A SECRET, A SONG, AND A SPY

(Alias/Angel/American Idol)

By wordwolf

Disclaimers in part 1.

Chapter 4.

Sydney turned, dropping the tracer to free at least one hand. The dark man behind her was broadly built and muscular under his black leather jacket, the slight smirk on his lips belied by the melancholy shadow in his eyes. Under other circumstances, she might have been pleasantly impressed, but at the moment her main concern was to dispose of the interloper ASAP.

Slowly she held up Il Silencio and her empty right hand. The agent noticed to her secret satisfaction that he stood at ease, arms folded, seemingly with no expectation of any trouble. Or maybe he just put too much trust in those big bull muscles. That's right, jerk, keep smirking; the bigger they come, the harder they fall...

Sydney kept a worried, rabbit-in-the-headlights look on her face for the stranger's benefit. He nodded and extended a hand. "Good. Now give me the artifact. I'm glad we're going to do this the easy way."

For a moment Sydney considered a snappy comeback, but that would have given her away. Silently she took a shaky step forward – and snapped a pile-driving kick right into his solar plexus, sending him staggering back toward the stairs. Beautiful! She permitted herself a smile.

That was when she noticed two things at once: the voice panicking into her comm-link – "Mountaineer! COME IN, Mountaineer! What the hell are you doing?" – and the big man leaping easily back onto his feet. He hadn't gasped when she struck; there had been no telltale whoosh of breath, and now he wasn't winded in the slightest.

And he was coming on fast. "Lady," he said with dangerous amusement, "it was your choice to do it the hard way."

Sydney barely dodged the right jab to her face, and rolled with the blindingly quick follow-up kick that caught her high on the shoulder. He hadn't been ready for her at first, but damned if he hadn't recovered in record time! Now he was coming on again; she met his blow with a forearm block with the limb holding Il Silencio, and sent her own jab under his guard to hammer his left kidney. He took a step back – but that blow would have sent most men doubling over, and again this one didn't even gasp.

Vaughn was shouting in her ear. "Mountaineer, what the hell is going on?"

Panting, Sydney kept it terse. "A single hostile, possibly Covenant."

"What?!" Now Marshall was adding to the chaos. "What hostile? Sensors say you're alone down there, Syd!"

"Hmm... so she talks in combat," said the enemy mockingly. "Either she's bipolar or the boss keeps her on a tight leash. So who sent you? Are you working for the Yarnith Circle? Or the Brethren of Omrund?" He punctuated the question with a flurry of blows, and a kick that cracked the wall directly behind where Sydney had been a microsecond before. "Or did Ebalon of Zarkandhu send you?"

It was all Sydney could do to protect the precious device from being shattered – and her own head from being taken off. And her colleagues' desperate voices seemed to be drilling her skull. "What's that voice, Mountaineer? WHAT IS GOING ON?!"

From the shadows, under a dark canopy of pipes and wiring twenty feet away, cold blue eyes watched the fight with gloating pleasure. This was going very well, very well indeed. It was obvious that the big man was going to rip Sydney Bristow limb from limb and appropriate the Rambaldi device. And Sark was happy to let him do it. Later he could take down that simian himself and take charge of Il Silencio.

But right now was time for other things. Time to go back upstairs and make use of these documents. Sark smirked at the thought of the silly boy from whom he'd taken them. Said boy was now out cold, tied up, gagged, and stuffed in the trunk of a Ford Taurus down in the parking garage. They'd find him by tonight, especially if he woke up and started kicking the steel, but Sark was not worried; the kid had no description to give them. A secret agent is only seen when he wants to be.

Right now was his time to be seen – by certain people in particular. With an unseen, ironic little bow to the struggling Sydney Bristow, Sark took his leave, slinking up the stairs and to the scene of his next triumph. Then, after that, Il Silencio would be his.

Sydney couldn't stand it. This antagonist had the face of an angel, the moves of Jet Li, and the power of a charging rhinoceros. And the frantic shouting in her ear was driving her mad; Vaughn and Marshall could get her killed if they distracted her at the wrong moment. With only a split second to decide, Sydney opted for the risk of total isolation. "Stand by; Mountaineer out!" As she dodged the other's next strike, Sydney leaped out of his range and used half a movement to switch off her comm-link. Now she could turn all her attention right where it belonged. "Are you Covenant?"

That slowed him down a bit. "WHICH Covenant? There's got to be a hundred of them. Not to mention all the Brotherhoods and Circles and Fellowships and God only knows what else, and we've got files on all of them. Now why don't you just hand over that artifact and you don't have to tell me which one you're with."

What in the name of James Jesus Angleton is he talking about? For a moment Sydney wondered which one of them might be crazy. Then he was lunging at her again, making a grab for Il Silencio. Sydney flipped it easily to her other hand and took advantage of his extension to slam a foot under his chin. His head snapped back, then took her left cross that sent him slamming against a concrete support pillar.

For a fleeting second Sydney hoped that she might have incapacitated him, but he bounded back up. He seemed not angry, but exhilarated: "Okay, you asked for it." His hand vanished into his coat; before she could react, it flashed back out, brandishing –

A sword?!

"My God!" Sydney exclaimed, diving as steel sheared the air above her head. She fled across the basement and he pounded after her, aiming another swing at her neck, missing only narrowly. Now the CIA agent could see only one slim chance; she jacked up her speed, made the opposite wall two seconds ahead of him, and used those seconds to whirl, crouch, and whip her own weapon out of its ankle holster. She drew a bead on his center of mass, one hand clenched on the little semiauto and the other protecting Il Silencio, and watched in satisfaction as he slammed to a halt. "Drop it," she commanded.

He might have stopped, true, and lowered the sword in his hand... but his smug smile showed no fear, none at all. "Babe," he said coolly, "you have no idea what you're dealing with."

"Neither do you," she pointed out.

"Sure, you've got a gun. It'd slow me down a bit, but there's no way you can stop me."

"Try me." Slowly she raised her aim from his chest to right between his eyes.

And he chuckled. It was a cold, scary sound... and suddenly Sydney gasped in astonishment. His smooth, untroubled brow suddenly wrinkled, then clenched like a fist, lumping into ridges like some horrible Botox accident. The brown eyes now glowed a baleful yellow, and his lips drew back from canine teeth grown long and sharp even as she stared, incredulous. He spoke again, the same voice now terrifying coming out of that unearthly, hellish face. "I'm out of patience. Give me the artifact. NOW."

And Sydney saw her last chance. Without moving her gun from its bead on his deformed head, she asked quietly, "Why do you want it?"

That seemed to catch him up for a moment. "Why do you think? To keep it out of the hands of whichever occult society sent you."

"Occult society? Not quite. I'm CIA."

"WHAT? Lady, I have heard some whoppers, but I think that one's my new favorite!"

She carefully lowered the Rambaldi device to the floor and moved her free hand slowly toward her pocket, not letting her aim waver. "Look, let me show you my ID." He watched suspiciously through those hot golden eyes, letting her draw out the leather case and toss it to him. Easily he snatched it from the air with his free hand and flipped it open.

As he read her credentials, his forehead smoothed out again, his eyes softened back to brown, and the cruel fangs retracted as if they'd never been. "CIA Agent Sydney Bristow. Cool. Well, they really do teach their people how to fight." Sydney smiled with the compliment as he tossed her ID back to her and she put it away. "So what does the CIA want with Rambaldi's magical artifacts?"

"Exactly what you say you want: to keep them out of the wrong hands." She could not help revealing classified information; it looked like the only way out of this stalemate. "We've been accumulating them for some time now, often barely ahead of notorious terrorist groups." There; that was vague enough. She picked up Il Silencio again, holding it almost lovingly. "I'm sure we could keep it more securely than you could."

"Well, you probably have a lot more experience at it than my firm does. But are you really going to just keep it safe? I mean, you're not planning any of those hush-hush nasty experiments, are you?"

"Put it this way," Sydney said reasonably as she holstered her gun and came erect again. "Who'd you rather had convenient access to these things, your own government or Usama bin Laden?"

"Good point. Besides, that'll be one less responsibility for me to worry about. I've got enough of them already." He smiled, sheathing the sword in the hidden scabbard under his arm. "You know, my firm has done a little work for state and federal agencies here and there. If you guys ever need plausible deniability on something tricky, we can get the job done. Call Wolfram & Hart, Attorneys."

She smiled back. "I'll be sure to keep you in mind, Mr. – ?"

"Angel. We're in the book and on the Web."

"Thanks. Maybe someday you can show me how you do that little trick with your face!"

"Maybe. Good luck, Agent Bristow." He stepped forward to shake her hand in a firm, cold grip, then turned, rose up the nearest stairway and was gone.

Sydney took a deep, relieved breath as she watched him go. It could have gone very differently, but everything had worked out, or so it seemed. In her pocket she found the special radiation-impermeable microfiber handbag for transporting the device, unfolded it, and secured Il Silencio within.

Then a forgotten detail returned to her. Oh, damn it – Vaughn and Marshall! They must be frantic... She snapped her comm-link back on and tried to sound unruffled. "This is Mountaineer, reporting objective secured. Proceeding to rendezvous point now."

Vaughn and Marshall WERE frantic. Especially Vaughn, who was gasping, "Syd! Oh, thank God! What happened, Syd? Why'd you turn off your link? What was..."

"Don't worry, Vaughn; everything's under control now. I'll fill you in at the debriefing." She smiled wryly even though no one was there to see. "You'll want to make sure to be at this debriefing; it's going to be very, VERY interesting..."

TO BE CONTINUED