COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Eyghon
Author's notes: It’s my first Alias fic and I’m French, so go easy on me please… Thanks to Lenafan for beta reading, you're doing a wonderful job ! I’m a big fan of Irina and I wish there have been more Syd/Irina’s moments in the show, so my fic will be like half about that. It’s obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway, I don’t speak Russian but Irina and her SVR buddies do, so you just have to pretend that they are talking in Russian.
Summary: It’s hard to make one which sounds appealing without giving too much away...
AU : After leaving America when Sydney was 6 years old, Irina was “re-educated” in Kashmir and sent back in the field to work for the KGB. When the USSR collapsed, she joined its replacement, the SVR, and has worked for them ever since. There is no SD-6, no “The Man”, but Jack does works for the CIA, without Sydney’s knowledge, who is now a regular soon-to-be adult.
Prologue
Fyodor Chevchenko held a meeting in his office with his top agents, two men and a woman. All three were listening to him with rapt attention.
“Jack Bristow managed to escape Taipei with our disk. It contained important intel on both the SVR and the CIA, gathered by the Japanese intelligence. Needless to say, as soon as they decipher it, we will be vulnerable. It should have been them in this position! We had this disk, we could have had some of the names of their agents, some of their knowledge, some of the locations of their agencies and safe houses… but no! Bristow had to steal it from our agent, killing him in the process! He’s always getting in our way, making us look like fools!” The man burning with rage, ranting, but quietly concluded: “It would do some good damage to the CIA if they were to lose him.”
“What do you suggest we do, Sir?” Asked the youngest, Nikolai Valenkov, not sure what his boss was asking him to do.
“He must be terminated immediately.”
The woman flinched, but quickly covered it. “Isn’t it a little extreme, Sir?”
“Why do you think that, Agent Derevko?” He smirked at her, his contempt clearly showing.
Irina had to act carefully, as Chevchenko was well aware of who Jack was, or rather, has been, to her: her husband, and the father of her child, back in America, so many years ago.
“Well, as you said, he would be an important loss for his agency, as he is very skilled…”
“Are you praising an enemy agent, Miss Derevko?” growled her boss. He voluntarily called her Miss instead of Agent. It was well known here in Moscow SVR’s Headquarters that Fyodor Chevchenko was against the employ of women in the SVR’s ranks, and that he despised those whom he was forced to mix with.
“No Sir! I am merely saying that instead of terminating him, we should use him to our advantage.” Being called "Miss" was not pleasant as it was meant disrespectfully here.
“And how do you suggest we do that, of what use could it be to us?” He didn't see the point of her request and was intent on showing her. “He was captured several times by different agencies over the world and never gave away anything. Capturing him ourselves and torturing him would only be a waste of our time.”
Irina had come up with a plan a few hours ago, actually, she had started plotting different courses of action when rumours about an American agent about to be terminated had spread throughout the office.
Before, she wasn’t yet aware of the identity of said agent, but had assumed the worst, and planned ahead. Jack was an excellent agent, probably the best, and had been causing trouble to the SVR, among others, for some time now. She knew that it was only a matter of time before her superiors decided to get rid of him, even if it meant unleashing the wrath of the “o so powerful” CIA on Russia.
She couldn’t warn Jack that there was going to be a contract on his head, because he believed her to be dead, plus, it would be the death of her. She could not let him be killed either because of what it would do to their daughter. She couldn’t imagine her little girl, though now past the teenager stage, lose another parent. Still, she was not sure that she was making the right decision by exposing her plan to her superior, because if she was given the go ahead, it would jeopardize Sydney’s life forever.
“I’m aware of that Sir, but Jack Bristow has his weakness, as does every American man.”
Chevchenko, Valenkov and Probulov were watching her intently, waiting for her to carry on, but she remained silent.
She could see a spark of interest – or was it an evil glint? - in Fyodor’s eyes, as he prompted her: “And what would that be, my dear?”
The woman plastered one of her trademark smirk on her lips, interiorly swallowing the bile rising up her throat, before exposing her scheme to blackmail the infamous Agent Jonathan Donahue Bristow into giving them back the precious disk.
Chapter 1: Surveillance
Finally, the meeting was over. It took some time and a lot of explanations, but Irina managed to convince her superior she could get the disk back, and it seemed appealing enough that Chevchenko backed down of the idea of killing Jack. The fact the CIA would cause them even more damage if they were to kill Bristow was a good argument too: The CIA, in its kindness, and despite the ruthlessness of its “concurrent”, always used tranq darts instead of real bullets to neutralize enemies agents. They might no be as gentle if they came face to face with an agent from the organisation that killed one of their own.
The plan seemed simple enough, in its basic form, as she exposed it to Chevchenko and her fellow officers: they needed the disk that only Jack could procure, which he couldn’t do if he was dead, and to obtain the disk, they needed Jack’s cooperation, and for that, they needed a strong argument: his daughter, Sydney.
Fyodor gave her carte blanche, Valenkov and Probulov would accompany her to America. They would start by keeping watch on their target, who, as the daughter of a high-ranking officer of the CIA, would be protected. Learning her routine and the one of her surveillance team would help them determine the best moment to grab her. This was the most difficult part, to get her away from the US without leaving a trail. The whole mission would take a week, maybe more, there were a lot of things they couldn’t assess from Russia. They couldn’t wait too long either, because if the CIA deciphered the disk, it would be useless to carry on with the mission.
The three Russians left for the US the same day on a private airplane. They arrived at night and discreetly settled into a safe house in Los Angeles, just a few blocks away from where Sydney Bristow lived. They took advantage of the darkness outside to check out the neighbourhood, and possibly spot the CIA agents assigned to the girl.
The area was quiet, everyone seemed asleep as there were no lights coming from anywhere in the streets. It was almost one in the morning. The house hadn’t changed a bit in twelve years. The front door was the same, made of strong wood, not the easiest way to enter the house. The garden was well kept, full of roses.
There were no cars in the driveway, and Irina knew Jack never parked in the garage, so she assumed he was not at home at the moment.
“It’s a good thing. We don’t need him to interfere. It will be easy if she’s alone,” noted Nikolai.
“Yes, but check out the black sedan parked in front of the next house, they are not fitting in. I see two men inside.” Probulov was a talented agent, as was Nikolai, but in a different way. Aged of 49, he had seen lots of things, carried on hundreds of missions, and was a brilliant strategist. He would take care of everything related to Jack Bristow once they had Sydney. They were very much alike, maybe it explained why Irina liked to work with him so much.
“There is another CIA team behind the house,” announced Irina, who had kept driving around the block while observing her surroundings. They were nearing the back of the house, after passing by another sedan in which sat two more men.
Again, no changes in the house, there were bushes here and there, some of them partly hiding from the street the window on the left of the door, which lead to the kitchen. Irina remembered when she had seen the house for the first time, almost twenty years ago, on a rainy Monday. She had feared the sun wouldn’t come through the windows because of those bushes, but had been reassured when visiting the house a second time, in broad daylight. Jack and she had signed the contracts this day. Here too the door was reinforced, making it impossible to break in the house. Irina took note of that, as did her comrades: that would leave them only the window if they needed to get inside of the house.
Irina left the area as discreetly as she had come, without the CIA teams noticing anything suspicious about the blue SUV with tinted windows that had not even made a full turn around the block. The three agents smiled. Contrary to those stupid monkeys, they fitted perfectly into this neighbourhood, where the majority of the residents drove a SUV.
Sunday was a sunny day, it was now 11 in the morning and some of Sydney’s neighbours were washing their cars while others were mowing their lawn. Valenkov and Irina sat in their car, almost right under the CIA’s nose, and watched as their target made her way toward her neighbour’s house. She stopped in the front yard, saying hello to a blond woman who was watching over her three kids. They talked for a while and then Sydney took of running towards the park. The surveillance equipment stuffed in the car allowed the SVR’s agents to listen to the conversation, in which the blond woman thanked the brunette for baby sitting, adding that her kids adored Sydney ; thus causing a smile to creep over Irina’s lips. Her daughter had really turned into a fine young woman, perfect on all sides. In full jogger attire, complete with running shoes, her walkman’s earphones now firmly plucked in her ears, Syd put on her sunglasses and enjoyed her ride.
“She’s beautiful.” Thought Irina. She couldn’t take her eyes off of her daughter. It was the first time she was seeing her in ten years. Even from that distance, the mother in her recognized her the second she came out of the house. Her long brown hair held in a ponytail, her sparkling brown eyes before she covered them with sunglasses… She was amazing, Irina was captivated.
- “And here I thought all American girls were fat and only into alcohol and junk food! This girl is hot!” Her partner declared, seemingly amused, and oblivious to her.
Irina inwardly growled, she knew of her partner’s multiple flings, and how he treated women. The fact that he was hitting on her daughter was not pleasant, but she couldn’t really say “stay away from my child you pig”, so she just clinically observed: “She’s quite muscular, she must exercise a lot, it could cause us trouble, she could fight back harder than we expected.”
The man laughed, scornful. “So what? We’re SVR agents, she’s merely a girl, a kid even. If you don’t feel up to it, I can take her down anytime I want, she won’t be a problem to me.”
Irina glared at him, glared at him, and he swallowed. He knew he had better not screw up the mission, and fooling around with the woman was not a good idea. She was older than he was and he heard that she was one tough cookie and a damn good agent. Some even said she was a match for that American agent, Jack Bristow.
They couldn’t follow the girl because the men parked in the car got out, following her as best as they could. They were trained agents but the nice thing with surveillance is that you often get to just seat and watch. That’s when the Russians agents noticed that both were wearing jogging outfits.
“It must be a habit of hers if the agents came prepared. It could give us an opportunity.” Noticed Nikolai.
“I don’t know… it’s good for us but it depends on where she goes. There are too many people on the streets or in the park, we can’t grab her in broad daylight.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but look, there is no one watching the house anymore. Anybody can go inside unnoticed.”
“Except by the neighbours” snapped Irina. Valenkov was a good agent, he was young, strong, successful, but he had not Irina’s experience, least of all with this kind of mission. He tend to be too impatient, and she didn’t like that.
“They might not always be there. It’s safe to assume that the agents follow her everywhere she goes, and there’s no one watching the house meanwhile.
“We’ll see.”
They remained quiet until their target returned. She was not alone, a young blond man was jogging alongside her. They were followed by the two CIA puppets and arriving fast.
“We need more information on this man and on the agents who are watching the house, on their shifts.”
“I’m on it.” Nikolai started tipping on his laptop, with which their surveillance equipment was linked. He took a photo of each of the three men, trying to discover as much as possible on them, so he could give a complete report to his current boss, Irina Derevko.
“She’s barely sweating, and yet she ran for one hour…” quietly observed Irina, watching her flesh and blood invite the blond man into her house.
“Yep, we’d better not let her escape once we get her, she might just leave us behind.” Agreed her colleague, in an admiring tone that didn’t suit him at all.
Monday at 6h00 sharp, the blue SUV was parked at a different post, they couldn’t risk to attract too much attention. They also had switched the license plates, just in case. The day before, they managed to find out the identity of 8 agents assigned to Sydney. They also discovered the identity of the jogger, a Mr Will Tippin, apparently a friend from school.
At 7h15, they watched as the garage door opened, allowing a burgundy Ford SUV to pull out on the street. The car sped down the road, the sedan and the other SUV following closely.
“She’s driving?! How old is she?!” Valenkov was surprised.
- “Seventeen, the driving age in this state is sixteen,” flatly replied Irina. Inside, she was proud, her daughter seemed to be doing great on her own. But at the same time, she felt sad. Who had taught her little girl how to drive? Who had paid for the car, for her studies. Who told her about sex? Did she even have to endure it? Irina, her mother, didn’t get to see or do all those things with her, she didn’t get to see her grow up, but maybe she could change that, make it up to Sydney. Soon, she promised herself, soon. At least for now, she was able to watch her and learn a little about her. It had been twelve years without even a tiny bit of information on the whereabouts or the situation of her only child. It was hell, but she got used to it. Now that she had her almost right in front of her, she couldn’t imagine going back to Russia without at least talking to her.
The 'cortege' ended up at UCLA, a place Irina thought she would never get to see again. She hadn’t come back to America once since her extraction, ten years ago. Until this day, she had always managed to avoid being sent on a mission to the US. But she certainly didn’t regret taking that one! Being there, watching her daughter park in the student parking lot, seeing hordes of students making their way to their classes or the library… she suddenly felt homesick. She hadn’t noticed before that she missed America, Los Angeles, and especially UCLA, where she taught for several years during her 'stay'.
“The agents aren’t following her further than the parking lot and I don’t think they have someone on the inside watching out for her.”
Irina snapped out of her rather depressive train of thoughts and focused on the task ahead.
“Probably not, but then again, it’s too crowded.”
“Why don’t we just shoot the agents in the front of the house with a silencer, go in, knock her out and get the hell out of this crazy country?!” Nikolai was getting irritated, restless.
“The later they realise she’s gone, the later they’ll start looking for us, giving us a precious advance. That’s why we have to move in without them suspecting a thing. Plus, we can’t afford to have them see us, because they would be able to describe us when interrogated.”
“So what do you suggest we do? If we can’t capture her here or in her house, I don’t see what we can do!”
“Be patient and watch until we get an opportunity”. She was growing rather annoyed of the little brat; she didn’t like it when subordinates questioned her. It was an obvious sign of mistrust, the first step of betrayal. She scolded herself, she should have known better, Fyodor probably asked him to keep an eye on her, because he believed her to be 'emotionally involved'.
Was she?
Chapter 2: Planning
The surveillance went on for the rest of the week without Jack making any appearance, and yet the agents knew for a fact that Jack lived here with Sydney. They observed the young woman's routine from sunrise till the lights went out in the house. Daily reports were made to Chevchenko, who in his turn informed them of his progresses in monitoring the CIA's activities around the disk. They were not even close to figure out the code, so Irina and Nikolai had all the time they needed. The Russians noticed that the CIA agents never followed their target in where she was going, they just parked near enough to have her car in sight, or followed her in the streets, but never inside buildings.
Sydney left for the university everyday around 7h15 to come back before 17h00, she sometimes went to the library, the cafeteria, the running track, the swimming pool… She had no classes on Wednesday all day and on Friday afternoon, and used the time off to do nothing dealing with sports or studies: She would do some shopping at the local supermarket, hang out with her friends or just sleep in.
On Wednesday, both agents had observed as Sydney parked in front of a house a couple of blocks away from her own. A black woman was doing some gardening. She had gotten up and pulled her muddy gloves off to greet the younger girl.
"Sydney!"
"Hi Diane!"
Irina had felt a pang of jealousy at the sight of the two women hugging tightly, smiling broadly at each other. She had then wondered if that "Diane" had replaced her as a mother to Sydney. The thought alone had made her dizzy, from hurting or rage, maybe both.
"I'm here to get Francie, we're going to do some shopping"
"She'll be out in a minute, she's still getting ready."
They had talked about random things for a few minutes until a young black girl, presumably "Francie", had come out of the house. Both teenagers had hopped in the car, happily chatting and laughing. Thirty minutes later, they had pulled into the mall parking lot, to get back out a few hours later and head home.
Irina and Nikolai had noticed that the CIA so-called "agents" hadn't even bothered to enter the underground parking garage, but instead had parked on the other side of the street, meters away from the entrance. More surprising was that they both had gotten out of their car to eat a hot dog at a snack stand at the corner of the street, totally out of sight of the garage's exit. She could hear them talk through the high tech micro dissimulated in the antenna on the roof of her car.
"What's with girls and shopping?! She's been there last week already, and the week before that!" Groaned the older agent, a grey haired fat man.
'Probably somehow incapacitated for field duty, or just a bad element', thought Irina. His –very young- companion, most likely put there to take surveillance lessons, replied:
"I had this girlfriend a couple of years ago, she used to go to that mall like two times a week, but the practically never bought anything. I asked her about it, she said it was a girl thing, that I couldn't understand. I guess they're just doing some window shopping, you know, just looking at pretty stuff, wishing they could afford them."
The older man gave a huff of disdain, munching his hot dog like there were no tomorrow.
Derevko was fuming inside, they were supposed to protect her daughter against people like her… actually not quite like her, because she would never hurt her baby girl, but that's not the point. The point is, those two incompetent morons were no protectors, what if someone tried to attack Sydney, like an enemy organisation, or even a simple thief or a… whatever scum was walking the streets of this big city?! The thought chilled her to the bone. Nikolai too, had noticed the two men sloppiness, but hadn't reached the same conclusions as her.
"That's the perfect setting, a dark underground parking garage, with the right timing no one will see us take her, and the agents won't notice anything for hours." Nikolai was excited, surveillance definitely wasn't his thing, and it was so boring! He was more a man of action than a man of patience. Hell, he hadn't climbed on the top of a ladder so fast from sitting on a car and watching some random girl living her life! He was getting sick of waiting, but his partner had been right, an opportunity had finally arisen, and he intended to take it.
"Yes, indeed." Irina was not as thrilled as was Nikolai, of course, it's the opening they had been waiting since the beginning, she had to go through with it, the game was in motion, there was no backing down now. At least, she had a few days to ready herself to finally meet her daughter.
"You heard them, she'll probably come back next Wednesday. We should go in now, try to see where she's parked, with a little luck, she parks at the same level each time. We can check out the place, see if there are any cameras that we'll need to disable."
"What about the other girl, she will probably accompany Sydney again."
"Sydney?" questioned her companion. Irina stared at him blankly, then understood: She had slipped, she had called their target 'Sydney'. They never called her that, only referring to her as 'the Bristow girl' or 'the kid'. She had just made a huge tactical mistake. Now, Valenkov must suspect that something was amiss with her, and yet, he didn’t say anything.
"We'll just have to eliminate her and hide the body."
"It's little harsh, we don't need to go to that extreme. I'll take care of her, you'll take care of… the other.
"As you wish." He put the car in gear and they entered the underground parking garage, easily spotting the different cameras and more importantly, the "big grey box" that they'd have to hack into to disable the whole security system.
On Saturday night, the two Russians agents were watching the Bristow's house, they had decided to keep up their surveillance to get a back up plan in case things didn't go as planned in the mall the next Wednesday.
Several cars had arrived during the last hour. It seemed that there was a party, it would explain the extensive shopping that Sydney had done at the supermarket earlier. Of course, Irina knew what the occasion was, but she wasn't about to tell that to her partner.
The music could be heard from the street, but no neighbours seemed to mind, as no Police car had came by. 'Sydney must be a good neighbour if they tolerate that', thought Irina, remembering the blond haired woman whom Sydney did babysitting for.
She wished she could be there, inside, partying with her little girl, now officially a woman. Though she doubted Sydney would have ever allowed her to mix with her friends, there was nothing more embarrassing than a parent sticking around at a party. She wondered how in hell her daughter had managed to convince Jack to let her throw a party, but as he hadn't shown up for almost a week now, she guessed the girl didn't ask, mainly for the lack of someone to ask to. The CIA agent was probably in a deep undercover mission of some sort, on the other end of the world, unreachable, indefinitely.
It was incredible, in just a few days, she had learned so much about her daughter's life… she seemed so happy, so perfect… Irina felt somewhat guilty, she was plotting with the SVR to shatter that perfection, that happiness that her baby had managed to find…
A few hours after the first car had arrived, the house emptied, their occupants all going in the street, beer bottles and various glasses of stronger alcohol in hand. Someone had brought a few fireworks, the kind that you can detonate yourself and that still look pretty amazing. Sydney was among the drunks soon-to-be-adults, laughing as the colourful lights erupted in the sky, blissfully unaware of what was to come.
The next morning, around 10, the house was still quiet, everybody was probably still recuperating from the party, or more precisely, from the alcohol abuse. A few cars remained, some guests had taken taxis, some others, Sydney's closest friends most likely, had crashed in the living room. They could be seen through the open curtains of the room.
The Russians had stayed there all night, as had the CIA agents, though they had changed shifts around 6.
A black Sedan pulled up into the driveway, the almighty Jack Bristow had returned.
"The old man is going to have a stroke when he comes in here!" laughed Nikolai.
"He might get angry." Irina's responses were always flat, unemotional, as if she was uninterested, but it was just a cover. She was acting her cold usual self when in the inside, she was fearful. Yes, fearful, for her daughter. Jack would be so mad, he would probably ground the poor thing for weeks if not months. He had never been violent, not with Laura, and certainly not with Sydney, but still, his yelling skills were quite scary sometimes, there was no way to get used to it.
As predicted, soon after he had come in, yelling could be heard, coming from the upper floor of the house. Irina easily identified Jack and Sydney's voices. A few minutes later, Francie, Will and two other young men literally ran out of the house, amazing thing considering the amount of alcohol they had had only a few hours prior. They got to their respective cars, Will offering a ride to Francie, as she was the only one without wheels.
After a while, Sydney followed, an angry Jack on her heels, both exposing themselves to the agent's ears.
"Where do you think you are going?!"
"I need some fresh air."
"You are going to clean up this mess!"
"Just give me a minute okay…"
"What is wrong with you?! I can't leave you a couple of days by yourself without you throwing a party without permission?! You are drunk, and so are your friends, because of you! You're irresponsible!"
"Yes we drank a little, so what?! No one drove drunk, that's why there are crappy cars left in the street! That's why Fran, Will, Charlie and Danny stayed overnight! Why do you always have to make such a big deal out of things?!"
"Yes, let's talk about those boys sleeping with you…"
"For God's sake, they slept in the living room, meters away from me! What, did you want me to tell them to drive back to their place, drunk?! I get it, everything I do is screwing up things with you, is that it?"
"Don't bring that back to yourself, you're seventeen, you're under my responsibility, you planned a party behind my back, involving strong alcohol no less!"
"First, there was no one to ask too, you left me almost two weeks ago without saying much of a goodbye, and you didn't even call once! How was I supposed to contact you?! Second, I'll let you know that I'm not seventeen! I'm eighteen! It was my birthday yesterday, that's why we had the party!"
Jack stared at her, open mouthed, Sydney looking back at him with fury, until she came to a realisation.
"You didn't even know, did you?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, tears were flowing from her puffy red eyes, her anger replaced by deep sorrow. Her own father had forgotten about her birthday, her eighteenth birthday for crying out loud! Irina's heart sank. She knew what a special day it was.
"Sydney."
"Mrs Newman knew." She said accusingly, pointing a trembling finger towards the blond woman's house. "She brought me a cake with eighteen candles, and a CD that I actually like, wrapped in a shiny paper, with a bow..."
"I…"
"I could have understood that you that you weren't there, that you hadn't bought me anything, even that you hadn't called or written, because it would have been no different from the last twelve years… But you didn't even remember." She was desperately trying not to choke on her words. "All those years, it's been my only comfort, to somehow know that you knew… But yesterday, it was my eighteenth birthday, the most important day of my life until today, the only thing you had to remember about me for a whole year… but you managed to screw that up... like you do everything else when it comes to me." Her tone had taken a lower, deeper tone, her eyes cold as ice.
"Sydney."
"How dare you? How dare you giving me lessons, barging in the house, yelling about a couple of dishes, when you don't even remember your only daughter's birthday?! I hate you."
At that moment, Jack felt pain, like he had never felt before. Not when he had seen his comrades die before him, not when he had been tortured for days… not even when he had learned of Laura's betrayal. It was the first time that Sydney pronounced those dreaded words. He knew it would come, someday, he deserved it, but he would have never imagined that he would feel such pain.
Every teenagers fight with their parents, and say things that they don't think, that they regret. However, he knew, he knew Sydney didn't regret a word of what she had said, and he knew she had spoken the truth. And that hurt. He could take physical and psychological abuse, he was trained for that. But nothing had prepared him to feel what he was feeling.
Without giving him time to utter another lame "Sydney", she ran back into the house, leaving him there, paralysed, his face white as a sheet.
The argument wasn't over, the two –make it five- stunned agents watching in utter surprise as the young brunette came back in the driveway, a baseball bat in hand. Jack didn't move a muscle, mesmerised by the scene unfolding in front of him, or still lost in his thoughts.
Approaching the Sedan, Sydney drove the bat right into the driver's window, and leant inside, reaching for the hand brake that she finally released.
Without a word, she opened the garage door with her set of keys that she had picked up with the bat. She got in her car, threw the bat in the backseat and started her engine. She slowly pushed Jack's car out of her way in the street, careful not to push to hard so the car wouldn't bump into the cars parked on the other side of the street. Her SUV was far more powerful and bigger than Jack's long Sedan, soon she was free to go.
Jack was left standing outside, but he wasn't looking "ill" anymore, just… cold. It seemed that he had recovered from his previous "weakness", as he went back inside the house as if nothing had happened.
The CIA agents didn't go after Sydney right away, still stunned by what had just happened. They weren't the only ones. Irina was horrified, she could feel the bile rise to her throat. She felt so disgusted by her husband, and mortified beyond words by the violence of the confrontation between her husband and daughter. 'When and how had they become so estranged from each other?!'
She feared she knew exactly the answer to that question.
Chapter 3: First contact
The following day of their arrival, on Monday night, after their first visit to the Bristow's house the three agents had set up a 'plan of escape'. They needed to get out of the United States as soon as they had the girl. The first step was to steal two get-away vehicles, an easy task that Nikolai managed just fine. He took a white van and a silver SUV, the latter being the only inconspicuous vehicle that could fit two –breathing- people in its trunk. He had driven them to an isolated warehouse "owned" by the SVR near the outskirts of LA. They would then come back with their hostage, ditch the van and take the SUV instead.
An agent would get rid of the van while they would be on their way to Nevada. Once there, they would switch vehicles again and drive to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas where a private jet would be awaiting them. The CIA would check every American, Mexican and Canadian airport after having found nothing at LAX. Many jets were continuously flying in and out of LAS; the SVR's would be one of many, an untraceable way of leaving the country.
Irina had designed the plan with Probulov's help, who would take care of his business with Jack on his own. The plane in Las Vegas was courtesy of the SVR, and Nikolai and her would pilot it themselves, as it was not essential to involve professional pilots, even trusted by SVR. The flight would be untraceable to Russia, their final destination, but they would make a quick stopover in France and take another SVR jet, just to be safe. Once in Russia, they would hide their hostage in a random house, on loan from a SVR agent who didn't need it. Even if the CIA discovered that the Bristow girl was in SVR custody, they would start with checking known possible locations such as warehouses, maybe safe houses, but they would never think of an agent house. It would be impossible for them to check anyway, because even the organisation's other agents were not privy to those personal information.
Today Nikolai was driving the van, they were waiting for Sydney a few blocks away from the mall, parked in a street perpendicular to the one she would be on. They knew where she was coming from and where she was going, no need to take the risk to be seen by the CIA agents by following her from her house to the inside of the mall parking. Around 14h00, her burgundy SUV passed them, closely followed by a black Sedan. Valenkov pulled out of their parking spot, turned left and ran the intersection's orange light to not get left behind. They could see a head above the passenger seat, probably Francie, as expected. In the Sedan, Irina recognised the agents from last Wednesday, they had kept the same shifts all week long. Today they would probably go back to the snack stand.
On the way to the parking garage, Irina had readied herself to act like an agent. This mission was no different than the countless others she had lead. Nikolai and her were on their way to capture her innocent daughter… no, scratch that. Nikolai and her were on their way to capture an important target for the SVR's interests. This was not an innocent girl, this was not her daughter. This was a soon-to-be prisoner of the SVR.
She was doing that for her country. 'My country, what a joke!' She had ceased believing in that felgercarb years ago, when the KGB, supposedly acting for the good of Russia, had forcefully pulled her out of her assignment in America. 'They made me give her up'. They had stolen her motherhood from her, they had kept her from seeing her baby girl grow up into what she was seeing today.
America had felt like home for years, home was where Sydney and Jack were. She was angry at her country for throwing her in hell when she had came back, but what would the United States have done with her if she had been caught? After all, today there was the "scandals" of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Grahib, who knew what the US government was hiding at the time? The fact that people "cared" about what happened to the Iraqis, Afghans and whoever else was in there didn't mean that anyone would have cared about Russians prisoners during or after the Cold War. Certainly they would have found a way to get back at her for "killing" their agents. Bunch of fools, if they knew! They could have left her to rot in there for years… Or maybe they wouldn't even have bothered with her and just sent her to the electric chair without other form of trial… But in this case, she wouldn't have what Russia was "giving" her today, the chance to see her daughter as a grown woman…
"We're almost there." Interrupted Nikolai.
Lost in her thoughts, Irina hadn't noticed that they were one block away from the parking garage. When they had come back from their first visit there, Nikolai had opened himself a back door in the mall security system so he could hack into it later.
She typed a few keys on Nikolai's laptop, instantly disabling the security cameras inside and outside the underground parking. They were nearing the access ramp, one car behind Sydney's. The CIA agents were getting out of their car, parked around the same spot as last week. 'Good boys'. Sydney directly went to level-2, and the SVR's agents followed, parking their van a few meters away from the exit ramp. They pulled their masks on, they were already wearing gloves so no prints would be left inside their car or anywhere else in this place.
Irina took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the task ahead. As a SVR agent, it was her duty to bring their target in, by whatever means possible. There was no place for mistakes… or feelings.
Both agents walked stealthily between rows of cars, closing in on their target. Sydney had parked half way between the exit ramp and the elevator, Irina and Nikolai had a two minutes window to act.
They came from behind, Irina struck the black girl over the head with her gun, letting her collapse on the ground. She then picked up the car keys, which had escaped her daughter's grasp when Nikolai had grabbed her. For an instant, their eyes met, Sydney's full of terror and incomprehension, Irina's stone cold. Seeing the masked woman heading back to her fallen friend, Sydney struggled even more against her captor, screaming under the hand covering her mouth. Valenkov dragged her away from the brightly lit alley, towards a free spot next to a pillar, where he waited for Irina to come and give him a hand. They didn't need the girl to kick in cars while passing them, the littlest of shock could set off a shrilling alarm. He was tempted to use his taser to calm her down, but that would admit that she was giving him a hard time.
Irina didn't look back, simply picked up Francie and threw her over her shoulder as if she were a potato sack.
Sydney finally seemed to recall that she had teargas in her bag, her father had insisted that she carry one with her at all times, arguing that young women were easy targets for robbers in Los Angeles's streets. She didn't think it would ever come in handy, but she wasn't about to complain about having it right now.
Irina made her way back towards the burgundy SUV and dumped the body in the trunk, locking it and throwing the keys away. With the force of the blow, the girl wouldn't wake up for hours, and by the time she was rescued, the SVR agents would be long gone.
Sydney's hand finally closed on the tiny bottle, she closed her eyes and pressed the button, aiming the spray behind her, where she thought the man's eyes were. Miraculously it worked and he let go of her mouth, but was still holding her against him with the other.
"Let go damn it!" She tried to hit him, without much success, her only satisfaction being that he was still groaning from the pain in his eyes. The commotion had alerted his colleague, who was now hurrying towards them. Sydney had momentarily forgotten about the woman.
At that moment, the elevator's door opened, the woman barely had time to duck in the row of cars before the occupants could see her. She soon joined Nikolai and Sydney, who was frantically struggling against the man. Irina brusquely pressed her taser against Sydney's neck, causing her to instantly loosen her grip on Nikolai's arms, but she wasn't out yet. She felt defeated, she hadn't seen the woman coming, too busy struggling to notice her creeping behind the row of cars, out of sight of the newly arrived people. She was about to use the little strength she had left to try and scream, despite Nikolai's hand still covering her mouth, but the woman, seemingly reading her thoughts, pulled out her gun, training it on the people who had just walked out of the elevator: A woman and two children, a little boy and a little girl.
"You make a noise and they die." Murmured the woman, looking at her straight in the eye. She was not bluffing, Sydney knew. She resigned herself and quietly watched as the family-minus-a-father took off in a silver SUV parked a few cars from her own.
The woman grabbed her legs while Nikolai held her under the arms. They carried her to their van, the woman took the wheel while the man threw her in back, pinning her down on her stomach. She wouldn't keep still so he hit her in the ribs, causing her to cry out in pain.
Irina flinched as she heard her daughter's cries. She tightened her hold on the steering wheel, causing her knuckles to turn white.
Meanwhile, her colleague managed to tie his captive's hands behind her back, tightening the rope around her wrists. She was still gasping for air when he pulled a black cloth over her eyes.
"You stay down, you don't move." He ordered. "She's secured." He announced, pulling his mask off, while Irina did the same. They were now in the street going along the mall, the CIA agent's car was parked at the same spot, they hadn't notice anything and wouldn't for hours.
"How are your eyes?"
“Fine! That little b*tch…” He kicked the prostrate figure in the legs and she pulled herself into a foetal position.
"There's a bottle of water beside you, pour some into your eyes."
Irina glanced in the rear-view mirror, and wished she hadn't. Her heart sank at the sight of her sobbing daughter, huddled on the floor. 'This is my fault'. She had suggested the whole kidnapping idea, she had designed the plan almost all by herself, and she had known all along what it would entail. And all that trouble for what? To save a husband that she hadn't seen in years, who believed her to be dead? To save Sydney's father who didn't seem to be much of a father but was acting like a complete jerk? But wasn't she somewhat being selfish? Did Sydney want her father to be saved?
After a one-hour drive, they came near a warehouse, Irina went out to open the door and close it back when they were in. Except for Probulov, they were the only ones involved in this mission, they had no other help whatsoever, except for the 'valet-parking'. Chevchenko had made it clear that secrecy was essential, so the least people knew the better. Certainly, the CIA would go to all of their contacts, and no one would be able to tell them anything if no information was leaked. Derevko, Probulov and Valenkov were Chevchenko's best agents, and the four of them knew they could trust each other, besides Irina's blood relation to their hostage, that is. But she had been the one to come up with the plan so her boss had no reason to doubt her loyalty.
She got out of the van and opened the door, allowing Nikolai and Sydney to get out.
Facing her daughter after ten years of emptiness, being at a reaching distance of her was wonderful. But seeing her hunched posture, her quivering form, hearing her erratic breathing… Irina felt pain.
"Are you coming?" Nikolai was waiting for them near the SUV.
She snapped out of her thoughts and marched Sydney towards his position. She sat her on the edge of the trunk and pulled her sleeve up, accepting the syringe Nikolai was ending her, along with a vial of clear liquid.
"What are you doing?" Asked Sydney, scared even though she couldn't see someone was able to stick a needle into her.
"Relax, I'm just going to inject you a mild sedative…"
"No! Please no! I hate needles! I'll behave I swear…"
"Why do you even bother Irina, just do it and let's get going." Growled the man, his annoyance growing.
Glaring at the young man, she swiftly took hold of her daughter's arm and injected her with the syringe's content.
"Please, don't…" She gasped as she felt the prick of the needle on her arm. Tears rolled from behind the blindfold down to her cheeks. She felt herself go limp, strong arms catching her before she could hit her head.
"We have a long way ahead of us, it's better if you are asleep." Said Irina quietly, sounding like she was apologizing, but not sure if Sydney could still hear her. She felt sorry for the girl, she remembered how upset she would get when she was little and she had to be vaccinated. She would sulk all day and get angry at her mother for making her go to the doctor, not knowing that the pain from the shot hurt her mother as much as it did her.
Her Russian accent was showing strongly, has been since she had gotten out of Kashmir, ten years ago. Now, there was no way that even her own daughter would ever recognise her, but it wasn't because of the accent alone. No, in those twelve years of absence, two of which she had spent in "re-education", she had changed, both physically and emotionally. She would never be the same again, she had known the moment her car had plunged into the cold water that fateful night.
Irina gently laid Sydney's now unconscious form in the back of the trunk, and climbed in after her.
The agents wanted to travel as discreetly as possible, so they changed vehicles and configurations after each major step. A couple had entered the parking garage in a white van, a woman had went out and would drive to the warehouse, a man would drive to Nevada in a silver SUV, a couple would drive to Las Vegas's Airport in yet another car. There was no way to connect them together, to follow them to their final destination.
"Here is your earpiece." Nikolai and Irina would be able to communicate in case of necessity.
"Don’t forget. Don’t drive too fast. We don’t need to be pulled over by the police."
"Make sure the girl stays out and let me take care of my business." Replied Nikolai harshly. The woman didn't mention that she had to help him subdue Sydney and that he had just commented on her methods a minute ago.
He put in a row of suitcases after her and covered everything with a blanket, completely hiding the two women from sight.
Several hours after the silver SUV had left the premises, a young man in his twenties entered the deserted warehouse and left with the van. He drove for a good hour to "Joe's breaker's yard" after having cleaned it up. He parked it in a row of other white vans, nobody would notice it. The CIA wouldn't find it for days if not weeks.
Halfway to Nevada, as she was still lying into complete darkness, only inches away from her unconscious daughter, Irina wondered: Putting her daughter through this hell…
Was it worth it?
Chapter 4: Russia
Irina and Nikolai were flying the plane over the Atlantic Ocean. In Las Vegas, they had switched places, she had driven to the McCarran Airport, following their plan without any problem.
They were in the air for several hours now and the tranquilliser Irina had given Sydney before their departure was starting to wear off. The older agent came inside the cabin to check on her daughter and sat down in front of her. She quietly observed as Sydney slowly emerged from unconsciousness. They had laid her down on a row of seats, keeping her tied and blindfolded so they wouldn't have to put their masks on.
A few minutes later, Irina made her presence known by helping Sydney to sit up.
"Wha…" She coughed and groaned, probably from a drug induced headache.
"Here, have some water, your throat won't remain sore long." Irina helped her to drink from a bottle.
"Thanks." Croaked Sydney once she was done. She felt so disoriented and scared. She had no idea where she was, why she was there or who she was with. "Where are we?" She dared ask, after a long silence.
"On a plane on our way to France."
"A plane? France?" She pondered the information for a moment, it was her first flight ever. Finally, she asked what she was dying to know. "What do you want with me?"
"It's complicated."
"I have a right to know! You people jump on me, you knock me out, you take me away from my country…" Her voice was rising, she didn't like not to know what happened to her, she hated not to feel in control. Her father was selling airplane parts, they lived modestly, and no one in her immediate family was wealthy enough to be asked for a ransom… What in hell did those people want with her?
"Calm down. Just know that if you behave and do exactly as we say, you'll get out of this alive and unharmed" calmly interrupted Irina.
"Unharmed… Oh my God, Francie!" In the van, she had been in full panic mode, and the pain wasn't helping her in thinking clearly. She had completely forgotten that the woman facing her had taken away her friend. God knew what she had done to her! "Where is Francie?! Where is my friend?! What did you do to her?!" She was now frantic, they had killed her, oh God, it was all her fault!
"She'll be just fine, don't worry."
"I don't understand… I saw you take her… Where is she?"
"I hit her over the head, she will be unconscious for several more hours. The people that were supposed to watch over you will soon notice that you are missing and check your car, I left her in it. They will find her and return her to her home."
"The people that… What people?!" She was completely confused, that woman was crazy, she wasn't making any sense.
"I told you, it's complicated, but you will have your answer soon enough."
She got up and fastened her daughter's seatbelt. She couldn't believe she just had a two-way conversation with her little girl, it felt so good despite the settings. "We're about to land, I have to go back in the cockpit. Stay there, don't make a noise, I'll come back to get you in a few minutes."
All the roller blinds were safely closed, making it impossible for outside observers to see the occupants of the aircraft. They safely landed in the Aéroport International Marseille-Provence in Marignane. They had chosen this airport over Roissy-Charles de Gaulles and Orly because it was more discreet, what with not being located in the capital, Paris.
Just like they had done at the Las Vegas airport, they entered a hangar and only when its doors were closed they stepped out, thus preserving their 'privacy'.
Irina carried Sydney from one Lear jet to the other and proceeded to buckle her belt before making her way to the cockpit where she assisted Nikolai in the take off. A maintenance agent would probably come by later and close the hangar door, as he was paid to do.
Once they were well on their way, the woman came back to the cabin, only to see that her daughter was awake and struggling against her handcuffs.
"Too tight?"
The young girl would probably have jumped up in surprise if it weren't for her seatbelt.
"I…" She hadn't heard the other woman come back, now she was in trouble. Her ribs couldn't take more abuse, they must be broken or something because it hurt like hell to even breathe.
"Do not worry. I am not mad." She murmured in her ear, sticking yet another needle in her daughter's arm.
"God no…" She had time to wonder how the woman had approached her so closely without her noticing anything before falling in a dreamless sleep. Funny what drugs can do to you, she could have sworn she felt a soothing touch on her cheek.
Irina didn't take her eyes off of Sydney during the rest of the fly, until Nikolai called her back in the cockpit before they landed in Pulkovo International Airport, situated ten miles south of Saint Petersburg.
They were safe now that they were in Russia. Nobody would question them here, least of all the local authorities, as they were fellow 'government employees'. Of course their business was not very official and certainly not legal, but they still had the credentials to tell the Police to back off, if necessary.
They would both travel inside the car this time, leaving their prisoner alone in the trunk. There was no way the CIA could have followed their trail, but they didn't want to take any chance and switched cars right before leaving Saint Petersburg. The city was close enough to the International airport and quiet enough so that people asking questions would be noticed immediately.
The house they had been lent was fairly isolated without being lost in the middle of nowhere. It was situated along a road going up on a hill, between a forest and a clearing, dominating the town centre. The place was quite beautiful and very spacious, the kitchen had been stocked with food and the owner of the house had brought other supplies for their comfort.
The car they were driving actually belonged to the agent who was lending his house. He hadn't tell anybody that he was leaving town and the locals might find it strange that another car was parked in his driveway. Even half buried in the forest, they had to remain extra careful, the CIA had eyes everywhere, whether it was by technological means or informants, they would look everywhere.
Eyghon
Author's notes: It’s my first Alias fic and I’m French, so go easy on me please… Thanks to Lenafan for beta reading, you're doing a wonderful job ! I’m a big fan of Irina and I wish there have been more Syd/Irina’s moments in the show, so my fic will be like half about that. It’s obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway, I don’t speak Russian but Irina and her SVR buddies do, so you just have to pretend that they are talking in Russian.
Summary: It’s hard to make one which sounds appealing without giving too much away...
AU : After leaving America when Sydney was 6 years old, Irina was “re-educated” in Kashmir and sent back in the field to work for the KGB. When the USSR collapsed, she joined its replacement, the SVR, and has worked for them ever since. There is no SD-6, no “The Man”, but Jack does works for the CIA, without Sydney’s knowledge, who is now a regular soon-to-be adult.
Prologue
Fyodor Chevchenko held a meeting in his office with his top agents, two men and a woman. All three were listening to him with rapt attention.
“Jack Bristow managed to escape Taipei with our disk. It contained important intel on both the SVR and the CIA, gathered by the Japanese intelligence. Needless to say, as soon as they decipher it, we will be vulnerable. It should have been them in this position! We had this disk, we could have had some of the names of their agents, some of their knowledge, some of the locations of their agencies and safe houses… but no! Bristow had to steal it from our agent, killing him in the process! He’s always getting in our way, making us look like fools!” The man burning with rage, ranting, but quietly concluded: “It would do some good damage to the CIA if they were to lose him.”
“What do you suggest we do, Sir?” Asked the youngest, Nikolai Valenkov, not sure what his boss was asking him to do.
“He must be terminated immediately.”
The woman flinched, but quickly covered it. “Isn’t it a little extreme, Sir?”
“Why do you think that, Agent Derevko?” He smirked at her, his contempt clearly showing.
Irina had to act carefully, as Chevchenko was well aware of who Jack was, or rather, has been, to her: her husband, and the father of her child, back in America, so many years ago.
“Well, as you said, he would be an important loss for his agency, as he is very skilled…”
“Are you praising an enemy agent, Miss Derevko?” growled her boss. He voluntarily called her Miss instead of Agent. It was well known here in Moscow SVR’s Headquarters that Fyodor Chevchenko was against the employ of women in the SVR’s ranks, and that he despised those whom he was forced to mix with.
“No Sir! I am merely saying that instead of terminating him, we should use him to our advantage.” Being called "Miss" was not pleasant as it was meant disrespectfully here.
“And how do you suggest we do that, of what use could it be to us?” He didn't see the point of her request and was intent on showing her. “He was captured several times by different agencies over the world and never gave away anything. Capturing him ourselves and torturing him would only be a waste of our time.”
Irina had come up with a plan a few hours ago, actually, she had started plotting different courses of action when rumours about an American agent about to be terminated had spread throughout the office.
Before, she wasn’t yet aware of the identity of said agent, but had assumed the worst, and planned ahead. Jack was an excellent agent, probably the best, and had been causing trouble to the SVR, among others, for some time now. She knew that it was only a matter of time before her superiors decided to get rid of him, even if it meant unleashing the wrath of the “o so powerful” CIA on Russia.
She couldn’t warn Jack that there was going to be a contract on his head, because he believed her to be dead, plus, it would be the death of her. She could not let him be killed either because of what it would do to their daughter. She couldn’t imagine her little girl, though now past the teenager stage, lose another parent. Still, she was not sure that she was making the right decision by exposing her plan to her superior, because if she was given the go ahead, it would jeopardize Sydney’s life forever.
“I’m aware of that Sir, but Jack Bristow has his weakness, as does every American man.”
Chevchenko, Valenkov and Probulov were watching her intently, waiting for her to carry on, but she remained silent.
She could see a spark of interest – or was it an evil glint? - in Fyodor’s eyes, as he prompted her: “And what would that be, my dear?”
The woman plastered one of her trademark smirk on her lips, interiorly swallowing the bile rising up her throat, before exposing her scheme to blackmail the infamous Agent Jonathan Donahue Bristow into giving them back the precious disk.
Chapter 1: Surveillance
Finally, the meeting was over. It took some time and a lot of explanations, but Irina managed to convince her superior she could get the disk back, and it seemed appealing enough that Chevchenko backed down of the idea of killing Jack. The fact the CIA would cause them even more damage if they were to kill Bristow was a good argument too: The CIA, in its kindness, and despite the ruthlessness of its “concurrent”, always used tranq darts instead of real bullets to neutralize enemies agents. They might no be as gentle if they came face to face with an agent from the organisation that killed one of their own.
The plan seemed simple enough, in its basic form, as she exposed it to Chevchenko and her fellow officers: they needed the disk that only Jack could procure, which he couldn’t do if he was dead, and to obtain the disk, they needed Jack’s cooperation, and for that, they needed a strong argument: his daughter, Sydney.
Fyodor gave her carte blanche, Valenkov and Probulov would accompany her to America. They would start by keeping watch on their target, who, as the daughter of a high-ranking officer of the CIA, would be protected. Learning her routine and the one of her surveillance team would help them determine the best moment to grab her. This was the most difficult part, to get her away from the US without leaving a trail. The whole mission would take a week, maybe more, there were a lot of things they couldn’t assess from Russia. They couldn’t wait too long either, because if the CIA deciphered the disk, it would be useless to carry on with the mission.
The three Russians left for the US the same day on a private airplane. They arrived at night and discreetly settled into a safe house in Los Angeles, just a few blocks away from where Sydney Bristow lived. They took advantage of the darkness outside to check out the neighbourhood, and possibly spot the CIA agents assigned to the girl.
The area was quiet, everyone seemed asleep as there were no lights coming from anywhere in the streets. It was almost one in the morning. The house hadn’t changed a bit in twelve years. The front door was the same, made of strong wood, not the easiest way to enter the house. The garden was well kept, full of roses.
There were no cars in the driveway, and Irina knew Jack never parked in the garage, so she assumed he was not at home at the moment.
“It’s a good thing. We don’t need him to interfere. It will be easy if she’s alone,” noted Nikolai.
“Yes, but check out the black sedan parked in front of the next house, they are not fitting in. I see two men inside.” Probulov was a talented agent, as was Nikolai, but in a different way. Aged of 49, he had seen lots of things, carried on hundreds of missions, and was a brilliant strategist. He would take care of everything related to Jack Bristow once they had Sydney. They were very much alike, maybe it explained why Irina liked to work with him so much.
“There is another CIA team behind the house,” announced Irina, who had kept driving around the block while observing her surroundings. They were nearing the back of the house, after passing by another sedan in which sat two more men.
Again, no changes in the house, there were bushes here and there, some of them partly hiding from the street the window on the left of the door, which lead to the kitchen. Irina remembered when she had seen the house for the first time, almost twenty years ago, on a rainy Monday. She had feared the sun wouldn’t come through the windows because of those bushes, but had been reassured when visiting the house a second time, in broad daylight. Jack and she had signed the contracts this day. Here too the door was reinforced, making it impossible to break in the house. Irina took note of that, as did her comrades: that would leave them only the window if they needed to get inside of the house.
Irina left the area as discreetly as she had come, without the CIA teams noticing anything suspicious about the blue SUV with tinted windows that had not even made a full turn around the block. The three agents smiled. Contrary to those stupid monkeys, they fitted perfectly into this neighbourhood, where the majority of the residents drove a SUV.
Sunday was a sunny day, it was now 11 in the morning and some of Sydney’s neighbours were washing their cars while others were mowing their lawn. Valenkov and Irina sat in their car, almost right under the CIA’s nose, and watched as their target made her way toward her neighbour’s house. She stopped in the front yard, saying hello to a blond woman who was watching over her three kids. They talked for a while and then Sydney took of running towards the park. The surveillance equipment stuffed in the car allowed the SVR’s agents to listen to the conversation, in which the blond woman thanked the brunette for baby sitting, adding that her kids adored Sydney ; thus causing a smile to creep over Irina’s lips. Her daughter had really turned into a fine young woman, perfect on all sides. In full jogger attire, complete with running shoes, her walkman’s earphones now firmly plucked in her ears, Syd put on her sunglasses and enjoyed her ride.
“She’s beautiful.” Thought Irina. She couldn’t take her eyes off of her daughter. It was the first time she was seeing her in ten years. Even from that distance, the mother in her recognized her the second she came out of the house. Her long brown hair held in a ponytail, her sparkling brown eyes before she covered them with sunglasses… She was amazing, Irina was captivated.
- “And here I thought all American girls were fat and only into alcohol and junk food! This girl is hot!” Her partner declared, seemingly amused, and oblivious to her.
Irina inwardly growled, she knew of her partner’s multiple flings, and how he treated women. The fact that he was hitting on her daughter was not pleasant, but she couldn’t really say “stay away from my child you pig”, so she just clinically observed: “She’s quite muscular, she must exercise a lot, it could cause us trouble, she could fight back harder than we expected.”
The man laughed, scornful. “So what? We’re SVR agents, she’s merely a girl, a kid even. If you don’t feel up to it, I can take her down anytime I want, she won’t be a problem to me.”
Irina glared at him, glared at him, and he swallowed. He knew he had better not screw up the mission, and fooling around with the woman was not a good idea. She was older than he was and he heard that she was one tough cookie and a damn good agent. Some even said she was a match for that American agent, Jack Bristow.
They couldn’t follow the girl because the men parked in the car got out, following her as best as they could. They were trained agents but the nice thing with surveillance is that you often get to just seat and watch. That’s when the Russians agents noticed that both were wearing jogging outfits.
“It must be a habit of hers if the agents came prepared. It could give us an opportunity.” Noticed Nikolai.
“I don’t know… it’s good for us but it depends on where she goes. There are too many people on the streets or in the park, we can’t grab her in broad daylight.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but look, there is no one watching the house anymore. Anybody can go inside unnoticed.”
“Except by the neighbours” snapped Irina. Valenkov was a good agent, he was young, strong, successful, but he had not Irina’s experience, least of all with this kind of mission. He tend to be too impatient, and she didn’t like that.
“They might not always be there. It’s safe to assume that the agents follow her everywhere she goes, and there’s no one watching the house meanwhile.
“We’ll see.”
They remained quiet until their target returned. She was not alone, a young blond man was jogging alongside her. They were followed by the two CIA puppets and arriving fast.
“We need more information on this man and on the agents who are watching the house, on their shifts.”
“I’m on it.” Nikolai started tipping on his laptop, with which their surveillance equipment was linked. He took a photo of each of the three men, trying to discover as much as possible on them, so he could give a complete report to his current boss, Irina Derevko.
“She’s barely sweating, and yet she ran for one hour…” quietly observed Irina, watching her flesh and blood invite the blond man into her house.
“Yep, we’d better not let her escape once we get her, she might just leave us behind.” Agreed her colleague, in an admiring tone that didn’t suit him at all.
Monday at 6h00 sharp, the blue SUV was parked at a different post, they couldn’t risk to attract too much attention. They also had switched the license plates, just in case. The day before, they managed to find out the identity of 8 agents assigned to Sydney. They also discovered the identity of the jogger, a Mr Will Tippin, apparently a friend from school.
At 7h15, they watched as the garage door opened, allowing a burgundy Ford SUV to pull out on the street. The car sped down the road, the sedan and the other SUV following closely.
“She’s driving?! How old is she?!” Valenkov was surprised.
- “Seventeen, the driving age in this state is sixteen,” flatly replied Irina. Inside, she was proud, her daughter seemed to be doing great on her own. But at the same time, she felt sad. Who had taught her little girl how to drive? Who had paid for the car, for her studies. Who told her about sex? Did she even have to endure it? Irina, her mother, didn’t get to see or do all those things with her, she didn’t get to see her grow up, but maybe she could change that, make it up to Sydney. Soon, she promised herself, soon. At least for now, she was able to watch her and learn a little about her. It had been twelve years without even a tiny bit of information on the whereabouts or the situation of her only child. It was hell, but she got used to it. Now that she had her almost right in front of her, she couldn’t imagine going back to Russia without at least talking to her.
The 'cortege' ended up at UCLA, a place Irina thought she would never get to see again. She hadn’t come back to America once since her extraction, ten years ago. Until this day, she had always managed to avoid being sent on a mission to the US. But she certainly didn’t regret taking that one! Being there, watching her daughter park in the student parking lot, seeing hordes of students making their way to their classes or the library… she suddenly felt homesick. She hadn’t noticed before that she missed America, Los Angeles, and especially UCLA, where she taught for several years during her 'stay'.
“The agents aren’t following her further than the parking lot and I don’t think they have someone on the inside watching out for her.”
Irina snapped out of her rather depressive train of thoughts and focused on the task ahead.
“Probably not, but then again, it’s too crowded.”
“Why don’t we just shoot the agents in the front of the house with a silencer, go in, knock her out and get the hell out of this crazy country?!” Nikolai was getting irritated, restless.
“The later they realise she’s gone, the later they’ll start looking for us, giving us a precious advance. That’s why we have to move in without them suspecting a thing. Plus, we can’t afford to have them see us, because they would be able to describe us when interrogated.”
“So what do you suggest we do? If we can’t capture her here or in her house, I don’t see what we can do!”
“Be patient and watch until we get an opportunity”. She was growing rather annoyed of the little brat; she didn’t like it when subordinates questioned her. It was an obvious sign of mistrust, the first step of betrayal. She scolded herself, she should have known better, Fyodor probably asked him to keep an eye on her, because he believed her to be 'emotionally involved'.
Was she?
Chapter 2: Planning
The surveillance went on for the rest of the week without Jack making any appearance, and yet the agents knew for a fact that Jack lived here with Sydney. They observed the young woman's routine from sunrise till the lights went out in the house. Daily reports were made to Chevchenko, who in his turn informed them of his progresses in monitoring the CIA's activities around the disk. They were not even close to figure out the code, so Irina and Nikolai had all the time they needed. The Russians noticed that the CIA agents never followed their target in where she was going, they just parked near enough to have her car in sight, or followed her in the streets, but never inside buildings.
Sydney left for the university everyday around 7h15 to come back before 17h00, she sometimes went to the library, the cafeteria, the running track, the swimming pool… She had no classes on Wednesday all day and on Friday afternoon, and used the time off to do nothing dealing with sports or studies: She would do some shopping at the local supermarket, hang out with her friends or just sleep in.
On Wednesday, both agents had observed as Sydney parked in front of a house a couple of blocks away from her own. A black woman was doing some gardening. She had gotten up and pulled her muddy gloves off to greet the younger girl.
"Sydney!"
"Hi Diane!"
Irina had felt a pang of jealousy at the sight of the two women hugging tightly, smiling broadly at each other. She had then wondered if that "Diane" had replaced her as a mother to Sydney. The thought alone had made her dizzy, from hurting or rage, maybe both.
"I'm here to get Francie, we're going to do some shopping"
"She'll be out in a minute, she's still getting ready."
They had talked about random things for a few minutes until a young black girl, presumably "Francie", had come out of the house. Both teenagers had hopped in the car, happily chatting and laughing. Thirty minutes later, they had pulled into the mall parking lot, to get back out a few hours later and head home.
Irina and Nikolai had noticed that the CIA so-called "agents" hadn't even bothered to enter the underground parking garage, but instead had parked on the other side of the street, meters away from the entrance. More surprising was that they both had gotten out of their car to eat a hot dog at a snack stand at the corner of the street, totally out of sight of the garage's exit. She could hear them talk through the high tech micro dissimulated in the antenna on the roof of her car.
"What's with girls and shopping?! She's been there last week already, and the week before that!" Groaned the older agent, a grey haired fat man.
'Probably somehow incapacitated for field duty, or just a bad element', thought Irina. His –very young- companion, most likely put there to take surveillance lessons, replied:
"I had this girlfriend a couple of years ago, she used to go to that mall like two times a week, but the practically never bought anything. I asked her about it, she said it was a girl thing, that I couldn't understand. I guess they're just doing some window shopping, you know, just looking at pretty stuff, wishing they could afford them."
The older man gave a huff of disdain, munching his hot dog like there were no tomorrow.
Derevko was fuming inside, they were supposed to protect her daughter against people like her… actually not quite like her, because she would never hurt her baby girl, but that's not the point. The point is, those two incompetent morons were no protectors, what if someone tried to attack Sydney, like an enemy organisation, or even a simple thief or a… whatever scum was walking the streets of this big city?! The thought chilled her to the bone. Nikolai too, had noticed the two men sloppiness, but hadn't reached the same conclusions as her.
"That's the perfect setting, a dark underground parking garage, with the right timing no one will see us take her, and the agents won't notice anything for hours." Nikolai was excited, surveillance definitely wasn't his thing, and it was so boring! He was more a man of action than a man of patience. Hell, he hadn't climbed on the top of a ladder so fast from sitting on a car and watching some random girl living her life! He was getting sick of waiting, but his partner had been right, an opportunity had finally arisen, and he intended to take it.
"Yes, indeed." Irina was not as thrilled as was Nikolai, of course, it's the opening they had been waiting since the beginning, she had to go through with it, the game was in motion, there was no backing down now. At least, she had a few days to ready herself to finally meet her daughter.
"You heard them, she'll probably come back next Wednesday. We should go in now, try to see where she's parked, with a little luck, she parks at the same level each time. We can check out the place, see if there are any cameras that we'll need to disable."
"What about the other girl, she will probably accompany Sydney again."
"Sydney?" questioned her companion. Irina stared at him blankly, then understood: She had slipped, she had called their target 'Sydney'. They never called her that, only referring to her as 'the Bristow girl' or 'the kid'. She had just made a huge tactical mistake. Now, Valenkov must suspect that something was amiss with her, and yet, he didn’t say anything.
"We'll just have to eliminate her and hide the body."
"It's little harsh, we don't need to go to that extreme. I'll take care of her, you'll take care of… the other.
"As you wish." He put the car in gear and they entered the underground parking garage, easily spotting the different cameras and more importantly, the "big grey box" that they'd have to hack into to disable the whole security system.
On Saturday night, the two Russians agents were watching the Bristow's house, they had decided to keep up their surveillance to get a back up plan in case things didn't go as planned in the mall the next Wednesday.
Several cars had arrived during the last hour. It seemed that there was a party, it would explain the extensive shopping that Sydney had done at the supermarket earlier. Of course, Irina knew what the occasion was, but she wasn't about to tell that to her partner.
The music could be heard from the street, but no neighbours seemed to mind, as no Police car had came by. 'Sydney must be a good neighbour if they tolerate that', thought Irina, remembering the blond haired woman whom Sydney did babysitting for.
She wished she could be there, inside, partying with her little girl, now officially a woman. Though she doubted Sydney would have ever allowed her to mix with her friends, there was nothing more embarrassing than a parent sticking around at a party. She wondered how in hell her daughter had managed to convince Jack to let her throw a party, but as he hadn't shown up for almost a week now, she guessed the girl didn't ask, mainly for the lack of someone to ask to. The CIA agent was probably in a deep undercover mission of some sort, on the other end of the world, unreachable, indefinitely.
It was incredible, in just a few days, she had learned so much about her daughter's life… she seemed so happy, so perfect… Irina felt somewhat guilty, she was plotting with the SVR to shatter that perfection, that happiness that her baby had managed to find…
A few hours after the first car had arrived, the house emptied, their occupants all going in the street, beer bottles and various glasses of stronger alcohol in hand. Someone had brought a few fireworks, the kind that you can detonate yourself and that still look pretty amazing. Sydney was among the drunks soon-to-be-adults, laughing as the colourful lights erupted in the sky, blissfully unaware of what was to come.
The next morning, around 10, the house was still quiet, everybody was probably still recuperating from the party, or more precisely, from the alcohol abuse. A few cars remained, some guests had taken taxis, some others, Sydney's closest friends most likely, had crashed in the living room. They could be seen through the open curtains of the room.
The Russians had stayed there all night, as had the CIA agents, though they had changed shifts around 6.
A black Sedan pulled up into the driveway, the almighty Jack Bristow had returned.
"The old man is going to have a stroke when he comes in here!" laughed Nikolai.
"He might get angry." Irina's responses were always flat, unemotional, as if she was uninterested, but it was just a cover. She was acting her cold usual self when in the inside, she was fearful. Yes, fearful, for her daughter. Jack would be so mad, he would probably ground the poor thing for weeks if not months. He had never been violent, not with Laura, and certainly not with Sydney, but still, his yelling skills were quite scary sometimes, there was no way to get used to it.
As predicted, soon after he had come in, yelling could be heard, coming from the upper floor of the house. Irina easily identified Jack and Sydney's voices. A few minutes later, Francie, Will and two other young men literally ran out of the house, amazing thing considering the amount of alcohol they had had only a few hours prior. They got to their respective cars, Will offering a ride to Francie, as she was the only one without wheels.
After a while, Sydney followed, an angry Jack on her heels, both exposing themselves to the agent's ears.
"Where do you think you are going?!"
"I need some fresh air."
"You are going to clean up this mess!"
"Just give me a minute okay…"
"What is wrong with you?! I can't leave you a couple of days by yourself without you throwing a party without permission?! You are drunk, and so are your friends, because of you! You're irresponsible!"
"Yes we drank a little, so what?! No one drove drunk, that's why there are crappy cars left in the street! That's why Fran, Will, Charlie and Danny stayed overnight! Why do you always have to make such a big deal out of things?!"
"Yes, let's talk about those boys sleeping with you…"
"For God's sake, they slept in the living room, meters away from me! What, did you want me to tell them to drive back to their place, drunk?! I get it, everything I do is screwing up things with you, is that it?"
"Don't bring that back to yourself, you're seventeen, you're under my responsibility, you planned a party behind my back, involving strong alcohol no less!"
"First, there was no one to ask too, you left me almost two weeks ago without saying much of a goodbye, and you didn't even call once! How was I supposed to contact you?! Second, I'll let you know that I'm not seventeen! I'm eighteen! It was my birthday yesterday, that's why we had the party!"
Jack stared at her, open mouthed, Sydney looking back at him with fury, until she came to a realisation.
"You didn't even know, did you?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, tears were flowing from her puffy red eyes, her anger replaced by deep sorrow. Her own father had forgotten about her birthday, her eighteenth birthday for crying out loud! Irina's heart sank. She knew what a special day it was.
"Sydney."
"Mrs Newman knew." She said accusingly, pointing a trembling finger towards the blond woman's house. "She brought me a cake with eighteen candles, and a CD that I actually like, wrapped in a shiny paper, with a bow..."
"I…"
"I could have understood that you that you weren't there, that you hadn't bought me anything, even that you hadn't called or written, because it would have been no different from the last twelve years… But you didn't even remember." She was desperately trying not to choke on her words. "All those years, it's been my only comfort, to somehow know that you knew… But yesterday, it was my eighteenth birthday, the most important day of my life until today, the only thing you had to remember about me for a whole year… but you managed to screw that up... like you do everything else when it comes to me." Her tone had taken a lower, deeper tone, her eyes cold as ice.
"Sydney."
"How dare you? How dare you giving me lessons, barging in the house, yelling about a couple of dishes, when you don't even remember your only daughter's birthday?! I hate you."
At that moment, Jack felt pain, like he had never felt before. Not when he had seen his comrades die before him, not when he had been tortured for days… not even when he had learned of Laura's betrayal. It was the first time that Sydney pronounced those dreaded words. He knew it would come, someday, he deserved it, but he would have never imagined that he would feel such pain.
Every teenagers fight with their parents, and say things that they don't think, that they regret. However, he knew, he knew Sydney didn't regret a word of what she had said, and he knew she had spoken the truth. And that hurt. He could take physical and psychological abuse, he was trained for that. But nothing had prepared him to feel what he was feeling.
Without giving him time to utter another lame "Sydney", she ran back into the house, leaving him there, paralysed, his face white as a sheet.
The argument wasn't over, the two –make it five- stunned agents watching in utter surprise as the young brunette came back in the driveway, a baseball bat in hand. Jack didn't move a muscle, mesmerised by the scene unfolding in front of him, or still lost in his thoughts.
Approaching the Sedan, Sydney drove the bat right into the driver's window, and leant inside, reaching for the hand brake that she finally released.
Without a word, she opened the garage door with her set of keys that she had picked up with the bat. She got in her car, threw the bat in the backseat and started her engine. She slowly pushed Jack's car out of her way in the street, careful not to push to hard so the car wouldn't bump into the cars parked on the other side of the street. Her SUV was far more powerful and bigger than Jack's long Sedan, soon she was free to go.
Jack was left standing outside, but he wasn't looking "ill" anymore, just… cold. It seemed that he had recovered from his previous "weakness", as he went back inside the house as if nothing had happened.
The CIA agents didn't go after Sydney right away, still stunned by what had just happened. They weren't the only ones. Irina was horrified, she could feel the bile rise to her throat. She felt so disgusted by her husband, and mortified beyond words by the violence of the confrontation between her husband and daughter. 'When and how had they become so estranged from each other?!'
She feared she knew exactly the answer to that question.
Chapter 3: First contact
The following day of their arrival, on Monday night, after their first visit to the Bristow's house the three agents had set up a 'plan of escape'. They needed to get out of the United States as soon as they had the girl. The first step was to steal two get-away vehicles, an easy task that Nikolai managed just fine. He took a white van and a silver SUV, the latter being the only inconspicuous vehicle that could fit two –breathing- people in its trunk. He had driven them to an isolated warehouse "owned" by the SVR near the outskirts of LA. They would then come back with their hostage, ditch the van and take the SUV instead.
An agent would get rid of the van while they would be on their way to Nevada. Once there, they would switch vehicles again and drive to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas where a private jet would be awaiting them. The CIA would check every American, Mexican and Canadian airport after having found nothing at LAX. Many jets were continuously flying in and out of LAS; the SVR's would be one of many, an untraceable way of leaving the country.
Irina had designed the plan with Probulov's help, who would take care of his business with Jack on his own. The plane in Las Vegas was courtesy of the SVR, and Nikolai and her would pilot it themselves, as it was not essential to involve professional pilots, even trusted by SVR. The flight would be untraceable to Russia, their final destination, but they would make a quick stopover in France and take another SVR jet, just to be safe. Once in Russia, they would hide their hostage in a random house, on loan from a SVR agent who didn't need it. Even if the CIA discovered that the Bristow girl was in SVR custody, they would start with checking known possible locations such as warehouses, maybe safe houses, but they would never think of an agent house. It would be impossible for them to check anyway, because even the organisation's other agents were not privy to those personal information.
Today Nikolai was driving the van, they were waiting for Sydney a few blocks away from the mall, parked in a street perpendicular to the one she would be on. They knew where she was coming from and where she was going, no need to take the risk to be seen by the CIA agents by following her from her house to the inside of the mall parking. Around 14h00, her burgundy SUV passed them, closely followed by a black Sedan. Valenkov pulled out of their parking spot, turned left and ran the intersection's orange light to not get left behind. They could see a head above the passenger seat, probably Francie, as expected. In the Sedan, Irina recognised the agents from last Wednesday, they had kept the same shifts all week long. Today they would probably go back to the snack stand.
On the way to the parking garage, Irina had readied herself to act like an agent. This mission was no different than the countless others she had lead. Nikolai and her were on their way to capture her innocent daughter… no, scratch that. Nikolai and her were on their way to capture an important target for the SVR's interests. This was not an innocent girl, this was not her daughter. This was a soon-to-be prisoner of the SVR.
She was doing that for her country. 'My country, what a joke!' She had ceased believing in that felgercarb years ago, when the KGB, supposedly acting for the good of Russia, had forcefully pulled her out of her assignment in America. 'They made me give her up'. They had stolen her motherhood from her, they had kept her from seeing her baby girl grow up into what she was seeing today.
America had felt like home for years, home was where Sydney and Jack were. She was angry at her country for throwing her in hell when she had came back, but what would the United States have done with her if she had been caught? After all, today there was the "scandals" of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Grahib, who knew what the US government was hiding at the time? The fact that people "cared" about what happened to the Iraqis, Afghans and whoever else was in there didn't mean that anyone would have cared about Russians prisoners during or after the Cold War. Certainly they would have found a way to get back at her for "killing" their agents. Bunch of fools, if they knew! They could have left her to rot in there for years… Or maybe they wouldn't even have bothered with her and just sent her to the electric chair without other form of trial… But in this case, she wouldn't have what Russia was "giving" her today, the chance to see her daughter as a grown woman…
"We're almost there." Interrupted Nikolai.
Lost in her thoughts, Irina hadn't noticed that they were one block away from the parking garage. When they had come back from their first visit there, Nikolai had opened himself a back door in the mall security system so he could hack into it later.
She typed a few keys on Nikolai's laptop, instantly disabling the security cameras inside and outside the underground parking. They were nearing the access ramp, one car behind Sydney's. The CIA agents were getting out of their car, parked around the same spot as last week. 'Good boys'. Sydney directly went to level-2, and the SVR's agents followed, parking their van a few meters away from the exit ramp. They pulled their masks on, they were already wearing gloves so no prints would be left inside their car or anywhere else in this place.
Irina took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the task ahead. As a SVR agent, it was her duty to bring their target in, by whatever means possible. There was no place for mistakes… or feelings.
Both agents walked stealthily between rows of cars, closing in on their target. Sydney had parked half way between the exit ramp and the elevator, Irina and Nikolai had a two minutes window to act.
They came from behind, Irina struck the black girl over the head with her gun, letting her collapse on the ground. She then picked up the car keys, which had escaped her daughter's grasp when Nikolai had grabbed her. For an instant, their eyes met, Sydney's full of terror and incomprehension, Irina's stone cold. Seeing the masked woman heading back to her fallen friend, Sydney struggled even more against her captor, screaming under the hand covering her mouth. Valenkov dragged her away from the brightly lit alley, towards a free spot next to a pillar, where he waited for Irina to come and give him a hand. They didn't need the girl to kick in cars while passing them, the littlest of shock could set off a shrilling alarm. He was tempted to use his taser to calm her down, but that would admit that she was giving him a hard time.
Irina didn't look back, simply picked up Francie and threw her over her shoulder as if she were a potato sack.
Sydney finally seemed to recall that she had teargas in her bag, her father had insisted that she carry one with her at all times, arguing that young women were easy targets for robbers in Los Angeles's streets. She didn't think it would ever come in handy, but she wasn't about to complain about having it right now.
Irina made her way back towards the burgundy SUV and dumped the body in the trunk, locking it and throwing the keys away. With the force of the blow, the girl wouldn't wake up for hours, and by the time she was rescued, the SVR agents would be long gone.
Sydney's hand finally closed on the tiny bottle, she closed her eyes and pressed the button, aiming the spray behind her, where she thought the man's eyes were. Miraculously it worked and he let go of her mouth, but was still holding her against him with the other.
"Let go damn it!" She tried to hit him, without much success, her only satisfaction being that he was still groaning from the pain in his eyes. The commotion had alerted his colleague, who was now hurrying towards them. Sydney had momentarily forgotten about the woman.
At that moment, the elevator's door opened, the woman barely had time to duck in the row of cars before the occupants could see her. She soon joined Nikolai and Sydney, who was frantically struggling against the man. Irina brusquely pressed her taser against Sydney's neck, causing her to instantly loosen her grip on Nikolai's arms, but she wasn't out yet. She felt defeated, she hadn't seen the woman coming, too busy struggling to notice her creeping behind the row of cars, out of sight of the newly arrived people. She was about to use the little strength she had left to try and scream, despite Nikolai's hand still covering her mouth, but the woman, seemingly reading her thoughts, pulled out her gun, training it on the people who had just walked out of the elevator: A woman and two children, a little boy and a little girl.
"You make a noise and they die." Murmured the woman, looking at her straight in the eye. She was not bluffing, Sydney knew. She resigned herself and quietly watched as the family-minus-a-father took off in a silver SUV parked a few cars from her own.
The woman grabbed her legs while Nikolai held her under the arms. They carried her to their van, the woman took the wheel while the man threw her in back, pinning her down on her stomach. She wouldn't keep still so he hit her in the ribs, causing her to cry out in pain.
Irina flinched as she heard her daughter's cries. She tightened her hold on the steering wheel, causing her knuckles to turn white.
Meanwhile, her colleague managed to tie his captive's hands behind her back, tightening the rope around her wrists. She was still gasping for air when he pulled a black cloth over her eyes.
"You stay down, you don't move." He ordered. "She's secured." He announced, pulling his mask off, while Irina did the same. They were now in the street going along the mall, the CIA agent's car was parked at the same spot, they hadn't notice anything and wouldn't for hours.
"How are your eyes?"
“Fine! That little b*tch…” He kicked the prostrate figure in the legs and she pulled herself into a foetal position.
"There's a bottle of water beside you, pour some into your eyes."
Irina glanced in the rear-view mirror, and wished she hadn't. Her heart sank at the sight of her sobbing daughter, huddled on the floor. 'This is my fault'. She had suggested the whole kidnapping idea, she had designed the plan almost all by herself, and she had known all along what it would entail. And all that trouble for what? To save a husband that she hadn't seen in years, who believed her to be dead? To save Sydney's father who didn't seem to be much of a father but was acting like a complete jerk? But wasn't she somewhat being selfish? Did Sydney want her father to be saved?
After a one-hour drive, they came near a warehouse, Irina went out to open the door and close it back when they were in. Except for Probulov, they were the only ones involved in this mission, they had no other help whatsoever, except for the 'valet-parking'. Chevchenko had made it clear that secrecy was essential, so the least people knew the better. Certainly, the CIA would go to all of their contacts, and no one would be able to tell them anything if no information was leaked. Derevko, Probulov and Valenkov were Chevchenko's best agents, and the four of them knew they could trust each other, besides Irina's blood relation to their hostage, that is. But she had been the one to come up with the plan so her boss had no reason to doubt her loyalty.
She got out of the van and opened the door, allowing Nikolai and Sydney to get out.
Facing her daughter after ten years of emptiness, being at a reaching distance of her was wonderful. But seeing her hunched posture, her quivering form, hearing her erratic breathing… Irina felt pain.
"Are you coming?" Nikolai was waiting for them near the SUV.
She snapped out of her thoughts and marched Sydney towards his position. She sat her on the edge of the trunk and pulled her sleeve up, accepting the syringe Nikolai was ending her, along with a vial of clear liquid.
"What are you doing?" Asked Sydney, scared even though she couldn't see someone was able to stick a needle into her.
"Relax, I'm just going to inject you a mild sedative…"
"No! Please no! I hate needles! I'll behave I swear…"
"Why do you even bother Irina, just do it and let's get going." Growled the man, his annoyance growing.
Glaring at the young man, she swiftly took hold of her daughter's arm and injected her with the syringe's content.
"Please, don't…" She gasped as she felt the prick of the needle on her arm. Tears rolled from behind the blindfold down to her cheeks. She felt herself go limp, strong arms catching her before she could hit her head.
"We have a long way ahead of us, it's better if you are asleep." Said Irina quietly, sounding like she was apologizing, but not sure if Sydney could still hear her. She felt sorry for the girl, she remembered how upset she would get when she was little and she had to be vaccinated. She would sulk all day and get angry at her mother for making her go to the doctor, not knowing that the pain from the shot hurt her mother as much as it did her.
Her Russian accent was showing strongly, has been since she had gotten out of Kashmir, ten years ago. Now, there was no way that even her own daughter would ever recognise her, but it wasn't because of the accent alone. No, in those twelve years of absence, two of which she had spent in "re-education", she had changed, both physically and emotionally. She would never be the same again, she had known the moment her car had plunged into the cold water that fateful night.
Irina gently laid Sydney's now unconscious form in the back of the trunk, and climbed in after her.
The agents wanted to travel as discreetly as possible, so they changed vehicles and configurations after each major step. A couple had entered the parking garage in a white van, a woman had went out and would drive to the warehouse, a man would drive to Nevada in a silver SUV, a couple would drive to Las Vegas's Airport in yet another car. There was no way to connect them together, to follow them to their final destination.
"Here is your earpiece." Nikolai and Irina would be able to communicate in case of necessity.
"Don’t forget. Don’t drive too fast. We don’t need to be pulled over by the police."
"Make sure the girl stays out and let me take care of my business." Replied Nikolai harshly. The woman didn't mention that she had to help him subdue Sydney and that he had just commented on her methods a minute ago.
He put in a row of suitcases after her and covered everything with a blanket, completely hiding the two women from sight.
Several hours after the silver SUV had left the premises, a young man in his twenties entered the deserted warehouse and left with the van. He drove for a good hour to "Joe's breaker's yard" after having cleaned it up. He parked it in a row of other white vans, nobody would notice it. The CIA wouldn't find it for days if not weeks.
Halfway to Nevada, as she was still lying into complete darkness, only inches away from her unconscious daughter, Irina wondered: Putting her daughter through this hell…
Was it worth it?
Chapter 4: Russia
Irina and Nikolai were flying the plane over the Atlantic Ocean. In Las Vegas, they had switched places, she had driven to the McCarran Airport, following their plan without any problem.
They were in the air for several hours now and the tranquilliser Irina had given Sydney before their departure was starting to wear off. The older agent came inside the cabin to check on her daughter and sat down in front of her. She quietly observed as Sydney slowly emerged from unconsciousness. They had laid her down on a row of seats, keeping her tied and blindfolded so they wouldn't have to put their masks on.
A few minutes later, Irina made her presence known by helping Sydney to sit up.
"Wha…" She coughed and groaned, probably from a drug induced headache.
"Here, have some water, your throat won't remain sore long." Irina helped her to drink from a bottle.
"Thanks." Croaked Sydney once she was done. She felt so disoriented and scared. She had no idea where she was, why she was there or who she was with. "Where are we?" She dared ask, after a long silence.
"On a plane on our way to France."
"A plane? France?" She pondered the information for a moment, it was her first flight ever. Finally, she asked what she was dying to know. "What do you want with me?"
"It's complicated."
"I have a right to know! You people jump on me, you knock me out, you take me away from my country…" Her voice was rising, she didn't like not to know what happened to her, she hated not to feel in control. Her father was selling airplane parts, they lived modestly, and no one in her immediate family was wealthy enough to be asked for a ransom… What in hell did those people want with her?
"Calm down. Just know that if you behave and do exactly as we say, you'll get out of this alive and unharmed" calmly interrupted Irina.
"Unharmed… Oh my God, Francie!" In the van, she had been in full panic mode, and the pain wasn't helping her in thinking clearly. She had completely forgotten that the woman facing her had taken away her friend. God knew what she had done to her! "Where is Francie?! Where is my friend?! What did you do to her?!" She was now frantic, they had killed her, oh God, it was all her fault!
"She'll be just fine, don't worry."
"I don't understand… I saw you take her… Where is she?"
"I hit her over the head, she will be unconscious for several more hours. The people that were supposed to watch over you will soon notice that you are missing and check your car, I left her in it. They will find her and return her to her home."
"The people that… What people?!" She was completely confused, that woman was crazy, she wasn't making any sense.
"I told you, it's complicated, but you will have your answer soon enough."
She got up and fastened her daughter's seatbelt. She couldn't believe she just had a two-way conversation with her little girl, it felt so good despite the settings. "We're about to land, I have to go back in the cockpit. Stay there, don't make a noise, I'll come back to get you in a few minutes."
All the roller blinds were safely closed, making it impossible for outside observers to see the occupants of the aircraft. They safely landed in the Aéroport International Marseille-Provence in Marignane. They had chosen this airport over Roissy-Charles de Gaulles and Orly because it was more discreet, what with not being located in the capital, Paris.
Just like they had done at the Las Vegas airport, they entered a hangar and only when its doors were closed they stepped out, thus preserving their 'privacy'.
Irina carried Sydney from one Lear jet to the other and proceeded to buckle her belt before making her way to the cockpit where she assisted Nikolai in the take off. A maintenance agent would probably come by later and close the hangar door, as he was paid to do.
Once they were well on their way, the woman came back to the cabin, only to see that her daughter was awake and struggling against her handcuffs.
"Too tight?"
The young girl would probably have jumped up in surprise if it weren't for her seatbelt.
"I…" She hadn't heard the other woman come back, now she was in trouble. Her ribs couldn't take more abuse, they must be broken or something because it hurt like hell to even breathe.
"Do not worry. I am not mad." She murmured in her ear, sticking yet another needle in her daughter's arm.
"God no…" She had time to wonder how the woman had approached her so closely without her noticing anything before falling in a dreamless sleep. Funny what drugs can do to you, she could have sworn she felt a soothing touch on her cheek.
Irina didn't take her eyes off of Sydney during the rest of the fly, until Nikolai called her back in the cockpit before they landed in Pulkovo International Airport, situated ten miles south of Saint Petersburg.
They were safe now that they were in Russia. Nobody would question them here, least of all the local authorities, as they were fellow 'government employees'. Of course their business was not very official and certainly not legal, but they still had the credentials to tell the Police to back off, if necessary.
They would both travel inside the car this time, leaving their prisoner alone in the trunk. There was no way the CIA could have followed their trail, but they didn't want to take any chance and switched cars right before leaving Saint Petersburg. The city was close enough to the International airport and quiet enough so that people asking questions would be noticed immediately.
The house they had been lent was fairly isolated without being lost in the middle of nowhere. It was situated along a road going up on a hill, between a forest and a clearing, dominating the town centre. The place was quite beautiful and very spacious, the kitchen had been stocked with food and the owner of the house had brought other supplies for their comfort.
The car they were driving actually belonged to the agent who was lending his house. He hadn't tell anybody that he was leaving town and the locals might find it strange that another car was parked in his driveway. Even half buried in the forest, they had to remain extra careful, the CIA had eyes everywhere, whether it was by technological means or informants, they would look everywhere.
