A/N: Well, well, well…what have we here? To be honest, writing a fic based around the convoluted plot of Alias was a daunting task. So I took the only available angle, and pursued a time period after the show's finale. And I did it using a character who did not have any sort of an ending at all—Sark. Sark has been my favorite character since the start of the series, and his psychology and persona are both exceedingly interesting. So here is my humble attempt to create Sark's own story, in his own words. It's an odd verb tense, so if I screw it up, here's my apology upfront.

And I do not own Alias. Don't be so foolish as to think so.


Mister Sark

1: The Businessman

My name is Julian Sark. That is one fact about me that has never been disputed.

The others are less concrete. It is reported that I am near the top of anti-terror watch lists in over 50 countries around the world. Supposedly, I currently rank higher than Osama bin Laden on the CIA's shoot-to-kill list. I am also the most wanted man in many less reputable circles. Whether this distinction is good or bad, I can't say for sure. My allegiances have been many in my lifetime, and few have ended amicably.

To be frank, my allies most often end up dead. I could call it an occupational hazard, but I am not given to make jokes.

I am a businessman. Not the kind who wears a suit to the office—although I do love a good Armani. I deal in trade secrets. Deadly ones. Locations of secret weapons caches, recipes for toxic gases, blueprints for cutting-edge technologies. Oh, yes, and anything having to do with the fifteenth century prophet Milo Rambaldi.

My name is Julian Sark. I am a businessman. This is my story.

Sevilla, Spain. 0200 hours

My buyer is late.

This does not surprise me, though I am irritated by his tardiness. And annoyed.

I am sitting in a car, in an alley off of Calle Victoria. It is a nice car, as cars go, though I do prefer a nice limousine. They tend to have fully stocked bars in the center compartment. This car does not, and it saddens me greatly. This occasion certainly calls for some champagne.

Instead of drinking champagne, I sit in the driver's seat, my hands folded in my lap, and wait. I have genuine kangaroo leather gloves on my hands. My hands are warm. My body is wrapped in a supple kangaroo leather coat. It, too, is warm. As are my feet, similarly garbed.

Outside the car it is cold. I was under the impression that Spain's climate was warmer than that of my home country.

I suppose I have been misinformed. It wouldn't be the first time.

In the upper reaches of my vision, the parapets of Castilla Victoriana stand bathed in cold spotlight, watching over the city like ancient gods. The castle is supposed to be a magnificent example of ancient Moorish architecture. Castles are too stuffy for my taste. I prefer something a little more modern, myself.

I check my watch, a TAG Heuer model I received as a gift from a terrorist leader in the Ukraine. My gift to him was considerably less pleasant, but no less enjoyable for me.

My buyer is now three hours late.

If I was an insecure man, I would be worried.

As it is, I am merely perturbed.

The cold steel of the silenced Heckler and Koch 9mm feels reassuring in my jacket pocket.

Out of the corner of my eye, two headlights crawl slowly past the entrance to the alleyway, outlining the walls of the surrounding buildings in high-contrast whites and blacks. It is a black sedan, not a limousine, which would be obvious at this time of night. Though I can't say a black sedan on the streets of old Seville isn't obvious. Only less so.

The license plate on the sedan is blacked out, but I don't need an Interpol database to tell me that my buyer is arriving. I exit the car as quietly as possible and place my hands in my jacket pockets. The gun in my right pocket melts into my hand like quicksilver.

In case the buyer is smarter than I take him for—an unlikely event—I walk away from the street, taking a connecting alley around the back of the buildings. Seville is a well-to-do city, so thankfully I do not have to worry about killing innocent witnesses.

I do not worry. There are no innocent witnesses.

No one is innocent.

A strange mist has taken to swirling about as I leave the shadowy comfort of the alley and step into the harshly lighted parking lot. The black sedan is parked neatly in a space near the middle of the lot. No one has set foot outside it as yet. They are waiting for their contact. I step under a towering lamp.

Two clicks ricochet around the lot. Two men in sunglasses set out from the sedan. Each carries a sturdy metal briefcase.

The buyer is shy. How quaint.

The men in sunglasses are apparently having trouble seeing me. They continue to walk closer, until they stand only a row of spaces away from me. They stand shrouded in relative dark. I am waiting in the light.

How I do love irony.

"You must be Mr. Sark." His accent is thick, probably Eastern European. I nod in assent. "Mr. Karlov expresses his regret at not being able to make this meeting, but he fell ill this week. A horrible strand of the flu."

The buyer is in the back seat of the sedan. The bodyguards are tense and alert, and their shoulder stance screams defensive. No longer is the buyer shy. Now he is just cowardly.

Two briefcases are held out and opened. The buyer has brought the ten million. He still has time to double-cross.

The bills are all wrapped in plastic, fresh from the bank.

My right hand frees itself from the fabric of my jacket. Leather and steel work together in harmony.

Two thugs fall to the pavement. A red flower blossoms on each of their foreheads.

Headlights illuminate the lot. Drunk with fear, the sedan lurches backward and sideways. Six clicks and I am standing within range of the sedan. Two more clicks after that.

One bursts the front tire. The next perforates the gas tank. Metal on metal sparks, and like magic the sedan is suddenly a red ball of flame.

Of course, I do not believe in magic, but I suppose even I, jaded business man that I am, can be given to a few imaginative flights of fancy now and again.

I close the two briefcases and pick them up, one in each hand. It occurs to me—I haven't the slightest idea what the money was for anyway.

Moscow, Russia. 0800 Hours

My private plane departed from Seville at 3 a.m. It was criminal to flying this early in the morning, my unsuspecting pilot said.

If only he knew.

I landed in Moscow at 7:30 a.m. on the dot. It's odd how that happens. A limo pulled up on the snowy runway and I opened the door and got in. The two briefcases were put in the trunk.

You may wonder why I did not keep them with me always, handcuffed to my wrists. It is not because I consider the twenty million dollars they contained a trifle. Good God, no. I bloody well needed the money, especially since my eighty million dollar inheritance had be squandered by a dubious terrorist organization with whom I was affiliated for a regrettably long while. No, it was because I had faith. Faith in my anonymity, to be precise. Of course no one at the airport would know the briefcases were filled with cash. No, being nonchalant about it was by far the simplest, safest option.

And besides, there are all sorts of unsavory people working at the Moscow airport. I myself am loosely affiliated with at least twenty, most all of them working for different terrorist organizations. For my own sake, walking off a plane with briefcases handcuffed to my wrists would not be an intelligent move. And I am nothing if not intelligent.

I am now sitting on a sickeningly blue bench in the middle of a mall in the commercial district of Moscow. It is still cold. I am still wearing the same coat that I did in Seville. The briefcases are in a safer location—namely, not on my person.

I hold a cup of coffee in my gloved hands. I despise coffee, but it is cold, and the cold winters must have destroyed the Russians' memory of how to make a good tea.

…It has come to my attention that I am surrounded. I wonder if they could have been any more obvious about it. Five men, covering all possible escape routes from the mall. All discreetly acting as though they aren't watching me, even though they constantly glance over their shoulders, over their newspapers, etc. I must say, I'm flattered that they're even trying, but I wish they wouldn't. It makes the arrival of their boss all the more anti-climactic.

Here he comes now. Fat, with sunglasses and a cigar, the classic mobster image, but this one is trying too hard.

He sits beside me, but the stench of day-old cheap vodka sat down long before his fat arse did. He leans over to me and brings down his sunglasses. His eyes are bloodshot and beady. He says, in heavily accented American English, "I don't know if you've noticed, Mr. Sark…but you have been surrounded." A rotten-toothed smile cuts its jagged way across a pockmarked face that shows it's age. This guy is old time, desperately trying to fit in with a new crowd of thugs.

It really is such a shame that the old ways are going out of style so quickly.

In as defeated a voice as I can muster, I reply, "And you are?"

"Viktor Korvachenko, at your service, Mr. Sark."

Korvachenko. Old Russian Mob, as I had thought. Currently employed by an ex-KGB operation who thoughtfully gave him a management position. Of course, it was their lowest level front, a club in the seedy Fish District, but who wouldn't be flattered by such an offer? Certainly not a washed-up mobster like Korvachenko.

"And to whom do I owe the pleasure of this meeting, Mr. Korvachenko?"

Korvachenko's laugh is irritable and grating. "Mr. Sark. I'm hurt. Why is it that no criminal can be considered a Lone Ranger, you know what I mean?"

"I'm no fool, Mr. Korvachenko. Your men didn't get those guns on a pimp's salary."

His smile changed to a scowl. "Let's cut to the chase, as you Americans like to say."

I thought better of correcting his mistaken analysis of my nationality.

"Yesterday, a friend of a friend was murdered in Seville." His lips purse. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you, Mr. Sark?"

Time to tread carefully. "I was in Seville yesterday, as any kind of background check will reveal. But I was there for personal reasons, Mr. Korvachenko. I have no knowledge of this…murder you speak of."

He nods his fat head, and I know what's happening next. A pair of rough hands grab my shoulders and I am pulled back, rigid against the freezing cold metal of the bench.

"Tell me where the money is, Mr. Sark, or I regret that I will have to kill you."

At this point in time, the usual though crosses my mind.

Here we go again.

And, like clockwork, a burst of light and pain blazes from the back of my skull.

Here we go again.


A/N: Okay, so this chapter was…interesting. Short, I know. And I apologize for the lack of coherence or clarity in it. This was written in different parts and at different times, so I'm not entirely sure how together it is. If it seems all over, I promise, it'll get clearer as it goes. And I do intend to continue it. Oh, yes, I do. So don't worry.