Chronic Vertigo
Chapter Four: Ipse Dixit [Part C]

Author: Kira [kira at sd-1 dot com]
Genre: Romance/Action/Adventure
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: We all know the drill. I don't own Alias, so please don't sue me. I'm already in debt. And even if you did sue me, it would come off my credit card and I'd still be in debt. So, right. You're better off leaving me be.


Jeeps, for all their commercials advertised, were not the most comfortable automobiles to ride in. In fact, Sydney reflected, this had to be one of the most horrible rides she'd ever been on. Her head hit the rear roll-bar as they sped over another large rock lodged in the poorly kept road, speeding off for the tree-hidden hills high above the downtown, larger homes becoming more and more commonplace outside of the poverty stricken city limits. Rubbing her head, she ducked down a bit, slouching in her seat so to prevent another round as a human punching bag for the horribly kept road.

Her head twisted to the side as they went over another bump in the road, bringing Vaughn into her field of vision. He sat only a few inches from her yet she'd never felt so far from him before. His normally readable gaze was empty, skimming over treetops. Her first emotion was concern, but she had possessed that gaze before, when she was walking into the world with a new view. What if Sloane was still there? What if this Mitchell knew of Vaughn's handicap? Would he be walking into certain death, or would they be gone, the added mission for naught?

A large bump jostled him back to reality, his head painfully hitting the side support he was seated next to. He grimaced, looking over at her as if to say damn this road, that hurt!, a boyish smile springing momentarily to his lips. His eyes were back, hardened, ready for the mission at hand.

The Jeep rounded one last corner, bringing the back side of Mitchell's large estate into view. The driver quickly swerved out of view, sending all the passengers into one another, jostled together as they were pasted against the passenger side. Through the dust she could see the second Jeep do the same behind them, the other driver copying the moves exactly. A grove of trees lay to the east, concealing their vehicles. As soon as the Jeep came to a stop, most of the team climbed out, their feet raising small poufs of dust as they landed.

"Do we have any data on this place?" someone asked from beyond the close trees, their tone flat.

"Nothing more than given - you were standing right next to me," another shot at him, a sarcastic look prevalent in his eyes if they could be seen in the shadow world created by the fading sunlight. Instead, he was but a mere shadow beyond the spines of trees, shifting ever so slightly as to show his discomfort with the situation at hand. A man short, running to apprehend a ghost.

Yes, dusk was the perfect time for this new mission.

The fleeing sunlight wanted nothing more to do with this human realm, the shadows cast by its light a last gift before slipping behind the immeasurable horizon and casting the world into its own shadow. Selfish reasons sent the world into this eerie twilight, where man and ghost lived as one for a few moments. But wasn't it said that only a ghost could hunt a ghost?

"I've got a bad feeling about this," the first said. "I get these bad feelings before some missions - they always endbadly."

"Either that, or you had those spicy fries before we left. How many times do I have to tell you not to eat those?" the second retorted, his voice barley above a whisper, yet impressively commanding. It was hard to distinguish between a mother barking at her child and an officer directing his subordinate; he made no distinction between the two when speaking.

His children were most assuredly well-behaved.

"No, no. I mean, we're sending two people in before us? Do you really need me to tell you all the things that could go wrong?" the worried man's voice quavered just a bit.

"Nothing will go wrong if you stop worrying and cover us," Vaughn shot into the trees. The shuffling stopped, the sound of the men breathing the only sound now. He turned to Sydney as she was checking her equipment for a final time, neurotic to the core even after all these years, a trait that had saved her life more than once. Countless times.

"Let's go. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can try to run away," she smiled at him, catching his gaze for a moment.

He laughed. "Yeah, right. Keep dreaming."

"What can I say? I'm a dreamer at heart."

"I know."

---

Mitchell, as he was known by his men, could move without making a sound.

Employees came and went, but the stories always remained, as if timeless remains embedded in the very walls. Stories of men who had been fired because of their exclamation of surprise once their employer came up behind them. Or how some had been caught doing unthinkable acts because they had no idea they were being watched. Yes, Mitchell could move about his home unseen and unheard, floating around and watching, waiting.

So his surprise was great when he suddenly found himself shoved against the wall of an inner hallway, the familiar heart wrenching coldness only a handgun could bring pressed against the base of his neck. With his head twisted to look down into darkness as the hallway continued, then turned towards the south, his attacker remained an anonymous outsider. Their breathing was hard, pounding down on his neck as their grip on his wrists tightened, handcuffs sliding around them effortlessly. Bound and assaulted in his own home, surrounded by legions of armed guards. He was dealing with no amateur.

"What the hell is going on?" his rough voice gasped out, his lungs finally regaining the air lost when slammed up against the hard surface.

"Is there someplace we can talk?" a man's voice inquired, no demanded. Mitchell froze, his breath now caught in his throat, the blood in his veins as cold as ice. If not for the gun, the hairs on the back of his neck would have risen. He had anticipated the heavily accented voice of a disgruntled employee or punk kid looking for a quick way to score some cash. People such as those could be dealt with swiftly, as they had been in the past. Handcuffs were no large hindrance for this aging man, and had the man not spoken then, he would have most certainly moved to insure his freedom.

But that voice - that voice! The tone, the inflection, it was off a bit as if foreign influences had unconsciously weaved themselves into the speech pattern, but he knew it no matter how much time had transpired. His mind reeled, his neck burning with the desire to turn, to twist and see the face, the man.

It was said, in some cultures, that only a ghost could fight a ghost.

"I don't think he's listening," a woman said, her voice louder than the ghost's - she was the one holding the gun on him. An elbow was jabbed into his ribs. Initial shock finally receding, Mitchell coughed and motioned to the nearest door to an empty bedroom. The door was promptly kicked in; he was shoved inside.

Like many of the extra rooms inside the home, it was decorated simply yet tastefully, with all the furniture required for guests that never arrived nor stayed. The woman shoved him on to the large, four-poster bed, the smell of age and disuse causing him to cough again. Nostalgia rose. Days gone by flashed in his mind. The ghost came into view.

A gasp caught in Mitchell's throat. While he was now an old man, his hair once deep brown now light grey like pepper, the ghost had not aged a day. He hovered before his eyes, his gaze cold and hard.

"Hello there, Mr. Mitchell," he grinned soullessly, his lips stretched in to more of a smirk than anything else.

"Bill" he breathed, but stopped. The eyes, they were all wrong. It all suddenly and painfully clicked into place, and his fear intensified. For the ghost would not harm him as much as this man of flesh and blood would - could. "Michael. You've grown."

"Vaughn?" the woman asked, puzzlement clear on her face. She obviously was not as good as him at hiding her emotions. A weakness.

"My father had two different colored eyes. It just took a moment, didn't it, Mitchell? I've been told the resemblance is uncanny," Vaughn explained, his eyes, both green, never leaving Mitchell's face. He'd never known this man, of him or his existence. But already the hate was building inside him. It was funny how it did that. First, his father's murderer, and now his Judas.

"You got the better half of his," Mitchell forced out a thin laugh. "I've always thought brown was a boring eye color. No offense," he added as an afterthought to Sydney. She brushed off his comment with a wave of her hand.

"Trust me, none taken."

"I don't believe I got your name," Mitchell said, shifting on the bed to face Sydney, keeping Vaughn in his peripheral vision.

"You don't need to know her name," Vaughn said, pulling back Mitchell's attention.

"You just had a meeting with a man, Arvin Sloane. We need to know what was discussed at this meeting," Sydney continued, ignoring Vaughn's protective comment. Mitchell laughed.

"I didn't get this far in life by giving away the details of all my business meetings, dear."

"No, you got this far by betraying your friends and walking over them like stepping stones," Vaughn bit out, his voice like a whip, pulling Mitchell's gaze back to him.

"I would like to ask you how you know what this life is like," he started, his tone soft, wistful. "If your father were still alive today, you would never be standing here, never would be in this world."

"If my father were still alive, many things would be greatly different."

"He never wanted this for you - why can't you see that? You stand there and blame me for his death, I can see it in your eyes. And you're the one throwing it away. I'm not deserving of this hate any more than you are," he continued, shaking his head.

Vaughn moved fast - faster than Sydney had ever seen him move - and had his arm around Mitchell's throat before she could move to restrain him. But she suspected this new spurt of speed came not from extra hours spent improving his physical condition ever since his time in the field had increased, but from the attack on the core of his being; the meaning of his entire life. She found herself moving slow as she rounded him and grabbed beneath his arms, tugging at his frame.

"Vaughn, get. Off. Him," she commanded, and fully expected him to comply. But he leaned in closer, his face mere inches from Mitchell's. He never spoke, though, and allowed his actions to speak for him. What could he say? Words were meaningless now. Simply formalities to measure up your opponent.

"Yeah, I thought so," Mitchell spat. "You ungrateful child. And to think, he had such high expectations for his oldest son. At least Alex lived up to them."

Vaughn usually kept his composure in situations like these, his temper in check. So what he did next was unexpected even to him.

He punched Mitchell square in the jaw.

Seeing this scenario was spiralling drastically out of hand, Sydney pulled as hard as she could, finally managing to dislodge Vaughn from atop their prisoner.

"Alpha, we've secured the prisoner. Proceed to rendezvous," he spoke sharply into his com as Sydney pulled Mitchell to his feet. With his hands bound behind him, blood from his split lip ran onto his chin. "I'm done with him," Vaughn said to her, and walked right out of the room.

She simply followed, dumbfounded.

::

"Did they take the bait?"

Sark leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting from the woman seated to his side off to the ocean beyond. What he wouldn't give for a cigarette at that moment, something to complete the James Bond image he was going for. At least the villainous image he'd seen as a child. But weren't all the villains Russian or Chinese? He gave Irina Derevko a side-glance for a second. He didn't quite get why "lackeys" as they were called were such small, insulted characters. If being a lackey meant he made a large, comfortable amount of money and allowed him to exercise a certain degree of freedom while remaining anonymous in the larger game, so be it. Even if Irina failed (which he doubted), he could move on, find someone else who required his services.

"I believe so," he replied, his words sharp, enunciated. Never could one claim that he was difficult to understand, even at his worst he still maintained that British air of superiority that stretched over to his elevation above other English speakers. "What I don't understand," he continued, leaning forward in the leather chair. It groaned under him as he shifted, the heat taking it's toll on the material. "Is why, if he was believed to be dead, did they send a team in so quickly?"

"How much time passed between the tip and the team being deployed?" Irina asked, hand on her chin. Sark thought for a moment.

"4 hours, at the most. It seems odd, to be working off a hunch like that."

"They're groping at anything that might lead them to Sloane," she replied.

"And us. Don't forget, Irina, that we must be careful as well. I only hope you've insured the proper precautions were taken when dealing with this man," he continued, leaning his elbows on to his knees. "I cannot stress to you enough how much I wish to remain," Sark paused here, as if searching for the right word, "elusive, especially under these heightened conditions."

Irina turned to him and smiled. "Don't worry, Sark. I have everything under control."

When he'd first met Irina, those small, sly smiles had really irked him in some way. Not that they made him angry, it was more of an uncomfortable feeling. It was the kind of smile that fit the Mona Lisa; this smile that meant she knew something no one else knew, smiling at those who couldn't figure out the clues that lay around her. It took some getting used to, yet even now, as she sat next to him, he couldn't see what she had planned.

And he hated it.

He supposed, for a moment, that it was part of the lackey package, this uncertainty. But he was deep, now, and the less he knew, the harder it would be for him to escape relatively unscathed. It wasn't a matter of trust, no, not at all. Instead, this apprehension on his part to dive deeper in the water was more a self-preservation sensation. He hadn't gotten this far in life by being a fool.

"I have everything covered," she continued speaking, breaking into his self-reflective revelry of thought. "By the time they realize - "

"The intelligence of the CIA, or rather, the lack of it, is one thing I always count on," he interrupted. "But to switch to a more pressing topic, have you received any more leads?"

Irina was across the room now, pouring herself a glass of water from the pitcher left out on the counter. She whirled around gracefully, seeming to open the freezer door, retrieve some ice, and let it fall into her glass with one fluid motion. The heat in the room made him long for a glass himself, but he remained motionless in his chair, ice blue eyes gazing out into a matching sea. Even something as small as the need for a cool beverage could be seen as a weakness, and while Irina could afford to appear weak before him, he did not have the same luxury while in her company.

"Alksandr Zhuravlev," she answered simply, taking a sip of her water. A bit of condensation dripped down the side, wasted precious water dripping to an immaculate tiled floor below. Had he not been utterly surprised by her answer, his throat would have caused him to grab a glass of the substance himself. But sitting forward in his chair, a smile on his face, he forgot his parched nature and let out a small laugh.

"I can hardly believe that - "

"Zhuravlev has always been a brilliant tactician," she interrupted, leaning against the counter. Sark finally stood, flabbergasted by her revelation that Alksandr Zuravlev, a seemingly unremarkable man and lapdog of the American Labor Department, could have anything to do with an old piece of equipment or anything else they might be looking for.

"I am getting the feeling that we may not be speaking about the same man," he replied testily. Irina abandoned the glass on the counter before walking back into the carpeted living room area of the beach house.

"In the late 1970's, Zhuravlev saw the market as it was - breaking and ready to be bought. While the KGB did survive through the 1980's, it was of no matter to him. He simply used them to his advantage."

"Keeping his investments safe?" Sark raised. Irina nodded.

"Safe until ABC was formed in 1994. He saw the American businesses flood into Volgograd - " she seemed to wince at the new name for an old city " - and decided it would be a prosperous alliance."

"ABC is just a group of consultants," Sark replied when she'd finished for the moment. "What would being allied with a group of American Business consultants do to help Zhuravlev's investments?"

"Think of the ties to America. With several manufacturing plants coming into the area, they would need supplies and workers. Zhuravlev controlled both these things in the area and around, he had for 20 years."

"Since the 1970's, like you said. Zhuravlev deals not in goods, but in people?" Sark asked, his face a stoic mask where others would have been horrified and pale.

"Resources, Mr. Sark," Irina smiled. Understanding dawned on Sark's face - he finally got why Zhuravlev was the one to talk to.

"Like computers," he breathed. It took him a moment to mull this over before he looked up to her, confused on a point. Always intuitive beyond normal, Irina licked her lips and continued.

"William Vaughn was after this equipment in the middle of the cold war, Sark. Who else would be in possession of that information but the KGB, out to bring down the thorn in their side called the CIA?" she posed rhetorically, almost laughing. "After his death, the CIA must have read his last report and knew the information was inaccessible, and even in those days, only those who had been studying computers for years knew how to fully use them. The search was called off and the computer faded into the KGB's bureaucracy."

"Zhuravlev must have been fully vetted before ABC and the American Labor Department would have agreed to such an alliance with him," Sark interjected.

"It was their success or failure. Zhuravlev agreed to provide them what they needed if, in exchange, they allowed him to have full control over all his assets. They were in no position to threaten him."

"And I'm sure none of this appears on the company website," Sark quipped.

"Naturally."

"But I must voice this, and forgive me if I sound pretentious. But wouldn't Zhuravlev withhold this computer from us once he learns of its apparent value? If he were in the KGB, as you say, wouldn't he have searched for the means to use the computer himself?"

"Yes."

"Ah ha. So most of our work has already been done for us."

"He just requires a bit ofpersuasion," Irina grinned. There was nothing like a good challenge, and surprising an old associate was always an added bonus.