Title: Dramatic Jurisdiction (2/?)
Author: smithar
Rating: PG
Fandom(s): Alias/Bones
Pairing(s): None. Maybe BoothxBrennan & SydneyxVaughn
Summary: Brennan and Booth's latest case takes a turn for the worse when they get wrapped up international conspiracies and dangerous men who will do anything to keep what they know a secret. Will the CIA help them?
Notes: My knowledge of the Alias universe is spotty at best, so please bear with me. All I know is that Sydney kicks ass. I don't own anything Bones or Alias related. Unbetaed.
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Two days earlier...
"Ivanov Melchin." Sloane said, bringing up the next slide with the face of a man with a sharp jawline and a crooked nose. "Two days ago, an organization known as The Foundation kidnapped him from his suburban house, and murdered him execution style before torching his body and leaving it in an empty field on the outskirts of D.C. The reason they did so was for this..." The next slide came up, displaying a schematic that Sydney vaguely recognized as the chemical flow of a processing facility. Engineering data.
"This is a detailed process that Ivanov, a renowned chemical engineer, was working on as part of his contract with an undisclosed private company. This company, which was based in Russia, was working on a series of covert operations to develop a special type of dirty bomb, far more dangerous than anything used up to date. We believe The Foundation wanted the details of the chemical process for their own use. While Ivanov's body was being disposed of, Foundation operatives searched his house and found no trace of the plans. But this was collected as evidence at the location where Ivanov's body was dumped..." Sloane went to the next slide, which displayed a crime scene photograph of a small disc unlike anything Sydney had seen before. Then again, that wasn't a rare occurrence with this job.
Sloane continued gravely. "This is the memory unit that contains the process maps to creating Ivanov's dirty bomb, and it's The Foundation will go to any length to get it. It is up to us to retrieve the item from where it is being housed, at the Jeffersonian Institute."
Marshall cleared his throat, nervously speaking up. "Wouldn't it make more sense if we just, you know... asked them?"
"Doing so would alert The Foundation of our involvement." Jack interjected plainly. "If we give away that we know about their activities, they will start taking extra precautions and it will be that much harder for us to keep track of them."
Sloane nodded and turned to Sydney. "Marshall will be outside the building, tapping the Jeffersonian's security system and monitoring any activity inside, relaying that information to you. Review the building plan with Dixon, he'll be with Marshall in case we need to perform an extraction." He smiled kindly. "We want to make this as easy for you as possible."
Sydney nodded, repressing the urge to smack the smile off Sloane's face. The benevolent act disgusted her; it was obvious he wanted the chemical processes for his own schemes. But she still managed to give him a deferential, innocent look. "Thanks. I'm on it."
---
Present time...
"She kicked my ass." Booth couldn't help but sound affronted as he sat on the examination room's bed, pressing a bag of ice to his swollen forehead.
"She kicked Dr. Brennan's ass; of course she kicked your ass." Cam quipped, standing in the corner with her arms folded across her chest.
"Are you saying I'm easier to take down than Bones? Great, now my head and my ego are bruised." Booth muttered before turning to Brennan, who was re-examining his injuries with intermittent touches and a worried look on her face. "Would you quit it? I'm fine."
Brennan ignored his request and continued, fingers grazing across his bruises and cuts. "You did the same thing to me in New Orleans, it's only fair." Eventually satisfied that Booth was indeed okay, she turned to Cam. "You didn't have to come here, Dr. Saroyan. It's very late and we could have dealt with the doctors ourselves."
Cam scoffed. "Are you kidding? I want to see this investigation through from beginning to end. No one kicks the ass of my people on my own turf and gets away with it."
Brennan was about to reply when there was a knock on the examination room door, and the three of them turned to see a blond-haired man in a well made suit standing in the doorway. He stepped inside and closed the door silently, and Booth felt himself tensing just as Brennan and Cam exchanged worried glances. They must have sensed what he sensed, that this was someone used to keeping things quiet, someone from the government.
The man pulled a small device out of his pocket and placed it on the counter. "Sorry to be so abrupt. My name's Michael Vaughn; I work for the CIA and I need your cooperation in a very important matter."
---
"I don't know what this means." Brennan's face was lined with intense concentration as she stared at the numbers and letters in front of her.
1190 C1C4 #999999
"Yeah, I don't have a clue what this is supposed to be saying either." Booth turned away from the computer screen and looked at Vaughn. "You're absolutely positive this has something to do with the Jeffersonian?"
Vaughn nodded, a somewhat worried look on his face. "We didn't have the chance to make a switch, so Sydney hid the plans somewhere in the building as she left. This code is all I have to go on. SD-6 doesn't think very highly of operatives who lose the items they were sent to recover, she's being questioned right now."
Brennan's concentration didn't waver. "Wait, maybe I do know what this means..." She was silent for a moment longer, then leaped out of her chair and strode out of her office, leaving the two men in confusion.
"She do that a lot?"
"You have no idea."
They followed Brennan out and saw her walking towards Angela's office, peering at the paintings and statues adorning every surface. She approached a small sculpture on one of Angela's shelves, a grey model of a woman's head and face. Lifting the sculpture up, Brennan looked into the hollow neck cavity and smiled. Reaching in, she pulled out the memory unit.
Booth whistled appreciatively. "Whoa, that was pretty cool, Bones."
"Thank you, but it wasn't that hard to figure out." She replied with a shrug. "The string of nines referred to-"
Vaughn interrupted hastily. "I don't want to be rude but I have to leave immediately; Sydney's safety depends on it."
"Of course." Brennan handed over the memory unit to Vaughn with a nod. "I hope she's okay, even if she beat me at hand-to-hand combat."
"She was just doing what she had to do to survive." Booth said, shaking Vaughn's free hand.
Vaughn smiled slightly as he shook Booth's hand. "Thanks. I'll be contacting the two of you and your boss within the next two days; you and your team already know too much and we'll need to debrief you on what you can and can't share with the public."
Booth looked a little disgruntled as he watched Vaughn leave. "Now I remember why government secrets bother me so much."
"It's not a big deal, once you get used to it." Brennan mused, remembering all the classified projects she had been involved in over the years. "As I was saying, the string of nines referred to-"
-------------TBC-------------