Alias- Jack & Laura

8) Spy Bugs

Jack watched, stone-faced, as Laura—or whatever her name was—was strapped to a stretcher and carried out. She'd been given a sedative, and so he hadn't had to avoid her eyes, which would no doubt appear to be full of pain. How could he have been such a fool? It had all been an act, and he had fallen for it, fallen in love with her, fallen so deeply that he wasn't sure he could ever get himself out. Not even now that the woman he loved had vanished like mist, only an illusion in the first place.

And now he had to pretend that nothing had changed, even though his world had been shattered. Only in public, at least, he thought. Unless… He turned to Dawson, who had just come back from making sure that the spy was on her way to the hospital. "Are there bugs in my house?"

Dawson shook his head. "She said there weren't."

"And you believe her? She fooled me for ten years into thinking she loved me, and you believe her when she says there are no bugs? How do you know she's not going to go running to the KGB the first chance she gets and laugh about how easy it is to deceive Americans?"

"I don't, not for sure. But I think she stopped being loyal to the KGB a long time ago, and just didn't know how to get out." Jack just shook his head. "I've been in this business a long time, Jack. I've gotten pretty good at telling when people are lying to me. I do believe her." He saw that Jack wasn't going to be swayed, and sighed. "We are, of course, going to keep an eye on her, just in case. And by 'we', I mostly mean you. Since we obviously can't bring her down to headquarters every time we have questions, I'm assigning you as her CIA handler, Jack."

Jack looked up sharply. "You're kidding, right?"

"Officially, she's now a CIA agent working undercover. You're the most logical choice to be her handler."

Jack crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine," he said.

"Good. Going back to the bugs…" Dawson handed Jack a briefcase. "If you want to use them, that contains five bugs and recording equipment for them. If you want, you can listen to what she's doing when you're not around; you'll be the only one that has access to the recordings. There's also a bug detector in there, so you can scan the house for bugs just in case. Just press the button on the top; if there are no bugs in a 20 foot radius, it will beep within thirty seconds."

Jack took the briefcase. "Good to see you're not completely taken in."

Dawson frowned. "Jack, I'm going to ignore your insubordination due to the emotional evening you've had. Now, Arvin is going to drive you to the hospital, where you will be a husband who's very concerned for his injured wife. I'm giving you the day off tomorrow. Do you think you can handle that?"

Sydney, Jack thought. For Sydney. "Yes, I can handle that."