Eyghon
Author's notes: You wanted to know more about Jack, your wish is my command. I hadn't planned on saying much about him, and a review made me realise that some insight in their relationship was indispensable for the rest of the story, so thanks to whoever asked. Sorry for "the big grey box", I didn't know how to call it, hell, I don't even know the word in French! Please hit the reply/review button if you liked the story, you have no idea how much it means to me.
Chapter 2: PlanningThe surveillance went on for the rest of the week without Jack making any appearance, and yet the agents knew for a fact that Jack lived here with Sydney. They observed the young woman's routine from sunrise till the lights went out in the house. Daily reports were made to Chevchenko, who in his turn informed them of his progresses in monitoring the CIA's activities around the disk. They were not even close to figure out the code, so Irina and Nikolai had all the time they needed. The Russians noticed that the CIA agents never followed their target in where she was going, they just parked near enough to have her car in sight, or followed her in the streets, but never inside buildings.
Sydney left for the university everyday around 7h15 to come back before 17h00, she sometimes went to the library, the cafeteria, the running track, the swimming pool… She had no classes on Wednesday all day and on Friday afternoon, and used the time off to do nothing dealing with sports or studies: She would do some shopping at the local supermarket, hang out with her friends or just sleep in.
On Wednesday, both agents had observed as Sydney parked in front of a house a couple of blocks away from her own. A black woman was doing some gardening. She had gotten up and pulled her muddy gloves off to greet the younger girl.
"Sydney!"
"Hi Diane!"
Irina had felt a pang of jealousy at the sight of the two women hugging tightly, smiling broadly at each other. She had then wondered if that "Diane" had replaced her as a mother to Sydney. The thought alone had made her dizzy, from hurting or rage, maybe both.
"I'm here to get Francie, we're going to do some shopping"
"She'll be out in a minute, she's still getting ready."
They had talked about random things for a few minutes until a young black girl, presumably "Francie", had come out of the house. Both teenagers had hopped in the car, happily chatting and laughing. Thirty minutes later, they had pulled into the mall parking lot, to get back out a few hours later and head home.
Irina and Nikolai had noticed that the CIA so-called "agents" hadn't even bothered to enter the underground parking garage, but instead had parked on the other side of the street, meters away from the entrance. More surprising was that they both had gotten out of their car to eat a hot dog at a snack stand at the corner of the street, totally out of sight of the garage's exit. She could hear them talk through the high tech micro dissimulated in the antenna on the roof of her car.
"What's with girls and shopping! She's been there last week already, and the week before that!" Groaned the older agent, a grey haired fat man.
'Probably somehow incapacitated for field duty, or just a bad element', thought Irina. His –very young- companion, most likely put there to take surveillance lessons, replied:
"I had this girlfriend a couple of years ago, she used to go to that mall like two times a week, but the practically never bought anything. I asked her about it, she said it was a girl thing, that I couldn't understand. I guess they're just doing some window shopping, you know, just looking at pretty stuff, wishing they could afford them."
The older man gave a huff of disdain, munching his hot dog like there were no tomorrow.
Derevko was fuming inside, they were supposed to protect her daughter against people like her… actually not quite like her, because she would never hurt her baby girl, but that's not the point. The point is, those two incompetent morons were no protectors, what if someone tried to attack Sydney, like an enemy organisation, or even a simple thief or a… whatever scum was walking the streets of this big city! The thought chilled her to the bone. Nikolai too, had noticed the two men sloppiness, but hadn't reached the same conclusions as her.
"That's the perfect setting, a dark underground parking garage, with the right timing no one will see us take her, and the agents won't notice anything for hours." Nikolai was excited, surveillance definitely wasn't his thing, and it was so boring! He was more a man of action than a man of patience. Hell, he hadn't climbed on the top of a ladder so fast from sitting on a car and watching some random girl living her life! He was getting sick of waiting, but his partner had been right, an opportunity had finally arisen, and he intended to take it.
"Yes, indeed." Irina was not as thrilled as was Nikolai, of course, it's the opening they had been waiting since the beginning, she had to go through with it, the game was in motion, there was no backing down now. At least, she had a few days to ready herself to finally meet her daughter.
"You heard them, she'll probably come back next Wednesday. We should go in now, try to see where she's parked, with a little luck, she parks at the same level each time. We can check out the place, see if there are any cameras that we'll need to disable."
"What about the other girl, she will probably accompany Sydney again."
"Sydney?" questioned her companion. Irina stared at him blankly, then understood: She had slipped, she had called their target 'Sydney'. They never called her that, only referring to her as 'the Bristow girl' or 'the kid'. She had just made a huge tactical mistake. Now, Valenkov must suspect that something was amiss with her, and yet, he didn't say anything.
"We'll just have to eliminate her and hide the body."
"It's little harsh, we don't need to go to that extreme. I'll take care of her, you'll take care of… the other.
"As you wish." He put the car in gear and they entered the underground parking garage, easily spotting the different cameras and more importantly, the "big grey box" that they'd have to hack into to disable the whole security system.
On Saturday night, the two Russians agents were watching the Bristow's house, they had decided to keep up their surveillance to get a back up plan in case things didn't go as planned in the mall the next Wednesday.
Several cars had arrived during the last hour. It seemed that there was a party, it would explain the extensive shopping that Sydney had done at the supermarket earlier. Of course, Irina knew what the occasion was, but she wasn't about to tell that to her partner.
The music could be heard from the street, but no neighbours seemed to mind, as no Police car had came by. 'Sydney must be a good neighbour if they tolerate that', thought Irina, remembering the blond haired woman whom Sydney did babysitting for.
She wished she could be there, inside, partying with her little girl, now officially a woman. Though she doubted Sydney would have ever allowed her to mix with her friends, there was nothing more embarrassing than a parent sticking around at a party. She wondered how in hell her daughter had managed to convince Jack to let her throw a party, but as he hadn't shown up for almost a week now, she guessed the girl didn't ask, mainly for the lack of someone to ask to. The CIA agent was probably in a deep undercover mission of some sort, on the other end of the world, unreachable, indefinitely.
It was incredible, in just a few days, she had learned so much about her daughter's life… she seemed so happy, so perfect… Irina felt somewhat guilty, she was plotting with the SVR to shatter that perfection, that happiness that her baby had managed to find…
A few hours after the first car had arrived, the house emptied, their occupants all going in the street, beer bottles and various glasses of stronger alcohol in hand. Someone had brought a few fireworks, the kind that you can detonate yourself and that still look pretty amazing. Sydney was among the drunks soon-to-be-adults, laughing as the colourful lights erupted in the sky, blissfully unaware of what was to come.
The next morning, around 10, the house was still quiet, everybody was probably still recuperating from the party, or more precisely, from the alcohol abuse. A few cars remained, some guests had taken taxis, some others, Sydney's closest friends most likely, had crashed in the living room. They could be seen through the open curtains of the room.
The Russians had stayed there all night, as had the CIA agents, though they had changed shifts around 6.
A black Sedan pulled up into the driveway, the almighty Jack Bristow had returned.
"The old man is going to have a stroke when he comes in here!" laughed Nikolai.
"He might get angry." Irina's responses were always flat, unemotional, as if she was uninterested, but it was just a cover. She was acting her cold usual self when in the inside, she was fearful. Yes, fearful, for her daughter. Jack would be so mad, he would probably ground the poor thing for weeks if not months. He had never been violent, not with Laura, and certainly not with Sydney, but still, his yelling skills were quite scary sometimes, there was no way to get used to it.
As predicted, soon after he had come in, yelling could be heard, coming from the upper floor of the house. Irina easily identified Jack and Sydney's voices. A few minutes later, Francie, Will and two other young men literally ran out of the house, amazing thing considering the amount of alcohol they had had only a few hours prior. They got to their respective cars, Will offering a ride to Francie, as she was the only one without wheels.
After a while, Sydney followed, an angry Jack on her heels, both exposing themselves to the agent's ears.
"Where do you think you are going!"
"I need some fresh air."
"You are going to clean up this mess!"
"Just give me a minute okay…"
"What is wrong with you! I can't leave you a couple of days by yourself without you throwing a party without permission! You are drunk, and so are your friends, because of you! You're irresponsible!"
"Yes we drank a little, so what! No one drove drunk, that's why there are crappy cars left in the street! That's why Fran, Will, Charlie and Danny stayed overnight! Why do you always have to make such a big deal out of things!"
"Yes, let's talk about those boys sleeping with you…"
"For God's sake, they slept in the living room, meters away from me! What, did you want me to tell them to drive back to their place, drunk! I get it, everything I do is screwing up things with you, is that it?"
"Don't bring that back to yourself, you're seventeen, you're under my responsibility, you planned a party behind my back, involving strong alcohol no less!"
"First, there was no one to ask too, you left me almost two weeks ago without saying much of a goodbye, and you didn't even call once! How was I supposed to contact you! Second, I'll let you know that I'm not seventeen! I'm eighteen! It was my birthday yesterday, that's why we had the party!"
Jack stared at her, open mouthed, Sydney looking back at him with fury, until she came to a realisation.
"You didn't even know, did you?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, tears were flowing from her puffy red eyes, her anger replaced by deep sorrow. Her own father had forgotten about her birthday, her eighteenth birthday for crying out loud! Irina's heart sank. She knew what a special day it was.
"Sydney."
"Mrs Newman knew." She said accusingly, pointing a trembling finger towards the blond woman's house. "She brought me a cake with eighteen candles, and a CD that I actually like, wrapped in a shiny paper, with a bow..."
"I…"
"I could have understood that you that you weren't there, that you hadn't bought me anything, even that you hadn't called or written, because it would have been no different from the last twelve years… But you didn't even remember." She was desperately trying not to choke on her words. "All those years, it's been my only comfort, to somehow know that you knew… But yesterday, it was my eighteenth birthday, the most important day of my life until today, the only thing you had to remember about me for a whole year… but you managed to screw that up... like you do everything else when it comes to me." Her tone had taken a lower, deeper tone, her eyes cold as ice.
"Sydney."
"How dare you? How dare you giving me lessons, barging in the house, yelling about a couple of dishes, when you don't even remember your only daughter's birthday! I hate you."
At that moment, Jack felt pain, like he had never felt before. Not when he had seen his comrades die before him, not when he had been tortured for days… not even when he had learned of Laura's betrayal. It was the first time that Sydney pronounced those dreaded words. He knew it would come, someday, he deserved it, but he would have never imagined that he would feel such pain.
Every teenagers fight with their parents, and say things that they don't think, that they regret. However, he knew, he knew Sydney didn't regret a word of what she had said, and he knew she had spoken the truth. And that hurt. He could take physical and psychological abuse, he was trained for that. But nothing had prepared him to feel what he was feeling.
Without giving him time to utter another lame "Sydney", she ran back into the house, leaving him there, paralysed, his face white as a sheet.
The argument wasn't over, the two –make it five- stunned agents watching in utter surprise as the young brunette came back in the driveway, a baseball bat in hand. Jack didn't move a muscle, mesmerised by the scene unfolding in front of him, or still lost in his thoughts.
Approaching the Sedan, Sydney drove the bat right into the driver's window, and leant inside, reaching for the hand brake that she finally released.
Without a word, she opened the garage door with her set of keys that she had picked up with the bat. She got in her car, threw the bat in the backseat and started her engine. She slowly pushed Jack's car out of her way in the street, careful not to push to hard so the car wouldn't bump into the cars parked on the other side of the street. Her SUV was far more powerful and bigger than Jack's long Sedan, soon she was free to go.
Jack was left standing outside, but he wasn't looking "ill" anymore, just… cold. It seemed that he had recovered from his previous "weakness", as he went back inside the house as if nothing had happened.
The CIA agents didn't go after Sydney right away, still stunned by what had just happened. They weren't the only ones. Irina was horrified, she could feel the bile rise to her throat. She felt so disgusted by her husband, and mortified beyond words by the violence of the confrontation between her husband and daughter. 'When and how had they become so estranged from each other!'
She feared she knew exactly the answer to that question.
TBC