Disclaimer: We do not own the Hardy Boys or any of the canon book characters, nor do we own the Sentinel or any of the canon television characters, and are making no monies from this story. Any Original Characters belong to the author(s). Co-written with Talefeathers of the HDA.
For those of you who are not familiar with The Sentinel's characters, we hope this will be a pleasant introduction to them for you. For those of you who are already acquainted with Blair, Jim, Simon and the others – enjoy! Trying to fit these four stories into two different story arcs [Hardy Boys and The Sentinel] just barely worked. Band of Brothers and Welcome to Cascade take place before September Song [Hardy universe] begins, and any time after The Perfect Partner [Sentinel universe]. Missing Persons happens right after Fanfare for June [Hardys]; A Matter of Public Record takes place any time between Death on the Fourth of July and February Flirtations [Hardys], and before Remodel and Rebuild [Sentinel].
The stories in the series were written in 2006 and 2007. Technology does not match today's levels. Nor does airport security!
Thank you, Sarai, for your continued support and comments.
Welcome to Cascade
A Sentinel/Hardy Boys Crossover Story
By EvergreenDreamweaver & Talefeathers
Chapter 10
Aside from the occasional times he'd had to flee for his life, Blair Sandburg rarely used the fire escape from the loft – or the back door. If he or Jim wanted exposure to the outside elements, they stood on the balcony. If they wanted access to or egress from their home, they used the front door. The fire escape was strictly for emergencies. This classified as an emergency of the worst sort.
Andrei shot him...shot him...he shot Jim...Joe's words pounded in his head as fiercely as his feet pounded the pavement, with the same dull rhythm. Blair ran for the metal ladder, his whole concentration set on getting to his Sentinel as quickly as possible. He leaped and swarmed up the steps like he was going for a record on the obstacle course at the police academy. Gaining the level of his room, Sandburg plunged through the door and tore out into the main room – and for just an instant he halted, horrorstricken.
"Jim..." The whispered word was the only sound in the silent loft. Then Blair was running again, running to kneel beside the sprawled, long-legged figure of Jim Ellison, lying motionless on the floor. "Jim!"
Training and habit kicked in, and Blair reached to lay shaking fingers against Jim's carotid artery to feel for a pulse – and as he did, he caught the unmistakable rise-and-fall of his partner's chest. He's breathing, he's alive, he's breathing, it's okay, he's breathing... He could feel the soft, regular beat throbbing beneath his fingertips, and he exhaled a long, shuddering breath of relief. "Thank God," he whispered. "Thank youthankyouthankyou..." Gently, he let one hand slide down until he was gripping Jim's fingers.
Now that he could take a few seconds to actually look at Ellison, he felt encouraged. Although the detective's face was nearly as white as the towel wrapped around his head, it didn't have the awful gray tinge that Blair had feared. There was blood staining the other towels, the ones packed about his left shoulder, but the makeshift bandage on his head was not yet soaked through.
Thank God for Joe...if he hadn't been here to call – and do a quick bandage job...Blair's hand tightened on his partner's. "Hang on, buddy; help's on the way. Just hang on."
Voices and thumps at the half-open front door alerted him to the arrival of the paramedics, who had had to maneuver up the stairs, since they hadn't wanted to risk getting stuck in the elevator. "Detective Sandburg?" A dark-haired EMT poked his head around the door.
"Right here," Blair managed to answer. "Hurry up!" Reluctantly, he backed away a few feet as the paramedics converged on his partner.
###
Joe stared in chagrin after Blair as he raced frantically toward the loft. "He didn't let me finish!"
"Did you say Jim was shot?" Daryl seized the younger Hardy's shoulder and shook it. "Jim's shot?"
"Yeah, but – but he's not DEAD!" Joe tried to explain. He glared down at Andrew Martin, who was being cuffed and read his rights. One of the officers had gotten a first-aid kit from the car, and was wrapping a bandage about the bleeding wound in Martin's thigh. "Not for your lack of trying, you creep!"
The assassin merely snarled something in a foreign language. The boys didn't know if it was Russian, Polish, or something else entirely, and didn't really care. They had more important things on their minds than Andrei Marchlewicz.
"Let's go back to the loft," Frank urged, tugging on Joe's arm. "I want to know how Jim is!"
"Down with that!" Daryl concurred. He glanced at the police officers. "It's okay...isn't it?"
"Yeah, go ahead; tell Detective Sandburg we've got this covered," was the answer. "We're calling another rig to pick up this guy. Hope Ellison's okay!"
"You and me both," Frank muttered, and led the way.
They were about to enter the building – by the front door, rather than climbing up the fire escape ladder – when the yelp of another siren alerted them to a new arrival. Simon Banks' gold Crown Vic careened around the corner and jerked to a stop. The captain shut off the siren and the engine, but left his flashing lights on as he leaped out of the car.
"DAD!" Daryl ran towards his father. I haven't hugged Dad this much since my graduation!
"Daryl! Thank God you're okay!" Banks caught his son against himself in a tight embrace. "When I heard the call come in for here—" He looked around. "Where are Ellison and Sandburg? And did Martin...?" He stopped, seeing the uniformed officers and their prisoner down the block. "They GOT him?!"
"Yes, sir." The Hardys had joined Daryl and his father; it was Frank who spoke. "Blair shot him – right before he could shoot us."
Banks sighed heavily, and put an arm about the elder Hardy's shoulders. "I'm glad you're all right." He looked around again, seeking his detective team. "Where is Sandburg, anyway? Where's Jim?" he asked again.
"Upstairs," Joe said softly. "They're upstairs. He – Blair, that is – he went up because...Jim was...Jim is...Andrei shot—"
"Oh no." The police captain stared at him in horror. "Ellison's hurt?"
Joe nodded. "Andrei got into the apartment," he explained. "He and Jim fought – Jim yelled at us to get out..."
"We went down the fire escape," Daryl put in.
"How badly is he hurt?" Simon demanded.
"He was hit twice," Joe said soberly. "Shoulder and head—"
"Dear GOD!" the captain groaned. Frank and Daryl, who had been unaware of the details as well, both gasped in shock.
"Joe, are you sure he's – are you sure he isn't..." Frank faltered.
Before his brother could answer, a small commotion drew their attention. Two paramedics were maneuvering a stretcher through the door. Close behind it was Blair Sandburg, his eyes fixed on the stretcher and its burden.
"Sandburg – Blair!" Simon Banks moved to his youngest detective's side, at the same time looking down at Ellison. Jim appeared to be unconscious still, his head was bandaged, and his shoulder swathed in gauze, but he was breathing easily, and his color was good. An IV drip was inserted into the back of his hand.
Blair looked up, registering the presence of Simon and the three boys. His eyes were slightly damp, and wide with distress, but he managed to summon a smile – a tremulous smile, to be sure, but still, a smile. "I think he'll be okay, Simon," he said softly. "He took a bullet in his shoulder, but they don't think it hit anything vital. And the other one just clipped the side of his head."
There were four simultaneous sighs of relief from his hearers.
"Go with him to the hospital," Banks urged now. "The kids and I will secure the apartment and follow in my car. All right?"
"Thanks, Captain – 'preciate it." Blair moved after the stretcher as the EMTs started towards the ambulance again. The watching four saw him reach for Ellison's hand as he caught up.
"Let's go," Simon said gruffly, once the ambulance had roared away – for gruffness was the only way he could disguise the traitorous tightening in his throat and his stinging eyes. "Let's make sure everything's okay upstairs."
###
Everything was not okay – things were a shambles. Jim and Andrei's fight had knocked over the key-basket table and the chair next to the door, which stood halfway open. Two pizza boxes, miraculously unopened, lay on the floor nearer the kitchen. Large puddles of blood were drying stickily on the hardwood flooring. Bloodstained towels were piled in a heap, discarded when the EMTs had replaced them with bandages..
"Jim's gonna have a cat-fit over that floor," Simon muttered, and bent to mop up the bloodstains with the towels. "He's persnickety about anything on his hardwood. Daryl, wet this down." He handed his son one of the towels.
Joe set the table and chair to rights. As he did so, he quietly slid Jim's gun from his pocket and set it next to the key basket. He'd have to explain sometime, he supposed, but not now. Frank picked up the pizza boxes. "These are still warm," the elder Hardy marveled. "And nothing's wrong with them! The boxes didn't even come open!"
Simon looked at him, amusement glinting in his sharp brown eyes. "Bring them along," he suggested. "We'll probably have a long wait in the ER. Might as well have dinner."
"I wonder if the pop's still in the street," Daryl mused. "Blair dropped the box..."
"We'll check when we leave," his father assured him.
Frank found a piece of cardboard and taped it over the bullet hole in the glass door. Joe closed and locked the fire escape door. When he emerged from Blair's room, he was lugging his and Frank's duffle bags.
"I guess we probably aren't staying here tonight," he said tentatively. The others looked at him in confusion, then Captain Banks nodded.
"If you don't mind staying at a house with the front window boarded up, why don't you figure on coming back over to my place?" the captain offered. "Sandburg's not going to be back here tonight, that's for certain. And although there's no reason you couldn't stay by yourselves..."
"I think we'd like to go back to Daryl's," Frank spoke for both brothers. "It doesn't feel right to stay here without either Blair or Jim."
"Yeah," Daryl nodded, and went to gather up his things.
"I've never moved so much in such a short time," Joe sighed. "I haven't even unpacked once yet!"
They turned out the lights, and shut and locked the door. They walked down the flights of stairs and went out into the warm, still-light evening.
"Captain Banks..." Frank said softly, as they exited the apartment building.
"Hmmm?"
"I feel like – well, I know it isn't, really, but..." Frank hesitated, trying to form coherent words out of his jumbled thoughts.
"What is it?" Banks asked.
"I feel like we brought you all this trouble, somehow. Andrew Martin sat next to us on the plane here, after all...and we took the pictures of him, which is why he went after us, and Daryl...It feels like our fault..." he said guiltily.
Simon chuckled grimly. "You couldn't exactly help who else was on that flight, you know. It was simply a coincidence. And if you hadn't taken those pictures, we'd have had to spend a whole lot more time trying to figure out who our sniper was. I know you feel odd about it – and this last bit, with Ellison, well, that's very unfortunate. But it was NOT your fault. Look at it this way – if Martin hadn't switched his attention to you boys, he'd have been concentrating on Thor...and we might have had a successful assassination attempt AND had injured police officers."
Frank sighed. "I suppose so," he conceded, and climbed into Banks' car beside his brother.
#####
When they arrived at Cascade General Hospital, Jim had already been taken in for assessment and treatment – and Blair had gone with him; an unlikely event that surprised the Hardys, but Simon and Daryl just smiled knowingly.
"The doctors here know those two," the police captain informed them. "They've stopped trying to separate them in situations like this. Jim's got some drug sensitivities, and if Sandburg's not allowed to be with him and make sure he's not given something he shouldn't be, he goes nuts in the waiting room and drives the staff crazy. So they let him in – usually."
They settled down in the waiting room. They'd brought in the boxes of pizza and the carton of Coke which had – surprisingly – still been sitting in the street when they drove by, but as yet didn't open either. There was still too much tension for any of the four to be actively hungry.
Blair joined them after about 45 minutes, looking tired and tense, but not overly worried. He sank into a nearby chair with a sigh.
"They're taking him to surgery to patch up the bullet hole in his shoulder," he said. "X-rays showed the head wound was just a gouge through the skin. Lots of blood, no serious damage. Well, concussion from the impact." He looked at the magazine table and a surprised grin creased his features. "You brought the pizza and pop?"
"Uh-huh," Joe said. "We didn't want them to go to waste..." He was suddenly afraid that the young detective would be affronted by their seeming lack of concern over his partner, but Blair's smile allayed his fears.
"They won't," Sandburg said, and leaned forward to open one of the boxes. "I'm starving." After taking an enormous bite, he added, "Aren't you guys going to eat?"
That was all it took for Simon and the boys to decide they were hungry as well, and for a few minutes there was no conversation, merely the sounds of chewing and swallowing.
"Did Jim regain consciousness?" the captain asked, after his first hunger was assuaged.
Blair nodded. "Just for a minute or two. He knew who he was, knew who I was, sort of remembered what happened, and asked what happened with Andrei," he smiled. "and if you guys were okay. Blessed Protector," he added under his breath, with a tiny headshake. "He won't remember when he wakes up later, though."
Banks shook his head too. "More luck than sense," he muttered – and reached for another slice of pizza.
