FAMILY MATTERS

Eyghon

"I'll arrange for everything. You go back to Los Angeles, go back to work, to your routine, and we can be ready within a week."

Chapter 12: Double Derevko trouble (2/2)

Los Angeles, Friday, 8h00.
Five days later, Irina flew to Los Angeles and met Sydney in the bathroom of a coffee shop her daughter frequented daily. Sydney couldn't afford to deviate from her routine by going to a warehouse or a hotel. She was not being tailed by Chase's men anymore but once word of the break-in was reported, her latest doings and goings would be analysed closely.

"How do I look?" Asked Irina, standing with her back to the faucet, her hands on her hips.

"Like me. You sound like me too. That's creepy." Sydney shook her head, shivering at the thought of how easy it was for her mother to impersonate her. "Wear your hair loose, forget about the high heels, and lose the high chin. I only do that when I'm pissed. Same for the hands on the hips. I tend to cross my arms over my chest when I'm talking to someone for a while, but only if I'm standing."

"Better?" Asked Irina, taking the pose.

"Yes, perfect. Don't talk down to people, even if it's a desk clerk. I don't do that." She looked her mother up and down. She would have to make sure to get rid of the 'costume' herself. God knew what Irina could do with it. "There, you should be okay," she commented, gently pulling her mother's face straighter. "Just don't tilt your head. I don't do that. And try to look…a little friendlier."

Irina rolled her eyes. "I know what I'm doing, Sydney."

"I'm just trying to give you some insight. Keep in mind that you're not Irina Derevko but Sydney Bristow. You're not impersonating an alias; you're impersonating a real person, me. If you fail, you and I will share a cell for the rest of our lives."

"I thought high security prisons didn't allow prisoners to mix."

"They don't. I was just speaking figuratively. Stop playing smartass for a second, that doesn't suit you."

"But it does you. From now on, I'm Sydney Bristow. I'm only playing my part. Don't worry sweetheart, everything will be okay."

"Do you have the car?"

"Yes. Blue Ford Expedition 2005, California plates, license number RCD 468. It has your insurance company sticker and your parking permit for your apartment complex. It's the exact copy of your car. I even scratched the rear passenger door with a rock." She winced. Sydney gave her a puzzled look. "I noticed it at the grocery store, when I came to visit the first time. You probably came too close to a wall."

Sydney shook her head, groaning as she did so. "Damn, I knew I shouldn't have lent my car to Weiss. A brand new car."

Irina laughed, shaking her head as she added 'obsession with cars' to her list of similarities with her daughter, along with love of knives and fine wines. "I also have a CIA badge in your name with your signature, which I know how to imitate."

"Great, just don't go emptying my bank account please."

"What is the purpose of being part of a black ops division if you still carry your CIA badge around?"

"I know, it sounds stupid, but I need it if I want to arrest someone in public and also to justify my carrying a gun. And it's definitively a free pass for high speed driving on the highway." She started fidgeting. Irina gently grabbed her shoulder, rubbing her arms.

"We have everything covered, Sydney. It won't fail, but you have to act as your usual self when you get to your office. Even before, as soon as you get out of this bathroom. The CIA will scrutinize every tape they can get their hands on, that includes those of the cameras in the coffee shop."

"I know, but there's more than our freedom and my career on the line. It's probably Nadia's last chance at being normal again."

"I know, sweetheart, I know."

Los Angeles, Friday, 13h00
Drumming her fingers on her desk while anxiously checking her computer clock time and time again, Sydney was lost in thought. Seated behind her desk in her office at APO with her half eaten lunch, waiting for the arrest she knew was to come, she was thinking of nothing but him, of Vaughn, of what she would say to him in her next phone call.

A man walked into her office, interrupting her musings. She acted surprised to see him there. Four guards flanked him and two of them grabbed her by the arms before unnecessarily dragging her to an interrogation room, as her whole team watched, bewildered. Weiss was at her apartment, taking care of Nadia, but Dixon was there and tried to stop them. The two remaining guards held him off, stating it was NSC business.

Agent Sommers remained standing, probably to try and intimidate her. She was accused of stealing a substance referred to as RFC-60 from a NSC-ran facility in San Diego. Sydney was ecstatic to learn of her mother's success but obviously hid her excitement. The agent had then proceeded to confront her with hard evidence, namely security footage with audio of every step she allegedly took outside and inside of the aforementioned NSC facility.

"Obviously, I'm innocent of whatever you're accusing me of. I was here, in my office, from 9h00 to now. I'm sure a dozen agents and analysts can confirm that, Agent Sommers," stated Sydney, calmly taking the seat pointed to her. The seat that faced a two-way mirror. The seat of the criminal

He started to describe everything her mother had done. She listened to him intently while keeping an eye on the video playing and recounting her own actions on this Friday morning.

San Diego / Los Angeles, 9h-11h
IIrina left the coffee shop the same way she had came in: through the back door, far away from the eye of the cameras./I

Sydney smiled at the cashier as she left the coffee shop through the glass door, her Styrofoam cup of coffee firmly in hand.

IIrina drove down to San Diego on the Interstate 5 in less than the 1h45 it was supposed to take. /I

Sydney parked at the Metro Station as she did every morning and made her way to platform 5.

IIrina showed her CIA identification to the armed guard that stopped her at the entrance of the NSC facility in San Diego./I

Sydney smiled at the agent in charge of APO's front desk as she passed him. ID tag in sight on her jacket lapel, she crossed the main hall to her office. Five agents greeted her on the way and she smiled back at them. Later, they would testify that she had came in at 9h00 sharp, as she did everyday since she had come back from her vacation.

IIrina sat in an uncomfortable grey plastic chair, waiting for an escort./I

Sydney spent her morning signing papers, ranging from requests to the DOD to leave approvals for her agents and orders of purchases for ammunitions, office chairs, and pencils. She was too preoccupied to be able to do much of anything else, though it didn't show.

San Diego, 12h00
I"Hello Agent Bristow," greeted a male voice, prompting Sydney to get up from her seat.

"Director Kendall," she replied, slightly taken aback by the man's presence.

"You sound surprised to see me."

"I am. In a good way." She thought for a moment of what Sydney would say. "You know, compared to Arvin Sloane, you have your charms, as a superior. I often believed you were an ass, but you were never a backstabbing bastard."

The bald man laughed frankly. He sometimes missed the 'youngsters' of the Los Angeles field office, but his work as Director of Project Black Hole allowed him to see extraordinary things happen. "When I heard you had put in a request to visit the facility, I had to come and see it for myself. You never showed any interest in experimental technology before. By the way, congratulations on your promotion."

"How do you know about it?"

"Well, I was a member of the panel assigned to pick a new Co Director and I think you're fit for the job."

She crossed her arms over her chest like Sydney had taught her. She managed not to tilt her head and replied, in a typical Sydney fashion. "Thank you, Kendall. You could say that my being here comes with the new job. This program is going to be the new Echelon. APO was offered to test it in its final phase as I understand, so I thought I'd check it out now, even though it's still in experimental phase."

"Understandable. If you'd follow me, I'll take you to the lead engineer."

"Thank you." She followed him through a corridor to the elevator. It stopped on sublevel 3. He stopped in front of a white door and she elbowed him in the temple before he could make use of his security card. Using it, she half dragged, half carried him to an unoccupied office. Not wasting any time, she ran to the stairs that would lead her two more levels down. Her window of opportunity was closing. At any moment, the guard's screens could switch to the precise hallway were she was. She had to remain undetected until she was out of the facility's parking lot

Irina swept the card she had 'borrowed' from Kendall in the slot on the door and it opened with a soft wheeze. She quickly located the green substance. It was stored in a small tubes made of glass and metal, as she had expected. She took them all and slipped them in her make up case. To the security guard monitoring the X-ray machine at the exit, it would look as if her bag was containing lipstick tubes./I

Los Angeles, 12h00
Sydney sighed in annoyance. After she left her mother in Honolulu to prepare for their upcoming mission, she went back to her apartment in Los Angeles. Ignoring the mail, she had walked to her phone and feverishly dialed Vaughn's home number, which she knew by heart. She didn't know what to tell him exactly and was thankful he wasn't home and that his answering machine picked up in his stead. She remembered stumbling over words, babbling to no end…

"Hi, it's me…you're probably out walking Donovan…or grocery shopping or…well, you're not there anyway. I was just calling to say that…I want you to stop calling here and on my cell…I want you to stop leaving me messaged." She had sighed there, and had remained silent for a few seconds. "I'll call you when I'm ready. I promise I will."

San Diego, 12h30
IIrina went through the security check at the exit without any problem. She explained her escort's absence by saying he had been called away for an emergency and left her off at the elevator. The guards bought it and one of them even held the door open for her. A dog briefly sniffed her car at the exit checkpoint but didn't find anything and his master motioned for his colleague to let her through.

A few minutes later, she was back on the road, driving in the direction of San Diego's International Airport where a private Jet rented under an assumed name was waiting to take her back to Honolulu.

She had carried out her side of the mission.

But had Sydney gotten out okay/I

Honolulu, 17h00
Irina was back at her home. She had given the three tubes of solution she had stolen to Doctor Varnina who was currently analysing them.

Irina was sitting behind her desk, watching her computer screen like a hawk. She had sent an email to Sydney a few minutes ago confirming her success. Now, she was waiting anxiously for her daughter to reply and let her know she was safe and sound at home. Irina was confident Sydney would get out of the investigator's clutches without a problem, but she would wait for her to answer her email before relaxing.

Her men had had done an outstanding job at harvesting samples of Sydney's blood and saliva, as well as getting her prints and retinal scan. She had made sure of that. The 'costume' had to be flawless for her to get in and out of the DSR facility without a hitch.

The DSR so called 'low security facility' still required one to pass several identification tests, but once you were in, it was easy to wander around without being disturbed. There were no patrols, no constant surveillance of every room and hallway.

Los Angeles, Friday, 17h00, Interrogation room
Marshall barged into the room where Sydney had been stuck with an NSC agent of the bureau of special investigations for the last four hours.

"Sir! I figured it out!" Without leaving the man time to protest, he set his laptop on the desk so it was facing both Sydney and Agent Sommers. "Syd, Agent…Director Bristow, you always park your car at Metro Station when you come in to APO, and you always buy a coffee at the Starbuck's on the corner near the entrance to the station. I tracked your movements for the last seven days and here's what I found."

A video file opened, taken by a surveillance camera. It showed Metro Station parking garage, level 3. Sydney was taking a briefcase from her trunk before locking her car and walking away. Minutes later, a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt ran his palm pilot over the area Sydney had put her palm on to close the trunk. "See that? He just lifted Director Bristow's hand print," explained Marshall. "It was Monday," he added, pointing to the time code on the top right corner of the screen.

The NSC agent watched without commenting but he looked angry. The same man wearing the same hooded sweatshirt was seen picking up Sydney's coffee cup from the trashcan she had just dumped it in. "Here he got her saliva."

"I noticed, Mr. Flinkman," dryly replied Sommers, irritated.

"He only needs a tiny drop of her DNA to pass the analysis at the NSC facility."

"I read the San Diego security specs too Mr Flinkman. But that doesn't explain how anybody could have access to Ms. Bristow's retina or her blood," he added, referring to the fact that not content to control visitor's prints and DNA, the NSC security system also required a live retinal scan and a blood sample, taken from a subject's finger at random.

"Easy. Like many good American citizens, Sydney gives blood every month to a Red Cross centre, three blocks away from her apartment."

"That's true," confirmed Sydney. "Last time I've been there was…three days ago. Tuesday."

"The NSC facility requires a live sample," snarled the interrogator, smiling in triumph as he found the flaw in Marshall's explanation.

"True, but nowadays, you can keep people alive by cryogenics. Keeping a few millilitres of blood hot is a piece of cake. You just have to hook it up to live current. I guess whoever did this slipped a few drops of blood in each of the silicon fingerprints they applied on their hands. Et voilà."

"That doesn't explain how this mysterious someone got a hold of Ms Bristow's retinal scanner. That's impossible to counterfeit. It has to be live, the blood vessels have to be flowing for it to be accepted by the system"

"You need to get out more, Agent Sommers. We're in the intelligence gathering business, nothing is impossible," started Sydney, rolling her eyes. "I've done it countless times on missions. It's probably the easiest thing to do among all of it. Lenses are used as video cameras, to lift a subject's retinal scan. It also can be used as screens to reflect the eyes' movement as if it was the real deal. The iris, pupil and vessels activity show in them as if it was a real eye. It could have been taken at anytime, by a cashier at the supermarket, a passenger in the metro…a few seconds is all it usually takes me to lift someone's retina movements."

"Can you prove it?" Challenged the agent, already feeling he had lost, but hanging to a thread.

"Of course, but you don't want me to humiliate you any further, do you? Just go to your superiors and tell them that, as you already suspected, someone managed to get their hands on everything they needed to pass as me and get into the NSC facility, and that you need to up your security measures in all and every building you manage. If we're done here, I have work to do, and a top secret substance to find, as this case was assigned to my division."

"You're free to go, but I'll keep an eye on you, Ms Bristow."

"I've just been reinstated. It's Director Bristow, Agent Sommers, and you're no longer welcome here. I'll have an agent escort you out." Sydney left with Marshall in toe. "Thank you Marshall, for figuring it out so quickly."

"Anytime Syd…And don't thank me, it's my job, and I really didn't want to visit you in jail. Plus, it was fun to shut that jerk up."

Sydney smiled and went to her office, feeling Somers's eyes burning a hole in her back. He came to APO thinking he was going to bust the Director and make his career on her arrest. Instead, he was being thrown out and all the evidence he had proved the suspect's innocence, and they were handed to him by some whiz kid. He could kiss his promotion goodbye.

Los Angeles, Friday, 19h00
Sydney greeted Weiss and Nadia when she finally got home, two hours later. She had taken the time to go grocery shopping, as she always did on Friday after work. She was being tailed again but she could live with it for a few days.

She excused herself and went to her bedroom under the pretext to change clothes, which she did. She then proceeded to take the untraceable laptop her mother had given her and connected herself to the email address Irina had set up for her for their covert communications.

Sydney smiled as she read her mother's message, so cryptic, and yet so telling. 'I'm okay, how are you?". Apparently, Irina wasn't inclined to take any chance with the CIA, even though Marshall himself was not supposed to be able to break the encryption of the email. Sydney sighed and replied in kind. 'I'm doing good, I'm glad to hear from you. Any new book to recommend?'.

She closed the laptop and went to prepare dinner for Weiss, Nadia and herself.

Soon Irina would reply to her request for a 'book recommendation' and give her instructions on how to proceed next.

Soon she would have to deal with Vaughn like the adult she was.

Soon she would not be able to see her mother as much anymore.

Soon her little sister would be herself again.

TBC