Rain fell in sheets over Paris, lending a cosy feeling to the gray September afternoon.  Duncan MacLeod sat contentedly polishing silver and listening to the sound of huge drops beating on the roof of the barge when the door burst open to admit a gust of cold, wet air and a man wrapped in a dripping black coat.

Duncan turned quickly.  "Methos?"

The oldest immortal looked up as if in a daze.  "MacLeod, thank God."  He swayed on his feet, and Duncan started toward him.

"Are you OK?"

Methos' knees buckled, and he collapsed before Duncan could reach him.  He grunted painfully as he hit the floor, then choked on something in his lungs, struggling to speak.  Duncan knelt beside him.  Methos looked up, focusing with effort on Duncan's face.

"Don't let him find me."

Duncan noticed then that the water dripping from Methos' coat and pooling around him on the hardwood floor was tinged with red.

"Who? Methos! Don't let who find you?"

Methos died without answering.  Duncan rolled him over and discovered that his coat was riddled with bullet holes.  He stepped over the prone figure and closed the door to shut out the spattering rain drops.  He glanced back at Methos, then slid the bolt into place.

From the look of things it might be some time before Methos could provide more information.  Duncan hastily wrapped his body in some old blankets and hid him at the bottom of the wardrobe.  Then he mopped up the water from the floor and sat down again to his polishing, trying to regain his former air of calm.

Every time the barge rocked in the choppy water he expected to hear footsteps outside, anyone from French police to renegade watchers to - well, with Methos, one never knew quite what to expect.  But no one came.  The rain stopped.  Duncan was polishing a silver cup for the third time when he heard a muffled thump from the wardrobe.

He opened the door and found Methos holding his head, squinting into the light.

"Welcome back."  He gave the other immortal a hand out of the wardrobe, then turned and rooted around in his dresser drawers in search of something that would fit him.  When he turned back Methos was still leaning against the wardrobe door, looking around in confusion.

"Where am I?"

Duncan looked at him sharply.  "You're on the barge." He realized for the first time that Methos' face was suntanned but pale underneath, and thinner than usual.  He held out the clothes.  "You're soaked.  Here, put these on."

Methos laboriously stripped off his wet, bloody clothes.  Duncan hung his coat in the shower and left the rest of his clothes to soak in the sink while Methos dried himself off and put on what Duncan had given him.  The pants were too big, but he cinched them up with a belt and pulled the sweater over his head, looking like an adolescent who had raided his father's closet.  Duncan steered him to the kitchen.

"You want something to eat?"

Methos blinked. "Yeah."  Then he put a hand to his stomach.  "In a minute.  Dying always gives me indigestion."

Duncan poured him a glass of water. "Me too.  Drink this first."  Methos took a few swallows.

Duncan leaned forward.  "Now what's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, who are you running from?"

"What?"

Duncan swallowed his impatience.  "You came here an hour ago and said 'Don't let him find me' and died, without saying who."

"I did?"

Duncan groaned.  "You don't remember."

Methos' eyebrows furrowed for a moment, then he shook his head.  "No, I don't." He looked down at himself momentarily.  "Uh, how did I die?"

"Your back was full of bullet holes, looked like a semi-automatic.  If you could come up with a bullet we'd know for sure."

Methos grimmaced.  "I'll let you know."

"Well, you haven't been around Paris for the last two or three weeks, but you never said anything to me about where you where going.  What's the last thing you remember?"

Methos closed his eyes, but when he opened them, they held no answers.  "I'm not sure.  My head feels like it's full of oatmeal."

Duncan sat back, puzzled. "Immortals don't usually get amnesia.  Head injuries should heal like anything else, but then, some things heal faster than others."

Methos looked at him. "I don't have amnesia.  I know who I am, who you are - I just don't know what I'm doing here."

"Well, we better figure it out.  Whoever shot you might not be too far behind."

"Unless they think I'm dead." Methos winced momentarily.  "Ooh, digestive system back up and running.  Do you have any bread or soup or something?"

Duncan heated some vegtable stew and the end of a loaf of bread, and watched the other immortal eat it hungrily.

"I was drugged once and lost a few days." Duncan folded his arms reflexively.  "You did look a little confused when you came in.  You barged in my front door and then acted like you were surprised to see me."

"Maybe," Methos said around a mouthful stew.  "But if whoever shot me hasn't shown up yet, then it probably didn't happen near by.  Multiple bullet holes have a way of making it difficult to think.  I probably came here on adrenaline and force of habit."

Duncan snorted briefly at this.  He tried another tactic.  "How did you get so tan in this weather?"

"Well, it's not so rainy in Accho this time of year -" Methos stopped with his mouth open.  "You sly devil."

Duncan grinned.  "Worked, didn't it?  Where's Accho?"

"In the middle east, on the coast of Israel above Tel Aviv.  The only natural port for miles - last stronghold of the crusaders.  It was called Acre then.  I was there when Philip and Richard took it from the Turks.  Do you have any salt?"

Duncan glanced at the stew.  "It doesn't need salt."

"Yes, it does."

Duncan scowled and handed him a salt shaker.  "So you've been sunning down on the Mediterranean.  Did you happen to trip over some terrorist group or something?"

"God, I hope not." Methos squeezed his eyes shut.  "OK, now I remember walking along the old sea wall, one of the few things left that the crusaders built.  Lovely blue-green algae all along the water."

"Maybe you were doing research for the famous Methos chronicle."  Duncan's mouth quirked at the thought, but the oldest immortal was unphased by the irony.

"Yeah, that's right.  It's amazing what you forget over eight hundred years or so, but at least I have some good ideas of where to look for evidence."

"Was anyone else there?"

"No.  Yes!  At night.  Another immortal.  I can see his face - " Methos froze, staring intensely at the image in his mind.

"Peter!  Sir Peter of Normandy.  He was one of the Knights Hospilaters of St. John.  Came with Godfrey of Boullion, wounded in the siege of Antioch, and became immortal at Acre."

"Were you his teacher?"

Methos sopped the last of the stew from the bowl with a chunk of bread and stuffed it in his mouth.  "Yeah.  Not long, though.  I mean, he was already a knight.  All I had to teach him were the rules of the game.  Thanks," he added, handing Duncan the empty bowl.

Duncan rinsed out the bowl and left it in the sink.  Methos plopped himself in an arm chair while Duncan started putting away his now spotless collection of silver. "The last of the crusaders," he said thoughtfully.  "Does he still think of himself as a knight?"

"Once a crusader knight, always a crusader knight.  Even though the crusades are long since over.  The knights of St. John took religious *and* military vows - and Peter was the type to take them pretty seriously."

"So he's still there.  Not trying to free Jerusalem from the infidels, I hope."

"No.  The Knights Hospitalers pretty much got away from military conflicts when they were in Malta.  Built an amazing hospital complex.  Now I think there's some organization based in Rome."

"If he's been with them all this time, how did he hide his immortality?"

"I don't know.  Maybe he didn't.  It would explain some of the folklore that's floating around."

"It might.  Do the watchers know about him?"

"I'd have to check.  But none of this explains what I'm going here."

Duncan sat down on the couch opposite him.  "Right.  Or who came at you with a semi-automatic, or whatever.  It's too bad *you* don't have a watcher.  We could ask Joe what you've been up to lately."

Methos shot him a mischievous look.  "I do, too. Me."

Duncan was indignant.  "You can't watch yourself."

"Why not?  I have a tatoo.  I have the training.  I make regular reports on where I go, what I do, who I kill, everything."

"To the watchers?"

"Of course not.  I'm writing the Methos chronicle, past and present.  When I die, they can have it."

"It's not supposed to work that way."

"Why not?  I think you're just jealous because Joe already knows everything about you."

"Not everything."

Methos cocked an eyebrow at him.  "You don't think so?"

"Never mind.  Well, even if you are being your own watcher it doesn't help us much now."

Methos' eyes suddenly widened. "Maybe it does.  Where did you put my coat?"

Duncan brought his coat from the bathroom and laid it over the sink.  Methos began rummaging through the pockets.

"I had it with me, on a disk.  Damn, I bet my computer's in some river between here and who knows where.  Ah, yes, here it is."  Methos slipped a small plastic case out of a hidden pocket in the lining of his coat.

Duncan looked at it doubtfully.  "Is that case water proof?"

Methos opened it and took out the disk.  "Looks like it."

Duncan pulled out his laptop, and Methos handed him the disk, watching the screen over his shoulder.  After a moment the computer bleeped.  Methos read the error message and groaned.

"It's damaged.  I should have known."

"You have back-ups though, right?"  Methos didn't answer.  Duncan glared at him. "Right?"

Methos looked up. "Yeah, of course, but not for the most recent stuff."

"Well, maybe we can salvage something."  Duncan clicked several times, and the laptop began humming softly to itself.

"You know, you ought to at least tell Joe about this.  If you'd lost your head yesterday no one would even know to look for it."

"Joe would go nuts that I won't show it to him." Methos grinned.  "But then, it's not like he can't handle a little frustration now and then.  He puts up with watching you, after all."

The laptop beeped.  Duncan leaned over it, then grunted in partial satisfaction.  "Well, most of the data's been scrambled, but there are a few files that might still be readable." The file names meant nothing to Duncan.  "Here, see if you can make any sense of this."

Methos looked at the scant list of files.  "What a mess."  He selected a file, opened it, and began scrolling down through the text.  The words were not in any language Duncan recognized.

"Hmmm."  The file cut off abruptly after the fourth page.  Methos sat back, staring at nothing.  Then he drew a rapid breath and turned back to the screen.  He closed the file and pulled up another from the directory, his eyes moving rapidly back and forth across the text.  "Oh, God."

The horror in Methos' voice was like a dash of cold water.  Duncan glanced at him quickly, then leaned closer, as if it would help him make sense of Methos' code.  "What is it?"

The other immortal didn't answer, his attention riveted to the computer screen.  Then abruptly he took out the disk, closed the file, and restarted the computer. But before it could finish booting up, he turned it off again and pulled out the plug.

Duncan made a sound of startled protest, but before he could say anything Methos held out the disk.  "Destroy this - no." He drew his hand back.  "I'll toss it in the river."

"What? Methos, what's going on?"

Methos looked him squarely in the eye, his gaze haunted.  "Stay out of this one, MacLeod."

"Methos - " Duncan began, anger creeping into his voice, but the other immortal had snatched up his coat and was already hurrying to the bathroom, where he began feverishly removing his clothes from the sink.

He gathered the dripping bundle together, then turned briefly to Duncan.  "Someone might have seen me come here.  Now would be a good time to take a long vacation.  Some place like Madagascar."  He started toward the back door.

Duncan nearly lunged to pin the smaller man until he could get some answers, but there was a dangerous edge to Methos' terror that held him back at the last second.  The door slammed behind him as the oldest immortal fled into the damp evening air.

"Now he remembers," Duncan said to the empty room, and sat down slowly in the arm chair.

Joe Dawson grumbled under his breath as he made his way slowly to the third floor of the old Paris library.  No doubt MacLeod wouldn't mind all these stairs.  The aroma of dry, cracked leather, old ink and old paper enveloped him like an memory.  It was so warm and still he thought that if he stopped and listened carefully, he might hear dust motes falling as they passed through beams of light that played across the floor.

He went as instructed to the far north end.  He found MacLeod waiting for him behind the last row of dusty, crumbling books as if he'd been there for some time, molded to the stillness of the place, but with an undefined tension in the way he stood.

Joe stopped to catch his breath, leaning on his cane.  "What's going on? Why all the secrecy?" he asked, pitching his voice low to match their surroundings.

MacLeod quickly related the tale of Methos' singular appearance and disappearance from the barge the night before.

"You read the papers this morning?" Joe asked him.

MacLeod nodded.

"Then you think the bombing might've had something to do with what happened to Methos?"

MacLeod shrugged.  "Maybe he did trip over some terrorist group.  He was terrified that someone might come after him, or even after me if someone traced him to the barge."

Joe looked around, realizing why MacLeod had wanted to meet here.  "You didn't want to put me in danger too."

MacLeod cocked his head dismissively.  "I need your help, Joe.  I don't like being in the dark about this."

Joe shook his head, thinking of what he knew about Adam Pierson, the watcher, and how little he really knew about Methos the immortal.  "He didn't tell you anything?"

"Not after he saw what was on that disk.  Is there any way you can track him?"

"Well, no one but me knows he's immortal, so it'll be a bit tricky." Joe considered.  "Do you think it would help to look up this knight, Peter did you say his name was?"

"Sir Peter of Normandy.  Methos didn't say he was involved, but the last thing he could remember - before he started reading those files - was meeting him in Israel."

Joe nodded, already planning out where to start looking, who he could talk to when he got to headquarters.  The he looked up as a flash of watcher intuition told him where MacLeod would be headed next. "The police will have the whole area sealed off, you know."

MacLeod nodded.  Joe knew from his look it would do no good to try to dissuade him.  He turned to go.  "I'll see what I can find out.  You be careful!"

MacLeod's grim look softened a little, and he nodded as Joe turned to make his way back among the silent rows of books.

Duncan inched his way along the side of a dirty brick building, silent as a fox hunting among wolves.  This was not an area of Paris into which he would have ventured carelessly in any case, and now every sense was alert to the slightest alarm.

He had found an unguarded way into the hastily cordoned-off area, a narrow alley behind the buildings where the blast had occurred.  It was littered with discarded furniture, engine parts, old newspapers, broken appliances, disposable diapers, and other objects he couldn't identify at first glance.  If any of the area's occupants remained, they were huddled out of sight.

He turned into a narrow space between the buildings.  Hardly a breeze stirred the damp, faded clothing hanging from rusting fire escapes.  He wasn't sure what he was hoping to find.  He had circled the area three times, searching for traces of a wounded man making his way toward the river, but had come up empty-handed.  It was a twenty minute walk from here to the barge by the shortest route, but Methos had been badly hurt and running from possible pursuit - though Duncan still had no evidence that he had been here at all.  Perhaps the storm had washed away the tell-tale traces.

He tried to remember any details from the newspaper articles that might help.  An explosive device of unknown design had destroyed a run-down cafe and a dry cleaning establishment.  The death toll had not yet been established.  The journalists had jumped to label it a terrorist attack, though so far no group had claimed responsibility.  The only real clue that had been reported was the words "Les Fin de Temps" written in black paint on an adjacent wall.  "The end of time."  No one had any idea what it meant.

He had worked his way several meters into the space between the buildings when he heard voices from the alley behind him.  He pressed his back into a recessed doorway.  He couldn't make out what was being said - the voices didn't seem to be getting closer.  He inched back and ducked his head quickly around the corner.  Two inspectors were conversing at the end of the alley, effectively blocking his escape route.

Duncan moved back to the relative safety of the doorway.  Much closer to the front of the buildings he was likely to encounter more police officers.  Waiting it out seemed too risky.  That left only up.  He was pulling himself onto the lowest level of a fire escape when he felt the presence of another immortal.

Half a dozen possibilities flicked through his head as he scrambled onto the landing and put a hand to his katana.  Nothing stirred.  He leaned back against the wall and pulled the sword soundlessly from its sheath.  After a full minute of continued silence, he turned and carefully put a shoulder to the door leading into the building.  It yielded after a few determined shoves.

He entered a dim stairwell with threadbare orange carpet and a faint odor of mildew.  At first glance there was no one there, but then a man stepped onto the landing above with a drawn sword.

His expression changed as if he'd been expecting someone else.

"I'm Duncan MacLeod, of the clan MacLeod," Duncan offered when the other immortal failed to speak.

"Have you come for me?" the man asked.

"No."

"Then put up your sword," he said, sheathing his own.  "I am Sir Peter of Normandy, of the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and even if we were enemies, we would be fools to fight here."

Duncan nodded and lowered his sword, studying the man.  His hair was slightly gray, his beard closely trimmed, his clothing unremarkable until Duncan saw the eight-pointed maltese cross embroidered in white over his right breast.  He could easily picture Sir Peter in chain mail and a crusader surcoat.  He wondered briefly if he were being transformed into a highland warrior in the other immortal's mind.

"I'm looking for a friend," Duncan said at last.  "He said he was your teacher."

Sir Peter looked at him sharply.  "Methos?  He's here?"

"I'm not sure."  Duncan tried not to show his surprise that Sir Peter knew Methos' real name.  "Yesterday afternoon he collapsed on my doorstep with half a dozen bullets in his back.  It took him a while to remember what had happened, but as soon as he did he took off as if the devil himself was after him.  When I saw the papers this morning, I thought there might be a connection."

Sir Peter digested this information in silence.  Then abruptly he descended the steps and passed Duncan on the landing.  "Come," he said over his shoulder.

The last crusader lead Duncan down the stairs and out of the building by a side door that didn't seem to be under guard.  Duncan raised an eyebrow but said nothing.  Over one street and down four more, they entered an old factory, now being used as a warehouse.  A sign indicated it was about to be torn down.

The gate was unlocked.  Sir Peter moved unerringly down two flights of metal steps and through a maze of steam-driven machinery to a corner where the cinder block wall had been chipped away between the back wall and a large pipe.  Sir Peter's flashlight played slowly across a small, windowless room behind the opening.  After a moment he ducked inside.  Duncan followed.

A naked light bulb hung by a wire from pipes that ran along most of the ceiling.  Sir Peter reached up and screwed it in. The harsh light revealed a pile of blankets on a thin mattress, a small electric stove, and a ring of clutter scattered around edges of the room.

"Looks like someone's been living here," Duncan said.

"I have reason to believe it was Ahvram, a former student of mine," Sir Peter replied, an odd timber in his voice.  "Methos offered to help me find him when we met a few weeks ago in Accho.  He said he had access to some useful sources of information - and two days ago he sent me the address of this building."

"Why are you looking for him?"

Sir Peter sighed and leaned a shoulder against the wall.  "For one thing, it is quite likely he was responsible for the bombing last night.  It's hard to believe the depth of hatred that has been bred into him in a mere two decades of life.  Perhaps if I'd found him sooner . . . " Sir Peter shook his head.  "He died young, only seventeen, not too surprising given his - career choices.  He's probably died dozens of times since then.  Immortality is spectacularly useful in suicide bombings."

Duncan looked around again, checking for addtional exits.  "He hasn't been back?"

"I found this room early this morning.  A few hours ago an immortal came into the building, but I wasn't able to catch him.  No one has been here since.  I'm afraid now that his hideout has been discovered he won't return."

"Do you have any idea where he might go now?"

"No.  And your tale about Methos disturbs me.  Could it have been Ahvram who shot him?  If so, did he know that Methos was immortal, or that I had sent him?"

"And why would Methos be so terrified that Ahvram would find him? He's faced enough immortals in his lifetime."

Duncan noticed that the floor sloped slightly toward one corner.  He walked over and kicked aside a blanket to uncover a grate.

"That leads to the storm drains," Sir Peter told him.  "You could probably get to anywhere in Paris from here without going above ground."

Duncan lifted the grating up on its hinges and looked down into the hole.  "Can I see that flashlight?" Sir Peter handed it to him.  He directed the beam through the opening, then lay on the floor and reached his head and arm into the dank-smelling darkness.  There were metal rungs set into the wall leading down to the ground, but beyond that the darkness of the tunnel quickly swallowed the flashlight's beam in either direction.

Duncan pulled his head out and put the grate back down, replacing the blanket.  Under Sir Peter's sharp gaze he prowled the little room from one end to the other, looking for additional clues.

"Does Ahvram knows you're trying to find him?" he asked.

Sir Peter's answer was unexpectedly grim.  "He knows."

Duncan let it drop, hoping he never found himself in the position of having to hunt his own student.  While sifting through the accumulated trash, he stared suddenly at a bit of plastic wrapping.  "Does Ahvram eat pork?"

"No." Sir Peter stepped over to look at what he held in his hand.  It had contained uncooked sausage.  "At least he didn't.  But now - no.  He wouldn't.  It's part of who he is.  I'd as soon believe he became a Christian and joined a monastery."

"Then he may not have been here alone."  Duncan looked around the small room again, reajusting his thinking.  "There are enough blankets for two people.  Maybe one slept while the other kept watch."

"Judging by the amount of refuse, they can't have been here long.  Four or five days, perhaps.  But who has Ahvram brought into this with him?  A fellow terrorist from another culture?  Another immortal?"

Duncan shook his head grimly.  "We won't know till we find them."

Sir Peter reached up and unscrewed the bulb, leaving only the thin beam of light from his flashlight. "I will find him.  I must."

Methos crouched in the damp, narrow tunnel, stiff with cold and aching with the need for sleep.  He had found a concealed niche in the storm drain where the angle of the tunnel carried voices from the small room above so that sometimes he could understand what was being said.  He struggled to keep some sense of the time as hours passed in the darkness.  At least the sleeves of MacLeod's sweater were long enough to cover his hands.

He didn't dare get any closer for fear the two who were there might sense his presence.  He didn't dare sleep longer than short catnaps, from which he always awoke in a cold sweat.

It bothered him that he still couldn't put together all the pieces of what had happened before he'd returned to life in MacLeod's wardrobe.  He remembered trailing Ahvram's partner, carefully keeping his distance, forcing his way through rain water rushing down the storm drains.  Then the unexpected spray of bullets that had slammed him into the wall, agony searing across his back, forcing himself to move and breathe in spite of it, driven by terror of who might be following.  The taste of blood in his mouth, clinging to life when his body begged him to give up and let it heal without interference.  The half an hour of ignorance he'd spent at the barge seemed idealic by comparison.  But the last entry he'd made on his chronicle had jogged his memory, and at least now he knew who he was running from.  Or rather, who he was shadowing to make certain he wasn't found.

For the hundredth time he wondered what species of insanity had prompted him to go to MacLeod's in the middle of this.  That one surrender to adrenaline and force of habit could prove the entire undoing of their friendship.  He had no illusions about how the Highlander would judge his past.

The old, paralyzing fear rose in his chest, and it was all he could do not to drown in it.  Sitting here all through the night, listening to that voice - reasonable, cunning, praising one second and demanding the next - had brought back days he'd thought long since swallowed up in the vortex of centuries.  He could almost feel the consuming hunger for power eminating from the small room in deadly waves, strong enough to sweep him up and carry him helplessly in their wake.  By any notion of sanity he should have turned and run all the way to Madagascar himself the instant he'd recognized it.

But he'd gone to the barge, and there was no way to keep MacLeod out of it now.  Sir Peter was bad enough, but now that they'd joined forces he had two boy scouts to keep off of his trail and away from the ultimate truth.  Ahvram and his new mentor had been away when Sir Peter had come.  The crusader's thorough search had been fruitless, as expected.  Methos had lured him away, only to have him return with MacLeod in tow.  He'd listened to their amateur detective work and somewhat faulty suppositioning - if he weren't so cold and tired, if disaster weren't hanging by a thread, he might have been amused.

But they'd left only minutes before the room's occupants had returned.  And now, after sorting through the scraps of arguing and planning that drifted down to him as the minutes crept by in the darkness, he thought he knew what they were going to do next.  No doubt Sir Peter and MacLeod would have some wonderful ideas of what to do about it.  Methos rolled a small, hard object around in his icy fingers.  If he couldn't get rid of them, he'd have to use them.

Very slowly and quietly he emerged from his hiding place and stood up against the cramps in his legs and shoulders.  There was still hope - desparate, but hope nonetheless - that he could get out of this without losing everything.

"Where are you?"

"Adam's apartment.  I was here this morning, and I've had a watcher on it all day, but somehow he's been here without us knowing.  There must be another entrance he hasn't pointed out."

"Why am I not surprised?" Duncan said with a groan.  "I'll be there in ten minutes."

Duncan tried to spot the watcher outside Methos' apartment, but Joe's people were pretty good.  He walked up and knocked innocently on the front door.

Joe opened it and lead him into the kitchen.  A street map of Paris was spread out on the table, the corners held down by an assortment of cooking implements.  A small, irregularly shaped object rested end-up in the middle of it.

Duncan pulled open drawers until he found a pencil and traced carefully around the object before picking it up.  A smile quirked the corners of his mouth as he held it out to Joe.  "It's a bullet."

Joe looked anything but amused.  "I know, I've seen too many of 'em.  That one hit bone, you can tell by the way it's splayed out like that." His eyebrows came together.  "Do you think Methos - "

"Yeah.  But the question is, why did he put it here?"  Duncan leaned over the map and looked at the circle he'd drawn.  "Rue de Archive - isn't that the xxxxx hotel?  There's a little museum inside - paintings, old weapons, exotic hunting trophies, beautiful staircase.  I took Tessa there for lunch just after we met."  Duncan let his thoughts linger on the memory of Tessa's reactions for a moment before Joe brought him back to the present.

"Could the people responsible for the bombing be staying there?"

"I don't think so." Duncan told Joe about meeting Sir Peter, and his discovery of Ahvram's hideout.

"OK, so maybe he's trying to warn us about another bombing.  Or maybe something else entirely."  Joe shook his head with frustration.  "But why leave hints?  Why not just make a phone call?  What kind of game is he playing?"

"I don't know." Duncan frowned.  "And I get a feeling Sir Peter isn't telling the whole story, either."

Joe thought about it, looked up at him.  "Maybe he doesn't trust you yet."

"Maybe." Duncan made a face.  "Why should he?  Even Methos wouldn't tell me."  He pounded a fist on the table and began pacing back and forth across the kitchen.

Joe turned to mirror his circuit.  "But he took you to that room."
"Yeah.  Well, without Methos he needs help to find Ahvram."

"Are you going to tell him about this?" Joe gestured to the map.

Duncan stopped and folded his arms decisively. "Oh yeah.  Whatever's going on, I don't think he's on the wrong side of it.  And I have a feeling a visit to XXXX will be much more interesting if I take him along."

Sorry, that's all I've got so far.  Working on it . . .JR