A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks for being so patient in waiting for the new chapter. This one is dedicated to Michelle who never fails to amuse me with her e-mails. Yes, it most definitely *is* all about the Vaughn. :D
Chapter 35: "A Preemptive Strike"
After staring at the copies of the pictures that Sloane now had in his possession, it took a few minutes for Sydney's breathing to return to a semi-normal state. Once it did, however, she grabbed her cellphone again and dialed Vaughn's number, growing more frantic and anguished with each shrill, unanswered ring. With each successive call, she got his voice mail, hung up, and re-dialed again, only to be further taunted by the realization that he wasn't going to answer his phone -- that maybe he *couldn't* answer his phone.
After a half hour of equally futile attempts to reach Vaughn, Sydney was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. She briefly considered calling her father, but he was in Singapore and she knew that there was nothing that he could do to help her. If she couldn't reach Vaughn from three thousand miles away, her father certainly wouldn't be able to reach him from half a world away. Besides, she knew that her father would merely attempt to calm her down and tell her not to worry, and that was absolutely the last thing she wanted or needed to hear right now. Moreover, she didn't want to have to explain to him how she and Vaughn had been so careless as to have been caught with each other in the first place.
She paced back and forth in front of her bed, trying to figure out what to do until it occurred to her that there was only one person who truly knew what was going on with Vaughn.
She barely noticed the scenery a few minutes later as she sped along the familiar route to the Credit Dauphine building. She knew that going to SD-6 headquarters right now might be a suicidal mistake, but she didn't care. If Sloane knew about her and Vaughn, he had probably already made some kind of attempt on Vaughn's life, and if that monster had taken Vaughn away from her, then she didn't have anything to lose by confronting him now.
She was already visualizing all of the ways that she could kill Sloane with her bare hands when she realized that she needed to calm down and think about the situation rationally. There was a chance -- albeit, a slight one -- that Sloane didn't have anything to do with her inability to reach Vaughn. And if, by some chance, Vaughn was unhurt and unharmed, she needed to do whatever it took to persuade Sloane to keep it that way. So as she entered SD-6, she breathed in deeply to steady her nerves, knowing that she was going to have to give the performance of her life if she was going to make it back out of the building alive and perhaps spare Vaughn's life as well.
She headed down the hallway to Sloane's office, unsurprised to find him still there even though the building was mostly deserted. When he looked up saw her, he pressed the button to let her into his office, looking remarkably unsurprised that she had come to pay him a visit.
"Sydney," he cooly acknowledged, "I imagined that you'd be back this evening."
"So now you know that I've been seeing someone," she blurted out, foregoing a greeting as she cut straight to the chase. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you were having me followed."
"Sydney, it's standard protocol for security section to conduct surveillance on our agents from time to time. You should know that by now," Sloane reproached. "It's certainly regrettable that I had to resort to those measures, but I had a feeling that you were being less than truthful when I asked you if you were seeing someone."
"Can you blame me?" she mirthlessly laughed. "Do I need to remind you what you did to the last man that I loved?"
"Interesting," he smiled, choosing to ignore her question to him. "Are you saying that you love Michael Vaughn?"
Sydney's blood began to boil the minute that she heard Vaughn's name cross Sloane's lips, and she suddenly realized that she had never wanted to kill anyone more than she wanted to kill him at that very moment. Instead, she clenched her hands into tight fists and attempted to remain calm, reminding herself of what was at stake.
"Yes, I love him," she softly admitted. She told Sloane the truth, praying that some small part of his heart still functioned enough to prevent him from killing yet another man that she loved.
"How much do you know about Mr. Vaughn, Sydney?"
Sydney's eyes narrowed suspiciously in anticipation of where Sloane was getting ready to take their conversation. "What do you mean?"
"I mean how much do you really know about him? For instance, what does he do for a living?"
"He's an attorney, a junior partner at one of the firms downtown," she innocently replied, the lie slipping easily off of her tongue. "He graduated from Georgetown Law in 1994," she added, knowing that Sloane probably already knew enough information about Vaughn to appreciate the veracity of her statement.
"I see." He pushed his index fingers together and rested them underneath his chin as he thoughtfully mulled over her answer, "Have you ever been to his office?"
"No, I haven't. Why?"
"Does he ever discuss his work with you?"
"He's told me about a few of his cases, but truth be told, hearing about his work usually bores me. I don't know much about the ins and outs of corporate defense work -- nor do I want to," she smilingly admitted.
"And what have you told him about your job?"
"That I work for a bank, in the corporate finance department," she matter-of-factly stated. She stared at him for a few moments before replacing her blank expression with a look of wide-eyed indignation. "Wait, you don't think that I would -- ? I have never once uttered the name SD-6 or told Michael anything about what I really do. You can't possibly believe that I would do something like that again after . . . after what happened the last time."
"Anything is possible, Sydney."
"Not that. Not after what happened to Danny. I've accepted that I will *never* be able to share the truth about my job with anyone outside the walls of this building. I assure you of that, sir."
Sloane carefully scrutinized Sydney, trying to decide whether he believed her. After a long moment, he finally tore his gaze away and nodded at her. "Actually, I do believe you, Sydney. I know how much you value the truth in your personal life, but I also know that you've come to understand that sometimes the truth must be sacrificed in the service of one's country."
"Of course, sir," she vigorously nodded her agreement.
"Apparently, that's a lesson that Mr. Vaughn has learned as well."
"What do you mean by that?" she asked, feigning confusion.
"Sydney, I hate to be the one to break this news to you," Sloane began, his voice dripping with false sincerity, "but Michael Vaughn does not work for a law firm. He's a senior officer at the CIA."
"What?" Sydney mustered as much shock as she could as she sank down into one of the chairs in front of Sloane's desk and actively avoided the urge to vomit as he rose from his own chair and walked around his desk to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. "That's impossible."
"I'm afraid not, Sydney. Once we learned of Mr. Vaughn's identity, we ran a background check and discovered that his employer is listed as the Department of State."
"Well, the Department of State isn't the CIA," she shook her head.
"No, it's not, but the agency typically uses the Departments of State, Agriculture, the Interior, and so forth, as covers for their agents. As we did more checking, we learned that Agent Vaughn completed his clandestine service training in December of 1994."
"But I've seen the pictures of his graduation from Georgetown," she argued.
"Not everything that Agent Vaughn has told you has been a lie. He did actually go to law school, but immediately after his graduation, he began CST. The CIA has been his only employer ever since then. I'm sorry that he lied to you."
"Well maybe he did, but it's not as if I've exactly been truthful with him," she rationalized. "Besides, there are worse lies that he could have told me. I mean, if he's CIA, there's no reason why I have to lie to him about who I'm really working for, right?" she innocently asked. She bit back the urge to laugh at the brief look of horror that flashed across Sloane's face.
"I doubt that Agent Vaughn's clearance is high enough for him to be aware of our division, Sydney. He's a ranking officer, but only the most senior officers have knowledge of the agency's black ops divisions. If you were actually to continue seeing Agent Vaughn, you still wouldn't be able to tell him anything about SD-6."
Sydney's heart quickly jumped at Sloane's words. If she were to *continue* to see Vaughn. Did that mean that he was still alive? That Sloane hadn't yet taken steps to remove him as a threat to SD-6? She cautiously dared to let herself hope for the best while maintaining her innocent facade.
"Of course, sir. You're right. I can't tell Michael anything."
"Sydney, I have to say that I'm somewhat surprised that you're even considering the possibility of remaining involved with Agent Vaughn," Sloane said, giving her a slightly disapproving look. "I understand that you may be infatuated with him, but I should remind you that he's been deceiving you for the entire length of time that you've been together."
"And I've been deceiving him too," Sydney gently reminded him.
"Yes, of course," Sloane acknowledged, "but given your parents' marriage, considering the way that your mother deceived your father for so many years, I would imagine that the last thing you'd ever want was to find yourself in a similar type of relationship."
"Well no," she admitted, "but I'm not spying on Michael, and he's obviously not spying on me if he's not even aware of SD-6's existence. And besides, there's no reason for either of us to spy on the other, because we're working for the same side, right?"
"Yes. Yes, of course, you are," Sloane quickly replied. "And now that you mention it, there actually might be certain advantages to your being involved with Agent Vaughn," he speculated, his mind already entertaining the possibility that perhaps Sydney's relationship with Michael Vaughn could provide him with a means of keeping tabs on the CIA's operations.
"Yes, actually the more that I think about it, this could be a good thing, assuming, of course, that you don't make the mistake of revealing too much to him."
"I wouldn't dream of it, sir," she assured him. "As far as I'm concerned, everything that I know pertaining to SD-6 is strictly classified."
"Good. Discretion is of the utmost importance here," Sloane cautioned her.
"Absolutely, sir," she nodded. "Now that we understand each other, I'm glad that we had this conversation," she smiled as she rose from her chair and turned to leave.
"I am too, but Sydney?"
"Yes?" she asked as she turned around in his doorway.
"I do sincerely hope that in the future, you'll make more of an attempt to be honest with me. I understand your reluctance to discuss your private life with me, but your lack of honesty could have had devastating consequences had we not discussed the situation. *Tragic* consequences," he underscored.
The subtle hint of menace in his voice threw Sydney for a loop and brought reality crashing back down on her. She suddenly realized that even if Vaughn was safe for the moment, there was no guarantee that he would remain that way until the Alliance was toppled.
"I'll make every effort to keep you informed about my personal life in the future," she lied, trying not to choke on the words as she placated him.
"See to it that you do. Goodnight, Sydney."
Sloane watched as Sydney walked away from his office and he evaluated a change in strategy. He had gleaned much insight during his short conversation with Sydney and their chat had been most illuminating. Sydney's attempts to downplay Michael Vaughn's duplicity were proof that she was in love with him, and he knew from personal experience that there was almost nothing that a woman wouldn't do for the man she loved. So he was fully prepared to take advantage of this unexpectedly fortuitous development. He knew that he needed a means to keep Sydney in line and he now had the perfect weapon at his disposal.
He was already celebrating his good luck as he picked up his phone, dialed a number and waited impatiently for the recipient of his call to answer.
"Agent Bridges, this is Director Sloane. I want you to abort your current operation . . . Yes, I'm aware of that, but my plans have changed. Michael Vaughn is not to be harmed, are we clear on that? No, I don't. What exactly do you mean that it's too late?"
*****
As Sydney drove away from the Credit Dauphine building, she soon realized that she felt more sick and anxious now than she did when she arrived. Her initial optimism that Sloane hadn't killed Vaughn began to vanish as she remembered that Sloane was a much more skilled liar than she was. What if he had merely been humoring her in an attempt to make her believe that Vaughn was safe? Or what if he was simply playing with her emotions? And even if he he now had no intention of hurting Vaughn, the mere fact that he knew about their relationship threatened to destroy all the plans for the takedown of the Alliance. Suddenly, the two weeks remaining until the takedown seemed like an eternity, and the uncertainty of what would happen in the meantime was beginning to eat away at her.
She pulled over to the side of the road, picked up her phone and dialed Vaughn's number, pounding her steering wheel in frustration when she got his voice mail yet again. She tried to call him a few more times and grew increasingly distressed at her inability to reach him. After the seventh attempt, she peeled back out into traffic and headed for the ops center at breakneck speed.
Once she arrived, she hurried down the hallway and strode into the rotunda, making a beeline for Weiss's desk. He was mid-conversation on the phone when he looked up and saw the serious expression on Sydney's face.
"Hey, Jennings, I'm going to have to get back to you later, okay? Yeah yeah, I'll call you back in an hour or so. Alright." He hung up the phone and quickly stood up, placing a gentle hand on Sydney's forearm. "Sydney, what's wrong?"
"It's Vaughn," she said in a low, urgent whisper, trying not to draw the attention of the agents around them.
"What about Vaughn?"
"Sloane knows about him. He knows about our relationship."
"What?!" Weiss exclaimed before lowering his voice. "What do you mean, he knows? What does he know? How did he find out?"
"He was having me followed," Sydney explained. "He has pictures of the two of us together."
"How could he have gotten a hold of pictures of the two of you together? Where were you? Was the warehouse compromised?" Weiss asked, his questions tumbling out one after the other.
"No, we were at the pier."
"What?! How could the two of you be so stupid when you know that you're not supposed to be seen in public together."
"We've had tons of meets in public, Weiss. You know that," Sydney defensively responded as her voice rose in anger. The last thing she needed right now was a lecture about her and Vaughn's inappropriate behavior. "Car washes, cafŽs, driving ranges, we've met in public a thousand times and nothing bad has ever happened until now. And it's not like we intended to meet each other; we ran into each other by accident."
"Then both of you should have kept walking and pretended that you didn't know each other," Weiss admonished as Sydney stared back at him in anger.
"Don't you dare lecture me, Weiss," she hissed. "That is the last thing that I need right now."
Weiss could see the anger in her eyes quickly give way to fear and he was instantly filled with regret and compassion for her. "Hey, you're right, he said apologetically. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you. I'm just -- I'm freaking out right now," he admitted.
"Yeah, me too," Sydney said softly. "I'm sorry, Weiss. I didn't mean to be a bitch. I'm just really scared, and I came to ask you if you've heard from Vaughn."
"No. He didn't call you when he got to D.C.?" Weiss asked with surprise.
"No, and I've been trying to call him for the past two and a half hours. He's not answering his phone."
"Mike never turns his phone off," Weiss frowned, unknowingly confirming Sydney's worst fears.
"I know. Can't you -- is there any way that you can call Langley and find out whether he's been in tough with someone there? Maybe someone has seen him or knows where he is," she hopefully suggested.
"Yeah, good idea," Weiss mumbled as he pressed a button on his phone. "Yes, this is Agent Eric Weiss in L.A., Voice ID number Tango Delta 3758. I need to speak with Agent Thomas Carter. Is he available? Thanks." Sydney anxiously stared at Weiss as he ran his fingers through his hair and let out a shaky breath.
"Tommy, hey. It's Eric Weiss. Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Yeah, I *am* surprised to find you there so late. Listen, you haven't by any chance heard from Mike Vaughn yet, have you? No?" he frowned. "Yeah, I know he wasn't scheduled to be in the office until tomorrow, but I just thought that maybe he might have checked in or called you to go out for drinks or something. Huh? No. No, I'm pretty sure that he's not out with a woman right now," Weiss weakly laughed as he shot Sydney an apologetic look.
"Okay, yeah. Well, if you hear from him, can you ask him to call me or Mountaineer immediately. Yeah, Mountaineer, like the team from West Virginia. Yes, he'll know what that means," Weiss sighed. "Alright, thanks man. You too. Bye."
Weiss hung up the phone and turned to Sydney. "Listen, Vaughn hasn't checked in with anyone at Langley yet, and no one's expecting to see him until tomorrow morning. But that doesn't necessarily mean that -- "
"Yes it does," Sydney cut him off. "Sloane knows and Vaughn's not answering his cellphone. Something is wrong; I can feel it. I'm going back to find out what Sloane did to him," she declared as she whipped around to head back in the direction of the parking garage. She spun back around when Weiss grabbed her forearm.
"What?" she impatiently asked.
"Sydney, you can't just go talk to Sloane! And what do you mean that you're going *back* there? Sydney, please, please tell me that you did not confront Sloane before you came here."
Weiss sighed in exasperation when she answered him by stubbornly jutting out her chin.
"Are you crazy, Sydney? He could have taken you into custody or killed you, and how would I ever explain that to Vaughn?"
"How would you explain that to Vaughn?" she asked, her voice growing louder with each increasingly hysterical syllable. "Weiss, there many not be anything to explain to him. He could be *dead* right now," she said almost choking on the word.
"Or, his phone could simply be dead or maybe he forgot to take it with him wherever he went. Sydney, look, I know that neither of those possibilities seems especially likely, but we can't allow ourselves to assume the worst and we can't afford to be reckless either. Look, don't head off to SD-6 right now. Stay here with me while I call his mom's house, okay?"
"Okay," she relented. "Um, Vaughn said that Elise was going to pick him up from the airport and then they were going to go dinner," she absently remembered.
"Then he's probably with her right now," Weiss said with a reassuring smile. Just as he turned to call Elise, his phone rang.
"Hello? Tommy. Hi again. Did you hear from Mike?" His hopeful expression matched Sydney's before it gave way to a panicked frown. "You what? When? Is there confirmation of that?"
As soon as Sydney heard the word "confirmation," she felt as if she had been punched in the gut and she sank down into the chair next to Eric's desk.
"Alright, just keep me updated. Call me the minute you find out anything else. Yeah, thanks."
Eric hung up the phone and glanced over at Sydney, feeling a dull ache inside his chest when he saw the defeated and anguished expression on her face.
"Sydney?" he gently asked. When she didn't respond, he knelt in front of her and placed his hand on her knee and she looked back at him with tear-filled eyes.
"Sydney, there's been an accident," he nervously began. "The agent that I spoke to, Agent Carter, is a friend of mine and Michael's, and he said that the agency just received word about a car accident near Great Falls." Weiss paused for a moment and swallowed hard, not even sure that Sydney was hearing his words given her current state. "There's no definitive word yet, but the car was registered to Elise."
When a look of pained shock briefly registered in Sydney's eyes, Weiss was sure that she had heard him, and he regretfully began to wish that she hadn't.
*****
The minute that Vaughn awoke, the first thing that he became conscious of was the intense, throbbing pain in his head, which felt as if someone was rhythmically pounding him in the temples with a sledgehammer. He groaned and slowly opened his eyes, squinting as they adjusted to the dim orange light filling the room. When he stared up at the popcorn ceiling, he fuzzily realized that he had no idea where he was and that nothing about the room seemed familiar. Despite his vague discomfort about that fact, he was about to close his eyes again and give into sleep's seductive temptation again when he sensed the presence of another person in the room. He abruptly sat up in the bed and groaned once again as his head throbbed and seemingly every muscle in his body screamed in protest.
"Perhaps you should lie back down," suggested a voice from the corner of the room.
"Now you tell me," Vaughn groggily muttered as he rubbed the tense muscles in the back of his neck. "What are you doing here, Jack? And where the hell are we?"
"Where we are is unimportant right now," Jack responded as he rose from his chair and peaked through the side of the thick navy curtains in the bedroom window.
Vaughn arched a questioning eyebrow at Jack. "Okay. And you're here because . . .?"
"What's the last thing you remember before waking up?" Jack asked, ignoring his question.
"Uh, I don't know," Vaughn murmured, rubbing his forehead and wincing from the pain it caused. "I remember having dinner with my mom and driving home," he said after thinking about it for a few moments.
"You and your mother were involved in an accident on the way home. Do you have any recollection of that?" Jack anxiously asked.
"An accident? No. But I guess that would explain why I feel like sh*t right now, huh?" he asked, making Jack smile slightly. "So, um, how bad was this -- wait a minute, where's my mom?" he frantically asked. "Is she okay?"
"Vaughn, calm down. Your mother is fine. She's resting comfortably in the next room. She barely had a scratch on her. She's fine," Jack repeated.
Vaughn was momentarily pacified by Jack's assurances until he shook his head in disbelief. "No, if she were fine, she'd be in here right now, fussing and hovering over me. I know my mother, Jack, and she wouldn't be resting comfortably while I was hurt. So what are you not telling me?" he suspiciously asked.
"Vaughn, she's fine. Initially, she was understandably agitated and concerned about your condition, but I managed to calm her down."
"And how did you do that?" Vaughn asked, his suspicion growing when he noticed Jack avoiding his gaze.
"I gave her a mild sedative."
"You what?! You drugged my mother?" Vaughn incredulously asked.
"I did not drug her," Jack sighed, as if he was explaining himself to a child. "I merely gave her something to calm her nerves and help her rest. Besides, I needed to find a way to keep her from hovering over you long enough so that you and I could talk when you woke up," Jack said as he dragged his chair from the corner of the room over to the bed.
"Talk about what?" Vaughn nervously queried.
"About the accident. About why you're here."
"What about the accident? And how did *you* find out about the accident? Sydney said that you were supposed to be in Singapore this week."
"I was. I am. The agency is taking care of my cover. And I didn't *find out* about the accident. I staged it."
Vaughn simply stared at Jack, too stunned to respond to his confession.
"The accident was no accident, Vaughn. It was staged to fake your death -- and your mother's."
"What? Why?"
"Because four days ago, Sloane became aware of your identity and your relationship with Sydney."
Vaughn immediately felt all of the blood drain from his face and bent his head forward in a futile effort to prevent the dizziness that was taking a hold of his body in reaction to Jack's news. "How is that even poss -- "
"Sloane was having Sydney followed for an undetermined length of time," Jack explained. "I'm not sure if she told you or not, but in recent months, Sloane has taken an increased interest in her personal life. Obviously, she lied to him to hide her relationship with you, but that wasn't enough to quell Arvin's suspicions, and he assigned an agent to keep tabs on her."
"And you knew about this the whole time, but didn't tell her?"
"I became aware of the situation by accident a few weeks ago. One night, as I was leaving Sydney's apartment, I noticed a suspicious car sitting at the end of her block. I recognized the man inside as Agent Sean Bridges. He's a fairly low level agent at SD-6, and I'm sure that Arvin bought his cooperation by tempting him with the possibility of advancing through the agency's ranks on a fast track.
"Anyway, I knew that I couldn't ask SD-6 or the CIA to investigate why Bridges was following Sydney, so I hired a detective to track his movements. Last Friday, my guy took pictures of Bridges as he was taking pictures of you and Sydney at the Santa Monica pier."
"Sh*t." Vaughn rubbed his eyes as the enormity of the situation hit him. If Sydney had been followed for the last few weeks, who knew how much this Agent Bridges -- and by extension, Sloane -- had learned about their relationship in that time.
"Jack," he began in a low voice, trying not to let the older man see how panicked he was inside, "where is Sydney now? Is she -- "
"Sydney's fine. She was at the ops center with Weiss a couple of hours earlier, but I instructed him to take her to a safe house for the night. He's taking care of her, Vaughn," Jack assured him.
"He and what army?" Vaughn cried. "And what makes you think that she's safe from Sloane? If he knows about us, there's no telling what else he knows. What if he's found out that she's working for the CIA?"
"I'm not sure what Sloane knows right now," Jack acknowledged, "but I don't think that Sydney's in any danger at the moment. For one thing, Weiss said that she confronted Sloane earlier this evening, when she became aware that he had evidence of her relationship with you."
"She went to SD-6? Is she crazy? Why would she do something like that?"
"I don't know and I couldn't begin to tell you, but all that matters is that she made it out of there safely, and for the time being, I don't believe that Arvin has any intention of harming her."
"How can you say that, Jack?" Vaughn distrustfully asked.
"Because all of his actions so far have indicated a desire to protect Sydney to some extent. Sloane has kept both SD-6 and Alliance security sections out of the loop thus far. The fact that Sloane would ask Agent Bridges to keep tabs on Sydney as opposed to alerting Security Section suggests that he's reluctant to reveal his suspicions about her to the Alliance."
"Why would that be the case?"
"I'm not sure," Jack admitted, "but Sloane has always had an odd fascination with Sydney -- recruiting her into SD-6 behind my back, giving her extravagant gifts when she was young, 'filling in' for me as he puts it when I wasn't a presence in Sydney's life. He's always been so inexplicably interested in her and her life that I don't think she's in any danger from him -- yet."
"Yet?"
"Well, I certainly don't think that it's out of the realm of possibility that at some point, Sloane may become a threat to Sydney, but if the destruction of SD-6 takes place as scheduled, that shouldn't become an issue."
"Do you really think that things can go forward as planned?" Vaughn wondered.
"They have to, Vaughn. We certainly can't push the plans up, because as you know, not all the pieces are in place yet. And even if we could move the date up, I wouldn't want to have to be the one to explain to Director Woolsy why that's necessary. Would you?" he pointedly asked.
"No," Vaughn muttered. He knew he'd be out of a job if the CIA's director knew that he had almost singlehandedly jeopardized a multi-national, joint intelligence agency effort to topple the Alliance. "But if you can't explain that to him, how did you explain why it was necessary to fake my death?"
"Given how intimately involved you've been in coordinating the attack plans, I convinced Woolsy and Deputy Director Butler that it was a smart preventative measure to put you underground for a while. After they considered your relationship with Sydney and the problems that could arise if Sloane found out about it, they agreed with me."
"They know about me and Sydney?" Vaughn worriedly asked.
"Well, it's not as if the two of you have been adept at hiding your feelings for each other," Jack scoffed. "And when I spoke with them about my plan, I confirmed what's been whispered about for more than a year. Of course, I didn't tell them that the two of you were foolish enough to be caught together, and I have no intention of letting them find out that Sloane actually *is* aware of your relationship. But it was necessary for me to tell them some semblance of the truth in order to get the authorization to fake your death."
"Jack, this sounds like a bad movie," Vaughn irritably sighed as he gingerly stood up from the bed. He paused for a moment to let his aching muscles adjust to his new position and walked over to the mirror on the wall. He was shocked to see his face covered in angry reddish-purple bruises.
"Damn. I look like hell."
"I never imagined you as the vain type," Jack bemusedly remarked before Vaughn turned around and fixed him with a serious look.
"So has Sloane put a hit out on me?" he apprehensively asked.
"Not that I'm aware of, although I doubt that he'd tell me if he had. But I figured that rather than wait for him to make his next move, it would be smarter to take that option off of the table. Obviously, he can't kill a man who's already dead."
"Won't it seem a little convenient that I 'died' right after he found out about me?"
"Perhaps. But there are witnesses from Gianni's Ristorante who saw you and your mother drink two bottles of wine and won't be at all surprised that you lost control of your car given your level of intoxication."
Vaughn regarded Jack with a mixture of admiration and fear at his ability to spin a cover story. "It was a two car accident, though. Someone hit us. I remember that."
"According to the Virginia Department of Transportation and the highway patrol, it was a one car accident that claimed your life and your mother's."
"My mom," Vaughn murmured as the realization struck him. "What about her job?"
"The French minister of trade was briefed so he wouldn't make arrangements to replace your mother within the next three weeks or so, but he's the only person who's been apprised of what's going on. I didn't feel that it was safe to tell anyone else."
"So is there anything that you *haven't* taken care of?" Vaughn wryly asked.
"No. I'm nothing if not thorough. Ever since Sydney admitted to me that the two of you were involved with each other, I've had contingency plans in place in the even that it became necessary to place either or both of you out of Sloane's reach."
"Why?" Vaughn asked. "I mean, I understand why you'd do that for Sydney -- God knows that I've formulated my share of contingency plans in anticipation of the same kind of situation -- but why would you go to those lengths for me?"
"Because my daughter loves you, Vaughn," Jack matter-of-factly replied. "She already lost one man she loved to Arvin Sloane, and I swore that I wouldn't allow her to lose another one."
"Well, I'm not really sure what to say, other than thank you, Jack."
"You're welcome."
The two men nodded at each other in appreciation of the roles that they each played in Sydney's life, and Jack was just about to speak again when he was interrupted by the sound of the room's door opening. He quickly drew his gun but relaxed when he realized that it was only Elise Vaughn standing in the doorway.
Elise took a long look at the gun before turning her attention to the man holding it.
"Well, it's nice to see you again, too, Jack."
TBC . . .
Chapter 35: "A Preemptive Strike"
After staring at the copies of the pictures that Sloane now had in his possession, it took a few minutes for Sydney's breathing to return to a semi-normal state. Once it did, however, she grabbed her cellphone again and dialed Vaughn's number, growing more frantic and anguished with each shrill, unanswered ring. With each successive call, she got his voice mail, hung up, and re-dialed again, only to be further taunted by the realization that he wasn't going to answer his phone -- that maybe he *couldn't* answer his phone.
After a half hour of equally futile attempts to reach Vaughn, Sydney was on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. She briefly considered calling her father, but he was in Singapore and she knew that there was nothing that he could do to help her. If she couldn't reach Vaughn from three thousand miles away, her father certainly wouldn't be able to reach him from half a world away. Besides, she knew that her father would merely attempt to calm her down and tell her not to worry, and that was absolutely the last thing she wanted or needed to hear right now. Moreover, she didn't want to have to explain to him how she and Vaughn had been so careless as to have been caught with each other in the first place.
She paced back and forth in front of her bed, trying to figure out what to do until it occurred to her that there was only one person who truly knew what was going on with Vaughn.
She barely noticed the scenery a few minutes later as she sped along the familiar route to the Credit Dauphine building. She knew that going to SD-6 headquarters right now might be a suicidal mistake, but she didn't care. If Sloane knew about her and Vaughn, he had probably already made some kind of attempt on Vaughn's life, and if that monster had taken Vaughn away from her, then she didn't have anything to lose by confronting him now.
She was already visualizing all of the ways that she could kill Sloane with her bare hands when she realized that she needed to calm down and think about the situation rationally. There was a chance -- albeit, a slight one -- that Sloane didn't have anything to do with her inability to reach Vaughn. And if, by some chance, Vaughn was unhurt and unharmed, she needed to do whatever it took to persuade Sloane to keep it that way. So as she entered SD-6, she breathed in deeply to steady her nerves, knowing that she was going to have to give the performance of her life if she was going to make it back out of the building alive and perhaps spare Vaughn's life as well.
She headed down the hallway to Sloane's office, unsurprised to find him still there even though the building was mostly deserted. When he looked up saw her, he pressed the button to let her into his office, looking remarkably unsurprised that she had come to pay him a visit.
"Sydney," he cooly acknowledged, "I imagined that you'd be back this evening."
"So now you know that I've been seeing someone," she blurted out, foregoing a greeting as she cut straight to the chase. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you were having me followed."
"Sydney, it's standard protocol for security section to conduct surveillance on our agents from time to time. You should know that by now," Sloane reproached. "It's certainly regrettable that I had to resort to those measures, but I had a feeling that you were being less than truthful when I asked you if you were seeing someone."
"Can you blame me?" she mirthlessly laughed. "Do I need to remind you what you did to the last man that I loved?"
"Interesting," he smiled, choosing to ignore her question to him. "Are you saying that you love Michael Vaughn?"
Sydney's blood began to boil the minute that she heard Vaughn's name cross Sloane's lips, and she suddenly realized that she had never wanted to kill anyone more than she wanted to kill him at that very moment. Instead, she clenched her hands into tight fists and attempted to remain calm, reminding herself of what was at stake.
"Yes, I love him," she softly admitted. She told Sloane the truth, praying that some small part of his heart still functioned enough to prevent him from killing yet another man that she loved.
"How much do you know about Mr. Vaughn, Sydney?"
Sydney's eyes narrowed suspiciously in anticipation of where Sloane was getting ready to take their conversation. "What do you mean?"
"I mean how much do you really know about him? For instance, what does he do for a living?"
"He's an attorney, a junior partner at one of the firms downtown," she innocently replied, the lie slipping easily off of her tongue. "He graduated from Georgetown Law in 1994," she added, knowing that Sloane probably already knew enough information about Vaughn to appreciate the veracity of her statement.
"I see." He pushed his index fingers together and rested them underneath his chin as he thoughtfully mulled over her answer, "Have you ever been to his office?"
"No, I haven't. Why?"
"Does he ever discuss his work with you?"
"He's told me about a few of his cases, but truth be told, hearing about his work usually bores me. I don't know much about the ins and outs of corporate defense work -- nor do I want to," she smilingly admitted.
"And what have you told him about your job?"
"That I work for a bank, in the corporate finance department," she matter-of-factly stated. She stared at him for a few moments before replacing her blank expression with a look of wide-eyed indignation. "Wait, you don't think that I would -- ? I have never once uttered the name SD-6 or told Michael anything about what I really do. You can't possibly believe that I would do something like that again after . . . after what happened the last time."
"Anything is possible, Sydney."
"Not that. Not after what happened to Danny. I've accepted that I will *never* be able to share the truth about my job with anyone outside the walls of this building. I assure you of that, sir."
Sloane carefully scrutinized Sydney, trying to decide whether he believed her. After a long moment, he finally tore his gaze away and nodded at her. "Actually, I do believe you, Sydney. I know how much you value the truth in your personal life, but I also know that you've come to understand that sometimes the truth must be sacrificed in the service of one's country."
"Of course, sir," she vigorously nodded her agreement.
"Apparently, that's a lesson that Mr. Vaughn has learned as well."
"What do you mean by that?" she asked, feigning confusion.
"Sydney, I hate to be the one to break this news to you," Sloane began, his voice dripping with false sincerity, "but Michael Vaughn does not work for a law firm. He's a senior officer at the CIA."
"What?" Sydney mustered as much shock as she could as she sank down into one of the chairs in front of Sloane's desk and actively avoided the urge to vomit as he rose from his own chair and walked around his desk to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. "That's impossible."
"I'm afraid not, Sydney. Once we learned of Mr. Vaughn's identity, we ran a background check and discovered that his employer is listed as the Department of State."
"Well, the Department of State isn't the CIA," she shook her head.
"No, it's not, but the agency typically uses the Departments of State, Agriculture, the Interior, and so forth, as covers for their agents. As we did more checking, we learned that Agent Vaughn completed his clandestine service training in December of 1994."
"But I've seen the pictures of his graduation from Georgetown," she argued.
"Not everything that Agent Vaughn has told you has been a lie. He did actually go to law school, but immediately after his graduation, he began CST. The CIA has been his only employer ever since then. I'm sorry that he lied to you."
"Well maybe he did, but it's not as if I've exactly been truthful with him," she rationalized. "Besides, there are worse lies that he could have told me. I mean, if he's CIA, there's no reason why I have to lie to him about who I'm really working for, right?" she innocently asked. She bit back the urge to laugh at the brief look of horror that flashed across Sloane's face.
"I doubt that Agent Vaughn's clearance is high enough for him to be aware of our division, Sydney. He's a ranking officer, but only the most senior officers have knowledge of the agency's black ops divisions. If you were actually to continue seeing Agent Vaughn, you still wouldn't be able to tell him anything about SD-6."
Sydney's heart quickly jumped at Sloane's words. If she were to *continue* to see Vaughn. Did that mean that he was still alive? That Sloane hadn't yet taken steps to remove him as a threat to SD-6? She cautiously dared to let herself hope for the best while maintaining her innocent facade.
"Of course, sir. You're right. I can't tell Michael anything."
"Sydney, I have to say that I'm somewhat surprised that you're even considering the possibility of remaining involved with Agent Vaughn," Sloane said, giving her a slightly disapproving look. "I understand that you may be infatuated with him, but I should remind you that he's been deceiving you for the entire length of time that you've been together."
"And I've been deceiving him too," Sydney gently reminded him.
"Yes, of course," Sloane acknowledged, "but given your parents' marriage, considering the way that your mother deceived your father for so many years, I would imagine that the last thing you'd ever want was to find yourself in a similar type of relationship."
"Well no," she admitted, "but I'm not spying on Michael, and he's obviously not spying on me if he's not even aware of SD-6's existence. And besides, there's no reason for either of us to spy on the other, because we're working for the same side, right?"
"Yes. Yes, of course, you are," Sloane quickly replied. "And now that you mention it, there actually might be certain advantages to your being involved with Agent Vaughn," he speculated, his mind already entertaining the possibility that perhaps Sydney's relationship with Michael Vaughn could provide him with a means of keeping tabs on the CIA's operations.
"Yes, actually the more that I think about it, this could be a good thing, assuming, of course, that you don't make the mistake of revealing too much to him."
"I wouldn't dream of it, sir," she assured him. "As far as I'm concerned, everything that I know pertaining to SD-6 is strictly classified."
"Good. Discretion is of the utmost importance here," Sloane cautioned her.
"Absolutely, sir," she nodded. "Now that we understand each other, I'm glad that we had this conversation," she smiled as she rose from her chair and turned to leave.
"I am too, but Sydney?"
"Yes?" she asked as she turned around in his doorway.
"I do sincerely hope that in the future, you'll make more of an attempt to be honest with me. I understand your reluctance to discuss your private life with me, but your lack of honesty could have had devastating consequences had we not discussed the situation. *Tragic* consequences," he underscored.
The subtle hint of menace in his voice threw Sydney for a loop and brought reality crashing back down on her. She suddenly realized that even if Vaughn was safe for the moment, there was no guarantee that he would remain that way until the Alliance was toppled.
"I'll make every effort to keep you informed about my personal life in the future," she lied, trying not to choke on the words as she placated him.
"See to it that you do. Goodnight, Sydney."
Sloane watched as Sydney walked away from his office and he evaluated a change in strategy. He had gleaned much insight during his short conversation with Sydney and their chat had been most illuminating. Sydney's attempts to downplay Michael Vaughn's duplicity were proof that she was in love with him, and he knew from personal experience that there was almost nothing that a woman wouldn't do for the man she loved. So he was fully prepared to take advantage of this unexpectedly fortuitous development. He knew that he needed a means to keep Sydney in line and he now had the perfect weapon at his disposal.
He was already celebrating his good luck as he picked up his phone, dialed a number and waited impatiently for the recipient of his call to answer.
"Agent Bridges, this is Director Sloane. I want you to abort your current operation . . . Yes, I'm aware of that, but my plans have changed. Michael Vaughn is not to be harmed, are we clear on that? No, I don't. What exactly do you mean that it's too late?"
*****
As Sydney drove away from the Credit Dauphine building, she soon realized that she felt more sick and anxious now than she did when she arrived. Her initial optimism that Sloane hadn't killed Vaughn began to vanish as she remembered that Sloane was a much more skilled liar than she was. What if he had merely been humoring her in an attempt to make her believe that Vaughn was safe? Or what if he was simply playing with her emotions? And even if he he now had no intention of hurting Vaughn, the mere fact that he knew about their relationship threatened to destroy all the plans for the takedown of the Alliance. Suddenly, the two weeks remaining until the takedown seemed like an eternity, and the uncertainty of what would happen in the meantime was beginning to eat away at her.
She pulled over to the side of the road, picked up her phone and dialed Vaughn's number, pounding her steering wheel in frustration when she got his voice mail yet again. She tried to call him a few more times and grew increasingly distressed at her inability to reach him. After the seventh attempt, she peeled back out into traffic and headed for the ops center at breakneck speed.
Once she arrived, she hurried down the hallway and strode into the rotunda, making a beeline for Weiss's desk. He was mid-conversation on the phone when he looked up and saw the serious expression on Sydney's face.
"Hey, Jennings, I'm going to have to get back to you later, okay? Yeah yeah, I'll call you back in an hour or so. Alright." He hung up the phone and quickly stood up, placing a gentle hand on Sydney's forearm. "Sydney, what's wrong?"
"It's Vaughn," she said in a low, urgent whisper, trying not to draw the attention of the agents around them.
"What about Vaughn?"
"Sloane knows about him. He knows about our relationship."
"What?!" Weiss exclaimed before lowering his voice. "What do you mean, he knows? What does he know? How did he find out?"
"He was having me followed," Sydney explained. "He has pictures of the two of us together."
"How could he have gotten a hold of pictures of the two of you together? Where were you? Was the warehouse compromised?" Weiss asked, his questions tumbling out one after the other.
"No, we were at the pier."
"What?! How could the two of you be so stupid when you know that you're not supposed to be seen in public together."
"We've had tons of meets in public, Weiss. You know that," Sydney defensively responded as her voice rose in anger. The last thing she needed right now was a lecture about her and Vaughn's inappropriate behavior. "Car washes, cafŽs, driving ranges, we've met in public a thousand times and nothing bad has ever happened until now. And it's not like we intended to meet each other; we ran into each other by accident."
"Then both of you should have kept walking and pretended that you didn't know each other," Weiss admonished as Sydney stared back at him in anger.
"Don't you dare lecture me, Weiss," she hissed. "That is the last thing that I need right now."
Weiss could see the anger in her eyes quickly give way to fear and he was instantly filled with regret and compassion for her. "Hey, you're right, he said apologetically. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you. I'm just -- I'm freaking out right now," he admitted.
"Yeah, me too," Sydney said softly. "I'm sorry, Weiss. I didn't mean to be a bitch. I'm just really scared, and I came to ask you if you've heard from Vaughn."
"No. He didn't call you when he got to D.C.?" Weiss asked with surprise.
"No, and I've been trying to call him for the past two and a half hours. He's not answering his phone."
"Mike never turns his phone off," Weiss frowned, unknowingly confirming Sydney's worst fears.
"I know. Can't you -- is there any way that you can call Langley and find out whether he's been in tough with someone there? Maybe someone has seen him or knows where he is," she hopefully suggested.
"Yeah, good idea," Weiss mumbled as he pressed a button on his phone. "Yes, this is Agent Eric Weiss in L.A., Voice ID number Tango Delta 3758. I need to speak with Agent Thomas Carter. Is he available? Thanks." Sydney anxiously stared at Weiss as he ran his fingers through his hair and let out a shaky breath.
"Tommy, hey. It's Eric Weiss. Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Yeah, I *am* surprised to find you there so late. Listen, you haven't by any chance heard from Mike Vaughn yet, have you? No?" he frowned. "Yeah, I know he wasn't scheduled to be in the office until tomorrow, but I just thought that maybe he might have checked in or called you to go out for drinks or something. Huh? No. No, I'm pretty sure that he's not out with a woman right now," Weiss weakly laughed as he shot Sydney an apologetic look.
"Okay, yeah. Well, if you hear from him, can you ask him to call me or Mountaineer immediately. Yeah, Mountaineer, like the team from West Virginia. Yes, he'll know what that means," Weiss sighed. "Alright, thanks man. You too. Bye."
Weiss hung up the phone and turned to Sydney. "Listen, Vaughn hasn't checked in with anyone at Langley yet, and no one's expecting to see him until tomorrow morning. But that doesn't necessarily mean that -- "
"Yes it does," Sydney cut him off. "Sloane knows and Vaughn's not answering his cellphone. Something is wrong; I can feel it. I'm going back to find out what Sloane did to him," she declared as she whipped around to head back in the direction of the parking garage. She spun back around when Weiss grabbed her forearm.
"What?" she impatiently asked.
"Sydney, you can't just go talk to Sloane! And what do you mean that you're going *back* there? Sydney, please, please tell me that you did not confront Sloane before you came here."
Weiss sighed in exasperation when she answered him by stubbornly jutting out her chin.
"Are you crazy, Sydney? He could have taken you into custody or killed you, and how would I ever explain that to Vaughn?"
"How would you explain that to Vaughn?" she asked, her voice growing louder with each increasingly hysterical syllable. "Weiss, there many not be anything to explain to him. He could be *dead* right now," she said almost choking on the word.
"Or, his phone could simply be dead or maybe he forgot to take it with him wherever he went. Sydney, look, I know that neither of those possibilities seems especially likely, but we can't allow ourselves to assume the worst and we can't afford to be reckless either. Look, don't head off to SD-6 right now. Stay here with me while I call his mom's house, okay?"
"Okay," she relented. "Um, Vaughn said that Elise was going to pick him up from the airport and then they were going to go dinner," she absently remembered.
"Then he's probably with her right now," Weiss said with a reassuring smile. Just as he turned to call Elise, his phone rang.
"Hello? Tommy. Hi again. Did you hear from Mike?" His hopeful expression matched Sydney's before it gave way to a panicked frown. "You what? When? Is there confirmation of that?"
As soon as Sydney heard the word "confirmation," she felt as if she had been punched in the gut and she sank down into the chair next to Eric's desk.
"Alright, just keep me updated. Call me the minute you find out anything else. Yeah, thanks."
Eric hung up the phone and glanced over at Sydney, feeling a dull ache inside his chest when he saw the defeated and anguished expression on her face.
"Sydney?" he gently asked. When she didn't respond, he knelt in front of her and placed his hand on her knee and she looked back at him with tear-filled eyes.
"Sydney, there's been an accident," he nervously began. "The agent that I spoke to, Agent Carter, is a friend of mine and Michael's, and he said that the agency just received word about a car accident near Great Falls." Weiss paused for a moment and swallowed hard, not even sure that Sydney was hearing his words given her current state. "There's no definitive word yet, but the car was registered to Elise."
When a look of pained shock briefly registered in Sydney's eyes, Weiss was sure that she had heard him, and he regretfully began to wish that she hadn't.
*****
The minute that Vaughn awoke, the first thing that he became conscious of was the intense, throbbing pain in his head, which felt as if someone was rhythmically pounding him in the temples with a sledgehammer. He groaned and slowly opened his eyes, squinting as they adjusted to the dim orange light filling the room. When he stared up at the popcorn ceiling, he fuzzily realized that he had no idea where he was and that nothing about the room seemed familiar. Despite his vague discomfort about that fact, he was about to close his eyes again and give into sleep's seductive temptation again when he sensed the presence of another person in the room. He abruptly sat up in the bed and groaned once again as his head throbbed and seemingly every muscle in his body screamed in protest.
"Perhaps you should lie back down," suggested a voice from the corner of the room.
"Now you tell me," Vaughn groggily muttered as he rubbed the tense muscles in the back of his neck. "What are you doing here, Jack? And where the hell are we?"
"Where we are is unimportant right now," Jack responded as he rose from his chair and peaked through the side of the thick navy curtains in the bedroom window.
Vaughn arched a questioning eyebrow at Jack. "Okay. And you're here because . . .?"
"What's the last thing you remember before waking up?" Jack asked, ignoring his question.
"Uh, I don't know," Vaughn murmured, rubbing his forehead and wincing from the pain it caused. "I remember having dinner with my mom and driving home," he said after thinking about it for a few moments.
"You and your mother were involved in an accident on the way home. Do you have any recollection of that?" Jack anxiously asked.
"An accident? No. But I guess that would explain why I feel like sh*t right now, huh?" he asked, making Jack smile slightly. "So, um, how bad was this -- wait a minute, where's my mom?" he frantically asked. "Is she okay?"
"Vaughn, calm down. Your mother is fine. She's resting comfortably in the next room. She barely had a scratch on her. She's fine," Jack repeated.
Vaughn was momentarily pacified by Jack's assurances until he shook his head in disbelief. "No, if she were fine, she'd be in here right now, fussing and hovering over me. I know my mother, Jack, and she wouldn't be resting comfortably while I was hurt. So what are you not telling me?" he suspiciously asked.
"Vaughn, she's fine. Initially, she was understandably agitated and concerned about your condition, but I managed to calm her down."
"And how did you do that?" Vaughn asked, his suspicion growing when he noticed Jack avoiding his gaze.
"I gave her a mild sedative."
"You what?! You drugged my mother?" Vaughn incredulously asked.
"I did not drug her," Jack sighed, as if he was explaining himself to a child. "I merely gave her something to calm her nerves and help her rest. Besides, I needed to find a way to keep her from hovering over you long enough so that you and I could talk when you woke up," Jack said as he dragged his chair from the corner of the room over to the bed.
"Talk about what?" Vaughn nervously queried.
"About the accident. About why you're here."
"What about the accident? And how did *you* find out about the accident? Sydney said that you were supposed to be in Singapore this week."
"I was. I am. The agency is taking care of my cover. And I didn't *find out* about the accident. I staged it."
Vaughn simply stared at Jack, too stunned to respond to his confession.
"The accident was no accident, Vaughn. It was staged to fake your death -- and your mother's."
"What? Why?"
"Because four days ago, Sloane became aware of your identity and your relationship with Sydney."
Vaughn immediately felt all of the blood drain from his face and bent his head forward in a futile effort to prevent the dizziness that was taking a hold of his body in reaction to Jack's news. "How is that even poss -- "
"Sloane was having Sydney followed for an undetermined length of time," Jack explained. "I'm not sure if she told you or not, but in recent months, Sloane has taken an increased interest in her personal life. Obviously, she lied to him to hide her relationship with you, but that wasn't enough to quell Arvin's suspicions, and he assigned an agent to keep tabs on her."
"And you knew about this the whole time, but didn't tell her?"
"I became aware of the situation by accident a few weeks ago. One night, as I was leaving Sydney's apartment, I noticed a suspicious car sitting at the end of her block. I recognized the man inside as Agent Sean Bridges. He's a fairly low level agent at SD-6, and I'm sure that Arvin bought his cooperation by tempting him with the possibility of advancing through the agency's ranks on a fast track.
"Anyway, I knew that I couldn't ask SD-6 or the CIA to investigate why Bridges was following Sydney, so I hired a detective to track his movements. Last Friday, my guy took pictures of Bridges as he was taking pictures of you and Sydney at the Santa Monica pier."
"Sh*t." Vaughn rubbed his eyes as the enormity of the situation hit him. If Sydney had been followed for the last few weeks, who knew how much this Agent Bridges -- and by extension, Sloane -- had learned about their relationship in that time.
"Jack," he began in a low voice, trying not to let the older man see how panicked he was inside, "where is Sydney now? Is she -- "
"Sydney's fine. She was at the ops center with Weiss a couple of hours earlier, but I instructed him to take her to a safe house for the night. He's taking care of her, Vaughn," Jack assured him.
"He and what army?" Vaughn cried. "And what makes you think that she's safe from Sloane? If he knows about us, there's no telling what else he knows. What if he's found out that she's working for the CIA?"
"I'm not sure what Sloane knows right now," Jack acknowledged, "but I don't think that Sydney's in any danger at the moment. For one thing, Weiss said that she confronted Sloane earlier this evening, when she became aware that he had evidence of her relationship with you."
"She went to SD-6? Is she crazy? Why would she do something like that?"
"I don't know and I couldn't begin to tell you, but all that matters is that she made it out of there safely, and for the time being, I don't believe that Arvin has any intention of harming her."
"How can you say that, Jack?" Vaughn distrustfully asked.
"Because all of his actions so far have indicated a desire to protect Sydney to some extent. Sloane has kept both SD-6 and Alliance security sections out of the loop thus far. The fact that Sloane would ask Agent Bridges to keep tabs on Sydney as opposed to alerting Security Section suggests that he's reluctant to reveal his suspicions about her to the Alliance."
"Why would that be the case?"
"I'm not sure," Jack admitted, "but Sloane has always had an odd fascination with Sydney -- recruiting her into SD-6 behind my back, giving her extravagant gifts when she was young, 'filling in' for me as he puts it when I wasn't a presence in Sydney's life. He's always been so inexplicably interested in her and her life that I don't think she's in any danger from him -- yet."
"Yet?"
"Well, I certainly don't think that it's out of the realm of possibility that at some point, Sloane may become a threat to Sydney, but if the destruction of SD-6 takes place as scheduled, that shouldn't become an issue."
"Do you really think that things can go forward as planned?" Vaughn wondered.
"They have to, Vaughn. We certainly can't push the plans up, because as you know, not all the pieces are in place yet. And even if we could move the date up, I wouldn't want to have to be the one to explain to Director Woolsy why that's necessary. Would you?" he pointedly asked.
"No," Vaughn muttered. He knew he'd be out of a job if the CIA's director knew that he had almost singlehandedly jeopardized a multi-national, joint intelligence agency effort to topple the Alliance. "But if you can't explain that to him, how did you explain why it was necessary to fake my death?"
"Given how intimately involved you've been in coordinating the attack plans, I convinced Woolsy and Deputy Director Butler that it was a smart preventative measure to put you underground for a while. After they considered your relationship with Sydney and the problems that could arise if Sloane found out about it, they agreed with me."
"They know about me and Sydney?" Vaughn worriedly asked.
"Well, it's not as if the two of you have been adept at hiding your feelings for each other," Jack scoffed. "And when I spoke with them about my plan, I confirmed what's been whispered about for more than a year. Of course, I didn't tell them that the two of you were foolish enough to be caught together, and I have no intention of letting them find out that Sloane actually *is* aware of your relationship. But it was necessary for me to tell them some semblance of the truth in order to get the authorization to fake your death."
"Jack, this sounds like a bad movie," Vaughn irritably sighed as he gingerly stood up from the bed. He paused for a moment to let his aching muscles adjust to his new position and walked over to the mirror on the wall. He was shocked to see his face covered in angry reddish-purple bruises.
"Damn. I look like hell."
"I never imagined you as the vain type," Jack bemusedly remarked before Vaughn turned around and fixed him with a serious look.
"So has Sloane put a hit out on me?" he apprehensively asked.
"Not that I'm aware of, although I doubt that he'd tell me if he had. But I figured that rather than wait for him to make his next move, it would be smarter to take that option off of the table. Obviously, he can't kill a man who's already dead."
"Won't it seem a little convenient that I 'died' right after he found out about me?"
"Perhaps. But there are witnesses from Gianni's Ristorante who saw you and your mother drink two bottles of wine and won't be at all surprised that you lost control of your car given your level of intoxication."
Vaughn regarded Jack with a mixture of admiration and fear at his ability to spin a cover story. "It was a two car accident, though. Someone hit us. I remember that."
"According to the Virginia Department of Transportation and the highway patrol, it was a one car accident that claimed your life and your mother's."
"My mom," Vaughn murmured as the realization struck him. "What about her job?"
"The French minister of trade was briefed so he wouldn't make arrangements to replace your mother within the next three weeks or so, but he's the only person who's been apprised of what's going on. I didn't feel that it was safe to tell anyone else."
"So is there anything that you *haven't* taken care of?" Vaughn wryly asked.
"No. I'm nothing if not thorough. Ever since Sydney admitted to me that the two of you were involved with each other, I've had contingency plans in place in the even that it became necessary to place either or both of you out of Sloane's reach."
"Why?" Vaughn asked. "I mean, I understand why you'd do that for Sydney -- God knows that I've formulated my share of contingency plans in anticipation of the same kind of situation -- but why would you go to those lengths for me?"
"Because my daughter loves you, Vaughn," Jack matter-of-factly replied. "She already lost one man she loved to Arvin Sloane, and I swore that I wouldn't allow her to lose another one."
"Well, I'm not really sure what to say, other than thank you, Jack."
"You're welcome."
The two men nodded at each other in appreciation of the roles that they each played in Sydney's life, and Jack was just about to speak again when he was interrupted by the sound of the room's door opening. He quickly drew his gun but relaxed when he realized that it was only Elise Vaughn standing in the doorway.
Elise took a long look at the gun before turning her attention to the man holding it.
"Well, it's nice to see you again, too, Jack."
TBC . . .