Charles Delgado stood patiently while the muscular security man checked his laminated ID card against the computer screen – and then held his hand out to take it back. “Go on through,” the big man intoned dismissively and waved as he lost interest in this latest maintenance drudge and returned his attention to the monitor screens in front of him. Delgado didn’t stand around or even say thank you – he knew that most of the janitors and maintenance crews around here were less than personable to begin with, and that antisocial behavior was to be expected from them.

He was counting on that, as a matter of fact, to see him through what he needed to accomplish with a minimum of distraction or interruption. Already he’d managed to litter the public areas of the facility with enough explosives to virtually vaporize the place – all he needed now was access to the more restricted corridors. That and he needed to case out the dormitory hallway so as to make sure he and his associates chose the right doors to blow open when the time came.

The clock was ticking – according to his own assessment, and providing he was able to go everywhere that the blueprints indicated were the key structural areas to the facility, the prep work should be finished by the end of the day. Fishbain had been right – despite the appearance of heavy security, getting around to the pre-determined spots that had been carefully chosen for their import to the overall structural integrity was proving surprisingly easy. Security personnel seemed well trained and disposed to just avert the eyes when a janitor and his cart made his way down the hall. This was good news for him – under and behind the cleansers and towels were items that normally didn’t belong on a janitor’s cart.

There it was – the dormitory hallway – and there was the mess that he’d been called to handle. The cause of the mess – a sick child, by the looks of things – could be heard not far away behind a closed door continuing to gag and cough his misery. Delgado heard a soft, firm and calm voice chiding, “You need to learn not to let your emotions rule you when you look at such things. How do you expect to be able to extrapolate about the motives of a serial killer if you’re sick to your stomach from a simple glance at a crime scene?”

“I’m sorry, Jonathon,” came a much younger voice in contrition. “I won’t let it happen again…”

“I’m very disappointed in you. You know better than that…”

Delgado shook his head and shot a glance at the hallway surveillance camera. “Twenty-two,” he uttered under his breath, knowing the sensitive microphone snapped to the inside of his overalls collar would pick up the statement and transmit it to where Langer was waiting.

Sure enough, the little receiver in his right ear vibrated with an equally soft, “Got it.” The red light on the camera blinked three times, and then the voice in his ear said, “Go ahead.”

The way was now clear for him to spend his time on his hands and knees planting the next block of C-4 explosive at the base of another weight-bearing steel beam – of which this corridor housed three. Granted that no security or other personnel meandered down the hallway in the next half hour or so, he’d be finished and long gone from here – and ready to find an excuse to move into the next area.

AFTER he cleaned up the mess he’d been sent to handle in the first place, that is. With a grimace of disgust, Delgado dunked his mop into the bucket and drained it before swabbing down the sickness-coated tiles. Imagine a kid that young-sounding looking at the crime scene photographs of a serial killer’s work without getting sick! It was enough to boggle the mind…

~~~~~~~~*

Miss Parker carefully shut the door to Sydney’s office behind her. “When was the last sweep of this place?” she demanded of Sam without uttering a word of greeting to anyone present.

“Did it myself this morning,” Sam answered immediately. “Found only three this time.”

“They’re slipping,” she commented sarcastically to no one in particular. “All right – we’ve all been busy beavers for the last day or so. So what do we have to show for our efforts – and do any of us get a break to enjoy our weekend tomorrow?”

“I found a project name,” Broots announced. “Duplicity.”

Sydney’s eyebrows shot towards where his hairline had once resided. “Duplicity?” Just the project name – given some of the particulars – gave his stomach a turn. Broots hadn’t told them his news before then – just let them know that he’d found something in his search of the distraction project that Miss Parker would find very interesting.

“Duplicity.” Miss Parker turned the project name over on her tongue and then shot Sydney a sharp look. “And we’re talking a transport and probable use of Jarod’s genetic material, aren’t we?” She threw her head back and sighed deeply. “Looks like you may well have been right, boys. Our Mr. Raines is evidently up to the nosepiece of his oxygen tube in playing God again.” She shook her head. “They’re doing it again.”

Broots nodded unhappily. “There is absolutely no mention of the Montana facility in the mainframe outside that single invoice – at least, not in so many words. I’ve found a few memos in the archive dated back ten or eleven years, however, alluding to a big construction job in Montana that still needed Congressional approval, but nothing other than that.”

Syd frowned. “Congressional approval for a construction site? They must have been building on federal land. And…” He looked apologetically at Miss Parker. “Ten or eleven years ago, it would have been your father – Mr. Parker – who…” He saw her close her eyes and swallow hard, and he felt bad for having to make that connection to a painful and rarely mentioned past.

“Most of the federal land up there is National Park,” Sam exclaimed. “I’ve been there – it’s close to the US – Canadian border, up in the mountains.”

“Why would the Centre be building something in the middle of a park?” Broots frowned, more than happy to skitter away from more painful associations.

“In the middle of a virtual wilderness,” Sam responded, “nobody would even know it was there.”

“For what its worth, there is no indication that the Psychogenic Department here in Blue Cove has transferred or is paying the salaries of any psych personnel outside the facility right here,” Sydney offered with a frown. “The department has seen a fair decline in personnel over the last few years anyway, so it is possible that some of the employee movement may have been masked as dismissals or people quitting – but such subterfuge, without further evidence, is impossible to prove or trace.”

“Wonderful,” Miss Parker groaned and then turned her gaze on her sweeper. “And what do you have for me?” she asked him pointedly. “More than Dr. Spock, I hope…”

“I talked to my friend in Accounting again – and found out there are so many slush fund accounts and loose reporting procedures that Raines could easily have financed a trip to the moon without calling much attention to it anywhere on the books. Hell – I’m going to be working with Broots to put together a comprehensive report of all the security holes in the accounting procedures that make much of what we are finding possible. The thing is though, I’ve hit a brick wall…”

“What kind of wall?”

Well, so much of the information I need to access I can’t get to – and there’s only a few people with high enough clearance to see ALL the financial records of the Centre…”

“Who?” she demanded. “Who can you talk to that can at least look into it…”

“In the accounting department, there’s only Vickering. He’s the department head.” Sam shrugged. “But he’s been hard to get a hold of. There’s always Raines himself, of course, but…”

“Damn it! Doesn’t this Accounting Department head realize that fraud is being committed right under his very nose?” Miss Parker thrust a clawed hand away from her and then began pacing. “Where is he anyway, that he’s so unavailable?”

“Right here in the Centre, Miss Parker – but in meetings…” Sam began.

“I want him – in my office and ready to explain things – by the end of the day,” Miss Parker hissed. “Is that understood?”

“Uh… His security clearance is higher than yours, Miss Parker,” Broots reminded her gently. “I don’t think he has to listen to you.”

The storm-grey eyes looked to be harboring a hurricane. “I’ll get the authority to demand his presence – if I have to go to Raines myself and drag the permission out of him.” She jabbed her finger into Sam’s chest. “Because of gaps in his processing, the Centre is bleeding funds. I’m sure Raines would like to hear I’m stemming the tide – and would be more than happy to require this Vickering to make himself available to my team...”

“Just make sure you don’t mention Montana or “Duplicity” while you’re at it, Miss Parker,” Broots warned. “While Mr. Raines might want to stem the tide of fraud and embezzlement, I’m sure he still won’t want to have his pet secret project exposed.”

“I didn’t just fall off the banana boat yesterday,” she sneered at him. Again she whirled on Sam. “What about that sweeper seen outside O'Brien’s office with a gun – did you talk to him and get his explanation?”

This time Sam shook his head. “He hasn’t been at work for the last two days, Miss Parker. I was thinking that if I got a free moment…”

“Screw that. Go now – visit him and get your answers.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She stood for a moment, looking from one face to another, and then shook her head. “Why do I get the impression that I’m missing something really important?” she asked, obviously meaning the question rhetorically. “We’ll meet again tomorrow afternoon – unless someone uncovers something really big between now and then…” She strode purposefully to the office door, threw it open with her usual drama and stalked from the SIM Lab.

“Man! She’s not going to be fooled for much longer!” Broots worried, his façade of calm competence collapsing as the reason for it distanced herself. “What’s going to happen when she starts to realize that we haven’t been reporting on the fraud angle at all for days now?”

“Every day is a gift, Broots,” Sydney answered, sharing his lack of optimism. “Be glad we have this one for now – and take advantage of it as much as you can.”

And then everyone in the room gasped as the lights went out on the entire Sub Level.

~~~~~~~~*

Jarod stared at the suspended plastic sphere that dominated the center of the room, and his heart pounded hard in his chest. For a long moment, he wouldn’t have cared if the entire Foundation security force had come into the room and discovered him there. The simple fact that there was indeed a SIM Lab in the Foundation – there was just no other reasonable explanation for the kind of equipment present and ready for use – was enough to take his breath away as if he’d been kicked in the chest.

Project Purloined obviously was the theft, incarceration and corporate misuse of another Pretender – and there was only one place such an individual could come: the Centre.

He shook himself and slipped back out into the hallway and tried not to show his shock too much as he stumbled toward the double doors again. This was ten times more than he had bargained for when he’d come to the Foundation to look into a suspicious murder – he was going to have to think about this!

Luckily, nobody was watching him directly as he re-entered the hallway near the security desk and headed back in the direction of his office. When he got to his office, he closed the door gently and then nearly collapsed in his chair – the implications of what he’d just found finally almost overwhelming him.

The Centre must have another Pretender – one that the Foundation was planning on stealing and using for their own purposes!

How could this be? He himself had orchestrated the escape of the bulk of the Pretender Project subjects years ago, and everything he and his father had discovered in Alaska and Donoterase had led him to believe that only one clone had been created. When Sydney had wormed his way into the Gemini Project, his mentor had apparently been led to believe that Gemini was a solitary success story – but what if that hadn’t been the case?

He’d cut the connection between himself and Sydney so completely after the fiasco at Carthis that if there had been a hint of more Pretenders created from his DNA, Sydney would have had no opportunity or ability to tell him about it. That was, IF Sydney had known in the first place. Would Sydney hide such a thing from him – knowing now the kinds of abuse the Centre had visited on his protégé every time he wasn’t there to safeguard his project? The only person who could answer that question was Sydney himself – a man he’d deliberately tried to excise from his life and waking thoughts.

Not that it had ever really worked…

Despite everything that had happened to him while under Sydney’s authority, he couldn’t help feeling as if by trying to shut the old psychiatrist out of his life he’d disowned his own father. He and Sydney shared something – a lengthy and close relationship, if nothing else – that he’d never known and probably never would know with his real father. As much as he loved Charles Russell, when the chips were down and the child’s drive to find comfort and shelter from his parent kicked it, it was always Sydney who appeared – however briefly – first in his mind.

A combination Dr. Doolittle and Dr. Mengele, it was Sydney who had nurtured and raised him – and yet had stood aside and allowed horrible sights, sounds, experiences and information to flow into and over him for the greater share of his adult life. How much of the abuse of the creativity he’d been forced to employ for nearly thirty years Sydney actually was aware of was debatable – and in some cases it simply didn’t matter. There were things that Jarod would never be able to forgive Sydney for – not the least of which was leaving him to grow up believing himself unloved.

But in the years since his escape, he’d discovered to his amazement that Sydney HAD actually cared more about him than the old man had let on – probably even to himself. It had taken months at his parents’ farm to sort through the memories of his days on the run to see the subtle hints that Sydney had been quietly and consistently aiding him in fitting into a society that was an alien environment at first – and in the process keeping him two steps ahead of his Centre pursuers.

But he’d never let that revelation lure him into a sense of genuine and unconditional trust. Sydney was still a part of the Centre – had followed their orders and made him into a lab experiment – and therefore unreliable at best. And now Sydney was the only person who could be trusted as much as possible to not only give him a straight answer about his theory but not report the renewed contact after all this time.

Damn.

Jarod wiped a hand down his face as if to clear the cobwebs from his mind at the thought of re-establishing contact with anyone remotely connected to the Centre. He’d left that life behind – at least, he’d thought he had. But now, reminders of that life and indications that another soul stood to be subjected to that kind of Hell had dragged that life right back into the forefront. He could no longer ignore or walk away from the fact that some of the information he needed to finish his Pretend had to come from the most unlikely and unwelcome of sources.

The telephone on his desk chose that moment to ring dissonantly – and Jarod took a deep breath before answering. “Simmons, Accounting…”

“Simmons, I need your report on what you found in Project Hamstring’s books like yesterday,” Claude Hanson’s sharp tenor voice was loud enough in Jarod’s ear to make him jerk the receiver away by an inch or two. “Sam Brewer refuses to admit to any improprieties – I want to have your evidence on hand to bring him to task.”

Project Hamstring was the third folder in his In Box – and the report on what he’d found in a forensic examination of their books had made him chuckle more than once. “I’ll finish it up and have it to you by lunchtime, sir,” Jarod told him, almost grateful for a distraction from his previous train of thought. “Will that be early enough?”

“My meeting isn’t until four this afternoon,” Hansen replied, “so noon would be more than satisfactory.”

“I’ll get right on it, sir,” Jarod stated firmly. “I’ll call you when its finished.”

“Fair enough. Thanks, Simmons – you’re doing great work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The call ended, and Jarod opened the folder and toggled his monitor on. While he was compiling the report, he could let the sight of the newer, better SIM Lab fade into the background for a while. He had an appointment to talk to Bob Roger’s wife that evening – that too could keep him nicely occupied...

No, Roger’s wife could wait. Dinner with Em could wait. It all could wait until after he’d had a chance to talk to Sydney – and after he’d had the chance to try to figure out whether the old man was lying to him again when they were finished.

~~~~~~~~*

“You have got to be kidding me!” Raines hadn’t been quite so apoplectic for a long time. In the dimness of the emergency lighting of his office, his face looked positively skeletal.

The head of the Maintenance Department shifted back and forth on his feet nervously. “I don’t know how it happened, Mr. Raines – we just received a shipment of new bearings for the generators, bearings that need to be replaced every year or so after constant use. I’m having the purchase orders checked again – but it seems that the bearings were the wrong size – and they rattled loose and…”

“I don’t want to hear it!” He gave a noisy, desperate wheezing gasp. “Do you have any idea how much money this little mistake is costing the Centre?”

The Maintenance head glanced nervously at the shadowy figure of the Chairman’s personal sweeper, who stood behind and to the right of the powerful CEO of the Centre. “It will take about three hours…”

“Of lost productivity! The mainframe is inactive – our ability to do business is cut off completely!”

“Sir, if I can join the teams working on the repairs…”

Raines waved his hand in disgusted frustration. “Go! Get us back up and running quickly…” He pulled in another noisy and desperate gasp of oxygen. “…or I’ll be dropping an evaluation team on your ass faster than you can say…”

The stocky and balding maintenance man had already skittered from the office through glass doors that were even now swinging closed on silent hinges. “Damn it! Of all the times for this to happen…”

“What do you want to do about the Pentagon representatives, sir?” Willy asked in a very cautious tone. When his boss was in this kind of mood, there was no telling who would end up bearing the brunt of the explosion in the end.

Raines’ eyes snapped as his head pivoted quickly. “How the Hell do you think we can demonstrate our newest surveillance systems upgrades…” He wheezed again. “without working monitors on which to observe the demonstration?” he demanded in frustration, wheezing painfully to fill his lungs again. “And do you really think that we’re going to be able to stall busy Pentagon officials for a full three hours while our maintenance people get our generators running again?” He sighed and gasped again. “Have Kristen call and postpone the appointment…”

“Sir…” Willy was reluctant to point out the obvious, “…they’re probably already on the way here.”

“DAMN IT!” Raines wheezed so hard, he began to cough – and then held up a hand to restrain Willy from coming to his aid as he battled to get his breath back. “Then go get a gas-powered generator from Dover and have at least the demonstration facility fully powered within the next hour and a half. We NEED this contract!”

“Yes, sir!” Willy spun on his heel and quickly left the office, not exactly sure where he was going to come up with a gas-powered generator on short notice without having to buy one new from an outside vender.

William Raines slammed his fist down on the huge mahogany desk. What else could go wrong?

~~~~~~~~*

Miss Parker put out her hand and smiled. “I’m glad to have you as a new customer of the Centre’s computer operating system, Mr. Davidson.”

“I’m more than impressed with the flexibility of the program you’ve developed, Miss Parker.” Cliff Davidson was impressed with the firmness and warmth of the handshake as well. “When will we be able to take delivery of the system?”

“That depends partly on you,” Miss Parker answered frankly. “As soon as payment is received, I can call our Computer Sciences Department and have a qualified technician dispatched to your corporate headquarters within the day – and you can be up and running and transferring data formats by the end of the day tomorrow.”

“Without replacing any of our current hardware?” Davidson was amazed.

“Our OS is designed to run on pre-existing hardware platforms in order to be the most cost effective in the short term – and yet be advanced enough to accommodate the latest advances in computer hardware technology, and so extend that cost effectiveness far into the future.” She pushed her plate back on the small table, more than contented with the portion of the shrimp that she’d consumed while discussing the particulars of the pending sale with her latest customer.

“Allow me then.” Davidson reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone and pushed an obviously pre-programmed button. “Heidi, I would like to arrange an electronic transfer of funds to…” He pulled the phone down from his ear and spoke to the pretty brunette with the killer reputation across the table from him. “Do you have a band and an account number into which I can transfer funds right now?” He smiled quickly. “We really need that new system up and running, Miss Parker…”

“Of course.” Miss Parker reached for her clutch purse and pulled out one of the small cards that had such information printed on it for just such occasions. “That one is the account you need to use,” she informed him, pointing.

As Davidson carefully read the bank and account information into his cell phone, Miss Parker suddenly found herself wondering if some of the fraud money owed to her project had ever been paid electronically rather than with hard-copy checks. With the ease and accuracy of electronic money transfers, there was no reason to suspect that such transactions hadn’t happened – and possibly with greater frequency than even a sale like this one…

“Miss Parker?”

She blinked and brought herself back to the bargaining table with Cliff Davidson. “I’m sorry – what?”

“If you would care to confirm the transfer, I’d really like to go ahead with the installation of the OS as soon as possible…” Davidson finally had the good grace to show his anxiousness. “Davidson Industries’ accounting software has been returning far too many errors in the last month or two – my IT people are afraid that if the system were to crash completely, it would wipe out our entire Accounts Receivable data…”

“Of course.” Miss Parker pulled her cell phone from her clutch and dialed her secretary to do exactly that – and then order the woman to place a delivery order for the newest version of Centre Business OS on the Davidson Industries’ mainframe in Atlanta. But her mind was spinning far from the fact that she’d just generated a tidy profit for the Centre.

Sam was overloaded with tasks he was handling for her – Sydney had his plentiful research projects on-going, and Broots was up to his eyebrows not only in the security update of the mainframe but all the computer-related investigations about this new secret project of Raines’ and the fraud problem. Her plate was less than empty too – she had the end of the security review to administer, as well as the mid-week security reports to read.

Still, this new avenue of investigation was one that SHE could look into without having to further overload any one member of her team. All three had looked just a bit on the ragged side in her office earlier that day – as if the stress of the pressure she was putting on them was suddenly beginning to expose cracks in their facades of efficiency and talent.

No, this one she’d handle herself. After all, she was every bit as good an investigator as any of the others were – and sometimes it helped cement her position as project head to remind them of that fact.

~~~~~~~~*

“Shinse…”

“Lula…” The oldest of the Triumvirate pressed his cell phone against his ear and continued to amble down the circuitous path that meandered through the extensive consortium estate on the wealthy edge of Nairobi. In the distance came the clicking of the cicadas, always a calming sound – even on days that had stretched for far more hours than he’d normally appreciate otherwise. With two of the Council out of the country, the day-to-day operations of the consortium as a whole rested on his tired shoulders – and the occasional walk in the fresh air was necessary to maintain focus. “What can I do for you this evening?”

“I’m merely reporting my preliminary recommendations regarding the possibility of heavy investment with the Eire Foundation,” she told him with carefully disciplined patience. “I feel that the Foundation shows real potential to generate considerable dividend income in return for our investment capital…”

“I’m not surprised,” Olabi replied, leaning against his favorite tree and looking out across the exquisitely landscaped lawn towards the deliberately humble-looking yet sprawling administrative building that was situated behind the skyscraper that was the wellspring of Triumvirate activity otherwise. “From the preliminary information you submitted before you left, the Foundation sounded like the kind of organization we work best with.”

“I’m concerned that we will not be allowed quite as free a rein with them as we have enjoyed with Blue Cove – but considering the lack of return from that quarter lately…”

Olabi sighed audibly. “Lula, we’ve been over this…”

“I want to see a healthy portion of our investment capital moved to the Foundation, Shinse. Our members will not tolerate our funds stagnating…”

“We will see what Ugo reports when the test of this new project that Mr. Raines claims will restore profitability to the Centre, Lula – that was the decision of the Council. We are currently involved in fact-finding. Your trip to Philadelphia is no more or less than Ugo’s trip to Montana. Once you both are back home, we will review all of the facts together and come up with a definitive strategy.”

Lula sighed. “McKenna let slip that he has sources pointing to a rapid disintegration of Centre finances,” she reported anxiously. “How many sources do we need to hear from before…”

“Lula!” Olabi’s voice, while normally soft and gentle, could be as much of a sharp whip as her dead husband had once been able to wield. “This Council – and I – will not be rushed into a decision before all the facts are known. If you are satisfied that you’ve found out everything you need to know about the Foundation, then I suggest that you get on the next trans-Atlantic flight home. I’m not young anymore – I could use some help here.”

“Then send me Solo Indala,” she pouted, pulling the turban from her closely cropped head and tossing it on the coffee table of her hotel sitting room. “We need to know if all this information predicting gloom and doom for the Centre has any merit.”

“Sorry,” Olabi at least had the grace to sound apologetic. “Ugo requested his assistance before he left for Montana – I think for much the same reasons.”

“We need him acting independently!”

“Patience. Come home, Lula. Your place is here. Let me know when your plane lands – I’ll send a limousine for you.”

Lula gasped in outrage and frustration as the overseas call abruptly terminated.

Are they all completely blind, she shook her head in amazement. To actually hesitate over the question of a fiscally sound enterprise over one with a proven track record of financial problems was insanity.

She pushed another button and waited only for a short time. “We can’t afford to wait much longer,” she barked at the person on the other end of the line. “Call Imsi – make the arrangements.” She paused, listening. “Just get him set up and ready. I’ll put things in motion once I’m back in Nairobi.”

She put the phone back down on the coffee table after she disconnected the call and relaxed back against the cushions. That was it – the first step had been taken after almost a year of hoping that a complete overhaul of the Triumvirate hierarchy wouldn’t be necessary. Her husband, “Big” Mutumbo, had made all of the arrangements in his time – but had always held that putting the plan into effect would cause more damage than it would prevent. Lula sniffed at the memory – the big man had been wrong about a number of other things too.

There would be no turning back now. One didn’t call back assassins once they’d been turned loose. Either the next few days would see her the undisputed head of the Trimvirate – and selecting suitably pliable pawns to sit as figureheads on the Council – or they would spell the end of the Triumvirate as a while.

Either way, the long waiting was over.

~~~~~~~~*

“But I thought I’d already looked into this stuff,” Broots complained even as he typed quickly to access the Accounting Department records yet again. If he had to spend hours staring at rows of numbers again, he was going to be tempted to share the ventilation ductwork with Angelo to hide out for a while. If ever there was a way to make advanced mathematics boring…

“We looked into the checks, who they were issued to, who endorsed them – but we didn’t pay any attention to the electronic end of things.” Miss Parker jabbed her finger in the direction of the on-screen button even she knew was the next step in getting where she needed to go in the mainframe. It was frustrating that getting to this point was something she couldn’t accomplish by herself after all. The Centre Accounting software was certainly a maze of convoluted menus that seemed to fold back on themselves unles one knew exactly how to read them. “There – hurry!” She snapped her fingers impatiently.

“But Sam says that the Centre still prefers to use hard-copy as a way to make sure…”

“Yes, the Centre would do things the old-fashioned way when it comes to money,” she agreed, still rotating her finger to keep her technician moving as quickly as possible through the screens on the way to the accounting information pertaining to her project. “But I think the time has come to entertain the thought of outside interference. In that case, using electronic transfers to commit fraud…”

“Here you are,” Broots sighed, finally opening the screen he’d been seeking. There, in red and black numerals on the monitor, was the bogus summary expense report that Raines had given them – with each entry annotated with a transaction number. “Now what – check them all?”

“For electronic transfer of reimbursement funds,” she nodded.

Broots sighed heavily. He’d been contentedly rewriting code to lock down the Accounting Department’s software to prevent any further tampering of the sort that had beset the Pretender Retrieval Team – the last thing he wanted to do…

“What’s that?”

He stared at her pointing finger and the information on the monitor behind it. “Hmmm…” He clicked on the transaction number, in order to see the information it hid – then jumped. “Miss Parker…”

“What is it?”

He frowned up at her. “We tripped an internal flag. Whoever is responsible for this transaction now knows that we’re looking into it…”

She waved impatiently. “We’ll worry about that later. Where does it say that the money was sent?”

Broots tipped his head and typed a few more characters, paused, read the screen again, and then looked up into his superior’s face in confusion. “It was routed back to the Accounting Department itself, Miss Parker – to a contingency fund controlled by the department head…”

“Mr. Vickering?” Miss Parker frowned and then narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t that the person that Sam wanted to talk to – but couldn’t?”

Broots thought and then nodded. “I think that was the name…”

She pushed herself away from the desk and began to pace in a tiny line, constrained by the miniscule size of her technician’s workspace. “If I were someone who wanted to foul up a large organization’s finances, I don’t think I could find a better place to do it from than the Accounting Department – do you?”

The balding computer tech gaped. “You honestly think…”

“OK, let’s not jump to conclusions here,” she stopped pacing and once more rested her hip on the corner of his desk to lean close to his work. “Look through the other transactions – find me another electronic one and tell me where it went. Maybe this was just a fluke, and we have to dig deeper.”

Broots typed furiously for a moment, rapidly flicking through the reimbursement memos one by one until, “Here we go.” He clicked on the transaction number – ignored the chime that announced another flag had been tripped, although each one made his sense of dread grow deeper – and nodded slowly. “And this one went into the same contingency fund as the other.”

“Check the status and balance of that contingency fund,” was the curt demand.

He typed, flinched as yet another flag showed as tripped – then stared, and finally whistled at the list of ledger entries and balance in the account itself. “How long has he be at this, Miss Parker?”

Miss Parker rose and paced again. “I want a printout of all activity in this account over the last year – complete with transaction reference numbers.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Get proof of the crime in my possession before someone makes IT disappear too,” she snapped, again rolling her hand in an impatient gesture that was futile in making the printer spit out the information any faster. The moment Broots had the papers from the printer’s tray, she snatched them away. “I want access to that account closed to everyone except Mr. Raines himself – most especially closed to Mr. Vickering – can you do that?”

Broots’ eyes widened. “I… I’m not sure…”

“Just do it.” Her smile had a predatory edge to it. “Let’s put a kink in our head bean-counter’s tail and see how loudly he squeals.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Good work, Broots – you can go back to what you were doing.”

“Uh… thanks…” he managed, but she’d already stalked from his office. He sat back in his chair and rubbed under his nose nervously – and then picked up the phone. “Sam?” he asked the moment the sweeper took the call, “I think we may have a problem.”

“Another one?” Sam blurted, turning away from the secretary to the Accounting Department head in frustration at being able to make a firm appointment to see the man much before the next week.

“Yeah. Come to my office – we need to talk.”

~~~~~~~~*

Les Vickering stared with real astonishment at the flickering notices on his computer monitor. He’d stepped away from his desk but for a moment, but had come back to a flashing screen that told him that two of the transaction logs of payments to the contingency fund had been accessed. As he watched, a third flag popped up announcing that the fund ledger sheet itself had been accessed. The terminal ID was – as expected – one of the ones belonging to the Pretender Retrieval Team.

Damn her! He should have known when her pet bulldog of a sweeper had stood outside his office door hounding his secretary for an appointment – the woman was just not able to keep her nose out of where it didn’t belong. If he wasn’t careful, fifteen years of quiet and effective sabotage would be uncovered and neutralized.

Threatening her little brother hadn’t thrown her off the track after all, it seemed – although there had been a couple days that things from her office had appeared to be quiet and under control. Still, putting the failsafe plan into action would require more authority than he could wield by himself. He reached for the phone and dialed.

“Jim?” His twin’s voice was both shocked and concerned. “You really shouldn’t be calling me at this hour…”

“She’s starting to uncover things, Jake – the kind of things we don’t want uncovered,” he blurted without preamble. “Electronic transfers – the kind of things that lead to places we don’t want her looking…”

“I thought you were going to be able to distract her!”

“I did too – and it looked like it worked for a little bit…”

“Shit, Jim – we only need a couple more days before the whole house of cards is going to start to fall in anyway!”

Vickering hit his fist on his desk. “Don’t you think I don’t know that?” He controlled his temper with several long, deep breaths. “I think we’re going to have to take her out completely after all.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Well, we knew that it could come to this,” Jake reminded his brother. “Get Stan Bateman to handle it – he knows how I want her taken out. The upheaval from her death should keep the rest of them nicely preoccupied so that they don’t see the executioner’s axe coming.”

“What about her people? They’re half the problem…”

“So take them out too – all except the one we spoke of. We may need him later.”

Vickering hung up the phone and closed his eyes briefly. Yes, he’d known this moment would come sooner or later – and he was fully ready to enjoy knowing the offspring of his family’s nemesis would pay the price – but he’d really hoped to simply destroy the Parkers financially and psychologically. Death was too good for them.

But a plan was a plan – and Jake was depending on him.

He dialed again. “Stan? Something’s come up…”

~~~~~~~~*

“What do you mean, you were setting off alarm flags right and left? What the hell did you think…” Sam was livid.

“You weren’t there,” Broots retorted in his own defense. “She was right there, in my face and watching everything I was doing. She didn’t seem to care about the security flag…” He threw his hands wide. “What the Hell was I supposed to do, tell her “No, no, Miss Parker – we need to stop this right now or you’re going to get hurt”? As if she’d listen…”

“Shit!” Sam put his hand to his forehead and stalked over to the window of the ground-level cafeteria in which the three co-conspirators had chosen to meet. The afternoon was waning – already the day had that warm glow to it that spoke of the coming twilight. The scene would have been calming to the sweeper – except for the situation inside the building tearing at him.

“We knew we were going to run into this sooner or later,” Broots tried to soothe matters – as if they COULD be soothed. He knew as well as Sam that this was a disaster. “We knew it was only a matter of time.”

“Too damn little time!” Sam exploded, his back still to his colleagues.

Broots sat back in his chair in a huff. “Well, the damage is done – so NOW what do we do?”

Sam gently pressed his closed fist against the glass, then turned back to face the others. “They said that an accident would be very easy to arrange.”

“We can’t keep this from her anymore,” Broots stated in a soft voice. “She needs to know…”

“Needs to know what?” Sydney asked, poking his head around the edge of the doorjamb and making both men inside jump. He insinuated himself further into the room with a concerned look on his face. “You two look as if the world just fell in.”

“It may have,” Broots grumbled in dismay.

“Miss Parker had Broots doing some digging in the mainframe – in the accounting records – and they evidently set off some alarm flags,” Sam explained, his voice tight and controlled. “Three of them, as a matter of fact.”

Grey brows climbed Sydney’s forehead. “Merde!”

“Piled three feet deep, no less,” Broots agreed under his breath.

“Broots is of the opinion that we should tell her what’s going on,” Sam sighed. “I’m not so sure he’s not right.”

“The weekend starts tomorrow – which means she’ll be spending more time with Evan, and paying less attention to the people around her than she does here,” Sydney mused aloud. “I’m sure she’s thinking that when he’s with her, she’ll be able to protect him – and not be thinking that the threat is aimed at her rather than the boy…”

“How can she protect him if she doesn’t know that there are people who might actively be seeking to…”

“I know, Broots,” Sam retorted impatiently. “I’m sorry – I just was hoping that we’d be able to keep this just between us for longer than just a few days. I was hoping…”

“When are we going to tell her?” Sydney asked, looking from one face to the next – and then frowning. “We are agreed – she needs to be told?”

“Yeah,” Broots nodded. “I just don’t look forward to it.”

“Neither do I,” Sam sighed. “She’s going to think we don’t trust her.”

“It was a chance we took when the three of us agreed to withhold this,” Sydney reminded the sweeper in a brittle tone. “She’s going to be royally steamed at all of us. This doesn’t answer the question of when, however – or who is going to be the one to break it to her.”

“She’s closest to you, Sydney,” Sam began almost apologetically. “If there’s anyone she’ll listen to longer before exploding…”

Sydney shook his head. “This was your idea, Sam. Broots and I both wanted to tell her straight off – YOU were the one to convince us to keep our mouths shut.”

“You both agreed with me!” Sam countered sullenly.

The three men glared at each other in mutual anger for a long moment that was finally broken when Sydney’s cell phone jangled in his pocket. Sydney put up a restraining finger as he fished the phone from his trousers pocket with the other hand and put the device to his ear. “This is Sydney…” he answered as he always did.

And then his jaw dropped open. “Jarod?!”

~~~~~~~~*

“Miss Parker, can we speak to you for a moment?” an unfamiliar voice challenged the brunette as she stood waiting for the elevator to take her to the parking level and a nice, quiet weekend with her little brother.

She turned and frowned. Walking swiftly towards her were Lyle’s retrieval team – with the owl-eyed computer technician in the lead. A hand went immediately to her hip in impatience. “Can’t this wait?” she snapped tiredly, “or better still, take your concern to your master…”

“That seems to be a problem, Miss Parker – and we were hoping that you might have some idea what’s going on,” Dr. Ernst Fischer answered in an equally frustrated tone. “Do you have any idea where Mr. Lyle is?”

The other hand managed to land on the hip despite having a clutch purse in its grip. “Do I look like my brother’s keeper?” Miss Parker taunted the trio. “I’m sure you all have a better idea of the kinds of sewers and garbage heaps he haunts…”

“We had a meeting set for this morning – and he never showed,” the sweeper interrupted her brusquely. “As a matter of fact, nobody’s seen him for the last two days at least. I even asked Mr. Raines’ personal bodyguard if he’d seen him, but got nothing from there either.”

Miss Parker shrugged and then punched at the elevator button again. “Well, boys, make it unanimous. I haven’t seen, heard, or smelled Lyle in the vicinity for the last couple of days – and the absence has been greatly appreciated. When you do find him,” she smiled coldly, “tell him to keep up the good work.” She stepped into the elevator and turned immediately to block any of the others from following her. “Enjoy your weekend.”

Once the silver door had slid closed, she relaxed her pose and ran her fingers through her hair. So Lyle had pulled another one of his disappearing acts, had he? If it wouldn’t mean that she’d have to spend more time arguing with Mr. Raines, she would have dearly loved to take advantage of his current lapse to undermine his position at the Centre. She still wasn’t entirely convinced that he wasn’t complicit in any one of the many directions she was having her team investigate – the fraud, or maybe even this audacious genetic experiment. Both operations were right up Lyle’s alley normally – and he always managed to end up with a finger in every slightly sour pot the Centre had brewing at any one point in time.

She straightened and ran her fingers through her hair again. Lyle was a problem for the next time she came in to work – which, with any luck, wouldn’t be until Monday. In her purse were tickets to the Ballet Ruse’s performance of Giselle that would be taking place in Dover on Saturday night – and hotel accomodations for three at the Dover Hilton had been confirmed just that afternoon. Somehow, the idea of seeing a ballet without Sydney being with her had never even crossed her mind – the three of them had made a tradition of watching the local ballet company’s production of the Nutcracker every December for years after all. Sydney always carried his own weight financially on such trips – they would dine in some of the best restaurants in Dover, and more than likely have a trip to a museum or gallery Sunday afternoon before returning to Blue Cove and their normal lives.

This trip had been planned for weeks, and nothing – especially nothing pertaining to her less-than-savory twin brother – was going to prevent her from enjoying the weekend properly.

~~~~~~~~*

Stan Bateman watched as the black Boxster pulled up to the stop sign at the entrance of the Centre and then peeled rubber heading into town, and he smiled. She had SUCH a reputation as a driver – fast, dangerous, risk-taking – and a history of alcohol trouble. There was just so much history that was going to play into his hand ideally, removing much of the suspicion that would otherwise accompany an auto accident.

All he’d have to do was find a way to get into her house and drug the food sometime over the course of the weekend. Once she was unconscious, pouring a portion of a fifth of Stolichnaya down her gullet and spilling enough on her clothes to make her reek should handle any questions of the reason behind the accident.

And if the little boy happened to die with her – well, tragedies happened, didn’t they?

~~~~~~~~*

Jarod walked past his sister and into his room, then bent to pull his old leather dufflebag from beneath the bed.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Em demanded as she watched in shock as her brother began pulling clothing and gadgetry from the closet and throwing them hurriedly into the travel bag.

“I don’t have time to explain,” Jarod told her without turning from his work. His laptop quickly was stuffed into its case, with all the wires carefully folded away to take up as little space as possible. “I have something very important to take care of this weekend – and I need to get going as soon as I can…”

“Without supper – and without any more of an explanation than just “I gotta go?” I’d think you’d give me more than that!”

Jarod paused long enough to look her in the eye directly. “Sorry, Em. At the moment, that’s all I can give you.”

“Does it have anything to do with this Foundation place you’re working at?” she asked, an idea refusing to be dismissed from her mind without outside verification. “Is that it?”

“Partly,” Jarod admitted, figuring there to be no harm in a partial truth. “Someone I know is in a spot – and I really need to give them a hand.”

“Who?”

He shook his head and zipped the dufflebag. “You don’t know them,” he stated with certainty.

“Where will you be?” she pressed, reaching out a hand to his upper arm and trying to pull him to a halt.

“I’ll be back before work Monday,” he promised, letting her pull him to a stop long enough to bend and drop a kiss on her forehead. “You never know, you may well hear from me long before that.”

“I hate the mystery,” Em complained bitterly.

Jarod shouldered the dufflebag strap and the strap from the laptop case, and still managed to shrug. “I can’t help that, Em,” he told her gently. “It’s part of who I am – and there’s not a lot I can do about that…”

“You just don’t want to.”

He stopped and looked at her evenly. “You’re right. I don’t want to. I’m not a child, Em – I don’t need permission to live my life the way I see fit.”

“You owe your family…”

The argument was growing very old – and it was the same argument he’d had several times with his mother over the years. “I owe you and the rest of the family honesty – and to take any potential trouble as far from your doors as I can. You know that what I do is dangerous – and it IS what I do. Now…” He gently moved past her so that his path to the front door of the apartment was clear. “…I’ll be back before you know it – and I’ll be in touch before then, I promise.”

“Be careful?”

The softly-worded warning caught him by surprise, and he turned and gave his little sister a big smile. “Always,” he answered her equally gently.

Jarod let loose a huge and deep breath the moment the apartment door was closed behind him, and he then took the stairs down to where he’d parked his car two at a time.

He couldn’t believe it – after all these years and carefully keeping the silence that protected him from the Centre intact, here he was rushing off to save Miss Parker’s ass. Just like old times…

No, not like old times. Sydney had been blunt when questioned about the new pretender – there was a project that had just recently come to light on their end that sounded suspiciously like a replay of the Gemini Project, and that Miss Parker had them chasing down more information when this latest crisis had erupted. His old mentor assured him that all the information available that they’d found on the project would be given him – in exchange for his help keeping Miss Parker safe from a vague threat with no face or name.

It would take him long into the night to drive the distance between Philadelphia and Blue Cove – Sydney would be waiting up for him and giving him shelter that night. In the morning, Miss Parker thought that she and Sydney and her little brother would be heading to Dover and a weekend of fun and learning experiences. Little Evan – that’s what Sydney told him the boy was called now – would be spending the night at his sister’s, as always. Between Jarod’s lengthy commute and the boy, it had been decided that Miss Parker would be made aware of this threat – something that Broots and Sam and Sydney had conspired to keep quiet – and then the four of them come up with some kind of defense.

The four of them – that was a laugh! Jarod knew very well that it was he who would be responsible for finding Miss Parker a way out of her mess – and that he’d have to have it in hand and in effect in time for him to drive back to Philadelphia in time for work on Monday. Like it or not, whatever was going on at the Centre was impacting what was going on at the Foundation – and very likely underlying the murder he’d originally come to Philadelphia and the Foundation to investigate.

He gently tossed his duffel bag onto the floor of the front passenger seat and put his laptop down on the seat itself as he slipped behind the wheel. This was NOT the way he’d intended to spend the weekend!

~~~~~~~~*

“Zoë!” The grey-haired woman threw her arms around her granddaughter and hugged hard. “Where have you been?”

“Whoa!” Zoë laughed at the strength of the embrace. Her Gram had always been so protective of her – never more so than after her cancer had become known. “I went to get a second opinion of my condition, Gram,” she patted the old woman on the back and then stepped back. “Word is my remission is still rock-solid.”

“You could have told me where you were going,” Gram remonstrated her even as she put an arm around the young woman’s waist and pulled her through the front door.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Zoë replied gently.

“Dr. Stanley called while you were gone too – he sounded surprised to hear that you’d up and vanished…”

Zoë sniffed. “Dr. Stanley is a worry-wart, Gram. I’m fine – as you can see…”

“I’m just glad you’re home!”

“Uh…” The redhead paused just outside the door of the bedroom that had been hers for almost longer than she could remember. “Jarod didn’t happen to call too, did he?”

“Jarod?” Her grandmother’s bright blue eyes twinkled merrily. “No, your young man didn’t call – were you expecting him to?”

Zoë sighed. She needed to hear from him. There was… there was something she needed to talk to him about… no… that wasn’t quite it… “Well, I haven’t heard from him for a while – I was thinking that maybe he’d gotten some time off so he could come spend it with us for a change…”

Gram merely smiled and shook her head. “Maybe you should call HIM for a change.”

The red curls shook. “He’s such a busy man, Gram. I prefer to let him take the lead…”

“Damned fool time to be old-fashioned, Zoë. I hear modern women don’t sit around and wait for their men to finally wake up and smell the coffee…”

Zoë moved into the bedroom and tossed her purse on the bed. Her mind was filled with Jarod – and the driving need to see him again. The last cell phone number he’d given her years ago wasn’t good anymore – and he’d not seen fit to give her a more recent working one. He was still the man of mystery…

“Now don’t you just pine away in there,” Gram was chiding from the open doorway. “You look as if you haven’t been eating hardly anything where you were – and I’ve got some leftover fried chicken in the fridge. Come out now, and get some food in you. How do you expect to keep your health up if you don’t eat…”

Zoë let her grandmother’s words just wash over her like a comfortable and warm blanket of caring. She’d missed this lately… funny how she couldn’t quite remember where she’d been after all. She HAD been to see another doctor – hadn’t she?

Where WAS Jarod – and why wasn’t he calling?

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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