Chapter Four: At This Stage of the Game

The man stood across the street from the elementary school, casually dragging on a cigarette. He hadn't smoked back when they'd known him. He hadn't had dark hair and a moustache, either, nor had he ever dressed so casually in their presence. Of course, if they were to see him up close, they'd still recognize him. But if someone they knew-- say, their son-- told them they'd seen him, they wouldn't be sure who he was. That was the plan. The point of the disguise.

He had planned what would be his first encounter with Jack Vaughn carefully. Timing was of the utmost importance. The ideal meeting would take place right after the boy was let out of school. But his nanny almost always picked him up right on time, and sometimes, one of his parents even left work early to take him home. Having one of them see him at this stage of the game would be disastrous.

So, he had arranged for two of his co-workers to have a little traffic accident. Nothing too major-- just enough that little Jack's nanny would have to take a little detour on her way to pick him up from school, earning the man a few valuable minutes of time. He had other employees watching-- watching the Vaughn home to make sure the nanny didn't leave early to run errands, thus taking a different route. Watching the organization headquarters to make sure Mr. or Mrs. Vaughn didn't leave early to pick up their son.

At three o'clock, though, the man had received no word of complications, and little Jack stood on the sidewalk, looking for his nanny's car. The man recognized him from the picture one of his co-workers had taken as the Vaughn family had arrived home the night before. The truth was, he would have recognized him anyway, anywhere, even if he hadn't known of his existence. The boy looked so much like his father.

And so he made his approach, on a day he had not picked out of thin air. When his contact inside the Organization had called that morning and told him that Irina Derevko had officially announced that Sydney Vaughn was taking over, he had sprung into action.

"Hello, Jack," he said to the boy.

The boy eyed him warily. "How do you know my name?" Good. His parents had taught him to be careful of strangers. He shouldn't have expected any less from Sydney and Michael Vaughn. Except the events of the past ten years had led him to believe that the Sydney and Michael that now existed were quite different from the Sydney and Michael he'd once known.

Unless he'd been completely wrong about them all along. Unless he'd been as completely fooled by them as he'd been by Irina Derevko so many years before.

"Your parents are famous," he said in response to the boy's question. "Or notorious, anyway."

"What's the difference?" the boy asked with a frown.

"Never mind." The man shook his head. "They run the Organization, is that right?"

"No," the boy said slowly, as if unsure how much he should reveal. "My grandma does."

"Well," the man told him. "I hear your mother's going to be taking over very soon."

"Really?"

The look of pride on the boy's face made the man's course of action clear. What could his mother have possibly told him to instill any sense of pride in him about what she did? What was he being taught in that school of his? He was no doubt being brainwashed, lobotomized. Being raised as an heir to the Derevko throne.

Well, the man would be damned if he would let that happen. He didn't know why Sydney had done what she'd done. Best case scenario, she'd started out with an agenda, good intentions, only to find she was in over her head. Worst case scenario, she wasn't the woman he thought she was. Either way, he swore to God he was going to put a stop to it, before the chaos she had stepped into filtered down to another generation.

Or his name wasn't Jack Bristow.