The sky is rosy and the sea spotted with diamonds as they touch down on a
small airstrip just a block from the hotel. Like most resorts, it's on the
curving peninsular coast, giving the illusion of an island paradise--
continental breakfast and room service included. The air is full of salt,
sunscreen, and papaya; Sydney allows herself to pause halfway down the
airplane steps, breathing in the tropics. Even at dusk the colors are
striking, vivid, rich like she's never known North America to be. It's a
tourist trap, but this is as close to the real Quintana Roo that she
expects to get, so she'll savor just a little.
"Are you actually going to keep moving, or hail I call a taxi to take us down the street?"
Sark is lurking behind her, eyes on the sea and voice bored. She doesn't spare him a word, but steps down and unlocks the luggage compartment to pull out her bag, starts toward the towering hotel, and leaves him to get his own suitcase and follow. She swears she can hear him smirking at her.
The air is alive, and so is the street. Faces, most not Mexican, bustle by on both sides, laughing, going to the beach, to the lagoon, to restaurants and cafes. They're on vacation, something she always said she'd do the same way these people said they'd one day write a novel or trace their family tree back to the Mayflower. She weaves, makes eye contact, smiles, establishing herself as a traveler who's awed and jovial, perhaps walking a little too fast.
All the hotels here have pretentious names, theirs the most of all. "Presidente Inter-Continental Cancun" in bold golden letters looms over a driveway that's nearly wider than the building it approaches. Flags flap cheerily among ferns and baby palm trees-American, Mexican, others from the region. The wheels of her suitcase click along behind her until it's taken away by the doorman as she enters. He takes it to wait patiently by the ornately decorated elevator, past an endless lounge of chairs and loveseats too expensive to actually sit on.
She stands around by a giant marble pillar, irritated that they were sent here days before the op could even begin, annoyed that she doesn't know what name to check in under, mildly irked at every obvious tourist there, wondering if they'll have separate rooms, worried about how little it matters to her.
Sark takes his time entering, chatting with the doorman in Spanish, looking nearly pleasant. She puts on her sociable face and stalks over to interrupt.
"Excuse me," she matches her accent to his, "So sorry to break in, but I'm rather eager to see the view before it gets dark out. Would you mind terribly if I stole him away?"
A little bow and wave routine, "Of course, Senora, he is all yours!"
"Thanks ever so!"
She pulls him away by sheer force of will, refusing to touch him.
"Want to get right to hiding away? You do recall that we're here for a reason?" He's meandering, going vaguely towards the check-in desk.
"That man thought we were married." A hiss, like how her grandmother used to talk about cancer.
"What gives you that idea?"
"He called me Senora. What did you tell him?"
"That the weather was lovely, I'd heard the mezzanine floor's restaurant is first class, and I can't wait to get onto the golf course," he pulls a wallet out of his bag, paying her minimal attention, "I can't be blamed for other people's assumptions."
She drops it as he comes to the desk. She goes to wait with their bags while he checks in, overhearing "Master Suite" and "jacuzzi" and idly wondering what kind of swimwear he has, the idea completely foreign to her, the entire situation disconcertingly foreign. She feels she should be racing him now, but he's behind her and maddeningly calm about it, asking about room service, phone jacks. Domestic, she articulates by the time he joins her and they enter the elevator, and probably navy trunks.
The bellboy rides up with them and Sark doesn't say a word, so she watches the numbers light up, go dark, making a list of things to keep herself busy with during the next four days--crossing off windsurfing in favor or bugging the conference halls, trading sunbathing for hacking into the reservations list. It takes up the time nicely, always does, and soon they're in the room, and she's tipping the young man, kicking off her shoes, and sitting in the nearest chair.
He arches an eyebrow from where he's flipping open a laptop.
"Being tired upon arrival is never a good sign," for a split second he sounds truly caring, but it wears off quickly, "More proof of the slave- drivers you work for doing just what-"
"Stop insulting my employers." Half-hearted.
"You never hesitated to do the same to mine."
"That's different."
"Because these are yours."
"Because they got us this job."
That earns a quick smile, cruel, more like her memories of him.
"If you'll recall, Agent Bristow, I got us this job," intent on the computer screen, "Something your friends at the CIA would never have been able to arrange without a considerable amount of assistance."
Seven years ago she would have put up a fight, showed him what's what from here to Tijuana. Seven years ago she would never have been in this situation. Right now she's just too tired.
"You know what," rising, grabbing her suitcase and walking to the first likely door, "Screw it, badmouth them all you want. Get a drink or two in me and I'll probably join you," pausing to consider the view, momentarily stunned at how the reddening sky outlines the horizon, how it outlines his form by the balcony window, "But they sure do book a hell of a suite."
He doesn't look up from the screen. Blue-white light reflects off his eyes as they scan left to right over, over.
"I booked this."
She pauses in the doorway, now open and revealing a generously sized bedroom and another incredible vista out the window. She knows there is more to say. She's staring and eventually he looks up to meet her gaze, neither particularly wanting to say anything.
"Goodnight." She finally settles on, and closes the door behind her, muffling his reply. Something about dreams.
"Are you actually going to keep moving, or hail I call a taxi to take us down the street?"
Sark is lurking behind her, eyes on the sea and voice bored. She doesn't spare him a word, but steps down and unlocks the luggage compartment to pull out her bag, starts toward the towering hotel, and leaves him to get his own suitcase and follow. She swears she can hear him smirking at her.
The air is alive, and so is the street. Faces, most not Mexican, bustle by on both sides, laughing, going to the beach, to the lagoon, to restaurants and cafes. They're on vacation, something she always said she'd do the same way these people said they'd one day write a novel or trace their family tree back to the Mayflower. She weaves, makes eye contact, smiles, establishing herself as a traveler who's awed and jovial, perhaps walking a little too fast.
All the hotels here have pretentious names, theirs the most of all. "Presidente Inter-Continental Cancun" in bold golden letters looms over a driveway that's nearly wider than the building it approaches. Flags flap cheerily among ferns and baby palm trees-American, Mexican, others from the region. The wheels of her suitcase click along behind her until it's taken away by the doorman as she enters. He takes it to wait patiently by the ornately decorated elevator, past an endless lounge of chairs and loveseats too expensive to actually sit on.
She stands around by a giant marble pillar, irritated that they were sent here days before the op could even begin, annoyed that she doesn't know what name to check in under, mildly irked at every obvious tourist there, wondering if they'll have separate rooms, worried about how little it matters to her.
Sark takes his time entering, chatting with the doorman in Spanish, looking nearly pleasant. She puts on her sociable face and stalks over to interrupt.
"Excuse me," she matches her accent to his, "So sorry to break in, but I'm rather eager to see the view before it gets dark out. Would you mind terribly if I stole him away?"
A little bow and wave routine, "Of course, Senora, he is all yours!"
"Thanks ever so!"
She pulls him away by sheer force of will, refusing to touch him.
"Want to get right to hiding away? You do recall that we're here for a reason?" He's meandering, going vaguely towards the check-in desk.
"That man thought we were married." A hiss, like how her grandmother used to talk about cancer.
"What gives you that idea?"
"He called me Senora. What did you tell him?"
"That the weather was lovely, I'd heard the mezzanine floor's restaurant is first class, and I can't wait to get onto the golf course," he pulls a wallet out of his bag, paying her minimal attention, "I can't be blamed for other people's assumptions."
She drops it as he comes to the desk. She goes to wait with their bags while he checks in, overhearing "Master Suite" and "jacuzzi" and idly wondering what kind of swimwear he has, the idea completely foreign to her, the entire situation disconcertingly foreign. She feels she should be racing him now, but he's behind her and maddeningly calm about it, asking about room service, phone jacks. Domestic, she articulates by the time he joins her and they enter the elevator, and probably navy trunks.
The bellboy rides up with them and Sark doesn't say a word, so she watches the numbers light up, go dark, making a list of things to keep herself busy with during the next four days--crossing off windsurfing in favor or bugging the conference halls, trading sunbathing for hacking into the reservations list. It takes up the time nicely, always does, and soon they're in the room, and she's tipping the young man, kicking off her shoes, and sitting in the nearest chair.
He arches an eyebrow from where he's flipping open a laptop.
"Being tired upon arrival is never a good sign," for a split second he sounds truly caring, but it wears off quickly, "More proof of the slave- drivers you work for doing just what-"
"Stop insulting my employers." Half-hearted.
"You never hesitated to do the same to mine."
"That's different."
"Because these are yours."
"Because they got us this job."
That earns a quick smile, cruel, more like her memories of him.
"If you'll recall, Agent Bristow, I got us this job," intent on the computer screen, "Something your friends at the CIA would never have been able to arrange without a considerable amount of assistance."
Seven years ago she would have put up a fight, showed him what's what from here to Tijuana. Seven years ago she would never have been in this situation. Right now she's just too tired.
"You know what," rising, grabbing her suitcase and walking to the first likely door, "Screw it, badmouth them all you want. Get a drink or two in me and I'll probably join you," pausing to consider the view, momentarily stunned at how the reddening sky outlines the horizon, how it outlines his form by the balcony window, "But they sure do book a hell of a suite."
He doesn't look up from the screen. Blue-white light reflects off his eyes as they scan left to right over, over.
"I booked this."
She pauses in the doorway, now open and revealing a generously sized bedroom and another incredible vista out the window. She knows there is more to say. She's staring and eventually he looks up to meet her gaze, neither particularly wanting to say anything.
"Goodnight." She finally settles on, and closes the door behind her, muffling his reply. Something about dreams.