PART 1: The House in Teton

"Come on in, Sydney. Your turn now."

The voice drifted through the closed set of doors leading to Mr Parker's old office. A moment later, Broots pushed through the doors on the way out. He winced slightly on seeing Sydney and bustled past without a word, looking shaken. Well, more shaken than usual. Sydney rose from his chair and entered the office.

It wasn't the first time Mr Lyle had occupied the head office of the Centre, but even given that fact, the place felt different. Previously, the office had been hung with Zulu art, reeking of the worst sycophantic tendencies of its current occupant. For his current reign, Mr. Lyle appeared to be going for more of a minimalist aesthetic. On Sydney's entrance, Mr Lyle looked up and smiled brightly from behind a new, bigger desk. Wenge, Sydney guessed. The surface was bare except for a pile of folders, a pencil and notepad, and a box of Thai takeout. Pad See Ew, from the smell.

Sydney had thought he would be meeting with Mr Raines. To learn that it was instead Mr Lyle to whom he must report was not necessarily good news or bad news, more of a lateral move. It did change his tack, however.

"Where's Mr Raines?" he asked. Mr Lyle's smile slipped a fraction of an inch, then returned bigger and better than ever.

"Mr Raines is on leave."

Sydney frowned. "I didn't hear anything about him going on leave before I left, yesterday," he said.

"And he informs you about everything, does he? Are you also included on memos about what the Triumvirate eat for breakfast? Sit down, Sydney, so we can get this over with." He gestured to the chair on the opposite side of the desk.

Sydney raised his eyebrows in barely constrained amusement. This business in Philadelphia must really be eating at Lyle, Sydney thought. Ten seconds into their meeting and he was already betraying the irritation simmering underneath the mask. All the more reason for Sydney to push through this interview as smoothly as he could manage. He sat.

"As I'm sure you saw on the way in, I've just been speaking with Broots. Our conversation concerned what happened in Philadelphia," said Lyle. He picked up his Pad See Ew and pinched a mouthful of thick noodles between his chopsticks. "I understand you and he were together for the entirety of the incident, so I'm just looking for corroboration. Be aware that any diversion from Broots's story will not look good for you. Either of you, really."

"Of course." Sydney nodded serenely. Here was the rule of thumb for speaking with Triumvirate representatives and other Centre higher-ups, as he saw it: don't give any information that hasn't been asked for. He fully intended to tell the truth, but good intentions and the truth were not always enough to stay in the Centre's good graces. With a free pinky finger, Lyle punched a button on a hand-held tape recorder.

"We'll start when you caught up with Jarod at the hospital. Broots gave me the whole story about how you located the crime scene, that's all fine and has been backed up by the Philadelphia Police Department. Where did you first see Jarod?"

Sydney recreated the scene in his mind's eye.

"It was on the fourth floor of the hospital. Broots and I ran into the two detectives who had arrived to arrest Jarod and Miss Parker for the death of the racketeer. While we were talking, I saw Jarod and Miss Parker emerge from one of the patient rooms down the hall."

"Was there anything unusual about their exit from the room?"

"Unusual? No," said Sydney. Lyle seemed to be fishing for something in particular. He thought back. "It seemed to me that Miss Parker was extracting Jarod. I heard later that the plan was to meet up with the sweepers, I assume that is what she was doing. She had her gun covering Jarod's back."

"Miss Parker had a gun on Jarod? Not the other way around?"

Sydney frowned. "No?"

"Is that a question?"

"No. No, Miss Parker had a gun on Jarod. Why, did Broots say otherwise?"

Mr Lyle conspicuously tucked a folder marked 'Testimony CB081503 BROOTS' under another, itself marked 'Testimony SH081503 SYDNEY'. A slight smudge of oily sauce remained on the edge of the folder.

"Broots's report is confidential," said Lyle. "I'm just fact-checking. For your information, since you were not there to witness it, Miss Parker arranged by phone to meet the sweeper teams at the fourth floor elevators. Did they head for the fourth floor elevators?"

"No," Sydney admitted. "They headed for the stairs. I supposed that was due to the police presence around the elevator entrance."

"Supposition noted," said Lyle with a tight smile. "When was the next time you saw Jarod?"

"On the roof. When we came out onto the rooftop, the helicopter had already taken off. I could see Jarod at the controls."

"You didn't do anything to stop him?"

"What? How was I meant to —" Sydney paused to stamp down his incredulity. "There was nothing in my power to be done. I don't carry a weapon. It was too loud for me to talk him down."

"So what did you do?"

"Waved."

"Waved?" Once again, Lyle's irritation eked through the cracks in his façade of cheerful professionalism.

"Waved. He didn't wave back."

Lyle kneaded his forehead. "Fantastic. What about Miss Parker?"

Sydney shrugged.

"She was nowhere in sight. I'll allow, she could have been on the helicopter, perhaps at the controls. The seat on the far side — the right side — of the helicopter was not in view from the rooftop, we could only see Jarod from below."

"Why would she have been at the controls?" asked Lyle, mouth full of noodles.

Sydney fought down a grimace at the fleeting glimpses of half-chewed Thai food. He considered pointing out that speculation does not traditionally form part of a witness testimonial. He would never deny an opportunity to nudge Centre leadership in the direction of his choosing, however, so he swallowed the comment.

"I'm not certain one way or the other. If I had to guess, I'd say she decided to form a temporary truce with Jarod and mutually escape the hospital to get away from the Philadelphia PD. Whatever Miss Parker's orders, you can't deny she'd have a hard time carrying them out from behind bars."

Sydney would do pretty well anything in his power to get Miss Parker out of the Triumvirate's cross-hairs, though she'd never thank him for it. From the direction of the questions so far, it seemed Lyle could be angling to accuse Miss Parker of incompetence, collusion, or both.

"Could she have been in the back? Restrained, maybe?"

The question threw Sydney for a loop. Strike collusion from the list.

"Restrained? I… I suppose that's technically possible." Sydney searched Mr Lyle with his eyes. "What are you suggesting?"

Lyle stood up and paced around the desk, abandoning his half-eaten lunch.

"Your theory about a mutual escape from the cops is appreciated, Sydney, but it's not lacking for holes. Why wouldn't Parker simply use the helicopter to take Jarod back to the Centre? That's what it was there for, after all. She wouldn't blink at leaving some sweepers behind. No, I'm afraid the reason my sister has failed to show up has a much more sinister explanation."

Here he paused, waiting for the inevitable question. Sydney supplied it, suppressing an eye-roll, but barely:

"… And what is that explanation?"

"Jarod has her."

Sydney frowned.

"Has her?"

"He's kidnapped her," said Lyle, with impatience. "Tit-for-tat, maybe, 'see how you like it when I kidnap one of yours'. For information, more probably. We got too close and now he wants the inside scoop to stay ahead of us. It's obvious. Your colleague Mr. Broots also agrees with me that it's a real possibility… I wonder why you would think different. Maybe you've become a little too close to things to see matters objectively."

That explained why Lyle had asked about who had the gun on whom, earlier. It was ridiculous, however, to Sydney's view. The Centre has observed Jarod for over thirty years, he thought. But they still lack any capacity to predict his behaviour.

"Jarod wouldn't do that," Sydney blustered, straightening in his seat. "He's not a violent person, and he'd be the last person to kidnap someone. As you can imagine, he has a strong bias against kidnappers in particular. Given his history."

Lyle coughed out a bitter laugh. "Jarod kidnapped me once. Threatened to torture me. Tell me again how non-violent he is."

Granted, but he wouldn't admit as much to Lyle's face. He also wouldn't admit to himself that in fact, while Jarod generally stopped short of lasting physical harm, his mile-wide vindictive streak left room for a talent for psychological torment which could pass for a violence look-alike in low light.

"He Pretended, that's his MO. Also, forgive me for saying so, but you are something of a different case. Given your history."

Lyle looked for a moment like he wanted to argue. Then, he brightened and sat back down to enjoy the rest of his lunch.

"Your perspective is appreciated, Sydney, but thankfully I don't need your approval to make the appropriate changes to our protocol concerning Jarod. You may go, and send Sam in after you." With that, he shut Sydney's folder and slid a new one from the bottom of the pile. 'Testimony ST081503 SAM'.

On automatic, Sydney rose. There was more to say, but he knew Lyle wouldn't hear it. He paused before the double doors.

"What changes in protocol?" he asked.

Lyle paused with the finger over the 'stop' button on the tape recorder. He grinned. There was a bit of gai lan stuck between his front teeth.

"When Jarod escalates, we need to respond in kind. I'm notifying all Centre sweepers of a new shoot-to-kill order."

No.

The words echoed around Sydney's skull. He blanched.

"You can't — no, you can't do that! Jarod is too important, the Triumvirate do not want him dead."

Lyle chewed gleefully. "Who do you think authorized the protocol change? Get out, Sydney, I have a half-dozen interviews to get to."

"You can't —"

In the space of a sliver in time, Lyle's glee morphed into something uglier.

"I can and I did!" he roared. "Get out."

To his shame, Sydney left without another word. With every step down the hall, he thought of a new reply he could have thrown Lyle's way, and never would. This couldn't be happening. Jarod's importance to the success of the Centre had kept kill orders off the table since day one of his escape, what could have changed? Sydney couldn't bear the thought of standing by and watching Jarod go down in a barrage of bullets. But then, that was what he did best, wasn't it?

He stood by.


The Westfalia rumbled to a halt, jostling Miss Parker awake. She'd grown used to the churning of gravel under the wheels and the gentle swaying of the van back and forth, like taking a ride on the back of an elephant. The long drive through the winding, narrow path — she refused to call it a road — had ultimately tempted her to sleep, and sleep she had, stretching out on the back bench over a flannel blanket.

"Miss Parker," called Jarod. Miss Parker snorted into full consciousness.

"What?" she groaned.

"We're here."

She opened her eyes. Dappled sunlight streamed in through the windows, casting leafy shadows over the van floor, the travel-sized sink, cupboards, and Miss Parker herself. She sat up, stretching, and caught Jarod's eye in the rear-view mirror. For the first time since landing on the border between Oregon and Idaho, he was smiling. Much of their trip had been bitter and silent, both of them nursing emotional bruises from their Pretend-gone-bad on the flight westward.

Jarod hopped out of the van. The crunch of the door closing behind him rattled the windows and the force sent the frame a-wobbling.

The plan was for Miss Parker to meet Jarod's mother. It wasn't lost on Miss Parker that this was a remarkable show of trust on Jarod's part. Present situation aside, technically speaking Miss Parker was still with the Centre, still officially under orders to bring Jarod in at all costs. There were separate orders out on the various scattered members of Jarod's far-flung family, she knew, though her contract never mentioned them. She was neither interested nor invested in seeing Jarod's mother locked up in a Centre holding cell, however. Miss Parker had photographic evidence that Margaret had known her mother, had been in touch with her after the official date of Catherine Parker's death. If nothing else, Miss Parker needed to get to know by proxy this version of her mother, the one who thought it was more important to disappear than to stay with her daughter and husband at the Centre.

Miss Parker heaved open the side door and stepped onto the gravel driveway.

She was greeted by a spruce-and-stone three-storey house surrounded by paper birch and larch trees. It was much bigger than she expected, though admittedly she had known little of what to expect, only that Margaret lived there. Through the trees, she spied a rocky valley and in the distance, a line of snow-capped mountains hemming in the horizon. The air all around them was thick with the reverberations of birdsong. It was, in a word, idyllic. Miss Parker preferred to throw around a big-city personality, but when it came to living quarters, she preferred the country. Her house in Delaware was beyond the outskirts of Blue Cove, which was how she liked it. This house in the middle of the Teton Wilderness looked like something out of a childhood daydream, like when her mother had read Heidi to her. It looked like the sort of house Heidi might live in, sans Swiss Alps.

Jarod was already climbing the stairs with his carry-on slung over one shoulder. He limped on his injured thigh every other step. Miss Parker came back to the moment and caught up.

Jarod opened the door without knocking, and they stepped in. The theme inside was wood, and to cap it off, imagine that! More wood. A distant clinking and rattling and the rush of water suggested someone within was washing dishes.

"Hello?" called Miss Parker. Jarod caught her eye and shook his head. "Wh —"

"She can't hear you." At Miss Parker's non-plussed look, he expanded. "My mother's deaf. She lost her hearing in a car bombing not too long after I escaped the Centre."

"A car bombing?" A swift intake of breath from Miss Parker, and she grimaced. "The Centre."

Jarod nodded.

"My first thought when I heard was that they did it to flush me out, but that doesn't hold water. It makes more sense to watch her and wait for me to show up."

"You're assuming my employers operate under principles of sound logic," said Miss Parker. "Sometimes they throw their weight around just to feel big."

Jarod cracked a smile.

"That could be it, I guess. Mom doesn't talk about it often."

He said 'Mom' like he was testing it out, which in a way Miss Parker supposed he was. She didn't know the time-line of their reunion but it couldn't have taken place more than a couple years previous at most.

"So... she talks? Or does she use sign?" asked Miss Parker. Not for the first time in the last week, Miss Parker was very glad for having picked up a very decent grasp of ASL in college.

"She speaks verbally, yes. She's also pretty good at lip-reading by now, though she will appreciate your grasp of ASL. I was so excited when you started using it on Chabot's plane." He winced at the mention of Chabot. Miss Parker pressed her lips together and did not reply. The less that fiasco was discussed, the better for everyone.

As guessed, Margaret was washing dishes. Her greying red hair was tied back in a lopsided bun and there was a hunch to her shoulders, contributing to the startling height difference between her and her eldest son. A small pile of dripping dishes was accumulating in the rack next to the sink. Beyond her, a door lead to a screened-off porch on the back of the house. On their approach, Jarod stepped heavily and waved in his mother's peripheral vision, but she didn't notice the pair of them until they were within arm's reach. She spotted the movement of Jarod's extended hand and jumped slightly, almost dropping the plate she was washing.

"Oh!" she said, and broke off into an embarrassed laugh. She turned aside to wipe her knobbly fingers on a hand towel. "Jarod, you startled me. Didn't I tell you not to come up to me when I'm not expecting you and holding something fragile? That might have been a mess."

Jarod beamed, smiling so hard it might split his face in two.

"Hi, Mom. Sorry for the scare," he said, his words warm and full of love. He signed the words as he spoke, though she wasn't looking at him. He hadn't checked her eye lines before starting. It was odd to witness Jarod wield a skill awkwardly and without finesse, since he was usually talented at whatever he picked up. That was the whole point. Nevertheless, he signed like a new driver drives, with precision and without personality. He noticed his mother wasn't looking and waved in her peripheral vision again. "Mom, this is —"

Margaret looked up, and her gaze landed on Miss Parker.

"Oh!" she said again. To Miss Parker's horror, she burst into shuddering tears. Jarod closed in hurriedly, tempted to comfort but not sure how. Margaret patted at her son's shoulder, and her tears petered away into hiccups. "No, it's (hic) OK, thank you Jarod. Oh, my goodness, Miss Parker! I'm so sorry for that reception, but as I'm sure (hic) you know, you look…."

"Like my mother," finished Miss Parker. After a pause, she repeated her utterance in sign. She's have to get used to that. "I know."

Margaret nodded. "Like your mother. We (hic) knew each other. Oh, yes, Jarod told me you are aware of that. Right. Well. Catherine was very important (hic) to me." Her voice wobbled. "I miss her very much."

"So do I," Miss Parker said. All the way across Idaho, she'd waffled back and forth whether it had been a good idea to agree to hitch her wagon to Jarod's and go off to meet his mother. What if after all of that, Margaret didn't know anything tangible at all? But now, upon meeting her, Miss Parker knew it wouldn't matter if the woman had nothing of strategic value to share. It was enough to connect with someone who seemed to grieve Catherine Parker almost as much as she, Miss Parker, did.

Jarod looked between the two of them with a private smile.

"Welcome!" said Margaret. "Welcome to our home. Are you staying long? Where are your things?"

The plan had been for Miss Parker to meet Margaret, then to break ties with Jarod and put him in her rear view mirror for good. It was difficult to say as much to Margaret, however, so she dodged the question.

"I didn't plan on a long trip when I left home," said Miss Parker. She gestured down to her clothes, a sweater and leggings she'd picked up from a tourist shop on the way eastward through Idaho. "I didn't really bring any things. Just the bare essentials."

Margaret patted Jarod's arm.

"You'll have to go get her some things, Jarod," she said. "I won't have her going without. Miss Parker, you can sleep in the, ah. The vacant room. Jarod, you can show her where it is."

The vacant room, as it had been ominously termed, was a bedroom on the top floor with its own personal balcony. There were empty bookcases lining the walls and a small shaving kit on the dresser.

"Whose room is this?" asked Miss Parker, when Jarod escorted her up to see it.

"Dad's," said Jarod in a tight voice. "He doesn't use it."

Dad's. Not his parents', only his father's. With empty book shelves. There was clearly a story there, but Miss Parker wasn't in a place to hear it. She dropped her earthly possessions — a bag of toiletries, her purse and a stack of over-ripe clothes — next to the shaving kit and looked around. She'd made it. Now the next question, which was a poser:

How to leave gracefully?


Sydney tracked down Broots at his desk. He looked over Broots's shoulder before announcing himself; the screen showed the recovered tracking data from a Centre helicopter.

"Broots, hi," he said. Broots jumped slightly, then gave Sydney a relieved smile. "I see you survived your meeting with Mr. Lyle."

Broots laughed shakily.

"Yeah," he said. "Boy, when I got that summons… but it all turned out all right. I was afraid he would ask me to that T-board he was planning before we left for Pennsylvania, or maybe he'd try to get me to report on Miss Parker. Could have been a lot worse."

Considering that Sydney would have classified his own meeting with Mr Lyle as being one of the worst in recent memory, he was surprised to hear Broots being so positive.

"So he didn't tell you," he guessed.

Broots looked up. "Tell me what?"

Sydney pulled up a chair from a neighbouring desk and sat down. He lowered his voice to a murmur.

"He's put out a shoot-to-kill order out on Jarod," he said.

"Oh!" said Broots. "Oh, that. Yes, he did tell me that. Seemed to think it would calm me down, heh. But yes, no, you're right, that's bad news. I mean, Jarod, he's, he's like your son. I mean, you have a son, but he's like your unofficial son. Not that I'm telling you how to feel about Jarod, I just know you have a history with —"

Sydney hushed him with a placating hand, spying another employee pause in his typing and seem to pay altogether too much attention to Broots's rant.

"It's all right, Broots. Yes, he is important to me. But… well, I thought you'd be concerned on Jarod's behalf, no? Especially if he isn't told before his next encounter with Centre agents. He tends to act bulletproof, because he believes the Centre wants him alive."

Which, of course, set Broots off again.

"No, no, of course! Very concerned. He saved my life once, he helped me with custody of Debbie, and then again he got me out of a tough spot with the law. He's a good guy who, who doesn't deserve this, I know that. I just wish he hadn't, y'know."

Sydney raised his eyebrows, non-plussed.

"I don't know, no. What are you talking about?"

Broots switched to a loud whisper, somehow much more audible than his regular speaking voice.

"Kidnapped Miss Parker! I know she's been trying to do the same to him for years, but that's different. At least, I think it is. Maybe it isn't."

"Broots! You honestly —" He paused, noting the lull in conversation and heads cocked in their direction. "Come to my office, we need a better place to talk. The walls have ears here."

They re-grouped in Sydney's office.

"… Everything OK, Syd?" asked Broots, the way you might ask something with a descending digital countdown and multi-coloured wires, which ticked.

"You can't really believe Jarod would kidnap Miss Parker," said Sydney. He can't, can he? Yes, Broots was the member of their little team with the least personal experience with Jarod, but surely Broots knew what sort of person their perpetual quarry was.

Broots looked puzzled.

"I mean… didn't he? It's not as if I don't kinda get it. Get 'em before they get you, sort of thing. I can see why you might find it difficult to process, though. It'll be all right, Syd, I'm sure he won't hurt her."

Sydney felt his frustration mounting.

"Of course he won't! Where did you get this from? Lyle?"

Broots had the grace to look embarrassed.

"No," he said. He hesitated. "… Maybe. Look, he only suggested it, but it fits the scenario. Why, what do you think happened?"

Sydney shook his head, every inch the disappointed teacher.

"Broots, I never would have believed it of you. Taking Mr Lyle, of all people, at his word." Indignation flared on Broots's face, but Sydney continued without allowing him to retort. "We saw Miss Parker and Jarod head to the roof, at the time Miss Parker was in control. When we next saw Jarod, he was flying away in a helicopter, and Miss Parker was not visible. Could she have gone back down the stairs?"

"No," said Broots, slipping into information technology mode as easily as one slips on a pair of old, well-loved sneakers. "She wasn't on any of the security footage leaving any of the exits afterwards. Not unless she stayed in the hospital past the time interval we looked at, but why would she do that?"

"She wouldn't," Sydney said decisively. He could think of several reasons why she would, but they all sounded convoluted even in his own head. "So that leaves four categories of possibilities, assuming they both left from the roof: either, as you say, Jarod left willingly but Miss Parker did not; that is, Jarod kidnapped Miss Parker —"

"So you agree it's a possibility," said Broots. Sydney silenced him with a look.

"Or, Miss Parker left willingly but Jarod did not —"

"Like Miss Parker took Jarod away against his will? Doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't they be back at the Centre by now? Plus I am working on information currently that a helicopter crash reported out of a Wisconsin airport may have been the same Centre helicopter that took off from Pennsylvania. Wisconsin is not on the way to Delaware." At Sydney's look of dismay, Broots rushed to continue. "If it was them, they seem to have walked away from it. Nobody was found in the helicopter."

"Oh. Good. By the by, are you going to continue to keep up a running commentary?" asked Sydney acidly. "Let me finish. The third possibility is that neither left the rooftop willingly; that is, some third party removed both of them." He chanced a glance at Broots, but the latter had been suitably chastised, and waited from Sydney to finish. "The final option I find the most compelling — they both left willingly."

Broots frowned. "But in that case, if Jarod took the helicopter, where did Miss Parker go?"

"With Jarod. I'm suggesting they left together."

"Oh!" Broots laughed. "Oh, Sydney, I'm not sure I can see that. Can you imagine what Raines would do if Miss Parker went along willingly with Jarod escaping sweepers on a helicopter? He'd start ripping off heads." Broots's brow creased. "Hey, where is Raines, by the way?"

"On leave," said Sydney automatically, though he wasn't so sure himself.

Where was Raines, really?