K, there's been no update since late last December, and I apologize. For those that don't know, I've been in the Army the last 7 months… that can kinda keep you busy, ya know? I'm not gonna promise anything about future updates; I'd like to be more frequent, but I'm still all Army-hooah and such, so I really can't say for sure. To those who actually stick with me, thank you.
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A refresher on Ch41, since it has been a while…
"As you know, Dixon was given a tracker before he left SD-6 for Austria." Sloane turned to face Dixon, and continued talking. "You knew who you were going to meet, but you didn't know what type of information was going to be traded, correct?" Dixon nodded. "That man was an informant from a relatively unknown organization. They've been very minor players on the international stage the last five years, and have kept in shadows so well that not even the CIA has heard of them. That was what Dixon's meeting was to be. He was going to give information regarding payment, and in return, he would receive everything that had been gathered over the last few months on this organization. It seems someone learned of our friends' intentions; an hour before the meeting was scheduled to begin, an associate in Innsbruck received a special delivery… his body, minus the head."
"Sloane's been hit, but he'll live… they must have been using silencers on sniper rifles. But…" Jack paused, pulling himself out of the car and looking straight at me. "I don't know that Dixon's going to make it."
Chapter 42
Working together, we quickly got Sloane, Sark, and the more seriously injured Dixon out of their car and into ours. Jack took the wheel again and hit the gas, continuing straight towards where we hoped the airfield was.
"Any ideas?" I asked, keeping my hands firmly pressed to Dixon's bleeding chest.
"As to who did it? No. that everything is connected is quite obvious… figuring out how is the difficult part."
"We must find out something of this group Sloane mentioned… that will be the key," Irina stated with certainty.
"Up ahead," Jack suddenly interrupted. "I think that's our airfield."
"Let's hope so," I said quietly, looking down at Dixon. By the time we reached the field, Sark had regained some degree of consciousness. He was watching me, dazed, seemingly unaware of the blood that had spilled from his nose and was now smeared dry across his face. He said nothing, and I wondered if he had any idea of what had happened.
"There's a plane," Irina said.
"But is it ours?" I asked, tearing my eyes away from Sark.
"I'm going to go find out." Jack parked the car and stepped out, walking briskly up to the side of the small plane. He spoke to someone inside; after a moment, he walked back over to the car.
"That's us; let's go." He helped me get Dixon out of the car and onto the plane, while Irina assisted the groggy Sark. Once Dixon was settled, Jack and I went back for Sloane. The pilot looked at us in concern as we carried him on board.
"He'll be fine, just get us wherever we're going." With a nod, the pilot turned around and soon had us in the air.
"How are you feeling?" Irina asked Sark.
"Simply grand," he replied dryly.
"Do you remember what happened?"
"Vaguely… I believe we were shot at?" At Irina's nod, he continued. "Dixon hit the brakes when the windshield cracked, and I was thrown into something." He gingerly touched his nose. "I blacked out… I don't know what else happened."
"Any idea where the shots were fired from?" I questioned. Sark shook his head slightly, and I turned to face Jack.
"What about Dixon?"
"The flight to Paris shouldn't be long; once we get there, we'll get him to a facility immediately."
"The Alliance has a hospital… he'll be safe there." The quiet words drew all eyes to Sloane.
"He'd be better off in a CIA hospital," Jack argued.
"Until he recovered," Sloane paused, looking at Dixon sorrowfully, "if indeed he does, at which point the CIA will wish to question him endlessly. It could take him out of the search for months, and we can't afford to be down one man. No one beyond me knows of his current status, his knowledge of the Alliance. At our facility, he'd be released as soon as he healed. Besides… correct me if I'm wrong, Jack, but I do believe you're not quite on the CIA's favorite people list these days. Nor you, Mr. Vaughn." I sighed, knowing he'd just won the battle. Jack and Irina shared a long look, once again communicating with their eyes, and eventually, Irina gave Sloane a nod.
"When we land, we'll get him to the Alliance facility. While there, you'll get your shoulder taken care of." Sloane was about to protest, but Irina cut him off. "This is our daughter, not yours. We still make the final decisions here." To my surprise, he offered no further argument.
"You said earlier that you'd tell us more once we got on the plane," I said curiously.
"Ah, yes. As I told you in Munich, my informant within this organization was murdered. What I didn't tell you is that someone else from the group made contact with me right after I received the news."
"About what?" I pushed.
"He claimed to have far more to offer, but for a much steeper price.
"So what'd you do?"
"Patience, Mr. Vaughn. Your interruptions aren't making this any quicker. At any rate, I accepted his terms. He's who we're meeting in Paris."
"At what time?" Irina asked. Sloane glanced down at his watch.
"25 minutes from now."
"You'll never make that," I said flatly.
"Not if I'm being made to go to the hospital, no. The plane should land in about five minutes; in theory, that leaves more than enough time to get there."
"You're going to the hospital. End of story," Jack stated. "We'll go to the meet, posing as… your agents." His words dripped with ill-concealed venom.
"It's not safe for you, Jack," Sloane pointed out.
"He's right." Jack leveled a glare at me, but I didn't back down.
"Vaughn and I will go," Irina said.
"I don't like it," Jack sighed as the plane began its descent.
"I don't care. You're too known, Jack… I can't lose you too."
"You and Sark can wait on the plane." Sloane turned his gaze to Dixon. "The pilot will drive us to the hospital and come right back here to wait." He then shifted his focus to Irina and myself. "The meeting as at a small sidewalk café, perhaps a ten minute walk from here. When a waiter comes up, ask- in English- if he speaks Dutch. That's the tipoff. From there, your contact will approach. Be sure you're on time- if you ask early, he may not be here yet, and we'll have lost him." I looked at my watch; 17 minutes until time. I tuned out as Sloane gave Irina directions, concentrating instead on the task at hand. In truth, I felt uncomfortable playing an SD-6 agent to some unknown group. What if I didn't pull it off? This could be our best chance yet; I couldn't blow it. A moment later I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up.
"Don't be nervous," Jack said softly. I had to smile, forced though it was.
Not long after, we had landed on the outskirts of Paris, and Irina and I were on our way to the café.
"What's on your mind, Vaughn?" Irina asked suddenly. I frowned.
"What gives you the right to ask?"
"Simple concern."
"You don't have that right either." Irina said nothing else, remaining silent until we got to our destination.
"We've still got a few minutes… don't ask just yet," she said quietly as we sat down. She discreetly kept an eye on her watch, and gave me a slight nod as the waiter approached us for a second time.
"Excuse me, do you speak Dutch?" I queried. He raised an eyebrow before shaking his head. I then ordered two drinks, looking around cautiously as the waiter left. Moments later, an Asian looking man in dark glasses sat across from me.
"You're not Arvin Sloane," he stated, sounding annoyed.
"No," Irina replied. "Coming here himself, alone, was too much risk for a man of his… infamy. He is in Paris, but he will not be here today." The contact stared at her, giving me a chance to examine him. He was young, slim but powerfully built, with an angry scar running the right side of his jaw.
"Fine. You know the details of our arrangement?" Irina nodded and pulled out a phone, which Sloane had provided. She made a brief call before snapping it shut and looking back to him.
"Half has been transferred to the designated account. The rest will follow after the meeting."
"Good." He reached into his bag and pulled out a black folder. "Everything I have available." He pushed it across the table, and Irina snapped it up.
"There's a lot of pages in there," I noted.
"And they had better not be wasted, for your sake." Irina briefly looked up to our contact.
"I should certainly hope not," he replied with a smug smile. I leaned over to look through the files as Irina went through them.
"Well?" He asked after a few minutes.
"I believe this will meet our requirements," Irina said, closing the folder.
"Glad to hear it. I shall expect to see my remaining payment transferred within the hour. It has been a pleasure… I'll be in touch should Mr. Sloane have further interest." He stood gracefully and melted into the Parisian streets.
"Let's get back… we'll send the rest of the payment through on our way." Irina stood and I followed her silently, trying to make sense of the few things I'd read in the folders. This group was a radical anarchist organization with only one goal: eradication of all forms of government the world over. They had priority headquarters in both Russia and Egypt; their files credited them with a number of high-profile attacks, largely against government-run banks and businesses throughout eastern Europe, and yet almost no one knew their name, including Irina and myself. The files identified them only as NW.
When we reached the airfield. Irina was practically sprinting in her urgency to get the files to Jack; it was all I could do to keep up with her. Jack was waiting expectantly as we boarded the plane. Sark looked on interest as Irina and Jack began going through the file in depth, but he knew better than to interrupt. I stood by impatiently, not liking having to wait. Finally, I reached my limit.
"What's in there? What do we have, is it anything useful?" Jack looked up at me, leaving Irina with the file.
"We're still trying to piece it together, Michael."
"Then it would make sense to have more minds at work," I argued.
"A disk!" Irina suddenly burst out. She passed the rest of the file to Jack and ran for his laptop, sitting at the back of the plane. We all stacked behind her anxiously, desperately hoping for any sign of Sydney.
"The disk is password protected…" Irina cursed under her breath and began trying to hack in. It took her less than five minutes to get through, but it felt like an eternity. Once she had access, it turn out to contain just one folder, which Irina opened and began scrolling through.
"It's a list of high-payoff targets, spanning from 2000 to now," she informed us, though we were all reading over her shoulder. "Presidents, diplomats, UN authorities, embassies… half the targets listed have been eliminated." She fell quiet, continuing to scroll the seemingly endless list of international leaders, skimming but not truly reading. Eventually something caught her attention, and the screen stopped moving.
"Sydney," I whispered, my heart stopping.
"But why?" Sark asked. "She doesn't fit the profile… she's not a vital, highly visible international figure. She does government work, but that doesn't seem quite enough."
"The file only lists the basics about her, nothing about what makes her a high-payoff target." Jack's usually calm voice sounded aggravated. "It doesn't make sense."
"Yes… it does," Irina whispered. She slowly turned to face Jack; after a few moments, his confusion transformed into a look of horrified understanding.
"It makes perfect sense… how did we not see this coming?"
"See what? How does it make sense? Damn it, this is not the time for secrets or keeping us in the dark!" I yelled, surprising myself by including Sark in my defensive words. Jack nodded and Irina looked to Sark and I and began reciting words very familiar to me.
"This woman here depicted will possess unseen marks, signs that she will be the one to bring forth my works. Bind them with fury. A burning anger, unless prevented, at vulgar cost this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation." By the time she'd finished, it all made sense to me as well.
"They believe in Rambaldi's prophecy… they think it refers to a government. And they think they can somehow use Syd to achieve their ultimate goal." Sark nodded at my reasoning before he himself spoke.
"Meaning odds are, she's still out there… she's still alive."