Chapter 10

Vaughn slowly moved his hand, trying to reach the near-fatal injury. He could still smell the acrid smoke of the gun while looking at Sloan's laughing face. The pain was too real not to believe he was shot by the Beretta. Was it Beretta? Might it be his crazy consciousness that played him?

The pain was still slicing his chest not to believe he was shot just… how long ago? Was it what he'd thought? Arvin was still there, looking at him.

"Now you do understand?" He spoke lightly. "It will take you more than a while to recover, Mr. Vaughn."

The realization hit him, bringing dizziness mixed with the pain. He didn't die of a bullet to his heart. He just suffered close to dying and would actually rather be dead than alive in this situation, but he was not.

"What…" Vaughn tried to ask and he couldn't put the words together.

"Welcome to the club, Mr. Vaughn" Sloan smiled widely, and then nodded to one of his guards. "I believe he'll not do anything stupid."

"Wha' you do to me?" Michael whispered.

"Oh, you'll know now what it feels to be immortal. But what is even more important, you'll not try to destroy the source, because the moment it is destroyed, we are both dead." He smiled. "You know, I've heard that you and Sydney have now two beautiful children. Wouldn't want them to lose their father."

"You son of a bitch" Vaughn rolled on the floor, but the pain didn't let him move far.

"So here's our deal for now." Sloan paused to make the next part sound even more important. "You are free to go. And once Sydney is out of my way, you'll tell her not to be too active, because you already know what happens if she does break that mechanism she's probably already aware of. But what is even more important, I'm keeping one of your children with me until I'm finished."

"Finished with what?"

"You really don't want to know that, Michael. It's beyond your understanding." Arvin crossed his arms on his chest, then watched Vaughn thoughtfully for a couple of moments and left the room, followed by the guards.

No one treated Vaughn, nor did they even cleanse the wound. He was left lying on the floor, bleeding. And if that was from a bullet to the heart, he'd thought he'd die soon. But, by this time, he knew he wouldn't – if he was to die, he'd done it earlier. The blood had covered the radius of about a meter around him, when Vaughn lost consciousness, again.

"What's our status?" asked Arvin now that he'd left Vaughn.

"We passed three more marks. Seems someone is right behind us, sir."

"Uh? How so?"

"Housekeeping, you know." The man grinned. "What brings the CIA agents together?"

"I see your point, thank you. And anything about Irina Derevko?"

"We've been informed that there are some changes in her behavior, not sure what exactly. Cathy doesn't report anything to anyone."

Arvin was glad. First of all, he managed to break into the CIA's system for Sydney's hidden address and wasn't even caught. Fools, he thought with disgust. They were aware of what he had access to when with APO, and yet, they didn't care enough to change the protocols.

Secondly, he also found out that the chief of Irina's ITC was being held in the CIA custody, which meant that the organization was left with no one to make complicated and speedy decisions. The organization was left for him, for Arvin Sloan, he thought with a happy smile on his face as he left the car.

But the best part was a newly found Rambaldi manuscript. It was a miracle when the community brought it to him this morning. It was hard to believe it was true as he was sure he had all of the manuscripts long before now. And yet, they tested the artifact and it was authentic. Computers were now working on the translation and Arvin would have it within the next 24 hours.

For the time being, he could concentrate on taking his revenge on Irina. No one was allowed to let him down, not even his ex-lover. While she was still out of the field, he could make sure she'd be helpless once back. He had a 24 hour window to take down the ITC.

Arvin smiled again.

That was a good part.

There was also something more of interest for him. A matter that Cathy brought up to him lately. Some holes were evident in that case about the death of researcher Helmut Folker who was a brilliant brain-washer. All Arvin wanted to do was lay his hand on the materials of the poor one, but instead, Cathy's people killed the guy.

She found a science paper detailing some experiment. Now, that was the interesting part. All the documents were encrypted, and Cathy's people failed to decode it. Right now, Arvin didn't even need that transcription.

He already knew what was there, and he would use it appropriately to reach his goals.

End of chapter 10