Chapter 3 – Mixed Signals

Jarod climbed into the small economy sedan that he'd decided would best fit the character he would be in this Pretend and then threw his head back against the headrest once the door was closed. This Pretend was going to take more concentration – and potentially take more out of him – than he'd even considered. For the first time in all the Pretends he'd undertaken, he'd finally tripped over an organization that reminded him far too vividly of the Centre. The all-present sweepers at nearly every juncture and doorway demonstrated an even higher sense of paranoia than even the Parkers had managed to instill, and there were even more surveillance cameras in plain sight than most of the high-security Centre labs had contained. He would really have to watch his step, and his knee-jerk responses to the environmental stimuli. His best bet, if he knew what was good for him, would be to spend the rest of the day and most of the next two days re-SIMming the plan in light of the new information.

Tiredly he reached into the breast pocket of his sports jacket and brought out the red notebook in which he'd stored the clipped newspaper story that had caught his attention, as well as his notes. The initial newspaper story hadn't been a very long one: a man had been found murdered in what looked like a simple gangland execution, leaving behind a widow and an infant son; but subsequent inquiry into both the murder victim and the circumstances had yielded a troubling conclusion: Bob Rogers had been a research engineer with an organization known as the Eire Foundation involved in weapons research and development who had recently separated from his wife of thirteen years due to what she'd alleged as a sudden personality change and an affair. According to the wife, outgoing and philanthropic Rogers had become withdrawn and sullen over the past eight months or so; and according to Arlene, Rogers' estranged wife, had spent endless hours on the telephone with someone named Nicky.

It had taken Jarod three days to trace the calls made on Rogers' home phone to "Nicky" to an exchange of the Philadelphia office of the FBI. "Nicky" turned out to be Nicky Van Derling – Special Agent Nicholas Van Derling. Suddenly it had become apparent that Rogers had uncovered something he felt important enough to bring in law enforcement, probably related to his job, and that something was considered important enough to the Foundation that he'd been eliminated rather than have that information exposed or acted upon.

Jarod had then done his homework on the Eire Foundation itself, delving into the company history, and had come away feeling like he needed to take a shower. Except for the name and the names of the major players, the Foundation was in many ways very much like the Centre, only the Centre had been around as a legal entity for nearly a decade longer. Originally a research and development firm with a couple of solid lines of investigation, the Foundation had blossomed into a global enterprise commanding a clientele that included governments and corporations alike. He had been surprised, however, when it hadn't occurred to him that the similarities between the Centre and the Foundation were more than just skin-deep. Walking into the place today had required real discipline; there was something about the headquarters of the Foundation that had triggered a horrifying case of déjà vu.

Fully half of that impression had come as a result of his final job interview with the Chairman of the Foundation himself. Jake McKenna was obviously a man who was more than capable of seeing through a flimsy story, and Jarod knew he'd have to remember to not fudge an iota on his cover story. McKenna had a reputation among his peers for being extraordinarily ruthless in pursuit of a desired goal, and there were many rumors of politicians, legislators and law enforcement officials bought and paid for or even removed from office with Foundation funding. Now that he'd been in the place, Jarod had a hunch that the order to remove Rogers as a problem had most likely come from that well-appointed office he'd just been in. He also knew, however, he was up against a worthy opponent in proving his suspicion to a degree that would at least lend credence to any confession that might be wrung from the man eventually, and to do so in such a manner that he'd be able to disengage from his Pretend with his freedom and anonymity intact.

Jarod sighed, sat up straighter and put the key in the ignition of the vehicle. His sister, Emily, would probably be home from work already and wondering where he was. She had agreed to put him up in her apartment while he ran his Pretend; actually, she'd insisted upon it. She, like her parents and his other brothers – Ethan and JD – were never pleased when Jarod would decide to put his unique talents for uncovering inconvenient truths to practice in order to get justice for another underdog. Margaret and Charles had learned that too much complaining could lead to a several months-long estrangement between themselves and their Pretender son, but Emily had yet to develop tact. Still, he had needed a place to stay in Philadelphia, and Emily's placement in the editorial staff of the largest newspaper in the city would give him access to information he could find exceedingly handy as time when on.

He looked down at his watch. It was late, four-thirty in the afternoon already. Emily would be home soon and busy in the kitchen preparing a meal for the two of them, and it was time to retire to a place where he could re-evaluate his Pretend in relative peace. He'd have to remember to say very little about the similarities that he'd discovered between the Foundation and the Centre to her during this Pretend. Emily was one of the most vocal advocates of his having cut off all communication with the Centre when their family had finally reunited, and she'd no doubt be worried that Jarod would be getting himself in over his head with another place equally evil.

She had little to worry about, however.

Jarod had had no reason to stay in touch with either of them. Miss Parker finally was as fully informed about the truth of her family as she could be and still she was unwilling to leave, and most of Sydney's secret wounds had been uncovered and were finally healing a little with his mentor no more willing to leave the Centre than Miss Parker. Dropping away from the Centre radar, then, had been hilariously simple. After all, the only reason he'd stayed on their radar was because of the little clues he'd left behind to be discovered by the team following on his trail.

The Pretend he'd done in Miami immediately after the incident on the Isle of Carthis had been the cut-off point. At the time, it had been weeks since last he'd called either Miss Parker or Sydney, and he simply had pulled up stakes from that Pretend and left Florida without giving any indication of where he was headed or what he intended. He hadn't even left behind the red notebook to give evidence that the man they were looking for was he, nor had he spoken to any of the Cuban family he'd stayed with about what his next plans were. For all intents and purposes, the trail of the Centre's escaped Pretender had evaporated into thin air in a barrio street that would be difficult to discover at best.

He'd then spent six months on his parents' new sprawling farm in upstate Pennsylvania, six months that had seen him finally learn all about the dynamics of living in a real family. Ethan and JD – as Gemini had perversely chosen to be called, short for 'Jarod Dupicate' – each were still living on the farm, giving Jarod siblings as well as parents to grow close to. For a while, just knowing that he was finally in a place where he belonged, not as a piece of property, but as a loved family member, had been enough.

That feeling of sufficiency had lasted exactly six months.

Those six months, while in so many ways exactly what he'd wanted for so long, had finally worn on him in ways he could have never expected. However wonderful he'd dreamed having a mother could be, he'd eventually come to resent his mother's insistence on trying to direct his life and his choices. In the end, he began to miss the relative freedom of moving from place to place without anyone else to gainsay him or attempt to dissuade him from helping those who couldn't help themselves achieve a bit of justice.

His first Pretend in over half a year had taken place in New York City, and the distance away from the family and the slipping into old habits and practices became more an expression of rebellion and disillusionment than anything else. When he'd returned to the farm, things had eased somewhat with Ethan and JD teasing him mercilessly about his "Superman Complex," only to have the same feeling of constriction and disillusion develop over time once more.

Since then, he'd managed to find an excuse to practice what he was coming to consider his unique art form every eight to ten weeks, with a couple of weeks of relaxation and simple farm labor on what he considered the family estate to clear his mind in between times. Margaret and Charles had eventually resigned themselves to the fact that their oldest child was too wild to be held down too long in one place, and accept that his returning to the fold when the Pretend was through was as much of a family tie as Jarod would ever give them.

His cell phone chirped at him, and he smiled as he checked the caller ID. "Hi Em," he greeted his caller lightly.

"Jar! Are you on your way home yet?"

"Yup. Need something?"

"Can you stop at the grocers and pick up a head of lettuce? I forgot it when I went shopping the other day…"

"One head of lettuce," he nodded as he put the car in reverse and carefully backed out of the visitor's parking place near the main entrance of the Foundation. "Anything else?"

"Well? Did you get the job?"

He smiled. She knew the basics of what he was up to; it had been a case of being honest with her as he'd accepted her invitation to take up residence in her guest bedroom. "I start on Monday," he told her with just the right note of enthusiasm. "and I got into the department I wanted to."

"Congratulations, big brother!"

"Yeah…" Jarod grimaced at the steering wheel, unwilling to consider whether that was an accomplishment worthy of congratulations or not. "I'll see you in a few minutes then, as soon as I pick up the lettuce." He eased the sedan to a halt and watched the traffic on the main road for a comfortable space into which he could slip.

He put the cell phone on the dashboard in the little pocket he'd designed for it that included a plug for a hands-free headset and took note of where he was. There was a supermarket on the main street that he'd travel on his way to Emily's home, so picking up her lettuce wouldn't take much more time at all. He could enjoy her home-cooked meal, fend off her questions as best he could and basically relax the way any working man would after a long day. And then, when Emily headed off to bed, he could begin the mental relaxation exercises that would lead him into a state where he could review the plan as he'd SIMmed it and incorporate the security information about the physical site he'd learned about.

Then he would try not to have a nightmare, and something told him that might be the hardest part of all.

oOoOo

Jerry O'Brien sighed and stuck his framed diploma into the small cardboard box that the sweeper had brought him earlier. In a way, he was excited to be obviously moving up in the world, out from under the thumb of the exacting Les Vickering into a situation where he worked directly for the Chairman himself. But the interview he'd finally managed with the other team leader of the Pretender Project had been no less stressful than the first, making him wonder if he'd jumped from a frying pan and into a fire. Miss Parker had been no friendlier than had Mr. Lyle, although she had been much less threatening. She too had asked him about his familiarity with the documentation of what she termed "the alleged over-runs," and O'Brien knew then that he'd best familiarize himself very completely with whatever information Mr. Raines was basing his actions.

"So you're leaving us?" asked a deep voice from behind him.

"That's what they tell me," O'Brien answered without turning. The voice of the head of the accounting office was unmistakable. "I'm supposed to move to SL-17…"

"That's what Mr. Raines told me when he called me about an hour ago," Les Vickering nodded his freckled face soberly. "I tried to hang onto you, but Mr. Raines was determined…"

"You know…" O'Brien turned with a hand on his hip, "I have a feeling something's not exactly right. Mr. Raines was so certain that these people were stealing him blind, that they were using Centre funds to maintain themselves in a lavish lifestyle. And yet I got told very clearly by both of them that fully half of what they'd been accused of doing was falsified."

"Really?" Vickering's brows rose toward his hairline. "Do you really expect the accused to ever do anything but protest their innocence?"

O'Brien's face fell. "No," he admitted, "but I just have a gut feeling about this. These folks weren't just putting on an act, they were MAD about something"

"About getting caught…"

"Nope. About being set up." The younger man shrugged and turned.

"Well, you just do your job, and Mr. Raines will be pleased," Vickering told him in a firm tone. "And with any luck, when you've taken care of whatever you need to, you'll end up back up here, in the sun…" The red-haired man glanced in the direction of the windows situated high on the wall that let in the light from the late afternoon sun.

O'Brien shivered. The very idea of spending his entire workday seventeen floors UNDER ground was rattling, and he couldn't imagine Miss Parker or any of the rest of her team having been down there and working like that for years on end. "I'll be glad," he commented thinly. He reached down and picked up his little box. "I guess this is all of it, then."

Vickering stuck his hand out. "Good luck on your new assignment, O'Brien. Make us all proud."

The younger man nodded bleakly and moved past his former superior on the way out of the mass of cubicles that was the home of most of the Centre's accounting staff.

oOoOo

Jake McKenna's brows furled as he watched the auditor leave the protective shelter of the accounting department. Already those two had found some of the creative claims, had they? That didn't necessarily bode all that badly; after all, Jim had reminded him that the creative financial tinkering had been going on in a number of different directions for quite a while now. This one had probably surfaced first because of Mr. Raines' near-obsession with reacquiring the escaped Pretender.

The Centre grapevine was full of the news of the Parker twins' time on the carpet in the Tower, and of the auditor forcing them to stop living so high on the hog. There was a sense of glee at news of the humiliation of the people most capable of intimidation, people whom other people moved away from as they walked down the corridors of the Centre.

McKenna picked a circuitous route through the cubbies on his way back to his office at the very rear of the room, taking the time to look over the shoulders of the workers who were his responsibility. He kicked at the chair of one dozing accountant, bringing him upright and alert and nearly bumping his nose on his monitor screen, and hit the close program keys on a popular solitaire game for another clerk. It made him feel a little better to keep his people in line, although he was beginning to feel the chafe of being stuck in a firm he so detested.

Fifteen years was a long time, a long time to wear a name that wasn't really his own, to have friends who didn't know the man behind the mask, to never socialize with family members. He'd given up a lot to play this role: a co-Chairmanship with Jim, a fiancé who would have never understood the need to adopt a completely new name and identity. His father had asked, and like the good son he was, he'd not thought twice.

Until now.

He wanted out. God how he wanted out!

The moment he was in his office, he carefully shut the door and sat down at his desk already rifling through his full Rolodex file for the proper card. Then he placed the call.

"Well?" he demanded harshly the moment the line was picked up. Charles Delgado was supposed to be one of the top wet-work experts to have ever been honorably discharged from Special Ops, and Delgado knew they were working under a time restraint.

"I have my team," the voice on the other end of the line announced with a touch of triumph. "Good men, experts in their fields. I served with a couple of them…"

"About time," McKenna mumbled to himself and then cleared his throat. "Call them and tell them to be at the corner of 8th and Pine in Dover at eight o'clock tomorrow night. It's time they learned the details of the job I need done, and time to get a schedule of action in place."

"Sure thing, boss," the voice drawled. "Eight PM at 8th and Pine – you got it."

"Don't be late," McKenna warned and then hung up.

He'd have to be careful, he thought and then sighed. His time in this hellhole was coming to an end; the last thing he needed to do was to ruin everything.

oOoOo

"You came!" Evan beamed and dashed across the living room and into his big sister's arms.

"I wouldn't forget that this was the weekend you're supposed to be with me, Little Man," Miss Parker hugged her little brother tightly and then looked up into Margot Laughton's round face and smiled. "I take it he's all packed?"

"Oh, you know how he is about these visits, Miss Parker," was the response. "He came home from school hardly able to concentrate on anything but getting all of his stuff packed, and then has been back and forth to the window looking for you for the last hour. He was starting to make me dizzy!"

"Margot!" Evan complained and then turned excited blue-grey eyes on his sister again. "What are we going to do this weekend, Sissy?"

"Well," Miss Parker rose to her full height, "Grandpa Bill wants us to go to dinner tomorrow…"

"Aw…" Evan's dislike for his grandfather had never been a secret, and his grandfather's insistence that a condition of his weekends with his big sister was a certain number of hours with his grandfather too had been an irritant to them both. "Can't we, just once…"

Miss Parker shook her head sadly, and Margot put her hand on her foster-son's shoulder. "Now Evan, he is your grandfather…"

"He smells funny, and he always asks me all kinds of funny questions…"

"We'll just make sure we do all sorts of fun stuff otherwise, to make up for it," Miss Parker promised and reached for a backpack that looked positively overstuffed. "Get your suitcase…" She exchanged an understanding glance with his foster mother. No doubt Evan had packed nearly everything of any value to him again, as he did so often.

"Sunday night?" Margot asked quietly.

"Probably late Sunday night," Miss Parker agreed in an equally quiet voice. "I'll get him back in time for a good night's sleep before school, but not a whole lot sooner than that."

Margot bent and kissed the boy on the cheek. "You be good for your sister now…"

"He will," Miss Parker assured the woman before Evan could speak for himself. "You ready?"

"Yeah!" Evan put his free hand into his sister's. "Will we see Sydney this time?"

Miss Parker managed to disguise a sigh. "I don't know. I'm not sure what he was going to be doing this weekend. We can always call him up tomorrow morning after breakfast and find out…"

"I hope so," the little boy chattered contentedly. "He tells some of the best stories…"

What is it about the connection Sydney had with children? Miss Parker wondered as she opened the trunk of her car for Evan's luggage. As much as her little brother disdained visiting his grandfather, he loved to be around the old psychiatrist. And Sydney showered the boy with attention and what she could only hope was genuine concern. Evan would be crushed if he ever found out the old man was faking it.

No, she corrected herself, Sydney's attitude around Evan had always been one of concern and affection of a grandfatherly sort. He'd even made efforts to attend some of the school events that were the purview of parents and grandparents when Evan would bubble about it during a visit beforehand. What was more, he never failed to regale the boy with praise afterwards. More than once Miss Parker had caught herself wishing that Sydney had been even half as demonstrative with her when she was that age, or especially in those painful and lonely months between when her mother had left her and when her father had shipped her off to boarding school.

"Sissy?"

"Hmmm?" Miss Parker answered, shaking off her reverie and closing the trunk so that she could unlock the passenger door for the boy.

"You OK?"

"I'm fine, Little Man," she replied, finding it not all that hard to replace her thoughtful expression with a smile of affection. "What do you say about finding a place that makes a pepperoni pizza for supper?"

"YEAH!"

oOoOo

Lyle slid into one of the booths at the very back of the restaurant and barely glanced up as the waiter gave him the scripted greeting and slid a menu in front of him. All of Lyle's attention was on the woman who was dining alone two tables away, just as she did every Friday evening at this time. Her blue-black hair hung long and was gathered into a simple band at the base of her neck, and her olive-colored skin was perfect. Her face was one of classic Chinese beauty, of the sort one would find memorialized on porcelain or in a careful brush painting.

"Scotch on the rocks, and I'll have the grilled salmon tonight," Lyle ordered absently, his glittering grey-blue eyes never leaving his prey. He'd been stalking Roselyn Chu for five weeks now, spending every weekend moment graphing her habits and established routes and routines. Friday nights were spent here, in this bayside seafood restaurant, Saturday mornings had her rising early to jog along the beach for an hour before heading north to Baltimore. Evidently she had a sister she visited regularly there. Sunday afternoon she would return to Dover, usually taking in a movie at the local multiplex before dining in an Italian deli on the west side.

Lyle nodded mutely as the waiter deposited his drink in front of him on a napkin along with his dinner salad. Rosalyn was having the grilled salmon too; it was what she always ordered on Friday night. Lyle had gotten into the habit of ordering the same thing as his prey, with only the stiff scotch as deviation. He lifted the glass to his lips and sipped at the sharp amber liquor after very subtly raising his glass.

Tonight would be the night: Fridays were the best times to interfere with her schedule with enough time between then and when she'd be missed to accomplish everything he intended. Weekdays she was a hard worker, often spending ten to twelve hour workdays and carpooling with other colleagues at the office. She had no love interests to speak of; only once had Lyle seen her out with a man. Rosalyn Chu was an intensely private individual, exactly the kind of person that it was a pleasure to hunt.

His prey smiled up at the waiter, making small talk, and Lyle picked up his fork and stabbed at the salad with a perverse sense of jealousy. He'd have to hide his feelings for the time being, however; she wasn't his quite yet. No, that would happen in the parking lot of the restaurant in about an hour. Then she'd be his, and never anybody else's ever again.

He had his nest all prepared: a motel room a few miles northeast, towards the Delaware-Maryland border, where he could spend his time with her without interruption. The individual cabins that comprised the old fashioned motor inn fit into his plans beautifully. It was almost a shame that he'd only be able to visit the place once. There was adequate privacy to allow for making sure disposal of the body afterwards wouldn't be an issue either.

Lyle made another stab at the hapless lettuce of his salad. This evening's and the night's pending entertainment were as much a commentary on the warning he'd received from Raines by telephone only an hour or so before the day had ended, a warning that the legal department would no longer be at his disposal if any of his extra-curricular activities caught the attention of the local constabulary. How dare he! Lyle fumed and munched his greens without moving his eyes from his prey. He'd been doing his hunting for years and only rarely caused a legal ripple. He had his process down to a fine science, up to and including the meal that would take place precisely twenty-four hours later.

Then, suddenly, his prey wasn't alone. The smile Lyle had considered his alone was now being bestowed on another: a tall Oriental man who bent and deposited a sweet and probably proprietary kiss on Rosalyn's cheek before sitting down across the table from her with her hand still held within his. From the looks of it after the waiter arrived, the man was joining Rosalyn for dinner. Evidently his prey had a social life – perhaps even a love life – after all. This wasn't the same man he'd seen her with before, and this man acted as if the two of them shared a much more intimate relationship.

Lyle swore softly and then pushed his salad away in disgust. His stomach roiled in frustration and disappointment, and he rose quickly. With a snarl, he pulled out his wallet and left enough on the table to cover his tab for the evening – along with enough of a tip to make the waiter happy – and strode angrily from the restaurant. His mood for the weekend was totally ruined, and he was still hungry.

She will be mine, Lyle promised himself. Maybe not this weekend, but by God, Rosalyn Chu would be his exclusively soon enough!

oOoOo

Sam knocked on the door of Miss Parker's office and then tried the doorknob, only to find it locked. Good, he thought in satisfaction; with any luck, she's already gone for the weekend. He glanced down at his wristwatch and nodded to himself. Yup, already gone, and more than likely, she'd left early to pick up her little brother Evan from his foster mother and taken him with her again. That was something that had been happening more and more often lately. Not that he didn't approve; having Evan in her life had given her eyes the kind of life that had been missing for far too long. Perhaps her being involved in Evan's life would give him the opportunity to keep her distracted from doing too much investigation in the wrong corners.

She actually had taken little notice of the tyke until almost a year after her father's – old Mr. Parker's – disappearance, but the fact of the child's existence was brought home to her on the day that Lyle had paraded the tyke past her in the drab uniform of Centre inmates. The memory of her explosion in Mr. Raines' office less than an hour later was still capable of bringing a twinkle to his eye. It wasn't often that someone was able to win such a clear victory over Mr. Lyle. Even Mr. Raines had pretended to be shocked and appalled at the idea of a Parker being confined in such circumstances.

The incorporation of a child into Miss Parker's previously childless existence had been a gradual one. At first it had been limited to the occasional visit in the underground nursery, a situation that had lasted only long enough for the child to suddenly understand what it meant to have a big sister. Once Miss Parker began to be the apple of little Evan's eye and make a big thing of seeing her coming through the nursery door, the Ice Queen of the Centre had started to melt. Sam suspected that he had been the sole witness to the moment his prickly boss had realized that she had someone to love and care for once more. The emotions had flown across her face with the speed of light and vanished equally quickly, but the moment had changed her forever.

Another meeting with Mr. Raines had been hastily arranged, and suddenly Evan was no longer living in the underground world of the Centre. A set of foster parents had been found, a childless couple who both worked in support capacities for the Centre; and weekend-long visits with Miss Parker in her home began to happen more and more often. The boy, once isolated and virtually unsocialized, was home-schooled for a year by a tutor hired by Miss Parker and then enrolled in public school the very next fall. Evan was a startlingly smart kid; already Miss Parker had had to re-hire the tutor to supplement the learning process from school in order to keep the boy's mind challenged and his temperament controlled.

Sam sighed and patted his inside jacket pocket. Yes, he still had that copy of the document Raines had given Miss Parker, as well as an idea of how to begin to track down the glaring disparity between the "official" financial record and that which Miss Parker had long since kept privately in her own spreadsheet program.

It had taken pulling in a favor from another of his sweeper buddies, but he'd spent his free time after the meeting that afternoon in the company of an accounting associate down on SL-2. By the time he'd walked toward the elevator, he'd learned more than he'd ever wanted to know about the ways in which the Centre handled receipts, claims and reimbursements. What he'd discovered was unsettling: there were enough holes in the accounting software to drive a security-breaching Greyhound bus through. He'd have to put that fact in front of Miss Parker too, as well as Broots. As part of the re-assessment of Centre security matters in the mainframe, it wouldn't do to have those very-sensitive files made prey to internal hackers and vandals.

Speaking of Mr. Broots…

He turned on his heel and walked down the hallway to test the door of the computer lab that was Broots' lair, finding that one closed and locked as well. It would take the genius of the nerdy little geek to poke through the mainframe from a protected position to try to discover the terminal stamp of the last person to modify the "official" financial records that had Miss Parker's tail feathers in a knot.

Hell! When Sydney and Broots found out exactly what was on that document, it wouldn't be just Miss Parker's tail feathers in a knot. Sam could still feel the hackles rise on his neck at the idea that someone would accuse him of wanting Centre reimbursement for four tickets to the latest heavyweight boxing championship bout in Atlantic City. He was especially pissed about that one, considering the fact he'd been at his sister's house in Jersey that weekend, helping her redecorate the second guest bedroom of her house into a nursery for his first nephew or niece.

How dare they try to foist some of this off on him! He didn't even like professional boxing! Hockey maybe, but boxing…

Convinced that there was nothing that could be done until Monday morning, he shoved his hands into his jacket pocket and headed toward the elevator.

"You're still here?"

Sam turned his head slowly. "Just getting ready to take off," he answered Willy slowly, unable to put his response into a monosyllabic grunt with any grace.

"Quitting time was an hour ago…"

"I was looking things up for Miss Parker and lost track of time," he stated clearly and in a carefully-schooled tone of neutrality that belied the twisting in his stomach. "I'll clock out and mark on the card to deduct an hour from the day's shift."

Willy raised his head so that he could look down his wide nose at Sam. "I should hope so! The last thing your boss needs is to find out her personal sweeper is attempting to pad his paycheck by working overtime without permission."

"I said I'll take care of it," Sam repeated with only the slightest trace of increased heat. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No…" Willy moved just enough as to appear to remove himself as an obstacle just as the silver door of the elevator slid to the left to open. "See you on Monday."

Sam didn't dare trust himself to bite back an insult or smartass quip, so he merely nodded and moved into the elevator, turning to punch at the button for the ground floor lobby and then fold his arms across his wide chest. Willy saw the subtle message not to intrude but to wait for the next elevator, and he smirked slightly and simply watched the elevator door slide shut again.

Sam sighed and let himself slump back against the faux wood interior of the elevator car. One of these days, he wasn't going to be able to hold himself back, and he and Willy would face off and resolve the long-standing question of just who was the strongest and most lethal sweeper.

But that was for one of these days. Right now he had other things to worry about, such as whether or not he'd be able to get a decent amount of sleep. Maybe he should think of investing in a bottle of Sominex (tm), just in case.

oOoOo

Charles Delgado had not lived to the ripe old age of forty by being careless.

The corner of Pine and 8th was a Centre warehouse, well maintained and with a heavy lock on the front door. He'd observed it for the better part of the later afternoon. It was an active warehouse filled with crates and cartons and boxes either bound for or en route from the Centre proper. More appropriately to the circumstances, however, it was located in one of the lesser developed areas of town; several strips of light industrial businesses sat on the opposite side of the street, but the land on either side of the warehouse itself was empty and barren and forgotten-looking except for a shed at the very back end of the northernmost property.

He twisted in his driver's seat, his hand dropping to his hip and the small-caliber handgun in the holster there, as a soft knock sounded on the glass of the window beside him, and then he growled and rolled the window down. "Shit, Dave! You know better than to sneak up on me like that!"

Dave Langer merely shrugged. "Jerry's in my car," he stated, jerking his nose across the street at the slightly worn-looking Dodge station wagon parked at the opposite curb. "It's eight o'clock, you know. Shouldn't…"

"He'll be here," Delgado stated with certainty. He watched as a black, late-model sedan of the sort driven by Centre officials pulled around a far corner and headed in their direction. "Go get Jerry. Here's our man."

Langer was a good man, Delgado reminded himself as he watched the black sedan pull sedately to a halt directly in front of the warehouse. They had been in the service together, assigned to the same operations many times and pulling each other's asses out of the fire more often than either of them could count. Langer was a master electrician, he was demolitions. Jerry – Jerry Fishbain, another fellow Special Ops graduate – was computers. Together the three of them had quietly pulled some of the most outrageous crimes on the eastern seaboard since their dishonorable discharge three years earlier. Who would have thought the little arms dealer to have been Navy NCIS? Just how someone as otherwise innocuous as Les Vickering would have found out about them, much less offer him and a team of his choosing a sizeable fortune to consider working for him, was anybody's guess.

It certainly was enough to make him curious.

Without paying a bit of attention to the other men slowly assembling on the street from the two aging cars, Vickering walked up to the warehouse door and punched at the security box before inserting a key into the deadbolt. He swung the door open, turned to look around – an open invitation to the others to come join him inside – and then vanished into the dark interior, leaving the door just ajar enough that he could be followed.

The others let Delgado take the lead; it was his party in the first place, after all. Delgado waited until they were on either side of him before pulling the heavy metal door open and peering inside. At the far end of a poorly lit and cavernous warehouse, a light shown brightly in a small office, and a quick exchanged glance among the three men had them spreading out to walk the length of the huge room cautiously.

"Time's wasting, gentlemen," came a loud voice from the office end of the building. "There's no trap here, no surveillance. If you want this gig, get your asses down here so I can explain what's needed. If you want to play spy-versus-spy, go waste someone else's time."

"You've got to admit," Delgado responded, keeping to the center line of the warehouse while his men scouted down either wall in line with him, "that we don't usually get calls like yours from accountants."

"Shows just how much you know about me," the loud voice scoffed. "Get down here, willya? There's nobody here, for God's sake!"

"All clear," Langer told him sotto voce, and Fishbain gave him the all-clear wave too.

Delgado jerked his nose in a "forward" gesture and strode purposefully toward the well-lit office. Inside, he could see Vickering with his butt braced against a desk overloaded with paperwork, his arms across his chest and his face a study in restrained impatience. The three men entered the warehouse and spread out in front of the man at careful distances from each other, a tactic that provided as much mutual protection and yet the safety of distance as physically possible in such a confined space.

"OK," he stated, tipping his head slightly up and to the side, "we're here. Talk."

"How many of you have been to Montana?" Vickering asked abruptly.

The three exchanged puzzled looks. "What the hell does that have to do with anything?" he asked sarcastically.

Vickering frowned. "There's a national park up near the Montana-Canadian border by the name of Glacier. In the middle of that park is a small installation, owned by the Centre…"

"The government let a corporation build a private facility on public land?" Langer asked with his slow Texan drawl. "How'd that one get through Congress?"

"The point is that this installation is your target, gentlemen."

Fishbain shook his head. "You already work for the Centre, asshole. You don't need us to get you in…"

Vickering almost laughed out loud. "I don't want in, asshole. I want it gone, and the prizes it holds transported to a place of MY choosing."

"Going freelance, eh?" Langer's succinct question came out before Delgado could ask much the same thing.

"Something like that," Vickering replied with a shrug. "None of your business what I'm up to, though, is it?"

Delgado's eyes narrowed. Something about this deal smelled fishy. "Just what the hell is in this place anyway, that you would want us to destroy the place to get to?"

"Children," Vickering announced with very little inflection. "Three of them, as a matter of fact. Those three I want; anybody else there is disposable as collateral damage."

"Children?" Delgado's jaw had dropped.

"This facility houses several remarkable children ranging in ages from fifteen to five years of age. The three I want you to bring to me are the oldest of the ten: the fifteen year old, the fourteen year old and the twelve year old. When you leave Montana, I want the rest of them, and the facility itself, a pile of ashes in the middle of a forest." Vickering's voice had dropped to a deadly whisper. "I was told that you three were quite possibly the most talented team that money would buy, and that provided the money was sufficient, you'd take the job." His arms dropped to merely clasped hands in front of him. "Was I misinformed?"

The three turned to look at each other with Langer and Fishbain obviously leaving the leadership role to Delgado. Five million dollars – split three ways – was a very big enticement. God knew that Delgado, with his love of the ponies of Atlantic City and the loan sharks that swam around them, could use the money to keep his kneecaps intact. Delgado knew that Langer had had his eye on some property on the California coast for a long time, and Fishbain had long ago expressed an interest in setting up his own technology firm somewhere.

Killing kids wasn't a favorite activity, but they'd done it often enough for it not to be a huge impediment. Somewhere in the shared looks, the mutual decision became apparent. Delgado turned to Vickering. "How soon you want this done?"

"How soon can you do it?" the accountant retorted.

"Depends," Langer drawled and shrugged. "We'll need complete blueprints of the facility, including inside knowledge of where these kids will be located at any given hour of the day, and a topographical map of the area. Any information about security arrangements, computer access, telephone… we'll need to know as much about that place as possible before we can even set a timetable."

Vickering had crossed his arms over his chest again. "I'll get you what you need."

"I don't get it, man," Fishbain shook his head, his face a study in disbelief. "Don't you work for the Centre?"

The accountant's smile was chilling. "Only on paper, my friends." He turned to Delgado. "I'll be in touch when I have everything your friend here has asked for. Is there anything else you'll need before you can start?"

"A down-payment," Delgado stated and then watched the man's hands shift to clasped hands in front of him again, "as well as enough working capital to buy supplies and make other necessary arrangements for the duration of the job."

"How much?"

Delgado thought quickly. "Five hundred large should cover the expenses, so I want two and a half million in cash in small, unmarked bills only when I come to pick up the information from you next time. Half a mill of that is that expenses money I spoke of, and it's non-refundable. Upon delivery of your cargo, I'll expect the other three million, again, in cash."

"Do you have any idea how bulky two million in small bills is?" Vickering gaped at him.

Delgado smiled, contented to see the cocky accountant thrown even slightly off-balance. "You just leave the logistics of dealing with that to us and get us the cash and the info. We'll get your kids for you."

"For that price, you'd damned well better," Vickering threatened.

"By the way…"

"What?" The accountant's patience was beginning to wear thin.

"Boys, girls, what?"

"Hmm?"

"The kids you want; are they boys, girls, what?"

Vickering nodded, finally understanding. "Boys," he answered. "All of them are boys."

oOoOo

Horace Evanston watched the security panel as each of the living space doors was closed in sequence and then locked. This was his job: to make sure that the hidden treasure of the Centre stayed safely hidden and safely contained. But the job had never given him much peace of mind to go with the financial security it offered. Keeping children under lock and key paid extremely well but was a test of his faith in the Centre.

After all, it was the Centre who had given him the grant that had allowed him to finish his university training, earning him a Master's degree in child psychology with a minor in Education. It was the Centre that had hired him directly out of college, two weeks after he'd gotten married, and moved him into the Montana wilderness and this thoroughly modern facility. It was the Centre that kept giving him regular week-long vacations to whatever spot in the world he wished to travel and enough spending money while on vacation to be able to afford whatever he desired. The Centre had even helped pay for his father's lengthy stay in the convalescent home after a debilitating stroke and given him more than ample time when the old man had died to settle the estate.

The Centre had been good to him, and it was hard to harbor secret doubts about its agenda here in Montana. But even the philanthropic largess it had showered upon him and his branch of the Evanston family wasn't enough to make him completely blind to the reality of his job. These boys had done nothing, nothing but exist.

It was eerie the way the ten boys around whom this entire facility revolved looked as if they were identical twins separated only by approximately one year's time. Each and every one of them – from the four year old to the fifteen year old – had dark brown hair, huge and expressive dark brown eyes and a smirking smile that could make a person either want to chuckle or smack them. Each and every one of them was wicked-smart too, each of them being trained to excel in one specific area of expertise.

He'd watched the other day while the fifteen year old, called Cancer in all the official documents, had stood in front of a white board, dry-ink pen in hand, and lectured his trainer on the finer points of physics that pertained to the structural integrity of whatever they were discussing at the time. The way the equations and diagrams had spilled out of that hasty hand across that white metal surface had been almost frightening.

The fourteen year old, known as Leo, was now deeply involved in language acquisition. For the time being, he was being taught to exist purely in a Russian-language environment in order to handle the terms of a project he would be dealing with shortly. Evanston had watched that child bounce easily from French to Spanish and Portuguese, only to turn around and spout fluent German and Italian only moments later. Already the program was preparing to move forward into Japanese in little over a week, with Mandarin Chinese in the planning stages for three months hence.

The twelve year old was currently being drilled in logic, as well as inductive and deductive reasoning within controlled situations, each required in order to predict psychological and emotional outcomes with accuracy and speed. The eleven year old had recently been introduced to organic chemistry, and the ten year old to robotics. The nine year old had been brought up not only learning to read but to study the various different ways in which the written word could be encrypted. The eight year old…

Evanston shook his head to banish such thoughts. He was paid extremely well to keep, educate and direct the minds of these budding geniuses for the Centre, to keep them safe from contamination from the outside world, to keep them from discovery, and to keep them from understanding the very unique nature of their existence. The latter was the easy part; even Evanston himself didn't entirely understand the unique nature of their existence; he merely swallowed the directives and assurances of the Tower and tried to do as he was told in the most beneficial ways possible.

It was hard, however, to banish the image of the four year old presenting his current nanny with a hand-made card just that day, a card that demonstrated an already advanced understanding of the principles of art and design. The boy – barely more than a toddler – had been crushed when the trainer had simply crumpled the card, tossed it in the wastebasket, and pointed the boy back to the mathematics equations on the sides of the building blocks.

No! Evanston couldn't waste the slightest compassion on these children. They weren't real people, after all, but clones, he'd been told. Science projects. It was their mere existence that was the treasure of the Centre, evidence of a process that had been perfected and utilized to create intelligent life on demand. They were nothing but the property of the Centre and always would be.

He turned and handed his scan card to the sweeper standing patiently outside the observation booth, waiting to take his shift during the nighttime hours. Evanston would be glad to get away from this high-tech gulag for children. His wife and he lived in one of the small villages that existed within the boundaries of the wilderness that predated the establishment of Glacier as a national park. Sandi, whom he had met at the university while she'd been earning her elementary teaching credential, now ran a small day-care center for park employees. She didn't know the nature of his job; she probably wouldn't approve of it either, if she were to find out about it.

Evanston walked through the control room that doubled as his office and grabbed up his coat. Outside, he could see the light from the setting sun turning the granite peaks nearby a warm pinkish-orange, with the sky above tending toward a light lavender color with wisps of cloud marring its perfection. He took a deep breath of some of the freshest, cleanest air in the entire continental US and reminded himself to be thankful he wasn't stuck in some dead-end job in a rat's nest of a metropolis somewhere, turned into more of a number than an individual.

The Centre had saved him from that, and he couldn't allow himself to remember anything else.

oOoOo

William Raines sat in his office in the Centre Tower, an office that was dark except for the light from the lamp on his desk that shone down upon the latest balance sheet from Accounting. The skeletal man had studied, glared, and run his finger down ever column of numbers several times now, trying to discern just where there would be enough leeway to make the money stretch for a little while longer.

The truth was, there wasn't enough money anymore. Discretionary and private accounts were long since liquidated, and the income hadn't matched the expenses for years now. There was barely enough money to make the latest round of payroll; and if the trend didn't begin to change, bankruptcy loomed in the very near future. Of course, the largest drain on the Centre's resources was Duplicity, but that situation was about to change. It was time to take the project out of the closet and put it to use bringing in profit for the Centre again, and the fact was that Raines didn't dare not bring it into full operation any longer.

Raines reached for the telephone and dialed, then waited for an answer.

"I want to speak to Mr. Olabi," he wheezed, checking the crystal clock on his desk and doing the math to make sure he was calling during African business hours.

"Mr. Olabi is in meeting until this afternoon," the musically accented voice on the other end of the line announced briskly. "May I take a message?"

"Tell him that the Centre is ready to go back into full operation, and he's invited to begin to send clients to Delaware at his earliest convenience."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Full operation?" came a deep and distrusting voice.

Raines smiled. He'd been around the block enough times with the Triumvirate to know that when key members of the consortium were in a meeting, another possible lesser candidate for any vacancy would monitor all incoming calls. If he couldn't speak to one of the three men who ran the Triumvirate with an iron hand, speaking to a second in command was the next best thing.

"To whom am I speaking?" he demanded back, then pulled in a noisy gasp of oxygen.

"Solo Indala," the deep voice replied with a touch of indignation. "And you did not answer my question."

"Yes, I said full operation," Raines wheezed back at last. "We are once more in the position to offer the same kind of services we did when the Pretender Project was underway."

"Your record of late regarding promises made and not kept has been disturbing, Mr. Raines," Indala commented coldly. "How can the Triumvirate be sure that you are in the position to deliver on your promises this time?"

"Give me a chance to prove myself." Raines hated wheedling, but the number of clients standing in line to present their enigmatic problems to a Pretender capable of untangling them and finding answers had dwindled to practically nothing. He needed the Triumvirate's confidence in the Centre to rekindle client interest, and business. "Surely there is a problem of the sort we used to handle for you that would do as a test case."

Again there was a pause on the end of the line. "Very well. I will confer with the Council and get back to you by the end of the workday here. But I warn you…" and the deep voice deepened threateningly, "…do not toy with us. Frankly, even I am privy to the fact that our Council has been advised on a regular basis to call in our loans to you now. If you wish to continue being able to do business…"

"You won't regret it, I swear." Raines struggled not to wheeze again as he pulled in another lungful of oxygen. "We only now are ready to move into full operation on this project. If we had moved sooner, we would have jeopardized the results and made years of research and development of the project a huge waste."

"Fax us the project details, and I'll present that as well as your proposal to the Council," Indala demanded coolly. "And we shall see what we shall see."

Raines' hands were shaking by the time he put the telephone down again. He was so close to pulling the Centre out of the hole left by Jarod's escape and then disruption of operations! Seventeen years of planning and a paranoid attention to security were about to pay off in a huge way! He wouldn't have just one Pretender working SIMs and earning the Centre money, in the long run, he'd have ten of them – each with a highly specialized training in a specific area of inquiry. Only the oldest had been cross-trained in all of the sciences, much as Jarod had, in order to handle things while the others matured.

Even if they couldn't have Jarod back, his legacy would continue to profit the Centre well into the next century and beyond.

Raines rose slowly to his feet and pulled the prospectus file on Duplicity from its spot to the side of his blotter and walked over to the fax machine. He'd expected to be asked for the information, and frankly knew better than to expect cooperation from the Triumvirate without at least partially exposing his hand. The information would whet appetites without giving away too much.

All he needed was one chance to prove that he could deliver as promised – just one – and the Centre was saved.