Reporting in
Disclaimer:
I do not own Alias; ABC, Bad Robot Productions and JJ Abrams do, and I give
full acknowledgement of that (good work guys). I do not own and am not affiliated
in any way, with the brands mentioned in this piece (such as Ford, BWM or Colt),
more than likely I've used them because they're known, or because they're very
nice bits of kit that I hope to have one day. Finally, I'm a student, don't
sue me, I've got nothing worth taking.
Authors note:
After a short (4 day) alchohol induced break, I've finally got round to updating the story, and done two more chapters, so depending on how much I get done tommorow, I'll either update again tommorow, or I may leave it for two days then update.
If you've been following the story, this is where it starts to get a bit interesting for Sydney and her CIA companions, but the next chapter is (I think) the best, so stay tuned.
Time frame:
None - Just generally set after Sydney becomes a double agent.
The drive back to York went quicker than it did coming, or at least that's what Sydney thought.
During the trip back, she'd recounted as much information as she could back to Weiss and Vaughn, who were hanging on to every word she had to say, trying to piece together as much information as they could, to get a decent picture of what actually happened.
As they left Oxford Street, Vaughn was trying to get out of there as fast as possible, without arousing any suspicion, while Weiss, who was sitting in the back with as much communication equipment as he could carry, had a radio tuned into the police frequencies, directing Vaughn to the fastest routes out of the city.
Under normal circumstances, Vaughn would have cracked out the 'back-seat driver' jokes, but these were far from normal circumstances.
They were three individuals, who should never be seen together in the first place, in a potentially hostile country, pursued by an unknown enemy who, from what they understood, was not in any mood to take prisoners, and had people under their command who were very, very good at their job.
If they messed up, it wouldn't be too hard for Agents Vaughn, Weiss and Bristow to be denounced as MIA, after 20 years, joining Vaughn's father, William, as a set of black stars on the Marble wall in the CIA, and that was a prospect none of them wanted to face.
Pulling out onto the motorway, Vaughn gunned the engine as hard as he could, and felt the car surge forward, picking up more and more momentum every metre it went along the tarmac.
Ideally, Vaughn would have driven Weiss, Sydney and himself to the American Embassy, where they would have been put on the first flight heading home, to safe ground, but given that the two CIA agents were tagged as couriers, and that Sydney was here as a tourist, that would be hard to pass off, even with the CIA backing him up, and Devlin wholeheartedly, and undeniably vouching for them, which, on return to the US, would put them in an even worse situation.
It did not look good, not one bit.
Turning on the car's radio to lighten the mood, the first thing he heard was the news, which, much to their relief, had nothing on the events that had just previously happened in one of the busiest places in London, where any sort of incident like this would be reported on the news in under fifteen minutes.
Two hours had nearly passed at that point, and if it hadn't already been reported, then there was some major form of cover-up in place, which did not bode well for them, Vaughn mused.
Any group with the resources to pull off a job like this, in such a busy place, and not have it reported on the nation news definitely had reach.
Worried, he pulled into the fast lane, and gunned the engine some more, hoping to god that they wouldn't be stopped by the police for speeding. That was the last thing they wanted to happen.
He looked over at Sydney, who had her head down and eyes shut, lines of dried mascara were visible running along her nose. For however long a moment, all he wanted to do was to be there for her, to be a shoulder for her to cry on, to be someone she could open up to, without having to lie, or hold back her emotions.
He wanted to be with her.
The car rumbled over the cat's-eyes in the middle of the road, shaking her awake, and him back to reality. Weiss just sat in the back, concernedly looking down at his laptops screen. After working with Weiss for nearly five years, Vaughn could tell that he'd found out something that, at best, didn't please him.
Leaning back into the seat, Sydney shook her head to get the blood flowing around her brain.
It hadn't yet registered to her that she was in a car, driving back to the safe house, until Vaughn spoke up.
"Morning" He said, cheerily.
Both Sydney and Weiss looked up; she was smiling trying to hide her concern, while he still had a very concentrated look about him.
"Afternoon" Sydney replied, tapping the clock in the dashboard. It read a quarter past one.
"Hungry?" he asked, as they passed a services sign.
"Definitely" was the unexpected, but very much subconscious reply coming from Weiss sitting in the back, and it showed, he'd begun to chew his pen.
Vaughn turned back, to look at the traffic, working out when and where he could pull into the next lane. Sydney on the other hand, still slightly dazed from the incident earlier, put a hand in front of her mouth and giggled slightly, only to redden a moment later, realising what she'd done - she sounded as if she were back in school.
He smiled, and the car pulled into the services, parking in one of the more empty sections of the car park. Turning to face his passengers, he was about to ask what they wanted, but didn't even get to open his mouth before Eric interrupted. "Gimme a Whopper, large fries and a Coke".
However engrossed in his work, Eric had obviously seen the sign for the Burger-King as they pulled in.
Grinning at his friend's skills of observation, Vaughn just turned to Sydney, who just nodded in agreement, knowing what he was going to say next. Deciding what he wanted, Vaughn got out of the car, and headed towards the services building, letting his mind wander as he thought of Sydney, Eric, what they were doing here, and what they would do next, completely unaware of the Audi that had been tailing them since they went past Luton Airport.
The rest of their journey was uneventful, and considerably more relaxed. Sydney had fallen asleep, again, and Weiss was still looking at his laptop, but was a lot calmer, while Vaughn seemed to be pretty much inert from his surroundings, only concentrating on the traffic, and the directions back to the safe house, hoping he didn't take a wrong turn, or he'd never hear the end of it from Eric, or Syd.
Finally, after a few hours of driving, the group pulled up in front of what was their home base, blissfully unaware that a few minutes after they'd left, the a team of specialists had broken into the house, setting various surveillance devices around the building, and their clothes, making sure that when they left, there was never any sign that they had ever been there.
As they entered the house, the first thing they did was check the TV for any reports on what happened earlier. Like Vaughn thought, there were none, and that worried him somewhat. In such a high profile area, there would be something reported, even if it was just a sentence saying that something had happened. But there was nothing. Not even the slightest hint that the performance earlier had been reported on.
With the veil of secrecy in place, it was decided that they had to act fast, and change their plan, given the situation they were in.
It was originally conceived that Sydney would enter the offices of SD-9 with Dixon, and reporting on anything that they found, which the CIA would pick up via a tiny camera, built into the lapel of her body armour.
But now, with Dixon and the SD-6 team taken by the enemy, that plan had been annulled, and they needed a new one, quickly.
For now, however, they needed to rest, breaking up for the moment to relax; Sydney taking a shower, while Eric and Michael crashed out in the living room, watching TV.
It wasn't until Sydney got out the shower that she realised that if she didn't report this to Sloane, he would definitely be very suspicious of her activities, and if the alliance were involved, then the matter might be taken out of his hands.
Walking downstairs, Sydney realised that during her shower, Vaughn and Weiss had fallen asleep in the lounge, both of them snoring rather loudly.
Going in, she tapped Weiss on the head, and he was awake in a few seconds. "Come on guys, we've got a job to do" she said, in a very demanding tone, pushing Vaughn in the knee.
It didn't take long before she realised that he was completely gone, and that she'd have to try something else to get him up.
She grabbed his nose between her forefinger and thumb, holding tight until he spluttered awake from lack of air. Weiss laughed, still tired, as he watched Sydney rudely wake Vaughn up.
As he got up, he started to say something, but got cut off as Sydney laid out the problem. It wasn't until they heard the word 'Sloane' and 'report' in the same sentence that they became completely awake.
After a swift few minutes of heated debates over what should Sydney should report, it became clear that all they could say was the truth, but just blur over some of the aspects regarding the CIA. She did rent a car, and she was at a Yorkshire safe house her father had arranged, but she was there alone. No-one else had been with her.
Picking up her phone, she began to dial the number, waiting patiently for the line to be connected, as Weiss and Vaughn sat in the other room, listening to the conversation through a standard earpiece.
Moments passed, and the static subsided, followed only by a single voice.
"Sydney, I'm glad to hear that you're well. At the moment, you are the only person we sent over there, who's reported back, what's going on?" Arvin Sloane's voice sent chills down her spine - he was being 'aggressively concerned' for her.
Deciding to skip the pleasantries, Sydney simply reported what she'd seen happen to the team, and when she was finished Sloane asked if she were ok, before filling in the gaps of information they'd managed to get.
"At approximately 10:55 your time, SD-6 received two fax messages, both were doctor's post-mortem reports of Samantha Ingot and Bernie Jameson, both, it seems, had been killed by what seems to have been a heart-attack, however, at this point, we're very sceptical about this information, and believe that they were assassinated" Arvin's voice was cold, and hard. "From what you have told me, it appears that they were expecting us, so be careful"
"What are my orders? Do you want me to continue alone?" She asked, slightly worried that if he said yes, she might not return.
"The information held at SD-9 is of vital importance to identifying whoever attacked them, and it must be retrieved at all costs, are we clear Agent Bristow?"
"Yes sir" she said, looking down at the black folder by her side "I'm right in saying that you've got nothing to add to the information in the folders?"
"No, we currently do not have any information that we haven't already given to you." He paused for a moment, while she opened the pack. "Sydney, just remember one thing" he said, voice quavering for a second "If you get there, and don't think you can do it, abort. I'd much rather see you back here alive, than in a coffin. Be careful Sydney".
She wondered if she should be taken aback by his comments, but before she could answer, the line went dead, and Vaughn walked in.
"Did you get it?" she asked
"Every second" she could hear a 'but' in his voice "but Arvin is right, if you think that you can't do this, or that you'll be in danger, just say so, and we can have you out of the country inside 3 hours"
For some reason, his concern over her safety just made her feel a lot better than it usually did, probably because, she reasoned, that he would actually be there to help out if something went wrong.
Getting up, she smiled at him, before heading to the door "We need to get planning". It was not a question.