Chapter 3: The Flight into Brazil
Jack sat with his head in his hands, reflecting on Marshall's idiocy. In such a delicate matter, there was no time to joke. But in a way, he was glad that Marshall was such an idiot. It distracted him from realizing that he could almost have Irina right where he wanted her. And Sloane was playing almost into their hands. It seemed too easy, almost. Marshall's "prank" had distracted him from his doubts, but they came back in full.
"Ok, sorry about that, everyone," Marshall said. "It's just a holiday, and, well, I thought that maybe things would be a little more, umm…. Yeah." Marshall's insecurities came back, and he felt like an idiot once again.
"Just continue with the tech review, Marshall," Jack said, feeling upset.
"Right, of course, Mr. Bristow. Now, of course, you'll also need this for your mission," Marshall said, looking down at his empty hand, realizing he never picked anything up. He bent down and began pulling things out of his bag. Sydney smiled as she saw him pull out nearly 10 cell phones, each modified for certain missions, and then, randomly, a titanium spork. After pulling out countless other things, he finally came up with something.
"Here we go," he said, branding what appeared to be a suit jacket. "You're gonna love this one, it's really great, I'm serious."
"First, it's lined with a finger print reader, so all you need to do to get clearance to anything, is just casually, you know," and he put the jacket on, and casually bumped into Jack's hand. "Now, after two minutes of analyzing, it will produce a latex copy of the fingerprint." And sure enough, Marshall reached into his pocket and pulled out 5 latex strips, each which matched Jack's hand perfectly.
"Secondly, we have this." Marshall said, picking up the spork. "I, uh, I hate how sometimes you're trying to eat something and you need a spoon or a fork, but you only have a fork or a spoon, depending on which you nee-" Marshall cut himself short, realizing everyone's stare. "So I made this," Marshall said slowly, confused. "I call it a 'Spork,'" to which everyone started laughing. "Yeah, I know, I know, it's already been made," he said, laughing. "But there is a reason I have this. It actually, is, um… I don't know how to say this…" he said, thinking for a while. "There are three compressed tranquilizer darts in here, one in each fork tooth. It should be useful for something, I'd think."
* * *
Over the Gulf of Mexico, Dixon finally started to relax. He had been nervous about finding Sloane, of course, but there was a secret he was keeping from his country. He had told them that it was an effort to look business-like: that explained the suitcase. It was really a high-powered sniper rifle. It was disassembled, but he thought that Sloane should recognize it very well. It was the same gun that had started this whole thing.
He never meant to hit Emily. Everybody believed him, but sometimes he thought that it had done more damage than killing Sloane would have. It was a simple shot: he had finally got Sloane in the middle of his crosshairs, but the head had kept on moving. Dixon had the spot his head would bounce to next when the helicopter passed over head. The vibrations from the helicopter made his shot waver, and he hit Emily.
Now, of course, he wished he hadn't missed. But it was a sore wish: Nothing would come of it.
Sydney, on the other hand, thought back to her first meeting with Diane. It was a mission in Argentina, when Anna Espinosa caught Sydney in a cave, and had shot Dixon. Sydney managed to get Dixon out of there all right, but it was explaining it to his wife that was the problem.
"We were just standing there, outside the bank's office, when this car pulled up; I didn't even see it. These men stepped out, they had guns. They wanted the bank's computer codes. I had them in my briefcase, your husband grabbed me and pulled me down to the ground."
She felt so bad about lying to her at the time, and in fact it was good, like Dixon had said on that night, that it was out in the open. It was forces of evil like this: Sloane, her mother, Sark, even the long forgotten Anna that made her life so bad, yet drove it forward. She would get revenge.
The plane's P.A. system rang out "We have just entered Brazil, we'll be reaching São Paulo in 20 minutes."
In her rush of thoughts, she didn't even notice how familiar the African stewardess looked.
