Chapter Five

Irina

Breezes rustled the palm tree branches and scattered the loose white sand of the beach in little flurries against the thick posts holding up the beach house deck. Just a few feet away lay the calm jade ocean. Small waves lapped at the shore and curled around a woman's sophisticated ankles.

She was standing completely still, letting the waves bury her feet in the sand. Her loose linen pants fluttered in the breeze, the hems damp. As if she were hugging herself, she gripped her shoulders to ward against any sudden chills. And long red-brown hair blew behind her while her deep brown eyes squinted against the setting sun as it balanced on the horizon.

This place was her stronghold, her fortress, her home. She had located and bought it soon after she has escaped the US, unbeknownst to the KGB. She had asked for a leave of absence, citing psychological reasons as a result of her deep-cover mission. She had disappeared here to "recover," but also had another purpose. She had also come here to bring another daughter into the world.

At that time, Irina had stayed on the island only as long as was necessary to birth Paris and then get back in shape. Then she had gone back to the KGB with no one the wiser but the nanny. Soon, she found herself with many opportunities that led to her leaving the KGB and becoming "The Man." During that role she had taken plenty of "business trips" alone; returning to the island to spend a few days with her growing daughter and leaving new instructions with the nanny. It worked for a long time.

Then her stint as The Man was ended by her firstborn, and she hadn't been able to return for a long time after that anonymous security was gone. Other things had become very important, and her latter daughter had become an understanding person.

Irina made sure that Paris was raised knowing the truth. She was well aware of the reasons for her mother's prolonged absences. And she had a better childhood than most children. The nanny soon became her teacher as well and she was taught self-defense and weaponry. By now, she could speak as many languages as her mother. Paris had also always shown she'd inherited the temper of her father along with the looks of her mother. She was definitely Jack's, and Irina had purposely chosen to give her his last name, legally. Still, recently she'd been meeting people from Irina's world and had wisely chosen to go with the name Derevko amongst them.

Irina shifted her feet out of the wet sand and started slowing walking along the surf, deep in thought.

Although most people who knew her, or thought they did, would have said that she's always worked with others or was loyal to others, her only ultimate loyalties had ever been to herself. And she would never harm her family. Hurting them might have been necessary, and although the things she'd done seemed like betrayals, they weren't. They only seemed that way because Jack and Sydney did not have all the information she did. Hurt them? Yes, she'd had to. Harm them? Never.

She took a deep breath in an attempt to focus on the present and still her inner troubles. But it didn't work. Her best agent lay inside her house with gunshot wounds that would keep him out of service for at least a month...probably two. And there was no one else she could trust with his duties. She wished for a moment she had not sent Sydney back to the CIA.

But that was a foolish wish. Sydney needed to be exactly where she was, in the condition she was, and both of them knew it. Well, Sydney had forgotten it. Her memories of Irina, Paris, and the beach house were gone. But she would remember eventually. Everything had been planned out with great detail and care.

Sloane was the more immediate problem. When he'd finally regained consciousness, Sark had reported that his agents retrieved the vial. Irina cursed under her breath. This made the 9th one that he had barely beaten her to. She thought about the final prophecy Rambaldi had written. It's full scope wasn't well known except to the highest followers. Irina knew because once she had seen the page naming her in a major role, she had made it her business to know.

The prophecy had been split apart, written on 47 different blank pages. And each page seemed to be complete in itself and required a different liquid compound to bring out the ink. She knew that by now Sloane had amassed most of the pages and quite a lot of the vials, but she was fairly certain he wasn't any farther along in understanding Rambaldi's endgame that she was. Irina knew the pages would make no coherent sense unless all were exposed and placed in the right order. Even if only one page was left blank, it would not be clear. This was the main reason she knew her plan had a good chance of succeeding. She was collecting as many vials as she could as insurance and to gain more time.

So far she had collected 19. She did not know how many Slone had, besides the 9, but that was no problem. Her agent in within was quite capable of finding out if she ever really needed to know. Irina stopped her pacing and began to walk back up the beach, back to her house. One more night of reviewing the details and hammering out kinks and soon she could get the real action started.

Sydney

The surveillance cameras are blinking their little green and red lights back at my unamused eyes. I wonder who is watching me from the other side; do they find it as ironic as I do that I was placed in my mother's old cell? I have come to the only conclusion I can. I am a highly dangerous person and I don't know why.

I turn my back to the camera and lay down on the cold steel cot. There are so many questions that I want answers to. But I have no idea when I'll get them. What has happened to Sloane? Is he dead? Alive? Are we still looking for him or is he found and the task of taking him down underway? Vaughn said Will was ok, but that's not enough information. What has happened to him these past years? Is he still with the CIA? Did he have to go into the Witness Protection Program? And last but definitely not least, do they have any information on me from these years? My current location suggests they either know as much as I do, or they know some pretty terrible things and took the opportunity to apprehend me for crimes I do not remember.

I take a deep breath and sigh. The worst would be that I was taken by Sloane, brainwashed, forced to work for him, and flaunted to the CIA. He couldn't have resisted it. And the CIA thinks I've turned. No, the realy worst part would be that I can't even defend myself. There is great evidence I have been fighting. Besides the new scar on my stomach, I've found one on my right shoulder and one on my left hip. Both small but recent.

I suddenly wish I could talk to my dad! He would give me a chance to talk and would listen to me...unless he thinks I'm following in my mother's footsteps. But where is he? Why haven't I seen him yet? And Dixon? And Marshall? And Weiss! Did he encourage Vaughn to go on and forget me when they couldn't find a trace? Or did all of their trust in me and Vaughn's love for me die while they watched me do horrible things that I can't remember?

I am soon crying. Not just for the loss of Vaughn, but for the loss of my old life and these years I should have been fighting for good as well. They are also tears of protest against the thought that I might have been fighting for evil.

Jack

In the main room of the Joint Task Force the stern man stood stiffly watching the live surveillance of a certain cell. The familiar young woman sitting alone in the cell had started sobbing and it broke his heart he could do nothing about it.

As Jack watched his daughter, just as many questions flowed through his head as had been flowing through hers. The truth as he knew it was there had been no sign of her for the one year and ten months he had been searching diligently. And then one day, out of the blue, she called and asked to come in. Kendall was right to be cautious, but forbidding any contact with Sydney unless personally authorized by him was a bit too much.

He hadn't heard a thing about her situation since the call informing him of her contact and that Agent Vaughn would be delivering her to the JTF in the morning. Jack wondered what had happened to her to make her cry like that. A few more moments looking at the image, and he though…well, since when am I one to always follow the rules! Jack turned and walked crisply down the hall to the access gates.

As he walked, his mind still churned. Mostly with frustration for Kendall. What did the man hope to accomplish by keeping her under lock and key as a high profile prisoner? Jack assumed there would be a debrief and tests, but he knew there were better accommodations than her mother's old cell. He assumed Kendall had made that connection on purpose. No one would miss it.

Jack knew there were plenty of unknowns in this case, but damn it, this was his self-righteous daughter and he was going to give her the benefit of the doubt unless there was concrete proof that she had changed her allegiance.

He knew he was being the rare optimist for her, but the worst thing to happen to him besides losing his wife had happened and this was a change he'd never thought to get. After Sydney's disappearance, he had completely closed off and lived with one purpose only. To make Sloane and Irina pay. There was no doubt in his mind that they were behind it.

Now, the one person who could honestly say he fully loved and could straighten things out was sitting in her traitorous mother's cell, looking more broken than he'd ever seen her.

Jack put his card key in the access slot and let the computer take his fingerprint. The gates started to rumble up and to the side as he was cleared and he walked down the hall.

She looked so defeated. He stood quietly in front of the window, knowing she would have heard the gates and would soon turn and look for her visitor. She was still lying on the cot, her arms folded around her body and her legs curled up together. She made a quick movement of wiping off her cheek and calming her breathing. Only when she'd gathered herself together did she look up.

"Dad!" She cried out, her voice sounding strangled.

Jack wondered at the mix of relief, reserve, love, and anger that flashed in her eyes.

He watched with his poker face as Sydney swung herself off her bed and came to stand in front of him. She looked at him curiously, and tucked her hair behind her ear. It was plain she was unsure how to react to him.

"Where have you been?" he asked in his sternest voice. Might as well get down to business; he'd never give her the chance to knowingly crush him if he told her what he was feeling.

Sydney pulled back as if slapped, a puzzled look now on her face. "Kendall didn't tell you?"

Jack just stared, "Tell me what?"

"That I don't know," she paused. "I can't remember."

"You can't remember where you've been, what you'd done, for almost two year?" This was not anything Jack had predicted her answer could be.

"Dad!" Her voice took on an almost frantic note.

"You've got to believe me! I can't recall a thing! I passed out after the fight with Francie's double and then I wake up in a Hong Kong, wearing different clothes. I call in, Vaughn shows up married and tell me two years have passed! But all I see in that space of time is black. That's all there is. Black."

Jacks eyes became thoughtful as he watched her pace round the cell, her voice hard with a hint of desperation, flinging her hands in emphasis.

"After the black, boom! I wake up in Hong Kong. HONG KONG, with no idea why. Was I on a mission? I must have been working for someone, to be in that city…but were they good or bad?" She stopped in front of her dad and glared at him.

"No, you tell me! Where have I been? What have I been doing?" She kept her voice controlled and pointed.

Jack was honestly startled. He believed her. There was no way she could be acting the pain and loss and fury he saw. He shifted his feet, not knowing what to say and looked at the ceiling, maybe for words.

"You don't know either, do you?" Sydney said softly and resigned. She sighed and turned back to sit on the bed. She balanced on the edge, her hands tucked between her knees, gazing at her shoes.

Jack took a breath and leaned his hands on the ledge while he told her his side of the story.

"Vaughn called me that night after his debrief, sounding panicked and saying he'd found Tippin injured and the place a wreck. When I got to your apartment, an ambulance was taking care of Tippin and Vaughn was still frantic." Jack paused, thinking how best to condense into a few sentences the time the whole station had spent looking for her. Time they really needed to have concentrated on finding Sloane.

But there had been no solid clues and tiny leads that dead-ended. By the time they had begun to focus on Sloane again, he was well away with a new network. Now they were hard pressed trying to gain a foothold inside his organization. All agents they had tried to insert had also gone missing. Quickly presumed dead.

"There were no clues, few leads. You'd disappeared. We spent six months with direct orders to find you, but there was nothing." Jack went on quieter. "I've spent the whole time since that night trying to find anything that could help, and I was still shocked to hear you'd voluntarily come back. "

Sydney raised her eyes and stared at him. The JTF spent SIX months just focusing on her? Jack responded to the question in her eyes.

"Yes. Sydney, you were one of the top agents in the whole CIA. They didn't care if it was on purpose or a kidnapping, they weren't about to let you slip away so suddenly or so easily."

Sydney's eyes narrowed with concern. "But I did." She looked away and then looked back, weariness now showing.

"Thank you for not giving up." She said, peering straight in his eyes. Jack let himself smile. He sensed rightly that she still the same Sydney he'd always known.

Jack also added another reason to hate Kendall to his mental list. The man had sent Vaughn to bring her home when he knew perfectly well about the two agents' history.

"Um, Dad? Could you maybe see about getting me a blanket and a pillow?" Jack swallowed and Sydney shifted where she sat, the echo of Irina's past blackmail request present in both of their minds.

He nodded and spoke. "I'll do what I can," he turned to leave and then paused.

"I love you."

Sydney smiled a small, grateful smile as he walked out through the rattle of the bars.

As he passed the surveillance monitors, he saw her standing at the window, leaning on her shoulder in the corner with her arms crossed, her facial features calm.

Jack had never admired his daughter's resilience more than at that moment.