Balancing The Scales - Part 8
by MMB
Mr. Raines sat behind his heavy, beautifully carved desk in his office on the topmost floor of the Tower annex to the main Centre facility feeling not only frustrated and anxious but downright insecure and threatened. He'd returned to the Centre late the night before, immediately following the phone call from Willy reporting on Lyle's fate. He'd driven past the front gates of the Centre, in fact, as Centre coroners were still lifting the body, now housed within a black plastic body bag, onto a gurney to put in the ambulance for its trip to the Centre morgue.
His attitude was not helped when he discovered that his sweeper, Willy, had been no more willing to call it a night and leave the facility to go home than he himself was now. His reluctance had grown exponentially after their Japanese translator on the satellite phone told them exactly what the Yakuza goons had said. Centre sanctions were much cleaner processes, the sweeper had commented to him with a shudder. More often than not, they were intended as necessary consequences for the person receiving them - not as modes to send larger messages to unnamed recipients otherwise. And knowing his boss was seriously spooked and apprehensive did little to soothe the tired sweeper's nerves - and having a nervous sweeper in the room did little to calm Mr. Raines.
Raines had subsequently ordered flunky sweepers to check out certain elements of the event. Yes, the vial of Redux WAS now missing from the cryo-lab on SL-13. Yes, the women who had not been chosen for the Redux project WERE now missing from their de-tox beds. And as if that wasn't enough, a report had just been handed him from the Renewal Wing that the remaining surrogate was now bleeding and would most likely lose the pregnancy by the end of the morning. Redux, the financial salvation of the Centre, was now completely down the sewer.
And now, with the morning drawing inexorably to a close, the oxygen-starved man gazed covetously about his grand office - the place he had worked so hard to attain for so many years, stepping over so many bodies and on the toes of so many others to get here. If what the Yakuza said was true, this office would provide him no shelter - actually it would become his prison cell rather than his seat of power. He should have learned from the last time the Centre had had dealings with those Japanese mobsters - a situation which HE had participated in sabotaging himself, which wouldn't help things if that became known. Their response to the denouement of that episode had proven that they were even less predictable and more dangerous than any home-grown American crime syndicate. He should never have allowed Lyle to talk him into dealing with them in the first place in regards to Redux.
The intercom beeped. "Mr. Raines? Sir? Mr. Ngawe from the Triumverate is on line 2 for you."
Raines slammed his fist down onto the surface of his desk hard.
What ELSE could go wrong?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Miss Parker hung up her phone with a satisfied expression on her face.
It had begun, and was going to be working better and possibly faster than any of them had anticipated. Jarod's first anonymous contact, with several of the Shadow-related documents attached, had resulted in her receiving a call from Mr. Ngawe himself. He had related to her how disappointed he'd been with the answers he had just gotten from Mr. Raines to his growing number of questions and then ordered her to scour all Centre archives for any further mention of Shadow or anyone associated with the project. She'd been provided with a password that in essence unlocked the entire Centre's operational archive to her - a password that even Mr. Raines did not possess.
With that password, and with Broots help, she'd be able to uncover all the financial records of the Centre's dealings with the Yakuza - information that, combined with detailed records of the actual sims that allowed drug trafficking to circumvent DEA investigations would definitely not sit well. Then there would be the files detailing the continuing testing for the Pretender abilities, and the tests that probed Shadow's abilities as they developed over time. The former she knew existed, just not where; the latter Jarod had told her HAD to exist, for they were the lifeblood of the Pretender Project as an ongoing concern. Those files she'd save and ship off to the Triumverate herself as soon as she found them.
It had felt like a full day already, and she hadn't even had lunch yet. Coming to work that morning to discover that Lyle had been taken out of the picture already had been a shock that she hadn't had the opportunity to share with the rest of the little conspiracy yet. She had demanded, and then gotten, the autopsy report - Lyle had had his left knee shattered by a single blow with a blunt object, and had been strangled, had his remaining thumb severed post-mortem and inserted in his mouth. The latter she guessed was a message regarding infantile behavior - whether it be of Lyle himself or the Centre as an organization, she had no way of knowing for sure.
The one thing she'd wanted to do all day, and hadn't been able to justify as yet, was to check on Angelo's condition. There had been a niggling in the back of her mind that continually reminded her that things were not good with him at all - and that time was running out for some reason.
She looked up as there came a soft knock on her glass door. Sam stepped into her office when she called out for him to enter. "Have you heard the latest, Miss Parker?" he asked with obvious delight.
"I've heard plenty in the last few hours. What have YOU heard?" she inquired in a fairly good mood.
"Seems that Willy, Mr. Raines' personal sweeper, has taken up semi-permanent residency here in the Centre facility itself. And Mr. Raines has had the Tower apartment prepared for him for on-going habitation." Sam's face had a wide grin on it. "The rumor mill has it that either Willy saw Lyle get his - and is seriously compromised confidence-wise - or Mr. Raines has decided that the Yakuza threat is real and close and wants to keep his muscleman even closer. Either way, both are definitely feeling the heat this morning."
Miss Parker leaned back and relaxed against her comfortable office chair back. "That's very interesting," she pondered aloud with a smile that matched his. "Makes a person wonder just what else it is that Mr. Raines and/or Willy might have to hide, doesn't it?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am!" Sam agreed heartily. He deposited a small pile of file folders in her In box. "Here are the latest security reports from the sublevels. You might want to check out the report from SL-13 - VERY interesting reading today."
The sweeper's dark eyes met his boss' grey gaze, and he knew he'd given her a gift. Not only would those reports detail any official activity regarding Redux, but would detail the incident in the hallway that had landed Angelo in Renewal in critical condition. That report would give her the excuse to visit the Renewal Wing and check on Angelo for herself she'd been wishing for - something, if the reports on the empath's condition were correct, she would need to be doing very soon. "Thanks for the clue, Sam. Keep me informed about anything else you hear, OK?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
She barely heard him leave her office, as she already had her nose buried in the sublevel security report for SL-13. She sipped at her coffee, then frowned at what she'd found. Apparently Angelo's shooting only rated a two-line mention in the security log: "In-patient Angelo attacked Centre staff, necessitating violence to subdue. In-patient taken to Renewal for treatment of gunshot wound to chest and stomach." She'd known the wounds he'd received were serious - but these sounded life-threatening. To be taken to Renewal with that kind of injury could be either a blessing or a death sentence - and in this case, she couldn't be sure which. She was on her feet and moving immediately.
The Renewal Wing was a sublevel and not located in the Tower. Miss Parker's gaze as the elevator descended into the heart of the Centre rose, as it often did, to the hole near the ceiling of the elevator car that was the bullet hole left from her mother's faked suicide. She closed her eyes and shook her head, sickened that violence had again touched her family. For the first time since Jarod's return from his self-imposed oblivion, she knew that she was on the right path - that the time had indeed come for the violence to end. And for the first time in a VERY long time, she breathed out a fervent prayer to a God she wasn't sure she could believe in that nobody ELSE that she loved would be hurt in the effort.
Then the elevator door swooshed open, and she was striding down the corridor, past the startled floor nurse who stood guard at the paired swinging doors into Renewal. "You can't go in there..." the nurse began, hurrying after the tall and imposing figure, only to skid to a halt when that figure spun on its heels and glared back at her.
"Do you have any idea who I am?" Miss Parker demanded haughtily of the ignorant nurse.
The woman's eyes widened. She'd heard about the Chairman's daughter through the rumor mill from time to time over the years, but despite the various times the lady in question had landed in Renewal, she had never actually seen the Chairman's daughter face to face. Until now, it appeared. "Y..yes, ma'am," she stammered, flustered.
"Good. Maybe you can make yourself useful after all," was the caustic response. "Tell me where the empath Angelo is."
"He..h...he's not supposed to have any visi..."
Miss Parker drew herself up to her full height and quickly thanked whatever spark of inspiration had moved her to don four-inch heels for a change that morning. "I'm. Not. Just. Any. Visitor. I'm SIS. I'm here on security matters." She stepped threateningly toward the nurse, genuinely beginning to get angry. "Now - where is he?"
"723," the woman managed finally, knowing herself to be a coward. It was times like these that she seriously questioned her decision to come work at this frightening place.
"Thank you." Miss Parker made the words of gratitude sound like an abrupt dismissal, and the woman backed away from her a few steps before turning and fleeing back to the relative safety of the floor admissions desk. Miss Parker turned away and let her eyes wander down the hall, taking stock of which side of the hallway were the odd-numbered rooms, and then began walking quickly.
Room 723, she discovered, was a locked ward that looked dark and uninhabited through the small window in the door. She stalked back to the floor nurse's desk and stared down at the thoroughly intimidated nurse. "You could have told me the door was locked," she informed the woman with a withering tone that hid the desperation behind it. "Give me the key."
"That patient has a history of viole..."
"Oh, give me a damned break!" Miss Parker spat, now thoroughly angry through her worry. "That patient has two fresh bulletholes through vital parts of his anatomy. He's not going ANYWHERE, and you know it. Give me the damned key before I decide I need to do a deeper background check on you - and have my personal sweeper put you in the locked ward next to Angelo's while I do it."
"I'm going to have to report this, you know..." the nurse tried to summon some bravado as trembling fingers extended a key ring upwards towards the unwelcome intruder.
Miss Parker's eyebrows climbed her forehead in almost amused amazement as she snagged the key ring and then bent forward over the desk. "And just who," she asked with a cold chuckle, "do you think that report would be going TO? Eh?" The woman's blanch was infinitely satisfying. She thrust out the key ring into the nurse's face. "Now. Which key is it?"
The nurse retrieved the key ring and fumbled noisily with it for a moment until she extended it up again by a single key. "This one."
Miss Parker took the keys from her with undisguised frustration. "Anything else I need to know? You DON'T want me surprised again - trust me." The latter was hissed.
The nurse shook her head quickly in the tight, terse movement, then release a deep breath of relief as the frighteningly lethal-acting woman again turned on her heel and stalked off down the hallway toward the room in question.
What little light there was in the room wasn't visible from the doorway, Miss Parker discovered upon unlocking the door and stepping inside. Angelo's hospital bed was not visible from the door at all, but was stowed around a dark corner. She carefully touched the variable light knob, bringing the overhead light up gently so as not to blind anybody. Then she stepped around the blind corner.
Angelo lay wan and limp in the bed, an IV line strung between a thin arm and the stand with its bags of clear liquid and what appeared to be blood. His eyes were closed, and his reddish-brown locks were mussed and tangled. Amazingly, however, considering the seriousness of his condition, no heart or respiration monitors were connected to keep track of vital signs or give alarm if he went into crisis. This was calculated neglect in no uncertain terms. No wonder the nurse had been so reluctant to let her get anywhere near this room.
Miss Parker stepped closer to her twin brother, feeling more kinship to the injured man than she had since the first time she'd ever had to face the fact that he MIGHT be related to her. Gently she reached down and smoothed an unruly swatch of hair from his brow. "Oh, Angelo," she whispered. "I'm so sorry..." She flinched back almost immediately when the eyelids began to flutter at her touch, and then open to allow agony-filled blue eyes to gaze up at her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to awaken you."
The agonized gaze cleared with effort. "I'm... glad... you... came..." Angelo managed.
"I need to get you out of here..." Miss Parker declared softly and firmly. "This is criminal..."
"No..." Angelo's hand moved feebly on the surface of the blanket that covered him, and she quickly claimed it and held it carefully, mindful of the IV connection.
"You deserve better than this..."
"Listen... to... me. No... time. Shadow... is... in... danger... must... rescue... early." The blue eyes bored holes into hers as she gaped in astonishment at the clarity of his utterances. "Raines... is... desperate. Will... want... to... clean... house... quickly."
She nodded and patted his hand. "Alright, Angelo, I'll tell... our friend... that we need to take care of business ahead of schedule there. But..."
The man's head moved from side to side slowly. "No... buts. Must... help... Shadow before... anything... else."
"We will," she assured him again, "but we need to take care of you too..."
"Not... necessary." The slow but clear words were like crystal-clear bells tolling. "I... will... not... be... here... soon."
Miss Parker drew in a sobbing breath. "No, Angelo..."
The injured man strove mightily to smile reassurance at her. "Don't... be... sad... Sister. Angelo... Timmy... soon... will... be... free."
"Noooo."
"I'm... glad... I... got... to... know... the... REAL... you," the injured man whispered, his voice growing softer and the blue eyes slowly focusing on a point beyond her.
Miss Parker cupped his slightly grizzled cheek with a gentle hand as tears fell unchecked. "I'm glad I got to know the REAL you too, Angelo," she whispered in a broken voice.
"Tell... Sydney... Jarod... thanks..." the weak voice was growing even fainter.
"Don't go, Angelo," she begged. "I need you."
The blue eyes focused on her once more with great effort. "My... voice... will... be... with... hers... inside... you..." he promised, and then his head tipped slightly to one side as the eyes unfocused for the last time.
Miss Parker's hand flew to her mouth to stifle the sobs that threatened, knowing that this could be neither the time nor place for her grief. Still, she bent over the now-still figure on the bed and brushed her lips across his brow. "I will miss you," she whispered to him as if imparting a secret. "God's speed, Timmy," she whispered even more softly, then reached out a hand to very lovingly close those unseeing blue eyes and then pull the sheet up to cover her twin's face.
She straightened and took a deep breath, bringing her emotions firmly and sternly under steely control before she exited the room, locking the door behind her. She strode to the nurse's desk, where the woman looked up into her face with real trepidation. "The patient is dead."
The nurse's face went blank, then lost every trace of color. "Dead?"
"Call the doctor, get a death certificate, then see to it PERSONALLY that the body is cremated immediately." Miss Parker drew in a shaky breath. "I don't want him in the morgue, and I absolutely don't want him in a lab somewhere being dissected like some science project." She gazed down at the nurse, and her grey eyes were the color of an inbound hurricane. "Were you responsible for his treatment?"
The nurse slowly shook her head. "Mr. Lyle had left clear instructions that only the doctor would tend him during rounds."
Miss Parker nodded slowly. It was Lyle's revenge for Angelo's temerity to actually come at him to have the empath neglected to death. The bastard was lucky that he was dead already, or she would make the many agonizing and horrifying deeds Lyle had committed seem like garden party games.
"That's what I thought. Well, Mr. Lyle isn't here anymore," she said bluntly and in a numb voice. "So you see to it personally that my orders are carried out to the letter, and I'll see to it that you aren't found at fault in the investigation I intend to begin into this... this... inhuman example of neglect."
"Yes, ma'am!" The nurse was only too glad to comply. Mr. Lyle had frightened her when he'd swooped down into Renewal and blithely ordered important medical technology removed from the seriously injured man. Just the idea that Lyle wasn't around anymore was a relief. "I'm really sorry... ma'am."
Miss Parker didn't dare look down at her anymore. She walked slowly back toward the elevator, her aching mind trying to think through the pain of losing yet another loved one to the Centre so as to manufacture a plausible reason to escape work early. She'd leave at lunch again, but that would cause too much comment - two half-days in a row just wasn't a healthy thing for her to do right now. No, she'd have to wait until closer to evening. It would be hard, but necessary.
She needed Sydney - he'd understand what it meant to lose a twin more than anyone else. But more than that, she needed to make sure he was actually recovering and give him Ange... Timmy's last message. She bit her lip to keep the tears at bay.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jarod looked up from the screen of his laptop as his cell phone sounded off.
"Jarod. It's me."
"Ethan!" Jarod was surprised. "Is something wrong? We weren't going to be call each other except..."
"Something's happened, Jarod. My other brother..." Ethan paused, finding explaining what he was feeling difficult.
Jarod stared out into space, suddenly very concerned. "Angelo?"
"He's gone, Jarod. And my sister is hurting, real bad." Ethan sighed heavily. He didn't know this man his sister was grieving so hard, but obviously she had cared about him a great deal.
Jarod rubbed his eyes with his free hand, working hard against the sting of tears. Angelo had been his friend for nearly his whole life. They had been a trio - he, Miss Parker and Angelo - in adventures in the Centre in the hours between day and night when Sydney and others in authority had been otherwise occupied. Sydney - this would hit the older man hard too.
"I'm sorry, Jarod," Ethan's voice was continuing. "I know he was important to you."
"Thanks." Jarod leaned his head into his free hand numbly. This wasn't supposed to happen.
"Anything I can do?"
"No!" Jarod blinked, then scowled in concern. "You stay right where you are, and keep away from this! I don't know what either your sister or I would do if you got hurt as the result of this."
"OK! OK! Just take care of yourselves and each other, OK?" Ethan insisted, a frown of his own wrinkling his face. "I want to see BOTH of you again, understand?"
"I have to call... No. I have to go see Sydney," Jarod said, his voice descending back to that numb tone. "Thanks for the warning."
"Take care of yourself, big bro."
"Give everybody there my love," Jarod said simply, then disconnected. He laid the phone down on the desk next to his laptop, then stared at the screen for minutes without seeing it. His mind rapidly sorted through the many memories, some happy and some not so happy, he had of the empath. Angelo's death left a hole in his life almost as big as the one left by his father's sudden demise.
His eyes narrowed dangerously. This was all Lyle's doing. For a long moment, he sat there allowing his mind to sim out as many appropriate payback scenarios as he could before he remembered the point Miss Parker had been trying to pound into him only the day before. What they were doing had to be about protecting the future, not about revenge for the past. And like it or not, Angelo had become a part of the past now.
"Damn!" he muttered under his breath, rubbing the back of a hand across his eyes quickly to stem the tears threatening to fall, and then closed down his laptop.
He needed to get to Sydney. The older man needed to be prepared for when Parker got home. She was going to be beyond upset. She had just lost her twin - something Sydney was in the unique position to understand completely.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Willy paused for a moment outside his boss' office, pulling his suit straighter. He'd managed to catch a short nap in the sweeper's lounge, only to be summoned again as the afternoon tipped towards evening. In fact, he hadn't minded being roused - his dreams had been stark and repeated reviews of Lyle's summary execution and horrifying nightmares about being in a similar situation facing the same fate. He rubbed his hands carefully across his face to hopefully wipe the sleep from his eyes, then over the top of his head as if needing to neaten the carefully-manicured curls.
Then he stepped through the glass door, putting forth an aura of invulnerability and strength that he was far from feeling in truth. "You sent for me, sir?"
Raines didn't look like he was faring much better than his pet sweeper. The watery blue eyes had a ragged edge to their expression that Willy had never seen before. The second call from Ngawe had been no more welcome than the first. It seemed that information that Lyle had supposedly taken care of was suddenly and unfortunately not only coming to light, but being spoon-fed to the one and only agency to whom he, Raines, was answerable. And he didn't appreciate being in this position one bit.
"I have a job for you." Raines took a desperate hit of oxygen and then gazed steadily at his right-hand man and measured the man's emotional stamina. Shaken, he decided, but not broken. Good.
"What do you want me to do?" Willy asked briskly, cringing inside. Not outside the Centre - please - not without an army of sweepers at his side, that is...
"We have a problem," the bald man wheezed and gasped in more air. "Certain projects that had been of financial import have been compromised, and steps need to be taken to prevent unfortunate repercussions."
Willy sighed. He was tired of the double-talk, especially now that his mind was too tired to translate it properly. "Which projects?" he asked with a slow blink to clear his eyes.
Raines frowned. Considering the way the surveillance information was leaking out of the Centre like the proverbial sieve, he really didn't want to say anything definitive. "The one headquartered in Dover, for one," he stated firmly, knowing that his sweeper SHOULD know immediately what he was talking about.
"Yes, sir." Willy shuddered inwardly. "What do you want me to do, sir?"
"As much as I hate to do it, I'm afraid the time has come for that project to go away," Raines said bluntly. "Lock, stock and barrel - I want Shadow gone, and everyone involved in it vanished."
Now Willy stared with his mouth agape. "You're... sanctioning... the whole lot?"
"I have no choice," Raines wheezed and dragged noisily on his oxygen tank. "If there's anything for the Triumverate to find when they come looking - and they will, if the information they're getting continues to flow - both you and I are going to be history."
"Me?" The dark sweeper was incensed. "I have done nothing that you didn't order me to do. I'm sure that when the Triumverate looks at the record, they'll be able to tell the difference between responsibility and loyalty."
"Do you honestly think they're going to care?" the bald man yelled, then wheezed and gasped for air from the exertion. "You were party to the deed. You'll carry the blame, right along with me."
"Sir," Willy began slowly, "we can't just sanction a whole facility without causing comment outside Centre boundaries. These people have families in Dover who will miss them... I can see taking out Shadow himself - and maybe Vernon Grey - but NOT fourteen or fifteen support staff, including sweepers."
"We cannot let the Triumverate find anything..." Raines began, slapping his desk in desperate frustration.
"I know you can't afford to let anything be discovered, sir," Willy stated quickly, hoping his boss wouldn't hear the slight rephrasing. The idea that his boss was not only willing but ready to drag HIM down for misdeeds done only under orders was chilling. For the first time, he was a target of the impersonal mechanism - and he didn't like it one little bit. Especially after what had happened to Lyle. "We take out Shadow, yes - and Grey, for that matter - but if we simply transfer all that support staff back here to the Centre, there wouldn't be anything for the Triumverate to find. And with the staff still going home to their families at night, no commentary in the local papers or other unwanted attention."
"You will do what I tell you, and you will handle this personally," Raines wheezed at his sweeper with narrowed eyes. "Take them all out, and do it NOW. And don't screw up, like Lyle did, either. I'd hate for you to have to suffer the same fate he did - at MY hands this time."
Willy blanched beneath his dark skin. After all these years of faithful, unquestioning loyalty and service, THIS was the thanks he got? The Chairman was obviously only interested in saving his own hide and job, to Hell with anybody else who got in his way. What was more, Raines was willing to save his own skin by stepping on HIM.
"Yes, sir," he agreed tersely, again using the pretense of tone to hide the flood of emotion the revelation from his boss had inspired.
"Get going. I want to know the Shadow is no longer a Centre problem by this time tomorrow, understood?"
"Yes, sir." Willy turned smartly and walked from the Tower office as fast as he could without looking like he was fleeing.
He was going to be hung out like the sacrificial lamb, and he wasn't going to stand for it. The question was, what was he going to DO about it? Years of being Raines' complacent lackey had pretty much deprived him of friends and potential allies.
There was only one person he knew of who could help him.
IF she didn't put a bullet in his brain herself first, that is...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Broots had seen Miss Parker under all kinds of stress over the past few years, but not since her breakdown after her accident had he seen her so bereft, shattered. He'd knocked at her office doors to give her the latest information he'd managed to wrest from the Centre mainframe, only to have his increasingly louder knock ignored entirely. When he'd finally pushed through the glass doors to peek in, he'd found her seated at her desk, forehead in both hands and shoulders heaving.
He stepped the rest of the way in and made sure the doors were carefully closed behind him. He dropped the folders on the far corner of her desk where they could be easily retrieved later, then moved around to the back and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he said softly. "What's going on?"
She raised her head very slowly, and her grey eyes were still streaming tears. "Angelo's dead," she announced with a hiccoughed sob.
Broots felt his heart lurch, and then put his other hand on her other shoulder and pulled her into his lower chest so that she could, at last, lean on SOMEBODY who cared. And she did lean, for a little while, before taking herself once more firmly in hand and straightening. "I've gotta get out of here," she said bleakly. "I have to tell Sydney... and Jarod..."
"Wait a minute, then," Broots hand on her shoulder pressed down to delay her movement, and then he went to her private restroom and dampened a paper towel. "You walk out looking like you do right now, and you're going to be setting off every last alarm in here that something's gone wrong - and we both know that is the LAST thing we need."
She looked up at him, grateful for his stalwart understanding and support, then took the towel from his hands and rose to head to the restroom and repair as much of the damage to her makeup that her tears had caused. "Thanks, Broots," she said as she chucked the soiled towel in the trash. "You wanted to see me, though - what was it, anyway?"
He retrieved the folders from the corner of the desk. "For your evening reading - if or when you feel up to it. Our old friend will find it very interesting too."
Miss Parker nodded, then reached down to pull up a briefcase into which she flopped the folders without even looking at them, snapped the case closed, then straightened again. "If anybody asks, I'm gone to check up on Sydney and his 'flu."
"Gotcha." Broots put a hand on her shoulder again. "You take care, OK?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice, and let Broots lead the way from her office, which she locked up after herself. Then, with a deep sigh, she headed in the direction of the elevator.
"Miss Parker?"
The deep voice of Raines' personal sweeper from behind her startled her, and she flinched noticeably. "I'm not in the mood for any of your master's games right now," she warned dangerously without turning to face him. "Go away."
"No. Miss Parker, I REALLY need to talk to you," Willy insisted urgently.
His tone broke through her numbness, and she turned and looked up into a genuinely worried face. "What is it?"
"Not here," he said in a careful tone, looking up at the surveillance camera which, at the moment, was aimed in the opposite direction. The gesture startled her even more.
"What's going on here?"
"I'm in trouble, Miss Parker. I need your help."
She blinked, and then laughed an almost hysterical cackle. "What in the name of God makes you think I'd actually want to help YOU?" she managed finally.
"I think what I have to say would be of interest to you," the dark sweeper said quickly, keeping a careful eye on the camera as it continued in its slow sweep of the corridor intersection. "Meet me outside the lobby?" The ebony eyes pleaded silently.
"Go, then!" she hissed and jerked her head in the direction of the stairwell. The man nodded with a look of intense gratitude and then headed swiftly towards the stairs while she continued toward the elevator. "What the Hell am I doing?" she asked herself with her emotions tied up in knots, stabbing a frustrated finger into the down button.
By the time she got to the lobby, she could see Willy huffing and puffing down the corridor toward her - and the man's urgency became even less understandable. Shaking her head slowly as if still disbelieving this were happening, she jerked her head again toward the front doors and the open spaces beyond. Willy became deferential, opening the door for her and holding it respectfully for her to pass through, then following her tamely at her heels.
The summer evening promised rain showers later, and the clouds made the late afternoon seem even later. Miss Parker led the dark sweeper towards the gate, then turned and faced him fiercely. "OK. We're away from the cameras. What the Hell..."
"Look, Miss Parker, I know you have no reason to trust me, but Mr. Raines is getting ready to do something that will bring the whole Centre toppling..."
"What are you talking about?" she scowled at him.
He sighed deeply. "There's a Centre facility in Dover, where Mr. Raines has kept another Pretender for years. I know we were supposed to put down all the Pretender-related projects a long time ago, but Mr. Raines felt he had too much invested in... But anyway, now somebody's feeding the Triumverate information about the project - which they ORDERED him to close down long ago - and now HE wants to out and out sanction the whole lot. The Pretender himself and the complete support staff - he gave me just twenty-four hours to disappear them all."
Miss Parker had to struggle not to show her glee. Mr. Raines' pet sweeper, turning on his master? "Fine. The Triumverate finds out Raines has been keeping a Pretender long after they told him to shut down all associated projects, and Raines loses his job. You lose yours for being party to the whole thing. You still haven't given me any reason to want to help you."
"It's no secret that you despise Mr. Raines. I can help you bring him down." Willy could hardly believe what he was saying - but this was the only choice he had if he hoped to survive.
"Bri... bring down Raines??" Miss Parker finally allowed a little interest to creep into her voice. "And how do you suggest I do that?"
"Help me rescue that Pretender and his keeper BEFORE Raines sends someone else to take them out - and turn us all over to the Triumverate. I'll spill enough details on Raines' and Lyle's little side operations here that Raines will be looking for a rock to hide behind so fast..."
Miss Parker's head tipped and her eyes narrowed. "And I should trust you why?"
Willy closed his eyes and shuddered. "You heard about what happened to Mr. Lyle?"
"I saw the security report," she hedged. "Why?"
"Mr. Raines made it very clear that if I didn't make sure those people vanished permanently, that I would suffer the same fate - at HIS hands."
She put her hands on her hips. "And I should care about this why?"
Willy stood in front of her and slowly lowered his head. She had no reason to care. He'd never been anything but a bully to her and to her associates for years, an obstacle to just about everything she'd ever wanted or tried to accomplish.
Miss Parker took out her cell phone, flipped it open and punched in a couple of buttons, then held the implement to her ear. "Sam? Meet me in the parking garage as of yesterday." She nodded, then disconnected and glared at the dark sweeper. "You'll take Sam with you, and bring both the Pretender and his keeper to Sydney's when you've secured them."
"To Sydney's?" Willy's eyes widened, then when he saw that she wasn't going to explain herself or her orders, immediately became again the deferential sweeper for her that he'd always been for Mr. Raines. "Yes, ma'am." Only one thing still needed clarifying. "Uh... What about me?"
"Let's see how this goes first. Frankly, I don't trust you any further than I can throw you - so you're going to have to prove to me you're worth bothering with."
The dark sweeper nodded. He deserved that. "Thank you, Miss Parker. Thank you for at least giving me a chance to prove myself. I owe you one."
"You're damned right you do," she barked sharply. "Let's get to the garage. No need to keep Sam waiting..."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Raines frowned, looking down from his office window at the two who, after a fairly animated discussion, were walking off together in the direction of the parking garage. In all his years watching Miss Parker interact with Centre personnel and Willy in particular, he had never seen her exchange more than a hissed barb with the dark-skinned sweeper.
So what was going on now? What could they possibly have to say to each other at such length?
The bald man swiveled his chair around and punched the intercom button. "Find Joshua and have him come to my office immediately," he ordered sharply.
Maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh on Willy - but he'd come to take the unquestioned obedience of his favorite sweeper for granted. He should have remembered that loyalty of the caliber of Willy's was hard to come by and easily destroyed. In his fear and haste to remove all connection between himself and any unwanted projects, it seemed he'd made the man second-think his priorities.
Damn. Now he had NOBODY he could trust implicitly.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The last thing Miss Parker expected when she pulled into Sydney's driveway was to see Jarod's sports car on the street in front of the house, and Debbie's car nowhere in sight. Then again, she told herself, Jarod could be expected to be over here at least once a day to check on and change the dressings on Sydney's wounds. At least she'd only have to give her bad news and her startling announcements once. Once was about all she had in her.
She inserted her key in Sydney's front door lock and opened the door, only to be met by Jarod, obviously on his way to perform that task for her. His chocolate eyes were sad, and she knew instantly that at least one part of her job was unnecessary. "Ethan called," he said by way of explanation. "He knew, and wanted to warn me." He relieved her of the briefcase, which hung from numb fingers. "I told Sydney. He's waiting for you."
"I need to talk to you too," she managed before letting her grief take center stage again. "After."
"I'll be here," he said gently, then gave her shoulder a pat and a gentle shove in the direction of the staircase. "Go on."
Tired beyond belief, Miss Parker mounted the stairs slowly then walked down the little hallway to Sydney's room. She knocked softly on his door, then pushed her way into the room. Sydney was sitting up in bed, well-cushioned and supported by what was probably every last pillow in the house. But his color was good, and he had obviously been waiting for her. He didn't utter a word - merely put out his arms in an open invitation.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, took one long look into chestnut eyes that swam with tears of understanding and shared pain, and then rested her head very carefully and gently against a shoulder and finally let go of her tight emotional control. Sydney's arms closed around her gently and then held her as tightly to him as he could without causing himself too much pain while she cried for her brother - a brother whom she'd never been able to know AS her brother, much less as her twin, until it was far too late. He knew exactly what she was feeling.
"He told me to... tell you 'thank you', Syd," she managed finally as her sobbing ebbed back to simple weeping.
He reached up around her shoulders to wipe his own tears away. Although his work with Angelo had come only in the years since Jarod's initial escape, in that time he had managed to become rather fond of the odd little man. He would miss Angelo too - but not nearly as much as she would. There was a special kind of pain involved when a twin bond snapped because of death - that was something he knew all too well. "I'm so sorry, Parker," he murmured gently.
"Lyle had ordered... all the support technology disconnected - never sent him to surgery to get sewn up. He... stuck him in a dark, locked, room and basically left him to die, neglected and forgotten," she whimpered and snuggled closer to her surrogate father for comfort.
"He wasn't forgotten, sweetheart," Sydney soothed gently, a hand coming up to stroke her hair. "You were there."
"He knew me, Syd - called me 'Sister'." Her voice cracked as the tears came anew.
"He had always been very deeply invested in your well-being," Sydney remembered. "I think he knew about your relationship for a very long time, but chose not to speak of it until he knew YOU knew it too. He always called you 'Daughter', remember?"
She nodded against his neck, her tears coming once more too hard for her to be able to speak. The arms around her tightened again as she began to tremble, and Sydney shushed at her softly into her ear more than once. He was determined that, at least once in her life, she be given the space, the time, and the emotional support she'd need to grieve for the loss of a loved one in a way that didn't do more harm than good.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The silence in Sam's car was deafening and had been for the better part of the trip. Were it not for the sound of the well-tuned motor purring in the background, both sweepers would have been ready to react explosively and violently at the first threatening sound. Sam sat stoically behind the wheel, steering the car on its way north-west to Dover, while Willy sat in the passenger seat next to him, pondering and reeling from the series of events that had landed him there in the first place. Willy was all too aware that Sam detested him with a passion - a by-product of years of being at odds over just about everything due to his boss being in perpetual conflict with Sam's. It was obvious that, at that very moment, only Miss Parker's orders were preventing the burly ex-wrestler from stopping the car, climbing out, and settling their 'differences' in a more traditional manner.
"Where in Dover?" Sam asked in a terse monotone.
"South-east end," Willy answered back in a similar monotone. "Outside of town by a mile or so, just off Highway 1."
Sam nodded. "How many sweepers on-site?"
"Two in front, two in rear. The house is a locked facility - fairly remote, removed from the road by trees and an open lawn." Willy recounted the information he'd gathered just before he'd gone looking for Miss Parker. "It's a boring sweeper assignment - remote and small-scale research facility - they're likely to be not prepared for much in the short term."
"What about inside?"
"A couple of clericals and research assistants for Dr. Grey, a staff cook and a general housekeeper for Shadow's upkeep. Counting Shadow and Grey, eight people during daylight hours. Most days, their shift ends at five, and they all go home to Dover. The sweepers are on eight-hour shifts, three sets."
Sam was silent for a while, stewing. Then, "I can't believe you were ordered to sanction the whole staff. Pardon the pun, but that's a pretty bad case of overkill."
The dark sweeper in the passenger seat turned his head to stare out the side window next to him. "I don't know that Mr. Raines wanted me to stop at just staff. When I mentioned the ruckus the families would raise, he insisted that he wanted it ALL to go away."
"Christ!" Sam shook his head in disbelief. "Has he lost his mind?" Willy shrugged in response, and Sam grimaced at the gesture. "Then again, I should wonder..."
"That's the driveway!" Willy stated suddenly, pointing. "We're still out of sight of the front team, though. Pull over there..."
Sam followed his companion's directions to pull the car behind some bushes, then turned to the dark sweeper once the car engine was turned off. "OK, Einstein. What was your brilliant plan for doing this? You have one, I hope..."
Willy reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a paper, which he unfolded to reveal a diagram of the facility grounds. "The front security stations are here and here," he pointed to two red X's, "with the back two stations here and here." The finger moved to the other marks. "There are two of us, and two in front. We can get in closer if we stick to the trees until THIS point." The finger stabbed another spot on the diagram. "Then we coordinate, and we can take the two front guys out easily. There's no line of sight between front and back - so we can waltz in the front door. Mr. Raines had the key card to the door delivered to me already, so the door's not a problem. Provided we take the front guys out quickly, the back guys won't even know anything is wrong. Once inside, we grab Shadow, Grey if he's still on grounds, warn the rest of the interior staff to go home, pack up the kiddies and scram, then beat it ourselves."
Willy turned his wrist and looked at his watch. "It's four forty-five. Five is when the interior staff start taking off - the back sweepers will be used to seeing folks leaving the building and heading for cars about then. We mix with them to leave the building without being noticed, then make for these trees here on the other side of the parking lot," the finger moved on the diagram yet again, "and then we'll be in the clear. The back sweepers won't know anything's wrong until their shift-change arrives at six."
"Alright," Sam had to agree that Willy's plan was both do-able and logical. "But I'm lead on this. You do as I say - got it?"
"Got it." Willy's voice was resigned. He hadn't expected anything else - and knew that his fate rested in what Sam reported back to Miss Parker once they were done.
"And we don't kill the sweepers we take out - we stun 'em and leave 'em there." Sam's voice was adamant, and he poked Willy in the chest to punctuate his decision. "We take their walkie-talkies and, once we're clear and on the road out of there, call back to the other guys, let 'em know what was going to go down, what just DID go down, and warn them off too." Sam's dark eyes glared at the passenger in the car. "We give 'em ALL a chance to scoot and save their skins. Got it?"
"Got it," the dark sweeper repeated with far less reluctance. That was just simple internal sweeper loyalty to the corps - easy to understand, even easier to live with. It was a helluva lot easier to live with Sam's order than with the idea of killing twelve of his own kind. "Good idea."
"Let's move."
The two big men moved equally stealthily through the stand of birch and maple trees that surrounded the facility itself until they could see the two sweepers stationed in front of the building. Each of the guards had a small kiosk, with binoculars and rifles seemingly at the ready. Sam grabbed Willy's arm to get his attention, pointed to a spot very close to the far kiosk, then brought up his own wristwatch. He indicated that they each would have two minutes to move into position, and then spring, then pushed at his fellow sweeper to get him moving.
The two front sweepers, like Willy had speculated, really WEREN'T ready for any assault on their post. Both went down without much noise whatever and were left safely stowed within the kiosk until they regained consciousness. The front security posts secured, the two invading sweepers walked quickly to the front door, swiped the key card in the lock and stepped inside.
One by one, the two sweepers cornered the interior support staff, informed them of their peril, and advised them to prepare to leave. Then, with Willy under orders to prevent any of the staff from making a run for it prematurely, Sam headed off down the little hallway toward the locked door that opened into a smaller and more modern version of the Sim Lab at the Centre itself. A tall and thin man with a full head of grey hair raised his head impatiently as the sweeper approached, obviously having been interrupted in something he felt was important.
"What is it? Don't you know you're not supposed to..."
"Don't talk, listen," Sam ordered in a no-nonsense tone, bringing the sandy-haired head of the younger man seated at the table up sharply. "The Centre is closing down your project here. There has been a sanction issued on your lives. Come with me if you want to live through the next hour."
"Vernon..." the younger man hesitated, looking up at what was obviously the one person whose orders he was USED to following.
The hazel eyes of the psychiatrist studied the face and expression of the intimidating figure before him, then nodded. "C'mon, Kevin - I think we need to do as this gentleman says." He leaned toward the sweeper. "Under whose orders..."
"Mr. Raines has authorized the sanction," Sam blurted bluntly, in hopes that the name and the finality of the situation would come quickly to roost and prevent problems. "I'm here on the authority of SIS and the Triumverate to make sure nothing untoward happens to you or your associate here."
The hazel eyes widened in shock, and then the older man bent to pull at his younger comrade's arm. "Kevin - let's MOVE!!"
The younger man rose instantly at his mentor's touch, and the two of them followed Sam back out through the doors and down the hallway to where they joined up with the rest of the staff and Willy. Sam whistled softly to get everyone's attention.
"OK. Now listen up," Sam began in a tone that invited both confidence and trust. "The only thing that will be different today than it has been all the other days you folks left for home is that you won't be coming back. Don't panic. The sweepers by the parking lot know nothing of the sanction - actually, they don't know that the sanction includes them. So just make your way to your cars like you normally do and drive off as if this were any other day. Go home, gather your loved ones, and get the hell outta Dover and don't stop driving for a few days."
The sea of faces in front of him grew thoughtful and a little less fearful, and eventually all of them were nodding. "You two," he pointed to Kevin and Grey, "will stick with us. We're going to be mixing with the rest of you. Don't do anything that would call attention to us. Keep your wits about you, and we'll all make it out of here in one piece. Is everybody with me?"
There were a few "got it's" and "yup's", and all the heads nodded again.
"OK, folks. Let's do this." Sam opened the back door. "A few at a time, like normal, OK?"
Slowly the inside staff made their way out the back door and ambled toward the collection of cars in the small parking lot near the barn, none of them paying much attention to the four extra people walking with them. The sweepers in the kiosk glanced in their direction and obviously down at their watches, but otherwise didn't pay them much attention. Sam and Willy each led one of their two prizes between cars and then ducked down and sprinted into the copse of trees at the back end of the property. Then the two escorted their charges quickly through the underbrush, making as little noise as possible, until they had circumnavigated the property to the front and were only a little ways from their hidden car.
Many of the staff vehicles had already left the property, and Willy and Sam stuffed their charges unceremoniously in the back seat of the big town car and backed out of the drive themselves. Sam put them immediately on a direct route back to Blue Cove, while Willy dragged the small and powerful walkie-talkie out of his jacket pocket, where he's stowed it after taking down the one sweeper.
"This is an official warning," he rumbled ominously at the device. "The Chairman has decided to put an end to the project house here, and has levied a complete sanction of all personnel at this facility - sweepers included. Certain persons in authority have come to your aid - and you are advised to pick up your companions in front and get the hell outta Dodge. Don't go back to the Centre, and don't remain in Dover, if you know what's good for you."
The little speaker crackled. "Who the hell IS this? What are you doing with..."
"Shut up and listen, dip-stick," Willy snapped. "At this moment, you're guarding an abandoned building. You DON'T want to be there when the sanction team gets there. Move it."
"Hey Chuck," the speaker squawked again, "the guy's right. There isn't a soul in the house!"
"What the hell..." the first voice muttered. "And Harry and Kip have been taken out - they're down and out at their posts!"
"Pick 'em up and move 'em out," Willy warned again. "Now!"
"Hey, Manny, Centre vehicle in the drive," the second voice announced in an excited tone.
"Get out of there!" Willy yelled into the walkie-talkie, only to hear the sounds of a gunshot and then only static.
"Where are you taking us?" a very diminished-sounding older voice asked from the back seat.
Sam looked up into the rear view mirror at the two men who, oddly, were huddled together for mutual support - the older man obviously as dependent on his younger protégé at the moment as the young man was on his mentor. "Someplace safe, I promise," he reassured them, then looked over at Willy with a calculating gaze. "Good plan," he commented, then turned his eye back to the road.
Willy nodded his appreciation of the assessment, then turned to stare out the window next to him again. With any luck, he'd just bought himself a ticket to survival. He'd find out in little over an hour.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Miss Parker's nose itched, and she twitched it back and forth and then rubbed it with an impatient hand and found herself rousing. For a short moment she wasn't quite sure where she was - until she realized that her head was resting against someone's shoulder, and that that someone was holding her gently and breathing deeply and evenly into her ear. Her eyes blinked open, and she found herself staring at the underside of Sydney's lightly-grizzled chin. She shifted slightly to ease her posture, feeling not only his arms tighten and his breathing catch as she roused him from his dozing, but the afghan that had been carefully laid across her back and shoulders fall away, leaving her slightly chilled.
"I'm sorry, Syd," she murmured softly the moment she knew that the older man was once more awake. "I didn't mean to..."
He shook his head gently against her forehead. "You cried yourself to sleep," Sydney told her quietly, one hand retrieving the fallen afghan and repositioning it.
"I gathered that, but you didn't need to serve as my pillow," she responded in chagrin, straightening up a bit and catching at the afghan herself this time before it could fall away.
"I wouldn't let Jarod rouse you. You needed this rest," he insisted softly.
"I love you, Syd," she bent forward and kissed Sydney's cheek gently. "And as much as I appreciate it, I'm afraid that none of us have the time to just sit right now - there's too much else is going on that I haven't had a chance to tell you." She wiped at her face as if in afterthought, knowing the mascara had probably already made a mess.
"What do you mean?" Sydney asked, puzzled.
"I need to bring Jarod in. He needs to hear this too," she realized suddenly and carefully pushed herself out of Sydney's still-encircling embrace and rose to go to the door. "Jarod? Can you come up, please?"
"On my way," she heard him call from the far reaches of the house, then turned and returned to her seat next to Sydney.
"I didn't even ask you how YOU were feeling when I got here. How thoughtless can I be?" she berated herself.
"Don't worry about it," he soothed, running a hand up and down her arm. "I've felt better, I'll admit, but I'm managing. I told you - you were tired, and you've had other things on your mind. Besides, I dozed a little myself after you fell asleep..."
Jarod knocked on the doorjamb and pushed the door open slowly. "Is something wrong?" His eyes sought out hers. "Rest well?"
"Nothing's wrong, Jarod, I'd just rather not have to tell my story more than once, if you don't mind," she said with a voice that, in retrospect, sounded sharper than she intended. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound rude." She reached out an apologetic hand "Yes, I did rest well, thanks - I just didn't expect to fall asleep at all, though... Sorry about that..."
"Don't worry about it," Jarod echoed Sydney's words as he moved to the other side of the bed to find a seat where he could see them both. "No harm, no foul. Now, what story?"
She took in a deep breath, held it, then let it out again in a noisy sigh. "First of all, Lyle is dead," she announced without preamble.
"What?!" Sydney gaped.
Jarod's eyes narrowed. "Damn it!" he spat. "I've spent the better part of the day simming my way through any number of really GOOD pay-back scenarios. I feel cheated, somehow." He looked at Sydney and Miss Parker, who were staring at him with wide eyes. "You don't blame me, do you?"
Sydney shook his head with a heavy sigh. "Not really, I suppose - not after everything else." He looked back at Miss Parker. "What happened to him? How'd he die?"
"Nobody knows for sure who is responsible," she continued tiredly. "All I know for sure is that the autopsy reports that his left knee was shattered by blunt force, he was strangled with something thin - wire, perhaps - and that he had his other thumb cut off and stuffed into his mouth."
"That sounds like Yakuza to me," Jarod commented wryly. "He must have said something they didn't like..."
"I don't know about that, but Raines' reaction to that and the first nibbles from the Triumverate about the information you started feeding them has been pretty extreme, according to Willy."
Both men swiveled their heads quickly to stare at her. "Willy?!" "Raines' sweeper?!"
She nodded. "He came to me just about the time I was getting ready to leave. Seems Raines' has his underwear in a very tight knot right now - and has done the unforgivable." She looked back and forth between two very expectant faces. "He threatened Willy with the same fate Lyle suffered if he didn't carry out sanctions on everybody at the facility in Dover." She turned her gaze on Jarod. "On Shadow and all his support staff. He gave him 24 hours to make it all go away."
"Geez! We'll have to move everything up..." Jarod jumped up and began pacing.
"Hold it!" she waved at him, making him pause and turn to look at her. "I called Sam, and sent the two of them over to retrieve Shadow and his keeper tonight, before anything else happens. They're to bring them here when things are secured."
"Here?" Sydney gaped. "Are you sure that's safe?"
"What if Willy sees me and goes running to Raines?" Jarod added.
"Look, I didn't know you'd be here, Jarod. I just knew that I didn't want him near Davy or Debbie. And besides, he's offered to turn himself over to the Triumverate and spill his guts." Miss Parker sighed and ran a hand over her eyes. "Seems that now that he thinks Raines is ready to hang him out to dry, he's more than willing to return the favor."
Sydney had a thoughtful expression on his face. "I have often wondered how long it would be until Raines' complete lack of loyalty to anyone or anything except himself came back to bite him."
"I don't know..." Jarod sounded thoroughly unconvinced. "I find it a little hard to picture Willy suddenly having this fit of conscience when he so willingly helped YOU along to a perforated ulcer without a single qualm," he grumbled at her.
She shrugged. "Amazing what lengths the unethical will go to save their own skins," she offered with a dry tone. "Frankly, I'm all for turning his ass over to the Triumverate. I figure they'll have some provisions for 'taking care' of him once his use as a stool pigeon on Raines is through - and to be honest, I couldn't care less what those provisions might be."
"When do you suppose they'll get here?" Sydney asked after turning his head and noticing that the light streaming through his bedroom window was once more getting quite dim.
Miss Parker tipped her wrist and peered at her watch, then looked up at the both of them in alarm. "Any time now, if everything went as planned. And speaking of the time, have either of you two given any thought to my little boy, languishing at the sitter's? I bet he's getting worried..."
"Shhhhhhh... No, he's not." Jarod reached out and patted her shoulder. "I picked Davy up while you were resting. He's downstairs right now, watching TV in Syd's den. I was going to wait until you woke up, because you said you needed to talk to me, then take him home and give you some time with Syd. Now I think maybe you should take him home yourself. Then I can help get Shadow and his keeper settled down for the night, although I'm not sure how you want to handle Willy..."
"Not here." Miss Parker sounded adamant. "I don't want him anywhere near my family."
"Jarod, didn't you used to have a refuge lair not far from here?" Sydney asked, his voice growing tighter as the pain medication that had made his comforting Miss Parker possible was beginning to wear off. "You can take Kevin and Dr. Grey with you and have Sam follow you with Willy. That should keep Shadow and his mentor beneath the Centre radar until we get in touch with the Triumverate, and," his grin was almost a grimace, "Parker can stop having a litter of kittens in every corner because her family's too close to the action."
"Smart ass," Miss Parker commented before she looked at Sydney's face, which had gotten a couple of shades paler in the few minutes they'd been talking. Her grey eyes sought out and caught Jarod's, and then led him to notice the same thing.
"OK. I think this con-flab needs to be over now, before we wear Sydney out entirely," Jarod announced brusquely as he rose. He looked down at Miss Parker. "You need to say 'good night' and take off yourself and let me get him fixed up for the night before our guests arrive. Get Davy home. I'll call you later."
She nodded, then turned to Sydney. "Good night," she repeated softly, then deposited a soft kiss on his cheek. "You be good now and do what Dr. Jarod tells you..."
"Doctor Jarod," the older man chuckled painfully, then gazed at her in concern. "You will call me if you need to talk in the night," Sydney replied, returning the kiss after catching her head in a hand. "Promise?"
"Promise," she swore, and rose. She turned at the door and waved at him. "I'll stop by tomorrow night,"
Jarod followed her out the bedroom door and down the stairs. "I still need to change his dressing," he informed her when she turned to look over her shoulder at him in concern. "I'll give him some pain meds before I do. Let me say my goodnights to Davy before you go..."
The two walked into the den and summoned their son from his viewing. Jarod squatted down to his level. "I'm not going to be at your Mom's tonight, Davy," he announced simply, "so I thought I'd say goodnight now, before she takes you home."
"Good night, Daddy," Davy said, throwing his arms around his father's neck and giving him a big hug. "Will I see you tomorrow?"
"With any luck," Jarod said, returning the hug and then setting his son back and drawing himself to his full height. "And you rest well too," he ordered Miss Parker with a hand laid gently on her shoulder. "I'll call you when everything's settled later, OK?"
Her eyes searched his for a long moment in which she said nothing. Then she rose on her toes, balancing with one hand on his shoulder in return and then deposited a very soft and tentative kiss on his cheek. "You be careful, Jarod. I don't trust Willy any further than I can toss him by his tail. You WATCH him!"
Jarod's arm slipped around her automatically, and he hugged her to him briefly, but with feeling. "I will," he reassured her. "Don't worry." Then he stepped back. "Go on, now. I'll talk to you later. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Jarod."
"Goodnight, Daddy."
"Goodnight, son."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Sam steered the car around a corner and onto a side street the moment they entered Blue Cove, then pulled to the curb and stopped.
"What the Hell..." Willy began, roused out of a near doze by the slowing movement of the car. He turned to see what was going on, only to stop moving suddenly as he caught sight of Sam's huge Smith & Wesson, pointed into his face.
"Your gun." Sam extended his empty hand. "Now."
"What the..."
"Uh-unh." Sam shook his head. "I'm not driving you one inch closer to Sydney's while you're still armed. Hand it over." His empty fingers opened and closed, punctuating his order.
Willy shook his head and carefully - o so very carefully, he knew how much Sam probably would love a reason to spray his brains all over the car window - handed over his duty handgun.
Without moving his gaze from his fellow sweeper's face, Sam deposited the extra handgun into the map pocket of his car door and then extended it again. "Good. Now the other one..."
"You've gotta be..."
"Don't." Sam's voice had a cold tone to it. "We all know you carry extra. Hand it over."
"Say," Vernon Grey's voice came over the top of the seat, "what's going on here?"
"Stow it, Doc. This man's original orders were to kill you and your friend here. And don't ever make the mistake of thinking he's changed his spots with this - he's done the same if not worse many times before," Sam said, and his face grew downright grim as he turned his full attention on the dark-skinned man next to him. "I'm going to count to three. One. Two..."
"OK! OK! Alright!" Willy capitulated and reached toward his right leg.
"Slowly!" Sam ordered, pushing the gun closer to its target.
Again, using only his fingertips, Willy extracted the derringer from his leg holster and held it out to Sam, who snatched it away and stowed it with the other gun in the map pocket.
"Now, both hands on the dash and leave them there."
Left with little choice, Willy did as ordered, and then suffered through a very thorough pat-down despite his position in the car.
"Open the door slowly and get out."
This time he frowned again and turned toward the gun. "You've got to be kidding!"
"Do I look like I'm kidding? Out! Slowly!" Sam thrust the barrel of the gun into Willy's ribs.
The dark sweeper sighed and did as he was asked, noting that Sam scooted across the bench seat and climbed out of the car right after him after pushing the button that opened the trunk. The gun barrel motioned, and Willy paused long enough to give Sam a dirty look before heading to the back of the car. "Get in," Sam ordered the obvious. With another dirty glance over his shoulder, Willy began to do just that.
"This is for making Miss Parker sick," Sam said behind him and swung the butt of his pistol down hard on the dark sweepers skull, and the man tumbled limply into the open trunk. Smiling grimly, Sam slammed the trunk closed, walked to the passenger side of the car to close the door, then around the hood to the driver's side and climbed in again.
"NOW we're ready to go to Sydney's," he commented more to himself than to his other two passengers, and put the car in gear.
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com
by MMB
Mr. Raines sat behind his heavy, beautifully carved desk in his office on the topmost floor of the Tower annex to the main Centre facility feeling not only frustrated and anxious but downright insecure and threatened. He'd returned to the Centre late the night before, immediately following the phone call from Willy reporting on Lyle's fate. He'd driven past the front gates of the Centre, in fact, as Centre coroners were still lifting the body, now housed within a black plastic body bag, onto a gurney to put in the ambulance for its trip to the Centre morgue.
His attitude was not helped when he discovered that his sweeper, Willy, had been no more willing to call it a night and leave the facility to go home than he himself was now. His reluctance had grown exponentially after their Japanese translator on the satellite phone told them exactly what the Yakuza goons had said. Centre sanctions were much cleaner processes, the sweeper had commented to him with a shudder. More often than not, they were intended as necessary consequences for the person receiving them - not as modes to send larger messages to unnamed recipients otherwise. And knowing his boss was seriously spooked and apprehensive did little to soothe the tired sweeper's nerves - and having a nervous sweeper in the room did little to calm Mr. Raines.
Raines had subsequently ordered flunky sweepers to check out certain elements of the event. Yes, the vial of Redux WAS now missing from the cryo-lab on SL-13. Yes, the women who had not been chosen for the Redux project WERE now missing from their de-tox beds. And as if that wasn't enough, a report had just been handed him from the Renewal Wing that the remaining surrogate was now bleeding and would most likely lose the pregnancy by the end of the morning. Redux, the financial salvation of the Centre, was now completely down the sewer.
And now, with the morning drawing inexorably to a close, the oxygen-starved man gazed covetously about his grand office - the place he had worked so hard to attain for so many years, stepping over so many bodies and on the toes of so many others to get here. If what the Yakuza said was true, this office would provide him no shelter - actually it would become his prison cell rather than his seat of power. He should have learned from the last time the Centre had had dealings with those Japanese mobsters - a situation which HE had participated in sabotaging himself, which wouldn't help things if that became known. Their response to the denouement of that episode had proven that they were even less predictable and more dangerous than any home-grown American crime syndicate. He should never have allowed Lyle to talk him into dealing with them in the first place in regards to Redux.
The intercom beeped. "Mr. Raines? Sir? Mr. Ngawe from the Triumverate is on line 2 for you."
Raines slammed his fist down onto the surface of his desk hard.
What ELSE could go wrong?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Miss Parker hung up her phone with a satisfied expression on her face.
It had begun, and was going to be working better and possibly faster than any of them had anticipated. Jarod's first anonymous contact, with several of the Shadow-related documents attached, had resulted in her receiving a call from Mr. Ngawe himself. He had related to her how disappointed he'd been with the answers he had just gotten from Mr. Raines to his growing number of questions and then ordered her to scour all Centre archives for any further mention of Shadow or anyone associated with the project. She'd been provided with a password that in essence unlocked the entire Centre's operational archive to her - a password that even Mr. Raines did not possess.
With that password, and with Broots help, she'd be able to uncover all the financial records of the Centre's dealings with the Yakuza - information that, combined with detailed records of the actual sims that allowed drug trafficking to circumvent DEA investigations would definitely not sit well. Then there would be the files detailing the continuing testing for the Pretender abilities, and the tests that probed Shadow's abilities as they developed over time. The former she knew existed, just not where; the latter Jarod had told her HAD to exist, for they were the lifeblood of the Pretender Project as an ongoing concern. Those files she'd save and ship off to the Triumverate herself as soon as she found them.
It had felt like a full day already, and she hadn't even had lunch yet. Coming to work that morning to discover that Lyle had been taken out of the picture already had been a shock that she hadn't had the opportunity to share with the rest of the little conspiracy yet. She had demanded, and then gotten, the autopsy report - Lyle had had his left knee shattered by a single blow with a blunt object, and had been strangled, had his remaining thumb severed post-mortem and inserted in his mouth. The latter she guessed was a message regarding infantile behavior - whether it be of Lyle himself or the Centre as an organization, she had no way of knowing for sure.
The one thing she'd wanted to do all day, and hadn't been able to justify as yet, was to check on Angelo's condition. There had been a niggling in the back of her mind that continually reminded her that things were not good with him at all - and that time was running out for some reason.
She looked up as there came a soft knock on her glass door. Sam stepped into her office when she called out for him to enter. "Have you heard the latest, Miss Parker?" he asked with obvious delight.
"I've heard plenty in the last few hours. What have YOU heard?" she inquired in a fairly good mood.
"Seems that Willy, Mr. Raines' personal sweeper, has taken up semi-permanent residency here in the Centre facility itself. And Mr. Raines has had the Tower apartment prepared for him for on-going habitation." Sam's face had a wide grin on it. "The rumor mill has it that either Willy saw Lyle get his - and is seriously compromised confidence-wise - or Mr. Raines has decided that the Yakuza threat is real and close and wants to keep his muscleman even closer. Either way, both are definitely feeling the heat this morning."
Miss Parker leaned back and relaxed against her comfortable office chair back. "That's very interesting," she pondered aloud with a smile that matched his. "Makes a person wonder just what else it is that Mr. Raines and/or Willy might have to hide, doesn't it?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am!" Sam agreed heartily. He deposited a small pile of file folders in her In box. "Here are the latest security reports from the sublevels. You might want to check out the report from SL-13 - VERY interesting reading today."
The sweeper's dark eyes met his boss' grey gaze, and he knew he'd given her a gift. Not only would those reports detail any official activity regarding Redux, but would detail the incident in the hallway that had landed Angelo in Renewal in critical condition. That report would give her the excuse to visit the Renewal Wing and check on Angelo for herself she'd been wishing for - something, if the reports on the empath's condition were correct, she would need to be doing very soon. "Thanks for the clue, Sam. Keep me informed about anything else you hear, OK?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
She barely heard him leave her office, as she already had her nose buried in the sublevel security report for SL-13. She sipped at her coffee, then frowned at what she'd found. Apparently Angelo's shooting only rated a two-line mention in the security log: "In-patient Angelo attacked Centre staff, necessitating violence to subdue. In-patient taken to Renewal for treatment of gunshot wound to chest and stomach." She'd known the wounds he'd received were serious - but these sounded life-threatening. To be taken to Renewal with that kind of injury could be either a blessing or a death sentence - and in this case, she couldn't be sure which. She was on her feet and moving immediately.
The Renewal Wing was a sublevel and not located in the Tower. Miss Parker's gaze as the elevator descended into the heart of the Centre rose, as it often did, to the hole near the ceiling of the elevator car that was the bullet hole left from her mother's faked suicide. She closed her eyes and shook her head, sickened that violence had again touched her family. For the first time since Jarod's return from his self-imposed oblivion, she knew that she was on the right path - that the time had indeed come for the violence to end. And for the first time in a VERY long time, she breathed out a fervent prayer to a God she wasn't sure she could believe in that nobody ELSE that she loved would be hurt in the effort.
Then the elevator door swooshed open, and she was striding down the corridor, past the startled floor nurse who stood guard at the paired swinging doors into Renewal. "You can't go in there..." the nurse began, hurrying after the tall and imposing figure, only to skid to a halt when that figure spun on its heels and glared back at her.
"Do you have any idea who I am?" Miss Parker demanded haughtily of the ignorant nurse.
The woman's eyes widened. She'd heard about the Chairman's daughter through the rumor mill from time to time over the years, but despite the various times the lady in question had landed in Renewal, she had never actually seen the Chairman's daughter face to face. Until now, it appeared. "Y..yes, ma'am," she stammered, flustered.
"Good. Maybe you can make yourself useful after all," was the caustic response. "Tell me where the empath Angelo is."
"He..h...he's not supposed to have any visi..."
Miss Parker drew herself up to her full height and quickly thanked whatever spark of inspiration had moved her to don four-inch heels for a change that morning. "I'm. Not. Just. Any. Visitor. I'm SIS. I'm here on security matters." She stepped threateningly toward the nurse, genuinely beginning to get angry. "Now - where is he?"
"723," the woman managed finally, knowing herself to be a coward. It was times like these that she seriously questioned her decision to come work at this frightening place.
"Thank you." Miss Parker made the words of gratitude sound like an abrupt dismissal, and the woman backed away from her a few steps before turning and fleeing back to the relative safety of the floor admissions desk. Miss Parker turned away and let her eyes wander down the hall, taking stock of which side of the hallway were the odd-numbered rooms, and then began walking quickly.
Room 723, she discovered, was a locked ward that looked dark and uninhabited through the small window in the door. She stalked back to the floor nurse's desk and stared down at the thoroughly intimidated nurse. "You could have told me the door was locked," she informed the woman with a withering tone that hid the desperation behind it. "Give me the key."
"That patient has a history of viole..."
"Oh, give me a damned break!" Miss Parker spat, now thoroughly angry through her worry. "That patient has two fresh bulletholes through vital parts of his anatomy. He's not going ANYWHERE, and you know it. Give me the damned key before I decide I need to do a deeper background check on you - and have my personal sweeper put you in the locked ward next to Angelo's while I do it."
"I'm going to have to report this, you know..." the nurse tried to summon some bravado as trembling fingers extended a key ring upwards towards the unwelcome intruder.
Miss Parker's eyebrows climbed her forehead in almost amused amazement as she snagged the key ring and then bent forward over the desk. "And just who," she asked with a cold chuckle, "do you think that report would be going TO? Eh?" The woman's blanch was infinitely satisfying. She thrust out the key ring into the nurse's face. "Now. Which key is it?"
The nurse retrieved the key ring and fumbled noisily with it for a moment until she extended it up again by a single key. "This one."
Miss Parker took the keys from her with undisguised frustration. "Anything else I need to know? You DON'T want me surprised again - trust me." The latter was hissed.
The nurse shook her head quickly in the tight, terse movement, then release a deep breath of relief as the frighteningly lethal-acting woman again turned on her heel and stalked off down the hallway toward the room in question.
What little light there was in the room wasn't visible from the doorway, Miss Parker discovered upon unlocking the door and stepping inside. Angelo's hospital bed was not visible from the door at all, but was stowed around a dark corner. She carefully touched the variable light knob, bringing the overhead light up gently so as not to blind anybody. Then she stepped around the blind corner.
Angelo lay wan and limp in the bed, an IV line strung between a thin arm and the stand with its bags of clear liquid and what appeared to be blood. His eyes were closed, and his reddish-brown locks were mussed and tangled. Amazingly, however, considering the seriousness of his condition, no heart or respiration monitors were connected to keep track of vital signs or give alarm if he went into crisis. This was calculated neglect in no uncertain terms. No wonder the nurse had been so reluctant to let her get anywhere near this room.
Miss Parker stepped closer to her twin brother, feeling more kinship to the injured man than she had since the first time she'd ever had to face the fact that he MIGHT be related to her. Gently she reached down and smoothed an unruly swatch of hair from his brow. "Oh, Angelo," she whispered. "I'm so sorry..." She flinched back almost immediately when the eyelids began to flutter at her touch, and then open to allow agony-filled blue eyes to gaze up at her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to awaken you."
The agonized gaze cleared with effort. "I'm... glad... you... came..." Angelo managed.
"I need to get you out of here..." Miss Parker declared softly and firmly. "This is criminal..."
"No..." Angelo's hand moved feebly on the surface of the blanket that covered him, and she quickly claimed it and held it carefully, mindful of the IV connection.
"You deserve better than this..."
"Listen... to... me. No... time. Shadow... is... in... danger... must... rescue... early." The blue eyes bored holes into hers as she gaped in astonishment at the clarity of his utterances. "Raines... is... desperate. Will... want... to... clean... house... quickly."
She nodded and patted his hand. "Alright, Angelo, I'll tell... our friend... that we need to take care of business ahead of schedule there. But..."
The man's head moved from side to side slowly. "No... buts. Must... help... Shadow before... anything... else."
"We will," she assured him again, "but we need to take care of you too..."
"Not... necessary." The slow but clear words were like crystal-clear bells tolling. "I... will... not... be... here... soon."
Miss Parker drew in a sobbing breath. "No, Angelo..."
The injured man strove mightily to smile reassurance at her. "Don't... be... sad... Sister. Angelo... Timmy... soon... will... be... free."
"Noooo."
"I'm... glad... I... got... to... know... the... REAL... you," the injured man whispered, his voice growing softer and the blue eyes slowly focusing on a point beyond her.
Miss Parker cupped his slightly grizzled cheek with a gentle hand as tears fell unchecked. "I'm glad I got to know the REAL you too, Angelo," she whispered in a broken voice.
"Tell... Sydney... Jarod... thanks..." the weak voice was growing even fainter.
"Don't go, Angelo," she begged. "I need you."
The blue eyes focused on her once more with great effort. "My... voice... will... be... with... hers... inside... you..." he promised, and then his head tipped slightly to one side as the eyes unfocused for the last time.
Miss Parker's hand flew to her mouth to stifle the sobs that threatened, knowing that this could be neither the time nor place for her grief. Still, she bent over the now-still figure on the bed and brushed her lips across his brow. "I will miss you," she whispered to him as if imparting a secret. "God's speed, Timmy," she whispered even more softly, then reached out a hand to very lovingly close those unseeing blue eyes and then pull the sheet up to cover her twin's face.
She straightened and took a deep breath, bringing her emotions firmly and sternly under steely control before she exited the room, locking the door behind her. She strode to the nurse's desk, where the woman looked up into her face with real trepidation. "The patient is dead."
The nurse's face went blank, then lost every trace of color. "Dead?"
"Call the doctor, get a death certificate, then see to it PERSONALLY that the body is cremated immediately." Miss Parker drew in a shaky breath. "I don't want him in the morgue, and I absolutely don't want him in a lab somewhere being dissected like some science project." She gazed down at the nurse, and her grey eyes were the color of an inbound hurricane. "Were you responsible for his treatment?"
The nurse slowly shook her head. "Mr. Lyle had left clear instructions that only the doctor would tend him during rounds."
Miss Parker nodded slowly. It was Lyle's revenge for Angelo's temerity to actually come at him to have the empath neglected to death. The bastard was lucky that he was dead already, or she would make the many agonizing and horrifying deeds Lyle had committed seem like garden party games.
"That's what I thought. Well, Mr. Lyle isn't here anymore," she said bluntly and in a numb voice. "So you see to it personally that my orders are carried out to the letter, and I'll see to it that you aren't found at fault in the investigation I intend to begin into this... this... inhuman example of neglect."
"Yes, ma'am!" The nurse was only too glad to comply. Mr. Lyle had frightened her when he'd swooped down into Renewal and blithely ordered important medical technology removed from the seriously injured man. Just the idea that Lyle wasn't around anymore was a relief. "I'm really sorry... ma'am."
Miss Parker didn't dare look down at her anymore. She walked slowly back toward the elevator, her aching mind trying to think through the pain of losing yet another loved one to the Centre so as to manufacture a plausible reason to escape work early. She'd leave at lunch again, but that would cause too much comment - two half-days in a row just wasn't a healthy thing for her to do right now. No, she'd have to wait until closer to evening. It would be hard, but necessary.
She needed Sydney - he'd understand what it meant to lose a twin more than anyone else. But more than that, she needed to make sure he was actually recovering and give him Ange... Timmy's last message. She bit her lip to keep the tears at bay.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jarod looked up from the screen of his laptop as his cell phone sounded off.
"Jarod. It's me."
"Ethan!" Jarod was surprised. "Is something wrong? We weren't going to be call each other except..."
"Something's happened, Jarod. My other brother..." Ethan paused, finding explaining what he was feeling difficult.
Jarod stared out into space, suddenly very concerned. "Angelo?"
"He's gone, Jarod. And my sister is hurting, real bad." Ethan sighed heavily. He didn't know this man his sister was grieving so hard, but obviously she had cared about him a great deal.
Jarod rubbed his eyes with his free hand, working hard against the sting of tears. Angelo had been his friend for nearly his whole life. They had been a trio - he, Miss Parker and Angelo - in adventures in the Centre in the hours between day and night when Sydney and others in authority had been otherwise occupied. Sydney - this would hit the older man hard too.
"I'm sorry, Jarod," Ethan's voice was continuing. "I know he was important to you."
"Thanks." Jarod leaned his head into his free hand numbly. This wasn't supposed to happen.
"Anything I can do?"
"No!" Jarod blinked, then scowled in concern. "You stay right where you are, and keep away from this! I don't know what either your sister or I would do if you got hurt as the result of this."
"OK! OK! Just take care of yourselves and each other, OK?" Ethan insisted, a frown of his own wrinkling his face. "I want to see BOTH of you again, understand?"
"I have to call... No. I have to go see Sydney," Jarod said, his voice descending back to that numb tone. "Thanks for the warning."
"Take care of yourself, big bro."
"Give everybody there my love," Jarod said simply, then disconnected. He laid the phone down on the desk next to his laptop, then stared at the screen for minutes without seeing it. His mind rapidly sorted through the many memories, some happy and some not so happy, he had of the empath. Angelo's death left a hole in his life almost as big as the one left by his father's sudden demise.
His eyes narrowed dangerously. This was all Lyle's doing. For a long moment, he sat there allowing his mind to sim out as many appropriate payback scenarios as he could before he remembered the point Miss Parker had been trying to pound into him only the day before. What they were doing had to be about protecting the future, not about revenge for the past. And like it or not, Angelo had become a part of the past now.
"Damn!" he muttered under his breath, rubbing the back of a hand across his eyes quickly to stem the tears threatening to fall, and then closed down his laptop.
He needed to get to Sydney. The older man needed to be prepared for when Parker got home. She was going to be beyond upset. She had just lost her twin - something Sydney was in the unique position to understand completely.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Willy paused for a moment outside his boss' office, pulling his suit straighter. He'd managed to catch a short nap in the sweeper's lounge, only to be summoned again as the afternoon tipped towards evening. In fact, he hadn't minded being roused - his dreams had been stark and repeated reviews of Lyle's summary execution and horrifying nightmares about being in a similar situation facing the same fate. He rubbed his hands carefully across his face to hopefully wipe the sleep from his eyes, then over the top of his head as if needing to neaten the carefully-manicured curls.
Then he stepped through the glass door, putting forth an aura of invulnerability and strength that he was far from feeling in truth. "You sent for me, sir?"
Raines didn't look like he was faring much better than his pet sweeper. The watery blue eyes had a ragged edge to their expression that Willy had never seen before. The second call from Ngawe had been no more welcome than the first. It seemed that information that Lyle had supposedly taken care of was suddenly and unfortunately not only coming to light, but being spoon-fed to the one and only agency to whom he, Raines, was answerable. And he didn't appreciate being in this position one bit.
"I have a job for you." Raines took a desperate hit of oxygen and then gazed steadily at his right-hand man and measured the man's emotional stamina. Shaken, he decided, but not broken. Good.
"What do you want me to do?" Willy asked briskly, cringing inside. Not outside the Centre - please - not without an army of sweepers at his side, that is...
"We have a problem," the bald man wheezed and gasped in more air. "Certain projects that had been of financial import have been compromised, and steps need to be taken to prevent unfortunate repercussions."
Willy sighed. He was tired of the double-talk, especially now that his mind was too tired to translate it properly. "Which projects?" he asked with a slow blink to clear his eyes.
Raines frowned. Considering the way the surveillance information was leaking out of the Centre like the proverbial sieve, he really didn't want to say anything definitive. "The one headquartered in Dover, for one," he stated firmly, knowing that his sweeper SHOULD know immediately what he was talking about.
"Yes, sir." Willy shuddered inwardly. "What do you want me to do, sir?"
"As much as I hate to do it, I'm afraid the time has come for that project to go away," Raines said bluntly. "Lock, stock and barrel - I want Shadow gone, and everyone involved in it vanished."
Now Willy stared with his mouth agape. "You're... sanctioning... the whole lot?"
"I have no choice," Raines wheezed and dragged noisily on his oxygen tank. "If there's anything for the Triumverate to find when they come looking - and they will, if the information they're getting continues to flow - both you and I are going to be history."
"Me?" The dark sweeper was incensed. "I have done nothing that you didn't order me to do. I'm sure that when the Triumverate looks at the record, they'll be able to tell the difference between responsibility and loyalty."
"Do you honestly think they're going to care?" the bald man yelled, then wheezed and gasped for air from the exertion. "You were party to the deed. You'll carry the blame, right along with me."
"Sir," Willy began slowly, "we can't just sanction a whole facility without causing comment outside Centre boundaries. These people have families in Dover who will miss them... I can see taking out Shadow himself - and maybe Vernon Grey - but NOT fourteen or fifteen support staff, including sweepers."
"We cannot let the Triumverate find anything..." Raines began, slapping his desk in desperate frustration.
"I know you can't afford to let anything be discovered, sir," Willy stated quickly, hoping his boss wouldn't hear the slight rephrasing. The idea that his boss was not only willing but ready to drag HIM down for misdeeds done only under orders was chilling. For the first time, he was a target of the impersonal mechanism - and he didn't like it one little bit. Especially after what had happened to Lyle. "We take out Shadow, yes - and Grey, for that matter - but if we simply transfer all that support staff back here to the Centre, there wouldn't be anything for the Triumverate to find. And with the staff still going home to their families at night, no commentary in the local papers or other unwanted attention."
"You will do what I tell you, and you will handle this personally," Raines wheezed at his sweeper with narrowed eyes. "Take them all out, and do it NOW. And don't screw up, like Lyle did, either. I'd hate for you to have to suffer the same fate he did - at MY hands this time."
Willy blanched beneath his dark skin. After all these years of faithful, unquestioning loyalty and service, THIS was the thanks he got? The Chairman was obviously only interested in saving his own hide and job, to Hell with anybody else who got in his way. What was more, Raines was willing to save his own skin by stepping on HIM.
"Yes, sir," he agreed tersely, again using the pretense of tone to hide the flood of emotion the revelation from his boss had inspired.
"Get going. I want to know the Shadow is no longer a Centre problem by this time tomorrow, understood?"
"Yes, sir." Willy turned smartly and walked from the Tower office as fast as he could without looking like he was fleeing.
He was going to be hung out like the sacrificial lamb, and he wasn't going to stand for it. The question was, what was he going to DO about it? Years of being Raines' complacent lackey had pretty much deprived him of friends and potential allies.
There was only one person he knew of who could help him.
IF she didn't put a bullet in his brain herself first, that is...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Broots had seen Miss Parker under all kinds of stress over the past few years, but not since her breakdown after her accident had he seen her so bereft, shattered. He'd knocked at her office doors to give her the latest information he'd managed to wrest from the Centre mainframe, only to have his increasingly louder knock ignored entirely. When he'd finally pushed through the glass doors to peek in, he'd found her seated at her desk, forehead in both hands and shoulders heaving.
He stepped the rest of the way in and made sure the doors were carefully closed behind him. He dropped the folders on the far corner of her desk where they could be easily retrieved later, then moved around to the back and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey," he said softly. "What's going on?"
She raised her head very slowly, and her grey eyes were still streaming tears. "Angelo's dead," she announced with a hiccoughed sob.
Broots felt his heart lurch, and then put his other hand on her other shoulder and pulled her into his lower chest so that she could, at last, lean on SOMEBODY who cared. And she did lean, for a little while, before taking herself once more firmly in hand and straightening. "I've gotta get out of here," she said bleakly. "I have to tell Sydney... and Jarod..."
"Wait a minute, then," Broots hand on her shoulder pressed down to delay her movement, and then he went to her private restroom and dampened a paper towel. "You walk out looking like you do right now, and you're going to be setting off every last alarm in here that something's gone wrong - and we both know that is the LAST thing we need."
She looked up at him, grateful for his stalwart understanding and support, then took the towel from his hands and rose to head to the restroom and repair as much of the damage to her makeup that her tears had caused. "Thanks, Broots," she said as she chucked the soiled towel in the trash. "You wanted to see me, though - what was it, anyway?"
He retrieved the folders from the corner of the desk. "For your evening reading - if or when you feel up to it. Our old friend will find it very interesting too."
Miss Parker nodded, then reached down to pull up a briefcase into which she flopped the folders without even looking at them, snapped the case closed, then straightened again. "If anybody asks, I'm gone to check up on Sydney and his 'flu."
"Gotcha." Broots put a hand on her shoulder again. "You take care, OK?"
She nodded, not trusting her voice, and let Broots lead the way from her office, which she locked up after herself. Then, with a deep sigh, she headed in the direction of the elevator.
"Miss Parker?"
The deep voice of Raines' personal sweeper from behind her startled her, and she flinched noticeably. "I'm not in the mood for any of your master's games right now," she warned dangerously without turning to face him. "Go away."
"No. Miss Parker, I REALLY need to talk to you," Willy insisted urgently.
His tone broke through her numbness, and she turned and looked up into a genuinely worried face. "What is it?"
"Not here," he said in a careful tone, looking up at the surveillance camera which, at the moment, was aimed in the opposite direction. The gesture startled her even more.
"What's going on here?"
"I'm in trouble, Miss Parker. I need your help."
She blinked, and then laughed an almost hysterical cackle. "What in the name of God makes you think I'd actually want to help YOU?" she managed finally.
"I think what I have to say would be of interest to you," the dark sweeper said quickly, keeping a careful eye on the camera as it continued in its slow sweep of the corridor intersection. "Meet me outside the lobby?" The ebony eyes pleaded silently.
"Go, then!" she hissed and jerked her head in the direction of the stairwell. The man nodded with a look of intense gratitude and then headed swiftly towards the stairs while she continued toward the elevator. "What the Hell am I doing?" she asked herself with her emotions tied up in knots, stabbing a frustrated finger into the down button.
By the time she got to the lobby, she could see Willy huffing and puffing down the corridor toward her - and the man's urgency became even less understandable. Shaking her head slowly as if still disbelieving this were happening, she jerked her head again toward the front doors and the open spaces beyond. Willy became deferential, opening the door for her and holding it respectfully for her to pass through, then following her tamely at her heels.
The summer evening promised rain showers later, and the clouds made the late afternoon seem even later. Miss Parker led the dark sweeper towards the gate, then turned and faced him fiercely. "OK. We're away from the cameras. What the Hell..."
"Look, Miss Parker, I know you have no reason to trust me, but Mr. Raines is getting ready to do something that will bring the whole Centre toppling..."
"What are you talking about?" she scowled at him.
He sighed deeply. "There's a Centre facility in Dover, where Mr. Raines has kept another Pretender for years. I know we were supposed to put down all the Pretender-related projects a long time ago, but Mr. Raines felt he had too much invested in... But anyway, now somebody's feeding the Triumverate information about the project - which they ORDERED him to close down long ago - and now HE wants to out and out sanction the whole lot. The Pretender himself and the complete support staff - he gave me just twenty-four hours to disappear them all."
Miss Parker had to struggle not to show her glee. Mr. Raines' pet sweeper, turning on his master? "Fine. The Triumverate finds out Raines has been keeping a Pretender long after they told him to shut down all associated projects, and Raines loses his job. You lose yours for being party to the whole thing. You still haven't given me any reason to want to help you."
"It's no secret that you despise Mr. Raines. I can help you bring him down." Willy could hardly believe what he was saying - but this was the only choice he had if he hoped to survive.
"Bri... bring down Raines??" Miss Parker finally allowed a little interest to creep into her voice. "And how do you suggest I do that?"
"Help me rescue that Pretender and his keeper BEFORE Raines sends someone else to take them out - and turn us all over to the Triumverate. I'll spill enough details on Raines' and Lyle's little side operations here that Raines will be looking for a rock to hide behind so fast..."
Miss Parker's head tipped and her eyes narrowed. "And I should trust you why?"
Willy closed his eyes and shuddered. "You heard about what happened to Mr. Lyle?"
"I saw the security report," she hedged. "Why?"
"Mr. Raines made it very clear that if I didn't make sure those people vanished permanently, that I would suffer the same fate - at HIS hands."
She put her hands on her hips. "And I should care about this why?"
Willy stood in front of her and slowly lowered his head. She had no reason to care. He'd never been anything but a bully to her and to her associates for years, an obstacle to just about everything she'd ever wanted or tried to accomplish.
Miss Parker took out her cell phone, flipped it open and punched in a couple of buttons, then held the implement to her ear. "Sam? Meet me in the parking garage as of yesterday." She nodded, then disconnected and glared at the dark sweeper. "You'll take Sam with you, and bring both the Pretender and his keeper to Sydney's when you've secured them."
"To Sydney's?" Willy's eyes widened, then when he saw that she wasn't going to explain herself or her orders, immediately became again the deferential sweeper for her that he'd always been for Mr. Raines. "Yes, ma'am." Only one thing still needed clarifying. "Uh... What about me?"
"Let's see how this goes first. Frankly, I don't trust you any further than I can throw you - so you're going to have to prove to me you're worth bothering with."
The dark sweeper nodded. He deserved that. "Thank you, Miss Parker. Thank you for at least giving me a chance to prove myself. I owe you one."
"You're damned right you do," she barked sharply. "Let's get to the garage. No need to keep Sam waiting..."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Raines frowned, looking down from his office window at the two who, after a fairly animated discussion, were walking off together in the direction of the parking garage. In all his years watching Miss Parker interact with Centre personnel and Willy in particular, he had never seen her exchange more than a hissed barb with the dark-skinned sweeper.
So what was going on now? What could they possibly have to say to each other at such length?
The bald man swiveled his chair around and punched the intercom button. "Find Joshua and have him come to my office immediately," he ordered sharply.
Maybe he shouldn't have been so harsh on Willy - but he'd come to take the unquestioned obedience of his favorite sweeper for granted. He should have remembered that loyalty of the caliber of Willy's was hard to come by and easily destroyed. In his fear and haste to remove all connection between himself and any unwanted projects, it seemed he'd made the man second-think his priorities.
Damn. Now he had NOBODY he could trust implicitly.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The last thing Miss Parker expected when she pulled into Sydney's driveway was to see Jarod's sports car on the street in front of the house, and Debbie's car nowhere in sight. Then again, she told herself, Jarod could be expected to be over here at least once a day to check on and change the dressings on Sydney's wounds. At least she'd only have to give her bad news and her startling announcements once. Once was about all she had in her.
She inserted her key in Sydney's front door lock and opened the door, only to be met by Jarod, obviously on his way to perform that task for her. His chocolate eyes were sad, and she knew instantly that at least one part of her job was unnecessary. "Ethan called," he said by way of explanation. "He knew, and wanted to warn me." He relieved her of the briefcase, which hung from numb fingers. "I told Sydney. He's waiting for you."
"I need to talk to you too," she managed before letting her grief take center stage again. "After."
"I'll be here," he said gently, then gave her shoulder a pat and a gentle shove in the direction of the staircase. "Go on."
Tired beyond belief, Miss Parker mounted the stairs slowly then walked down the little hallway to Sydney's room. She knocked softly on his door, then pushed her way into the room. Sydney was sitting up in bed, well-cushioned and supported by what was probably every last pillow in the house. But his color was good, and he had obviously been waiting for her. He didn't utter a word - merely put out his arms in an open invitation.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, took one long look into chestnut eyes that swam with tears of understanding and shared pain, and then rested her head very carefully and gently against a shoulder and finally let go of her tight emotional control. Sydney's arms closed around her gently and then held her as tightly to him as he could without causing himself too much pain while she cried for her brother - a brother whom she'd never been able to know AS her brother, much less as her twin, until it was far too late. He knew exactly what she was feeling.
"He told me to... tell you 'thank you', Syd," she managed finally as her sobbing ebbed back to simple weeping.
He reached up around her shoulders to wipe his own tears away. Although his work with Angelo had come only in the years since Jarod's initial escape, in that time he had managed to become rather fond of the odd little man. He would miss Angelo too - but not nearly as much as she would. There was a special kind of pain involved when a twin bond snapped because of death - that was something he knew all too well. "I'm so sorry, Parker," he murmured gently.
"Lyle had ordered... all the support technology disconnected - never sent him to surgery to get sewn up. He... stuck him in a dark, locked, room and basically left him to die, neglected and forgotten," she whimpered and snuggled closer to her surrogate father for comfort.
"He wasn't forgotten, sweetheart," Sydney soothed gently, a hand coming up to stroke her hair. "You were there."
"He knew me, Syd - called me 'Sister'." Her voice cracked as the tears came anew.
"He had always been very deeply invested in your well-being," Sydney remembered. "I think he knew about your relationship for a very long time, but chose not to speak of it until he knew YOU knew it too. He always called you 'Daughter', remember?"
She nodded against his neck, her tears coming once more too hard for her to be able to speak. The arms around her tightened again as she began to tremble, and Sydney shushed at her softly into her ear more than once. He was determined that, at least once in her life, she be given the space, the time, and the emotional support she'd need to grieve for the loss of a loved one in a way that didn't do more harm than good.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The silence in Sam's car was deafening and had been for the better part of the trip. Were it not for the sound of the well-tuned motor purring in the background, both sweepers would have been ready to react explosively and violently at the first threatening sound. Sam sat stoically behind the wheel, steering the car on its way north-west to Dover, while Willy sat in the passenger seat next to him, pondering and reeling from the series of events that had landed him there in the first place. Willy was all too aware that Sam detested him with a passion - a by-product of years of being at odds over just about everything due to his boss being in perpetual conflict with Sam's. It was obvious that, at that very moment, only Miss Parker's orders were preventing the burly ex-wrestler from stopping the car, climbing out, and settling their 'differences' in a more traditional manner.
"Where in Dover?" Sam asked in a terse monotone.
"South-east end," Willy answered back in a similar monotone. "Outside of town by a mile or so, just off Highway 1."
Sam nodded. "How many sweepers on-site?"
"Two in front, two in rear. The house is a locked facility - fairly remote, removed from the road by trees and an open lawn." Willy recounted the information he'd gathered just before he'd gone looking for Miss Parker. "It's a boring sweeper assignment - remote and small-scale research facility - they're likely to be not prepared for much in the short term."
"What about inside?"
"A couple of clericals and research assistants for Dr. Grey, a staff cook and a general housekeeper for Shadow's upkeep. Counting Shadow and Grey, eight people during daylight hours. Most days, their shift ends at five, and they all go home to Dover. The sweepers are on eight-hour shifts, three sets."
Sam was silent for a while, stewing. Then, "I can't believe you were ordered to sanction the whole staff. Pardon the pun, but that's a pretty bad case of overkill."
The dark sweeper in the passenger seat turned his head to stare out the side window next to him. "I don't know that Mr. Raines wanted me to stop at just staff. When I mentioned the ruckus the families would raise, he insisted that he wanted it ALL to go away."
"Christ!" Sam shook his head in disbelief. "Has he lost his mind?" Willy shrugged in response, and Sam grimaced at the gesture. "Then again, I should wonder..."
"That's the driveway!" Willy stated suddenly, pointing. "We're still out of sight of the front team, though. Pull over there..."
Sam followed his companion's directions to pull the car behind some bushes, then turned to the dark sweeper once the car engine was turned off. "OK, Einstein. What was your brilliant plan for doing this? You have one, I hope..."
Willy reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a paper, which he unfolded to reveal a diagram of the facility grounds. "The front security stations are here and here," he pointed to two red X's, "with the back two stations here and here." The finger moved to the other marks. "There are two of us, and two in front. We can get in closer if we stick to the trees until THIS point." The finger stabbed another spot on the diagram. "Then we coordinate, and we can take the two front guys out easily. There's no line of sight between front and back - so we can waltz in the front door. Mr. Raines had the key card to the door delivered to me already, so the door's not a problem. Provided we take the front guys out quickly, the back guys won't even know anything is wrong. Once inside, we grab Shadow, Grey if he's still on grounds, warn the rest of the interior staff to go home, pack up the kiddies and scram, then beat it ourselves."
Willy turned his wrist and looked at his watch. "It's four forty-five. Five is when the interior staff start taking off - the back sweepers will be used to seeing folks leaving the building and heading for cars about then. We mix with them to leave the building without being noticed, then make for these trees here on the other side of the parking lot," the finger moved on the diagram yet again, "and then we'll be in the clear. The back sweepers won't know anything's wrong until their shift-change arrives at six."
"Alright," Sam had to agree that Willy's plan was both do-able and logical. "But I'm lead on this. You do as I say - got it?"
"Got it." Willy's voice was resigned. He hadn't expected anything else - and knew that his fate rested in what Sam reported back to Miss Parker once they were done.
"And we don't kill the sweepers we take out - we stun 'em and leave 'em there." Sam's voice was adamant, and he poked Willy in the chest to punctuate his decision. "We take their walkie-talkies and, once we're clear and on the road out of there, call back to the other guys, let 'em know what was going to go down, what just DID go down, and warn them off too." Sam's dark eyes glared at the passenger in the car. "We give 'em ALL a chance to scoot and save their skins. Got it?"
"Got it," the dark sweeper repeated with far less reluctance. That was just simple internal sweeper loyalty to the corps - easy to understand, even easier to live with. It was a helluva lot easier to live with Sam's order than with the idea of killing twelve of his own kind. "Good idea."
"Let's move."
The two big men moved equally stealthily through the stand of birch and maple trees that surrounded the facility itself until they could see the two sweepers stationed in front of the building. Each of the guards had a small kiosk, with binoculars and rifles seemingly at the ready. Sam grabbed Willy's arm to get his attention, pointed to a spot very close to the far kiosk, then brought up his own wristwatch. He indicated that they each would have two minutes to move into position, and then spring, then pushed at his fellow sweeper to get him moving.
The two front sweepers, like Willy had speculated, really WEREN'T ready for any assault on their post. Both went down without much noise whatever and were left safely stowed within the kiosk until they regained consciousness. The front security posts secured, the two invading sweepers walked quickly to the front door, swiped the key card in the lock and stepped inside.
One by one, the two sweepers cornered the interior support staff, informed them of their peril, and advised them to prepare to leave. Then, with Willy under orders to prevent any of the staff from making a run for it prematurely, Sam headed off down the little hallway toward the locked door that opened into a smaller and more modern version of the Sim Lab at the Centre itself. A tall and thin man with a full head of grey hair raised his head impatiently as the sweeper approached, obviously having been interrupted in something he felt was important.
"What is it? Don't you know you're not supposed to..."
"Don't talk, listen," Sam ordered in a no-nonsense tone, bringing the sandy-haired head of the younger man seated at the table up sharply. "The Centre is closing down your project here. There has been a sanction issued on your lives. Come with me if you want to live through the next hour."
"Vernon..." the younger man hesitated, looking up at what was obviously the one person whose orders he was USED to following.
The hazel eyes of the psychiatrist studied the face and expression of the intimidating figure before him, then nodded. "C'mon, Kevin - I think we need to do as this gentleman says." He leaned toward the sweeper. "Under whose orders..."
"Mr. Raines has authorized the sanction," Sam blurted bluntly, in hopes that the name and the finality of the situation would come quickly to roost and prevent problems. "I'm here on the authority of SIS and the Triumverate to make sure nothing untoward happens to you or your associate here."
The hazel eyes widened in shock, and then the older man bent to pull at his younger comrade's arm. "Kevin - let's MOVE!!"
The younger man rose instantly at his mentor's touch, and the two of them followed Sam back out through the doors and down the hallway to where they joined up with the rest of the staff and Willy. Sam whistled softly to get everyone's attention.
"OK. Now listen up," Sam began in a tone that invited both confidence and trust. "The only thing that will be different today than it has been all the other days you folks left for home is that you won't be coming back. Don't panic. The sweepers by the parking lot know nothing of the sanction - actually, they don't know that the sanction includes them. So just make your way to your cars like you normally do and drive off as if this were any other day. Go home, gather your loved ones, and get the hell outta Dover and don't stop driving for a few days."
The sea of faces in front of him grew thoughtful and a little less fearful, and eventually all of them were nodding. "You two," he pointed to Kevin and Grey, "will stick with us. We're going to be mixing with the rest of you. Don't do anything that would call attention to us. Keep your wits about you, and we'll all make it out of here in one piece. Is everybody with me?"
There were a few "got it's" and "yup's", and all the heads nodded again.
"OK, folks. Let's do this." Sam opened the back door. "A few at a time, like normal, OK?"
Slowly the inside staff made their way out the back door and ambled toward the collection of cars in the small parking lot near the barn, none of them paying much attention to the four extra people walking with them. The sweepers in the kiosk glanced in their direction and obviously down at their watches, but otherwise didn't pay them much attention. Sam and Willy each led one of their two prizes between cars and then ducked down and sprinted into the copse of trees at the back end of the property. Then the two escorted their charges quickly through the underbrush, making as little noise as possible, until they had circumnavigated the property to the front and were only a little ways from their hidden car.
Many of the staff vehicles had already left the property, and Willy and Sam stuffed their charges unceremoniously in the back seat of the big town car and backed out of the drive themselves. Sam put them immediately on a direct route back to Blue Cove, while Willy dragged the small and powerful walkie-talkie out of his jacket pocket, where he's stowed it after taking down the one sweeper.
"This is an official warning," he rumbled ominously at the device. "The Chairman has decided to put an end to the project house here, and has levied a complete sanction of all personnel at this facility - sweepers included. Certain persons in authority have come to your aid - and you are advised to pick up your companions in front and get the hell outta Dodge. Don't go back to the Centre, and don't remain in Dover, if you know what's good for you."
The little speaker crackled. "Who the hell IS this? What are you doing with..."
"Shut up and listen, dip-stick," Willy snapped. "At this moment, you're guarding an abandoned building. You DON'T want to be there when the sanction team gets there. Move it."
"Hey Chuck," the speaker squawked again, "the guy's right. There isn't a soul in the house!"
"What the hell..." the first voice muttered. "And Harry and Kip have been taken out - they're down and out at their posts!"
"Pick 'em up and move 'em out," Willy warned again. "Now!"
"Hey, Manny, Centre vehicle in the drive," the second voice announced in an excited tone.
"Get out of there!" Willy yelled into the walkie-talkie, only to hear the sounds of a gunshot and then only static.
"Where are you taking us?" a very diminished-sounding older voice asked from the back seat.
Sam looked up into the rear view mirror at the two men who, oddly, were huddled together for mutual support - the older man obviously as dependent on his younger protégé at the moment as the young man was on his mentor. "Someplace safe, I promise," he reassured them, then looked over at Willy with a calculating gaze. "Good plan," he commented, then turned his eye back to the road.
Willy nodded his appreciation of the assessment, then turned to stare out the window next to him again. With any luck, he'd just bought himself a ticket to survival. He'd find out in little over an hour.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Miss Parker's nose itched, and she twitched it back and forth and then rubbed it with an impatient hand and found herself rousing. For a short moment she wasn't quite sure where she was - until she realized that her head was resting against someone's shoulder, and that that someone was holding her gently and breathing deeply and evenly into her ear. Her eyes blinked open, and she found herself staring at the underside of Sydney's lightly-grizzled chin. She shifted slightly to ease her posture, feeling not only his arms tighten and his breathing catch as she roused him from his dozing, but the afghan that had been carefully laid across her back and shoulders fall away, leaving her slightly chilled.
"I'm sorry, Syd," she murmured softly the moment she knew that the older man was once more awake. "I didn't mean to..."
He shook his head gently against her forehead. "You cried yourself to sleep," Sydney told her quietly, one hand retrieving the fallen afghan and repositioning it.
"I gathered that, but you didn't need to serve as my pillow," she responded in chagrin, straightening up a bit and catching at the afghan herself this time before it could fall away.
"I wouldn't let Jarod rouse you. You needed this rest," he insisted softly.
"I love you, Syd," she bent forward and kissed Sydney's cheek gently. "And as much as I appreciate it, I'm afraid that none of us have the time to just sit right now - there's too much else is going on that I haven't had a chance to tell you." She wiped at her face as if in afterthought, knowing the mascara had probably already made a mess.
"What do you mean?" Sydney asked, puzzled.
"I need to bring Jarod in. He needs to hear this too," she realized suddenly and carefully pushed herself out of Sydney's still-encircling embrace and rose to go to the door. "Jarod? Can you come up, please?"
"On my way," she heard him call from the far reaches of the house, then turned and returned to her seat next to Sydney.
"I didn't even ask you how YOU were feeling when I got here. How thoughtless can I be?" she berated herself.
"Don't worry about it," he soothed, running a hand up and down her arm. "I've felt better, I'll admit, but I'm managing. I told you - you were tired, and you've had other things on your mind. Besides, I dozed a little myself after you fell asleep..."
Jarod knocked on the doorjamb and pushed the door open slowly. "Is something wrong?" His eyes sought out hers. "Rest well?"
"Nothing's wrong, Jarod, I'd just rather not have to tell my story more than once, if you don't mind," she said with a voice that, in retrospect, sounded sharper than she intended. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound rude." She reached out an apologetic hand "Yes, I did rest well, thanks - I just didn't expect to fall asleep at all, though... Sorry about that..."
"Don't worry about it," Jarod echoed Sydney's words as he moved to the other side of the bed to find a seat where he could see them both. "No harm, no foul. Now, what story?"
She took in a deep breath, held it, then let it out again in a noisy sigh. "First of all, Lyle is dead," she announced without preamble.
"What?!" Sydney gaped.
Jarod's eyes narrowed. "Damn it!" he spat. "I've spent the better part of the day simming my way through any number of really GOOD pay-back scenarios. I feel cheated, somehow." He looked at Sydney and Miss Parker, who were staring at him with wide eyes. "You don't blame me, do you?"
Sydney shook his head with a heavy sigh. "Not really, I suppose - not after everything else." He looked back at Miss Parker. "What happened to him? How'd he die?"
"Nobody knows for sure who is responsible," she continued tiredly. "All I know for sure is that the autopsy reports that his left knee was shattered by blunt force, he was strangled with something thin - wire, perhaps - and that he had his other thumb cut off and stuffed into his mouth."
"That sounds like Yakuza to me," Jarod commented wryly. "He must have said something they didn't like..."
"I don't know about that, but Raines' reaction to that and the first nibbles from the Triumverate about the information you started feeding them has been pretty extreme, according to Willy."
Both men swiveled their heads quickly to stare at her. "Willy?!" "Raines' sweeper?!"
She nodded. "He came to me just about the time I was getting ready to leave. Seems Raines' has his underwear in a very tight knot right now - and has done the unforgivable." She looked back and forth between two very expectant faces. "He threatened Willy with the same fate Lyle suffered if he didn't carry out sanctions on everybody at the facility in Dover." She turned her gaze on Jarod. "On Shadow and all his support staff. He gave him 24 hours to make it all go away."
"Geez! We'll have to move everything up..." Jarod jumped up and began pacing.
"Hold it!" she waved at him, making him pause and turn to look at her. "I called Sam, and sent the two of them over to retrieve Shadow and his keeper tonight, before anything else happens. They're to bring them here when things are secured."
"Here?" Sydney gaped. "Are you sure that's safe?"
"What if Willy sees me and goes running to Raines?" Jarod added.
"Look, I didn't know you'd be here, Jarod. I just knew that I didn't want him near Davy or Debbie. And besides, he's offered to turn himself over to the Triumverate and spill his guts." Miss Parker sighed and ran a hand over her eyes. "Seems that now that he thinks Raines is ready to hang him out to dry, he's more than willing to return the favor."
Sydney had a thoughtful expression on his face. "I have often wondered how long it would be until Raines' complete lack of loyalty to anyone or anything except himself came back to bite him."
"I don't know..." Jarod sounded thoroughly unconvinced. "I find it a little hard to picture Willy suddenly having this fit of conscience when he so willingly helped YOU along to a perforated ulcer without a single qualm," he grumbled at her.
She shrugged. "Amazing what lengths the unethical will go to save their own skins," she offered with a dry tone. "Frankly, I'm all for turning his ass over to the Triumverate. I figure they'll have some provisions for 'taking care' of him once his use as a stool pigeon on Raines is through - and to be honest, I couldn't care less what those provisions might be."
"When do you suppose they'll get here?" Sydney asked after turning his head and noticing that the light streaming through his bedroom window was once more getting quite dim.
Miss Parker tipped her wrist and peered at her watch, then looked up at the both of them in alarm. "Any time now, if everything went as planned. And speaking of the time, have either of you two given any thought to my little boy, languishing at the sitter's? I bet he's getting worried..."
"Shhhhhhh... No, he's not." Jarod reached out and patted her shoulder. "I picked Davy up while you were resting. He's downstairs right now, watching TV in Syd's den. I was going to wait until you woke up, because you said you needed to talk to me, then take him home and give you some time with Syd. Now I think maybe you should take him home yourself. Then I can help get Shadow and his keeper settled down for the night, although I'm not sure how you want to handle Willy..."
"Not here." Miss Parker sounded adamant. "I don't want him anywhere near my family."
"Jarod, didn't you used to have a refuge lair not far from here?" Sydney asked, his voice growing tighter as the pain medication that had made his comforting Miss Parker possible was beginning to wear off. "You can take Kevin and Dr. Grey with you and have Sam follow you with Willy. That should keep Shadow and his mentor beneath the Centre radar until we get in touch with the Triumverate, and," his grin was almost a grimace, "Parker can stop having a litter of kittens in every corner because her family's too close to the action."
"Smart ass," Miss Parker commented before she looked at Sydney's face, which had gotten a couple of shades paler in the few minutes they'd been talking. Her grey eyes sought out and caught Jarod's, and then led him to notice the same thing.
"OK. I think this con-flab needs to be over now, before we wear Sydney out entirely," Jarod announced brusquely as he rose. He looked down at Miss Parker. "You need to say 'good night' and take off yourself and let me get him fixed up for the night before our guests arrive. Get Davy home. I'll call you later."
She nodded, then turned to Sydney. "Good night," she repeated softly, then deposited a soft kiss on his cheek. "You be good now and do what Dr. Jarod tells you..."
"Doctor Jarod," the older man chuckled painfully, then gazed at her in concern. "You will call me if you need to talk in the night," Sydney replied, returning the kiss after catching her head in a hand. "Promise?"
"Promise," she swore, and rose. She turned at the door and waved at him. "I'll stop by tomorrow night,"
Jarod followed her out the bedroom door and down the stairs. "I still need to change his dressing," he informed her when she turned to look over her shoulder at him in concern. "I'll give him some pain meds before I do. Let me say my goodnights to Davy before you go..."
The two walked into the den and summoned their son from his viewing. Jarod squatted down to his level. "I'm not going to be at your Mom's tonight, Davy," he announced simply, "so I thought I'd say goodnight now, before she takes you home."
"Good night, Daddy," Davy said, throwing his arms around his father's neck and giving him a big hug. "Will I see you tomorrow?"
"With any luck," Jarod said, returning the hug and then setting his son back and drawing himself to his full height. "And you rest well too," he ordered Miss Parker with a hand laid gently on her shoulder. "I'll call you when everything's settled later, OK?"
Her eyes searched his for a long moment in which she said nothing. Then she rose on her toes, balancing with one hand on his shoulder in return and then deposited a very soft and tentative kiss on his cheek. "You be careful, Jarod. I don't trust Willy any further than I can toss him by his tail. You WATCH him!"
Jarod's arm slipped around her automatically, and he hugged her to him briefly, but with feeling. "I will," he reassured her. "Don't worry." Then he stepped back. "Go on, now. I'll talk to you later. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Jarod."
"Goodnight, Daddy."
"Goodnight, son."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Sam steered the car around a corner and onto a side street the moment they entered Blue Cove, then pulled to the curb and stopped.
"What the Hell..." Willy began, roused out of a near doze by the slowing movement of the car. He turned to see what was going on, only to stop moving suddenly as he caught sight of Sam's huge Smith & Wesson, pointed into his face.
"Your gun." Sam extended his empty hand. "Now."
"What the..."
"Uh-unh." Sam shook his head. "I'm not driving you one inch closer to Sydney's while you're still armed. Hand it over." His empty fingers opened and closed, punctuating his order.
Willy shook his head and carefully - o so very carefully, he knew how much Sam probably would love a reason to spray his brains all over the car window - handed over his duty handgun.
Without moving his gaze from his fellow sweeper's face, Sam deposited the extra handgun into the map pocket of his car door and then extended it again. "Good. Now the other one..."
"You've gotta be..."
"Don't." Sam's voice had a cold tone to it. "We all know you carry extra. Hand it over."
"Say," Vernon Grey's voice came over the top of the seat, "what's going on here?"
"Stow it, Doc. This man's original orders were to kill you and your friend here. And don't ever make the mistake of thinking he's changed his spots with this - he's done the same if not worse many times before," Sam said, and his face grew downright grim as he turned his full attention on the dark-skinned man next to him. "I'm going to count to three. One. Two..."
"OK! OK! Alright!" Willy capitulated and reached toward his right leg.
"Slowly!" Sam ordered, pushing the gun closer to its target.
Again, using only his fingertips, Willy extracted the derringer from his leg holster and held it out to Sam, who snatched it away and stowed it with the other gun in the map pocket.
"Now, both hands on the dash and leave them there."
Left with little choice, Willy did as ordered, and then suffered through a very thorough pat-down despite his position in the car.
"Open the door slowly and get out."
This time he frowned again and turned toward the gun. "You've got to be kidding!"
"Do I look like I'm kidding? Out! Slowly!" Sam thrust the barrel of the gun into Willy's ribs.
The dark sweeper sighed and did as he was asked, noting that Sam scooted across the bench seat and climbed out of the car right after him after pushing the button that opened the trunk. The gun barrel motioned, and Willy paused long enough to give Sam a dirty look before heading to the back of the car. "Get in," Sam ordered the obvious. With another dirty glance over his shoulder, Willy began to do just that.
"This is for making Miss Parker sick," Sam said behind him and swung the butt of his pistol down hard on the dark sweepers skull, and the man tumbled limply into the open trunk. Smiling grimly, Sam slammed the trunk closed, walked to the passenger side of the car to close the door, then around the hood to the driver's side and climbed in again.
"NOW we're ready to go to Sydney's," he commented more to himself than to his other two passengers, and put the car in gear.
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