TEXT: (Continuing from last episode: Sydney is in Cairo, gun to her head, holding the plutonium core of the nuke.) HASSAN: (speaks Arabic) SYDNEY: I am holding enough plutonium here to liquefy our insides in forty-eight hours. HASSAN: Put it down. SYDNEY: If I put it down, you kill me. HASSAN: Now. I'm going to count to one. SYDNEY: Okay. (She throws the core in the air, takes the gun from Hassan and kicks him three times. She knocks him out with the last kick to the stomach, catches the core, and runs. She runs down the hall.) (After class, Sydney corners her professor.) PROFESSOR: You're falling behind, Sydney. And I don't accept late papers. SYDNEY: Wait, okay. You know what? Good point. You shouldn't. But I do have a real good excuse, okay? I was on a business trip and my flight was delayed. (Cairo. Guards shoot at Sydney, she flops behind a wall and speaks to the C.I.A. operative via her watch while bullets fly.) SYDNEY: I have the bomb and I'm ready for extraction! OPERATIVE: ETA, two minutes! SYDNEY: I might not have two minutes! (Classroom, continuous.) PROFESSOR: If you recall, I made it clear in my syllabus that I was happy to accept your papers via e-mail, if you can't get them to me directly. You do have e-mail, don't you? SYDNEY: Yes, see, you're not going to believe this, you're not, but, there was a blackout where I was staying. (He looks at her dubiously.) SYDNEY: Honestly. (Cairo. Explosions in the distance. Sydney runs up the stairs, on her way to the exit but hears something fall. A slight "ping" noise. She turns, horrified, and sees the core roll down the floor to the
SUMMARY:
Sydney's life is in danger as she is sent to Madrid to retrieve a 500-year-old sketch that contains a set of binary digits on its reverse, having to do with the Rambaldi artifact Sydney brought back from Taipei. SD-6 needs the sketch to decipher the key to its workings. Meanwhile, Will Tippin continues his research into the cause of Danny's death and discovers a strange anomaly concerning surveillance cameras in the zone of Danny's apartment the night he was murdered. Will is not aware of the danger he is placing himself in by doing this, but Sydney tries to make him stop. In Madrid, Sydney meets up with her deadly nemesis, K-Directorate agent Anna Espinosa, and a fight ensues to retrieve the sketch. It ends up at a draw, as Anna keeps the key to a small suitcase Sydney has obtained. In the end they have to make an arrangement to open the suitcase together, which has the two of them looking inside the suitcase in astonishment at something that remains unrevealed.