Love KillsEpisode 318 (052) - Mar 18 1998 While Jim and Blair are coming from a meal in Chinatown, Jim runs into Lila Hobson, a woman from his past. Jim greets her by name but she tells him he must have her mixed up with someone else, and hurries away to hail a taxi. Jim tracks her and notes the number of the cab company. Just then, a convey of police cars race down the lane, sirens flashing, and Jim and Blair follow on foot. There they discover a dead Asian male whom Blair identifies as a Buddhist monk. Two other monks were also spotted fleeing the scene. There is a puncture wound on the man's neck but the cause of death appears to be asphyxiation. Jim identifies a curare-like substance around the wound. Back at the station, Jim is trying to trace Lila's whereabouts through the cab company and Blair manages to wheedle some more information out of his friend. Jim admits he met Lila Hobson seven years ago in Bali, when he was on R&R just after the Peru mission. They were together for only a week and then she just left, but Blair gets the feeling the relationship was more intense than Jim is admitting. Armed with the necessary information, Jim leaves for the hotel where Lila is staying and invites her for drinks in the bar where she apologizes for her behavior before, saying that she just wasn't prepared to see him, and they catch up on old times. She says she is in town on business for a textile design firm. She turns down his offer of further company, admitting that she is also in Cascade to meet her fiancé. All through their conversation she seems very evasive and Jim starts to experience wild sensory spikes and eventually has to excuse himself, pleading persistent migraines. Later he explains the sensory overload to Blair, while organizing to send some flowers in apology to Lila. Relentlessly pursuing the sensory problem, Blair asks Jim whether there is anything more to the situation and by way of an admission, Jim asks whether Blair has had one of those times where you're with a woman and if things had turned out differently, you think she could have been "the one". Blair says that he hasn't. Simon interrupts to send Jim and Blair out to investigate a sighting of some monks in Chinatown. There they find another monk dead on a park bench with the same telltale puncture wound in his neck. They find a numbered key in his hand, and beads that Blair recognizes as the sandalwood prayer beads of a Tibetan lama. But when Jim notices a powder on the beads and sniffs at it, he falls to the ground unconscious. When he awakes in hospital with a massive hangover, Blair reveals that the beads were covered with raw opium paste, and Blair theorizes that in Jim's state of heightened sensory awareness, it was like mainlining. Simon's enquiries reveal that according to the Hong Kong police both of the deceased worked for a drug cartel called the Shang syndicate. The monk costumes were a cover and the prayer beads were possibly a way to smuggle samples past the authorities. They need to find the third monk and trace him back to the distributor, but Jim is ordered to take 24 hours rest. Back at the hotel, Lila takes delivery of Jim's orchids but is cornered by an Asian man who tells her she has no time for friends and that she needs to remember why she's here. He says it's his job to make sure what happened in Tokyo doesn't happen again. Back at the loft, Blair tells Jim he has a date with Sam but when they discover the orchids Jim sent Lila propped outside the door, Blair offers to come back to the loft instead with popcorn and a movie. Jim tells him to go out and have fun instead and gives Blair the flowers for Sam. Later that night, Lila shows up at Jim's door, distressed and yet wanting to be with him. She tells him of her orphaned childhood and hints at terrible things she did to stay alive. She is afraid Jim won't like what he finds. Lila ends up staying the night, but Jim continues to experience the painful sensory spikes. The next morning Blair discovers Jim fumbling into his clothes as he pursues a fleeing Lila out the door, and has great delight in questioning Jim on his compromising position. But when Jim admits he is still troubled by the sensory episodes, Blair makes the observation that they always seem to happen when he is with Lila, and there is a chance that Jim may simply be in love. Later on, Rafe and Brown have tracked the key Jim found to a room at the Hotel Devonshire. Although the room dusted clean, they bring back a couple of suitcases. Among the monk's effects they find a condom and a computer trivia game from Melon Head Software in Cascade, Washington. As there is no laptop among the effects and the deceased didn't speak English, the game seems out of place. Blair identifies the owner of the company as a Boz Tate, a young computer genius with a company that took off from basement beginnings, so they call him in for questioning. Tate says he can't identify the deceased and when Jim questions him on his four trips to Hong Kong in the last year, he says he was all over Asia recruiting programming talent. Tate seems very nervous and pleads a busy workload and after he leaves Jim confirms that his heart rate was going wild. Jim also detects the scent of a chemical used in processing opium. They place Tate under surveillance and continue to look for Monk Number 3. Jim returns to the hotel where Lila is staying and invites her to lunch but she says it's not a good time and leaves rapidly. He pursues her but in the middle of another sensory spike, her Asian boss arrives and attacks Jim from behind, but Lila stops him before he can deliver the fatal blow. Later Jim and Blair attend a meeting in Simon's office when the forensic reports on the murders come back and it is revealed that the victims were spiked with a triangular blade dipped in a type of nerve toxin similar to curare, but which comes from plants indigenous only to south East Asia. As they leave, Simon notices the bruise on Jim's face, but Jim passes it off as "a little misunderstanding". So Simon calls Blair back in and questions him on Jim's condition. Reluctantly Blair brings Simon up-to-date with Jim's sensory episodes and the fact that he feels it is somehow connected to Lila. Back at his desk Jim receives a phone call from Lila, asking to meet her at the Chinese gardens. Before he leaves, he thrusts his own jacket into Blair's hands and tells him to get forensics to dust the lapel for prints. At the meeting, Lila tells Jim that the man who attacked him was her jealous fiancé's bodyguard. Jim tells her he must have been nuts and they should end their relationship, and leaves. Back at the station, it appears Monk Number 3 has voluntarily turned himself in out of fear of reprisal from the Shang syndicate and is being questioned by Detective Choi. Apparently they tried to go into business for themselves with one of the syndicates' dealers and Shang sent in a hitman to take them all out. When Jim shows Monk 3 Tate's picture from the back of the CD cover, he identifies him as the syndicate's distributor, so Simon goes off to secure a search warrant. They bust Melon Head software and discover a chemical lab used to process heroine, but Tate escapes. Then Jim gets a lead from a snitch that Tate is picking up forged documents that night behind the Red Dragon Club and Jim and Blair stake out the alley dressed as bums. But when Jim is blinded by the bright lights momentarily as the car pulls up to deliver the documents to Tate, a disguised assailant climbs down from the fire escape, stabs Tate in the neck and disappears up the alley. The next day Brown's effusive mood is a little too lively for Jim's headache when Henri reports that Sam in forensics got a good set of prints from Jim's lapel. The man is identified as Lo Min, wanted by the Hong Kong police for drug smuggling, assault with a deadly weapon and murder. He is also affiliated with the Shang syndicate. When Jim and Blair check at the same hotel where Lila was staying, the desk clerk reports that Lo and Lila were seen together and have now both checked out. When Simon says he will notify immigration, Blair points out that their job isn't yet done because the third monk is still alive. They decide to ferry the monk around in a police convoy in Chinatown in the hopes of drawing the Triad out. When they hit a road block and Jim exits the car to check it out, their terrified detainee flees the vehicle, where he is cornered by a leather-clad assailant on a motorcycle. Jim arrives just as the assailant raises the trademark three sided blade, hesitates, and instead jumps back on the bike and rides away. When the assailant arrives back at the garage, Lo is there waiting, and when Lila removes her helmet he tries to strangle her, telling her that she hesitated because of her cop friend. She must now kill Jim Ellison to prove her loyalty to the syndicate. Back at the loft, Blair has had a friend at the university do some research into daggers and has a faxed picture of a triangular-pointed dagger that is a favorite of the Chinese Triad. But when he shows the picture to Jim, his headache goes off the scale. Blair realizes it is the dagger that is causing the spikes and encourages Jim to free-associate on the picture -- something they have done before with other sensory stimuli. It takes Jim back to the time in Bali with Lila -- he remembers her disappearing to get ready for dinner and he accidentally finds the strange triangular dagger in her handbag. Although the memory was deeply buried, his senses have been sending him a warning. Just then Lila calls and Jim tells her they know about her association with the Shang syndicate and tells her to turn herself in. Jim promises her protection and she agrees to meet him alone at the McNeill Athletic Field at 3 o'clock. Simon vetoes it, especially with regards to Jim's sensory spikes but Blair assures Simon that Jim's senses are there to help him "protect the tribe" and with Blair's help, he can control them and dial them back. Jim and Lila meet while Blair and the others have them under surveillance. She tells Jim that the syndicate was the only family she ever had. They took her in and taught her how to kill. Lo was her overseer and was sent to keep an eye on her. She says she now wants to get out but when Jim is put off balance by another headache and Blair tries to talk him through his control mechanisms, she pulls her dagger. But she can't go through with it and tosses it away. On a roof above the park, Lo sees that she has failed and takes her out with a bullet just as Jim hits Lo. Both shots are fatal. Credits:
Main Cast:
Semi regular Cast:
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