Cold
morning, sunlight in an empty blue sky, but the air still froze with
each breath. Frost rime glinted in the crisp-edged shadows, lingering.
Sark drove an open-topped jeep, unbothered by the temperature; he was
much like the bright winter morning, pale and fair and deceptively
chilly.
He could have forced Leonid to drive, but it was easier to let the doomed defector go on thinking he was on his way to the US in the company of Agent Hollier of the CIA for a while longer. Always easier to have victims move under their own power instead of wrestling around and disposing of a corpse. He wasn't squeamish, it was just easier to leave the dead where they lay. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other holding his encrypted sat-phone as he made a preliminary report. The jeep jounced and jolted over the pot-holed road, the suspension unforgiving even at the moderate speed Sark set. He kept his wording circumspect since Leonid was beside him, eyes wide behind gold-rimmed glasses, stiffened against the ride and looking panicky.
"Yes, sir," Sark told his contact. "I have the package. I'm proceeding to the rd now."
He listened while swerving cavalierly around a farmer and his donkey, never slowing down, leaving the bent man and emaciated animal in a boil of dust. Leonid clutched at the jeep's door and swung around to look behind them, his mouth swinging open.
Sark grimaced. "Give me the coordinates." He listened and translated them into the map he'd memorized for the op. "Yes. I can get there. Do I have a contact in place?"
Leonid was looking worried. Sark smiled at him, well aware it wasn't the most reassuring smile. Nothing was going to sooth the defector's nerves anyway. Leonid had gambled his life to get out of North Korea and away from the Covenant. He didn't know it yet, but he'd already lost. The man probably had some sense of events spinning out of his control, though. Enough of a feel to scare the shit out of him, if he wasn't even stupider than Sark thought.
He eased off the gas a little and turned the jeep onto a dirt trail that threaded them back into the hills, toward the site he'd been directed to check. "Lucky you sent me," he told his contact sarcastically. "What about the other?" The answer didn't please or displease him. It made things somewhat easier, though. "I'll take care of it."
He shut down the phone.
"Change of plans, my friend," he said, using both hands to steer the jeep now as they hurtled along rutted gravel paths. In the distance a haze of heat and dark smoke stained the placid winter sky. That was their destination. Maintaining the American accent didn't even take an extra thought. Once he assumed a cover persona, Sark never slipped unless he meant to. "A small detour. My superiors want me to check on something while I'm here."
"I don't understand," Leonid said. The jeep crested a hill and Sark slewed it to the side as the trail just stopped. It ended with the jeep turned three quarters around and one tire rocking into a ditch. Leonid screeched and clutched at the door and dash. Sark fished a set of binoculars out of a duffle bag in the backseat and focused on the scene in the valley below.
"Are you insane?" Leonid shouted at Sark once he had his breath back.
"Peppy enough for you?" Sark asked, otherwise ignoring Leonid.
"You are! You're mad!"
Sark focused the binoculars. Any humor he'd felt at Leonid's expense disappeared.
The wreckage stretched in a black, scorched streak down the valley. Pieces of wing were broken and impaled in a shattered stand of trees. Fire still flickered along the edges of the burn scar, eating slowly through damp, winter-faded grass. Korean army jeeps and several trucks were parked along the perimeter, guards stationed along the road into the valley, other soldiers picking through the wreckage. The reek of smoking plastics and burned aviation fuel clawed at the throat, even at a distance. Sark picked out a piece of the fuselage, part of the tail, and part of a jet engine. There. There were the plane's identification numbers, matching the ones provided to him.
"What–what is that?" Leonid asked nervously, squinting at the site of the crash.
"Plane crash," Sark said grimly. The small jet had cartwheeled in, shedding momentum in an abrupt and final manner that strewed pieces widely. If the passengers hadn't bailed before impact, they had died. Sark's mouth drooped at one corner. He hated waste. He dropped the binoculars onto the seat and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. He wasn't going to enjoy this. He climbed out of the jeep and gestured for Leonid to join him. "Come on, we're taking a closer look."
"Why? – No, I don't want to do this," Leonid said sulkily.
Sark turned cold eyes on him.
And I do?
"No," Leonid insisted. "I will stay here. I will wait."
Sark felt the last of his patience run out. He pulled a silenced gun and leveled it at Leonid.
"Now."
Leonid took a sharp breath and scrambled out of the jeep. He licked his lips. "You – you aren't CIA." Not a question. Sark resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
He pointed with the gun. "Down."
Leonid straightened his glasses nervously, then pushed his dark hair off forehead. Despite the cold, he was sweating. Sark watched him look longingly around. No help anywhere. Not the best idea to defect to an agency your organization has penetrated. Otherwise, Sark might consider it himself. Though not the CIA, their hospitality left something to be desired. When he disappeared, he wouldn't rely on anyone but himself. Anything more than one person knew wasn't a secret. But that would have to wait until he had a handle on retrieving his $800 million.
He twitched the gun to the side. Leonid shambled over to the edge of the track and started down. Sark picked his way after him.
"Why are we going down there?" Leonid wanted to know.
"We're not," Sark said. They were near the bottom of the valley, the air contradictorily cooler in the shadows and then warmed by the still spreading fires. Gusts of reeking smoke whipped away on a slowly rising wind.
Leonid was shaking.
"You're Covenant," he whispered.
Sark shot him.
The pphhht of the shot wouldn't carry beyond a few yards. The thud of the body hitting the ground was louder. The scrub and brush that shielded them from the soldiers below would conceal the body well enough. The Koreans could deal with it if they found it.
Leonid lay on the frozen earth on his back, limbs sprawled limply, gold-framed glasses askew. Blood trickled from the hole in his forehead and pooled in the hollows of his eye sockets; it steamed in the frozen air, wisps twisting up like the last remnants of a soul escaping its cage.
The pistol went back in its holster and Sark made the rest of his way down the hill. A soldier stopped him at the perimeter. He told the man in fluent Korean that Huan, his superior, was expecting him. A radio check produced two more soldiers who escorted Sark to a clutch of trucks and jeeps and their commanding officer.
The Korean officer waved his guards off and studied Sark.
"You are Mr. Sark?"
Sark nodded.
"I am."
"Over here."
Sark followed him around the end of a personnel carrier to the back, where four black vinyl body bags were laid out. He tried to breath shallowly, but the stench was strong before Huan unzipped the first bag.
Sark glanced at the face, part of it caved away and bloody, and shook his head. Huan zipped the bag closed again and opened the next one.
It was Michael Vaughn. Sark bit back a soft curse, dismayed by the damage done to the man. Blood streaked across Vaughn's face, dried dark, but not as dark as the ugly black burns. Raw flesh peeked through cracks in the blackened crust over what had been an ear. The reek of burnt plastics and oil and cooked flesh threatened to upend even Sark's steely composure.
"Yes," he said. Huan went to zip the bag closed and Sark stopped him with a gesture. The Korean gave him a disbelieving look as Sark withdrew his sat-phone and used the digital imaging function to photograph Vaughn's dead features.
"Verification," Sark said flatly. He took a second photo from a different angle, one that included the horrific damage, and then nodded at Huan. Sark waited patiently while Huan moved to the next bag and opened it.
He looked without saying anything until Huan stirred restlessly. "You know, yes?" the officer prompted. "CIA?"
Sark stepped closer.
"CIA," he confirmed.
She was pale and broken. He hadn't believed it, not viscerally, until now. Part of him, the part that had laughed in genuine delight when she returned from death the first time, hadn't believed Sydney Bristow could die. It was such a stupid, pointless way to go, riding a plane down as a helpless passenger. She should have been fighting, all fiery movement, hot blood, with a knife or gun in hand and a vanguard of her enemies sent to hell ahead of her. She shouldn't have looked so small, long lashes laid over pallid cheeks, lips colorless, and only a small contusion on her forehead. It hadn't bled much, which Sark knew meant it had happened after death.
Helplessly, he reached out and brushed loose strands of hair off her face and tucked them tenderly behind her ear.
The world was quite suddenly a lesser place.
Huan moved restlessly. Sark was jerked back to the present. He took four pictures of her; one of the body bag opened to show her face, one from each profile, and one full face. Her brow was smooth, her lips faintly turned down. She looked peaceful, if not content. Sark stared at her another moment, then stepped away from the truck and tapped in the number for his contact.
"It's done," he said as soon as he had an answer. "The package is disposed of. The other matter is finished too. I've made a positive identification of the agents involved. I'm sending photos for confirmation."
He paused and listened. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Huan touching her face just before the man zipped up the bag and had to choke back the impulse to shoot the Korean.
"Yes."
The Covenant was pleased.
Sark's lips turned down.
"Thank you. – I'll fly out to Beijing. I can deploy from there." He cut the connection and pocketed the phone. With a last nod toward Huan, he began walking back to his jeep.
The sun was very bright.
He was not pleased.
He could have forced Leonid to drive, but it was easier to let the doomed defector go on thinking he was on his way to the US in the company of Agent Hollier of the CIA for a while longer. Always easier to have victims move under their own power instead of wrestling around and disposing of a corpse. He wasn't squeamish, it was just easier to leave the dead where they lay. He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other holding his encrypted sat-phone as he made a preliminary report. The jeep jounced and jolted over the pot-holed road, the suspension unforgiving even at the moderate speed Sark set. He kept his wording circumspect since Leonid was beside him, eyes wide behind gold-rimmed glasses, stiffened against the ride and looking panicky.
"Yes, sir," Sark told his contact. "I have the package. I'm proceeding to the rd now."
He listened while swerving cavalierly around a farmer and his donkey, never slowing down, leaving the bent man and emaciated animal in a boil of dust. Leonid clutched at the jeep's door and swung around to look behind them, his mouth swinging open.
Sark grimaced. "Give me the coordinates." He listened and translated them into the map he'd memorized for the op. "Yes. I can get there. Do I have a contact in place?"
Leonid was looking worried. Sark smiled at him, well aware it wasn't the most reassuring smile. Nothing was going to sooth the defector's nerves anyway. Leonid had gambled his life to get out of North Korea and away from the Covenant. He didn't know it yet, but he'd already lost. The man probably had some sense of events spinning out of his control, though. Enough of a feel to scare the shit out of him, if he wasn't even stupider than Sark thought.
He eased off the gas a little and turned the jeep onto a dirt trail that threaded them back into the hills, toward the site he'd been directed to check. "Lucky you sent me," he told his contact sarcastically. "What about the other?" The answer didn't please or displease him. It made things somewhat easier, though. "I'll take care of it."
He shut down the phone.
"Change of plans, my friend," he said, using both hands to steer the jeep now as they hurtled along rutted gravel paths. In the distance a haze of heat and dark smoke stained the placid winter sky. That was their destination. Maintaining the American accent didn't even take an extra thought. Once he assumed a cover persona, Sark never slipped unless he meant to. "A small detour. My superiors want me to check on something while I'm here."
"I don't understand," Leonid said. The jeep crested a hill and Sark slewed it to the side as the trail just stopped. It ended with the jeep turned three quarters around and one tire rocking into a ditch. Leonid screeched and clutched at the door and dash. Sark fished a set of binoculars out of a duffle bag in the backseat and focused on the scene in the valley below.
"Are you insane?" Leonid shouted at Sark once he had his breath back.
"Peppy enough for you?" Sark asked, otherwise ignoring Leonid.
"You are! You're mad!"
Sark focused the binoculars. Any humor he'd felt at Leonid's expense disappeared.
The wreckage stretched in a black, scorched streak down the valley. Pieces of wing were broken and impaled in a shattered stand of trees. Fire still flickered along the edges of the burn scar, eating slowly through damp, winter-faded grass. Korean army jeeps and several trucks were parked along the perimeter, guards stationed along the road into the valley, other soldiers picking through the wreckage. The reek of smoking plastics and burned aviation fuel clawed at the throat, even at a distance. Sark picked out a piece of the fuselage, part of the tail, and part of a jet engine. There. There were the plane's identification numbers, matching the ones provided to him.
"What–what is that?" Leonid asked nervously, squinting at the site of the crash.
"Plane crash," Sark said grimly. The small jet had cartwheeled in, shedding momentum in an abrupt and final manner that strewed pieces widely. If the passengers hadn't bailed before impact, they had died. Sark's mouth drooped at one corner. He hated waste. He dropped the binoculars onto the seat and tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. He wasn't going to enjoy this. He climbed out of the jeep and gestured for Leonid to join him. "Come on, we're taking a closer look."
"Why? – No, I don't want to do this," Leonid said sulkily.
Sark turned cold eyes on him.
And I do?
"No," Leonid insisted. "I will stay here. I will wait."
Sark felt the last of his patience run out. He pulled a silenced gun and leveled it at Leonid.
"Now."
Leonid took a sharp breath and scrambled out of the jeep. He licked his lips. "You – you aren't CIA." Not a question. Sark resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
He pointed with the gun. "Down."
Leonid straightened his glasses nervously, then pushed his dark hair off forehead. Despite the cold, he was sweating. Sark watched him look longingly around. No help anywhere. Not the best idea to defect to an agency your organization has penetrated. Otherwise, Sark might consider it himself. Though not the CIA, their hospitality left something to be desired. When he disappeared, he wouldn't rely on anyone but himself. Anything more than one person knew wasn't a secret. But that would have to wait until he had a handle on retrieving his $800 million.
He twitched the gun to the side. Leonid shambled over to the edge of the track and started down. Sark picked his way after him.
"Why are we going down there?" Leonid wanted to know.
"We're not," Sark said. They were near the bottom of the valley, the air contradictorily cooler in the shadows and then warmed by the still spreading fires. Gusts of reeking smoke whipped away on a slowly rising wind.
Leonid was shaking.
"You're Covenant," he whispered.
Sark shot him.
The pphhht of the shot wouldn't carry beyond a few yards. The thud of the body hitting the ground was louder. The scrub and brush that shielded them from the soldiers below would conceal the body well enough. The Koreans could deal with it if they found it.
Leonid lay on the frozen earth on his back, limbs sprawled limply, gold-framed glasses askew. Blood trickled from the hole in his forehead and pooled in the hollows of his eye sockets; it steamed in the frozen air, wisps twisting up like the last remnants of a soul escaping its cage.
The pistol went back in its holster and Sark made the rest of his way down the hill. A soldier stopped him at the perimeter. He told the man in fluent Korean that Huan, his superior, was expecting him. A radio check produced two more soldiers who escorted Sark to a clutch of trucks and jeeps and their commanding officer.
The Korean officer waved his guards off and studied Sark.
"You are Mr. Sark?"
Sark nodded.
"I am."
"Over here."
Sark followed him around the end of a personnel carrier to the back, where four black vinyl body bags were laid out. He tried to breath shallowly, but the stench was strong before Huan unzipped the first bag.
Sark glanced at the face, part of it caved away and bloody, and shook his head. Huan zipped the bag closed again and opened the next one.
It was Michael Vaughn. Sark bit back a soft curse, dismayed by the damage done to the man. Blood streaked across Vaughn's face, dried dark, but not as dark as the ugly black burns. Raw flesh peeked through cracks in the blackened crust over what had been an ear. The reek of burnt plastics and oil and cooked flesh threatened to upend even Sark's steely composure.
"Yes," he said. Huan went to zip the bag closed and Sark stopped him with a gesture. The Korean gave him a disbelieving look as Sark withdrew his sat-phone and used the digital imaging function to photograph Vaughn's dead features.
"Verification," Sark said flatly. He took a second photo from a different angle, one that included the horrific damage, and then nodded at Huan. Sark waited patiently while Huan moved to the next bag and opened it.
He looked without saying anything until Huan stirred restlessly. "You know, yes?" the officer prompted. "CIA?"
Sark stepped closer.
"CIA," he confirmed.
She was pale and broken. He hadn't believed it, not viscerally, until now. Part of him, the part that had laughed in genuine delight when she returned from death the first time, hadn't believed Sydney Bristow could die. It was such a stupid, pointless way to go, riding a plane down as a helpless passenger. She should have been fighting, all fiery movement, hot blood, with a knife or gun in hand and a vanguard of her enemies sent to hell ahead of her. She shouldn't have looked so small, long lashes laid over pallid cheeks, lips colorless, and only a small contusion on her forehead. It hadn't bled much, which Sark knew meant it had happened after death.
Helplessly, he reached out and brushed loose strands of hair off her face and tucked them tenderly behind her ear.
The world was quite suddenly a lesser place.
Huan moved restlessly. Sark was jerked back to the present. He took four pictures of her; one of the body bag opened to show her face, one from each profile, and one full face. Her brow was smooth, her lips faintly turned down. She looked peaceful, if not content. Sark stared at her another moment, then stepped away from the truck and tapped in the number for his contact.
"It's done," he said as soon as he had an answer. "The package is disposed of. The other matter is finished too. I've made a positive identification of the agents involved. I'm sending photos for confirmation."
He paused and listened. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Huan touching her face just before the man zipped up the bag and had to choke back the impulse to shoot the Korean.
"Yes."
The Covenant was pleased.
Sark's lips turned down.
"Thank you. – I'll fly out to Beijing. I can deploy from there." He cut the connection and pocketed the phone. With a last nod toward Huan, he began walking back to his jeep.
The sun was very bright.
He was not pleased.
-fin
- Summary: The realistic result.
- Fandom: Alias
- Rating: Mature
- Warnings: None
- Author Notes: Another of the Four Crossings AUs based on the Season Three episode Crossings.
- Date: 2004
- Length: short
- Genre: gen
- Category: Vignette
- Cast: Julian Sark
- Betas:
- Disclaimer: Not for profit. Transformative work written for private entertainment.