Option 8: Irina
Disclaimer: Alias isn't mine, but this entire scenario is. If alias had wanted to use it, of course, I wouldn't have minded, but I liked Vaughn shooting Lauren while making out with Syd better. You just can't beat it. Now if we just knew what the hell Lauren knew???? And what the hell was Jack thinking??? He had that "I'm going to shoot you" look…
A/N: Please ignore the above rant. I'm really not looking for reviews that spend all the time commenting on what they think of the finale…but if I get them, it's my own fault…
After months--no, years, now--of never seeing her daughter in person, rather than in pictures and in surveillance footage, the miserable look on Sydney's face was not what Irina wanted to see.
The building was dark, and there could have been scores of men hidden behind all the crates and boxes in the huge warehouse, but Sydney walked in with complete confidence. Irina allowed herself a small smile over the fact that Sydney trusted her.
Sydney herself was surprised that she wasn't more nervous about the meeting she'd asked her father to arrange. Irina Derevko was hardly a woman whose word could be taken in good faith. Yet she was here, wasn't she, Sydney chided herself.
"Sydney," Irina said softly. "It's good to see you. I was…surprised," she said carefully. "When Jack told me you wanted to meet with me." Irina's revealing eyes held questions.
"I need a favor. I don't have the contacts to do this alone," Sydney said cryptically, waiting to see if her mother was willing to help.
"I hope the favor you ask will ease the unhappiness I see in your eyes," Irina said easily.
Sydney shook her head.
"I don't know what it will do. You know Lauren Reed has been revealed as Covenant?"
"Yes, that's what Jack said."
"She's missing."
"And you want her found."
"I want her dead," Sydney said vehemently. "Something has to change. Vaughn is going to get himself in a…difficult…situation if someone doesn't do something." Sydney hesitated, then continued. "I think Dad is helping him, if not deeply involved in whatever Vaughn is doing."
Irina nodded grimly.
"You want her killed before Vaughn or Jack does it."
"I was hoping you could arrange that for me. If it gets traced back, I don't want it traced to one of them." Sydney squared her shoulders defensively. "I don't doubt either one of them is capable, of that Vaughn will do exactly that if he finds her first."
Irina nodded.
"I'll arrange it. My contacts will find her," she said softly, he tone almost comforting if not for the deadly calm underneath that said she knew the difficulty of the task set before her.
"Thank you," Sydney said sincerely. "I wouldn't do this, but…"
"But you're protecting people you love," Irina finished with a soft smile that said she understood perfectly.
"Thank you," Sydney repeated.
"Don't worry. I'll take care of it, and I'll see to it your Mr. Vaughn and Jack stay away from her."
Irina smiled sadly at Sydney and resisted the urge to hug her daughter before she walked away. Sydney saw the reluctance in Irina's step, but was unsure how she could respond to it.
"It was good to see you, too," Sydney finally called before turning and leaving herself.
She was still surprised that she had total confidence that her mother would not only carry out her request, but protect Vaughn and Jack, too.
Lauren sat uneasily in the house the Covenant had provided for her to hide in until she could make other arrangements. For days, she'd felt as if someone was watching. Twice at night she'd spun around to be unsure if the flash she'd seen in the window had been a face on the other side or her own reflection.
She should be safe in Singapore. So far as the CIA knew, the Covenant had no ties to the little island country. They had no reason to look for her here. Only Sark and a few high ranking Covenant officers knew she was there, and there was so little of a paper trail that even the CIA couldn't trace her.
So why was she so sure someone was watching, waiting to pounce like a mountain lion waits for its prey?
Irina smiled and allowed herself a soft chuckle as she slipped unerringly through the dark. Lauren should be getting pretty jumpy, after three days of painfully obvious observation. Irina had gotten in to set up cameras and microphones without even tipping Lauren off. She didn't need to get up close.
But Lauren had made the lives of some people very dear to Irina hell. She felt it her duty to not only fulfill Sydney's request personally, but also to return the favor. Lauren would be a very nervous woman before Irina made the first move.
A shoe shifted slightly. Move some clothes in a drawer. Take a sock's mate from the fryer. A missing fork from the sink. Little things guaranteed to drive a woman crazy, Irina thought with a full blown smile.
A couple more days of this, and Lauren would jump at her own shadow. Then there would be a few hours, at least, of painful torture.
Yes, there were two very important lessons Irina Derevko had learned in her life. The first was that the CIA, in one way or another, took care of their own. The second had taken her a lot longer to learn; the Bristows took care of each other. Somewhere along the line, she'd become a part of that.
Which, of course, made it her maternal duty to torture Lauren before she killed her.
"Vaughn," Sydney said firmly, catching up to him in the shadowy parking garage. "I want to know what you're up to. You've been avoiding me."
Vaughn turned and stared at her for a moment.
"Sydney, I'm just resolving a few things," he said.
"You're looking for her," Sydney said, challenging him to deny it. "Don't do this, Vaughn," she added when he didn't.
"Sydney, let me do this. Trust me."
Sydney pressed her lips together.
"Don't do anything stupid, Vaughn," she warned carefully. "There are bound to be people watching Lauren. If you get too close, alarms are going to be raised."
"I'll be careful, Sydney."
"One more question. How is my father involved?"
Vaughn looked surprised for a second, then didn't answer.
"Well, there we do!" Sydney exclaimed. "You two are both in over your heads!"
She spun and walked away, hoping her mother was keeping very close tabs on Michael Vaughn and Jack Bristow.
Vaughn had two days off. He hadn't told Sydney that; she'd have decapitated him--or worse--on the spot if she'd known. He'd only traced Lauren as far as being somewhere on the island of Singapore. That meant he had two days to find Lauren and decide what he was going to do about her.
He drove directly to the airport from the Op Center. He'd packed a small suitcase that morning so he wouldn't have to waste any time. He was booked on a flight to Singapore under an alias, and he had about thirty minutes to drive across town to the airport or he'd miss that flight.
Vaughn's face was as grim as his thoughts as he maneuvered LA traffic. He'd get some sleep on the plane, because chances were he wouldn't sleep again until the flight back. Then he'd be able to rest easy. Lauren would be dead.
He thought about the key in his pocket, the one Jack had given him. He hadn't been able to honestly tell Sydney Jack wasn't involved, but the truth was Jack knew about as much as Sydney. Vaughn had gone into the storage facility, yes. He'd even picked up one of the automatic machine guns to test its weight. But he couldn't use any of it. Part of it was reluctance to be involved with Jack, but most of it was the necessity to do this on his own, his own way.
In such a way that no one could ever trace it back to him.
Irina muttered a curse under her breath when her search turned up a reservation on a Singapore bound flight that could only be Vaughn's. He'd be in the city already, most likely. Even if he hadn't known where Lauren was when he'd landed, Michael Vaughn had some very effective contacts. It would take him less than an hour to trace her to the Covenant safe house.
It was the dead of night. Irina would just have to move her plans up one night. And cut them short. She couldn't afford for Michael Vaughn to implicate himself. He would only complicate an already impossible situation. The man sure knew how to ruin a woman's fun!
And fun it would be. Anyone who dared mess with her daughter's life would not be happy when Irina Derevko got through with them!
Lauren wandered around the house, the only light from the TV. She couldn't sleep; the time difference was too great. She was wary of turning on any lights, though. Despite its relative isolation, she didn't want to call attention to the house.
Bored, she wandered into the den in search of a notepad. Random doodling on papers was a habit she'd broken herself of as a teenager, but whenever she was nervous it never failed to return. The pad she'd been sketching on earlier sat on the coffee table, but the pen she'd used was nowhere nearby.
She'd moved or misplaced too many things in the past few days. Was it just nerves, or was she nervous because so many things weren't where she remembered leaving them? She was fearful enough to begin to suspect the latter.
The missing pen was more irritating than something to worry about, Lauren scolded herself, moving things around on the counter. The pen couldn't be too hard to find, with its distinctive bright purple design.
A noise behind her made her look up, toward the window. When she saw nothing, Lauren sighed. She should have muted the damn TV. It was making her jumpy.
Giving up her search for the pen, Lauren turned off the TV and walked toward her bedroom, hoping to get some respite from the restlessness. She walked in and kicked off her slippers by the bed.
Turning around, she saw a figure emerge from the closet. Lauren gasped and switched on the lamp by the bed.
She found herself standing face to face with a figure she'd never encountered, but knew enough about to know she didn't want to. A ruthless, dangerous woman.
She was holding up a purple pen and smiling.
"Did you lose this, Lauren?" Irina Derevko asked mildly, tossing the pen onto the bed.
Vaughn dodged through the trees edging the property, noting carefully when the window began to glow from the TV. Good. She was awake.
Vaughn felt the handgun through the material of his jacket. Nothing that might get traced back to LA in any way, but just as deadly.
A frown stole onto Vaughn's face as the TV was turned off, leaving the house in the dark. Minutes later, a light blinked on in what Vaughn figured had to be a bedroom.
He moved out of the cover of trees and stole through the darkness to the house. The process took him several long minutes; there was someone in the house awake, he had to be cautious. Lauren probably had a gun nearby.
Vaughn eased up to look through the lighted window, then ducked back down quickly.
Had his eyes deceived him, or had Derevko been the one with a gun while Lauren was tied helplessly to a chair?!?
He peeked over the sill again, then swore. Yep, Derevko was wielding a powerful looking handgun with a silencer, and Lauren was tied to the type of uncomfortable hard wooden chair some people put in a room for purely decorative purposes.
Well, Derevko had to have gotten in somewhere, Vaughn thought as he looked around. He'd get in, too. Preferably without the women being aware of it. Neither of them looked happy. Lauren looked pissed, Derevko looked murderous behind her false smile, but neither of them looked happy.
Derevko never reacted, not that Lauren would have seen, but she'd seen Vaughn in the window. Both times. He really did need looking after tight now; anger seemed to render him reckless.
She knew she'd have to hurry the matter now. She couldn't have Mr. Vaughn getting himself in any more trouble than he'd already be in when Sydney found out what he'd been up to. But he mild irritation at Vaughn's appearance turned to distress when she heard a window rattle; it wouldn't take him long now to find her point of entry.
Disgusted that Lauren's death would be quick and nearly painless after all, Irina pulled out the gun with a silencer on it. Lauren's own gun, from her own nightstand drawer, Irina reminded herself as she saw the glint of recognition in Lauren's eyes. There was panic there, too.
Irina smiled at the irony that Lauren could point a gun--even if she hadn't fired it--at her own father, but still show such utter panic when faced with the same predicament herself. The woman wasn't cut out to be a spy; she didn't realize there was nearly always an escape, if only one didn't panic.
She sighed as she pointed and fired, just as she heard the tell-tale rattle in the bathroom signifying Vaughn has found the frosted window that swung inward. Even with the silencer, he would have heard the shot. She'd better be ready when he came charging in ready to kill her just for being.
Vaughn launched himself into the bathroom with a strength coming solely from anger that he didn't want to examine too closely. Lauren was dead by now; so who was he mad at? He decided not to consider it too closely until he found Derevko and knew whether she was aware of him or not.
He nearly had to laugh at himself; as much noise as he'd made clambering in that high window, how could she not be aware of him?
The gun he pulled from a holster hidden under his windbreaker--never mind how he smuggled it to Singapore--didn't have a silencer. If he fired it, he'd have to move fast in case it was heard, but it wouldn't matter by then.
Vaughn moved stealthily through the house toward the bedroom. Easing the door open, all he could see was Lauren, still tied to the chair, with a bullet hole in her chest.
Just as he started to do a more thorough inspection, the door slammed back into him, throwing him off balance. The last thing he saw before blackness enveloped him was Irina Derevko slamming the butt of her gun into the side of his head.
The message her father had given her had suggested it was urgent that she meet with her mother in the previously arranged warehouse. Urgent enough to have Sydney leave work in the middle of the day. She was almost afraid of what she'd find once she walked into the warehouse.
It was bright and sunny outside, but inside the warehouse it was gloomy and dim. Sydney felt like every nerve ending in her body was standing on end. Her trained eyes searched out her mother amid the rubbish and debris of old crates and boxes, searching for any sign of movement. Derevko stepped into view just as Sydney's eyes grazed her hiding place.
"Sydney," she said, a hint of anxiety in her voice, or may be nerves. "I did what you asked. But I encountered a…well, a difficulty, if you will." Irina gestured behind a large shipping crate.
Sydney walked over warily, then gasped and dropped to her knees beside him when she saw Vaughn lying on the floor.
"Dammit, what did you do?" Sydney snapped, nothing the discolored mark on the side of his head roughly the shape of the butt of a gun.
" only hit him once," Irina defended. "I was in the house with Lauren when he showed up. He saw me. I couldn't just let him go once I'd knocked him out."
Sydney shook her head and stood. Of course Vaughn had been partially to blame for his own predicament.
"So what the hell am I supposed to do with him?" Sydney asked, throwing her hands up.
Irina smiled.
"I suggest you take him home with you, yell at him for his stupidity for a while when he wakes up, then convince him its in his best interests to keep this ordeal to himself."
"And if he won't?"
Irina held the smile.
"What reason would I have to kill Lauren Reed?"
Sydney couldn't help but laugh at the look of innocence that her mother pulled off.
"No one would ever believe it of you," Sydney said, "Assuming there's no evidence. Now how am I supposed to get him home by myself?"
"I'll help. I got him in here, after all," Irina said, moving to stand at his feet.
between the two of them, they got Vaughn into the backseat of Sydney's car with minimal bodily harm. Vaughn came out of it pretty well, too.
"What did you give him?" Sydney grunted, arranging Vaughn so that the door wouldn't hit him in the head when she shut it.
"Just a healthy dose of Valium," Irina said. "It'll wear off in a couple of hours now."
"I'm going to have my hands full when he wakes up," Sydney muttered.
"You'll manage."
"Uh, thanks. For…taking care of all this. Do you think the CIA will be able to trace him?"
"He was thorough. I was just more so. The CIA won't trace him to Singapore," Irina said confidently.
"Thanks."
"Good luck, Sydney," irina said, grinning as she glanced into the backseat.
"I'm gonna need it," she muttered as she closed the driver's side door and drove away.
She pulled into a parking garage and stopped a few blocks from her apartment. She'd read a while, and wait for Vaughn to wake up.
The first thing Vaughn became aware of was the heaviness of the air, like it tends to get in a stationary enclosed car. Then he realized what an uncomfortable--and unnatural--position he was in.
Vaughn opened his eyes to see Sydney turned around in the front of the car, sitting with her knees in the seat so that she could watch him over the back.
She smiled nervously.
"Hey." Her expression hardened slightly. "Have fun in Singapore?"
He winced.
"Derevko killed Lauren. What'd she do to me? And where are we?" he added, struggling in to a sitting position.
"She knocked you out and fed you Valium, which is a lot less than the Covenant would have done if they'd caught you stalking Lauren. And we're in LA," she added mockingly. "That was stupid, Vaughn. If you'd asked, I would have gone with you. My mother proved you weren't fit to work alone."
"What all do you know?" Vaughn asked carefully.
"That Lauren's dead, and my mother saw it fit to deliver you to me," she said steadily, watching his expression.
"You should know your father offered me the use of…a weapons storehouse he has, but I didn't use it. If anything is traced, it won't be to him."
If anything is traced, it will be to me," Sydney said assuredly. "I…my mother was working at my request," she admitted, not looking the least bit reluctant or apologetic. "I knew what I'd do in your position, and I also knew how stupid it was. I couldn't let you do it."
Vaughn shook his head.
"Just when I think I've got you figured out, you hire an assassin," he said, a hint of humor in his voice.
"Hire implies money. No money changed hands," Sydney said nonchalantly. "But it did the job just as well. Lauren Reed is dead. Now you can get on with your life." Sydney paused, and Vaughn thought she was done. "And don't ever put me in a situation where my mother delivers you to me unconscious again," she added harshly.
This was written before the finale, and I didn't have it in me to write it and not post it. This, of course, will be the last one, with Lauren being dead and all. And I certainly couldn't have written that scene better myself! Props to the writers of that! S/V forever, evil Laurens!
Ahem...review, please?