There is a story called THE GERMAN DOCTOR, which I wrote last month for The Highlander Lyric Wheel, but this story has absolutely nothing to do with it, except for the fact that Methos had been a doctor in Germany. This is an alternative universe story where the history and the characters are the same; they just experience it differently. I’ve tried to bring it back to canon at the end.

POLAND – late-August 1945

The driver seemed to know exactly where to swerve to avoid unexploded landmines; the same could not be said about his ability to avoid potholes. Duncan MacLeod did not have to comment. That was accomplished through the Russian officer who swore heartily at his driver challenging both his parentage and sexual proclivities. His cursing provided the only color in what should have been a beautiful summer afternoon. The land here had been transformed to shades of ash -- even the blood had dried black.

"I need to warn you about what you are going to see," the Russian officer said to MacLeod.

"I’ve been to other camps, in Germany and Czechoslovakia." MacLeod replied. "Just one of the perks of being a war correspondent."

"Personally I can’t say if this is worse, but I don’t think it can be better. Perhaps it’s just the Germanic preoccupation with neatness that contrasts with the horror . . . "

"No, they did the same thing other places. They called it ‘The ultimate solution’."

"You didn’t suspect in the West?" the officer asked with a stern face.

"There were rumblings. Most of our efforts went to resistance and evacuation. It will haunt us for decades."

"And we rode right by . . . our goal was to defeat the Germans, not to aid their prisoners . . . but the guilt is the same."

"And now I get to record it for posterity."

"That is the job of a journalist."

"It sells newspapers."

Duncan MacLeod had seen too much death in this war. People he cared for had died. Diane Terrin had died in his arms. Good people had been forced to kill, sometimes way too young. He didn’t know the people who had died in this camp, which helped only a little, to insulate him from the horror he knew he was about to experience.

* * * * *

Toward the end, in the days after the Russians had passed them on the way to meet the British and Americans sweeping in from the West, the Germans’ sense of order had been abandoned. No longer were corpses carefully cremated, crushed to ash, and spread in thin layers at the bottom of pits. The bodies were just tossed into gashes cut into the soil and quickly covered with bladed earthmovers. Now the Russians were scraping back that layer of clay and exposing the rotting corpses to the heat of the summer air. MacLeod found himself spending most of his time at these pits despite the numerous other buildings that were on the site for his investigation.

"What do you do with them, after they have been uncovered?" MacLeod asked the foreman of a small group of men working on a pit site.

"The orders come from your side. You are the ones who want the pictures for your newspapers and magazines."

"Haven’t we seen enough?"

"There are others besides you who will come and look, write and photograph. Still the look on my men’s faces when they uncover a pit is hard to describe. No wonder they have allotted us unlimited vodka and beer for our evenings away from here."

"But we will all only write what we see. No one can write what was felt here. Maybe it is time to let them rest in peace." MacLeod commented.

"Do you want to just sprinkle holy water over it and call it holy ground?"

"You don’t get it do you? These people were killed because they were Jews."

"Not all of them. Some of them were gypsies, cripples, or queers."

"But they’re all dead now."

"Yes."

The foreman indicated that the bulldozer should move on to another area and walked away. MacLeod stood and looked at the corpses stacked like jackstraws in the pit. For some reason he thought of Amanda and her story about being put out with the corpses after the plague. Mankind had not progressed far in the last thousand years. This was worse, because the cause of this plague was man himself.

Watching the dead. Sometimes it was hard to intellectualize that they were even humans. Heads shaved – the Germans had used the hair for mattress stuffing. Mouths agape where dentures and gold crowns had been pulled. Stick-like limbs bent at odd angles. Withered breasts and bony butts on bodies stripped even of the rags they wore. Maybe this was holy ground? Surely no immortal would ever want to kill here; there had been enough killing on this spot to last an eternity.

MacLeod sensed an immortal buzz and studied the mélange for the slightest movement. A hand -- five fingers -- grasping and pushing itself toward the light was followed quickly by another and a shaved head. Someone like him – an immortal – was buried with these people. What kind of monster would wait in such a hell in anticipation of playing the game? His sword was back in the jeep. He cursed himself for the lapse but watched as the man extracted himself from the pile of human debris.

"Will you help me?" The man called in a German dialect MacLeod barely understood. "I’m unarmed."

The statement seemed to alleviate fears that the immortal was lying in wait, so MacLeod wondered how he had ended up here. He found it difficult to believe that the meticulous Germans would not have confiscated the man’s sword.

Duncan tread carefully over the dead and extended his hand to the immortal hoping that the Russian troops were too busy with their work to look back. At least the man was telling the truth about the sword; there was no place he could conceal it on his naked body. He was as tall as Duncan, and as thin as his fellow corpses.

"Stay down. I’ll be back when it gets dark. You just can’t rise up and walk out while others are around. Too many questions." Duncan had answered in German. It was as close as he could come to matching the man’s language. "I speak English and French . . . if you . . ."

"Sure. English is fine." The man had almost an English accent. "I guess another few hours here won’t kill me, again." He managed a weak, thin-lipped smile.

"Tonight." Duncan said. "I’ll be back."

* * * * * *

"The road is dangerous enough in daylight. My driver will take you."

"Your driver has had far too much vodka to even attempt to drive. Furthermore it is my own fault that I left my notebook at the site." MacLeod said, hoping to convince the Russian to let him drive the jeep. Otherwise it would be a long walk back to the liberation site.

"Can’t it wait until tomorrow?"

"My deadline is tomorrow. No notebook, no story, no Americans learning the truth. Newspapers do not acknowledge the existence of tomorrow."

"You said already that they’ve heard enough."

"I know, but it’s my job."

"It’s not safe out there. Who knows what could be lurking in the darkness."

"Who knows? Maybe they’ll get lucky and you’ll have one less reporter hanging around drinking your liberated beer and eating your meager food." MacLeod smiled. The Russians always got confused when you smiled at them, especially in a place like this. "Now give me the keys to the jeep."

* * * * *

In the high beams of his headlights, he spotted the man about 100 meters upwind from the pit, sitting on the ground naked, arms grasped around his knees and slowly rocking in the cold. MacLeod tossed him a pair of pants and a shirt,

"I wasn’t sure you were coming back."

"I did. Now tell me what you’re doing here."

"Obviously, I was dead."

"I’m Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod."

"I’m Benjamin . . . Benjamin . . . Adams if you think it best for me to be English."

"Well, you’re not Jewish and I doubt if you are a gypsy. So that must mean . . ."

"Ah, you noticed. Actually, for quite a while I was Benjamin Weiss, and they thought I was Jewish."

"Until . . ."

"Funny how long it took someone to notice. But I’m not here to stand about and discuss what is or isn’t on the end of my dick, or where I like to put it for my sexual pleasure. Do you realize how long it has been since I have eaten?"

"Got some bread and cheese in the jeep."

"Bread . . . and cheese . . . now that’s a pleasant thought for a starving man. I don’t suppose you have any beer?"

* * * *

MacLeod had perfected the art of rhythmically hitting random typewriter keys to make it seem that he was hard at work. He was careful to hide the pages of gibberish he could generate in the course of an evening. Now it was even more essential. He longed for a radio that he could turn up to muffle the sounds of the conversations he would have liked to have with the man he was hiding in his quarters.

It would be a few weeks, even with the quantity of food his fellow immortal was consuming, before the man could pass as anything but an emaciated concentration camp survivor. Since those few who had survived had been evacuated by the initial liberating Russians, MacLeod had to think of another story to explain the presence of this man.

His first thought was just to have him leave, after he regained some of his strength, and fend for himself in the German countryside. It was difficult hiding him. MacLeod had to sneak in food, more food than he had been used to eating. He had to wear the same clothes for a week, so not to generate more laundry. Since Adams couldn’t just wander out to the baths and the latrine, MacLeod was even responsible for his personal hygiene. Still at the end he knew that awaiting him was the story of someone who had survived the terror in Poland, the ghetto, and the concentration camps. Someone who could provide a first hand account of what really happened, and if he were right about judging this man’s age, compare this atrocity with those which had come before it.

"You should be exercising. You’re putting the weight back on, but your muscles will not be used to moving it." Adams was sprawled on MacLeod’s bed watching him pretend to type.

"I’m almost ready to go. How are you going to get me out of here?"

"Guess I’ll have to think of another excuse to borrow the jeep."

"Do you have a never ending supply of excuses?"

"I’m a journalist."

"Yea, I’ve read some of your stories. They’re totally fascinating – if you speak hrdlig."

"Excuse me?"

"You finished your reporting weeks ago. You have nothing more to say or write. You just type gibberish."

"I’m staying here until you are strong enough to leave."

"So you can take my head."

"If I’d wanted your head, I could have taken it back at the concentration camp. What would be another headless corpse in a mass grave? I’m trying to save your ass."

"Sorry, I . . . and my ass . . . both thank you. But what makes you think I won’t take YOUR head?"

"Guess, I’m a good judge of character."

"Later. Keep up the good work." Adams rose and walked to the door of the tent.

"Where do you think you’re going?"

"Going to pee in the bushes. Tired of using those beer cans."

"You got them mixed up, didn’t you?"

Adams lowered his head sheepishly and walked out into the night air.

* * * * *

Switzerland, October 1945

The train had dropped them off in a small village that was picture postcard perfect. Adams smiled as he watched MacLeod survey the white-topped mountains, blue sky and the rainbow of other colors provided by the painted trim on the houses and the autumn leaves. MacLeod had obtained the necessary paperwork to transport Dr. Benjamin Adams out of Poland with thoughts of his returning with him the England. He was surprised when Adams suggested that they travel to Switzerland. A few weeks or months in a country not wearing the scars of war would be most welcome. So MacLeod agreed, even if he was not sure of his fellow immortal’s motivations.

"What do you think, MacLeod?"

"Beautiful, calm. Is there an inn where we can stay?"

"Only if you don’t think we can’t make five kilos on foot by sunset. Where we’re going is up the mountain, think you can make it?" Adams asked MacLeod with a slightly superior grin. Despite his recent ordeal and lack of formal exercise, Adams was willing to try most anything and rub it in when MacLeod was more cautious.

"What? Where are we going?"

"To my chalet. Mi casa es su casa."

"Your . . . "

"Switzerland has been my home base for a long time."

"Well, what were you doing in Germany then? If you had a haven here."

"I told you I was a physicist."

"You told me you were a physician."

"That, too. This was before the war. There were tremendous strides that were being made in physics – in Germany. MacLeod, I perceived it as the birth of another Age."

"Like when mankind changed from Bronze to Iron."

"Or from Stone to Bronze." Adams gave him another one of those looks. Mac should have gotten use to them by now but they had just become increasingly puzzling. Every time he thought he had the man figured out, there would be something new he would throw at him.

MacLeod knew Benjamin Adams was old and intelligent. How old he was never quite sure? During most of the war, he had been a doctor in the ghetto treating patients with no money and even less hope. Before that he claimed he had worked with the Germans in their quest to create a superior race of warrior humans. It was only when the experiments became bizarre and performed on subjects the Germans did not consider human, that he decided to move on.

The physicist persona was a new one. He now claimed he had managed to mess up some of the calculations so that the German scientists would think that the critical mass of U-235 necessary for producing an atomic bomb was greater than they could possibly produce. It was a simple change in an exponent, but no one had noticed it – or at least no one had admitted that they noticed it. Then he simply disappeared back into medical research and put the fault or blame on someone else – even if it had not been publicly discussed.

Trudging up the mountain road, wearing knee high leather boots and carrying his bags and typewriter, MacLeod found himself gasping for breath. The cold, dry, brittle air seemed to invigorate his companion who wanted to race ahead like a little boy. He seemed anxious to get home.

The road turned into a driveway, or perhaps a path, once maintained but now overgrown, snaking through a stand of forest. Mac expected a mountain cabin, not the large stately house that stood before him.

"How long has it been since you’ve been here?"

"A while. I think it was 1910."

"No wonder you’re excited to get back." Mac noticed the smoke coming from the chimney but felt no new immortal buzz. "Someone’s been here. Maybe still is."

"I have people who look after the place for me. But they’re gone. It should be stocked with enough food to repay you for sharing your field rations with me."

It looked like paradise. After years of enduring the worlds of espionage, resistance and reporting, the spacious chalet with its roaring fire and larder filled with fruits and vegetables of the harvest, smoked meats and cheese was a most welcoming site. He had yet to ascertain Adams’s motivation in bring him here, but he also had not expressed his desire to write a book on what was now being called the Holocaust with Adams as his primary source.

* * * *

The chalet was filled with items Adams had amassed over the centuries. Duncan was impressed by the antiques, artwork and true antiquities the man had collected. Even more impressive were his libraries containing both literary and scientific works some of which might even have predated the invention of printing. While Adams allowed MacLeod free access to his collections, he was reluctant to discuss their acquisition or true age.

Adams, also, had cognac – old and untouched for decades, maybe centuries. It took a modicum of self-control to keep MacLeod from drinking himself into oblivion. He found comfort in the kitchen, turning to cooking as an escape and delighting in both the equipment and ingredients available to him. Adams seemed unable or unwilling to exercise such restraint. MacLeod wondered if he also had other drugs and potions on which he indulged in private. Most days he would lounge around in old wool trousers that hung on his still thin frame, drink heavily, and ruminate over things that they did not discuss. Still Adams would be sober and ravenous when Duncan’s culinary creations appeared nightly.

"What would you have done if I couldn’t cook?" Duncan asked.

"Just because I choose not to cook, does not mean that I can’t. You seem to enjoy it."

"I find it better than going hungry."

"I find it better than my cooking."

"Thanks."

Conversations such as this were slow-developing and self-limiting. Neither man had a desire to share much with the other about his past. Adams was just as apt to answer a question with another question or a generality. He would be a hard interview. The book he wanted to write could not be approached with casual conversation. It would take deep probing questions that could almost touch the soul. MacLeod realized that the result would be worth it. He spent a lot of time thinking about how he could get Dr. Benjamin Adams to open up . . . but missed something vital.

"Can I trust you, MacLeod?" Adams asked one night after they had been there close to a month. The question came out of nowhere, but was one that MacLeod had wanted to ask the other immortal ever since they had met.

"What do you think?" MacLeod thought he was beginning to sound a little like Dr. Adams.

"Can we ever trust anyone? Especially a fellow immortal?" Adams shrugged his shoulders and hinted at an enigmatic smile.

"That’s a pretty sorry way to go through life."

"There can be only one." He flicked an imaginary sword, which was as close to a weapon, except for the small pistol kept in a desk drawer and a muzzle-loader hung over the fireplace, as MacLeod had ever seen Adams get.

"Yea, yea, I know. It is the rule we live by. I’d like to think there was more to an immortal’s life than just the rules of the game."

There was a pause; another of those pauses that usually denoted the end of the conversation with Dr. Benjamin Adams. A cue to go back to reading your book or watching the fire burn, or to get yourself another drink and continue drinking until you decided to go to bed for real.

"Do you have friends, MacLeod?" Duncan was surprised when the conversation went further.

"Yes. Many. Both mortals and immortals."

"Any special friends?"

"My closest friend . . . closest immortal friend . . . is Father Darius in Paris. I’ve known him for a couple hundred years. He is my advisor and my confessor. He will always know where I am . . . except that now he thinks I am in Poland with the Russians. I really must contact him."

"Perhaps next time we go to the village."

"And when might that be? You seem in no hurry to leave this place."

"This place is MY place. I feel safe here."

"It’s not holy ground."

"Might as well be for me. Why would an immortal come so far up the mountain? And if he did, I believe the depth of the forest would prevent him form sensing me. Unless he knew I was here . . . and specifically came for me. And since I haven’t been here for several decades why would he think I was here. I believe I’m pretty damn safe."

"Maybe."

"You never answered my questions as to whether or not I could trust you, MacLeod."

MacLeod stopped himself before he could answer "maybe" again. He could see why Adams felt safe in this house and in this room. He watched as Adams rose, walked to the window and stared out into the darkness. Enthralled by something MacLeod could not see, or perhaps his own reflection, he stretched one arm and then the other into the air. His lean body rippled in the flickering light and he ran his large hand through his bristly hair and then down his hard chest and stomach toward the top of his trousers and what lay below. Adams was either acting as if MacLeod wasn’t there or trying to make him feel uncomfortable. The most prudent thing would be for him to leave.

"I’m going to make it an early night. Take a nice warm bath and then turn in." MacLeod walked toward the door. Adams was following him with his eyes, perhaps too closely.

"I thought I was finally getting over the effects of starvation, but obviously they don’t hold a candle to the saltpeter in Russian sausages." MacLeod would have dismissed it as one of Adams’s off- the-wall statements if it were not for the fact that his companion had locked him in place with his eyes.

"What?" He knew his face had frozen with a look of astonishment.

"I wouldn’t think even a Scottish skull would be that thick."

"I have no idea what you are talking about. Would you care to enlighten me?" He lied.

"Doesn’t the great Duncan MacLeod have a sex drive?"

"If you’re suggesting that we go down to the village and pick up a couple of women, it would have been a great thought a couple of hours ago. Now, if you don’t mind, I am going to bed."

"I don’t mind at all, as long it is my room, my bed."

"Excuse me?"

It was too late. Adams moved in so closely that MacLeod could feel his breath. A smile was growing on his lips and he emphasized it with the tip of his tongue. Then he reached for the cord at the top of his trousers, untied them, and slowly let them drop to the floor.

"Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. You noticed I wasn’t Jewish the first day you met me."

"You were naked – like you are now."

"You didn’t have to look." MacLeod’s eyes were riveted to Adams growing cock.

"I’m sorry I did? "

"Really MacLeod? How sorry is that?" One of Adams’s hands was caressing his shoulder while the other was busy unbuttoning his shirt. "Haven’t you wondered what it would be like? Us . . together. Two immortals."

"I never."

"Never?"

"Not until . . . now." Adams ran a trail of kisses up his chest and neck. There would have still been time for MacLeod to stop him with a forceful push to his chest, but he was shocked to realize that his cock was telling him that it did not want to stop. He stood motionless as Adams undid his belt and dropped his trousers to the floor.

"Still interested in turning in early? Perhaps you want to delay that bath until you really need it."

Adams had reached inside MacLeod’s underwear and caressed him with a stroke that was hard, but caring.

"I might really need that bath – before . . ."

"I spent three months surrounded by corpses. You can’t smell that bad MacLeod. In fact, I . . . rather like the scent . . .

Benjamin Adams was silenced. MacLeod grabbed the thin immortal and pulled them together in a deep kiss. Naked bodies intertwined and fell silently downward. That night the comfort of a bed would be sacrificed for the immediacy of the floor.

* * * * *

"I don’t understand why after months of typing gibberish you are so interested in interviewing me." Adams said. "There are better things to do."

"Yea, like getting drunk and spending our afternoons like we spend our evenings?"

"You don’t do relaxation well at all, MacLeod."

"I have things I need to do."

"Don’t tell me life is short, because I won’t believe you."

"I want to write. You have a story that needs to be told."

"I was thinking we could go skiing. The snow in the mountains is wonderful."

"This from you, a man whose idea of exercise is walking from the kitchen to the bathroom to the couch. Now you want to go out into the cold and snow and slide down mountains with slabs of wood strapped to his feet."

"Try it sometime MacLeod. You might like it."

"I have. I do. But usually at a resort with groomed trails, mechanical lifts, and cute women in tight pants drinking hot buttered rum afterwards."

"You are a die hard heterosexual, aren’t you?"

"That’s an odd statement for you to make, considering . . . "

"I am too, sometimes. I’ve had 65 wives . . ."

"And . . ."

"I didn’t think to count the male lovers."

"That’s supposed to make me feel special, somehow?"

"You are special, MacLeod."

"Thank you."

"Now what do you want to know?"

"Start at the beginning."

"No, I’ll start at the end and work back."

Adams provided details – minute details – of the inner workings of Nazi Germany in general and the concentration camps in particular. Then he moved to stories of the Warsaw ghetto. Of people fighting for their religion and their lives, and a German doctor who helped the best that he could. Day after day he would have new stories; it was almost as if he had his own notes stashed away somewhere which he read refresh his memory.

"Do you want details on the breeding programs, too?" Adams asked when the ghetto story was complete. "There were villages of strong, healthy, blonde girls so very willing to have the babies of the perfect German soldiers. It was not uncommon for them to cry when I told them they were not pregnant."

"Did you offer to help them out, or were you saving yourself for their perfect soldiers?"

Adams made a face and stared off into a world that MacLeod heard him describe daily but still could not believe.

"That was the other . . . better maybe. . . side of the ultimate solution. Creating a strong Aryan master race. And yet, doctors fought to work on the other programs."

"Other programs?"

"Human research. Unrestricted freedom of research on whatever a medical mind could imagine."

"I thought you all swore to do no harm."

"That’s what we say in public, but when given the opportunity. Do you know what can be accomplished by experimenting on a living human body?"

"That can’t be true."

"Anything was allowed as long as it was done on those they didn’t consider human. Things that could only be done in the past on fresh corpses were . . . "

"I bet you enjoyed it."

"That is why I quit and went to work in the ghetto."

"Amazing!"

"What?"

"That there is a conscience in there somewhere."

* * * * *

During the course of the winter they had gone skiing, which both men had actually enjoyed greatly. They had visited the village where Duncan had wired Darius saying only that he was safe and working on a writing project. Adams had selected two Swiss women to accompany them back to the chalet. Their rosy-cheeked wholesomeness masked a stunning array of perversions. Strangely Duncan found the night with the women left him bored or jealous and never suggested company again.

Duncan insisted that the daily activities included exercise and sword training. Finally Adams reluctantly agreed. Duncan realized that Adams was a much more adept fighter, with or without weapons, than he would have imagined. Still Adams insisted that he had no interest in the immortal game and had not taken a head since early in the nineteenth century. Usually when confronted with a persistent immortal, Adams claimed he would shoot him or her with the small pistol he took with him when he left the house and move on to a safer place. MacLeod wondered if he would revive one morning and find the mysterious doctor gone from his life.

They worked over the history in minute detail. When it came to writing the book, normally evasive Adams would answer any question MacLeod asked and espouse on the answers until he was sure everything had been covered. MacLeod was forced to relive some of the greatest horrors on a detail that even he was beginning to feel uncomfortable with recording.

Adams read the manuscript as it was typed, circling typos and grammatical errors. There had been long discussions as to whether it should have been written in German or English. While the German would have more exactly captured the original nuance of the thoughts, visions of book sales and possible journalistic and literary prizes loomed in MacLeod’s head and he convinced Adams that more people would read it in English. While he did not relish the publicity or fame, there was something in having others measure the importance of your work that spurred him on.

MacLeod finished the book about the same time the wild mountain flowers poked their heads through the snow. MacLeod realized he would have to leave for London shortly and had been mentally preparing himself for the move. It should be easy. Duncan MacLeod was a well-known war correspondent and there were many publishers who would welcome a book written by him. The war was still fresh in the minds of the British and the West was hungry for the story he had to tell. Except that he was going to have to leave Dr. Adams.

MacLeod carefully packed the manuscript, all 2500 double-spaced pages, into a metal laundry box, not wanting to expose the text to dampness. Adams watched as he carefully sealed it airtight. To celebrate, a bottle of a special brandy was opened, it was old and smooth and MacLeod had finished two glasses before he realized that Adams had left his untouched on the table.

"You can give it to me now, MacLeod." Adams said quietly, as if it would not be a surprise to MacLeod to have made the request.

"What?"

"The box. Give it to me."

"This is my manuscript. The story of German atrocities told by one who experienced both sides."

"I know what it is. It is my story. Now give it to me."

"Your story. I’m the one who wrote it down and typed it out."

"Without me it would just be more pages of hrdlig."

"I actually wrote news stories, Adams. I was a reporter. You’ll have to read them sometime."

"Ok, I believe you. I have to admit the manuscript is well written. It just should not be published."

"And what do you think I should do with it? Use it for toilet paper?"

"Just give it to me."

"If you didn’t want it written, why did you let me interview you? Why did you go on with such great detail? Why didn’t you just tell me it was none of my business?"

"The story needed to be written, and I couldn’t write it. It was hard enough telling it to you. Words made it real, but the act of writing the words would have made it unbearable. Furthermore, I’m a lousy typist."

"So you let me record it, then take my head, and publish it yourself?" MacLeod took the box and clasped it to his chest as he walked around the room. His pace quickened as if he were looking for an exit or the right time to grab his sword that leaned against the wall near the door.

"MacLeod, MacLeod, MacLeod. You still don’t trust me? Do you? After all that we meant to each other these past few months?"

"Right now I’m beginning to think that what I was your whore. I fucked for this book and now I’m the one getting . . . screwed."

"Was it worth it?"

He couldn’t remember where Adams kept his sword. Could there have been something in the brandy, or did he just need more?

"You know that wasn’t what happened." Adams said calmly. "You saved my life, you nursed me to heath; you were never a whore. You were a hero and you know it."

"No, actually I don’t. I really don’t understand you."

"I’m just a guy, MacLeod, just a guy. Who are you?"

"I’m a journalist – a writer." Duncan watched Adams’s face and read the "and" prompt. "I’m Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod."

"Exactly."

"I imagine over the last 350 or so years of your life you have been many things. The journalist was just your latest persona. Whether or not this book is ever published will not in any way take away from what you are. You will always be Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. You will seek adventure and romance, fight for justice and the underdog, some days you will fight with a sword and sometimes with a typewriter – or whatever form of mass communication they will have 50 . . . 100 . . 200 years from now." Adams voice was calm and soothing like the brandy. Duncan realized that while Adams was talking that he had sat down and poured himself another drink. It didn’t taste like it was poisoned. It tasted wonderful. Adams droned on.

"What is in this book – all the fucking little gory details – has to be remembered, but it is not to be treated like those newspaper stories you wrote. What is here is much too powerful. There are people whose minds contain so much good that they will be incapable of comprehending the horrors contained within these pages. They do not need to be tainted. There are people whose minds are filled with evil. They do not need any more ideas, which they may not have yet thought about, to aid them in their malevolence.

"I suppose right now that there are priests, ministers and religious scholars who are digging through the book of Revelation to find absolute proof that Hitler was the anti-Christ and his storm-troopers were led by the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Do you want to give them more references? Do you as an immortal want to help them predict the end of the world?

"That’s why I chose you to write this book for me . . . with me. You were the only one who could do it. I knew we wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time dealing with details that would be hard to explain to someone who was not an immortal. Like how a man of my age could have both a PhD and a medical degree before the war began. Like how I survived in a pit full of dead bodies. Like why I didn’t die when some of the infamous German medical experiments were performed on me."

"On you?"

"During one test they drilled holes in my brain and poured in acid. They were testing what body functions were controlled by various areas of the brain. I’d show them, and the next morning I’d have the worst hangover you could ever imagine."

"You said you were working with them, as a doctor. Why would they experiment on you?"

"Let’s say that one night I revealed my suspect classification to a man I thought I could trust. I went from being a colleague to a subject. I told you that, didn’t I?"

"No. You just told me you left research to work in the ghetto. What else didn’t you tell me?"

"Probably the fact that I always knew I was taking the book. I have a place for it, MacLeod. It will be with other books of its kind that have been written over the centuries. I have parallel histories of immortals and humans. Someday they can be revealed – but not now. Not while hate is still so close to the surface; not while there are fingers on the button that could release more of those bombs that may change the name of the Age."

"You’re just going to disappear into the night."

"I’ve been doing this for a long time. A very long time."

"How long?"

"Honestly, I don’t remember. I wasn’t lying about the end of the stone age, MacLeod."

"When are you leaving?"

"Tonight. The house is in your name, now. You don’t have to do anything. Leave when you want. Come back when you want. I won’t be back so don’t expect to find me.

"There’s a whole world out there MacLeod, looking for heroes. There’s this man in the British secret service, Bond, James, Bond. You’re twice the man he is, and you’re immortal. Maybe you should go serve with and outstrip him in legend. Or maybe you can disappear into the American suburbs, find a widow with children, and live that family life you’ve always dreamed about. You have many options."

"What if I want to stay with you?"

"It’s not one of them, Duncan."

"You’ve never called me . . ." and MacLeod’s head hit the table with a thump.

* * * * *

When he opened his eyes Adams, the manuscript, his typewriter and his notes were gone. He was never certain whether he had been dead, unconscious, or asleep. The fire had been banked and the chalet seemed cold and inhospitable even on a spring morning. It was as if Adams had taken the magic of the place with him.

Duncan took a train to Paris and stayed with Father Darius. They shared the stories of the resistance and his traveling as a journalist with the Russians through Poland; but no mention was made of Dr. Benjamin Adams, even in the confessional. The sanctity of holy ground provided the comfort that was once provided by a cozy Swiss chalet.

Eventually a life unfolded, as it always had for Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod. He was used to changing who he was and how he lived, but the basic Highlander warrior remained. He would often stop by Paris to talk to Darius and play a few games of chess. The days he had spent in Switzerland with the German doctor became as indistinct as those he had spent in a myriad of other places with many other lovers. He moved back and forth between Paris and the American northwest. On one visit to Paris he met a woman and fell in love for the first time in a long time. They opened an antique store in Seacouver.

One day he called Darius and in the course of the conversation the priest had told him that he had received a mysterious metal laundry box in the mail.

"Containing a manuscript?" Duncan asked. Hoping that it was his book.

"No. It was a book. A very old book. Handwritten. It seems to contain myths and fairytales about us immortals. It is written in a very old Germanic script."

"By a doctor, probably."

"I’ll show you next time you are here."

"I’m looking forward to seeing it."

He never spoke to his friend Darius again. He found the book, wrapped in his tartan, tucked in a niche in the bricks of the church near the spot where Darius had been killed.

McJude

June 26. 2004