Father Figure Read online

  LAURA PEYTON ROBERTS

  AN ORIGINAL PREQUEL NOVEL BASED ON THE

  HIT TV SERIES CREATED BY J. J. ABRAMS

  BANTAM BOOKS

  NEW YORK • TORONTO • LONDON • SYDNEY • AUCKLAND

  Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  DON'T MISS ANY OF THE OFFICIAL ALIAS BOOKS

  Copyright Page

  I've seen a lot of things in this business, very few of them good.

  It didn't start out that way. I was like any idealistic recruit once—maybe more idealistic than most.

  But that was a long time ago. Now all I want is out.

  Out of the CIA, out of SD-6, out of this point-less chaos some fool dubbed “intelligence.”

  So if the report I've just heard is true, if Reginald Wilson has actually recruited my only child into SD-6, heads are going to roll. When I get back to L.A., somebody had better have a very good explanation, because if anything's happened to Sydney . . .

  I will not have my daughter mixed up in this. Not after everything I've done to keep her out of it. I want to see Sydney safe. Normal. Happy.

  One of us ought to be.

  1

  “YOU DO NOT WANT to mess with me,” Sydney Bristow said, struggling to keep her voice light. “Really. You have no idea.”

  “Or what?” Burke Wells teased, dangling a heavy book just out of her reach. “You'll beat me up?”

  “There are so many possibilities. Let's just keep it vague.”

  One strawberry blond brow hiked suggestively, emphasizing the mischievous gleam in Burke's hazel eyes. “If you're going to put it like that, I'd rather hear you spell it out.”

  Sydney lunged across the library table, catching her hip bone on its sharp edge as she tried to snag the book. Her grab came up short.

  Burke's playful smile grew broader. He waggled the book tantalizingly.

  “What is this? Junior high?” she burst out, exasperated. “I have to study, Burke, and this is the only day I can do it. You said you had to study too.”

  He relented at last, handing over her history textbook. “You're so serious today.”

  “You ought to try it sometime,” she said, still peeved.

  She never would have agreed to go to the library with him in the first place if he hadn't assured her they'd study for Friday's American history quiz. Friday probably seemed a long way off to him, but Sydney's perception of time had changed radically since she'd become an agent-in-training with the top-secret branch of the CIA known as SD-6. Her handler, Reginald Wilson, was forever calling her in for briefings or sending her off on missions, making it imperative for her to take full advantage of any spare second she could call her own. Her most recent mission in Oahu had left her so far behind in her classes she was starting to worry she'd never catch up.

  “It's just a quiz,” Burke said. “You act like it's the final.”

  “It will be the final, in seventeen days, and I don't know any of this stuff!”

  “Can you believe it's almost summer?” he asked, changing the subject. “What have you got planned?”

  “Besides repeating this class?”

  Burke shook his head, his red hair brushing his broad shoulders. “Try to lighten up for just five minutes, okay? Look around you. We're practically the only ones here.”

  Sydney sighed, casting a glance around the huge group study room. The fact that Burke was right changed nothing. If she'd learned anything during her freshman year of college, it was that the number of people in the library was always inversely proportional to the beauty of the weather outside—and the sunshine that Sunday morning was gorgeous. The students with any control over their schedules would wait until dark to even think about studying. Unfortunately, Sydney wasn't a member of their privileged ranks.

  She sighed again. “At least we aren't bothering anyone.”

  “You need to learn to relax,” he said. “What are you so wound up about?”

  “I have to learn this material!” She tapped the textbook in front of her. “If you already know it all, why don't you test me?”

  “You mean ask you questions? Like a pretend quiz?”

  “Go ahead. Give me your best shot.”

  Not that it's going to take a SWAT team to pick me off in this class, she thought, watching Burke pull the book across the table and start flipping its pages. American history ought to be my best subject. After all, I am a spy for the U.S. government.

  She'd do better if Professor Baldridge stuck to concepts and major events, or even rough chronologies, but his midterm had demonstrated an obsessive fascination with dates, exact locations, and equally forgettable trivia.

  “Okay,” Burke said slowly, moving his finger down a page. “Where was President Kennedy shot?”

  “Texas.”

  “Texas is a big state.”

  “Dallas,” she said, gaining confidence. “Downtown Dallas.”

  “Date?” Burke asked.

  “November 22, 1963.”

  “Name of his assassin?”

  “Lee Harvey Oswald.”

  Burke snorted. “Right. If you believe in fairy tales.”

  Sydney stifled a groan. For a second there, they were almost accomplishing something.

  “Did you see that show on public TV the other night?” he went on. “The one where those photographers proved that a bullet from the School Book Depository would have created a shadow trail visible in film shot from the grassy knoll?”

  “Are you sure it wasn't the Sci Fi Channel?”

  “Very funny,” he said, undeterred. “You should have seen it. They found this new way of digitally enhancing the photographs taken that day, and then they did tests with dummy shots under the same atmospheric conditions and . . .”

  Another conspiracy theory, she thought, tuning out. And this one's not even original. At least when Burke got worked up about CNN as a form of mind control, or the fast food industry's plot to supersize Americans, or even the subversive nature of soap, she found his theories amusing. He must be running out of material.

  “I mean, the whole idea that some wacko with a gun, working completely alone, could bring down a president . . .”

  Right. Because that's never happened before.

  She wondered if Burke had any idea how young and naïve his relentless suspicions of the government, the media, corporate America, and just about everything else made him sound.

  Noah has his flaws, but at least he's serious, she thought, gazing off into space. The big question is, is he serious about me?

  Ever since they'd returned from Hawaii, Agent Hicks had been running hot and cold, affectionate one day, distant the next. She understood they needed to keep their relationship secret from SD-6, but sometimes it felt like Noah was trying to hide it from himself too.

  “Sydney?” Burke said, breaking into her thoughts. “Syd, are you still with me?”

  “Huh? Oh, sorry. I might have checked out during the satellite coordinates of the overpass nearest the motorcade.”

  “But that overpass is key! If somebody had—” He stopped in midsentence, reading her expression. “No, I'm sorry. You keep telling me you need to study, and I keep fooling around. I must be driving you crazy.”

  “Not exactly crazy,” she said, not wanting to hurt his fee
lings.

  “It's just that I never get to see you.” An impish smile curled his lips. “At least not as much of you as I'd like.”

  Sydney smiled back at his innuendo. “I'm not saying you'll ever succeed with that, but making me fail this quiz won't help.”

  “Which is why we need to study!” he said, thumping the pages of her open book. “What have I been telling you since we got here?”

  For the next hour, Burke was a reformed character, peppering her with sample quiz questions. She did pretty well at first, but once he got past the easy stuff she started falling apart. She remembered the dates and motivations behind the Korean War but forgot the difficult names of the cities involved. She defined Cold War perfectly but couldn't come up with the journalist who'd coined the phrase. When she drew a blank on the Democrat President Reagan defeated to win his second term, she lost patience with herself.

  “I was alive then!” she cried, disgusted. “If I can't even remember what happened during my lifetime, what chance do I have with the rest of that stuff?”

  “You're too hard on yourself,” Burke said. “Most of what you missed is so trivial that no one but Baldridge would ask it. Besides, you don't usually have problems remembering things.”

  “No,” she admitted reluctantly. In fact, she was kind of a legend at SD-6 for all the languages, skills, and classified data she'd already learned.

  “You're working too many hours—that's the problem,” he said with genuine concern. “You need to take more time off. Give your brain a rest.”

  “Work! Oh no!” she exclaimed, jumping up with her eyes on her watch. “I've got to be there in half an hour.”

  “Be where? Not the bank?”

  “Overtime filing.” The lies she used to hide her activities with SD-6 became more automatic every day. “It's good money.”

  “Maybe so, but can't they do it without you? You need the break more than the cash.”

  “I do need the cash!”

  “All right, don't take my head off. I just hate seeing you stressed.”

  He looked so sincerely worried that Sydney was ashamed of herself.

  “Will I see you later?” he asked. “Maybe for dinner tonight?”

  “Sorry. I wish I could, but I have . . . stuff,” she finished lamely, jamming books into her backpack. “I'll have to see you tomorrow in class.”

  She escaped before he could argue, rushing from the library into the warm sunshine outside. It wasn't that she didn't want to spend time with Burke, she told herself as she hurried across campus toward her dorm. It was just that she had no idea how long Wilson was going to keep her that day.

  Plus, Noah might call later. . . .

  The thought made her stop in her tracks, nearly causing a collision with a bicyclist following too closely behind. She wasn't putting off Burke to leave herself open for Noah?

  No, she decided, relieved. They were two completely different people, but she honestly cared for them both. That was why she still couldn't choose between them—or tell them about each other. Saying good-bye to either one would be an impossible task.

  But I still have to do it, she thought. And soon.

  Sydney heaved a sigh and increased her pace to a trot.

  I really wish I knew how.

  “Get a lot done at the library?” Francie Calfo asked as Sydney burst into their dorm room and dropped her backpack on the floor.

  “Yep,” Sydney said, beginning to pull off her tank top. “And now I have exactly five minutes to get dressed for the bank.”

  She heard Francie's exasperated sigh through the shirt still bunched around her ears. Here it comes, she thought, tensing.

  Francie wasn't just Sydney's roommate, she was her best friend. But there was one thing about Sydney that Francie didn't like: her job. Like everyone else outside SD-6, Francie believed Sydney was a lowly clerk at Credit Dauphine, and she hated the way the bank treated Sydney—calling her in at all hours and sending her off to catch up the filing at out-of-town branches.

  “I can't believe your boss is making you work another Sunday,” Francie said. “It's a bank, for crying out loud! Hasn't he heard of bankers' hours?”

  Sydney braced herself and pulled the shirt off her head. As anticipated, her friend's eyes were full of annoyance.

  “I have to go, Francie.”

  “Fine, go. I wouldn't dream of stopping you.” Turning her back to use the mirror inside her closet door, Francie began brushing her black hair, twisting it into a stylish knot.

  Okay, I didn't see that coming, Sydney thought, pausing with one leg out of her shorts. Isn't this the part where she tries to talk me out of working?

  It was almost a weekend ritual: Sydney rushing off to work, Francie complaining about all the plans Sydney was ruining, Sydney making foolish promises about coming home early, Francie sulking as Sydney ran out the door . . .

  “Maybe I can get off early,” Sydney ventured.

  “Don't bother on my account. I have other plans.”

  Francie anchored her twist with a chopstick, then picked up a red lip liner and began tracing her full mouth. Sydney watched, temporarily sidetracked. Was Francie going someplace without her? And if so, why wasn't she giving up details?

  “So, you, uh . . . you look awfully nice for Sunday afternoon in the dorms,” she said at last. “Is that top new?”

  Francie turned back to face her. “I got it yesterday. You like?”

  Hitting a model's pose, she spun around in the limited floor space between the foot of her twin bed and her open closet door, showing off her new red camisole. She had combined it with low-rise jeans and red canvas slides, her look cute, summery, and carefree. Sydney tried not to envy her roommate as she opened her own closet door and removed the boring khakis she invariably wore to the “bank.”

  “I do like it,” she replied. “Where'd you get it?”

  “There's the cutest store on Sunset!” Francie said, returning to her lipstick. “I wanted to go to the mall, but Shauna said we had to try Hollywood and she was totally right.”

  “Shauna?” Sydney reached for her standard blue button-down, then, in a fit of summer rebellion, grabbed a pink peasant blouse instead.

  “That girl I told you about from my biology lecture.”

  “I don't remember.” Sydney was pretty sure there was nothing to remember, but she didn't want to rile Francie up again.

  “She and Carly and I all sit in back, where the droning's a little less painful.”

  “So you and Shauna went shopping yesterday?”

  “And Carly. While you were at the bank. As usual.” Francie cast a brief, accusing look back over her shoulder. “Don't you ever miss having a life?”

  “All the time. But you know I have to work.”

  “Right. Of course!” Francie said sarcastically. “Because if Credit Dauphine ever had a paper out of order or—God help us—in the wrong drawer, the very fabric of society would rip asunder, chaos would fill the gap, and life as we know it would be totally, completely over.”

  Sydney pressed her lips together. “Been practicing that speech long?”

  “About a week,” Francie admitted, shutting her closet door and turning around with a pleased smile on her face. “Good, wasn't it?”

  “If the drama department only knew.” Picking up a hairbrush, Sydney began slicking her straight brown hair into her usual work ponytail.

  Francie eased past her to get to the door. “See you later,” she said, reaching for the knob.

  “Wait! You didn't even tell me where you're going.”

  “Didn't I? I'm meeting Shauna and Carly for lunch, then I think we're seeing a matinee. Or we might just kill time watching guys until the dance clubs open.”

  “But it's Sunday!” Sydney protested.

  Francie shook her head. “Tell it to your boss,” she suggested, slipping out the door.

  I am not jealous, Sydney told herself as she rode the elevator from the underground parking garage into the heart of SD
-6. That would be ridiculous.

  She and Francie weren't joined at the hip. In fact, it would be weird if they didn't do things with other people sometimes.

  Except that I never do. At least not with anyone I can tell Francie about.

  The elevator stopped, its doors opening onto a small white room with a black circle painted on its floor. Sydney strode to the circle's center and stared straight ahead, letting retinal scanning verify her identity. The computer cleared her and a pair of doors opened on the opposite side of the room, admitting her onto the main floor of SD-6 headquarters.

  Her pulse quickened with excitement as she walked through the cavernous space on her way to Wilson's glass-walled office. SD-6 agents worked at numerous small desks in this relatively open part of the building, and tucked in among the raw concrete columns, computer monitors glowed despite the fact it was Sunday. Their light made the windowless space seem warmer, and suddenly Sydney didn't feel as bad about missing the afternoon with Francie. Criminals didn't take Sundays off, and neither did the CIA—at least not the ultracovert branch she belonged to. Her heels clicked purposefully as she passed the large conference room, skirted a smaller research area, and headed down the final hallway, where Wilson's door stood open.

  Sydney's CIA handler was sitting behind his mahogany desk, the casual tilt of his chair belying the edgy energy crackling just beneath his surface. Wilson was always awake, always on, always working some new angle to bring down the bad guys—which explained why the silver strands were winning their war with his chestnut hair. He motioned her into his office, and Sydney suddenly realized there was someone else in the room. In one of two chairs facing Wilson, Noah Hicks turned to meet her gaze, a hint of smugness around his lips betraying his enjoyment of her obvious surprise.

  “Right on time!” Wilson greeted her. “You remember Agent Hicks from your Paris mission.”

  “Of course,” Sydney said, not about to mention where else she remembered him from. “I didn't realize you'd be here today, Agent Hicks,” she added, taking the seat beside his.

  Her heart had begun racing the way it always did when Noah was around, making her wonder if she was crazy to still be seeing Burke. Burke was sweet, and honest, and open; objectively, he was probably more handsome, with that hippie-throwback-meets-male-model thing he had going. But compared to the comfortable feeling Burke gave her, being next to Noah felt like a fireworks finale. Ever since she'd first spotted him, working out in one of SD-6's training rooms, he'd taken her breath away. He was older than she was, for one thing, and he carried that experience in his face—in the wariness of his brown eyes and the scar underlining one side of his jaw. His wavy brown hair was cropped short, all business, yet when he got excited he raked it with both hands until it stuck out everywhere. But the most magnetic thing about Noah was his obvious self-confidence. It was palpable. It was infuriating.