Title: Checkered Past
Summary: Jack's sins catch up to him. Set between seasons 2 and 3.
Spoilers: through the first episode of season 3.
Disclaimer: Alias and associated characters obviously aren't mine. ABC and JJ Abrams hold that honour.
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Season 3; I know that you were imprisoned for making contact with your ex-wife. You went to Irina Derevko for help to find Sydney. Now, I wouldn't have believed that you would ally yourself with a woman you vowed you'd never trust again. (Sloane)
Season 2; Yes, passport stamps, plane tickets, enough to withstand a cursory inquiry. This is anything but cursory. I did not kill Emily Sloane, but I do have secrets. (Jack)
Season 1; There are a few things we need to talk about and, quite frankly, you scare me, so I'd rather talk about them in a public place. (Will)
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Agent Blackstone was a surveillance operative. He was field trained, but his work was mostly done in a van several blocks away from whatever operation was going down. He preferred it that way. Less chance of getting shot and all.
It was a standard op, nothing fancy. Didn't even need any of Flinkman's toys for today's assignment. All they were there to do was watch and record, gather the intel so the 'real' field agents could stop the trade that was about to be negotiated and arranged. Simple, he could do it in his sleep.
The tap into the restraunt's security system was a piece of cake, and, just for fun, he began running the recognition software early. If there were going to be any surprises, it wouldn't hurt to have forewarning. It was shaping up to be a very boring operation and the one extra screen to keep an eye on wouldn't be an issue. Seemed a shame to have the resources and not use them.
He never dreamed that he might flush out the CIA's sixth most wanted in a little backstreet restraunt in Mexico City.
She was sitting at a table in the back, her profile to the security camera. She was sitting with a man, grey hair, suit, probably in his fifties, vaguely familiar looking. Blackstone ran the software on him next, hoping to find a match in the archives to determine which syndicate Derevko was dealing with.
Before the result returned, though, she scooped a chip into the salsa dip and reached across the table, feeding it to the man. Blackstone's eyes widened in surprise and he reclassified the dinner from a negotiation (his first assumption, since that's what the arms smugglers were in the restraunt to do) to a date. This was better. Business partners could provide information, lovers provided leverage.
His computer beeped, and he pulled up the screen to find out the identity of her companion. And froze.
Jonathan D. Bristow. CIA Agent, out of Los Angeles.
That couldn't be a good thing.
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Benjamin Devlin shut off the VCR, and rubbed his eyes. Looking down at the file that had arrived with the tape, the photograph of a woman reaching across a table to place a chip into a man's waiting mouth stared accusingly back at him. Had the woman been anyone else, he'd have been delighted with the happy image depicted. Had the man been anyone else, he'd be elated by the possibilities. Had they both been anyone one else, the picture would be unremarkable, just a couple on a date.
But the man was Jack, and the woman was Derevko. And that made it sinister.
"Dammit, Jack, why is it always you?" he muttered under his breath before picking up the phone on his desk and punching in Kendall's extension. Devlin didn't even wait for a greeting, beginning to speak as soon as he hear the click of the phone lifting from its cradle. "We may have a mole."
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"Bristow?" Kendall repeated, not exactly disbelieving that the agent in question was capable of it. "With Derevko?" That was the part that was hard to swallow. The man's hatred of her was legendary. While it might have seemed, towards the end of her imprisonment, that the two had begun to get along again, all bets were off once she escaped on his watch during Panama. Made him look the fool again, and Bristow was not one to take that sort of thing lightly. She'd done it to him twice, he wouldn't let it happen a third time.
Several minutes later found him in Jack's office. Devlin and Kendall had both agreed on two things. First, he should be taken into custody immediately. Jack had a disturbing talent of having information he shouldn't. If he caught wind that he was under suspicion for this, he would disappear and they'd never hear from him again. If anyone could vanish from the face of the earth, it would be Jack.
They other thing they decided on was to test how guiltily he responded. Jack was nothing if not unconventional. That he was speaking with a terrorist didn't necessarily mean he was working for or even with her. His loyalty may still possibly be with the CIA. If he went quietly, if he cooperated with them, they might be able to convince the NSA he wasn't a threat.
As he made some excuse about a presentation Jack would never give, Kendall studied him obliquely, trying to see if there were any signs that the man in front of him had spent at least one evening being video taped dining with Irina Derevko. There were, expectedly, none.
When they stepped out of his office, to where a half dozen agents surreptitiously watched Jack for any indication he was about to make a break for it, Kendall sensed a change in him. And, indeed, he was eyeing the two closest guards who waited to subdue him should it prove necessary. "Where are we going?" he asked, looking toward the exit.
"Interrogation room three," Kendall replied, making no attempt hide a purpose the man already suspected.
Bristow stole another look down the most promising escape route, but the guard positioned there drew out his tranquilizer, letting Bristow see it. Tranqs meant they wanted to bring in someone alive, but they also meant there would be no hesitation to shoot. They were also not standard issue for agents standing in hallways. Jack would know they were just for him.
"Who do you want me to question?" Jack asked, visibly dropping any intention he might have had of running. Kendall didn't bother to reply. He was trying to determine whether it was a positive sign that Jack was coming quietly, or a bad one that it had taken a sighting of the tranquilizer guns to get him to do so.
Even Kendall was taken aback by the make of the chair in the interrogation room, but Jack's reaction was telling. He did not even make it completely through the doorway before he stopped. By the mulish look, Kendall knew attempting to question him would prove fruitless until he calmed down. He waved for one of the agents to subdue the prisoner.
The hours it took for him to wake up would give the rest of them time to fully review the case, or at least get a good jump on it. Kendall wanted to, at the very least, see the video before he confronted Jack about it. Even if Bristow had cooperated, he'd just be sitting there waiting under guard until they decided the next move.
The initial briefing of the situation included five men. Devlin presented the data, as much as there was of it, to an audience consisting of Kendall, Dixon, Weiss, and Marshall.
"Three days ago," Devlin began, "an operative of this office of the CIA was observing an arms negotiation between known enemies of the United States. The deal was arranged to take place in a restraunt in Mexico City at 1900 hours local time. Twenty minutes before that, this was recorded at Los Hermanos Gonzalez, the restraunt in question." The lights dimmed marginally and the CIA logo on the briefing displays were replaced with grainy, black and white security footage of what was obviously a moderately successful restraunt.
Though no one at the table really needed the commentary, Devlin's narration continued. "If I could direct your attention to the table at the top left corner, I believe you can all recognize the seriousness of what you are seeing. The agent was not as well versed with these two players as we are, so he was required to use facial recognition software to realize what we can see in a glance. A senior agent of the Central Intelligence Agency in the person of Jonathan Bristow was meeting with number six on the very same Agency's most wanted list. A man on the very task force assigned to bring her in, the man who had once led that task force, was witnessed by a reliable source and recorded meeting with Irina Derevko."
On the screen, Bristow's image sipped at his soda and looked blandly across the table, wearing a poker face anyone around the table could easily recognize. Derevko said something, and Jack did something that only Devlin had ever seen before. He laughed. It didn't last very long, and he shortly picked up his butter knife and pointed it at her, but despite the brandished weapon, Jack Bristow looked more relaxed than any of them had seen in a very long time.
"Marshall, I want lip dubbing software to figure out what they are saying. Weiss, you are going to look for any evidence that this is not the first time they've met. I want you to investigate Jack Bristow back as far as when Derevko first got away. I want to know everyone he's talked to and why. Every plane trip he's taken; where to, who he met. If it was a CIA mission, I want to know if he did anything unusual that might indicate he's a double. Delegate as necessary. Kendall, I want you to talk to Jack, see if he has an explanation for this. Dixon, you and I have known him the longest. We'll be in Control, watching Bristow's cell while Kendall speaks with him." Devlin sighed, "I have already sent the preliminary report to Langley. I expect people from Washington to arrive probably late tonight or early tomorrow. If Jack's going to survive this, he's going to have to give up Derevko's location before they arrive."
There was a small stunned silence following their assignments, but they slowly nodded acknowledgment and dispersed. As Weiss and Dixon left the room together, Kendall heard Weiss asking, "You don't think . . . they wouldn't be shacking up together, right? He wouldn't do that again, would he?"
Dixon shook his head, but Kendall thought the motion was too deliberate to be convincing. "Jack knows better than to trust her," was the rather inconclusive insight Marcus was able to offer. He even sounded uncertain about that.
"Right," Weiss agreed, just as unconvinced. "Ever seen him laugh like that before?"
"No."
As they moved away, Devlin came up beside him, also having been listening to the exchange. "Not since before Sydney died, and even then it was rare," Devlin answered the final question in his own experience. "For a while, after Laura turned out to be a spy, I didn't think he ever would again."
Kendall looked down at the shorter Director, surprised. "You think they're sleeping together?"
Devlin didn't look at him, staring unseeingly ahead. "God, I hope not. She already broke him once."
"But if you had to guess," Kendall pressed. "You think they are."
Devlin did meet his eyes this time. "Don't put words in my mouth." There a brief pause during which they stared each other down. "Yes," Devlin eventually agreed. "Jack," he looked away briefly, then turned back. "Jack loved his daughter. But even where Sydney was concerned, he could keep his emotions so tightly under wrap that you'd never know he worried about her unless he wanted you to. You saw him at her funeral. Stood tall, poker faced, and never shed a tear."
Devlin stopped talking, but Kendall sensed he wasn't done, so he said nothing.
"Only Derevko can make him react emotionally. You saw his outbursts while she was in custody. It wasn't threats to Sydney that made him act that way, it was the fact that his ex-wife was involved. He loved her passionately once. When she was taken in her cell, he hated her passionately. They say love and hate are the two sides of the same coin, and we know they're not actively trying to kill each other right now."
Kendall stared at him in astonishment. "You can't possibly think he loves her."
Devlin looked away. "I don't know what to think."
He shook his head in denial. "Maybe if it weren't Jack Bristow. I don't think Bristow knows how to love anymore."
"He loved Laura."
"Laura and Derevko are completely different entities."
Devlin looked at him once more, waiting until he had captured Kendall's full attention before saying clearly, "I know that. You know that." A pregnant pause. "But does Jack know that?"
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Kendall proved to be useless in extracting Jack's cooperation. Devlin himself was moderately successful, but his interview ended badly and he concluded that it would take a few days before Jack would be willing to talk to him again. Barnett was only marginally better than Kendall, though both Dixon and Devlin, watching from the Control room, agreed that Jack was hiding something.
By the time Barnett gave up, Marshall had new information.
The same people gathered in the same conference room they had occupied just over an hour earlier. Marshall put in the tape, and subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen, blue for what Jack said and pink for what Irina said.
Irina was sitting at the table first, reading her menu. After a few moments, she looked up expectantly, and smiled as Jack approached and sat down across from her. "Safe trip?" she asked.
"Fine," Jack agreed. "My watchdog didn't even know I left the house."
She nodded. "Good."
A waiter approached, supplying them with chips and salsa, then leaving. Irina smiled. "This place serves the best salsa in the world, Jack. Here, have some." She used a tortilla chip to spoon up a bite's worth of dip, and reached across the table. "Open up, Jack."
Reluctantly, Jack opened his mouth and let her feed him. There was no indication of what he thought of the salsa as he chewed then swallowed. "Well?" Irina prompted.
"I wouldn't say it was the 'best in the world'," Jack critiqued. "The best in the city possibly, but there's a place in Calcutta that has a very good dip. I'll need to introduce you to it sometime."
Irina smiled. "I'd like that."
The waiter returned and they gave their orders, both speaking in Spanish. When he had gone again, Irina asked, "Have you been sleeping better? You look less dead."
Jack didn't need words to express that he found her comment less than complimentary. "There is significantly less jet lag between here and LA than there is between Africa and LA."
Devlin momentarily paused the tape, and he looked around the table. "I want people working on this. Jack met her in Africa. I need to know when and where. I want surveillance footage if I can get it. I want people going through our own security tapes. Find out when he was looking the most exhausted and see if you can link it to any extracurricular activities. Dixon?"
Dixon stood. "I'm on it." He left the room. After a few minutes of waiting, he returned, nodded confirmation that the analysts had been set on the trail. Devlin pressed the play button on his remote as Dixon resumed his seat.
"So you're not sleeping better?" Irina pressed. "Jack, you need to sleep."
Jack was saved from answering by the arrival of their drinks. He immediately took a sip of his soda. Irina watched him, a small smile on her lips. Jack returned the look blandly. "The salsa was killing you, wasn't it?" she asked.
He laughed briefly, then picked up his butter knife and pointed it at her. "You are a sadistic woman, Irina."
"Thank you, Jack. You always have such sweet things to say about me."
"Eat your salsa, Irina. You have a drink to go with it now." They fell quiet as they both began attacking the plate of chips and salsa dip. After a while, Jack broke the silence. "I take it you haven't any news?"
"I'd have told you first thing if I had. Same for you?"
"Yes."
Another silence, longer this time. "We'll find her, Jack."
"I know."
The third extended silence was broken by the arrival of their meals.
The picture stilled again and the lights in the CIA conference room undimmed slightly. For a moment, nobody spoke. "It appears," Dixon ventured when it became obvious nobody else wanted to make the first remark, "that Jack was telling the truth when he said they were looking for Sydney."
"That 'her' could be anybody," Kendall disagreed. Though no one challenged it, neither did any of them - including Kendall - appear entirely convinced. Devlin darkened the room again and restarted the video. They watched the couple wordlessly eat and ignored the arrival of the gun traders entirely.
Derevko's eyes, however, tracked toward the pair of men entering the restraunt and nudged Jack under the table. Her eyes met his then shifted toward the newcomers. Jack dropped his napkin on the floor and used the opportunity to steal a glance in the direction Irina had indicated. After recovering the napkin, he used it dab at his mouth, hiding any low volume words he may have said.
Derevko covered a cough, and they both (though not in any way that might have indicated they did it on purpose) turned in their chairs so that they almost had their backs to the security camera. Certainly, their faces were now obstructed. They finished their meal quickly, left cash on the table, and made their unhurried and perfectly natural exit from the building, keeping their faces turned away from both the camera and the men.
This time, when Devlin stopped the tape, the CIA logo returned to the screens, and the room lights came back to full brightness.
"I want to know where they went next," Devlin said. "Their business must have been conducted elsewhere. What we just saw wasn't worth him leaving LA for. But first, Marshall, you said you found something else?"
"Uh, yeah," Marshall stood, looking nervous, which was normal. "While I was running the dubbing software, which takes a kinda long time, especially since they weren't facing exactly at the camera, I was checking the outgoing server logs where I found a large data dump originating from Agent Bristow's computer at a time after he'd already been taken in for questioning. I thought that was, well, sorta odd, since you can't really use ftp when you're unconscious except for I did it once when I was sleep walking but Agent Bristow was locked up, so he couldn't even get to a . . . right. So I remotely accessed his computer, and I found that he had begun running a program just before he was arrested. Um, I'm not really sure what he sent out because he overwrote the original files and the log files with long string of dashes until the overwritten file got to be fifty megs. None of the files he replaced was larger than that so I can't reconstruct even parts of them."
"Where did he send these files to?" Devlin asked.
"An IP address that used to belong to SD-6. But the data was already gone when I got there. I tried to see if I could rebuild the files, but they changed that to dashes, too, before deleting it. The server logs were also wiped clean, so I couldn't follow it out any further. The only other thing on the server were 47 pictures of Sydney as a little girl in a folder called 'ourdaughter', no space, all lowercase." Marshall paused briefly. "She was a really cute kid."
"Thank you, Marshall," Devlin said, cutting in before he go off on a new tangent. "Kendall, I want you to try talking to Jack again. At this point, your best bet is probably to get him angry enough to snap at you. If that doesn't work, Weiss, you're up."
"Me?" Weiss repeated, surprised.
"Yes, I want Dixon observing, and you're the only one left besides him who hasn't pissed Jack off yet today. Try not to."
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Kendall's questioning was an unqualified disaster. Devlin decided to keep him out of all future interviews with Jack. Weiss's attempt . . . well that was a disaster, too, but in an entirely different way.
It started out moderately promising. He spoke to Weiss at any rate, offered without even being asked, the intel that he had uploaded the files about Sydney's search to Derevko. Then the whole investigation went to Hell.
"She's my wife."
Weiss tried to save Jack, tried to rectify the situation. "Your ex-wife."
Jack was hell-bent on self-destruction, though. "My wife. It's still legal. I never annulled it, never divorced her."
In Control, Devlin, Kendall, and Dixon all exchanged wide-eyed looks of dismay. Devlin sat down on a desktop in the cramped room and rubbed his eyes. "He just killed himself. The NSA won't let Derevko's self-proclaimed husband go."
"God," Kendall cursed. He looked like he wanted to expand upon that, but nothing further managed to reach his tongue.
"It gets worse," Dixon said, from where he was still monitoring the conversation.
"How can it possibly?" Kendall demanded.
Dixon hesitated, then looked at them briefly before turning his gaze back to the screen where Weiss was now retreating. "Weiss said 'All's fair in love and war'," another pause as he met first Kendall's eyes, then Devlin's. "Jack agreed."
Another beat. But whatever Dixon was opening his mouth to say was lost as the door swung open and Weiss charged in. "He's insane! I mean, I knew he was insane when he did the thing in Madagascar, but now I think he's really certifiable. He's in love with Derevko!"
"Or at war with her," Kendall stepped in, apparently unable to accept that Bristow was capable of the emotion.
"Or both," Dixon said, causing everyone to look at him in surprise. He raised his eyebrows, as if the attention wasn't expected after a comment like that. "To people like Jack and Derevko, is there really that much of a difference? I expect they have a lot more in common than Jack and Laura ever did."
"No," Devlin disagreed. "Jack changed. When Laura died. The Jack Bristow in that cell has nothing in common with the girl, but the Jack Bristow who married her did." Devlin did not, could not, deny that Jack and Derveko had an uncomfortably large number of similarities now. He would have liked to. He found it terrifying that in the twenty plus years since a college literature professor drove off a bridge to be resurrected as a Russian spy, her CIA husband had morphed into a person who could, conceivably, love the Russian spy.
Assuming, of course, that the Russian spy and the betrayed husband were still capable of love. An assumption that Kendall, for one, refused to make. Devlin himself wasn't sure whether to pray Kendall was wrong, or to pray that he was right.
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"Jack, I have annulment papers," Devlin began, holding the partially filled out forms up for the prisoner to see. Jack looked, but only to dismiss them without so much as a word. "Jack, sign these, Marshall can overwrite last night and now with a loop of you sitting there. The NSA will never know."
Jack's brown gaze met Devlin's eyes calmly, almost too calmly. "If I was going to annul my marriage I would have done so when I hated her."
"Jack," Devlin warned, though what he was warning, he wasn't sure how to put in words.
"I'm not signing it, Ben." The tone was factual and there was no arguing with it. Devlin knew from experience that doing so would be wasted effort.
He tried anyway. "Dammit, Jack, being Derevko's ex was one thing. It meant she duped you, that you were her victim. She destroyed your life, anyone would be willing to testify to that. It even gives you some maneuvering room when you get caught irrationally endangering CIA missions while trying to frame her."
Jack met his glare evenly, taking no visible offense to the truth, and waiting for Devlin to finish.
Devlin complied, "But as her current and legal husband? Jack, they'll crucify you. She's a terrorist. The CIA's sixth most wanted. You can't be willingly married to her and expect not to be made an example of."
"I never said I expected not to be made an example of."
"Sign the damned papers, Jack."
Jack glared. "No."
At least he was getting angry now, Devlin took hope in that. Though he hated himself for it, he took a low shot. "Tell me, Jack, is she your wife, or are you her husband all by yourself?"
"Are you asking if we mutually acknowledge that we are still married?" Jack requested clarification, his eyes hiding something that Devlin couldn't decipher. He suddenly didn't want to know, but he was already in this far.
"Yes, that's what I'm asking."
Jack's brief temper had abated, and he gave a small smile that was impossible to interpret. "We both acknowledge that American marriage laws are stupid and that we have been legally married for thirty-two years. We even exchanged anniversary gifts this year. I gave her a necklace with C-4 in it, and she gave me a tie with a recording device hidden behind the label."
"You gave your wife C-4 for your anniversary?" Devlin could help asking despite his better judgment on the entire affair.
He smirked, looking almost happy for the first time in months. "No, Ben, I gave my wife a necklace for our anniversary," he corrected primly. "I may have been out of the game for twenty years, but I am not a complete heel."
"A necklace that could decapitate her."
"Well, I expect she would have the sense not to activate it while she was wearing it."
It was then that Devlin realized that the gifts were not meant to be used against each other. They were intended as op tech. "You gave C-4 to a terrorist for your anniversary?" Though the words differed only slightly from the first question, this one came out harsh and accusatory rather than surprised and bemused.
Jack seemed somewhat taken aback by the sudden change in tone and he closed down. "I hardly think Irina has any difficulty getting her hands on a small C-4 charge," he defended his action coldly.
"Apparently, she has even less difficulty than I thought, what with employees of the United States Government giving them to her as gifts."
Jack's eyes flashed in anger. "I should hope I'm the only one. You're starting to sound like Kendall, Ben."
"No, Jack, if were becoming like Kendall, I'd be trying to find your angle, not begging you to see sense and annul the marriage that everyone but you understands isn't real."
"It is real!" the vehemence of the assertion took Devlin by surprise, but he didn't let that show.
"So you are sleeping with her, then? That's what husbands and wives do."
For a moment, Jack continued to scowl, but the anger was draining. He looked away. "No, of course not," he said in the scathing tone that Devlin recognized meant 'yes, but I'm not going to say so in front of the cameras.'
With that admission, Devlin gave up. Jack was lost. The only thing he could do for his former friend was to arrange things so he would avoid the death penalty.
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Dixon was somber when Devlin entered Control. "He's gone," Devlin said unnecessarily.
"I'm sorry," Dixon said, and it struck Devlin that was what people say when a man's family or friend dies. "You tried your best. Derevko knew exactly how to play him."
"And we let her. She seduced him again right under our noses. I saw it happening, we all did. But Jack knew what she was, we thought he had sense enough to let well enough alone, to not fall into the same trap again. We forget sometimes that Jack is still human."
Dixon studied him intently. "You think that's why she turned herself in? To recruit Jack?"
Devlin shook his head. "No. She wanted Sydney at first. Then Jack proved to be easier than anticipated."
"Getting to Sydney is the fastest way to get to Jack. Are you sure he wasn't her primary target from the beginning?"
Devlin looked at Dixon as if seeing him for the first time. His words were dismayed, "If so, we all played directly into her hands, like Jack said we were." He shook his head suddenly. "No. No, if that were her endgame, she wouldn't have escaped with a Rambaldi manuscript and left Jack looking a fool."
"They shared a hotel room that night. He took out her active transmitter. How do you know they didn't plan that together to throw suspicion off Jack?"
Devlin shook his head, "No, that makes no sense. To throw suspicion off, they get risk getting Jack a court martial?"
Dixon nodded, apparently not seeing the ridiculousness of the suggestion. "Yes. It only works because we all know that Jack doesn't play by the books. Who'd be stupid enough to take out a transmitter then let the prisoner escape? We all have a much higher opinion of Jack and Derevko to think they would pull something that obvious. Therefore, she must have pulled the wool over his eyes again."
"You really think that's what happened?"
"No, but it does make a frightening theory."
Devlin nodded. "That it does. Don't tell it to the NSA. Have you stopped looping the video feed?"
"Yes, Jack was nice enough to return to the exact same position, so Marshall will hardly need to do any editing at all. Has he done a lot of missions that required him to fit into a loop?"
Devlin glanced over at him. "He's been a field agent since he was seventeen. One month off when he got married, two months off when Sydney was born, and six months off when he was in Solitary."
Dixon studied Jack's sitting form. "And now he's in prison for being a terrorist."
"The charge hasn't been decided on yet. In all honesty, Marcus, he should have been there a long time ago. Don't ever mistake Jack Bristow for a company man, he's not. Jack has been a loose cannon since Laura died." He paused, waiting for Dixon to look at him. "Jack joined SD-6 knowing what it was. He didn't turn double for us until he found out Sloane recruited Sydney. I said he was a field agent since he was seventeen. I didn't say he spent all of that time working for the good guys. He's run out of second chances, and I think he knows it."
Summary: Jack's sins catch up to him. Set between seasons 2 and 3.
Spoilers: through the first episode of season 3.
Disclaimer: Alias and associated characters obviously aren't mine. ABC and JJ Abrams hold that honour.
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Season 3; I know that you were imprisoned for making contact with your ex-wife. You went to Irina Derevko for help to find Sydney. Now, I wouldn't have believed that you would ally yourself with a woman you vowed you'd never trust again. (Sloane)
Season 2; Yes, passport stamps, plane tickets, enough to withstand a cursory inquiry. This is anything but cursory. I did not kill Emily Sloane, but I do have secrets. (Jack)
Season 1; There are a few things we need to talk about and, quite frankly, you scare me, so I'd rather talk about them in a public place. (Will)
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Agent Blackstone was a surveillance operative. He was field trained, but his work was mostly done in a van several blocks away from whatever operation was going down. He preferred it that way. Less chance of getting shot and all.
It was a standard op, nothing fancy. Didn't even need any of Flinkman's toys for today's assignment. All they were there to do was watch and record, gather the intel so the 'real' field agents could stop the trade that was about to be negotiated and arranged. Simple, he could do it in his sleep.
The tap into the restraunt's security system was a piece of cake, and, just for fun, he began running the recognition software early. If there were going to be any surprises, it wouldn't hurt to have forewarning. It was shaping up to be a very boring operation and the one extra screen to keep an eye on wouldn't be an issue. Seemed a shame to have the resources and not use them.
He never dreamed that he might flush out the CIA's sixth most wanted in a little backstreet restraunt in Mexico City.
She was sitting at a table in the back, her profile to the security camera. She was sitting with a man, grey hair, suit, probably in his fifties, vaguely familiar looking. Blackstone ran the software on him next, hoping to find a match in the archives to determine which syndicate Derevko was dealing with.
Before the result returned, though, she scooped a chip into the salsa dip and reached across the table, feeding it to the man. Blackstone's eyes widened in surprise and he reclassified the dinner from a negotiation (his first assumption, since that's what the arms smugglers were in the restraunt to do) to a date. This was better. Business partners could provide information, lovers provided leverage.
His computer beeped, and he pulled up the screen to find out the identity of her companion. And froze.
Jonathan D. Bristow. CIA Agent, out of Los Angeles.
That couldn't be a good thing.
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Benjamin Devlin shut off the VCR, and rubbed his eyes. Looking down at the file that had arrived with the tape, the photograph of a woman reaching across a table to place a chip into a man's waiting mouth stared accusingly back at him. Had the woman been anyone else, he'd have been delighted with the happy image depicted. Had the man been anyone else, he'd be elated by the possibilities. Had they both been anyone one else, the picture would be unremarkable, just a couple on a date.
But the man was Jack, and the woman was Derevko. And that made it sinister.
"Dammit, Jack, why is it always you?" he muttered under his breath before picking up the phone on his desk and punching in Kendall's extension. Devlin didn't even wait for a greeting, beginning to speak as soon as he hear the click of the phone lifting from its cradle. "We may have a mole."
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"Bristow?" Kendall repeated, not exactly disbelieving that the agent in question was capable of it. "With Derevko?" That was the part that was hard to swallow. The man's hatred of her was legendary. While it might have seemed, towards the end of her imprisonment, that the two had begun to get along again, all bets were off once she escaped on his watch during Panama. Made him look the fool again, and Bristow was not one to take that sort of thing lightly. She'd done it to him twice, he wouldn't let it happen a third time.
Several minutes later found him in Jack's office. Devlin and Kendall had both agreed on two things. First, he should be taken into custody immediately. Jack had a disturbing talent of having information he shouldn't. If he caught wind that he was under suspicion for this, he would disappear and they'd never hear from him again. If anyone could vanish from the face of the earth, it would be Jack.
They other thing they decided on was to test how guiltily he responded. Jack was nothing if not unconventional. That he was speaking with a terrorist didn't necessarily mean he was working for or even with her. His loyalty may still possibly be with the CIA. If he went quietly, if he cooperated with them, they might be able to convince the NSA he wasn't a threat.
As he made some excuse about a presentation Jack would never give, Kendall studied him obliquely, trying to see if there were any signs that the man in front of him had spent at least one evening being video taped dining with Irina Derevko. There were, expectedly, none.
When they stepped out of his office, to where a half dozen agents surreptitiously watched Jack for any indication he was about to make a break for it, Kendall sensed a change in him. And, indeed, he was eyeing the two closest guards who waited to subdue him should it prove necessary. "Where are we going?" he asked, looking toward the exit.
"Interrogation room three," Kendall replied, making no attempt hide a purpose the man already suspected.
Bristow stole another look down the most promising escape route, but the guard positioned there drew out his tranquilizer, letting Bristow see it. Tranqs meant they wanted to bring in someone alive, but they also meant there would be no hesitation to shoot. They were also not standard issue for agents standing in hallways. Jack would know they were just for him.
"Who do you want me to question?" Jack asked, visibly dropping any intention he might have had of running. Kendall didn't bother to reply. He was trying to determine whether it was a positive sign that Jack was coming quietly, or a bad one that it had taken a sighting of the tranquilizer guns to get him to do so.
Even Kendall was taken aback by the make of the chair in the interrogation room, but Jack's reaction was telling. He did not even make it completely through the doorway before he stopped. By the mulish look, Kendall knew attempting to question him would prove fruitless until he calmed down. He waved for one of the agents to subdue the prisoner.
The hours it took for him to wake up would give the rest of them time to fully review the case, or at least get a good jump on it. Kendall wanted to, at the very least, see the video before he confronted Jack about it. Even if Bristow had cooperated, he'd just be sitting there waiting under guard until they decided the next move.
The initial briefing of the situation included five men. Devlin presented the data, as much as there was of it, to an audience consisting of Kendall, Dixon, Weiss, and Marshall.
"Three days ago," Devlin began, "an operative of this office of the CIA was observing an arms negotiation between known enemies of the United States. The deal was arranged to take place in a restraunt in Mexico City at 1900 hours local time. Twenty minutes before that, this was recorded at Los Hermanos Gonzalez, the restraunt in question." The lights dimmed marginally and the CIA logo on the briefing displays were replaced with grainy, black and white security footage of what was obviously a moderately successful restraunt.
Though no one at the table really needed the commentary, Devlin's narration continued. "If I could direct your attention to the table at the top left corner, I believe you can all recognize the seriousness of what you are seeing. The agent was not as well versed with these two players as we are, so he was required to use facial recognition software to realize what we can see in a glance. A senior agent of the Central Intelligence Agency in the person of Jonathan Bristow was meeting with number six on the very same Agency's most wanted list. A man on the very task force assigned to bring her in, the man who had once led that task force, was witnessed by a reliable source and recorded meeting with Irina Derevko."
On the screen, Bristow's image sipped at his soda and looked blandly across the table, wearing a poker face anyone around the table could easily recognize. Derevko said something, and Jack did something that only Devlin had ever seen before. He laughed. It didn't last very long, and he shortly picked up his butter knife and pointed it at her, but despite the brandished weapon, Jack Bristow looked more relaxed than any of them had seen in a very long time.
"Marshall, I want lip dubbing software to figure out what they are saying. Weiss, you are going to look for any evidence that this is not the first time they've met. I want you to investigate Jack Bristow back as far as when Derevko first got away. I want to know everyone he's talked to and why. Every plane trip he's taken; where to, who he met. If it was a CIA mission, I want to know if he did anything unusual that might indicate he's a double. Delegate as necessary. Kendall, I want you to talk to Jack, see if he has an explanation for this. Dixon, you and I have known him the longest. We'll be in Control, watching Bristow's cell while Kendall speaks with him." Devlin sighed, "I have already sent the preliminary report to Langley. I expect people from Washington to arrive probably late tonight or early tomorrow. If Jack's going to survive this, he's going to have to give up Derevko's location before they arrive."
There was a small stunned silence following their assignments, but they slowly nodded acknowledgment and dispersed. As Weiss and Dixon left the room together, Kendall heard Weiss asking, "You don't think . . . they wouldn't be shacking up together, right? He wouldn't do that again, would he?"
Dixon shook his head, but Kendall thought the motion was too deliberate to be convincing. "Jack knows better than to trust her," was the rather inconclusive insight Marcus was able to offer. He even sounded uncertain about that.
"Right," Weiss agreed, just as unconvinced. "Ever seen him laugh like that before?"
"No."
As they moved away, Devlin came up beside him, also having been listening to the exchange. "Not since before Sydney died, and even then it was rare," Devlin answered the final question in his own experience. "For a while, after Laura turned out to be a spy, I didn't think he ever would again."
Kendall looked down at the shorter Director, surprised. "You think they're sleeping together?"
Devlin didn't look at him, staring unseeingly ahead. "God, I hope not. She already broke him once."
"But if you had to guess," Kendall pressed. "You think they are."
Devlin did meet his eyes this time. "Don't put words in my mouth." There a brief pause during which they stared each other down. "Yes," Devlin eventually agreed. "Jack," he looked away briefly, then turned back. "Jack loved his daughter. But even where Sydney was concerned, he could keep his emotions so tightly under wrap that you'd never know he worried about her unless he wanted you to. You saw him at her funeral. Stood tall, poker faced, and never shed a tear."
Devlin stopped talking, but Kendall sensed he wasn't done, so he said nothing.
"Only Derevko can make him react emotionally. You saw his outbursts while she was in custody. It wasn't threats to Sydney that made him act that way, it was the fact that his ex-wife was involved. He loved her passionately once. When she was taken in her cell, he hated her passionately. They say love and hate are the two sides of the same coin, and we know they're not actively trying to kill each other right now."
Kendall stared at him in astonishment. "You can't possibly think he loves her."
Devlin looked away. "I don't know what to think."
He shook his head in denial. "Maybe if it weren't Jack Bristow. I don't think Bristow knows how to love anymore."
"He loved Laura."
"Laura and Derevko are completely different entities."
Devlin looked at him once more, waiting until he had captured Kendall's full attention before saying clearly, "I know that. You know that." A pregnant pause. "But does Jack know that?"
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Kendall proved to be useless in extracting Jack's cooperation. Devlin himself was moderately successful, but his interview ended badly and he concluded that it would take a few days before Jack would be willing to talk to him again. Barnett was only marginally better than Kendall, though both Dixon and Devlin, watching from the Control room, agreed that Jack was hiding something.
By the time Barnett gave up, Marshall had new information.
The same people gathered in the same conference room they had occupied just over an hour earlier. Marshall put in the tape, and subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen, blue for what Jack said and pink for what Irina said.
Irina was sitting at the table first, reading her menu. After a few moments, she looked up expectantly, and smiled as Jack approached and sat down across from her. "Safe trip?" she asked.
"Fine," Jack agreed. "My watchdog didn't even know I left the house."
She nodded. "Good."
A waiter approached, supplying them with chips and salsa, then leaving. Irina smiled. "This place serves the best salsa in the world, Jack. Here, have some." She used a tortilla chip to spoon up a bite's worth of dip, and reached across the table. "Open up, Jack."
Reluctantly, Jack opened his mouth and let her feed him. There was no indication of what he thought of the salsa as he chewed then swallowed. "Well?" Irina prompted.
"I wouldn't say it was the 'best in the world'," Jack critiqued. "The best in the city possibly, but there's a place in Calcutta that has a very good dip. I'll need to introduce you to it sometime."
Irina smiled. "I'd like that."
The waiter returned and they gave their orders, both speaking in Spanish. When he had gone again, Irina asked, "Have you been sleeping better? You look less dead."
Jack didn't need words to express that he found her comment less than complimentary. "There is significantly less jet lag between here and LA than there is between Africa and LA."
Devlin momentarily paused the tape, and he looked around the table. "I want people working on this. Jack met her in Africa. I need to know when and where. I want surveillance footage if I can get it. I want people going through our own security tapes. Find out when he was looking the most exhausted and see if you can link it to any extracurricular activities. Dixon?"
Dixon stood. "I'm on it." He left the room. After a few minutes of waiting, he returned, nodded confirmation that the analysts had been set on the trail. Devlin pressed the play button on his remote as Dixon resumed his seat.
"So you're not sleeping better?" Irina pressed. "Jack, you need to sleep."
Jack was saved from answering by the arrival of their drinks. He immediately took a sip of his soda. Irina watched him, a small smile on her lips. Jack returned the look blandly. "The salsa was killing you, wasn't it?" she asked.
He laughed briefly, then picked up his butter knife and pointed it at her. "You are a sadistic woman, Irina."
"Thank you, Jack. You always have such sweet things to say about me."
"Eat your salsa, Irina. You have a drink to go with it now." They fell quiet as they both began attacking the plate of chips and salsa dip. After a while, Jack broke the silence. "I take it you haven't any news?"
"I'd have told you first thing if I had. Same for you?"
"Yes."
Another silence, longer this time. "We'll find her, Jack."
"I know."
The third extended silence was broken by the arrival of their meals.
The picture stilled again and the lights in the CIA conference room undimmed slightly. For a moment, nobody spoke. "It appears," Dixon ventured when it became obvious nobody else wanted to make the first remark, "that Jack was telling the truth when he said they were looking for Sydney."
"That 'her' could be anybody," Kendall disagreed. Though no one challenged it, neither did any of them - including Kendall - appear entirely convinced. Devlin darkened the room again and restarted the video. They watched the couple wordlessly eat and ignored the arrival of the gun traders entirely.
Derevko's eyes, however, tracked toward the pair of men entering the restraunt and nudged Jack under the table. Her eyes met his then shifted toward the newcomers. Jack dropped his napkin on the floor and used the opportunity to steal a glance in the direction Irina had indicated. After recovering the napkin, he used it dab at his mouth, hiding any low volume words he may have said.
Derevko covered a cough, and they both (though not in any way that might have indicated they did it on purpose) turned in their chairs so that they almost had their backs to the security camera. Certainly, their faces were now obstructed. They finished their meal quickly, left cash on the table, and made their unhurried and perfectly natural exit from the building, keeping their faces turned away from both the camera and the men.
This time, when Devlin stopped the tape, the CIA logo returned to the screens, and the room lights came back to full brightness.
"I want to know where they went next," Devlin said. "Their business must have been conducted elsewhere. What we just saw wasn't worth him leaving LA for. But first, Marshall, you said you found something else?"
"Uh, yeah," Marshall stood, looking nervous, which was normal. "While I was running the dubbing software, which takes a kinda long time, especially since they weren't facing exactly at the camera, I was checking the outgoing server logs where I found a large data dump originating from Agent Bristow's computer at a time after he'd already been taken in for questioning. I thought that was, well, sorta odd, since you can't really use ftp when you're unconscious except for I did it once when I was sleep walking but Agent Bristow was locked up, so he couldn't even get to a . . . right. So I remotely accessed his computer, and I found that he had begun running a program just before he was arrested. Um, I'm not really sure what he sent out because he overwrote the original files and the log files with long string of dashes until the overwritten file got to be fifty megs. None of the files he replaced was larger than that so I can't reconstruct even parts of them."
"Where did he send these files to?" Devlin asked.
"An IP address that used to belong to SD-6. But the data was already gone when I got there. I tried to see if I could rebuild the files, but they changed that to dashes, too, before deleting it. The server logs were also wiped clean, so I couldn't follow it out any further. The only other thing on the server were 47 pictures of Sydney as a little girl in a folder called 'ourdaughter', no space, all lowercase." Marshall paused briefly. "She was a really cute kid."
"Thank you, Marshall," Devlin said, cutting in before he go off on a new tangent. "Kendall, I want you to try talking to Jack again. At this point, your best bet is probably to get him angry enough to snap at you. If that doesn't work, Weiss, you're up."
"Me?" Weiss repeated, surprised.
"Yes, I want Dixon observing, and you're the only one left besides him who hasn't pissed Jack off yet today. Try not to."
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Kendall's questioning was an unqualified disaster. Devlin decided to keep him out of all future interviews with Jack. Weiss's attempt . . . well that was a disaster, too, but in an entirely different way.
It started out moderately promising. He spoke to Weiss at any rate, offered without even being asked, the intel that he had uploaded the files about Sydney's search to Derevko. Then the whole investigation went to Hell.
"She's my wife."
Weiss tried to save Jack, tried to rectify the situation. "Your ex-wife."
Jack was hell-bent on self-destruction, though. "My wife. It's still legal. I never annulled it, never divorced her."
In Control, Devlin, Kendall, and Dixon all exchanged wide-eyed looks of dismay. Devlin sat down on a desktop in the cramped room and rubbed his eyes. "He just killed himself. The NSA won't let Derevko's self-proclaimed husband go."
"God," Kendall cursed. He looked like he wanted to expand upon that, but nothing further managed to reach his tongue.
"It gets worse," Dixon said, from where he was still monitoring the conversation.
"How can it possibly?" Kendall demanded.
Dixon hesitated, then looked at them briefly before turning his gaze back to the screen where Weiss was now retreating. "Weiss said 'All's fair in love and war'," another pause as he met first Kendall's eyes, then Devlin's. "Jack agreed."
Another beat. But whatever Dixon was opening his mouth to say was lost as the door swung open and Weiss charged in. "He's insane! I mean, I knew he was insane when he did the thing in Madagascar, but now I think he's really certifiable. He's in love with Derevko!"
"Or at war with her," Kendall stepped in, apparently unable to accept that Bristow was capable of the emotion.
"Or both," Dixon said, causing everyone to look at him in surprise. He raised his eyebrows, as if the attention wasn't expected after a comment like that. "To people like Jack and Derevko, is there really that much of a difference? I expect they have a lot more in common than Jack and Laura ever did."
"No," Devlin disagreed. "Jack changed. When Laura died. The Jack Bristow in that cell has nothing in common with the girl, but the Jack Bristow who married her did." Devlin did not, could not, deny that Jack and Derveko had an uncomfortably large number of similarities now. He would have liked to. He found it terrifying that in the twenty plus years since a college literature professor drove off a bridge to be resurrected as a Russian spy, her CIA husband had morphed into a person who could, conceivably, love the Russian spy.
Assuming, of course, that the Russian spy and the betrayed husband were still capable of love. An assumption that Kendall, for one, refused to make. Devlin himself wasn't sure whether to pray Kendall was wrong, or to pray that he was right.
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"Jack, I have annulment papers," Devlin began, holding the partially filled out forms up for the prisoner to see. Jack looked, but only to dismiss them without so much as a word. "Jack, sign these, Marshall can overwrite last night and now with a loop of you sitting there. The NSA will never know."
Jack's brown gaze met Devlin's eyes calmly, almost too calmly. "If I was going to annul my marriage I would have done so when I hated her."
"Jack," Devlin warned, though what he was warning, he wasn't sure how to put in words.
"I'm not signing it, Ben." The tone was factual and there was no arguing with it. Devlin knew from experience that doing so would be wasted effort.
He tried anyway. "Dammit, Jack, being Derevko's ex was one thing. It meant she duped you, that you were her victim. She destroyed your life, anyone would be willing to testify to that. It even gives you some maneuvering room when you get caught irrationally endangering CIA missions while trying to frame her."
Jack met his glare evenly, taking no visible offense to the truth, and waiting for Devlin to finish.
Devlin complied, "But as her current and legal husband? Jack, they'll crucify you. She's a terrorist. The CIA's sixth most wanted. You can't be willingly married to her and expect not to be made an example of."
"I never said I expected not to be made an example of."
"Sign the damned papers, Jack."
Jack glared. "No."
At least he was getting angry now, Devlin took hope in that. Though he hated himself for it, he took a low shot. "Tell me, Jack, is she your wife, or are you her husband all by yourself?"
"Are you asking if we mutually acknowledge that we are still married?" Jack requested clarification, his eyes hiding something that Devlin couldn't decipher. He suddenly didn't want to know, but he was already in this far.
"Yes, that's what I'm asking."
Jack's brief temper had abated, and he gave a small smile that was impossible to interpret. "We both acknowledge that American marriage laws are stupid and that we have been legally married for thirty-two years. We even exchanged anniversary gifts this year. I gave her a necklace with C-4 in it, and she gave me a tie with a recording device hidden behind the label."
"You gave your wife C-4 for your anniversary?" Devlin could help asking despite his better judgment on the entire affair.
He smirked, looking almost happy for the first time in months. "No, Ben, I gave my wife a necklace for our anniversary," he corrected primly. "I may have been out of the game for twenty years, but I am not a complete heel."
"A necklace that could decapitate her."
"Well, I expect she would have the sense not to activate it while she was wearing it."
It was then that Devlin realized that the gifts were not meant to be used against each other. They were intended as op tech. "You gave C-4 to a terrorist for your anniversary?" Though the words differed only slightly from the first question, this one came out harsh and accusatory rather than surprised and bemused.
Jack seemed somewhat taken aback by the sudden change in tone and he closed down. "I hardly think Irina has any difficulty getting her hands on a small C-4 charge," he defended his action coldly.
"Apparently, she has even less difficulty than I thought, what with employees of the United States Government giving them to her as gifts."
Jack's eyes flashed in anger. "I should hope I'm the only one. You're starting to sound like Kendall, Ben."
"No, Jack, if were becoming like Kendall, I'd be trying to find your angle, not begging you to see sense and annul the marriage that everyone but you understands isn't real."
"It is real!" the vehemence of the assertion took Devlin by surprise, but he didn't let that show.
"So you are sleeping with her, then? That's what husbands and wives do."
For a moment, Jack continued to scowl, but the anger was draining. He looked away. "No, of course not," he said in the scathing tone that Devlin recognized meant 'yes, but I'm not going to say so in front of the cameras.'
With that admission, Devlin gave up. Jack was lost. The only thing he could do for his former friend was to arrange things so he would avoid the death penalty.
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Dixon was somber when Devlin entered Control. "He's gone," Devlin said unnecessarily.
"I'm sorry," Dixon said, and it struck Devlin that was what people say when a man's family or friend dies. "You tried your best. Derevko knew exactly how to play him."
"And we let her. She seduced him again right under our noses. I saw it happening, we all did. But Jack knew what she was, we thought he had sense enough to let well enough alone, to not fall into the same trap again. We forget sometimes that Jack is still human."
Dixon studied him intently. "You think that's why she turned herself in? To recruit Jack?"
Devlin shook his head. "No. She wanted Sydney at first. Then Jack proved to be easier than anticipated."
"Getting to Sydney is the fastest way to get to Jack. Are you sure he wasn't her primary target from the beginning?"
Devlin looked at Dixon as if seeing him for the first time. His words were dismayed, "If so, we all played directly into her hands, like Jack said we were." He shook his head suddenly. "No. No, if that were her endgame, she wouldn't have escaped with a Rambaldi manuscript and left Jack looking a fool."
"They shared a hotel room that night. He took out her active transmitter. How do you know they didn't plan that together to throw suspicion off Jack?"
Devlin shook his head, "No, that makes no sense. To throw suspicion off, they get risk getting Jack a court martial?"
Dixon nodded, apparently not seeing the ridiculousness of the suggestion. "Yes. It only works because we all know that Jack doesn't play by the books. Who'd be stupid enough to take out a transmitter then let the prisoner escape? We all have a much higher opinion of Jack and Derevko to think they would pull something that obvious. Therefore, she must have pulled the wool over his eyes again."
"You really think that's what happened?"
"No, but it does make a frightening theory."
Devlin nodded. "That it does. Don't tell it to the NSA. Have you stopped looping the video feed?"
"Yes, Jack was nice enough to return to the exact same position, so Marshall will hardly need to do any editing at all. Has he done a lot of missions that required him to fit into a loop?"
Devlin glanced over at him. "He's been a field agent since he was seventeen. One month off when he got married, two months off when Sydney was born, and six months off when he was in Solitary."
Dixon studied Jack's sitting form. "And now he's in prison for being a terrorist."
"The charge hasn't been decided on yet. In all honesty, Marcus, he should have been there a long time ago. Don't ever mistake Jack Bristow for a company man, he's not. Jack has been a loose cannon since Laura died." He paused, waiting for Dixon to look at him. "Jack joined SD-6 knowing what it was. He didn't turn double for us until he found out Sloane recruited Sydney. I said he was a field agent since he was seventeen. I didn't say he spent all of that time working for the good guys. He's run out of second chances, and I think he knows it."