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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Truth and Consequences - by MMB
Chapter 11: The Waiting Game
Sydney's eyes blinked open slowly as Miss Parker and Kevin came into his hospital room. "Oh good," he quipped in a sleepy voice, "the rescue team is here."
Miss Parker felt her façade wanting desperately to evaporate, and she held tightly to the shields she had erected to prevent herself from falling apart. "As soon as Kevin gets himself educated on the upkeep of your gizmo, that is," she replied in a tight voice that made Sydney's eyes open just a bit wider in unhappy surprise. He hadn't heard that cool and almost unfriendly tone of voice from her in nearly eight years now, and he had hoped that he'd never hear it again, especially aimed at him.
"Parker?" he asked gently in a tone of concern that brought her gaze to his in response. Sydney's heart sank - the look in her eyes was almost dead, forced, something that reminded him of times long gone and people he'd just as soon not remember anyway. She also looked incredibly tired, as if she'd gotten no sleep for the rest of the night at all.
"We'll talk later," she dismissed the concern abruptly and looked away as the door to the room swung inward.
"Ah good, Miss Parker?" A distinguished gentleman nearly half a head shorter than Miss Parker strolled into the room. "I'm Doctor Hightower - I spoke with you on the phone."
"Doctor," she replied coolly, shaking the man's hand firmly.
"Now, are you going to be the one helping Dr. Green with his CPM therapy?" Hightower got right down to business.
"I am," Kevin spoke up, surprising himself by taking the initiative for a change. "I'm Kevin Green."
"Oh good! This is your father?" the grey-bearded doctor inquired in mild curiosity.
"He's my uncle," Kevin replied easily, letting a deceptively nonchalant glance slip over to watch Sydney's face when he made the statement, only to see his mentor lift his gaze to his and give a slight nod of encouragement.
Doctor Hightower cleared his throat and caught the attention of all in the room. "Dr. Green, you're going to be spending eight hours a day strapped to a Continuous Passive Motion therapy machine during your recovery. It will help keep the knee we just fixed for you from swelling quite so painfully, and most patients report a shorter period of time to recover most of the flexibility of the joint. You can start the therapy as soon as you get settled into bed at home today - and even though you'll probably do a lot of sleeping this afternoon and evening, the machine will work the knee for you."
"How long will I have to be tethered to this contraption?" Sydney eyed the machine on the rolling table warily.
"For at least the first couple of months or so," the doctor told him sympathetically. "You'll also be getting regular physical therapy after your incisions heal - starting about three weeks after surgery or whenever your incisions have healed. From this point on, though, a lot will depend on you and how hard you're willing to realistically push yourself. We'll start you at about a 30° arc of flexing. Let me show you and Kevin how the controls work, so you can adjust that arc as you feel you're capable."
"I think I'm going to go look in on Broots while Dr. Hightower is showing you two the ropes here," she told Sydney quickly and slipped from his bedside with very little effort. Sydney followed her from the room with his brows furled sleepily, then returned his lagging attention to what the doctor was telling them.
Miss Parker stopped a few paces down the hall from Sydney's room and stood for a moment, head bowed and breathing hard to regain her composure. Sydney knew what she was doing - and the moment he had his wits about him again and was in a position to talk to her, she knew that he would confront her with what he'd just seen in her face. She straightened and stretched her chin into the air ever so slightly. She'd just have to face him and his accusations down then - right now, she couldn't allow herself to feel. It was too easy to break - too easy to become a completely nonfunctional basket case if she allowed herself to feel. She was a Parker, and she was the Centre - right now, she had to let that be her strength and her purpose. She reached for the Lyle mask that had slipped a little too far away in her moment of solitary weakness and glued it tightly to her face and her soul.
Then she began walking slowly and resolutely down the hallway toward the elevator that would take her up a floor to visit with another essential part of her life laid low as much because of her actions as anything else. No! She wouldn't let herself think of how, if she hadn't gone along with Jarod's plan to bring the Centre's malignant hierarchy of terror low, neither Broots nor Sydney would be in the condition they each found themselves now. She wasn't responsible for the actions of thoughtless and cruel men greedy for power and corrupted by it, she reminded herself sternly as the elevator door slid closed.
Was she?
She held herself stiffly erect and breathed in a deep breath of pure pain. No! She couldn't let herself feel, she repeated the litany with determination - none of this could be acknowledged until Davy and Deb were safely home again and the monsters that took them had paid for their audacity! Her hands tightened into fists at her side as she trained her eyes on a point in the middle of the sliding metal door. She had managed to get herself back under iron control again by the time that door slid aside and let her walk down this new corridor.
The last thing she had expected, however, was to see that Broots was awake when she walked into the room. Like Sydney, his gaze was still a little overshadowed by the powerful drugs that had been administered to him. In his case, they had kept him in the chemical coma for almost two weeks while his crushed pelvis and legs healed so that he wouldn't have to suffer the intense pain having such a mangled lower body must have caused. But, evidently, the doctors were encouraged enough with his progress that...
"Broots!" she breathed.
"Miss Parker! I was hoping Debbie would be by today..." he said in a slightly slurred and sleepy voice and beckoned with an obviously weak hand. "Do you know when she plans to stop by?"
Miss Parker stared at her old friend, mesmerized by his gentle and trusting and very drowsy hazel gaze. How was she going to tell him, in his condition, what had happened to his little girl?
~~~~~~~~
Stewart Berringer stared across the space of the cell at the county facility at his old friend and apparent nemesis with loathing and disgust. Flores had taken a golden opportunity to quietly and subtlely force Miss Parker to rescind many of her restrictions on the less-ethical end of Centre operations and created utter chaos - and landed them both in jail on conspiracy to commit a felony among other local and state charges. "You stupid idiot," he finally blurted out.
Flores turned his head from where he sat slumped on the cot, his back against the other wall, and shrugged. "At least I tried something," he hissed back. "You pussies were going to sit around until everything we'd worked so hard to build..."
"You just couldn't be bothered to be patient," Berringer exploded, pacing back and forth. "You couldn't be subtle. You're too much of the same school as Raines and Lyle - and look what happened to THEM?"
"Shut up," Flores barked, then looked away. "Just shut the fuck up."
"What the Hell did you THINK she was going to do when you took her son, asshole? Fall on her knees and beg you "I'll give you whatever you want, just give me my little boy back?" Berringer's tone was scathing.
"It's worked before in similar situations," Flores snapped, pulling his left knee up close to his chest and reaching down to pull on the foot to keep the calf from cramping again. Even without the electrical stimulus, his muscles had been giving him fits for hours remembering.
"Not with a Parker," Berringer shook his head in disgust. "You just keep forgetting that she was trained by the Old Man himself - the one who did a helluva job keeping Raines in line for so long."
"She's a mother - that makes her weak in a way that Old Man Parker himself never was."
"Oh, she's so weak she called in the feds," Berringer hissed caustically. "And now, between the tape of your call to Duncan and all the evidence they've been collecting on you since you decided to play it fast and loose, we're not going to be seeing sunshine again anytime soon."
"Not if she wants to see that boy of hers again," Flores blustered. "Only I know how to get in contact with Duncan, and only Duncan knows where the kid is being held."
"You idiot. She knows Duncan's in on it - and she's turned over THAT to the feds too. Just don't tell me Cordoba's part of the plan..." Flores shot him a deadly look and fell silent. "And they've got a girl instead of Dr. Green," Berringer shook his head. "And if they touch a hair on that girl's head, Parker will have yours on a platter, feds or no."
"Just what girl did Duncan snatch anyway?" Flores asked in frustration.
"The daughter of one of Miss Parker's oldest and dearest friends, that's all. They've been thick as thieves for years, and rumor has it that she's been practically like the girl's mother for even longer." Berringer just shook his head again and looked at Flores as if examining an intelligent insect. "Not only did you put some really stupid stuff in motion, but you didn't do your homework on your target."
"Fuck you," Flores hissed and turned on his cot so that he didn't have to look at Berringer anymore - then straightened his left leg out as yet another cramp threatened.
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker stared at her old friend and knew that her Lyle mask wouldn't protect her from this - and that she didn't have the heart even try to let it. Her friend - her adopted brother - deserved better than that after being in a coma for so long and nearly dying himself. "Deb couldn't make it in today," she said, stepping forward to take a seat in the chair near the head of the bed and then taking his hand in hers, "so she sent me in instead. She said she'd be in to see you soon." The lies caught in her throat, but she just couldn't bear to be the one to tell Broots what had happened - doing that would bring the harsh reality into her own world and shatter what little was left of her ability to function.
Broots closed his eyes briefly in trusting acceptance of the fabrication. "How long have I been out of it?" he asked woozily.
"Almost two weeks," she told him, settling his hand between her two. "You had us all pretty scared for a while there." She paused. "I... didn't know you were down in Sim Lab..."
The man on the bed opened his eyes again. "Is that where I was? What happened anyway?" His brows slid together lightly. "Nobody will tell me anything, and I can't remember anything past having breakfast that morning..."
"Someone set a bomb in the Tower, Broots - it's gone. No more Tower."
Broots stared at her disbelievingly. "But... what about..."
"I was down in the morgue, making sure Raines was really dead, when it blew," she told him gently. "Otherwise, I wouldn't be standing here."
"So... Is the Centre a has-been?" he asked weakly, trying to smile.
"Not for as long as I'm running it," Miss Parker told him firmly. "We've gone a long way towards legitimizing our operation. We've even brought in the FBI to help us handle some of the more stubborn problems."
"All this fun, and I've missed it," Broots quipped as his eyes slid closed of their own volition again and this time stayed closed.
"I'll let you rest, then," she patted his hand between hers and set it back down on the bedspread again. "You take it easy," she told him as she eyed the metallic frame that still bulged about his middle and the fact that both his legs were still encased in thick plaster. "... but not TOO easy. I need you back at the Centre in the worst kind of way, so don't dawdle."
"Yes, Miss Parker," he responded in a voice that clearly told her that he was slowly fading back into slumber.
She rose and, with a backward glance of pure apology, walked out of the room and back toward the elevator. She couldn't be gone too long - she had to get Sydney home and then get back to the Centre.
Kevin was asking Dr. Hightower some very complicated and technical questions about the therapy machine when she pushed through the door again. Sydney, now dressed in the street clothes they had brought for him, roused from the light doze he had settled into and beckoned to her. "You look tired, ma petite," he said quietly, reaching a hand out to her.
Miss Parker could hardly refuse. "It was a long night, Syd," she admitted as she took his hand in hers. "We had a lot to do to try to get a lead on where..."
"Parker," he started, only to have her shake her head at him firmly.
"Not now, Sydney. I..." The façade cracked slightly. "I can't talk about it and still be able to do what I have to do to get them back." Her grey eyes caught and held his sleepy chestnut. "Please. We'll talk later. I promise."
"First I want you to promise me is that you won't take this too far," he worried at her, his grip on her hand tightening in spite of his obvious fatigue.
"I'll only take it as far as I have to," she told him, feeling the crack in her façade heal with those words. "And it will be over, eventually."
He nodded and closed his eyes. "Then we'll talk later." He turned and saw Kevin still deep in discussion with Dr. Hightower. "How is Broots?"
"Awake, at last," she told him, and saw him open his eyes again to look at her.
"Did you tell him?"
"Don't be crazy, Syd. I'm not going to tell a man fresh out of coma that his daughter's been kidnapped by a pair of sexual devi..." She took a deep breath and then looked at her surrogate father again, her eyes tortured.
Sydney's jaw had dropped with this inadvertent disclosure of information. "Parker!"
"We're on their trail, Syd," she filled in quickly. "And we've got the feds working with us on this. We'll find them." Don't ask me more, her eyes begged him. And finally he nodded, letting her off the hook again for the time being - although his own worry level had just been boosted right off the charts.
An orderly in charge of a wheelchair came through the door. "Somebody around here gettin' sprung?" he asked with a wide smile.
Miss Parker beckoned the sweeper that had remained at the door and handed him her keys. "Bring my car to the front, then head back to the Centre with your passenger. I'll join you as soon as I can."
"Yes, ma'am," the man nodded and left immediately.
"Well," she stepped over and put a hand on Kevin's shoulder, interrupting yet another question, "do you think you know what you'll be doing with this thing?"
"Oh, yes!" Kevin smiled at her. "It's simple really. There's this control panel here..."
"Fine," she interrupted him again. "How about we pack Sydney up and get him home before we need to pay rent on the room for another night."
"Remember, don't let him increase the flex arc more than 10° in the first week," Dr. Hightower reminded Kevin. He then turned to Sydney, who had just been plunked into the wheelchair. "And you - you remember to take your pain medication on schedule. That CPM process isn't going to be a bowl of cherries at first - the medication will not only help you sleep at night, but weather the therapy at first. Don't think taking the medication during the day is a sign of weakness or failure."
"He hates pain meds," Kevin nodded, while Sydney scowled at him for spilling the beans on him so blithely.
"Well, you're going to need them this time," Dr. Hightower told him in no uncertain terms. "You might as well know that whenever you get up from the therapy for whatever reason - to use the restroom or go to bed - it's going to hurt like Hell for a while when the blood rushes into the injury again. So take those meds, Dr. - there's no reason for you to suffer needlessly when remedy is so easily achieved."
"I will," Sydney agreed reluctantly and tiredly. Right now, all he wanted to do was to get into his own house and stretch out in that daybed that had been his command post for far too long already.
"OK, folks. Let's get this show on the road," the orderly said in a good humor and began the progression down the corridor toward the lobby, the front door and Parker's car.
~~~~~~~~
"That was one sweet piece of virgin ass," Cordoba commented wistfully as he kicked up the air conditioner settings on the dash. He sighed as he stretched his legs out to make himself more comfortable. "Are you sure we don't want to just keep her with us? I mean, she wasn't part of the original deal in the first place..."
Duncan sighed. These were the times that reminded him of just how different their upbringings - and subsequent lives - had made them. "This is not the time to be letting your little head do the thinking for you, cabrón."
The Hispanic shot his gringo friend a sudden glare of animosity. "You used to like it when “El Guapo” did the thinking down on The Strip, amigo.."
"Yeah, well that was then, this is now. Until we hear from Flores, we lay low and hang tight. We don't want to get ourselves nailed with that girl or anything else tying what went down in Delaware with us - that would be an open invite to the electric chair."
"Shit, we coulda BOTH had ourselves some fun with her and then put her in the ground afterwards and still not get nailed with her... I mean, she's just extra baggage anyway since we were SUPPOSED to snatch that old man..." Cordoba argued heatedly. "I tell you, Andy, it was a mistake to snatch her, it was a bigger mistake to just leave her there."
"Shut up," Duncan snapped tiredly. "If they've got Flores, we're already fucked, estúpido - they're going to be looking for ME once they figure out that it was Flores that set up this entire thing, if they haven't already put that part together. And once they latch onto me, how long will it be before they figure out that you're in it too? We DO have a reputation, you know..."
"And this is supposed to convince me that we did ourselves a favor by just dumping the girl and the brat out at that ranch and just leaving them all trussed up out there?" Cordoba's voice was rising. "Madre de Diós, Andy, if they know it's you, then they'll trace us to the ranch..."
"Which is why I didn't take them to MY ranch, you idiot!" Duncan yelled back. "I happen to know that old man Pederson's place has been abandoned for years, and it's over ten miles as the crow flies and on the other side of the freeway from Uncle Aaron's." He let loose his right hand and swatted the Hispanic's upper arm rather sharply with the back of his hand. "There's nothing going to lead them to the Pederson Ranch."
"What if the brats get away?" Cordoba was shouting now. "They know what we look like. Shit, Andy, we shoulda.."
"They ain't gonna get away - not far enough to do any good - certainly not enough to be able to do much talking," Duncan said in a lethally quiet voice that effectively silenced his colleague. "At this time of year, it gets damned hot out there in them hills - and like I said, the Pederson place has been abandoned for years - there ain't no water. Even if they get loose, there still ain't no water - and they ain't got much to protect them from the sun or the heat either. So if they get away from the house, then ain't NOBODY ever gonna find their bones. Not even us."
He turned and smiled a cold smile at his friend. "Besides, why do you think I took them out there to begin with? Flores didn't ever intend to have the brat returned alive in the first place - the old man either. That story was just for the Parker bitch, to give her a reason to do what he wanted her to. He wanted whatever happened to look like natural causes - but he wanted them dead in the end nonetheless. Believe me, at this time of year, it won't take long before they wish they WERE dead." He chuckled to himself. "And we'll be long gone setting ourselves up with a helluva good set of alibis."
"You better be right, cabrón," Cordoba told him in an equally lethal and quiet voice. He slumped in the seat, then began to pay attention to the signs on the freeway. "Say - where we headed anyway?"
"Figured you'd want to celebrate your soon-to-be fortune, my friend - so I thought we'd hit Hollywood and Vine, just for old time's sake. You can have another blonde, and I can find me a nice black honey." Duncan glanced at Cordoba. "It'll be like the good old days, man."
"I like your way of thinking," Cordoba nodded and sat up straighter.
~~~~~~~~
"Sydney, we're here," Miss Parker called softly as she twisted in her seat and reached for him. He had settled into the back seat of her car sideways, with his injured leg stretched out across the seat and his shoulder within her reach, and then proceeded to fall asleep on the ride home.
"I'll get the door open and then come back to help you get him into the house," Kevin said quickly and jumped from the passenger seat.
"Syd," she called softly again and jiggled his shoulder a little harder. "C'mon. We can't carry you..."
Finally the injured psychiatrist roused and then looked around him in sleep confusion. "Already?"
Miss Parker shook her head. "They must have you on the GOOD stuff today, Freud."
Kevin returned from opening the door between kitchen and garage and opened the door the to back seat nearest Sydney's outstretched leg. "Come down the seat toward me," he directed his mentor with a wave of the hand, "I'll help you out of the car."
As Sydney roused himself further and began following Kevin's instructions, Miss Parker climbed from behind the steering wheel and joined Kevin. Together they finally were able to each get a shoulder under an armpit and literally hoist Sydney out of the car between them. Slowly, letting Sydney's good leg help set the pace while the injured leg never touched the ground, they walked him into the house and back into the den.
"At last!" Sydney exclaimed as they lowered him into a seated position on the couch that served as his daybed. A few more moments of exertion with assistance saw his injured leg carefully lifted onto the couch and then Parker was fluffing and arranging pillows at his back.
"I can't stay long," she said briskly. "I need to get back to the Centre and see what's developed with Sam and Tyler. Oh," she remembered while straightening, "if it's OK with you, Sam would prefer that I stay with you two until things are resolved - especially since he's going to be gone. We'll have a bodyguard with us in the house here until he gets back too."
"Parker, wait," he caught at her arm. "Have you talked to Jarod yet?" She looked away and shook her head. "Don't you think..."
"I'm going to call him this evening, Sydney, and I told Sam to tell him so when he called him just after we left to come get you." Finally she looked at him, her gaze tired and worried. "I need to be able to..."
"Yes, I know - you need to be able to keep functioning. But you also need to be able to work through this. You can't lock your emotions away completely - they'll tear you apart." He finally found and got a grip on a hand and squeezed to make his point. "Be efficient. But give yourself room to be human too, eventually."
"Not now, Sydney," she whispered, her façade trembling before his caring and reason.
"Don't do this to yourself," he cautioned tiredly, wishing with all his heart that he wasn't filled with left-over sedation and pain medication.
She shook her head and ruthlessly shoved her Lyle mask into position. "I'm just doing what I have to, Syd," she told him in her cool Lyle-voice. "You behave yourself and rest yourself out."
Rather than let her go, Sydney used the last of his energy to pull on her hand until he could wrap his other arm around her neck. "I love you, Parker," he told her sadly. "I'm worried about Davy and Deb, just as you are - but I'm just as worried about you. I don't like what I'm seeing here..."
"I'll be fine," she reassured him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek to convince him to let her go. "I'll see you in a few hours." She slipped from his embrace and faced off with Kevin. "You take good care of him," she directed the young Pretender firmly. "I'm counting on you."
"Yes, ma'am," Kevin replied, not knowing what else to say. "Let me get the therapy machine out of the trunk, and then you can be on your way."
Parker flinched - the young man's tone clearly communicated that he was uncomfortable with her and was ready for her to return to whatever it was she was doing. She glanced down at Sydney and saw his gaze communicate both sympathy for her and mild accusation. She was distancing herself - so she shouldn't be surprised when others chipped in their own efforts to distance themselves from her even further. It hurt more than she'd expected to be pushed away from the man who had become as a father to her in that fashion.
"Thanks," she replied in a forcedly neutral tone. She nodded at Sydney unhappily and went to follow Kevin to the car. As she walked, she reminded herself once again that she couldn't let herself feel anything - not yet. Not even with Sydney yet. She had to go back to work. Later she could reconnect with Sydney - maybe after she'd finally talked to Jarod. Hell, she'd probably need the shoulder desperately by that time.
She could only hope that he'd still be willing to loan it to her.
~~~~~~~~
Agent Crandall looked up as Jim Porter approached his desk. "You got something?" he asked the young agent who had headed off to research property titles for information on any holdings owned by Andrew Duncan.
The black agent's smile was vividly white against his dark face. "Duncan's ranch is south off of 247 between Victorville and Apple Valley," he announced.
"Nice to see the breaks starting to work in our favor," Crandall commented, then nodded. "Take a team and head out there to see what you can find. Hopefully, we can have those kids on a plane heading back home by dinnertime."
Porter nodded fervently. "I know I wouldn't want to be caught up in that area at this time of year," the younger agent responded. "It gets damned hot up there."
"Have we got APBs out on Duncan and Flores?"
"All over the Southland, just in case."
"Good." Crandall nodded. "Call in the moment you know anything."
"Will do." Porter turned and snagged three other agents to go with him on the excursion. They'd take two cars, just in case they had two small passengers - or two prisoners and two small passengers - when they came back.
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker sighed as she pulled the door to her office open and stepped inside, then stopped and glanced down at her wristwatch. It was three o'clock - and Ikeda-san was rising from one of the chairs in front of her desk and bowing deeply, just as she had ordered him. "You are very prompt, Ikeda-san," she commented, bowing back and then heading for her desk.
"I am your servant in all things," Ikeda repeated the Yakuza loyalty mantra and waited until she had taken her seat before sitting back down himself.
"I see that," she replied appreciatively. She gazed at her new employee thoughtfully. "I have a situation to run past you. Tell me honestly what you think."
Ikeda bowed again. "As you wish, Parker-sama."
"When I went to the Dover hospital today, I encountered your former Yakuza associate - Fujimori, I think I remember his name being - trying to just walk out. Considering that he was wearing stolen medical clothing and had no real shoes on his feet, I'm thinking that he was hoping to get away from either the police or, perhaps, the fact that the hospital was crawling with Triumvirate bodyguards."
Ikeda nodded thoughtfully. "That seems a reasonable assumption. It is considered to be a serious loss of face to allow oneself to be captured and interrogated by forces potentially antagonistic to one's sworn allegiance."
She nodded. "I remember that from my days in Japan - and Fujimori-san as well. He was fairly high up in the Tanaka administration, was he not?"
"Indeed," Ikeda stated calmly. "He and Tanaka-sama came up together through the ranks of Sonny's end of the organization. Tommy gained seniority over Fujimori more on the basis of nepotism and family connections than merit. However, Fujimori rose as high as any non-member of the Tanaka family could."
Miss Parker settled herself back comfortably in her chair. "I'd like to make effective use of this recent... acquisition... that has fallen into my lap. Do you have any suggestions?"
Ikeda too relaxed back against the firm wood of the chair back and pressed his hands together thoughtfully. "Word of your assistance of Mayeda-san, and your willingness to reimburse the Yakuza fully and with generous interest for its loss of investment will have gained you some leverage with Ueda-sama, the man who is now in charge in Tokyo. It occurs to me that should you offer to provide transportation for Fujimori back at least to Los Angeles and Mayeda-san, you would be adding leverage to what you already have earned. Yakuza could prove very helpful to you in finding either your son or the men who took him, if that is the way you choose to spend that leverage."
"You mean," she leaned forward, "not only have the feds working on this, but get the Yakuza to help out too?"
"This is your son and a girl you consider precious to you, is it not?" Ikeda asked with pointed calmness. "The law enforcement people will be necessarily hampered in their response by the legalities of the judicial system. Yakuza would not be - nor would their investigative efforts be similarly hamstrung."
"It WOULD be a way to even the score," she mused aloud.
"And save face on all sides," the Japanese agreed quietly. "Yakuza do not like being in debt to another."
Miss Parker thought for a little while, then punched her intercom button. "Mei Chiang, I want you to make arrangements for Mr. Ikeda to share the office space given to Kevin Green this morning. I doubt they will ever both be at the Centre at the same time, and this would eliminate some duplication of resources and supplies allocated. Will you show Mr. Ikeda to his new office in just a moment?"
"Yes, Miss Parker," came the gently accented voice.
"I realize that you probably would prefer NOT to have Fujimori aware of your being here," she mentioned carefully and saw the Japanese nod agreement. "Thank you for your advice. I'll let my secretary show you your office while I interview Fujimori-san and put your advice into motion. I'll have you return the moment that is over."
"Hai, Parker-sama." Ikeda rose and bowed deeply and took his leave. He bowed less deeply to the delicate Chinese girl at the desk outside the office, who immediately rose to lead him down the hallway.
Parker-sama was willing to play this game to win, he had noted with some satisfaction, and to do so fairly honorably so far. The more he got to know his new boss, the more he admired her spirit. He smiled quietly and inwardly as he followed the Chinese secretary. He would enjoy working for the Centre with such strong leadership.
He was ronin - a warrior without a master - no longer.
~~~~~~~~
Jarod moved smoothly to the front door and opened it just as the doorbell sounded once more to reveal a stocky young woman and a tall, thin, kind-faced man. "Dr. Russell? We're from Child Protection Services - I think you were expecting us?"
"Yes. Please, come on in," Jarod opened the door wide and let them come into the foyer.
"I'm Elizabeth Gilbert, and this is Tony Rizzo. We're here to do an on-site evaluation of the home and to clarify a few of the answers you gave in your personal history." The young woman looked about the roomy foyer that opened into a spacious living area with approval.
"Would you like to sit down and discuss the questions you have first," Jarod asked, gesturing them deeper into the living area, "or would you like the grand tour?"
"Why don't we do the tour first, Dr. Russell - then we can relax and discuss our questions at a little more leisure." Rizzo said in his soft voice. Jarod smiled inwardly. Rizzo had a counselor's voice - he was a psychologist at the very least. Evidently with CPS wanting to move quickly to place the children once housed with the Thatchers, they were pulling out all the stops at getting professional resources.
"Well, as you can probably imagine, this is the living room," Jarod swept his hand about the room that had a large fireplace at one end, flanked on either side with picture windows that opened out over the back balcony. "The glass in the windows is safety glass, incidentally - I have a young nephew and I didn't want him falling against the glass and falling out."
The two CPS personnel nodded at each other, and Rizzo dragged out a small notebook to jog items down in while Gilbert moved to peer out the window at the balcony. "Nice view," she commented, noting that the balcony railing itself was of a wrought iron spaced too closely together to allow a child to squeeze through. It allowed for the view to be visible without sacrificing safety to get it.
Jarod led them patiently through the dining room with its hutch and highly polished mahogany table and chairs, into the thoroughly modern and professional grade kitchen and attached breakfast area, and then into the den where television, stereo equipment and computer were housed among an impressive library of books. From there he led the way down the hallway to the bedrooms - first his own large and comfortable master bedroom, and then one of the smaller guest rooms that he had decided would be Ginger's.
"I haven't had the chance to go out and make this more a little girl's room yet," he mentioned almost apologetically. "I didn't think things would be happening quite THIS fast, to be honest."
"Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be," Rizzo admitted in his quiet voice. "But when a foster home housing several clients has to be closed, we end up in a scramble to place the kids either in new foster homes or in pre-adoptive homes."
"What did happen at the Thatcher's?" Jarod asked. "That is, IF you're allowed to talk about it... Did any of the kids get hurt?"
"Physically, no," Gilbert responded, shooting a glance at Rizzo. "But it seems that Susan Thatcher was having difficulty managing with the little girl you've petitioned for custody of - Ginger Simmons. You are aware that she has communications problems?"
"I'm well aware of Ginger's condition and the circumstances that brought it about," Jarod responded easily.
"Well, evidently these difficulties finally were too much for Mrs. Thatcher to handle," Gilbert continued in a serious tone. "Last night, neighbors heard her start screaming at the girl - cursing her out and making wild threats - and they called the police. The little girl was found curled up in a ball under her bed, too frightened to come out without having to be caught like an animal. The other children were huddled together in one bedroom, too scared to let one another out of their sight for a while."
Jarod closed his eyes. Poor Ginger, he thought and ached to just hold her close. She must have been terrified. "How is she, now that she's out of there?"
Rizzo shook his head. "Nobody knows - she isn't talking or communicating in any form now. She just sits on her bed with her back against the wall, staring out at everyone like a frightened puppy. Are you sure you know what you're getting yourself in for, Doc?"
"Very sure," Jarod replied firmly. He needed to get Ginger with him as quickly as possible to try to undo some of the damage that he'd been afraid would come. "Is there anything else you'd like to see, or can I offer you some ice tea while we discuss these questions of yours?"
"Tea would be nice," Gilbert said with a smile, and the CPS team let Jarod lead them back toward the breakfast area and the comfortable chairs there.
~~~~~~~~
"Hey, Mei Chiang!" Sam called to the pretty Chinese secretary as he saw her move past him down the hall towards Miss Parker's office.
"Hey Sam," she replied with a slow smile, turning and walking back to stand in front of the open door to his office. "What can I do for you?"
Sam snapped his briefcase closed and carried it over to his office door. "Is she back yet?"
"Yes," the secretary told him. "She's getting ready to interview Mr. Fujimori in just a few minutes. Do you need to talk to her?"
"Uh... yeah, if possible." He needed time to talk to Mei Chiang too, one of these days - but this trip to California would have to come before anything as pleasurable as that.
"C'mon, I'll let her know you want to see her," the slender fingers bent in a beckoning gesture. "I'm sure she'll have a moment for you."
"Before that," Sam said and reached out a very gentle hand to pull back on an upper arm and delay the trek down the hallway, "I wanted to know if... maybe when I get back from California... uh... if you would consider..."
Mei Chiang blinked and then blushed softly. This gentle giant of a man was actually turning into the very model of a schoolboy with a crush right before her eyes, and she was incredibly complimented. Few of the other Centre personnel, other than Miss Parker herself, ever bothered to approach her personally - it was as if having been Lyle's final secretary and last intended meal had made her off-limits. But not with this man. She'd seen the sideways glances when he'd walk past her desk on the way in to a conference with The Boss Lady, and had begun to despair that he'd ever work up the nerve to say anything. "I'd like that..." she replied in a low voice, her almond eyes clear and inviting. "When you get back from California, that is..."
Sam's face split wide open with a generous and incredibly pleased smile. "Good! Oh, that's..." He had to work to contain his excitement. "I'll call you."
"I look forward to it," Mei Chiang said sincerely, finding herself wishing that this trip he was speaking of was already over. She gazed up into dark and sparkling eyes for a long moment, then blushed again. "Let me announce you," she suddenly remembered and regretfully pulled away from his light hold on her arm.
Sam watched the pretty secretary walk ahead of him for a moment with a feeling of satisfaction. It had taken him longer than he'd expected to say something because of the chaos of working in the top echelons of Centre administration. He hoped that Miss Parker would have no disagreement with his dating her secretary. Catching himself musing and not walking, he hastened to follow and then moved straight to the office door as Mei Chiang worked the intercom and announced him.
"Tell Mr. Fujimori I'll be with him in a moment," he heard first through the intercom and then through the office door he was pushing open. Miss Parker looked up at him expectantly. "Well?"
"I'm on my way out," he announced quickly. "I just need to stop by the house and pick up my traveling clothes, and I'm on my way West."
"What's the word from Gillespie?"
"I have a letter of introduction to the SAC in charge of the LA field office that gives me access to any information that they gather about the kids' whereabouts or the kidnappers. That should get me established fairly quickly," he told her.
"Well, for the time being, here's this," she responded, holding out an envelope to him, which he took. "This makes you supervisor of the Centre's LA satellite office and gives you carte blanche to use Centre resources there however you see fit to facilitate the search for Davy and Deb." She let down her mask just enough so he could see the agony behind the walls she'd built. "Bring my kids home to me," she begged him.
"I'll do my best, Miss Parker," he promised, kicking himself yet again that the security measures he'd implemented had been so inadequate in the first place. If he'd done his job properly, none of this would have ever happened. How could he be looking forward to returning home and dating Mei Chiang when he probably wouldn't have a job much after he did return? What the Hell did he think he was doing, making plans for a future?
"Thanks, Sam." Miss Parker could see a matching agony of his own in those expressive, dark eyes. "I know I can rely on you."
Those words of trust were like sharp darts into his heart. Sam nodded and, without looking at her again, turned to leave the office. He barely noticed Mei Chiang's, "Have a safe trip," as he hurried down the hallway - away from the boss whose trust he no longer deserved, away from the woman he didn't deserve to be allowed to get to know better.
Miss Parker stared at the closed door in concern. Sam had looked very upset when he left. What was going on here? She shook her head. Time enough to ponder the workings of her Security Chief's mind later. She pushed her intercom button. "You can send Mr. Fujimori in now," she told her secretary.
Chet was still Fujimori's custodian, and he pushed the oddly attired Japanese man ahead of himself into Miss Parker's office. Miss Parker took one look at her guest and turned to the sweeper. "Find this man some decent clothing for when he's finished here, and wait outside until we're through."
"Yes, Miss Parker." Chet knew that Sam would probably not appreciate his leaving his boss alone with a man even she considered dangerous, but he valued his job enough to do as she asked without asking questions.
Fujimori eyed his latest captor with bitterness. "Ask your questions and then just either kill me or lock me away," he snapped after a perfunctory and rudely shallow bow.
"Sit down, Fujimori-san, and can the attitude. I got you out of the hospital, away from Triumvirate strong men and the FBI - I think I deserve at least a little civility from you for that," she snapped back testily. "And until you know WHY I did, I at least deserve the respect you would normally give the head of the Centre. I'm not a little girl you can push around anymore and get away with it."
Indeed, the cool woman behind the desk didn't resemble that fresh young girl who'd come to Tokyo that year at all - and Fujimori realized that she was right that she'd at least gotten him away from two groups of people he'd wanted very much to avoid. Just how beneficial his change in circumstances would be, however, remained yet to be seen; and he would be unwise to anger the serpent whose coils were wrapped tightly around him.
He bowed a little more graciously - still not to the more traditional degree of respect accorded a guest to someone in authority, but deeply enough to show her point had been taken - and sat down. "May I assume this is about the bombing?" he asked in a more conversational tone of voice and gestured around himself at the office. "After all, it seems you have come down considerably in the world."
"Yes, well I came UP in the world after the Tower came down - I was below ground when the bomb went off - so my reason for having you here only marginally concerns that," she answered and leaned forward on her desk. "However, before we continue, I do have one question: why did Tommy Tanaka want me and my Centre dead?"
Fujimori blinked. "He didn't - at least - when he ordered the Tower demolished, he had no idea that there was a power transfer in progress. It was Raines and Lyle who had betrayed the Yakuza once too often that he had intended to harm. Once it became obvious that YOU were in line to assume control, however, he did everything within his power to stop the bomber - he even hired an assassin..."
"Yes, and thanks to THAT move, I've had police and FBI people crawling through MY organization searching high and low for a killer," she snapped.
"Tanaka-sama paid for his mistake with his life, Parker-san," Fujimori reminded her sharply.
"I'm well aware of that," she snapped, her grey eyes sparking angrily at him. She took a deep breath to control her temper - the bombing was in the past, and this man was part of the mosaic that was the key to her son's future. "But enough of the past. I had you brought here to discuss the present."
"Indeed?" Fujimori was surprised - the Parkers were not well known for their ability to leave the past in the past.
She nodded. "I'm assuming that you've been kept fairly well out of the loop news-wise..."
"Tragically uninformed about much of anything is more like it," he replied, his frustration showing.
"Well, allow me to fill in a few of your gaps then," she responded. "A man by the name of Ueda now sits in the former offices of Tanaka-sama. And the Centre is no longer officially doing business with the Yakuza at all - all monies outstanding have been repaid with interest. AND I warned Mayeda-san in Los Angeles of a threat I heard of to Yakuza interests from Centre officials unhappy with the new policies I'd introduced. They had thought to incite more trouble between Yakuza and the Centre, not knowing I knew about their plans."
Now Fujimori was listening very carefully. "You warned Mayeda-san, even though you have ceased doing business with Yakuza?"
"I warned Mayeda-san because I was going to call in the FBI on my own men," she replied. I gave him two days to make whatever arrangements he could to protect Yakuza interests from both those who would steal from him and the law. I let him know that whatever information the LA office had on state-side Yakuza dealings would be compromised, and to act accordingly."
"In spite of the fact that it was a Yakuza-financed bomb that destroyed your Tower?" he gaped.
She nodded. "I want no war with the Yakuza."
The diminutive Japanese leaned back in his chair and pondered the information she'd given him. Provided contact with the Yakuza bore out her story, it seemed the Yakuza were very much in Parker-san's debt. "So what does all this have to do with me?" he asked finally.
Miss Parker sighed and deliberately allowed some of her fatigue to show. "Those Centre officials I spoke of earlier - the ones who sought to incited trouble between the Yakuza and the Centre - have attacked me personally. They have kidnapped my son and a girl who is precious to me, all in an effort to force me to resign my post. I need help in finding my children, and in finding those responsible and making them pay for what they've done."
The dark eyebrows rose. "You have your Centre intelligence apparatus, which is considerable... You have the FBI - you said you had called them in..."
"I can use all the resources I can pull together on this," she said quietly, and Fujimori suddenly understood EXACTLY what this situation had to do with him.
"You think that if you return me to the Yakuza unharmed, you can convince Ueda to authorize Mayeda to assist in finding the children and the kidnappers." He straightened in his chair.
"Exactly."
He had to give her credit for not candy-coating the truth. She was bartering her hard-earned good will and the debt the Yakuza already owed her for the safety of her children. She knew she was playing for high stakes and was working like a madwoman to load the dice in her favor.
"I will need to confirm your version of the past events that I missed while... in custody," he posited as a condition.
"That can be arranged." She spoke firmly - the condition was neither unexpected nor unreasonable. "I will place the call to Mayeda-san myself and let you talk to him."
Fujimori fell silent, as much to think about what she was offering as to watch her expression and gestures while she awaited his decision. But Miss Parker had been trained by some of the best there, and the quality of that training showed. Her face was stonily neutral and expressionless, her eyes calm and steady. She folded her hands patiently and gave away nothing of what was going on inside. Indeed, if there was any expression at all that he could recognize, it was the distinct impression that she was watching HIM as if watching a fly caught on flypaper.
Miss Parker pulled her façade close about her and remembered the benefit of giving no indication of her mood or thoughts at times like this. She didn't really need the Yakuza, she reminded herself firmly. Sam was almost ready to leave, and she had the FBI working on her behalf as well. Yakuza assistance would be nice, but it wasn't vital. Surely Lyle or Raines would have been able to find some other way to get mileage out of the favors the Yakuza owed the Centre sooner or later - which meant she could too.
"Let me talk to Mayeda-san," he said finally, "and if he confirms what you just told me, I'll speak to Ueda-sama on your behalf."
"Let me make one quick call first," she held up a finger and then reached over and dialed quickly.
"Sam Atlee here."
"Sam, I'm going to hold the Centre jet from taking off until your travel companion arrives," she told him.
"Travel companion?" His voice was confused.
"We're playing a wild card here, and you'll have an extra errand to run at the beginning of your time in LA. I need you to see to it that Mr. Fujimori gets to Mr. Mayeda's office safely."
"Mayeda - as in Yakuza??" Sam was flabbergasted.
"Just do it. We can use all the help we can get, even Yakuza help." She wasn't angry, just firm and determined.
"Yes, Miss Parker."
She disconnected and began dialing again immediately. The moment the line on the other end began to ring, she stood and handed the handset to Fujimori. And then she sat back down to wait a little while longer.
~~~~~~~~
"Whaddya mean, 'you don't know?' This man had a smashed foot and several broken ribs - he probably limped like Hell..." Gillespie shook his head at the uniformed officer in charge of the medical floor surveillance. "How long has it been since you noticed him gone?"
"The nurse went in to check on him at one - to pick up his lunch - and he was already gone. We've searched the hospital from top to bottom since then - he isn't anywhere in the building." The uniformed man knew this to be a serious foul-up - the Japanese man had been tagged as a potential defendant in the bombing of the Centre Tower and the deaths of several people.
Gillespie ran a hand through his hair in frustration. This was the last thing they needed right now. "Issue an APB on him, then, and figure out how the Hell he got outta here without anybody noticing him. Got that? There aren't THAT many Japanese living around here - so he SHOULD be fairly easy to spot, you'd think..."
The uniform caught the glower and nodded and skittered out of the FBI agent's path as Gillespie stormed from the hospital lobby.
Where at first this had been a simple bombing, now this case was sprouting as many tentacles as an octopus - and now included a kidnapping as well as the involvement of various shades and flavors of organized crime. Gillespie was beginning to think that rather than being a career builder, working this case could now just as easily become a career buster. Cooperation with the Centre itself was no longer at issue - but tracing down evidence and keeping track of new crimes was beginning to occupy a great deal of man-hour time. And he knew he had dumped something similar into the lap of Jack Crandall a whole continent away.
Just what the Hell was happening? Something was VERY rotten in the state of Delaware. He looked down at his wristwatch and wondered, not for the first time, if he was going to get home in time for supper THAT night either.
~~~~~~~~
Even though the CPS people were obviously packing up their notebooks and files and preparing to leave, Jarod felt a little frustrated when his telephone rang. "Hello?" he answered in a hurried tone.
"Jarod, this is Mom. Ethan told me you had gone home, and I was wondering..." Margaret began.
"Mom, I have someone here I need to take care of right now. Can I call you back?" he interrupted her.
From the pause on the other end, he knew he'd upset whatever discussion she'd wanted to have. "I suppose," she finally sighed. "Call me soon."
"I will," he promised and disconnected the call. "Sorry about that," he smiled in chagrin as he put the handset on the table. "Is there anything else I can show you or any other questions I can answer for you?"
"No," Rizzo said with a quick shake of his head. "I think you answered all the questions we had for you today. And you have a lovely home - very suitable for a little girl from the looks of things."
"We'll be in touch with you by this evening with our conclusions. We just need time to discuss our findings with our project director." Gilbert added, extending her hand to shake Jarod's. "Thank you very much for the tea."
Jarod escorted the pair to the front door and saw them to their car and watched as they drove away down the lane. He walked slowly back into the house, wondering how some of his answers had gone over. No, he didn't have public school records because he had been home-schooled - having Sydney teach him essentially everything from personal hygiene to astrophysics certainly qualified as “home”-schooling, not to mention the Centre sublevels had been his “home” for decades. He had given Sydney's home address and phone number, however, for reference - and before he called his mother, he figured he should probably call Sydney and warn him... No, Sydney had been taken to the hospital. He grimaced in frustration, suddenly worried over Sydney's condition. He'd have to ask Parker about his condition when she called that evening. For now, there was only one phone call he needed to make.
He made his way back into the kitchen and to the phone handset on the table, sat down and dialed.
"Hello?"
"Mom, it's me," he announced tiredly. "I'm sorry I had to interrupt you. What was it you wanted?"
"Ethan told me what was going on," Margaret announced without preamble. "I just wanted to know when you were leaving for Delaware again."
"I'm not - not yet, anyway," he admitted with a sigh.
Obviously his answer wasn't what she had expected. "You're not?"
"I have a few irons in the fire here that I just can't abandon yet, and I've been told that there's a possibility that I need to be HERE." He shook his head. "I can't explain that part of it - it's one of Ethan's hunches."
"But you're not packing?" Margaret's voice sounded genuinely hopeful.
"Not at the moment, Mom - but I told Sam that if they need me there, to call. And if Parker wants me there..." He left the rest of the statement unsaid.
She thought for a moment. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked finally.
He sighed again. "Not really, Mom. Sam said that the FBI has been called in, and..."
"You're kidding! A Parker calling in law enforcement? That's rich..." Margaret couldn't help the explosive chuckle of irony.
Jarod shook his head. "I told you, Parker is trying to turn the place around. Of course she'd call in the feds to help." From the silence on the other end, Jarod could tell that his mother still didn't believe him. "You called them when I was taken, didn't you?"
"A helluva lot of good it did, considering the Centre has people in high places in the government in their back pockets," Margaret returned bitterly. "But still, I hope that she gets her son back..."
"OUR son, Mom. MY son, your grandson."
Margaret waved her hand ineffectively, dismissing the correction. "I hope she gets Davy back soon." She paused. "Are you off work already today?"
"I had an appointment outside the office I had to keep," he told her cryptically. She didn't need to know about Ginger yet when things were still so tentative, so unknown.
"But are you done for the day?"
"I am now," he sighed.
"Then how about you come over here to Em's, and I'll make you a nice snack. Sammy will be sniffing around for cookies soon too - and he'd probably like a chance to play with his uncle a little bit while you're still here."
As much as Jarod could hear the subtle jab in her words, he could also hear the truth to her claim that his little nephew could use some attention. "Is Em home today?" he asked.
"She'll be back in about an hour - something about needing to clear something up with her editor."
"Give me a bit, and I'll be over then," Jarod nodded. "I could use something to occupy my mind until Parker calls me later tonight."
~~~~~~~~
Agent James Porter stood in his shirtsleeves beneath the hot California sun and looked at the dilapidated ranch house with frustration. It had been a long ride from Central Los Angeles to this hole in the wall, out of the way place in the middle of nowhere. Finding the gate in the rusted and partially collapsed barbed wire fencing had taken longer than he'd anticipated, and all four agents had taken long drags on their individual water bottles by the time they had gone the several miles down the drive. As they had approached the dusty and abandoned ranch site, everyone's heart had dropped.
Porter waited until Jess Archer reappeared through the front door of the ramshackle building that used to be a dwelling, then sighed when the man merely shook his head and gazed off into the surrounding barrenness himself. Tom Parnell emerged from the barn shaking his head too, and in the distance, Vic Walters was searching through the discarded farm equipment and ancient car depository with an increasingly defeated air.
Following a hunch, Porter went to the back of the cars and looked at the tire tracks leading into the yard - and flinched when his hunch proved true. There were only two sets of tire prints leading into the yard, and they belonged to the two cars they themselves had driven in. The same held true for footprints - it was obvious that the four FBI agents were the first people to have visited this abandoned site in a good long time.
Porter pulled his cell phone from his pocket and checked the signal strength, then sighed as he realized that, being down in a virtual hollow between hills, the ranch was in a “dead zone.” They would have to drive back to the main road, no doubt, before he would be in any position to call in his report on their trip to Crandall.
The young black agent wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm and looked around him at the baked and unrelenting landscape that surrounded him. He found himself trying to imagine how two innocent and unprepared people, one a child and one who might as well be one, could possibly survive in such conditions without adequate clothing - or water!
He put his hands on his hips and turned in a slow circle, looking into the distance and scanning the horizon futilely. Where the Hell could they be? If they weren't here, they could be anywhere - and that was NOT good. That was DEFINITELY not good...
~~~~~~~~
Fujimori settled back into the soft cushion of his seat and watched as the little jet gathered its energies and launched itself from the ground of the private airstrip. He was on his way home - or at least the first leg of his ultimate journey home - courtesy of the Centre. He had been given a suit and undergarments to replace his stolen surgical blues and overcoat, so that while he wasn't as comfortable in his usual expensive silk, he at least FELT halfway civilized again.
Across the little jet from him, also facing out his window, was the somber-faced Security man Miss Parker had entrusted with his delivery. The Japanese had easily read the tightly controlled anguish and stern determination that was powering the man's ever gesture now - this Sam Atlee had apparently been just as hurt by the kidnapping as Miss Parker had been.
Miss Parker - now THERE was a woman to be respected. Mayeda-san had confirmed her story down the line; she had neither hedged nor overstated any fact at all. Mayeda-san had also seen the obvious advantage to lending assistance in the search for the missing children, and had disconnected after promising to get official sanction of the effort from Tokyo on line long before the little jet touched down again in Los Angeles. Fujimori knew Mayeda-san to be an extremely tough man to impress, and so he found reason to reassess what he knew of Mr. Parker's daughter.
She had been quite the headstrong but naïve debutante when she'd walked down the steps of the company jet at Tokyo International for that year's worth of training so long ago. She had been sent to Tanaka-sama with instructions to give her the finest of self-defense and martial arts training money could buy. At first Tanaka-sama had laughed up his sleeve as he assigned her to the most rigorous karate sensei in Yakuza employ - only to have to admit that the girl had potential when she fairly quickly rose through the belts over the course of a very abbreviated period of time. Young Miss Parker had soaked up the information and skills like a sponge, and Fujimori, assigned to keep a discrete eye on their foreign student, suggested that closer ties between Yakuza and the Centre by virtue of a liaison between the young girl and young Tommy might be advantageous to all concerned.
Tommy was a wild youth, the apple of his father's eye but cruising to lose a pinky soon if something didn't give him an excuse to calm down. Miss Parker provided that excuse, and the two of them had hit it off spectacularly. By early summer, the two were lovers and partners, she helping Tommy perfect his command of English and he helping her learn some of the more intricate ins and outs of corporate life on the dangerous side. By the end of the summer, however, she had tired of him AND her exile in Japan, and by the end of her year, she had been anxious to go home. He, Fujimori, had been disappointed in her - she had tossed young Tommy Tanaka away in much the same way young Tommy was used to tossing others away, and had caused the young Yakuza considerable loss of face.
He had not been involved in the fiasco nearly a decade earlier that had resulted in the elder Tanaka-sama's prison term in an American jail. So he had not seen or spoken to the woman that had developed from that young girl. Now that he had, however, he was impressed - and disappointed that Tommy hadn't been able to keep her interest alive. Her closer alliance with the Yakuza would have been a real coup.
Fujimori took a deep breath to break his reminiscing reverie and then folded his arms about his chest as if slightly cold, being careful not to disturb the bandages over the wound in his wrist he had inflicted on himself. He was tired - he had slept little since awakening from his abortive suicide attempt - and he had no intention to try to keep the taciturn gai-jin Security Chief company.
He closed his eyes and began to chant his mantra again over and over again. Perhaps NOW the gods would hear him - and this time he WOULD make it to his temple in Osaka.
Chapter 11: The Waiting Game
Sydney's eyes blinked open slowly as Miss Parker and Kevin came into his hospital room. "Oh good," he quipped in a sleepy voice, "the rescue team is here."
Miss Parker felt her façade wanting desperately to evaporate, and she held tightly to the shields she had erected to prevent herself from falling apart. "As soon as Kevin gets himself educated on the upkeep of your gizmo, that is," she replied in a tight voice that made Sydney's eyes open just a bit wider in unhappy surprise. He hadn't heard that cool and almost unfriendly tone of voice from her in nearly eight years now, and he had hoped that he'd never hear it again, especially aimed at him.
"Parker?" he asked gently in a tone of concern that brought her gaze to his in response. Sydney's heart sank - the look in her eyes was almost dead, forced, something that reminded him of times long gone and people he'd just as soon not remember anyway. She also looked incredibly tired, as if she'd gotten no sleep for the rest of the night at all.
"We'll talk later," she dismissed the concern abruptly and looked away as the door to the room swung inward.
"Ah good, Miss Parker?" A distinguished gentleman nearly half a head shorter than Miss Parker strolled into the room. "I'm Doctor Hightower - I spoke with you on the phone."
"Doctor," she replied coolly, shaking the man's hand firmly.
"Now, are you going to be the one helping Dr. Green with his CPM therapy?" Hightower got right down to business.
"I am," Kevin spoke up, surprising himself by taking the initiative for a change. "I'm Kevin Green."
"Oh good! This is your father?" the grey-bearded doctor inquired in mild curiosity.
"He's my uncle," Kevin replied easily, letting a deceptively nonchalant glance slip over to watch Sydney's face when he made the statement, only to see his mentor lift his gaze to his and give a slight nod of encouragement.
Doctor Hightower cleared his throat and caught the attention of all in the room. "Dr. Green, you're going to be spending eight hours a day strapped to a Continuous Passive Motion therapy machine during your recovery. It will help keep the knee we just fixed for you from swelling quite so painfully, and most patients report a shorter period of time to recover most of the flexibility of the joint. You can start the therapy as soon as you get settled into bed at home today - and even though you'll probably do a lot of sleeping this afternoon and evening, the machine will work the knee for you."
"How long will I have to be tethered to this contraption?" Sydney eyed the machine on the rolling table warily.
"For at least the first couple of months or so," the doctor told him sympathetically. "You'll also be getting regular physical therapy after your incisions heal - starting about three weeks after surgery or whenever your incisions have healed. From this point on, though, a lot will depend on you and how hard you're willing to realistically push yourself. We'll start you at about a 30° arc of flexing. Let me show you and Kevin how the controls work, so you can adjust that arc as you feel you're capable."
"I think I'm going to go look in on Broots while Dr. Hightower is showing you two the ropes here," she told Sydney quickly and slipped from his bedside with very little effort. Sydney followed her from the room with his brows furled sleepily, then returned his lagging attention to what the doctor was telling them.
Miss Parker stopped a few paces down the hall from Sydney's room and stood for a moment, head bowed and breathing hard to regain her composure. Sydney knew what she was doing - and the moment he had his wits about him again and was in a position to talk to her, she knew that he would confront her with what he'd just seen in her face. She straightened and stretched her chin into the air ever so slightly. She'd just have to face him and his accusations down then - right now, she couldn't allow herself to feel. It was too easy to break - too easy to become a completely nonfunctional basket case if she allowed herself to feel. She was a Parker, and she was the Centre - right now, she had to let that be her strength and her purpose. She reached for the Lyle mask that had slipped a little too far away in her moment of solitary weakness and glued it tightly to her face and her soul.
Then she began walking slowly and resolutely down the hallway toward the elevator that would take her up a floor to visit with another essential part of her life laid low as much because of her actions as anything else. No! She wouldn't let herself think of how, if she hadn't gone along with Jarod's plan to bring the Centre's malignant hierarchy of terror low, neither Broots nor Sydney would be in the condition they each found themselves now. She wasn't responsible for the actions of thoughtless and cruel men greedy for power and corrupted by it, she reminded herself sternly as the elevator door slid closed.
Was she?
She held herself stiffly erect and breathed in a deep breath of pure pain. No! She couldn't let herself feel, she repeated the litany with determination - none of this could be acknowledged until Davy and Deb were safely home again and the monsters that took them had paid for their audacity! Her hands tightened into fists at her side as she trained her eyes on a point in the middle of the sliding metal door. She had managed to get herself back under iron control again by the time that door slid aside and let her walk down this new corridor.
The last thing she had expected, however, was to see that Broots was awake when she walked into the room. Like Sydney, his gaze was still a little overshadowed by the powerful drugs that had been administered to him. In his case, they had kept him in the chemical coma for almost two weeks while his crushed pelvis and legs healed so that he wouldn't have to suffer the intense pain having such a mangled lower body must have caused. But, evidently, the doctors were encouraged enough with his progress that...
"Broots!" she breathed.
"Miss Parker! I was hoping Debbie would be by today..." he said in a slightly slurred and sleepy voice and beckoned with an obviously weak hand. "Do you know when she plans to stop by?"
Miss Parker stared at her old friend, mesmerized by his gentle and trusting and very drowsy hazel gaze. How was she going to tell him, in his condition, what had happened to his little girl?
~~~~~~~~
Stewart Berringer stared across the space of the cell at the county facility at his old friend and apparent nemesis with loathing and disgust. Flores had taken a golden opportunity to quietly and subtlely force Miss Parker to rescind many of her restrictions on the less-ethical end of Centre operations and created utter chaos - and landed them both in jail on conspiracy to commit a felony among other local and state charges. "You stupid idiot," he finally blurted out.
Flores turned his head from where he sat slumped on the cot, his back against the other wall, and shrugged. "At least I tried something," he hissed back. "You pussies were going to sit around until everything we'd worked so hard to build..."
"You just couldn't be bothered to be patient," Berringer exploded, pacing back and forth. "You couldn't be subtle. You're too much of the same school as Raines and Lyle - and look what happened to THEM?"
"Shut up," Flores barked, then looked away. "Just shut the fuck up."
"What the Hell did you THINK she was going to do when you took her son, asshole? Fall on her knees and beg you "I'll give you whatever you want, just give me my little boy back?" Berringer's tone was scathing.
"It's worked before in similar situations," Flores snapped, pulling his left knee up close to his chest and reaching down to pull on the foot to keep the calf from cramping again. Even without the electrical stimulus, his muscles had been giving him fits for hours remembering.
"Not with a Parker," Berringer shook his head in disgust. "You just keep forgetting that she was trained by the Old Man himself - the one who did a helluva job keeping Raines in line for so long."
"She's a mother - that makes her weak in a way that Old Man Parker himself never was."
"Oh, she's so weak she called in the feds," Berringer hissed caustically. "And now, between the tape of your call to Duncan and all the evidence they've been collecting on you since you decided to play it fast and loose, we're not going to be seeing sunshine again anytime soon."
"Not if she wants to see that boy of hers again," Flores blustered. "Only I know how to get in contact with Duncan, and only Duncan knows where the kid is being held."
"You idiot. She knows Duncan's in on it - and she's turned over THAT to the feds too. Just don't tell me Cordoba's part of the plan..." Flores shot him a deadly look and fell silent. "And they've got a girl instead of Dr. Green," Berringer shook his head. "And if they touch a hair on that girl's head, Parker will have yours on a platter, feds or no."
"Just what girl did Duncan snatch anyway?" Flores asked in frustration.
"The daughter of one of Miss Parker's oldest and dearest friends, that's all. They've been thick as thieves for years, and rumor has it that she's been practically like the girl's mother for even longer." Berringer just shook his head again and looked at Flores as if examining an intelligent insect. "Not only did you put some really stupid stuff in motion, but you didn't do your homework on your target."
"Fuck you," Flores hissed and turned on his cot so that he didn't have to look at Berringer anymore - then straightened his left leg out as yet another cramp threatened.
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker stared at her old friend and knew that her Lyle mask wouldn't protect her from this - and that she didn't have the heart even try to let it. Her friend - her adopted brother - deserved better than that after being in a coma for so long and nearly dying himself. "Deb couldn't make it in today," she said, stepping forward to take a seat in the chair near the head of the bed and then taking his hand in hers, "so she sent me in instead. She said she'd be in to see you soon." The lies caught in her throat, but she just couldn't bear to be the one to tell Broots what had happened - doing that would bring the harsh reality into her own world and shatter what little was left of her ability to function.
Broots closed his eyes briefly in trusting acceptance of the fabrication. "How long have I been out of it?" he asked woozily.
"Almost two weeks," she told him, settling his hand between her two. "You had us all pretty scared for a while there." She paused. "I... didn't know you were down in Sim Lab..."
The man on the bed opened his eyes again. "Is that where I was? What happened anyway?" His brows slid together lightly. "Nobody will tell me anything, and I can't remember anything past having breakfast that morning..."
"Someone set a bomb in the Tower, Broots - it's gone. No more Tower."
Broots stared at her disbelievingly. "But... what about..."
"I was down in the morgue, making sure Raines was really dead, when it blew," she told him gently. "Otherwise, I wouldn't be standing here."
"So... Is the Centre a has-been?" he asked weakly, trying to smile.
"Not for as long as I'm running it," Miss Parker told him firmly. "We've gone a long way towards legitimizing our operation. We've even brought in the FBI to help us handle some of the more stubborn problems."
"All this fun, and I've missed it," Broots quipped as his eyes slid closed of their own volition again and this time stayed closed.
"I'll let you rest, then," she patted his hand between hers and set it back down on the bedspread again. "You take it easy," she told him as she eyed the metallic frame that still bulged about his middle and the fact that both his legs were still encased in thick plaster. "... but not TOO easy. I need you back at the Centre in the worst kind of way, so don't dawdle."
"Yes, Miss Parker," he responded in a voice that clearly told her that he was slowly fading back into slumber.
She rose and, with a backward glance of pure apology, walked out of the room and back toward the elevator. She couldn't be gone too long - she had to get Sydney home and then get back to the Centre.
Kevin was asking Dr. Hightower some very complicated and technical questions about the therapy machine when she pushed through the door again. Sydney, now dressed in the street clothes they had brought for him, roused from the light doze he had settled into and beckoned to her. "You look tired, ma petite," he said quietly, reaching a hand out to her.
Miss Parker could hardly refuse. "It was a long night, Syd," she admitted as she took his hand in hers. "We had a lot to do to try to get a lead on where..."
"Parker," he started, only to have her shake her head at him firmly.
"Not now, Sydney. I..." The façade cracked slightly. "I can't talk about it and still be able to do what I have to do to get them back." Her grey eyes caught and held his sleepy chestnut. "Please. We'll talk later. I promise."
"First I want you to promise me is that you won't take this too far," he worried at her, his grip on her hand tightening in spite of his obvious fatigue.
"I'll only take it as far as I have to," she told him, feeling the crack in her façade heal with those words. "And it will be over, eventually."
He nodded and closed his eyes. "Then we'll talk later." He turned and saw Kevin still deep in discussion with Dr. Hightower. "How is Broots?"
"Awake, at last," she told him, and saw him open his eyes again to look at her.
"Did you tell him?"
"Don't be crazy, Syd. I'm not going to tell a man fresh out of coma that his daughter's been kidnapped by a pair of sexual devi..." She took a deep breath and then looked at her surrogate father again, her eyes tortured.
Sydney's jaw had dropped with this inadvertent disclosure of information. "Parker!"
"We're on their trail, Syd," she filled in quickly. "And we've got the feds working with us on this. We'll find them." Don't ask me more, her eyes begged him. And finally he nodded, letting her off the hook again for the time being - although his own worry level had just been boosted right off the charts.
An orderly in charge of a wheelchair came through the door. "Somebody around here gettin' sprung?" he asked with a wide smile.
Miss Parker beckoned the sweeper that had remained at the door and handed him her keys. "Bring my car to the front, then head back to the Centre with your passenger. I'll join you as soon as I can."
"Yes, ma'am," the man nodded and left immediately.
"Well," she stepped over and put a hand on Kevin's shoulder, interrupting yet another question, "do you think you know what you'll be doing with this thing?"
"Oh, yes!" Kevin smiled at her. "It's simple really. There's this control panel here..."
"Fine," she interrupted him again. "How about we pack Sydney up and get him home before we need to pay rent on the room for another night."
"Remember, don't let him increase the flex arc more than 10° in the first week," Dr. Hightower reminded Kevin. He then turned to Sydney, who had just been plunked into the wheelchair. "And you - you remember to take your pain medication on schedule. That CPM process isn't going to be a bowl of cherries at first - the medication will not only help you sleep at night, but weather the therapy at first. Don't think taking the medication during the day is a sign of weakness or failure."
"He hates pain meds," Kevin nodded, while Sydney scowled at him for spilling the beans on him so blithely.
"Well, you're going to need them this time," Dr. Hightower told him in no uncertain terms. "You might as well know that whenever you get up from the therapy for whatever reason - to use the restroom or go to bed - it's going to hurt like Hell for a while when the blood rushes into the injury again. So take those meds, Dr. - there's no reason for you to suffer needlessly when remedy is so easily achieved."
"I will," Sydney agreed reluctantly and tiredly. Right now, all he wanted to do was to get into his own house and stretch out in that daybed that had been his command post for far too long already.
"OK, folks. Let's get this show on the road," the orderly said in a good humor and began the progression down the corridor toward the lobby, the front door and Parker's car.
~~~~~~~~
"That was one sweet piece of virgin ass," Cordoba commented wistfully as he kicked up the air conditioner settings on the dash. He sighed as he stretched his legs out to make himself more comfortable. "Are you sure we don't want to just keep her with us? I mean, she wasn't part of the original deal in the first place..."
Duncan sighed. These were the times that reminded him of just how different their upbringings - and subsequent lives - had made them. "This is not the time to be letting your little head do the thinking for you, cabrón."
The Hispanic shot his gringo friend a sudden glare of animosity. "You used to like it when “El Guapo” did the thinking down on The Strip, amigo.."
"Yeah, well that was then, this is now. Until we hear from Flores, we lay low and hang tight. We don't want to get ourselves nailed with that girl or anything else tying what went down in Delaware with us - that would be an open invite to the electric chair."
"Shit, we coulda BOTH had ourselves some fun with her and then put her in the ground afterwards and still not get nailed with her... I mean, she's just extra baggage anyway since we were SUPPOSED to snatch that old man..." Cordoba argued heatedly. "I tell you, Andy, it was a mistake to snatch her, it was a bigger mistake to just leave her there."
"Shut up," Duncan snapped tiredly. "If they've got Flores, we're already fucked, estúpido - they're going to be looking for ME once they figure out that it was Flores that set up this entire thing, if they haven't already put that part together. And once they latch onto me, how long will it be before they figure out that you're in it too? We DO have a reputation, you know..."
"And this is supposed to convince me that we did ourselves a favor by just dumping the girl and the brat out at that ranch and just leaving them all trussed up out there?" Cordoba's voice was rising. "Madre de Diós, Andy, if they know it's you, then they'll trace us to the ranch..."
"Which is why I didn't take them to MY ranch, you idiot!" Duncan yelled back. "I happen to know that old man Pederson's place has been abandoned for years, and it's over ten miles as the crow flies and on the other side of the freeway from Uncle Aaron's." He let loose his right hand and swatted the Hispanic's upper arm rather sharply with the back of his hand. "There's nothing going to lead them to the Pederson Ranch."
"What if the brats get away?" Cordoba was shouting now. "They know what we look like. Shit, Andy, we shoulda.."
"They ain't gonna get away - not far enough to do any good - certainly not enough to be able to do much talking," Duncan said in a lethally quiet voice that effectively silenced his colleague. "At this time of year, it gets damned hot out there in them hills - and like I said, the Pederson place has been abandoned for years - there ain't no water. Even if they get loose, there still ain't no water - and they ain't got much to protect them from the sun or the heat either. So if they get away from the house, then ain't NOBODY ever gonna find their bones. Not even us."
He turned and smiled a cold smile at his friend. "Besides, why do you think I took them out there to begin with? Flores didn't ever intend to have the brat returned alive in the first place - the old man either. That story was just for the Parker bitch, to give her a reason to do what he wanted her to. He wanted whatever happened to look like natural causes - but he wanted them dead in the end nonetheless. Believe me, at this time of year, it won't take long before they wish they WERE dead." He chuckled to himself. "And we'll be long gone setting ourselves up with a helluva good set of alibis."
"You better be right, cabrón," Cordoba told him in an equally lethal and quiet voice. He slumped in the seat, then began to pay attention to the signs on the freeway. "Say - where we headed anyway?"
"Figured you'd want to celebrate your soon-to-be fortune, my friend - so I thought we'd hit Hollywood and Vine, just for old time's sake. You can have another blonde, and I can find me a nice black honey." Duncan glanced at Cordoba. "It'll be like the good old days, man."
"I like your way of thinking," Cordoba nodded and sat up straighter.
~~~~~~~~
"Sydney, we're here," Miss Parker called softly as she twisted in her seat and reached for him. He had settled into the back seat of her car sideways, with his injured leg stretched out across the seat and his shoulder within her reach, and then proceeded to fall asleep on the ride home.
"I'll get the door open and then come back to help you get him into the house," Kevin said quickly and jumped from the passenger seat.
"Syd," she called softly again and jiggled his shoulder a little harder. "C'mon. We can't carry you..."
Finally the injured psychiatrist roused and then looked around him in sleep confusion. "Already?"
Miss Parker shook her head. "They must have you on the GOOD stuff today, Freud."
Kevin returned from opening the door between kitchen and garage and opened the door the to back seat nearest Sydney's outstretched leg. "Come down the seat toward me," he directed his mentor with a wave of the hand, "I'll help you out of the car."
As Sydney roused himself further and began following Kevin's instructions, Miss Parker climbed from behind the steering wheel and joined Kevin. Together they finally were able to each get a shoulder under an armpit and literally hoist Sydney out of the car between them. Slowly, letting Sydney's good leg help set the pace while the injured leg never touched the ground, they walked him into the house and back into the den.
"At last!" Sydney exclaimed as they lowered him into a seated position on the couch that served as his daybed. A few more moments of exertion with assistance saw his injured leg carefully lifted onto the couch and then Parker was fluffing and arranging pillows at his back.
"I can't stay long," she said briskly. "I need to get back to the Centre and see what's developed with Sam and Tyler. Oh," she remembered while straightening, "if it's OK with you, Sam would prefer that I stay with you two until things are resolved - especially since he's going to be gone. We'll have a bodyguard with us in the house here until he gets back too."
"Parker, wait," he caught at her arm. "Have you talked to Jarod yet?" She looked away and shook her head. "Don't you think..."
"I'm going to call him this evening, Sydney, and I told Sam to tell him so when he called him just after we left to come get you." Finally she looked at him, her gaze tired and worried. "I need to be able to..."
"Yes, I know - you need to be able to keep functioning. But you also need to be able to work through this. You can't lock your emotions away completely - they'll tear you apart." He finally found and got a grip on a hand and squeezed to make his point. "Be efficient. But give yourself room to be human too, eventually."
"Not now, Sydney," she whispered, her façade trembling before his caring and reason.
"Don't do this to yourself," he cautioned tiredly, wishing with all his heart that he wasn't filled with left-over sedation and pain medication.
She shook her head and ruthlessly shoved her Lyle mask into position. "I'm just doing what I have to, Syd," she told him in her cool Lyle-voice. "You behave yourself and rest yourself out."
Rather than let her go, Sydney used the last of his energy to pull on her hand until he could wrap his other arm around her neck. "I love you, Parker," he told her sadly. "I'm worried about Davy and Deb, just as you are - but I'm just as worried about you. I don't like what I'm seeing here..."
"I'll be fine," she reassured him, giving him a quick peck on the cheek to convince him to let her go. "I'll see you in a few hours." She slipped from his embrace and faced off with Kevin. "You take good care of him," she directed the young Pretender firmly. "I'm counting on you."
"Yes, ma'am," Kevin replied, not knowing what else to say. "Let me get the therapy machine out of the trunk, and then you can be on your way."
Parker flinched - the young man's tone clearly communicated that he was uncomfortable with her and was ready for her to return to whatever it was she was doing. She glanced down at Sydney and saw his gaze communicate both sympathy for her and mild accusation. She was distancing herself - so she shouldn't be surprised when others chipped in their own efforts to distance themselves from her even further. It hurt more than she'd expected to be pushed away from the man who had become as a father to her in that fashion.
"Thanks," she replied in a forcedly neutral tone. She nodded at Sydney unhappily and went to follow Kevin to the car. As she walked, she reminded herself once again that she couldn't let herself feel anything - not yet. Not even with Sydney yet. She had to go back to work. Later she could reconnect with Sydney - maybe after she'd finally talked to Jarod. Hell, she'd probably need the shoulder desperately by that time.
She could only hope that he'd still be willing to loan it to her.
~~~~~~~~
Agent Crandall looked up as Jim Porter approached his desk. "You got something?" he asked the young agent who had headed off to research property titles for information on any holdings owned by Andrew Duncan.
The black agent's smile was vividly white against his dark face. "Duncan's ranch is south off of 247 between Victorville and Apple Valley," he announced.
"Nice to see the breaks starting to work in our favor," Crandall commented, then nodded. "Take a team and head out there to see what you can find. Hopefully, we can have those kids on a plane heading back home by dinnertime."
Porter nodded fervently. "I know I wouldn't want to be caught up in that area at this time of year," the younger agent responded. "It gets damned hot up there."
"Have we got APBs out on Duncan and Flores?"
"All over the Southland, just in case."
"Good." Crandall nodded. "Call in the moment you know anything."
"Will do." Porter turned and snagged three other agents to go with him on the excursion. They'd take two cars, just in case they had two small passengers - or two prisoners and two small passengers - when they came back.
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker sighed as she pulled the door to her office open and stepped inside, then stopped and glanced down at her wristwatch. It was three o'clock - and Ikeda-san was rising from one of the chairs in front of her desk and bowing deeply, just as she had ordered him. "You are very prompt, Ikeda-san," she commented, bowing back and then heading for her desk.
"I am your servant in all things," Ikeda repeated the Yakuza loyalty mantra and waited until she had taken her seat before sitting back down himself.
"I see that," she replied appreciatively. She gazed at her new employee thoughtfully. "I have a situation to run past you. Tell me honestly what you think."
Ikeda bowed again. "As you wish, Parker-sama."
"When I went to the Dover hospital today, I encountered your former Yakuza associate - Fujimori, I think I remember his name being - trying to just walk out. Considering that he was wearing stolen medical clothing and had no real shoes on his feet, I'm thinking that he was hoping to get away from either the police or, perhaps, the fact that the hospital was crawling with Triumvirate bodyguards."
Ikeda nodded thoughtfully. "That seems a reasonable assumption. It is considered to be a serious loss of face to allow oneself to be captured and interrogated by forces potentially antagonistic to one's sworn allegiance."
She nodded. "I remember that from my days in Japan - and Fujimori-san as well. He was fairly high up in the Tanaka administration, was he not?"
"Indeed," Ikeda stated calmly. "He and Tanaka-sama came up together through the ranks of Sonny's end of the organization. Tommy gained seniority over Fujimori more on the basis of nepotism and family connections than merit. However, Fujimori rose as high as any non-member of the Tanaka family could."
Miss Parker settled herself back comfortably in her chair. "I'd like to make effective use of this recent... acquisition... that has fallen into my lap. Do you have any suggestions?"
Ikeda too relaxed back against the firm wood of the chair back and pressed his hands together thoughtfully. "Word of your assistance of Mayeda-san, and your willingness to reimburse the Yakuza fully and with generous interest for its loss of investment will have gained you some leverage with Ueda-sama, the man who is now in charge in Tokyo. It occurs to me that should you offer to provide transportation for Fujimori back at least to Los Angeles and Mayeda-san, you would be adding leverage to what you already have earned. Yakuza could prove very helpful to you in finding either your son or the men who took him, if that is the way you choose to spend that leverage."
"You mean," she leaned forward, "not only have the feds working on this, but get the Yakuza to help out too?"
"This is your son and a girl you consider precious to you, is it not?" Ikeda asked with pointed calmness. "The law enforcement people will be necessarily hampered in their response by the legalities of the judicial system. Yakuza would not be - nor would their investigative efforts be similarly hamstrung."
"It WOULD be a way to even the score," she mused aloud.
"And save face on all sides," the Japanese agreed quietly. "Yakuza do not like being in debt to another."
Miss Parker thought for a little while, then punched her intercom button. "Mei Chiang, I want you to make arrangements for Mr. Ikeda to share the office space given to Kevin Green this morning. I doubt they will ever both be at the Centre at the same time, and this would eliminate some duplication of resources and supplies allocated. Will you show Mr. Ikeda to his new office in just a moment?"
"Yes, Miss Parker," came the gently accented voice.
"I realize that you probably would prefer NOT to have Fujimori aware of your being here," she mentioned carefully and saw the Japanese nod agreement. "Thank you for your advice. I'll let my secretary show you your office while I interview Fujimori-san and put your advice into motion. I'll have you return the moment that is over."
"Hai, Parker-sama." Ikeda rose and bowed deeply and took his leave. He bowed less deeply to the delicate Chinese girl at the desk outside the office, who immediately rose to lead him down the hallway.
Parker-sama was willing to play this game to win, he had noted with some satisfaction, and to do so fairly honorably so far. The more he got to know his new boss, the more he admired her spirit. He smiled quietly and inwardly as he followed the Chinese secretary. He would enjoy working for the Centre with such strong leadership.
He was ronin - a warrior without a master - no longer.
~~~~~~~~
Jarod moved smoothly to the front door and opened it just as the doorbell sounded once more to reveal a stocky young woman and a tall, thin, kind-faced man. "Dr. Russell? We're from Child Protection Services - I think you were expecting us?"
"Yes. Please, come on in," Jarod opened the door wide and let them come into the foyer.
"I'm Elizabeth Gilbert, and this is Tony Rizzo. We're here to do an on-site evaluation of the home and to clarify a few of the answers you gave in your personal history." The young woman looked about the roomy foyer that opened into a spacious living area with approval.
"Would you like to sit down and discuss the questions you have first," Jarod asked, gesturing them deeper into the living area, "or would you like the grand tour?"
"Why don't we do the tour first, Dr. Russell - then we can relax and discuss our questions at a little more leisure." Rizzo said in his soft voice. Jarod smiled inwardly. Rizzo had a counselor's voice - he was a psychologist at the very least. Evidently with CPS wanting to move quickly to place the children once housed with the Thatchers, they were pulling out all the stops at getting professional resources.
"Well, as you can probably imagine, this is the living room," Jarod swept his hand about the room that had a large fireplace at one end, flanked on either side with picture windows that opened out over the back balcony. "The glass in the windows is safety glass, incidentally - I have a young nephew and I didn't want him falling against the glass and falling out."
The two CPS personnel nodded at each other, and Rizzo dragged out a small notebook to jog items down in while Gilbert moved to peer out the window at the balcony. "Nice view," she commented, noting that the balcony railing itself was of a wrought iron spaced too closely together to allow a child to squeeze through. It allowed for the view to be visible without sacrificing safety to get it.
Jarod led them patiently through the dining room with its hutch and highly polished mahogany table and chairs, into the thoroughly modern and professional grade kitchen and attached breakfast area, and then into the den where television, stereo equipment and computer were housed among an impressive library of books. From there he led the way down the hallway to the bedrooms - first his own large and comfortable master bedroom, and then one of the smaller guest rooms that he had decided would be Ginger's.
"I haven't had the chance to go out and make this more a little girl's room yet," he mentioned almost apologetically. "I didn't think things would be happening quite THIS fast, to be honest."
"Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't be," Rizzo admitted in his quiet voice. "But when a foster home housing several clients has to be closed, we end up in a scramble to place the kids either in new foster homes or in pre-adoptive homes."
"What did happen at the Thatcher's?" Jarod asked. "That is, IF you're allowed to talk about it... Did any of the kids get hurt?"
"Physically, no," Gilbert responded, shooting a glance at Rizzo. "But it seems that Susan Thatcher was having difficulty managing with the little girl you've petitioned for custody of - Ginger Simmons. You are aware that she has communications problems?"
"I'm well aware of Ginger's condition and the circumstances that brought it about," Jarod responded easily.
"Well, evidently these difficulties finally were too much for Mrs. Thatcher to handle," Gilbert continued in a serious tone. "Last night, neighbors heard her start screaming at the girl - cursing her out and making wild threats - and they called the police. The little girl was found curled up in a ball under her bed, too frightened to come out without having to be caught like an animal. The other children were huddled together in one bedroom, too scared to let one another out of their sight for a while."
Jarod closed his eyes. Poor Ginger, he thought and ached to just hold her close. She must have been terrified. "How is she, now that she's out of there?"
Rizzo shook his head. "Nobody knows - she isn't talking or communicating in any form now. She just sits on her bed with her back against the wall, staring out at everyone like a frightened puppy. Are you sure you know what you're getting yourself in for, Doc?"
"Very sure," Jarod replied firmly. He needed to get Ginger with him as quickly as possible to try to undo some of the damage that he'd been afraid would come. "Is there anything else you'd like to see, or can I offer you some ice tea while we discuss these questions of yours?"
"Tea would be nice," Gilbert said with a smile, and the CPS team let Jarod lead them back toward the breakfast area and the comfortable chairs there.
~~~~~~~~
"Hey, Mei Chiang!" Sam called to the pretty Chinese secretary as he saw her move past him down the hall towards Miss Parker's office.
"Hey Sam," she replied with a slow smile, turning and walking back to stand in front of the open door to his office. "What can I do for you?"
Sam snapped his briefcase closed and carried it over to his office door. "Is she back yet?"
"Yes," the secretary told him. "She's getting ready to interview Mr. Fujimori in just a few minutes. Do you need to talk to her?"
"Uh... yeah, if possible." He needed time to talk to Mei Chiang too, one of these days - but this trip to California would have to come before anything as pleasurable as that.
"C'mon, I'll let her know you want to see her," the slender fingers bent in a beckoning gesture. "I'm sure she'll have a moment for you."
"Before that," Sam said and reached out a very gentle hand to pull back on an upper arm and delay the trek down the hallway, "I wanted to know if... maybe when I get back from California... uh... if you would consider..."
Mei Chiang blinked and then blushed softly. This gentle giant of a man was actually turning into the very model of a schoolboy with a crush right before her eyes, and she was incredibly complimented. Few of the other Centre personnel, other than Miss Parker herself, ever bothered to approach her personally - it was as if having been Lyle's final secretary and last intended meal had made her off-limits. But not with this man. She'd seen the sideways glances when he'd walk past her desk on the way in to a conference with The Boss Lady, and had begun to despair that he'd ever work up the nerve to say anything. "I'd like that..." she replied in a low voice, her almond eyes clear and inviting. "When you get back from California, that is..."
Sam's face split wide open with a generous and incredibly pleased smile. "Good! Oh, that's..." He had to work to contain his excitement. "I'll call you."
"I look forward to it," Mei Chiang said sincerely, finding herself wishing that this trip he was speaking of was already over. She gazed up into dark and sparkling eyes for a long moment, then blushed again. "Let me announce you," she suddenly remembered and regretfully pulled away from his light hold on her arm.
Sam watched the pretty secretary walk ahead of him for a moment with a feeling of satisfaction. It had taken him longer than he'd expected to say something because of the chaos of working in the top echelons of Centre administration. He hoped that Miss Parker would have no disagreement with his dating her secretary. Catching himself musing and not walking, he hastened to follow and then moved straight to the office door as Mei Chiang worked the intercom and announced him.
"Tell Mr. Fujimori I'll be with him in a moment," he heard first through the intercom and then through the office door he was pushing open. Miss Parker looked up at him expectantly. "Well?"
"I'm on my way out," he announced quickly. "I just need to stop by the house and pick up my traveling clothes, and I'm on my way West."
"What's the word from Gillespie?"
"I have a letter of introduction to the SAC in charge of the LA field office that gives me access to any information that they gather about the kids' whereabouts or the kidnappers. That should get me established fairly quickly," he told her.
"Well, for the time being, here's this," she responded, holding out an envelope to him, which he took. "This makes you supervisor of the Centre's LA satellite office and gives you carte blanche to use Centre resources there however you see fit to facilitate the search for Davy and Deb." She let down her mask just enough so he could see the agony behind the walls she'd built. "Bring my kids home to me," she begged him.
"I'll do my best, Miss Parker," he promised, kicking himself yet again that the security measures he'd implemented had been so inadequate in the first place. If he'd done his job properly, none of this would have ever happened. How could he be looking forward to returning home and dating Mei Chiang when he probably wouldn't have a job much after he did return? What the Hell did he think he was doing, making plans for a future?
"Thanks, Sam." Miss Parker could see a matching agony of his own in those expressive, dark eyes. "I know I can rely on you."
Those words of trust were like sharp darts into his heart. Sam nodded and, without looking at her again, turned to leave the office. He barely noticed Mei Chiang's, "Have a safe trip," as he hurried down the hallway - away from the boss whose trust he no longer deserved, away from the woman he didn't deserve to be allowed to get to know better.
Miss Parker stared at the closed door in concern. Sam had looked very upset when he left. What was going on here? She shook her head. Time enough to ponder the workings of her Security Chief's mind later. She pushed her intercom button. "You can send Mr. Fujimori in now," she told her secretary.
Chet was still Fujimori's custodian, and he pushed the oddly attired Japanese man ahead of himself into Miss Parker's office. Miss Parker took one look at her guest and turned to the sweeper. "Find this man some decent clothing for when he's finished here, and wait outside until we're through."
"Yes, Miss Parker." Chet knew that Sam would probably not appreciate his leaving his boss alone with a man even she considered dangerous, but he valued his job enough to do as she asked without asking questions.
Fujimori eyed his latest captor with bitterness. "Ask your questions and then just either kill me or lock me away," he snapped after a perfunctory and rudely shallow bow.
"Sit down, Fujimori-san, and can the attitude. I got you out of the hospital, away from Triumvirate strong men and the FBI - I think I deserve at least a little civility from you for that," she snapped back testily. "And until you know WHY I did, I at least deserve the respect you would normally give the head of the Centre. I'm not a little girl you can push around anymore and get away with it."
Indeed, the cool woman behind the desk didn't resemble that fresh young girl who'd come to Tokyo that year at all - and Fujimori realized that she was right that she'd at least gotten him away from two groups of people he'd wanted very much to avoid. Just how beneficial his change in circumstances would be, however, remained yet to be seen; and he would be unwise to anger the serpent whose coils were wrapped tightly around him.
He bowed a little more graciously - still not to the more traditional degree of respect accorded a guest to someone in authority, but deeply enough to show her point had been taken - and sat down. "May I assume this is about the bombing?" he asked in a more conversational tone of voice and gestured around himself at the office. "After all, it seems you have come down considerably in the world."
"Yes, well I came UP in the world after the Tower came down - I was below ground when the bomb went off - so my reason for having you here only marginally concerns that," she answered and leaned forward on her desk. "However, before we continue, I do have one question: why did Tommy Tanaka want me and my Centre dead?"
Fujimori blinked. "He didn't - at least - when he ordered the Tower demolished, he had no idea that there was a power transfer in progress. It was Raines and Lyle who had betrayed the Yakuza once too often that he had intended to harm. Once it became obvious that YOU were in line to assume control, however, he did everything within his power to stop the bomber - he even hired an assassin..."
"Yes, and thanks to THAT move, I've had police and FBI people crawling through MY organization searching high and low for a killer," she snapped.
"Tanaka-sama paid for his mistake with his life, Parker-san," Fujimori reminded her sharply.
"I'm well aware of that," she snapped, her grey eyes sparking angrily at him. She took a deep breath to control her temper - the bombing was in the past, and this man was part of the mosaic that was the key to her son's future. "But enough of the past. I had you brought here to discuss the present."
"Indeed?" Fujimori was surprised - the Parkers were not well known for their ability to leave the past in the past.
She nodded. "I'm assuming that you've been kept fairly well out of the loop news-wise..."
"Tragically uninformed about much of anything is more like it," he replied, his frustration showing.
"Well, allow me to fill in a few of your gaps then," she responded. "A man by the name of Ueda now sits in the former offices of Tanaka-sama. And the Centre is no longer officially doing business with the Yakuza at all - all monies outstanding have been repaid with interest. AND I warned Mayeda-san in Los Angeles of a threat I heard of to Yakuza interests from Centre officials unhappy with the new policies I'd introduced. They had thought to incite more trouble between Yakuza and the Centre, not knowing I knew about their plans."
Now Fujimori was listening very carefully. "You warned Mayeda-san, even though you have ceased doing business with Yakuza?"
"I warned Mayeda-san because I was going to call in the FBI on my own men," she replied. I gave him two days to make whatever arrangements he could to protect Yakuza interests from both those who would steal from him and the law. I let him know that whatever information the LA office had on state-side Yakuza dealings would be compromised, and to act accordingly."
"In spite of the fact that it was a Yakuza-financed bomb that destroyed your Tower?" he gaped.
She nodded. "I want no war with the Yakuza."
The diminutive Japanese leaned back in his chair and pondered the information she'd given him. Provided contact with the Yakuza bore out her story, it seemed the Yakuza were very much in Parker-san's debt. "So what does all this have to do with me?" he asked finally.
Miss Parker sighed and deliberately allowed some of her fatigue to show. "Those Centre officials I spoke of earlier - the ones who sought to incited trouble between the Yakuza and the Centre - have attacked me personally. They have kidnapped my son and a girl who is precious to me, all in an effort to force me to resign my post. I need help in finding my children, and in finding those responsible and making them pay for what they've done."
The dark eyebrows rose. "You have your Centre intelligence apparatus, which is considerable... You have the FBI - you said you had called them in..."
"I can use all the resources I can pull together on this," she said quietly, and Fujimori suddenly understood EXACTLY what this situation had to do with him.
"You think that if you return me to the Yakuza unharmed, you can convince Ueda to authorize Mayeda to assist in finding the children and the kidnappers." He straightened in his chair.
"Exactly."
He had to give her credit for not candy-coating the truth. She was bartering her hard-earned good will and the debt the Yakuza already owed her for the safety of her children. She knew she was playing for high stakes and was working like a madwoman to load the dice in her favor.
"I will need to confirm your version of the past events that I missed while... in custody," he posited as a condition.
"That can be arranged." She spoke firmly - the condition was neither unexpected nor unreasonable. "I will place the call to Mayeda-san myself and let you talk to him."
Fujimori fell silent, as much to think about what she was offering as to watch her expression and gestures while she awaited his decision. But Miss Parker had been trained by some of the best there, and the quality of that training showed. Her face was stonily neutral and expressionless, her eyes calm and steady. She folded her hands patiently and gave away nothing of what was going on inside. Indeed, if there was any expression at all that he could recognize, it was the distinct impression that she was watching HIM as if watching a fly caught on flypaper.
Miss Parker pulled her façade close about her and remembered the benefit of giving no indication of her mood or thoughts at times like this. She didn't really need the Yakuza, she reminded herself firmly. Sam was almost ready to leave, and she had the FBI working on her behalf as well. Yakuza assistance would be nice, but it wasn't vital. Surely Lyle or Raines would have been able to find some other way to get mileage out of the favors the Yakuza owed the Centre sooner or later - which meant she could too.
"Let me talk to Mayeda-san," he said finally, "and if he confirms what you just told me, I'll speak to Ueda-sama on your behalf."
"Let me make one quick call first," she held up a finger and then reached over and dialed quickly.
"Sam Atlee here."
"Sam, I'm going to hold the Centre jet from taking off until your travel companion arrives," she told him.
"Travel companion?" His voice was confused.
"We're playing a wild card here, and you'll have an extra errand to run at the beginning of your time in LA. I need you to see to it that Mr. Fujimori gets to Mr. Mayeda's office safely."
"Mayeda - as in Yakuza??" Sam was flabbergasted.
"Just do it. We can use all the help we can get, even Yakuza help." She wasn't angry, just firm and determined.
"Yes, Miss Parker."
She disconnected and began dialing again immediately. The moment the line on the other end began to ring, she stood and handed the handset to Fujimori. And then she sat back down to wait a little while longer.
~~~~~~~~
"Whaddya mean, 'you don't know?' This man had a smashed foot and several broken ribs - he probably limped like Hell..." Gillespie shook his head at the uniformed officer in charge of the medical floor surveillance. "How long has it been since you noticed him gone?"
"The nurse went in to check on him at one - to pick up his lunch - and he was already gone. We've searched the hospital from top to bottom since then - he isn't anywhere in the building." The uniformed man knew this to be a serious foul-up - the Japanese man had been tagged as a potential defendant in the bombing of the Centre Tower and the deaths of several people.
Gillespie ran a hand through his hair in frustration. This was the last thing they needed right now. "Issue an APB on him, then, and figure out how the Hell he got outta here without anybody noticing him. Got that? There aren't THAT many Japanese living around here - so he SHOULD be fairly easy to spot, you'd think..."
The uniform caught the glower and nodded and skittered out of the FBI agent's path as Gillespie stormed from the hospital lobby.
Where at first this had been a simple bombing, now this case was sprouting as many tentacles as an octopus - and now included a kidnapping as well as the involvement of various shades and flavors of organized crime. Gillespie was beginning to think that rather than being a career builder, working this case could now just as easily become a career buster. Cooperation with the Centre itself was no longer at issue - but tracing down evidence and keeping track of new crimes was beginning to occupy a great deal of man-hour time. And he knew he had dumped something similar into the lap of Jack Crandall a whole continent away.
Just what the Hell was happening? Something was VERY rotten in the state of Delaware. He looked down at his wristwatch and wondered, not for the first time, if he was going to get home in time for supper THAT night either.
~~~~~~~~
Even though the CPS people were obviously packing up their notebooks and files and preparing to leave, Jarod felt a little frustrated when his telephone rang. "Hello?" he answered in a hurried tone.
"Jarod, this is Mom. Ethan told me you had gone home, and I was wondering..." Margaret began.
"Mom, I have someone here I need to take care of right now. Can I call you back?" he interrupted her.
From the pause on the other end, he knew he'd upset whatever discussion she'd wanted to have. "I suppose," she finally sighed. "Call me soon."
"I will," he promised and disconnected the call. "Sorry about that," he smiled in chagrin as he put the handset on the table. "Is there anything else I can show you or any other questions I can answer for you?"
"No," Rizzo said with a quick shake of his head. "I think you answered all the questions we had for you today. And you have a lovely home - very suitable for a little girl from the looks of things."
"We'll be in touch with you by this evening with our conclusions. We just need time to discuss our findings with our project director." Gilbert added, extending her hand to shake Jarod's. "Thank you very much for the tea."
Jarod escorted the pair to the front door and saw them to their car and watched as they drove away down the lane. He walked slowly back into the house, wondering how some of his answers had gone over. No, he didn't have public school records because he had been home-schooled - having Sydney teach him essentially everything from personal hygiene to astrophysics certainly qualified as “home”-schooling, not to mention the Centre sublevels had been his “home” for decades. He had given Sydney's home address and phone number, however, for reference - and before he called his mother, he figured he should probably call Sydney and warn him... No, Sydney had been taken to the hospital. He grimaced in frustration, suddenly worried over Sydney's condition. He'd have to ask Parker about his condition when she called that evening. For now, there was only one phone call he needed to make.
He made his way back into the kitchen and to the phone handset on the table, sat down and dialed.
"Hello?"
"Mom, it's me," he announced tiredly. "I'm sorry I had to interrupt you. What was it you wanted?"
"Ethan told me what was going on," Margaret announced without preamble. "I just wanted to know when you were leaving for Delaware again."
"I'm not - not yet, anyway," he admitted with a sigh.
Obviously his answer wasn't what she had expected. "You're not?"
"I have a few irons in the fire here that I just can't abandon yet, and I've been told that there's a possibility that I need to be HERE." He shook his head. "I can't explain that part of it - it's one of Ethan's hunches."
"But you're not packing?" Margaret's voice sounded genuinely hopeful.
"Not at the moment, Mom - but I told Sam that if they need me there, to call. And if Parker wants me there..." He left the rest of the statement unsaid.
She thought for a moment. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked finally.
He sighed again. "Not really, Mom. Sam said that the FBI has been called in, and..."
"You're kidding! A Parker calling in law enforcement? That's rich..." Margaret couldn't help the explosive chuckle of irony.
Jarod shook his head. "I told you, Parker is trying to turn the place around. Of course she'd call in the feds to help." From the silence on the other end, Jarod could tell that his mother still didn't believe him. "You called them when I was taken, didn't you?"
"A helluva lot of good it did, considering the Centre has people in high places in the government in their back pockets," Margaret returned bitterly. "But still, I hope that she gets her son back..."
"OUR son, Mom. MY son, your grandson."
Margaret waved her hand ineffectively, dismissing the correction. "I hope she gets Davy back soon." She paused. "Are you off work already today?"
"I had an appointment outside the office I had to keep," he told her cryptically. She didn't need to know about Ginger yet when things were still so tentative, so unknown.
"But are you done for the day?"
"I am now," he sighed.
"Then how about you come over here to Em's, and I'll make you a nice snack. Sammy will be sniffing around for cookies soon too - and he'd probably like a chance to play with his uncle a little bit while you're still here."
As much as Jarod could hear the subtle jab in her words, he could also hear the truth to her claim that his little nephew could use some attention. "Is Em home today?" he asked.
"She'll be back in about an hour - something about needing to clear something up with her editor."
"Give me a bit, and I'll be over then," Jarod nodded. "I could use something to occupy my mind until Parker calls me later tonight."
~~~~~~~~
Agent James Porter stood in his shirtsleeves beneath the hot California sun and looked at the dilapidated ranch house with frustration. It had been a long ride from Central Los Angeles to this hole in the wall, out of the way place in the middle of nowhere. Finding the gate in the rusted and partially collapsed barbed wire fencing had taken longer than he'd anticipated, and all four agents had taken long drags on their individual water bottles by the time they had gone the several miles down the drive. As they had approached the dusty and abandoned ranch site, everyone's heart had dropped.
Porter waited until Jess Archer reappeared through the front door of the ramshackle building that used to be a dwelling, then sighed when the man merely shook his head and gazed off into the surrounding barrenness himself. Tom Parnell emerged from the barn shaking his head too, and in the distance, Vic Walters was searching through the discarded farm equipment and ancient car depository with an increasingly defeated air.
Following a hunch, Porter went to the back of the cars and looked at the tire tracks leading into the yard - and flinched when his hunch proved true. There were only two sets of tire prints leading into the yard, and they belonged to the two cars they themselves had driven in. The same held true for footprints - it was obvious that the four FBI agents were the first people to have visited this abandoned site in a good long time.
Porter pulled his cell phone from his pocket and checked the signal strength, then sighed as he realized that, being down in a virtual hollow between hills, the ranch was in a “dead zone.” They would have to drive back to the main road, no doubt, before he would be in any position to call in his report on their trip to Crandall.
The young black agent wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm and looked around him at the baked and unrelenting landscape that surrounded him. He found himself trying to imagine how two innocent and unprepared people, one a child and one who might as well be one, could possibly survive in such conditions without adequate clothing - or water!
He put his hands on his hips and turned in a slow circle, looking into the distance and scanning the horizon futilely. Where the Hell could they be? If they weren't here, they could be anywhere - and that was NOT good. That was DEFINITELY not good...
~~~~~~~~
Fujimori settled back into the soft cushion of his seat and watched as the little jet gathered its energies and launched itself from the ground of the private airstrip. He was on his way home - or at least the first leg of his ultimate journey home - courtesy of the Centre. He had been given a suit and undergarments to replace his stolen surgical blues and overcoat, so that while he wasn't as comfortable in his usual expensive silk, he at least FELT halfway civilized again.
Across the little jet from him, also facing out his window, was the somber-faced Security man Miss Parker had entrusted with his delivery. The Japanese had easily read the tightly controlled anguish and stern determination that was powering the man's ever gesture now - this Sam Atlee had apparently been just as hurt by the kidnapping as Miss Parker had been.
Miss Parker - now THERE was a woman to be respected. Mayeda-san had confirmed her story down the line; she had neither hedged nor overstated any fact at all. Mayeda-san had also seen the obvious advantage to lending assistance in the search for the missing children, and had disconnected after promising to get official sanction of the effort from Tokyo on line long before the little jet touched down again in Los Angeles. Fujimori knew Mayeda-san to be an extremely tough man to impress, and so he found reason to reassess what he knew of Mr. Parker's daughter.
She had been quite the headstrong but naïve debutante when she'd walked down the steps of the company jet at Tokyo International for that year's worth of training so long ago. She had been sent to Tanaka-sama with instructions to give her the finest of self-defense and martial arts training money could buy. At first Tanaka-sama had laughed up his sleeve as he assigned her to the most rigorous karate sensei in Yakuza employ - only to have to admit that the girl had potential when she fairly quickly rose through the belts over the course of a very abbreviated period of time. Young Miss Parker had soaked up the information and skills like a sponge, and Fujimori, assigned to keep a discrete eye on their foreign student, suggested that closer ties between Yakuza and the Centre by virtue of a liaison between the young girl and young Tommy might be advantageous to all concerned.
Tommy was a wild youth, the apple of his father's eye but cruising to lose a pinky soon if something didn't give him an excuse to calm down. Miss Parker provided that excuse, and the two of them had hit it off spectacularly. By early summer, the two were lovers and partners, she helping Tommy perfect his command of English and he helping her learn some of the more intricate ins and outs of corporate life on the dangerous side. By the end of the summer, however, she had tired of him AND her exile in Japan, and by the end of her year, she had been anxious to go home. He, Fujimori, had been disappointed in her - she had tossed young Tommy Tanaka away in much the same way young Tommy was used to tossing others away, and had caused the young Yakuza considerable loss of face.
He had not been involved in the fiasco nearly a decade earlier that had resulted in the elder Tanaka-sama's prison term in an American jail. So he had not seen or spoken to the woman that had developed from that young girl. Now that he had, however, he was impressed - and disappointed that Tommy hadn't been able to keep her interest alive. Her closer alliance with the Yakuza would have been a real coup.
Fujimori took a deep breath to break his reminiscing reverie and then folded his arms about his chest as if slightly cold, being careful not to disturb the bandages over the wound in his wrist he had inflicted on himself. He was tired - he had slept little since awakening from his abortive suicide attempt - and he had no intention to try to keep the taciturn gai-jin Security Chief company.
He closed his eyes and began to chant his mantra again over and over again. Perhaps NOW the gods would hear him - and this time he WOULD make it to his temple in Osaka.
