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Chapter 7
Sydney Bristow closes her eyes as the plane takes off from the LA airport towards Japan. It’s only been a little over a month since her last mission with Dixon, but it feels like years since she’s been out in the field. She rarely doubts herself, but deep down in the pit of her stomach she’s scared that she might be a little rusty. She always had Dixon watching her, directing her where to go and coming to support her when she needed it on a mission. This time, she is flying solo and is unsure that everything will go as planned.
She tells herself that she is not Sydney Bristow for the next four hours; she is Ms. Sophia Dubois, a wealthy foreign investor attending an extravagant business party thrown at the residence of the head of a corporate bank. She was told that a long corridor in the East Wing of the mansion would lead downstairs to where all “important meetings” were held and where all valuable assets were kept. She jumps right into character as she is greeted at the door.
* * * * * * *
“She’s good. Gets right into the role. Don’t you think?” Vaughn gives an unamused look. He is upset about the fact that she just showed up on his mission. He felt that he should have been given more warning that she was going to come. Did she not trust him to get the job done?
“ Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”
“ It was a last minute decision made by my father. After I told him your reaction to the counter-mission . . . he thought it would help if I guided you on this one.” He just nods his head. She is taken back. It never occurred to her that he would be this mad that she showed up. She rarely shows up unannounced when he’s out on a mission, but the few times that she did, he seemed surprised, but glad. “ Do you not want me here?”
“ No . . . it’s not that. I just . . . don’t like being surprised . . .when I’m not ready . . .to be surprised,” after the awkward words leave his mouth, he realizes how stupid they were and lets out a laugh. He shouldn’t be mad at her. She is the best handler that he’s had, and he is truly happy that he’s so lucky. He smiles in an apologetic way and she returns it showing her acceptance of the apology. After a few seconds of silence, they both direct their attention back towards the monitors. The first thing he did on the mission was get access to a small control room before Sydney even landed from the plane.
“ If she ever quits the spy trade, she could be a really great actress,” Kristine jokes. They have been watching Sydney from the first moment she walked into the mansion. Vaughn didn’t even recognize her at first with the short blonde wig and the extremely tight business suit.
“ I guess she was made to be a field agent,” Vaughn agrees. They stop talking as they keep a close eye on Sydney as she mingles with the crowds so no one suspects her of trying to steal a valuable disk. They notice that she stops abruptly as she is greeted by another tall woman with long dark brown, almost black, hair.
“ Who’s that?” Vaughn asks.
“ I don’t know. I think she might know her though. They seem to be exchanging heated words.”
“ Do you think her cover is blown?”
“ No, it doesn’t seem like either one is drawing much attention to themselves.” They continue to watch as Sydney and the other woman separate and turn their heads back to give each other challenging glances. Sydney heads to the East Wing stopping only to grab another glass of wine. Her footsteps quicken as she rounds the corner and off the view of the monitor.
“ Okay, I think she’s going down to where the disk is. Are you ready?” Kristine looks Vaughn straight in the eye. Except instead of seeing his green eyes, she sees dark brown ones. She hands him his mask. As he puts it over his head, her hands automatically reach up to help him pull it down and secure it around his neck letting her fingers linger a little longer.
“ How do I look?” he asks light-heartedly. She gives the once over on his black ensemble and ends her gaze at his eyes.
“ I can’t even recognize you . . .” she says with a hint of sad regret. He gives her an affirmative head nod, smiles, and heads out quickly. She is left standing alone in the dark room and says quietly to herself, “ and I’d know you anywhere.”
* * * * * * *
He runs down the long corridor and down the winding staircase to the basement. As he passes the knocked out guards at the front entrance to the storage room, he thinks that she must be an excellent fighter to have those two men down in such a short time. He opens the door slowly and cautiously, takes a step inside, and scans the room for her. The room is very dark and surprisingly empty. The only light seems to be a dim glow in the opposite end of the room on a black desk. He eyes travel down the leg of bureau and could have sworn he saw something move. She was wearing a black suit so he couldn’t be sure. He moves his hand up to his ears and clicks the ear-piece on to hear Kristine’s calm voice.
“ Okay.” She says, “ I checked the surveillance on the connecting hallways and didn’t see her anywhere. So I’m pretty positive that she’s still in the room somewhere. I don’t know if she’s gotten the disk already. Maybe you should try to see if the disk is still there. It’s in one of the drawers.”
He doesn’t doubt that Sydney is still in the room somewhere hiding. Even if Kristine didn’t confirm it, he could feel her presence in some weird way. He walks to the bureau slowly and rummages through each of the drawers. There are a bunch of papers and pictures. Then he sees a wooden box with its lock already pried open. When he opens it, only indentations of where a disk used to be remain. As he steps away from bureau, his eyes catch a piece of a blonde wig at the lower corner under the desk.
Kristine watches his hesitation and stare at the desk and understands. “ Maybe you could pretend to walk away. It is a long room and your black attire will blend in. When she thinks you might be off, she’ll come out.”
He turns around slowly and starts to walk away. As he gets half way to the end of the room and goes into the shadow, he hears her moving from her crouched position under the desk.
“ Are you looking for this?” she holds up the disk in the dim light. He moves out of the shadow, but all she could see is his outline.
He could hear Kristine’s voice reminding him. “ Don’t answer Vaughn.”
Sydney squints hard to try and make out this stranger in black. She gives him a questioning look and guesses at his identity. “ I knew Anna wouldn’t come alone. You must be her partner.”
He remains silent.
“ Not a talker, eh?” Sydney smirks. She doesn’t know what comes over her when she’s on missions to make her say things she normally would not. She is much too confident for her own liking. She makes quick remarks as a defense. The worse thing for an agent in combat to do is let the enemy see her as weak.
He remains still.
“ Not a mover either I see.”
He thinks he must appear really inexperienced at the present moment, but all he can think about is how to get the disk from her without having to fight. With every new remark she has, it is more apparent that he doesn’t seem likely to succeed without it. He knows she is just trying to act tough. He learned to do the same when he started training as a field agent.
His outward appearance is cool, but inside, his brain is working overtime to come up with a plan. He grabs the gun from his side and points it straight at her. Maybe if he threatens for the disk . . .
“ Oh I see. Is that the way you think it’s going to work? That I’m just going to give the disk up? What you have is a toy. I am not threatened by toys.” Sydney mouth rattles on while in her mind, she tries to figure out exactly who is pointing the gun at her. He didn’t deny that he was Anna’s partner. But didn’t let on that he was either. He could be from an entirely different organization, she thinks.
Kristine sees that Vaughn may be in some trouble with this whole unable to talk standard and tries to help him. “Shoot the picture on the wall.”
His finger curls around the trigger, but hesitates.
“If you show her you mean business, maybe she’ll relent a little,” Kristine adds to get him to focus.
He brings his other hand up to give his shaky hand more stability and swallows hard. With one quick jerk to the right, he lets the gun shoot. With a bang, glass is shattered everywhere as the painting falls down to the ground. Sydney feels her stomach jump all the way to her throat but doesn’t let him see her flinch. A few seconds of silence pass as they both could only hear their hearts beating frantically.
“ You missed,” she says as she puts the disk in her pocket and gets ready for a full-on attack. She takes two big steps and kicks her legs up towards his head. Lucky for him, his reflexes are still intact and he quickly ducks. She charges on, throwing punches left and right and he moves quickly to avoid them. “Is this some new technique?” she thinks to herself. She is baffled as to why he only avoids and doesn’t fight back.
His eyes are glued to the disk that is sticking out. As he reaches to grab it from her leg pocket, she gives his arm a swift kick away. Then she spins quickly and kicks him in the stomach. The force was so great that he fell to the floor. Usually Sydney would have started running to get away, but in the back of her mind, she wants to find out the identity of this masked person.
As he tries get up from the ground, she runs over and pins him down with his back hard pressed against the floor. She is on top as her legs are straddling him on either side. She leans in and presses her weight down so he can’t move his legs.
Vaughn could hear Kristine’s frantic voice ringing in his ears, “ Vaughn!! She’s going for your mask! Vaughn!”
He can’t move his leg at all with her right on top, but realizes that his hands are free. Right as her fingers grab onto the bottom of the ski mask at his neck, his hand lands on top of hers and pries her hand away quickly. She doesn’t give up that easily and tries again. This time, she holds one of his hands down with one hand while the other hand goes for his mask again.
“ Vaughn!” Kristine says, “ Use the knife in your other leg pocket . . .Vaughn . . .you will be exposed . . .” He is still immobile as Sydney lifts the mask enough to expose his neck. “ DO IT!!!” Kristine screams.
Time seems to pass by excruciatingly slowly as he reaches with his free arm down. In one quick motion, the blade cuts across her right shoulder. It wasn’t a deep cut, but enough so that blood starts seeping through her shirt. She flinches back with surprise and lets go of his mask. Then as fast as he could, he threw his first punch during their whole fight. She was not ready for his attack and falls to the floor a little dazed. He gets up, grabs the disk, and runs towards the door in a flash.
After a few minutes, Sydney lies on the floor and tries to regain focus. She wasn’t ready for what had just happened in the last part of the fight. Her head is still reeling as she looks around the room. From the doorway, she sees someone walk in. As the person steps closer towards the dim light, she makes out his face. She asks in a shaky voice, “ Vaughn?”
A/N: I know....I know....Don't hate me....I can't believe I made Vaughn cut her either.... :blink: