Chapter Nine


"I think I lost an earring," Irina said.

Jack stopped buttoning up his shirt to look for it; amid all the shining bits of glass, now brilliant in the early-morning light, it was hard to see. But then he found it, a tiny pebble of color in the shag carpeting.

"Here," he said, stepping closer to put it back in her ear himself. For her part, Irina finished buttoning up his shirt, then retied his bow tie. For a moment Jack remembered a long-ago holiday party they'd been late to, for much the same reason.

Irina slid her arms around his waist as he tucked a few loose strands of her hair back into one of the clips. "When did you learn to fix a woman's hair?"

"Sydney, when she was small." After he'd lost - Laura, he'd occasionally had to get Sydney ready for school in the morning when the nanny wasn't there, which meant creating the odd ponytail or braid. Jack could have put together an assault rifle in the dark, but he had sweated during his efforts to make Sydney's hair look right. Little girls could be so vicious to each other when the smallest thing was out of place; he hated the thought of getting it wrong.

"I should have taught you," she said. "Before I went."

Strange, Jack thought, that she hadn't said she should never have gone.

When at last he was done, their eyes met. Irina whispered, "I'm glad you were here."

"And I'm glad you were." There were so many things Jack still didn't understand, so many wounds that remained unhealed. But he couldn't regret that they'd had one more chance to be together.

"In the days ahead," Irina said, "do what you have to do. I'll understand."

What did that mean? There was only one possible reply: "So will I."

"No goodbyes." They kissed once, softly, her fingertips brushing against his cheek. The urge to capture her in his arms, to hold her tight and never let go, was strong - but Jack kept his hands at his sides as she stepped back and walked away.

**

At the front desk, Katya sealed the envelope - gahh, glue tasted horrid - and then wrote upon it in large letters: FOR MARGO. After all, she didn't really need $50,000, never mind the difficulty of getting so much cash through customs. And she still felt somewhat dismayed about having struck that poor woman.

The $40,000 in the envelope should go a long way toward making sure that today would make up for Margo's yesterday. Surely she'd have no scars that couldn't be healed by, say, a new car? As for the other $10,000 -- Katya mulled the possibilities. There was always that splendid vintage goddess dress, the cream-colored Versace --

Her cellphone chimed in the particular signal that meant Jack had an announcement for them all. She handed Margo's envelope to the clerk with a smile as she answered.

"Everyone is to depart now," Jack said. "Abort any continuing retrieval operations. Take all items acquired with you to the appointed place of departure. The cat is out of the bag. Watchtower out."

No personal farewell, then. No hint of if, or when, she might expect to see Jack Bristow again. Katya didn't mind that; she was content to trust in her own wild luck.

She had no appointed place of departure. From now on she was on her own. So Katya pulled out the tag for her rental car and handed it to the valet. Really, she'd never expected to pick it up again, but she rather liked it.

Jack had said that the cat was out of the bag. She knew what that meant. Tapping a few codes in on the cell phone, she sent a patterned ultraresonance signal through the ether. There would be those who were looking for it, and she knew what they'd find.

For you, Jack, Katya thought. Take that, Arvin Sloane, you son of a bitch.

**

Just as Sark fastened the last button on his shirt, the limousine door opened to reveal Olivia - soaking wet and furious. "Good God," he said, not even remotely disturbed by the fact that this woman's daughter was obviously still pulling on her clothes next to him. "What happened to you?"

"Turned out Jack Bristow had a few surprises of his own," Olivia said. She flopped heavily into the car, scrolling down the privacy shield to gesture to the driver. "I'd like to discuss those surprises with Mr. Sloane."

"I should rather like to talk with him about that myself." This entire plan, Sark thought, had been a disaster from start to finish. They'd predicted most of Jack Bristow's moves, but not his mistakes, and one had been equally as critical as the other. It would be a long time before he allowed himself to be guided so completely again by Arvin Sloane. This meant, essentially, being guided by Arvin Sloane's ego, which became more profoundly separated from reality all the time.  His anger battled with his exhaustion as he said, "Yes. Let's find Sloane. Let's have - a chat."

**

Sydney, giddy and jubilant, ran out to the taxi stand, the tail of her Hawaiian shirt trailing behind her. "Taxi! Hey, taxi!"

Vaughn's arm slipped around her shoulders; he had on a white Izod shirt, a sun visor and a disposal camera on a lanyard around his neck. He grinned and shook his head as he leaned toward the cabstand guy. "We are this close to missing our flight back to Boise."

Boise, she thought. It sounded like paradise. Oh, man, did she have it bad.

As the cab pulled up, she met Vaughn's eyes; he let his arm drop from her shoulders, but he didn't stop smiling. "I know this isn't the end," he said in a low voice. "It's barely even the beginning."

"We kinda sped things up here. In a good way!"

"In a very, very good way." Vaughn's smile broadened.

She ducked her head away from his, so she could concentrate on what she was saying, not what she was feeling. "But we can't take it from here and pretend the last couple years didn't happen. We should -- go back to square one. Start over. Take it slow."

"I can do that. I'd really love to do that." Vaughn slipped on the sunglasses; the day promised to be a brilliant one. "We did kind of get gypped out of the whole first-date thing, you know. One minute we couldn't talk in public; the next we were giving each other drawers at our apartments. We never got to try the simple stuff. Dinner and a movie. Flowers. That kind of thing. I think - I think maybe we need some of that."

"Yeah, we do." Sydney felt the morning breeze blowing through her hair. For a few seconds she was just another happy young bride. From Boise. "I think I'm overdue for some courtship."

"Courtship," Vaughn said. "And therapy. Coming right up."

**

Only when Jack boarded the CIA's plane was he entirely reassured that the unforeseen problems in the plan hadn't proved unduly harmful. Weiss, Dixon and Marshall all looked the worse for wear, but none of them appeared to have any injuries more serious than bruises. Will Tippin was ebullient, greeting Sydney with a huge hug. Sydney, for her part, looked happier than Jack had seen her in far too long - as did Vaughn, who appeared to be suspiciously relaxed. Certain possibilities occurred to Jack in the brief instant before he decided that some questions were best left unasked.

"Everyone's all right," Dixon said; he was holding a cold can of soda to a welt on the side of his face, suggesting that "all right" was a relative term. "But Jack - what the hell happened here?"

"Yeah, Dad." Sydney sat down next to him as the plane's door was shut and the engines began to rev for takeoff. "Why wasn't the Waning Moon in the vault anymore?"

"It was never there," Jack replied. He'd known this moment was inevitable, but he still didn't relish the frown on Dixon's face. "I always intended for you to steal the diamonds, Sydney, and for Sark to steal the diamonds from you. It was the only way for him to feel that he'd genuinely gotten away with them against our will - and therefore, not to ask himself certain pertinent questions."

Dixon's scowl deepened. "What questions would those be?"

Jack leaned back in his seat. "Whether or not the diamonds he was absconding with, in the company of Lauren Reed and Arvin Sloane, wouldn't have a separate security device attached. A 1280 model security device, able to be activated and detected over a distance of more than 1000 miles."

"The device around the neck of the bag," Sydney said, sitting upright as she remembered. "I nearly dismantled it. I came this close -"

"But you didn't," Jack said.

"Ooooh, those babies are sweet." Marshall, at least, liked the plan. "To trip them off, all you have to do is send a patterned ultraresonance signal, and whammo. If, of course, the local authorities are looking for the signal -"

"They are," Jack said. "And the signal's been sent." He realized that he was utterly certain of Katya's cooperation; no matter what else had happened with her after their departure, he had no doubts about her ability and determination to follow through on the plan. That was - appealing. And disquieting. Jack then resolved to think about Katya again some other time, when his head was clear.

"This was all your setup," Dixon said. "Your little game to catch Arvin Sloane."

"I repeatedly asked the CIA to go after Sloane. Time after time, I was denied. We didn't need further resources, only permission. We didn't get it. So I took it."

"I think I'm supposed to fire you now," Dixon said. But instead, he leaned back and crossed his long legs. "But you know what? As long as we catch the son of a bitch, or even get close enough to make him sweat -- I don't give a damn."

**

Lauren, still tingling from her adventure with Julian, relaxed in the back seat of the car her mother was driving toward their getaway plane. Julian had run entirely out of steam and dozed off - poor thing, he'd been struck far too often. This was fine with Lauren, as she could now devote her full attention to the conversation in the front seat.

"It couldn't have been Irina Derevko," Sloane insisted. They had switched to this car after rendezvousing with him; Lauren personally suspected that Sark would want to grill the man next, assuming he survived her mother's fury. "If Irina had been there - she would have sought me out."

"I know Derevko's face!" Contradiction made her mother furious, as Lauren remembered all too well. "I've seen Sydney and Nadia; this woman was their mother. Besides, the interaction with Jack Bristow - you can't fake that kind of thing."

Sloane pulled himself upright; Lauren wondered what she would see in his eyes if he hadn't been wearing mirrored sunglasses. "Jack Bristow is nothing to Irina Derevko. Only a man she used and discarded long ago."

Her mother just laughed. "Believe what you want. Men so often do. But women - we see the truth. And the truth is that Jack Bristow is more important to Irina Derevko than you realize."

Lauren cocked her head. "Is that a siren?"

It was.

"Probably just coincidence," Sloane said. "Remain calm."

But her mother's eyes were flickering toward the rear-view mirror. "No. No, I don't think so."

"We're tagged." Lauren began grabbing items the CIA had given them - the wig, Julian's cell phone - and throwing them from the car windows. "They've tagged us!"

"Did you eat or drink anything with Jack Bristow?" Mom demanded.

"No," Sloane said. "Never again."

The bag! Lauren grabbed it and threw, realizing only as it left her hand that it had weight and heft, that something was inside -

--that Julian had put the diamonds back in the bag.

They glittered as they flew into the air behind the car, pink and blue and yellow in the morning light, before they fell to the asphalt like so much gravel. They were all she'd stolen, all she'd gotten.

**

"We'll have to find out if the authorities caught up with them later," Jack said. Vaughn couldn't get over it; the guy was as calm as though he was discussing the weather in Portland, Oregon. "But it was a chance worth taking."

"Still, though," Sydney said. "The higher-ups are going to be angry that we didn't get the Waning Moon."

"But we did," Jack replied. "Mr. Vaughn, if you could open up the box of VIP passes you took --?"

Vaughn hesitated, then reached into his tourist's backpack and pulled out the black-and-gray box. Fumbling with the clasp, he opened it to reveal the Waning Moon, shining dully in its sphere of wires.

As everyone stared, Jack said, "All of you assumed that the Waning Moon would be kept under the casino's tightest security - an assumption that Sloane, with his Rambaldi obsession, was certain to share. But to those unfamiliar with Rambaldi, the Waning Moon looks like substandard junk." Vaughn remembered the box in its storage locker, surrounded by watches and class rings - the same kind of junk people regularly lost at poker tables. "I knew that Vaughn would be able to use the distraction created by the diamond robbery to take this, which he was."

"But -" How could he protest this? How could he make it clear how close Jack had come to screwing everything up? "You didn't have any backup on me. Any checks. Any way to make sure I'd done what you sent me to do."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "I didn't think I had to, Mr. Vaughn." After that, Vaughn couldn't think of a damn thing to say.

"So, in other words, even with everything going crazy - everything went perfectly?" Weiss started to grin. "Outstanding. Absolutely outstanding."

Marshall took the Waning Moon in his hands, cradling it reverently. "You know, guys, I've got the map for the key right here. Depending on the metallurgy, I might be able to whip this thing together here on the flight. We could be listening to Rambaldi before we get back to L.A."

Everyone considered it. It was Sydney who spoke for them all: "You know what? It can wait."

"Until tomorrow," Vaughn agreed, smiling down into her beautiful face.

**

She's really happy, Weiss thought, watching Sydney laughing with Vaughn and Will. And Vaughn - he's gonna be okay. Somehow it was easier, letting her go into a happy future than an uncertain one. Maybe this was love, the real thing, and he had learned to recognize it only by the tracks it left behind; maybe love was being happy that she was happy, even if it didn't have a damn thing to do with him.

"It's crazy," Weiss murmured, not expecting his seatmate Dixon to pay attention. "What women do to you."

"Or what the lack of women does to you," Dixon said. "I'm going to my church singles' group next week. And every week thereafter, until I meet a nice woman. A safe, decent, law-abiding woman. They have them there." His eyes were slightly glazed, and Weiss wasn't sure it was just the blow to the head. "Good women. Missionary women."

Weiss frowned. "Man, you get weird when you're sleep-deprived."

**

"That lady is your aunt? Seriously?" Will couldn't believe it - and then, thinking back, couldn't believe he hadn't seen the resemblance. It wasn't a physical thing, exactly, more that light in their eyes. "That's so wild, Syd."

"She's become friends with Dad." Sydney paused and glanced over her shoulder. "I think it's friends, anyway."

Vaughn raised an eyebrow. "You don't think -"

"That 'friends' is a euphemism? I'm not sure." She half-smiled at her father, whose back was to them and showed no sign of hearing the gossip. "But I'm starting to wonder."

"'Friends,' huh?" Well, well, well. At first, Will was depressed that even Jack Bristow had a more active sex life than he did - but then he figured, hey, if Jack can find a girl, anybody can. So there's hope yet. "I'm really glad I met her. She's a good person to talk to."

"You keep saying that." Vaughn no longer looked tired, or angry, or jealous, or anything else but happy. Maybe he didn't know about what had happened with Will and Syd that night a few months ago? Will had no intention of either informing or reminding him, whichever the case would be. "What did she have to say?"

About not being the sidebar, Will wanted to say, but he didn't. He didn't think Sydney or Vaughn had ever worked for a newspaper, so they just wouldn't get it. Besides, maybe you had to be the sidebar once before you could ever understand. "Just - about living life. And having fun."

Sydney considered that, then nodded. "I think that's probably her specialty."

Vaughn smiled at her, and Syd smiled at Vaughn, and Will realized the two of them were having fun themselves. Good, he thought, without a trace of jealousy. It's about time.

**

"I can't wait to get back home," Marshall said, pouring some coffee for himself, then offering a mug to Jack. "Never been away from my Mini-Mitch this long. Just a day, I know, but it seems like forever. And they change so fast at that age! He's probably got a whole new tooth or something."

"Thank you," Jack said, acknowledging the coffee and nothing else. His own memories of Sydney at that age - of coming home from missions to take her in his arms - were inextricably tied up with his memories of Irina as Laura, as his wife. Those memories did not haunt him as they once had; what had been beautiful in them once was becoming less painful to him now. But they were still not open for discussion with Marshall Flinkman.

"It's weird, you know. Before, home was - it was just a place I lived. Well, a place I lived with my mom, but, still, it wasn't the same." Marshall's smile was softer than usual now, his voice more calm. 

Jack slipped one hand into his pocket and felt a cold bar of metal there. Carefully, he pulled out a switchblade. Irina's switchblade, the knife she'd used against Olivia.

A symbol of trust.

Marshall said, "Now, it seems like home is wherever Mitchell is. My little guy." He sighed, then nodded toward Sydney. "I guess that means you're already home."

His daughter was here, happy and safe; nothing else mattered, compared to that. The rest would become clear in time. Jack closed his hand around the knife and smiled back at Marshall. "I never thought of it that way before," he said. "But -- I guess I am."

**

THE END

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