Chapter Text
Washington, D.C.
He liked A.U.S.A. Reed, Dixon had decided.
Granted, it was still very much a preliminary determination. It was also not one he was likely to share with Sydney, for her sake, at least not yet. That said, he was growing increasingly convinced that, had circumstances been different and Lauren not been associated with the trauma of Sydney’s two lost years in such a visceral way, the two women could have very easily become friends.
One of the things he liked about Reed was simply that she appeared to appreciate intelligence work and the people who performed it, something that was not necessarily a given, for people in the law enforcement side of things. Robert Lindsey had not appreciated the work, leading to a working relationship that was barely functional at best, and as his protégé, Reed could have easily gone the same way. Instead, she approached the work with interest and enthusiasm, not only choosing to take a direct role in the field (concerning, in most cases, as this was not work for even intelligent amateurs) but also working hard to do so effectively. She’d even gone as far as asking about non-verbal codes she could use during the mission, which he found quite astute of her.
And so, as he approached the table where Reed was doing a very effective job of charming Ross Nolan, he did so with the utmost confidence in his temporary partner. The Senate candidate only had eyes for the assistant U.S. attorney, and took no notice when Dixon, dressed as a waiter, filched his BlackBerry. After taking their order, he turned to the kitchen and, after relaying their request to the kitchen staff, passed the phone to the on-site techs, who quickly proceeded to clone the device and copy the data stored within. Once that was done—techs like Marshall really were the closest thing the C.I.A. had to magicians—he returned the phone, along with the ordered drinks. And thus, phase one of the operation was completed. Now all that needed to happen was for A.U.S.A. Reed to keep Ross occupied while Sydney and Tom worked on phase two.
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Room searches had been one of the first bits of fieldwork Sydney had been allowed to carry out for SD-6, and she had therefore tended to look down on them. It was good beginner’s tradecraft, requiring little risk and no real moral compromise, which was not what her overly enthusiastic twenty-year-old self had been looking for in her then-exciting new job. Now, a decade later, she realized she’d been an idiot. If only most missions could be this simple.
Of course, simple wasn’t necessarily easy. During a room search, one had to leave no stone unturned while leaving no trace of one’s presence behind—two almost inherently contradictory tasks. While most people probably wouldn’t notice if one’s luggage had been moved one inch to the right, probability wasn’t certainty, and so one had to always assume the target was the most anal person in existence.
Prospective senator Ross Nolan, however, did not seem like he was the most anal person in existence. For one, he’d requested that the room be tidied, meaning he expected some stuff to be messed with. That gave her some flexibility. Also fortunate was the fact that Nolan had not turned the room into a pigsty; Sydney had seen it happen before, and it was the absolute worst.
Eventually, though, with nothing obvious to find and muscle memory taking over much of the task, Sydney found herself getting…bored. She’d forgotten another reason why she hadn’t cared for these sorts of missions: they provided the mental stimulation of a white crayon.
Fortunately, she was not alone; if she was going to regularly work with people besides Dixon, she’d better get to know them. “So, you were a SEAL, right?” she asked Agent Grace, who, from their staging area the next room over, was using the hidden cameras Sydney had installed to keep an eye on key parts of the hotel. “How did you end up in the C.I.A.?”
If Agent Grace was annoyed by this sudden and mildly unprofessional turn into the personal, he didn’t show it. “Blew a whistle I shouldn’t have, pissed off the wrong people. Keeper gave me a place to land.” He said this matter-of-factly, with no bitterness, and, alas, little indication that he was willing to provide more detail.
Still, it was enough. Sydney had been screwed over by the supposed good guys often enough to have a good idea of how Grace felt. And learning that Kendall had helped him out made the task force director seem almost likeable. “Sorry to hear that,” she responded.
“I’m not. I’d do again. Can I ask you something?”
It was only fair. “Shoot.”
“What was it like, working for SD-6?”
It was an innocuous enough question, or at least it probably would be, years down the line. “Why?” she asked, newly tense, the mission all but forgotten.
A fair amount of people had asked her variations of that question since she’d begun working for the actual C.I.A. Usually, she responded with banalities, but there had been exceptions, like with Will. He and Sydney had finally gotten a moment of calm after the kidnapping that had led him to learn the truth, and he’d asked, not because it was useful or because it’d help him in any way, but because he cared. Another had been with her mother, en route to their Kashmir mission; like many of Irina Derevko’s questions, it had been part interrogation, part deflection, and part lesson; like many of her lessons, it had left Sydney feeling defensive and guilty. There, she’d had no idea how to answer, especially since her mother had implied that no matter how terrible the experience, it apparent hadn’t been terrible enough.
What did Grace want? Sydney had no clue. What she did know, however, is that time had not made answering the question any easier.
Five seconds had passed, and Grace had not answered Sydney’s question. She attempted to continue searching the room, and found herself getting increasingly angry. Then, just as she was about to chime in with the most scathing remark she could think of, he finally responded: “Sorry about that, Mountaneer—I was checking something out. You’re about to have company—a familiar face from Paris. Do you want me to intercept or delay?”
And just like that, Sydney’s brain was once again entirely on the mission. “You’re sure it’s one person?”
“So far. He’s in the lobby, heading to the elevators. He may have a gun in a shoulder holster, underneath his suit. He’s also carrying messenger bag—not too heavy, it seems.”
Not bad odds at all. She herself wasn’t armed, but in close quarters against one person, a firearm was not as big a danger as it would be elsewhere. “Stay where you are—thanks for the heads-up.” Annoying or not, Grace was still nursing injuries from that same Paris operation he’d mentioned. What’s more, his warning gave her several ways to play the scenario.
Sydney’s alias was that of hotel maid Natalia Dobrica, and in order to sell the role, she had been outfitted with a cleaning cart, which came complete with tiny cameras, a self-contained miniature scanner with its own portable hard drive, and various cleaning supplies. Sydney picked up cleaning liquid and a toilet brush, and, after making sure the spy equipment was not visible, she headed to the bathroom. If she was spotted, well, she had every reason to be there. If she was recognized, well, there were worse things than having a Covenant agent in custody, even if a blown cover would mean the Covenant would be aware of what the C.I.A. was up to.
But if there was a way for the Covenant to not know... “Bulldog, I’ve changed my mind. How good are you at reverse pick-pocketing?”
“It’s not my best skill, but I should be able to handle it. What do you need?”
After giving Grace her instructions, Sydney made her way to the toilet and began scrubbing. The toilet was, mercifully, not as dirty as it could have been. She had been at it for nearly a minute when the bathroom door opened.
“I am sorry,” Sydney said, trying to sound casually apologetic—being interrupted while cleaning was everyday business, for Natalia. “I will be done in a minute.” She was suddenly glad that her disguise was a rather unflattering one; it occurred to her that even if the agent didn’t recognize her from Paris—she, for her part, didn’t recognize him—that still left countless other places where he could know her from, if she herself had been a Covenant agent. They might even have been friends.
The agent, fortunately, did not seem to recognize Sydney, although he did stare at her for far too long, as if trying to decide something, before turning his attention to the room. Sydney returned to the toilet, now with an ear out in case her foe realized he recognized her after all. Once she heard the hotel room’s main door close behind her, she counted slowly to five before abandoning her position; peering from inside the room, she watched as the Covenant agent made his way to the elevator and disappeared into it.
She contacted Grace. “Bulldog, are you downstairs? He should be heading your way—center elevator.”
“Got it—I’m here.”
Sydney’s next call was to Marshall, and she filled him in as she scanned Ross’ room to make sure nothing was amiss. As she transported her cart back to the staging area, she heard from Grace once again: “The tracker’s in place.”
“Fantastic. I’ll catch up as soon as I can.”
After a quick change—gone were the wig and uniform, replaced by sweats, sneakers, and a hoodie—Sydney made her way to the hotel entrance; about five minutes had elapsed since Grace’s last communication. “Gandalf?” she said, addressing Marshall by his code name.
“Bulldog’s about a half a mile east of you on Q Street—he’s gotten ahead of the target, and is keeping him some fifty feet behind him. Best place to mug him’s going to be Logan Circle—you have about six minutes to catch up.”
For five minutes, Sydney ran with abandon, focusing only on closing the gap separating her from the target. For the first time since her return, she had begun feeling the elation that came from her work—the rush that came from being forced to make quick decisions to stave off disaster outsmart her opponents. What’s more, this stroke of luck would get them much farther than the original plan would. Even her anger at Agent Grace had subsided.
After reaching 14th Street, Sydney slowed her pace down to a brisk jog. Not long after, she spotted Grace in the inner perimeter of Logan Circle, accosting the target and keeping him distracted. With a quick flick, Sydney unfolded the butterfly knife she’d brought with her and silently approached the two men; distracted by Grace, the Covenant agent was too slow to react as Sydney cut the strap of his messenger bag and then knocked him down. Sydney then took hold of the bag and ran.
Following Marshall’s directions, Sydney headed south down 13th Street. The element of surprise had given her a head start, but if the Covenant agent decided to follow her—extremely likely—he would almost certainly catch up with her eventually, even with Grace’s distraction. And of course, if the enemy decided to forsake stealth and actually shoot her, no amount of speed would allow her to escape.
Of course, escape was the last thing she wanted.
“Turn left now!” Marshall cried. Sydney obeyed and found herself in a wide alley, with all the things one usually saw in them: dumpsters, parked cars, the back entrances of various apartment buildings, and plenty of opportunities to set up an ambush. Unfortunately, before Sydney could take advantage of any of this, she heard the bang of a gunshot, followed almost immediately by the familiar sensation of a bullet as it whistled past her.
“Drop the bag, luv—and the knife” barked the Covenant agent behind her; from the sound of his voice, it seemed he was smart enough to remain outside of striking distance.
Sydney obeyed. While the bag was her only leverage, it was also useless as long as he outgunned her; her best shot was to keep him distracted. “Done. Just…don’t shoot, okay?” she said, raising her arms and turning around. Indeed, the agent was some ten feet away from her—not a long distance, objectively, but when he had a gun and she didn’t, it might as well be a hundred.
The Covenant agent did not shoot. Instead, his face, upon seeing Sydney’s, twisted to form a self-satisfied grin. “So it was you in that bathroom, Julia! No wonder you looked familiar.” His gun did not lower.
Julia again. Clearly she’d been a known quantity inside the Covenant, which was…well it wasn’t what she wanted to think about, right now. “I don’t suppose this means you’ll let me go, though, for old times’ sake?” she asked, not because she was hoping the answer would be “yes,” but because she needed to stall. Circumstances had changed, and now, whatever happened, the Covenant agent could not be allowed to escape.
“Not a chance,” the agent replied with a scoff. “The bosses need you to answer some questions. Also, they don’t take kindly to traitors.”
They want me alive now? That’s nice. The previous Covenant agent she had faced had suggested otherwise. “So, what now, then?” Sydney asked trying to sound vulnerable.
“Now, I call my people, and we wait here until they arrive. Whether you’re intact when they do is up to you.”
“Sounds good. You’d better call them soon though, before my partner knocks you on the head with that baton of his.”
Sydney had always been skeptical of “look behind you!” as a bluff, and the Covenant agent, to his credit, did not turn around. Still, his moment of hesitation was all Sydney needed: after crossing the distance between them, she grabbed hold of the agent’s gun arm and disarmed him. The agent had barely enough time to be surprised when he was knocked unconscious from a blow to the head by Agent Grace.
“You alright?” asked Agent Grace
“Yup,” Sydney replied, as she unloaded the gun in her hand. “The plan didn’t work, though—bastard recognized me. We’re going to have to take him in.”
“Reed won’t like that,” Grace said, with what might have been amusement.
“Well, boo-hoo to her.” Grace’s resulting smirk made Sydney think she might just end up liking him after all.
After securing the agent—one St. John Pygram, according to his driver’s license—Sydney contacted Ops, who agreed to have transport sent over to their location. While they waited, they went through Pygram’s possessions; afterwards, with nothing else to do but wait, Sydney sat down on the pavement, resting against the outer wall of one of the apartment buildings enclosing the alley. After a few minutes of pacing around with no particular purpose or direction, Grace joined her. He retrieved a flask he’d somehow been carrying with him and, after offering to share some of his whiskey with Sydney—she declined, largely because she didn’t want to risk a reputation as a workplace drunk—he took a swig and asked: “So, the reason I asked about SD-6—you still want to know?”
While Sydney hadn't forgotten about Tom’s question, in all the excitement, it has ceased bothering her. “Sure,” she said neutrally. After what they’d just been through, her partner deserved the benefit of the doubt.
Tom did not immediately respond; he seemed to be marshaling his courage, and when he began, his face looked pained in a way she’d never seen before. “Four years ago, my wife, Laura was killed. Not intentionally, I’m pretty sure—they were trying to get at me, and they missed. Eventually I found that the killer belonged to SD-6.”
Oh.
How the fuck am I supposed to respond to that?