tierce

Allison exhaled a plume of smoke into the cold outside air and said, "I wish Bomani had killed him."

Sark glanced at her. He thought that that was one of the few honest things she'd said since their reunion. He kept the thought to himself. He thought she was being truthful, but he couldn't be sure. It might be just a probe.

"Mr. Sloane can be useful," he commented. He shrugged deeper into his parka and thought longingly of Tahiti and Rio. Beaches. Sunshine. Warmth. He was always cold, inside and out. Always alone, even in another's company, and he didn't dare change himself.

Allison slanted a look toward him. Dark eyes, but different, utterly different than the little girl he'd known once; two years had made changes in her much deeper than the false face. He would never master reading her in this form, not as he had once done. He would never love her again, not as she was now, not as he had become.

He didn't let it show. He sipped lemon-flavored water and scanned their surroundings out of habit and paranoia.

"That's important," Allison said and Sark stifled a laugh. Useful was all that kept any of them alive, wasn't it? Useful to the Covenant, useful to the CIA, to Irina or Sloane, to the NSC or the Russians, useful to someone ... and the minute you weren't, there was a bullet waiting and the body disposed of anonymously.

Sark knew all about being useful. It was what he was born to be. No one needed to tattoo the Eye of Rambaldi onto his skin, his purpose was written in his DNA.

Andrian Lazeray's murder had bought his freedom. His skills, turned to the Covenant's advantage, kept him free. It was bitter to acknowledge that none of that mattered, though. Rambaldi and genetics were all that had kept him alive.

His thoughts turned to the RFID chip Allison had retrieved from Lange. The key to finding another key, that one turning the lock on another door into hell. He wasn't in a position to take it from Allison—not that he couldn't best her in physical confrontation or outsmart her—but tactically either would be a mistake. Irina had asked him to remain with the Covenant until further notice. That meant his countermissions had to include believable scapegoats. The answer to that dilemma was walking between the little tables of the outdoor café, warming his hands with his breath—and unless Sark was mistaken, speaking under his breath to someone at the other end of a wire.

Sloane was playing at being a double agent for the CIA, relaying carefully chosen information between them and the Covenant. Running his own game at the same time, the way they all were. Maybe even Miss Bristow, she of the unseen marks and lost years, Irina's child, Noah's dove, Allison's bête noire, Sark's own counterbalance.

He wondered if Sloane enjoyed the adrenaline surge of playing out on the sharp edge again, not just running ops but operating in the field once more. Oh, but the sly gleam in those eyes told the story. Sloane was relishing this. He’d practically been grinning at their last meet, his delight in their shared deceit almost infectious.

Sark had told Sloane exactly what they were being tasked to do and Sloane had dutifully reported to his old masters. Omitting Sark's part in their careful pavane, though. Sark had made a report too, wondering if the Russian accented voice that answered Irina's contact number was who he thought it might be. And here they were again, ready to hit their marks and say their lines and dazzle the audience once more.

Well, let Sloane enjoy while he could. If they didn't take some pleasure from the risks they ran, the prize wouldn't be worth the game. Sark kept his own face still, suppressing the ironic little smile that he would have greeted the other man with if Allison hadn't been present. Not that he would ever trust him, but sometimes—just sometimes—Sark liked Sloane. Letting Allison see that would without doubt be a mistake.

He could feel her hostility coming off her like a cold draft as soon as she registered Sloane's approach. She kept her face half turned away, as though Sloane meant less than nothing to her. Sark didn't need to read her face now though, her posture told him more than enough. She had been lying. Allison didn't wish Bomani had killed Arvin Sloane.

She wanted to do it herself.

Sark turned that thought over in his mind. If she still blamed Sloane, then in all likelihood, she blamed him as well — he'd been her handler. He'd knowingly lied, told her they would find a way to restore her.

It hadn't been a complete lie. He would have done whatever he could—and that hadn't been inconsiderable two years ago—to keep those promises. As her handler that had been his responsibility, even if he hadn't been her lover. There hadn't been much chance, but he had been trying.

No one, not once, had thought to ask what he went to Stockholm to find. He supposed Irina knew, since she had directed Bristow and Vaughn to him there.

He'd been looking for a researcher who could recreate and reverse the Helix process.

All that was past. He'd never tell anyone that now. Helix was lost and Allison Doren with it.

This Allison disturbed Sark on multiple levels. It wasn't just her stranger's face and re-aligned allegiances. Her reactions were changed. She seethed under the affectless exterior. Every breath threatened to explode into violence. Something was twisted and wrong in her. The only way he'd thank San'ko for forcing him to work with her would be if he suddenly developed suicidal tendencies. For all of that, though, he still cared that she was alive.

He didn't want to pull the trigger on her. Not even though he knew that feeding her masters with intel on his own activities was part of her brief. Let her go on believing Sydney's value lay in something she'd learned in the past two years, that anything he did mattered, though others like Sloane knew better.

Would the listener at the end of Sloane's wire guess at the layers of meaning under each word they spoke or the web of connections that lay beneath the surface? On the first level, they were three Covenant operatives discussing the recovery of a valuable piece of technology. On the surface, they worked together. But beneath? Beneath, they were each double and triple agents, without even a pretence of freedom. Sloane betrayed the Covenant to the CIA and the CIA to the endgame of his own obsession. Sark sold out the Covenant to Sloane and in a sense the CIA, at the behest of Irina, and someday would turn on her in the name of his own heritage. Allison doubled for Sloane, but remained a Project Christmas operative run by Robert Lindsay. All alliances were temporary.

And under it all, under it all, they danced to Rambaldi's tune, prophecy's puppets.

Sark let his eyes rest on his own hand, where the tattoo might have been, and thought of unseen marks and what he'd never had.

Sloane paused at the other side of the table and smiled at both of them. All the world's a stage...and the audience they played to sat at the other end of an audio bug. Or were they only fooling themselves? Sark reflected sardonically. Either way...Enjoy the performance, ladies and gentlemen.