Chronic Vertigo
Chapter 8: Myopic
Part B
They couldn't, justifiably, cell Mitchell and their newest prisoner together, but were running out of options. With the prisoner, dubbed Mute due to his refusal to speak, still secure down in Medical Services, Director Kendall paced back and forth in his office, running down the list of available rooms in the JTF. An empty office or storage room with a guard would have to do, as putting two prisoners together, free to exchange information was a breach of CIA protocol, as well as incredibly stupid.
An aide poked his head in the open door to the director's large office, gripping the doorjamb as if it would keep him safe from misdirected wrath. "They've finished with the prisoner in Medical Services and were wondering where to keep him."
"Are there any agents down there?" Kendall asked. The aide shook his head.
"None other than normal staff."
"Lock him in an exam room," he answered, sweeping his office before brushing past the aide on his way out. "And find Agents Vaughn and Weiss, tell them to meet me down there."
They had a prisoner to question.
..
"You can't be serious!" Weiss yelled, slamming the door with such force the glass rattled and threatened to shatter. The blinds continued to clink against it as he crossed his arms and swooped to the other side of the room. Vaughn turned to him, face weary yet furious, brow creased as he yelled back.
"We were bated, Eric! Pulled in because of what we don't know!" he shouted back, face reddening. "What I don't know!"
"But that's the only failsafe we have. No matter what happens, no one knows everything," Weiss said, standing across from his friend. Vaughn calmed a bit, rubbing his forehead in frustration. Why couldn't Weiss understand, why couldn't he see that as long as he was in the dark, he wasn't safe? Couldn't have a moment's peace of mind?
He sighed, leveling with Weiss' heated gaze. "Sydney, she...she found something."
"What?"
"Weiss, I can't remember what happened after you left. It's a huge blur, and it's driving me crazy."
"What did she find?" Eric asked with the tone of a rapidly angering mother at an uncooperative child. Guilt ate at him, gnawing at him since the moment he realized Apple had intentionally split them up, the effects of which still unknown to him. Something had to have happened, something worth the trouble.
Vaughn shifted and moved to sit on the edge of his desk, finding comfort in the added support of the impartial piece of furniture.
"Injection mark," he breathed, the words sliding into the tense silence, slicing through it with a razor edge.
Oh God, Weiss thought. He'd failed. Somehow, down the line, he'd broken the promise he'd made to himself to protect Vaughn whenever he could. It was silly, he'd told himself time after time, to keep such a commitment even though his crime was not severe, nor known to Vaughn. But there was something about Vaughn; his ability to find trouble where ever he went, his disregard for himself when it came to a choice between himself or others – that called out for some kind of guardian.
And he'd failed.
Weiss was sure, when it came to Sydney, Vaughn had never failed her. He was, had to be, a better man than himself.
"Shit, Mike," he swore instead, reserving his thoughts for an inner monologue. "Have you gone to Med. Services? Gotten it checked out?"
"No."
His anger flared again. "Why the hell not?"
"The moment I go in there, I'm out. I'll be stuck behind a desk while you and Sydney run around. Weiss, this is why my father died, and there is no way I'm taking a back seat to this investigation!"
"I understand that, but, Jesus, Mike, its suicide!" Weiss matched his thunderous tone.
"What's suicide?"
Both men turned to the door and the source of the voice to find Sydney standing there, hand still on the knob. She looked unhappy, not so far as to be sporting a frown, but enough for the pair to know their loud voices had carried far beyond the confines of the office into the halls beyond, and she'd overheard everything.
"Nothing, Syd," Vaughn said automatically, his protective nature taking immediate control. He fought back another wave of nausea, thinking for a moment he should get checked out, but the thought of being stuck here, away from the truth - the reason for his father's death and ultimately the reason he sat in an office at the CIA kept him seated.
"Nothing?" she asked almost innocently. "Vaughn, the entire office could hear both of you two shouting in here. I want to know what's going on, and I want to know right now."
"Syd, it – "
"Don't," she interrupted him before he could get a word out, holding a hand out to reinforce her words. "Weiss," she turned, looking for an ally, "What is suicide?"
Stuck between a rock and a hard space, his friend and a potential ally in this argument, Weiss glanced at Vaughn before turning to Sydney.
"He lied to Kendall – to all of us," he said slowly. Vaughn took a sharp breath, but neither looked to him.
"About what?" Sydney asked, pushing past her own apprehension over the possibility of him lying.
"The journal. He still has it," Weiss finished, looking down to the floor. Betrayal unknown to the one being betrayed was one thing; but to stand before him and do so was horrible, and he had just done it for a second time.
Sydney, now armed with the heart of the argument, turned her flaming gaze to Vaughn He still sat perched on the edge of his desk, a hand resting over his chest. She took two small, measured steps in his direction and crossed her arms. Her breath was even, her voice matching as she spoke; the tip to a deeper, angrier iceberg under the surface.
"You said you threw it away."
"Listen, Syd, it was...was the only thing I had left of his," he replied slowly, thinking through what he was going to say before speaking. "I did. But later that night, I – "
"You retrieved it."
"Yeah."
"You're not telling me something," she said, narrowing her eyes. The cause of the arguement remained buried, contained in whatever he wasn't telling her. She turned to Weiss, but it was clear by his body language, his downcast eyes, hunched shoulders, that her request for more information would be denied by the agent, the weight of his actions already pressing down on him. She would learn only from Vaughn telling her himself.
"Sydney," he breathed, rubbing his face, his consciousness a floundering fish out of water. Weiss alone he could handle, but the two of them tag teaming against him was more than he could take at the moment.
"I can get past that you lied to me – I'm sure you had reason to," she said sternly, "and I can deal with you keeping things from me. But what I cannot take is you sitting there and telling me its nothing when I ask you what is going on."
The words hung in the air like a white elephant sitting in the corner, the meaning of them bearing down on the three with bone-crushing weight.
"It would be much easier if we knew where where to fine this disk, or whatever it is," Vaughn said softly.
And explosion occurred, there, in that office.
"Are you insane?" Sydney screamed, hands coming up to push against his shoulders. Surprised, he fell back and off the side of the desk, catching himself with a hand before he could fall completely to the floor. "Yes," she continued, voice rivaling Weiss and Vaughn's deep ones from before, "why don't we do that? Why don't we go in there, find out the location, and let that be that?" She paused, taking a breath. "Don't forget about the fact that we know nothing about the procedure, or what it could do to you, or, God forbid, Sloane found out through a leak what we know!"
"Now wait a second – "
"Don't you dare!" Sydney cut the now standing Vaughn off, a shaking finger pointing at him, sharp and accusing. "How could you even begin to think about this?"
"How could I? How could I?" he shouted, moving so close, Weiss was sure he'd jab himself in the chest with her finger. "There is something in my head everyone wants! Something, and I don't know what, that is so important my own father did something to me to keep it safe. Yes, it was put there for a reason, but I'm sure he was planning to come and get it out. Too bad your mother killed him before he had the chance!
"So don't come in here all high and mighty, telling me I'm crazy for thinking this. I am crazy, and this is the reason why. I just came back from China, where, after finding pictures of you on the table narrowly escaping capture, I was injected with something. Yes, this is important, but damn it, it's either I take it out and share or die, both of which are looking mighty appealing at the moment!"
He nearly toppled over the searching aide as he stormed out of the office, leaving a stunned Sydney in his wake.
"Oh God, Weiss," she breathed, a hand covering her mouth, "what has this done to him?"
//
Jack noticed the empty seat immediately, but attributed it to the new prisoner sequestered in Medical Services and wrote it off. He was slightly surprised when Weiss entered, along with Sydney; his opinion of the analyst turned feild support wasn't high, and he doubted his interrogation skills more so than Vaughn's. The pair sat without a word, faces drawn and worried, silently radiating their uneasiness with something.
With the booming voices echoing out over the workstations in the JTF's main area, Jack had to put little thought into the cause of their drawn expressions.
While he had yet to hear debrief on the mission to China, it could be said things went poorly when it came to their primary objective. While a prisoner had been brought in to give more information on the depth of Sloane and possiblities as to Irina's plan, the grandeur in which they'd exited the country had left more questions than answers, and more covers to be created than forgotten.
He gave Sydney a slightly reassuring look, the sight of his daughter sad causing his protective side to kick in. She simply glanced back, brown eyes dark and clouded. He frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but Kendall's entrance kept him from speaking, his desire to keep things concerning his daughter's welfare from the tightly wound man shutting his mouth.
The director took a look around. "Where is Agent Vaughn?"
"I assumed he was down with the prisoner from China," Jack spoke up. "He's not?"
"Never arrived," Kendall retorted, noticing Weiss and Sydney sitting patiently. "Agents?"
"We are unaware of Vaughn's location as well," Weiss said almost robotically. Kendall shut his eyes and rubbed his head, wondering what he'd done in a past life to deserve this.
"Fine." He moved to the head of the room and clicked on the projector, the hum acting as white noise. "We've received information on Sloane's next move, and at this point, well, we have to treat everything as a lead despite our information on Hong Kong."
Weiss blushed a bit, but kept silent.
"We have reason to believe Sloane has hired this man." Click. "Joseph Bianchi, known securities hacker operating out of Rome, Italy." Click, a 2 year old picture of Bianchi appeared on the screen. "Sources saw them meeting here." Click, a picture of Bianchi seated at the patio café across from Sloane, looking through a folder. "Sloane is sending him after a server farm in Kuala Lumpur in hopes of gaining his own intel on our common target. It seems as if Derevko is reluctant to share information with her partner."
"She was telling the truth," Sydney breathed as an afterthought. Kendall paused and turned to her, wondering now how these people became agents.
"Excuse me, Agent Bristow?"
"In Russia," she spoke up, voice shaky not from the matter at hand, but the argument five minutes before. "She said she wasn't working against me, that she was on my side."
"On your side?" Jack mused, almost sarcastic.
"If she's not sharing information with Sloane, she has to be working for either herself or us," Sydney said. Kendall pondered that.
"Agent Bristow, do you realize that Derevko could have tipped Sloane off to all of this?" he asked. "She is the only one who seemed to have anything to gain, and we have confirmation that she has been collaborating with Sloane for the last three weeks."
"So why would she tell him, then keep things from him?" Sydney asked back.
"Control," Jack spoke up. "By telling Sloane, she not only distracts him from the hunt for Rambaldi, but controls what information he can and cannot have. I wouldn't be surprised if that server farm was hers."
"But that seems to serve a double purpose."
"Sloane is not a stupid man, Sydney. He has to have caught on to Irina's charade by now, and he always has been a man who must come out in first place. She can sit idly by while he finds what she is looking for, then move in when it's most convenient." He frowned, amazed at his child's continuing naivety concerning her mother. "Don't misconstrue her actions to be those of support."
"In either case," Kendall sighed, "I'm sending Agents Dixon and Weiss to Kuala Lumpur to intercept Bianchi and download the pertinent information for analysis."
"I've been back for two days, I can – "
"Dixon and Weiss are more than qualified, Agent Bristow," Kendall interrupted.
"I'm not saying they're not, Director Kendall, just that I feel I'm being passed over," Sydney continued.
"This is far from the end, Sydney," Jack stepped in before Kendall had a change to insight another argument. "Save your strength."
"Hey," Weiss chimed. "She's been back longer than me."
The glare Jack sent the younger agent made Weiss swear never to speak up again, and he suddenly found the shiny tabletop extremely interesting.
"Agent Dixon, you'll be point. Agent Weiss, you'll be on backup. Go in, find Bianchi, get the information, and get out of there as quickly as possible. Intel will be analyzed back home. It is imperative that Sloane never finds out we were there," Kendall explained. The pair listened, eyes reading over specs on the screens before them.
"Fun," Weiss commented bravely.
That seemed to sum up everything nicely.
//
"Madrid."
Irina looked up from the documents she was reading over, her brown eyes curious yet analytical. Sark stood, bouncing a bit on his heels before her, impeccably dressed as always.
"Sark," she said, laying her hands on the table. "How many years have we known each other?"
"Several," he retorted immediately. "Why?"
"Do you believe you can lie to me?"
"No."
"Good. Now, where is he going?" she asked, returning her attention to the documents before her, reading through the Russia and sloppy English like a detective looking for a clue. Sark stayed silent. "If you do anything to deceive me, and thus, harm Sydney," she warned, "I will not hesitate to kill you, understand?"
"Perfectly."
But his voice wavered a bit as he replied.
"Anyway, it doesn't matter," she continued, collecting the sprawled pages up into one neat pile. "I've found it."
"You have?" Sark asked, surprised.
"Zuravlev might be a good business man, but horribly unorganized," she said, placing the papers back in their respective folder. "The search took me longer than I expected."
"And?"
"South Africa, Cape Town, to be exact," she answered, finally returning her attention to him.
"Are you certain?"
"Positive," she replied, "we leave in three days."
"What about the missing part? And what do you intend to do about Sloane?"
Irina frowned. One side of the equation she knew the answer to, the other troubled her to no end, the answer something she simply could not accept.
Her daughter was important to her, despite what her father believed, and intentionally harming her was the last thing she ever wished to do. And yet, she had known since that cold fall day over 20 years ago that this was all to happen, that this was the path that had to be walked upon, and nothing could change that. Fate, it seemed, had other plans drafted for her. Sending the one she inevitably must break to the side of her only child a twist of fate. How it pained her, knowing what must occur.
But it had to be done.
Resolved, praying her daughter would forgive her, she knew what she had to do.
"When Sloane finishes with his lead, he will know."
"And Agent Vaughn?"
"We just have to make sure he finds his way to Cape Town."
//
He slid the metal chair across the small, white room, the noise of metal scrapping against tile causing the injured man to wince. The room smelled of disinfectant and sweat, the white walls giving more power to the low wattage bulb in the room, no doubt keeping the prisoner awake. An old yet still useful tactic; keeping the room so bright as to inhibit sleep, letting exhaustion loosen the prisoner's lips before drugs were considered.
"You're awake," the prisoner said, the first words uttered since passing the threshold. Michael Vaughn chuckled, sat in the chair, and leaned forward. His emerald green eyes usually so clear and determined appeared foggy, cynical, exhausted.
"Surprised?"
"Extremely," the man shot back on the coattails of Vaughn's question. "I didn't see you around – are you that unconcerned?"
"I expect you'll tell me," Vaughn replied, grinning. He suspected he should be angry, upset, frustrated. Asleep. But he was grinning, happy, euphoric. Confused. Segmented.
"What makes you think that?"
"You speak very good English," he switched tracks, shrugging off his suit coat.
"You will not confuse me easily," his subject replied, head rolling to stare at the ceiling. With his wounds recently bandaged, there was little he could do to occupy himself; even with this American asking thing of him, he found himself bored, restless, wishing he could leave and return home.
But cooperating to the point of being released meant becoming a traitor, a name that would mean the end of his livelihood.
"It was a compliment," he replied simply, shrugging to intensify his nonchalant manner. American cowboy.
"I attended college in your country before returning to China."
"So what are you doing in the hired help business?"
"Hard times call for hard choices, Agent Vaughn," he said, rolling his head back to watch the reaction of the man's name being used. There was little movement, his eyes and pupils giving away his momentary surprise. Vaughn sighed, annoyed, and stood, finding the wall opposite the man most interesting. It was foolish of him to come back here, but it was the only place he could think of going where no one would bother him.
A phrase ran through his head.
Sharp pain in the back of his head punctuated the end of it, a warning to never say it aloud. And when he'd picked up the journal that night after waking up, he'd no intention of finding the cue; memorizing it only in the rare case it would be needed. Surely, after all these years, no one would be remotely interested in this computer, or information on how to operate it, and the journal had returned to not his junk drawer, but his desk drawer as a personal reminder of his father and purpose in life.
"Just like the one Agent Cho had to make," the man remarked slowly, drawing Vaughn's attention as if pulling him along with a string.
"And which one was that?" Vaughn asked tersely, "the one where she betrayed her country, or where she betrayed me?"
The man was silent for a moment, measuring his words carefully. "You asked yourself that question once, did you not? And in the end, what did you decide?"
He had a point.
"You must know Apple well, then," he deduced. For a while, between the ages of four and five, Michael Vaughn wanted to be a police officer, and the few interrogations he'd done in his life were the closest he'd ever gotten. "To know something like that."
"I had been working for her six years," the man answered, "she had betrayed you to save her country, a country which gave her no honor for doing so. It was then she decided to betray them in turn, to make up for past mistakes, and hired the four of us."
Lead him, she had ordered him, make him think one thing. Use him for information instead of the other way around.
"Who contracted you for this op?"
"Awfully direct, now aren't we?"
Back still to the man, he leaned against the counter, knuckles white, skin cold as he pushed back nausea again. He didn't remember eating anything while in China, and what he had eaten wasn't enough to make him sick. Maybe you should have gotten checked out. Being sick would land him in a bed, like the other occupant of the room, and there he'd be even less involved.
It came down to faith.
"The sooner you cooperate, the sooner you get out of here," came the standard line, page 294, section 3; proper negotiation techniques.
"Cooperation would mean death, and you know that."
The line rarely worked, which is why Vaughn found it's inclusion in the manual odd, placed there as the first thing you say once you've 'gotten a feel' for the prisoner. One time, he remembered, it had worked, back in the days of his youth when nothing he did deviated from the assigned path.
But standard lines were all he could remember right now.
He took a few more shaking breaths, deep, filling breaths that sent blood pumping right once again, and turned to face the man, hands still attached to the counter as if letting go would cause him to weaken. Amazing, what powers humans believed inanimate objects to possess.
"I do. But it doesn't look like you have many options right now," he remarked, sarcastic.
"I will, some day. And I live for tomorrow," the man smiled, genuinely. Vaughn cursed under his breath. All he wanted was a name! Sloane's name, Derevko's name! Just say it, he found himself begging of the man. Just say it so I can get out of here and sleep, return home knowing the names of those hunting me down for something I didn't do and never wanted any part of!
Certainty. He wanted certainty. No more ambiguities or vague clues.
"Just tell me who hired her, and you, and we can let you out of here."
"You're looking a little pale, Agent Vaughn," the man said instead, cutting in on part of Vaughn's statement. The calm feeling had left him, the one that had allowed him to sleep and deal with things. The weight of the world was slowly crashing down on him, and he longed for that previous sensation.
"I'm fine," he bit out.
"I can help you," his prisoner whispered, lowering his voice so it could barely be heard over the hum of the lighting above. Vaughn took a step forward, intrigued, giving the guard outside the door a worried glance. The door was locked so the prisoner couldn't escape.
It also meant he couldn't get out.
Straining himself, the prisoner sat up on the gurney and rolled his neck, sighing with each crack of stiffened bones. He looked no worse for wear, smudges of dirt from the Kowloon alleyway in trace amounts around his eyes the only clue he had been in a different country hours beforehand. Neck looser, he let his hands fall unthreateningly to his lap as Vaughn re-took his seat next to the bed.
"A name," Vaughn said, "that's all I need."
"You expect Cho to have told me."
"You said yourself you'd been working with her for years," Vaughn tried, rubbing his forehead.
"I never knew a name," the man confessed, causing Vaughn to look up at him through fine lashes. "Just what he wanted."
"What?"
"He needs a location," the man said, leaning forward. "Do you know it?"
Vaughn was taken back, not by the man's proximity, but by the implication that he knew what was being discussed.
"Know what?" Vaughn asked, confused. The man clicked his tongue and whistled, leaning back.
"She was right, you are clueless," he said cryptically, "which is good. I hope you remain so, for your sake."
There was a flurry of movement from the man. Procedure for an injured prisoner was a quick run through a metal detector before being rushed to Medical Services, the prisoner's life taking precedence over searching for materials he wouldn't be able to use in his injured state. His hands moved almost faster than light; Vaughn jumped up out of the chair and backed into the counter, wincing as the metal edge dug into his back.
Why weren't you watching his hands?
The guard outside chatted with the next on duty.
He had timed it! Watching guard cycles all day kept his mind occupied through the numbing boredom. And these guards were no professionals – simply trained men standing outside a door. Chatting seemed to be a favored activity of theirs.
Distracted by the metal edging, Vaughn moved only too late to avoid the prisoner. Shoved into the counter by a man with reflexes rivalling his own, he found himself trapped – unable to move – by a man he'd thought lame a minute before.
"I wish it had been you who'd shot me," the prisoner growled, "and not your friend. Now there are two I must take vengeance on."
A threat against his own life was one thing, but to threaten his friend, his best friend, was something he would not take. He grabbed the man's upper arms, pulling at them to gain some leyway between the cabinets and the hands holding his shoulders steady against them, but only managed a few inches. His knee bent, foot ready to kick out -
Then he felt it.
A sharp prick in the side of his neck that drown out all strength to fight back. His eyes became almost lazy, hanging half closed, all apprehension melting away. The guards ran for the door, keys pulled from pockets, jinggling in the rush to open the door. His vision started to sway, and he moved like a drunkard, swinging his arms up in wide circles in a pathedic attempt to defend himself.
Then the prisoner swung the chair at his head.
