This song is Sympathy For The Devil by the Rolling Stones.
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and faith
Sark braced his jaw as the pretty doctor wrapped his hand in bandages. Her delicate fingers worked quickly but efficiently. Sloane hovered around the office glancing occasionally in Sark's direction. As the doctor finished tying off his hand she gave him a small smile. Sark glanced at her casually, but ignored her smile and hers soon faded when she didn't receive the response that she had hoped for.
"So tell me again, how you let her get away?" Sloane demanded, his voice snide.
Sark fought the urge to roll his eyes and just looked at his partner evenly. He took a deep breath to start his story over again but Sloane raised his hand to stop him.
"Never mind."
Sark's eyes followed Sloane as he continued his pacing around the den, stopping only to fiddle with his wedding band. Sark debated whether further words were necessary; he had to play his partner right otherwise everything would be lost. He made a small show of examining his bandaged hand and tried unsuccessfully to keep the grimace off of his face.
Sloane looked at Sark's hand and turned to the doctor. "Will it heal?"
The doctor pursed her lips and paused a moment before answering. "If he were willing to come into the hospital I would be able to operate and place pins where they are needed but as it is, I can't be sure that there aren't loose fragments of bone in his hand."
"Going to the hospital is out of the question." Sark stated.
The doctor threw her hands up in frustration. "Then I can't make any guarantees. At the very least your hand will be terribly scarred but you may get some mobility back in it. At the worst, the loose fragments of bone will cause inflammation and you will lose your hand altogether. You choose."
Sark brushed her away with his good hand. "Thank-you for your help doctor."
The doctor picked up the supplies she had brought with her and exited the room angrily.
Sark turned to Sloane. "I don't think her loss is that big of a deal. We have the child and everything else is right on schedule."
Sloane stopped fiddling with his ring and glared at Sark. "I have come so far. I will not let anything mess this up for me."
Sark met his glare. "I will not let anything stop us either. You will have your wife back soon."
And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Irina stood by the window in her bedroom and watched the people outside. Her imprisonment had been so long that she drank in the sight of the outside world. And she wasn't just thinking about her time in custody. She had always been an outsider from the real world.
Even before the day recruiters had come to her school, she had never seemed to quite fit in. She had been too smart for her own good. She had been the girl that intimidated the boys her age. But then again, the girls hadn't seemed to like her too much either.
Her thoughts raced back in time to the day the recruiters indicated that they were interested in her. The KGB had offered her a golden opportunity and she had jumped at it. No more silent glares from the girls in her classes, no more snide remarks from the boys she outwitted.
She had found that she excelled in her training. She had always been bored with the subjects in school. The teachers went much too slow and the students complained still. At the Academy she was free to pursue all the extra subjects she could handle and it hadn't taken her long to attract the notice of her superiors. When she had been given her overseas assignment she had rejoiced. Finally, she had thought, she could test herself in the ultimate challenge.
How little she had known.
Irina shook her head to banish her thoughts, but that was the one reprieve she was never allowed. She always thought. Only she fully understood the crimes she was guilty of. Lying, stealing, murder, treason…those were only the tip of the iceberg. She knew that each of those crimes could have been forgiven at the time. But she had chosen another path and she almost laughed at the irony. In her attempt to disentangle herself from the lies of her life because of her love for a man, she ended up betray that man in every way possible. She had sealed her fate the night that she had walked out of that warehouse and into Arvin's bed.
She shuttered slightly in revulsion as the memories flashed through her mind in punishment.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
She had been stumbling away from the warehouse, when he caught her off guard. The heel on her shoe had broken and she had been debating whether she would hurt more from walking barefoot in a gravel yard or from being caught when the police came. She could already hear the sirens in the distance and she knew she had to hurry when—
"Laura?"
Irina stumbled as she finally lost her balance. She looked around frantically only to find Arvin Sloane standing in the shadows, not far from her.
"Arvin?" she asked after she managed to find her voice. All the possible reasons why he could be here flashed though her mind but the most logical was that she was caught. She knew Arvin because he worked with Jack at the CIA.
"What are you doing here Laura?"
But she also knew that Arvin was not an honorable man, she had scene many glimpses of that over the last several years.
She had eyed him coolly, regaining her balance. "I could ask you the same thing."
He looked at her amused and then narrowed his eyes at her. "You could. But I don't think we should play games with each other tonight. I came here tonight to recover a manuscript that I think you might know something about. It was supposed to have been delivered to me. I found out that my contact though, gave it to the CIA instead. I traced Agent Vaughn here tonight. Which brings me to you. You….you are not who I though you were, are you?"
Irina managed to deliver him an insolent stare, while her mind was reeling. She didn't think she should lie to him. The only advantage that she could press was his involvement. "You are partly correct Arvin. It would seem that neither of us are whom we seemed to be. But I did not give Agent Vaughn the manuscript; he took it from me. I traced him here tonight to carry out other orders that I had been given. He burned the manuscript in front of my eyes before I could stop him."
Sloane's mouth tightened in anger and she knew that her life was in a precarious position. So she did the only thing she could think of. She approached him and threaded her arm through his.
She also knew without a doubt that she had a certain power over him, if she chose to use it. The last few years that she had she had known him, he had always smiled a little too brightly at her. All the careless caresses he had given her in his attempts at innocent contact. All the double meanings he had thrown at her in polite company. She had always rebuffed him without hesitation. The night he had cornered her in the kitchen with his wife and Jack in the next room she had managed to out maneuver him. But her refusals had never stopped him from trying again. He had told her that he admired her. She had told him that he repulsed her. He had laughed and said that that was only because she didn't really know him.
"If we are not playing games with each other now, then I think we should go somewhere and talk. I think that now that we really know each other, we could be mutually beneficial to each other."
She felt Sloane's stare on her as it traveled up and down her body before resting on her face. "Perhaps we could be." He replied.
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
Sark watched Arvin leave the office and so he was able to let his features relax for a moment. Even with the painkillers he was on, his whole arm throbbed. It seemed that after all his work he had managed to become marked nonetheless. His mouth tightened in anger at himself. He had fought his destiny for half a century so far. He would continue to do so.
He slid off the desk he had been sitting on so that the doctor could examine his hand. There was only one place he wanted to go.
He left the office and walked down the hall. It was a small building really, but it served their purposes. He walked past a few more empty offices, past a turned off photocopier until he reached a large office that had obviously belonged to a manager or boss. The carpet was more lush, the furniture more expensive.
He walked inside and was greeted by an armed guard looking perplexed as an infant cried in its carrier. The man looked relieved when Sark entered the room and Sark wasted no time in dismissing him. As the guard left in a hurry, Sark closed the door behind him. He then walked over to the crying baby.
She already seemed much larger than when he had last seen her and he was amazed. Though the last time he had seen her the doctor had just unhooked a series of tubes from her, but he shoved those memories aside. Sark used his good hand to touch her face. The contact seemed to sooth the infant.
"I gather you are hungry?" Sark asked out loud. The baby looked at him expectantly and Sark had to search around for some bottles that the doctor had prepared before leaving. He found them in the small refrigerator and he used the microwave in the corner to heat it up. The doctor had shown him how to test the temperature but with only one hand, Sark had to improvise. Had he been able to watch himself from a distance he would have been shocked to see the comic scene that he presented. But he turned back to the baby unaware.
Unable to pick her up Sark held the bottle up to her mouth and was thankful that the baby knew what to do. He watched her drink the milk and he couldn't help himself but stare at her in amazement. It wasn't until she had finished the bottle that he realized he would have to pick her up to burp her. The doctor had been quite adamant about that when she had given him the instructions.
Sark unlatched the safety belt and slid his right hand under the baby. She was so small that his palm easily cradled her head and upper back but he had to use his left hand to bring her up to his shoulder. He closed his eyes for a moment as the stars flashed before his eyes but he did not stop. He lifted her to his left shoulder and used his bad arm to support her body while his right hand rubbed her back.
Sark walked around the room while he waited for the gas to escape and he couldn't help but remember the night she was born.
I stuck around St. Petersberg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the Czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
Sloane led Irina to his car, parked some ways away. They didn't hurry, they didn't talk. Irina took off her heels and walked barefoot over the gravel and stones. Arvin walked next to her, supporting her arm and except for the blood on her dress and the bloody footprints she left behind, they almost looked like a couple, out for a stroll on a beautiful night.
He opened the door for her when they reached his car and she got in. He walked around to the other side, got in, put the car into drive and easily maneuvered onto the main road.
"So tell me your real name then Laura."
"What does it matter?" she had answered sharply.
"It matters. It always does."
Irina suspected that he wanted to know, because he knew that Jack would never know. At least until it was too late. "Irina Derevko." She answered plainly.
"You killed Vaughn?"
Irina fought a moment of nausea as she remembered the blood spurting out of his throat. She didn't know how she formed the words that came out of her mouth. "I had my orders. My superiors are interested in pursuing Rambaldi's works so I gather that the orders I received will help that along."
Arvin nodded to himself. "Khasinau doesn't care about Rambaldi."
Irina tried to hide her shock at the casual mention of her boss. Instead she managed to eye Arvin coolly.
Frustrated that he could not get her off balanced he continued. "Alexander owed me a favor and it will be much easier to pursue Rambaldi without them on my back."
Her stomach turned as another wave of nausea hit her but she tried to look impressed.
The silence settled in the car for a few minutes.
"I assume you have a vested interested in helping me maintain my cover then."
Arvin smiled coldly. "Jack will be devastated when he finds out."
Irina thought she would vomit on the fine leather seats. "My work here is not yet done. Regardless of what arrangements you have with my superiors, they will not be happy with you if you destroy their asset."
"No, you are correct. They would not be happy." Arvin said evenly and placed a hand on her thigh. "Rambaldi's works hold great power."
She hardly knew how she forced her face to remain calm but she did. She could not afford to have Arvin think that he was forcing her to do something she didn't want to do. She couldn't afford to give him that much power over her.
"If you joined me in my quest Irina, we could accomplish great things together."
"We could." She agreed cautiously and let the silence fall again before speaking. "We certainly could."
I rode a tank
Held a general's rank
When the Blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
It had been raining that night three months ago, when he had gone to visit Sydney in her cell. Through the small window in the door he had seen her lying on her bed with her hands over her stomach, resting. When she had heard her cell door open, she had sat up and stared at him as he came in.
"Good evening Sydney." He remembered saying as he watched the fine planes of her face lift up in defiance. She never even graced him with a response.
He remembered her pride as he stood before her and offered her freedom. "I asked you long ago if you would join me. Things would not have worked out so if you had." He had watched her turn her face away. Angrily he had grabbed her chin and turned her face towards him. She had stood up so that she could almost look him straight in the eyes.
"I will give you this offer only once more. Come and join me. I am not so entangled in all this that I cannot find us a way out. We could accomplish great things together." He watched her pause in what he had hoped was consideration, but only to have her spit in his face.
He knew he had a temper. He had had years to fine-tune it but it still crept upon him with a blinding rage sometime. Not since the day that Irina had rescued him had he let his temper fly like it did that night. He had been rejected all his life by the people that were supposed to care about him and it drove him mad to think that the woman he was baring his heart to would do the same. Without thinking he struck out at her and sent her flying backwards. That she had hit her back against the metal bed and that the trauma had caused her water to break was incidental. It had not been his intention.
The doctor had come and delivered the child while Sark had stayed in the room and watched the results of his actions. The doctor had had some difficulties and there were only two things he really remembered after that. The first thing was the blood. There was so much blood everywhere and it always seemed to accompany his loss of temper. When he had slit his own mother's throat that fateful day seven years ago there had been a river of blood there as well. The second thing he remembered was being thrust an impossibly small baby into his hands. It had all happened so quickly that he hadn't even been able to tell the doctor that'd he never held a baby before. His inexperience hadn't seemed to matter though because she had been so small that she had fit in the palm of both his hands.
The baby finally let out a burp and Sark was brought out of his reverie. He laid the baby back down in her carrier and she cooed at him softly. In spite of his dark thoughts and entire upbringing Sark smiled back at the child.
"I suppose you actually do have a name." He said casually to the infant and she didn't disagree. "She kept calling you her Dawn…the light of her world…"Sark let his thoughts trail off as the baby started to smile and play with her hands. He stood mesmerized by her actions and briefly wondered if he could go along with Sloane's plan.
He shook his head to banish his thoughts. Why not, he wondered as he tried to turn his thoughts back to reality. His own mother had allowed him to be locked away. He had chosen his path years ago and he was not about to start questioning it now.
I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the Gods they made
He had been sitting at his old desk, immersed in a Latin textbook with Mozart's O Fortuna playing loudly in the background. He remembered closing his eyes and listening to the rise and fall of the notes as they built up only to die again. He hadn't even hear the door to his room open; he was so absorbed in the music. Not that he was expecting anyone. In fact he had forgotten how many years it had been since someone had come into his room.
It had taken the sound of a woman clearing her throat that forced him to spin around only to come face to face with a face that haunted his dreams. But he hadn't screamed. After the shock of the moment had worn off he had thrown his head back and laughed.
I shouted out
"Who killed the Kennedys?"
When after all
It was you and me
Irina sat in front of a mirror at a nameless motel while the sounds of the shower played in the background. She looked at herself and found that her face had changed over the last few years. Her eyes seemed to have gained a depth to them, but maybe it was only the lines that had appeared on her face. Not wrinkles, she thought vainly, they were only lines.
She heard the shower shut off and was surprised at the sudden feelings of repugnance that she felt. She would have thought that after four years, she would have been used to it by now. She hated it when he stepped out of the shower and dressed back up to reenter the normal world. She did it too and she hated herself for it as well. But unlike Arvin she didn't shower at the hotel, she always waited until she got home. She didn't want his presence to touch her after she had scrubbed every inch of her body.
Jack would complain lovingly sometimes that she made her skin raw with her steaming hot showers, but she simply smiled at him and kissed him in an attempt to block out the other kisses. Their lovemaking had become more fevered and sometimes bordered on violent but she needed the intensity to wash away Arvin's limp caresses.
Arvin exited the washroom and placed a hand on her shoulder as he walked by her. He smiled at her through the mirror. "I have to get going," he said a he slipped his trouser on. "I'm taking Emily out to dinner tonight."
Irina nodded as she turned around and watched him dress. Soon he was putting on his jacket and gathering his briefcase. "Goodbye sweetheart. I will trace those names you gave me tomorrow. Hopefully they will turn up a new artifact."
She smiled at him sweetly as he gave her a peck on her cheek. Here eyes followed him to the door and it was only when it shut behind him that she allowed her eyes to narrow in hatred. As her eyes bore a hole through the door she thought back to the orders she had received a few days ago and she smiled. She hoped that tracking down those names caused him great pain. She would be gone from this hell in a few days.
She realized that she might be in for a worse hell back home but she doubted it. Nothing could compare to this. She dreaded what her leaving would do to Jack but she knew that Arvin would spare him this one secret of hers. In that he had no choice.
Perhaps it would ultimately be better for Jack if she left because then at least she could stop betraying him so intimately. And then she thought of his sweet smile and almost broke right then and there. But the truth of it was she knew she was a broken woman and had been for four years. She pushed the thoughts of Jack and Sydney out of her mind and started to dress.
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint
Climbing down the stairs from his attic prison Sark's eyes went to the couch in the living room. He could still feel the smile on his face from when Irina had introduced herself. Now he could feel it getting bigger. Two bodies lay on the couch, bound and gagged, one alive and one very much dead. His grandmother's throat lay open, her head back at an unnatural angle and blood covered the old apron that she always wore.
He remembered that Irina had said something to him, apologizing for the mess but he had just laughed. He had approached his mother and seen her quiver and fight against her bonds. He went up to the large man cleaning his knife on the curtains and stood before him. The man stopped cleaning, obviously afraid to have offended him but Sark merely held out his hand for the knife. The large man gave it up freely and Sark returned back to his mother. Using one careful finger he pulled the gag away from her mouth.
"Figlio mio! Che fai?" The shrill words left his mother's mouth.
(My son! What are you doing?)
Sark placed his finger over her mouth but it was the contact more than the gesture that stopped her words. "Non sono il tuo figlio. Non ero mai tuo figlio." (I am not your son. I was never your son)
His mother started to cry uncontrollable and he raised the knife to her throat.
"Padre Nostro, che sei nei cieli, sia santificato il tuo Nome…" she started whispering in panic. (Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…)
Sark smiled coldly as the words froze in her throat when he pressed the knife to her skin. A thin red line of blood appeared.
"You locked me in a room for thirty years because your mother thought I was the devil…." He said switching to English, unwilling to converse anymore with his mother, in her native tongue. "You denied me a life because of some absurd prophecy. You watched me beg you for years to be let free. You denied me a name, you denied me any mercy for acts I haven't even committed yet. Do you know want to beg mercy from me?"
His mother looked at him with horror. "You are the devil. You are right, you are no son of mine! You are the son of that barbarian who raped me. Mamma was right….you will destroy the world—"
Her words were cut short as he felt the anger within him snap. Before he could even think about it, he had plunged the knife in her delicate throat and ripped it across with a savagery he hadn't even known he had possessed.
After the blood stopped spurting everywhere he bent forward and cleaned the knife on his mother's skirt.
He turned back to Irina and saw that she watched him calmly.
Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadors
Who get killed before they reached Bombay
Irina was forced out of her reverie when the door to the apartment was slammed shut. She winced as the sound of bags dropping on the floor broke the quiet stillness of the air. She put her hand up to her face to rub her eyes and was shocked to feel fresh tears on her face. She wiped them away angrily before exiting the room.
She had no chance to take more than a pace out of her room before she was besieged by Will.
"I think I found them!" he practically shouted.
"Found who? What are you talking about Tippin?" Irina asked tiredly. She was emotionally and physically exhausted and her memories had not helped either.
"Sark and Sloane. I think I found them."
They were interrupted as Sydney exited her room and came walking into the living room and kitchen area. She stumbled over some of the bags that Will had dropped in his excitement and while straightening them she pulled out a large black t-shirt. She held it up and turned it around for her mother to see. Will saw the amused expression on Sydney's face.
"What's so funny?"
Irina shook her head. "It says Forza Juventus".
"Yeah, so?" Will asked confused.
Sydney smiled at him. "I didn't know you were a soccer fan. Juventus is a soccer team, here in Italy. More specifically they're from a northern province." Will continued to look confused so Sydney was forced to continue. "Italians are very particular about their soccer teams. It's practically the second question they will ask you after meeting you. We'd be more inconspicuous wandering down a back alley of LA wearing gang colors."
Will's face colored as Sydney patted him on the shoulder.
Irina shook her head and then turned back to Will. "You were saying?"
"Oh, right! Well I was thinking while I was out and I remembered that Vaughn had told me about Sloane's last transmission that you two saw before leaving the bunker. Sloane wanted them to deliver a particle accelerator that some university had just made. Well I don't know anything about particle accelerators but I remember my sister talking about one a few years ago. Some professor that she wanted to go work for was working on one or something…anyway she was telling me how it was located underground in these huge, big long tunnels…Well my point is that what Sloane said doesn't make any sense. How could they deliver miles of tubing? He'd have to set it up and—"
"Maybe he wasn't interested in the tubing. Maybe he was only interested in the detectors or the electromagents." Irina interrupted.
"That's what I was thinking! So I went to an Internet café and I found out that European Center for Nuclear Research is the only center of it's kind left in Europe. And they have a particle accelerator there. I was thinking that it makes sense for them to use as much existing equipment as they can and then just modify what they need to get this 'new' accelerator up and working."
Sydney stared at Will, her eyes bright. "So we can find them…" she whispered.
"So we can find them," answered Will. "The center is on the French-Swiss border, just west of Geneva"
"It shouldn't take us too long to get there." Sydney said to herself.
Irina flashed her daughter a look. "This is not going to be easy Sydney. We don't really have the resources or the people to be able to stop them—"
Sydney's eyes flashed with anger. "I am not going to let anyone stop me from finding them. This is our chance. We have to hit them now, before they accomplish whatever the hell it is that they're trying to do!"
Irina turned to Will. "Go get Vaughn up. We need to discuss this now." Will looked at Sydney and back to Irina. He turned away quickly and went to do as he had been told. He knew better than to get caught between mother and daughter.
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste,
Sark snapped out of his reverie and turned away from the baby. He was about to leave, when he heard the beginnings of a cry and it tugged at his very core. This baby had accepted him, without pretense and regardless of his crimes and affiliations and Sark found that it was a feeling that was foreign to him. He turned back to the infant and saw a small smile cross her face.
He moved back towards the baby carrier and pulled a small cylinder out from the inside pocket of his jacket. The cylinder was actually a tube made of a shiny silver material, tapered at one end with nine tiny holes down the length of it. Sark brought the tapered end up to his mouth and using his right hand to cover the bottom holes, he brought the fingers of his left hand up to the top.
For a brief moment Sark was worried that the pain in his hand would block out his ability to remember the notes but such was not the case. It seamed that some things were permanently etched in his soul.
He pushed the searing pain from his hand out of his mind and commanded his fingers to play. A solemn note filled the air and seemed to reverberate around the room, calling all the objects to attention. The baby, whose eyes could not focus on an object more than a foot away from her, used the note to find him.
After a second or eternity a melody started to flow from the instrument. It started off slowly as if it needed to gather up its energy as it floated around the room. As it flowed along, it picked up in tempo forcing the energy that it had gathered up to increase. Sark was not immune to its effects either as he felt its soothing powers and an influx of energy. With his heightened senses he could almost feel every object in the room, as if it were a part of him.
As the song reached its crescendo Sark almost threw his head back in triumph as the energy surged within him. Dawn, unable to understand what was happening to her, started to cry loudly.
As the flow of energy started to ebb, Sark continued to play. This time the music was calming, like it was trying to put all the energy back into its original state. Dawn's crying tapered off until as his last note was played, he ended in complete silence. The baby was sleeping now and as he placed the instrument back into his pocket, he found that he could move his injured hand without intense pain. He shook his head. He hadn't done it for himself and he found it disconcerting that he should reap the benefits. He had played regardless of his pain so that he could offer this baby the only protection he had. It was the only thing he could do.
Sark turned without another glance at the child and left the room to find the guard to baby-sit her. He still had too much to do.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, um yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game.