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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks everyone for your reviews, love getting them always. So glad almsot everyone is pleased with this and we hope you will all like this chapter. As always, probably need to stop saying this now lol, but this fic is co-written by jaccione and onisius.
Special Agent Byrnes was not a man that liked to be kept waiting, and somebody would pay for this. Who did they think they were dealing with? They finally ushered him up to the office of the new Chairperson, the daughter of the late Mr Parker, a woman he had not yet met, but one who had a considerable reputation. These Centre people were a strange lot, but they had their uses. He had fought about doing this this way, but in the end, he had lost, which was no big surprise. He expected her to fight him too and he was in no mood to waste any more time, there was none left to waste.

Parker looked up at the knock on her door, barking out, "What!" She hated interruptions. With how much work she had to get done, Lyle not really helping out in that department, Parker hated when people were so rude to come into her office and stop her doing her work.

"Special Agent Byrnes ma'am, no need to get up." Byrnes said in a business tone. He knew they were not going to like this, and so he knew that there was no point in trying to make friends. In and out with the minimum amount of fuss was his goal now. He also knew that if he appeared wavering, this could become protracted, so he had resolved to go in hard and ruthless, but stay reasonable, if he could. Catch them on the back foot, not giving them a chance to gather themselves together.

"And you think I had any intentions of getting up for someone like YOU?" Parker growled, hating the Feds and hating this man already so much more.

He smiled tautly at her. "I knew your father, good man he was.” He said, sitting down without waiting for an invitation, which he suspected would not be forthcoming. She was a striking woman, and she knew it and he bet she wasn’t above using it as a weapon. He smiled at her open hostility, which was just going to make his job that much easier.

"Obviously you didn't know him very well at all." Parker snarled darkly. She didn't know what 'father' he was talking about, and if it was Raines, the man was delusional. And if it were Mr Parker, he was just as bad. Parker loved her father, always trying to get his approval and affection, and he wasn’t a bad man, but no one could call him a good man.

"Maybe not, but we had a good working relationship Miss Parker, and I hope that will flow over between us.” He had read her dossier and knew she was going to be difficult to deal with.

"And what did you and Daddy work on together?" Parker arched an eyebrow, sitting back in her seat, wondering what the hell was going on. Parker could not really see her father working with this man, working with anyone. He normally sent other people to work with their clients, not himself.

"Many things Miss Parker, many things. As you know, we are one of your biggest clients.” He smiled smoothly at her.

"All the government branches and the military are our biggest clients. What makes your branch so special? And exactly what branch are you?"

"Office of Homeland Security,” He said formerly. “You can think of the OHS as the cousin that nobody likes to talk about. The illegitimate child of the NSA, if you will.” He smiled at her as he watched her trying to measure him up, determine just how much threat he posed to her.

Parker opened her laptop up and quickly brought the Office Of Homeland Security files up and skimmed over them. "We seem to do quite a lot of business for you. We have four simulations on hold, waiting to be completed for you." Parker said slowly, wondering if he was here to push on getting their SIMs done.

"Yes, waiting being the operative word. We expected results sooner than this, once Jarod was returned, and working again."

"How do you know about Jarod?" Parker narrowed her eyes dangerously at him. He would know they had people to work on the problems their branch needed to be solved. But not the names of the projects that did it, or even that they were projects.

"I think you would be surprised as to what we know Miss Parker.” He said, glad to see he had the upper hand here. Information was his business and he was the best in his field. He knew that they thought that they kept most of their operations under the radar, but the truth was they were nowhere near as covert as they imagined.

"And pray tell, 'special' agent, what you do know." Parker challenged, not liking this at all.

"I do know that you managed to get your hands on Jarod just a little over 3 months ago, after an absence of nearly 5 years. That so far you have not been able to get him producing the results he formerly did.” He knew much more than she would have guessed, but it was still too early to show all of his hand. He could see she was unbalanced, and she didn’t like that at all. She was however doing an admirable job of trying to cover it.

Narrowing her eyes at him, wanting to ask how he knew that, thinking there was a leak in the Centre somewhere. "What are you doing here?" Parker asked instead, wondering how the hell he even got in. Whatever imbecile let this man in was going to be fired at the very least.

"We have a... an impending crisis and we need your services, immediately.” He said slowly. It would be better for all concerned if they could reach an accommodation. He suspected though that that wasn't going to happen. One way or the other though, he was going to get what he wanted. There was no other option.

"What kind of impending crisis? And what kind of services?" If this man wanted something off of her, he had better damn well start telling her more then what he was.

"I am not at liberty to discuss that with you until certain agreements have been made. Suffice to say that you will be doing this country a great service."

"What 'certain agreements'?” Parker snapped in annoyance, wishing he would get on with it. "I do not have all day."

"There are matters of national security to consider here Miss Parker and at the moment, without briefing you fully, I am not a liberty to disclose the details with you. There is an imminent threat however, which we believe we can prevent, but we do not have the time and we need all the resources we can get. One of which is currently sitting down in one of your sublevels."

"Jarod will not do the SIM’s, no matter what we do to him. Why do you think he would SIM this for you?"

"He has no choice, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake. He will cooperate." Byrnes said with supreme confidence. He had studied Jarod extensively before suggesting this course of action and he knew that the pretender would cooperate as soon as he understood what was at stake. He had not chosen this path lightly either, having lost more than a few nights sleep over it.

Parker snorted at that, "He does not want to do anything connected with you people, knowing how often you change the outcome of his work.”

“This is one outcome that we all want changed Miss Parker. But that would be our problem, not yours." Byrnes told her in a no-nonsense tone. He knew full well of Jarod's refusal to work, and he knew why as well.

"You are not getting any cooperation from us until you tell me what you want." Parker ordered, tired of this, tired and bored.

“It is simple Miss Parker, we want Jarod, for the duration of this crisis." He was watching her reactions carefully and had to admit she was pretty good at this game. It was a rigged hand though and no matter what, he was going to win.

"You want Jarod? Meaning?" Parker frowned, not liking the sound of that. Parker had an instant dislike for this man, and now he was saying he wanted her pretender?

“I would have thought that was fairly obvious."

“He does not leave this building, for no reason or for any one." Parker growled. "You are just wasting my time now.”

"We are prepared to pay you handsomely for his time of course.” He smiled at her. He knew that this was not really about the money, but when you waved a lot of money in somebody’s face, all of a sudden their objections seemed much less enthusiastic.

“He does not leave the Centre. So unless you want to use I'm here, you don't get him at all." Parker would not be persuaded by a few thousand dollars to let the genius out of the Centre for them to use. She could only imagine how well that would go down with Sydney, even Jarod. Yeah Freud, I am loaning the rat to the government to exploit as well, just another fun way of making your boy feel more like a tool. It was going to go down really well if she let this happen.

“I don't think you understand Miss Parker." Byrnes said slowly. "One way or the other, we will be taking Jarod, I was hoping we could come to an arrangement. There is a long history between our organisations of cooperation for our mutual benefit." That wasn’t strictly true of course, since they had only been commissioned recently, but there was a long standing history with other government departments, both above board, and off the books.

“And has anyone EVER allowed Jarod out of the Centre hmmm?" Parker arched an eyebrow at him. "Even Daddy wouldn’t have allowed that. You don't seem to understand when I say no. Once he is out, there is a high chance he will escape, and then not only are we screwed, but you won't ever be able to get him to solve your little problems.”

“There will be no escape.” Byrnes said with confidence. He knew what Jarod was capable of and appropriate precautions were in place. “I do understand your concerns though, so we have decided to allow you to send someone as an... an observer. They can inform us of any potential risks, any special requirements and ensure that your, uh, asset, is secure.” He didn’t like the idea of letting anyone into the inner sanctum, but if this is what it took to assuage their concerns, then so be it. If worse came to worse, they could just induce a little stroke or heart attack in the person who she chose and that would be the end of that. Security was a primary concern but the reality was if they were going to use Jarod, then there was no way to maintain a perfect security seal. If Jarod did his job, then it wouldn’t really matter all that much after the fact, so this compromise was settled upon.

Parker narrowed her eyes at him. “And what exactly is it you need him for? And how do you expect to make him work for you? What are you planning to do to him to get his cooperation if I say yes?"

“I am sure you are aware of what happened on September 11.” He looked at her and waited to gauge her reaction. He doubted there was a person on the planet that didn't know about that. Since that day, his department had been granted almost unlimited powers, certainly unprecedented in the US previously. They were autonomous and essentially answered to nobody. The Oversight Committee was a select group of powerful men and fell well out of the circle of influence of the Department of Justice. They had even more power than the NSA, and the funding to match. Their only purpose was to ensure the safety of the United States against another such attack. And they were allowed to use any means necessary and proceed with extreme prejudice.

“And you expect such an attack to happen again soon?" Parker asked slowly, wondering if Jarod would even work for them. Parker knew however, if Jarod had the chance to stop such an attack and save untold number of lives, he would jump at it.

"Yes, we believe so.” He said slowly, watching her. Although that was no secret, the whole nation had been expecting another attack. What the nation didn’t know was just how much was going on behind closed doors to ensure that never happened again. Had they been more proactive then the last tragedy might have been averted. Governments though, Republican or Democrat, usually were slow and only ever reacted. This had been their wake up call, and finally they were doing something definitive. This time they had enough sense not to tie their hands behind their backs with things like Constitutional Rights, search warrants and all the things the Civil Libertarians liked to get their panties in a knot about. This was a ruthless world they were living in now, fanatics who would stop at nothing to see their way of life destroyed and they needed to be vigilant in stopping them. There could be no halfway in this game.

“And if I let you use him, what do you plan on using him for?" Parker asked carefully, thinking more about it, not liking the thought of letting Jarod out, but if it was that serious, Parker didn't think she could have it on her conscience if she were the reason that they couldn’t stop it.

"We have a mountain of information to analyse and all of our best minds on it, computer predictions, everything we have. We failed last time Miss Parker to prevent it, I do not intend on that happening again. We believe that someone like Jarod just might turn the tide for us.” He was pleased to see that she hadn't dismissed it out of hand yet. Jarod was coming with them, either way, he didn’t want to risk the relationship with the Centre though, as they had their uses and had proved invaluable in the past. Many of the scientific advances and breakthroughs of the last few decades had come from this place, although nobody would ever know that. Not to mention the military applications.

Parker thought about it for a while. "Jarod won't trust that this won't be turned against innocent people. You might need to... coerce him. How will you do that?" Parker asked slowly. She already had to deal with Lyle torturing Jarod, the last thing they needed was another hot headed idiot hurting him like that.

"We believe Jarod won't need any coercion. He will understand quickly what is at stake here." Every best pyshc profiler they had had all come to the same conclusion. He was driven by altruism and the need for his family. If altruism wasn’t enough, then an offer to find his family and place them in protective custody might motivate him.

“And if he still believes you are going to turn it against people, how will you? I want the details." Parker ordered.

“I hope you are not implying torture Miss Parker, this is the US government after all. I believe though, that would probably be best left to the handler you assign to determine. After all, you have much more experience with him than we do." The lie was blatant and he hoped it appeased her. He had absolute confidence that Jarod would be more than willing to help, once he knew it was not a Centre manipulation to trick him into working.

Parker nodded, “How much will this cost you to get Jarod out?"

“I don't t really think money is the issue here Miss Parker." But of course it was. It was always the issue.

“It is one of the issues. I need to know how much you will pay us to risk losing him, I still need to convince the other half of the chairmanship to do this." Won’t that be a blast? If Parker decided to do this, then Lyle would need to be convinced to go along with it as well.

"Why don't you just write a number down, and I will sign the cheque, if it isn't too outrageous?” He offered.

"What do you class as too outrageous? Stop playing this game agent, just tell me how much so I can take it to Lyle and discuss it with him."

"Based on what we pay your per SIM, we will double that for the equivalent amount of revenue you would otherwise make during that time. It is a good deal Miss Parker, I suggest you speak with Mr Lyle, soon. As you can imagine, this is a matter of some urgency." He also knew of the pressure that her African masters were putting on her and this kind of windfall would buy her much needed time, get them off her back once the money started to roll in. It was Black Ops money, funded by drug and assets seizures of criminals and terrorists and he tried not to think too much about funnelling it back the same type of people they had taken it from.

“I rather talk to Jarod first," Parker stood up, wanting to see if Jarod would work for them first, and if yes, make sure he understood what it would cost him if he ran. Not waiting to see if the agent would come, guessing he would, Parker headed for her doors and left the office.









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