FIC: Coda 1/?
The site of Rambaldi’s tomb
Mongolia
They were at an impasse or so it seemed as Sloane demanded Sydney to return the Horizon to him and she refused. They both had guns pointed at each other, and both were determined to have their own way. Sydney knew she’d never hand over to Sloane what he wanted so badly as he had killed way too many people for this. What was there to guarantee he wouldn’t kill them all after he had the artifact again and then just continue to kill hundreds if not thousands if not millions of more people are he left here? Who would be left to stop him then?
Sydney had noted that Sark had foolishly planted himself between Jack and Vaughn with a gun trained on Jack while another guard with his own gun trained on Vaughn stood on the other side of him. Sydney gave the briefest of glances back to Vaughn praying he’d get her signal and pass it along to Jack. They had one shot at this and if their timing was off she had no doubts Sloane would kill ever last one of them.
Sloane extended his free hand towards Sydney, his patience all but gone as he said, "Give it to me, Sydney, or risk losing your father and fiancé all in one day."
Without looking back to see if either knew what she planned, Sydney acted like she was submitting to what he wanted taking a step forward with the artifact, "All right, you can have it, just let us go."
Sloane nodded, "I told you, Sydney, you can all leave here and go be a family after I have what I want back." He extended his hand eager to receive the object he had been looking for over 30 years. Sydney inched closer and had nearly placed it in his hand when suddenly she threw the ball to the other side of the tomb where it hit a wall, shattering into a million pieces.
A black rage entered Sloane’s eyes in an instant, and he pulled the trigger of his gun, having kept his aim on Jack the entire time. But when Sydney had destroyed the artifact, both Jack and Vaughn sprang into action with Vaughn sending his guard reeling with an elbow to the face while Jack had subdued Sark by grabbing his gun hand and twisting it around behind his back before he snatched it away completely.
He held Sark in front of him by the time Sloane had fired, and thus the bullets hit him instead of Jack, killing him instantly. Sloane would have turned his attention towards killing Vaughn had Sydney not fired off several rounds of her own, hitting Sloane in the shoulder, chest, abdomen, and finally in the middle of his eyes.
Sloane’s lifeless body fell backwards into the pool of Rambaldi fluid which looked so like the blood of all of the people he had murdered to obtain his goal to find the ever elusive endgame. Jack released his grip on Sark’s body, allowing it to fall unceremoniously to the ground before he looked at Vaughn. Vaughn nodded that he was okay, and Jack stepped forward to where Sydney was now standing by the pool of fluid staring at Sloane’s body.
Sydney glanced blankly at Jack as he took the spot beside her and she said simply, "It’s finally over, Dad. Sloane will never able to hurt us or any of the people we love ever again."
"Sloane maybe dead but I don’t think it’s over yet," Vaughn said as he joined them.
Jack looked at him, nodding his agreement, "Sloane had an unseen partner."
"And if I had to guess who it was I would say Irina," Vaughn said.
Sydney finally tore her eyes from Sloane to look at Vaughn, "Why do you think Mom is involved in this? Why would she be working with Sloane after he killed Nadia?"
Vaughn gestured in the general direction where Sark’s body was laying, "Sark’s presence here seems to suggest something was going on between Sloane and Derevko."
"Sloane had the Horizon," Jack added, and Sydney turned to him, "You know yourself that your mother stole it at the bank."
"If you’re both right then how do we go about finding her, Dad?"
"We don’t," Jack answered. "Irina was expecting some sort of payoff from this partnership and when Sark doesn’t return with that payoff, she will have to come out of hiding to find out why he didn’t return."
"We should contact APO and tell them what has happened," Vaughn said and with that it was agreed they should start the ascent to the surface. Sloane and Sark were both left where they had fallen while the guard Vaughn had knocked out was handcuffed and taken up to the surface with them. Once they’d reached the surface, Sydney made sure their prisoner was secured while Jack took out the sat-com phone they had brought with them. But before Jack could say anything about what happened in the tomb, Dixon was giving them some very bad news.
Dixon said simply, "About an hour ago we received an urgent message from Agent Dalton stating that he and Agent Rance were under attack after their security net went down just moments before. Agents arrived within minutes of Agent Dalton’s call but by that time all they found in Sydney’s apartment was both agents unconscious and… an empty cradle."
Sydney gasped as she clamped her hand over her mouth, and Vaughn wrapped his arm around her before he said, "Are you saying someone has abducted Isabelle?"