“Facade”

Alias season 3, episode 15
Original air date: March 14, 2004

Sydney and Vaughn have to track down Daniel Ryan, a British bombmaker, who has just detonated a massive bomb at a bank building in Ireland. He did so as a display of his abilities to the Covenant, and he gave the bomb squad and the bank heads-up before detonating, so that the building could be evacuated and the bomb squad would have a chance to try to deactivate the bomb. He's now selling the Covenant a duplicate of this bomb, but he's told them that after 24 hours, he'll sell it to the highest bidder. Jack suggests that they try to gain Ryan's trust by posing as the Covenant and purchasing the bomb from him.

To do so, Sydney meets with Lisenker, the Covenant defector that they helped get out of North Korea. He gives Sydney information on the Covenant's contacts with Ryan and how to fake her way through a meeting with him. The CIA sends Weiss for a meeting with Ryan in a Belfast pub, where he takes Ryan into custody. Sydney and Vaughn stage a shoot-out with the CIA behind the pub and "rescue" Ryan from CIA custody to prove that they're Covenant. They tranquilize Ryan for transport, because when he wakes up, he has to believe that he's in his usual suite at the Russian hotel where he always does business with the Covenant. He's really in a mock-up of the hotel inside a CIA facility in Los Angeles.

Ryan is skeptical when Sydney approaches him again in his room, but when she tells him he's all over the news — and there's a CIA-created newscast patched in that shows so — he begins to believe her. She tells him to call off the second demonstration that he has planned. Ryan believes her to be bluffing, though, and says he's walking out right then and there. Sydney says she'll kill him if he leaves the room, since he's a security risk to the Covenant now. He calls her bluff and leaves, and Sydney draws her gun as he's about to call the elevator. Fortunately, Ryan doesn't know that Lisenker has defected from the Covenant, so when Lisenker steps off the elevator and vouches for Sydney, Ryan believes him.

Ryan agrees to the terms of the agreement, as long as he can deal directly with Sark. Lisenker says this will be no problem, which freaks Jack and Dixon out. Lisenker explains, though, that Ryan has never met Sark, so Vaughn goes in to pose as Sark. Ryan agrees to make the exchange for the bomb information on disk. The catch is that the exchange will be made in mid-air on a flight. "Sark" is to purchase two seats, and twenty minutes into the flight, one of Ryan's associates will sit down next to him and make the exchange. Ryan says he'll know the associate because they've worked together before.

To get the real Sark on the plane — which they'll have to do, because Ryan's associate will be looking for him — they put out a communique on the same frequency that Ryan initially sent the Covenant information about his bomb for sale. The associate doesn't approach Sark on the flight, though, and so Vaughn contacts Sydney. She tells Ryan to call his associate and tell him the deal is off. He can't do that, though, because there was never an exchange in the works. Jack tells Vaughn to take advantage of the opportunity to take Sark into custody, though.

Sydney has to talk to Sloane to get more information on Ryan's background. Sloane mentions — while in bed with Dr. Barnett — that Ryan had a brother who is thought to have been killed by the Covenant. Doing a little more digging, Weiss comes up with a picture of Ryan's brother, and it turns out to be the nameless man that Sydney was ordered to kill during her brainwashing as Julia Thorne. They realize that killing Sark on the airplane with another bomb is the second demonstration, so as Vaughn takes Sark into custody, he also has to go figure out how to defuse the bomb.

Vaughn instructs the flight crew to land immediately, and then locates the bomb in the baggage compartment. As Marshall begins to help him disarm the bomb, Vaughn notices something different about this bomb from the one he last disarmed. It has a barometer on it, and if the plane goes below 18,000 feet, it will trigger the detonator. Vaughn instructs the flight crew to pull back up, and Sydney goes to talk to Ryan as herself and inform him that she's really CIA, not Covenant. She's hoping that he'll decide to work with the CIA against the Covenant.

To help convince Ryan that they're CIA, Weiss and Sydney take Ryan to their headquarters in L.A. Dixon offers Ryan a deal: if he disarms the bomb and turns over all of his blueprints for making such a bomb, the U.S. won't charge him with anything. He's less than impressed. Sydney goes in to talk to Ryan one on one about how the Covenant killed his brother. Meanwhile, Vaughn and Marshall come up with a plan to trick the bomb into thinking they're at altitude still. If they can put it in an airtight container, the bomb won't register that they're landing. Vaughn has to enlist Sark's help to detach the bomb from the fuselage and get it into an airtight container. They're able to do so, but as they're doing so Ryan capitulates and agrees to deactivate the bomb. He says if they give him a phone, he can call the bomb and disarm it. Dixon calls in as Ryan instructs, and Sydney tells Vaughn to watch the bomb for the light to change to green. Instead of turning green, though, a counter appears on both the bomb on the plane and the bomb in Marshall's office. Ryan reveals that he knows that his brother was killed by Julia Thorne.

As Dixon tries to evacuate the building, Jack attacks Ryan and chokes him to death. He and Sydney then resuscitate Ryan, and when he's revived, he agrees to cooperate. Marshall's able to deactivate the bombs, but as Vaughn tries to take Sark into custody again, he lunges at him with a knife. They struggle, but Vaughn eventually overpowers him and knocks him out. Sark is taken into custody when they land in France, and Ryan is taken into custody by the CIA. As Sydney's leaving the building, she breaks down as she's about to get into her car, presumably because the realization that she killed an innocent man when she was Julia Thorne was too much for her. As well as the fact that Vaughn was nearly blown up. Vaughn pulls into the garage next to her, and they comfort each other.