* * * *
Two weeks later Jack entered his office only to discover that it was already occupied.
"They do still deign to lock your cell these days, don't they?" he asked, setting his briefcase on the desk.
"Dixon and I are being sent to Melbourne in a couple of hours to meet with a former colleague of mine," Sark said in explanation. "I talked Marshall out of tagging me until just before we're ready to leave." He fingered his ear absently and Jack could see that the hole from their last mission had healed entirely. "On the subject of that cell though… Why haven't I been offered the 'illusion of freedom' house on Puget Sound? Surely I've proven myself to be at least as cooperative as Irina was?"
"She turned herself in. You, as I recall, were arrested."
"Is that what that was?"
Jack ignored the interruption as he sat down. "We had a greater level of confidence in her continued cooperation at the time."
"Bit shortsighted," the boy said.
"Precisely." Jack gave him a stern frown, hearing the mocking echo of his own words in the comment. "Why are you asking about something you already know the answer to?"
"Masochism," he shrugged. "Regardless of the official reasons for the proposition, the truth is that you offered her residence outside of that frigid cell because she was once your wife… Actually, I believe it's a source of some amusement to her that she still is."
Jack studied him across the desk. "Even knowing that you're my son would do nothing to persuade the director to authorize moving you to an off-site facility. In all probability, it would merely make things more difficult."
"Of course. And trust me, being widely known as the offspring of Jack Bristow and Irina Derevko is the last thing in the world that I want. That little bit of genetic information has made Sydney such a popular girl in certain circles. I'd be happy to avoid all that if I can. I just think it's interesting."
As usual, the tone was almost bored, but Jack saw something incongruous in his expression. He wasn't certain whether it was prolonged exposure that was making Sark easier for him to read or if the boy was beginning to drop more shields in his presence. Either way, he could tell that Sark wasn't quite as accepting of his anonymity as he was professing. He wondered once again what it must have been like for him to grow up believing that he was entirely alone only to discover he did have a family… that was unable or unwilling to acknowledge him in public. Jack could see the conflict in him - torn between the satisfaction of knowing something simply for the sake of knowing it and a childish desire to be recognized despite the potential problems that could arise from it.
"Have you completed your analysis?" Sark asked suddenly, a faint grin accompanying his abrupt question.
They had not had a chance to discuss anything in private after their return from Denmark, so Jack rapidly assumed that this was where the new topic was headed. "You mean have I decided which parts of that drama in Copenhagen were real and how much was solely for my benefit?"
The broadened grin and a slight nod confirmed his assumption. It was a subject that had kept Jack's mind occupied many hours in the past weeks. Sark had known about the bug; Irina undoubtedly expected it as well. Clearly much of what had passed between the two of them could have been sheer theatrics. In Jack's opinion, however, that depended a great deal on whether or not Irina had told the boy who he was at some point before delivering him into CIA custody. Although he was painfully aware that a fictitious life could be maintained for long periods of time under even the most intimate of circumstances, he was inclined to believe that Sark had truly been startled by the revelation of the mapped DNA and that very few of the impressions he had gained from the boy over the past several months had been feigned.
"Objectively speaking," he began. "I do believe that whether or not she wanted you in Halcyon, she did use the situation to her own advantage for all its worth. I believe that she has her own reasons for handing you over to us that had nothing to do with locating Sloane in Mexico City." He noted the shadow of a scowl that passed over Sark's face. "I believe that you don't have any more of an idea what those reasons are than we do. And I believe that she's not done with either of us yet."
The last comment brought the faint smirk back. "So you do realize that she's smarter than both of us?"
"I wouldn't say that."
"Denial doesn't make it any less true," Sark said. The smirk faded once again, replaced by a more sober expression. "And subjectively speaking…?"
This was what the whole morning's visit had been leading up to, Jack thought. If he could believe that the content of the confrontation in Denmark had been unrehearsed, then what Sark wanted was an honest evaluation of the more personal aspects of Irina's disclosures. He wasn't sure whether the boy was trusting his analysis as a seasoned operative or as Irina's erstwhile husband, but he was almost surprised to see that either way, Sark seemed prepared to trust him in this assessment.
"In the past few years I've had to do a great deal of reevaluation concerning Irina Derevko," he said slowly. "I've gradually come to the conclusion that regardless of the relationship that she and I have or don't have, her relationship with Sydney has always been something completely separate. She is not by any stretch of the imagination a typical mother and she has extraordinarily complicated ways of showing her affection, but I do believe that in her own convoluted way, she does love Sydney. By that standard and by what I saw in Copenhagen… as well as a few other conversations we've had concerning you, I would be inclined to believe that she has placed you and Sydney in the same category. You can make of that what you will," he added with a self-deprecating shrug. "I also believed that she loved me for ten years so I might not be the best judge of her emotional range."
Sark's flickering grin flared at that. "I think that you may be underestimating certain aspects of the situation," he said. "She is not as indifferent to you as you seem determined to believe."
It occurred to Jack that this was not a conversational tangent he particularly wanted to explore with his son, regardless of the insights that Sark's more recent decade spent with Irina might reveal. Besides, there were more pressing matters to discuss.
"While we're on the subject of my Copenhagen analysis," he said coolly. "Let's talk about Allison Doren."
"Let's not." The sudden, steely look in Sark's eyes could have just as easily been inherited from either parent.
"I think we need to. You know what happened?"
"I read the report. Your internal firewalls need some work," he added as if sensing Jack's unasked question.
"Is this going to be a problem? I didn't realize until Denmark that the two of you were more than colleagues. I don't think that allowing you to continue the search for Sydney will be such a good idea… if you are going to take this personally."
The boy's humorless smile was a little unsettling. "If I haven't taken anything else personally, why would I this? Allison was trying to kill her. I can hardly blame Sydney for defending herself. I've tried it a few times myself and consider myself fortunate to have only scars for my efforts. I'm well aware of the hazards in this profession, and I learned a long time ago not to take any of it personally."
A knocking at the door interrupted any response Jack might have made.
"Oh good. I thought you might be here," Marshall said. "I hate to butt into this… family meeting," his voice dropped conspiratorially. "But Kendall's riding me about tagging him," he nodded at Sark. "And I'm afraid that he is being really insistent."
"Fine," Sark said, leaning forward. "Just do it and be done with it."
"Um, he was also kind of insistent that you return to the detention cell on the third floor until the mission is ready to go."
"That isn't for another two hours at the earliest," Sark protested. "Just do it now and I'll stay here until then."
Jack tried to conceal his surprise at the boy's counteroffer. The very nature of the tag meant that there could be no more private conversation between them. He wondered at Sark's willingness to sit silently with him, or at best to discuss only impersonal topics, for that length of time. The cloudy expression on his face indicated something other than his distaste for the idea of sitting alone in the cell for that same period, but Jack couldn't fathom what.
"It's cold down there," the boy said with a dismissive shrug. "And I don't think those plastic chairs are very ergonomic." Jack didn't buy that either.
"Let him stay, Marshall."
"Yes sir. Okay, but…" Marshall's quick glance back into the corridor was all the indication Jack needed to realize, however, that this was not going to be an option.
"You track him down yet?" Kendall asked, his broad frame filling the doorway. His frown deepened when he spotted Sark. "How many times do we have to go over this? You are not allowed to roam around this place like you actually work here. Detention cell, third floor, now."
Sark had shifted from a slightly troubled expression to the much more familiar sardonic one as he rose and followed Marshall out the door, shaking his head in bored amusement as the man all but scrambled to get out of his way. The wry expression wavered only when he cast a look back at Jack. There was frustration there and irritation… and a hint of regret. There had been something else that the boy wanted to discuss. Now it would have to wait for his return and potentially weeks before they got another opportunity.
If Jack had known what the next forty-eight hours would bring, he would have pressed for a few more minutes.
* * * *
Their third mistake, Jack thought as he read the mission transcript one more time, was sending the boy to Australia in the southern spring.
DIXON: ETA to rendezvous - twelve minutes. I hope your old buddy Rutherford is on time.
SARK: I scarcely expect that he'd consider us 'buddies'. Do you surf?
DIXON: Do I…? No. And what did you do? Double-cross him too?
SARK: Something like that. Did you know that it's only an hour's drive from here to Geelong? Best surfing on the southern coast.
DIXON: This is not a fieldtrip. How badly is this guy going to be pissed at you?
SARK: Not enough for you to worry about. Lovely weather. It must be twenty degrees warmer here than in that cell.
DIXON: Enjoy it while you can then.
SARK: I intend to.
* *
Their second mistake, Jack thought as he recalled Kendall's tirade, was thinking that he would be controllable without the threat of certain death hanging over his head and residing under his skin.
"How the hell could this happen?" the director had stormed at Dixon. "He was three feet away from you!"
"I don't know," Dixon had said. "There were absolutely no prior indications. The meet went off exactly as planned. Not a hitch. We got in, we got the info, we got out. We were at the extraction point and then…" He had shrugged. "I just don't know. I looked at the plane. Fifty yards away. I looked back… nothing."
"He was wearing a damned tracker! How could you lose him that quickly?"
"It was an earring," Dixon had protested. "It couldn't have taken him two heartbeats to rip it out. I knew that was a bad idea from the start."
"Why didn't you anticipate this?" Kendall had turned his ire on Jack then.
"I believe that I did send you my analysis," Jack had said. "Four months ago. It stated that I thought it was highly probable Sark would attempt to escape on the first mission we sent him on without the toxin capsule." He had shrugged. "It seems I was off by one."
* *
Their first mistake, of course, Jack thought as he picked up Tippin's report, was believing even for an instant that Sark hadn't had his own agenda from the very beginning.
"Did you know that there was a contract out on Sark for most of last year?" Tippin had asked when he'd brought Jack the report.
Jack had nodded. Deccan Rajkot was not the only person who had found Sark to be uncommonly bad for business one way or another. That Jacques Gauzin, head of one of Europe's strongest post-Alliance covert intelligence factions, had placed a sizable sum on the boy's head wasn't exactly surprising.
"Did you know the exact date that contract was first publicized?" Tippin had said then. "Three days before Derevko sent Sydney to Stockholm to pick up Sark. Do you know when it was cancelled? A month ago. After Gauzin was killed in a professional hit of his own."
* *
Now Jack sat alone at his desk with the transcript, the report, and the earring that was still coated in his son's dried blood. He had his suspicions that the timing of the contract and its expiration were merely convenient coincidences, but he couldn't be sure. Although he knew that he ought to be reevaluating the prior year in its entirety, he couldn't. Try as he might to analyze even the current situation objectively, his mind was inevitably drawn back to the morning before the mission. He realized now what he had seen but refused to acknowledge at the time.
The boy had been trying to say goodbye.
* * * *
Two weeks later Jack entered his office only to discover that it was already occupied.
"They do still deign to lock your cell these days, don't they?" he asked, setting his briefcase on the desk.
"Dixon and I are being sent to Melbourne in a couple of hours to meet with a former colleague of mine," Sark said in explanation. "I talked Marshall out of tagging me until just before we're ready to leave." He fingered his ear absently and Jack could see that the hole from their last mission had healed entirely. "On the subject of that cell though… Why haven't I been offered the 'illusion of freedom' house on Puget Sound? Surely I've proven myself to be at least as cooperative as Irina was?"
"She turned herself in. You, as I recall, were arrested."
"Is that what that was?"
Jack ignored the interruption as he sat down. "We had a greater level of confidence in her continued cooperation at the time."
"Bit shortsighted," the boy said.
"Precisely." Jack gave him a stern frown, hearing the mocking echo of his own words in the comment. "Why are you asking about something you already know the answer to?"
"Masochism," he shrugged. "Regardless of the official reasons for the proposition, the truth is that you offered her residence outside of that frigid cell because she was once your wife… Actually, I believe it's a source of some amusement to her that she still is."
Jack studied him across the desk. "Even knowing that you're my son would do nothing to persuade the director to authorize moving you to an off-site facility. In all probability, it would merely make things more difficult."
"Of course. And trust me, being widely known as the offspring of Jack Bristow and Irina Derevko is the last thing in the world that I want. That little bit of genetic information has made Sydney such a popular girl in certain circles. I'd be happy to avoid all that if I can. I just think it's interesting."
As usual, the tone was almost bored, but Jack saw something incongruous in his expression. He wasn't certain whether it was prolonged exposure that was making Sark easier for him to read or if the boy was beginning to drop more shields in his presence. Either way, he could tell that Sark wasn't quite as accepting of his anonymity as he was professing. He wondered once again what it must have been like for him to grow up believing that he was entirely alone only to discover he did have a family… that was unable or unwilling to acknowledge him in public. Jack could see the conflict in him - torn between the satisfaction of knowing something simply for the sake of knowing it and a childish desire to be recognized despite the potential problems that could arise from it.
"Have you completed your analysis?" Sark asked suddenly, a faint grin accompanying his abrupt question.
They had not had a chance to discuss anything in private after their return from Denmark, so Jack rapidly assumed that this was where the new topic was headed. "You mean have I decided which parts of that drama in Copenhagen were real and how much was solely for my benefit?"
The broadened grin and a slight nod confirmed his assumption. It was a subject that had kept Jack's mind occupied many hours in the past weeks. Sark had known about the bug; Irina undoubtedly expected it as well. Clearly much of what had passed between the two of them could have been sheer theatrics. In Jack's opinion, however, that depended a great deal on whether or not Irina had told the boy who he was at some point before delivering him into CIA custody. Although he was painfully aware that a fictitious life could be maintained for long periods of time under even the most intimate of circumstances, he was inclined to believe that Sark had truly been startled by the revelation of the mapped DNA and that very few of the impressions he had gained from the boy over the past several months had been feigned.
"Objectively speaking," he began. "I do believe that whether or not she wanted you in Halcyon, she did use the situation to her own advantage for all its worth. I believe that she has her own reasons for handing you over to us that had nothing to do with locating Sloane in Mexico City." He noted the shadow of a scowl that passed over Sark's face. "I believe that you don't have any more of an idea what those reasons are than we do. And I believe that she's not done with either of us yet."
The last comment brought the faint smirk back. "So you do realize that she's smarter than both of us?"
"I wouldn't say that."
"Denial doesn't make it any less true," Sark said. The smirk faded once again, replaced by a more sober expression. "And subjectively speaking…?"
This was what the whole morning's visit had been leading up to, Jack thought. If he could believe that the content of the confrontation in Denmark had been unrehearsed, then what Sark wanted was an honest evaluation of the more personal aspects of Irina's disclosures. He wasn't sure whether the boy was trusting his analysis as a seasoned operative or as Irina's erstwhile husband, but he was almost surprised to see that either way, Sark seemed prepared to trust him in this assessment.
"In the past few years I've had to do a great deal of reevaluation concerning Irina Derevko," he said slowly. "I've gradually come to the conclusion that regardless of the relationship that she and I have or don't have, her relationship with Sydney has always been something completely separate. She is not by any stretch of the imagination a typical mother and she has extraordinarily complicated ways of showing her affection, but I do believe that in her own convoluted way, she does love Sydney. By that standard and by what I saw in Copenhagen… as well as a few other conversations we've had concerning you, I would be inclined to believe that she has placed you and Sydney in the same category. You can make of that what you will," he added with a self-deprecating shrug. "I also believed that she loved me for ten years so I might not be the best judge of her emotional range."
Sark's flickering grin flared at that. "I think that you may be underestimating certain aspects of the situation," he said. "She is not as indifferent to you as you seem determined to believe."
It occurred to Jack that this was not a conversational tangent he particularly wanted to explore with his son, regardless of the insights that Sark's more recent decade spent with Irina might reveal. Besides, there were more pressing matters to discuss.
"While we're on the subject of my Copenhagen analysis," he said coolly. "Let's talk about Allison Doren."
"Let's not." The sudden, steely look in Sark's eyes could have just as easily been inherited from either parent.
"I think we need to. You know what happened?"
"I read the report. Your internal firewalls need some work," he added as if sensing Jack's unasked question.
"Is this going to be a problem? I didn't realize until Denmark that the two of you were more than colleagues. I don't think that allowing you to continue the search for Sydney will be such a good idea… if you are going to take this personally."
The boy's humorless smile was a little unsettling. "If I haven't taken anything else personally, why would I this? Allison was trying to kill her. I can hardly blame Sydney for defending herself. I've tried it a few times myself and consider myself fortunate to have only scars for my efforts. I'm well aware of the hazards in this profession, and I learned a long time ago not to take any of it personally."
A knocking at the door interrupted any response Jack might have made.
"Oh good. I thought you might be here," Marshall said. "I hate to butt into this… family meeting," his voice dropped conspiratorially. "But Kendall's riding me about tagging him," he nodded at Sark. "And I'm afraid that he is being really insistent."
"Fine," Sark said, leaning forward. "Just do it and be done with it."
"Um, he was also kind of insistent that you return to the detention cell on the third floor until the mission is ready to go."
"That isn't for another two hours at the earliest," Sark protested. "Just do it now and I'll stay here until then."
Jack tried to conceal his surprise at the boy's counteroffer. The very nature of the tag meant that there could be no more private conversation between them. He wondered at Sark's willingness to sit silently with him, or at best to discuss only impersonal topics, for that length of time. The cloudy expression on his face indicated something other than his distaste for the idea of sitting alone in the cell for that same period, but Jack couldn't fathom what.
"It's cold down there," the boy said with a dismissive shrug. "And I don't think those plastic chairs are very ergonomic." Jack didn't buy that either.
"Let him stay, Marshall."
"Yes sir. Okay, but…" Marshall's quick glance back into the corridor was all the indication Jack needed to realize, however, that this was not going to be an option.
"You track him down yet?" Kendall asked, his broad frame filling the doorway. His frown deepened when he spotted Sark. "How many times do we have to go over this? You are not allowed to roam around this place like you actually work here. Detention cell, third floor, now."
Sark had shifted from a slightly troubled expression to the much more familiar sardonic one as he rose and followed Marshall out the door, shaking his head in bored amusement as the man all but scrambled to get out of his way. The wry expression wavered only when he cast a look back at Jack. There was frustration there and irritation… and a hint of regret. There had been something else that the boy wanted to discuss. Now it would have to wait for his return and potentially weeks before they got another opportunity.
If Jack had known what the next forty-eight hours would bring, he would have pressed for a few more minutes.
* * * *
Their third mistake, Jack thought as he read the mission transcript one more time, was sending the boy to Australia in the southern spring.
DIXON: ETA to rendezvous - twelve minutes. I hope your old buddy Rutherford is on time.
SARK: I scarcely expect that he'd consider us 'buddies'. Do you surf?
DIXON: Do I…? No. And what did you do? Double-cross him too?
SARK: Something like that. Did you know that it's only an hour's drive from here to Geelong? Best surfing on the southern coast.
DIXON: This is not a fieldtrip. How badly is this guy going to be pissed at you?
SARK: Not enough for you to worry about. Lovely weather. It must be twenty degrees warmer here than in that cell.
DIXON: Enjoy it while you can then.
SARK: I intend to.
* *
Their second mistake, Jack thought as he recalled Kendall's tirade, was thinking that he would be controllable without the threat of certain death hanging over his head and residing under his skin.
"How the hell could this happen?" the director had stormed at Dixon. "He was three feet away from you!"
"I don't know," Dixon had said. "There were absolutely no prior indications. The meet went off exactly as planned. Not a hitch. We got in, we got the info, we got out. We were at the extraction point and then…" He had shrugged. "I just don't know. I looked at the plane. Fifty yards away. I looked back… nothing."
"He was wearing a damned tracker! How could you lose him that quickly?"
"It was an earring," Dixon had protested. "It couldn't have taken him two heartbeats to rip it out. I knew that was a bad idea from the start."
"Why didn't you anticipate this?" Kendall had turned his ire on Jack then.
"I believe that I did send you my analysis," Jack had said. "Four months ago. It stated that I thought it was highly probable Sark would attempt to escape on the first mission we sent him on without the toxin capsule." He had shrugged. "It seems I was off by one."
* *
Their first mistake, of course, Jack thought as he picked up Tippin's report, was believing even for an instant that Sark hadn't had his own agenda from the very beginning.
"Did you know that there was a contract out on Sark for most of last year?" Tippin had asked when he'd brought Jack the report.
Jack had nodded. Deccan Rajkot was not the only person who had found Sark to be uncommonly bad for business one way or another. That Jacques Gauzin, head of one of Europe's strongest post-Alliance covert intelligence factions, had placed a sizable sum on the boy's head wasn't exactly surprising.
"Did you know the exact date that contract was first publicized?" Tippin had said then. "Three days before Derevko sent Sydney to Stockholm to pick up Sark. Do you know when it was cancelled? A month ago. After Gauzin was killed in a professional hit of his own."
* *
Now Jack sat alone at his desk with the transcript, the report, and the earring that was still coated in his son's dried blood. He had his suspicions that the timing of the contract and its expiration were merely convenient coincidences, but he couldn't be sure. Although he knew that he ought to be reevaluating the prior year in its entirety, he couldn't. Try as he might to analyze even the current situation objectively, his mind was inevitably drawn back to the morning before the mission. He realized now what he had seen but refused to acknowledge at the time.
The boy had been trying to say goodbye.
* * * *