Red Rock Mesa

by byrhthelm

This is the first in an occasional, new, totally AU series. In this series, Mac never joined JAG, and Meg Austin stayed on as Harm's partner.

AN: This series is totally AU. It takes as a basic premise that Mac never replaced Meg as Harm's partner, and that the blonde Texas Gal stayed at JAG for just as long as Harm did. The pairing throughout (with some ups and downs) is Harm and Meg, so if you can't stand the idea of Harm being with anyone other than Mac, don't read on. Or if you do, don't complain about the pairing.

Red Rock Mesa

Prologue

Harmon Rabb turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, quickly wrapping a towel around his waist, and grabbing a second towel with which to dry himself off. It had been a brutal week down in Parris Island, more so for his Partner Meg Austin than for himself. Although she was – or had been until today he grinned – a Lieutenant JG in the Navy, she had gone undercover as a recruit Private in the Marine Corps at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in order to investigate the suspicious death of another recruit who had been found hanged from the rapelling tower. She had discovered the culprit, but had almost lost her own life in doing so. Pushed into a quicksand pool in the dead of night by the very woman she had just saved from an identical fate. it was only by luck that Harm and the DI had arrived in time to pull Meg out of the swamp's grasp.

But that memory, although it still made him shiver, was almost completely overlaid by this morning's events. He had turned-to for duty as on any normal working day, and as usual had made a bee-line for the galley and the pot of coffee that he knew would already be there. It was, and so was Meg. They had greeted each other and teased each other with the banter that both used to dissipate the sexual tension between them. Meg was a beautiful woman, a five feet eleven inch tall blonde, sapphire-eyed Texas tomboy, with a figure that made a good many of both sexes stop and stare. She was slim, but with enough curves to prove that she was, despite her tomboyish habits, all woman. She was also one hell of an attorney, and a genius with computers, was brave, she had unflinchingly faced danger on several occasions, and under an assumed façade of naivety she had a wicked sense of humour, was feisty, funny, intelligent, witty, and totally charming and Harmon Rabb had been falling steadily in love with her for months. But that was a forlorn longing that had to be kept under strict lock and key. Their relative positions in the military hierarchy meant that if they surrendered to their passions – Meg was just as much in love with Harm as he was with her – they would be in contravention of the Naval regulations that forbade fraternisation that might lead to behaviour that affected the unit, and both would then be liable to face court-martial.

But this morning had been slightly different. As they had smilingly exited the galley the bull pen had been brought to a standstill as the stentorian tones of Admiral Brovo rang out, "Attention to orders! Lieutenant Junior Grade Megan Austin, front and centre!"

Meg had hastily place her coffee mug on a convenient desk and blushing a dusky rose pink she approached her commanding officer, who with every sign of enjoyment handed her the railroad tracks that raised her from the rank of JG to Lieutenant in the United States Navy.

Harm, grinning at the remembered pleasure of seeing the happiness in Meg's sparkling eyes had just stepped into a pair of tan chinos when a peremptory knocking on his apartment door distracted him from his thoughts. Hurriedly pulling a white tee-shirt on over his head he dragged the spread fingers of one hand through his hair and opened the door.

"Meg! What..." he managed before words failed him. She was wearing that red dress that had so often been a source of his teasing her.

"You-all hush up now! D'you hear?" Meg grinned as she stepped into the apartment, forcing Harm to step back to make room for her.

"Did we have... I mean did we arrange to meet this evening...?" Harm asked thoroughly bewildered.

"No, we didn't have a date... but I think we should... just to celebrate my promotion. Which puts us on level terms... clears us of fraternisation, even... doesn't it?" Meg smiled as she took his face in her hands and kissed him fully on the lips.

Harm groaned as he felt her tongue tip probe his lips, and breaking the kiss, he gasped, "I'm not dressed for a date!" It was the first thing he could think of to say.

"Well then, we'd best see just what you have in your closet!" Meg had said a mischievous gleam in her eye as she pushed him towards his bedroom.

Part 1

"Lieutenant Commander Rabb, you may just, single-handedly, give lawyers a good name. Congratulations!" The President of the United States quipped as he pinned the DFC on Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb's breast, and shook his hand before moving on to the next medal recipient in line, leaving the naval officer uncertain whether the congratulations were for his award or for positively amending the reputation of attorneys.

He still hadn't made up his mind before the President had completed the ceremony, and surrounded by his Secret Service bodyguards withdrew into the safety of the White House as the Marine Corps Band struck up a medley of tunes, starting with 'Anchors Away'.

Released from ceremony Harm made his way across the lawn of the Rose Garden to rejoin his CO, Admiral A J Chegwidden, the new Navy JAG, his partner ,Lieutenant Meg Austin, and Lieutenant (JG) Bud Roberts, who as a result of his work in clearing Harm of the charge of murdering his former girlfriend, Diane, had been posted from the USS Seahawk, where he had occupied the billet of PAO, to JAG HQ as a legal aide. Harm had been dubious whether the sometimes clumsy younger man warranted such a move, but had in the end been persuaded by Meg, who recognised that beneath the bumbling exterior Bud Roberts had a keen, analytical mind and was very nearly as computer savvy as herself, and on the strength of her conviction had seconded her when she recommended Roberts to the Admiral's attention. Even in the short time he had been with JAG, Roberts had started to make his presence felt. Of his own accord he had sat the LSATs tests for GWU in DC and had passed with flying colours, and promptly signed up for law classes at night school.

As Harm approached the group he was slightly surprised when Admiral; Chegwidden growled, "With me people!" and started off down the path that led to the gate and the line of waiting cars.

"Well done, Commander!" the Admiral congratulated his subordinate.

"Very well done,sir!" Bud Roberts endorsed enthusiastically. Meg Austin shot him an astonished glance and then turned her face away from him so that the junior officer shouldn't see the grin of anticipation that spread over her face.

She wasn't disappointed as Chegwidden growled reprovingly, "Don't overdo it, Mister Roberts! He's a Naval Aviator, with his wings comes an ego as big as an admiral's!"

"One or two star, sir?" Roberts quipped.

Harm turned his head and stared at Roberts in disbelief and disapproval, while the Admiral gave him one enigmatic look and then turned his head to the front again

Bud sensed the disapproval and his expression crestfallen, mumbled, "I was joking, sir..."

"Lieutenants JG do not joke with Admirals, son!" Chegwidden said dryly, "Could get them transferred to a supply ship in the Aleutians! Joking is strictly an Admiral's privilege."

"Yes, sir!" Bud replied and then in response to the gentle tug on his sleeve fell back an additional pace alongside Meg, who having given the tug, now gave him a sympathetic smile.

Reaching the gate, the Admiral looked around for his car and spotting his driver signalled for it to be brought to the gate.

"Aren't you stopping for the reception, sir?" Harm asked in some surprise.

"No. And neither are you, any of you!" Chegwidden replied gruffly, and to Harm it seemed that his CO was searching the crowd for something or somebody else. He was not kept waiting long; a tall, slim figure in Marine Corps Service Dress Alphas, emerged from the crowd and halting in front of the small group of naval officers gave the Admiral a crisp, Parris Island Drill Field salute, "Good afternoon, Admiral!"

"Afternoon! Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb, Captain Sarah MacKenzie."

MacKenzie held her hand out in greeting, "Sir," she greeted him.

Harm stood frozen to the spot. He didn't hear the matched pair of soft gasps from Meg and Bud as the blood roared in his ears. It was impossible! The woman standing in front of him was Diane Schonke, with whom, since their academy days, he'd had a friendly and at times romantic relationship, and whose murder he and Meg had been tasked to investigate some six months ago, and somehow, due to the machinations, or maybe just the incompetence of the NCIS agent involved in the case, Harm had ended up in the brig under suspicion of that murder, and it had taken a small inconsistency in the timings of the journeys from DC to Norfolk that had come to Bud's notice that he had been released without charge. The murderer, however had not yet been identified. A situation that Harm vowed would one day,

The Marine officer's brow creased in vexation and she felt humiliated by the lack of response from the stricken-faced naval office in front of her and was about to with draw her hand when Harm recovering from his trance-like state, suddenly seized in an almost painfully firm grasp, and despite the step in rank between then he muttered, "Harm..."

A smile curved MacKenzie's lips, "Mac," she offered in the same spirit.

Chegwidden had watched the little scene with concern, "Do you two know each other?"

Their replies, a "No, sir!" from MacKenzie and a "Yes, sir" from Harm were simultaneous as they released each other's hand.

Harm felt the colour rising to his cheeks under the quizzical stare of the undeniably attractive brunette and the sardonic eyes of his CO.

"I... I'm... sorry... Captain. Of course I don't know you... I I just had a moment of déjà vu ..."

"It must be the uniform," Mac suggested.

"No...Actually, she was in the Navy," Harm replied levelly.

Chegwidden saw the looks the two had exchanged and completely misinterpreted the situation. "Don't get too familiar," he warned then in his customary dry voice, "You'll be working together!" and then turned towards his car, the others following in his trail. Returning the salute of the PO2 driver, Chegwidden waited while in accordance with protocol that demanded that junior officers boarded vehicles or boats ahead of their seniors, Bud ducked into the limo followed by Meg Austin then Mac then Harm, and finally by the Admiral. Once all were safely aboard, the Petty Officer shut the door and slid behind the wheel. Seconds later the limousine rolled gently away from the kerb, leaving the White House, and eventually Washington behind as the driver steered it for JAG HQ at Falls Church.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Harm settled back against the padded leather squabs of the limo's rear-facing bench seat. His gaze flitting between the admiral and the Marine Corps Captain sitting facing him. He could feel the pressure of Meg's thigh against his, and was in a nebulous fashion comforted and given confidence by that contact. "I assume something's up, involving Marines?" he asked.

"Early this morning, a US Mail truck was attacked as it crossed MCAS Yuma Air to Ground training area."

"By Marines?" Harm queried incredulously.

"That's what the FBI Agents in the mail truck claim," Mac replied.

"I don't believe it!" Harm said flatly.

"Neither does the Commanding General at Yuma, but that's not going to satisfy the President, the press, and most of all me!" Chegwidden responded to Harm's declaration.

"Well, what were FBI agents doing in a mail truck?" Harm wanted to know.

"Guarding the Declaration of Independence!" Mac said.

"Yeah..." Harm chuckled at what he thought was a flip answer before he had fully taken in the total lack of humour on the Marine officer's face or even in her eyes, and then as he did so, his own grin slowly faded.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"Webb!" Mac spat when on entering the JAG HQ building they were met by a man, maybe a couple of years younger than himself, dressed in what Harm knew, and Mac and Meg guessed to be a very expensive three-piece-suit.

"If I'd known Webb was involved, I would have refused this mission!" the angry Marine declared.

It was obvious that the Marine and Webb had met before, and that Captain MacKenzie had come away from that encounter with no very high opinion of the civilian.

Her low opinion was shared by Harm and Meg, who had their own memories of working with, despite his multitude of cover stories, a man who Harm considered one of the most incompetent CIA agents imaginable. He shot a concerned look at Meg to see how she was reacting to the presence of the man whose poor planning and lack of safeguards and sufficient back-up had managed to get her drugged and kidnapped into a Colombian brothel, and then had very nearly managed to get her killed when he and Harm had had to go in and extricate her, and was relieved to see that apart from an uncharacteristic and slight tightening of her lips she failed to react to his presence.

Webb, with every evidence of smug self-satisfaction had been standing in the Ops bull-pen, watching a ZNN news report on the bank of monitors that encircled the room at ceiling height as the reporter described how the road had been closed by Arizona state police, assisted by Marines, while the FBI investigated a raid on a mail truck.

"I see ZNN are already on the story!" Chegwidden complained, waving off the bull pen's occupants spring to attention as he led his entourage across the room towards his own suite of offices.

"Not quite, Admiral!" Webb said finishing a paper cup of water, and carelessly tossing the empty container in the direction of a waste-basket, missing it 'Of course!' Harm sneered mentally, and ignoring its fate as he ignored the scowl from the seaman who had to bend from his desk and pick up after the supercilious civilian.

"I planted a story that it was a nuclear weapon that had been stolen, and ZNN fell for it!" Webb added smugly.

"That makes me feel a whole lot better, Mister Webb!" Chegwidden grunted sourly and insincerely as he led the group into his office.

"You all seem to know Clayton Webb, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary. He has point on this for State."

"More than point," Admiral, the arrogant agent interrupted, "The Declaration of Independence is a Federal Document, and this is a State Department investigation!" he said challengingly.

The Admiral, a former SEAL, made no reply to this assertion, but merely raised his eyebrows a fraction towards his non-existent hairline and waited.

The look he sent at Webb had its desired effect and some of his pomposity almost visibly leaked out of the man as he wilted and then added in a more conciliatory tone, "With the cooperation of the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps, of course."

While Webb had been speaking Chegwidden had used his remote control to turn on the television in his office and tune it to ZNN, now he snorted somewhat disdainfully, "Just call us JAG, Mister Webb, it's not such a mouthful!"

Webb turned his eyes to the group, "Rabb, Mac," he acknowledged their presence but completely ignored Meg, whose eyes he appeared to have some difficulty in meeting, and also ignoring Bud, even when the JG held his hand out in greeting, "Roberts..." he offered before it became obvious that the civilian had no intention of noticing him.

"So the State department lost The Declaration of Independence," Harm commented.

"We didn't lose it Mister Rabb, we had it stolen from us – by Marines!" Webb said aggressively.

"Assuming they were Marines," Mac commented.

"The hijackers were in a Marine Huey, wore Marine camo and used Marine Recon tactics. It they are not Marines, then they used to be, and as you people in the Corps are so fond of saying, there's no such thing as an ex-Marine.

"Or an ex-CIA agent!" Mac shot back at him.

Harm and Meg exchanged looks and both allowed themselves a brief smile.

"Why was it being shipped?" Meg asked.

Harm nodded, "Good question!" he cocked his head at Webb.

"Exposure to ultra-violet rays, over the years, has caused what was thought to be irreparable damage; Wentham Labs in San Diego has developed a molecular reconstruction process to restore the parchment.

"Assuming the hijackers weren't Marines, who could they be?" Meg asked.

Webb finally deigned to look at the tall Texan blonde, although he still seemed reluctant to meet her gaze, and when he started speaking he seemed to confine his words to Harm and Mac, "The FBI is investigating at troublesome militia group out of Idaho; they call themselves the Defenders, led by an ex-Marine Recon Colonel."

"What's this Colonel's name?" Chegwidden asked from his big chair on the far side of his desk.

"O'Hara, Colonel Matthew O'Hara!" Webb declared with a sidelong look at Mac, which did not go unnoticed by Harm or Meg, although Bud seemed oblivious to the glance, or the expression that flitted over Mac's face before she resumed her previous impassive expression.

"You know him, Captain?" Harm asked, his senses triggered by her reaction to Webb's identification of the militia leader.

Mac seemed to hesitate for a second before she replied, "He was one of the few Marines to come out of Vietnam with the Medal of Honour around his neck, instead of his widow's!" she retorted.

What might or might not have been said next was rendered moot as the TV gave off a burst of static, and the ZNN broadcast was interrupted by a blue screen in the centre of which was a triangular logo bearing the silhouette of an armed man together with a caption that proclaimed "The Defenders".

"What the hell is this?" Chegwidden demanded, leaning forward in his chair, as all eyes focussed on the screen. But almost as he spoke, the screen dissolved to reveal a man dressed in a dark suit and necktie and white shirt. He stood before a huge version of the Stars and Stripes, which covered the wall behind him and his whole bearing screamed military.

"My fellow countrymen," he begun, addressing the camera. "this morning we, the Defenders, took into safe-keeping The Declaration of Independence..." he looked to his left and paused as the camera panned and then zoomed in on the parchment.

"This document declares..."

"My God!" Webb broke in, "that's ZNN."

"certain inalienable human rights, not the least of which is the right of the people to alter or abolish a government that ceases to meet their will.

"Is it the will of the people to have drugs poison our youth? To have gangs rule our streets? To live in fear in our skies, in our cities and in our homes?

"Why does the most powerful country on the face of the planet allow these horrors to persist? It is time for that bureaucracy in Washington that calls itself a government to remember that they are empowered to serve the will of the people. To that end we, the Defenders, pledge, as did our Founding Fathers, our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour!"

His silent face remained on screen for maybe two mores seconds before it was replaced with the same blue screen that had marked the beginning of his speech before there was a further short static burst and the ZNN broadcast continued with a studio shot of a perplexed newscaster, "The video you have just seen..." but the screen went black as Chegwidden thumbed the remote's off-switch, "Colonel O'Hara?" he demanded in a heavy voice.

"Yes, sir," Mac replied just as heavily.

"You realise the resources they must have to be able to pull that off?" Webb demanded in aggrieved tone, his hands on his hips.

"Actually, all they'd have to do is commandeer the satellite up-link the reporter was using," Bud said in a somewhat didactic voice.

Webb whirled around to face him, but before he could speak, Meg nodded approvingly, "He's right Webb. It wouldn't take much at all!"

It was evident from his expression and his body language that Webb didn't like being corrected by two junior officers but before he could say anything, Chegwidden spoke again, "Tiner! Give me the CO of the Marine Air Station in Yuma!"

The admiral's Yeoman who had appeared in the doorway, almost as if by magic, at the sound of his name, gave a short nod, "Yes, sir!" and disappeared as abruptly as he had shown himself.

Chegwidden stood, and crossing his arms on his chest in a characteristic pose, he took a couple of steps away from his desk, "He's got brass, I'll give him that," he said in a reflective tone.

Webb though he heard a trace of admiration in the admiral's voice, "He's a traitor and should be shot!" Webb protested indignantly.

"Since when did we start shooting Americans for saying what they think?" a stone-faced Mac demanded

"He's advocating anarchy, Captain! And there are plenty of right-wing nut-cases out there, just looking for a voice like his to follow!"

Harm shook his head slightly, "I don't think he's an extremist." he said thoughtfully.

"He stole the damn Declaration of Independence, that's pretty extreme in my book!" Webb rebutted him.

"I agree with Commander Rabb," Mac responded, "I think the Colonel can be negotiated with!"

"For what?" Webb asked, the dismissive sneer in his words coming through, as his hand went to inside jacket pocket to retrieve his ringing cell phone, "free time on TV? He's already got that!" He turned away, opening his phone as he did so, "Webb!" he said into the mouthpiece.

Chegwidden turned to face the four officers, "Uh... the Colonel's committed a crime on military property, and worse has tainted all of us by being a former Marine. The only way we are going to salvage any credibility is to bring him in ourselves."

"I agree, sir!" Harm said, seeing Meg and Bud nod in agreement out of the corner of his eye, and noticing that the Marine Captain didn't.

Chegwidden gave a deep sigh, "Let's do it!"

Recognising the implicit dismissal the four officers snapped to attention and chorused, "Aye ,aye, sir!"

As they did so, Webb snapped his phone closed, and with almost an air of triumph said, "That was the FBI. Your patriot, who wants the will of the people served just contacted us with a slightly different message. He'll return the Declaration of Independence... in return for five hundred million dollars!"

All five officers stared at him in shock.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"No need to apologise, General Pike," Chegwidden said into his telephone to the Commanding General MCAS Yuma, "It's not your fault." He paused for a couple of seconds before he replaced the phone in its cradle He took a deep breath before he continued, "Well, Mister Roberts, you were right!"

Harm and Meg exchanged brief smiles as the younger officer stood slightly taller at even this mild praise.

"Three men posing as FBI agents commandeered the ZNN up-link truck at the hijack site. Marines, FBI and every law-enforcement officer for a hundred mile radius are in on the hunt, so why do I feel like they're all eating dust?"

Correctly interpreting the Admiral's words as a general question, Mac answered, "Because Colonel O'Hara wrote the book on desert warfare, sir."

Harm gave Mac a shrewd look. He was getting a gut feeling that there was something askew here, like he wasn't receiving all the information that was needed. He expected that from Webb, but he was getting the feeling that the brunette Marine was also withholding something. "Did they give a deadline on the exchange?" he asked Webb.

"No." the CIA man said carelessly, his hands shoved deep in his pants pockets.

"That's surprising!" Harm commented, "there's a swap to be made."

"They wouldn't say, wanted to know if we were willing first." Webb said with a swaggering superior air.

"Are we?" Chegwidden demanded tersely.

"Not my call, Admiral." Webb said dismissively and then looked pointedly at his watch, raising his wrist to chest level so that no-one could mistake his point, "I've got a jet waiting on the tarmac for the four of us..."

"Five!" Chegwidden corrected him. "Mister Roberts seems to have some knowledge that might be of value to you!"

"Yes, sir! Thank you sir!" a broadly smiling Bud said. "I appreciate the Admiral's confidence!"

Chegwidden winced. The young man was going to have to lose his habit of exuberance, and that quickly, "Don't make me change my mind, son." he said quietly.

"No, sir!" Bud responded and fell silent.

Webb could hardly believe his ears, "Admiral, this... officer..." he waved a contemptuous arm in Bud's direction, "doesn't have any skills I need!"

"He has enthusiasm!" Chegwidden corrected the CIA agent, "And Mister Webb, he has knowledge that's already proved useful. It may be your investigation, but it's my Navy. He goes!" Chegwidden finished in a voice that left no room for debate or disagreement and also left Webb staring open mouthed at the older man.

To give him credit, Webb made a quick recovery, "I guess being adversarial comes from being a lawyer, Admiral."

"No... from being a SEAL!" Chegwidden grinned and tapped the gold trident pinned to his chest above his medal ribbons.

Webb silently conceded and with a rather sick smile on his face he nodded to Chegwidden and turned to face the others, "Take off's in two hours, from Andrews." He paused for a second for a reply and when none was made he strode swiftly to the door and made his exit. Or his escape as Meg scornfully thought.

Chegwidden looked at each officer in turn before once again crossing his arms on his chest, "Let's don't judge Mister Webb too harshly; no doubt transporting the Declaration of Independence was his responsibility! If it's not recovered he'll be spending his mornings reading the classifieds." he ended on a dryer note.

That idea, although he wanted to recover the precious document as badly as anyone, struck Harm as highly amusing and he couldn't restrain a brief chuckle, Yes, sir!"

Chegwidden allowed himself a wintry smile before he replied, "And so will the four of you!" and enjoyed seeing the amusement fade from their faces before adding a quietly spoken "Dismissed!"

The four junior officers left the Admiral's office and made straight for the elevator, "You need to pick anything up Captain?" Harm asked.

"I'm a Marine, Commander. The first to go. I always keep a packed bag in my car!"

"I guess that would be the difference between Marines and the Navy," Harm grinned, "I always keep golf-clubs in mine!" he pressed the button to call the elevator and was pleasantly surprised when the doors opened immediately. He stood back to let Bud and Meg enter the car before he did, saying over his shoulder, "You can fill me in on your Colonel, while I collect my gear!"

Mac froze, her face resuming its earlier expressionless mask-like appearance. "What do you mean, 'your Colonel', sir?" She demanded icily.

Harm blinked, "Jeez... Just that you're both Marines... it was just a figure of speech!" he protested. "Come on Captain, we only have two hours!"

"One hour fifty-seven minutes!" Mac corrected him, ignoring the raised eyebrows of the other three officers as she made her pronouncement.

Despite his claim of unpreparedness Harm didn't keep Mac waiting long as he conducted her to the basement locker room, where with the ease of long practice he swiftly packed his sea-bag, while Meg at the far end of the row of lockers divided her time between her own packing and helping Bud, pointing out to him what needed to be taken and what would only be excess baggage.

Harm broke off his packing to grab a wooden box from the top shelf of his locker and then grabbed a wash cloth. Crossing to the sink he wetted the cloth and then wrapped it around the box before placing it inside a plastic bag in his sea-bag. "Havanas," he explained succinctly to Mac, "It keeps 'em from drying out!"

"Cuban cigars are illegal." Mac pointed out in a faintly censorious tone.

"So... you going to turn me in?" Harm grinned, desperately trying to break through the façade that he was certain the young woman had erected.

"No..." she said unconvincingly, "But it does give me an insight into your character."

"Boy, you are tough!" Harm noted, "Colonel O'Hara teach you that when you served under him?"

Once again Harm saw the shutters come crashing down, "I never served under him," Mac denied.

"But you know him." Harm responded.

"Every Marine knows him, sir, he's a legend in the Corps," Mac replied with an assumption of lightness that she did not feel, and which Harm did not buy.

"And why would a legend steal the Declaration of Independence for money?" Harm challenged.

"He wouldn't. Material things were never important to him."

Harm nodded in satisfaction, "You do know him! And not just as a legend," he decided.

Mac deliberately ignored Harm's conclusion and as stone-faced as ever she merely said, "We have one hour thirty-three minutes, Commander."

Harm checked his watch and then looked at her, "How do you do that?" he asked.

"I have great timing!" Mac dead-panned

Recognising that trying to pump her for more information about O'Hara would be fruitless and perhaps even counter productive, Harm let the subject drop, and clapping his cover on his head he raised his voice so that Meg and Bud could hear it, "Alright people, let's move it!"

Less five minutes later the four gathered in the parking lot, "Do you prefer to drive or ride?" Harm asked Mac.

"I'll drive!" she said decisively.

"Fine, if you take Bud... Meg, whose turn is it?"

"Mine!" she responded with a grin.

Harm nodded and explained to Mac, "Meg and I both have two-seater coupés , so... we'll see you at Andrews!" and with a casual wave he crossed to Meg's side and they walked together towards her white Mustang.

"Still the Texas gal at heart!" Harm grinned at Meg, reviving an old shared joke that Meg only had the Mustang because it was named after a horse, but as he slid into the passenger seat he felt as if a burden lifted from his shoulders.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"What do you make of our Marine?" Meg asked slyly as she headed down through Seven Corners on the way to Fourteenth Street Bridge.

"An interesting lady, with at least one unusual talent," Harm said in a non-committal voice.

"Oh, and what's that?"

"Apparently she can tell the time, accurate to the minute, without using a watch or looking at a clock."

"Different." Meg agreed in a neutral voice.

Harm turned his head and arched an eyebrow. He had come to rely on Meg's instincts about people. He had much the same sort of instinct for any given situation and Meg had come to rely on his feelings in much the same way. "You don't like her?" and the tone of his voice made it difficult for Meg to tell whether it was a statement or a question.

Meg shrugged, "I don't know... she's difficult to read... as if she's hiding something..."

"Yeah... that thing in the elevator, when I called O'Hara her Colonel..."

"Yeah I got that!" Meg agreed, "The look on her face, I thought she was just about to cr..."

"Ah, ah, ah...!" Harm interrupted her "No interrupting. I called him that again while I was packing and she pokered right up. I did manage to work out that she knows him, even though she claims never to have served under him, although she wouldn't admit it. That's when she pulled that time thing again. You get that in the elevator too?"

"I heard her say something about how much time we had left, but her back was to me, I couldn't see if she looked at her watch or not."

Harm nodded thoughtfully, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure she knows O'Hara, and I'm also pretty sure she knows him well... when I commented about the ransom demand she almost fired up. Told me that he'd never had much time for material things!"

"Not even five hundred million material things? If his aim is to overthrow the Government that would buy him a lot of weapons and support..." Meg mused out loud rather cynically.

"Yeah... and wasn't that ransom demand just a little too pat, coming right out of left field the way it did... hot on the heels of O'Hara's appeal to the American people. And you've got to admit, he made some pretty strong points, there's a lot of folks who would agree with him, and not necessarily Webb's extremists either! I wonder..." he fell silent for a long few minutes.

"Harm?" Meg prompted him.

"If those people who'd listen to his words... found out about the ransom demand... how much credibility do you think he'd have left?" Harm argued.

"Practically none, his patriotic words would be forgotten as quickly... Oh, my! Webb!" Meg exclaimed.

"Yeah... he has this habit of turning away from everybody while he's using his phone What if instead of receiving the message, he originated it!"

"Misinformation to discredit the opposition!" Meg nodded. "God, I despise that man!"

"Yeah... me too. But, if MacKenzie knows O'Hara well enough to believe that he wouldn't pull a stunt like that, and it's pretty plain that she's had previous dealings with Webb..."

"And she doesn't know us, so she'd be wary of trusting us..."

"Exactly..." Harm let his voice trail off.

Meg still had reservations about the brunette Captain so shook her head warningly, "Don't let yourself get led astray by a pretty face Harm!"

"Jealous?" he inquired with a grin.

"Do I need to be?" Meg grinned back.

Harm pretended to give the idea some few moments of serious thought, "No... she's not my type. Not tall enough."

"In that case, no, I'm not jealous!" Meg grinned with a laugh in both her eye and voice

Part 2

The noise of the approaching helicopter made the two armed men shrink back into the mouth of the mesa-top cave, ducking back through the camouflage net that covered the entrance to the cavern. While not huge, the cave was big enough to hold a UH-1H in USMC colours, one wall of which was partially covered by the huge Old Glory that had provided the backdrop for the pirate broadcast, with the lights and camera still set up in front of it. The speaker from the broadcast was now, like the rest of his men, dressed in desert BDUs, and again like the rest of his men, they were anonymous, no 'USMC' label, no formation patches, no name tags, no badges of rank. He and one of his men stood in front of a portable TV set watching the latest news report on the hijacking of that morning.

"Although most Americans believe that the Declaration of Independence should be returned immediately, four out of five believe that Colonel O'Hara should not go to jail. His words seem to have touched a chord in the American people's psyche…" the anchor woman read from her teleprompter.

"They love you, Colonel!" the younger man said in tones of admiration and respect.

"It's not me, it's the words," O'Hara denied, "They forgot the words, and I simply reminded them!"

"I think you're underestimating the impression you've made, sir," the younger man countered

"America's got a very short attention span, Captain. We're nothing more than breaking news. We'll be as forgotten as Gorbachev within a year if we don't keep reminding them."

"I disagree, America's looking for a hero to follow. You're it – if you called for action against the government, the people would act!"

O'Hara's face expressed his disapproval of that idea just as much as his next words, "Captain Cahill, I did not spend thirty-two years defending this country to lead an insurrection. My goal is to wake Washington, not to set it aflame."

Cahill turned and drew himself up, although not quite into a military brace and answered, "With all due respect, sir, if it gains us our objective, what's the difference?"

"All the difference in the world, Captain! Your way is treason, mine's loyal opposition!"

Cahill seemed to accept the rebuke and with the object of getting out of his CO's sight for a while to let both of them calm down, he stiffened a little more and said, "With your permission, I'll check the perimeter!"

"Permission granted!" O'Hara snapped in reply.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"It is time for that bureaucracy in Washington that calls itself a government to remember that they are empowered to serve the will of the people…"

Bud Roberts hit the 'pause button' on the playback, and using a pen as a baton he pointed to an area of the screen he wish to draw to the attention of the other four, all crowded behind him into the cramped confines of the ZNN broadcast van. "Notice how crisp and how well-lit he is? He was shot with a digital baby cam and halogen lighting."

"He's right. They got their hands on broadcast-quality gear!" the ZNN technician broke in from his position, backed up into a corner of the van, "Big bucks stuff!"

"Where did you learn this, Bud?" Harm asked, his surprise evident in his tone of voice.

"Night school, I've been taking a software course called 'Sat Lies and Video Rape'…

"What?" Webb interjected in disbelief.

"It's a play on the movie title, 'Sex, Lies and Video Tape', 'Sat' is short for Satellite, 'Lies' is self-explanatory and 'Video Rape' is the process by which…"

"I get it!" Webb cut him off, again with that arrogant, impatient and even contemptuous snap to his voice.

Harm sighed inwardly; he was getting just a little tired of Webb's attitude to both Bud and Meg. He could foresee a point in the not-too-distant-future when he would have to assist Webb with an attitude adjustment.

"I thought you were taking law courses at night?" Meg asked Bud.

"It's an elective," Bud replied somewhat defensively.

Harm shot them both a look of warning, silently telling them to drop the subject of Bud's studies and get back to the matter at hand. "How do you think he's going to make his next broadcast? He can't commandeer the ZNN up-link again."

"He doesn't have to," the ZNN reporter chimed in, "He's news. We'll let him have access any time he wants to!"

"Without having to show up here?" Harm queried

"He probably has his own satellite up-link, sir." Bud shrugged, "He can broadcast to ZNN from… anywhere…"

"Can we locate him when he transmits?" Harm wanted to know, his attention now fully on Bud.

"Not precisely sir, his transponder will have a two thousand mile footprint." Bud thought for a second and then his disappointed expression lightened, "Of course we could use Rivet Joint to narrow that down…"

"Uh… excuse me," the ZNN staffer interrupted, "What's Rivet Joint?"

"That's classified!" Webb practically yelled.

"Maybe we should continue this conversation outside," Harm suggested, and then turned to the reporter, "Thank you…" he indicated the bank of equipment, including the paused video monitor.

"Any time, Commander," the reporter replied as the four naval officers and Webb prepared to leave the confines of the van.

They had barely set foot on the ground when Webb turned on Bud, getting right into the young officer's face, "You just earned yourself a flight back to Washington, Mister!" he screamed.

"Take it easy, Webb," Harm said evenly, fighting to keep his dislike of the CIA agent from showing in his voice, "He didn't give 'em anything."

"Rivet Joint is super-secret!" Webb yelped indignantly.

"No, it's not!" Mac contradicted him.

Webb stared at her in disbelief.

"She's right," Meg backed up the Marine Captain, "There was a story on it in 'Aviation Weekly', last month."

"There was?" Bud asked in surprise.

"Uh-huh," Meg grinned.

Webb looked at each officer in turn, "We're working on that leak!" he said, storming off, pushing Bud out of the way, but evidently accepting temporary defeat in what looked like becoming a sustained campaign on his part to ditch Bud from the investigation.

"Someone care to fill me in?" Harm growled whirling about to fall into step with Webb, and for the moment, successfully resisting the growing temptation to deck the arrogant CIA man.

"Rivet Joint is an electronic surveillance aircraft we've been using in the drug war," Webb beckoned to one of the FBI agents, even as he spoke, "I've got it standing by. If he up-links to anyone for more than thirty seconds, we'll nail his location…" he looked away from Harm toward the approaching FBI agent and indicated the van they had just quit.

"I want that van and all its equipment seized, and I want the crew arrested and held incommunicado as material witnesses!" he demanded.

"Yes, sir!" the FBI man replied, his readiness to obey Webb making Harm wonder if he really was FBI, or a CIA agent wearing an FBI windbreaker. That thought, once it cropped up, made him look askance at the remainder of the FBI agents scurrying around, before he looked back at Webb.

"You're making a mistake, Webb," he warned him.

"No, Lieutenant Roberts did!" Webb defended his actions, "If that local reporter mentions Rivet Joint, then the Colonel will know my game plan."

"He wasn't a local reporter, sir," Bud intervened in an effort to undo some of the damage his enthusiasm for his subject had caused, "He's from Atlanta, didn't you recognise him?"

Webb gave Bud a look in which dislike and contempt seemed to be equally mixed. He pointed at Bud and looking at the other three officers uttered a curt, "Keep him away from me!" and brushed past the four JAGs as they halted by their Navy sedan as he headed for the waiting FBI helicopter.

Harm popped the trunk as Bud said, "Thank you, sir," his eyes went to Mac and Meg, "And you, ma'ams…"

"Next time, Bud, think before you engage your mouth," Harm gently rebuked Bud as he dropped his briefcase into the trunk.

"Aye, sir," a chastened Bud replied, as he too loaded his briefcase into the trunk.

"Commander, the investigation would go faster if we split our time. Why don't I interview General Pike, while you check out the hijack site?" Mac suggested.

"Good idea," Harm agreed, "and you could drop our gear off at the VOQ?"

Mac nodded and Harm passed her the vehicle keys.

"Maybe I should go with you, ma'am?" Bud said tentatively, not keen on the idea of spending more time in Webb's company.

"Good idea," Harm endorsed Bud's suggestion.

"No!" the vehemence of Mac's veto brought looks of surprise to the faces of the other three officers, and realising that she had been too emphatic, Mac back pedalled, "The General may speak more freely to a fellow Marine, sir."

Before Harm could counter her reason, an impatient yell of "Let's move it!" came from Webb as he stood next to the waiting FBI helo, it's engines already running up to lift-off power. Harm, Meg and Bud double timed toward the aircraft and ducking under the whirling disc of its rotor blades scrambled after Webb into the interior.

They had barely buckled themselves into their seats and the door closed safely behind them when the helo launched into the air, leaving Mac standing next to the sedan and squinting her eyes against the dust-blizzard created by the helicopter's downdraught.

As the helo ascended the dust cloud dissipated allowing Harm to look down at the Marine officer, as she turned towards the car and slid behind the wheel. The speculative look on his face was not lost on Meg, who leaned forward and placed a hand on his knee to attract his attention. "Harm?" she mouthed.

Harm smiled at her and briefly brought his hand to cover hers, before he lifted it from his knee, "Later," he mouthed, equally silently.

Her curiosity not satisfied, Meg gave a little pout and then settled back to endure the ride, knowing that sooner or later Harm would bring her up to date with his thoughts.

Harm's speculative look deepened to a frown as he saw the Navy sedan pull a U-turn on the road and head in what he was almost sure was the opposite direction to the Air Base. He leaned forward and clapped the pilot on the shoulder.

"Take me back!" he yelled over the sound of the helicopter's engine and rotors.

"What's wrong?" Webb yelled from his seat next to the pilot.

"Nothing! You've got Meg and Bud on your side, I've decided to go with the Captain!"

"Why?" Webb demanded.

"I get airsick!" he replied with a straight face.

A few minutes later the helo caught up with the speeding car and swaying to one side, dropped to just a few feet above the ground where Mac could see Harm signal for her to pull over. Biting her lip in frustration, Mac did so.

The helo landed on the open desert on the other side of the road, and Harm, unclipping his seat belt opened the door and head low and cover in hand he double timed away from under the rotor disc, only to be stopped by Meg's voice hailing him from behind. He turned and waited for her to catch up.

"Harm, what the hell's going on?" she demanded.

"With me!" he said and after a quick look to estimate angles he took a few steps that he reckoned would put them in a blind spot of both helo and car. "I need to go with the Marine," he said as quietly as he could over the noise of engines, "and I need you to stick with Webb. I don't trust her and I certainly don't trust him; there's something going on between them, under the surface. We need to split up to be able to keep an eye on them both!"

"That's a lot of mistrust you've got going there, Harm," she observed gravely.

"Hey, I trust you," he said softly, raising one hand to gently cup her cheek for an instant.

Meg's eyes glowed, but whether at his words or the touch of his hand even she wasn't sure, "OK, but be careful!" she urged him.

"I will… but you'd better be getting back before Webb leaves you behind. I still need you to try to run interference for Bud, too!"

"OK, get going!" she grinned and turning she ran back towards the waiting helicopter.

Harm stood and watched her until the door was closed behind her and the helo airborne once more before he double-timed towards the car and leaning in through the open window he glared at the frustrated Marine Officer, who almost screamed in vexation as the aircraft lifted off, leaving Harm behind.

"What's up, sir?" she asked him.

"You're headed the wrong way, the base is south!" Harm answered, "You want to finally tell me what you're up to?"

"I must have gotten turned around," Mac replied, her expression betrayed her however.

Harm wasn't buying that, not only did her face scream 'Liar' at him, her voice also gave her away; it was probably the least convincing lie he had ever heard. "You know where Colonel O'Hara's gone to ground!" he accused her.

"How would I know…" Mac started to say only to be cut off by Harms' interruption.

"Damn it, Captain, that's enough! I'm not a fool! What is he to you?"

Mac realised the game was up and she drew a breath before answering, "Colonel O'Hara's…" even then she hesitated before finishing her sentence, "my uncle, sir."

That wasn't an answer that came anywhere near the top of half of Harm's list of possible responses and he stared at her in disbelief while she raise her chin and stared back defiantly at him.

"Colonel O'Hara is your uncle, and you didn't tell me!" he accused her.

"I thought you knew, and you were playing it cagey!" Mac protested.

"I'm not that devious, Captain!" Harm declared.

"Yeah? Well somebody is!" Mac felt at a distinct disadvantage with Harm standing, forced by his need to see her face into looming over her, while she was seated, so she undid her seat belt and opened the car door, forcing Harm to take a couple of steps back, reasserting herself, "I got pulled off a double murder investigation," she automatically replaced her cover on her head before she continued, "And I doubt it was because of my vast experience with mail hold-ups in Arizona, sir!"

"Well, it wasn't the Admiral!" Harm defended his CO, "He shoots straight from the shoulder. Webb on the other hand, is probably devious taking a leak!" as he spoke he pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

"Who are you calling?" Mac asked anxiously.

"Admiral Chegwidden," Harm said.

"Wait a minute!" Mac said urgently, grabbing his hand as he started to dial the number, "What happens when you tell the Admiral that Colonel O'Hara is my uncle?"

"He'll ask you where he might be."

"And I'll refuse to answer!" she said earnestly.

"I wouldn't do that, Captain, not to Admiral Chegwidden, he's liable to charge you with Dereliction of Duty."

"And he'd have every right. So please, don't make the call, sir."

"Then I'll be the one withholding information," Harm pointed out.

"If Webb and that FBI SWAT team get a hold of him who knows what will happen? So far, no-one's been hurt, give me a chance to keep it that way. Let me reason with my uncle, please, Commander."

Harm hesitated while he considered the options. MacKenzie was right about one thing, so far it had been a bloodless crime, it would be good if it could be ended that way, and with the FBI's reputation – Ruby Ridge and the Waco siege sprang to mind – she had a valid point about the SWAT team.

Mac held her breath while Harm thought his way through his possible choices. At last, his mind made up he nodded, "Only if I come with you!"

"Impossible!" Mac replied.

Harm shrugged and continued dialling the Admiral's number.

"I don't know his militia," Mac protested in defence of her position, "They might believe me going to join them, but not two of us!" she continued as Harm raised the phone to his ear in evident expectation if it being picked up at the other end.

Mac searched his face, and finally seeing nothing there but resolve, she caved, "OK, you go," she said resignedly.

Harm kept the phone pressed to his ear, "I said, OK, sir!" Mac repeated slightly more desperately.

At last the ringing tone ceased, and a female voice could be heard, "Hello?"

"Meg, are you alone?" Harm asked, his face breaking into a shit-eating grin directed at Mac, whose shoulders slumped as she shot him a filthy look when she realised that she had been conned.

"Yes, I am, why?"

"How are things?"

"A bit weird, Webb is spending all his time in a FBI van that's sprouting more antennae than I have ants crawling up my leg, while Bud and I are left kicking our heels outside."

"What kind of antennae?" Harm asked.

"Little black ones, about half an inch long, with tiny hairy little feelers…" Meg grinned.

For a second Harm was lost until he caught on, "I meant what type of antennae on the van, Meg!" Harm insisted.

"Oh, sorry…" Meg said, and Harm grinned at the insincerity in her voice, but the laughter disappeared as she continued, "The works, Harm. I'd say they were capable of scanning everything from smoke signals to satellites.

"Well, sounds like Mister Webb has found a place to stay cool."

"I wouldn't know, Harm. He won't let me or Bud in!" Meg sounded distinctly put out as she spoke.

"Look on the positive side, Meg, as long as Webb's in the van, he isn't bugging us!"

"You at the base, Harm?"

"No, we took a wrong turn and we got lost. We're going to look for a place to eat and then head on to the base.

"I could use a little of that, Harm, and so could Bud, probably," Meg chuckled.

"Well we're not far from Yuma, there's gotta be a pizza delivery!"

"Good idea!" Meg replied enthusiastically.

"Hey, Meg, if Webb starts getting to you, you have my permission to exercise Admiral's Privilege!"

"Understood, Harm!" Meg's grin threatened to spread clear around the back of her head.

"Stay cool, Lieutenant!" Harm finished the conversation deliberately with that line knowing that Meg would take it as he meant, a deliberate tease.

The humour fled Harm's face as he closed his phone and redirected his attention to Mac, "You're right. Webb deliberately had you assigned to the case in the expectation that you would lead him directly to your uncle," he said dispassionately. "He's probably monitoring our cell phones. He may even have a bug in this car!" he added going around to the passenger's door. "We need to think about ditching it and picking up another one!"

Mac nodded and without a word slid back behind the steering wheel. Seconds later the car accelerated smoothly away toward Mac's ultimate destination.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Webb glared in frustration at the FBI electronics expert as the call between Meg and Harm ended. Harm had been right, the call was monitored, and Webb was certain that somehow or other the two naval officers had passed a coded message between them, but he couldn't just go marching up to Meg and demand that she explain it, firstly because to do so would let her know that he had listened in to their conversation and secondly because he hated to relinquish any advantage his covert eavesdropping might lend him and thirdly because he had a feeling that if he did, the Texan officer might just lose her temper and punch him on the nose.

Accordingly he wasn't in the best of moods when after tearing off his headset, he erupted from the van to find Bud staring into the sunset while rapidly waving his spread-fingered hand up and down in front of his face, while apparently explaining what he was doing to Meg.

At least, Webb thought, if he wasn't able to tackle Meg about the phone call, he could vent his spleen on the person who was rapidly becoming his favourite whipping boy. "Mister Roberts!" he roared, causing all the heads in the vicinity to just about give their owners future neck problems as they whipped around to see what had gotten 'Super Spook' as the FBI agents on the ground had contemptuously nicknamed him, all fired up, again..

"Yes?" Bud asked ceasing his activity and turning toward Webb.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm afraid that's classified, Webb" Meg interrupted.

"I believe my clearance is higher than yours, Lieutenants!" Webb responded almost automatically.

"Can you verify that?" Bud asked.

"Take my word for it!" Webb insisted, once again adopting what he thought was an intimidating pose, his hands on his hip, and his jacket skirts pushed back out of the way, allowing his chest to appear as if it had swollen.

"Ma'am?" Bud turned to Meg as if for guidance.

"Ok, Bud, let's take him at his word, for once."

"Yes, ma'am!" Bud agreed as Webb shot Meg a hostile look, not particularly liking the rider to her sentence.

Bud turned back toward the setting sun, "I was counting satellites." he said.

"What?" Webb demanded

"Well, NASA developed it," Bud said as he recommenced the rapid up and down waving of his hand in front of his face, "All that's needed is twenty-twenty vision, and the ability to stare into the sun."

Webb looked doubtfully at Bud, but intrigued by the younger man's actions, he too squinted at the sun and started to wave his hand in front of his face as Bud continued his explanation.

"By moving your hand rapidly up and down, you create a kind of shutter effect, which freezes the images of distant objects on the iris. With a little bit of practice you're able to distinguish between satellites, planes, birds, escaping party balloons…" Bud ceased his hand motions and turned to look at Webb whose hand was still waving before his face, which now wore a scowl of concentration.

"All I'm doing is going blind!" Webb complained pettishly.

"Well, that's why they stopped using it," Bud deadpanned as he turned away, leaving Webb with his mouth hanging open and his eyes watering.

Meg was barely able to restrain her laughter and with a cursory nod in Webb's direction she hurried after Bud. "You should have let me do that Bud!" she reproved him, through her grin once she had caught him up.

Bud shrugged, "I don't think so, ma'am. He already hates me, and there's no sense in getting him mad at you too!"

"Bud Roberts, you are not going to become as tiresomely over-protective as a certain Lieutenant Commander of our acquaintance, are you?" Meg challenged, halfway between amusement and indignation.

"No, ma'am," Bud replied, "But we may need Webb's help a bit further down the track, and if he isn't ticked at both of us, then we stand a bit more chance of him co-operating!"

"H'mmm…" Meg mused intrigued by Bud's thought process, "Good JAG, bad JAG, hey? I like it!"

"Yeah, me too, ma'am!" Bud grinned.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Admiral Chegwidden was in the big chair, and unusually for him, he had removed his uniform jacket and was in his shirt sleeves with an open tray of chicken salad in front of him watching a ball game on his office TV. He bit on a length of celery, ignoring the ringing of his phone, as the Pitcher made an illegal pitch, confident that if it was something he needed to attend to, his Yeoman, Tiner would let him know.

Barely had the thought crossed his mind, when his office door opened and Tiner poked his head around the edge of the door frame, "Admiral, sir, Colonel O'Hara is on ZNN again!"

"Dammit, on a three-two pitch!" Chegwidden grumbled as he popped the last of the piece of celery into his mouth and picked up the TV remote, hastily switching the channel to ZNN.

O'Hara was indeed back on the screen, back in his dark suit and white shirt, standing in front of the same huge flag as previously. "The government only has authority because the people permit it. Their overwhelmingly positive response has struck fear into the hearts of the bureaucracy. In desperation, they have leaked a rumour to the media that the Defenders are willing to exchange The Declaration of Independence for half a billion dollars. That is a government lie!"

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

In the FBI van in the middle of the Arizona desert Webb gave a meaningful look at the FBI electronics expert, "Not going to stay on long!" he declared.

"All that is needed for the safe return of this document," O'Hara continued "is for the elected officials to put the needs of the people above their own!"

Webb was nearly hopping up and down with impatience and frustration as the technician tried to trace the broadcast, but before he could badger the FBI tech, the image of O'Hara's face was replaced with the fast-becoming familiar 'Defenders' logo, replaced in turn by the ZNN anchor woman in the studio.

"Did you get a fix?" Webb demanded as the broadcast finished.

"Somewhere in the Four Corners…"

"That's over a thousand square miles of desert!" Webb objected.

The technician pinched the bridge of his nose and sent a silent prayer for patience heavenwards, "He wasn't on long enough to be pinpointed!" he shot back at Webb. The CIA agent's attitude was beginning to rub him, and several of his colleagues, raw.

And as if in corroboration of the technician's words the tracker screen in front of him went blank and the message "Signal Lost" started to flash on and off, accompanied by an annoying electronic beep.

Webb pounded his hand against the side of the van in frustration.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

In the JAG's office in Falls Church, Chegwidden gave a grim smile, the brevity of the broadcast hadn't surprised him at all, and with a shrug he retuned the TV to catch up with the ball-game he'd been watching previously, just in time to see his team lose the game by one run. His salad suddenly tasting like ashes in his mouth, he made a face of disgust mingled with disappointment and pushed his unfinished meal to one side.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"Twenty six seconds, sir!" Captain Cahill told O'Hara as the broadcast terminated.

O'Hara merely nodded and walked away a few paces to strip off the shirt and jacket he wore to replace them with his BDU jacket.

"I've never been this close to anything worth a half a billion bucks before," one of his men said to Cahill. Captain and soldier exchanged a glance and then they both looked thoughtfully across to where O'Hara stood buttoning up his uniform.

Part 3

As the sun had dropped over the western horizon, storm clouds had gathered hastening the onset of darkness. Now a full-blown electrical storm raged overhead, with vivid streaks of lightning ripping through the clouds and momentarily lighting the night-time desert.

The lights of a gas station glowed through the darkness and as they approached Harm and Mac saw the sign 'Last gas for 113 Miles'.

They exchanged a look and Harm said, "Pull in here, I've got an idea."

Mac glanced at the fuel gauge, "We're OK for gas, we…"

"Just pull in!" Harm ordered.

With a mutinous look, Mac slowed down and swung the wheel, directing the sedan onto the forecourt of the gas station.

"Don't pull up by the pumps, anywhere here will be fine…"

The sedan rolled to a stop and Mac looked across at Ham and said, "What now, sir?"

"I'm still pretty sure that Webb has this car bugged. I'm going to see if there's another car here that we can hire… there's no point leading Webb straight to your uncle, Captain!" Harm added as he saw the objection in the Marine's face. He continued in a slightly milder tone, "Not when that's exactly what he wants us to do."

Mac felt a twinge of humour, the first since she'd realised who was responsible for the hijacking, "And thwarting Webb is your life's goal, sir?" she asked.

Harm looked at her and saw the beginnings of a grin at the corners of her mouth, and decided that way she looked more like Diane than she did when she was frowning at the whole world, "Not my life's ambition, Captain, no, but a bonus along the way, and a consummation most devoutly to be desired – as long as it doesn't put me or my partner at risk!"

Mac had a flash of insight, and the possibility of regaining some measure of control over the situation, "Yeah… your partner, sir. You and she are pretty close aren't you?"

Harm shot her a quick look, "She's my partner; of course we're close." He paused deliberately so that the Marine could not mistake his intent, "We trust each other with our lives."

Mac lapsed back into silence, and just looked at Harm.

"If I can get a car," he added, ignoring the latest turn the conversation had taken, "We'll need to lose these uniforms. There's a rest room over there, get changed into something non-military, if you have anything?"

"Of course I have," Mac said, although as she said it, she realised that a sun-dress probably wasn't what this arrogant son of a bitch had in mind, but it was non-military.

Harm disappeared into the gas station while Mac headed for the rest rooms. Ten minutes later they met at the gas station door. Harm tossed a pair of keys at her and indicated a battered pick-truck with an enclosed wagon bed. "That's our new ride," he grinned. Transfer your stuff over, while I get changed."

When he emerged from the rest room Mac's jaw nearly hit the ground, "Is that all the civvies you packed, sir?" she asked acerbically as she took in his black tank top and blue running shorts.

"Yeah… well, when I packed, I didn't know I was going undercover as your date... and that's a real suitable dress you've got for scrambling around the desert in!" he added looking doubtfully at the spaghetti strapped and sweetheart neckline floral pattern cotton dress Mac was wearing.

Mac ignored his last comment, but focused on the 'date' part of his words. "My date?" she queried in non-too happy tones.

"Yeah, unless you can come up with a better cover story… we were on a camping trip, you saw your uncle on TV and decided to join him…" He opened the rear hatch of the truck and grinned as he looked at her, "Hey, there's a bed in here!" he said

If Mac's expression had been any icier, Harm thought his blood would have crystallised in his veins, "So?" she demanded, her arms crossed defensively on her chest.

"Well, it fits our cover-story!" his grin faded as he rummaged in his overnight bag, 'That flash of humour he'd seen earlier must have been her ration for the day,' he told himself ruefully. 'Message to self, don't bother joking until you get back to civilisation.'

Before any more could be said that might further sour relations the gas station owner, thumbs hooked into his pockets, sauntered across the lot, his blue denim shirt open to reveal a grubby white undershirt, the tails of both hanging outside his faded and equally grubby blue jeans.

As he neared the two officers he glanced upwards at the sky as another bolt of lightning ripped through the gloom to be almost instantly followed by a crash of thunder. He spit onto the ground and grinned, revealing startlingly white teeth framed by his scruffy beard and moustache. "Oh…" he indicated the truck he was renting to them, "And I'd top her off, iffen I was you; she is a guzzler, and there ain't another gas station for seventy-four miles thataway." He indicated vaguely north.

Both Harm and Mac stared at him at that piece of news and then simultaneously, they both turned, looked at the sign which declared a hundred and thirteen miles to the next gas, and then turned back to stare interrogatingly at the gas station owner.

"Yeah, it brings in ever'one with less than half a tank!" he grinned, totally unabashed. Another flash and crash of lightning and thunder split the night and he looked up ruminatively at the sky, "That is a big one a-coming! You folks watch out for flash floods!"

Harm grinned back, while Mac her back to him, relaxed her disapproving expression and smiled in amusement at the gas station man's words and attitude. Harm meanwhile, finished scribbling in the black bound folder he had retrieved from his bag. tore off a single sheet of paper and handed it to the owner, who regarded it almost suspiciously for a moment before asking, "Any bank'll honour this?"

Harm nodded, "Navy voucher, good as cash!"

"I ain't doin' nothin' illegal, am I? I don't wanna do nothin' illegal!"

"What could be illegal about you renting your pick-up?" Harm asked with a disarming grin.

"Uh… I dunno, but I don't wanna do nothin' illegal!" he repeated.

Harm just grinned as he and Mac climbed in to the truck and so neither of them heard the sotto voce rider, "Not for no two hundred bucks!"

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

The windscreen wipers on the pick-up were barely coping with the torrents of rain that poured from the sky, forcing Mac to reduce speed in order to be able to see the road through the rain and the darkness.

"Care to tell me where we're going?" Harm asked her.

"North!"

"I kind of figured that out for myself, Captain."

"I'm taking you with me, isn't that good enough… sir?" The Marine answered.

"Not if you try and lose me the first chance you get," Harm replied dryly.

Mac refrained from answering and just continued to drive. Harm tried again, "The Colonel must be one hell of an uncle!" Once Mac declined to answer.

"He raise you, or something?" Harm persisted.

"Or something," Mac conceded in a voice that left no doubt that she had no intention of disclosing the nature of her relationship with Colonel O'Hara.

"Just trying to understand why a Marine officer would lay it all on the line."

"He's a man with strong personal convictions!" Mac said.

"No… I'm talking about you, Captain." Harm smiled.

"That's a very nice smile, and I'm sure that most of the time that it gets what you want, but I don't know you, Commander, so if you don't mind, I'll keep my personal reasons to myself!"

Harm's mile left his face, and was replaced by an expression of sadness, "I keep forgetting that I don't know you." he admitted quietly.

"Déjà vu, again?" Mac queried.

"Only whenever I see your face, or hear you talk," Harm agreed, "but I wouldn't know about your smile. I haven't seen one."

"There's not much to smile about," Mac defended herself.

Harm shrugged, "I guess not."

"Sounds like I have a twin out there…" Mac suggested in an effort to turn the conversation away from her and her uncle and to satisfy her growing curiosity about this other woman.

Harm stayed silent an image of Diane as he had last seen her filled his mind; the opened body bag revealing her dead face and her blood-stained summer whites. He was silent for so long that Mac took her eyes off the road and glanced questioningly at him just as he spoke, "Not any more." He said quietly and bitterly.

Mac took his meaning and falling silent allowed the matter to drop and continued driving in silence. Marine and Navy Officer both occupied with their thoughts.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

It was hours later, mostly silent, that the truck swung left-handed off the road and lurched and jolted through an open, metal gate. The rain had stopped, or more likely, Harm felt, thy had driven out from under its shadow, although puddles glistening in the headlights and the moonlight that was beginning to appear in gaps of the now ragged clouds bore witness to the fact that it had rained heavily here.

The rain had washed the very air, or so it seemed, leaving it fresh smelling for a short while, while the clouds had prevented the day's desert heat from escaping into the atmosphere. It was still chilly enough for both Harm and Mac to feel the goose bumps rising on their skin, but not cold enough to make then wish they had chosen warmer clothing as Harm followed Mac's lead when she dismounted from the truck.

"Thank God it's still here!" she said.

"I don't see any buildings?" Harm said, a rising note at the end of his sentence turning it into a question.

"They were razed years, ago, what was left the desert took…" Mac replied turning towards him, allowing Harm to see the smile on her face. A smile of pleasure in remembering good times past, but that to Harm had a simpering quality to it, "Except for this old sign…"

Harm squinted at the once brightly painted sign, it's colours now faded by the desert sun and the occasional cloudburst. The moon, as it appeared in a gap in the clouds gave just enough light for him to read it. "Hey… this is my kind of place. 'Eats, live rattlesnakes and UFO information'," he grinned

Mac turned, pointing out across the desert, "About a mile out there is Red Rock Mesa, that's where we used to look for them."

"What? UFOs or rattlesnakes?" Harm asked, a perplexed expression on his face.

"Ichnites," Mac corrected him succinctly.

"Ich- what?"

Once again a smile appeared on Mac's face, this time it was vaguely patronising Harm thought. "Ichnites," she repeated, "Dinosaur tracks. Much more fun than hunting their bones. Their tracks tell a story; were they hunting, were they playing…"

"I never thought of dinosaurs playing," Harm confessed, beginning to feel intrigued despite himself, and grinned, surprised to find Mac grinning with him, or was that at him? Either way, it was beside the point.

"Isn't it a long shot, him being up there?" he asked nodding in the direction of the distant mesa.

"No, there's a huge cave up there. We camped out for a month; we never saw another soul."

"A month hunting dinosaur tracks?" Harm asked in disbelief.

"And drying out, sir." Mac added.

"The Colonel's an alcoholic!" Harm said with an air of discovery, as if that explained everything.

"No, I am. But I haven't had a drink since I was nineteen, thanks to him," Mac said quietly, but proudly, her chin rising as she turned away from Harm to look out across the desert once more.

Harm hesitated a few second before he asked, "So, how do we get up there?"

"Only two ways: by climbing or by helo."

"Well, it's too dark to climb… so unless we sprout wings," Harm pointed out, "he'll have to come to us!"

"And how do we get him to do that… sir?" Mac challenged him.

"We let him know you're here." Harm answered quietly and walked back towards the truck. Mac took a breath and followed him, wondering what was going on in the Navy officer's mind.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

The armed guard at the entrance to the cave blinked. For a second he thought he had seen something. Watching carefully he saw it again, a succession of flashes of light where there ought not to be any. He raised his field glasses to his eyes and levelled them on the area in which he had seen the lights. Yes, there they were again, one, two, three flashes, followed by a further three long flashes, and again the three short flashes… dit, dit, dit, dah, dah, dah, dit, dit, dit. Morse code! Someone was using Morse code to signal towards the mesa, and whoever it might be was signalling SOS!

"Colonel! There's lights flashing in the desert, sir! Looks like a signal!"

O'Hara and Cahill, accompanied by the remaining militiaman roused off their sleeping rolls and gathered at the cave entrance. O'Hara raised his own field glasses, while the miolitiaman used the 'scope on his M-16 as a magnifier.

"S… O…S…S…" he read out and then, "Sorry sir, I can't make out the rest."

"A… R… A," Matt O'Hara read and then with a puzzled frown on his face as he lowered his field glasses he said, "Sarah! How… Sarah?"

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"What if my uncle thinks it's a trap, sir?" Mac demanded as she stood next to the pick-up while Harm operated the light switch to flash his message.

"He's Marine Recon, he'll scope us, and we won't even know it!" he reassured her.

Hard on the heels of his words came an all too familiar and characteristic sound of the rhythmic thwacka-thwacka of twin rotors, the distinctive trademark of a UH-1H. Harm dismounted from the truck and he and Mac stood next to it, staring upwards into the night sky.

"It's a Huey!" Mac exclaimed unnecessarily as the helo's searchlight blazed into life, swinging around until it locked onto them and then landed a few yard ahead of the vehicle, as Harm automatically took a pace forward to place himself between the helo and the Marine Captain..

"Mac!" the pilot yelled above engine and rotor sound through the helo's window.

"Uncle Matt!" Mac yelled back in conformation.

"Who's your prisoner?" O'Hara yelled.

Startled, Harm turned his head to look back at Mac, who now stared at him with a determined expression on her face and an M-9 Beretta pistol aimed squarely at him. Harm stared at her looking for a hint that she was playing a role, but saw nothing but a fixed purpose in her expression, with a shake of his head in disgust at her betrayal and at his own naïvety he turned back to face the helo.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"It's so pure and simple, and we spent over two hundred years complicating it," O'Hara said to Mac as they both stood in front of the Declaration of Independence.

"Times are more complicated, Uncle Matt," Mac replied, as she stood her arms once again crossed on her chest.

"The truth is never complicated, right and wrong is never complicated," O'Hara reproved his niece.

"Sometimes it is!" Mac disagreed, tearing her eyes away from the document to look squarely at her uncle. "Very complicated, like right now!"

O'Hara took Mac gently by the elbow and turned her away from the Declaration, "Sarah, you didn't come here to join me, did you?"

"Uncle Matt, what did you expect Washington to do? Agree with you on ZNN, that they're a bunch of self-serving bureaucrats and promise to change?"

"I'm not naïve, Sarah!"

"Then why did you do it?" Mac stopped and turned to face her uncle, full on.

Matt O'Hara took her gently by her upper arms and gazed earnestly into her face, "Because I saw the torch lying there, and nobody was picking it up."

Mac searched his face for a long moment, and then took him into a hug, laying her face against his shoulder and breathed a long sigh.

Outside the cave, the militiaman who had made the comment about never previously having been so close to half a billion bucks was venting his suspicions to his buddy. "Maybe she's his niece, like she says. Maybe she's come to join us, like she says, maybe she captured the guy that was tailing her, like she says." And each reiteration of 'like she says', was loaded with more scorn and scepticism. "Or maybe they're Feds, here to do a little trading!"

"The Colonel ain't going to trade it for money," the second militiaman objected.

"We're not talking about 'money', Garrett! We're talking half a billion! I could buy God for half a billion!"

"Don't you go getting blasphemous, Thomas!"

"OK, maybe not God, but at least the Pope!" Thomas conceded.

Garret let out a brief snort that might have indicated amusement, and unseen by Thomas, nodded silently.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

At the end of a long, sleepless night inside the FBI tracker van, Webb was getting impatient. "How long's it take to eat? He finally vented his frustration.

The FBI tech shot him a disparaging look, "Depends, is this Captain a looker?" his implication plain that Harm and Mac had 'spent the night together', probably in some sleazy hotel.

Webb returned the look, "Seven point six!" he responded dead-pan.

"Wait a minute… you… you break it down into decimals?" the tech said disbelievingly.

"I use the Richter scale!" Webb threw back at him and had the satisfaction of see the FBI agent subside, just as the audio alarm alerted them that the tracker system was picking up something again. Both grabbed for their headset as Webb exclaimed, unnecessarily in the tech's opinion,

"He's back up on his cell phone!"

"Hello?" they heard a female voice.

"Thelma…" the name was said sing-song fashion, "This is Billy."

"I ain't talking to you, Billy! Not after Saturday night!"

"This isn't Rabb!" Webb exclaimed, with an accusatory glare at the technician, who was frantically checking frequencies and the antenna's orientation.

"Aw, an' here I was hoping to take you to breakfast in Yuma!" Billy protested.

"Where? The Six D?" Thelma asked scornfully.

"No! I was thinking about breakfast in bed at the Desert Inn!"

"Where did you get the money for the Desert Inn!"

"It's Commander Rabb's cell phone!" the tech insisted having completed his checks.

"Navy rented my pick-up for two hundred bucks!" Billy answered smugly.

"What the devil are you taking about, Billy?" Thelma demanded.

"Said he didn't want to get his car all scratched up in the scrub," Billy offered in explanation.

"What?" Thelma exclaimed, as Webb and the tech both dropped their headsets and pushed their way to the rear door of the van.

"Get that thing started!" Webb yelled to the FBI helicopter pilot, but then halted as a hand grasped his sleeve.

"What's going on?" Meg yelled, woken from an uneasy doze in one of the FBI cars as the burst of activity roused her.

"Rabb and MacKenzie jumped ship!" Webb yelled, "And I'm going to court-martial them for it!"

Meg thought rapidly as she ran after Webb, "Bud, with me!" she yelled, skidding to a halt just before she cannoned into Webb as he fumbled at the helo's door, "Webb!"

The FBI Agent turned to Meg, "Looks like they know where O'Hara's hiding!" he yelled, as the rotors above his head began to spin, "And they've switched vehicles so we can't track them!"

"How were you tracking them?" Meg demanded, and then as the FBI agent gave her a disgusted look the penny dropped, "Oh!" she said furiously, and then turned to the smirking CIA Agent. "How are you tracking them, Webb?" she repeated her demand.

"Admiral's privilege!" he jeered at her.

"Come on, Bud!" Meg snapped as she started to haul herself into the helo.

"What do you think you're doing?" Webb yelled.

"We're going with you!" Meg retorted.

"The hell you are! Get out!" Webb ordered, reaching back to put an obstructing hand on Meg's shoulder.

"Take your hands off me if you want to keep them! And we are going; otherwise Admiral Chegwidden learns that you've been wiretapping his JAG team! How else would you know about Admiral's privilege!" Meg shouted into his face.

"Under Chapter thirteen, section five point two-seven alpha of the code of conduct for Federal Investigations involving military personnel, wiretapping is prohibited by any agency or individual…" Bud yelled at Webb, who released his grip on Meg's shoulder and turned to face front again, "OK, dammit! Get in!" he yelled in exasperation,

Meg and Bud scrambled aboard, and, to the FBI Agent's carefully concealed amusement, exchanging satisfied grins as they did so,

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Harm strained uselessly against the zip-lock cuffs that restrained him as Matt O'Hara turned to Cahill, "Captain, break camp and load the Declaration on board the helo, this position's been compromised, we'll be pulling out at dawn."

"What about him. Sir?" Cahill gestured with his M-16 at Harm.

"By the time he climbs down the rope and finds a phone to call for help we'll be long gone!"

"Yes, sir!" Cahill replied and turned away to follow his CO's orders.

O'Hara waited until Cahill was busy and then walked the few steps to where Harm was sat, "I hope you realise that Sarah only took you prisoner because it was the safest course of action for you," he said as he used his K-Bar to slice through the ties "Well, I'd like to think that was the reason, sir!" Harm said sardonically.

"Believe me, Commander, it was!" O'Hara said, putting all the conviction and sincerity he could muster into his voice. "I love Sarah for coming here as she did, but it was a foolish thing to do."

"Must be a family trait, Colonel," Harm observed with a meaningful look.

"Perhaps it is," O'Hara admitted, "But she's thrown away a promising career."

"Not yet, sir. If you end this now, I can recommend that the Captain used her initiative to locate and negotiate the return of the Declaration of Independence."

"I'd sacrifice my life for Sarah, Commander, but not my beliefs." O'Hara turned his back on Harm and walked away.

But Harm hadn't finished, with his arms akimbo, he challenged the retreating former officer, "Which belief is that, Colonel? The one I heard on ZNN or half a billion dollars?"

O'Hara swung around to face Harm again, "That's a damned lie put out by the government to discredit me, and you know it!" he retorted.

Harm made no direct response but instead asked, "Colonel, how did you know the Declaration was being moved?"

"I'm embarrassing the State Department on the internet, so they leaked that the Declaration was being moved by a nuclear convoy, hoping I'd try to take it."

"How did you know it was on the mail truck?" Harm asked.

"We followed the convoy from Denver to Flagstaff. That mail truck split off in the morning and joined up at night. Didn't take a genius to figure out what they were doing."

Harm let out a gentle snort of contempt, "I wonder if Webb came up with that himself, or if it was his computer!"

"Webb?" O'Hara queried.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"No-one gives a damn about scratching a government car!" Webb yelled into Billy's face above the noise of the helo's still turning rotor blades.

"They do, if they pay taxes!" Billy yelled right back

Webb shook his head in frustrated disbelief, "Which way did they go?" he screamed.

Billy pointed up the road, towards Sky Mesa!"

"How long ago?"

"I dunno," Billy shrugged, "a few hours ago, maybe!"

Webb gave up, realising that he could probably get no more useful information out of the gas station owner. He turned to Meg and Bud who were having trouble hiding their grins and shouted, "Let's go!"

Bud whispered something to Meg, and she nodded and then stepped forward into Webb's path

"Webb, shouldn't we find out what they were driving?" she asked.

"Good idea!" Webb replied, although his tone of voice conveyed almost anything except praise or gratitude.

Bud scowled at the agent's attitude towards the blonde Lieutenant, as the agent turned back towards Billy, but was placated to some degree by Meg's friendly hand on his shoulder, "It was a good idea, Bud. I missed it too; so, yes, thank you!"

"What were they driving, Mister… Billy?" Webb asked.

Billy grinned, liking the idea of making this pompous and arrogant stuffed-shirt wriggle for a while before he told him what he wanted to know.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"I found them here last April!" O'Hara explained as he showed Mac and Harm a set of fossilised dinosaur tracks.

"They weren't here last year!" Mac observed as she stooped to examine them.

"Two years ago, Sarah," O'Hara corrected her. "Last year you were in Bosnia."

"You're right," Mac accepted.

"What's strange," her uncle continued as he squatted next to the tracks, "is that they lay hidden for a hundred and fifty million years, then re-emerged in a single winter's run off."

"Mac said they tell a story?" Harm interjected.

"Yeah, if you use a little imagination, " the former Colonel agreed. He pointed at one set of tracks, "These were made a by a large Tyrannosaur…"

"A meat eater," Mac added in aside to Harm.

"And these by a sauropod…"

"That's…" Mac started.

"The tyrannosaur's dinner?" Harm got there before her.

O'Hara chuckled at the by-play, "With a little imagination you can visualise the scene; the tyrannosaur stalking the sauropod…" He rose from his crouching position and started pacing out the larger dinosaur's fossilised foot prints.

"Or maybe they were just using the same trail?" Harm proposed.

"That's another way of looking at it!" O'Hara conceded.

"There's always another way of looking at something, Colonel!" Harm urged the uncle while shooting a quick glance at the niece, as if warning her not to interrupt, and steeling himself to make another attempt to persuade the Marine to surrender peaceably.

"I have a feeling you're about to point one out, Commander." O'Hara accused him.

"If I may, sir! You see returning the Declaration of Independence to Washington as an end. I see it as a beginning. It proves you didn't take it for money, and a trial gives you a public forum on which to plead your case to the American people."

"And it would save Sarah's career." O'Hara noted approvingly.

"To hell with my career!" Mac protested. "I don't want to see you in prison, Uncle Matt!"

"He won't necessarily go to prison!" Harm interrupted her, and then turned back to Colonel O'Hara, "State set you up because you were a thorn in their side, if I can prove your internet revelations are true…"

"They are, Commander," O'Hara affirmed.

"Well, it may just be enough to get you a suspended sentence, sir!"

"You offering to defend me, Commander?"

"Yes, sir!"

"You realise the implications it might have on your career?

"Yes, sir," Harm repeated.

"Where did you find this sailor, Sarah?"

"In a rose garden, Uncle Matt!" the brunette replied with a smile.

O'Hara nodded, and then turned and with Harm and Mac following him he returned to the cave and then after a few minutes out onto the flat area in front of the cave, where Cahill, Garrett and Thompson were loading the helo.

"All ready, sir!" Cahill reported.

O'Hara nodded, "There's been a change of plan. I'll drop you and the others off at the car, then I'll go on with my niece. I've been in touch with ZNN; a reporter and a cameraman are waiting at the crossroads."

"What are you going to do, Colonel?" Thompson asked.

"Return the Declaration of Independence and plea our case to the American People in court."

"What about the half a billion?" Thompson demanded.

"There is no half a billion, Sergeant, there never was half a billion. It's a government lie. We didn't do this for money."

"I don't believe you Colonel!" Garret declared, swinging his M-16 around to cover O'Hara. "You're going to collect it! We want our share!"

"Put those weapons down, Sergeants!" Cahill ordered them.

"You with me, Garret?" Thompson asked over his shoulder, never taking his eyes off the group in front of him.

"For a quarter of a billion dollars?" Garrett asked, his hand going to the holstered Beretta on his belt, "you'd better believe it!"

"I said put those weapons down!" Cahill shouted moving to directly face Thompson. The former Marine sergeant didn't hesitate for a single second, squeezing the trigger of his M-16 twice and pumping two rounds at point blank range into Cahill's chest.

O'Hara and Mac dropped to their knees beside Cahill, searching in vain for signs of life. "You killed him!" Mac accused Thompson.

"I didn't want to do that!" Thompson attempted to defend himself, "But I'll be damned if I'm going to let a half a billion dollars fly away! Get in Colonel" he jerked the muzzle of his rifle around towards the helo, "You're flying us out of here!"

"You'll have to shoot me before I do that!" O'Hara warned him.

"Or maybe I'll just have to shoot your niece!" Thompson threatened, adjusting the direction in which the muzzle of his rifle pointed so that it was aimed at Mac, while Garret stepped forward, grabbed Mac's arm and pulled her to her feet, all the time keeping his pistol pointed at her.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Webb approached the pick-up truck cautiously, his hand on his pistol butt, "It matches the description!"

"Yeah but where are they?" the FBI agent asked.

As they neared the truck, Meg stopped and threw up a hand, "Listen!" she commanded.

Everyone froze, straining their ears to try to hear whatever it was Meg had thought she'd heard. Then the noise became more distinct, the 'thwacka thwacka' of a Huey. All eyes searched the quadrant of the skies from where the sound seemed to be coming, at first with no success, but then after some seconds, Meg yelled, "There! There it is!" and pointed towards Red Rock Mesa

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Harm stood helplessly and watched as the Huey lifted off with the two former sergeants, their two hostages and the Declaration of Independence on board. Squinting against the dust storm whipped up by the downdraught, he reckoned that Garret's vision was as obscured as his own and made a desperate decision. Waiting until the helo's skids were at head-height he made a running jump and grabbed hold of one of them, using his upper body strength to pull himself onto the skid, despite the lurch caused to the helo's flight by the sudden addition of his two hundred pounds plus bodyweight.

O'Hara fought the lurch, trying to retain stability as Thompson yelled, "What the…" at first suspecting the Colonel of trying to sabotage the flight but then looking down to see Harm clinging on to the skid. Abandoning his M-16 as too clumsy in the confined space of the helo's front seat, he drew his Beretta and open the helo's door and aiming as best he could he fired at Harm.

Harm cringed as the shot sounded and the round ricocheted off the metal of the landing skid, but Garrett, alerted by the shot, stepped in front of Mac and looked down, trying to draw a bead on the Navy office dangling under the helo.

Mac reached out and grabbed for Garrett's pistol, hoping she was strong enough to prevent him from turning it on her or Harm. The results of her sudden, and unexpected move exceeded her hopes, she wrenched the weapon from Garrett's hand and had the satisfaction of seeing it sail out of the open side of the Huey and fall to the desert far below now that the helo was clear of the Mesa.

Garret turned on her, with the obvious aim of rendering her helpless before grabbing his M-16 which was tucked behind the seat. Mac fell back and raising her feet kicked with all her strength, knocking him backward against the Declaration's container, sending it sliding across the floor of the helo and out of the open doorway on the other side.

Undeterred by the loss of the means to half a billion dollars, or maybe now wanting revenge for that loss, Garret came at Mac again. Again she kicked out, this time not only sending him flying backwards, but also winding him. Rising to her feet she snatched up the M-16 and for a split second was tempted to squeeze the trigger, but then raised it in a butt-stroke to the side of Garrett's head. Garrett's eyes crossed and he fell unconscious to the floor.

Thompson, unaware of the loss of the declaration, or of the fate of his companion in crime opened the door and leaned out in order to get a better shot at Harm, who still clung to the landing skid. He fired again and a third time, both shots missing, one of them going God knew where, the other zinging off the skid. Looking up, Harm saw that Thompson was off balance, and reaching up, he hooked a hand behind the other man's leg and jerked with all his strength. Whether the helo's lurch was a deliberate attempt or not by O'Hara to help, the combination of both was enough to pitch Thompson out of the door. With a wavering cry of horror and the knowledge of his imminent death, he plunged towards the desert floor over two thousand feet below.

The helo had approached sufficiently close for the watchers on the ground to see Thompson's flailing arms as he plummeted toward the earth.

Meg gasped soundlessly, her hand covering her mouth as she prayed desperately that the falling man wasn't Harm, while Bud's muttered "Oh my God!, although not loud, was clear enough to be heard above the noise of both helicopters' engines.

Although they watched in fascination as the figure dropped, they all averted or closed their eyes as he impacted with the ground.

Aboard the helo, Mac knelt down and cautiously, dreading that Harm might not still be clinging limpet-like to the helo's undercarriage, peered out over the edge of the floor. To her relief he was still clinging with hands and feet to the skid, a shaky grin on his face as he said, "Permission to come aboard?"

"Permission granted!" Mac almost sobbed as she helped pull him to safety.

By the time the Huey landed, Webb and his party had recovered the container that had fallen from the Huey. Webb of course recognised it as the container that held the Declaration, and with trembling fingers opened the catches that secured the lid. He, the FBI Agent and Bud all breathed a sigh of relief as they saw the precious document still intact. Meg had stayed standing upright, her heart in her eyes as Colonel O'Hara brought the Huey into a landing. Meg released a breath she didn't even know he was holding as she saw Harm's long frame ease out of the Huey's rear compartment. Her eyes shining with unshed tears she marched across to him and halted, whipping her hand up into a salute, "Good morning, sir!

"Good morning, Lieutenant!" Harm's own eyes shone with the sheer pleasure of seeing her again compounded by the joy of being alive .

"If I may make so bold, sir," Meg added "You're out of uniform, sir!"

"I guess I am, Lieutenant," Harm admitted with a grin, as he started toward the pick-up truck and the bag containing his peanut butters.

O'Hara and MacKenzie witnessed the reunion between Meg and Harm and drew their own conclusions, which they silently shared with a smile.

"Time to face the music, I guess!" O'Hara remarked as Webb finally looked up from his inspection, his faces settling into a grim expression as he recognised O'Hara. He rose to his feet, his hands going for his pistol and the set of handcuffs attached to his belt.

Harm saw Webb's preparations and paused as he drew abreast of the CIA Agent. "If you draw that weapon, or attempt to use those cuffs on Colonel O'Hara, I will ensure that you end up eating them! Is that clear?" he said quietly.

Webb considered, very briefly, the idea of either disregarding Harm's words, or informing him that he would be facing charges as soon as Webb could figure out what they should be, but the absence of any humour in the blue-green eyes that stared into his convinced him that doing so would be a bad life-choice,

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

"So, Commander Rabb, did you enjoy your desert sojourn?" Admiral A J Chegwidden asked his subordinate.

Harm looked around the well-appointed office, and ran a hand over the upholstered arm of the wing chair in which he sat, "It had its high points, sir," he said in a neutral voice.

Chegwidden grinned he had read two very different reports on what had happened in Arizona. One, the more factual he suspected was Rabb's after action report. The second was an almost hysterical denunciation of Rabb by Webb. In which he demanded that Rabb be tried on a multitude of charges along with Captain Sarah MacKenzie.

Which reminded Chegwidden, "And how did you get along with Captain MacKenzie?"

"We got along, sir." Harm said non-committally.

"I'm thinking of having her transferred here," Chegwidden told his subordinate, "And maybe assigning her as your permanent partner."

Harm sat up a little straighter at that, "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Go ahead, Commander." Chegwidden invited him expansively.

"I wouldn't welcome that in the slightest, sir."

"Go on,"

"Frankly, sir, I don't trust her. In matters of trust she and Webb would make a good pair. They are both deceitful and manipulative, and although she came through in the end, I don't like the idea of an officer who is supposed to be my partner pulling a gun on me and handing me over to the enemy."

"It was for your own safety, Commander."

"So she says now, sir. But I'm not convinced that if I hadn't persuaded Colonel O'Hara to turn himself in, that she wouldn't be on the run with him right now!"

"You don't feel that closer acquaintance would resolve your doubts, Commander?"

"No, sir. Not for one minute!"

"Very well, Commander, I shall respect your opinion… but it would have made life easier, for you and Lieutenant Austin…"

Harm felt the planet tilt below his feet. "Sir?" he managed with what he thought was a creditable air of surprise.

"Mister Rabb! I am neither blind, nor deaf nor senile! I may spend most of my working day behind this desk, but I am pretty well fully aware of what goes on in my own damn headquarters! Why do you think I didn't pass the task of writing Lieutenant Austin's fitreps back to you when you got your step! No, don't try to answer that. Just keep it out of the office, as you have done up to now!"

He regarded his now open-mouthed junior officer with fierce satisfaction. It wasn't often that the former SEAL managed to render Rabb speechless. "Dismissed!" he grinned.

Chegwidden was still grinning as he watched Rabb leave his office, almost in a daze. And he was still grinning as he fed Webb's report, page by page, into the shredder by the side of his desk.

xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Harm was still almost functioning on auto-pilot as he assembled dinner that evening, fully occupied by the thoughts that whirled around his head. He was only shaken from his distraction as the apartment door opened. Only one person ever opened that door without knocking and he smiled as he saw the tall slender figure of his favourite Texas tomboy step into the room, closing the door behind her and engaging the deadbolt.

She was casually dressed in a pair of stone chinos and a light blue denim shirt. She strolled across the floor towards him and taking his face between her hands she kissed him gently but lovingly. "What did the Admiral have to say?" she asked as she broke the kiss.

"He wanted to replace you as my partner with Captain MacKenzie," Harm blurted out.

"And what did you say to that?" she asked already seeing the possibilities.

"I told him that I didn't want a partner I couldn't trust." Harm replied as he brought his hands up to rest on the upper swell of her hips. "And then he said it was a pity, that having her as my partner might have made it easier for you and I!"

Meg gasped, "Oh, God, what happened then?"

"He told me that in that case we needed to continue as we'd been going and keep it out of the office!"

"He knows?" Meg demanded her eyes wide, "And he's OK with there being an 'us'?"

"So it seems, Harm agreed.

"Well then…" Meg took hold of Harm's hands and stepped backwards drawing him after her towards the bedroom, "This isn't the office, is it?"

"No, it's not!" Harm nearly shouted with laughter as he let go of Meg's hands and scooped her up in his arms.

"What the… Harm! Put me down!" Meg protested through her own laughter.

"Just as soon as we reach the bed!" Harm smiled and said softly.