Close Quarters

  A MICHAEL VAUGHN NOVEL

  EMMA HARRISON

  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

  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

  Don't miss any of the Official Alias Books

  Copyright Page

  1

  MICHAEL VAUGHN WOULD NEVER have admitted it, but sometimes he still felt beyond cool when he walked into Central Intelligence Agency headquarters. He’d step across the CIA seal on the floor in the center of the lobby, his head held a bit higher than usual, a casual smile on his chiseled face, and think, Check me out. I’m a CIA agent. Yeah, that’s right, I’m a badass.

  Then he’d laugh at himself and try to keep a straight face until he got past security.

  This wasn’t CIA agent behavior, he knew. It wasn’t even adult behavior. But he couldn’t help it. It had started back when he’d reported for training at the Farm. That first day it had hit him: He was finally fulfilling his lifelong dream to be one of the good guys, to protect the United States and its citizens from all threats, foreign or domestic. That day he’d gotten a sort of adrenaline-fueled thrill. And now, more than a year later, he still felt it. He was cool. James Bond cool. Han Solo cool. He was the guy every other guy wished he could be.

  On this warm spring day, Vaughn was feeling his cool factor more intensely than usual. He and his new partner, Chloe Murphy, had just returned from a mission in the Middle East—a dangerous, confidential, top-priority mission—and they had returned home triumphant. Not only had they taken out a powerful terrorist cell, but they had secured two warehouses full of illegal weapons. This morning, Vaughn was feeling good. He was feeling like a hero.

  Chloe had been one of his fellow trainees at the Farm. After his first partner, Akiko Schwartz, had opted for a desk job at the CIA’s Center for Families, he’d been reassigned to team with Chloe, a baby-faced wunderkind with a Ph.D. in linguistics who’d just come back from a stint in Paris.

  He nodded to Rufus and Tom, the two guards outside the secure room that led to the Outer Rim at CIA headquarters. The Outer Rim was the nickname the agents had given to the long, white hallway that surrounded the offices of the CIA. Vaughn placed his palm on the handprint scanner in the secure room and waited as a beam of light illuminated his skin. His picture appeared on the security screen along with his clearance code and status: active.

  “State your name,” a female voice said, filling the small room.

  “Michael Vaughn.”

  The voice-recognition computer beeped its approval. The glass door in front of Vaughn slid open, and he stepped into the Outer Rim. Brightly lit and deathly quiet, the Rim smelled of antiseptic cleaner that always reminded Vaughn of hospitals. He walked across the gleaming linoleum floor and stood before the door to the bullpen-style office within. As always, he strained not to blink as the red laser for the retinal scan slid over his eyeball. Finally the steel door before him unlocked, and Vaughn pushed his way inside.

  The office, as always, was buzzing with activity. People rushed around carrying files, talking into headsets. Three senior agents huddled over a flat-screen monitor, urgently whispering over some new intel. Phones trilled and printers whined. Vaughn headed for the far side of the room, where he and his fellow junior agents sat in a cluster of six desks, set up so that each agent faced his or her partner. Chloe was already at her desk, her long brown hair held back in a messy bun with two pencils. She sipped a huge cup of coffee, her eyes trained on her monitor.

  “’Morning,” Vaughn said, sliding into his leather chair.

  Chloe glanced up and smiled, her hazel eyes glittering. “We are so money right now.”

  “Yeah? Everyone’s heard?” Vaughn asked, leaning back and unbuttoning his suit jacket.

  Chloe spotted someone over his shoulder and lifted her chin with a smile.

  “Vaughn, my man!” Agent Chris Seale called out, holding up his hand to slap palms with Vaughn. Chris was a former Penn State linebacker—a guy whose body always seemed to be straining to break free from his pressed shirts and too-tight ties. Vaughn stood up to give him a high five, and Chris almost knocked him off his feet.

  “It’s all over the office,” Chris said, sitting down at his desk next to Vaughn’s, his huge form practically overflowing from the chair.

  Vaughn scratched at the back of his scruffy light brown hair, grinning with pride. This was exactly how he’d pictured it all the way home on the long flight from Cairo to Paris to Boston to D.C. Back-slapping, congratulations, general adulation. He was sure his and Chloe’s success in the Middle East was going to land them a prime assignment their next time out. Something even bigger, even more treacherous and significant. He couldn’t wait to find out what it would be.

  “Hey, Vaughn, Murphy. Betty wants to see you in her office,” Jordan Patel, another of their peers, told them as he dropped into his own chair. He barely glanced at the other agents before firing up his computer. No “Welcome home.” No “Good job.” Not that Vaughn was surprised. Patel was one of those people who couldn’t stand it when others succeeded—even if they were all on the same team.

  Vaughn met Chloe’s gaze as they stood up, and he could tell she was as excited as he was to talk to their boss. This was it. Betty was sure to reward their success with a fabulous assignment.

  “What do you think it’ll be?” Chloe asked under her breath as she fell into step next to Vaughn. They wound their way around the clusters of desks, acknowledging a few more congratulations as they went.

  “I don’t know,” Vaughn told her, his heart pounding. “Russia . . . China . . . Indonesia . . . ?”

  He held open the door to Betty Harlow’s office for Chloe. As they stepped into the soundproof room, Betty reached for her cane, using it to help push herself up from her chair. Betty had been in charge of training at the Farm when Vaughn and Chloe were there learning the skills that would turn them into ace officers. Back then they had been petrified of her. They were still scared, in fact, but to a lesser degree. Betty reminded Vaughn of an aging folk singer, with long graying brown hair and a no-nonsense attitude. She was in charge, and everyone around her knew it by her very presence. But after everything Vaughn had been through with her, he’d grown to respect and admire her—even if that one heavy-lidded eye still appeared in his nightmares now and then.

  “Nice work in the desert,” Betty said, nodding to the visitors’ chairs across from her.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Vaughn and Chloe said in unison before perching on the edge of their seats.

  Betty lowered herself into her chair again and passed them each a folder marked CONFIDENTIAL. Vaughn glanced at Chloe and felt his pulse speed up the way it always did the moment before they discovered what their next quest would be.

  “I’m sending both of you to New York,” Betty told them.

  Good start, Vaughn said. New York wasn’t some exotic foreign locale, but as cities went, it wasn’t too shabby. Vaughn focused on his boss and rested his file in his lap unopened. Betty hated it when they cracked their dockets before she told them to.

  “As you well know, the annual UN conference is taking place this week, and dignitaries from all over the world will be descending on Manhattan,” Betty continued. “The CIA will be sending dozens o
f teams to the city for added security and to cover special assignments. Your mission is as follows.”

  Betty hit a switch on her desk, and the lights in her office dimmed. A large plasma screen on the wall to Vaughn’s left blinked to life, showing stock video of Ramero Toscana, the president of Italy, and his wife, Martina. On the screen, Toscana, a short, stocky man with thick salt-and-pepper hair and a permanent tan, waved to a crowd of cheering onlookers. His wife clutched his hand and pressed her other palm to her mouth, blowing kisses to the people before ducking into a limousine behind her husband. The Toscanas were, as always, impeccably dressed and coiffed, and exuded an air of health and well-being, as if they had just come from a relaxing spa day with an expert stylist.

  “The Italian government has reported several threats to the life of President Ramero Toscana from a militant organization called La Rappresaglia,” Betty explained.

  “The Retaliation,” Vaughn translated easily. Fluent in Spanish and French, he had found it fairly simple to perfect yet another romance language.

  “Very good,” Betty said with a brief nod.

  “Suck-up,” Chloe joked under her breath. In Italian.

  Vaughn felt his cheeks redden slightly. He had to work on resisting the impulse to blurt out a translation when he was around Chloe, who was practically a United Nations unto herself—she knew Russian, Spanish, French, Chinese, and, obviously, Italian.

  Betty continued. “The president and his family will be in New York for the next few days, and Toscana is scheduled to deliver the address at the closing ceremony of this year’s conference.”

  Vaughn watched more stock footage of Toscana—delivering a speech, cutting a red ribbon in front of a new hospital. Get to the good stuff, he urged Betty silently. What’s the mission?

  “La Rappresaglia’s latest threat is that they will assassinate the president while he is on U.S. soil,” Betty said ominously.

  Vaughn’s heart seized slightly, and his gaze shifted from the video screen back to Betty. She turned to face him and Chloe, her eyes narrowing until the heavy-lidded right one was practically closed. “I don’t have to tell you that if this were to happen, there would be major international repercussions. The consequences could be disastrous.”

  Swallowing hard, Vaughn looked at Chloe. Were they going to be sent after the assassins? Would they be protecting the president? What? He could see the headlines now: ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT THWARTED! Of course, his identity would have to be protected, so the newspapers wouldn’t be able to mention his name, but still—

  “Your assignment is to protect the president’s daughter, Marianna Toscana,” Betty said, hitting another button and facing the screen again. “She already has a personal bodyguard, but we want some of our own people on the job.”

  Vaughn’s jaw dropped. Huh? He glanced at the monitor and saw some grainy, dated footage of Toscana with his arm around a teenage girl with unruly curls and a mouth full of braces. Vaughn suspected that the film had been shot at least a couple of years ago, but the girl couldn’t have been much older than fifteen.

  “Wait a minute. We’re going to be baby-sitting?” Vaughn blurted out before his brain could check his mouth. Every now and then the whole think-before-you-speak concept still eluded him.

  Chloe hunched forward and closed her eyes, shaking her head slightly. Vaughn knew what she was thinking—Nice move, moron.

  “I wouldn’t look at it that way, Agent Vaughn,” Betty said, snapping the lights on again. The screen faded to black and she leaned forward over her desk. “Any threat to the president is considered a threat to his family. This is a matter of international security. Do you two find this country’s concerns to be beneath you?”

  “No, ma’am,” Chloe piped up.

  “No, ma’am,” Vaughn echoed, his voice cracking slightly. Much to his chagrin, he found that his palms had grown sweaty. Unbelievable. Two weeks enduring the tension in the Middle East and he had been as calm as a frozen pond. Two minutes with Betty and he was reduced to mush.

  “Good,” Betty said. “And you won’t be baby-sitting, Agent Vaughn. While you’re in New York, you will be gathering intel, interviewing Ms. Toscana’s personnel. If you open your dossiers, you will find that the Italian government has reason to believe that this faction has people on the inside—people who may have easy access to the first family.”

  Vaughn opened his file with less excitement and anticipation than he normally would have. All he could see in his mind’s eye was that little awkward girl standing next to her father. One day he was taking out terrorists and the next he was going to be trapped with a teenybopper, listening to bubblegum pop CDs on automatic replay and braiding her hair. Not that he would ever actually do that.

  “You’ll have more time to review that information on the plane, which takes off in one hour,” Betty told them, standing again. Vaughn and Chloe slapped their files shut and jumped to their feet. “I cannot stress this enough, you two: We cannot lose a member of the Italian first family.”

  “We won’t,” Vaughn said, imagining Patel gloating at the news of his rival’s failure.

  “Agent Vaughn, you will act as a second bodyguard to Marianna. Stay with her at all times. I don’t care if she wants to drag you to the Ice Capades, you’ll go,” Betty told him firmly. Vaughn suddenly conjured up a new mental picture of himself in Madison Square Garden, holding a cone of pink cotton candy with a neon glow ring on his head while skaters twirled on the ice below.

  Yeah. Han Solo cool, he thought morosely. James Bond cool.

  “Agent Murphy, you’ll be working behind the scenes, gathering intel, assessing any new threats. I’m sending Elena and Barry with you in case any special tech needs arise.” Betty eyed them expectantly. “Any questions?”

  Yeah. What happened to Indonesia? “No, ma’am,” Vaughn said instead.

  “Then get a move on,” Betty told them.

  Chloe and Vaughn strode out of the office and waited until they were a good ten yards away before speaking a word. They paused near the restrooms, looking warily across the office at their desks. Chris and Jordan appeared to be hard at work, but they would definitely be all over them about the new assignment the second they returned.

  “I bet Chris is salivating to know what exciting adventures we’ll be up to next,” Chloe said, holding her file down in front of her with both hands.

  “They find out what we’re really doing and we are never going to live it down,” Vaughn replied under his breath. “Jordan will milk this till Christmas.”

  “So we tell them it’s highly classified and we’re not allowed to divulge the details or we’ll all be killed?” Chloe suggested, lifting a shoulder.

  Vaughn caught Patel’s inquiring gaze. “Every last one of us.”

  2

  “I CAN’T IMAGINE WHAT SORT of special tech needs might arise on this mission,” Barry said, sitting down in the cushy leather airplane seat next to Vaughn. “I mean, unless Vaughn wants us to speed-write an electronic dictionary of teen lingo so he can keep up with the girl.”

  Barry rubbed his slim, paler-than-pale hands together. The blue sky and fluffy white clouds were reflected in the thick lenses of his glasses. “A Betty is a babe, not Wilma’s sidekick, and not our boss back at Langley. You know that, right?” Barry joked, snorting a laugh.

  “Very funny,” Vaughn said, trying not to let his wounded pride show. How uncool was it that Barry knew more current lingo than he did? He rested his chin on his hand and stared out the window at the billowing tops of the white clouds below. “I checked the file. Marianna Toscana just turned twenty-one. She’s not a teenager anymore.”

  “Close enough,” Barry said with a smile. Then he sniffed the air, leaned toward Vaughn, and sniffed again. “You changed deodorants, didn’t you?”

  Vaughn shot a desperate glance at Chloe, who sat across the aisle next to Elena. They had their heads bent together, looking over something on Elena’s sleek laptop. Normally Vaughn found Barry’s quirk
y sense of humor and even quirkier sense of smell somewhat amusing, but not today. Chloe didn’t catch his plea, however, and Vaughn was temporarily trapped.

  “You did! You smell completely different, my friend. The nose knows,” Barry said, sniffing again. “You may as well tell me what it is—you know I’m going to figure it out.”

  “It’s Degree,” Vaughn told him flatly. “And I don’t know why I’d want to keep it a secret.”

  “Well, some people are private about their personal antiperspirant preferences,” Barry said, sitting back in his seat. His dark ponytail was forced out at an angle, hanging over his shoulder.

  Vaughn leaned forward to see past Barry and glanced at Agent Mike Roscoe, one of the CIA’s leading experts on Italy, who sat across the way, muttering into one of the plane’s satellite telephones. From the sound of the conversation, he was slowly wrapping it up. Vaughn willed him to talk fast. Roscoe had been sent along to brief the team on the current situation in Italy, and Vaughn was more than ready to get the show on the road.

  “Now . . . flash is a new word for swag, which is an old new word for any kind of ostentatious stuff that you wear or use to let your homeys know how rich you are,” Barry continued, tugging down the sleeves of his ever-present black turtleneck. “You know, like diamonds, gold necklaces, furs, Hummers.”

  Mercifully, Roscoe hung up the phone and stood, clapping his hands together.

  “All right, everyone, if I could have your attention, please,” Roscoe said. He was a short man with wiry black hair and a broad weightlifter’s build. Even at eleven o’clock in the morning he had a five o’clock shadow dotting his chin and neck. His loud voice boomed through the tiny airplane. Barry actually jumped when the man spoke.

  Vaughn gave Roscoe his full attention, and Elena and Chloe closed the laptop. Roscoe popped open the black briefcase that rested on the seat across from his and started to pull out documents and photos.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t know much about La Rappresaglia,” Roscoe told them, handing each agent a packet of papers. “What we do know is that they’ve taken credit for a long list of crimes that have taken place in Italy in recent months. Everything ranging from the murder of Tomas Impenniolla, President Toscana’s top domestic policy advisor, to the smash-and-grab job at the Cartier store in Rome. They took both jewels and cash and sold the more precious items on the black market, presumably to fund their little enterprise.”