A/N: Ok. I think it'd be a good idea to post this since I've finished it. Who knew it'd take me two seasons to do that? And let's pretend everything after the Counteragent never happened.
PART FOUR.
The next morning Vaughn woke up with a overwhelming sense of loss. He remembered feeling entirely comfortable and that made him forget about all of his problems. But now, he felt like the warmth had been dragged out of him and all the darkness he'd been living in for the past few days had come back full force.
Then he remembered. Leon had slept next to him. He had fallen asleep watching her immersed in her peaceful slumber, but now there was no sign of Leon. He had a bad feeling about this.
He got up and met Nick, still fast asleep, in the living room. He looked around and saw Leon was nowhere to be seen. He went to the bathroom and found a note in the mirror.
'M. Had to go. L.' he read.
He knew Leon was about to do one of two things: Being reasonable enough to go back to work like nothing happened or being stupid enough to hack into CIA files and got caught for that.
Vaughn was pretty sure it was the second one.
He sighed and brushed his teeth.
Jack walked through the halls of the Operations Center and found Kendall who wanted to know the details of Vaughn's disappearance. Jack chose to ignore him and went to a safe computer. When he couldn't shrug off the questions from Kendall, he faced him.
Kendall told him that Vaughn had called Agent Weiss and that he was probably suspecting of his friend and the CIA setting him up, and he was probably hiding.
Nothing Jack didn't already know. But he played fool with Kendall. He knew that Vaughn had gotten to the very same conclusion from day one and if he was as smart as everyone seemed to think, he WASN'T probably hiding, he was for sure digging his way out of the country.
"I need to talk to Agent Weiss, if you don't mind." Jack told Kendall, hoping that it would be enough to get him out of his sight.
"What kind of trouble Agent Vaughn is in?." Jack was wrong. Kendall was still annoying the hell out of him.
"Hey, you sort of run this place. I thought you knew more than I do." Jack answered the other man.
"I'm assigning a team to search for Agent Vaughn." Kendall said. Kinda late for that, Jack thought. "Last time we heard about him, he was in Arizona. He called Agent Weiss from there." He paused. "Do you have any idea which locations Agent Vaughn may be using as refuges?"
Jack let go an exasperated sigh. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.
"Do I look like some kind of confident to Mr. Vaughn?" Jack looked at Kendall's face. "Do you think I have some kind of fraternal bond with him, which would have earned me his confidence?" Jack calmed himself down. "Mr. Vaughn and I have worked together a couple of times, that doesn't mean he comes to me every time he goes out for a drink and spill his guts on me."
Kendall was stunned. Jack was happy for that. He needed to deflect any kind of attention anyone was paying to him concerning Vaughn. He was told he could ensemble a rescue mission, but it would be more effective if no one knew about it. He needed to play his part very well. He was a professional liar after all.
After Jack could shoo Kendall, he went back to work. He was concentrated on his current task: finding out what the hell happened and how and why it had happened. He couldn't shrug off the idea of all this having something to do with Sydney being a double agent.
Jack knew how to hack a computer. He had picked a thing or two from Marshall. He began with the video surveillance of the computer room, where the order could have been placed on the system. He watched the tapes from the day Vaughn disappeared and the day before that. Not so many people had entered that room.
He studied them all. No one seemed to be the responsible for this mess. He gave up with the tapes and decided to play safe. He asked the CIA director to assign a computer expert to trace the place where the message had been posted. He knew it would be difficult and if the author of this was dumb, he probably would get lucky.
He remembered something about a virtual fingerprint, which seem virtually impossible for him. Sometimes those fingerprints were altered to confuse anyone looking for a point of origin.
He knew there were a few things he could do to keep Vaughn away from a coffin, and he was going to use his best material.
In New York, Nick finally woke up and found Vaughn freshly showered. He was about to complain when Vaughn told him that he made sure he didn't moisten the wound, that his body was screaming for a shower.
"Leon left?" Nick asked the older man.
"Yes. She wasn't here when I woke up."
"She uses to do that a lot." Nick replied
Vaughn looked at Nick in amazement and raised his eyebrows.
"Don't worry," Nick told him. "We haven't gotten anywhere near the smoochy-mooching."
"The s—What???" Vaughn didn't understand what Nick was saying and he was sure Nick didn't know what he was saying either. "You know what, never mind."
"What?" Nick was still dragging him to the banter. "Are you scared you're going to lose your chick?"
"Nooo!" Vaughn knew Nick was trying to making him feel better.
"You should be." Nick mocked seriousness. "Everyone should watch their chicks when I enter the room. You never know."
"Okay, stop right there my little friend." Vaughn played along. "First of all, she's not my chick-"
"You sure?" Nick continued. "I saw you last night."
"Well, she's not!" Vaughn protested. "And secondly, I don't even know why I ended up having this nonsense conversation." Vaughn paused to look at Nick in the eyes. "And I thank you for that."
"Anytime, man. Anytime." Nick replied. "Hey!" Nick said after a moment "Wanna get your ass kicked again?"
Vaughn rolled his eyes. "How many times do I have to beat you in Playstation to make sure the only butt getting kicked is yours?" Nick smiled. "Do you have some spare clothes I can fit into? I'm afraid that if I look at these sweat pants, I'm going to find they're alive."
"You can look in the closet in my room." Nick told him. "You're taller than me, but that won't be a problem because I like bigger pants, and Leon brought some underwear, how did she know your size? I don't want to know; but it's there anyway. Suit yourself." He said.
"Okay, thanks."
Vaughn stopped when a sudden thought came to his mind. Nick noticed the changed of attitude and asked him what was going on.
"I was wondering if my dog's been taken care of, that's all." Vaughn sadly answered Nick's question.
Jack let the computer expert to work on the computer records and he insisted on going over Weiss's house, but changed the direction when someone told him that he was at Vaughn's place taking care of Donovan, Vaughn's dog.
Jack never imagined he'd be at Vaughn's home. He thought that if any of the previous days had happened, he probably would have never visited it. He was surprised to see how simple, but tasteful the decoration was; and how lonely it felt.
"I thought you were supposed to be resting at your house." Jack coldly told the other man.
"I only came to bring Donovan for a little while." Weiss shrugged. "I guess he was homesick."
In fact, the dog was slumped next to the door, like he was waiting for someone to come. Jack felt a little pity for the minuscule canine; but only for a while.
"What do you need?" Weiss asked Jack.
"What can you tell me about Agent Vaughn?"
"He called me from Arizona and asked me for help. He sounded very desperate." Weiss lifted his face to meet the older man's eyes. "I called the CIA and informed them about the situation and made sure there was an extraction team to pick Mike- - I mean, Agent Vaughn at the airport."
"You sent a team at the airport."
"Yes." Weiss quickly said. "I told him to come to LA in a commercial flight, but then I thought that if he was in the kind of danger he said he was, I better made sure he got here safe. According to their report, they didn't even get the chance to see him."
Jack knew all of this. He just wanted to make sure which side Weiss was. He needed to discard all of possible suspects. He knew that Agent Weiss had been at home recovering from the wound caused by Irina. But still it was suspicious that he was the last person Vaughn called and why he disappeared if Weiss had sent an extraction team.
And there was the other side of Jack. He felt a part of him telling him Weiss had nothing to do with Vaughn's problems. Then why did Jack feel that Weiss somehow gave away Vaughn's location?
Maybe Weiss's house was bugged or maybe someone intercepted his phone. Maybe.
"Are you investigating Vaughn's case?" Weiss asked Jack.
"I just want to know what happened." Jack was still cold.
Jack left Vaughn's house and decided he better showed his face at SD-6, and try to do some work there. Then, he would be back at the Operations Center and continue his investigation from there.
Leon was hacking into the CIA files. She had learned a couple of things in the five years she'd met Nick.
In the middle of Vaughn and Nick's banter, a cell phone rang. Vaughn frowned because he thought Nick didn't have a cell phone. He didn't even think he had a normal telephone.
Nick hit a button but waited until he heard a voice in the other end of the line.
"It's me." Leon.
"Mrs. Robinson!" Nick teased. "I thought phone calls were off limits."
"Shut up." Leon commanded. "Is Mr. Sneaky around?". She was in a paid phone and Nick could hear she was near a traffic Jam.
"Hang on," Nick passed the cell phone to Vaughn.
"Yeah." He simply said, he knew it wasn't safe to talk freely.
"I need to talk to you, but I got caught in a traffic jam."
"What's going on?" he asked alarmed.
"Are you up for a walk?"
"I can't play in the Stanley Cup if that's what you ask, but I can walk".
"Okay," She said. Then she explained to him where they should meet and when.
"Okay." He agreed. "I'll meet you at the parking lot."
"There's a door at the end of a gray wall. It's where all the electrical and phone lines are. I'll be there." She waited until Vaughn confirmed his understanding.
When Vaughn arrived the building, he noticed there wasn't a single soul at the parking lot. He felt tired. And he had a headache, but Leon didn't need to know that.
He double-checked his back, to see if anyone was around and he felt relieved when he saw the parking lot was empty. He went to the little door Leon had told him about and when he turned around the doorknob a hand dragged him to the diminutive room with an extreme force.
"Hey!" He exclaimed. "Bullet wound." He said rubbing his abdomen.
"Sorry," she apologized. "Had to make sure it was you."
He looked at her in disbelief, but chose to said nothing.
"What is it?" He demanded.
"Someone's tailing me." She said like it was nothing.
"WHAT????" Vaughn yelled. "Are you sure?" He asked her when he calmed down a bit.
"Hey! I've been trained to hide and disappear; I've been trained to look for every possible exit and for every subtle thing out of place. I've been taught to distrust a Catholic Priest; I know when I have someone on my back."
"Okay." His tone was resigned.
"It took me forty minutes just to lose the guy."
"And you don't think that going to Manhattan, one of the most public places in town, would blow both of our covers?"
"It's also one of the most crowded." She played fool.
"This is not the time to play smartass, young lady!" Vaughn chastised her.
"I was at work, you know, my fake work, and I- -"
"You accessed the CIA data base." He finished her sentence.
"How did you know that?"
"Because I know how stupid and reckless you can be sometimes" he answered her question.
She was speechless for a moment then she regained her self-control.
"Yes, I did, and I found out…"
"That the message was indeed posted from a CIA source" he said calmly.
"You should really stop finishing my sentences. It's freaking me out."
"Well…?"
"Yes, it was posted from a CIA source, but I found something strange."
"Oh, come on!" He was losing his cool. "Are you going to tell me or what?"
"I'm not sure, but I think I found something out of the ordinary in this message; I don't know why I haven't noticed this earlier." She paused and started pacing. "Every single message has to be double checked by the CIA director and the coordinator of the black ops. We know that. But, in this message, the only one who signed was the CIA director. It's his code number that appears on the server".
"I thought it needed both codes." Vaughn said perplexed.
"All it needs is two codes the system can recognize, and given that the CIA director has higher clearance, the system shouldn't mind if the other one is missing."
"That just sounds so stupid."
"Hey!" She said. "I don't do the system. The system does me."
"Let's pretend you didn't say that in the way I think you did, okay?" he told her. "What about the coordinator of black ops? Shouldn't he be aware of the situation?"
"Not really." Leon calmly said. "The double check is only used in case of the coordinator of black ops is working on his own. If he posts an order, that can't go through because the system needs CIA director's signature. But if the CIA director himself decides to work on his own, that doesn't matter because everyone is assuming that he is doing the right thing."
"So, Devlin is the one who wants me killed?" Vaughn was starting to lose his temper. All these years, Vaughn thought Devlin was on his side. How could he be so wrong?
"We need to get moving." She added.
Vaughn looked at Leon's shoes.
"You sure you were careful?" He said after a minute.
In LA, Jack received a call from the computer expert to tell him he was required at the Operations Center as soon as possible.
He rushed over there and questioned the other man as soon as he got there.
"What do you mean by that?" Jack asked the other man.
"There was a breach on the computer system twenty minutes ago. That's why I called you."
"Do you know where it originated?" Jack anxiously asked.
"I'm working on it," The other man said.
"Let me know as soon as you get something."
"Where are you going?" The computer expert asked.
"I still need to work."
Fifty minutes late the computer expert called Jack again. He told him that he had traced the location of the intrusion. He told Jack that it had been a little difficult but he had managed to trace it to New York City. He gave Jack a rounded area limited only to a few blocks.
Jack decided to keep his promise to his daughter and called her immediately. He told her everything he knew and she insisted on going to New York to investigate.
Jack rejected her suggestion immediately. She couldn't do that. There was more at stake than Vaughn's life. Why couldn't she understand it? She was narrow-minded. Just like her father.
After almost an hour, Jack finally accepted. Sydney would go to New York to investigate. The only problem was her cover at SD-6. He would have to work on that.
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Sydney arrived to New York that night. She went directly to the area her father said. She searched every corner and every space. She found a few restaurants with no internet connections, a few grocery stores and a couple of apartment buildings. She asked her father to check if any of those buildings were billing addresses for any internet companies. Jack gave her a few, but none that could help her.
She was also wearing a pair of glasses which allowed her father to see anything or anyone she was seeing. When she reached a candy store, her father made her go in because he thought he saw someone familiar.
"Sydney, turn to your right." Jack commanded. He recognized the woman. "Sydney, the woman wearing the blue coat,"
"What about her?" She asked.
"Don't let her out of your sight." Jack ordered. "She may lead us to something."
Sydney did Jack ordered and she was following the woman her father recognized. The woman seemed to work at the candy store and it looked like her shift was about to end. Sydney picked up a bag of Hershey's and pretended she was looking for something else. She heard the other woman saying good night to a man behind the counter and wrap a white scarf around her neck before leaving the store.
Sydney waited a few minutes before going after her and tried her best to remain unseen. She noticed the woman took a turn around a corner and she followed her. When Sydney leaned out to see where the woman was, she saw nothing.
"Dad," Sydney was getting agitated. She somehow knew this woman could lead her to Vaughn's whereabouts. "Can you see her?"
"No." Jack knew the woman had to be somewhere. "Sydney, look up"
And there she was.
The two women fell on the floor due the impact of the woman throwing herself at Sydney. Sydney's glasses fell off her face and Jack could not see what was going on.
"Looking for me?" The woman, who happened to be Leon, threw a punch directed to Sydney's face, but Sydney's managed to avoid it.
They kept fighting and it seemed like Leon had the upper hand, but when she was about to get away from Sydney and run, Sydney grabbed her and made her lose her balance. Now Sydney was on top of Leon and managed to immobilize her.
"Dad, I've got her" Sydney activated her communication link with her father.
"Be careful, Sydney, she's much stronger than she seems."
Just when Jack was finishing his sentence, Leon somehow freed one of her legs and kicked Sydney on her back.
"What do you want?" Leon demanded an answer. She was pressing Sydney's throat closed.
"My name is Sydney Bristow," Sydney tried to make Leon understand she was on her side. "I think you may have some useful information that could help me find someone." She tried again between gasps "I'm looking for Michael Vaughn. I need to find him before the CIA does. He's in grave danger."
"You're CIA?" Leon pressed harder.
"Yes!" Sydney thought it was a good idea to tell Leon who she was working for.
"Do you think that automatically makes you part of the good guys?" Leon's cold stared was aimed at Sydney. "It doesn't."
"Wait!" Sydney tried to reason with the woman who was about to snap his throat like a chicken ready to be cooked.
"I don't care about you or your conspiracy theories. Tell whoever's on the other end of the line I don't know anything about Michael Vaughn, that if I did, they'd know by now" She hit Sydney so hard she was unconscious for a moment, enough to let Leon get away.
Leon didn't go to Nick's place like she had planned. Not after her meeting with Sydney, but she needed to let Vaughn know the CIA was looking for him in New York.
She didn't trust Sydney. Not after what Vaughn told her about their trip to India when all hell broke lose. She believed Sydney had something to do with Vaughn's situation and she was going to do everything in her power to keep her away from Vaughn.
Leon knew she'd been caught. She knew Sydney was in town thanks to her little stunt. She should've listened to Vaughn. What a fool!
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Sydney woke up with her father's face above hers. She grunted when she tried to stand and Jack had to help her up.
"I told you she was stronger than she seems." Jack stated.
"I feel like I've been hit on the head with a brick." Sydney said, feeling her jaw. "Who was that girl?"
"She's CIA too" Jack replied.
"Do you know her?" Sydney asked shocked. "She's one of us?"
"Not exactly."
"Dad…" Sydney's head was killing her and she didn't need her father making it all worse.
"She's one of the people who should be after Vaughn" Jack admitted.
"Dad, could you please be a little less dark about this and tell me everything you know?" Sydney was getting annoyed.
"Her name is Leonella Miller" Jack explained. "She was trained by the CIA to be lethal. That's why she said that if she knew anything about Vaughn, we'd have known by now. She meant that if she knew anything, Vaughn would be dead."
"You sound a little skeptical"
"I think she knows where Vaughn is." Jack paused a moment to put his thoughts in order. "I was told the signal came from this area and it's not coincidence she's here. I think she's trying to find out who wants Vaughn dead and why. She just doesn't know who she can trust yet."
"How are we going to make her understand she can trust us, when she can't even let us talk?" Sydney was starting to get distressed. This woman might be the only chance they had to find Vaughn alive. "Dad, she probably thinks I set him up!"
"I know." Jack was probably the only one who was thinking with cold head. "All evidence points out you and Weiss betrayed Vaughn. But I know she also suspects there's someone else behind all this, but she can't afford to get caught. She was lucky we were the ones who found her and not somebody else."
"Why?"
"Sometimes the CIA is not that different from SD-6" Jack answered. "If they find out she didn't do her job, she could be in serious trouble."
"What are we going to do now?" Sydney asked. There was sadness in her tone.
"Now we wait."