Between the Memory & the Moment
Author: UConnFan (Michele
E-mail: loveuconnbasketball@yahoo.com
~*Chapter 5*~
Drawing the lines to the introduction were easy, so trivial that it surprised her she hadn't thought of it before. The reverse of a chain reaction - no Irina Derevko, no one killed William Vaughn. Just the way it worked with Danny - no SD-6, no secret, no murder. Still, as she sat in her empty apartment forcing herself to eat lunch, it was a bit depressing to see how many people who could have lived if she hadn't been so foolish. The knowledge that William Vaughn's death had never been directly her fault was only a small consolation. One time she remembered Vaughn telling her that no one was harder on herself than she was, Sydney knew that to be true, leaving her to wonder how her Vaughn was handling the world now, presumably two years past her death.
Briefly she toyed with the idea that he'd moved on, perhaps even married as this Vaughn had apparently done. Except Sydney couldn't reconcile the fact that while two years was enough time to take her world off of it's axis, it didn't feel like long enough for him to move past them, to have so fully progressed past her that he was married. He'd spent over a year waiting for her, casually seeing Alice. In no world could she imagine him moving on so fast.
No matter how much she missed him, there was little time to dwell on him, a man she couldn't imagine not loving but didn't know if she'd ever see again. There was work to be done now, she knew there were plenty of challenges ahead of her as she took her first steps into the Joint Task Force Headquarters. Jack's instructions had been precise, leading her to the exact spot she remembered. Sydney wasn't sure whether she was relieved or disappointed that it didn't look all that different from what it had been two years and another world before. Nothing had changed, except the nearly tangible joy she'd felt the first time she walked thru the front door with Vaughn following the Alliance's destruction seemed to be a hazy product of her imagination.
As she took her first steps into the JTF, she was relieved to spot Weiss, leaning casually against the area he'd always worked in. To her delight, Marshall stood nearby, obviously rambling along as Weiss and Carrie tried their best to follow. Sydney easily hid her smile as she approached Weiss, prepared to be introduced to her former friends.
"Hey," she smiled.
Weiss looked up and grinned, "Hey Sydney. How are you doing?"
"I'm good," she assured him, crossing her arms as she glanced at Marshall and Carrie, silently waiting for introduction.
"Sorry," Weiss chuckled. "Sydney Bristow, this is my best friend Marshall Flinkman, and his wife Carrie Bowman. Marshall's our resident tech genius. Carrie's NSA but she works with us."
"It's nice to meet you both," Sydney smiled and shook their hands.
"It's good to see you Ms. Bristow - " Marshall started, clearly sweating.
"Sydney," she corrected.
"Sydney . . . I'm so sorry to hear about your death. I mean your disappearance, I know that -"
"Marshall," Carrie groaned.
He glanced at his wife and then back to Sydney, "Well, it's good to have you here finally. I'm working on a CD for you, it's the most popular songs from the last two years. Not my type of music, if you know what I mean, but it might help you remember -"
"Thank you," Sydney smiled.
"Did the clothes fit?" Carrie questioned as Sydney looked at her, clearly confused. "The clothes, at the hospital. Eric asked me to pick you up some things. We had your sizes, but I wasn't sure what you would like -"
"They were great," she assured her, instantly relieved that it wasn't Vaughn's wife who had done her shopping. "Thank you."
Before Carrie could respond, a familiar figure breezed by, stopping abruptly at Sydney's side. "Ms. Bristow, just the agent I was looking for."
Next to her, Sydney could hear Weiss stifle his groan, "Sir, this is Sydney Bristow. Sydney, this is Director Kendall from the FBI. He's in charge of the joint operation, along with your father."
"It's good to see that you're doing well Ms. Bristow," he shook her hand. "Your father told us we should be expecting you. You'll be joinung us for our briefing, I assume?"
"Yes sir," she replied as Kendall turned and began back towards the conference room. As she turned around, Sydney caught Marshall fidgeting and Weiss roll his eyes as they walked into the room.
"Agent Bristow, I assume have met Agent Vaughn?" Kendall questioned, standing in his traditional spot at the head of the table. Sydney watched her friends take their regular seats as Kendall silently nodded for her to take the seat next to Vaughn, across from where her father sat with Weiss. Once everyone was seated, Kendall pressed a button as a picture of an all too familiar face appeared at the front of the room and in their individual screens. "Sydney, this is Julian Sark. He's been a thorn in our side for years now, first working for an organization called the Alliance and now for the Covenant, the very group we believe to behind your abduction."
"Why would the Covenant want me?"
Kendall sighed and sat down, pressing another button as a painfully familiar sketch appeared on the screens. "Agent Bristow, this picture was drawn by a fifteenth century architect by the name of Milo Rambaldi. He's believed by many to be a prophet, predicting world events of great importance. Among the things he alludes to, he claims that the woman depicted here would bear certain marks. This woman is greatly tied to Rambaldi's works but also, according the prophecy, has the power to bring destruction to the greatest power. We believe this woman is you.
"As interested as we are in Rambaldi and his works, the Covenant is fanatical. Consider them the same type of people who are blindly devoted to a religion or cult, similar to the Jonestown cult. Rambaldi left behind forty-seven artifacts, some of which we have and, at times, have had to race against Covenant agents to acquire. At one point, around the time you disappeared, the artifacts in this task force's possession were stolen. We suspected a mole on the inside, helping them acquire the artifacts. By having you in their custody, the woman depicted in the drawing, they had everything they needed to achieve Rambaldi's prophecy."
"Luckily," Jack started, "whatever the Covenant did had no impact on your health."
"Unfortunately, that also leaves us with no evidence to indicate where you've been or what you've done while in the Covenant's custody," Kendall pointed out.
"In the years since your disappearance, we managed to acquire back eleven of the twenty-five artifacts we had when you disappeared," Weiss added.
"What happened to the mole?" Sydney questioned.
Kendall sighed, "We were never able to pinpoint who was the exact cause of the leak, or even that we had a leak. However, all of our suspects no longer work for us."
"What does this have to do with Sark?" she asked, only slightly amused to find out that he did, in fact, have a first name.
"He's a low-level member of the Covenant. His father was Russian royalty and his inheritance helped fund the Covenant's activities. Currently we believe Sark is seeking a higher position within the organization. We have intel indicating that the Covenant is sending him Munich to prove his loyalty and his worth."
"What is Sark looking for in Germany?" Vaughn asked.
"We don't know the purpose of the meeting, Agent Vaughn, or even who he's meeting," Kendall explained. "That's why we're sending you and Agent Bristow to find out," he explained, sliding their mission folders down to them. "You're going to surveil Mr. Sark's meeting. Bring back anything that may be relevant to the operation of the Covenant or Rambaldi. The meeting is scheduled for tomorrow evening. You two will leave tonight. See Marshall for your op tech. That's all," he dismissed, starting for the room.
Sydney slowly stood as her father called her name. "Stay for a moment," he requested as she sank back to her seat, the rest of the group leaving the room. Once they were alone, Jack turned on her a glare that was all too familiar. "You went to Zurich."
"Dad -"
"Sydney . . . To have you travel overseas right now without it being an authorized mission from the CIA is a risk we can't take now. Yes, Switzerland is a neutral country but it's irresponsible to imagine that it's without a Covenant cell or Covenant loyalists and informants. People who would just as gladly have you back in their possession or dead to meet their own needs. You are an intelligent woman Sydney. In training you proved you'd be a responsible agent, I don't understand why you'd do something so foolish that would not only jeopardize your life but could jeopardize your standing in the CIA -"
"There was someone I had to see. Someone I needed answers from."
"What did you possibly need from Arvin Sloane?"
"How -"
"He called me. We're old friends Sydney. He is an informant to the CIA. Due to his former connections, he has been able to give the CIA information regarding the Covenant and its operations. If you felt you needed to speak to him, you could have come to me, we could have done it through proper CIA channels. What did you have to ask him?"
"Dad, I can't -"
"Don't do it again Sydney," Jack warned, the edge back in his voice. "This is not the time to be leaving the country without the CIA's authorization or back up. Not when it could jeopardize half a dozen covert operations, not to mention your own life!" he scolded, his voice briefly raised. "You're new here Sydney. You need to remember that. No one doubts your qualifications, but you lack the experience, especially to make such a rash decision. Don't do it again Sydney or I'll be forced to see to it that your field grade is inactive until a time when you're able to make better decisions," he snapped. Then he dropped his head, his focus once again on his work as he spoke, "Go see Marshall to cover the op tech then go home and pack," he advised. Just a second before she stepped foot outside of the room, he called her name again. Sydney turned around, expecting the worse, instead seeing his face briefly slip out of its blank mask. "Good luck Sydney," he wished her with a slight nod as she slipped out.
Marshall's op tech was, as always, incredible. Vaughn had already left when she arrived from her brief meeting with her father. In Munich she would be posing as a hostess at the restaurant where the meeting was scheduled to take place. She was to set up a bug in the private meeting room where Sark would be meeting. While she was on point, Vaughn would be on coms, keeping tabs on the meeting and in contact with her while she worked in the restaurant's public room. This seemed to be a relatively benign compared to the countless other missions where she'd been point. However, given her experience with Sark, she was more than prepared for something to go awry.
Sydney met Vaughn at the airfield, their cars pulling up within moments of each other. Quietly they boarded the charter plane, their carry on's loaded overhead as they slipped into seats. Sitting across from her he appeared to pull out a book as she took out the mission ops, intending to be fully prepared for her first time out in the field. As she read, she felt Vaughn glance up a few times, silently studying her.
"You're going to be excellent," Vaughn said, breaking the silence they'd shared since take off. Sydney glanced up, confused as he continued. "In the field. This is your first time," he glanced down at his book, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
"I'm going to fine," she smiled, appreciating his attempts to soothe her nerves, so true to the man she'd once known.
"You will be," he insisted. Quieter, his eyes still dwelling on his book, he added, "It's just hard for me to imagine you without field experience," he conceded. When he looked back up, Sydney's face was twisted in confusion as he quickly clarified, "In Hong Kong, you were incredible. What I read, about how you did in training . . .Your work caught the attention of a lot of people before you disappeared. You were one of many qualified trainees but you stood out. Somehow you managed to excell at every level necessary to be successful in the field. I remember thinking that whoever she ends up working with will be incredibly lucky to have her as a partner," he explained. Her face was bent down, her mind working to absorb his compliments as she struggled to find the words to correct the unfair treatment she'd given him.
"I am sorry about Hong Kong Vaughn. I was -"
"No, Syd, I know. You were scared," he spoke quietly, so softly she nearly had to lean over to make out his words. The sound of the single syllable, once the only thing she could imagine Vaughn addressing her by, left her soul briefly hopeful. His heartfelt attempt to fix what he saw her struggle with, and the casual way Syd slipped through his lips for only a moment put her world back on the axis she'd once known. "You were scared Sydney, and you did the right thing. You don't have to be so hard on yourself."
Sydney studied his expression, his silent determination to convince her that she had done nothing wrong. For a moment her gut twisted, missing the man she silently referred to as her Vaughn, more than ever. If the CIA's approach to her wasn't enough reminder of the two years and the life she'd lost, his wedding ring certainly was.
"Thank you," she said as he nodded. "It was nice meeting your father. I didn't know he worked at the agency," Sydney added. She'd known he had worked for the agency, but in her time back she hadn't taken the opportunity to connect the obvious dots.
"Yeah. He was promoted to director a few years ago. He was one of the directors who tracked your progress and tasked you to train with Eric," Vaughn recalled. "Maybe as a favor for your father, I don't know, but I remember he was the agency representative at your funeral," his voice dropped along with his eyes. A moment later Vaughn looked at her again, a vulnerable expression still on his face. "He was the reason I joined. I always wanted to be like him, from the time I was a kid . . ."
"It must be nice, being able to work with him."
"It can be," he agreed, his eyes glassed over and no longer focused on hers. "We're not the same type of agent. Not that I don't respect him. I had no idea how much he'd really accomplished until I joined the agency. He's an incredible agent Sydney . . . A company guy. I love him very much, but I don't know if I'll ever be that by the books."
Sydney looked up at him, a single phrase ringing in her mind, "A company man?" she quietly repeated.
Vaughn met her eyes and nodded, "Yeah," he agreed.
"You're lucky to have him . . . To be able to work with him."
"I am," he nodded. "Your father came back to the agency for you."
"He didn't have to," she sighed, ducking her head.
"You were dead and then you came back Sydney. Whether Jack admits to having them, you can't disregard his feelings of guilt for his involvement. We get involved in these lives . . . We give up any real hope of normal lives to do this job, but there's a line and it got crossed when the Covenant involved you. They made it personal. I've read your father's file Sydney, I've had the opportunity to hear about his work and have spoken to people who have worked with him. There's not much I agree with him on Sydney, but he was right to come back."
"He doesn't think I can do it."
"He does think you can do it," Vaughn instantly corrected. Sydney looked at him, wondering what compelled him to defend a man he hardly knew. "Jack recruited you Sydney. Fought to convince you to give up what you always thought you wanted to do because . . . Because he had an instinct," he quietly suggested. "It's not every day that you get an instinct like that. The only thing that concerns him is your safety, which would concern him whether you were a field agent or still a teacher."
"I was," she smiled. "A teacher. High school English," she explained, wishing she had some memories of the experience.
"I know," he nodded.
"I could have gone back . . . I probably should have," Sydney mused. "It's what my father wanted. He recruited me before any of this happened. Now that it has . . . " she hesitated, feeling his eyes on her as she glanced around. "My mother hasn't said anything, which speaks volumes," she pointed out softly. The Laura of her childhood had always been a devoted, loving mother and wife, but she had never been one to hesitate when it came to voicing her opinions. Jack was the man of the family, but there was no room for doubt who was in charge. Except her mother's silence spoke more of her concern than any amount of words ever could.
"No matter what your coworkers think, there are moments when working with your father can be more of a curse than a blessing," Vaughn pointed out. "Especially when your father's an accomplished agent," he added. "The only way to prove to him, to those around you - to yourself Sydney - is to go out there and do it. To show that you're not here *because* Jack is and you certainly aren't staying because of that. Prove to your father that yes, you were an English teacher, but now this is what you do. It's your decision to be here, and you're capable of doing what the agency needs you to do."
"I want something big," she conceded. While working with SD-6 and subsequently the CIA, she'd been tasked with some of the most crucial ops that any agent could imagine. Now she was starting back from the bottom again, having no record to fall back.
"You're gathering information Sydney. That's where any advanced operation starts, with getting the intel to try to cut off the Covenant."
"I know this is where I start," she agreed, remembering the handful of scutwork missions SD-6 had sent her on in the beginning. She'd been so far beyond that level of skill when she joined the CIA, and her role in the Alliance so precarious that she'd never considered starting again from the beginning. Yet thanks to Arvin Sloane it was just what she was doing. "I just don't want to be stuck doing this for too long. I want to do something valuable."
A trace of a smile lingered on his face, "You will," he promised. Sydney sat back and smiled at him before she returned her attention to covering the mission intel.
Sark's meeting with an unnamed associate was to be held in an upscale, historic Munich restaurant. While she was left with the task of hostess in the main dining hall, it was easy to slip into the reserved room. Marshall had hacked into the restaurant's computer system and Sydney was posing as a waitress filling in for her friend. Thanks to her flawless German, it wasn't a problem, and she slipped the miniscule listening device into a vase in the dining room. With a quick check into her ear to insure that she had Vaughn on coms and that the bug was activated and working correctly she reported to the main dining room.
Of her many childhood career ambitions, she doubted restaurant hostess was ever one. Whether it was the actual job or how useless she felt towards the mission as she worked, Sydney was never sure. The mission was going well, if not a bit too boring for Sydney's taste. Periodically she would hear Vaughn in her ear, updating her. No real information was passed, just enough to let her know that things were proceeding as planned. With the way the restaurant was set up, she hadn't even had the opportunity to see Sark or whoever he may have been meeting, although she was curious to see what reaction, if any, he would have if he saw her.
"Syd?" Vaughn's voice filtered through her ear nearly three hours after they first arrived and roughly ninety minutes past Sark's meeting time. Even without her years with him in another life, Sydney would have recognized the urgency in his voice. During the course of the evening she'd listened to him through the comm link. Sometimes, as she stood surveying the dining hall, she'd listen to the nearly undetectible sound of his breathing. Or he'd make an occasional joke in her ear, his own brand of humor and commentary on anything from what Sark and his associate were wearing to table manners. After insuring that the guest she was speaking to was settled in, she excused herself to the employee restroom.
"Vaughn?"
"According to the specs of the restaurant, there's a door to your left in the hallway leading to the employee-only rooms. It leads to a basement. There's going to be a suitcase under the staircase. Whatever it is, it's what Sark came to get."
"I'm going," she declared, already stepping out of the restroom.
"Sydney, you've only got a few minutes."
"Let me know when he's on the move," she said, walking out of the employee restroom. With a quick glance to insure that no one in the main dining room had noticed her absence, she nonchalantly approached the basement door. She made quick work of picking the lock and entered. The flight of stairs was short, the stench of time and dust as she made her way down the stairs.
The basement was filled with boxes and cartons, nothing seemingly out of the ordinary except for the two men pacing the room. "Miss, can we help you with anything?" one of the men asked, catching a glimpse of her as she stood at the staircase landing.
She caught a glimpse of a door leading to the wine cellar and gave the two men an innocent smile. "I was sent down here for some wine," she explained.
"Go ahead," the other man grinned, his eyes running over her body as she felt the tiniest of hairs on her arms raise.
Scanning the room, Sydney's eyes quickly landed on the suitcase in question. After a few necessary steps in the direction of the wine cellar, she felt the one of the men nearby. Taking only a moment to prepare herself, she tossed an elbow back and heard one of the men hiss in pain. Swiftly she turned around, the other man protesting, approaching and reaching for his walkie talkie. Before he had the object in his hand, she forced him to the ground with a roundhouse kick. Thanks to years of experience, Sydney felt the other man behind her. Without a thought she faced him, using the other man's walkie talkie to deliver a blow to his head, sufficent enough to knock him out without killing him. Now able to complete her task, she knelt down and examined the suitcase's lock system. For a moment she studied the system before she spoke through her comm, "Vaughn, I've got it but I won't be able to open it here."
"Just grab it. I'll meet you in the alley in five minutes."
"Okay," she agreed, wishing Marshall had provided her with the necessary equipment to open the suitcase while wondering what it was that Sark wanted so badly - or whose dirty work he'd been sent to accomplish.
Having already dealt with the two men who'd been tasked to guard the package, getting away from the restaurant was easy. A few minutes later she was waiting for Vaughn in the designated alley, two blocks from the meeting place. The car jolted to a quick stop in front of her as he leaned over and popped the door open, hitting the gas as she slammed the door. "You got it?" he asked rhetorically.
"What is in it Vaughn? Who was Sark meeting?"
"They didn't say what it was, but it's something the Covenant wants. Sark was meeting with the cousin of the restaurant's owner. Whatever's in that suitcase, it was taken from the Covenant and they've been trying to get a hold of it for months."
"It could have something to do with me, with my missing time."
"It might," he agreed. "They said it was something to do with Rambaldi, and the Covenant paid the man a significant amount of cash for whatever it is."
"Sark's not going to be happy when it's not there. He'll think that the Covenant's being played."
Vaughn glanced at her as they neared the airstrip waiting to take them home, "We're not the only agency after the Covenant Sydney, they won't necessarily know it was us."
"I didn't see him. Sark, I mean . . . I thought I might. I know it was stupid. If he saw me and recognized me, it could have jeopardized the entire mission, but I just wondered . . . I wondered if he'd even react to me, recognize me from the past two years . . ."
"We can't risk your exposure Sydney, not when the Covenant could still be pursuing you."
"I know," she sighed, looking out the window.
Vaughn approached the airstrip and stole a few quick looks in her direction, wondering what to say to this woman. This was a purgatory of uncertainty that she lived in, one that she certainly didn't deserve nor had she brought upon herself. "Sydney?" he questioned, drawing her out of thoughts as the car stopped.
She wanted to ask him was when it would stop, but it was an answer no one could provide. When would the ride end so she could get off and establish some roots? Even in this world, where everything she thought she ever wanted was gloriously handed to her, nothing was that simple. Just as she'd wanted to step off of the merry-go-round, Sloane had flicked a switch and pushed the ride into even bumpier turbulence. "We should go," she glanced at him as she unbuckled her belt. "We need Marshall to look at this," she reminded him. Vaughn nodded as the duo got out of the car and boarded the plane.
A fourteen hour flight later, Sydney sat at her desk. Out of the corner of her eyes she caught sight of Vaughn re-entering the JTF, strolling with Weiss. They'd been back in L.A. less than two hours, neither had even had a chance to go home and change, both opting to stick around and find out what was in the suitcase. During the ride back they hadn't said much, each working on their respective reports before she struggled to gain a few hours of restless sleep. When she finally gave in to her insomnia, she sat up and found that he'd fallen sound asleep. As much as she longed for the company, someone to talk to, she refused to disturb his peace.
Sydney remained at her desk as she watched them for a moment, the JTF as close to abandoned as it ever became. What struck her most was how he didn't look a bit different, how not even two years could really change his appearance. Even if it had, she couldn't help but hope that she'd know Vaughn, that something in her would always recognize him. As if suddenly feeling her eyes, Vaughn looked up, his green eyes instantly finding hers as they shared a brief smile.
"Marshall's ready," Kendall announced to no one in particular, storming through the JTF as the appropriate agents followed him towards the room.
Sydney heard Weiss question Vaughn as she approached, "What do you think it is?"
"I don't know," he shook his head, holding the door to the briefing room open for Sydney as they all took their seats. Only a moment later, Marshall entered the room, cautiously carrying an object that she could never forget, if only for the particularly nasty fight she'd had with Anna Espinoza to get possession of the piece's most crucial part.
"What is it?" Weiss asked as Marshall gently placed it on the table.
"It's a clock," Marshall smiled, obviously excited as he stood in front of the group.
"I'm assuming that it must have some other function other than a clock if the Covenant is after it," Jack commented dryly.
"This clock was designed by Giovanni Donato but was commissioned by Milo Rambaldi. Which, really, considering the guy's contemporaries, it's pretty genius," Marshall buzzed, barely skipping a beat when his coworkers didn't share his enthusiasm. "Donato was the only person Rambaldi ever collaborated with. And check this out," he stopped to point to a familiar symbol.
The group leaned forward in their seats to examine the tiny engraving, "what is that?" Vaughn softly inquired.
"That stands for the Magnificent Order of Rambaldi. Now the clock is working fine now, but watch this," he stopped. The group watched as Marshall set the clock and it stopped.
"What did you do?" Weiss asked.
"I set it to 12:22 and 1/2. When it's set then, it stops. I know you all wonder why, but I'm not quite sure yet," he conceded anxiously. "However," he slid the familiar golden sun out of its place and held it up for them all to inspect. "When you look at this, you can see a star chart. The great thing about a star chart is that it's a picture of the sky that captures only one single moment in time, that's it. Anything before or after and bam, your out of luck," he chuckled as Sydney looked down and shook her head. Exhaustion did little to take away how endearing she viewed Marshall's nervous humor to be.
"The point?" Kendall questioned testily.
"The point," Marshall swallowed hard and fidgeted with is hands. "The point is that we can assume that the star chart refers to the date here," he explained, turning the clock around and motioning to a date on the back. "August 16th, 1523 at 12:22AM Greenwich Mean Time. The great thing is that we already know that it's the only spot on earth with the exact view of the stars is on the Chile/Argentina border," Marshall explained, picking up a remote as a map flipped onto their individual screens. "The southern slope of Mt. Aconcagua."
"How do we know this?" Sydney asked. As eager as she was to get on with her life and certainly her career in the CIA, the idea of going back to Mt. Aconcagua held little appeal. Images of Dixon shot and barely clinging to life and contacting the CIA, revealing her codename to her ailing partner in a desperate attempt to save his life. None of it had been in vain, but seeing Dixon, one of the strongest men she'd ever known, shot and in pain was something that still haunted her. All because of some book that eventually led the CIA to take her into custody. There were days when Sydney hadn't been certain that the mission, for all the complications it had brought into her life, had been worth it.
"We had intel on the clock a few years ago, without having the actual artifact. Various sources indicated . . . Without the actual artifact, we were able to find the Rambaldi manuscript before anyone else was," Jack explained.
"Barely," Weiss muttered.
At Sydney's confused expression, Jack met her eyes and explained, "I was shot Sydney. I was sent on a team to intercept the book and was shot." She felt her blood go cold as she momentarily shut her eyes, the parallels uncanny.
"Luckily we were able to maintain possession of the manuscript," Kendall pointed out. "And now we have the clock, and the Covenant doesn't," he sighed and pulled out of his chair. "Agent Bristow, Agent Vaughn, go home. I don't expect you back here until tomorrow. The rest of you, get back to work," he ordered as he walked out of the room.
Sydney sat in silence, staring at the clock as Marshall and Weiss shared an animated conversation. Questions raced through her head. Sloane had to have had the clock, she was sure of it, and now there was no doubt in her mind that he was involved in the Covenant. The only question remained was why he would part with is beloved artifacts, part with them enough to have to buy them back.
"Sydney?" She looked up to find Vaughn standing over her, the room empty. "Are you okay?"
"Someone had to own the clock once . . . Someone who lived and breathed Rambaldi. Why give it up?"
"I would guess a Rambaldi artifact goes for a pretty high bid on the black market. Maybe they needed the money?"
"No," she sighed and slowly stood. "It has to be more than that."
"I wouldn't worry about it, not right now," he grinned easily at her. "I'm going home. You should do the same," he suggested as he approached the door. "Do you need a ride?"
Sydney glanced at him from where she stood, organizing her files, and shook her head. Before he could step out of the room, she called his name as he met her eyes. "Thank you," she spoke softly. Without a word Vaughn smiled and nodded before walking out.
Author: UConnFan (Michele
E-mail: loveuconnbasketball@yahoo.com
~*Chapter 5*~
Drawing the lines to the introduction were easy, so trivial that it surprised her she hadn't thought of it before. The reverse of a chain reaction - no Irina Derevko, no one killed William Vaughn. Just the way it worked with Danny - no SD-6, no secret, no murder. Still, as she sat in her empty apartment forcing herself to eat lunch, it was a bit depressing to see how many people who could have lived if she hadn't been so foolish. The knowledge that William Vaughn's death had never been directly her fault was only a small consolation. One time she remembered Vaughn telling her that no one was harder on herself than she was, Sydney knew that to be true, leaving her to wonder how her Vaughn was handling the world now, presumably two years past her death.
Briefly she toyed with the idea that he'd moved on, perhaps even married as this Vaughn had apparently done. Except Sydney couldn't reconcile the fact that while two years was enough time to take her world off of it's axis, it didn't feel like long enough for him to move past them, to have so fully progressed past her that he was married. He'd spent over a year waiting for her, casually seeing Alice. In no world could she imagine him moving on so fast.
No matter how much she missed him, there was little time to dwell on him, a man she couldn't imagine not loving but didn't know if she'd ever see again. There was work to be done now, she knew there were plenty of challenges ahead of her as she took her first steps into the Joint Task Force Headquarters. Jack's instructions had been precise, leading her to the exact spot she remembered. Sydney wasn't sure whether she was relieved or disappointed that it didn't look all that different from what it had been two years and another world before. Nothing had changed, except the nearly tangible joy she'd felt the first time she walked thru the front door with Vaughn following the Alliance's destruction seemed to be a hazy product of her imagination.
As she took her first steps into the JTF, she was relieved to spot Weiss, leaning casually against the area he'd always worked in. To her delight, Marshall stood nearby, obviously rambling along as Weiss and Carrie tried their best to follow. Sydney easily hid her smile as she approached Weiss, prepared to be introduced to her former friends.
"Hey," she smiled.
Weiss looked up and grinned, "Hey Sydney. How are you doing?"
"I'm good," she assured him, crossing her arms as she glanced at Marshall and Carrie, silently waiting for introduction.
"Sorry," Weiss chuckled. "Sydney Bristow, this is my best friend Marshall Flinkman, and his wife Carrie Bowman. Marshall's our resident tech genius. Carrie's NSA but she works with us."
"It's nice to meet you both," Sydney smiled and shook their hands.
"It's good to see you Ms. Bristow - " Marshall started, clearly sweating.
"Sydney," she corrected.
"Sydney . . . I'm so sorry to hear about your death. I mean your disappearance, I know that -"
"Marshall," Carrie groaned.
He glanced at his wife and then back to Sydney, "Well, it's good to have you here finally. I'm working on a CD for you, it's the most popular songs from the last two years. Not my type of music, if you know what I mean, but it might help you remember -"
"Thank you," Sydney smiled.
"Did the clothes fit?" Carrie questioned as Sydney looked at her, clearly confused. "The clothes, at the hospital. Eric asked me to pick you up some things. We had your sizes, but I wasn't sure what you would like -"
"They were great," she assured her, instantly relieved that it wasn't Vaughn's wife who had done her shopping. "Thank you."
Before Carrie could respond, a familiar figure breezed by, stopping abruptly at Sydney's side. "Ms. Bristow, just the agent I was looking for."
Next to her, Sydney could hear Weiss stifle his groan, "Sir, this is Sydney Bristow. Sydney, this is Director Kendall from the FBI. He's in charge of the joint operation, along with your father."
"It's good to see that you're doing well Ms. Bristow," he shook her hand. "Your father told us we should be expecting you. You'll be joinung us for our briefing, I assume?"
"Yes sir," she replied as Kendall turned and began back towards the conference room. As she turned around, Sydney caught Marshall fidgeting and Weiss roll his eyes as they walked into the room.
"Agent Bristow, I assume have met Agent Vaughn?" Kendall questioned, standing in his traditional spot at the head of the table. Sydney watched her friends take their regular seats as Kendall silently nodded for her to take the seat next to Vaughn, across from where her father sat with Weiss. Once everyone was seated, Kendall pressed a button as a picture of an all too familiar face appeared at the front of the room and in their individual screens. "Sydney, this is Julian Sark. He's been a thorn in our side for years now, first working for an organization called the Alliance and now for the Covenant, the very group we believe to behind your abduction."
"Why would the Covenant want me?"
Kendall sighed and sat down, pressing another button as a painfully familiar sketch appeared on the screens. "Agent Bristow, this picture was drawn by a fifteenth century architect by the name of Milo Rambaldi. He's believed by many to be a prophet, predicting world events of great importance. Among the things he alludes to, he claims that the woman depicted here would bear certain marks. This woman is greatly tied to Rambaldi's works but also, according the prophecy, has the power to bring destruction to the greatest power. We believe this woman is you.
"As interested as we are in Rambaldi and his works, the Covenant is fanatical. Consider them the same type of people who are blindly devoted to a religion or cult, similar to the Jonestown cult. Rambaldi left behind forty-seven artifacts, some of which we have and, at times, have had to race against Covenant agents to acquire. At one point, around the time you disappeared, the artifacts in this task force's possession were stolen. We suspected a mole on the inside, helping them acquire the artifacts. By having you in their custody, the woman depicted in the drawing, they had everything they needed to achieve Rambaldi's prophecy."
"Luckily," Jack started, "whatever the Covenant did had no impact on your health."
"Unfortunately, that also leaves us with no evidence to indicate where you've been or what you've done while in the Covenant's custody," Kendall pointed out.
"In the years since your disappearance, we managed to acquire back eleven of the twenty-five artifacts we had when you disappeared," Weiss added.
"What happened to the mole?" Sydney questioned.
Kendall sighed, "We were never able to pinpoint who was the exact cause of the leak, or even that we had a leak. However, all of our suspects no longer work for us."
"What does this have to do with Sark?" she asked, only slightly amused to find out that he did, in fact, have a first name.
"He's a low-level member of the Covenant. His father was Russian royalty and his inheritance helped fund the Covenant's activities. Currently we believe Sark is seeking a higher position within the organization. We have intel indicating that the Covenant is sending him Munich to prove his loyalty and his worth."
"What is Sark looking for in Germany?" Vaughn asked.
"We don't know the purpose of the meeting, Agent Vaughn, or even who he's meeting," Kendall explained. "That's why we're sending you and Agent Bristow to find out," he explained, sliding their mission folders down to them. "You're going to surveil Mr. Sark's meeting. Bring back anything that may be relevant to the operation of the Covenant or Rambaldi. The meeting is scheduled for tomorrow evening. You two will leave tonight. See Marshall for your op tech. That's all," he dismissed, starting for the room.
Sydney slowly stood as her father called her name. "Stay for a moment," he requested as she sank back to her seat, the rest of the group leaving the room. Once they were alone, Jack turned on her a glare that was all too familiar. "You went to Zurich."
"Dad -"
"Sydney . . . To have you travel overseas right now without it being an authorized mission from the CIA is a risk we can't take now. Yes, Switzerland is a neutral country but it's irresponsible to imagine that it's without a Covenant cell or Covenant loyalists and informants. People who would just as gladly have you back in their possession or dead to meet their own needs. You are an intelligent woman Sydney. In training you proved you'd be a responsible agent, I don't understand why you'd do something so foolish that would not only jeopardize your life but could jeopardize your standing in the CIA -"
"There was someone I had to see. Someone I needed answers from."
"What did you possibly need from Arvin Sloane?"
"How -"
"He called me. We're old friends Sydney. He is an informant to the CIA. Due to his former connections, he has been able to give the CIA information regarding the Covenant and its operations. If you felt you needed to speak to him, you could have come to me, we could have done it through proper CIA channels. What did you have to ask him?"
"Dad, I can't -"
"Don't do it again Sydney," Jack warned, the edge back in his voice. "This is not the time to be leaving the country without the CIA's authorization or back up. Not when it could jeopardize half a dozen covert operations, not to mention your own life!" he scolded, his voice briefly raised. "You're new here Sydney. You need to remember that. No one doubts your qualifications, but you lack the experience, especially to make such a rash decision. Don't do it again Sydney or I'll be forced to see to it that your field grade is inactive until a time when you're able to make better decisions," he snapped. Then he dropped his head, his focus once again on his work as he spoke, "Go see Marshall to cover the op tech then go home and pack," he advised. Just a second before she stepped foot outside of the room, he called her name again. Sydney turned around, expecting the worse, instead seeing his face briefly slip out of its blank mask. "Good luck Sydney," he wished her with a slight nod as she slipped out.
Marshall's op tech was, as always, incredible. Vaughn had already left when she arrived from her brief meeting with her father. In Munich she would be posing as a hostess at the restaurant where the meeting was scheduled to take place. She was to set up a bug in the private meeting room where Sark would be meeting. While she was on point, Vaughn would be on coms, keeping tabs on the meeting and in contact with her while she worked in the restaurant's public room. This seemed to be a relatively benign compared to the countless other missions where she'd been point. However, given her experience with Sark, she was more than prepared for something to go awry.
Sydney met Vaughn at the airfield, their cars pulling up within moments of each other. Quietly they boarded the charter plane, their carry on's loaded overhead as they slipped into seats. Sitting across from her he appeared to pull out a book as she took out the mission ops, intending to be fully prepared for her first time out in the field. As she read, she felt Vaughn glance up a few times, silently studying her.
"You're going to be excellent," Vaughn said, breaking the silence they'd shared since take off. Sydney glanced up, confused as he continued. "In the field. This is your first time," he glanced down at his book, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
"I'm going to fine," she smiled, appreciating his attempts to soothe her nerves, so true to the man she'd once known.
"You will be," he insisted. Quieter, his eyes still dwelling on his book, he added, "It's just hard for me to imagine you without field experience," he conceded. When he looked back up, Sydney's face was twisted in confusion as he quickly clarified, "In Hong Kong, you were incredible. What I read, about how you did in training . . .Your work caught the attention of a lot of people before you disappeared. You were one of many qualified trainees but you stood out. Somehow you managed to excell at every level necessary to be successful in the field. I remember thinking that whoever she ends up working with will be incredibly lucky to have her as a partner," he explained. Her face was bent down, her mind working to absorb his compliments as she struggled to find the words to correct the unfair treatment she'd given him.
"I am sorry about Hong Kong Vaughn. I was -"
"No, Syd, I know. You were scared," he spoke quietly, so softly she nearly had to lean over to make out his words. The sound of the single syllable, once the only thing she could imagine Vaughn addressing her by, left her soul briefly hopeful. His heartfelt attempt to fix what he saw her struggle with, and the casual way Syd slipped through his lips for only a moment put her world back on the axis she'd once known. "You were scared Sydney, and you did the right thing. You don't have to be so hard on yourself."
Sydney studied his expression, his silent determination to convince her that she had done nothing wrong. For a moment her gut twisted, missing the man she silently referred to as her Vaughn, more than ever. If the CIA's approach to her wasn't enough reminder of the two years and the life she'd lost, his wedding ring certainly was.
"Thank you," she said as he nodded. "It was nice meeting your father. I didn't know he worked at the agency," Sydney added. She'd known he had worked for the agency, but in her time back she hadn't taken the opportunity to connect the obvious dots.
"Yeah. He was promoted to director a few years ago. He was one of the directors who tracked your progress and tasked you to train with Eric," Vaughn recalled. "Maybe as a favor for your father, I don't know, but I remember he was the agency representative at your funeral," his voice dropped along with his eyes. A moment later Vaughn looked at her again, a vulnerable expression still on his face. "He was the reason I joined. I always wanted to be like him, from the time I was a kid . . ."
"It must be nice, being able to work with him."
"It can be," he agreed, his eyes glassed over and no longer focused on hers. "We're not the same type of agent. Not that I don't respect him. I had no idea how much he'd really accomplished until I joined the agency. He's an incredible agent Sydney . . . A company guy. I love him very much, but I don't know if I'll ever be that by the books."
Sydney looked up at him, a single phrase ringing in her mind, "A company man?" she quietly repeated.
Vaughn met her eyes and nodded, "Yeah," he agreed.
"You're lucky to have him . . . To be able to work with him."
"I am," he nodded. "Your father came back to the agency for you."
"He didn't have to," she sighed, ducking her head.
"You were dead and then you came back Sydney. Whether Jack admits to having them, you can't disregard his feelings of guilt for his involvement. We get involved in these lives . . . We give up any real hope of normal lives to do this job, but there's a line and it got crossed when the Covenant involved you. They made it personal. I've read your father's file Sydney, I've had the opportunity to hear about his work and have spoken to people who have worked with him. There's not much I agree with him on Sydney, but he was right to come back."
"He doesn't think I can do it."
"He does think you can do it," Vaughn instantly corrected. Sydney looked at him, wondering what compelled him to defend a man he hardly knew. "Jack recruited you Sydney. Fought to convince you to give up what you always thought you wanted to do because . . . Because he had an instinct," he quietly suggested. "It's not every day that you get an instinct like that. The only thing that concerns him is your safety, which would concern him whether you were a field agent or still a teacher."
"I was," she smiled. "A teacher. High school English," she explained, wishing she had some memories of the experience.
"I know," he nodded.
"I could have gone back . . . I probably should have," Sydney mused. "It's what my father wanted. He recruited me before any of this happened. Now that it has . . . " she hesitated, feeling his eyes on her as she glanced around. "My mother hasn't said anything, which speaks volumes," she pointed out softly. The Laura of her childhood had always been a devoted, loving mother and wife, but she had never been one to hesitate when it came to voicing her opinions. Jack was the man of the family, but there was no room for doubt who was in charge. Except her mother's silence spoke more of her concern than any amount of words ever could.
"No matter what your coworkers think, there are moments when working with your father can be more of a curse than a blessing," Vaughn pointed out. "Especially when your father's an accomplished agent," he added. "The only way to prove to him, to those around you - to yourself Sydney - is to go out there and do it. To show that you're not here *because* Jack is and you certainly aren't staying because of that. Prove to your father that yes, you were an English teacher, but now this is what you do. It's your decision to be here, and you're capable of doing what the agency needs you to do."
"I want something big," she conceded. While working with SD-6 and subsequently the CIA, she'd been tasked with some of the most crucial ops that any agent could imagine. Now she was starting back from the bottom again, having no record to fall back.
"You're gathering information Sydney. That's where any advanced operation starts, with getting the intel to try to cut off the Covenant."
"I know this is where I start," she agreed, remembering the handful of scutwork missions SD-6 had sent her on in the beginning. She'd been so far beyond that level of skill when she joined the CIA, and her role in the Alliance so precarious that she'd never considered starting again from the beginning. Yet thanks to Arvin Sloane it was just what she was doing. "I just don't want to be stuck doing this for too long. I want to do something valuable."
A trace of a smile lingered on his face, "You will," he promised. Sydney sat back and smiled at him before she returned her attention to covering the mission intel.
Sark's meeting with an unnamed associate was to be held in an upscale, historic Munich restaurant. While she was left with the task of hostess in the main dining hall, it was easy to slip into the reserved room. Marshall had hacked into the restaurant's computer system and Sydney was posing as a waitress filling in for her friend. Thanks to her flawless German, it wasn't a problem, and she slipped the miniscule listening device into a vase in the dining room. With a quick check into her ear to insure that she had Vaughn on coms and that the bug was activated and working correctly she reported to the main dining room.
Of her many childhood career ambitions, she doubted restaurant hostess was ever one. Whether it was the actual job or how useless she felt towards the mission as she worked, Sydney was never sure. The mission was going well, if not a bit too boring for Sydney's taste. Periodically she would hear Vaughn in her ear, updating her. No real information was passed, just enough to let her know that things were proceeding as planned. With the way the restaurant was set up, she hadn't even had the opportunity to see Sark or whoever he may have been meeting, although she was curious to see what reaction, if any, he would have if he saw her.
"Syd?" Vaughn's voice filtered through her ear nearly three hours after they first arrived and roughly ninety minutes past Sark's meeting time. Even without her years with him in another life, Sydney would have recognized the urgency in his voice. During the course of the evening she'd listened to him through the comm link. Sometimes, as she stood surveying the dining hall, she'd listen to the nearly undetectible sound of his breathing. Or he'd make an occasional joke in her ear, his own brand of humor and commentary on anything from what Sark and his associate were wearing to table manners. After insuring that the guest she was speaking to was settled in, she excused herself to the employee restroom.
"Vaughn?"
"According to the specs of the restaurant, there's a door to your left in the hallway leading to the employee-only rooms. It leads to a basement. There's going to be a suitcase under the staircase. Whatever it is, it's what Sark came to get."
"I'm going," she declared, already stepping out of the restroom.
"Sydney, you've only got a few minutes."
"Let me know when he's on the move," she said, walking out of the employee restroom. With a quick glance to insure that no one in the main dining room had noticed her absence, she nonchalantly approached the basement door. She made quick work of picking the lock and entered. The flight of stairs was short, the stench of time and dust as she made her way down the stairs.
The basement was filled with boxes and cartons, nothing seemingly out of the ordinary except for the two men pacing the room. "Miss, can we help you with anything?" one of the men asked, catching a glimpse of her as she stood at the staircase landing.
She caught a glimpse of a door leading to the wine cellar and gave the two men an innocent smile. "I was sent down here for some wine," she explained.
"Go ahead," the other man grinned, his eyes running over her body as she felt the tiniest of hairs on her arms raise.
Scanning the room, Sydney's eyes quickly landed on the suitcase in question. After a few necessary steps in the direction of the wine cellar, she felt the one of the men nearby. Taking only a moment to prepare herself, she tossed an elbow back and heard one of the men hiss in pain. Swiftly she turned around, the other man protesting, approaching and reaching for his walkie talkie. Before he had the object in his hand, she forced him to the ground with a roundhouse kick. Thanks to years of experience, Sydney felt the other man behind her. Without a thought she faced him, using the other man's walkie talkie to deliver a blow to his head, sufficent enough to knock him out without killing him. Now able to complete her task, she knelt down and examined the suitcase's lock system. For a moment she studied the system before she spoke through her comm, "Vaughn, I've got it but I won't be able to open it here."
"Just grab it. I'll meet you in the alley in five minutes."
"Okay," she agreed, wishing Marshall had provided her with the necessary equipment to open the suitcase while wondering what it was that Sark wanted so badly - or whose dirty work he'd been sent to accomplish.
Having already dealt with the two men who'd been tasked to guard the package, getting away from the restaurant was easy. A few minutes later she was waiting for Vaughn in the designated alley, two blocks from the meeting place. The car jolted to a quick stop in front of her as he leaned over and popped the door open, hitting the gas as she slammed the door. "You got it?" he asked rhetorically.
"What is in it Vaughn? Who was Sark meeting?"
"They didn't say what it was, but it's something the Covenant wants. Sark was meeting with the cousin of the restaurant's owner. Whatever's in that suitcase, it was taken from the Covenant and they've been trying to get a hold of it for months."
"It could have something to do with me, with my missing time."
"It might," he agreed. "They said it was something to do with Rambaldi, and the Covenant paid the man a significant amount of cash for whatever it is."
"Sark's not going to be happy when it's not there. He'll think that the Covenant's being played."
Vaughn glanced at her as they neared the airstrip waiting to take them home, "We're not the only agency after the Covenant Sydney, they won't necessarily know it was us."
"I didn't see him. Sark, I mean . . . I thought I might. I know it was stupid. If he saw me and recognized me, it could have jeopardized the entire mission, but I just wondered . . . I wondered if he'd even react to me, recognize me from the past two years . . ."
"We can't risk your exposure Sydney, not when the Covenant could still be pursuing you."
"I know," she sighed, looking out the window.
Vaughn approached the airstrip and stole a few quick looks in her direction, wondering what to say to this woman. This was a purgatory of uncertainty that she lived in, one that she certainly didn't deserve nor had she brought upon herself. "Sydney?" he questioned, drawing her out of thoughts as the car stopped.
She wanted to ask him was when it would stop, but it was an answer no one could provide. When would the ride end so she could get off and establish some roots? Even in this world, where everything she thought she ever wanted was gloriously handed to her, nothing was that simple. Just as she'd wanted to step off of the merry-go-round, Sloane had flicked a switch and pushed the ride into even bumpier turbulence. "We should go," she glanced at him as she unbuckled her belt. "We need Marshall to look at this," she reminded him. Vaughn nodded as the duo got out of the car and boarded the plane.
A fourteen hour flight later, Sydney sat at her desk. Out of the corner of her eyes she caught sight of Vaughn re-entering the JTF, strolling with Weiss. They'd been back in L.A. less than two hours, neither had even had a chance to go home and change, both opting to stick around and find out what was in the suitcase. During the ride back they hadn't said much, each working on their respective reports before she struggled to gain a few hours of restless sleep. When she finally gave in to her insomnia, she sat up and found that he'd fallen sound asleep. As much as she longed for the company, someone to talk to, she refused to disturb his peace.
Sydney remained at her desk as she watched them for a moment, the JTF as close to abandoned as it ever became. What struck her most was how he didn't look a bit different, how not even two years could really change his appearance. Even if it had, she couldn't help but hope that she'd know Vaughn, that something in her would always recognize him. As if suddenly feeling her eyes, Vaughn looked up, his green eyes instantly finding hers as they shared a brief smile.
"Marshall's ready," Kendall announced to no one in particular, storming through the JTF as the appropriate agents followed him towards the room.
Sydney heard Weiss question Vaughn as she approached, "What do you think it is?"
"I don't know," he shook his head, holding the door to the briefing room open for Sydney as they all took their seats. Only a moment later, Marshall entered the room, cautiously carrying an object that she could never forget, if only for the particularly nasty fight she'd had with Anna Espinoza to get possession of the piece's most crucial part.
"What is it?" Weiss asked as Marshall gently placed it on the table.
"It's a clock," Marshall smiled, obviously excited as he stood in front of the group.
"I'm assuming that it must have some other function other than a clock if the Covenant is after it," Jack commented dryly.
"This clock was designed by Giovanni Donato but was commissioned by Milo Rambaldi. Which, really, considering the guy's contemporaries, it's pretty genius," Marshall buzzed, barely skipping a beat when his coworkers didn't share his enthusiasm. "Donato was the only person Rambaldi ever collaborated with. And check this out," he stopped to point to a familiar symbol.
The group leaned forward in their seats to examine the tiny engraving, "what is that?" Vaughn softly inquired.
"That stands for the Magnificent Order of Rambaldi. Now the clock is working fine now, but watch this," he stopped. The group watched as Marshall set the clock and it stopped.
"What did you do?" Weiss asked.
"I set it to 12:22 and 1/2. When it's set then, it stops. I know you all wonder why, but I'm not quite sure yet," he conceded anxiously. "However," he slid the familiar golden sun out of its place and held it up for them all to inspect. "When you look at this, you can see a star chart. The great thing about a star chart is that it's a picture of the sky that captures only one single moment in time, that's it. Anything before or after and bam, your out of luck," he chuckled as Sydney looked down and shook her head. Exhaustion did little to take away how endearing she viewed Marshall's nervous humor to be.
"The point?" Kendall questioned testily.
"The point," Marshall swallowed hard and fidgeted with is hands. "The point is that we can assume that the star chart refers to the date here," he explained, turning the clock around and motioning to a date on the back. "August 16th, 1523 at 12:22AM Greenwich Mean Time. The great thing is that we already know that it's the only spot on earth with the exact view of the stars is on the Chile/Argentina border," Marshall explained, picking up a remote as a map flipped onto their individual screens. "The southern slope of Mt. Aconcagua."
"How do we know this?" Sydney asked. As eager as she was to get on with her life and certainly her career in the CIA, the idea of going back to Mt. Aconcagua held little appeal. Images of Dixon shot and barely clinging to life and contacting the CIA, revealing her codename to her ailing partner in a desperate attempt to save his life. None of it had been in vain, but seeing Dixon, one of the strongest men she'd ever known, shot and in pain was something that still haunted her. All because of some book that eventually led the CIA to take her into custody. There were days when Sydney hadn't been certain that the mission, for all the complications it had brought into her life, had been worth it.
"We had intel on the clock a few years ago, without having the actual artifact. Various sources indicated . . . Without the actual artifact, we were able to find the Rambaldi manuscript before anyone else was," Jack explained.
"Barely," Weiss muttered.
At Sydney's confused expression, Jack met her eyes and explained, "I was shot Sydney. I was sent on a team to intercept the book and was shot." She felt her blood go cold as she momentarily shut her eyes, the parallels uncanny.
"Luckily we were able to maintain possession of the manuscript," Kendall pointed out. "And now we have the clock, and the Covenant doesn't," he sighed and pulled out of his chair. "Agent Bristow, Agent Vaughn, go home. I don't expect you back here until tomorrow. The rest of you, get back to work," he ordered as he walked out of the room.
Sydney sat in silence, staring at the clock as Marshall and Weiss shared an animated conversation. Questions raced through her head. Sloane had to have had the clock, she was sure of it, and now there was no doubt in her mind that he was involved in the Covenant. The only question remained was why he would part with is beloved artifacts, part with them enough to have to buy them back.
"Sydney?" She looked up to find Vaughn standing over her, the room empty. "Are you okay?"
"Someone had to own the clock once . . . Someone who lived and breathed Rambaldi. Why give it up?"
"I would guess a Rambaldi artifact goes for a pretty high bid on the black market. Maybe they needed the money?"
"No," she sighed and slowly stood. "It has to be more than that."
"I wouldn't worry about it, not right now," he grinned easily at her. "I'm going home. You should do the same," he suggested as he approached the door. "Do you need a ride?"
Sydney glanced at him from where she stood, organizing her files, and shook her head. Before he could step out of the room, she called his name as he met her eyes. "Thank you," she spoke softly. Without a word Vaughn smiled and nodded before walking out.