Jarod was no fool. The car that Gabriel had just blown away was not the only vehicle belonging to the pretender. He kept another one in a secret place, there was no way the Centre could know about it. Or at least this is what Jarod hoped.

When he arrived to the garage, located at a couple of miles from their house, Jarod inspected the location, noticing with relief that there seemed to be no sign of intrusion: the automatic door was securely closed and Jarod’s remote control made it open without trouble. To avoid surprises, though, before sitting at the driver seat of the European black sedan, Jarod checked accurately inside the garage. Everything seemed to be at its right place, or at least at the place Jarod remember to have left it. He laid down and controlled the car, inspecting it carefully only to notice that there wasn’t any explosive device. He opened the car hood to be sure that it didn’t contain any bomb ready to fuse as soon as he turned on the engine.

When he felt reasonably satisfied, Jarod entered the car and carefully turned the keys to switch on his Audi, holding his breath and closing his eyes. He breathed out only when he pressed the gas and the car answered in the usual way – which was without blowing.
So, Gabriel didn’t know all his secrets, apparently.

While he drove towards Ben’s house, Jarod kept thinking about his conversation with Gabriel.

“Now I got your attention, don’t I?”

“What the hell do you want from me?”

“Your Shawshank Redemption little break is over, Jarod. The Centre has been looking for you for ten years. You disappeared into thin air; there was no clue about your whereabouts. With Miss Parker and Sydney gone for good, you weren’t even leaving any more breadcrumbs for your… how do we want to call them, caregivers?”

Jarod burned up at Gabriel’s choice of words.

“Lyle and Raines were leading the Centre to disaster, it was the Middle Ages of the Simulations. However, the Triumvirate had someone else to keep things going, luckily.”

“So it’s true, you’re not an exploited pretender. You are one of them.”

Gabriel ignored him, “It didn’t take them long to understand that if they wanted a pretender as good as you were – and you were the best – they needed someone very smart. You and Miss Parker were two of the red files. In fact, you were probably the most promising red files. Lethal on your own, almost invincible together.”

Even if Jarod was almost flattered by the fact that the Centre recognized the importance of his connection with Parker, he wasn’t glad to hear about this from Gabriel, “My family has nothing to do with this! Let them go, it’s me that you want!”

“I’m not the one who makes the rules of this game.”

“Then who?”

“You, Jarod. Their safety depends on you. You know what you must do.”

“Who guarantees me that if I surrender you will actually let them go? How can I trust you?”

“You have no choice, Jarod.”

The pretender hushed for a few seconds, trying to evaluate all the possibilities. In that moment, he could think only of one person who could actually help him. And he didn’t like it, at all.

“I will leave for Blue Cove immediately. In the meantime I warn you. If anything happens to Parker or my children, it’ll be the last mistake you will commit.”
Gabriel snickered, “We’ll wait for you open arms, Jarod.”

Without even noticing, Jarod had reached Ben’s home.

The signs of the kidnapping were evident even outside the house: the door was still open and a flower vase on the porch had been knocked over.

Jarod closed his eyes and felt all the anxiety felt by his children when they had been dragged away from the sweepers.

He entered the house and checked on Ben’s conditions, waking him up from his torpor. Aside the pain for the strong hit he had suffered, Ben seemed to be fine.

“I couldn’t help it, Jarod. They took them away under my nose, and I…”

“It’s a miracle that you are still alive, Ben. I don’t blame you for what happened. It’s only my fault.” Jarod interrupted him. He had no time do deal with other people’s guilt. He had his own to haunt him.

“Where do you think they took them? Are they fine?”

Trying to avert visions of Parker and his children tortured and killed, Jarod kept calm, “They are too important to them. They are the bargaining chip.”

“For what?”

“To have me back.”

Ben hushed.

Because that had always been the crux of the matter, wasn’t it?

To have Jarod back at the Centre.

And to think that those ten years they all have deluded themselves that the Centre was behind them. But they should have known better. You can’t escape the Centre.

“What are we going to do now?”

“I need you to contact my father and tell him what happened. I wanted to keep my family out of this, but I made a mistake. They need to know. Just…don’t tell them where I’m going, otherwise they will try to prevent me from leaving.”

“Why, where are you headed?”

“Blue Cove.”

Ben’s eyes grew impossibly large, “Jarod, are you crazy? If you surrender they will never let them go, you know it! And as soon as they find out about Ethan’s intelligence and Katie’s inner sense, the kids will become the Centre new pretenders.”

“I don’t want to surrender. Not yet. But there’s only one person that can help me right now, and he lives in Blue Cove.”

Ben sighed, knowing exactly of whom Jarod was talking about,  “Why do I have the feeling that I’m not going to like this?”.

***
IN THE MEANTIME
RESTAURANT ÉTIENNE, BLUE COVE

Lyle and Chuntao were savoring their favorite French dish, the Escargot à la Bourguignonne. The dinner was passing nicely, like nothing could happen to violate the joy of the husband and wife to be. Nothing but Lyle’s mobile phone ringing.

Noticing that the call came from a Centre internal number, Lyle excused himself with his fiancée, “I swear this is the last work call that I take, Peachy.”

“Don’t worry, I got used to it by now.” She replied, betraying a resignation sigh.

Lyle stood up and caressed her hand, then he moved towards the restaurant lobby, “It’s Lyle.”

“Sir, there’s some weird movements going on ‘round here.” The voice was Jude’s, Lyle’s trusted sweeper as well as his personal assistant. “A big team of sweepers was mobilized for a mission. I wasn’t summoned.”

Lyle’s face took on a worried expression, “What do you mean? I’m the only one who authorizes missions to the personnel, who the hell gave the order?”

“I don’t know, it looks like someone is arranging something down in SL-9. When the sweepers came back, they were dragging three hooded prisoners. I couldn’t see who they were, I was too far. The only thing I noticed…”

“What?” Lyle urged him, preoccupied by his assistant tone.

“Well, it looked like two of them were kids, Sir.”

Lyle felt a stab of pain through his sternum. Could the Triumvirate have acted behind his back and have managed to find Jarod, Parker and their children? But who had dared to bypass his orders and operate secretly in the shadows? Who had so much power?

“That man…”

“What, Sir?”

Lyle thought for a moment about his sister’s reappearance and the photos she had brought with her. He pondered the revelation that Miss Parker’s stalker didn’t seem to have a past. Or at least, not in the US…

“The Triumvirate just overpowered us, Jude. A Schedule 47 is in progress.”

“Are you sure?” Jude asked, knowing exactly that a Schedule 47 meant a change of the powers to be at the Centre. So it meant trouble for Lyle and, consequently, for himself.

“There can be no other explanation. Take your stuff and disappear, I’ll call you when I need you. Do you still have your safe number?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Fine, from now on use only that one to contact me. And Jude…”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Chuntao’s safety must be our priority, are we clear?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Lyle terminated the call and moved fast towards the salon, willing to leave that restaurant and put Chuntao at safe.

When he reached the room, though, he had the terrible surprise not to find her sitting at their table. Starting to panic, Lyle stopped a waiter, “Did you see my girlfriend?” he asked.

“I think I saw her going to the toilettes, Sir.”

Lyle tried to calm down. While waiting for his return, maybe Chuntao had decided to go to the restrooms. He ran and reached the toilettes corridor, then he entered the women restroom opening the door vehemently, scaring the shit out of a poor client of the restaurant who was putting on some make up. Lyle checked the three toilets compartments and realized with terror that they weren’t occupied by anyone.

“Have you seen an Asian woman getting inside here in the last three minutes?”

“No, nobody got in about me…” the girl replied, still frightened by Lyle’s behavior.

“Oh God…” Lyle murmured.

His race to the parking lot was futile, as well as his entrance in the kitchen and in all the private rooms of the restaurant. The owner, who happened to know Lyle as one of his best clients, helped him to look for Chuntao without fussing about it. But every attempt was to no avail: Chuntao had disappeared into thin air, and this could be no coincidence.

“They kidnapped her.” Lyle muttered to himself.

BEN MILLER’S HOUSE

Jarod was holding his mobile, staring at the little device as if it could burn into flames at anytime. He wasn’t ready for this, certainly he wasn’t ready to make contact with the person he hated the most in the whole world.

There had been a time when Dr. Raines and Mr. Parker were contending to catch the second or the third place – depending on the moment. In more than one occasion, Jarod had been full of hatred towards Miss Parker too, back in the most turbulent years of the chase. During his pretends, the person he used to hate the most was the weekly culprit, towards whom Jarod unleashed his rage whenever he wanted to fix some unfinished business.

But there was only one man who had always kept the first place in that personal rank listed by Jarod’s mind. It was the man who had killed both his brothers.
Jarod didn’t want to work with Lyle, but he had managed to convince himself that he had no other choice. What he truly mistrusted, though, was Lyle’s good faith.

Parker had visited him, she had involved her twin brother in the investigation to find out who Gabriel was, and a few hours later she had been gone along with their children.

This could be no coincidence.

Sighing deeply, Jarod composed Lyle’s private phone number and waited for the man to answer. He had just rescheduled his SIM to change the caller ID to his real name, so that Lyle could realize that it was Jarod calling but couldn’t trace the conversation.

Lyle had been home for a few minutes, when he got the call. He had run breathlessy from the restaurant to his luxurious flat just to check on a little intuition he just had. He hoped to find Chuntao, he hoped that his adorable fiancé had wanted to contrive some weird joke at his expense. But he had been wrong.

When his mobile rang, Lyle saw Jarod’s name appearing on the screen. He couldn’t believe it. And yet, he had the feeling that the pretender was behind the disappearance of Chuntao.

Did Jarod kidnap her? Did he want to get revenge? And if so, why after all these years?

“Jarod, you son of a bitch, if you don’t tell me where she is, you’re going to regret the day you were born!” Lyle answered the phone, screaming.

Jarod, from the other hand, was caught off guard, “What are you talking about, Lyle?”

“Chuntao. She…she’s gone.” He explained, accepting the reality of what have truly happened.

Jarod perceived concern in his mortal enemy’s voice.

“So is your sister. And my children.” Jarod replied, managing not to get too agitated.

“I know.”

“You know?!” Jarod questioned him ironically.

“If you think I have something to do with their disappearance you are mistaken. All I know is that someone ordered a Schedule 47.”

“This can’t be. The last time it happened, Raines was…”

“Still alive, I know. It happened after Carthis, when my father – well, Mr. Parker, decided to literally fly off with the Scrolls. The power was conveyed into Raines’ hands. They spare my sister’s life and mine only because we were the only one who could brought you back to the Centre.”

“Things have changed. And I thought that you were the new chairman of the slaughterhouse.”

“I was just a puppet, Jarod. The real masters have always been in Africa, I guessed you had realized that by now. I don’t have the faintest idea who ordered the kidnapping of your family.”

“This is an information that I don’t need.”

“In other words, you already know.”

“We can’t talk at the phone, it’s not safe. Let’s meet in twelve hours, the Parker’s old mansion.”

“How do you know I won’t deliver you to the Centre?” Lyle asked him, with a sardonic chuckle.

“If I’m right, and I usually am, Chuntao was kidnapped by the same man who abducted Parker and our children. And I’m the only hope you have of ever seeing your wife-to-be alive again.”

Jarod hung up, leaving Lyle with a million questions.

As usual, the pretender had the last word. And there was no doubt: Lyle could only wait for his arrival and learn to do something he’d never done before. Trusting Jarod.