Disclaimer: same
A/N: Once again, I owe everyone the BIGGEST apology for not updating for so long. I got to the end of the last chapter and I literally hit a WALL. I was totally unsure how to end the story. Finally, I just sat down to write and it this is what came out. Anyway, I hope everyone is still sticking around for the ending. Sorry once again that it took me so long to write, and enjoy the last part of the story!!
OOOOO
Neither of us said much on the flight to Hong Kong. I spent most of the time trading phone calls with Dixon, trying to get a lock on Irina's exact location through Marshall and finding out what was going on with Jack. Much to Sydney's relief, the medical team made it to him in time.
Dixon had mentioned something about an explosion, but he didn't have all the details. With everything rapidly descending into chaos, and the lack of APO resources to keep track of anything that was happening, I could understand how difficult it was for Dixon to try and keep a handle on things. In a way, I was glad we were on the way to Hong Kong.
And then there was the other part of me that was completely terrified.
I had no idea what we might be walking into. Sydney and I were completely on our own on this one. Virtually all of APO's remaining resources were spent going into Mongolia after Sloane. Even if they could catch up, there was little chance they'd be able to do any good.
Sark was in Hong Kong. He'd taken the Sphere of Life with him, presumably to hand it over to Irina – it seemed as though he'd finally shown his true loyalty. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I felt sure it wasn't going to be anything good.
"Okay," Marshall said, drawing my attention back to the phone. Sydney and I had managed to hook it up to a small speakerphone device, but the sound quality definitely left a little something to be desired. "It looks like we've got a lock on the location."
"What about the missiles?" Sydney questioned.
"Primed and ready to launch, but they haven't given the go-ahead yet. You guys aren't that far behind Sark, and she must be waiting for him to get there before doing anything," Marshall explained. The crackling of the bad speaker almost drowned out the furious tapping of his fingers on a keyboard in the background.
"How close can we land to where they're at?" I questioned.
"Close enough," was Marshall's only reply.
"How are things there?" Sydney asked.
"Calm for now," Dixon replied. "I've been in contact with Langley. Standard evacuation procedures are all in place. They're ready to act should the launch take place."
"Good," Sydney replied.
"I just got off the phone with the hospital," Rachel threw in suddenly. "Syd, they said your father just came out of surgery. He'll be out of commission for a while, but he's going to be all right."
"Do they know anything about the explosion?" she questioned.
"No, not yet," Dixon answered.
"We're close!" the pilot hollered back to Sydney and I.
"I've already sent a transmission through, it'll show where you guys need to land to get close to Irina," Marshall explained.
"All right," I said with a nod. "Anything else?"
"Yeah," Dixon stated. "Good luck."
OOOOO
By the time we reached the building where Sark and Irina were running their operation, there was no time to take them out one-by-one. Both Sydney and I realized it was dangerous to go after Sark and Irina at the same time with no backup, but Marshall had called just before we got to the building to say that the missile launch sequence had already started. We had fifteen minutes before Washington and London were, for all intents and purposes, wiped clean off the face of the Earth.
"I'm going upstairs," Sydney insisted. "She'll be up there."
"All right," I said with a nod. We'd taken a few minutes to scope out the exterior of the building. There weren't many guards, which was good – we didn't have much in the way of ammunition. "The control room's probably on the ground floor. I'll look for Sark – try and get him to stop the launch."
"Okay." She turned to me, leaning in for a kiss and trying to smile bravely. "Meet me up there."
"Yeah," I agreed. She took off, heading around the side of the building. I went towards the back, hoping to find a relatively easy way in. Of course, it wasn't that simple – Irina wasn't going to go lax on defenses now, when she was so close to her endgame.
I stayed in the shadow that the sharp corners of the building offered me as long as I could, finally springing on one of the guards. Considering that surprise and a half-empty pistol were my only weapons, I was going to have to make each one count for what it could.
The startled guard swung the butt of his rifle at my head, but I ducked under it and drove him back against the wall. Unfortunately, that attracted the attention of a second guard from around the corner. I grabbed onto the first one's gun, wrenching it out of his grasp and snapping it into the other man's face.
The first guard got in a kick to my stomach, sending me stumbling back to the edge of the short stairway leading up to the back door. I spun out of the way of another blow, kicking at the back of his leg and sending him flying down the stairs.
I moved out of the way just in time to avoid a short burst of gunfire, closing the distance between myself and the second guard so that he couldn't get another shot off. I drove the butt of the rifle into his nose at a sharp upward angle, knocking him flat on his back. The back of his head hit the concrete walkway with a sickening crack.
By the time I'd regained my balance, the first man was up the stairs and had thrown himself over my back in an attempt to wrestle his gun out of my grip. I swung him to the side, trying to dislodge his hold on my neck. He kicked at my feet, almost succeeding in making me lose my balance.
Taking a little something from what I'd learned watching Sydney; I snapped the back of my head into his chin. He cried out, letting go immediately and falling to the ground. I brought the gun around and into his gut, slamming my elbow into his face. He fell down the stairs a second time, only this time he remained in an unconscious heap at the bottom.
I immediately turned my attention to the back door of the facility. I knew I didn't have time to waste fighting guards all evening, and hoped there weren't any more in my path to the control room where I was sure Sark would be waiting.
I used the rifle to shoot out the locks on the door, discarding it in favor of the smaller nine millimeter I had tucked into my jeans. Luckily, the control room was set up in a small office-looking area just off to the side of where I'd entered the building. Sark stood inside, speaking to someone via video conferencing on a computer monitor.
The first thing I could think of was to pull the cord I saw in the wall connecting several power strips to all of Sark's equipment. There was a low hum, and everything turned off. Before he could turn around to see what had happened, I came up beside him and hit him in the face with my gun.
I grabbed the back of his suit collar, slamming his face down into the desk. Once he was sufficiently disoriented, I threw him to the floor. His head hit one of the chairs, sending it sliding across the room. By the time he got his bearings and looked up at me, I had my gun leveled at his head.
"It appears we have a predicament," I stated.
"So it would seem," he replied, trying to catch his breath. I noticed that his nose was bleeding, wondering if I'd managed to break it again buy slamming his face into the desk.
"Give me the override codes," I said.
"I don't have the codes, I swear," Sark replied, holding his hands up and shaking his head a little. I knew there was a damn good chance he was lying, and I didn't have time for this crap.
I lowered the aim of my gun to his leg, taking aim for somewhere around the right knee, and fired. He cried out in surprise, both his hands immediately going to his leg to protect the wound. He looked up at me like I'd lost my mind.
"You shot me!" he cried.
"Yeah, and I'll keep shooting until you either give me the codes, or bleed to death. Your choice," I snapped.
"You know I didn't want any of this," Sark protested. "Mass extermination isn't exactly my passion, Michael." He grabbed onto a nearby desk to haul himself to his feet. I kept the gun leveled at him, just in case he tried anything. Shooting him before getting the override codes was definitely not a very good scenario, but I still had five rounds in the clip and there were several non-vital places I could think to shoot Sark.
"I'm a businessman, you know?" he continued, looking at me in disbelief. "I simply wanted to come out on the winning end." I pulled the hammer back on the gun. "I'll give you the codes, but you have to let me go after I do."
"The codes first, then we negotiate," I stated. Sark hesitated for a moment, finally realizing that he was in no position to call the shots in this particular situation. He nodded a little in acquiescence.
"All right," he replied. "But you've taken out my entire system, so I really don't see what good they'll do now."
"Just sit down and shut up," I said, gesturing to a nearby chair with the gun. Sark gladly took a seat, looking happy to be off his injured leg. I pulled the cell phone out of my pocket with my free hand, punching in Marshall's number.
"Yeah?" he asked, sounding frantic.
"Are you in the override system?" I asked.
"We're set, we just need the codes. It looks like there are two for each missile," Marshall relayed. "Have you got them?"
"Hang on," I replied, lowering the phone and looking over at Sark. "The first one." He relayed the codes to me and I gave them to Marshall, hearing him enter them into his computer as I did so.
"Come on, come on, come on," I could hear Marshall saying as soon as the last code was entered. I didn't know how much time was left before the launch, but I knew it couldn't be a lot. When I'd come into the room, it was ticking off the last couple of minutes. "Launch aborted!"
"Good work, Marshall," I heard Dixon say, sounding relieved.
"I'm going to find Sydney," I stated, hanging up the phone and returning my full attention to Sark.
"You know Derevko won't go down without a fight," Sark stated. "And I think you owe me at least a small amount of lenience for being willing to avert the apocalypse."
"And what guarantee do I have you're not going to start this up again once I leave this room?" I questioned.
"As I said, I have no taste for mass extermination," Sark replied, taking a breath and wincing as he tried to move his injured leg. "And while I realize you could simply shoot me and be done with it, that doesn't strike me as something that would suit your tastes either. Unless you want to remain in a stalemate while the woman you love is being attacked and possibly killed by her mother, I suggest you let me go."
"We're not through, you and me," I stated.
"Oh no, I suspect we'll have many more chances to play out these fascinating melodramas in the future," Sark said with a sarcastic grin. I lowered my gun and ran out of the room, heading for the stairs.
When I got to the upper level, I realized that the window had been broken out and that Sydney and Irina took their fight outside to the lower roof. At present, Irina was lying stretched across the glass skylight in the center of the roof, and Sydney stood off to the side.
I knew there had to be a safer way to get outside than through the broken window. I went back down the stairs, finding my way around to a stairwell that led up to the roof.
I opened the door just in time to hear the glass give way under Irina.
She fell through the skylight to the floor below – a good twenty-five feet. I knew there was no way she would have been able to survive, especially if she happened to land on any of the glass or the support beams built into the skylight.
I waited a moment before approaching Sydney. I could see the tears in her eyes and knew that, even at the last, she'd been trying to convince her mother to give up on Rambaldi. The Sphere of Life was on the floor near Irina, and I realized it had landed on the glass when the two of them went out the window.
Sydney turned to me, relieved to see that I was all right. I didn't say anything, instead going over beside where she stood and pulling her into my arms. She sighed, resting her head on my shoulder.
"It's over," I whispered after a moment. "It's all over."
EPILOGUE
"Daddy!" I glanced up from the mess of kitchen gadgets that Sydney had managed to cram into a very small drawer, seeing Isabelle outside. She'd insisted on going outside to play before dinner. I could hardly resist the temptation myself – living on the beach definitely had its advantages. I stepped outside onto the porch, seeing Dixon hiking up the sand towards the house. "Uncle Dixon!"
"Isabelle!" Dixon greeted, gladly scooping the bubbly six-year-old into his arms as she ran to meet him. "How are you, sweetie?"
"Deputy Director," I greeted him with a nod, smiling a little at the title. His promotion went through six months ago, and he was now head of most of the CIA operations at Langley.
"Please," Dixon protested. "This far from Langley you can just call me 'Sir'," he joked. He set Isabelle down, greeting me with a hug.
"Good to see you," I said. "Have a hard time finding this place?"
"What, are you kidding? I had an impossible time finding this place," Dixon retorted. I laughed.
"Well, I guess that's sort of the point," I said.
"Hello, stranger." I turned to see Sydney step out onto the patio, obviously informed of Dixon's arrival by Isabelle, who had disappeared inside the house in search of anyone else she could spread the word to. I smiled at Sydney, who shifted a little to keep the baby positioned on her hip.
"Hello, Sydney," Dixon greeted. He looked over at the baby. "Ah. And this must be…"
"Jack," Sydney replied.
"I keep telling her that I am far too young to have a grandchild named after me," her father's voice rung out from inside. He poked his head outside. "But of course she won't listen to a word I say."
"Well, you were there when we put the name on the birth certificate and you didn't complain, so…" I shrugged a little, smiling at Jack. He nodded.
"Yes, and I have seen the error of my ways." He grinned, ducking back inside.
"Hello, Jack," Dixon said to Sydney's father. "And, hello Jack," he added to the baby. "Marshall sends his best. He wanted to tag along, but Carrie's stuck at home on bed rest."
"Another baby?" Sydney asked. "Oh, god, I don't know how she does it."
"This makes four. All boys," Dixon threw in with a shrug.
"Well, come on inside. You'll just have to pardon the mess," Sydney said, moving our group back towards the doorway. "And the fact that my Dad insists on trying to cook."
"I do know how to cook, thank you," Jack shouted from the kitchen.
"Speaking of mess, didn't someone promise to finish unpacking her toys before dinner?" I asked Isabelle, seeing that she'd stopped by the couch now that the whole house had been alerted to Dixon's presence. "Go on."
"Go on, Isabelle," Sydney added. "Can I get you something to drink?" she asked Dixon.
"Sure," Dixon said, taking a seat on the couch.
"I made some lemonade earlier," Sydney replied. She ventured off towards the kitchen. "Dad, seriously, it's not going to cook any faster if you stand there and stare at it. Here." She handed the baby off to her father. "This should keep you busy."
"Indeed," Jack agreed, taking his grandson back towards the nursery. Sydney grabbed a few glasses and the pitcher, coming back out into the living room. I took a seat on the couch opposite Dixon, Sydney taking her place next to me.
"Why do I get the feeling this isn't a purely social call?" she asked as she poured drinks for the three of us.
"Truth be told, I could use some… Assistance," Dixon said after a moment. "A merc team hit the National Research Facility in Paris yesterday." He handed a manila folder over the coffee table to Sydney and I. "I need someone to intercept the seller and retrieve the hard drive."
"Can't you put Rachel on it?" Sydney asked.
"She's in deep cover assignment in Santiago, I can't risk pulling her," Dixon replied with a shrug. It had been this way several times over the last few years. Even though Sydney and I had both quit the Agency, Dixon would often come to us as 'independent' contacts and request our help with missions. He always insisted it was because we were such good agents and he could trust us. "Besides, this job has sentimental value."
Sydney opened the folder. Along with the mission specs and some background Intel on what had been stolen, there was a picture of one of the men that was involved with the heist.
"Sark," I stated, shaking my head a little. Why am I not surprised? I added silently, looking over at Sydney and thinking about the last time we'd seen him in Hong Kong all those years ago.
"Don't look at me, you're the one that let him go," she replied with a shrug. I just shook my head a little. I knew it hadn't been the best idea, but he was right – I wasn't going to just kill him either.
"We've already prepared the mission specs. Low-risk insertion, simple alias," Dixon explained, shrugging a little. "Who knows? Could be fun."
"That's what you say every time you show up on my doorstep," Sydney replied, setting the folder down. "The next thing you know, I'm jumping over canals in three-inch heels while Napalm explodes around me."
"Yes. That's how I define 'fun'," Dixon replied with a shrug. I just watched the two of them for a moment, thinking back on everything that had happened. How close I came to completely missing all of this. I still wasn't a big believer in fate or any of that, but there was definitely a part of me that knew some higher power had to be involved in all of this. Either that, or I was the luckiest guy in the entire world.
Hell, maybe it was some of both.
"Why don't we finish this conversation after dinner?" I suggested.
"And you haven't lived until you've seen our sunset," Sydney added. She smiled, getting up off the couch and going back to find her dad and the baby. "Hey, Isabelle? Isabelle, come on, we're going for a walk."
Jack emerged a moment later, handing the baby back off to Sydney and darting into the kitchen once more to make sure dinner would be all right until we came back. Dixon and Sydney had made their way to the porch before Isabelle came running out of her room.
"Hey, what have you been doing back there?" Sydney asked.
"Nothing, Mommy," she replied, darting outside and onto the sand.
"Just wait until she starts dating," Jack threw in, smiling a little at his daughter. "Or getting married."
"Come on, it wasn't that bad," Sydney joked. "I only saw you crying once."
"Yes, and the rest of us missed it, and you will never hear the end of it," Dixon threw in.
"I still have no idea what you're talking about," Jack said, grinning at Sydney and leading the way off the porch and down onto the sand. Sydney took a moment, looking back at the house. Finally, she followed the rest of us down onto the beach.
"You okay?" I asked her. She smiled, nodding happily.
"Yeah," she assured me. "I'm good."
THE END
