Chapter Seventeen: Family History
"The Organization?" Emily repeated, staring up at her grandmother. "I-- I know that my parents used to work for it, work for you, and that before that they worked for the CIA. I don't know what the Organization is or what it does."
"And, by virtue, you don't know what your parents role in it was, or what they did," Irina said with a thin-lipped smile. "You must be curious about the past that led them, led you to where you are today."
Emily shrugged. She knew that Jack was curious, for sure. Emily was much more willing to take things at face value. She loved the island, loved the house they lived in. The disagreements she'd had with her father as of late hadn't even diminished her adoration of him, or of her mother. She wasn't eager to hear about a past they'd found too painful or abhorrent to talk about for so many years.
Regardless, her grandmother seemed determined to tell her, determined for her to know. "Your mother," she said. "Was a double agent, working with the CIA to bring down a rogue spy operation called SD-6."
Emily responded with silence. She didn't want to know this, didn't need to know...
"Your father was her case officer. SD-6 would give her a mission, and she'd go to him for her counter mission from the CIA. Needless to say, he fell in love with her."
Emily couldn't help but smile. She'd never been treated to hearing about how her parents had met. "We worked together," her mother would simply say any time she was asked. How surprised the friends she'd made on the island would be to learn that they'd "worked together" at the CIA. Wild.
"They'd known each other less than a year when a friend of your mother's was kidnapped, and she made plans to go to Taipei to save him," Irina continued. She still sat in the high-backed chair, Sark next to her, his gaze moving from Irina back to Emily in a way that made Emily quite uncomfortable. "Your father offered his help, offered to go with her. It was a decision that would change both of their lives forever."
Emily looked up with interest.
"Your father nearly drowned on that mission," Irina continued. "And his job wasn't waiting for him when he returned to the CIA. His superiors had felt, for some time, that he was too emotionally attached to your mother, and his actions in Taipei were the last straw."
"That's awful," Emily couldn't help but mutter. "Couldn't they have just reassigned him, or something?"
"You'd have thought so," Irina responded. "And for awhile, I'm sure that the CIA wished they'd done just that. It's wonderful to have Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn working for you, and quite dangerous to have them working against you."
Emily regarded her curiously.
"Your mother came to me then," Irina continued. "She wanted me to hire her and Michael, and for my organization to help them take down SD-6."
"You did, right?" Damned if Emily wasn't hooked on this story now, though she felt as if she were listening to the plot of some movie or TV show and not the life story of her parents. "They took down SD-6, right?"
Irina let out a short burst of mirthless laughter. "Oh, definitely not, Emily. SD-6 and its counterparts in the Alliance of Twelve are still extremely powerful players in the intelligence world."
This disappointed Emily. She would have thought that her parents had succeeded in their goal, that they wouldn't have rested until they had.
"But I did hire them, though I'll admit I was skeptical of their motives," Irina said. "I suspected they might be planning to sabotage me, take down my Organization from the inside. I'll be honest with you, Emily. My Organization's motives were and are no more honorable than those of SD-6's."
"And those motives are--?" Emily prompted, her stomach churning in anticipation of the answer.
Irina smiled coldly. "The usual things, dear. Power. Wealth. World domination."
Emily fought the urge to look around for the movie cameras that were surely hidden around the room. People in real life did not just toss around terms like "world domination."
"Anyway," Irina said. "I questioned your parents' motives, but I hired them, regardless. I believed I could turn them around, bring them over to my side, and for awhile, I thought I might actually succeed."
Emily didn't respond. She was still struggling to accept that the story she was being told was actually real.
"They were married within a few months of coming to work for me," Irina continued. "Something like two years later, Jack was born, and four years after that, you were. All the while, I was giving your parents more knowledge, more power in my Organization. Foolishly," she said, bitterness coloring her voice.
"They did take you down from the inside," Emily realized, feeling an odd rush of pride.
Irina smiled coolly in response. "They sold me out for a house on the beach and a restaurant."
Emily wasn't sure how she should feel about that. She had a feeling that she was getting less than the whole story. And that her grandmother was crazy as a frickin' loon.
"But the CIA was unable to take me into custody, nor were they able to capture Mr. Sark, here. An employee named Brooke Banning cut a deal similar to the ones your parents took." Another cool smile. She was seriously giving Emily the creeps. "Remind me to tell you about Brooke someday, dear. She's the only woman besides your mother that your father has spared a second glance in the last two decades. More clever than any of us counted on, it seems. Or perhaps just more lucky."
Emily wasn't sure what spared a second glance meant, but she was determined not to be distracted by such a detail. "So-- they didn't put you into custody. What did you do? Rebuild your Organization?"
"Mmm. Something like that," Irina said mysteriously. "I joined with a new partner, one you've heard a little about in the last few minutes, an old enemy of your mother's. No one knows about it, of course. As far as the CIA is concerned, I've been in hiding for the last decade."
"You're working with SD-6," Emily realized.
Irina smiled. "An old friend of mine there was quite interested in the intel I had to offer, and in my desire to exact revenge on the deviant Ms. Sydney Bristow."
"An old friend," Emily repeated.
"Yes," Irina said with a nod. She snapped her fingers, and Emily gasped as a figure emerged from a darkened corner of the room, the figure of a very old man.
"Emily Vaughn, I'd like to introduce you to Arvin Sloane."