FAMILY MATTERS
Eyghon
Chapter 4: Guilt"What did you find?"
"Doctor Thomas Frankel. He was Cadmus' Director of Research until Elena offered him more money. He worked on several projects of hers, and most recently on the chemical properties of the orchid Sloane used to contaminate the water supply."
"You mean you found the guy who is basically responsible for all this?"
"Sloane, Yelena, and I are responsible for what has happened to the Sovogdans and to Nadia."
"You were an unwilling participant," interjected Sydney. "Sloane is the one who poisoned the water supply."
"I was not always an unwilling participant Sydney, at least not at first. Right after you left Taipei and before I turned myself in, I met with Yelena and told her about Frankel. She had something I wanted, and she needed the name of a trustworthy scientist. I had no idea she would use him years later to plan an apocalypse or that she would force me to help build a device of her own. I gave her everything she needed to render Sloane's contaminated water lethal to people. Without the Mueller Device I helped her build, without the scientist I provided her with, none of this would have happened."
"You didn't know what she was up to, Mom! And it's not a crime to give up information under torture," argued Sydney.
"Have you ever? Given up information under torture?"
"No," admitted Sydney, wincing as she remembered all the blood and teeth she had lost to countless interrogators. "But Mom she kept you over a year! You were bound to crack at some point. No one, not even yourself, can fault you for that! And think about it, she would have probably ended up coming after me, Nadia, or even Dad, and threatened to hurt us if you hadn't helped her."
"Thousands of people are dead Sydney. Your sister is lost."
"Because of one man and one woman's madness! Stop it already! We're here to repair the damage done to my sister, your daughter. Where can we find that Doctor Frankel, how come I've never heard of him?"
"Because you didn't look in the right place. He was a world-renowned scientist until he dropped out of sight, supposedly to retire, five years ago. I was in CIA custody at the time but Yelena's plans were already in motion."
"Yeah, I heard her through your comms while I was fighting with Nadia. God knows what she had him do before she got her hands on the orchid solution." Sydney sighed and then recalled something her mother had said earlier. "How did you know about Frankel when you gave his name to Yelena? Had you worked with him personally?" She asked, trying to keep her growing suspicion out of her voice.
Irina sighed. A telltale sign of her guilt from Sydney's point of view. "The CIA was interested only in people that fit their profile…mad scientists, shady chemical engineers and the likes. Yes, I only did think to check out Frankel last week because I had worked with him a couple of years ago…"
"Of course you did," sighed Sydney, her suspicions confirmed as she remembered the virus that had almost killed Vaughn after he had been exposed to the solution in the Muller device in Taipei. That time seemed so far away now. Had it been five years already? True, she was missing two out of the five, but still, it seemed like yesterday. She shuddered at the thought.
In Sovogda, she had been the last one in line on purpose, Vaughn in her line of sight, the wave right on her heels. She would have given anything to have Sloane behind her instead of in front of her though. What joy it would have been to see his body slam into the door like Vaughn's had in Taipei. Too bad there was no window on this door and what a shame nothing happened to Sloane. He had saved her life all right, but he still owed her countless lost friends. "Please go on," she whispered, knowing it was a bad time to wallow in self-pity and hatred. Nadia was what mattered now. It's the only thing the man had done right. Give her a sister. Correction. A half sister.
"He was still employed by Cadmus at the time. It took some convincing, but in the end, he was fascinated by what I had him work on. The Mueller Device you so kindly destroyed was in part his creation."
Sydney smirked. Her mother was still touchy about that. "What kind of convincing?" She asked, remembering Elsa Kaplan and her son.
"Blackmail. Classic but very efficient."
"Of course," sighed Sydney.
"Anyway, I'm afraid our collaboration led him to take a liking in extra curricular research. His reputation put him above all suspicion. His high profile job was the perfect cover for his 'private research'. I guess working on biological weapons and molecules unknown to Man was more exciting than HIV medications or a cure for cancer. Your destroying my Mueller Device interrupted his work, leaving him…unsatisfied. That's why Yelena recruited him so easily. He jumped on the opportunity to study another Mueller Device and its interaction with the contaminated water."
"Damn. That guy has all the answers we need!"
"Yes. And there's more. I know for a fact that he went further in his study than what was asked of him."
"How so?"
"Yelena only hired him to study the immediate effects of the water on people. She only cared about how long it took after exposure for the subject to be 'active'. He got curious and started to isolate contaminated patients to study the long-term effects on them. Just like I had him do with the contents of my Mueller Device."
"Yes, I saw that. I vividly remember a dying man asking me 'why'…It was one of the first time I was told I looked like you," replied Sydney, deep in thoughts.
Irina sighed, but didn't offer apologies. "Patients from a mental hospital ran by his brother were used as his guinea pigs."
"He had no ethics whatsoever. How shocking," said Sydney.
"Well it is a requirement of sorts on my side of the law."
Sydney smiled wryly, and then frowned. "Wait, you told me you helped Elena built her Mueller device only a few weeks ago. The contaminated water is worthless without an active device. How could Frankel study the effects of the contaminated water on people?"
"He had a prototype of the Mueller device. It was effective enough for Frankel to use in his studies."
Sydney gasped, horrified. "I gave that prototype to Sloane myself…to get back in SD-6! Oh God, what have I done!"
Irina listened, shocked. Had Sloane and Yelena known each other before Sovogda? "Sydney, Yelena could have acquired it in a number of ways. She might have stolen it from SD-6, or from the CIA, or Sloane could have sold it to someone else. You now how easy things get from hand to hand in this business. It's not your fault!"
Sydney shook her head dismissively and moved on. "What did Frankel find?"
"I don't know. His eagerness was predictable behaviour from a scientist, but Elena only found out several months into his employment. She had him executed and his work destroyed."
"She had him killed because he worked overtime on his own?" Interrupted Sydney, disappointed at seeing a promising source of information vanish.
"More like moonlighting. Her men spotted Frankel exchanging documents with an ex-colleague of his, from Cadmus lab. However, I'm not even sure Yelena looked into his files before destroying them. She's always been quick tempered, as I told you. Maybe he found out the effects wore off on their own like they did with Nadia. Maybe he tried to find a way to annihilate the 'waste particles' left behind in infected people's body. My point is…he had more than enough time to gather information we need. Why not a cure?
"I agree. But I'm curious, why would such a high profile manufacturer as Cadmus be interested in the effects of such a deadly solution?"
"I don't know. I'm not even sure they knew what Frankel was dealing with. After all, he wasn't in their employ anymore. I doubt they knew they had a 'mole' inside still in contact with him. Whatever information Frankel gave his colleague is probably stashed away in one of Cadmus's facilities. I'm going to need your help to get in."
"That makes sense. Do you know where to look? Cadmus is a big institution; they have testing laboratories, factories, offices…buildings all over the world."
"I know it's a long shot, but I have no other lead."
"Okay. Do you know the name of the guy who met with Frankel?"
"Doctor Amelia Varnina. She's Russian. She was his assistant. That's how I convinced him to work for me. She shared his bed while he was still happily married."
"Never mix business with pleasure," smirked Sydney.
"Look who's talking," replied Irina softly. It was the opening she had been waiting for. An opportunity to direct the conversation toward the 'Agent Vaughn issue'.
Sydney looked at her, frozen. "I don't regret hooking up with Vaughn while we were still handler and Agent. It was not very professional of either of us, but…the time we had together was wonderful."
"And what happened to make the 'wonderful' stop?" Asked Irina softly.
Sydney sighed, suspecting her mother already knew the answer. "You tell me. You seem to know an awful lot about my life lately." Her tone was not light anymore and turned accusatory. "What role did you play in all this?"
Irina sighed. She hoped Sydney would see past what she would hear and still agree to work with her for Nadia's sake. Neither Irina nor Sydney could do this on their own, they both needed someone they could trust to watch their back and help.
"I merely spoke with him, in the subway station. I saw you two on the plane and thought it was time for him to come clean. I strongly encouraged him to talk to you before you married. I thought you would want to know the truth about him."
"So the only reason he told me was because you threatened him to do so in his place?"
"No. I did no such thing. I merely suggested he tell you the truth if he didn't want to end up like Jack and I did. Tell me, what happened?"
Sydney chuckled despite herself. "We were on our way to Santa Barbara, talking about screwing the whole ceremony thing and just get barefoot on the beach. He joked about Dad not being the kind of guy to like sand between his toes…everything was perfect. Then he started to say things, things that didn't make sense to me. That he was a bad guy, that his name wasn't Michael Vaughn..."
She started to sob. Irina took her hand in hers. "Keep going, you will feel better once you get it off your chest, sweetheart."
Sydney nodded and resumed her story, her sobs under control. "Then, a car rammed us. We were so into our conversation that neither of us saw it coming. It was a crazy accident. I still can't believe it, a stupid, car accident due to a drunk driver and our inattention." She shook her head, still in disbelief over it. "The medics took us to the hospital to be treated for minor injuries. Cuts and bruises, a sprain, nothing major, though we both had a concussion."
Irina merely nodded, not mentioning that she had seen both her daughter's and her fiancé's medical records and knew about every single scratch they had sustained. She had also read the Paramedics and the Police reports telling about the deceased driver and his over the limit alcohol rate. She saw the pictures and knew it could have ended up badly for the young couple.
"Vaughn…Michael…'Whatever', that's what I call him now. He wanted to see me in the hospital but I didn't want to see him. Eventually, he just knocked out a guard, barged into my room, and started talking. He wouldn't stop. I didn't want to listen. I was so shocked! I couldn't believe it. I thought he was the man of my life, 'the one' you know? The only time I felt that connection before was with Danny." She paused for a second remembering her lost first true love, wondering what would have happened, had she not spoke of SD-6 to him. "Vau…Whatever, turned out to be nothing but a lying bastard, just like everybody else around me."
"Sydney, lies are sometimes meant to protect you," explained Irina, knowing she was falling into the category of 'lying bastards'. "What did he tell you exactly?"
"That his name was 'Vassili Mikailovich'."
Irina sighed, cursing her daughter's stubbornness at not listening to her fiancé's explanation, though at the same time, she couldn't blame her. Again, she took her daughter's hands in her own. "When we were in your car, your friend Eric said that Michael was calling, and you said it meant he must be free. What happened?"
"It was a CIA controlled hospital. We should have known there were cameras. We should have been more careful…but I was so upset, and he wanted to explain himself so bad. We never cared about the consequences. We got caught. I begged him to go away, to leave me alone, and he did, eventually, with the help of two guards who later arrested him for assaulting a guard and because of what he told me. I saw them drag him down the hallway, and I did nothing. I just stood there and watched, just like I did with Nadia."
"Sydney, stop it! Stop blaming yourself for everything that's gone wrong around you! You would have been arrested also had you interfered!"
"I hate him, Mom. I hate him so much!"
"Don't say that sweetheart! You don't know anything past the fact he was not born 'Michael Vaughn'!"
Sydney looked up, suspicious. She brusquely withdrew her hand from Irina's. "Yeah…what more is there to know? What do 'you' know? What are you hiding Mom? Tell me!"
TBC