Title: Double Jeopardy Author: elise2 Email: mciac@hotmail.com Rating: R/NC-17 Summary: AU, angst. A retelling of S3 with Weiss as Irina’s mole Character Pairing: Syd/Weiss Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. Author’s Note: This story presumes nova88’s Amsterdam as part of its backstory. An excellent story if you haven’t read it, but all you really need to know is that immediately following Syd’s death, Jack took Vaughn to Amsterdam and it led to a brief affair. Vast beta gratitude to nova88, girlwithjournal, and c_iulius, all of whom offered wonderful suggestions.
	1 As Weiss maneuvered the faucet, he wondered how he had ever done this the first time around. He wiped his forehead, which was slick with guilt. Whereas in the past, he had looked to Vaughn as a moral compass, situational ethics now ruled the day. He nudged the handle back and forth, preoccupied with achieving the optimal mix of hot and cold as if it really mattered. There was only one question on his mind—what would Jack Bristow do? “I love it when you order me to strip,” Sydney announced as if he’d done it a million times before; he had, not a million, but once. “The contrast between the gentle friend I’ve always known and the insatiable lover I’ve just met is kinda hot.” It had been two weeks since she and Vaughn had faced a North Korean firing squad. It had been a watershed moment in all their lives. While Vaughn had all but admitted his feelings for Sydney, his confession was that of a man about to be shot. However, his honesty was short-lived. On their return, Vaughn had run straight to his wife, leaving Sydney stunned. Her hopes had mocked her like a cruel audience and their taunts had driven her to Weiss’ door. She had been teary-eyed, armed with a jug of tequila. He had supplied the shot glass, the box of kleenex, and the soothing intimacy of friend whose knowledge of her pain rivaled that of a clairvoyant. Weiss laughed quietly as he glanced over his shoulder. Clothes were piled in the corner and she was staring in the mirror, fingers lifting the lower curve of her breasts as if she was weighing them. Her nose wrinkled with the charm of a schoolgirl. “They’re sisters, not twins,” he said, holding his hand under the spigot. He eyed the revolver on the vanity, a now-constant presence in their lives. On reflection, he knew exactly what Jack would do; he’d put a bullet in his head. Weiss raised the temperature, letting the water sear his hand until it was raw. Then, he turned the valve. A fierce stream pulsed from the showerhead, pounding the glass. Her fingernails scratched his scalp, imitating the beat of the water. “Why did it take me so long to notice you?” He blushed; she had never asked him this question. “Because you never really saw me.” She moved past him and led him into the stall. The water cascaded off her hair and shoulders and she offered a gentle shrug by way of apology. “I can’t change the past.” He resisted the urge to point out that it was too late, that she already had. While she was loath to admit it, that had been the point of erasing her memory. Sydney took a bar of soap, then slapped it into his palm. “I want to feel your hands all over me.” The tone of her voice and her brazen desire would have made him nostalgic had he not been the one harboring both of their secrets. While he used to enjoy being at her mercy, knowing that she was at his unnerved him. His hands were slick and bubbly against her smooth skin, spreading the soap like a thin sheen, but his remorse threatened to ruin even the tactile pleasure of the moment. He made a familiar pledge that he would tell her everything next time. Still, the very idea of a next anything was more promise than he could handle. Weiss pulled away from her, but there was no escaping the confines of the stall. His withdrawal surprised her. As he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, her curious eyes judged him. Unruffled, Sydney endured this monumental silence with the poise of an experienced field agent. Lips pursed, she had this uncanny way of staring him down as if she understood every nuance of his guilt. “This is about Vaughn, isn’t it?” She shook her head, dismissing his presumed insecurity. “He knows that you’re a good man.” “But how do you know that I’m a good man?” She waited for him to crack a smile, but none came. “God, you’re serious.” “Did Danny believe that you were a good person?” Weiss shifted his weight yet again. “Did he know that about you?” “I had my share of secrets, but we all do,” she replied. He could only imagine how many hours of therapy it had taken to get her to utter those words so calmly. “God, it was so much easier before,” he muttered. He close his eyes, wishing he hadn’t thrown out that last pack of cigarettes, and took a deep breath. Her fingers pressed against his chest and felt his heart pounding. “I won’t run away,” she whispered. She had no idea that she had already broken this promise once before. As Weiss ran his thumb along her cheekbone, he marveled at her innocence. Vaughn had once told him that she had this light inside of her and he was right. Wet and naked, she shined like no other woman he had ever met. “The one thing you need to understand,” he said, “is that I did it for you.” _________________________________________________________________________ 2 As Weiss stood, his legs spread shoulder’s-width apart, he wondered when the rough hands of a prison guard had come to feel like the gentle touch of a woman. This frisking was the most human affection that he had received in nearly six months, although he doubted whether his last lady-friend qualified as human. A blonde who thought that every topic he brought up was a mute rather than a moot point definitely ranked below Alan on the food chain of companionship. He pushed these thoughts out of his mind as the man’s hands indiscreetly patted down his lower body. Thankfully, the man soon moved on to his torso. “It’s for your own protection,” the guard explained as if he were reading lines from a cue card. Weiss nearly opened his mouth, ready to claim Jack Bristow as a friend, but he knew better. Vaughn was his friend. Jack was just the person who had kept Vaughn alive in the precarious months after Sydney’s death. Vaughn had returned from Amsterdam a changed man and Weiss hadn’t been the only one to notice. He had refused to discuss it—neither his grief over Sydney’s death nor how he had managed to pull himself together. He now sported a high-maintenance girlfriend and a short memory for both his once-best friend and his dead lover. Weiss grimaced as the search continued. “Really, I swear there’s no file hidden in my cake.” No sooner than had he spoken the words, the guard felt at a long, thin object in his shirt pocket. The man ferreted out the black pen, his eyes gleaming like he’d found gold. “The line between life and death is razor thin, my friend.” “It’s my favorite pen,” Weiss said, swiping it out of the guard’s hand. “What do you expect me to do? Prick my finger and take dictation in blood?” The man looked intrigued at the suggestion. “Safety first.” “Bristow may be a traitor, but he’s no Hannibal Lecter,” Weiss said. “Prison changes a man.” The guard’s hand slid into his pocket, reaching for his keys. “You never know who he’d be willing to kill to reclaim his freedom.” “He passed secrets to the woman who shot me in the neck,” Weiss said in an intentionally reassuring tone. He knew better than to argue with the man who controlled the metal bars. “I’m the last person who would help Jack Bristow.” ____________________ Walking into the cellblock was like peeling back the layers of an onion. The clang of each gate closing was drowned out by the sound of another rising. As the guard descended into the heart of the prison, his skin took on the appearance of a bruised apple. Weiss hustled nervously, aware that the blue haze of cheap fluorescents made even his skin look beaten. When he reached Jack’s cell, he barely recognized the man. It had been a mere three months, but his untrimmed beard and the dark crescents under his eyes aged him ten years, if not twenty. “Mr. Weiss,” Jack said. He stood up and approached the bars. “Does Robert Lindsay know you’re here?” Weiss pulled out a small notepad, then reached for his pen and twisted its cap. A red light flashed, causing Jack’s eyes to sparkle with interest. “I’m here about Vaughn,” Weiss said. “I need to know what happened in Amsterdam.” “He’s fine?” The affection in Jack’s voice was unexpected. “He’s all right. He’s seeing someone.” Jack nodded, and then raised his hand to obscure his lips from the security camera. “I need you to relay a message to Irina. Write this down. Place an ad in the London Globe. ‘Distinguished composer looking for music lover,’ with a date and time, use Greenwich mean. At the appointed time, go to the AudioByts chat room.” “Times have changed, Jack. What you did was inexcusable and you have the gall to ask me to pass notes for you?” Weiss’ heart beat wildly in his chest. “There are lines that we do not cross. You got caught, Jack.” Jack directed a furious glance at him. “The lines never mattered, not when Sydney’s life was at stake,” he barked. “This may be the most important thing a mid-level agent like you ever does. Now write this down.” Even behind bars, the older, wiser, and scarier agent could out-intimidate him. Weiss reluctantly began scribbling before Jack jumped through the bars and strangled him. “My handle is Mozart_182, password 1367NWT. Wait for Handel_4me to contact you.” Even while Weiss dutifully took notes, he managed to shake off his obedience. “I’m not gonna do this, there’s no way. You’re the prisoner, I’m the agent, I set the agenda. I’m here to talk about Vaughn.” “Give Irina this address. A-American Storage Self Storage, 11802 Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, locker 152. The security code is 487653. In the left-hand file cabinet, second drawer, in a file marker ‘Lazarey,’ she’ll find proof that Sydney is alive.” Jack’s words pierced him like a bullet. He was short of breath and he felt the veins in his head swell. He focused on his pad and the large S that loomed. “It’s true,” Jack said quietly. Weiss scrambled for words, his eyes darting to every corner of the room. Jack might well be crazy. Like the guard had warned, prison changes a man. “Okay, say she is alive,” he said, playing along. “Why not take the proof to Dixon?” “Because of the CIA’s incestuous relationship with the NSC, neither Dixon nor the CIA can help her.” Anger flared in Jack’s eyes. “Stop mocking me and start trusting me.” It slowly dawned on Weiss that Jack was serious. “If Syd is alive, Vaughn deserves to know,” he pleaded. “Absolutely not,” Jack replied sternly. “I was barely able to keep him alive. A glimmer of hope could destroy him.” He avoided eye contact as he collected his thoughts. “The Sydney I found isn’t the daughter, the friend, or the lover any of us knew. She’s an assassin. For all I know, she may already be dead.” Weiss shook his head. “Whatever she’s been through, it wouldn’t change Vaughn’s feelings for her.” “At this point, I know Vaughn better than you do. He’d never be able to live with the knowledge that he betrayed her with someone else,” Jack said. Weiss swore that he saw a blush rising in his face. “Let him move on.” The pen’s red light flashed twice. “Tell me where you stand.” Weiss looked away and hedged. “I don’t know.” ____________________ Weiss hurried out of the prison, desperate for sunshine and the marginally less stale Los Angeles air. He had gone in looking for insight into Vaughn, but had come away blindsided by Jack’s revelation. He cared for Syd, everyone did, but passing information to Irina was a line that he wasn’t ready to cross. She was the enemy, a fact that Jack had conveniently forgotten. Weiss drove around aimlessly for hours, circling the neighborhood until he stopped in front of Vaughn’s apartment. Jack might not have any scruples, but he did. While he felt compelled to look after his friend’s interests, in truth, he was protecting the vestige of their friendship. It had been months since he had seen Vaughn, not since the NSC inquiry into the escape of Irina Derevko. That day, Weiss had arrived early, hoping to reconnect, but Vaughn had avoided him with the promise that they would catch up after the deposition. The afternoon’s inquiry had left everyone somber. While they had avoided bringing up Sydney, her memory hung in their silence. Her name wasn’t spoken, but she was there, hovering in the back, lingering in every pause. Jack had likewise approached Vaughn, wanting to talk to him as insistently as Weiss did. In the end, neither man got the chance. Vaughn left with the head of the inquisition—a blonde NSC officer named Lauren Reed. In the weeks that followed, Weiss had left messages for Vaughn—at the school where he was teaching, at home, even with his mother—but none was ever returned. As Weiss walked up to the apartment door, an errant thought startled him—he didn’t even know whether Vaughn still lived here. Although hesitant, he knocked on the door. He never expected to see Lauren Reed on the other side. “You’re Eric...” Lauren squinted as if she were confused. “Eric Weiss. I’m an old friend of Vaughn’s.” “He won’t be back until after seven. The car’s oil needed changing.” “Right,” Weiss said, nodding away his discomfort. “Well, could you tell him I stopped by?” Lauren’s nose crinkled slightly. “Absolutely.” As Weiss walked back to his car, he pulled his notes out of his pocket and flipped through them. 11802 Washington Blvd. Weiss looked over his shoulder. Lauren was still at the door. She gave him a polite wave, which he reluctantly returned. His eyes returned to the pad. If Sydney was out there, he had to see it with his own eyes. ____________________ Despite Weiss’ dogged detective fantasies, finding the evidence that Syd was alive was less a trial and more a breeze. He took precautions to ensure that he wasn’t followed, but they were largely unnecessary. Had he been honest, he would have been forced to admit what he’d always known—he flew so low beneath the CIA’s radar that he could have driven there with sirens on and not attracted the attention of a lowly traffic cop. “Loyal to a fault,” Dr. Barnett had labeled him. Written across the psych evaluation in his agent file, it would someday be inscribed on his tomb. His reputation for steadfast loyalty had allowed him to visit Jack’s cell without raising an eyebrow and now it permitted him to slip undetected into A-American storage. Faced with a lighted keypad, Weiss punched in the security code like he was tracing the keystrokes of a familiar tune. The bolt clicked and an interior light came on. The storage locker was damp, its metal interior shiny and crisp. He surveyed the room. Gun racks lined the rear like wallpaper and the room was filled with safes large enough to house a dead body. While he might never know what really happened in Amsterdam, one look around this arsenal told him that ignorance might well be bliss. Weiss found the file cabinet on the left and opened the second drawer. He flipped through the manila folders filled with typed letters, handwritten notes, photographs, even complete dossiers. He reached the folder marked, ‘Lazarey.’ He peeked into it. It contained a CD-ROM and nothing else. Weiss slipped it into his bag and headed home. His apartment wasn’t significantly different from Jack’s storage locker besides containing more cloth and less metal, but it possessed the same combination of light, medium, and dark gray. He opened a bottle of beer and took a big swig as he waited for his laptop to boot up. He put the disc in the drive. Whatever issues Weiss had with Jack, he had always liked Syd, even in the days when he still believed that agent and handler was a line that you shouldn’t cross. The file was an MPEG, dated several months prior. He clicked on the file and waited nervously as static played across the screen. It soon snapped into sharp focus. A blonde woman in a trench coat entered an office. An older man greeted her, and then turned away. She spun around—his chest tightened—Sydney spun around. The knife glinted as she slit the man’s throat. Weiss didn’t know what to make of it. His first thought was that it was old footage, manipulated, doctored, but he didn’t recognize the alias. More importantly, Jack believed it was real. If Sydney was alive, the tape offered a glimpse of a parallel reality—one in which Sydney worked for the other side. He took another swig of beer, wishing he had something stronger on hand to make this new vision of Sydney more palatable. Jack was right; Vaughn couldn’t deal with what Syd had become. Weiss played the video repeatedly, watching Sydney’s gestures, imitating her movements, imagining her words as well as those of the old man until he knew them by heart. He fell asleep sitting at the kitchen table, his face glued to the keyboard. The next morning, Weiss awoke to the annoying ring of his cell phone and a checkerboard imprinted on his face. He sprung out of his chair and found the electrical socket where he had plugged in his charger, then followed the cord under a pile of papers. “Weiss,” he muttered as he separated the phone from the charger. “Agent Weiss, this is Robert Lindsay. I was reviewing the prison logs for Jack Bristow. They indicate that you went to see him yesterday.” Lindsay hesitated, but Weiss was too sleep-deprived to read anything into it. “Curiously, our security cameras didn’t record your conversation.” “It was a routine visit,” Weiss lied. “I was working up a profile on an assassin with whom Jack had had some dealings at SD-6. I thought he might be able to help and last I checked, the CIA and the NSC have an agreement in place that allows for such visits.” “Until Bristow divulges the whereabouts of Irina Derevko, I’m not letting him see another living soul. He’s in solitary until further notice,” Lindsay spat. “And do me the courtesy of forwarding me a copy of that profile when you’ve finished it.” Weiss walked over to the sink and splashed water on his face. “As soon as I know who this assassin is, so will you.” ____________________ Weiss was perched high on the mountain, sunglasses on, hands pressed against the guardrail. Alan stood by his side, tail wagging vigorously. Both man and dog were basking in the late afternoon sun. He had followed Jack’s instructions to a tee. He had placed the ad and logged on to the chat room, but nothing had come of it. A week of waiting had turned into a month of wondering. Then one day, while checking his email, Weiss noticed junk mail from Handel_4me. Disguised as a solicitation from a music school, the email contained instructions for a meet. He was to go to the Laurel Canyon Dog Park just off Mulholland. “Bring the CD-ROM and tell no one,” the message had warned. As he stood there, bare legs and arms tickled by the gusts, he heard the gravel turn. A menacing Great Dane ran up to sniff Alan’s butt. “Good afternoon.” Irina’s voice was smooth, yet rough, like velvet that had been matted down. She bent down and held out her hand. “And you must be Alan.” “Alan with one L, not two.” Irina glanced at him, sizing him up with a scrutinizing stare. “We’re both fortunate that I hit your neck instead of your heart.” Weiss bristled at her nonchalance. “Since when do loyal agents associate with known terrorists?” She was charming Alan, rubbing the soft fur under his chin. “And while we’re at it, how is your sense of duty?” “Unflagging when it comes to Sydney and Vaughn.” Weiss retrieved the jewel case from his backpack. “This can’t be easy for you,” she said softly. “Jack is sitting in a prison cell for having done exactly what you’re doing right now.” He offered her the disk, ignoring her commentary. “Proof that Sydney was alive three months ago.” Irina’s features softened. “I owe you a debt of gratitude.” “Spare me.” Irina slipped the CD into her bag and gave him a quiet nod. As she turned to walk away, Weiss grabbed her by the arm; her bicep clenched at his touch. “What...” Weiss cleared his throat. “What happens now?” “Forget what you know about my daughter. We never met, this never happened.” For the first time in ages, Weiss felt loyalty coursing through his veins. “The man on the tape. He said something, a name maybe. Jul, Julie maybe.” His feet shifted in a nervous dance as his choice became apparent. “I want to bring Syd home—” Irina silenced him, tracing his jaw with her finger. “Dr. Barnett was right about you.” Her warm smile may have effaced the jagged edge of her confession, but Weiss still bristled at the thought of her reading his file. “My daughter is lucky to have you as a friend. I’ll be in touch.” ________________________________________________________________________ 3 When Clark Kent became Superman, he stepped into a phone booth and presto-chango, he became the Man of Steel. For Weiss, the transformation from agent to mole may not have involved blue tights or a red cape, but it did require the heroic inner strength of friend who wanted to overcome Sydney’s problems with a leap and a bound. Weiss secured his headset and adjusted the picture on the monitors. In the two months that he had been working with Irina, the thing that had surprised him the most was how little information he had handed over. Irina followed up the few leads and only occasionally tasked him to provide support, most often in the form of profiles and supplemental surveillance. Several weeks ago, the CIA had sent Weiss to Rome to interview Leon Danilovics, a former K-Directorate asset. Dixon had presumed that there would be little danger, given that the man’s organization had crumbled two years earlier. “I have to keep you out of the line of fire. You’re the most trusted agent I have left,” Dixon had remarked. Weiss had met Danilovics in the dressing room of a CIA asset-cum-tailor named Carducci. While Carducci had shuffled suits in and out of the dressing room, Danilovics had detailed his criminal activities since the demise of K-Directorate. The man had shown Weiss numerous photos, among which had been picture of Sydney. Danilovics had grinned at Weiss’ interest. “Julia Thorne is a deadly beauty, the best assassin the Covenant has.” The break had come when Weiss had least expected it. While giving Irina any intelligence amounted to treason, he felt a strange pride in telling her that he had found Sydney’s alias. For the first time, he had something valuable to offer her. In Irina’s able hands, that clue had led him to his current assignment. He sat in a surveillance van parked on a cobblestone street in Rome in the neighborhood just south of Via Veneto. His eyes scanned the four monitors that covered the lobby of 1124 Piazza Barberini. According to Irina’s contacts, the penthouse was the last known address of Julia Thorne. Weiss’ cell phone vibrated against his chest. He flipped open the top. “Weiss,” he said in a hurried voice. “I heard that you stopped by.” It was Vaughn. “I stopped by two months ago. You need to look into firing that secretary.” Weiss heard his friend’s patented sharp and anxious breath. “It wasn’t Lauren’s fault. She told me, I just—” “Whatever.” Weiss grew distracted as several figures began crossing the screen. It was almost midnight and the chic dinner crowd was finishing up and heading home. Then, Weiss saw her enter the lobby. Her lean legs peeked out from under a leather duster as she headed for the stairs. “Look, I’m in the middle of something. Can I call you later?” “I’m going to ask Lauren to marry me.” “Vaughn, I’m on a mission,” Weiss replied curtly as he grabbed the tranq gun. “Do us both a favor and wait until we can have a long catch up.” “I didn’t realize,” Vaughn apologized, stumbling through his words. “We’ll talk later.” Weiss hung up the phone with a quick goodbye and turned on his comm link to Irina. “Okay, I’m back. I see the package, I’m going in.” “Your disguise is in the crate.” Weiss dug through the pile of clothes, finding an Otis uniform. “I’m the elevator repairman?” “The most beloved repairman there is. I wish I could back you up, but I’m a well-known target of the Covenant. I’d be surprised if she hasn’t already received orders to take me out,” Irina stated plainly. “My sources tell me that she’s been brainwashed. She won’t recognize you. Knock on her door, tell her that she’s the only person who was home and that you need to know what’s wrong with the elevator.” Weiss slipped on a shirt, the name ‘Pirro’ blazed across the breast, and buttoned it quickly. He again sifted through the crate, coming up with a pair of black plastic frames that would obscure his face. “You’re certain she’s not programmed to kill the people she used to know?” “Had I brainwashed her, your life would be in danger,” Irina replied. “She’ll thank you for this someday. Until then, remember that she’s not the woman you used to know.” Lugging a weighty toolbox, Weiss put on his Otis cap and began the climb to the penthouse apartment. At times like these, he relished his anonymity. The building was certainly under Covenant surveillance and a man like Vaughn could never have made it in without raising red flags. Weiss’ footsteps echoed up the stairwell, but footsteps didn’t seem to matter when you were invisible. When he finally reached the door of Julia’s apartment, he took a deep breath and let his chest relax. He reached for the buzzer, but the handle turned before he had even pressed it. “You’re late, Simon. You know how I hate to be kept waiting.” The door flew open. Julia stood before him wearing a pink satin bustier with a black lace overlay, complete with a g-string, black garters, and black patent leather stilettos. She swiftly tied off the sheer black robe that hung from her shoulders. “I’m here for the elevator,” Weiss said, his English marred by a thick Italian accent. He lifted the toolbox as proof of his intentions and perused her curves. However much he wanted to tear his eyes away, that would be breaking cover. If Julia didn’t know him from Adam, he needed to react like any other man so as not to arouse suspicion. “Come in,” she said, backing away from the door. Her eyes focused on his nametag. “Can I get you a drink, Pirro? ____________________ Weiss sat nervously on the couch while Julia grabbed her cell phone. She dialed and then served up two shots of tequila. She set the bottle on the table and he wondered what exactly the protocol was for repairmen in Italy. “It’s me,” she whispered into the phone as she headed out of the room. Weiss looked around the apartment. The decoration was tasteful, shades of brown and orange that made it feel warm like a cocoon, but there was nothing personal about it. Looking into the corners, he noticed that the room was rigged with a security camera whose red light blinked ominously. Julia returned with a saltshaker and a bowl of limes. “Look, I’m tired. I don’t care if you’re already on your way here. Find someone else to fuck tonight.” She took a seat, neck still craned to hold the phone in place. She watched Weiss while she listened, then reached for his face. He wanted to go for his gun, but her movements weren’t threatening. She removed his glasses and laid them on the table. She laughed softly; whatever Simon had said had made her smile. “Think of it as practice,” she replied. “You can surprise me with new tricks. Ciao, darling.” She closed the flip top and tossed the phone onto the other couch. Turning her full attention to Weiss, she narrowed her eyes. “So what is this?” She twisted around and snatched a half-empty pack of cigarettes from the end table. She tapped the bottom and took one as it slid out. “Am I no longer the CIA’s employee of the month?” Her eyes shifted, searching for a lighter. Weiss eyed a Zippo on the table and grabbed it. He offered her a light. She leaned forward, giving him an ample view of her breasts. She blushed at his gaze, prompting his eyes to dart back to the cameras. “No one’s listening, Weiss. They’re on a loop,” she said. She shook her head in confusion. “I’m surprised that Kendall would have involved you. You’re not DSR.” “If you know who I am and you remember who you are, who the hell is Julia and what does Kendall have to do with this?” Sydney recoiled. “You don’t know what I’ve been through.” It wasn’t a question, it was statement, a defense intended to quash his biting tone. “What you’ve been through? I watched Vaughn nearly kill himself. I’ve betrayed my country. Hell, you want to know who helped me find you? One guess,” he said, pointing to the scar on his neck. “So, no, I don’t know what you’ve been through, but when the first words out of your mouth are that you’re working for Kendall and the DSR—yeah, I’m pissed.” He looked her up and down once again, now with a judgmental glare. “Who the hell is Simon?” “Your question isn’t what I’ve been doing, but whom?” She rolled her eyes. “Look, you can go and we’ll both forget that you ever found me.” “You owe me better than—” Weiss stopped, aware that he was voicing Vaughn’s betrayal, not his own. “You gave me up for dead.” She was seething with a fury that no alias could conceal. “I owe you nothing.” “You’re right. You owe me nothing, but there are other people who deserve better than that.” She took another drag off the cigarette and held the smoke in her lungs for a full beat before exhaling slowly. “Simon’s part of my cover.” He had overheard her conversation. She hadn’t tried to conceal the nature of her relationship with Simon. “You’re lovers.” “Thank you, Captain Obvious. I sleep with him because that’s what Julia would do.” She rolled her eyes and let out an angry huff. “When I first called Kendall, I actually believed that the end was in sight. I had Vaughn.” Her brow crinkled. “At least I thought I did.” Weiss wasn’t sure what concerned him more—that she could tell him this without shedding a single tear or that he wanted her to break down so that he could comfort her. “He did love you.” “Kendall warned me not to go back, but I was stubborn,” Sydney continued, disregarding his words. “I told him that nine months was nothing.” Weiss did the math. “He was already dating Lauren.” “Is that her name?” Sydney brought the cigarette to her lips again. She peered over at Weiss, whose eyes were fixated on her hand. “You’re wondering about this.” “Sydney doesn’t smoke, but Julia does? Aren’t you taking the whole night and day cliché a little far?” “Nicotine has biphasic effects of both stimulation and blockade, meaning that its use can provide perceptions of relaxation or alertness depending on the circumstances under which it’s used.” She sounded like a scientist, her justification cool and detached. She handed the cigarette to Weiss. “The truth? Anything that reminds me that I’m still alive is a welcome change.” While he took his turn, she licked the skin between her thumb and index finger, added a dash of salt, and then licked it again. She slammed the shot, then took the lime between her teeth, and sucked it dry. Weiss returned the cigarette to her, then followed her example, consuming his shot as a gesture of sympathy. She poured two more. “So what’s Lauren like? Smart? Funny? Can she grow a beard?” “I shouldn’t say anything,” he replied, pained by her feigned indifference. She brought her knee up against her chest and rested her chin on it, oblivious to her nakedness. He had never seen her so miserable. “I get it, because you’re his friend.” “Actually, no. Losing you, grieving over your death...it changed him. He quit the CIA—” “I thought he wanted to make his father proud?” “Your death destroyed him.” Weiss was even tearing up, just thinking about the fire at the apartment, the ruins of their lives. “We were never close after that. It’s as if he wanted nothing to do with his previous life.” Sydney didn’t say a word, she didn’t even look at him. “He called me an hour ago and told me that he wants to marry Lauren,” he said. “No, I don’t like her, she rubs me the wrong way, but I can’t blame him for sticking with the one person who doesn’t remind him of you.” “Oh.” She looked up, on the verge of tears. He regretted telling her. He could have softened the blow, but honesty had become the night’s theme and he wasn’t going to lie to her now. If she couldn’t have Vaughn, at least she could understand that her death had mattered to someone. Weiss had no idea where to go from here. “So, you’re working for Kendall?” “You’re the only friend I have who knows I’m alive. Telling you what I’m working on would put your life in danger.” She sounded like an automaton, ready to shut down. He kept his eyes trained on her, gauging her reaction. When she turned to him, she reestablished eye contact, as if she had simply decided not to think about it. Vaughn had once told him that Sydney could shut herself on and off like a switch. “How long are you in town?” She spoke like they were old friends who had run into each other on the street, as if she weren’t wearing provocative lingerie, as if he weren’t seeing her as Julia for the first time. He looked away from her bashfully. “My flight leaves tomorrow at noon.” “Direct?” She rubbed out the cigarette until all that was left was a thin trail of smoke. He nodded and stood up, convinced that this was his cue to leave. “I should probably—” “I thought you said your flight was tomorrow.” The mixture of disappointment and surprise in her voice was unexpected, like a lightning storm with no rain. Weiss pushed past her, moving toward the door. “Like you said before. It’s better if I go and we both forget I was ever here.” “Your sources told you that I was programmed. You believed that they had broken me down and rebuilt me as an entirely different person.” Her voice cracked as she tried to get the words out. “Because Sydney would never choose to do this, not willingly. Am I close?” “It’s not you,” he replied. He pulled out his tranq gun and showed it to her. “I was going save you, ride in like a white knight, slay the dragon, kill the messenger, shoot you in the neck...I don’t even know anymore.” “Some women defy being saved,” she said. Her lip trembled with the kind of emotion reserved for men like Vaughn. “The fact that you came here means a lot to me. It’s more than anyone else has done.” Weiss put his hand on her shoulders and pulled her closer. She ran her fingers along the edge of his nametag, and then traced the stitching of his name. “You don’t look like a Pirro.” “Not any more than you look like a Julia.” He ran his finger along the curve of her neck, then lifted her chin. “Tell me why I can’t I take you home again?” “The Covenant would kill us,” she replied. “I’m not ready to die.” Weiss could see the red rising in her cheeks, along with an innocent glow he hadn’t seen in ages. Back in the days when they were working to take down SD-6, Weiss had been amazed not so much at her ability to change skins, but in the moments when Sydney would flit from beneath the disguise, like an actress winking to her audience. When Vaughn asked her out for the first time, Sydney couldn’t contain herself; Weiss had marveled at how she transformed from a purple-haired punk into the girl-next-door before his eyes. Even that first day when she walked into their offices with a red wig and a bloody mouth, he had known that she was greater than the sum of her parts. He shrugged and gave her an awkward grin. She pressed her palm flat against his chest and traced a circle with her thumb. Then she threaded her fingers behind his neck and leaned against him, her breasts threatening to escape their constraints. “You’re not reading the signs,” she breathed. “Signs?” He pretended to look behind her and all around. She teased the hair at his neckline before giving him a tentative kiss. She pulled away. “I stopped you from leaving. That was a sign. The kiss? Also a sign,” she said, arching her eyebrows emphatically. “But sometimes a sign can be an index.” “For example?” She walked him into the recesses of the apartment. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” ____________________ Standing in Sydney’s bedroom as her fingers undid the buttons on his shirt, Weiss had never felt less like himself. Men were supposed to take the lead in seduction—at least that’s what he’d been taught. Here he was, though, too shy to even tell her she was beautiful. Her cheeks hinted at a smile, but her restraint betrayed her nervousness. She finished the last button, then slid the shirt off of his shoulders. It hit the floor and she surveyed his chest, her fingertips dancingly lightly. “Did you ever think about me...you know, before?” Her question caught him off-guard. Did she not realize that every man thought about her? It was a Catch-22. He could either confess to lusting after his best friend’s girl or claim that he’s never noticed her until tonight. He considered turning question back at her, but he knew her answer would fall short of ‘I’ve always loved you.’ Not only had she never thought about him, she was only seducing him now because she had lost every other person who had ever meant anything to her. Still he had to say something. He was about to respond, but she beat him to the punch. “I could lie to you, say that I had,” she said as she unbuckled his belt, pulling it roughly through the loops. She then waited as he took off his shoes and socks. “But I haven’t thought about you.” She unbuttoned his pants with one hand while working the zipper with the other. “Not once, not until tonight.” “I know,” he acknowledged, as she dragged his boxers along with his pants to the floor. He felt like he was watching the whole thing from the bleachers, as if it was a fantasy and he wasn’t an actual participant. Maybe this was what an out-of-body experience was like. He watched as Sydney sauntered over to the bed and turned back the duvet. While he didn’t have to respond to her question, he had to answer to himself. He was human, he was fallible, and maybe all of his lectures to Vaughn about crossing lines had been tinged with a jealousy so basic that even he could not see it. Sydney walked over to him and pushed him back toward the bed. His moral sense insisted that he resist her, but the rest of him clamored to know how this fantasy ended. “This may sound crazy, but I need to know that someone knows who I am. Emotionally, physically.” Her voice was barely there, but her body more than compensated. “I think Vaughn might understand.” When Weiss’ back hit the smooth cotton sheets, his eyes were drawn to the skylight above. He contemplated Sydney’s words while she sprinkled kisses all over his chest. He noticed an angel holding a lantern against the night sky, looming over them, and was captivated. He felt almost as if Vaughn were watching them. He tried to banish the thought from his head as he concentrated on the beautiful woman before him, but Sydney noticed his distraction. “You already have eyes for another woman.” “How do you sleep at night?” Sydney twisted back and looked up above. “She’s my guardian angel. She watches out for me,” she said. “I’m always alone, you know. Even when I’m with someone, I’m still alone.” “Tonight you can be with me. Not alone.” Weiss snaked his arm around her waist and flipped her on her back. “Garters on or off?” “Up to you,” she replied. “But I have one stipulation.” Weiss gave her a skeptical look, curious what her demands might entail. “I have the flexibility of a two-by-four.” She rolled over, and then pulled herself up so that she was on all fours. “You don’t need to be flexible, just attentive,” she breathed. “Stroke my clit the whole time and if you come before I do, you’ll have the wrath of Julia to deal with.” She nodded toward the nightstand. “Lube’s in the top drawer.” He slid her g-string off so that it was around her knees. The sight of her supple ass was driving him wild. His erection throbbed, but he knew he’d have to move slow and concentrate if he was going to outpace her. “I like the garters on,” he said as he searched the drawer. Weiss squeezed a copious amount of lube into his palm. Still staring at her, he kneeled on the bed and began to massage his erection. When he didn’t think he could get any stiffer, he reached between her thighs and slid two fingers inside of her and smiled as she moaned quietly. “Garter, huh? I always had you pegged as an au natural kind of guy,” she said. Weiss pulled his finger out and then teased her, pressing his tip against her entrance. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But I highly doubt you had me pegged as anything other than a friend.” As the words left his tongue, he grew apprehensive. Vaughn had been his friend for so many years and he did love him like a brother, even when they disagreed, but Syd needed him now. He had to remind himself that he hadn’t been the one to turn away and that his ‘friend’ was already seeking solace in the arms of another. He couldn’t deny Sydney the same, nor did he want to. Weiss got his head back in the game and guided himself inside her with a free hand. She was so warm and tight that he knew that this wouldn’t be the worst mistake he had ever made. Winding his arm around her body, he found her clit and focused on it like a bull’s-eye. He thrusted slowly, doing his best to remember what all the players needed to be doing. “I never could walk and chew gum,” he said. “Then focus on me.” She placed her hand on top of his, guiding his fingers around her clit. “Watching me will make you come.” Weiss followed her instructions; odds were that the woman in the pink satin bustier knew a little more about his cock than he did. While his erection pulsed inside of her, building a tense joy all its own, she began to pulsate around him, her body convulsing gently as he focused only on her pleasure. She moaned loudly and she lowered her head and shoulders to the bed. “Grab my hips,” she whispered while panting. If Weiss had thought that the look of her ass made him throb unbearably, the feel of her hip between his fingers, the contrast of flesh and bone, was more than he could take. His knees had been weak when she was on all fours; now that she had changed the angle, the pressure overwhelmed him. “Slow down,” she said. “We have all the time in the world.” Weiss tried counting beats between thrusts as if he was keeping time with a metronome, but his lesson was short-lived. He lost control and collapsed on top of her. He rolled onto his side and buried his nose in her hair, inhaling the undertones of grapefruit and kiwi. “This is a disaster—” “I’m the disaster, you just went to bed with one. Besides, if the issues were that important, I would have never kissed you and you would have never followed me to the bedroom. We both know that in the morning, you’ll go home and I’ll go back to being Julia.” Her hot breath warmed his arm. “I just want to lay here and pretend to be Sydney for a little while longer.” ____________________ Weiss awoke to find her nestled in the crook of his shoulder. Her eyes were wide like saucers and full of questions. “You worked with my mom?” The urgency in her voice told him that she had been waiting and watching for hours. “All the seasoned agents were doing it,” he replied groggily. Until now, he had avoided bringing up Jack, not wanting to worry her. In the light of day, he saw that the whole truth was all she had ever wanted and he wasn’t about to deny her that. He pumped her shoulder, hoping to keep her calm. “So that’s why you haven’t said a word about my dad.” “The NSC threw him in jail. I went to see him about Vaughn, instead he told me that you were alive.” He stroked her hair. “He asked me to tell Irina.” She laid her cheek against his chest. “Vaughn would have never done that.” “No one gave him the chance,” Weiss said, feeling compelled to defend his friend. “You don’t really know.” “He would have wanted to find me, but I think his hatred for my mother would have overshadowed whatever fleeting affection he had for me.” He wanted to correct her, but even he doubted whether Vaughn would have stepped up to the plate. He rolled toward her and the center of the bed sank under their weight. “Ironically, Vaughn was the only one who survived my death. He’s down on one knee while my dad’s in jail and your last kiss was...when was your last kiss?” As she pulled away from him, the sunlight glowed against her, forming a blonde halo. Weiss held onto her hand, preventing her from leaving the bed. “I know I’m not Vaughn and I never will be, but if you need anything—” She smiled. “I’ll find you, I promise.” ____________________ Weiss had left via the service elevator, tipping his hat to a confused doorman on the way out. From there, he bypassed his meet with Irina and instead caught a cab straight to the airport. At the terminal, Weiss checked in for his flight before stopping at a payphone. Inserting a phone card, he dialed the voicemail that Irina had set up for him to contact her. “Houdini here,” he whispered into the receiver. “I found Julia, but she’s not Julia, she’s Sydney pretending to be Julia. No brainwash, at least none that stuck. She’s working for Kendall. There’s no way out.” As the words left his mouth, he felt like a puppet, as if Sydney were a ventriloquist, throwing her voice across the room. “Some women defy saving,” he was about to say, but his voice cheated him, cracking nervously. He caught her bittersweet words crawling across his tongue and echoing in his ears, but they were thwarted by well-timed surge of loyalty. Maybe she was protecting him, protecting them all, but rather than repeat Sydney’s words as if they were a gospel that he believed, he rejected them. “There’s no easy out—” A decisive beep cut him off. Weiss hung up the receiver. He couldn’t risk a second call, but he knew what he had wanted to say. Saving Sydney might be impossible, but that didn’t change the fact that she needed a hero. _______________________________________________________________________ 4 Weiss’ head was spinning like a top whose center kept gravitating back to one spot. He had been circling his block, hunting for a parking space for what seemed like days. The streets of the mid-Wilshire district were always busy, but never more so than in the early evening hours when they hummed with cars and trucks, men and women, children and dogs. A flight delay had drawn out his return. He encountered the same traffic he would have faced had he been commuting. He hadn’t slept at all, and even if he had, he would have dreamt of Sydney anyway. When the knots of guilt tugged at his stomach, his quick wit countered with a feeble defense: what had happened between them had been a natural progression. After all, they had been friends in her previous life. What a crazy thought that was, her previous life, as if she had lived a series of lives that now sat unused on a shelf somewhere. Even so, friendly exchanges over comm links had not prepared him for what he had experienced in Rome—the depth of betrayal and the desperate need that stole beneath her skin like a flame in search of oxygen. His mission had been a simple one, to bring her home, and he had failed miserably. His timing in Rome might have been off, but here at home it was perfect. He landed a space on his block and walked briskly toward his apartment. Leaving Sydney to her life as Julia had been as heart wrenching as any goodbye he’d ever said. For her, this life was a simple fact. She didn’t walk him to the door, or offer him anything more than a courteous hug. She respected the rules that dictated his departure and didn’t make it any harder on him. Despite all that, he swore he had felt her sigh as he had drawn her into his arms. A better agent or a stronger person would have found a way to get her out. When he reached his building, his lights were on and the window flickered with faint images. He set his duffel bag at the foot of the stairwell and drew his gun out of its holster. Carefully, he moved up the stairs. The door to his apartment was slightly ajar. Nudging it open, he scanned the room, stopping when he heard the rattle of bottles. He stood poised and waited for the ‘intruder’ to show himself. While Sydney had been certain that the Covenant hadn’t seen anything, Weiss didn’t share her conviction. Meandering out of the kitchen, Vaughn jumped when he saw Weiss. “Jesus!” His hands shot up into the air, complete with a beer in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. “I thought you were taking something for the paranoia.” “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you,” Weiss retorted as he lowered his gun. The referee’s whistle drew his attention to the television. “We barely talk for months and you decide to drop by to catch the game?” Vaughn lowered his hands tentatively. “I called Craig and asked when you were due back. I left a message saying I would come by, but I thought you’d be back hours ago.” “I haven’t checked my messages.” Vaughn shook his head. “In two days you haven’t checked your messages? Did they send you to the moon?” “Something like that,” Weiss mumbled, wanting to think about anything other than where he had been. “Look, you’ve been avoiding me for months. Now I get a phone call and a visit within a few days of each other?” Vaughn clunked his beer bottle against the table and his jaw tensed. “Don’t take this personally, but after Syd died, everything reminded me of her. My job, my apartment, hell, the sheets on my bed.” He was clearly riled up by Weiss’ accusatory tone. “If I hadn’t gotten some distance, I would have eaten a bullet.” “So Jack has told me.” Weiss realized that he couldn’t reference Jack without sounding snide and possibly jealous. “He did me a real favor,” Vaughn replied, giving him a stern look. “He’s the one who convinced me that I could move on.” “Funny, I never imagined Jack as a grief counselor,” Weiss quipped, trying to diffuse the tension that had flared between them. “So, did he put a gun to your temple and order you move on?” Vaughn shifted his gaze to the floor, yet again refusing to discuss what had happened all those months ago. Weiss hated that he had forced the issue and promptly retreated. His eyes wandered to the bottle in his friend’s hand. “Is that your beer or mine?” Vaughn handed it to him, and then headed back to the kitchen. “So, tough mission, huh?” “Yeah,” Weiss replied. He collapsed on the couch, relieved that he hadn’t left anything incriminating in plain sight. Photos of Sydney were stashed throughout the apartment and he was lucky that his friend hadn’t gone looking for anything more than the remote. Vaughn soon returned and sat down next to him. “How have you been?” Vaughn took a big gulp from his beer, more than Weiss had ever seen him swallow at once. “I popped the question.” “What happened to weighing your options? Two days ago you were thinking about it.” Weiss just stared at his bottle, reluctant to hear Vaughn’s explanation. “It’s what she wants and, after all she’s done for me, I want to do something for her.” “Very altruistic.” Weiss avoided the impulse to smirk. “You know, you could have tried jewelry or perfume, eased your way into the commitment.” Vaughn shifted positions and fixated on the television. “She’s a wonderful person.” “Well, congratulations.” Weiss did his best to sound enthused, but Vaughn already knew where he stood. “Set a date yet?” “Three months.” Vaughn sounded as shocked to be saying it as Weiss was to be hearing it. “So nothing was available next week, I take it.” Weiss caught an angry glare for that remark. He needed a topic change stat. “So, have you thought about coming back?” Vaughn’s brow furrowed with skepticism. “To the Agency?” His friend looked overwhelmed by the question, but the transition was a natural one. After all, if Weiss had to accept losing Vaughn to a woman whom he didn’t like, the logical next step was to recreate the circumstances under which their friendship had first flourished. It hadn’t crossed his mind that having Vaughn back in action would interfere with his pursuit of Julia. “No one blames you for what happened to Syd,” Weiss advised. He clenched his fist and gave Vaughn’s knee a gentle rap, hoping that a gesture might achieve more than his paltry clichés. Still, for all his efforts, Vaughn resisted, hearing only the pity laced through Weiss’ encouraging words. “I went crazy after she died,” Vaughn explained. “It might happen again.” The words now tumbled out of Weiss’ mouth at a breakneck pace, one phrase piled on the next with no thought to what it would mean to work with Vaughn again. “Getting away from it all is fine, but you can’t run forever. You’re an agent; your dad was an agent. It’s in your blood. The Agency doesn’t have to be about Sydney. It wasn’t for all those years before her.” Weiss was reciting the same speech he had delivered when his friend had first announced his decision to leave. As the words reverberated in his head, he realized how hollow their friendship had become. Not only could he not tell Vaughn the truth, he no longer believed his own spin. He didn’t want Vaughn as a partner, not if it meant giving up Sydney. Luckily, Vaughn ignored Weiss’ pitch, instead turning his attention to the final minutes of the game. The noise of the fans and the yelling of the sportscasters filled the lull between them, but not amply. While Weiss hated it when Vaughn shut down and refused to talk about something, this was one time that he was grateful for the silence. The buzzer sounded. The game was over. “You’ll be my best man, right?” Vaughn asked, setting his empty bottle on the table. There had been a time when this would not even have been a question, but then many things had changed. Weiss patted him on the back. “Obviously.” ____________________ If his friendship with Vaughn was now laden with thinly veiled criticism, irony had infiltrated the workplace. The next day Dixon showered him with so much praise that he was convinced that he was the target of an Internal Affairs sting operation. A few moments were touch and go—he feared someone would notice that he now fidgeted with his pen or that he rarely blinked. He showed all the classic signs of treason, but it seemed that no one was looking for a mole on such a sunny day. The source of Dixon’s praise was his work with Danilovics. It seemed that one man’s betrayal was another man’s recruitment pitch. Other rogue terrorists were approaching the CIA, offering intelligence in exchange for protection. Among high-ranking CIA officials, Weiss had acquired a reputation as a smooth-talker capable of extracting whatever the CIA needed from recent turncoats. In the weeks that followed, Dixon assigned him exclusively to handling new assets. While he often felt more like an intake counselor than a field agent, his job now put him in touch with global, organized crime in a way that individual missions never had. Gone were the days of retrieving a camera, an artifact, or some other Hitchcockian MacGuffin only to ship it off to the Bermuda triangle known as the CIA lab. He now had a bird’s-eye view of the Covenant and it was a perspective that made for sleepless nights. Their operation was vast, sprung from the remnants of K-Directorate and the Alliance. With so many mercenaries and not enough employers, competition had been fierce. As many men died as lived, and it soon became apparent that one of their top operatives was none other than Julia Thorne. In the beginning, Weiss wasn’t looking for intelligence on her. He had forgotten her, or at least he had tried to, but every new contact seemed to know the Covenant’s most prized assassin. His informants fleshed out the sordid details of her life, tales that he knew she would never tell. When he heard the story of her capture and subsequent torture, he had to stop the man mid-sentence and leave the dank trailer for a smoke break. He had taken to coping with her life the way she had, with a pack of lights, a Zippo, and a flask of tequila. Taking a long drag, he had to remind himself that if she could survive the torture, he could certainly stomach the telling. Weiss returned to the interrogation with a new resolve and bullied the man, but all he knew was that Julia had been brainwashed. When Weiss came home that night, he sported a bloodied fist. It was only when he was alone in his apartment, feeling the sting of hydrogen peroxide in his wounds, that he had a moment of clarity. Sydney had been right; Weiss had no idea what she’d been through. More importantly, not only had he not forgotten her, he didn’t want to forget her. From that moment on, he fastidiously collected the details of Sydney’s time as Julia. Every informant knew that Julia had stabbed a man to prove her loyalty to the Covenant. It had become a mythic tale of sorts. Yet, from there, the tales diverged. There were stories of men murdered in broad daylight, even one of a man killed as he climaxed. However, through all of the fantastic accounts, the efficacy of her programming was never questioned. They all assured him that no one could have survived what had been done to her. Weeks flew by as Weiss amassed a file of people and places that Julia knew, of allies and targets. The remnants of her missions covered his apartment like a blanket of snow. As he shoveled his way through the intelligence, he was able to reconstruct her past so thoroughly that he believed that he knew it all. Still, when he lay in bed alone at night, he wanted more of Sydney. She was still out there, and tracking where she had been was no substitute for knowing where she was right now. He had one avenue left to pursue. He dialed a familiar number and cleared the nervous twitter from his throat. “Houdini here. I need a favor.” ___________________ Weiss had arrived early at the park, ostensibly to give Alan a good run, but the buffer was really for him. He needed time to change his mind, to rededicate himself to the CIA. When he wasn’t thinking about the velvet smooth of Sydney’s skin, he knew that he was a better man than this, but somehow the hint of musk that lingered on her neck resigned him to his fate. The cold nose of Irina’s dog sniffed the back of his leg and made him jump. Irina threw a tennis ball, distracting her pet. “So is there a rent-a-pet service that keeps a fleet of Great Danes around just in case you’re in town?” Irina indulged him with a nod. “I find your concern for Sydney touching, but there is no escape for her. I can hire a man and keep you informed of her whereabouts, but the Covenant watches her like the U.S. defends Fort Knox. Speaking of heavily guarded government facilities—” Weiss knew that having Syd tailed would cost him, but he had no idea what the price would be. It turned out that espionage worked on a sliding scale. The more he wanted to know, the worse he wanted the intelligence, the greater the outlay for Irina’s cooperation. He handed her a key and his latest pound of flesh. “The blueprints for the DSR facility in Nevada are in a locker in the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal.” “The last of America’s great rail stations,” she observed as if she were a tourist reading innocently from a guidebook. “I didn’t think you’d come through.” “You shouldn’t assume that I could get these again. I had to manipulate Marshall. He’s a good guy and I don’t like doing that,” Weiss said. “You’re such an upstanding citizen that he probably suspected nothing,” Irina said, ridiculing his discomfort. “You’ll get your first report in a week, mixed in with the ads from your morning paper.” She whistled for her dog, which came bounding back to her feet. “Your command of the beast is impressive,” Weiss muttered under his breath. “He knows his place,” she said as she petted the dog. “As should you.” ____________________ Weiss stared into his fridge as if the answers could be found in a climate-controlled, three-by-five box. When he broke it down, all he needed was to take a lesson from Sydney and compartmentalize, putting his friendship with Vaughn on ice while his affection for Sydney flourished in the crisper. Weiss had done an admirable job maintaining his distance, but the more he knew about Sydney, the more he wanted to see her. Weekly updates told him where she was, but not how she was. However, with Vaughn’s wedding looming, he had spent more time being fitted for a tuxedo than keeping track of Sydney. He promised himself that next time he would stalk the other girl-next-door, the one who hadn’t been drawn into a life of secrecy and murder. “I.P.A. or Stout?” he called out to Vaughn, remembering exactly why he had opened the fridge in the first place. “I miss Syd.” Vaughn’s tone sounded so desperate that Weiss could practically imagine the long drawn out pause that followed his words. His chest tightened with apprehension. Never had he been more aware that he could end Vaughn’s angst and never had he been less willing to do so. He grabbed two stouts and returned to find Vaughn with his head in his hands. Weiss nudged his friend’s shoulder, but he wasn’t prepared to see him crippled by a sorrow that he had scarcely seen. He handed him a beer and sat beside him like they were teammates suiting up for the big game. “You know how memories of a person can be so real that you forget that they’re gone?” Vaughn grabbed the opener and removed the top. “I can’t tell this stuff to Lauren.” “Probably a smart move to keep the love for your dead girlfriend on the down-low,” Weiss added in a quiet voice. For once, he was glad that his friend refused to look at him. Had their eyes met, it would have been obvious that he felt the same way about Syd. “I love Lauren, too.” “Sure you do.” Weiss cast a sidelong glance at Vaughn, who was staring blankly across the room. The truth was stark; Vaughn had substituted Lauren for Syd, and even he seemed to know it. “I know you don’t like Lauren.” “She’s no Syd,” Weiss mumbled. Syd deserved a defense in absentia, even if Vaughn thought that she was dead. His words snapped Vaughn out of his trance. His friend’s cheeks blazed with color, but Weiss couldn’t tell whether he was angry or embarrassed or a mixture of the two. “I don’t want another Syd,” Vaughn said as if he were stating the obvious. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I just want you to be happy, we all do.” Vaughn began fiddling nervously with the label on the bottle. “Why didn’t you tell me that Jack was in solitary?” “Because you stopped returning my calls,” Weiss replied. Vaughn had a way of rewriting history that had always annoyed him a little. “Besides, the last time I saw you two together, you treated him like a leper.” “I was grieving. I’m sure he knows that.” Vaughn reached for the remote and turned on the television. He took another sip of his beer. “So, tomorrow...” “When do I have to be there?” “Ceremony’s at two o’clock, but it would be great if you were around in general. To talk me down, remind me that I’m not a bad person.” Weiss recognized the dour look on his friend’s face and patted his back. He now told the truth like a miser spent his precious pennies; it was reserved for Sydney and no one else. Instead, he searched for a palatable lie, something that would soothe Vaughn’s guilt. “Syd would understand,” Weiss lied. While he heard words laden with deceit, he knew that it was exactly what Vaughn needed to hear. “She would want you to be happy.” ____________________ One day Weiss received a message with his surveillance report and morning paper. He opened the small envelope to find an index card folded into quarters. He squinted as he tried to read the chicken scratch: “J. would like to meet you.” Weiss tensed, wondering how Sydney knew that he was having her tailed. The name of a local fetish club was listed along with a date and time, and the name under which the reservation would be made. Handing over the codes to the DSR facility had forced him to acknowledge that he had chosen Sydney over the CIA, but he had rationalized it as a one-time deal. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Meeting her covertly here in town was an enormous risk. If either Kendall or the Covenant learned that he knew her, there would be hell to pay. Still, if she was willing to chance seeing him, he didn’t know how to refuse her. At the appointed hour, Weiss entered the club and was surprised by the number of suits milling about the lounge. He begged the ear of the host, whispered, “Pomoroska,” and was promptly led through a slit in the velvet curtain at the back of the room. Weiss was struck by the spectacle: couples in booths were having sex while the martini-sipping crowd watched unapologetically. He felt their intrusion as he took his seat. Eyes surveyed him, curious about what entertainment he would provide. He watched the curtains that marked the entrance to the room, but was so focused that Sydney caught him off-guard. She was already in the room, mingling with the crowd, but she wasn’t the blonde he was expecting. Her hair was brown verging on black, with her long, plush curls resting on her creamy white skin. She was wearing contacts that made her irises glow green against her hair and a dress that carved her figure into a spectacular hourglass. The only familiar tell was her smile, but then he could always recognize her in a moment of joy. Sydney slid into the booth next to him and ran her hand along his thigh. “I see you’ve discovered the house specialty.” “I’m deaf and dumb, but not blind.” His cheeks warmed with embarrassment. “Some people like to watch.” “And others like to be watched.” She leaned toward him and gave him a mischievous grin. “Did you think I wouldn’t know about the tail?” “I would have never contacted you.” He peeked over her shoulder and followed the plunge of her dress down her back. “You know, I’m the one who has been turning Covenant agents left and right. If they don’t know who I am—” He stopped, short of breath. “This is incredibly dangerous.” “What’s dangerous is not blending in.” Sydney divulged this as if it was a state secret passed tenderly from her lips to his ear. She tugged at his belt, steadying herself as she straddled him. Sitting nose to nose, she let her dark curls swing forward. He slid his hands up her smooth thighs and found nothing but skin. “Jesus, Sy—” “Shh, I’m working,” she murmured, silencing him with a kiss. “You wanted to know more. This is more. Now talk to me.” Her lips left a warm trail as they worked their way down his neck. “I-I-I’ve been busy,” he stuttered, struggling for words. There were only a few topics of declassified conversation at his disposal and all of them revolved around Vaughn. “Keep talking, I’ve got another ten minutes before I’m on.” Her whispers teased his earlobe. “I went to Vaughn’s wedding.” He felt a sharp pain. “You bit me!” She shook her head. “It should go without saying...don’t talk about him. Tell me about your loud neighbors, the last movie you saw, anything but Vaughn.” “Moulin Rouge, on DVD,” he said quietly under his breath. Sydney moaned loudly, grabbing the attention of every man in the room. “I wanted to see that,” she said in an even tone. The moan had been for the benefit of everyone else. “What am I, your alibi?” She avoided his eyes as she climbed off him. “Something like that,” she said, checking her watch. “I couldn’t come here alone.” “Have an appointment?” She reached for her clutch and pulled a key card from it. “Down the street. You go ahead, I’ll be fifteen minutes, maybe.” “Business?” She didn’t have to respond; he could read the guilt on her face, but it wasn’t clear what she regretted—killing a man who probably deserved his fate or seeing Weiss again. If he didn’t know which man she was there to kill, he could avoid the consequent moral quandary of what he ought to do to prevent it. She disappeared into the throng and he headed for the exit, pushing through a crowd of elbows. He blew through the doors and quickened his pace, half-expecting to hear gun shots, cries for a doctor or the police, a room caught up in the frenzy of a warm body growing cold. He chided himself. Sydney was too good to leave tracks. Tomorrow or maybe the next day he’d pick up the paper and see the headline ‘unsolved murder.’ It would be up to him to fill in the blanks. ____________________ Fifteen minutes turned into an hour of lying on the ultra-firm hotel bed watching Showtime. Weiss had always wondered what Dana Plato did between Different Strokes and overdosing; who knew that the answer was lesbian porn whose title punned her earlier work. Happenstance being the driving force behind the plot, Dana had just stumbled upon her friend naked in the shower when Weiss heard the door open. “You know, this would never work between us...me sitting at home indulging in a little soft core, while you’re out not saving the world.” He waggled his eyebrows at Sydney. Sydney walked in wearing a tank top and an old pair of low-rise jeans, the lush curls pulled back into a ponytail. She sauntered toward the bed, thumbs pulling at her pockets. Her attention snapped to the scene of two women tangled, kissing frenetically in the shower. She rolled her eyes. “You do realize that shower sex is highly overrated.” “I think Vaughn just lacked imagination.” “Ah, you’ve showered with him often,” Sydney teased. “So there is something to the rumor about partners washing each other’s backs.” “Watching,” Weiss corrected as he moved to the edge of the bed. “I still don’t know why I’m here.” He meant it playfully, but his implicit query elicited an apologetic shrug from Sydney. She grew serious and the grin disappeared from her repertoire. “My judgment has been slipping. I’m taking chances and I don’t even realize it. I thought the club might be fun.” She rolled her eyes. “But when I saw you there, it wasn’t what either of us wanted. You don’t want to know Julia any more than I do.” “Your introspective side is scaring me.” He took her hands and brought them to his lips. “What’s this really about?” “I promised myself I wouldn’t just run away. I wanted to see you.” She resisted his touch, pulling away. “One last time.” Her words hit him like a brick. Rather than let him continue to stalk her, she was going to end it and that was fine. He could accept it because he was never anything more than a lapse in her judgment. Still, she wasn’t angry, she was apologetic. “Tell me what this is about,” he pressed, ignoring every voice in his head and the steady chant that this was his fault. “You don’t need to protect me. I want to know all of you, even the parts that you don’t want anyone to know about.” Her face flushed as tears loomed and her breathing quickened. She quivered, but her gaze remained steadfast, never wavering from his. She leaned toward him and her lips brushed his ear. “Okay,” she said in a hush. “Order me to strip.” As she pushed away from him, he summoned a voice he didn’t know he had. “Clothes on the floor,” he ordered. She removed her heels first, kicking them off one at a time. She then unbuttoned her jeans and shimmied out of them. He was too busy trying to figure out where this was headed to enjoy the show. Her fingers gathered the lower edge of the tank top; she bit her lip, marking her hesitation. She took a deep breath and pulled up the tank, revealing a scar on her abdomen. Once she knew that he’d seen it, she tore off the shirt, tossed it in the corner, and walked into the bathroom. He followed, removing his clothes as he retraced her steps. She left the bathroom lights off, allowing the glow from the main room to serve as their guide. He didn’t dare contravene. She turned on the shower, saying nothing as she waited for the hot water to kick in. She stepped inside and beckoned him with two fingers. Facing each other, he didn’t know what connections he ought to be drawing. The scar was long healed, but he had no memory of it. “What’s it from?” She gulped as her eyes rolled to the ceiling. “Egg extraction. It happened when I was first kidnapped.” “But I never saw it—” “I didn’t want you to,” she interjected. “The Covenant believes that I was meant to bring forth a child of Rambaldi. We’re all looking for this artifact called the cube. It supposedly contains the life essence of Rambaldi.” The steam was building in the stall, a thin mist of desperation enclosing them. She pulled him closer. “Originally, Kendall knew little about the Covenant, just that they were after Rambaldi artifacts. He needed someone on the inside to find out the structure of the organization and to determine its long-term goals. We didn’t know what they were after until a few months ago.” Weiss thought back to the apartment in Rome, to her brusque insouciance and her refusal to shed even a tear for the people she had lost. His work at the CIA had infused him with the confidence that if he gathered enough intelligence, he could understand what she’d been through. His mistake had been assuming that she was just an assassin. “I know where the cube is.” Her voice had all but disappeared. “But I can’t give it to Kendall.” “What are you going to do with it?” Weiss grappled with her explanation as best he could, but he couldn’t understand how keeping the cube solved her problems. “I can’t tell you that, not if I want to leave all of this behind.” Her voice was filled with an optimism that he desperately wanted to share, but couldn’t. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not running away. I’ve found a way out.” Weiss could only fear for her safety. Even she had admitted that she was taking risks that she shouldn’t. He gripped her shoulders, wanting to shake some sense into her. “You with a bullet in your head, that’s your way out, Syd.” “Close,” she said, furrowing her brow as she weighed his words. It all went away a moment later as her gaze softened into a quiet nostalgia. “Before you showed up in Rome, I had resigned myself to being Julia. It wasn’t that I couldn’t escape or disappear, but I had nowhere to go, no one who cared whether I lived or died.” “That’s never been true, Syd.” Rising onto her tiptoes, she silenced him with a kiss, but he pulled away. If the CIA and the Covenant couldn’t bend her to their will, he stood no chance of dissuading her. He looked away and watched the water swirling into the drain. Sydney angled her head, forcing him to look at her. He realized that, of the few things that had remained unspoken, one needed to be said. He arched an eyebrow. “You know, you’re beautiful.” “Freedom is all about making decisions,” Sydney declared. She was doing that inner glow thing again, but her excitement moved him like a bittersweet melody. She slid the door open and reached for a towel as she stepped out of the shower. “If you never hear from me again, you’ll know I made the wrong one.” ____________________ Weiss sat at the bar, watching the crescents of ice spin in his glass as he nervously twirled his swizzle stick. Sydney had been missing for a week and, yet again, he was seeking help from the last person on earth he should have been calling. He looked over his shoulder for the millionth time since he had entered the place, worried that, at any moment, federal agents would walk in with a warrant for his arrest. Weiss had received two reports since the night in the shower. The first indicated that Julia had returned safely to Rome. The second came on the heels of the first—she had gone out for her morning espresso and had disappeared. Weiss’ source was certain that it hadn’t been the Covenant’s work. Later, her apartment had been crawling with their operatives. She had taken nothing but her clutch. “I never should have called you,” Weiss whispered in a low voice. He glimpsed Irina out of the corner of his eye. She sat at the stool two down from his. He pretended that he was watching the television behind her. “This is too risky.” “What has she done?” A quick glance revealed that her eyes were filled with an apprehension that mirrored his own. “I already told you, I have no idea,” he replied. “Why would she abandon the mission now?” Weiss held his tongue. Sydney may have confided her mission to him, but she made it clear that it was for his ears only. “She wouldn’t tell me.” “Then what do you expect me to do?” “I needed to tell someone. Jack’s in solitary.” Weiss drank the watered-down dregs of his scotch. “Look, you could track her down. The DSR probably keeps its artifacts at more than one location, I could try to find out where and trade—” “I can’t intervene.” Her refusal was adamant. Weiss had accepted all along that extracting Sydney was a proposition too perilous to consider. But now, knowing that Sydney had embarked on something equally dangerous, he began to question Irina’s motives. “You stand to lose something if she’s no longer Julia.” Weiss’ accusation hung in the air, but before Irina could answer, his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID and wondered bitterly what Dixon could possibly want. “Weiss here,” he muttered. Like the separation between church and state, he liked to maintain at least a cursory distance between his favors for Irina and his work for the CIA, but the two were about to collide. “I apologize for bothering you in the evening, but as one of Sydney’s friends, I thought you’d want to know.” Weiss wanted to close his eyes so that he didn’t have to look at Irina when the blow came. Sydney was dead, he could sense it by the hesitation in Dixon’s voice. “She’s alive.” While Dixon’s words saved Weiss from certain misery, his superior’s cold professionalism made him pity Sydney even more. She had been right. They had forgotten her—her friends and co-workers, her lover and even her mother. Gathering strength and hope from the knowledge that she had escaped, he took a deep breath and chose his words judiciously so as not to reveal anything to Irina. “I’ll be in as soon as I can,” he affirmed, still eyeing her suspiciously. He hung up his phone. “You think I’m Sydney’s worst enemy.” Irina shook her head dismissively. “Life is a precious thing. I hope for your sake that the Covenant never finds out that she took you as a lover or else they’ll go after you like they went after Vaughn.” “Wait a minute.” Weiss grabbed Irina by the arm. He would have chased her out of the bar, but he couldn’t be seen with a known terrorist without a SWAT team behind him. He looked around and found every man watching, ready to jump in, unaware that Irina was the last person who needed protecting. “Like they went after Vaughn? What does that mean?” He was too shocked by the news that Sydney had turned up alive to comprehend Irina’s insinuations. “Depends on what you’re offering me.” Her lips curled into an enigmatic smile as he released his grip. “Give me a call when you’ve pulled a rabbit out of your hat.” Fin
	Send Feedback! Main Menu Back to Top