Author's Note: From this point on, I will resume a practice I had from my first days in this fandom: I will post the new chapter every week sometime during the day on Saturday. In this way, I keep the feeling of a "series" alive - and make a promise to my readers that they will have new material once a week. I hope this will be okay with you folks. Enjoy!
Chapter 2 – Just a Hint of Trouble
Miss Parker sniffed as she saw her three colleagues – the other parts of her team to recapture Jarod – alighting from the elevator and homing in on her position just outside the etched glass doors that were the Chairman's office at the very top of the Tower. Broots looked his typical nervous and geeky self in his newest incarnation of a "The Centre Recycles" tee shirt and jeans. Dressed a little more conservatively in turtleneck and sports jacket, as befitting a psychiatrist, Sydney's entire being was imbued with curiosity and alertness. Sam, on the other hand, was the quintessential sweeper, with only the expression in his eye betraying his wariness on all of their behalves.
"I though this was going to be a private ass-reaming," Miss Parker commented caustically, her eyes touching first Sydney, then Broots and finally Sam with equal frustration. "I didn't realize I was going to have an audience at my humiliation."
Sydney opened his mouth to reply, but an angry call from the direction of the elevator cut him short. "What the Hell is going on?" demanded Lyle, who stormed up to and into his twin sister's face with an unabashedly threatening attitude. "Why am I being called into his office, and what did you have to do with it?"
"Mr. Lyle, sir?" came a quiet request from behind Lyle.
Miss Parker tried not to snicker when she saw that the three people who made up the rest of Mr. Lyle's retrieval team had apparently also been summoned, just as her team apparently had. Lyle had a second-string team, that was for sure! Corky had been selected as his computer tech, a veritable geek visually with only moderately good programming and hacking skills. Broots could work rings around the man without even breaking a sweat, and this was the man they expected to best Jarod's genius? Then there was the dour Dr. Fischer to play psychoanalyst to anything the team managed to dig up. A quick word with Sydney a few months ago revealed that Dr. Fischer hadn't even met Jarod, and so was working off of those of Sydney's notes that had actually been turned in to the Centre. Only the sweeper, Dick, had any real potential; but that came only because Dick had been a friend of and had been personally trained by Willy, Mr. Raines' pet guard-dog sweeper. All in all, though, Miss Parker had to admit that seeing them just as confused and concerned as she and the rest of her team were feeling made her almost feel better.
"Looks like we're all gonna get whatever ass-reaming Miss P was expecting," the technician leaned and whispered to Sydney, who merely nodded blandly and kept his eyes glued to her face, as the leader of his team. One of these days, she suspected, the psychiatrist would write a paper on the levels to which competition between the two teams, especially considering the other team was headed by her twin, could rise when that competition ended up carried over into adult life and was egged on by a manipulative superior. No doubt she and Lyle had already supplied him with a good deal of research material in the last nine years, and she was equally certain that all of his notes were safely stowed at his house to prevent discovery.
From the intent expression on his face, she could tell that situations like this one, while rare, were deeply appreciated by the old psychiatrist. He probably found it fascinating to watch Lyle and her do their dominance dance; he could take his observations back to his office to analyze the steps later on in the evening. He had clearly focussed his entire attention on the two of them, determined not to miss a single word or nuance. The entire idea was audacious enough to be amusing, especially as she suspected the verdict on Lyle would be less than complimentary.
Her amusement ended as Lyle wrapped a painfully tight hand around her upper arm. "TELL me what you're up to!" he snapped.
"I don't know what you're talking about – I didn't have a damned thing to do with this, you moron," Miss Parker hissed lethally in response to his stance. She jerked her arm free and moved even more into his face. "Even if I did, do you honestly think I'd tell you?"
"And I'm supposed to believe you?" Lyle asked, his voice cold.
"I honestly don't give a shit what you believe," Miss Parker shrugged, knowing that the gesture would only serve to make her twin angrier, and then stepped back. "Besides, how do I know that it wasn't you who managed to get us all in trouble, and that you're just playing innocent to try to throw me off-track?"
"Me?!"
"Where have you been for the last week, o brother of mine?" Miss Parker inquired with a sweetness in her voice that was almost poisonous. "Oh yes – I remember now! You were in Portland – got back just last night, if I remember properly. And isn't that where that Chinese dancer went missing…"
Now it was Lyle's turn to go toe to toe with his sister. "You know damned well what I was doing in Portland – and that I had nothing whatsoever to do with…"
"I know no such thing! I know what you were supposed to be doing, but outside that…"
A voice from right in front of the etched glass doors cleared itself overly loudly, and both Parkers turned to see Willy's towering and dark face looking at them with a small smirk of amusement behind his eyes. "Mr. Raines will see you now," he stated and then turned to nod to the sweepers behind him, who immediately pulled on the matching doors so as to accommodate the six who had been summoned.
Miss Parker turned to once more glance at her despised twin and then strode forward purposefully to push past him, trailing the rest of the assemblage behind her like a Queen on progress. As expected of him, Sam pushed past everyone else so that the burly sweeper could be directly behind Miss Parker as she entered Raines' office, and then he smirked ever so slightly as he faced off against the other security men.
Only Willy, in all of the Centre hierarchy, demonstrated an equal level of dedication to his permanent assignment, and yet Sam managed to do it without any obvious signs of fawning or arrogance. He simply was there all the time, on watch all the time, keeping her safe all of the time he was allowed to be present. Even Lyle didn't have a sweeper with that level of commitment, and it was yet another way in which Miss Parker knew her team to be superior to her brother's.
It didn't take long for the two retrieval teams to line up in front of the massive carved desk that was the hallmark of the Centre Chairmanship, with Miss Parker's team gravitating toward the right and Lyle's team to the left. Both groups clustered together, leaving almost an aisle between them that was as much indicative of the gulf of attitudes as well as the element of competition. Neither side bothered to look at the other anymore; all eyes were on the gaunt figure behind the mammoth desk.
William Raines had shrunk in on himself even more over the five years of his reign at the top of the Centre food-chain, if such a thing were even possible. His skeletal frame was garbed in a very expensive suit that, nevertheless, looked two sizes too big. Sunken blue eyes that glittered with both intelligence and insanity from regarded the group assembled before him with distaste. As usual, when called up on the carpet, Miss Parker's skin crawled to think that she could possible be related to the ghoul.
"I'm sure," Raines began, and then gasped noisily to pull another full breath of pure oxygen through the cannula in his nose, "that you're all wondering why I called you here."
"Whatever gave you that idea?" Miss Parker quipped bitterly, one hand on her hip. Sam merely shifted subtly, his stance becoming just slightly more protective than before.
Mr. Raines gifted her with a withering glare and wheezed in a breath. "Allow me to enlighten you then. It has come to our attention," he continued, and then gasped again, "that there have been an overabundance of unnecessary expenditures from both teams here: trips in Centre jets, hotel bills, restaurant and bar tabs…" He gasped again. "Are you catching my drift now?"
"Certainly you don't expect us to fund the hunt for Jarod out of our own pockets?" Lyle gaped.
"No," Raines answered slowly, and then gasped again, "but neither do I want to be paying for employee vacations with company monies." He picked up two folders, both seemingly adequately filled with documents, and held them out to both Lyle and Miss Parker. "I expect explanations to be filed and on my desk by tomorrow for the items listed here."
"What about them?" Miss Parker jerked a thumb toward the support team members on her side of the aisle. "Why call them in if you just wanted to talk finances with…"
"I wanted you all to hear this." Mr. Raines slowly and carefully arose from his comfortable leather chair to lean both hands on the desk toward the group in front of him. "The Centre is no longer in the business of reimbursing first class accommodations for full retrieval teams or dinners for five or six at four-star restaurants. Reasonable expenses will be handled, outlandish ones will be handed right back to the employee who incurred them. We are not an endless supply of money for lifestyles out of your reach otherwise." Miss Parker had to admit she was impressed – all that time Raines spent in the Renewal Wing and respiration therapy looked as if it were paying off at long last. The gasp at the end of that tirade was long and labored, however, putting things in her world back where they belonged.
"I am assigning an auditor to oversee the finances of both retrieval teams," he continued, "someone who will be receiving your receipts and claims and ruling on them on the spot." There was another noisy breath. "You should be aware that continued abuse of Centre funding will result in consequences that will be… unfortunate… Do I make myself clear?"
"Is that it?" Miss Parker sneered back. "Nothing about how we're chasing ghosts now, nothing about the fact that none of us have had even the hint of a clue as to Jarod's whereabouts for well over five years now, nothing about how maybe the time has come to rethink how to better allocate the resources and personnel? Just a damned lecture about our spending habits?"
"Miss Parker." Raines was obviously exercising patience, something that would be chilling under other circumstances. "I would think the number of times you and your brother have been called to report on your failures should indicate that our concern has not lagged in that respect."
"And just how do you expect us to run a ghost to ground without spending money to do it?" she persisted stubbornly. "We have to court information and pay for it, because intimidation isn't doing the trick anymore…"
"Not in first class hotel rooms, and not at four-star restaurants," Raines intoned as he once more seated himself. "Not unless you're willing to pay for them yourself. Am I making myself clear?"
"C'mon, boys." Miss Parker spun on her stiletto heels and pushed past Sam in heading toward the door. "This is just a tempest in a teapot…" From the corner of her eye, she saw that even Lyle gave a quick jerk of the head to his team and began to turn away at the same time.
"I'm not finished…" Raines' voice sounded hollow and ominous, causing both Parkers to hesitate and turn about again. "The fact of the matter is that the Centre has been bleeding money into this attempt to retrieve Jarod for far too long, and I've decided that the time has come to put an end to it. Assigning an auditor to the retrieval effort is but the first step." He gasped and glared at each of the Parker twins in turn. "Listen, and listen well. You two have one more year in which to try to win a ticket to success here at the Centre before you and your teams are transferred to Africa and put through a thorough re-education process." His intake of breath was positively bloodcurdling. "At that time, the hunt to retrieve Jarod will simply become a termination contract, and we will put Jarod out of our misery, permanently. Either way, the expense of hunting for Jarod will end one year from today."
Miss Parker's jaw dropped open, but it was Lyle who broke through his shock first. "Kill him? After all this?"
"Precisely," Raines intoned in an executioner's voice. "One way or another, a year from now, Jarod will no longer pose the kind of threat to the Centre that we've been dealing with all along…"
"Except for the last five years," Miss Parker muttered sotto voce to her teammates. Everyone, from her team to Lyle's and even Raines himself, all knew that Jarod's disappearance had been absolute. He hadn't touched a Centre back account, hacked the email client program or left a single clue to his whereabouts or activities since two fairly short phone calls not long after the incident in Scotland. Evidently five years' worth of being left completely unmolested wasn't enough for Raines.
"The necessary players are in place to simply take him out, but you have a year to pull this iron out of the fire." Raines' voice held a note of satisfaction as he lowered himself back into his chair and arranged the plastic tubing so that his access to the oxygen was unimpeded. "Bring Jarod back to the Centre where he belongs, and the Assistant Chairmanship will be assured to the one who succeeds. Fail, and well…" He drew in an exaggeratedly long and noisy gasp. "It will be the last task you fail at."
Miss Parker and Lyle glanced at each other, and she could see that neither one of them was pleased at the announcement. "Why a year?" Lyle decided to ask the question that had occurred to them both. "If you're that worried, why not just take out the termination contract and…"
"Because that's about the amount of time that the Centre can continue to afford to finance a losing campaign," Raines wheezed noisily. "Despite everything, Jarod alive and back in our control again represents the return of a sizeable investment and profit potential. While we would rather our property be returned, we have to be practical and know when to cut our losses before they swallow us whole." He gasped again. "Of course, each of you will continue to carry out your other official job duties at the same time."
"What?!" Both Miss Parker and Lyle burst out in outrage.
"You…" Raines looked at Miss Parker, "will begin a complete overhaul of the Centre mainframe with an eye to increased security. You…" the blue eyes landed on Lyle, "will review the sweeper/cleaner corps with an eye to streamlining the corps and eliminating deadwood from the roster. You…" he looked first at Sydney and then at Fischer, "each have research projects that need your attention when not directly participating in the retrieval effort. You…" he looked at Broots and Corky, "should be helping your various team members in whatever they require of you."
"How the hell do you expect…" Lyle began, taking a step forward, only to be stopped by Willy stepping forward from the side protectively to face off in a challenge. Miss Parker saw the grimace that filled her twin's face, and she knew her face looked much the same.
"How the hell do you expect us to do the jobs of two people and still be successful at finding Jarod?" she interrupted, asking the question that Lyle was clearly starting.
"That really isn't my concern, is it?" Raines replied caustically. "It's yours – and now you know the consequences of failure at either or both tasks." He then motioned with his hand, as if brushing the entire group aside and out of his consideration. "Now get back to work – and find Jarod."
The sweepers at the back of the office swept the doubled glass doors open again, and as Miss Parker turned to leave, she saw Sydney tug at Broots' sleeve and jerk his nose in the direction of the exit. Broots staring to move seemed to unfreeze the rest of the collected members of both teams, who walked in silence from the office. Miss Parker pushed through the group and punched the button to summon the elevator, and then stood facing away from the silvered door with her hands at her waist.
Lyle pushed through the others, just as his sister had, and then faced off with her again. "And just what the hell do you think we're going to do about that?" he demanded with an angry gesture toward the glass doors.
Miss Parker looked at him with a mixture of surprise and amusement. "I suggest that we both dig in and work very hard to find Jarod before the other does," she drawled mockingly. "A year can pass by faster than you think."
"We need to pool our resources…" Lyle grabbed her elbow again and tried to turn her aside from the elevator. "If we work together…"
"You'd take the credit all for yourself," Miss Parker hissed, jerking her arm from his grasp as the metal door slid aside. "I'm not doing your work for you, Lyle – I have enough on my plate already with the hunt for Jarod and running SIS – so go brown-nose Raines and see if he'll give you an extension to the time limit." She turned and stepped into the elevator behind her team – twisting and putting out a hand to restrain Lyle or any of his team from getting into the small space with her. "You can start by waiting for the next elevator."
Lyle's mouth worked soundlessly, but the elevator door had already begun to slide across the opening again.
"A year, Miss Parker?" Broots asked, his voice downright fearful. "A year, or we all get a one-way ticket to Africa?"
"Oh shut up and let me think," she responded with a sigh and leaned against the back wall of the elevator. A brief look of surprise flitted across her face as she remembered the folder she'd been handed, and she opened it. "Tell me, boys, when was the last time any of us roomed in a fancy hotel or ate out at a world-class restaurant while on the clock?"
Sydney shook his head slowly. "I don't think we've ever done any of that, Miss Parker," he replied quietly.
"What are you thinking?" Sam asked, his voice filled with quiet determination, "that someone is up to something?"
Miss Parker closed the folder and tapped the smooth manila against her chest thoughtfully. "I'm going to want to go through this very carefully… In the meanwhile…" She shot each of her team members a sharp glance. "Syd, I want you going back through all the crap we've collected from Jarod over the years to see if you can't get an insight from the accumulation that you would have missed looking at it all one piece at a time. We need to find your Science Club experiment, and we need to find him yesterday. Broots, I want you digging through the mainframe. I want a copy of every file mentioning Jarod's name printed out. Sam…"
"My job is to watch your back, Miss Parker," the dark-haired sweeper stated darkly. "I'll just keep doing my job."
There was a metallic ring as the elevator slowed to a halt. "Move it, boys," Miss Parker ordered as the door slid aside again to let them out on SL-17, where Sydney had his Sim Lab and Broots had his small computer lab set up a few doors away. "We confer again at four o'clock." All four of them lifted wrists to check their watches, and then Miss Parker was striding away down the corridor to the office she used on the sublevel when she wanted to be closer to her team. Less than a heartbeat behind her was Sam, easily keeping up with the pace she set.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Broots mentioned to Sydney, his sotto voce carrying back to her even over the clicking of her heels on the polished cement flooring.
"Since when do we not have a bad feeling about working here, my friend?" Sydney returned in a tired voice. "I'll be in the storeroom, if you need me."
"A really bad feeling about this," Miss Parker muttered to herself and Sam, agreeing with her teammates and, with a glance up and down the corridor to see who might be watching or listening – other than the omnipresent surveillance cameras – pushed open the door and stepped into the darkness of her office. She hadn't asked the others to do anything she wasn't going to be doing herself, and something told her that digging through the Centre mainframe today was going to be a daunting task indeed.
oOoOo
"Gerald O'Brien is here," announced Kristen's soft voice over the telephone.
"Good! Good! Send him in," Raines wheezed and pulled another folder from his In Box, this one quite a bit thicker than those he'd handed to his "children". The glass door opened silently, and he could see Willy nodding a tall and strikingly handsome dark haired man into the office. "Mr. O'Brien," the gaunt Chairman called breathlessly and motioned to a chair that had been moved back into place in front of the massive desk. "Please, sit down."
"It's an honor to meet you, sir," O'Brien leaned over the huge desk and extended his hand to his boss. "It's been a while…"
"Yes, but I can remember the way Les Vickering was talking about you just the other day, in our Financial Planning meeting, and that was what convinced me to call on your expertise." Raines waited until the accountant had found his seat before pulling in another noisy lungful of air. "I've heard about your investigative talents tracing down that kickback scheme in Purchasing and Receiving last quarter. Les estimated that firing those two warehouse managers would save the Centre nearly four hundred thousand dollars this fiscal year alone."
"Thank you, sir." O'Brien's face colored lightly. "Just doing my job, sir."
"Well, I hope those skills of yours are exceptionally keen, because I have a much tougher nut for you to crack for me." Raines pushed the manila folder across the desk.
"For you, sir?" O'Brien's thick dark brows rose on his face. "I'm working directly for you on this, not for Mr. Vicker…"
Raines shook his head violently. "As of this morning, your job title has changed, and you'll be reporting directly to me as your superior. I don't need any other fingers in this particular pot." The skeletal finger pointed. "Take a moment to glance through that; tell me what you see?"
O'Brien opened the folder and stared. Raines knew that, looking up at him from a glossy photograph, would be the strikingly beautiful woman otherwise known around the Centre as the "Ice Queen": old man Parker's daughter herself. He looked back up at Raines. "Miss Parker, sir?"
"Keep reading," Raines directed, a smirk of satisfaction on his face.
Raines watched the face of the younger man as he began flipping through the documents he'd been given. In that folder were eight personnel sheets – one on each of the retrieval team members, including the Parker twins – as well as a list of budgetary irregularities each of them was suspected of perpetrating. Finally O'Brien looked up again. "So you want me to oversee them all?"
"That's right," Raines nodded. "I want to know when each of them buys a box of Kleenex, and I want all receipts and claims forms to go directly to you. You will make an immediate determination of propriety and either forward them to Bookkeeping or, in case of impropriety, submit a report to my personal sweeper."
O'Brien frowned. "That's a little irregular in and of itself, isn't it?" he asked, his tone wary.
"The project represented by those eight people has been a financial black hole," Raines exploded and then wheezed. "I want to make sure that the money spent by the Centre is called for and not some extravagance." He pulled in another noisy breath and sat for a moment, trying to calm himself and eventually pulled on his oxygen tank once more. "You will present yourself to both Miss Parker and Mr. Lyle, and you will give each of them one of the copies of the letter of introduction you'll find at the back of that folder." He gasped again. "From that moment on, you will be directly responsible for making sure that the monies used in that project are used appropriately and at a reasonable level."
O'Brien closed the folder, placed it on his lap and put a hand down on the folder gently. "You can count on me, sir."
"Trimming the waste from this project will mean a regular bonus of thirty percent of what you've saved," Raines related with a keen eye to the younger man's face. "Each month that the actual costs of the project are less than the previous years', you'll receive an extra check reflecting that." The blue eyes began to glitter, and Raines gloated silently at finding the man's mercenary vulnerability. "However, if you don't find excesses and trim them, you may find that your employment here will be re-evaluated."
There was a quick flash of alarm and then something that almost looked like anger cross the young man's face, giving Raines reason to feel deep satisfaction. Now this O'Brien character had seen and heard both the carrot and stick that would drive his performance for the next twelve months. He knew what the consequences could be either way.
"Go on now," Raines waved at the accountant. "My sweeper will have information as to the precise location of both Miss Parker and Mr. Lyle for you when you're ready to make their acquaintance. I suggest you not wait too long for that to take place."
"I won't," O'Brien stressed and rose to his feet. "And thank you, sir, for the confidence you've place in me…"
"See to it that it wasn't misplaced," Raines warned and nodded, and then very deliberately opened yet another folder on his desk and began to read. A more clear sign of dismissal couldn't be made.
It wasn't until the glass door closed behind the young accountant that Raines looked up again and then turned to stare out the glass window behind him at the expanse of manicured estate that surrounded the above ground facility, including the Tower. If there was one thing he hated, it was dealing with bean counters. The Triumvirate had been climbing in and out of the Centre ledger sheets for the last two months, pointing out every last discrepancy and possibility of fraud, and still the steady bleed of money had continued.
Although once with more than adequate slush funds to protect it against anything the winds of ill-fortune could have slung at it, the Centre had seen its supply of liquid capital had been steadily shrinking. Worse: the rate of decline had been increasing sharply over the past two years. Raines leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap as he let his eyes wander aimlessly across green grass to the shining band of blue that was the ocean beyond. He knew at least part of the reason for the decline, of course; but he wasn't ready to go public to the Triumvirate with the details of Project Duplicity quite yet, not until there had been measurable success demonstrated by at least one of the test subjects.
Duplicity – the ideal answer to the incredible success and then complete debaucle that had been the Pretender Project – was now nearly eighteen years old. Raines had to smile with satisfaction every time he considered the entire premise of the project. The Centre still was on the cutting edge of technology and building upon the successes it had achieved. Jarod was but one individual, raised in a far more lax environment by someone whose scruples had been taught to the genius as well as the more obvious subject material. Duplicity took care of that, both in number as well as environment.
Gemini, long ago 'rescued' by Jarod and his father, had been but a prototype – a very successful prototype – that had unfortunately slipped through the Centre's fingers. But he had by no means been intended or indeed remained the sole progeny of the process. Moving the young man to the Alaskan facility had been a huge mistake, one that had brought the escaped Pretender's attention and made liberating the nearly-grown Pretender embarrassingly easy. It was also a mistake that hadn't been repeated since.
Jarod had been held by the Centre long enough that there had been a more than adequate supply of his genetic material, and in the intervening years, the cloning process had been streamlined to eliminate many of the grotesque "errors" that had arisen during the initial tests. Duplicity had taken the highly successful process and put it to use creating copies of the original genius. Twelve of them in all had been successfully created, including Gemini, but Sudden Infant Death had claimed the life of one infant four years ago, and Jarod had run off with Gemini. This left ten Duplicates housed in a research facility located in the depths of federal wilderness lands in northern Montana where they would be housed and educated and work.
Building the facility on protected land had cost a modest fortune in bribes and contract kickbacks, but setting up ten Sim Labs and staffing those labs with properly trained and motivated personnel had been one of the most expensive parts of the entire effort. Neither expense appeared anywhere on the official Centre balance sheets, nor did any direct mention of Project Duplicity or its intent exist within the Centre mainframe, where Jarod and his infuriating habit of uncovering secrets could trip over it. Personal discretionary bank accounts from previous Chairmen – accounts that had once been fed regularly by skimming a small percent of the profit from simulations performed by Jarod – had been the first to be tapped, because they were the ones that the Centre didn't officially know about in the first place. But those accounts had run out about the time that Jarod had escaped nearly ten years before – and the collective expense had only grown higher the older each of the Duplicates had become.
All he had to do was hang on a little bit longer, Raines reassured himself. Cancer, the clone who was but eleven months younger than Gemini, was almost ready to begin running full-scale SIMs; and Leo, thirteen months younger Cancer, was poised at nearly the same stage of readiness. Once word started to leak out that the Centre was back in simulation business in a big way, Raines knew the profit would once more flood in – and those discretionary accounts that had been retired with but a few hundred dollars in them would soon fatten again.
Which was why the increase of discretionary expenditures over the last four months was so infuriating! The last thing he needed was to have the Accounting Department declare a fiscal emergency and notify the stockholders of looming insolvency; that could have a cascade effect that would result in bankruptcy on the very eve of those huge, long-term profits. All of the departments had been put under the watch of an auditor drawn from the accounting pool in an effort to stem just enough of the cost to see the Centre through to the solvency Cancer and Leo would bring.
All he had to do was hang on a little bit longer. It would be his mantra – his prayer – because in it was his legacy as Chairman.
oOoOo
Miss Parker shifted her gaze back and forth between the open spreadsheet on her computer screen and the hardcopy expense report that Mr. Raines had handed her. The two resembled each other only in terms of the ledger account number and the number of actual entries; but the amounts listed as having been submitted for each of those entries, however, was drastically inflated on the sheet Raines had handed her. What was more, some of the entries that she'd submitted claims for were outright missing, and some of items Raines claimed she'd requested reimbursement for were outlandish to the point of hilarity.
One item caught her eye: a claim regarding a dinner for six at the best steakhouse in all of Delaware, dated only a week ago. Frustrated and starting to boil, Miss Parker looked up at her sweeper, standing in deceptive nonchalance with his back against the wall between her desk and her office door. "Sam?"
Sam started, something she wasn't used to seeing often, and Miss Parker looked closer. Strange; it seemed her personal sweeper was tired. "Yes, ma'am?" he answered immediately, blinking, straightening to attention.
For the first time since she'd accepted the man as her bodyguard and human pitbull, she wondered whether she'd just caught the man almost dozing on the job. Still, she had more important things to think about. "What were we up to a week ago Wednesday night?" she asked him with a frown.
"Wednesday?" Sam frowned too. "Oh yes! Wasn't that the night…"
"Exactly." Miss Parker nodded in grim satisfaction and turned her monitor screen around and turned the papers in front of her around so they too could be legible from the other side of the desk. "Come here and look at this and tell me I'm dreaming."
Sam pushed away from the wall and walked over to lean over and look at the computer screen. His frown deepened as he looked back and forth. "But… That can't be right. I wasn't there…"
"I know," Miss Parker shook her head as she turned both the papers and the monitor back around where they belonged. "I was with Evan's foster parents watching him in a class play, and not in Dover living high on the hog. You had the night off, if memory serves…"
"I was in Richmond, helping my sister move," Sam remembered finally.
"So my question to you is: who went to Dover, and who signed my name – or yours – to the receipts?" Miss Parker flipped the page to expose a page with receipts attached and flipped through the receipts one by one.
Sam glanced at them, and Miss Parker could see immediately when he noted what was bothering her so much. "Wait a minute! That's not your signature!" he exclaimed. He flipped a receipt of his own and growled. "That's not mine either."
"No shit, Sherlock." Miss Parker pulled the papers in front of her again and flopped the folder closed with a slap of the hand on the desktop. "But this came out of the same computer…"
"Didn't Mr. Raines just tell you he wanted a complete overhaul of the Centre mainframe, with an eye to security?" Sam asked, leaning hard on the clear plexiglass desk and still flipping through the hardcopy material in the folder. "Can't you check this out then?"
Miss Parker rose from her chair and wandered over to her window, leaning and staring. "Finding this only confirms the need for more security, Sam. It won't necessarily get us out of hot water with…" Her jerk of the head toward the floors of the Tower over their heads was crystal clear as to whom she was referring.
"But it proves that WE aren't as big a hemorrhage as Mr. Raines considered," Sam suggested, his tone hopeful. "Whether the same shenanigans are being pulled on Mr. Lyle, however, is anybody's guess…"
"Yeah, it would at that…" Miss Parker ran her hands through her dark hair, pulling it back from her face in frustration and then toyed with the pendant at her neck. "But the bitch of it is that even finding out who made up this crap won't tell us why." She stalked back over to her desk and flounced herself into her chair again. "I'm not going to rest until I know exactly how such a stupid thing could happen – and until I know who is faking our expense reports…"
oOoOo
Sam's internal alarm suddenly went off. What was it that the nameless person had said all those nights ago, that Miss Parker's probing into areas she shouldn't would result in a possible "accident"?
"Uh… Miss Parker? Why don't you let me see what I can discover about this…"
Miss Parker looked up at her sweeper with surprise. "You? That's not your job, Sam…"
He forced himself to look directly into her storm-grey eyes without flinching. "You're going to have your hands full with this mainframe inspection and upgrade, and I could use something to occupy my time while you confer with the Centre geek-squad."
She cocked her head. "And just how do you think you'll go about this little hunt?" Her tone was sarcastic, but there was a hint of gratitude behind it. Sam knew an overhaul of the huge Centre mainframe – the repository for all the information gathered or created by the Centre – was a mammoth task in the best of times. A little help chasing down this latest case of gremlins and outright demons within the Centre walls would be quite welcome.
Sam let a smile of confidence light his face, a confidence he didn't entirely feel. "I have a few ideas I'd like to chase down, if you don't mind…" When Miss Parker continued to have a skeptical expression on her face, he added, "Look. It's my ass on the line too here. I didn't see Mr. Raines making any exceptions for sweepers in his plans to ship people to Africa."
"Are you sure?"
Sam almost smiled. She was ready to accept his help! Good! "Just let me handle this part of things, Miss Parker, and you take care of giving Mr. Raines that answer he wanted and doing the security overhaul. How much you want to bet that this ends up being a prank Jarod pulled on the computer a long time ago, and it's just taken this long for us to uncover it…"
Miss Parker nodded and settled back in her chair with a sigh. "I have to admit that I need this extra investigation like I need a hole in the head."
"I can do it, Miss Parker," he reassured her gently. He knew better than to outright demand the job; all too often, she responded to that kind of pressure by exploding in the opposite direction than the one desired. "Let me show you I'm more than just muscle…"
"You'll report directly to me…"
"Of course." He rose. "I think I'll head down to Mr. Broots' office and see if he can bring up any history of this report – or any sign of duplicate books."
"Don't forget," Miss Parker reminded him, "I start seeing clients at two this afternoon. I'm going to want you here…"
"I'll be there, Miss Parker," Sam reassured her firmly. "Don't worry about me." He held out his hand for the folder. "I'll get this stuff copied so that you can be working on that explanation Mr. Raines requested while I do a little digging."
After a long look, Miss Parker stretched out her hand and gave over the folder to Sam. "Don't be long with that thing," she told him. "I'm going to want to have it on hand in a bit."
"I won't. I'll be right back."
Sam waited until he'd managed to escape Miss Parker's office completely before sighing deeply in relief. That had been too close, he told himself as he hurried down the hallway to where Mr. Broots had his computer lab, where most of the office machinery for the Sim Lab and associated offices was kept. Hopefully, however, Miss Parker would find enough to keep her attention occupied on the mainframe overhaul and let him very quietly bury that report and any questions about it.
At least he'd bury that report and related questions until he knew more about who was threatening her, and had formulated a plan for protecting her against herself.
oOoOo
Mr. Lyle's eyes were like those of a shark, O'Brien thought: cold and virtually empty of anything besides an unthinking hunger for… He blinked and shook the man's hand, deciding that maybe it was best for him NOT to think about what Mr. Lyle was hungry for. The stories in the Centre grapevine were lurid enough. "Mr… O'Brien, is it?" His name on Mr. Lyle's lips sounded oily, made him feel unclean.
"Yes, sir," O'Brien turned and found the client chair in front of the dark-haired man's desk. "I'm the auditor Mr. Raines has appointed to oversee your expense account in regards to the Pretender Project…"
Something even more inhuman flickered briefly behind that cold gaze, and O'Brien felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise. "Are you familiar with this information then?" Lyle tapped the open folder on his desk and then handed it over to the outstretched hand.
"No, sir." Slowly O'Brien shook his head. "This is the first time I've seen your records, Mr. Lyle," he said, handing the folder back.
"You didn't put this bullshit together?"
"No, sir!" The accountant shook his head vehemently this time. "I only received my re-assignment early this morning. Mr. Raines suggested that I take the time to introduce myself to you and your sister before…"
"Then you aren't aware that most of the reason you're here is utter and complete nonsense?" Mr. Lyle rose and began to pace behind his desk. "I didn't submit claims for three nights in the Ritz in Baltimore for last month. Hell, I didn't even leave Delaware…"
"Mr. Lyle, I don't know much about what has gone on before. My job is to make sure what happens from now on is appropriate and reasonable…"
"Just get out." Lyle sat back down behind his desk and pointed. "I don't need any damned babysitter to tell me how or where I should spend the Centre's money in the effort to bring…" Those dead eyes looked decidedly dangerous, and the hairs rose on the back of O'Brien's neck. "You'll find all my receipts in order from here on out – trust me. You can go."
O'Brien was glad to get away from the eyes of the hungry shark. He would be talking to that Parker sibling as seldom as possible from now on, that was for sure!
oOoOo
"There's been a slight wrinkle in the plans."
There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Define "small wrinkle," please…"
"The over-charging of the Pretender Project teams has been uncovered – and Raines has assigned an auditor to do nothing but oversee their books from now on."
"Someone we can control?"
"Probably not. He's one of the top auditors they have on staff, and Raines has removed him from the accounting department entirely and made him accountable directly to the Tower. More than likely, I'll not see him in this part of the Centre again for a while."
"That's unfortunate," the voice agreed with a small sigh, "but the Pretender Project isn't the only high-security secret project the Centre has going. We'll be fine, just turning our attention to some of the other…"
"You don't understand! Miss Parker herself was part of the group placed under audit and told that the cost-overruns for her team were becoming a problem. She's not an idiot; she'll see some of the discrepancies between her personal record and the one Raines has been given. Face it: she's just been given that first nudge toward starting an investigation before we're ready to deal with her."
Again, there was a pause on the other end of the line. "We can't afford to take her out of the game just yet, though. So much of the success of this depends on keeping her in place and in the dark until it's too late for her to do anything. How torqued is she?"
"I don't know. I haven't spoken to her at all since long before the meeting in Raines' office this morning. I do know, however, that both she and Lyle were given documentation of the extraordinary reimbursement claims we've managed to slip through of late. I had to order the printing job myself."
"Perhaps someone in the Centre's accounting department has sharper eyes than we'd estimated."
"The Centre employs some of the brightest CPAs to graduate from university, just like we do."
"Well, don't worry about it," the voice responded calmly. "Like I say, we have ample directions of action to explore that losing that one way to bleed the Centre financially won't matter much. How goes the investigation into Lyle's somewhat…" the voice coughed, "…"odd" taste in cuisine?"
"Oh, the evidence is mounting nicely. There's not quite enough to take to an Attorney General or to the FBI, but if he continues his activities at a regular pace, we should have more than enough to make him a liability for the Centre."
"Good. Having their Legal Department up to their chins in murder indictments rather than overseeing contract provisions will make a good diversion as things proceed. See what you can do to speed up that end of things."
"I'm taking care of it."
"Now, to the meat of the matter. Have you made contact and gotten things moving in regards to Duplicity?"
"I found the man we need, and I've given him detailed instructions so that he knows exactly what kind of team to put together."
"Any time-frame of action yet?"
"Not until he tells me he has all the resources on hand."
"We have the Centre off-balance, although they may not know how much yet. We don't want to lose that advantage…"
"I know that! But moving on Duplicity isn't going to be a cake-walk, you know. That's one of the most secure facilities they operate in the Western Hemisphere."
"We need Duplicity if this is going to work, not only to give us a head-start after we bring the Centre down, but to help with tipping over their house of cards."
"I know that too. But like I said, things are starting to come together. We need to be patient and let those who know their business do their business. If we start trying to push things to go faster, we could ruin our chances at winning."
This time, the pause on the other end of the line was a substantial one. "Dammit, I'll be glad when you can be working for us directly again, rather than just hearing from you once a week by voice…"
"It's coming, Jim, it's coming. And let me tell you: I'll be glad to be back working in the family firm myself. Fifteen years undercover has been more than enough for me. I'm gonna want my own corner office…"
"I got one waiting for you, complete with a view of the bay."
"Well, then, let me get back to work so that I can move into that office sooner rather than later."
"You'll call again?"
"Don't I always?"
"Be careful, and watch out for that Parker bitch. I don't put anything past her."
"Don't worry. I have a couple of diversions up my sleeve if I start to see her poking around where we don't want her looking."
"Nothing that takes her out yet!" The voice was emphatic. "Not yet!
"No… But it will be enough to maybe give her a decent set of ulcers and knock her out of the arena without removing her from the game per se. Trust me."
"You're my brother. Of course I trust you."
"I'll talk to you later."
"Good luck."
oOoOo
Jim McKenna used the forefinger of the hand holding the telephone handset to rub below his nose thoughtfully for a moment before finally replacing the device in the cradle on his desk. It hardly seemed possible that Jake, his twin brother, had been stuck in the Centre for fifteen years now, planted there by their father in anticipation of the day the Eire Foundation could mount an attack on the firm that had been their idea from the very start.
Almost a hundred years ago, two men had met aboard a ship carrying them from Southampton to New York and together come up with an innovative idea: to build a firm dedicated to sitting at the cutting edge of scientific technology and to make such discoveries as might come from within a practical product to be marketed globally. Charles Parker and Eugene McKenna had reached New York, pooled their limited resources to find a roof over their heads, and gone to work. Both were ambitious, both were adroit at finding ways to profit from their work at a higher rate than the regular worker. Between them, it had taken but five years to buy out a small pharmacy in the center of Manhattan and hire a chemist. Eugene had an idea on how to build the kind of organization that had really been HIS brainchild, but it was Charles who truly had the knack to make money.
At the time, it had been more than mere convenience to have Parker's name on all of the official documents. After all, Eugene McKenna was a wanted man back in Scotland. And it had been that little fact which had made it possible, as The Centre Pharmaceuticals began to grow into a bigger and bigger enterprise that eventually relocated to a facility located in Delaware, for Parker to slowly and surely push McKenna out of any position of authority within the organization. In fact, the bulk of the funds used to build The Centre had been Parker's, and it didn't take that long before Parker began to deny that McKenna had been the creative genius with the spark of the idea. McKenna was treated – and was informed in no uncertain terms – that he always had been and always would be only a paid associate.
A mere employee. A nobody.
McKenna had left the Centre an aging and embittered man, his idea for success in the New World had been stolen and turned into something quite different from what he'd intended by a man he'd trusted. McKenna had been smart enough, however, to have been stockpiling his meager profits over the years; and so he had a tidy sum to use to relocate himself and his family to Philadelphia and begin again, using much the same tactics as he and Parker had used – only this time, starting with a machine shop. The Eire Foundation had been the result of that.
Vincent McKenna had kept his father's spirit alive and, over the fifty years of his tenure as Chairman, seen the Foundation move into research fields that the Centre had largely ignored: electronics and weapons development. The U.S. Government had found the Foundation's services and products very useful, and that had made it possible for McKenna to build his family's Foundation into an organization easily the equal of the Centre in many ways. Then, ten years ago, Vincent had died of a heart attack in the middle of a board meeting, leaving the Foundation in the hands of his twin sons.
The Electronics Technologies Department had transformed itself into a Micro-electronics Technologies Department that was now a leader in the newly opened field of nano-technology. Foundation weapons components were now basic parts of a goodly portion of the US arsenal. And finally the Foundation had started dabbling in some of the fields the Centre had dominated: pharmaceuticals and psychological studies.
Jake had stayed behind in Philadelphia to run things, building on the behemoth left by his father until the Foundation was in a position to compete, sometimes successfully, against the Centre. Jim, with his genius for high finances and affinity for numbers in general, had already been convinced to go undercover in the Centre by his father, and Jake began to take advantage of having that inside information. The McKenna family knew the value and the process of the blood feud, and Jim was more than willing to go and spy on their immediate enemy. His position made it possible to counter-bid on contracts, and thus elbow the Centre out of deals on a regular basis now.
The Foundation found that taking a page from the Centre's rulebook had been a very effective tool in maintaining their own internal security. Both twins had been taught the benefits of ruthlessness at their father's knee, always with the idea that, someday, the McKennas would win back from the Parkers what was theirs by right. And so, when expedient, Jake had used intimidation, bribery, fraud and blackmail to force people to do as he wished them to. His employees were paid well for their services and treated with both respect and consideration. But there was little attempt at double-talk or subtlety: the internal security force was known as "guards", "assassins" or "arsonists"; and cameras were everywhere in the research facility.
And now, it seemed, seventy years' worth of revenge-plotting was about to pay off.
Jake's eyes glittered. With the Centre gone, the Foundation would be playing to an immense field with very few other competitors capable of mounting much of a game.
But first things first…
He pushed the intercom button. "Is Mr. Simmons here yet?" he asked impatiently.
"Yes, sir," Angie, his secretary, responded immediately. "He's been waiting for you to finish your call for about five minutes now."
"Send him on in, then." Jake smiled to himself and folded his hands on his desk. This Simmons fellow had come with the kind of impeccable record that any large corporation or foundation's financial department would drool over. Getting him hired and busy at work securing and bolstering the Foundation's fiscal stability in preparation for new and expanded business had been a priority item for him ever since the employment application had been brought to his attention. After all, the last thing the Foundation needed was to walk down the same path as its nemesis, the Centre, had been walking for the last five years under William Raines.
The door at the far end of the huge office swung open on silent hinges, letting the tall, dark-haired man past the muscular guard. Jake took in the man's demeanor and bearing and immediately knew that this was the kind of man he wanted working for the Foundation – Simmons was apparently sure of himself and exuded talent. The perfectly trimmed moustache and goatee spoke of attention to detail – ideal traits for one in the position to which the candidate was aspiring. Dark eyes glittered with almost alarming intelligence behind a simple pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
Pleased that the man had matched the resume, McKenna rose and extended his hand across the desk. "I'm Jake McKenna, Chairman of the Eire Foundation."
"Jarod Simmons," Jarod smiled and shook the red-headed man's hand firmly, "and I'm very honored to meet you, sir."