Steele With a Twist 3:
Tarnished Steele
Episode 7
Remington gripped the cool metal of the tower and struggled to overcome the feeling that he was falling.

"Hold on, Harry! I'm on my way!" Laura's voice. Thank God. He risked a glance down, and tightened his grip as he nearly fell.

On the ground below, Murphy's attention was focused on Laura as she started up the tower. "You don't have enough time, Laura!" he called again. There was a scuffling sound, like an oversize rat scurrying away, and Murphy turned, only to see Descoine running into the darkness on the far side of the abandoned power station. "Descoine!" he yelled, following as Descoine's insane laughter seemed to beckon him.

Suddenly there was the sound of an engine starting, and Murphy barely managed to leap out of the way as a dune buggy appeared out of the darkness and came toward him before vanishing once more into the night.

As the sound of the engine faded into the distance, Murphy stood and brushed himself off, returning to the base of the tower. "Laura?"

"Where's Descoine?" a voice asked at his side.

Turning, Murphy frowned upon seeing Jarvis. "Took you long enough to get here, Jarvis," he commented. "Descoine just took off that way in a dune buggy."

Picking up his radio, the detective pressed the button. "Charlie?"

Charlie's voice over the frequency sounded choppy to Murphy. "Yeah, Lieutenant?"

"Descoine's heading west away from the station. Do a search, see if you come up with anything."

Murphy looked up as he finally heard the distinctive 'whoop whoop' of the helicopter's blades. "You won't find him, Jarvis. Man's got more lives than a cat."

"Don't mind if we try, do you, Murphy? Where's Steele?"

Murphy nodded toward the tower. "Up there." Jarvis peered upward. "And Descoine's got this thing rigged to electrify the tower when they shunt the power from this grid."

"Why doesn't he just climb down?" Jarvis asked.

"Descoine drugged him last night. Apparently it's something that takes awhile to wear off."

"And what about Miss Holt?"

"On her way up there to see if she can help him down."

Jarvis checked his watch. "She'll never make it."

"I know," Murphy agreed, his voice revealing his worry.

***

Laura reached the top of the tower and grabbed hold of Harry. "Are you okay? What the hell were you thinking of, taking off alone like that? Do you have any idea how worried Murphy and I were? Not to mention poor Miss Krebs-"

Remington refused to let go of the tower to return her embrace. "Laura, do you mind? My head's spinning enough without having to face your lecturing me as well."

She looked at him, saw the white of his knuckles as he grasped the support beside him. "We have to get down from here, Harry."

"As long as I stay here, I'm fine," he told her. "And I'm not moving."

"You're NOT fine here," Laura informed him. "Descoine rigged the lines. When they shunt the power, this tower is going to become a giant sparkler!" She glanced down to see a second shadow join Murphy, and worried for a second that it was Descoine. But this shadow didn't seem threatening. At least not now. Faintly, she heard Jarvis' voice interacting with Murphy's.

He glanced at the ground, then tightened his hold once more. "Laura, there is no way I can climb back down that ladder. Whatever he gave me has totally messed up my equilibrium. I doubt I could walk more than two steps at the moment, much less climb down that ladder."

Laura's mind searched for an alternative as she heard the helicopter. "That's it!" Leaning over the side of the tower, she shouted, "MURPHY!!!!!"

"Yeah?!" he replied, sounding VERY far off.

"He can't make it down! We need that helicopter!"

Jarvis was on the radio again before Murphy could speak. "Charlie- I need you back here ASAP."

"Why, Lieutenant? I think I just spotted Descoine-"

"Steele and Holt are trapped on the tower closet to the plant. I need an airlift."

"On my way," Charlie replied.

"Laura!!" Murphy yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth, "They're on the way! Hold on!"

"Come on, Harry," Laura said, climbing to her feet.

"Laura, I can't even stand up, and you expect me to climb into a helicopter?" Remington said.

Laura grabbed his arm and pulled. "What the hell is your problem!?" she demanded to know. "You're not a quitter!"

"I used to be. Used to drift from place to place, name to name whenever things got too hard to handle."

"Maybe Harry Chalmers was like that," Laura told him. "But Remington Steele isn't. Not the Remington Steele I know. Now come on, Mr. Steele. All you have to do is stand up and let me handle things from there."

"You won't let me fall?" he asked.

"I promise," she replied, slowly helping him to his feet as the sound of the helicopter grew louder again. A spotlight shone on them, illuminating the duo as they stood there, one of Remington's arms around Laura's shoulders, his other arm securely fastened to a support brace.

The helicopter set one skid on the top of the tower as the pilot kept it steady. He popped open one of the doors for access. "In you go!" he yelled above the sound of the engine and blades.

Laura took a step toward the helicopter, only to discover that Harry hadn't moved. "Come on!" she said to him, but he shook his head.

"I can't, Laura. If I let go-"

"Harry, look at me. Don't look down, look at ME!" she repeated in a firmer voice, having to yell to make herself heard. Those blue eyes finally turned to focus on her. "Now. KEEP looking at me! Let go of the tower." She glanced at her watch. It was almost eleven thirty. "Let GO, Mr. Steele!" she said again, reaching over to gently pry his fingers from the metal. "There. Keep looking at me," she told him," edging him ever closer to the helicopter. "Come on. That's it." He hesitated. "No. Don't look down. Look at me." At last they reached the relative safety of the helicopter's skid, and she all but shoved him inside before following him. "Get us out of here!" she told the pilot.

***

Murphy grabbed Jarvis' arm and moved away from the tower as the helicopter lifted off. "Got em, Lieutenant," Charlie informed him. Sparks flew from the top of the tower, and even from twenty yards, Murphy could feel the electric current flowing through the wiring. "Looks like just in time, too."

Laura helped Harry into a seat, then moved to the passenger seat of the cockpit. "I need to talk to them," she said. The pilot indicated the second set of headphones. "Murphy, the bomb!"

"Oh, hell," she heard Murphy moan.

"Charlie, you get Steele to the hospital," Jarvis ordered. He glared at Murphy. "There's a bomb?"

"Yeah. Inside."

"And you didn't think it was important enough to tell me about?"

"Hey, I was preoccupied with other things," Murphy reminded him, motioning toward the tower. "We've got time. It's not supposed to go off for forty minutes."

Jarvis sighed, changed frequencies. "This is Lt. Jarvis. I need the bomb squad out to the old El Camino Power Station. And contact the electric company, tell them they've got a problem out here."

"Electric company's been notified," came the reply. "And the bomb squad's been dispatched. How long do they have?"

"Forty minutes, according to my source." He turned to Murphy. "Where is it?"

***

Laura entered the hospital room quietly as the nurse left. "I know it's after visiting hours," Laura said, "but do you mind?"

The nurse looked from Laura to the patient in the bed. "You can stay for a little while, I suppose."

"Thanks."

As the door closed, Laura crossed to the bed, where Remington was laying with his eyes closed. For a moment, she thought he might be asleep. But then he spoke. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Saving my life. For being there. For not letting me give up." He opened his eyes and extended his hand toward her. "Come here."

"They de-fused the bomb," she informed him, taking his hand. "Descoine had all the entire thing mapped out-"

"Did they find him?"

"Not yet. They found the dune buggy that he left in, abandoned, but no sign of Descoine."

"What about his daughter?"

"No sign of her, either."

"Damn," he said, putting his head back against the pillows.

"Are you okay?" Laura asked him.

"Doctor says I'll be right as rain tomorrow morning. The drug they gave me usually works its way through the system in less than thirty six hours. But it makes the person it's administered to very susceptible to suggestion for the first few minutes after it's injected, then the victim seems to recover before the drug acts on the equilibrium."

"Do you think that's why you took off like that? Because Descoine ordered you to after they gave you the drug?"

"Probably," Remington told her. "How'd you and Murphy find us?"

She showed him the coin. "This. Murphy said it was a general, I told him it was a Major- and it started ringing bells in my head. I'd already been thinking about the case files -"

"See? I always said you were good."

The comment made Laura think about the scene in the office with Investigator Phillips, and she laced her fingers through Harry's long ones. "Am I? Is that why you hired me?"

"What do you mean?"

She pulled away from him and crossed to look out of the window at the parking lot beyond it. "Did you hire me because I'm a good detective- or because I'm -"

Remington frowned. "What brought on this spate of introspection?" he asked.

Laura shrugged, moving back to pick at the blanket on the bed. "Just- things. Something I heard someone say about how I'm just your girlfriend that you're letting 'play' at being a detective."

"Laura, you took the test on your own, right?"

"Yes."

"And you passed with flying colors, am I right?"

"Yes, but-"

He held out his hand again. "Come here." Once she was at his side again, his eyes met and held hers. "Laura, I hired you because I thought you had wonderful instincts for this work. Yes, there was a bit of attraction involved," he said honestly. "But you know better than anyone else how much the Agency means to me. Do you really think that I hired you, let you work on cases that reflect on that Agency simply because I wanted to sleep with you?" He grinned. "Besides, it might be ungentlemanly of me to admit this, but I seem to recall that it wasn't ME who did the seducing."

Laura crinkled her nose at him. "You're right. It's not gentlemanly to mention that. But what was I supposed to do? Wait til we were ninety before you made a move?" she asked, leaning forward to give him a long kiss.

Remington kept her pinned to his chest, holding her. "What do you suggest we do about the rumors, hmm?"

"I don't know. Maybe you've got the right idea. About our being more discreet."

He lifted her left hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her fingers. "I had another idea."

"What's that?" she asked, looking up at him.

Remington drew a deep breath before speaking. "This has made me realize how fragile life is. We were both a hair's breath away from dying out there tonight- and I suddenly realized that I wasn't ready to die before making our relationship more official."

He felt Laura's withdrawal even before she moved away. "Official- as in how? Full partnership in the agency? Because if that's the case, then Murphy's first in line. He's been there longer-"

"That's part of it," he admitted, retaining his hold on her hand. "But there's more as well. I want us to get married, Laura. I'm tired of hiding in the shadows, worrying about what people will think."

"And how will our getting married help people stop thinking that you only hired me to-"

"It won't. But that will come with time, as you prove yourself on cases. Cases like this one, for example. If it wasn't for you, Descoine would have gotten away with his little scheme to get revenge for Lily Martin's death. And believe me, I'm going to make damn sure that YOU get the credit you deserve for that."

"I'll take the credit," Laura agreed. "But marriage- Harry-"

The nurse came in, her smile apologetic. "I'm sorry, Miss, but visiting hours can only be stretched so far."

Remington smiled at Laura. "We'll finish this tomorrow."

"I'll be here to pick you up tomorrow morning," Laura told him.

"No. I'll call Fred. You go home, get some rest. I'll see you at the office tomorrow."

"You're sure?"

He nodded. "Thank you again. Sleep well."

To Be Continued---
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Original content © 2000 by Nancy Eddy