"What is this?" Sydney demanded.
She stood on the wrong side of the glass window, glaring ferociously at Kendall.
"That's what I've been wanting to ask you," he replied, matching her tone. He held up the leather jacket, borrowed from analysis to try to coax her into cooperating. "Where's Agent Vaughn?"
She frowned warily. Had this been normal circumstances he wouldn't have had to ask, but something about his tone… "Answer me and I'll answer you."
He sighed, shaking his head. "This doesn't look good, Agent Bristow. On top of everything else, the fact that you would break into here, with an earpiece that clearly indicates you were working for someone… Your cooperation might get you a lesser sentence. I'm telling you this as a courtesy."
"A lesser sentence of what?" she exploded, frustrated. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
"I'll spell it out for you," he replied shortly. "Agent Vaughn was quite busy the past few months before the little event in Zurich."
"'Little event?'"
He ignored her. "We have surveillance of him in meetings all over the world with enemies of the United States; assassins, intelligence operatives, you name it, all without authorization. And he downloaded a program to read classified documents on his personal laptop, breaking the law in the process. Right now, Agent Bristow, he is our leading suspect for being the mole that fed Sloane and Sark all sorts of information."
Sydney's jaw dropped.
"Well," Weiss said, fighting a spontaneous urge to rub his hands together. "Let's see what Mike has been up to."
The three of them knelt on the floor, papers and folders spread out in front of them on Vaughn's dusty bed. Without a glance at his two 'coworkers', Jack reached for the first folder…
"Guys!"
They whirled, task temporarily forgotten. Will stood there, a nervous Elsa and Aaron Caplan standing behind him.
"We have something to tell you," Will informed them.
Guards that called for backup were a wonderful thing, Vaughn decided.
Standing outside the warehouse, he spotted no less than seven black Chevrolets, all empty. Their owners were doubtlessly hunting for him inside the building.
Vaughn sprinted immediately for the first one, all but throwing himself inside. It took only seconds to hotwire the engine and start the car, an ability he owed to Eric's drunken teachings. Thanks, Weiss.
He was peeling out of there even as his pursuers heard the roar of the engine and began to head towards him.
There were terrifying things in this world, Will decided, and he had already seen most of them. Sark, Sydney out of nowhere, the Asian guy…
But none of them held a candle to a fully angry Jack Bristow.
All but shaking, he risked a glance toward the others to gauge their reactions to his revelation. Eric looked like he was going to be ill, Elsa was shaking, Aaron was looking up at the adults with huge eyes, and Irina…
… looked amused.
"Where have you been?"
With a heavy heart, Dixon ascended the stairs of his home. His beautiful wife stood waiting for him, door cracked open just not enough for him to see her slender form.
"I…" he cleared his throat. "There's been a situation, Diane."
"With the CIA?" she asked curtly.
"Yes, but-"
She cut him off, eyes flashing. "I told you Marcus, you can't have both. Looks to me like you've made your decision."
She opened the door fully. Marcus flinched at the sight of his suitcase, already packed and sitting off to the side.
"Jack, do you really think that's necessary?"
He ignored her purposely, reaching for his cell phone. "Do you really think it's not, Irina? That woman is a traitor-"
"Yes, she is," Irina said sharply. "To her government, not yours! How can you not see that?"
And then she realized. "Jack, Elsa Caplan and I are not the same person."
He didn't reply, simply glared harder and waited impatiently for Kendall to answer his phone.
"Yes," he said curtly when the phone finally clicked. "Agent Kendall, there's something you should…"
And then he stopped, eyes widening as Kendall interrupted him with rather pertinent news.
"What?"
Why is it, Vaughn ranted internally, that warehouses are always built in the middle of nowhere?
Near as he could tell, he'd been driving for 2 hours and still had yet to reach the skyscrapers he could see in the distance.
His thoughts raced along almost as fast as the stolen car. Once he reached whatever city was ahead, he would hopefully be able to locate an embassy. Or a safehouse. Or at the very least, a phone.
Irina couldn't help but feel a sense of unreality.
She stood next to Jack, watching the bars go up to allow them entry into the cell's viewing area. Her daughter sat inside, on the side she should be in, watching their approach with wide eyes.
Of all the things she had thought possible, visiting her daughter while Sydney sat in a CIA cell was not even remotely near that list.
Review responses tomorrow, okay? DVDs to watch and 100-point homework to do. Yes, in that order. ;)
But in exchange…
Easy-to-find-teaser: From Chapter 24:
If asked, Vaughn would've said that his day could not get any worse. Kidnapped, marked for execution, tackled and thrown into a wall… it all added up to perhaps the most terrible day a person could ever have. It hardly seemed possible that anything else could happen to him.
But apparently it was possible, as indicated by the flashing lights in his stolen car's rearview mirror.