Part 9
Sydney woke with a foggy haze settled over her brain as she smacked her lips against the medicinal taste in the back of her throat. Intending to reach up and rub her bleary eyes, she found that her hands were bound behind her with arms twisted around the back of a sturdy metal chair. Closing her eyes and taking several deep breaths she reopened to focus on her surroundings.
Concrete, bunker-like room? Check.
No windows and only one door? Check.
Probably underground because of the cooler temperature? Check.
Mounted camera on a tripod to film whatever horrible things they have planned? Check.
Drain underneath the chair? Check.
Completely restrained? Check.
Taking stock in herself she found that she was fine other than a little hazy from whatever drug they jammed into her system. Her arms were sore where they were tightly bound around the back of the chair, and the same metal wrapped around her wrists was wrapped around each leg just above the ankle adhering them to the two front legs of the chair. They bit into her shin as she wiggled and she realized they'd rolled her pants up to ensure that the rough cables came into full contact with her skin to disallow any slippage.
Her jacket and long-sleeved button-up had been removed and she sat in her black dress pants and dark red tank top, her bare feet cold on the metal plate below the chair as she traced the outline of the drain with her toes as much as she could reach.
Panic threatened her with a heavy pressure on her chest, but she pushed it down to stay focused. Her father's voice sounded in her head from when she was first learning to ride a bike without training wheels: "it's not useful getting worked up over what is inevitably going to happen. You will fall off of this bike. Don't focus on that. Focus on what you're going to do when you get back on the seat."
Refocusing, she sighed and switched on the Bristow side of her brain. 'I knew this could happen. I...I knew what would happen if I got caught. Dad's safe, Will and Francie and Dixon are safe. This...this is just one of those outcomes you hoped wouldn't happen, but did.'
Minutes ticked by as the room stayed silent. Long minutes. Those minutes turned to hours, Sydney having only her thoughts to keep her company.
…
"Sir?" A nervous analyst walked into the conference room where Vaughn, Will, and Jack sat alone at the table pouring over files with laptops open looking for any lead they could find.
"What is it?" A gruff and tired voice barked without looking up.
"There's something you should see." The wiry man walked over and commandeered the laptop at the front of the room, the projector screen coming to life. The three waited impatiently as the analyst worked the mouse and keyboard until a website popped up. It was a simple page, but their eyes went wide at the large, bold message at the top.
THE INTERROGATION OF SYDNEY BRISTOW, CIA SPY
A clock was counting down beneath the title, the time remaining at 20 hours and 18 man sighed and clicked play on the video that took up the majority of the screen, the image flickering to life as a man no one recognized sat on the edge of a wooden desk in a drab office. His mid-tone British accent pushed the limits of the projector speakers putting them all on edge.
"Good morning. I'll assume that I have the attention of a mixed bag. Definitely the CIA. I mean, you guys are on it. But there's going to be a rush on the dark web soon, you can't bury this one, Americans, and this website will be on every news station your country has to offer in under thirty minutes. Well...maybe an hour after they try vetting the intel."
"Now, I know what you're thinking." He paused with a cocky smile as his hands waved about dramatically. "This has to be fake! Well, I assure you it's not. I work for an organization that is right tired of the CIA sticking their proverbial noses where they don't belong." Stopping to smile into the camera, a long few seconds ticked by as he waggled a finger at the lens. "And you just had to keep poking, didn't you?"
The man rose and walked around the desk to sit in an ornately plush leather chair. "The funny thing is the number of web nerds that are going to write this off as a hoax while, at this literal moment, the CIA is freaking out because they know how serious I am. What a world, eh?" He lit a cigarette and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other before blowing a ring of smoke out above his head.
"The truth of the matter is this, and you can believe me if you want or click away and go about your day, but we have abducted a CIA agent. That agent's name is Sydney Bristow. And while she was terribly good at her job, much to our annoyance, she wasn't good enough to not...get...caught."
He took a long drag, the end of the cigarette burning bright as the lens compensated. "So what's next? Ransom? Maybe some wild negotiations?" Blowing the smoke out in a chuckled puff, "no - not this time. I'm going to torture her, to death, right in front of this camera. No ransom; no negotiations. Why? Partly because we're making a statement. Partly because we know that her friends, father, boyfriend of some sort, and soon the majority of the world will be watching every...single...moment."
Putting the cigarette out in a crystal ashtray, the man leaned forward with his elbows on the desk. "We'll see you in twenty hours."
The screen went blank as the video ended, the analyst speaking up. "It went live twelve minutes ago."
"Four hours away from the airport heading east," Will grumbled and slammed the lid to his laptop shut. "She could be anywhere across Europe...maybe even into Russia."
Kendall walked into the room with nearly a dozen others following. "I assume you've seen the video?" At their nods, he continued. "The Alliance is doubling down. By calling her out as CIA, they're making her an SD-6 martyr. The choices are to claim her or not, but either way, we need to get ahead of this. Options?"
Jack rubbed a hand over his strained eyes, "if we claim her it'll put everyone at SD-6 at risk. Those that don't know the truth will start to ask questions, and those that do know the truth can't give the right answers. The protocol everyone is fed from the start is that no matter what, the CIA will disavow all knowledge of us as operatives."
"We could claim her as a citizen," Will piped up, a dozen pairs of eyes turning to stare in his direction. "Right, so we can't - uh, well the CIA can't confirm she's an agent, but we can claim her as a citizen. Put out a message saying that you are working with other agencies and that we're searching for evidence that what this asshole is saying is true - but in the meantime, we're operating under the guise that they're being honest about having abducted a U.S. citizen."
"Kidnapping is the FBIs jurisdiction. Why make a statement other than to disavow any knowledge of Sydney Bristow?" The man that spoke up wasn't entirely prepared for the host of glares fired in his direction, and he shrunk down in his seat.
Kendall turned to the woman on his left, her glasses low on her nose as she quickly read over several different papers in a file folder. "We can say we're looking into things, but the media will want answers sooner rather than later. We're already getting requests from news sources asking for confirmation of Agent Bristow's status. I mean, it could work for a little while, but will we have any answers or statements for the moment that clock hits zero? Or a day later as they torture her in front of anyone with an internet connection? Hell - the news will cover this. Millions of people won't even need to visit the website to know what's happening."
Kendall huffed, "we have to hope we've found her by then. Any help with the video feed?"
An analyst spoke up, "no, sir. It's untraceable. Well - it's bouncing off of 70,000 towers every seven minutes. I mean, it's coming from Europe, we think, but it's hitting every major country and plenty of minor ones several times a second. It's...it's going to be impossible to sort through that and actually have it pin-point a location."
The room went quiet, Kendall looking down at his hands resting on the table before taking a stand. "Sydney is an exemplary agent, one of the best I've worked with. The list of things she's done for us without expecting anything in return is a mile long. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to let the world watch her die. We have twenty hours, people; let's get a move on."
…
The metallic door opened and a sauntering man entered. "Ah, you're awake. How long have you been awake?" His British accent was rough around the edges and his mannerisms screamed cockney footballer. Despite this, he was dressed in a three piece suit. His hair was a golden blonde and ruffled as if he'd run hand through it after wearing a hat all morning, if it was still morning.
Sydney didn't reply, merely staring with cautious brown eyes. "Not a talker, eh? We'll see about that." While he fidgeted with the camera a second man came in with a long ethernet cable and a wired router. Feeding the cords through a pre-drilled hole in the wall, they went about setting up the wiring as she sat ignored in the center of the room.
Her arms were aching, the cables binding her wrists and legs a thick rough wire with no coating. No matter how much she'd twisted, all it did was rub at her skin without allowing any slippage. This clearly wasn't his first torture session, and she'd given up on the restraints after a few minutes.
The chair wasn't budging either. It was custom-made of thick steel, the welding surprisingly efficient. She'd tried to wobble around a bit in an attempt to find a weak point, but it didn't even creak when she'd shifted her weight. The fact that it was also welded to the metal drain plate on the floor made it so she definitely wasn't going to be able to use it as an asset.
"Look at you. Your pretty brown eyes scanning the room for any advantage. That's what I like about you spies: you always look for the advantage."
Silence.
"Come now, sweetheart, we're going to be together for a week. Can we not hit it off?"
Silence.
The Brit sighed tossing a look of exasperation over the camera to the bound woman a few feet away. "Let's start again. My name is Flynn and we're going to get to know each other this week. You see, the Alliance gave you to me because I always get the results they want. I'm really good at what I do, so I've no doubt I can get you to give up your secrets."
"You can try." She tried to put a nonchalant fierceness to her voice, though not having said anything for hours made the tone raspy and low.
"Ooh, she does speak. How delightful!" Flynn was all smiles as he made sure the cables around the camera were out of the way, another man Sydney also didn't recognize wheeling in a table with a laptop, more cables, and other various batteries and wire-cutting tools. She watched them with curiosity though she kept quiet despite the myriad of questions she wanted to throw their way.
"Here's the deal, love," Flynn started, grabbing a rolling chair and wheeling it in front of her, his posture open as his elbows rested on his thighs with hands folding together. His blue eyes bored intently into hers as he spoke, and Sydney was surprised as the open honesty she read in the aqua depths. "You were found out a few months ago, if you've been wondering. But, instead of just offing you they asked that I watch for a while and build a file. And I learned a lot. They want you punished and I promised seven days. Keep in mind that no matter how bad it gets...we're going for the full seven days."
She cracked a small smile. "If you've been following me for months you know I don't bend to intimidation. If it's intel they want, maybe I know and maybe I don't. Wouldn't this all be moot if I didn't know what they wanted?"
Flynn laughed. "Oh, sweetheart - they don't want intelligence, they want you dead. I mean yeah, if I can get some intel out of you I'm supposed to try." His tone went soft and low, almost sympathetic. "They want me to kill you, Sydney. Long and drawn out...painful and real. And they want your father, friends, and anyone else that loves you to watch. God's honest truth, darling, they don't want anything from you but screams."
Some of her bravado drained away a bit. "There it is: the moment you realized the reality of your situation." He stood and stepped a few feet closer before sliding his hands in his pockets looking down at the woman before him. "You see, we knew you were a double but as I watched I could tell that there was more to the story. Lo and behold I find that Jack Bristow, daddy dearest, is in the picture as well."
Her mind raced a mile a minute. "You're cute when you think," Flynn grinned. He crouched in front of her, his face still honest and his voice going soft. "Your dad also needs to be punished. And the stooges in the CIA office that send you on countermissions? They get to feel the guilt of sending you on a mission you didn't come back from, so that's where this comes into play," he chuckled and stood back up heading back to the camera.
"This is for them almost as much as for my bosses. A live-streaming web page, completely untraceable. We've been getting it ready for a couple weeks now and it went up about two hours ago. The world is finally going to know who you are, Sydney. Your accomplishments will be bared for all to see. You, sweetheart, are going to be famous."
"Y-you're going to stream everything online?"
"Mmhmm."
"Won't that at the least compromise your L.A. branch?"
"And that's where your cooperation comes in. It absolutely will compromise an office full of innocent people, and if there's one thing I've learned from watching and reading up on your SD-6 and CIA files these past few weeks, your weakness is definitely going to be me threatening those innocent people. Which I am absolutely doing."
He left the camera moving to sit back down across from her. "So keep in mind that if you mention anything about SD-6, even the name, you're burning every single innocent person in that field office as well as your friend Will Tippin. Stick with the Alliance because everyone thinks we're the bad guys anyway, even though they don't know they're working for us."
She sighed, knowing he wasn't kidding. The off-putting part was that he wasn't boastful or cocky, at least not yet. He was sure of himself and brazenly honest with every sentence. He wasn't much older than she was by the looks of it, but he was so far very skilled at his job. He smiled when he saw her trying to figure him out.
"I know so much about you, Sydney, it's like one way dating. You've almost finished your degree despite your work at the bank being so demanding," he exaggerated a wink. "Francie's restaurant seems to be doing well and Will...well, Will seems to enjoy his new job, though I've had a devil of a time figuring out what that new job is. Care to enlighten me?"
Hey eyes darkened and a scowl hit her face setting her lips in a thin, pursed line. "You know, I'd actually kill to see the look on Francie's face when this whole thing goes public. If I was to learn that my best friend kept a secret this huge from me, it would quite honestly tear me apart inside. I wouldn't be able to keep myself from wondering what aspect of our friendship had ever been real."
She felt a tightness in her throat but tried to ignore it and keep the hard steely resolve shining through defiant brown eyes. His gaze never wavered, his cerulean eyes holding hers as if fixed in a trance. "What's the last thing you said to them, Sydney? Do you remember what it was?"
His voice was sweet, sickly sweet, and she couldn't stop from recalling three days earlier when they had met for coffee at Francie's before her meeting and London flight.
"Syd, dear god, when will it let up? Seriously, honey, you need a break. Call the crush up and take a naked week off."
"Francie," Sydney grumbled into her latte, Will blushing a bit and taking a bite of his scone.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, one time thing. You know, you're never gonna be happy if you keep working there."
"Contrary to what you and Will think, I like my job."
Francie scoffed, Will sending Sydney a soft, knowing smile. "Please. You like what you do, but not your job. If only there were other banks in Los Angeles."
Managing to change the subject they hung out and laughed until Sydney looked to her phone and hopped up. "Alright, I'm off to a meeting and then to London. I'll be back in a few days."
"Is your crush gonna be there?" Francie asked and saw the flush hit Sydney's cheeks. "Ooooh, round three!"
"I hate you. I really do," Sydney growled, hugging them both.
Will whispered, "be safe," Sydney promising before heading off.
"I hate you is such a strong thing to say. I'm sure you meant it as a joke. But...having that be the last thing to say to someone? Someone you'll never see again? Someone you love?" He shook his head slowly with a wince tilting the right side of his mouth. Standing tall he looked down at the suddenly emotionally open young woman, though her eyes stayed low as she focused on the center of his chest.
"I must admit, I'm terribly excited to learn about this crush, Sydney."
She felt the wetness on her cheeks, cursing her emotions for spilling out on day one, Flynn zeroing in on the conflict behind her eyes and the war she was waging with herself. He reached out and cupped her cheek, smiling when she yanked her head away. "It's not your fault, love, you're a very emotional person. You care deeply and love completely, and in someone with a normal life that's not a bad thing. But we're not normal, are we, Sydney? This is your biggest weakness, and one I intend to exploit over...and over," his words were powerful, and he moved to circle her slowly, his hand coming up and tracing a line behind her shoulders and through her chestnut hair hanging from the ponytail to the opposite side, "and over...and over again." his hand left her shoulder and he moved to stand in front of her with a predatory gleam in his eyes.
Once the camera was set, laptop running, and cables trimmed and sorted, Flynn looked to his watch. "Well, eight hours to go before we're live. Sit tight, we'll be in to finish up just before the zero hour."
Finally left alone with her all-consuming thoughts, Sydney sniffled into the empty room as she finally admitted to herself that she was terrified.
…
