Vaughn walked up with a container of golf balls. He tried to ignore the smile that threatened to break out on his face just from watching Sydney. He reminded himself to be professional, to be the handler that Jack needed him to be. He sat a small box beside her, and he wished he could give her a gift for real.
"What's this?" she asked after she slid it open.
"A bug."
She looked like the teacher she was planning to be. "What are you, twelve-years old?"
He felt the conflicting urges to shake and to kiss her. "No, a bug. We didn't know about Smythe."
"After we get the code machine, they'll scan for listening devices."
"Technology on this thing is totally passive. The guys at Langley actually cribbed the design from a Russian device they pulled from the American embassy. The thing only works when we hit it with a microwave beam off of an orbital satellite. Then it acts like a microphone. It's completely undetectable."
Sydney understood. "And if they find it, they'll just think it's a bug."
His ball landed just where he had aimed. "Exactly."
"What about the code machine?"
"Chances are we won't have time to pull a switch, so deliver it to SD-6. When they break the code, they'll inform their affiliate offices through the computer network. Thanks to you, we're still downloading from their mainframe."
"How much have you gotten so far?"
He grunted as he hit another ball. "Almost two percent."
"In all this time, that's all you got?"
He understood her frustration, but he also understood the need for patience. "If we take too much, too quickly, they'll notice the leak. But we're patient. We can get all their internal files and then we can do some real damage."
Sydney flashed a grin towards him. "Good."
They both hit balls in silence for a few minutes. Finally, he asked, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Her smile was strained. "Why do you ask?"
Vaughn cleared his throat and shrugged. "You look down."
She smacked the ball hard. He thought he saw the sheen of tears sparkle in her eyes, but he couldn't be sure. "I keep thinking about those agents in Badenweiler, and their families. That could have been my dad. It could have been my mother."
Vaughn felt like a hand was squeezing his heart. An old pain revived, coursing its way through his body. He struggled to find something comforting to say to her. He knew how much danger Jack had found himself in over the years. "I doubt Laura's gotten into that much trouble in the last ten years."
She started at his words. "I've only worked for SD-6 for seven years; I've gotten into plenty."
He got the feeling that wasn't the first thing she had thought when he mentioned her mother. An uneasy feeling crawled up his spine. "You advanced quickly. You said that yourself. And Laura seems to be more involved in the planning than the execution of operations."
Sydney stared down at her ball. Shaking her head, she seemed to gather her thoughts before she swung her driver. "I keep thinking that it could have been me. I can't even imagine."
Vaughn could. Old memories and feelings were almost overwhelming him. "There's a book back at Langley. They keep it locked up under glass, and behind it is a marble wall with stars carved in it." He asked himself why he was telling her this, but he couldn't stop himself from sharing it.
"It's a memorial to the agents the company lost in action. Families are never told how they died or even where." He had asked his mother over and over again how his daddy had died; he was sure he had almost driven her mad with a question she had no answer to herself.
"Only that they won't be coming home." Michael, your father's not coming home this time. I know he promised he would, baby. I know. But he's not.
"I was eight when my father became one of those stars. At the funeral, there's a protocol the Agency representative has to follow. What to say, whose hands to shake. You're admonished--that is actually the word they used, 'admonished'--not to be conspicuously emotional." He had wanted to cry, but the man from his father's work had watched him. The man had kept his back straight, his face emotionless. An eight-year-old Michael Vaughn did what he thought William Vaughn would have wanted him to do; he held the tears inside. He still had never shed a tear for him, not matter how much he wanted to do so.
Sydney stared at him with that sorrow that he hated. He understood it, but he hated it. He would rather remember his father as he had been alive, but every person he ever told about it could only think about the dead man, not the man who had lived. They had not known him. "Vaughn, I'm so sorry."
"The agents that died in Badenweiler? I've been assigned to represent the Agency at their funerals." He swung his gold club back and forth. The Agency was giving him the opportunity to be the man that he had both admired and hated at his own father's funeral.
***
He was going to get himself killed. She knew it.
Scrubbing a pan, Laura thought about Will. When her daughter had first introduced him to her family, Laura had liked the man instantly, but at the same time, she wondered if her daughter had considered the implications of having a reporter for a friend. She hadn't been able to talk to her about it then, and now it was too late.
A reporter's job was to reveal the truth to the public; their job was to hide the truth from everyone. Will's basic nature, that wonderful inquisitive mind of his, was going to get him killed. And Laura was beginning to doubt that she could stop it from happening.
She had sent out a red herring. When she discovered that Will had learned the name of Danny's travel companion, she had decided to let him meet Kate Jones. Not the real one, of course. She had died decades before. Not Sydney either. That would only raise more questions than answers.
No, she had sent in a young SD-6 recruit to lie to him, to tell him that she was having an affair with Danny. Laura had been sure that knowledge would stop him from investigating Danny's murder. Hurting Sydney by revealing that information was something that Will would not be able to do.
She had even carefully constructed the story to make its impact worse. Sydney had met Danny when he removed a cast from her broken arm. A bodyguard that she had fought had broken it, but Sydney had told everyone that it had happened while skiing. "Kate Jones" had told Will that she met Danny when he was setting her ankle. It would have worked except--
Will had been too good of an investigator. He had discovered through Kate Jones' social security number that Kate Jones had died in 1973. Dear Eloise had not had enough field experience to deal with Will's questions after he revealed what he knew.
Laura could have done it, explained that she was in the witness protection program. Told him some story and then set up the information for him to find "proving" it to be true. But Laura sometimes felt like she had been born lying. Eloise Kurtz was an open, honest person by nature. SD-6 had not finished their training with her.
Maybe there was some way to still salvage it. Maybe Eloise could call him and use the witness protection story. They might still get him to drop the story.
If he didn't get himself killed first.
"Are the dishes that bad?"
She looked up at Jack and was surprised to notice that she was crying. She wiped at her eyes and turned back towards the sink. She had been leaning back against it, lost in thought. "No, they're done actually."
She heard Jack step closer as the water drained. "Why are you crying?"
"I'm thinking about Danny. And Sydney." And Will. And all the people whose lives she'd destroyed.
Jack put his hands on her shoulders. "When is Sydney supposed to be home from San Diego?"
She was in London actually. At the Hobbes End Photo Gallery, stealing a coding machine from FTL. Laura sighed at the thought. Her daughter's life was becoming more of a lie everyday. "I'm not sure."
"You two should go out and do one of your 'Girls' Days'. It's been a long time since you've done that," he whispered.
"Before Danny died," she realized. Why had Sydney told him? She should have known better.
Moving his hands up and down her arms, he said, "I know."
She turned to look at him. "Can we go out to eat? Just you and me? It's been a long time since we've done that."
Jack looked over at his briefcase, and her heart sank. He nodded. "Yeah, we can do that. Just let me call Devlin and tell him that I'll be back in a lot latter tonight."
She smiled and kissed him. "Thank you. I'll go repair my face while you make your phone call."
Walking down the hallway to her room, she made two promises to herself. One was that tonight would be about her and her husband. No part of her brain was going to be used to plan operations for SD-6.
The second one was that she would save Will, no matter what the cost to herself.
***
People milled about them as they drank their coffee. Laura looked at the man sitting across from her, and she forced herself to smile. "Why did you want to meet for coffee?"
Sloane looked around at the people and then focused on her. He reminded her again of a beautiful cobra. Dangerous, sleek, but somehow it was impossible not to stare, to be mesmerized. "I wanted to tell you that Sydney and Fisher missed their scheduled contact."
Laura's fingers gripped the handle of her coffee mug even tighter. She forced herself to take a sip, to not show any emotion. That was why he had invited her out to tell her the news. He was granting her permission to be a concerned mother instead of a senior agent. But she wouldn't let him see her pain. She didn't dare.
He reached across the table and laid his hand over hers. "What are you thinking, Laura?"
She stayed in agent mode. She wouldn't tell him her fears; he would use them against her when he needed to do so. "I'm thinking that the worse case scenario may be true. They may not be alone. Someone else is in there with them posing as a patient or a doctor."
He smiled and pulled his hand away. He understood what she was doing; she could see it in his eyes. He hated her for it, too. Hated that she would hide any of herself away from him. He liked being in control of people, but he was obsessed about being in control of her, Jack Bristow's wife. "Sydney's a smart woman, Laura. We've seen her through worse than this."
She bit back the scream in her throat. He was the reason Sydney was in this game; he had not been satisfied with owning Jack's wife. He wanted to control Jack's daughter, too. She should have realized that danger a long time ago, should have warned Sydney. Instead, she had idiotically assumed that she was enough. Until the day he told her that Sydney was a part of the family. Then, there had been nothing that she could do.
"You don't know that," Laura said and hated hearing the fear that trembled those words.
"No, I don't. Though, I believe in her, Laura. Believe in her as if she was my own daughter."
Somehow she managed to keep herself from shuddering at his words, from revealing anything to him. "That's nice to hear." She looked down at her watch and noted the time. "When's her next scheduled contact?"
"Ten hours. Then we'll know how hot the water is," he told her.
She stood up and reached for her purse. "Thank you for letting me know, Arvin. I'll see you in ten hours." She walked away, feeling his eyes watching her.