Date: Wed, 17 Aug 1994 08:45:55 EDT Reply-To: Highlander TV show stories Sender: Highlander TV show stories From: "(Nancy Cleveland)" Subject: Aloha Chapter 2 (p 19-24) Minutes later, he stepped up to the sleepy eyed clerk at the counter. She had soft blonde hair that curled just to her chin, and pale, pale blue eyes, cool with professional courtesy. "Cartwright. Reserved a coach seat to San Francisco. One bag to check." Duncan scribbled the address of the small hotel he usually stayed at in San Francisco on the luggage ticket. He put the bag down on the metal stand. The clerk tapped the keyboard and looked up. "Window or aisle, sir?" "My seat should be preassigned." "Yes. I see it now. You're in row 32. Would you like a seat closer to the front of the plane? We do have some available?" Her fingers were poised over the keyboard, ready to make the change. "Row 32 will be fine. Thanks for asking, though." He smiled at her, and she smiled back, tentatively, warmth creeping into her eyes. The printer hummed and spat out his reservation. The girl glanced at it and handed it over. "Everything is paid for already. Just go right to gate 27. It's up those stairs, past the metal detectors." "Thank you." Her fingers were slender, and warm. He felt a surge of tenderness as they brushed against his. < She was so young, had to much yet to experience.> He hoped it would be a good life, one full of love and fulfillment. Duncan winked at her, and grinned. "Have a good trip, sir. Come again, soon. Aloha." She smiled one last time, her lips alive with promise, a faint blush staining her cheeks. "Aloha." Duncan strode towards the gate. Of course, it was the furthest one from the entrance. The metal detector hadn't even peeped. He felt the buzz. Raven must be just ahead. He was nowhere in sight, though. The brightly illuminated corridor had a scattering of variously clad airline staff moving briskly to or from their shifts, and a few straggling business travelers, suited up for the expected chill of the mainland. A dark haired, uniformed guard stood up the hall, next to a door marked "Security." Duncan quickened his pace. The guard stepped forward. The buzz intensified, screaming in his head. The guard had his gun out, a flash of a tanned hand and he pressed it against Duncan's ear. "Step inside the office, now. " The man spoke in a low tone, his voice for Duncan only. The unknown Immortal shoved the door open with his foot and half dragged Duncan into the office. The door closed automatically behind them. The Immortal smiled as he tightened his finger on the trigger. "I thought I'd missed you, earlier." The whole thing had taken maybe five seconds. Duncan used the forward momentum the Immortal had exerted to get him inside, and kept on going, pulling the man with him. Duncan twisted his body, ducking and reaching for the Immortal's groin with one hand, shoving the gun up and away with his other. The barrel exploded next to his ear, deafening him, the bullet burning a searing path along his temple. Duncan grabbed the man's crotch, yanked and twisted, hard. The Immortal cursed and groped for Duncan's eyes with his fingers, clawing at his cheeks, smashing at him with the gun. Duncan bit down on the web of flesh between thumb and finger that found its way near his teeth. He tasted blood. He butted his head into the other man's nose, hearing the bones crack, feeling teeth cutting into his scalp. The Immortal staggered back, his arms flailing, red splattered across his face. Duncan braced on the wall and turned, thrusting a lethal kick at and through the man's neck. He felt the windpipe collapse. The man folded suddenly and was on the floor, twitching, as his skin turned blue and he fought for breath, his hands clutching at his own throat, his mouth open in a surprised "o", his eyes wide and frantic. Duncan looked quickly around the room. The walls were lined with swords. Dozens of swords. Each of a different make, different age, different size and style. Trophies. From dead Immortals. * But here? Now? * The door was heavy, reinforced. The room was sealed. < Immortals have died here, before. One last death and it will be over. > Duncan strode to the wall, wrenched a huge scimitar off its elegant hanger, and raised it above his head. "I am Duncan MacLeod. There can be only one." He swung the sword. * * * * * Jonathan settled into his seat, and set up his Laptop on the drinks tray. He glanced at the clock on the screen. MacLeod was late. Boarding would be over in a few minutes. What was keeping him? < Maybe he decided I didn't need a wet nurse after all.> Jonathan accessed one of his Internet accounts and started several database searches. He was looking for information on the Agency, any hint of changes in the structure, or the focus of its work. He left coded E-mail for some of his regular sources, a cryptographer at the Pentagon, an analyst at DOD and a liaison officer at State. He queried a contact at the Surete for any trace of the Swiss bank raid. He'd downloaded a batch of mail when he'd signed on, and he took a few moments to review it, looking for any responses to his first urgent messages earlier this morning. He was still staring at the screen when he felt the buzz. MacLeod slid into the seat next to him. Jonathan could hear MacLeod's breath coming unevenly, as if he'd just been running. There was a faint whiff of cordite. Someone had fired a gun very close to the Immortal, very recently. He looked up. MacLeod seemed a little ruffled, some faint disarray of clothing, of hair, of psyche. There was a fading bruise staining his skin, along his cheekbone. "I wondered if you'd decided not to come?" Jonathan asked the question lightly, but the look he gave MacLeod had layers of meaning behind it. "I ran into some trouble. We can talk about it later." MacLeod spoke curtly, then looked past Jonathan, out the window of the plane, watching some red flashing lights go past. The seat belt sign came on. The engines growled, setting up a low constant vibration in the rear of the plane where they sat. The plane began the long taxi across the runway. The stewardess pointed out the emergency exits. With a steadily rising roar, and a bump, they were off the ground. The rumbling hum of the engines effectively shielded their conversation from even the steward sitting in the cat seat next to the kitchenette, just a few feet away. The man had his hands clasped in what looked like prayer, his lips moving, and his eyes staring fixedly down at the floor. A news bulletin crawled across the top of Jonathan's screen. A commercial airliner had just crashed, in North Carolina, this time. He turned to MacLeod. "Have you ever been in a plane crash?" MacLeod came back from whatever vision he'd been contemplating and looked at Jonathan. He paused a moment, as if searching his memory, before replying. "No. I've never been in one. But others of our kind have. Barring a freak decapitation, you would survive just about anything. Some have. Some have died." "Great. I guess I can cancel my flight insurance." Jonathan looked for a spark of response, but the Immortal had gone back to his thoughts, and seemed oblivious to Jonathan's attempt at humor. He looked again at the screen. He didn't want to think about what the messages that had been sitting in his mail meant. The Director, the man Jonathan had kept at bay with the threat of exposing his double dealing with Russia, his acceptance of contracts for personal vendettas having no policy reasons of state, his own private bank accounts in Switzerland and Luxembourg, and the way that money had been placed there...the man who had selected Jonathan's targets, sent him out as a killing machine and reeled him in again, bloody and spent, after each mission...the Director had disappeared. Dead, or in hiding, the Agency didn't know. But he had left instructions, specific, detailed instructions, to collect and question Raven. The Agency hadn't just retained Kassmir, they'd put out a public contract on Jonathan, posted a bounty for his body, delivered dead, or double if warm and breathing, and sent it out at all their active agents. He'd tapped into another account, one belonging to a woman on the active list. And read his own death warrant. His fail safes were virtually useless, if the Director was dead, nothing would stop the Agency now. Much of its force had hinged on the peculiar and personal relationship between all the agents, and their trainers, handlers, and the Director. Still, no point in letting them lie unused, if there was any chance they could help. He typed in several more codes and left the information files primed, ready to arrive at a few preselected destinations. He had to deactivate the send codes, weekly, in his normal routine. Now, he'd shortened the time to daily. If he didn't get back to this account and countermand the order, all the damaging information he had would spill out along the information superhighway. There were still many persons in power, in positions of high government trust or corporate responsibility who could be hurt by this data. Complicity, corruption, collusion. All potentially devastating charges. All verifiable. He hadn't wanted to use it, ever. But his back was to the wall. There didn't seem to be any other choice. Jonathan leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment, surprised at how tired he felt. The low level buzz that signified MacLeod's proximity to him sharpened. Jonathan opened his eyes. MacLeod was staring at him, hard. "I think I need to begin your training now." MacLeod spoke softly, but Jonathan could hear every word. " We may not have much time for you to learn, before you face death again. And I am having some...problems, myself." "I estimate we have until this plane lands, and about five minutes more. " Jonathan smiled, bleakly. He had little faith that they had left the Islands undetected, now. He cleared the screen and re-accessed his remaining financial accounts. The primary backup account in the Bahamas was gone. As he'd suspected. Access denied. No such account. The transferred funds still remained safely hidden in Washington, though. According to his data, all he needed to do was show up, and verify his identity, to claim them. The germ of an idea began to grow inside Jonathan. He turned to MacLeod, who had been silently watching his fruitless struggle with the bank, and laid out his concerns, first.. "I'm broke, now. They've busted my bank accounts, and I'm pretty sure they traced the tickets I bought for this flight, too. They'll be waiting, in San Francisco. I probably won't make it out of the airport. You'd be safer just staying entirely away from me." MacLeod nodded. "You do attract trouble. But I've been dealing with this kind of trouble for quite a while. Successfully, for the most part. We have an edge in these situations. You just have to be discreet." "Right." Jonathan smiled slightly, no humor in his eyes. "I understand the concept, but I'm not entirely sure how it works." MacLeod shrugged. "It's simple. You let them take you, kill you. You die. They see you dead. They bury you, or whatever. Someone else gets you out, later. Then it's up to you to keep out of the way, under cover, until all the people who wanted you dead have died themselves, of old age." "You've done this, yourself?" Jonathan was curious. Theory was fine, in theory. He needed to know if MacLeod had the guts to practice what he preached. MacLeod was silent a moment, his expression remote, sad, as if he were looking at something far away, then he nodded. "Yes. More than once. It's not fun, but when it's been necessary, it has worked." He paused again, then added dryly. "Usually. Sometimes things get more...complicated. There's always a risk something will go wrong. You just have to decide if it's worth it, or if you have other, better alternatives." "I don't see any alternatives, right now." Jonathan wondered again how old MacLeod really was, how many times he'd *died* and returned to life. How many other Immortal lives he'd ended. How many mortal friends he'd buried. He realized that there were ramifications to this Immortality that he was only beginning to glimpse. "How old are you, MacLeod?" <100 years? 200? I need to know, to ever begin to understand this man. To begin to understand what it means to be Immortal.> "I was born in the Highlands of Scotland, 400 years ago." Jonathan tried not to show his shock. MacLeod's eyes were on him, gauging the impact of his words. His mouth quirked. " More or less. Actually I'll be 403 next month." =========================================================================