Chapter Fifty
Let Those Who Worship Evil's Might

Sydney Bristow sat in front of her laptop with its secure, encrypted server and still could not believe what the screen was telling her. This was a complete shift in her mission priorities. It was all there on the screen for her to read.

To: Operative Sydney Bristow

From: Director of Operations

RE: Change of mission parameters

Subject: Cedric Marks, aka Cole Maddox

Orders: SANCTION WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE

This was not a surveillance mission any longer, it was wet work, seek and destroy.

The rest of the priority directive went on to detail his dossier, which she had already read, complete with his psychological profile and his training in both hand to hand and small arms. This was a man trained to kill people, period. She was tasked for this mission because she had been trained to deal with men like him, though she had never been trained or previously tasked specifically for this type of operation, however, all SD-6 and CIA operatives had been cross trained to deal with the possibility of receiving such a mission order.

She had trained herself hard this past year, figuring one day she would have to deal with this man, or someone very much like him. Jerry Tyson had not even been a minor training exercise, he had never had to deal with the likes of her. She had been greatly distressed, though when she had been detained running a crime scene leaving Beckett and Rodgers to deal with Hal Lockwood themselves, as they were not really trained to deal with that type of operative.

She knew that they had been quite fortunate to have come out of that experience alive. Their only saving grace was that he had underestimated them which had been his undoing. In the hangar Rodgers had offered him no quarter when he had opened fire on him from behind, and he had been right to do so.

Cedric Marks was another such operative. Affording him any kind of parity would be a grave tactical error, one she had no intention of making. She would use every advantage she had at her disposal, including her more than passing physical resemblance to Kate Beckett.

She would need to stop at the loft Beckett shared with Agent Rodgers and borrow some of her clothes, most notably a pair of the high heeled boots she favored. It was a good thing they wore the same shoe size and that she had worn (not to mention fought in) crazier outfits while undercover. Though to be honest she generally favored more of a pony heel, herself.

Her musings were cut short by a loud knocking on her door. She closed her laptop and slid it into the top drawer of her desk before rising to answer it. It was her partner, Ann Hastings.

"You okay, Sydney?" Hastings asked, "You dragged ass out of the precinct awfully fast after the new Captain arrived."

"I'm fine, Hastings, just been a rough day, and I was too tired to deal with some FNG even if it is the new captain, I'll make nice later." Sydney replied, trying to inject a weary tone into her words

"Roger that," Hastings replied, "but you look like you could use a friend."

"I'm fine, Ann." Sydney replied, more forcefully than she had intended.

It was then that Ann Hastings saw the assortment of weapons, including a disassembled tactical Sig Sauer, (complete with silencer) arranged on her coffee table, the unmarked black tactical vest draped over a chair. She could tell something was up, that she was planning something.

"Sydney...what are you gonna do?" Hastings asked darkly.

"Go home, Ann." Sydney replied, her voice dripping with cold authority, "Where I'm going you can't follow."

"Sydney...wait...Let me help you!"

"Ann, please, go home," Sydney repeated, a softer, more concerned tone in her voice as she whispered, "I'm not a cop tonight."

Sydney breathed a sigh of relief, when Ann relented and she saw her car pulling out of the lot below, little did she know the words she had whispered as she got into the elevator.

"Then I guess, neither am I, Sydney."

….

Sydney Bristow was glad Kate kept a spare key to the Rodgers loft in her desk drawer, it had saved her a lot of time trying to pick the lock. It was also fortunate that the doorman on duty was the diligent sort who didn't watch TV or listen to the radio while he worked. She had colored her hair to the same shade as Beckett's after Ann had left and had it in a tight bun. Along with her dress uniform from the funeral she looked enough like Beckett for the doorman to wave her through without comment.

It was good to know that her disguise could pass muster with casual glances across a foyer, but she needed to complete the look. She was certain that between Beckett's makeup kit and her closet she could have Maddox confused enough to get him to come in close, give her an edge so she could take him out. The bastard had it coming in spades.

Unlike the previous dossier she had been given which had included only a current photo, his training history and his psych profile, this one had also included a list of his confirmed kills over the past ten years. Near the top of the list was a name that had made her blood go cold. Michael Vaughn.

The bastard had killed Michael and she was going to make him pay.

….

Lone Vengeance waited on the roof, watching as the woman she was tracking entered Richard Rodgers' apartment complex, still wondering why Sydney Bristow would be going there in the middle of the night, knowing nobody would be home.

Ann Hastings hadn't wanted to go the costumed superhero route for this, the situation was far too grave. She certainly couldn't involve Paul in this mess, that was for sure. It was merely the only option left open to her. She obviously couldn't use any of her NYPD issued tactical gear, and hadn't had time to go back to the precinct for it, regardless.

The costume had been made using the military grade Kevlar she had brought back with her from Iraq, the dragon skin was lighter and of better quality than her police issue gear, and her apartment had been closer. As it was, she had barely made it back to her partner's apartment building in time to catch Sydney leaving with a duffel over her shoulder and followed her here.

She had been taking a sip from the small bottle of water she had brought with her and nearly did a spit take when she saw a woman wearing four inch heeled boots step outside, her stride full of purpose. If she hadn't known for a fact that Beckett was in a coma following her shooting and the subsequent surgery performed to save her life. If she hadn't seen with her own eyes her pale, still form with tubes sticking out of her arm and down her throat in the ICU, she would have sworn she'd seen Detective Kate Beckett walking out of the loft she shared with Richard Rodgers and get into the driver's seat of a matte black Mercedes S-class.

….

Cole Maddox hadn't heard from the subcontractor he had hired to finish off poor Detective Beckett for for nearly twelve hours. She had missed two scheduled check-ins regarding mission status and he was beginning to come to the conclusion that she had been made. It was unlikely the police had made her, as there was no increase in police presence at the hospital, but the woman he had hired had been a professional, not a wanna be, military trained just like him and such thing were ingrained in them like clockwork.

Everything in the hospital seemed to be routine until he saw a woman through his binoculars waking out of the front door of the hospital. A woman dressed like...no...it couldn't be Beckett. He had personally put a .308 frangible round directly into her chest. He had seen her fall, saw that damned Agent Rodgers crouched over her body. It couldn't possibly be her.

As he was getting up from his crouched position on the rooftop a harsh, angry female voice could be heard directly behind him.

"Come to check on your handiwork asshole?"

Maddox turned and looked at source of the voice behind him and nearly laughed.

"Halloween isn't for another five months, sweetheart, you might want to walk away now before you get hurt."

Hastings balled up her fists at her sides and attacked.

….

If Sydney had not already been scanning the rooftops she would never have noticed the brief flash of light bouncing odd glass on the top floor of the carport across the street from the hospital.

"Got you, asshole." she whispered to herself and walked casually but briskly across the street, hoping not to be noticed as she passed under the awning of the doorway.

….

This fight was not going the way Ann Hastings thought it would, chiefly due to the fact that she was getting her ass handed to her, and she knew it. Her opening series of combinations did push him back, but once the shock that she was proficient wore off, he rallied as if he had been attacked by a small child.

His first punch had been a shot to her sternum, though partially deflected by the Kevlar, still struck with enough force to take the wind from her sails, setting her up for his second series of punches which landed in her midsection, followed by a sweep of her legs which sent her sprawling backwards into the roof access door. When she staggered forward again, he put a knee into her stomach, doubling her over then a hard downward elbow smash to her kidneys dropping her face first onto the deck.

He had picked her up by the throat and was about to snap her neck, when he heard another voice behind him.

"Hey Maddox, we tried it once your way, you game for a rematch?"

The moon had her in silhouette as she stepped onto the rooftop from the fire escape, all Maddox saw was high heeled boots, long legs sheathed in skinny jeans, a zipped up biker jacket and long, straight dark hair.

"You're dead...I shot you...you're dead..." He stammered as he dropped Hastings to the deck and numbly stepped forward.

"Not quite." the shadow replied

It hardly registered in his mind when the shadow tinged huntress snapped her wrist downward and a collapsible baton extended in her hand. The fight was on.

The hired killer's confusion was just the opening Sydney needed as she leaped into her attack. He put up a fierce defense at first, but his momentary loss of focus cost him dearly as she shattered his left forearm with the carbon steel baton, and from that moment forward, the fight was hers as she swiftly, methodically, mercilessly took him apart a piece at a time, ending the fray as she shattered his right kneecap with the baton, dropping him to the deck for the final time.

As he lay broken on the rooftop, slumped against the ledge not far from where he had dropped Hastings, Sydney drew a 9mm Tactical Sig Sauer and slowly screwed a silencer onto the end of it.

"You're...not...Beckett..." Maddox gasped out through his cracked ribs.

"My name is Sydney Bristow." She said as she slowly walked to within three feet of him, and leveled the silenced pistol to his forehead. "Michael Vaughn was my husband."

His body spasmed twice, once for each pull of the trigger as she applied the silenced double tap to his head, once in each eye, so she would be the last thing he would ever see on his way to hell.

She pulled a cloth out of her pocket and cleaned her fingerprints off of the pistol and dropped it next to his lifeless corpse, then sent a text to Director Webb. The cleaner who was just finishing up with the subcontractor that Webb had killed in the hospital would be up to deal with this mess shortly.

Sydney Bristow would cry for her dead husband, now avenged later. Right now she had to get her wounded partner off of this damned rooftop and down to the ER to have her injuries looked at.

"Come on, Ann, let's get you out of here." She said soothingly as she hoisted her partner up and got her arm over one shoulder as she headed for the access door, unsnapping the body armor and leaving the only evidence of Lone Vengeance on the rooftop for the cleaner to dispose of.

"I am Vengeance, I am the night..." Ann mumbled half consciously

"You also need to lay off the bear claws." Sydney whispered back, eliciting a laugh as she helped her partner down the stairs, the bond between them as partners almost unbreakable now.

Ops plan Instant Karma was almost complete. The final phase would be placed in the hands of Richard Rodgers the next day.