Barbara Mawdsley had taken such calls before, but they never failed to make her blood run cold.  Agent down.  Her high heels clicked rhythmically on the hard tile floors, drawing the attention of the man slumped up against the wall of the hallway near Bond’s hospital room door.  He pushed himself away from the wall as she approached, and she eyed MacLeod appraisingly.

          He looked tired and grim, still dressed in clothes from the night before, his hair curling in disarray around his face.  He made a visible effort to straighten, and some of the hard lines of worry deliberately smoothed from his brow.

          “How is he?” she asked.

          “He managed to lose a fair amount of blood before I got him here,” MacLeod reported.  “Fortunately, there was no serious internal damage.  The doctors say he’ll be able to leave tomorrow or the following day, provided there is no infection.”

          “And what about the assassin?”

          “You’ll have to ask Commander Bond about that.  Frankly, I think he had already lost too much blood by the time he got to me because his story doesn’t make a lot of sense.  He says the man who shot at Havel got away by train while Kuyler had him at knife point, and my guess is that Bond managed to overcome him and turn the knife against him.  He thought he had killed Kuyler, but airport security says there was no body in that hallway when they got there, just some blood stains.”  MacLeod shrugged.  “Like I say, I’m not sure Bond was as aware as he would like to think he was since some of the details don’t track.”

          The Chief nodded.  She would make her own appraisal of Bond’s story.  “Go home, MacLeod.  There’s nothing more you can do here.”  When he started to protest, she interrupted.  “I said go home.”

          MacLeod closed his eyes for a second before pressing the point.  “Chief, Bond says he didn’t really see Kuyler’s face, but we can’t be certain either that the man is really dead, or that Kuyler knows Bond can’t identify him.  I should stay to…”

          “To what?” the Chief snapped.  “Fall asleep on your feet and get you both killed?  Do you think you are the only person in the service competent to stand guard?”  Again MacLeod had the audacity to start to argue, but she cut him off with a gesture.  “Go home, I said.  I’ve already made arrangements to have an Agency guard on Bond’s door.”

          Even then, the Scot seemed to hesitate, but at last he nodded, stuck his hands in the deep pockets of his leather coat and strode off down the hall.  The Chief shook her head in disgust.  The arrogance of some of these agents, as though they were personally responsible for saving the world.  She gently opened the door of Bond’s hospital room.  Bond was either asleep or resting, looking unusually vulnerable in the wrinkled hospital gown, his arm wired to an IV drip, dark hair and lashes stark against pale skin and white bedsheets.

          She moved quietly into the room, intending to sit by the bed until he woke, but his eyes opened at her approach.  “Sorry,” she smiled, glad to see him alive and only minimally damaged.  “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

          “Wasn’t asleep,” he assured her.  “Just resting.”

          “How do you feel?”

          He twisted in bed with a small grimace.  “I’ve had a lot worse.”

          “MacLeod says you lost a lot of blood.”

          “MacLeod is an overprotective, overachieving, egotistical…”

          “Tell me what happened,” she interrupted.

          Bond described in succinct detail the chase of the gunman through the airport, Kuyler’s intervention, and then their deadly confrontation in the dark hallway.  “I know MacLeod says there was no body found, but that only means this must be a larger conspiracy than we thought because Kuyler was dead, Chief!  I ran him completely through with a sword, he collapsed and coughed up blood with his last breath.  He didn’t just get up and walk away!” Bond insisted, then caught his breath a little in a jerk of pain.

          “Easy, James.  You said it was dark, that he had been digging a knife in your back for several minutes.  Sometimes our senses fool us,” she urged.

          “Not mine.  And it was a sword, not a knife,” Bond snapped sullenly.  “And Kuyler said something really odd just before he was ready to run me through.  That line from Hamlet about there being more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Then he added something like, ‘You shouldn’t be hanging out with people like me and MacLeod.’  Now what do you suppose he meant by that?  That MacLeod is an assassin, too?”  Bond was getting agitated, gesturing in sharp motions, and a thin sheen of sweat was gathering on his forehead.

          “James, calm down!  He had met up with MacLeod a few days ago, remember?  He could have meant nothing more than that.”

          “No, Chief,” Bond took a long breath.  “It’s something else.  I don’t know what it is, but I sure as hell would like to find out.  I could have sworn MacLeod had bloody bullet holes in his trouser legs and sleeves the other night, and blood packs would not explain how those got there.  I am certain there was blood on the wall of the moving sidewalk, and I swear there was a bullet hole in his coat.”  His intense blue eyes met her in a challenging stare.  “And he wasn’t wearing a bullet-proof vest this time.  I know that for a fact.”

          “Just what are you suggesting, James?  That MacLeod is Superman in disguise?  That bullets bounce off of him?”

          There was a silent pause while Bond’s mouth thinned to a twisted line of frustration at the absurdity of that notion.  “No,” he finally admitted.  “But…”

          “Enough speculation, James.”  She patted his arm above the IV.  “Get some rest.  I’ll be back tomorrow.”  She turned to go, then turned back.  “And I’ve made arrangements for a guard to be at your door just in case Kuyler is alive and decides he’d prefer you dead.”

          “Kuyler is dead, Chief.  A guard is hardly…”

          “Would you prefer your favorite Scot?  Because that’s the alternative.  I had to order him out of here,” the Chief retorted, then nodded when 007’s mouth snapped shut.

          MacLeod stood outside the hospital for a several minutes, breathing in the afternoon spring air, stretching his senses, feeling for another of his kind.  But he could sense nothing but the moist touch of spring on his skin.  Kuyler’s return was unlikely.  If Bond had not gotten a good look at the man’s face, the Immortal was unlikely to risk drawing even more attention to himself by trying to eliminate a British Secret Service agent.  Even as he hailed a cab, he tamped down the vague worry that he was not the one standing guard outside Bond’s door.

          It felt odd to be back in his apartment during the day, and for a few minutes he just collapsed on the couch, eyes closed.  It seemed like he had hardly been there at all for the last week except in the middle of the night to catch a couple of hours of sleep. 

          Sleep sounded like a good idea.  Maybe after a shower.  Actually, maybe some food would be in order, since he hadn’t had anything to eat all day.  He pushed himself to his feet so he could take off his coat and hang it on the coat rack near the door.  An inspection revealed the bullet hole and some blood on the soft leather.  The hole wasn’t large and he could probably get it repaired.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

          He checked in the refrigerator, finding some stir fry leftovers from a previous meal that hadn’t gone bad yet.  He put the leftovers in a pan to heat on low temperature and headed for the shower.

          The doorbell rang and he froze, wondering who the hell would be here at this time of day.  He quickly stripped his sweater off.  Unlike the leather coat, it was beyond repair.  He tossed it into the garbage as he called out, asking who was there. 

          “It’s me.  Chief Mawdsley.  Open up, MacLeod.  We need to talk.”

          He sprinted to the bedroom to grab a robe and toss it around his naked torso, and managed to open the door while still tying the sash.  “Well!  This is an unexpected pleasure, Chief.  To what do I owe the honor?”  He stepped back from the door and motioned her in, then followed her down the short entry hall to the living room.  The Chief’s sharp eyes scanned the space appraisingly.

          “Very nice, MacLeod.  I had heard you were into antiques.”

          “I have a cousin in the business, and he has made some nice pieces available,” MacLeod replied.  Some of the furniture and art objects were virtually priceless, but he doubted the Chief knew that.  At least he hoped she didn’t.

          The large living room was immediately adjacent to a well-equipped kitchen, all with high windows that let in the warm afternoon sun.  Furniture was in either dark leather or muted colors, accented by occasional pieces of pottery or small oriental carvings.  Two walls were lined with bookshelves, and the polished oak parquet floor was covered by a large silk Hakere rug in deep reds and intricate blues. 

          “Would you like some wine, Chief, or something to eat?”

          She turned to look at him with a curiously piercing gaze.  “A glass of wine would be nice.”

          He went into the kitchen to pour from a previously opened bottle, pulling down crystal glasses from the cabinets.  “Of course, I’m delighted to have you drop by,” he called as he worked, “but I’m curious as to why.  Is something wrong?  Did Commander Bond take a turn for the worse?”  He turned off the heat under the pasta, poured the wine, picked up both glasses and turned. 

          The Chief was standing in the kitchen doorway, his leather coat in her arms, one finger poking up through the telltale bullet hole.  “Moths?” she asked with a twisted smile.

          He smiled and held out a glass, his mind working furiously on what to say.  Mawdsley shifted the weight of the coat to her left arm and took the glass, watching him over the rim as she drank.

          Perhaps it was best to say nothing at all.  There was little proof of anything.

          “Leather moths,” he finally replied after a taste of the wine.  “Particularly bad this time of year.

          “And they leave fresh blood behind,” his boss observed, holding the coat up to the sunlight.  “Fascinating.”

          MacLeod sank onto the couch without reply, waiting to see where she would go with her inquiry.  She dropped the coat onto the back of a nearby Queen Anne wingchair.

          “Where’s your trash, Duncan?”

          “Excuse me?”

          “A simple question.  Where is your trash can?”

          “Why on earth…?”  Then MacLeod rose to his feet as the Chief of the Paris Section of the British Secret Service strode into his kitchen, looked around for a second, then headed for his sink, opening the cabinet door underneath to reveal a garbage can.

          “Barbara!” MacLeod snapped, “What the hell…”  She pulled the trash can out from under the sink.  On top was the sweater he had just discarded.

          “Tossing away perfectly good clothing, Agent MacLeod?  And cashmere at that.  How very extravagant of you. Perhaps we pay you too well.”  She pulled out the sweater, holding the garment up with both hands to reveal the smeared blood on the back, and the small, neat hole that matched the one in his coat.

          MacLeod couldn’t think of a single viable explanation, so he just turned away and headed back to the living room, speculating that his life was just about to come crashing down around his ears.

          The Chief followed him into the room, draped the ruined sweater over the damaged coat and took a seat in the wingchair.  “I’m waiting, Duncan,” she finally prodded softly.  “I told you I would not rest until I had the answers to this puzzle.”

          “Would you believe magic?” he asked wryly.

          “I have a fairly open mind, MacLeod, but magic is not among the explanations I had considered.  I take it that, despite evidence to the contrary, you were not injured?”

          “It’s…complicated,” MacLeod equivocated, wondering if he had any options, any bargaining tools, any way to bluster or obfuscate his way out of this.

          The Chief chuckled.  “Isn’t it always?”  She waited another few heartbeats.  “I’m still waiting, Duncan.”

          The overpowering urge to get away, to run, to leave, propelled him to his feet, but he only managed to cross to a window, looking out at the street below, sipping his wine.  “This has nothing to do with the agency, Barbara.  Nothing to do with you or Bond or my work there.  It’s completely private and personal,” he replied softly, trying to appeal to her just as one human to another.  Assuming she saw him as human at all.  “I need for you to drop this.”

          “Private and personal?” he heard her behind him, steel in her voice.  “What you did for Nazlimov, the bullet that somehow managed to get through your coat and your sweater and yet still not affect you – I can’t ignore it.  I won’t.”

          He turned to face her, shaking his head, eyes closed.  “This is impossible to explain in any way that will make any sense.  The best I can do is to assure you I am certainly no threat to or enemy of the UK."  He hardened his tone and addressed the woman with a cold smile.  "I’m sorry, Chief, but I’d like for you to leave now.”

          “So you can leave town?  Disappear?  I don’t think so, Duncan.  What are you going to do if I don’t drop this?  Shoot me?  I know you better than that.”

          MacLeod shrugged.  “You might think you know me, but you don’t.  And whether I disappear now or later, it doesn’t matter.  If you pursue this it will happen, one way or the other.”

          “Why?  Is your secret so awful?  So strange?  Come on, Duncan, this is the 20th Century!  How bizarre can it be?”

          MacLeod had to laugh at that as he turned back to the window, shaking his head.  “You have no idea,” he answered softly.

          “I can force this, you know,” her voice had gotten hard again.  “I can have you taken into custody.  Questioned.  Have you examined…”

          “No, you won’t!” MacLeod spun around.  “I am not some laboratory animal!”  He advanced on her at last, real anger churning in his gut, along with a healthy dose of fear.  He had heard of ‘experiments’ on his own kind, back during the Inquisition when they were simply believed to be demons and minions of the devil.  “What I am you cannot understand, Barbara Mawdsley!  And do not believe for a second that I am incapable of doing whatever is necessary to protect myself.  I have done things…”  He choked the bitter words off before he said too much.

          She was silent, pale, her eyes wide and dilated as she watched him stalk the length of the room before he settled back on the couch, running his fingers through his hair to get it back out of his eyes.  “I will give you my letter of resignation first thing tomorrow.”

          She let the silence extend as the late afternoon sun slowly settled, casting long shadows across the room.  Finally she sat forward, leaning towards him, starting to speak, then stopping, then starting again.  “How about a trade?” she finally offered.

          MacLeod snorted.  “For what?  My life?  I have my own ways of surviving, whether as a British agent or as someone you wouldn’t even recognize.”

          “No.  You keep your life, Duncan.  This life. You keep your identity.  No need to hide.  No need to disappear.  In return you tell me what I want to know, and someday, if ever I need someone with your unique survival ability, I will call on you.  Otherwise,” she sat back in the chair, “if you disappear, I will use the considerable resources of the British Secret Service, and through them Interpol, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Mossad, and every other counterintelligence agency with whom we have working relationships to track you down and find you wherever you may try to go.”

          MacLeod raised his eyes to meet hers, finding implacable steel there.  She would do it, too.

          He had two choices.  He could kill her, or he could deal with her.

          “What about Bond?  He’s starting to ask too many questions.”

          “I’ll deal with Commander Bond,” she assured him.

          He stood and crossed to the window again, staring out, arms crossed defensively over his chest.  “If I tell you, I have a couple of conditions of my own," he mused.  "First, that you use your influence to keep my name out of the files of the British Secret Service, Interpol, the CIA, the Mossad and where ever else it might happen to appear.  Second, and most important, whatever I tell you goes no further,” he instructed quietly.  “Not to ‘M’.  Not to anyone in the Service.  Not to anyone at all.  Ever.”  He turned back to her, to see her eyes as she answered.  “Those are my conditions, the violation of which would be…fatal.”

          Their gazes locked for several breathless seconds of absolute silence.  "Agreed," she nodded.  "But I won't jeopardize lives to keep your secret."  She waited until he nodded.  "And it goes no further.  Not to anyone at all.  Ever,” she affirmed.

          He could have made all kinds of additional dire, ominous threats at that point, but they seemed superfluous.  They both knew what would happen in the event of betrayal.

          He turned back to the window, thinking of the only other mortal with whom he had ever dared share his secret in all his centuries of living, dying and living again.  He had been a beloved teacher.  A man of unshakable honor who was ready to give up his life in the name of loyalty and friendship to a gaijin – a foreigner.  Duncan MacLeod had since defined his own honor by the unreachable standards of Hideo Koto.  Was he violating those standards now?  Was he betraying not only himself but his entire race?  His only other choice was to kill Barbara Mawdsley.

          “We are called…Immortals,” he began quietly.

          “Well, well, well, Miss Noel,” Professor Schumacher scratched at his sparse gray whiskers as he circled the centerpiece to her final projects.  “Well, well, well,” he said again.  He stopped, hands on his hips, tilting his head and pursing his lips.  He made little humming noises to himself as he leaned over for a closer inspection, finally reaching out to touch the long line of the throat of the female half of the sculpture she had titled at last.  “Inamorata, eh?” the professor mumbled almost to himself.

          “It is the legend of two lovers, soulmates, destined never to find each other,” Tessa supplied nervously, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.  Schumacher was the last of the three-member faculty panel that would pass final judgment on senior art projects.  They would come to a joint conclusion not just about whether graduation requirements had been met, but would rate all the works in the final senior show, marking them as passing, superior or excellent. 

          Professor Schumacher waved his hand at her in irritation.  “I know that, young lady.  You think you are the first to try to capture the notion in art?”

          “Uh, no sir, I just…”

          “Then be quiet and let me look,” he snapped. 

          With a long breath, she managed to stop herself from making a smart remark about the fact that he was the one who started the conversation.  She could feel nervous sweat trickling down her sides, and she was beginning to wonder if she could stand here much longer without screaming in frustration.  The faculty wouldn’t display any student’s work that didn’t ‘pass’ and all three faculty committee members had to agree on the merit of the works.  No display meant no chance of a gallery being interested.  No gallery interest meant starting from nothing.  She might as well set up her easel on a sidewalk and draw caricatures for tourists.

          All the faculty committee had seemed to take forever examining her pieces, and Prof. Schumacher was the worst, ‘tut-tutting’ and humming to himself, making notes in a little spiral binder.

          “All right, I’m done,” he finally stood, making some final scratches into his little notebook as he spoke.  He turned and walked away, but stopped at the door, looking back.  “Well, don’t just stand there, Miss Noel.  See if you can find a man or two to move your pieces into the gallery,” he snapped impatiently.  “I hope you don’t expect me to do it!”

          “N..nno, Professor,” Tessa acknowledged, a dizzying wave of relief washing over her.  Even his condescending tone and chauvinistic words couldn’t mar the surge of joy that followed.

          “The faculty will mark and place the pieces once they are all in the gallery hall,” the man stated, then hesitated slightly at the door.  “And I must say, Miss Noel,” he nodded at the sculpture he had just examined.  “You surprise me.”  He turned and left her wondering whether that was a good or a bad thing.

          Bond dressed with slow deliberation.  He would have preferred to go back to London the day he had been allowed to check out of the hospital, but the Chief insisted that he stay in his hotel room for a few days, resting and dictating his final report on the Havel assignment.  He was still dissatisfied with the conclusion of the effort.  The agency had refused to officially list Kuyler as deceased because no body had been found, and the Chief had refused to talk about MacLeod.  Perhaps a face-to-face confrontation was in order.

          He packed his bags, tucking his extra weaponry into the special pockets that hid them from prying eyes and x-ray machines.  The bag was heavy, and the weight tugged uncomfortably at the stitches in his back, but he preferred to carry his luggage himself anyway.  Getting into the Astin Martin turned out to be particularly painful.  If he tore anything open, he would ruin a perfectly good silk shirt, so he forced himself to not make any quick moves.  He had dressed casually in preparation for travel, and the soft suede of his jacket moved easily on the leather bucket seats, cushioning his sore flesh.

          The Chief only made him wait a few minutes before she saw him, and he stood patiently as she looked him carefully up and down before gesturing him into a chair.

          “Well, you look a little better today, 007.  How are you feeling?”

          “Good as new,” he lied.

          The Chief’s tight smile and raised eyebrow communicated all she had to say on the topic. “Your report?” she asked. 

          He handed over a cassette tape.  “Everything is in there.  I would like, however, to continue the investigation of Kuyler, either to find his body or otherwise confirm his death.  I would also like to look into MacLeod’s…”

          “No.”  The Chief had crossed to the window and was examining the street outside.

          “But…”

          “I said no, 007.  Kuyler is not your concern.  You are to return to London and await your next assignment.”

          “But what about MacLeod?  You know there’s something…”

          “Duncan MacLeod is not your concern, James.  As a matter of fact, he is no longer with the Service, so whatever he is, or was, is irrelevant.”  She turned, pinning him with a hard look.  “Is that clear?”

          He took a long breath, feeling the wound in his back pull at the edges. What the hell was going on?  “Yes, ma’m,” he nodded at last.  He finally took the time to watch the Chief as she circled back through the office and sat behind her desk.  Her face was unusually drawn, her eyes bruised-looking as though she had not slept well for days.  “Is everything all right?” he asked, then leaned forward.  “Is there anything I can do?”

          She smiled, almost to herself.  “Do you believe in magic, 007?” she asked softly.

          Bond snorted.  “Magic?  Hocus Pocus?  Conjuring spirits and such?  I’ve seen some strange things in my travels, but magic?  No, I don’t. Why do you ask?  You think Kuyler’s body was made to disappear?”

          She shook her head.  “No.  No reason.”  She picked up the tape of his report and tossed it into her “out” box.  “Excellent job, as always, Commander Bond.”  Her tone had changed, the wistful look gone.  She rose and came around, holding out her hand, and he stood in response.  “I assume we will see each other again.  Give my best to ‘M’.”

          He nodded and turned to go, but was stopped when his hand was on the doorknob.

          “Commander.”

          He turned.  The Chief was looking up at him, a speculative look in her eye.  “Don’t.”

          “Don’t what?” he asked.

          “Don’t go after MacLeod.  Leave him alone.”

          “If he’s no longer with the Service, I don’t see why I couldn’t just…”

          “Because I asked you not to, James.” she stepped a little closer.  “Leave him alone,” she said again.

          “If he’s pressuring you…”

          She smiled.  “Are you going to protect me, Commander?  Be my knight in shining armor?”

          Bond stopped himself from a sarcastic retort.  The Chief could protect herself.  To assume otherwise was an insult to both her gender and her professionalism.  “If you’re sure…” he couldn’t resist saying.  Every instinct was telling him there was a mystery here that he should be solving.

          “Oh, I’m very sure, James.”  She looked up at him candidly, waiting for his answer.

          He finally sighed and shook his head.  “As you wish, Chief.  Mr. MacLeod is safe from me.”

          Surprisingly, that generated a chuckle.  “Go, James,” she shooed him out the door.  “I have better things to do than rehash old cases.”

          Barbara Mawdsley shut the door behind Commander Bond and shook her head with a smile.  She had so wanted to tell the man that there were, indeed, ‘more things under heaven than he had dreamt of in his philosophy,’ and that she wasn’t particularly concerned about protecting MacLeod from the double-0 agent.  Quite the contrary.  When roused, Duncan MacLeod's true age and experience showed in those dark eyes.  'I have done some things', he had said, and she had no doubt about the nature of those actions.  No doubt at all.

          She shivered slightly as she moved to her desk.  So many times over the last few days, that conversation had re-played itself in her mind’s eye, watching as MacLeod stood at the window of his apartment in a nimbus of sunlight, reciting a tale that was almost impossible to believe. Almost.

          A man almost 400 years old.  An Immortal.  Someone who had lived through so much, seen so much.  Another frisson of unease walked across her back.  Kuyler was such a man.  Duncan had said only another Immortal was capable of dealing with the assassin, and to attempt to capture or kill him would only result in more deaths. 

          But MacLeod had only told her part of the story, she was sure.  There was something else.  Some darkness she could see in his eyes, even beyond the tragedy of watching everyone and everything he cared about decay into dust, something about why Immortals carried swords.  Still so many unanswered questions.

          She rubbed her eyes tiredly, wondering if she would ever have another decent night’s sleep.