Disclaimer: Not mine; no money made. Recognizable characters from Highlander: The Series are the intellectual property of Rysher: Panzer/Davis. X-Fles characters, if any, belong to 1013 Productions. The concepts of lines and line wars are mine.
Rated: NC-17 for explicit violence and explicit sex, slash and het both. If you have a problem with that, either page past it on the screen or use the back button. Flames will be used in the barbecue.
Underlines are for emphasis or titles; italics indicate thoughts or foreign language.
This one, by the way, is for me.

Sirocco

New York City, New York -- 4/8

The men involved were, when all was said and done, professionals.  They acquired and paced their target at a conservative distance, sighting passed back and forth between three of them by radio and earpiece.  And when his early morning run was over, they followed the target to his home, a high-priced brownstone.

The team leader murmured quietly, "This is Lead.  Two, take the back alley.  Three, watch the front.  Four, report."

"Four here.  All quiet at base."

"Store opens in forty-six minutes.  Go in; compare it to the blueprints.  Take over from Two in the alley at noon.  Five, go in at 10:20 and browse.  Take over from Three at noon.  Six?"

"Sir?"

"Confirm the travel arrangements.  We're at D-Day minus one."

"Yes, sir."

"Two, Three -- get some sleep this afternoon.  You'll relieve at 18:00."

They were being paid very well for this, Lead reminded himself, and it was going to go off without a hitch.  One way or another.

~~~~~

Three and Six had stayed behind to keep the target under surveillance, but the rest of them huddled around the CAD-generated floor plan during the early evening briefing.  "Display cases here, here, and here.  Counter cases here and here."  Four indicated the spots with the cap of his pen.  "Door to the back room -- presumably storage -- here.  Access to the central area here.  Elevator to the upper floors here.  Security cameras with overlapping fields every room."

"Where's the power feed for the cameras?" Two wondered.

"Concealed within in the walls," Five answered.  "They definitely have an uninterruptible power supply somewhere.  The UPS might be in the storage area, but I think the basement is more likely."

"We'll have to do this during his morning run, then," Two commented.  "We can't hit him in the store."

The leader nodded.  "Agreed.  What about the assistant?"

"She'll call it in when he doesn't show, I think.  They seem to have a settled routine.  They may have been lovers at one time."

"Oh?" Two asked.  "What's your evidence?"

"Their body language with each other," Five replied.  "They're either long married, which surveillance doesn't indicate, or they've been lovers and it was a friendly break-up."

"Irrelevant," Lead decided.  "Right.  We'll take him tomorrow morning."

"Right on schedule," Two said calmly.  "Good.  I didn't want to lose that bonus."

"Why the knife, though?" Five asked.  "I don't like it when the customers get this strange."

"The cash is good," Four pointed out.  "The first half is in the bank."

"Yeah, well, you know the rule.  'Deal with whackos and get whacked,'" Five said grimly.  "Why plant a knife through his heart?  And why do they want the corpse?"

"We make sure that there's no way to trace the knife back to us, or the job," the team leader told them.  "That's all there is to it.  I'd rather we disposed of the body, too, but we're being paid extra to change our routine.  We'll do it their way this time."

~~~~~

They dropped back that night, keeping an even more discreet distance from the target.  An elderly man came by, apparently for a late dinner, but left again around eleven o'clock and the lights went out shortly after that.

<><><><><><><><><>

New York City -- early morning, 4/9

In the end, it was ridiculously easy.

From the far side of the street, apparently nursing a hot cup of coffee and waiting for a bus, Three watched the target approach.  At his signal, Two simply stepped out of an alley, gun coming up as he moved, and shot three times.  Only muffled spits of air passed the silencer, easily lost in the unending noise of Manhattan.  To their shock, the target managed to stagger several steps toward a doorway before his knees sagged.  It wouldn't have helped; Four had been waiting in the doorway to catch the body, and, as instructed, he buried a knife hilt deep into the target's chest.  But it made them nervous anyway.

"Shit," Six muttered into his mouthpiece.  "Is this guy Superman?"

"You'd better hope not," Lead replied as he brought the van smoothly around the corner.  "We weren't issued kryptonite."

Five opened the door and they loaded the body into the van, settling him onto the waiting drop cloth.  Two set to work duct-taping the target's wrists behind his back, wrapping the same silvery stuff around his ankles, and setting an 'X' of it over the dagger to hold it in place.  Last, they secured the drop cloth in place with more of the tape, leaving a vaguely person-shaped bundle of plastic and silver adhesive to be covered with a packing blanket.

Their leader drove smoothly through the early morning traffic, obeying the speed limit as he worked his way out of town with their bundle.  Behind him he heard magazine pages rustling, and in the rear-view mirror he could see that Six was already drowsing, head propped against the side of the van.

Two settled into the shotgun seat, and kept his question quiet rather than alarm the team.  "Was this job a good idea?"

"The money is guaranteed," the team lead replied softly.  "Half paid in advance, the bank book for the remainder handed over when we trade the body.  Why?"

"I don't like this," his second told him bluntly, if still sotto voce.  "This is a lot of trouble for a hit, and I don't like the delivery conditions."

"And you don't like the fact that he almost made it?"

"Yeah," Two sighed, "that, too.  Why the knife?"

"Because we're being paid to.  Let it alone, all right?  Job's done, we're gonna get paid -- enough."  He paused, then said more slowly, "But I don't think we're taking any more jobs this month."

"Good."  They drove in silence for the rest of the three-hour trip.

~~~~~

Somewhere outside Poughkeepsie, New York -- early afternoon, 4/9

They took the last turn-off in silence, but it was the quiet of hunters studying the landscape for a wounded grizzly.  All six men were awake, alert, and anxious, although only three of them were in the van.  The other three were scouting ahead and reporting back occasionally in soft, terse whispers.

Another vehicle waited for them in the clearing before a deserted farmhouse.  Unlike the utilitarian work van they were in, this one showed subtle signs of customizing.  The rear windows and the small bubble of glass on the left side had all been tinted so darkly no one could see in, but no pin-striping had been done, nothing terribly obvious.  Just the darkened windows.

"This is Lead," he murmured into his collar mike.  "Report."

"Six is all clear," Six reported softly.

"Five is all clear," Five agreed.

"Four has a sniper," Four whispered so quietly they barely heard him.  "Forty-plus feet northwest from the cabin, sitting in an elm.  Stop at least twenty yards from the porch and he'll be blocked by that large oak."

"Got it," Lead confirmed briskly.  "Pull back, Four, but keep him in range."  He didn't need to issue any further instructions; they all knew how to work this scenario.  He parked the van by the indicated tree and stepped out, apparently unconcerned.

A tall, dark-haired man emerged from the shadows of the sagging, abandoned porch.  "You're rather lost, I think."

"No one ever really gets lost.  It's a small planet," Lead returned easily, recognizing the acknowledgment phrase he'd been given.

"And getting smaller every decade," came the calm reply, but something in the self-absorbed smile made Lead wonder what joke he was missing.  "I believe we have something to trade?"

"We do," Lead told him calmly.  Behind him, Two and Three lifted the drop cloth out.  "Our money?"  To his surprise, the customer didn't ask to see the corpse, only nodded once as if very pleased, and tossed a black leather pouch to the ground near the team lead.

"Greater Cayman Bank, as requested," the customer smiled.  "Check the balance and date.  I think you'll find it's correct."

The papers tucked inside the pouch were teletypes of deposits made to the account in the proper amounts and Lead nodded to the customer.  "As agreed.  We're done, then."

The customer only nodded, smiling as he looked at the wrapped bundle.  The contemplative expression on his face was almost aloof, as if he saw dreams and memories, not reality.

The trip back to the road was surreal, the world around them sharp-edged from adrenaline pumping through veins and attention focused down to an exquisite pitch.  None of them could quite believe they were safe.  Only after the three scouts had been retrieved did Two say tiredly, "About that month off?"

"As soon as we're out of here," Lead agreed.  "And I said the rest of the month off."

"We'll haggle someplace else.  Not," he added quietly, "New York."

"No," Lead agreed.  "Not New York.  How does Georgia sound?"

"Warm and far from here," Two grinned, suddenly relaxing.  "No more jobs that weird, hmm?  I kept thinking we were in a Steven King novel.  What, did they think the target was going to stand back up after we shot him?"

From the middle seat of the van, Four joked, "I vant to suck your blood."

"Nah," Three pointed out, chuckling himself.  "Couldn't have been a vampire; he was out in the daylight."

<><><><><><><><><>

Farrell Jameson's diary - undated entry

I've never understood it, and no one's ever been able to explain it to me.  No one I trust, at least.

Trusting Johannes would be like expecting a panther not to have lunch when a deer is drinking at the river.  He's a treacherous son of a bitch, but he's a survivor.  And with Gwydion dead, Johannes is the only one of us dangerous enough to be a threat to Owain.  If they stop working together, I'm going to look for someplace to hide.

Those two have been business partners, off and on, for almost as long as I've known Owain.  Not something I'd want to do, but I've never liked the way Owain handles some of his business affairs.  I'm in this to make money, but he's bloody ruthless.  Cross him and he'll destroy you and yours.  He made a fortune -- and a damned nasty reputation -- in Hong Kong while I was still a mortal, and it takes work to impress Hong Kong trading houses.

Owain always tells me that's just how it has to be.  I don't think so.

Nothing's ever convinced me that kind of savagery malevolence was really necessary, though.

You know, looking at that, maybe I had the right word to begin with.  Screw it, Jameson, leave it.  Go back to what you were talking about.

I've got rivals, of course.  I'm in business; it just works that way.  They'd as soon close a deal under me as eat lunch with me, but it's nothing personal and I'm still invited to dinner at their houses, or to sit on charity committees with them.  But I've never had a problem making money without making bitter enemies, and I don't have the sheer charm Owain does.  I've seen people just about eating out of the man's hand.  Hell, one smile and respectable matrons start pushing their daughters at him.

I think what confuses me is that, for all the animosity between Owain and Cynthia Torriani -- and God there's plenty -- I liked her.  Yeah, she was going a bit off her rocker by the end of the war, but hell, I might have, too, if I'd gone through half of what I think hammered her.  And from what I've seen of her students -- well, the ones I've met, anyway -- I doubt she stayed crazy.  If necessary they'd have dragged her, kicking, screaming, and in chains, to Sean Burns, or Darius, or hell, to Rebecca for that matter.  To someone who could help her.  Who am I trying to kid?  I might have helped 'em.  Crazy or not, I liked Phoebe.

It's funny.  I call her Phoebe; Owain calls her Cynthia; Enrique calls her 'that pagan bitch'; hell, I think Gwydion used to call her Shahar.  But we're all talking about the same woman.  Names shape people, I've learned that in my life.  What was hers originally, I wonder?  She was using the name Phoebe Syn when I worked with her in World War II, long before I had any clue who she was.  God, I remember that like it was yesterday.  It shocked the hell out of me to be trying to organize the Japanese radio transmissions for translation and feel that kind of a buzz just roll over the entire room when the new woman from London walked in.

She didn't turn a hair, not where I could see it.  Of course, she didn't have much hair to turn.  It was barely to her ears, and I was wondering if she'd planned to pass for a man.  Her face is pretty damned female, but she wouldn't have had too much trouble disguising the body.  She's got wide shoulders and not much of a bust.  Strap down the chest, add a hat to shade the face and a loose jacket to hide the hips....  It could have worked.

One evening when we both needed to get drunk, and neither of us wanted to do it with another immortal around and sober, I found out that she hadn't cut her hair.  The Nazis had, in one of their damned death camps.  She called it what it was.  I wish I had believed her then.  But, Hell, I wasn't even a century old; I didn't know what people could do to each other, not even working Intelligence in a global war, not even living in the Game.  She did.  Oldest damned eyes I'd ever seen some nights, even older than Owain's.

When I told her that she couldn't be right, she just changed the subject.  Didn't argue with me, didn't try to prove her point, didn't tell me I'd regret the opinion later.  Just dropped it, cold, and never discussed it again.  We both quit drinking and went to bed soon after that.  I don't think I could believe it, really, even working in Intel; none of the rest of us could really wrap our minds around the idea of assembly-line murder.

Yeah, we kept hearing the reports, but we were getting most of it from the Jews in the States, or from Jewish sympathizers in Europe.  We could believe the concentration camps, and that people were being...neglected to death is the best way to put it.  Somehow, though, no one could really believe the Nazis could create by-the-numbers mass-murder as a policy.  We'd try to imagine it and we just couldn't see how people could do it in cold blood, day in and day out.  So we didn't believe it.

But I remembered the names when the war ended and the American troops rolled into Germany and those horrible, horrible news reels came out.  Buchenwald, she had said, and the bitch-wolf Koch.  Testing plagues and influenza, unleashing viruses to see who lived and died and how long it took....  I remembered.  So does everyone else -- now.

This is getting off-topic, but hell, this diary's for me.  I'll keep what I like in it. And this is definitely important.  I need to figure out why these two hate each other so much, before it gets all of us killed.  What is it about them that rubs each other so raw?  It's in their history, I'm sure of that.

One thing that being immortal has taught me:  everything is in the history.  Sharp words, unexpected lovers, the lightest touch of hand to face or whip to back -- it all goes back to something else.  I wonder if Methos is real?  If he could tell me anything about this?  Sometimes a century seems like eternity, but for questions like that it feels like no time at all.

Owain always kept an eye out for the line of Ramirez, and I always wondered why.  Back in 1906, when we had just lost a helluva lot of money because of the San Francisco earthquake, he told me that they were pain-in-the-ass, no-good meddlers, trying to keep other immortals from making a living, much less a profit.  Hell, until then I thought the worst I had to worry about from other immortals was losing my head.  That's bad enough, but the idea of being systematically bankrupted, and left to starve to death, homeless, impoverished, and belittled, just somehow seems a helluva lot worse.

Dead is dead, and I haven't liked it any time I've died, but lose your head, and it's finished.  No more coming back, and with any luck the fight was at least clean.  Sword wounds heal, or you die.  Hunger, though -- starvation is a long, slow death, and a lot of it hurts.

Funny.  You'd think I'd know what I'm thinking, what I'm going to say, before I write it down -- but sometimes the words on the page surprise the hell out of me.  I've been keeping diaries for years now, but first the typewriter and now the word processor have changed things.  Typing is so much faster than writing.  With a pen I thought more about what I was saying, changed it more in my mind so that it was closer to what I wanted it to be, farther from what my gut instinct kicked out first.  There are advantages to word processors; these diaries are a lot more honest now.

Does it matter if they're honest?  I mean, I never read back through them.  I just...keep them.  Day-timers I throw away, but these go back decades and I've still got them.  If anyone else ever read them....  What the hell?  Who'd believe it?  But it's easier to write for somebody else to read, somehow.  So screw it.  This is for you, whoever you may be, and I hope you enjoy it.  And if it's you snooping around, Enrique?  Why don't you look over the entries for 1898 and see what I really thought of you.  Check February.

Damn I've wandered off the topic of this whole damn thing.  Again.  For something that's supposed to center my thoughts, I wander as much in a diary as anywhere else, it seems.

Phoebe and Owain, right.  I just don't get it.  He's arrogant, self-righteous, and very self-centered.  Hell, I knew that within a few months of studying him.  But to give him credit, he's damned loyal to the few he really considers his own, and he's very good at keeping those people healthy, well-paid, and (the immortals, anyway) with their heads firmly attached.  I won my first challenge three years after I ended up in the Game.

Phoebe, on the other hand, was certain of herself to the point that it was nearly arrogance.  She never set a foot wrong, never dropped something important, never seemed unsure of herself, even walking in that first day with hair shorter than I'd seen anyone wear it in twenty years and so thin that a wind should have blown her over.  But she's not cocky.

I've met people who deserved to be arrogant and were, and I don't care how good they were, they were still offensive.  She wasn't.  Just...sure.  Confident in her abilities, her competence.  Very sure, actually, but not rude about it, and she didn't rub people's nerves raw the way Owain does.

Actually, looking back at it, it reminds me of the difference between Eisenhower and MacArthur.  Eisenhower was so good at his job that he made people happy to help him, and you knew he was good but it didn't bother you.  MacArthur was a genius in a lot of ways, but he had his coterie and his followers who adored him.  Serious love/hate relationship between him and the States.  Everyone wanted him to win the war, smash the Nazis and the Japs, but at the same time you could tell they almost hoped he'd fuck something up because they wanted to see that nose-in-the-air attitude change to nose-rubbed-in-it.

But why?  What's the difference between them that led to this much friction?  Or is it that they're too similar?

Not where loyalty is concerned, that's for damn sure.  Phoebe's pretty damn devoted to her people.  Dive into a fight, stand back to back, bribe the executioner loyal.  She just moves.  Like she did in '43 with Salim.  If she'd fucked up, well, they'd have killed her and him both.  Running, with no papers, in wartime Australia?  God, I wouldn't want to have to do that.  She didn't think twice about it, not that I could see.  Oh, she looked pissed for a second, but I don't think there was ever a chance that Phoebe wasn't going to bail him out.

Owain, though -- he's helped people, but I always got a feeling that he would remember it.  That whoever he'd helped, including me a few times, had just signed an IOU and watched him put it in a bank vault.  That one day, he would call it in and you'd better expect to pay it off with interest.  Or that you might need help and he could decide you're just not worth the cost.  Have to admit, if I need help, I'm not going to him again.  Alex, maybe.  Or Jarunsuk.  Hell, I'd go to Cory Raines, first.  That's pretty scary.  Cory is such a damned loose cannon.

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure how many people Phoebe considers 'hers', but there might be more than Owain knows about.  I met Salim in the winter of '43-44 when she helped him out of that mess.  All she'd say was that some obligations weren't up for discussion.  But he's not out of the line of Ramirez.  I asked him once who taught him, what line he was from, and he just laughed.  Said I shouldn't worry about it; he didn't.

So either he's self-taught, which I somehow doubt; or he killed his teacher and doesn't want to admit it, which I don't believe either; or for whatever reason he won't name his teacher, which seems a lot more likely.  But I don't think he's old enough to have trained with Ramirez, which means he shouldn't have any reason to think we're enemies.  So why not tell me who taught him?  Did he really think I'd attack him?  And that leaves the question I'm really wondering about:  what kind of obligations do he and Phoebe have to each other?

Because Salim wasn't all that surprised when she showed up and bailed him out.  Why not?  What does she owe him?  Why?  I mean, if they aren't line-kin, which I think would have been reason enough for her, what made her help him?  I don't understand.  And yet...if I wasn't one of Owain's people, I think she'd help me, too.  She might do it despite the fact that I'm one of Owain's.  And I don't understand that, either.

Why are they doing this?  What makes them hate each other so much that Owain will use hoarded favors and expensive secrets to pry her loose and kill her?  Can't he find anything better to do with the energy?  Does he need some kind of revenge that badly?  They're both loyal to their own.  Maybe that's where the whole problem comes from, although by now, the people this started over have been in their graves for eight hundred some damn years!  Couldn't they just get over this and go on to something useful?

Johannes told me part of it late one night.  Of  course, I think the only reason I got the story is because we were both testing out the new batch of whiskey that the boat had brought in from Edinburgh.  The whole thing sounded like a bad plot for a play, something Shakespeare wouldn't have touched.  Apparently (and I wonder now how closely the sober story would resemble the drunk one?) one fine day in the Italian Alps, Owain was heading up some bands of brigands.  There wasn't much law to speak of, I don't think.  Johannes spoke as if it were before his time, which means it was back before the Renaissance, and from everything I know Europe was damned hazardous to travelers in those days.

Anyway.  Cynthia had married into a trading family, the Torriani of Milan, and the lady took care of her own. She was part of the escort for this caravan, and I wonder how she pulled that off in medieval Europe?  Phoebe doesn't exactly look like the strapping Valkyrie kind of woman who might have been able to convince them to give her a sword in those days.  Or maybe I don't understand the time very well.  I don't know.

What I know is that the caravan was coming home from France, Germany, and then Austria, following the old summer trade fairs route, according to Johannes.  A bloody rich prize, loaded to the tops of the saddlebags with trade goods and coin according to Johannes.  A group they really should have left alone is what I think.

One of Owain's bands tried to stop them.  They lost.

No real surprise there -- she'd hired some wandering Celts into the bodyguard, a bunch of Irish and Scots who weren't interested in fighting each other or the English, apparently.  Owain told me that once, in the middle of complaining about the difficulty of learning Scots-Gaelic.  I don't know what he thinks is so damn rough about Gaelic.  Hell, I can pronounce Gaelic, but Welsh??

When they attacked the Torriani, though, Owain lost that entire band of men.  Three of them almost made it back to tell him what had happened, but the lady left their bodies for him to find, apparently.  He came across them hanging from the trees, signs on their chests in Latin and German that said 'Thieves.'  I can't blame her for that; the Torriani and their allies routinely used that route and she wasn't leaving enemies on the road. Owain, though, did blame her.  Damn if I know why.  Hell, he'd have done the same damn thing, and probably made sure they died worse than a quick hanging!  I guess he didn't have any real practice at losing, and wasn't any too damn happy when he got some.

I can understand that.  I can even understand him going to the Torriani when he found the standard that one of his men had managed to steal.  He knew who the Torriani of Milano were.

Odd.  Even when he's speaking English, Owain calls it Milano; is he being pretentious or rigid?  Huh.  I need to come back to that, someday.  I'm not a complete fool, no matter what Johannes may think.  I know the day may come when Owain and I cross each other.  I mean to survive it if it happens, but he's going to have to start it.

Back to that mess, though.  Owain wanted to let the Torriani know that if they paid him, he'd let their caravans pass.  What the hell, in those days, bandits were normal.  He was an ambitious bandit, but there were always plenty of those.  They told him to go to hell, too.  Probably figured their mercenaries had taken him once, they could do it again.  And he says he left after that, but I don't think he could resist telling Phoebe to her face that the next time they would pay, one way or the other.

Damn if I was going to piss off Phoebe by asking her directly, but I asked Darius about it once when I was in Paris.  He thinks, and he was never a fool, that she thought Owain would just challenge her.  So the next time the Torriani/Pallavicini trading alliance sent a caravan over the mountains, she went with them.  And she killed more of Owain's men.  Only this time, he was watching from the hills to see what tactics she used.  And, just knowing Owain, when he realized that he'd been bested by a female -- an immortal female, and one older than he was, but a female -- well, he got a wild hair up his ass.  He hates losing.  He really hates losing to women.

So when their fighters won again, Owain went to Milano to warn her husband what his second wife was going to cost him if she kept this up.  What he and Johannes told me was that he threatened the Torriani vineyards.  What Darius told me was that Owain came to Milan and when he left, plague had struck the city -- and the first two victims were Rufio Torriani's two children by his first wife.

I don't know which version of the story is true.  Maybe they both are; it's not like they're mutually exclusive.  All I know is that ever since that day, Cynthia Torriani and Owain Rhys-Tewdor have hated each other's guts.

They've never challenged, not in the nearly nine hundred years since.  Not directly, anyway.  But our lines tangle in and through each other like blood-stained lace.  Owain killed Pyotr Rodenko, one of Ramirez' students, a few months after he found me.  First quickening I ever saw.  Phoebe killed Gwydion ap Ydris back in 1909 while I was still traveling with Owain.  Gwydion was a cold-blooded son of a bitch, but he was one of the fastest fencers I'd seen.  Phoebe took his head in Southampton, and did it so quickly that the police never had time to investigate the lightning.

I've always thought that Gwydion killed Diego de Grenada to have a shot at Phoebe.  One of the few things Gwydion ever told me was to always pick my ground, and where I could, my enemy's mood, and Diego and Phoebe were friends.  I know my brother hated Spain, so I can't think of any reason he'd have been there during a revolution unless he was deliberately head-hunting.  I do think he meant to fight Phoebe, just not when he did.  Maybe he was expecting her in the 1820s and she just never showed.  Maybe he just wasn't ready for her when he did run into her in England at the end.  But I've always suspected that Gwydion wanted Owain to owe him for killing Cynthia at long last, and it just didn't work.

For that matter, I've been half-expecting that Connor MacLeod would come after Owain for killing Pyotr.  Of course, the Highlander had to worry about the Kurgan until recently, and he was enough to demand anyone's complete attention.  But it's not like that line to leave one of their own unavenged.  Not from what I've seen.

What is it about that line?  They do seem to be...friends, lovers, trusted.  They call each other brother or sister, and mean it.  Ever since I helped Ishtvan bail Damien out of that Turkish hellhole in 1914, I've wondered what it's like to have line-sibs you enjoy spending time with.  The truth of the matter is that I wouldn't give the time of day to half of my line kin, and that includes Owain some days.  I'd help him -- there's no question on that.  I owe him.  But I've always gotten along better with the Valicourts, or those two laughing madmen from Athens, Alex and Xan.  I get along better with Phoebe and some of her students, Damien and Ish in particular, than I do with my own brothers and sisters.

But Owain took me in before anyone could realize that I hadn't stayed dead after the polio.  Then or now, there aren't enough people in New Zealand to hide something like that for long.  So I owe him.  He's never had to say a word; I know it, and that's enough.  I can't leave the line of Rhys-Tewdor, despite the fact that I think Phoebe wanted to adopt me all those years ago, and damn if it wasn't tempting.  Maybe if

Screw it.  I'll write more on all this later.  Right now, it's just pissing me off.

<><><><><><><><><>

Daytona Beach, Florida -- early evening, 4/9

Numbness struck him, an explosive non-sensation that radiated from his stomach through his arms and made him wonder, remotely, if immortals could have heart attacks.  And still Rachel Ellenstein's voice spoke on:  low, hesitant, and tense.  "Duncan?  It's Rachel.  Call me, please.  There may be a problem.  I'll be at the store."  The voice mail message concluded by informing him that the message had been left at 3:21 PM.  The Scot barely registered the mechanical voice as he forced himself through a series of slow, deep breaths before calling Connor's assistant.

She picked up immediately, answering, "Nash Antiques, this is Rachel."

One olive-toned hand, already clenching into a fist, beat a slow, steady drum against his thigh as he asked, "It's Duncan.  What's wrong, Rachel?"  The outward calm of his voice masked his newborn, internal terrors.

"I hope I'm wrong, but...I think Connor's disappeared."

Duncan MacLeod had half-dreaded such words for years, had gotten this same call about other friends before -- but hearing them from Rachel, spoken about his clansman, they sank into his bones and heart like icy spikes.  He forced himself to ask carefully, "Tell me what happened, Rachel.  When did you last see him?"

"Last night.  I closed up the store because he was cooking dinner for Sol.  I haven't seen him since.  He never showed up this morning."

Duncan nodded once, distracted enough by the news to forget she wouldn't see it.  Rachel, unflappable Rachel, was trying not to panic.  Oh, Lord.

"All right.  Did he say anything over the last few days...."

"No," she admitted softly.  "And I can usually tell when he's hunting another immortal, Duncan.  He starts getting -- very intent, very focused on something that I can't see.  Almost snappish, if you want the truth.  He wasn't doing any of that this time.  He hasn't updated the will and power of attorney since he went hunting a year and a half ago, either.  If someone was in town Connor would have warned me, or tried to get me to take a vacation."

Her voice had steadied, but Rachel still sounded shaken.  "Duncan -- I can't think.  What should I do?"

"Easy, Rachel.  Take a deep breath.  Check the apartment and see what you can find:  a note, a message on the answering machine, his appointment book, anything.  After that, call Sol.  He may know something."  He inhaled slowly, then said more slowly, "And when you've finished all of that, call me back.  I'll start packing now, but I doubt I can get a flight out before tomorrow morning."

"You don't have to -- "

Duncan overrode her feeble, clearly pro forma protests.  "Yes, Rachel, I do.  I'll be there tomorrow afternoon at the latest."  Resolve slowly solidified around his fears, locking his emotions into a unified foundation which would support him until this was over, one way or the other.  "One other thing."

"Yes?"

"Start watching the news."  He had to stop for a moment before he could go on, but he held his voice steady for her sake.  "If Connor lost his head, the explosion probably rivaled the earthquake in California last year."

"And the news services will be carrying it."  Rachel drew strength from his calm; he could hear it in her voice.  "I'll call you, Duncan."

"I'll be here," he promised, then he heard only the dial tone as she disconnected without even the usual courtesies.  Duncan began packing his gear, planning the entire time.  Stay off the line until Rachel calls back.  That won't be long.  Find out everything she knows and call in any favors I can....  Ask Damien to hunt out any reports of a quickening; he's the computer and Internet specialist out of us, and I seem to remember he's silent partner in two or three of Connor's ventures.  Kyra's in Washington; hopefully she'll be available to go to New York on no notice and look for him.  For that matter, I can call Matthew McCormick if either of us thinks it looks that bad.  Call Joe; call Methos; call Aidan.

A part of his mind pointed out coldly that the older Highlander might have gone to ground, or been killed in an inconclusive battle and still be recovering.  "Kinsman," he muttered to the unoffending jeans he was hastily and roughly folding into his duffel, "if you had a hot date with a new lover and just lost track of time...I may kill you myself."

~~~~~

"MacLeod."

"There's nothing."  Rachel sounded calmer now, and Duncan suspected that she had reverted to the competent persona that she'd spent thirty and some years perfecting.  "The only message on the machine is from Fahizah Sarisvati; she was calling to confirm that he was still going to meet her in Portland next week.  Connor's supposed to attend an antiques auction in Seattle this weekend and another in Vancouver the next.  He's been making plans to catch up with her before going to stay with Aidan.  He wanted to meet Marc."

"I know; it's mutual," Duncan muttered.  "And Sol?"

"He didn't know about...this," came the soft reply.  "I forgot we were supposed to have tea this afternoon; when he arrived, I asked him.  He looked --   He doesn't know either, Duncan."

"And the news?" he asked, although one of the first things he'd done was turn on CNN, grateful that the hotel he was in had cable.

"Nothing.  No explosions, no unusual weather, nothing."  She took a deep breath.  "Do you think he's dead?"  Rachel hastened to add, "Permanently, I mean."

"I don't know, Rachel.  Not yet, I don't think.  If this happened last night...."

"Wait -- Duncan, he was here last night."

The unexpected news jolted him, and more harshly than he'd intended, Duncan asked, "How do you know?"

"His new running shoes are gone.  I'm sorry, I meant to tell you that first thing.  Does it make that much difference?"

"It means that whoever it was took him in daylight.  And any explosion would have been noticed; more people would be awake."  It means someone's gone to the trouble to capture an immortal...and he may yet die tonight, or as soon as they can get him somewhere that no one will notice his death.  God, Connor, who did you piss off this time?

It changed everything, and nothing.  "Rachel, you remember Kyra, don't you?"

"Of course, Duncan.  The lovely blonde that gave Walter Graham such a terrible time at the party this year."

He had to smile for a moment at that description, a quick flash of memory-sparked humor that flared over him and was gone again, taking the smile with it.  "I'm going to see if she can get to New York tonight.  The odds are good that he's still alive, but I don't know for how long.  The sooner we get some idea what happened to him, the better.  If anyone calls...."

"I'll call you," she promised.

"What's the weather doing up there?"

Now she sounded puzzled.  "Clear, Duncan.  Clear and cold for the next several days."

"Good.  That isn't weather they can use to cover up a kill with a storm," he said bluntly.  "Rachel, I've got to start making phone calls.  As soon as I know who'll be coming to New York, I'll call you back.  And I'll be there tomorrow."

"I know," Rachel told him, her voice firm.  "You promised you would be.  What do you want me to do?"

"You've got a pad?"

"Of course."

"Good.  You dealt with Damien for the computer set-up at the shop.  Call him, tell him what's going on, and ask for any help.  I know Kyra better; I'll contact her and ask her to come up there tonight."

"Damien's guest at the party was a private investigator," Rachel said grimly.  "I believe I'll call Ms. Storm, too.  He said she knows about the Game."

"Stormy?" Duncan asked in disbelief, trying to picture the diminutive blonde investigating anything more dangerous than a lost kitten.  Then he remembered her fearless arguments with Damien, an immortal a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than she was.  "Call her, Rachel.  Anyone who can help us find Connor is welcome."

"Make your call to Kyra and get some sleep tonight if you can, Duncan," she told him firmly.  "Don't bother calling me back; I'll recognize her if she comes, and there's no need to call me if she can't.  I can handle everything for a little while.  I know who Connor trusts."

"Rachel...."

"We'll find him, or we'll find out what happened.  Thank you, Duncan."  The dial tone in his ear drew a faint smile.  So much like me and Connor.  When she's upset, she doesn't say good-bye, either.

He flipped through his address book and dialed the number for Kyra's pager.  Six interminable minutes later, his phone rang again and he picked it up.  "MacLeod."

"And here I thought this was a wrong number," was Kyra's calm greeting.  "What's wrong, Duncan?"

"I think Connor's been kidnapped."

He could hear cars going past in the background, and what sounded like an argument over gas money.  Kyra must have pulled over to a convenience store to call him, he realized, and he could almost see the Spartan woman standing by a pay phone, eyes narrowed while she thought.  She asked abruptly, "Any ransom notes?"

"No," and Duncan quickly ran through what little they knew, all too aware it wasn't much.

"I'd have to agree," she told him, a thread of anger beginning to seep through her professional appraisal of the situation.  "He's been kidnapped by an immortal, or on orders from one.  But targeting Connor takes either stupidity or arrogance; it's probably arrogance."

"It would take someone who knows about us to keep Connor this long," Duncan agreed quietly.  A new possibility speared through his mind.  He'd been assuming this was related to the other problems his line had been having.  Now, though, he thought of an organized group that knew about immortals and how to capture them. If the Hunters are back....  They captured Fitz, after all.  I'll have to ask Joe to look into this, too.  God.

Kyra agreed with his spoken worry.  "Yes, it would.  From that area code you're in Florida.  I take it you're heading north tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"And you were hoping I'd go look for him tonight since I'm so much closer.  Of course I will, Duncan.  I can be up there in four hours or so."  She chuckled, a wicked sound as she contemplated some havoc or mischief.  "Will you tell Rachel to expect me?  I'll need to talk to her."

"She's hoping you'll show up.  She's calling Damien now, to see if he has any suggestions."

"I'll be calling Charleston myself," she commented.  "Mandisa was down there a month ago, and I couldn't ask for a better hunting partner."

"Kyra -- thank you."  Duncan stood motionless, eyes closed as he tried to keep his voice level.

"Duncan, if it were Edana who'd been stolen, I'd be raving," the blond NSA agent told him bluntly.  "I'll look for him, and I'll see you tomorrow.  Use the pager number again when you hit town.  And don't worry -- when we find out who did this, I'll guard the door while you kill them.

"Now," she continued in the same practical tone of voice, "get off the line with me, MacLeod, and make your other calls.  Give Edana my pager number when you talk to her if she doesn't have it; I'm going to call a few people myself.  I'll see you tomorrow."

Before he could thank her again the dial tone told him she was gone; he smiled wryly at her characteristic impatience.  This must be my night to have blondes hang up on me.  Then he cleared the line to begin the other necessary phone calls.

Aidan's answering machine picked up, and he realized that it was three in the afternoon there, which meant she was probably at the dojo working with Marc and covering some of his afternoon classes while he was in Daytona.

" -- so leave a name and number and I'll call you back."

"Aidan, it's Duncan.  Call me when you get this, no matter what time it is here."  He hesitated, looking for something else to say, then hung up instead.  The Scot had no words for her that wouldn't make it worse.  She would know simply by the fact that he had called in the middle of the day that it was an emergency, and the rest of it was nothing he wanted to leave on an answering machine.

The next call went to New Orleans, and Duncan had to double-check the number Methos had left with him.  A sleepy-sounding Southern voice answered the phone.  "Devereaux House."

"Mr. Adams' room, please."

"He's gone out, sir."  The slow, easy voice should have been bottled and sold as a muscle relaxant; just listening to the rhythmic cadence had Duncan breathing more calmly as tension seeped from his body.  "May I take a message and have him call you back?"

"Certainly," the immortal answered, his own voice less tight now.  "Would you please ask him to call Duncan MacLeod?  He has the number."

"Will that be all, sir?"  The receptionist sounded a bit surprised by the brevity of the message.

"I think so," Duncan told her.  "Thank you.  Could you see that he gets that as soon as he comes in?"

"Certainly, Mr. MacLeod.  Was there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, I -- wait.  When has Mr. Adams been getting back in the evenings?"

"Around six or so, sir, or not until midnight."

"I see."  Duncan thought about it, then said quietly, "Would you please add that if he can't reach me this evening, he's to call me tomorrow afternoon at Connor's."  The clerk murmured the message back as she wrote, and Duncan thanked her again before hanging up and calling Joe.  He knew perfectly well that the Watcher had taken his mobile phone with him to the race track.  The odds were good that Joe and Rich were both still there, so that Rich could evaluate his upcoming competition and Joe could soak up the last of the warm sunlight.  Warmer than Seacouver, anyway.

"Dawson."

"Joe, it's Duncan."

"Buddy, you don't sound good.  What's up?"

"I'm heading to New York tomorrow morning as soon as I can catch a flight out.  Connor's vanished."

Dead silence, then Joe asked grimly, "Vanished?"

"Vanished; no reports of any unexplained storms or explosions.  Rachel says Sol doesn't know either."

"Right."  After a second, Joe asked more quietly, "What do you want me to tell Rich?"

"He's not there?"

"He's talking to some of the other riders.  Look, we'll be back at the hotel in forty-five minutes, an hour, max.  Stay put; we'll get some dinner and figure out who's doing what.  Connor's a tough son of a bitch, you know.  Don't give up on him yet."

That drew a rueful smile.  "I won't.  And you're right; we need to eat.  Tomorrow's going to be rough.  Joe...."

The silence on the other end of the line told Duncan that Joe had seen the possibility too.  At last the Watcher said grimly, "Yeah, Mac, I know.  This could be Hunters.  Of course, after what you told me in Manhattan, it could be part of the trouble Aidan's in, too.  All right, buddy, I'll start askin' some quiet questions here and there.  What do you want me to tell Rich, though?"

Duncan shrugged, mouth twisted around the unpleasant taste of this set of problems.  "Tell Rich the truth, Joe, or I will when you get here."

"Including the Hunters?"

"No, Joe.  We don't know what brought this on; we'll wait and see.  Just tell him Connor's vanished and I've got the details.  I'll see you both in an hour."

"Yeah, now go on.  Start packing and stay calm, buddy."

And in fact he was calm as he called the airline and made arrangements for a plane ticket to New York the next morning.  Unfortunately, that only took five minutes; in some ways he'd have been happier if it took longer.

Duncan looked around one last time as he hung up.  His bags were packed, the papers for his sword on the desk, and his address book on the bedside table next to the phone in case he thought of someone else to call.  There was no point in checking out of the hotel until he found out if Rich needed the room still.  The races were in two days and the younger man had qualified for the semi-finals. Maybe Rich should stay; he's doing damn well in the qualifying heats....

Then he had to smile at the thought of Rich Ryan's undoubtedly volatile reaction to such a suggestion. No, that wouldn't go over very well.  All right.  We'll see what happens.

Now Duncan only had to wait until Aidan or Methos called, or Joe and Rich got there, or Kyra called him with news. Wait, plan...and pray.

<><><><><><><><><>

Daytona Beach -- late morning, 4/10

"Ryan."  Rich kept his voice carefully cheerful, what he referred to as his 'underpaid receptionist' voice when he was answering phones at the dojo.

"I was calling for Duncan MacLeod," came the answer in a voice so deep that it should have been male; the speaker sounded female nonetheless.  In addition to the range, the accent was unfamiliar to Rich, too.  Broad voweled and gently rhythmic in a way he hadn't heard before -- Rich knew he'd recognize this person's voice any time he heard it again.

"He's not here, I'm afraid.  Can I ask who's calling?"

"Just a moment, please."  On the other end of the line he heard a swift spate of words between the original caller and another woman's quicker, higher voice.  The conversation sounded vaguely like some of what he'd heard in Algiers, and Rich suspected they were using Arabic.  Unfortunately, the only thing he understood was his own name.

"Ah.  Would you be Richard Ryan?"

The careful emphasis on his first name pulled a quick smile to Rich's face; he was sure he or she had meant it only as clarification, but it sounded almost flirtatious.

"Yeah, that's me.  Who's this, please?"

"My name is Mandisa.  I studied with Shahar; I believe you know her as Aidan?"  The husky chuckle on the other end of the line sounded fairly relieved.  "Shall I put Kyra on to vouch for me?"

"Nothing personal, but I think you'd better.  I just don't feel like taking that many risks lately."

"More than fair," Mandisa told him.  "A pleasure speaking with you, Richard."

"As I remember," Kyra's voice came over with no preambles, "the last time I saw you, Rich Ryan, you were wearing a white tuxedo with a black shirt and helping Claudia get away from that interminable bore, Walter.  Satisfied?"

"Yeah, and you were wearing three inch heels and some kind of electric blue number.  You left beads across half the dance floor when one of the drunks stumbled into you and tore 'em loose."  Rich grinned at the memory.  "Think you've got the right person?"

"I was pretty sure of it," she told him dryly.  "Where's Duncan?"

"On his way up there.  He should be coming into LaGuardia in another half-hour or so.  He left me here to answer phones if you or Adam called.  What's up?"

"Unfortunately, nothing.  Connor hasn't shown up; I don't have any solid leads yet; and I came back by the shop to get Mandisa and call in.  True to my luck today, by the time Duncan gets here Mandisa and I will probably have been out again for an hour and a half, at least.  Wonderful.  All right, I'll leave a note with Rachel for him.  Now, I have a question for you, Rich.  How busy are you in Florida?  We need a favor."

Rich nodded once, unaware of just how grim he looked.  "Right.  What is it?"

"Mandisa is here with me in New York, and Stormy -- you do remember Stormy, don't you?"

"Tiny little blonde with the accent, right?"

"That's her," Kyra agreed in a satisfied tone.  "Damien finally found a good one.  Took him long enough.  In any case, she isn't one of us."

"Not that I noticed, no.  And?"

"Damien loses track of time when he's hacking, unfortunately.  He also forgets things like eating, drinking, and occasionally where he left a sword.  That's why he usually stores a weapon in every room."

"And he's looking for anything about Connor," Rich concluded immediately.  "So you need another immortal up there to play watchdog, 'cause he's not going to be paying enough attention to his own back."

"Connor's already missing," Kyra said bluntly.  "I don't want to lose one of my brothers, too.  You're the closest relative I can get hold of at the moment.  Will you do it?"

Rich mentally kissed his admission fee goodbye with only a little regret.  Connor or a race?  No contest.  He glanced quickly around the room to see what was left to pack and came to the conclusion he could be gone in ten minutes. Add fifteen to finish checking out....

"Damien's still in Charleston, right?  I'll need to get Mandisa to give me directions to the house, but I can leave in 30 minutes, max.  Just leave Mac word about where I went, but Adam was supposed to call up there this afternoon if he didn't get anyone here, so that's cool."

Kyra sighed, obviously relieved.  "How long will it take you to get there, do you think?  We'll call and warn him to expect you."

"It's about 350 miles -- call it five hours or so.  I'll get food on the way, but I'll make the best time I can.  Give me his phone number, too, just in case."

"All right, I'll put Mandisa on.  Thank you, Rich."

"Hey, just part of the family business, Kyra.  No problem.  Just...find Connor, huh?"

"I'm working on it," she said grimly.  "I'm working on it.  We'll get him back -- with his shield or on it."

The images that brought to mind startled Rich into asking, "Kyra?  How old are you?"

She laughed softly.  "Old enough, kinsman.  Why?"

"'Cause you sounded pretty serious about that."

"I am quite serious about it.  We're going to find him, dead or alive, and we're going to kill whomever did this."

"Y'know, he could have just, I don't know, gone hunting?  Gotten mugged?"

"It's been a day and half," she pointed out quietly.  "No, for whatever reason, he can't contact us, Rich, and that means violence.  We may not be able to rescue him, you realize.  If not, then we'll do whatever we have to do to make it clear that the costs of attacking our line are more than the quickenings are worth."

Rich nodded as he finished checking the drawers of the nightstand; his voice was as merciless as hers had been.  "We don't pay kidnappers, we don't let hijackers go, and we kill terrorists."

"That sums it up perfectly," Kyra agreed.  "A fair fight is one thing in the Game.  Terrorizing or torture is another."

"Put Mandisa on, Kyra.  I need the directions and then you need to head back out yourself."  He glanced across flat surfaces as he talked, though, eager to finish giving the room the once-over and be out of there and on the road.

"Watch his back, Rich, and watch your own head."

<><><><><><><><><>

Near Seacouver, Washington -- sometime, 4/10

"Recant, my son, and this can end."

The pain didn't burn any longer.  It corroded, acid-etching the lines of his nerves into his skin so that Connor would never again forget where they ran.  It sizzled in the unending shock and tingle of wounds healing, of static and lightning dancing across exposed muscle and peeled-back skin.  It screamed against the despairing knowledge of the exact words his tormentor wanted to hear, and the choking need to fight them down, swallowing them until his dry, hoarse throat choked on them -- because Connor knew that even if he said them, it wouldn't stop the outer pain.  And his heart would always know he'd betrayed his own, if only for what little time these bastards let him keep his head.

"Ah, well.  You're young.  You'll learn the true faith yet.  We have time."  The deep, rough-toned voice sounded disappointed but not surprised.

Precious liquid was traced along his lips, and Connor had licked it off before he could stop himself.  Slightly salty, cool, tasting faintly of lemon, he wanted more so badly he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from asking.

"More?" the throaty voice asked him almost gently, tracing wetness across his lips again.  Connor forced himself to be more cautious, tasting it with the tip of his tongue before lapping this off too.  Sooner or later they'd undoubtedly use this reflex against him, but he was in no hurry to add any more pain to his current total.  They'd driven him into unconsciousness once already, he knew.  Even immortals had their limits and this rough-voiced man was mapping his very carefully.

"Sooner or later, Connor MacLeod, you will have to speak," the grey-haired immortal told him calmly.  "I find I don't have quite the patience for this that I once did, so I think I shall go and confess my failings and pray for forgiveness of them.  And when I return, perhaps you will have found your tongue."

He turned and left, dull black habit rustling around his legs in the familiar susurration of wool rubbing against itself as his sandals slapped against the stones of the floor.

And Connor bit back more words then:  pleas for more of the liquid, for the cords spread-eagling him on the wood framework to be loosened, for the barbed wire around his forehead to be removed.  He ate his own words, and fed them to the carefully banked fire of his rage.

Only when he could no longer feel an immortal's presence on his skin did Connor MacLeod close his eyes and take refuge for a few moments in his own tormented body and brain to wonder again who these people were and why they were doing this.

Part of him knew that the confusion was almost certainly intended as yet another subtle torment.  Whoever had planned this was too skilled not to know what the uncertainty must be doing to him.  The whole thing had been set up perfectly, so far as he could tell.  The mortal hit team had been damned good and undoubtedly equally expensive.  This site had been arranged in advance, he suspected, or they knew it would be left alone for long enough for their purposes.  And the habit and sandals on the other immortal were perfect enough to almost make him doubt his own memories of what year it was.

The Highlander held no illusions.  He knew perfectly well that, given enough time, these people would break him.  They were getting sleep, and food, and water.  They could go away and relax, think about something else before they came back and began their games again.  He'd had no food since this began, and barely enough water to wet his mouth and throat against the screams they'd forced from him.  On top of that, he'd been unable to sleep; they had used barbed wire around his forehead to make him keep his head up.  Probably so they could gauge his responses, Connor knew, but the sleep deprivation was an added bonus for them.

Each time they left him alone, too, it was with some different, subtle reminder that what they had done so far was not even close to what more they could still do.  Eventually, even sleep might not be a release.

He only clung to one hope:  whoever had had him kidnapped might not be counting on the granite stubbornness bred into Highlanders.  Despite the way time seemed to expand endlessly while they tortured him, Connor knew he'd been gone long enough that Rachel would have called Duncan by now.  His kinsman would be looking for him, growing more angry and more frantic by the hour as no body was found, no quickening reported...so by now Duncan would have started calling in the favors accumulated in four hundred years of random kindness.  Aidan would be looking too, Connor knew, and Damiano as well.  The redheaded immortal would be none too happy about losing his silent partner of a century's standing.

And not least, Duncan and Aidan's concern would drag that wily snake, Methos, into this.  Connor had never underestimated Robert Morgan even before he'd found out the man was really the oldest of the immortals.  Morgan was a tough, nasty customer in a fight, perfectly willing to do anything necessary to win.  What he would do to people who deliberately hurt and frightened his two lovers might very well make Connor's own torment look like a peaceful picnic after church.

A slow, nasty smile spread across Connor's face, totally incongruous on his bound and blood-streaked naked form.  One way or the other, whether he lived through this or not, someone was going to regret this.  He took that thought with him as he forced himself down into a meditative trance.  It wasn't sleep, but it would do for now....

<><><><><><><><><>

New Orleans, Louisiana -- late afternoon, 4/10

Methos finished typing in passwords and the Watcher logo faded away to reveal a menu screen.  The last afternoon light slanted across the room and gilded dust motes in the air as he worked; he ignored the beauty of the day and the temptations of the fine spring weather outside as he queried the network he wasn't supposed to be able to access anymore.

John FitzAlan
 

"None assigned?" Methos snapped.  "Why in the hell not?  Who was the last...?"  He pulled up the recent history and growled softly when he saw the notation.  "Dead in a car accident an hour before the mugging.  Somehow I doubt that was precisely a coincidence."

Thoughts and plans spun across his mind, then settled into place.  "Right.  If they're both missing...."

Johannes Engeles
 

"Well," he muttered, rubbing his hands against the worn denim of his favorite jeans, "that answers that.  They vanished a month ago; now Connor's gone, too.  I'd say, Edana, that you really should have killed this bastard in Italy when he first crossed you."  But he'd voiced that opinion before and not meant it then, either.  Owain Rhys-Tewdor might well be able to kill the Irish woman and Methos knew it.

The lean immortal stared at the screen, not seeing the characters but the memories that spun behind his eyes as he dug for the information he needed.  "Gwydion ap Ydris is dead; Chris Henslowe is dead.  Both Johannes and Owain have vanished.  Now, out of that line, the best fighters remaining would be Jirina Petesceu and Erik Olafson."

He shrugged, then mentally flipped a coin.  "Start with the woman, I think.  If I remember Damien's gossip correctly, she's probably more dangerous."

Jirina Petesceu
 

"Jirina's vanished, too?  I'd say that it's the line of Rhys-Tewdor doing this, then.  This is a few too many of them gone," Methos muttered to himself.  "Of course, anyone in their right mind would 'disappear' if she knew she'd annoyed the East European Mafia," he snorted.  "Right.  Time to pull up Olafson, I suppose.  Now that I think about it, didn't Kyra say something at Christmas about a tall Swede stalking her in D.C.?"

Erik Olafson
 

"Oh, now this has possibilities."  He began to check other reports, and quickly pieced together the location of the warehouse where Olafson stored the goods, and his usual time-table.  "Well, well, well.  If he received the load last night, he'll be distributing it tonight.  And unless I'm mistaken, and I don't think I am, this is the sort of thing that gets handled on a federal level."

Methos chuckled nastily, then used his status as a system administrator to erase all traces of his research.  The Watchers had assigned him to help test the new system after he and Don had designed the database; he'd simply added a few things to the root directory while he was at it.  The programmers, when they'd noticed his access in the test version, had ignored it for a while; like most computer people they believed that those who wrote and tested the code had an inalienable (if rarely mentioned) right to put in backdoors.  It had been removed in the final version, but Methos had learned some interesting tricks from Damien.

When the first file was removed, a small subroutine had kicked in and created a new folder in another directory.  Methos had promptly fallen back on his second backdoor and reset his subroutine in case this one was discovered, too.  The Watchers were much better at following immortals than securing systems; he suspected he could keep this going for quite a while.

The modem chirped and whirred as it disconnected from the line, and Methos typed in the password for his files, then a second password to access the phone listings.  They wouldn't have been much help to anyone; everything was written phonetically in Cyrillic letters.  Even someone who puzzled out the names, though, would have found the numbers were in Phoenician.  He found the entry he needed, picked up the phone, and dialed the man's mobile phone.

"McCormick."

Methos heard the familiar Southern voice and smiled.  "Matthew, it's Robert Morgan.  I have some information you might find...useful.  Not exactly your branch of the Bureau, unfortunately, but...."

"Robert Morgan, hmm?"  The immortal FBI agent sounded mildly amused; he'd met Methos fairly recently, and knew that his current name was not Robert Morgan.  "I begin to see where this is going," Matthew continued.  "What exactly do you have for me?"

"Eight tractor-trailers' worth of counterfeit Hilfiger and Nike clothing."

A soft chuckle rumbled across the line, and Matthew sounded almost smug.  "Really?  You're right, Robert, it's not exactly my department, but I wouldn't mind if some of the people over in white-collar crime owed me a rather large favor.  Now, why are you giving me this?"

"I need this man...removed.  For an extended period of time."

"Robert, did he actually do this, or is it a frame?"  Now Matthew McCormick's voice poured over Methos like liquid nitrogen.

"Oh, I promise you, he most certainly has been doing this.  For quite a while, I might add.  I found out about it, no more."

"And his life line?"

"Might be a bit lengthy," Methos conceded coolly.  "Is that a problem?"

"What's he done, Robert?  The truth, please."

"What I've told you is the truth.  But he stalked Kyra Phaedras a few months ago, and he's working with the men who kidnapped Connor MacLeod."

"Who?"  For one of the few times that Methos could remember, Matthew McCormick sounded taken aback.

"I think you heard me," Methos told him grimly.  "We're hunting for him, but Matthew -- no one's taken his quickening yet."

"Do you think your smuggler knows where he is?"

"No, he's being used by the ones who do.  I can't find them, yet, so I'm removing their tools.  If you don't want him, say so, and I'll go to Baltimore and issue the challenge."

"He's a criminal," came the cool reply.  "I'll deal with him, Robert.  One way or another."

"Good enough.  His name is Erik Olafson.  You'll find him at the Roberts & Sons warehouse on the Baltimore wharves.  He's distributing a shipment tonight, and judging by previous behavior, he'll be there already to break it into loads."

"We'll handle it," Matthew told him.  "Anything else?"

"I'd think that was plenty."

"I'd have to say I agree.  Fair enough, he's my problem now, and we'll grab him tonight.  Good luck finding Connor, though.  I take it that official help would be useless?"

"He hasn't been gone long enough for the police to take a missing persons report seriously," Methos answered.  "Not even forty-eight hours.  If they found a missing man carrying a katana, Matthew, none of us would be happy with the questions.  So Damien's working on it, and Kyra."

"If you need me, let me know.  This isn't a precedent we want set, Robert."

"Agreed."  Methos smiled, the same implacable expression that had watched half a thousand atrocities when he rode with Kronos and the others.  "Don't worry; we're going to overturn it.  Enjoy the favors, Matthew."

"I'll owe you, yes," the Southern voice calmly agreed.  "Good hunting."

"And you," Methos told him before he hung up.  He glanced around the room, then called down to the front desk.  "This is Matthew Adams.  I'm afraid I'll have to check out tomorrow.  A family emergency has come up, and I'm needed at home...."

<><><><><><><><><>

Seacouver -- early evening, 4/10

Aidan paced restlessly from the kitchen table to the fireplace and back, dodging the support pillars and the iron stand full of logs without ever seeing them.  Her student had perched in a two-person papasan he'd pulled to the far side of the fireplace and was carefully staying out of her way, but he hadn't turned a page of his book in ten minutes.

Marc finally gave up on pretending to read.  He looked up from The Tao of Physics and said bluntly, "Teach, if you keep this up, we're gonna have to wax the floor again over there.  You're wearing the finish off the wood."

"I just wish Cory would call," she growled.

"Well, why don't you tell me who Cory is, for starters, and then why he's calling."

"You just want me to stop pacing."

"That, too," he agreed calmly.  "So tell me about this Cory."

The Irish woman sighed and brought the portable phone with her as she pulled a chair of her own over.  "Cory is a rascal.  Actually, to be perfectly blunt, he's a charming rogue who'll smile at you while he's talking you into robbing a bank to give money to an orphanage."

"You've got to be kidding," Marc replied, eyes widening.  "He's a bank robber?  An immortal bank robber?"

"He and Amanda were right up there with Bonnie and Clyde for a while," Aidan confirmed.  "With the significant distinction that they were the only people who ever died during their heists."

"And he claims he gives the money to orphanages?"

"He actually does give most of it to charities, or directly to people who need it," Aidan managed to chuckle.  "Cory doesn't really care about laws, or such irrelevant and picayune details as ownership and deeds of sale, and certainly not taxes.  Consider him a random force of nature that blows in, blows up, redistributes the resulting wealth, and storms off again leaving everyone standing there asking what in the world happened."

Marc grinned.  "He sounds interesting.  But why is he going to call?"

"Because Duncan left word that he wants Cory to pay off a favor he owes.  And since Duncan's out looking for Connor, he had to leave my number.  Rachel isn't quite up to dealing with Cory right now."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but my sister from the NSA is looking for Connor, another one of my sisters is backing her up, and my brother, the hacker, is tearing cyberspace apart looking for reports that might lead to him."

Aidan cocked her head.  "And?"

"Well, if I ever vanish again, I won't worry as much about being found," Marc admitted.  "But...why this guy, Teach?  I don't get it.  I mean, he's not part of the family, is he?"

"No, he isn't.  However, Cory has sources we don't.  It's always possible that whoever did this was hired, Marc.  Cory can put out feelers that we can't.  He has friends in the back-room poker games and the all-night 'money lending' establishments that we don't."

Marc studied her thoughtfully.  "Why do I get this feeling that your contacts are just out of date?"

Aidan glanced at him and then forced a smile.  "Me, Marc?  Would I know people like that?"

"You sounded like you might," he pointed out.  "Is he gonna let you call in Duncan's favor?"

The Irish woman shrugged and tossed her braid back over her shoulder.  "He owes me one or two, now that you mention it."

"Right," Marc nodded.  "Why not Amanda, though?  I mean, she's a friend of yours, a really good friend of Duncan's, and I don't really think favors would come into it with her."

"We'd have liked to call her," Aidan admitted. "Despite the fact that Amanda's so unpredictable when she's trying to help.  But she's on a circus tour in Russia, and this wasn't anything we wanted to send a telegram on."

"What's wrong with phones?"

"Too many listeners," Aidan told him quietly.  "Especially on overseas calls."

"Okay, I can see that.  Teach...."

When he didn't continue, she looked up, grey eyes worried.  "What is it?"

"What's going on?  Why would someone kidnap an immortal?  How do you kidnap someone as nasty and practical as Connor seems to be?"

Aidan looked across at him and admitted quietly, "I can think of a few ways to do it, but they all require more than one person.  It's the logistics that makes this bad, Marc.  You have to drop him and then move him, you see."

"Through New York City?  How much attention are people going to pay?"

She shrugged and commented, "The right story and no one would pay a bit of attention.  You're just moving a drunken friend, say, or taking a sick friend to the doctor....  You get the idea," she said wryly, mouth twisted with disgust at how easily the stories came to her.  "The only good thing is that we can be fairly sure that he's still alive."

"How?"  Marc studied her, disturbed by just how worried she looked.

"There've been no reports of explosions, or unusual weather.  Damien has search engines roaming the 'Net, and friends keeping feelers out for such reports.  Apparently the UFO believers keep a careful eye on the skies and strange storms."

"That makes sense from their point of view, I guess."  The young black man shrugged, looking even thinner and more loosely jointed than usual.  "Teach, I'm still confused on one thing.  Why are you so sure there'd be word?"

"What do you know about quickenings?" the Irish woman asked him instead of answering.

Marc grinned sidelong at her.  "Well, Rich said it makes him horny as hell, but that may just be Rich."

"And Christopher told you about them too, didn't he?"

"Yeah," he admitted quietly.  "But I don't pay much attention to what he said, Teach.  So much of it's been wrong, or backwards, y'know?"

"I know," Aidan agreed gently.  "Quickenings do tend to arouse, though.  Your nerves are on fire, afterward, and sex does seem to help a great deal.  Failing that, high proof alcohol isn't bad, either.  What else do you know?"

"Lightning, thunder, sparks, and someone else crawling through your mind."  He eyed her gravely.  "That sounds really shitty, too."

"It is.  There are reasons I make you meditate so much, and I promise you, that's one of them.  But do you know about the cumulative effect of quickenings?"

"Yeah.  The older you are, the stronger your quickening is.  Plus the more heads you've taken, and the more heads they had taken, the stronger your quickening is."  Marc paused, foot tapping on the rattan edge of the papasan as he thought, then went on more slowly, "And Connor is enough of a legend that Chris told me about him.  Is he a major head-hunter, Aidan?"

"Not really," his teacher said, her hand tracing the edges of the phone buttons.  "He's incredibly dangerous in a fight, mind.  But several of the people he's killed have been head-hunters of some reputation.  Including the Kurgan."

"Okay, and?"  He eyed her expectantly, sure that she thought that sentence should make sense.

"The Kurgan was taller than you, bigger than Duncan, and as fast as I am.  He'd been head-hunting for a thousand years, and he killed my teacher, Ramirez, in the sixteenth century.  Ramirez was almost three thousand.  The Kurgan's quickening was so strong that Connor once told me he wasn't sure he had lived through it.  Anyone who took Connor's head would unleash a quickening that would be noticed a mile away, I suspect."

"Are you serious?"  Marc sat up in the chair, ignoring its tendency to make him sprawl back.

"Completely.  When I said a mile, Marc, I meant it.  There is no way anyone took his head in New York without it being noticed.  If they used the subway tunnels, it would short out the systems.  If it happened in the open, glass would shatter for hundreds of yards around, I suspect, and every alarm in the area would go off.  If they moved him out of the more populated areas and onto open ground, weather satellites would still notice it or UFO sightings would erupt.  None of these things have happened."

"Do I want to know -- "  The phone rang and Marc hastily waved her to it.

"Logan.  ...  Thank Gods, Cory, we were starting to worry you'd lost your head this time.  ...  Mmm-hmm.  What's her name?  ...  Yes, Duncan was looking for you; he's out of touch at the moment, so I'm handling it for him.  You do remember that favor you owe him, correct?"

Marc watched the scornful look spread across her face and winced when she spoke in a caustic tone that reminded him of one of the Sisters who taught Geometry back in Philly.  She'd sounded exactly like that when someone screwed up a proof.

"A small matter of digging your carcass out of pine boxes across five states in the Midwest over a three month period.  ...  Yes, I do know how long ago that was.  ...  Cory.  That most certainly does not cancel the debt.  Because of you, Amanda was kidnapped by a Russian mobster.  ...  Don't be ridiculous."

Marc tried to imagine the irrepressible Amanda in the hands of a thug with a bad Slavic accent and decided he'd been watching too many late-night movies.  He grinned, fighting down a rather salacious image of Amanda in handcuffs, and watched his teacher as she stood up to pace the room while she argued with the bank robber.

"No, actually I'm not impressed," Aidan went on.  "I heard something about a motorcycle being run off the road, and a pedestrian, too?  ...  Yes, that favor you owe Duncan.  I'm glad to see we both remember it the same way now.  For that matter, I seem to remember a diversion I created in Bonn a few years back?  ...  Cory, Cory, Cory -- arson is such a harsh word.  We both know the Germans are much more distressed by minor offenses such as oh, say, counterfeiting?  Do you really want to hold this discussion?"

Aidan perched on the side of the couch, carefully controlling her voice so that no trace of her agitation reached it.  Her fingers told another tale, though, drumming a steady beat on the cloth of the couch back.

"Do I have your attention yet?  ...  Well, yes, as a matter of fact I did need to put it that way, Cory, because I have no idea if you're going to want to do this and I need it done regardless.  ...  I need to find out if anyone hired a hit squad in New York City to take out a target yesterday.  ...  Yes, I'm quite serious.  ...  If you can think of another way to grab Connor, I'd love to hear it.  It wasn't a duel, we know that much.  ...  Yes, that's exactly what I need."

The lengthy diatribe on the other end of the phone made a faint smile cross her lips.  It was soon gone again, but to Marc's relief it left more light in her eyes than they'd held since Duncan's phone message the day before.

"As a matter of fact, yes, I was hoping you'd look at it that way, but I wasn't going to make any bets on it.  ...  Oh, yes, I do have rather permanent plans for any of us who would do something like this.  ...  Thank you, Cory.  Will you call me here if you hear anything?  ...  Certainly I'll relay it to Duncan.  I think he'll be here tomorrow night anyway.  ...  Kyra's looking into it from the other side of the law and Damien has feelers spread across the 'Net.  ...  I know.  Cory?   Thank you."

Whatever else the bank robber said before he hung up made Aidan smile again for a moment.  She looked at the phone affectionately before turning it off.  "That wretch."

"You just blackmailed him," Marc pointed out mildly.  He couldn't really be too angry with her for it; he knew he'd have done the same thing for his family.  A small part of him wondered how angry Cory was going to be, and when the price on that might come due, but he pushed that aside for the moment.

"No, not really.  I don't actually have anything on him.  It's all past the statute of limitations except the Russian mobster problem, and Amanda's implicated in that one, so I'm not about to use it."

"Does he know that?"

"Not really, no," Aidan told her student, "which makes this more interesting.  Cory's no happier about this than we are, thank goodness.  I don't even think that he minds the professional hit so much as they idea that someone may have dragged mortals into it.  Cory's actually a perfectionist, believe it or not."

"Wouldn't he sort of have to be?" Marc asked, startled.  "He's a bank robber, after all."

"You've never met Cory," she groan