Sydney and Noah's sleep is interrupted when Khasinau's soldiers storm the house. They get away on a motorcycle seconds before the cabin is riddled with bullets.

Meanwhile, Vaughn confirms that K-Directorate has hired a known assassin, a.k.a. "The Snowman" for his favored use of an ice-pick as a weapon, to take out Khasinau. He suggests that by following the hit man, they can find Khasinau.

Noah makes her an interesting proposition. While working undercover, he opened some secret bank accounts and now wants her to run away with him. She refuses, insisting that she must find her mother first.

Jack is visibly upset; he tells his daughter that the information on the data-core is useless for tracking down Khasinau. However, it does contain video files of Laura Bristow - video recorded after her car crash, and 
supposed death.

Sydney watches the grainy video, and learns the unpleasant truth about her mother. Laura Bristow, using her real name "Irina Derevko," answers questions from Khasinau and another man. Derevko states how she came to 
America for the purpose of seducing Jack Bristow. During their years of marriage, she had gone through his briefcase and monitored his conversations, reporting everything back to the KGB. The other man on the tape, Igor Valenko, looks familiar, so Sydney investigates. She discovers that this man once worked undercover at the FBI under the alias "Calder." She concludes that he was the agent who was, 
allegedly, chasing Laura Bristow before her fateful crash, and that he also must have faked his own death.

      Sydney uncovers that Valenko currently does business with a bank in Cape Town, South Africa, and she speculates that he might still be connected to Khasinau. Using her input, Jack outlines a mission to Sloane - to send Noah and Sydney to Cape Town to recover bank records to create a trail. Sloane is reluctant because he no longer trusts Noah, and expresses concerns about Jack defending yet another male figure in Sydney's life but ultimately, he agrees.

Following a separate path to Khasinau, Vaughn travels to Bogota to meet with a man who once worked with The Snowman. This agent, scarred and disfigured from an encounter with the assassin, had formerly declined to help the CIA, but time has changed his mind, and he now offers to help.

With a mixture of curiosity and dread, Jack finally summons the courage to watch the recovered video of his wife. Although he already knows the truth, he is crushed to see her treachery in such light. Noah and Sydney break into the warehouse and hack into the computer. They download all the files but later learn that the hard drive's memory was wiped as they escaped.

One evening, Will and Francie finally confront Sydney about the plane ticket to Italy. She says that the bank has been doing business with extremely private clients and this is why she must keep secrets .

Sydney is surprised to learn that Noah has accepted another deep cover assignment. Before he departs, he again pleads with her to run away with him. She again declines.

After further tinkering, Marshall is finally able to recover low-level sector information from the reformatted drive. According to the records, Valenko is in Mackay, Australia. Dixon and Sydney are immediately dispatched to capture him, hoping that this will bring them one step closer to Khasinau.

Vaughn receives a call from the source in Bogota. The Snowman has been spotted in Mackay, Australia, and he desperately wants to alert Sydney, to warn her, but he has no way to contact her.

When Sydney enters Valenko's mansion, she stumbles onto The Snowman and they fight. During the melee, she impales The Snowman onto his own ice-pick. She pulls back the mask and discovers his true identity. It's Noah, who mumbles a sad good-bye to her as he dies.

Copyright © March 2003