Month 10 - Angels

The lights are dimmed around the ballroom as Vaughn gently sways me from side to side in tempo to the music. We're in a hotel in Vienna this time, trying to intercept bank codes for weapons sales to SD-6.

The tension between us since I returned from Hong Kong has started to lessen, allowing us to gradually revert back to our old friendship. I am glad because honestly, I missed it. These last ten months have been very lonely for me.

I look around the dance floor to my left, but I don't see the contact that is supposed to be making the exchange. I try to stifle a sigh. He's late, but there is little we can do except bide our time.

Suddenly I see Vaughn turn his head to the side, and I see Sark tapping him on his shoulder. "I'd like to cut in for a moment, if you don't mind."

Vaughn's mouth closes tightly in anger. "Over my dead body," he mutters.

I watch as Sark smirks openly, but he doesn't take the bait. "I have intel to share with the fair lady."

By this time we've stopped dancing. I try to motion to him, but Vaughn is ignoring my attempts to let this be and to just let Sark talk to me

Vaughn scowls. "Why don't you share it with me instead?"

Without missing a beat, Sark shrugs and picks up Vaughn's hand that I just let go of and makes to bridge with his other. "Fine, if that is what you want, but I'm leading."

It doesn't take long for Vaughn to disentangle himself from Sark, but by then Sark has positioned himself in front of me and Vaughn can't reclaim me without making a scene. People are already starting to look over at us, but Sark quickly gathers up my right hand and leads me into a waltz.

"Your handler is simply dreadful," he whispers into my ear.

I can only shake my head at him. This is the first time I have seen him in seven months, and I'd almost managed to forget how very blue his eyes are.

How do I apologize for everything?

"I'm sorry that I didn't believe you."

He nods as he looks at me, accepting my apology. "I understand that you met James."

I try to keep the shock from my face. "Yes, how did you—"

"He's one of my handlers. Interesting chap isn't he?"

Figures. "Well, I don't know, I hardly…"

Sark smiles. "He's a good guy, actually one of the best. Don't let his lankiness fool you. He's 98% accurate up to three hundred yards with a small bore rifle."

"I see."

"He just has this small nervousness when it comes to women."

"Really?" I can't help but get caught up in the silliness of our conversation while wondering where it is leading.

"Really. He's always trying to get me to set him up with my other handler even though he's never met her."

"Bizarre." I can see Vaughn following us with his eyes.

Sark nods again. "He says she has a sexy voice. I can't imagine what he would say if he saw her."

"Would he be disappointed?"

"No, on the contrary she's quite beautiful."

"Is there a point to this conversation Sark?"

"Not really, I was just curious if I could make you jealous after watching two grown men fight to dance with you."

I laugh. "That's it?"

"No. I also wanted to dance with you. You look quite stunning this evening."

I can't stop the blush from spreading over my face as he tightens the embrace. I'm suddenly glad that I decided to wear the black, low cut gown. He whirls me around in a complicated step until I am back in his arms. "Besides, the courier you are looking for is the man in the navy blue suit with the gold and silver tie. He's on your three o'clock."

I turn my head casually to the right and sure enough I recognize the man that he's talking about. I look back at Vaughn and he catches my glance. He starts to head over towards him.

"How do you know it's him?" I ask.

Sark smiles. "Who do you think that he's supposed to give the codes to? If he was smart, he would have just found me and made the exchange, but it appears that he has a weakness for pretty girls and alcohol."

We dance for a moment before I have the courage to ask him my next question. "You seem to have forgiven me so easily, for not trusting you, for telling the CIA about you, but after everything we've been through…"

Sark looks at me solemnly. "There is nothing to forgive Sydney. You must realize that I am enamored with you and everything that you are. Well, you would not be who are if you didn't do everything that you did. Besides," he whirls me around once more, "you think that confirming the truth of my story is the hard part. It isn't. There is a much harder decision that you will have to make before we can truly be together, Alliance or not."

"And what decision would that be?"

Sark gives me a half smile. "You still haven't decided what exactly you want. You're still afraid to demand the best for yourself."

This time I grin. "What makes you think that I haven't?"

He smirks and pulls me closer. "Because if you had, we would be doing other things than having this conversation right now."

"So you are the best thing for me?" I ask him while raising my eyebrow. "That's pretty arrogant of you."

"Perhaps, but in the end, you should have it no other way. For your own sake."

I roll my eyes. "You talk in riddles you know?"

Sark chuckles. "You wouldn't believe me if I spelled it out for you anyway, Sydney. You will just have to trust, as I do, that you will understand what I mean in the near future."

Sark whirls me around as the music comes to close. He dips me alongside his lean body and then raises me again. He gives me one last smile before kissing my hand and letting me go.

I reluctantly realize that it's mission time again.

I have no time to give him anything more than a quick smile though before he turns away.

And I turn and head towards my prey.

At least I hope that Sark has the satisfaction of knowing that the smile that remains on my face is because of him.

…

Back in business mode, it isn't hard for me to entice the courier over to the side of the ballroom. A little wink, the suggestion of a smile…it's almost too easy except for the revulsion I feel. I push my nausea aside and force myself to continue with the mission.

His hair is greasy and he smells like cheap aftershave, but I try to hide my disgust as I look him over with my eyes. He meets my stare slyly, and with my eyes I suggest a little rendezvous in the men's washroom. After all, the men's washroom is always less busy.

He eagerly follows my cues, and I casually signal to Vaughn to meet me in the washroom.

Once we're together inside, I lead my new companion to an empty stall, and he follows readily.

Thankfully, he doesn't even know what's happening before I have him on his knees with his head pinned back. Vaughn is quick to meet me, and between the two of us, it doesn't take long to find a small notebook in his inside pocket. Though we're cramped inside the small stall, I quickly open the notebook to check the contents. I am immediately disappointed though; the bank codes are all in code.

"It's a single use cipher bitch. Good luck cracking it." The man on his knees spits out at me.

Vaughn quickly answers him with a hit across his face. The man screams as he clutches his nose; blood starting to pour out of it.

"Where's the cipher code?" Vaughn asks him, pulling his head back by his hair.

It takes some motivating on our part, but we eventually find out that the code is in a safe, in his employer's suite on the fourteenth floor.

"Vaughn, I'll take the safe if you deal with our friend here?"

Vaughn nods and I waste no time leaving the cramped washroom.

It's easy enough for me to make my way up to the hotel room and to pick the lock. Op-tech was nice enough to supply me with a universal key card. The safe cracking is going to be a little harder though.

I quickly make my way to the hotel safe located in the wall on the side of the bed. I quickly set up my eye shadow compact, which is also an electronic safe cracker, but it takes me a few minutes to crack open the side of the safe so that I can expose the wires.

I am so intent on my task that I don't even hear the man moving up behind me until it is too late. The last thought that I have before I am swallowed up by darkness is that I should have checked the washroom.

…

As awareness slowly comes back to me, I suffer from a moment of panic when I feel my arms bound above me and all I can see is darkness. All I can think of is that it's happening again.

I almost scream out loud in blind panic at the thought of being enclosed in darkness again, but in the process of waking, I've now opened my eyes. And I'm not enclosed in darkness. In fact, the bedside lamp is casting a stark glow on the surroundings.

And I find that the light doesn't help the situation much.

I'm lying on the bed and my hands are tied to the headboard. My ankles are taped together and secured to the baseboard. My mouth has been taped shut.

I try to test out my bonds but my movements only get me two things. One is that knowledge that I am effectively restrained and the second is the attention of my assailant who is busy talking on his cell phone.

I glance at him briefly to search for any weakness that I can exploit, but unless you count six feet in height and about two hundred and fifty pounds in weight as weaknesses then I am out of luck. I watch as he flips his phone off and looks directly at me.

His mouth turns into a leer and I have to force the panic from returning as he moves closer to me.

I realize that I am almost paralyzed with fear.

As he approaches me, and I feel my heart beating slowly in my throat, I hear knock on the door.

I watch frozen, as my captor reluctantly stops his path towards me and walks over to the door instead. He looks through the peephole and apparently he likes who he sees because he quickly unlatches the door and opens it.

And I find that I am holding my breath.

I hear his voice before I see him, but it takes me that long to register that it's him.

"You have something for me?"

"Si Signore Sark – "

I see Sark as he steps through the door and then he turns and sees me.

I see his head jerk back slightly in surprise. His eyes enlarge for a millisecond before his masks slips back into place.

I don't think my captor noticed.

Sark looks at me and turns to face the man. He makes a point of ignoring me. "Well?" Sark demands. "It is bad enough that your courier got lost and that you make me come to you, but now you make me wait as well?"

"No, Signore Sark, I have the codes in my safe." The man quickly hurries over to the wall safe and opens it up. He removes a disk and an envelope. "Copies of the codes that the courier was carrying are inside the envelope and the decoding cipher is on the disk. You will find that all is in order. I promise."

"We shall see." Sark replies coldly as he takes the items. "And what about her?" he gestures dispassionately at me as if I were a stain in the carpet that he was displeased at seeing.

"Ah, well her and I have some business to discuss." The thug draws a finger slowly across my cheek, and I have to force myself not to tense anymore. "She tried to take something from me without asking, I am only going to return the favor."

I can see him standing over me looking down at my chest, and suddenly I am not so glad that I wore this black, low cut dress. I can see him moving his hand off my cheek and down to where the front of my dress has bunched open slightly, and I can feel the bile rising in my throat. He goes to slip his hand under the front of my dress when suddenly he is being jerked away.

Sark has grabbed him by the shirt collar and is reeling him away from me. The crack in his mask only lasts a second, but it is long enough for me to see the rage that has overtaken his face. His eyes are cold as ice, but the set of his jaw and the curl of his mouth give away his anger. Before the man can recover from the unexpected aggression, he is greeted by right jab that sends him flying into the mirror on the far wall.

The crash of the mirror breaking resonates throughout the room.

The man clearly has the wind knocked out of him, but he foolishly decides to stand back up. He's angry now as well and determined to take it out on Sark.

He lunges for Sark, but Sark sidesteps at the last minute forcing the man to loose his balance and go crashing into a small side table.

I'm momentarily distracted from the fight as I see Vaughn come racing though the hotel door and towards me.

"Syd!"

I watch transfixed as Sark and my captor battle it out using any piece of furniture or fixing that they can find. Vaughn rips off my gag before starting to work on my arms.

Sark avoids the front end of a flying chair, but the man manages to knock him down onto the floor with a small tackle.

"Are you ok Syd?" Vaughn asks me over the commotion.

"I'm fine," I answer as Sark picks himself up and grabs the overturned chair lying to his right. He brings the chair up and smashes it across the man's face.

The man falls to the floor, and Sark uses the opportunity to hoist him up and throw him through the glass balcony door.

The crash of the window sends splinters of glass flying everywhere.

Vaughn cuts through my remaining ties and helps me sit up on the bed. I don't have time to wonder what is happening on the balcony before I hear the distinctive sound of someone being thrown over. It's the sound of fingernails scraping across a metal rail and the sound of hands grappling for any kind of holding. It's also followed by the sound of a scream fading away and as someone loses the fight against gravity.

I am thankful that I can't hear the final thump of the body as it contacts the ground.

Sark comes back through the broken doorway. He has cuts on his face, and his right hand is bleeding.

Vaughn has me wrapped up in his arms.

Sark pulls a glass splinter from his hand as he walks over. His words aren't addressed to me.

"I realize that you're not half the man she needs, but if you can bring yourself not to screw this up and ensure that she gets what she needs while I deal with this mess, then perhaps I can find it in my heart to forgive you."

I see Vaughn's face twist with anger. "I'm going to take care of her."

"Just leave the shrinks out of this," Sark retorts.

Vaughn tightens his hold on me, and for a moment I think that my guardian angel and my avenging angel are going to battle it out right here.

Vaughn tries to pick me up, but I don't want to let him.

I am fine. I can walk.

I turn to Sark and he is watching me closely. I want to show him that I am strong. I force myself to get up, off the bed.

"I am fine." I state firmly forcing an end to their bizarre power play by making my way to the door. As I turn around one last time, I see Sark pulling out his cell phone and moving away from us, and I feel Vaughn's hand grasping mine and leading me towards the door.

I look at Sark's calm demeanor and as I feel Vaughn's urgency as he pulls me away, I wonder briefly who came out ahead in that encounter.

I am leaving with Vaughn, but as I am about to turn away Sark catches my eye. His eyes tell me triumphantly that though I may be me leaving with Vaughn now, next time I will be leaving with him.

And I think I know who has won. But even stranger still is the feeling that I am the one who made the decision.