Defying the Shadows APO is hit hard when three of their best agents wind up in the hospital, but the intrigue and deception is deepened when it is discovered one of them has dark secrets, and the only one that can discover the truth doesn't remember…
Chapter 9: Another Man's Life
Disclaimer: I don't, nor did or will I ever, own any aspect of Alias. All recognizable characters and plot strands belong to JJ Abrams, not to me. But this plot in this particular fic is mine. And I have no characters to claim all for my own like in some of my other fics. Like Jeffrey…I love Jeffrey!
The lights in the seedy motel room were dim, perhaps even more so since she'd arrived, but Sydney didn't even notice any more. The stolen files lay scattered across the bed and her lap. The material hardly seemed to make sense.
Michael Vaughn's name was once Richard Simpson. His mother's name was not Marie, but Emma. They were not French, but Emma. They were not French, but Emma Simpson had sported a fascination for languages and had taught her son French as a small child.
Jacob Mosley had needed a wife and child to complete his family man cover to infiltrate ESI. Emma Simpson had been a single mother struggling and failing to take care of a three-month-old baby who was the product of a one-night stand. Emma Simpson had maintained no contact with the man and had no idea where he was, nor had she wanted him to stake a claim to her son.
Jacob Mosley had offered to provide Richard a good, stable home and a father figure, and Emma had believed Jacob Mosley's involvement would be low-key and not place her and her son in any real danger.
Jacob Mosley's assignment had lasted seven years, during which Richard Simpson believed Mosley was his father, as Emma had agreed and the FBI had insisted, saying the boy would be a security risk if he did not believe so.
A notation in Mosley's file stated that it was believed but never confirmed that Emma Simpson and Jacob Mosley became intimate during their feigned marriage.
An interview revealed that Emma had discovered how deeply Jacob Mosley was involved with ESI and that they had argued vehemently about it one night. It was assumed that the fight was overheard by Richard Simpson.
The boy had proceeded to boast to his friend, and one of ESI's bugs had picked up the confession that Jacob Mosley was FBI.
Richard had been riding home with Jacob Mosley one night following this, and he witnessed from the backseat as Jacob Mosley, the man he believed to be his father, was pulled from the car, beaten on the roadside, and shot in the head. Psychological workups showed that he'd clearly heard the person who'd beaten Mosley before handing the gun to the one who pulled the trigger say, "Your son was kind enough to tell his little friend of your affiliation when we could hear him."
A tear escaped Sydney's eye and trickled down her cheek as her gaze caught on those words. If all of this was correct, if everything she'd found and guessed was right, then Vaughn's father had not only been murdered, but he'd witnessed it and heard one of his father's killers blame it on him.
Shaking her head, Sydney laid aside the set of papers in her hand on the dark green spread, then shook her head again and closed the file labeled 'Simpson' and placed it on the night stand. Clues to Jacob Mosley's killer would not be there, nor would clues to the person or persons after Vaughn now.
But Mosley's file did. It took Sydney only minutes to find Mosley's notes on ESI's top operatives and partners, all of which were complete with a partial name, an alias, a picture, or at least a detailed description of any and all useful information pertaining to them.
Lawrence.
No.
Sydney scanned the debrief and Mosley's hand scrawled notes.
Samuel Porter.
Nicholson.
J. Breen.
Charles Brock.
Parker.
A. Sloane.
The name jumped out at her, grabbed her, shook her to her core.
A. Sloane. Arvin Sloane.
She almost couldn't believe it. She thought she knew every despicable thing the man had ever done, but every time she thought that something new and that much worse crawled out of the woodwork to bite her in the ass.
Fighting the vehement urge to find Sloane that very minute and beat the bloody hell out of him until he begged for mercy, she continued to scan the list, resisting the tug of bile rising at the back of her throat.
Many of the names, as she moved further down the list, Sydney recognized as deceased, former KGB and K Directorate, or current leading black market arms dealers. None of them, however, struck her as being close enough to Vaughn to try to kill him.
I.D.
One of top three partners; STATUS: active; DETAILS: n/a; on assignment in Los Angeles area, under ALIAS: Laura.
Sydney gasped. With the minimal details Jacob Mosley had been able to offer up, there should have been at least some miniscule form of doubt in her mind. But all Sydney felt was a sudden conviction, as if it was the very reason for that exact point in time when Vaughn had abruptly ceased to be willing to discuss one Irina Derevko on anything not strictly a professional level.
He knew.
Irina Derevko truly had killed Vaughn's father, and at some point that fact had ceased to be a part for him to play to and become very, very personal.
Nadia smiled, looking across the room where Weiss waited for her, sitting on the end of a weight bench. She waved at him as the doctor at her side patted her arm encouragingly before leaving her to Weiss as he joined them.
"They say you're doing great."
Weiss grinned broadly and slipped easily into place at Nadia's side to allow her to lean against him a little.
"It's been two days, Eric," Nadia argued sportingly, her smile still in her eyes.
"But, hey, look at you, standing up. You told me you couldn't stand, remember that?" he teased.
Nadia levered herself to hold her own weight and turned around, her left leg straight, to throw her right arm around his neck. Her left arm still hung nearly useless by her side, but she pulled him down to kiss his cheek.
"Ms. Santos," a smiling nurse said, appearing by her side. "Feel up to a bit of a walk?"
Weiss caught the quick flash of panic cross her face and put his arm around her waist.
"I've cleared it for you to walk back to your room if you feel up to it," the woman added.
"I, uh, I don't…" Nadia began softly.
"Come on, babe," Weiss stopped her, tightening his arm reassuringly. "I'll stay with you. What's the worst that could happen?"
Nadia opened her mouth to reply but Weiss' raised eyebrows reminded her that no possible mishap could be as bad as what had landed her there in the first place.
With a nervous laugh, she nodded and pushed away from Eric, determined to see if she could make it on her own.
She didn't look back, just kept walking. She stumbled stepping into the elevator at the end of the hall and was almost surprised to feel Eric's hands clamp onto her shoulders to steady her.
"I got you," he said at her startled glance back. She smiled gratefully.
By the time Nadia reached her room she could barely lift her feet off the floor, but when Weiss started to put his arm around her waist she batter at his hand impatiently, dragging her left leg just a little quicker.
Nadia collapsed onto her bed, unable to move another inch, but the intensely proud smile on her face was enough to make Weiss feel as giddy as if he'd just accomplished some amazing feat himself.
Vaughn's dreams were changing, going back in time. He no longer saw the crash, but other things, always further back than the last, as if his mind was reaching back for a reason to rejoin those he's separated himself from.
He saw as if from a distance all the times recently when he'd completely blocked out every word Sloane was saying. He'd been filled with a sudden, inexplicable, all-consuming rage that confused him even as he tried to tamp it down, to hear what he was saying.
Every time he'd felt he almost had something, the scene would change again, tearing from his fingers the spidery thread he'd almost clutched.
Then he was standing in the hall facing the maximum-security holding cell of the JTF, Kendall, Sydney, and Jack all facing the same.
He stood stoically, a hateful glare fixed on the prisoner. He had to keep up yet another piece of this intricate ruse; it was who he was now.
"My offer expired the moment the detonations codes were acquired!"
It was the first time he'd ever heard this prisoner speak so outwardly harshly, or even to show a trace of emotion, and in that moment he knew this part he played, another man's life, wasn't really so different at all.
This fact, at least, was no lie. Irina Derevko had, in fact, played a part in his father's death.
With a start and a chorus of screeching alarms and monitors, the dream dissolved into stark white walls as Vaughn shot upright in a hospital bed, his hand automatically snatching away the oxygen tubing when he felt it pull at his face.
Yay! Vaughn's back! But how much does he really know about his "father's" death? Hehe…