Jarod stared into his coffee cup, frustrated and worried. Already that morning had seen two telephone calls that had taken what should have been a regular pre-work morning and twisted it into a parody of anticipation and dread. The first call he himself had initiated – he’d HAD to know what Miss Parker had found out about Sydney’s disappearance. He could hear the distress in her voice as she’d recalled the lawyer’s description of what the police had found – and shared in her longing that he could just bolt from this latest Pretend and go help the investigation.

Then, as if to add insult to injury, the phone had begun to ring again only a few minutes after he’d hung up on Miss Parker – and this time it was JD, announcing his pending arrival in Philadelphia and his design on spurring movement along at the Foundation. Under normal circumstances, and were he working alone on a single facet of the Foundation’s hierarchy, he would have welcomed JD’s tinkering. But this was a complex situation, where there already were several people working at and on the Foundation in a variety of positions – and Sydney was gone. JD had sympathized with his concern for his old mentor, but had insisted that his adopting the persona of an IRS investigator was just another way to throw the Foundation off-guard and off-balance enough that information could be discovered undetected.

JD would be in Philadelphia that evening, ready to take up his auditor/investigator Pretend by Wednesday morning.

Jarod’s mind kept returning to his mentor’s unexpected disappearance, though, as if something in the timing was off. Was it only a coincidence that Sydney had vanished on the very eve of the initiation of Phase Two of this complicated Pretend? Was he missing the clues that were telling him that the Foundation wasn’t quite as criminally myopic as the Centre had been – and that they were on to what he was up to? WHY had it been Sydney – of all people – that had been taken? He scratched absently at an itch to the right of his nose and continued staring into the dark depth of the coffee.

“Don’t YOU just look bushy-tailed and feisty and ready to go to work,” Emily commented dryly as she sat down opposite her brother at the kitchen table. Normally he had a morning’s greeting for her the moment she stepped into the kitchen – today he looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Then again, she’d heard the phone ring… “Who was on the phone?”

“JD’s coming to town,” Jarod announced bluntly, glancing up at her only briefly. “You’re going to have a houseful soon.”

“What the Hell is JD coming here for?”

“He’s decided we need to knock the Foundation a little more off balance – so he’s going to Pretend to be me Pretending to be an IRS investigator running an audit.” Jarod shook his head. “On the one hand, it might be something that will end up helping us out – on the other, it could screw things up royally for all of us. But JD’s very determined to work on the Duplicity end of things – and sitting on the sidelines at the farm just isn’t his idea of being helpful.”

“Wonderful!” Emily scowled. “So he’s coming here, is he? Well, I’m starting to run out of corners to put people,” she sighed in resignation. “Are you sure he has to stay HERE?”

Jarod shrugged. “I suppose we could put him in the other apartment for the time being,” he suggested off-handedly. “It would at least give the appearance of the place being occupied…” He sighed, picked up his coffee and took a long sip. “I also called Miss Parker – Sydney’s definitely been taken.” At that, it was Emily’s turn to shrug. Jarod sighed. “I know you have never really forgiven him, but at least you could show a little concern.”

Her eyes opened wide. “That he’s getting a little of his own back? Sorry. That man was part of the system that kept you locked up for over thirty years, Jarod – don’t ask me to feel anything but contempt…”

“That man, as you call him, is wholly responsible for making me who I am today,” Jarod retorted hotly. “There were enough monsters at the Centre – monsters determined to create other monsters – that were it not for Sydney, you and I wouldn’t even be HAVING this conversation!”

“You’re defending him now? That’s rich!” Emily’s laugh was brittle. “You did your damnedest to get away from him – told us he meant nothing to you anymore. Guess that was another Centre illusion, huh?”

Jarod took a long, deep breath. “No,” he shook his head. “It’s just recognition of something I’ve been denying for a long time. But anyway, why the steam from you today?”

“I dunno – maybe I’m just steamed because those Centre folks you avoided for so long seem to have hijacked your entire Pretend…”

“They didn’t hijack anything – I found out that what they were working on and what I was…”

Emily stood up. “Well, here’s another piece of your precious Pretend, falling into place a little ahead of schedule.” She tossed the newspaper on the table, and it unfolded to show that one of the stories on an inside page that was spotlighted at the very top of the front page was the one she’d written. “Don Krohn called me last night to let me know he’d checked with legal and decided to run with it. I’ve got to put the finishing touches on the second part today and start working my ass off for the finale.”

Jarod reached out to the newspaper and gathered it close. The “hook” the newspaper had given the story was in the title: “Another Centre In Our Midst?” – given the current national fascination with all the sordid doings of the defunct R&D corporation, it was bound to both spark interest in some quarters and consternation in others. His smile was crooked and cold. “Good,” he commented quietly at last. “If WE have to be off-balance, its just as well that THEY have to be off-balance as well.”

Emily stared at her older brother, wondering as she did every once in a while just how well any of the recently reconstructed family actually KNEW him. He could switch his emotions on and off as if he had a mental light switch – and just now, he’d turned off his concern for that bastard of a psychiatrist to gloat slightly over her news story. Jarod was a mystery wrapped in an enigma, even for those who knew him best.

“I gotta get going,” she told him as she grabbed up her purse and car keys from the end of the kitchen counter. “Any idea what time JD is going to show up?”

Jarod looked up from the newspaper as if startled. “Huh? No – I’d imagine sometime around suppertime, though. It’s a long drive.”

“I don’t feel much like cooking tonight – you up to picking up some deli stuff instead on the way home from the Foundation?”

Jarod nodded absently and turned back to his newspaper and the story his sister had written – although the by-line was “Anonymous”. Life at the Foundation was going to be interesting today…

~~~~~~~~~*

Shinse Olabi sighed deeply and let himself relax as he walked away from the still-crowded auditorium where the members at large of the consortium were still meeting-and-greeting each other, as was custom after a get together such as the one that had just ended. The most important task he’d assigned himself going into the meeting had been accomplished – although not exactly in the manner in which he’d intended.

Folo Matrenga, the elderly diamond dealer from Rwanda, was the new member of the council – and Lula Mutumbo’s exit from the council was accomplished. Lula had managed to get her resignation out before he’d had a chance to present his evidence of her recent attempts to take over control of the consortium – but that didn’t mean that the same evidence couldn’t be presented to a certain number of members who had never liked either Lula or Bolo Mutumbo OR their hammer-handed way of doing things. Lula’s end, while probably not as quiet as it would have been otherwise, was equally assured.

A nod in Siskele Adin’s direction had been all that was necessary to set THAT little rocket into motion.

But now, Olabi sighed again as he pushed the button to take him to the floor of the building where his office was located, he would need to come up with a suitable replacement for Lula. Someone reasonable – someone who would have the good of the whole at the forefront rather than personal gain.

He felt movement at his side and glanced over. Siskele looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary. “Everything delivered?” he asked in a deceptively casual tone.

“As you asked,” Siskele nodded. “And there were several faces that went from surprised to furious – just as you expected.”

“Good.” Olabi didn’t necessarily enjoy what he’d just set into motion, but there had truly been no reasonable alternative. Lula Mutumbo, like her autocratic husband before her, had viewed the Triumvirate as her personal powerbase, to server HER whims rather than her being the servant of the whole consortium. Over the years, both Mutumbos had stepped on any number of toes and climbed over any number of bodies to get what they wanted – that kind of behavior had consequences. Bolo’s assassination at the hands of some nameless killer paid for with Centre funding had been one – Lula’s inevitable demise would be the last. “Have we heard anything new from Londele?”

“Not yet, but then, I’m not expecting to hear anything yet,” Siskele answered, putting a hand up to hold the elevator door open and let his superior enter the little box before him. “He’s in America now – and will more than likely take a day or so to get into a position to get the job done.”

“I want to hear the moment you do, do you understand?” Olabi turned to his assistant with eyes glowing with the heat of revenge. “This is a matter of personal and corporate honor.”

“I swear to you – the moment I know anything, I’ll be letting you know!”

Olabi seemed to settle slightly and leaned against the faux wood interior of the elevator cab. It had been a very long day – but so much true good had been accomplished. A take-over attempt had been averted and the would-be tyrant deposed. All that was left was to weather the after-shocks.

And he could do that.

~~~~~~~~~*

Jake McKenna rounded the corner and headed towards his brother’s secretary at a full-steamed stride. “Is he in?” he demanded in a no-nonsense tone.

“Son of a bitch!” he heard explode from beyond the closed door.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he told the woman and breezed on past her as if any orders she had to detain anyone wanting to see Jim McKenna applied to everyone BUT him. He threw the door open and then slammed it behind himself. “I take it you’ve seen the morning’s paper.” It wasn’t a question.

“Who the Hell…” Jake continued reading the quite long article with growing disbelief and frustration. “HOW the Hell did they get some of this?”

“I’ve already put our Legal department on it,” Jim told his twin grimly. “Although, from the looks of it, the writer was VERY cagey and just skirted close to libel without actually coming out and saying it.”

“Anybody with three brain cells that collide once a month will know they’re talking about the Foundation,” Jake spewed, throwing down the paper in disgust. “How DARE they make connections between information in these “confidential memos” that they somehow got hold of and the kind of stuff the Centre has been doing for years!”

Jim shook his head. “The country has been pretty shaken up after finding out what the Centre was REALLY about all those years, and what it had gotten away with. Look what just the insinuation of this kind of stuff did to the price of Centre stock not all that long ago – what do you think is going to happen to price of OURS when this becomes common knowledge?”

“I want to know who gave access,” Jake stated quietly in a lethal tone, “and I want them to have a nice little meeting with Stan Bateman…”

“Stan Bateman, while not named in this, is going to be part of our problem, Jake,” Jim told his brother. “What we need to do, instead of going after anybody, is to plug any leaks that we’ve developed lately.”

Jake leaned forward. “I want you in the face of the editor of the paper – I want the name of the author of this piece, and I want any further articles stopped.”

“We have nothing to base such action on,” Jim protested. “Like I said, I consulted Legal the moment I finished reading the article – and they looked at it. The Foundation isn’t named anywhere in the article, neither you nor I are mentioned by name. Everything stated is not only accusation by insinuation, but apparently backed up by documentation.”

“I don’t care. This has to stop – now!”

Jim lunged forward and leaned into his brother’s face. “Damn it, Jake, this is exactly the reaction the Centre made – and look what their floundering got them! We have to be smart about this – take our time, ride the wave, not let anybody know that we’re upset in the least. It’s the last thing whoever is behind this will expect.”

“You go talk to the editor,” Jake repeated, his voice low and dangerous. “Let me handle things from this end.”

“Jake…”

“Don’t make me pull rank on you.” The Chairman of the Foundation slowly rose to his feet. “I’ve been running this place for almost twenty years – I’m not about to let some crusading reporter jeopardize everything our family has worked for.”

Jim stared. “A day isn’t going to matter…”

“Move. I expect to see a report on your interview with whoever authorized this piece of crap on my desk by the end of the day.” Jake stared back at his brother, his gaze hard and cold. “I mean it.”

The hackles rose on the back of Jim’s neck, but he didn’t let his brother see just how distressing the adamant refusal to practice a little patience was. Suddenly he wasn’t quite as thrilled to be “back in the Foundation fold” as he had been. Jake had always had a hair-trigger temper – and all too many times, it had been HIS mediating abilities that had kept them both out of the trouble caused by that temper when they’d been younger. After all, that had been the reason Jake had been left in charge of the Foundation by his father while HE had been trained and groomed to spend time neatly buried in the enemy’s heart. To live in enemy territory took the ability to keep one’s temper firmly under control.

“Fine.” Jim turned away. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”

As if THAT were going to stop Jake...

~~~~~~~~~*

Lula Mutumbo stared out the windows of the limousine carrying her back to her home in the more expensive outskirts of Nairobi, not seeing any of the landscape streaming past. It felt strange, not being an official part of the Triumvirate anymore after decades of either her or Bolo having a pivotal role in guiding the consortium.

It had felt like the day’s meeting had gone on forever – and even though she had tendered her resignation long before Shinse Olabi had had an opportunity to begin to level his charges at her, she’d not been permitted to leave the enclosed auditorium until the meeting was formally adjourned. The rule had been put in place to prevent any insider stock trading and capitalizing on advanced knowledge of consortium decisions – but it had proven to be an effective jailer for her today.

Still…

She smiled coldly to herself. Her last act while still in her office had been to make copies of the list of assassins regularly hired by the consortium to “take care of” annoying problems. It didn’t bother her in the least that one of the top names on that list had been Imsi Londele – and the competition between high-quality assassins fairly assured that Londele being the target wouldn’t bother the man she hired either. Once Londele was removed, then it would be time to have her revenge on Siskele Adin – as well as the man who held HIS leash, Shinse Olabi.

She felt the limousine slow and then turn into a driveway, and she brought her attention back to her surroundings. The home she and Bolo had paid for with their Triumvirate salaries was a virtual fortress amid the palatial estates of the Nairobi high society. The limousine waited while the heavily barred gates swung silently inward and then moved forward smoothly, past a well-manicured green expanse and tall, stately trees toward a plantation-style mansion with a veranda that skirted the entire building.

“Ma’am,” the chauffeur said deferentially as he handed her out of the back seat and retrieved her brief case for her.

“You may go,” she announced regally, and the Triumvirate employee gratefully slid back behind the wheel of his vehicle to follow the circular drive around and back to the street – as he had done for all the years he’d been employed.

Lula took in a deep breath of the less polluted air and leaned her head back. It was hard to decide if she was enjoying the feeling of release that not having the responsibility for leading the consortium could give her – or whether all she felt was numb.

She took a step forward and then faltered, her eyes widening in reflexive surprise as a tiny hole suddenly appeared between her eyebrows. She crumpled to the pavement like a rag doll.

~~~~~~~~~*

Stan Bateman was tired. He never had been able to sleep well on airplanes – and he detested the intense heat of Africa. All he wanted to do was to put to this Lula Mutumbo the threat that he’d been delegated to deliver – and then come home.

Getting onto the Mutumbo estate while exhausted had been more of a challenge than he’d faced in a very long time. It seemed that the woman was quite security-conscious and had hired no less than four guards to patrol the expansive grounds around the spacious house, one on each side. No doubt there were more of them inside – guards he’d have to figure out a way around once he’d studied the layout and discovered if there were any other surprises inside, like cameras…

He waited in the shadows of a luxurious flowering bush while one of the dark-garbed guards carrying what looked to be machine guns moved slowly and quietly past. That was two, he counted mentally. He’d remained in this place long enough to have noted the patrol pattern of both this man and the one at the immediate back of the property. As the guard moved away toward the perimeter of the property, Bateman crept forward – keeping to the deep shadows – until he could peer into yet another window of the house. He paid strict attention to the window itself, noting the thin band of silver tape that indicated an alarm attached, and then peered intently into the darkness of the room. There were, that he could tell from this angle, no surveillance cameras – no tell-tale red lights near the ceiling caught his eye.

He froze when he heard a low yet fierce obscenity from the direction of the patrolling guard, and then let out a silent breath of relief when it was followed closely by the scrowl of an angry or frightened cat and the soft crash of a small body pushing through the bushes quickly in retreat. Voices crackled over a small, electronic speaker, voices obviously amused by the display of anger and paranoia.

The steps of the guard moved away, and Bateman continued his cautious movement toward the front of the property. The drive was not far away – the silver-grey gravel stood out against the lush green of the grass. He frowned. There was something in the middle of the drive – something that obviously didn’t belong there. Something large. Something…

He crept forward, slipping quickly behind the trunk of a large tree while he contemplated his next move. Something was definitely not right. He began to slip forward toward the driveway when he stumbled and fell over something that was soft, also large, and very quiet. His heart began to pound when he realized that what he’d fallen over was one of the guards – one with a rather neat bullet hole placed precisely between the eyes.

Bateman glanced with trepidation toward the lump of something in the drive. An assassin had been here – a very talented one at that. No doubt the gun that had fired the kill shot to the guard’s head had been silenced – and there was no possible way for him to tell if the sniper was still in the area, or still hunting. The small speaker at the guard’s motionless shoulder crackled ineffectually, but Bateman ignored the small noise. He had his eyes trained on the lump in the middle of the driveway.

He stepped carefully close enough to be able to see. It was the woman whose picture he’d studied for the better part of ten hours’ worth of flight between New York and Nairobi. Like her guard, she had a neat and clean bullet hole between her eyes.

“Hey!” The shout came from uncomfortably close. “Hold it!”

Bateman straightened and turned as if to run back into the comfort of the shadows, through which he could find a way off the property and away from the scene of the crime – only to discover that one of the other guards already had a very ugly-looking machine gun trained on him.

“I didn’t do this…” he began lamely.

Rough hands came at him from behind, throwing him to the ground face down and then frisking him professionally. They easily found the large Magnum revolver he always carried tucked into his belt. The grounds lights suddenly blazed into brilliance, making Bateman blink against the glare. In the distance, the sound of sirens began to grow nearer.

He groaned. What the Hell had he walked into – and how the Hell was Jake McKenna going to get him out of THIS one?

~~~~~~~~~*

Sydney gazed placidly at the man seated behind the desk. He had been at least allowed to finish his breakfast – juice a cup of hot coffee and a nutritious gruel with enough sweetener and cream to make the dish actually tasty – before he’d been hauled out of his cell and dragged here. And no matter what, this man wasn’t half the monster that William Raines or Lyle Parker had been. He had no reason to fear this man – he knew himself to be far too valuable to harm, at least in the short term

Jim McKenna eyed the man across the desk from him, garbed in non-descript khaki trousers and button-down shirt so as to distinguish him from the employees of the place, with a stern eye. The calm expression of the man’s face roiled him – how could this man be so calm and collected when things were going to Hell all around him? “Well?” he demanded without prologue, “how is your protégé?”

Sydney shrugged one of his quintessentially European shrugs. “He will survive,” he offered calmly. “He will need medical monitoring and treatment for at least another two days before he’ll be in any shape to resume his assigned duties, but his health is no longer as precarious as it was when I saw him at first.”

“Do you know how to get him to do what he was brought here to accomplish?” McKenna demanded just a bit more testily.

“Yes,” Sydney replied, still without allowing the negativity from across the desk to move him at all. “I will need to do a few more assessments as Adam’s health permits, but I am assuming that if the Centre trained him as I designed the program originally and adhered to the guidelines I established, he should be ready to begin work again within the next few days.”

McKenna scowled. “That long?”

Sydney shrugged again. “He was almost dead when I was introduced to him,” he answered with no emotion – no sign that the near-fatal condition of this duplicate of Jarod had affected him deeply. The Foundation, like the Centre, could never be allowed to know just how emotionally bonded he was to the Pretenders – both the original and all of the duplicates he’d come in contact with. “His body was in a state of collapse, and he was at the point of willing himself dead. Recovery from that will not be instantaneous – his body will require days to recover from the beatings at the very least. Besides, you want an efficiently productive Pretender, do you not?” At McKenna’s nod, he continued, “then I need to be very sure that all the conditioning that is necessary to provide that efficiency is still intact – and not irreparably damaged by the bungling your untrained psychiatrists have inflicted upon the subject, however inadvertently.”

McKenna’s eyes flared. “Are you saying that my staff psychiatrists are idiots?” he challenged defiantly.

“No,” Sydney answered, again allowing the emotions of the Foundation Chairman to simply wash over him without effecting him at all. “However they had no idea how to handle the subject properly – and their methods at trying to coerce cooperation were in direct contradiction to the way Adam was trained. I may have to retrain before Adam can perform at his peak efficiency.”

McKenna’s eyes narrowed. This Centre psychiatrist was behaving altogether too calmly, given the circumstances. “You seem to acclimated well here...” he tossed out suspiciously.

“I have no choice but to adapt,” Sydney replied, parrying the probing statement deftly. “My personal wellbeing depends upon compliance with your demands, does it not?”

McKenna nodded to the guard behind the captive. “I’m glad you remember that,” he tossed out, his tone making the statement a warning. “I suggest you do your utmost to shorten the amount of recovery time.”

“I cannot hurry Nature,” Sydney stated flatly. “Your people had done considerable physical damage to the subject – damage that must heal to a certain extent before he will be ready for the demands of the task.”

“You have two more days,” McKenna said as the guard took firm grasp on Sydney’s forearm. “Don’t waste my time – or yours. Escort our friend here back to the medical unit,” he ordered, pulling a file folder from where it had sat in his inbox and opening it, obviously dismissing Sydney and the entire project from his mind.

Sydney allowed a silent sigh of relief escape as he cleared the office door and began a trek down the corridor. Pressure of this sort, he could handle. Adam would be ready to begin working the bio-weaponry problem by the end of the day – but if he could buy the young man time to recuperate just a little more, all the better.

“Here.” The guard punched a series of buttons on a keypad, and the painted metal door clicked open – and Sydney was thrust inside. “Get to work.”

Sydney could see that Adam was awake – the young man’s head turned to where he could look at the doorway and see who had entered the room. Sydney turned his attention to the medical technician who had been on duty. “You can go,” Sydney told him quietly but with authority. “I can handle his needs for the rest of the day.”

“I’m supposed to stay…”

“For the kind of treatment that I need to give Adam to work properly, I need privacy,” Sydney stated with firmness. “Not to mention that if you are in any way susceptible to hypnotic suggestion, you would be running the risk of the kind of post-hypnotic suggestion that could hinder you in your job performance…”

The technician’s eyes widened, and he hastily gathered all the papers from the desktop and punched in the numbers on the keypad to unlock the door again.

“Sydney,” Adam breathed in relief the moment that he was alone with the older man again. “I wasn’t sure they’d let you come.”

Sydney moved to the young man’s side and lifted the sheet from the huge bandage after checking the hanging IV bags. “I was fairly certain I’d be back,” he comforted Adam as he then carefully began working at the paper tape that held the bandage in place. “They want you up and working as quickly as possible.” The paper tape was finally eased free of the skin. “Hold on now – I’m going to remove the bandage. You know what to do?”

“Yes.” Adam breathed in and then focused his eyes on a point on the wall far away as he rubbed the back of his left hand with his right thumb. It was a simple technique to separate his thinking mind from the pain of having the bandage slowly and carefully peeled back from raw, tender nerve endings. Sydney’s hands were as gentle as they had been the day before, and Adam stopped rubbing his hand almost immediately. “How does it look?” he asked when the sensation of air hitting his wounds made him draw in a quick breath of surprise.

“Much better today,” Sydney offered, reaching for the roll of cotton with which he would clear away the used antibiotic ointment and check the healing within the deeper wounds. “You won’t be lying on your back anytime soon, but you should be able to move around a bit easier hopefully by the end of the day.”

“Good – I’m getting tired of being stuck on my stomach.”

Sydney smiled – the tone of voice Adam had used had sounded so much like Jarod during one of HIS recuperative phases. “Enjoy your vacation, Adam. It isn’t going to last long.”

Adam closed his eyes as he felt Sydney begin to reapply the ointment to the most painful spots on his back. “I never had a vacation before – is that what this is?” he asked curiously.

Sydney shook his head. The tendency to take everything stated absolutely literally - something Jarod himself did constantly, despite his having been outside the Centre confines for nearly a decade – had to be either a genetic trait or a sign of naïveté. “I meant to enjoy not having to be on your feet at that white board,” he explained patiently. “From the looks of things, I doubt you’ll get another chance like this for a while.”

Adam gave the older man a soundless “Ah!” and then nodded his understanding. The unspoken part of Sydney’s comment was that he wouldn’t have a chance to just rest without having his talent being in demand wouldn’t come again until after the rescuers had been successful. “So what do I do today, then?” he asked instead. “Do we just talk?”

“I should probably run you through the opening exercises, just to see whether the people who trained you originally did their jobs properly,” Sydney told him as he screwed the end back on the tube of ointment. “We will need to be ready to being producing results in the near future – you will need your mind crystal clear to accomplish everything we’ve discussed.”

Again Adam glanced back at his new handle and nodded wordlessly, understanding the unstated as being a part of what had been said aloud. Sydney’s sudden reticence at being open about what the two of them had planned in whispers the day before was making an impression. Sydney didn’t want HIM talking about it openly either.

“I’ve missed the exercises,” Adam admitted, finding it almost odd to think that the few meditations he’d done with Sydney the day before had made him almost hungry to see what being led through the entire series by an obvious expert would be like. “Sydney?”

“Hmmm?” Sydney positioned the huge Telfa pad over the damaged back and reached for the roll of paper tape.

“What was he like?”

“Who?”

“Jarod. What was he like when you were working with him?”

Sydney felt his heart constrict. “He was very much like you,” he told the young Pretender in a soft voice. “He was curious about everything I did that wasn’t Centre protocol, or information that had been presented as necessary to a SIM that was outside his frame of reference.”

“Did he have many tutors work with him?”

“No.” Sydney stated this with a small amount of pride – it had been a battle to get permission to tutor Jarod in all of the subject matter needed in the early days. He’d often wondered why the Centre hadn’t put two and two together and figured out that HE had been as interested in the subject material as had the Pretender. “I taught him as much as I could – as well as how to learn more on his own. In the end, Jarod mastered the disciplines I couldn’t teach from textbooks on his own – and sometimes tutored me.”

Adam blinked. “You were partners then!” he exclaimed in surprise.

Sydney blinked in his turn. “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms,” he admitted, “but in a way, you’re right.”

“And you were with him ever since he was small?”

“I began working with him almost the moment he came to the Centre,” Sydney said quietly. “And except when I was called away on business or took vacation, I was the only one who worked with him.”

There was a long moment of silence broken only by the sound of paper tape tearing. “And now you’ll be the only one working with me,” Adam said finally, not unhappy about the prospect at all.

“So it seems.” Sydney frowned slightly. As much as the prospect of being back in charge of a Pretender – back to the job of guiding one of the most powerful minds on the planet in search of answers to questions others could barely conceive of – was intellectually challenging, the last thing he wanted to do was to ride herd over another captive.

Adam was quick to pick up on the hesitancy in the answer. “Don’t you want to work with me, Sydney?” he asked, feeling severely diminished by the very thought that this kind man really wanted nothing at all to do with him.

“It isn’t that, Adam,” Sydney hastened to soothe. “I’m thrilled to have met you, and glad to be here to help you. I’m just sorry that we had to meet under these circumstances.”

“I would never have met you otherwise,” Adam told him with innocent logic.

“I know, son,” Sydney put his hand on the relatively undamaged shoulder. “But I don’t have to like being a party to your continuing to serve unwillingly.”

“We don’t have a choice, though, do we?”

Sydney sighed. “No, we don’t.” He closed his eyes and sent a thought forward into the air: Jarod – find us and get us out of here, soon! I don’t know how much more of this either of us can take!

~~~~~~~~~*

“Where are we going?” Leo asked in a small voice as Laurel Goldstein climbed into the driver’s seat of her station wagon.

Laurel half-turned so that she could see both boys – Virgil sitting next to her in the front passenger seat and Leo in the back – and she couldn’t help but notice their pallor and nervousness. Neither had been very talkative that morning, despite having chattered like magpies at supper the night before about all the information they’d absorbed from her National Geographic collection the day before. From the enthusiasm and amount of data that both seemed to have absorbed in that relatively short time, she’d been reminded once more of the “these are very unique boys” that Stu Markham had told her before she’d taken over their care. “Unique” was a masterpiece of understatement!

She shook herself clear of her quick reverie and gave them a soft and she hoped soothing smile. “You both have an appointment with a judge,” she told them simply. “It seems that there is a woman – a Mrs. Wilmot from New York – who would like very much to be appointed your more permanent guardian. You both get to appear and tell the judge what you think of that idea.”

“Doesn’t the judge just tell us where we’re supposed to go?” Virgil was confused.

“Eventually,” Laurel admitted, “but the judge wants to hear from you boys too – because he or she wants to do whatever’s in YOUR best interests. If you don’t want to move to upstate New York, now would be the time to say so…” She turned back and put the car into reverse to back carefully out of her carport. “If you want to stay with me, that’s fine with me, by the way.”

“What do you want us to do?” Leo asked, his voice still small.

“Sweetie, it isn’t what I want that is important…”

“Why?” A glance at Virgil’s face told her that he was entirely serious and not at all being sassy with his quick challenge.

“Because this is YOUR life, and your brother’s life, that we’re talking about here. I’m a little old to be taking you two on permanent-like – but I really wouldn’t mind if you decided to stay with me.” Laurel halted the car’s backward movement and then eased it out into the apartment complex driveway. “But this Mrs. Wilmot – I hear she’s the wife of a university fellow. She probably has a nice, big house…”

“It’s huge,” Virgil said, his voice awestruck.

“And empty,” Leo added with a nod.

“And she can make sure you get into the right schools that would deal with your talents much better than any of the local public schools…”

“But we wouldn’t see you again, would we.” Leo said with a note of sadness.

Laurel was touched. “Well, maybe not for a while – but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t call me on the phone and we could talk. I’m not going anywhere…” She shook her head. “The judge will want to know what YOU boys want. Just be honest with him and answer his questions truthfully – I’m sure whatever happens will be for your good.”

Virgil twisted his head to gaze at his little brother, finding Leo just as confused and concerned as he seemed to be inside. They were going to be asked their opinions – and about something as important as where they were going to live and with whom! They’d never had any say in anything like that before – their wants had always been secondary. What a strange place this was; or else what strange rules they were following, if this were nothing but another elaborate SIM.

“How do we know what is for our good?” he wondered aloud as he turned back forward and watched with less than his normal fascination as the scenery outside the car sped past.

Laurel glanced at the older boy out of the corner of her eye and wondered, not for the first time, just how in the world she could answer him.

~~~~~~~~~*

Ray Carlisle pointed his car northward on the highway yet again, heading ultimately to a small hamlet in northern Pennsylvania where, according to the Blue Cove School District, a transcript for Deborah Broots had been sent a week earlier. A search of the district records there didn’t show that she’d been registered there as a student yet – but Carlisle knew that a father wouldn’t bother having school records faxed away if there was any intent to return home again.

A phone call that morning to Susan Granger had confirmed that she was more than ready to support his search for Centre operatives that might have some idea how to get in touch with Jarod. Surprisingly, she was pleased that he’d figured out a way to trace Jarod’s whereabouts in this manner. He hadn’t made any firm promises of an early success, but he’d hung up the phone feeling a whole lot more secure in his efforts than before.

Now all he needed to know from Mr. Broots was whether HE knew how to get in touch with Jarod – or whether he knew where Dr. Sydney Green had gotten off to. He’d hacked into the Blue Cove PD’s mainframe before packing up his laptop and discovered that no leads had been discovered to the disappearance of the retired psychiatrist. The police computer had also told him who had filed the missing person report – an attorney by the name of Alexander Horsch.

He’d stopped by the lawyer’s offices that morning – only to discover that the man was due in court all day long in Dover. Carlisle could only hope to catch the man between his court appearances to get a few questions answered – questions like who it was that he was representing in reporting Dr. Green missing. Surely the lawyer hadn’t been acting on his own behalf…

~~~~~~~~~*

“You’ll never guess who was calling for an appointment to talk to me first thing this morning,” Donald Krohn grinned down at Emily, making her jump just a little.

“God! Don’t do that!” she scowled at him in mock anger – and then her curiosity got the better of her. “Who called?”

“The Eire Foundation – or should I say the Assistant Chairman of the Foundation?” Krohn tucked his hands behind him. “Seems that he’s of the opinion that the “unnamed corporation” mentioned in that anonymously submitted article appearing in this morning’s edition is the Eire Foundation.”

“Really?” Emily’s brows didn’t twitch at all.

“Mind you, he wasn’t calling threatening lawsuits – which tells me that either his legal department told him he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on – or else he wants something else.”

“So?” Emily asked, her own curiosity now piqued, “did you make the appointment?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Krohn nodded. “Two o’clock this afternoon.”

“You aren’t going to let him talk you out of publishing the rest of it – are you?” she asked, her brows furling.

Krohn shook his head slowly. “Not on your life. Not only was my telephone ringing off the hook with news services and reporters from other papers wanting to know who wrote the article and where they got their information, but I got a call from the Philadelphia police department.”

“Police!” Emily gaped.

“Seems there was enough in the article to justify opening a criminal investigation – the only problem is that they want to one: see the evidence you quoted that was mentioned in the article; and two: talk to you about getting the names of some of your sources…”

Emily shook her head. “They can have copies of my evidence – that’s not a problem,” she told him flatly, “but they can’t have the names of my sources. Some of those folks spoke to me on the grounds that their names never were linked with the story.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “They were afraid of reprisals, and I promised them they’d stay safe.”

“Well,” Krohn said, his hands falling back to his sides again, “the detective in charge of the new investigation will be here at noon – I want you at the meeting.”

“Are you going to tell him it was me?”

“Not immediately,” he stated after a slight pause. “We’ll see just exactly what we’re up against with the law before we start handing over our ammunition. If some of what you’ve written about is the truth, we can’t trust that any police official who demands to talk to us ISN’T in the back pocket of your “unnamed corporation”, now, can we?”

Emily found some comfort in the fact that her editor was indeed protecting her to some degree. “No, sir, we don’t,” she replied truthfully.

“Well, be in my office at quarter to noon. We’ll discuss how we’re going to handle the police first – and then once they’re gone, we’ll discuss just what we intend to say to any Foundation legal weasels.”

“Yes, sir.” Emily was grateful when Krohn moved away from her desk – for now she could call Jarod quickly and inform him of what was happening. No doubt he could use the lift.

~~~~~~~~~*

Zoë sniffed in frustration as she watched the young police officer slowly gather up the yellow crime scene tape from around the front yard of the house where Sydney – Jarod’s friend – lived. This was the absolute last thing she needed. Sydney was supposed to be HERE, where she could talk to him and then kill him – NOT be somebody else’s crime victim.

What was she going to do now?

She climbed from the car and walked over to the police officer. “What happened?” she asked with deceptively light curiosity.

The young officer kept on bunching the yellow tape into a messy balled wad between his hands. “Fella vanished.”

“Vanished? Was he kidnapped?”

The officer turned curious eyes on her. “You’re the second stranger to stop and inquire about him, THAT I know…” he said, his voice darkening slightly. “Mind telling me why you’re asking?”

Zoë’s eyes widened. “Somebody else was looking for Sydney?”

“Do you know the victim?” was the question that was asked immediately in response.

“No,” she finally admitted carefully. “I just needed to talk to him about an old friend of his that I’m trying to find. I was hoping he’d have some idea where to look.”

“So you don’t have anything to do with that private detective fella from Florida?”

The blue eyes widened again, but Zoë tried hard not to show her dismay. A private detective from Florida? Had Susan Granger decided she needed to contact Jarod now? Then Zoë’s temper flared. How DARE she! I decide who lives or dies… I do! “Not a thing – didn’t even know there was a private detective looking for Sydney.” Suddenly she was more than ready to move on. “Sorry to have bothered you…”

“Miss? Would you mind coming down to the station and answering a few…”

“Sorry,” Zoë tossed over her shoulder, walking back to her convertible very quickly. “There’s somewhere I need to be…”

She slid behind the steering wheel, started the engine and drove away before the young officer could do much more than toss down his wad of crime scene tape. So there was a detective on Sydney’s trail, was there? Well, maybe SHE could get on the trail of the detective and let HIM lead her to Sydney – and from there to Jarod.

Now all she had to do was find the detective…

~~~~~~~~~*

“Is this seat taken?”

Miss Parker looked up into Jarod’s face and then shook her head. “Not at all,” she murmured, a little flustered but unwilling to let any of the nervousness show. What in the world did he think he was doing, walking up to her like that – did he want to cause comment at this early date?

“I’m Jarod – Jarod Simmons, from Accounting,” Jarod offered very formally after he’d settled down across the cafeteria table from her with his tray filled with the daily special and a huge piece of cake.

“Catherine Jamison,” Miss Parker offered back, shaking the hand cautiously. “Security Analyst.”

“Haven’t seen you around here before,” Jarod offered with a smile as he put his napkin into his lap. C’mon Parker, he thought at her with a barely visible frown floating briefly over his face, Pretend with me!

Miss Parker reached for the container of salad dressing and tore the corner from the plastic envelope. “I’m not surprised,” she replied easily, “I just started yesterday.”

“Oh! Well, welcome to the Foundation then,” Jarod said expansively. “It’s a good bunch of folks.”

“I’m looking forward to a nice, long career here,” she answered, dribbling the oil and vinegar mixture over her greens. “At least I don’t have to move all over the place anymore.”

“Oh?” Jarod’s expression showed casual interest. “Have you moved a lot recently?”

“My husband was in the military,” Miss Parker explained, letting her voice carry past just their table so that others nearby would hear if they were to listen in. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all – a lot of questions could be answered for a lot of curious people in one fell swoop here… “He retired after he’d put in his twenty and then got himself a job with the Philadelphia PD – so no more base-hopping for us.”

“Any kids?” The fork filled with lasagna hung in front of Jarod’s face for a moment.

“One son – he’s eight.” Miss Parker’s face softened instinctively. “He’s most of the reason I’m hoping some stability and unchanging scenery will do some good.” She tossed the dressing through her greens with a fork and then stabbed a good mouthful. “You? Married with kids?”

Jarod shook his head. “Nope. Living with my sister – never married, no kids.”

Miss Parker’s steady gaze was penetrating. “That’s unusual – a good looking guy like you usually would have at least a wife and kiddy, if not at least an ex-wife stashed somewhere…”

“I’m just lucky, I guess,” Jarod felt embarrassed by the comment. Where had THAT come from? He dug deeper into the lasagna and let the act of consuming food fill the silence that followed.

Miss Parker stifled a smirk. Oh yes, Jarod, I can Pretend too – and you have no idea how much “fun” these so-called innocent encounters we’re going to be having can be, she thought and then gave him the release of looking down at her salad again. This is what you get for making me sleep with Sam!

“You look too pretty and nice to be out chasing the bad guys of the firm into corners,” Jarod said finally, making Miss Parker almost glare at him. Two can play at THAT game, Parker!

Miss Parker gave Jarod a full-on predatory grin the like that used to grace the Ice Queen’s countenance in days gone by. “Looks can be deceiving – I’m a lot tougher than I seem.”

“Oh, Mrs. Jamison? Mr. McKenna has been looking for you…” A thin, sallow-faced, non-descript woman hurried over to the small table. “He said it was rather urgent…”

“So much for lunch…” Miss Parker rose after draining the rest of her bottled water and snitching one last slice of hard-boiled egg from her salad. “Nice to have met you, Mr. Simmons.”

“And you too,” Jarod replied and then watched as Miss Parker followed the sallow-faced lackey to the cafeteria door, disposed of the remains of her lunch and then vanished. A summons to the head office – an URGENT summons, no less – probably meant that the monkey wrench of the newspaper article was starting to take effect. He took two more hasty mouthfuls of the lasagna, downed the rest of his caffeinated soda in one long draught, and snatched up the plastic-wrapped carrot cake before rising. There was an enclosed patio beyond a set of sliding glass doors – a section of the cafeteria generally used by those who wanted to be able to indulge in their cravings for tobacco – and he headed out those glassed door and for a quiet corner. He put his cake in his lap and pulled his cell phone from his pocket and pressed a programmed button.

“Broots here,” came the voice from the other end.

“I want you to turn up the heat financially,” Jarod said quietly and emphatically. “Things here are starting to get a little scrambled for the folks we want to confound – I want things to go from bad to worse quickly.”

“I thought we were going to take our time,” Broots protested in surprise.

“We’ve had a complication,” Jarod replied tightly. “Sydney’s been taken – and I’m not entirely certain who has him, although I have a good idea. I want this place in an uproar, in case my suspicion is correct.”

Broots was silent a moment. “You don’t think…”

“They have at least one of Duplicity here,” Jarod reminded the computer technician. “It stands to reason that they didn’t know how to work with him – and simply followed the news articles about the Centre and the Pretender project there to Sydney’s door. After all, Sydney was the one who developed and fine-tuned the SIM process itself…”

“Damn!” Broots was quiet again for a long moment. “OK – I’ll give you a little more disruption to the cash flow – but I’ll keep it low-key for now. You know how these things begin to build on themselves…”

Jarod nodded. “Yeah.”

“Did JD call you?” Broots wanted to know then.

“Yeah,” Jarod repeated, this time with a tighter voice. “His being in the middle of things is going to make life all that much more interesting.”

“I couldn’t convince him not to go.” Broots’ voice reflected true remorse. “Sorry, Jarod.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just tighten the screws on the Foundation slowly and steadily. We want them bollixed enough that, when the moment comes, the stability they’ve come to count on won’t be there when they need it.”

“Got it. One serious monkey-wrenching, coming up.”

Chapter Index: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33

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