A/N Honestly I have no real excuse for the fact that it has taken so long, other than I have been busy. I had exactly two days off the whole month of August, I woke up at five am babysat and drove kids to daycare, usually had another job at 9 or 10 till 4 or 5 and then an evening job… (as you can see I’ve been busy.) I’ve now finally started my new job as a nanny. I work 9-5 Monday to Friday, The kids are great, (well the baby is, the other is a pain) but I still am busy babysitting all weekend. I have no time lol. I feel so bad, Absolution has been in progress for almost a year and I am only on the tenth chapter. I wrote all of Redemption in one year. (sigh) sorry, my life is so disorganized at the moment I can’t concentrate on anything. Sorry for all the rambling enough of my troubles and on with the most important thing. THE MOLE IS REVEALED!!!!! This chapter is completely unbeta’d and literally took me a month to do the last scene so I am just posting it as is so you all don’t have to wait any longer. Hope you all enjoy!
Chapter Nine Recap
Kat spent an interesting night with Sark and learned that as a child, she had killed a man under hypnosis and that she and Sark had been trained as children, by Khasinau to work together. Kat begins to seduce Sark in order to “thank him.” Sark stops her advances and tells her not to use sex as a means of power or as a way to thank someone. He then decides to show Kat how ‘good’ intimacy can be.
Absolution
Chapter Ten
Sark was silent as they rode to the airstrip. Kat stole glances at him every once and a while, but he was occupied with his work and paid her no attention. Several documents lay on the seat beside him as he flipped through one. He hadn’t said more than five words to her all morning. When she woke in his bed that morning he was already gone and hadn’t appeared until mid morning when he announced that they would be leaving for the airstrip. Kat had attempted to discuss the previous night with him, but he’d promptly declared that there would be no discussion. Gone was Julian, the man who had been so kind to her the night before. In his place Sark had returned; cold and distant.
The driver stopped the car on the dirt road and opened Kat’s door; the airplane was already waiting for them. She looked over at Sark who hadn’t moved at all.
“Are you coming?” she asked.
He looked almost surprised that she had asked and motioned to the plane, “Katya’s waiting for you.”
Kat resumed her seat. “Are you angry at me?” she asked, “about what I said last night?”
“Why would you think that?” Sark didn’t look up from his papers.
“Because you won’t talk to me.”
“Katia, I’m not angry with you.”
“But last night-“
“Last night was a mistake,” Sark interrupted. “What I did to you, I shouldn’t have done.” He glanced at her quickly to judge her reaction. She had grown pale and her eyes were clouded with uncertainty.
“I liked it,” she said softly. “Thank you.”
“It wasn’t right.” Sark shook his head. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I don’t care,” she shrugged. “I was scared, I won’t deny it. I was scared… at first but after a while I wasn’t and it felt good. You were right; I hadn’t felt like that before. When you touched me, it was like rollerblading in Times Square at night, I felt alive…”
“Rollerblading down a mountain?” Sark raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t you know how?” Kat asked.
“It’s not high on my list of life experiences.” Sark set his folder aside and got out of the car, Kat followed quickly. He came around to the other side of the car and picked up her small bag. “Are you sure?” he asked guiding her towards the plane where Katya waited.
“It’s the truth, I promise. I know you think that I’m just a little girl, but I’m not.” Kat touched his arm forcing Sark to stop and give her his full attention. “I didn’t ask you to stop because I didn’t want you to.” She took her bag from him. Standing on the tips of her toes she reached one hand up to the side of his face and kissed his cheek. “Thank you… for last night, for everything. Good bye Julian.”
“Good bye Katia.”
Kat proceeded to the steps where her aunt Katya waited impatiently. She stopped. “Will I see you again?” she asked softly. “Then I can teach you how to blade, everyone should know.”
“Perhaps,” he nodded. “I’ll come if you ever need me.”
“But how will you know?”
“I’ll know,” Sark assured her. Without another word he returned to his car and drove off.
~ ~ ~
“What’s going on?” Garcia asked Marshall as he entered the busy Rotunda. He’d been called in on his day off, and a quick survey of the area revealed that Agent Weiss and JJ had also been called in. “Did they find Agent Bristow?”
Marshall snapped the case containing his tech gear closed. “No,” he shook his head. “We caught Sark. Well another agency did, but we’re taking custody. Kendall’s ordered us all there; he’s not taking any chances.”
“Flinkman, Garcia,” Jack interrupted briskly. “The convoy leaves in five minutes.”
Across the room Sydney, Weiss and Vaughn were preparing to go.
“What do you think happened?” Weiss asked as he loaded his gun.
“Sark finally slipped up,” Vaughn shrugged and slipped his gun into the holster. “See you out there,” he told Sydney who nodded quietly.
“Syd?”
Sydney glanced at Weiss briefly before lowering her gaze.
Weiss noticed the slight tremble in her hands as she loaded her weapon. “What’s wrong?” he asked, but she didn’t respond. “Sydney, what’s wrong?” he repeated.
“Katy was with him,” she said softly.
“What?” he was astounded. “What are you talking about, when?”
“Eight days ago, in Australia.” Sydney lowered her voice. “My dad caught them on an airport security video.”
“Why didn’t you-“
“I know,” she slid her gun into the holster. “Weiss, we didn’t know who we could trust. I had to protect her-“
“And I wouldn’t?”
“I didn’t know what you’d say to Lisa-“
“You can trust her,” Weiss said angrily. “She’s a good person Syd.”
“I know she is, and I know that you care about her very much, but Weiss, the thing is that if Sark has been captured… where is Katy now?”
The question went unanswered.
~ ~ ~
Once the steps had been lowered, Katya proceeded down to the waiting CIA agents.
“Hold your fire,” Dixon commanded the agents, he turned to Katya. “Drop your weapons.”
“I am unarmed,” Katya responded and set her bag on the ground.
“Where is Sark?” Jack asked.
Katya shrugged and took a few steps towards them. “I am not aware of his itinerary.”
As Katya removed her sunglasses, Jack realized who it was and it was everything he could do not to get his hopes up. “Then why the charade?”
“Would you have come otherwise?”
There was no response.
“As I suspected.” Katya crossed her arms over her chest. “I have some information you maybe interested in.”
“What is it?” Kendall asked.
“The identity of your mole,” Katya replied with a smirk.
“Where is Bristow?” Director Branden demanded.
“You’re so certain that it is her,” Katya spoke as more of a statement than a question.
“Look, I don’t know who the hell you think you are-“
“Would you like to know?” Katya pulled out her cell phone and held it in the air. “Katarina’s bank records, the deposits led to a telephone number, it was quite simple to trace,” She began dialling.
“Drop the phone,” Branden ordered raising his gun.
The agents were silent as the shrill ringing of a cell phone belonging to one of their own filled the air.
Weiss’ eyes grew wide as he realized where the ringing was coming from. “You bastard.” He grabbed JJ by the lapels and the younger agent dropped his still ringing cell phone. “How could you do it to her?”
Weiss managed to get a well directed punch to JJ’s eye before Garcia pulled him back. And the other guards under Kendall’s orders cuffed JJ.
“We’re expected to simply believe this?” Branden narrowed his eyes. “Where’s Bristow? Where’s your proof?”
Katya retrieved a portable DVD player from her bag. “You should see this also.”
Garcia released Weiss; Agent Vaughn had him under control. He couldn’t look at JJ, he couldn’t meet his eyes. JJ had betrayed him; the man he had considered spending the rest of his life with, had betrayed them all.
Weiss glared at JJ. His hand hurt like hell, but the satisfaction of seeing the man who had betrayed his best friend, bleeding from a small cut above his eye and grimacing in pain from a broken nose, was well worth it. Hearing Kat’s voice, his attention was now focused on the screen. The screen jumped a little distorting the image, but as tired and worn out as she looked on the screen, he was so happy to see her.
“If you’re seeing this, I guess things didn’t go exactly as I’d planned. When I was taken from the transport, it wasn’t my idea; I didn’t know it was going to happen. The people who took me believed that I was innocent of the charges. They wanted to help me find the truth and they did. We went over and over the evidence against me, repeatedly. Everything pointed to me. The logs and bank records everything. When we looked at the wire transfers someone found an anomaly; a phone number used to do the transfers, but it wasn’t mine. We traced the number and when I found out who it belonged to, I couldn’t believe it. I was angry and hurt. I trusted JJ Cruz and he betrayed me.”
Garcia felt numb as he listened to Kat’s voice on the recording. He could hear the words, but they just wouldn’t register in his mind.
“I tried so hard to think of the signs, to reason that there had been things he’d done or said that would reason as to why he’d done it; mistakes he’d made… I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want it to be true. The more I searched for reasons, for the truth, the more I realized there wasn’t any truth to it. JJ didn’t betray me, or his friends or the agency. He couldn’t, he’s a good man, an even better agent and he was used, just like I was.”
Vaughn glanced at JJ seeing utter relief on his shocked face. He still hadn’t said a word in his own defence since the accusation. JJ had looked horrified and was likely just unable to believe it was happening, which resulted in his non-defence appearing as if he really was guilty.
On the screen, Kat held everyone’s attention. “We kept looking, re-examining all the evidence we had. We got copies of the recorded phone conversations, the ones where I supposedly admitted that I was a member of the covenant, that I told them the identity of the undercover operatives in Columbia. I knew of course that it was a fake, because I never said those things, but the CIA techs said that it was authentic, even Marshall said it was real.”
Kat paused her explanation and took a sip of water before she continued. The image flickered slightly reminding all that they still had no idea where she was. “The people I was with had the recording analyzed using a new technology that the CIA doesn’t even have yet and the technician confirmed that it was a fake. Whoever did it took recordings of my voice and pieced them together and filtered them through a background. The technician said that it was nearly impossible to determine how many different conversations there were or where they were even from. The only thing it proved was that it wasn’t me.
“The words alone were not enough to figure out anything. The technician isolated the background of a section of recording, separating each of the fragments from the applied background and their original backgrounds. One of the original background noises was unusual, it took days before I realized what it was, but when I did, it narrowed down the suspects significantly. It was a sneeze, belonging to agent Weiss. The fragment had been taken from a meeting when I first came to Los Angeles. Agent Weiss had a cold, and the meeting was confidential, there shouldn’t have even been a recording, but there was.
“There were only four other people besides myself in that room. We focused the investigation on those four people, and then we broke into a Covenant facility and found proof; bank records from an off-shore account tracing back to the mole; the real mole.
“I need real proof. I told him everything and he betrayed me, he betrayed this agency and this country. He used the secrets I told him in confidence against me and sold them to the highest bidder. I need to see him for myself, I need a confession, and I need to know why, so I am going to arrange a meeting.”
Sydney could literally feel her heart stop as she watched the image of her sister change to that of a dingy old warehouse. The footage was easily identified as that of the meeting, although the mole was not in the cameras view and his voice couldn’t be heard. Kat turned and a look of fear and confusion crossed her face. “Why did you do it?” she asked the mole.
As she watched her sister on the small screen, Sydney’s hands flexed over her gun, adjusting her finger over the trigger. She felt her blood run cold as the mole stepped into view, but the hat he wore shielded his face from the camera. She gasped as he raised his gun and fired to shots at her sister. A third shot came from beyond him and Kat fell to the ground, blood seeping over her clothes.
“Kat?” Will whispered scarcely able to believe what he had just seen. Was she dead? As Sark came into view, he was certain she was. Sark would never have missed the chance to kill an American CIA Agent.
Jack clenched his jaw as he watched Sark kick his daughter. After a brief conversation with Sark, the mole finally turned showing his face to the camera.
“You bastard! Where is Kat?” Vaughn shouted.
“Dead.”
The sound of a gun being cocked startled all. “Of all the lies you’ve told, you said one truth.” Kat stood on the bottom step of the plane’s stairs, her pale green dress fluttered in the wind and her red hair spilled around her shoulders. “Bristows really do come back from the dead.”
Robert Lindsey’s hands were jerked behind his back and cuffed. He was shocked at seeing the girl he thought he’d killed alive and well.
Kat kept her gun level with his chest as she walked towards him.
“How?” Lindsey asked in disbelief.
“You didn’t really think, I’d have gone without a plan,” Kat now stood with the barrel of her gun mere inches from his heart. “Besides, you’re a lousy shot.” She dropped the gun to her side and put the safety on.
“You were working with Sark,” Lindsey accused.
“I was working for myself,” Kat corrected. “There’s just one thing I want to know, why did you do it? What was worth selling out your country?”
Lindsey’s mouth was set in a thin line, “simply,” he said. “The Covenant pays better.”
Kat stepped back and held out her gin to Kendall. He took it and slid it in his pocket.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“It’s good to have you back Agent Bristow,” a rare compliment passed his lips and he nodded to Director Branden. “I believe you owe her an apology.”
Branden was not too quick to admit his mistake and took it upon himself to order Lindsey be placed under heavy security awaiting transport to Camp Harris.
“Katarina.”
“Daddy!”
Kat turned and launched herself into Jack’s arms. He hugged her tightly lifting her off the ground. “Are you alright?” he asked gruffly pushing her hair away from her face.
“I’m fine.”
Jack frowned examining the bandage on her upper arm from where Lindsey had shot her.
“It’s fine, really, it’s just a graze. I’m fine,” Kat reassured him.
Jack examined her face quickly, it was still cut and bruised from her encounter with Lindsey, her extraction, and the interrogation with Branden, but otherwise she seemed to be fine. He glared at Branden, “it would serve you well to never lay a hand on my daughter again.”
“Katy,” Sydney pushed past Branden, enveloping her sister in her arms. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” Kat promised. “Really… I’m fine.” She spotted JJ’s bloody swollen nose next and examined it her brow furrowed. “Who did this?” she demanded.
”It was me,” Weiss admitted, sending an apologetic glance JJ’s way.
“It’s okay,” JJ shrugged. “I’d have done it too. I just can’t believe that they implicated me as well.”
“It was a fail safe,” Vaughn explained. “You’re the new guy, the one with the least amount of history, the most likely to be a mole.”
JJ’s eyes met Garcia’s, he couldn’t help but feel a stab of anger at the thought that even his lover could have believed for a moment that he was the mole. Maybe, they didn’t trust each other as much as they had originally believed. Kat on the other hand, hadn’t believed it for a moment and had done everything to prove not only her own innocence, but his as well. It had been an overwhelming day.
“Shiner,” Weiss hugged her gently. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Positive,” she nodded.
“Katarina,” Jack took her by the arm and led her away from the others. “Where is Sark?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kat didn’t miss a beat.
Jack’s face was stoic. “I saw you both on the security footage at the Sydney airport; where is Sark, Katarina?”
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “He’d never tell me anything.”
“You’d better be telling me the truth,” Jack said softly before walking away. Kat watched him go blinking back the tears in her eyes; why did disappointing him hurt her so much.
~ ~ ~
Within an hour of Kat being home, her father was gone. Jack had been called away to an emergency op in China, with Vaughn and Sydney. They were scheduled to return three days later, the same day Kat and Weiss were being sent to New York for reasons they did not know.
“Are you packed?”
Jack made his presence known and set his overnight bag on the kitchen counter.
Kat nodded. “Eric’s picking me up in a half hour. Do you know why we’re going? Devlin has always restricted me from any ops in the city.”
“It’s not an op,” Jack answered. “You’re just going to answer some questions.” He turned away and retrieved a pair of glasses from his overnight bag. “Your alias is Claire Alexander, keep your hair red, wear the glasses and stay off the streets.”
“Sure.” Kat turned around and took a bite of her sandwich.
“Are you angry with me?”
“Should I be?” she mumbled.
“Don’t be insolent.”
“I’m not insolent.” Kat stood and carried her plate to the sink.
“Katarina-“
“You could have at least said goodbye,” Kat dropped her plate.
“You’ve never cared before.”
“Who said I cared?”
“You did.” Jack crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the counter. “Katarina, what is really the problem?”
“Do you know Yelena?”
“Your mother’s sister,” Jack clarified. “What do you want to know?”
“I met her; she was nice; sad, but nice. Does she have any family, any kids?”
“She did.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her husband and son died about fifteen years ago.”
“How old was he, her son?”
“Five.”
“He was so young, how did they die?”
“They just did, that’s all you need to know.”
“It was something to do with me, wasn’t it?” Kat realized. “Tell me, or I’ll just find out on my own; either way I’ll know.”
Jack nodded knowing his daughter was relentless. “They were murdered by the KGB in retribution for hiding you and your mother when she took you from Khasinau in Moscow. Even after they were killed, she wouldn’t tell the KGB where you were.”
“Another person died because of me,” Kat said softly. “It’s like this never ending curse.”
“Katarina,” Jack said sharply. “This was not your fault, you were a child, Yelena made a decision. No one could have known the KGB would kill her family.”
“That doesn’t make it right!”
“And it doesn’t make it your fault either.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like,” Kat broke off.
“What are you talking about?”
“To be the cause of so much pain.” Kat turned to leave the room. “I have to change, Weiss will be here soon.” Kat paused in the doorway, “Daddy?”
“Yes sweetheart?”
“Are you sure you don’t know why we have to go to New York, what these ‘questions’ are about?”
“No sweetheart.” Jack watched her go; he hated lying to her.
~ ~ ~
A/N I hope no one is disappointed with the revealing of the mole. I had this all planned out before Lindsey went bad on the show! Ah well, hopefully you’ll have comments anyways.