Over the next few days, Sydney went out of her way to appease her mother by any means possible. She willingly agreed to gab sessions or chess games or time spent lounging by the pool. They talked and laughed like two best girlfriends and all of this forced togetherness began to take its toll on Sydney. Yes, she was still angry with her mother for all of her transgressions against her father and Vaughn and herself and she would never forget her heinous acts.

But to her chagrin, she was also beginning to see Irina's side of the story. The more she listened to her mother, the more she was able to get a sense of Irina's strong-willed single-mindedness, her isolation, her fears and even her pain. It didn't sit well with Sydney when she actually started to feel sorry for her mother. It wasn't so much that she wanted to hold on to the fury and rage within her (after all, who wanted to live with so much pent-up anger?) as much as it was a desperate attempt to keep her mind clear and focused on her true objective. She wasn't there to repair her relationship with her mother and she didn't want her growing empathy for Irina to distract her from her main goal, which was to figure out a way for her and Vaughn to escape.

On the eleventh day of their imprisonment, Irina called another meeting in the library. It was the same cast of characters and they even sat in the same places, although Sydney noted with some interest that Sark was without the shot glass that seemed to have been permanently attached to his hand. Perhaps Irina had spoken to him about his excessive drinking or else he was feeling the need to be clear-headed for some other odd reason. Now that he was no longer intoxicated most of the time, Sark had been almost pleasant to her ever since they got back from the city to see her father and naturally it made her suspicious. She wondered if he was plotting something.

"Sydney, Michael, I've decided to send you out on your first mission." Irina announced.

Sydney put a pleased look on her face. "I'm anxious to get back to work." She said convincingly.

"Well, I hope you will be up to the challenge." Irina pressed a button on the remote control she was holding. The lights in the room dimmed. A second click and a sleek silver plasma screen started to come down from the ceiling. As the screen was making its descent, Irina walked over to the computer on her desk, made a few clicks with her mouse and a painting of an old man with a gray beard suddenly appeared on the screen before them.

"You are looking at a self-portrait of Milo Rambaldi." Irina declared. "It is an painting he began around 1492 and was completed less than nine months before his death."

"Do any of you know the story behind The Blue Boy by Sir Thomas Gainsborough?" As she uttered those words, Irina realized how professorial she sounded and had a sudden flashback to the long-forgotten period in her life when she had spent most of her time in a college lecture hall. Of course, back then, her subject had been English Lit and not Art History.

Vaughn spoke up. "I think I read somewhere that the painting had been x-rayed for some reason or another and that's when it was discovered that Gainsborough had initially portrayed the boy with a dog by his side, but in the finished portrait, the dog had been painted over."

"Very good, Michael." Irina praised him. Vaughn cut his eyes over at Sydney, who gave him a teasing smirk for playing teacher's pet. "Rambaldi also painted over something in his self-portrait, not because he didn't like it but because he was trying to hide it." Irina clicked at her computer again and the picture disappeared from the monitor. Soon after, the plasma screen began to rise and the lights came on again.

"So you want us to get the portrait." Sydney surmised.

"Yes." Her mother replied. "We believe the information encoded in the painting relates to The Circumference, so naturally it would be very valuable to us."

"All right." Sydney nodded. "So where is it?"

Irina moved from the desk to take a seat in the wing chair opposite Sark. "It is located in an underground vault in Vatican City." She told them.

"The Vatican?" Sydney repeated slowly. Well, at least it would be familiar, she thought to herself.

"It shouldn't be such a hard task for the two of you considering that it won't be your first time." Irina said coolly, her eyebrow raised.

Sydney and Vaughn exchanged glances. Jack and Devlin were the only people who knew what they had done when they were trying to save Sydney from the Prophecy witch hunt. How could Irina have found out?

There was no way they could deny it. "How do you know about that?" Vaughn inquired with a curious frown.

Irina gave him a brief smile. "Although you probably wouldn't have wanted to hear this when you were still working for them, I can tell you that the security precautions the CIA has in place leaves much to be desired. It was not at all difficult for one of our operatives to infiltrate the agency, a measure which provides us with access to very important and useful information." Irina had a self-satisfied expression on her face.

"Who is it?" Sydney asked, upset that such a thing could happen so easily.

"Why do you want to know?" Sark interjected suspiciously. "Do you want to out our agent as a mole to your former employers in some way?"

Before Sydney could fire off an angry rebuttal, Irina stepped in. "Sergei, it is a valid question." She said mildly. "Sydney and Michael are our comrades now and there does not need to be any secrets among us."

She turned to Sydney. "I have never dealt personally with the man because I needed to protect my cover, but Khasinau has maintained contact with him for the better part of two years." A thoughtful look came to her face. "Although now that we are talking about it, I remember reading something in Khasinau's latest intel about how he has not heard from our informer for over a week now, so there is a possibility that the man is no longer…around." Irina said euphemistically.

"In any case, if the man is gone, there would be no harm in telling you." She gave an indifferent shrug. "His name is--or maybe was--Stephen Haladki."

Vaughn couldn't help the gasp that escaped from his lips. That lousy son of a bitch! He should have known The Weasel hadn't come by his nickname on looks alone. To think that he was the bastard who sold Sydney out to the Feds, who almost had her locked up for life after contributing to the feeding frenzy surrounding the whole Prophecy debacle…

At that particular moment, Vaughn could have cheerfully strangled the man without feeling a moment's remorse, but according to Irina, it was possible that somebody had already had the pleasure of doing so. Well, it didn't matter. If Haladki was still around when he got back to town, Vaughn would take sheer delight in shoving his traitorous black heart out of his ass.

"You are familiar with the man, Michael?" Irina turned her attention to him.

"We clashed a few times." Vaughn admitted.

"On Sydney's behalf, if I'm recalling correctly from Khasinau's reports." Sark had to put his two cents in.

"Yes, now that you mention it, Sergei, I seem to recollect something in one of his communiqués about Mr. Haladki having some difficulty with Sydney's handler and also with a man he referred to as his sidekick." Irina gave Vaughn a questioning look. "I believe he was your partner, wasn't he? An Agent Weiss?"

Vaughn winced inwardly. He hardly wanted to make Eric a target by acknowledging that they were partners as well as friends (the "sidekick" reference was a dead giveaway to their relationship), but unfortunately, he couldn't get out of not answering her questions. Not if he wanted to make her believe he had put that life behind him.

"Uh, yes, both Agent Weiss and myself were not fond of the man." He acknowledged, managing to keep the reluctance out of his voice.

"Were you suspicious of him?" She pressed him.

"Stephen Haladki is a pompous, sanctimonious ass who deserves to be shot for what he did to Sydney, but I didn't know he was your mole, if that's what you're asking." Vaughn replied, a bit testily.

"Can we please stop talking about unimportant things and get back to the mission?" Sydney suddenly interrupted, wanting to take the heat off of Vaughn.

"Don't fret, Sydney." Irina chastised her mildly. "I was not interrogating Michael. I was merely trying to deduce if our agents were calling undue attention to themselves by incurring feelings of hostility from the people they should be trying to win over."

Sydney turned pink and changed the subject back to the mission at hand. Irina let the matter pass and started to go over the mission specs.

As he watched his mother and his sister go over the details of the operation, Sark couldn't help but feel the bitter pangs of jealousy deep within his gut. Sydney was quickly worming her way into becoming Irina's primary confidante and he now knew it was just a matter of time before she would be entrusted with the keys to the kingdom. Sydney was Irina's firstborn, the apple of her mother's eye, her golden child. What chance do I have against someone so obviously destined for greatness? He thought to himself resentfully.

The thought of Sydney being in control of his mother's vast empire filled him with dread. Sark knew that once Sydney took over he would be cast aside like yesterday's newspaper. Sydney and her besotted boyfriend would probably get married, have a passel of brats and he would never get any closer to the seat of power than as nasty Uncle Sergei. Of course, Sydney wouldn't completely denigrate him (mustn't antagonize Mummy, you know), but she would probably force him into doing the menial work, the tasks best suited to their hired thugs, men who were huge in size but severely lacking when it came to brainpower.

Damn it, he was better than that! He did not deserve to be tossed casually aside as if he were worthless and unimportant. He had given his life over to his mother and to the organization. They owed him more respect. She owed him more respect, not to mention the power and the glory and the sheer rush of adrenaline that went along with being the boss.

"Sergei? Sergei, are you listening to me?"

Sark was abruptly brought out of his thoughts by his mother's voice. "Yes, Mother?" He shook his head to clear it and looked around the room. He and Irina were now alone.

"Are you all right?" She asked with concern in her voice. "You looked rather distracted as we were wrapping things up."

Wonderful, now she thinks I'm bored and disinterested by her business plans. "I'm fine, Mother." Sark pasted a smile on his face. "It's probably just the heat that's getting to me. When you're used to the cold and rain of England, anyplace over 70 degrees is positively stifling." He said jokingly.

"Poor dear." Irina came over to him and sat down on the arm of his chair. He felt her hand ruffle the hair on the back of his head with an affectionate pat.

"You know, we have been here for awhile now." He went on. "Maybe it is time we moved on." Sark turned his face to look up at her.

Irina's face lit up and Sark was momentarily overjoyed that he had done something to please her. "Oh, Sergei, you and I are so in tune. I was thinking the exact same thing!"

"You were?" All joking aside, he was actually dying to get away from Taipei's hot, humid climate. He preferred to be someplace where they weren't so isolated from civilization and all of the pleasures it had to offer. Perhaps they could head to the French Riviera (for the casinos) or maybe to Rio (for the women, of course).

"Yes, dear. I was thinking of going home." She announced happily. "To Moscow."

Sark's face fell and his eyes darkened. If she wanted to go to Moscow, that could only mean one thing.

"You want to see the Council." He said flatly.

"Well, of course!" Irina nodded enthusiastically. "I want to introduce Sydney to them."

His blood began to boil. And just how are you going to introduce her, Mother? As your long-lost daughter or as your much-celebrated successor?

"What do you say we go after the mission to the Vatican has been concluded?" Irina babbled on, oblivious to her son's increasingly frustrated rage. "I know you're going off on your reconnaissance and then Sydney and Michael will leave a few days after, but I can spend the time to close up the house here and then I can meet all of you in Moscow."

"I have been feeling a little restless myself, so maybe it is a good time to leave." She looked thoughtful. "Besides, I have a feeling Jack is still somewhere lurking in Taipei and I would like to get Sydney as far away from him as I can."

Something about her comment created a sudden stirring in his brain. "Mr. Bristow is very devoted to Sydney, isn't he?" Sark said in a noncommittal tone of voice.

"He's completely devoted, although you'd never know it by his demeanor." Irina replied with a roll of her eyes. "That has always been Jack's problem. He has such a hard time expressing himself that it makes people think he doesn't care about them. I was able to get him to open up to me, but it was not an easy task by any means."

"Sydney gets through to him, too, Mother." He pointed out to her. "We heard that in their conversation together."

"Yes," Irina said sourly. "She didn't always know she had the power to do that, but Jack was very clever in letting her know how he feels about her." She sighed. "It will probably take me weeks to undo the damage he's done."

"Damage?"

"I am just beginning to break down her walls, Sergei. She is starting to believe in me, to trust me." Irina's mouth quirked. "And then Jack had to swoop in and he said all the right things to tug at her heartstrings and now she is torn between her loyalty to him and her loyalty to me." She grimaced. "In retrospect, I probably never should have allowed that meeting to take place."

Irina let out another sigh. "Oh, well, I will just have to work Sydney a little harder."

Sark was no longer listening to her. A plan began to take shape in his mind. Unfortunately, he had only a few days in which to plot and scheme, but if he was successful, it could be the answer to his prayers. But if he wasn't…well, he just wouldn't allow himself to fail. This was too important to his future.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Mother, but I need to go check on a few things before I leave." Sark stood up and dutifully kissed his mother's cheek. "We'll talk later?" He inquired of her, knowing they never would, not with Sydney around to completely monopolize Irina's attentions.

"Of course, dear." She gave him a warm smile, clueless to the fact that her son was about to destroy her world.

To be continued…

Author's Note: Yay, only two more days until the premiere!

That is all.

Oh, yeah, thanks for reading.  I know there wasn't much action in this one, but it's setting up for what is to come.  Next chapter to come by Sunday (another yay!) if I'm feeling inspired.

See ya later!