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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Truth and Consequences - by MMB
Chaper 2: Points of Departure
Chief Harrison stabbed at the intercom button absently, still involved in reading through the copy of the forensics report on the two murder victims at the Centre. "What is it, Judy?"
"Special Agent Gillespie is here wishing to speak with you," the nasal voice of the secretary announced brusquely.
Harrison sighed and put his report down on the desk. Somehow he'd been expecting this visit sooner or later. "Send him in," he directed her tiredly and closed the report cover. He pasted a smile on his face as the FBI agent pushed through the door of his office and rose to shake the man's hand. "Agent Gillespie."
"Chief." Gillespie found himself waved to the straight chair across the desk from the police chief. "I know that your time is valuable, so I will get right to the point."
"Please do," Harrison allowed, settling himself back in his chair and folding his hands in his lap.
"Have any of your officers done interviews with any of the survivors in the hospital in Dover?"
Harrison thought for a moment, then shook his head. "It was assumed that since these people were in the collapse of the building, they probably weren't out breaking people's necks or shooting 'em."
Gillespie carefully disguised a mild sigh of exasperation. "I was wondering. We're having a very hard time trying to put together any coherent leads on either the identity of the second body or a motive for either murder. It occurred to me that by not interviewing these people, we might be ignoring potential witnesses - if not of the murders themselves, then perhaps of other key factors."
"I thought one of them committed suicide," the police chief reminded the FBI agent sharply.
"Attempted it, yes," the agent corrected smoothly. "That was what got me thinking. Why would someone who survived a devastating catastrophe like that go to the lengths that man did to commit suicide?"
"You think he knows something?"
Gillespie nodded. "Could be. Anything new from your people on the landscaper?"
"I would imagine you got a copy of our report when you people joined the investigation," Harrison said, reaching out and ran a finger down the indexes of the several folders in an inbox and eventually pulled one. "Charles Dryer, age 43, address here in Blue Cove, lived with his mother. The man was a deaf-mute that had worked for the Centre for years trimming the grass. No known enemies, no money or drug problems, no gambling, nuthin'."
"It just doesn't make sense," the agent shook his head in frustration. "Tell me, Chief - why would ANYBODY kill a deaf-mute minding his own business cutting grass?"
Harrison stared at the FBI agent blankly for a moment. "You know," he said as an idea slowly gelled in his mind, "we didn't find his lawnmower close to the body. And the guy wasn't wearing overalls, like the other maintenance workers." He leaned forward over his desk. "Now, wouldn't you think that we'd have found an untended mower, or the body more properly clothed?"
The FBI agent looked at the police chief almost sideways, with one eye slightly narrowed as he too began to see what Harrison was talking about. "What if..." he began, then leaned forward himself to punch at the desktop with an emphatic forefinger, "what if this Charles Dryer was killed as a means to an end?"
The police chief's eyes widened. "Who would notice a maintenance man driving a lawn mower into the Centre shop?"
Gillespie began nodding slowly, his head slowly moving more and more emphatically. "That makes Dryer's murder a crime of opportunity. Perhaps committed by the same man or men who planted the C-4 and blew the Centre Tower into bits."
The police chief settled back again. "That still doesn't give us much to work with," he commented bitterly. "The motive is just a hunch, backed up by a little deductive reasoning."
"True," the agent agreed, "but it gives us a place to start, which is something we DIDN'T have before we put our heads together. You might want to interview the surviving maintenance workers from that day - see if they noticed anybody out of the ordinary. In the meanwhile, I'll send one of my agents to speak to the four at the hospital who are in any condition to talk. Can I make an appointment to confer with you - say, in two days' time - and we compare notes?"
Harrison punched his intercom button. "Judy, make a note that Special Agent Gillespie here has an appointment with me two days from today - same time?" he asked with eyebrows raised for confirmation. The FBI agent nodded wordlessly. "And get me Donaldson and Kirsch in here ASAP."
"Thanks." The two men rose simultaneously and shook hands again. "I appreciate all your help, Chief," Gillespie told the older man with a business-like nod.
"Don't mention it, Special Agent. I don't like mysteries in my town," Harrison rumbled back. "Anything to figure 'em out."
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker looked up at the soft knock on her door, then smiled as Jarod came through the door. "How goes it?" he asked, noting the expression of fatigue already beginning to settle on her delicate features despite it being fairly early in the afternoon.
"This place is a zoo!" she burst out, then leaned her chin in her palm. "I have supervisors who LIKE the “intimidation factor” the Centre has had going for it all these years, some who would prefer to continue doing work for the Yakuza and other similar folks... The top two sublevels need to be reinforced before we can begin to remove equipment or the archives - and no heavy machinery." She sighed. "No, check that - it isn't a zoo, it's a thousand-armed octopus; and it's MY job, it seems, to try to make sure that each arm does what it's supposed to do without getting its little tentacles into anything it isn't supposed to." She stared at him as if in shock. "I should have listened to Sydney and Sam and Broots, and told Ngawe to forget it when I had the chance."
"Going that well, eh?" Jarod said sympathetically and took a seat on the short and uncomfortable couch that had been once in the women's restroom down the hall. "And I suppose you're just raring to tackle the next meeting, right?"
"At least this one, like the first, is more informational than intrigue," she shot back, straightening and sorting through the papers that still littered her desk. "From what I saw of Dr. Stevens before, he doesn't seem like the kind of person to be trying to pull anything."
"We still need to know what was going on with those people in the psychiatric ward down there," he reminded her, "and make sure that they are still receiving quality care. AND we need to pick Stevens' brain about any ongoing research that any of those patients were being used for."
"God, Jarod, do you REALLY think..." She gaped, almost nauseated.
"That was Raines' private playground we're talking here, Parker," Jarod said grimly. "You KNOW how much he enjoyed experimenting with me, with Kyle, with Lyle, with Angelo..."
"OK, OK, you've made your point," she waved him into silence and worked her mouth as if tasting something decidedly unpleasant. "And, like it or not, I have to make peace with the fact that I'm probably going to be uncovering some of the most unappetizing projects and procedures in the next few days."
"This IS the “old Centre” we're talking about here," he reminded her. "You'll be needing to keep a strong stomach and hold your nose through a great deal of the sorting out phase of this. But it will end eventually. As for the rest of the department, I can't imagine Sydney willingly overseeing anything truly nefarious..."
"Keep reminding me that I WILL run eventually to the bottom of the sludge-bucket that is Raines' involvement in the Centre, OK?" she asked him, looking at her watch and beginning to gather up papers.
"Your wish is my command," he offered gallantly, rising. "Now, would you like some company on your way to the conference room?"
She shook her head. "You go ahead. I want to touch base with Tyler one more time before I get too busy with shrinks and their patients and forget what I want him to do." She rose, still sifting through papers. "I'll meet you there."
"All right," Jarod put up a hand and waved at her as he turned to leave the office. "Say, listen - you aren't going to have to work late tonight, are you?"
Miss Parker heard the strange tone of voice he was using and looked up at him again. "Is something wrong?"
He shook his head. "Not wrong. We just need to talk."
Her brows wrinkled slightly, then she nodded. "I'll be home on time, then - after a quick stop at Syd's to make sure he's not driving Kevin and Deb crazy."
"Good," Jarod said in an oddly resigned tone, then reached for the doorknob.
"Jarod..." she called him back.
"Don't mind me," he assured her with a shrug. "We'll talk about it when you get home."
"OK..." She watched him leave the office with a frown brewing. Then she filed her worry away in the back of her mind, remembering the task that she wanted Tyler to begin before her meeting with the Psychogenics Department staff. Each worry to its own time and place, she reminded herself firmly. Don't anticipate; don't borrow trouble.
~~~~~~~~
Gilbert Flores hunched down on the barstool, fully intending to nurse both his drink and his anger with equal care. His call to Los Angeles had been less than satisfying, the Yakuza representative there had been curiously reluctant to discuss any ways in which they could assist in the situation at all - and equally insistent that any arrangements currently contracted be carried through without fail. He also had already realized that his less than wise performance at the meeting that noon would have its consequences as well. Miss Parker might be a bitch, but she was a smart one.
But for now, he didn't care. His office had been the one Mr. Raines and Mr. Lyle had relied upon most to coordinate with the Yakuza and the Las Vegas mob for years - his security team was dependable and loyal to HIM, and not so much to the Centre per se. He smiled coldly into his whiskey sour - that bitch Miss Parker just didn't have any idea what kind of a hornet's nest she was stirring up, messing with established Centre policy this way!
"Gil." Stewart Berringer found his way across the dimly lit hotel lounge to the stool next to his associate. "Manhattan," he ordered from the bartender tersely, then turned his entire attention to the hunched-over man next to him. "What the hell did you think you were doing, going up against Miss Parker that way?"
"Somebody's gotta stand up to that bitch," Gil growled into his drink and then sipped at it. "'We're no longer in the terrorism business, gentlemen,'" he mimicked her voice sarcastically. "Hell, we aren't IN the terrorism business, we ARE terrorism!"
"Stop that!" Berringer put an arm around his associate and squeezed his hand tightly on the opposite shoulder - not enough to hurt, but enough to cut through the alcoholic fog. "This is old man Parker's brat you're challenging here, not some Cindy-come-lately just off the street. She TURNED DOWN your job before it was offered to you, you know..." He took his glass from the bartender and then scowled after handing over the money. "This is a private conversation," he hinted broadly. The bartender shrugged and headed towards the other end of the bar to wait on a new customer there.
"We can't let her get away with this," Flores dipped his head closer to Berringer's. "We've go to DO something!"
"I'm telling you that we don't have what it would take," Berringer growled back at him. "Like it or not, she has the backing of the Triumverate behind her, and her people firmly in place and in control of things while everything's in an uproar."
"Shit," Flores spat. "With everything in an uproar, all it would take would be one or two convenient “accidents,” and we'd be able to write our own meal tickets."
The thin man from Las Vegas didn't like Miss Parker any more than his California counterpart did, but he had been involved in Centre politics long enough to not be comfortable with this man's style of open, slap-dash rebellion. "Look, I admit that I'm not happy with the idea that we'll start playing namby-pamby Polly Pureheart think tank. But we can't just raise a little hell here, a little hell there, and expect everything to come tumbling down for her in short order." Berringer bent closer. "This is going to take planning - AND it's going to take help."
Flores' glass waved back and forth, the liquid within sloshing wildly. "Forget it. I called Mayeda already - there's been a firm edict from Tokyo against making any moves against Delaware."
"Yeah, but I bet you haven't talked to Santini yet," Berringer smirked.
"You know as well as I do that YOU were the middleman between Raines and Santini... I never DID know how to get in touch with him!"
"Look, let's find somewhere else to talk," the Nevadan urged his associate, "somewhere a little more private, where we WON'T be overheard." His hand clapped Flores sharply to spur the man into movement, and the two of them found their way out of the lounge.
At the far end of the bar, a man had pulled out a cell phone and began speaking as the two men were leaving. "Yeah, he met up with Berringer, and the two of them are just taking off. Flores was pretty pissed, and Miss Parker's name was tossed about a bit. You also might want to check out the name “Santini” and see where that leads." He listened. "Yes, sir. I'll stay with them." He closed the cell phone, put a twenty dollar bill on the bar to cover the club soda he'd ordered, and walked quickly to the lounge entrance, noted where the two men were headed, and continued after them once they were out of sight.
~~~~~~~~
Ueda Kyoshi frowned as he reached for his telephone receiver. The absolute last thing the diminutive former electronics engineer needed to hear right now was about more problems from the US branches of the Yakuza. His quick moves and cunning strategies after the titular head of the Tokyo Yakuza had found himself with a building falling on him had made his assumption of the top spot here at home all but assured. But he knew the repercussions of that unwise move of revenge had yet to even start to reverberate through the organization - and would no doubt impact everyone BUT the ones responsible for the debacle. THEY had had the good fortune to be killed outright.
Sometimes the gods protected the wrong damned people!
He pasted a patently false smile on his face and prayed to his ancestors that it would be discernable in his voice as well. "Mayeda-san! How long has it been?"
"Several years at least, Kyoko-chan. How are Keiko and your son, Yoshi?"
Ueda let the silence draw out ever so slightly, knowing the older Yakuza on the other end would understand that now that he was at the top of the heap, being called by his first name - and with the fond, diminutive suffix - was no longer appropriate. "They are well, Masa-san. What can I do for you?"
"I received a phone call from a representative of the Centre this afternoon - the head of the LA office. Seems that he is... dissatisfied... with the way Miss Parker intends to run the Centre now that she is officially Chairman."
Ueda frowned even more deeply. Dealings with the Centre were now very touchy subjects at best - and he was tending toward closing down the majority of the more openly illegal dealings that had been made with them anyway. "What did this person want from you?"
"Help in keeping the Centre on-track, philosophy-wise, with their former administrations," Mayeda told his superior dourly. "I told him that Tokyo had given firm directives to stay clear of the Centre or any disputes with it. That IS what you intended to happen, is it not?"
"Absolutely," Ueda affirmed with conviction. "The last thing we want to get ourselves involved in is a turf spat or power struggle within the ranks at the Centre. We have bigger problems with the Triumverate sitting on our horizon as the result of what Tanaka ordered in regards to the Centre - we do NOT need to end up in a war on two separate fronts."
Mayeda was quite for a moment, thinking things through. "In that case, do I call Delaware and let THEM know that I've been approached by one of their own?"
That gave the new Yakuza boss reason to pause. The Yakuza had lost a great deal of face, as well as influence, when it had attacked the Centre in such a honor-less fashion. That face had NOT been completely restored by the loss of the leader who had been so unwise as to order the bombing in the first place. Perhaps a peace offering, made to the new Chairman by the new leader of the Yakuza, might smooth some of the waters between the Yakuza and the Triumverate as well. Not entirely, of course, but every little bit couldn't hurt.
"Call Delaware. Ask to speak to Miss Parker herself, and tell her that you're calling as my personal representative. If you're very lucky, she'll even believe you."
"Hai, Ueda-sama. As you wish."
"Oh, and Masaji-san? Call the hospital in Dover and see if you can get an update on Fujimori-san's condition - and send a team over there to watch over him. We don't need him talking to the Triumverate."
"Hai. I live to serve."
Ueda hung up the phone with a slow hand. It's beginning, he told himself fatalistically and rubbed his eyes tiredly. It was late - he really needed to get on the train and head for home. This was the third night this week that he'd not been home in time to spend time with his son before bedtime. He knew that his wife, as long-suffering as she normally was, would let him know fairly soon that he was pushing limits; and his mother had even less patience with him since her fall in the spring that had made her nearly bedridden.
Not for the first time did he wonder whether or not he could get away with finding a nice retirement home for the family obah-chan (grandma), rather than keep her within the family unit as was traditional. Frankly, the less stress from that quarter he had right now, the better...
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker nodded, and an attending sweeper took charge of the file case that Dr. Stevens had brought with him as soon as all the files had been replaced. "I'm grateful for your having the foresight to pull the files on all the remaining patients and bringing them with you from the sub-level," she congratulated the psychiatrist congenially. "And you're saying that you've had no trouble finding beds for them in other facilities?"
"No," the doctor shook his head. "Once it was known that these patients had come from the Centre, and essentially were security risks if not housed in a more formal institutional setting, we were able to get beds for all of them at the state facility outside Dover - for the time being, anyway. It IS more expensive to house them outside the Centre, but at this point..."
"True." Miss Parker gave Jarod the nod.
"One thing that your patient profile and progress folders do not seem to possess is any information about WHY these people found their way into your care - where they came from, or what Mr. Raines might have been using them for." The Pretender's voice was firm but unaccusing. "We're well aware that Mr. Raines has a history of doing his own psychogenic research projects over the years - experiments in stimulating and enhancing pathological or anti-social behaviors and conditions through various means. Do you know how many of these patients were a part of that kind of research?"
Dr. Stevens had the good sense to look down at his hands somewhat guiltily. "Mr. Raines would, occasionally, tap one or two of them to be brought out and down to SL-27..."
"I thought SL-27 had been rendered unusable!" Miss Parker burst out. "There was a bombing there about eight years ago..."
Dr. Stevens nodded. "That's what I said the first time he came down to talk to me - that I thought SL-27 was nothing but a ruin. He told me that he'd had a certain portion of the sublevel “reconditioned” - that's how he worded it. And he warned me against asking too many questions of things that were none of my concern."
"And the welfare of the patients otherwise placed in your care was deemed “none of your concern”?" Jarod asked with his dark eyebrows flying high above his glasses.
Stevens looked over at Miss Parker as if pleading for assistance from that quarter. "I had... no desires to end up in Renewal myself, Dr. Russell..."
Jarod nodded sympathetically and eased up on his attitude. "I can appreciate your position. The Renewal Wing was NOT a place any healthy person wanted to end up. But I noticed that while the files each contained detailed case histories, there were no admissions or commitment documents. DO you know where these people came from?"
"All I know is that this was the information I was given to work with," the psychiatrist answered tiredly. "I'd imagine that if there was more information, it ended up either down in the archives or else somewhere in the mainframe."
Miss Parker and Jarod exchanged a sharp glance. It was becoming obvious that those hard-copy archives were the key to unlocking many of the secrets the Centre had guarded for all these years. How much else Raines and Mr. Parker might have hidden down there!
"A question, if I might?"
Miss Parker turned to the psychiatrist with a nod. "What is it?"
Dr. Stevens turned to Jarod. "I haven't ever seen your name on any of the Psychogenics Department rosters," he leaned forward. "I'm just wondering in what capacity you're attending this meeting?"
"I..." Jarod began, only to have Miss Parker put her hand on his arm.
"Dr. Russell is a long-time associate with the head of our Psychogenics Department, as well as a long-time acquaintance of mine. And since Dr. Green is currently indisposed, and Dr. Russell is in the area, Dr. Green asked him if he would take his place."
"But he seems very familiar with Centre procedures and policies - up to and including knowing about the Renewal Wing," Dr. Stevens continued. "One wouldn't expect such a level of expertise without considerable time spent here, in the Centre."
"Your point being..." Miss Parker's voice had taken on a sharper edge to it.
The psychiatrist found himself looking into eyes as grey as a brewing hurricane. "No point, really," he managed eventually, "just curious as to why I've not met you around here before now."
"My primary practice is in California," Jarod responded easily, stepping in before Miss Parker could get any more defensive. "I haven't been involved with the Centre for a number of years now, but I spent a great deal of time here a while back, working closely with Dr. Green on his various projects at the time when I was much younger. As a matter of fact, Dr. Green's example is part of the reason I eventually took up psychiatry myself."
"Hmmm." Dr. Stevens cast another assessing look in Jarod's direction, then seemed to have been satisfied. "Is there anything else you wanted of me, Miss Parker?"
"Just keep me informed on the patient progress, and I'll let you know as soon as we have either reopened the sublevels for full operations or we have a new facility in the works." She smiled at him, although her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "Thank you for coming in."
"My pleasure." Dr. Stevens took the obvious hint and left the room, leaving the other assorted psychiatric workers staring at the two at the head of the table.
"OK, folks, now that THAT'S settled," Jarod began, pulling out a legal pad and pen, "I'd like to hear from each of you regarding the projects you had been involved with and the stage of research you were at."
~~~~~~~~
Tyler looked up as Sam poked his head through his office door. "Do you have a minute?"
"C'mon in," the younger man drawled and stretched back in his chair. "I could use a break."
"Still working on that list for Miss Parker and myself?" Sam asked, making himself comfortable in the chair in front of the workstation.
"Naw. That part of it's finished - just hadn't gotten it to you yet." Tyler picked up a folder, extracted a sheet of paper and handed it across the desk. "I was doing a little digging into our more vocally obstreperous supervisor - one Gilbert Flores."
"Good," Sam nodded. "I had a man start tailing him the moment he left the annex, and the report I just got from him is one reason I'm here."
Tyler's brows raised, and he folded his hands in front of him. "I take it that the little temper tantrum we witnessed wasn't the end of things?"
Sam shook his head. "Not by a long shot - nor did he continue alone. Mr. Stewart Berringer popped up again."
"Now why does THAT not surprise me..." Tyler leaned forward and flipped a paper around so Sam could read it from right-side up. "Seems our Mr.'s Berringer and Flores have been bosom buddies and teammates on the Raines-Lyle terrorism train from a long time back."
Sam picked up the paper, read down about halfway, and then shook his head. "Flores was Berringer's right-hand man in Las Vegas for four years until he was promoted to supervisor himself - but his promotion was prompted only when Miss.... PARKER decided not to take the Los Angeles supervisor's job?" He looked up again. "Are you thinking professional jealousy as well as preference for the previous status quo?"
"Yup." The Texan then handed Sam another paper - a photograph. "I'm also thinking that between the two of them, there is enough background and connections to make either or both of them very dangerous men to cross."
Sam looked down at picture and frowned. Obviously a surveillance photo, the scene was an office building foyer where six men stood in intense discussion. "That's Mayeda, LA liaison to the Tokyo Yakuza bunch headed by Tommy Tanaka to the left of Flores. Who are the others on the other side of Berringer?"
"The one on the far right is unidentified at the moment. The one next to him is a man named Rodriguez - one of the top enforcers for the Mexican Mafia in LA County. The one next to Berringer himself is Eduardo Santini, consiglieri to the Torzulo crime syndicate."
"Holy shit!" Sam stared at Tyler. "These two have got mob connections nine ways to Sunday - and an axe to grind with Miss P, it seems."
"I know she wants to take the Centre legit as quickly as possible," Tyler commented in a quiet voice that spoke of his unease with the current situation, "but she may have to play Centre hardball the old-fashioned way until she gets her feet firmly planted in the stirrups here."
"She's not gonna like that," Sam replied in a sour tone. "She ended up on the wrong end of that hardball far too often."
Tyler looked across the desk, his brows raised slightly. "But, you know, I'd be willing to bet you twenty that she's halfway expecting something like this to come up. She's not dumb - she probably has a pretty decent idea just how far down the corruption at the Centre goes if she's tripped over it often enough."
The ex-sweeper lifted the photo. "Do you have another copy of this?" At Tyler's nod, he folded it and slipped it into his jacket's breast pocket, along with the list of names Tyler had provided. "You see what you can do to get that other guy in this thing identified. I need to get an extra level of security assigned to Miss P and her family - and then get some direction for her on how to proceed against our mutineers."
"Oh, she's gonna LOVE that!" Tyler shook his head. He'd already seen her independent streak in action; the idea that she'd be getting round the clock protection for herself and her family too was not going to sit well."
"Yeah, well, I'll convince her," Sam assured his new colleague with a little less than complete confidence, "eventually..."
~~~~~~~~
Otamo Ngawe gazed with obvious disdain on the Federal agent. "What can we do for you?" he asked, his tone communicating patience overlaying frustration.
Gillespie decided not to let this African's superiority get him riled. "I regret the need to bother you right now, but we are investigating not only the bombing of a significant contractor for the US Defense Department, but also the murder of this man." He handed over a small photo of a dead man's face. "I was hoping that perhaps you might recognize him..."
Ngawe shook his head carefully - any movement was an invitation to agony if not considered and carried out properly. "We're sorry, but we have never seen this man before." It was the absolute truth.
"Do you have any information that might help us track down and apprehend those who set the bombs that landed you in here?"
The elderly African gentleman carefully avoided narrowing his eyes. He would have to be careful - the American had worded his question in such a way that, had he been less mindful, his drive for retribution might have had him telling everything he knew. But just as Miss Parker refused to aid in any efforts against the Yakuza in favor of seeking her justice from these suited fools, the Triumverate was going to refuse to aid in any official investigation. "We're sorry, we were just at the Centre to attend meetings when... boom!"
"Mmmm..." Gillespie wasn't fooled by the man's simple explanation. "Then perhaps you could tell me WHY you had evidently ordered a 24 hour watch on this man," he showed Ngawe a photo of Fujimori, "about twelve hours before he attempted to commit suicide?"
Hazel met ebony in a contest of wills. "He is a very valuable friend to us - is it so wrong to want to want to keep abreast of his condition?"
"You are a friend to Mr. Fujimori?" Gillespie's eyebrows rose in surprise.
"That's what we said," Ngawe retorted. "Did you not believe us?"
"Then I would imagine you were aware that Mr. Fujimori has a criminal record - as a member of the Japanese Yakuza crime syndicate?" Even Chief Harrison didn't have THAT little tidbit of information yet - the ink on the faxed answer back from Tokyo was barely dry.
Ngawe's eyes narrowed. "Our organization has done business with the associates of Mr. Fujimori on numerous occasions, Agent...?"
"Gillespie," the agent filled in impatiently, knowing full well that this man was more than capable of having remembered him having introduced himself.
"Agent Gillespie, yes. As we were saying, we have done business with Mr. Fujimori and his associates on many occasions, none of them having anything to do with any criminal activity." The African smiled inwardly. He technically WAS telling the truth - the business dealings the Triumverate had conducted with the Yakuza had been one of simple investment. HOW the Yakuza had chosen to use the influx of cash had been none of their concern, provided the rate of return remained constant.
Gillespie eyed the African with renewed suspicion. Something was definitely rotten in the state of Delaware, and part of it was lying half-paralyzed on the bed in front of him. "I just thought you should know then, since you've indicated such interest in Mr. Fujimori's well-being, that he has been taken into custody by the FBI and is now under OUR custody. You might want to recall your security man," Gillespie shrugged in a deliberately nonchalant manner, "just to avoid any misunderstandings along the way."
Ngawe knew that if he were to push the issue, it would cause questions. There were contacts within the FBI that would help keep and eye on things there, so giving in on this point wasn't a problem. "We'll be happy to withdraw our protection from the man, now that we know that your government has taken charge here. You WILL keep us informed as to his condition, will you not?"
"I'll make sure than any changes will be relayed to you immediately," the FBI agent promised - with absolutely no intention of carrying through on his word. From the look in the elderly gentleman's eye, Gillespie knew that Ngawe thoroughly understood that that would be the way things worked as well. The African was out-maneuvered, and he knew it.
"We appreciate your thoughtfulness." Damn, the man WAS good!
Gillespie made a mental note to have an agent posted nearby this survivor's room to stake out the activities there, and to have the phone in the room tapped as well. Something was definitely going on here between Ngawe and this Fujimori fellow - and he intended to find out EXACTLY what that was.
~~~~~~~~
"Well, that one went better than I had hoped," Miss Parker sat back down in her chair in the conference room once all the members of the Psychogenic Department had filed from the room. "At least anything unsavory happening in THAT little corner of the Centre Universe was something Raines personally directed and oversaw, and not something that Sydney let slip under his radar for any reason."
Jarod looked at the stack of project folders that now sat in front of him, and then back at her. "You had any doubts about Sydney's ability to handle the department??"
"That's a fairly busy part of Centre life there," she replied with a sigh. "And I happen to know as well as you do that Syd prefers to be doing research, and not paperwork."
"He still would keep enough of a handle on his department that..."
"I know," she waved him quiet again. "At worst, Raines was more than capable of figuring out underhanded and subtle ways of diverting department resources - like the “reconditioning” of SL-27..."
He shook his head. "I think that was simple abuse of authority as Chairman, Parker. There was nobody here to say him nay when he requisitioned maintenance men or supplies, or staff afterwards."
"True..." She ran her fingers through her hair and began gathering up her own papers and legal pad full of notes. "Looks like you have your work cut out for you there, kid."
"Hell, no. I'm hauling this mess to Sydney's tonight when I stop off to check on him. He may not be up to coming into the office, but he can sit up in the den or at the kitchen table sorting through this. It's going to take time to prioritize and sort all this into two stacks: what you can keep going and generating revenues, and what you would be best putting off until all your repairs are finished." Jarod was glad that he'd brought a large and absolutely empty brief case, except for the pad on which he too had taken copious notes, with him that afternoon. He had expected the number of projects Sydney had been nominally in charge of to be large, but not quite as large as it had turned out. "I think maybe we've been underestimating the amount of work he's been putting in all these years..."
"At least you'll know what you'd be facing when you take over from him when we convince him it's time to retire," Miss Parker reached behind her and retrieved her light jacket from the back of her chair.
"I suppose..." Jarod looked down at the folders he was packing and winced when he thought she wasn't looking. He knew that her concern for Sydney was that he could no longer handle the long hours and responsibility that went with his position, and that the time had come for him to settle back into a comfortable retirement and enjoy his grandson. Not to mention that he now had Kevin's socialization to manage too. But that would, unfortunately, have to wait until after his trip to California was concluded and he was back to step into Sydney's shoes.
"I'll meet you at Sydney's, then - and we both can commiserate with him when you dump all this in his lap." She looked over at the Pretender, and there was just something in the way he was avoiding looking at her that wasn't right. "Jarod? Is everything OK?"
His chocolate eyes came up to meet hers, and there was a touch of sadness in them that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "We'll talk at Sydney's," he told her quietly, "I promise."
A voice spoke softly in the back of her mind - a voice that she hadn't heard for a very long time - and her face crumbled from the capable and confident visage of the new Centre Chairman. "Oh God!" she breathed. "Jarod..."
"Parker..." He'd seen it as it happened, and it reminded him very much of how Ethan would look every time his “inner sense” would kick in and supply him with information that wasn't otherwise readily available. Helluva time for that thing to kick in for her again now... He snapped his briefcase closed and picked it up, walked over to her side and dropped it so that he could draw her into a gentle embrace. "We'll talk at..."
"Not yet... please..." she breathed shakily and leaned against him.
He took her face between his hands gently. "Listen to me! We'll talk at Sydney's. This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion." When she would open her lips to argue with him, he kissed her softly and lingeringly, then brushed his lips across her forehead and let her go. "You go now, and touch base with Tyler and Sam for any final updates for the day. I'll meet you at Sydney's. OK?"
She sighed deeply and nodded. She had known this day would come, when he would decide that he could put off his trip no longer - somehow she'd hoped that day would have been further in the future that it evidently had turned out to be. On the ring finger of her left hand was his sparkling promise that his leaving her this time was a very temporary thing - that he would be back, and back to STAY this time.
"You OK?" he asked gently, knowing full well that her mood had just taken a nosedive, but rather inquiring as to whether she could continue with what little remained of the rest of the day.
Her grey eyes that came up to meet his were sad and resigned. "You know damned well that I won't be OK until you get your ass back from California, Jarod," she said with the slightest hint of the old Miss Parker sarcasm that had carried her through so many personal setbacks on bravado alone. "But I'll make it through the rest of today."
Jarod leaned forward and kissed her cheek, his beard brushing her face with a sensation that she'd grown rapidly very fond of and would miss desperately. "I'll see you at Sydney's then,"
~~~~~~~~
"Oh good, I was just coming to see you," Sam breathed a little easier when he saw his boss coming back down the corridor toward the offices. He paused; she seemed... a little deflated. "You alright, Miss P?"
She waved a hand between them. "Don't mind me, Sam. What was it you wanted to see me about?"
"You aren't going to like what I have to say," he cautioned her as he followed her into his office and closed the door behind them.
She spun slightly and watched him move to behind his desk. "Why's that?"
"Because I want to assign you, Davy and Sydney round-the-clock protection, that's why."
"Why the Hell..." she began, then saw him simply sigh as she proved him right - that she DIDN'T like what he'd said. That put a quick end to the display of temper, and she seated herself. "OK, talk to me. Why in God's name..."
"Do you remember your little collision of wills with a certain office supervisor named Flores?" Sam relaxed a bit when the explosion seemed to short-circuit. He could see he had her full attention, which was what he would need.
"Yeah."
"Well, I had a tail on him by the time he left the complex..." Sam began.
She nodded. "I kinda figured you would," she commented approvingly.
"...AND I had a tap on his phone before he got back to his room. Just as well..."
"Who'd he call?" Miss Parker was starting to see where he was going.
"A close associate of Tommy Tanaka in Los Angeles."
That made her blink in surprise. "A Centre supervisor was contacting the Yakuza?" The ex-sweeper's dark head nodded slowly. "Well?"
The dark eyes focused carefully on her face. "He tried to rustle up some backing for a small revolution." When he saw the arched brows begin to slip toward the center of her brow in an angry frown, he added, "Of course, Mayeda turned him down flat - something about a directive from Tokyo specifically prohibiting the Yakuza from doing anything to or against the Centre."
At that, she chuckled darkly. "Oh, I can imagine the terms of that “directive.” They're looking to save their asses from getting it both from the Triumverate and us at the same time." But her humor hadn't lightened her Security Chief's mood. "That wasn't all, huh?"
"Nope. After the call, he went down to the hotel lounge and started drinking - and lo and behold, who should come in and join him but..."
"Don't tell me," she put up her hand. "Stewart Berringer."
"Bingo. Berringer and Flores were real cozy for a while, talking about you in, shall we say, less than glowing terms. And eventually they got up and left - after mentioning the name Santini." Sam reached into his pocket for the folded photo. "Does that name mean anything to you?"
She shook her head. "Should it?"
"It should NOW," he said in a clearly warning tone. He unfolded the photo and slid it across the desk and into her waiting hand. "This was taken about a year ago. You'll recognize both our Centre “friends.” The guy to the left is Mayeda, who's Yakuza."
"Who are these others?" The grey eyes meeting his dark ones were now clearly concerned.
"That one," he said, pointing to the man next to Berringer, "is Mexican Mafioso by the name of Rodriguez. The slick one next to him is Santini - Eduardo Santini, consiglieri to the Torzulo crime syndicate."
"And this one?" Miss Parker's finger pointed at the man on the far right.
"Tyler's working on getting an ID on him. But I think the indications here are pretty clear. We have a minor mutiny on our hands if Berringer is talking to Flores about bringing in help from the Las Vegas mob." Sam gazed at her evenly. "While you're here at work, it's not a problem to keep you safe - but you ARE vulnerable. All it would take would be for them to snatch Davy..." He watched her face pale, "...or Sydney, and they'd be in a position to force you to do just about anything."
"Do it." Her voice was soft but firm. "Keep it discrete, and have it in place tonight." She thought for a moment. "You still have a tail on Flores?"
Sam nodded. "I'm expecting him to check back in anytime now."
"Fine. I want one on Berringer too, as of yesterday. I also want a clear accounting of just what kind of operation we're talking about for both the LA and Las Vegas offices - number of sweepers assigned, projects being handled, the whole magilla. Start putting together plans for a clean-up of both places, to take place as soon as possible - hopefully before either of those weasels are ready to go home again." She stood, and her posture was now tight and very controlled. "I'll go tell Tyler to start a selection process for supervisors to take their places, so that by the time they're ready to go home, they won't HAVE home offices to return TO."
Sam's brows raised in concern. "You're just going to cut them loose?"
Miss Parker put up her hands. "I just got through announcing that we're no longer in the terrorism business, Sam. We can't just lock 'em up in SL-25 - hell, we can't even GET them into SL-25, much less lock 'em up down there..." For the first time, that fact was an irritant rather than a cause for celebration.
"Let me and Tyler work on something," Sam suggested. "I don't like the idea that these two get set loose to go back to LA and Las Vegas - whether they have offices to go to or not - where they have easy access to the kind of scum-ball slime that seems to be their cronies. Inside or out, they spell trouble with a capital T."
"OK," she agreed finally. "You have two days to plan out the take-down of both offices. I'll have Tyler coordinate with Mei-Chiang to move both Flores and Berringer to the very bottom of the list of interviews - that will keep them here as long as I dare without causing comment."
"You'd better warn Sydney," Sam told her. "He's a sharp cookie - he'll notice the muscle hanging around his house."
"What about Deb and Kevin?" she asked suddenly. "Or even Broots in the hospital? My family is more than just Syd and Davy now."
"I'll call the hospital security in Dover and make arrangements for a closer watch on Broots. As for Deb and Kevin, maybe you can talk to them tonight - see what they'll accept?"
"Fine." She turned and opened the office door. "Keep me posted - call me when your tail reports back in again. I want to know just what those varmints talk about."
"Yes, ma'am!"
~~~~~~~~
Sydney tapped gently on his water glass to get the attention of the others at the dinner table as the last few bites of cake disappeared into eager maws. "Jarod has something he needs to tell you all," he announced once the extraneous chatter had died away. "Jarod..."
The older Pretender looked around the table. Much had changed since he'd first come to this table weeks ago. One friendly face was missing, another had joined. Connections to all had been welded into place with a firmness that he would be depending upon in the days and weeks to come. Miss Parker's left hand reached beneath the table to land on his thigh, and he sat back in his chair and grasped her hand tightly in his.
"As most of you know, when I came back, I only intended to stay long enough to bring us all out from under the shadow of the Centre before heading back to California. Well, the Centre as we all knew and dreaded it, is gone. And so..."
Kevin stared at his older counterpart. He knew the man was devoted to all of these people, and yet now he was hearing that Jarod was leaving - leaving his family? "Are you going away for good?" he asked suddenly.
"Daddy!" Davy's yelp was painful - both on the ears and the heartstrings. "Don't go!"
"I promised my mother that I'd come back to her when I left," Jarod explained at last to the rest of his new family. "And a person should never make promises they don't intend to keep. I'm sorry for the short notice - I just realized today that I've only been postponing the inevitable and making it harder for all of us in the process. I need to go, NOW, so I can come back, SOON."
"How long will you be gone, Uncle Jarod?" Deb asked quietly, and her question brought the rest back into focus on the Pretender.
"I need to finish up a few things there - help Ethan, my brother, to take over my practice and perhaps find a replacement for me there. And I have to try to get my other family to try to understand that I really belong HERE, with Davy, and with the woman I intend to marry as soon as I get back." He lifted Miss Parker's hand to his lips. "But just as I promised my mom I'd go back to California, I'm making you all a promise that I'll be back - to STAY - as soon as my business there is finished."
Sydney knew there was but one question left. "When are you leaving, Jarod?" he asked in a sonorous voice that cut through the silence that had formed as Jarod had stopped speaking.
"Tomorrow morning." Jarod looked around the table sadly. "I'm only delaying the inevitable by waiting any longer. The sooner I leave, the sooner I can come home." Home. His eyes met Sydney's, and the word sunk in. Yes, this WAS home for him. "I spent a lot of time fooling myself that I didn't belong here. No more. I own a house in California, and half of my family lives there - but the most important part of me belongs here, and the half of my family that I can't live without is HERE. I need to finish things out there, so I CAN come home to stay at last."
Davy slammed his fork down with a muted sob and darted from the table toward the front door. Kevin started to rise and go after him, but heard Jarod call him back. "No, I'll go after him. These next few weeks are going to be hard on him. I need to talk to him myself." He looked around the table again. "I'll be right back."
The boy hadn't gone far - he was leaning against the trunk of the massive oak tree just across the street in the park, staring across the lawn at the little pond. Jarod walked slowly across the street and up to the tree, then leaned against it on the other side.
"I thought we were going to be a real family," Davy whimpered. "I thought you loved me and Mommy."
"I do love you," he told his son, struck by the betrayal in the young voice. A sudden memory of himself challenging Sydney in much the same way on a Father's Day many years earlier suddenly came to mind, reminding him of how it felt to have a major player in one's life apparently willing to walk away. "There just was no easy way to tell you that wouldn't upset you one way or the other. I made a promise to your Grandma that I have to keep - like I said, I never make promises I don't intend to keep."
"Can I go with you?" the boy asked, turning to his father with tears in his huge grey eyes that looked very much like his mother's. "I'll be really good, and I could meet Grandma and Uncle Ethan..."
Jarod squatted and held his hands out to his son, who came to him and leaned his head against the broad shoulder. "No, Davy. You have school starting in just a little bit, and you don't want to miss out on the first day." He felt his son begin to sob, and he rose with the boy in his arms. "Besides, I need you to help me take care of your Mom while I'm gone. You'll have to be the man of the house again."
"I don't wanna be the man of the house again," Davy wound his arms around his father's neck tightly. "I want YOU to be the man of the house."
"You know how sometimes, when your teacher gets sick, you get a substitute?" Jarod asked him, carrying the boy up the steps of Sydney's front porch. Davy nodded against his neck, still crying. "Well, I need you to be my substitute for a bit. Yes, I'm going away - but the important thing is that I'm coming back as soon as I can. I promise." He kissed the boy's damp cheek. "And remember, I never make a promise I don't intend to keep."
"But do you have to leave tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow or the next day, it still will be hard for all of us, Davy." He pushed through the front door and closed it behind them. "Better to get it over with, so that you can look forward to me coming home." He paused in the living room to brush the dark hair back out of his son's face. "Think you can finish the dessert that Deb worked so hard to make?" The arms tightened around his neck, but the little head nodded eventually. Jarod kissed the cheek again, and carried the boy back into the dining room and deposited him back in his seat.
"Miss Parker was just giving us HER news," Sydney explained as soon as his protégé was back in his seat as well. "Seems that she stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest today, and Sam is insisting on assigning Davy and me round-the-clock security."
That Jarod HADN'T been expecting. "Parker?" He turned to her in concern.
"Seems that some of our West Coast affiliates prefer the old regime," she explained with a plea in her eyes not to make too much of it in front of Davy.
Jarod nodded his understanding. "When does that start?"
"Sometime tonight," she answered. "The only question was how Deb and Kevin wanted theirs."
"One extra man for the two of us should do it," Kevin replied quickly. "I spend a lot of time here with Sydney - especially when Deb's out visiting her Dad or, starting tomorrow, working at Oggie's." He turned to the girl. "How's that sound to you?"
"Fine," she shrugged. "I just hope Oggie doesn't mind..."
"I'll explain it to him myself, if he has any questions," Miss Parker promised. "You tell him to call me at work and tell the person that answers that I'm expecting the call - I'll clue in my secretary the minute I get in."
"Thanks, Miss P."
"Well," Jarod said, rising, "I hope nobody takes offense if I head off early. I have a lot of packing to do."
"I'll be there soon too," Miss Parker responded. "I have a call to Sam to make to see about the security details for you three and Davy too." She rose from her seat and bent to give Sydney a hug and a kiss. "Would you mind very much watching Davy for me until school starts? With Jarod leaving..."
"You know Davy's always welcome here," Sydney put his arms around her and hugged back. "About seven-thirty?" She nodded. "I'll be ready, I think..."
"Goodnight, Grandpa," Davy mumbled to his grandfather, still very much an unhappy little boy. As Sydney tightened his arms around the boy, he knew he had his job cut out for him the next morning helping Davy cope with the loss of his father for a while.
Jarod was shaking Kevin's hand. "I'll be calling often to see how Sydney is progressing - and you too. Take care of our family for me, OK?"
The sandy-haired Pretender found that he too was distressed at this new disruption in his family structure. "I'll miss you, Prodigy."
Jarod heard the wistfulness in that old project name, and he clasped the young man tightly for a brief moment. "You'll be fine, Shadow. I'm leaving you in good hands while I'm away." He winked at he younger man. "Take care of Deb too. She'll be missing both Dad and Uncle now."
That brought back the smile. "I will."
"Uncle Jarod." Deb just stepped up and into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Hurry home."
"I will, Deb. You tell your Dad that I look forward to seeing him up and around when I get back." Jarod loosened his hug and kissed the girl's forehead and looked up at Miss Parker.
"I'll meet you at home," she understood the look in his eye and grasped Davy by the reluctant hand. "C'mon, kiddo. Race you to the car?" She shrugged at Jarod when that didn't produce the desired result, and then led the two of them away after giving Kevin and Deb a knowing nod to get them to let Jarod bid Sydney goodbye privately.
Sydney slowly rose from his seat and turned to face his former protégé, who was looking decidedly distressed. "I feel like we've been in this place before, you and I," the younger man said, his heart heavy.
"We have - and more than once," the Belgian answered gently. "But each time, it was necessary."
"That doesn't make it any easier."
"Of course not." Sydney sounded as if the idea were thoroughly absurd. "The difference is that THIS time you are neither running away nor breaking off ties entirely. There is this modern appliance known as the telephone that means we can talk... There's email..."
"Sydney." Jarod looked at the man who had been the only father he'd known growing up and who had come to reclaim that place in his life over the course of the last few weeks. "I..."
"I know." The psychiatrist regarded his former protégé fondly. "I feel the same way."
"I feel like I'm dumping a huge lot on you right now, when you're just out of the hospital..." Jarod looked down, feeling guilty.
Sydney shook his head. "Nonsense. The paperwork will help me feel like that I'm actually doing something useful again - and it will make the time pass more quickly while you are away. Stop worrying - I'll be fine, Jarod. The surgeon was pleased with my progress - I'm finally healing for real this time. And Parker is getting her feet under her with the Centre. Now is the time for you to finish what you need to, and then come home."
There it was again - that word “home.” "This IS home, Sydney," Jarod admitted softly. "This is where the people I love best are." The chocolate eyes came up to catch at chestnut.
The older man gazed evenly into the face of the man he'd raised in one of the worst places in the world, and who had grown up to be the kind of person any father could be immensely proud of. And remembering a similar moment seven years earlier, he put out a hand and cupped the bearded cheek in his hand. "Au revoir, my son," he told Jarod gently.
The two men embraced tightly and pounded each other on the back fondly in farewell. "Au revoir, mon pere," Jarod answered with his head pillowed on Sydney's shoulder the way as a boy he'd often wished Sydney would have allowed. Sydney closed his eyes as Jarod spoke voicing the reciprocal emotional bond between them openly for the first time, engraving the moment wherein he could admit and accept that relationship at last in his mind and his heart.
Then the older man let loose and pushed himself away. "Go now," he nodded with a small smile, blinking against a tear. "And hurry back."
And with a wave of the hand, Jarod walked away and out the door.
~~~~~~~~
Jarod pulled the door to Davy's door closed and then ran a hand down his face to stem the tears that were running. Bidding his son goodbye, even temporarily, had been far harder than he'd thought. He made his way the rest of the way down the hall to their bedroom and walked in as Miss Parker was seated on the edge of the bed talking to Sam. "Thanks, Sam. Oh, here he is. Hang on." She pulled the handset away from her ear and held it out to him. "Here - Sam wants to talk to you."
Jarod took a deep breath to steady his voice and took the phone from her. "Hey, Sam..."
"Hey there yourself, Lab-rat. Miss P. tells me you're taking a trip west tomorrow." The ex-sweeper's voice on the other end of the line was a little brusque. "I just wanted to tell you to watch yourself while you're over there on the Left Coast."
"Take good care of them for me while I'm gone, willya?" Jarod asked the man who had once been a real reason for running away. "Especially Parker. You and Tyler keep her safe for me."
"I promise," Sam swore, and meant it with every fiber of his being. His voice lowered, as if worried that Miss Parker could hear him. "Hurry back. She's gonna be a real cast-iron bitch without you around to keep her purring, I'm sure."
Jarod chuckled. "I'm sure you'll survive. You did the last time..." Miss Parker looked at him with raised eyebrows, but he only smiled at her. "See ya around."
"Take care, Jarod." The call disconnected.
He handed her back the handset. "Security measures all in place?"
"Yes," she answered, rising. The pupils of her grey eyes had dilated until it looked as if they were grey-edged ebon pools. She reached out and took his glasses from his face for him and set them on the nightstand. "And I have a Centre town car picking you up at seven o'clock and taking you to the private airstrip. You can have a Centre jet take you back to California." At his raised eyebrows, she smiled. "Being the Chairman gives me a few perks - might as well use 'em."
"Perks that let me travel in style," he smiled back, and then pulled her closer to him. "Have I told you lately that I think I'm in love with the new Chairman at the Centre?" His fingers were deftly working the buttons on her blouse.
"Is that so?" she asked, her hands pulling his shirt from beneath his belt. "How does she feel about that idea?"
The silk parted beneath his warm hands that then slipped over silken skin in search of more snaps to undo. "I'll have to ask her the next time I see her," Jarod replied in a husky voice, then brought their lips together in a blistering kiss that immediately had pulses racing and breathing quickened. Both sets of hands became instantly busier.
The blouse was only the first piece of clothing to be discarded without another thought. Soon the pile on the floor held many more items.
~~~~~~~~
The single toot of the horn told them the town car had arrived. Jarod turned to her, standing there in her robe. "I love you, Missy," he told her gently, pulling her hungrily into his arms one last time and calling her by the name she'd once given him years ago. "I'll be home as soon as I can."
"You'd better," she warned him after kissing him deeply. "I'm not the kind of bride you want to leave waiting at the altar. I'll come after you."
"Is that a promise or a threat?" he asked her with his trademark smirk.
"I still own that Smith & Wesson, you know," she reminded him archly, then leaned against him. "I miss you already," she added softly.
"Me too." He kissed her again, her lips, her eyelids, her cheeks, her forehead. "Stay safe while I'm gone."
"Don't be too long," she kissed him back. "You've gotten me used to having you here - of waking up with you beside me. I don't know if I can live if you take too long."
"I promise I'll be back as soon as I humanly can." He reluctantly pulled himself from her arms and shouldered his duffelbag with his belongings in it. "I love you - remember that."
"I love you too, Jarod. More than anything else in the world."
She stood in the open door, her robe clutched tightly at the throat, until long after the town car had passed around the corner and vanished from sight. When she went back into the house, her home felt much emptier. With a deep sigh, she headed for the shower, stopping by Davy's room on the way to get him up and moving - glad that she had the time to spend a few minutes with Sydney before she headed back to the Centre again.
Jarod had left her again. And while not leaving her totally bereft this time, his departure nonetheless had made her world significantly colder.
Chaper 2: Points of Departure
Chief Harrison stabbed at the intercom button absently, still involved in reading through the copy of the forensics report on the two murder victims at the Centre. "What is it, Judy?"
"Special Agent Gillespie is here wishing to speak with you," the nasal voice of the secretary announced brusquely.
Harrison sighed and put his report down on the desk. Somehow he'd been expecting this visit sooner or later. "Send him in," he directed her tiredly and closed the report cover. He pasted a smile on his face as the FBI agent pushed through the door of his office and rose to shake the man's hand. "Agent Gillespie."
"Chief." Gillespie found himself waved to the straight chair across the desk from the police chief. "I know that your time is valuable, so I will get right to the point."
"Please do," Harrison allowed, settling himself back in his chair and folding his hands in his lap.
"Have any of your officers done interviews with any of the survivors in the hospital in Dover?"
Harrison thought for a moment, then shook his head. "It was assumed that since these people were in the collapse of the building, they probably weren't out breaking people's necks or shooting 'em."
Gillespie carefully disguised a mild sigh of exasperation. "I was wondering. We're having a very hard time trying to put together any coherent leads on either the identity of the second body or a motive for either murder. It occurred to me that by not interviewing these people, we might be ignoring potential witnesses - if not of the murders themselves, then perhaps of other key factors."
"I thought one of them committed suicide," the police chief reminded the FBI agent sharply.
"Attempted it, yes," the agent corrected smoothly. "That was what got me thinking. Why would someone who survived a devastating catastrophe like that go to the lengths that man did to commit suicide?"
"You think he knows something?"
Gillespie nodded. "Could be. Anything new from your people on the landscaper?"
"I would imagine you got a copy of our report when you people joined the investigation," Harrison said, reaching out and ran a finger down the indexes of the several folders in an inbox and eventually pulled one. "Charles Dryer, age 43, address here in Blue Cove, lived with his mother. The man was a deaf-mute that had worked for the Centre for years trimming the grass. No known enemies, no money or drug problems, no gambling, nuthin'."
"It just doesn't make sense," the agent shook his head in frustration. "Tell me, Chief - why would ANYBODY kill a deaf-mute minding his own business cutting grass?"
Harrison stared at the FBI agent blankly for a moment. "You know," he said as an idea slowly gelled in his mind, "we didn't find his lawnmower close to the body. And the guy wasn't wearing overalls, like the other maintenance workers." He leaned forward over his desk. "Now, wouldn't you think that we'd have found an untended mower, or the body more properly clothed?"
The FBI agent looked at the police chief almost sideways, with one eye slightly narrowed as he too began to see what Harrison was talking about. "What if..." he began, then leaned forward himself to punch at the desktop with an emphatic forefinger, "what if this Charles Dryer was killed as a means to an end?"
The police chief's eyes widened. "Who would notice a maintenance man driving a lawn mower into the Centre shop?"
Gillespie began nodding slowly, his head slowly moving more and more emphatically. "That makes Dryer's murder a crime of opportunity. Perhaps committed by the same man or men who planted the C-4 and blew the Centre Tower into bits."
The police chief settled back again. "That still doesn't give us much to work with," he commented bitterly. "The motive is just a hunch, backed up by a little deductive reasoning."
"True," the agent agreed, "but it gives us a place to start, which is something we DIDN'T have before we put our heads together. You might want to interview the surviving maintenance workers from that day - see if they noticed anybody out of the ordinary. In the meanwhile, I'll send one of my agents to speak to the four at the hospital who are in any condition to talk. Can I make an appointment to confer with you - say, in two days' time - and we compare notes?"
Harrison punched his intercom button. "Judy, make a note that Special Agent Gillespie here has an appointment with me two days from today - same time?" he asked with eyebrows raised for confirmation. The FBI agent nodded wordlessly. "And get me Donaldson and Kirsch in here ASAP."
"Thanks." The two men rose simultaneously and shook hands again. "I appreciate all your help, Chief," Gillespie told the older man with a business-like nod.
"Don't mention it, Special Agent. I don't like mysteries in my town," Harrison rumbled back. "Anything to figure 'em out."
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker looked up at the soft knock on her door, then smiled as Jarod came through the door. "How goes it?" he asked, noting the expression of fatigue already beginning to settle on her delicate features despite it being fairly early in the afternoon.
"This place is a zoo!" she burst out, then leaned her chin in her palm. "I have supervisors who LIKE the “intimidation factor” the Centre has had going for it all these years, some who would prefer to continue doing work for the Yakuza and other similar folks... The top two sublevels need to be reinforced before we can begin to remove equipment or the archives - and no heavy machinery." She sighed. "No, check that - it isn't a zoo, it's a thousand-armed octopus; and it's MY job, it seems, to try to make sure that each arm does what it's supposed to do without getting its little tentacles into anything it isn't supposed to." She stared at him as if in shock. "I should have listened to Sydney and Sam and Broots, and told Ngawe to forget it when I had the chance."
"Going that well, eh?" Jarod said sympathetically and took a seat on the short and uncomfortable couch that had been once in the women's restroom down the hall. "And I suppose you're just raring to tackle the next meeting, right?"
"At least this one, like the first, is more informational than intrigue," she shot back, straightening and sorting through the papers that still littered her desk. "From what I saw of Dr. Stevens before, he doesn't seem like the kind of person to be trying to pull anything."
"We still need to know what was going on with those people in the psychiatric ward down there," he reminded her, "and make sure that they are still receiving quality care. AND we need to pick Stevens' brain about any ongoing research that any of those patients were being used for."
"God, Jarod, do you REALLY think..." She gaped, almost nauseated.
"That was Raines' private playground we're talking here, Parker," Jarod said grimly. "You KNOW how much he enjoyed experimenting with me, with Kyle, with Lyle, with Angelo..."
"OK, OK, you've made your point," she waved him into silence and worked her mouth as if tasting something decidedly unpleasant. "And, like it or not, I have to make peace with the fact that I'm probably going to be uncovering some of the most unappetizing projects and procedures in the next few days."
"This IS the “old Centre” we're talking about here," he reminded her. "You'll be needing to keep a strong stomach and hold your nose through a great deal of the sorting out phase of this. But it will end eventually. As for the rest of the department, I can't imagine Sydney willingly overseeing anything truly nefarious..."
"Keep reminding me that I WILL run eventually to the bottom of the sludge-bucket that is Raines' involvement in the Centre, OK?" she asked him, looking at her watch and beginning to gather up papers.
"Your wish is my command," he offered gallantly, rising. "Now, would you like some company on your way to the conference room?"
She shook her head. "You go ahead. I want to touch base with Tyler one more time before I get too busy with shrinks and their patients and forget what I want him to do." She rose, still sifting through papers. "I'll meet you there."
"All right," Jarod put up a hand and waved at her as he turned to leave the office. "Say, listen - you aren't going to have to work late tonight, are you?"
Miss Parker heard the strange tone of voice he was using and looked up at him again. "Is something wrong?"
He shook his head. "Not wrong. We just need to talk."
Her brows wrinkled slightly, then she nodded. "I'll be home on time, then - after a quick stop at Syd's to make sure he's not driving Kevin and Deb crazy."
"Good," Jarod said in an oddly resigned tone, then reached for the doorknob.
"Jarod..." she called him back.
"Don't mind me," he assured her with a shrug. "We'll talk about it when you get home."
"OK..." She watched him leave the office with a frown brewing. Then she filed her worry away in the back of her mind, remembering the task that she wanted Tyler to begin before her meeting with the Psychogenics Department staff. Each worry to its own time and place, she reminded herself firmly. Don't anticipate; don't borrow trouble.
~~~~~~~~
Gilbert Flores hunched down on the barstool, fully intending to nurse both his drink and his anger with equal care. His call to Los Angeles had been less than satisfying, the Yakuza representative there had been curiously reluctant to discuss any ways in which they could assist in the situation at all - and equally insistent that any arrangements currently contracted be carried through without fail. He also had already realized that his less than wise performance at the meeting that noon would have its consequences as well. Miss Parker might be a bitch, but she was a smart one.
But for now, he didn't care. His office had been the one Mr. Raines and Mr. Lyle had relied upon most to coordinate with the Yakuza and the Las Vegas mob for years - his security team was dependable and loyal to HIM, and not so much to the Centre per se. He smiled coldly into his whiskey sour - that bitch Miss Parker just didn't have any idea what kind of a hornet's nest she was stirring up, messing with established Centre policy this way!
"Gil." Stewart Berringer found his way across the dimly lit hotel lounge to the stool next to his associate. "Manhattan," he ordered from the bartender tersely, then turned his entire attention to the hunched-over man next to him. "What the hell did you think you were doing, going up against Miss Parker that way?"
"Somebody's gotta stand up to that bitch," Gil growled into his drink and then sipped at it. "'We're no longer in the terrorism business, gentlemen,'" he mimicked her voice sarcastically. "Hell, we aren't IN the terrorism business, we ARE terrorism!"
"Stop that!" Berringer put an arm around his associate and squeezed his hand tightly on the opposite shoulder - not enough to hurt, but enough to cut through the alcoholic fog. "This is old man Parker's brat you're challenging here, not some Cindy-come-lately just off the street. She TURNED DOWN your job before it was offered to you, you know..." He took his glass from the bartender and then scowled after handing over the money. "This is a private conversation," he hinted broadly. The bartender shrugged and headed towards the other end of the bar to wait on a new customer there.
"We can't let her get away with this," Flores dipped his head closer to Berringer's. "We've go to DO something!"
"I'm telling you that we don't have what it would take," Berringer growled back at him. "Like it or not, she has the backing of the Triumverate behind her, and her people firmly in place and in control of things while everything's in an uproar."
"Shit," Flores spat. "With everything in an uproar, all it would take would be one or two convenient “accidents,” and we'd be able to write our own meal tickets."
The thin man from Las Vegas didn't like Miss Parker any more than his California counterpart did, but he had been involved in Centre politics long enough to not be comfortable with this man's style of open, slap-dash rebellion. "Look, I admit that I'm not happy with the idea that we'll start playing namby-pamby Polly Pureheart think tank. But we can't just raise a little hell here, a little hell there, and expect everything to come tumbling down for her in short order." Berringer bent closer. "This is going to take planning - AND it's going to take help."
Flores' glass waved back and forth, the liquid within sloshing wildly. "Forget it. I called Mayeda already - there's been a firm edict from Tokyo against making any moves against Delaware."
"Yeah, but I bet you haven't talked to Santini yet," Berringer smirked.
"You know as well as I do that YOU were the middleman between Raines and Santini... I never DID know how to get in touch with him!"
"Look, let's find somewhere else to talk," the Nevadan urged his associate, "somewhere a little more private, where we WON'T be overheard." His hand clapped Flores sharply to spur the man into movement, and the two of them found their way out of the lounge.
At the far end of the bar, a man had pulled out a cell phone and began speaking as the two men were leaving. "Yeah, he met up with Berringer, and the two of them are just taking off. Flores was pretty pissed, and Miss Parker's name was tossed about a bit. You also might want to check out the name “Santini” and see where that leads." He listened. "Yes, sir. I'll stay with them." He closed the cell phone, put a twenty dollar bill on the bar to cover the club soda he'd ordered, and walked quickly to the lounge entrance, noted where the two men were headed, and continued after them once they were out of sight.
~~~~~~~~
Ueda Kyoshi frowned as he reached for his telephone receiver. The absolute last thing the diminutive former electronics engineer needed to hear right now was about more problems from the US branches of the Yakuza. His quick moves and cunning strategies after the titular head of the Tokyo Yakuza had found himself with a building falling on him had made his assumption of the top spot here at home all but assured. But he knew the repercussions of that unwise move of revenge had yet to even start to reverberate through the organization - and would no doubt impact everyone BUT the ones responsible for the debacle. THEY had had the good fortune to be killed outright.
Sometimes the gods protected the wrong damned people!
He pasted a patently false smile on his face and prayed to his ancestors that it would be discernable in his voice as well. "Mayeda-san! How long has it been?"
"Several years at least, Kyoko-chan. How are Keiko and your son, Yoshi?"
Ueda let the silence draw out ever so slightly, knowing the older Yakuza on the other end would understand that now that he was at the top of the heap, being called by his first name - and with the fond, diminutive suffix - was no longer appropriate. "They are well, Masa-san. What can I do for you?"
"I received a phone call from a representative of the Centre this afternoon - the head of the LA office. Seems that he is... dissatisfied... with the way Miss Parker intends to run the Centre now that she is officially Chairman."
Ueda frowned even more deeply. Dealings with the Centre were now very touchy subjects at best - and he was tending toward closing down the majority of the more openly illegal dealings that had been made with them anyway. "What did this person want from you?"
"Help in keeping the Centre on-track, philosophy-wise, with their former administrations," Mayeda told his superior dourly. "I told him that Tokyo had given firm directives to stay clear of the Centre or any disputes with it. That IS what you intended to happen, is it not?"
"Absolutely," Ueda affirmed with conviction. "The last thing we want to get ourselves involved in is a turf spat or power struggle within the ranks at the Centre. We have bigger problems with the Triumverate sitting on our horizon as the result of what Tanaka ordered in regards to the Centre - we do NOT need to end up in a war on two separate fronts."
Mayeda was quite for a moment, thinking things through. "In that case, do I call Delaware and let THEM know that I've been approached by one of their own?"
That gave the new Yakuza boss reason to pause. The Yakuza had lost a great deal of face, as well as influence, when it had attacked the Centre in such a honor-less fashion. That face had NOT been completely restored by the loss of the leader who had been so unwise as to order the bombing in the first place. Perhaps a peace offering, made to the new Chairman by the new leader of the Yakuza, might smooth some of the waters between the Yakuza and the Triumverate as well. Not entirely, of course, but every little bit couldn't hurt.
"Call Delaware. Ask to speak to Miss Parker herself, and tell her that you're calling as my personal representative. If you're very lucky, she'll even believe you."
"Hai, Ueda-sama. As you wish."
"Oh, and Masaji-san? Call the hospital in Dover and see if you can get an update on Fujimori-san's condition - and send a team over there to watch over him. We don't need him talking to the Triumverate."
"Hai. I live to serve."
Ueda hung up the phone with a slow hand. It's beginning, he told himself fatalistically and rubbed his eyes tiredly. It was late - he really needed to get on the train and head for home. This was the third night this week that he'd not been home in time to spend time with his son before bedtime. He knew that his wife, as long-suffering as she normally was, would let him know fairly soon that he was pushing limits; and his mother had even less patience with him since her fall in the spring that had made her nearly bedridden.
Not for the first time did he wonder whether or not he could get away with finding a nice retirement home for the family obah-chan (grandma), rather than keep her within the family unit as was traditional. Frankly, the less stress from that quarter he had right now, the better...
~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker nodded, and an attending sweeper took charge of the file case that Dr. Stevens had brought with him as soon as all the files had been replaced. "I'm grateful for your having the foresight to pull the files on all the remaining patients and bringing them with you from the sub-level," she congratulated the psychiatrist congenially. "And you're saying that you've had no trouble finding beds for them in other facilities?"
"No," the doctor shook his head. "Once it was known that these patients had come from the Centre, and essentially were security risks if not housed in a more formal institutional setting, we were able to get beds for all of them at the state facility outside Dover - for the time being, anyway. It IS more expensive to house them outside the Centre, but at this point..."
"True." Miss Parker gave Jarod the nod.
"One thing that your patient profile and progress folders do not seem to possess is any information about WHY these people found their way into your care - where they came from, or what Mr. Raines might have been using them for." The Pretender's voice was firm but unaccusing. "We're well aware that Mr. Raines has a history of doing his own psychogenic research projects over the years - experiments in stimulating and enhancing pathological or anti-social behaviors and conditions through various means. Do you know how many of these patients were a part of that kind of research?"
Dr. Stevens had the good sense to look down at his hands somewhat guiltily. "Mr. Raines would, occasionally, tap one or two of them to be brought out and down to SL-27..."
"I thought SL-27 had been rendered unusable!" Miss Parker burst out. "There was a bombing there about eight years ago..."
Dr. Stevens nodded. "That's what I said the first time he came down to talk to me - that I thought SL-27 was nothing but a ruin. He told me that he'd had a certain portion of the sublevel “reconditioned” - that's how he worded it. And he warned me against asking too many questions of things that were none of my concern."
"And the welfare of the patients otherwise placed in your care was deemed “none of your concern”?" Jarod asked with his dark eyebrows flying high above his glasses.
Stevens looked over at Miss Parker as if pleading for assistance from that quarter. "I had... no desires to end up in Renewal myself, Dr. Russell..."
Jarod nodded sympathetically and eased up on his attitude. "I can appreciate your position. The Renewal Wing was NOT a place any healthy person wanted to end up. But I noticed that while the files each contained detailed case histories, there were no admissions or commitment documents. DO you know where these people came from?"
"All I know is that this was the information I was given to work with," the psychiatrist answered tiredly. "I'd imagine that if there was more information, it ended up either down in the archives or else somewhere in the mainframe."
Miss Parker and Jarod exchanged a sharp glance. It was becoming obvious that those hard-copy archives were the key to unlocking many of the secrets the Centre had guarded for all these years. How much else Raines and Mr. Parker might have hidden down there!
"A question, if I might?"
Miss Parker turned to the psychiatrist with a nod. "What is it?"
Dr. Stevens turned to Jarod. "I haven't ever seen your name on any of the Psychogenics Department rosters," he leaned forward. "I'm just wondering in what capacity you're attending this meeting?"
"I..." Jarod began, only to have Miss Parker put her hand on his arm.
"Dr. Russell is a long-time associate with the head of our Psychogenics Department, as well as a long-time acquaintance of mine. And since Dr. Green is currently indisposed, and Dr. Russell is in the area, Dr. Green asked him if he would take his place."
"But he seems very familiar with Centre procedures and policies - up to and including knowing about the Renewal Wing," Dr. Stevens continued. "One wouldn't expect such a level of expertise without considerable time spent here, in the Centre."
"Your point being..." Miss Parker's voice had taken on a sharper edge to it.
The psychiatrist found himself looking into eyes as grey as a brewing hurricane. "No point, really," he managed eventually, "just curious as to why I've not met you around here before now."
"My primary practice is in California," Jarod responded easily, stepping in before Miss Parker could get any more defensive. "I haven't been involved with the Centre for a number of years now, but I spent a great deal of time here a while back, working closely with Dr. Green on his various projects at the time when I was much younger. As a matter of fact, Dr. Green's example is part of the reason I eventually took up psychiatry myself."
"Hmmm." Dr. Stevens cast another assessing look in Jarod's direction, then seemed to have been satisfied. "Is there anything else you wanted of me, Miss Parker?"
"Just keep me informed on the patient progress, and I'll let you know as soon as we have either reopened the sublevels for full operations or we have a new facility in the works." She smiled at him, although her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "Thank you for coming in."
"My pleasure." Dr. Stevens took the obvious hint and left the room, leaving the other assorted psychiatric workers staring at the two at the head of the table.
"OK, folks, now that THAT'S settled," Jarod began, pulling out a legal pad and pen, "I'd like to hear from each of you regarding the projects you had been involved with and the stage of research you were at."
~~~~~~~~
Tyler looked up as Sam poked his head through his office door. "Do you have a minute?"
"C'mon in," the younger man drawled and stretched back in his chair. "I could use a break."
"Still working on that list for Miss Parker and myself?" Sam asked, making himself comfortable in the chair in front of the workstation.
"Naw. That part of it's finished - just hadn't gotten it to you yet." Tyler picked up a folder, extracted a sheet of paper and handed it across the desk. "I was doing a little digging into our more vocally obstreperous supervisor - one Gilbert Flores."
"Good," Sam nodded. "I had a man start tailing him the moment he left the annex, and the report I just got from him is one reason I'm here."
Tyler's brows raised, and he folded his hands in front of him. "I take it that the little temper tantrum we witnessed wasn't the end of things?"
Sam shook his head. "Not by a long shot - nor did he continue alone. Mr. Stewart Berringer popped up again."
"Now why does THAT not surprise me..." Tyler leaned forward and flipped a paper around so Sam could read it from right-side up. "Seems our Mr.'s Berringer and Flores have been bosom buddies and teammates on the Raines-Lyle terrorism train from a long time back."
Sam picked up the paper, read down about halfway, and then shook his head. "Flores was Berringer's right-hand man in Las Vegas for four years until he was promoted to supervisor himself - but his promotion was prompted only when Miss.... PARKER decided not to take the Los Angeles supervisor's job?" He looked up again. "Are you thinking professional jealousy as well as preference for the previous status quo?"
"Yup." The Texan then handed Sam another paper - a photograph. "I'm also thinking that between the two of them, there is enough background and connections to make either or both of them very dangerous men to cross."
Sam looked down at picture and frowned. Obviously a surveillance photo, the scene was an office building foyer where six men stood in intense discussion. "That's Mayeda, LA liaison to the Tokyo Yakuza bunch headed by Tommy Tanaka to the left of Flores. Who are the others on the other side of Berringer?"
"The one on the far right is unidentified at the moment. The one next to him is a man named Rodriguez - one of the top enforcers for the Mexican Mafia in LA County. The one next to Berringer himself is Eduardo Santini, consiglieri to the Torzulo crime syndicate."
"Holy shit!" Sam stared at Tyler. "These two have got mob connections nine ways to Sunday - and an axe to grind with Miss P, it seems."
"I know she wants to take the Centre legit as quickly as possible," Tyler commented in a quiet voice that spoke of his unease with the current situation, "but she may have to play Centre hardball the old-fashioned way until she gets her feet firmly planted in the stirrups here."
"She's not gonna like that," Sam replied in a sour tone. "She ended up on the wrong end of that hardball far too often."
Tyler looked across the desk, his brows raised slightly. "But, you know, I'd be willing to bet you twenty that she's halfway expecting something like this to come up. She's not dumb - she probably has a pretty decent idea just how far down the corruption at the Centre goes if she's tripped over it often enough."
The ex-sweeper lifted the photo. "Do you have another copy of this?" At Tyler's nod, he folded it and slipped it into his jacket's breast pocket, along with the list of names Tyler had provided. "You see what you can do to get that other guy in this thing identified. I need to get an extra level of security assigned to Miss P and her family - and then get some direction for her on how to proceed against our mutineers."
"Oh, she's gonna LOVE that!" Tyler shook his head. He'd already seen her independent streak in action; the idea that she'd be getting round the clock protection for herself and her family too was not going to sit well."
"Yeah, well, I'll convince her," Sam assured his new colleague with a little less than complete confidence, "eventually..."
~~~~~~~~
Otamo Ngawe gazed with obvious disdain on the Federal agent. "What can we do for you?" he asked, his tone communicating patience overlaying frustration.
Gillespie decided not to let this African's superiority get him riled. "I regret the need to bother you right now, but we are investigating not only the bombing of a significant contractor for the US Defense Department, but also the murder of this man." He handed over a small photo of a dead man's face. "I was hoping that perhaps you might recognize him..."
Ngawe shook his head carefully - any movement was an invitation to agony if not considered and carried out properly. "We're sorry, but we have never seen this man before." It was the absolute truth.
"Do you have any information that might help us track down and apprehend those who set the bombs that landed you in here?"
The elderly African gentleman carefully avoided narrowing his eyes. He would have to be careful - the American had worded his question in such a way that, had he been less mindful, his drive for retribution might have had him telling everything he knew. But just as Miss Parker refused to aid in any efforts against the Yakuza in favor of seeking her justice from these suited fools, the Triumverate was going to refuse to aid in any official investigation. "We're sorry, we were just at the Centre to attend meetings when... boom!"
"Mmmm..." Gillespie wasn't fooled by the man's simple explanation. "Then perhaps you could tell me WHY you had evidently ordered a 24 hour watch on this man," he showed Ngawe a photo of Fujimori, "about twelve hours before he attempted to commit suicide?"
Hazel met ebony in a contest of wills. "He is a very valuable friend to us - is it so wrong to want to want to keep abreast of his condition?"
"You are a friend to Mr. Fujimori?" Gillespie's eyebrows rose in surprise.
"That's what we said," Ngawe retorted. "Did you not believe us?"
"Then I would imagine you were aware that Mr. Fujimori has a criminal record - as a member of the Japanese Yakuza crime syndicate?" Even Chief Harrison didn't have THAT little tidbit of information yet - the ink on the faxed answer back from Tokyo was barely dry.
Ngawe's eyes narrowed. "Our organization has done business with the associates of Mr. Fujimori on numerous occasions, Agent...?"
"Gillespie," the agent filled in impatiently, knowing full well that this man was more than capable of having remembered him having introduced himself.
"Agent Gillespie, yes. As we were saying, we have done business with Mr. Fujimori and his associates on many occasions, none of them having anything to do with any criminal activity." The African smiled inwardly. He technically WAS telling the truth - the business dealings the Triumverate had conducted with the Yakuza had been one of simple investment. HOW the Yakuza had chosen to use the influx of cash had been none of their concern, provided the rate of return remained constant.
Gillespie eyed the African with renewed suspicion. Something was definitely rotten in the state of Delaware, and part of it was lying half-paralyzed on the bed in front of him. "I just thought you should know then, since you've indicated such interest in Mr. Fujimori's well-being, that he has been taken into custody by the FBI and is now under OUR custody. You might want to recall your security man," Gillespie shrugged in a deliberately nonchalant manner, "just to avoid any misunderstandings along the way."
Ngawe knew that if he were to push the issue, it would cause questions. There were contacts within the FBI that would help keep and eye on things there, so giving in on this point wasn't a problem. "We'll be happy to withdraw our protection from the man, now that we know that your government has taken charge here. You WILL keep us informed as to his condition, will you not?"
"I'll make sure than any changes will be relayed to you immediately," the FBI agent promised - with absolutely no intention of carrying through on his word. From the look in the elderly gentleman's eye, Gillespie knew that Ngawe thoroughly understood that that would be the way things worked as well. The African was out-maneuvered, and he knew it.
"We appreciate your thoughtfulness." Damn, the man WAS good!
Gillespie made a mental note to have an agent posted nearby this survivor's room to stake out the activities there, and to have the phone in the room tapped as well. Something was definitely going on here between Ngawe and this Fujimori fellow - and he intended to find out EXACTLY what that was.
~~~~~~~~
"Well, that one went better than I had hoped," Miss Parker sat back down in her chair in the conference room once all the members of the Psychogenic Department had filed from the room. "At least anything unsavory happening in THAT little corner of the Centre Universe was something Raines personally directed and oversaw, and not something that Sydney let slip under his radar for any reason."
Jarod looked at the stack of project folders that now sat in front of him, and then back at her. "You had any doubts about Sydney's ability to handle the department??"
"That's a fairly busy part of Centre life there," she replied with a sigh. "And I happen to know as well as you do that Syd prefers to be doing research, and not paperwork."
"He still would keep enough of a handle on his department that..."
"I know," she waved him quiet again. "At worst, Raines was more than capable of figuring out underhanded and subtle ways of diverting department resources - like the “reconditioning” of SL-27..."
He shook his head. "I think that was simple abuse of authority as Chairman, Parker. There was nobody here to say him nay when he requisitioned maintenance men or supplies, or staff afterwards."
"True..." She ran her fingers through her hair and began gathering up her own papers and legal pad full of notes. "Looks like you have your work cut out for you there, kid."
"Hell, no. I'm hauling this mess to Sydney's tonight when I stop off to check on him. He may not be up to coming into the office, but he can sit up in the den or at the kitchen table sorting through this. It's going to take time to prioritize and sort all this into two stacks: what you can keep going and generating revenues, and what you would be best putting off until all your repairs are finished." Jarod was glad that he'd brought a large and absolutely empty brief case, except for the pad on which he too had taken copious notes, with him that afternoon. He had expected the number of projects Sydney had been nominally in charge of to be large, but not quite as large as it had turned out. "I think maybe we've been underestimating the amount of work he's been putting in all these years..."
"At least you'll know what you'd be facing when you take over from him when we convince him it's time to retire," Miss Parker reached behind her and retrieved her light jacket from the back of her chair.
"I suppose..." Jarod looked down at the folders he was packing and winced when he thought she wasn't looking. He knew that her concern for Sydney was that he could no longer handle the long hours and responsibility that went with his position, and that the time had come for him to settle back into a comfortable retirement and enjoy his grandson. Not to mention that he now had Kevin's socialization to manage too. But that would, unfortunately, have to wait until after his trip to California was concluded and he was back to step into Sydney's shoes.
"I'll meet you at Sydney's, then - and we both can commiserate with him when you dump all this in his lap." She looked over at the Pretender, and there was just something in the way he was avoiding looking at her that wasn't right. "Jarod? Is everything OK?"
His chocolate eyes came up to meet hers, and there was a touch of sadness in them that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "We'll talk at Sydney's," he told her quietly, "I promise."
A voice spoke softly in the back of her mind - a voice that she hadn't heard for a very long time - and her face crumbled from the capable and confident visage of the new Centre Chairman. "Oh God!" she breathed. "Jarod..."
"Parker..." He'd seen it as it happened, and it reminded him very much of how Ethan would look every time his “inner sense” would kick in and supply him with information that wasn't otherwise readily available. Helluva time for that thing to kick in for her again now... He snapped his briefcase closed and picked it up, walked over to her side and dropped it so that he could draw her into a gentle embrace. "We'll talk at..."
"Not yet... please..." she breathed shakily and leaned against him.
He took her face between his hands gently. "Listen to me! We'll talk at Sydney's. This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion." When she would open her lips to argue with him, he kissed her softly and lingeringly, then brushed his lips across her forehead and let her go. "You go now, and touch base with Tyler and Sam for any final updates for the day. I'll meet you at Sydney's. OK?"
She sighed deeply and nodded. She had known this day would come, when he would decide that he could put off his trip no longer - somehow she'd hoped that day would have been further in the future that it evidently had turned out to be. On the ring finger of her left hand was his sparkling promise that his leaving her this time was a very temporary thing - that he would be back, and back to STAY this time.
"You OK?" he asked gently, knowing full well that her mood had just taken a nosedive, but rather inquiring as to whether she could continue with what little remained of the rest of the day.
Her grey eyes that came up to meet his were sad and resigned. "You know damned well that I won't be OK until you get your ass back from California, Jarod," she said with the slightest hint of the old Miss Parker sarcasm that had carried her through so many personal setbacks on bravado alone. "But I'll make it through the rest of today."
Jarod leaned forward and kissed her cheek, his beard brushing her face with a sensation that she'd grown rapidly very fond of and would miss desperately. "I'll see you at Sydney's then,"
~~~~~~~~
"Oh good, I was just coming to see you," Sam breathed a little easier when he saw his boss coming back down the corridor toward the offices. He paused; she seemed... a little deflated. "You alright, Miss P?"
She waved a hand between them. "Don't mind me, Sam. What was it you wanted to see me about?"
"You aren't going to like what I have to say," he cautioned her as he followed her into his office and closed the door behind them.
She spun slightly and watched him move to behind his desk. "Why's that?"
"Because I want to assign you, Davy and Sydney round-the-clock protection, that's why."
"Why the Hell..." she began, then saw him simply sigh as she proved him right - that she DIDN'T like what he'd said. That put a quick end to the display of temper, and she seated herself. "OK, talk to me. Why in God's name..."
"Do you remember your little collision of wills with a certain office supervisor named Flores?" Sam relaxed a bit when the explosion seemed to short-circuit. He could see he had her full attention, which was what he would need.
"Yeah."
"Well, I had a tail on him by the time he left the complex..." Sam began.
She nodded. "I kinda figured you would," she commented approvingly.
"...AND I had a tap on his phone before he got back to his room. Just as well..."
"Who'd he call?" Miss Parker was starting to see where he was going.
"A close associate of Tommy Tanaka in Los Angeles."
That made her blink in surprise. "A Centre supervisor was contacting the Yakuza?" The ex-sweeper's dark head nodded slowly. "Well?"
The dark eyes focused carefully on her face. "He tried to rustle up some backing for a small revolution." When he saw the arched brows begin to slip toward the center of her brow in an angry frown, he added, "Of course, Mayeda turned him down flat - something about a directive from Tokyo specifically prohibiting the Yakuza from doing anything to or against the Centre."
At that, she chuckled darkly. "Oh, I can imagine the terms of that “directive.” They're looking to save their asses from getting it both from the Triumverate and us at the same time." But her humor hadn't lightened her Security Chief's mood. "That wasn't all, huh?"
"Nope. After the call, he went down to the hotel lounge and started drinking - and lo and behold, who should come in and join him but..."
"Don't tell me," she put up her hand. "Stewart Berringer."
"Bingo. Berringer and Flores were real cozy for a while, talking about you in, shall we say, less than glowing terms. And eventually they got up and left - after mentioning the name Santini." Sam reached into his pocket for the folded photo. "Does that name mean anything to you?"
She shook her head. "Should it?"
"It should NOW," he said in a clearly warning tone. He unfolded the photo and slid it across the desk and into her waiting hand. "This was taken about a year ago. You'll recognize both our Centre “friends.” The guy to the left is Mayeda, who's Yakuza."
"Who are these others?" The grey eyes meeting his dark ones were now clearly concerned.
"That one," he said, pointing to the man next to Berringer, "is Mexican Mafioso by the name of Rodriguez. The slick one next to him is Santini - Eduardo Santini, consiglieri to the Torzulo crime syndicate."
"And this one?" Miss Parker's finger pointed at the man on the far right.
"Tyler's working on getting an ID on him. But I think the indications here are pretty clear. We have a minor mutiny on our hands if Berringer is talking to Flores about bringing in help from the Las Vegas mob." Sam gazed at her evenly. "While you're here at work, it's not a problem to keep you safe - but you ARE vulnerable. All it would take would be for them to snatch Davy..." He watched her face pale, "...or Sydney, and they'd be in a position to force you to do just about anything."
"Do it." Her voice was soft but firm. "Keep it discrete, and have it in place tonight." She thought for a moment. "You still have a tail on Flores?"
Sam nodded. "I'm expecting him to check back in anytime now."
"Fine. I want one on Berringer too, as of yesterday. I also want a clear accounting of just what kind of operation we're talking about for both the LA and Las Vegas offices - number of sweepers assigned, projects being handled, the whole magilla. Start putting together plans for a clean-up of both places, to take place as soon as possible - hopefully before either of those weasels are ready to go home again." She stood, and her posture was now tight and very controlled. "I'll go tell Tyler to start a selection process for supervisors to take their places, so that by the time they're ready to go home, they won't HAVE home offices to return TO."
Sam's brows raised in concern. "You're just going to cut them loose?"
Miss Parker put up her hands. "I just got through announcing that we're no longer in the terrorism business, Sam. We can't just lock 'em up in SL-25 - hell, we can't even GET them into SL-25, much less lock 'em up down there..." For the first time, that fact was an irritant rather than a cause for celebration.
"Let me and Tyler work on something," Sam suggested. "I don't like the idea that these two get set loose to go back to LA and Las Vegas - whether they have offices to go to or not - where they have easy access to the kind of scum-ball slime that seems to be their cronies. Inside or out, they spell trouble with a capital T."
"OK," she agreed finally. "You have two days to plan out the take-down of both offices. I'll have Tyler coordinate with Mei-Chiang to move both Flores and Berringer to the very bottom of the list of interviews - that will keep them here as long as I dare without causing comment."
"You'd better warn Sydney," Sam told her. "He's a sharp cookie - he'll notice the muscle hanging around his house."
"What about Deb and Kevin?" she asked suddenly. "Or even Broots in the hospital? My family is more than just Syd and Davy now."
"I'll call the hospital security in Dover and make arrangements for a closer watch on Broots. As for Deb and Kevin, maybe you can talk to them tonight - see what they'll accept?"
"Fine." She turned and opened the office door. "Keep me posted - call me when your tail reports back in again. I want to know just what those varmints talk about."
"Yes, ma'am!"
~~~~~~~~
Sydney tapped gently on his water glass to get the attention of the others at the dinner table as the last few bites of cake disappeared into eager maws. "Jarod has something he needs to tell you all," he announced once the extraneous chatter had died away. "Jarod..."
The older Pretender looked around the table. Much had changed since he'd first come to this table weeks ago. One friendly face was missing, another had joined. Connections to all had been welded into place with a firmness that he would be depending upon in the days and weeks to come. Miss Parker's left hand reached beneath the table to land on his thigh, and he sat back in his chair and grasped her hand tightly in his.
"As most of you know, when I came back, I only intended to stay long enough to bring us all out from under the shadow of the Centre before heading back to California. Well, the Centre as we all knew and dreaded it, is gone. And so..."
Kevin stared at his older counterpart. He knew the man was devoted to all of these people, and yet now he was hearing that Jarod was leaving - leaving his family? "Are you going away for good?" he asked suddenly.
"Daddy!" Davy's yelp was painful - both on the ears and the heartstrings. "Don't go!"
"I promised my mother that I'd come back to her when I left," Jarod explained at last to the rest of his new family. "And a person should never make promises they don't intend to keep. I'm sorry for the short notice - I just realized today that I've only been postponing the inevitable and making it harder for all of us in the process. I need to go, NOW, so I can come back, SOON."
"How long will you be gone, Uncle Jarod?" Deb asked quietly, and her question brought the rest back into focus on the Pretender.
"I need to finish up a few things there - help Ethan, my brother, to take over my practice and perhaps find a replacement for me there. And I have to try to get my other family to try to understand that I really belong HERE, with Davy, and with the woman I intend to marry as soon as I get back." He lifted Miss Parker's hand to his lips. "But just as I promised my mom I'd go back to California, I'm making you all a promise that I'll be back - to STAY - as soon as my business there is finished."
Sydney knew there was but one question left. "When are you leaving, Jarod?" he asked in a sonorous voice that cut through the silence that had formed as Jarod had stopped speaking.
"Tomorrow morning." Jarod looked around the table sadly. "I'm only delaying the inevitable by waiting any longer. The sooner I leave, the sooner I can come home." Home. His eyes met Sydney's, and the word sunk in. Yes, this WAS home for him. "I spent a lot of time fooling myself that I didn't belong here. No more. I own a house in California, and half of my family lives there - but the most important part of me belongs here, and the half of my family that I can't live without is HERE. I need to finish things out there, so I CAN come home to stay at last."
Davy slammed his fork down with a muted sob and darted from the table toward the front door. Kevin started to rise and go after him, but heard Jarod call him back. "No, I'll go after him. These next few weeks are going to be hard on him. I need to talk to him myself." He looked around the table again. "I'll be right back."
The boy hadn't gone far - he was leaning against the trunk of the massive oak tree just across the street in the park, staring across the lawn at the little pond. Jarod walked slowly across the street and up to the tree, then leaned against it on the other side.
"I thought we were going to be a real family," Davy whimpered. "I thought you loved me and Mommy."
"I do love you," he told his son, struck by the betrayal in the young voice. A sudden memory of himself challenging Sydney in much the same way on a Father's Day many years earlier suddenly came to mind, reminding him of how it felt to have a major player in one's life apparently willing to walk away. "There just was no easy way to tell you that wouldn't upset you one way or the other. I made a promise to your Grandma that I have to keep - like I said, I never make promises I don't intend to keep."
"Can I go with you?" the boy asked, turning to his father with tears in his huge grey eyes that looked very much like his mother's. "I'll be really good, and I could meet Grandma and Uncle Ethan..."
Jarod squatted and held his hands out to his son, who came to him and leaned his head against the broad shoulder. "No, Davy. You have school starting in just a little bit, and you don't want to miss out on the first day." He felt his son begin to sob, and he rose with the boy in his arms. "Besides, I need you to help me take care of your Mom while I'm gone. You'll have to be the man of the house again."
"I don't wanna be the man of the house again," Davy wound his arms around his father's neck tightly. "I want YOU to be the man of the house."
"You know how sometimes, when your teacher gets sick, you get a substitute?" Jarod asked him, carrying the boy up the steps of Sydney's front porch. Davy nodded against his neck, still crying. "Well, I need you to be my substitute for a bit. Yes, I'm going away - but the important thing is that I'm coming back as soon as I can. I promise." He kissed the boy's damp cheek. "And remember, I never make a promise I don't intend to keep."
"But do you have to leave tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow or the next day, it still will be hard for all of us, Davy." He pushed through the front door and closed it behind them. "Better to get it over with, so that you can look forward to me coming home." He paused in the living room to brush the dark hair back out of his son's face. "Think you can finish the dessert that Deb worked so hard to make?" The arms tightened around his neck, but the little head nodded eventually. Jarod kissed the cheek again, and carried the boy back into the dining room and deposited him back in his seat.
"Miss Parker was just giving us HER news," Sydney explained as soon as his protégé was back in his seat as well. "Seems that she stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest today, and Sam is insisting on assigning Davy and me round-the-clock security."
That Jarod HADN'T been expecting. "Parker?" He turned to her in concern.
"Seems that some of our West Coast affiliates prefer the old regime," she explained with a plea in her eyes not to make too much of it in front of Davy.
Jarod nodded his understanding. "When does that start?"
"Sometime tonight," she answered. "The only question was how Deb and Kevin wanted theirs."
"One extra man for the two of us should do it," Kevin replied quickly. "I spend a lot of time here with Sydney - especially when Deb's out visiting her Dad or, starting tomorrow, working at Oggie's." He turned to the girl. "How's that sound to you?"
"Fine," she shrugged. "I just hope Oggie doesn't mind..."
"I'll explain it to him myself, if he has any questions," Miss Parker promised. "You tell him to call me at work and tell the person that answers that I'm expecting the call - I'll clue in my secretary the minute I get in."
"Thanks, Miss P."
"Well," Jarod said, rising, "I hope nobody takes offense if I head off early. I have a lot of packing to do."
"I'll be there soon too," Miss Parker responded. "I have a call to Sam to make to see about the security details for you three and Davy too." She rose from her seat and bent to give Sydney a hug and a kiss. "Would you mind very much watching Davy for me until school starts? With Jarod leaving..."
"You know Davy's always welcome here," Sydney put his arms around her and hugged back. "About seven-thirty?" She nodded. "I'll be ready, I think..."
"Goodnight, Grandpa," Davy mumbled to his grandfather, still very much an unhappy little boy. As Sydney tightened his arms around the boy, he knew he had his job cut out for him the next morning helping Davy cope with the loss of his father for a while.
Jarod was shaking Kevin's hand. "I'll be calling often to see how Sydney is progressing - and you too. Take care of our family for me, OK?"
The sandy-haired Pretender found that he too was distressed at this new disruption in his family structure. "I'll miss you, Prodigy."
Jarod heard the wistfulness in that old project name, and he clasped the young man tightly for a brief moment. "You'll be fine, Shadow. I'm leaving you in good hands while I'm away." He winked at he younger man. "Take care of Deb too. She'll be missing both Dad and Uncle now."
That brought back the smile. "I will."
"Uncle Jarod." Deb just stepped up and into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Hurry home."
"I will, Deb. You tell your Dad that I look forward to seeing him up and around when I get back." Jarod loosened his hug and kissed the girl's forehead and looked up at Miss Parker.
"I'll meet you at home," she understood the look in his eye and grasped Davy by the reluctant hand. "C'mon, kiddo. Race you to the car?" She shrugged at Jarod when that didn't produce the desired result, and then led the two of them away after giving Kevin and Deb a knowing nod to get them to let Jarod bid Sydney goodbye privately.
Sydney slowly rose from his seat and turned to face his former protégé, who was looking decidedly distressed. "I feel like we've been in this place before, you and I," the younger man said, his heart heavy.
"We have - and more than once," the Belgian answered gently. "But each time, it was necessary."
"That doesn't make it any easier."
"Of course not." Sydney sounded as if the idea were thoroughly absurd. "The difference is that THIS time you are neither running away nor breaking off ties entirely. There is this modern appliance known as the telephone that means we can talk... There's email..."
"Sydney." Jarod looked at the man who had been the only father he'd known growing up and who had come to reclaim that place in his life over the course of the last few weeks. "I..."
"I know." The psychiatrist regarded his former protégé fondly. "I feel the same way."
"I feel like I'm dumping a huge lot on you right now, when you're just out of the hospital..." Jarod looked down, feeling guilty.
Sydney shook his head. "Nonsense. The paperwork will help me feel like that I'm actually doing something useful again - and it will make the time pass more quickly while you are away. Stop worrying - I'll be fine, Jarod. The surgeon was pleased with my progress - I'm finally healing for real this time. And Parker is getting her feet under her with the Centre. Now is the time for you to finish what you need to, and then come home."
There it was again - that word “home.” "This IS home, Sydney," Jarod admitted softly. "This is where the people I love best are." The chocolate eyes came up to catch at chestnut.
The older man gazed evenly into the face of the man he'd raised in one of the worst places in the world, and who had grown up to be the kind of person any father could be immensely proud of. And remembering a similar moment seven years earlier, he put out a hand and cupped the bearded cheek in his hand. "Au revoir, my son," he told Jarod gently.
The two men embraced tightly and pounded each other on the back fondly in farewell. "Au revoir, mon pere," Jarod answered with his head pillowed on Sydney's shoulder the way as a boy he'd often wished Sydney would have allowed. Sydney closed his eyes as Jarod spoke voicing the reciprocal emotional bond between them openly for the first time, engraving the moment wherein he could admit and accept that relationship at last in his mind and his heart.
Then the older man let loose and pushed himself away. "Go now," he nodded with a small smile, blinking against a tear. "And hurry back."
And with a wave of the hand, Jarod walked away and out the door.
~~~~~~~~
Jarod pulled the door to Davy's door closed and then ran a hand down his face to stem the tears that were running. Bidding his son goodbye, even temporarily, had been far harder than he'd thought. He made his way the rest of the way down the hall to their bedroom and walked in as Miss Parker was seated on the edge of the bed talking to Sam. "Thanks, Sam. Oh, here he is. Hang on." She pulled the handset away from her ear and held it out to him. "Here - Sam wants to talk to you."
Jarod took a deep breath to steady his voice and took the phone from her. "Hey, Sam..."
"Hey there yourself, Lab-rat. Miss P. tells me you're taking a trip west tomorrow." The ex-sweeper's voice on the other end of the line was a little brusque. "I just wanted to tell you to watch yourself while you're over there on the Left Coast."
"Take good care of them for me while I'm gone, willya?" Jarod asked the man who had once been a real reason for running away. "Especially Parker. You and Tyler keep her safe for me."
"I promise," Sam swore, and meant it with every fiber of his being. His voice lowered, as if worried that Miss Parker could hear him. "Hurry back. She's gonna be a real cast-iron bitch without you around to keep her purring, I'm sure."
Jarod chuckled. "I'm sure you'll survive. You did the last time..." Miss Parker looked at him with raised eyebrows, but he only smiled at her. "See ya around."
"Take care, Jarod." The call disconnected.
He handed her back the handset. "Security measures all in place?"
"Yes," she answered, rising. The pupils of her grey eyes had dilated until it looked as if they were grey-edged ebon pools. She reached out and took his glasses from his face for him and set them on the nightstand. "And I have a Centre town car picking you up at seven o'clock and taking you to the private airstrip. You can have a Centre jet take you back to California." At his raised eyebrows, she smiled. "Being the Chairman gives me a few perks - might as well use 'em."
"Perks that let me travel in style," he smiled back, and then pulled her closer to him. "Have I told you lately that I think I'm in love with the new Chairman at the Centre?" His fingers were deftly working the buttons on her blouse.
"Is that so?" she asked, her hands pulling his shirt from beneath his belt. "How does she feel about that idea?"
The silk parted beneath his warm hands that then slipped over silken skin in search of more snaps to undo. "I'll have to ask her the next time I see her," Jarod replied in a husky voice, then brought their lips together in a blistering kiss that immediately had pulses racing and breathing quickened. Both sets of hands became instantly busier.
The blouse was only the first piece of clothing to be discarded without another thought. Soon the pile on the floor held many more items.
~~~~~~~~
The single toot of the horn told them the town car had arrived. Jarod turned to her, standing there in her robe. "I love you, Missy," he told her gently, pulling her hungrily into his arms one last time and calling her by the name she'd once given him years ago. "I'll be home as soon as I can."
"You'd better," she warned him after kissing him deeply. "I'm not the kind of bride you want to leave waiting at the altar. I'll come after you."
"Is that a promise or a threat?" he asked her with his trademark smirk.
"I still own that Smith & Wesson, you know," she reminded him archly, then leaned against him. "I miss you already," she added softly.
"Me too." He kissed her again, her lips, her eyelids, her cheeks, her forehead. "Stay safe while I'm gone."
"Don't be too long," she kissed him back. "You've gotten me used to having you here - of waking up with you beside me. I don't know if I can live if you take too long."
"I promise I'll be back as soon as I humanly can." He reluctantly pulled himself from her arms and shouldered his duffelbag with his belongings in it. "I love you - remember that."
"I love you too, Jarod. More than anything else in the world."
She stood in the open door, her robe clutched tightly at the throat, until long after the town car had passed around the corner and vanished from sight. When she went back into the house, her home felt much emptier. With a deep sigh, she headed for the shower, stopping by Davy's room on the way to get him up and moving - glad that she had the time to spend a few minutes with Sydney before she headed back to the Centre again.
Jarod had left her again. And while not leaving her totally bereft this time, his departure nonetheless had made her world significantly colder.
