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Chapter 12

"Mom"

"Sydney," she says walking over to me. She is quick to embrace me in a hug. I stand there making no effort to reciprocate. I do not trust her. I will not trust her.

She lets me go, still facing me with her hands still on my arms, "You look better than I expected."

This caught my attention, " Why? How did you expect me to look?"

Without flinching she said, "After you went missing, what I am suppose to think? Anything could have happened to you over those two years and with the unfortunate capture of Agent Vaughn, I thought that maybe things are taking there toll."

She glances behind me to agents and then she turns back to the car she arrived and two of her 'bodyguards' emerge from the car. She turns back to face me, "For my protection, you understand."

I just nod and she proceeds to walk into the hanger, turning back around to me, "Shall we get started?"

In the course of the next 10 minutes, my mother briefs us on where Sloane's facility is and the security surrounding it and where exactly in the building she believes he is keeping Vaughn.

"You believe? We need to be definite." I say.

"Sloane is unpredictable and there are no absolutes in espionage, you know that. The last intel I received indicated that Agent Vaughn was here," she says pointing to the facilities blueprints, "in the south east corner of the building, where the cells are located."

My voice rises, "Don't patronise me! We need to be definite! I don't want to walk into a trap and I do not want a chance for Vaughn to be hurt." I shout.

"Sydney..." Weiss says placing his hand on my shoulder trying to stop me.

"No Weiss," I say shaking off his arm, "if she hasn't got precise intel as to where Vaughn is located, we could be walking into a trap."

"The intel I have is valid. I assure you that all this is in the best interests of..." I cut her off.

"YOU!" I shout. The only reason she is helping me, is that there must be something in this for her.

My mother grabs my arm, taking me out of earshot of the agents and her 'bodyguards'. I fight to release her strongly motherly grip.

"Get off of me!" I shout.

"Sydney, listen to me!" She shouts back at me.

"Why should I?" I say quietening my voice down, "Your intel could get..."

"I know you do not trust me, Sydney. But believe me, when I say I am doing this for you... and for Agent Vaughn." She said quite sincerely.

"No, you are not. I mean you obviously know of Sloane's whereabouts and what I am asking myself is for how long? I was missing for two years and I believe I was with Sloane for most or all of that time, no one knew where I was, the question I ask myself is did you?" I was babbling, trying to get everything out in one burst.

"Sydney, he resurfaced a few days ago, I was able to track his movements...."

"I highly doubt he has just come back on to your radar."

And with that I left her mother just standing there and went and rejoined the other agents.

"Are you alright?" Weiss asks me curious.

"Yeah, I'm okay, just anxious to get Vaughn back."

My mother walked back over to where we had the map laid out of the facility and continued to explain the intel that she had, I was going to have to go along with as my father had ordered. We headed to our SUV's that we were using and moved out.

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I sat in the front seat of the SUV with may mother in the van in front of us. Around five minutes into our journey to Sloane's facility, Weiss cell phone began to ring.

"What?" I hear him exclaim, "When did this happen? Do we know what happened to him?"

Him. My first thought is that he is talking about Vaughn, but my instincts and common sense tell me no. I hear Weiss end the call and he sighs.

I turn around in my seat to ask him about it.

"What happened?" Hoping to God it had nothing to do with Vaughn.

"He's disappeared."

"Who's disappeared?" I ask.

"Christopher MacKay," he stated.

"What? Has Sloane got to him? Maybe...." Trying to think of all the possibilities.

"Your father says that they don't know what could have happened to him. He was scheduled to ring in early every morning, which is procedure. However, when the phone call never came this morning, the CIA sent agents to the safehouse to check on him. He was gone as well as all of his belongings." Weiss explains.

A million reasons run through my head as to why he has disappeared; has Sloane got to him? Has he run off on his own, out of fear?

An half an hour drives, seems to take an eternity, but when we do finally arrive near Sloane's facility, parking a street away. Ten minutes later all the teams report that they are in position around the building and are ready to move in on our signal. We open a constant comm link with my father back at the JTF where he is co-ordinating the operation.

"Mountaineer," I hear him say, "our satellite footage shows that there are seven figures inside the building, five of which are in the south-west corner and the two others are in the south-east corner. You are good to go."

Weiss signals the other teams, my mother is standing next to me, I turn to face her, "You are coming with me." I announce. She nods understanding.

We make our move into the building, we make it to the corridor leading the south west corner before we encounter any resistance. We shoot down the two guards who were shooting at us and continue to make our way through the building.

As we close on what we believe to be Sloane's position, I hear through my comm link from one of the other teams, "Mountaineer, we have secured the south-east corner and have acquired Vaughn."

"Get him out of here," I say. First priority is to make sure that Vaughn is safe.

We make our further to Sloane's position when we encounter more gunfire, we shot down the guard, however the other shooter makes a run for it back down the corridor. We take up pursuit immediately, the corridor turns to the left and becomes a dead end, ending with an office. As we make our way slowly down to the office, the door is slightly ajar and we decide to make a move to enter the room. Entering the office we all have our guns ready for any surprises behind the door but at first glance there are none. But then we hear the sound of a gun being reloaded, the sound is coming from behind the desk.

"Freeze," I say, "come up nice and slow hands in the air."

The guard comes up slowly with their hands in the air, and tosses the gun away, but it is not some faceless guard that I do not know, it is Christopher.

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I watched as Weiss kicks the gun further from Christopher as he goes over to handcuff him. Out of all the possibilities there were for his disappearance, I had not thought about this one. I should have learnt by now, that everyone will betray me in the end. As Weiss is handcuffing, I look straight at him, I mean I cannot believe that he would....

"Tell me it's a mistake." I say, "That you are not working with Sloane?" Please, tell me it's a mistake.

"Sorry, Sydney.... it was nice while it lasted." He said with a smirk on his face.

I felt my world crashing down on me. I had been with this guy for two years and he was a plant by Sloane. At that moment, I feel tears stinging my eyes, I hear Weiss begin a conversation to base ops but it becomes white noise, my legs become unsteady and I can feel myself falling to the ground but then I stop falling. A pair of arms are supporting me and helping me over to a chair in the room, it's my mother.

"Sydney, are you okay?" She asks, putting her hand on my forehead.

"I am fine," I say, swatting her hand away and pushing myself up from the chair. I wipe the tears from my eyes and try to focus on something else than Christopher. I hear Weiss ask the question and I listen intently for the answer from base ops.

"Do you have the location of Sloane?"

"Yes, he is, huh?.... Wait a second." That cannot be good. "What?" I hear on the comm, this is definitely not good.

"Do you have his location?" Weiss repeats.

Silence. "Sorry," I hear over the link, "we have lost his location, he just disappeared from our sat link."

"He can't just have disappeared!" I shout. Every time I get close to ending this, something happens to keep this insanity in my life going.

Another team in the mean time reports in that their section of the building is clear.

Base ops informs us, "We just cannot locate him."

"I don't believe this," I mutter under my breath, I thought no one had heard me speak until,

"Believe it Sydney!" Christopher says smiling like a Cheshire cat.

For around 30 minutes, we stay in the building and wait for a second set of agents to come in and go through the building thoroughly. Christopher is soon taken away by another set of agents. I have been sitting, on the office couch for the past ten minutes, in shock at what had happened. Christopher's betrayal, Sloane's disappearance, I was relieved that Vaughn is safe. I push myself up from the chair, declaring;

"I want to go and see Vaughn."

My mother and Weiss turn around to look at me.

"Are you sure?" My mother asks, "You said you were feeling a little queasy a few minutes ago."

"I am fine, now. Can we just go?"

"Yeah, the clean up team won't be here until probably tomorrow so..." Weiss said gesturing towards the door.

I switch the light off as we leave the room. We walk through the building towards the front entrance, when I realise that I have left my hand held gun in the room. I had put it on the table, so that I was more comfortable when I sat down.

"Hang on, I forgot my weapon back there. You two go ahead, I'll meet you at the front entrance."

I find my way back to the office, switching the light on, I head over to the table in the far corner, next to the couch. I hear the door slam behind me, just as I have picked up the gun.

"Hello, Sydney." I hear the familiar voice say. Sloane.

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TBC..................