When armed intruders take over SD-6 led by McKenas Cole, a man bent on exacting revenge on ex-boss Sloane, Sydney and Jack must work together to save their "colleagues". Meanwhile, Will Tippin fears that his investigation of SD-6 and its link to the murder of Eloise Kurtz (alias Kate Jones) is placing his life in serious jeopardy.
(Continuing. Sydney walks out of the meeting, goes down a hallway. Jack comes out and runs after her.) JACK: Sydney! Wait! (She turns around. They stand in the hallway.) JACK: You can't lose control over this. SYDNEY: You know what, Dad? This is not the best time to start lecturing me. JACK: I know how this feels. SYDNEY: Not exactly. You've had a lot longer to make sense of this than I have. JACK: There was a time when this was news to me, too. Your mother was sent to the United States to steal secrets from a ranking officer of the C.I.A. How she and I happened to meet, how she supposedly fell in love, I thought it was all true. But it was just a set-up. SYDNEY: Even her wanting to have a family? Was that just part of the plan, too? (Jack doesn't say anything. Sydney leaves.) (In her house, Sydney looks through her hat box full of pictures and memories. She sees the newspaper article about her mother and the FBI agent dying in the car accident. Takes out a framed picture. She finally finds the picture of Sydney as a little girl and her mother.) SYDNEY: (voice over) There's something that happens when you discover the truth about someone. I know a little about this. (She wads up the picture in a little ball.) SYDNEY: (voice over) The truth changes everything. (She throws it in the fire.) (In the self-storage facility, Sydney talks to Vaughn.) SYDNEY: There's this woman, her personality like a collage I've put tlogether from the photographs, the few memories I have, scraps of stories I've heard, the clothes of hers I've got... her books. And none of it's real. She wasn't that woman at all. She was... she was a horrible person... who killed your father. (She stands in front of him, crying.) SYDNEY: Vaughn, I just wanted to say... that I'm so sorry. (He hugs her and cradles her head against his shoulder while she cries.) (Credit Dauphine parking garage. A van with 'McTiernan Air Conditioning' written on the side drives up. The driver stops at the security gate and wires it up to a machine he has that unlocks the gate. The gate doors open and the van goes inside. They stop once they're inside and cut the wires of a surveillance camera.) (Inside the control room, two agents sit and watch the various camera angles.) AGENT1: We've lost coverage on the off-site garage. AGENT2: Any signs of forced entry? AGENT1: Negative from gate control. I'll check it out. AGENT2: Hey, while you're at it, grab me a black coffee, will you? Two sugars. (Agent1 leaves.) (In the parking garage, McTiernan gang starts welding off the air vent. Inside the van, the rest of the goons start packing their guns and loading them. Agent1 walks in the garage and sees the van. He talks on his transmitter to his buddy from control.) AGENT1: You know about any AC repairs? AGENT2: Negative. (The goons have already started to make their way inside the building using the air conditioning vents. Agent1 pulls his gun out. Near the van, one of the goons comes behind him and hits him over the head. Agent1 falls to the ground.) (Back in the self-storage facility.) SYDNEY: I don't want this job anymore. VAUGHN: Sydney, that's why you're doing what you do. You're helping to bring an end to SD-6. SYDNEY: Not anymore. VAUGHN: Sydney-- SYDNEY: I need someone in my life to be real. VAUGHN: This right here. What we do is real. SYDNEY: Look where we are. I mean, this isn't real. This isn't what we should be doing. I want out. VAUGHN: Out? (Sydney nods.) VAUGHN: You want to enter the protection program. SYDNEY: No. I'm not going into hiding. VAUGHN: If you don't, Sloane will kill you. SYDNEY: I don't think he will. (She stands up, hesitant.) SYDNEY: You like hockey, right? The Kings? VAUGHN: Yeah, how'd you-- SYDNEY: The pen you keep in your briefcase. It's a Kings pen. VAUGHN: Yeah, I got that-- SYDNEY: They're playing the Islanders next week. We should go. (Vaughn brightens with hope. Then his face falls as he realizes what she's doing.) VAUGHN: Sydney, you can't do this. (Will's desk at the newspaper. He has his headphones on. Jenny stops at his desk.) JENNY: Okay, here's the appeal filed by McNeils' lawyer last year and I found out that SD-6 is an ingredient in artificial sweetener, but that's probably not the SD-6 you're talking about. WILL: Is my voice annoying? JENNY: Your voice? WILL: Yeah. I was just going over this interview with Eloise Kurtz and I started thinking about McNeil. How he had this look in his eyes when I was interviewing him. His lawyer the same thing. Just... trying to get away from me. JENNY: Will, you're a journalist for God's sake. You get paid to be annoying. WILL: So you're saying I'm annoying? JENNY: Not to Danny or Eloise Kurtz. WILL: Oh, so I don't annoy dead people? JENNY: Will, you're their champion. WILL: What am I doing if I'm hurting the people I'm writing about? Look, if I could bring back Danny Hecht and Eloise Kurtz, I would, but I just... I can't. And if championing them is going to cause David McNeil's daughter to be in danger, I can't live with that. I don't think I can do this anymore. This SD-6 story. I'm out. (The goons burst through the vent and make it to a hallway off of another hallway where red security beams are illuminated. The female goon - FGOON - has a heart beat detector in her hands. It beeps, and an agent comes into view.) FGOON: We're right on time. (He checks the corridor. The security red beams go off. They bust in. One of them breaks the agent's neck. They run through the hallway while the beams aren't there. The lead goon - Cole - motions for one of the last goons to hurry up as the red beams start appearing from the back, coming up. Not enough time left, the last goon slides down the rest of the hallway and makes it. Cole strips off his jumpsuit while FGOON pours him a cup of coffee from a thermos. Underneath the jumpsuit, Cole is wearing a suit. He takes a swig of coffee and spreads his arms out.) COLE: How do I look? (In the parking garage, Sydney drives up in her SUV. She takes out a card and slides it into the security panel that the goons had unlocked with their machine earlier. She passes through and the gate doors buzz and then open. She drives through.) (In SD-6, Cole walks through. Nobody recognizes because, since he's wearing a suit, he blends right in. Cole walks by Sloane's office. Inside the office, Sloane is on the phone, rubbing his temples.) SLOANE: Yes, will you get me my wife's doctor on the phone please? (He looks at monitor on his desk. It's a security camera monitor. He sees Cole walk by. The monitor scans for facial recognition. Sloane's face freezes because he knows who he is.) VOICE: Dr. Medlesohn is on line one. (Sloane stares as the security monitor scans through the files, trying to identify Cole.) VOICE: Sir? (Sloane isn't paying attention. He stares at the monitor.) VOICE: Sir? (In the garage, Sydney parks her SUV and gets out. She sees the McTiernan van. The driver leers at her.) DRIVER: Hey there, beautiful! Why don't you turn that frown upside down? (She doesn't run over there and kick his ass. She keeps walking. Pissed, the driver takes out his gun and puts the silencer and laser on. He points the gun at Sydney while she walks away, into SD-6. The red beam of light is aimed right on her head. She walks, having no idea. Suddenly, tires screech and he puts the gun away. Sydney turns. Jack pulls up and gets out of his car, running after her.) JACK: Sydney! Sydney! (He catches up to her. She keeps walking to the elevator.) JACK: This is suicide! SYDNEY: I don't think it is. JACK: What exactly is your exit strategy? Politely asking Sloane to let you out of SD-6? SYDNEY: Based on Sloane's behavior toward me -- protecting me at Donatti Park, asking Rusik to get me to talk-- JACK: Sloane answers to people. People who don't know you or care about you. If he lets you go, those people will kill him and you. (She goes inside the elevator. He follows.) (Sloane still has the phone up to his ear as he waits for the security panel to indentify Cole. A picture flashes up on the screen: McKenas Cole.) SLOANE: Cole. (He presses a button on his desk with his finger. The monitor flashes "FAILSAFE ACTIVATED".) (In the elevator.) JACK: Those people Sloane works for - the alliance - if they believe you've abandoned them, they will kill anyone they think you have talked to. Your roommate Francie. That reporter friend. Anyone. (Control room. Agent2 is still by the monitors, waiting for his coffee. Cole enters behind him, holding a gun.) AGENT2: Let me guess. You forgot the two sugars. (He turns around. Cole shoots him twice. In his office, Sloane scrambles for the phone and calls the control room. Cole answers the phone.) SLOANE: We have a physical breach! Start lockdown procedures now! COLE: Sure thing, Arvin. Whatever you say. (Cole hangs up.) (Elevator.) SYDNEY: I felt this way before I found out about my mother. This life has to stop. (Instead, the elevator stops and the lights go out.) (Inside SD-6, Dixon looks up as gas starts hissing down from the ceiling vents. Agents start to pass out around him. In his office, Marshall sees the gas coming down and covers his mouth with his sweater vest. Making two or three steps, he falls to the ground beside his inflatable chair. Out in the main part of SD-6, more agents fall to the ground. Dixon falls. In Sloane's office, a vent of gas is pouring down right on top of Sloane. He's slumped over his desk, his head down.) (In the elevator, the lights come back on. Jack tries the phone.) JACK: Dead. But a blackout wouldn't shut down security. (At the newspaper, specifically in the bathroom, Will flushes a urinal, takes off his glasses, and washes his hands at the sink. His cell phone rings.) WILL: Tippin. DISTORTED VOICE: Go to your desk. WILL: I'm off the story. DISTORTED VOICE: Leave the bathroom and then go to your desk. (Will looks around all, "How the hell did they know I was in the bathroom?" He comes out near his desk and looks around for anyone suspicious lurking about. A yellow manila envelope sits on his desk chair. The telephone rings at his desk, but Jenny rushes in and answers it.) JENNY: Will Tippin's office. Um, yeah, he's right here. (She passes the phone to him.) JENNY: Some guy. Totally nasal. Clips on the housing story, Litvack wants two thousand words by noon tomorrow. (She walks out.) WILL: Hello? DISTORTED VOICE: There is something inside the envelope that will make McNeil talk. WILL: I don't want to make him talk. DISTORTED VOICE: You said you didn't scare easily. WILL: Well, if you're so brave, why don't you lose the voice box and tell me your name? (Silence.) WILL: Don't call me again. (He hangs up, and throws out the envelope in his nearby garbage can.) (Cole and his goons, wearing gas masks, walk in SD-6 with various guns. The gas stops. Cole takes off his mask and looks around.) COLE: Five minutes ahead. Get 'em wrapped up, baby! (FGOON starts tying up everyone's hands while they're unconscious. Cole looks to another guy with a gun.) COLE: Chopper, secure the elevator. You got the scanning room door code? CHOPPER: Got it! (Cole approaches FGOON who is at a computer typing.) COLE: You jammin'? FGOON: I'm jammin'. (He kisses her head.) (Vaughn's office. He's twirling a silver dollar in between his fingers over and over again. Weiss enters.) WEISS: Want to get a pizza? That new place? VAUGHN: Ah, no thanks. (Weiss comes in and looks at Vaughn, silently telling him to just tell him what's up.) VAUGHN: Sydney wants to quit SD-6... which she knows she just can't do. (Weiss nods.) VAUGHN: It's a weird thing. You know, when you're learning how your father died. I... it's always been this intellectual idea I had, knowing he died, just not having any details. WEISS: You really want some space, or are you and I going to go get drunk? 'Cause there's this bar, you won't even remember it tomorrow. (They laugh. Vaughn's face falls when Haladki enters.) HALADKI: Hey, what a day, huh? VAUGHN: Why do you say that? HALADKI: Come on. Bristow's mom, your dad. It's not like a secret around here. Vaughn, that really sucks. WEISS: Well put. HALADKI: You know what? I think Barnett's gonna be good for you. VAUGHN: I'm not seeing Barnett. HALADKI: Oh, yeah you are! She wants to see you. I mean, come on. You're Bristow's handler. You find out her mom killed your dad? She's a shrink, she lives for crisis management! I think she'll be good for you. I like thick crust, in case you wanted me to come. WEISS: Oh, hey, we don't. (He leaves.) VAUGHN: Did you know about Barnett? (Weiss shakes his head. Vaughn sighs.) (In the elevator.) SYDNEY: Still can't get a signal. JACK: Whoever's doing that could be jamming the frequencies. (Elevator starts.) JACK: Emergency lockdown procedures. (He hits a button.) JACK: The elevator is returning to SD-6. The doors will automatically open. (He gives Sydney a knowing look.) (Out in the white area where the agents stand to get cleared by security outside the elevator, Chopper stands in front of the elevator with a gun pointed, ready to shoot whoever's inside the elevator. The bell dings. No one's there. Sydney and Jack are on top of the elevator, looking down.) CHOPPER: Elevator secure. (Jack and Sydney climb down the stairs from the elevator shaft and jump down. Jack takes out his gun. They walk down the hallway, getting to a door. Jack comes out, gun in hand. Sydney next. She closes the door. Jack comes around a corner with Sydney and sees the agent that was punching in the code in the red beam hallway, dead. The red beams are up. Jack and Sydney go in the hallway and he punches in a code. The red beams disappear.) JACK: The advantages of high-level clearance. Let's go. (Jack and Sydney enter an underground control room. There are cables and monitors and some sheets up on a wall. Jack starts tearing off the outside on the wires, getting to the core of them.) SYDNEY: How could K-Directorate overpower fifty trained agents? JACK: If K-Directorate attacks SD-6, they know SD-6 will return the favor. This team that's invaded SD-6, isn't working with any organization we know. My guess is they're working for a group, clearly unpredictable and dangerous. Hand me that cable. (She does.) JACK: Now plug it in. (They hook up a nearby monitor to the camera wires. Jack starts flicking through the wires, going from camera angle to camera angle. The conference room is empty, various rooms are empty.) JACK: There are six hundred cameras hidden through SD-6. (They finally spot the group of agents, everyone at SD-6, gathered together on the floor outside Sloane's office. They all have their arms tied behind their backs. A couple of men with guns watch them.) SYDNEY: Oh, my God. Look at that hardware. JACK: Latest military specs. SYDNEY: Extended magazines, compensators, laser sights... JACK: I see four. SYDNEY: There's a fifth. (Cole walks in. Dixon stares. Marshall looks scared. Sloane sits with everyone else, his back against the wall. Cole swaggers in, coming closer to Sloane.) COLE: I want to talk to you. That's the sick part. Catch up and stuff. You know, so much has happened in the last five years. This place... it hasn't changed. But you. You look... older. But that's good. Your hair... looks good. You know what the worst part is? Being left for dead in Grozny, Arvin? Well, you're going to learn the worst part. But another part that sucks is seeing guys you worked with, guys you thought were tougher than deer jerky, tortured to death. That's no good. The most ironical part for me is... we did the damn job. We blew that pipeline to hell first night we landed. But you know me, Arvin... [SCENE_BREAK] (In the control room, Sydney and Jack still watch.) SYDNEY: Do you know this guy? JACK: I know the operation. Sloane in '96 sent a team to Chechnya to destroy the Shelhemil pipeline. There were complications. The team was captured by the Russians. (Back to Cole.) COLE: And if that chopper had have been where the hell you know it should have been-- (He kicks an agent out of the way and sits down.) COLE: My whole life would have taken a different direction. SLOANE: What do you want? COLE: I got this really kick ass new job. See, I'm working for this gentleman they call The Man. And you will learn about The Man. What The Man wants is a certain little sumthin'-sumthin' you got in the SD-6 vault. SLOANE: Well, you initiated lockdown. Not only is the vault secure, the vault access room is locked now, too. COLE: Well, don't worry about the vault access room, we're taking care of that. What I need is the combination to the vault. (Sloane laughs. Cole laughs.) SLOANE: Not a chance. (Cole sits back and claps his hands a couple of times.) COLE: That's cool. (He stands up and kicks his chair he was sitting on. It slides across the room.) COLE: You still got that room downstairs, right? The "conversation room"? That's what you used to call it, right? The torture room's like you really got to admit what the hell you do down there. So, Arvin. Let's go to the conversation room! (Will's newspaper. He talks to Jenny.) WILL: Check this out. JENNY: Yeah? WILL: People victimized by the developer who's using his political connections to have their homes condemned by the city. Now we go in, shed a little light on this, protect the little guy and no one gets hurt. I'm going to go interview the developer right now. JENNY: No more McNeil? WILL: Nope. JENNY: Hmmm. Interesting. (She walks away. Will turns around and sees the envelope in his trash can. He shakes his head no and walks away.) (Dr. Barnett's office. Vaughn knocks and enters.) VAUGHN: Hi. BARNETT: Hi! VAUGHN: Michael Vaughn. We've met. BARNETT: I remember. Judy Barnett. Have a seat. VAUGHN: Thanks. (He sits down on the couch. She sits in her chair.) BARNETT: You got my voice mail? VAUGHN: Yeah, yeah. (pause) I just want you to know, I've got nothing against shrinks. BARNETT: Well, good. VAUGHN: But, I-I think this might be a waste of time. You wanted to see me because we've learned that Sydney Bristow's mother was a KGB operative who killed my father, among others. BARNETT: Yes. VAUGHN: Which is not ideal news, obviously, and yes, it's emotional, but I already knew he was killed and it happened almost twenty years ago. You know? So I really don't think I require crisis management. There's-there's no crisis. BARNETT: Everything you say to me I will keep confidential. (Vaughn seems to relax a little.) VAUGHN: Okay. (smiles) BARNETT: I wanted to talk to you about your relationship with Ms. Bristow. How often do you meet with Sydney? VAUGHN: Uh, a couple of times a week. Three or four sometimes. BARNETT: Only about operations? VAUGHN: Uh... we have met on occasion when Sydney wanted to talk to me about what was happening within SD-6 or regarding her father, when she believed he was a KGB agent and not her mother. BARNETT: You and Sydney... have a friendship? VAUGHN: She needs someone to talk to. I think you'd appreciate that. I'm the only person she can confide in. BARNETT: So you feel that your relationship with Ms. Bristow is fully appropriate, that it falls within the guidelines of agent and handler? VAUGHN: What are you asking me? BARNETT: I have gotten some reports about your behavior recently. VAUGHN: Reports from who? BARNETT: After the incident in Tuscany when you sent in an extraction team-- VAUGHN: Hey, hey, SD-6 issued an order to have Sydney killed! BARNETT: --to protect Sydney, I've been following your work. Mostly very good. VAUGHN: Thank you. That's very nice. BARNETT: Did you purchase a Christmas gift for Agent Bristow? (Pause. Vaughn looks around.) VAUGHN: Uh, I'm not familiar, Dr. Barnett, with the regulations preventing officers from celebrating with their co-workers, a fairly widely recognized holiday such as Christmas. BARNETT: May I ask you what the gift was? VAUGHN: I'd like you to tell me who's been reporting me. BARNETT: I can't tell you that. VAUGHN: Then I'm just going to have to guess. (Two guys, one who is called Endo, drill through the vault access room. Cole talks to them through a transmitter.) COLE: Endo! What's up? Where are we? I need status! ENDO: Almost done drilling. Then we'll start packing explosives. (Jack flicks from cam to cam.) JACK: Those other two. Where the hell did they go? (They see them in the vault room.) (Vault room.) ENDO: We should be in the vault within ten minutes! (Jack and Sydney.) SYDNEY: Ten minutes? What are they going for in the vault? JACK: Could be anything. Sloane was planning on sending you to Taiwan, did you know about that? SYDNEY: FTL acquired some scud launchers. He wanted me to scramble their launch codes. JACK: Marshall's working on a scrambling device for that op. Have you seen it? SYDNEY: He showed it to me last week. JACK: What does it look like? SYDNEY: Why? JACK: Sloane must have activated the emergency failsafe. There are five hundred pounds of C-4 strategically placed within the substructure of this building. Opening the vault will trigger that C-4. All underground levels will collapse, burying any evidence that the Los Angeles cell of SD-6 ever existed. SYDNEY: You want to scramble the vault codes. (Jack goes from camera to camera until he gets Marshall's office.) JACK: Can you see the scrambler in Marshall's office? SYDNEY: There it is. That compact on his desk. JACK: It's not far from his air vent. But getting into his office is too much of a risk. (Sydney sees a magnet on the wall in a shape of a fish. She gets it.) SYDNEY: So then... we fish for it. (Interrogation room where Sydney was when they thought she was the mole and where they killed Rusik. Sloane is strapped in. Cole puts on some Chapstick.) COLE: They took us to their base in Hankala. And after thirty-eight straight days of beatings, they finally got around to interrogating me. They took me into a room. They tied me to a chair. And they asked me questions about Islamic Rebels. They wanted to know where they were keeping Russian P.O.W.s and I told them, "I'm just a kid from Redondo Beach running black ops for Uncle Sam! Get it? I'm an American citizen." Well, that senior Russian officer - he didn't want any piece of that action. He had the KGB contact Langley through both front and back channels. And they never heard of me. They didn't know of any operative by the name of McKenas Cole. (Sloane smiles and looks away.) COLE: So when that Russian got off the phone, he was so pissed. He was so insane with rage. That was when he showed me this. Baby? (FGOON gets a long box from the bag on the counter and gives it to Cole.) (Jack is preparing to go in the air vent.) JACK: Watch the security feeds. If I'm caught, get out of the building through the elevator shaft as fast as you can. SYDNEY: Dad, wait. You're not doing this. JACK: Of course I am. What are you talking about? SYDNEY: No, you're not. You're going to have to crawl through a maze of air shafts, get to Marshall's office, get the scrambler, get to the vault room and scramble the code all in under ten minutes. I mean, no offense, but, Dad, I am doing this. (Pause. Jack relents.) JACK: You'll have to find your way to the vault. SYDNEY: I know. JACK: And use the scrambler. And stay low! SYDNEY: Dad, I know how to use the scrambler. I can't believe, of all things, we're saving SD-6. (She crawls in. He watches her go, listening as she bumps along the air vents. Jack puts his hand up the vent, looking worried for Sydney.) (Interrogation room. Cole holds the box.) COLE: Want to see what's inside? I know you do. I'll open it. Want me to? (Sloane looks away, bored.) COLE: You're going to give me the combination to the SD-6 vault and if you don't, I'm going to open this box. And Arvin, trust me when I tell you, you do not want me to open this box. (Restaurant. Will sits at a table, going over his notes when a girl about seventeen years old comes up to him. Her name's Kelly.) KELLY: Will Tippin? WILL: Yeah? KELLY: Oh, thank God. You're, like, the third guy I've introduced myself to. The maitre d's starting to give me an evil look. WILL: I'm sorry. Are you-are you with Carla D'Angelo's office? KELLY: Who? WILL: Car--the developer. The woman I'm supposed to meet here. KELLY: On my voice mail you said you were working on a story about my dad. WILL: Your dad? KELLY: Yeah. David McNeil? (Will's face falls. He blinks a few times.) WILL: I, uh... I never called you. You know, I don't know what you know-- KELLY: What happened with my father? I know everything. WILL: Yeah, well, we never talked. (He starts to get his things, scared.) KELLY: Okay, maybe. But we're talking now. WILL: No, no, this right here. This never happened. Look, your dad... I-I don't know him, but he seems like a good guy. KELLY: He is. He's the best. WILL: Yeah, well, I think he knows best, too. And believe me when I tell you this. He doesn't want you and I talking. KELLY: Well then who does? WILL: Good-bye. (He leaves.) (C.I.A. Haladki walks down a hall. Vaughn is on his tail and he's not happy.) VAUGHN: Haladki! What the hell is your problem, Haladki? Reporting me to Barnett? HALADKI: I don't have a problem. I told you, you have the problem. VAUGHN: You know what? This might shock you, but my business is not your business. HALADKI: I'm looking out for the good of the agency! VAUGHN: Yeah? Then you should quit! HALADKI: Stay out of my way! (He starts to walk away but Vaughn grabs him by the shoulder, pulling him back.) VAUGHN: Did it make you feel better about yourself, telling Barnett I got Sydney a Christmas gift? HALADKI: You're too emotionally attached to that woman! VAUGHN: Oh, like you would know anything about being emotionally attached to a woman! HALADKI: I think your judgement's impaired! VAUGHN: I think I'm gonna kick your ass! HALADKI: You're out of line! VAUGHN: No! You know what? You're out of line! (Vaughn grabs him by the lapels of his coat and throws him against the wall.) VAUGHN: You stay the hell away from my operations! (Weiss runs up and breaks them apart.) WEISS: Hey, hey, calm down! HALADKI: Who's out of control, Vaughn? ME? WEISS: HEY! (He takes Vaughn away.) HALADKI: Did you see that? Did everyone see that? That's what I'm talking about. (Chopper and another goon watches everyone, guns pointed. Dixon look worried.) (Sydney pulls herself up in the vent and climbs on all fours. When she's above Marshall's office and the compact, she gets the fish magnet which is tied to a string and starts lowering it through the slot on the vent. Jack, in the control room, flicks from camera to camera until he finds the one for Marshall's office. He sees the string being lowered. Sydney lowers it down but gets a ring instead. She sighs and brings it up anyway. Jack watches.) JACK: No... come on... (Sydney brings the ring up, looks at it, and pockets it. She goes down again.) (At the vault access room, Endo and another goon.) ENDO: Explosives in place. Activating detonator. (Sydney is finally at the compact, drops it. She gets it again and starts raising it up. Endo and the goon run away from the vault access room and take cover. Sydney is almost there, she has the compact... when the explosives go off. The building shakes and the desk in Marshall's office breaks. Everything falls to the floor, including the compact. Sydney brings the magnet back up and watches below. She starts moving.) (In the interrogation room, Endo enters.) ENDO: We're in. COLE: Excellent! All right, Arvin, here's the deal. We are in the vault room. Two things. One - you don't give us the codes. We got the tech to get it anyway, it'll just take a while. And two - you give us the codes, and I don't have to open the box which will be really excellent for you. SLOANE: I can't be the first person having difficulty taking you seriously, can I? COLE: Well, while that was a moderately clever retort... I'm the man holding the box. (He opens it and takes out a cloth rolled up.) COLE: Have you ever regretted being born? That's a pretty... heavy thing to experience. (He unravels it. A series of pins are on the cloth.) COLE: Regretting having emerged from your mother's womb. I mean, I've had some dark days but nothing close to regretting the day I was born, until I met [foreign language]. Needles of fire. (Marshall's office. Sydney looks down through the vent and opens the vent door. Jack watches. She starts motioning with her hands.) JACK: No, Sydney. Don't, don't... (She motions to him what she's going to do. He flicks to another camera and sees Marshall and Dixon. He starts flicking the camera, making the red light under the camera flash on and off. In the office, the door opens just as a goon looks in. Jack keeps flicking until Marshall sees it.) JACK: Good, good... MARSHALL: Ahem. (He motions to Dixon and then motions to the camera. Dixon sees the red light going on and off, like morse code. In the office, Sydney lowers herself down, hanging on the ledge of the vent. The goon looks in... Dixon starts violently shaking on the floor, gasping for breath. Jack watches.) MARSHALL: Hey! We need some help here, this guy's having a seizure! (Sydney lowers herself into the office and gets the compact and starts to lift herself up back in the vent. The goons kick Dixon and tie him in a chair.) GOON: I heard something back there. I'm going to go check it out. (Marshall stands up.) MARSHALL: Um, excuse me? As luck would have it, I'm feeling kind of a Stockholm Syndrome thing happening right now-- (The goon hits him in the head with the but of his gun. Marshall falls and rolls across the floor. Sydney flips herself back up in the vent, closes the door. Jack watches.) (In the interrogation room.) COLE: There's this little cajun food place in Abita Springs, Louisiana. It's called Rockamore's. You know what they're famous for? Making people cry. You know what makes them cry? The hot sauce. No one knows how they get that crap so hot. Legend has it that the devil comes by once a month and spits in their frying pan. Point being, the hot sauce at Rockamore's is like a fluffly vanilla ice cream cone when compared to what's in these. Each one is like you took a bag of red jalapenos, threw them in a blender, and used them for an enema. And Arvin, you're about to get to know them. (Will's office. Here, my tape goofed. Sorry.) KELLY: I want to talk to you for just a second. WILL: I want to. I just don't think we should. KELLY: Fine, whatever. Then just listen, please. What I said before about know everything. That's not true, okay? I don't know what SD-6 is, and I don't know why the people who are a part of it destroyed my life. All I do know is that they killed my mother, and framed my father. Every time I say that, it's like, do people really exist who do things like that? And if they do, isn't it our obligation to do something about it? WILL: Yeah, well, not if doing it is going to make more innocent people get hurt. KELLY: Which is why I'm here. See, I know my dad won't talk because he's afraid that something bad will happen to me if he does. WILL: Yeah. KELLY: Rob Stoller - my godfather - he knows some people who can send me away where they're never gonna find me. And I'll be safe so my dad won't be afraid anymore. I'm going to go away. Now, tomorrow, whenever I know that someone is fighting for my father. So please. If you can, just help my father. Please. (Will gets the envelope from the garbage and looks around. He opens it. A key is inside.) (Interrogation room. FGOON writes down the numbers.) SLOANE: Eight, five, nine and three. COLE: And three. (He smiles and sticks a pin in Sloane's open palm. He gasps.) COLE: Now, it takes the powder a few minutes to kick in. I can always take it out. So, Arvin, why don't you give us the real combination? (Cole and two goons with guns walk down the hallway. Cole has a piece of paper with the numbers on it. Jack sees them and flicks through the cameras, looking for Sydney and trying to see if she scrambled it yet.) JACK: Where are you... (He flicks and flicks and sees Sydney. She walks in and sees the explosion from the vault access room. Jack watches Cole coming closer to Sydney with the two huge guys with huge guns. Sydney takes out the scambler and puts it on the panel. It starts. Jack watches. She looks around. Cole is still walking. It finishes. Sydney takes the compact, slips it in her bag and moves over to the vent. She escapes. Cole walks in just as Sydney is putting the air vent cover back on. He moves to the panel and punches in the code. Jack watches. A buzzer sounds.) VOICE: Access denied. COLE: SLOANE! (He slams his hand against the panel and hears something in the air vent. He takes the gun from oen of the goons. Sydney moves through the vent on all fours, unaware. One of the goons has the heartbeat detector from before and sees that someone's in the vent. Cole fires his gun and shoots the vent. Sydney yelps and moves up in the vent, out of harm's way.) VOICE: Target out of range. COLE: Go get 'em! (He gives one of the goons the gun back. The two goons take off. Sydney hides in the vent in the corner, barely hanging on. She hears someone coming. Panting, she tries holding on to the edge.)
The Box (part 1)