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Disclaimer : The Pretender and all character associated with it belongs to NBC and 20th Century Fox. I'm not making any money out of this and no infringement is intended.
Descent to Darkness part III
Damage Control
By Allie Davidson
The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware
"Daddy, I-I" Miss Parker said as she walked into her father's office. She stopped short as she spied Brigitte. "I need to talk to you... alone," she added, leveling a hard stare at the other woman
"Well, Miss Parker, if you have something to say don't you think both your mommy and your daddy should hear what you have to say?"
Miss Parker crossed the room and looked down at Brigitte where she leaned a hip on the corner of Mr. Parker's desk. "You are not my mother and the word I would apply to you, I have the decency not to say in the presence ofmy father. Now get out."
Mr. Parker stood and inserted himself between the two women, nodding at Brigitte as he did so, a silent request for her to leave. A good thing he did ask the woman to leave, Miss Parker thought as she turned to stare out the window. She listened to Brigitte's footsteps cross the office, then the door opening and closing. After what Brigitte did to Jarod, she was lucky to be walking out instead of writhing on the floor with a bullet in her kneecap.
"What is it you want, Angel?" her father voice came from behind her.
Miss Parker detected a hint of exasperation in his tone.. He wanted her to get along with Brigitte, but she'd embrace Lyle as her blood brother before she'd used the word 'mother' on that woman. Miss Parker turned and studied her father for a few minutes. Little happened around The Centre without her father knowing. But did he know of Jarod's capture? Perhaps he knew that Lyle and Brigitte had Jarod in SL-27, at least until a few nights ago. How could he dare to keep that information from her if he did? She decided to play it straight.
"Daddy, I have Jarod."
Mr. Parker stiffened at that and his eyebrows rose. She couldn't decipher the fleeting expression on his face before it disappeared.
"That is outstanding. But if you have him, why isn't he here?" he asked with an edge to his voice.
Careful, she warned herself. This man was her father, but he was also a company man and she wouldn't want to make him choose between her and The Centre.
"Because recently I've had cause to question the loyalties of some of the employees of The Centre." She looked at him pointedly. "Lately I'm not certain who I can trust."
"Am I included in that group?"
"I don't know daddy, should you be?"
"I am always on your side, Angel," he said with a patented daddy smile, which to Miss Parker only served to give his words the opposite meaning.
Miss Parker crossed her arms. "Have you ever considered that Jarod has every right to be free? That he is not a slave to the Centre?"
"You are asking questions that got your mother killed," he said as he came up behind her.
She blinked back sudden tears while she studied his face. He didn't blink, didn't look away, just looked at her. "Is that why mother was killed? She believed that the Centre has no right to hold people hostage?"
"Jarod was raised by the Centre, he is the Centre's child and we are his parents. He is a runaway and like any parent we are concerned. Angel," he said and rested his hands on her shoulders, "the man is like a small boy. He isn't mentally equipped to live outside the Centre. The Centre psychologists are concerned about him, they are afraid that his vigilantism will turn violent."
"Daddy, when I bring Jarod in, what does the Centre plan to do with him?"
Mr. Parker slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Now angel, that wouldn't concern you-"
Miss Parker ducked away from him. "Are you going to allow Lyle to have him again? To treat him like some subhuman lab experiment?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." He blinked a few times.
"Don't patronize me," she returned, her voice edged with frustration and anger. "You see the budget, your signature is on it. Don't tell me you know nothing about SL-27."
"Angel, trust me, there is nothing down there."
For a moment, Miss Parker wanted to believe her father. "Trust? There is that word again, as if it has any meaning at The Centre," she ground out.
"The explosion destroyed everything, and almost us with it."
"That isn't what I'm talking about, daddy, I was down there recently. Someone has used the Centre's finances to repair it and create new sim labs." Her father looked surprised, but Miss Parker didn't know if it was because she knew about SL-27, or because he didn't know that SL-27 was back in business.
"You must be mistaken," he said finally.
"I know what I saw," Miss Parker replied. "Are you saying you don't believe me?"
"No... no, I believe you. But what were you doing down there?"
"Following a tip--."
The door to Mr. Parker's office opened and Lyle put his head in.
"Am I interrupting anything?" he asked with that I'm-so-innocent bland expression. Miss Parker wanted to slap it off. He made Satan look like a newborn lamb.
"Look what crawled out from under its rock. I think we should show Daddy the nice way you fixed up SL-27."
"SL-27 is destroyed. There is nothing down there." He came into the office and closed the door behind him. He looked too smug for her peace of mind. She couldn't believe they were related.
Miss Parker walked over to Lyle and leaned close to him. "You lie," she whispered, then aloud for the benefit of her father said: "I think we should all go down to hell and take a tour."
"Hell?" Mr. Parker echoed.
"SL-27," Miss Parker replied.
Father and son glanced at one another, but Miss Parker wasn't sure how to interpret it.
****
Jarod staggered down the back staircase of the hotel. He leaned heavily on the stair handrail to hold himself upright, without it he would have fallen. At the bottom of the stairwell he propped himself against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment. The short trip from his room exhausted him. A bout of shivers raced over his body, his knees buckled and he swallowed back bile rising in his throat. He gulped deep breaths of air that helped clear his head.
Bracing himself against the wall, he shoved the back door open with his foot and stared out the door into the back alley. Freezing air rushed over him, plastering his sweat-damp clothing to his body. He took a breath to gather strength then staggered out and losing his balance, topped into a trio of trashcans. They rattled to the ground and he with them. He could only hope the sound wouldn't attract any attention, knowing he'd be unable to do anything if it did. Shaking uncontrollably, he managed to pull himself to his feet.
A brisk wind slanted down a chilling rain that soaked through his thin flannel shirt and blue jeans. His feet were bare; he couldn't feel his toes. He hadn't had time to find any other clothing; he had only thought of escape, the notion of going back to the Centre was unbearable. He didn't know how long he had before Sam regained consciousness so he had to put as much distance between . For all he knew, the man could be coming after him now. That thought lent some strength to his shaky legs. Placing one hand against the building's brick wall for support and clutching the shirt to his shivering body with the other, he walked unsteadily down toward the alleyway entrance.
A few cars passed, their tires slicing through the sheet of water on the street. On the opposite side of the street, a pedestrian carrying an umbrella hurried against the rain, soon she was out of sight. Out of breath and ready to collapse, Jarod leaned his shoulder against the building just inside the alleyway. A woman holding a rain hood over her head passed by him, saw him then cringed away with a startled gasp and ran across the street. He wondered at that, why she would be afraid of him. For the first time in his life thinking was difficult, his head throbbed and his thoughts were incoherent and fuzzy.
A brown truck decelerated and stopped at the curb. Jarod lifted his head and watched the brown uniformed driver jump out with a box under his arm and disappeared inside a building. Coherent thoughts tried to fight through the haze in his brain, but instead survival instinct took over.
Jarod looked over his shoulder. He didn't have time to think a plan through. Shoving off from the wall, he half-ran, half-staggered toward the truck, climbed in and fell into the back. Rising to his hands and knees, he crawled to the rear of the truck where he found a canvas tarp lying behind a stack of boxes. Thankful for the cover, he curled up under the tarp, drew his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around his knees and shivered.
The trucked slightly sagged to one side as the driver climbed in, put the truck in gear and drove off.
****
Miss Parker walked out of the elevator and into the burnt out hull of SL-27 and stopped short. She looked around in amazement. She shined the flashlight beam into abandoned offices and across blackened walls. What had been a subfloor of sim labs and offices was nothing but charred remains, like it always had been. Even the air smelt burnt and stale.
"See Angel, there is nothing down here," Mr. Parker said as he walked a few steps into the sublevel. He stared around with undisguised distaste.
"It was here and so was..." she stopped, realized what she was about to say.
"And so was who, sis?" Lyle asked as he came up beside her. He tucked his hands into his pants trousers, his face expressionless.
"And so was I," she competed the sentence. She walked a few more steps down the hallway and trained the beam of the flashlight into a burnt out room. She had to give the devil his due; Lyle certainly knew how to cover his tracks. She turned to her father. "I am positive that this sublevel had been redone, that two days ago SL-27 had been restored and contained fully operational simlabs."
"Perhaps you're thinking about SL-24. We just had it remodeled with the latest of cutting edge equipment," Mr. Parker said. "Come, I'll give you a personal tour." Mr. Parker took her arm and she allowed him to lead her away, Lyle already strode ahead of them appearing eager to leave.
"Oh wait, my heel is stuck," Miss Parker said, bent down and snatched up a shiny disk her flashlight had picked up. It looked like a DSA though she couldn't be certain. It was partially covered with soot and she didn't dare pause to examine it and she slipped it into her coat pocket. She entered the elevator and stood silently between Lyle and her father and realized not even the presence of her father gave her comfort. The only people in the Centre she could completely trust were Sydney and Broots, the only people who would not lie or deceive her. Her father looked over at her and smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkling up the way they always did. His smile only increased her uneasiness.
The elevator slid open to SL-24 and Miss Parker stepped out with her brother and father flanking her. SL-24 appeared to be an exact duplicate of what she had seen of SL-27 the night they had rescued Jarod. Did she imagined SL-27? Could Angelo have taken them not to SL-27, but here? She didn't think Angelo would make that kind of mistake. She walked down the hall and looked around while summoning all her willpower to mask her shock.
At the cell where she was certain they had found Jarod, she stopped. There was no passcode pad and she turned the knob and opened the door.
"Excuse me?" asked a lab-coated woman behind a desk. She set aside a stack of papers and laced her fingers across the top of her desk. "May I help you?"
Miss Parker didn't answer as she stood in the middle of the office and stared around her. "No," she finally managed as the woman patiently waited for her reply. "No, you can't help me." She walked out of the office, closed the door and found Lyle coming up behind her. Her father had stopped down the hall to talk to a woman wearing a white smock over a business suit.
"Looking for something?" Lyle asked.
"Should I be, or should I ask the same question of you? What are you looking for?"
"Perhaps the same thing you are." His hands were back in his pockets as her regarded her steadily. "Willing to negotiate?"
"Depends on the terms and conditions."
"We share the credit."
"That's nice Lyle, but I don't share. Let me remind you that possession is 9/10th of the law."
"What do you think, Angel," Mr. Parker asked as he joined them, cutting short their conversation. He looked pleased as he stared around the sterile-looking white walls. "Lyle brought in a few new accounts and the research will be handled here in the new labs."
"What type of research?" Miss Parker asked.
"Forensics. We will be working with more then a dozen law enforcement and federal agencies. Would you like to continue with the tour?"
"It's impressive Daddy, but think I've seen enough," she said, her gaze momentarily lingered on Lyle before she turned back to the elevator.
"There are a few people I need to see while I'm down here," Mr. Parker called after her. "I'll see you two later."
Lyle walked with her, keeping step with her long angry strides. She preferred he stayed but telling him to piss off would show weakness, instead she endured his presence with stoic silence.
"Convinced?" he finally asked as they walked into the elevator and the doors closed behind them.
"Convinced of what? Your lucky ability to cover your ass?"
That bland look was back on his face. "I could have told you that there was no SL-27 and save us all an unpleasant excursion."
"Lyle, you have to be trusted by the people whom you lie to."
"Sisterly advice?"
"A warning, Lyle, because I'm not buying any of this. I know what I saw."
She stood close to him. "One day soon, your brown-nosing and your lies aren't going to save you and I'm going to be waiting with a 9mm, and this time when I pull the trigger it won't be a warning shot."
Lyle laughed; the merriment didn't reach his eyes. They both knew she referred to the bullet she had fired over his shoulder the last time he'd come to her office.
"I think you're threatening me. I don't like threats."
The elevator opened up to her office floor and she smiled at him, anger tightening her lips as she walked out.
"That's too damn bad, Lyle. Let me remind you of two things. One, I don't lie and two, that wasn't a threat."
She smiled at him as the elevator doors closed. As the smile faded from her face, she detoured by her office towards Broots. This was the first time all day that she felt good. Opening the door she walked into Broots's enclave of dim lights and humming computer equipment.
A headphone set covered Broots's ears as he sung in an off-key falsetto voice while bobbing his head in time to music she couldn't hear.
"Broots," she said in a normal tone. He was oblivious to her presence. She leaned over and lifted one side of the earphones off his ear. "Broots!" she shouted and chuckled as he jumped and nearly fell out of his chair.
"Ah! Uh! Miss.... Miss Parker." He tore the headphones off his head, clicked the computer mouse on the screen to turn the music off then looked up at her. "What ah, can I help you with?"
"You can stop singing for one thing." She looked across his desk and saw a CD jewel case and picked it up and turned it over to look at the cover. He cringed in his chair as she read the title. "The Spice Girls? Broots, I didn't know your taste in music ran to teeny-bopper hip-hop."
Broots squirmed in his seat. "Debbie likes them so she wanted me to listen to them--."
"Forget it Broots, you don't have to justify your music tastes to me. I'll be worried though if you start listening to Barney songs." Miss Parker dropped the jewel case back on his desk. She handed him the burnt disk she had picked up on SL-27. "This DSA is in bad shape," he said turning it over, blowing on it, then pulling a tissue out of a holder and trying to wipe the soot off. "Where'd you get it."
"SL-27."
"What!" He stared at the disk with furious intensity. "How did you get it?"
"Let's just say that SL-27 is no longer there."
"That's impossible, we were there."
"Apparently Lyle had to cover his tracks when we extracted his guest. Think you can get any images from this DSA?"
"I'll do my best." He looked up at her. "I'll take it down to the lab and have my friend put it through a wash."
"Don't tell anyone where you got the disk, don't let anyone view it and call me when you're ready to look at it." Her cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her suit coat pocket. "What!"
"Miss Parker, this is Sydney. I need you down at the safehouse. He is gone."
"Damnit! There'd better be a good explanation," she ground out, her good mood evaporating. "I'll be there in a half." She clicked the phone closed and returned it to the coat pocket. "Broots, I want you to walk that DSA down to the lab, now!"
****
"Doctor, I'm pleased you could stop by," Lyle said as he escorted his visitor to his office door. "I think our arrangement will be mutually beneficial."
"I trust you will have the facilities ready by the end of the month?" he asked. He was short, his hair thinning and eyeglasses magnified with benevolent eyes.
"As we agreed upon."
"Very good. I shall be looking forward to working with you." The doctor held out his hand and they shook.
At that moment Brigitte breezed in. "I didn't realize you had a visitor."
She cast a coy smile at Lyle's visitor. The doctor nodded once toward her, then again toward Lyle.
"I can see myself out, Mr. Lyle," the doctor said, then exited the office and the door closed behind him.
Lyle crossed to his chair, sat down and leaned back, lacing his hands across his stomach. That meeting had gone well, better than expected. If all went well with the doctor and the new facility, Jarod would be obsolete. He thought about calling off his own personal sweeper team looking for Jarod. They hadn't turned up anything, including where Parker kept Jarod-that is if she still had him. As brilliant as the pretender was, keeping him contained and making him work required too much overhead and politicking. Someone younger would be more cooperative and malleable.
"Thinking too hard, Mr. Lyle?" Brigitte said.
Lyle swung around in his chair. He had almost forgot she was there. "Thinking of alternatives and possibilities. How goes the search for Jarod?" For now, Brigitte didn't know of his new and bold endeavor. No one at the Centre did. It would be better that way, the Triumvirate wouldn't tolerate his striking out on his own. But trying to continue his own profitable research facility under the Centre's roof had become too risky.
"Not well," Brigitte said, taking the lollipop out of her mouth and giving it a long slow lick. "We've tried following Miss Parker, but she is your sister after all, she's much too good and paranoid. She knows she is being followed. I thought my idea of the funeral was perfect."
"It was," Lyle agreed. "That plan was not the problem, the problem is a leak at the Centre."
"You don't think it's Miss Parker? Or perhaps Sydney."
"No, someone else inside the Centre tipped them about Jarod." Lyle rested an elbow on his desk and propped his chin on his knuckles. "But I'll find the leak and fix it permanently."
"Really? I like that sound of that." Brigitte leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Maybe."
Brigitte giggled. "Your daddy won't like this. He doesn't like secrets."
He doesn't know the half of it, Lyle thought and half-smiled. "Daddy won't know, will he?"
"Mommy won't tell him," Brigitte said and sucked on her lollipop.
****
The outside room was empty. The chair where Sam should be sitting was vacant. The door to Jarod's room stood ajar. She drew her gun, pushed the door open with her foot and entered. A cracked ceramic lamp lay near Sam where he sat on the floor, Sydney knelt next to him. She lowered her gun and took a deep breath as she looked at the empty bed.
"Son of a bitch!" she stamped a foot in frustration. She holstered her gun and pinched the bridge of her nose between a thumb and forefinger then turned to Sam and Sydney. "Is he alright?" she asked at last. Damn Jarod! she thought. Eight hours ago he could barely sit up unassisted.
Sydney had Sam propped up against the wall. The man was coming back to consciousness. He had a red lump on the side of his temple where Jarod had hit him with the lamp. Sam opened his eyes and squinted at the light.
Miss Parker knelt next to him.
"What happened?"
"Jarod called for help. I came in and that's when he hit me. I didn't think he had the strength." Sam held a hand to the bump on his head and flinched.
"He shouldn't," Sydney replied. "Jarod is still weak and sick."
"How long ago?" Miss Parker asked, resisting the urge to shake the man.
"I'm not certain."
"He might still be in the area," Sydney said. "We should check all the hospitals, all the buildings and alleyways. I don't think he could go far. If he stays out in this weather he could die."
Miss Parker stood and turned toward the door. "What was that?" she whispered, then moved to the wall by the door to listen. Sydney looked up at her and began to speak but she held a finger to her lips and shook her head.
Back pressed against the wall, she rolled on her shoulder around the doorjamb to the outside room, her gun held at arms length. The room was empty. She lowered her gun and walked quietly to the door to the outside hallway and laid her hand on the doorknob. She had closed the door when she came in and now it wasn't latched. She put a finger in between door and doorjamb and silently pushed it open. She heard retreating footsteps.
Miss Parker hissed between her teeth. Someone had followed her. She knew to be more careful, that Lyle would do anything to find Jarod's location. Miss Parker stayed on her tiptoes to keep her heels from tapping on the bare wood floor as she hurried down the hall, down the stairs and across the shabby lobby to the sidewalk. She looked up the street and then down the other. A familiar black sedan was parked down the block on the opposite side of the road.
Miss Parker silently moved forward. Inside the sedan she could see Brigitte's silhouette picking up what looked like a cell phone. Parker crouched-walked toward the car and ducked down beside the door, her weapon held barrel up in a confident grip. She could hear Brigitte's muffled voice.
"It's Brigitte," the woman said. "Yes, I found where she was keeping him but I think he escaped." She paused, listening to the voice on the other end of the connection. "They don't know how long he's been gone. Yes, darling, a sweeper team in this area would be a good idea as long as they can do their job without alerting Miss Parker.
Miss Parker yanked open the door and jerked the phone out of Brigitte's hand. The woman obviously had not been expecting company. Miss Parker held the phone to her ear while keeping her gun trained on Brigitte. "Who the hell is this?" Miss Parker demanded. Whoever was on the other end of the line hung up. Miss Parker closed the phone with a snap of her wrist, then tossed it into the empty back seat. "Who were you talking to?" she asked the woman and pressed the gun inches form her smug face.
"Why Miss Parker, you're not going to shot me now, are you?"
"It's tempting. I like the thought of seeing your gray matter splattered on the upholstery and the thought of never hearing your voice again."
Miss Parker heard someone come up next to her. It was Syd.
"Leave her be, Parker," Sydney said.
Miss Parker hesitated, then reluctantly lowered her gun.
"You two look like someone spit in your beer," Brigitte said, her usual cheekiness returning. "Lose something?" She smiled. "Possession is 9/10th of the law." She started up the car as Miss Parker raised her gun.
To hell with the Centre, she thought as she aimed. Sydney pushed her arm to the side as the car sped off. The bullet ricocheted up into an empty neighboring building.
"Don't allow her to goad you into making a mistake, Parker," Sydney said, always the man with the wise words.
Miss Parker felt her anger melt. He was right. She lowered her gun and holstered it. "At least we know that they don't have him."
"No one will if we don't find him soon," Sydney said.
****
A violent bout of shivers woke Jarod. His teeth chattered together and his body convulsed. He opened his eyes and looked around him. He felt disoriented for a moment before remembering he had hitched a ride in the back of the delivery truck. The interior was dark. He didn't know how long he had lain here. He climbed out from under the tarp and staggered to the front of the truck and looked out.
Yellow night lamps dimly lit a shipping warehouse filled with box roller-ramps and brown delivery trucks. Jarod climbed out, the cement floor was cold on his bare feet. He knew he had to find clothing and food.
The first door he opened revealed a customer service counter. He closed the door and continued his search. At the back of the warehouse, he opened another door and found himself looking into a break room. He quickly explored the room and beyond that he discovered a locker room. In a quick search of the lockers he found a brown delivery uniform that was too short and wide for him. He didn't care; he put the clothing on and used a belt to cinch the wide trouser-waist around him. He found socks, but no shoes. The socks were better than nothing. In another locker he found a fleece lined nylon jacket and he put it on, grateful that this item fit him better than the
trousers.
The refrigerator in the break room contained a half dozen lunch bags and soft drinks. Jarod wolfed down a ham sandwich and a pack of Twinkies he found in one bag. The Twinkies were excellent. He made a mental note to try more of them again. The creamy center was the best. Still hungry, he found a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in another bag and gulped down two cans of soda. A cardboard display box held several dozens bags of chips and crackers. He ate three bags before feeling better. The food should help warm him up, too.
Now full and feeling better and more alert, Jarod knew he'd have to do something about his situation. He opened a door that opened up to the outside parking lot. Dawn had begun to light the sky to the east. The sound of a starting engine caught his attention. A driver blowing into their cold hands climbed out of a brown semi-truck and hurried toward the warehouse. Jarod halfway closed the door and watched the driver through a crack. When they entered the main warehouse, Jarod sprinted out the door toward the semi. It wasn't his best 50-yard dash, but he made it to the truck without falling. The food and the warm clothes had returned some of his strength. He looked into the back of the truck. The trailer was half loaded with boxes. If he guessed right, this delivery truck might be heading out of state, and the further away from the Centre he could get, the better. He climbed in and squeezed into the back of the truck between a stack of boxes. This time there was no tarp to hide under and Jarod only hope that the driver would close the door and drive away without inspecting the contents.
****
"Miss Parker," Broots said as he sidled up to her in the hallway. Sydney was with him. "Are you ready to look at the DSA?"
"Broots said you found the DSA in SL-27," Sydney said. "What did you see down there?"
"Nothing. The entire level destroyed by fire. Daddy didn't believe when I told him it had been restored. He took me to SL-24 and it's an exact replica of SL-27."
"We don't know for certain that we were in SL-27, only that Angelo took us to Jarod. Did you see anything that indicated what level we were on?"
"Are you denying what we saw that night?"
"Not denying, Parker, only wondering at what is going on and who is involved," he stressed. "The cover-up of Jarod's capture and the renovation of SL-27, if it indeed was SL-27, might go to the deepest levels of the Centre or beyond. We may only think we know what is going on."
Miss Parker wondered about her blood pressure. If her private physician knew her current state he would probably give her a sedative. Damn! What the hell was going on and who the hell was involved? She could trust Sydney and Broots, but the three of them seemed such an insignificant team against the Centre and their machinations.
"Miss Parker," Broots said again, this time a little louder. "The DSA?"
"Why don't you announce it to the entire Centre," she snapped and stared at him until he dropped his gaze. It wasn't his fault, and felt a tiny twinge of guilt for taking her anger out of him. After all, he had been diligent in his task of restoring the burned DSA. "Okay, let's see what you have."
Broots suddenly dropped his gaze, shuffled his feet and held the DSA behind his back. Sydney cleared his throat. Miss Parker turned around and came face to face with her favorite wheezing demon. His flat snake-like gaze brushed over them, stopping to rest on Broots before continuing to her.
"Dr. Raines, you look different today. Is that a new oxygen tank?" she asked with a pseudo-smile. She wouldn't be surprised if he had been involved with Jarod's containment in SL-27.
"Do you know something that you should be telling the rest of us, Miss Parker?" Raines wheezed.
"Funny, I thought of asking you the very same question," she replied. "But I'm beginning to think that if anyone came up with a straight answer in this place, it'd stick in their throat and they'd choke and die on it."
"Despite what you think you may know, Jarod should be your first priority. You're wasting your time on Centre business that doesn't concern you."
"Oh, and what business would that be, exactly? Bring SL-27 back to life? I'm beginning to wonder if chasing Jarod has become an excuse to keep me away from the Centre while you do Lyle's dirty work."
Raines took a deep raspy breath. "You would do well to remember what your job is Miss Parker."
"So this hallway chit-chat is a complete waste of precious timeand keeping me away from my objective. If you'll excuse me." She left Raines standing and staring after her as she strode down the hallway.
Broots jogged to keep up with her, Sydney following at a slower pace.
"I can't believe you spoke to Raines that way."
"They have no expectations of me catching Jarod, this is all a witch hunt to distract me from their real purpose."
"The Pretender program," Sydney said softly.
"They--whoever they are--are taking this to another level. Beyond any previous Pretender project. I wonder exactly who Lyle's new clients are."
"Clients?" Sydney echoed.
"That information came up in a little conversation I had with daddy and Lyle while touring SL-24. Lyle brought the Centre new clients." Miss Parker stood abruptly and Broots had to sidestep to keep from running into her. "Broots, I need you to snoop around."
"Don't I always," he mumbled as they arrived at his office and the three entered.
Broots sat as his desk and inserted the DSA into player while Miss Parker locked the door with a decisive click.
"Are you ready?" he asked softly.
Sydney and Miss Parker gathered behind his disk and Broots hit the play button.
The screen fuzzed and background voices were unintelligible, then cleared into startling, horrifying clarity.
"Oh. My. God." Miss Parker's eyes widened as she stepped away from the images on the screen, as if putting distance between her and these atrocities would make them somehow go away.
****
The first thing Jarod noticed was that he was warm and comfortable. He gathered his thoughts and remembered that he had hid inside a semi-truck. Had the Centre found him? He slowly became aware of other things, sounds, voices, and antiseptic smells. A hospital? He opened his eyes, squinting at first.
"Nice to see that you've decided to join the living," a female voice said, thankfully not Miss Parker's. Jarod turned toward the voice and found a young woman sitting in a chair. She wore a brown uniform. She stood and walked to his bedside. Jarod had the impression of height. Her long brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. She smiled down at him.
"Where am I?" he asked, his voice rough.
"John Hopkins hospital. My brother is a doctor here," she replied.
"I'm in Baltimore?" This was better than Jarod hoped for. The Centre wouldn't be able to track him here.
"Baltimore Maryland," she affirmed. "A forklift operator found you in the back of my truck this evening at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport. You almost took a tip to the west coast. We though you were dead. An ambulance brought you here. Do you remember?"
The west coast wouldn't be bad, Jarod thought then realized she was waiting for an answer. "Yes, I remember."
"Do you usually stow away on delivery trucks?"
"Not when I can take an airplane," he joked, trying to ease the woman.
She did laugh.
"What should I call you besides my Stowaway? You have no ID. The hospital has you listed as John Doe."
"My name is Jarod," he replied, winced and held a hand to his head.
"Just Jarod?"
Jarod thought quickly and looked around the room. He spotted a copy of Reader's Digest. "Jarod Reed."
"Well, Jarod Reed, I'm Debbie Platt," she replied and held out her hand.
"Nice to meet you Debbie," Jarod said.
"The delivery company could press charges, but we won't. It seems to me that you have enough problems of your own. If you need a job or something, my uncle owns a small warehousing business. He could use a hand in the warehouse. You look like you could lift some hefty boxes."
Perhaps it wasn't a bad idea to lay low for awhile, Jarod thought to himself as he looked around the hospital room. He suddenly noticed a weekly news magazine next to the Reader's Digest on the table. "Excuse me, could you pass me that magazine?"
"This?" she held up the Newsweek and passed it to him when he nodded.
On the cover was a photo collage of a recent drug bust. An uneasy feeling crept over Jarod as he flipped to the page and began reading the story. The largest heroine drug bust in history had occurred in California. The shipment had originated from Florida where arrests had been made and the guilty parties jailed and awaiting trial. There was something important about this, Jarod knew, but what? His mind was still fuzzy. He stared at the article, looking at the accompanying photos. Why should this story be important to him? One face in a photo, the face of a DEA agent, stared back at him. In the background, bundles of drug were being loaded into a unmarked van. The drugs were in California, the trial would be in Florida. The drugs needed to be shipped to Florida. By van? No. Too slow. Shipped by plane, he realized. Shipped to Florida where the evidence would be held until the perpetrator's trial.
The memory of the highjacking sim he had been forced to perform for Lyle made him jerk upright. He gripped the sides of the hospital bed as the magazine slipped to the floor. Was this it? The plane in the sim had been filled with drugs. But it could be any plane, and there had been no evidence to link it to a bust in California.
Jarod's pretender intuition told him not to take a chance.
"I have to get out of here." He threw the blankets aside, a plan already formulating in his mind. "It may already be too late."
"You can't leave," Debbie said, and tried to push him back to he bed.
"If I don't, innocent people will die."
****
Two days later, somewhere in California.
"Okay, agents!" FBI special agent Jim Castor clapped his hand and the hum of voices in the room quieted. "The shipment is ready to go out tonight. You all have your assignments. Let's make this trip smooth. Agent Henderson is ill and has been grounded. Your new pilot is Agent Jarod Reed." A tall, dark-haired man stepped forward and nodded to the group.
"According to reports," Agent Reed said with a sly grin, his narrowed eyes looked at each of the six DEA agents who would be on board, "our flight should be smooth all the way to Florida."
End of Part III
Next Part IV "Zero Chance"
Damage Control
By Allie Davidson
The Centre, Blue Cove, Delaware
"Daddy, I-I" Miss Parker said as she walked into her father's office. She stopped short as she spied Brigitte. "I need to talk to you... alone," she added, leveling a hard stare at the other woman
"Well, Miss Parker, if you have something to say don't you think both your mommy and your daddy should hear what you have to say?"
Miss Parker crossed the room and looked down at Brigitte where she leaned a hip on the corner of Mr. Parker's desk. "You are not my mother and the word I would apply to you, I have the decency not to say in the presence ofmy father. Now get out."
Mr. Parker stood and inserted himself between the two women, nodding at Brigitte as he did so, a silent request for her to leave. A good thing he did ask the woman to leave, Miss Parker thought as she turned to stare out the window. She listened to Brigitte's footsteps cross the office, then the door opening and closing. After what Brigitte did to Jarod, she was lucky to be walking out instead of writhing on the floor with a bullet in her kneecap.
"What is it you want, Angel?" her father voice came from behind her.
Miss Parker detected a hint of exasperation in his tone.. He wanted her to get along with Brigitte, but she'd embrace Lyle as her blood brother before she'd used the word 'mother' on that woman. Miss Parker turned and studied her father for a few minutes. Little happened around The Centre without her father knowing. But did he know of Jarod's capture? Perhaps he knew that Lyle and Brigitte had Jarod in SL-27, at least until a few nights ago. How could he dare to keep that information from her if he did? She decided to play it straight.
"Daddy, I have Jarod."
Mr. Parker stiffened at that and his eyebrows rose. She couldn't decipher the fleeting expression on his face before it disappeared.
"That is outstanding. But if you have him, why isn't he here?" he asked with an edge to his voice.
Careful, she warned herself. This man was her father, but he was also a company man and she wouldn't want to make him choose between her and The Centre.
"Because recently I've had cause to question the loyalties of some of the employees of The Centre." She looked at him pointedly. "Lately I'm not certain who I can trust."
"Am I included in that group?"
"I don't know daddy, should you be?"
"I am always on your side, Angel," he said with a patented daddy smile, which to Miss Parker only served to give his words the opposite meaning.
Miss Parker crossed her arms. "Have you ever considered that Jarod has every right to be free? That he is not a slave to the Centre?"
"You are asking questions that got your mother killed," he said as he came up behind her.
She blinked back sudden tears while she studied his face. He didn't blink, didn't look away, just looked at her. "Is that why mother was killed? She believed that the Centre has no right to hold people hostage?"
"Jarod was raised by the Centre, he is the Centre's child and we are his parents. He is a runaway and like any parent we are concerned. Angel," he said and rested his hands on her shoulders, "the man is like a small boy. He isn't mentally equipped to live outside the Centre. The Centre psychologists are concerned about him, they are afraid that his vigilantism will turn violent."
"Daddy, when I bring Jarod in, what does the Centre plan to do with him?"
Mr. Parker slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Now angel, that wouldn't concern you-"
Miss Parker ducked away from him. "Are you going to allow Lyle to have him again? To treat him like some subhuman lab experiment?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." He blinked a few times.
"Don't patronize me," she returned, her voice edged with frustration and anger. "You see the budget, your signature is on it. Don't tell me you know nothing about SL-27."
"Angel, trust me, there is nothing down there."
For a moment, Miss Parker wanted to believe her father. "Trust? There is that word again, as if it has any meaning at The Centre," she ground out.
"The explosion destroyed everything, and almost us with it."
"That isn't what I'm talking about, daddy, I was down there recently. Someone has used the Centre's finances to repair it and create new sim labs." Her father looked surprised, but Miss Parker didn't know if it was because she knew about SL-27, or because he didn't know that SL-27 was back in business.
"You must be mistaken," he said finally.
"I know what I saw," Miss Parker replied. "Are you saying you don't believe me?"
"No... no, I believe you. But what were you doing down there?"
"Following a tip--."
The door to Mr. Parker's office opened and Lyle put his head in.
"Am I interrupting anything?" he asked with that I'm-so-innocent bland expression. Miss Parker wanted to slap it off. He made Satan look like a newborn lamb.
"Look what crawled out from under its rock. I think we should show Daddy the nice way you fixed up SL-27."
"SL-27 is destroyed. There is nothing down there." He came into the office and closed the door behind him. He looked too smug for her peace of mind. She couldn't believe they were related.
Miss Parker walked over to Lyle and leaned close to him. "You lie," she whispered, then aloud for the benefit of her father said: "I think we should all go down to hell and take a tour."
"Hell?" Mr. Parker echoed.
"SL-27," Miss Parker replied.
Father and son glanced at one another, but Miss Parker wasn't sure how to interpret it.
****
Jarod staggered down the back staircase of the hotel. He leaned heavily on the stair handrail to hold himself upright, without it he would have fallen. At the bottom of the stairwell he propped himself against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment. The short trip from his room exhausted him. A bout of shivers raced over his body, his knees buckled and he swallowed back bile rising in his throat. He gulped deep breaths of air that helped clear his head.
Bracing himself against the wall, he shoved the back door open with his foot and stared out the door into the back alley. Freezing air rushed over him, plastering his sweat-damp clothing to his body. He took a breath to gather strength then staggered out and losing his balance, topped into a trio of trashcans. They rattled to the ground and he with them. He could only hope the sound wouldn't attract any attention, knowing he'd be unable to do anything if it did. Shaking uncontrollably, he managed to pull himself to his feet.
A brisk wind slanted down a chilling rain that soaked through his thin flannel shirt and blue jeans. His feet were bare; he couldn't feel his toes. He hadn't had time to find any other clothing; he had only thought of escape, the notion of going back to the Centre was unbearable. He didn't know how long he had before Sam regained consciousness so he had to put as much distance between . For all he knew, the man could be coming after him now. That thought lent some strength to his shaky legs. Placing one hand against the building's brick wall for support and clutching the shirt to his shivering body with the other, he walked unsteadily down toward the alleyway entrance.
A few cars passed, their tires slicing through the sheet of water on the street. On the opposite side of the street, a pedestrian carrying an umbrella hurried against the rain, soon she was out of sight. Out of breath and ready to collapse, Jarod leaned his shoulder against the building just inside the alleyway. A woman holding a rain hood over her head passed by him, saw him then cringed away with a startled gasp and ran across the street. He wondered at that, why she would be afraid of him. For the first time in his life thinking was difficult, his head throbbed and his thoughts were incoherent and fuzzy.
A brown truck decelerated and stopped at the curb. Jarod lifted his head and watched the brown uniformed driver jump out with a box under his arm and disappeared inside a building. Coherent thoughts tried to fight through the haze in his brain, but instead survival instinct took over.
Jarod looked over his shoulder. He didn't have time to think a plan through. Shoving off from the wall, he half-ran, half-staggered toward the truck, climbed in and fell into the back. Rising to his hands and knees, he crawled to the rear of the truck where he found a canvas tarp lying behind a stack of boxes. Thankful for the cover, he curled up under the tarp, drew his knees up to his chest, wrapped his arms around his knees and shivered.
The trucked slightly sagged to one side as the driver climbed in, put the truck in gear and drove off.
****
Miss Parker walked out of the elevator and into the burnt out hull of SL-27 and stopped short. She looked around in amazement. She shined the flashlight beam into abandoned offices and across blackened walls. What had been a subfloor of sim labs and offices was nothing but charred remains, like it always had been. Even the air smelt burnt and stale.
"See Angel, there is nothing down here," Mr. Parker said as he walked a few steps into the sublevel. He stared around with undisguised distaste.
"It was here and so was..." she stopped, realized what she was about to say.
"And so was who, sis?" Lyle asked as he came up beside her. He tucked his hands into his pants trousers, his face expressionless.
"And so was I," she competed the sentence. She walked a few more steps down the hallway and trained the beam of the flashlight into a burnt out room. She had to give the devil his due; Lyle certainly knew how to cover his tracks. She turned to her father. "I am positive that this sublevel had been redone, that two days ago SL-27 had been restored and contained fully operational simlabs."
"Perhaps you're thinking about SL-24. We just had it remodeled with the latest of cutting edge equipment," Mr. Parker said. "Come, I'll give you a personal tour." Mr. Parker took her arm and she allowed him to lead her away, Lyle already strode ahead of them appearing eager to leave.
"Oh wait, my heel is stuck," Miss Parker said, bent down and snatched up a shiny disk her flashlight had picked up. It looked like a DSA though she couldn't be certain. It was partially covered with soot and she didn't dare pause to examine it and she slipped it into her coat pocket. She entered the elevator and stood silently between Lyle and her father and realized not even the presence of her father gave her comfort. The only people in the Centre she could completely trust were Sydney and Broots, the only people who would not lie or deceive her. Her father looked over at her and smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkling up the way they always did. His smile only increased her uneasiness.
The elevator slid open to SL-24 and Miss Parker stepped out with her brother and father flanking her. SL-24 appeared to be an exact duplicate of what she had seen of SL-27 the night they had rescued Jarod. Did she imagined SL-27? Could Angelo have taken them not to SL-27, but here? She didn't think Angelo would make that kind of mistake. She walked down the hall and looked around while summoning all her willpower to mask her shock.
At the cell where she was certain they had found Jarod, she stopped. There was no passcode pad and she turned the knob and opened the door.
"Excuse me?" asked a lab-coated woman behind a desk. She set aside a stack of papers and laced her fingers across the top of her desk. "May I help you?"
Miss Parker didn't answer as she stood in the middle of the office and stared around her. "No," she finally managed as the woman patiently waited for her reply. "No, you can't help me." She walked out of the office, closed the door and found Lyle coming up behind her. Her father had stopped down the hall to talk to a woman wearing a white smock over a business suit.
"Looking for something?" Lyle asked.
"Should I be, or should I ask the same question of you? What are you looking for?"
"Perhaps the same thing you are." His hands were back in his pockets as her regarded her steadily. "Willing to negotiate?"
"Depends on the terms and conditions."
"We share the credit."
"That's nice Lyle, but I don't share. Let me remind you that possession is 9/10th of the law."
"What do you think, Angel," Mr. Parker asked as he joined them, cutting short their conversation. He looked pleased as he stared around the sterile-looking white walls. "Lyle brought in a few new accounts and the research will be handled here in the new labs."
"What type of research?" Miss Parker asked.
"Forensics. We will be working with more then a dozen law enforcement and federal agencies. Would you like to continue with the tour?"
"It's impressive Daddy, but think I've seen enough," she said, her gaze momentarily lingered on Lyle before she turned back to the elevator.
"There are a few people I need to see while I'm down here," Mr. Parker called after her. "I'll see you two later."
Lyle walked with her, keeping step with her long angry strides. She preferred he stayed but telling him to piss off would show weakness, instead she endured his presence with stoic silence.
"Convinced?" he finally asked as they walked into the elevator and the doors closed behind them.
"Convinced of what? Your lucky ability to cover your ass?"
That bland look was back on his face. "I could have told you that there was no SL-27 and save us all an unpleasant excursion."
"Lyle, you have to be trusted by the people whom you lie to."
"Sisterly advice?"
"A warning, Lyle, because I'm not buying any of this. I know what I saw."
She stood close to him. "One day soon, your brown-nosing and your lies aren't going to save you and I'm going to be waiting with a 9mm, and this time when I pull the trigger it won't be a warning shot."
Lyle laughed; the merriment didn't reach his eyes. They both knew she referred to the bullet she had fired over his shoulder the last time he'd come to her office.
"I think you're threatening me. I don't like threats."
The elevator opened up to her office floor and she smiled at him, anger tightening her lips as she walked out.
"That's too damn bad, Lyle. Let me remind you of two things. One, I don't lie and two, that wasn't a threat."
She smiled at him as the elevator doors closed. As the smile faded from her face, she detoured by her office towards Broots. This was the first time all day that she felt good. Opening the door she walked into Broots's enclave of dim lights and humming computer equipment.
A headphone set covered Broots's ears as he sung in an off-key falsetto voice while bobbing his head in time to music she couldn't hear.
"Broots," she said in a normal tone. He was oblivious to her presence. She leaned over and lifted one side of the earphones off his ear. "Broots!" she shouted and chuckled as he jumped and nearly fell out of his chair.
"Ah! Uh! Miss.... Miss Parker." He tore the headphones off his head, clicked the computer mouse on the screen to turn the music off then looked up at her. "What ah, can I help you with?"
"You can stop singing for one thing." She looked across his desk and saw a CD jewel case and picked it up and turned it over to look at the cover. He cringed in his chair as she read the title. "The Spice Girls? Broots, I didn't know your taste in music ran to teeny-bopper hip-hop."
Broots squirmed in his seat. "Debbie likes them so she wanted me to listen to them--."
"Forget it Broots, you don't have to justify your music tastes to me. I'll be worried though if you start listening to Barney songs." Miss Parker dropped the jewel case back on his desk. She handed him the burnt disk she had picked up on SL-27. "This DSA is in bad shape," he said turning it over, blowing on it, then pulling a tissue out of a holder and trying to wipe the soot off. "Where'd you get it."
"SL-27."
"What!" He stared at the disk with furious intensity. "How did you get it?"
"Let's just say that SL-27 is no longer there."
"That's impossible, we were there."
"Apparently Lyle had to cover his tracks when we extracted his guest. Think you can get any images from this DSA?"
"I'll do my best." He looked up at her. "I'll take it down to the lab and have my friend put it through a wash."
"Don't tell anyone where you got the disk, don't let anyone view it and call me when you're ready to look at it." Her cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her suit coat pocket. "What!"
"Miss Parker, this is Sydney. I need you down at the safehouse. He is gone."
"Damnit! There'd better be a good explanation," she ground out, her good mood evaporating. "I'll be there in a half." She clicked the phone closed and returned it to the coat pocket. "Broots, I want you to walk that DSA down to the lab, now!"
****
"Doctor, I'm pleased you could stop by," Lyle said as he escorted his visitor to his office door. "I think our arrangement will be mutually beneficial."
"I trust you will have the facilities ready by the end of the month?" he asked. He was short, his hair thinning and eyeglasses magnified with benevolent eyes.
"As we agreed upon."
"Very good. I shall be looking forward to working with you." The doctor held out his hand and they shook.
At that moment Brigitte breezed in. "I didn't realize you had a visitor."
She cast a coy smile at Lyle's visitor. The doctor nodded once toward her, then again toward Lyle.
"I can see myself out, Mr. Lyle," the doctor said, then exited the office and the door closed behind him.
Lyle crossed to his chair, sat down and leaned back, lacing his hands across his stomach. That meeting had gone well, better than expected. If all went well with the doctor and the new facility, Jarod would be obsolete. He thought about calling off his own personal sweeper team looking for Jarod. They hadn't turned up anything, including where Parker kept Jarod-that is if she still had him. As brilliant as the pretender was, keeping him contained and making him work required too much overhead and politicking. Someone younger would be more cooperative and malleable.
"Thinking too hard, Mr. Lyle?" Brigitte said.
Lyle swung around in his chair. He had almost forgot she was there. "Thinking of alternatives and possibilities. How goes the search for Jarod?" For now, Brigitte didn't know of his new and bold endeavor. No one at the Centre did. It would be better that way, the Triumvirate wouldn't tolerate his striking out on his own. But trying to continue his own profitable research facility under the Centre's roof had become too risky.
"Not well," Brigitte said, taking the lollipop out of her mouth and giving it a long slow lick. "We've tried following Miss Parker, but she is your sister after all, she's much too good and paranoid. She knows she is being followed. I thought my idea of the funeral was perfect."
"It was," Lyle agreed. "That plan was not the problem, the problem is a leak at the Centre."
"You don't think it's Miss Parker? Or perhaps Sydney."
"No, someone else inside the Centre tipped them about Jarod." Lyle rested an elbow on his desk and propped his chin on his knuckles. "But I'll find the leak and fix it permanently."
"Really? I like that sound of that." Brigitte leaned forward and rested her forearms on her knees. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Maybe."
Brigitte giggled. "Your daddy won't like this. He doesn't like secrets."
He doesn't know the half of it, Lyle thought and half-smiled. "Daddy won't know, will he?"
"Mommy won't tell him," Brigitte said and sucked on her lollipop.
****
The outside room was empty. The chair where Sam should be sitting was vacant. The door to Jarod's room stood ajar. She drew her gun, pushed the door open with her foot and entered. A cracked ceramic lamp lay near Sam where he sat on the floor, Sydney knelt next to him. She lowered her gun and took a deep breath as she looked at the empty bed.
"Son of a bitch!" she stamped a foot in frustration. She holstered her gun and pinched the bridge of her nose between a thumb and forefinger then turned to Sam and Sydney. "Is he alright?" she asked at last. Damn Jarod! she thought. Eight hours ago he could barely sit up unassisted.
Sydney had Sam propped up against the wall. The man was coming back to consciousness. He had a red lump on the side of his temple where Jarod had hit him with the lamp. Sam opened his eyes and squinted at the light.
Miss Parker knelt next to him.
"What happened?"
"Jarod called for help. I came in and that's when he hit me. I didn't think he had the strength." Sam held a hand to the bump on his head and flinched.
"He shouldn't," Sydney replied. "Jarod is still weak and sick."
"How long ago?" Miss Parker asked, resisting the urge to shake the man.
"I'm not certain."
"He might still be in the area," Sydney said. "We should check all the hospitals, all the buildings and alleyways. I don't think he could go far. If he stays out in this weather he could die."
Miss Parker stood and turned toward the door. "What was that?" she whispered, then moved to the wall by the door to listen. Sydney looked up at her and began to speak but she held a finger to her lips and shook her head.
Back pressed against the wall, she rolled on her shoulder around the doorjamb to the outside room, her gun held at arms length. The room was empty. She lowered her gun and walked quietly to the door to the outside hallway and laid her hand on the doorknob. She had closed the door when she came in and now it wasn't latched. She put a finger in between door and doorjamb and silently pushed it open. She heard retreating footsteps.
Miss Parker hissed between her teeth. Someone had followed her. She knew to be more careful, that Lyle would do anything to find Jarod's location. Miss Parker stayed on her tiptoes to keep her heels from tapping on the bare wood floor as she hurried down the hall, down the stairs and across the shabby lobby to the sidewalk. She looked up the street and then down the other. A familiar black sedan was parked down the block on the opposite side of the road.
Miss Parker silently moved forward. Inside the sedan she could see Brigitte's silhouette picking up what looked like a cell phone. Parker crouched-walked toward the car and ducked down beside the door, her weapon held barrel up in a confident grip. She could hear Brigitte's muffled voice.
"It's Brigitte," the woman said. "Yes, I found where she was keeping him but I think he escaped." She paused, listening to the voice on the other end of the connection. "They don't know how long he's been gone. Yes, darling, a sweeper team in this area would be a good idea as long as they can do their job without alerting Miss Parker.
Miss Parker yanked open the door and jerked the phone out of Brigitte's hand. The woman obviously had not been expecting company. Miss Parker held the phone to her ear while keeping her gun trained on Brigitte. "Who the hell is this?" Miss Parker demanded. Whoever was on the other end of the line hung up. Miss Parker closed the phone with a snap of her wrist, then tossed it into the empty back seat. "Who were you talking to?" she asked the woman and pressed the gun inches form her smug face.
"Why Miss Parker, you're not going to shot me now, are you?"
"It's tempting. I like the thought of seeing your gray matter splattered on the upholstery and the thought of never hearing your voice again."
Miss Parker heard someone come up next to her. It was Syd.
"Leave her be, Parker," Sydney said.
Miss Parker hesitated, then reluctantly lowered her gun.
"You two look like someone spit in your beer," Brigitte said, her usual cheekiness returning. "Lose something?" She smiled. "Possession is 9/10th of the law." She started up the car as Miss Parker raised her gun.
To hell with the Centre, she thought as she aimed. Sydney pushed her arm to the side as the car sped off. The bullet ricocheted up into an empty neighboring building.
"Don't allow her to goad you into making a mistake, Parker," Sydney said, always the man with the wise words.
Miss Parker felt her anger melt. He was right. She lowered her gun and holstered it. "At least we know that they don't have him."
"No one will if we don't find him soon," Sydney said.
****
A violent bout of shivers woke Jarod. His teeth chattered together and his body convulsed. He opened his eyes and looked around him. He felt disoriented for a moment before remembering he had hitched a ride in the back of the delivery truck. The interior was dark. He didn't know how long he had lain here. He climbed out from under the tarp and staggered to the front of the truck and looked out.
Yellow night lamps dimly lit a shipping warehouse filled with box roller-ramps and brown delivery trucks. Jarod climbed out, the cement floor was cold on his bare feet. He knew he had to find clothing and food.
The first door he opened revealed a customer service counter. He closed the door and continued his search. At the back of the warehouse, he opened another door and found himself looking into a break room. He quickly explored the room and beyond that he discovered a locker room. In a quick search of the lockers he found a brown delivery uniform that was too short and wide for him. He didn't care; he put the clothing on and used a belt to cinch the wide trouser-waist around him. He found socks, but no shoes. The socks were better than nothing. In another locker he found a fleece lined nylon jacket and he put it on, grateful that this item fit him better than the
trousers.
The refrigerator in the break room contained a half dozen lunch bags and soft drinks. Jarod wolfed down a ham sandwich and a pack of Twinkies he found in one bag. The Twinkies were excellent. He made a mental note to try more of them again. The creamy center was the best. Still hungry, he found a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in another bag and gulped down two cans of soda. A cardboard display box held several dozens bags of chips and crackers. He ate three bags before feeling better. The food should help warm him up, too.
Now full and feeling better and more alert, Jarod knew he'd have to do something about his situation. He opened a door that opened up to the outside parking lot. Dawn had begun to light the sky to the east. The sound of a starting engine caught his attention. A driver blowing into their cold hands climbed out of a brown semi-truck and hurried toward the warehouse. Jarod halfway closed the door and watched the driver through a crack. When they entered the main warehouse, Jarod sprinted out the door toward the semi. It wasn't his best 50-yard dash, but he made it to the truck without falling. The food and the warm clothes had returned some of his strength. He looked into the back of the truck. The trailer was half loaded with boxes. If he guessed right, this delivery truck might be heading out of state, and the further away from the Centre he could get, the better. He climbed in and squeezed into the back of the truck between a stack of boxes. This time there was no tarp to hide under and Jarod only hope that the driver would close the door and drive away without inspecting the contents.
****
"Miss Parker," Broots said as he sidled up to her in the hallway. Sydney was with him. "Are you ready to look at the DSA?"
"Broots said you found the DSA in SL-27," Sydney said. "What did you see down there?"
"Nothing. The entire level destroyed by fire. Daddy didn't believe when I told him it had been restored. He took me to SL-24 and it's an exact replica of SL-27."
"We don't know for certain that we were in SL-27, only that Angelo took us to Jarod. Did you see anything that indicated what level we were on?"
"Are you denying what we saw that night?"
"Not denying, Parker, only wondering at what is going on and who is involved," he stressed. "The cover-up of Jarod's capture and the renovation of SL-27, if it indeed was SL-27, might go to the deepest levels of the Centre or beyond. We may only think we know what is going on."
Miss Parker wondered about her blood pressure. If her private physician knew her current state he would probably give her a sedative. Damn! What the hell was going on and who the hell was involved? She could trust Sydney and Broots, but the three of them seemed such an insignificant team against the Centre and their machinations.
"Miss Parker," Broots said again, this time a little louder. "The DSA?"
"Why don't you announce it to the entire Centre," she snapped and stared at him until he dropped his gaze. It wasn't his fault, and felt a tiny twinge of guilt for taking her anger out of him. After all, he had been diligent in his task of restoring the burned DSA. "Okay, let's see what you have."
Broots suddenly dropped his gaze, shuffled his feet and held the DSA behind his back. Sydney cleared his throat. Miss Parker turned around and came face to face with her favorite wheezing demon. His flat snake-like gaze brushed over them, stopping to rest on Broots before continuing to her.
"Dr. Raines, you look different today. Is that a new oxygen tank?" she asked with a pseudo-smile. She wouldn't be surprised if he had been involved with Jarod's containment in SL-27.
"Do you know something that you should be telling the rest of us, Miss Parker?" Raines wheezed.
"Funny, I thought of asking you the very same question," she replied. "But I'm beginning to think that if anyone came up with a straight answer in this place, it'd stick in their throat and they'd choke and die on it."
"Despite what you think you may know, Jarod should be your first priority. You're wasting your time on Centre business that doesn't concern you."
"Oh, and what business would that be, exactly? Bring SL-27 back to life? I'm beginning to wonder if chasing Jarod has become an excuse to keep me away from the Centre while you do Lyle's dirty work."
Raines took a deep raspy breath. "You would do well to remember what your job is Miss Parker."
"So this hallway chit-chat is a complete waste of precious timeand keeping me away from my objective. If you'll excuse me." She left Raines standing and staring after her as she strode down the hallway.
Broots jogged to keep up with her, Sydney following at a slower pace.
"I can't believe you spoke to Raines that way."
"They have no expectations of me catching Jarod, this is all a witch hunt to distract me from their real purpose."
"The Pretender program," Sydney said softly.
"They--whoever they are--are taking this to another level. Beyond any previous Pretender project. I wonder exactly who Lyle's new clients are."
"Clients?" Sydney echoed.
"That information came up in a little conversation I had with daddy and Lyle while touring SL-24. Lyle brought the Centre new clients." Miss Parker stood abruptly and Broots had to sidestep to keep from running into her. "Broots, I need you to snoop around."
"Don't I always," he mumbled as they arrived at his office and the three entered.
Broots sat as his desk and inserted the DSA into player while Miss Parker locked the door with a decisive click.
"Are you ready?" he asked softly.
Sydney and Miss Parker gathered behind his disk and Broots hit the play button.
The screen fuzzed and background voices were unintelligible, then cleared into startling, horrifying clarity.
"Oh. My. God." Miss Parker's eyes widened as she stepped away from the images on the screen, as if putting distance between her and these atrocities would make them somehow go away.
****
The first thing Jarod noticed was that he was warm and comfortable. He gathered his thoughts and remembered that he had hid inside a semi-truck. Had the Centre found him? He slowly became aware of other things, sounds, voices, and antiseptic smells. A hospital? He opened his eyes, squinting at first.
"Nice to see that you've decided to join the living," a female voice said, thankfully not Miss Parker's. Jarod turned toward the voice and found a young woman sitting in a chair. She wore a brown uniform. She stood and walked to his bedside. Jarod had the impression of height. Her long brown hair was pulled into a ponytail. She smiled down at him.
"Where am I?" he asked, his voice rough.
"John Hopkins hospital. My brother is a doctor here," she replied.
"I'm in Baltimore?" This was better than Jarod hoped for. The Centre wouldn't be able to track him here.
"Baltimore Maryland," she affirmed. "A forklift operator found you in the back of my truck this evening at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport. You almost took a tip to the west coast. We though you were dead. An ambulance brought you here. Do you remember?"
The west coast wouldn't be bad, Jarod thought then realized she was waiting for an answer. "Yes, I remember."
"Do you usually stow away on delivery trucks?"
"Not when I can take an airplane," he joked, trying to ease the woman.
She did laugh.
"What should I call you besides my Stowaway? You have no ID. The hospital has you listed as John Doe."
"My name is Jarod," he replied, winced and held a hand to his head.
"Just Jarod?"
Jarod thought quickly and looked around the room. He spotted a copy of Reader's Digest. "Jarod Reed."
"Well, Jarod Reed, I'm Debbie Platt," she replied and held out her hand.
"Nice to meet you Debbie," Jarod said.
"The delivery company could press charges, but we won't. It seems to me that you have enough problems of your own. If you need a job or something, my uncle owns a small warehousing business. He could use a hand in the warehouse. You look like you could lift some hefty boxes."
Perhaps it wasn't a bad idea to lay low for awhile, Jarod thought to himself as he looked around the hospital room. He suddenly noticed a weekly news magazine next to the Reader's Digest on the table. "Excuse me, could you pass me that magazine?"
"This?" she held up the Newsweek and passed it to him when he nodded.
On the cover was a photo collage of a recent drug bust. An uneasy feeling crept over Jarod as he flipped to the page and began reading the story. The largest heroine drug bust in history had occurred in California. The shipment had originated from Florida where arrests had been made and the guilty parties jailed and awaiting trial. There was something important about this, Jarod knew, but what? His mind was still fuzzy. He stared at the article, looking at the accompanying photos. Why should this story be important to him? One face in a photo, the face of a DEA agent, stared back at him. In the background, bundles of drug were being loaded into a unmarked van. The drugs were in California, the trial would be in Florida. The drugs needed to be shipped to Florida. By van? No. Too slow. Shipped by plane, he realized. Shipped to Florida where the evidence would be held until the perpetrator's trial.
The memory of the highjacking sim he had been forced to perform for Lyle made him jerk upright. He gripped the sides of the hospital bed as the magazine slipped to the floor. Was this it? The plane in the sim had been filled with drugs. But it could be any plane, and there had been no evidence to link it to a bust in California.
Jarod's pretender intuition told him not to take a chance.
"I have to get out of here." He threw the blankets aside, a plan already formulating in his mind. "It may already be too late."
"You can't leave," Debbie said, and tried to push him back to he bed.
"If I don't, innocent people will die."
****
Two days later, somewhere in California.
"Okay, agents!" FBI special agent Jim Castor clapped his hand and the hum of voices in the room quieted. "The shipment is ready to go out tonight. You all have your assignments. Let's make this trip smooth. Agent Henderson is ill and has been grounded. Your new pilot is Agent Jarod Reed." A tall, dark-haired man stepped forward and nodded to the group.
"According to reports," Agent Reed said with a sly grin, his narrowed eyes looked at each of the six DEA agents who would be on board, "our flight should be smooth all the way to Florida."
End of Part III
Next Part IV "Zero Chance"
