Absolution- Alias Fanfiction

7) A Painful History

AN: This is an intense chapter full of deep FEELS! Music for this chapter (on repeat): Da Svidanya 'Red Army Choir' from The Hunt for the Red October Soundtrack , An Angel Falls by Gabriel Yared, Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber

SEVEN

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It had been four days since Irina had made her appearance, and four days of decoding into the early hours of the morning. They had found papers containing the Project Christmas information she had taken from Jack and dates and times of her meetings with her handler, his reports.

Project Christmas seemed to be the only information she ever took from Jack.

Her records from the KGB Academy noted she scored highly in relatively all areas of performance tests and was put on the fast track to a field assignment. It also noted projects she'd worked on before leaving Russia, most notably some sort of code and special language for agents to use in the field.

'No wonder she's such a genius when it comes to decoding.' Sydney thought back to all the times her mother had proven her skills to her while in their custody. 'Of course, she had probably already solved them before turning herself in, being as how she planned the whole thing, their was never any real decoding to be done.'

"Sydney," Jack touched her shoulder, waking her from her daydream, as the conference room filled with people.

"Alright people," Kendall stood at the head of the table waiting for everyone to take their seats. "Just moments ago, Marshall had a break through with the disks, which is why I called you all in here. Marshall." He took his seat and a very nervous Marshall stood.

I finally figured out how to crack the codes using the information I obtained from Agents Bristow, Bristow and Vaughn.... sounds like a law firm, Bristow, Bristow and Vaughn," he smiled to the very un-amused group, although Sydney did smile. "Anyway, I used the information they decoded from the Derevko file... the part about her developing a code, well I figured I might as well try it... nothing else was working... anyway, uh... oh yeah... the code that Cuvee used was the one your mother," he looked at Sydney his eyes wide in wonderment, "developed for him while she was still at the Academy... for a sixteen year old to do that, come up with something like this... is amazing... unbelievable really." He wiped the sweat on his brow. "So... yeah, I tried the code on the disks just moments ago and they are decoding now...should be finished any minute...the way the data was arranged, I think they are video files. I haven't been able to view them yet so this is a premiere of sorts I guess."

The group waited patiently as Marshall loaded the disks.

"Ok, here goes nothing." He pushed Play and everyone turned their' sights on the screen.

Grainy footage of a countdown came onto the screen and then black, a date appeared on the bottom in Russian:

November 27th, 1981

Kashmir Interrogation Prison

Sydney and Jack both tensed with memories flashing back to Irina's reaction when she told them she'd been a prisoner in Kashmir.

Out of the black an eerie familiar tune began to play amidst the sound of people shouting in Russian, mass chaos and metal clanging.