When Jack came inside a few minutes later he was half talking to himself and half talking to MacGyver, "Man, there's some great takeout around here but I can't wait for a real honest-to-goodness Burger a la Bozer …" He trailed off as he took in Mac sitting on the couch looking serious and Bozer pacing around. "What's goin' on in here fellas?"

Mac held up a heavy cream colored card. On it was typed a poem. It looked like it was done on an old style typewriter but Jack could tell from running his fingers over the paper's surface that it had to have come from a printer; it was too smooth to have been typed. Jack took a few minutes to read it:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

"What the hell is this Mac? Creepy poetry has Murdoc written all over it ..."

"It's not from Murdoc. But we still need to call this in. It's a poem by W.B. Yeats called The Second Coming. He wrote it in 1919 in response to World War One."

"Okay, fine. But how do you know? And why the hell would someone else send you this?"

Mac stood up, running his hands through his hair. "Turn it over."

Jack did and swallowed hard.

The darkness drops again but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Beneath the last line of the poem were the hand written words, "Where will you be when it gets there, Mac?"

"Well, son of a bitch." Jack needed to sit down. Mac joined him but didn't say anything else.

Bozer strode over to them. "That's Nikki's handwriting! After she broke in here … that's the creepiest damned thing I ever heard."

"Oh, it gets creepier," Jack said, his voice sounding almost husky now. "Bethlehem was the codename for a mission we did under Thornton, all three of us … It's one of the ones Oversight is still looking at for connections to The Organization …" He cleared his throat. "We'll … uh … We should get this to Phoenix, like you said. Where's the envelope?"

Mac was staring at the poem, a vague frown on his face. Jack was immediately worried this would be a setback. "Mac?" Mac didn't answer. "Angus MacGyver!" Jack said a little sharply.

Mac shook his head quickly. "Sorry Jack. Just thinking, wondering …" He trailed off.

"Don't you go gettin' lost in that mind palace of yours, bud."

"You watch Masterpiece Theater?" Mac was surprised into laughing despite how unsettled this card had him feeling. He couldn't help it. The idea of Jack Dalton with a secret Sherlock addiction was too funny.

"I am a man of many talents and interests," Jack teased, but couldn't completely conceal his concern.

Mac got up. "The envelope's on the counter. Would you mind giving Matty a call, maybe Ri, too, see if they're still around at work? We can head over in a few? Then the boss can decide how we proceed with this …"

"Sure, bud … where you goin'?" Since this involved Nikki, nothing was going to stop Jack from worrying, even though he approved of Mac's immediate impulse to pull in the larger team.

Mac headed toward his room. He could read Jack's concern and wanted to reassure him. Nikki wasn't going to play mind games with him anymore. Maybe she was in trouble, maybe she was trouble. He was going to find out. He decided to adopt Jack's favorite strategy and crack wise to keep things light. "I'm gonna grab a shower and pull some clothes on. Shorts might be back in the rotation, but nobody at work needs to know that I have phenomenal abs."