Chapter 2: The news at Langley

"As you all know, Will Tippin has been reported as the CIA leak to Arvin Sloane." Jack opened a meeting up with. Those in attendance, especially Vaughn, looked up in surprise. Marshall, Dixon, and Vaughn each thought of their private memories of Will.

Vaughn thought back to when he and Will had their first big conversation. The two men were left in Sydney's home, and Will had a few questions to ask.

"You okay?" Vaughn asked.

Sighing, Will responded, "No, actually I'm not. I had this dream that I told Francie everything I knew about the agency."

"What do they have you working on?" Vaughn inquired.

"Analyzing drug trafficking through the Panama Canal and reading human data and then downloading it off the KH-11 satellite."

At the time, he had thought that Will was just nervous, that maybe since he was new to the CIA, and his job was exciting, he couldn't keep his secrets in. But later that week, the KH-11 had blacked out during a crucial mission. How stupid he was not to suspect him earlier.

Marshall, on the other hand, had a different memory of Will. He remembered Will's first, big CIA debut, in a briefing about Amhad Kabir, and he felt he could really relate to how he was feeling. Not only in awe of the grandness of the Langley building, but also nervous about having to work for an intelligence agency. From then on, Marshall did his best to try to support the good man Will. Finally, he worked up his courage to introduce himself to Will at his computer station. Recalling the event, he noticed Will seemed eager to get to work. Which was good, of course, but strange, especially after someone's been working there for two years. And as a reporter, Will must have had a great ability to deceive. Marshall, too, felt greatly disturbed.

Dixon had already had his reaction to the news. After working with SD-6, he knew that Sloane had had his eye on Tippin for quite some time now. The surprising thing was how he went from target to ally in a short amount of time. In fact, Dixon had trouble believing that Sydney had befriended a mole. It seemed impossible, but the facts all added up. The bugging of her apartment, the framing of their plumber, everything. It could only be Will.

"Mr. Tippin's been brought in for interrogation, but it's not going well. He seems very rooted in a cover story that he didn't do it. But we have evidence," Jack reminded them, "of a phone conversation between Will and Sloane after, umm…" Jack didn't finish, realizing the awkwardness it would cause with Dixon in the room.

"You mean after my wife died?" Dixon asked.

"Yes. I'm sorry," came Jack's reply. An apology from Jack was unexpected, which perked Dixon up all the more.

"However, there is a good side of all this. We've managed to track Sloane down. It appears he's moved from his Spanish hideout. He's in São Paulo, Brazil. Sydney, Dixon, and Vaughn: You'll be leading this operation. 20 members of our S.W.A.T. unit will be going in with you. Marshall?" Jack asked. After a few seconds of no response, he yelled, "MARSHALL!"

Marshall, who had been chuckling and staring off into space, snapped back to reality and faced them all with dreadful seriousness. "Ok, as you know, you're going into Brazil, because, you know, that's what Mr. Bristow just told you," Marshall started with a nervous look around the room. "Right. Anyway, it's going to be hard to locate Sloane because São Paulo is no Vatican City. You know? Vatican City? The smallest country in the world? It has an area of 0.2 square-"

"Marshall!" Jack and Vaughn yelled, while Sydney and Dixon reflected on all of Marshall's great presentations.

"Right. So São Paulo is really stinking big. But, with that disk that you acquired in Tuscany, Miss Bristow-Nice job on that, by the way- we managed to, well, map out Sloane's DNA and we can now pinpoint his exact location at any given moment. Unlike a transmitter, this cannot be fried because this thing- well, I haven't shown it to you yet, but- it recognizes certain nucleotide sequencing and transmits it via satellite to this PDA," he said pulling out a Palm Pilot v.X. "Now, with this, you can do just about anything, including…"

But with that, a CIA techie entered the room. "Marshall? We need your help. Could you try to open this file?" the techie said, handing him a slip of paper.

After a few minutes, Marshall had whipped out his laptop and began to try to open it. "Oh god," he said. "We've been hacked again."