“How the Hell could something like this happen?” Miss Parker demanded of her sweeper, her hands on her hips.

Sam could only shake his head as he watched the orderlies from the in-house morgue wheel away the gurney bearing the body of the accountant covered by a white sheet. He’d already ascertained that the security camera for this office had been compromised as of an hour ago – that there would be no DSA from which a suspect in the shooting could be identified. As a alternative, he’d put in an order for the surveillance footage of the hallway in front of O’Brien’s office, although the requested DSA had yet to be delivered and the delay didn’t bode well at all. “I have no idea, Miss Parker,” was the honest truth – and a frightening one.

This development, more than anything else that might have happened, confirmed his worst fears – that whoever was plotting the downfall of the Centre already had people inside. Worse, it seemed that these people were in positions that made them able to walk the halls with guns without being noticed. And considering the audacious idea of walking into a working sublevel and assassinating someone in their own office without anyone noticing, Sam knew that whatever trigger he’d been trying so hard to avoid had probably already been pulled. Whether it had been pulled by his own tentative questions, by Broots’ poking into the workings of the mainframe, or even by O’Brien’s queries to whoever it was HE’D spoken to was now a moot issue. His blue eyes rested uneasily on Miss Parker’s face – was she the next one to be silenced? Had he failed to protect her after all?

“Broots, what did you say you and he were working on – duplicate files?” Miss Parker whirled on her computer tech standing to one side with a wide and shocked gaze.

“Th…that was m…my end of it, Miss Parker,” the balding man managed finally. “He charged off after we found the second expense spreadsheet and the re-direct command in the main system files – he said he had something important to follow up on before he’d have a presentation for you… Something about the money…”

“Damn!” Miss Parker’s eyes narrowed suddenly. “Sam! Check and see whether those files – the ones with the receipts – are still here!”

“I think it obvious that we were starting to get too close to whoever was responsible,” Sydney offered solemnly. “And whatever else it is they have to hide, they feel it’s worth killing for.”

“No shit, Sherlock – ya think?” Miss Parker spat and watched her sweeper check everything on O'Brien’s desk – and then look up and shake his head. “Crap!”

The squeak of the oxygen cart wheel that always seemed to need oil and never get it announce Mr. Raines’ approach better than a trumpet fanfare. “What the Hell is going on here?” rasped the rough voice of the Chairman, “and will someone tell me why my auditor is on his way to the morgue?”

“Yes,” smoothed Mr. Lyle’s voice from behind Raines. “Whatever DID you do with the bean-counter, Sis?”

“I didn’t do this!” Miss Parker countered as predictably as always.

“Parker!” Sydney put a hand on her forearm. “You know better than to fall for his bait like that.”

“M…Mr. Raines, s…sir?” Broots took his nervousness at the direct intervention of the Chairman in hand. “M…Mr… O'Brien and I had…. had discovered… some irregularities…”

Mr. Raines whirled on the computer technician. “Do you know anything about this, Mr. Broots?” he demanded.

“I… I found a problem in the system files, sir,” Broots finally managed without too much stammering, “and found a near-duplicate file that every terminal in the Centre except those in Miss Parker’s office would access.” His eyes flicked guiltily over to Mr. Lyle and then looked back at Mr. Raines as easier, somehow, to face. “I found a similar redirect in relation to Mr. Lyle as well – again dealing with the expenses of his end of the Pretender Project.”

Raines found himself speechless. “You mean to tell me that the report that I handed out…”

“Was as fake as they come, sir,” Broots managed before having to swallow his heart back down into his chest. He turned to Miss Parker’s sweeper, still standing behind O'Brien’s desk and trying not to look at the splatter of blood and brains on the wall. “Sam, did you ever get a chance to look up that DSA of the Accounting Pool for last night?”

Sam’s frown deepened. “Another non-functional surveillance camera,” he announced unhappily. “I’m starting to believe we have a saboteur employed here at the Centre – someone in a position that they can tamper with security with relative impunity.”

“Unacceptable!” Raines exploded. He whirled on Miss Parker mercilessly. “You’re the head of Security – it’s your responsibility…”

“My team was the one that uncovered the problem in the first place,” Miss Parker answered with a quick breath to keep from exploding herself, “and was in the process of investigating who was doing it and how they did it – in hopes of eventually knowing why. MY team WAS working on this ourselves – no thanks to Lyle here… who’s been up to who-knows-what…”

“Negotiating on the Albanian contract,” Lyle hissed defensively. “I don’t have to answer to YOU for my doing my job…” He wouldn’t add that the majority of the day had been spent putting pressure on the Vostov Sydnicate to pay for their latest shipment of handguns – that deal had been hammered out without the official sanction of the Centre and the profit wasn’t headed anywhere near a General Fund in Centre Accounting. He’d already been obliged to pay Smith and Wesson out of his personal funds in order to keep them from making formal complaints to other Centre officials and exposing the deal – and until the Vosov organization paid, there would now be NO profit from this entire venture.

“Miss Parker’s efforts have obviously worried whoever it was that set this entire scheme up,” Sydney offered once more to the expanded audience. “Evidently, they feel strongly enough about it to kill to keep from being further exposed…”

Raines gave Sydney a sharp glare, but had to admit that the old psychiatrist was probably right. “I want to know who feels they can pull off sanctions on Centre personnel within our headquarters with impunity – and I want to know now!”

“So do I,” Miss Parker glared at her twin with open hostility. “Trust me, so do I.”

“You still suspect me,” Lyle pointed out the obvious. “Can’t you wrap your mind around the idea that I had nothing whatsoever to do with…”

“You’re always up to your eyeballs in whatever is going on around here that’s not entirely on the up-and-up,” Miss Parker retaliated unrepentantly. “Finding out that you’re the one behind this wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

“This bickering will get us nowhere!” Raines wheezed noisily, a hand at his throat as the intake of oxygen simply didn’t adequately refresh his system. “Get back to work, all of you – and find me the person responsible for this!” He gasped from the expenditure of breath needed to shout and then gestured impatiently to Willy to take charge of the little squeaky oxygen cart so that he could head back to the relative safety of the Tower.

Miss Parker didn’t flinch from her glaring stare at her twin. “Sam, I want a full forensics team in this office as of two hours ago – I want fingerprints and whatever else those folks deal with gathered and processed. In the meantime, I want YOU to personally track down any surveillance footage that will tell us more than we know now – which is bupkis! Make sure that you confirm my… brother’s alibi that he was working in his office all this time too – just to rule him out as a suspect, of course.”

“You’re so kind,” Lyle sneered as he watched his sister’s sweeper walk purposefully down the corridor away from them.

“Be glad I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt,” she snarled back. “Broots, see if you can find out just who it was that our defunct bean-counter had to talk to when he left you – and see if that person has the information that O'Brien wanted.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Broots skittered away, more than contented to take his investigation back into what seemed to be safer waters.

“What can I do to help, Miss Parker?” Sydney asked with gentle deference.

Blue-grey caught and held the old psychiatrist’s warm chestnut gaze. “You can help me try to think this thing through,” she sighed finally. “Why the hell would someone try to fake an over-inflated expense account for a nearly dead project – and then kill to keep their identity secret?”

“What would you suggest my team and I do to help you?” Lyle asked suddenly as if realizing that perhaps being a genuine help rather than a hindrance might be in his own best interests.

Miss Parker glanced over her shoulder at him. “Stay the hell out of my way,” she snapped and then tucked her hand into Sydney’s elbow, “because if I find out that you’ve been obstructing us at all, I’ll hand over body parts on platters – none of them attached, and none quite so unnecessary as a thumb.”

“Miss Parker, must you always be so confrontational?” Sydney’s voice was soft enough that only Miss Parker herself would hear the comment.

“I’m still not sure that Lyle’s not involved in this up to his ass, Syd,” she returned only slightly less harshly. “Although I have to admit that getting himself in trouble only to take out the one person who seemed on the verge of getting him OUT of trouble makes even less sense…”

~~~~~~~~*

“Are you INSANE?” Vickering wasn’t quite shouting into the telephone, but the intensity of his voice carried clearly. “We were going to try to keep Miss Parker from twigging to anything – and now, if anything, we’ve got her firmly on the warpath.”

“Relax, Jake,” Jim McKenna soothed his brother. “You called and said that you were really in trouble – and all I did was activate one of our other operatives in the Centre to take out the most troublesome element of that problem.”

“But she KNOWS that this goes deeper than just a little money shuffling now,” Vickering repeated. “I just had to field a visit from one of her lackies regarding O'Brien’s visit here earlier today…”

“And what did you tell the lackey?” McKenna asked patiently.

“As much of the truth as I dared,” was the response. “That O'Brien had come with some concerns as to who would have endorsed the reimbursement checks…”

“And…” McKenna didn’t sound happy at all.

“I told him the truth – after all, a search of the mainframe would have uncovered the truth eventually anyway. But what I DIDN’T tell him was the destination of the electronic transfers…”

There was a sigh of relief on the other end of the line. “THAT would have been harder to explain,” McKenna agreed. “How much of our current program do you feel will be compromised in the near future as the result of this?”

Vickering shook his head. “I’ve not had a lot to do with Miss Parker or her team – I’ve only heard about them from others…”

“Jake, this is part of what you were supposed to be making your business…”

“I know that!” Vickering snapped and then relented slightly as he admitted, “I have to admit that I wasn’t counting on them being able to put two and two together about the duplicate spreadsheets quite so fast. That computer geek of Miss Parker’s is something else! I was going to be able to snowball O'Brien – but this guy…”

“Perhaps it isn’t so much Miss Parker we need to take care of then,” McKenna offered thoughtfully.

“You’d better stay away from her team,” Vickering warned. “I’ve heard stories about how she doesn’t stand for anybody threatening them – if we want to keep her distracted, the LAST thing we want to do is give her a reason to come after us in a big way.”

“Distraction…” McKenna mused aloud. “An effective misdirection of her efforts would serve our agenda nicely. We need to give her a better bone to gnaw on than following the little bit of fraud we perpetrated on her expense account. What do we have on them we can feed her?”

“I’m stuck down here in Accounting, remember?” Vickering snapped bitterly. “Maybe you need to touch base with another of your imbedded operatives here at the Centre?”

“That’s an excellent idea, Jake,” McKenna nodded in satisfaction. “Just make sure that the sniffing stays the hell away from the important things – like Duplicity…”

“Duplicity hasn’t been run through the normal books,” Vickering reminded his twin. “That’s why it came to my attention – remember?”

“Just make sure that you keep those electronic transfers away from her – and I’ll see what I can do to distract her from getting any closer to you.” McKenna sniffed. “Although, with any luck, it soon shouldn’t matter whether we have to take her out or not. I’m hoping to hear from my team in Montana shortly with a time frame for the coup de grace.”

“You hope,” Vickering snorted. “The Centre is resourceful and clever. Raines has been pulling rabbits out of hats financially for years now – he may just have another whole clutch of bunnies hidden right under our noses.”

“Just do your job, Jake. You just have to keep the cover going for a little while longer, and then you can come home again – just think of it!”

“There are very rare moments when I don’t think of it,” Vickering grumbled.

“I’ll be in touch.” McKenna closed down the connection from his end – and Vickering had to really restrain himself from slamming the receiver down into the cradle.

Damn it! Killing the young accountant hadn’t been part of the plan. O'Brien was a bright if over-eager young man still untainted by lengthy tenure at the Centre – he’d actually hoped to be able to lure him to the Foundation once the Centre had crumbled. And now, thanks to O'Brien’s death, Miss Parker was all the more dangerous.

It sure would be a helluva note for the Foundation to get this close to putting an end to the Centre – only to screw it up royally. Vickering found himself wishing he knew more about the Foundation team already deployed in the midst of the Centre – so he could have more control over this end of the operation.

~~~~~~~~*

“Mrs. Mutumbo, its an honor.” Jim McKenna bowed gracefully to the stately African woman who walked toward him with an almost regal bearing. Her turbaned head matched the material of the subdued print of her dress – with the only distinctive item of clothing being a colorfully striped scarf that draped neatly and straight over her left shoulder.

“Mr. McKenna.” Lula looked around her at the hotel that had been selected as her home away from home for the duration of this visit and then nodded to her personal assistant to begin unloading the back end of the limousine. “Are the reservations here all in order?”

“Indeed. You’re already checked in.” McKenna held out a folder. “Your key cards are enclosed – and I have the key cards for the rooms allocated to your staff, as agreed upon.” He put out a hand, indicating the direction of the elevators. “Allow me to show you the way to your suite.” He nodded at the bellhop standing attentively next to a luggage cart, and the young man moved to follow the assistant to the car to help her unload even as McKenna took charge of escorting the hotel’s newest guest to her suite.

Lula managed to wait until the elevator doors closed, leaving her alone with the Chairman of the Foundation, before speaking again. “You received my message about the group being sent to Montana?” she asked tersely.

“I did,” McKenna inclined his head slightly. “I feel it necessary to express my regrets to you ahead of time for the loss of your employees – as we are almost ready to move against the Montana facility as we speak.”

“I would have hoped that you would move before my people were present,” Lula frowned.

McKenna shook his head. “There was no way to do that without jeopardizing our plan to confiscate and make use of the Centre’s prized research pets,” he told her frankly. “When all is said and done, I want nothing left behind there that leads back to us – either you OR me.”

“You do realize that if either Ugo or Shinse decide to accompany the task force – and they don’t live to return to Africa – we both will have to watch over our shoulders very carefully for the rest of our lives,” she warned with raised brows. “I will do my best to protect you as best I can – but to take active part in the death of a Council member…”

“As I was saying, Mrs. Mutumbo, we want to make certain there are no loose threads that lead back to the Foundation. Unfortunately, that will mean eliminating everyone on-site when the time comes, whether that be your Council President or a mere flunky.” McKenna’s voice was firm. “Too many years have gone into the planning of this to be deterred at the last minute by unexpected guests.”

“Do you have a facility ready to house your prized captives?” Lula asked curiously. “You’ve been very closed-mouthed about the arrangements you’ve been making…”

“All in due time, Mrs. Mutumbo,” McKenna replied smoothly. “In many ways, its better that you NOT know the details for the time being. Rest assured that when all is in place, you will be given all the details you need.”

“The Triumvirate doesn’t like to function that much in the dark, Mr. McKenna,” she informed him with a sniff. “If we are going to be asked to invest heavily in your company, we will need to know everything you know – AS you know it.”

McKenna nodded as the elevator door slipped to the side. “When your investment is in place, we will be more than happy to include you and your associates in every possible facet of our operation. Until then, however, we reserve the right to use discretion – I’m sure you understand…”

Lula didn’t reply, but moved ahead of her escort as they moved down the short corridor to the double doors that were the entrance to the Presidential Suite that had evidently been set aside for her use. It was now obvious that she had forgotten that the Centre had been beholden to the Triumvirate for so long that she’d expected a request for full involvement to get an immediate response. It was equally obvious that this Jake McKenna of the Eire Foundation didn’t intend to allow himself to be a lap dog. The Foundation hadn’t come to her – and through her to the Triumvirate – as a penitent, but rather as a fully profitable operation seeking to expand its horizons. Already this boded well for the Triumvirate – which would be making a business investment based upon performance rather than an investment in a myth.

Her husband, Bolo Mutumbo, had believed in the myth that Charles Parker had sold him over fifty years earlier – that there were ancient scrolls that foretold of the empire the Centre would become and the signs to watch for. With Triumvirate help, the Centre had indeed risen in power and prestige, convincing him that there was truth to what these scrolls foretold. He’d erred, however, in thinking the Parkers incapable of protecting this mysterious treasure – ending up dead during a visit to New York that was intended to coerce the mythic treasure from the Centre’s immediate possession. Adama, his immediate successor, had died supposedly transporting those same scrolls to Africa, as had Charles Parker Jr – and the mysterious scrolls themselves had supposedly disappeared into the ocean.

Lula, on the other hand, only had faith in what she could see and measure and its relevance to the bottom line – in the established ability of a firm with whom she invested consortium funds to provide a sizeable return on the investment. With the Eire Foundation, she had a feeling that there would be little mystique or myth, no reason to withhold or obscure outside simple security considerations. The Foundation, like the Centre, was in the business of making money and accumulating power – unlike the Centre, however, it wasn’t afraid to let its efforts see the light of day. For the most part, anyway.

Perhaps there was more to the Foundation than that which she’d become familiar so far. And perhaps she should practice the same kind of discretion that her host was practicing – not being too open anymore about the workings of the Council or its delegates.

Better not to trust too much too soon…

~~~~~~~~*

Jarod hit the PrintScreen key to send the document on his monitor to his printer and then closed out the adminstrative window. He’d spent the better part of his day being introduced to a number of his immediate co-workers and the head of the department in which he’d been placed. Only during the last half hour or so had he quietly begun poking through the files in the Foundation mainframe computer that dealt with Bob Rogers – and even then slipping his searching between spurts of actually doing the job he’d been ostensibly hired to do. And even though he knew his search had just started, already he’d found enough to know that the newspaper story had probably been doctored and vetted by Foundation sources prior to printing – no big surprise there.

Bob Rogers had indeed been a researcher – but not a structural or electronics engineer. He’d been a psychologist working on a project peripherally related to weapons research – his latest endeavor had been to observe and catalogue the response of the human psyche to being behind the kind of lethal weapons that killed man with a single blast. In many ways, and without the benefit of the Pretender gene and its associated genius, Rogers had been attempting to SIM the repeated deployment of certain types of weapons and the emotional/psychological reactions of the soldiers who would be the ones aiming and shooting them.

The file he’d finally found just as the sounds of day-end activity had started to break around him out in the hallway had been a tersely-written memo from a Clive Arnold – Jim McKenna’s Executive Assistant. Written to the head of the Psychology Department, the memo had been a very clear directive to lose the last report Rogers had filed – something about flawed data. Jarod would have begun to follow that lead, but the level of friendly chatter in the hallway outside his door was beginning to grow louder, signaling that most in the department were getting ready to head home for the day. If he didn’t want to be obvious, he’d have to leave off his search until sometime tomorrow.

So he shot the entirety of the file to the printer and, once the paper was spewing obediently, logged out of the system entirely. He’d be able to continue his search from home – the Foundation mainframe operating system was no more secure from his touch than the Centre’s ever had been. He rose, shifted the printed copy of the memo to his briefcase, grabbed up his overcoat after a glance out the window told him the weather had turned wet – just as the weatherman had promised just that morning – and turned out the light in his office.

“Old man McKenna’s gonna have a cow!” Jarod heard as he stood at the edges of a small knot of people waiting for the elevator.

“Only if we don’t have that new wing open to house the new project in time,” another voice responded jauntily. “We still have about a week to make the place habitable and get the laboratories ready.”

“I still haven’t figured out just what KIND of labs these are,” the first voice definitely sounded frustrated – as if pressed by the responsibility of his duties. “Great big, huge plastic bubbles with the top dome hinged being suspended from the ceilings? Rooms with theatrical props and walls that are projection screens? EEG monitors all over the place? White boards and bookcases enough to house a small library – with a small fortune in scientific texts and treatises in boxes…”

“SHhhhhh!” the second voice hushed suddenly. “You want to get fired for loose lips? Jeez Louise!” The elevator door opened and the knot of folks stepped inside – but the conversation had been cut short by the hissed warning.

Jarod moved to the back of the little moving cubicle, feeling as if a hand had tightened a band about his chest, making it hard to breathe. The last time he’d ever seen a plastic bubble with a hinged top suspended from the ceiling, it had been in Sydney’s Sim Lab in the bowels of the Centre – and he’d been climbing out of that bubble after yet another SIM in which a claustrophobic environment had been needed to aid in the task. What in the hell was the Foundation doing, setting up what sounded like was going to be another Sim Lab?

There was a facility being prepared within this very building – that much was certain! As he forced himself to hold onto the neutral expression on his face, he promised himself that on top of digging for more information on what Bob Rogers had been up to that had caused his death, he would find out just what a Sim Lab was being set up to make possible.

Keeping himself anonymous within that small knot of employees heading for their cars and their private lives once more, Jarod didn’t breathe freely until he’d clambered into his little sedan and locked the door. He leaned his head back against the headrest for a long moment, struggling to get his equilibrium back. More and more, the Foundation was beginning to resemble the Centre – not only in the form of its computer interface, but now with the possibility of… what? Did he think the Foundation had found itself a Pretender – that it was going to start up its own version of the Pretender Project?

The very thought made his stomach turn.

~~~~~~~~*

“See you tomorrow, Evan!” Darrel Miller waved to his friend across the softball field.

“See you!” Evan waved back, hanging his mitt on his favorite bat and heading toward where he’d left his bike locked up amid a line of others. Megan liked to have him home no later than six o’clock, so she could serve supper promptly at six thirty – and he still had a five-minute bike ride ahead of him. As the team prepared for its big game on Saturday with the Dover Patriots, he kept inching closer to violating that curfew, he knew. He’d have to do something really nice for his foster mom to make up for his tardiness.

“Hey! Kid!”

The dark head turned to watch a tall man climb from a car. Evan frowned – he knew better than to talk to strangers. He bent to try to unlock his bicycle without taking his eye from the approaching man.

“Kid! I was wondering if you could do me a favor?”

Evan’s fingers were shaking. This was EXACTLY the kind of thing they had talked about in class just the other day – where people would come up and ask for help just before grabbing and shoving him in the car and driving him off who-knows-where to do awful things to him. What was more, the bicycle lock wasn’t cooperating. He straightened, fully ready to just throw the bat at the man and make a dash for safety.

Evidently the man realized he was frightening him and had stopped several paces away. “I just want you to give a message to your sister, kid,” the man stated, offering out an envelope in a hand. “Can you deliver this to her?”

Evan knew better – and put his hands behind him. “I don’t know you,” he said in a deeply suspicious tone.

“I know you don’t,” the man nodded understandingly. “I tell you what – I’ll put this down on the ground and go back to my car – just promise me you’ll take this to your sister. OK?”

Evan inched around the end of the bike rack. “Go on,” he directed, pointing. “Put it down then.”

“You’ll deliver it to your sister?”

“Maybe.” Evan wasn’t making any promises about anything until the man was safely out of range.

Stan Bateman had to admire the spunk of the Parker boy – the kid literally looked as if he was ready to bolt. When the call had come from Philadelphia that afternoon, he’d had a chance to spend a few hours watching him. The chances to just snatch the kid hadn’t come as easily as he’d expected – the boy kept in the middle of a small group of boys and didn’t wander – even on the school playground. The assignment had been to make the pictures look as if it would have been easy to snatch the kid – and the assignment had been a challenge.

Still, he’d done a good job – even if he did say so himself. He laid the envelope in the dust and backed away from it slowly. “Take it,” he urged, continuing to back away. “Just make sure your sister gets it – today, if possible, OK?”

Evan waited until the man had the door to the car open and had half climbed back into it before he made the slightest move – and then darted forward to grab up the envelope and dash back to his bike. The car with the stranger backed carefully from the parking space and headed away again, and Evan breathed a huge sigh of relief. Finally he dared watch what he was doing in unlocking his bike and settled his backpack with the bat and mitt protruding from it on his back after sticking the envelope into the smaller front pocket.

Megan was going to be so mad at him, he knew as he pedaled the bike as fast as his legs could pump.

~~~~~~~~*

Fishbain studied the photo on his laptop and then lifted the binoculars to his eyes again. “That’s him,” he announced to Delgado. “Chuck Seabring – lowest janitor on the local payroll.”

The two men in the car watched the Centre employee enter the liquor store and then, only a few minutes later, exit with a small, brown paper bag in hand. Already his step was less than steady – and no doubt the contents of the bag were intended to further that condition considerably over the course of the evening.

Delgado shook his head. “What’s his story?”

“Wife took up with the postman and ditched him about a month ago,” Fishbain sneered – obviously unimpressed. “He’s got a record of drunk-and-disorderly with the local taverns – and a domestic disturbance call the other day. He’s behind on the rent and has three credit card companies howling at his door. He’s ideal for our purposes…”

“Wife left him, eh?” Delgado asked in a neutral tone.

“He’s a loser,” Fishbain responded in the same tone, knowing exactly what his team leader was thinking. “He has his job – barely. It’s at the absolute bottom of the ladder as far as authority and access is concerned, but it will serve to get us into the facility.” He looked a challenge at Delgado. “That’s all you need, right?”

Langer was watching the man walk back down the narrow mainstreet of Whitefish with a calculating look on his face. “We’ll need to make two copies of his ID – one for Fish and one for you. Prep time will have to fit into two working days – one for Fish to set up his cameras so we can get an idea of the schedule our targets keep, and the next day is when Chuck can start setting his explosives. That means we’ll be ready to make our move in four days…”

“Four days?” Delgado frowned. “I thought you said prep would take only two days?”

“It’s going to take longer than just a twenty-four hour period to observe and make sure of what is happening on a schedule and what is unusual activity,” Langer explained patiently. “What’s more, it may take longer than a twenty-four hour period for you to get all the C-4 into the right places to take this joint down in one big bang. Not to mention that whoever has made the trip inside is going to have to do just enough toilet cleaning and floor mopping not to call attention to himself…”

“So?”

“While Fish is inside setting up cameras, I’ll be starting to coordinate the observation and making further contacts with two more bottom-rung employees. And Chuck, while you are setting your charges, I’ll be testing the circuitry to make sure the blast happens properly – AND formulating the final phase plans for getting our targets out of the danger zone with enough of a safety margin before the joint blows. This is a precision job – we can’t afford any errors. So we take the time to do it right the first time…”

“When do we make contact with this Chuck Seabring?” Fishbain asked quietly.

Delgado started up the engine on the small sedan. “No better timte than the present,” he muttered as much to himself as to anyone else. “And with him out of the way, we have a base of operations that doesn’t leave any traces.” He glanced at the back seat. “Dave – you all set?”

Langer opened a small black bag and extracted a hypodermic needle and a bottle of clear liquid. “Just give me a minute…” The clear liquid squirted into the air to clear the hypo of any air bubbles. “Ready.” He put the cap back over the needle and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “One little trip to sleep, all set to go.”

Delgado snorted and Fishbain chuckled mirthlessly. Langer’s shot would do more than just give Chuck Seabring a restful sleep – and they all knew it. They just didn’t need to talk it through anymore.

Chuck Seabring’s moments on earth were now rapidly drawing to a close – he just didn’t know it yet.

~~~~~~~~*

Megan Laughton opened the front door and then simply stood back so that Miss Parker could enter the house. “I’m glad you could come so quickly,” she told the tall brunette in an anxious voice as she carefully shut and then locked the front door behind her. “When Evan told me what all had happened…”

“Sissy!” Evan trotted into the living room and directly into his big sister’s arms. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m just glad you’re all right,” Miss Parker breathed as she hugged the boy to her tightly and then set him away to look at him closely, to make sure that he was indeed unharmed. “When Megan called me…” She shook herself from her visions of horror and led the child toward the couch to sit down with her. “Now – I want you to tell me exactly what happened – and don’t leave anything out.”

Evan related the event as clearly as he could, and then added, “He just asked me if I would do him a favor. And then he put the envelope on the ground and walked back to his car…”

Miss Parker looked up at Megan. “May I see the envelope please?” she asked tersely, and then accepted the item. “Have you looked in it yet?”

Megan shook her head. “It’s addressed to you, Miss Parker. Evan wanted to open it too – but I told him that you should see it first.”

Miss Parker looked at the printing on the envelope – it had obviously come from a printer, and not the hand of an individual – and then ran her finger beneath the flap to tear along the top edge. She slipped her hand into the envelope and knew instantly what was inside – photographs – and steeled herself for what they would show. They were clear shots – the distance from which they were taken impossible to gauge from the photos themselves. In each, Evan was the obvious target – during play on the playground and even during his softball practice. There were six pictures in all – and on the back of the final one were hastily scrawled words: “It would be so easy.”

“Miss Parker?” Megan had seen the color fade from the face of the autocratic sister of her foster child, and the sight had chilled her. “What is it?”

Miss Parker handed her the photographs, knowing that her brother’s foster mother would find them just as threatening as she did. “Evan, I need you to describe this man as best you can. Was he tall or short? Young or old?”

“He was tall – about the same age as Tom…”

“Dark hair, blonde…”

“Dark hair,” Evan answered immediately. “Very curly and a little long.”

“Does that sound familiar?” Megan demanded to know.

Miss Parker shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together. “It could be anyone.”

“What was in the envelope?” asked a deep male voice, and a very tall and blonde Tom Laughton came into the living room from the back of the house.

“Pictures,” Megan answered her husband and handed him the pictures.

Tom’s dark blue eyes hardened as he flipped through the pictures one by one. “I take it, you don’t know the person who left this for you?”

Miss Parker held out her hand for the pictures, turned them over, and then fanned them like cards until she could see the one with the writing on the back. “Whether I know HIM or not doesn’t seem to be the issue,” she replied, holding the inverted picture up so that Tom could read what was written.

His face folded into an unhappy frown. “What are you going to do?”

“Sissy?” Evan was starting to become frightened – even though the man had tossed the envelope on the ground and then backed away, it was obvious from the reactions of the adults that something was very wrong.

Miss Parker put her arm around her little brother and held him close again. “Don’t worry, Evan – you did just fine.”

“Are you going to call the police?” Megan pressed.

“No,” Miss Parker shook her head. “We don’t have enough to file a complaint.” She ran her hand up and down Evan’s arm while she tossed around responses in her mind. “I think the best thing to do is for me to arrange for a bodyguard for Evan when he’s outside of the house – and to give you two a little extra security around here.” She nodded, satisfied with her answer. “I’ll call Sam and have him assign a couple of sweepers he can trust to watch over Evan from now on.”

“Is that going to be enough?” Tom crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at the woman on his sofa.

Miss Parker gazed back up at him evenly and worked hard not to let her anxiety and confusion be betrayed by her expression. “These will be highly-trained individuals, Tom – keeping people safe and away from trouble is what they’re paid to do.”

“Tom,” Megan moved to her husband’s side and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure that Miss Parker will do everything she can to keep Evan and us safe…”

“That’s for sure…” Miss Parker kissed her little brother on the forehead and then rose. “I’ll make the arrangements from home – and you can expect a sweeper on your front porch within the hour. Let him in – and let him do a walk-through of the house. The Centre will be paying for upgrading the security here at the house – and Evan will have someone to watch over him wherever he goes from now on.”

“Even into the bathroom?” Evan asked in surprise and a little hesitation.

Miss Parker had to smile. “Well,” she compromised with him, “maybe not into the stall with you – but otherwise…”

“Will this man know how to play softball?”

“Evan, I don’t think you need to worry your sister…” Tom frowned at the boy.

“It’s all right,” Miss Parker chuckled. “You’ll have to ask him. But I need to get home so I can make the calls – and you need to get your homework done yet, I bet…”

“Awwww….”

“Thank you for coming,” Megan smiled at Miss Parker, her face clearly concerned – and yet relieved, “and for your help.”

“See you later, Evan,” Miss Parker waved at her brother and then nodded at the Laughtons. As she heard the door close behind her and the deadbolt being thrown once more into place, her mind started to race.

The pictures were a warning. But…

A warning about what?

Did this have anything to do with the death of Jerry O'Brien? This veiled threat coming hard on the heels of that assassination was just too much of a coincidence to ignore. What in the hell was going on – and what was the common thread?

Miss Parker slipped into the driver’s seat of her black Boxster and pulled her cell phone from her purse to press and programmed number. “Sam? I want the names of two sweepers you trust implicitly delivered to my house in a half hour…”

“Miss Parker?” Sam’s voice sounded startled.

“Seems we may have tripped over something bigger than we originally thought. Just be at my house in a half hour – and have those names ready. We’re going to be changing their duty list for the time being…”

~~~~~~~~*

“Well?” Lyle’s voice was eager. “Did you get it?”

“His name is Kevin Chang, and he’s a diplomatic attaché to the US ambassador’s office in Beijing,” the calm and informative detective announced. “Seems he and your Miss Chu attended the same school in San Francisco – and then were together at Stanford for a number of years before…”

“Enough!” Lyle’s face had folded into frustration. “They have a history together?”

“Every time the ambassador visits home, he makes a stop to visit with her,” the detective confirmed. “There’s a nosy neighbor two doors down from your Miss Chu that keeps expecting Miss Chu to begin wearing an engagement ring any day now.”

“Damn!”

“Do you want me to continue to watch them?” the detective asked cautiously.

“No…YES!” Lyle burst out, changing his mind in the blink of an eye. “I want to know this Kevin Chang’s schedule – where he goes, what he does, how long it takes…”

“Same price as before,” the detective informed his customer. “And payment on the Chu assignment is now due and payable prior to any further service…”

“You’ll get your money,” Lyle growled, his grey-blue eyes snapping. “Seven hundred dollars a day plus expenses. There will be an envelope sent to you via General Delivery at the regular post office waiting for you in the morning. I want this information as soon as possible – is that understood?”

“Always good doing business with you, Mr. Lyle,” the detective drawled and then disconnected the call.

Lyle snarled as he slammed the receiver back down in the cradle. Not only did his intended have a life after all, but it was a long-standing one…

He rose and stalked to the window of his apartment and looked out into the courtyard that all of the apartments in the complex shared. How could he have so misjudged her? She was supposed to be a loner – the detective had watched her for over a week, and he had spent the better part of the weekend preparing for his time with her. His time with the prostitute had been a poor alternative to the pleasures he’d anticipated – although the horror and fear that had poured from the girl’s very pores as she came to realize her fate had been satisfying in and of itself. Then there was the cut of meat currently inhabiting a baggie in his refrigerator, awaiting its date with his wok and a select concoction of stir-fried vegetables…

The phone rang again, summoning him from his musing. “What?” he barked as he put the receiver to his ear.

“Mr. Lyle,” a smooth and musical Russian voice purred into his ear. “How are you doing today?”

“I’m out several hundred thousand dollars, thank you,” Lyle snapped back irritably. “You were supposed to have delivered payment on those handguns over a week ago, Alexi…”

“Ah, my friend! Life has kept me a little preoccupied,” Alexi Vostov exclaimed. “Our ogranization has experienced a number of setbacks…”

“Let me put it to you another way,” Lyle snarled. “If you intend to purchase any more weaponry from the Centre, you’ll find your past credit history a definite obstacle. AND I’m sure I need not remind you that for every day that passes, the interest on the loan – and it is a loan at this point – is compounding substantially…”

“We are aware of the amount of money owed,” Vostov’s expansive tone of voice had become brittle.

“I think not,” Lyle stabbed at his desktop with a fierce forefinger. “Don’t make me have to take other measures…”

“You are in no position to threaten me, Mr. Lyle,” Vostov snarled back. “The financial state of the Centre is common knowledge among many of my colleagues. I seriously doubt you have the corporate wherewithal to force anybody to do anything.”

“Why you…” Lyle was beyond livid.

“Shut up,” Vostov snapped. “My organization knows the debt it owes – and you can be assured you’ll receive every penny owed. But don’t threaten me – and stop having your secretary calling me three times a day to remind me of our obligation. The pressure isn’t going to work – and angering myself and my associates is not a wise move for you at this time.” Lyle’s mouth gaped at the audacity of the mobster. “I will be in touch with you when we have your payment ready. Good day.”

Lyle slowly replaced the receiver in the cradle, his heart pounding. He needed some of that money back soon – how else was he going to pay for the outrageous fees that the detective was going to be charging to keep an eye on Kevin Chang without it?

The Vostov Mob would have to be made to pay – and pay handsomely – for the insult it had just given the Centre. Lyle folded his hands in front of his mouth and leaned forward on his elbows. All he had to do now was figure out a way to make them pay – without getting burned in the process.

~~~~~~~~*

Sam sat in his car, shaken to his very soul.

Of all the threats he’d expected to field for Miss Parker, having to arrange for twenty-four hour surveillance and bodyguards for her little brother was the last thing he’d have thought of. And even now, knowing that some of his closest associates within the sweeper corps were handling the situation on the other side of town, he was feeling anything but secure.

The threat against Evan had to be a diversion – something designed to get Miss Parker’s attention away from whatever it was that she was getting too close to. But in typical Miss Parker fashion, the diversion had only worked to strengthen her resolve to get to the bottom of the maze of mystery that was slowly being uncovered. While he’d been there to witness, she’d called Broots at home and added a new dimension to the search he would be doing in the mainframe when he went back to work in the morning.

Which meant that the threat to Miss Parker hadn’t lessened – and the assassination of the eager bean-counter had been but an opening move in a complex chess game where the only way to win would be to survive.

Sam sighed. He started up his car and began moving down the drive toward the road – then pulled into the shadows of a shrub that grew close to the driveway entrance. It stood to reason that anyone willing to approach a little boy in broad daylight would be just as willing to try to enter the gated property during the dark of night.

He could call in more of his associates – but doing so might get back to Miss Parker, who would no doubt be full of questions that he didn’t want to have to answer. That left him no choice…

He would vary his point of surveillance, so that none would be able to tell when or if the summerhouse was being watched. And he’d have to try to grab an hour or so of sleep immediately after leaving work, so that his fatigue wouldn’t show too much. And maybe get a nap in during what should be a lunch break. He could do this… he HAD to do this!

~~~~~~~~*

Stan Bateman sat in a darkened sedan and smiled as he watched the sweeper obviously settle in for what would be a very long and boring night.

After all, he’d already taken the time to check out the premises while Miss Parker had been called over to her little brother’s foster family’s house. There were a few tiny chinks in the security system – shadows in which an intruder could hide until the most opportune moment, the fact that her car sat outside the front door of the house where anybody with serious intent could get at it.

It hadn’t come to that yet – Mr. McKenna would surely contact him personally if or when the time came to remove Miss Parker from the scene permanently – but the advance work was finished. Bateman chuckled to himself as he watched the silhouette of the sweeper settle back against the headrest of the seat, making himself as invisible as possible. Not tonight, my friend, he thought in amusement. All you’re going to get for your troubles is a bad case of the drags in the morning.

And with that, Bateman turned the key in the ignition and moved on down the street for nearly a block before turning on his headlights.

~~~~~~~~*

“How’s it coming?” Langer leaned over Fishbain’s shoulder and peered at the laptop’s screen to see a photograph of himself being carefully put in place on a color representation of the Centre identification badge.

“Just a few minutes here,” Langer replied almost absently, adjusting the fit of the photo to the blank space in the scanned image where Chuck Seabring’s picture had once been. “Now I have to do is print it out and laminate it – and you’ll be official.”

“Not bad, if I do say so myself,” Delgado picked up the badge that his computer expert had already handed him from where it had sat on top of the blueprints to the Centre facility they were about to penetrate. Provided that neither he nor Langer did anything to call attention to themselves as they entered the facility, the fact that the thumb print on the ID, the thumb print in the computer’s memory and a fresh print from the living individual wouldn’t match would never come up.

“Do we know when he’s supposed to be at work next?” Langer asked, tossing a casual thumb over his shoulder at where the body of Chuck Seabring had been dumped in the corner of the room.

“Eight o’clock in the morning, sharp,” was Delgado’s answer. “Jerry will take his shift tomorrow – to put in the taps to the video feed and get a beginning of a schedule for our targets.”

“I’m just gonna love scrubbing floors and patching into camera feeds,” Fishbain shook his head. “I never thought of dishpan hands as a side-effect of getting a computer job done right…”

“Quit yer bitching,” Delgado told him sharply, tossing the badge to the side of the blueprint. “The important thing for you to do is to get all those feed patches in tomorrow – so that when I can take your place, I can make the guards there more familiar with me so that they don’t remember that I’m the third face with this badge.” He picked up his highlighting pen again and made another colored mark where one of his charges would do the most damage.

“When we gonna start planning how we’re going to snatch the kids before the place blows?” Fishbain retorted, hitting the button to send the new version of the identication badge to the printer and then turning to face his team leader. “Three kids is going to take ALL of us inside at the same time…”

“That jerk isn’t going to be the only one to go missing – only to be presumed lost in the blast,” Delgado shook his head. “You said you had a number of names and addresses – we’re going to need one each on the last day.”

“What are we going to do with the stiffs?” Langer asked, once more casting his casual thumb in the direction of the former Mr. Seabring. “It’s too late in the year to just bury them…”

“The blueprints say that the parking garage is attached to the main facility. On the day we snatch the kids, we bring the stiffs to work with us – and leave them in one of the two cars we use.” Delgado smiled coldly. “And I’ll make sure that the parking garage falls just as completely as the rest of it – maybe even setting a charge in the car to scatter body parts all over the place ahead of time.”

Fishbain nodded contentedly and reached for the paper the printer had just spit out. “I’ll be glad when its this time next week,” he stated as he positioned the paper and began to cut the identification badge down to the size it needed to be to be laminated. “I’ve just got this gut feeling…”

“Stow the gut feelings,” Delgado warned sharply. “This is a gig, like all the others – and we’re being VERY well paid for our time. Don’t forget that.”

Langer pushed himself away from leaning over Fishbain and headed for the kitchen. “I suppose I should see whether this idiot had any food on hand…”

“I’m sure he’s got plenty of liquid meals,” Delgado commented wryly. “Let’s just make sure none of us dip into it, shall we? We need to keep our heads clear to make this thing work.”

Langer scowled when he knew his team leader couldn’t see it. HE didn’t need to get up in the morning – and he’d have precious little to do until some of the video feeds had had their remote taps implanted. HE could have a beer – couldn’t he?

Then again, the last thing he wanted to do was face an irate Delgado. They WERE being very well paid – and he could afford to wait until the job was finished before satisfying an itch.

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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