For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.
** Note **
This comes with all due apologies to most gentle readers of my story. Your feedback has been greatly appreciated and I've done my best to contact each one personally through e-mails. Due to my most recent review and the lack of e-mail address that accompanied it, I felt compelled to issue a statement before continuing onto Chapter 10, which directly follows this. Please, look for the asterisks if you wish to skip the statement if it does not apply to you:
Since you left me no e-mail address in which to contact you, I feel this is probably the easiest way in which to reach you. There is such a thing as Ontario International Airport. It's in Orange County, California. For your information, I spent probably an hour trying to research this particular scene with this particular incident, going so far as to contact West Wing fans in the Orange County area and delving through online map sources with airports to gauge roots and travel times.
Please don't jump to the conclusion that there's only one Ontario and it's in your country. I am an American. I can't say that I've been to Canada, but I can claim that my great-great grandfather was from there, and that I have a wonderful friend in Nova Scotia. I at least know that place names are often re-used. For example, in my home state of Tennessee, there's a Paris and an Athens and a Memphis and a Carthage (home of a former Vice President) and all of those names originate in countries other than the United States.
I'm sorry you felt the need to insult my intelligence before doing your homework. I worked very hard on this story, rewriting the entire thing no less than three times. Thank you for applauding my choice in crossover and I would love to see you attempt to merge the very organized, very connected Alias, with the fast-and-loose West Wing (is Leo from Chicago? Boston? Bostago?) I have been writing WW fic for about four years, but Aaron Sorkin has not rubbed off on me to the point where I have made gross geographical errors (for a glaring geographical error with Canada, watch Isaac and Ishmael).
Forgive me if I got "huffy" with you in return, but please, please, think before you write. I do. I may not have the research departments that Alias and West Wing have, but I do try my best.
On with the story.
**
Previously, on The West Wing/Alias: Sam and Crys get into an argument over why she joined the CIA, and he brings up part of her history. The CIA learns that Jordan has, in fact, taken their bait. This fact upsets the Secret Service, and Ron Butterfield changes the airport Air Force One will land at as a security precaution. Crystal manages a nap in Josh's arms in an empty conference room before waking up right before wheels down with good news. The CIA team speeds to the rally site, in the hopes of beating the motorcade.
Jack stood with Sam away from the rest of the campaign and the rallying supporters and dialed a number on his cellular phone. The President was running late, but more importantly, so were Crystal and Sydney.
"Yeah?" Sydney answered.
"Where are you?"
"Turning into the parking lot now."
"Hurry up."
"We're coming, Dad," she said, terminating the call.
Sam looked at Jack expectantly. "Any second," answered Jack.
"Because the last word from the motorcade is five minutes..."
"They're coming," he said, glancing in the direction of the parking lot, hoping to see them come in.
Sam sighed nervously, glancing around. Spotting movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned, to see two people running towards them, both in Seaborn for Congress tee shirts. "Jack..."
"That's them," Jack said with a nod.
The candidate let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he recognized his cousin, someone he hadn't seen in quite a while. "Crystal..."
She smiled, moving to give him a hug. "Hey, cuz," she said quietly.
He held onto her, tightly for a moment, before releasing her.
"Where do we need to be, Dad?" Sydney asked.
"Whichever one of you is starting out needs to be out front, the other, under the dais."
"What's going on?" asked Sam, glancing at the two female CIA agents before him. Both were in khakis and campaign shirts and both had their hair clipped back in the same way. Sam noted that Crystal's glasses were missing. Standing together, at about the same height, they had a similar physical build.
"We're going to play a little mind game in front of the television cameras," answered Crystal.
"And it'll work?" asked Sam, looking doubtful.
"Have we let you down yet?" asked Crystal, smiling.
"Well, no, but..."
"Then watch," she said.
"Sam!" called Scott. "They're here!"
"I have to go greet the President," said Sam, placing his hand on his cousin's arm.
"Go," Crystal said. "I'll be around." She winked at him, sending him on his way. As Sam wandered off, Crystal looked up at Jack. "I'm glad you've been the one here."
"You've got some place to be, Agent Seaborn."
Crystal nodded, and dashed off, in a different direction from Sam.
"How well do you two know each other...?" asked Sydney.
"We'll talk later; I need to catch up with Sam."
~~~
Weiss and Vaughn had gathered in front of a television screen. One of their own was out at the rally site with a camera, sending live feed back to the CIA office. "Somebody's been out talking to rental offices and apartments near the campaign headquarters to find out if Jordan's been by, right?" Vaughn asked, watching.
"Yeah."
"And?"
"Nothing."
"Hotels?"
"Nothing."
"What about the money trail? We have confirmation from transfer records that Jordan's father footed the bill for the airline travel and we have confirmation that they landed and were at LAX because of the security footage."
Weiss nodded.
"So, why can't we follow more money transfers to see about a hotel or a business or whatever other possible place he could rent or even buy to be close enough where he could set up shop and be near his target. This guy doesn't mind getting down and dirty."
"I've got Will on it now."
"Looking into rental cars, too? They're going to have to have transportation."
"They could always take a cab."
"Do it anyway."
"I'll get Marshall to see about pulling in the electronic data so we can cross-reference with known aliases and bank accounts."
"There's Crystal..." Vaughn said, pointing to the lower corner of the screen.
"The Director doesn't usually allow visuals of field agents..."
"Special circumstances."
"Still. And two of them..."
"If we can't figure out where he is, if he's got his act back together and has all his transactions bouncing through eight accounts... This'll keep him on his toes and hopefully making mistakes, too."
"But, the two of them?" asked Weiss, watching as people behind Crystal obscured her from view for a moment. When the blockage stopped, Sydney was in her place. It was a flawless transition.
"We can't easily pull somebody off the street and go: 'we're going to give you an earpiece and when you hear a voice give a cue, you're going to come out from under the stage and take the place of this woman who looks sorta like you.'"
"I guess." They watched for a while, as Crystal and Sydney pulled off another flawless switch. "How was Air Force One?"
"Not bad."
"Yeah?"
Vaughn nodded.
~~~
Directly after the President spoke, Ron Butterfield shuttled Bartlet back to the motorcade to get him to the hotel immediately. The rash act left several members of the White House staff at the rally site, including Josh and Toby and Donna.
"Well this... sucks," said Josh, watching as the last Secret Service SUV pulled out of the parking lot, leaving them behind.
"At least we're not out in the middle of nowhere this time," Donna said, her face falling.
"And we're not going to miss the plane either," said Toby.
"Déjà vu sucks," Josh muttered, glancing back as Sam's campaign started to pack up. "I'm sure Sam'll let us hitchhike." He started to cross towards the candidate.
Sam, Crystal, Sydney and Bristow were standing in a huddle behind the stage. Their hushed conversation was almost all but drowned out by the noise of the crowd on the other side dispersing.
"When will we know?" asked Sam.
"We'll have to hear back from the L.A. office first," said Jack. "And Weiss and Vaughn are there; they called in the middle of the rally and said that the execution was clean."
"Execution?" asked Josh, picking up on a key word without knowing what was going on. "We got 'em?"
Sam shook his head. "Not yet."
"Precision of the ground troops," Crystal explained, her hands in her pockets.
"Speaking of precision of ground troops or lack thereof," Josh began. "We missed our ride."
Sam burst out laughing.
"Butterfield was bookin' it, give us a break," Josh said, trying to fight a smile.
"We'll get you to the hotel," chuckled Sam.
"It better not take twenty hours..."
"C'mon, you're talkin' to locals here. Except me," said Crystal.
"Yeah, that's what got us into trouble the last time," Donna said, shaking her head.
"We need to get out of the open," Jack said, glancing around.
"I'll get the keys to the van," said Sam. "We should probably talk about what's going to happen in the next day or so." With that, he turned to talk to his staff, Jack following close behind.
Crystal pulled the clip from her hair as they waited. Donna decided to bite the bullet. "Uh... Rebekah?"
"Hm?" asked Crystal, glancing up at her.
"Douglas is a Republican."
"I'm aware of that."
"You're supporting Sam?"
"I'm a Democrat," Crystal said.
"But..."
"A Democrat can work for a Republican. Doesn't mean we always agree. I'm there as an intelligence expert. It's usually not a popular liberal stance, but somebody's gotta do it." She smiled thinly.
"Leave her alone, Donna," Josh said, glancing at his assistant.
"I don't mind answering questions," Crystal said. "Bobby Kennedy worked for a Republican, y'know. McCarthy. Besides, when Sam gets elected, he might need an intelligence expert."
Sam, from across the field, called to them. "Let's go, troops!"
The five migrated towards the van. Josh, Donna, and Toby entered first, taking seats on the back bench while Sydney and Crystal took the captain's chairs in the middle. Sam took shotgun while Jack climbed behind the wheel. Sydney smiled slightly at that. Her father could get them out of a problem with his driving skills should one arise.
Sam started to speak as Jack pulled the van out of the space. "Tomorrow morning, I've got a strategy breakfast..." Josh and Toby exchanged glances, but said nothing as Sam continued through his spiel about his schedule.
Donna, however, was starting to feel quite uncomfortable. And it was all because of "Rebekah." Crystal was sitting sideways in the seat, her head against the window. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, and the hem of her pants had come up slightly on one leg. It was up far enough to where she could see a holster on her ankle.
She glanced around at the others in the van. Naturally, Jack was focused on driving. Sam seemed to be too enthused that his old friends were with him to notice. Sydney, to whom Donna had never been properly introduced, was watching out the front window. Toby and Josh, sitting on either side of Donna, were engrossed in conversation with Sam. When Toby took the lead to discuss something, however, Donna elbowed her boss slightly.
Josh seemed more annoyed than anything, and eased over slightly to give her more room, which was not at all her intention. Looking at Josh, she tried to motion towards Crystal's leg with her eyes. That only earned an: "All you all right?" from her dense boss.
She leaned over, to whisper in his ear. "Your friend is packing."
"What?"
"Rebekah. She has a gun!" she said in a sharp whisper.
Josh glanced over at Crystal. "Ah..."
"That's all you can say?" she asked, shocked. He was the one who had been shot. "Rebekah" claimed to be a Democrat; what about gun control?
"Hey, uh, Rebekah..."
"Rebekah?" asked Sam.
Crystal looked over at him. "Yeah?"
"You, uh... pants."
Crystal looked down and sighed, muffling a curse, before returning her attention to Josh. "How trustworthy is she?"
"It'll be fine."
"My name's not Rebekah, I'm not from Connecticut, I don't work on the Hill," Crystal said.
"Why do you have a gun?" asked Donna, prompting Toby and Sam both to check Crystal for the weapon.
"A threat's been issued on Sam's life and I'm part of the detail to protect him."
"Oh... And everybody in here knew?"
"You're one of the few outside of law enforcement who know now," said Josh.
"What is your name?" asked Donna.
"Crystal," she said.
"Seaborn," added Sam.
"And the safety is on, if you're worried," Crystal said, lowering the cuff of her slacks to cover the ankle holster.
"Are you two married?" Donna asked, her eyebrows shooting up her forehead.
Crystal and Sam both laughed as Josh answered: "They're cousins. Crystal works for the CIA."
"CIA? What does the CIA have to do with a national matter?" asked Donna.
"That... is classified information," said Crystal.
"Just know that I've been in very good hands since this threat has been initiated," Sam added.
"How dangerous is this threat...?" asked Donna. "Can I know that?"
"Don't worry about it, Donna; we're taking care of it," Crystal assured her.
She nodded slightly.
~~~
Weiss and Vaughn sat at desks near each other, both on the phone and both starting to get bored.
"No one at all? All right, thank you," Weiss said, hanging up and crossing another name off his list. He glanced over at Vaughn, sighing, and listening as Vaughn finished up what sounded like another dead end call.
Vaughn hung up and looked at Weiss, shaking his head. "This is getting us nowhere."
"Where's Will on the banking stuff?" asked Weiss.
"I have no idea."
"Do you know how many apartments we have to go through still?" asked Weiss. He flipped through the list he had. Marshall had offered them a hefty computer print out and the two had split it and started making phone calls to see if anyone matching Jordan's description was looking into an apartment. "And we have people still working on the hotels! This doesn't include rental homes or businesses either. I mean... is this really going to be beneficial?"
"We need to find him. If we can aim direct counter-intel towards him, then we can pull him away from the actual campaign rallies and take him down somewhere else, somewhere away from the public."
"We're going to be making these calls clear till after midnight."
"Then we're going to be waking people up."
"What's going on, guys?" asked a familiar voice. Both men looked up to see Sydney standing there, in her khakis and the polo she'd worn before getting the campaign shirt.
"Hey." Vaughn smiled, and noticed that Crystal was standing behind her. She still had her campaign shirt on, but her black button-up was over it. "Crystal, this is Eric Weiss... Weiss, this is Crystal Seaborn."
Weiss stood, and held his hand out to her. "Nice to meet you," he said.
"Likewise," she said, shaking his hand.
"It looks like we interrupted something," Sydney said, gesturing towards the lists.
Vaughn sighed. "We're trying to figure out where he'd be. We've got apartments. Somebody's got hotels. Somebody's got rental cars. Kendall's calling in more people to help out, calling rental houses and offices."
"What about cabs?" asked Crystal, leaning against a nearby desk.
Vaughn and Weiss exchanged glances, and Weiss shrugged. "I don't think we've looked into that yet."
Crystal picked a phone book off the desk she was leaning against and flipped through the yellow pages, finding the listings for taxi services. She glanced up at Sydney. "Feel like makin' some calls?"
"Sure," she said.
Crystal selected roughly half the pages for the cab listings and pulled them out of the metro phone book before handing Sydney the rest. "I'll put it back when we're through..."
Sydney smiled. "It's not my phone book."
Crystal smirked, and sat down on top of the desk, picking up the phone to dial the first one.
They were still making calls some time later, when Weiss was called away to Sam's. Jack soon replaced Weiss at the phone. It was around midnight when Sydney snapped her fingers, garnering the attention of the others. "And he's willing to talk to us? ...Fantastic. You'll hold him there?" She flashed a smile at her counterparts. "We'll be right there. Thank you very much." Hanging up, she stood, watching as Crystal, Vaughn, and Jack all ended their calls. "We got it!"
"Got what?" asked Vaughn.
"Somebody who picked up three of six guys in a cab at LAX earlier today and took them to a hotel. He's at the dispatch point now and is willing to look at pictures to see if they're the ones."
"You and Vaughn should go," Jack said. "Crystal and I will stay and continue the calls just in case. As soon as you know... contact us."
Sydney nodded, and the couple was soon on their way out.
Crystal stretched her neck before picking up the phone to dial again.
~~~
"You looked like the consummate staffer!" yelled Scott. "You can't shake him. He shouldn't have come!"
"Did you ever think that, if you hadn't sided me with big business, we wouldn't even be having this conversation?"
Weiss listened from the other room, wondering if he needed to step in and break it up. For the moment, he was going to let them argue.
"You can't win unless you side with big business!"
"You don't know because you haven't tried! You haven't even tried! Horton Wilde won. Wilde won without selling out!"
"Selling out?"
"Yes, Scott, selling out. We've screwed everything that man stood for. Kay Wilde wanted a Democrat to run in his place. If I'd known I was going to have a campaign manager who shoved me to the right, I would've told her I wasn't the guy."
"He won because he was dead. It was a joke!"
"A *joke*? That was a man's life. That was a man who stood strong in his belief. That was the man who was told by the DNC that he wasn't going to win, that he shouldn't have been wasting his time or his money. He personified everything that was *right* in our party. And this has turned into everything that's *wrong* with it. We've split into factions. All we do is argue. There's nothing constructive going on here. Nothing! We're splitting our message. The President is good for us with a handful of constituents, but not for others. Big business is great for some, but the rest see it as screwing the little guy."
"What the hell do you know about being the 'little' guy? You with your Ivy League education. You've never been out of the top ten percent of the nation's wealthiest."
"You obviously haven't paid attention to financial disclosure reports. That's pretty sad since you're supposed to be this political phenom. That makes sense, actually. You don't do your homework. You can't tell the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. You think we're supposed to be with big business."
"Just because I don't have degrees from Princeton or Duke that doesn't make me an idiot, Sam. I know Orange County. I've done my homework. You can't win."
"You don't know."
"I know!"
"Your crystal ball told you?"
"My phenomenal capability to read polling data tells me that you're getting creamed because nobody believes you have a moral character. You slept with a hooker. What the hell makes you think you can be elected *dogcatcher* in this town?"
"The same kind of arrogance that says you're a great campaign manager. This meeting is over. Get out of my house."
"I'm doing everything I can for you. You're not elect-able."
"Who made you judge and jury, Scott? The Republican-led Congress? My opponent, Chuck Webb? Last I heard, the people get to say who is and who is not elect-able."
"Haven't you heard? Orange County hates you."
"Get out."
"They hate you."
"Get *out!*" roared Sam.
Weiss waited until he heard the door slam closed before venturing out of the study to poke his nose in on the living room. "Sam..."
The candidate fell onto his couch with a heavy sigh. "This is all I ever do anymore. Argue. Maybe I should've stayed a lawyer."
"That takes all the fun out of life, don't you think?"
Sam looked up at him and laughed, a half-hearted, tired laugh. "I guess."
"C'mon, you're in the line of fire. International terrorist scumbags on the one hand... lying, cheating, bastard Democrats on the other... A couple Republicans thrown in for good measure. You... You are the King of the Underdog."
"Is this some sort of pep talk?"
Weiss eased down into the armchair near the couch. "Won't it be nice to say, afterwards, that you survived hell and made it out alive?"
"This isn't hell, this is..."
Weiss waited.
"Yeah, hell sounds about right," acknowledged Sam with a nod.
"Somebody's gunnin' for you, literally. Somebody's gunnin' for you politically... But all of this is going to be over in about a week. In a week, you can take a deep breath... take a step back..."
"Go back to D.C. as a Congressman or as a senior advisor..."
"See?"
"Have continued debate with my cousin to the point at which she hates me..."
"What?" asked Weiss.
"Crystal. We had a fight... We always fight. Not constantly, but eventually it all comes back around to it."
"And you think she's gonna start hating you at some point?"
Sam nodded. "She's going to get tired of me telling her 'how to run her life' when all I want is for her to be happy. And safe. You guys do not have a safe job."
He smiled slightly. "I know."
"Why'd you join?"
"Me?"
Sam nodded.
"I wanted to serve. I wanted the adventure. I wanted to be able to say, later, much later, when it was all declassified, hey, grandkids, guess what old grandpa did."
He laughed slightly.
"You think I'm joking," he said with a smile.
"I believe you. Is that still the plan?"
"Still the ultimate goal for when I'm sixty-something, yeah. I just a.) have to last that long and b.) find the girl. I'm up for that challenge, I think."
"Do you know Crys at all?"
"I met her for the first time tonight. I've heard stories, but... other than that, no, that's it."
"Stories?"
"She's... noteworthy."
"What do you mean?"
"She's sort of famous, I guess you could say. I don't know that, when I leave, I want to be like that. I don't want to hear stories around the commissary about me, about how I lived through Borneo or how she got kidnapped for six months and nobody could find her but, while she was captured, she took down the whole organization from within. Don't start getting excited either. Nobody knows what's truth or what's fiction with the stories about her anymore. Some of 'em, I mean, c'mon... She got 'brainwashed' by her first partner to leave the CIA and take on the world with just him? Obviously she's still Company, so that one can't possibly be true."
Sam nodded. "Someday, though, I'm going to get a call, and it's going to be from the Director, and he's going to say: 'Sam, I'm very sorry to have to tell you this...'"
Weiss shook his head. "She's too good."
"Nobody's 'too good' for death. Nobody can escape it."
"She has."
"She can't forever."
Stay tuned...
Lines from the next installment:
"Crystal--"
"That's it! Your part in this is over, so's Sam's. I've got Jordan where I want him. I'm the one that got away... and I'm not going to let him do the same."
"Aren't you taking this a little too personally?"
"This is personal! He's after *me*!"
** Note **
This comes with all due apologies to most gentle readers of my story. Your feedback has been greatly appreciated and I've done my best to contact each one personally through e-mails. Due to my most recent review and the lack of e-mail address that accompanied it, I felt compelled to issue a statement before continuing onto Chapter 10, which directly follows this. Please, look for the asterisks if you wish to skip the statement if it does not apply to you:
Since you left me no e-mail address in which to contact you, I feel this is probably the easiest way in which to reach you. There is such a thing as Ontario International Airport. It's in Orange County, California. For your information, I spent probably an hour trying to research this particular scene with this particular incident, going so far as to contact West Wing fans in the Orange County area and delving through online map sources with airports to gauge roots and travel times.
Please don't jump to the conclusion that there's only one Ontario and it's in your country. I am an American. I can't say that I've been to Canada, but I can claim that my great-great grandfather was from there, and that I have a wonderful friend in Nova Scotia. I at least know that place names are often re-used. For example, in my home state of Tennessee, there's a Paris and an Athens and a Memphis and a Carthage (home of a former Vice President) and all of those names originate in countries other than the United States.
I'm sorry you felt the need to insult my intelligence before doing your homework. I worked very hard on this story, rewriting the entire thing no less than three times. Thank you for applauding my choice in crossover and I would love to see you attempt to merge the very organized, very connected Alias, with the fast-and-loose West Wing (is Leo from Chicago? Boston? Bostago?) I have been writing WW fic for about four years, but Aaron Sorkin has not rubbed off on me to the point where I have made gross geographical errors (for a glaring geographical error with Canada, watch Isaac and Ishmael).
Forgive me if I got "huffy" with you in return, but please, please, think before you write. I do. I may not have the research departments that Alias and West Wing have, but I do try my best.
On with the story.
**
Previously, on The West Wing/Alias: Sam and Crys get into an argument over why she joined the CIA, and he brings up part of her history. The CIA learns that Jordan has, in fact, taken their bait. This fact upsets the Secret Service, and Ron Butterfield changes the airport Air Force One will land at as a security precaution. Crystal manages a nap in Josh's arms in an empty conference room before waking up right before wheels down with good news. The CIA team speeds to the rally site, in the hopes of beating the motorcade.
Jack stood with Sam away from the rest of the campaign and the rallying supporters and dialed a number on his cellular phone. The President was running late, but more importantly, so were Crystal and Sydney.
"Yeah?" Sydney answered.
"Where are you?"
"Turning into the parking lot now."
"Hurry up."
"We're coming, Dad," she said, terminating the call.
Sam looked at Jack expectantly. "Any second," answered Jack.
"Because the last word from the motorcade is five minutes..."
"They're coming," he said, glancing in the direction of the parking lot, hoping to see them come in.
Sam sighed nervously, glancing around. Spotting movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned, to see two people running towards them, both in Seaborn for Congress tee shirts. "Jack..."
"That's them," Jack said with a nod.
The candidate let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding as he recognized his cousin, someone he hadn't seen in quite a while. "Crystal..."
She smiled, moving to give him a hug. "Hey, cuz," she said quietly.
He held onto her, tightly for a moment, before releasing her.
"Where do we need to be, Dad?" Sydney asked.
"Whichever one of you is starting out needs to be out front, the other, under the dais."
"What's going on?" asked Sam, glancing at the two female CIA agents before him. Both were in khakis and campaign shirts and both had their hair clipped back in the same way. Sam noted that Crystal's glasses were missing. Standing together, at about the same height, they had a similar physical build.
"We're going to play a little mind game in front of the television cameras," answered Crystal.
"And it'll work?" asked Sam, looking doubtful.
"Have we let you down yet?" asked Crystal, smiling.
"Well, no, but..."
"Then watch," she said.
"Sam!" called Scott. "They're here!"
"I have to go greet the President," said Sam, placing his hand on his cousin's arm.
"Go," Crystal said. "I'll be around." She winked at him, sending him on his way. As Sam wandered off, Crystal looked up at Jack. "I'm glad you've been the one here."
"You've got some place to be, Agent Seaborn."
Crystal nodded, and dashed off, in a different direction from Sam.
"How well do you two know each other...?" asked Sydney.
"We'll talk later; I need to catch up with Sam."
~~~
Weiss and Vaughn had gathered in front of a television screen. One of their own was out at the rally site with a camera, sending live feed back to the CIA office. "Somebody's been out talking to rental offices and apartments near the campaign headquarters to find out if Jordan's been by, right?" Vaughn asked, watching.
"Yeah."
"And?"
"Nothing."
"Hotels?"
"Nothing."
"What about the money trail? We have confirmation from transfer records that Jordan's father footed the bill for the airline travel and we have confirmation that they landed and were at LAX because of the security footage."
Weiss nodded.
"So, why can't we follow more money transfers to see about a hotel or a business or whatever other possible place he could rent or even buy to be close enough where he could set up shop and be near his target. This guy doesn't mind getting down and dirty."
"I've got Will on it now."
"Looking into rental cars, too? They're going to have to have transportation."
"They could always take a cab."
"Do it anyway."
"I'll get Marshall to see about pulling in the electronic data so we can cross-reference with known aliases and bank accounts."
"There's Crystal..." Vaughn said, pointing to the lower corner of the screen.
"The Director doesn't usually allow visuals of field agents..."
"Special circumstances."
"Still. And two of them..."
"If we can't figure out where he is, if he's got his act back together and has all his transactions bouncing through eight accounts... This'll keep him on his toes and hopefully making mistakes, too."
"But, the two of them?" asked Weiss, watching as people behind Crystal obscured her from view for a moment. When the blockage stopped, Sydney was in her place. It was a flawless transition.
"We can't easily pull somebody off the street and go: 'we're going to give you an earpiece and when you hear a voice give a cue, you're going to come out from under the stage and take the place of this woman who looks sorta like you.'"
"I guess." They watched for a while, as Crystal and Sydney pulled off another flawless switch. "How was Air Force One?"
"Not bad."
"Yeah?"
Vaughn nodded.
~~~
Directly after the President spoke, Ron Butterfield shuttled Bartlet back to the motorcade to get him to the hotel immediately. The rash act left several members of the White House staff at the rally site, including Josh and Toby and Donna.
"Well this... sucks," said Josh, watching as the last Secret Service SUV pulled out of the parking lot, leaving them behind.
"At least we're not out in the middle of nowhere this time," Donna said, her face falling.
"And we're not going to miss the plane either," said Toby.
"Déjà vu sucks," Josh muttered, glancing back as Sam's campaign started to pack up. "I'm sure Sam'll let us hitchhike." He started to cross towards the candidate.
Sam, Crystal, Sydney and Bristow were standing in a huddle behind the stage. Their hushed conversation was almost all but drowned out by the noise of the crowd on the other side dispersing.
"When will we know?" asked Sam.
"We'll have to hear back from the L.A. office first," said Jack. "And Weiss and Vaughn are there; they called in the middle of the rally and said that the execution was clean."
"Execution?" asked Josh, picking up on a key word without knowing what was going on. "We got 'em?"
Sam shook his head. "Not yet."
"Precision of the ground troops," Crystal explained, her hands in her pockets.
"Speaking of precision of ground troops or lack thereof," Josh began. "We missed our ride."
Sam burst out laughing.
"Butterfield was bookin' it, give us a break," Josh said, trying to fight a smile.
"We'll get you to the hotel," chuckled Sam.
"It better not take twenty hours..."
"C'mon, you're talkin' to locals here. Except me," said Crystal.
"Yeah, that's what got us into trouble the last time," Donna said, shaking her head.
"We need to get out of the open," Jack said, glancing around.
"I'll get the keys to the van," said Sam. "We should probably talk about what's going to happen in the next day or so." With that, he turned to talk to his staff, Jack following close behind.
Crystal pulled the clip from her hair as they waited. Donna decided to bite the bullet. "Uh... Rebekah?"
"Hm?" asked Crystal, glancing up at her.
"Douglas is a Republican."
"I'm aware of that."
"You're supporting Sam?"
"I'm a Democrat," Crystal said.
"But..."
"A Democrat can work for a Republican. Doesn't mean we always agree. I'm there as an intelligence expert. It's usually not a popular liberal stance, but somebody's gotta do it." She smiled thinly.
"Leave her alone, Donna," Josh said, glancing at his assistant.
"I don't mind answering questions," Crystal said. "Bobby Kennedy worked for a Republican, y'know. McCarthy. Besides, when Sam gets elected, he might need an intelligence expert."
Sam, from across the field, called to them. "Let's go, troops!"
The five migrated towards the van. Josh, Donna, and Toby entered first, taking seats on the back bench while Sydney and Crystal took the captain's chairs in the middle. Sam took shotgun while Jack climbed behind the wheel. Sydney smiled slightly at that. Her father could get them out of a problem with his driving skills should one arise.
Sam started to speak as Jack pulled the van out of the space. "Tomorrow morning, I've got a strategy breakfast..." Josh and Toby exchanged glances, but said nothing as Sam continued through his spiel about his schedule.
Donna, however, was starting to feel quite uncomfortable. And it was all because of "Rebekah." Crystal was sitting sideways in the seat, her head against the window. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, and the hem of her pants had come up slightly on one leg. It was up far enough to where she could see a holster on her ankle.
She glanced around at the others in the van. Naturally, Jack was focused on driving. Sam seemed to be too enthused that his old friends were with him to notice. Sydney, to whom Donna had never been properly introduced, was watching out the front window. Toby and Josh, sitting on either side of Donna, were engrossed in conversation with Sam. When Toby took the lead to discuss something, however, Donna elbowed her boss slightly.
Josh seemed more annoyed than anything, and eased over slightly to give her more room, which was not at all her intention. Looking at Josh, she tried to motion towards Crystal's leg with her eyes. That only earned an: "All you all right?" from her dense boss.
She leaned over, to whisper in his ear. "Your friend is packing."
"What?"
"Rebekah. She has a gun!" she said in a sharp whisper.
Josh glanced over at Crystal. "Ah..."
"That's all you can say?" she asked, shocked. He was the one who had been shot. "Rebekah" claimed to be a Democrat; what about gun control?
"Hey, uh, Rebekah..."
"Rebekah?" asked Sam.
Crystal looked over at him. "Yeah?"
"You, uh... pants."
Crystal looked down and sighed, muffling a curse, before returning her attention to Josh. "How trustworthy is she?"
"It'll be fine."
"My name's not Rebekah, I'm not from Connecticut, I don't work on the Hill," Crystal said.
"Why do you have a gun?" asked Donna, prompting Toby and Sam both to check Crystal for the weapon.
"A threat's been issued on Sam's life and I'm part of the detail to protect him."
"Oh... And everybody in here knew?"
"You're one of the few outside of law enforcement who know now," said Josh.
"What is your name?" asked Donna.
"Crystal," she said.
"Seaborn," added Sam.
"And the safety is on, if you're worried," Crystal said, lowering the cuff of her slacks to cover the ankle holster.
"Are you two married?" Donna asked, her eyebrows shooting up her forehead.
Crystal and Sam both laughed as Josh answered: "They're cousins. Crystal works for the CIA."
"CIA? What does the CIA have to do with a national matter?" asked Donna.
"That... is classified information," said Crystal.
"Just know that I've been in very good hands since this threat has been initiated," Sam added.
"How dangerous is this threat...?" asked Donna. "Can I know that?"
"Don't worry about it, Donna; we're taking care of it," Crystal assured her.
She nodded slightly.
~~~
Weiss and Vaughn sat at desks near each other, both on the phone and both starting to get bored.
"No one at all? All right, thank you," Weiss said, hanging up and crossing another name off his list. He glanced over at Vaughn, sighing, and listening as Vaughn finished up what sounded like another dead end call.
Vaughn hung up and looked at Weiss, shaking his head. "This is getting us nowhere."
"Where's Will on the banking stuff?" asked Weiss.
"I have no idea."
"Do you know how many apartments we have to go through still?" asked Weiss. He flipped through the list he had. Marshall had offered them a hefty computer print out and the two had split it and started making phone calls to see if anyone matching Jordan's description was looking into an apartment. "And we have people still working on the hotels! This doesn't include rental homes or businesses either. I mean... is this really going to be beneficial?"
"We need to find him. If we can aim direct counter-intel towards him, then we can pull him away from the actual campaign rallies and take him down somewhere else, somewhere away from the public."
"We're going to be making these calls clear till after midnight."
"Then we're going to be waking people up."
"What's going on, guys?" asked a familiar voice. Both men looked up to see Sydney standing there, in her khakis and the polo she'd worn before getting the campaign shirt.
"Hey." Vaughn smiled, and noticed that Crystal was standing behind her. She still had her campaign shirt on, but her black button-up was over it. "Crystal, this is Eric Weiss... Weiss, this is Crystal Seaborn."
Weiss stood, and held his hand out to her. "Nice to meet you," he said.
"Likewise," she said, shaking his hand.
"It looks like we interrupted something," Sydney said, gesturing towards the lists.
Vaughn sighed. "We're trying to figure out where he'd be. We've got apartments. Somebody's got hotels. Somebody's got rental cars. Kendall's calling in more people to help out, calling rental houses and offices."
"What about cabs?" asked Crystal, leaning against a nearby desk.
Vaughn and Weiss exchanged glances, and Weiss shrugged. "I don't think we've looked into that yet."
Crystal picked a phone book off the desk she was leaning against and flipped through the yellow pages, finding the listings for taxi services. She glanced up at Sydney. "Feel like makin' some calls?"
"Sure," she said.
Crystal selected roughly half the pages for the cab listings and pulled them out of the metro phone book before handing Sydney the rest. "I'll put it back when we're through..."
Sydney smiled. "It's not my phone book."
Crystal smirked, and sat down on top of the desk, picking up the phone to dial the first one.
They were still making calls some time later, when Weiss was called away to Sam's. Jack soon replaced Weiss at the phone. It was around midnight when Sydney snapped her fingers, garnering the attention of the others. "And he's willing to talk to us? ...Fantastic. You'll hold him there?" She flashed a smile at her counterparts. "We'll be right there. Thank you very much." Hanging up, she stood, watching as Crystal, Vaughn, and Jack all ended their calls. "We got it!"
"Got what?" asked Vaughn.
"Somebody who picked up three of six guys in a cab at LAX earlier today and took them to a hotel. He's at the dispatch point now and is willing to look at pictures to see if they're the ones."
"You and Vaughn should go," Jack said. "Crystal and I will stay and continue the calls just in case. As soon as you know... contact us."
Sydney nodded, and the couple was soon on their way out.
Crystal stretched her neck before picking up the phone to dial again.
~~~
"You looked like the consummate staffer!" yelled Scott. "You can't shake him. He shouldn't have come!"
"Did you ever think that, if you hadn't sided me with big business, we wouldn't even be having this conversation?"
Weiss listened from the other room, wondering if he needed to step in and break it up. For the moment, he was going to let them argue.
"You can't win unless you side with big business!"
"You don't know because you haven't tried! You haven't even tried! Horton Wilde won. Wilde won without selling out!"
"Selling out?"
"Yes, Scott, selling out. We've screwed everything that man stood for. Kay Wilde wanted a Democrat to run in his place. If I'd known I was going to have a campaign manager who shoved me to the right, I would've told her I wasn't the guy."
"He won because he was dead. It was a joke!"
"A *joke*? That was a man's life. That was a man who stood strong in his belief. That was the man who was told by the DNC that he wasn't going to win, that he shouldn't have been wasting his time or his money. He personified everything that was *right* in our party. And this has turned into everything that's *wrong* with it. We've split into factions. All we do is argue. There's nothing constructive going on here. Nothing! We're splitting our message. The President is good for us with a handful of constituents, but not for others. Big business is great for some, but the rest see it as screwing the little guy."
"What the hell do you know about being the 'little' guy? You with your Ivy League education. You've never been out of the top ten percent of the nation's wealthiest."
"You obviously haven't paid attention to financial disclosure reports. That's pretty sad since you're supposed to be this political phenom. That makes sense, actually. You don't do your homework. You can't tell the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. You think we're supposed to be with big business."
"Just because I don't have degrees from Princeton or Duke that doesn't make me an idiot, Sam. I know Orange County. I've done my homework. You can't win."
"You don't know."
"I know!"
"Your crystal ball told you?"
"My phenomenal capability to read polling data tells me that you're getting creamed because nobody believes you have a moral character. You slept with a hooker. What the hell makes you think you can be elected *dogcatcher* in this town?"
"The same kind of arrogance that says you're a great campaign manager. This meeting is over. Get out of my house."
"I'm doing everything I can for you. You're not elect-able."
"Who made you judge and jury, Scott? The Republican-led Congress? My opponent, Chuck Webb? Last I heard, the people get to say who is and who is not elect-able."
"Haven't you heard? Orange County hates you."
"Get out."
"They hate you."
"Get *out!*" roared Sam.
Weiss waited until he heard the door slam closed before venturing out of the study to poke his nose in on the living room. "Sam..."
The candidate fell onto his couch with a heavy sigh. "This is all I ever do anymore. Argue. Maybe I should've stayed a lawyer."
"That takes all the fun out of life, don't you think?"
Sam looked up at him and laughed, a half-hearted, tired laugh. "I guess."
"C'mon, you're in the line of fire. International terrorist scumbags on the one hand... lying, cheating, bastard Democrats on the other... A couple Republicans thrown in for good measure. You... You are the King of the Underdog."
"Is this some sort of pep talk?"
Weiss eased down into the armchair near the couch. "Won't it be nice to say, afterwards, that you survived hell and made it out alive?"
"This isn't hell, this is..."
Weiss waited.
"Yeah, hell sounds about right," acknowledged Sam with a nod.
"Somebody's gunnin' for you, literally. Somebody's gunnin' for you politically... But all of this is going to be over in about a week. In a week, you can take a deep breath... take a step back..."
"Go back to D.C. as a Congressman or as a senior advisor..."
"See?"
"Have continued debate with my cousin to the point at which she hates me..."
"What?" asked Weiss.
"Crystal. We had a fight... We always fight. Not constantly, but eventually it all comes back around to it."
"And you think she's gonna start hating you at some point?"
Sam nodded. "She's going to get tired of me telling her 'how to run her life' when all I want is for her to be happy. And safe. You guys do not have a safe job."
He smiled slightly. "I know."
"Why'd you join?"
"Me?"
Sam nodded.
"I wanted to serve. I wanted the adventure. I wanted to be able to say, later, much later, when it was all declassified, hey, grandkids, guess what old grandpa did."
He laughed slightly.
"You think I'm joking," he said with a smile.
"I believe you. Is that still the plan?"
"Still the ultimate goal for when I'm sixty-something, yeah. I just a.) have to last that long and b.) find the girl. I'm up for that challenge, I think."
"Do you know Crys at all?"
"I met her for the first time tonight. I've heard stories, but... other than that, no, that's it."
"Stories?"
"She's... noteworthy."
"What do you mean?"
"She's sort of famous, I guess you could say. I don't know that, when I leave, I want to be like that. I don't want to hear stories around the commissary about me, about how I lived through Borneo or how she got kidnapped for six months and nobody could find her but, while she was captured, she took down the whole organization from within. Don't start getting excited either. Nobody knows what's truth or what's fiction with the stories about her anymore. Some of 'em, I mean, c'mon... She got 'brainwashed' by her first partner to leave the CIA and take on the world with just him? Obviously she's still Company, so that one can't possibly be true."
Sam nodded. "Someday, though, I'm going to get a call, and it's going to be from the Director, and he's going to say: 'Sam, I'm very sorry to have to tell you this...'"
Weiss shook his head. "She's too good."
"Nobody's 'too good' for death. Nobody can escape it."
"She has."
"She can't forever."
Stay tuned...
Lines from the next installment:
"Crystal--"
"That's it! Your part in this is over, so's Sam's. I've got Jordan where I want him. I'm the one that got away... and I'm not going to let him do the same."
"Aren't you taking this a little too personally?"
"This is personal! He's after *me*!"