Brigitte and Miss Parker struck a tense tableau. Both armed, though Parker was the only one with her gun raised. Or, they would strike a tense tableau, if Brigitte had the grace to stop bitching about the paralytic dose.

"Look, look what it says on the label." She held the weapon out for Parker to see, wildly overestimating her visual acuity. "Thirty minutes. It hasn't been half that. Forget all I said about giving Cox his due. What a piece of junk."

"You got it from Cox," said Jarod's voice from behind Parker. She couldn't turn to look. His emergence from paralysis had apparently been a lot less dramatic than her own. "I don't know what you expected. Did you get it from him before or after you beat him up?"

"Before. Obviously," Brigitte snapped. "He wasn't conscious, after."

"Both of you—" Parker bit back a caustic shut up; Jarod, at least, wouldn't deserve it. "Jarod. This cure she's talking about. Is… is it possible?"

A dark shape loomed in her peripheral vision — Jarod, coming up on her right side. She kept her eyes glued to Brigitte.

"Gene therapy to shut down the gland's quicksilver production?" he said. "Sure. It's what I've been trying to brute force for the last few weeks, but I had no road map."

Parker laughed bitterly. "Well, now I know this is bullshit. You expect us to believe that you, Brigitte, you figured out how to disable the gland when Jarod couldn't do it?"

Parker's laugh seemed to have pulled Brigitte from her distraction. Her gaze sharpened and she glanced between her two sudden captors.

"I don't expect anything from you. Especially not if you don't believe me. It is real, though. This is a real answer."

Parker jerked her chin at the syringe in Brigitte's hand.

"What's that? Is that… is that it?"

Brigitte nodded.

"I got more out of Cox than just answers. This is it. It'll work. At least, I have every reason to believe it will."

Parker stared at the little glass instrument in Brigitte's fist. That little thing there? That held everything she wanted? It looked just like counteragent, though a little darker in colour. Perhaps it was meant to, so that if Brigitte was caught, she could pass it off as a shot for Jarod.

Jarod hummed contemplatively.

"It's not impossible," he said. He spoke slowly and calmly, and Parker realized belatedly that he was using his hostage negotiation voice on her. Dick. It made her smile, though. "It's like I said. I didn't have a road map. Cox did."

Parker risked a quick glance his way, too fast for Brigitte to react and scarper.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"He designed it. Chances are good he knows which gene to target. That was the crux of how much brute force work I had in front of me when I was trying to figure it out: I didn't know which gene to target. They're still trying to sequence the human genome, and it's taken over fifteen years. I had little hope of finding the right gene in a few weeks. But again, Cox might already know."

Brigitte dangled the syringe from finger and thumb. If Parker shot her, she'd drop it. Parker would so dearly love to shoot her, but not if it meant throwing out their last, best hope, as unlikely as it seemed.

"It could be poisoned," she bit out. It was so hard to give in to hope. Not for freedom, not for a future. It would destroy her if she embraced hope, only for it to be yanked away once more.

"She has a gun. She doesn't need poison."

"Could you study it? If we get this… cure, this vector or whatever she called it, could you study it and make sure it does as advertised?"

"Yes," said Jarod. "To a point. I can verify that it's a viral vector-based gene therapy product. I won't be able to tell whether it's targeting the right gene without testing it on myself, though. Nobody else has this same gland, not anymore."

"What's the problem here?" said Brigitte. "Is it me you don't trust, or Cox? Because I—"

"Both," said Parker and Jarod at once.

"… Fair enough. But for my part, I really do want you to take this, Jarod. Hard though it may be for you to believe. And I'm sorry, but you can't delay taking this to study it. I already gave you the first dose of a pair. You need both, and they need to be administered within an hour of each other. One on its own is useless. Two — two will set you both free. I want that for all three of us."

"Why?" Parker burst out. "Why would you want to help us? You've never—" Never was a strong word. She pressed her lips together. "It's not you. You wouldn't help us unless it served you."

"Who says it doesn't? All I've wanted for the past six months is to see your father and his legacy obliterated. Losing control of his daughter and his favourite moneymaker… that fits my agenda pretty well. I want this." Her face hardened. "Not as much as I want to live, though. I'll give you the vector, but you have to let me walk."

No, said a beast at the back of Parker's mind.

"You killed Tommy," she said aloud.

Brigitte nodded carefully. "I did. I don't expect you to forgive me for that, even with a ticket to freedom handed to you on a silver platter. This'll be enough to forgive myself, though. He seemed like a sweet guy, from the little I knew of him."

"He was," Jarod said.

Parker shot him another blink-and-you-miss-it glance. How the hell would he know that?

"And that's nice," said Brigitte, "but I'm not gonna lay down and let you execute me for his murder. Not without a fight, anyway. And you'll lose the vector."

Parker was quiet for a long moment. Jarod didn't say anything, either. She wished he would. He had nothing to gain from Brigitte's death, and everything to gain from trying the therapeutic vector. As weighted biases went, it was a doozy. Still, he didn't try to sway her one way or the other. Perhaps he thought he knew what she'd say.

If so, he was right.

"Fine," she said, finally. "Put the syringe on the dresser and leave. If I see you again, though, I'll kill—"

"Put your gun down first."

Parker snorted.

"You must think I'm a grade-A moron."

"Grade-A is overstating things."

"You'll bolt. I'm not putting it down."

Brigitte made a noise of frustration. "Why would I show up here with the shot to cure Jarod and then play keep-away with it? I want to get this off my hands, I just don't want to get shot for my trouble!"

"Be quiet," said Jarod.

Brigitte's eyes bulged.

"Of all the ungrateful—"

"I think someone is outside," he said, for the second time that evening.

A "double-barrel" was Centre slang for a full complement of both a sweeper team and a cleaner team, sent in to track and destroy all evidence of the same target. The sweepers took point on double-barrel missions, as they had to track and secure the target, while the cleaners did the mop-up.

Sam felt a squirm of discomfort at the prospect of hunting down Miss Parker. Technically he reported to her father, but he'd worked so long with Miss Parker that it felt like treason to sic a team of his fellow sweepers on her, no matter what she'd done. He was sure that whatever had happened, it was Jarod's fault, not hers. The sooner Jarod was locked up on the Renewal Wing, the better, as far as Sam was concerned.

There were rumours drifting through the rank and file that it hadn't been Jarod who attacked Cox at all. Ridiculous though it may sound, folks were saying it might have been Brigitte. Yeah, pint-size Brigitte, with her perpetual lollipop and fake accent. They were saying that Brigitte got some vital information out of Cox, which would allow Jarod to escape for good.

Some people were so gullible.

Tracking down Brigitte had been a walk in the park. She hadn't even had the sense to check for trackers on her belongings before heading to Argentina. According to the tech guys back at headquarters, Brigitte's tracker had been offline since her disappearance, but it was transmitting now. Specifically, it was transmitting from the foothills to the west of a town called San Carlos de Bariloche.

Usually, on double-barrel missions, the sweepers took point. This time, they had a guest along, and he insisted on being the first to put boots on the ground.

Choppers. Two of them. The rhythmic thudding from above the cabin was unmistakable.

Parker wasn't swearing yet, but that was only because Brigitte was doing enough of that for the two of them, and Parker had no interest in turning it into a two-part harmony.

"You led them here," she said quietly, dangerously, when Brigitte paused for breath. "They had no idea where we were. We've been here for days. Then you show up and within a half-hour, the Centre is right behind you."

"It looks that way," Jarod agreed. His voice was calm, far too calm. "They must have put a tracker on you. If we'd known—"

"Yeah, woulda, coulda, shoulda. Didn't," Brigitte snapped. "They're here now, so that can't matter anymore." Her voice was high and wavering, and her mouth worked and puckered. For the first time since Brigitte had swaggered into Parker's life, she looked truly frightened. "Shit. Shitshitshit. He's… he's going to kill me."

The thrumming noise outside grew louder and louder and then, with a soft thunk, one of the helicopters came to rest on the lawn outside. There would be a complement of sweepers in the first chopper to touch down, Parker knew. She could recite by rote how this would go down. Damn it all, it was much easier being the pursuing than the pursued, much easier being the busy than the tired.

Then, the script went off track.

"Brigitte?" boomed the voice of Mr. Parker from outside. "Please come outside, my love."

Inside the cabin, nobody moved for a good four seconds.

Finally: "Daddy?" Parker hissed. "What the hell is he — he's in the field?"

"Of course he is," said Brigitte. "I ran from him. We all did. It's the worst insult you can level at a man like that."

"It doesn't sound like he knows Miss Parker and I are here," said Jarod.

"Brigitte?" Mr. Parker called again, reinforcing Jarod's theory. "I know you're here. You shouldn't be travelling abroad this far into your pregnancy. Come out and we can head back home."

The sweepers and cleaners at his back were shuffling around, checking their gun safeties and staging whispered conferences. The resultant susurration bled through the open window. These boys had never been aces at stealth.

Parker edged along the wall and peaked out the window from behind a curtain. There they were, huddled out on the lawn like a classroom's worth of kids during a fire drill. Mr. Parker rubbed his hands together; every few seconds, he let out a soft, exasperated laugh. As Miss Parker watched, four sweepers split off from the group, and two each headed for the north and south walls of the cabin.

Brigitte held the therapeutic vector aloft.

"You two are going to get me out of here," she said. "If you don't, I'll smash this. I won't like it, but I'll do it. And think fast, because Jarod only has so much time before the second dose is useless."

Parker and Jarod exchanged mute glances.

"I have an idea," said Jarod.

"Of course you do." Brigitte managed a tight smile. "Will I like it?"

Jarod shrugged a shoulder. "You might. Depends on how it goes."

Mr. Parker had just opened his mouth to call out for his wife a third time when the front door of the cabin burst open and Brigitte stepped out. She wasn't alone. Miss Parker was at her back, one arm curled around her shoulders from behind and the other holding a gun to her stepmother's temple. The breeze was stiff and bracing, and between the moon, the lights from the choppers, and the glow from inside the cabin, it was as bright as mid-day.

"Hi, Daddy," Miss Parker gasped, winded by the enormity of what she was about to do. This was it. Her heart was suspended between euphoria and preemptive grief. "I need you to order—"

Mr. Parker's eyes grew wide. "Angel, what are you doing—"

"Shut up. I'm talking." Why wasn't there enough air — was it something about the high elevation? Or was it just the fact of telling her father to shut up? "I need you to order the four sweepers back from the north and south walls. The rest of you, back up to the southeast corner of the lawn, farthest from the driveway."

"Angel," said Mr. Parker, smooth and smiling. "I'm not sure what this is all about, but I see you've forgotten everything I said about empty threats. Put the gun down and come here. You won't shoot my wife. You wouldn't do that."

"Wouldn't I?" said Miss Parker. Her smile was growing manic. She tried to rein it in, without much success. "You have no idea what I would or wouldn't do."

Mr. Parker exhaled harshly through his nose in exasperation.

"I don't know my own daughter? Come on, sweetheart, this is silly. What is this about?"

The cabin door opened again and Jarod emerged, carrying a couple of duffel bags with the necessities packed.

"It's about Jarod and I getting away from the Centre, away from you," said Miss Parker. She winced; she hadn't meant to say "Jarod and I". That would fly in the face of their cover story, the one Jarod concocted.

Miss Parker couldn't look her father in the eye, so her gaze darted from face to anonymous face, watching for signs of recklessness. The last thing the escapees needed was for some grunt to get brave.

Jarod had suggested rehearsing what she was going to say, so she wouldn't get caught up in the overwhelming reality of rejecting her father to his face. She'd turned down the suggestion. Miss Parker knew exactly what she needed to say. The words had been on repeat at the back of her brain for weeks, a monologue on a carousel.

"Away from — what are you talking about, Angel? I can only assume this has something to do with Jarod, that's the only thing I can think of that might explain such rash behaviour. That's it, isn't it? I told you it wasn't a good idea to get too attached." He spread his hands. "Sweetheart, what does this achieve? You know he has to go back to the Centre. He knows that, too — don't you, Jarod? If I know anything about you, Jarod, I know you wouldn't want to hurt people under the sway of quicksilver madness."

So, he didn't know about the therapeutic vector. That was one of the few question marks in Jarod's plan. Cox must not have told Mr. Parker what Brigitte got out of him, either because he didn't want to get in deep shit with the Triumvirate, or because he hadn't yet recovered from Brigitte's attack. Likely the latter — Brigitte had mentioned that she'd left Cox in no fit state to work, that she'd left him unconscious.

"We want three days," said Miss Parker, taking care to let her voice crack on the last word. "That's all. We were supposed to have three days. It's all the time I have left with him, and god damn it, I'll have every second of it."

Mr. Parker's countenance softened into something closely — but not exactly — resembling sympathy. At his back, a couple of sweepers shuffled from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable.

Obviously, she and Jarod wanted more than just three days. Three days is what their stockpile of counteragent would get them, but with a functioning therapeutic vector, that three turned into a sideways eight. Mr. Parker didn't know they had a vector, however, and Miss Parker would prefer it to stay that way. If she came right out and said, "We're never coming back," Mr. Parker might get desperate.

"I understand," Mr. Parker lied. "I may not have grasped the… depth of what you feel for Jarod, but I understand. The problem is, we don't have three days. Cox needs access to Jarod now, to continue working on the updated counteragent formula. You want that, don't you?"

But Cox would not be working on the updated counteragent formula, had not been working on the updated formula. He'd been in the hospital, or laid up in bed. Which meant that her father was lying to her face.

It wasn't the first time, but it could very well be the last.

(What else was he lying about? Had Cox planned to engineer an updated formula at all? Or was that just a line Mr. Parker had trotted out to placate her and Jarod, to keep them calm during Jarod's last weeks?)

"Three days," she repeated. "Or Brigitte dies."

Mr. Parker shook his head. "You may not always have seen eye-to-eye with your stepmother, but you wouldn't kill her."

"No?" Miss Parker's smile was shark-like. "I wouldn't kill the woman who murdered Thomas Gates?"

It took a moment for recognition to dawn, but when it did, Mr. Parker's expression collapsed into something drawn and uncertain.

"… Gates? Now — now, Angel, you can't—"

"Call back the sweepers from the north and south walls and retreat to the southeast corner of the lawn," Miss Parker barked again, louder this time.

Jarod chimed in. "And Sam—" Sam came to attention. "Please remove the fuse from the fuse box on both choppers and toss both to me. I'll be watching, and I'll know if you deliberately botch it."

Sam looked back at the helicopters doubtfully.

"I'll drop Jarod back in Delaware in three days' time," Miss Parker continued. "Have a shot of counteragent ready. And then I'm leaving."

Mr. Parker stared at her.

"You're my daughter," he said, and his voice rose to a shout on the last word. "You're a Parker! Your place is at the Centre, you can't leave."

"And yet, I am." She almost lost her nerve at the disbelief written across his features. Whatever he'd threatened, whatever he'd done, he was still her father. That would always be true. "You asked for too much, Daddy. I've had enough."

Mr. Parker's narrowed eyes locked on his daughter with an expression of such quivering intensity, it left her at once hypnotized and fighting the urge to avert her eyes. Then he turned aside to the nearest cleaner and muttered something too low for Miss Parker to hear. The man nodded and gestured mutely to his compatriots. As one, the sweepers and cleaners moved away to the southeast corner of the lawn, farthest from the driveway.

Miss Parker, Jarod and Brigitte strafed slowly sideways, mirroring their enemies' movements on an invisible axis. They stopped when they reached the rental jeep Miss Parker had picked up in Bariloche. Miss Parker silently twitched her gun at the passenger side door and nudged Brigitte forward. Brigitte got in and sat down; she was playing the part of a passive hostage beautifully so far. Sam dutifully tossed the helicopter fuses to Jarod, who caught them and grabbed a spot in the back seat, driver's side.

Just then, movement in Miss Parker's peripheral vision: her father, raising his hand. For a surreal moment, she thought he was waving goodbye. The next moment dispelled that conclusion, as a shot rang out and Brigitte pitched sideways in her seat.

"Wing her, I said," Mr. Parker bellowed, suddenly panicked. "Did you—?"

Brigitte let out a wordless yell of pain.

"Motherfuck," she howled, when she recovered her power of speech. "Parker, get in and gun it already!"

Parker got in and gunned it already. She craned her neck around to look Brigitte over as she backed out of the driveway. There was too much blood to see where Brigitte had been hit.

Jarod ducked. A fraction of a second later, another shot pinged off the jeep's frame, passing through the space that his right ear had recently occupied.

"They called our bluff," he muttered.

"Bound to happen," said Parker.

A few ambitious sweepers ran after them, while the wiser majority stayed where they were ordered and fired at the jeep. Mr. Parker hollered over the gunfire, but his words were a confused mess — one second telling his subordinates they couldn't hurt the mother of his child, the next demanding that they stop the escaping trio, whatever it took.

The jeep wound its way down the mountain. Parker didn't speak until the sound of shouts and gunfire faded, covered up by the laboured huffing and puffing coming from the passenger seat.

"Where were you hit?" she said, finally.

"Shoulder," Brigitte gasped. "Bastard. Guess he wasn't all that interested in keeping me alive, after all. I thought that baby was all he cared about."

"He must have realized you're not pregnant anymore," Parker guessed.

"It's possible," said Jarod from the back seat. "But I don't think that's why he ordered you shot."

Brigitte tried to turn to look at him, then froze with a whimper as something in the movement pulled at her wound.

"Why, then?" she said.

Jarod held out a hand.

"Vector, first."

A pained laugh tumbled out of Brigitte.

"Right. Yeah, I'll get right on that. And then, what, you kick me out the door into the ditch and drive away? Get me to a hospital first."

"You said I had an hour. We're coming up on that time. I'm also getting a headache — initial QSM symptoms. Unless you want to be in a moving vehicle with a homicidal wrecking ball who loathes you, you should hand over the vector."

Parker shot a glance sideways at Brigitte. The woman's lips were pressed together and quivering, and her breaths were coming fast.

"You'll let me die," she said, her voice cracking.

"No, we won't," said Jarod. The return of his hostage crisis voice. He was in full Pretender mode. "I give you my word, Brigitte. We'll get you to a hospital. If you hand over the therapeutic vector. Now."

Parker had no idea whether he was telling the truth.

Brigitte was quiet. Then, her tripping fingers plunged into her jacket pocket and handed the syringe over her undamaged shoulder, whimpering as she did so. Jarod took it gently from her clumsy hands.

"Now, get me to a hospital."

"We will," said Jarod. "But you should know, I think that's exactly what your husband expects. He knows that with a wound like that, you'll die if you're not seen by a medical professional. Which will narrow his search considerably. He'll head straight for the closest hospital once he's mobile. If he still had the use of the helicopters, he'd beat us there."

Another frustrated laugh burst forth from Brigitte, a voiceless explosion of air that dissolved into hiccups. Her hands were pressed to the shoulder wound, and both were drenched in red. She kicked the glove box. It didn't help.

"Like you said, I'm dead if I don't get to a hospital. And… and you promised."

Her eyes were wide and fearful as she caught Parker's eye.

Parker's nose wrinkled in contempt. This woman killed Tommy. Jarod had no business promising to save her life. But there were bigger, more immediate problems to deal with.

"Yeah, we'll get you there," she grumbled. "After that—"

"After that, we'll never see you again," said Jarod. It wasn't how Parker had planned to finish the sentence; her version promised a more definite end. Jarod held the syringe in front of his eyes. "For now — here goes… well, everything."

"Jarod," said Parker, warningly.

"I have to."

"If Cox is right, that thing'll knock you flat," said Brigitte hoarsely. She watched Jarod in the rear-view mirror. "Vomiting, fever, your standard bad flu shot reaction, but… double that. You might want to lie down."

Parker wished like hell that she could pull the car over on the side of the road; she would have, if she didn't know her father would do everything in his power to catch up with them. She couldn't keep her eyes on the road. Not when Jarod stood on the precipice of either an enormous, beautiful future, or madness and inglorious death on an operating table.

"Are you sure?" she whispered.

Jarod caught her eye in the mirror.

"As sure as I can be."

He wielded the syringe like a dagger.

(Tourniquet, find the vein, eliminate air bubbles.)

And plunged it home.