Blair worked very hard to control his reactions as the man who was either Captain Simon Banks or an incredibly close lookalike came walking toward him. Regaining his composure just enough to be able to actually speak to the man, Blair asked him, "Can I help you?"

Calmly, Simon replied, "There is an urgent phone call for you, sir, in the main house. If you will come with me, please."

Playing along, Blair sighed loudly, replying, "Oh, all right." He then kissed Nathalie on the cheek, promising her, "I'll be right back, love. Wait for me?"

Smiling, Nathalie encouraged, "Always, ma cher. Always."

Turning away from the beautiful woman, Blair followed Simon away from the party. The older man brushed his hand against the younger man's shoulder, planting the jamming device. Now able to relax, Simon whispered to Blair, "Okay, that should do it. We can talk freely now."

Automatically taking his cue from his former Watcher, Blair exclaimed, "Simon? What are you doing here?!"

Simon smiled in response. "Just performing one of my Watcher duties, Sandburg. Getting you and your partner out of trouble. And trouble, in this case, has taken the form of Section One."

In the van, Birkoff was frantic. Moments after what seemed to be confinable contact, both Ellison and Sandburg had been breached, their comm frequencies jammed, their whereabouts disappearing from his surveillance view. He was going to pay for this one, that much was certain. Finally unable to compensate for the problems he was having, he contacted Michael and Nikita, who were running backup for this mission, "Michael, we've been breached. Someone's taken both Ellison and Sandburg."

Calmly, he heard Michael reply over their comm link, "They can't have gone far. Beta team, move in and secure the packages. Nikita and I will contain the breach."

At the party, Michael and Nikita moved discretely in the background, Nikita praying at every moment that Jim's 'super-hearing' wouldn't be able to pinpoint their every move. Both she and Michael had been briefed on the possibility of an outside attempt to contact Ellison and Sandburg, and their orders were to bring back for questioning anyone that did successfully make contact.

Walking toward the main area of the party, it wasn't hard for the operatives to spot the two rookies and their outside contacts. Linking arms with Nikita, Michael whispered into her ear, "We'll split up. I'll rendezvous with Ellison, you catch up with Sandburg."

His only response from Nikita was a barely perceptible nod as she went off in search of her target. Once he had assured himself that Nikita was on her way to intercepting Sandburg, he quietly made his way through the crowd, Ellison always in his sights. Michael hoped his ability to get lost in a crowd while still following his target still applied to a man, who, when he concentrated, could hear the heartbeat of the person following him.

Apparently, though, either the Gods or his talents were with him tonight, because he was able to take Ellison completely by surprise, if the startled look on the man's face was any indication as he turned around, asking his mentor, "Michael? What are you doing here?"

Trying to sound charming, he shrugged, replying, "I just wanted to come by and meet your friend." Turning to the beautiful blond who had been just moments earlier, been trying to help Jim escape to his freedom, Michael gazed at her as he told Jim, "I believe we have a lot of mutual friends in common."

Bitterly, Sharon spat out, "I'd hardly call them friends."

"Nevertheless," continued Michael, "I'd be remiss if I didn't come by and at least say hello to you, Miss Driver." Bending down to kiss her hand, he looked up and added, "Or should I call you Josephine?"

Not waiting for an answer, Michael's tone immediately turned serious as he told Jim, "Beta team has secured the packages. We are to return to base immediately." Turning his attention to Sharon, he ordered her, "You will come with us."

Sharon rolled her eyes. She should have known that the place would be crawling with undercover Section operatives. This was, after all, a first mission - Sentinel and Guide or not. Her voice dripping with sarcasm, she turned to Jim and asked him, "Well with an offer like that, how could I possibly refuse?"

Jim fidgeted nervously. He just hoped Simon and his guide got away safely.

Blair and Simon had almost made it to the main house when Nikita intercepted them. "Blair, darling, what a surprise to see you here!"

Startled, Blair could barely stammer out, "N-N-Nikita? What are you doing here?"

Acting completely casual, Nikita replied, "Just enjoying the party, Blair." Turning to the tall black man who was standing almost protectively behind Sandburg, Nikita asked Blair, "So who's your friend?"

Simon answered for himself, "Simon Banks. Nice to meet you." Turning to Blair, he tried to continue the reuse, "Blair, your phone call?"

It took a minute for Nikita to regain her composure. -This- was Daryl's father? She could already tell where her adopted 'son' got his good looks and a lot of his stubbornness. Turning back to Simon, she addressed him directly, "Well, Captain Banks, this makes it even more likely that you'll want to come back with Blair and I."

Trying not to sound sarcastic, Simon pointed the tranq dart gun at Nikita and asked her, "Oh really? And why is that, exactly?"

"Because I know where your son is."

Simon had to use every available energy reserve in his body to remain standing. "He's -alive-?"

Nikita simply nodded in response. "If you'll come with me, please."

The ride back in the van was far too quiet. Both Simon and Sharon seemed to be contemplating their failed mission, while both Blair and Jim seemed to be contemplating the fact that they just sentenced themselves and their friends to a likely cancellation at the hands of Section. Nikita winced at the thought, hoping that, should the two have to die, their deaths would be quick and painless and not at the hands of, oh, say, Madeline. She understood why Banks would go after his two friends from Cascade, but who was the blond? The question was itching at the back of her mind, so she asked her mentor, "Michael?"

"Yes, Nikita?"

Tilting her head so that Michael would know whom she was referring to, Nikita asked him, "Who's she?"

Michael leaned his head against the back of the van and sighed. Jurgen was gone, so outside of Madeline and Operations, he was the only one who knew the full story. And he had no desire to let Nikita hear anything but the truth. The rumors were bound to start flying the minute they returned to Section anyway. Seeing that Nikita was still waiting for an answer, Michael closed his eyes and admitted, "She's your namesake, Nikita."

Nikita's brow furrowed in confusion. "My namesake?" she thought aloud. "I don't understa-"

Then it hit her. The other woman had to have been, at one point, a Section operative. Codename Josephine. Which meant that, until a few moments ago, she had been free. Something that no other Section operative, save her, had ever been able to accomplish, as far as she knew. Nikita had gone back voluntarily because of her love for Michael, so, she wondered, what was -her- story? Michael seemed to have a resigned look on his face, like he did the night before he had gone after his old friend Rene. Curious, Nikita asked, "Do you know her, Michael?"

Michael shook his head. "Only by reputation. She was Jurgen's first trainee. I was training with him when she disappeared. It almost killed him. There were days that he would work me ruthlessly, other days he would be distant, and it seemed his attention was elsewhere. Eventually things relaxed, and Jurgen became the man that you knew. But I know she held a place in Jurgen's heart until the day he died."

"They were lovers?" Michael nodded.

It wasn't often that Nikita had heard Michael speak in such romantic terms. "Is that why you gave me the codename Josephine?"

Michael nodded. "I had heard so many stories about her from Jurgen that when you came along, it seemed you could have been sisters. I thought it fitting."

[Especially since we've both tasted freedom,] she thought ironically. But Nikita came back because she couldn't handle it. Looking over at her namesake, it was clear that she had been able to handle things on the outside quite well. So why did -she- risk her freedom on such a crazy stunt? And how did she remain free for so long without Section catching up with her? It had to have driven Operations crazy. "So what's going to happen to her now?"

For the first time since he led Sharon back to the van, Michael stole an opportunity to look at the woman he had, to this point, only known as a legend. "No one knows, Nikita. No one knows."

The sterile white walls of the interrogation room were just as intimidating as Sharon remembered them to be. Only this time, -she- was the one strapped into the chair and her former mentor, Madeline, was the one pacing the room. Sharon couldn't help it - the first thought that passed through her mind was, [The more things change...]

Such idle thoughts were interrupted by Madeline's first words of greeting. "Hello, Arianna. Or should I call you Sharon?"

"Sharon, please - I gave up Arianna a lifetime ago." The cold steel of her voice could not hide the slightest hint of bitter rage in her voice. She had been free once, and once again, Section had taken that from her, along with the first people she had ever had the chance to call friends.

Nodding slightly in acknowledgement of Sharon's response, Madeline continued, "I see. It's been a long time, Sharon."

Blue eyes locking on brown, Sharon never let her gaze waiver. "Yes, it -has-, hasn't it?"

Unfazed, Madeline simply continued, "The setup you used to try and fool us was quite impressive."

"But you weren't fooled."

Madeline allowed her gaze to break from Sharon's for the briefest of moments as she started to circle the room. "No, Sharon. We weren't fooled. But then you disappeared on us."

Sharon couldn't resist smirking. "Yes, I always wondered why you gave up on trying to find me."

Madeline stopped just behind Sharon, and the ex-operative could feel her mentor's breath in her ear. "We never give up, Sharon. You of all people should know that." Raising herself back to her full height, Madeline continued, "Would you like to know how we found you, Sharon?"

Sharon simply glared back in response. She already knew how the had found her - the minute she was pushed into the van she realized that they had probably taken pictures of her at Jim and Blair's 'funeral'. So when she went to the funeral, thinking only of comforting her best friends' friends and family, she was sealing her own death warrant. From that point on, it had only been a matter of time...she cursed herself out mentally for being so lax on her personal security after all these years. She knew better.

Madeline stopped circling Sharon when she was directly facing the younger woman once again. In a move that Sharon thought was uncharacteristic for her mentor, the older woman got down in front of her and asked her sincerely, "You had your freedom, Sharon. We would have left you alone. Why did you take such a tremendous risk?"

Sharon easily read the sincerity in Madeline's eyes, and decided to answer her with equal sincerity. All of the loyalty, anger, love, fear and hope she had felt from the moment she found out that Jim and Blair were alive could be summed up in the four simple words she used to reply to Madeline: "Because they - deserve- better."

[So she knows,] thought Madeline.

Not skipping a beat, Sharon's voice became laced with bitter sarcasm as she asked Madeline, "So are they still okay, or have you locked them up like a couple of lab animals now that their security's been compromised?"

Madeline raised a curious eyebrow. "Really? Is their security still an issue, Sharon?"

[Uh oh.] Sharon mentally cursed herself out that she believed for even a moment that Madeline was capable of sincerity. And now she's slipped up, putting Jay's life on the line in the process. For the first time since she had entered that white room, Sharon broke her concentrated focus on Madeline to let her eyes wander the room restlessly.

Madeline noted the change in Sharon's behavior, and took it as a sign of weakening defenses. Pulling down to whisper in Sharon's ear, the older profiler started to go 'fishing'. "Who's been helping you, Sharon?"

Sharon flinched at the sound of Madeline's voice and at the question she asked. Not letting up her assault, Madeline continued to voice her thoughts out loud, intent on reading Sharon's reactions. "Let's see, you know about Jim and Blair's mission, so whoever it was had to have knowledge of how to use our computer system?" No response.

"Or how to bypass our security precautions?" *wince* [Score one.] Madeline raised an eyebrow and continued, "You knew how to quickly and discretely disable our tracking devices, so he had to have some talent in acquiring new technologies?" No response.

"Building new technologies?" *wince* [Score two.]

Kneeling down next to Sharon, Madeline moved in for the kill. "You know we know about Jim, don't you?"

Sharon turned her head away, and Madeline knew she had just gotten an important piece of information from her counterpart. "Those files are top-level security encrypted...thank you, Sharon. You've been most helpful."

Sharon could no longer look her former mentor in the eye. She had just put Jay's life in grave danger - and more than likely sentenced him to die. Her voice barely above a whisper, Sharon asked, to Madeline only because she was the only other person in the room, "Am I dead?"

"Not yet," replied Madeline. "Many people believe the talents you possess would be a great asset to our organization. We've decided to give you a chance to prove your loyalty to the Section. If you are able to do so, then you will undergo retraining..."

A piercing alarm went off before Madeline could continue. Curious as to what the emergency was, the profiler walked to the door just as a runner was about to buzz himself in. The minute the door opened, Madeline did not have a chance to speak before the runner informed her, "Operations sent me to get you. Red Cell has just attacked the Academy."

To Sharon's surprise, Operations was not in the center of the chaos in the briefing room - Michael was. As she glanced over to see Operations pacing in his office, she wondered exactly how -much- things had changed since she had been gone. It sounded like Operations was still in charge of things, so why wasn't he here? Was Michael the new Operations? Or simply his successor, being given a 'test' of his own? And why were they still keeping her alive? Before they had left the interrogation cell, Madeline slapped an electronic bracelet of some sort on her wrist, but, for now, she wouldn't say what the bracelet was for. What was going on here?

Looking around the room, she saw very few operatives she knew, which wasn't surprising considering an operative's usually short life span. She did, however, see Simon sitting at the far end of the room, escorted by the blond woman from the van and wearing a carbon copy of the electronic bracelet Madeline had given her. Jim and Blair were sitting at the main table, under Michael's careful scrutiny.

Surrounding them, though, was a huge crowd of operatives, filling every available space in the room. The main table, aside from Jim and Blair, included the primary operations people who would be coordinating the assault: Madeline, her old friend Walter, and a kid with wire-rimmed glasses and a buzz cut that Sharon didn't recognize. Evidently, he was the Section's head computer genius.

Before she would have a chance to wonder who he was, though, Michael began the briefing. Calling up a holographic map of the academy, Sharon realized that it wasn't the same place where she had gone to school all those many years ago. [Well, apparently they're not just taking me along because I know the layout of the place...]

Putting her questions aside for the moment, she listened intently as Michael began the briefing. "A Red Cell squadron attacked at 10:30 this evening, shortly after lights out for the younger students. They took out all of the teachers and security personnel, but when they tried to kidnap the students, they had disappeared. Emergency electronic surveillance has determined that the squadron is doing a detailed search of the school grounds, apparently under the assumption that the students have not left the premises. Beta and gamma teams, you will lead an assault on the school in an attempt to capture the squadron. Take as many as possible alive. Dismissed."

Switching to a map of the area around the school as everyone other than alpha team and the support group left, Michael continued, "Since a Section transport was seen leaving the scene, we have good reason to believe that the children escaped on that transport." When three red dots came up on the map, Michael directed their attention to those spots. "The transport has sent out signals that indicate it may be headed for one of these three locations. Since we do not have the manpower tonight to split us up and search the three locations, we must determine the order in which to conduct the search. We can not be certain if Red Cell has this information or not, so time is of the essence."

Sharon asked, "What is at each location?"

The kid with the buzz cut punched a button, highlighting one of the three locations. "An abandoned warehouse." He highlighted the second location. "An old fallout shelter - the adjacent house burned down in 1972." He punched up the third and final location. "An abandoned airstrip. This would probably be the least likely location, though - they'd have to go through about five miles of woods to get there."

Simon paused for a moment in thought. From the moment he had been brought into this futuristic hellhole, his entire focus had been on finding out the location of his son. Unfortunately, he had been unable to get any information out of Nikita, the blond operative who had interceded when he had tried to rescue Sandburg. The woman refused to answer any of his questions when he asked about his son, turning the tables by answering a question with a question-usually about where he had been since he 'disappeared' from Cascade. Relying on his military experience, he had simply answered -those- questions with name, rank and serial number (more or less).

But now, he had his answers. Unfortunately, they weren't exactly what he wanted to hear. Evidently, Daryl had been taken to a school called the Academy, which had been attacked during the night. Since all the teachers and security personnel were apparently counted among the dead, Daryl must have been the one driving the transport. That would make the abandoned warehouse and fallout shelter more than likely out of the question - they would remind him too much of places he had often visited in his nightmares. The airstrip, though, didn't seem like a place he's prefer to hide out in either, unless... He asked Nikita, "Would Daryl have any reason to believe that Jim and Blair would be on the team that would be coming to rescue them?"

Quietly, Nikita nodded. Considering how close the boy was to the two men, it was one of the first promises she had made to him. And she always tried to keep her promises. "It was part of our contingency plan."

"And that's the plan that's gone into effect now?" Nikita nodded.

"Then he'd have taken them to the airstrip. While Daryl's not aware of Jim's 'abilities', that part of the contingency plan would have reminded him of when we were in Peru. He would have picked the situation that would give Jim and Blair the upper hand."

Madeline immediately saw where the former police captain was going with this. "And in five miles of woods, where the enemy would think they were concealed behind rocks and trees..."

Blair completed the thought, "Jim could pick them out like ducks in a shooting gallery."

Gathering up what little paperwork he needed, Michael ordered the group, "Very well. Report to the transport. We leave in five minutes."

As Jim, Blair and Nikita stood up to leave, Sharon and Simon joined them. Jim looked over at his two friends, surprised that they were both coming on the mission. Noticing Jim's confused expression, Sharon simply replied, "I've been, for lack of a better term, 'invited' to go on this mission."

Simon raised an eyebrow in confusion, an expression that had gone noticed only by Jim. Simon had figured he would go on the mission, but only because they were going to rescue -his- son and Hell was simply going to swallow up any Operative that tried to stop him. So how did Sharon get 'invited' on the mission?

Before he could get the chance to ask that question, though, Madeline intervened, answering it for him, "Yes, she has, as have you, Mr. Banks. That is the reason that you are wearing the bracelet that Nikita gave you." She addressed the group with her next comment, "However, you should all be warned that if any of you tries -anything- even remotely resembling escaping or removing the bracelets, a trigger mechanism will inject each and everyone of you with a lethal biotoxin." Leveling her eyes on Jim, she warned, "Simply keep your focus on the mission, and everyone will work out." Returning an icy glare to Madeline, Jim nodded, and led his new 'team' to the transport, Michael and Nikita following behind him.

Operations met up with his psychological counterpart as Madeline gathered her things and left the briefing room. Sighing in abject annoyance, Operations clucked, "Tell me -again- why we haven't just canceled the lot of them?"

Coolly, Madeline replied as she watched the group walking toward the transports, "Ellison's abilities are too valuable, as our Driver's if we can convince her to work for us. And -all- of them have strong protective instincts toward each other, just as Michael and Nikita do. If they believe that focusing on the mission is the best way to keep each other alive, then that is what they will do." Turning to face Operations she added, "Some people work far better with a partner at their side than they do alone, Marcus."

Operations looked at the woman who had been his 'partner' for over thirty years and realized, reluctantly, that she was right. Sighing, he wondered if he was going to be able to control the lot of them all at once.

He had a feeling that pigs would fly before that happened.