"Freelancer to Base Ops! The plane is going down! I'm going to have to jump!"
There wasn't time to wait for an answer. Agent Sydney Bristow quickly got up from her seat and put on her parachute in a record time. She opened the Cessna's door and her eyes only met darkness. There wasn't even a moon that night; that's why they had chosen that particular day to send her on that mission in North Korea. The forest was everywhere beneath her, but there was no time to waste hoping for a better place to jump.
Sydney exhaled loudly, having one last thought for her father.
And she jumped.
"This is Vaughn."
"Agent Vaughn. This is Rose McDermott, Assistant Director Skinner's secretary. Mr Skinner wants to talk with you."
"Oh, great! That should be good news…" Michael Vaughn sighed.
A trip down to Skinner's office was never something you came back from with a smile on your lips. He knew from experience that a phone conversation wasn't much better.
"Agent Vaughn," said the deep voice.
"Sir."
"I have another assignment for you. The L.A. field office just called. They need you for a rescue mission not far from where you are right now."
"Just what I needed," Michael thought to himself, sarcastic. He sighed again. All he wanted was to go back home in Miami, after spending the last three weeks here in South Korea, trying to locate a Rambaldi artefact he'd just learned was now in Brazil. Up to a minute ago, he thought he was finally going to be allowed to pack up his belongings and go back to his dog Donovan.
But he controlled himself and asked:
"May I ask who I'm going to rescue?"
"A fellow CIA agent named Sydney Bristow."
Sydney carefully moved her legs. Everything seemed to be working fine. Left arm. Good. Right arm. She winced in pain. She was injured. But before she could check on it, she had to find a way to get back on the ground. Because right now she was hanging between earth and sky, her parachute caught in the branches of a big tree.
She tried to gauge the distance between her feet and the ground. Didn't seem too high. She didn't have much choice anyway, so she unbuckled her parachute and took one straps off her shoulder, hoping the weight balance change would slowly get her closer to the ground.
Sydney guessed right. She heard the parachute tearing apart and she felt herself going down. But it only lasted a second or two, and then the descent stopped abruptly, sending a flash of pain through her injured arm. She tried to pull the parachute a little more, but without any results. So she had to go for it. She got rid of the parachute altogether and let herself fall to the ground.
Luckily, at that point she was only a few feet in the air, so she didn't hurt herself. Looking up, she realised there was no way she could get the parachute back and hide it. Hoping it wasn't too apparent from the sky, afraid the North Koreans would locate her, Sydney decided to get away from this place as fast as possible.
All she had was the gun that she'd been smart enough to grab before she jumped. She had no food, no phone, no map. But she knew that she would find a small city down south. Orienting herself with the help of the stars, she began her long, painful walk. There was no time to waste; she knew that if the North Koreans captured her and found out she was CIA, she was a dead woman.
The helicopter had just dropped him in a clearing, as close as it could from the estimated point where Sydney had jumped of the plane. Assuming she was still alive, she must have walked south, knowing that she would reach the only village in a two hundred miles radius.
Now he had to find her. Not an easy task, he was very aware of it. The tech guys had provided him with a state of the art body heat detector, but the forest was vast… Vaughn sighed and began to walk. The sun would only begin to rise in a few minutes, so he didn't see much. He wished he were home, watching a Kings game with his pal Weiss, drinking a cold beer… But at the same time, he really wanted to find that girl. He had seen her picture. Gorgeous. Something a little sad in her eyes. Skinner had told him she was a tough one and warned him to be careful if he found her… She wouldn't be an easy catch.
Right now, Vaughn knew that the CIA was spying on the North Koreans' communications to know if they found the plane. Or if they found a body.
He just hoped that it wouldn't be the case.
The sun was now way up in the sky, and Sydney was getting very tired. She was hungry and her arm hurt. She had taken some time to examine it. It was cut deeply and had been bleeding quite a lot. Tearing up a piece of her t-shirt, she'd bandaged it as well as she could, but had nothing to disinfect the wound. It would have to go this way.
At least there was one good piece of news: there still wasn't any sign of the North Koreans. Apart from the brief noise made by a helicopter at dawn, far from where she was, there was nothing to worry about. She had been through much, much worse.
In fact, the last five years represented a good collection of bad moments… Finding out she'd been working for the very enemy she thought she was fighting against. Going through the death of her fiancé. Being abducted and tortured by the Covenant. And the list went on and on and on…
Now Sydney Bristow was tired, both physically and mentally. Maybe she just shouldn't have jumped from the plane and end it then. Her father was the only reason that had kept her wanting to live. But sometimes she wondered if that would be enough…
Suddenly, she thought she heard a noise. She stopped dead in her tracks and drew her gun. Sydney quickly bent down and scanned the area around her. She saw a shadow flicker in the trees about 60 feet away from her.
She raised her gun and waited.
The detector Vaughn was holding suddenly beeped. Someone was there, only a few feet away from him.
Play ball.
Was it Agent Bristow? Here, in the middle of nowhere? Probably. He could call out her name, but what if it wasn't her? He was in for a bullet in the head.
Vaughn decided to play it safe. He drew his gun and carefully walked closer to the form he had detected. Maybe he could identify her before she shot him to death…
But she was nowhere in sight. He had no choice but to call her name. He hid behind a big tree and went for it. Mom, if I don't make it, I love you.
"Agent Bristow! I'm Agent Vaughn! I'm here to rescue you!"
Only silence replied.
"I don't want to hurt you!"
A few seconds went by. Finally, she spoke to him.
"Show yourself! And drop your gun!"
He obeyed. He didn't have much choice.
"Good. Now walk straight in front of you."
He walked a good 40 feet before she told him to stop. She got up and Michael Vaughn caught his first glimpse of Sydney Bristow, and vice versa.
Aiming at him, she ordered:
"Throw me your ID!"
"I don't have any, in case I met with some unfriendly people. I don't mean you, of course…"
She didn't flinch. Okay, no time for jokes…
"But I'll throw you my sat phone. You can call Dixon. He'll confirm my identity."