Part 4
The song is She's Always a Woman by Billy Joel.
She can kill with a smile
She can wound with her eyes
She can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child
But she's always a woman to me
Vaughn was generally impressed with Will. Over the last year they had worked together on many projects and most importantly on trying to get Sydney back. Vaughn was impressed with Will's perseverance, tenacity and quick thinking. As an example, in the space of half an hour since he had called, Will had found him, found a way to get him out of the handcuffs and handled the information about Sydney's whereabouts in a calm and professional manner. For this reason Vaughn couldn't understand the fuss he was making now.
"You can't be serious Mike!"
"What is your problem with this?"
"Oh let's see. She was a spy for the KGB, she killed your father, she shot Sydney, she hasn't talked to anyone in nine months, she's a psycho! What I don't understand is why you want to go see her?!"
Vaughn's face hardened a little at the list of her crimes but so did his resolve. "Look, Sark used to work for her. Maybe she can shed some light as to why, if he was going to help her escape, he waited almost a year to do it! Maybe she won't be able or willing to help us but I have to try."
Will threw his hands up in despair and frustration. Vaughn grabbed the key from Will's hand and got in the car. "Come on, you're coming with me."
She can lead you to love
She can take your or leave you
She can ask for the truth
But she'll never believe you
And she'll take what you give her as long as it's free
She steals like a thief
But she's always a woman to me
Vaughn should have known better than to lead a kitten into a lion's den but truth be told he was happy for the company. He put a comforting hand on Will's shoulder as they walked down the barely lit corridor to her cell but it did little to calm his trembling.
Gone was the brightly lit, glass prison that she had been living in at the Joint Task Force building. Now she was in a makeshift prison; empty rooms with bars instead of doors, located in a bunker under the ground. She was the only prisoner being held but they had made other cells while making hers -- just in case.
Vaughn would have known when they reached her cell, simply by Will's sharp intake of breath. He wasted no time unlocking the door and pushing Will in ahead of him. He didn't want to have any time to admit to himself that he was scared as well. Once they were inside he relocked the door.
Irina sat on her bed, a tattered, gray wool blanket wrapped around her, rereading an old book. She glanced up at their entrance and gave Will a curious look. When her eyes came upon Vaughn though, her whole face darkened.
Vaughn saw her look change when she looked at him and he almost lost his nerve. He was surprised though. She looked a little more haggard and no longer as peaceful with herself since the last time he had seen her. She looked like a string pulled a little too tight. He decided to speak quickly before his courage left him completely.
"Sark came to see me today. Now, I know that you don't want to talk to anyone but I was hoping that you might have an insight on why he would come to see me and tell me where to find Sydney."
The cell was quiet now, in great contrast to Vaughn's rushed speech. He could hear the facet drip slowly, and together with Irina's penetrating look Vaughn felt slightly foolish for bothering her. He didn't know what he was expecting, she had been silent since the day Jack had died, but he felt frustrated all the same.
Finally, after a moment, Irina put down her old book and her quiet voice broke the silence. "Why don't you start from the beginning."
She will promise you more
Than the Garden of Eden
Then she'll carelessly cut you
And laugh while you're bleedin'
Vaughn took a seat on the metal chair, the only piece of furniture other than the bed while Will retreated to the back and leaned up against the wall. Vaughn paused a moment to debate how far back she wanted him to go, but then he decided to start at the very beginning to refresh her mind.
"Right…. I'm sure that you know some of this already but I will start at the beginning." Vaughn noticed that she smiled a small smile to herself, but since he didn't understand the context he just shrugged it off and continued. The only way he could speak of the events from the last year was to pretend he was giving a report.
"Ok. Last year we received intel indicating that Sloane was developing and/or had acquired nuclear weapons. Using intercepted communications we traced his whereabouts to one of the Cook Islands in the south pacific. A Special Forces team was put together to try and capture him and as you know, Sydney went with them. Kendall put me on backup, which included monitoring satellites from Langley. At first, everything seemed to be going according to plan. The team had found an old building that they thought could have been Sloane's hideaway. They were about to approach it and then Sydney radioed in..."
Vaughn paused in his memorized script. Suddenly he was back in the control room at Langley. The feed from the satellite was glowing on several of the monitors. "The last thing she said was 'It smells like thunder….'"
He rubbed his forehead with his hand. It seemed that his headache was making a comeback and making it harder to pretend that these events hadn't ripped him right in two. "After that, we lost all radio and satellite contact. Later, I found out that at the same time that we lost contact with our team, Sloane called the President and made his first set of demands. The President basically told Sloane to go to hell and three hours after we lost contact -- Sloane detonated a 20 kiloton nuclear bomb in Charleston, South Carolina destroying the town and Charleston Air Force Base. Pretty much everything went into lock down at that point and by the time I was able to get another team down to Cook Islands to rescue our people it was five days later, and there was nothing left to rescue. They found a few bodies, but they found no trace of Sydney."
Vaughn left his head in his hands. It was easier to concentrate on his headache than it was Irina's face. "I tried…I did everything I could but we had no leads, it was like Sloane had disappeared off the face of the earth. Finally, three months later we found a clue. I traced a transmission from Sloane to a third party in Indonesia. At the same time Jack used the intel to trace another nuclear warhead en route to Washington DC. So we split up. I went to try and find Sydney and Jack went to try and stop the bomb. Jack had some other contacts though, and used them to try and track the bomb before it was dropped into location. He tracked it to a small receiving warehouse in Baltimore. I must have found something strange because he radioed me immediately while I was in the air and told me to abort the mission. We think that he managed to remove the nuclear reaction chamber from the bomb but he must have triggered an alarm or something because the rest of the explosives were triggered remotely. I flew immediately to Washington but there was nothing left of the warehouse. We never found the nuclear fuel." Vaughn's voice had grown extremely quiet. He raised his head to look around but strangely enough Irina was looking away. He'd never seen her shy away from an opportunity to torture anyone. He glanced behind him and Will nodded encouragingly.
"I've spent the last nine months or so trying to find some clue as to Sydney's or Sloane's whereabouts. I didn't even have any evidence that she was alive until Sloane's telecast last month. Today Sark forces me to drive to an abandoned factory to tell me that I have one week to rescue Sydney and he gives me her location."
The silence in the room was almost deafening. Irina turned back to Vaughn and looked at him intently. "So what do you want from me?"
Vaughn sat up straight. Finally coming to the purpose behind his visit lent him some courage to finish the task. "Sark was one of your employees once. I need to know if you know any reason why Sark would try to help her now."
Irina had remained relatively impassive throughout his recitation and her words now were spoken without emotion. "Because it's a trap, Agent Vaughn. You can't go."
But she'll bring out the best
And the worst you can be
Blame it all on yourself
Cause she's always a woman to me
"I can't just to leave her there!" Vaughn half-shouted, shocked at her suggestion. He had been so worried that she wouldn't talk to him and then when she did, he had been so sure that she would have the proper solution. He never considered that she would tell him not to go.
"Well if you are not going to listen to my advice then why did you come here?"
Vaughn's lips contorted in frustration. "Because I was hoping you would be able to help me find a way to save Sydney."
"Well, I don't think that it can be done." Irina said sadly but with firm voice.
Vaughn stood up, his face flushed with anger. "Fine. Never mind then."
Irina followed him with her eyes. "You are going to go save her?"
"Of course! Do you think I'm going to let you destroy this for me as well? Maybe you don't care about your daughter, but I do."
"You don't have a clue what I care about." Irina answered quietly but her anger was brimming just underneath the surface. "I love my daughter more than life itself. But you don't understand what you are dealing with here." If Vaughn had been calmer he might have seen the subtle change that came over her when he accused her of not loving her daughter. Will however, did notice her clenched fists and the tightening of her jaw and he wisely moved farther into the corner.
Vaughn let his rage out. "Maybe you're right. I don't understand everything that is going on here, but I do understand this. You killed my father. I am not going to let you kill Sydney as well."
Vaughn saw Irina's eyes flash with rage the moment before he found himself pinned against the far wall, his collar clenched and twisted in Irina's cold hands. For some strange reason he noticed the old wool blanket lying crumpled on the floor where it had fallen. At the old building there were video cameras and US Marshals ready to respond to any move that she made; here there were neither. She had spent most of last year in a semi-catatonic state, and the FBI had had bigger things to worry about.
Her eyes were like coals searing through to his soul. "How dare you!" Irina practically shouted. Her face was only inches away from his and Vaughn tried not to flinch when he felt her breath on his cheek. Irina lowered her voice so that Will could barely hear. "You know nothing about me." She might have left it at that except she saw the determination in Vaughn's eyes and knew that if she did not speak now, she might as well never speak again.
"I did not kill your father," she hissed quietly, "your father died to protect you and everyone else in this god forsaken world, and now you would turn his sacrifice into nothing! All the while you are damning me for not loving my daughter, when it is that very love that probably saved us to begin with!" She released Vaughn and threw him backwards. Since he was already up against the wall it was she that took a step back. She turned away from him.
Vaughn stared at her open mouthed, unable to process what she had said. Thankfully for him, Will had the sense to utter, "What?"