Ah, there is no comfort in the covens of the witch,
Some very clever doctor went and sterilized the bitch,
And the only man of energy, yes, the revolution's pride,
He trained a hundred women just to kill an unborn child.

And there are no letters in the mailbox,
Oh, no, there are no grapes upon the vine,
And there are, there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore,
And there are no diamonds in your mine.

--Leonard Cohen, "Diamonds in the Mine"

IRENICON: Book Three

I.


Bangkok, Thailand


The day had come at last. A lifetime's work - no, hundreds, even thousands of lifetimes' work - was complete. Rambaldi had foreseen this day, but many generations had to live and work and hope and die to bring this to pass.

The Rain of Gold, Gerard Cuvee thought, gazing down at the test tubes set into protective foam, glittering like jewels in the lights from the nightclubs outside. Rambaldi showed us the way, but he made us work for this. He made us choose. And now - all his promise would at last be fulfilled.

It was enough to turn a man into an idealist.

They began immediately. He sent men into nightclubs, restaurants and most importantly of all the major Southeast Asian airports, opening the vials as they went. No effort was made to get through security and smuggle them aboard commercial aircraft; the infected passengers would be able to do that themselves. For his part, Cuvee kept a vial open in his pocket one night when he drank champagne on a high balcony, surrounded by young girls fighting for his attentions. The experience was curiously unsatisfying, though he supposed it would all seem more real after the deaths began.

Soon, those at the very center of Rambaldi's work would draw together once more; Irina Derevko would be among them, though whether triumphant or chastened Cuvee could not begin to guess. He longed to see her again, both to repay her for her childish stunt in Kashmir - had that fool of a husband of hers actually been convinced by one slap? - and to take her back into his bed.

How he remembered her as a young woman in prison, under his control. She had played the game so beautifully; Cuvee was old enough now to admit that she had gained the better of him over time. He had ordered their assignations at first, not out of desire but from his anger at her confusion, at the depths of delusion about Bristow that her years in the United States had created. But soon Irina was coming to him willingly, and before long he had been as in thrall to her as she had been to him. During those nights they would lie together and talk about the Rain of Gold - what it would mean, how it would change the world, how it would change them. Sometimes Cuvee thought his life had held no finer moments than these - Irina's naked body next to his, her husky voice promising him eternity.

That promise, at least, Irina had kept. How he would thank her -- after punishing her. Or perhaps the two activities could be combined. And in the years to come, their pleasures need never end. Cuvee laughed and ordered more champagne.

Twelve days later, the fever started. At first, Cuvee was certain it was no more than hypochondria. The first rumors of something "going around" were being heard in the clubs, and that was why his head hurt and his skin felt hot. It might as well be a reaction to the cognac he'd been drinking as any illness.

By the time he awoke the next morning, Cuvee knew he was dying.

He had begged Sloane for the privilege of releasing the virus. Begged! All the while, Sloane had been manipulating him -- withholding the vital information that a final set of inoculations was needed. Cuvee had no new intel to reveal this, but he needed none; Sloane's duplicity was clear enough, now that it had cost him his life.

Cuvee had been played for a fool, and now he would die. On the very cusp of eternity - he would die. For hours, Cuvee screamed out his rage, pulling at his hair until his scalp bled. Who else had known about this? Who else had laughed while his death warrant was signed? Cuvee imagined Irina, her hair piled atop her head, blood-red lips revealing her broad, wicked smile. If only he had strangled her while he'd had the opportunity. But all such chances were lost now.

Only a few days of life remained, and only one purpose was left to him: To know that Arvin Sloane would die.

Many people might share that goal, Cuvee thought. But who else would have both the ability and the will to destroy Arvin Sloane. As he lay in bed, sweating and shaking, Cuvee amused himself for a few hours by envisioning Jack Bristow's reaction if a partnership were suggested.

When his throat began to swell, and his eyes became so hot with blood that they hurt, Cuvee stopped wasting time. He made his choice, made the call.

On the eighth day - when the chills wracking his body had become their own agony - Cuvee heard his door's lock being smashed. Looters? Burglars? When the two figures appeared in the doorway, taking shape from the darkness, Cuvee rasped, "Thank God it's you."

"I strongly suspect God has no part in this," Julian Sark replied. Next to him, Olivia Reed pulled her white cowl hood away from her shining hair.

"You can get to Sloane?" Cuvee demanded. "He is - the first priority -"

"Agreed," Olivia replied. She came and sat by his bedside, brushing her hand over his forehead. Strange, to remember that this woman was a mother. "Julian and I are more interested in Michael Vaughn, of course, but rumor has it they're in the same location. Two birds, one stone. You know the English saying, don't you?"

"Mexico. On the Pacific Coast. I don't know the codes or frequencies they're using - but within that area - surely he can't hide forever -"

He watched Olivia's face as she glanced over her shoulder at Sark. Obviously both of them had hoped for more information, or they would not have come so far; Cuvee would not have cared about inconveniencing them even if he had been in less dire straits.

"Mexico," Sark repeated. "Very well. It's more than we knew before."

"Promise me. Promise me you'll gut Arvin Sloane before he dies."

"My pleasure." Olivia's voice was sweet, a Congressman's wife making patter, as she rose to refill his water glass. "After Mr. Vaughn has been seen to."

"And Irina. Irina Derevko." Was she involved in this or not? Cuvee didn't know, and he didn't give a damn. If he was to have no place in Rambaldi's paradise, neither was she. "Kill that worthless bitch, if you can. Promise me that."

Sark tilted his head, then raised his pistol to aim it at Cuvee's face.

Cuvee only had time to wonder: Is this mercy?

**

II.


"And how do you feel about that?" Dr. Barnett said.

"I feel confused. Guilty. Angry." Sydney wanted to recline on the leather couch - these days, any chance to lie down felt like a blessing. But she couldn't afford to relax that much, not here. "This disease that's showing up in Asia - apparently Sloane released the virus, and somehow - they're not clear -- it might have something to do with my sister. I'm the one who rescued her. I brought Nadia and Sloane together. And this is how the two of them repaid me."

"Do you think their actions are intended to hurt you?"

"I think they've probably forgotten all about me. If Sloane's forgotten me, I don't care. That would actually be a good thing. But Nadia is my sister. When we found each other, I thought it meant something to her. It did to me. But I never really knew her. It's just like -" Sydney's voice trailed away.

Dr. Barnett got that gleam in her eye that meant she'd spotted a vulnerability. In Sydney's opinion, this woman was far too skilled at her work. "It's just like what, Sydney?"

Sydney stared down at her shoes. "It's just like my father said. He told me that I didn't know what kind of person Nadia was, and that I shouldn't assume she wasn't an enemy. But I didn't listen." Her chagrin was quickly swallowed up in anger. "Of course, he knew where Nadia was almost her whole life. From the day he found out that she was my sister, he could have led me right to her. Or warned me about her with some actual facts, instead of vague innuendo. But instead he was just going to murder her in cold blood. As mad as I am at her, I still can't believe that he was willing to kill her. Just because she reminded him of something painful - it makes me sick."

"You're still entirely estranged from your father, then."

"That's not going to change. So you can stop asking about it any week now." Sydney took a deep breath and refocused. These sessions, supposedly for the purpose of venting her emotions, were instead the times when she had to be the most controlled. "I feel like there are so many secrets surrounding me. My father's, my mother's, my sister's - my own."

"Do you get tired of carrying those secrets around?"

The obstetrician appointments were made under an alias Sydney had never used before; she paid for them in cash, drawing out an extra $20 or two every day from the ATM, never too much at once. The prenatal vitamins had been buried deep in a canister of sugar; Sydney only used the sugar for coffee anyway, and she had vigilantly steered clear of caffeine for the previous two months. Her ruses had paid off: Nobody knew. The baby was still her secret - still her own. "No," Sydney said. "Sometimes I wish I could keep these secrets forever. Then they couldn't - confuse things."

"Do you think that's the situation your father's in?"

Sydney had to laugh. "No. Oh, God, no. I seriously doubt it."

Dr. Barnett was obviously confused by Sydney's sudden mirth, but she continued. "Are you considering going back to field duty?"

"No. Not yet, anyway." Dixon had accepted Sydney's request to work only in the office easily enough. She had told him that her grief for Vaughn was clouding her judgment, which was true as far as it went. But soon he would expect her to return to duty; everyone would. And that meant running, jumping, kicking and getting kicked, and a thousand other things Sydney wasn't planning on doing anytime soon.

Besides, if Marshall put her in one of the rubber dresses he seemed to think were ideal camouflage for all occasions, it would immediately be evident that she'd gained weight - even if her pregnancy wasn't truly showing yet. And within another few weeks, the new shape of her abdomen would become unmistakable.

Then it would be time to run.

"I get the sense there's something you're not sharing with me." Alarmed, Sydney stared at Dr. Barnett, who had folded her arms in her lap, a sign that she was especially intent. "These sessions are for you, of course. If you're not comfortable discussing some element of your grieving process right now, that's absolutely fine. But if something's weighing on your mind, it might feel good to bring it into the open."

How best to distract her? Sydney started with the first and most obvious concern that popped into her head. "I know I'm not ready to go back into the field. But still - I feel like I'm not doing anything of value here. Sometimes it feels like nothing I'm doing could ever be important, compared to finding Vaughn or stopping Sloane. And I haven't been able to do either."

"I know that feeling." Dr. Barnett's voice sounded different than it ever had before; with a start, Sydney realized that her therapist's attention had, for once, ceased to be focused on her patient. Dr. Barnett was staring down at the carpet now, her expression distant. When Sydney caught her eye, Dr. Barnett smiled ruefully. "I'm in charge of devising potential psych counter-ops against Arvin Sloane. Assessing potential weaknesses in his mental defenses, ways we might be able to penetrate them through manipulations or lies."

"I didn't know you did that kind of thing."

"Usually, I don't. But I volunteered." Collecting herself, Dr. Barnett straightened up. "Lies have a lot of different meanings, Sydney. So do secrets."

Was this another hint to talk about her father? Sydney immediately plunged into talking about Vaughn, which ate up the rest of the hour. Then she was free to escape examination for a while yet.

Sydney had never considered telling Dr. Barnett about her pregnancy. Technically, the rules of confidentiality should have protected their discussions, but Sydney was no longer willing to trust anyone unless utterly necessary. If she were going to tell anyone, she would have told Eric - but that would put him in the position of having to lie to the CIA after she left, and she didn't want to do that to him.

Her plans, up until the point of her departure, were all rock-solid; Sydney had mapped out every step, every concealment, every protection. But after departure, her plans grew far fuzzier. Oh, she knew where she would live, where the money would come from - but Sydney could no more imagine the life she would lead at that point than she could imagine living on the moon. Despite the added weight, despite the heaviness in her breasts, despite the crazed longing for bananas that struck at all hours of the day and night, it still didn't seem as if she could really be pregnant.

She'd always wanted to have children, in an abstract sort of way. Unlike most of her friends in school, she had never planned out names or designed nurseries, never gotten gooey about tiny hats or socks. Sydney had figured her maternal instincts would click in when the time was right. The time was now T minus 26 weeks, and any maternal instinct had yet to take effect. Sometimes, for hours or even a day at a time, the mere fact of her pregnancy seemed to slip from her mind, only to jolt back into focus as she lay in bed trying to sleep.

How could she get excited about a baby when she couldn't buy a crib or clothes, when she couldn't share her news, when she couldn't even tell the father? Sometimes Sydney even wished for morning sickness as some kind of reminder. Never had her perfect health seemed more perverse. The due date felt more like a deadline for some vital project than the day she would see her first child.

But whenever Sydney imagined people learning of her pregnancy - whenever she thought about the people who might try to take her child away, just as Nadia had been taken from her own mother - a surge of fear overcame her.

Maybe her feelings for her baby were there after all. Maybe she'd just buried them deep, for her child's safety and her own.

Once I'm gone, Sydney decided, I'll feel different. I can start buying clothes for the layette, and diapers and rattles. I'll be able to wear maternity clothes. I can tell the new people I meet about the baby, and talk with them about names. Maybe it will all be real then.

And all of this - the CIA, Rambaldi, my father and everything else I've ever known - all of this will be what's unreal.

**

III.


Vaughn spent the first week following his failed attack in bed.

Not resting, not taking it easy - just lying in bed, every moment of the day that he wasn't crawling to the bathroom or back. As he ate and drank almost nothing, he didn't have to leave the bed often. Vaughn learned that he could sleep for ten hours, remain awake and staring at the ceiling for only a short time, then sleep for ten more. Day and night were quickly reduced to differences in the slim bands of light that outlined the shades.

Whenever his father came in, Vaughn just closed his eyes until he went away again. He lost the ability to dream, and it seemed as though he no longer had to think, either.

On the eighth day, when his bedroom door opened once more, Vaughn shut his eyes. But the voice he heard was not his father's cajoling.

"This is ridiculous," Nadia said. "They're almost ready to hook you up to an IV, you know."

Vaughn opened his eyes, more out of surprise than anything else. Nadia was carrying a steaming mug in one hand; the other was on her hip as she frowned at him. "Go away," he croaked.

"If you're on a hunger strike," she replied, "you should remember - the one way to make sure you never see Sydney again is to die here."

He didn't respond, though it seemed to his fevered mind that Nadia, untrustworthy though she was, had made some degree of sense.

She set the mug on his bedside table. "Just chicken broth. I don't think you're up for anything else. If you don't drink this, in a few days they'll take away the only control you have left." Then she shrugged. "It's your decision." With that, she left.

The chicken broth was good - homemade, rich and savory. Was that her work or the cook's? Not that it mattered, really, but Vaughn was vaguely curious.

A few hours later, she brought him more broth and a few crackers; to Vaughn's vast relief, she said nothing at all, nor expected anything from him. After that, he fell asleep again - but the sleep was different this time. It felt less like passing out and more like real rest. 

On the next day, Nadia wordlessly added toast to his diet. Two days after that, she began bringing eggs. Vaughn found that he couldn't sleep as many hours in a row, though he still closed his eyes when his father walked in.

"You should talk to him," Nadia said a day later, as he slowly ate a chicken sandwich. "He just wants to know you."

"Not that badly," Vaughn pointed out. "Or he would have looked me up sometime during the past quarter century."

"Not necessarily."

Sloane had clearly won her over. Should he risk confronting her about that? No. At least - not yet. "This sandwich is great."

"Thanks. I hope you can make them yourself. After today, you're on your own in the kitchen." When he stared at Nadia, she smiled. "Did you think I was going to feed you forever?"

"No." Then, unable to believe that he'd never thought of saying it before, Vaughn added, "Thank you for all of this."  Nadia only shrugged.

That evening Vaughn got up and moved around the house, avoiding the others as much as possible. It seemed to him as though he had awakened from one long, nightmare-ridden sleep, something that had gripped him ever since he'd come to on the plane with his father -

No, Vaughn realized. Since he'd first learned that Lauren was with the Covenant. It had been that long since he'd felt remotely human - maybe even longer.

His father's eyes followed him as he walked the same paths, over and over again, stairwell to hallway to deck. But neither his father nor Sloane made any effort to speak to him, for which Vaughn was grateful. The one moment of contact came while he was standing on the deck, looking out at the moonlit waves, breathing in the first fresh air he'd had in months. Nadia joined him, her dark hair rippling in the breeze. "I saw a leopard once at the zoo," she said. "Pacing his cage."

"This is a cage. Don't get confused about that."

She ducked her head away and went back inside; Vaughn felt a vague stirring of pity for her, but it was gone as soon as it had come.

Once again, Vaughn went to bed early, but this time he did not fall asleep. He remained still, listening to the sounds of the house as they became quieter, and wished idly that he had tried to convince Nadia to make him at least one more sandwich. Now that his appetite had returned, his body seemed to want to make up for all those lost meals. Just as well, Vaughn decided. A grumbling stomach would give him an excuse for wandering around late at night.

After the house had been entirely quiet for an hour, Vaughn slowly walked downstairs, then stepped out onto the deck. No alarms sounded, which was what he'd expected. They were counting on guards at the perimeter to prevent escape; fortunately, Vaughn didn't intend to make another escape attempt for a while. His previous efforts - disorganized and borderline suicidal as they had been - had taught him that the guards kept their distance but knew their business.

After a cursory check to make sure the guards weren't watching him that moment, Vaughn half-turned, grabbed the railing and swung down. His feet just reached the latch for a lower window.

His pacing of the house had revealed that this window didn't correlate to any of the rooms Vaughn had been able to count. What might be in a secret room?

He dropped to the sand, opened the window - no alarm, good - and did his best to get himself through the small window. The ledge caught him hard under the ribs, just where Nadia had kicked him during his attack on Sloane. Biting his lip hard to keep from crying out, Vaughn had to slump against the floor for a few moments to catch his breath. A thin strip of skin had been scraped away. Tears of pain welled under his eyes, but it didn't matter, as long as he'd gotten someplace worth going.

As he blinked in the dark, Vaughn realized he'd just launched himself into a fairly ordinary office. But this office held a fairly ordinary computer. Computers meant e-mail.

Thank God, thank God, thank God. He unplugged the speakers, then turned the machine on, careful to note everything he touched in order to wipe it down later. The room's one door probably led into Sloane's bedroom, or his father's; quiet was essential. But all he needed was one e-mail to CIA headquarters, and it would be traced within a day. Sydney would come here and get him herself.

Except - he clicked through the drives, through every folder he could find, and it was true -- there was no internet access. No Explorer, no Netscape, no Foxfire, not one single goddamned thing! No phone jacks in the walls, either. Another check revealed that the machine didn't have a modem or an Ethernet card; the settings included no IP address.

Vaughn clenched his hands into fists, wanting to punch the wall or the table or the monitor that glowed at him, innocent of any inadequacy. What the hell was the point of a computer without any internet access?

A computer you couldn't send anything out of was a computer nobody could hack into. Such a computer would be a very, very good place to store important information. The most important information you had -

He stared at the monitor a few minutes more, noticing for the first time the wallpaper that had been chosen: a photograph of the many-spired cathedral of Milan. It was a sight that might be familiar and welcome to a man who had spent five years there, including the day his son gave the valedictory speech to his senior class about living up to a heroic legacy.

This computer wasn't the rescue Vaughn had hoped for. But it was an opportunity.

**

IV.


The yellow flowerpot on the windowsill meant Katya was inside.

Never had they discussed the signal; she'd done it from her second visit, he had noticed immediately, and she had understood when he wasn't surprised to see her. That time, she'd come to tell him about the death of Gerard Cuvee. Jack didn't think it was his pleasure in the news that led to the two of them to the bedroom.

The next few visits, she offered other information - Sark had been sighted in Istanbul, and was rumored not to be traveling alone; Sloane's bank accounts in the British Virgin Islands had been emptied and closed. All of this was potentially useful. But Jack was neither shocked nor displeased the first time he came home late at night to find Katya dozing in his bed, for no other reason than she wanted him to join her there. They were long past needing excuses.

Jack had forgotten what it was like to lose himself in a woman's arms. During his strange reunion with Irina, that particular pleasure had been denied to him; whatever it was they'd been to each other then, it hadn't been about comfort.

Then again, given the secrets Irina had kept from him then, the lies she still told him while they sought Sydney's killers, maybe it was just as well he didn't really know what he'd been to her then. It could only have been some form of a joke.

With Katya, everything was simpler. They were two bodies, taking pleasure and giving it freely, without demands, without words. Sometimes, when he gasped his climax against her shoulder or back, Jack thought that was all there ever was or had been; everything else he'd ever felt for a woman was only the invention of an overheated mind.

"You never talk, afterward," she said once, while his head still lay on her naked belly.

"Do you want me to talk?"

"God, no. I meant it as a compliment. You're so wonderfully -" Katya had hesitated, then finished, "-contained."

Jack neither knew what that meant nor cared. He just fell asleep, one arm around her.

And yet the thrill of anticipation he felt when he came home and saw the flowerpot was not entirely physical. (However, he considered the physical reaction interestingly Pavlovian.) Katya was the only person who understood the whole story, who knew his history entire; it was a strange luxury, knowing that there was nothing to conceal, nothing left to hide. Besides, she was pleasant company, or so it seemed on the occasions when they talked.

So on that early September night, when another set of leads on Sloane turned out to be dead ends and Sydney had refused to give him even so much as an "Agent Bristow" in three meetings, Jack smiled at the flash of yellow on the windowsill. He went up the front steps two at a time.

Katya sat on a wooden chair against the wall, one he never used. She was fully dressed, hands folded in her lap; he noticed that she held a pale envelope. "I didn't expect to see you so soon," Jack said - their last assignation had been only five days before. As he bent to kiss her cheek, he added, "Nice surprise."

"A surprise, yes. Whether you'll think it's nice or not, I couldn't say."

Had her allegiances changed? Jack tensed, then realized the expression in her face was more sad than anything else. "What's wrong?"

"I received this at a drop box three days ago," Katya said, lifting the envelope. "From Irina."

They'd always made it a point not to discuss Irina unless it was necessary. Jack knew it was useless to pretend indifference. "What is it?"

"The last thing I ever thought to receive from her. An explanation." She hesitated, then held it out to him; Jack could see Irina's jagged script in blue ink, narrow and tall like a seismograph. The postal marks on the envelope appeared to have come from the United Kingdom. "It is written solely for me - I don't think she has any idea you and I are still in contact. Though we can never really know what Irina realizes and what she doesn't."

"If it's for you, why are you offering it to me?"

Katya gazed up at him, studying his reaction carefully. "Because she will never tell you any of this. And I think this should be known between you."

An explanation. As though there could be any explanation, any reason that would excuse or condone what Irina had done. How could there be any explanation for the scale of her betrayal? Some sins did not allow vindication.

But as Jack stared at the envelope, he realized that - deep down - he still believed it was possible. And that was why he didn't want to read the letter.

If he read the letter, Irina would explain. And if the explanation made sense (even though it couldn't, even though it was impossible), then Jack would have to consider it. Even if it were a lie (and of course this too was a lie, everything she said was a lie), he would come to believe it. He would tell himself that he didn't believe it until the day came when he did, and then his anger would abate. And his anger was his only protection against her now, against love and weakness and hope. He had spent thirty years of his life shackled to Irina Derevko or her memory; that was long enough.

"I don't want it," Jack said.

"Don't make me read it to you." Katya stood and kissed him - arms around his neck mouth opening beneath his, so instantly passionate that Jack hoped she had forgotten the damn letter. If not, he was beginning to have some very definite ideas about how to make her forget. Instead she pulled away and whispered, "Let me be generous, for once in my life."

If she had made it about him, or about Irina, he would never have touched the letter. But Katya had asked him for something for herself - the one thing she had never done before, which meant it was the one thing he could not refuse her.

Jack took the letter and read it.  Every puzzle piece clicked into place, so neatly that he couldn't believe he hadn't seen it before. It couldn't be true - except that it was true. He could sense the order of it running through the events that surrounded them, the same way he could see patterns on a chessboard or in a game of Go. It explained too much not to be true. The only thing it didn't explain was his wife's secrecy.

Maybe he was only her fool once more. But Jack could not make himself believe that.

"You see why I had to give you this, Jack."

"Yes." He felt as though he might start shaking. On all sides, he was surrounded - by hope, and weakness, and love. Nothing protected him any longer.

"If she contacts me again, I'll let you know." Katya kissed Jack on the cheek.

As she walked to the door, Jack said, "Katya - thank you. You didn't have to do this."

"Don't remind me," she said, shaking her head as she went out. A few moments later, her hand appeared at the window, pulling away the yellow flowerpot. Jack understood he would not see it again.

**

V.


"Michael's talking to his father."

Her papa looked up from his reading and smiled at her. "Well. That's good news. I'm certain Bill is happy."

Too late, Nadia realized that she had betrayed too great an interest in Michael Vaughn, or at least in his relationship to his father. Then she wondered why she was afraid to let Papa know how she felt - if she felt anything at all, which she preferred to think she didn't. To cover her tracks, she quickly added, "I think Michael wants to find out how all this began. Rambaldi. The followers."

"Are they discussing that?" Papa's voice was sharper now.

"No. They're talking about Michael's high-school hockey team." She could envision him, swathed in padding and mask, fast and deadly on the ice. "But I don't imagine that's Michael's goal, do you?"

Papa nodded approvingly, and his smile was warmer now. "You should pay attention conversation. There's plenty you have to learn, too. And we can talk about what you've learned, when you're done."

Nadia realized, as she padded down the carpeted steps of the spiral staircase, that this was only her second spying mission. Perhaps it would go better than the first one.

"So my roommate shows up and he's this seven-foot tall - no exaggeration - okay, only a little exaggeration - Rastafarian." As Michael held up a hand to describe the roommate, Bill laughed. They were sitting in the main room, on chairs that faced each other. Bill leaned forward, body language open; Michael's back was upright, stiff against the chair, with his arms folded in front of him. They weren't really interacting like father and son, then, nor even friends - but it was obviously progress. "This guy was called Weird Andy. He called HIMSELF that, which gives you a pretty good idea of his general personality. I never so much as held a joint in my hands, but there is no way I would have passed a drug screen. My clothes reeked of dope, and I had the munchies nonstop. Gained ten pounds."

Bill was grinning, and he only glanced over at Nadia for a moment as she walked past them to the deck. She didn't slide the door all the way shut, behind them. It would be more helpful to watch their faces and gauge reactions, but for the time being, hearing would have to do. "Weird Andy sounds like quite a character. Don't tell me - you guys ended up being best friends your whole lives."

"Not exactly. Weird Andy got busted for possession with intent to sell in February of my freshman year. Had no idea who I was going to end up living with - they assigned me a guy at random. He'd had a private room until he burned it down with a candle he was using to set a romantic mood with some girl." Michael paused, then said, "Eric Weiss. That was his name. And he ended up being my best friend my whole life."

"I know that name," Bill said. Nadia thought she'd heard it also.

"When they recruited me for the CIA, they ended up recruiting Weiss too." Michael sounded stranger now - as though the memories were harder for him. "I knew they'd come for me someday, you know. Because of you. So I tried to live right. Weiss and I, we hung out so much that we ended up taking a lot of the same courses, learning a lot of the same languages. We'd leave each other notes around the dorm room in Italian and German. Insults, once we learned them. Anyway, by the time they came to recruit me, they'd already checked Weiss out too. We were both auditioning for the CIA the whole time. He just didn't know it."

A few moments of silence followed. Nadia counted the waves - three, four, five.

"It bothers you," Bill said. "That you brought Weiss into this life."

"Of course it does."

"What you're saying is that you don't understand why I let you come into this life."

"You didn't recruit me into the CIA. Obviously."

"I never did anything to prevent it. And now I've brought you into this."

"Whatever this is," Michael said, and he was good - just the right note of casual and not-casual, of angry and curious, and even yearning. If he hadn't been speaking to another spy, it might have been believable. Then again, perhaps he understood that perfectly well, and was just giving his father the reaction he expected.

Bill was grave as he said, "When I first took you from Los Angeles, I told you that you deserved an explanation. And when the time is right, Michael, I promise you - you will know everything."

"When exactly is the time going to be right? I've been gone - Christ, three months now -"

"Mike. Listen to me, okay? I know that, as far as you know, I haven't done a lot to earn your trust. But there are other forces at work here. The Covenant - they're not the holy circle they once claimed to be. What's been set loose - we have to see how that's going to play out."

Michael breathed out heavily. "You're not even trying to be straight with me."

"Give it time. That's all I ask."

"Mom cried herself to sleep every night for years." The scrape of wood on wood could only have been Michael standing up and pushing back his chair. "Years, Dad."

Nadia thought the first interview gave her little to report, but much to think about. That was, if she intended to think about Michael Vaughn - and perhaps she did.

**

The next night, Michael said, "Give me enough credit to know this isn't just an extended vacation. Even if we are in a beach house."

"We're waiting for some things to cool down," Bill said. "You'll be grateful for this, eventually."

"I sincerely doubt that." But Michael didn't get up and leave. It had taken Nadia considerable time to figure out the exact angle to position her makeup mirror on the stair railing above the living room; she had to lie on the floor and crane her neck to watch for an extended period of time, but she could more or less see what was going on without being seen. Viewing facial expressions would help her analysis.

She'd never noticed what a nice back Michael had before.

Bill sighed, and for the first time it struck Nadia just how much like Michael he looked - if Michael were decades older and far more bitter. "Mike - ask your questions. I don't promise answers. But if I can tell you, I will."

"Every time I ask something, you clam up. How about you start talking? Just tell me what you can tell me." After a moment's pause, Michael added, voice low, "Give me something to go on here. Anything."

For a while, everything was quiet. Her ears strained so hard to hear that she could feel them pricking. Nadia shifted slightly on the carpet, which was bristly underneath her back, though hopefully not bristly enough to make noise. The mirror method left much to be desired. If only she had somebody who could invent spectacular spying gadgets for her, some bizarre genius like Q in the James Bond films. But, of course, those were films, not real life.

At last, Bill said, "Do you know about Project Christmas?"

"A little. I know there was a layer that was about indoctrinating children as spies from an early age. But Sydney found out that there was more to it than that. That she was born into the program - just like I was."

"You didn't stay in," Bill said. "You didn't have the genes for it. I was kind of a long shot as it was, and your mom - she never knew anything about this. So nobody programmed you. Not ever."

Michael paused before saying, "Okay. But what happened to the kids who did stay in? What was Sydney a part of?"

"Project Christmas - the name was a pun, you know. On the Second Coming. The U. S. government had been tracking Rambaldi's work for more than 200 years-"

"Jesus."

"-and they knew that several people important to the unfolding of Rambaldi's ultimate prophecies were about to be born. So in the late 1960s, they put Project Christmas together. They recruited people into the CIA whose bloodlines suggested that they might be the fathers of the children Rambaldi wrote about."

"Not mothers?"

"Not as full agents, no. Son, the world was different before the sexual revolution."

"No doubt." Bill laughed, and Michael chimed in. Though Michael's laughter sounded forced, Nadia still wished she'd kicked him a little harder when she'd had the chance.

Bill continued, "Your mother wasn't one of those. We were all free to marry whomever we wanted; I loved your mom, and I chose her. I want you to understand that."

"Glad to know." Michael didn't sound glad, but Nadia suspected he was sincere. "But Sydney - she was Jack Bristow's daughter with Irina Derevko."

My mother, Nadia thought. She gripped the plastic oval of her mirror harder, trying to control her emotional response to the mention of the mother she'd never known.

"I first knew Irina as Laura West," Bill said. "Beautiful girl. You see, a select few women whose bloodlines looked promising were taken into the program too. They were allowed to learn a little about the true work, do some research on the side. Laura West was one of these. Of course, the KGB planted Laura there; the Russians were tracking Rambaldi too, but their program was years behind. No doubt they realized what they had in Irina, and wanted her at the core of the action."

"And Derevko learned everything about Project Christmas." Good, Nadia thought, surprised to find herself urging on her mother.

"What she couldn't get through her own access she got from Jack Bristow. That man - " Bill swore under his breath. Nadia's own memories of Jack Bristow were limited to faint glimpses of a gray, bland, yet menacing figure who sat on the far side of the room. "He never understood what Rambaldi was about, not really. Because of that, he blabbed every damned thing to his wife. I don't blame the guy for falling for her - she had a face that would make a man do stupid things - but the amount of intel she got from him? I still can't believe the CIA didn't shoot him, when they were done with him. Sloane knew how to manage Emily better than that; she had a few connections through State, but he never let her guess what was really going on."

After a few moments of silence, Michael said, "Emily was somebody you could manage. Irina Derevko isn't."

"You don't have to tell me that." Bill sighed. "You're not one of the children Rambaldi wrote about, if that's something that was worrying you. Your destiny is your own, Mike. I wanted that for you. That's why you're here."

"Really." Nadia decided she liked Michael better when he wasn't hiding his sarcastic side. "And I thought you were protecting me from the Covenant."

"The Covenant - they started as decent people. You know that, right? They worked with us. But when the U.S. government decided Rambaldi's generation was still to come, and decided to focus on the indoctrination side of it - well, some people in the program couldn't take it. They thought they were the children of destiny. They split off, became the Covenant. Developed their own insane ideas about Rambaldi's legacy." All at once, Bill cut himself off - realizing, perhaps, how much he was revealing. "And I think that's enough for tonight."

I'm one of the children Rambaldi wrote about, Nadia thought. I'm the Passenger. Someday I will battle my sister, and only one of us will survive. Her papa hadn't explained any of that to her; he'd explained even less than Bill Vaughn.

Later that night, when she finished brushing her teeth, she stepped into the hallway to find Michael waiting in his bathrobe. "Just tell me this," he said, arms folded across his chest. In an instant she knew that she hadn't been as surreptitious as she'd hoped. "Who are you eavesdropping for? Sloane or yourself?"

"It's not an either-or question."

Michael smiled then, and she thought the expression surprised them both. "Take notes. We might want them later."

Would she tell Papa about this? Conspiring with Michael against Papa felt uncomfortable - but then, so did conspiring with Papa against Michael. Nadia had too few loyalties in the world to easily accept betraying any of them. Perhaps it would be best to tell everyone involved everything.

But the next morning, at breakfast, Papa said, "Dearest, I'm going away for a little while."

"Away? You're leaving Mexico?"

"Just for a few days." He smoothed her hair with his hand. "It's nothing important."

He would not leave this house for anything unimportant. Nadia understood that much. "Can you tell me why?"

"It doesn't matter," Papa said, leaning to kiss her forehead. "Just know that I'll miss you, every moment that I'm gone."

As long as her papa had secrets, Nadia decided, it might be best to keep some of her own.

**

Vaughn made the difficult trip into the computer room a little earlier the night after Sloane left; he figured he had a little more freedom to work.

The computer monitor lit up, illuminating Vaughn's face with the cathedral of Milan. He carefully went through the series of files he'd found, entering password after password. His hunch about "holy circle" had paid off first; the second password, sure enough, was "Second Coming." The third bar that came up asked not for a word, but for numbers. Numbers? How was he going to talk a code out of his dad?

Vaughn sat there, considering what he'd heard. Each of the passwords, so far, was something important to his father, something that dated back to the earliest days of Project Christmas. Something important, something about children -

No. It couldn't be that fucking easy.

With shaking fingers, Vaughn typed in his own date of birth. The screen went black, then brought up more file folders than he could count.

"You son of a bitch," Vaughn whispered. "You worthless son of a bitch." Vaughn forced his anger back; he had work to do, and there was no guarantee that any given night in the computer room wouldn't be his last.

Several of the file folders had their own password protections. More conversations with his father would be necessary to crack the codes, though Vaughn already had some ideas. (He would bet any amount of money that both Sydney and Nadia's birthdays would be important too.) But some of the folders were already accessible - mostly scans of pages from Rambaldi texts. By now, Vaughn knew Milo Rambaldi's handwriting as well as he did his own.

The pages varied in content - for the time being, Vaughn merely scanned them, trying to find some common thread. The first he found wasn't in the text, but in an illustration that appeared over and over again: A bouquet of yellow flowers, blossoms thick on each stem. The genus species was written beside them once, in green ink: Laburnum Anagyroides. Then its name in German, which translated to Gold Rain.

Laburnum, Vaughn mused, mulling over his limited knowledge of botany. He had heard that name before - of course. The plant was the source of a poison. In and of itself, the poison was nothing a third-rate alchemist couldn't have brewed 500 years ago, so Vaughn doubted that information was very important on its own. More likely, the flowers were symbolic of something else. Something deadly.

Then, as Vaughn leaned closer to the screen, he realized that the ribbons tying the bouquets together weren't ribbons at all.

They were strands of DNA.

**

VI.


Warsaw, Poland


"You could have chosen any city in the world for our rendezvous," Sloane said. "Tokyo. Barcelona. Why someplace as drab as this?"

Irina looked up at him from her seat at the outdoor cafe; sunglasses shaded her eyes, and he could not guess at the emotions they might be concealing. "I grew up in Moscow."

"Is that an explanation?" Sloane wished she would stand; he might offer an embrace for old times' sake, if she would only stand to receive it.

"There's an old joke Poles tell. A Frenchman leaves on a train from Paris to Moscow, gets confused and steps off at Warsaw. He swears and says, 'Moscow is just as ugly as everyone says it is!' Meanwhile, a Russian leaves on a train from Moscow to Paris, gets confused and steps off at Warsaw. He swears and says, 'Paris is just as beautiful as everyone says it is!'" Irina's smile was without joy. "It's all about the eye of the beholder, Arvin."

He sat at the small table opposite Irina and motioned to a nearby waiter. Asking Irina to share her Pellegrino would probably be in error. "I won't ask you why you never told me. I understand completely, Irina. You should know that."

"That's - gracious of you."

"Jack Bristow hasn't taken the news quite so well. You should know that too."

Irina pushed her sunglasses further up her nose. "I'd guessed that much."

Had they spoken at all? Sloane imagined not. Jack - still so misguided, still so stubborn - had nearly murdered Sloane for the transgression he and Irina had shared; no doubt he would have killed Irina outright, or died trying. As no reports circulated about Jack's death, Sloane thought it more likely that Irina was wisely avoiding her husband.

But she hadn't avoided her lover. Irina had sought him out, and for the first time since Emily's death, Sloane allowed himself to think of their affair without guilt. Their time together had been so brief, born of necessity: different necessities for each of them, but still, a requirement rather than a choice. And yet he had always desired her. From the first night Jack had invited him home for dinner, and Sloane had seen her - slim and perfect in white, her nails salmon-pink, her smile slow and wide - he had fantasized about taking her, had conjured in his mind various hotel rooms, unlikely accidents, situations that would bring them together in ways Jack and Emily would never have to know about. Sloane knew that on some levels he was glad for the demands that had necessitated their affair, that they had only given him an excuse for what he had longed to do for so many years.

But he would never have betrayed Jack or Emily for any lesser purpose. Not even to have Irina.

She regarded him in silence for a few moments before speaking again; Sloane could tell the next words cost her dearly. "How is Nadia?"

"Nadia is - so beautiful." The word "beauty" couldn't even begin to describe their daughter; he risked touching Irina's hand and was moved despite himself when she took it. "She had a difficult childhood, after you lost her. But she's so resilient. Now that she finally has love and guidance in her life, Nadia is becoming the vibrant young woman she always should have been."

Irina turned her face from him, but Sloane understood her emotions, no matter how she might try to hide it. He didn't have to imagine what Irina was feeling. He knew it for himself. Finding a child again, a child stolen away, after years of not knowing how she was, or even whether she was alive -

Sloane received his Pellegrino and set about pouring it. The momentary distraction helped him focus and remember: Irina's reactions were not his own. Irina had known about Nadia far longer than he had, and her perceptions of the truth were - clouded.

Finally, Irina said, "I want to see her. To meet her."

"It's impossible," Sloane replied, surprised and angry with himself for the cutting tone in his words. 

"How can you say that?" She smiled thinly and shook her head, as if she were the one denying him. "I haven't seen Nadia since she was a few hours old, Arvin. My baby - our baby - not one day has gone by that I haven't wanted to hold her again."

Tears pricked at his eyes, but Sloane understood Irina too well to let his empathy overwhelm him. "You've always wanted to find our daughter -"

"Yes. It's why I was so desperate for the Rambaldi artifacts - you must have realized that much by now -"

"You've spent the past twenty-five years searching for Nadia, just to find her." Sloane stared at Irina as he added, "To kill her."

Irina straightened in her chair. The softness he thought he'd glimpsed in her face was gone in an instant; he should have known it was all just another of her lies.

After a silence that seemed to last a very long time, she said, "I only wanted to know which role Nadia would play in the prophecies."

"If you had known the truth -"

"Yes. I would have killed her." Irina's face never changed as she spoke the words; for the first time, Sloane truly understood what Jack Bristow had meant when he called her a monster. "But if I'd known the truth all along, she would never have been born, would she?"

"I should think you would have come to understand my purpose by now. Rambaldi's purpose." How could anyone look into the face of Rambaldi's greatest promise - immortality itself - and turn away? "And I cannot accept that you regret Nadia's birth. I doubt very much that Nadia could accept it either."

Irina smiled at him in precisely the same way he'd seen her smile while slitting a man's throat. "I doubt very much that Nadia knows the truth. You've lied to her, just as you lied to me."

Fear pierced his heart, icy and sharp, but Sloane quickly dispelled it. "Nadia will learn the truth when it's time, and not before. And she'll understand. She understands Rambaldi better than any of us." He stood up, knocking against the edge of the table so that their water splattered onto the plastic surface. "Irina, I cared very deeply for you, once. You gave me the greatest gift that a woman can give a man. Because of that, I've chosen to spare your life. Don't force me to reconsider that decision."

"You aren't walking away from this table alive. Not unless we've made arrangements for me to see Nadia. I won't harm her." Irina breathed out slowly. "I know it's too late for that."

This fell short of heartwarming maternal devotion, in Sloane's opinion. "You have shooters covering me. I have shooters covering you. We both knew it would be like this. It's a stalemate, Irina. Either we both leave this scenario, or neither of us does."

"What makes you so sure I'm not willing to die?" Not only did Irina sound willing to die, Sloane thought, but almost eager. "If it means I take you with me?"

She still wanted to see Nadia, despite everything. Sloane considered that information and took a gamble: "Because that would leave Nadia alone. She will have no one. You will have abandoned her again."

Irina's head drooped, hiding her face behind a curtain of hair. After a long and tense silence - during which Sloane could not help imagining rifle crosshairs upon his back - she said flatly, "Go. Just go. Now."

Sloane strolled away through the Warsaw sunshine, taking his time. When you compared the city to Moscow, really, it did have its charms. Maybe he would return here eventually, with Nadia. And maybe - after the great work was finally done, after the Rain of Gold had changed the world - maybe Nadia could meet her mother after all.

At that point, Irina might even understand the actions he would soon be forced to take against Sydney.

Was it so impossible? Sometimes it seemed to Sloane that, in a world that contained his daughter, nothing was impossible.

He found the tracker Irina had planted on him in the airplane. A quick tuck into the seat pocket, along with Sky Magazine and a laminated card, and the tracker was ready to fly across the world. Sloane wondered if Irina would chase him long, but thought - probably not.

**

VII.


Sydney couldn't really afford to pack. Taking all her most prized belongings was basically the same as painting a sign on her door that read: NOT KIDNAPPED. LEFT OF MY OWN VOLITION.

She would have liked to tell Eric that much at least, to spare him some of his worry. But leaving even a single clue was too much; it would be hard enough to hide from the CIA as it was. And her father -

--he'd go crazy, he'd tear her apartment apart, as well as anybody who got in his way-

--would just have to live with not knowing. Sydney tried to tell herself that the hollow ache in her heart wasn't for her father's sake, that it was solely for Eric. Maybe if she told herself that often enough, she'd believe it.

She had never really mattered to Dad - to Jack Bristow. To him, she had never been just his daughter. Instead, she'd been a piece on a game board, the queen in a game of chess she hadn't known was being played. Every time he'd protected her, he'd only been protecting an asset; the few avowals of love he had ever given her had only been ways of tying her to him, for his later exploitation.

The words made sense to Sydney, as she repeated them in her head. But she didn't know if she'd ever fully be able to accept them in her heart.

You have to, she told herself. For your sake, and your baby's.

The words - "for the baby" - were flat and meaningless, more a reflection of what Sydney knew she should be feeling than what she actually felt. Although she was more than three months along, Sydney still couldn't quite convince herself that a baby would really appear.

Her OBGYN was confused at her refusal to undergo a sonogram; Sydney didn't think she could risk having the images recorded, and it was easier to talk her way out of the sonogram itself than it was to convince the doctor to destroy all internal records - videotapes, pictures, or an EKG of a fast, tiny heartbeat. Maybe that was why she was still so numb? No - women had done without sonograms from the dawn of time until a couple decades ago, but they had been able to feel emotionally connected to their pregnancies. Sydney, try as she might, couldn't feel that way.

Not even for Vaughn.

Sydney's eyes darted to a picture of Vaughn on one of the bookshelves. Almost all the photographs there were his, brought from the home he'd shared with Lauren. Her belongings had been destroyed in the fire: her keepsakes, Francie's cookbooks, the photographs of her child self with the mother and father she never really knew. Vaughn must have liked this photo, because he'd kept it for a long time; the guy grinning from the brass rectangle was ten years younger and far more carefree. She'd never really known Vaughn like this, but Sydney realized that this was how she wanted to remember him.

If Vaughn comes back - WHEN he comes back - I won't be here for him, she thought. He won't be able to find me, not if I've done my job right. He'll never know about our child.

But Sydney knew that if she were able to ask Vaughn about this, he would tell her to do exactly what she was doing - to take care of their baby first. Compared to that, nothing else mattered.

She didn't have to feel it, not as long as she knew it. 

Sydney took a deep breath and started putting together the scant few things she could afford to take. If she was going to get away tonight, while Eric was working late and unlikely to notice any activity from her apartment, she needed to get moving.

**

Jack rarely listened to music, or to anything else, while he drove; the commute was one of the few respites of silence he could count upon on his day. As usual, he used the time to reflect on the most recent intel.

After a few weeks of hope at the CIA, the virus had begun spreading again through Southeast Asia. Apparently the delaying mechanism Sloane's geneticists had devised was perfect; the virus now had an incubation period of weeks or even months, guaranteeing a wide spread of infection. 

Whatever chance he'd had to stop the Rain of Gold was already past. Arvin Sloane had won - now, and possibly forever. All his years of work with Sydney hadn't brought him any closer to an answer.

Jack gripped the steering wheel tighter, all his inchoate fears and dread settling into one question - Irina, why didn't you tell me?

His cellphone chirped, startling him from his reverie. Jack brought it up to his ear in one clean motion. "Yes."

"Jack. It's Katya."

He had not expected to hear from her for a very long time, if ever again. "What's happened?"

"Word has reached me that Arvin Sloane - he's given the order, Jack."

Very carefully, Jack edged his car out of traffic and next to the curb. "Are you sure?"

"Would I call if I weren't? We may have very little time. You must get to Sydney, now."

"Send what intel you have to our pre-arranged e-mail account," Jack said, snapping the phone shut. Katya would not expect long goodbyes. He immediately began punching numbers into his phone; from the tone of Katya's voice, there was absolutely no time to lose.

**

Sydney had to choose the few things she would take very carefully : a bottle of perfume, some shampoo, a few sets of underwear, so forth. No point in packing keepsakes or clothes - the CIA would notice what was missing. Her father had never complimented her on a dress or suit in her life, but he probably had every single one of her outfits written down in a card catalog somewhere.

She ran one hand across her slightly-thicker waistline and wondered: Is this what happened to him? To Mom? When I was on the way, were they just not able to feel it? Maybe we don't have parental instincts. Maybe it's genetic, something Rambaldi had bred out of us, so we'd be willing to offer up our children to his work.

No. Sydney couldn't believe her feelings wouldn't change. What was holding her back - what had destroyed her father - was this life, these lies that surrounded every moment, every emotion, every person. Her father had never been able to tell her the truth, and so he'd never been able to love her the way that she needed. Maybe it was less something he'd done than something that had been done to him. Whatever it was, Sydney was going to escape; she was going to find someplace real.

And then her pregnancy would be real too. 

When she thought about her father as just another victim of this life, it was harder to hold onto her resolve. It became to easy to think of him not as the cold, remote figure he'd been most of her life and the past few months - instead, she remembered him as he'd been last year: her rock, her anchor, her strength. Sydney had felt so lost, and sometimes it was as if her father was her last tie to feeling alive -

Tears welled in her eyes, and Sydney brought her hand to her mouth, trying to force them back. She couldn't be a little girl again, blindly trusting, trying to bury all her problems and fears in her father's embrace. For the baby's sake, she had to be strong - strong enough not to think of herself as child.

The phone rang, startling and annoying her. Only a month before, she would have jumped for the phone, hoping for news of Vaughn; her heart wasn't tormenting her so cruelly any longer. Sighing, Sydney walked from the closet into the hall to answer the phone -

--and saw the man in black, silver-white scar across his left cheek, standing in her doorway.

Gun, she thought, diving across the room to the closest one she had hidden. But even as Sydney lunged for her weapon, she could see the man's black-garbed arm, rising fast, the shining metal in his hand.

No, no, please no. Not the baby, not now, no -

Sydney felt the shot before she heard it, a roar of pain that drowned out everything else in the world. Somewhere, she could hear someone falling, the crash of picture frames and books as they tumbled to the ground. Heat flooded from her chest into the rest of her body, thick and warm, dulling every sense.

She thought: I'm sorry, my baby. And then she could think no more.

**



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