CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The first thing one has to do is to decide where to go first and then whether to use the Centre helicopter or the Centre jet. Passports were no problem, the Centre being an international organization and all they had to do was to get everyone's photographs.

The Centre photographs showed the front, and both sides of the subject. It was much better than usual passport photos as the Centre liked to keep track of its staff, their families, as well as their property — that is the Pretenders.

Jarod, Miss Parker, and Lambourni decided to keep the Centre equipment and not go with the going to the Passport office. Besides, Miss Parker got a Passport photo once. She felt she was better looking when she was in the hospital after her ulcer attack..

"The Centre helicopter," said Miss Parker.

"The Jet," said Antonio.

"I'm for the Jet," echoed Jarod.

She looked around. Even the kids were nodding and shouting, "Jet!" making sure that Sydney and Broots, who wanted the helicopter, couldn't get a word in edgewise.

"You just want the Jet because you're a Top Gun, Antonio, and you want to do some of your fancy flying," she said, "but if one of the kids get sick, we're going to go by liner and we'll spent months at sea, watching old men and women play croquet."

Nevertheless, none of her threats bothered them and on consideration, even she agreed the Centre Jet was better. The work crew had made major renovations and although the cargo had held not only goods, but also captives, the time for transporting Pretenders had ended..

This time, everyone was going to be in the main quarters, including The Pretender.

"We should go to London first," said Jarod, bringing them back to the original subject, after they were in the plane..

"No," said Miss Parker, "Ireland."

"Ireland?"

"My maternal grandfather came from there."

"Oh, did your grandparents have the inner sense?" asked Jarod.

She glared at him. "I have no idea."

"Well perhaps we should find out."

"Okay. Broots, check out Dublin, look for a family called Jamieson and another called MacEarran." She gave the name of the street and mentioned that a Jamieson worked as an Importer Exporter where he met a Colleen MacEarran, and married her. "They came to America soon after their honeymoon, but as he was still working for the Export company, he had to return to Dublin. They died when mother was young. My great aunt took care of her, until she decided to be a nun, but that didn't work out.".

"I thought the name was Banerran," said Broots.

"They were traditionalists, stuck to the old customs, but were pressured to change."

"All right, MacEarran. I hope you have fire wire here."

"Fire wire?"

"Wireless connection"

"Oh." She waited until the plane took off. Lambourni was in the pilot seat with Jarod as co-pilot.

Rachel was telling the children them about her adventures in the FBI, that is, a watered down version so not to terrify them. Speaking softly, Major Charles tried to assure Margaret that the effects of changing from homo sapien to homo dominant would not be dramatic. Sydney wrote notes on a pad while looking at the cylinder in which Gemini lay in suspended animation.

"How long is he going to stay there?" he asked.

The Medical, who had accompanied them to look after Margaret, looked at his watch. "Do you want him to die sooner?" he asked.

"No."

"Then leave this to those with more experience and intelligence," was the snap reply. "We will revive him for a few seconds, enough to register a flight in his mental capacities and then put him under again."

"What does that do?"

The Medical smiled. "It will be as if he dreamt, but he will be half awake. In that stage, what you call Alpha, a minute seems like an hour, an hour like a few hours. He will believe he was as in a bed staring out of the window. You note the reason why I put it in the present location."

Sydney nodded. The cylinder was not in the cargo hold or at the back of the plane, but somehow fastened securely to across two seats so that the glass cover faced the window.

They were now flying over the Atlantic, and while the others stared down to see what was below — like ships at the bottom of the ocean or Atlantis rising from the deep – Broots still searched He tried every neighborhood in Dublin, but had no luck. He then tried the outskirts and finally the county.

"Nothing here, Miss Parker," he said.

"What?"

"I checked everywhere, but it appears that no MacEarran or Banneran married a Jamieson. The strange th-thing about it is that when I went to the location of the house where your maternal grandmother lived in, it was under another name and not the same place."

By this time, Jarod had left his seat. He went over to the lap top, pushed Broots aside, and typed in some names.

"What d-did you do?" asked Broots.

"I found the estimated location of the flat that Miss Banerran lived, as well as the estimated place where Mr. Jamieson, your mother's father, Miss Parker, worked."

"And what else?"

"It appears that someone else was also searching for information. The file has been accessed previously."

"Let me see," said Miss Parker, looking over Jarod's shoulder.

"Here." Jarod pointed to a number. Below it was a url.

"Oh that's just the number of times people came upon this page, probably."

"I'll just go to the advertiser." He typed the url and was not prepared for Miss Parker's reaction.

"I know that organization."

"What do you mean, Miss Parker?"

"It used to be a subsidiary of The Centre. They went out of business back in the middle 1950s."

"Wasn't that around the time your father married your mother?" asked Sydney who too took an interest in the search.

"Yes. Jarod, can you type in that url in Google and find out if it's been anywhere else?"

Jarod did so, and the results surprised him. The addresses were similar, starting with places where someone was a psychic. Mr. Parker was looking for a specific someone, for he crossed off names of families in which that ability just cropped up all of a sudden. Even going as far as Transylvania, the Centre searched for an inherited sense of the paranormal, without being specific for there were numerous links, most which led to information about the paranormal. Jarod was about to give up when he clicked on one that led to a page containing a zip file.

Not only was the file encrypted, for which Broots helped in opening it, but the document was also and in time, both men were able to read the message.

In it, Mr. Parker expressed his desire to keep the Centre in the Parker hands. He was disgusted at how things had gone. He feared that the Pretenders's ability to take over any role coupled with their intelligence would see the Centre go from the Parkers's hands to them. It was at this time that he was thinking of obtaining financial backing outside of America..

"He could have tried the Cayman Islands," said Jarod with a sneer.

There was talk about offering a part to a Zulu chieftain who found diamonds on his land and had acquired the majority of shares in the mining company. He was supposedly quite well educated (Mr. Parker not wanting to deal with a dummy) but also retained his native superstition. His family had all attended various universities and they were quite westernized. He had written back to Mr. Parker saying that since he had two friends who were also interested.

"The Triumvirate," said Miss Parker.

"Here's something you might find interesting, Miss Parker," said Jarod, "'Years ago, my father found certain individuals whom he thought were the right specimens, but they were failures. However, the Centre took certain of their children, and found they were of high intelligence, but because they had no outside influence, we could not use them. I have decided to keep them as unpaid staff to occupy themselves.' That could explain the reason for the Nutrional Supplement."

Miss Parker yawned. "This is all too common."

"But listen to this," said Jarod, "'For some reason they anticipate our moves. We need a balance, a counter edge. The Centre has sent our employees to look for a woman of intelligence, charm, and breeding. Her qualifications, as well as being of the Catholic faith, is that she must have the ability to emphasize with others, to know ahead of time when an event will occur, and to communicate even with those passed away and to sense the sex of our child without any medical assistance, before its birth. And that ability must be inherited. That way, I will be able to properly prepare the future of our child and the Centre, as well as prevent the Pretenders from taking over the Centre.'"

Miss Parker gasped. "So my father knew about my mother's inner sense. He didn't marry her because he loved her. He married her so that he would have a super Parker, one that would rule the Centre."

"Do you know anything about your grandparents?" asked Sydney.

"Mother said that when Grandmother left her at the convent, she said that Grandpa was in trouble. She promised to return, but if she didn't, that meant the boogey man had got Mother kept that part of her life secret from me. I tried to find more but couldn't."

Jarod had switched seats with Lambourni and told everyone to fasten their seatbelts. "We're going to Dublin and find out what REALLY happened to the Jamiesons," The Pretended said.

Miss Parker clutched her seat, dreading what she would find out once they landed in Ireland.