byzantium: iterations of burn

I. Burning

Burning Bridges

"You have Sark, I want him back," the woman with the liquid nitrogen voice said. She had called them on a number no one outside the Agency should have known. She had worked with the four men in the conference room once, but they didn't know this woman, who spoke with a smoking ice tone that never lifted once.

"That won't be possible, Ms. B—"

"I told you not to interrupt. Tjembe was the first. For every day you hold Sark after this, another of your agents will die. Understood?"

The four men had flinched.

"My mother killed twelve CIA agents. Don't think I won't. Give Sark back."

"You wouldn't," Vaughn said confidently. Too confidently. She had ignored him.

"Ask yourself where Agent Weiss is," Sydney Bristow had said. "Ask yourself how Agent Weiss feels. Anything you do to Sark, I'll have done to him. —Kendall, you have until noon tomorrow. If I do not speak to Sark then, another agent will die before midnight."

Burn-In

Eric Weiss had a routine. He knew better. He'd attended the in-service briefings from the security people, but this was LA, land of carjackers and paparazzi, not some South American hellhole where kidnapping and banditry were professions.

So every evening, he drove home along the same streets, if not at the same time. He would stop at the convenience store a few blocks from his apartment, stroll inside and pick up whatever he'd been out of that morning: sometimes toothpaste, or milk, or shaving cream, or even strawberry jam. He'd buy a corndog or some other non-nutritious junk food, a soda or bottle of water, and wander back to his car.

He never wore the shoulder holster and pistol every CIA officer was issued. He never worried about tails. Despite the fact that he'd once been shot in Barcelona, it never occurred to him anything might happen in the sepia-tinged light of a late California afternoon, in the parking lot of a Stop'n'Shop.

It really should have.
 

Freezer Burn

They were a seven man assault team, each dressed in urban camo, each with an assignment: over-sight sniper, driver, commo, and two pairs that would insert with the primary to take the target down. Mercenaries, but reliable hire, ex-pat Israelis, two from the Oz SAS, a Belgian ex-Legionnaire, an Argentinean, and an American Special Forces vet. The woman commanding the op had picked each of them from an extensive data base and evaluated them in person.

None of them used their real names. In their world, it was code names, nick names, and war names. Tripper, Fix, Hack, and Garcia, they all knew each other without ever having met before. Drover, Silo, and Sol had been on ops together before. It didn't matter what they were called. Like knew like.

The woman they called Princess.

She looked too delicate, too gentle and sweet, to run any sort of military or intelligence op. The men had quickly learned differently. One of the Aussies had made a run at her and been put down hard. Literally. When she'd finished cleaning his clock, she hadn't even broken a sweat.

After that, they still called her Princess, but without the sarcasm.

She didn't care.

She stood in the baking hot parking lot of a closed furniture store, a slim figure in a black tank, khaki fatigues, combat boots, and a white blouse knotted at her waist that averted too military an appearance. Her shining, burnt umber hair was drawn off her face into a tight braid. The setting sun traced her figure in gold as she alternately spoke into and listened to the cell phone she held.

A trickle of sweat ran down her temple unacknowledged, but it only reflected the heavy heat that still radiated from the pavement in the fading day. The woman was still and poised and coldly in control. The chill in her brown eyes promised she would never let something as trivial as temperature distract her from her purpose.

The mercs were gathered and waiting for her go signal. Drover had the wheel of a brown delivery van. Hack was running comms from in back. Fix and his long gun had a birdseye from the roof of one the nearby apartment buildings, a motorcycle stashed in an alley below to get him out when the time came. Garcia, Silo, Sol, and Tripper were paired up on another two motorcycles. The smoked face shields of their helmets rendered them as anonymous as any SAS balaclava. They all waited with the patience of a pack of wolves.

"Have you got the rest of the names and locations?" Princess asked, the passing traffic forcing her to raise her voice enough that the mercs waiting by the van could hear her.

That empty smile they'd all already learned to dread spread over her features. No joy brightened her dark eyes. They remained as opaque as her motives.

"Thanks, Mom," she said and severed the connection. The waiting men wondered if 'Mom' wasn't another code name. It was too difficult to try imagining Princess doing girl talk with her mother. She was too consummate a pro, too cool, too lethal. Tripper, the Special Forces vet, had confirmed Princess was either born or raised in the US, but she'd acquired that smooth, pan-national gloss the jetsetters aspired to achieve. Princess didn't belong anywhere, but was always confident, always comfortable; polylinguistic, expert, experienced. Princess was like a chrome-plated gun, deadly under the shine.

Princess tapped in another number and gave a go order to whoever answered. "Pick him up and get him on the plane. I want to be out of US airspace before midnight. Don't do any permanent damage—that's an order. And remember, he's not field rated but he has been on a few ops. Don't let him surprise you."

She ended that call too and spun to face the men.

"Okay, guys, let's do it," she said, the smile getting brighter, her eyes going completely blank. "The op is a go."

She strode to the van and slipped into the passenger seat, pulling a flat little PPK from the belly holster the knotted shirt hid and checking it with expert skill.

Drover gave a nod and steered the van out onto the road, while Hack whispered radio checks. The motorcycles flanked the van with twin roars.

~*~

~*~

Burning Man

They could have waited and taken him at his apartment. The parking lot snatch-and-grab involved less risk. No physical insertion in a building with possible security measures. No carrying or marching an uncooperative prisoner out. The lead operative made the call and the others agreed on it.

It didn't even take a large team, only four of them. Their spotter loitered in the Stop'n'Shop, glancing over hot rod magazines and eating a stale, powdered sugar covered donut, waiting to signal when Weiss walked in.

Two men strolled over to the door of the convenience store, one in a rumpled suit and the other in blue collar working clothes, chatting while one fed quarters into a newspaper machine. The fourth man sat in the driver's seat of an idling, brown SUV with smoked windows. Even that drew no attention; on a hot SoCal afternoon, everyone kept their engine running and the air conditioner on high.

Weiss followed his usual routine, parked his car and ambled inside, thoughts still half locked back in the black marble, stainless steel, fluorescent lit chill of the rotunda of the LA office and not the stained linoleum, barbecued chicken scented, refrigerator buzzing store. Mike had been amped all day, thrilled by the take they were getting from Sark, despite the blond agent's best efforts to resist. Weiss thought Jack Bristow had been one more remark away from doing something drastic, such as garroting Vaughn. Mike hadn't even noticed.

Vaughn was acting like he was the one who took down Sark, when they all knew it had been the man's own bodyguard that shot him and Dixon who ran him down. The whole thing had been ridiculously easy; too easy to trust, Jack Bristow argued, but no one wanted to hear him. The intel they'd already extracted had been golden—no, platinum—stuff. It was the intelligence coup of the year, maybe the next several years. Careers were being made. No one was looking this gift horse in the mouth.

Agent Bristow had issues with the subject, after all.

There were rumors he'd had a chance at bringing Sark in a few months before and let the assassin go. Other rumors whispered that Bristow was still in contact with his turncoat daughter, if not Derevko herself. Weiss didn't buy any of that. He did think Jack was perhaps too suspicious of what they were getting from Sark.

He'd worked through lunch, right along side Will Tippin, analyzing the raw transcripts of the interrogations. Not that he'd had much appetite. Video and audio weren't necessary to realize how ugly things were for Sark in that neat white cell. He genuinely felt sympathy for the man, who was receiving the brunt of the resentment everyone in the CIA had felt when Sydney defected to his side.

He thought that was what Jack Bristow was trying to tell them. Mike and Tippin and several others, including Kendall, were getting off on torturing Sark and that wasn't professional. It wasn't what Weiss had joined the CIA to do. Even a terrorist deserved to retain his human dignity or there wasn't a shit's worth of difference between what the Other Side did and the Agency.

He thought Marcus Dixon might have spoken up, but Dixon was in Cameroon this week, investigating rumors of a nerve gas lab.

He puttered through the aisles, picking up a Snickers candy bar and a package of Mac & Cheese, along with a six-pack of beer and a small bucket of buffalo wings, deciding that would be his dinner. Mike made fun of his cooking skills and dining choices, but Mike had Alice setting his perfect table and taking care of everything for him when he came home from the office. Weiss had to fall back on his own meager skills, which just about encompassed reading the directions on a box and boiling water.

He passed a scrawny guy with sugar-dusted fingers leafing through American Dirtbike and set his purchases on the counter. Ali, the Pakistani clerk, quickly rang everything up and provided a bag, before going back to his Economics textbook. Weiss thanked him as usual and headed for the automatic doors.

Behind him, the magazine enthusiast tossed Ali a twenty and headed after Weiss.

The Suit and Blue Collar were still talking over the newspaper stand and Weiss started to step around them only to feel the unmistakable imprint of a gun muzzle in the vicinity of his kidney.

"Don't do anything foolish, Agent Weiss," the man behind him said quietly. Weiss nodded. He couldn't catch his breath to say anything anyway. His heart had decided to crawl up into his throat and choke him. Suit and Blue Collar were flanking him subtly, but both met his gaze when it flicked over them. They were part of it, whatever this was.

A brown SUV pulled up alongside the curb, engine rumbling.

"Please step to the rear of the vehicle, Agent Weiss. Keep both hands on the bag you're holding and don't move too quickly," he was instructed.

"I got it," he said through clenched teeth.

He followed the gunman's directions and walked around to the back of the SUV. Blue Collar opened the doors and gestured him inside. "Don't let go of the bag."

It made climbing into the SUV embarrassingly awkward and effectively ensured he couldn't make a quick move toward a weapon. Of course, he didn't have his weapon with him, but his captors didn't know that. A wave of humiliation rolled over him. He'd made this too damn easy for them.

This shit had to happen to him. No one would have tried this on Marcus Dixon or Jack Bristow. Or…well, Vaughn and Tippin had both been grabbed at various times. And the first two were field agents trained to fight back. Weiss felt perversely cheered by that reflection. And Marshall had been snatched too, though comparing himself to Marshall didn't do much for his male or professional ego.

The gunman and Blue Collar got in with him, while the Suit took the passenger seat in front. Then the driver pulled away.

Weiss sat in a jump seat across from the two in back with him, his dinner balanced on his lap. He realized the gunman was the magazine reader from inside the Stop'n'Shop.

"Sit on your hands, please," Magazine said.

Weiss disgustedly complied.

Blue Collar took the bag of groceries away and sat it carefully on the floorboards. Magazine kept his gun on Weiss. Next Blue Collar produced a set of plastic binders.

"Place your wrists together, Agent Weiss."

"Sit on your hands, Eric, give me your hands, Eric, do this, do that," he muttered to himself as he followed the directions, holding out his arms resignedly. Blue Collar's lips quirked as he bound Weiss' wrists together tightly.

"Shut up and stay shut up."

Magazine apparently had no sense of humor.

Weiss managed to bite back any reply and only nodded.

"Smart," Blue Collar remarked. He pushed Weiss' shirt and coat sleeve up, pulled a flat case from beneath his own seat, and withdrew an alcohol swab. With swift, expert movements, he disinfected Weiss' arm, took out a pre-loaded syringe and injected the contents into Weiss' bloodstream.

"It's just a sedative," he said. "We'll give you something stronger on the plane."

"The plane?" Weiss asked involuntarily.

"You're going on vacation," Magazine said with a nasty grin. "Boss said to tell you, 'Sydney says hello'."

Well, shit, Weiss thought, before the 'sedative' hit him like a load of bricks and he passed out.

Slash and Burn

The demanding chirp of his cell phone interrupted Kendall's lecture to Jack and Vaughn. As usual, he hadn't bothered to step aside into a private office, preferring to castigate them before the entire Ops Center, though he didn't raise his voice. His usual look of irritation intensified as he opened up the cell and barked his name into it.

Vaughn shot a lowered eyes glance toward Jack Bristow, but the older agent stood ramrod straight, staring past him and Kendall both. Jack was an unhappy man. Recent events, events that had elated most of the CIA, had left Jack obviously conflicted.

Kendall barked at the phone in his hand, "I haven't got time to play silly games." His eyebrows rose then dropped into his typical scowl. He closed up the phone and looked at the two agents waiting on him.

"Either of you know an agent named Franklin Tjembe?" Kendall asked, voice hard.

"No, sir," Vaughn replied.

Jack's shoulder's stirred into a shrug. "I may have met him."

Kendall eyed him suspiciously. "Someone just told me, 'You had an agent called Tjembe. Franklin Tjembe'." Kendall rubbed the back of his head. "Then whoever it was said, 'Don't forget to send flowers to the funeral'."

Vaughn flinched.

"Someone better check on his status," Jack said.

"Sounds like a good idea," Kendall agreed dryly. "Vaughn, you're on it."

Jack waited patiently. Kendall turned back to him and said, "Go talk to Barnett. I want her take on our prisoner. Convince her to talk to him and then arrange it."

Jack acknowledged the order with a single nod and headed for Judy Barnett's office. He was relieved to get out of the Ops Center and away from Kendall's glee.

Burn Season

Judy Barnett laced her hands together and tried to maintain an aura of calm and serenity. Jack Bristow could be quite intimidating, even without making an effort. Today, a sharp irritation and restlessness seemed to leak out around his edges. His control was fraying.

"You know I'm always available to talk to you, Jack," she said.

He gave her one of his patented blank looks.

"I'm not here to talk about me, doctor," he said. As always, he made 'doctor' sound like something he wanted to wipe off the bottom of his shoe.

She raised an eyebrow and leaned forward. "Well, you never stop in to merely visit, Jack, so what does bring you to my office?"

He frowned and looked at the abstract print she'd hung on the wall. Morning colors dominated it; Barnett had chosen it specifically for the pale-walled office, wanting to establish a freer, lighter ambiance than the artificial darkness of the rotunda and its attendant conference rooms. She'd lobbied for and got an office with large windows, despite the cost of fitting special glass that would foil laser eavesdropping devices. It helped with some of the agents she talked to, though she doubted it had much effect on Jack Bristow.

"Kendall wants your help interrogating Sark."

She felt both her eyebrows rise. "Really?" No wonder Jack was so agitated. What a stew pot of emotions he must be experiencing under that glacial mask he'd constructed over the years.

"I consulted on the last psych profile formulated for his file," Barnett commented. She watched Jack closely. "He's Sydney's lover, isn't he?"

"Yes."

She swallowed her next, automatic question. How do you feel about that? Barnett could imagine the glare that would provoke.

"What does Kendall think I can do?"

Jack shifted and pursed his lips. "You're a woman."

"You really think that will make a difference with Sark?" she asked, interested as much by Jack's insights as the possibility.

A stiff shrug indicated how uncomfortable Jack was with the subject. "Probably not. Irina Derevko took him on as a child. He knows better than to underestimate someone on the basis of sex."

Now that wasn't in any file she had had access to.

"Sit down, Jack. Tell me how you know that."

He gave her a narrow-eyed look and aborted a movement toward the door, before reluctantly lowering himself onto the ecru-upholstered sofa near the window.

Finally, after a long minute of awkward silence, he said, "I made a point of discovering everything I could about him after…Sydney left." She saw the shift in the muscles around his eyes; so subtle that only her training and her expectation of something like that let her see it. Jack was about to lie. Barnett didn't mind. Lies were interesting too, and what a person lied about told an important tale. "I never found out exactly where Irina found him, but she started training him early. Thirteen, I believe."

A lie and the truth, Barnett decided, and impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. But she would expect just such skill from a long-time double agent like Jack. His survival had depended on his quick wits and ability to twist everything he said into believability.

"Which explains his youth in relation to his status, doesn't it?" Barnett commented. She smoothed her hair away from her face casually and noticed Jack's gaze sharpen. Ah, she thought, Derevko had worn her hair loose as well. It was a common enough gesture, but had clearly evoked the man's wife just then.

"Born and raised to it," Jack muttered.

"Like Sydney?" Barnett asked gently. Jack was uncommonly distracted today. He sighed and nodded. "Do you think that's what drew them together?"

He got to his feet. "I think this conversation is pointless. Kendall wants you to take over Sark's interrogation. He's still fighting, despite the drug regimen. Kendall thinks he's holding important information back and wants someone to break him." He slanted a glance her way. "You're it."

"I am a doctor, Jack. I'm not in the habit of 'breaking' people if I can help it," she reminded him.

"Tell it to Kendall."

Barnett rose as well, straightening her skirt and strolling around her desk to lean against it, hip shot. She knew she looked very good for her age, without ever playing at being younger than she was. Jack's eyes took in her legs in an appreciative manner that made her smile. Neither of them would ever acknowledge the frisson of attraction between them; she because of the doctor/patient relationship and he simply because he would never trust another woman again after Irina Derevko. Barnett suspected Jack Bristow satisfied his physical needs with high-class prostitutes who neither offered nor wanted emotional interaction. She was practical enough herself not to see that as a fault.

"I'll get you cleared through to talk to him," he said. "You'll need to go over his medical file and the transcripts of what we—we've already got from him." He stumbled over identifying himself with the interrogators. But he'd done worse in his time as both CIA agent and SD-6 double. Curious.

"You're not comfortable with this at all, are you?"

Jack quite obviously didn't want to answer, but the words came anyway, forced out by his own need to frame what he had been thinking to himself. Barnett had only to listen, a skill she'd honed over years working with men like him.

"That fact is, we're not that different," Jack said. He'd folded his arms and began drumming the fingers of one hand against his bicep. Barnett guessed he wasn't talking about Sark really, but himself, and his next words confirmed that. "Sark's situation is one every field agent may face. So this is an unpleasant reminder. It could as easily be me. Or Sydney. So, no, I don't like it." He faced Barnett and said with surprising sincerity, "—I don't think anyone should like it, whether it's necessary or not."

She should have expected some of that. Jack wasn't the sort who puffed himself up with rationalizations over what he did. But Jack was equating himself with Sark and Sydney, who were both part of the opposition. Either he saw them simply as field agents like himself facing similar sorts of danger or he saw himself as emotionally closer to them than the CIA. Jack Bristow's ties to the Agency might have frayed to the breaking point if the latter was the case. It would bear watching. She would include it in the contact report she would write later, maybe even send Kendall a memo.

His voice was dull as he added, "Sark's the one Sydney chose. I saw her, for just a minute, in Belfast. She looked…she was happy."

"And as a father, that's what you want for your child, isn't it?" Barnett said.

"Yes."

"And you're not?"

A small smile quirked his lips. "Happy?"

"Yes."

"How can you tell?"

"Well, you're not that opaque."

"No, I'm not happy, Dr. Barnett. Why would I be?" The dark humor that must have been all that sustained his sanity over the long years of betrayal and duplicity informed his tone. "Tell me that."

"I can't tell you why you should be happy, Jack. That's something you have to find in yourself. You're an intelligent, accomplished man doing a necessary job—"

"Is it? Helping Kendall and you tear apart the man my daughter loves? How is that supposed to make a man feel fulfilled and proud?" He grimaced. "I go home and I'm alone and in another few years I can look forward to a gold watch and a pension that wouldn't support a rabbit. No purpose left at all. Now I can add my daughter's hatred to my list of accomplishments, right along with marrying a KGB spy and befriending Arvin Sloane."

He took a deep breath and settled back into his normal air of placid menace. "I think it would be better if Vaughn took you in to see Sark. I don't have the stomach for it today."

"All right," Barnett said. That memo was going to be long. Of course the man was burned out after so many years of service, but Jack Bristow was considerably more disenchanted and bitter than anyone might have guessed. For him to balk at anything at so late a date in his career, he must be experiencing real doubts. With the sort of temptation and opportunity that Irina Derevko and his daughter could offer from the other side, he could easily be seduced into turning. It was time to start watching him.

"Good day, Dr. Barnett."

"You too, Jack," she said calmly as he left the office.

The memo would have to wait until she'd made her evaluation of Sark. Kendall was such an impatient man. But she would get it written. She buzzed her secretary and told her to reschedule the rest of her afternoon appointments. Unraveling Sark was going to take time; he would be as much a challenge as Jack Bristow. Barnett smiled to herself. She enjoyed her work and she enjoyed challenges. That was why she'd joined the CIA when the recruiter approached her in medical school.

Your Latest Trick

Had she made a mistake?

She was alone in the office. Alone with the Aubusson carpets, the wood paneling, the original MacIntosh paintings on the walls, the leather-bound, gilt-edged books and the heavy, hand-made furniture. She should have been comfortable. She should have been concentrating on her business. But her mind kept circling around to the same conclusion.

She was alone.

She'd considered the gambit and gone through with it, but the possibility that she had miscalculated remained. Oh, the trick had been a success, she'd already observed evidence of that, but the price to her, to Sydney, and to Sark, had yet to be tallied. It might prove to be unconscionably high.

She thought that if she had lost him, her beautiful blond Galya, then she had lost Sydney too.

Had she been a fool to risk his life by sending him to Montreal like that? There would have been another way to accomplish the same goal. Part of her had wanted to see if he would do it, would go, would play at being her loyal paladin once more, though he'd given his first loyalty to her daughter. Part of her, she was horrified to admit, had been jealous.

Yet Sark had gone without protest, only a narrow-eyed glance to remind her it was his choice.

Irina wearily rubbed at the ache centered between her eyes. The headache that had been throbbing there since Sydney proposed her plan to retrieve Sark. She had tried to argue for a subtler stratagem, but her daughter wouldn't hear it. She wanted Sark out of CIA hands as soon as possible. She wanted to use the Organization's resources to make it happen. She demanded, with the single-minded focus Irina had only ever given to Milo Rambaldi, and she received.

Irina hadn't dare refuse.

She'd given access to Sydney, let her pick and choose a merc team, given her the contact protocols necessary to recruit them, and provided an extensive list of CIA agents. She'd even arranged the chartered jet to pick up their hostage through a series of cut-outs. Sydney had fronted the money; apparently she and Sark had garnered tidy profits on their freelance jobs outside the Organization.

Now it had moved to the next stage.

Irina sat behind her mahogany desk, in her comfortable executive's chair, and considered what that meant.

Sydney had killed a man. It didn't matter if one of the mercenaries pulled the actual trigger that sent a bullet in to Franklin Tjembe; it was Sydney who set the action in motion. Her daughter had blood on her hands. The plan she'd set forth and coldly put in motion would have made Irina's old KGB handlers proud. It made Irina visit her bathroom and swallow another Tagamet. It made her feel old.

Perhaps she was going soft.

Irina read the report on the laptop before her again. This really was working out well. No, she decided, she wasn't going soft, just adjusting to this additional aspect of her daughter. It wasn't anything Sark had brought out in her; if anything, Sark tried to keep Sydney clear of the uglier aspects of their business. Sydney had a ruthless, cold streak though, just like she and Jack had. It had only been buried, untapped, until now.


Had any of them guessed that their actions would push Sydney closer and closer to Rambaldi's prediction? Irina smiled to herself. Of course, they hadn't. Even she hadn't seen the consequences, that each step, each scheme, shaped Sydney into the image they all feared.

She closed the file and powered down the laptop, then locked it in a concealed safe, meticulously setting each of the extensive security protocols. Sark had never visited or known of this office complex in Edinburgh, but there were other dangers and other enemies in the wide world besides the CIA. She preferred always to be prepared.

Her headache wouldn't let up. Irina ignored it. She had long ago trained herself to disregard all sorts of pain. The physical was in some ways the easiest to dismiss. She had things to do, things that had to be arranged. If events proceeded on course, her daughter and her protégé would be reunited soon, and perhaps even grateful for her aid.

She began the next step of her preparations, following the plan she'd agreed to with Sydney.

A phone call to Klein, the doctor who ran the Organization-supported clinic in Bern, alerted him to have a team on hand, ready to deal with either physical or psychological trauma, potential detox issues, and the presence of additional security. A full suite would be set aside for Sydney and Sark, along with rooms for herself and her own bodyguards. Her contacts in Switzerland would ascertain that even if the CIA knew about the clinic, neutrality would be observed. There would be no commando assaults there.

Two helicopters and a private jet were dispatched to the Cyprus compound. They would proceed to Istanbul after receiving full maintenance checks. Cut-outs were tasked with obtaining surface vehicles as well as two different safehouses. Irina believed in back-ups. Once they had Sark back though, it would be wise to quickly remove him from Turkey. People were easily bought in Turkey, but they didn't stay bought, they sold out to the next bidder just as swiftly. Nothing would be secure until they were out of the country.

The final move required a certain subtle flair Irina prided herself on possessing. There would have to be a fall guy besides the dead bodyguard in Montreal. Such betrayals do not happen spontaneously. Sark would want to know what had happened and why. She needed to prepare her answers.

Parnell, the ambitious youngster from Dublin, had been pushing to rise in the Organization. He disliked and was jealous of Sark. He would do. He had talked too much in the wrong places and had drawn the attention of Special Branch and Geoffrey Eliot's MI6 counter-terrorist group in any case. That made him a liability. Mentioning Sark's father of course, even obliquely, would cloud his usually acute judgment, another benefit. Once he was convinced, Sydney would accept the story too.

Irina smiled and made the call.

She knew what she was doing.

No mistakes.

Burnt In Effigy

Four men gathered in the Ops Center conference room. Marshall Flinkman handled the tech aspect, arranging the wall screen display of an ID picture side by side with a crime scene photo of the man faxed from New York. The bodies were sprawled on the sidewalk, black pools of blood seeping from under them. The picture was in black and white, but still gruesome.

"Franklin Tjembe," Kendall said. "He worked for us. Obviously, he's dead."

Vaughn wasn't surprised. It had been his job to put the briefing package together after Kendall's cryptic phone call. He listened to Kendall attentively though, focusing on the Assistant Director's face rather than the display behind him.

Will stared at the wall screen. A pair of wire-framed glasses perched on his nose. Per usual, he'd managed a jacket and tie, but the tie was jerked loose and the jacket was corduroy and worn with a pair of jeans. Even Kendall had resigned himself to Will's aversion to suits. The ex-reporter had proved to be a talented enough analyst to be given some leeway, much as Marshall was.

"What's that on his chest?"

"That's a good question," Marshall piped up. He tapped into his keyboard and the screen zoomed in on the rectangle of white balanced on Tjembe's chest. "It looks like a business card."

Vaughn interrupted, "It is. NYPD faxed a separate photo their forensic team took. Nothing printed on it, just a hand written phrase."

Will looked at him. "What did it say?" he asked eagerly. Will enjoyed the puzzle aspect of his analyst position. Over the years he'd grown calloused to the brutality that reigned in the field. He worked at a computer. He could ignore the dead man in favor of deciphering the message left with him.

"One a day."

"Man, that doesn't sound good," Marshall mumbled.

Kendall raised an eyebrow. "No, it doesn't, Mr. Flinkman."

The chirp of the phone next to Kendall's station at the conference table jolted each of them. They stared at it expectantly as Kendall picked up the receiver and activated the speakers and recorder.

"This won't take long, AD Kendall."

They all knew her voice, though it had never been cold as liquid nitrogen when she worked with them. But she hadn't worked for the CIA or with any of them in years. She had left the CIA. She shouldn't have had the phone number to call into the Ops Center.

"Ms. Bristow, how did you get this number?"

She laughed, a hard, bitter laugh.

"Your security isn't as good as you think it is, Kendall. Now, don't interrupt me again. Just listen."

"All right, say what you want to say, Ms. Bristow"

"You have Sark. I want him back."

"That won't be possible, Ms. B—"

"I told you not to interrupt. Tjembe was the first. For every day you hold Sark after this, another of your agents will die. Understood?"

Will was looking at the display screen again, at the blow up of the business card inscribed 'One a day.' He was blinking fast. Marshall just looked horrified, all words lost. Kendall had turned red, the flush running up his neck and over his smooth skull. Only the line around his tightly held mouth was white. Vaughn had his eyes shut. He fingered his wedding ring compulsively.

"God, Sydney, you didn't, please, you didn't have that man killed?" Will whispered.

"My mother killed twelve CIA agents. Don't think I won't. Give Sark back."

"You wouldn't," Vaughn said confidently.

"Syd, don't, don't do this," Will pleaded. He leaned forward as though he could somehow reach her. "This isn't you. This is Irina Derevko talking, not Sydney Bristow."

"I am my mother's daughter."

"I don't believe you. I don't believe you could kill some agent, someone you might have worked with once, every day. Not for anyone, not for Irina's pet killer."

"He's not my mother's anything anymore. He's mine. —Kendall, you have until noon tomorrow. If I do not speak to Sark then, another agent will die before midnight."

"No deal," Kendall snapped.

"Think about it, Kendall. One a day. Every day. Ask yourself where Agent Weiss is. Ask yourself how he feels. Anything you do to Sark, I'll have done to him."

"What!?" three voices echoed in various tones of disbelief. Kendall alone was silent and thoughtful.

"I had a team pick him up this evening, Kendall. If you want him back, we can trade. Tjembe was my proof, but Weiss is the one who will suffer if you refuse."

The click of the disconnect and ensuing drone of a dial tone left them all in shock.

"Jesus, Syd," Will muttered. His eyes were focused inward, his posture slumped, hands and elbows on the polished table before him.

"She won't—" Vaughn started to say.

Will raised bleak eyes to look at Vaughn. Marshall stared at the table top, oblivious to the other three men. He opened his mouth once, obviously wanting to say something, but no words, not even his usual babble, came. The tech expert just hunched his shoulders.

Kendall was on his feet.

"Tell that to Franklin Tjembe," Kendall interrupted furiously. "Goddamn her!" He pointed a finger at Vaughn. "Get out of here, get Sark cleaned up and ready to talk by tomorrow noon. Jack was arranging to have Barnett talk to him. Tell her to have the little bastard ready or she can find another damn job! And get Jack in here. I need to talk to him about his damned daughter."

He rounded on Will next.

"You're the analyst, Mr. Tippin," Kendall said. "Will Bristow go through with her threats? If she is willing to do so, is she in a position to make good on them? The woman was your friend, I believe."

Will gaped at him.

"I haven't seen or talked to Sydney in three years, sir," he said carefully. "I'd lost touch with her on a personal basis before that—I never knew she'd become involved with Sark—" his lips curled into a sneer, "—or that she intended defecting to Derevko. I can't judge how much she's changed since then."

"Sydney would never kill anyone in cold blood," Vaughn said. "I don't think she's changed that much. It's just a threat."

Kendall braced his hands on the tabletop and leaned forward, looming over everyone else. "But is it a threat that she could in fact carry out, gentlemen? Does she have access to enough intel to target an agent per day?"

Marshall fielded that one. "Well, leaving aside the agents Sydney knew or saw from before she, uhm, left, which were quite numerous, you know—ah, well, her mother's group, the Organization, they've got great intel and sophisticated equipment, so…yeah, Sydney could target someone every day. Plus, the Organization, they could support whatever, uhm, whatever operations she put together."

"She wouldn't," Vaughn insisted.

"She sounded pretty determined to me, Agent Vaughn," Kendall said.

"For Sark?"

"Sydney, uhm, she wouldn't just forget about him, you know?'" Marshall offered. He looked around nervously, but squared his jaw and went on. "She didn't have to come after me; she even, sort of, went behind Sloane's back, when I got grabbed by Cuvée's goons. And, well, she probably knows that even if she could get in to where you've got Sark, getting him out would be, sort of, impossible. 'Cause, she probably knows that he's, uhm, hurt. And she's always been, well, smart." He looked around the room at the other men and asked seriously, "You don't think she's bluffing, do you? I don't think she was."

Vaughn sulked when Will leaned toward agreeing with Marshall.

"I think we have to operate on the assumption Ms. Bristow isn't bluffing, gentlemen," Kendall said at last. "We arrange for Sark to take her phone call tomorrow and prove he is still alive, then strike some sort of deal for the return of Agent Weiss. If she had Tjembe murdered, we can assume she would have others killed, too."

Slow Burn

Eric Weiss woke in the stale dark and remembered he didn't know where he was. Somewhere out of the States, he thought, something about the smell of the air telling him how far he was from LA. Derevko's people had walked him onto the private jet and treated him to a needle full of nothingness, so he didn't know more.

He'd been in the barren room since waking, handcuffed to a long chain that had been bolted into the floor. They'd left him his T-shirt and even provided a pair of sweats in addition to his boxers. That had probably been Sydney, he thought, and cursed himself.

Sydney was the reason he was here, wherever here was. Sydney and that bastard Sark that they'd nabbed in Montreal almost a month ago.

He rolled over, the handcuff cutting into his wrist a little until he freed some slack in the chain. He ran his fingers over the links. Each link was about an inch long, forged of heavy iron. The seam where each had been sealed together felt massive under his touch, though it was barely noticeable in the light.

Besides his chain, the room contained a foam futon, a plastic bucket for necessities, a plastic bottle of water, and a bare light bulb hanging from its wiring. There was a single window, high on the wall, beyond the scope of his chain. Like the window, the light bulb was beyond his reach.

He wasn't a field agent anyway, but they'd left nothing for him to use in an escape attempt.

He knew the light bulb worked because twice since he'd woken up someone had appeared with a plate of food and a new bottle of water, taking away the bucket's contents and replacing it empty again when they removed the plate. The second time it had been dark and the light had been switched on from outside the room.

It really wasn't that bad, as captivity went, he knew. He hadn't been set up and shot in the back. He hadn't been threatened or roughed up. No one had asked him any questions. Compared to what Sark was enduring, it was really quite comfortable.

He didn't like being a pawn though, and that was what he had become.

Weiss had no way of knowing how long it was until dawn, but he couldn't sleep any more. He lay on the futon and stared up at the ceiling he couldn't see.

He wondered if he was going to die.

Burnt Offerings

Sark blinked into the brilliant light overhead. Everything ached. His eyes wouldn't focus. A sickening vertigo swamped him when he tried to move.

"Mr. Sark?"

He wanted to ignore the voice. He wanted to sink back into the blank white emptiness of unconsciousness. Nothing good waited when he woke up. He knew this. He would be caged, caught, helpless; he hated all that.

He rolled his head toward the voice, the blur of a face, light-haloed blond hair. A woman, he thought groggily. His stomach heaved. He let his eyes drift closed again. He wanted it to all go away.

"Mr. Sark?"

A deft hand peeled back an eyelid, checked his pupil.

"The amphetamines should bring him around soon."

"We need him conscious and coherent before noon."

Another voice, vaguely familiar. Sark slitted his eyes open and identified the man standing beside the woman. Boy Scout. Michael Vaughn. More bits and pieces fell into place. He was in CIA custody. The interrogations had begun…he frowned, trying to remember. The interrogations had begun once he was out of surgical recovery, maybe before, while he was still in an anaesthetic twilight.

The first voice, the woman, sounded annoyed. "You should have thought of that before your ham-handed chemists juiced him again last night. The doses on that chart would lay out a healthy man twice his size. It's lucky he's still alive. What I just gave him isn't going to help either."

Lucky for whom? Sark reflected. He didn't think she meant him. Whoever she was.

Sark blinked and sighed. The woman touched his face gently; stroking sweat-wet hair away from his face. Her fingers were cool and soothing and he turned toward them instinctively. His muscles trembled and jumped from the burn of the latest drug. "Good boy," she murmured. "Come on, wake up, okay?"

She smiled at him when he looked at her. "Back with us, huh?"

He licked his lips, throat too hoarse to answer. That helped stop the urge to babble that pushed at his tongue.

His skin itched almost unbearably. Speed did that to him now. His body couldn't cope with the whipsaw between stimulants and depressants. What had he told them? Cocktails of benzodiazepines and amphetamines and their effects had been pioneered early by the Gestapo. The CIA knew exactly how to utilize them. And that was the simplest of the psychochemical stew they had at their disposal. Despite his training they were already beginning to succeed. He'd lost track of what had happened during the last interrogation. The prospect of what they could have learned from him made him flinch inside.

Eventually he would habituate and sending him into withdrawal would become another interrogation mode.

"You're probably thirsty," she said. Sark watched her fetch a pitcher of water and a glass, pour it half full, and bring it to his lips. "Just sip," the woman instructed. He was inevitably reminded of the Petrus Sloane had laced with a radioactive tracer when he'd first come into SD-6's hands years before. But where Sloane had radiated malice even while doing the polite, this woman seemed warm and decent. A rare commodity in any place or time; in a CIA cell, it stood out. If she was playing on that kindness winning Sark's trust, then she was a master manipulator of Irina's caliber. Just the small kindness of the drink, the hand on his forehead, had made him want to trust her. Some of which might be an effect of the drugs, but Sark knew himself too well to completely blame his reaction on that.

He responded to touch. He always had. It was why he tried to always hold himself apart.

How long had it been since he was shot? Days and nights were blurred together in the endless white light of pain and questions. They'd tried to feed him and he'd refused, half from sickness and mostly from stubbornness. When his mind was clear, he tried to analyze what had gone wrong with the Montreal op.

Irina had sent him alone, assigning Sydney to a job in Amsterdam. It wasn't unusual. They weren't joined at the hip. He'd been briefed, gone in after the documents, and…the CIA had been waiting. He might have slipped the ambush's net if his bodyguard hadn't shot him. He'd returned the favor and made it out of the empty office building to a parking lot, but no farther. The car he'd stashed there had been gone. He'd slumped to the ground, unable to ignore the pain any longer, aware he was going into shock. The last things he remembered were the chill of wet pavement under him, the copper taste of blood on his tongue, and a blast of regret that he wouldn't see Sydney again. The last thing he saw was the orange halogen glow of a distant street light outlining the contours of Marcus Dixon's stern face staring down at him.

The woman tipped the glass again, letting him swallow another sip.

"Better?"

Sark managed a nod.

Her smile seemed to reach her pale blue eyes. "I'm Judy Barnett," she said.

He stared at her.

"And you're Mr. Sark." She raised an eyebrow. "Or is it just Sark?"

"Just Sark," he rasped. Insisting on an honorific title seemed ridiculous in the circumstances. He fought not to explain that to her.

Her smile widened and behind her he heard Vaughn snort. He wondered why they weren't using what Jack Bristow knew against him. Hadn't the man told them? Or had they and he didn't remember? The prospect of losing his mental acuity disturbed him far more than the obvious physical damage of bullet wounds, bruises, and the flesh he'd torn fighting his restraints periodically.

He wanted to ask how long he'd been in custody. He held back instead. The question would tell them he was losing time. Sark focused blearily on the IV line taped to the flesh of one arm and tried to pluck it loose only to realize he was in restraints. The memory flash of another bed, another time, slammed into him hard. His entire body went rigid. He forced the memories away and blinked open his eyes again, looking up into the Barnett woman's face.

The adrenaline rush of fear and anger had cleared his head a little, returned some measure of control, he realized. That would have been a benefit if his stomach hadn't been threatening to invert itself.

"Do you know where you are?" Barnett asked. He assumed she wanted to see how oriented he was.

"Specifically? No," he croaked. "CIA custody, a secure facility infirmary I assume, since I see Boy Scout over there and Marcus Dixon was on the scene when I was shot." The walls were white on three sides, the fourth made of armored glass. Cameras scanned the room from two overheard corners. The hum and whoosh of heavy-duty air conditioning and fans maintaining negative pressure in the room contributed to a sense dulling white noise. He hated it deeply.

"Close enough for government work," Barnett said.

Vaughn stepped forward and glared down at him. Sark held onto his self possession and met the man's gaze without emotion. "Agent Vaughn," he murmured. "I'd say it has been too long since we last met, but…it hasn't."

"We need you to talk on the phone for us," Vaughn declared.

Sark raised an eyebrow.

"You forgot the 'or else'."

"I hope that fucking bullet wound hurts," Vaughn snapped. Barnett set her hand on his arm, pushing him away from the hospital bed and Sark.

"I assure you it does," Sark said.

Barnett gave him another concerned look. "I wish I could give you something for the pain, but there are already so many drugs running through your system, in addition to the injection I used to bring you around, it wouldn't be wise. I'm sorry."

Oh, very well done, Dr. Barnett, he thought. You wish, you're sorry. Do make it a personal connection between us. Here was the chief interrogator, the one who would disassemble his psyche and rebuild it into someone eager to cooperate with his sympathetic 'friend'. She would ask for his help and he would supply whatever he could in return for the crumbs of kindness she offered. He recognized the technique; it was distressingly similar to Irina's relationship with him.

Sark looked past her to Vaughn.

"I won't be your Judas Goat," he said.

"Just prove you're alive."

"No."

"Sark," Barnett said. She leaned closer but he found nothing threatening in her proximity. Psychological manipulation would be her forte, not pain. "This isn't a trick. Apparently you're very important to Sydney. She's threatened to kill one of our agents if we don't prove you are still alive when she calls at noon."

He closed his eyes and turned his face away. He wanted to hear Sydney's voice. He wanted to believe somehow she would get him out of this place. He couldn't believe it, though. He'd become a liability. They'd use him to trap her. He couldn't cooperate in that. There were unspoken promises between them, that no matter what they felt they would always be professional. And professionally, he was a loss that had to be cut loose.

He was already dead to Sydney if she had any sense.

"You selfish prick," Vaughn said. "You'd like it if Sydney killed someone for you." Sark ignored him.

"Sark—"

"Go away, Doctor Barnett," he said wearily, not even looking at her. "I won't do it."

~*~

It wasn't that easy. 

Two orderlies came in an hour later and disconnected the IV, then dressed him in a blue prisoner's jumpsuit, while an armed guard watched. They locked heavy manacles on his wrists and ankles and a neat little collar around his throat with enough plastique inside to take off his head with one push of a button. They were none too gentle about it either and added a few bruises to the collection Sark already sported.

Barnett and Jack Bristow arrived after they were done. Sark had perched himself on the edge of the hospital bed and concentrated on breathing steadily past the pain in his back from pulling on the healing bullet wound. His thoughts kept slipping and there were colors fluctuating at the edge of his vision in time with his pulse.

Jack's face was closed off. Sark couldn't read anything from him. He waited while the door into the infirmary cell was opened. Sark chose to remain silent too.

Barnett smiled at him again. Sark had to look away. It would be too easy to like the woman. Much too easy to start trusting her, he thought, wanting to please her, wanting to talk to her, to let her into his head. That was the last thing he needed. Irina knew his secrets and that was enough. No one else, not even Sydney, would ever see those vulnerabilities. Being vulnerable meant being used. Barnett was an Agency shrink, Sydney had told him about her, and she would use whatever he gave her against him eventually. She was, he had to remind himself, the opposition.

When he had his control back, he faced her with a blank mask of indifference in place.

"Sark," Jack said. "Talk to Sydney. This isn't a trick."

He just stared at Bristow. It didn't matter. Trick or not, if Sydney had contacted the CIA, they would use it against her. Didn't her father understand that? An hour from now he'd be back in that white-walled plastic cell with another needle in his vein, the latest in psychochemicals warping his will and sapping what little strength he had left. Sydney couldn't help him and the only way he could help her was to deny any connection to her. Let her think he was dead.

Two guards accompanied them as he shuffled down the glossy dark hallways of the facility. He thought it might be the LA center, considering Vaughn, Jack, and Barnett were present. His metabolic rhythms were skewed by the drugs, but the altitude felt familiar from his days infiltrating SD-6. When he found himself standing before AD Kendall, swaying and lightheaded from even the slight exertion of the walk into the rotunda, he felt sure he was correct.

Kendall looked him over with all the contempt the righteous have for the renegade and mocked, "Not having a good day, are you, Sark?"

"But I'm sure it's about to improve," he said.

Kendall grimaced. "Sit him down before he falls down."

Jack appropriated a desk chair from an empty desk.

Sark was guided into the chair and chained in place. Deja vu. He could, he thought, slip the manacles if he dislocated his thumb. But it would be highly painful, render his hand nearly useless, and serve no purpose, since he was surrounded. Jack was standing just to the side of him like a bad-tempered guard dog. No, better to keep playing sick, weak, and cowed. It wasn't much of an act. There would be other, better opportunities. He had to hold onto that prospect or go mad.

"Sark," Judy Barnett said, seating herself just opposite him. He could smell her perfume. Chanel #5. Classic. Her knees nearly touched his. He concentrated on the way her loose hair fell forward, the way Sydney's did when she leaned over him in bed…drawing on memories of Sydney and even Irina to take him outside the present moment.

"Sark?"

She touched his arm, fingers on the wrist locked to the chair frame, and he recoiled as much as he could, jolted out of his reverie. He was having difficulty controlling his reactions and hiding what hurt. Barnett wasn't a physical threat, but he hated being touched without choosing it. Another legacy of Irina he could never shed. At the same time, he wanted the contact and was starved for more. How many people had ever touched him in kindness? Far fewer than those who had inflicted pain.

"We need you to convince Sydney to stop this plan she's threatened to act out," Barnett said.

Sark cocked his head.

"How does that improve my position?" he asked bluntly. He would give them exactly what they expected and in that way mislead them. Sooner or later, he would be afforded an opportunity at escape, if only of the most permanent sort. That last resort didn't frighten or repulse him as it would have done a few weeks before.

Kendall sneered. "You are scum, aren't you? Out for yourself and to hell with the world and anyone else."

"Everyone is, in my experience, Assistant Director Kendall," he replied. "I merely refrain from denying it."

Kendall threw up his hands. "Barnett. You handle him." He settled against one of the desks, arms folded, watching their interaction. Sark kept him in the corner of his eye, wary of what the volatile man might do.

"Sark, if you want to save yourself, it makes sense to cooperate, doesn't it?" Barnett asked persuasively.

He smiled at her. Of course it did.

"You would think so, wouldn't you?"

"But?"

But I don't see how selling out my lover, the one person who has ever cared for me as more than a weapon, benefits me in any manner. It won't win me free, I'm not fool enough to believe any promises you offer.

He shook his head.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you every secret I've ever known," he said tiredly. "You only want what you can take. Anything else must be a trick of some sort, lies or disinformation. It's the essential paradox of intelligence gathering."

"And if I said I believed you?" Barnett asked.

Sark sighed.

"I'd know you were lying."

Jack gave Kendall an arch look. "If you'll remember—"

"Don't say I told you so, Jack."

"Consider it said."

Kendall glared.

Sark tucked away the new datum. Jack Bristow did not get along with AD Kendall and the antagonism wasn't particularly well hidden. Kendall was abrasive and peremptory. Jack was internal, curbed power, a study in repression and experience. Respect they might share, but never friendship or understanding. In the right circumstance, they would be at each other's throats.

"Two minutes to twelve, sir," a young agent prompted.

"Yes, I can read a clock myself," Kendall snapped. The agent retreated.

Sark noted that several more familiar faces had arrived for the appointed phone call: Marshall Flinkman, the tech genius, Vaughn, and the reporter, Tippin. Tippin was an analyst now. Sark smirked. He wondered how unanaesthetized dentistry compared in Tippin's book with some of the CIA's practices. The man couldn't be the complete fool Sark had first taken him for or he wouldn't have survived this long. Sydney had been fond of him and Allison…He jerked his drifting thoughts away from her memory. He never wanted to remember Allison; another Project Christmas victim, trapped forever behind a stranger's face, dead as much at his and Irina's hands as by Sydney's bullet. She should have been able to kill Tippin, but she hadn't. That meant something, but at the moment he didn't care.

He didn't miss her. He hadn't cared. He wasn't guilty. He'd been trained not to let those emotions in. He just couldn't let himself remember.

"So, how do you like it?" Tippin taunted.

Sark was grateful for the distraction. "I've been in similar situations," he said as insouciantly as possible. "I can always accommodate myself to new circumstances."

"I think you're scared out of your fucking mind."

Sark smiled again. "Not quite."

The phone shrilled. Kendall pointed at Marshall. "Get a trace on it."

"Yes sir."

Kendall picked up and activated the speakers.

"Kendall."

"Let me talk to Sark."

Kendall extended the phone to Sark. "Your girlfriend wants a chat."

Sark clamped his mouth shut.

"Sark?"

He closed his eyes and fought to stop himself, then flinched as he felt a needle sink into his arm. His eyes flashed open and found Barnett smiling sadly at him. The warm flood of the drug running through his veins made traitors of his body and mind.

"Sark?"

"Sydney…," he responded helplessly. "Don'…trust anything…."

"Sark?! —Damn you, Kendall, what have you done to him?"

"Just given him something to get him to cooperate," Kendall said. "He was being stubborn and you wanted proof he was alive."

Sark couldn't hold his head up. The voices and faces were receding, separating from any sense, until he floated detached from everything. It was an insidious feeling, urging him to just give up and let go. He was vaguely aware of a hand taking hold of his jaw and lifting his face. With a last conscious effort, he opened his mouth and bit.

Will Tippin jumped back, shaking his bloody, hurting hand. "God damn it! He's supposed to be out!"

Jack smiled with a sort of mordant humor. "Never tease a chained dog, Tippin," he advised. "Sometimes the chain breaks."

"Is this sort of behavior really necessary?" Barnett asked. Her participation in this farce had been strictly under protest. Sark presented a fascinating case, but drugging him for Kendall effectively destroyed any therapeutic bond she might have forged with him. Conducting the sort of interrogation she excelled at had just been scotched, not that she could do so anyway if Kendall traded him.

Guilty looks were her only answer.

Sydney's cold fury recalled them to the matter at hand.

"Are you ready to deal? Or shall I start convincing Agent Weiss to…cooperate? Along with taking out my next target. Remember you and your agents are on a dead line."

Kendall swiped his hand over his skull and glared at Jack again, as though blaming him for Sydney's very existence. Jack remained impassive.

At last Kendall said, "Yeah, let's make a deal."

Sark let go as despair swamped him. They'd made him a pawn again.

II. Burned

Third Degree Burn

Two anonymous Delta Force men were in the front of the van. Jack and Vaughn rode in the back, with Sark. The blond slumped against Jack, not quite conscious. Jack steadied him against the worst of the uneven road's jarring and ignored the strange looks Vaughn gave him.

Vaughn's mind was focused on the exchange. He wanted to know Weiss was all right. He didn't give a damn about the half-dead killer they were trading for him.

Jack was, for once, less sanguine. He had a damned good idea of what Sark and Sydney's relationship entailed. He knew his daughter. Sark could have been just another anonymous minion of Irina's and Sydney would still be incensed by his present condition. She was not going to be pleased. Understatement. He only hoped she would hold her temper in check and let revenge wait until she had her lover safe somewhere.

If not, he thought Weiss would probably die. Vaughn, too, if he interfered. Jack knew Sydney had a dark streak and a thirst for revenge. She'd come by it naturally, inherited it equally from Irina and him.

Kendall had insisted on conducting one more interrogation at the safehouse the night before. The two Delta Force men had followed Kendall's orders and given Sark a 'tune up' before they started with the chemicals again. Jack had been in no position to interfere. He'd only convinced Kendall to include him on the op team by reasoning Sydney was less likely to put a bullet through his head than any other agent available.

Jack had felt sick. He'd wanted to leave the room. But the drug-hazed blue eyes of his daughter's lover had been locked on him and he hadn't been able to turn away. Sark had slurred some inconsequential details, answering almost arbitrarily, drifting from language to language, and holding onto his professionalism desperately.

Kendall had flown out with the morning, seething with frustration at Sark's intransigence and Sydney's ultimatum.

A particularly hard jolt had Jack tightening his grip on Sark, drawing a moan of pain from the younger man. Vaughn frowned. "What the hell is wrong with him?"

Jack gaped at the man. Could Vaughn genuinely not know? If he didn't, then that depth of ignorance had to be willful. It explained why he'd failed with Sydney, certainly.

"Are you an idiot?" Jack asked gruffly.

Vaughn wrinkled his brow and looked indignant. "Jack, that's uncalled for—"

"Have I ever invited you to use my given name?" Jack snapped. He wanted to take his anger out on somebody, and Vaughn, whose inadequacies had led in part to this situation, seemed like an excellent target.

"No," Vaughn admitted. "Agent Bristow."

The Delta Force driver was gunning the van through the streets, intent on reaching the rendezvous exactly on time. A team had infiltrated the area during the night and was waiting on Kendall's orders. They were men with their own agenda and long memories. Delta Force had lost two men to Sark when he extracted Irina in Panama. The two at the safehouse had obviously enjoyed working Sark over and just as obviously there was an ambush planned for the meeting. Jack knew about it and knew he wasn't supposed to know, since his loyalties in regard to Irina Derevko and his daughter were openly in doubt these days. His arguments to treat Sark more humanely hadn't helped the issue.

A sharp corner almost threw all three of them to the floor. Jack cursed quietly. Sark's head lolled against his shoulder. What in hell had they given him last night? He wasn't going to be fit to walk the distance from the van to Sydney's pick up vehicle.

"So, what is wrong with the little bastard?" Vaughn asked again.

"Three and a half weeks of implemented interrogation, a hunger strike, a still healing bullet wound in his back, and 'the boys'—" Jack jerked his head toward the front of the van, "—enthusiastic 'encouragement'. He's still wasted on whatever Kendall had them shoot him up with last night as well."

Vaughn's mouth hung open.

"Implemented?"

They'd used every trick they knew to break Sark. Given enough time the techniques always worked, the chemical cocktails, the psychological manipulations, and the very nature of a man like Sark. The instinct to survive is too strong to be completely discarded, ever. Sark had confounded the interrogators by holding out determinedly. He'd once said his loyalties were flexible. But that, like the tape of his interrogation by Sloane at SD-6, had been misleading. Sark's accession to Sloane had been an act meant to engineer an opening for his escape, the information he provided a deliberate gambit. The information he'd provided to Sydney and Vaughn in Stockholm before escaping them had been Irina's gift. Nothing he'd ever said under coercion had been less than exactly what he meant to give away. This time he had been adamantly silent until the pressure and the drugs and the growing weakness began breaking him down.

Jack had argued any information they developed from his interrogation would be tainted, deliberately skewed, but no one had listened.

Vaughn's expression cycled through horror, pity, and into self-righteousness. He averted his eyes and muttered, "I'm sure whatever was done was necessary."

Sark stirred in Jack's grasp, starting to tense. Not wanting a struggle with the blond, even given his less than stellar condition, Jack pulled him closer and rubbed one bone-thin shoulder. "Easy, easy," he said steadily. "Everything's fine, you're on your way home." Surprisingly, the taut body relaxed slightly, leaning into Jack. Maybe he was just seeking the comfort of warmth and physical contact or maybe he'd understood, Jack didn't know. It certainly wasn't the promise of going home that quieted him though. Sark was a second-generation espion, a citizen of the shadows and the gray places, without nation or permanent residence. He didn't have a frame of reference to grasp the concept of home; like the agents, terrorists, soldiers and refugees that made up his world, Sark lived in transit, in hotel suites, safehouses and 'secured' facilities.

Vaughn's hostility leaked through his voice. "He deserves whatever they did to him."

Sark's eyes were slitted open. He didn't shift away from Jack, but he said hoarsely, "Fuck off, Boy Scout." He added a Berber phrase involving a syphilitic camel and Vaughn's sexual proclivities.

Vaughn's head whipped around and Jack had to stifle a chuckle.

"Va te faire."

Sark mumbled something else, but Jack couldn't make it out.

"Shut up, you little shit," Vaughn snapped.

"We should be at the rendezvous in another minute," Jack said, forestalling further interaction or altercations.

Vaughn sulked silently and Sark leaned against Jack through the rest of the trip.

Jack found himself comparing the two young men. They'd both slept with his daughter. Not something he found himself wanting to consider, but still a truth. Vaughn, on the face of things, was the man Jack would have preferred Sydney to choose over Sark. But in his deepest heart, Jack didn't respect Vaughn, not as an agent and not as a man. He'd been quietly pleased when Vaughn and Sydney were no longer involved, though he had regretted his daughter's pain.

He hadn't been pleased when the CIA uncovered evidence Sydney had thrown in with Sark and through him with Irina's organization, if not with Irina herself.

Sark was a killer, a terrorist, and Irina's protégé. Jack hadn't believed he could be trusted in anything. Yet Sark was clever enough to hold his own against the CIA's best minds in most circumstances, tough enough to withstand their brutal interrogations, skilled enough to slip them repeatedly on other occasions. He outclassed Vaughn in the field easily and would never have been captured if he hadn't been betrayed by someone in the Organization. Jack had to respect him for those qualities.

Apparently, he made Sydney happy.

She certainly wanted him back badly. Badly enough that she had resorted to playing by Irina's rules. Jack knew he should be trying to think of a way to outwit her, to bring her in, but he didn't want to beat his daughter.

He found himself questioning where his loyalties did lie, these days. He'd given most of his life to the Agency in one fashion or the other, seen his marriage revealed as a sham, and lost his daughter to the same games. What had any of it gained him, except an empty apartment and an empty heart?

Even a man like Sark knew to want more than that.

Sark had surprised him, first in Belfast, then under interrogation. Sark was more than Jack had thought he was. He thought they could understand each other better than Vaughn ever could either of them. Like Jack, Sark saw the world clearly and without sentiment. In the end, Sark was the better match for Sydney because of that. Jack didn't have to like it. He accepted it. He just hoped Sark would survive the next hour.

The two vehicles pulled up in the barren airfield strip within seconds of each other. A rusting tin covered hangar stood in the distance, loose siding clanking in the irregular wind. A wave of dust rose into the morning air, burning shafts of gold through the air where the rising sun touched it through the distant city's silhouette. Gilt minarets and domes glowed in distant outlines. The dust settled slowly on to the van and the black, armored Land Rover facing it.

"Guess this is it," one the Delta Force men said.

The passenger door of the Land Rover opened.

"We've got movement."

"Guess I'm up," Vaughn said. He opened the slider on the van's side and stepped out into the dust, a tall figure in a tan tropical suit.

~*~

Against Jack's shoulder, Sark slurred, "Where'm I?"

"Istanbul."

"Uhm… Sark pushed himself upright, blinking rapidly and tugging unconsciously at the plastic restraints binding his wrists as he became aware of them. Similar ties bound his ankles. Jack slipped a pocket knife from his trousers and slit the restraints swiftly.

Sark flexed his hands. Two fingernails were gone on the left. Blood and bruising darkened the others. The damage had been done the night before. The swelling and pressure under the nail could be as excruciating as pulling them out. Just a tap against the nail would send agony shooting through the victim. The two Delta Force soldiers who had inflicted the damage had explained it as they worked. Then they had demonstrated. Sark's sharp, indrawn breath had been all the reaction they got, but eventually a trickle of blood ran down his chin from where he'd bit the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming. That was when they shot him up with the truth serum again.

"You're being traded," Jack told him. He wasn't sure Sark had been coherent enough to understand when he'd been told before.

"Traded?" Sark's still glassy blue eyes fastened on him. He bit his lip and winced, gathering his thoughts with an effort that drew his brows together. Jack waited patiently. "May I ask to whom?" The rest of the thought processed. "And who am I to be traded for?"

"Eric Weiss, a CIA agent," Jack said slowly. He knew that Sark wasn't tracking yet and wanted to be sure the disoriented operative understood the situation. "Sydney is trading him for you."

"Sydney?" Sark responded to her name. Just that had sharpened his attention.

"Sydney."

Sark looked almost overwhelmed. Then he shuddered. "This is a trick, isn't it?" he muttered.

Jack grabbed his elbow and pulled him close; keeping his voice down where the Delta Force soldiers in the front of the van couldn't hear the words. "Listen to me. Gabriel. This is not a trick. Don't fuck it up. Don't get her killed." He used Sark's childhood name, the one only he and Irina and possibly Sydney knew. He used it because hearing it would force Sark to trust him, if only because the interrogators never had. Jack had withheld that knowledge from them, an arguably treasonable act. Sark might not be lucid enough to analyze it, but he would understand the omission's implications, even here and now.

Sark nodded. "Understood."

Jack helped Sark to his feet. Bare feet. Prisoners were not allowed shoes. Shoes were too easily used as weapons. Shoes made it easy to run. Taking away someone's shoes helped take away his or her dignity. All Sark had on were a pair of gray sweat pants held up by a drawstring, and a faded blue T-shirt. Even those were too large on the gaunt figure. The sweat pants hung on him and the shirt had ridden up, providing a glimpse of hipbone and hollowed flank. He swayed and Jack had to brace him.

One the Delta Force guys had turned in his seat to watch them. "Aw, poor baby," he jeered.

"You have a job to do," Jack said calmly, staring at the man until he flinched. "I suggest you do it."

The soldier faced forward.

He ducked his head out the van's doorway. Vaughn had stopped equidistant to both vehicles and stood with his hands empty and clear of his body. A figure swathed in traditional Muslim black robes and full chador left the Land Rover and glided toward him. She held a neat little HK in one slim hand.

Jack recognized his daughter by the way she moved. He imagined Vaughn did. Sark would. But to the Delta Force team, she could have been anybody, could have been Irina, or some nameless stand-in hired for the job. Already, their plan had been knocked off the track. If they blew the exchange and shot her and this wasn't Sydney Bristow, her wrath would rain down on the CIA. Kendall's wrath would then pour down on Delta Force. Jack could hear the driver talking intently into his radio mic, ordering the ambushers to hold off.

"Ready?" he asked Sark.

Sark nodded.

Jack guided him out of the van and onto the ground, a steadying hand on one elbow.

Sydney raised her free hand.

A man jumped out the Land Rover, a checked scarf tied over his dark face to conceal it, wearing the inevitable Middle East garb of fatigues, T-shirt, a khaki jacket, and assault rifle. He pulled a bound and blindfolded Eric Weiss from the back passenger seat and carelessly let him fall to his knees. Vaughn's protest echoed and sharp words from Sydney had the man handing Weiss back to his feet.

Weiss was guided forward roughly.

Jack started Sark toward the Land Rover. With his free hand he brushed his suit jacket open, wanting easier access to his side arm. He'd been at this too many years not to recognize the feel of an op about to go bad. The harsh taste of the dust on the air had the iron flavor of blood.

Devil's Dance

Vaughn watched his friend fall to his knees and protested.

Sydney didn't turn to see what had elicited his words, only called out in Arabic, "Carefully, Kamal." Her words had the desired effect. Kamal lifted Weiss up with a much kinder touch.

"Sydney," he said, hoping to somehow reach the woman he had known before. "You didn't have to do this to Eric."

He couldn't see her face under the chador. He couldn't even read her eyes through the slot of semi-transparent veil. All he could see was their darkness. But he knew her voice, had heard it laughing, in passion, even angry. He hadn't heard it so filled with scorn, though.

"No, you're right. I could have had him shot, drugged, and tortured," she said.

Vaughn flinched.

She'd threatened to do to Weiss whatever they did to Sark.

"That was before," he muttered.

"I used to think you were better than this," she said quietly. "That's why I left: you weren't."

"And Sark is?" He couldn't believe it.

"Sark doesn't pretend to be anything he isn't. No apologies necessary."

"What about you, Syd? What are you? What have you done to yourself?" Vaughn had to ask.

She offered no answers and he realized her attention was on the approach of her father and Sark. He shifted a step sidewise so that he could see them as well. Sark was stumbling, head hanging, half held up by Jack's grip. Jack's face was a study in stone, eyes straight ahead, mouth grim.

"Dad," she greeted her father, the caution in her voice mixed with the first warmth Vaughn had heard from her yet.

"Sydney. —This was not my idea," Jack said. They were left to decide if he meant the exchange or Sark's treatment.

"I know."

"I did what I could."

They came to a halt, joined by Kamal and Weiss, three facing three.

"Take his blindfold off," Sydney ordered. Kamal jerked the cloth from Weiss' head and shoved it in his pocket.

Eric squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden light, opened them, and held up his roped together wrists. "Hey, can I get rid of this too?" Kamal reached over and jerked the ropes loose, letting them drop to the dirt.

Sydney ignored him.

"Sark?"

Sark lifted his head, the sun sparking off his matted blond head. He didn't answer her, but Jack released his arm and the assassin walked the last few steps to Sydney's side. Even in a daze, his instincts were at work. Sark stayed clear of the HK Sydney held, never once interrupting her sight lines on Jack and Vaughn. Sydney's free arm wrapped around Sark's thin frame and pulled him close. He ducked his face into the crook of her neck and she whispered something Vaughn couldn't hear. Sark nodded.

Sydney said, "Take Weiss and get out of here."

"Hey, Sydney, it's been real, you know?" Weiss joked, thoughtlessly walking between Vaughn and Kamal as he crossed the last few feet to his promised freedom. "Remind me to never let you plan my vacation."

"You're lucky you're walking away," Sydney snapped. She'd begun backing away step by step, leading Sark. Kamal covered their retreat, hefting the assault rifle menacingly.

"Jesus, Sydney, is he that good a fuck?" Vaughn blurted.

He wondered for an instant if she would shoot him. Jack looked close to doing it himself. Even Weiss stared at him in disbelief. "Mike? Shut the fuck up," his friend hissed, hovering beside him rather than continuing to the van.

Sark just leaned into Sydney, the relief radiating off him so clear even Vaughn could see it. He hated seeing the bastard as human, as someone with feelings. It made him say stupid things. It made him jealous, even now when he had no right.

Sydney pressed a kiss against Sark's forehead through the veil she wore, then lifted her head and turned toward Vaughn. Her long fingered hand stayed on the nape of Sark's neck, threaded into his hair, tenderly holding him in place.

"He's that good a fuck, Vaughn," she said quietly. "He's an even better lover. And that's what he is to me."

Jack swiveled his head toward the edge of the airfield. His gaze sharpened on something Vaughn couldn't see. One of the Delta Force assault team, he thought. "Sydney," Jack said conversationally, "get out of here. Now."

"Mike—" Weiss urged. He grabbed Vaughn's arm and tugged.

Kamal's attention snapped to the dusty, weed-filled hollow Jack was looking at. A flicker of reflected light moved there. Kamal shouted and fired toward it.

The unmistakable report of .50 Barret hit their ears and the Land Rover jerked and shuddered as its engine was penetrated and wrecked. A second shot and a hiss of steam shot from the radiator. Another took out a tire. Kamal cursed and sprayed the hide with bullets. The Barret stopped barking.

A second, lighter rifle joined the firefight though, coming from the first sniper's spotter, bullets slamming into Kamal and sending him spinning, falling, the rifle flung from his hands.

Vaughn and Weiss bolted for the van. One of the Delta Force men fired cover from behind the vehicle's bulk, shouting at them to keep down.

Sydney was firing on the van with the HK, the chattering automatic keeping either the driver or his partner from accurately targeting her or Sark. Sark was scrambling for Kamal's fallen assault rifle. Bullets screamed against metal. One of the van's tires deflated violently.

Vaughn shoved Weiss through the open slider and dove after him, while trying to draw his issue pistol at the same time.

"Jack!" he shouted.

Jack was calmly aiming his pistol, careless of his own exposure. Vaughn gasped, shouted, "NO! JACK!" and watched in horror as the older agent stepped in front of his daughter and fired. His bullet took the second Delta Force soldier in the head. The man fell soundlessly before he could take aim at Sark.

Jack was falling too, scarlet blooming across his chest, as the sniper in the grass targeted him.

Sydney screamed, a keen of denial and fury that rose and rose. She dropped the empty HK and threw herself toward her father's crumpling figure, somehow catching him.

Sark had the assault rifle and rolled sidewise, presenting a minimized target. He lay flat on the ground, seemed to hesitate, and then fired one single shot. A pained cry told all as the sniper fire finally ceased. Sark was already moving again, pegging fire at the van. Vaughn angled his arm out the slider and squeezed the trigger of his pistol blindly, just hoping to hit the assassin.

Sydney dragged her father's body into the cover of the disabled Land Rover.

Sark fast crawled backward to the Land Rover on elbows and knees, the assault rifle extended before him, squeezing off a shot whenever the dust puffed near him from a bullet. It was fire for effect on both side's parts, meant to make everyone keep their heads down.

The stray thought that either Sark hadn't been as disoriented as he projected or the adrenaline rush had cleared the blond's head fast flitted through Vaughn's brain.

Weiss was on the floorboards, curled into a defensive ball, chanting, "Not again, damn it, not again!" over and over.

Vaughn twisted around and spotted their driver, crouched by the nose of the van. He still had his rifle at his shoulder, snapping off a shot at any glimpsed movement. The volume of fire had fallen away. Sark—or Sydney—returned fire only enough to hold the stand-off. In the comparative silence, hot metal pinged, steam still sizzled from the Land Rover, and Vaughn could hear his breath saw in and out.

"The rest of the team's moving in, sir, they'll be here in three," the driver rasped. He never raised his eyes from his sights, kept his weapon aimed at the Land Rover and waiting for an opportunity to shoot. "The whole op's gone from sugar to shit. Taylor's KIA thanks to the old spook flipping on us. Can't believe he did that. We've just got to hold on, though. Our guys'll take 'em out."

"Is there a spare weapon?" Weiss asked hoarsely, crawling forward and catching Vaughn's eye.

"Under the driver's seat, sir. Welcome to the devil's dance."

"Yeah, thanks, just forget my invite next time," Weiss muttered. He slipped his hand under the seat and pulled out a mini-submachine gun.

"Better put that on three-shot," the soldier advised matter-of-factly. "Otherwise you'll waste the whole clip on one squeeze."

Vaughn cocked his head, trying to identify the hum he heard over the van's engine. It was getting stronger.

"Yeah, yeah." Weiss hit the middle selector between single shot and auto, though.

The harsh, encompassing throb of helicopter rotors rushed through the air. Vaughn felt the heavy vibration in his bones and snapped his head around, looking for the choppers. That was what he'd been hearing. His stomach dropped. The Agency didn't have any helos tasked to this op. The Delta Force man knew that too and was cursing in a low monotone, "Shit, shit, shit, shit."

"I guess that isn't our ride," Weiss remarked.

It was a pair of Bell JetRangers, streaking in from out of the sun, black cut-outs against blinding light. The distinct outlines made the common type easily identifiable. The afterimages made Vaughn blink. As the helicopters reached the stranded Land Rover, one settled toward the ground. The second rose and stationed itself above, whipping a hurricane of dirt and stones and bits of dry grass around its nexus.

"Aw, fuck me sideways!" their driver suddenly screamed, scrambling back. "Down, down, shit, they got a mini-gun!"

The hovering helicopter swung athwart their van and Vaughn glimpsed what had panicked the Delta Force soldier. In the open doorway, another mercenary stood straddle legged behind a door mounted mini-gun, aiming it at them. It began firing steadily, stitching the earth toward the van. Once the shells began hitting the van, it was going to be shredded.

Vaughn vaulted into the driver's seat, thanking God they'd left the van running, and nearly stripped the gears throwing it into reverse.

"Weiss, get him in here!" he commanded, slewing the steering wheel in an effort to give the soldier a little more cover. He felt suddenly very calm, detached from events. The soldier grabbed onto the open door frame on the driver's side and held on until Weiss wrapped his hands around the man's wrists and literally dragged him in over Vaughn's lap. Vaughn winced and kept the van backing up, his foot pushing the gas pedal to the floorboards.

The helicopter gunner kept the mini-gun working, following the van's retreat.

Behind them, four mercs flooded out of the second chopper, rushing to the three figures in the lee of the Land Rover.

Vaughn didn't let up on the gas or look away from the mirrors until they reached the entrance road to the airfield and the roar of the rotors and the lethal chatter of the mini-gun were fading into the distance. Then he U-turned the van like a Tennessee bootlegger and pushed it to the max, not caring that the van was skewed because of the flat, running on one rim, just heading for the safety of traffic and built up areas.

Beside him, Weiss was wide-eyed and white-faced, but only added the insouciant comment, "Well, that could have been worse, I suppose. I'm not dead."

Leaning in between the driver and passenger seats, the Delta Force soldier said, "Man, I can't believe that bitch had choppers on call."

Vaughn's mouth was too dry to say anything.

Drive On

Fuck. That was all Weiss could think afterward, as Vaughn tore the van across the airfield, the soldier behind him muttering obscenities as the vehicle bucked and shuddered. The second helicopter was following and that mini-gun was going to slice and dice them. Fucking hell.

When it gave up following them, he slumped in his seat and licked his lips.

He said, "Well, that could have been worse, I suppose. I'm not dead."

Mike looked wild eyed, dirty, and traumatized. He didn't answer, just kept driving, heading into downtown wherever. Weiss could see minarets. He figured they were somewhere in the Middle East, with the heat and the Muslim architecture. He didn't care at the moment. The van kept lurching to the right and Vaughn would correct. His hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

The soldier he'd pulled into the van said something, but Weiss paid no attention.

All he could see was Sark, hollow-eyed, ghost pale and bruised, melting against Sydney before the firefight started, and Jack Bristow, lying on the ground, bleeding his life away afterward. The sound of helicopters, gunfire, and Sydney screaming would follow him into his dreams. He felt cold to the bone as he wondered what she would do if either of them died.

Sometime after they hit city traffic, he couldn't hold back any longer.

Still staring straight ahead through a windshield starred and cracked by bullets, he said in sheer disgust, "I cannot believe you shits did that."

Vaughn shook his head. "It wasn't supposed to be that way," he said. "I swear, Eric. Jack— God." He wiped a hand over his face and fell silent. "It just all went bad…."

"Kendall's orders," the soldier in back said.

"Yeah?" Weiss snapped. He glared at the man. "Next time he can get shot."

He settled into his seat and closed is eyes. Exhaustion, stress, and the adrenaline crash were wracking him. He didn't want to hear it.

"Fuck it," he muttered. "Drive on."

Safe and Sound

Sydney ignored the flying dirt, the wind, and the tearing sound of the mini-gun firing overhead. She was oblivious to the grit cutting into her knees and the chador twisted and hot over her face. The assault rifle she'd snatched from Sark had run dry an instant ago and she threw it down. None of that mattered.

"Which one of you is the medic!?" she screamed at the mercenaries that had off-loaded the first chopper and surrounded Sark, herself, and her father. "Get over here!"

Sol, one of her men from New York, sprinted from the chopper carrying a Red Cross stenciled case to where Sark crouched beside her father, trying to slow the bleeding. The Israeli skidded to a stop on his knees, already tearing open the medical kit.

"Hostiles at six o'clock," Garcia shouted. Tripper and Fix lifted heavy Galil rifles to their shoulders and began firing steady, mechanical groups in that direction along with him. The other chopper was still providing fire support against the reversing van.

Sol pushed Sark's bloodstained hands away from Jack's chest. Sark lost his balance and sprawled back and Sydney almost panicked, afraid he'd been wounded too. The blood she thought had come from her father might be his too.

"Jesus, what a clusterfuck," Tripper remarked at the top of his voice. The American didn't appear concerned; a feral grin parted his red-blond goatee. He pulled his Galil's trigger like a metronome. "Damn, I think I used to know some of these guys."

"So that's why they're shooting at us," Garcia joked from his station.

Sark had recovered enough to yell at Sol, but still lay back on his elbows. "It's in his lung!"

Sydney dropped to her knees beside Sark. "Are you hurt?" she asked urgently. He was shaking, coated in blood and dust, and didn't seem to hear her. He stared at Sol working over Jack. She shuffled closer to him, pulling him into her arms and checking desperately for wounds, saying his name over and over.

The shudders didn't stop, but his eyes turned to her. "Why?" he demanded hoarsely. "Why?"

"Damn it, Sark!" She shook his shoulders. "We don't have time for this! —Are you hurt?"

"No," he replied and pulled away from her as though burnt.

"Then get on the chopper," she said, returning her attention to her father. Jack was still and scarlet everywhere and Sol was working over him desperately. Sark didn't move, just watched, still stunned by what Jack had done.

Sol looked up, finding Sydney. "This guy needs to be in a trauma center, Princess."

"Fine," she snapped. "Let's go."

Sark made it to his feet, unsteady but on his own, and scooped up the medical kit as Sol and Sydney hefted Jack between them and headed for the waiting chopper at a stumbling, laden trot. Fix vaulted inside and helped hand Jack's limp body up. Sol went in after him, then Sark, and Sydney.

"We're gonna be overloaded!" Fix shouted, waving off the other two mercs. "Drover'll have to pick you up!"

Garcia and Tripper nodded and fell back to cover. An instant later, the pilot lifted the chopper and pushed the single engine to max power. The second chopper looped back and hovered just long enough for the last two men to bolt onboard, then followed the first away.

Sol grabbed Fix's fatigue-clad leg and shouted at him, "Tell Hack to radio the nearest hospital with a trauma team we've got a scoop and run GSW shock case with a tension pneumothorax. Have him give them our ETA and tell him to push it."

"Hell, Hack don't speak Arabic that good," Fix yelled back.

"I'll do it," Sark offered.

Fix reached down and locked his hand around Sark's forearm and drew him up. "You okay?" the mercenary asked, taking a good look at the object of the entire op.

"I speak Arabic fluently," Sark answered evasively.

Fix shrugged and helped him into the cockpit of the JetRanger.

Sydney ripped the chador off and let it fly out the open side of the helicopter, then crawled closer to Sol, who was bent over her father's supine form. She'd found a radio headset like the rest of them wore. "Keep him alive," she ordered after donning it.

Sol glanced up curiously. Sydney wondered what he saw on her face. Was the horror, the terror and pain and fear written there for anyone to read? Or did she wear the smooth mask of nothingness that Sark and Irina donned in combat?

"Doing my best," was all Sol said.

"I'll double your pay," she offered.

"Sure, why not?" The Israeli delved in the kit Sark had dropped on the deck and pulled out an ambu bag and mask. He put it on Jack's face and began bagging him, a steady pattern of squeeze and wait, squeeze and wait, counting out loud, that helped the man breathe.

Fix half-carried Sark back from the cockpit and let him down beside Sydney. Sark leaned close and yelled over the rotor sounds, "They'll be waiting for him on the roof of the hospital, Sydney. It has a landing pad."

She summoned a smile. "Thanks." She groped for and found his hand with her free one and squeezed. Sark laced his fingers into hers.

He still looked shocky and as pale as Jack; painted with the man's blood, his hand was sticky and cold. He locked his eyes on Jack and didn't even look up when Fix draped a fatigue jacket over him, only murmured, "Why did he do it? I don't understand…He should have shot me, not saved me." Complete incomprehension colored his words.

"My father does what he wants," Sydney said.

"I don't understand why he would want to, though," Sark said plaintively. Then he said, "I'm sorry."

She shook her head.

"I told you, he does what he wants."

He nodded, eyes going glassy, and then just folded up. Sol glanced up, cursed, and ordered Sydney to take over bagging Jack while he checked Sark. After a brief, intense examination Sol sagged back on his heels.

"He's okay for now. Exhausted, fucked up, but stable. You need a real doc to take a look at him, but I think we better keep him on the chopper when we drop off the spook. Orders were to get you and him to Bern soonest."

Sydney grimaced but didn't argue the sense of it. Her father would have to go into surgery. They couldn't wait around for him to come out. Someone else would have to extract him once he could be moved. She just hoped the CIA didn't catch up to where they were leaving him before that. The Israeli took over bagging Jack again and Sydney pulled Sark into her arms until they reached the hospital.

Twenty minutes later, they lifted again, flying fast for the airfield where the Organization's jet waited. Sark was conscious again, silent and wary and armed thanks to Fix, who had provided a SIG and a holster for it. Sydney couldn't read what went on behind his blue eyes. The mercs were quiet but satisfied, looking forward to the bonuses Irina had promised them for getting the two primaries out unscathed.

None of them slept until they left Turkish airspace after the bribed airport officials cleared them through customs. Instead, the mercs joked and cleaned up, running down the op in an informal debrief and commenting on the jet's luxurious interior, availing themselves of the galley and the washroom. Sark watched them warily while they paid court to Sydney as the only woman available, but she had control of them all. Sydney curled herself next to him on the butter-smooth leather seat and went quiet, still worrying about her father.

Of course, the conversation turned to Jack and his unexpected choice.

"Who was that old guy?" Fix asked.

"I thought he was CIA, but then he went cowboy on that Delta guy's ass," Tripper commented. "Maybe he was working for the Dragon Lady the whole time?"

The seven mercs all perked up. They'd worked for Derevko on ops before, dubbing her the Dragon Lady. The New York assassination had been funneled to them through the same contacts the Organization used, though Princess had handled the details. Then they'd been called off the next hit and sent to Turkey to ride shotgun on the prisoner exchange. Derevko had personally ordered them to get Princess and the blond back in one piece. That made them more than interested in how it all tied together.

Sark chuckled, the first sound he'd made in some time. Sol studied him. The blond had pulled himself together again, even if the glue holding the pieces in place was still a little weak. Laughter was a good sign. They didn't need a trained killer having a meltdown in the enclosed spaces of an aircraft halfway over the Balkans.

"You know something 'bout all that?" Silo asked. Sol shook his head at his work partner. The big man didn't stop to think someone just out of interrogation probably wouldn't want to be answering many questions. Deep thought wasn't his way. He let Sol handle that end of the job.

"Many things," Sark replied. "For one, that man has never worked for Irina. He is CIA. Unshakably, I had thought."

"You work for Derevko, though?" Sol and Fix hadn't missed how Sark used the woman's first name so casually.

"Yes," Sark said curtly, withdrawing again.

Tripper said, "She's one hot, hot mama."

Sydney began snickering almost hysterically. These guys were talking about her mother. Sark raised an eyebrow at her, but she just shook her head. He subtly shifted away from her.

"More like cold as ice, mano," Garcia interjected. "La Senora can freeze your cojones off with a look."

Sydney felt another giggle slip out. "That old guy is my father," she said. "She's married to him."

Even Tripper was silent in response to that revelation. Fix enunciated quietly, "Son of a bitch."

"So Irina Derevko is your mom?" Tripper asked.

"Yes."

Tripper started laughing. "If Drover had known that when he put the moves on you, shit, he woulda pissed his pants!"

"Hey," Fix asked, "Is she going to be torqued over your dad getting shot? Because you told us to not to come in unless someone started shooting."

"She's very practical," Sydney said carefully. "She won't let her feelings interfere with anything. Don't worry."

"Cold, like I said," Garcia muttered. The mercs settled in and began talking among themselves.

Sydney watched Sark as he finally closed his eyes and sank into a restless sleep. Nothing in his posture encouraged her to touch him again. His arms were folded around his ribs and his legs drawn up in a half fetal ball.

Sol saw her looking. He nodded at Sark. "That one's ice, too. But not like Derevko and you."

"I don't understand."

The Israeli considered her and shook his head, retreating.

She should have felt happier. Sark was free, safe and sound. Except for Kamal and her father, they had taken no casualties. Jack would survive; the doctors had assured her before she left the hospital. It had been a successful operation.

She should have felt exhilarated and relieved, but this victory left her with a taste like ashes in her mouth.

"I am not like Irina Derevko," Sydney whispered to herself.

III. Burned Out

Rope Burns

Irina greeted Sydney and Sark as they arrived at the clinic. She surveyed him as he exited the limo that had whisked them from the airport, oblique Slav eyes estimating the damage even as she smiled warmly.

The clinic itself was familiar. Sark had been there more than once. It had been constructed to appear as an ordinary, if extensive, Swiss chateau. The Berner Alpen rose to the southeast, sheer and beautiful as only mountains can be. The landscaped grounds stretched far enough to shield it entirely from the public roads. Security details discreetly covered the front gate and electronic counter-measures were built in place. It was as safe as the Cyprus compound. Once inside, they could relax their guard for once.

Sydney suffered an embrace from her mother, smiling back awkwardly and telling Irina that things had gone horribly wrong and Jack was in a Turkish hospital with a gunshot wound. Sark met Irina's eyes over Sydney's shoulder. A flicker of surprise, perhaps even concern, showed, then Irina had control again. He blanked his expression. He did not want her to see how confused Jack's actions had left him.

Once Sydney had withdrawn from her, Irina stepped close enough to touch him. Her hand was warm against his cheek. He let his eyes close and concentrated on the sensation for an instant. Those long fingered hands had tended his hurts before. And caused them, he reminded himself.

"Sark," Irina said.

He opened his eyes and met her speculative gaze without flinching. "You'll need to know what I told them, won't you?"

"A short debriefing," Irina agreed.

"I imagined you would insist," he said apathetically.

"It's necessary."

"No!" Sydney protested.

"Damage control, Sydney," Irina reminded her. "Sark understands."

He nodded wearily.

He let Irina guide Sydney away as two of her security contingent flanked him and escorted him into the clinic's interior. The SIG the mercenary on the plane had provided was a comforting weight of body-warmed metal holstered at the small of his back. Someone would be hurt if anyone tried to separate him from it. He preferred a Glock, but right then he loved that SIG Sauer pistol. It was his measure of control.

Two days later, he returned to himself enough to again recognize that he was no longer in CIA custody and instead 'recovering' at the Bern clinic. He was safely in a comfortable bed, the SIG in its holster lying on the nightstand next to the bed along with a pitcher of water and a cut crystal glass. His mouth was painfully dry. He poured a glass of water appreciatively and then sipped it slowly out of respect for his empty stomach.

Sark tentatively got to his feet, feeling for his balance. He felt light headed, but better than he had. The bedroom he stood in appeared to be part of a suite he'd occupied before, after enduring arthroscopic surgery to repair a damaged knee. He felt a vague surprise that Sydney wasn't with him.

He found the washroom as he remembered it and indulged in a long, hot shower, endeavoring to scrub away the memory of every indignity he had endured. The steaming spray soothed aches he'd grown so accustomed to he hadn't been aware of them until they faded. He was lucky he hadn't languished in CIA custody longer than he had, or he would have started to lose muscle mass as well as tone. Instead, he was merely underweight and shaky. That was easier to remedy. The bullet wound had almost healed entirely.

There were fresh IV marks along the insides of his arms. Klein and his close-mouthed associates had efficiently drawn out everything Sark had told the CIA, using their own drugs to ascertain that they learned all of it. He felt rather like they had vacuumed out his skull.

Wrapped in a thick white towel, with water trickling down his back from his wet hair, Sark wandered back into the bedroom and checked the closets. As he'd expected, someone had stocked a wardrobe for him, including everything from Hugo Boss to comfortably nameless jeans, black combat fatigues and an assortment of shirts from his favorite tailor in London. Irina, he deduced. She had a mind for the details that made or broke the most complex operations. She could be quite thoughtful when it served her and dressing him well had always seemed to please her.

A nearby highboy held underclothes, kitten-soft sweaters, T-shirts, and a set of silk pajamas. That last item amused Sark. Irina knew he slept raw when he had his way. The pajamas would be Sydney's idea. She was far more inhibited than her mother.

He dressed in jeans and a loose white shirt, and then ventured into the suite's main room. It was late morning and the windows showed off a magnificent vista. Sark lingered for an instant over the prospect, but found his growing hunger and desire to find Sydney pushing him onward.

"Sydney," he rasped, pleased when he found her curled on a sofa, reading. He leaned over the back and looked to see what had her so intent.

Sark smiled as Sydney tipped her face up. "Hello."

"Hello," she said, lifting one hand from the book to set trembling fingers against his lips. He kissed them gently, and then caught her hand in his.

"Roethke?"

"I like this one."

"So do I," he murmured and quoted:


Sydney laughed and twisted to kneel on the sofa and kiss him as he leaned over its back.

"So you love me?" she asked.

He whispered another piece of the poem instead of answering:


"I suppose that's enough," Sydney said.

"Virtues are expensive things, I think," Sark said solemnly.

Sydney laughed, then said prosaically, "The doctors said you might not wake up until later this afternoon." She studied him before asking, "Are you hungry?"

He shrugged gracefully. "Will you eat with me?"

"Of course."

"—It wasn't as bad as you thought, you know," she said later, over the meal the staff had delivered in response to a phoned request. Sark looked up from his plate and raised an eyebrow. "What wasn't?"

"What you told the Agency. Mom gave me a transcript of your debrief. You didn't tell them very much."

"I can't remember all of it. That's what bothers me."

"I know."

She went back to her meal and Sark picked at his food silently.

"My father's here."

"Here."

"Mom got him out of Turkey. I think she marched into the hospital, told them she was his wife, and carted him out before anyone could recover their bearings," Sydney explained.

Sark chuckled. Irina was perfectly capable of acting with such chutzpah.

"I'd like to ask him why he did that," he said later.

"You can."

She giggled nervously.

He raised an eyebrow. Sydney shook her head, smiling. "It feels so strange, to have you here, and my father, and Mom, all together. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Ah."

"Yeah, I know that's paranoid."

Sark took her hand and held it. "Paranoia is a survival mechanism for people like us."

"Just once, I'd like to accept something at face value, though," Sydney said. "I want to be able to trust. It isn't insane to want to trust your parents, Sark."

He drew back. "I wouldn't know."

"I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry for, Sydney. I simply don't feel any loss over what I never had," he said. "Your father did more for me in Istanbul than mine ever would have. —I suppose I should thank him for that."

"I want you to be friends."

Sark laughed. "I think you're asking a little too much of both of us, Sydney. We might manage a qualified truce, though."

She smiled brilliantly. "I'll go talk to him."
 

Still The Same

Irina's visit seemed a given since Jack was now ensconced in a clinic controlled by her Organization. Sydney had explained that it was Irina who flew to Turkey the day after the exchange and extracted Jack from the Turkish hospital. She'd even explained where they were, adding that Sark was in residence too.

She'd left to fetch the blond when Jack agreed to speak with them both. She'd kissed him on the cheek and said only, "Thanks, Dad." The glow of her smile had warmed Jack as nothing else could have, balancing the corrosive regrets that were already springing up in his mind.

So he knew Irina was somewhere close by and guessed she wouldn't leave him alone too long. Facing her again was one of the consequences of that irreversible decision he'd made in Istanbul. Faced with a choice of loyalties, between the Agency he'd served and the daughter who gave his life meaning, he had committed himself. It pained him more than the healing wound in his chest, but Jack refused to regret the choice. He couldn't, because he would do it again. How Irina would use that was the question. He would have to be at the top of his game when he faced her.

Irina knocked and waited for his invitation, a courtesy move none of the staff ever observed. She'd assumed a soignée, business executive persona, dressed in a pencil thin charcoal skirt, gun-metal gray silk shell and tailored jacket, all of which whispered tastefully of French couture and money. So did the black Tahitian pearls, the Italian heels, and her long, painted fingernails. With her hair in a chignon, a pair of silver wire-rim glasses perched on her sculpted nose, Irina looked nothing like a gun-wielding killer. She probably wore the outfit just to reassure the Swiss at the clinic that they were dealing with someone civilized.

Jack knew better. Irina wasn't civilized at all. Sophisticated, educated, brilliant, she was all of those, but she had the mindset of Attila the Hun. Irina was a conqueror without moral or personal scruple. In another age, she might have risen to rule a nation alongside Catherine the Great or Elizabeth the First. She was a terrifying mélange of beauty, acumen, and ruthlessness. And even so, he couldn't stop looking for the woman he'd married in her.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, so surreally normal he wanted to check if he was still on a morphine drip and dreaming. The curve of her smile was Laura's smile, but the knowing eyes gave her away.

"Well enough," he said shortly.

"Are you supposed to be up?" She hovered near where he sat as though ready to offer succor if he should need it.

"I haven't fallen over yet."

"Well, who am I to argue?" Irina murmured and gracefully seated herself nearby. Jack bit back a snide comment. She smiled, knowing him well enough to see that.

"What will you do, Jack?" Irina asked

"Find some quiet hole and pull it in after me."

"What a waste that would be, if you could ever do that," she said.

Jack rubbed his chest carefully, trying to ease an itch near the edge of the stitched up incision. "I'm too old to keep getting shot like this," he said.

"You don't have to work in the field. We could leave that to Sydney and my young wolf."

Jack made a sound of disbelief and amusement. "Are you offering me a place with the Organization?"

"Why not?" Irina smiled. "I know you, Jack. I know just how valuable you could be. I'm sure Arvin Sloane would snap you up if he thought you would work with him again."

He shook his head. "Can you see me working for Sloane after doing everything I could to bring him and SD-6 down? No. And I'll never work for you either. I could never trust you."

Irina sighed, leaned forward, and stroked his arm. "Can we never get past the past, Jack? Not even for Sydney's sake?"

He shook off her touch. "No. This isn't about the personal betrayals between us, Irina. My problem with you is operational. You're too quick to sacrifice your players where it's expedient. —That's what you did to Sark, isn't it? Set him up, unknowing, so the Agency would discover exactly what you wanted them to know?"

"Sark was betrayed from within the Organization," Irina replied. "A man named Parnell, who has since been dealt with."

"Oh, I'm sure you have a believable story to feed Sark. Then you'll let him convince Sydney. You don't want her to find out what you did. She wouldn't forgive it."

"Sydney and I have a better relationship than you believe, Jack."

"No, you don't," he contradicted her viciously. "Sark talked to me in Belfast. She still hates you, though helping get Sark back has probably won you a few points. You'd lose them if she knew the truth."

"Are you threatening me, Jack?" Irina asked with that feral curiosity of hers.

"What do you want, Irina?" he asked. He lifted a hand and indicated the well appointed suite he occupied. The necessary medical equipment had been integrated into a comfortable and handsome interior that avoided the hospital look completely. "This is considerably better than a prison infirmary, but I'd like to know what it's going to cost me."

An expression of regret mixed with relief crossed Irina's face. She raised her chin slightly. "No charge, Jack."

He eyed her suspiciously.

"Sark…Sark is valuable to me," she said eventually, looking away. "And losing him would have hurt Sydney very deeply."

"The second part of that I believe, but I doubt you would have set up his betrayal if you valued Sark so much," Jack said bluntly.

Irina gave him a coy look. "I had confidence he would survive."

"You're a piece of work."

"He's never disappointed me yet."

"It's a wonder he's even sane after what you and Geoffrey Eliot did," Jack snapped in disgust. "I suppose interrogation by the CIA didn't compare if he could survive that. How old was he when you sent him to the KGB in Odessa?"

"So you know about that?" True surprise colored her tone. She shrugged. "—Old enough. He was an apt pupil."

"Do you feel anything real at all?" Jack felt sick and didn't think it was from his wound. He kept talking, using his voice to muffle the sound of the door opening, as Sydney guided a less than steady Sark inside his room. Jack kept his gaze on Irina. "Not for me," he clarified, "but for Sydney or Sark?"

The two in question froze just inside the doorway. Sydney's eyes were wide, her mouth open to speak some protest or question, but the words died unspoken as they waited for Irina's answer. Sark listened with fierce interest.

"Sydney is my daughter too, Jack," Irina said. Looking at her, Jack thought she did perhaps feel the love she professed for their daughter, but with Irina emotion wasn't enough. She might even feel genuine fondness for Sark, but it hadn't stopped her from using him as ruthlessly as she would have an enemy. "I care very much for her happiness," Irina went on. "If I hurt her, it is not because I want to—you of all people should understand that."

He did understand that. He had made so many mistakes with Sydney, all in the cause of protecting her. None of it had served in the end.

"And Sark?"

He couldn't look to see how this affected the young operative. If he did, Irina would see and know someone was behind her. Jack knew the man was hearing everything though. That would be enough. Sark would put the pieces together. Once he did, he would walk away from Irina Derevko without looking back and Sydney would be free of the last tie to her mother. Jack didn't know what the two would do, but he felt sure they had a better chance at a long and happy life away from Irina's games.

"My wolf," Irina said musingly. Her lips curved into that secretive smile. "As I said, Sark is valuable to me. He brought Sydney to me, though he has become somewhat…independent since initiating that relationship. I'm pleased to have him back."

"Do you even hear yourself?" Jack asked. "They don't belong to you, Irina. They're real—not chess pieces. Kendall would have kept Sark drugged and hurting until there was nothing left but a whimpering vegetable. How do you justify that?"

Irina shrugged gracefully. "I thought he would show a trifle more survival instinct and strike a deal. Some of Sydney's idealism seems to have affected him, unfortunately. And the bodyguard exceeded his orders. He was to see Sark was captured, not try to kill him."

"I can't believe you did that!" Sydney exclaimed.

Irina spun and looked at her two top operatives in shock. "Sydney, I—"

"Shut up. Just shut up, I don't want to hear it," Sydney hissed. She was pale and trembling, fury and pain making a taut mask of her face. Her eyes were wild and dark. Jack didn't know if she would have attacked Irina or fled the room if she hadn't still been supporting Sark.

Sark was ashen-faced, his mask of indifference and boredom shattered for the moment. He stared at Irina wordlessly after taking in one hard, hitched breath.

"Sark," Irina said desperately. She stood and approached him, while Sydney tugged at his arm, trying to draw him away. Sark stood frozen. "Sark, it was the perfect ploy. I'm sorry, but I couldn't warn you: you had to believe you were giving them true information."

"He almost died!" Sydney shouted. "Was that part of your plan too!? He was shot because of you—on your orders. God, over and over again, you've asked me to trust you, but every time, you lie. I hate you. Every time." She glared at Irina. " I. Will. Never. Forgive. You. For. This. Do you understand? Never."

Irina spared Sydney a sharp glance and a nod, but her attention was locked on Sark. Jack guessed why. Sydney might rant, but Sark was a killer. Even drugged and weak, he would be a formidable opponent if his control were to crack. Jack had wanted to drive a wedge between Sark and Irina, but a sick feeling told him he had miscalculated the damage he would do.

"Sark—"

Sark held up his hand and spoke at last, his tone conversational, thoughtful, and nearly amused. "So, it's true. I had considered the possibility, of course, and wondered how matters could have gone so thoroughly awry in Montreal. It's rather a relief to know the exact mechanics of my recent downfall. Perhaps I should even thank you for providing yet another lesson in just how foolish it is to trust anyone without reserve. I should have investigated the bodyguard you provided or hired my own, rather than relying on the Organization. I've grown too used to having Sydney at my back."

The arctic blue eyes shifted to Jack. "I had meant to thank you for my life," Sark said. A sardonic smile twisted his mouth. His gaze weighed Jack and found him wanting too. "But now I realize you were merely furthering your own agenda, weren't you? If you saved me, or even appeared to try, you won your place back with Sydney. And now that you've revealed to us Irina's duplicity in this manner, you've separated Sydney from her quite efficiently."

"It wasn't that calculated," Jack protested.

Sark raised and eyebrow. "No?"

"No."

Sark studied him for a long moment, but at last nodded. "So this—" his gesture took in the room, Jack's wound, and the confrontation, "—was just a target of opportunity?"

"I'm afraid so."

Irina pivoted on her heel and narrowed her eyes at Jack. "I underestimated you, Jack," she murmured in a dry tone.

Jack ignored her and met Sark's gaze steadily.

"I see." Sark shrugged. "I suppose I would have done much the same, if there were an advantage in it for me."

Sydney was looking at Jack, accusation in her eyes. "Is that true?"

Jack looked at his daughter and felt tired and helpless. She wouldn't listen to him, no matter what he said. Yes, she had a right to feel betrayed by her mother. But she needed to look at the man beside her and see what this had done to him. If she didn't, she was going to lose her lover. The blond was retreating inside himself, shutting down his emotions and re-erecting his defenses. Jack knew, he knew because he'd done the same thing after learning the truth of who and what his wife was and had really been and her subsequent, 'apparent' death.

"Is what true, Sydney?" he asked.

"Did you get Mom to admit what she did just to—to manipulate me yourself?"

Jack lowered his eyes.

"You're as bad as she is," Sydney accused.

"Jack didn't engineer this situation," Irina said unexpectedly. "Though he didn't hesitate to take advantage of it."

"There's nothing you could ever say to me I would believe now," Sydney snapped. "You're a liar and manipulator and you've used and tricked me for the last time. I feel sick when I think of being your child. You—"

Sark's hand on her arm stopped Sydney's tirade. He asked Irina quietly, "Please tell me that this gambit was successful?" The anguished need to know that his suffering, his betrayal, hadn't been for nothing was unsaid but clear.

"Perfectly successful. The CIA has no doubt of the veracity of the data generated from your 'debriefing.'"

Sark turned his face away. The pride in Irina's voice must have cut through him like a blade. He flinched away from Irina when she tried to touch him.

She stilled, her eyes widening. Had Sark never drawn back from her before, Jack wondered. Could she only now be realizing what she had sacrificed? It gave him a grim sort of satisfaction to see Irina dismayed.

Sydney's anger with her was expected. Irina had survived it before. But Sark's silent rejection seemed to be a surprise.

"Sark," Irina whispered. "Sark, it wasn't supposed to be so bad. I—I thought you would strike a deal with them."

He nodded.

"Galya—"

Sark's head snapped back as though he had been struck. His eyes were wide and almost blind. He tore himself away from Sydney's hold too and fled the room.

"Oh, fool," Irina said in Russian, looking after her protégé with true regret in her eyes.

"Stay away from us," Sydney said to both of them and left Jack and Irina alone in a silence that echoed with her condemnation.

Salomé

He was on one of the plush sofas, bare feet curled under him, staring out the clinic window again. Sydney wished it didn't hurt so much to see him like that. His eyes were as blue and empty as the sky over the Berner Alpen, still so beautiful he made her catch her breath, but he wasn't there.

He had gone away somewhere inside after listening to Irina explain her scheme to Sydney's father. Shut down and shut everyone out. Sydney hadn't understood how far inside his defenses Sark had let her until he pushed her away too. Oh, it hurt to be on the outside again.

Sydney joined him, not sitting too close, because he had displayed a marked distaste for any contact since their arrival at the Bern clinic. She sat quietly until he looked away from the window and faced her.

"Do you want me to go away, Sark?" she asked.

A small head shake relieved her. Moving slowly, she slid closer and picked up his hands. He let her, watching. Sydney stroked her thumbs over the backs of his hands, feeling the tendons and the fine bones under smooth skin. Sark's head dipped, his eyelids lowered, eyelashes shading his eyes darker. He turned his hands so they slid along Sydney's, palm to palm.

She caught her breath as he traced one finger, feather light, in the hollow of her palm, once, twice, and then trailed it past the heel of her palm to the thin, sensitive skin over her wrist. Sark knew every pulse point, every nerve cluster, what tickled and what burned. With just that touch he could strike a spark through her from her skin to her center. He always made her want more.

The half smile she loved best, the one that showed all his concentration was bent on her and only her, was back after too long an absence.

Briefly, she considered stopping long enough to lock the door into the suite, but then decided to hell with it. If one of the clinic's staff walked in and had a seizure there were plenty of doctors to see to them. Then Sark had his mouth on her and she gave up on thinking for a while.

Sark leaned closer to her, until they were tucked as close to each other as they could be while still clothed. Through the thin cotton shirt, she could count his ribs and the bones of his spine as she ran her hands down his back. Sark's hands, those clever, clever hands, were under her shirt, smoothing over her sides up to her breasts, only to halt and wander down again. "Bastard," she murmured against the hollow at the base of his throat. She let her own hands stray further down, teasing just under the waist band of his jeans. He shifted his hips into hers, an unconscious movement that Sydney matched.

Sark tugged her zipper down. Sydney occupied herself with his collar bone, tasting him there, the faint traces of soap and salt and the underlying taste that was Sark. No cologne, he never wore it except for a mission.

"Sydney," Sark murmured, mirth and lust mingled in his voice. "Sydney?"

"Hmn?"

He tugged at her jeans. "Some help?"

She rose up obligingly and he slipped her jeans and panties off expertly. Once he had done that, she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it open, commanding, "Off." Sark raised an eyebrow, smiled, and shed the shirt, dropping it over the back of the sofa.

Then he waited and she knew he was waiting for her reaction; the smile on his face didn't, couldn't, hide that if he saw rejection this would be over.

Oh, God, he was thin. There were scars along his arms from the IVs. The muscle was still there, but every ounce of spare flesh had burned away in the crucible of the interrogations. Pale as ivory skin, the sun gold kiss almost lost, but still he was so elegantly made anyone would want him.

Sydney knew he could read everything on her face, so she let him see the desire and admiration she felt and used it to hide her rage. There would be time to repay everyone who had hurt him, later. That included her mother. For now, she wanted her hands on him, holding him close, showing him every pleasure she'd learnt from him.

Sark was hers and no one would take him away again.

"Sydney?"

She stripped her top off; arching her back as she lifted her arms over her head, just to see the way his eyes followed the movement then settled on the black bra she wore.

"Things are still a little…uneven…here," she said with a nod at his pants.

He grinned at her.

"Do something about it."

She did.

Later, she found his wrists, wanting to guide his hands back to her breasts, only to feel him tense. Her fingertips found the tender flesh where manacles had bitten deep.

"Don't," he whispered.

"Shhh," Sydney soothed. She had been bound down. She knew the helplessness. She knew the memories were still too sharp, that even when they seemed faded, they would return in his dreams, as hers did. Hamlet had had it right. Were it not for dreams… 

She traced the invisible marks with feather touches, soothing, as delicate as his fingers had ever been on her. Slowly, the rigid reaction eased, but she carefully did not try to direct his movements again.

She kissed him and followed, letting Sark lead, matching the pace he set but not competing with him. This was no contest between them. Winning at the cost of her partner would be losing. She wanted him to lose himself in her, to sink into her and stop thinking. It was the gift he'd given her from the first and she wanted Sark to have it too.

Words wouldn't work with him. He'd never given them to her. He wouldn't want them. Touch was the language of Sark's emotions, a secret code he'd given her the key to decipher. She traced the patterns of his pleasure, relearning his body, learning the new pains and scars. This and this, still heated him, but here he shuddered instead of reciprocating, and she knew the damage was deep. This wasn't just a few weeks in an interrogation cell, this was old wounds opened and festering again. But still, their flesh fired for each other and she found new ways to reach him.

Sark hummed softly, kissing her temple with soft lips, and those hands … Sydney returned his caresses, enjoying sleek skin and lean muscle moving with smooth power, intent on making him purr.

Sydney loved when she could make him do that, make him hum with pleasure, because he was an almost silent lover by preference. He could and would be exactly what she wanted in bed most of the time. The first few times with him had been mind-blowing, a virtuoso performance. It hadn't been until later that she understood how much of a performance it was. Sark had been trained to please in bed. Trusting her enough to let go and show her what he wanted had been a different matter. But once he had let go of his tight control, he was sleek and playful as an otter, as utterly sensual a being as she could imagine.

She wanted him to find that selfish freedom again.

She wanted, and for a little while she found, and Sark came with her.

They twined into each other afterward, luxuriant in the late afternoon light, not quite asleep, until inevitably Sydney found herself thinking again. Thinking of the damage and the one she blamed for it, her body tensing with anger until Sark sensed it and stirred and pulled away to silently dress.

Sydney followed suit only to find Sark had returned to staring out the window, leaving her to wonder if she'd touched him at all.

Burn the Bitch

Sark was speaking again, to Sydney and when pressed to the doctors and staff, but she didn't like anything he had to say. Or maybe it was what he wasn't saying. He wasn't saying anything about leaving the Organization.

Sydney couldn't understand it and was beginning to admit she didn't understand him.

Sark had become a cold, unfeeling stranger again. They'd connected briefly on the physical level, but no more. She couldn't read him. Couldn't reach him. The frustration was reaching explosive pressure.

She wanted him to be as angry as she was. He'd been betrayed, he should feel something. He wouldn't talk about, though. He wouldn't talk about the interrogation and he wouldn't tell her how he felt. Instead he was polite, conversational, and distant as the polar star. She knew he felt something; he hadn't been able to hide that. She was equally certain he didn't feel what she felt. But of what he did feel or think, she had no idea.

He hadn't shown any animosity toward Irina. He'd just walked away to lick his wounds in private. She'd thought he would let her help when they made love, but it seemed like that had been a way of appeasing her instead.

It wasn't enough.

Why didn't he see that Irina had done the unforgivable? His connection to her mother seemed unbreakable, which infuriated Sydney. He didn't belong to Irina anymore. She hadn't been about to let the CIA keep him and she wouldn't let her mother have him either. She was the one who got him back from the CIA.

Her thoughts kept spinning around that in a dizzying whirl. When they settled, when she looked at Sark and saw that he was still pale, drawn taut as a bowstring with stress, bruised and scarred; then the guilt would hit her. She should be more sympathetic, more understanding, and more patient.

Her patience was rapidly disappearing. She was going to make him talk to her.

Crash and Burn

Sydney paced across the cream and blue room like a caged thing and Sark watched her from the sofa. Exhaustion weighed him down or he might have gone and taken her into his arms. Holding Sydney was one of the pleasures of his life. One he wouldn't have much longer, unless he missed his guess.

"Damn it, I killed people to get you out of there!" she snarled suddenly.

"And if I haven't thanked you, I have been remiss," he murmured. It still seemed unreal. Not the CIA ordeal, which had been frighteningly real, but that someone, anyone, had rescued him. He had been ready, even expected, to die within CIA custody. He found himself dreaming of the Istanbul exchange nightly; only Jack Bristow shot him, or worse shot Sydney, in the dreams. No helicopters came because Irina had turned on him again.

Sydney whirled and stalked over to him.

"That's not it," she said. "It's my mother. If she hadn't been playing her damn games again, you wouldn't have needed help from me or anyone. People are dead and I killed them, because of her." She blinked back tears. "And because of me, because I'm her daughter; it's like some curse. Everyone I love—"

"That's not true," he interrupted her.

"Danny, Francie, Noah, Emily," she recited. "I'm like the kiss of death."

"Melodrama doesn't suit you, Sydney."

"Fine. None of it would have happened if Irina hadn't done what she did."

Sark cocked his head and laughed sardonically. "You're blaming Irina for everything that's gone wrong in your life? I suppose you blamed your father before you found out she was alive."

"Don't say any more, Sark. It was your damn asset who killed Francie and almost killed Will. And you were working for Irina then, just like now. She deliberately blew your cover going into Montreal. She's got some hold on you I've never understood—"

"That's a simplistic way of looking at the matter," he said carefully. That he had accepted what Irina had done did not mean he had forgiven her; he had chosen to avoid another display of uncontrolled emotion over what had happened, however. Irina's operational decisions he understood, though he deplored the consequences to himself. The fact was, it was done and over; he had survived as Irina had expected him to do.

Sydney's voice and temper shot up together. "Simplistic!?"

"What do you want me to say, Sydney?" he asked. This conversation left him unutterably weary. Sydney had been furious since Jack tricked Irina into revealing the truth. She had seethed and picked at it constantly, keeping her temper at a hot boil. When she wasn't angry, she was depressed and blaming herself. Sark just felt tired and disconnected.

"That you'll quit. That we'll walk away from the Organization and the money and the power and the games and my damned mother!"

He tried to sound amused. "You sound almost jealous, Sydney."

"It's her or me, Sark." She said it flatly and he knew it for an ultimatum that wouldn't be retracted.

He got to his feet. "No one walks out on this life we're in, Sydney. That's what you want though, isn't it? To not be who or what you are anymore? Well, this is all I am. I've never pretended to you. There's no other life for me."

"I don't want to live like this. I don't want to become like you and her."

"Then don't," he said indifferently.

"Would you have done it for me? Broken the rules and got me out if I'd been the one captured?"

Sark lied.

"No."

It was over. Everything was over, that fast, with one word. He'd never regretted his skill at dissimulation before. He made himself sick.

Her eyes were dark with hurt. She believed him. Irina would have seen straight through him. What did it say that Sydney didn't? She wanted to believe him, he saw, wanted to believe that he was less than her. He knew how to lie to her, how to hurt her; he could have twisted her perceptions the way Irina had his, but she should have recognized that he hadn't.

"There's something broken inside you, Sark."

He had no argument. The words wouldn't have hurt him from anyone else. Perhaps it was true. He found himself wanting to get away from her, before she did more damage. He wanted out of this room where they had made love again only a day before. More and more, he just wanted out. Sydney was everything he'd dreamed of in that cell but now he only wanted her to go away, to have silence inside and out and the safety of solitude.

He started to turn away. Sydney brushed past him. "Get out of my way, Sark." Anger and tears mixed in her voice. The pain made him flinch inside, but he gave nothing away.

He stepped aside so she could reach the door.

"May I ask where you intend going?"

"Away from you and her," Sydney said harshly. "As far away as I can get."

"We make an excellent team, Sydney. Do you want to give that up?" he asked. He hadn't let himself believe she would go. He'd just wanted her to learn to protect herself better. He'd needed time to accept what had happened to him, before taking the final step of severing ties with Irina. He had never had a better partner than Sydney, never loved anyone before her, but he had been with Irina since he was thirteen years old. In his fashion, he had always been loyal to her. He'd given much more than loyalty to Sydney though and thought she understood. He didn't want her to risk herself for him. He didn't want her to ask that of him. They both knew better, damn it.

"If that's all I am to you, yeah," she replied, lifting her chin defiantly. "I'm getting out while I've still got a piece or two left of my soul."

"Then there is really nothing left to say between us," Sark said. He tried to find the ice that had always protected him before, but it was gone. He'd warmed himself with Sydney's fire and now all his armor was lost. He was alone again, even standing in the same room with her. He looked at her, memorizing that beautiful face a last time, and then let her go. "Good bye, Sydney."

"Sark…"

"The money in the Singapore and Cayman accounts is yours. Do with it what you will; you have the access codes already."

"I don't want it. It's blood money."

He laughed softly. "It's all blood money, Sydney. Someone always bleeds for money. Don't think refusing the profit will undo the act performed to earn it."

"God, I could hate you. Do you have to be such a cold bastard?"

At last, a question he could answer honestly. "Yes."

"Fine, I'll take the damned money."

He ignored her and went on, "You should make your arrangements through my network, otherwise Irina will keep you tagged. —I assume you are leaving her employ as well as my company?"

"I hope I never see her lying face again."

"Yes, well…you know how to disappear as well as I do." He shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his slacks to keep from reaching for her. Instead, he crossed the room to the big window looking out on the Alps. Snow had fallen again last night, cloaking the peaks in clean white and the gorges in cool, blue shadows. He had already spent too much time staring out at them. He would never forget this particular view; its outlines were etched into his memory. Such a bitter contrast to what he felt.

"I wish it hadn't ended like this," she said.

He nodded, not looking back; if he looked back he would break and say anything to make her stay. This was better. He could trace her ghost form reflecting in the glass, but never touch her.

"Take care of yourself."

Too late, he decided, and, You won't like what I'm going to do, but you won't be here. You'd have to be here to stop me.

She lingered, unintentionally drawing the torture out. He wanted to yell at her to just go, if she was going to leave. He wanted to cross the room, grab her, and hold on until she knew she couldn't go. Instead, he held himself still, fists clenched in his pockets because his hands wanted to shake again. He had to hide that despised weakness, hide it or cut it out of himself.

"Sark, don't stay with her," she said intensely. "She'll just keep using you until you're destroyed."

"But we're alike, she and I, so you've said," he remarked. His voice was arid. "You've made your opinion of me, and Irina, abundantly clear. What else should I do, Sydney? —Or perhaps you think I could take a job with the CIA?" A nasty laugh escaped him and he turned to face her again. "Better yet, I'll apply to MI6 and my father. Wouldn't he be pleased to find out I'm alive and a wanted 'terrorist'."

"That might mean something to me if you had ever told me anything about yourself," Sydney snapped back.

"You wanted a cipher, Sydney, so that's what I made myself for you."

"That's not true…."

"I thought you knew everything that mattered," he said. He gestured to the door just behind her. "It doesn't matter now, does it? Let's just end it, before…"

"Before we make things worse?" she asked softly.

"Yes." He summoned a lopsided smile for her. She smiled back and he ached. His shaky composure held though.

"Good-bye, Sark."

"Good-bye, Sydney," he said again. He didn't want to, but he watched her leave the room. Then he watched from his window as a car took her away. He wondered if Sydney would ever understand that he had engineered the entire confrontation. If she did, would she guess why he had sabotaged himself so thoroughly? He barely understood himself.

He wouldn't be her Achilles' heel, the vulnerability someone used to bring Sydney down. He couldn't be whatever it was she wanted from a lover; not innocence, not an illusion, nor an absolute commitment that would subsume everything in her fire. That way lay destruction, if he hadn't already fallen too far. Nothing he'd had to offer would ever be enough and his lie had only given her the excuse she needed to leave.

Even while he'd played out the role, though, while he froze her out and sent her away, part of him hoped she would refuse to be pushed away. Part of him broke again when she went. There it was, proof of what he'd known since he was six: everyone goes away in the end.

It was hard to breathe. He thought the tight feeling in his throat might be what he'd felt when he'd cried as a small child. He couldn't really remember that now, though, and his eyes remained dry.

Perdida

He left his post at the window, no longer interested in the twilight creeping across the mountains or the stretch of private road that had afforded a last glimpse of the car taking her away. He could find out where she had gone, of course, but lacked any reason to think she'd welcome him if he followed. The room felt emptier than it should have, dim and heavy with growing shadows, something else hollowed out by her absence.

He'd made her his star to navigate by, his anchor, his raison d'être, but he had told her none of that. Weaknesses were to be hidden. Everything in his life had taught him that. He'd said nothing to stop her going, unable to summon even a single word, Don't, because of what it would reveal.

How contemptible, he thought. How fucking pitiful and pathetic he had become.

Disgusted with himself, Sark tried to stop thinking about Sydney.

He had a decision to make. He hadn't let Sydney push him into it, but it was time to choose whether he stayed within Irina's purview or quit the game. Not that it mattered much any longer. He'd already lost.

He'd been sufficient unto himself before. Surely he could find that strength again. He had only to go on and one day he wouldn't look for her or listen to hear her voice or ache to touch her again. He wouldn't need her anymore. Loving her was an addiction he had to kick.

Except he suddenly doubted he could.

He walked into the washroom and braced himself against the counter, staring at his reflection. His features were drawn finer than before, but remained acceptable. He evaluated each aspect objectively: blond hair in need of a cut, fair skin in need of some sun, a still fading bruise along his cheekbone there, blank blue eyes set in dark hollows from lack of sleep, smooth shaven jaw and chin, faintly lopsided mouth; he wasn't too changed physically. So why did the face he saw seem like a stranger's?

A pretty stranger, to be sure. He knew his talents and appearance well enough to feel confident he could attract a woman if he wanted her, or a man if he decided to try that side of the street. He didn't have to go to bed alone.

He knew he wouldn't bother.

He was getting out.

He thought of apologizing to Jack. Irina had arranged a second suite for the man, despite their animosity. He might be awake, if Sydney had stopped to tell him good-bye before she went. The man had been shot helping him and now he was going to do this. But an apology would necessitate an explanation if Sydney hadn't already provided one to her father, and Sark was too tired to face that ordeal too. Jack was sharp, he'd figure it out anyway.

It occurred to him to use the SIG in the bedroom, but guns were tools he'd used too many times to save himself. The memory of being shot was still too vivid as well. He didn't want to use a gun.

The bathroom was fully stocked though, like those in the most expensive hotels; with everything a guest might need supplied. He found a package of razor blades after just a moment.

He opened the package and set one of the blades on the white tile counter. The white all around him reminded him of the interrogation cell. At least this room had no cameras.

He rolled up his sleeves to his elbows. The needle tracks didn't bother him any more. It didn't matter if he looked like a junkie. None of it mattered.

He hadn't known it would hurt so much, feeling. It had to stop.

The razor blade slid through skin and flesh almost without resistance. He barely felt it. Crimson welled behind it, quickly dripping and splashing onto the white tile. He brought the razor down the vein longwise in a smooth deliberate cut.

The second cut was harder. His fingers were slick with blood and the blade wanted to slip. He managed anyway, letting the razor drop to the floor with a sharp ping as it hit the tile. The sound echoed through his head. A steady patter of blood followed.

He slumped back against the wall, already feeling light-headed. The bathroom was too white. Too red now. He didn't want look at his reflection in the mirror any more. He pushed away from the wall with a stagger, leaving a scarlet hand print behind, and stumbled back into the next room.

A dim glow from the clinic's grounds lighting came from the window, enough to navigate through the unlit room. Sark didn't make it that far though, before his legs folded under him. He found himself on the carpet not far from where Sydney had stood only a few hours before.

Sydney.

God, it hurt. But it would be over soon, he assured himself. He could let himself think of her now, of what he had lost along with her, because it was too late.

It had always been too late for him.

IV. Afterburn

Ash

Ashes.

That's what was left after the bridges were burnt. Ashes and two people left on opposite sides of the river, while the river relentlessly bore even those ashes away, until there was no evidence left that they'd once been connected.

Dead calm, he considered the blood pooling under him. The grayness edging his vision told him it was too much. Just a little while longer and the bleeding would slow and stop. Everything would stop.

He couldn't summon anything more than relief at the thought.

She'd gone. She'd left him here.

He couldn't feel anything anymore. He'd burned for her, burned up, been burned, and burned out. All he had left was the ashes. "There's something broken inside you, Sark," Sydney had accused. He hadn't had the will to argue with her.

"I don't want to live like this. I don't want to become like you and her."

"Then don't," he said indifferently.

How ironic, he thought, that in her escape she seemed to have confirmed her resemblance to the woman she claimed to abhor. Sydney had a talent for slipping away from the chaos she left behind her and Irina's knack for not looking back. No, he'd told her that: Don't look back.

He was ruining the expensive rug. The stains would never come up. He breathed in, the smell of carpet shampoo and dust filling his lungs. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The weave felt harsh beneath his cheek. Too late to move. He let his eyes close. He didn't care.

Someone else would have to clean the mess up.

Salt

"Something inside you is broken."

She did not consider herself a bitter woman.

She had sacrificed much in her life, things most women consider important. Her husband, her child, the life she had led with them had been left behind. She had regrets, only fools have no regrets, but they were for the necessities and not the acts.

She had not been so angry in years.

Her daughter was gone. Her protégé lay in one of the clinic's hospital beds, sedated and monitored and utterly useless. If she had walked into his suite a half hour later, he would have been in the morgue instead.

He wouldn't thank her for saving him. He hadn't before. And he'd done this to punish her, to show her that he rejected everything she had made of him. But this time it was not her fault, Irina reflected bitterly. What she had done, Sark accepted without recrimination. What Sydney had done…

What Sydney had done had broken him.

Her daughter had just walked away.

"Something inside you is broken."

She wanted to find Sydney and shake her, show her what Irina had found, the blood that had still been seeping sluggishly from his wounds, the absolute emptiness in his blue eyes. She would have found her daughter and forced her to face those things, if it would have served any purpose at all.

Instead, she sat in a rather uncomfortable chair beside Sark's bed. She wasn't the one he wanted there, but she wasn't the one who put him there either.

Of course, she wasn't there for his comfort. She needed to see he still breathed and hadn't escaped her. He was still hers.

All the sacrifice had left her with nothing but that. She had lost Sydney and now Sark had turned on her. But she wouldn't let him die.

"Something inside you is broken."

Sydney's words to Sark, overheard during that last argument. Ironic now. Irina would use them for Sydney, too. She thought that every man who loved her died. She'd almost made it come true.

But Irina had picked up the pieces before. She would do it again. It wouldn't be for Sydney, though. She wasn't ready to forgive Sydney.

She wasn't ready to forgive Sark, either. She was angry with him, too; for taking such a chance, if he had calculated someone would find him, and even angrier if he hadn't intended that. There was nothing to do about it, though. He lived. When he was stronger, she would teach him to guard himself better. Survival would be punishment enough for Sark.

Maybe it would be for Sydney, too.

"Something inside you is broken."

It might have been her heart.

Arsenic

"This is Ordinal. The first stage is complete."

The other man's skeptical rasp was unmistakable, even through the static-laden, encrypted connection. "Boy Scout reported you'd been shot."

"I'm better now."

"Watch your back. That wasn't part of the plan."

"But it established my cover beyond question."

"Derevko's clever, don't get over-confident."

"Derevko has other problems. I can use that. I know how to make myself indispensable."

"You never slept with Arvin Sloane."

A snort of laughter escaped him. "There are limits to what I will sacrifice for my country."

Matching laughter crackled through the phone line. "Yeah, I can see that."

"She's already offered me a place in the Organization," he explained. "I'll let her persuade me to take it."

"Why do I think you had this planned from the beginning?"

"Not all of it," he admitted

"Just don't get too creative. Remember the mission."

"I have more vested in destroying Irina Derevko than anyone else. I won't forget." He added, "Sydney's gone and Sark is…Sark is no longer part of the equation."

"What happened?"

"He opted out of the game. Permanently."

He'd seen a still body, stitched and bandaged in white, breathing shallowly. Irina had sat next to the bed, surprisingly close. But drawing breath didn't mean Sark would keep living. If that one wanted to die, he would find a way. And if he didn't, Irina had still lost him. It had mildly shocked Jack to realize Sark's attempt had cut Irina to the bone. But he wouldn't hesitate to use the window of vulnerability it provided.

"Terminal?"

He was pleased to have lost her two best operatives for Irina. Unfortunately, it looked like Sydney had lost Sark too. Jack regretted that. He despised waste. He despised the games that had pushed and pulled those two until something finally shattered inside.

"Yes."

He hoped he lied.

Alkali

The commercial flight arrowed west high over the dark Atlantic. She tried to read a magazine while ignoring the amorous banker in the next seat and was grateful when he finally fell asleep. Sleep wasn't something she would indulge in until she arrived on the ground and locked herself in a hotel room.

The magazine pages blurred before her eyes. She replayed what she'd said to Sark. She summoned the image of him in her mind's eye. He'd bitten his lip like an uncertain boy. She ached, remembering the silk texture of his fair hair, the way it curled at the nape of his neck, and the way it felt twined beneath her fingertips. He would close his eyes and let her map his face, tracing over his eyebrows, touching a tender eyelid, smoothing along a cheekbone, and stroking his lips until they opened in a silent sigh. 'Love is not love until love's vulnerable.' Sark had trusted her and loved her; it had always been there in the words he wouldn't say, if she had only listened, only opened her eyes.

She told herself he had never loved her or if he did, he was safer without her.

Sydney was good at lying. She was nearly as good at lying to herself.

But not that good.

She dug out the volume of Joyce poetry from her carry-on bag, the one she'd bought on a whim when she changed planes and IDs at Shannon. She opened it at random and read.


And she wept in bitter silence.