Chapter Eleven: The Price of Failure

"So you're telling me that it wasn't you I was following all day?" Dixon whispered.

"Nope." Sydney replies sleepily.

"So all those fetish clubs I went to wasn't associated with the Bacchanal?"

"Nope."

"And while I was being hit on by transsexuals you were inside destroying the tapes."

"Yes." Sydney yawned.

"And Sark staged this whole thing to get me out of the way so that you can destroy the copies and he'd gets the master tapes."

"Uh huh." She muttered turning sideways so that her back was too him.

"Ok, I'll let you sleep." Dixon finally said.

Though Sydney had her eyes closed, she wasn't sleepy at all. There were a myriad of questions and thoughts running through her head. She should be used to the surprises and revelations that came at the daily basis but today had been just crazy. The only explanation came down to the fact that the SD-6 agent at the party must have been Paolo and it was the Alliance that had been behind the entire blackmailing scheme all along. It had been a trap for Khasinau and she had been used as a decoy to throw Sark off.

Sark had said that the tapes were going to be used for insurance. Insurance for what?

And who the hell was Sarah? She couldn't help thinking about the kiss. His lips had been so soft and gentle. His body perfectly sculpted with only one flaw, a small tattoo of a bird on his chest, right over where his heart would be. She never would have thought Sark to be a tattoo kind of guy. She hadn't expected him to be a good kisser either, so good that she'd almost forgotten to plant the tracker, almost.

Sark's had said something about the boys enjoying the show. Had there been a camera in the room? Was that how Vaughn knew that there had been a hot tub? Sydney groaned. The CIA had a video of her in wet lingerie.

At the same time Sydney was entered her house to be greeted by Will, the members of the Alliance sat down to an emergency meeting. Each of the members except Sloan had a small disk in front of them. Their attention was focused on a viewer.

"Good evening gentlemen. I'm sure you're disappointed that our first collaborative effort didn't go as smoothly as planned. No matter. Each of you should have received a package from me by now. I'm sure that the only thing on your mind is what my intention with the tapes I acquired in Italy. I want to make it clear to you that I have no intention of using them against you. In fact I have them stored in various banks around the world, nice and safe. The only one thing that could expose those tapes to the media is in the event where I die or disappear. But I'm sure that you wouldn't allow such a thing to happen. That is all gentlemen. I'm looking forward to working with each and every one of you. I'll keep in touch."

"How can this happen?" An Asian gentleman said as the video ended and the lights came on.

"Do we have anything to counteract this mess?" Another man said.

"The only thing we know about him is his interest in Sydney Bristow." Said Sloan. "We can use her for bait and trap Sark."

"No!" Said more then half the gentlemen.

"We can't risk having those tapes exposed. We can work with him for now and find out what he wants. Meanwhile, I vote that no action will be taken against Sark. I have a feeling that he can be a powerful ally." Said the gentleman sitting at the end of the table.

The voting ended with only one vote for action against Sark.

In a dark room somewhere far away from the meeting, a figure sat down at a video screen and watched an unedited movie. The Moonlight Sonata was softly playing along with the movie. The screen showed a women in a black domino walking toward a hot tub. As she got into the hot tub with her defiant eyes flashing the man gets up from his chair and walks toward the screen. As the mask falls from her face he pauses the movie. He reaches out and touches the screen where her eyes, now glazed with passion is held frozen.

"Sarah." He whispers reverently as he falls to his knees and grieves without tears.