Like Walking On Knives

by auburnnothenna

Even Sark doesn't know who he really is. AU. 37 parts in four sections, complete.

2. Section Two

XI. Descending

Sark had kept the call short, though he doubted Bristow would trace it. He couldn't have anticipated Sark contacting him. The decision had been made only after Sark learned the man was in Copenhagen.

He called Bristow's encrypted, CIA issue phone. Just because he was paying off a debt didn't mean he couldn't extract some slight amusement from it. Flaunting how deeply the Organization had penetrated CIA security would entertain him while also providing Bristow with a backhanded warning.

Bristow answered after the third ring.

"Bristow."

"Agent Bristow, I thought we might talk," Sark purred.

A fraction of a second pause, while Bristow processed who he was and what it meant to receive the call from him. Bristow didn't disappoint.

"Where and when, Sark?"

"Tivoli, tonight. I'll find you."

Bristow cut the connection. In his hotel room, Sark smiled.

XII. Flayed
as though they had lost me there---

"Derevko's pet," Allison spat. The dark, wiry girl was the closest thing he had to an ally at the school, but she'd been infuriated when Khasinau took Sark to Moscow. He'd refused to say what he did there. He'd put the memory of Col. Sergei Otsolokov's sausage fingers, vodka breath and the stench of garlic and sweat on him away. The bruises had already faded. "That's why you're here."

"So what?" he asked. "I'm here, just like you."

He wasn't, though. Derevko had never shown a personal interest in any of the other Project children. She hadn't pulled any of the others out to work directly for her, to go to school in England later. He had left Allison behind without a backward look when the opportunity came.

He'd left her behind in LA, too, taking the first flight for Stockholm, knowing how precarious her situation was. She wouldn't have thanked him for any concern, of course. She'd taken the assignment to double Francie Calfo just to show him up.

DNA restructuring, provacillium dependency, fevers, sleeping with Will Tippin, she did it all just to prove she was better than him, but it was useless. Allison was nothing to Irina but an asset. Sark had always been something more.

He shifted on the hard slab that served as a bed in the cell. Even his present circumstances proved that he had some value to Irina. She'd set up his capture by Sydney and the Boy Scout. She could have had him killed just as easily.

She certainly hadn't cared about what could happen to Allison.

He leaned his head back against the cold cinderblock wall and closed his eyes. He already knew he was going to get very tired of this place.

With his eyes closed, he could see Allison in his mind, Allison before Marcovic's treatment. Allison of the sullen silences and the clever mouth, Allison in a white bikini on a Rio beach, Allison purring against his chest while he ran his fingers through her short, butch-cut hair.

Fuck.

Sark snapped his eyes open. He didn't want to do that anymore. Jack Bristow had just walked away after telling him the news. Not that Bristow had a clue what it meant to Sark, he'd only wanted answers.

"Where is my daughter?"

"Ask Agent Vaughn," Sark suggested. "I believe they were together last time I encountered them."

Bristow glared at him through the glass and Sark experienced a sinking feeling. Something had spiraled out of control, he thought. He cocked his head. "Why would you think I know where she is?" he asked.

Bristow's eyes narrowed.

"Your asset may have played a part in Sydney's . . . disappearance."

So she hadn't been snatched. Or she had been, but the CIA didn't know. That was interesting. There were a lot of players who wanted control of Sydney Bristow. Rambaldi's work had assured that. Irina and Sloane were only foremost among them.

"My asset?"

"A.G. Doren," Bristow clarified and Sark nodded; since they knew her name, there was little doubt they had identified Allison as Francie. "She nearly killed Will Tippin. It appears she engaged in a violent confrontation with Sydney afterward."

Sark waited, hoping to hear Allison had bolted. He knew she'd had an exit set up; she was too good an agent not to have one. He'd even told her to set something up outside the Organization's network. She could be anywhere by now---Atlanta, Cairo, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires---anywhere, running.

"Her body was found in the apartment," Bristow said, destroying his fantasy. Sark stared at him, schooling his expression into a blank. She was just an asset, not someone whose lips he'd kissed only days ago.

"Apparently, Sydney shot her."

What the hell had Allison done to make Sydney Bristow shoot someone with her best friend's face? How careless, how crazy had Ally become to make that kind of mistake? He didn't care about Tippin, but Allison had to know that the result of harming Sydney Bristow would be death at Irina Derevko's hands. She should have gotten out.

He said it.

"She should have pulled out as soon as Tippin began to suspect."

"Why didn't you pull her out, Sark?" Bristow asked flatly.

An expression of displeasure slipped past Sark's mask. "Derevko wanted to keep someone as close to your daughter as possible. And the take from Tippin was useful," he said. He had told her to stay. Made promises they both must have known were lies, the last time he saw her. Allison had been disposable, just like Khasinau. Just like Sark himself, eventually. Only Sydney, Jack Bristow, and Rambaldi were real to Irina.

He crossed his arms. The bloody cell was cold.

"My daughter's blood is all over that apartment, Sark. Doren's dead and Tippin's hospitalized and unconscious," Bristow said harshly. "Who took Sydney?"

"I'm afraid I can't help you, Agent Bristow," Sark said.

He walked away from the glass wall and sat Indian fashion on the bed-slab, turning his face away from Bristow, ignoring him until he left. The rattle and clanging echo of each gate and door locking behind the CIA agent eventually faded. The only sound was of a distant fan somewhere pushing air into the cell, and Sark's own breath and heartbeat.

He let no emotion show, knowing the cameras were watching him constantly. He stared at the opposite wall, concentrating on being still, counting the blocks that made it up.

He remembered her crowing in victory the day she beat his time breaking down and assembling an AK-47 rifle. He remembered chocolate-caramel skin. Dancing at a nightclub in Berlin, running the gauntlet-like obstacle course as children, catching a southern Senator with his pants down on film, and a dozen other missions they'd worked together; every memory hurt, now, but he couldn't push them away. Allison Doren, deceased, had no one else to remember who she had been.

It didn't matter, he told himself. He couldn't let it. Allison had known the price of making a mistake, of letting down her guard. He had to think about himself, how much he could reveal to buy time until he could figure a way out of his current predicament.

He'd sell out everything he knew about Sloane first. He'd enjoy that. He was still alive and he was going to stay that way.

XIII. Mute Mermaids

Sark joined Bristow in the amusement park gardens in the late twilight after making sure the agent hadn't been tailed. Bristow wouldn't risk even a passive bug; he couldn't predict what might be said and thus couldn't risk being overheard by the CIA. At least, Sark thought so. He didn't worry much about a pick-up team. He could lose himself in the crowds of tourists with ease.

"What do you want, Sark?" Bristow asked him. The CIA agent wore gray, always gray, smooth good suits, well tailored to him, but never too expensive, too striking. Even when he'd essentially drawn two paychecks---one obscenely generous from SD-6---Jack Bristow had been careful not to draw attention to himself. Tradecraft.

Sark knew how to fade into the background but had found that his youth required a distinct persona to garner respect. His elegant and expensive clothes were a message as well as an indulgence.

Sark cocked his head. "Oh, many things," he said lightly. Answers. The daytime crowds were thinning, discouraged by the threat of rain in the air.

Jack grimaced.

Sark shrugged. "Very well, then. ---Whatever your reasons for removing me from CIA custody, I'm now in a position to provide you with certain information."

Jack turned toward him with a look of disbelief. "Are you saying you're grateful?'

Sark was nonplused. Was he? Not particularly. He'd anticipated extracting himself from the situation. He had never asked Jack Bristow for anything---why would he? Why feel gratitude for something that had in all likelihood been done to benefit the CIA agent and not himself? That Sark had gained had probably been only a side effect.

No, what he felt was intrigued. He wanted to know what that benefit had been and how to turn it towards himself. Bristow had acted out of character. If he could find out why, he could use that.

"No," he answered honestly.

Jack nodded. "Good."

Sark bit his lip to keep from smiling. Bristow was so wonderfully terse. "Shall we walk?" he asked, with a gesture to the path nearby. A cold wind had come up; straight from Siberia it felt like, and moving would be warmer than standing still. Besides, agents' paranoia cautioned against staying in any one place too long.

Bristow eyed the path and nodded.

"Well?"

The impatient question was a victory for Sark. "You're here trying to follow Sloane."

"Hardly valuable information," Bristow commented.

"No, it isn't," Sark agreed. He lifted his face into the wind, feeling the first mist of the evening on it. He preferred cold climates to hot. He liked the Scandinavian countries. He blended well and sometimes a woman's accented voice would stir the faded memories of his real mother. "But he's not the one who has your daughter."

Jack stopped.

Sark checked his step and gave him an inquiring look.

Bristow glared at him, eyes narrowed with barely reined in anger. Sark gave him points for keeping his voice even, though.

"You know where Sydney is?"

Sark shook his head. "No." He hesitated, then said, "But I know Sloane doesn't have her, Agent Bristow. ---He's hunting, too."

Bristow stared at him. "That isn't particularly useful information, Sark."

Sark shrugged. "I never said it was. "

"If I thought you were protecting Sloane for some reason---"

"You'd shoot me now," Sark interrupted. He held up his hand. "I'm not playing a game. I don't know where Sydney is. But my employer is preoccupied. She's blocked my access to certain information. Her obsession with Rambaldi is stronger than ever."

"Derevko kidnapped Sydney," Bristow said flatly.

"It's certainly possible."

"Why tell me?"

Sark searched for a reason Bristow would believe. "You'll figure it out sooner or later," he said. "I'd rather remain a neutral party when you turn your sights on your . . . former wife."

Lights were coming on all over the park, brilliant decorations on fantasy rides, spilling color that never quite filled the darkness. Sark frowned. The Tivoli Gardens were a tourist attraction, too expensive for most Danes, but he found himself wondering what it would have been like to have seen them as a child. His mother might have brought him to such a place, if she hadn't been killed. There'd been no outings after that, just survival and training; Irina was a harsh taskmaster and Khasinau no less demanding.

"Can you find out where she has Sydney?"

Sark blinked. He couldn't believe he'd let his attention wander like that. He'd been lost and even forgotten Bristow's presence.

"What would you pay?"

Bristow said stonily, "Whatever it took. I have access to CIA discretionary funds."

"Black budget millions," Sark murmured. He shook his head. "What if I wanted something else?"

"I would get it."

"Information?"

"Yes." Bristow looked tired and angry then. This was why operatives should avoid emotional involvement. It clouded priorities, turned good agents, dulled the edge of the knife. It was the dull knife that turned on its wielder, forced beyond its tolerances. Bristow would destroy himself for his child.

Lucky Sydney.

Sark hunched his shoulders against the steady, misting rain, suddenly feeling the cold. The rising wind and the rain guaranteed there would be no fireworks at the Tivoli tonight.

"Hardware."

"Yes. ---Quit playing games, Sark," Bristow said wearily.

He nodded.

"You'd do anything for her, wouldn't you?" Sark stated.

"Of course."

"Then why risk your status with the CIA by extracting me?" Sark asked swiftly.

Bristow gave him a stony look. "Maybe I thought you'd be more valuable to me where you are now."

Sark didn't believe it.

"Find Sydney for me and you can set your price," Bristow said. "You have my number."

I wish I did, Sark thought as Bristow walked away. He didn't believe he had any idea where he stood in Jack Bristow's agenda.

XIV. Phantom Limbs

The box was where he'd remembered, pushed to the back of a high shelf in the linen closet. It was just a simple brown cardboard box, sealed with yellowed and brittle strapping tape along the corners and with the top folded together. He had stuffed it there when he moved into the apartment and never touched it since.

He took it down and into the kitchen, where he set it down in the center of the table. He left it there while he fixed himself a cold sandwich and a glass of ice water. He ate over the sink, then rinsed the plate and glass absently, his mind turning back to the file Sloane had handed him.

Of course, he knew better than to trust anything Sloane told him, but he remembered the woman. He'd known what she was and what she was doing, but at the time he hadn't cared. She had merely been a body he could bury his frustration in.

He didn't know what he thought he would find in the box, but something in that one photo lifted from the security tapes that had been included had stirred an old memory.

It was the uniform.

He poured himself a glass of Scotch, sat down at the table, and opened the box. Its contents were newest toward the top. Loose photos of Sydney, mostly, some with her friends, mixed with formal school portraits. He had a copy of her high school yearbook.

He sipped the Scotch and deliberately tortured himself, looking at each picture. As he delved through the box, Sydney's face turned soft and round, growing younger as the pictures grew older.

He wasn't in the pictures, any more than he'd been any real part of her life during those years after Laura's 'death.' Instead there were photographs of Sydney with Emily. And Sloane. ---He'd made it so easy for the man.

Another sip of Scotch, no more than a sip, he wasn't trying to get drunk tonight, no matter how tempting that might be. It was such an ephemeral escape, even if he factored in the hangover.

Beyond the pictures of Sydney came the equally painful photos of his life with Laura. Laura with Sydney. Laura with him. Laura. Beautiful Laura. Laura, smiling.

Lying.

Laura who never was.

Wedding pictures, the colors flat and distorted after over thirty-five years, the edges yellow. The paper curled at the corners because no one had ever bothered to fit them in an album.

The new Mrs. Laura Bristow shoving cake in his younger self's face, while Irina Derevko slid the knife in his back so skillfully he never felt it until years later. All he could feel now was disgust. Disgust for his own willful blindness, for Arvin Sloane playing best man beside him, for Emily who had attended the wedding on Arvin's arm, and disgust most of all for Irina.

Irina the whore, he'd called her during his bitterest, ugliest, drunken days after his release from prison, before Sloane appeared with his clever offer and patent sympathy and the blond woman. Never afterward. Not because he'd stopped drinking or thinking, but only to protect himself. And he'd thought she was dead, so he'd let some of the anger go, believing that.

Another illusion.

He considered burning the damn pictures, but instead pushed them aside.

The next layer of photos were mostly of his family, taken during his childhood, bits and pieces of history shipped to him after his mother's death. There was the flop-earred hound he'd had---Farley---he'd forgotten the dog until seeing himself immortalized, kneeling with an arm around Farley's neck, grinning into the camera. There were pictures of him at various ages, others with his mother. These were all black and white Polaroids. His father would count out, and then peel away the paper so he could see the picture develop.

There were two studio portraits of the family, taken after his sister's birth. Black and white, stiffly posed, all of them dressed in their best clothes. He couldn't remember his sister well; she'd died of influenza before her tenth birthday. Both his parents were buried next to her sad little grave, in Canada, along with the rest of the Bristows.

He was more careful with those pictures, but set them aside as well.

It was the last, loose black and whites on the bottom of the box he wanted.

There was the picture of his father in an officer's uniform, taken before he left to serve in Korea. Below it was the picture of another young man in an RAF uniform, silent laughter in the eyes that regarded the camera, lips quirked into a lopsided smile. Captain Alan Bristow, RAF, dead before his brother made it home to marry and have two children, only one of which survived childhood.

Alan Bristow was a slim and forever youthful ghost caught by photo emulsion, with short cropped blond hair and pale eyes, his head tipped to the side as though he knew some droll secret.

He hadn't looked at that picture since he'd been a child himself, but the sight of another young man in a Russian military uniform had evoked the memory from dusty storage. He stared at the picture a long time. There was no denying the resemblance.

Alan Bristow and the young man currently locked up in CIA custody were dead ringers.

Sark was his son.

XV. Trustworthy

Irina was quietly giving instructions to her head of Cairo operations. Sark leaned against a wall, listening and watching, as always. They were in Rachid's office, four stories up, and if you stood in the right spot, you could see the pyramids of Giza through the wide bank of windows along one wall. Sark didn't bother.

He hid it, but he was bored. They weren't in Cairo for a mission, just showing the flag, proving to various ambitious and skeptical subordinates that Irina was still alive, at large, and in control. Sark's presence at her side was a reminder, a double reminder, of what would happen to anyone who crossed her. He was in Khasinau's place now, acting as her first lieutenant, and he was the one who would be dispatched to do any 'troubleshooting' that arose.

And Khasinau was dead.

The only interesting aspect to the trip was the way Irina had steered him clear of the private clinic operating out of a restored villa in the Maadi suburbs. It was one of the Cairo operation's fronts, but had just had a security revamp, along with the installation of new medical equipment. Sark had been curious when he noticed the numbers in a budget report he'd skimmed during the flight from Athens. Irina had dismissed his suggestion they inspect it though, assuring him Rachid wouldn't pad any expenses.

Looking at Rachid leaning as close to Irina as he dared, Sark swallowed a derisive sound. He doubted there was anything the Egyptian wouldn't do. It was why Irina employed the man, after all.

No, Irina didn't want Sark to know what was going on at the Maadi villa. And since he'd become her de facto second in command, the only matters she'd withheld from him had concerned Sydney Bristow.

A quick, night time reconnaissance would satisfy his curiosity, but the security layout Rachid had had installed would require more prep time than Sark had. If he disappeared too long or triggered an alarm going in, Irina would know what he'd done.

He smiled to himself. There was another option, the one he'd explored in Copenhagen. He'd hadn't contacted Jack Bristow since then, hadn't learned anything that would further the man's search for his daughter. He could e-mail the address and security specifications to Bristow, see what Bristow did with it.

He lifted his gaze, feeling Irina's attention on him.

What did she see, looking at him? Neither son nor lover but no mere subordinate like Rachid, either. He'd been in her body---something Rachid might have sweaty dreams about but would never dare---but he knew the physical act had little meaning for people with the training they had. She didn't trust him---not completely---but she relied on him to be as good as her, to keep up with her, and that was an . . . intoxicating sort of knowledge.

She smiled now, reading his boredom, despite his lack of expression. She knew his body, knew his body language, had known him since his childhood, she knew how his eyes lost focus when his thoughts strayed. She'd held him and hurt him and fucked him and taught him and saved him and broken him and he belonged to her, Sark thought. That's what she saw: something that was hers.

He wasn't hers, though. He wasn't anyone's.

Contacting Bristow, giving him any information on the Cairo operation, would be betraying her. He sighed. He wasn't ready to do that yet. Not yet.

But soon.

XVI. Between the Cracks

his skeleton toughened,
the device of his bones was accomplished,
his smile,
his manner of walking, the fugitive gesture that echoed

Irina's shoulders hunched for one brief instant and Sark knew she was staring into the dark muzzle of the pistol, her ears still ringing with the echo of the two shots he'd fired into the Delta Force guards on either side of her.

Sark met her gaze.

"Step out of the car, please."

Let her wonder if his loyalties might have shifted over the months that had passed with him on the outside and Irina in her CIA cell.

He followed her out of the limousine, retaining the pistol. Let her wonder about that too.

Irina smiled.

"It's good to see you, Sark," she said.

"Did they tag you?" he asked, keeping it all business. She looked good. The CIA hadn't been stupid enough to send her into a meet with Sloane looking like she'd just shed a set of manacles. Jack Bristow's thinking, probably.

"Jack removed it . . . last night."

Sark narrowed his eyes. So she'd got to her former husband after all. He wasn't surprised. Irina had that power.

He gestured to the portable bug scanner on the passenger seat in the front of the limousine. "Perhaps we should make certain?"

Irina nodded and fished the scanner out, calmly running the sensor wand along her arms and legs, then down between her cleavage, to her navel and groin. The steady beep never wavered. Without fanfare, she handed Sark the scanner, turned and presented him with her back. He passed it down and then up, then paused. Irina swept her hair off her neck. Sark ran the sensor along the line of her spine to her bare nape, then waved it around her head, just to make sure nothing was hidden in her hair. Nothing.

"Satisfied?" she asked.

He tossed the scanner into the limo.

"Sloane will arrive in the next three minutes," he said indifferently. "He expects you to hand over the manuscript."

"Of course."

Some women would have leaned against the limo while they waited. Others would have stood at military attention. Irina did neither. She was completely at home in her skin, unworried by how she appeared to him or anyone. She stood, comfortably at ease, ignoring the stench of the polluted wind that stirred her hair.

Sark thought about touching her but didn't. She'd just had Jack Bristow again.

Her eyes were knowing and sharper than knives.

"I told you not to harm Sydney." Her voice never rose, but Sark heard the reprimand.

"I didn't," Sark replied calmly.

"Siberia."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm the one with a scar. Your daughter is quite competent to care for herself." Very beautiful too, perhaps even more so than Irina, but softer, Sark thought. Sydney Bristow lacked her mother's essential ruthlessness. He'd found himself wondering about Sydney sometimes. How did it feel to care about others so much?

Irina turned her head to the side, listening to the sound of an approaching vehicle. "We haven't much time."

"Quite obviously, Sloane accepted your proposal when I presented it to him in Tokyo," Sark warned. "I wouldn't rely on him honoring it once he has everything he wants, though."

That garnered fond laughter with a hint of bemusement. "You don't like him."

Sark stared at her expressionlessly. In fact, he almost loathed Sloane. After only a few short months in the man's company, his respect for Jack and Sydney Bristow's abilities in continuing as double agents within SD-6 had become profound. He'd found himself staring at Sydney more than once, astounded that she could go on playing to Sloane's egocentric attentions. She was a remarkable agent.

"Really, what does that matter?" he asked. He was a professional; his personal opinion of Sloane had no bearing. He had stayed with the job, earned the man's trust and done his dirty work---down to triggering a small neutron device and burning a church full of people to death. He was a mass murderer in the eyes of those who knew, even his own eyes when he let himself think of it; he'd forfeited any right to judge anyone else.

"I understand Sloane," Irina said. "I knew what would---" she paused and seemed to consider the word, '---persuade him." She tipped her head. "You did well."

Sark watched her through his eyelashes. "Of course," he murmured. Pleasing her shouldn't have meant so much to him. He knew he didn't matter that much to her.

The mini-van with the false police markings was toiling up the rough road to where they'd parked. He kept an eye on it out of natural caution. He wouldn't want to encounter any real members of the Panamanian police forces. There were two dead men in the back of the limo, after all.

The mini-van pulled to a stop. Sark walked past Irina and pulled open the slider. She stalked from the side of the limo to face Arvin Sloane, that slow, lethal smile forming on her lips again. Sark watched silently as the game began between the two of them.

Sloane was clever. Cleverer than Khasinau had been. His only vulnerability had been his wife and in a maneuver that would have done Irina herself proud, Sloane had turned his weakness into a ploy that let him destroy the Alliance. Sark had been impressed, but it hadn't lasted, because Sloane hadn't got out of the game.

Sloane thought he was the best. Sark knew Irina would win any game with Sloane, though.

He told himself that was why he would be by her side. Sentiment was irrelevant. He just much preferred to be on the winning side. It had nothing to do with affection.

Nothing.

XVII. Initial Offering

Sark didn't like ultimatums, but the message waiting when he returned to his suite certainly qualified as one. A very polite, elliptically worded demand that he meet with Sloane over drinks in the bar.

He found it disturbing that Sloane had located him, as well.

He'd wanted to toss himself onto the wide bed, sink back, and lose himself in a few hours of sleep. Irina was turning over more and more of her work to him, while he still had to fulfill his own responsibilities to the Organization. He was tired.

Dealing with the young, fanatical inheritors of the old Shining Path terrorist cells took all his considerable control. They looked at him with such contempt, all the while acting like spoiled children. It was a strange sort of reverse prejudice; that assumption that by birth a native of the Third World knew more than a European could about pain or deprivation. Suffering did not make them saints, nor would guns make them professionals.

Not that he would bother explaining that.

He'd been tempted to play the proto-Aryan Fascist just because they couldn't afford to hack him off. They needed the weapons he was selling. He could have done it, would have, once, since just his blond hair and blue eyes seemed to offend them, but had restrained the impulse.

Taunts were for amateurs. He never taunted anyone without a purpose behind the words. Irina was an artist at predicting and producing reactions and he'd learned from her. He'd concluded their business in as efficient a fashion as he could and got out.

He forced himself to keep moving. He would meet Sloane, but he wouldn't come running like a dog to a whistle. That little act had stopped being necessary as soon as Irina had been out of CIA custody. He shed his sweat rumpled clothes and padded into the opulent bathroom. Sloane could wait until he had showered off the sticky grime of the long day in the shantytown outskirts of the city.

The shower refreshed him enough that his mood improved. He considered ordering a small meal delivered to the room and dining before joining Sloane and judged it unwise. The advantage would be that food generally energized him, but Sloane would be growing impatient and thus even more unpredictable while waiting for him.

Instead, he chose a tropical weight suit in an eggshell brown with a custom tailored shirt the color of bitter chocolate and a tie like dark cream with a bronze sheen. Silk underwear, silk socks, and a carefully folded silk handkerchief the same shade as his tie were all part of the presentation. He took a cynical satisfaction from clothing himself in garments that cost thousands of dollars. He never forgot that once he'd had nothing but charity.

Sark despised charity, the pretense of generosity and the servile dance of gratitude expected in return.

He wondered what Sloane thought he owed him.

He strolled under the carved lintel and into the brightly lit, glass-walled Café Bar an hour after arriving back at the hotel. He spotted Sloane immediately. He also noted the two obvious bodyguards, along with four security types trying to blend in.

Sark shook his head. Did no one know how to keep a low profile these days? For that matter, he reflected, did any of them know how to watch out for their principal? He could have dressed as a student back-packer and breezed right by them if he wanted to take out Sloane. Sydney would have jammed on a wig, swished her hips and pouted those lips, and every man in the bar would have watched her without seeing what she was doing. Any good operative could get to Sloane if these were the best he had to guard him.

He shrugged. It wasn't his concern.

"May I join you, sir?" he asked Sloane on reaching his table.

"Sit," Sloane directed.

Sark suppressed a frown of irritation. He seated himself so that he could observe all the bar's entrances, either through line of sight or in some mirrored surface.

"We both make lovely targets here," he commented.

As usual, Sloane needed a shave. The grooves around his mouth and fanning out from his eyes were deeper than they'd been when Sark had seen him last, but the listless grief over his wife seemed a thing of the past. Energy sizzled from the small man. Guileful amusement shone in his eyes.

"Don't worry about it," Sloane said with a casual wave. "I have people throughout the hotel. No one's watching us."

Yet, Sark thought cynically. He would have to make arrangements to wipe all the security camera footage for the night. He didn't need the CIA coming after him for associating with Sloane. Nor did he want Irina receiving even a rumor of such a thing.

If she thought he'd sold her out to Sloane, he would be safer at Camp Harris. Not that there was any truly safe place to run if you crossed Irina.

A waiter arrived with a crystal goblet and a bottle of wine. Sloane waved him to present it to Sark. He studied the label absently---it was an acceptable vintage---and nodded his acceptance. He sipped the straw pale wine after the waiter left.

"You don't seem perturbed over my little slip to the CIA," Sark observed.

Sloane chuckled. "No, no, I should have---in fact, I did---know better than to trust your employer." His gaze sharpened, putting Sark on his guard. "As should you."

Sark shrugged. "And you would be better?" He set the wine goblet on the linen table cloth, admiring the way the yellowed ivory fabric reflected in the heavy crystal and the soft light shining through onto it.

"Of course I would, Sark," Sloane said sincerely. "I honored the agreement with Irina and we extracted her exactly as planned." He leaned forward over the table. "No matter how Jack Bristow has betrayed me---and Sydney---have I hurt them? Never."

"Sydney might argue that having both her fiancé and best friend murdered was rather painful," Sark said in a dry tone. He regretted mentioning Francine Calfo immediately, even in passing, she reminded him of Allison. Remembering Ally always hurt.

Sloane shrugged that off. "If you had agreed to Marcovic's procedure, we could have replaced her handler, Vaughn, and garnered a great deal more information instead. Ms. Calfo would still be doing her part for the food service industry. I wouldn't have had Agent Vaughn killed."

No, because Michael Vaughn, alive, could have told them a great deal about the CIA's operations and intentions. In the hands of the sort of interrogators Sloane or Sark could command, Vaughn would have, too. Francine Calfo had had no value beyond her proximity to Sydney, so she'd simply been removed.

"Considering the disaster that entire experiment ended in," Sark commented, "I am quite pleased I demurred. ---You know Marcovic predicted that the changed DNA might ultimately affect brain chemistry and personality? It was happening. The asset in question had begun to behave . . . erratically."

He hadn't been willing to do it. He hadn't wanted her to do it, either. That once, he would have defied Irina's orders, because his own instincts had told him it would be a disastrous mistake. Ally had done it, though, despite his protests.

He remembered the feel of her lips on his that last time, the taste that wasn't Allison, her wounded eyes. She hadn't been the same woman he'd trained with in the Kiev facility. That woman would have slit Tippin's throat without blinking. A.G. Doren had died when she became the Calfo woman's double. It just took some time. He didn't blame Sydney for her death. That was the chance Ally had known she was taking---it was the doubling that had been her doom.

No comfort that he'd been right.

"Never mind," Sloane said. "Marcovic's work is unfortunately lost."

"Well, then, what does bring you to Lima, and myself, here?" Sark asked sardonically. He really wanted to be done with this game.

"Ever visited the Cathedral of San Francisco, Sark?"

Sark narrowed his eyes. Churches and Sloane were a lethal mixture and he wanted no part of it this time.

"No."

"It's truly a remarkable edifice," Sloane explained eagerly. "Mudejar architecture, hewn stone exterior, filled with great works of art, constructed in 1546---"

"Fascinating," Sark interrupted. "Could we fast forward the travelogue, though?"

"Besides the art, it houses a monastic library established in the fifteenth century, with rare books, chronicles, and manuscripts," Sloane explained.

Sark waited for the rest. He sipped his wine, savoring the bite of the tannins in it, the sharp taste of autumn on his tongue. His eyes moved over the other people in the Café, cataloging them: the foreign businessmen, Japanese and Germans and Spaniards, the bartender and the waiters, the two sleek prostitutes watching the businessmen as though they were prey. Sloane's security people remained in place, too static to provide much protection. Soft murmur of voices, the Café was comparatively empty, and no one was too interested in their table.

Sloane sipped from his water glass and cocked his head at Sark. Another sip and Sloane set the glass back down carefully.

"The Franciscan Order was very respectful of the texts they acquired. Any loss was severely punished. Recently, one of my researchers discovered a mention of a monk receiving just such punishment for the disappearance of a folio. The interesting factor is that nowhere else is there any mention of this folio---all references to it have been removed."

Sark kept his face as expressionless as possible. Fucking Rambaldi. It had to be. Nothing else lit up Sloane's eyes that way.

"So you think it is still in the library?" he asked.

"Not in the library, but beneath the church, in the catacombs," Sloane said.

Catacombs. Lovely.

"Good luck," Sark said, starting to rise. He wanted no part in another mad Rambaldi quest. The obsession shared by Sloane and Irina only left him uneasy and disgusted. When it came to Milo Rambaldi they were both like addicts, willing to sacrifice anyone and anything. Sark suspected the Catholic Church might have been right to want to suppress Rambaldi's works---though they might have been smarter to simply destroy them.

"There's more," Sloane said. He laid his hand on Sark's forearm, briefly. The contact startled Sark. He'd forgotten Sloane's penchant for touching. Blocked it out, since it was something he disliked intensely.

One of the prostitutes was watching them now. She was sloe-eyed and curious, her lips painted candy red and curving into a smile as she tried to interpret whether Sark or Sloane would be interested. A shift of her hips telegraphed an invitation that Sark noted and dismissed. She made a moue of disappointment and returned her attention to her companion, quick laughter floating across the room.

"Call Irina. Call the CIA or the NSA or any number of intelligence services," Sark said. "I'm not interested."

"I have part of the package Khasinau willed to you."

Sark stilled. He cocked is head. The package. Khasinau had left him directions to retrieve it, but the appearance of Agents Bristow and Vaughn in Stockholm had interrupted its acquisition. His subsequent inquiries after his return to Irina's organization had come up empty. Whatever Khasinau had meant him to have had no longer been available. Lars Sorenssen, his contact, had shown up dead, an apparent drowning, in one of the city's marinas, less than a week after their aborted meeting. Without Sorenssen, the rest of his inquires had hit a dead end.

So Sloane had acquired it---part of it---and was offering it to Sark. Not Irina. Curious. Khasinau hadn't meant whatever it was for Irina, either. Sark didn't know whether it had no value to her or Khasinau had intended it to be used against her. He'd dismissed it, finally, as moot, since he hadn't had it to use.

"Is that so?" he asked coolly. He was trying to calculate what this latest development meant.

"Irina arranged for the CIA to capture you to keep you from retrieving it," Sloane stated.

Sark opened his mouth to deny it and stopped. That would have been very like Irina. Everything she did had more than one layer. Since she needed the CIA to stop Sloane, she would have sent the CIA after Sark, confident that he would survive the set up and give up what she wanted them to know, and all the better if that prevented him from somehow acting against her interests. Getting beaten up, interrogated, and held in a glass cage for three months had been an excellent distraction.

Sloane nodded knowingly. "You know she could have fed them my location in Mexico City through any number of channels. ---Irina wanted you out of the way, but still operational, and still attached to her."

"My employer's motivations aren't the point," Sark said icily. He hated that smarmy smile of Sloane's, the one that gloated over knowing something no one else did. It didn't matter that Sloane was mistaken half the time; it was the attitude that grated.

"Since you don't know Irina's motivation, that's a rash statement," Sloane contradicted.

This was the second time Sloane had warned him against Irina.

"It's your motivations that interest me," Sark said. "Why come to me? Why mention Khasinau's legacy? Why now?"

He did not like the way Sloane smiled at him.

"You and Sydney Bristow are the best at what you do. Unfortunately, Sydney is no longer available---"

"Not that she would do anything for you," Sark murmured.

Sloane paused. "She does seem to hold onto her grudges, much like her father. You, however, aren't so rigid."

Sark blinked. What was Sloane insinuating?

Sark made himself sound bored as he asked, "I presume you're proposing a trade of some sort: my services in return for this hypothetical package from Khasinau?"

"Exactly."

"My employer doesn't encourage moonlighting," Sark said cautiously. Irina would not be happy if she found out he'd done anything for Sloane. He wasn't sure he wanted to do anything. He hadn't forgotten that little episode with the glass ball and the lecture on Khmer Rouge torture techniques.

Sydney Bristow wasn't the only one who could hold a grudge.

"Your employer is hiding things from you, Mr. Sark," Sloane said. He leaned forward. "Important things---for you." He sat back with a satisfied smile and added, "Why do you think Jack Bristow freed you?"

Sark raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying you know?"

Looking at the smile on Sloane's face, Sark realized the man did know or, at least, thought he knew. He was going to make Sark jump through more hoops before telling him, though. He resisted the urge to snap the stem of his wine glass and drive it into the man's throat just to wipe that smile away. It would be satisfying, but messy.

"The information in Khasinau's package may no longer have any value. It's been too long," Sark pointed out. None of his temper and irritation sounded in his voice. He kept his face a mask.

Sloane chuckled. "Not this. Some information only becomes more explosive over time."

"Like Rambaldi manuscripts."

"Do we have an agreement?'

Sark considered. "What's the mission?"

"Satellite imaging indicates there are a series of tunnels beneath the catacombs that haven't been opened," Sloane said. He withdrew a mini-disc from his white linen jacket and handed it to Sark. "All the information you need is on this. Retrieve the missing folio and I will provide you with Khasinau's little bombshell."

"I'll need a contact point."

"It's on the disc."

"Very well." Sark stood. "I have a limited window to act here in Lima before my employer begins questioning why I'm lingering."

"Then I won't waste any more of your time, Mr. Sark." Sloane's eyes gleamed. He raised his glass mockingly. "To our success."

XVIII. Nullius Filius

"Arvin."

His voice didn't betray his need to wrap his hands around that skinny neck and wring it until the little monster told him where Sydney was. His fingers didn't even tighten around the glass of water.

Sloane slid into the chair opposite Jack, eyes hidden behind glasses with the iridescence of a puddle of oil, wearing an off-white jacket and a shirt with no tie. LA chic. Casual wealth. He looked like a successful producer or a good casting agent. He set a slim, tan leather briefcase on the table between them.

It was like a bad dream. Déjà vu. Sloane showing up at the same restaurant, acting like nothing had changed, the way he had once before. Jack was never coming back here again.

"Jack," Sloane greeted him. "You look tired. You should try to get some sleep."

"My daughter is missing, Arvin," Jack gritted out.

"Yes, Sydney . . . ." Sloane frowned and shrugged. "That is unfortunate."

Jack glared at him. "I suppose you're behind it and now you're here to tell me what you want." He took a deep breath. "Just say it."

"But I'm not, Jack," Sloane said gently. He shook his head. "Really, Jack, I wish you would believe that I'm your friend."

"You're a madman," Jack said shortly. He hated these sorts of games. The collapse of the Alliance and destruction of SD-6 had finally freed him of the pretence of sympathizing with Arvin Sloane's goals. He saw no point in prevaricating now. "I suppose you have your snipers in place again?"

"What do you think, Jack? I know you'd shoot me in a minute, otherwise."

"Fuck you, Arvin."

Sloane took off the sunglasses and set them beside the briefcase. He smiled a little, sadly. "I have a vision, a purpose to my actions beyond the preservation of the status quo. Come on, Jack, don't tell me you don't see what I see? The governments of this world are blind, crippled things stumbling toward destruction. ---What's wrong with wanting to stop that?"

"Your methods, for one thing," Jack replied evenly.

"Do you really believe that the US government---or any government---is fit to control the sort of power Rambaldi discovered?" Sloane leaned forward over the linen covered table. "Jack, you know me."

"That would be the other thing."

A chuckle escaped Sloane and he leaned back.

"You never change, Jack. That's what I love about you." He tapped the briefcase.

"Get on with it, Arvin," Jack snapped impatiently.

"You have Mr. Sark in custody."

Jack sneered. "He burned your Mexico City location without a second thought."

"Of course, he did," Sloane agreed. "He's doing exactly as Irina wanted him to do. Maneuvering Sydney into capturing him, that was a master play in her little game." He opened the briefcase and withdrew a slim file in a plain manila jacket. He opened it and scanned the contents nonchalantly. It was an act. Sloane's attention was on Jack, the sly light in his eyes triggering a sinking sickness in Jack's gut.

Jack feigned nonchalance himself and returned to his meal, buttering a roll and taking a bite, though it tasted like cement dust in his mouth.

"An impressive young man, our Mr. Sark," Sloane commented. "A shame you and Sydney never bothered to get to know him better during your joint tenures with SD-6. You have so much in common."

"I hardly think so," Jack said.

Sloane chuckled again.

"But you don't know, Jack. That's Irina's joke, and a very nasty one it is."

Jack wiped his mouth and set his napkin aside.

"What are you talking about, Arvin?"

Sloane snapped the file shut and asked, "Remember Giselle?"

For an instant, Jack drew a blank, but the memory was there. Blond Giselle Sorenssen, an Alliance honeypot they'd used to check his loyalties and penchant for pillow talk shortly after Sloane 'recruited' him from the CIA. Jack had still been burning with bitterness over the revelation of his wife's betrayals. Their liaison had been gracefully brought to a close about six months after it began, presumably after the Alliance was satisfied over his reliability on that front. He hadn't thought of her since.

"Yes," he said cautiously.

She'd been a classic Scandinavian beauty; hard to forget a blond, blue eyed Valkyrie with a throaty laugh and a clever wit. She'd been patient with his barely hidden anger and the boiling resentment Irina had left behind.

Sloane had introduced them. Of course, Jack had known she was a player, but he hadn't cared at the time. He'd wanted a body to bury himself in and Giselle had been willing. It had been her job. She'd done it damn well and left him a good deal saner than when they met.

Sloane's sharp eyes must have caught some minute softening in Jack's expression.

"She's dead."

"Recently?"

"No, it was about sixteen years ago," Sloane said.

"And?"

"I thought you might be interested; it was Irina who killed her."

"Should I be shocked?" Jack asked. "I knew she was an Alliance agent. And Derevko kills the way she breathes."

Sloane pushed the file toward Jack. "Oh, I think this was a bit more personal, Jack. ---I really should have kept better track of what happened to Giselle. It took me a while to make the connection."

"What does this have to do with now, Arvin? Even if Derevko did kill her because I'd . . . been with her?" It was a bitter reminder. Everything in his life had been tainted by Irina Derevko, even his relationship with Sydney.. She'd tried to fool him again when she turned herself in to the CIA, but he'd known, he'd known it was lies. He hadn't been able to save Sydney from learning the same lessons he had almost thirty years before, though. Derevko was poison. Beautiful, addictive poison . . . If she didn't kill you, it still never stopped hurting.

"Mr. Sark, Jack," Sloane said. "Irina's protégé." His eyes gleamed with the pleasure of sharing the secret. "He's Giselle's son." He didn't have to tell Jack to do the math.

"You're lying."

"Irina knows; it's why she took him. It's why she killed her."

" . . . No."

"She left her daughter, Jack," Sloane said, "so she took your son."

It was a lie. It had to be. That blond assassin in the glass cell at the Ops Center might be Giselle's child, but he wasn't Jack's. No. No.

His appetite truly gone, Jack pushed his plate to the side and turned the manila jacketed file toward himself. It had no label. He opened it and began to read. When he'd done, he lifted his eyes to Sloane.

"Do you expect me to thank you?" he grated out. "I have no reason to believe this."

"I have no reason to lie about it. ---Just thought you'd like to know," Sloane said casually. He stood. "Take a look at him." Donned his sunglasses again. "He hasn't any idea."

He picked up the smooth, expensive briefcase. "You could tell him. Turn him."

"You bastard."

Sloane smiled.

"I'll be in touch, Jack. We're not done yet."

Jack ignored him, staring down at the pictures of a blond woman and a small, blond boy. Surveillance photos, taken from a distance, by Alliance security, he assumed. Black and white. Sark had been a beautiful child. A son any man would have . . . wanted. Damn them all.

The rest of the file was sketchy. Derevko covered her tracks well and Sark had learned from her, but the story was there, everything that had shaped Sark into the man he was now. Kiev. The KGB's version of Project Christmas. Khasinau. The sort of training he'd never wanted Sydney to endure; conditioning that shaped a child into a conscienceless killer. Jack didn't need the details, he could fill them in himself.

He couldn't stop studying the pictures of Sark, looking for a resemblance. There was one of him in a Russian military uniform . . . A memory stirred. He didn't want to believe it.

XIX. Hell Is In The Details

A sharp knock on his office door jerked Jack out of daze of exhaustion and disappointment. His office was dark, only a small reading lamp on the desk lit. He straightened up, closed the latest report on the search for Sydney---another dead end---and said, "Yes?"

Kendall opened the door and leaned in.

"Jack, why the hell don't you go home?" he asked.

"I need to write up what we found in Cairo."

"You need to get some rest. You already did the preliminary debrief."

Jack shook his head. What the hell did he have to go home to, anyway? Bad dreams and regrets. Sleep wouldn't come. He could lie in bed and stare at the ceiling until dawn overtook the streetlights, but he couldn't rest.

Kendall stepped inside and closed the door.

"Jack, if you don't cut back, I'm going to have you escorted out of the building. Do you understand?" Kendall made a frustrated gesture at Jack's desk and the files spread across it. "You won't find your daughter by driving yourself into the ground."

"No one else is going to find her," Jack growled.

Kendall wiped at his face wearily.

"I understand you feel the Agency has failed you and Sydney," he said. "But you know we can't afford to focus solely on one lost agent. "

Jack stared at him blankly. He knew it was true. If it hadn't been Sydney . . . He would have been one of those taking the pragmatic view. He would have said, 'Sometimes you have to cut your losses.' He would have been a Grade A bastard and told himself it was the cost of doing business.

"I know that," he said flatly.

Sydney was the one who would never give up on a friend.

Kendall grimaced at him, not satisfied. "That doesn't mean we've given up, Jack."

"The day you do, I quit," Jack told him.

Kendall sighed gustily. "Yeah." He put his hand on the doorknob. "Look, take the damn weekend, pull yourself together, and maybe by then the analysts will have pulled something from what you got out of that clinic in Maadi."

"I want Tippin on it."

"Fine. ---How did Weiss do?"

"He was a little rusty. "

"It was him or Vaughn."

Jack managed a small smile. "I'd rather take Marshall into the field."

A bark of laughter escaped Kendall at the thought. He started out and paused. "Jack, I mean it; you have to get some rest sometime."

"I will," Jack lied. He added, "Reed and Henstall are both good."

"No problems working with Reed? No personal problems?" Kendall prompted.

Jack shook his head. "None." Except she was Sydney's replacement.

Kendall saw through it but didn't respond. Instead, he said thoughtfully, "Cairo was a good op, Jack. We shut down Derevko's entire operation there. ---You had a source inside, didn't you?"

Jack met Kendall's eyes. "I didn't have anyone in Cairo."

Kendall nodded. "I didn't say that, did I?" He glanced at his watch. "I have to get to Ops. Larsen's inserting with a Delta team once they set down in Caracas."

Jack waved a hand at him, opened another file and started reading again.

XX. Down Among the Dead Men

Little by little, the face of a stranger
looked out of my face---

The satellite IDP on Sloane's disc indicated access to something more sophisticated than the Keyhole system Allison had accessed through Will Tippin. Sloane shouldn't have been able to obtain anything from that sort of black program IMINT anymore. That meant he had access to NIMA or the NRO, along with NPIC, probably through the NSA or the CIA. He'd penetrated those agencies before.

Sark dismissed that as fruitless speculation and set to work. A preliminary tour, using his student-on-vacation disguise, took him through the church's public areas and even into the open part of the catacombs.

He tapped his own network to verify the IMINT Sloane provided. Once he had, he formulated his plan, bearing in mind that several items he'd recovered for Irina had been protected by clever traps and tricks.

The cathedral had reasonably good security, on par with most museums, not surprising considering the value of the artwork inside. None of it was sophisticated enough to give Sark pause. He'd be doing this mission without back-up, not that he needed it. Just as well, he wanted to do this entry and exit covertly. Most back-up men weren't much better than thugs with guns anyway.

Not that many Marcus Dixons floating around the merc community. Greed and loyalty didn't often coexist, after all.

He hacked into the power grid for the city and inserted a program that would shut down the entire Plaza for ten minutes whenever he used his sat phone to enter the right code. Another code would erase the program from the system. The cathedral had emergency generators, of course, but they were seldom used and would take a brief, but calculable, period to start and restore power. That interval was all Sark would need.

He dressed in black from head to toe, with a small pack carrying whatever he thought he'd need, and wore a pair of night vision goggles. He moved fast, through the courtyard behind the cathedral, past the fountain and the shadowy trees, following the path he'd mapped in his head, down, down into the dark tunnels of the dead. Brick beneath his feet, then tile, then rough stone. Facilis descensus Averni, Sark mused, mouth quirking into a smile behind his balaclava.

The public portion of the catacombs included railed walkways alongside the displays of bones. Some half-mad anthropologist had sorted them into types and now they were displayed like wares at the market, bargain bins of femurs and tibias, ulnas and fibulas, curving ribs, spinal discs, and pelvic cradles. The skeletons of almost 70,000 people mixed and matched and arranged in patterns. Here was a medallion of long bones, fanning out from a pile of hollowed skulls and ringed by more. Sark passed by them, unconcerned. The bones were brown and dry; old brittle things without any menace to them, even through the eerie display of his night vision goggles.

He entered the closed-off portion of the tunnels and kept moving, following the path to a stone and masonry wall. According to Sloane's research and the satellite images, an alcove was hidden behind the masonry which could be accessed without demolishing the wall. The alcove hid a second doorway into the unexplored tunnels. Sark studied the wall through the goggles. The lack of color and depth perception frustrated him. He switched them off and pushed them up on his head.

For an instant, he stood surrounded by total blackness. So deep beneath the cathedral, the air was thick and still, musty with a mixture of scents: stone, damp, dust, bones; old, old death. Sark forced himself to stand still and breathe it in. Part of the Project Christmas training Irina had arranged for him to receive had included bouts of sensory deprivation and how to deal with it. Childish fears had not been tolerated; those who could not overcome them washed out. Sark had never wanted to be in the position of finding out what happened to the wash-outs. Even as a young child, he'd been cynical enough to recognize that it was likely death. Now, he stood deep under the earth, among the long-ago dead, and felt nothing.

He removed a miniaturized halogen spot light from the thigh pocket of his fatigues and switched it on. The light displayed a pattern of stones, gray and gray-white, set in pale grout. Sark studied it, trying to find the key.

There. A white stone, then to the right horizontally two more stones the same shade, one a level above the first, the other a level below. These two were in line with each other vertically. Then a gap and the pattern reversed. The stones were points. Trace a line from the highest to the next and the next and they formed brackets. Sark set his hand against the center stone, where there should have been a circle to complete Rambaldi's sign. The stone slid back under the pressure of his hand and a hidden lock released, opening the wall for him.

Sark trained the light on the floor, checking the dust for the tracks of anyone who had been there before him. Nothing. He stepped inside, felt a pressure sensitive stone shift under him, and the wall closed behind him with rough groan. Without his spotlight, it would have been darker than a grave.

The next door required him to find Rambaldi's sign carved in a stone set low in the corner and nearly invisible to the eye. It opened a trap door in the floor.

Sark knelt and peered down. Black. He withdrew a small chemical light, twisted it to activate it, and dropped the pale green light into the hole. The dim light fell about twenty feet and bounced out of sight. He sighed. At least it hadn't fallen into water down there.

He played his spotlight the over the stone side of the hole and finally spotted a series of hand and footholds. He bit back a soft curse. No stairs, no ladders, and no way would his boots fit in those toe niches.

Disgusted, Sark sat down and stripped off his gloves and then his boots and socks. Socks into boots, boot laces tied together and slung over his neck to dangle against his chest. "The things I do," he muttered to himself. He remembered to tuck his gloves in a pocket. He looped the lanyard to the spotlight around one wrist so he wouldn't lose it and slid over to the side of the hole with the niches, then started down.

At least the stone had appeared in good shape, not cracked or crumbling away and likely to turn to powder under his weight.

He descended smoothly until his bare feet touched the chilly rock floor. He paused then and stretched a little, loosening up muscles that had tightened, flexing his fingers so they wouldn't cramp. It took only a moment more to put the boots back on; time well spent if he found himself needing to run.

He followed the dull green chem light down the tunnel as it sloped down and down. He found the little light he'd dropped at the end of the tunnel, where it opened into a small chamber chiseled out of raw rock. Wall sconces still held ancient torches waiting to be lit. Grit from excavating the chamber crunched under Sark's boot soles.

In the center of the small room, a plinth carved from the same stone supported a dusty chest. It measured perhaps twelve inches by ten, the corners bound in elaborate brass, the lid faintly domed. Sark trained the light on it and ran a finger through the dust and grit of centuries, revealing lacquered rosewood. Despite time and the inevitable damp of the tunnels, it looked untouched.

Service with Derevko and Khasinau had impressed Sark with the eerie endurance Rambaldi objects exhibited. Nothing the man had fashioned seemed touched by time. He ran his hand over the small chest until his fingers, roughened by the climb down, caught against a hidden catch.

Swift work with a delicate lock pick set opened the chest. Nestled inside on a bed of brittle silk was the folio Sloane wanted. Sark worked off the string that held it closed and checked, finding the parchments loose inside. Some were blank; others were filled with writing in a hand Sark recognized as Rambaldi's own.

The edges of the pages were worn and faintly ragged, the ink blurred and dim in places. Sark had perforce become something of an expert and he could see that the Franciscan monks had been able to reveal the hidden portions of the manuscript in several instances. Several pages of translations had been tucked within the folio along with its original contents.

Sark paged through them curiously, and then checked the rest of the original Rambaldi pages, only to freeze as he saw the last one. Half the page had been torn away, leaving only a drawing of a face. It was a familiar face.

It was his face.

Sark stared at the drawing while his heart raced and a trickle of cold sweat ran down his temple. The sick feeling in his stomach was, he realized distantly, fear. With shaking fingers he pulled the picture loose from the rest of the folio, rolled it into a tight tube and shoved it ruthlessly under his shirt. He wasn't about to let Sloane or Irina or anyone see it.

He wrapped the folio again, tied it closed and slipped it into his pack. He left the chest open on the plinth, shouldered the pack and retreated back the way he'd come. At the final door, after climbing up to the alcove, he checked his watch.

On schedule.

He found the latch that opened the last door-wall, turned off the spotlight, and pulled his night vision goggles back on. Once back in the public tunnels, he moved from shadow to shadow confidently until he was in the church proper. Then he used his sat phone to input the code to knock out the power once more and completed his exfiltration without incident.

It would have been a satisfying mission if it hadn't been for that horrifying drawing of him in the folio.

Sark had a new and nauseating fellow feeling for Sydney Bristow. He wanted no part of Rambaldi's prophecies. He'd never wanted a part of it, anymore than she had.

And now he was neck deep in it all again.