Chapter One : So it begins.
8 months and 4 days earlier
On this July 12th, in the early morning, twenty DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agents are hiding, witnessing the landing of a medium size plane that flew in from Pretoria, South Africa. A van, followed by a Buick, heads for the landing strip towards the craft. Once the plane stopped, tough looking men get out of the aircraft and load into the vehicles after a short conversation.
Suddenly, sirens wail and the agents appear from all sides and cart this lot away in a short time and without firing one shot.
48 hours later, Los Angeles
A man in his thirties with badge CIA, is watching a small group of agents on the corner of the coffee room, they are speaking easily with each other, obviously friendly and happy to be together. This man, with blond short hair and pale blue eye, is 5 feet 5 inches tall and thin, he seems to hesitate a short instant, then with sight he is heading towards them.
"Hi!" He says when he is near them.
"Hi!" The young and tall woman is the first to greet him with a warm smile.
"I'm Agent Van Der Meer, a newbie."
"I'm Sydney Bristow from the agency too, they are Eric Weiss and Michael Vaughn."
He is glad, he has hearing such great adventures about the woman than he can't believe the first person he is meeting, it's her!
CIA Conference Room
Several FBI, DEA and CIA noisy agents are gathering in the conference room. There is a hush when Delvin and Jack Bristow come in. Jack sits down alongside his superior and he runs his eyes over the group, his gaze stops for a short moment on Sydney whom he hasn't again since Wittenberg. She ignores him.
Delvin begins, "Good morning. We welcome agents Ellison, Alenson, and Dravent from DEA, and Ms Stein, Ms Dulot and Mr Perk from the FBI. We are going to combine our efforts in a long-term joint operation which should be wide-ranging and dangerous. Everything that will be said in this room will be top-secret. The liaison agents of the agencies will be Agent Stein for FBI, Special Agent Ellison for DEA and Agent Dixon for CIA. The initiative has been taken by DEA, so I'll let them have the floor."
"Morning everybody, I'm Agent Ellison. The United States is subjected to numerous illegal traffic from different countries, one of which is South Africa. It's mostly drugs and weapons sales and the export of precious stones and metals, illegal sales of other items such as pelts, hides and elephant tusks, etc…
"We haven't established this as a fact yet, but we strongly suspect Thomas Sherrinford of being the boss, and this is what you will have to prove."
As he speaks a picture of a man in his sixties with a great stature appears on the screen of the meeting room. Ellison sits down and lets Agent Stein continue.
"Actually, we monitored the transactions of capital between Sherrinford's firms and several ghost companies. Other unlawful financial flows have been spotted and though there are no evident links, all the accounts, about 350, are controlled by this man."
A new picture appears, this one of a pudgy man in his fifties.
"He's William Triklhet, certified accountant, more or less involved with Sherrinford."
Ellison speaks again with a monotonous voice, "We know the merchandise is mainly transported by air. And we are specially watching the flights from South Africa. The number of them bound for the US is superior to 1200 per day. To carry out an overall monitoring of them is impossible. It seems to us wiser to investigate in South Africa on the layout and the methods of working as well as the loading locations..."
Agent Stein interrupts him, "To be more accurate, all the suspected flights don't come straight from South Africa, plenty of them are rerouted via various countries before they head for our territory."
"Thank you," Delvin intervenes. "Before we continue with the practical aspects of this mission, I want to add some important intel which mustn't overshadow by the FBI either the DEA. Agent Dixon."
"Good morning. It turns out that we have been interested by Sherrinford for some weeks, in fact since he's become fascinated by Rambaldi and has begun his search for a precious artefact, the "luce". Jack!"
"The "luce" and its use are unknown, but Sherrinford is in possession of important information about it. How? We don't know. The Covenant or Sloane perhaps work with him."
Several pictures of digs in various areas are appearing on the screen.
"The Foundation for Preserving South African Cultural and Historical Heritage, the FoPeSA2H, carried out digs that they are highly probably linked to Rambaldi."
Sydney interrupts him bluntly. "How do you know that, Jack?"
Weiss is astounded by the exchange between them. He can't prevent himself from exclaiming with a low voice, "She called him Jack! What happened between them?"
Jack behaves as if nothing had happened. "Rambaldi, I said, these search oddly began a couple of weeks after our own investigations into Sherrinford. And, it's turns out that he's the main foundation's patron."
He becomes quiet and throws a fixed stare at Sydney. She bears it until Agent Stein speaks again. Files about the mission and the preliminary studies pass from hand to hand.
"In these files you will find identified members of this criminal network, a map with suspected locations and mission-specs as we see it. To sump up, it's a matter of infiltration. Agents Alenson and Dravent and CIA Agent Paul Peel will infiltrate the crime syndicate within the drugs and weapons traffic business. They'll pass themselves as criminals. Their covers are established. Agent Perk will join the air security. We are waiting from CIA the agents' name whom will infiltrate the airports and a technical support. We let you handle the coordination, of course."
Sydney really finds the haughty agent unbearable. "Thank you for your tactful attention."
The tension moves up a peg in an overheated room with people aware of the importance of the stakes.
Stein blushes and sits down. Then Jack asks, "You expect to take down this network with…"he reads, "…luggage handlers?"
Stein is a young arrogant agent full of illusions and her behaviour adds to the exasperation of those present at the meeting.
"Ha! I see! The famous CIA knows how to do everything, and does it better than the others, then claims all the laurels! From the beginning you…"
"STOOOP!" Delvin intervenes quickly with authority. "We are here to work together. Stop these stupid territorial wars! Save your sense of adversity and your resources. We'll need them later. So I want to see cohesion here! Jack, I want you to suggest another strategy, and we'll discuss tomorrow. You can dismiss. Thank you everybody, and good day."
Sydney is the first to storm out the room. Angry all over her features…
Wittenberg
As she casts her eyes over the CIA stamped documents, Sydney is horror-struck as she finds out she only has been an agency project, a perfect soldier, a flesh and blood spy-robot since her birthday. But the most surprising and the most painful disclosures are the ones without the slightest doubt which have to do with her father. He always has been the director manager of the project SAB 47, he inscribed the various stages of her life, he recorded Sydney's every move just as if she had been a laboratory mouse.
Where is the father's love through those pages? She only finds analytic jottings without an human touch.
Had she ever been important to him? If only for one day?
Going over the pages, dumbfounded, she doesn't pay attention to her surroundings anymore, and she isn't aware of a movement made by somebody who is getting closer behind her.
"Sydney."
A well-known voice, that from now on belongs to a perfect stranger, drags her away from her reading.
"You were never supposed to have found this."
"Sydney! Sydney!"
Sydney turns to Vaughn and sees him coming to her. As he reaches her, he stops and smiles to her.
"I think you shouldn't look for a confrontation with your father in public…"
"Vaughn, y…"
"Syd, I know you are disappointed. I understand it's hard for you to accept the reality such as it appears to you… even more so after you had succeeded in getting along together…"
"Vaughn, you don't know how I felt and what I feel now. Every time I believe I know him… Every time I manage to connect with him, to make him accept me… I find out an even worse thing. Every time… I tell myself…'In fact, he loves you, but he doesn't know how to do.' …I'm confronted with a new betrayal."
Shattered, she remains silent and tries to contain the tears which form in the corners of hers eyes. She resumes with a faltering voice, "He is my father, he ought to love me!"
Vaughn takes her in his arms. "I know he loves you, Syd!"
Then, he holds her at arms' length and looks her straight in the eyes. "He does love you!"
He succeeds in relaxing her a little and she returns a shy smile. "I'd like to so much, but I don't believe it anymore."
Silence falls between them.
"And what about this coffee?" I'm dying to drink with you.
She nods and follows him.