Parker woke first the next morning and was showered and dressed before Jarod stirred. She was applying lipstick in the mirror over the provided desk when she caught movement in her reflection and looked around to see Jarod fishing around in the tangle of blankets for his underwear.

They exchanged hurried good mornings before a visibly bashful Jarod disappeared behind the bathroom door with an armful of the day's clothes and a sheet wrapped around his waist. Parker swallowed a smile — who knew she could turn Jarod bashful?

Already, her thoughts tugged her towards worrying temptations. What if I followed him into the shower? We've taken the plunge once, why not again? And again? And again?

Why not? For exactly that reason: she wouldn't be able to stop. This point was beautifully illustrated when a showered Jarod opened the bathroom door, still pulling on a shirt. He picked up his towel to dry his hair and offered her a sleep-softened smile, and all she wanted in the world was to pull him back into bed. She drew her eyes away, focused back on the mirror.

"Last night—" he started.

"Last night was good," she said, beating him to the punch. She wouldn't lie about it — better than good, it had been wonderful. "Really good. What do you think the Centre would say if they knew what we got up to last night?"

Jarod exhaled a laugh. "You're asking me to predict your father's thoughts on you and I having sex?"

"God — no!" said Parker, snickering along with him, her entire expression contracting in on itself like a squeezed sponge at the mental juxtaposition. "Leave my father out of this. I'm asking you to predict the Centre's response. The Triumvirate's."

Jarod nodded, sobering. "My guess would be that they… would loudly disapprove, if I'm any judge. That's if they know. I don't think even the Centre is nosy enough to have installed security devices in our hotel rooms, so unless our tolerant neighbours in rooms 400 or 404 let them know, I'm not worried. Even if they knew, it wouldn't be their business."

"If they knew, they'd make it their business," she countered.

She'd inadvertently created an argument from whole cloth, she realized. It fit, and served her purposes well. Nothing to do with her hang-ups, with her guilt or her wariness of the potential for something greater. This, like so many things, was the fault of the Centre. It was the Centre's fault she couldn't fuck who she pleased.

"What do you think they would do?" asked Jarod.

Not "say" but "do".

"They already all think I'm getting too attached," she admitted. "Brigitte, Daddy, Mr. White… Lyle. They've all mentioned it."

A careful pause.

"Are they right?"

She shot him an expressive look. "Jarod, I'm not going against orders today to connect a Centre mole with your long-lost sister for my personal health. You do the math."

It was the coward's way of admitting she felt more than she should, but speaking to someone equally fluent in semantic convolutions as she was, it did the job. A small smile appeared on Jarod's lips.

"So, you think they'd reassign you?" he guessed.

"Maybe. Hell, I don't know. I can't predict anything they do these days. They throw you in room six because I shot your mark for you, complete overreaction, and then—"

"A slap on the wrist for trying to steal and back-engineer counteragent. I know. That's exactly why we can't—"

"You're right, we can't." It hadn't been what Jarod was about to say, she knew that, but she had to put any ideas to bed, fast. A trump card materialized in her hand. "The Centre would make a terrible parent. None of their punishments are consistent. They could do nothing at all, sure. Another slap on the wrist. They could reassign me, give you back your apartment with the complementary treadmill, that wouldn't be so bad. But they could also do so much worse."

Jarod filled in the blank. "Room six."

After the hellish week he'd spent there, he had no right to invoke the place in such bland tones. In her head, this was a knock-down drag-out argument; in practice, she was arguing for the both of them. Jarod was merely reflecting everything back. This wouldn't occur to her until much later.

"Yes, room six, or — Jarod, you say that like it's nothing. Room six almost ruined you the first time. What is it going to take for you to develop a sense of self-preservation? There are worse things than room six, you know. When they thought you were guilty of the Tower bombing, they threatened… they threatened to remove the gland, and damn the consequences for you. To put it in someone else who was easier to control."

The words had an immediate effect, and so they should. One of the most immutable facts of Jarod's relationship with the Centre was that their primary goal was to control him. He knew, if he knew nothing else, that he held value for the Centre. They'd twist his existence into something only vaguely resembling a life, but they wouldn't kill him.

She hadn't wanted to tell him. At the very least, she hadn't wanted to pile on yet more fear to his already terror-soaked prospects. But if she had to bring out the big guns to keep him from incurring the Centre's wrath, she would.

(It had nothing to do with protecting herself. Not a thing.)

Jarod didn't look scared, mind you. He looked irritated.

"You can't tell me they'd have me killed for this," he said, flicking his index finger between the two of them. "You don't want to, fine, but don't frame it like you're saving me from something, I didn't—"

"I do, I do want—" She cut the admission off and wished fervently for a muzzle for her own damn mouth. She hadn't meant to say that. She groaned softly. "You're right, they wouldn't resort to that. Not for this. But we can't. We can't. Another life, right?" As a bald contradiction of her words, she caught herself staring at Jarod's mouth with transparent intent. She tore her eyes away and up, and smiled. "It was fun as hell, though," she said, a slideshow playing out in her mind's eye of Jarod dropping kisses along the underside of her jaw, Jarod's silhouette in lamplight as he moved above her, Jarod's eyes looking up at her from between her spread thighs. "Fun as hell" was putting it lightly. She couldn't deny that much. Nor, she imagined, could he.

Jarod grinned, too. He was better than her at pretending, always had been. Nevertheless, she hoped her smile was more convincing than his.

"Last night? Yeah. Yeah, it was."

And if there was a hint of sadness in his expression, she ignored it.

They ran into Broots in the lobby. He was eating scrambled eggs out of a paper bowl and looking around for some place to sit.

"Good morning, Broots," said Parker, not quite able to keep her post-coital good humour from infecting her manner. "You're up early. Sleep well?"

Broots stared at her in pleased incredulity, not used to the attention.

"Ah, no, I'm afraid not," he said, with a tired laugh. "But thanks very much for asking. You? And, uh — you, Jarod, how'd you sleep?"

Parker and Jarod were both gifted with impeccable poker faces.

"Great," said she.

"Good, thanks," said he.

Parker deftly switched the focus away from her and Jarod. "What kept you up?"

Broots narrowed his eyes, still pleased yet suspicious of Miss Parker's uncharacteristic curiosity and consideration of his well-being.

"Oh, nothing. I fell asleep okay, but a couple in another room woke me up. You know." He mimed with his fingers, creating the impression of some clumsy yet obscene act. "Doing the horizontal tango."

"Where?" said Parker, before she could stop herself.

Where?! She could kick herself. It was an objectively odd question; ordinarily, her first comment would involve ripping Broots to pieces for the euphemism "doing the horizontal tango".

"Where?" Broots parroted. "Uh. I mean, I think just in the room next to mine, so… two-fifteen? Why, do—" He chuckled. "—do you want to ask them how it went?"

"No, I do not want to ask them how it went," said Parker, blatantly hiding how foolish she felt with the old standby, scorn. "Next time you'll know to bring earplugs."

Of course Broots hadn't heard them. His room wasn't anywhere near theirs.

"Sure, yeah, I'll look into it," said Broots. "Maybe I'll pick some up today, since I'm not needed at the port."

Jarod spoke up. "You may not need any. It looks like we could wrap things up in Baltimore before the end of the day, and be back in Delaware before nightfall."

"Oh! Well, that's great. You've got the name, then?"

Jarod hesitated.

"Yes. But — please don't let anyone back at headquarters know. Not yet, anyway."

Broots looked hesitantly between his two co-workers.

"Miss Parker, are you… is that okay if—?"

"Yes. We're keeping mum for now."

"Oh," said Broots. The wheels turned behind his eyes, digesting the implicit news: however mildly, Jarod and Miss Parker had a united agenda that ran counter to their prescribed orders. "Yeah, that's. That's fine with me. What's a couple of hours, right?" He picked at the dead skin on his lower lip. "So, if you already have the identity of the mole, it can't do any harm if I'm there, too, can it? I'll get my things in the car. Oh, hey, remind me to cancel our remaining room reservations, okay? See you in a bit."

Without waiting for confirmation, he hustled off toward his room. Parker felt Jarod's eyes on her and looked over. He had a hand over his mouth, pretending to rub at his jaw to conceal a smile.

"'Where?'" he quoted.

"Oh, shut up."

"He was two floors down. Do you really think we were that loud? Maybe when I—"

"I said, shut up," she repeated, though there was a smile in her voice.

Parker's return to Seagirt Marine Terminal prompted more than its fair share of double-takes. Kalakos, who had quickly emerged as the resident anti-Centre personality on the Berth 3 longshoreman crew, confronted her immediately.

"We weren't sure we'd see you back here, Miss Parker," he said. "Still don't trust us to do our jobs?"

"Speaking of your job, isn't it about time you go do it?" She didn't bother to correct him regarding her flimsy pseudonym. "Miss Devereaux" had died quickly on the vine, but it didn't disadvantage her to be seen explicitly as the on-site face of the Centre. The less focus on Jarod, the better.

The one fly in the ointment was the inexplicable absence of Emily, Jarod's sister. She'd spoken to her unwitting brother yesterday and, per Jarod, she'd given no indication that her investigation was finished. Jarod caught Parker's eye across the yard before starting his climb up to the top of the crane, bound for his first shift in the heavens; she shook her head.

"It's Jarod's sister, isn't it?" said Broots, bringing her into the here and now.

"Hm?"

"The mole. If she's related to Jarod, she's probably working against the Centre. So she's the mole."

"Working against the Centre, yeah, probably. Mole, no. She doesn't work here, she's not familiar with the employees."

"Then who is it?"

Her hands flew up. "I don't know, Broots, haven't I told you?"

"Just seems like he would have told you," he said, looking down at his interlaced fingers. "I can tell you two are closer now, and I'm not the only one who's noticed. Half the time—" His thought faltered.

"What?" she snapped, though she found herself less and less interested in the answer.

Broots swallowed. "Half the time it seems like you two are a team on your own, that you don't really need Sydney or me. You know, I haven't spoken to Sydney in weeks."

"Cry me a river. You'll see him at the New Year's party."

Her good humour had run dry. A post-orgasmic high could only last so long, especially given her denial of a repeat performance, and it had sputtered to nothing by the time her car pulled off the freeway. She'd parked far from the port to avoid drawing suspicion, and she and Jarod had gone their separate ways. A switch toggled, and they were back to work. No time to think of what they'd shared last night.

Broots's face crumpled with hurt.

"I just… I guess I just miss it."

"You miss it," she repeated. "You miss when we were hunting down Jarod?"

As hypocritical stances went, it was a doozy. Then again, she was feeling spiteful.

"Yes?" said Broots, his voice growing stronger. "You want me to apologize for that? You were there, too. It's not as if our current project is any more ethical. And! And Jarod may have been wronged by the Centre, but he's still done some, some really shady stuff, and if I'm honest, I don't understand why we're trusting him with this. I don't! I don't think he cares at all if we get hauled in for a T-board with the Triumvirate, or, or worse. I can't blame him, not entirely, but I also can't believe he has our best interests in mind."

Parker waited.

Then: "You done?"

Broots nodded miserably.

"Take this to Jarod if you're so worried, I'm not his lawyer. If you still can't stomach it, wait in the car."

"No, I…" He blew out a breath through ballooned lips, searching the crowd. She saw the moment he spotted Jarod, perched at the top of the crane and settling in for his shift. "I'll stay."

The meeting with the mole was scheduled during Jarod's next break, the last break before the end of his shift. The crane operators on Berth 3's longshoreman crew worked in teams of two, each alternating with another team. During one team's time at the top, the alternating twosome was granted the time to sit back and earn money in relative peace.

Parker and a reluctant Broots showed up at the agreed-upon rendezvous spot, between rows twelve and thirteen of the Lego-like flanks of multicoloured transport crates. The year was drawing to a close and the somnolent sun had set with plenty of hours left in the working day, leaving the pair shivering in the dark. Fifteen minutes into their vigil, Parker's left leg ached fiercely. She was about to send Broots as a scout to check to see that Jarod was still planning on arriving when two longshoremen rounded the corner. One was Jarod. The other's face was vaguely familiar, but only as yet another face among the dozens seen around the port on any given day. He was short and broad of frame, and he had a few grey hairs in his scruffy beard.

On spotting Miss Parker, he nearly tripped over his own feet in his efforts to get away.

"Fred!" said Jarod, not quite a shout but loud enough that the man hesitated. "It's okay. They're not here to hurt you or get you in trouble."

Fred's eyes darted from Jarod, to Broots, to Miss Parker. He jerked his chin in Broots's direction; Broots shrank back.

"You were a spotter for a while last week," he said warily. "And a checker. Some of the men were saying you were nosing around for a client, making sure we weren't messing around with their product. What's this about, Jarod? You said you had something to show me."

"Well," said Jarod. "First off. Someone, not something. We need to talk to you about a matter that concerns you. It won't sound like good news, but I promise, we want to help you. Fred, this is Miss Parker. Miss Parker… Fred Monaghan."

"Afternoon, Fred," said Parker, doing her best to soften her customary bite. "Good to finally meet you."

Fred's weight was on his back foot, leaning into the urge to run. Given a sufficiently loud, sudden noise, he'd almost certainly scarper.

"Parker," he whispered. "As in the Parkers? Lord in heaven, Jarod, what have I ever done to you?"

Jarod spread his open hands. "Nothing! There's no other longshoreman I'd trust more to have my back at the top of a crane. You haven't done anything. I brought you here to warn you."

The reassurances had done nothing, except perhaps to keep Fred from bolting. Parker thought it was time they cut to the chase.

"The Centre knows you're informing on them to Customs and Border Patrol," she said.

"Yeah, I guess so, huh!" said Fred, his eyes wide and rolling. His dark face had gone slack with fear. "I wasn't sure, but seeing how you're talking now — you're the boss's daughter, aren't you?"

Parker inclined her head. "Guilty."

"So when you say that the Centre knows, you mean you know." Fred's face distorted into something contemptuous, seeming to stretch beyond its usual parameters. He jerked his thumb at Jarod. "Did this guy tell you?"

"Fred, there's more going on here than you realize," Jarod pleaded. "We need to talk about—"

"I don't care about your corporate conspiracies!" shouted Fred, a little too loud for Parker's comfort. If they got interrupted, this could go very badly. Worse than it was currently going, even. "Listen — I just want to work. I want to work somewhere where I'm not helping some rich bastard commit crimes, 'cause I'm not gonna be anyone's scapegoat."

"We can — I can arrange that," said Jarod. "But, Fred… I'm sorry, but that can't be here in Baltimore. Not if you want to be safe from the Centre. Not if you want your family to be safe."

"You have a wife, right? Alicia," said Parker.

"Yeah." Fred frowned. "How'd you know that? Hey — don't be threatening my wife!"

Parker held up her hands. "I'm not threatening anybody, Fred. I know about her because you work for the Centre, if indirectly. The Centre knows everything about all its employees. She's expecting, right? Twins."

"She's pregnant, yeah, but — but hang on, now. Twins?"

Parker winced. "Ah. That information may have reached the Centre before it got to you."

"Wow," Fred gasped. He looked around for a place to sit, to take it all in, but there was none. "This is a lot."

"If you'll hear me out, Fred, there's another job down the coast I think you'd be great for," Jarod continued. "Great team, lots of available hours. You'll like it."

"Yeah? And the catch? You're not doing this out of the goodness of your heart, no way."

Jarod hesitated. "There is—"

"Ha! Yup, there it is."

Jarod and Parker caught each other's eye. Fred looked between the two of them and scowled.

"I just want your work against the Centre to mean something," said Jarod. "If you want that too, I hope you'll consider talking to someone."

Fred made a face. "Talking to someone? Like a shrink? I'm all set."

Broots, too, looked skeptical. Parker had looped him in, but only on the bare bones of the plan.

"No, not a shrink. Did you meet Emily while she was here? The reporter. She was going around asking all the men questions about the clients."

"Sure, I saw her around," said Fred, nodding slowly. "To be honest, I wondered if she was the plant sent by the Centre. She kept asking questions, trying to get people to blab about clients. I figured she was trying to see who would be willing to tattle, so I steered clear of her."

"That makes a lot of sense," Jarod conceded. "But that's not who Emily is. She's—" Parker saw him consider whether to mention that the woman was his sister, and decide against it. A good call, since the way Fred was feeling about Jarod at the moment, their family ties wouldn't be a point in Emily's favour. "She's the opposite, she's working against the Centre. She's doing everything I wish I could."

"Yeah?" Fred's brow furrowed. "And why can't you, pray tell? Who's forcing you to narc on good people instead of fighting the good fight? I don't see a gun to your head."

Jarod looked abruptly exhausted. "Trust me, it's there."

"Let's not get lost in the weeds, folks," said Parker. The last thing she needed was Jarod using poor Mr. Monaghan as an unwitting therapist for all his mercurial woes. "If you agree, Mr. Monaghan, we need to get to the Baltimore Sun offices before they close for the evening."

Fred Monaghan wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing his forearms for warmth. He stared around at the QS-9300 field team.

"Yeah, alright, I'll give it a shot. Tell me one thing, though."

"Shoot," said Parker.

"Anything," said Jarod.

Fred chose his words carefully. "Did the Centre know a thing about me before you three got involved? I mean to say — do I have to uproot my family, desert my friends and my community… because of you?"

"We knew there was a mole," said Parker. "That was all. And yes, you can blame us if you need to. Are we going or what?"

Fred's face hardened. "Bastards. Bastards, all of you. Yeah, goddammit, let's go."

It was a quick drive to the offices of the Baltimore Sun, even quicker now that rush hour had petered out. Jarod and Fred sat in the back on the way over, Fred listening intently as Jarod explained the relocation plans. He'd thought of everything, from the down payment on a house with room for two growing kids, to job references adequate to jump up the seniority ladder a little at the port in Norfolk, down to a ready-made favourable credit score for Fred and Alicia both.

"If you're careful, you could even stay in touch with friends," said Jarod. "You won't be that far away. As long as you're nowhere near the Centre's shipments, they don't have so many resources that they'll waste them chasing after you."

It had become obvious that Jarod had known the identity of the mole for longer than he'd admitted, and had spent his time not on sifting through his fellow longshoremen but on appeasing his guilt for giving Fred up to the Centre.

Broots sat in the passenger seat next to Parker, curiously still and angling his ear almost imperceptibly in the direction of the conversation in the back seat.

"Broots, could you—"

"Shh!"

Parker's eyebrows flew up. Had he actually shushed her?

"Excuse me?"

Broots's whole countenance spasmed in embarrassment.

"That is, uh. Sorry — yes? What is it?"

Parker dropped her voice to a mutter. Over the engine and the animated back-and-forth between Fred and Jarod, her words were inaudible to everyone but Broots. "Are you planning on handing Monaghan's new life to the Triumvirate? That's low, Broots."

"No!" said Broots, and to his credit, he appeared genuinely horrified at the idea. "Of course not! I… it's just interesting, that's all. It's nice to know there are options for people like, like Mr. Monaghan."

"Thinking about jumping ship?" Parker asked.

"Huh? No."

He was lying, but then, she couldn't blame him.

The Baltimore Sun offices were closed to the public when they arrived, but that didn't mean the staff had gone home, so Jarod hadn't quite given up hope. They caught the door before it swung shut behind a departing columnist and slipped into the darkening office.

"Are we not supposed to be here?" asked Fred, keeping his voice low just in case. "I didn't agree to any breaking-and-entering."

"We're not breaking-and-entering, we're confused tourists. Plus, we're expected," said Parker. "Ah, here's the directory. There's an Emily Woodward on the second floor. You think she's as preoccupied with on-the-nose surnames as you, Jarod? Or d'you think you've been Jarod Woodward all this time?"

Jarod snorted. "The former. Though it would be pretty cool to be related to one of the guys who broke Watergate."

Fred opened his mouth to ask for an explanation, but Parker hurried the group on.

They made their way up to the second floor, ducked past a buzzing conference room, past two washrooms and a half-dozen personal offices before reaching the right nameplate on the door: Emily Woodward. The door opened easily under Parker's fingers. It wasn't locked, wasn't even latched.

The office had been stripped bare. A desk, a desk chair, an empty filing cabinet… nothing else to speak of in Emily Woodward's office, if indeed it was still hers. Oh, and one more thing: a man with white hair and a pale, gruesomely familiar face.

"Mr. White, hello." The sight of him threw Parker's guts into turmoil, but she couldn't afford to be visibly surprised to see him. "I didn't think you'd come here personally, and certainly not so soon. I wasn't expecting anyone else here until tomorrow."

She leaned against the door jamb, one hand hidden from view, and gestured emphatically for Jarod and Mr. Monaghan to leave. It was too late for her and Broots, who had both already been spotted, but they might still get Monaghan out unseen. Not daring to check to see if they'd received the message, she heard a telltale creak down the hall and hoped with everything in her that they'd listened and fled.

"Miss Parker!" said Mr. White in greeting. "For my part, I wasn't expecting you at all. What brings you here this evening?"

"Same thing as you, I'd bet," said Parker, weighing her next words. "We're cleaning up. The assignment was to ID the mole at the port, but then the reporter came around Seagirt looking for the same story. Emily Woodward?"

Mr. White listened without a flicker of a reaction. He left a too-long gap before he answered, like a news correspondent with an audio delay.

"Would it interest you to know, I wonder, that Woodward was not the woman's name?"

"Was?" blurted Parker, an icy feeling fanning out from the centre of her chest. "She's…?"

"Oh, she's alive." White scratched unconcernedly at his cheek. "Only the name is past tense. We have reason to believe that the woman is associated with a long-term thorn in the Centre's side. I was hoping to catch up with her, but it looks like she's cleared out. The house at the address on her employee records is also completely empty. I assumed someone tipped her off about our raid, but — you say she was at Seagirt? The port where one of our cargo ships was impounded back in October?"

"That's right. She wasn't at the port today, either. Guess she's flown the coop."

Mr. White nodded. "Looks that way."

A brief, silent standoff followed, where the three of them stood staring at one another, loudly thinking at the other party to leave, already. Ultimately, Parker gave in. If they left before White, they might be assured a better head start.

Jarod was waiting outside the car when they re-emerged from the office. Fred could be seen through the tinted windows, stamping his feet in the back to keep warm.

"Miss Parker — please, is Emily…? What happened?"

"I don't know what happened, but she's alive. White — Mr. White was there — he says she's alive, anyway. If he's telling the truth, he doesn't know where she is any better than we do."

Jarod took off his knit cap and ran his fingers through his hair, breathing through his disappointment.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. I know what she looks like, I have a picture. I know she works as a reporter. It's more than I had a week ago."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," said Parker.

Jarod crammed the cap back on his head with a sigh. "Yeah."

Neither of them was any worse off than they'd been yesterday. Jarod still didn't have his family, as he hadn't the day before. He and Miss Parker still didn't have each other, not really. It was the near miss that made it hurt all the more keenly, however.

It's hard to ask a fisherman to play catch-and-release with his sport when his stomach is so achingly empty.

"That's it?" said Brigitte, when Jarod handed over a file on Fred Monaghan, complete with his employee information and home address in Baltimore. "You're giving up the name? No fight?"

"No fight," Jarod confirmed. His wooden expression gave nothing away.

"Huh! I underestimated you… or was it overestimation? Anyway, I'm not complaining. One of your cleanest missions yet, with the possible exception of Anchorage."

The only blemish on the denouement of the Baltimore mission was when, a few days after their return, the first headaches associated with oncoming quicksilver madness appeared in the middle of a briefing meeting. Jarod jerked in his seat, his hand flying to brace the back of his skull. He groaned in pain.

"Already?" said Brigitte, with a disapproving tsk. "How high-stress could lugging around a bunch of boxes be?"

Jarod's next shot was a full twenty-two hours ahead of schedule.