucking up. You need to stop worrying about me and concentrate on the job," Blair's voice had taken on a sharpness Jim didn't usually hear from his guide.
"Blair…."
"Man, I know I'm not the best person to cover your back and I'd be a lot happier knowing Michael would be there, but you have got to trust me."
Jim looked at his guide's suddenly agitated face, and he felt helplessness rip into him again as he realized he'd totally misread the situation. Taking a deep breath, he tried to fix what he had damaged. "Chief, I trust you more than anyone I've ever met."
"Then why do you keep leaving your post to cover me during these tests? I know I'm not in the same league with you or Michael…"
"I'd rather have you at my back any time," Jim interrupted him. "I just don't want you to feel forced to do something you don't want to do."
"Oh, it's too late for that. I crossed that line back when you made me eat at Wonderburger," Blair said with a mischievous grin, ending their fight as suddenly as it began. Or, Jim realized, ending the fight just as soon as he got through with his complaint. Jim grabbed his pillow and chucked it at his partner.
"Okay, okay. Message received. I'll stop trying to cover you," Jim surrendered, holding his arms up in defeat. Blair threw the pillow back, and Jim caught it easily.
"You worry about the senses, and I'll worry about you."
"Not a problem, Chief," Jim promised, not adding that he would keep worrying about Blair and would still try to prevent the man from shooting in real life even if he did back off in training, allowing Blair to take out the black-clothed opponents with blanks.
The door made a peculiar electronic chiming sound that announced the door opening. Jim got up expecting to find a service worker with dinner and a pack of ice for Blair's knee. Instead, Michael stood there with his slightly distracted expression, his strange way of not meeting a person's eyes.
"It's time," he announced, and Jim felt his body stiffen. "Both of you, follow me," Michael ordered without looking directly at either of them, his eyes scanning the room and the hall as if constantly checking for danger, even in the heart of his own home base. Jim looked over his shoulder, and Blair had a wide-eyed expression that didn't match his steady hands as he pulled the leg of his sweatpants down over his bruised knee. Blair stood up and walked toward the door on legs that remained steady despite the rising smell of fear. Only after Blair gave him a small thumbs up gesture did Jim realize that much of the fear smell came from his own body. Unable to ignore his instincts, Jim draped his arm casually over Blair's shoulders as they followed Michael out into the maze of hallways.
Soon they reached a new part of section, not near the prison cell or the training rooms Jim and Blair had seen so much of recently. Instead a large table dominated the center of this room. Birkoff whose voice so often fed them information during the simulations sat on one side of the table; Madeleine stood at the end. Michael took his place next to an older man with graying hair on the far side. Other than the ubiquitous and silent guards standing near the doors, the rest of the room was empty.
"Gentlemen," Madeleine offered with a small nod. Jim felt an insane urge to growl at the woman as he stepped forward to block her view of Blair. The sigh from behind suggested that he might be going a little overboard, but even Blair had admitted a day or two ago that the situation was putting far more pressure on Jim's Sentinel instincts than Jim the man could really control.
"Please, sit," Madeleine suggested calmly without reacting to the non-verbal threat. The table itself made a high-pitched noise like a printer gearing up to start printing, and Jim flinched as a holographic image appeared above the table, its ghostly edges slowly rotating.
"Oh man, that is so cool. Can you imagine one of those in the classroom?" Blair breathed in awe as he ducked around Jim and approached the table. Jim looked over his partner, and when Blair saw his expression, the man blushed. Even though Jim maintained his unemotional expression, inside he smiled at Blair's untarnished enthusiasm. The rest of the world might beat plows into swords, but only Blair would take a sword and use it as a doorstop.
"Yes, that might be interesting, but maybe we can focus on the actual compound?" Birkhoff, the tech genius who ran the computers and intel during the simulations, suggested as the ghostly image rotated slowly. Jim followed Blair to the edge of the table and studied the miniature mansion and the surrounding trees. His eyes started watering as his vision struggled to find the pattern in the light beams that created the tiny front lawn and wide porch even while seeing each individual beam of light with its tightly focused center fading out to a blur around the edge.
"Don't focus on the details. Relax and look at the house, not the light, man," Blair's voice suddenly pulled him back from the edge of a zone, and Jim nodded to let Blair know he was okay.
Jim turned his attention back to the briefing, and the main building now glowed in holographic red.
"This is where they're holding the missing operative," Michael said, his emotion once more unreadable. "Our mission has three ranked objectives: One, recover the operative; two, if she is dead, confirm it; three, if she cannot be rescued, cancel her," Michael explained. The agent fell silent and Jim watched as a flicker of pain crossed the man's expression. Birkoff picked up while Madeleine's coldly curious eyes watched everyone. Jim shifted so that he once again blocked her view of Blair.
"Heat and noise generators run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So we have no intel on movement inside the building, and access is limited to Viso's closest staff. Security will probably include heat sensitive triggers, keypad entry, handprint locks, and multiple guards," Birkhoff finished in a grim voice.
"Probably?" Jim asked -- that was one word he preferred to avoid in his briefings.
Birkhoff answered while Michael continued to stare at the holographic target. "Intel is difficult to gather. We have a palm print from one of his closest advisers, Peter Roberts. You'll have to use your senses to locate guards and then team will neutralize."
"So, we're going to wander around until we find a prisoner or get shot?" Jim crossed his arms and stared disbelievingly at Michael's impassive face. He'd never gone into an op so blind -- no wonder they needed his Sentinel abilities, but not even his advantage could deliver the miracle they seem to expect.
"No, you're going to track your guide's scent." Michael's voice was so soft, so calm that Jim didn't process the information at first. From Blair's suddenly wide eyes and the sharp bitter scent of fear, Blair caught the reference about as fast as Jim.
"Oh man, I did not sign up to be the sacrificial goat," Blair protested. Birkhoff gave a soft cough-laugh.
"Didn't think you've signed up at all," he said under his breath, and Blair glared at the man. Even after six days of training, or perhaps because a six days of training, the two men had developed an open animosity. This seemed rather strange since Jim had never seen anyone take such an instant dislike to Blair. Even people that Jim wanted to dislike Blair, like Kincaid or Lash, seemed to take an immediate interest in the man. Jim stepped in before a geek war started.
"I won't send Blair in there," he insisted as he narrowed his eyes in challenge.
"It is not negotiable," Michael said in that voice that politely promised death. Jim wasn't intimidated. Or rather, they were in such a bad spot already, that threats had lost their edge.
"No, it's not. You want my help, you leave him in the van with the whiz kid," Jim insisted as he jabbed his thumb toward Birkhoff.
"Without his scent to follow, we would have to search the entire facility."
"Then we search the whole fucking facility," Jim snarled at Michael even as he felt Blair's warm hand curl around his forearm, that touch trying to divert his anger.
"The likelihood of success on a full search is less than 7%."
"Which is still 7% better than the 0% chance your operative has of escaping on her own," Jim pointed out as he turned his attention to the rotating building covering over the table. He was far more willing to face his own death than risk Blair's. His aberrant genes had gotten them into this mess, and he would get them out -- or he would at least get Blair out. "And I want a guarantee that Blair goes free either way. He's not stupid. He understands the need to keep his mouth shut." Blair chose that moment to open his mouth to protest, and Jim glared down darkly at his partner who had the good sense to close his mouth without voicing the protest that Jim could see in his eyes.
"No." Michael said in a clipped tone, his French accent blurring the edges of the word.
"I won't put..." Jim stopped as Michael held up his hand. A hulking shadow detached from the wall, and Jim felt his guts tighten as Michael reminded him just how little power he possessed. Blair's hand tightened on his arm, fingers digging into the muscle of his forearm, and Jim dialed down his senses as the smell of fear drifted off both him and his guide.
"You will follow the plan or you are unnecessary," Michael said in a soft voice. Jim stared at the man in fury, his jaw aching from the force of clenching his teeth; however, he had no way to protect his guide here. Jim looked down in mute agony and found understanding in Blair's blue eyes. It didn't surprise him, but the sympathy and trust in the expression tore at his heart until Jim had order himself not to gather Blair into an embrace or disembowel Michael with his bare hands. Blair looked up at him for several seconds before looking across the table.
"What do I have to do?" Blair asked Michael, his voice clear and steady despite the pounding heart which Jim could hear echoing through the room.
"You'll set up camp here," Birkhoff answered and Jim looked up from Blair's curls in time to see the compound rotate, a spot outside the security fence illuminated with a ghostly red glow.
"Okay," Blair said uncertainly. "And then what?"
"Nothing," Michael offered in his cryptic way.
Jim looked at the agent for a long second before realizing what would happen if Blair camped that close. Viso and his goons couldn't risk making someone disappear without knowing whether or not the person would be missed, but they also couldn't risk a possible agent camping on their doorstep. They would have to investigate.
"They'll get worried, bring you in and secure you until they can do a background check." Jim knew he was right when Michael didn't correct him.
"And what's my cover?"
"That would be my department. You're going in as Blair Sandburg, doctoral student and hard-core hippy," Birkhoff offered.
"You just play innocent camper, raise a fuss when they try to chase you from public land, and then freak out like a complete innocent when they show weapons," Jim explained. He could already visualize the way this was going to go down.
"Oh man, that last part I can manage," Blair answered wryly, but Jim also noticed that the man didn't argue or plead or faint -- which most men would have done by now. Take Brown. Jim respected the man, but he suspected the man would have gone from joking to begging to fainting days earlier. Blair just kept his head above water and kept trudging on.
"We have no guarantee that they'll house Blair in the same part of the compound as your agent," Jim pointed out testily.
"The likelihood is that they will limit their exposure by keeping all hostiles in the same area," Madeleine interrupted. "We calculate a 38 percent chance of Blair being held within 100 yards of Nikita."
"Leaving a 62 percent chance that we're just fucked," Blair softly whispered.
"If anything happens to him," Jim didn't finish his threat, but if anything did happen to Blair, Jim figured Michael would put a quick bullet in the back of his head before he would allow him to follow up on that threat. Then again, if Blair died, Jim figured that might be the best ending he could hope for.
"We will retrieve the missing agent and we will escape," Michael answered calmly, and Jim wasn't sure whether the man was confident or just voicing a prayer.
Jim dialed his hearing all the way up, dismissing the squawking birds and the rustling of leaves under mice feet while listening to Blair's indignant voice.
"Oh man, no one owns the forest," Blair complained in the tone he normally reserved to lecture Jim on the lack of raw vegetables in their diet. Jim couldn't hear the response no matter how hard he focused, but Blair's voice was clear despite the distance. "Whoa, whoa, hey there! Chill out, man!" Blair suddenly started tripping over his words, his voice growing increasingly shrill as he squeaked out a series of unrelated syllables before getting out another coherent sentence.
"Tell you what, just hand ever the backpack, and I am so out of here. You can totally own the forest if it makes you happy. You have serious issues, man." Another long silence made Jim twitch with a nearly overwhelming need to go after his guide. At this point, however, he would put Blair in more danger by rushing in. They were committed to the plan.
"This is bad karma on a cosmic scale," Blair argued in a loud voice that had a tremor revealing his very real fear. "All right, I'm going," Blair protested in a thin, stressed voice, and then Jim couldn't hear any more no matter how hard he strained. Letting his eyes fall closed, he pushed the dial up higher than ever before, past any of the numbers that he'd ever visualized. He could hear insects scrabbling across the bark of trees and limbs rubbing together in the wind. Because he was focused forward, the sudden sound of a voice behind him startled him so badly that he took a stumbling stepped forward.
"Satellite image shows..."
"They picked them up," Jim interrupted Birkhoff.
"How did you know?" The man asked, and Jim could see the same academic curiosity that was such a defining characteristic of his guide. However, Jim ignored the question, focusing on Michael who stood beside their black van briefing two teams of black clothed agents in the fading sun of twilight.
Now he had one chance of getting Blair back alive because just as soon as Section took out the compound's power station, Blair's life had an expiration date. The coincidence would be just too great, and Jim knew that Blair wouldn't be able to stand up to their interrogation any more than Blair could stand up to Section… any more than he could stand up to Section.
"He's got someone important in there too," Birkhoff whispered in a conspiratorial tone. Jim looked over in surprise and only then did he realize that he had clenched his teeth so tightly that the muscles trembled and his jaw ached.
"I don't give a fuck who he has in there," Jim answered coldly, and he meant it. No one was worth putting Blair in this much danger. Birkoff retreated, and Jim returned to staring at the forest in the general direction of his guide, tuning out the sounds of conversation behind him.
"We're ready," Michael said in that same emotionless voice that he could use to torture someone or announce breakfast. Jim looked over in helpless rage. The next hour would either see Blair returned to custody of this man or dead. And no matter how Jim turned things around in his mind, he couldn't find another solution.
"Let's move out then," he said as he turned his attention back to the forest. His first job was to lead the two teams through the first parameter of surveillance so that they were within striking distance once Birkhoff blew the power plant that fed the compound.
"Second-team, epsilon position," Michael ordered without bothering to explain the jargon to Jim. But then again, Jim never had any illusions about his position in this team. He wasn't a member of Michael's team; he was a prisoner forced into service, Section's own private Sentinel bloodhound. When a short woman with cold green eyes held out a heat barrier, Jim took the roughly oval shape and shook it out revealing the miniature dome under which he could hide his heat signature. He focused his vision on the reflective interior, searching the inside for any flaws or rips that would make it worthless. Around him, other team members did the same.
The routine of preparing for the op should have calmed him—it certainly always calmed him in the past. But now he couldn't keep his mind from swirling around the possibilities: him dead with Blair still in Section custody, both him and his guide dead, finding Blair killed by an assassin's bullet inside the compound. Jim shook his head in tried to focus on the present as he felt himself sliding into a zone.
"Move out," Michael ordered softly as he started toward the forest. Jim folded his heat shield back down into a collapsed oval and hurried to take point. Jim tracked through the forest as quickly as he could, using his ears to listen for the mechanical sounds of tracking devices. Jim hurried carefully through the dry and brittle carpet of leaves before seeing Michael's familiar hand gesture.
Jim dropped to the cool ground, the leaves fracturing into dust beneath him as he flipped open his heat shield and secured it in place around his body. Covered this way, he couldn't see anything. However, he could hear the fast scuttling footsteps of other operatives as they rushed into position and then fell to the ground pulling their heat shields over them. Jim waited until three sharp taps on the side of his shield sent him running forward even as he folded the heat shield and tucked it under his pack.
This was probably the most dangerous part of the mission, because Jim and Michael would be clear on the compound sensors. In order to concentrate, he had to shove down the fear that these people would execute Blair the minute the sensors picked up his body heat; however, only Jim's superior hearing would be able to locate the underground plant quickly enough for the mission to work. Jim focused everything on the low rumbling that he could hear and feel in the vibrations of the rock and the ground.
A sharp popping whine from behind him startled him, and the body of the man in green camouflage fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Jim ignored it just as he ignored everything else in his quest to find the source of that thrumming that he could feel in the bones of his feet, a steady rumbling that irritated his hearing. He was running with such a single-minded focus that only Michael's hands on his belt pulling him back kept him from running straight into the electrified fence.
Turning and snarling his frustration, Jim only realized the danger he had been and when Michael raised a weapon to his shoulder, firing at so that dozens of silver threads landed on the fence all at once, triggering a magnificent shower of sparks. The smell of ozone and burning grass made Jim cough unhappily as a few of the sparks found fuel. Michael quickly cut through the remaining fence and Jim took point again. Jim could feel panic trying to claw at the edges of his awareness as each second passed. He had to find the power station soon in order to distract the monsters inside away from his guide.
The vibrations under his feet felt stronger, and Jim angled more toward the right. A series of popping whines and the bitter smell of burnt gunpowder preceded a half dozen bodies falling to the ground. Ignoring all of this, Jim threw himself behind a parked truck and gestured with his thumb straight north.
"About 50 yards," he shouted over the sounds of bullets slamming into the metal of the truck. Michael lowered his own weapon as he reached for the communication device that would bring Birkhoff's missile down on the compound. Jim brought his own weapon up as he cocked his head and tried to isolate the sounds of enemy movement when his ears rang with the explosive blasts of at least three different types of weapons.
Jim pointed his machine gun over the hood of the car and fired without looking. One of the enemy weapons fell silent, and he smiled grimly at his ability to focus his senses so sharply.
"Shut down your hearing," Michael shouted as he picked up his weapon again, and Jim knew he didn't have a choice unless he wanted to go deaf. He scrambled after the image of a dial Blair which had taught him to use so long ago and twisted until he could no longer hear anything other than distant rumbles wrapped in cotton even though the truck still vibrated with the force of the bullet impacts.
Jim held his weapon and watched Michael, not really able to do much while having to keep such a tight control over his hearing, and then the entire ground seemed to buck up under him. A rain of dirt fell from the grey sky, and the truck stilled as Jim pulled his hearing back up to a 7 or 8 on the dial—high enough to be useful but not so high as to be deafened if someone set off a large ordinance near his ear.
"How many?" Michael asked tersely, and Jim cast his hearing out for survivors of the blast. He could hear labored breathing, and he gestured with one finger to his right and with two fingers toward the main compound. Michael ducked out from behind the truck and immediately moved toward the compound, leaving Jim to handle the enemy to his right. Ducking around the truck, Jim followed the edge of the garage until he found where part of the wall had collapsed from the force of the blast that had ripped a hole in the ground and breeched the power plant, leaving the compound bathed only in the dull yellow glow of emergency battery lighting and the quickly fading red of sunset.
He found a man younger than Blair clutching a handgun with one trembling hand and his bleeding stomach with the other. A stone the size of large chair lay beside him, red with blood, and Jim felt his stomach turn in revolt as the man tried to bring up his weapon, only to have part of his intestines slip between his fingers.
Jim easily tore the weapon from the man's stiff fingers and tossed it to the side as wet brown eyes looked up helplessly. Jim turned away, but a familiar popping whine made him spin around in time to see Michael lower his weapon, the man's sightless eyes now staring up into the dark gray sky.
"Let's move," Michael ordered with a wave toward the compound, and the two teams now raced from the tree line to the compound—one toward the front and then the diversionary force toward the back. Jim clenched his teeth and took one last look at those empty brown eyes before racing toward the front where the team waited for him to use his senses to guide them through coming traps. It was up to him to track Blair's scent and find his guide as well as Michael's missing operative, and he would take time to regret one more lost life after he made sure that he and Blair didn't join that list.
By the time he had traveled a half dozen different hallways, Jim had a raging headache from trying to listen for enemy combatants at the same time he was trying to spot any possible booby traps and still follow the scent of Blair's fear.
"This way," he said as he stopped at another locked door. A member of the team slid forward and knelt in front of the electronic panel, ripping off the front cover and attaching electrodes that would both provide the energy to activate the lock and the code to trigger it. Jim listened, holding up three fingers as he heard footsteps take position on the far side of the door. He gestured with his hands to Michael, and as the door clicked open, Michael pulled the kneeling team member out of the way as he targeted and took out two enemy agents while Jim shot the third.
Now Blair's scent practically hovered in the air, and Jim ignored a dozen locked doors as he followed the smell down a dingy grey hall lined with doors, each guarded by a single security pad. "Here," he said gesturing towards one locked door. He gripped his weapon tightly as he fought an urge to knock the door down with his shoulder. It helped to remind himself that he couldn't knock the door down with his shoulder, but he still couldn't deny the urge to try anyway. The door clicked open, and Jim threw the Section operative out of his way.
"Oh man, am I glad to see you," Blair exclaimed with a smile of relief as he stood up from a wooden chair where he'd been sitting.
"You okay, Chief?" Jim asked as he scanned the bare room: table, two chairs, gray walls, fluorescent lights. No threats.
"If we can get out of here, oh yeah," Blair answered, and Jim could hear the relief in the hopeful tone.
"We need to find Nikita," Michael interrupted. A wave of his hand sent black clothed agents to the other doors. Jim could feel the need to get himself in his guide out, a need that was quickly overwriting the common sense that warned him not to cross Michael. But common sense won since any wrong move on his part would result in both his death and Blair's.
"No problem," Blair insisted and Jim looked at his partner incredulously.
"Chief?"
"Her smell. She's got to be scared or hurting, not to mention the fact I haven't seen too many women around here. Come on, focus on smell and use the sound of my voice to anchor your senses." Blair sounded so utterly convinced of Jim's ability to do this despite Jim's doubts that he sighed and closed his eyes as he tried to find the dial for smell.
"That's right. You know of fear smells like -- find that." Jim turned his head as he became uncomfortably aware of the threads of fear surrounding him. While all fear carried a sour, musky, old-towel smell, each person's fear carried its own unique scent markers. Blair's had an almost peppery sharp edge that made Jim need to sneeze.
"Finding the smell of fear is not the problem," Jim said sarcastically as he realized that he was surrounded by fear.
"Well, don't go focusing on my fear, because I can imagine I'm not smelling springtime fresh here. In fact let's get out of his room."
Jim ignored his partner's mind reading abilities and followed the familiar touch out of the room where the floating threads of fear took on more variety even as Blair's own peppery fear sent kept threatening to wash out all the others. Jim wasn't sure whether Blair felt more fear or whether he simply didn't care about the others' fears.
"Focus man. Find the one with female hormones mixed in. You can do this." Jim opened his mouth to argue that he couldn't do this, but the alternative was watching the team open each door, and Jim didn't think they had enough time to search every room. And from the expression on Michael's face, he suspected the man would let them all die in this hall before leaving Nikita behind. Whether he wanted to or not, he *needed* to do this if they were going to escape before reinforcements arrived.
Jim left one part of his awareness on Blair scent and Blair's warm hand on his forearm and Blair's soft, deep voice. He allowed the rest his mind to focus on the scent of fear until he could feel the strings pulling at him. Jim moved blindly down the hall, only vaguely aware of the guiding hands on his arm and back as he pushed his senses beyond anything he'd done before. Feeling an uncomfortable sense of floating steal over his limbs, Jim had to order himself to continue focusing even as some animalistic, instinctive part of his brain screamed that he was about to drown. He had to trust that Blair wouldn't let him.
Jim suddenly caught it, a fading sense of something feminine -- a deeper musk that made his own body react. But the scent was so faint and Jim couldn't hold it, and it evaporated leaving Jim frozen in a swirl of masculine fear.
"Man, not the place for a zone. Listen to my voice," Blair said, and Jim frowned in his friend's general direction without focusing his eyes.
"I'm not zoning, Sandburg. I found the scent and now it's gone again." The very instant the harsh words came out, he regretted his sharpness, but Blair ignored his bad temper like usual.
"Let's try farther down the hall. Just focus on the smell," Blair answered without retaliating for Jim's tone. Blair's hands guided him down the hall.
"Better?"
"Sandburg, the smell is gone," Jim complained in a voice with more weariness than anger this time.
"Then we try the other way. Man, don't lose focus. You've found at once, you'll find it again," Blair said, and Jim focused on trying to find that scent again, stuffing his complaints down in that same well where he had stuffed his guilt and his fear. Jim allowed himself to be guided so that he could concentrate on the scent.
He was about ready to complain again, but as he opened his mouth, the smell suddenly appeared. Freezing in place, he turned his head trying to identify the direction. Slowly he worked his way down the hallway of doors passing one after another until he stood outside one door that looked like any other.
"Here," Jim said as he reached out and put his palms flat against the door. He couldn't actually hear a heartbeat or smell a specific scent, but he just knew that a live person stood behind the door. Michael himself knelt in front of the keypad, ripping it off with such haste that Jim could smell Michael's blood coming from a cut in his hand. Michael opened the door within seconds, a small click echoing in the concrete corridor.
"Clear?" Michael asked, and suddenly the man who never had an emotion in his voice sounded tense.
"Yeah," Jim confirmed after listening for a second. He could only hear one person; a wet rattling sound as she breathed suggested that she was certainly no threat. Michael pushed the door open, keeping his body to the side as he scanned the room. As soon as he had performed whatever visual checks made him feel safe, Michael rushed in with a soft curse.
"Michael?" A weak female voice asked, Blair stepped closer, and Jim tried to block his view, but he wasn't fast enough.
"Oh fuck," Blair sighed softly. Jim was tempted to agree with him on that. The woman was naked from the waist up, but the red trails blood that burned across her back and then dripped down rather distracted him from looking at her more attractive parts. Of course, the second and third degree burns on her front meant she wasn't actually all that attractive right now. Michael cradled her waist carefully lifting her so that her body no longer hung from her chained wrists.
Jim hurried into the room, grabbing a chair so that he could stand on it and reach the chains easily. Michael held up a cutting tool, and Jim sliced through the iron as if it were tinfoil. As her body slumped down, she groaned once and then fell silent. Even in pain, she scanned the room, and Jim recognized that same emotionless danger in her that he had seen in Michael and Madeleine. Whoever she was, she was one of their elite, and she was important to Michael.
Instead of having time to feel relief, Jim tensed as rapid gunfire the corridor outside sent him running to the door. Listening carefully, he identified enemy agents rushing into the hall that ran parallel to this one. "We're out of time," Jim said as he turned and looked at Michael seriously. Now they both had someone to get out. Michael nodded briefly and then started walking; however, Nikita's legs failed her, so that he ended up dragging her feet across the floor. He went to lift her into his arms, and she pushed him away.
"You've got to go," Nikita insisted in a hoarse voice barely above a whisper—a voice weak from screaming. Jim understood. He'd been in situations where carrying a person meant the difference between life and death for the rescuer. Michael ignored her, scooping her up into his arms as he ran for the corridor.
"What the--?" Blair asked in a shocked voice, and Jim knew his guide well enough to know Blair was far more shocked by the girl's request to be left than by Michael's willingness to risk his own life by carrying her. Right now he just didn't have time to explain the realities of the battlefields to Blair; he grabbed the man's shirt and hauled him out of the room as he ran down the corridor after Michael.
Gunfire broke out behind them, but Jim ignored the bad positioning of their own operatives who were caught in the corridor as he focused on getting Blair into the stairwell at the end of the row of doors. He slammed through the metal stairwell door, pulling Blair with him, just as bullets began to ricochet off the concrete walls. He could see black suited agents above and below them, but Michael waited just inside the doorway, holding the injured blonde with one hand and a small torch with the other.
Jim pulled Blair away from the door as Michael took the torch to the lock ensuring that they would have at least a couple of minutes. It also ensured that the operative left in the hall would now die there. Taking another look at the girl, Jim wondered why she merited the deaths of those people now trapped on the other side of a welded lock.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck," Blair breathed softly, and the girl looked at him with exhausted eyes that could barely stay open.
"Oh man, I do not want to die here. Jim, can you hear where they are?"
"Too many echoes," Jim said with a grimace as he realized that he could hear the pounding of footsteps everywhere.
"No way. An echo doesn't sound like the original. Listen to the sound, isolate it from the echoes you're hearing," Blair insisted as he brought his own boot down on the concrete landing. Jim heard the sharp staccato strike of the boot heel and then the softer echo bouncing off the walls. "Do you hear that? Do you hear the difference?" Blair asked as he struck his foot against the landing again.
"They're a lot farther away," Jim said as he struggled to identify the sounds that he could hear behind every door.
"Visualize the layout. You know what this place looks like, so you just have to visualize the layout. Remember how we would piggyback your sight onto hearing? This is the exact same thing. Visualize the compound in your mind, and then eliminate the echoes."
"We don't have time for this," Michael said as he started upward.
"He can do this," Blair insisted, and Jim struggled to live up to his guide's expectations. He could almost do it; he could almost see the sounds superimposed over his memory of the various corridors."
"We don't have time," Michael said in a chillingly cold voice, and Jim opened his eyes to see Michael's weapon trained at Blair's head. For one second, he felt like his heart stopped as he considered the possibility that they were going to be executed right there. Blair backed up a step, the railing stopping any further retreat, and Jim stepped between his guide and the gun. He had no illusions about being able to bring his own weapon up in time to save either of them, and he had no illusions about how quickly the other agents would take them both out even if he could eliminate Michael. However, if this was the end, he wasn't going to let Blair go alone, and he wasn't going to let Blair go first. He stared down Michael's weapon as he felt Blair's hands clutching at his shirt.
"We're leaving," Michael said in that same soft deadly voice, and for one second, Jim wasn't sure whether the "we" included himself and his guide. But Michael shoved his sidearm back into its holster, and started climbing the stairs still holding Nikita in his arms.
"Michael, you're the better shot, let me carry her," Jim said softly. He was the best tactical decision-- he knew it, Michael knew it, Blair probably even understood it. But Michael still turned with a look of uncertainty that suggested that the man had a humanity Jim had never seen in him before.
"Let him," the girl said with a pained hiss. Michael glanced at her once and then handed her of her to Jim before pulling his weapon and charging up the stairs. Jim shifted the girl in his arms, and her hands grabbed his shoulders as he climbed the stairs as quickly as he could. Girl. Jim couldn't deny thinking of the small injured woman as a girl even though her reactions screamed 'soldier'.
"Man, can you hear anything?" Blair asked from behind him.
"They're coming up under us," Jim panted heavily as he struggled under his load. Climbing stairs was not a problem, carrying a girl was not a problem, the climbing stairs while carrying a girl stretched him to the limit. He felt a hand at his back, and he focused on just getting up the stairs. He was so focused he almost missed the popping sound of the detonator. Turning his back, he pushed Blair back down the stairs they had just climbed, and he used his own body to shield both the injured girl and Blair as the explosion took out the stairwell door on the fifth floor.
Jim swung around with his automatic already firing before the first enemy soldier made it into the stairwell. Steps pounded up the stairs from below, and Jim nearly fired before recognizing the red hair of one of Michael's team. Instead he lifted his weapon and gestured for the man in goggles to go ahead, holding up three fingers to show the number of heartbeats he could hear. The man gave him a sharp nod and then passed them on the stairs, his footsteps so quiet that Jim suspected only Sentinel hearing could perceive them.
"You okay?" Jim whispered to the girl, not sure whether he had hurt her when he fell on her, shielding his two charges with his own body.
"Fine," she said in a rough, shaky voice, and Jim got up to a crouch as he tried to pull her back into his arms.
"Man, you're better with the guns than I am, give her here," Blair's hand reached over and closed around his wrist, stopping him from lifting the girl.
"Blair," Jim warned. He couldn't risk Blair being slowed down.
"It's logical, and you know it, so don't fight on this," Blair said as he pulled the girl to him, and got her arms over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Jim knew the position had to hurt the woman after she had been hanging from her arms, but she never made a sound, and Blair probably didn't know how much pain she was feeling. At the same time, Jim didn't care how much she hurt, and that carry would make it easy for Blair to drop her if he needed to. Of course, the problem with that was that his stubborn guide would probably die before leaving the injured woman.
"Tell me when it's safe to go," Blair said as he crouched with the girl over one shoulder. A round of run fire above them ended with a sharp blast that sent a wave of heat down the stairwell. Jim tucked his body around the other two, taking the edge of the blast and letting his pack diffuse it.
"Grenades," Jim said even though it was probably unnecessary. Ignoring the red-haired body draped over several of the stairs, Jim shook his head and pushed past the image of thousands of individual dust and smoke participles, dismissing them the same as he dismissed unwanted background noise. With a suddenly clear view of the smoky stairs, he could see the edge of a face next to the open stairwell door. Jim brought his weapon up and fired, charging ahead to take advantage of the confusion his shot would create.
A second figure appeared, and Jim threw himself down and out of the path of the weapon as he fired a short burst and prayed that Blair wasn't in the line of fire. The man's body flew backwards with the impact of the bullets, and Jim pressed forward again, his eyes running with tears that he refused to blink away as he advanced on the blasted fifth floor doorway.
"Chief," he called, and at that word, he heard Blair moving up the stairs far faster than Jim expected him to move under the weight of the woman. However, adrenaline and need sent his guide up the stairs as Jim fired into the hallway to force the enemy to take cover.
Jim waited until he could hear the door to the roof opening, at which point either Blair was back with Michael or captured. Jim then stormed up the stairs, following Blair no matter what fate his guide had found. He burst out into the clean night air of the roof, his face feeling like a mask of dirt and smoke even as his tears left cool traces down his cheeks. Michael waited in the moonlight, gun pointed at the door, and when the gun didn't lower, Jim knew his chance at freedom had ended.
As a helicopter settled down on the roof, the light stabbed through the darkness, and a member of Michael's team came forward taking both his automatic weapon and the handgun in its holster. Watching impassively, Jim wondered whether Michael would execute them or leave them to be tortured by the owners of the compound or just take them back to their cell. Over to the side, Blair knelt next to the girl, a tall operative standing over him with a drawn weapon. Jim looked at his guide in helpless agony, and Blair must have recognized something in his face, because he ducked his head so that long curls that had escaped the ponytail fell in front of his face, and Jim thanked his sensitive eyes so that no one knew when the tears from the smoke changed to tears of pain at his guide shutting him out at this moment.
The roof trembled slightly as the helicopter landed, and Michael backed up toward the rumbling machine. Jim used the opportunity to move closer to Blair, stepping sideways as he kept an eye on Michael.
"Everyone on," Michael ordered, and the man who stood at Jim's shoulder took a hold of his arm. Jim ignored the pressure, using his own superior strength to drag the man over to Blair, pulling Blair away from his guard before heading for the helicopter behind Michael who once again had Nikita in his arms.
Guiding Blair in ahead of him, Jim settled against the plastic seat, pulling the belt over his waist as the five soldiers who had survived the attack took positions on the far side of the large helicopter, leaving Jim, Blair, Michael and Nikita sitting in the seat that faced forward. Blair pulled his own seatbelt on with shaking hands that might be either his fear of heights or the side effect of having just survived his first covert op. Even while feeling relieved at surviving this op, Jim wondered how many more Blair would see.
As the copter headed into the air, Jim could tell that the pilot feared detection as he flew low to the ground, barely clearing the tops of the enormous pines, where land to ground missiles posed a very real danger to a slow moving helicopter, which meant the pilot feared something even bigger. The open sides allowed Jim scan the air as he strained against the belt to get a better view, but couldn't find any danger. However, the soldier on the opposite side pulled his weapon up and trained it at Jim's midsection.
"Lower it," Michael ordered as he cradled Nikita, her head resting against his shoulder as a medic applied ointment to the worst of her injuries. From her lax muscles, Jim assumed they had already drugged her. The soldier slowly lowered his weapon, and Jim leaned back in his seat as he held his palms up in surrender. He really didn't need to get shot by a nervous hired gun who was still wired on adrenaline from the op.
Nikita's body suddenly started jerking, and everyone, including the trigger-happy soldier across from him, focused on the injured woman. His own guide who sat next to Michael and Nikita stroked a bit of her hand as he made small soothing sounds, noises Jim had last heard when someone had broken into the labs and gravely injured a number of test animals in the psychology department. Blair had made that same noise at a dying monkey of some sort even as Jim collected evidence on the vandals. Even though the girl's capture had led Section to kidnap him and his guide, Jim still hoped she would survive. He didn't have much hope though given how her mouth fell open and her back arched in a way that suggested the visible injuries were the least of her problems.
Michael's hands brushed the hair from her face as the drool started, but Jim turned his attention to the trees flashing by underneath. The pilot was still flying low enough that he just needed to calculate the distances. Using the distraction of Nikita's worsening seizure, Jim unclipped the fire extinguisher and used his foot to push it out the open side of the helicopter so that he could watch the red tumble through the air until it crashed into a tree limb, shattering the dry wood.
Only then did he realize that he could see through the darkness of night nearly as easily as daylight. Trees stood clearly outlined in green against the blue-grey of night. The edges of the mountains still had a faint halo of red from the sun which was not well below the horizon, and in the distance, he could see an owl gliding in lazy circles. He could only hope it would be an advantage for what he had planned. The helicopter flew into the darkness without lights, so Jim assumed everyone else was nearly blind, and the pilot only had access to radar, which had a limited usefulness.
"Chief, she okay?" Jim asked, using the question as an excuse to lean forward and grab Blair's arms as he shouted in the man's ear.
"Oh, man, I have no idea," Blair yelled back over the noise of the motors, his face drawn with stress, and Jim's overworked guilt nerve twitched over that failure too. What he was going to do in just a few seconds certainly wouldn't improve Blair's stress levels. He slipped a hand between him and his guide and unlatched his belt without pushing it away so that it merely lay in his lap.
Blair shifted, and Jim pulled his guide even closer. While Blair rolled his eyes, he didn't fight as Jim pulled him closer. A day or two earlier, Blair had finally called him on his ever increasing need to touch, referring to it as Blessed Protector Touchy-Feely mode, a term that had caused Jim to glower at his friend. But now it worked to his advantage as Blair leaned back into him, not even commenting when Jim slipped an arm around his waist, using the embrace and Nikita's distraction to slip Blair free from his belt. Blair obviously misunderstood Jim's intentions because he simply used the additional freedom to slide back into Jim's body, one of his fingers now rubbing a soothing pattern on his hand as Jim pulled Blair away from Nikita and the medic who frantically tried to provide treatment as Michael cradled her in his arms.
For one second, Jim closed his eyes and let his chin rest against Blair's curls, losing himself in the heat of the body pressing into him and the steady rhythm of Blair's heart. If he didn't calculate this correctly, he might never get to feel this again. Slowly Blair's muscles relaxed as his body yielded to Jim's embrace, his head fell back so that it rested on Jim's shoulder. Even though Jim wanted nothing more than to hold on to this moment--this small instant when he and his guide were safe--he knew he couldn't afford to. They had played their part in Section's plan, and now they were expendable. Jim watched out the helicopter door and tightened his grip around Blair.
As the ribbon of shimmering grey appeared below them, Jim watched the angle of river to ground to helicopter. Jim braced himself. One last mammoth tree to clear and then....
Jim thrust up and back with his legs, lifting Blair as he threw both of them to the side and back, back out of the helicopter and into the empty air. Blair's scream echoed in his hearing as their bodies tumbled toward earth, the wind snapping against his face as they fell.