Title:  Requiem IV: Fields of Gold

Author: Eva Parker

Rating: R

Disclaimer: 



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For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
-Matthew 16:26

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.    
-Aristotle
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   It was raining, a gentle wash which trailed down the windows of the small private airplane Jarod had picked up from his Nairobi contact.  Miss Parker pressed her shoulder into the gray cushion of the passenger seat, lying sideways in order to keep her gun from digging into her back.
   And the better to watch Jarod, as he piloted the airplane with unheard of skill.  He glided through bumps which would normally have been jarring, and the rain, far from being frightening, was merely peaceful.  It helped, perhaps, that physical and emotional exhaustion were beginning to overtake her.  She was overcome with too many emotions to c<!-->url up and enjoy the release of sleep—unlike Jarod, her feelings overtook the rational response.  Always had, always would, and they wouldn’t give up just because she was tired of them.
   She watched Jarod’s utterly confident moves through a warm haze, but even now, on the threshold of sleep, there was a cold leaden feeling in her chest.  She would not rest peacefully until Nate was safe.  Until she saw his smiling face and knew he was unharmed.  It was more than fear of his mother’s retribution.  It was just what had to happen.
   Fortunately, Jarod seemed to know instinctively not to fill up the silence between them with chatter.  He never so much as glanced at her; he probably assumed she was asleep, and she could stare freely.
   He was wearing a short-sleeved red shirt, with small black buttons up the front, and black jeans.  His worn black leather jacket was in the back, along with a few choice weapons.  He had suffered no terrible loss of physical strength as he aged, and his biceps still bunched pleasantly as he guided the airplane.  She wondered what about his simulations required him to stay conditioned, but then, she couldn’t throw stones, either.  She was not, perhaps, in her prime physically, but neither had she let it slip.  She could handle herself in a fight as well as anyone.
   They were both overdressed for a safari.
   It was in Nairobi that she had noticed that Jarod had changed as much as he remained the same.  This, Jarod’s business life, was something she had no experience with at all.  There was a quiet dignity in the way he walked, a closed, bastion-of-sanity expression which gave little away and, at the same time, drew people in.  He gave orders to the people handling their equipment as if he was used to it, accustomed to their obedience and comfortable with their obvious respect.
   She had stood at his side like a lieutenant, or, God forbid, a girlfriend, amazed.  What the hell had Jarod been up to?  Who the hell was he, now?  Of course, she hadn’t gone deeply into the details of her own life, either. 
   On the other hand, she hadn’t had a little birdie whispering into her ear about every aspect of Jarod’s doings since he’d disappeared.  Broots had been Jarod’s birdie.  Not so very long ago, she would have been pissed.  She would have kicked Broots’ ass six ways to Sunday.  Now, she didn’t really care.  Oh, Broots would hear a thing or two from her when—if—she came home, but really, she had driven all that anger toward Lyle, toward the rescue.  You couldn’t be worried about the angels at your back when you were off to slay the demon.
   Which was what it all came down to.  Jarod, Mr. Secret Information, was in charge of this escapade, but could she count on him when it came down to the grand finale?
   Parker had practical skills in infiltration, in moving quietly and undetected through a place and, when she was in full business mode, like now, killing every little fucker who stood in her way.  She had no doubts about her ability to pull the trigger when it counted.  It had been years since she had personally shot anyone—had the last person really been Lyle?—but even now, she did the re-qualification every three months just like the FBI.  She could still hit a dime from the hip at a dead run.
   As skilled as Jarod might be at the practical aspects of using a firearm, at calculating the direction and influence of the wind, the range, the kick of the weapon, there was no way to tell if he could really kill someone.  Wound, probably.  But kill?  That wasn’t the Jarod she knew.  But it was the kind of person they were both going to need for this.  Someone who could blow Lyle’s head off without a second thought.
   Or in spite of second thoughts.
   Parker sighed and tried to blink some of the sleep from her eyes.  Every time she closed them, she thought of Nate.  And she thought of Lyle.  What was Lyle doing to him?  Nate was fourteen, and though growing up without a father had put an adult strength into him years too early, for such a loss of innocence, he was still just a child.  Still influenced by the adults around him.

Lyle was a serial killer.  That he preyed on young Chinese women, and not kids was not much comfort, though really, victim preference never changed for killers like Lyle.  Creatures of habit, creatures of routine, all of us.  If he touched a single chestnut hair on Nate’s head, he was a dead man. 
   But Parker knew, perhaps better than anyone else alive except Jarod, exactly how compelling an actor Lyle was.  Even if all Lyle had managed to do was convince Nate of his benevolence before Parker and Jarod rescued him, he would cause pain.  Wellsprings of pain, wounds that time and experience might scar over, but would never quite heal.  Parker had hoped to protect what little remained of her family from the poison of all the early Centre secrets, the most painful of which had—she had believed—died with her baby brother.
   Now, it was all she could do to keep those secrets from killing them all.
   It was a terrible burden, a ripping away from her peaceful, previous life.  Now, even if she personally witnessed the body burned and the ashes scattered, she knew she would always look over her shoulder for him.  She would fear Lyle’s return until her own death.  There were many lives she would rather have lived than one so brutally thrust back into her past.
   She must have made a small sound, because Jarod took one hand off the stick and rested it on the fingertips of her right hand, on top of the armrest.  For a long moment, she did nothing but stare.  If there was anyone the Centre had hurt more than Jarod, she didn’t know.  She wondered, when she’d thought of him, whether that childhood had brought him any happiness all, if he had ever known real tenderness there.      He must have; he had to learn that gesture from somewhere.
   Buried feelings.  Once, when she was a girl younger than Nate was now, that touch would have taken her breath, set an electric shock through her.  She was no longer as capable of calling up passions.  Her emotions were powerful, overwhelming, sometimes, but rarely did one so strong and difficult as passion move her to anything but a defense, if she felt them at all.  Now, she could accept the gesture for what it was, the comfort of a friend.  A man she didn’t understand, a stranger she cared about, but a friend anyway.
   Jarod glanced at her, his dark eyes weighted with something that was neither as simple nor as comfortable as compassion.  She wondered what occupied his thoughts when he was still; she wondered more why that look of pain cut her so suddenly.  It was not her fault he had lost the first half of his life.  It was not her guilt to bear, so why did she feel responsible?
    Gently, ignoring the hurt in his face, she drew her hand away and set it in her lap.
   Who was she kidding?  She had no earthly idea what kind of relationship to expect from Jarod, nor what kind of emotions he was trying to draw from her.  She curled the hand he had just touched into a fist.  She hated confusion.  It was one of her least favorite emotions.
   Jarod’s expression had gone controlled and distant again, his eyes fixed on the horizon.  They would be landing soon, she guessed.  And the plane began to glide toward the ground as if she had cued it.
   Trust.  Trust would be enough for both of them.
---
   Midnight in the garden of evil.
   Miss Parker took light, quiet breaths as she crept through the ventilation ducts on her stomach.  It was five hours later here, so she was wide awake, at least, adrenaline keeping the pain of cuts, scrapes, and aches away.  She’d snagged an elbow on a piece of metal coming in, and it was slowly leaking blood, but it wasn’t a terrible pain; nothing band-aids and Benadryl couldn’t cure.
   Her arms and legs were already aching, though.  Ventilation-duct surveillance was not in her daily regimen of exercise.
   And that’s what this was.  Surveillance and surveillance only.  When they went in for real, they’d have to know their way around.  Broots had managed to hack a diagram of the emergency exits for the Triumvirate facility, and from that, Jarod had managed to create a working map of the children’s camp.  But it wasn’t exactly reliable; there could have been rooms in the design that were never built; there could have been additions or changes from the original design.
   And the map of the ducts themselves would be invaluable when they moved in.
   So even though Parker was armed—to the teeth—she was not to attempt rescues on her own.  Jarod had phrased the order just like that.  Any other time, she would have challenged him. What gave Jarod the right to command anyone?  If anything, Miss Parker should be in charge of this expedition.  She was the one with the practical skills.  That was the reason Jarod had asked her here in the first place.
   Well, the most obvious reason.
   However, she didn’t have the will to argue with anyone at the moment.  If she started in on Jarod, on Broots, who joined them by satellite, she wouldn’t stop.  She would yell at them both until she was out of breath and words.  They had delayed the mission a week for planning and all the while she’d grown more frustrated, felt more useless. 
  Planning time we needed.
   She had been able to contribute, a little.  But Jarod and Broots got into a genius vibe.  They were gone, lost in chemical compounds and plastique explosive, in complex equations and hours of computer hacking.  Both of them slept less than she did.
   She would not tear into them for doing what they did best.  It wasn’t like they left her behind on purpose.  Smarter to direct her frustration toward this, toward what Miss Parker could do and Jarod couldn’t.  Now her hands were untied.  Besides, Jarod was right. 
   This was not a job to do blind and alone.
   So she’d take his orders, and she’d use the surveillance equipment he’d built, and she’d do what had to be done and get her ass out of there.  Unless somebody brought out a screaming, tortured hostage.  Then all bets were off.
   There.  Dim light cast yellowish lines just in front of her.  It was another vent that faced out into a room.  She sidled up to it and pushed the end of one of the devices through the slats.  This was one of Jarod’s special numbers; it estimated the dimensions of a room by bouncing beyond-the-range-of-hearing sounds off the walls.  Echolocation.  Like a bat. 
  There was no way to know whether or not it worked.
  Concentrating on the machine kept her from the full impact of what was in the room.  Low bunk beds, each of them filled with small bodies that made noises, just like any preschool naptime.  There were too many children to count.  And this was the second dormitory.  She closed her eyes and turned away, waiting for the low beep which meant the machine was done.
  She had no idea what the children did during the day.  All the rooms she’d seen so far that weren’t dorms were largely empty and painted with bright colors.  One room was a playroom, with toys and electronic equipment that would make any kid jump for joy.  No simlabs.  No experimental laboratories.  No closets filled with—she shuddered at a sudden memory—formaldehyde bottles.

Nothing to indicate that any child here had been harmed.
   That, she guessed, made it worse.  For some reason, thinking about the small empty rooms with elephant wallpaper or circus posters made her feel physically ill, solidified and channeled her anger.  This was the Triumvirate.  This was Lyle.  It wasn’t exactly Disneyland.  So why the façade?  What in God’s name was going on?
   Low noises echoed in her ears.  Voices.  For a moment she tensed and drew the small black rod away from the vent—but it wasn’t the dormitory.  It was the next room, a few hundred feet away, barely visible from where she was crouched. 
   She tucked the small device back into her pack and pulled herself toward the noise, more careful than ever to keep silent. 
   Moving without noise was a cleaner skill, but when she did it, she always thought of elementary school.  The cafeteria was up a flight of stairs, where the older students’ classrooms were.  It was against the rules to go clomping up and down the stairs, disrespectful to disturb the sixth-graders’ studies.  Marshmallow feet, Miss Kerr would murmur, as they walked back to class.  Pretend you have marshmallows on the bottoms of your shoes.
   Marshmallow feet.
   She held her breath as she moved, until she felt dizzy.
   And she peeked through the vent.
   There was a boy standing just below her; a bit back, so she could see his face.  Not more than four or five.  A perfect little boy, with blond hair and bright blue eyes and skin that almost glowed.
   He was wearing blue shorts, a white T-shirt, and a big nametag that had PATRICK written on in big, easy-to-read letters.  Just as if his mommy had dressed him, kissed him on the cheek before sending him off to school.  Parker had dreamt about having children once.  She’d always wanted boys.
   The only thing that didn’t fit was the fierce expression on his face.  Children didn’t carry that in their eyes.  He had an expression like—like his personal demon was just around the corner, and he was going to fucking kill it when it appeared.  It was finely honed terror.
   It was a recognizable look.  It was an expression Kyle, Jarod’s brother, had held in his eyes even as an adult.  It was something she’d seen on Jarod’s face from time to time, as if he was a little boy again and the monsters were coming to get him.
   Patrick was holding something in his chubby little hand.
   All of a sudden, Parker was drenched in cold sweat.
   “What do you want, Patrick?”  It was the voice she’d heard just moments ago, now discernable.  A quiet voice, utterly without emotion, yet somehow compelling.
   Her brother’s voice.
   Lyle carried the mark of the Centre on his face, too.  He was lucky she couldn’t see his face, that she couldn’t get a shot off at this angle, that even if she could, she would never do it in front of this little boy.  Some things you never recover from.
   Seeing someone’s head blown off when you were four might be one of them.
   So might growing up with Lyle.
   The boy jumped at the sound of Lyle’s voice, stood at attention.  “I want to go to bed, sir.”  The voice was young, but not imprecise.  No stumbles around the r’s, no cutting off the t’s.
   “You want to go to bed.”
   “Yes, Mr. Lyle.”
   “Then do it, and you can go to sleep.”
   “No.”
   Do what? Miss Parker wanted to shout.  Do fucking what, you bastard? Terror was turning into panic.  She should go.  She should move.  She had to move, or she was going to do something they might all regret.  She didn’t want to see what the boy would be required to do.  She had a feeling she knew already.
   “Why not?”
   “I can’t, Mr. Lyle.”
   “I asked you a question.”
   “It’s bad, sir.”
   “It’s not bad.  As a matter of fact, it will be good for you.  This person deserves it.  Now.”
   A long pause.  “Fine.”
   The little boy lifted up his hands.  And now Miss Parker could see for sure what he clutched.
   A gun.  With a laser sight.
   Miss Parker closed her eyes.  She would not run.  Running was for innocent bystanders, and she was neither.  But she couldn’t watch, either.
   Though she listened with her heart and soul, and she felt and heard it with her heart and soul when one, two, six, a clip was emptied into what sounded like a paper target.  She wondered whose face was on it.
   It was a long moment before the ringing in her ears subsided.
   “—at wasn’t so bad, was it, Patrick?  You get cake tomorrow.  Now off to bed.”
   “Of course, sir.”  But as Parker blinked back the flash, she could see the boy tremble as he walked away.
   Son of a bitch.  Son of a bitch.  Parker mouthed the words, trying to calm herself down.  She’d seen kids shoot people before.  She’d seen the video of Kyle, emptying a weapon into a picture of Parker’s mother.  It wasn’t—it wasn’t—
   “Miss Parker?”
   She very nearly screamed at the sound of Jarod’s voice in her ear.  Just the headset.
   She pressed the talk button at her waist.  “Okay,” she choked, then cleared her throat.  “I’m okay,” she whispered.
   “You stopped moving.”  There was anxiety in his voice.
   “I know, I know, sorry, Jarod.  Just—”  She had no words.  She was clutching her own gun now.     She’d pulled it from her holster without thinking, just something to hold on to.  Something to make her feel safe.
   She pressed the cool flat of the barrel against her head and remembered to lift her finger from the radio button.
    Jarod had seen this.  She heard it in the sharp weight of his voice.  He’d been here for things just like this.  He’d seen it and it terrified him and he called her.  First time in fifteen years.  Now she knew why.       “We’ll get them out of there, Miss Parker.”
    Yeah, they would.
    Like the fucking special forces, they’d get them out.  And Lyle would never see it coming.  The question was whether or not things could be rebuilt after that.  
    “I’ll be fine,” she said weakly, and was surprised to discover that it was true.
    “I know,” Jarod said, and then she was alone again. 
   Good.  Parker needed to be quiet; she only wished she could talk with someone, with anyone, touch base with something familiar.  Plenty of time for a nervous breakdown after the rescue.  Plenty of time to bond with Jarod after they’d gotten their pint of blood and pound of flesh.
   Besides, the show wasn’t over.  She hadn’t seen Nate alive and healthy.  He was tough, she thought.  This wouldn’t work for him.  He wasn’t a four-year-old.  Lyle wasn’t making him into a complacent little assassin.  That was what she told herself as she kept moving.

And there was another sound, another young voice she had no trouble recognizing, humming a tune that was deeply connected to another child’s past.
   Kree kraw, toad’s food, geese walk barefoot.
   She smiled.  Jarod had taught Nate his song.  It was comforting to hear.  She remembered Jarod murmuring it while he slid a small screwdriver behind the security panel which protected the Centre’s ventilation system, biting his bottom lip, asking her for wire-cutters, a bolt, rigging the system so they could get up on the roof and look out over the ocean.
   And humming it while he cooked them dinner in his hiding place.
   This was something she had no problem seeing.
   Nate was working at an old laptop computer in a private room, his back to the duct.  How close was Lyle, Parker wondered.  And Nate was obviously wondering, too, because he peeked over his shoulder, flashing his face at Parker.
   He was fine.  No look of fear or even discomfort.  He looked like he was having fun.  And then she saw why.  He popped a floppy out of his computer and made his way to the duct, humming Jarod’s song and glancing furtively around.
   She had to back away quickly, because he reached up and lifted the air duct open.
   His hand was within touching distance as he taped the disc to the side of the air duct.  He would have felt her breath on his hand if she’d been breathing; if he’d reached in the other direction, he would have touched her.
   It took every ounce of her resolve not to call to him.
   And the duct clattered shut.  She pulled herself into the danger zone again, and reached out to peel the disc from its hiding place.
   She angled it toward the light, so she could read the label.
   BUSTING OUT OF ALCATRAZ.
   Parker grinned.
---
   It had been a long and lonely walk back to the camp.  A soul-searching walk.  Had she done it right?     Should she have gotten Nate out right then and there?  She would never forgive herself if he was hurt now.  Not when she’d had the opportunity, and she’d skipped it in favor of backup.
   Cleaners were supposed to work alone.
   She ducked under the wing of the partially-disassembled aircraft which had become their tent and their workspace.  It was hot and cramped inside, so much so that she and Jarod would trip over each other all the time if they could stand.  On the other hand, it was camouflaged and felt safe.
   Safe was good.
   Jarod was leaning against an axel, a hand resting against the computer in his lap, the other on the headset control.
   He was asleep.
   She smiled wearily.  She’d gotten in a full eight hours before the mission, and Jarod and Broots were still awake and working when she suited up and left.  Jarod had barely slept all week. 
   She dropped her backpack and pulled off her headset.  She was recovering already; it was under control.  Mitigated disaster.
   Parker crept over, bent underneath the smooth surface of the wing, and pulled off Jarod’s headset, too.  Then she crouched next to him, too exhausted to do anything else, too keyed up to sleep.
   There was only a moment of indecision before she took one of Jarod’s limp hands and curled it around her own.  Say what she would about emotional shock; it certainly made her more daring.  At least in some ways.
   Jarod stirred and blinked unseeing, sleepy eyes at her.  He lifted his eyebrows in a silent question.
   “I’m okay,” she said, without hesitation.
   And he slept again, as if nothing had happened.
   Miss Parker reached behind with her other hand and pulled out her gun, letting it rest in her lap, finger against the trigger guard.  She would keep watch tonight.  Let Jarod get a little sleep for once; she would pick up the pieces of her part of the mission.  She would expect to see things like that again and it would not disturb or dissuade her, she decided.
   In a few hours, it would all be over.
   Until then, the monsters under the bed would have to go through her.