Amanda Peterson was an alias used by Sydney Bristow on a mission in Paris. She went to Paris with the intention of getting arrested so she could break into the French police's evidence archives and steal the Decoder key for the Blackwell Index. As part of the cover, she spray-painted and smashed up a car owned by Eric Weiss (posing as an irate Frenchman) to get herself arrested. Marcus Dixon then arrived as her council from the American Embassy, Richard Zachary. Dixon shot the guard with a tranquilizer and gave Sydney the CD burner to get the decoder key ( 4.10 The Index )