New
Arrivals
Author-Suzie
Titles
The Return
by Suzie
Summary: Jim and Blair are in Peru... but far from safe. #11 of the Wanted series.
Disclaimer: Some of the characters in this story belong to the Pet Fly Productions as part of the television show The Sentinel. I do not claim these characters as my own.
Translations are at the bottom of the page.
They were in Peru with the Chopec. This was Jim's tribe. This is the tribe he'd spent eighteen months with after the military helicopter he and his team were in crashed in the jungle. He'd been the only survivor among his men and the crew. Only this time there was no Incacha. Jim felt the loss deeply, but then he would look into the eyes of his Guide and know that, as a Sentinel he didn't *need* Incacha , but he missed him as the friend he had been.
Jim fell into Chopec life easily, taking on his role as Sentinel with a calm that he hadn't felt in a long time. Blair healed and regained the strength in his mauled leg. With Jim's help, he learned both the Quechua language, which wasn't much of an offshoot from Spanish, and the Chopec way of life. Jim felt a deep sense of pride at how quickly Blair picked up on things and fit in. They were accepted easily as part of the tribe. Blair's enthusiasm and desire to learn both entertained and fascinated the Chopec. The children of the village adored him. Within a few weeks, Blair had a Chopec name-Niambi... meaning, *an independent, friendly, generous person. Someone who can be spontaneous, expressive, and talkative*.
One year later ~~
It was late and the village was quiet as everyone settled in for the night. Insects buzzed and chirped, as if to announce that the nighttime world of the jungle was awakening.
Blair was sitting cross-legged on his sleeping mat. He had been trying to meditate, but Jim's shadow distracted him as the big man paced in front of the fire outside. Reaching out and stroking Wolf's back as the animal lay next to him, Blair sighed. "Something's been eating at him for a couple of days now," he whispered to Wolf. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"
Wolf snorted and yawned. Something is here.
"Do you feel it too?"
Yes.
"Do you know what it is?"
No.
Blair sat there, frowning as the shadow continued to pass by the open doorway to the hut they shared. Jim always reminded him of a large prowling cat when he got like this. Something was wrong and it was time that Blair found out what it was. He blew out the flame on the small pitch bowl and went to the door.
"Jim?" Blair whispered as he stood in the doorway.
Stopping in his tracks at the sound of his Guide's voice, Jim turned, a faint smile touching his lips. "You're the only one that calls me that now."
"Do you want me to call you Enqueri all the time from now on?" Blair questioned softly.
Jim looked at the worried statement on Blair's face. "You could no more stop calling me Jim than I could start calling you Niambi all the time."
"What... you don't like my Chopec name?"
"You are independent, friendly, generous, expressive, talkative... it fits," Jim smiled. "But you'll always be *Blair Sandburg* to me."
Blair blushed and grinned at the larger man.
Jim cocked his head in a familiar listening pose and turned back to face the jungle.
"What is it, Jim?" Blair asked, moving quickly to his Sentinel's side.
After a moment, Jim frowned, still staring into the darkness beyond the fire. "Nothing."
"Bullshit, man!" Blair said, a touch of anger in his low voice.
Jim looked down at his Guide, eyebrows raised at the sudden outburst.
"I'm sorry... but you've been prowling around out here every night lately. I *know* there's something out there that has you worried. Wolf feels something too. What's going on?"
Jim sighed heavily.
"Jim... please talk to me," Blair pleaded.
"I didn't want to say anything until I could be sure." Jim paused and looked back out at the dark jungle. "There's something... or someone... looking for me."
"How do you know?"
"I feel it like vibrations... a heaviness."
"Oh..."
"Don't jump to conclusions, Chief. It could be anything... or nothing." It's close.
Blair swallowed anxiously. "No, Jim, your senses are trying to tell you something. It could very well be a warning."
Jim nodded, reaching up and rubbing his hands over his face.
Blair placed a hand on Jim's arm. "Let's get some sleep and work on this tomorrow... okay?"
"Yeah... okay." Jim patted Blair on the back, directing them both towards the hut. He felt the thick, waist length ponytail that flowed down Blair's bare back. "I thought Mabli braided your hair every night?" Jim tugged gently on the length of hair.
Blair grinned as he walked ahead of Jim. "Ali asked me yesterday if my intentions with Mabli were true."
Jim chuckled.
"I told Mabli that maybe it was time that I learned to braid my own hair."
"Good thinking, but *were* you serious about her?" Jim asked.
Blair smiled, "She's very pretty and great cook, but I don't think I want to take a Chopec wife."
"Oh... and why not?"
"As much as I love it here, I'm really hoping that someday we'll get to go *home*. It wouldn't be fair to drag her back to Cascade. City life would kill her spirit," Blair explained sincerely.
Jim agreed whole-heartedly.
"I'll just have to figure out how to braid my own hair."
"Do you want me to braid your hair for you until you learn to do it yourself?"
Blair stopped so suddenly that Jim ran into him.
"What?"
Blair turned and looked up at the bigger man. "You'd do that?"
Jim shrugged, "Sure... what are friends for." He placed his hands on Blair's shoulders and turned him into the hut, pulling the thin woven sheet over the doorway. "Besides... I *do not* want to listen to you while you try to brush the tangles out of it in the morning. Why don't you just cut it."
"Aw, Jiiim," Blair whined.
"Don't 'aw, Jiiim' me! I do not like waking up to you cursing and complaining about your 'rats nest'."
**********
"Enqueri!" a voice called urgently from outside the hut. "Enqueri!"
Jim woke with a start, senses on full alert. "Qué es?"
The voice outside replied that a white man had been found in the jungle.
Jim replied that he would be right there.
Blair stirred and yawned as he woke up. "What's up, Jim?" he groaned.
"A white man has been brought in from the jungle," Jim said, pulling on his clothes.
Blair scrambled into his own clothes and followed Jim out to the center of the village. A large group of Chopec gathered around the man that had been brought into the village. Jim and Blair gently nudged their way through the crowd.
"Oh my God," Blair said quietly, looking down at the unconscious man with wide eyes. "Jim..."
"Yeah," Jim said dully.
Agent Sands lay at their feet, unconscious and obviously very ill with fever.
Wolf bared his teeth and growled at the inert form in front of him.
The Chopec Healer, Tador, stepped through the group to stand across from the Sentinel and Guide. He looked for a moment at the obvious unease on the big Sentinel's face. Tador directed that the white man be taken to his hut.
"Ama!" Jim growled.
"Enqueri?" Tador looked at Jim questioningly.
"Let him die," Jim said in Quechua, then turned and walked away.
"Jim?!" Blair called after him, but Jim didn't stop. He turned to Tador and asked for the healer to tend to the injured man.
Tador nodded.
Blair jogged off after his friend with Wolf on his heels. "Jim... please wait!"
Jim finally stopped at their hut, but only to pick up his crossbow and quiver of arrows. "I'm going hunting," he told Blair when the younger man caught up.
"He was what you've been sensing out in the jungle, isn't it?" Blair asked.
Jim nodded.
Wolf was pacing and whining softly.
"You can't just let him die, Jim," Blair said softly.
"After what he's done to us, I sure as hell can!"
"No... maybe someone else could let him die, but *you* can't."
"What's that suppose to mean?!" Jim asked angrily.
"If you let him die, you'll have betrayed everything you believe in as a Chopec, as a cop... as my friend."
The sorrow in Blair's voice made Jim look at his friend.
"Back in Cascade when you had to shoot someone... you never shot to kill, only to stop them, and only if there was no other choice. Then you would always try to help them. Doing whatever you could until medical aid arrived. Compassion is part of your nature, Jim. It's just there. Letting Moe die would haunt you forever."
"No!" Jim shook his head adamantly. "*Compassion* is putting a wounded animal out of its misery. We're talking about *survival* here, Chief. *Our* survival."
"Jim, please," Blair pleaded.
Jim took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You do what you think is the right thing, Chief," he said, his eyes blazing. "I'm too angry to discuss this right now."
Blair relented with a nod.
Jim reached out and put a hand on Blair's shoulder. "I want you to stay away from him though. I don't want you near that son of a bitch without me."
Blair nodded again. "Okay, I'll stay away."
With that, Jim turned and disappeared into the jungle.
Why not let man die? Wolf asked Blair. If he is bad.
"He is bad, Wolf," Blair said, turning back to watch Sands being carried into the healer's hut. "He's the reason we were in the mountains. He's the reason we came here." He sighed and looked down at his furry friend. "But that doesn't make us judge, jury, and executioner. To just *let* him die is as wrong as what he and the government are trying to do to us."
**********
Jim returned several hours later to find Blair sitting next to the fire outside Tador's hut mixing a sticky paste in a bowl.
Blair looked up from his task when he found a pair of Sentinel sized feet standing in front of him. He noticed that Jim was empty handed, but still held his crossbow and his quiver was still strapped across his back. "Feeling any better?" he asked quietly, continuing his mixing.
Jim nodded. "What's that for?"
"Moe has a multitude of cuts and insect bites all over his body. Most of them are deeply infected and that's why he's so sick. Tador asked me to mix this up. It's Cat's Claw and Lapacho." Blair stood and walked to the entrance of the hut. He handed the bowl to a woman who took in inside, then turned back to Jim. "His fever's really high."
Jim didn't say anything, but stared at the door of the Healer's hut.
"He may die anyway."
Jim's gaze shifted to his friend. "I was wrong, Blair. I had no right to condemn him like that."
Blair shrugged, "Yeah, well... I can understand your anger. I'm feeling a lot of it myself. I mean... he knows all this stuff about us, but we know *nothing* about him other than he works for the government!"
Jim nodded. "Wait here." He disappeared into Tador's hut and returned with a bundle that held Sands' belongings. "Let's see what we can find out."
Jim and Blair walked back to their hut and sat down outside.
"Where's Wolf?" Jim asked casually as he unrolled the bundle.
Blair waved absently towards the jungle. "He went off to do whatever a wolf does in the jungle. He's never gone for too long and I don't think he goes far."
Jim frowned.
"Don't worry, Wolf only leaves when you're here. He heard you coming back."
"Oh." Jim proceeded to empty the pockets of the tattered remnants of clothing. Two leather wallets, a comb, four quarters and a dime, and a handful of bullets were laid out on the ground between them.
Blair picked up one of the wallets.
"What's that?" Jim asked.
Blair opened the leather wallet. "William Franklin Sands," he read. "It's his government identification."
Jim set the clothes aside. "Does it say what department he's working for?"
Blair studied the ID card for a moment, "It says 'Agent First Class-DIA'. What's that mean?"
"It's the Defense Intelligence Agency. Part of U.S. Department of Defense."
Blair pulled a business card out from behind the identification. It had Sands' name and a phone number printed on it. On the back was a message and Blair read it aloud. "DIA Mission: To provide timely, objective and cogent military intelligence to the warfighters -- soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines -- and to the decision makers and policymakers of the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Government."
Jim and Blair sat and stared at each other for a minute in silence. There was something about those words that sent shivers down both men's backs.
Jim picked up the second wallet and found fifty dollars in cash, several credit cards, an ATM card, and a driver's license. "Nothing unusual here," he said, dropping it to the ground. "He's had a gun recently. I can smell it on his things." Jim picked up one of the bullets. "9mm probably. I should go see if I can find it."
"Yeah, if one of the natives find it... especially one of the children..."
"I'll ask the men in the hunting party where they found agent Sands and go see what I can find."
"I'll go with you," Blair said.
"Sure," Jim smiled as he bundled up the agent's belongings. He handed the bullets to Blair. "Hang onto these. I don't want them lying around."
Blair took the handful of bullets and slid them into a pocket of the well worn cut-off jeans he wore. Then followed Jim to return the bundle to Tador's hut.
After talking to the men who had brought agent Sands to the village, Jim and Blair headed into the jungle.
They were nearly to the area where they were going to look for the gun when Blair felt something cold and wet on the back of his bare leg. He yelped in surprise and ran forward into Jim, nearly sending them both sprawling to the ground.
Grinning, Jim steadied his partner and turned him to face his *attacker*.
"Oh *MAN*, Wolf!" Blair squeaked out as he caught his breath. "Don't *DO* that!" Then he looked up at the grinning Sentinel and growled, "You knew! You knew he was there all the time!"
Jim shrugged helplessly, his grin widening.
Blair turned back to Wolf, who was sitting back on his haunches smiling-yes, smiling-with glee over the situation. "What the hell was that for?! I really hate that!"
I know, was all Wolf said in answer and trotted off past the two humans.
Chuckling, Jim patted Blair on one shoulder and followed Wolf up the trail.
**********
For three days agent Sands hovered near death. On the fourth day, his fever finally broke and the cuts and bites began to show signs of healing. It was the next day when Sands requested to see the Sentinel and Guide.
Jim and Blair entered and sat down on the opposite side to the fire pit that was dug into the middle of the one room hut belonging to the healer.
Sands was propped up on many handmade pillows so that he was reclining. Still obviously weak and a long way from being well, the agent opened bloodshot eyes and looked at his two opponents. "I knew I would find you," Sands said in a weak whispered voice.
Jim glared at the man and said, "Now that you've found us... what next?"
"I'll take you back."
"How do you intend to do that?" Blair questioned. "We sort of have an advantage here."
"You've got too much confidence. There's nothing special about either of you. I've never believed in any of the Sentinel/Guide shit that the government read about in that dissertation. You're just men like any other... and men make mistakes. Eventually you'll make the one that puts me in control." Sands managed a weak chuckle. "You've already made one."
"A mistake? What mistake?"
"You let me live."
Jim's eyes narrowed in unhidden hatred as he silently stood and strode out of the hut. Blair watched him leave, then looked back at Sands intending to question him further.
"Sandburg!" Jim called sharply.
Hesitating a fraction of a second longer, Blair then stood and hurried outside.
"Jim..." Blair said as he stood outside next to the bigger man. "Maybe you were right after all."
Jim dropped one arm around his Guide's shoulders. "No, *you* were right. By letting him die, nothing would be solved."
Blair sighed, "So, what do we do now?"
"We wait. It's up to him to make the next move."
**********
Time passed and agent Sands healed and steadily regained his strength. Before long, he was up, moving slowly about the small village. He watched Blair and Jim as they interacted with the Chopec.
Jim watched Sands as he limped slowly through the village, stopping to rest by a fire and to share food when it was offered. He still insisted that Blair stay away from Sands. Jim seldom left the village without Blair and when he did, Wolf was always there, keeping himself between the Guide and the enemy.
Blair wanted to talk to Sands, ask him about what exactly the government wanted them for. Though he argued that Sands was still too weak to do anything and he promised not to go alone, Jim remained adamant that Blair was not to speak to the agent. Blair knew better than to go against Jim's resolve on this matter and, for the most part, ignored the agent. However, there were times when Blair would look up from whatever he was doing and find Sands watching him from a distance. He didn't like the feeling Sands' dark eyes gave him, but would never let the agent have the satisfaction of knowing that he'd been unnerved.
**********
One day, after a rather satisfying hike in the jungle looking for herbs, Blair and Wolf returned the village. Blair smiled and greeted the Chopec people as he passed and was quickly accosted by a group of children begging him to play. Laughing hardily as the children danced and hopped around him, Blair promised to return as soon as he'd put away his bag of herbs.
Walking quickly to the hut he shared with his Sentinel, Blair and Wolf stepped inside and were surprised to find Sands. Wolf growled and put himself between the two men.
"What in the hell are you doing in here?!" Blair asked in a low voice.
Sands brought his arm up and showed the gun that he was holding. "I came looking for this."
Blair swallowed nervously. "What do you intend to do with it now that you've found it?"
"I intend to leave here."
"Niambi?" a small girl called from the doorway.
"Saman..."
"Have her come in," Sands said.
Blair frowned, but signaled the girl to come in and stand beside him
Wolf crouched, growling menacingly.
"Call off the animal or I'll shoot him," Sands said, pointing the gun at Wolf's head.
"He won't attack unless you try to hurt someone," Blair told the agent.
"I don't want to shoot... it will draw too much attention, but I will if you don't do what I tell you to."
"Wolf, vaya..."
"In English!" Sands spat angrily. "I don't want you sending him off to find Ellison."
Jim had gone off with a group of hunters that morning. They weren't due back for several hours yet.
Blair glared at Sands for a moment, then said, "Wolf, go outside and wait."
Wolf growled deep in his throat. No!
"Wolf, go... please!"
The large animal turned and looked up into Blair's eyes. After a moment he looked back at Sands and gave a warning huff, then moved slowly out of the hut.
"Okay... now let the girl go too," Blair demanded.
Sands shook his head. "She's taking me out of here."
"You can't do that! She's just a child!"
"Is there anyone else here that will cooperate and take me to Lima?"
"I can ask one of the adults to take you."
Sands shook his head again. "No, they all know that Ellison and you dislike me, and they may know why. None of them will help me out of here." He stood and stepped closer to Blair and Saman. "Oh, they no doubt would lead me somewhere if you asked... but it wouldn't be to Lima. I may not know the language, but I'm not stupid."
Blair pushed Saman behind him.
"Her on the other hand..." Sands pointed to Saman. "You won't tell her to do anything except take me where I want to go because you wouldn't want to take a chance with her life."
"Then take me," Blair said angrily. "I'll take you to Lima... no tricks."
"And I'm suppose to believe that?" Sand chuckled humorlessly.
"You know that Jim will follow whether you take the girl or you take me. If you take me instead, there's one less person to worry about and you'll have both us. Isn't that what you want?"
"Oh, he'll follow with the intent of retrieving the girl. You'll follow intending to help Ellison. It'll be a trade. Ellison for the girl... and I'll have you because I'll have Ellison."
"It'll never work!"
"Oh, yes..." Sand took another step closer. "Yes, I believe it will work. It's simple really. Ellison will come with me or I will kill the girl. He won't let her die."
"But you can accomplish the same thing by using me instead of the girl."
"You don't seem to understand the situation, Mr. Sandburg. I can't use you against Ellison if he doesn't agree to come with me. My superiors seem to think that they need you as much as they want Ellison."
"I won't let you take her!" Blair yelled and lunged forward into Sands. He caught the agent off guard and they both hit the ground hard. "Saman... corra! Corra!"
Without hesitation, little Saman turned and ran from the hut as the two men struggled with each other.
At the first sounds of the Guide's lunge, Wolf was on his feet and bounding into the hut, passing the girl as she fled.
Blair and Sands grappled for a minute before the agent managed to push Blair off. Scrambling backwards with the gun still in his hand, Sands pointed the weapon at Blair.
"I guess you don't have a choice now, do you?" Blair panted.
Wolf moved forward, teeth bared and snarling.
"Wolf, ama!" Blair said quickly.
"I still have the advantage here," he leered. "I'll take you... Ellison will follow... you'll both come back to the United States with me or you will die."
"I thought your *superiors* wanted me as much as Jim?"
"They do, but if I *have* to kill you, there's not a lot they can do about it. Besides... I understand that there's a pretty Australian Inspector who knows enough to be able to take your place."
Blair swallowed nervously.
"I realize that Ellison will probably be less cooperative if you're dead, but there are others that can be used to gain his cooperation."
There was a commotion outside.
"It sounds like Saman went for help," Blair said.
"No matter," Sands replied. "Now turn around and put your hands behind you." He picked up a machete and cut a length of rope from the roll Jim kept, then slipped the long knife through his belt. "We're leaving now anyway." Sands bound Blair's hands tightly behind him then pushed him out of the hut.
"Niambi!" someone called.
Blair and Sands looked up to see three older men walking quickly towards them. Saman could be seen following at a distance with the other children.
"Tell them that you're coming with me and no one should follow," Sands told Blair.
Blair did as he was told.
Tador, the Chopec Healer, pointed at Sands and spoke angrily. "Cómo puede hacer usted esto? Su vida fue reservada por este hombre! Quizás el Centinela tenía razón y usted debe haber muerto!"
"What did he say?" Sands asked.
"He wants to know why you are doing this after what was done for you. He thinks that the Sentinel was right and should have let you die," Blair answered quietly.
Sands stared at the Healer for a moment, feeling the anger radiating from the man's eyes. "All right... let's go," he finally said, shoving Blair ahead of him.
With a low growl, Wolf stepped in front of the Guide and his captor, stopping them.
"Wolf, ama," Blair told the animal.
"Will he go find Ellison if you tell him to?" Sands asked.
When Blair didn't answer, the agent pulled his head back by a handful of hair. Sands placed the barrel of the gun to Blair's temple. "I'm in no mood for games! Answer the question!"
"Yes," Blair snapped, wincing at the pain in his scalp.
"Then tell him... in English." Sands released Blair's hair.
"Wolf, go find the Sentinel. Tell him what's happened."
Wolf whined, torn between wanting to stay with Blair and doing as he was told.
"Go on... I'll be okay."
With a final growl, Wolf turned and ran into the jungle.
"Niambi, cuándo usted volverá?" one of the children asked.
"En cuanto pueda," Blair answered with a faint smile. "El todo será fino."
**********
Wolf stopped and sniffed at the trail he'd been following. Raising his head high, Wolf howled, giving voice to several sharp barks at the end before continuing on.
Jim's enhanced sense of hearing easily picked the baleful howl out of the natural sounds of the jungle. He froze and listened. The barking that reached his ears next told him that there was a problem in the village and the Guide was in trouble.
The others in the hunting party recognized the signals and knew, though they had heard nothing, the Sentinel had. They waited patiently. Finally Jim told them that there was trouble in the village and the must return as quickly as possible.
**********
Their progress was slow. Having his hands tied behind his back made the going difficult for Blair and the pushes that Sands gave him to hurry along sent him stumbling.
A long low howl rose in the forest. It was an unearthly sound that made the hair on the back of Sands' neck stand up. Blair ignored the familiar sound and kept walking, but Sands reached out and grabbed him, pulling him to an abrupt halt.
With Blair's hands tied behind him, he could do little more than squirm slightly in the tight grip that Agent Sands had around him. Blair looked up as Jim and Wolf stepped out of the jungle.
"Jim, he's got the gun!" Blair cried, trying to pull free from Sands' grasp.
"It's all right, Blair," Jim said calmly. "He can't do much with an empty weapon."
Sands looked at the gun that he'd been holding on Blair, then pointed it towards an old tree behind him and pulled the trigger. The gun clicked solidly, but didn't fire. "I loaded it myself!"
"I didn't say the gun was empty."
Sands gave Jim a suspicious look.
"There's no powder in the bullets," Jim said.
With an angry grunt, Sands threw the worthless weapon into the jungle.
"Let him go, Sands," Jim demanded.
Sands reached behind him and pulled the machete from his belt. "As long as I have him, I have you, Ellison!" He pressed the machete to Blair's throat under his chin.
Wolf snarled through bared teeth, eyes blazing, and ears flat against his head.
Sands took a step back, pulling Blair with him. "Keep that animal away from me or I'll slit him here and now!"
Jim smiled dangerously, "You can't win, Sands. The only way you'll get back to civilization is to be led out. I'll make that happen, but you'll go without us."
Sands pressed the machete into Blair's throat, forcing the young man's head back against the agent's shoulder.
Blair's eyes widened and a gasp escaped between dry lips as the sting of the blade made a paper-thin slice in his skin. Blood oozed from the wound to trickle down his neck.
Jim started to shout a warning, to tell the Chopec warriors in hiding to wait... but it was all over in a blink of an eye.
There was a quiet swooshing sound, then something that felt and sounded like pebbles hit Sands in the back. He frowned, looking back at the blowgun dart that penetrated his shoulder.
"One Chopec dart is tipped with enough curare to paralyze... but not kill," Jim explained as Sands stared at him.
Sands blinked slowly, feeling a tingling in his feet as the effects of the drug took hold.
"Normally it would wear off in a short time with no ill effects. What I'd be worried about is the other half-dozen in your back."
Sands felt the curare work its way through his body, attacking his muscles.
"There's no antidote," Jim said in an icy voice. "Eventually it will cause respiratory paralysis... and you'll die." He took a step forward. "Let Sandburg go. It's over."
Blair felt the knife begin to shake as Sands struggled to hold it in numbing fingers. The man's left arm slackened around Blair's midsection, but he didn't dare try to pull away with the machete still at his throat.
Sweat poured off of Sands as he began to struggle for each breath, his face turning bright red. His numbing legs shook in his desperate attempt to stay on his feet.
Blair closed his eyes, hearing the gasping sounds coming from Sands, and feeling the strength drain from the body holding him.
Jim stepped forward and wrapped his fingers around the wrist of the hand holding the machete. He slowly pulled the arm away from Blair's neck. "It's over," Jim whispered, looking into Sands' wide eyes.
Opening his eyes at the sound of Jim's voice, Blair felt Sands' left arm fall away as he was gently pulled forward by his Sentinel. He leaned against Jim's broad chest, shaking visibly.
Jim used his enhanced hearing, listening to the quick pace of his Guide's heart. He watched as Sands sank to his knees, dropping the machete. The agent's face was blue and his lips purple from lack of oxygen.
Jim held Blair to him, not wanting him to witness the horrid finality of curare poisoning.
Sands' eyes rolled back into his head and he fell forward, where he lay face down in the grass... dead.
Jim pushed Blair back a bit and quickly inspected the cut on his throat. "Did he hurt you anywhere other than that?"
Blair shook his head slightly. "No... I don't think he really intended to kill me."
Jim moved around, drawing his knife to cut the rope that tied Blair's wrists together. "I didn't see it that way when he cut you... neither did the Chopec."
The warriors stepped out of the jungle and inspected the body of the dead agent.
"Agua!" Jim demanded.
Nanto quickly handed Jim the skin water flask he was carrying.
Jim pulled the stopper and held the water to Blair's lips. "Drink."
Blair reached up, taking the flask in his hands and filled his mouth until it overflowed, letting the cool liquid run down to sooth the sting in his neck.
"Not too much," Jim whispered, gently pulling the water away. "You'll make yourself sick."
Blair looked up at his Sentinel. "Is it over?"
Jim nodded solemnly, "Yeah, it's over."
Slowly, Blair turned around and looked down at Sands' body. The warriors had turned the body onto its back, revealing a nearly black face. "What do we do with him?"
"Bury him," Jim said quietly, and then turned to the others. " Vayamos. Tráigalo."
The men obeyed, picking up the body and followed the Sentinel and Guide back to the Chopec village.
**********
Tador tended to Blair before Jim took the young man to their hut to sleep.
"I'm all right, Jim," Blair said, laying down on his sleeping mat.
"I know you are," Jim smiled. "I just feel a need to be here until you fall asleep," the big man admitted.
"Oh... what are you going to do after I'm asleep?"
"Take care of the body."
Wolf stretched out against Blair's chest and sighed wearily.
Blair settled down, one arm over the large animal. "Jim?"
"Yeah?"
"When did you empty the bullets?"
"Last night. I couldn't sleep and began to think about him finding the gun."
"Like a premonition?"
Jim nodded. "Yeah, could be." He smiled as Blair yawned. "Now get some rest."
"Okay." Blair closed his eyes and was asleep in seconds.
**********
It was dark when Blair opened his eyes. His head ached and he felt disorientated at first. Wolf was no longer lying against him and he suddenly felt very alone. Looking around, Blair could just make out Jim's silhouette on the other side of the hut.
Jim awoke when he felt Blair lie down next to him. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly, wrapping an arm around the compact frame and pulling him close.
"Headache," Blair whispered groggily.
Jim closed his eyes again. "Rest. You'll feel better in the morning."
"Jim?"
"Hmm?"
"Can we go home now?"
"Do you think it's time?" Jim whispered.
"I love it here and I could easily live here the rest of my life... if need be," Blair replied in a quiet sincere voice. "But I want to go home, Jim."
"Then we go home."
Wolf slipped quietly back into the hut and lay down next to Blair.
Sentinel, Guide, and companion slept soundly the remainder of the night.
**********
When Jim and Blair returned to Lima, they contacted Captain Agama and he was glad to help them in any way he could. The Captain let Jim phone his father, then he and Blair used the money they'd found in agent Sands' wallet to buy clothes to wear home.
Mr. Ellison was more than happy to arrange for Jim, Blair, and Wolf's return to the United States.
"Dad, can you make a few phone calls for me?" Jim asked.
"Of course, son," Mr. Ellison said. "What do you need?"
"First, call Simon and ask him to try to contact Blair's mom," Jim said. "Then contact the U.S. Department of Defense. It's the Defense Intelligence Agency. See what you can find out about this *project* concerning my senses. The agent in charge was William Franklin Sands."
"I'll see what I can find out before you get back here. Go on to the J Chavez International Airport in Lima and wait. The airline will page you with the arrangements."
"Thanks, Dad, we'll see you soon," Jim said and hung up the phone.
**********
~end~
**********
Translations: (Mostly Spanish, but a few are Quechua)
Water - agua
"Let's go. Bring him." - "Vayamos. Tráigalo."
"What is it?" - "Qué es?"
Ama - No, don't
Vaya - Go
Corra - Run
"Cómo puede hacer usted esto? Su vida fue reservada por este hombre! Quizás el Centinela tenía razón y usted debe haber muerto!" - "How can you do this? Your life was spared by this man! Perhaps the Sentinel was right and you should have died!"
"Niambi, cuándo usted volverá?" - "Niambi, when will you return?"
"En cuanto pueda." - "As soon as I can."
"El todo será fino." - "Everything will be fine."