Seated outside a small cafe in Italy, Lee Jordan looked again at the small pocket calendar he was carrying with him. Six days. Today was the seventh. For seven days he had kept close enough behind Carmen Sandiego to keep her running on full Adrenaline Control. By now she must be getting tired.

It was about time; Lee had been tracking her for three solid months. He had always questioned why no one tried to pursue her further after she dropped everything to escape, and now he knew why; it was far too exhausting.

Lee had come up with the idea of a tracking device. It had been tried before, but Carmen, being an experienced exiled Senior, had found the devices and got rid of them, leaving her pursuers stranded. Lee had lost her trail several times, but he had always managed to pick it up again. He was more persistent than the others, perhaps a bit luckier, and--or at least he liked to believe--more talented. He'd studied her travel and escape patterns. He'd been on her trail several times before. But this time he was in it to win.

Lee sat back in his chair and yawned contentedly. He rather liked chasing the strange young woman. In a few ways, they were very much alike. Both of them considered themselves players in a game. Each dared the other to make it harder for them to win. Lee enjoyed the challenge she had given him in tracking her, and it was clear that she wanted him to challenge her, to make it as hard as he could for her to escape. Both of them had a certain flair, a desire for excitement, and constantly pressed themselves--and each other--to their limits. They were professionals. None of the cop talk from Lee, none of the guns or knives from Carmen. They understood each other. They knew each other's minds. In Lee's mind, they were very much alike. Their boldness, daring, confidence. The way they carried their bodies, talked, and flaunted their abilities. Lee had never been so challenged--or so relished the sheer excitement of it.

The north wind blew cold, and Carmen drew her coat closer around her. Perhaps it just seems cold, she thought to herself as she watched the autumn sun set in the west. After all, I've had so little to eat, so little sleep...

The Junior was gaining on her. She could feel it in her bones, which ached painfully from the three-month trek she had endured, trying to shake him. Never in the seven years that she had run from the Agency had she felt so spent. But there was another feeling eating away at her, more urgent than the pain or the fatigue. It was the nagging concern--and realization--that he was catching up to her.

Another gust of wind whistled between the Italian villas, and Carmen shivered violently as the sun dipped below the horizon and darkness enveloped the world. She could feel it in his look, his speech...he knew he was gaining. He followed her with the patient determination of one who knows he is going to win, that it was only a matter of time.

In the last week or so, it had been near-miss after near-miss. Carmen didn't know how long she could keep this up. The hotel room in Hong Kong--she hadn't known where else to stay. She hadn't slept in days. She had been wearing her old leather jacket and sunglasses, but he still knew her. She had escaped out the window just as they broke open the door. The opera house in Austria--he'd screamed her name, and the entire place knew she was there. The market in Nairobi--stealing a rickety sheep truck wasn't really her style, but she hadn't had much of a choice. The cop in Jacksonville--she'd been so tired, she'd run right into him without a thought as to what he was.

She sighed deeply from exhaustion, and her body felt heavy as stone. What a fool I am...at first she'd approached the whole thing as a game, a contest of skill she was sure to win. But this Junior, who never had any of the training she'd had, was pulling in the lead. And if he did capture her? There her life would end; but he would go on, winning renown in the Agency while she would be forgotten forever, left to die in a small cell. No one would claim her. No one would visit her. She was dhanna, and would be so forever.

She couldn't keep this up. She knew she couldn't. She just wanted to lie down and sleep, sleep forever, not caring what happened to her.

She shook her head. She had to go home. She had to rest, or she would lose her mind.

Not real home, not where she slept when she knew her trail was cold. But the big stone house in the city. Hannah at least would be there, she’d been ordered to stay there. Carmen could at least count on Hannah to keep watch, if nothing else. Hannah had been loyal ever since Carmen had rescued her from that jail in Hawaii.

Carmen walked wearily down the stone street, looking up once or twice at the cold stars twinkling down at her as her hair and the straps of her coat fluttered in the wind. An elderly man, out for a nighttime stroll under the stars, was the only person she encountered before she left Italy. He paid her no mind, though he remarked her strange attire. She was clear in his mind the next day, when a bold young American with dark hair and gallant speech inquired about her.

* * * * *

"We'll go in first, just a few of us. I want to make sure she's there first," the stalwart young detective told the group of local cops. "There's no sense in all of us running in there if she's run off."

"Not a problem," the police chief told him. "How long you been tracking her?"

"Three months."

Several of the cops whistled. "Well, I'll be darned. Good luck catching her, kid. You'll be making history if you do, you know."

The detective grinned. "I've known that for a long time. But half the journey's been getting there."

As they prepared to leave Lee wondered if he needed to give the standard Acme speech on proper arrest. They were street cops, after all. They might not realize that guns and tranq darts were forbidden in apprehending a non-dangerous Exile. Of course, the past few groups of cops he had worked with had glared at him the last few times he had made the speech. They were not idiots, they had said. He shouldn't act so superior because he was from Acme, blah blah blah. Their whines didn't bother Lee a bit, he'd give the speech every hour on the hour if he felt they needed to hear it, but he felt that they knew their job well enough.

"C'mon, detective, we're waiting for your orders," called the police chief, and Lee snapped back to the present.

"Let's go," he said, nothing more. The cops weren't Acme material, but they'd had training. They didn't need to hear that speech for the billionth time.

* * * *

Sirens! Carmen was lost in a thick mist, panicked and unsure of which way to go. She heard the detective's voice, laughing at her in the darkness, mocking her. He knew where she was, but she could not find him. At any moment he would be upon her. She was caught like a mouse in the cat's claws.

He grabbed her arm! She shrieked and tried to throw him off, but he held on. He was still laughing at her, calling her name...

Carmen awoke suddenly as she felt someone tugging at her arm. She leaped up and whirled round, startled, and snapped, "Hannah! Don't yank on me. What?" she demanded, seeing Hannah's eyes wide with fright.

"The Junior!" Hannah squeaked. "He's here! In the building!"

"What d'you mean, here?" Carmen demanded again, losing her perfect speech to a San Francisco accent. "How on earth did'e get in here?"

"I saw them!" Hannah cried, still clutching at Carmen's arm. "He got in somehow...I saw him walk in the west door! He's got other cops with him! He's coming!" She started to pull at Carmen again.

"Let go of me! Hannah, listen," she ordered, lowering her voice, "Stay here a minute. I have to..."

"But he's coming! He's coming NOW!"

"Hannah, will you shut up a minute? Here," Carmen swept some papers that contained building schematics, maps, and her sketches into Hannah's hands. "Burn these in the fireplace. It's not going to do us any good to run now if he uses these to find me later." As Hannah hurried to comply Carmen ran to her computer and started locking programs. In the middle of it she realized that her system was dangerously close to Rodger's, and with some work Lee could probably break into it. It had access to two others, which held the location of her other few sanctuaries as well as information on her agents and other data a Passangue Junior could find useful. If he broke into it he could even disable her entire system, just before he tracked her down--to her own home!

Hannah turned to see Carmen ripping out wires and pulling at the inside machinery, tossing out pieces on the floor. These she picked up and threw out the window and into the fireplace, then she tossed one to Hannah. "Hold on to that," Carmen told her. "I'll fix it later. If I have a later," she added uneasily. Hannah began to tremble; if Carmen was worried, then they were truly in a bad situation.

"Come on," Carmen said as she grabbed Hannah's hand and led her into a side room. She picked up a long iron bar and jabbed at the ceiling. A door in the roof opened, and a slight breeze fluttered in. Carmen stood on a side table and climbed up onto the low roof.

As Hannah began to do likewise she pointed to a small terminal to her side. "What about that computer?" she asked.

"It can't access anyth...Yaaaah!"

Hannah jerked her head upward upon hearing Carmen's yell and a loud double thump on the roof. She clambered up though the door just in time to see Carmen scrabble wildly for a hold on the roof just as she went over. Lee Jordan was on the roof as well, scrambling forward toward her. He made a frantic grab over the edge, then held himself taut.

"Gotcha!" he called over the edge.

"Nice going!" came Carmen's sarcastic voice from under the eaves. "You tripped, didn't you?"

He grinned. "Are you going to come up here, or are you going to dangle there all night?"

"I'd rather stay down here, if you don't mind."

Hannah crept out of the door onto the roof, on hands and knees. Heights made her dizzy and the mere thought of slipping over the edge made her nauseous, but she knew Carmen's remarks were for a reason. She was stalling, indirectly telling Hannah what to do.

"I do mind," he told Carmen, panting. "You're pulling my arm out of its socket. Besides, you look hilarious hanging on the side of the roof, and if I start laughing at you, I'll let go."

Carmen started struggling over the side of the roof. "Speak for yourself. I wouldn't be hanging over the roof if you hadn't tripped and run into me. And you looked pretty funny yourself, flailing your arms before you crashed into me."

Hannah crept closer.

Lee helped Carmen up, snapping his cuffs on her wrists as he did so. "Maybe so, and maybe when I get you back to the Agency I'll let you tell that story. It won't matter, because you're going to...hey!"

Hannah had grabbed him, her strong arms restraining him. Carmen leaped up and jumped lightly back into the roof door. Hannah broke her grasp and Lee leaped after Carmen, leaving Hannah alone on the roof.

Carmen dashed down the hallways, bowling over several street cops as she did. Carmen was not worried about the dieka; she could easily leave them in the dust. It was Lee Jordan and the backup he would be calling in that worried her. But now she knew Lee was behind her, and she knew what to do about the backup. She left the cuffs lying on the steps as she ran into the courtyard, as police sirens began to wail in the distance.

It was simple, really. She would get in her car and go. Not the most impressive of escapes, but Carmen wasn't interested in showing off just now. The simple truth was that if Hannah hadn't been on the roof, Lee would have won then and there. It had been that close. She knew it and she was sure Lee knew it, and if Lee got to her and the backup police cut her off she was done for. She jerked open the car door and sat down, reaching into her pocket for the ignition key.

It wasn't there.

Frantically Carmen searched her other pockets. She needed that ignition key. The only way out of the place that was fast enough was in the car, and she didn't have the key. She couldn't hotwire it; some kid had tried that once, then ran off in fright once he realized just exactly whose car it was that he was trying to steal. Carmen had then made it impossible to hotwire the car. Only the key would start it; it was essentially an ordinary car, after all, with a few interesting modifications. The wings and rockets, for example. But it would not start and certainly would not fly if she did not have the key!

She heard someone step into the courtyard, and she looked up. Lee was standing in the courtyard, listening to the sirens growing louder. He opened his hand.

The gesture was not one of malice, contempt, or egoism. It was more the type of flourish that a chessmaster makes against a worthy opponent, as he moves his piece into the final checkmate position. It was a simple movement that declared the end of the game, winner over loser.

Her key glittered in his hand. He had not tripped. He had taken it from her pocket as he ran into her.

She knew what would happen next. She was too experienced not to know. Lee saw her eyes fixed upon the key in his hand and read the horror within them. She was well aware that she had lost the game. She stepped out of the car and turned silently to watch as the squad cars pulled into the courtyard.

The game was over. He had won; she had lost. He stepped forward to make it final. She tried to look unconcerned, as if Lee was merely causing her a slight inconvenience, but he felt her tremble as he cuffed her hands behind her back. He looked at her quizzically, but her faced betrayed no emotion.

Lee did not speak to her. The snap of the cuffs was statement enough of her defeat. Lee would not humiliate her with street cop ridicule. She was an adversary, and a worthy one at that, not an enemy. He merely took her arm and escorted her firmly toward the squad cars. He would not rob his most worthy adversary of her pride.

A cop opened the car door. Lee could feel her straining against him. He felt her arm jerk ever so slightly, and he knew from experience that she was working at he cuffs, trying to get them off before he forced her into the car. He made a grab for her as he heard the cuffs clatter to the ground and felt Carmen thrust herself away from him.

The cops, realizing what was happening, sprang forward to help Lee. A rookie, anxious to help, grabbed at something in the trunk of his squad car. Lee made a flying tackle and heard Carmen's soft cry of despair below him. She struggled upward, trying to wrench herself free from his grasp. As the cops made a circle around them the rookie sprang forward with something glittering in his hand. Mistaking it for a gun, Lee cried out in protest and placed himself between the rookie and Carmen. The rookie fired.

A tranquilizer dart buried itself in Lee's shoulder. He cried out in pain and fury as Carmen scrambled to her feet and, with a burst of adrenaline, leaped over the heads of the cops. Lee broke through the ring and ran after her, catching up to her as her head swam from the ill-gained adrenaline rush. A fog began to form in front of Lee's eyes, and he was suddenly stricken with fatigue. He dropped to his knees as Carmen ran off, out of his reach, escaped once more. He would have had her, if it hadn't been for that rookie...the cops...I should have prepped them...the Agency policy...no guns, no darts...the fools, what were they thinking...!

Such was his thought even as it fluttered away; and as the police chief put out an arm to steady Lee, the world was enveloped in darkness.

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