Chapter 12

Vaughn whipped his head around real quickly at the mention of Sark's name. "SARK!" he yelled angrily. "I thought I locked him up for good in that hellhole in the Congo."

On the other end of the cell phone, Sark said to Sydney, "Ah… is that Mr. Vaughn I hear on the other end?" he said arrogantly, "Well, tell him I said hello and that he really should think about upgrading the security in the facilities where the CIA holds their top enemies."

"Sark! Where's Chris! I'm telling you, if you lay a hand on him, I swear that I will kill you with my bare hands!" Sydney screamed in the phone.

"Tsk… Tsk… I see you still have your anger issues. Moving right along," he said in his conceited British accent, "I will contact you in six hours regarding my demands."

The line went dead and Sydney furiously slammed her cell phone on the table. She sunk down in her chair, letting her conversation with Sark sink into her brain. "They have him… they really have him…" she whimpered out, letting a single tear escape down her face.

Vaughn put his hand on her cheek and wiped away the single tear with his thumb. "C'mon Syd, it's going to be fine. Chris is stronger than both off us put together; Sark's going to have his hands full with Chris around him. Besides, with all of us working on getting Chris back, I betcha that you'll be eating dinner with him tonight." And I will be putting that little son of a gun back where he belongs.

Finally, Jack spoke up and hollered to Weiss, Marshall, and Will, "Get Dixon on the phone and tell him about our situation here. I want as much manpower working on getting Chris back. He turned his attention back to Vaughn and said to him, "Mr. Vaughn, am I correct in assuming that you were the undisclosed agent that locked Sark up seven years ago."

"Yeah… I wanted to keep it classified so that nobody could go after the ones close to me… seems that I was wrong about that."

Sydney asked Vaughn, "If you don't mind us asking, what happened? How did you capture him?"

"Well, it was about two years after I divorced Lauren and ever since then, I devoted myself to my job, working night and day trying to lock away all the enemies of the country."

Sydney winced when she heard Vaughn mention Lauren, which didn't go unnoticed by either him or Jack.

Vaughn continued, "I was working on this one case, regarding the covenant and this bomb maker, Daniel Ryan. We had taken captive of Ryan, but he had planted a bomb somewhere before his capture, so we had to get the location of the bomb before he blew up that place. Apparently, the only person he said he would deal with was Sark."

"Ok…what happened after that?" asked Jack.

"Well, posing as Sark, Ryan told me that I would be given the details on a flight from Rome to Paris by an associate of his that will know what Sark looks like. He told me that the bombing would be called off once his associate meets with Sark. So, I got on the same flight, thinking that this could be like killing two birds with one stone, capturing Sark and Ryan's accomplice. But, the associate never showed up, meaning that Ryan wanted Sark on that plane so that he could kill him. The bomb was actually on that plane."

Hearing this Sydney gasped, "You mean that was your plane that was all over the news a couple years back?"

"Yeah… It's funny… the bomb was diffused with Sark's help. But, after securing the bomb, I arrested him and locked him up deep in the Congo where I thought no one could find him."

Weiss' head peeked through the other door, he had one hand covering his cell phone and he said, "Hey guys, sorry to break up this moment, but I've got Dixon on the other end. He says that since we're dealing with Sark, we're going to pull out everything we've got to get him and to get Chris back."

"That's great!" Sydney said enthusiastically after hearing the first good news of the day.

Eric said goodbye to Dixon who was on the other line and continued, "Yeah, he said that there will be a recon team coming up here and that all of Marshall's gadgets will be sent up here too."

Six hours later

After six hours of waiting and trepidation, Sydney's cell phone rang. Everyone quickly hushed up and the room went dead silent. "Hello?"

"Good to hear your voice again Sydney," Sark arrogantly.

"Sark! Where's Chris! Let me talk to him!" she demanded.

"Now just hold on a minute, mommy dearest. First, I want you to meet my demands before dear little Christopher can be let go unharmed."

Finally Vaughn, who had been listening in on the speaker phone, couldn't take it any longer. "SARK! Let Sydney talk to Chris NOW!"

"Mr. Vaughn, so nice to talk to you. It's a shame that our last chat seven years ago didn't last that long. That doesn't matter now."

"Just tell us what you want!" snapped Sydney.

"Well, first off, I would like all my money back. I want it transferred into account 15796328410 in the Cayman Islands by noon tomorrow. In case you've forgotten, I had nearly three million. Second, I want Sydney to come and get Chris… by herself. No CIA or FBI, just herself, or else poor little Chris might not calm back all unharmed."

"Just don't touch him! I'll be wherever you want me to be."

"That's great to hear, I'll be in contact in a couple of hours… when it will be just the two of us talking and no one else listening in."

The line went silent and Sydney looked to Marshall. "Did you get his location?" she asked anxiously.

Marshall said hesitantly, "Yeah… but he was using a whole series of connected calls that it will take me at least a couple of hours to figure out where he was calling from. I mean, the first three connections go from Canada to Algeria to Moscow to who knows where else."

"Just do the best you can, Marshall," said Jack. He turned his attention to Sydney and Vaughn, "You two probably haven't eaten since this morning. I suggest that the two of you go back to your hotel and rest for a little while and eat. I'll call you if there is any new news."

Vaughn nodded to Jack and put his arm around Sydney. He led her back to the car and they drove back to their hotel with faith that Chris will be found soon.

Now do you think I'll just let the bad guy get away with all this...? I think not... click to read the next chapter ).