Resolutions – 28

Answers of a Sort

by MMB

Pete opened the door to the therapy room so Sydney could leave. "By the time I see you next week, I want you able to do a minimum of four sets of five each of those exercises — and you should have the CPM machine flexing the knee a minimum of seventy-five degrees. You're coming along well, but let's see if you can't step up the pace a bit now."

Sydney merely nodded at the athletic young therapist who had actually done a remarkable job at helping him get as mobile as he was in the three weeks since his surgery. He was tired — the exercises that Pete had taught him that session were painful and wearing and would be hard to discipline himself to do on the kind of basis that his therapist would be demanding. The last thing he'd expected, however, was to see Deb already back from her appointment, sitting in the waiting room outside the therapy room. She didn't look in the least happy, and his heart sank.

"See you next week," Pete boomed enthusiastically and then gestured with a grand wave at the slim young man sitting two seats away from Deb. "Jim! I'm ready for you now."

Sydney waited until Pete and Jim had vanished back behind a closed therapy room door before approaching his granddaughter. "From the look on your face and the way my leg feels right now, I'd say that we both deserve to sin a little." Deb merely nodded and rose to her feet. "There's a soft-serve ice cream machine downstairs in the cafeteria," Sydney offered, pointing the way toward the elevator. "I'm buying."

"OK." Deb's voice was flat, and she was obviously only barely holding back tears.

On the way to the elevator, Sydney caught sight of a small waiting room that was empty. "Hang on a moment — let's go in here." He directed. "I think we need to talk first before our treat."

Again Deb merely obeyed him without comment. He sat himself down on one of the molded plastic chairs and waited for Deb to sit down next to him. "I take it the news you got from your doctor was not what you wanted to hear," he observed carefully. Deb shook her head, her face falling just a little more. "Well?"

"Inconclusive," she reported in a defeated voice. "If I am pregnant, I'm not far enough along for any of the tests to say so."

Sydney nodded quietly. "What else did the doctor say?"

"He gave me a prescription for some pills, in case I wanted to take them…" She hesitated. "Because I haven't been… with Kevin… for that long, I could take these pills and they would force me to cycle. If I were pregnant, it wouldn't matter anymore." She leaned into her grandfather, suddenly in need of somebody else's strength. "Once I start my…" she paused, not entirely comfortable talking that frankly about her bodily processes with her grandfather, "After that, I can call him and he'll write out either a prescription for the pill, or I could choose to have him give me implants."

Sydney put his arm around her comfortingly. "Do you want to be pregnant, Deb?"

Slowly she shook her head. "Not really. I know I'm not ready, and I know Kevin isn't either."

"Then if you don't want to be pregnant, you do want to take the pills, don't you?"

She looked up into his face. Somehow, he'd managed to wave away the fog of emotional confusion and help her find her path. "I guess I do." She closed her eyes and leaned against him a little more.

Sydney could tell there was more to this for her. "What would happen if you waited?"

"I could be pregnant, but by the time I knew, it would be too late to take pills like that. Kevin is dead set opposed to my having an abortion — and I really don't want to think about it either, to be honest." She sighed as Sydney's arms tightened around her. "I guess not knowing whether I am or not and just taking the pills would be best — Kevin doesn't have to know that part of it."

"No, you should consider sharing that with him, ma petite. He deserves to understand the choice being made, and how it makes you feel. He's in this with you too, you know," Sydney counseled gently. "But ultimately, the choice is yours."

"If I get the prescription filled on the way home, I can take the first pill before we even get there," she decided. "Can we do that?"

"Of course we can," he reassured her. "And granted that you're going to be taking the pills and so should think of yourself as not pregnant and now on birth control, you can be with Kevin again." He ran a gentle hand down her back soothingly. "Everything's going to be OK, cheri."

"I just…"

He'd expected this, from the way her expression hadn't been exactly thrilled. "You just what?"

"I kinda… was… a little disappointed…"

"Disappointed how? That you weren't pregnant, or that the tests would be inconclusive."

Deb sniffed. "Both, I suppose. I've had long enough to almost get myself talked into the idea of a baby…"

"You could always not take the pill…"

She shook her head against his chest. "No, I know that it would be better this way for everyone concerned. But you know what I mean?"

"No," he answered honestly, "but then, I'm not a woman. When things calm down again a little bit, you should probably have another heart to heart with Miss Parker."

Deb thought about it for a while and then nodded. "I will."

"Are you OK?" he asked gently.

She pressed herself into him just a little harder again. She was glad to have had someone supportive to talk to after her unsatisfactory appointment — someone to help her think things through more clearly. Grandpa had always had a knack for helping her in that way. "I suppose…"

"Then come on," he urged with a gentle hug. "Let's go have some ice cream."

She pushed herself out of her grandfather's embrace and looked up at him sheepishly. "We really don't need it, you know…"

He smiled conspiratorially at her. "I know — but if you won't say anything about it, neither will I."

Finally she started to smile a little, and then shook her head. "My own grandfather's a sweet sneak."

"Contributing to the delinquency of a relative is a time-honored Green family trait," Sydney quipped, and then had the joy of seeing that beginning smile of hers grow just a bit wider. "Especially when it helps a favorite granddaughter of mine out of the dumps."

"I love you, Grandpa," Deb said, standing and handing him his crutches.

"I love you too, ma petite," Sydney grunted as he pulled himself to his feet with some difficulty, already a little stiff from the exercises Pete had taught him. "And am I glad you're the one driving home…"

Miss Parker sat behind her desk, attentively watching the faces of the two lawyers who had responded to her call for advice as they pored over the newspaper article together. Mei-Chiang had outdone herself in acquiring three copies of the paper for her boss, evidently knowing ahead of time of the need to be able to share the paper with others. Now it was a question of whether or not there was anything in the article that was actionable…

"Well," she finally asked, her patience starting wear thin.

The older of the pair, Lou Handel, looked up at her with pale blue eyes beneath a limp swatch of thin, grey hair. "Well, this is a very carefully worded article. There are no actual accusations made here, just questions asked. There's not a lot you can do against those who simply ask the questions — it's when they try to supply answers that don't exactly fit reality that the openings for law suits happen."

"You mean I have to sit here and say nothing about this?"

"How you want to respond depends very much on how you want the public to see the Centre, ma'am," Mark Enos, the younger legal expert, replied before his older and more circumspect associate could even open his mouth. "If you want to set the record straight, you give the guy that wrote this an interview in which you essentially say 'yeah — so?' and then get your side of the story out there."

"Do you honestly think, after all you know about the Centre's legal dealings, that I'll be able to gloss over what Raines and Lyle did?" Miss Parker knew full well that Handel at least had been with the Centre for years — hired by Raines to keep lawsuits to a minimum — and that Enos had only been with the company for a couple of years at best.

"You have to admit, there is a kind of wisdom in that response, ma'am," the older lawyer responded more thoughtfully. "So many of the allegations made here concern those who are no longer with us. And of those questions that have some basis in fact, most of them took place a very long time ago."

The intercom chose that moment to buzz. "I thought I said that I didn't want to be disturbed," Miss Parker snapped into the device.

"You did, ma'am, but Jarod is here — and I figured that considering everything, you might want him to take part in your discussion?" Mei-Chiang defended her choice to disrupt the meeting.

"You figured correctly," Miss Parker responded, the disgruntled tone now notably missing. "Send him in. And Mei — accept my apology?"

"Not a problem," Mei-Chiang smiled and nodded at the tall Pretender to tell him that he was welcome to proceed to the inner office. "I understand."

Miss Parker smiled and the two lawyers turned in surprise as the door to the office opened and a tall, dark stranger walked into the room. "Gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to Jarod Russell — the erstwhile subject of the newspaper article we're discussing and my fiancé."

"I see I'm just in time," Jarod commented with a satisfied grin as he shook hands with both men. "Please, continue."

Miss Parker waited for him to pull a third chair from against the wall and join the lawyers in front of her desk. "Mr. Handel and Mr. Enos here were explaining to me why I should do an interview with Mr. Lawler, essentially confirming many of the insinuations in the article and telling my side of the story."

Jarod's eyebrows rose slightly, but he nodded. "That's one approach. For one thing, it prevents you personally from looking as if you are hiding anything, which short-circuits one of the biggest potential problems. For another, it gets an alternative explanation out there BEFORE this Mr. Lawler is able to do much more muckraking at Centre expense."

Handel hadn't lost his wide-eyed surprise. "You're telling me that THIS," he pointed to Jarod, "is the Pretender Jarod that Mr. Raines and Mr. Lyle were looking for all those years ago — and the one about whom Lawler is writing here?"

"Yes." Miss Parker's admission was unequivocal. "Is that a problem?"

Enos was grinning madly at his associate, his dark eyes dancing merrily. "Quite to the contrary, Miss Parker. This works out wonderfully!"

"How so?"

"Because, as the supposedly injured party, what I have to say about the matter will be given far more weight than anticipated," Jarod answered for the legal team. "Whoever got this thing started probably thinks that either I'm dead or so far faded off into the distance that I either won't notice or couldn't be bothered — or that I'll jump at the first chance to get revenge." He smiled grimly. "They're right that I'll jump at the first chance I get — but they misjudged exactly what I'll jump at the first chance to say."

"But how far do we go into airing the Centre's former dirty laundry?" Miss Parker asked, both pleased that Jarod was jumping right into the situation with both feet and appalled at the potential damage doing so might cause. "I mean, it would be NICE if we all still had jobs when this is all over…"

"Miss Parker is right — we could be looking at hundreds of lawsuits if we come completely clean about the way research subjects were acquired for some of the more… classified… projects," Handel pointed out. "Not the least of which will be the families of those poor souls that Raines misused and abused and left warehoused down in the Psychiatric sub-level…"

Jarod shook his head. "I don't know how the current administration could be held criminally liable for actions taken under a previous administration that have since ceased. Nearly everyone who works here knows what kind of cloud we all came to work under — fear of what might happen to us or to our families if we ran afoul of Raines' temper." He looked Miss Parker directly in the eyes. "I'm all for putting all of it out — and doing it ourselves, before someone else does it for us in a way that will hurt us rather than set the record straight."

"Can we do all that in a simple interview?" Miss Parker asked, sitting back and listening closely.

"No," Jarod told her firmly, "but the interview will be our first return shot at whoever decided to sic Lawler on us. We give him access to everything — and let him draw his own conclusions. You've cleaned house, Miss Parker. You've cut all ties to organized crime, put an end to all questionable government contracts. You've expended a great deal of Centre capital to try to put the Centre back in a position of genuine legitimacy. That story — and what it's cost in both dollar and human terms, needs to be told."

"I don't know if we need to be quite THAT frank and up-front," Handel complained. "I'm all for the interview — but other than directly answering any questions this Lawler fellow has, and backing up our answers with more than sufficient documentation to demonstrate the truth of our assertions and possibly giving him access to you, Mr. Russell, I'd say let sleeping dogs lie."

"I think I like the more conservative approach myself, Miss Parker," Enos agreed with his colleague. "I think that what Mr. Russell…"

"Doctor Russell," Jarod corrected the man firmly after the second time.

"Excuse me," Enos apologized sincerely. "I think what Dr. Russell suggests should be a last-ditch response, in case we end up on the firing line of something more dangerous than the inside front page of the Post."

"But you're still telling me that there's nothing actionable in what was published today?" Miss Parker asked, wanting to clarify that point once more.

All three men in front of her desk began shaking their heads. "Asking questions isn't against the law," Handel repeated.

Miss Parker rose. "Mr. Handel, Mr. Enos — thank you for your time. Consider yourselves assigned to keeping an eye on the media — all outlets, from TV to radio to print. All we need is some crackpot spewing thoroughly bogus crap to get us in over our heads."

"Yes, ma'am," Enos replied as the three men rose. "Thank you, Miss Parker."

Miss Parker waited until the lawyers were gone before sitting back down and leaning her chin in her hand as she stared at Jarod. "What do you think?"

"Playing it close to the vest and only answering the questions posed to you has its advantages," he had to admit. "The danger, however, is that by not exposing your faults yourself, you could be accused of obfuscation." He resumed his seat and gazed back. "But, ultimately, that's your decision."

She reached out with her left hand and set the perpetual motion toy on her desk to clacking back and forth absently. "How's Sydney doing? Did you tell him?"

Jarod sat back. "Yeah, I told him, and he's handling it as best he can right now, I suppose. But he and I are going to have to dig through that quagmire of guilt he's dug around himself before his name ends up being mentioned by anyone. That's part of the reason I'm all for going on the offensive with this — not by protesting an innocence that simply doesn't exist, but by putting the whole story out. It's the only way to protect people like Broots and Sydney, who don't deserve to be damned along with Raines and Lyle and Mr. Parker."

She sat, watching the toy slowly lose its momentum until the little silver balls were no longer moving, and then finally she reached out for the intercom button. "Mei? I need the telephone number for the Post, and the extension for David Lawler." Her grey eyes came up and met Jarod's. "It's gotta be done."

"I agree," he nodded and rose. "I figure that as long as I'm here, I might was well go to check in at Sydney's office and see what all has changed in the years I've been gone. I'll be back after a while."

"Don't stray too far away," she warned impulsively. "I need your mind at work for me today, Jarod." She looked at him with pure gratitude. "I'm so damned glad you're home again…"

He stepped around the desk and bent to kiss her cheek. "If you need me, I'll be in Sydney's office. The phones down there work again, don't they? I can be back up here in just a few minutes if you need me…"

Canfield had to keep himself brutally disciplined to prevent himself from looking all around the limousine to see if he could spot the listening post the FBI had set up to tape his upcoming meeting. "C'mon, George, get in. We don't have all day," Burns growled anxiously, making the young Montana Senator take a deep breath and then duck his head to enter the vehicle.

He had obviously been the last stop on the pick-up run — Burns and Jackson were already in place. "Go!" Burns commanded through the Plexiglas window and then pulled it shut so that they could have some privacy. "Nice going, Tom," the Florida Senator then added with a pat to the back of his Vermont colleague. "I saw the piece in the Post this morning — with any luck, that should get things rolling nicely."

Jackson was visibly preening. "I talked to the reporter this morning – and even though the guy was still begging me for more documentation and information, I told him that he's essentially on his own from now on. It's time for the information to come from his own research, and not from my personal archives."

Burns turned to Canfield in excitement. "Did you see the article, George?"

"I saw it," Canfield answered with probably less enthusiasm than his colleagues were expecting. "It was pretty general – nothing that would get people tied up into knots."

"I didn't have any control over how the article was written," Jackson reminded the younger man sharply. "I only sent in the copies of Centre documentation that I'd received over the years, so that he'd know what the Centre had been up to for all this time. And ultimately, I'm of the opinion that my reporter did the right thing – it will be very hard for Miss Parker to respond legally to an article that only asks questions."

"What I'm waiting for," Burns piped up, "is for the Armed Services Committee to begin to wonder just what kind of organization it's been working with all these years. If we can lose her all of the good will of the government…"

"What are you wanting?" Canfield asked pointedly, "a Senate hearing on whether or not the Centre is a security risk for sensitive projects?"

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," Jackson replied, pointing a satisfied finger in the Montana Senator's direction. "What we WANT is for Miss Parker to pay for canceling all the projects that we had in the pipeline. If we accomplish that by destroying her credibility with the government as a whole…"

"Stiller's been transferred to the stockade in Baltimore," Burns announced rather precipitously. "One of my contacts in the Air Force that DIDN'T get caught in the dragnet the military just used called me this morning. They say that he's spending a lot of time talking to an investigator at the Pentagon – a Colonel Fox…"

"He wouldn't spill, would he?" Jackson asked in concern.

"If they offer him a deal for his testimony, we have nothing in place anymore to prevent him from talking," Burns replied darkly. "Harris and Curtis were the ones keeping him in check – promising him that if he kept his mouth shut, things would be taken care of. With them in the pressure cooker too now…"

"Can your contact get at Stiller?" Jackson asked suddenly.

Burns nodded. "More than likely. Why?"

"Because we don't need Stiller talking to anybody," Jackson announced with grim intent. "He's become the kind of liability that we simply don't need right now."

"What are you talking about?" Canfield couldn't keep from asking.

"I think it's pretty obvious what needs to be done," Jackson shot a frown at his younger colleague. "Have your contact put things into motion to shut Stiller up – permanently."

"Now wait a minute," Canfield protested. "You're talking about killing a man."

"Do you want to go to prison?" Burns demanded sharply. "Is that your idea of a good career move?"

"I don't think conspiracy to commit murder is a great career move either," Canfield shot back, stung. "I sure as hell didn't sign into this group of super-patriots just to end up promoting the deliberate murder of those who are inconveniences."

"What do you suggest we do about Stiller then?" Jackson retorted. "Sooner or later, Stiller will utter one of OUR names, and then…"

"Why would he do that if he were made aware that all of the promises that Curtis and Harris were making are still in place – and that there are serious consequences in the offing if he spills?" Canfield frowned. "What is it that Harris or Curtis have over him that we don't?"

"Rank," Jackson spat, leaning forward with a forefinger poking in his direction.

"Bullshit." Canfield was unimpressed.

"No shit." Burns interrupted. "There's a distinct line between military and civilian authority. Harris and Curtis could keep him in line with a threat of loss of rank, poor performance reviews, and all kinds of retaliatory actions that you or I, as mere civilian legislators, couldn't even begin to threaten. We have nobody left in the military of sufficient rank to make any threats that we might make stick."

"Our only recourse is to remove him as a problem," Jackson announced in a firm tone. He looked over at Burns. "Get a hold of your contact – be careful, I think we're still under surveillance, so you'll want to get at least one if not two disposable cell phones for this – and get Stiller taken care of."

"And what do we do about the newspaper article then?" Canfield looked from one colleague to the other.

"We wait and see what my reporter comes up with next – but in the interim, we can put bugs in the ears of some of our other esteemed colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee about how we're coming to have questions about dealings with the Centre. Maybe we can incidentally suggest that a hearing might be in order to demand that Miss Parker account for all of these issues publicly." Jackson rubbed his hands together. "The absolute last place that she's going to want to air her organization's dirty laundry is in public – her stock prices will drop right along with her reputation."

"So," Burns leaned back against the comfortably cushioned seat. "We sit tight on the newspaper stuff and quietly begin to work toward demand for a hearing – and I get our potential leak plugged permanently." He looked at his colleagues. "Anything else?"

Canfield shook his head. "That's enough," he breathed out.

Burns tapped on the Plexiglas window and opened it to address the chauffeur. "Let's head back," he ordered brusquely and closed the window again. "We're all scheduled to be at the full session this afternoon…"

"I have a caucus to attend," Jackson shook his head. "How about you, George?"

"I have afternoon meetings," Canfield replied. "I'll try to make the caucus, but I can't promise anything."

The limousine pulled to the curb in front of the office building where Canfield had climbed into the vehicle only a little while earlier. "See you later, then, George," Jackson said as the chauffeur opened the door. The Montana Senator climbed from the vehicle and headed back inside the office building without a backward glance.

"George must be off his feed," Burns commented thoughtfully. "He's not normally quite so squeamish when we talk of necessary actions."

"I think I'm going to take the first opportunity to talk to him privately," Jackson replied. "Something's eating him – and better we know it now, before we regret it."

Miss Parker pushed her salad away and crumpled the paper napkin that had lain in her lap to wipe at her mouth. "I'm really not that hungry," she explained to her companion. "This whole thing has given my ulcer a swift kick in the pants."

"I told you not to get yourself so upset," Jarod reminded her sympathetically. "I'll have to stop by the market on the way home tonight and pick you up some mint tea – guaranteed to help settle a touchy tummy."

She stared down at the slip of paper that Mei-Chiang had delivered to her desk about an hour earlier – with the telephone number for the Post along with the extension for David Lawler's desk AND Lawler's home phone number – and sighed. "I really don't want to talk to this asshole."

"We NEED this asshole, Missy," Jarod reminded her. "We want to come out of this in a better position than we started from – and Lawler's our ticket to that."

Miss Parker squinched her eyes closed and dragged her hair back away from her face, and then impulsively reached out for the telephone receiver and punched in the number for the newspaper. She opened her eyes again to focus on Jarod and give a deep sigh as she waited for the call to be answered at the main switchboard, then punched in the extension when directed to do so.

"David Lawler," a tenor-ranged voice answered in a tone of impatience.

"Mr. Lawler," Miss Parker began with far less frustration than she was feeling at the moment, "my name is Melissa Parker. I'm the Chairman of the Centre – and the Post published a very interesting article you wrote about me and my firm this morning."

There was a silence from the other end of the line – and Miss Parker grinned maliciously, realizing that she'd probably surprised the hell out of the reporter. "Miss Parker," Lawler responded finally. "This IS a surprise, I suppose."

"Kindly don't take me for a fool, Mr. Lawler," Miss Parker let some of her indignation slip into her voice. "You knew damned well that you'd get my attention by publishing that article – and that you'd at the very least get a call from someone…"

"Very true," Lawler acknowledged, "but I had no expectation of speaking with you directly. Frankly, this call saves me a helluva lot of work trying to get a hold of YOU."

"I figured as much."

"So," Lawler said, the receiver propped with a shoulder while he opened a fresh word processor file, "do you have a response for me?"

"I have something much better for you," she replied evenly, keeping her eye on Jarod and seeing him nod in support of her tack. "I'm offering you an interview – one-on-one, no holds barred. You have questions, I'll give you the answers you want."

"You're kidding!" This Lawler had NOT expected.

"I'm far too busy a person to kid about something like that," she snapped. "How soon can you be in Delaware?"

Lawler had already closed out the program and was logging off his terminal completely. "Give me three hours…" He did the math roughly in his head. Under normal circumstances, granted that traffic out of town moved smoothly, it would take two hours to reach Dover. Blue Cove, the little town the Centre had located itself in, was a half-hour's drive south of there. That gave him a half-hour's grace for either traffic jams or getting lost.

"Very well," Miss Parker announced. "I will expect you coming through the front doors of the Centre at four o'clock sharp. Please don't be late – I'm rearranging my entire afternoon schedule to make room for you."

"I won't," Lawler promised. "I'm on my way out the door here already."

"Until four o'clock, then," Miss Parker said and disconnected the call. She looked up at Jarod. "He's on his way."

"Excellent," the Pretender smiled encouragingly. "You sure you want to do this one-on-one?"

"If I have you or a legal team in the room, it will destroy the kind of intimacy I want to create with this asshole," she told him, reaching for her small bottle of water and taking a deep drink. "I want him to feel comfortable – but I want Mei standing by to bring me whatever I might need to document anything I tell him."

"You want me listening in?"

She nodded. "Absolutely. And I want the cameras ready to focus on anything the man might write down in his notes. If he makes a question mark, I want to know about it BEFORE he writes another article that requires another lengthy interview to answer new questions."

"I'll call Sydney then, and tell him that he might need to let Mom know that we may not be home in time for supper tonight." Jarod rose. "You also might want to have Broots logged into the mainframe with the inter-office IM client up – in case what needs to be retrieved are things buried where only he knows where to get at them. I can IM him what you need, and he can IM me for file location so I can print up a copy and get it to Mei to get to you."

"We might as well tell Syd what we plan too," she told him with a sigh. "Maybe that will settle his mind a bit more."

"AND you may want to notify Kevin – there's a chance that you'll need him sorting through some of those remaining archive boxes for information that he and Syd haven't gone through yet. In that case, you can promise Lawler copies of any documents that aren't in the mainframe by courier in the morning, so that he can have everything he needs."

"What if this backfires, Jarod?" she asked suddenly, feeling the pressure beginning to build in the pit of her stomach. "What if answering all his questions just leaves him with that many more questions about things we really DON'T want him getting into?"

"Don't borrow trouble, Missy. When the whole story is told, you know that it will vindicate you and anybody still left." Jarod smiled at her encouragingly. "If it means we have to tell the whole, sordid story, then that's what we'll do. At that point, you'll have me in your corner, giving the kind of testimony that will blow everybody away. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but still consider it enough of a possibility so that it doesn't upset you too much if we need to go to that length."

"I hate this."

"I know," Jarod soothed. "We'll get through it, though – and this time, we'll get through it together. Once we finish THIS, things will finally be completely over – and we can get on with making a life together without even the slightest shadow of a cloud over our heads. The Centre will be legit, operating completely out in the open – all the demons will be at rest – and we can have some resolution."

Miss Parker nodded and sighed. That, it seemed, was the only redeeming thing about the whole situation – that she didn't have to face everything alone anymore. Jarod was her secret weapon and her strength.

"Hi there!" Kevin greeted Deb as she opened the garage door to the kitchen for Sydney. "What did the doctor say?"

"Hang on – let's get Grandpa settled on his couch again – I'll tell you in a bit," she replied, keeping an eagle eye on Sydney as he made his way a little more slowly than usual from the car into the house. "Pete worked him pretty hard today."

"I can take care of myself," Sydney told her as he made the small step up into the house. "No doubt Kevin's been sitting here on pins and needles while we've been gone – you need to talk to him now, cheri. Go on."

Just a glance into determined chestnut eyes told Deb that Sydney was more than ready to turn quite stubborn on her. He waited and waved her on toward the living room and Kevin. "Go on," he directed again. "I know the way to the den." Then, just to show her that he meant what he said, he proceeded in that direction without waiting for her to move.

"Well?" Kevin asked again a little more insistently.

Deb extended her hand to him. "Come – sit down with me for a bit."

Kevin put his hand in hers, but with a slight frown of confusion. "Isn't this a yes-no question? Either you are or you aren't, right?"

"It isn't quite as easy as that," she replied, pulling him down next to her on the couch. "The doctor told me that, considering when you and I were together, it's too soon to tell whether I am or not."

"So we have to wait a while yet?"

She shook her head. "No. He gave me a prescription for some pills, Kevin – one that will make me have my cycle early. If I am pregnant, it won't matter – I'll never know one way or the other."

Kevin looked at her in complete confusion. "Don't you WANT to know?"

Deb looked down at where their hands remained clasped with fingers intertwined. "In a way I do – but there's another part of me that knows that I'm really not ready to be a mother, anymore than you're ready to be a father yet."

"So we'll never know." He traced the pattern of their fingers with his other hand.

"All we'll know is that we won't have a baby," she said softly. "I think this is the better way."

He gazed at her, his heart in his blue eyes. "Is this what you want?"

She leaned forward and put her free hand around his neck. "This is the best for both of us, Kevin. We'll have children someday – just not now."

"Promise?"

She smiled up into his face. "You're the only one I'd want to father my children, Kevin. I love you. Of course I promise."

"I love you," he whispered and moved to capture her lips with his.

Hands that were once clasped loosened so that the hands could reach out and embrace. Deb relaxed into Kevin's arms, grateful that she wouldn't have to feel obliged to pull away again. She needed him – he was her first line of defense against the nightmares and the most important person in her life.

Kevin gathered Deb as close as he could and buried his nose in the thick, blonde hair near her ear. "I just want you to be happy," he told her softly.

"I am, Kevin," she responded. "I am." She lay contentedly against his shoulder and wondered, very privately, if what she was doing was right. She had taken her first pill at the drugstore in Dover, as she had intended. No matter what the situation had been before then, she was no longer pregnant. The doctor had told her that once the regimen of medication was started, there would be no going back and changing her mind. But safe within the circle of Kevin's arms, she allowed herself to wonder.

Canfield looked up in real surprise as the door to his office opened and Tom Jackson stepped in. "Tom! I thought you were attending caucuses this afternoon."

"I'm between meetings," Jackson told him easily. "I noticed you were looking a bit uncomfortable in the car this noon – I thought I'd see if anything were wrong."

Canfield's mouth dropped open slightly. So his nervousness HAD shown! He had best play the next few minutes very close to the vest, or risk giving everything away. "I… It's just that we've never openly discussed being the prime movers behind anything like what we were discussing," he answered after a moment to think.

"But you were aware that there has always been the possibility that it could come to that," Jackson insisted, "didn't you?"

Canfield decided to play it honestly and shook his head. "Until now, we've had Curtis and Harris running interference for us and you know it," he blurted out to his colleague. "It was one thing to say, 'solve the problem' – and quite another to become directly involved in conspiracy to commit murder!"

"Hshhhhh!" Jackson hissed at him with a finger to his lips. "You don't need to go blabbing it up and down the hallways here." He stepped forward and leaned on Canfield's desk. "These things happen. We're in cover-our-asses mode anyway – you know that – and I don't know about you, but I'll do whatever it takes to make sure I don't end up holding the short end of the stick."

"There has to be another way!"

Jackson cocked an eyebrow at him. "And if there isn't?"

Canfield sagged into his comfortable and leather-covered chair and put his chin in his hand. "When I was recruited for this, I was told that I would be doing good things for my country – things that other people would be too politically correct or philosophically wimpy to carry out."

"That's right," Jackson nodded. "And sometimes, those good things you were told about include things that ordinary society would frown at – like the elimination of a liability."

"We're talking about a man's life!"

"We're talking about OUR lives, damn it!" Jackson shot back. "If it came down to a question of him or you, just who the hell would you pick, George?" The dark eyes narrowed as he watched his younger colleague. "Well?"

"It isn't a question of life or death for us, Tom," Canfield argued back.

"Like hell it isn't," Jackson stated sourly. "Do you honestly think this is the first time we've had to make this kind of decision?" He nodded at Canfield's shocked stare. "The reason that Harry Burns' constituency never heard about the testing of environmental agents in the backwaters was because certain environmental activists were taken care of in the same way that Stiller will be."

"My God!" Canfield stared at his Senatorial colleague. "What have you done?"

"We've done what is necessary to protect our country, Canfield," Jackson bellowed unthinkingly, then lowered his voice to a more conversational tone. "We went outside the laws so that we could protect those laws from those who would destroy them." The dark eyes narrowed again. "The only question I have for you now is whether or not you're still with us."

Finally Canfield had something that he could answer with total honesty. "I really don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"No, you don't." Jackson rose to his full height. "You're in this up to your eyeballs, George. The last thing you want to do at this late date is grow either a backbone or a sense of ethics."

Canfield shook his head. "What I do or don't do won't matter," he commented wryly. "It's all falling apart now anyway. What we're doing is nothing more than a delaying action – smoke and mirrors to try to give you the room to escape the consequences of what you've been doing all these years."

"I'll tell you this one time only," Jackson said very quietly. "If – IF, that is – things are falling apart, then we will not be the only ones to fall. And what is more, you can bet your bottom dollar that YOU will fall just as far and just as hard as any of the rest of us."

"Do you honestly think I'm not fully aware of that?" Canfield sighed.

"I'm just making sure that you're fully aware of exactly what that means in practical terms," Jackson stated very matter-of-factly. "While we no longer have our military arm to assure compliance with everything we do, we still have contacts in the marketplace that would take very little effort to set in motion ensuring that nobody betrays the group and gets away with it scot-free."

Canfield looked at his colleague with the beginnings of anger in his gaze. "Are you threatening me, Tom?"

"No," Jackson said in a deceptively mild tone. "Just putting the truth where it needs to be." He walked toward the office door. "I hope I see you at the next caucus."

"Get out." Canfield's voice was flat and final. "Just… get out."

Jackson turned and shook a finger at him. "Just remember, you don't want to blow any whistles." Not knowing whether to be satisfied that he'd made his point or worried that he'd felt it necessary to make in the first place, Jackson stalked from the office.

Canfield stared at the now-closed door for a long moment before leaning forward and putting his face in his hands again. If only the FBI had heard THAT!

Gillespie stared at Berghoff as the sound of the shutting door came over the line and into both sets of headphones. "Can you believe that guy?" Gillespie asked as he pushed the button to stop the recording process.

"All I know is that we need to get Canfield into custody without delay," the Assistant Director replied, removing the headphones and setting them on the console. "We'll also need to see just exactly which environmentalist Jackson was referring to. This thing just seems to get bigger and more complicated every time we turn around."

"These guys – or at least this group – has been dirty for a long time," Gillespie agreed, tossing his own headphones aside. "So… What's next?"

"Call Canfield at his office before he has a chance to spook and bolt. Tell him we heard him being threatened, and that you'll be on your way to spend the rest of the day as his bodyguard."

Gillespie's face fell. "Guard duty? Boss…"

"Then, when his day is finished, I want him into FBI headquarters without even a stop to go to the can – is that understood?" Berghoff glared at his agent.

"Yes, sir," Gillespie nodded reluctantly. "You don't think they'd try anything today, do you?"

Berghoff shook his head. "I don't know that these people can be trusted any further than we can throw them by the tail – and I sure as hell don't want to take chances. Canfield's just got us our conspiracy case tied up with a pretty blue bow – we owe him a little security."

"So what are YOU going to be doing while I'm babysitting a Senator?" the agent asked acidly.

"Getting these tapes transcribed and to a judge," Berghoff answered firmly. "I'm hoping for arrest warrants before the day is finished."

"About friggin' time," Gillespie muttered to himself as he climbed out the back end of the panel truck and stalked in the direction of his bureau-assigned sedan. "It's about friggin' time!"

Jarod knocked on Miss Parker's door and then stuck his head around the corner. "It's ten minutes to four. I've got Broots sitting on stand-by on IM to do any mainframe delving we need of him, and I've got Kevin on IM too, waiting to see if there's anything he needs to dig out of the boxes he has left there. What I want you to do now is to give me a sound check, just to make sure that I can hear whatever goes on."

She waved at him and closed down the file filled with insurance contracts and closed her eyes. "Testing, one, two… Testing…" She ran her voice up and down volume and intensity-wise, so as to give Jarod the best idea of the variations he would need to work with.

The head that poked around the corner after the knock this time was Sam's. "You got a thumbs up from Jarod, Miss Parker," he announced. "But I thought I'd see if I could talk you into at least having a security guard in the office with you during your interview."

She looked at him knowingly. "You?"

"Yup." He gazed at her. "Having just one bodyguard in the room with you wouldn't that far out of line, you know…"

"And no doubt it would make you feel better, right?"

He smiled at her. "Yes, ma'am."

She smiled back. "Thank you, Sam. I hope you don't mind standing…"

"No, ma'am – standing will be just fine." Sam stifled the inner chuckle at the ease with which he'd talked her into something that he'd figured he was going to have to argue for. "I just thought that since this Lawler fellow was a stranger…"

"You don't have to explain yourself, Sam," Miss Parker told him gently. "I'm just glad that you're on MY side."

Sam glowed softly and moved to find his place at her left side facing into the office, where he'd be able to see everything that this reporter would be doing. There were going to be no surprises on his watch today, he promised himself firmly.

The intercom buzzed. "Miss Parker, I've just had a call from the lobby – Mr. Lawler is on his way through with Mr. Harrington as escort. I thought you'd want to know…"

"Thanks, Mei-Chiang. When he gets here, bring him on in." Miss Parker straightened the bodice of her suit and gave a quick glance in Sam's direction, grateful that she didn't have to face this man utterly alone. Jarod was only an office or two away, listening carefully, Mei was just outside the door, listening. But Sam's presence was the stabilizing influence of the moment.

"Yes, ma'am." Mei-Chiang locked the intercom button down in receive mode as instructed, knowing her boss was similarly locking her end of the device into send mode. Her almond-shaped eyes narrowed as she saw Harrington round the corner towering over the dark head of a thin and bespeckled young man. "Mr. Lawler, you are expected," she said formally, leading the way to the inner office door and opening it.

Miss Parker rose as the young man looked around him in surprise at the rather spartan décor of the office. "Mr. Lawler," she said patiently, waiting for him to finally give his attention to her and not to her furnishings.

Startled, he looked at her and gaped. The pictures didn't do her justice, he decided immediately. The Chairman of the Centre was breathtakingly beautiful in a mature kind of way, with the faintest of laugh lines marring the porcelain perfection of her face at the sides of her eyes. Her hair had a liberal sprinkling of silver strands amid the rich darkness, and she was impeccably dressed and coifed. "Miss Parker," he acknowledged lamely and belatedly, holding out his hand only to find her grip firm and dry. "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice." He gazed around himself once more as if not entirely sure he was in the right place, then waited for her to seat herself once more behind her plain wooden desk before following suit. He put the briefcase in which he'd stowed all the material given him by Whisper Man at his feet and continued to survey his surroundings.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Lawler?" she asked with studied calm.

"No, ma'am," he replied, returning to look at her. "I just never imagined that your office would be so…"

"Plain?" she finished for him with a twist of an eyebrow. "You'll find that most things having to do with the Centre don't exactly match expectations — and that very little is as it seems on the surface."

Lawler blinked at the obvious double and triple entendre of her simple phrasing and found himself next looking up into the face of the stoic man who stood behind Miss Parker and studying him as if he were a bug under a microscope. It gave him a most uncomfortable feeling to be so under inspection. "Uh… do you really think this is necessary?" Lawler asked, gesturing vaguely at the stern man and then reaching a hand for his notebook and pen in his jacket pocket, hoping the hand wasn't shaking enough to be visible.

"Sam Atlee is my Chief of Security," Miss Parker explained without apology. "Since the kidnap of my son, I have felt it necessary to step up my private and personal security precautions. I assure you that he is here only to vouchsafe my safety. He will neither interfere with our discussion, nor will he participate."

"Your son was kidnapped?" Lawler gaped and then began to write in his notebook. "How long ago was this?"

"A few weeks ago," she answered guardedly.

"Strange that there has been no mention of it in the news…"

"Publicizing it wouldn't have gotten my son back to me any faster," she bit off a little more quickly than she'd intended, and she took a deep breath. "The FBI was called in, and I was lucky. My son and the young lady who was taken with him were found still alive."

"Do you know who was responsible?" Lawler's pen hovered over the notebook expectantly.

"Certain elements of Centre authority left over from the previous administration were unhappy with the new direction I was taking the Centre after my elevation to the Chairmanship," she replied evenly, finally getting onto ground she wanted to cover. "They thought to pressure me to rethink my decisions by threatening my family." She looked directly at the reporter, and Lawler could feel the anger and betrayal that flowed from that intense gaze. "It didn't work."

"So you're saying that the kidnapping was the result of an inner power struggle?"

"Yes," she replied frankly, "one that seems to be continuing, only this time from people in positions of authority outside the Centre who profited greatly through the work the Centre had been willing to do for them."

"Oh really?" Lawler's tone told her that he had finally put up his wall of skepticism.

"Look," Miss Parker said, suddenly leaning forward over her desk. "You asked some very pointed questions in your article. Do you want the answers to those questions or no?"

Lawler leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs comfortably. "That IS why I'm here," he told her with a patently false smile.

"Is it?" Now it was Miss Parker's turn to demonstrate raw skepticism. "Do you want to know the truth — or are you only here to give some measure of credibility to a smear campaign that you've already committed yourself to?" Eyes the color of a hurricane pinned him to his seat. "If you've already made up your mind as to what you want to find here, then you're wasting my time and yours — and this interview can just end right here."

She paused for effect, and Lawler found it fully as effective as it had been intended to be. Suddenly he was asking himself, just what WAS it that he had come all the way out here to discover? Then, she seemed to relax a little. "If, however, you want to listen, I can tell you a story that will make your hair curl — and back up everything I tell you with documentation." She leaned back in her chair again. "IF you want the truth, that is. The call is yours, Mr. Lawler…"

Lawler's dark eyes stared into the blue-grey depths of Miss Parker's calm gaze. Hot damn, he thought to himself, this lady has brass ones as big as anybody's he'd ever met. She could dish out as well as take, and he liked that. "Naturally," he replied finally, "I'd want to hear the truth."

"Then ask your questions," she said calmly, smiling inwardly that she'd hopefully broken through the wall of skepticism that he'd thrown up and found an entry into a reporter's inquiring and open mind.

"OK," he said, throwing his notebook open to a fresh page, wondering if he'd be allowed to get back to the line of questioning that his attitude had blown out of the water. Certainly there was more story here than even Whisper Man had suggested. "Let's start with a project that I understand your organization had on going for a very long time: called the Pretender Project."

"What do you want to know about it?" she asked without a single visible or verbal flinch.

"Is it still ongoing?" Lawler served his first hardball.

"No," she replied, returning the volley easily. "The Pretender Project was officially shut down approximately seven years ago at the order of the Triumvirate, who at the time controlled the purse strings at the Centre. The Chairman at the time, a Mr. William Raines, did try to keep elements of the project on-going, an endeavor that eventually led to his dismissal as Chairman and my being appointed to his place."

"How many people were involved in this project, and what has become of them?" Lawler asked carefully, knowing the loaded nature of his question.

Miss Parker sighed. "Originally, there were eight children selected for their intelligence and mental acuity. Of them, only two of the original eight children still survive." Again her gaze pinned him to his seat. "I am one, and Jarod is the other."

"Y…you?" Lawler's jaw dropped. He dropped his notebook and pen to the chair next to him and reached for his briefcase to sort through the papers he knew almost by heart by now. "You must be…" He looked up at her in shock, for there had only been one girl's name in the list. "Melissa?"

She gave him a slight smile. "Very good. May I see the documents you have there, please?" She held out a hand.

Lawler debated for a moment then handed her over the list of original Pretender candidates. She gazed at it without showing the slightest sign of emotion or reaction, then blithely handed the list back to him. "Next question?" she asked.

"What do you know of the fate of the others?"

Miss Parker breathed out through her nose slowly. "All of them survived to adulthood. Damon was killed as he tried to assassinate the Swedish ambassador about ten years ago. Kyle was imprisoned for his crimes, escaped and was killed saving his brother. Eddy escaped when Jarod did and eventually became a law enforcement officer. Alex killed him eight years ago, then jumped into a sludge pond to avoid capture on multiple murder charges — including Eddy's — and has been presumed dead for about the same amount of time. Timmy was shot and killed here in the Centre a few months back, protecting a good friend of mine. And about the same time, Lyle was killed by the Yakuza for failing to provide promised results of a research project."

Lawler was writing furiously. "You say you can document this?"

Miss Parker didn't even blink. "Mei, get the files on the Pretender Project subjects and make a copy for Mr. Lawler." She pointed to the intercom on her desk. "I made arrangements for my secretary to listen in for just this purpose. Now, your next question?"

"You were a part of search to recapture Jarod when he escaped?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "If you didn't know to begin with that I was part of the search team, you wouldn't know to ask the question. Kindly don't take me for a fool."

"I'll take that as a 'yes,'" Lawler countered easily. "Did you know what he'd been forced to do all his life?"

"No." To Lawler's surprise, that question got more of a response than all of the others had. "I didn't know what he'd been through when I started," she told him as she rose from her seat. "I was brought back from Corporate, where I was working in Security, to help with the search because Jarod and I had been… friends… as kids. They were counting on my acquaintance to give the search team an advantage. As time went by, however, bits and pieces of his past started to come out."

"And still you chased him?"

"Yes." The answer was soft. "I had no choice."

"What about the others? This Doctor Green had been responsible for Jarod's being held prisoner…" the reporter began to argue.

"You don't know anything about why we did what we did," Miss Parker spat, spinning on her heel. "For his part, Sydney was… lied to, blackmailed, threatened… all to keep him working with Jarod. And once Jarod had escaped, Sydney aided him in all kinds of little ways that wouldn't get him killed or bumped from the search team. You leave Sydney alone — Broots too. On that I'm not negotiable."

"Mighty defensive of your work colleagues, aren't you?" Lawler observed.

"They're both good men," Miss Parker forced herself to sit down again. "Sydney especially has lost a great deal in the process. He doesn't deserve to be held responsible for what others forced him to do."

"Which others, Miss Parker?" Lawler wanted to know. "You keep talking as if this were an organized crime syndicate rather than a think tank."

"Until just a little while ago, that's EXACTLY what the Centre was," she told him frankly. "Between the enforcement arm of the Triumvirate and Mr. Raines, there was little the people at the top wouldn't do to get their way — and there was always enough money to either buy someone's silence or buy someone's services to silence a potential threat." She leaned on the desk. "And because there was a great deal of money to be had performing services for the more unsavory elements of global society, the Centre became very rich and very powerful — and used the ends to justify its means and protect its power base."

"And yet you put a stop to this?" The reporter crossed his arms. "All by yourself?"

"No, not by myself. I had help — and frankly, the Triumvirate made a big mistake appointing me Chairman, because my first act was to return all the investments that they had made and get them out of my hair. Then I severed ties with the crime syndicates the same way — by returning their money with interest — and then canceling contracts with certain factions of the government who hadn't gone through proper channels to get their projects approved."

"What about Jarod?"

Miss Parker sighed. "Eight years ago, Jarod sent a message to us telling us that he was done playing with us. That was, after all, what it had been to him — a game. He'd always had the ability to vanish without a trace. Well, one day he decided he'd had it, and he disappeared." She shrugged, hoping that he'd drop it. "After a significant amount of time, and the expenditure of a fairly large sum of money to pick up his trail again that was completely unsuccessful, the Triumvirate decided the Pretender Project was no longer financially feasible. They told Mr. Raines to shut it down — and he did, for the most part."

"For the most part?" Lawler was writing again.

"Mr. Raines never was one to play by the rules. He had found another Pretender candidate and chose to keep this one hidden from the Triumvirate. When I discovered this not long ago, I turned the information over to the Triumvirate, and they relieved Mr. Raines of his authority and eventually gave the job to me."

"Where is Mr. Raines now?"

"Dead." Miss Parker's voice was flat and firm. "He was killed by a sniper the day that the Tower was bombed — just moments before, as a matter of fact."

"And this other Pretender candidate?"

Miss Parker raised her eyes and looked at him unflinchingly. "He was released from the place where he'd been held and is now being mentored into mainstream life by those who care about him."

Lawler turned yet another page in his notebook. Miss Parker certainly was being open with him — IF everything she said could be proven. "And you say you have documentation on all of this?"

She shook her head and chuckled. "The documentation on the Pretender Project alone takes up a sizeable chunk of my mainframe computer's storage space, Mr. Lawler — and it is in no way complete. There are hardcopy archives that even now are being sorted through and re-entered in the mainframe to make up for the loss of our previous computer in the bomb blast. About the only thing that wasn't documented was Mr. Raines' demise — and that because he was killed just before our entire corporate headquarters was destroyed, and there wasn't time to document his death. So, to answer your question: yes, there is documentation for almost everything I just told you — either in our mainframe, in our hardcopy archives, or in the various news agency archives. How much of it you want — or have time to read — is up to you."

At that moment, Mei-Chiang came into the office and unobtrusively deposited a file folder on Miss Parker's desk which, after a quick study, Miss Parker handed over to the reporter. "Here are the documents you asked for about the fate of the other Pretender subjects."

She watched as the reporter stared at the folder in his hands and worked to comprehend everything that she'd told him so far. "I don't…" he started, then frowned to himself.

"What? Is there another question?"

Lawler by now had the distinct feeling that the documentation he'd been given, as complete as it had been in presenting a thoroughly sordid situation, had in no way pointed at Miss Parker herself as the villain. In fact, it had been decidedly lacking when it came to the motivations behind the actions. The vague feeling of having been used in some way was starting to become more acute when he thought of the way the speaker had harped on this woman's complicity in all of the events documented.

If Miss Parker were to be believed, no complicity had been voluntary — on her part or anybody else's. She was certainly not avoiding any of his questions, and had offered to document virtually anything that she told him. This was not the picture he'd expected to find. It was as if he'd just had blinders removed — and while the events documented in the original material still were truly horrible to contemplate, an easy assignation of responsibility was no longer possible. He looked up into interested and concerned blue-grey eyes from the other side of the desk. "No… yeah — but not so much a question as a problem."

Miss Parker leaned back in her chair. "How so?"

How much did he dare trust her? Certainly from the sounds of things, she would be quite familiar with the material that he'd been given — and probably not surprised at what he had in his possession. And certainly the Centre's sordid past history did deserve a possible exposé eventually — especially if there was enough government involvement in some of the unsavory projects to make such a story worthwhile. But if he was going to work on such a tale, working from the standpoint of knowing the whole truth and not just the part of it that someone with an agenda thought fit to give him would be the best recourse.

He took a deep breath, and then took one of the biggest risks of his journalistic career. "I want to show you something," he told her and lifted the open briefcase up onto the desk. Immediately, the massive Security Chief had stepped up and looked as if ready to push between Miss Parker and her desk to protect her. "It's just documents," Lawler explained and turned the open briefcase around so that both Centre employees could see. "See?"

Sam backed away the moment he saw that Lawler was telling the truth, although he shot the smaller man a withering glare for making such a precipitous move. Miss Parker carefully lifted the folders from the briefcase and opened them one by one, scanning the documents enclosed.

Finally she looked up at him. "Where did you get all this?" she asked. The amount of one-sided information in the folders was appalling in its nature and scope — without knowing the precise circumstances of any of this, no wonder Lawler's article had been so damning in its wording. No small wonder he'd had such a thick wall of skepticism at the beginning of their discussion.

"I had an informant pretty much dump it on me and tell me there was much more to the Chairman of the Centre than a pretty face," he told her simply. "And then I did a little research of my own that confirmed that there was at least a kernel of truth in there somewhere. For example, when I got on your website and entered Pretender Project into the search criteria — and got a request for a password rather than a 'not found' error message — I knew something was up. But now, talking to you…" He scratched at his head. "Whoever had this must have known…"

"Must have known the rest of it and deliberately held it back to make it look as damning as possible," Miss Parker finished for him, and she nodded. "And whoever had this must have been a trusted confidante of Mr. Raines, because even I haven't personally seen some of this material before."

"He told me that I had enough to go digging on my own without his help anymore," the reporter told her frankly. "And if you hadn't agreed to this interview, I have a feeling that most of what I would have found would have been just as damning without the other side of the story told."

"Who was he?" she asked quietly, "this person who gave you all of this?"

"I don't know," he replied with an apologetic shrug. "All I know is that the voice was nothing but a whisper — but I think it was a man's voice. Whoever it was, they were adamant about making trouble for you."

Miss Parker shot a glance up at Sam and found him no happier about this development than she was. She then leveled a serious glare at the reporter. "So… What are you going to do now?"

Lawler returned the frank look. "I'm not sure," he answered eventually, "but I think I'm going to want to think for a while before I write another article to follow up the one I've published already. I want to read the documentation that YOU can give me, so I can get a clearer idea of the whole picture — not just the agenda of a whisper on the phone. And I want to talk to some of the others mentioned here — Doctor Green, Mr. Broots…"

Miss Parker sat back in her chair and pondered. If he wanted to know the truth, and if SHE wanted him to know the truth so that he could put the truth out there in print, then he deserved to have his questions answered properly. "I'll talk to Sydney and Broots and try to convince them to talk to you — but I don't make promises. Both of them are recovering from injuries received lately, and they need peace and quiet to get better. I do, however, think I can offer you someone else to talk to that you'd probably appreciate even more."

"Oh?" Lawler raised his eyebrows at the idea that there might be another with whom he'd want to talk. "Who would that be?"

"Me."

The reporter spun around in his chair to look at the tall, dark-haired and handsome man who had come through the office door so quietly. "Who is this?" Lawler asked, turning back to Miss Parker, not failing to miss how the newcomer moved around the desk and now stood at the woman's right hand.

She grinned, and it was a cold expression. "David Lawler of the Post, meet Doctor Jarod Russell. You wanted to know about the Pretender Project, who better to talk to than the Pretender himself?"

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