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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
Escape From Alcatraz
Part 11
Shannon
Shannon had heard the voice as she was falling asleep, her new baby daughter in her arms. As if from a distance, she heard Sofia’s voice softly murmuring, and then the slight weight was lifted off her. Sighing, she managed to roll onto her side, her hand tucked under her cheek, and opened her eyes to watch Sofia take Carrie out of the room. That was when she saw the woman sitting in the chair on the far side of the room, smiling tenderly at her.
“Shannon,” she murmured, and the voice was the same as the one that had comforted her during that long, terrible night of walking. Her face was that of the woman in the picture with Margaret. The woman rose from her seat and crossed the room, sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning over to lightly kiss her forehead.
“Who are you?” Shannon asked curiously. “Why do I know you?”
“Because you’ve heard me all your life, when things have been hardest,” the woman replied. “I’m that little voice in your head that has been with you during the worst times of your life.”
“I’ve never seen you before.”
“You’ve never had a baby before,” her companion smiled, her blue eyes glowing. Her hand gently stroked Shannon’s face. “That makes all the difference.”
“Does it?” she asked confusedly. “Why?”
“Because you’ve passed your gift onto your child,” Catherine said. “When that happens, it also gets stronger in you.”
“Oh.” Shannon considered this briefly for a moment in silence. Then, “But who are you?”
Catherine leaned over, cradling Shannon’s face in her hands, and looked deep into her eyes. “I’m your mother,” she whispered softly.
Tears immediately filled Shannon’s eyes, spilling over onto the pillow. This was the moment for which she had longed ever since hearing Peter’s stories about his family. Catherine’s hands stroked her shorn hair and face, lightly kissing her.
“Soon, my baby,” she murmured. “Soon you’ll have your family, the one I promised.”
“I do,” Shannon protested. “My daughter.”
“More than that,” Catherine whispered. “Very soon, Shannon. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of, and more.”
“When?” she pleaded.
“You’ll know.” Catherine again kissed her forehead. “He’ll tell you himself.”
*~*~*~*~*
Charles
“Project Mirage,” Nat announced, “began officially on the 24th of September, 1970. Raines gave a presentation of the subject to the Triumvirate on the 16th of July, 1972, and got permission to do another, similar project. This began officially on the 4th of December, 1974,” he raised his eyes to meet Shannon’s gaze, “which, as we know, was the day Prodge was born.”
“Entitled Project Juventas,” Jarod added.
Charles was still sitting in the armchair, Margaret beside him and Emily on the floor at his feet. The only sound in the room was the whirring and occasional beeping of Nat’s laptop. Even Carrie was quiet, sleeping soundly in Ethan’s arms. Shannon sat beside him, her head still resting against his shoulder, Josh sitting on her other side, holding one of her hands in his. Cici and Sofia had gone shopping.
“What else?” Charles asked in a stifled voice. His heart ached at the realization that he had once more been exploited by the Centre, to create the two individuals sitting opposite him.
“Something about this ‘inner sense’,” Nat said slowly, reading through the file. “Apparently Raines tested Ethan when he was two years old. The test showed an unusually increased level of alpha waves, and Raines thought that was evidence of it. When Shannon was born, he tested her for that, too, but it didn’t show anything unusual, so he trained her as a Pretender instead.”
“What about Catherine?” Margaret asked anxiously.
“The ashes of a Carolyn Parnder were interred in the Centre cemetery on the 24th of September, 1970,” Jarod offered quietly. “But there’s no record of anyone with that name ever working at the Centre prior to that. Maybe Raines killed Catherine and had her cremated.”
“And took her eggs first, which he used for Shannon,” Nat added.
“Oh, jeez.” Charles sank his face into his trembling hands. “Aren’t they ever going to leave us alone?”
Emily leaned her face on his knee, and Margaret’s hand rubbed his shoulder, but the feeling of violation seemed to run deeper than any surface comfort they could offer. He blinked back tears that threatened to escape from his eyes and swallowed a painful lump in his throat before he managed to look up again.
“Anything else?” he asked gruffly.
“Still looking,” Nat replied.
Another of those painful silences filled the room, broken only when Carrie woke and gave a small squeak, before beginning to cry. Ethan quickly handed her over, and Shannon, with Josh behind, moved over to the change table. After a moment, Emily also rose and went over to join them. Charles saw Shannon look up in surprise, and then give a welcoming smile, moving over to make room in the small space.
Something about that scene caused an emotion to rise in him that cut through the devastation Nat’s discovery had caused. Charles knew how much his behaviour towards Shannon had hurt Emily, and for her to overcome her pride and offer her help to someone she disliked so much showed the benefits of the training she had received from her parents.
And then realization struck, as it perhaps had already occurred to Emily: that these two girls were sisters, sharing the same father. Emily was an aunt to the baby who seemed to be the only person unaffected by the information that had been unearthed. It was right that she should help, if help was needed.
Ethan was still sitting on the sofa, and Charles looked up to meet his gaze. There was a look of longing in the young man’s blue eyes, as there had been in Shannon’s eyes on the morning after her rescue, and Charles suddenly realized the irony of his denials on that day, not realizing that they would come back to haunt him so much later. But he couldn’t respond to this boy the way Ethan obviously hoped he would, and Charles suddenly realized that he blamed Ethan for coming here, and for being who he was.
But was it fair to blame this individual, who was, after all, only searching for a family of his own, in the same way Charles had spent years looking for his own family?
Surely things had begun before that: maybe when Shannon had gone into the Centre.
But that only happened because Peter had been taken back there, and Peter was only taken back because Charles had gotten him out in the first place.
However, Charles had only rescued Peter because he hoped it was one of his sons. And he had gone after his sons because the Centre had taken them in the first place.
As always, it seemed that the Centre was to blame. And how could it be otherwise, when it had been responsible for the creation of the two people he now knew to be his children in the first place? With a heavy sigh, he was about to get up and cross the room to the sofa, when he saw that his wife had got there first.
Margaret sat down beside Ethan, who visibly cringed away from her. He seemed terrified of everyone in the room except Shannon, and most particularly of Charles, although considering the way they had met, perhaps that wasn’t so surprising. The gun was back in Charles’ bag now, but the man could still see Ethan occasionally shooting glances in that direction, as if afraid someone would pull it out again and threaten him with it. Idly, as he watched Margaret, Charles wondered what Raines had done that had made this boy so terrified of the world.
Jarod also crossed the room to sit on the coffee table, opposite his newfound brother. Being so close, Charles could see the similarities between them, and also features that they both shared with Emily and Shannon. And Ethan and Shannon had bright blue eyes, like Kyle and Catherine.
Charles wondered thought back to the day when he had pretended to kill Catherine. Had she been aware of the irony: that it was the father of two of her children who pulled the trigger? Did Catherine’s daughter know she had two siblings? Had Raines enjoyed the fact that, even as he threatened Charles and forced him to pretend to kill Catherine, one of Charles’ children had been conceived and plans had begun for a second? Was there a third, somewhere in the Centre? This was unlikely, considering what Nat had found.
Everything seemed to suggest that, as Shannon had failed to show any sign of the Inner Sense, plans for further siblings who might have that skill had been shelved. Did Raines know, Charles wondered, that his plan had actually been successful? Charles doubted it. If he had, surely he would have made more stringent efforts to find Shannon, but her pursuit team had been abandoned only a few months after it was begun. They had never been able to discover why that had occurred.
“Boss?” Nat asked softly, and Charles looked up.
“What is it?”
“Uh, can you…?” He nodded at the chair beside him, and Charles, as he came over, noticed that Emily was rocking Carrie to sleep. The young technician clearly didn’t want to disturb the baby.
Charles slipped into the chair and looked at the laptop. When he realized that Nat had begun to investigate the scrolls again, suggesting that no further information about Shannon or Ethan was available, Charles let himself relax. It was only then that he realized he had been steeling himself for news of more children or further details about those he already knew of.
Even as he sat down, the door opened and Cici and Sofia came back. Their arrival seemed to prompt conversation from the others, with Jarod getting up and coming over to help, while Emily moved over to the sofa to join her mother and half-brother. Josh stayed with Shannon and helped her sort a pile of baby clothes, folding them and putting them into the new tallboy.
“Found anything new?”
“There are three people in the Triumvirate, all from the African Centre,” Nat reported. “And those letters Mr. Parker was sending about the scrolls were going to Africa. I know it’s forty years ago, so it might not be to these people, but…”
“It’s a start,” Charles finished, clapping him on the shoulder. “See where you can take it, Nat. The sooner we get this sorted, the sooner we can start planning for the next stage.”
The look he got from his wife encouraged him over to the sofa, but his movements were reluctant, unsure whether he was doing the right thing. But Margaret was one of the best character judges he knew, and if she felt that Ethan was ready to meet his father, he probably was. So he came to sit on the sturdy coffee table with his daughter, facing the son he barely knew.
*~*~*~*~*
Shannon
It was still early when Shannon got out of bed. Carrie was now three days old, and Shannon was strong enough to walk around without support. As she passed Jarod's bedroom, she glanced in and saw that he, Ethan and Josh were asleep, the younger two sleeping on rented mattresses. In the room at the far end of the house, Charles and Margaret slept in Josh’s double bed. Emily was on the sofa in the living room. Shannon had offered to let Emily sleep in her room, but that young woman had refused, saying that Shannon still needed rest, particularly having her baby to take care of.
They were getting on better now. Occasional tense moments appeared that surprised them both, but as a general rule they acted, if not like friends, then at least like close acquaintances. That was a relief to Shannon, who had had no real idea how to deal with such strong emotions being directed against her.
A nightlight plugged into the wall near Carrie’s bed dimly lighted the living room. Charles and his sons had rearranged the furniture in the small space, giving a little more maneuverability to whoever was in with the baby. Now Shannon slipped in between the curtains that divided the little bedroom from the rest of the living space and bent over the bed to see Carrie, who was sound asleep and curled up tightly in one corner of the bed.
Smiling softly at the sight, Shannon slid her hands under the warm bundle and lifted the baby into her arms. Carrie woke briefly, snuggled up against her mother’s neck, and then closed her eyes again. But, as Shannon had guessed she would be, Carrie was hungry, and Shannon only had time to sit in the rocking chair before the girl’s blue eyes opened and she made the whimpering sound that was an early indication of her impatience. Still smiling, Shannon was able to hush the whimpers, and soon Carrie was drinking happily.
Resting her head back against the chair, Shannon let her thoughts wander, and suddenly found herself thinking about Peter. For the past few days, she had been too busy and too tired to think of him, but now, as she fed their baby, her thoughts returned to that room in the Centre. Nat had tried to find it on one of the interior plans, but according to them, the room didn’t exist and neither did its occupant.
That might have explained why everything was recorded on paper. Paper could be stored away and not accessed externally. If it were well enough hidden, nobody would find it. And it was obvious that Raines had no idea of people finding out what he was doing to Peter. Shannon tried not to think what that might be, but possibilities crept into her mind and made her feel ill.
A hand on her shoulder startled her, and her eyes flew open to find Jarod standing beside the chair, Carrie in his arms.
“Sorry to wake you,” he murmured, bending down beside the chair, “but it’s a little chilly to sleep out here.”
“Is she finished?” Shannon asked, yawning.
“And sleeping soundly.” Jarod carried the baby over to the bed and gently laid her in it, covering her with the small, thick doona. Then he turned and offered Shannon an arm. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
She slid her arm around his as she got up, and Jarod picked up a blanket that had been spread over the chair, draping it around her shoulders. She smiled up at him, feeling comforted in his presence in a way that she never had before. His behaviour was what she imagined a brother’s ought to be, and she wondered whether she was acting the way a sister should.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began softly, as they came into her room, and he grinned down at her teasingly.
“No wonder I felt the walls shaking.”
She giggled under her breath and slipped in between the sheets as she turned on the bedside lamp. Jarod lay across the foot of the bed, looking up at her expectantly.
“What were the thinks?”
“It was about the scrolls. Nat told me what happened on Carthis, and afterwards,” she added, in reply to his unspoken question about how she knew. “I think I know why they took you – and the rest of us.”
Jarod sat up, pulling his legs up and hugging his knees, his eyes expectant. “Tell.”
“Well, I think, despite what Mr. Parker says, that he does believe in the scrolls. His main concern, though, is probably that, if anyone ever made the connection between you and what it says about you, he could lose his position. And he’s pretty powerful – head of the American branch of the Centre. He stands to lose a lot if you’re unmasked as ‘the Chosen’.’
Her brother merely nodded, waiting for her to continue.
“We know that, over the years, the Centre’s been studying intelligence and unusual behaviour,” she went on. “According to one document we found, they’re particularly interested in genetically inherited skills. So they started working with fertility clinics, like NuGenesis, where your father and mother…”
“Our father,” Jarod corrected softly, with the hint of a smile.
“…went to have you,” she finished, smiling to acknowledge his statement. “That way, they had a range of people to test. Then, one day, one of the doctors at NuGenesis sends Mr. Parker a letter about a new genetic combination that’s showed up in their tests on a new baby. Mr. Parker asks about this baby and discovers that it’s a boy called Jarod. Then he remembers the scrolls he’s either read, or at least heard about from someone, which are kept at the Centre. Maybe he goes to consult them himself. I don’t know. But he makes a connection between this baby, Jarod, and these scrolls.”
“He doesn’t want to lose power,” Jarod suggested. “So he decides that he can’t risk anyone else maybe making the connection he’s just done. He gets in contact with someone in Africa who might also know about the scrolls, and maybe doesn’t really believe in them, and tells them that the scrolls have to disappear. So, either the day before or the day I was actually brought to the Centre, they’re stolen.”
“But he doesn’t tell anyone, because they would make the connection too quickly and he would be in danger of disappearing himself,” Shannon added. “However, he knows what the scrolls say, and he believes in them, or at least partly. So he thinks that maybe, if he can gather ‘the greatest minds in the world’, and if Jarod is at the Centre, maybe the prophecy will be fulfilled anyway and the Centre will rise.” Suddenly she giggled. “It sounds like a cake.”
Jarod laughed, smothering the sound so as not to wake the others. “If it’s a cake,” he suggested with a grin, “then I think someone forgot to put in the sugar.”
Shannon giggled again. Then, her thoughts returning to her original idea, she became serious again. The humor had also faded from Jarod's eyes when he looked at her again.
“So, if you’re right,” he said, “then it’s important we find out exactly who was corresponding with Mr. Parker about the scrolls, because if we accidentally revealed the truth to them, we could lose everything.”
“Including our lives,” Shannon added softly. “I agree. But the correspondence was marked as being top-secret, which suggests to me that there must be people at one, if not both places, that are firm believers in the whole idea. They’re the ones we need to find.”
“How?” Jarod demanded flatly.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” she admitted reluctantly. “Do you have any ideas?”
“I haven’t been thinking about it,” he confessed, and from the way his fingers suddenly clenched around each other, she guessed that he was thinking about the panic attack Cici had mentioned to her. The doctor had suggested to the select audience of Charles, Shannon and Margaret that the attacks had been caused by a fear of the Centre, and particularly of returning to it.
“Don’t worry, Jarod,” she said gently, reaching out to place a hand over his. “There’s no hurry. We can take as much time as we want.”
He smiled gratefully at her, releasing a hand from under hers and placing it on top with a gentle squeeze.
“Hopefully,” he suggested, “today Nat and I can work out who the letters to Mr. Parker might have come from. There aren’t nearly as many people at the African branch as there are here at the American one, so it shouldn’t take too long to figure out.”
“And you’ve checked to see if there’s any other letters written about them?”
“Uh huh. But we haven’t found anything.”
She nodded, leaning back against the pillows and thinking about possible ways to figure out who, at the Centre, might believe in the scroll’s prophecy. Jarod, too, lay back on the bed, his hands tucked behind his head, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. Shannon ran various possibilities through her mind, but none was foolproof enough for her to even consider mentioning it.
The small clock on her bookcase softly chimed the hour of three, rousing her from her thoughts. She looked at Jarod, who still lay across the foot of the bed, his long legs hanging limply over the end. His lips were slightly parted, and deep breaths caused his chest to rise and fall regularly. As she watched, he gave a faint but definite snore, and Shannon smiled. The rug was still around her shoulders, and she pulled it off, gently draping it over his upper body. As she sat back against the pillows again, she saw that he hadn’t moved.
Reaching over to the bedside table, she picked up her current book and opened it on her knees, but her thoughts got in the way of her reading, and eventually she put it away, reaching into her top drawer for the notepad and pen that were kept there.
She quickly scribbled a list of the details that formed the problem. She worked better when she had everything in front of her, ensuring that she missed nothing. Then she listed the solutions she had thought of and discarded, including her reasons for doing so. It was always possible that an element of the solution could be useful, and she didn’t want to forget it.
By the time she finished, the pen was heavy in her hand, and it was an effort to write down the final few words. Putting the objects on her bedside table, she pulled the extra pillows out from under her head and curled up under the covers, feeling Jarod's warm heaviness on her feet for a moment, before falling asleep.
*~*~*~*~*
Sydney
Sydney stared out of the jet’s window at the runway falling away below them as they headed back to the Centre after following yet another lead that, like all the others, proved to be fruitless. He gave a frustrated sigh, wondering if there was any real use in following these supposed sightings, which, so far, had all turned out to be wrong. Sometimes he even wondered if Jarod was playing a game with them, spending a few hours in one place and a few in another, so that people would see him and report his presence to the Centre, but he would be long gone by the time they got to the place.
He mentally ran through a brief phone conversation between them from a few days earlier. Jarod had sounded more confident. In fact, Sydney found himself feeling somewhat unnerved by the obvious self-assurance in Jarod's voice. Even knowing Jarod as well as he did, he couldn’t ever have imagined that he would get so quickly used to a world that he hadn’t seen for 33 years and surely could have no memory of. And yet Jarod had sounded quite easy about his surroundings, and had reiterated his determination not to return to the Centre.
But he had reserved the cruelest blow for the end of the call.
“By the way,” he had said, very casually. “I’ve found my father.”
Then he had hung up.
Those words had sunk deep into Sydney's heart. Although he had denied the fact for years, both to himself and to others, Jarod was special to him. In fact, such had become his desire for family particularly since the terrible accident that had robbed him of his brother, Sydney had begun telling himself that Jarod was as close to a son as he would ever have. The realization that Jarod had found his real family, and, moreover, seemed quite content to have them take the place that Sydney believed he had once occupied, hurt.
But there was absolutely nothing he could do about it now.
And that hurt even more.
Two days ago, the Triumvirate announced that he had been cleared of playing any part in Jarod's disappearance, and had given him permission to join the rest of the pursuit team in following the few leads that had appeared. Miss Parker, however, continued to view him with something like suspicion.
He sighed, wishing that he had never agreed to let the faux-Italian woman work with Jarod in the first place. That was what had caused all the problems, and he wondered, if he ever happened to meet her, what he would say. As he leaned back in the leather seat of the jet, he dwelt on the likelihood of that ever happening, and what he would do if it did.
*~*~*~*~*
Jarod
Jarod woke to find himself lying on the end of Shannon’s bed, a light rug over him. His legs were stiff around the knees from being in such an unusual position, but he moved gingerly, not wanting to wake Shannon, who was curled up, her hand pillowing her cheek, obviously sound asleep. He folded the blanket and carried it out of the room, hearing voices in the kitchen and, as he came out into that area, seeing his parents and Emily cooking something that smelt delicious.
Emily ran over to kiss him, and he hugged her, drawing back slightly to examine his face with her eyes.
“Are you sure you’re okay, sleeping on the sofa? I could do that and…”
“We’ve talked about this,” she reminded him impatiently, but with a saucy grin that told him she was teasing. “And I’d rather my neck was stiff, not yours.”
He grinned, kissed her cheek and went over to the baby’s room to put the rug back on the chair from which it had come. Carrie was lying quietly in her bed, staring at the ceiling, so he picked her up and checked her diaper.
“I just changed her,” Margaret announced quietly.
“I’m so glad,” Jarod exclaimed in exaggerated relief and carried his niece over to the kitchen after wrapping her warmly in a rug. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Omelets,” his father replied. “Your mother makes them to perfection.”
“Sounds good,” Jarod said cheerfully, but with no idea what they were.
Within ten minutes, Josh and Ethan had also come into the living area, and were laying the table while Jarod cuddled Carrie. There was something peaceful and satisfying about the whole scene, and Jarod reveled in it. When the food was ready, and a jug of juice stood on the table, the whole family, including Shannon, who had woken several minutes earlier, took their places around the large dining table.
The omelets were light and fluffy, flavored with ham, cheese or tomato. A rack held well-buttered slices of toast, to which people helped themselves. Rashers of crispy bacon lay on a heated plate and slices of fruit lay on another.
Jarod tried everything once, including toast with all the possible spreads, and finished with a mug of coffee. Emily stared at him.
“Where did you put it all?” she demanded. “How can someone with your figure possibly eat that much?”
“Good genes,” Jarod grinned, shooting a sly glance at his mother, who laughed.
Once everyone had finished, Shannon took Carrie into her room for a feed and so that the young woman could dress, while the others cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen. They had just finished when Nat, Cici and Sofia arrived.
Nat and Jarod set up the table as a workstation, while the others retreated to the living room and discussed possible future rescues. As they worked, Jarod told Nat what Shannon had suggested during the early hours of the morning, and the young technician looked thoughtful.
“It’s certainly possible,” he said finally. “And something to think about. We should be able to find out the source of those letters today. I did some work on it last night and got through about a third of the staff members…”
Jarod, having a sudden brainwave, interrupted. “Maybe we’re doing this the hard way, by starting with the people and trying to match the number to them,” he suggested. “Why don’t we hunt for the number and see if it matches any correspondence that were already written and might have a name on them?”
Nat stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded, before shaking his head in disbelief. “How come I didn’t think of that?”
Instead of answering, Jarod leaned over the laptop and typed in the number, running a search for it through the store archives of the African Centre. Within moments, he had more than fifty hits, and several minutes after that, more than one hundred.
“You and your bright ideas,” Nat grumbled.
“And exactly how much success were we having, doing it your way?” Jarod teased pointedly.
Nat snorted and opened the first message. It was dated approximately two years earlier than the correspondence about the scrolls and Jarod, and was signed by a man called Mutumbo. Nat entered the name and the numerical code into the program, and the identical files came up as had been found with the search of just the number.
“So now we go through each one individually?” Nat suggested grumpily.
“Unless you have a better suggestion.”
They quickly scanned the letters, and Jarod took note of the date and subject of each so that they could be found more easily later, if they were required.
After about fifty messages, Jarod noticed that the name was different. The individual now signed himself ‘P. Mutumbo’. This pattern continued for two years’ worth of correspondence, before the signature reverted to the surname only. The newest letter was only three days old.
“Interesting,” Nat muttered, and then opened the program that listed details about the African staff before shooting a grin in Jarod's direction. “I’ll bet you a nickel,” he said, “that you can tell me the name of the head of the Triumvirate.”
“I’ll bet I can even tell you what letter his name starts with,” Jarod retorted. “But what I wonder is why he changed his signature.”
Nat leaned back in his chair and stared at the computer, before jerking upright and pointing at the screen. “He must have been a pretty bright baby,” the technician remarked. “He was signing his name the year he was born.”
Nat’s finger was indicating Mutumbo’s date of birth, and Jarod saw that it was 1961, the year of the first letter they had found.
“So,” Jarod proposed, “it has to be someone else – maybe the current Mutumbo’s father? Maybe he signed his name with the initial to show that he was a different person, and then, when people were used to the fact that he was in charge, or had forgotten his father, or maybe his father died or something, he used just his last name instead.”
“Reasonable hypothesis,” Nat nodded thoughtfully. “But if there was an older Mutumbo, he really should have details somewhere on the mainframe, right? So where are they?”
Jarod rested his elbows on the table and propped his right hand on his left fist, resting his chin on the top, his gaze on the computer.
“What if,” he began slowly, “the son decided to overthrow his father? Or if someone else did? If it were me, I’d try to make it look like everything good that my predecessor had done was actually done by me and erase any sign of him.”
“A coup?” Nat suggested.
Jarod nodded. “Particularly if there was rivalry between them, I think that would be a very natural thing to happen, especially considering what a high level of competition there is in the Centre.” He raised an eyebrow. “Would it be possible to completely erase the record of someone from the system?”
“Of course. I do it all the time, whenever we pull out sweepers.”
“Well, there you are, then. Our would-be leader gets someone with a little computer knowledge, and probably kills him at the end to make sure he never tells anyone what he’s done. Within a few days, he’s assumed complete control. By having the same number and everything, nobody suspects a thing.”
“But he forgot, or never knew, about the stuff in the stores.” Nat looked down at the letters he had printed out. “And nobody ever went looking, until now.”
“Why would they?” Jarod asked reasonably. “Who’s crazy enough to go looking for letters from seventy years ago?”
“Us,” Nat grinned.
“And we’re all a little crazy,” Shannon put in, having heard the end of the discussion, as she sat down opposite the two men. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” Nat said enthusiastically, and gave her a brief summary of what they had found out and suspected.
“I can certainly see how that would work,” she agreed. “But I suppose the real question is whether the new Mutumbo has inherited his father’s views on the scrolls.”
“We hadn’t got that far in our investigations,” Jarod told her, adding, in generous tones, “But if you have any ideas, trot them out and we promise to consider them.”
She grinned. “You know full well I don’t, and I’ve got no idea how we could find that out, without dragging the guy over here and interrogating him – and I’m not suggesting you try it,” she added quickly.
Silence followed this, while all three people tried to think of a way to solve the problem.
“Who are our Triumvirate members again?” Jarod asked, glancing at the screen. “Mutumbo, Adama and Langedijk. What do we know about them?”
“Hmm.” Nat brought up three files and studied them. “Mutumbo is the oldest, and, if this is correct, has been head of the Triumvirate for fifteen years. The others came into the picture about ten years ago. They’re all from different parts of South Africa. None of them are married, but Adama and Mutumbo both have children. The last visit they paid to America was six months ago, and, if we want to get really personal,” he said in mocking tones, “Adama has a holiday house in Madrid, Mutumbo has one in Buenos Aires and Langedijk has one in Edinburgh.”
Shannon made a small choking sound in her throat, her eyes wide as she stared at her brother, who was staring back at her with a similar expression on his face.
“What?” Nat demanded impatiently. “What is it?”
“What’s wrong with this picture?” Shannon murmured under her breath, remembering when she had heard the phrase on a television program and been amused by it. Then she looked at the technician. “Nat, where’s Edinburgh?”
“In Scot…” Nat trailed off. Then, in the game-show host voice he adopted when he was trying to make a point about something, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.”
“Probably,” Jarod added cautiously.
“The question,” Shannon said slowly, “is what to do about it. How do we find out for sure, and even when we know, what’s the next step?”
“One thing at a time,” Jarod replied steadily. “Let’s find out for sure, and then we can plan for the time beyond that.”
*~*~*~*~*
Nathan
“You know what’s really interesting,” Nat remarked. “Not one person of any importance at the African Centre is more than thirty-five years old.”
“And would therefore have no memory of the older Mutumbo,” Charles said flatly.
“It’s a shame Mutumbo’s head,” Emily murmured, looking down at the printouts in front of her. “If he wasn’t, and particularly if Langedijk was, it’d make everything so much easier.”
“Please,” Shannon begged softly, tears standing out in her eyes as she looked at her baby, “let’s not play the ‘what if’ game.”
Nat glanced at the girl opposite sympathetically. They had spent a further three hours trying to locate Peter’s room, constantly finding themselves hitting a blank wall at the end of SL-25. There was nothing to suggest he was even there, and, hard at that was for Nat, who had become close to Peter during their six-month acquaintance, he knew it would be even harder for Shannon.
To distract himself from thinking about Peter, Nat opened his connection to the African Centre’s mainframe, which, intriguingly, came through a back-door connection being used by the American Centre, and entered the code for Mutumbo’s file.
It wasn’t there.
He stifled an exclamation of surprise and tried again, double-checking the number with that on a list Jarod had made up.
The system returned the same ‘Error’ message.
In bewilderment, he carefully entered the code for Langedijk’s file. It, too, failed to appear, but the message was different.
“System upgrade,” he murmured in bemusement. “What the…? Since when?”
He tried again, and this time he got Langedijk’s details, complete with a photo showing the man’s solid features. However, as he looked through it, alarm bells rang in his head.
“Emily,” he asked, cutting across the conversation, “can I have those sheets?”
The discussion died away into silence as the young woman handed over the pages without a word, but Nat could feel that the eyes of everyone in the room were on him as he compared the details he had earlier printed out with those on the screen.
He had to smile at the irony of it, even as he looked up to meet the young woman’s brown eyes.
“Your wish just came true,” he laughed. “It seems that Mutumbo’s gone.”
Part 11
Shannon
Shannon had heard the voice as she was falling asleep, her new baby daughter in her arms. As if from a distance, she heard Sofia’s voice softly murmuring, and then the slight weight was lifted off her. Sighing, she managed to roll onto her side, her hand tucked under her cheek, and opened her eyes to watch Sofia take Carrie out of the room. That was when she saw the woman sitting in the chair on the far side of the room, smiling tenderly at her.
“Shannon,” she murmured, and the voice was the same as the one that had comforted her during that long, terrible night of walking. Her face was that of the woman in the picture with Margaret. The woman rose from her seat and crossed the room, sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning over to lightly kiss her forehead.
“Who are you?” Shannon asked curiously. “Why do I know you?”
“Because you’ve heard me all your life, when things have been hardest,” the woman replied. “I’m that little voice in your head that has been with you during the worst times of your life.”
“I’ve never seen you before.”
“You’ve never had a baby before,” her companion smiled, her blue eyes glowing. Her hand gently stroked Shannon’s face. “That makes all the difference.”
“Does it?” she asked confusedly. “Why?”
“Because you’ve passed your gift onto your child,” Catherine said. “When that happens, it also gets stronger in you.”
“Oh.” Shannon considered this briefly for a moment in silence. Then, “But who are you?”
Catherine leaned over, cradling Shannon’s face in her hands, and looked deep into her eyes. “I’m your mother,” she whispered softly.
Tears immediately filled Shannon’s eyes, spilling over onto the pillow. This was the moment for which she had longed ever since hearing Peter’s stories about his family. Catherine’s hands stroked her shorn hair and face, lightly kissing her.
“Soon, my baby,” she murmured. “Soon you’ll have your family, the one I promised.”
“I do,” Shannon protested. “My daughter.”
“More than that,” Catherine whispered. “Very soon, Shannon. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of, and more.”
“When?” she pleaded.
“You’ll know.” Catherine again kissed her forehead. “He’ll tell you himself.”
Charles
“Project Mirage,” Nat announced, “began officially on the 24th of September, 1970. Raines gave a presentation of the subject to the Triumvirate on the 16th of July, 1972, and got permission to do another, similar project. This began officially on the 4th of December, 1974,” he raised his eyes to meet Shannon’s gaze, “which, as we know, was the day Prodge was born.”
“Entitled Project Juventas,” Jarod added.
Charles was still sitting in the armchair, Margaret beside him and Emily on the floor at his feet. The only sound in the room was the whirring and occasional beeping of Nat’s laptop. Even Carrie was quiet, sleeping soundly in Ethan’s arms. Shannon sat beside him, her head still resting against his shoulder, Josh sitting on her other side, holding one of her hands in his. Cici and Sofia had gone shopping.
“What else?” Charles asked in a stifled voice. His heart ached at the realization that he had once more been exploited by the Centre, to create the two individuals sitting opposite him.
“Something about this ‘inner sense’,” Nat said slowly, reading through the file. “Apparently Raines tested Ethan when he was two years old. The test showed an unusually increased level of alpha waves, and Raines thought that was evidence of it. When Shannon was born, he tested her for that, too, but it didn’t show anything unusual, so he trained her as a Pretender instead.”
“What about Catherine?” Margaret asked anxiously.
“The ashes of a Carolyn Parnder were interred in the Centre cemetery on the 24th of September, 1970,” Jarod offered quietly. “But there’s no record of anyone with that name ever working at the Centre prior to that. Maybe Raines killed Catherine and had her cremated.”
“And took her eggs first, which he used for Shannon,” Nat added.
“Oh, jeez.” Charles sank his face into his trembling hands. “Aren’t they ever going to leave us alone?”
Emily leaned her face on his knee, and Margaret’s hand rubbed his shoulder, but the feeling of violation seemed to run deeper than any surface comfort they could offer. He blinked back tears that threatened to escape from his eyes and swallowed a painful lump in his throat before he managed to look up again.
“Anything else?” he asked gruffly.
“Still looking,” Nat replied.
Another of those painful silences filled the room, broken only when Carrie woke and gave a small squeak, before beginning to cry. Ethan quickly handed her over, and Shannon, with Josh behind, moved over to the change table. After a moment, Emily also rose and went over to join them. Charles saw Shannon look up in surprise, and then give a welcoming smile, moving over to make room in the small space.
Something about that scene caused an emotion to rise in him that cut through the devastation Nat’s discovery had caused. Charles knew how much his behaviour towards Shannon had hurt Emily, and for her to overcome her pride and offer her help to someone she disliked so much showed the benefits of the training she had received from her parents.
And then realization struck, as it perhaps had already occurred to Emily: that these two girls were sisters, sharing the same father. Emily was an aunt to the baby who seemed to be the only person unaffected by the information that had been unearthed. It was right that she should help, if help was needed.
Ethan was still sitting on the sofa, and Charles looked up to meet his gaze. There was a look of longing in the young man’s blue eyes, as there had been in Shannon’s eyes on the morning after her rescue, and Charles suddenly realized the irony of his denials on that day, not realizing that they would come back to haunt him so much later. But he couldn’t respond to this boy the way Ethan obviously hoped he would, and Charles suddenly realized that he blamed Ethan for coming here, and for being who he was.
But was it fair to blame this individual, who was, after all, only searching for a family of his own, in the same way Charles had spent years looking for his own family?
Surely things had begun before that: maybe when Shannon had gone into the Centre.
But that only happened because Peter had been taken back there, and Peter was only taken back because Charles had gotten him out in the first place.
However, Charles had only rescued Peter because he hoped it was one of his sons. And he had gone after his sons because the Centre had taken them in the first place.
As always, it seemed that the Centre was to blame. And how could it be otherwise, when it had been responsible for the creation of the two people he now knew to be his children in the first place? With a heavy sigh, he was about to get up and cross the room to the sofa, when he saw that his wife had got there first.
Margaret sat down beside Ethan, who visibly cringed away from her. He seemed terrified of everyone in the room except Shannon, and most particularly of Charles, although considering the way they had met, perhaps that wasn’t so surprising. The gun was back in Charles’ bag now, but the man could still see Ethan occasionally shooting glances in that direction, as if afraid someone would pull it out again and threaten him with it. Idly, as he watched Margaret, Charles wondered what Raines had done that had made this boy so terrified of the world.
Jarod also crossed the room to sit on the coffee table, opposite his newfound brother. Being so close, Charles could see the similarities between them, and also features that they both shared with Emily and Shannon. And Ethan and Shannon had bright blue eyes, like Kyle and Catherine.
Charles wondered thought back to the day when he had pretended to kill Catherine. Had she been aware of the irony: that it was the father of two of her children who pulled the trigger? Did Catherine’s daughter know she had two siblings? Had Raines enjoyed the fact that, even as he threatened Charles and forced him to pretend to kill Catherine, one of Charles’ children had been conceived and plans had begun for a second? Was there a third, somewhere in the Centre? This was unlikely, considering what Nat had found.
Everything seemed to suggest that, as Shannon had failed to show any sign of the Inner Sense, plans for further siblings who might have that skill had been shelved. Did Raines know, Charles wondered, that his plan had actually been successful? Charles doubted it. If he had, surely he would have made more stringent efforts to find Shannon, but her pursuit team had been abandoned only a few months after it was begun. They had never been able to discover why that had occurred.
“Boss?” Nat asked softly, and Charles looked up.
“What is it?”
“Uh, can you…?” He nodded at the chair beside him, and Charles, as he came over, noticed that Emily was rocking Carrie to sleep. The young technician clearly didn’t want to disturb the baby.
Charles slipped into the chair and looked at the laptop. When he realized that Nat had begun to investigate the scrolls again, suggesting that no further information about Shannon or Ethan was available, Charles let himself relax. It was only then that he realized he had been steeling himself for news of more children or further details about those he already knew of.
Even as he sat down, the door opened and Cici and Sofia came back. Their arrival seemed to prompt conversation from the others, with Jarod getting up and coming over to help, while Emily moved over to the sofa to join her mother and half-brother. Josh stayed with Shannon and helped her sort a pile of baby clothes, folding them and putting them into the new tallboy.
“Found anything new?”
“There are three people in the Triumvirate, all from the African Centre,” Nat reported. “And those letters Mr. Parker was sending about the scrolls were going to Africa. I know it’s forty years ago, so it might not be to these people, but…”
“It’s a start,” Charles finished, clapping him on the shoulder. “See where you can take it, Nat. The sooner we get this sorted, the sooner we can start planning for the next stage.”
The look he got from his wife encouraged him over to the sofa, but his movements were reluctant, unsure whether he was doing the right thing. But Margaret was one of the best character judges he knew, and if she felt that Ethan was ready to meet his father, he probably was. So he came to sit on the sturdy coffee table with his daughter, facing the son he barely knew.
Shannon
It was still early when Shannon got out of bed. Carrie was now three days old, and Shannon was strong enough to walk around without support. As she passed Jarod's bedroom, she glanced in and saw that he, Ethan and Josh were asleep, the younger two sleeping on rented mattresses. In the room at the far end of the house, Charles and Margaret slept in Josh’s double bed. Emily was on the sofa in the living room. Shannon had offered to let Emily sleep in her room, but that young woman had refused, saying that Shannon still needed rest, particularly having her baby to take care of.
They were getting on better now. Occasional tense moments appeared that surprised them both, but as a general rule they acted, if not like friends, then at least like close acquaintances. That was a relief to Shannon, who had had no real idea how to deal with such strong emotions being directed against her.
A nightlight plugged into the wall near Carrie’s bed dimly lighted the living room. Charles and his sons had rearranged the furniture in the small space, giving a little more maneuverability to whoever was in with the baby. Now Shannon slipped in between the curtains that divided the little bedroom from the rest of the living space and bent over the bed to see Carrie, who was sound asleep and curled up tightly in one corner of the bed.
Smiling softly at the sight, Shannon slid her hands under the warm bundle and lifted the baby into her arms. Carrie woke briefly, snuggled up against her mother’s neck, and then closed her eyes again. But, as Shannon had guessed she would be, Carrie was hungry, and Shannon only had time to sit in the rocking chair before the girl’s blue eyes opened and she made the whimpering sound that was an early indication of her impatience. Still smiling, Shannon was able to hush the whimpers, and soon Carrie was drinking happily.
Resting her head back against the chair, Shannon let her thoughts wander, and suddenly found herself thinking about Peter. For the past few days, she had been too busy and too tired to think of him, but now, as she fed their baby, her thoughts returned to that room in the Centre. Nat had tried to find it on one of the interior plans, but according to them, the room didn’t exist and neither did its occupant.
That might have explained why everything was recorded on paper. Paper could be stored away and not accessed externally. If it were well enough hidden, nobody would find it. And it was obvious that Raines had no idea of people finding out what he was doing to Peter. Shannon tried not to think what that might be, but possibilities crept into her mind and made her feel ill.
A hand on her shoulder startled her, and her eyes flew open to find Jarod standing beside the chair, Carrie in his arms.
“Sorry to wake you,” he murmured, bending down beside the chair, “but it’s a little chilly to sleep out here.”
“Is she finished?” Shannon asked, yawning.
“And sleeping soundly.” Jarod carried the baby over to the bed and gently laid her in it, covering her with the small, thick doona. Then he turned and offered Shannon an arm. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
She slid her arm around his as she got up, and Jarod picked up a blanket that had been spread over the chair, draping it around her shoulders. She smiled up at him, feeling comforted in his presence in a way that she never had before. His behaviour was what she imagined a brother’s ought to be, and she wondered whether she was acting the way a sister should.
“I’ve been thinking,” she began softly, as they came into her room, and he grinned down at her teasingly.
“No wonder I felt the walls shaking.”
She giggled under her breath and slipped in between the sheets as she turned on the bedside lamp. Jarod lay across the foot of the bed, looking up at her expectantly.
“What were the thinks?”
“It was about the scrolls. Nat told me what happened on Carthis, and afterwards,” she added, in reply to his unspoken question about how she knew. “I think I know why they took you – and the rest of us.”
Jarod sat up, pulling his legs up and hugging his knees, his eyes expectant. “Tell.”
“Well, I think, despite what Mr. Parker says, that he does believe in the scrolls. His main concern, though, is probably that, if anyone ever made the connection between you and what it says about you, he could lose his position. And he’s pretty powerful – head of the American branch of the Centre. He stands to lose a lot if you’re unmasked as ‘the Chosen’.’
Her brother merely nodded, waiting for her to continue.
“We know that, over the years, the Centre’s been studying intelligence and unusual behaviour,” she went on. “According to one document we found, they’re particularly interested in genetically inherited skills. So they started working with fertility clinics, like NuGenesis, where your father and mother…”
“Our father,” Jarod corrected softly, with the hint of a smile.
“…went to have you,” she finished, smiling to acknowledge his statement. “That way, they had a range of people to test. Then, one day, one of the doctors at NuGenesis sends Mr. Parker a letter about a new genetic combination that’s showed up in their tests on a new baby. Mr. Parker asks about this baby and discovers that it’s a boy called Jarod. Then he remembers the scrolls he’s either read, or at least heard about from someone, which are kept at the Centre. Maybe he goes to consult them himself. I don’t know. But he makes a connection between this baby, Jarod, and these scrolls.”
“He doesn’t want to lose power,” Jarod suggested. “So he decides that he can’t risk anyone else maybe making the connection he’s just done. He gets in contact with someone in Africa who might also know about the scrolls, and maybe doesn’t really believe in them, and tells them that the scrolls have to disappear. So, either the day before or the day I was actually brought to the Centre, they’re stolen.”
“But he doesn’t tell anyone, because they would make the connection too quickly and he would be in danger of disappearing himself,” Shannon added. “However, he knows what the scrolls say, and he believes in them, or at least partly. So he thinks that maybe, if he can gather ‘the greatest minds in the world’, and if Jarod is at the Centre, maybe the prophecy will be fulfilled anyway and the Centre will rise.” Suddenly she giggled. “It sounds like a cake.”
Jarod laughed, smothering the sound so as not to wake the others. “If it’s a cake,” he suggested with a grin, “then I think someone forgot to put in the sugar.”
Shannon giggled again. Then, her thoughts returning to her original idea, she became serious again. The humor had also faded from Jarod's eyes when he looked at her again.
“So, if you’re right,” he said, “then it’s important we find out exactly who was corresponding with Mr. Parker about the scrolls, because if we accidentally revealed the truth to them, we could lose everything.”
“Including our lives,” Shannon added softly. “I agree. But the correspondence was marked as being top-secret, which suggests to me that there must be people at one, if not both places, that are firm believers in the whole idea. They’re the ones we need to find.”
“How?” Jarod demanded flatly.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” she admitted reluctantly. “Do you have any ideas?”
“I haven’t been thinking about it,” he confessed, and from the way his fingers suddenly clenched around each other, she guessed that he was thinking about the panic attack Cici had mentioned to her. The doctor had suggested to the select audience of Charles, Shannon and Margaret that the attacks had been caused by a fear of the Centre, and particularly of returning to it.
“Don’t worry, Jarod,” she said gently, reaching out to place a hand over his. “There’s no hurry. We can take as much time as we want.”
He smiled gratefully at her, releasing a hand from under hers and placing it on top with a gentle squeeze.
“Hopefully,” he suggested, “today Nat and I can work out who the letters to Mr. Parker might have come from. There aren’t nearly as many people at the African branch as there are here at the American one, so it shouldn’t take too long to figure out.”
“And you’ve checked to see if there’s any other letters written about them?”
“Uh huh. But we haven’t found anything.”
She nodded, leaning back against the pillows and thinking about possible ways to figure out who, at the Centre, might believe in the scroll’s prophecy. Jarod, too, lay back on the bed, his hands tucked behind his head, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. Shannon ran various possibilities through her mind, but none was foolproof enough for her to even consider mentioning it.
The small clock on her bookcase softly chimed the hour of three, rousing her from her thoughts. She looked at Jarod, who still lay across the foot of the bed, his long legs hanging limply over the end. His lips were slightly parted, and deep breaths caused his chest to rise and fall regularly. As she watched, he gave a faint but definite snore, and Shannon smiled. The rug was still around her shoulders, and she pulled it off, gently draping it over his upper body. As she sat back against the pillows again, she saw that he hadn’t moved.
Reaching over to the bedside table, she picked up her current book and opened it on her knees, but her thoughts got in the way of her reading, and eventually she put it away, reaching into her top drawer for the notepad and pen that were kept there.
She quickly scribbled a list of the details that formed the problem. She worked better when she had everything in front of her, ensuring that she missed nothing. Then she listed the solutions she had thought of and discarded, including her reasons for doing so. It was always possible that an element of the solution could be useful, and she didn’t want to forget it.
By the time she finished, the pen was heavy in her hand, and it was an effort to write down the final few words. Putting the objects on her bedside table, she pulled the extra pillows out from under her head and curled up under the covers, feeling Jarod's warm heaviness on her feet for a moment, before falling asleep.
Sydney
Sydney stared out of the jet’s window at the runway falling away below them as they headed back to the Centre after following yet another lead that, like all the others, proved to be fruitless. He gave a frustrated sigh, wondering if there was any real use in following these supposed sightings, which, so far, had all turned out to be wrong. Sometimes he even wondered if Jarod was playing a game with them, spending a few hours in one place and a few in another, so that people would see him and report his presence to the Centre, but he would be long gone by the time they got to the place.
He mentally ran through a brief phone conversation between them from a few days earlier. Jarod had sounded more confident. In fact, Sydney found himself feeling somewhat unnerved by the obvious self-assurance in Jarod's voice. Even knowing Jarod as well as he did, he couldn’t ever have imagined that he would get so quickly used to a world that he hadn’t seen for 33 years and surely could have no memory of. And yet Jarod had sounded quite easy about his surroundings, and had reiterated his determination not to return to the Centre.
But he had reserved the cruelest blow for the end of the call.
“By the way,” he had said, very casually. “I’ve found my father.”
Then he had hung up.
Those words had sunk deep into Sydney's heart. Although he had denied the fact for years, both to himself and to others, Jarod was special to him. In fact, such had become his desire for family particularly since the terrible accident that had robbed him of his brother, Sydney had begun telling himself that Jarod was as close to a son as he would ever have. The realization that Jarod had found his real family, and, moreover, seemed quite content to have them take the place that Sydney believed he had once occupied, hurt.
But there was absolutely nothing he could do about it now.
And that hurt even more.
Two days ago, the Triumvirate announced that he had been cleared of playing any part in Jarod's disappearance, and had given him permission to join the rest of the pursuit team in following the few leads that had appeared. Miss Parker, however, continued to view him with something like suspicion.
He sighed, wishing that he had never agreed to let the faux-Italian woman work with Jarod in the first place. That was what had caused all the problems, and he wondered, if he ever happened to meet her, what he would say. As he leaned back in the leather seat of the jet, he dwelt on the likelihood of that ever happening, and what he would do if it did.
Jarod
Jarod woke to find himself lying on the end of Shannon’s bed, a light rug over him. His legs were stiff around the knees from being in such an unusual position, but he moved gingerly, not wanting to wake Shannon, who was curled up, her hand pillowing her cheek, obviously sound asleep. He folded the blanket and carried it out of the room, hearing voices in the kitchen and, as he came out into that area, seeing his parents and Emily cooking something that smelt delicious.
Emily ran over to kiss him, and he hugged her, drawing back slightly to examine his face with her eyes.
“Are you sure you’re okay, sleeping on the sofa? I could do that and…”
“We’ve talked about this,” she reminded him impatiently, but with a saucy grin that told him she was teasing. “And I’d rather my neck was stiff, not yours.”
He grinned, kissed her cheek and went over to the baby’s room to put the rug back on the chair from which it had come. Carrie was lying quietly in her bed, staring at the ceiling, so he picked her up and checked her diaper.
“I just changed her,” Margaret announced quietly.
“I’m so glad,” Jarod exclaimed in exaggerated relief and carried his niece over to the kitchen after wrapping her warmly in a rug. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Omelets,” his father replied. “Your mother makes them to perfection.”
“Sounds good,” Jarod said cheerfully, but with no idea what they were.
Within ten minutes, Josh and Ethan had also come into the living area, and were laying the table while Jarod cuddled Carrie. There was something peaceful and satisfying about the whole scene, and Jarod reveled in it. When the food was ready, and a jug of juice stood on the table, the whole family, including Shannon, who had woken several minutes earlier, took their places around the large dining table.
The omelets were light and fluffy, flavored with ham, cheese or tomato. A rack held well-buttered slices of toast, to which people helped themselves. Rashers of crispy bacon lay on a heated plate and slices of fruit lay on another.
Jarod tried everything once, including toast with all the possible spreads, and finished with a mug of coffee. Emily stared at him.
“Where did you put it all?” she demanded. “How can someone with your figure possibly eat that much?”
“Good genes,” Jarod grinned, shooting a sly glance at his mother, who laughed.
Once everyone had finished, Shannon took Carrie into her room for a feed and so that the young woman could dress, while the others cleared the table and cleaned the kitchen. They had just finished when Nat, Cici and Sofia arrived.
Nat and Jarod set up the table as a workstation, while the others retreated to the living room and discussed possible future rescues. As they worked, Jarod told Nat what Shannon had suggested during the early hours of the morning, and the young technician looked thoughtful.
“It’s certainly possible,” he said finally. “And something to think about. We should be able to find out the source of those letters today. I did some work on it last night and got through about a third of the staff members…”
Jarod, having a sudden brainwave, interrupted. “Maybe we’re doing this the hard way, by starting with the people and trying to match the number to them,” he suggested. “Why don’t we hunt for the number and see if it matches any correspondence that were already written and might have a name on them?”
Nat stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded, before shaking his head in disbelief. “How come I didn’t think of that?”
Instead of answering, Jarod leaned over the laptop and typed in the number, running a search for it through the store archives of the African Centre. Within moments, he had more than fifty hits, and several minutes after that, more than one hundred.
“You and your bright ideas,” Nat grumbled.
“And exactly how much success were we having, doing it your way?” Jarod teased pointedly.
Nat snorted and opened the first message. It was dated approximately two years earlier than the correspondence about the scrolls and Jarod, and was signed by a man called Mutumbo. Nat entered the name and the numerical code into the program, and the identical files came up as had been found with the search of just the number.
“So now we go through each one individually?” Nat suggested grumpily.
“Unless you have a better suggestion.”
They quickly scanned the letters, and Jarod took note of the date and subject of each so that they could be found more easily later, if they were required.
After about fifty messages, Jarod noticed that the name was different. The individual now signed himself ‘P. Mutumbo’. This pattern continued for two years’ worth of correspondence, before the signature reverted to the surname only. The newest letter was only three days old.
“Interesting,” Nat muttered, and then opened the program that listed details about the African staff before shooting a grin in Jarod's direction. “I’ll bet you a nickel,” he said, “that you can tell me the name of the head of the Triumvirate.”
“I’ll bet I can even tell you what letter his name starts with,” Jarod retorted. “But what I wonder is why he changed his signature.”
Nat leaned back in his chair and stared at the computer, before jerking upright and pointing at the screen. “He must have been a pretty bright baby,” the technician remarked. “He was signing his name the year he was born.”
Nat’s finger was indicating Mutumbo’s date of birth, and Jarod saw that it was 1961, the year of the first letter they had found.
“So,” Jarod proposed, “it has to be someone else – maybe the current Mutumbo’s father? Maybe he signed his name with the initial to show that he was a different person, and then, when people were used to the fact that he was in charge, or had forgotten his father, or maybe his father died or something, he used just his last name instead.”
“Reasonable hypothesis,” Nat nodded thoughtfully. “But if there was an older Mutumbo, he really should have details somewhere on the mainframe, right? So where are they?”
Jarod rested his elbows on the table and propped his right hand on his left fist, resting his chin on the top, his gaze on the computer.
“What if,” he began slowly, “the son decided to overthrow his father? Or if someone else did? If it were me, I’d try to make it look like everything good that my predecessor had done was actually done by me and erase any sign of him.”
“A coup?” Nat suggested.
Jarod nodded. “Particularly if there was rivalry between them, I think that would be a very natural thing to happen, especially considering what a high level of competition there is in the Centre.” He raised an eyebrow. “Would it be possible to completely erase the record of someone from the system?”
“Of course. I do it all the time, whenever we pull out sweepers.”
“Well, there you are, then. Our would-be leader gets someone with a little computer knowledge, and probably kills him at the end to make sure he never tells anyone what he’s done. Within a few days, he’s assumed complete control. By having the same number and everything, nobody suspects a thing.”
“But he forgot, or never knew, about the stuff in the stores.” Nat looked down at the letters he had printed out. “And nobody ever went looking, until now.”
“Why would they?” Jarod asked reasonably. “Who’s crazy enough to go looking for letters from seventy years ago?”
“Us,” Nat grinned.
“And we’re all a little crazy,” Shannon put in, having heard the end of the discussion, as she sat down opposite the two men. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” Nat said enthusiastically, and gave her a brief summary of what they had found out and suspected.
“I can certainly see how that would work,” she agreed. “But I suppose the real question is whether the new Mutumbo has inherited his father’s views on the scrolls.”
“We hadn’t got that far in our investigations,” Jarod told her, adding, in generous tones, “But if you have any ideas, trot them out and we promise to consider them.”
She grinned. “You know full well I don’t, and I’ve got no idea how we could find that out, without dragging the guy over here and interrogating him – and I’m not suggesting you try it,” she added quickly.
Silence followed this, while all three people tried to think of a way to solve the problem.
“Who are our Triumvirate members again?” Jarod asked, glancing at the screen. “Mutumbo, Adama and Langedijk. What do we know about them?”
“Hmm.” Nat brought up three files and studied them. “Mutumbo is the oldest, and, if this is correct, has been head of the Triumvirate for fifteen years. The others came into the picture about ten years ago. They’re all from different parts of South Africa. None of them are married, but Adama and Mutumbo both have children. The last visit they paid to America was six months ago, and, if we want to get really personal,” he said in mocking tones, “Adama has a holiday house in Madrid, Mutumbo has one in Buenos Aires and Langedijk has one in Edinburgh.”
Shannon made a small choking sound in her throat, her eyes wide as she stared at her brother, who was staring back at her with a similar expression on his face.
“What?” Nat demanded impatiently. “What is it?”
“What’s wrong with this picture?” Shannon murmured under her breath, remembering when she had heard the phrase on a television program and been amused by it. Then she looked at the technician. “Nat, where’s Edinburgh?”
“In Scot…” Nat trailed off. Then, in the game-show host voice he adopted when he was trying to make a point about something, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.”
“Probably,” Jarod added cautiously.
“The question,” Shannon said slowly, “is what to do about it. How do we find out for sure, and even when we know, what’s the next step?”
“One thing at a time,” Jarod replied steadily. “Let’s find out for sure, and then we can plan for the time beyond that.”
Nathan
“You know what’s really interesting,” Nat remarked. “Not one person of any importance at the African Centre is more than thirty-five years old.”
“And would therefore have no memory of the older Mutumbo,” Charles said flatly.
“It’s a shame Mutumbo’s head,” Emily murmured, looking down at the printouts in front of her. “If he wasn’t, and particularly if Langedijk was, it’d make everything so much easier.”
“Please,” Shannon begged softly, tears standing out in her eyes as she looked at her baby, “let’s not play the ‘what if’ game.”
Nat glanced at the girl opposite sympathetically. They had spent a further three hours trying to locate Peter’s room, constantly finding themselves hitting a blank wall at the end of SL-25. There was nothing to suggest he was even there, and, hard at that was for Nat, who had become close to Peter during their six-month acquaintance, he knew it would be even harder for Shannon.
To distract himself from thinking about Peter, Nat opened his connection to the African Centre’s mainframe, which, intriguingly, came through a back-door connection being used by the American Centre, and entered the code for Mutumbo’s file.
It wasn’t there.
He stifled an exclamation of surprise and tried again, double-checking the number with that on a list Jarod had made up.
The system returned the same ‘Error’ message.
In bewilderment, he carefully entered the code for Langedijk’s file. It, too, failed to appear, but the message was different.
“System upgrade,” he murmured in bemusement. “What the…? Since when?”
He tried again, and this time he got Langedijk’s details, complete with a photo showing the man’s solid features. However, as he looked through it, alarm bells rang in his head.
“Emily,” he asked, cutting across the conversation, “can I have those sheets?”
The discussion died away into silence as the young woman handed over the pages without a word, but Nat could feel that the eyes of everyone in the room were on him as he compared the details he had earlier printed out with those on the screen.
He had to smile at the irony of it, even as he looked up to meet the young woman’s brown eyes.
“Your wish just came true,” he laughed. “It seems that Mutumbo’s gone.”
