"Hey," Vaughn said softly, leaning down to touch Syd, where she lay on the
rug near the fireplace, still curled up in the quilt.
"Hey," Sydney said stretching.
Then she sat up and listened. In the distance, she could hear the bells' clear tones ringing out their solemn melody. However, the musical counterpoint that had lulled her to sleep was missing. "What time is it?" she asked. "Has the rain stopped?"
"Yeah, it quit a half hour ago," he said smiling. "The bells just rang for vespers. How about we walk to the lighthouse and watch the sunset, and then go eat at Melen Loar?"
"That sounds wonderful!" Sydney said, pulling on her clothes.
They both grabbed light jackets and headed out the door. The entire island was a dewy green seen only after a rain storm. The clouds began to break, and soon a golden light infused the landscape. By the time they reached the lighthouse, streaks of orange and yellow stretched across the sky. Standing side by side, they watched as the sun melted into the ocean and the sky deepened into vermillion.
"Red sky at night, sailors' delight; Red sky at morn, sailors take warn. Do you think there's any truth to that saying?" Sydney mused.
"Actually there is," Vaughn answered conversationally. "The red is produced by particles suspended in a high air pressure system. In the evening, that generally indicates good weather is coming, but if the red appears in the morning sky, then the high pressure system has already passed through and a storm's on its way."
Syd flashed him a wide smile and shoved him.
"What?" he said, laughing. "I've been surrounded since childhood by people who make their livelihood on the sea. It was easy to pick up a little of the lore."
She looked at him thoughtfully. "You could be happy here, couldn't you? I mean really happy here."
Vaughn turned serious, and then wistful. "Yeah---yeah, I could--under the right circumstances."
They both knew what was behind his words. They fell silent and looked out to the sea.
"There's an old Breton fisherman's prayer Jean-Luc taught me when I was a boy," he said quietly and recited it half under his breath. "'Father won't you carry me, for the ocean is wide and my boat is so small. Father, on this moonless night, help me cross the stormy sea. Out here in the darkness, help me find my way back home.'"
Sydney glanced at him. It was a beautiful prayer, a testament of faith and hope but underlying it was an acknowledgement of the darkness threatening to consume them.
"Why does this feel like all we're going to have?" she asked, filled with a sudden sense of foreboding.
"Because there's no guarantee it isn't," he replied softly.
"Vaughn, tell me you don't believe that!" she cried in desperation. "The only way I'll get through this is to believe that we'll be together someday. Tell me you believe that, too!"
Vaughn looked out to sea again, and then turned to meet her questioning gaze once more as he pulled something out of his pocket. She watched as he took her right hand in his, his fingers trembling as he slid something onto her finger.
It was a ring of exquisite workmanship, clearly not from this century. Two small pearls were set on either side of a small, square-cut ruby, while the engraved tendrils of a flowering vine twined in a continuous pattern around the ring's surface.
He stood in front of her, hardly daring to breathe, and Sydney looked up at him in wonder.
"Syd, my grandfather gave my grandmother this ring on their wedding day. It's been in the Delorme family for generations," he said in a low voice. "Giving it to you is all I've been able to think about since you arrived."
"There's something engraved inside," he continued, his voice rough. "'A ma vie de coeur entier.' " He swallowed. "'You have my whole heart for my whole life.'"
Tears filled Sydney's eyes, and she opened her mouth to speak, but discovered she could not find the words.
He cleared his throat, thickened with his own tears, and raised a hand to her cheek. "It may be a long time," he cautioned, "but, Syd, we'll find our way back home--we'll come back to Île Mariette, I promise. We can get married in the cloister chapel--just like my parents and grandparents. Until then, wear the ring on your right hand, not your left. It's an old Breton tradition. No one has to know what it means but us."
Sydney nodded, gazing at him through her tears. It was a bid for the future- -for the happiness that might be theirs someday.
They lingered on the shore, walking hand-in-hand, until the sun had entirely disappeared below the horizon, and then turned in the direction of Kaertrez for dinner at Melen Loar.
"Do you think Madame Saval will notice?" Syd asked, just as they crested the hill above the harbor.
Vaughn chuckled and kissed her right hand, on which she now wore his grandmother's ring. "You saw the fuss she made over us last night. I wouldn't be surprised if she started asking us how soon we were planning on having children."
"Children?" Sydney teased.
He flashed her a grin. "Maybe someday."
Then the smile faded from his face. Sydney followed his gaze and saw a large crowd gathered at the harbor.
"What's going on?"
"I don't know," he answered, suddenly tense. "Let's go find out."
Vaughn made his way down the side of the hill, and Sydney followed close behind. She saw him say a few words to the people at the edge of the crowd and watched as he slowly maneuvered his way through the throng to get to the pier. Sydney strained to see between the people in front of her, but she couldn't see Vaughn at all.
Several minutes passed, until at last the crowd parted to let two men carrying a stretcher pass through. The body on the stretcher was badly bloated, the face and hands, a grayish blue. Sydney wanted to turn away from the sight, but there was something eerily familiar about the features. Then her stomach gave a sickening lurch. It was the twinkling-eyed, grandfatherly captain of the Bihan Gouelanig, Jean-Luc Brochet.
Vaughn threaded his way through the crowd again, and came towards her, his face ashen. They stepped away from the crowd to where they could talk without being overheard.
"I can't believe he's dead," he whispered.
In many ways Jean-Luc Brochet had taken the place of his grandfather, while he was growing up. It was Brochet who had taught him to swim, to bait a hook, to set lobster traps, and clean a fish. In fact, he had spent much of his summers on the Bihan Gouelanig with Brochet, trawling for langoustine, monkfish, and cod. Brochet had always said he'd give him a partnership in the business, if he wanted it. Vaughn was only half-joking, when he told the old man that perhaps he'd take him up on the offer one day.
"Vaughn, I'm sorry!" Sydney replied, putting a hand on his arm. "How did it happen?"
His features hardened. "He was garroted with fishing line. Another boat captain found his body floating further out in the harbor and brought it in. Syd, we have to assume that either your mother or SD-6 followed us to Île Mariette and that Brochet caught them surveilling the island, and was silenced before he could warn us."
She nodded. "I think we should contact base ops."
"I brought a SAT phone," Vaughn responded. "It's in my duffle bag, back at the cottage."
They exchanged looks. It was a short walk from the harbor to the cottage, but it was possible that whoever had killed Brochet was watching them right now.
"It'll be dark soon," Vaughn said, pulling out the Sig Sauer he had concealed under his jacket. "We'll go back to the cottage by another route."
"Vaughn--"Sydney said slowly. "You knew there was a possibility they'd follow us here, didn't you?"
Somehow the concept of Sark and Irina following them to Île Mariette had never seemed real to her until now. From the moment she had stepped on shore, she had felt safe, as if she were enfolded in the island's embrace. Although the inevitable confrontation with her mother had loomed on the horizon and intruded on her thoughts, she had never imagined it would occur, here, now, on the island that she considered their sanctuary.
Vaughn simply looked at her.
"Are you ready for this?" he asked softly.
Sydney nodded, her face resolute. "Let's go."
They made their way back to the cottage, hearts pounding and nerves stretched taut, painfully aware of every twig that snapped and every shadow that crossed their path. When they reached the cottage. Sydney stilled Vaughn's hand as he reached to unlock the door and enter.
"Someone could be inside," she whispered.
Vaughn shook his head, and indicated the wet sand in front of the doorstep. There were two pairs of footprints leaving the cottage, but no footprints leading up to it besides their own. "This is the only entrance. If anyone approached the cottage, we'd know."
Just to be safe, Vaughn unlocked the door and threw it open, gun extended. The room looked exactly as they left it: from the unmade bed in the corner and the breakfast dishes in the sink, to the Rambaldi documents unfurled on the table and the embers of their afternoon fire still glowing in the grate.
They cautiously stepped inside, and Vaughn reached for his duffle bag.
"Wait," Sydney said. "Give me the gun. I'll do recon while you talk to base ops."
Vaughn reluctantly gave her the Sig Sauer, inwardly cursing himself for being caught with only one gun between them. "Okay, but stay in the shadows underneath the eaves--you'll be difficult to spot."
He kissed her swiftly, and they parted.
"Syd!" he called, as she headed toward the door.
She turned her head and saw his brow creased with worry.
"Be careful!"
She nodded and slipped out the door.
He dug out the SAT phone and punched the code into the keypad. There was no response, not even static. He punched the code in once more, to no avail. He was about to try a third time, when there was a noise at the door. Looking around for a weapon, Vaughn swiftly grabbed the knife he had used to chop herbs for the omlette, which still lay on the sideboard, and hid in the shadows behind the door.
He held his breath as the door creaked open. Leaving the door partly ajar, someone moved to the middle of the room, closer to the light from the fireplace. Vaughn stepped out of the shadows, and with one quick motion grabbed the intruder from behind, pinning him with one arm while holding the knife to his throat.
"I certainly hope you don't treat all your callers this way, Mr. Vaughn," Sark said with studied insouciance. "I assure you, we've merely come to pay our respects."
"I suppose you were just paying your respects when you garroted Jean-Luc Brochet," Vaughn spit out, pressing the edge of the knife harder against Sark's throat.
At that moment two more figures appeared on the threshold, both cloaked in shadows. One held a gun, the other had her hands slightly raised. For a brief instant, he mistook the captive for Sydney, and his heart thudded.
"Syd," he called out hoarsely, and both women turned. It was then that he realized that the woman held at gunpoint was Irina. He felt as if he was seeing a double exposure--a picture of Sydney, as he now knew her to be, and what she would look like in 30 years. The slim, muscular physique, chestnut hair, warm brown eyes, expressive eyebrows, and full mouth were all the same. However the expression in Irina's eyes was enigmatic and coolly calculating. Vaughn realized he was looking into the eyes of his father's killer and not those of the mother of the woman he loved.
Irina's eyes swept over the cottage, taking in the unmade bed in the corner, the parchments spread out across the kitchen table, and finally Vaughn himself.
"Mr. Vaughn," Irina said quietly. "I'm sorry to startle you. We have no intention of harming you or Sydney. I've simply come for my daughter's answer." Her voice was low and throaty, and there was the hint of a smile on her lips.
"How did you know we came to Île Mariette?" he questioned curtly, trying to keep his voice steady, a blood vessel pulsing at his throat.
"Mr. Sark's visit to your apartment proved to be quite informative--you're quite a talented photographer," Irina stated with a small smile. "Of course, your friend Mr. Weiss, was quite helpful in his own way."
"Such a pity I had to eliminate him--" Sark commented.
Vaughn's eyes narrowed dangerously. Sydney watched as he pressed the knife further into Sark's throat, until a thin trickle of blood appeared on its blade. However, his arm was shaking badly, and she knew Sark saw it, too. His eyes glinted, and Sydney thought she knew exactly how the next 10 seconds would play out.
"Vaughn!" she cried out in warning, but it was too late.
Sark jabbed an elbow into Vaughn's cracked ribs, swung around, and knocked the knife from his hand. Vaughn doubled over in pain, clearly incapacitated, but as Sark grabbed for the knife that skittered across the floor, Vaughn suddenly rose up, wielding the iron poker, and caught Sark on the cheekbone with the up swing, and on the side of the head with the back swing. Sark hit the floor with a thud, a livid gash from temple to cheek, where the point of the poker had struck him.
Vaughn looked at him in disgust, one hand bracing his ribs. He threw the poker down, then turned to Irina. "If you've come to make an offer," he said between gasps, "let's hear it."
There was a glint of humor in Irina's dark eyes. "Mr. Sark warned me that any offer I made Sydney would have to include you. Now I see that he was right. The question, Mr. Vaughn, is why I should trust you?"
Vaughn approached the table and removed something from the same pocket from which he had withdrawn his grandmother's ring earlier. Sydney's gaze darted uneasily between Vaughn and her mother.
"I believe you may be missing a part of the Mueller device," Vaughn stated.
It was the prism he had stolen from the lab in Taipei and shown to Sydney and Jack on the ride back to LA.
"Where did you get this?" Irina breathed, approaching the table and hefting the prism in her palm, examining each facet, as she searched for the Rambaldi eye.
"In Taipei."
Irina arched a perfectly feathered eyebrow.
"The CIA has no idea that I have it," he explained coolly. "Sydney and I both made it to the rendezvous point after destroying the Mueller device, but if she hadn't, I would have contacted you through back channels and offered to make a trade: Sydney's life for the prism. I believe that gives you a clear enough picture of where my loyalties lie."
"It does," Irina said, with a small smile playing on her lips and something akin to admiration in her eyes.
Vaughn's glance moved from Irina to Sydney and their eyes locked. Sydney swallowed, tears in her eyes. "The most persuasive lies are the ones closest to the truth," he had told her. "The real question is not what I would do to protect you, but what I wouldn't do."
She watched carefully, her gun cocked and ready, as her mother approached Vaughn.
"You look so much like William, but I see you've been tempered by your interaction with Jack," she said softly, her eyes shining. "You have your father's idealism and Jack's single-mindedness and strength."
Fear, loathing, and anger all played across Vaughn's face, as he struggled to meet her gaze.
"You murdered my father," he finally choked out, his voice low and filled with restrained anger. "They had to identify his body using dental records. You deceived and abandoned your husband and daughter, and nearly destroyed both their lives. You have no right to talk to me about either my father or Jack Bristow."
"You believe you know the truth, Mr. Vaughn, but it is not what you think."
"Then tell us the truth," Sydney interrupted harshly, and Irina turned to face her daughter.
"Can you bear to hear the truth?" Irina asked.
Neither Sydney nor Vaughn replied, and she sighed.
"My real name is Irina Yurievna Suvina. My father was Yuri Alexseivich Suvin, a Russian physicist, who provided the United States with nuclear secrets during the Cold War. The summer I turned five, he received word that he had been compromised and that there was no hope of extraction. He had only hours to decide how to protect himself and his family. He sat my mother and me down and told us everything: the location of every dead drop, the contents of every communiqué, so that we could go to the Soviet authorities first and turn him in."
Irina tossed her head back and cleared her throat softly.
"Family members who turned in traitors were held in great regard by the Communist Party at that time, and sometimes went on to hold influential posts. My father feared that if we did not denounce him first, both my mother and I would be rounded up with him and sent to the gulag as well. So my mother and I went to the Party representative in the communal apartment where we lived. My mother told her she had come across some suspicious- looking correspondence in a false bottom of my father's desk, and I described how my father had met with a mysterious man while I played in the park. Men came for my father that night. My mother and I watched them take him away, and that was the last time I saw his face.
"My mother was commended for her service to the Party," Irina went on bitterly. "I was given a red star to wear on my pinafore, but the memory of my father still burned in my heart. Fifteen years later, I was tapped to become an agent for the KGB. I outscored everyone in my class on the training exercises. My English was flawless. In short, my instructors thought I was the perfect undercover agent--they believed they could count on my loyalty, but that's where they miscalculated. I had joined the KGB in order to betray it."
"I was sent to Washington with specific instructions to seduce and marry a high-ranking CIA agent. That agent was your father, Sydney. My objective was to gain as much information as I could about a project Jack Bristow designed--Project Christmas--a way of identifying and training children to be sleeper agents. I went to the CIA and told them everything--about my father, about why I joined the KGB, as well as the details of my mission. I told them I would tell them everything I knew if they would extract my mother and provide me with access to the intel my father had given them, and they agreed."
"Even at the time, I knew I was playing a very dangerous game. If I had told Jack I was secretly working for the CIA, I would have had to reveal why I had married him in the first place. Therefore, every time I stole information from him, I risked being caught and having my cover as a KGB agent blown and my marriage destroyed. But if I stopped conveying intel to the KGB about Project Christmas, my true allegiance would be revealed, and my usefulness to the CIA would be terminated, as would my life, and the lives of my husband and daughter."
"But things grew even more complicated. Providing intel on Project Christmas was only one of my objectives. After my cover as Laura Bristow was well established, the KGB began using me as an assassin to kill key CIA operatives, politicians and public figures. Your father had no idea the rare first-editions I collected were being used to convey intel to me about my next hit. I received my first kill order inside a rare edition of George Eliot's Middlemarch on Christmas Day,1974, when I was still pregnant with Sydney. I made contact with my CIA handler, and I was told in no uncertain terms to carry out my KGB orders, so that I could preserve my cover. Soon after that my handler was replaced by another agent. That agent was your father, Mr. Vaughn."
"Are you saying that you told the CIA which agents and political figures were being targeted and they did nothing to stop the assassinations? And my father knew this?"
"No, the CIA forbade me to discuss the KGB targets with your father. Only the highest ranking officials knew that I had CIA authorization to carry out those hits, so that, when the time came, they could prevent the assassination of the most critical of my targets without raising the suspicion of the KGB. That is why my original handler was reassigned and why I was given a new code name--The Savant. For many years, no one connected me to the assassinations. As the value of the intel I provided to the CIA increased, so did the list of CIA agents and political figures I was allowed to kill in order to preserve my cover. Your father, Mr. Vaughn, was the only one who suspected the truth. When he felt he had gathered enough evidence, he started asking the wrong sorts of questions, and making the wrong people nervous. He was beginning to realize what I had learned long ago: that I had made a deal with the devil, and there was no way out.
Irina glanced at Vaughn. "As your father was pursuing his investigation into the deaths of the CIA agents and public figures I had assassinated, the KGB was getting reports about a double agent, codenamed The Savant who was conveying valuable intel to the CIA and must be stopped. They didn't know the identity of the agent, but they knew the identity of the agent's handler, and I was ordered to assassinate him."
"So you killed your CIA handler--my father--to preserve your cover," Vaughn said hoarsely.
"I did not kill your father, Mr. Vaughn," Irina said, turning to look into his green eyes. "The CIA did. I did everything I could to prevent it, and I failed. I refused to meet your father at the usual rendezvous point, requested another meet, and warned him to tell no one where he was meeting me or why. He may have suspected that I was leading him to his death, that perhaps I even intended to kill him, but he came anyway. I told him everything--all the sordid details--and warned him that if I didn't follow through on the order to assassinate him, I feared the CIA would. I will never forget his face," Irina said softly. "He should have condemned me. Instead, he opened his arms, and just held me, as I cried in his arms like a child. I asked what he intended to do, and he simply told me he'd take care of it. We left the warehouse, and just as he was getting into his car to leave, a sniper blew up the gas tank and the car exploded. The CIA brought me in, and told me that if I told anyone about William Vaughn's death or stopped providing them with intel, they would reveal to my husband that I was a KGB spy who had killed 12 agents and had married him only to get intel on Project Christmas."
Sydney felt nauseated and when she turned to Vaughn, she saw that all the color had drained from his face. His lips were pressed into a thin line.
"Tell me--"Vaughn started, and then swallowed, unable to continue.
"Yes?" Irina responded.
"How well did you know my father?" he asked, his voice strained.
"You mean did we have an affair?" Irina replied, giving Vaughn a keen look. "William Vaughn was my handler and the most upright, gentle, and honorable man I have ever known--with the exception of my husband. We had a very close relationship," Irina continued, her voice tender, "but it was not sexual, nor could it be termed an affair. Your father loved you and your mother very much, Mr. Vaughn, and I would be dishonoring his memory if I led you to believe otherwise. He would never have betrayed the trust his family placed in him--and for what it may be worth to you--neither would I. You must understand that every other relationship I have had has been sullied by deception and betrayal--including my relationship with my husband and daughter," she said turning to Sydney, giving her a long look of regret. "The love I shared with Sydney's father was deeper and more abiding than any I have known, but it was based on lies. William Vaughn was the only one who actually knew the truth about me, about everything I had done, and in the end he forgave me--for all of it."
"There are many types of love, Mr. Vaughn," she concluded, turning to him once more. "Do not condemn me for having loved your father."
Vaughn found it impossible to hold Irina's gaze and looked down at the floor.
Sydney cleared her throat.
"You said you made two demands when you started working for the CIA: that your mother be extracted and that you be given access to your father's intel, and that the CIA agreed," she queried doggedly, in an attempt to distract her mother's attention and save Vaughn from further discomfort.
"Your grandmother died of cancer in 1974," Irina answered, her eyes filled with sadness, "two year after I came to the States. I was not even aware that she was ill. The KGB never told me. It was actually the CIA who informed me of her death, and later I confirmed it through other sources. As for the intel my father provided, I was given low-level security clearance to examine a small fraction of it. I discovered something that the CIA wouldn't capitalize on until many years later: my father's connection to Rambaldi. There were a series of strange markings, no more than pencil indentations, on some of the drawings my father had provided. I recognized it as part of the code he and I used to communicate with when I was a child. I had always thought it was a game, something my father made up for me, but then I remembered a very dusty, very old, leather-bound book in my father's study which used the same symbols. Most of my father's books and papers were confiscated when he was arrested. I had always assumed they'd been destroyed, but now I wondered whether they were buried somewhere in the KGB archives. I was intrigued enough to copy down the code. I vowed to return to Moscow one day and discover the truth. I was convinced that my father knew more than he was sharing with either country, and I was right. Years later, I found the book in a forgotten corner of the KGB archives. It was the only extant copy of a treatise devoted to Rambaldi and his works. That's when my obsession with Rambaldi officially began. "
"That's why you agreed to go back, when it came time for the KGB to extract you?" Sydney exclaimed. "You wanted to look for the book."
"Yes," Irina said simply. "It was the only connection to my father I had left. However, it wasn't the only reason I went back to the Soviet Union. I loved you, Sydney, and I loved your father, but whenever I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't see a mother or a wife; I saw a cold-blooded killer without a country, without a name. There were times I couldn't even recognize my own face. I left because I could no longer stand the lies, and the betrayal, and deceit."
Irina's eyes glistened with tears, and she cleared her throat.
"Everything I have done since then has been done to keep the world safe from the political machinations of the world's superpowers. Perhaps now, after you have heard my story, you understand why I trust the CIA as little as I did the KGB. It is not enough to keep the Rambaldi artifacts out of the hands of those who would use them for their own gain. They must be used to abolish political tyranny, and you can help me. You must help me! I need you both, far more than you realize, if I am to complete my father's dream of a world in which fear, pestilence, war and famine, political boundaries and oppression no longer exist."
"Mom," Sydney said, her lips trembling, her voice no more than a whisper. "Look at the prophecy--look at it! That's not my face--it's yours! Rambaldi didn't predict that you would save the world; he prophesied that you would destroy it."
"No," Irina said firmly. "You're mistaken. You've been deceived. I have studied Rambaldi for almost thirty years. I have poured over documents and amassed a collection of Rambaldi artifacts rivaled only by that of Arvin Sloane. I would know if that were the truth."
"Mom--just look at!" Sydney pleaded, pointing to the prophecy.
Irina looked, and her eyes widened, but she was not looking at the parchment on which her own likeness was drawn, but at the ring on her daughter's finger.
"Sydney," she breathed. "That ring--Where did you get that ring?"
Startled, Sydney drew back, instinctively balling her hand into a fist at her side. She looked towards Vaughn. Irina caught the glance, and her eyes widened further.
"Listen to me very carefully. You are both in great danger. If Arvin Sloane discovers that you have the ring, you will never be safe, anywhere again. There is another prophecy--one you have no knowledge of. Rambaldi speaks of an Azure Knight and his Red Lady who balance the scales of dark and light. All my work has been based on this prophecy, but I have miscalculated-- grossly miscalculated--everything if you are indeed the possessor of Rambaldi's ring."
"I don't understand," Sydney stated, frowning.
But Irina was no longer paying attention to her daughter. She was gazing at Michael Vaughn.
Approaching him, she reached up, almost as if she were going to touch his cheek. Vaughn flinched. Noting his reaction, Irina's hand fell and instead brushed his hand. A long gash in the fabric of Vaughn's sleeve from the struggle with Sark earlier revealed the tattoo of the Delorme family crest on his upper arm. Irina's gaze fixed on the avenging angel, inked on the azure background.
"Yes," she breathed. "It all makes sense to me now."
She noted the confusion on both Vaughn and Sydney's faces and her smile was bittersweet.
"Everyone puts themselves at the center of their own narratives. We are the heroines of our own romances; the heroes of our own quests. No one relegates themselves to playing a bit part in someone else's story. I was guilty of a grand act of hubris. I believed I was the Red Lady and Jack Bristow was my Knight. How could I have known that the Red Lady would be our daughter and William Vaughn's son her Azure Knight?"
As if in a daze, Irina turned to look at the document on the table. She picked up the parchment, feeling the weight of the paper and examining the ink closely. Her lips moved as she read the prophecy, and her eyes took on a haunted look. She traced the features of the woman depicted on the parchment, and finally laid the parchment once more on the table.
"So, it is true," she said slowly. "All my work--thirty years of obsession-- has been devoted to bringing about what I most wanted to prevent."
"You can still help us bring down Arvin Sloane," Sydney cried. "Help us bring him to justice. Come work for the CIA."
"No," Irina stated adamantly. "I will never work for the CIA again. I will help you thwart Arvin Sloane, but it will be on my own terms."
"I think not," said a laconic voice behind her, and there was a click of a pistol being cocked. "Since you're in the mood to confess, I think you should explain your connection to Arvin Sloane--Mother."
Sark stood by the fireplace, the livid gash on his cheek illuminated by the flickering light of the fire, his gun trained first on Irina and then on Vaughn.
"Drop the gun," Sydney ordered fiercely, aiming at Sark.
"I suggest you drop yours, unless you are certain you can kill me before I kill either your Mr. Vaughn or our dear, duplicitous mother."
With perspiration beading on her forehead, Sydney continued to train her gun on Sark, her internal struggle apparent on her face.
"Julian," Irina interrupted, her voice breaking. "Don't do this."
Sark blinked at the use of his first name, but made no further acknowledgement that he heard his mother's words.
"Sydney, drop your gun," he repeated icily, renewing his grip on his handgun, "or I will shoot them both."
Sydney slowly lowered her arms. She dropped the gun and stepped backwards, her hands raised.
"Now give me the ring," he ordered. "Mr. Vaughn, no doubt, will be kind enough to provide you with another," he added wickedly.
Sydney and Vaughn's anguished eyes met. Vaughn hesitated, and then almost imperceptibly nodded his head. Sydney's hands shook as she removed the ring from her finger.
"Sydney, no," Irina pleaded, watching the silent conversation between Vaughn and Sydney play out. "You have no idea of its significance--of the power it will unleash in the wrong hands. Arvin Sloane must not have it!"
"I won't ask you again, Sydney," Sark stated, spacing the words and pronouncing each one with precision. "Give me the ring."
"Take it!" Syd said, through clenched teeth, holding it out to him.
"Drop it on the floor and raise your hands, then step back and face the wall," Sark responded. "You, too, Mr. Vaughn," he warned, catching the other man's eye.
Sydney dropped the ring on the hardwood floor, and it lay between them on the worn floorboards, the ruby in its gold setting sparkling in the half light of the cottage, the pearls on either side of the stone shining with an iridescent glow. She glared at Sark, then slowly turned to face the wall.
Only Irina stood facing her son.
"Julian," she repeated. "There is much you still don't understand--much I have had to conceal from you, as well. I beg you not to do this, not until you hear what I have to say."
"You've had twenty-three years to explain," Sark stated coldly. "Turn around and face the wall."
Only after she complied did Sark advance towards the ring.
As he bent to pick it up, Sydney whirled around and caught him in the chest with a spinning roundhouse kick. He fought back fiercely, blocking the first punch she threw and then the next, but Sydney kept up her attack, refusing to back down or give in. They were evenly matched. Sark did not give up his weapon, but neither was he able to use it. They continued to struggle, until finally he blindsided her with his gun. Snatching up the ring, he sprang for the door, as a bullet whizzed past his head and lodged in the door frame.
Irina and Vaughn had both gone for the gun Sydney had dropped, but Vaughn reached it first, taking the first clean shot he could get. Half way out the door, Sark returned fire, then disappeared into the night.
Stopping only to check that the spray of bullets hadn't hit Sydney, Vaughn ran out the door. He could see Sark's figure silhouetted in the moonlight, running toward the cliff's edge, but a terrible, searing pain coming from what were now certainly broken ribs on his left side prevented him from pursuing Sark any further.
Clouds drifted across the moon, obscuring his quarry in the ensuing darkness, and when the moon reemerged, Vaughn had no choice but to take aim from where he stood. His shot rang out into the night, and Sark stumbled, only to get up again, limping as he made the last few steps to the cliff's edge and disappeared over the side. Holding his ribs and gasping for breath, Vaughn made it to the side of the cliff in time to hear the sound of a motor boat disappearing into the distance.
When he returned to the cottage, he found Sydney cradling her mother in her arms. She turned her head when she heard him approach, the swelling on the left side of her face a marked contrast to her complexion, bled of all color.
The expression in her eyes confirmed what the sickening lurch of his stomach already told him.
Irina was dead, killed by a bullet meant for him.
"Hey," Sydney said stretching.
Then she sat up and listened. In the distance, she could hear the bells' clear tones ringing out their solemn melody. However, the musical counterpoint that had lulled her to sleep was missing. "What time is it?" she asked. "Has the rain stopped?"
"Yeah, it quit a half hour ago," he said smiling. "The bells just rang for vespers. How about we walk to the lighthouse and watch the sunset, and then go eat at Melen Loar?"
"That sounds wonderful!" Sydney said, pulling on her clothes.
They both grabbed light jackets and headed out the door. The entire island was a dewy green seen only after a rain storm. The clouds began to break, and soon a golden light infused the landscape. By the time they reached the lighthouse, streaks of orange and yellow stretched across the sky. Standing side by side, they watched as the sun melted into the ocean and the sky deepened into vermillion.
"Red sky at night, sailors' delight; Red sky at morn, sailors take warn. Do you think there's any truth to that saying?" Sydney mused.
"Actually there is," Vaughn answered conversationally. "The red is produced by particles suspended in a high air pressure system. In the evening, that generally indicates good weather is coming, but if the red appears in the morning sky, then the high pressure system has already passed through and a storm's on its way."
Syd flashed him a wide smile and shoved him.
"What?" he said, laughing. "I've been surrounded since childhood by people who make their livelihood on the sea. It was easy to pick up a little of the lore."
She looked at him thoughtfully. "You could be happy here, couldn't you? I mean really happy here."
Vaughn turned serious, and then wistful. "Yeah---yeah, I could--under the right circumstances."
They both knew what was behind his words. They fell silent and looked out to the sea.
"There's an old Breton fisherman's prayer Jean-Luc taught me when I was a boy," he said quietly and recited it half under his breath. "'Father won't you carry me, for the ocean is wide and my boat is so small. Father, on this moonless night, help me cross the stormy sea. Out here in the darkness, help me find my way back home.'"
Sydney glanced at him. It was a beautiful prayer, a testament of faith and hope but underlying it was an acknowledgement of the darkness threatening to consume them.
"Why does this feel like all we're going to have?" she asked, filled with a sudden sense of foreboding.
"Because there's no guarantee it isn't," he replied softly.
"Vaughn, tell me you don't believe that!" she cried in desperation. "The only way I'll get through this is to believe that we'll be together someday. Tell me you believe that, too!"
Vaughn looked out to sea again, and then turned to meet her questioning gaze once more as he pulled something out of his pocket. She watched as he took her right hand in his, his fingers trembling as he slid something onto her finger.
It was a ring of exquisite workmanship, clearly not from this century. Two small pearls were set on either side of a small, square-cut ruby, while the engraved tendrils of a flowering vine twined in a continuous pattern around the ring's surface.
He stood in front of her, hardly daring to breathe, and Sydney looked up at him in wonder.
"Syd, my grandfather gave my grandmother this ring on their wedding day. It's been in the Delorme family for generations," he said in a low voice. "Giving it to you is all I've been able to think about since you arrived."
"There's something engraved inside," he continued, his voice rough. "'A ma vie de coeur entier.' " He swallowed. "'You have my whole heart for my whole life.'"
Tears filled Sydney's eyes, and she opened her mouth to speak, but discovered she could not find the words.
He cleared his throat, thickened with his own tears, and raised a hand to her cheek. "It may be a long time," he cautioned, "but, Syd, we'll find our way back home--we'll come back to Île Mariette, I promise. We can get married in the cloister chapel--just like my parents and grandparents. Until then, wear the ring on your right hand, not your left. It's an old Breton tradition. No one has to know what it means but us."
Sydney nodded, gazing at him through her tears. It was a bid for the future- -for the happiness that might be theirs someday.
They lingered on the shore, walking hand-in-hand, until the sun had entirely disappeared below the horizon, and then turned in the direction of Kaertrez for dinner at Melen Loar.
"Do you think Madame Saval will notice?" Syd asked, just as they crested the hill above the harbor.
Vaughn chuckled and kissed her right hand, on which she now wore his grandmother's ring. "You saw the fuss she made over us last night. I wouldn't be surprised if she started asking us how soon we were planning on having children."
"Children?" Sydney teased.
He flashed her a grin. "Maybe someday."
Then the smile faded from his face. Sydney followed his gaze and saw a large crowd gathered at the harbor.
"What's going on?"
"I don't know," he answered, suddenly tense. "Let's go find out."
Vaughn made his way down the side of the hill, and Sydney followed close behind. She saw him say a few words to the people at the edge of the crowd and watched as he slowly maneuvered his way through the throng to get to the pier. Sydney strained to see between the people in front of her, but she couldn't see Vaughn at all.
Several minutes passed, until at last the crowd parted to let two men carrying a stretcher pass through. The body on the stretcher was badly bloated, the face and hands, a grayish blue. Sydney wanted to turn away from the sight, but there was something eerily familiar about the features. Then her stomach gave a sickening lurch. It was the twinkling-eyed, grandfatherly captain of the Bihan Gouelanig, Jean-Luc Brochet.
Vaughn threaded his way through the crowd again, and came towards her, his face ashen. They stepped away from the crowd to where they could talk without being overheard.
"I can't believe he's dead," he whispered.
In many ways Jean-Luc Brochet had taken the place of his grandfather, while he was growing up. It was Brochet who had taught him to swim, to bait a hook, to set lobster traps, and clean a fish. In fact, he had spent much of his summers on the Bihan Gouelanig with Brochet, trawling for langoustine, monkfish, and cod. Brochet had always said he'd give him a partnership in the business, if he wanted it. Vaughn was only half-joking, when he told the old man that perhaps he'd take him up on the offer one day.
"Vaughn, I'm sorry!" Sydney replied, putting a hand on his arm. "How did it happen?"
His features hardened. "He was garroted with fishing line. Another boat captain found his body floating further out in the harbor and brought it in. Syd, we have to assume that either your mother or SD-6 followed us to Île Mariette and that Brochet caught them surveilling the island, and was silenced before he could warn us."
She nodded. "I think we should contact base ops."
"I brought a SAT phone," Vaughn responded. "It's in my duffle bag, back at the cottage."
They exchanged looks. It was a short walk from the harbor to the cottage, but it was possible that whoever had killed Brochet was watching them right now.
"It'll be dark soon," Vaughn said, pulling out the Sig Sauer he had concealed under his jacket. "We'll go back to the cottage by another route."
"Vaughn--"Sydney said slowly. "You knew there was a possibility they'd follow us here, didn't you?"
Somehow the concept of Sark and Irina following them to Île Mariette had never seemed real to her until now. From the moment she had stepped on shore, she had felt safe, as if she were enfolded in the island's embrace. Although the inevitable confrontation with her mother had loomed on the horizon and intruded on her thoughts, she had never imagined it would occur, here, now, on the island that she considered their sanctuary.
Vaughn simply looked at her.
"Are you ready for this?" he asked softly.
Sydney nodded, her face resolute. "Let's go."
They made their way back to the cottage, hearts pounding and nerves stretched taut, painfully aware of every twig that snapped and every shadow that crossed their path. When they reached the cottage. Sydney stilled Vaughn's hand as he reached to unlock the door and enter.
"Someone could be inside," she whispered.
Vaughn shook his head, and indicated the wet sand in front of the doorstep. There were two pairs of footprints leaving the cottage, but no footprints leading up to it besides their own. "This is the only entrance. If anyone approached the cottage, we'd know."
Just to be safe, Vaughn unlocked the door and threw it open, gun extended. The room looked exactly as they left it: from the unmade bed in the corner and the breakfast dishes in the sink, to the Rambaldi documents unfurled on the table and the embers of their afternoon fire still glowing in the grate.
They cautiously stepped inside, and Vaughn reached for his duffle bag.
"Wait," Sydney said. "Give me the gun. I'll do recon while you talk to base ops."
Vaughn reluctantly gave her the Sig Sauer, inwardly cursing himself for being caught with only one gun between them. "Okay, but stay in the shadows underneath the eaves--you'll be difficult to spot."
He kissed her swiftly, and they parted.
"Syd!" he called, as she headed toward the door.
She turned her head and saw his brow creased with worry.
"Be careful!"
She nodded and slipped out the door.
He dug out the SAT phone and punched the code into the keypad. There was no response, not even static. He punched the code in once more, to no avail. He was about to try a third time, when there was a noise at the door. Looking around for a weapon, Vaughn swiftly grabbed the knife he had used to chop herbs for the omlette, which still lay on the sideboard, and hid in the shadows behind the door.
He held his breath as the door creaked open. Leaving the door partly ajar, someone moved to the middle of the room, closer to the light from the fireplace. Vaughn stepped out of the shadows, and with one quick motion grabbed the intruder from behind, pinning him with one arm while holding the knife to his throat.
"I certainly hope you don't treat all your callers this way, Mr. Vaughn," Sark said with studied insouciance. "I assure you, we've merely come to pay our respects."
"I suppose you were just paying your respects when you garroted Jean-Luc Brochet," Vaughn spit out, pressing the edge of the knife harder against Sark's throat.
At that moment two more figures appeared on the threshold, both cloaked in shadows. One held a gun, the other had her hands slightly raised. For a brief instant, he mistook the captive for Sydney, and his heart thudded.
"Syd," he called out hoarsely, and both women turned. It was then that he realized that the woman held at gunpoint was Irina. He felt as if he was seeing a double exposure--a picture of Sydney, as he now knew her to be, and what she would look like in 30 years. The slim, muscular physique, chestnut hair, warm brown eyes, expressive eyebrows, and full mouth were all the same. However the expression in Irina's eyes was enigmatic and coolly calculating. Vaughn realized he was looking into the eyes of his father's killer and not those of the mother of the woman he loved.
Irina's eyes swept over the cottage, taking in the unmade bed in the corner, the parchments spread out across the kitchen table, and finally Vaughn himself.
"Mr. Vaughn," Irina said quietly. "I'm sorry to startle you. We have no intention of harming you or Sydney. I've simply come for my daughter's answer." Her voice was low and throaty, and there was the hint of a smile on her lips.
"How did you know we came to Île Mariette?" he questioned curtly, trying to keep his voice steady, a blood vessel pulsing at his throat.
"Mr. Sark's visit to your apartment proved to be quite informative--you're quite a talented photographer," Irina stated with a small smile. "Of course, your friend Mr. Weiss, was quite helpful in his own way."
"Such a pity I had to eliminate him--" Sark commented.
Vaughn's eyes narrowed dangerously. Sydney watched as he pressed the knife further into Sark's throat, until a thin trickle of blood appeared on its blade. However, his arm was shaking badly, and she knew Sark saw it, too. His eyes glinted, and Sydney thought she knew exactly how the next 10 seconds would play out.
"Vaughn!" she cried out in warning, but it was too late.
Sark jabbed an elbow into Vaughn's cracked ribs, swung around, and knocked the knife from his hand. Vaughn doubled over in pain, clearly incapacitated, but as Sark grabbed for the knife that skittered across the floor, Vaughn suddenly rose up, wielding the iron poker, and caught Sark on the cheekbone with the up swing, and on the side of the head with the back swing. Sark hit the floor with a thud, a livid gash from temple to cheek, where the point of the poker had struck him.
Vaughn looked at him in disgust, one hand bracing his ribs. He threw the poker down, then turned to Irina. "If you've come to make an offer," he said between gasps, "let's hear it."
There was a glint of humor in Irina's dark eyes. "Mr. Sark warned me that any offer I made Sydney would have to include you. Now I see that he was right. The question, Mr. Vaughn, is why I should trust you?"
Vaughn approached the table and removed something from the same pocket from which he had withdrawn his grandmother's ring earlier. Sydney's gaze darted uneasily between Vaughn and her mother.
"I believe you may be missing a part of the Mueller device," Vaughn stated.
It was the prism he had stolen from the lab in Taipei and shown to Sydney and Jack on the ride back to LA.
"Where did you get this?" Irina breathed, approaching the table and hefting the prism in her palm, examining each facet, as she searched for the Rambaldi eye.
"In Taipei."
Irina arched a perfectly feathered eyebrow.
"The CIA has no idea that I have it," he explained coolly. "Sydney and I both made it to the rendezvous point after destroying the Mueller device, but if she hadn't, I would have contacted you through back channels and offered to make a trade: Sydney's life for the prism. I believe that gives you a clear enough picture of where my loyalties lie."
"It does," Irina said, with a small smile playing on her lips and something akin to admiration in her eyes.
Vaughn's glance moved from Irina to Sydney and their eyes locked. Sydney swallowed, tears in her eyes. "The most persuasive lies are the ones closest to the truth," he had told her. "The real question is not what I would do to protect you, but what I wouldn't do."
She watched carefully, her gun cocked and ready, as her mother approached Vaughn.
"You look so much like William, but I see you've been tempered by your interaction with Jack," she said softly, her eyes shining. "You have your father's idealism and Jack's single-mindedness and strength."
Fear, loathing, and anger all played across Vaughn's face, as he struggled to meet her gaze.
"You murdered my father," he finally choked out, his voice low and filled with restrained anger. "They had to identify his body using dental records. You deceived and abandoned your husband and daughter, and nearly destroyed both their lives. You have no right to talk to me about either my father or Jack Bristow."
"You believe you know the truth, Mr. Vaughn, but it is not what you think."
"Then tell us the truth," Sydney interrupted harshly, and Irina turned to face her daughter.
"Can you bear to hear the truth?" Irina asked.
Neither Sydney nor Vaughn replied, and she sighed.
"My real name is Irina Yurievna Suvina. My father was Yuri Alexseivich Suvin, a Russian physicist, who provided the United States with nuclear secrets during the Cold War. The summer I turned five, he received word that he had been compromised and that there was no hope of extraction. He had only hours to decide how to protect himself and his family. He sat my mother and me down and told us everything: the location of every dead drop, the contents of every communiqué, so that we could go to the Soviet authorities first and turn him in."
Irina tossed her head back and cleared her throat softly.
"Family members who turned in traitors were held in great regard by the Communist Party at that time, and sometimes went on to hold influential posts. My father feared that if we did not denounce him first, both my mother and I would be rounded up with him and sent to the gulag as well. So my mother and I went to the Party representative in the communal apartment where we lived. My mother told her she had come across some suspicious- looking correspondence in a false bottom of my father's desk, and I described how my father had met with a mysterious man while I played in the park. Men came for my father that night. My mother and I watched them take him away, and that was the last time I saw his face.
"My mother was commended for her service to the Party," Irina went on bitterly. "I was given a red star to wear on my pinafore, but the memory of my father still burned in my heart. Fifteen years later, I was tapped to become an agent for the KGB. I outscored everyone in my class on the training exercises. My English was flawless. In short, my instructors thought I was the perfect undercover agent--they believed they could count on my loyalty, but that's where they miscalculated. I had joined the KGB in order to betray it."
"I was sent to Washington with specific instructions to seduce and marry a high-ranking CIA agent. That agent was your father, Sydney. My objective was to gain as much information as I could about a project Jack Bristow designed--Project Christmas--a way of identifying and training children to be sleeper agents. I went to the CIA and told them everything--about my father, about why I joined the KGB, as well as the details of my mission. I told them I would tell them everything I knew if they would extract my mother and provide me with access to the intel my father had given them, and they agreed."
"Even at the time, I knew I was playing a very dangerous game. If I had told Jack I was secretly working for the CIA, I would have had to reveal why I had married him in the first place. Therefore, every time I stole information from him, I risked being caught and having my cover as a KGB agent blown and my marriage destroyed. But if I stopped conveying intel to the KGB about Project Christmas, my true allegiance would be revealed, and my usefulness to the CIA would be terminated, as would my life, and the lives of my husband and daughter."
"But things grew even more complicated. Providing intel on Project Christmas was only one of my objectives. After my cover as Laura Bristow was well established, the KGB began using me as an assassin to kill key CIA operatives, politicians and public figures. Your father had no idea the rare first-editions I collected were being used to convey intel to me about my next hit. I received my first kill order inside a rare edition of George Eliot's Middlemarch on Christmas Day,1974, when I was still pregnant with Sydney. I made contact with my CIA handler, and I was told in no uncertain terms to carry out my KGB orders, so that I could preserve my cover. Soon after that my handler was replaced by another agent. That agent was your father, Mr. Vaughn."
"Are you saying that you told the CIA which agents and political figures were being targeted and they did nothing to stop the assassinations? And my father knew this?"
"No, the CIA forbade me to discuss the KGB targets with your father. Only the highest ranking officials knew that I had CIA authorization to carry out those hits, so that, when the time came, they could prevent the assassination of the most critical of my targets without raising the suspicion of the KGB. That is why my original handler was reassigned and why I was given a new code name--The Savant. For many years, no one connected me to the assassinations. As the value of the intel I provided to the CIA increased, so did the list of CIA agents and political figures I was allowed to kill in order to preserve my cover. Your father, Mr. Vaughn, was the only one who suspected the truth. When he felt he had gathered enough evidence, he started asking the wrong sorts of questions, and making the wrong people nervous. He was beginning to realize what I had learned long ago: that I had made a deal with the devil, and there was no way out.
Irina glanced at Vaughn. "As your father was pursuing his investigation into the deaths of the CIA agents and public figures I had assassinated, the KGB was getting reports about a double agent, codenamed The Savant who was conveying valuable intel to the CIA and must be stopped. They didn't know the identity of the agent, but they knew the identity of the agent's handler, and I was ordered to assassinate him."
"So you killed your CIA handler--my father--to preserve your cover," Vaughn said hoarsely.
"I did not kill your father, Mr. Vaughn," Irina said, turning to look into his green eyes. "The CIA did. I did everything I could to prevent it, and I failed. I refused to meet your father at the usual rendezvous point, requested another meet, and warned him to tell no one where he was meeting me or why. He may have suspected that I was leading him to his death, that perhaps I even intended to kill him, but he came anyway. I told him everything--all the sordid details--and warned him that if I didn't follow through on the order to assassinate him, I feared the CIA would. I will never forget his face," Irina said softly. "He should have condemned me. Instead, he opened his arms, and just held me, as I cried in his arms like a child. I asked what he intended to do, and he simply told me he'd take care of it. We left the warehouse, and just as he was getting into his car to leave, a sniper blew up the gas tank and the car exploded. The CIA brought me in, and told me that if I told anyone about William Vaughn's death or stopped providing them with intel, they would reveal to my husband that I was a KGB spy who had killed 12 agents and had married him only to get intel on Project Christmas."
Sydney felt nauseated and when she turned to Vaughn, she saw that all the color had drained from his face. His lips were pressed into a thin line.
"Tell me--"Vaughn started, and then swallowed, unable to continue.
"Yes?" Irina responded.
"How well did you know my father?" he asked, his voice strained.
"You mean did we have an affair?" Irina replied, giving Vaughn a keen look. "William Vaughn was my handler and the most upright, gentle, and honorable man I have ever known--with the exception of my husband. We had a very close relationship," Irina continued, her voice tender, "but it was not sexual, nor could it be termed an affair. Your father loved you and your mother very much, Mr. Vaughn, and I would be dishonoring his memory if I led you to believe otherwise. He would never have betrayed the trust his family placed in him--and for what it may be worth to you--neither would I. You must understand that every other relationship I have had has been sullied by deception and betrayal--including my relationship with my husband and daughter," she said turning to Sydney, giving her a long look of regret. "The love I shared with Sydney's father was deeper and more abiding than any I have known, but it was based on lies. William Vaughn was the only one who actually knew the truth about me, about everything I had done, and in the end he forgave me--for all of it."
"There are many types of love, Mr. Vaughn," she concluded, turning to him once more. "Do not condemn me for having loved your father."
Vaughn found it impossible to hold Irina's gaze and looked down at the floor.
Sydney cleared her throat.
"You said you made two demands when you started working for the CIA: that your mother be extracted and that you be given access to your father's intel, and that the CIA agreed," she queried doggedly, in an attempt to distract her mother's attention and save Vaughn from further discomfort.
"Your grandmother died of cancer in 1974," Irina answered, her eyes filled with sadness, "two year after I came to the States. I was not even aware that she was ill. The KGB never told me. It was actually the CIA who informed me of her death, and later I confirmed it through other sources. As for the intel my father provided, I was given low-level security clearance to examine a small fraction of it. I discovered something that the CIA wouldn't capitalize on until many years later: my father's connection to Rambaldi. There were a series of strange markings, no more than pencil indentations, on some of the drawings my father had provided. I recognized it as part of the code he and I used to communicate with when I was a child. I had always thought it was a game, something my father made up for me, but then I remembered a very dusty, very old, leather-bound book in my father's study which used the same symbols. Most of my father's books and papers were confiscated when he was arrested. I had always assumed they'd been destroyed, but now I wondered whether they were buried somewhere in the KGB archives. I was intrigued enough to copy down the code. I vowed to return to Moscow one day and discover the truth. I was convinced that my father knew more than he was sharing with either country, and I was right. Years later, I found the book in a forgotten corner of the KGB archives. It was the only extant copy of a treatise devoted to Rambaldi and his works. That's when my obsession with Rambaldi officially began. "
"That's why you agreed to go back, when it came time for the KGB to extract you?" Sydney exclaimed. "You wanted to look for the book."
"Yes," Irina said simply. "It was the only connection to my father I had left. However, it wasn't the only reason I went back to the Soviet Union. I loved you, Sydney, and I loved your father, but whenever I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't see a mother or a wife; I saw a cold-blooded killer without a country, without a name. There were times I couldn't even recognize my own face. I left because I could no longer stand the lies, and the betrayal, and deceit."
Irina's eyes glistened with tears, and she cleared her throat.
"Everything I have done since then has been done to keep the world safe from the political machinations of the world's superpowers. Perhaps now, after you have heard my story, you understand why I trust the CIA as little as I did the KGB. It is not enough to keep the Rambaldi artifacts out of the hands of those who would use them for their own gain. They must be used to abolish political tyranny, and you can help me. You must help me! I need you both, far more than you realize, if I am to complete my father's dream of a world in which fear, pestilence, war and famine, political boundaries and oppression no longer exist."
"Mom," Sydney said, her lips trembling, her voice no more than a whisper. "Look at the prophecy--look at it! That's not my face--it's yours! Rambaldi didn't predict that you would save the world; he prophesied that you would destroy it."
"No," Irina said firmly. "You're mistaken. You've been deceived. I have studied Rambaldi for almost thirty years. I have poured over documents and amassed a collection of Rambaldi artifacts rivaled only by that of Arvin Sloane. I would know if that were the truth."
"Mom--just look at!" Sydney pleaded, pointing to the prophecy.
Irina looked, and her eyes widened, but she was not looking at the parchment on which her own likeness was drawn, but at the ring on her daughter's finger.
"Sydney," she breathed. "That ring--Where did you get that ring?"
Startled, Sydney drew back, instinctively balling her hand into a fist at her side. She looked towards Vaughn. Irina caught the glance, and her eyes widened further.
"Listen to me very carefully. You are both in great danger. If Arvin Sloane discovers that you have the ring, you will never be safe, anywhere again. There is another prophecy--one you have no knowledge of. Rambaldi speaks of an Azure Knight and his Red Lady who balance the scales of dark and light. All my work has been based on this prophecy, but I have miscalculated-- grossly miscalculated--everything if you are indeed the possessor of Rambaldi's ring."
"I don't understand," Sydney stated, frowning.
But Irina was no longer paying attention to her daughter. She was gazing at Michael Vaughn.
Approaching him, she reached up, almost as if she were going to touch his cheek. Vaughn flinched. Noting his reaction, Irina's hand fell and instead brushed his hand. A long gash in the fabric of Vaughn's sleeve from the struggle with Sark earlier revealed the tattoo of the Delorme family crest on his upper arm. Irina's gaze fixed on the avenging angel, inked on the azure background.
"Yes," she breathed. "It all makes sense to me now."
She noted the confusion on both Vaughn and Sydney's faces and her smile was bittersweet.
"Everyone puts themselves at the center of their own narratives. We are the heroines of our own romances; the heroes of our own quests. No one relegates themselves to playing a bit part in someone else's story. I was guilty of a grand act of hubris. I believed I was the Red Lady and Jack Bristow was my Knight. How could I have known that the Red Lady would be our daughter and William Vaughn's son her Azure Knight?"
As if in a daze, Irina turned to look at the document on the table. She picked up the parchment, feeling the weight of the paper and examining the ink closely. Her lips moved as she read the prophecy, and her eyes took on a haunted look. She traced the features of the woman depicted on the parchment, and finally laid the parchment once more on the table.
"So, it is true," she said slowly. "All my work--thirty years of obsession-- has been devoted to bringing about what I most wanted to prevent."
"You can still help us bring down Arvin Sloane," Sydney cried. "Help us bring him to justice. Come work for the CIA."
"No," Irina stated adamantly. "I will never work for the CIA again. I will help you thwart Arvin Sloane, but it will be on my own terms."
"I think not," said a laconic voice behind her, and there was a click of a pistol being cocked. "Since you're in the mood to confess, I think you should explain your connection to Arvin Sloane--Mother."
Sark stood by the fireplace, the livid gash on his cheek illuminated by the flickering light of the fire, his gun trained first on Irina and then on Vaughn.
"Drop the gun," Sydney ordered fiercely, aiming at Sark.
"I suggest you drop yours, unless you are certain you can kill me before I kill either your Mr. Vaughn or our dear, duplicitous mother."
With perspiration beading on her forehead, Sydney continued to train her gun on Sark, her internal struggle apparent on her face.
"Julian," Irina interrupted, her voice breaking. "Don't do this."
Sark blinked at the use of his first name, but made no further acknowledgement that he heard his mother's words.
"Sydney, drop your gun," he repeated icily, renewing his grip on his handgun, "or I will shoot them both."
Sydney slowly lowered her arms. She dropped the gun and stepped backwards, her hands raised.
"Now give me the ring," he ordered. "Mr. Vaughn, no doubt, will be kind enough to provide you with another," he added wickedly.
Sydney and Vaughn's anguished eyes met. Vaughn hesitated, and then almost imperceptibly nodded his head. Sydney's hands shook as she removed the ring from her finger.
"Sydney, no," Irina pleaded, watching the silent conversation between Vaughn and Sydney play out. "You have no idea of its significance--of the power it will unleash in the wrong hands. Arvin Sloane must not have it!"
"I won't ask you again, Sydney," Sark stated, spacing the words and pronouncing each one with precision. "Give me the ring."
"Take it!" Syd said, through clenched teeth, holding it out to him.
"Drop it on the floor and raise your hands, then step back and face the wall," Sark responded. "You, too, Mr. Vaughn," he warned, catching the other man's eye.
Sydney dropped the ring on the hardwood floor, and it lay between them on the worn floorboards, the ruby in its gold setting sparkling in the half light of the cottage, the pearls on either side of the stone shining with an iridescent glow. She glared at Sark, then slowly turned to face the wall.
Only Irina stood facing her son.
"Julian," she repeated. "There is much you still don't understand--much I have had to conceal from you, as well. I beg you not to do this, not until you hear what I have to say."
"You've had twenty-three years to explain," Sark stated coldly. "Turn around and face the wall."
Only after she complied did Sark advance towards the ring.
As he bent to pick it up, Sydney whirled around and caught him in the chest with a spinning roundhouse kick. He fought back fiercely, blocking the first punch she threw and then the next, but Sydney kept up her attack, refusing to back down or give in. They were evenly matched. Sark did not give up his weapon, but neither was he able to use it. They continued to struggle, until finally he blindsided her with his gun. Snatching up the ring, he sprang for the door, as a bullet whizzed past his head and lodged in the door frame.
Irina and Vaughn had both gone for the gun Sydney had dropped, but Vaughn reached it first, taking the first clean shot he could get. Half way out the door, Sark returned fire, then disappeared into the night.
Stopping only to check that the spray of bullets hadn't hit Sydney, Vaughn ran out the door. He could see Sark's figure silhouetted in the moonlight, running toward the cliff's edge, but a terrible, searing pain coming from what were now certainly broken ribs on his left side prevented him from pursuing Sark any further.
Clouds drifted across the moon, obscuring his quarry in the ensuing darkness, and when the moon reemerged, Vaughn had no choice but to take aim from where he stood. His shot rang out into the night, and Sark stumbled, only to get up again, limping as he made the last few steps to the cliff's edge and disappeared over the side. Holding his ribs and gasping for breath, Vaughn made it to the side of the cliff in time to hear the sound of a motor boat disappearing into the distance.
When he returned to the cottage, he found Sydney cradling her mother in her arms. She turned her head when she heard him approach, the swelling on the left side of her face a marked contrast to her complexion, bled of all color.
The expression in her eyes confirmed what the sickening lurch of his stomach already told him.
Irina was dead, killed by a bullet meant for him.