Tom Daniels shook himself awake.

Stakeouts had been one part of being an agent that he absoultely hated. The Los Angeles heat dulled his senses as he sat in the hot car. The one rock music station he had found kept breaking in with traffic reports so often they barely completed one song.

Tom glanced at the clock radio,it was barely ten in the morning. He knew it was probably just the boring routine of the stakeout,but Tom couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

He wanted to reach out through the telepathic link to Sloan. Make sure she was all right,but he knew he couldn’t risk it. Lewis would know in a heartbeat. His former mentor had endangered her life once before. Tom swore that would never happen again. So that drew Tom to the inevitable bottom line. No matter how much he wanted to,he couldn’t contact Sloan. All Tom could do was pray that Tate was as good at protecting her as he claimed to be.

Ed Tate jumped involuntarily as his cellular phone rang. With an exsperated sigh Ed yanked the small device out of his pocket.

“Tate.”He answered gruffly.

“Ed? Its Walter,”Attwood began softly,”I know you’re worried about Sloan but I need you back at the lab.”

Ed shook his head angerily,”Forget it!”

“You’re the one who compiled the pillar data onto the disks,”Attwood replied,”I need you to remember as much as you can so we can reconstruct it.”

Ed leaned forward,”Where you not listening to me?! I just told you to forget it! Forget the whole damn thing,Walter! There’s a timeclock on Sloan’s life and I will not spend one precious second of that cooped up in front of a computer screen!”

Atwood stifled a sigh,this was turning into a very long week,”If you value her life as much as you say you do,you’ll report back to the lab. I’m as worried about Sloan as you are,but this is much more than one life,Ed. Much more.”

“What was all that about?”Ray asked as Ed collasped the phone.

Tate took a last futile glance at the shoe store,”I’ve been recalled.”