Previously on "alias"... Sydney!
Nadia! Come here, come here!
No!
It's Nadia. She's infected.
My daughter's being kept in a coma.
She's suffering from a condition that no one understands.
It is a condition that I am responsible for
with no hope for a cure.
I've hurt the most precious thing in my life.
Gordon Dean, office of special investigations.
Dean wasn't special investigations.
These people killed my fiancé.
We lost our only lead on Gordon Dean.
We'll get another lead.
Yeah.
Uhh!
I'm patched in. Go for the hack.
Hacking now.
For the purposes of training, this call may be monitored.
My name is Roger. How can I help you?
Hi, Roger. I'd like to cancel a subscription, please.
Certainly. Can I have the name on the account?
Michael Vaughn.
V-a-u-g-h-n.
Got it. I see it right here.
May I ask why you're canceling the subscription?
Mr. Vaughn died.
I'm sorry. I'll take care of it right away.
Yeah.
Okay.
When your wife tells you
it's a waste of time to have a pen pal, she's wrong,
'cause two days ago, there was a theft
in an R&D facility in Istanbul.
The turks have done a pretty good job
of keeping it under wraps.
But my friend Ali forwarded me this.
Now take a look right there. You see that, those vials?
Right there? That's a nerve agent called substance 33.
It was developed by the Russians during the cold war.
Remarkable stuff, you know,
in an end-of-civilization sort of way.
What makes you think they worked for Dean?
Well, they don't. As far as we can tell, they're independent.
Gordon Dean--he's a--
disappeared two years ago. Infiltrated this office.
Compromised one of your men.
I'm up to speed, thanks.
Sorry. Um, new guy.
I-I just assumed that maybe, uh...
Anyway...
This woman right here--
that's who I think works for Dean.
You think? Based on what, your pen pal?
Who, Ali? No. See, this woman had help--
a hacker who remotely accessed the security system
using the same computer as a hack on the n.S.A.
A few months back, which we know was ordered by Dean.
So two hours ago I traced this computer to Prague
within these 5 square Miles.
But, you see, if I can go to Prague,
I can narrow it down to, like, 2 feet,
and then we can grab this hacker and get him to tell us
where the substance 33 is. But if we do that, we lose Dean.
Once he realizes his hacker is missing,
he'll disappear as well. Right.
Okay. I want you both to accompany Marshall to Prague.
Follow the signal. Locate Dean's operation there.
But don't do anything to reveal yourself
or to engage his men.
Once you've done that, we'll reassess our options.
Shouldn't Dixon be going with me?
I've tasked Dixon to another assignment.
Marshall will brief you on your op tech.
Let me know when you're ready to leave.
Dad, you're making a mistake.
Sydney, I understand you'd be more comfortable
taking Dixon with you, but that was inappropriate.
This is not the time to break in a new agent.
Agent grace has extensive field experience.
And I have a history with Dixon.
What is so important, dad,
that he can't come with me on this mission?
Your sister.
What about my sister?
You know that sloane has been searching for a cure for Nadia.
He may have found one.
"Conditional release of arvin sloane"?
Sloane cultivated a lead
who will only meet with him face-to-face in Russia.
I was able to convince the Attorney General
to let him out of prison for 72 hours.
I'm sending Dixon as a security detail.
When was I going to find out about this?
I didn't want to raise your hopes
until we knew what sloane had.
Well, in that case, I'd prefer to go with Marshall by myself. Sydney--
it's not that complicated a mission. In fact, it's very complicated--
recovering the nerve agent without tipping Dean...
What aren't you telling me?
I read his file.
Agent grace's?
You had no authority to do that.
In the last three years,
he has turned down half a dozen team assignments,
instead taking long-cover operations by himself.
He's a loner.
He's a superior agent,
and he's agreed to be on this team,
which is good enough for me.
Um, sorry. Didn't mean to...
It's just that you said to let you know when...
We're ready to go. Yeah.
Tell me about your contact Alexander dolzhenko.
Dolzhenko was an undersecretary in the politburo.
I had been working with him for the past decade.
Trustworthy?
Reliable.
Why is he insisting on meeting with you in person?
For his protection.
After the sovogda incident,
we believe that the Russians killed all the infected.
But according to dolzhenko, they've kept some of them alive,
and they're pursuing treatment.
Of course, the Russians deny that sovogda ever occurred.
So by passing the cure to me,
dolzhenko is risking his life.
Suppose dolzhenko has been found out by the authorities.
This could be his way of cutting a deal.
And you're suggesting that I might be walking into a trap?
Hmm? No.
No. About the sovogda incident--
the Russians have no idea that I'm responsible.
Then why has he agreed to meet with you at all?
$300,000.
My job is to make sure, in three days' time,
you return to this cell.
I intend to do exactly that.
When we're in the field,
you'll follow my instructions explicitly,
no questions.
It's my show.
Great.
Sure you're reading that right?
Seems like an unlikely place to hide an operation.
It's definitely him.
I mean, the signal I'm getting is weak but clean.
And the hacker's right inside that building. Wi-fi hot spot?
Yeah.
Must be using a laptop off-site.
Know what? That's okay. I got an idea.
Okay.
Got it. Here's what we do. Pack of mints, right?
Microprocessor on the bottom of the case. It's a relay.
Get it within 5 feet of the hacker's computer.
It should allow me to clone the hard drive,
might even tell us where the nerve agent is.
Even better-- offer him a mint.
Inside each one is a tracking device.
Don't worry. He won't die or anything if he swallows it.
Just get a little sick, a little nausea.
If Gordon Dean has an operation here,
chances are the hacker will lead us right to it.
Got it.
What's that?
That was Czech.
I'll fake it. It's all sort of germanish, right?
Go for it.
Okay, who am I looking for?
A far window, back to the wall.
Baseball cap on backwards. Got it.
You are American?
Oh.
Great, Syd, that's perfect. I'm starting the clone now.
Nice.
Hold on a second. Wait a minute.
What is it? Well, I'm not the only one accessing this computer. Syd...
Does your guy have two laptops networked together? No.
No?
Syd, listen, we have a problem. Someone beside me
is piggybacking off this computer.
They're trying to steal the bandwidth,
which means the hacker doesn't have a laptop at all--
maybe a PDA or a cell phone.
Great, the signal just went dead.
I got her. Blond hair, brown jacket. She just left.
She's coming your way. There she is.
You're going to want a seat belt.
Wh-what are you doing?
Following her.
Watch out!
Sorry!
She made us. Hold on.
Hi there.
Hey, did you get anything from her cell phone?
No. The simm card is completely shattered.
She says the phone broke when you hit her car.
Well, more likely it was a countermeasure.
She smashed it when she realized you were chasing her.
And if her people realize she's gone,
if there's some protocol to check in that she misses,
they'll disappear as well.
Maybe under the circumstance,
you'd have done something different.
Okay.
Um, uh, you talked to your father, right, Syd?
I mean, what's he want us to do?
I'm going to talk to her again,
see if I can get her to give up substance 33
while there's still time.
Can you rig a voice stress analyzer?
Yeah, sure. Just give me ten minutes.
Dolzhenko is typically a few minutes late.
Half an hour is more than a few minutes.
Here we go.
Alexander.
You deviated from my instructions.
I told you to come alone.
He's backup. He's only here for my safety.
Do we have the money?
It's all here, Alexander--
$300,000.
Our last job, where we parted company--
be there by 8, alone this time.
I can't do that, Alexander.
Then our deal's off,
and you lose your daughter's cure.
Marcus...
No.
If you're concerned that this is a trick,
an escape, you have my daughter.
She's all the insurance you need.
Could be a trap. Russian police could be waiting for you.
It doesn't matter to me. I have to see this through.
What if it were your daughter, Marcus?
Call me when you're ready to be picked up.
Three days ago,
you hacked into a security system
and facilitated the theft of a chemical weapon--
substance 33.
I want to contact the American embassy.
I'm a U.S. citizen. I have rights.
You committed an act of terrorism.
You forfeited your rights.
Honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Hey. Rachel Gibson, traveling on a student visa
issued two weeks ago.
So what are you studying?
Architecture.
The gothic influence.
Well, that's fascinating.
It is.
What are you do--
get off! Let go of me now! Don't--let go!
What is this? Whoever you people are, you're making a big mistake.
Can I see that? Pretty soon there will be a ton of U.S. agents
swarming this place looking for me. U.S. agents?
That's right. It's an e.L.T.--Emergency location transmitter.
She was trying to send a distress signal.
Do we need to worry?
Well, looks like it's still intact.
The signal didn't go out.
You're scared?
You should be. No one's coming to rescue you.
I'm an operative for the U.S. government.
So unless you want to start a war with the c.I.A.,
I would suggest-- here's your next problem, Rachel. We're c.I.A.
Well, then this must be some big misunderstanding.
If you're c.I.A., we're on the same side.
Call Langley. Verify her story.
All right.
You can't. We're off-book.
Black ops. Langley won't verify us.
That's convenient.
Well, that's the truth. I've had enough.
Syd?
The stress analysis indicates she's telling the truth.
That may be, but the more likely scenario
is that she's practicing a form of self-hypnosis
to convince herself that what she's saying is true.
Well, I triple-checked my readings and filtered them
against every known method of duping.
She believes what she's saying.
What?
Marshall, you and my father said the same thing--
that Rachel believes what she's saying.
She believes she works for the c.I.A.
Yeah. I think so. That's right.
I need to talk to her.
I want to tell you a story.
Just stop me if I get something wrong.
You were approached in college, someplace public,
in the quad or walking to class.
A man asked you if you wanted to serve your country.
When he told you it was for the c.I.A.,
you just-- you couldn't believe it.
But you took the tests, and they were easy for you.
It made you feel good about yourself.
You probably started work at a false front,
some phantom company that had you doing entry-level analysis.
Maybe you wondered why you were never sent to Langley.
Maybe you wondered
why you weren't being trained with other recruits.
Then you got promoted.
You met the director of your division--Gordon Dean.
He offered you a position on his team.
Dean took you under his wing.
He convinced you that you were so important,
you just had to be out there helping him save the world.
How am I doing?
You read my file.
No, I didn't.
13 years ago, the same thing happened to me,
only I had been lied to.
What I was told was the c.I.A.
Was in reality a criminal organization.
I think you've been told the same lie.
I know you don't believe me, Rachel.
You think this is another interrogation tactic.
It's not.
I think I can prove it.
You can prove it--
that I work for a criminal organization?
Your transmitter--where does the signal get received?
C.I.A. Headquarters. Langley.
You're sure of that?
I designed it myself.
I'd like you to build a trace program,
one that piggybacks
onto the signal your watch sends out.
If I'm right,
it won't go to Langley.
Okay. It's ready.
Let's do it.
Okay. I'm going to send out a test signal.
Will just assume you're checking the system, okay?
Here we go. And...
Testing...
Yep. Went to Langley.
Wait a minute. No, it isn't.
That ping was just a ghost signal.
It was meant to throw us off.
It's not going to Langley at all. Where'd it go?
Prague, vlasska street.
What's on vlasska street?
Our office.
It's temporary so that Dean
can oversee the transfer of substance 33.
Wait. Gordon Dean is in Prague?
Yeah.
He's right around the corner.
How's she doing?
About how you'd expect.
She was told substance 33
was developed by a terrorist cell
and was being transferred to u.N. Weapons inspectors.
Most likely, it's being sold to the highest bidder.
Does she know when the exchange is to be made?
Tonight, but she doesn't know where.
She said it's all classified, and all classified intel
is stored on Dean's own dedicated server.
What else? How much does she know about his operation?
She was recruited two years ago, computer specialist.
She's willing to give us everything--
mission history, suppliers,
contacts, the works.
Without more background, it's too risky to move on Dean.
He could destroy his data
before we have time to secure it.
Marshall, can we access that server?
Well, according to Rachel, Dean uses an encryption key
that changes daily.
But if I could get inside, I could crack the key,
maybe download the entire hard drive.
Obviously, that's too dangerous.
What about the girl?
She's not a field agent.
And her whole world is coming apart right now.
I don't see another option.
We have to recover substance 33 before it trades hands.
What is it?
We need some help.
All you have to do is copy the encryption key
and then bring it back to me, okay?
Shouldn't take me more than a couple minutes
then go back inside, all right? You think maybe you can open
a remote access port to Dean's server?
Yeah, from my workstation.
Dean's server has about a terabyte of data.
That's going to take you, what, an hour at 20 gigs a minute?
I can hop r.A.M. While the data's being transferred.
Unless they know where to look, it can't be detected.
The encryption key is pretty massive.
I don't think I have anything big enough to copy it to.
That's okay. Got a little present for you.
Okay? Just a little something I picked up.
Looks like a normal credit card, right?
But you look closely--
actually holds 240 gigs of memory.
It's a working credit card.
Just don't go shopping with it,
because it's already at its limit.
My wife--crazy with the clothes, Mitchell.
It's clever.
Yeah.
I wanna tell you that I've been admiring you, too.
Not, you know, anything kind of creepy, weird.
Just totally professionally.
I mean, your hack on the n.S.A.--Genius.
Too bad it was being used for evil,
though been there myself.
Thanks.
Hey, listen, you're gonna be okay.
All right? I have been through stuff way scarier.
I'm still here.
Alexander.
Old friend.
So I did as you asked.
It's just you and me.
I'm sorry for my precautions.
I'm sure you understand. Of course.
I'm eager to get this over with as well.
You can count it.
No, please. We're friends. I trust you.
So you have the cure.
As I told you,
it's still experimental,
but, uh, yes.
So far the patients have made a full recovery.
Good.
Come. It's right here.
Alexander, please.
Oh, begging will not help you.
Whoever wants me dead...
Let me reason with them. I'll pay them.
"Whoever."
But, arvin,
it's me who wants you dead.
Sasha, why are you doing this?
I've never done anything to you.
Oh, yes.
Yes, you have.
I had a daughter in sovogda myself.
Because what you released,
I didn't even have a chance to bury my own child.
I lied to you.
Besides your daughter, there are no other survivors.
No experiments, no cure.
Yeah!
It's worse than dying, isn't it?
Knowing there's nothing you can do
to save your own child.
Turn around.
No.
Turn around!
No. If you're going to shoot me,
I'm not going to make it easy for you.
I know your pain, Sasha.
Killing me won't heal it.
You're not a killer.
Don't become one now.
Don't make this your daughter's legacy.
I'll be able to hear anything you say,
even if it's barely a whisper. If anything goes wrong,
if you even sense that you are in jeopardy,
we'll pull you out. We'll call off the mission.
Okay.
Okay. That's the easy part.
The hard part--you have to walk back into that office
and look everyone in the eye--
your co-workers, Gordon Dean.
You can't let them see that you know the truth.
When you've copied the encryption key,
let me know.
We'll brush pass in the lobby like we said.
Okay.
How many of them know?
How many of them are in on it?
It's impossible to say.
In my case, it was half a dozen out of 50 agents.
You ever seen this man?
Yeah, Dean said he was
a c.I.A. Agent who turned,
that he's in custody outside Los Alamos.
That was a lie, too.
His name is Michael Vaughn.
He was a U.S. agent.
But he was a good man.
Rachel, look at me.
The reason I'm telling you this is because right now
you are our best chance at seeing Gordon Dean
pay for what he's done.
He used you, Rachel.
He used you to murder U.S. agents.
I believe in you.
Hey.
Peyton, hey.
I thought you weren't due in till tonight.
Yeah, I have some reports to clean up.
You okay?
Rough weekend.
Well, if you wanna take a nap on the couch, I can hide you.
Thanks. I'm good, though. I'm gonna get to work.
Okay. Oh, don't let Dean see you,
or he'll make you translate surveillance footage.
Yeah, you're right.
Rachel.
How long has it been?
Since the last time you asked, 30 seconds.
Look, she's been in there ten minutes.
I'm sure she's fine.
Rachel.
Hey.
I don't know whether I should thank you or curse you.
The book you recommended--
"devil in the white city." I'm addicted.
Truly. I was up all night reading.
I never would have thought I'd be so, uh, fascinated
by a serial killer.
Somehow I find myself even sympathetic.
Yeah, I guess.
That Iran is trying to buy nuclear core from the French.
But we'll be in Paris next week.
I need a prep report by the end of the day.
Okay. I'll get right on it.
Thank you.
I've got it. I'm on my way down.
We'll brush pass just outside the door to the building.
Hey, hold the elevator. You going for coffee?
Yeah.
Last time I'm going to see the sun for a few hours.
Perfect. I'm dying for a smoke.
Rachel, listen to me. We can still do this.
We'll do the pass right under her nose.
Just follow my instructions. I'll talk you through it.
What are you doing? I'm going with you.
No, you're not. Yes, I am. If Gordon Dean can recognize you on sight,
so can any of his agents.
How do you say "you're welcome" in Czech?
I thought you quit.
I did... in the U.S.
But here, everybody smokes. It's a social necessity.
Rachel, have the credit card
ready in your left hand.
I'm ten seconds away.
Palm the credit card down by your side.
Don't look at me.
See? Social necessity.
If I didn't smoke, that never would have happened.
But I suppose he's not your type anyway, is he?
No.
Remind me to ask her what that means--"not her type."
How's it going? Um, good.
What kind of idiots don't double-encrypt their firewalls?
I could do this stuff in my sleep. Okay.
We're in.
Let Rachel know.
Rachel, Marshall's
decoded the key.
You can open the access ports now.
That's what I love about our friendship--
no competition.
Yeah.
You sure you're okay?
Of course. It's nothing a little caffeine won't fix.
Okay.
Got it. She's in. Rachel. Good job. We're in.
This shouldn't take too long.
Peyton.
What is it?
I think we may have a problem.
What kind of problem?
Rachel Gibson.
I don't know.
She hasn't done anything unusual from her terminal.
She's brilliant.
What?
She's hopping r.A.M.
She's trying to stay undetected.
She's copying everything on my server.
One sec here.
Substance 33.
Shipping tonight, Budapest. Shipping container 1147.
Great. I'll let Mr. Bristow know.
She's compromised everything. I can eliminate her.
She trusts me. No, it's too late for that.
Execute plan "b."
Are you sure that's necessary?
Just do it quickly.
I'll meet you in the parking garage.
Okay, I spoke to director Bristow.
He contacted the Hungarian authorities.
Once again, these bad guys picked
the wrong people to mess with.
Huh, what's that?
What? There's some rf interference.
I should be able to compensate for it.
Contact Rachel. See how she's doing.
Rachel, it's me. Do you copy?
Rachel?
Rachel, if you can't talk, cough. Oh, hell, the server's down.
Rachel, listen to me-- it's no use. They set off an e.M.P.
They fried the electronics.
Are you there?
Can anybody hear me?
Syd, Syd, no.
She's okay.
She's gonna be okay.