Title: Like Walking On Knives
Author: Auburn
Rating: R.
Disclaimer: Characters and concept belong to JJ Abrams and Bad Robot Productions. I make no profit from this.
Spoilers: Through to The Telling.
Category: AU.
Warning: major character death.
Feedback treasured at auburnnothenna@yahoo.com.
Like Walking On Knives
All things in their passing kept changing
I. Riddles
Months later, Sark still wondered.
It bothered him. He wanted to know why. All his carefully honed instincts screamed that it was important that he know why.
Experience told him Irina wouldn't tell him if even she knew and native caution whispered that it would be wiser to keep his questions to himself. So he watched and listened for anything that referred to Jack Bristow, just as he did for any news of Sydney, but with an interest that was, suddenly, more personal.
During nights spent surveilling locations where Sloane might have a lair, days spent dealing with arms merchants and information brokers, rebuilding and maintaining Irina's organization while hunting and being hunted in turn, Sark would contemplate the facts he had.
Irina.
Alias Laura Bristow. Alias 'The Man'. Wife and mother. Exquisite manipulator in all her incarnations.
Sydney Bristow.
College student. CIA double agent. Daughter. Incarnation of Rambaldi's prophecy. Disappeared.
Arvin Sloane.
Ex-CIA renegade. Widower. Devious, Rambaldi obsessed, engineer of the Alliance's fall. Sometime enemy, sometime ally. Gone to ground.
The CIA.
His former captors. The opposition. They knew less than Sark did.
Agent Michael Vaughn.
No mysteries there. The orphaned son of one of Irina's victims was in the CIA because his father had been. Sydney's lover.
Sark smirked. Ally had said the surveillance tapes on those two were smokin'.
Ally.
A.G. Doren.
His LA asset. Allison. Thinking of her still left him breathless with pain. They'd trained together. Slept together. He should have ignored Irina and pulled her out. Instead, she'd bled out, lying on the floor, shot three times by Sydney, alone and wearing Francine Calfo's face.
Finally, Jack Bristow. The mystery. CIA agent. Irina's husband and enemy. Sydney's father. Arvin Sloane's nemesis.
Where in those facts was the reason Bristow had freed Sark from CIA custody?
II. Jester
He didn't feel like turning the lights on. He used the keycard and entered his hotel room with every intention of fishing something out of the mini-bar---screw the cost---taking a long drink and slumping down in the relative darkness. Stockholm was like every other big city, and its hotel rooms were never truly dark even at night, not that there was much of a night this time of year, this far north. Half past three in the morning and the sun had barely set below the horizon. He could use the remaining light to make his way around the room.
Another operation over, this one a near fiasco attended by a heart-stopping jolt of fear at one point, and he was so tired . . . .
"Don't do anything precipitous, Jack. I'm aiming a gun right at you."
He hadn't registered the presence until Sloane spoke.
"What do you want, Arvin?" he asked, too tired to try drawing his service pistol before his former friend could shoot him.
"Actually, I'd like you to work for me, but I know you're not ready for that yet," Sloane said. Jack's eyes had adapted to the dim hint of light that made it past the drawn curtains and he could see that Sloane was sitting in the chair to the side of the window. A gleam of metal was the barrel of an automatic, resting along the arm of the chair.
"I'm never going to work with you, Arvin."
He walked farther into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"The Agency is never going to find Sydney for you, Jack. They don't want to find her."
Jack fought the urge to slump. It had been so long. He'd begun to think the same things. Sloane had resources and connections that would make the search so much easier. Jack had worked with Arvin Sloane too many damned years; he knew exactly how good the man was. Together, they could find Sydney, he didn't doubt it. He just couldn't stomach the thought of putting her in Sloane's hands as a result.
Jack had chosen to forge a different, more uncertain alliance instead---one that the Agency had no knowledge of---an alliance with Sark. How long it would last, if it still stood after this night's events, was another question.
Sloane's thoughts had moved in the same direction, apparently.
"What would you do if I informed your superiors at the Agency that you were solely responsible for liberating Irina Derevko's favorite lieutenant?" Sloane wondered aloud. "What would they do?"
"Try, convict, and imprison me," Jack replied. He took a fatalistic view toward that possibility. He'd made the choice to get Sark out. He wouldn't regret it now. It hadn't been a bad gamble. Sark hadn't found Sydney for him, but he had fed information on Sloane and even Derevko's operations to the Agency through Jack, when it had profited him. "Or execute me."
"Hmn."
"Arvin, I'm tired," Jack said, letting his voice reflect his weariness. "Could we get on with this---whatever?" He didn't believe Sloane would feed that information to the CIA.
"You lost Derevko and Sark tonight, didn't you?"
The operation had fallen apart. A simple snatch-and-grab had dissolved into a vicious firefight. Sark had shot two men Jack had personally picked for the operation, one fatally, and evaded pursuit, disappearing with his usual skill. Six of Derevko's people had died too.
The Swedish authorities had not been pleased by the bodies littering the pavement outside one of their more prestigious banking establishments.
Irina had eluded capture as well, of course, leaving more dead and wounded behind her. There had been one moment when Jack had her in his sight picture, though.
He hadn't pulled the trigger.
"Yes," he admitted.
"Don't be surprised if that young man contacts you soon, Jack," Arvin said, the sly sound of a smile in his tone, though Jack couldn't see it. "The package he extracted from the bank vault was put together by Alexander Khasinau."
Jack jerked his head up.
"You know what it is?"
Sloane stood up. "So do you, Jack. So does Irina. That's why she did her best to stop Sark from retrieving it."
"You're the one who tipped us she would be here in Stockholm," Jack said slowly.
"Of course. I wouldn't want anything to happen to that boy, Jack." He put away the pistol and moved forward a step. A slice of light fell over his shoulder and onto the side of Sloane's face, illuminating a smile and a glittering eye. "I feel almost . . . responsible for him, you know. If Emily and I had had children . . . ."
"Get out, Arvin," Jack snarled, surging to his feet in anger.
"I'm going to offer him a job," Sloane said, unperturbed. "After all, he can hardly work with you at the Agency."
Sloane walked out and Jack did nothing to stop him.
III. Catspaw
Sark had always been as curious as a cat. He liked to know things. Khasinau had taught him that knowledge conferred power in any situation. Irina personified that axiom. Yet now he found himself confronted by a mystery.
He might have dismissed it, were it not for the unwanted sense of obligation he'd been left with. It was uncomfortable. He hated feeling grateful to anyone.
He'd worked for years to erase whatever debts to Irina he'd incurred as a child. He wanted no new ones to Jack Bristow.
Irina had never explained why she had taken such an interest in him, arranging his schooling in England and later his training to become her operative. Sark hadn't been in a position to ask for any explanations.
Once, Irina had said, "I knew your father."
He'd filed that away, along with a faded memory of his mother's face and life . . . before.
IV. Like a Blue Million Miles
His mother's eyes were bluer than the sky, he thought. Sometimes she went away for a few days, but she always came home to the apartment with the high white ceilings and tall windows. No matter when she came back, she would find him, even if he was asleep, and give him a kiss on his forehead. She would look straight at him and he would think there was nothing so blue as her eyes.
She would say, "I missed you, my Alexander. I missed you every minute." And because she never lied to him, he would know it was true, and smile.
She took him to the park every day, even when it was raining, bundling him into a coat and hat and boots, and laughing, teasing, telling him he wouldn't melt from a little rain, though he was as sweet as sugar. Those trips to the park, with the raindrops catching in his eyelashes, the pattering sound of the droplets hitting the leaves of the trees, stayed clear in his memory when everything else slipped away into the haze of a lost childhood.
His mother would hold his hand and almost dance along the wet-dark stones of the park path. Dim streetlights would light early, sparkling through diamond-like drops of water everywhere.
When he dreamed, Sark dreamed of those wet strolls, when the park was almost empty and the sky was dark gray and the shadows had no edges, when his mother's hand was warm around his.
In his nightmares, the sun shone mercilessly on grass with a yellow edge, the trees drooped in the heavy heat. A swathe of pale hair veiled her face and she lay half curled on her side. Her hands were bare and empty, because he had run ahead to splash in the fountain, not looking back when she called to him. He hadn't known what that sharp cough of sound behind him had been, only that she had called out, "No, no!" and the sound had stopped her voice, it seemed.
He ran back from the fountain, but she was already so still, he knew something was wrong. He knelt beside her, afraid to touch her, and stared at the line of brilliant crimson snaking down from the dark hole in her forehead.
"Mama," he whispered in the nightmare. He didn't remember if he'd spoken at all, that day. His clothes, wet from the fountain, slowly dried on him. He stayed there until Irina came and pulled him away. Irina was a stranger then, but he didn't care.
All that he could remember were his mother's eyes, eyes bluer than the summer sky.
V. Compulsion
Irina's greeting on his return to Cyprus had been terse. Sark merely raised an eyebrow as she directed him to take over most of her operations while she focused on the CIA's search for Sydney.
There were no apologies for the unpleasant weeks he'd suffered in CIA custody thanks to her decision to use him as an unwitting information conduit. Sark offered no excuses for the damaging revelations he'd provided on the Organization's operations. He had acted to safeguard himself and avoid more strenuous interrogations and Irina, his teacher, should have expected just that from him.
She knew him as well as anyone did, after all. He hadn't expected a rescue---not from Irina Derevko---and so had crafted his own strategy toward an eventual escape. Some of the things he meant to tell the CIA would have shocked them. He could have bartered the destruction of the Organization for his freedom in time.
Jack Bristow's intervention had blindsided him, instead.
Sark had taken the chance and gone along with Bristow, though, reasoning that whatever the man's true intentions, it would be easier to deal with them from outside a CIA cell.
He still didn't know why, though, and he wanted to know.
Needed to know.
He'd never fully understood Irina and accepted that. But he had enough mysteries in his life. He wouldn't tolerate another, not if he could uncover the answer to it.
VI. Child's Play
The child's mask kept changing
His mournful occasions subsided,
He steadied his altering mastery
He bit his lip as he squirmed through the ventilation duct. It had been deliberately designed with dimensions too tight for even a slight adult. He had to extend his arms overhead, turn his weight onto one hip and shoulder, and push himself through at a diagonal. Rough welded joins in the sheet metal cut into him. It hurt but Sark kept going.
Khasinau had arrived at the school two days before. Sark's teachers had delivered him to the gates and left him before an armored Zil limousine. The chauffeur had silently opened the rear door and gestured for Sark to climb in. Khasinau had been waiting, his hands steepled before him, seeming to measure Sark with his eyes.
"So."
Sark looked at him silently.
"Sascha."
Sark blinked. Khasinau had taken him from the school once before. He'd called him Sascha then too. No one else did. No one called him anything but Sark. Sometimes he forgot he'd ever been anyone else. Sometimes he made himself forget, because it was the only way to survive in the Project School.
"Sir," he murmured, uncertain whether he was supposed to acknowledge that previous operation. His eyes flickered to the back of the chauffeur's head. The limousine was pulling away from the front of the school. The man could be listening or there might be audio equipment recording everything.
Khasinau smiled faintly and nodded, seemingly pleased by Sark's caution.
"Relax," Khasinau instructed him. "If you do not remember her, you are about to meet your . . . sponsor." He casually lit a foul smelling cigarette, watching Sark as he did so. Sark forced the tension from his limbs, but it was an act. He remained as wary as before. He was eager and interested. His sponsor was Irina Derevko; he knew this, only the weight of that name had saved him from some of the most vicious bullying and the murderous competition that reigned in the Project's dorms. He thought he even remembered her, a slim dark-haired figure.
He calculated swiftly. If Khasinau was delivering Sark to Derevko, then Khasinau was subordinate to her. Therefore whatever he did, it must please Derevko first and then Khasinau, preferably both. That was his only survival strategy until he had some form of power himself. Some way out of the hell that was the Project School.
"Yes, sir," he acknowledged.
Khasinau nodded. "You are eleven. ---You're small for your age," he observed. "That is good."
Sark bit back a sneer. It never had been before. His slight size had forced him to pay closer attention in the unarmed combat classes and invent his own set of dirty tricks to protect himself. It was his brain that had kept him alive, so far.
Then Khasinau had explained what they wanted him to do for them.
He jack-knifed through a bend in the duct, pushing the small toolbox he'd need later ahead of him. One of the boys at the school had been claustrophobic. This blind odyssey through memorized twists and turns would have reduced Kyril to screams. Of course, Kyril wasn't at the school anymore, but Sark doubted he'd been taken out for the same reasons he had. Kyril had failed and there was no mercy for failures in the Project.
Another turn and he could see a square of light ahead, the air vent into the vault room. He scooted the toolbox forward carefully, glad for the felt Khasinau had glued to its bottom, that kept it from screeching along the metal.
A few feet further and he could peer down into the room. Sark didn't move his head, just his eyes, scanning the layout. There was the wood-panel door on the wall to the left. Presumably locked. Across the room from the duct opening, a massive black desk, everything cleared from its top and locked up as procedure demanded, with the maroon leather executive's chair carefully lined up close to it. A single, brushed-steel lamp stood on the desk next to the black phone, providing the only light in the room. Two chairs in front of the desk, leather and curved chrome. A couch of the same design against the wall under the duct opening. Directly across from the door was a set of bookcases.
According to Khasinau's briefing the bookcases opened on hinges and hid the door to a vault. Inside the vault were several valuable items, including a set of computer discs. Sark was to retrieve the discs. Nothing else. Concealing the theft wouldn't be necessary.
He scanned the room again, noting the two cameras set to watch the bookcases and the doorway. Neither covered the grill over the ventilation duct. That made matters easier. He checked the grill and pulled the right tool to release it from his box. Finally, nothing but his fingers hooked through it held the grill in place.
He turned his head toward his shoulder and the radio mic there. "Ready for entry. Please disable the surveillance now."
The mic in his ear whispered back with Khasinau's voice. "Distraction in place. Disabling the cameras now. Go." The Russian had hacked into the building's security system and could knock out the surveillance, but a hardwired alarm would show up at the main security desk. Derevko had gone in to provide a distraction for the necessary period.
Sark let the grill drop onto the couch. He closed the toolbox and pushed it out too. Then he followed, awkwardly dropping head first and narrowly missing the toolbox. He rolled off the couch and went straight to the lamp on the desk. Three buttons on the base. On, Off, and Low. Without hesitation, he hit On. The bookcases swung open, revealing a heavy steel vault door.
Other than a handle, the vault door was a blank. No keypad or card slot or even old fashioned dial. Sark grinned. Next step. He touched the Off button. A metal panel next to the door slid open, revealing the keycard slot and keypad.
He pulled a duplicate keycard provided by Derevko from his pocket and slotted it in. The keypad activated.
Sark whispered into his mic, "Entering access code now." He pressed each numeral in the sequence Khasinau had drilled into him. The read-out above the keypad went green and the vault door released with a pneumatic hiss. He pulled the door completely open, making certain it wouldn't fall closed behind him, surprised by its weight.
"I'm in."
"The discs should be on the third shelf to the right," Khasinau replied. "You have two minutes before the security chief arrives to check the monitors."
Sark ducked into the vault. It probably had some sort of lighting, but he suspected activating it would trigger a notification somewhere in the building. Instead, he settled for the dim light from the desk lamp.
His gaze passed over several velvet cases he presumed held jewelry and dismissed them. Lock boxes. A glass tube with a rolled piece of parchment inside it. Other things he didn't even recognize. Canisters of film in a precarious pile. And there, on the shelf next to the film, the discs Derevko wanted.
Sark swiped them up, tucked them in his jumper, and got out of the vault. He didn't stop to close the door, worrying it might make too much noise. He went straight to the couch, scrambled up from it and back into the ducts, moving as fast as he could.
"Got it," he gasped. He was crawling forward, scraping elbows and knees and palms raw as he twisted and pushed through the turns.
"One minute, fifteen seconds," Khasinau advised through the speaker wired into Sark's ear.
He reached the air intake and shinnied out onto the roof. Onto his feet and sprinting for the edge where he'd left his grapple and rope in place. He gave it one jerk to make sure it was still secure and went over the side of the roof and down the building so fast the rope burned the skin from his hands.
Once on the ground he bolted for the fence and the narrow drainage culvert he'd come in through. The guards were all still facing outwards, not looking for an escapee. It was the night of the new moon. The sky was clear, but without moonlight most of the grounds were lost in the inky shadows of trees and shrubbery. The black knit watch cap on his head hid Sark's pale blond head, the only part of him that might have caught an eye.
Sark found the culvert and skinned through the corrugated tube, shoulders catching repeatedly in its small confines. Stagnant water and silty deposits soaked into his clothes and he grimaced but kept moving steadily. The culvert brought him outside the compound and into a ditch.
"I'm out," he whispered.
"Stay in place and wait for pickup."
"Acknowledged."
He stayed in the ditch and out of sight as the alarms began going off in the compound behind him.
Brief moments later, a blue Mercedes exited the compound through the front gate, after the guards inspected its interior and radioed back for confirmation that its occupants were allowed out. When permission arrived, the locked gates swung open before the car and it rolled through slowly. It turned onto the road next the ditch Sark waited in. As it came parallel, the back passenger door opened and it slowed further.
Khasinau's voice came in his ear.
"Get in."
Sark clambered out of the ditch and threw himself into the Mercedes. His arm hit the moving door and he almost fell, white-hot pain spiking from his wrist as the closing door smashed into it and something cracked. A strong hand caught his shoulder then and he was pulled inside and onto the seat.
For a second all he could think of was not vomiting from the pain in his arm and wrist. Cold sweat oozed from his pores. His hands were burning and bloody. He wanted to whimper. He bit his lip until it bled and blinked at the woman in the Mercedes' back seat with him.
Irina was elegance personified in red silk, diamonds, and a sable coat. Her hand was still on Sark's shoulder.
"Have you got the discs?"
He nodded wordlessly and brought them out with his good hand. Irina accepted them with an approving smile.
"You did well, Sark."
Sark cradled his broken arm close to his chest and basked in the warmth of that smile. Irina placed the discs in a metal briefcase and locked it. She reached over and carefully took Sark's arm, studying the way the end of the broken bone jogged out beneath the flesh above his wrist. Her fingers were cool and sure and steady.
"This is broken," she said. "It will need to be set." Her eyes lifted from Sark to the mirror that reflected the driver. "Alexei, arrange for a medic to meet us at the airport."
"There's time to take him to a hospital, Irina," Khasinau said. Sark jolted a little, realizing the Russian was doubling as their driver. The voice had come from the speaker in his ear and the driver's seat.
"We'll take him to a doctor in Geneva," Irina said. "The medic can give him something for the pain during the flight." She smiled at Sark and slipped the cap off his hair and the speaker from his ear. "We can't afford to linger here too long," she told him gently. "Do you understand?"
He nodded again. "I am all right," he whispered hoarsely. He hurt, but he'd hurt before. Admitting it only made things worse, he'd learned. In the front seat, he could hear Khasinau using a mobile phone to make Irina's arrangements.
Irina stroked his hair. "Come here," she said, and pulled him close, ignoring the dirt and blood coating him, taking care not to jostle his arm. Sark had begun to shiver with exhaustion and pain and the effort to not cry. Irina pulled the sable coat around them both and held him in her arms.
No one had held him like that since his mother.
"I'm very pleased with you, Sark," she said softly. "You won't be going back to Kiev."
He would have done anything for her after that. And did, eventually.
VII. Ordinary People
He began with the obvious.
Jack Bristow, dedicated CIA agent, a man who was quite understandably driven to uncover his missing daughter's whereabouts, had broken Sark out of custody. It made no sense. Sark didn't believe Irina had extorted the man's aid---not that she wouldn't---but that she wouldn't for him. The only thing Bristow cared for was finding his daughter. Whatever he did must somehow further that endeavor.
Freeing Sark---didn't.
Logically, Sark had been more valuable to Bristow as a prisoner, trading information on Sloane and Irina for whatever he could get to help himself.
It made no bloody sense! Sark found himself growling in frustration, his poised mask cracking in the security of his office solitude. He ran both hands up over his face and through his hair. The data on the laptop screen didn't change, offering no reason, and he slapped it shut.
He stalked out of his office and into the gym, intent on burning off some energy. Even while he worked out, his mind kept circling the problem. He wasn't about to ask Irina anything. Finally, muscles trembling and body running with sweat, he decided he needed to understand Bristow better. If Bristow's reasons weren't obvious in light of events, then perhaps they lay in the man's past.
He tried a different tactic, using assets in DC to obtain the CIA's own files on Bristow, collating that information with the profile Irina had provided before tasking him to infiltrate SD-6. Most of it was duplicate, the hard facts and dates, operations successful and failed---more of the former than the latter---the FBI investigation that followed. He read the psychological evaluations done before and after Bristow's ten year marriage to 'Laura' and his case officer's notes over the years working as a double agent in SD-6.
It had changed the man, hardened him, burned away his idealism. Just as Sark had thought, Jack Bristow believed in doing his job to the very best of his ability, but only allowed himself to care for one person: his daughter. Bristow was so distant from the patriotic young man who joined the CIA that he might easily have sided with Arvin Sloane over the Agency, if Sloane hadn't recruited Sydney. That had made Bristow the man's deadly enemy. Only his professionalism, his need to protect Sydney from the Alliance and the CIA, had kept Bristow from simply killing Sloane.
Sark sighed. None of that was new.
He looked at file again.
Jack Bristow. DOB 16.3.50. POB London, Ontario, Canada. Mother was American and the family moved back to US while Bristow was a child. The father had a consultant's job in Silver Springs, Maryland. Recruited by the CIA in 1967. Sark raised his eyebrows. That was young. He checked the background and chuckled. Apparently, playing the Game ran in the Bristow family, and he had been recruited as an unobtrusive courier by his father's case officer. Bristow had already been hip deep in the shadows while his university confederates were draft dodging and protesting Vietnam.
Bristow had been busy at school, though. He'd earned a doctorate. He was a master of game theory, expert in engineering, aeronautics, and physics. CIA language school had taught him fluent Russian and Chinese---Cantonese and Mandarin. He had done his training at Camp Peary and honed those skills over more than thirty years; he was a nasty customer in the field.
All interesting, but not what Sark wanted to know. Absently, he flipped through the rest of the personnel file, glancing at the photos of Bristow's parents. The mother had been a pretty woman, almost Slavic looking at the cheekbones; Sydney's looks came from more than just Irina. Bristow's father had fair hair and a skeptical squint for the camera. Both were deceased. There had been a sister, but she died young. An uncle was mentioned, dead, flying for the RAF before Bristow had been born. No one else, no other relatives.
Useless. All useless.
But he stared at the photo of Bristow, Irina, and baby Sydney for a long time, frowning. Of course it was all a lie . . . But they looked so happy in it. He couldn't imagine Jack Bristow smiling like that now.
Sark closed the file and locked it into his safe. He had other work to do.
VIII. The Width of the Wide Abyss
Kendall stopped him the hallway.
"I'm not stupid, you know, Jack," he said.
Jack gave him the bland, silent look he'd perfected over the years. He'd first started using it while the FBI interrogated him about his wife's activities. Denying them any glimpse of his emotions had been the last and only privacy he had held onto. That apparent impassivity had become a reflex.
"I know what you did."
But he didn't. If Kendall had more than a suspicion, he wouldn't be fishing. Jack would be strapped down, pumped full of truth serum, babbling.
Kendall shook his head and grabbed Jack's shoulder before he could walk away. "I know, Jack. I just don't know why. The information Sark provided was damned valuable . . . . I don't believe you threw that away without a good reason."
Jack opened his mouth and closed it. "We all have our reasons," he said at last.
"We all want to find Sydney, Jack."
But for once, it hadn't been about Sydney, Jack thought.
"I hope whatever gamble you're taking works out, Jack," Kendall said. "For all our sakes." He met Jack's gaze steadily.
"Thank you," Jack croaked.
Kendall shrugged uncomfortably and stalked off, his typical expression of impatient irritation in place again. He was a better friend than Jack had given him credit for being.
IX. Borgia
Blood stains marble. It seeps into the grain of the stone. The puddle on the pink-veined floor would leave its mark. The bodies would be gone, but an astute observer would mark that stain.
Sark sidestepped the glossy pool of scarlet spreading from the two dead guards. He wasn't bothered by blood, but you never knew what was in it these days and there was no reason to track it down the long, columned corridor.
Irina's heels clicked against the polished stone floor as she stepped over the two corpses. She had to lift the hem of her burgundy evening gown to keep it from trailing in the blood. Her other hand held the small, silenced Russian pistol she had just used to shoot the guards.
"Typical," Irina had remarked as the last one folded to the floor. The two men had been intent on Sark and dismissed any threat Irina posed. Fatal mistake.
The strains of a Strauss waltz floated from the Palazzo's ballroom a floor below. Ten minutes before, Sark had been dancing with a wine merchant's mistress to Der Rosenkavalier, absently aenjoying her skill and surprising conversational abilities. The wine merchant had good taste.
He'd parted from the lovely blonde at her patron's side with a smooth excuse, cutting his way through the crowd to join Irina on her way to the long gallery that displayed some of the Senchi's most precious artworks.
Their target was a private solarium, closed to most of the night's guests. Paolo Senchi was auctioning off his great-grandfather's collection of clocks, including a Rambaldi timepiece commissioned by a Senchi ancestor.
The guards had unfortunately been in the way.
Irina was unhappy with Paolo Senchi.
He'd struck a deal with her for an obscene amount of money, then reneged, choosing to offer the Rambaldi clock to the highest bidder.
Sark reached into a pocket of his tuxedo and withdrew a small case. He opened it as they approached the doorway into the solarium. Muffled voices came from inside, the words too soft to discern. With a slight smile he withdrew a set of filtering nose plugs and handed them to Irina, before donning his own. Next came the clear goggles, the rubber edges already wiped with a silicon gel that would seal them against skin.
"Remember to keep your mouth closed," he said once they were both equipped.
"Excellent advice," Irina said with a straight face and amusement in her voice.
He picked the third item from its bed in the case, a coppery capsule approximately an inch and a half long. It contained a mild neurotoxic gas developed in France that would disable those exposed to it for several hours. The gas was absorbed quickly through mucous membranes and destroyed all motor control until completely metabolized unless an antidote was administered. The gas itself was lighter than air and would dissipate without reaching the guests in the rest of the Palazzo.
"Ready?" he asked her as they paused in the doorway.
"Do it," she replied.
Sark shoved the door open, strode inside as he pinched the capsule hard enough to break it and lobbed it onto the desk where Paolo Senchi had the Rambaldi clock displayed. His gaze caught on the clock, a globe of glass supported by four carved wooden arms in the shape of wings. The base was in the shape of two griffins, crouching. The claws and wings were gilt. Inside the globe, the clockworks were made of crystal and appeared to float, still working after six centuries. There were seven men gathered around the desk, all in black tuxedos except Senchi in white. They had been intent on the clock and were too startled to do more than turn toward the interruption as Sark arrived.
The broken capsule rolled to a stop against one griffin's claw with a tiny tick.
Gas bloomed out in a rose-colored cloud, twisting into smoky streamers and engulfing the bidders. One man cried out and another tried to bolt for the door. Then the choking began and each of them fell, hitting the floor in graceless, helpless heaps.
Senchi was convulsing, obviously having a spectacularly bad reaction to the gas.
Sark ignored him and picked up the clock, carefully securing it in the case Senchi's great grandfather had kept it in. The gas was starting to thin, but he imagined he could feel it on his skin. His hands felt stiff and slightly numb. He fumbled, closing the latches.
Irina was waiting in the doorway.
Sark picked up the case and slowly joined her. A wave of vertigo hit as he reached the threshold. Irina caught up the clock's case and he slammed a shoulder against the wall. The damned gas had absorbed through his skin. The taste of watermelon and metal flooded his mouth and his eyes began to water profusely.
Irina had the case in one hand, the other held her gun. She gave Sark a considering look. He began to slide down the wall. He knew if she turned the gun on him he wouldn't be able to stop her. He wouldn't even be able to move.
He fumbled desperately for the other case in his pocket, the one with two pre-loaded syringes of the antidote, spilling it onto the floor beside him. It looked impossibly distant. He couldn't stop Irina, but he could go out trying.
His hearing hadn't suffered. He heard Irina's shoes and realized she was walking away. She had decided to leave him alive, but he had to get himself out. If he could.
With fingers that trembled and felt swollen and awkward, he got the case open. One syringe dropped onto the marble and rolled away. He clutched the second, pulled the cap off with his teeth and ruthlessly shoved the needle into his neck. The antidote felt like acid as he injected it and his hand fell away from the syringe while his whole body jerked.
When the spasm passed, most of his motor control had returned. Sark lurched to his feet and staggered down the gallery. He looked like a drunk, but that passed. Once he reached the stairs, he was under enough control to stop and check his appearance, stripping off and discarding the goggles and nose plugs before descending into the crowd and making his way to the exit.
Irina had already taken the limo, but a taxi was available. Sark instructed the driver to take him straight to the Sofitel Firenze and sat back.
He was shivery and cold and absolutely alone. Reaction. It would have taken perhaps sixty seconds to set the clock or the gun down and administer the antidote for him. Instead, Irina had walked away.
Sark closed his eyes but opened them quickly and stared at the passing streets, the pools of light and the inevitable darkness between. He bit his lip.
He wasn't going to go through this again, he decided. Loyalty couldn't be bought, but it could be broken. He'd had enough of being disposable. He would never trust Irina Derevko again.
It opened up a world of possibilities.
X. Bid My Blood To Run
Sark leaned his hip against the desk top, reading from the laptop's screen over Irina's shoulder. He didn't touch her, but his hand rested on the back of her chair, and he could smell the scent of her shampoo. If she lifted her head, her dark hair would brush against his fingers.
He tried to keep his mind on her briefing. These moments when she let him close were rare, if she thought he was distracted by the physical; she'd find some way to school him against it. He drew his brows together, listening as she outlined his new responsibilities in the Organization.
He'd been steadily rising within the Organization, but in the last months that had ramped up until he had effectively become third in command. He enjoyed the power, but didn't trust the reasons behind it. Irina's---his employer, he reminded himself---interests seemed to be spiraling inwards to a single point: Rambaldi. She and Khasinau were arguing more and more often. Sark didn't like it.
He had no idea which way he would go if Khasinau and Irina parted ways. His loyalty to them both had never been put to a test, never conflicted between them.
"The CIA and SD-6 will be hunting you," Irina said. "You'll have to handle these matters using your own judgment; I'll be incommunicado once I'm in CIA custody."
He nodded and bent closer.
"Are you sure this is necessary? You're taking a risk; they may execute you immediately."
Her voice was husky with amusement. "They won't. They will want what I know." She tipped her head toward Sark, smiling. "They're predictable, they have rules."
Sark smiled at that.
"You haven't said what Alexei Alexandrovich will be doing while I handle these matters," he said. Most of the instructions Irina was giving him involved dealing with Khasinau's end of the Organization's operations. Perhaps the dour Russian's health had deteriorated to the point that he had withdrawn from field operations completely. If so, Sark would miss him, he acknowledged. Khasinau was as much his mentor as Irina.
Irina's next words were as smooth and quiet as always. "Khasinau overestimated my forbearance." She gazed steadily into Sark's eyes. She'd killed Khasinau, he understood. Did she hesitate, looking for his reaction? "That was a mistake." She made the words a tender warning.
He assumed his most innocent, unconcerned mask and raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware you had any forbearance." He hid his shock and dismay with the ease of long practice. "Nor am I in the habit of making mistakes.'
Irina lifted her hand to his cheek in a light caress and Sark turned into it like a cat, but in his mind he thought she was a fool to treat him like a pet. It wasn't safe. She'd made sure of that herself. He would give her what she wanted, because he wanted it too. Though he could have performed anyway; he had the training.
"Like your father," she murmured slowly, smiling at him. "Though he made one." The cruel amusement in her brown eyes told him she knew very well he wouldn't ask her anything about his past.
Irina slid her fingers up into the hair along his temple. Sark bent closer and let the hand on the chair find her shoulder. He could feel her heat, matching his own. He kept his breathing steady, though his pulse hammered, and his eyes locked onto hers.
"This will be the last time, I think," she murmured, spinning the desk chair and rising to press into his arms. The last time for her before she turned herself into the CIA or the last time between them? He didn't know or care. Her mouth opened to his, tasting of tea and cloves; his hands molded against lithe muscle and silk smooth over skin.
He pushed the thought of Khasinau back and let himself burn. Irina sank her teeth into his lower lip. Sark dug his fingers into her hips, knowing he'd leave marks, wanting to mark her. Sex with Irina was always like that; hard, harsh, and physical, a contest for dominance that left him scratched and bruised and hungry. It always felt dangerous, flooding him with adrenaline as well as pleasure. And he knew it meant absolutely nothing to her when he slid into her body, that he could be any man, because he wasn't the one she wanted.
He wasn't Jack Bristow.
He wondered if she would manage to seduce Bristow somehow while playing the repentant spy for her daughter and the CIA. Bitterly, he hoped not.
He pulled away from her and jerked off his jacket and shirt. Irina stripped out of her silk mock-turtleneck and skirt, revealing black lingerie. She bent gracefully and removed first one and then the other high heel. Without a hint of self-consciousness, she padded over to the leather covered couch and stood beside it, perfectly balanced, waiting.
"Now," she commanded.
"Not yet," he breathed, just looking at her. No lace for Irina, just stark black silk over pale, supple flesh, and even her stance was a challenge. She was, always, alluring and beautiful, he wanted her, but he wished he didn't.
He tasted blood and licked his lip.
"Now, Sark."
Irina's hands went behind her back to open her bra. Sark toed off his shoes and shed his slacks and boxers, playing to her, making a production of it. He paced over to her and waited. It was part of the game. Who would give first.
This time it was Irina who moved first. She ran her nails down his chest, leaving reddened streaks behind them, until she reached his groin, then took his erection in one hand and squeezed just hard enough to remind him she could hurt him. Sark hissed. His muscles tensed and he held himself still with an effort, didn't touch, didn't speak, just let his head fall back, his eyelids fall half-closed. Let her work for it this time; he wasn't the one panting after her, this was what she wanted too.
"Fast, Sark," Irina murmured, stroking him just a shade too hard, trying to push him past his control. "Hard and fast." Like it was a promise.
No, not this time, he wasn't a toy. She couldn't throw him away when he stopped being convenient, kill him like she'd done Khasinau, forget him like she had every man after her husband. He wouldn't let her and he wanted her to know it. Easy to slow down when he thought of that, even when he was so hard he ached.
He stripped the black thong off her, still smiling, and used every trick he'd learned---from other women, from his trainers in Kiev, from her---to draw it out, to make her writhe, laid out on the leather and cursing him in Russian, before he satisfied himself.
He wouldn't kiss her lips, not again, but his fingers found her mouth, her breasts, the sleek hot center of her before he tasted her there. If this was the last time, he wanted her to remember it, just as he wanted to memorize her body: the long muscles of her thighs, the arch of her ribcage, the way she snarled and caught at his hair when he teased too long, just breathing in her musk.
Irina's nails were scourges against his shoulders, urging him on; she twisted and slid against his weight, fighting him, biting, punishing him, taunting him into giving more. He felt her shiver around him again and buck as he thrust into her finally. So hot, he made a harsh sound, a growl of hunger and urgency. Her eyes dilated black and she keened as he found the rhythm to drive them both mad. And then he was there. Sark sank his teeth into her shoulder, drowning in pleasure, forgetting who he was, who she was---forgetting everything---in the rush of it.
Sweat slick and breathless, after, he held himself on hands and knees above Irina, looking at her. Bruises and shadows painted her flesh. She'd closed her eyes at the last instant, even this time. Her face was an opaque mask, her lashes laying long shadows over perfect cheekbones, hair a loose tangled mess spread over the cushion under her, her mouth just parted as she too fought for breath. At least she'd never called him Jack.
He forced himself to get up, clean up, and dress with apparent indifference, knowing she was watching him with sphinx eyes. She did that, too, every time. He wouldn't let her see she'd left him hating her again. Let her think fucking her meant nothing; anything else she'd use against him.
Irina stretched lazily and sat up. "You're beautiful, Sark."
"It's useful," he commented.
She considered him thoughtfully, and said so softly Sark didn't know whether she'd meant him to hear or not, "You remind me of him."
As he shrugged on his shirt, he became aware of the stinging running down his back. As usual, she'd drawn blood.
"You'll ruin the shirt," Irina said, rising and beginning to dress herself too. He watched sidelong. If this had been a hit, she would make her move now, when the target was sated and relaxed.
A black puddle of underwear lay abandoned on the floor by the couch.
"I'll buy another one."
She laughed throatily at that, passing so close to him as she walked to the desk that he could smell the scent of sex still on her.
She opened the second drawer on the desk's left, taking out a small black case. Back to business, Sark thought. Or maybe the sex had been business too, a test for her subordinate, something to feed his addiction to her and prove Khasinau's death didn't matter to him. Irina opened the case, revealing a neat, miniaturized transmitter/receiver and a pair of diamond earrings. He recognized the earrings; she wore them often.
"If I can retain these while in custody," she said, holding up one the earrings, "You'll be able to use them to keep in contact."
"We'll need to set up a code," he said. "And memorize it, of course." He had a faultless memory, so did Irina, it wouldn't offer them much challenge.
Much later that night, after she'd left him to board a flight to Los Angeles, after he'd read a stolen copy of the CIA after-action report detailing Khasinau's death, Sark opened the most expensive bottle of wine in his small collection. Sitting in the dimly lit living room of his penthouse apartment in Paris, he toasted Alexei Alexandrovich Khasinau. No one else would.
Khasinau had taught him wines. Khasinau had been his handler on his first mission. The gaunt old man had been a part of Sark's life almost as long as he could remember; he'd even appeared at the Kiev school sometimes. Once, he'd taken him on a rattling train all the way to Moscow, feeding him black bread with butter and honeyed tea. After Sark had lured a Red Army colonel into a hotel room and enough incriminating photos were taken of the two of them to ensure the man's cooperation with the Organization, Khasinau had taken him to the Moscow Circus to see the performing bears, before returning him to the school.
Khasinau had called him Sascha sometimes, when Sark had pleased him. No one else had ever taken such a liberty with his name.
Another sip of wine, another memory of Khasinau. The man had had a dry, wicked sense of humor. He'd taught Sark to see the irony in everything they did. He'd taught him never to trust anyone completely, not Irina, not even Khasinau himself. Those lessons had kept Sark alive more than once already. He'd been there with Sark more times than he could count. More times than Irina knew or she wouldn't have admitted killing him to Sark so casually.
Sark sighed. Irina had neatly removed one difficulty: he needn't chose between her and Khasinau now the man was dead.
But he really would miss Khasinau.
He would remember him, too; remember how the man had died: shot by Irina Derevko because it had become expedient. Just as she'd found it expedient to leave her child behind when the KGB recalled her from her life as Laura Bristow, to shoot her daughter in Taipei, to order the head of K-Directorate eliminated, and all the other assassinations Sark himself had completed on her orders. Irina was the ultimate pragmatist. If Sark ever forgot that, he would end up as dead as his targets were.
Author: Auburn
Rating: R.
Disclaimer: Characters and concept belong to JJ Abrams and Bad Robot Productions. I make no profit from this.
Spoilers: Through to The Telling.
Category: AU.
Warning: major character death.
Feedback treasured at auburnnothenna@yahoo.com.
Like Walking On Knives
All things in their passing kept changing
I. Riddles
Months later, Sark still wondered.
It bothered him. He wanted to know why. All his carefully honed instincts screamed that it was important that he know why.
Experience told him Irina wouldn't tell him if even she knew and native caution whispered that it would be wiser to keep his questions to himself. So he watched and listened for anything that referred to Jack Bristow, just as he did for any news of Sydney, but with an interest that was, suddenly, more personal.
During nights spent surveilling locations where Sloane might have a lair, days spent dealing with arms merchants and information brokers, rebuilding and maintaining Irina's organization while hunting and being hunted in turn, Sark would contemplate the facts he had.
Irina.
Alias Laura Bristow. Alias 'The Man'. Wife and mother. Exquisite manipulator in all her incarnations.
Sydney Bristow.
College student. CIA double agent. Daughter. Incarnation of Rambaldi's prophecy. Disappeared.
Arvin Sloane.
Ex-CIA renegade. Widower. Devious, Rambaldi obsessed, engineer of the Alliance's fall. Sometime enemy, sometime ally. Gone to ground.
The CIA.
His former captors. The opposition. They knew less than Sark did.
Agent Michael Vaughn.
No mysteries there. The orphaned son of one of Irina's victims was in the CIA because his father had been. Sydney's lover.
Sark smirked. Ally had said the surveillance tapes on those two were smokin'.
Ally.
A.G. Doren.
His LA asset. Allison. Thinking of her still left him breathless with pain. They'd trained together. Slept together. He should have ignored Irina and pulled her out. Instead, she'd bled out, lying on the floor, shot three times by Sydney, alone and wearing Francine Calfo's face.
Finally, Jack Bristow. The mystery. CIA agent. Irina's husband and enemy. Sydney's father. Arvin Sloane's nemesis.
Where in those facts was the reason Bristow had freed Sark from CIA custody?
II. Jester
He didn't feel like turning the lights on. He used the keycard and entered his hotel room with every intention of fishing something out of the mini-bar---screw the cost---taking a long drink and slumping down in the relative darkness. Stockholm was like every other big city, and its hotel rooms were never truly dark even at night, not that there was much of a night this time of year, this far north. Half past three in the morning and the sun had barely set below the horizon. He could use the remaining light to make his way around the room.
Another operation over, this one a near fiasco attended by a heart-stopping jolt of fear at one point, and he was so tired . . . .
"Don't do anything precipitous, Jack. I'm aiming a gun right at you."
He hadn't registered the presence until Sloane spoke.
"What do you want, Arvin?" he asked, too tired to try drawing his service pistol before his former friend could shoot him.
"Actually, I'd like you to work for me, but I know you're not ready for that yet," Sloane said. Jack's eyes had adapted to the dim hint of light that made it past the drawn curtains and he could see that Sloane was sitting in the chair to the side of the window. A gleam of metal was the barrel of an automatic, resting along the arm of the chair.
"I'm never going to work with you, Arvin."
He walked farther into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"The Agency is never going to find Sydney for you, Jack. They don't want to find her."
Jack fought the urge to slump. It had been so long. He'd begun to think the same things. Sloane had resources and connections that would make the search so much easier. Jack had worked with Arvin Sloane too many damned years; he knew exactly how good the man was. Together, they could find Sydney, he didn't doubt it. He just couldn't stomach the thought of putting her in Sloane's hands as a result.
Jack had chosen to forge a different, more uncertain alliance instead---one that the Agency had no knowledge of---an alliance with Sark. How long it would last, if it still stood after this night's events, was another question.
Sloane's thoughts had moved in the same direction, apparently.
"What would you do if I informed your superiors at the Agency that you were solely responsible for liberating Irina Derevko's favorite lieutenant?" Sloane wondered aloud. "What would they do?"
"Try, convict, and imprison me," Jack replied. He took a fatalistic view toward that possibility. He'd made the choice to get Sark out. He wouldn't regret it now. It hadn't been a bad gamble. Sark hadn't found Sydney for him, but he had fed information on Sloane and even Derevko's operations to the Agency through Jack, when it had profited him. "Or execute me."
"Hmn."
"Arvin, I'm tired," Jack said, letting his voice reflect his weariness. "Could we get on with this---whatever?" He didn't believe Sloane would feed that information to the CIA.
"You lost Derevko and Sark tonight, didn't you?"
The operation had fallen apart. A simple snatch-and-grab had dissolved into a vicious firefight. Sark had shot two men Jack had personally picked for the operation, one fatally, and evaded pursuit, disappearing with his usual skill. Six of Derevko's people had died too.
The Swedish authorities had not been pleased by the bodies littering the pavement outside one of their more prestigious banking establishments.
Irina had eluded capture as well, of course, leaving more dead and wounded behind her. There had been one moment when Jack had her in his sight picture, though.
He hadn't pulled the trigger.
"Yes," he admitted.
"Don't be surprised if that young man contacts you soon, Jack," Arvin said, the sly sound of a smile in his tone, though Jack couldn't see it. "The package he extracted from the bank vault was put together by Alexander Khasinau."
Jack jerked his head up.
"You know what it is?"
Sloane stood up. "So do you, Jack. So does Irina. That's why she did her best to stop Sark from retrieving it."
"You're the one who tipped us she would be here in Stockholm," Jack said slowly.
"Of course. I wouldn't want anything to happen to that boy, Jack." He put away the pistol and moved forward a step. A slice of light fell over his shoulder and onto the side of Sloane's face, illuminating a smile and a glittering eye. "I feel almost . . . responsible for him, you know. If Emily and I had had children . . . ."
"Get out, Arvin," Jack snarled, surging to his feet in anger.
"I'm going to offer him a job," Sloane said, unperturbed. "After all, he can hardly work with you at the Agency."
Sloane walked out and Jack did nothing to stop him.
III. Catspaw
Sark had always been as curious as a cat. He liked to know things. Khasinau had taught him that knowledge conferred power in any situation. Irina personified that axiom. Yet now he found himself confronted by a mystery.
He might have dismissed it, were it not for the unwanted sense of obligation he'd been left with. It was uncomfortable. He hated feeling grateful to anyone.
He'd worked for years to erase whatever debts to Irina he'd incurred as a child. He wanted no new ones to Jack Bristow.
Irina had never explained why she had taken such an interest in him, arranging his schooling in England and later his training to become her operative. Sark hadn't been in a position to ask for any explanations.
Once, Irina had said, "I knew your father."
He'd filed that away, along with a faded memory of his mother's face and life . . . before.
IV. Like a Blue Million Miles
His mother's eyes were bluer than the sky, he thought. Sometimes she went away for a few days, but she always came home to the apartment with the high white ceilings and tall windows. No matter when she came back, she would find him, even if he was asleep, and give him a kiss on his forehead. She would look straight at him and he would think there was nothing so blue as her eyes.
She would say, "I missed you, my Alexander. I missed you every minute." And because she never lied to him, he would know it was true, and smile.
She took him to the park every day, even when it was raining, bundling him into a coat and hat and boots, and laughing, teasing, telling him he wouldn't melt from a little rain, though he was as sweet as sugar. Those trips to the park, with the raindrops catching in his eyelashes, the pattering sound of the droplets hitting the leaves of the trees, stayed clear in his memory when everything else slipped away into the haze of a lost childhood.
His mother would hold his hand and almost dance along the wet-dark stones of the park path. Dim streetlights would light early, sparkling through diamond-like drops of water everywhere.
When he dreamed, Sark dreamed of those wet strolls, when the park was almost empty and the sky was dark gray and the shadows had no edges, when his mother's hand was warm around his.
In his nightmares, the sun shone mercilessly on grass with a yellow edge, the trees drooped in the heavy heat. A swathe of pale hair veiled her face and she lay half curled on her side. Her hands were bare and empty, because he had run ahead to splash in the fountain, not looking back when she called to him. He hadn't known what that sharp cough of sound behind him had been, only that she had called out, "No, no!" and the sound had stopped her voice, it seemed.
He ran back from the fountain, but she was already so still, he knew something was wrong. He knelt beside her, afraid to touch her, and stared at the line of brilliant crimson snaking down from the dark hole in her forehead.
"Mama," he whispered in the nightmare. He didn't remember if he'd spoken at all, that day. His clothes, wet from the fountain, slowly dried on him. He stayed there until Irina came and pulled him away. Irina was a stranger then, but he didn't care.
All that he could remember were his mother's eyes, eyes bluer than the summer sky.
V. Compulsion
Irina's greeting on his return to Cyprus had been terse. Sark merely raised an eyebrow as she directed him to take over most of her operations while she focused on the CIA's search for Sydney.
There were no apologies for the unpleasant weeks he'd suffered in CIA custody thanks to her decision to use him as an unwitting information conduit. Sark offered no excuses for the damaging revelations he'd provided on the Organization's operations. He had acted to safeguard himself and avoid more strenuous interrogations and Irina, his teacher, should have expected just that from him.
She knew him as well as anyone did, after all. He hadn't expected a rescue---not from Irina Derevko---and so had crafted his own strategy toward an eventual escape. Some of the things he meant to tell the CIA would have shocked them. He could have bartered the destruction of the Organization for his freedom in time.
Jack Bristow's intervention had blindsided him, instead.
Sark had taken the chance and gone along with Bristow, though, reasoning that whatever the man's true intentions, it would be easier to deal with them from outside a CIA cell.
He still didn't know why, though, and he wanted to know.
Needed to know.
He'd never fully understood Irina and accepted that. But he had enough mysteries in his life. He wouldn't tolerate another, not if he could uncover the answer to it.
VI. Child's Play
The child's mask kept changing
His mournful occasions subsided,
He steadied his altering mastery
He bit his lip as he squirmed through the ventilation duct. It had been deliberately designed with dimensions too tight for even a slight adult. He had to extend his arms overhead, turn his weight onto one hip and shoulder, and push himself through at a diagonal. Rough welded joins in the sheet metal cut into him. It hurt but Sark kept going.
Khasinau had arrived at the school two days before. Sark's teachers had delivered him to the gates and left him before an armored Zil limousine. The chauffeur had silently opened the rear door and gestured for Sark to climb in. Khasinau had been waiting, his hands steepled before him, seeming to measure Sark with his eyes.
"So."
Sark looked at him silently.
"Sascha."
Sark blinked. Khasinau had taken him from the school once before. He'd called him Sascha then too. No one else did. No one called him anything but Sark. Sometimes he forgot he'd ever been anyone else. Sometimes he made himself forget, because it was the only way to survive in the Project School.
"Sir," he murmured, uncertain whether he was supposed to acknowledge that previous operation. His eyes flickered to the back of the chauffeur's head. The limousine was pulling away from the front of the school. The man could be listening or there might be audio equipment recording everything.
Khasinau smiled faintly and nodded, seemingly pleased by Sark's caution.
"Relax," Khasinau instructed him. "If you do not remember her, you are about to meet your . . . sponsor." He casually lit a foul smelling cigarette, watching Sark as he did so. Sark forced the tension from his limbs, but it was an act. He remained as wary as before. He was eager and interested. His sponsor was Irina Derevko; he knew this, only the weight of that name had saved him from some of the most vicious bullying and the murderous competition that reigned in the Project's dorms. He thought he even remembered her, a slim dark-haired figure.
He calculated swiftly. If Khasinau was delivering Sark to Derevko, then Khasinau was subordinate to her. Therefore whatever he did, it must please Derevko first and then Khasinau, preferably both. That was his only survival strategy until he had some form of power himself. Some way out of the hell that was the Project School.
"Yes, sir," he acknowledged.
Khasinau nodded. "You are eleven. ---You're small for your age," he observed. "That is good."
Sark bit back a sneer. It never had been before. His slight size had forced him to pay closer attention in the unarmed combat classes and invent his own set of dirty tricks to protect himself. It was his brain that had kept him alive, so far.
Then Khasinau had explained what they wanted him to do for them.
He jack-knifed through a bend in the duct, pushing the small toolbox he'd need later ahead of him. One of the boys at the school had been claustrophobic. This blind odyssey through memorized twists and turns would have reduced Kyril to screams. Of course, Kyril wasn't at the school anymore, but Sark doubted he'd been taken out for the same reasons he had. Kyril had failed and there was no mercy for failures in the Project.
Another turn and he could see a square of light ahead, the air vent into the vault room. He scooted the toolbox forward carefully, glad for the felt Khasinau had glued to its bottom, that kept it from screeching along the metal.
A few feet further and he could peer down into the room. Sark didn't move his head, just his eyes, scanning the layout. There was the wood-panel door on the wall to the left. Presumably locked. Across the room from the duct opening, a massive black desk, everything cleared from its top and locked up as procedure demanded, with the maroon leather executive's chair carefully lined up close to it. A single, brushed-steel lamp stood on the desk next to the black phone, providing the only light in the room. Two chairs in front of the desk, leather and curved chrome. A couch of the same design against the wall under the duct opening. Directly across from the door was a set of bookcases.
According to Khasinau's briefing the bookcases opened on hinges and hid the door to a vault. Inside the vault were several valuable items, including a set of computer discs. Sark was to retrieve the discs. Nothing else. Concealing the theft wouldn't be necessary.
He scanned the room again, noting the two cameras set to watch the bookcases and the doorway. Neither covered the grill over the ventilation duct. That made matters easier. He checked the grill and pulled the right tool to release it from his box. Finally, nothing but his fingers hooked through it held the grill in place.
He turned his head toward his shoulder and the radio mic there. "Ready for entry. Please disable the surveillance now."
The mic in his ear whispered back with Khasinau's voice. "Distraction in place. Disabling the cameras now. Go." The Russian had hacked into the building's security system and could knock out the surveillance, but a hardwired alarm would show up at the main security desk. Derevko had gone in to provide a distraction for the necessary period.
Sark let the grill drop onto the couch. He closed the toolbox and pushed it out too. Then he followed, awkwardly dropping head first and narrowly missing the toolbox. He rolled off the couch and went straight to the lamp on the desk. Three buttons on the base. On, Off, and Low. Without hesitation, he hit On. The bookcases swung open, revealing a heavy steel vault door.
Other than a handle, the vault door was a blank. No keypad or card slot or even old fashioned dial. Sark grinned. Next step. He touched the Off button. A metal panel next to the door slid open, revealing the keycard slot and keypad.
He pulled a duplicate keycard provided by Derevko from his pocket and slotted it in. The keypad activated.
Sark whispered into his mic, "Entering access code now." He pressed each numeral in the sequence Khasinau had drilled into him. The read-out above the keypad went green and the vault door released with a pneumatic hiss. He pulled the door completely open, making certain it wouldn't fall closed behind him, surprised by its weight.
"I'm in."
"The discs should be on the third shelf to the right," Khasinau replied. "You have two minutes before the security chief arrives to check the monitors."
Sark ducked into the vault. It probably had some sort of lighting, but he suspected activating it would trigger a notification somewhere in the building. Instead, he settled for the dim light from the desk lamp.
His gaze passed over several velvet cases he presumed held jewelry and dismissed them. Lock boxes. A glass tube with a rolled piece of parchment inside it. Other things he didn't even recognize. Canisters of film in a precarious pile. And there, on the shelf next to the film, the discs Derevko wanted.
Sark swiped them up, tucked them in his jumper, and got out of the vault. He didn't stop to close the door, worrying it might make too much noise. He went straight to the couch, scrambled up from it and back into the ducts, moving as fast as he could.
"Got it," he gasped. He was crawling forward, scraping elbows and knees and palms raw as he twisted and pushed through the turns.
"One minute, fifteen seconds," Khasinau advised through the speaker wired into Sark's ear.
He reached the air intake and shinnied out onto the roof. Onto his feet and sprinting for the edge where he'd left his grapple and rope in place. He gave it one jerk to make sure it was still secure and went over the side of the roof and down the building so fast the rope burned the skin from his hands.
Once on the ground he bolted for the fence and the narrow drainage culvert he'd come in through. The guards were all still facing outwards, not looking for an escapee. It was the night of the new moon. The sky was clear, but without moonlight most of the grounds were lost in the inky shadows of trees and shrubbery. The black knit watch cap on his head hid Sark's pale blond head, the only part of him that might have caught an eye.
Sark found the culvert and skinned through the corrugated tube, shoulders catching repeatedly in its small confines. Stagnant water and silty deposits soaked into his clothes and he grimaced but kept moving steadily. The culvert brought him outside the compound and into a ditch.
"I'm out," he whispered.
"Stay in place and wait for pickup."
"Acknowledged."
He stayed in the ditch and out of sight as the alarms began going off in the compound behind him.
Brief moments later, a blue Mercedes exited the compound through the front gate, after the guards inspected its interior and radioed back for confirmation that its occupants were allowed out. When permission arrived, the locked gates swung open before the car and it rolled through slowly. It turned onto the road next the ditch Sark waited in. As it came parallel, the back passenger door opened and it slowed further.
Khasinau's voice came in his ear.
"Get in."
Sark clambered out of the ditch and threw himself into the Mercedes. His arm hit the moving door and he almost fell, white-hot pain spiking from his wrist as the closing door smashed into it and something cracked. A strong hand caught his shoulder then and he was pulled inside and onto the seat.
For a second all he could think of was not vomiting from the pain in his arm and wrist. Cold sweat oozed from his pores. His hands were burning and bloody. He wanted to whimper. He bit his lip until it bled and blinked at the woman in the Mercedes' back seat with him.
Irina was elegance personified in red silk, diamonds, and a sable coat. Her hand was still on Sark's shoulder.
"Have you got the discs?"
He nodded wordlessly and brought them out with his good hand. Irina accepted them with an approving smile.
"You did well, Sark."
Sark cradled his broken arm close to his chest and basked in the warmth of that smile. Irina placed the discs in a metal briefcase and locked it. She reached over and carefully took Sark's arm, studying the way the end of the broken bone jogged out beneath the flesh above his wrist. Her fingers were cool and sure and steady.
"This is broken," she said. "It will need to be set." Her eyes lifted from Sark to the mirror that reflected the driver. "Alexei, arrange for a medic to meet us at the airport."
"There's time to take him to a hospital, Irina," Khasinau said. Sark jolted a little, realizing the Russian was doubling as their driver. The voice had come from the speaker in his ear and the driver's seat.
"We'll take him to a doctor in Geneva," Irina said. "The medic can give him something for the pain during the flight." She smiled at Sark and slipped the cap off his hair and the speaker from his ear. "We can't afford to linger here too long," she told him gently. "Do you understand?"
He nodded again. "I am all right," he whispered hoarsely. He hurt, but he'd hurt before. Admitting it only made things worse, he'd learned. In the front seat, he could hear Khasinau using a mobile phone to make Irina's arrangements.
Irina stroked his hair. "Come here," she said, and pulled him close, ignoring the dirt and blood coating him, taking care not to jostle his arm. Sark had begun to shiver with exhaustion and pain and the effort to not cry. Irina pulled the sable coat around them both and held him in her arms.
No one had held him like that since his mother.
"I'm very pleased with you, Sark," she said softly. "You won't be going back to Kiev."
He would have done anything for her after that. And did, eventually.
VII. Ordinary People
He began with the obvious.
Jack Bristow, dedicated CIA agent, a man who was quite understandably driven to uncover his missing daughter's whereabouts, had broken Sark out of custody. It made no sense. Sark didn't believe Irina had extorted the man's aid---not that she wouldn't---but that she wouldn't for him. The only thing Bristow cared for was finding his daughter. Whatever he did must somehow further that endeavor.
Freeing Sark---didn't.
Logically, Sark had been more valuable to Bristow as a prisoner, trading information on Sloane and Irina for whatever he could get to help himself.
It made no bloody sense! Sark found himself growling in frustration, his poised mask cracking in the security of his office solitude. He ran both hands up over his face and through his hair. The data on the laptop screen didn't change, offering no reason, and he slapped it shut.
He stalked out of his office and into the gym, intent on burning off some energy. Even while he worked out, his mind kept circling the problem. He wasn't about to ask Irina anything. Finally, muscles trembling and body running with sweat, he decided he needed to understand Bristow better. If Bristow's reasons weren't obvious in light of events, then perhaps they lay in the man's past.
He tried a different tactic, using assets in DC to obtain the CIA's own files on Bristow, collating that information with the profile Irina had provided before tasking him to infiltrate SD-6. Most of it was duplicate, the hard facts and dates, operations successful and failed---more of the former than the latter---the FBI investigation that followed. He read the psychological evaluations done before and after Bristow's ten year marriage to 'Laura' and his case officer's notes over the years working as a double agent in SD-6.
It had changed the man, hardened him, burned away his idealism. Just as Sark had thought, Jack Bristow believed in doing his job to the very best of his ability, but only allowed himself to care for one person: his daughter. Bristow was so distant from the patriotic young man who joined the CIA that he might easily have sided with Arvin Sloane over the Agency, if Sloane hadn't recruited Sydney. That had made Bristow the man's deadly enemy. Only his professionalism, his need to protect Sydney from the Alliance and the CIA, had kept Bristow from simply killing Sloane.
Sark sighed. None of that was new.
He looked at file again.
Jack Bristow. DOB 16.3.50. POB London, Ontario, Canada. Mother was American and the family moved back to US while Bristow was a child. The father had a consultant's job in Silver Springs, Maryland. Recruited by the CIA in 1967. Sark raised his eyebrows. That was young. He checked the background and chuckled. Apparently, playing the Game ran in the Bristow family, and he had been recruited as an unobtrusive courier by his father's case officer. Bristow had already been hip deep in the shadows while his university confederates were draft dodging and protesting Vietnam.
Bristow had been busy at school, though. He'd earned a doctorate. He was a master of game theory, expert in engineering, aeronautics, and physics. CIA language school had taught him fluent Russian and Chinese---Cantonese and Mandarin. He had done his training at Camp Peary and honed those skills over more than thirty years; he was a nasty customer in the field.
All interesting, but not what Sark wanted to know. Absently, he flipped through the rest of the personnel file, glancing at the photos of Bristow's parents. The mother had been a pretty woman, almost Slavic looking at the cheekbones; Sydney's looks came from more than just Irina. Bristow's father had fair hair and a skeptical squint for the camera. Both were deceased. There had been a sister, but she died young. An uncle was mentioned, dead, flying for the RAF before Bristow had been born. No one else, no other relatives.
Useless. All useless.
But he stared at the photo of Bristow, Irina, and baby Sydney for a long time, frowning. Of course it was all a lie . . . But they looked so happy in it. He couldn't imagine Jack Bristow smiling like that now.
Sark closed the file and locked it into his safe. He had other work to do.
VIII. The Width of the Wide Abyss
Kendall stopped him the hallway.
"I'm not stupid, you know, Jack," he said.
Jack gave him the bland, silent look he'd perfected over the years. He'd first started using it while the FBI interrogated him about his wife's activities. Denying them any glimpse of his emotions had been the last and only privacy he had held onto. That apparent impassivity had become a reflex.
"I know what you did."
But he didn't. If Kendall had more than a suspicion, he wouldn't be fishing. Jack would be strapped down, pumped full of truth serum, babbling.
Kendall shook his head and grabbed Jack's shoulder before he could walk away. "I know, Jack. I just don't know why. The information Sark provided was damned valuable . . . . I don't believe you threw that away without a good reason."
Jack opened his mouth and closed it. "We all have our reasons," he said at last.
"We all want to find Sydney, Jack."
But for once, it hadn't been about Sydney, Jack thought.
"I hope whatever gamble you're taking works out, Jack," Kendall said. "For all our sakes." He met Jack's gaze steadily.
"Thank you," Jack croaked.
Kendall shrugged uncomfortably and stalked off, his typical expression of impatient irritation in place again. He was a better friend than Jack had given him credit for being.
IX. Borgia
Blood stains marble. It seeps into the grain of the stone. The puddle on the pink-veined floor would leave its mark. The bodies would be gone, but an astute observer would mark that stain.
Sark sidestepped the glossy pool of scarlet spreading from the two dead guards. He wasn't bothered by blood, but you never knew what was in it these days and there was no reason to track it down the long, columned corridor.
Irina's heels clicked against the polished stone floor as she stepped over the two corpses. She had to lift the hem of her burgundy evening gown to keep it from trailing in the blood. Her other hand held the small, silenced Russian pistol she had just used to shoot the guards.
"Typical," Irina had remarked as the last one folded to the floor. The two men had been intent on Sark and dismissed any threat Irina posed. Fatal mistake.
The strains of a Strauss waltz floated from the Palazzo's ballroom a floor below. Ten minutes before, Sark had been dancing with a wine merchant's mistress to Der Rosenkavalier, absently aenjoying her skill and surprising conversational abilities. The wine merchant had good taste.
He'd parted from the lovely blonde at her patron's side with a smooth excuse, cutting his way through the crowd to join Irina on her way to the long gallery that displayed some of the Senchi's most precious artworks.
Their target was a private solarium, closed to most of the night's guests. Paolo Senchi was auctioning off his great-grandfather's collection of clocks, including a Rambaldi timepiece commissioned by a Senchi ancestor.
The guards had unfortunately been in the way.
Irina was unhappy with Paolo Senchi.
He'd struck a deal with her for an obscene amount of money, then reneged, choosing to offer the Rambaldi clock to the highest bidder.
Sark reached into a pocket of his tuxedo and withdrew a small case. He opened it as they approached the doorway into the solarium. Muffled voices came from inside, the words too soft to discern. With a slight smile he withdrew a set of filtering nose plugs and handed them to Irina, before donning his own. Next came the clear goggles, the rubber edges already wiped with a silicon gel that would seal them against skin.
"Remember to keep your mouth closed," he said once they were both equipped.
"Excellent advice," Irina said with a straight face and amusement in her voice.
He picked the third item from its bed in the case, a coppery capsule approximately an inch and a half long. It contained a mild neurotoxic gas developed in France that would disable those exposed to it for several hours. The gas was absorbed quickly through mucous membranes and destroyed all motor control until completely metabolized unless an antidote was administered. The gas itself was lighter than air and would dissipate without reaching the guests in the rest of the Palazzo.
"Ready?" he asked her as they paused in the doorway.
"Do it," she replied.
Sark shoved the door open, strode inside as he pinched the capsule hard enough to break it and lobbed it onto the desk where Paolo Senchi had the Rambaldi clock displayed. His gaze caught on the clock, a globe of glass supported by four carved wooden arms in the shape of wings. The base was in the shape of two griffins, crouching. The claws and wings were gilt. Inside the globe, the clockworks were made of crystal and appeared to float, still working after six centuries. There were seven men gathered around the desk, all in black tuxedos except Senchi in white. They had been intent on the clock and were too startled to do more than turn toward the interruption as Sark arrived.
The broken capsule rolled to a stop against one griffin's claw with a tiny tick.
Gas bloomed out in a rose-colored cloud, twisting into smoky streamers and engulfing the bidders. One man cried out and another tried to bolt for the door. Then the choking began and each of them fell, hitting the floor in graceless, helpless heaps.
Senchi was convulsing, obviously having a spectacularly bad reaction to the gas.
Sark ignored him and picked up the clock, carefully securing it in the case Senchi's great grandfather had kept it in. The gas was starting to thin, but he imagined he could feel it on his skin. His hands felt stiff and slightly numb. He fumbled, closing the latches.
Irina was waiting in the doorway.
Sark picked up the case and slowly joined her. A wave of vertigo hit as he reached the threshold. Irina caught up the clock's case and he slammed a shoulder against the wall. The damned gas had absorbed through his skin. The taste of watermelon and metal flooded his mouth and his eyes began to water profusely.
Irina had the case in one hand, the other held her gun. She gave Sark a considering look. He began to slide down the wall. He knew if she turned the gun on him he wouldn't be able to stop her. He wouldn't even be able to move.
He fumbled desperately for the other case in his pocket, the one with two pre-loaded syringes of the antidote, spilling it onto the floor beside him. It looked impossibly distant. He couldn't stop Irina, but he could go out trying.
His hearing hadn't suffered. He heard Irina's shoes and realized she was walking away. She had decided to leave him alive, but he had to get himself out. If he could.
With fingers that trembled and felt swollen and awkward, he got the case open. One syringe dropped onto the marble and rolled away. He clutched the second, pulled the cap off with his teeth and ruthlessly shoved the needle into his neck. The antidote felt like acid as he injected it and his hand fell away from the syringe while his whole body jerked.
When the spasm passed, most of his motor control had returned. Sark lurched to his feet and staggered down the gallery. He looked like a drunk, but that passed. Once he reached the stairs, he was under enough control to stop and check his appearance, stripping off and discarding the goggles and nose plugs before descending into the crowd and making his way to the exit.
Irina had already taken the limo, but a taxi was available. Sark instructed the driver to take him straight to the Sofitel Firenze and sat back.
He was shivery and cold and absolutely alone. Reaction. It would have taken perhaps sixty seconds to set the clock or the gun down and administer the antidote for him. Instead, Irina had walked away.
Sark closed his eyes but opened them quickly and stared at the passing streets, the pools of light and the inevitable darkness between. He bit his lip.
He wasn't going to go through this again, he decided. Loyalty couldn't be bought, but it could be broken. He'd had enough of being disposable. He would never trust Irina Derevko again.
It opened up a world of possibilities.
X. Bid My Blood To Run
Sark leaned his hip against the desk top, reading from the laptop's screen over Irina's shoulder. He didn't touch her, but his hand rested on the back of her chair, and he could smell the scent of her shampoo. If she lifted her head, her dark hair would brush against his fingers.
He tried to keep his mind on her briefing. These moments when she let him close were rare, if she thought he was distracted by the physical; she'd find some way to school him against it. He drew his brows together, listening as she outlined his new responsibilities in the Organization.
He'd been steadily rising within the Organization, but in the last months that had ramped up until he had effectively become third in command. He enjoyed the power, but didn't trust the reasons behind it. Irina's---his employer, he reminded himself---interests seemed to be spiraling inwards to a single point: Rambaldi. She and Khasinau were arguing more and more often. Sark didn't like it.
He had no idea which way he would go if Khasinau and Irina parted ways. His loyalty to them both had never been put to a test, never conflicted between them.
"The CIA and SD-6 will be hunting you," Irina said. "You'll have to handle these matters using your own judgment; I'll be incommunicado once I'm in CIA custody."
He nodded and bent closer.
"Are you sure this is necessary? You're taking a risk; they may execute you immediately."
Her voice was husky with amusement. "They won't. They will want what I know." She tipped her head toward Sark, smiling. "They're predictable, they have rules."
Sark smiled at that.
"You haven't said what Alexei Alexandrovich will be doing while I handle these matters," he said. Most of the instructions Irina was giving him involved dealing with Khasinau's end of the Organization's operations. Perhaps the dour Russian's health had deteriorated to the point that he had withdrawn from field operations completely. If so, Sark would miss him, he acknowledged. Khasinau was as much his mentor as Irina.
Irina's next words were as smooth and quiet as always. "Khasinau overestimated my forbearance." She gazed steadily into Sark's eyes. She'd killed Khasinau, he understood. Did she hesitate, looking for his reaction? "That was a mistake." She made the words a tender warning.
He assumed his most innocent, unconcerned mask and raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware you had any forbearance." He hid his shock and dismay with the ease of long practice. "Nor am I in the habit of making mistakes.'
Irina lifted her hand to his cheek in a light caress and Sark turned into it like a cat, but in his mind he thought she was a fool to treat him like a pet. It wasn't safe. She'd made sure of that herself. He would give her what she wanted, because he wanted it too. Though he could have performed anyway; he had the training.
"Like your father," she murmured slowly, smiling at him. "Though he made one." The cruel amusement in her brown eyes told him she knew very well he wouldn't ask her anything about his past.
Irina slid her fingers up into the hair along his temple. Sark bent closer and let the hand on the chair find her shoulder. He could feel her heat, matching his own. He kept his breathing steady, though his pulse hammered, and his eyes locked onto hers.
"This will be the last time, I think," she murmured, spinning the desk chair and rising to press into his arms. The last time for her before she turned herself into the CIA or the last time between them? He didn't know or care. Her mouth opened to his, tasting of tea and cloves; his hands molded against lithe muscle and silk smooth over skin.
He pushed the thought of Khasinau back and let himself burn. Irina sank her teeth into his lower lip. Sark dug his fingers into her hips, knowing he'd leave marks, wanting to mark her. Sex with Irina was always like that; hard, harsh, and physical, a contest for dominance that left him scratched and bruised and hungry. It always felt dangerous, flooding him with adrenaline as well as pleasure. And he knew it meant absolutely nothing to her when he slid into her body, that he could be any man, because he wasn't the one she wanted.
He wasn't Jack Bristow.
He wondered if she would manage to seduce Bristow somehow while playing the repentant spy for her daughter and the CIA. Bitterly, he hoped not.
He pulled away from her and jerked off his jacket and shirt. Irina stripped out of her silk mock-turtleneck and skirt, revealing black lingerie. She bent gracefully and removed first one and then the other high heel. Without a hint of self-consciousness, she padded over to the leather covered couch and stood beside it, perfectly balanced, waiting.
"Now," she commanded.
"Not yet," he breathed, just looking at her. No lace for Irina, just stark black silk over pale, supple flesh, and even her stance was a challenge. She was, always, alluring and beautiful, he wanted her, but he wished he didn't.
He tasted blood and licked his lip.
"Now, Sark."
Irina's hands went behind her back to open her bra. Sark toed off his shoes and shed his slacks and boxers, playing to her, making a production of it. He paced over to her and waited. It was part of the game. Who would give first.
This time it was Irina who moved first. She ran her nails down his chest, leaving reddened streaks behind them, until she reached his groin, then took his erection in one hand and squeezed just hard enough to remind him she could hurt him. Sark hissed. His muscles tensed and he held himself still with an effort, didn't touch, didn't speak, just let his head fall back, his eyelids fall half-closed. Let her work for it this time; he wasn't the one panting after her, this was what she wanted too.
"Fast, Sark," Irina murmured, stroking him just a shade too hard, trying to push him past his control. "Hard and fast." Like it was a promise.
No, not this time, he wasn't a toy. She couldn't throw him away when he stopped being convenient, kill him like she'd done Khasinau, forget him like she had every man after her husband. He wouldn't let her and he wanted her to know it. Easy to slow down when he thought of that, even when he was so hard he ached.
He stripped the black thong off her, still smiling, and used every trick he'd learned---from other women, from his trainers in Kiev, from her---to draw it out, to make her writhe, laid out on the leather and cursing him in Russian, before he satisfied himself.
He wouldn't kiss her lips, not again, but his fingers found her mouth, her breasts, the sleek hot center of her before he tasted her there. If this was the last time, he wanted her to remember it, just as he wanted to memorize her body: the long muscles of her thighs, the arch of her ribcage, the way she snarled and caught at his hair when he teased too long, just breathing in her musk.
Irina's nails were scourges against his shoulders, urging him on; she twisted and slid against his weight, fighting him, biting, punishing him, taunting him into giving more. He felt her shiver around him again and buck as he thrust into her finally. So hot, he made a harsh sound, a growl of hunger and urgency. Her eyes dilated black and she keened as he found the rhythm to drive them both mad. And then he was there. Sark sank his teeth into her shoulder, drowning in pleasure, forgetting who he was, who she was---forgetting everything---in the rush of it.
Sweat slick and breathless, after, he held himself on hands and knees above Irina, looking at her. Bruises and shadows painted her flesh. She'd closed her eyes at the last instant, even this time. Her face was an opaque mask, her lashes laying long shadows over perfect cheekbones, hair a loose tangled mess spread over the cushion under her, her mouth just parted as she too fought for breath. At least she'd never called him Jack.
He forced himself to get up, clean up, and dress with apparent indifference, knowing she was watching him with sphinx eyes. She did that, too, every time. He wouldn't let her see she'd left him hating her again. Let her think fucking her meant nothing; anything else she'd use against him.
Irina stretched lazily and sat up. "You're beautiful, Sark."
"It's useful," he commented.
She considered him thoughtfully, and said so softly Sark didn't know whether she'd meant him to hear or not, "You remind me of him."
As he shrugged on his shirt, he became aware of the stinging running down his back. As usual, she'd drawn blood.
"You'll ruin the shirt," Irina said, rising and beginning to dress herself too. He watched sidelong. If this had been a hit, she would make her move now, when the target was sated and relaxed.
A black puddle of underwear lay abandoned on the floor by the couch.
"I'll buy another one."
She laughed throatily at that, passing so close to him as she walked to the desk that he could smell the scent of sex still on her.
She opened the second drawer on the desk's left, taking out a small black case. Back to business, Sark thought. Or maybe the sex had been business too, a test for her subordinate, something to feed his addiction to her and prove Khasinau's death didn't matter to him. Irina opened the case, revealing a neat, miniaturized transmitter/receiver and a pair of diamond earrings. He recognized the earrings; she wore them often.
"If I can retain these while in custody," she said, holding up one the earrings, "You'll be able to use them to keep in contact."
"We'll need to set up a code," he said. "And memorize it, of course." He had a faultless memory, so did Irina, it wouldn't offer them much challenge.
Much later that night, after she'd left him to board a flight to Los Angeles, after he'd read a stolen copy of the CIA after-action report detailing Khasinau's death, Sark opened the most expensive bottle of wine in his small collection. Sitting in the dimly lit living room of his penthouse apartment in Paris, he toasted Alexei Alexandrovich Khasinau. No one else would.
Khasinau had taught him wines. Khasinau had been his handler on his first mission. The gaunt old man had been a part of Sark's life almost as long as he could remember; he'd even appeared at the Kiev school sometimes. Once, he'd taken him on a rattling train all the way to Moscow, feeding him black bread with butter and honeyed tea. After Sark had lured a Red Army colonel into a hotel room and enough incriminating photos were taken of the two of them to ensure the man's cooperation with the Organization, Khasinau had taken him to the Moscow Circus to see the performing bears, before returning him to the school.
Khasinau had called him Sascha sometimes, when Sark had pleased him. No one else had ever taken such a liberty with his name.
Another sip of wine, another memory of Khasinau. The man had had a dry, wicked sense of humor. He'd taught Sark to see the irony in everything they did. He'd taught him never to trust anyone completely, not Irina, not even Khasinau himself. Those lessons had kept Sark alive more than once already. He'd been there with Sark more times than he could count. More times than Irina knew or she wouldn't have admitted killing him to Sark so casually.
Sark sighed. Irina had neatly removed one difficulty: he needn't chose between her and Khasinau now the man was dead.
But he really would miss Khasinau.
He would remember him, too; remember how the man had died: shot by Irina Derevko because it had become expedient. Just as she'd found it expedient to leave her child behind when the KGB recalled her from her life as Laura Bristow, to shoot her daughter in Taipei, to order the head of K-Directorate eliminated, and all the other assassinations Sark himself had completed on her orders. Irina was the ultimate pragmatist. If Sark ever forgot that, he would end up as dead as his targets were.