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: Just a quickie that decided to attack me while I was working on the next episode of "Beginnings."

At The Academy

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES, CASCADE POLICE ACADEMY

Cadet Clint Harris looked over his schedule for his first eight-week session at the Cascade Police Academy, wondering if he would be able to handle the heavy load. Nine classes, four days per week was the most hectic schedule he'd ever heard of. Thankfully, the second session would only be half that intense.

He looked at the names of his instructors and realized that two of them were duplicates. He wondered why these men were teaching two different classes each and how he'd managed to get both teachers. What was this guy Sandburg's story? Police Culture sounded like a touchy-feely course, required for political reasons, but Escape Tactics I was supposed to be intense, with all kinds of oddball situations that might pop up in the real world of police work, most of them involving how to get out of said situations without the use of firearms, emphasizing the use of words and found weapons over the standard issue piece.

Harris looked at his text books next and found another surprise. The inch-thick volume titled "Dynamics of a Closed Society" had been written by one Dr. Blair Sandburg, Ph.D. Flipping to the first page, he read the paragraph that had been inserted about the author.

Dr. Blair Sandburg wrote this dissertation while working as an unpaid observer with the Cascade Police Department. From four years of personal and scientific observations, as well as field experience partnered with a detective in the Major Crimes Division, Sandburg gathered a wealth of information, and helped to solve many cases along the way. During this time, he also worked on a novel that placed his friends and associates at the Police Department as major characters. This work was e-mailed by mistake to a publisher both without being completed and without his consent. The media caught this and proceeded to make the lives of everyone he had come to respect a living hell, and in the middle of a high-profile case involving an attempted assassination. At one point, the detective he had been working with had the assassin in his sights, but the camera lights closed in, blinding him and allowing the perp to escape. Later, the assassin took a shot into the offices of Major Crimes, injuring the Captain and an Australian exchange officer with one bullet. Finding men and women that he respected in grave danger, Sandburg acted in the bravest manner it has ever been my privilege to witness, going before the press and declaring his work a fraud. Media attention suddenly shifted to him from the Police Department, allowing them to capture the assassin, but his career would have been ruined, if not for the timely intervention of the personnel of Major Crimes. Sandburg received weapons training at the Police Academy and joined Major Crimes as a full detective, quickly achieving, with the same partner he had worked with before, the highest rookie arrest rate in department history. Privately, the misunderstanding at the University was resolved, and his real dissertation submitted and defended. Detective Sandburg remained with the Cascade PD for four years until he was permanently disabled by a car bomb targeted at his partner. This book had already been a text for the Academy since its publication, but in light of Sandburg's decision to teach at the academy, I requested that a new printing be issued with this foreword, in case anyone remembers what was on the news back then and feels tempted to harass him about it.

~Foreward by Captain Simon Banks, Cascade PD, Major Crimes Division

Harris looked toward the front of the classroom where he would be taking Procedures and decided he couldn't wait to meet Blair Sandburg.

Dr. Sandburg wheeled himself into the room, stopping in front of the desk and turning to address the class. Both of his legs were gone below the knee, the legs of his dress slacks cut off and sewn up in a tasteful manner. He was well built, especially in his upper body, but had not neglected the remaining muscles of his legs. He looked over the class with enthusiasm, obviously in his element, his long curly hair tied at the base of his skull and a pair of wire-rim glasses resting on his face. He didn't look like he could ever have been a cop, but Harris supposed that had made him good for undercover operations.

Sandburg began by saying, "Welcome to Police Culture. This academy is the first step you take on entering that culture, so it's probably a good idea to have a class to let you know what you're getting into, not just the part about catching the bad guys, but the society that is built inside the department. Now, if any of you read any part of that book they gave you, you know that I started out as an anthropologist. I started out as an observer, which translates outsider. That didn't mean the cops didn't like me, but I wasn't one of them. I had to come into the society from the roof instead of the front door, so to speak. In fact, the first time I met the man I would soon call my partner, he wasn't in a good mood to start with and I said something that he misinterpreted. He threw me up against the wall and threatened to have my room swept for narcotics!" Chuckles floated around the room. "Yeah, called me a 'neo-hippie witch-doctor punk,' and don't think he'll ever let me forget that remark.

"But seriously, folks, the point is I had a lot more problems fitting in than any of you will, but that doesn't mean there won't be any." He picked up the book on his lap, a much better copy of the text book than any of the students had, and held it up, title forward. "The term 'closed society' refers to the fact that to get in, you have to go through all the rituals that particular society has, in this case, physical trials and initiations, to be accepted in it, or else have a lot of good charisma and bad luck." With that last he indicated himself. "I got into so many weird situations everyone decided I was a cosmic trouble magnet, but I also managed to get out of those situations, which gained me the respect necessary to be accepted within the department, within their society."

The class continued with the professor describing the ancient parallels of tribal warrior cultures to the modern police precinct. Harris thought that the subject certainly had the potential to be a boring course, but that wasn't going to happen with Dr. Sandburg teaching it. The man was so animated, encouraging feedback from the class by his sheer presence, and absolutely loving it when someone challenged one of the ideas he brought up. He seemed like an academic, through and through, and Harris again wondered how the man had become a cop. How had this book worm, so at home in front of a classroom speaking of off the wall primitive cultures in the same sentence as Miranda rights, managed to become accepted in the culture he studied? This curiosity was not an objection. He just couldn't figure it out. Maybe he'd see more of the picture in his Escape Tactics class.

Lunch was pretty good, somewhere between Luby's Cafeteria and the school cafeteria. He had made several friends amongst the students, and as they went over their schedules, it turned out that every student in this rotation took Escape Tactics at the same time and had Sandburg for Police Culture at some point during the morning. This gave rise to even greater speculation about the course and the man who taught it. It was a physical course! The man was in a wheel chair. How could he teach someone how to escape when the likelihood of being able to do so himself was slim to none?

The student body filed into the indoor gymnasium, a sea of blue uniforms and shiny cadet badges. The gym was built half as a lecture hall and half as a training center, though at the moment, there was no training equipment out, not even mats. Dr. Sandburg was already there, sitting in his chair, which had a backpack hung on one of the push handles. Once all the students were seated in the desks that filled the back wall, he turned to them and said, "You all know me already, but in case some of you weren't paying attention earlier, I'm Blair Sandburg. This course is designed to teach you how to deal with the unexpected, whether you're on duty or not. Say you're walking into a gas station. You're there for a six-pack and some munchies for the Jags game on tonight, only three minutes after you enter, so does a punk with a gun who's after the cash register. You're a new officer, and you aren't used to taking the piece with you when you walk out the door for just a simple errand. It'll become habit in time, but not yet, and you're without a weapon. What do you do?"

Suddenly, three men burst into the gym, men who obviously didn't belong there. They were dressed in solid black military fatigues, with black combat boots, leather gloves and ski masks. They were also carrying fully automatic weapons with silencers on them. This was the first day of class, so no one's cop instincts had been honed yet, but most of the students had them, and those instincts were telling them that these men meant business. They didn't necessarily plan on killing everyone in the room, else they wouldn't have bothered to hide their faces. Instead, the men were being cautious; masks, silencers, and gloves all guaranteed to make certain that their identities could remain hidden from the world outside.

The first man went straight for Dr. Sandburg, placing the business end of a silenced pistol directly on his temple. The other two flanked him, keeping their eyes on the assembled future of the Cascade PD. The first man had a strange device strapped to his throat, and when he spoke, it became obvious that the device was there to alter his voice. This guy REALLY didn't want to be recognized. He said, "All right, ladies and gentlemen, I want everyone's hands on top of their heads! We have a little business to take care of with the professor here, and once we're gone, you can do whatever you want, but until we leave, no one makes a move, no one talks, and cell phones go unanswered! We're far enough away from the main buildings that no one will hear any screaming if one of you gets shot, so don't piss me off! No heroes and no one gets hurt, not even the professor." The spokesman leaned in and whispered something to his captive, and Sandburg wheeled himself slowly backward, his face gone stony with what Harris guessed was anger. Once he was in the middle of the floor, the man said something quietly and Sandburg locked the wheels on his chair.

Harris thought there HAD to be something he could do. He thought quickly, assessing the three gunmen. All of them were tall and well built, and their equipment and their manner said "military." That probably meant that they were hair triggered, and the slightest noise would draw their gaze, though not necessarily their weapons. He tested it gently by clearing his throat. Sure enough, he man closest to him snapped his head around, looking straight at him, then returned to his visual sweeps. It could be enough, but that would only allow the students to take out the two gunmen in front of them. Sandburg would be on his own.

Harris thought about it. The man was a cop, disabled or not. He'd made the grade with Major Crimes before he ever got his badge. He was obviously a very resourceful man. If he could alert him of an impending distraction without alerting the bad guys, he felt confident that the man could handle the single man behind him.

First things first. He turned his head slightly until he could see the face of one of the other students, one of the ones he'd made friends with in the cafeteria that day. She happened to glance his way and he caught her gaze. He put an intense look on his face, one that guaranteed that she'd continue to watch him. He glanced at the desk in front of him, which was empty. Then he looked back at his friend and made a slight kicking motion with his feet and pointed at her surreptitiously. She nodded slightly. Then she turned slightly until she was looking at another student, this one on the far side of the second gunman. She got the point across to him that on the signal she would kick over the desk. Then it would be up to the two men on the ends to tackle the shooters and up to Sandburg to free himself. So he looked out at the teacher. The man didn't look happy, understandably. Harris stared at him until he made eye contact, then raised his chin a bit to get his attention. He quietly held up three fingers. They would go on three. The man closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and looked straight at him. Good. He understood.

Silently counting down with his raised fingers, Harris sent a silent prayer to whomever might be listening, then shouted, "Now!" The girl knocked over the desk in front of her, creating a huge racket in the fear-laden silence. The three gunmen instinctively turned toward the noise, which was in the center of the front row of desks, allowing Harris and the man on the other end to come at the gunmen from behind, tackling them to the ground. Harris struggled with his opponent for a moment alone, just concentrating on keeping him down, until the rest of the students in the hall could help hold him. Even then, the man continued to fight like a wild thing, and rather than get an elbow in the face, he punched the man out. He took off his belt and secured the man with it, then turned to see how well Dr. Sandburg had fared, praying that he was all right.

The man had used the leverage of his chair, which Harris now noticed was a racing chair, to flip his captor over his shoulder by his gun arm and now held the pistol to the top of the man's head. Harris ran over to aid the former detective. Sandburg didn't let his eyes leave the man in front of him but he said, "There's a pair of cuffs in the outside pocket of my backpack. Get 'em out for me, okay?" The man under the gun looked up at his former captive, giving him an ice blue glare that could have peeled paint, but the look didn't seem to faze him, and the perp couldn't move while the barrel of the gun rested so comfortably against his skull.

Once all three men were well secured, Dr. Sandburg called for everyone's attention. "Okay, guys, did anyone manage to call 911 during this mess?"

There was a round of negatives, but one of the students held up her cell phone and said, "I'll do it."

Then the surprise was pulled. The professor said, "No! No, don't. We don't need 911 to handle these jokers. Harris, go pull the masks off these guys, and I'll show you why."

Harris looked at Sandburg strangely. "Are you sure, sir?" He hadn't seen the man get hit in the head, but he had been kind of busy at the time.

Sandburg grinned. "I'm sure, and I'll make it an order if that'll make it more comfortable for you."

He shrugged and said, "Yes, sir." Then he proceeded to remove the masks from all three men. The first, the one he'd knocked out, was a black man, fairly decent looking, in his mid forties. The next one was a handsome white man with dark hair and a quickly spreading bruise across his jaw. The last one, the one with the voice box, was white, late forties, with military haircut and ice blue eyes. For good measure, Harris took away the voice box, too.

Sandburg said, "Cadets, let me introduce you to my former colleagues from Cascade PD. The unconscious one is Detective Henri Brown, and I'm sure he'll wake up pretty quick. The walking GQ add in the middle there is Detective Brian Rafe, and you'd better believe I'm telling Rhonda about this stunt! And this blue-eyed monster down here is my partner, Jim Ellison."

As murmurs and chuckles ran through the crowd of students, Detective Brown began to stir. He groaned. "What was the license plate of that truck?" That sent even more laughter through the crowd.

Sandburg chuckled. "That would be Cadet Harris. I think he's going to do very well in this class. You all did a great job today, Cadets, especially for this being your first day at the Academy! But I want to assure you that I had nothing to do with this little fiasco and anyone who wants to help me get back at the first two jokers is welcome. Ellison, however, is mine!"

For the first time without his voice box, Detective Ellison spoke. "Yeah, yeah, Sandburg. I just thought you might like a little excitement to evaluate your students on their first day. I'd say they did great! Who ever caught on to the fact that we were all hair triggered deserves an A for sure!" Ellison worked his way into a standing position. "Now come on and take these cuffs off, Chief."

A patently false expression of innocence crossed his face. "But I can't, Jim."

Harris couldn't help but grin as the by-play continued. Ellison glared at his partner again. "Sandburg!"

The corner of Dr. Sandburg's mouth rose a bit. "I don't have a key to the cuffs."

That was enough to set the whole room giggling, and soon enough the other two detectives were chuckling right along with the rest at the predicament. "Damn it, Blair! I have to teach Defensive Driving in less than thirty minutes!"

The professor finally lost the battle with the grin that was trying to plaster itself all over his face, and said, "You should have thought of that in the first place!"

The rest of the day went quickly, and when it was over, Harris climbed into his car and just sat there for a moment. He was sure now how Blair Sandburg had been accepted by Major Crimes. He wouldn't have thought at first glance that the man could have done anything against a man the size of his partner. Even if he'd still had his legs, Ellison would have had six inches and sixty pounds on him. But he'd taken advantage of the first distraction that came along and put the man on his butt! Without loosing the gun! He was bubbly, and he liked to help people, he had a way of talking to people that got them to open up, and he could easily handle himself in unexpected and dangerous situations, with or without a weapon. He must have eventually won over nearly everyone in the department, which was why they all went to bat for him when the dissertation mess hit the fan. They knew that the man would never have lied about so important an issue, especially in print.

As he started his car, he thought that his stint at the Academy was going to prove interesting, to say the least. Especially if some of the stories Detective Ellison had told were true...

~The End