Robert Rodriguez owns Sands and anybody else you may recognize from OUATIM. Lucky him. If he doesn't like me borrowing his characters, he can always send Sands over to my place to shoot me.

A/N: Sands on why "Sheldon" is a perfectly acceptable name, and an old acquaintance re-surfaces.

6. Miraculous

Over the course of the next several days, Sands found himself assembling a variety of gadgetry, from exploding crossbow bolts to bang sticks. His question as to whether or not all this was going to be necessary to take out the cartel was met with the response that one could always use a few spares now and again. He nodded; the thought of being used as free labor didn't bother him...much. Discovering that there was something he could do well, even in his current condition, was, to use a word from one of those cheesy daytime talk shows, empowering.

He was tired of being addressed as Lucifer, but figured as long as it wasn't shortened to "Luci", he'd live with it. He'd prefer Sands, or Sheldon in a pinch, but he drew the line at Luci. Funny how people automatically assumed he hated his given name. What made Sheldon a less desirable name than, oh, Shaun? Or Steve? He'd known a few Shauns (of one spelling or another), and a plethora of Steves, but he'd never met another Sheldon, not even the uncle he was named for, dead since before he was born. It was a little like protective camouflage. People heard the name "Sheldon", and right away, they assumed he was a geek, not a badass. Several of them hadn't survived that mistake.

On Wednesday of the following week, Sands sensed a difference when he walked into the workroom. It seemed to have shrunk, somehow. He cocked his head, listening.

"What's the matter?"

"Something's different."

"What?"

Sands stamped his feet experimentally. "Less of an echo. Like there's something big in the middle of the room."

"Excellant! And you could tell that from the sound alone? Very good. Very good indeed."

Moving carefully forward, Sands found a large table or tables pushed together in the center of the room. He reached out, only to encounter a variety of shapes that at first made no sense to his mind. Then it dawned on him. "Scale model?"

"The cartel has a compound, which I've located. The perimeter--"

Sands felt a rush of exultation. He listened carefully, repeating, asking questions, about angles, terrain, defenses. His tactical mind was reawoke and soaked it all in. It was going to happen. He was going to bring them down....

"Now, I think you'll find this interesting. Take off your glasses."

He tensed as earpieces grazed his temples. There was something odd about them, they had little clamshell-shaped pieces that hovered slightly in front of his ears. The frames that settled on the bridge of his nose were much heavier than ordinary sunglasses, and he could feel a stiff plastic strip being secured at the back of his head. "What's this?" He traced the outline of a pair of wraparound glasses so large they reminded him of safety goggles.

"Try not to smudge the receptors. It's a shiny new state-of-the-art personal self-contained sonar. Listen." There was a click, and sound made the room spring to life around him. A little like a high-quality surround-sound system, it differed in that the sound was being produced by the location of objects in his vicinity. He walked around the room slowly, discovering the different tones for heights, pitches denoting distance.

"Here's the remote. On and off, volume control. It's accurate up to about ten feet. It detects drop-offs in the low end or overhangs in the upper range. The rear sensors are less sensitive--you'll know if something is incoming, but not necessarily from which side. The sides are your weak point, but I'm sure you'll learn to compensate. You seem to have a certain knack, even without the gear."

Sands spent the next two days practicing with the gear. There were some limitations, as he found when he strode confidantly out of the garage and walked into the bouganvilla--something as light as a twig or thin branch barely registered, which meant things like tripwires would be a hazard, or a small thrown object could strike him before he had a chance to react to the incoming signal. However, for independant movement, the sonar system was a godsend. It wasn't the same as seeing, of course, but it made navigating considerably easier. Combing Culiacan, he practiced negotiating flights of stairs, threaded his way through crowds in the marketplace, stepped aside for other pedestrians approaching behind him. He stopped bumping into things; learned to distinguish the slight change in pitch that warned of curbs and changes of level.

The second day, he sought out Manolo. The boy's disappearence concerned him; he didn't think it was tied in with his colleague, but until he knew for certain, Sands would worry.

Uncle Pablo's newstand--that was how he thought of it, after hearing Manolo talk about it so much--was an easy stroll from Sands's hideout. Manolo had brought him there several times, so Uncle Pablo recognised him. "You're that American. You're looking for my nephew?"

"Yes, he hasn't been around lately, I was hoping he's all right."

"Yes, he's all right. He's in school, where a boy his age belongs. I've put my foot down, he's going to get the education that I'm paying taxes for! The school has orders to call me if he's absent. I won't permit any more of his truancy."

Sands smiled broadly. "You're absolutely right, Manolo's a very smart kid, I'm sure he's going to go far. I just wanted to thank him for all his help, he's been a good guide while I was getting my bearings in your beautiful city. Maybe you could give him these?" He held out the old pair of RayBans that had seen so much.

"Si." The other man took the glasses. Sands paid for a box of gum, took one package, and left the rest. What the hell, the least he could do was give the kid a little more capital.

Strolling down the street, he was surprised to hear Christmas music coming from somebody's radio. He'd had so much on his mind that he was startled to realize that it was the middle of December. Unlike his native country, where Christmas promotions began about ten minutes after Labor Day, Mexico actually celebrated the season in December. "Not that I give a rat's ass," he told himself. "Christmas, Channukah, Kwaanza--it's all hype." Deep down, though, there was one holiday that would always resonate...November second, the Day of the Dead.

He was thinking of the Day of the Dead as his brain responded to tones that heralded someone's rapid arrival behind him, and he turned an instant before he was actually hailed. "Sands!"

"Ramirez." He'd been dazed and bleeding against a wall for their last meeting.

"Hey, you're looking a lot better," the retired FBI man said approvingly. "I thought you were a goner, last time I saw you. Where the hell did you disappear to, anyway?"

Sands shrugged. "Had to go take care of business."

"Whew. Couple gunshot wounds and a hell of a concussion, and you're worried about taking care of business?"

Concussion? Ramirez didn't know--still didn't realize he was blind. The thought made him smile. "I'm all about taking care of business," he said easily. "What have you been up to, Jorge? Still retired?"

The other man hesitated. "Maybe we could talk about it over drinks?" he suggested.

"I've got time."

They found a booth at the back of a local watering hole and ordered tequilas. Ramirez began to outline what he'd heard about the new cartel that was moving in. Sands questioned him extensively. Most of it dovetailed with what Sands already knew, but he noted a few points his briefing hadn't covered. It pleased him to know he was providing some fresh information for the op.

"The Federales are staying out of it," Ramirez concluded. "The coup hurt them badly, especially when they found out one of their own agents was Barillo's daughter."

"I heard about that." Sands smiled to himself. "But she's dead now."

"Yeah, and now they're all looking at each other, wondering who else they can't trust. Everybody's afraid of the man next to them."

"So everybody's waiting for somebody else to make the first move."

"That's it."

"That's fucked up."

"Yeah, it is. Here, I'll get that." The retired agent slid out of the booth. Bills fluttering to the table hissed slightly in Sands's ears. "Maybe you can let the boys at Langley know, okay?"

Sands's lip curled. "Right." Minutes later, he initiated an outgoing call on his cell phone.

"Millenium Consulting."

"Sands here."

"One moment...go ahead."

Sands outlined his findings.

"Good work. I'll take that into account. How's the PSCS working?"

"The gear's brilliant. Ramirez didn't even realize I'm blind, he just thinks I had a really bad concussion."

"Don't let pride blind you, Lucifer." The line went dead.