The CIA had received countless calls, e-mails and messages since Sydney's broadcast. The problem was, most of these sources had not been to provide answers, but to ask questions, and most of them were from reporters. They all wanted to know what the hell was going on, so when Weiss and Vaughn approached Ben Miles, the man assigned to sort through the calls and the e-mails, and offered him help, he readily agreed.
The three of them had already been searching and reading for an hour, and so far there was nothing. Everyone who had called or wrote in information to the CIA just wanted clarification of the broadcast. None of them believed what Sydney had said, which was not going to prove beneficial in Kendall's eyes.
"Agent Vaughn? Agent Weiss?" Miles called them over, slightly cowering in the presence of the two agents, as he nervously pushed his glasses back onto his nose. "The e-mail is addressed to Sydney Bristow, and for Sydney only."
Vaughn and Weiss looked at the screen, and it said exactly that while being highlighted in blue and underlined as a hyperlink.
"Open it anyway," Vaughn said eagerly. Miles clicked on it, and a box popped up asking for the password.
"Password?" Weiss exclaimed in disbelief. "Why would someone said Sydney an e-mail and make her give a password she can't possibly know?"
Vaughn looked around the e-mail for clues. The account was with Yahoo, which most likely meant that the account was meant to be used temporarily, and any information Yahoo may have received was faked. Vaughn then turned his attention to the subject of the e-mail. The subject was the key, Vaughn realized after reading it. The subject was simply, "Broadcast Help," followed by "ZUNFZCQNMTLADQ2."
"Type in the series of letters that the sender wrote as the subject as the password," Vaughn said, waiting as Miles typed. He finished entering the data and pushed enter.
"Access denied," Miles said, as he pushed the OK button on the popup that appeared on his screen.
"It's a code, then," Vaughn said, looking at the letters carefully. Quickly he reached for the nearest piece of paper and pulled out a pen, and wrote down all the letters of the alphabet. After going back and forth between the paper and the subject for a few minutes, he figured it out.
"Here, does this mean anything to either of you?" Vaughn held up the paper with the letters he had written. It now spelt out: AVOGADRONUMBER3. Weiss shook his head but Ben nodded
"It's Avagadro's number. A unit in chemistry in relation to moles. The actual number is quite large, but abbreviated, it's 6.022 times ten to the twenty-third power," Miles explained.
Vaughn looked at him slightly dumbfounded, but carried on. "So what do you think the three means?"
"I'm not sure. It could mean times three, divided by three, raised to the third power, to the third decimal place, or even finding the cubed root of it."
"Ok," Weiss said thoughtfully. "Let's try the only choice you said that I recognized. Let's try it to the third decimal place. Just type in 6.02."
Miles did as Weiss asked and seconds later, they were in. "Incredible my friend," Vaughn said, smiling at Weiss.
"You think that was incredible? How the hell did you figure out that code?"
Vaughn shrugged. "Each of the letters he gave us, represented a letter that came before the actual letter that spelled out the word. I used to make codes like that when I was a kid." Weiss gave Vaughn a weird look, and turned back to the computer screen.
"Holy cow," Vaughn breathed as he read the document. "This person sent us the exact location of the Rambaldi watch and crystal within the SD facility and information about its function."
Weiss looked at Vaughn with excited eyes. "That means we can get it back and use it to take over the Alliance."
"Yeah," Vaughn said slowly. "But it can also be a trap."
"We need that crystal," Weiss reminded, really knowing that he didn't need to convince Vaughn to go through with this.
"And we need Sydney."
"Oh-no you don't Vaughn," Weiss said shaking his head. "We're going to be enough trouble as it is. We're already breaking into SD-6 without authorization and breaking your suspension. I don't think we should add stealing a prisoner of the US to those charges."
"She's not the enemy!" Vaughn yelled. "Besides, she knows SD-6 better than either of us."
Weiss shock his head. "When I lose my job, I'm expecting you to find me a new one." Weiss said it jokingly, but there was also truth in his words.
"Tonight, we have to do it tonight."
* * *
"You ready?" Vaughn whispered. It was eleven-thirty, and they were in the basement of the CIA building. Weiss and himself were fully equipped in black, and were planning on cutting the power, just as Sydney had. They knew that the power would only be off for a short time before it would alert other agents of the power outage, so they had to move fast.
"Yeah, let's do it!" Vaughn reached out a gloved hand, and pulled the switch, in seconds, the hallway became dark. Being careful to memorize the hallway when they came, Vaughn led the way, running down the hall.
They ran threw the main CIA office area and to Sydney's cell. Before they entered the room with the guard, they stopped to put on ski masks to hide their faces. Seconds later, they burst into the room. Vaughn pointed his gun at the guard and fired, before the guard could even remove his gun from his holster while Weiss fired at the security cameras.
Vaughn's tranquilizer knocked the guard out instantly, and Vaughn went for his keys. Since the power was out, each gate would have to be opened automatically, one at a time. Vaughn opened the first gate and went to the second one, but it refused to budge.
"What the hell is wrong with this thing?" Vaughn asked, jiggling the key and as he tried to pull up the gate.
"It's must be the system," Weiss said. Weiss stepped between gates one and two, and pulled gate one down. As soon as gate one clicked, gate two opened.
"Damn," Vaughn said, as he closed the second gate. "This is going to slow us down."
They reached Sydney's cell a minute later, and Vaughn was working on the door.
"Vaughn," Sydney said, getting up from her bed, her hair in a limp pony tail. "What are you-"
"We'll explain on the way, we don't have much time," Vaughn said, holding the door open while throwing the keys back to Weiss so they could get out of there as quick as possible. Sydney followed the two of them in silence, but couldn't help and wonder about the guard that was knocked unconscious, and the power outage within the whole building.
They headed to a car Sydney didn't recognize, and stopped. Vaughn reached into his pocket and pulled out a skin colored ear piece.
"Here put this in, and I'll explain while you get dressed," Vaughn said, handing Sydney a black outfit similar to his own.
"I have to get into the trunk don't I?" Sydney asked, wishing for some sort of explanation.
Vaughn gave her an apologetic smile. "Yes, but I promise I'll explain why." Sydney looked at him, and finally nodded and got into the trunk that Vaughn had opened. Vaughn started the car and Sydney began to dress. As soon as she was dressed, she fired off her questions.
"I'm waiting for that explanation," Sydney said into her com-piece.
"We received intel from someone who saw your broadcast. They told us where the Rambaldi crystal was and how we could use it to our benefit. We decided we couldn't do it without you," Vaughn.
"What will we do once we have the crystal?" Sydney asked.
"Take down the Alliance."
"Vaughn!" Sydney cried in disbelief. "Are you crazy? There is no way the three of us can take down the Alliance, crystal or no crystal."
"It's not just us," Vaughn said defensively. "We recruited ten other agents to help us out."
"Vaughn, you know that I'm more determined than the next person to take down the Alliance, but alone? It's not possible," Sydney said over the com in a hurried tone.
"This diamond, Rambaldi's diamond, has special properties. The e-mail we received that all we have to do is smash the diamond-"
"Smash it? It's a priceless artifact," Sydney interrupted.
"Let me finish," Vaughn said, getting a little frustrated with Sydney's reluctance. "The diamond will break into twelve equal pieces. Equal in every aspect, weight, volume, and shape. The amazing thing is that when the diamond reacts with water, it forms a gas. It's more powerful than anything we've dealt with. It will knock you out in an instant, and it can actually kill you, if you breathe it for more than ten minutes."
Sydney was silent for a minute. "Why twelve? Was this diamond designed for the Alliance?"
"The resource who sent the e-mail believes that the diamond may indeed have something to do with the Rambaldi watch, speaking that the diamond breaks into twelve pieces and the watch has twelve digits," Vaughn said.
Sydney sighed. She was indeed excited by the prospect of taking down SD-6 and the Alliance but she was a little weary of the source that Vaughn was staking everything on. She was also worried that this was a trap, but she decided not to pursue the matter anymore.
"So we're on our way to retrieve the crystal?" Sydney asked.
"Once we have it and confirm that it does what our source says it does, then by noon tomorrow the Alliance will no longer exist."