Kith, or Kin? 1/7 (gen)
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Navigation: This story is posted in seven parts. Other parts are here: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Summary: Someone who knows about sentinels is committing crimes in Cascade. As Ellison works to solve the case, a conspiracy comes to light which threatens to end his partnership with Sandburg forever.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Xasphie, rhyo and maaaaa, who commented on early drafts. Thanks also to fingers, who came up with the title and with whom I bounced ideas back and forth throughout, and to rhianne, who acted as a sounding board all the way along. Huge thanks to starwatcher307, for the very thorough beta. My immense gratitude also to my LiveJournal friends list, whose comments and help, when I first posted this story in parts in my journal, were an invaluable resource.

Warnings: Domestic violence and child abuse (off screen and in the past). Rape (off-screen). Apparent partner betrayal.

Rating: R

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Kith, or Kin?
By Fluterbev

November 2005


Another day, another robbery.

Frustrated, bone-weary and deeply troubled, Jim Ellison drove away from the crime scene, heading home toward Prospect rather than back to the PD. He had been working around the clock since being assigned this case, and Simon had urged him to take a breather. Extending his senses to no avail had left him with a pounding headache, and he hoped that perhaps a shower and a couple of hours sleep would help.

Entering the loft a short while later, Jim jumped in surprise when Blair Sandburg almost walked into him, as his elusive partner and roommate headed out of his bedroom into the kitchen. “Whoa, man,” Sandburg said, his eyes widening in surprise, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Ellison hadn’t laid eyes on Sandburg much recently, as his anthropological partner was always so god damned busy at Rainier these days. They had barely spoken two words to each other in passing during the past week, with Jim tied up with the case and Blair totally absorbed in his academic activities.

It was a measure of Ellison’s exhaustion that he hadn’t heard Sandburg either. Tired, irritable and not in the mood to chat, he growled a reply. “Just watch where you’re going, Chief. Okay?”

Blair raised both hands in a defensive gesture. “Hey, I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean to startle you. And anyway,” his eyes narrowed speculatively, “what’s up with that? You should have heard me coming, even if I didn’t hear you. What’s going on with you, man?”

Ellison ignored his pointed question. Instead, he challenged, “I thought you’d be at Rainier. What are you doing home?”

Sandburg shook his head. “Strange as it may seem, I live here, man. I’ve got the afternoon off. Then I have a night class to teach later.” Without pause, the issue was deflected. “Why are you here?”

“I’m taking a break.” Ellison yawned, aware of Sandburg’s scrutiny. “Simon told me to get some rest then go back later.” A hand alighting on his head made him step back, opening his eyes. “What the...” he started, brushing Sandburg’s arm away.

Undaunted as ever, Sandburg stood his ground. “You have a headache, right?” He paused. “Am I right?” he demanded again.

“Leave it alone, Chief,” Jim snapped resentfully. “I’m gonna get a couple hours sleep, then I’ll be good to go.” Blair was shaking his head, his earnest expression fixed on Jim. Not for the first time, Ellison considered what a pushy little bastard Sandburg was, and he was definitely not in the mood to deal with him right now.

But Jim’s moods never seemed to faze Sandburg in the slightest. “C’mon, man, I can help. You’re far too wound up to sleep. We could do that guided meditation, you know, the one to relieve stress? C’mon, don’t be so goddamn stubborn, Jim! I can help. You know I can!”

Jim grouchily pondered which would be easier - giving in to Sandburg’s incessant demand, or pulling out his gun and shooting him. Deciding it wasn’t worth the paperwork, he opted for the former. “Okay, you win,” he said with weary bad grace. His head was killing him. Maybe Sandburg’s ‘cure’ would help sort it out. “Where do you want me?”

Sandburg grinned, and masterfully restrained himself from turning Jim’s question into a double entendre. “Upstairs. If you lie down while we do the visualization, you can go to sleep right afterwards.”

“Fine.”

Jim led the way up to his bed, and after setting an alarm for a couple of hour’s time, he complied with Blair’s instruction to lie down and breathe deeply. “We’ll start at your shoulders, Jim. Those muscles are all knotted up, and we’re gonna relax them. Tense, hold it, then relax. And again…” As Sandburg’s voice droned on hypnotically, Jim went through the familiar routine, the compelling tone in Sandburg’s voice leading him to the edge of sleep. A strange buzz intruded on the edge of his awareness, and the mesmerizing voice led him towards it. He went without fear, trusting Sandburg implicitly, even though the meditation was different than he expected this time round. And his awareness spiraled down, homing in on the odd sound, and its strangely fascinating cadences…

~oO0Oo~

Changing the timbre of his voice, Blair ventured, “Jim?”

When there was no reply, and he was certain that Ellison was deeply zoned, Sandburg retreated down the stairs, leaving behind the hissing white noise generator which was holding the sentinel’s attention. Praying fervently - to whatever deity might be listening - that the zone would hold, he waited expectantly by the phone. It rang dead on time, and he snatched it up after a single ring. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“Hang on a minute.” Blair held the phone away from his ear a moment, and leaning on the kitchen counter, he strained his neck to look up at Jim where he lay in the loft bedroom. The prone detective hadn’t moved. Blair picked up the phone again. “Look, this is a really bad time. Jim’s here. I managed to put him into a zone, and I don’t think he can hear us, but you’d better make this quick.”

There was a pause. Then the man’s voice said coldly, “Don’t give me orders, Tommy. Remember who’s calling the shots here.”

Blair ran a hand nervously through his hair. “I know, all right? But this is too risky. You can’t call me here again. I had no idea that Jim was going to be home. This could have blown everything!”

“I have enormous faith in your abilities, Tommy,” the voice soothed. “So far you haven’t let me down. But I’ll make this brief. I need to meet you. I’ll be waiting. The usual place, in forty minutes. Don’t be late.” The phone went dead.

Blair replaced the phone, and headed hurriedly back up to Jim, who had, thankfully, remained insensible throughout the whole exchange. Blair breathed a sigh of relief, then got down to the task at hand. He had just enough time to get the sentinel out of the zone and into a deep sleep, before keeping his appointment.

~oO0Oo~

Jim woke, feeling rested, two hours later. Reluctantly he had to admit that Sandburg’s relaxation exercise had worked, just as it usually did. The loft was quiet and empty, his partner having no doubt headed off to teach his class. After a quick shower and a bite to eat, Ellison headed back to the station.

Jim might be feeling better, but Simon was showing the strain in his demeanor when the Major Crime team met to review the case. “Five consecutive days, five robberies.” Banks’s tone was grim, as he summarized what had gone on in his own inimitable style. “Five diverse locations - a private house, a country club, a museum, an antique dealer’s and an art gallery. Priceless artwork and antiques stolen from all of them. Whoever is doing these robberies has done their homework. Only the rarest, most valuable pieces in each instance were stolen.”

Banks scanned his detectives expectantly. “You’ve all been working on this for five days, gentlemen. I want answers. Anyone have a theory?”

Henri Brown spoke out. “None of it’s easy to get rid of, Captain. The pieces are all unique enough, identifiable enough, that the perp won’t shift ‘em easily.”

“I’m talking to my snitches about foreign buyers,” Rafe piped up. “Nothing’s turned up yet, Captain. But my guess is the perp could be planning to ship the artifacts out of state before moving them on.”

There was logic in that argument, but not enough substance to satisfy the Captain. “This is all conjecture, gentlemen. I need facts. Ellison? Anything come back from the forensic side?”

Jim knew that Simon wasn’t just talking about regular forensics. “Nothing, sir.”

Banks looked grim. But the meeting had reached its conclusion, if nothing new was forthcoming. “Okay people, get back to work. Get me some results.” Everyone rose and began to leave, the dismissal plain. But Simon halted Ellison. “Jim, not you.”

As the door closed behind the last of the exiting detectives, Banks and Ellison shared a troubled look. “Tell me,” Banks pleaded, “that you were mistaken.”

Ellison shook his head. “I wish I could, sir. But after this one, I’m more sure than ever.”

Banks was regarding him intently. “Jesus, Jim. I have the Mayor on my back, because his country club cronies are pressuring him. If this really is personal, like you say, then we’re too close to the public eye on this one.”

“I know.” Ellison was grim. “But the evidence is overwhelming. Whoever is doing these robberies knows I’m a sentinel. And knows exactly how to keep my senses confused. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

Simon pulled a cigar out of his pocket, twirling it in his fingers. “Your call, Detective,” he said, reluctance in his tone. “I know you don’t want anyone else at the PD to know about your… abilities. But keeping the rest of the people working on this in the dark is getting us nowhere fast.”

“I know.”

There was a pause for a moment, then Banks asked, “What about Sandburg? I thought for sure he would want to be in on this. This is his area of expertise, after all. And I don’t just mean the sentinel thing - he seems to know a lot about the kind of artifacts that are being taken.”

Jim shook his head. “He’s always too damn busy these days. He’s taken on extra classes, and never has any free time. I can’t get him involved right now.”

Banks was incredulous. “Are you telling me you haven’t spoken to him about this?”

Ellison shook his head. “Simon, Blair is overloaded right now. I hardly ever see him anymore, let alone get the chance to tell him about my cases.”

“Jim,” the Captain said forcefully, “this isn’t just any old case! This is someone conducting high profile robberies, who knows exactly what your edge is! If ever we needed Sandburg, it’s now. I want you to bring him in on this, stat! And that is not a suggestion, detective. It’s an order!”

Jim nodded reluctantly. “Yes, sir.”

~oO0Oo~

Later, while reviewing video footage from a surveillance camera at the scene of the latest robbery, Jim leaned back in his chair, tendons popping as he stretched. Jesus, he thought, this robbery was just the same as the others. If there had been any doubt in his mind before about the perp knowing about his senses, they were gone for good now.

The forensic report had come in, confirming the same modus operandi as the other robberies. Whoever was committing them was leaving no conventional evidence behind. Not one fingerprint, footprint, piece of thread or stray hair had been discovered. That, in itself, was not alarming, hinting simply at the professionalism of the perpetrator.

But, forcing his mind to a logical perusal of the facts, Jim had to accept that the evidence led to one inescapable conclusion. His sentinel senses were being knowingly, deliberately and maliciously toyed with.

It was public knowledge that Ellison was in charge of the investigation. The unusual nature of the robberies ensured that they had quickly become Major Crime’s territory, and pressure from the powers-that-be had ensured that the top detective in that division had been assigned as the lead investigator. The media were constantly dogging Jim’s footsteps, seeking soundbites; so his face and name were always in the news. That the perp might be baiting him personally, therefore, was not an outlandish assumption. It was certainly not the first time such things had happened in the course of an investigation, and for Ellison in particular, that scenario was more like the same old story.

More crucially, in terms of confirming his darkest suspicions, Ellison had never, since his senses had come on line, gotten so little from a crime scene. The five consecutive robberies that had occurred had provided the sentinel - as opposed to the detective - with nothing at all to go on, except the growing certainty that his unique abilities were being deliberately misled.

One example was that he had identified an odd residual smell at the first two crime scenes as being a mixture of chili and lemon juice - both of which combined to confuse his sentinel senses by masking normally occurring odors, such as body odor. In fact, Blair had found that particular fact out early in their partnership, in one of his tests. Other than that, no additional odors could be detected.

Then, in the third robbery, a weird sensation had assailed him - a not-unpleasant sensation he was all too familiar with. He had concluded that the perp had somehow distributed a substance which mimicked female pheromones at the scene, as his response had been eerily similar to that which he had experienced during the jewel robberies case, when he had become infatuated with Laura McCarthy.

Similar methods of misdirection had been employed in the fourth robbery. And finally, in this latest one, something had apparently been placed over the security camera, obscuring the view. Sound had remained, but nothing had been audible to either normal or enhanced ears. Until, that is, Jim had zeroed in on a barely audible hiss, which he instantly recognized as a white noise generator - a device which wouldn’t have meaning in this context to anyone other than a sentinel.

Unknown to Simon, Jim had gone so far as to make enquiries among some of his shadier contacts about Lee Brackett, a dangerous man who was well aware of Jim’s abilities. In fact, as Jim well remembered, Brackett had himself once used white noise as a technique to confuse his sentinel senses. But the incarcerated rogue CIA agent was apparently still safely locked away. Ellison was beginning to wonder, however, if the ex-agent’s ravings about Jim’s enhanced senses were at last being taken seriously in circles he would just as soon not know anything about him.

Ellison’s fear - that this whole charade was a kind of test of his limitations by some shady government agency - had prompted him to consider putting into operation the escape plan he had secretly cooked up after the Brackett incident. His time in Covert Ops had left him with a number of contacts he would trust with his life, in various parts of the world, and so disappearing was a viable option. The fact that he was even considering it was part of the reason he hadn’t pushed to get Sandburg involved in this case. The less Blair knew, the safer he would be.

But damn, he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to go on the run, leaving behind his life in Cascade, his friends and his career. It rankled that he was being pushed into a corner like this. So, for now, he had decided to brazen it out, hoping that the fact he was in the public eye so much would protect him.

Now, dragging his attention back to the task at hand, hoping against hope that he could learn something - anything - from the security video, which might give him the break he was looking for, his attention was drawn back again to the unmistakable hiss of the white noise generator. Something about it tickled his memory. He had heard a sound exactly like it recently, but for the life of him couldn’t think where.

Pondering the problem, trying to force himself to remember, he focused in on the noise, and his awareness spiraled down, down, down…

~oO0Oo~

He jerked back to awareness with a start. “Wha…”

The large figure looming over him was, he was instantly aware, Simon. The big police captain was regarding him with concern. “You back with me, Jim?”

Ellison rubbed his eyes. His mouth was dry, as though he had been breathing through it. “What the hell happened?”

“You were zoned. I called your name a few times, then when I touched you, you snapped out of it.”

“How long…” Jim began, then looked at his watch. He blinked, unable to believe his eyes. “It’s nearly nine o’clock.” He did a rapid calculation. “Four hours? I’ve been here four hours?”

Simon looked grim. “Do you want me to call Sandburg?”

Jim shook his head. “No. No, I’m all right. I must be more tired than I thought. I haven’t done that in…” his attention was grabbed again by the video, which was still running, “so long…” the buzz luring him in…

A sharp pain shocked him back to the here-and-now. “Detective!” Simon hissed, “Stop it! What the hell is the matter with you?”

Jim palmed his shoulder, where Simon had struck him. Then in a flash of insight, he reached over and shut off the sound on the TV. He instantly felt more aware. “What the hell?” he snapped, looking at the blank screen for a moment longer. He picked up the tape case, his clearer mind quickly making the necessary deductions. “This is supposed to be a one hour tape. It’s been playing for more than four hours, Simon. It’s been doctored; made into a continuous loop.”

“So,” Simon said, following his logic, “the perp made this, and substituted it for the real tape. It’s been done before. But why is it making you zone?”

Jim looked at Simon. The Captain’s face mirrored the grimness in Ellison’s voice. “It’s a message,” the detective stated flatly. “One that only I would understand.”

~oO0Oo~

Captain and detective remained at the station until close to midnight, trying and failing to uncover more evidence that might lead to an answer. Then, each as exhausted as the other, they headed off to their respective homes.

The loft was quiet and empty when Jim got there, the lights off, Sandburg still out. Jim suspected that, in addition to his hefty duties at the university, his roommate had some woman he was dating, as he’d stayed out all night so often recently.

Jim hardly remembered showering and getting into bed. And it felt as though he had only been asleep for a matter of minutes when the phone startled him awake. “Get dressed, Ellison,” Banks growled in his ear as he fumbled the receiver into position, “and get your ass over here. There’s been another one.”

~oO0Oo~

The private museum was a prime target for their serial robber, and the level of security there was lamentable considering the value of its contents. Leaving the hysterical curator in the hands of some of his uniformed colleagues, Jim donned latex gloves and went to look at the scene.

A familiar odor assailed Ellison as he walked in the door; not, for once, the odd chili-lemon mixture, and emphatically not female pheromones. Spinning in place, he called out to the other detective in the room. “Hey, H? Is Sandburg here?”

Henri Brown shook his head. “Not if he ain’t with you, man.”

Shaking his head, Jim tried to dismiss the distracting olfactory sensation, which he assumed to be a phantom. If he was going around smelling Sandburg, he thought wryly, he was closer to the edge than he had previously thought.

He set his mind to the task at hand, and prowled around the remains of the broken glass case. Only one item had been stolen from this collection - a priceless Incan treasure. Maybe that was why, Jim mused, he was thinking about Sandburg. This really was the anthropologist’s kind of thing.

But no matter how much he tried to put his absent partner out of his mind, the smell wouldn’t leave him. And after a moment, something caught his eye, over where the aroma was strongest. Something trapped in-between the shards of shattered glass.

“Hey, H?” to his surprise, his voice was calm, rational.

“Yeah, Jim?” Brown replied.

“Go get Simon for me, would ya?”

“Sure thing.” Jim listened as Brown left, and as soon as his colleague was out of sight, he produced tweezers and an evidence bag from his pocket. Delicately, he extracted the hair that was caught in the broken case, and put it in the bag.

A long, curly, auburn hair.

By the time Brown had arrived back with the Captain, Ellison was over the other side of the room. Banks looked at him pointedly. “Anything, Jim?” he asked.

“No. Just like the others,” Ellison answered, his voice even. He maintained his calm, professional demeanor as he demonstrated to Banks and Brown exactly how little there was to find.

And he hoarded his secret. But he felt like he was dying inside.

~oO0Oo~

It had been early - barely seven a.m. - when Ellison had arrived at the museum. Immediately afterward, he had spent an obligatory, minimum amount of time at the station, pouring over the same old apparent lack of evidence. And a while later, after telling Simon he had a lead he needed to follow up, he ditched his easily recognizable truck and borrowed an unmarked car from the station fleet.

Now, parked at the back of Hargrove Hall with his Jags cap pulled low over his face, he put into practice the tricks his treacherous partner had taught him, listening intermittently to the comings and goings in Sandburg’s office in the basement.

It was after two o’clock in the afternoon when his surveillance paid off. Sandburg’s phone rang, and Ellison listened, his teeth grinding, as the call was answered.

“Blair Sandburg.”

“Ellison’s on to you, Tommy. You need to disappear.”

A pause. A heart racing. “Shit!” Another pause. “What the hell happened? I was careful, man, I swear-”

“I don’t know. But remember our deal. You keep away from him until this is over, or-”

The caller was cut short by Sandburg’s frantic voice. “Look, I’ll do it okay. I’ll get out of the loft. Just don’t…”

“Remember, Tommy,” the emotionless voice cut in. “Check in at the pre-arranged time. Get moving.”

Click.

“Oh man.” As the dial tone whirred away, Sandburg was apparently now talking to himself. “Oh man. Oh shit.” He sounded near to tears, his breathing ragged, his heart racing as he put the receiver down.

Outside in the car, Jim stared coldly into the distance, ice in his soul and no pity in his heart.

~oO0Oo~

When the detective walked into the loft a short while later, Sandburg was just emerging from his bedroom, jacket on and backpack over his shoulder. He obviously hadn’t wasted any time in getting ready to leave.

He also wasn’t paying attention, apparently not expecting Jim to be here, because Ellison’s voice made him nearly jump out of his skin. “Going somewhere, Sandburg?”

Blair had always been a master of the quick recovery, and didn’t disappoint now. “Oh, hey, man. You startled me.” He smiled, a little too brightly, obviously still hoping that his cover hadn’t entirely been blown despite the warning, his knuckles white where they gripped the strap of his pack. “What are you doing home? I thought you were busy working the case.”

“I am.” Ellison’s humorless gaze was firmly fixed on Sandburg, who shifted a little uncomfortably under his regard. “Where are you going?” he asked, appending sarcastically, “‘Partner’?”

Clutching at straws now, Sandburg didn’t look Jim in the eye. His voice shook a little. “Something came up. I, uh, I have to go out of town for a few days. Okay, man?”

“Riiight,” Ellison drawled; not moving from where he was blocking the exit, his back against the wood of the door.

Sandburg made a move towards him, but halted when Jim didn’t budge. “C’mon, man. Let me past,” he pleaded, his heart beating triple time.

Something about that gave Ellison enormous satisfaction. “I don’t think so,” he said; then added, “Tommy.”

Sandburg didn’t answer, although the color fled from his face; the name reverberating between them like a death knell.

Ellison allowed the tense silence to linger for an uncomfortable moment, before he spoke. When he did, his voice was soft, like gentle rain with the promise of a hurricane to come. “I’ve been wondering, Chief. Are you some kind of double, clone, whatever you want to call it? Is this like some weird science fiction thing? Am I going to find a pod under your bed, and Sandburg’s body dumped in the bay?”

When the other man remained silent, he carried on, “Because if Sandburg was dead, it’d be a relief. It would definitely be better than the alternative. Because if I’m wrong, and you are Sandburg, then I have to believe that my ‘friend’, who I gave a home to for the last two years, who watched my back and taught me everything I know about using my senses, was a fake all along. That Blair Sandburg never really existed. And I really have to wonder exactly who Tommy is. And who he’s working with. And what the hell he’s been doing to me all this time.”

Sandburg was now looking at the floor, his expression unreadable. He remained silent as Jim went on, “How much of it was a lie, Chief? The friendship thing? The research thing, huh? Did you get off on it, getting the better of me? Because let me tell you; you played me good. I trusted you. I trusted you more than I have ever trusted anybody in my entire life. And hey, guess what?” He laughed; a little self deprecatingly. “I actually cared about you. About you being safe. About you being happy. Guess that’s gonna to give you a big old laugh when your ass is thrown in jail, huh?”

“Jim,” Sandburg protested, glancing up. “It’s not what you-”

“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!” Sandburg winced, his eyes closing, as Ellison’s barely contained bitterness sprang loose. “I don’t wanna hear it. Save it for the judge. Because I’m telling you, ‘Tommy’ or whatever it is you call yourself. You are going down.” As the detective spoke, he reached to his belt, unhooking the cuffs hanging there. “So make it easy on both of us, huh? Don’t fight me on this. Because it’s over. And you can’t possibly win.” He approached Sandburg, the cuffs in his hand.

Sandburg opened his eyes and watched as the other man came closer. Their eyes met, angry blue to anguished blue. “I’m sorry, Jim,” Ellison’s former partner said, a deep, aching misery in his voice. “I’m really, really sorry.”

And he sprayed the mace that was concealed in his hand directly into the sentinel’s face.

~oO0Oo~

Jim came back to sanity some time later, cool relief of a wet cloth wielded by gentle hands over his burning face. Forgetting momentarily what had happened, he growled, “Sandburg?”

“Easy, Jim.” Simon Banks’s bass rumble. “Just lie still. Paramedics are on the way.”

Memory, bitter as bile, returned with a rush. “Call them off.”

“Jim…” Simon protested, but Ellison reached up and stilled his hand.

“Call them off, damn it! I’m okay. I mean it, Simon. Do it!”

It wasn’t the first time that detective had given an order to captain and had it obeyed. But since Jim’s sentinel senses had come on line, Simon knew better than to protest at the about turn. In these matters, he fully acknowledged that he was the novice.

Jim listened as Simon pulled out his cell phone and cancelled the EMTs. And he sniffed at the liquid infusing the cloth which was covering his features. “You’re bathing me with milk and honey?” he pointed out incredulously, as Simon finished the call. “What the hell is this?”

He could almost hear the shrug. “Sandburg called me, told me you needed help and to use the stuff he’d put out for you. I got here, found you on the floor, with this in a bowl beside you. The wet cloth was already covering your face. Where the hell is Blair, Jim? It’s not like him to leave you at a time like this.”

Jim pushed himself up, pulling the cloth from his face. Itchy red eyes glared out of a ruddy, swollen face at the Captain. “He did this to me,” he said bitterly. “He’s the one committing the robberies, and I’m not sure any more if his real name ever was ‘Sandburg’.”

Banks, shocked for once into silence, could only stare back.

~oO0Oo~

In addition to leaving out the bowl of milky solution and tending Jim’s face, Sandburg, it seemed, had also paused long enough to put out a bottle of antihistamine tablets before going on the run. Jim dutifully downed two pills with reluctant bad grace, before getting down to the matter at hand.

Simon’s first instinct was to put out an APB on Sandburg’s car but, looking outside, Jim discovered that the Volvo had been left in its parking space. And in any case, they both agreed that dealing with this situation through normal police channels was a no-brainer.

“I have no idea what his motives are, Simon,” Jim told the captain, “or who he’s working with. Jesus, he’s dangerous. He’s influenced how I use my senses from day one, and he knows far more about my limitations than I do. We arrest him before we know what he’s up to, and he could blow the knowledge of my senses wide open.”

So they had agreed to handle this themselves for now. To try to apprehend Blair outside of normal police channels and procedure, so they could discover the extent of whatever conspiracy he was a part of. Banks didn’t like it - understanding that both their livelihoods and reputations were on the line here – but, reluctantly, he had to agree that they had no choice, at least in the short term, if Jim’s abilities were to continue to be kept out of the public eye.

Using his clout in the PD, Banks set immediate checks in motion on Sandburg’s credit cards and bank account, as well as taking steps to obtain telephone records from both the loft and Blair’s office phone. And as soon as he recovered sufficiently, Ellison put to use less conventional methods of detection - going through Sandburg’s abandoned belongings with the eyes and nose of a sentinel, looking for clues as to where he might have gone.

In the end, it was the Captain’s mundane methods which paid off. A withdrawal of eighty dollars - all that Sandburg had in his meager account - was made from an ATM later that night in the east side of the city. Using Banks’s influence and Ellison’s formidable persuasive powers to gain access to the various tapes - in lieu of actual warrants - A search of surveillance cameras from that bank and the surrounding district showed their quarry’s route as he disappeared off into the industrial district.

So, therefore, just over twenty-four hours later, Ellison found himself concealed in the shadows in the doorway of a warehouse, the spoor of his enemy in his nostrils; the agony of the most poignant betrayal he had ever experienced shoved deep down, subsumed underneath his volcanic, simmering fury.

~oO0Oo~

Not surprisingly, given their suspicions, there was no robbery the night after Sandburg assaulted his partner and disappeared.

Now, one day later, sitting in their impromptu operations room - his own office - Banks waited for Ellison to check in. He had explained away his lead detective’s absence in the middle of the case by telling his superiors that Ellison was undercover, exploring a lead. It was nothing more nor less than the truth, in any case.

Banks was deeply troubled, and not just by the fact that the man they suspected of the robberies was someone he had come to regard as a close personal friend. Something about this whole scenario just didn’t ring true.

Not that he didn’t believe what Ellison had told him. The evidence of Blair’s involvement with the robberies was pretty conclusive, after all, even if it wasn’t necessarily conclusive enough to convince a jury. A single hair found at a crime scene was purely circumstantial - it could have gotten there any number of ways. And a distinctive body odor lingering beside the smashed display case? That would just get laughed out of court, not that it would ever make it there in the first place.

Then there was that strange phone call, during which Ellison had overheard a mysterious male voice calling Blair ‘Tommy’, and urging him to go into hiding because Jim was on to him. More non-admissible evidence, but damning nonetheless in the eyes of the sentinel and the sentinel’s boss.

But the most conclusive evidence of guilt was Sandburg’s callous spraying of pepper spray into the his face when Ellison had confronted him. Sandburg had to have known the devastating effect that act of violence would have on someone with Jim’s sensitivities. Hell, the kid had previously gone out of his way to keep any and all harsh chemicals away from the sentinel’s skin, and here he was spraying mace at him, for Christ’s sake.

But afterwards, instead of getting the hell out of there as fast as he could, Sandburg had stayed to put together a soothing, natural concoction which would alleviate the worst of the agony he had put Ellison through. He had made sure antihistamines were within reach. And he had called Simon, to ensure that Jim would be taken care of. “I can’t explain right now,” he had said, “but Jim really needs you. Please, get over there, man, as fast as you can. I left everything you’ll need to help him.”

Sandburg had sounded devastated, as though his world had just ended. And he had cut off Simon’s inevitable query. “Just… just tell him, man, I never meant for it to end like this. He was…” Here Blair had choked, as though the words hurt him. Then he had forced out, “He was the best friend I ever had. Tell him… tell him it wasn’t a lie, the friendship. It was never a lie. He needs you now, man. Please, help him.” And then he had hung up.

He needs you now. Simon knew that Sandburg hadn’t meant that purely in the sense of rendering first aid, but in the long term. He had, effectively, entrusted the sentinel into Banks’s care and, in the process, indicated his intention to disappear from their lives forever.

Ellison, however, was blind to the possibility of gray areas in this situation. As far as he was concerned, Sandburg had intentionally betrayed his trust in the most devastating way imaginable. And any fond feelings the detective might have previously had about the anthropologist had been incinerated in the funeral pyre of his rage.

Sandburg, Jim had declared, was working with some unknown, shady figure, who could be anything from a perp seeking revenge on Ellison to a member of a covert government agency. Sandburg had cheated and lied his way into Ellison’s confidence, worming his way into the detective’s home and workplace. He had manipulated Jim’s senses, quite likely limiting their effectiveness as much as helping develop them. He had committed crimes with the intent of not only obtaining a fortune in stolen artifacts, but also rubbing his knowledge about Jim’s senses in the sentinel’s face along the way. And when his duplicity had been found out, he had inflicted agonizing violence on the man he had professed friendship for, and gone on the run to avoid facing up to his actions.

Deeply troubled, Banks sat back and waited for Ellison’s call.

~oO0Oo~

The unmistakable odor was closer now. His sense of smell wide open, Ellison acknowledged and discarded the multitude of other irrelevant scents and stenches, focusing in only on the one. Silently, using tricks he had learned long before Sandburg had come on the scene, he approached.

The figure was bent over a brazier, rubbing warmth into hands encased in fingerless gloves; the distinctive fur hat that Ellison had once found so humorous pulled down low over his ears. And, as the smell of the man he sought filled his senses, he was consumed briefly with a killing rage, which he suppressed ruthlessly.

His time for revenge would come. Now it was time for answers.

Moving as silently as a cat, he was behind Sandburg in seconds. And his prey never knew he was there until Ellison’s gun touched the back of his head.

~oO0Oo~

The phone rang. “Banks,” Simon announced, snatching it up.

“It’s not him,” came Jim’s voice, harsh with anger and disappointment.

“What? I thought you’d tracked him-”

“It’s not him. He traded his clothes away to somebody else.”

“Somebody else? Who, damn it? Did you question him?”

“Yes, sir, I did. He’s a bum, hangs out around the warehouse district. Sandburg offered fifty bucks for the guy to swap clothes with him. He did. End of story.”

“Shit.” Fifty bucks? Sandburg must be desperate. Banks rubbed his eyes tiredly. “What the hell next? He hasn’t used his credit card apart from that one time. That was our best shot at finding him without making it official.”

There was a pause. Then Ellison announced, “I’m staying here, sir. Gonna scout around a bit more, see if I can get a lead. Sandburg was here. Somebody might have seen where he headed afterward. I’ve got a description of the clothes he was wearing - it’s a start.”

“Jim,” Simon protested. “I don’t like this. Look, I’ve been thinking. You are far too close to this. I want you to come in.”

“Is that my Captain talking, or my friend?”

“Both, Jim.”

“Then no, sir. I can’t do that. I can’t walk away when I’m this close.”

Banks sighed. “Well, whatever, detective, I’m making this official. No warrant yet - hell, on the evidence we have, we’d be lucky to get Sandburg on suspicion of anything. But I’m listing him as a missing person. His photo will be distributed in patrol, and I’ll start making enquiries among his contacts at the university. I’ll keep the press out of it for now. But this way, if he’s seen, at least we can get a bead on him.”

“Okay, sir.”

“Just be careful, okay? I don’t like this, Jim. Any of it.”

A second or two of silence showed more eloquently than words how much Ellison agreed with that assessment. “Bye, sir,” he said. Heaving an unhappy sigh, Banks hung up the phone.

~oO0Oo~

It was a measure of how secure Blair had begun to feel in his life - the life he had now been forced to leave behind forever - that only last week he had spent the hundred bucks he usually carried in his wallet for emergencies, and hadn’t gotten around to replacing it. It was the first time he had ever been without what Jim had once jokingly referred to as his ‘security blanket’ for such a protracted period, ever since the first time Naomi had slipped a single hundred dollar note into his pocket on his first day at Rainier.

He couldn’t, he thought bitterly, have chosen a worse time to do so. His karma was, quite clearly, seriously fucked.

Earlier, he had cleaned out his bank account, withdrawing the measly eighty dollars that he had left to his name. But in a ploy to - quite literally - put Jim off the scent, he had been forced to surrender a phenomenal fifty dollars of that as part of a trade for the disgusting, stinking clothes he was now wearing. As a result, he only had just over thirty dollars left in cash, and no chance of getting more, unless he resorted to begging or stealing. And he had no idea how long he would need to make those last few bucks last.

And damn, he wished he didn’t keep bumping into people he knew, in the oddest places. Cascade was a sizeable city. But at times it felt like a village, and it was proving harder than Blair had anticipated to stay out of sight. He had been forbidden to leave town or contact anyone he knew for help, and the potential consequences for disobedience were very real.

The homeless shelter was the last place he’d expected to meet an acquaintance. But as he stood in line, waiting to get a plateful of stew, he nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand clapped him on the shoulder. “Blair! I didn’t know you’d joined our little gang.”

It took a second before Blair managed to force his heart out of his mouth and acknowledge the speaker. “Uh, Professor Williams.”

Blair knew Williams from Rainier. They worked in the same building, though in different departments, Williams being a sociologist. “Call me Martin, please Blair,” Williams was saying, oblivious to Sandburg’s inner turmoil. “If we’re going to be working together on this, you need to drop the professor thing.”

Blair blinked. “Uh, sure.”

“So,” Williams went on, guiding Blair over to a table, “I thought the Dean had decided this was going to be a pure Sociology venture. When did Anthro assign a researcher to the project? I wasn’t told.”

Glancing around now at faces he had been studiously avoiding looking at, Blair recognized a number of people that he knew, all of whom were attempting to blend in with the homeless who had come in to eat. Oh shit. Of all the shelters he could have picked, he had chosen the one full of social scientists. “It, uh,” he hedged rapidly in answer to Williams’s question, “was a last minute decision. You must have missed the memo.”

“Must have.” Williams looked unconcerned, as if such bureaucratic nonsense was simply a fact of life. “So, where do you want to start?”

“I, uh, I think I’ll just watch for a while.” Blair warmed to his lie, his usual enthusiasm for such endeavors easy to feign. “Get a feel for the obvious social hierarchies, you know? The pecking order, that kind of thing.”

Williams was nodding. “Fine. Good.” He rose. “Well, I’ve got to go for now, but I’ll be back out here soon, joining in the participant observation stuff with you guys. But I’ve got to do a structured interview first with the supervisor. See you later, Blair.”

“Yeah. Later, Martin.” Blair waited until the professor disappeared into the office door at the other side of the room, Then watching carefully, he waited until all of the other researchers seemed engaged. Once he was sure he was unobserved, he got up and walked out of the building.

Behind him, one pair of eyes, belonging to a young grad student Blair had once taught in Anthropology 101, watched quizzically as he made his hurried exit. Something about the expression of sheer desperation on the anthropologist’s face was ringing warning bells in his mind.


~oO0Oo~

Simon’s enquiries at the University proved that the web of deceit Sandburg had woven was more extensive than they had first thought.

“Blair took a leave of absence from teaching nearly a week ago, Captain Banks,” Professor Stanley Granger, the Head of Anthropology told him. “Yes, he’s been here since then, mostly during the day, working in his office. He is working on his doctoral dissertation, at the writing-up stage, which is pretty labor intensive. Also, he told me he was doing consultancy work with your police department, and was spending most nights working on that. With all of that going on, I agreed to cut him some slack.”

“So,” Banks said, understanding that Blair’s duplicity had extended to his university colleagues as well as to Ellison. “Let me get this straight. He’s done no teaching at all for the past week. No extra classes, no night classes, nothing?”

“None at all, Captain. Why, is something wrong?”

Banks hedged, “He’s uh, missing. His roommate is concerned for his safety.”

“Oh my.” Granger seemed visibly shaken. “He does seem to be under a lot of pressure. Stress is an occupational hazard for young men and women at times like this, when they are nearing the culmination of their studies. But he seems to be doing so well with his research. You don’t,” he faltered, “you don’t think he would harm himself, do you?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t say,” Banks replied.

“Well, I hope very much he’ll be all right.” Granger appeared totally sincere in his concern. “We’re all very fond of Blair. He’s been with us in this department for a long time, and we’re very proud of his achievements. He is a remarkable young man.”

“Yes,” Banks agreed, the misgivings in his gut burning like indigestion. “He is.”

~oO0Oo~

By a combination of intimidation and subtlety, Ellison had managed to get an idea of where Sandburg had headed once he had left the industrial district. The unusual ploy of changing clothes out in the open for cash was not an event that had gone unnoticed among the other denizens of the area, some of whom had apparently trailed Sandburg in the hopes that further handouts would be forthcoming. Ellison’s interrogation techniques - as well as some judiciously employed bribery - had quickly elicited the information he required.

Now, as he entered the homeless shelter, something caught his attention, and he sniffed surreptitiously. Then grinned ferally. Sandburg had been here. The underlying stench of the homeless man’s unwashed body, which had already permeated Blair’s old clothes in the short time that he had worn them, was hovering in the air. Concentrating, he could detect the unmistakable fainter scent of Sandburg underneath it.

Inside, an unexpected additional aroma assailed his senses. The earthy scent of Simon Banks’s favorite cigars. His captain was off to one side, chatting to a small group of people masquerading, to Jim’s immediately sharp perception, as down and outs.

Banks caught sight of Ellison and, excusing himself, came to his side. “Jim,” he said. “We need to talk.”

Jim listened as Simon filled him in on what he had learned from Stanley Granger. “And that’s not all,” Simon went on. “This crowd are from Rainier, doing some kind of sociology study here. The professor in charge contacted Granger while I was in his office earlier, said that Blair had been here. At first, they thought he’d been assigned as a researcher, to join in the study. But something about him was ‘off’, and he got out the minute he was recognized. The coordinator of the study called Granger to find out what was going on.”

Banks paused, and beckoned a young man over from the group. “This is Don Yale,” he introduced. “He used to be a student of Sandburg’s. Mister Yale,” he addressed the sociologist, “can you tell Detective Ellison what you told me?”

Yale looked concerned. “Detective Ellison, you’re Blair’s friend, right? I’ve seen you around the campus.” Yale missed the tightening of Ellison’s jaw at the word ‘friend’, but it registered with Banks, nevertheless. “I’m really worried about him, Detective,” Yale went on obliviously. “He looked, oh, I don’t know, lost, somehow. The prof thought at first he was here to do a study, but I’m telling you, his clothes? They were the real thing - he’s been sleeping rough, unlike us in these threads,” he indicated his own fake scruffy outfit. “And his face, man. He was in a bad way, I’m telling you.”

Ellison’s voice was as expressionless as his features. “Did you see which way he went when he left here?”

Yale nodded. “Sure. Come on, I’ll show you.” Ellison and Banks trailed him to the exit, and Yale carried on talking to them over his shoulder. “I was worried about him, you know? Something just didn’t seem right. So I followed him out, watched where he went. He’s a good guy, Blair. Helped me out a lot when I went through a hard time as an undergrad. If it wasn’t for him, I’d have flunked out. I sure wouldn’t be doing my masters now.”

They reached the exit, and went out onto the sidewalk. “There,” Yale pointed down the street. “He went that way, to the bus stop at the end. Got on a southbound bus; the ninety-three, I think. It goes down to Southtown, you know?”

Ellison said nothing, but his eyes focused off in the direction the bus would have gone. Banks answered for both of them. “Thank you for your help, Mister Yale.”

“It’s no problem,” Yale said. “Hey, I hope he’ll be okay, you know? Like I said, he’s a good guy. A good friend.”

Banks nodded. “We’ll do what we can to find him.”

“Okay. Thanks, Captain. Detective.” Yale headed back inside, leaving the two men on the sidewalk.

Banks turned to Ellison. “One thing is puzzling me, Jim. Why are you here? I didn’t tell anyone where I was going, just came right over from Rainier.”

Ellison’s head remained turned in the direction the bus had gone, sniffing the air. Then he turned to Banks. “I asked around,” he said. “Then I tracked Sandburg here by smell. You see I could smell his-”

Banks grimaced, holding up both hands. “Whoa, stop right there, detective. Sniffing Sandburg? Definitely too much information!”

~oO0Oo~

Following the bus route in his car, Simon tried not to be distracted by Ellison leaning his head out of the window, breathing in Sandburg’s scent from the ether. Whatever the sentinel was doing, however, seemed to be working, because after traveling a mile or so in the direction of Southtown, he ordered, “Stop the car, Simon. Pull over.”

Simon complied, but as Ellison reached for the door handle to let himself out, Simon halted him. “Wait a second, Jim,” he said. “We need to talk about this.”

Jim’s impatience was clear. “What’s to talk about, sir? Sandburg is nearby. I can smell him.”

“I know that, Jim,” Simon answered. “But this doesn’t feel right. You heard what Yale said. Blair was in a bad way. ‘Lost’, he said. I know I’ve had my problems with the kid in the past, but none of this is like him. I just can’t see him as a robber. And why the hell is he still in Cascade, posing as a homeless guy, instead of on the road out of here with the loot? He’s sitting on ten million dollars worth of antiquities, for Christ’s sake!”

Jim didn’t answer for a moment. Then in a controlled voice, he said, “It’s a game, to him. He’s been baiting me since the first robbery, challenging me to use my senses. He wants me to chase him.”

Simon’s brow furrowed. “But why? It doesn’t make sense!”

Jim carried on in the same quiet tone. “It does if he’s working for the government. If this is some kind of field test of my abilities.”

As the possibilities of that statement sank in, Banks’s eyes widened. “Shit,” he breathed. “You think he was a plant all along.”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Jim’s voice was inflectionless, but Simon could detect the turbulent emotions beneath the rigid control. “I suspected the perp we were looking for was linked to some kind of government agency, one that had found out about my senses, even before I knew that Sandburg was involved. And whoever his handler is has me under surveillance, that much I can be sure of. Otherwise how would he have known I was onto Sandburg, when I hadn’t told anybody that I suspected him?” Jim turned to look at Simon, his face ghostlike in the light from the streetlamps. “I was meant to find that hair and Sandburg’s scent at the crime scene. I performed just as they wanted me to.”

Simon shook his head in amazement. Flower-child Sandburg, a covert agent? This whole scenario was so off the wall, it could just be true. “So why the hell are you playing their game, Jim?”

“What the hell else can I do, Simon?” Anger cracked Jim’s façade. “I could disappear. I’ve made the arrangements - I have the means and the contacts, and the people behind this would never find me. But why the hell should I give up my life? He’s taken enough from me, Simon. I’ll beat him at his own game, or go down fighting. He’s not taking everything!”

The anger and hurt rolling off the sentinel in waves spilled across to his friend, and Simon’s gut tightened as he realized to what extent he, too, had been played by their so-called observer, if what Jim was suggesting was true. Simon’s resolve hardened and, sitting up straighter, he pulled his service revolver from his belt, and checked the clip. “Let’s do this,” he said, his voice cold. At the very least, they deserved answers. Simon silently vowed that no government spook – whether it be Sandburg or whoever else - was going to get their hands on Jim, except over his cold, dead body.

Jim nodded, pulling out his own weapon. Without another word, moving in tandem, they got out of the car.

And, as he followed in Ellison’s shadow to the lair of their former friend, Simon ruthlessly squelched the dubious inner voice that attempted to deny the veracity of their suspicions.

~oO0Oo~

It hadn’t taken long, Blair realized as he watched the approaching figures from the alleyway in which he was ensconced, for Jim to catch up with him. Presumably his unplanned unmasking at the homeless shelter had been reported, and somehow the sentinel had managed to track him from there. Evasion, therefore, was not going to work. It was time for Plan ‘B’ - full frontal assault.

Quietly, he began to talk, knowing that the approaching sentinel would hear it. “I know you’re there, man. And you know I’m here. And I know you’re probably as pissed as hell at me right now. But please, man, you’ve gotta believe me. I’m doing this for a good reason. This is about life or death.”

Ellison’s uncompromising shout broke the quiet. “Come out, with your hands up! It’s over, Sandburg.”

Blair didn’t move. Instead he spoke again. “I’m sorry, Jim. I can’t do that.” He didn’t have long now - to make this effective he had to do it soon, before Jim or Simon got too close. Keep talking, he admonished himself, ignoring the conflicting demands of his nervous system that he run away from Ellison or toward him. “This isn’t about you and me, man. And it isn’t what you think it is.” He forced his voice quieter, whispering now. “Give me a few days, just a few, and I promise, I’ll turn myself in to you. But you gotta leave me alone right now.”

“No can do, Sandburg,” Ellison shouted back. The sentinel had heard him, obviously having dialed up his hearing to the maximum - exactly as Blair had hoped he would. “Come out here now, or I’m coming in after you.”

Blair forced his voice even quieter, even as he readied the small machine he held in his hand. “I’m sorry, Jim. I can’t do that.” His voice was hardly audible now, even to himself. “And I’m really sorry about this, man. But I don’t have any choice.” Finger stabbing hard, he pressed the button.
And as the sentinel howled in agony, hands clamped hard over his ears, Blair made good his escape.

~oO0Oo~

“I don’t need to go to the emergency room, damn it!” Ellison had begun to recover his equilibrium as soon as Banks’s car had put some distance between them and the alleyway in which they had cornered Sandburg. “Simon, c’mon! Stop the car.”

Banks glanced at him dubiously. “I’m not so sure about that, Jim. Hell, I’ve never seen you react like that.” Despite his reluctance, Ellison’s boss signaled and pulled into the side of the road. “I mean, what the hell happened? You were almost catatonic. How was I to know it was a sentinel thing?”

Ellison ignored the rhetorical question. Instead he hit himself on the forehead in self disgust. “What was I thinking? How could I let him do that?”

Simon’s patience was at an end. “Do what, Detective? Tell me what the hell is going on!”

Jim took a couple of deep breaths. “He tricked me.” The merest hint of humiliation in his tone damped down Banks’s irritation. “He kept talking quietly; got me to dial up my hearing as far as it would go. Then he hit me with something, a piercing noise; I don’t know what it was. All I know, is that it bought him the time he needed to get away.” He turned to Banks. “Simon, c’mon. Turn the car around. We have to go after him.”

Banks had anticipated, and the engine was already rolling.

They were several blocks from the entrance to the alleyway when Ellison grimaced. “Christ.”

Banks glanced at him worryingly. “What is it?”

“It’s still there. The noise.”

“Can’t you dial it down, or whatever it is you do?”

Ellison didn’t answer, his whole attention seemingly on the noise. Not knowing what else to do, Banks pulled in, and waited until Ellison got himself under control. Pained blue eyes rose to his. “Simon,” he said, “I’ve turned my hearing down low, so if I can’t hear you, you know why.” Jim opened the car door. “Let’s roll.”

Banks felt little more than useless as he watched Ellison scrabbling around in the dark alley where Blair had apparently been hiding. “Aha!” the detective declared. “Got it!”

“Got what?” Banks asked, as the detective came back towards him. Then remembering Ellison couldn’t hear him, shouted, “Got what?”

Ellison winced. “Not so loud, Captain. I’m back to normal.” He held up the object in his hand. “He’s gone. He left this. A dictaphone.”

“And?” Banks demanded.

“And,” Ellison sighed shamefacedly, “it seems to have a continuous recording of a dog whistle on it.”

Banks blinked. “A dog whistle.”

Ellison pressed the offending object into Banks’s hand, then turned to scout their location further. “Don’t even think it,” he warned.

Banks snorted, swallowing a million smart retorts, and followed.

~oO0Oo~

Dropping the coins into the slot, Blair waited impatiently until the phone was answered. “Yes?” said the voice on the other end.

“It’s me.”

“Well done, Tommy. One minute to spare. How are you holding up?”

Blair swallowed. “Jim nearly caught me. I managed to put him off. I got away. It was a nearly an hour ago, and I’m way across town, so I think I lost him now.”

“You’d better.”

Blair let out a shaky breath. “Look, I’ve done everything you told me to, all right? Please, let me talk to her, man. I need to know she’s all right.”

“You’ll have to take my word for that. She’s, um, a little tied up right now.”

“Just don’t hurt her. Okay? We have a deal.”

“You keep your end of the bargain, Tommy, and I’ll keep mine. Same time, tomorrow. Same rules. Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” Blair confirmed miserably. But he was talking to the air.


Continued in Part 2



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