Playing the Game to Win
Jun 24
Santa Luisita ~ Mission Plaza
Lyle looked around him contentedly. This was perfect! He couldn't have timed the beginning of his Hunt any better had he known that Lori Cheung would be speaking at a Santa Luisita Mission Art Council Exposition beforehand. As it was, this would give him an opportunity to let the local media become unknowingly complicit in setting the trap for Sydney - and ultimately for Jarod.
Already the usual parade of tourists flowing through the pedestrian mall in front of the old Mission building had begun to grow in anticipation of the afternoon of speeches and demonstrations. Lyle found himself gravitating toward the gift shop to the left of the front door of the ancient church, where he could wait out the few minutes until the event got completely underway without calling attention to himself. Besides, the day was genuinely warm, and the thick, adobe walls of the old church kept the gift shop cool within. He gave a bored and cursory look to the merchandise being sold - rosaries, the inevitable plaque with those famous praying hands, crosses and crucifixes in all styles and sizes - and thanked his lucky stars that he'd never been burdened by religion.
The local media was already gathering. A television camera crew had set up their tripods not far from the fountains, and several newspaper reporters and photographers had joined them as the opening speech grew imminent. A podium had appeared on the bottom steps of the Mission from somewhere, and as he leaned nonchalantly against one of the thick adobe walls, he could see Lori Cheung standing off to the side of the group reading through her notes and practicing her speech.
God, but she was even more beautiful in person than she had been in the pictures he'd seen. Her blue-black hair hung straight down her back past her waist, and she would occasionally toss back a wayward ebony rope that would mischievously find its way around her shoulder to hang down the front of her stark white tee shirt like a snake. Her hands were small but expressive, moving gracefully in punctuation to the words that she was practicing. She was a slim and tiny little thing, but she was a dynamo who moved with the grace of a dancer. Lyle could feel his heart beginning to pound just a little bit faster just at the thought of such a woman being his - his in all the ways that were TRULY important to the Hunt, that is...
Then it was time. Lyle moved from his spot in the shade and inconspicuous background to find a place among the hangers-on that stood behind the podium. Lori began to give her speech, which Lyle ignored entirely in favor of making sure that his face was in the background but close enough that he'd show up in every shot taken by the newspaper photographers. Then, as she reached the emotional high point of her speech - the part that the television cameras had probably been called to cover - he began to keep his eyes firmly glued to her. After all, he couldn't be sure which media would reach which man first - either way, he had to call attention to himself with people for whom his mere presence in the shot would be a warning flag.
Then the speech was over, and Lori was being pressed on all sides by well wishers and fans. Lyle lost sight of her briefly when he simply was pushed out of the way but then caught up to her almost unexpectedly when the crowd thinned and left her alone to listen to the next speaker on the roster. She looked almost relieved that her moment of notoriety had passed as she was retrieving her shoulder bag from an organizer and looking for a thin spot in the crowd to make her get-away.
"I enjoyed your speech," Lyle said in a friendly tone, moving closer to her.
She looked up into his face, finding it bland and friendly, and smiled in that patient "OK, I suppose I can talk to you for a moment" expression that compliant celebrities so often get when in the midst of fans. "Thanks."
"No, really," Lyle pressed. "I was just thinking that this might just be one of the better venues for my corporation to help out. I'd hate to see the Children's Art Center have to close after all the hard work you've put in."
Her eyes went from bored to sparkling - the man sounded like just the kind of person that she'd been trying to attract to her project all along. "And just what corporation are you with, Mr...?"
"Lyle," he said kindly, putting out a hand for her to shake. "I work for an organization known as The Centre - and we've never been able to find a suitable charity to work with in this part of the country. I'd like to think that I've found something to remedy that situation with."
"Mr. Lyle?" she repeated, and he nodded. She sighed happily. "Well, if I can convince your organization to get behind the children of this county, I can guarantee you plenty of positive press."
Lyle smiled and slipped his hand very gently around her elbow. "How would you like to discuss this over lunch - my treat?"
Lori looked over her shoulder, and Lyle felt a quick breath of panic wash over him. "Well, I told my sister-in-law that I was going to meet her over at 1865 for lunch, but..." She looked at him as if taking his measure. "How long are you in Santa Luisita?"
Lyle shook his head in mock defeat. "I have to be on my way back to LA tonight, and from there back to Delaware, where we're headquartered." He put on a long face - all the better to tug at vulnerable heartstrings. "That's too bad, I was kind of hoping..."
"Hang on." Lori pulled a tiny silver cell phone from her purse and punched a couple of buttons. "Sandy? Me. Listen, I've got a potential corporate sponsor standing here wanting to buy me lunch and discuss helping out sponsor the Children's Art Gal..." She listened for a moment. "Yeah - that sounds better. I'll meet you at the gallery at about... three?"
She looked to Lyle for confirmation, and he nodded innocently and willingly. Like Hell she'd make any three o'clock appointment, he thought - and what better way to get things rolling in the media than to have her miss an appointment with a family member so soon after being visibly in his company!
"Fine, then, I'll see you there." She disconnected the call and put the phone away. "Well, Mr. Lyle, I'm all yours for lunch," she smiled up at him with her straight, white teeth, long and luxurious black hair and creamy golden skin.
"Wonderful!" he grinned down at her, making his blue-grey eyes as innocently pleased as he possibly could under the circumstances. She wouldn't know - until far too late, if things worked out properly - just how true the words she'd just spoken would be. In the meanwhile, his hold on her elbow grew just a little bit more possessive as he guided her through the crowd and toward his sports car.
His heart picked up its rhythm by just a little bit more. The opening moves of The Hunt sometimes were just TOO easy!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Blue Cove, Delaware ~ The Centre: SL - 4 (Computer Lab)
Angelo peeked through the grating of the ventilation duct at the far end of the room and studied the blinking light of the surveillance camera, still recording room activity while the lights were low and nobody was technically in the area. Soon enough, as planned, the little red light blinked twice and then extinguished, signaling the program he'd written and embedded deeply within the Centre mainframe years ago had responded to a set of directives typed in hours ago from a completely different location. The spry little man pushed through the grate and dropped silently to the floor, a couple of pieces of white paper held in his mouth to free his hands.
Moving to the nearest terminal, Angelo pressed the button that connected it to the Centre mainframe - that mammoth and labyrinthine computer entity in which all the secrets of the Centre Universe were stored, somewhere, somehow. A few more keystrokes and the scanner next to the computer initialized, after which Angelo place the first of the two sheets in it and read it into the email he'd created. In another minute, both pages had been copied and were already on their way to their destination.
Angelo quickly shut down the terminal and turned it off, ran both sheets of paper through the shredder, and pulled the grating to the vent open again. He pulled the grate closed again and headed off down the vent to one of his secret places - places where he felt the safest.
Two minutes later, the little red light on the camera blinked on.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
St. Paul, Minnesota ~ Warehouse District
In the corner, near the heavy steel door that gave entry to the lair that had been Jarod's home for the past three weeks, was the only pool of light. It didn't illuminate much of the vast and empty space - just enough so that when Jarod came through the door, he could see to find the light switch that would light up the corner that was his current apartment arrangement.
In the darkness of that sparsely furnished space, a tiny green light that was the power indicator of the powerful laptop glowed steadily. The silence of the vast room was scratched slightly as the hard drive within the apparatus worked for a little while, and then a voice announced to the empty room, "You have mail!"
Then the laptop sat with its little green light glowing steadily, waiting patiently for its owner to come back from his latest long walk in the dead of night to avoid the dreams of owls and impending doom.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
June 26
Blue Cove, Delaware ~ Washington Street
"This is Sydney."
"Syd." Miss Parker knew she need do very little else to tell the person on the other end of the line who was calling. "What time is your flight?"
Sydney sighed. She had avoided him for the last two days, evidently pushed out of shape by the fact that he hadn't told her of his plans for California before Jarod had spilled the beans. Not that there had been much of a reason for her to come looking for him anyway - Jarod was still keeping a low profile and leaving no leads whatsoever for any of them to follow. That would change sometime next week, he imagined... "Parker..."
"What time's your flight, Freud?"
"Ten o'clock out of Dover," he replied in a frustrated tone. He knew better than to try to keep the information from her - once she decided on a line of investigation, her focus was intense. "I didn't expect a bon voyage call from you, of all people..."
"It isn't. I have to drive into Dover myself this morning," she told him in a no-nonsense tone, "on business - I was thinking that if our times fit, I could save you the cab fare."
Shaggy greying eyebrows rose in surprise. "That's very kind of you, Miss Parker, but I don't want to put you to any trouble..."
"No trouble at all. So, if I'm going to get you to the airport on time to go through security, I suppose I'd better get moving..."
"Are you sure?" God knows he appreciated the lift, but the trade-off of riding for a half-hour with a pissed Miss Parker driving like a bat out of Hell wasn't his idea of a good thing.
"Are you packed?" was the response.
"As a matter of fact..."
"Then I'll be there in about five minutes." The line went dead in his ear.
Sydney shook his head and replaced the handset in the base. One of these days he'd have to talk to her about her lack of telephone etiquette - probably on a day when she was feeling particularly out of sorts anyway so that a bit of unsolicited paternal scolding wouldn't ruin anything not already damaged. Still, he was intrigued that she had evidently decided to mend fences over this latest ado with that kind of peace offering. He patted his jacket pocket - the cell phone situated therein tapped against the hard lump that was his key ring in his trousers pocket. In his vest, he could feel the round shape of the watch Michelle had given him years ago.
With a look around the house to make sure nothing was out of place, he put the beret that he always wore when travelling on his head, grabbed up his suitcase and then draped the garment bag with his tux over that arm. He walked out the front door of his house and pulled the door carefully closed after him, then locked it with both key and alarm system. Feeling like he didn't want to put Miss Parker out any further than she already was, he stepped way from the house and down to the driveway she would pull into.
A white blur swooped down from out of the tall pine trees, and a white feather drifted down through the air to land in his startled hand. The owl let loose a single, haunting "Hoo!" as it flew off over down the quiet street and vanished behind the leaves of the elm tree across the way.
Sydney stared after the owl for a long moment, then studied the perfect white feather that had evidently been the bird's gift to him. He frowned, for amid that white perfection was a spattering of what could only be blood - small, symmetrically circular and so precisely placed in the center of the feather that, if he hadn't known better, he could have sworn that human hand had painted the crimson droplet in place. What was it with owls lately, he asked himself, then tucked the feather away in his vest pocket as Miss Parker's sleek, black Boxster purred around the same corner where the owl had vanished.
Miss Parker pulled her car into the driveway and had the trunk lid popped almost before the vehicle had come to a complete halt. Sydney deposited the suitcase carefully, then closed the lid and opened the back passenger door to hang the garment bag on the hook before sliding into the passenger seat beside her. She looked over at him from behind her dark sunglasses. "All set?"
"Whenever you are," he replied, sliding the seatbelt across his lap and chest and snapping it firmly in place. He'd ridden with her often enough to know to put the harness on immediately.
"Hi-ho Silver," she quipped dryly, putting the car in reverse and backing carefully down the drive to head back the way she had come. "Dover Airport, here we come."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Dover, Delaware ~ Dover Airport Tarmac
The conversation in the car had died the moment Miss Parker had started to navigate the General Aviation side of the airport, heading toward the small hangar on the edge of the airfield that the Centre called its own. The Boxster pulled to a halt not far away from where the sleek, black Centre jet sat waiting for its cross-continental passenger. "So I'll see you on Monday then," she said as she put the vehicle in park and turned off the engine.
"Just so you know and don't get upset, I'm not going to turn my cell phone back on until AFTER my speech," Sydney told her finally - this one little piece of personal rebellion being something he didn't really want to let her see until their time together was almost through. "Knowing Mr. Raines and his real reluctance to give me permission for the time for this trip in the first place, I figure that it would just like him to manufacture a reason to call me back before then - and I won't have it."
"Wait a minute, Freud," Miss Parker put a hand on his upper arm to prevent him from sliding out of the car. "How the Hell am I going to get a hold of you in case of a REAL breadcrumb?"
"Be reasonable, Parker," he sighed, frustrated that he had to rationalize his actions to her, of all people. "By the time we get one of his breadcrumbs lately, Jarod has already been long gone. You know it, and I know it - the only people who don't seem to get it are Raines and Lyle. A few hours one way or the other for our coming along behind is simply not going to make that much difference..." With that, he pushed the car door open and escaped her grasp.
"I don't like it that you're going to be completely out of touch," she insisted, climbing from behind the steering wheel spurred on by a vague feeling of alarm. "We're a team..."
"I'm not going to be COMPLETELY out of touch, Parker," he reminded her with the garment bag already draped over an arm, closing the back passenger door. "You can always call the hotel..."
"Which hotel? You haven't told me where you're going to be," she interrupted with a glare. "You've actually been amazingly closed-mouthed about this whole thing."
"Embassy Suites is the hotel in Santa Luisita where the symposium is being held," he told her, reaching into the trunk for his suitcase. "But you're not going to need to call me, and you know it." He straightened and let his expression become imploring. "Please, Parker. Give me just a little space for a change - forty-eight hours without a Centre leash. That's all I ask."
The small voices at the back of her mind were becoming even more restless than they had been when he'd announced he was leaving his cell phone off, and her response to their increased volume was to become defensively sharp with him. "Fine. Go on, then. See you on Monday, bright and early."
Greying eyebrows pulled together unhappily over his chestnut eyes; but with Miss Parker in this kind of mood, he knew there would be no approaching her. He sighed again. "Have a good weekend, Miss Parker." He turned away to walk toward the jet.
The sight of his broad back turned to her as he walked away kicked the voices in the back of her mind from a subtle whisper into a cacophony. Daddy had looked something like that in the moment before he'd plunged out the open cargo door of the jet over the stormy, nighttime Atlantic. Tommy had looked something like that to her sleepy eyes as he had gotten up to start the coffee and take a shower the morning she'd found him murdered on the porch. Even her last memory of her mother was of Catherine walking away to get in the elevator after giving her the gift that had lain unopened in her closet for years. When people walked away like that, they had this ugly habit of never coming back...
"Sydney, wait!"
The odd tone of her call halted the Belgian in his tracks, and he turned just in time to see her break into a trot to catch up with him. The moment she was close enough, she had her arms up and around his neck. Stunned, Sydney dropped his suitcase to the ground so that he had his arms relatively free as he bent and caught her to him. He held her silently for a moment, and then in a softer voice asked into the hair by her ear, "Hey! What's this?"
"Don't ask me to explain it," she began, hanging onto him tightly, "but I have the most awful feeling... Don't go, Sydney. Please!"
"Hush." His arms tightened about her comfortingly for a moment, and then he was setting her away just a little so that he could look into her face with a hand cupped gently about a cheek. "This is just a weekend jaunt, Parker. Nothing's going to happen to me."
"But..."
She genuinely was fearful for him, and he was touched beyond measure that she was actually letting this sudden vulnerability show. "I'll call you when I get to my hotel room and give you the number there, so that you know I got there safely. Will that help?"
The storm-grey of her eyes showed her disappointment, and she slowly pulled her arms from around his neck so that her hands just rested gently against his chest, where she toyed with the lapels of his sports jacket. "I can't convince you to just... NOT..."
He could see that she wasn't doing this just on a whim - something had her spooked, and badly. Still... "I need to do this, Parker. This is the kind of recognition every researcher hopes will come their way just once in a lifetime." He pulled her head forward so that he could drop a gentle kiss on her forehead. "I'll call when I get to my room, and I WILL see you again on Monday morning. My cell phone will be on from Saturday evening on, so you can call me if you need to talk." He swept her hair back from her face. "And when I get back, we WILL talk about this - I promise." He gazed into her face with more fondness in his expression than he'd allowed himself to show her for decades and allowed a thumb to gently outline a cheekbone. "It will be all right, ma petite. Don't worry so."
Her face lost what little color it had had left. He was going, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. "Be careful, Sydney - I l..." No, she caught herself before she could show him the depths of her vulnerability. "I'll miss you," she said instead softly, withdrawing and beginning to feel embarrassed by her emotional display.
He let her withdraw to a safe distance as her habitual defenses stubbornly insisted on reasserting themselves, then bent to retrieve his suitcase from where it had landed on the asphalt. "I promise I'll call you when I get in. I'll probably have left a message on your machine by the time you get home."
She backed away from him a few steps and wrapped her arms around herself as if chilled. "Goodbye, Syd."
"See you later, Parker. Have a good weekend."
And with that, he again turned and headed for the jet. Miss Parker stood and watched then as the sweeper assigned to the jet as steward for the flight raised the steps just before the jet engines wound themselves up more tightly and the sleek black jet began to move. She stood with arms folded tightly around herself as the little jet taxied to the end of the runway and then made its run into the air
When she turned back to her car and her errand, she felt as if a very important part of her world had dropped unexpectedly away - and she didn't like that hollow feeling one bit. The voices in the back of her mind had dropped back to a mournful whimper of loss - and to have that feeling be about Sydney, of all people, was disturbing.
This was going to be a VERY long weekend.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
St. Paul, Minnesota ~ Warehouse District
"Damn it, Sydney, pick up!" Jarod snapped, listening to the ringing of Sydney's cell phone. After two more rings, he muttered a slightly more colorful curse that he'd learned on a Pretend as a longshoreman not that long ago and punched a button to end that call and then punched in another number and waited. He sighed deeply when he finally did hear his mentor's voice - this time a recorded message:
"This is Sydney. I am away from the phone right now, so if you would please leave a message..."
"SHIT!" The Pretender disconnected and dropped his hand to the table next to the laptop. There, on the screen, was the email that Angelo had sent him - with the documents that had him scrambling to reach Sydney as quickly as possible. Jarod read the two-page memo one more time, as if having a hard time believing the Centre to be so paranoid that it would genuinely consider having poison-containing capsules implanted in its top-level personnel. Even Mr. Raines had one - courtesy of Mr. Parker and his need to control his people - and probably didn't know about it anymore than any of the rest of them did. The memo was from Mr. Parker to the Triumvirate, announcing completion of the implantation process and listing the people involved:
Lyle
Raines
Cox
White
Miss Parker
Broots
Sydney
Angelo
Even Brigitte had had one too.
The list continued for twenty-eight names, all of them people at the pinnacle of the power structure of the part of the Centre they worked at or with close personal ties to others in such a position. The memo didn't detail how the implants had been put in place, only that the task was completed. It then listed the combination of chemicals that would trigger the disintegration of the implant to release the poison if the need for such action were deemed necessary.
Miss Parker. Broots. Sydney.
These were names he didn't want to see on a list like this - and he picked up his cell phone and pushed another programmed number. He then sat there while the phone rang the requisite four times before: "I'm assuming you know whom you're calling, or you wouldn't still be listening to a stupid machine. Leave a message - you know the routine," Miss Parker's voice announced in a dry and mocking tone.
He decided to take a chance that the Centre wasn't currently monitoring her incoming calls at home. "Parker, it's Jarod. I need to talk to you - and to Sydney and Broots too. I'll try to call back later. It's urgent - and this is no game. Don't go back into work, whatever you do." He hung up, then dialed another number from memory.
"This is Broots... uh... the Computer Lab..."
"Mr. Broots - thank God!"
"Ja... My God!" He heard a scooting noise, and then Broots answered him, obviously lowering his voice so as not to be overheard. "What the heck are you calling me HERE for?"
"Believe me, if it weren't important, I wouldn't be calling you there, Mr. Broots. Where are Sydney and Miss Parker?"
Broots scratched his head. The Pretender they had spent over five years chasing was asking HIM where the other members of his search team had gone? Surprise made him honest. "Miss Parker has gone in to get some documents from the Dover office - and Sydney's gone for his vacation in California..."
"Listen to me," Jarod said intensely. "Start sneezing, start complaining of a headache, ANYTHING, but get yourself out of the Centre now and into the office of a doctor that has nothing to do with the Centre. Tell them..."
"What do you mean, get myself..."
"Shut up, Mr. Broots, and listen. Have the doctor do an x-ray of your gastrointestinal tract, and be prepared to have surgery to remove anything he finds there."
Jarod closed his eyes as the sinister beauty of the failsafe plan came clear to him as he talked to the computer wizard on Miss Parker's payroll. All it would take would be a pellet into the Computer Lab's coffee pot - the addition of a compound that would be utterly harmless to anybody else who worked there but deadly for a decent man with a young daughter who depended upon him!
He was a decent man who was also being frustratingly obtuse for a Friday morning. "What the Hell..."
"Just do it, Mr. Broots. Your life depends on it. Literally." That stunned the Centre employee into silence. "And tell Miss Parker to check her messages and expect my call."
"Y...you're sure?" Broots' voice was soft and definitely shaken now.
Jarod started typing, forwarding the email that he'd gotten from Angelo after carefully deleting all the header information that would tell where the original had come from to anybody who knew how to read the information properly. There was no need to give the search team any more information than it absolutely needed right now. "Turn on your email client," the Pretender directly curtly. "Print a copy of what I'm sending you so you can show it to Miss Parker, then make sure the incoming email is completely deleted from the mainframe." He hit the Send button. "But I suggest you read this someplace private - like at home, in the bathroom, in case you have to throw up after reading it."
"Geez!"
Jarod could hear the computer terminal in the distance on the other end of the line sing out in that bland woman's voice, "You've got mail!" He closed his eyes. That was maybe one good person's life saved. "Go now, Broots. Get the Hell outta there."
"Shit!" He was sure the technician's expletive had slipped out unnoticed and sighed. Broots must have scanned the memo superficially and now knew the urgency Jarod had felt. "What about Miss Parker and Sydney?"
"You talk to Miss Parker as soon as you can. I'll take care of Sydney."
Broots' voice was hesitant. "I... uh... don't know what to say..."
"Consider it a gift to your daughter," Jarod said with a sad smile. "Take care of yourself, Mr. Broots." He closed the connection and then opened up the browser on the laptop. In a few keystrokes he had booked himself passage on the next flight to California and paid for it using Centre funds Lyle had squirreled away in a secret account. Pleased at the ease of putting these new plans into effect, he shut the laptop down and disconnected it.
He looked around the mostly empty warehouse loft. Other than the laptop case at the end of the table, a sofa on which a duffelbag had served as a pillow, a television/VCR on the floor near the sofa and a coffee table stacked high with books on the American underworld, there really wasn't much to leave behind. He reached into the laptop case and pulled out the red notebook that held clippings and notes from this latest Pretend - everything up to and including the suicides that had been the unhappy punctuation that ended the entire process - and left it on the table in plain sight. Whoever came after him would find it - it was a trademark, after all - but they would find little else here to tell them where he'd gone next.
He'd call Miss Parker again later. But for now, he needed to get going to get to Sydney before anybody else did...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Dover, Delaware ~ Urgent Care Medical Group
The doctor came back into the examination room, and Broots' heart sank. The physician had a genuinely confused look on his face. "For a moment there, I was wondering if you were just dreaming, Mr. Broots," Doctor Weiss said as he turned on the x-ray viewer. "Then I saw this." He snapped the x-ray he'd just taken of Broots' stomach into place and pointed.
There it was - and Broots thought for a moment that he was going to lose both his breakfast and that cola he'd had on the drive up here. Small and lodged into the lining of his stomach was a capsule-shaped object. "What is it?" he asked in a very small voice.
"I'm not exactly sure," Weiss shook his head, "anymore than I'm sure what it's made of."
"I want it GONE!" Broots' voice was raised and almost panic-stricken. "NOW!"
"Calm yourself, Mr. Broots. I can make an appointment for outpatient surgery for you in the morning..."
Broots put his hand over his abdomen and tried not to think about what his body had been carrying around inside it. "As long as I get rid of it," he said vehemently.
Weiss nodded his head and began writing. He supposed that if he'd just found out that he had something that strange and unidentified inside HIS body, he'd be upset as well. "I want you to take this prescription and have it filled and take one pill this afternoon and one this evening. That will neutralize any excess acidity in your stomach caused by stress that might damage this... whatever it is. No food by mouth after midnight..."
Broots nodded while listening to the instructions with only a fraction of his attention. The Centre had done this to him - made him a walking time bomb! And not only him, but Miss Parker and Sydney too! What kind of place would do such a thing - and what did it say about HIM that he worked for that place?
Maybe it was time to re-assess whether his paycheck - generous for one of his position - was worth the risk any longer?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Santa Luisita, California ~ Embassy Suites - Front Lobby
"Sydney!"
Sydney turned away from the registration desk, keycard envelope in hand, to see Phillip Warner walking across the posh lobby tucking a newspaper under his arm. "Phillip!" he called back, tucking the keycard envelope into the breast pocket of his jacket and then thrusting out his hand in welcome. "It's been a long time!"
"Yes, it has. Let me look at you." Sydney returned the favor, finding his friend several years older than he'd been the last time he saw him, but still in fine shape otherwise. The hair on the top of the man's head was sparser - but no more so than his own. "Do I remember properly, or is my mind playing tricks with me in telling me that you're one of the major organizers of this?"
Warner's dark eyes were dancing. "No, your mind is a sharp as ever. As a matter of fact, I've been hanging around the lobby here hoping I'd be able to catch you before you went up. There's been a slight change of scheduling for the speeches tomorrow." He looked and saw that Sydney was still carrying his luggage. "Why don't you go get yourself settled in and changed, and then meet me in the lounge in about an hour? We can head over to the banquet dinner from there."
"That sounds like an excellent idea." Sydney smiled. "I'll see you in an hour." He shook hands again and, after looking around to locate the bank of elevators, headed off.
Warner's smile of welcome faded, and his dark eyes sought out the crystal blue-greys that had been watching his every move. The face behind those eyes showed dismay and pique. The subtle approach hadn't been good enough - the fact that Lyle's face was clearly visible on the front of the newspaper which Warner had carefully folded to show the picture of the missing Cheung woman had been missed entirely by the travel-worn Centre psychiatrist.
Warner found reason to move in Lyle's direction. "He didn't see it," the psychiatrist said, explaining the obvious.
"No shit," Lyle spat. "Make SURE he sees it while you two are having drinks tonight. My timeframe on this is very tight - I need him aware that I'm in the area tonight before the dinner."
"Yes, sir," Warner nodded vigorously. "You can count on me."
"Be sure that I can," Lyle hissed, pulling the man's arm so that he was hissing almost directly into his ear. "We wouldn't want any word of that cute little insurance agent's suicide to leak out, now, would we?"
Warner's gaze became an uncomfortable mixture of nervous and furious. "There was nothing..."
"C'mon, Doc. You know and I know you were getting a little on the side while helping her with her depression. But how were you to know that she would suddenly turn suicidal when you made her pregnant.?" Lyle's predatory smile was triumphant. It had been convenient that the Triumvirate had been willing to give him dirt to use to motivate some of the attendees to this soiree into helping him bait his trap. It was even more satisfying to see that fury in the older man's eyes grow hotter even as the realization of its impotence grew. "Just make sure Sydney sees that damned picture."
"I told you I'd do it," Warner hissed back, pulling his arm free. He straightened his tie nervously and stalked away from Lyle fuming.
Lyle looked around to make sure no note had been taken of their quiet altercation before heading for the parking lot. He had some free time now before having to be present to snap the trapdoor shut on Sydney - and he had just the place to go and person with whom to spend that time.
She should be waking up again just about now, he smiled to himself coldly. Time to have some fun.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Blue Cove, Delaware ~ Miss Parker's home
"I'm assuming you know whom you're calling, or you wouldn't still be listening to a stupid machine. Leave a message - you know the routine." BEEP
"Parker, it's Sydney - and I'm calling to tell you I made it here safely, as I promised. I'm at the Embassy Suites, room 407. The number here is 805-54..." Sydney rattled off the phone number from the telephone sitting on the nightstand in front of him. "I'll be out most of the evening, and I'll have my cell phone off most of tomorrow. Leave a message if you need to talk, and I'll call you back."
Sydney hung up the phone and moved to the closet where he'd hung the garment bag. Maybe he could take a quick shower before climbing into that monkey suit for the banquet. Why did they have to make those things black tie and tux all the time?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Denver, Colorado ~ Mile-High Airport
Jarod was fit to be tied. He was inside the airport terminal, looking out across the runway system upon which nothing was moving whatsoever, thanks to the violent storm that had moved directly overhead. Just landing at Denver, where he would catch a connecting flight to Phoenix and from there directly into Santa Luisita, had been a chancy proposition. The passenger jet had weathered some rough weather in making their final approach, and the storm had broken over them not long after they'd made it to the ground. As he'd rushed to get to the gate of his connecting flight, he heard some of the others in the terminal chattering excitedly about the funnel cloud that had been sighted crossing the runways.
And now the voice on the terminal-wide intercom had just announced there would be no further flights into or out of Denver until the weather cleared substantially - which might take until after midnight. There was little he could do now but wait.
No, that wasn't right. He had at least one phone call left to make. She should be home by now, he figured. He twisted his wrist to check the time, then pulled out his cell phone and punched the number at the top of his programmed list.
"What?" She didn't sound quite as angry - maybe because for a change he hadn't called her so late that he'd awakened her out of a sound sleep.
"I want you to take a drive tomorrow - get as far away from Blue Cove and the Centre as you can, and then..."
"What the Hell is this all about, Jarod?" she demanded harshly. "You leave a doom and gloom message on my machine and then have the unmitigated balls not to call back until just NOW?"
"Parker, you're right, I'm sorry - now will you shut up and listen?"
"...And Broots - I find out when I get back to the office that he got a mysterious call too - and then left work early. And when I called Debbie to find out how he was, I find out he's scheduled for laproscopic abdominal surgery in Dover tomorrow morning? What is going on?"
Jarod walked over to lean a tired forehead against the warm glass of the terminal window. "Are you through?"
"Talk to me, Jarod." Her voice was low, threatening - worried.
"You need to go see a doctor tomorrow morning - somebody not associated with the Centre at all." He sighed. "I was hoping Broots would find you and give you the information before he took himself out of the picture."
"WHAT information?" she fairly screamed at him.
"You have an implant..." Jarod began to pace back and forth. He knew this was going to sound very far-fetched, and that in her position he would have a hard time believing what he was going to tell her. "Mr. Parker instituted a fail-safe mechanism in all his key personnel and their closest family members in order to assure loyalty and security."
"An implant?"
"Poison, Parker. Encased in a capsule that is impervious to normal digestive juices but, if enhanced by intake of a chemical compound that is otherwise harmless, will dissolve to release a rather nasty poison."
"You're lying."
Jarod sighed. "God, I wish I were, Parker. You have it, Broots has it, Sydney has it - so does Raines, Lyle, Cox, White, and any number of others. Even Brigitte had one."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. "You have proof?"
"I have a copy of the memo your... Mr. Parker sent to the Triumvirate, telling them that the process was complete."
Another moment of silence. "Damn! And that's why Broots..."
"I called him after I called you."
"What about Sydney?" That whisper of worry that had never left the back of her mind had blossomed into a moan.
"I'm on my way to make sure Sydney gets his taken care of too, Parker. Don't worry."
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," she said in a brittle tone. "Where did you get the information?"
Jarod shook his head and smiled sadly. "I still have contacts within the Centre, you know this..." She was silent for a long moment. "Parker? You still there?"
"Yeah," she answered finally. "Thanks, Jarod. I owe you one."
He disconnected the call and stopped his pacing to lean against the glass once more with eyes closed. That call completed meant there were two decent people safe now.
Feeling slightly better, he decided to head off in the direction of a set of comfortable-looking seats. He reached into his duffelbag and hauled out his computer and activated the wireless modem. He had time on his hands with nothing to do - perhaps he could chase down some information on the West Coast Psychiatric Society while he was waiting. At least he could find out just who it was that had decided to honor Sydney so unexpectedly.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Santa Luisita, California ~ Embassy Suites Hotel - Lounge
"So you mean your boss almost wouldn't let you have the time to..." Warner was incredulous. "Surely he understood..."
"You'd have to know my employer, Phillip," Sydney shook his head in frustration. "He prefers his people plan their vacations years in advance. And my expertise is needed on a sporadic and very random basis, whenever evidence is acquired normally. I'm sure he doesn't want to have to wait for a psychological reading..."
Warner shook his head. "One of these days, you'll have to tell me all about this Centre you work for, Sydney. Right now, however, I'm gonna duck into the back room for a second - and then we can head over to the banquet hall. We don't want to be late for dinner..."
Sydney watched his friend head to the back of the lounge, where the restrooms were located. It had been refreshing to catch up on nearly six years' worth of news from around the psychiatric community, from which he'd been virtually estranged due to the nature of his job. He tossed back the end of his Chivas and put the old fashioned glass back down on the bar next to the newspaper that Phillip had been carrying around with him. Bored while waiting, he opened the folded paper to glance at the front page, and then frowned.
The picture wasn't the sharpest, but even Sydney's tired eyes couldn't help picking Lyle's face out of the crowd behind the pretty oriental woman speaking at some sort of event. Sydney opened the paper further. "Local Activist Missing" was the headline, and his heart did an extra thump. Surely the more sinister Parker twin wouldn't have taken someone to feed his obscene habit whose absence would cause notice?
He read the story, and his suspicion grew. Lori Cheung had vanished not long after this picture had been taken - and her family had reported her disappearance when she missed meeting up with a sister-in-law at the art gallery she had been promoting. Her car had been found still parked in the parking structure not far away, but no signs of her whereabouts had surfaced.
"Are you just about ready to go?" Warner asked, laying down a twenty-dollar bill on the bar to pay for the last round of drinks.
Sydney folded the newspaper and pointed to the picture. "This just caught my eye..."
"Oh yeah, that." Warner sounded bored. "It's been all over the local news - some local artist gal just up and vanishes." He jerked his head. "Let's go - we don't want to be late." With a final suspicious glance at the newspaper, Sydney rose from his stool and followed his friend from the lounge.
In one of the booths along the back wall of the lounge, Lyle's eyes began to glitter. The trap was baited, and the prey was getting curious. Somewhere in the meal he was about to consume would be the substance that would put a very small number to the psychiatrist's remaining days on this earth. All it would take now would be another nudge that couldn't be ignored, and Sydney would be caught. And once he had Sydney, he had the key to Jarod.
He sipped at his Crown Regal patiently. All was going like clockwork. Let the games begin!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Blue Cove, Delaware ~ Miss Parker's Home
"C'mon, Syd, pick up the phone!" Miss Parker looked at the clock on her kitchen wall and did the math. It was just 7PM on the West Coast yet. Sydney's message had said that he would be out most of the evening. Still, she would have thought...
"This is the Embassy Suites Switchboard. Room 407 is not picking up the line. Would you care to leave a message?" asked the bland voice of the hotel operator.
"Yes. Would you leave an urgent message for him to call Miss Parker at 302..." She rattled off her telephone number. "Tell him to call me back, regardless of the hour."
Miss Parker hung up the telephone, her stomach starting to wind up into a tight knot. Something was wrong - she just KNEW it - and there was NOTHING she could do to stop it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Denver, Colorado ~ Mile-High Airport Terminal
Jarod re-read the information on his laptop monitor just to make sure that he understood things properly. That was downright odd. The West Coast Psychiatric Society had come into existence in 1965, seemingly out of nowhere, and suddenly begun to hold seminars and symposiums and conferences in smaller, more remote resort venues and drawing the best of the best as their speakers. But from the years 1995 until just the last year, their level of activity had abated to just an annual convention held in San Diego. And suddenly, as of the past January, they were holding monthly symposiums again.
That wasn't like ANY organization Jarod was familiar with. He scrolled down the membership list to see if any names caught his eye - and while there were several that had gained reputation or notoriety for various number of reasons over the years, there was no evidence that this was anything but what it seemed to be: a loose-knit society of clinical psychiatrists.
There was nothing to hang a deeper investigation on, and he sighed in frustration. He reached for the caffeinated cola that he'd purchased hours ago and sipped at it, scowling when he found it both warm and flat. He aimed the can at a nearby trash container and smiled when it sailed in as if pulled on a string. All right, he thought as he shook himself free of his frustrated bemusement, if there wasn't anything to be found in the organization itself, what about the journal that had suddenly decided to publish Sydney's work?
Jarod rubbed under his nose in a gesture that he'd unconsciously learned from his mentor years ago and used whenever bothered by conscience. Sydney, while a truly inspired researcher into the human psyche, had managed to never have any of his works viewed with anything less than skepticism by mainstream psychiatric circles - until now. As much as he'd like to think the others had simply awakened to the near-genius waiting patiently on the sidelines for his talent to be recognized, Jarod's gut instinct told him there simply was more to this story than he'd discovered yet. And the clue he needed to find to bring him to that story had to be out there SOMEWHERE.
Forgive me, Sydney, he thought ruefully, and then typed in the name of the journal into his personal search engine. The screen lit up, and he once more began to read.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Santa Luisita, California ~ Embassy Suites Hotel - Lobby
Sydney waved goodnight to Phillip and another old friend, Craig Fields, and wandered into the lobby intending to head for the elevators and the inviting bed awaiting him upstairs in his room. The keynote speaker for the evening had presented a riveting case study of identical twins suffering from multiple personality disorders that had held him spellbound. He'd almost forgotten for that hour's presentation just how much the tuxedo made him feel like HE was a psychiatric patient tied up and helpless in a straitjacket. Still, the hour was late and he needed to get at least a little sleep so that he'd be fresh in the morning to give his speech.
He was halfway to the elevator when, suddenly, one of the elevator doors slid to the side and Lyle walked out. Sydney's eyes widened, and he stepped aside behind a tall floral arrangement on a side table to avoid being seen. Lyle seemed not to notice anybody around him, and he had that innocently satisfied look that never failed to make Sydney's skin crawl. Lyle was involved in that young woman's disappearance, Sydney was sure of it. But how was he to prove it?
Lyle headed straight for the doors of the hotel and the parking lot beyond. It seemed that he had his fancy sports car parked in a VIP spot, for it didn't take long for him to have the engine started. Not even bothering to think of what he was doing, Sydney waited until Lyle's car was moving slowly through the parking lot in the direction of the exit and then jumped into one of the waiting taxicabs. "Follow that car!" he directed, pointing to the little sports car turning onto the broad street that led to the freeway.
"You're kidding, right?" the cabbie gaped, peering into this rearview mirror at the very formally garbed gentleman with the fancy accent.
Sydney dug in his pocket and dropped a fifty-dollar bill onto the seat next to the driver. "No, I'm not kidding - move it, or you'll lose him!"
"Hang on," the cabbie announced suddenly and pulled away from the curb with enough velocity to press Sydney's back firmly against the cushion of the seat. Keeping a reasonable distance, the cab moved smoothly into the flow of freeway traffic moving southward. Sydney didn't bother to look around him to see just where it was that they were going, he just kept his eyes glued to the twin red taillights that showed where Lyle was. He knew he was working without backup, but he really had no choice. He couldn't call in the authorities until he had something substantial to offer them.
"He's getting off!" He pointed out the obvious, and the cabbie moved the cab back into the slower land and then off the freeway entirely at the first exit into a small beachside community. It took work to stay far enough back not to call notice to themselves without losing sight of the sports car, but the cabbie seemed determined to earn his fifty dollar commission. The cab waited until both occupants could see the taillights of the sports car moving around a corner before the cab turned down the narrow residential street that ended at a barricade. A little ways in the distance, taillights to the sports car could be seen waiting for and then disappearing into a garage on the ocean side of the street.
"Just pull up in front of the garage and let me out," Sydney directed.
"You want me to just leave you out there in the middle of the night?"
"Trust me, I know the fellow we've been following. I won't be alone for long." Sydney patted his pocket to make sure that he still had his cell phone with him. With any luck, somewhere on the property of what was rapidly starting to look like a sizeable estate was the missing oriental woman. Sydney was willing to bet his bottom dollar on it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out yet another twenty. "You did a good job. You deserve this."
"Thanks, Mister," the cabbie grinned. "You sure you don't want me to wait for you?"
Sydney nodded grimly. "I'm sure."
The cabbie turned out the headlights and moved the cab forward a little so that Sydney's door was opening out to the pedestrian gate onto the property. "There you go, then."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
On approach to Los Angeles International Airport ~ United Flight 3752 - First Class section
Jarod peered out the porthole and watched the lights that were Los Angeles draw closer both in geographical distance as well as altitude. His knee, which had started to jump as the stress of needing to get to Sydney NOW had become more acute, was now pumping up and down frantically.
The search on the journal had been far more successful in far quicker order. After following the ownership through any number of shadow corporations, a name had appeared that had struck real fear into his heart: Matumbo. A little more digging had then revealed everything that he'd ever hoped NOT to find out. The journal was nothing but a legitimate front for the Triumvirate, a way to launder yet more of the illicit millions of dollars that the African and European consortium was earning from the sale of blood diamonds.
It was the Triumvirate that had decided to publish Sydney's paper. With that in hand, he'd gone back to investigate several of the members of the West Coast Psychiatric Society, and with not much effort had uncovered where each of them was either employed by other associated corporations under the Triumvirate umbrella or who had done several favors for Triumvirate members for no apparent reason. Sydney had walked into a Triumvirate trap.
But what the hell did they want with him - or what the Hell did they want to happen in Delaware that they wanted Sydney nowhere near?
Santa Luisita was four hours north of Los Angeles by freeway. A rental car was waiting for him at the airport. It was the best that he could do online to expedite his trip - he could only hope that whatever it was that was going to happen would wait until AFTER he got to Sydney.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Central California Coast ~ Outside Triumvirate Safe House
Sydney peered in through the glass window of the strange little sunroom to the side of the house, impressed by the pyramid glass roof the room sported. From the looks of things, the residents of the house were either asleep or... No! He didn't want to think that way. Lyle tended to like to chain up his captives, if the evidence he and Miss Parker and Broots had uncovered over a year ago was any indication. He kept his captives alive for a while before killing them and slicing...
Sydney grimaced and deliberately turned his mind away from what a cannibal would do to a freshly killed body. He HAD to get into this house!
He was about to see whether or not any of the casement windows across the lawn were open at all when the hairs raised on the back of his neck. When Lyle gently brushed the muzzle of his gun against the side of Sydney's neck, the Belgian didn't even flinch. "Hello, Sydney," Lyle said very calmly and conversationally. "The front door's open - and it's so much easier walking into a house through an open door than crawling into one through an open window, don't you agree?"
Feedback, please: mbumpus_99@hotmail.com
Jun 24
Santa Luisita ~ Mission Plaza
Lyle looked around him contentedly. This was perfect! He couldn't have timed the beginning of his Hunt any better had he known that Lori Cheung would be speaking at a Santa Luisita Mission Art Council Exposition beforehand. As it was, this would give him an opportunity to let the local media become unknowingly complicit in setting the trap for Sydney - and ultimately for Jarod.
Already the usual parade of tourists flowing through the pedestrian mall in front of the old Mission building had begun to grow in anticipation of the afternoon of speeches and demonstrations. Lyle found himself gravitating toward the gift shop to the left of the front door of the ancient church, where he could wait out the few minutes until the event got completely underway without calling attention to himself. Besides, the day was genuinely warm, and the thick, adobe walls of the old church kept the gift shop cool within. He gave a bored and cursory look to the merchandise being sold - rosaries, the inevitable plaque with those famous praying hands, crosses and crucifixes in all styles and sizes - and thanked his lucky stars that he'd never been burdened by religion.
The local media was already gathering. A television camera crew had set up their tripods not far from the fountains, and several newspaper reporters and photographers had joined them as the opening speech grew imminent. A podium had appeared on the bottom steps of the Mission from somewhere, and as he leaned nonchalantly against one of the thick adobe walls, he could see Lori Cheung standing off to the side of the group reading through her notes and practicing her speech.
God, but she was even more beautiful in person than she had been in the pictures he'd seen. Her blue-black hair hung straight down her back past her waist, and she would occasionally toss back a wayward ebony rope that would mischievously find its way around her shoulder to hang down the front of her stark white tee shirt like a snake. Her hands were small but expressive, moving gracefully in punctuation to the words that she was practicing. She was a slim and tiny little thing, but she was a dynamo who moved with the grace of a dancer. Lyle could feel his heart beginning to pound just a little bit faster just at the thought of such a woman being his - his in all the ways that were TRULY important to the Hunt, that is...
Then it was time. Lyle moved from his spot in the shade and inconspicuous background to find a place among the hangers-on that stood behind the podium. Lori began to give her speech, which Lyle ignored entirely in favor of making sure that his face was in the background but close enough that he'd show up in every shot taken by the newspaper photographers. Then, as she reached the emotional high point of her speech - the part that the television cameras had probably been called to cover - he began to keep his eyes firmly glued to her. After all, he couldn't be sure which media would reach which man first - either way, he had to call attention to himself with people for whom his mere presence in the shot would be a warning flag.
Then the speech was over, and Lori was being pressed on all sides by well wishers and fans. Lyle lost sight of her briefly when he simply was pushed out of the way but then caught up to her almost unexpectedly when the crowd thinned and left her alone to listen to the next speaker on the roster. She looked almost relieved that her moment of notoriety had passed as she was retrieving her shoulder bag from an organizer and looking for a thin spot in the crowd to make her get-away.
"I enjoyed your speech," Lyle said in a friendly tone, moving closer to her.
She looked up into his face, finding it bland and friendly, and smiled in that patient "OK, I suppose I can talk to you for a moment" expression that compliant celebrities so often get when in the midst of fans. "Thanks."
"No, really," Lyle pressed. "I was just thinking that this might just be one of the better venues for my corporation to help out. I'd hate to see the Children's Art Center have to close after all the hard work you've put in."
Her eyes went from bored to sparkling - the man sounded like just the kind of person that she'd been trying to attract to her project all along. "And just what corporation are you with, Mr...?"
"Lyle," he said kindly, putting out a hand for her to shake. "I work for an organization known as The Centre - and we've never been able to find a suitable charity to work with in this part of the country. I'd like to think that I've found something to remedy that situation with."
"Mr. Lyle?" she repeated, and he nodded. She sighed happily. "Well, if I can convince your organization to get behind the children of this county, I can guarantee you plenty of positive press."
Lyle smiled and slipped his hand very gently around her elbow. "How would you like to discuss this over lunch - my treat?"
Lori looked over her shoulder, and Lyle felt a quick breath of panic wash over him. "Well, I told my sister-in-law that I was going to meet her over at 1865 for lunch, but..." She looked at him as if taking his measure. "How long are you in Santa Luisita?"
Lyle shook his head in mock defeat. "I have to be on my way back to LA tonight, and from there back to Delaware, where we're headquartered." He put on a long face - all the better to tug at vulnerable heartstrings. "That's too bad, I was kind of hoping..."
"Hang on." Lori pulled a tiny silver cell phone from her purse and punched a couple of buttons. "Sandy? Me. Listen, I've got a potential corporate sponsor standing here wanting to buy me lunch and discuss helping out sponsor the Children's Art Gal..." She listened for a moment. "Yeah - that sounds better. I'll meet you at the gallery at about... three?"
She looked to Lyle for confirmation, and he nodded innocently and willingly. Like Hell she'd make any three o'clock appointment, he thought - and what better way to get things rolling in the media than to have her miss an appointment with a family member so soon after being visibly in his company!
"Fine, then, I'll see you there." She disconnected the call and put the phone away. "Well, Mr. Lyle, I'm all yours for lunch," she smiled up at him with her straight, white teeth, long and luxurious black hair and creamy golden skin.
"Wonderful!" he grinned down at her, making his blue-grey eyes as innocently pleased as he possibly could under the circumstances. She wouldn't know - until far too late, if things worked out properly - just how true the words she'd just spoken would be. In the meanwhile, his hold on her elbow grew just a little bit more possessive as he guided her through the crowd and toward his sports car.
His heart picked up its rhythm by just a little bit more. The opening moves of The Hunt sometimes were just TOO easy!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Blue Cove, Delaware ~ The Centre: SL - 4 (Computer Lab)
Angelo peeked through the grating of the ventilation duct at the far end of the room and studied the blinking light of the surveillance camera, still recording room activity while the lights were low and nobody was technically in the area. Soon enough, as planned, the little red light blinked twice and then extinguished, signaling the program he'd written and embedded deeply within the Centre mainframe years ago had responded to a set of directives typed in hours ago from a completely different location. The spry little man pushed through the grate and dropped silently to the floor, a couple of pieces of white paper held in his mouth to free his hands.
Moving to the nearest terminal, Angelo pressed the button that connected it to the Centre mainframe - that mammoth and labyrinthine computer entity in which all the secrets of the Centre Universe were stored, somewhere, somehow. A few more keystrokes and the scanner next to the computer initialized, after which Angelo place the first of the two sheets in it and read it into the email he'd created. In another minute, both pages had been copied and were already on their way to their destination.
Angelo quickly shut down the terminal and turned it off, ran both sheets of paper through the shredder, and pulled the grating to the vent open again. He pulled the grate closed again and headed off down the vent to one of his secret places - places where he felt the safest.
Two minutes later, the little red light on the camera blinked on.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
St. Paul, Minnesota ~ Warehouse District
In the corner, near the heavy steel door that gave entry to the lair that had been Jarod's home for the past three weeks, was the only pool of light. It didn't illuminate much of the vast and empty space - just enough so that when Jarod came through the door, he could see to find the light switch that would light up the corner that was his current apartment arrangement.
In the darkness of that sparsely furnished space, a tiny green light that was the power indicator of the powerful laptop glowed steadily. The silence of the vast room was scratched slightly as the hard drive within the apparatus worked for a little while, and then a voice announced to the empty room, "You have mail!"
Then the laptop sat with its little green light glowing steadily, waiting patiently for its owner to come back from his latest long walk in the dead of night to avoid the dreams of owls and impending doom.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
June 26
Blue Cove, Delaware ~ Washington Street
"This is Sydney."
"Syd." Miss Parker knew she need do very little else to tell the person on the other end of the line who was calling. "What time is your flight?"
Sydney sighed. She had avoided him for the last two days, evidently pushed out of shape by the fact that he hadn't told her of his plans for California before Jarod had spilled the beans. Not that there had been much of a reason for her to come looking for him anyway - Jarod was still keeping a low profile and leaving no leads whatsoever for any of them to follow. That would change sometime next week, he imagined... "Parker..."
"What time's your flight, Freud?"
"Ten o'clock out of Dover," he replied in a frustrated tone. He knew better than to try to keep the information from her - once she decided on a line of investigation, her focus was intense. "I didn't expect a bon voyage call from you, of all people..."
"It isn't. I have to drive into Dover myself this morning," she told him in a no-nonsense tone, "on business - I was thinking that if our times fit, I could save you the cab fare."
Shaggy greying eyebrows rose in surprise. "That's very kind of you, Miss Parker, but I don't want to put you to any trouble..."
"No trouble at all. So, if I'm going to get you to the airport on time to go through security, I suppose I'd better get moving..."
"Are you sure?" God knows he appreciated the lift, but the trade-off of riding for a half-hour with a pissed Miss Parker driving like a bat out of Hell wasn't his idea of a good thing.
"Are you packed?" was the response.
"As a matter of fact..."
"Then I'll be there in about five minutes." The line went dead in his ear.
Sydney shook his head and replaced the handset in the base. One of these days he'd have to talk to her about her lack of telephone etiquette - probably on a day when she was feeling particularly out of sorts anyway so that a bit of unsolicited paternal scolding wouldn't ruin anything not already damaged. Still, he was intrigued that she had evidently decided to mend fences over this latest ado with that kind of peace offering. He patted his jacket pocket - the cell phone situated therein tapped against the hard lump that was his key ring in his trousers pocket. In his vest, he could feel the round shape of the watch Michelle had given him years ago.
With a look around the house to make sure nothing was out of place, he put the beret that he always wore when travelling on his head, grabbed up his suitcase and then draped the garment bag with his tux over that arm. He walked out the front door of his house and pulled the door carefully closed after him, then locked it with both key and alarm system. Feeling like he didn't want to put Miss Parker out any further than she already was, he stepped way from the house and down to the driveway she would pull into.
A white blur swooped down from out of the tall pine trees, and a white feather drifted down through the air to land in his startled hand. The owl let loose a single, haunting "Hoo!" as it flew off over down the quiet street and vanished behind the leaves of the elm tree across the way.
Sydney stared after the owl for a long moment, then studied the perfect white feather that had evidently been the bird's gift to him. He frowned, for amid that white perfection was a spattering of what could only be blood - small, symmetrically circular and so precisely placed in the center of the feather that, if he hadn't known better, he could have sworn that human hand had painted the crimson droplet in place. What was it with owls lately, he asked himself, then tucked the feather away in his vest pocket as Miss Parker's sleek, black Boxster purred around the same corner where the owl had vanished.
Miss Parker pulled her car into the driveway and had the trunk lid popped almost before the vehicle had come to a complete halt. Sydney deposited the suitcase carefully, then closed the lid and opened the back passenger door to hang the garment bag on the hook before sliding into the passenger seat beside her. She looked over at him from behind her dark sunglasses. "All set?"
"Whenever you are," he replied, sliding the seatbelt across his lap and chest and snapping it firmly in place. He'd ridden with her often enough to know to put the harness on immediately.
"Hi-ho Silver," she quipped dryly, putting the car in reverse and backing carefully down the drive to head back the way she had come. "Dover Airport, here we come."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Dover, Delaware ~ Dover Airport Tarmac
The conversation in the car had died the moment Miss Parker had started to navigate the General Aviation side of the airport, heading toward the small hangar on the edge of the airfield that the Centre called its own. The Boxster pulled to a halt not far away from where the sleek, black Centre jet sat waiting for its cross-continental passenger. "So I'll see you on Monday then," she said as she put the vehicle in park and turned off the engine.
"Just so you know and don't get upset, I'm not going to turn my cell phone back on until AFTER my speech," Sydney told her finally - this one little piece of personal rebellion being something he didn't really want to let her see until their time together was almost through. "Knowing Mr. Raines and his real reluctance to give me permission for the time for this trip in the first place, I figure that it would just like him to manufacture a reason to call me back before then - and I won't have it."
"Wait a minute, Freud," Miss Parker put a hand on his upper arm to prevent him from sliding out of the car. "How the Hell am I going to get a hold of you in case of a REAL breadcrumb?"
"Be reasonable, Parker," he sighed, frustrated that he had to rationalize his actions to her, of all people. "By the time we get one of his breadcrumbs lately, Jarod has already been long gone. You know it, and I know it - the only people who don't seem to get it are Raines and Lyle. A few hours one way or the other for our coming along behind is simply not going to make that much difference..." With that, he pushed the car door open and escaped her grasp.
"I don't like it that you're going to be completely out of touch," she insisted, climbing from behind the steering wheel spurred on by a vague feeling of alarm. "We're a team..."
"I'm not going to be COMPLETELY out of touch, Parker," he reminded her with the garment bag already draped over an arm, closing the back passenger door. "You can always call the hotel..."
"Which hotel? You haven't told me where you're going to be," she interrupted with a glare. "You've actually been amazingly closed-mouthed about this whole thing."
"Embassy Suites is the hotel in Santa Luisita where the symposium is being held," he told her, reaching into the trunk for his suitcase. "But you're not going to need to call me, and you know it." He straightened and let his expression become imploring. "Please, Parker. Give me just a little space for a change - forty-eight hours without a Centre leash. That's all I ask."
The small voices at the back of her mind were becoming even more restless than they had been when he'd announced he was leaving his cell phone off, and her response to their increased volume was to become defensively sharp with him. "Fine. Go on, then. See you on Monday, bright and early."
Greying eyebrows pulled together unhappily over his chestnut eyes; but with Miss Parker in this kind of mood, he knew there would be no approaching her. He sighed again. "Have a good weekend, Miss Parker." He turned away to walk toward the jet.
The sight of his broad back turned to her as he walked away kicked the voices in the back of her mind from a subtle whisper into a cacophony. Daddy had looked something like that in the moment before he'd plunged out the open cargo door of the jet over the stormy, nighttime Atlantic. Tommy had looked something like that to her sleepy eyes as he had gotten up to start the coffee and take a shower the morning she'd found him murdered on the porch. Even her last memory of her mother was of Catherine walking away to get in the elevator after giving her the gift that had lain unopened in her closet for years. When people walked away like that, they had this ugly habit of never coming back...
"Sydney, wait!"
The odd tone of her call halted the Belgian in his tracks, and he turned just in time to see her break into a trot to catch up with him. The moment she was close enough, she had her arms up and around his neck. Stunned, Sydney dropped his suitcase to the ground so that he had his arms relatively free as he bent and caught her to him. He held her silently for a moment, and then in a softer voice asked into the hair by her ear, "Hey! What's this?"
"Don't ask me to explain it," she began, hanging onto him tightly, "but I have the most awful feeling... Don't go, Sydney. Please!"
"Hush." His arms tightened about her comfortingly for a moment, and then he was setting her away just a little so that he could look into her face with a hand cupped gently about a cheek. "This is just a weekend jaunt, Parker. Nothing's going to happen to me."
"But..."
She genuinely was fearful for him, and he was touched beyond measure that she was actually letting this sudden vulnerability show. "I'll call you when I get to my hotel room and give you the number there, so that you know I got there safely. Will that help?"
The storm-grey of her eyes showed her disappointment, and she slowly pulled her arms from around his neck so that her hands just rested gently against his chest, where she toyed with the lapels of his sports jacket. "I can't convince you to just... NOT..."
He could see that she wasn't doing this just on a whim - something had her spooked, and badly. Still... "I need to do this, Parker. This is the kind of recognition every researcher hopes will come their way just once in a lifetime." He pulled her head forward so that he could drop a gentle kiss on her forehead. "I'll call when I get to my room, and I WILL see you again on Monday morning. My cell phone will be on from Saturday evening on, so you can call me if you need to talk." He swept her hair back from her face. "And when I get back, we WILL talk about this - I promise." He gazed into her face with more fondness in his expression than he'd allowed himself to show her for decades and allowed a thumb to gently outline a cheekbone. "It will be all right, ma petite. Don't worry so."
Her face lost what little color it had had left. He was going, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. "Be careful, Sydney - I l..." No, she caught herself before she could show him the depths of her vulnerability. "I'll miss you," she said instead softly, withdrawing and beginning to feel embarrassed by her emotional display.
He let her withdraw to a safe distance as her habitual defenses stubbornly insisted on reasserting themselves, then bent to retrieve his suitcase from where it had landed on the asphalt. "I promise I'll call you when I get in. I'll probably have left a message on your machine by the time you get home."
She backed away from him a few steps and wrapped her arms around herself as if chilled. "Goodbye, Syd."
"See you later, Parker. Have a good weekend."
And with that, he again turned and headed for the jet. Miss Parker stood and watched then as the sweeper assigned to the jet as steward for the flight raised the steps just before the jet engines wound themselves up more tightly and the sleek black jet began to move. She stood with arms folded tightly around herself as the little jet taxied to the end of the runway and then made its run into the air
When she turned back to her car and her errand, she felt as if a very important part of her world had dropped unexpectedly away - and she didn't like that hollow feeling one bit. The voices in the back of her mind had dropped back to a mournful whimper of loss - and to have that feeling be about Sydney, of all people, was disturbing.
This was going to be a VERY long weekend.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
St. Paul, Minnesota ~ Warehouse District
"Damn it, Sydney, pick up!" Jarod snapped, listening to the ringing of Sydney's cell phone. After two more rings, he muttered a slightly more colorful curse that he'd learned on a Pretend as a longshoreman not that long ago and punched a button to end that call and then punched in another number and waited. He sighed deeply when he finally did hear his mentor's voice - this time a recorded message:
"This is Sydney. I am away from the phone right now, so if you would please leave a message..."
"SHIT!" The Pretender disconnected and dropped his hand to the table next to the laptop. There, on the screen, was the email that Angelo had sent him - with the documents that had him scrambling to reach Sydney as quickly as possible. Jarod read the two-page memo one more time, as if having a hard time believing the Centre to be so paranoid that it would genuinely consider having poison-containing capsules implanted in its top-level personnel. Even Mr. Raines had one - courtesy of Mr. Parker and his need to control his people - and probably didn't know about it anymore than any of the rest of them did. The memo was from Mr. Parker to the Triumvirate, announcing completion of the implantation process and listing the people involved:
Lyle
Raines
Cox
White
Miss Parker
Broots
Sydney
Angelo
Even Brigitte had had one too.
The list continued for twenty-eight names, all of them people at the pinnacle of the power structure of the part of the Centre they worked at or with close personal ties to others in such a position. The memo didn't detail how the implants had been put in place, only that the task was completed. It then listed the combination of chemicals that would trigger the disintegration of the implant to release the poison if the need for such action were deemed necessary.
Miss Parker. Broots. Sydney.
These were names he didn't want to see on a list like this - and he picked up his cell phone and pushed another programmed number. He then sat there while the phone rang the requisite four times before: "I'm assuming you know whom you're calling, or you wouldn't still be listening to a stupid machine. Leave a message - you know the routine," Miss Parker's voice announced in a dry and mocking tone.
He decided to take a chance that the Centre wasn't currently monitoring her incoming calls at home. "Parker, it's Jarod. I need to talk to you - and to Sydney and Broots too. I'll try to call back later. It's urgent - and this is no game. Don't go back into work, whatever you do." He hung up, then dialed another number from memory.
"This is Broots... uh... the Computer Lab..."
"Mr. Broots - thank God!"
"Ja... My God!" He heard a scooting noise, and then Broots answered him, obviously lowering his voice so as not to be overheard. "What the heck are you calling me HERE for?"
"Believe me, if it weren't important, I wouldn't be calling you there, Mr. Broots. Where are Sydney and Miss Parker?"
Broots scratched his head. The Pretender they had spent over five years chasing was asking HIM where the other members of his search team had gone? Surprise made him honest. "Miss Parker has gone in to get some documents from the Dover office - and Sydney's gone for his vacation in California..."
"Listen to me," Jarod said intensely. "Start sneezing, start complaining of a headache, ANYTHING, but get yourself out of the Centre now and into the office of a doctor that has nothing to do with the Centre. Tell them..."
"What do you mean, get myself..."
"Shut up, Mr. Broots, and listen. Have the doctor do an x-ray of your gastrointestinal tract, and be prepared to have surgery to remove anything he finds there."
Jarod closed his eyes as the sinister beauty of the failsafe plan came clear to him as he talked to the computer wizard on Miss Parker's payroll. All it would take would be a pellet into the Computer Lab's coffee pot - the addition of a compound that would be utterly harmless to anybody else who worked there but deadly for a decent man with a young daughter who depended upon him!
He was a decent man who was also being frustratingly obtuse for a Friday morning. "What the Hell..."
"Just do it, Mr. Broots. Your life depends on it. Literally." That stunned the Centre employee into silence. "And tell Miss Parker to check her messages and expect my call."
"Y...you're sure?" Broots' voice was soft and definitely shaken now.
Jarod started typing, forwarding the email that he'd gotten from Angelo after carefully deleting all the header information that would tell where the original had come from to anybody who knew how to read the information properly. There was no need to give the search team any more information than it absolutely needed right now. "Turn on your email client," the Pretender directly curtly. "Print a copy of what I'm sending you so you can show it to Miss Parker, then make sure the incoming email is completely deleted from the mainframe." He hit the Send button. "But I suggest you read this someplace private - like at home, in the bathroom, in case you have to throw up after reading it."
"Geez!"
Jarod could hear the computer terminal in the distance on the other end of the line sing out in that bland woman's voice, "You've got mail!" He closed his eyes. That was maybe one good person's life saved. "Go now, Broots. Get the Hell outta there."
"Shit!" He was sure the technician's expletive had slipped out unnoticed and sighed. Broots must have scanned the memo superficially and now knew the urgency Jarod had felt. "What about Miss Parker and Sydney?"
"You talk to Miss Parker as soon as you can. I'll take care of Sydney."
Broots' voice was hesitant. "I... uh... don't know what to say..."
"Consider it a gift to your daughter," Jarod said with a sad smile. "Take care of yourself, Mr. Broots." He closed the connection and then opened up the browser on the laptop. In a few keystrokes he had booked himself passage on the next flight to California and paid for it using Centre funds Lyle had squirreled away in a secret account. Pleased at the ease of putting these new plans into effect, he shut the laptop down and disconnected it.
He looked around the mostly empty warehouse loft. Other than the laptop case at the end of the table, a sofa on which a duffelbag had served as a pillow, a television/VCR on the floor near the sofa and a coffee table stacked high with books on the American underworld, there really wasn't much to leave behind. He reached into the laptop case and pulled out the red notebook that held clippings and notes from this latest Pretend - everything up to and including the suicides that had been the unhappy punctuation that ended the entire process - and left it on the table in plain sight. Whoever came after him would find it - it was a trademark, after all - but they would find little else here to tell them where he'd gone next.
He'd call Miss Parker again later. But for now, he needed to get going to get to Sydney before anybody else did...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Dover, Delaware ~ Urgent Care Medical Group
The doctor came back into the examination room, and Broots' heart sank. The physician had a genuinely confused look on his face. "For a moment there, I was wondering if you were just dreaming, Mr. Broots," Doctor Weiss said as he turned on the x-ray viewer. "Then I saw this." He snapped the x-ray he'd just taken of Broots' stomach into place and pointed.
There it was - and Broots thought for a moment that he was going to lose both his breakfast and that cola he'd had on the drive up here. Small and lodged into the lining of his stomach was a capsule-shaped object. "What is it?" he asked in a very small voice.
"I'm not exactly sure," Weiss shook his head, "anymore than I'm sure what it's made of."
"I want it GONE!" Broots' voice was raised and almost panic-stricken. "NOW!"
"Calm yourself, Mr. Broots. I can make an appointment for outpatient surgery for you in the morning..."
Broots put his hand over his abdomen and tried not to think about what his body had been carrying around inside it. "As long as I get rid of it," he said vehemently.
Weiss nodded his head and began writing. He supposed that if he'd just found out that he had something that strange and unidentified inside HIS body, he'd be upset as well. "I want you to take this prescription and have it filled and take one pill this afternoon and one this evening. That will neutralize any excess acidity in your stomach caused by stress that might damage this... whatever it is. No food by mouth after midnight..."
Broots nodded while listening to the instructions with only a fraction of his attention. The Centre had done this to him - made him a walking time bomb! And not only him, but Miss Parker and Sydney too! What kind of place would do such a thing - and what did it say about HIM that he worked for that place?
Maybe it was time to re-assess whether his paycheck - generous for one of his position - was worth the risk any longer?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Santa Luisita, California ~ Embassy Suites - Front Lobby
"Sydney!"
Sydney turned away from the registration desk, keycard envelope in hand, to see Phillip Warner walking across the posh lobby tucking a newspaper under his arm. "Phillip!" he called back, tucking the keycard envelope into the breast pocket of his jacket and then thrusting out his hand in welcome. "It's been a long time!"
"Yes, it has. Let me look at you." Sydney returned the favor, finding his friend several years older than he'd been the last time he saw him, but still in fine shape otherwise. The hair on the top of the man's head was sparser - but no more so than his own. "Do I remember properly, or is my mind playing tricks with me in telling me that you're one of the major organizers of this?"
Warner's dark eyes were dancing. "No, your mind is a sharp as ever. As a matter of fact, I've been hanging around the lobby here hoping I'd be able to catch you before you went up. There's been a slight change of scheduling for the speeches tomorrow." He looked and saw that Sydney was still carrying his luggage. "Why don't you go get yourself settled in and changed, and then meet me in the lounge in about an hour? We can head over to the banquet dinner from there."
"That sounds like an excellent idea." Sydney smiled. "I'll see you in an hour." He shook hands again and, after looking around to locate the bank of elevators, headed off.
Warner's smile of welcome faded, and his dark eyes sought out the crystal blue-greys that had been watching his every move. The face behind those eyes showed dismay and pique. The subtle approach hadn't been good enough - the fact that Lyle's face was clearly visible on the front of the newspaper which Warner had carefully folded to show the picture of the missing Cheung woman had been missed entirely by the travel-worn Centre psychiatrist.
Warner found reason to move in Lyle's direction. "He didn't see it," the psychiatrist said, explaining the obvious.
"No shit," Lyle spat. "Make SURE he sees it while you two are having drinks tonight. My timeframe on this is very tight - I need him aware that I'm in the area tonight before the dinner."
"Yes, sir," Warner nodded vigorously. "You can count on me."
"Be sure that I can," Lyle hissed, pulling the man's arm so that he was hissing almost directly into his ear. "We wouldn't want any word of that cute little insurance agent's suicide to leak out, now, would we?"
Warner's gaze became an uncomfortable mixture of nervous and furious. "There was nothing..."
"C'mon, Doc. You know and I know you were getting a little on the side while helping her with her depression. But how were you to know that she would suddenly turn suicidal when you made her pregnant.?" Lyle's predatory smile was triumphant. It had been convenient that the Triumvirate had been willing to give him dirt to use to motivate some of the attendees to this soiree into helping him bait his trap. It was even more satisfying to see that fury in the older man's eyes grow hotter even as the realization of its impotence grew. "Just make sure Sydney sees that damned picture."
"I told you I'd do it," Warner hissed back, pulling his arm free. He straightened his tie nervously and stalked away from Lyle fuming.
Lyle looked around to make sure no note had been taken of their quiet altercation before heading for the parking lot. He had some free time now before having to be present to snap the trapdoor shut on Sydney - and he had just the place to go and person with whom to spend that time.
She should be waking up again just about now, he smiled to himself coldly. Time to have some fun.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Blue Cove, Delaware ~ Miss Parker's home
"I'm assuming you know whom you're calling, or you wouldn't still be listening to a stupid machine. Leave a message - you know the routine." BEEP
"Parker, it's Sydney - and I'm calling to tell you I made it here safely, as I promised. I'm at the Embassy Suites, room 407. The number here is 805-54..." Sydney rattled off the phone number from the telephone sitting on the nightstand in front of him. "I'll be out most of the evening, and I'll have my cell phone off most of tomorrow. Leave a message if you need to talk, and I'll call you back."
Sydney hung up the phone and moved to the closet where he'd hung the garment bag. Maybe he could take a quick shower before climbing into that monkey suit for the banquet. Why did they have to make those things black tie and tux all the time?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Denver, Colorado ~ Mile-High Airport
Jarod was fit to be tied. He was inside the airport terminal, looking out across the runway system upon which nothing was moving whatsoever, thanks to the violent storm that had moved directly overhead. Just landing at Denver, where he would catch a connecting flight to Phoenix and from there directly into Santa Luisita, had been a chancy proposition. The passenger jet had weathered some rough weather in making their final approach, and the storm had broken over them not long after they'd made it to the ground. As he'd rushed to get to the gate of his connecting flight, he heard some of the others in the terminal chattering excitedly about the funnel cloud that had been sighted crossing the runways.
And now the voice on the terminal-wide intercom had just announced there would be no further flights into or out of Denver until the weather cleared substantially - which might take until after midnight. There was little he could do now but wait.
No, that wasn't right. He had at least one phone call left to make. She should be home by now, he figured. He twisted his wrist to check the time, then pulled out his cell phone and punched the number at the top of his programmed list.
"What?" She didn't sound quite as angry - maybe because for a change he hadn't called her so late that he'd awakened her out of a sound sleep.
"I want you to take a drive tomorrow - get as far away from Blue Cove and the Centre as you can, and then..."
"What the Hell is this all about, Jarod?" she demanded harshly. "You leave a doom and gloom message on my machine and then have the unmitigated balls not to call back until just NOW?"
"Parker, you're right, I'm sorry - now will you shut up and listen?"
"...And Broots - I find out when I get back to the office that he got a mysterious call too - and then left work early. And when I called Debbie to find out how he was, I find out he's scheduled for laproscopic abdominal surgery in Dover tomorrow morning? What is going on?"
Jarod walked over to lean a tired forehead against the warm glass of the terminal window. "Are you through?"
"Talk to me, Jarod." Her voice was low, threatening - worried.
"You need to go see a doctor tomorrow morning - somebody not associated with the Centre at all." He sighed. "I was hoping Broots would find you and give you the information before he took himself out of the picture."
"WHAT information?" she fairly screamed at him.
"You have an implant..." Jarod began to pace back and forth. He knew this was going to sound very far-fetched, and that in her position he would have a hard time believing what he was going to tell her. "Mr. Parker instituted a fail-safe mechanism in all his key personnel and their closest family members in order to assure loyalty and security."
"An implant?"
"Poison, Parker. Encased in a capsule that is impervious to normal digestive juices but, if enhanced by intake of a chemical compound that is otherwise harmless, will dissolve to release a rather nasty poison."
"You're lying."
Jarod sighed. "God, I wish I were, Parker. You have it, Broots has it, Sydney has it - so does Raines, Lyle, Cox, White, and any number of others. Even Brigitte had one."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. "You have proof?"
"I have a copy of the memo your... Mr. Parker sent to the Triumvirate, telling them that the process was complete."
Another moment of silence. "Damn! And that's why Broots..."
"I called him after I called you."
"What about Sydney?" That whisper of worry that had never left the back of her mind had blossomed into a moan.
"I'm on my way to make sure Sydney gets his taken care of too, Parker. Don't worry."
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," she said in a brittle tone. "Where did you get the information?"
Jarod shook his head and smiled sadly. "I still have contacts within the Centre, you know this..." She was silent for a long moment. "Parker? You still there?"
"Yeah," she answered finally. "Thanks, Jarod. I owe you one."
He disconnected the call and stopped his pacing to lean against the glass once more with eyes closed. That call completed meant there were two decent people safe now.
Feeling slightly better, he decided to head off in the direction of a set of comfortable-looking seats. He reached into his duffelbag and hauled out his computer and activated the wireless modem. He had time on his hands with nothing to do - perhaps he could chase down some information on the West Coast Psychiatric Society while he was waiting. At least he could find out just who it was that had decided to honor Sydney so unexpectedly.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Santa Luisita, California ~ Embassy Suites Hotel - Lounge
"So you mean your boss almost wouldn't let you have the time to..." Warner was incredulous. "Surely he understood..."
"You'd have to know my employer, Phillip," Sydney shook his head in frustration. "He prefers his people plan their vacations years in advance. And my expertise is needed on a sporadic and very random basis, whenever evidence is acquired normally. I'm sure he doesn't want to have to wait for a psychological reading..."
Warner shook his head. "One of these days, you'll have to tell me all about this Centre you work for, Sydney. Right now, however, I'm gonna duck into the back room for a second - and then we can head over to the banquet hall. We don't want to be late for dinner..."
Sydney watched his friend head to the back of the lounge, where the restrooms were located. It had been refreshing to catch up on nearly six years' worth of news from around the psychiatric community, from which he'd been virtually estranged due to the nature of his job. He tossed back the end of his Chivas and put the old fashioned glass back down on the bar next to the newspaper that Phillip had been carrying around with him. Bored while waiting, he opened the folded paper to glance at the front page, and then frowned.
The picture wasn't the sharpest, but even Sydney's tired eyes couldn't help picking Lyle's face out of the crowd behind the pretty oriental woman speaking at some sort of event. Sydney opened the paper further. "Local Activist Missing" was the headline, and his heart did an extra thump. Surely the more sinister Parker twin wouldn't have taken someone to feed his obscene habit whose absence would cause notice?
He read the story, and his suspicion grew. Lori Cheung had vanished not long after this picture had been taken - and her family had reported her disappearance when she missed meeting up with a sister-in-law at the art gallery she had been promoting. Her car had been found still parked in the parking structure not far away, but no signs of her whereabouts had surfaced.
"Are you just about ready to go?" Warner asked, laying down a twenty-dollar bill on the bar to pay for the last round of drinks.
Sydney folded the newspaper and pointed to the picture. "This just caught my eye..."
"Oh yeah, that." Warner sounded bored. "It's been all over the local news - some local artist gal just up and vanishes." He jerked his head. "Let's go - we don't want to be late." With a final suspicious glance at the newspaper, Sydney rose from his stool and followed his friend from the lounge.
In one of the booths along the back wall of the lounge, Lyle's eyes began to glitter. The trap was baited, and the prey was getting curious. Somewhere in the meal he was about to consume would be the substance that would put a very small number to the psychiatrist's remaining days on this earth. All it would take now would be another nudge that couldn't be ignored, and Sydney would be caught. And once he had Sydney, he had the key to Jarod.
He sipped at his Crown Regal patiently. All was going like clockwork. Let the games begin!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Blue Cove, Delaware ~ Miss Parker's Home
"C'mon, Syd, pick up the phone!" Miss Parker looked at the clock on her kitchen wall and did the math. It was just 7PM on the West Coast yet. Sydney's message had said that he would be out most of the evening. Still, she would have thought...
"This is the Embassy Suites Switchboard. Room 407 is not picking up the line. Would you care to leave a message?" asked the bland voice of the hotel operator.
"Yes. Would you leave an urgent message for him to call Miss Parker at 302..." She rattled off her telephone number. "Tell him to call me back, regardless of the hour."
Miss Parker hung up the telephone, her stomach starting to wind up into a tight knot. Something was wrong - she just KNEW it - and there was NOTHING she could do to stop it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Denver, Colorado ~ Mile-High Airport Terminal
Jarod re-read the information on his laptop monitor just to make sure that he understood things properly. That was downright odd. The West Coast Psychiatric Society had come into existence in 1965, seemingly out of nowhere, and suddenly begun to hold seminars and symposiums and conferences in smaller, more remote resort venues and drawing the best of the best as their speakers. But from the years 1995 until just the last year, their level of activity had abated to just an annual convention held in San Diego. And suddenly, as of the past January, they were holding monthly symposiums again.
That wasn't like ANY organization Jarod was familiar with. He scrolled down the membership list to see if any names caught his eye - and while there were several that had gained reputation or notoriety for various number of reasons over the years, there was no evidence that this was anything but what it seemed to be: a loose-knit society of clinical psychiatrists.
There was nothing to hang a deeper investigation on, and he sighed in frustration. He reached for the caffeinated cola that he'd purchased hours ago and sipped at it, scowling when he found it both warm and flat. He aimed the can at a nearby trash container and smiled when it sailed in as if pulled on a string. All right, he thought as he shook himself free of his frustrated bemusement, if there wasn't anything to be found in the organization itself, what about the journal that had suddenly decided to publish Sydney's work?
Jarod rubbed under his nose in a gesture that he'd unconsciously learned from his mentor years ago and used whenever bothered by conscience. Sydney, while a truly inspired researcher into the human psyche, had managed to never have any of his works viewed with anything less than skepticism by mainstream psychiatric circles - until now. As much as he'd like to think the others had simply awakened to the near-genius waiting patiently on the sidelines for his talent to be recognized, Jarod's gut instinct told him there simply was more to this story than he'd discovered yet. And the clue he needed to find to bring him to that story had to be out there SOMEWHERE.
Forgive me, Sydney, he thought ruefully, and then typed in the name of the journal into his personal search engine. The screen lit up, and he once more began to read.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Santa Luisita, California ~ Embassy Suites Hotel - Lobby
Sydney waved goodnight to Phillip and another old friend, Craig Fields, and wandered into the lobby intending to head for the elevators and the inviting bed awaiting him upstairs in his room. The keynote speaker for the evening had presented a riveting case study of identical twins suffering from multiple personality disorders that had held him spellbound. He'd almost forgotten for that hour's presentation just how much the tuxedo made him feel like HE was a psychiatric patient tied up and helpless in a straitjacket. Still, the hour was late and he needed to get at least a little sleep so that he'd be fresh in the morning to give his speech.
He was halfway to the elevator when, suddenly, one of the elevator doors slid to the side and Lyle walked out. Sydney's eyes widened, and he stepped aside behind a tall floral arrangement on a side table to avoid being seen. Lyle seemed not to notice anybody around him, and he had that innocently satisfied look that never failed to make Sydney's skin crawl. Lyle was involved in that young woman's disappearance, Sydney was sure of it. But how was he to prove it?
Lyle headed straight for the doors of the hotel and the parking lot beyond. It seemed that he had his fancy sports car parked in a VIP spot, for it didn't take long for him to have the engine started. Not even bothering to think of what he was doing, Sydney waited until Lyle's car was moving slowly through the parking lot in the direction of the exit and then jumped into one of the waiting taxicabs. "Follow that car!" he directed, pointing to the little sports car turning onto the broad street that led to the freeway.
"You're kidding, right?" the cabbie gaped, peering into this rearview mirror at the very formally garbed gentleman with the fancy accent.
Sydney dug in his pocket and dropped a fifty-dollar bill onto the seat next to the driver. "No, I'm not kidding - move it, or you'll lose him!"
"Hang on," the cabbie announced suddenly and pulled away from the curb with enough velocity to press Sydney's back firmly against the cushion of the seat. Keeping a reasonable distance, the cab moved smoothly into the flow of freeway traffic moving southward. Sydney didn't bother to look around him to see just where it was that they were going, he just kept his eyes glued to the twin red taillights that showed where Lyle was. He knew he was working without backup, but he really had no choice. He couldn't call in the authorities until he had something substantial to offer them.
"He's getting off!" He pointed out the obvious, and the cabbie moved the cab back into the slower land and then off the freeway entirely at the first exit into a small beachside community. It took work to stay far enough back not to call notice to themselves without losing sight of the sports car, but the cabbie seemed determined to earn his fifty dollar commission. The cab waited until both occupants could see the taillights of the sports car moving around a corner before the cab turned down the narrow residential street that ended at a barricade. A little ways in the distance, taillights to the sports car could be seen waiting for and then disappearing into a garage on the ocean side of the street.
"Just pull up in front of the garage and let me out," Sydney directed.
"You want me to just leave you out there in the middle of the night?"
"Trust me, I know the fellow we've been following. I won't be alone for long." Sydney patted his pocket to make sure that he still had his cell phone with him. With any luck, somewhere on the property of what was rapidly starting to look like a sizeable estate was the missing oriental woman. Sydney was willing to bet his bottom dollar on it. He reached into his pocket and pulled out yet another twenty. "You did a good job. You deserve this."
"Thanks, Mister," the cabbie grinned. "You sure you don't want me to wait for you?"
Sydney nodded grimly. "I'm sure."
The cabbie turned out the headlights and moved the cab forward a little so that Sydney's door was opening out to the pedestrian gate onto the property. "There you go, then."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
On approach to Los Angeles International Airport ~ United Flight 3752 - First Class section
Jarod peered out the porthole and watched the lights that were Los Angeles draw closer both in geographical distance as well as altitude. His knee, which had started to jump as the stress of needing to get to Sydney NOW had become more acute, was now pumping up and down frantically.
The search on the journal had been far more successful in far quicker order. After following the ownership through any number of shadow corporations, a name had appeared that had struck real fear into his heart: Matumbo. A little more digging had then revealed everything that he'd ever hoped NOT to find out. The journal was nothing but a legitimate front for the Triumvirate, a way to launder yet more of the illicit millions of dollars that the African and European consortium was earning from the sale of blood diamonds.
It was the Triumvirate that had decided to publish Sydney's paper. With that in hand, he'd gone back to investigate several of the members of the West Coast Psychiatric Society, and with not much effort had uncovered where each of them was either employed by other associated corporations under the Triumvirate umbrella or who had done several favors for Triumvirate members for no apparent reason. Sydney had walked into a Triumvirate trap.
But what the hell did they want with him - or what the Hell did they want to happen in Delaware that they wanted Sydney nowhere near?
Santa Luisita was four hours north of Los Angeles by freeway. A rental car was waiting for him at the airport. It was the best that he could do online to expedite his trip - he could only hope that whatever it was that was going to happen would wait until AFTER he got to Sydney.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Central California Coast ~ Outside Triumvirate Safe House
Sydney peered in through the glass window of the strange little sunroom to the side of the house, impressed by the pyramid glass roof the room sported. From the looks of things, the residents of the house were either asleep or... No! He didn't want to think that way. Lyle tended to like to chain up his captives, if the evidence he and Miss Parker and Broots had uncovered over a year ago was any indication. He kept his captives alive for a while before killing them and slicing...
Sydney grimaced and deliberately turned his mind away from what a cannibal would do to a freshly killed body. He HAD to get into this house!
He was about to see whether or not any of the casement windows across the lawn were open at all when the hairs raised on the back of his neck. When Lyle gently brushed the muzzle of his gun against the side of Sydney's neck, the Belgian didn't even flinch. "Hello, Sydney," Lyle said very calmly and conversationally. "The front door's open - and it's so much easier walking into a house through an open door than crawling into one through an open window, don't you agree?"
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