Disclaimer: The Sentinel belongs to UPN/Paramount and Pet Fly Productions. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has changed hands.

Author's note: This is an idea I've had floating around in my head for some time. I think it works, but I'll need feedback. The premise is a little strange.

WARNING! This story contains adult situations. Nothing graphic, but implied and off screen sex and non-consentual drug use. A strong PG-13.

Side note: For my purposes, Cascade is half-way between Everet and Bellingham.

Ariana

Ariana sat on the bed in her quarters, waiting. She knew that they wouldn't allow her to have much of a break. They never did. Her cycles were so far off that she would have had to wait an entire year before she was stable again, but that wasn't about to happen.

Sure enough, the door opened and Manuel entered, followed by two burly men carrying a third between them, dragging his unconscious form into the room and depositing him in the corner on the floor. Then they left. As he closed the door, Manuel said, "When he awakens, educate him." Then they were gone and she was left with the unconscious form in the corner.

He was a tall man, with a soldier's form. He had been dressed in the plain green jumper that they put all the male prisoners in, but she could see that he would flatter any garment he was placed in. He was white, with some tan gracing his skin, his hair short cropped. He had a strong jaw and a face that she imagined could be easily twisted into a dark expression, but there was evidence of plenty of smiles around his eyes and mouth. She judged him to be in his early- to mid-forties, but he was not old for his age. He wore it well.

It was probably an hour before the still form in the corner began to stir. He went from that groggy state to full alertness very quickly, suddenly leaping to his feet and reaching instinctively behind his back for a weapon normally kept there. His disorientation fled quickly. He stared at her for a moment, but said nothing, first trying the door. When that didn't work, he came to her.

The man stood there, looming in front of her with an expression that would have frozen Apollo himself, and said, "What's going on here? Where am I? Where is my partner?" He didn't shout, though she sensed that he wanted to.

She looked into his ice-blue eyes and said, "I'll answer any questions I can. Where we are, precisely, I don't know, but we're somewhere in Peru. I can see the mountains when I'm outside. This is a fairly large camp, somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty girls. No one ever gets away from this place. Once you've done what they want, you'll be put to work in the fields. That's where they send all the men. If your partner isn't with one of the girls, then that is where he will be."

"What is it that they're wanting me to do?"

Ariana grimaced and looked away from him. "This is a breeding camp for the organ trade."

Jim looked at the eighteen- to twenty-year-old girl sitting on the room's only bed, shock playing across his features. He and Sandburg had been investigating the kidnapping of a fourteen-year-old girl when they had gotten a lead from one of Jim's snitches that the kidnapping was related to the black market organ trade and that they would be shipping her to South America at the end of the week. They had feared she would be killed for her organs, as her blood-type was AB negative. They had traced her to the airfield and had been about to bust the operation, but they had been caught. Jim's attention and senses had been focused on the plane and the heartbeat of the girl as he watched her being loaded, so he didn't sense the man who snuck up on them. He was hit over the head, and he hadn't regained consciousness until that moment.

This was deffinitely not what he had been expecting. He and everyone else had assumed that it would have been the kidnapped girl who would have been put up on the black market for her organs. Now he was being told that not only were they going to force a fourteen-year-old girl to start having kids, they were going to kill those kids on the black market instead. He had monitored her vitals as she answered him. He knew that she was telling the truth.

Then something else occurred to him. He was, himself, AB negative. There was only one bed in the cell, a full-size single, and there was a distinct sadness in his cell-mate's eyes that told him she had been here for a long time. He looked at her in alarm. "They expect me to..."

The girl nodded. "Yes." She seemed resigned. She obviously didn't want to be there any more than he did, but she had stopped fighting their captors.

"What's your name? How long have you been here?"

She sighed. "My name is Ariana Montoya. I was kidnapped four years ago, when I was fourteen. In that time, I've borne four children."

Jim's frown graduated to pissed off scowl. She had been forced to have children since she was fourteen! "Is that the usual?"

Ariana nodded. "They usually take girls between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. For twenty years there have always been twenty, and if one dies, they go to get another. The men, on the other hand, are different. They take whomever has the blood and tissue types they need. How did they get you?"

Jim smiled ruefully through his anger. "I'm a cop. They took a girl out of my home town and my partner and I traced them to the airfield, but they managed to sneak up on us." He sat on the floor, leaning his head against the wall behind him. "They probably got him, too. He wouldn't have left me behind, stubborn as he is."

"Do you know if he has any rare physical traits that would be of value to the trade?"

He shook his head. "Not that I know of. He's A positive, average everything."

"Then they'll probably put him to work immediately. This place is self sufficient. All food is raised on the premises; meat, dairy, fruits, vegetables, and grains. The men tend the fields, orchards and animals. There's a double fence surrounding the entire estate, the first being just normal wire to keep in the animals and the second being electrified to keep in the people. They kidnap men from all over the world, not just to sire children, but also to take care of the agriculture."

"What happens if I don't cooperate?"

She shrugged. "It's never happened because they drug the food. You won't be able to stop yourself."

He stared at her. She sounded so sad and resigned, hopeless to prevent herself from being raped. And it would be himself who raped her. No! There had to be some way for him to resist the drugs, especially with his Sentinel reactions to drugs. Things tended to hit him much harder, but they also passed much more quickly. If he could restrain himself while it was working, he would have a much longer respite when it was not. He had no illusions that it was going to be fun, but he hoped he would be able to last long enough to escape. Then he would bring in the cavalry and shut this place down. He reached down and took her hand. "I promise to try and control myself. When I was in the Army, I was trained to resist drugs, and I have weird reactions anyway. I can beat it."

She smiled sadly at him. "Even if you can, what good would it do?"

"I'm a cop, Ariana. If I can last long enough, I might be able to escape, and when I do, I'll bring back help. We'll shut this place down and get you and every other prisoner here back home."

She shook her head, still smiling. "I hope you're right, but no one has ever managed to actually escape from this place."

Blair opened his eyes slowly, knowing from the sheer muddiness of his head that he had been drugged. The last thing he remembered was Jim collapsing next to him, then a sharp pain at the back of his head and darkness. They had been watching as Chelsey Covington was loaded on to the plane via a stretcher, obviously unconscious. Jim had been getting ready to go after them, telling their backup to get ready to move in. The fourteen-year-old girl had been missing for a week, kidnapped out of her bedroom. The note that had been left on her pillow only said that it was not a ransom kidnapping, so not to expect any phone calls.

Wait, where was Jim? That thought caused him to sit up like a shot, a maneuver that proved to be ill-advised as he was assaulted by dizziness and nausea. A voice next to him said, "Whoa, take it easy! You had a bad reaction to the sedative, so you need to take things slow for a little while." Blair turned his head slowly to the source of the voice. It was a young man about Blair's general age, with a gentle face, blonde hair, brown eyes, and a mixed-ethnicity of features that marked him, along with his accent, as American. "You're all right. It'll just take a little bit for you to get back up to full speed."

Blair looked around the room, taking care not to upset his head again. It was a large barracks-style dormer, spartan, but not really military. More like a commune. Or a prison camp. He looked at the man beside him and said, "What's going on here?" It came out in a croak, so he was handed a glass of water.

"Easy, man. No choking allowed." Once Blair had drunk the water, the man said, "This is a prison farm run by the organ trade. They're able to feed the guards and the prisoners from the farm produce and the animals, using our work, and still maintain a plausible reason for them to be here. It keeps them from raising suspicions. Actually, I think that we supply the children's camp as well, from the amount that we produce, but I've never seen it, so I don't know."

"Children's camp?" Was that where Chelsey had been taken?

The man frowned. "Yeah. This is a breeding camp. They keep the girls indoors, keep them healthy, and keep them pregnant. They maintain twenty girls, and when one of them dies they go kidnap a new one from the States. They only take the girls from America, because they're healthier, and they always take them young. That's one of the things that pisses me off most about this place. They grab 'em at fourteen or fifteen years old and then they stay here having babies they never get to see until they're worn out and are killed or they die from complications. It's rare for a girl to last more than ten years in this place, though I know of one who's been here for twelve." He sighed. "I don't want you to be under any false impressions in this place. There has never been a successful escape. They put those of us with the tissue and blood types they want in with the girls for a while, drug both to the gills until the only thing they can think about is sex, and then separate them once the girl is pregnant."

Blair had an uneasy feeling that he knew the worst horror of this place. "And the babies?"

The man nodded sadly. "They are the organ donors. They keep them alive and healthy somewhere until they are needed, and then they kill them." From his expression Blair guessed that one of those children was his.

Blair decided he could trust this man. He extended his hand. The other man just looked at it for a moment then took it. "Blair Sandburg."

"Michael Porter."

Blair was already feeling quite a bit better, and now his bladder was making its presence known, so he said, "Care to point me in the direction of the little anthropologist's room?"

One week later...

Jim crouched in the corner of the cell he shared with Ariana, trying desperately to maintain control over his sense of touch. The drug not only increased libido, but also sensitized the skin, and with a Sentinel that was a recipe for pain. He concentrated, trying to find the dial, but it wasn't working. He needed Blair's calming presence to ground him, the gentle voice of his Guide being the only thing he could think of that would help him regain control. Much more of this and he was going to end up zoning out on the pain, and the last thing he needed was to be carted off because they thought he was in a coma.

Before long, he couldn't consider anything but the pain. Everything hurt; the clothes, the concrete floor and walls, the very air. He couldn't think of anything else. Suddenly a voice cut through the pain. It was familiar, not the one he sought, but still friendly. Not the Guide. Mate? No! Not happening! But he still trusted that voice, knew that its owner would not hurt him. "Jim? Jim, you can come back now. Come on, Jim, follow my voice. You can do it."

Once control was regained, Jim sat on the cell's one chair, exhausted. He looked at Ariana, who had insisted that he call her Annie. She was also being affected by the drug, though it didn't act as strongly on women as it did on men, so she was far more able to control herself than he. Still, they had agreed to stay as far away from each other as possible during the day. She refused to allow him to stay on the hard floor at nights, especially once he had told her the reason for his sensitivity, so they didn't go to bed until they were both over the last dose of the day, knowing that if they ended up there before then, they wouldn't be able to control themselves.

After the first time they had given him the drug, Jim had told Annie that he was a Sentinel and all that implied. She was able to pull him out of the pain-induced zones and she didn't call him a freak or something similar because of it. She'd said, "Perhaps God has finally answered my prayers. If anyone can stop those who run this place, it will be you."

He'd said, "Problem is, I can't do it alone. I need my partner. He keeps me grounded, keeps me sane. You can see that I'm pretty much helpless without him."

As Jim sat in the chair, Annie started talking to him. "So where are you from? I figure you're American, but I can't place your accent."

"Cascade, Washington."

Her eyes grew wide. "You have got to be kidding! I'm from just north in Bellingham."

He looked at her. He thought he had recognized her. "I remember now. You're parents reported you as a runaway; had all the local stations shouting for you to come home."

She looked at him in shock, then crumpled, leaning forward to hide her face in her long black hair. Sentinel senses weren't required to see it as her shoulders began to shake, though they picked up the scent of salt that no one else would have. Nice move, Ellison. He got off the chair and moved to sit next to her on the bed, draping one arm around her and putting the other hand on her shoulder. She leaned into his embrace, thick sobs shaking her slight frame, and he just held her, lending silent comfort against the grief.

Once she had calmed down, she started talking. "We were arguing again. It seems like that's all we had done lately. Mom would gripe about my choice of friends, the grunge nerd crowd that I hung out with. Dad would yell about the fact that I wasn't in any sports or cheerleading or student government, wasting my time with learning literature and history instead of basketball or gymnastics. It was the same old song and dance, but I got tired of it all, so I took off. I packed a bag with clothes and hair stuff, grabbed my backpack and my Shakespeare book, and climbed out the window. I was headed for a friend's house, one of the science geeks whose mom wouldn't have called my parents, but I only got about three blocks before I was picked up. You know, I would give anything just to be able to apologize to them for running away. They weren't right to try and hold me back, but running wasn't the answer."

Jim nodded. "When I was little, my mother left. Dad didn't have a clue how to raise two boys on his own. He had this idea that we needed to have competition between us to make us stronger, so he pitted us against each other, made us fight for his affections. By the time he realized it was a mistake, he'd driven Steven and I apart and driven me away. I joined the army, didn't see Steven or my father again until just a few years ago, and we're still not that close. My real family is my partner, Sandburg."

Annie nodded. "That's kind of the way it is with the other girls. We've all gotten pretty close over the years, like an us against the world kind of thing. We usually refer to each other as sisters."

Jim decided a change in subject was in order. He didn't feel comfortable keeping up the emotional talk. The time would be much better spent on forming a plan to escape. "Do you ever get out of the compound? Do they let you walk the grounds for exercise?"

Used to this tactic by now, Annie nodded without hesitation. "Once we're pregnant again, they let us go almost anywhere we want on the grounds. They don't really restrict anyone's movements inside the fence. They expect a certain amount of work from the men, enough to keep the crops alive and producing, and everyone helps with the harvest. But they're not really strict, probably to keep morale at a decent level."

"What about other kinds of entertainment?"

"They keep a fairly steady supply of books and magazines, a few video games. There's art supplies, too, and they show a new movie every two weeks in the mess hall."

"When you've been outside, have you ever noticed if there were any Indians local to the area, or seen anyone else poking around?" If someone were watching the camp, they might be able to get a message out.

Annie nodded. "There have occasionally been sightings of Indians in the woods just a quarter mile from the northwestern corner of the fence."

Hope flared in Jim's eyes. "Can you describe how they were dressed and if they wore any kind of body paint?"

Curious at his interest, Annie raised an eyebrow as she said, "Yes. They had red paint on their faces, either in a 'T' covering their eyes, nose, and mouth to the chin, or the entire right or left side of their face, except for one. He had it streaked in lines across his face and arms. They were kind of hard to see, but it felt like they were letting me, you know? Like if they didn't want me to see them, I wouldn't have."

Jim grinned. "Chopec. The one with the stripes; did he have a partner with him?"

"Well I didn't see one, but he looked off to the side more than once when he was looking at me, and his mouth was moving, like he was talking to someone else. They would have had to be pretty close to hear."

"This is very good news. If I can get a message to them, they'll be able to help us. I spent eighteen months with the Chopec before I got out of the army. They adopted me and their Shaman helped me to control my senses until I left. I wore black paint in stripes since I was adopted, but those marks are the marks of the Sentinel, kind of like rank tabs. Everyone in the tribe knows what those markings mean. If I can get to the fence at the same time that their new Sentinel is near, I'll be able to talk to him and get him to help us. They can probably get a message to Lima if we can get them to agree."

Three months later...

Blair stood with the small flock of sheep he had been ordered to tend for the day, making sure the animals didn't wander into the vegetable fields and eat the food that was meant for the humans on the farm. As he looked beyond the fence into the dense jungles that meant freedom, he was surprised to see a Chopec warrior staring right back at him. He nodded to the man, acknowledging his presence. He thought he even recognized the man as one of the ones who had come to Cascade back in '97.

The warrior nodded back and turned away, slipping into the foliage and disappearing like a ghost. Blair grinned and returned his attention to the sheep. Things were about to get interesting around here. He was sure he could think of some way of getting a message to the Chopec, especially if they were watching this place as closely as he suspected.

He returned the animals to their pens as the sun began to set and returned to the barracks, hoping to ask Michael if he had ever seen the Chopec watching this place. When he got there, however, one of the guards, Carlos, was waiting for him. "Come with me, Senior Sandburg. Your partner is not doing as he is told. I think he only needs a little persuasion." The man smiled evilly, causing the object of his attentions to take a step backward.

Unfortunately, he walked into a wall named Julio, and the man grabbed hold of him. He was then tied at the wrists with duct tape and marched into the women's compound.

They stopped in front of one of the cells, and Carlos opened the door. Blair took careful note that it was a card-only lock, not a card and combination one. That information could come in handy in the event of an escape.

As the door opened, Carlos shoved Blair inside. What he saw scared the life out of him. Jim was sitting on the floor, completely naked, his knees up under his chin, and rocking himself. Lines of pain were etched into his face, both new and old, indicating to Blair that this had been an ongoing problem. From the pile of clothing on the floor, he guessed that Jim's sense of touch was spiking, and had been for quite some time. "God, Jim."

There was also a girl in the room, Hispanic, eighteen or nineteen, who was sitting on the bed. She looked at him in surprise, then hope began to flair in her eyes. She said, "Are you Blair?"

He nodded. "Yes. How long has this been going on?"

She looked him straight in the eye and said, "It's the drug. He's reacting differently to it. Every day they drug our food, hoping he will get me pregnant, and every day he is reduced to this. I asked them to get the doctor, but they have refused to believe me and to even give him something for the pain."

The way she was looking at him, Blair guessed that Jim had told her about his Sentinel abilities and how that made him have weird drug reactions. The Shaman whipped around to face Carlos. "Get this tape off my wrists and go get the doctor! My partner has strange reactions to a lot of different drugs. This has been going on far too long!"

Carlos looked at his prisoner with shock. None of the other prisoners had ever spoken to him with even the smallest amount of defiance. He was the one with the gun, after all, and there were plenty of others to back him up. "Who do you think you are, ordering me around!"

Blair looked at him with distain. "Look, you were bringing me in here to force him to get that girl pregnant, right? Well right now, the slightest touch would cause pain. There's no way he can get in bed with her. Now I can help, but I need you to get out of here and go get that doctor, and do it now."

Carlos looked at the rocking man on the floor. He didn't think it was possible to fake that kind of pain. He sighed and took out his combat knife, then slit the tape and walked out of the room, locking it behind him.

Blair gingerly took the tape off of his arms, wincing at the pain it caused, then knelt down next to his Sentinel. "Jim, can you hear me?" Nothing. "All right, Jim. I was just out in the fields with the sheep. I've got to be pretty fragrant right now. Focus on me, Jim. Focus on my voice and my scent. Let your nose tell you I'm really here and follow my voice back to reality. Let the scent be an anchor. Come on, Jim, come back to me."

Slowly, the Sentinel began to come out of the zone, but the pain still gripped him. "Hurts." It was barely a whisper, but Blair heard it all the same.

"I know buddy. You've got to find the dial. Now, take a deep breath, Jim. Let the oxygen flow. That's right, one more. Good. Now picture the dial for touch. Keep breathing, Jim. Do you see it?" He nodded. "Good. Where's it set at?"

"Ten."

Blair flinched, but he didn't let it reach into his voice. "Okay, we're going to take it down one notch at a time, Jim. Nice and slow. Take hold of the dial and turn it down to nine. Then take a breath. Now take it down to eight. And breathe." Slowly, they brought his sense of touch down to two, a level at which he could control the sensitivity created by the drug.

As he came out of the pain-filled haze that had enveloped him, Jim looked at his partner. "Blair? Man, am I glad to see you! How'd you get in here?"

"Carlos, and not for good reasons. He's gone to get the doctor, but he'll be right back. You should probably get dressed before they return." He sighed. "Why is it that all the psychos we run into have to use me against you? I mean, do I have some kind of cosmic 'kick me' sign on my back?"

Just then, the door opened and the doctor came in, followed by Carlos. "What's this about a bad reaction to the stimulant?"

Jim said, "I was able to get it partially under control with Blair's help. He's been teaching me some meditation techniques that can be used to control pain. But I still can't do it without him. It hurts to touch."

"Hmm, a hyperactive tactile response. That was one of the side effects of the drug anyway, it just seems to me that you're more sensitive to it than most. Actually, I'm surprised someone didn't have some kind of reaction to it sooner than this. I take it that's why you're down to your skivvies?" Jim nodded. The doctor turned to Carlos. "There's nothing I can do. Painkillers could just make it worse."

Carlos shrugged. "Well that doesn't change anything. The drug is just there to make sure you two get together. You'll just have to make do without it. You're still making that kid. If you don't, within a month, your partner dies, you got it?"

Jim snarled and would have attacked Carlos, not a smart move since he had the gun, but Ariana said, "We'll do it. Now get out, Carlos! Now!"

Blair hugged his partner quickly, whispering Sentinel-soft as he left, "Try to stall them. The Chopec are watching."

Jim stared after his partner until the door was closed, then turned to Ariana. He didn't want this! She had just turned nineteen! She should be in college somewhere, not being forced to have kids 'till she was worn out and dead! "Annie..."

She held up a hand, her face resigned. "There's no longer a choice. We'll wait 'till tomorrow to let you come down off the drug completely, but we can't risk your partner's life over this." She sighed. "I know you don't want someone so much younger than you, but maybe- Maybe we can make this good for each other." She smiled. "If we have to do it, let's do it in style."

Jim argued, "Blair said the Chopec are watching, said it quietly enough that I was the only one who heard him. If we can just get a message out to them-."

Annie shook her head. "And how are you going to do that? Even you can't hear them all the way out in the northern woods. How would they hear you from in here? How would you convince their Sentinel to help us if he can't even see your face? Carlos isn't letting you out of this room until my tests come back positive, Jim, and until you can get to the fence to talk to the Chopec, we have no way of taking these people down. How many have they killed, Jim? How many girls have died here because of the constant pregnancies? How many children have been sacrificed to their greed? Now that we know there is hope, how can you not put aside our age difference and do what must be done?"

Jim looked at her, impressed. He had underestimated her because of her age, but now he looked with new insight. She wasn't just a kid. She was a mother who had never seen her children, probably not even as they were being born, and she was worried that one or all of them could be dead. She was older than her years, and though she still acted childish at times, it was humor to help relieve tension. She was young, yes, but she was not a child, and Sandburg's life was at stake. He sighed, closing his eyes. "I just don't like being forced into this. I guess you'd know about that. But you're right. If we're going to do this, we'll do it right."

He closed the distance between them and looked at her for the first time as something more than a fellow prisoner and a teenager, looked at her as a woman. She was beautiful, her black hair and chocolate eyes off set by fair, smooth almond skin. His instincts, still sensitized by the drug, pushed him forward, and he took her face in his hands, the touch sending fire down his nerves that settled between his legs. He knew he was still too sensitive to do anything right now, but he stepped up until their bodies touched. He heard her moan, her own sense of touch heightened artificially by the drug. He leaned down and they kissed for the first time, a chaste kiss, but one full of promise that he would do it right. Then he stepped back, giving them both a little room to breathe. "Tomorrow."

Annie nodded. "Tomorrow."

Three weeks later...

Jim heard the approaching footsteps of the doctor, who had a distinctive gait due to a limp, and prayed. He didn't like the idea that he would have a child with someone who he didn't love, but he wanted the results to be positive anyway so that he could get outside. He needed to be able to talk to the Chopec Sentinel so that he could get a message to Simon. He was certain that Simon was looking for him and Sandburg, so he wouldn't be too surprised to get word from a Chopec warrior.

The doctor came into the room and said, "It's positive. Carlos asked me to escort you to the men's barracks. Before you ask, there will be no problem with you continuing to see Ms. Montoya, but you will no longer be allowed to sleep in the same quarters."

Jim sighed. Good. Now they could get started making plans. He turned to Annie. "I'll see you later, okay?"

She nodded, desperately holding in her true emotions. She couldn't allow him to see that she had fallen for him, as it would only make him guilty and uncomfortable. She knew he couldn't love her back. She was only nineeen, and he would never feel comfortable trying to stay with her. So she smiled and whispered, "Go. Get with your partner and get us out of here." He smiled back and kissed her on the cheek, then turned to follow the doctor.

Once in the men's barracks, he easily found the bunk Sandburg had been using by the scent on the pillows and took the one right next to it, which had no one's scent on it at all, proving itself to be unoccupied. He made the bed up to mark that it was now taken and went outside to find his partner.

It was refreshing to be outside again. For four months, the only exercise he had gotten was on a treadmill three times a week. He had missed the outdoors, the fresh scents, and he recognized the current location by its scent. They were definitely in the La Montaña region of Peru, the edge of the Chopec's home range.

It didn't take him very long to find Blair, focusing on his heartbeat and the sound of his voice, which was currently aimed at a small flock of sheep along the northern fence. Jim shamelessly listened in on the one-sided conversation. "You know, I really wish Jim was here. I get the feeling I'm being watched, and not by the guards. I've taken sheep duty every chance I could for three weeks, hoping they would approach the fence, but I guess I don't really blame them for not wanting to get any closer to this place. I certainly wouldn't if I had a choice. I mean, you guys are nice and all, but you really stink, you know."

By that point, Jim was close enough for Blair to be able to see and hear him, so he shouted out, "You tell 'em, Chief!"

Blair's head whipped around, looking incredulously for the source of the familiar voice. He spotted him quickly and ran to his partner. He shouted, "Jim!" and started laughing with relief and joy as they embraced and slapped each other on the backs. They toned it down a bit when they saw the sheep looking at them like they were crazy, but both still had wide grins splitting their faces.

Jim took the time to reestablish their bond, cataloguing the man with his senses, taking note of any changes. Then he let his hearing and scenting roam, taking a sensory picture of the area to make himself familiar with it. That was when he heard the watcher in the jungle and turned to look.

There were two men, one a Shaman, armed only with a knife and a single spear, the other a Sentinel, armed to the teeth. He had throwing knives in a baldric across his chest, a crossbow and a quiver of bolts on his back, and a sheaf of spears, tied together with a leather thong, carried in his left hand and leaned against his shoulder.

The Chopec Sentinel knew that Jim had spotted them and forced his Shaman to duck, to hide. Jim smiled a bit at that. It seemed that Sandburg had been right about his protectiveness being part of the Sentinel package. Jim did the same, pushing Blair behind him, more to signal that he had one than out of any actual worry about the other Sentinel. He instinctively trusted that this man was not another Alex Barnes, that he wouldn't hurt them if they didn't try to harm either them or the Chopec.

Blair, not missing the protective stance or the look on Jim's face, said, "What is it? Is he here?"

Jim nodded. "I don't know if it's the same one you saw, but it is their Sentinel." Jim switched to the Chopec dialect. "Peace! I am Enquiri, who served your people before you. We mean you no harm, and we could use some help down here."

The Chopec nodded, relaxing a bit. "I am Norda. We have watched this place for a long time, Enquiri, and no one has ever seen you here. We always see the men, but only rarely the women, and there seem to only be a few of them, always with child. And we never see the children. What is this place, Enquiri?"

"All of the women and most of the men here are prisoners. Those who run this place force the women to have children that they will never see, taking them to some other place. They are raised there until someone needs their organs to survive, and then they are killed for their parts. I and my Shaman were trying to keep a young girl of our city from being brought here, but we were captured. They use a potion to make the prisoners feel the need to join so strongly that neither can resist it."

The dark man frowned. "That shouldn't have worked on you."

Jim nodded. "You're right, it didn't, but I still will have a child from this place. They threatened the life of my Shaman. Neither I nor the woman found that acceptable, so we did what we had to."

Norda was growling by now. "This place is evil! It must be destroyed!"

"I agree, but there's no reason to risk your tribe to do it, not when my own are looking for me. My chief is probably driving himself and everyone around him crazy trying to figure out what happened. All I would ask of your people is to deliver a message to him." Jim pulled a paper airplane out of the light jacket he wore and launched it at Norda, praying the wind would stay still long enough to get it over the fences and into the jungle. He'd brought the message with him, hoping for just this occasion, and this had been the only thing he could think of to get it over the fence. "Your warriors once came to the Great City to stop the Great Eye. Would it be possible for someone to make that journey again? If that message gets to my chief, he will know where we are, what's going on, and how much warrior strength to bring with him."

The plane landed in the ground foliage a few yards in. Norda moved forward, finding the paper and then retreating back to where his Shaman waited for him. "How will your Chief know that the message is from you?"

"I put symbols on the paper that he will know are from me. Take it to him in the place where the warriors gather. There will be a man behind a desk when you walk into the building. If the man you send speaks English, tell the man at the desk that you have a message for Simon Banks from Jim Ellison. If he does not, then Simon Banks' name should be enough to at least get them to listen."

Norda nodded. "There is a warrior among us who speaks your language, though not easily. He will be one of the ones to go. It could take a long time, Enquiri. We'll be watching."

"Thank you, Norda. Ask Simon to bring you back with him. That way you can lead him here." Norda nodded and then he and his Guide faded into the background, invisible even to Jim's eyes.

Jim turned to Blair. "They're sending a couple of warriors to Cascade to get Simon. That flyer had this location as close as I could get it, but they'll come back with him and show him how to get here."

Blair grinned. "I take it the Chopec have a new Sentinel?"

Jim returned the grin. "Yeah. I've probably been setting off his radar for months." Things were definitely looking up.

Two weeks later...

Simon Banks sat at his desk, staring at a picture of his best team. It had been taken at the department picnic five months earlier, right before they had disappeared. Jim and Blair had really cleaned up on the basketball court that day, smoking every other two-on-two team at the picnic, winning two thousand dollars for the battered women's shelter.

They had been missing for too long. Four and a half months was far too long, and the brass were getting ready to stop diverting resources to finding them. The consensus was that they were dead. Simon didn't want to believe it, but without any leads, it was hard to justify keeping up the search. Every snitch in the city knew not to withhold information on Ellison and Sandburg, but they were coming up dry, too.

The phone rang, and he picked it up, almost hoping it was someone he could rant at to let off some steam. "Banks!"

It was Rhonda. "Sir, the desk sergeant called. He said there's two men downstairs with a letter they say is from Jim Ellison." There was no mistaking the wild hope in her voice. The two detectives had been missed by everyone in Major Crimes, including the civilian staff.

Nor could Simon prevent that same hope from flooding him. "Put him through." The transfer only took a moment then he said, "Banks!"

"This is Sergeant Mede. There's two guys down here dressed as Indians. Only one of 'em speaks any English, and it's not too good, but they've got a letter from Ellison. It had his badge number on it and his serial number from the military, and both numbers check out."

"Indians?"

"Yes, sir. They're asking for you specifically. Oh, and they keep calling Ellison Inkerey or something like that."

"Enquiri?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"All right, Sergeant, I'll be down there in a minute. Make sure no one bothers them!" He hung up the phone and walked out of the office. "Taggert! Rafe! Brown! Conner! All of you, get over here. We've got a lead on Ellison and Sandburg. There's two Chopec Indians down stairs in the lobby with a message from Jim. That probably means they're in Peru. I'm going to bring those two up here, find out how much firepower we're going to need. Taggert, you're going to be in charge during my absence. The rest of you, I need you to start clearing your desks. Reassign anything you can and get all your paperwork done. Make sure all of your passports are current. Rhonda, find the numbers for the authorities in Lima and have it on my desk by the time I get back up here. Let's move, people!" Then he headed for the elevator as his men scrambled to obey orders, headed for the lobby.

The two men standing in front of the main desk made quite a picture, their painted faces, leather and feathers attire, and primitive weaponry completely out of place in a modern police station, but they still exuded an air of confidence, at ease with their abilities as warriors to deal with anything that might come their way. Simon walked up to them, his hand extended in greeting. "I'm Simon Banks."

They looked him over quickly and one of them stepped forward to shake his hand. "I is Agi, and this Nanto. You Enquiri's chief?"

Simon nodded. That was as good a description as any for his relationship with Jim. "Yes, I am. You have a message from him?"

The warrior nodded. "He said you would know it his." He handed over the much-worn piece of paper, which had at one point been fashioned into a paper airplane.

The letter was shocking, to say the least. Girls being forced to have kids from the time they were fourteen or fifteen, killing those kids to feed the black market, keeping a farm-full of slaves to prevent official scrutiny; all of it made him furious, but now he knew what to tell the authorities in Lima. They might not want to get involved in a simple rescue effort, but this was major league. He also didn't expect much trouble from them on being allowed to go in after his men, since that was his primary concern, but he'd also get in touch with the American Embassy, just to make sure.

Simon looked up at the two Chopec and said, "Would you join me up stairs? There are things I need to do to make this mission easier, and I have comfortable seats where you can rest from your journey while I do this."

The two spoke quickly in Quechua, then Agi turned back to Banks. "Yes."

As they rode the elevator back up to the seventh floor, Simon said a silent prayer of thanks. He was finally going to be able to bring his men home.

Two weeks later...

Jim sat beside Ariana on the couch in the common room of the women's building. At a month and a half, she was well into the morning sickness phase, and she felt the need to cuddle, which he didn't mind. She had become the vessel for something he'd never thought he'd have, and despite the circumstances of the baby's conception, he wanted that child, to be a part of its life. It made him very protective of her. Blair had jokingly told her that she'd better watch out, or she'd end up with the "mother hen from hell" that he tended to turn into whenever Blair was sick or injured, sharing anecdotes from times after he'd left the hospital for this or that.

He'd told her about getting that message to the Chopec. All they were doing now was waiting.

Jim looked up, across the room, and saw something that startled him, but was not unwelcome. A black jaguar stood in the middle of the floor, a salt-and-pepper gray falcon sitting on its shoulder. That was his only clue that this was not his spirit guide, but that of the Chopec's Sentinel. His would have had a silver wolf standing next to it, Blair's wolf. The big cat roared and then walked away, its feathered friend taking wing to fly ahead of it as they disappeared.

Annie saw that he was watching something. "What is it, Jim?"

"The Chopec's Sentinel is here. He wants to talk to me. I've got to go." He kissed her on the cheek and then left the building. Annie sighed as he left, praying that this would be it, that the rescue party was under way. She didn't want the life growing inside her to be given to the harvesters, and she wanted to find out about her other children.

Jim stopped at the men's barracks to get Blair, who was taking a nap before heading out with the sheep again, and together they walked to the northwest corner of the fence. Jim quickly spotted Norda and his Shaman, Celtac, but that wasn't what made him so happy to look into those woods. Simon stood with them, along with Megan, Brown, Rafe and a large group from the Peruvian army, probably fifty men. Simon had a set of binoculars and a parabolic microphone, so they would be able to talk. "Damn, Simon! It's good to see all of you!"

Simon grinned. "I imagine. You think you can warn everyone to hit the deck, Jim? We don't want anyone getting caught in the crossfire."

Jim looked at Blair. "Give us half an hour, Simon. We should be able to spread the word." He turned his attention to the other Sentinel. "Norda, what do you intend?"

He smiled down at Jim. "Celtac and I will remain here. It would be best if we make certain that none of these men escape into the jungle."

"Agreed. Thank you, Sentinel."

Norda nodded and turned away to confer with Celtac.

Jim turned back to Simon. "See you in a little while, sir." Then to Blair, he said, "Come on, Chief. We've got to warn everyone to duck when the party starts."

"Simon's here?"

Jim smiled. "Simon, Rafe, Brown and Connor, along with about fifty Peruvian infantry. This is going to get very interesting very quickly."

Thirty minutes was barely enough time. They went to the women's building first, alerting Ariana, who would then be able to alert all the other girls and the doctor, who was a prisoner as well. Then they went to the men's barracks and told the seven men who were there. Then all of them split up and went all over the compound, telling anyone they could find who wasn't a guard to be prepared to hit the deck. When Jim was close to the fence again, Simon told him that a separate team was headed to the front gate to take down the charge on the fence. Once it was "cold," they would cut holes big enough for several men to get through and storm the place. "I brought you and Sandburg both a side arm. Get ready."

Jim heard the soldiers at the front gate shooting, and then the buzzing that had always emanated from the wires of the fence ceased. "Now, Simon!"

The big black captain turned to the Peruvian commander. The Peruvian didn't speak English or Chopec, so there was no danger that he had realized Simon and Norda were speaking to someone inside the camp. One of his own soldiers told him that the fence was down, so the infantry were ready as well. One order, and the unit moved forward, along with the American police. As agreed, Norda and Celtac remained in the woods, guarding against anyone who might try and escape into the jungle.

Wires were cut, removing a large section of the outer fence, and then the inner one. Simon left the listening equipment outside the fence, freeing his hands. Megan was the first of the Americans through the opening and she hugged Blair briefly before handing him a standard issue .38. She was grinning from ear to ear. "Good to see ya, mate."

He returned the grin. "You, too. We got word all around the camp, so the only ones you'll have to worry about are the guards and the guys who run this place."

The sting went down fairly quickly, without any hitches. No one got in the way of the soldiers or the Americans except a few of the guards, and they were taken care of. When they raided the main office, they found Alejandro Cortez, one of the biggest figures in the black market organ trade for nearly fifteen years, trying to shred files. Unfortunately for him, his shredder wasn't working, and all the files were still sitting on his desk awaiting destruction.

Jim had one question for the criminal. "Where are the children?" He knew that there was every chance Cortez had ordered all the still-living children disposed of to get rid of the evidence, so time was of the essence, and Jim couldn't mess around.

One look at the face of his former captive and Cortez folded. He knew that this man would kill him without a second thought if he didn't get what he wanted, so he said, "Twenty miles west along the supply road. But you are too late. The order has already been given to destroy the camp. The merchandise is being set up for destruction as we speak."

When Jim would have gone off on the bastard, Blair stopped him. "There's no time, Jim! We've got to get down there now!" He nodded and the partners ran out of the building, headed for the motor pool, followed closely by Simon and Megan. Rafe and Brown stayed behind to help with the cleanup, while the other four Americans hopped into a jeep and tore down the supply road for the children's camp.

They arrived just in time. Jim extended his hearing toward the building and could hear the goons herding the children into their rooms to be locked in. They planned to burn the buildings to the ground with the kids inside, not giving any of them the chance to escape and still able to make it look like an accident.

Jim and the other three piled out of the jeep with guns drawn, approaching the structure cautiously. The source of the splashing noises of gasoline being poured on walls and doors was pinpointed by the Sentinel and the guards were stopped by five pissed off American police detectives.

Blair did the math rather easily. Twenty years, twenty girls, one kid per year per girl. It should have equaled four hundred, barring illness and multiple births. Instead, there were only about a hundred and fifty children under fifteen in the camp, the rest having had died to fill the pockets of the unscrupulous men who had begun this scheme in the first place. The records were meticulous and showed that only thirty of those deaths had been due to illness or complications.

They found the records and knew which girl had borne which child and which prisoner had fathered them, and plans were made to reunite all the strange families. For the most part, all of the kids had at least one parent still alive at the breeding camp, so there wasn't too much concern with the placement of the scores of children. The biggest concerns were how those children would react to their parents, as they had never before seen them.

Jim and Blair stood beside Annie as her records were gone through. She had borne four children in this place, and there was every chance that at least one had been killed by the organ sellers. The thick file first listed her own blood and tissue types, and then those of the five men who had been with her, including Jim. Finally, the files for each of the four children was in the back of the folder. The first, Trenton, had been killed, his organs sold. The second, Lynne, was living and well, two years old. The third and fourth, Joshua and Yvette, had died in a recent outbreak of the flu. Many of the youngest had died from it.

Lynne was all that remained. Annie crumpled to the couch she had been standing in front of, sobbing. Jim sat beside her and enveloped her in his arms, wishing he could do something to help her, knowing this was all he could do. Blair went and got a glass of water and sat it on the coffee table in front of the couch, gently extricating the file from the distraught woman's fingers and laying it beside the glass. Jim's glance was grateful, but he kept his attentions on Annie, comforting her as best he could.

Chelsey Covington, the girl Blair and Jim had been tracking when they were caught, was three months pregnant. The fourteen-year-old girl had been traumatized by her first experience with a man. The oldest of the girls, Rocquelle Martin, was trying to help her. Megan was with them, trying to get the girl to come out of her shell.

The male prisoners, those who had been with the girls over the years, were also informed of the status of the children they had been forced to sire. Some were indifferent, not caring beyond the fact that a lot of innocent children had died since they hadn't wanted the child in the first place. Most, though, were either happy that their own was alive or devistated that they weren't.

The children were all identified with the medical bracelets they all wore. Lynne was a beautiful little girl with blonde hair and green eyes. She was understandably nervous, but she took to Annie quickly. Jim had become very protective of the woman who was carrying his child, but he was confused about his feelings on the matter. He knew that he shouldn't even conscider a relationship with her. She was way too young for him! She deserved to be able to get on with her life, to find some young man who would care for her and her children and marry him, to have a happily ever after. She deserved better than some cop in his forties with one failed marriage and a string of criminal ex-girlfriends behind him.

Still, he found himself wanting to keep in close contact with her. He made protectiveness his excuse, along with playing with the adorable blonde child who seemed to have adopted him and Blair as her personal playthings, which was fine with the both of them. Annie watched them amusedly as Lynne attempted to climb up Jim's arm and sit on his shoulders.

That was how Simon found them, Blair laughing his head off, Annie chuckling more quietly from the couch in the rec room, and Jim lying on the floor pretending to be squished by the giggling two-year-old who couldn't have weighed more than thirty-five pounds. "Having fun, Detective?"

Jim looked up at his superior and grinned. "Yep! Simon, meet Lynne. Lynne, this is Simon."

The little girl stared up at the big black man, assessing him. Apparently, she liked what she saw, because she grinned and held her arms up at him, patenly demanding to be picked up. "Si'n!"

The big black captain grinned back at her. "Hello, little lady." He reached down and picked her up off of his detective. "Jim, Norda and Celtac are waiting at the fence to talk to you."

Jim nodded and got up off the floor. Blair also stood and walked with him to meet with the other Sentinel and Guide. It didn't take long to reach the fence, and they were greeted by a wave as soon as they arrived. Jim and Blair crossed the fences to stand face to face with the two warriors. The American Sentinel held out his hand to the Chopec one and he extended his own, both gripping the other at the forearm. "Thank you for all your help, Norda. I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't been here."

Grinning, Norda said, "Then it is good that we were. I would ask you and those of your tribe to visit with us before returning to the Great City. Belna wishes to see you again, and many of the warriors remember you with happy eyes. They would be honored to meet the warriors of your tribe and your Shaman."

Jim grinned. "I'll extend the invitation. It would probably have to be a short visit, since there are things we still have to do, but I'm sure that we will be able to come. Leave a trail, and we will follow you later. Peace, warrior, and health to your tribe."

"And to yours." With that, the two Chopec turned around and melted into the folliage.

Jim did pass on the invitation, and everyone agreed that they wanted to make a visit to the Chopec before they left the area.