The sun beat down on Sydney Bristow's head as she jogged towards headquarters. Her face showed no exertion as she pushed herself to her physical limit. Her silken brown was tied up in a pony tail that was flying around the back of her head. Her chest heaved under the sports bra that she was wearing for a top. She had her walkman on blaring some Third Eye Blind song, but she wasn't really listening to it. Her mind was totally focused on her run. That was the reason she loved the fact that she wasn't working out of the Credit Dauphine building anymore. She always had to drive or take a cab there. With CIA headquarters underneath an overpass 20 minutes from her apartment, she could run to work and use that time to clear her mind. With all the things that seemed to be going on in her life at any given time, she needed a little quiet time all to herself.
Of course, it wasn't just her idea that she run to work. When she first started doing it, it was a requirement of the CIA. They wanted to know she was coming so the run would announce her. With the fall of SD-6, she could probably stop running to work. She was well-trenched in the CIA now. Now, she ran, not for the CIA, but for herself.
She surreptitiously looked all around her to see if she had a tail. She didn't see anything so she slipped under the overpass and opened up the emergency call box underneath. She punched in the code that let her into the Rotunda, a branch of the CIA that publicly did not exist. She entered the dark, cool office beyond. She untied the USC T-shirt that she had tied around her slim waist and pulled it over her pert breasts and flat stomach.
Now that her mind was off her run, she had time to think about what why she was here. She had gotten paged by Director Kendall himself. It had to be important if he had paged her personally. She wondered if it had anything to with Sloane. Sloane had been on the run ever since before the fall of SD-6. He and his associates like Sark were busy jet-setting around the globe trying to gather together items created by Milo Rambaldi, the 15th century Italian seer and inventor. She wondered what kind of dirty little business Sloane had his fingers into now.
Sydney walked across the office. She felt someone looking at her. She turned and saw the ever-handsome Michael Vaughn looking at her, determination adding a distinguished look to his features. She smiled broadly at him and walked over. She asked him, "What's going on?"
Her smile seemed to melt the determination in his features. "I'll let Kendall fill you in. We're meeting in his office right now."
He looked like he wanted to wrap his arm around her waist. He reached out hesitantly and pulled back. She understood his reluctance to show this public display of affection. Even though everyone knew that they were a couple, it just wasn't seemly to be flaunting it around.
They both walked into the conference room. Director Kendall was at the head. A focused and fierce man, he didn't play around. He was a man a lot like her father, Jack Bristow, who was sitting to Kendall's left. To Kendall's right was Marcus Dixon, one of Sydney's closest friends. It felt like they had worked together forever, even though it had only been about 3 years. Like most of the other men in her life, Dixon was focused and determined too. The difference, though, was that Dixon was a caring man who wore his heart on his sleeve. Ever since the death of his wife Diane, though, the caring look in Dixon's eyes had changed to hard flint.
Sitting next to Dixon was Marshall Flinkman, head of Op-Tech. He seemed flustered as always. Vaughn and Syd sat down on Jack's side of the table and gave all their attention to Director Kendall.
Kendall stood up and picked up a clicker off the table. It controlled the laptop that Kendall was using to present slides. He said, all-business, "You're probably wondering why I called you here today. Well, it concerns a couple of old friends of ours," he focused on Sydney, "especially you Sydney."
He pressed the clicker and a picture appeared on the screen behind him. A picture of a handsome 30s-ish black woman with almond-shaped Oriental eyes appeared on the screen next to a picture of the man Sydney hated more than anyone else, Arvin Sloane.
Sydney sucked in a huge gasp of air. "Anna Espinoza is working with Sloane?"
The look on Kendall's features froze and looked like granite. "That's right, Agent Bristow. Our girl, Anna, has been working free-lance ever since your mother had Sark kill her old boss, the head of K-Directorate. Free-lance, though, has not been as lucrative as Anna thought so now she's hooked up with Sloane.
"Sloane has hired Anna to assist him in his search for Rambaldi artifacts. Anna, being a Rambaldi convert, probably couldn't pass up Sloane's offer. Anna's current mission is to locate this," Kendall clicked to the next slide as he continued.
The picture on the screen was of an item that looked like an old-fashioned movie projector without the reels. Instead of one lens, mounted on the front, though, there were two that projected out from the front to the right and the left. It looked like it was made out of some kind of tarnished bronze or brass.
"From what we've been able to translate in the Rambaldi journals, it's some kind of energy-mass converter. Curiously, in the diagram, Rambaldi has the two lenses labeled as "Etna" and "Vesuvius." Why he chose those names is anyone's guess, but our men think it has something to do with what they actually do. Whether it's a reference to explosive power or what, we don't know. It could be a biological or chemical weapon, too because of this…," Kendall click to another side that was a close-up of one side of the device. There was a panel on the device that had a phrase etched into it.
"…panel. This phrase is written in two different languages. The first part is written in the strange language that Rambaldi seems to have written in. It says, 'The cure is….' The last three words are actually French. It says, 'le petit mort."
Sydney spoke up. "The little death? What does that mean?"
Kendall answered her. "That's one of the many things that we don't know Agent Bristow."
Vaughn spoke up, "Well, whatever it does, if Sloane wants it, it can't be good."
Sydney responded, "What's the mission?"
Kendall clicked again. A non-descript California-style mansion appeared on the screen. "Well, at least this time, the object is relatively close. The device is being held by a private collector by the name of Meyer Ross. He's a long-time independent film maker known for his soft core pornographic films featuring voluptuous women. We're not sure how he got his hands on the device, but rumor has it that the device was used on his wife, former porn star, Pamela Pontoons."
Kendall clicked again as two more pictures appeared on the screen. They were only headshots of an elderly looking gentleman with a mischievous gleam in his eye and a platinum blonde with plump collagen injected red lips and an intelligent look in her blue eyes.
Kendall spoke again, "Your mission, Agent Bristow, is to be the assistant to a documentarian who is making a movie on the life of Mr. Ross. Agent Dixon will be the filmmaker. While Dixon is interviewing Ross, Sydney will sneak into Russ's study and break into his safe. The device is there. From the intel we've received, Sloane was intending on sending Anna in next week during a large party the Ross's are having. We'll have the device a week early and win another battle in this war of attrition that we're having with Sloane. Now, Ross's house has the latest in state-of-the-art personal home security so Sydney will need some help. Marshall?"
Marshall had been staring forlornly at the picture of Pamela Pontoons on the screen. Sydney smiled when she thought that she saw a hint of moisture appear at the corner of his mouth. He perked up when Kendall called his name. He blushed and stood up. He stammered, "Well, uh, you see, Mr. Kendall….or should I call you Director Kendall….Director Kendall is right. It's just a personal security system. Which means just a buzzer, a gate, and a camera…hmph, like that's going to do anything if Charlie shows up with the family and they really want to get in, it's not like fingerprint or retina ID or…," he trailed off as Kendall glared at him.
He got back on track. "Basically, all you need is this."
Marshall held up what looked like a cell phone. He demonstrated, "You see, when you open in up and dial in *69 (I figured I'd use something that was easy to remember) a miniature electromagnetic pulse gets sent out that interferes with camera signals. The modulation of the pulse affects only cameras so anything else electrical is left alone. Security is blind until you open the phone back up, dial 411 and everything goes back to normal."
Kendall nodded. "As a camera crew, you'll need the requisite cover equipment so you'll see Marshall for the rest of that too. Good luck."
Dixon drove the Jeep Cherokee that they had gotten from the CIA up to the gate of Meyer's mansion. He stopped at the gate and pressed the buzzer on the intercom. The intercom responded with the voice of an annoyed guard, "Can I help you?"
Dixon leaned out the window and spoke into the speaker. "Yes, Chuck Moore and his assistant are here to interview Mr. Ross."
There was a pause of a minute or so before the gate before them buzzed and started to slowly open. The annoyed voice from the box spoke, "Come on in and pull your vehicle up to the front door of the house."