CHAPTER FIVE

The substitute worked perfectly. Miss Parker saw only a fresh faced innocent brown eyed boy, the ideal boy, the perfect boy, devoid of dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, devoid of a background dating back to the Mediterranean. The boy that Miss Parker saw was entirely Anglo Saxon, albeit hair a little darker and eyes not as light blue. But someone whose ancestry probably never approached places like Marseilles or Rome. As for places like Israel, forget it.

Actually the Centre had no idea of Jarod's background. It wasn't their policy, but they knew enough to know that the original Italians were dark haired, dark eyed, olive skinned and if some soldier came north with Caesar and married a tall German girl, and gradually their descendants got taller, they did not suddenly all become blonde haired and blue eyed.

Mr. Parker did discover a tape where Jarod and Miss Parker were too close together. On seeing it, he separated both children and placed them in the cryogenic units after the problem was taken care of, It was necessary so that his daughter's body could return to its pre pregnancy state and besides the electrodes running through the unit ensured that her body did not stagnate. Anyway he didn't want to have Jarod's brat as the next Parker. Better let someone else take care of it, and hoped it would perish. Besides the time wasn't right.

The only memory that Miss Parked had was that she was sick. She forgot entirely of the birth. When she woke up, she was very happy until her mother was supposedly shot in the elevator and then she started to change.

It took a long time to change from a happy girl into a vengeful woman, a long time in which she had numerous affairs, saved from pregnancy only because the medicine she took for her ulcer and the diaphragm she inserted every time she went out. However, all this was in the future. Right now she was a little girl saddened about her mother's death.

However there still remained Theodore Walstaff. Armed with the knowledge of Major Charles' airforce history, Walstaff became Major Charles.

He sat down in a cave in Arizona, talking to his friend. "This is my family," he said with the appropriate far away look in his eye.

"Your son?"

"Soon we'll be together." He looked away as if to cry. "I've been searching him for years." The time on the London Stage had perfected his art. If this boy Jarod was a good simulator, Walstaff was the best actor that England ever had and the best agent that the Centre had.

He drove up to his aircraft, waved to the others, and climbed up into the sky. He wasn't as good as the original. No one could out fly or out climb Major Charles, but no one knew he wasn't him.

He was about five thousand feet above, when his secret communication device buzzed.

"Walstaff come down."

It wasn't exactly words, just signals, three blinks and Walstaff had to obey, but not quite yet.

An hour later, he landed back at the airstrip, said hello to his 'friends' and walked towards his quarters where Raines was waiting for him.

"Doctor Raines."

"Walstaff you disappoint me." Then came the cigarette smoke. "You're supposed to be Major Charles, not indulge in ancient Navaho lore."

"I thought it'd give a certain fatalism to Jarod's family. You know, make him accept that he'll never find his family."

"And how do you hope to accomplish this, Mr. Walstaff?"

The former actor looked around at the two burly Sweepers standing next to Raines. This had to be good. "Well they have a hopeless fatalism here. See this?" He pointed to several objects. "A Navaho Dream Weaver, part of a prayer rug, a shaman doll. Major Charles is about to get interested in these." He smiled.

"If you think that Jarod will escape, you are mistaken."

"But I saw the results of your experiments the plane that crashed into the Atlantic with no survivors, the race car that went off the track and killed five hundred spectators, the hostages that were killed when the FBI and that tower, the man shooting and killing all those people, most of them women at that. When you brought me back last week for my indoctrination, I saw the DSAs. That boy's good. Really innocent and now he's tall."

Raines lit another cigarette. He was safe. Walstaff only saw the substitute. It was a good think that the hypnosis gas enveloped all of Blue Cove. Perhaps Mr. Walstaff would soon retain a good number just before they eliminated him.

:"Do you realize that you're not supposed to reveal this to anyone, Walstaff?"

"I know, but how long must I remain here? I miss the city."

"Oh I suppose until Major Charles is released from where he is."

"In the Centre?" Raines asked.

"He's been talking to Catherine Parker, your sister-in-law."

Raines grew closer. "What else do you know?"

Walstaff's eyes shone with greed. He knew the Centre, knew that it didn't keep promises, but he felt that he was too valuable. "Sydney Green's brother has been nosing around. I went into his office."

"When?"

"A while ago, I was disguised as one of the workers."

"That contingency has been taken care of." Raines had an evil smile."Now what did Jacob Green do?"

"Asking about the other children. I didn't know there were other children, I thought there was just this Jarod. What are you going to do about it, Dr. Raines?"

Raines ignored him and called his brother on the phone. "Mr. Parker, we have a problem."

"What is it, Raines? I'm busy?"

"Walstaff found about your wife and her connection with Jacob Green and Major Charles, the real Major Charles."

"Did he say anything?"

"Only that they were talking together."

"Well Raines, we don't; want to lose Walstaff. Tell him the truth."

"The truth?"

"That my wife is dead and so is Jacob Green, a car accident. Tell him that the children escaped, but on no circumstances are you to harm the children."

"I promise," said Raines with a malicious sneer and hung up the phone. . "But I'll be able to harm them as adults."