AN: Thanks to all the wonderful people who have been reviewing!! I'm still undecided about Irina so you'll just have to wait and see. Although it's not like I would tell you ahead of time anyways, there's no fun in that!! Note, I'm not very good at writing action so bear with me. Anyways, enjoy and PLEASE REVIEW!

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Chapter 9

More screams kept coming from the room as Vaughn ran towards it. When he went inside of bedroom, he saw Michelle on the bed screaming. On the floor was Sydney and a man that looked like... Lambert? Lambert was on top of Sydney trying to stab her with a knife. Sydney was of course trying to keep the knife away from her.

After Vaughn took in the scene in front of him, he immediately kicked Lambert off of Sydney and grabbed the knife out of Lambert's hand. Giving him a hard kick in the head, Vaughn knocked Lambert unconscious.

After catching his breath for a moment, he helped Sydney up from the floor.

"Are you okay?"

Sydney nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. What's Lambert doing here?"

Vaughn looked over at the unconscious man. "I'm not sure. We'll find out soon enough though once we interrogate him."

"Please, let me do the honors, Vaughn. No one messes with my daughter and gets away with it." Vaughn looked over at Jack surprised. He forgot that Jack was even here in the confusion. Vaughn looked around to find Sark, but couldn't see him anywhere. Worry lines appeared once again on his forehead.

"Jack? Where's Sark?"

Jack's face flushed. "I forgot to watch him in all the confusion. He must have escaped."

Sydney looked from Vaughn to Jack and back. "What are you guys talking about?"

"It's nothing to worry about Sydney. I sort of kidnapped Sark so that he could help us capture Alice, but it seems he has escaped. He's been working with her."

Sydney's eyes widened. "What? What do you mean it's nothing to worry about? Sark just escaped and he's probably going to tell Alice where we are and you're telling me not to worry! My gosh, Dad. I know we're in the spy business and all, but that is cause for worry."

"Mommy?" Sydney turned towards Michelle. She felt so bad now. In all the stuff that's been going on, she forgot that Michelle was in the room as well. She quickly went over to Michelle and hugged her.

"Oh, sweetie. Are you okay?" Michelle was crying by this time.

"Mommy, why are these people after us?" Sydney stroked her daughter's hair.

"Because they are bad people and bad people don't like when others are good."

"Will they ever go away?" Sydney had tears in her eyes by this time. She felt so bad for her daughter. Michelle shouldn't have to go through this. Sydney made a promise to herself right then that she would keep Michelle out of danger no matter what.

"I'm not sure, sweetie."

Sydney felt a hand lightly touch her shoulder. She turned her head to look at Vaughn.

"Sydney, if you want, we can leave her with my mother. She'll be safe there. I'll even have a security team look after them." Sydney looked into his green eyes and nodded.

"Alright." She turned back to Michelle and smiled sadly.

"Mommy! I don't want to leave you and Daddy. I want to stay with you guys." Michelle held onto her mother tighter.

"It's okay, Michelle. We won't be gone long and you'll have your grandmother there to take care of you. I just know she'll love you and you will have tons of fun. I promise." Sydney didn't want to leave her daughter, but she knew it was the only way to keep her safe. As she looked back at Vaughn and her father, she saw that they now had Lambert tied to a chair and her father was trying to get him to wake up. Vaughn looked back over at Sydney.

"Syd, why don't you take Michelle to the living room?" Sydney nodded understanding. Michelle didn't need to see this. Sydney knew about her father's interrogating methods and they weren't pretty. Taking Michelle's hand, she led her to the living room.

After a couple of tries, Jack was successful in waking Lambert up.

"Hmm? What happened?"

"You tried to kill my daughter! That's what happened!" Vaughn was desperately trying to keep Jack away from Lambert before Jack knocked Lambert unconscious again.

"Jack, calm down. I want to kill him to, but we have to find out who he's working for." Jack knew Vaughn was right so he calmed down.

"Who are you working for?" Jack asked as he started pacing around the room.

"What's it to you?" Jack stopped and looked Lambert in the eye.

"If you value your life Mr. Lambert, you will tell me who you are working for."

Lambert obviously didn't know Jack because he had the nerve to question him.

"Is that a threat?"

"Don't make this hard. I know many ways of torture that aren't pretty. If you don't start talking soon, I'll use them on you."

"I would listen to the man, Lambert."

"What do you know? All you ever do is serve Miss Almighty Double Agent." Lambert looked bitterly at Vaughn. This time it was Jack who had to hold Vaughn back. After a couple of minutes, Vaughn calmed down and sat down on the bed.

"I'm getting tired of this." Jack grabbed Lambert's fingers and started to break them.

"Owww! Stop! I'll tell you what you know." Jack let go of Lambert's fingers.

"I work for Sloane. He wants Sydney killed."

Jack laughed. "You know, as much as I despised the man, I thought he had more sense than this. To pick a sorry person like you for an agent was a bad decision on his part."

"God! Is everyone picking on me? First it was that crazy blonde girl and now you!"

Jack shrugged. "I'm just telling it like I see it. A better agent wouldn't have given up so easily to mild torture." Jack punched Lambert and knocked him unconscious once more.

"Jack, we better go. Alice will probably be here soon."

"You go. Take Sydney and Michelle and leave. I will meet you in Washington. I'll take care of Alice." Vaughn gave Jack a questioning look.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes besides I have to make sure Mr. Lambert here gets to prison safely." Vaughn smiled briefly and turned to leave.

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Opening the door to the motel, Alice walked in and sat on the bed. Sark walked in closely behind her.

"I'm glad for the help and everything, Alice, but why did you rescue me?"

Alice shrugged. "I'm going to need your help and I realized Irina wouldn't be too happy with me if I let you die."

"But why didn't you try to kill Vaughn back there?"

Alice shook her head. "Timing is everything, Sark. If I had tried to kill him right then and there, either Jack or Sydney would have killed me on the spot. Mostly like Jack would. You may think I'm out of the loop, but I know what Jack's capable of. He's almost as deadly as Irina."

Sark nodded his head. "You're right about that. So what are we doing here?"

"Waiting. Planning. This is going to be harder than I thought. I'm going to need a good plan if I'm going to pull this off." *and I am going to pull this off.* Alice thought with an evil smile.