Disclaimer: I own none of these characters or situations. It all belongs
to the people who own Alias whoever they may be.
Chapter Eleven
The first thing her adrenaline filled brain registered was the loosely tied blindfold being ripped off of by the air resistance. She had to admit she was grateful that at least she could see, even if her hands were tied and she was in free fall several thousand feet above the Earth. She hadn't exactly expected Sloane to free them with no precautions on his part, but this was a bit drastic. It would have been quicker just to shoot them.
Something slammed into her from above her and she twisted her head around to see her mother holding on to her from behind her. Quickly, before Irina could lose her grip Sydney twisted around and wrapped her legs around her mother and leaned in closer to her.
"Any suggestions," she yelled, screaming to be heard over the rush of air.
"Hold on," was the extent of Irina's reply, and let go of Sydney with one arm. Seconds later the hiss and familiar harsh jerk of a parachute opening reassured her that for the next few moments at least everything would be all right. Their descent wasn't exactly a peaceful glide and they hit the ground hard, harder than they should have. But, after all the parachute was only designed for the weight of one person, not two.
Sydney untangled herself from her mother and the parachute cords and rolled to her feet. "Where did you get that," she demanded, surprised but definitely not unhappy about that.
"I have my sources," Irina replied vaguely, causing Sydney to roll her eyes.
Now that she was on the ground, she made quick work or her restraints, only to look around and find herself in harsh inhospitable terrain. The cold she had only just started noticing was already well on its way to being unbearable.
"Any ideas about where we are?" Sydney asked rhetorically as she scanned the barren terrain.
Irina pointed at an unpretentious point on the horizon. "I saw a small town over in that direction. We can find out more when we get there, but we need to leave now. I don't trust Arvin."
Sydney didn't protest and began to jog along side her mother. Neither said much. There wasn't really much to say. Thoughts of Jack and what Sloane might be doing to him at that very moment danced at the back of both of their minds. They had been traveling along steadily for several minutes before Sydney looked over at her mother.
"Do you think he'll kill Dad?"
The question surprised Irina, not only that Sydney would actually voice it, but the way that it mirrored her own thoughts. She had tried to force the fact that she had left Jack behind to the back of her mind. It was supposed to have been the other way around, but Sydney had made that decision. She owed Jack now more than ever and once again she had left him worse off than before she had entered his life.
She struggled to ignore the look of almost childlike vulnerability on her daughter's face. It struck as she started to respond that the way she felt then, seeing her daughter like that was the same way Jack must have felt twenty years earlier. It was a sobering thought and one she chose not to dwell on.
"No, Sydney," she said hoping that she wasn't lying to her or giving her a false sense of hope, "If Arvin had wanted to kill Jack, he would have killed all three of us. He will probably try to recruit Jack or torture him for information."
They continued to jog on in silence until it threatened to grow unbearable. Irina's voice when she spoke, was unexpected and almost through Sydney off balance. "Why didn't you see that town?" Her voice was unforgiving and Sydney knew why. If she had been alone she could have started wandering in the opposite direction and even gotten further lost, possibly getting herself killed because of that one error.
Still she reacted with defensive sarcasm. "I'm sorry, I was a little bit occupied with trying not to fall from a deadly height to pay attention to my surroundings. I'll try to do better next time."
"See that you do," Irina said seriously, but she could only maintain that imperious façade for a moment before she joined her daughter in laughter. But even their laughter had a brittle edge to it, that couldn't be changed by a moment of happiness.
There was a question that was weighing on Irina's mind and it had to be answered before they reached the town. It would decide the fate of this mission, what they would do next and what would happen to Jack, as well. It would all depend on how Sydney answered her next question. "Will you call the CIA and ask them to retrieve you and one of their most wanted terrorists when we get to this town?"
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To Irina's surprise Sydney's steps didn't even falter and she hardly looked at her mother. Finally she stopped running, forcing Irina to stop, too. She looked seriously into her mother's eyes. It was like a warped mirror image of the confrontation that had started this whole mess.
Mother and daughter were locked in a stare, surrounded this time by wide open space instead of enclosed in a tunnel. The intensity of their confrontation hadn't lessened in the slightest, only the nature of it had changed.
Sydney's stare was hard and searching. She would not back down. "Why shouldn't I," she asked with an unmistakable air of challenge.
It wasn't the question Irina had been expecting. Sydney had always been very concerned about doing the right thing, which in this case would be to turn her over to the CIA. Her question also forced Irina to look at her own motivations. She had spent more than twenty years trying to forget her greatest failure as a KGB officer and her greatest accomplishment as a woman, falling in love with Jack Bristow. Some days she thought she had been too successful at forgetting. She found it hard at times to acknowledge that fact to herself, and even harder still to admit it to Sydney or to show it to Jack.
"Because I want to find Jack just as much as you do. As hard as you or Jack might find it to believe, I do love him. I love both of you."
Sydney nodded, seemingly satisfied for the moment. "I'm sure you have ways of getting the information and gear we'll need to rescue him."
If Irina was surprised at the way Sydney ignored her confession she didn't show it. "Of course," she replied, injecting her voice with confidence that she hoped would reassure her daughter.
The next few hours were filled with long stretches of running broken up by moments of rest. Just when the distance was beginning to seem infinite, the outskirts of the town and the road leading up to it came into sight. They slowed to a walk and made their way into the town easily, searching as they walked for any clue about their location. In ten minutes of walking they had managed to get to the large outdoor market at the center of town and learned if not specifically where they were, at least the country.
"Well you should be right at home," Sydney shot at her mother as they listened to the musical garble of the town people interacting in rapid Russian and took in the signs all around them, written in Cyrillic.
"Yes," Irina replied sounding slightly distracted, "but at least it will make contacting my contacts easier." She looked back at her daughter and shot her an appraising glance. "Do you speak Russian?" When Sydney was a small child, Irina had so wished she could teach her daughter Russian, but that would have been unexplainable given her cover. Somehow not being able to give her daughter even that small piece of her own culture had been heartbreaking. Now, she hoped Sydney knew it for much more practical reasons. It would make them much less noticeable in this small town where everyone spoke it.
"Of course," answered Sydney and it took Irina just a moment to realize that Sydney had just demonstrated that for her. She had even managed it without a noticeable accent. Impressive.
As they threaded their way through the streets, Irina looked back at her daughter. It felt good, but slightly strange to work with Sydney like this. So far Sydney had trusted her, that in itself was an amazing start and it could prove to be very helpful in the future, should they almost inevitably find themselves temporarily on different sides.
In reality Irina was trying to use all of these thoughts to keep from thinking about what was really puzzling her. Sydney's decision to free her had been a surprise and it had been even more disconcerting to see the brief look of approval in Jack's eyes before she had been knocked unconscious like her daughter.
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The town was small but it did boast one small inn. It took Irina almost an hour to persuade the stingy inn keeper to allow her to use the phone and Sydney was almost afraid Irina was about to resort to more forceful forms of persuasion when the man finally relented.
After a short conversation Irina handed the phone back to the man and gestured for him to put it to his ear. Sydney watched as the man paled and began to look more and more frightened. When he hung up the phone he was much more helpful. They had a room within minutes and free run of his establishment. He was almost tripping over his own feet to be helpful.
Sydney had to wonder who it was on the phone that would cause the man to have such a drastic reaction. She waited until he had left to ask, "Who was that, the person on the phone?"
Her tone was harsher and more suspicious than she had meant it to be, but she still had trouble totally trusting her mother.
Irina sat down on the bed across from her and turned her gaze on her daughter. Despite her confidence and determination, Sydney felt herself start to shrink back like she was six years old again. Only Irina could do that to her.
"It was one of my former employees. I can't tell you his name of course, but he worked for me as an agent inside the official Russian Intelligence Agency. He owed me a favor and chose to repay it by ensuring that the man will let us stay here for the night. By tomorrow we'll have the supplies we need to move on. To begin work on finding Jack," the reluctance in Irina's voice to add that last part worried Sydney more than she wanted to admit.
Instead of voicing her concern, Sydney chose that moment to ask about something else that she had been thinking about. "Are you safe here, Mom?"
Irina looked up from her survey of the room and raised a curious eyebrow at her daughter. "I think we're safe enough here for the moment."
"That's not what I meant. Are you wanted by Russian authorities?"
"They didn't let me out of Kashmir, Sydney, but no, I'm really in no more danger here than you are. It's more practical, safer and more profitable for them to ignore me and my activities."
Sydney shook her head, too tired to worry that her questions were tumbling out of her mouth without much mental censoring, something that could be very dangerous to someone in her line of work. However, after being paralyzed and thrown out of a plane without a parachute, she didn't really care that much, "How did you do it," she asked. "How did you spend over a decade pretending to be a teacher and a happily domesticate wife?"
Irina looked at her daughter appraisingly, "Do you want to know the truth or would you prefer a white lie?"
Sydney could almost feel Irina distancing herself from the situation and she was flooded with anger. She got more than enough emotional distance from her father, although he was getting better about that. "Try the truth, it should be a nice change."
Irina seemed to not even notice her sarcasm. She looked as if she were looking beyond the room almost as if she could see the past before her. It was a look the Sydney had never seen her mother wear before. "You have to realize, Sydney, that it was my first mission. If I was caught I didn't know enough to be worth extraction. I was on my own in a country I had been taught to hate, filled with people I had been led to believe were the devil incarnate. My only contact with my former life was my handler, whom I detested."
She looked her daughter in the eyes, "I'm sure you've flirted with men who repulsed you for information, but that was only for a short time. This mission was on a permanent basis." She seemed to look past her daughter for a moment and then regained her focus. "I didn't really know Jack back then. All he was to me was the enemy."
A knock on the door interrupted her tale and Sydney started as if coming out of a trance.
"Yes," Irina demanded, annoyed at the interruption. A female voice, whom Sydney assumed belonged to the innkeeper's wife announced that dinner was ready, effectively ending Irina's confession for the time being.
Dinner was surreal. No one but the innkeeper knew who Irina was and they put on the perfect mother/ daughter act. Sydney watched without seeming to as Irina relaxed and seemed to enjoy the food and the people. She knew she was the only one, though, that could see the lines of tension in Irina's movements even though she was carefully masking it. She was obviously no less worried about Jack than Sydney, despite her apparent patience with the situation.
After the meal, Sydney could barely contain her own impatience. Usually when she felt like this back in L.A. she went for a long run or found Francie and went to a club for a long night of dancing. The first option wouldn't be appropriate for her cover here and the second wasn't even possible. Instead she went back up to their room and did push ups, sit ups, and as many other exercises as she could think of to wear herself out.
Irina watched her carefully from her own bed, but didn't seem inclined to comment or finish their conversation from earlier. Shortly after dark fell, the electricity was cut and total darkness fell. Neither reacted, the innkeeper had warned them that it was a daily occurrence used to save electricity in the small town.
Given the mood that her mother seemed to be in at the moment, it seemed appropriate to Sydney that she was now in the dark literally as well as metaphorically. Hours later, she sat staring out of the room's small window, the nightmares that had haunted her, keeping her from sleep, despite her exhaustion. She heard a noise from her mother's side of the room. She ignored it, but grew more and more worried as she heard the panic creeping into Irina's dreaming voice.
"Mom," she said softly, hoping that would be enough to wake her mother from whatever nightmarish situation she was reliving in her dreams. It wasn't. Sydney had known and even slept with a few fellow agents and she knew that almost all of them had nightmares about some of the things that they had seen or done. Something told her, though, that waking Irina wouldn't be so simple.
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Jack gritted his teeth against the pain blossoming in various places around his body. If this was how Arvin tried to convince a former friend to join him, then he would hate to see what he did to an actual enemy. Actually Jack knew, he had been required to execute those duties for Arvin Sloane more times than he cared to remember.
He had been both surprised and proud of the choice Sydney had made. She had stated her choice firmly to Sloane when he reentered the room, but kept her eyes locked with Jack's the entire time. Jack wished he could smile or at least give Sydney the smallest sign of encouragement that he could. That wasn't possible though, and he wasn't prepared to risk Arvin's deal with one small gesture.
Instead, he willed Sydney to read his approval in his gaze. He had struggled against his restraints in anger and frustration as Sydney was knocked unconscious. Irina though she remained calm, looked equally furious in her deceptive ruthless way.
"I'll take care of her, Jack," She had whispered before they had gotten to her as well. He did find her promise comforting to some degree. Irina seemed very protective of Sydney and if she was telling the truth about her feelings for their daughter then no force on Earth could protect the person who hurt Sydney, from Irina.
It wasn't other people that Jack was worried about, though. Despite the feelings Jack was beginning to suspect he had for Irina, not Laura, he still didn't trust her completely. She could be deadly, ruthless and merciless. Jack just hoped she wouldn't destroy Sydney.
He had been left alone with his thoughts for hours before Arvin Sloane returned. He had wasted quite a bit of time trying the old friend routine on Jack before he had proceeded to the more traditional methods of interrogations. So far as much as any other time when he was in Sloane's custody, Jack hadn't been in any mortal danger, simply quite a bit of pain. This pain Jack could handle. He had been called upon to prove this many times in the past and once again more recently in the hands of Geiger. But there was a point past which a man couldn't hold out and that was what worried him. Even he had a breaking point and if he was in Arvin's custody long enough, that point would be found.
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Expecting a somewhat violent reaction, Sydney reached out carefully to touch her mother's shoulder to wake her. Instead her mother froze and her eyes flew open.
Irina seemed slightly disoriented for a moment and then asked, "Sydney?"
"It looked like you were having a nightmare," she explained hesitantly.
Irina nodded, but seemed more concerned in noticing what Sydney's body language told her that her daughter did not. Brushing off the lingering emotions with the discipline of a lifetime of nightmares, she raised an appraising eyebrow at Sydney, even though she knew she couldn't see it in the dark. "It seems like I wasn't the only one," she stated carefully.
Sydney stepped back from her mother, both mentally and physically and retreated to her own small bed. She didn't respond and Irina felt irrational worry swell within her. She had missed the greater part of Sydney's childhood and teenage years. She had missed all of the little, normal, but worrisome, incidents that were all apart of a mother's life as her child grew up. She had almost forgotten what these surges of maternal worry were like and they proved to be all the more distraction now that it was more normal for Sydney to be in mortal danger, than not.
"Sydney," she asked quietly, unsure if she would even respond. Her daughter had been acting more and more like her father, lately, and that was a good thing, in moderation. "Are you all right?"
Her response wasn't angry or defensive as Irina had half expected. "For years as a child, I hated water."
"I don't remember that," Irina said softly, wondering how she could have forgotten such an obviously important detail and then wished she could take the words back as she realized the significance of what Sydney had said. She had hated water because she thought her mother had drowned in a car accident.
"Sydney," she started to say, but her daughter cut her off.
"It almost got me killed on my second mission. I was in Paris, my partner and I were trapped in the basement and the only way out without getting shot to shreds by the guys above us was to swim out through a tunnel. I was so afraid, I almost didn't do it."
"You made it out," Irina said, for once stating the obvious.
"It didn't bother me again until just this last year," Sydney explained flatly. "I thought I had watched Vaughn drown in front of me. The nightmares came back after that."
"In Taipei?" Irina questioned.
"Yes."
"Sydney," Irina said slowly, methodically, "I know there is no way that I can apologize for the pain that I've caused you. But I do wish very much that our meeting in Taipei wasn't our first meeting since you discovered that I was alive."
Irina's explanation was cut off as the door exploded inward. The blast in the darkness momentarily blinded Sydney, but she was already automatically rolling away from where she had been. Being a moving target was much better than staying in one place.
Irina hadn't moved, though. "It's okay, Sydney." She said sharply and held a hand out to her as she rose to a standing position herself. "Hello, Ivan," she snapped coldly to the man, who had just walked calmly into the room.
"You should not be here, Irina. You are nothing now, you have no protection. It still amazes me though that you were stupid enough to bring your American daughter with you." He sneered the word 'American' in disgust.
"It still amazes me that I actually employed you."
Sydney watched with wary fascination as Irina crossed the distance between them in one quick fluid movement, before the man could even react. A knife appeared in Irina's hand and was held to the man's throat without hesitation. "Sydney I would like you to meet Ivan Petrovich, one of my former employees."
"You shouldn't have come back Irina," he warned.
Behind him, Irina rolled her eyes. She had at one time employed Ivan, but in the end he had proved to be too unintelligent to be useful. His sources of information were pathetic, but she knew that one of his few reliable resources was the man who she had contacted earlier. He might have been forced to help her by her well established threat of blackmail, but he hadn't hesitated to inform Ivan about her reappearance. She had counted on it, in fact. She had told Sydney that the gear that they needed would be there before the morning, she just hadn't mentioned that they might have to take what they needed off of the people that came after them. Details, details...
Sydney was moving now and she easily searched Ivan and stripped off all of his weapons and anything else that might be useful to them. Irina resisted the temptation to slit his throat. Truthfully, she should have done it years ago, but here, now, in front of Sydney was not the time or the place. Instead she used the hilt of the knife to knock him unconscious and began to move towards the doorway.
"Ivan wouldn't have come here alone. He'll have more people waiting outside. But if we can make it past them, they should have some method of transportation that we can.. borrow."
Sydney nodded as they headed out into the hall. "Do you want to split up or stay together?"
"Together," Irina said moving in front of her. Sydney fell into step behind her easily, without protest and tried not to think how unusual it felt to be working with Irina, not chasing her.
As they moved stealthily through the hallway and down the stairs, Sydney kept an eye on the hall behind them, expecting more men from behind them.
Her mother slipped easily out of the rear door and immediately ran into four men. From the way they reacted to her, they had to be with Ivan. Quickly Irina spun into action and moved out of the door way allowing Sydney access to the other men. The men were decently trained but together, Sydney and Irina made short work of them. This time they had more luck when they searched the men and found several guns and a bit of ammunition.
Moving swiftly away before someone came to investigate the noise they faded into the deeper shadows along the wall and began searching for Ivan's vehicle. They found it moments later around the front of the building, surrounded by several armed men. There was no way that they could get a clean shot at the men without getting shot themselves.
Both leaned back against the wall out of sight. Irina saw Sydney next to her and watched as she stepped away from the wall. Sydney tucked her pistol into the waistband of her pants, behind her back. "Be right back," she said quickly and walked away.
Irina swore violently as she realized too late what Sydney was planning to do, but didn't move to stop her. That could jeopardize her daughter's plan and put her in even more danger, if that was possible.
She watched in fury as Sydney approached the nearest man and began to shamelessly come on to him. After a few moments, the rest of the men had left their positions and converged on Sydney and the first guard.
Three of the men went down, shot by Irina before the other two even realized what was going on. Sydney took the first one out easily with a carefully executed blow and shot the second one didn't prove to be much of a fight.
Irina ran over to the vehicle, slipped easily into the driver's seat and floored the car as soon as Sydney was in it. Sydney sat beside her in silence. If she sensed Irina's anger, she didn't comment on it, or try to appease her. After almost an hour of Irina's angry silence and harsh, wild driving, Irina bit out, "You wouldn't have done that if your father was there."
Sydney looked up sharply. It was only the second time that either of them had brought up Jack. "I saw an opportunity, I took it." She stated pointedly.
"And if you were with Jack, you would have found another way, he would never had allowed it." Irina could see her daughter bristle at that.
"Dad hasn't allowed me or not allowed me to do something since I was about sixteen," Sydney shot back. "And you certainly don't have the right to tell me what to do."
It was the angriest Irina had seen Sydney in quite a while. Sometimes Sydney was too much like her.
"Besides don't tell me you wouldn't have tried it yourself if you had thought of it first."
"Don't do something like that again, Sydney," Irina warned, "Not when you're working with me and there's a safer way."
"It would have taken too long your way," Sydney snapped back.
"Your impatience could have gotten you killed." Irina let out her breath in a sigh and said with more calm but equal intensity, "I will not be responsible for telling Jack that you died while you were with me."
Her last statement seemed to hit Sydney like she had just run into a brick wall and her anger dissolved, "Mom, I'm sorry, I'm just used to taking risks and working more or less on my own."
"You never played well with other children," Irina said dryly after a moment of silence and Sydney let out a snort of laughter.
"Where are we going," Sydney asked after a few miles of silence.
"I checked a map earlier and we're only about a six hour drive form one of the larger towns in this area. From there we should be able to catch a flight to Moscow. I have a piece of property near there that we can work from."
"Good," said Sydney and despite her adrenaline induced alertness, Irina could hear the exhaustion in her daughter's voice.
"Sydney," she suggested gently, "Why don't you get some sleep, Sweetheart. I'll wake you up if there's trouble."
At first Irina thought she was going to resist but then she relaxed and nodded. "Okay," she said softly.
As her daughter slept, Irina couldn't help but send an occasional glance towards her as she slept. The look on Sydney's face was empty of pain, hate and betrayal, she looked young and innocent. It reminded her of Sydney as a child and made her heart ache, knowing what she had endured in her life. Sydney rarely carried that look of peaceful happiness with her during her waking hours. She had been hurt by too many things in her life. Irina wished there was some way she could take away Sydney's pain at loosing a parent at such a young age. She couldn't change that now, though, but maybe she could prevent her daughter from loosing another parent.
Well, please let me know what you think! I'll be anxiously looking forward to your review's.
Chapter Eleven
The first thing her adrenaline filled brain registered was the loosely tied blindfold being ripped off of by the air resistance. She had to admit she was grateful that at least she could see, even if her hands were tied and she was in free fall several thousand feet above the Earth. She hadn't exactly expected Sloane to free them with no precautions on his part, but this was a bit drastic. It would have been quicker just to shoot them.
Something slammed into her from above her and she twisted her head around to see her mother holding on to her from behind her. Quickly, before Irina could lose her grip Sydney twisted around and wrapped her legs around her mother and leaned in closer to her.
"Any suggestions," she yelled, screaming to be heard over the rush of air.
"Hold on," was the extent of Irina's reply, and let go of Sydney with one arm. Seconds later the hiss and familiar harsh jerk of a parachute opening reassured her that for the next few moments at least everything would be all right. Their descent wasn't exactly a peaceful glide and they hit the ground hard, harder than they should have. But, after all the parachute was only designed for the weight of one person, not two.
Sydney untangled herself from her mother and the parachute cords and rolled to her feet. "Where did you get that," she demanded, surprised but definitely not unhappy about that.
"I have my sources," Irina replied vaguely, causing Sydney to roll her eyes.
Now that she was on the ground, she made quick work or her restraints, only to look around and find herself in harsh inhospitable terrain. The cold she had only just started noticing was already well on its way to being unbearable.
"Any ideas about where we are?" Sydney asked rhetorically as she scanned the barren terrain.
Irina pointed at an unpretentious point on the horizon. "I saw a small town over in that direction. We can find out more when we get there, but we need to leave now. I don't trust Arvin."
Sydney didn't protest and began to jog along side her mother. Neither said much. There wasn't really much to say. Thoughts of Jack and what Sloane might be doing to him at that very moment danced at the back of both of their minds. They had been traveling along steadily for several minutes before Sydney looked over at her mother.
"Do you think he'll kill Dad?"
The question surprised Irina, not only that Sydney would actually voice it, but the way that it mirrored her own thoughts. She had tried to force the fact that she had left Jack behind to the back of her mind. It was supposed to have been the other way around, but Sydney had made that decision. She owed Jack now more than ever and once again she had left him worse off than before she had entered his life.
She struggled to ignore the look of almost childlike vulnerability on her daughter's face. It struck as she started to respond that the way she felt then, seeing her daughter like that was the same way Jack must have felt twenty years earlier. It was a sobering thought and one she chose not to dwell on.
"No, Sydney," she said hoping that she wasn't lying to her or giving her a false sense of hope, "If Arvin had wanted to kill Jack, he would have killed all three of us. He will probably try to recruit Jack or torture him for information."
They continued to jog on in silence until it threatened to grow unbearable. Irina's voice when she spoke, was unexpected and almost through Sydney off balance. "Why didn't you see that town?" Her voice was unforgiving and Sydney knew why. If she had been alone she could have started wandering in the opposite direction and even gotten further lost, possibly getting herself killed because of that one error.
Still she reacted with defensive sarcasm. "I'm sorry, I was a little bit occupied with trying not to fall from a deadly height to pay attention to my surroundings. I'll try to do better next time."
"See that you do," Irina said seriously, but she could only maintain that imperious façade for a moment before she joined her daughter in laughter. But even their laughter had a brittle edge to it, that couldn't be changed by a moment of happiness.
There was a question that was weighing on Irina's mind and it had to be answered before they reached the town. It would decide the fate of this mission, what they would do next and what would happen to Jack, as well. It would all depend on how Sydney answered her next question. "Will you call the CIA and ask them to retrieve you and one of their most wanted terrorists when we get to this town?"
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To Irina's surprise Sydney's steps didn't even falter and she hardly looked at her mother. Finally she stopped running, forcing Irina to stop, too. She looked seriously into her mother's eyes. It was like a warped mirror image of the confrontation that had started this whole mess.
Mother and daughter were locked in a stare, surrounded this time by wide open space instead of enclosed in a tunnel. The intensity of their confrontation hadn't lessened in the slightest, only the nature of it had changed.
Sydney's stare was hard and searching. She would not back down. "Why shouldn't I," she asked with an unmistakable air of challenge.
It wasn't the question Irina had been expecting. Sydney had always been very concerned about doing the right thing, which in this case would be to turn her over to the CIA. Her question also forced Irina to look at her own motivations. She had spent more than twenty years trying to forget her greatest failure as a KGB officer and her greatest accomplishment as a woman, falling in love with Jack Bristow. Some days she thought she had been too successful at forgetting. She found it hard at times to acknowledge that fact to herself, and even harder still to admit it to Sydney or to show it to Jack.
"Because I want to find Jack just as much as you do. As hard as you or Jack might find it to believe, I do love him. I love both of you."
Sydney nodded, seemingly satisfied for the moment. "I'm sure you have ways of getting the information and gear we'll need to rescue him."
If Irina was surprised at the way Sydney ignored her confession she didn't show it. "Of course," she replied, injecting her voice with confidence that she hoped would reassure her daughter.
The next few hours were filled with long stretches of running broken up by moments of rest. Just when the distance was beginning to seem infinite, the outskirts of the town and the road leading up to it came into sight. They slowed to a walk and made their way into the town easily, searching as they walked for any clue about their location. In ten minutes of walking they had managed to get to the large outdoor market at the center of town and learned if not specifically where they were, at least the country.
"Well you should be right at home," Sydney shot at her mother as they listened to the musical garble of the town people interacting in rapid Russian and took in the signs all around them, written in Cyrillic.
"Yes," Irina replied sounding slightly distracted, "but at least it will make contacting my contacts easier." She looked back at her daughter and shot her an appraising glance. "Do you speak Russian?" When Sydney was a small child, Irina had so wished she could teach her daughter Russian, but that would have been unexplainable given her cover. Somehow not being able to give her daughter even that small piece of her own culture had been heartbreaking. Now, she hoped Sydney knew it for much more practical reasons. It would make them much less noticeable in this small town where everyone spoke it.
"Of course," answered Sydney and it took Irina just a moment to realize that Sydney had just demonstrated that for her. She had even managed it without a noticeable accent. Impressive.
As they threaded their way through the streets, Irina looked back at her daughter. It felt good, but slightly strange to work with Sydney like this. So far Sydney had trusted her, that in itself was an amazing start and it could prove to be very helpful in the future, should they almost inevitably find themselves temporarily on different sides.
In reality Irina was trying to use all of these thoughts to keep from thinking about what was really puzzling her. Sydney's decision to free her had been a surprise and it had been even more disconcerting to see the brief look of approval in Jack's eyes before she had been knocked unconscious like her daughter.
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The town was small but it did boast one small inn. It took Irina almost an hour to persuade the stingy inn keeper to allow her to use the phone and Sydney was almost afraid Irina was about to resort to more forceful forms of persuasion when the man finally relented.
After a short conversation Irina handed the phone back to the man and gestured for him to put it to his ear. Sydney watched as the man paled and began to look more and more frightened. When he hung up the phone he was much more helpful. They had a room within minutes and free run of his establishment. He was almost tripping over his own feet to be helpful.
Sydney had to wonder who it was on the phone that would cause the man to have such a drastic reaction. She waited until he had left to ask, "Who was that, the person on the phone?"
Her tone was harsher and more suspicious than she had meant it to be, but she still had trouble totally trusting her mother.
Irina sat down on the bed across from her and turned her gaze on her daughter. Despite her confidence and determination, Sydney felt herself start to shrink back like she was six years old again. Only Irina could do that to her.
"It was one of my former employees. I can't tell you his name of course, but he worked for me as an agent inside the official Russian Intelligence Agency. He owed me a favor and chose to repay it by ensuring that the man will let us stay here for the night. By tomorrow we'll have the supplies we need to move on. To begin work on finding Jack," the reluctance in Irina's voice to add that last part worried Sydney more than she wanted to admit.
Instead of voicing her concern, Sydney chose that moment to ask about something else that she had been thinking about. "Are you safe here, Mom?"
Irina looked up from her survey of the room and raised a curious eyebrow at her daughter. "I think we're safe enough here for the moment."
"That's not what I meant. Are you wanted by Russian authorities?"
"They didn't let me out of Kashmir, Sydney, but no, I'm really in no more danger here than you are. It's more practical, safer and more profitable for them to ignore me and my activities."
Sydney shook her head, too tired to worry that her questions were tumbling out of her mouth without much mental censoring, something that could be very dangerous to someone in her line of work. However, after being paralyzed and thrown out of a plane without a parachute, she didn't really care that much, "How did you do it," she asked. "How did you spend over a decade pretending to be a teacher and a happily domesticate wife?"
Irina looked at her daughter appraisingly, "Do you want to know the truth or would you prefer a white lie?"
Sydney could almost feel Irina distancing herself from the situation and she was flooded with anger. She got more than enough emotional distance from her father, although he was getting better about that. "Try the truth, it should be a nice change."
Irina seemed to not even notice her sarcasm. She looked as if she were looking beyond the room almost as if she could see the past before her. It was a look the Sydney had never seen her mother wear before. "You have to realize, Sydney, that it was my first mission. If I was caught I didn't know enough to be worth extraction. I was on my own in a country I had been taught to hate, filled with people I had been led to believe were the devil incarnate. My only contact with my former life was my handler, whom I detested."
She looked her daughter in the eyes, "I'm sure you've flirted with men who repulsed you for information, but that was only for a short time. This mission was on a permanent basis." She seemed to look past her daughter for a moment and then regained her focus. "I didn't really know Jack back then. All he was to me was the enemy."
A knock on the door interrupted her tale and Sydney started as if coming out of a trance.
"Yes," Irina demanded, annoyed at the interruption. A female voice, whom Sydney assumed belonged to the innkeeper's wife announced that dinner was ready, effectively ending Irina's confession for the time being.
Dinner was surreal. No one but the innkeeper knew who Irina was and they put on the perfect mother/ daughter act. Sydney watched without seeming to as Irina relaxed and seemed to enjoy the food and the people. She knew she was the only one, though, that could see the lines of tension in Irina's movements even though she was carefully masking it. She was obviously no less worried about Jack than Sydney, despite her apparent patience with the situation.
After the meal, Sydney could barely contain her own impatience. Usually when she felt like this back in L.A. she went for a long run or found Francie and went to a club for a long night of dancing. The first option wouldn't be appropriate for her cover here and the second wasn't even possible. Instead she went back up to their room and did push ups, sit ups, and as many other exercises as she could think of to wear herself out.
Irina watched her carefully from her own bed, but didn't seem inclined to comment or finish their conversation from earlier. Shortly after dark fell, the electricity was cut and total darkness fell. Neither reacted, the innkeeper had warned them that it was a daily occurrence used to save electricity in the small town.
Given the mood that her mother seemed to be in at the moment, it seemed appropriate to Sydney that she was now in the dark literally as well as metaphorically. Hours later, she sat staring out of the room's small window, the nightmares that had haunted her, keeping her from sleep, despite her exhaustion. She heard a noise from her mother's side of the room. She ignored it, but grew more and more worried as she heard the panic creeping into Irina's dreaming voice.
"Mom," she said softly, hoping that would be enough to wake her mother from whatever nightmarish situation she was reliving in her dreams. It wasn't. Sydney had known and even slept with a few fellow agents and she knew that almost all of them had nightmares about some of the things that they had seen or done. Something told her, though, that waking Irina wouldn't be so simple.
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Jack gritted his teeth against the pain blossoming in various places around his body. If this was how Arvin tried to convince a former friend to join him, then he would hate to see what he did to an actual enemy. Actually Jack knew, he had been required to execute those duties for Arvin Sloane more times than he cared to remember.
He had been both surprised and proud of the choice Sydney had made. She had stated her choice firmly to Sloane when he reentered the room, but kept her eyes locked with Jack's the entire time. Jack wished he could smile or at least give Sydney the smallest sign of encouragement that he could. That wasn't possible though, and he wasn't prepared to risk Arvin's deal with one small gesture.
Instead, he willed Sydney to read his approval in his gaze. He had struggled against his restraints in anger and frustration as Sydney was knocked unconscious. Irina though she remained calm, looked equally furious in her deceptive ruthless way.
"I'll take care of her, Jack," She had whispered before they had gotten to her as well. He did find her promise comforting to some degree. Irina seemed very protective of Sydney and if she was telling the truth about her feelings for their daughter then no force on Earth could protect the person who hurt Sydney, from Irina.
It wasn't other people that Jack was worried about, though. Despite the feelings Jack was beginning to suspect he had for Irina, not Laura, he still didn't trust her completely. She could be deadly, ruthless and merciless. Jack just hoped she wouldn't destroy Sydney.
He had been left alone with his thoughts for hours before Arvin Sloane returned. He had wasted quite a bit of time trying the old friend routine on Jack before he had proceeded to the more traditional methods of interrogations. So far as much as any other time when he was in Sloane's custody, Jack hadn't been in any mortal danger, simply quite a bit of pain. This pain Jack could handle. He had been called upon to prove this many times in the past and once again more recently in the hands of Geiger. But there was a point past which a man couldn't hold out and that was what worried him. Even he had a breaking point and if he was in Arvin's custody long enough, that point would be found.
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Expecting a somewhat violent reaction, Sydney reached out carefully to touch her mother's shoulder to wake her. Instead her mother froze and her eyes flew open.
Irina seemed slightly disoriented for a moment and then asked, "Sydney?"
"It looked like you were having a nightmare," she explained hesitantly.
Irina nodded, but seemed more concerned in noticing what Sydney's body language told her that her daughter did not. Brushing off the lingering emotions with the discipline of a lifetime of nightmares, she raised an appraising eyebrow at Sydney, even though she knew she couldn't see it in the dark. "It seems like I wasn't the only one," she stated carefully.
Sydney stepped back from her mother, both mentally and physically and retreated to her own small bed. She didn't respond and Irina felt irrational worry swell within her. She had missed the greater part of Sydney's childhood and teenage years. She had missed all of the little, normal, but worrisome, incidents that were all apart of a mother's life as her child grew up. She had almost forgotten what these surges of maternal worry were like and they proved to be all the more distraction now that it was more normal for Sydney to be in mortal danger, than not.
"Sydney," she asked quietly, unsure if she would even respond. Her daughter had been acting more and more like her father, lately, and that was a good thing, in moderation. "Are you all right?"
Her response wasn't angry or defensive as Irina had half expected. "For years as a child, I hated water."
"I don't remember that," Irina said softly, wondering how she could have forgotten such an obviously important detail and then wished she could take the words back as she realized the significance of what Sydney had said. She had hated water because she thought her mother had drowned in a car accident.
"Sydney," she started to say, but her daughter cut her off.
"It almost got me killed on my second mission. I was in Paris, my partner and I were trapped in the basement and the only way out without getting shot to shreds by the guys above us was to swim out through a tunnel. I was so afraid, I almost didn't do it."
"You made it out," Irina said, for once stating the obvious.
"It didn't bother me again until just this last year," Sydney explained flatly. "I thought I had watched Vaughn drown in front of me. The nightmares came back after that."
"In Taipei?" Irina questioned.
"Yes."
"Sydney," Irina said slowly, methodically, "I know there is no way that I can apologize for the pain that I've caused you. But I do wish very much that our meeting in Taipei wasn't our first meeting since you discovered that I was alive."
Irina's explanation was cut off as the door exploded inward. The blast in the darkness momentarily blinded Sydney, but she was already automatically rolling away from where she had been. Being a moving target was much better than staying in one place.
Irina hadn't moved, though. "It's okay, Sydney." She said sharply and held a hand out to her as she rose to a standing position herself. "Hello, Ivan," she snapped coldly to the man, who had just walked calmly into the room.
"You should not be here, Irina. You are nothing now, you have no protection. It still amazes me though that you were stupid enough to bring your American daughter with you." He sneered the word 'American' in disgust.
"It still amazes me that I actually employed you."
Sydney watched with wary fascination as Irina crossed the distance between them in one quick fluid movement, before the man could even react. A knife appeared in Irina's hand and was held to the man's throat without hesitation. "Sydney I would like you to meet Ivan Petrovich, one of my former employees."
"You shouldn't have come back Irina," he warned.
Behind him, Irina rolled her eyes. She had at one time employed Ivan, but in the end he had proved to be too unintelligent to be useful. His sources of information were pathetic, but she knew that one of his few reliable resources was the man who she had contacted earlier. He might have been forced to help her by her well established threat of blackmail, but he hadn't hesitated to inform Ivan about her reappearance. She had counted on it, in fact. She had told Sydney that the gear that they needed would be there before the morning, she just hadn't mentioned that they might have to take what they needed off of the people that came after them. Details, details...
Sydney was moving now and she easily searched Ivan and stripped off all of his weapons and anything else that might be useful to them. Irina resisted the temptation to slit his throat. Truthfully, she should have done it years ago, but here, now, in front of Sydney was not the time or the place. Instead she used the hilt of the knife to knock him unconscious and began to move towards the doorway.
"Ivan wouldn't have come here alone. He'll have more people waiting outside. But if we can make it past them, they should have some method of transportation that we can.. borrow."
Sydney nodded as they headed out into the hall. "Do you want to split up or stay together?"
"Together," Irina said moving in front of her. Sydney fell into step behind her easily, without protest and tried not to think how unusual it felt to be working with Irina, not chasing her.
As they moved stealthily through the hallway and down the stairs, Sydney kept an eye on the hall behind them, expecting more men from behind them.
Her mother slipped easily out of the rear door and immediately ran into four men. From the way they reacted to her, they had to be with Ivan. Quickly Irina spun into action and moved out of the door way allowing Sydney access to the other men. The men were decently trained but together, Sydney and Irina made short work of them. This time they had more luck when they searched the men and found several guns and a bit of ammunition.
Moving swiftly away before someone came to investigate the noise they faded into the deeper shadows along the wall and began searching for Ivan's vehicle. They found it moments later around the front of the building, surrounded by several armed men. There was no way that they could get a clean shot at the men without getting shot themselves.
Both leaned back against the wall out of sight. Irina saw Sydney next to her and watched as she stepped away from the wall. Sydney tucked her pistol into the waistband of her pants, behind her back. "Be right back," she said quickly and walked away.
Irina swore violently as she realized too late what Sydney was planning to do, but didn't move to stop her. That could jeopardize her daughter's plan and put her in even more danger, if that was possible.
She watched in fury as Sydney approached the nearest man and began to shamelessly come on to him. After a few moments, the rest of the men had left their positions and converged on Sydney and the first guard.
Three of the men went down, shot by Irina before the other two even realized what was going on. Sydney took the first one out easily with a carefully executed blow and shot the second one didn't prove to be much of a fight.
Irina ran over to the vehicle, slipped easily into the driver's seat and floored the car as soon as Sydney was in it. Sydney sat beside her in silence. If she sensed Irina's anger, she didn't comment on it, or try to appease her. After almost an hour of Irina's angry silence and harsh, wild driving, Irina bit out, "You wouldn't have done that if your father was there."
Sydney looked up sharply. It was only the second time that either of them had brought up Jack. "I saw an opportunity, I took it." She stated pointedly.
"And if you were with Jack, you would have found another way, he would never had allowed it." Irina could see her daughter bristle at that.
"Dad hasn't allowed me or not allowed me to do something since I was about sixteen," Sydney shot back. "And you certainly don't have the right to tell me what to do."
It was the angriest Irina had seen Sydney in quite a while. Sometimes Sydney was too much like her.
"Besides don't tell me you wouldn't have tried it yourself if you had thought of it first."
"Don't do something like that again, Sydney," Irina warned, "Not when you're working with me and there's a safer way."
"It would have taken too long your way," Sydney snapped back.
"Your impatience could have gotten you killed." Irina let out her breath in a sigh and said with more calm but equal intensity, "I will not be responsible for telling Jack that you died while you were with me."
Her last statement seemed to hit Sydney like she had just run into a brick wall and her anger dissolved, "Mom, I'm sorry, I'm just used to taking risks and working more or less on my own."
"You never played well with other children," Irina said dryly after a moment of silence and Sydney let out a snort of laughter.
"Where are we going," Sydney asked after a few miles of silence.
"I checked a map earlier and we're only about a six hour drive form one of the larger towns in this area. From there we should be able to catch a flight to Moscow. I have a piece of property near there that we can work from."
"Good," said Sydney and despite her adrenaline induced alertness, Irina could hear the exhaustion in her daughter's voice.
"Sydney," she suggested gently, "Why don't you get some sleep, Sweetheart. I'll wake you up if there's trouble."
At first Irina thought she was going to resist but then she relaxed and nodded. "Okay," she said softly.
As her daughter slept, Irina couldn't help but send an occasional glance towards her as she slept. The look on Sydney's face was empty of pain, hate and betrayal, she looked young and innocent. It reminded her of Sydney as a child and made her heart ache, knowing what she had endured in her life. Sydney rarely carried that look of peaceful happiness with her during her waking hours. She had been hurt by too many things in her life. Irina wished there was some way she could take away Sydney's pain at loosing a parent at such a young age. She couldn't change that now, though, but maybe she could prevent her daughter from loosing another parent.
Well, please let me know what you think! I'll be anxiously looking forward to your review's.
