There was a whole table full of people waiting for her in the other room, and Sydney had no idea how to face them. Currently her plan involved hiding in her bedroom for at least a few more days, and there was no reason coming up in her head to tell her that this might be the wrong choice. True, Vaughn had been trying to convince her for the past five minutes that if she didn't emerge soon, people would start to get suspicious and that included the mole.
She and Vaughn mutually had agreed not to say anything about what they found in the hidden file to anyone else, including Lauren. They weren't sure of anything anymore it seemed. This is what the spy life had done to them.
"Syd," Vaughn said for the millionth time. "Let's go."
"Let's just hide in here for the rest of our lives," she suggested.
"We can't hide."
"I know." Sydney stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. "Am I going to be able to do this? To face the people who love me the most, knowing one of them is out to destroy my life?"
Vaughn walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. "You can, and you will." He smiled at her and nodded towards the bedroom door. "Now let's go."
Sydney tried to put on a brave face as she walked down the hall. She had been thinking non-stop about who the mole could be. And she hadn't gotten anywhere. The only people who were free of her suspicion were Vaughn, Irina, and Jack. These were the three people, excluding the man they were on a mission to find, she would never doubt in her life. A little file by the Covenant would not change that. Nothing imaginable could change that, and she refused to let it change her.
She entered the room right behind Vaughn and just sat back to observe, grappling for any hint of someone being disloyal. It was one of the hardest things she had ever had to do.
Marshall was deep in discussion with Will in the adjoining kitchen. From what Sydney could hear, they were debating whether the peanut butter should go on the top piece of bread or whether it should be the jelly. Watching them, it killed her to know that she had to suspect them.
Will had been out of her life for a long time now. As much as she didn't want to admit it, anything could have happened in those years. His sister had joined the CIA. That made him a double target for both his past associations with Sydney and his blood-tie to Amy. Brainwashing was a definite option.
Marshall, on the other hand, had no possibility of being brainwashed that she knew of. The CIA had tested him years ago, and his mental capacities were so great that his brain seemed to work at an accelerated speed. It was next to impossible to push thoughts into his head that he didn't want there. But that didn't absolve him from being the mole.
He was an asset to any organization that could get their hands on him. Believe it or not, Marshall had always been a little bit of a lone gunman at times. He never really had any emotional ties, except for his mother. Mrs. Flinkman had passed away about fourteen months ago, or so Jack had told Sydney when she inquired how Marshall was doing at the time. So, his loyalties might have become a little knocked off.
Sydney shook her head and tried not to start crying again. She kept telling herself that even though this was so hard, it was something she had to do. Quitting was not an option. It never really was.
Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine what Julian would do if he was in this position. "Probably just kill them all," she joked to herself with a soft laugh.
Vaughn had taken a seat next to his wife. Now she was a complete mystery. Sydney hadn't taken much time to get to know who Lauren was or where she came from for obvious reasons. The only flaw to her suspicion is that Vaughn trusted his wife with his life. He hadn't been too happy with that fact that Sydney demanded he not tell her what they uncovered.
"But I remember how my father used to love my mother," Sydney thought to herself. "It was complete and absolute trust. And that was shattered." She looked over at the blonde woman sitting next to her old handler. Was Lauren Reed the type of woman to deceive her husband?
Pushing that question to the back of her mind, she turned to look at where her two parents were talking rather civilly for a change. She hadn't had a spare moment to even inquire how their mission had gone. When she was trying to divide up the missions, she hadn't been sure if putting them together, alone, had been the right decision to make.
They were both present at the meeting so they must not have tried to kill each other that much during the mission.
Sydney caught eyes with Anna and tried to muster a brave smile. Anna was probably the person in the room she trusted the least. Which in its way was probably incredibly ironic. If Sark were present, Anna would be the person he trusted the most.
The day Sark had explained to her that Anna and he had met in Russia when they were little was one of the strangest of her life. And one of the most fitting. Her two greatest adversaries had studied together, learned together. And they had loved.
Anna was Sark's first real love.
"Which, on top of the fact that she has almost killed me on numerous occasions, that is just another reason not to trust her," Sydney thought.
Amy Tippin was a wildcard through and through. Sydney had been great friends with her when she had first become a double agent for the CIA, close enough to demand for her passport on a moment's notice when she needed to get back on Sloane's good side. But the contact between them had slowed down to a trickle over the years. She hadn't even known Amy was an agent.
That was what made Amy so dangerous. It takes a certain type of person to put up with this life, let alone excel at it. And according to Vaughn and Dixon, Amy was excelling with the best of them. Dixon had joked that they were calling her the next Sydney Bristow, a not-so-easy title to acquire.
"Then again, they thought Stephanie Conway was going to be as good as me. And we all know how that turned out."
Something clicked in Sydney's head. Stephanie Conway. Traitor. As good as her. Amy.
There was another connection to add to a million and a half why Amy was unpredictable. The Covenant might just be trying to recruit other agents using her like they had used Weiss to recruit Stephanie.
"Are we going to get started?" Anna asked.
Sydney glances up at the room and, more specifically, at Anna. It appeared as if Anna hadn't taken her eyes off of her this whole time she was scanning the room. She could chalk that up to spy training or file it away as another proof of guilt. "Yes. I'm glad to see that these missions weren't that dangerous to all of you."
"I wouldn't say that," Irina said with a devilish smile. "We managed to get into a gun fight. Extremely exhilarating."
"And people wonder why I have issues," Sydney said under her breath. She saw Vaughn smile out of the corner of her eye. Maybe she hadn't said that that softly. "Besides the gunfight, how did the rest of the mission go?"
"We didn't get anything," Jack said. "It appears like the Venice facility doesn't have much of the Covenant's trust. We could barely find anything Covenant related in their systems."
"And when we did, it was information that I was already aware of," Irina said. Thinking twice, she added, "And information the CIA knew about, too."
Sydney nodded. "Vaughn and I made some headway, but nothing to do with finding Sark."
"We found a folder the Covenant was compiling on my son," Vaughn added. "It confirmed that the Covenant spliced together my DNA and Emma Wallace's."
"Sydney made a disk of the information they acquired," Lauren said, holding up the disk she had been flipping in her hands for the past few minutes. "I'm sure that Dixon will be extremely appreciative of this intel."
"You know you kind of look like Emma," Anna said nonchalantly. Everyone turned to stare out her. "Well, she does."
"The idea has come up before," Lauren answered through gritted teeth. "But no connections ever panned out. I would appreciate if you didn't bring that up again."
Sydney looked at Vaughn in confusion. Why was Lauren reacting this badly to such a random comment? Vaughn shook his head to show he didn't have any more of an idea what was going on than she did.
"Noted," Anna said with a sly smile. "No more mentions of your son's biological mother. Got it."
The room filled with an uncomfortable silence as everyone seemed to struggle for words to say to break up the quiet. Finally, a ringing phone interrupted them. Jack reached into his pocket and pulled it out. "Bristow."
After a few moments, he pulled the phone down and covered the mouthpiece. "I'm going to have to take this, Sydney. Excuse me."
Sydney nodded and watched her father walk off into her office.
"Sydney," Will said, drawing her attention back into the room. "I hate to be the one that points this out, but we didn't do so great either. That's three failed missions."
"What are you trying to say?" she asked, not sure where he was going with his words.
"You have to start entertaining the possibility that making we won't be able to find anything because there's nothing to find."
"You think this whole thing is hopeless, don't you?" Sydney asked. "You think I'm wrong and that Sark is dead. Or maybe you just hope he is."
"Sydney, calm down," Irina said right as Jack came back into the room and sat down next to her.
"I will not calm down." She stopped up and walked over to stand directly in front of Will. "Is that what you're trying to say, Will?"
"I'm still warming to the idea that you want us to help you find a known killer whom you claim to love, but that's not what I meant. I'm just saying that the outlook isn't too good. We all went to the main hot spots of Covenant activity, and not one of us found any sort of lead to go on."
"Not necessarily," Amy said. Will looked over at her in shock along with every other person in the room. "I'm pretty sure he's alive."
"You didn't mention this when we were on the mission or any other time before now," Will pointed out.
"I wasn't sure I should, but since no else has any other leads, I think it's the best thing we have to go on."
"What are you trying to say?" Sydney asked.
"I think I saw Sark in Tokyo," she answered.
"You think or you know?"
"I know I saw him. Only he wasn't being held prisoner. He was walking around the facility as if he was just another employee. I just caught a quick glance of him. Anna and I happened to be a little preoccupied in a little healthy fist fighting, so there wasn't really much time to see where he went."
"You could have made a mistake," Irina pointed out. "You could have wanted to see Sark so bad that you imagined his face onto another blond haired man's body."
"I don't think so," Amy said. "First off, I could really care less about finding this guy. The only reason I'm helping is because Sydney obviously cares deeply for him. And secondly, as we continue to talk about it, I'm getting more and more positive that it was him I saw."
"It doesn't make sense," Will pointed out.
"I agree with Will," Jack said. "If you thought you had seen him, why didn't you tell Sydney the second you return?"
"Shit! Why didn't you tell us when we were on the mission?" Will yelled at his sister. "We wouldn't have left Tokyo if we knew Sark was there. I'm never been Sark's biggest fan, but Sydney loves him. And that makes him a number one priority for me right now. And I wouldn't have left Tokyo without him if I knew he was there."
Sydney felt her heart freeze a little. Will was showing the same loyalty and devotion she had always thought he had. And just a few minutes earlier, she had been sitting there, debating whether or not he would betray her to the Covenant.
"When did you become super spy, Will?" Amy asked. He just scowled at her in return. "We couldn't have done anything, Sydney. If he had realized I saw him, he would have immediately left the city. Because I told no one, he's probably still there. And now you have time to go back and investigate yourself."
"There's one problem," Anna said.
Sydney noticed for the first time that Anna hadn't been talking at all since she upset Lauren. If she was really once Sark's best friend, why wasn't she upset that she had been in the same room with him and Amy hadn't told her?
Anna continued, "If you said that you saw Sark, then obviously he must have seen you."
"You were stirring up a lot of attention with your fighting in the middle of the lobby," Marshall pointed out.
"You were in the middle of the lobby?" Sydney asked. "Never mind. I don't think I want to know the details. Continue, Anna."
"If Sark had seen us, then why didn't he realize we were there searching for him? He might not have known who Amy was, but he knows me."
"That's a good point," Sydney said. Sighing, she stood up. "But there's nothing else we have to go on right now. I think we should go to Tokyo."
"I can't," Anna said out right. "I have some business engagements already set up."
"It's all right," Sydney said. "You do what you have to do. I'll keep you posted if we find anything. I know how much Julian means to you."
"Thank you." Anna stood up and grabbed her bag. "I hate to leave so abruptly, but honestly, I think the less I know about your future plans, the better. For your sake."
Sydney nodded and turned her attention back to the group. "We're all tired after our missions. I want everyone to go get some sleep. Let the information sink in, and tomorrow we'll get back to work."
Everyone grumbled their approval and began to get up to leave. Sydney motioned for Vaughn to follow her into the other room. He whispered something in his wife's ear to make her nod and head for the exit with the rest of the people present.
"What did you tell her?" Sydney asked when she and Vaughn were alone in her penthouse.
"I just said that you seemed to be wavering in your confidence. Time for another pep talk, you know?"
"That might be closer to the truth than you think. I really thought that I'd be able to tell which one of those people are lying to me, but I can't."
"Have you narrowed it down at all?"
"Well, you'll be happy to know that you're not a suspect still. Neither are my parents. And I've eliminated Anna. There's no possible way it could be her."
"Why is that?" he asked, thoroughly confused.
"The Covenant might not be the smartest organization out there, but they're intelligent enough to pick the right person to infiltrate our little operation. Anna is the obvious choice for a mole. She's the one that seems to have the least loyalty to me. But that's the exact reason I know she's not working with the Covenant."
"Because you don't trust her, what benefit is she going to provide them?" Vaughn reasoned.
"Exactly. I'm not going to divulge extra information to her, even if I knew everyone was loyal to me. No matter what happens down the road, I'm always going to know her first as my adversary. The lack of trust that created can't really be repaired."
"So, it's not Anna. Did you eliminate anyone else?"
"No, not completely. I'm starting to get a hunch that it can't be Marshall, but I have no real reason to back that up."
"Keep thinking, Syd. But don't try to over think it." Vaughn sighed and stood up. "And I'll keep an eye on Lauren. I still don't think she has any part in this, but until you figure out the same thing, I'll make sure she doesn't do anything suspicious. I don't think she has any idea what really went on in Seattle. So if she is the mole, she won't be acting too careful around me."
"It means a lot to me that you're doing this, Michael."
"Like I've said a million times, I will always love you, Syd. That will never change no matter how much trouble you get me into."
Sydney let out a laugh as he stepped into the elevator and the doors shut on him. She walked over to a painting and slid it out of the way. Tapping in a nine-digit security code, she hauled open the safe door that was hiding behind the picture. She reached her hand in and pulled out the ring Sark had given her a few weeks earlier.
"I'm coming, Julian. You just hold on. I'm coming."
She and Vaughn mutually had agreed not to say anything about what they found in the hidden file to anyone else, including Lauren. They weren't sure of anything anymore it seemed. This is what the spy life had done to them.
"Syd," Vaughn said for the millionth time. "Let's go."
"Let's just hide in here for the rest of our lives," she suggested.
"We can't hide."
"I know." Sydney stood up and looked at herself in the mirror. "Am I going to be able to do this? To face the people who love me the most, knowing one of them is out to destroy my life?"
Vaughn walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. "You can, and you will." He smiled at her and nodded towards the bedroom door. "Now let's go."
Sydney tried to put on a brave face as she walked down the hall. She had been thinking non-stop about who the mole could be. And she hadn't gotten anywhere. The only people who were free of her suspicion were Vaughn, Irina, and Jack. These were the three people, excluding the man they were on a mission to find, she would never doubt in her life. A little file by the Covenant would not change that. Nothing imaginable could change that, and she refused to let it change her.
She entered the room right behind Vaughn and just sat back to observe, grappling for any hint of someone being disloyal. It was one of the hardest things she had ever had to do.
Marshall was deep in discussion with Will in the adjoining kitchen. From what Sydney could hear, they were debating whether the peanut butter should go on the top piece of bread or whether it should be the jelly. Watching them, it killed her to know that she had to suspect them.
Will had been out of her life for a long time now. As much as she didn't want to admit it, anything could have happened in those years. His sister had joined the CIA. That made him a double target for both his past associations with Sydney and his blood-tie to Amy. Brainwashing was a definite option.
Marshall, on the other hand, had no possibility of being brainwashed that she knew of. The CIA had tested him years ago, and his mental capacities were so great that his brain seemed to work at an accelerated speed. It was next to impossible to push thoughts into his head that he didn't want there. But that didn't absolve him from being the mole.
He was an asset to any organization that could get their hands on him. Believe it or not, Marshall had always been a little bit of a lone gunman at times. He never really had any emotional ties, except for his mother. Mrs. Flinkman had passed away about fourteen months ago, or so Jack had told Sydney when she inquired how Marshall was doing at the time. So, his loyalties might have become a little knocked off.
Sydney shook her head and tried not to start crying again. She kept telling herself that even though this was so hard, it was something she had to do. Quitting was not an option. It never really was.
Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine what Julian would do if he was in this position. "Probably just kill them all," she joked to herself with a soft laugh.
Vaughn had taken a seat next to his wife. Now she was a complete mystery. Sydney hadn't taken much time to get to know who Lauren was or where she came from for obvious reasons. The only flaw to her suspicion is that Vaughn trusted his wife with his life. He hadn't been too happy with that fact that Sydney demanded he not tell her what they uncovered.
"But I remember how my father used to love my mother," Sydney thought to herself. "It was complete and absolute trust. And that was shattered." She looked over at the blonde woman sitting next to her old handler. Was Lauren Reed the type of woman to deceive her husband?
Pushing that question to the back of her mind, she turned to look at where her two parents were talking rather civilly for a change. She hadn't had a spare moment to even inquire how their mission had gone. When she was trying to divide up the missions, she hadn't been sure if putting them together, alone, had been the right decision to make.
They were both present at the meeting so they must not have tried to kill each other that much during the mission.
Sydney caught eyes with Anna and tried to muster a brave smile. Anna was probably the person in the room she trusted the least. Which in its way was probably incredibly ironic. If Sark were present, Anna would be the person he trusted the most.
The day Sark had explained to her that Anna and he had met in Russia when they were little was one of the strangest of her life. And one of the most fitting. Her two greatest adversaries had studied together, learned together. And they had loved.
Anna was Sark's first real love.
"Which, on top of the fact that she has almost killed me on numerous occasions, that is just another reason not to trust her," Sydney thought.
Amy Tippin was a wildcard through and through. Sydney had been great friends with her when she had first become a double agent for the CIA, close enough to demand for her passport on a moment's notice when she needed to get back on Sloane's good side. But the contact between them had slowed down to a trickle over the years. She hadn't even known Amy was an agent.
That was what made Amy so dangerous. It takes a certain type of person to put up with this life, let alone excel at it. And according to Vaughn and Dixon, Amy was excelling with the best of them. Dixon had joked that they were calling her the next Sydney Bristow, a not-so-easy title to acquire.
"Then again, they thought Stephanie Conway was going to be as good as me. And we all know how that turned out."
Something clicked in Sydney's head. Stephanie Conway. Traitor. As good as her. Amy.
There was another connection to add to a million and a half why Amy was unpredictable. The Covenant might just be trying to recruit other agents using her like they had used Weiss to recruit Stephanie.
"Are we going to get started?" Anna asked.
Sydney glances up at the room and, more specifically, at Anna. It appeared as if Anna hadn't taken her eyes off of her this whole time she was scanning the room. She could chalk that up to spy training or file it away as another proof of guilt. "Yes. I'm glad to see that these missions weren't that dangerous to all of you."
"I wouldn't say that," Irina said with a devilish smile. "We managed to get into a gun fight. Extremely exhilarating."
"And people wonder why I have issues," Sydney said under her breath. She saw Vaughn smile out of the corner of her eye. Maybe she hadn't said that that softly. "Besides the gunfight, how did the rest of the mission go?"
"We didn't get anything," Jack said. "It appears like the Venice facility doesn't have much of the Covenant's trust. We could barely find anything Covenant related in their systems."
"And when we did, it was information that I was already aware of," Irina said. Thinking twice, she added, "And information the CIA knew about, too."
Sydney nodded. "Vaughn and I made some headway, but nothing to do with finding Sark."
"We found a folder the Covenant was compiling on my son," Vaughn added. "It confirmed that the Covenant spliced together my DNA and Emma Wallace's."
"Sydney made a disk of the information they acquired," Lauren said, holding up the disk she had been flipping in her hands for the past few minutes. "I'm sure that Dixon will be extremely appreciative of this intel."
"You know you kind of look like Emma," Anna said nonchalantly. Everyone turned to stare out her. "Well, she does."
"The idea has come up before," Lauren answered through gritted teeth. "But no connections ever panned out. I would appreciate if you didn't bring that up again."
Sydney looked at Vaughn in confusion. Why was Lauren reacting this badly to such a random comment? Vaughn shook his head to show he didn't have any more of an idea what was going on than she did.
"Noted," Anna said with a sly smile. "No more mentions of your son's biological mother. Got it."
The room filled with an uncomfortable silence as everyone seemed to struggle for words to say to break up the quiet. Finally, a ringing phone interrupted them. Jack reached into his pocket and pulled it out. "Bristow."
After a few moments, he pulled the phone down and covered the mouthpiece. "I'm going to have to take this, Sydney. Excuse me."
Sydney nodded and watched her father walk off into her office.
"Sydney," Will said, drawing her attention back into the room. "I hate to be the one that points this out, but we didn't do so great either. That's three failed missions."
"What are you trying to say?" she asked, not sure where he was going with his words.
"You have to start entertaining the possibility that making we won't be able to find anything because there's nothing to find."
"You think this whole thing is hopeless, don't you?" Sydney asked. "You think I'm wrong and that Sark is dead. Or maybe you just hope he is."
"Sydney, calm down," Irina said right as Jack came back into the room and sat down next to her.
"I will not calm down." She stopped up and walked over to stand directly in front of Will. "Is that what you're trying to say, Will?"
"I'm still warming to the idea that you want us to help you find a known killer whom you claim to love, but that's not what I meant. I'm just saying that the outlook isn't too good. We all went to the main hot spots of Covenant activity, and not one of us found any sort of lead to go on."
"Not necessarily," Amy said. Will looked over at her in shock along with every other person in the room. "I'm pretty sure he's alive."
"You didn't mention this when we were on the mission or any other time before now," Will pointed out.
"I wasn't sure I should, but since no else has any other leads, I think it's the best thing we have to go on."
"What are you trying to say?" Sydney asked.
"I think I saw Sark in Tokyo," she answered.
"You think or you know?"
"I know I saw him. Only he wasn't being held prisoner. He was walking around the facility as if he was just another employee. I just caught a quick glance of him. Anna and I happened to be a little preoccupied in a little healthy fist fighting, so there wasn't really much time to see where he went."
"You could have made a mistake," Irina pointed out. "You could have wanted to see Sark so bad that you imagined his face onto another blond haired man's body."
"I don't think so," Amy said. "First off, I could really care less about finding this guy. The only reason I'm helping is because Sydney obviously cares deeply for him. And secondly, as we continue to talk about it, I'm getting more and more positive that it was him I saw."
"It doesn't make sense," Will pointed out.
"I agree with Will," Jack said. "If you thought you had seen him, why didn't you tell Sydney the second you return?"
"Shit! Why didn't you tell us when we were on the mission?" Will yelled at his sister. "We wouldn't have left Tokyo if we knew Sark was there. I'm never been Sark's biggest fan, but Sydney loves him. And that makes him a number one priority for me right now. And I wouldn't have left Tokyo without him if I knew he was there."
Sydney felt her heart freeze a little. Will was showing the same loyalty and devotion she had always thought he had. And just a few minutes earlier, she had been sitting there, debating whether or not he would betray her to the Covenant.
"When did you become super spy, Will?" Amy asked. He just scowled at her in return. "We couldn't have done anything, Sydney. If he had realized I saw him, he would have immediately left the city. Because I told no one, he's probably still there. And now you have time to go back and investigate yourself."
"There's one problem," Anna said.
Sydney noticed for the first time that Anna hadn't been talking at all since she upset Lauren. If she was really once Sark's best friend, why wasn't she upset that she had been in the same room with him and Amy hadn't told her?
Anna continued, "If you said that you saw Sark, then obviously he must have seen you."
"You were stirring up a lot of attention with your fighting in the middle of the lobby," Marshall pointed out.
"You were in the middle of the lobby?" Sydney asked. "Never mind. I don't think I want to know the details. Continue, Anna."
"If Sark had seen us, then why didn't he realize we were there searching for him? He might not have known who Amy was, but he knows me."
"That's a good point," Sydney said. Sighing, she stood up. "But there's nothing else we have to go on right now. I think we should go to Tokyo."
"I can't," Anna said out right. "I have some business engagements already set up."
"It's all right," Sydney said. "You do what you have to do. I'll keep you posted if we find anything. I know how much Julian means to you."
"Thank you." Anna stood up and grabbed her bag. "I hate to leave so abruptly, but honestly, I think the less I know about your future plans, the better. For your sake."
Sydney nodded and turned her attention back to the group. "We're all tired after our missions. I want everyone to go get some sleep. Let the information sink in, and tomorrow we'll get back to work."
Everyone grumbled their approval and began to get up to leave. Sydney motioned for Vaughn to follow her into the other room. He whispered something in his wife's ear to make her nod and head for the exit with the rest of the people present.
"What did you tell her?" Sydney asked when she and Vaughn were alone in her penthouse.
"I just said that you seemed to be wavering in your confidence. Time for another pep talk, you know?"
"That might be closer to the truth than you think. I really thought that I'd be able to tell which one of those people are lying to me, but I can't."
"Have you narrowed it down at all?"
"Well, you'll be happy to know that you're not a suspect still. Neither are my parents. And I've eliminated Anna. There's no possible way it could be her."
"Why is that?" he asked, thoroughly confused.
"The Covenant might not be the smartest organization out there, but they're intelligent enough to pick the right person to infiltrate our little operation. Anna is the obvious choice for a mole. She's the one that seems to have the least loyalty to me. But that's the exact reason I know she's not working with the Covenant."
"Because you don't trust her, what benefit is she going to provide them?" Vaughn reasoned.
"Exactly. I'm not going to divulge extra information to her, even if I knew everyone was loyal to me. No matter what happens down the road, I'm always going to know her first as my adversary. The lack of trust that created can't really be repaired."
"So, it's not Anna. Did you eliminate anyone else?"
"No, not completely. I'm starting to get a hunch that it can't be Marshall, but I have no real reason to back that up."
"Keep thinking, Syd. But don't try to over think it." Vaughn sighed and stood up. "And I'll keep an eye on Lauren. I still don't think she has any part in this, but until you figure out the same thing, I'll make sure she doesn't do anything suspicious. I don't think she has any idea what really went on in Seattle. So if she is the mole, she won't be acting too careful around me."
"It means a lot to me that you're doing this, Michael."
"Like I've said a million times, I will always love you, Syd. That will never change no matter how much trouble you get me into."
Sydney let out a laugh as he stepped into the elevator and the doors shut on him. She walked over to a painting and slid it out of the way. Tapping in a nine-digit security code, she hauled open the safe door that was hiding behind the picture. She reached her hand in and pulled out the ring Sark had given her a few weeks earlier.
"I'm coming, Julian. You just hold on. I'm coming."