Chapter 10: Like A Book
Disclaimer: Nope, Alias isn't mine. I have no life; don't depress me any further.
Kelly, not interested in any of the toys at the moments, sat on her cot and stared across the cell at Vaughn, who sat on his cot and stared back because he didn't know what else to do.
Vaughn knew that Agent Quentin would be watching the security feed and, if his initial impression of the man had been correct, laughing at Vaughn's clear loss of what to do with the kid.
"You want to watch a movie?" Vaughn asked.
"Are there any new ones?" Kelly countered.
"No."
"No."
"How about drawing? You like to draw?"
"I'm not allowed to."
"Sure you are."
"You'll tell…"
"No I won't," Vaughn protested quickly.
"And then he'll get mad at me." Kelly's eyes bored hatefully into Vaughn's; she had trusted them, they had shown her a different way, but they'd only been working for him.
"Kelly, I promise nobody will tell him anything. You're allowed to draw here," Vaughn pleaded. It scared him to see Kelly so unmoved, and pretty much unresponsive to gestures of affection now. Damn Sark anyway!
"Do I have to talk?" Kelly asked insolently.
"No, not if you don't want to."
"I don't want to," she assured him.
Vaughn shrank back to lean against the wall. This child scared him. There was something hard in her. Something that, even with all he'd seen and done, hadn't hardened in Vaughn yet. This wasn't even the same child he and Sydney had fallen asleep together watching. This child's demeanor was entirely hateful, untrusting, and withdrawn, not at all like the child Kelly had come to be.
How was he going to tell Sydney that Kelly was still so distant? And then he'd have to tell her the truth…that this unreachable child was hers.
"Look," Vaughn finally said despondently. He stood and put a drawing pad and crayons beside Kelly. "Draw, color, don't, whatever. I don't care any more."
Then he left. Without a backward glance, he walked out the door--which, thankfully for his dignified exit, Quentin had released the lock on--and all the way to the security office.
"Man, that was cold," Quentin commented as Vaughn grabbed a chair and watched Kelly on three different monitors. She remained still and watchful.
"I don't know what to do with her," Vaughn admitted. "As cold as this is going to sound, if I can make her cry at least I'll know she's capable of breaking down, of feeling something still."
"According to the reports I've read on this kid, you may want to back down a bit. You break this kid, your Sydney Bristow is not going to be happy with you," Quentin observed, a hint of teasing in his tone.
"What are you talking about?" Vaughn replied warily.
Quentin chuckled. He wasn't incapable of humor, he just thought a satire funnier than The Three Stooges.
"One, Sydney Bristow is way too attached to this kid. When she thinks nobody's watching, she frets like a mother hen. If you screw up this kid, she's going to hate you, which brings me to point number two. You fret over her while she frets over Kelly."
Vaughn stared, so Quentin shrugged.
"I'm just saying."
"Well, don't," Vaughn said. "It's not a good feeling to know you can read me like a book."
"Sorry." Quentin looked back to the monitors. "Hey. Where is she?"
"What?" Vaughn looked, and he saw the blanket that hung down over the edges of Sydney's cot move slightly.
"May be if I turn up the volume I can…" Quentin started.
"No. She's there."
Vaughn darted back up the hall, guilt slamming into him like a freight train.
"Harte, take Blondie over there," Sydney said. "I'll slip in that door behind her."
"Can do," Harte said amicably, flashing a flirtatious smile that only helped cement his role as tall dark and charming.
"I'm immune," she muttered as they separated.
She had to admit Harte did a marvelous job of distracting the blonde teller, while she slipped through a door clearly marked Authorized Personnel Only. As planned, she blended right in with the bank executives. She could still hear Harte chatting with the teller.
"I'm past phase one," she whispered into the microphone in her wristwatch.
Harte quickly but smoothly finished his alleged business and abandoned the now flustered teller to mourn that she hadn't even gotten his name.
Leaving the bank by the front exit, Harte dodged stealthily around through an alley to a fuse box near a back door. He methodically took out every fuse and scattered them throughout the debris in the alleyway. Then he ducked in the door into the pitch-black interior.
He pulled out a tiny penlight to navigate by. He knew he had sixty second to get to the safe deposit box room and back, and he could only hope Sydney was as good as everyone said she was. Harte knew very few people who could break into an unknown safe deposit box in under thirty seconds, and by his guess she had about twenty if they were going to get out before the emergency generators kicked in and security feed was back up.
"Sydney?" he hissed.
"I'm here," Sydney said out of the dark, and Harte saw her penlight scanning the wall of boxes.
"You haven't even found it yet?" Harte demanded.
"I ran into a damned security guard around the corner," she responded. "He's gonna have one hell of a headache when he wakes up."
Harte was duly impressed with Sydney so far. The whole time she talked, she worked, and by the end of her intermittent speech she was in the box.
Harte grabbed up a stack of folders and helped Sydney jam the destroyed box back into its cubby. He glanced at the digital display on his watch.
"Twenty seconds," he said. "I hope you run fast."
Sydney took half the folders.
"I ran track. I'll be out; question is, will you?"
Nineteen seconds later, a sleek red sports car screeched out of the bank parking lot, both of the occupants grinning triumphantly.
Dixon sat alone in his office, staring at the satcom phone on his desk and praying for it to ring. Sydney and Agent Harte knew what they were getting into. They understood that it was imperative to get out in the allotted time, because the Calling likely had someone inside, just in case. Dixon had made damn sure they understood that, and he trusted them.
Thirty seconds just wasn't very long to break into a safe deposit box.
Of course, Dixon realized, he wouldn't have been so worried if he possibly could have sent Vaughn with her. He knew and trusted Vaughn and his work, and knew Vaughn loved her. But, alas, someone had to stay with Kelly. Even though Kelly mostly seemed as content--if one could call her that at any time now--alone as she did with Vaughn.
He'd wait a few more minutes for Syd's report, that was all. If he didn't pick up on the first ring, the call would be transferred to a team of analysts. He had dozens of things to do. He really shouldn't be sitting here, waiting for one agent, when he had hundreds of others to oversee…
Dixon had risen resolutely from his seat to leave when the phone trilled. He gladly pressed a button to connect.
"Mountaineer, reporting," Sydney said at the tell-tale click.
"Good to hear, Mountaineer," Dixon said. "Were you successful?"
"Yes." Sydney's voice changed, and after a pause she asked, "Is this a secure line?"
"Yes," Dixon assured warily.
"Dixon, there was a paper, not official, but a birth certificate of sorts. I hid it from Harte, but, Dixon, it named me as the mother," she hissed. Harte must have been nearby, or she was afraid of being overheard.
"What?!? No, Sydney, that's impossible, I was there, you destroyed their lab…"
"Dixon, I know that. But that's what the paper says." Sydney sounded exasperated. "We better wait until Harte and I get back with all the documents to look at this."
"I'll do what I can. I'll find out for sure, Sydney," Dixon promised.
"You do that," Sydney said, then disconnected.
Dum-Duhdumdum. Duuuuuuuhhh! Vaughn's in trouble now! See, that's why secret agents shouldn't try to keep secrets. Every time they do they get busted and get in to more trouble than they would have if they'd just told the person they were keeping the secret about. Well, as long as Vaughn doesn't let Dixon find out he already knows, he should be all right…