Russia bluffs well.

During the years the rest of the world was racing to understand the mysteries of Milo Rambaldi, she sat quietly and minded the work of her predecessor.

And so there was a winner long before there was a race.

The Soviet Union began its study of Milo Rambaldi in 1982, and had a working model of his Circumference in 1985. Scientists spent two years studying it, analyzing it.

By 1987, they were ready to modify it. The project was Red Balloon, and the objective was to disrupt the balance of Mutual Assured Destruction. A fusion, if you will, of two geniuses of their time — Rambaldi and Einstein.

In the years after the Soviet Union's demise, Red Balloon was shuttled amongst covert labs, eventually coming to rest below a bunker in Siberia.

Irina Derevko learned of its location shortly before her model — an interpretation of Rambaldi's plans that took the bigger is better route — was destroyed. Left with nothing but the location of a poorly guarded bunker, Derevko took a shortcut and stole the weapon she had heard rumors of during her final years with the KGB.

———

CIA analysts have determined that the coordinates recovered from the site outside St. Petersburg were for American and Russian cities, large and small. They believe some of them were hiding places, others potential targets.

The Red Balloon device is currently under analysis at a National Security Agency laboratory.

Diplomatic talks are strained, but ongoing, regarding its return to Russia. The Russians want it returned in full. It is much more likely that it will go back in pieces, a treaty preventing its reassembly.

Preliminary conjecture by NSA scientists has Red Balloon capable of something much worse than a mushroom cloud.

———

The three of them were good friends at one point. Only one still works for the United States. Another heads SD-6. The third sits in a small cell at Ft. Leavenworth and contemplates Irina Derevko.

He met her through her husband — his friend, Jack Bristow. Learned of her secret, her agenda, long before Bristow, the FBI and the CIA.

By then, it was too late. By then, Bill Devlin thought she was the love of his life.

———

No bodies are recovered, but there is the pretense of caskets for Christine Watkins and Alexander McClure. Quiet, but surprisingly large, professional ceremonies among uniform rows of white gravestones.

Michael Vaughn is there, but he does not show emotion.

Her body turns up in a St. Petersburg morgue, identified as Katia Petrova — an old alias — and she is buried as such. The small concrete slab over her grave bears that name, a false year of birth and a correct year of death. It contrasts the spires and grandeur towering over it.

———

She half expects him to be waiting there for her. Solid, steady, unflappable Vaughn. Wearing his desk job suit, with the calm eyes that anchor her.

Of course, he is not. Weiss instead, looking grim under the fluorescent lights of the warehouse. Looking like he has just been through some unspeakable thing. She knows how he feels, and it pains her to think of Vaughn — the look of him as he stumbled into the cabin.

Sydney Bristow has experienced plenty of tragedy. And she has been at that point before, although Vaughn has not seen her there. By the time she met him, the pain had hardened into something black and angry inside her. But she knows the state. Looking numb, but feeling so much — too much — more.

He did not speak as they cleaned him up, merely sat there dully as if he did not give a damn about anything — anything ever again — his eyes so murky they seemed more black than green.

"She's dead." Clutching the dirty, bloody blanket around himself. She tries not to think of the desolation of those words as she slides open the fence gate and walks up to Weiss.

"Hey," she says. "How's Vaughn?" And knows the answer isn't good, even before he shakes his head.

"He's taking some time off, but he said you can call if you need him."

———

He writes. Sits on his couch with a yellow legal pad and blue ballpoint pen and maps out scenarios.

Ways he could have saved her and still extracted the device. Reasons he should have realized Devlin was a mole. Things she said that should have made him realize she was trustworthy. Opportunities he had to kiss her in the safehouse.

The end result is always the same. A billion what-ifs branching out in every direction, and only one path leading through them to the now.

He goes through five legal pads in the first week.

———

In a tiny bar in the middle of the Los Angeles sprawl, an over-dressed, suited man walks in. An young kid on the stage today, perhaps some talent there. The song an old, familiar thing.

The Thrill is Gone.

He walks up to the bar, wishes he could blend. Vodka. Rocks. He detests the stuff, but this is not about him. The vodka does what it is supposed to, so he orders another, and another. And understands her now.