It took Sid a couple of tries to climb over the junk in his office and get to the phone. "Sid's Messenger Service. Sid here."

"Hello Sid. I have a large number packages I need delivered to quite a few places today. Can your service take care of that for me?"

"Sure. What are they?"

"Oh, just some presents for friends."

"Nothing valuable, right? I don't want any sort of lawsuits on my hands if they get broke." He was still stinging from the last lawsuit, and was praying the cops weren't going to find out about the few 'under-the-counter' deliveries he was making in order to pay the bills.

"Oh, no Sid. No, there's no way I would sue you over something like this. I need to pay you in cash, is that all right?"

"No problem. Where can I send someone for pickup?"

"At the corner of Green and Mystic, there is a vacant lot. In that lot, you will find nineteen packages, wrapped in blue, each addressed and ready for delivery. A twentieth package, wrapped in red, will contain your money."

Even Sid could smell a setup when he heard one. And this call practically reeked of setup. "Hey, wait a minute, what's in these packages? Am I gonna have to explain this to a bunch of cops later? Cause I'm telling you now, I don't think they'll really buy this 'mystery man' bit, and there's _no_ way I'm going to take the fall for whatever it is you're asking me to pick up!"

Socks snarled in the background as his master reassured Sid, "Don't worry about the police, Sid, I've already taken care of them. As an added incentive, what if I told you that I was willing to tip you quite generously for prompt delivery of these packages?"

The words 'tip generously' got Sid's attention. "How generously?"

"One thousand dollars per package, cash up front. And you'll never hear from me again."

Nineteen thousand, cash? For nineteen thousand cash, he'd risk cops. He became much more polite to the most generous man on the other end of his line. "What time would you like me to pick up these packages, Sir?"

"I'm dropping the packages at the lot now. I'll come back again in two hours, and I'll expect to see them gone."

"And should I contact you to let you know that the packages have been delivered?"

The man smiled. "Don't worry, Sid. I'll know." Confident in the power of the greed consuming the gentleman on the other line, he closed the connection on his cellular phone. He took a deep breath, and inhaled the calming aroma of coffee coming from the red package in the seat next to him. He pulled up next to the vacant lot and muttered to himself, "Oh, don't worry, Sid. I've taken care of everything."

Blair grew slightly frustrated as he heard the doorbell ring for the fourth time. Since it was Sharon's place, he figured Sharon would get the door the first time it rang. The second time, he called out, "Sharon! Door!", all the while not looking up from the papers he had started grading. The 'consensus opinion' had been that the first thing Jim needed to do was learn the songs thoroughly, so Jim and Sharon had been spending the afternoon working on it. After the third ring, he looked up to see Jim, headphones on, going over "Layla" for what had to have been the tenth time. Much as he loved Eric Clapton, Blair was certain that he was probably not going to want to hear the song again for a long, long time after this case was over. Sharon was nowhere to be found for some reason, and so, after the fourth ring, he finally called out, to no one in particular, "Oh, all right! I'll get it!"

From what sounded to be some distance away, Sharon called out, "Blair, could you get that please?" Blair rolled his eyes, then realized Sharon had just taken a shower. Recently, it seemed, judging from the damp feel of the room. He wondered why Sharon would be taking a shower in the middle of the afternoon. Sighing, he went over to building intercom and asked, "who is it?"

"Delivery," was the only reply he received.

"Okay, I'll be right down," he replied. He took the elevator downstairs, and came up moments later with a large and rather heavy box, wrapped in blue paper. Sharon, who had just come out of the bathroom after the shower, came over to the kitchen table to inspect the package. She commented to Blair, "Funny-I wasn't expecting a delivery."

Between songs, Jim had noticed the unusual scents coming from the box the minute Blair had walked in the door with it. As he set the headphones aside and made his way to the kitchen table, he recognized the trace scent that had been working on his mind ever since he came in contact with the package.

C-4.

He screamed, "Get down!" to Sharon and Blair as he threw one of the kitchen chairs out of a window, and promptly followed it by the package. A high-pitched shriek filled his eardrums as he hit the deck himself, followed by the package's deafening midair explosion. He checked behind him, and noticed that Sharon had grabbed Blair and forced him to dive behind the couch for protection. They both slowly stood up, looking a little shell-shocked, but otherwise okay. The trio then looked out the window at the remains of Sharon's kitchen chair and the bomb that, were it not for Jim's Sentinel abilities, would have killed them all.

Down the street, Socks howled in concert with his owner, who was at first overjoyed that the three main bloodhounds on his tail were soon to be extinct, and then furious as he watched the masterpiece he had spent all morning working on being thrown out the window. How in the world could they have known what was in that box? He had carefully trained Socks to be able to detect C-4 and gunpowder from a mile away, and he tested each box under the mutt's nose before he had dropped them off with the delivery service. Full of dry dog food, all these boxes did was make Socks hungry; in some cases, the dumb dog drooled enough to almost rub the address off the box. So how could these three pick up on something that a dog's nose couldn't? [And more importantly, how do we hide these little treasures so he can't get them before they shine?] He yelled to his companion, "Come Socks, I guess it's back to the drawing board for us!"

Diane brought a large black garbage bag into the conference room with her as she stormed into the task force meeting Simon was conducting. She then unceremoniously dumped the contents of the bag into the center of the table: nineteen burned-out detonators.

By this point, all eyes in the room were on her. She looked each man in the room straight in the eye and announced, "Gentlemen-while you were in here discussing tactics, our 'friend' was at it again. Twenty of these were delivered, by messenger, to random addresses all over the city! Forensics was able to bring these back for us, 'as souvenirs'. We have _three_days_ until opening night, gentlemen! Simon, do we have _any_leads_at_all?!"

Simon had listened to her rant and rave before, so he waved off her question in favor of the shred of hope. "Did you say the packages were delivered _by_messenger_?"

Diane knew he would grab on to that, and replied, "Number 15 went to the dispatch office of the messenger service. The only man to speak to our unabomber died as soon as he opened the box. And Simon, you didn't answer my question."

Simon nodded. "We just got back the background checks from the computer. We found quite a few guys who matched at least half of the things on Sharon's profile, and I was just about to ask someone to have Julia call her when you walked in."

Diane replied, hesitantly, "It'll be kind of hard to get a hold of her right now, Simon."

Quizzically, Simon asked, "why?"

Considering what Blair had told her on the phone about what had happened, Diane had no deSire to go into great detail in front of the rest of the task force, but she had to give him at least part of the answer. "Bomb number twenty was addressed to her."

Before she could say anything else, Simon was grabbing his coat. Diane asked him, "where are you going, Simon?"

He abruptly replied, "the crime scene. You're taking me there _now_." He then turned to the other gentlemen in the room, announced, "meeting adjourned," and hustled the Commissioner out the door.

Diane spent the next ten minutes trying to catch up to Simon, until finally they were in the car, together, alone. He was about to start up the engine when Diane grabbed his hand. Simon looked into her eyes and was about to start yelling at her when she cut him off. "Simon, stop it! They're fine, all of them!"

Confused, Simon asked, "but you just said-"

Diane sighed, "yes, I did, and the bomb _was_ addressed to her. The reason I didn't want to get into it up there was that Jim was able to recognize the bomb and throw it out the window before anyone was seriously hurt. He got hit with a couple of shards of broken glass, so they're over at the hospital, getting him stitched up and giving their statements to a couple of uniforms. Now, if you'd take a couple of seconds to calm down a bit, maybe you could drive us to the hospital?"

Simon took a deep breath, then started the engine. As he was about to shift his car into drive, Diane added, "Oh, and one more thing..."

Simon turned to the Commissioner only to be met with an angry slap in the face. She continued, "I could care less how well we know each other _captain_, I am still the police Commissioner, and if you _ever_ speak to me like that in front of my men again I'll have you sucking dust balls in the evidence room until _long_ after you retire! Am I making myself clear?"

Simon shook off the impact of the hit and smiled inwardly. He loved it when she exercised her authority like that, especially when she was right. He had no business speaking to her like that, and, looking back, he knew it. As they pulled out of the parking lot, he replied, enthusiastically, "Yes ma'am!"

Simon opened the door for Diane once they had pulled into the hospital's parking lot, and they quickly walked into the chaotic Emergency Room. Once inside, it didn't take a Sentinel's hearing to hear Jim's objections to the doctor's cautious suggestion that they bring him upstairs and run some tests on him. "I don't need any tests!" insisted the Sentinel, "I told you, aside from the cuts on my arm, I'm fine!"

The young intern insisted on being just as stubborn as her patient. "Detective Ellison," she replied calmly for the fifth time, "you were within fifteen feet of a very loud explosion, with _nothing_ in between you and the bomb but a lot of quick-flying glass. Now, there's nothing right now that can force me to keep you here..."

Picking up on the last statement, Jim interrupted, "Great! Now, if you could finish bandaging up these cuts, I'll be on my way."

The intern looked to Blair and Sharon for help, as well as to the two newcomers who just walked in, but they only shrugged. Normally, friends and family members were her greatest ally at a time like this, always wanting to ensure the best for the health of the patient, but this time they seemed _almost_ as determined as the detective. [Oh well,] she thought, [guess you can't win 'em all.] She sighed in resignation, and grabbed a bandage from one of the multitude of drawers in the room. "Very well, detective." She then turned to his friends, hoping for a sign of agreement, and asked, "but if he shows any signs of a concussion, hearing loss, or of anything else, do you promise me that you'll bring him back right away?"

All four onlookers nodded in agreement. The intern taped together the last pieces of the bandage, and gave her patient a few last minute instructions. "You know the drill, detective. Keep it clean, and if there are any signs of infection, get back here pronto. If nothing shows up, I'll see you back here in a week to get these taken out, okay?" Jim nodded. She continued, "you realize, detective, that it's patients like you that make doctors like me want to go into private practice?"

Jim smiled, and joked back, "what, and miss all the fun?"

She smiled in spite of herself. The guy was stubborn as a mule, but he could definitely be charming. She nudged him on the other arm and declared, "okay, now out of here, all of you! I need to tend to patients who'll actually listen to me!" The group chuckled lightly as the intern went back to her duties and the rest of them turned around to leave.

Once outside, Sharon asked the question that had been bugging her since Ellison had called for her to hit the deck. "Jim, how did you know that there was a bomb in that package?"

Jim replied simply, "I smelled the C-4. Although, the guy was trying very hard to cover up the smell with something."

Diane chimed in, "Dog food. Forensics found residue from it all over the crime scenes."

Blair wanted to confirm what he had heard. "Crime scenes?"

Grimly, the Commissioner nodded. "Twenty bombs like the one you got were delivered all over the city. You three are the only ones to have survived."

For a few tense minutes, the group was silent. It was one thing to know that you barely made it out of a situation alive-it was quite another to know that scores of other people had just suffered the fate you had narrowly avoided. Sharon asked Diane, "this was the same guy, wasn't it?" Diane nodded again.

Blair asked the group, "and how long do we have until this competition again?"

Sharon replied, "Opening night's Saturday. Jim and I start competing on Monday afternoon."

[Only two more days?] Jim's jaw clenched in frustration. "Do we have _any_ leads?"

Diane's phone conveniently took that moment to ring. As she excused herself to answer it, Simon nodded in response to Blair's question. "We finished the background checks on the performers of the festival, and quite a few matched pieces of Sharon's profile."

Diane closed the connection on her cell phone and punched the hood of the nearest car. "That was the mayor. Three of the victims were some of the richest men in Cascade, and _all_ of them were campaign contributors. The press is having a _field_day_ with this, and they're breathing down his neck to get some answers. If you're up to it, we'd be willing to drive the three of you down to my office so you could review those files."

All three heads nodded in agreement. They _all_ wanted to catch this guy, now more than ever. If this was what he did for a warm-up, no one wanted to even think about what their 'unabomber' had planned for the Festival. Hopefully, they would be able to catch him before they had to find out.

Simon yawned, and looked again at his watch. It was after midnight, and they had only gone through half the profiles. [Looks like another night of almost no sleep,] he thought, [a few dark circles under the eyes to match the tuxes, I guess.]

Diane looked empathetically at Blair. Much as she knew they all wanted to catch the guy, it would be awfully hard to do it if they were unable to keep their eyes open. It was time for them to end this meeting. She address the group, "look, guys, we're not going to catch this guy tonight just by figuring out who fits the profile and who doesn't. Sharon, do you think this guy is smart enough to make his own plastique?"

Sharon shook her head. "He's smart, but he's no genius. The rest of the bomb was made with common materials. If he were going to the trouble of making his own plastique, he'd want to show off his 'creative genius', not bury it under dog food. It would be all we would find."

Diane replied, "Then I suggest we work on the C-4 angle. Simon, why don't you make some phone calls tomorrow, see if maybe we can find out if any black-market arms dealers have been spotted in the area lately. Throw Sharon's name around with the feds if you have to."

Sharon chimed in, "I'll make some calls as well, see if I can find anything out."

Diane smiled. Knowing Sharon's rather unique network of 'friends', she was looking forward to seeing what the young agent could come up with. "Sounds great to me, Share."

Jim added, "Sandburg and I could check out local warehouse stores, see if the names of any of their members match up to names on our list."

Diane nodded her approval. "Good idea. These roads have to intersect somewhere, people. It's going to be a matter of time before we find out who's standing at those crossroads. In the meantime, though, let's all go home and get some rest. We won't be able to catch anybody if we can't stay awake to do it."

The other members of the group voiced their approval and got up to leave. As Simon was about to walk out, though, Diane intercepted him. When she knew the others were out of earshot, she told Simon, "look, Simon, I just wanted to apologize for the way I treated you earlier.."

Simon cut him off, reassuring her, "don't worry about it. You were right, I was way out of line." A thought dawned on him, and he decided to take advantage of the opportunity. He continued, "however, if you'd like to discuss this over dinner, say, tomorrow night?"

Diane smiled, "I think I'd like that, Simon. See you at 7?"

Simon smiled back, "see you at 7", and left to catch up to the others.