boston: running to stand still

Running Start

Day One.

She dropped the book of Joyce poetry into an airport trashcan, not wanting anything on her to connect her with international travel.

The pages were rippled and the print blurred from damp anyway.

Day Two, Day Three, Day Four.

She crisscrossed the country at random, using one hop flights, small airports and bus lines, changing her profile with each destination switch. She laid false trails and covered her tracks almost automatically, relying on her training. There were people looking for her. There were always people looking for her, but now she was running from more than just the bad guys.

When she thought that, she smiled.

Because somewhere along the way, she'd slipped over the line and joined the bad guys.

It wasn't a particularly happy smile.

Day Five.

She bought three sets of complete documentation from a paper broker in Des Moines and used one to fly into Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay was a much better choice than Miami; there were too many watchers in Miami, it was an alphabet soup of agencies, most of them stumbling over each other, and she didn't want anyone stumbling into her. In Tampa, she rented a boat from a man under the impression she was a Mafia don's mistress, and single-handed it across the blue-green Caribbean to Nassau.

~*~

The second week, she emptied a safe deposit box of its contents in Nassau: 2.5 million in bearer bonds, 200 thousand in US dollars, a dirt common Beretta pistol, and a cold ID she'd put together herself and never used. She kept the ID separate from the funds and continued using the papers she'd picked up in Des Moines, changing to the second set. She left the boat in Nassau, after paying the docking fee a week ahead so the owner could recover it. A theft report would have only drawn attention to her.

~*~

She moved on to Aruba the third week, where she was a rich man's blond 'niece', couriering his funds out of his soon-to-be ex-wife's reach. The bankers were all very helpful. None of them asked awkward questions, but then they were getting their cut.

~*~

A week later, she wore startlingly blue contacts and dyed a wide streak of gray through her hair when she reached the Caymans. Her nails were very long, candy-apple red, and she gestured and touched often, drawing attention to them. No one afterward could have said exactly what she looked or sounded like, because those were the only things they had noticed about her.

She sent her money bouncing around the globe like pin balls, the Caymans to Hong Kong, Sydney to Lima and back to Hong Kong, passed it through Johannesburg, Mexico City, Rome and Calcutta, then New York to London to Liechtenstein and onward. A little of it bled off with every transaction, until it finally came to rest in Vancouver, B.C. Just over a million and a quarter had disappeared along the way. Anyone following her money trail would have hit a dead end in Vancouver, because she never touched the money that made it that far.

It was the transaction fees and broker cuts along the way that hid the money she funneled into the States to fund her new life. It took a few days, but she had time.

~*~

She used the last of the Des Moines identities to re-enter the States, flying into Mexico and driving across the border at Juarez. She wore a black wig and contacts that darkened her brown eyes to black and flirted with the Border Patrol officer at the crossing so aggressively he never considered searching her car or luggage.

She didn't ditch Luz Santos until she left Texas, burning her driver's license, contacts, and passport in a camp ground barbeque pit while eating a turkey on whole wheat sandwich and a bag of chips. The black wig she dropped in a ditch somewhere between Omaha and Indianapolis.

She wasn't afraid the FBI or the CIA would find her. They were good and they were after her, but she knew how they worked; she knew how to stay under their radar. If they did ever catch her, she would be tried as a traitor, a terrorist, and a whole line of other charges, provided she wasn't summarily executed. As scared as some people were of Milo Rambaldi's prophecies and her place in them, the latter wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. But none of that disturbed her. She didn't think they would ever have the chance.

She worried more that her latest employer, the nameless Organization, would track her down. If anyone could find her it would be her mother. The probability that Irina Derevko would find her increased exponentially if her father joined forces in the hunt, but she doubted he would. This, her estrangement from Irina, was exactly what Jack had wanted and risked his life to engineer.

But there was someone else who might be looking for her: her lover. Her ex-lover, she supposed, since she had walked out on him in Switzerland. She didn't know if he would look for her or not, so she made it as impossible as she knew how. That way, she could tell herself he had tried, and failed. She didn't want to know he hadn't looked at all.

~*~

After that, she became Miriam 'Sissy' Salinger, a grade school English teacher from Indiana—just like David Letterman was, she would say—a woman trying to start a new life far away from an abusive boyfriend. The boyfriend provided her with a cover for her scars if anyone spotted them and a reason for having no ties to anyone back 'home' in Indiana. Played right, it excused any paranoia she overtly displayed and encouraged any 'friends' she made to alert her to anyone asking questions.

'Sissy' had no problem renting a cheap apartment in Boston or obtaining an ill-paying job at a small private school. I before E except after C, five days a week until her teeth gritted and boredom threatened to send her on a killing spree. If she hadn't been unhappy, she might have become complacent, but she dealt with both by imagining and planning for any scenario in which her real identity was uncovered.

She wondered why she had ever thought she wanted to be a teacher and then remembered it had gone along with the husband, the kids, and the rose-covered cottage in her fantasy.

Maybe the rest of it would have been disappointing, too.

~*~

Three months after she'd left the game, she woke up one morning and wondered when she would stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. She knew she was waiting for something; this wasn't a life, it was just a mockery she was enduring. She felt even more alienated now than she had in LA, when she had had friends and lied to them about what she did. She wasn't even close enough to anyone in Boston to feel guilty about lying to them.

She'd made herself into a ghost; someone who never touched anyone's life, someone who could disappear and no one would care. It was surprisingly easy and severely depressing.

And she hated Boston. It was dismal and gray. She hated the cold, the dirty slush in the gutters, the cramped streets, the nasal accents, and the scent of the harbor. It was all too different from the LA basin where she'd grown up or the Monaco villa where she and Sark had spent their free time between operations.

She hated that she missed him and she wouldn't have cared how cold Boston was if he had been there with her.

She pushed the regrets back the way she did every morning, by rising and wrapping herself in the flannel robe she'd bought because the apartment was always cold. She could tell by the light it was snowing again. The first time she'd seen snow, as a child, she'd thought it was beautiful. It wasn't beautiful in Boston. Nothing was beautiful in Boston, including herself.

She shuffled into the tiny kitchenette and started her morning coffee dripping, only to stand staring blankly out the window over the sink at the brick wall of the next building over.

She carefully didn't let her eyes focus on her reflection. She knew what she looked like these days: hair limp, face puffy, eyes red from long nights of no sleep. She moved like a woman twenty years older, weighed down by time. She didn't smile unless it was part of an act.

It wasn't that her hair was dyed an unbecoming orange-brown, or the horn-rimmed glasses which hid her eyes, or the boxy pantsuits that concealed her toned body; it was her. She was dead inside and it showed.

She tried not to look into mirrors unless forced to do so. When she did, she too often saw her mother. Well, not her mother—her 'mother' had been Laura Bristow—the woman she saw now was Irina Derevko, someone who could walk away from love and family without a backward glance. She didn't like to remind she herself had done the same thing for less reason.

She didn't like being Sissy Salinger, and didn't like the person pretending to be her even more. Sissy Salinger had run away from someone who beat her; Sydney had run out on someone who loved her.

With a snort of disgust, she left her daydreaming and started her morning ritual: lay out her clothes for work, shower, dress; slug back the coffee that the machine had finally finished, along with a piece of toast if she could keep it down; stick whatever lessons or work she'd brought home the day before back into her nylon backpack-cum-briefcase. Then she would check the gun she kept in a zipped pocket of the pack along with her running money. Finally, she would slip on her coat, lock the apartment behind her, and head for the Emerson Academy to impress upon those young minds the difference between colons and semi-colons. She felt like a fraud; she was more qualified to explain the differences between automatics and revolvers or how to exploit any weaknesses in a security system than to teach grammar rules.

That morning though, somewhere between dressing and drinking her coffee, she thought of something that hadn't happened. Something that hadn't happened three times in the last three months.

Her heart stopped, stuttered, and then pounded so fast she thought she would faint.

Not caring if she was late for work, not caring if she lost the damned job, she started counting back, feeling sicker with every moment. How could she have been so careless? How could she have been so oblivious?

She'd missed three months in a row.

That wasn't a stress induced skip, which she had experienced before, that was a big, red, flashing sign and she had been completely blind to it.

She'd been blind to a lot of things, but she'd always paid attention to her body. Her body kept her alive, she took care of it. She had, anyway. Since coming to Boston, she had foregone the workouts and running, feeling too leaden to do more than hole up every night. She'd dismissed it as depression, resolutely keeping her head in the sand. Even the morning nausea hadn't been enough to alert her; it seemed like a reasonable reaction to a dreary job she already hated.

God, she was idiot. If she'd been so stupid on a mission she would have been dead.

She sleepwalked through her day; she couldn't have said whether she taught English or Swahili afterward.

On the way back to her apartment, she stopped and bought three different tests at a drug store.

By the second positive result, she knew beyond a doubt, but she performed the third one because there was a sort of magic in threes. It came back positive, of course, a little X on the stick to tell her there was no mistake.

One thing Boston had was a number of discreet women's clinics catering to careless college girls. Learning the name of one wasn't hard. She made an appointment for the end of the week. If she was going to do something about her situation, it would have to be soon.

She wore a hat scrunched down over her hair, a muffler over her face, and sunglasses along with her long coat when she walked into the clinic. To get inside she had to thread through a line of picketing Pro-Life fanatics. One of them called her a sinful whore. She would have ignored him, but he put his hands on her. She left him writhing on the ground, clutching his groin.

The security guard who let her inside just grinned. Another time, in different circumstances, she would have grinned back.

The examination and questions were as intrusive as she'd expected. Her doctor was a woman and wanted to know about her scars, recognizing the long healed bullet wound in her shoulder, where her mother had shot her in Taipei. She supplied her cover story tiredly.

"Is the man who did this the father?" the doctor asked. She was a woman in her early forties named Abbie North. Her eyes were old, much older than her face, and showed that an affirmative answer wouldn't surprise her.

She touched the bullet scar and shook her head. She tried to think if any of the scars belonged to Sark. They'd fought. She'd nailed him with an ice-pick once in Siberia; she'd kissed the scar years later, in silent apology. He'd never damaged her . . . Threatened it numerous times, but looking back, she knew he hadn't been trying too hard. She shook her head again.

"No."

Dr. North looked at her skeptically, but she met the woman's eyes steadily. It was the truth. Of course, she could have been lying and looked just as sincere.

"Do you know when you conceived?"

She knew exactly. It had been the last day in Bern, before she walked out. They'd made love in the afternoon light and he'd had more scars than she did, but he was still beautiful. She hadn't been thinking about precautions then, only touching him as much as she could, everywhere she could, because he'd almost been lost to her.

She didn't explain any of that, just recited the date in a flat tone.

He'd been golden in the light. Nothing gold can stay . . . But she'd been the one to go.

"Then are you still in contact with him?"

She laughed. "Very much otherwise."

"Are you going to tell him?"

She didn't know.

"Tell me what my options are."

She stared at the institutional green wall as the doctor outlined exactly what continuing the pregnancy would entail, then explained that she was still just within the window for a D&C, but if she waited any longer she would have to go another clinic, because they didn't do abortions after the first trimester.

She tried to imagine it: having the abortion, going on with this travesty of a life, withering into a husk of a human being. She couldn't do it; couldn't encompass the thought of it. Maybe she could have the child and go on . . . but that seemed at once too dangerous and too easy, a cop-out.

"Miss Salinger?"

"I'm thinking," she said flatly.

What else could she do? Find him, tell him he was about to be a father? She didn't know how he would react to that. He probably wanted nothing more to do with her. Would he want a child? He might be horrified at the thought. She didn't know. He might be with someone else now. If he had gone on working for Irina, he might even be dead now.

Finding Sark, telling him, would mean contacting her mother. If she did that, Irina would learn of the child. She didn't know what Irina would do, but the possibilities made her uneasy.

"Shit," she muttered. She would have to do it anyway.

"If money is a problem for you—"

She jerked her head around and stared at Dr. North. She'd forgotten the woman. What had she said—? Money.

"Money isn't the problem," she said.

For the first time, she let herself lay her hand over her abdomen and believe in the life resting within. It was a real.

"No abortion, no adoption," she declared. Dr. North smiled and nodded.

"This is what you will need to do ...."

~*~

Five months pregnant, she quit the teaching job at the end of the semester, and set out to find a better apartment while she was still up to it. It didn't take long since she wasn't looking for a place to stay the rest of her life. Just a place to live comfortably until she had the child and could contact Sark. She spent her days getting ready for the baby, buying what she would need and setting up a nursery. Her new neighbors were friendly and kind and offered to help her if she ever needed it. She demurred, but felt warmed anyway.

~*~

By month seven, sometimes, she would just daydream, remembering Sark. She didn't try to picture him with their child. She just replayed her memories. After one of these reveries, she admitted to herself that she had missed him more than was bearable, even before she had discovered she was pregnant. Realizing she was having his child provided an easy excuse, but sooner or later, she would have gone looking for him anyway.

She faced up to how she felt about her mother too. Irina was what she was. She'd never given the woman credit for making a series of hard choices, only blamed her for the results. But what right had she to judge? Irina had been recruited by the KGB; no Soviet had the right to say no to their government's demands during the Cold War. Irina had been serving her country as a KGB agent, just as Jack Bristow had been serving his from within the CIA. Even so, Irina must have felt something like love for her father—she had defied her KGB handlers by refusing to terminate her pregnancy, resulting in Sydney's birth. While Sydney had been recruited into SD-6 by Arvin Sloane, only later becoming a double agent for the real CIA—she'd done that with her eyes open; she'd had a choice, there would have been no gulag if she had refused.

She didn't know if she would ever say any of that to her mother, but she thought she might. Some day.

~*~

Her neighbor Sally insisted on stopping by and checking on her everyday. Sally was divorced once, married again, with two children. She usually brought a casserole with her, citing how awkward standing at a stove became while a woman was pregnant. She also shared horror stories about episiotomies, caesareans, and ex-husbands. Eight months gone, Sydney was grateful for her company.

~*~

She visited a lawyer and made out a will and papers that would turn over custody of her child to Sark, her father, or her mother. In the eventuality none of them ever came forward, a sealed packet would be sent to Marcus Dixon, leaving him with the responsibility. Marcus was the most decent man she'd ever known; she knew he would never let a child suffer.

Afterward, she sent a message to her mother through a series of cut-outs. She didn't expect Irina to respond immediately, but wanted her alerted to the situation in case something went wrong.

~*~

She'd had a benign pregnancy, but nothing was guaranteed until she had delivered safely. All her precautions and worry were for naught, though. She delivered her child fast and painfully three days after her due date, without complications, attended by Abby North, with Sally holding her hand and telling her to breathe.

The baby was a girl.

Running Battle

She left her daughter and another sealed set of instructions, 'just-in-case', with Sally and ended up in an Edinburgh office building, after following a cautious, circuitous route through three other countries. Her remaining contacts in Sark's network had assured her she could find Irina Derevko there.

She felt worried. No one had had a clue to Sark's whereabouts—that she had expected—but no one had even heard of him for a year. The cut-outs and contacts she used were part of his network, but they knew nothing. There was nothing. He had disappeared as thoroughly as she had.

The people she talked to were grateful to receive orders from anyone after such a long silence. If she was back, maybe he would be, too. They told her the Organization had been compromised and damaged, penetrated by their old enemy the CIA. Derevko had retrenched, tightened security, and cancelled the find-at-all-costs order regarding Sydney.

Irina had a greeting party waiting for her in the foyer, a set of East European muscle with obvious lumps under their suit jackets. Sydney endured their pat down check, the metal and explosives detectors, silently, but informed them that a cavity search would involve permanent organ damage—to them. They nodded and led her to another office, then left her with a single instruction: "Wait."

The office was a pleasant contrast to most of her mother's bases, warm with polished wood and a red Turkish carpet. Books filled the shelves standing along the walls, two Art Nouveau paintings hung against green silk wallpaper, and antique candle wall-sconces were mounted at regular intervals. A heavy desk had been placed where its occupant could enjoy the window's view. The heavy drapes were drawn back. A slight distortion in the glass told Sydney it was armored, but that was the only reminder that the office belonged to someone extraordinary.

She settled in one of the deep-green leather club chairs that gave her a view of the desk and the door, after examining the room.

She waited.

Her mother arrived twenty minutes later.

"Hello, Sydney," she said.

Sydney gripped her hands together and tried to control and hide her shock. Irina's smooth chignon was threaded with silver and the crows' feet around her eyes had deepened. Time was paring away the last softness from her, leaving only angles instead of curves. She looked harder and colder than ever.

She stood still and let Sydney study her. Her eyes were cataloguing the changes in Sydney, the subtle differences that a year had carved into her soul.

"Mom," she said uncertainly.

Irina cocked her head. "You're looking . . . soft, Sydney," she replied. She walked forward and brushed a dry as dust kiss against Sydney's cheek. Her perfume was so subtle it was more a memory than a scent.

Irina stepped back and her eyes were sharper than ever.

Sydney swallowed hard and nodded. "I need to find Sark."

Irina's expression chilled further. "No."

A spike of panic stabbed through Sydney's stomach. Her mouth went dry. She asked carefully, "You don't know where he is?"

A basilisk glare was her answer. Understanding followed it.

"You won't tell me where he is."

Her mother walked over to the desk, unlocked a drawer, and took out an unmarked, manila file folder. She laid it on the empty desk top and tapped one fingernail against it, then left it, a silent command.

Sydney shivered. Her knees felt weak as she stood. Irina watched her from next to the window, half in shadow, half in light, waiting for Sydney to cross the room and pick up the innocent looking file. She would offer nothing more until Sydney read its contents.

She hesitated, but then tamped down the fear running through her. She picked up the folder and opened it to the first page inside.

It held only a few pages excerpted from a medical file, detailing the treatment given an unnamed patient, an attempted suicide. The incident's date was recorded. Sydney read it twice and had to bite her lip to stifle the pained, animal noise that threatened to burst from her. The file was incomplete. Nothing in it told her whether she had come to Irina searching for a dead man.

"God, please, not—" She jammed her fist against her teeth, biting until she tasted blood, stopping the rest of her wild protest. When she could swallow again, she scrubbed the wetness of tears away from her face. Irina was just a blur through the tears that kept flowing.

The report made it quite clear. He'd used a razor blade. Using a gun would have been too neat, too quick, and too easy. He'd already lost so much blood when Irina found him that Klein had warned of the potential for brain damage from hypoxia.

Her knees were shaking so badly, she had to lean against the desk to keep from falling. The sick taste of vomit stung at the back of her throat. She could imagine the blood, sticky and darkening, but still obscenely bright on white tile. He hadn't thought she would come back; he would never have left her to find him like that, like Danny, he wasn't that cruel.

Irina took the file back, straightened the papers Sydney had crumpled, and closed it. She set it down. Her eyes lowered, but her posture remained perfectly straight, shoulders square, head held high.

"Mom, please."

"I don't know where Sark is, Sydney," she said. She spread her fingers over the file. Slowly, her fingers closed into a fist. "He was in a coma for nearly a week. When he was well again, your father helped him leave. Jack would never tell me where he went."

Sydney wobbled, shaking with relief. He hadn't died. She wouldn't believe he would have tried to kill himself again. Klein's report indicated the sudden, severe depression might have been a result of the residual drugs still interacting in his system. She was still guilty, along with Irina, of leaving him, of sending him spinning out of control, but Sark wouldn't have acted on the impulse if it hadn't been for the drugs. She had to hold onto that, because it was her hope. He wouldn't have tried again.

It didn't even matter if he hated her now, if he was at least still alive. He had to be.

Her father had refused to tell Irina where Sark had gone, but he would tell her, Sydney knew. She would tell him about Jenny. He would understand that she had to let Sark know about Jenny.

"Where's Dad?"

Irina laughed hollowly.

"What?" Sydney asked. What else had changed so drastically while she had been in hiding?

"You thought you had out-maneuvered the CIA when you ransomed Sark from them," Irina said sardonically. "But your father and Kendall played a clever game of their own, Sydney, and played it as ruthlessly as I ever could have."

"What do you mean?"

"Jack only appeared to turn on the Agency in Istanbul. Shooting a man was simply the cost of establishing his bona fides. —Of course, he didn't plan on being shot, but he used it perfectly."

Sydney's mouth dropped open.

"Kendall doubled Dad into the Organization?"

Irina sighed and made a dismissive gesture. "That, I can blame only on myself—I should have anticipated some manner of counter-play from the Agency. Effectively losing you and Sark, though, distracted me." That might have been her only regret, that she had lost two effective tools, and miscalculated the motives of a third, in Jack Bristow. Whatever Irina Derevko felt remained, as always, a mystery.

And Sydney's father—she'd thought she had seen the real man at last, a father who loved her—but it had only been another act. Love had become just another cover.

She stumbled back to her chair and almost fell into it. It had been an Agency maneuver, another perfidy performed with his usual cold proficiency. Revealing Irina's treachery to Sark had served the same purpose: destroying the effectiveness of two of Irina's best operatives.

Was there anyone in her life who hadn't used her in some fashion, anyone who hadn't had an ulterior motive, if they even appeared to help or care for her? Sydney moaned and dropped her face in her hands. She gulped back another sob. Everyone had an agenda: her parents, Sloane, Kendall, Vaughn, Noah, even Sark. Sark less than the others, perhaps, and more honestly, but she knew his first fascination with her had sprung from her relation to Irina. The only ones who hadn't were Danny, sweet Danny, and Francie . . . And they were dead because of her.

There was Will.

Will was still alive, Sydney reminded herself. But Will wasn't the friend she had known. Knowing her had ruined his life. The old Will had been killed along with his innocence. He had changed after joining the CIA.

And Sark.

She moaned again as she thought of him, sliding a razor into a vein only hours after she'd left. She'd used him and then taken the first excuse to walk away, too afraid to stay. Afraid he would die if he loved her, wanting him to prove he did by coming after her, trying to make him prove he felt the things she felt. She'd been trying to pull the same strings Irina did, waiting for him to plead with her to stay and knowing Sark would never, ever ask that unless she broke him.

Was there anyone . . . Who hadn't used . . . Anyone who hadn't had an ulterior motive . . . Even her?

"I think I'm going to be sick," she mumbled.

Irina grasped her upper arm and guided her into an attached washroom, settling her in front of the toilet before Sydney vomited her stomach's meager contents. She was marginally aware and grateful that Irina was holding her hair away from her face as she retched until only thin bile came up. She ended up resting her cheek against the cool seat, too exhausted to get off the floor. Irina wordlessly brought her a damped face cloth and wiped her mouth and chin, just as she had when Sydney was small and sick with ‘flu.

"Get up, Sydney," Irina told her.

"What?"

"Get up."

Sydney twisted her neck and stared at her mother.

"Do you think you're the only one who has ever been used?" Irina asked in disgust.

"In the Rodina, we were taught that to be useful was every citizen's duty. —I used your father, I used Sark, I used Arvin Sloane and Alexander Khasinau and Geoffrey Eliot and a list of others whose names you will never know, Sydney." Her expression set. "But remember too, that the KGB used me, Jack used me, the CIA and even you used me, too."

Sydney wanted to crawl into a hole and hide from Irina's frozen anger.

"I just want to find Sark."

Irina looked down at her, a succession of emotions flickering over her face, love, contempt, disappointment, amusement, and finally acceptance. Cool as the curve of a sickle moon, her smile returned. "I know, Sydney, and I know about wanting what you gave up. Just listen to me for once—it will never be the same."

Sydney wiped her hand over her mouth and sank back against a wall, staring up at Irina. The sinking jolt in her stomach wasn't nausea this time. It was a visceral acknowledgement of her mother's words. She couldn't ignore the truth in them. No, it couldn't be the same.

They had a child, though. She had to tell him.

"I have to find him."

Irina left her then. Sydney washed her mouth out with cool water from the tap, and then bathed her face. She took her time, wanting to recover her poise before returning to the office.

Irina was at her desk, waiting patiently, when Sydney came back in.

"What will you give me, Sydney, if I tell you how to contact your father and he tells you where Sark is?"

"What?"

"What will you give me?" Irina repeated slowly. "Why should I do this? Why should I antagonize Sark—he would make as dangerous an enemy as Jack."

She felt trapped and on the defensive. She'd expected Irina to supply Sark's location without argument. She had thought, when she thought about it, that Irina would be pleased that she had come back.

Sydney opened her mouth and closed it. She had nothing to offer. Nothing. She'd meant to trade on Irina's love for her, forgetting that Irina gave nothing away, not for love. So she gritted her teeth and said, "Jenny. What if I'm not the one in Rambaldi's precious prophecy? What if it's my child? If you want to be part of her life, you'll have to help me."

Irina flinched. Just a tiny movement, followed by the slow closing of her eyes, and a deep breath. Sydney had never seen her shocked before. She recovered smoothly.

"Sark's child," she said.

"Yes. That's why I have to find him."

Those hard eyes softened for a millisecond.

"A daughter."

"Jenny," Sydney said reluctantly. "Genevieve, actually, but I call her Jenny."

Irina nodded. "Genevieve. For Jack's mother?"

"Yes. I didn't—" she changed what she'd started to say, "—know Sark's mother's name."

Irina gave in. What plots were now spinning in her head, Sydney couldn't guess, but just this once she felt she had bested her mother. Jenny's place in the Rambaldi game was a new factor, one Irina had never weighed before. What that variable meant to the rest of the players was yet to be revealed, but her very existence had once again drawn Sydney back into the shadows. Perhaps it would draw Sark back, as well.

"All right, Sydney," Irina said wearily. "I'll tell you how to contact Jack. Whether he still knows where Sark is . . . ." She shrugged.

"I'll worry about that later."

Now that she had said it, she had a new worry: Jenny. She had only meant to manipulate Irina, but suddenly she knew that there would be others who thought the same thing. She had to find Sark now. She would need his help to keep all their enemies from making Jenny into another pawn in the Game.

Running Knot

She flew into Toronto and from there wound her way back to Boston, torn between the near-panic that urged her to get to Jenny, scoop her up and run again, and the professional knowledge that the safest thing she could do was take her time and use every precaution to keep from leading anyone back to her daughter.

Irina had provided her with all the information she needed to contact her father. In exchange, Sydney had promised her access to Jenny. Limited, monitored access, but Sydney's skin still crawled with cold at the prospect. She wanted Jenny to have a normal life, free of murder and secrets and prophecies, but no life that included Irina could be without that taint.

She kept wondering if it wouldn't be better for Jenny if she never tried to find Sark. She'd lived so many lies; she could live one more for her daughter. She could tell Jenny a cover story and hold to it to the bitter end.

Wouldn't she have been happier if Irina had stayed, had gone on as Laura Bristow?

She wouldn't be who she was now, though.

She slipped back into Sissy Salinger's skin in a mall bathroom, discarding the cover she'd used to leave and enter the States again.

Once she looked like the woman Sally and her family knew, Sydney went straight to their apartment and retrieved Jenny. Profuse thanks and an envelope of money were pressed onto her neighbor. Sally declared Jenny had been an ‘angel.'

Sydney had her doubts, but retreated to her own apartment, after assuring Sally that she had managed to see her sick mother without running afoul of the old boyfriend. She'd told the woman her mother was undergoing chemotherapy and so sick she had to go to Indiana and see her, but was scared to risk Jenny near her psycho ex. Sally had been quick to volunteer to care for Jenny, just as Sydney had expected she would.

Late that night, she sat on her sofa, with a single dim lamp burning along with susurrus of the TV playing. Jenny slept in her arms, a warm weight she wasn't ready to put down, despite the hour. The light played through Jenny's strawberry blond curls. Sydney stroked her fingertips over them. If she didn't find Sark, he would never know this deep, aching satisfaction. He wouldn't see that his daughter had brown eyes and a rose petal mouth or know that she had gurgling giggle when she was pleased and an air-raid siren scream when she wasn't.

—He would never hold her again, his arms locked around her waist and his chin on her shoulder, whispering teasing remarks and moving with her with his dancer's grace. She ached for his touch sometimes.

He would never hold Jenny and smell that special baby smell.

He deserved to know and have that, even if he never wanted to see Sydney again. Jenny deserved to have whatever Sark was willing to give. She was the one who had forfeited her rights, not Sark, and not Jenny.

Maybe she always had been fated to relive Irina Derevko's life.

Slowly, through the night, she put together what she would do next.

Runaway

Jack Bristow was in New York. Sydney set up her exits, even several false trails, before she ever left Boston. New York was a hot zone and had always been, with its mixture of finance, immigrants, and the United Nations.

She didn't need a passport for once, so she used a quick and dirty ID she scratched together; it wouldn't hold up to a background check, but it would take her through a police roadblock. She bought a Social Security number and a New York Driver's license from an identity thief working out of the Combat Zone. The paper was good enough to open up a bank account, which she did in an Albany bank. She walked out with a packet of temporary checks and an ATM card that would let her avoid the questions using cash could raise.

Irina's briefing indicated her father was running a joint CIA/FBI operation aimed at tracing and shutting down Arvin Sloane's finances. After Irina had tumbled to his deceit in joining the Organization, Jack had slipped seamlessly back into the Agency fold—the men he'd killed to bolster his cover dismissed as collateral damage. There had even been a promotion involved; Jack's work had done tremendous damage to Irina's network, setting her operations back by years.

She debated the risks of taking Jenny with her or leaving her with Sally again. She didn't want to carry her baby if she ended up running, but she didn't anticipate that. Seeing Jenny might prove the critical factor in convincing her father to help her. Telling him might not convince him; Jack had personal experience of the lies a woman could tell. She decided she had to have Jenny with her.

Bringing Jenny with her meant making a cold approach. She couldn't take the chance that someone in the CIA might catch on if she set up a meeting with her father.

She watched him for three days, getting a feel for his new routine, impressed by how well he fit New York. The conservative suits, the driven air, the cold intelligence, all of that fit the gray city. He could have been the CEO of a company, a banker, or a player from the UN. Jack Bristow blended in New York, as he had in London and Berlin, but never quite in LA. He also lunched out of the office each day, choosing a restaurant within walking distance of the office building the joint task force occupied, always alone.

The restaurant was her father's one operational flaw. He didn't sit with his back to the wall despite his training. He preferred good food and open lay-outs to the dim privacy of some hole in the wall. This one was all windows, white linen, crystal and shining silver. The high ceilings and butter pale walls added to the almost outdoor ambiance.

The fourth day, well aware that an agent of Jack's skills would sense he was under surveillance by now, she simply walked up to the table where he was lunching, carrying Jenny in her arms, and sat down.

Jack swallowed a mouthful of salad and set his fork down. His eyes flicked over Jenny, fast, and came back to Sydney's face. Dressed in jeans, with her hair drawn back in a ponytail, and wearing little make-up, she looked like some two-income family's au pair taking the baby out for a stroll. Her loose gray sweater hid the pistol holstered at the small of her back.

"Hi, Dad," she said. A waitress had hurried over, worried that a favored customer was being harassed, but the overheard greeting had the woman backing away.

"Sydney," Jack said. He methodically brought his napkin to his lips, folded it, and set it aside. "You haven't lost your touch. I knew someone was following me, but couldn't spot you."

She rubbed Jenny's back, hoping her daughter would stay quiet through this meeting. "Wrong profile," she said.

Jack looked at Jenny again and nodded.

"Apparently. —I should have learned that lesson from Irina," he said harshly, "but it's not a cover option for a man."

"She's not a cover," Sydney snapped.

Her father gave her a disbelieving look and said, "But you're using her as one."

Sydney leaned forward and tried to keep her tone low and even so as not to disturb Jenny. "I wanted you to meet her, to see her, and yes, I'm well aware that there is a benefit to the woman-with-child persona, but I didn't bring her with me to employ it."

"Forgive me if I suspect you of harboring other agendas, Sydney," Jack replied sardonically. "I can only assume your appearance here heralds further involvement with Irina Derevko."

"I—"

"You want something from me." Jack nodded to Jenny. "She's your bait—your lever."

"That's not it," she protested hotly. "I wanted you to understand why—that it wasn't a trick of some kind."

"There are all sorts of tricks, Sydney. The very best of them use the truth."

Jenny whimpered and Sydney cooed to her, glaring at her father over the blond curls. Once she'd settled again, Sydney asked, "Why are you acting like this?" She purposely did not ask if sharing a daughter was the truth Jack had used to trick Irina. She didn't actually care that he'd fooled her mother, only that he had used her to do it.

A bark of hard laughter greeted that. The grim visage Jack showed the world didn't lighten, though. He replied coldly, "I'm tired of being the whipping boy for everything you don't like about your life, Sydney. The mistakes I made—innumerable though they may be—are not responsible for whatever strait you find yourself in now."

"I'm not in trouble," she said defensively.

"Really."

"I just need you to tell me how to get to Sark."

Jack shook his head. He gestured the waitress over and asked for a vodka with lemon. The waitress glanced at Sydney and raised an eyebrow. Sydney was glaring at her father. "Anything for you?" the waitress asked.

"An iced tea, please," Sydney said. Snidely, she added, "Separate check."

Jack shook his head at that. "My tab."

The waitress shrugged philosophically and retreated.

"—Will you tell me?" Sydney demanded as soon as she had gone.

"Sark won't want to see you."

"He doesn't know the circumstances."

"The circumstances being your child, I suppose," Jack said. "That's a judgment call and one I prefer not to make."

"If you don't tell me, you are making that call," Sydney pointed out. She was holding onto her temper with both hands. This wasn't the reunion she'd envisioned, anymore than her meeting with Irina had been. Couldn't one of them be happy for her? What if Sark was this hostile? It didn't bear thinking about.

Jack's a hand, lying on the table, squeezed into a tight fist.

He said, in a dull yet distantly bitter tone, "You know, there isn't a day I don't wish I had never met your mother." His eyes came back to Sydney. "I suspect Sark feels the same way."

"About Mom—"

"About you, Sydney."

Sydney opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything, the hurt stabbed so deep. Her arms tightened around Jenny, prompting an unhappy squeak. She turned her face away, biting her lip and blinking fast to clear away the tears from her vision. A white rose in a crystal bud vase wavered out of focus before she regained control.

The waitress arrived with Jack's vodka and Sydney's iced tea. She took one look at them, at Sydney's spiky-wet lashes and Jack's set face, set the drinks down fast, and left in a hurry. Jack took a gulp of his drink immediately.

Sydney whispered, "I know what he did after I left. Mom showed me a medical file. —It wasn't me, Dad. It was the drugs in his system."

Jack swallowed some more vodka. His eyes kept returning to Jenny. "Believe what you want, Sydney."

"You blame me," she said, shocked.

Her father gave her a jaundiced look. "You're no saint, Sydney."

"I'm trying to do what's right, now."

"Now. —What about a year from now? Will you change your mind again when Sark does something you don't approve of, take the baby, and disappear again?" Jack asked her scornfully.

"I wouldn't—"

"You're self-righteous and unforgiving, Sydney. You insist on everything being black and white." Jack finished his vodka and waved at the waitress, pointing to the empty glass. Then he nodded at Jenny. "What will you do the first time she disappoints you or violates the rules you believe in, Sydney? You've made a habit of walking away, but you can't do that with a child."

"I'd never abandon Jenny. I‘m not Mom," Sydney hissed. Jenny was starting to wiggle restlessly.

"No, you're not," her father agreed and somehow she thought he meant it as a condemnation.

"I really was the worst mistake you ever made, wasn't I?" Sydney said. Her voice had begun to rise.

Jack looked at her. "No."

"If I'm self-righteous and unforgiving, Dad, I learned it all from you," she accused.

"That's very possible."

This had been a waste of time. Once she'd known saving her and Sark in Istanbul had been part of a cover, she should have understood her father wouldn't help her. She would have to go back to Irina and beg the use of the Organization's resources. She felt sick with disappointment.

"I swear I hate you as much as Mom," she said viciously.

As she started to leave the table, his hand shot out and caught the wrist of the hand she had supporting Jenny‘s back.. The power in his grip shocked her and she stared at his hand. She noticed the dull gleam of the band on his finger for the first time in years. He still wore his wedding ring. How ironic was that?

"Sydney—"

"Let go," she said flatly.

"Where are you going?" he asked. He didn't let go. She would have bruises from that grip.

"I don't know," she said flippantly. "Maybe I'll hunt up Sloane next and ask for his help."

"If I thought you meant that—"

"Oh, don't worry," Sydney snapped. "The only way I ever want to see Sloane again is through a sight picture. —But if you won't tell me how to reach Sark and you aren't interested in Jenny—and you obviously aren't—then we don't have much left to talk about, do we, Dad?"

The waitress and several diners were looking at their table. Jack's glare had them turning away, though.

"Sit down," he commanded in a low, hard voice. "Neither of us can afford to make a scene." He held onto her wrist, even as Sydney resentfully resumed her seat. "For your daughter's sake and your own."

"Keep your hands off her. You don't give a damn about her," Sydney said. She glared down at him. "You haven't even asked what her name is. It's Genevieve, for your mother. —All you've ever cared about is the Agency. You deserved what Mom did to you."

"Don't tell me you're stupid enough to think pulling Sark back into Irina Derevko's influence is anything but pure selfishness, Sydney."

"I'm doing this to protect Jenny."

"Maybe he does need to know," Jack responded through gritted teeth, "Someone needs to protect her from you."

"Go to hell, Dad."

"Open your eyes, Sydney."

"My eyes are open, I just don't like who I see," she hissed. "Now, let the fuck go. I'll find Sark on my own."

"And alert every security and intelligence agency in the Western Hemisphere that he's alive while you're at it," her father taunted.

"I know how to—"

"Check into the Rivoli Ramblas in Barcelona at the end of the week. Use the name Elena Cameron. Wait. If Sark wants to contact you, he will," Jack said. "That's it, Sydney." He released her wrist. "Now, go."

"If it's a set up, you'd better hope they kill me," Sydney said, her tone as low and hard as her father's had been. "Or I will be back."

"You're still my daughter, Sydney. That doesn't change," Jack said quietly.

"That's the problem, isn't it," she said and walked away.

Running On Empty

New York to Albany by car, as a woman returning home after a weekend in the big city. Albany to Halifax by plane, taking the new baby to meet Canadian grandparents. Halifax to Ottawa, and she took a chance and tapped the Vancouver account for cash, knowing she would be gone before a trace reached the city. In Ottawa, she became a blond to match Jenny, with blue contacts and a German accent; Marthe and Grete Wagner, wife and daughter of a young consular officer reassigned to London.

A good cover to travel under, since the terrorist days of Baader-Meinhof were long past and security screens were filtering for South Americans and Middle Eastern ethnics lately.

Jenny seemed to like to travel, and rarely put up a fuss, though she wanted to grab anything within reach. She was an easy baby, healthy and happy and innocent of the dangers that surrounded her. Sydney quickly adapted to the routine needed to transport her without trouble, though she traveled considerably lighter than most mothers.

Marthe and Grete disappeared in London, replaced by Elena and Gabriella. Sydney hated to do it, but she tinted Jenny's hair black along with her own. One of Sark's own network provided complete IDs for both of them under the name Cameron and a second set with a name Jack didn't know.

The cobbler was ex-GRU, an aging survivor of the old Soviet system, and offered a disturbing comment while snapping pictures for the false passport.

"You look like her."

Sydney didn't ask for him to elaborate. She looked like her mother. What frightened her was the all other ways she resembled Irina.

The old man offered Jenny a matryoshka doll while photographing her, having observed that mothers had pictures of their children. Sydney found the Russian nesting doll unnerving, but said nothing. Several pictures of a tall blond man were added to the mix that would go in Elena Cameron's wallet. The cobbler had moved with the times and efficiently used a computer to meld shots of Sydney and Jenny into several photos of the man, creating a group of ‘family' portraits.

Fading but sharp gray eyes studied Sydney from behind steel-framed glasses when she picked up the papers the next day. She flipped through the passport, impressed with the quality of the franking and the touch of wear along the edges of the paper. "Excellent," she said and handed over his payment.

"Da," he said. "I would not cross the little one's babushka."

Sydney looked at him, flat and expressionless. The old Russian flinched. "Don't worry about her," Sydney said gently. She knew she looked like Irina then and smiled deliberately, a smile that said, Worry about me.

"Dobre din," the old man murmured as she left.

"Do svidaniya."

So it was Elena Cameron and her daughter who flew into the Barcelona airport a day later, with the back-up documentation concealed within a diaper. Customs passed her without comment, a combination of Latin gallantry and Jenny's disarming presence allowing Sydney to pass without even a token search. That amused her, because for once she had no illicit materials with her beyond the extra ID, not so much as penknife.

An airport taxi took her to the Rivoli.

She strolled across the black-and-white checked marble foyer unhurriedly, casually scanning for any watchers, but spotted none.

The reservation was waiting, as promised. The suite provided had a view of the Barri Gòtic and the Plaça del Pi, and was air conditioned and sound-proofed; the latter a relief in light of Jenny's presence. There was a direct telephone line, as well as an internet connection. Sydney presumed Sark would call if this wasn't a dead-end. All she could do now was wait.

Rather than sit and brood, she settled her things, cleaned up, and took Jenny out. Las Ramblas boasted boutiques, restaurants, galleries, and interesting architecture. When her feet were tired, she found a café and ordered a meal and hot chocolate, before returning to the hotel. There were no messages waiting when she returned, though.

She spent the next two days in much the same fashion, playing tourist and trailing her coat, keenly alert to any sign she was under observation. She wandered through the Julio González exhibition at the Galeria d' Art Manual Barbié, bought books at Librería Francesa and Laie Librería-Café, and gawped at Gaudí's unfinished La Sagrada Familia. Not once did she sense more than basic male appreciation of her from anyone.

By the second week, she'd grown restless and irritable, suspecting her father had sent her to Barcelona on a false trail and never contacted Sark, or that Sark had rejected the prospect of meeting her again.

She had stopped inquiring at the hotel about any messages several days before, and begun considering how much longer she would wait, when the contact came. A brush pass from a skinny teenager as she exited the Miró sculpture garden yielded a slip of paper with a few words. The courier was gone before Sydney had time to register what had happened.

Operational procedure demanded she continue on with her itinerary as though nothing had happened. The paper remained in her pocket while she dawdled along her return to the Rivoli. She didn't look at it until she was inside her room, with Jenny parked in the center of her bed.

The message was succinct, oblique, and unsigned.

Pau Claris, Grace Kelly, The Caresses of the Sphinx.

Sydney had no trouble deciphering it. She recognized the street name first; her earlier perambulations through the city had already taken her into the Laie Librería-Café at 85 Pau Claris, where she'd sat in the restaurant attached and read, between sips of coffee and giving Jenny her bottle. The bookstore itself boasted of an excellent section of art books. Grace Kelly referred to her fondness for High Noon and set the time. The Khnopff painting was one Sark and she had both admired once, something even Irina did not know.

Sydney set the message down, picked Jenny off the huge bed, and waltzed her around the room.

She could barely sleep that night, alternating between heart-stopping apprehension and elation at the prospect of seeing him again.

Sark would be in the bookstore at noon.

And so he was, fair head bent over a volume of Art Nouveau prints, seeming to leaf through the book at random. He only raised his eyes to her when Sydney stopped in front of him, but she knew he'd been aware of her since she entered the bookstore.

She wished she could have left Jenny with a babysitter and met with him without her between them, but had been too cautious to chance it. Instead, Jenny was in her arms, wide awake and immediately fixated on Sark.

Sark calmly closed the book and replaced it on a shelf. He looked cool and detached. His hands were steady. He was wearing a tropical weight suit, white shirt and no tie. The long sleeves and suit coat concealed whatever scars remained on his arms. He had a slight tan and there were sun streaks in his short cropped hair.

His voice was light and told Sydney nothing of what he felt.

"Your father says she's mine."

Sydney swallowed hard and said, "She is."

Sark seemed to accept that, commenting, "We were careless in Bern."

"I was careless in Bern, and stupid and cruel." She wanted to touch him, but wondered if he would reject that. "I should have stayed."

He shrugged.

"It's past."

"You're so fatalistic."

"A Russian characteristic I must have picked up from your mother."

"I saw her in Edinburgh."

"So she's still there," he remarked. His attention seemed split between their tension filled conversation and Jenny. Jenny was utterly riveted on Sark, her eyes wide, little eager sounds slipping out of her with each breath.

"Yes." Sydney waited a beat. "You knew?"

"Jack's kept me up to date."

Life was too strange. Sark and her father had become allies. Yet there was some strange symmetry to that. Both men were forever tied by a child to women who had betrayed them.

Sydney couldn't think of anything to say to him. He didn't seem angry with her or hostile, but his blue eyes were carefully blank, giving away no warmer emotions either. He'd kept everything he said neutral; they could almost have been speaking of strangers and not themselves.

"Then you're not out."

He shook his head. "Only as much as I can be." He shrugged and gave her a sharp look. "The habits of a lifetime—you haven't lost your moves, either."

"We're hardly that old, Sark," Sydney protested.

"Old is relative in our game. Some days I feel ancient."

She knew what he meant. They called it a game to hold onto their sanity and hated it in equal measure to how much they loved it, but she wasn't Spy Barbie and he wasn't The Young Pretender anymore. No more than Irina was Mata Hari or Jack was James Bond. They had outgrown all that.

Jenny wiggled and Sydney unconsciously hefted her higher. She had to try and reach him. She said:

"I missed you. Sark, I—."

He stopped her with a gesture, his hand held up and open between them. Then it dropped and he turned away to stare unseeing at the shelves of brightly-bound art books. "Don't. Just don't."

Sydney bowed her head wearily. Every step of the way since she'd set out to find him, she'd known that this might be the end of it. Second chances didn't just arrive when you wanted them. She'd changed during those long months in Boston, but so had everything and everyone else. She had only begun to understand when she saw her mother. It was her father who had hammered the lesson home.

After taking a deep breath, Sark faced her again.

"What's her name?" he asked. He was staring intently at Jenny, having given up his pretense of indifference toward his child.

"Jenny—Genevieve."

"Pretty."

He touched Jenny's hair. A silky baby curl, dyed dull black, twined round his finger. "What color is it really?"

"Blond."

Jenny grabbed his finger and Sark let her keep it. The baby had him almost entranced. Yet he asked, softly, "What do you want from me?"

He wasn't looking at her. She could study him, memorize him, and trace the angle of his jaw, the two lines where he drew his brows together when he frowned, and the place where he always bit his lip. There was always something breathtaking about the way he tipped his head, about the elegant, vulnerable line of his throat. She'd been afraid he would be changed, that he might have damaged himself in some way the file Irina had showed her hadn't mentioned, but he remained as graceful and handsome as before. The wounded man she remembered from Bern had healed on the outside, at least.

She caught her breath and Sark looked up, looked into her eyes with those fathomless, ice-blue eyes, and held her gaze. He met her eyes the same way he had once done across a conference table at SD-6, in a Paris nightclub, and over a gun barrel in Moscow. He'd found himself, she thought, and put himself back together without her. He didn't need her anymore.

"Sark—," she breathed.

His mouth quirked a little.

"What do you need, Sydney?" he asked softly.

She looked into his eyes.

"You."

"Is that all?"

"Yes," she said. "You, me, and Jenny."

She waited, but he said nothing.

"What do you need, Sark?"

He sighed, and then tenderly tucked a strand of dyed black hair behind her ear.

"Nothing."

The crashing disappointment wasn't any less devastating for being half expected. Sydney took a step back. She'd blown it. She wanted to run, to find some place where she could cry until she was empty. God, she had to get out here. If she didn't, she was going to beg him to let her stay with him anyway. Her throat was so tight the words would barely form, but she began to choke out an apology, "I'm sorry—" Sark moved with her, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders and holding her in place. He said intently, "Everything, Sydney. You're everything. You always have been." He bent close, angling around Jenny, who latched onto his lapels, and brushed a kiss over Sydney's lips. When Jenny wouldn't let go, he laughed and slipped her into his arms, pressing a kiss to his daughter's forehead for the first time.

"Everything."

-fin