Like Walking On Knives

by auburnnothenna

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

4. Section Four

XXXI. Bad Voodoo

Yes, it was that way.

The Santa Anas were blowing. Blowing hot and dirty with gritty smoke from the fires in the hills, black flakes of ash riding down into the LA basin on the ceaseless wind. It burned against the skin, teased and moaned through the long, hot, endless nights, rattling at windows.

The Santa Anas were blowing, like a door into hell's furnace had opened up high in one of the canyons where the flames twisted and ran, malevolent and alive, and the stench of exhaust presaged the taste of brimstone.

Nerves rubbed raw and tempers snapped, on the freeways, at home, even in the frigidly air-conditioned office buildings. Domestic calls, assaults, rapes, murders ---all were up. Dead-eyed homeless and scrawny junkies littered the streets and the hookers spat on the tourists that wanted to see the real LA.

Michael Vaughn arrived at work late in a foul mood, indiscriminately cursing the wind, his wife, and the bastard who had run down his dog the night before. Reed ignored him, called the vet to check on Donovan, and went about her work with her usual competence.

Marcus Dixon's kids told him they hated him and wanted to live with his wife's parents.

Judy Barnett had to clench her hands into fists to keep from throwing a heavy glass paperweight at Kendall's shiny head after he ordered her to field certify an unfit agent.

Will Tippin had a hellish hangover and snapped at everyone, eventually sending Carrie Bowman-Flinkman to the restroom in tears.

The encrypted burst transmitter Marshall had designed failed repeatedly during testing.

Jack Bristow got a call from an international terrorist in the middle of a conference with Dixon and Kendall.

Kendall glared.

"When?" Jack asked the caller.

Kendall turned his gaze to Dixon. "Perhaps we could have a little chat while Jack takes care of his personal business," Kendall said. "A lot of people are excited by the Rambaldi folio you acquired through your . . . contact."

Dixon shifted uncomfortably, his eyes flickering toward Jack involuntarily. "Thank you, sir."

"They'd like to know where it came from."

"It didn't come with any provenance, sir," Dixon said.

"I'll be there."

Jack closed the cell and pocketed it, face set into a frown. Kendall glanced at him and raised a brow, adding to Dixon, "Why am I not surprised?"

"Can we get on with this?" Jack asked impatiently.

"Sure, Jack, sorry we've kept you waiting," Kendall sniped. "Why don't you tell us where the Derevko operation is?"

"Stalled," Jack replied. "We haven't had a lead on her since the aborted raid in Stockholm." He folded his hands on the desk before him and added, "Of course, if we'd moved faster then, we might have taken her before she pulled out."

"And we might have sent too many good people into a trap."

"The information I received was good," Jack pointed out.

"I don't trust anonymous informants," Kendall said.

"If you continue to refuse to act on information received, we will stay five steps behind Derevko," Jack said. His lip lifted faintly in distaste. "And Sloane."

"Offer me something to work with and I'll take that it into consideration, Jack." He turned back to Dixon. "What about Sloane?"

Dixon's expression hardened. "We have reports indicating he was in South America recently. It looks like he's starting to compete with Derevko's organization in the Third World. There are rumors he's marketing bio-weapons similar to the Circumference virus. SD-6 had access to samples taken from Klaus Richter before his death and Sloane took that data with him when he went underground."

"How close are we to taking him down?"

"We're not, sir," Dixon said regretfully.

"Any more good news, people?" Kendall snarled.

"No, sir," Dixon said.

"What about Sark?"

Dixon flinched and Jack raised an eyebrow at the Assistant Director. "What about him?"

Kendall frowned. "He was in Stockholm with Derevko. What's in Stockholm?"

Jack pushed his chair back and rose. "Nothing anymore, I'm sure," he said wearily. A hint of sardonic humor crept into his tone. "Certainly not Sark. He probably has a genuine distaste for the city by now." He gathered his files and straightened them, before saying, "If we could continue this tomorrow, I might have something new to offer."

"I could certainly use news of some sort of progress to give to my superiors," Kendall commented. He flapped his hand at Jack. "Get out of here."

Jack nodded and left the conference room.

Kendall turned his gimlet gaze on Dixon. "I'm sure Jack is still trying to find his daughter, Agent Dixon. I understand that. But I think he's stepping over the line to do it and I think you may know something about it."

"Sir?"

"If he fucks up, he'll end up in prison and I don't want to see that," Kendall snapped. "Do you?"

Dixon looked at him blankly.

"Just make sure the sonuvabitch doesn't get caught."

Dixon stayed in the conference room after Kendall left, considering what had been said and what he knew about Jack's dealings with Sark. Whatever agreement those two had might fall apart at any time. Kendall was right. Jack needed back-up.

When Jack left an hour later, Dixon followed at a distance, using a tracker that Marshall had supplied without question.

XXXII. Everybody's Fool

He took a ferry to Talinn and arranged a charter flight to Gatwick. He switched identities while in London, retrieving the papers from a hiding place in a flat he kept there under a name Irina had never known about. He was still carrying the set of discs he'd put together, that held files, codes, cipher keys, security specs, names and aliases of assets, locations and bank accounts for all of Irina's operations. The discs were a complete overview of the Organization. He'd collated and downloaded the data before covertly making his way to Stockholm.

He'd known he wouldn't be going back to Cyprus.

The flat was stark. White walls, wood floors, the bare minimum of furniture: futon in the bedroom, sofa, chair, lamp, table, computer desk and various electronics. The windows looked out on a bleak stretch of industrial slums.

He took a fast shower and cleaned the knife wound thoroughly, pleased it was shallow, then re-bandaged it. Various bruises were aching, the worst of them a dark mottling of red and greenish purple on one hip and high along his side. Nothing to worry about. The ribs weren't even cracked; he was still breathing easily and without real pain.

The flat was cold. He'd only been in it twice before and the heat had been turned off for months. The emptiness added to the effect.

Sark dressed in faded jeans, a T-shirt with a slate blue sweater over it, and heavy socks.

His eyes strayed to the file folder he'd set on the table when he had entered and secured the flat. He hadn't opened it yet. The lengths Irina had gone to stop him told him it contained something important. It had waited this long though; he decided to let it wait a few minutes longer. He needed something to eat first.

A survey of the flat's kitchen didn't yield much, but he made do. Cleaned up after, knowing he was delaying. Wiping his hands, he finally walked over to the table. Laid the towel down and picked up the file. Weighed it in his hand. He'd broken with Irina to see what it held.

It should be heavier. It should look more impressive. It should be more than just a light brown manila folder. What could be more explosive than the information Sloane had given him: that Irina had killed his mother?

He bit his lip unconsciously.

What could be worse than discovering he was part of Rambaldi's damned prophecies?

He was afraid, he realized.

Decisively, he opened the file and read the first page. It was just a birth certificate. Sark blinked.

Alexander Sorensson.

It was the name Bristow had used on the ID he provided.

Alexander Bristow Sorenssen.

He stumbled to the sofa and sank down on the chilly leather.

Bristow?

He looked at the birth certificate blankly. Mother: Giselle Sorenssen. Father: Jack Bristow. He'd been born in London. Seven pounds three ounces.

The date was wrong, he thought dazedly. He was a year older than that, wasn't he? According to the records at the Project School he was an entire year older than this piece of paper said. But, then, Irina was the one who had provided their information when she delivered him to the Kiev school and she'd probably altered the date as well as his name.

Sark set the birth certificate aside and slowly read the rest of the file's contents. Khasinau had documented the Alliance operation that introduced Sorenssen to Bristow, corroborated that she had been pregnant and given birth, that Sark was that child. A DNA comparison run using illicitly obtained samples from Bristow and himself confirmed he was the man's child. The rest of file covered his mother's murder in Paris. A sheaf of graphic crime scene photographs showing his mother's dead body was included with the police reports on her death.

Sark closed the file and set it beside him. He moved carefully, slowly, as though a sudden movement might break something inside, though he wasn't physically uncomfortable. His mind was racing in circles. He didn't even know what he felt. It was too much.

Betrayal. Rage. Disillusion. Hurt. Hurt that cut so deep he wondered that he could still breathe. He'd been accused of being cold, of being unfeeling---a killing machine---but if this was what it meant to be human, this welter of pain and bitterness, he didn't want it. This was like walking on knives, every step forward cutting into him until he bled.

It all made a sick sort of sense if you thought like Irina Derevko, Sark reflected. If you can't have the man, take his son. Make them into enemies the way Bristow made Sydney into Irina's enemy. No need to tell Bristow, his ignorance would make the trick sweeter.

Sydney.

Sydney was his half-sister, the other Rambaldi child, another pawn in the Prophecy game.

Fuck that, he thought. He was no pawn.

He scrubbed at his face with one hand and began to laugh raggedly. Somewhere along the way, Irina had slipped. Bristow knew. He fucking knew. Why else had he helped---orchestrated---Sark's escape?

Alexander Sorenssen.

It was the name Bristow had used on the ID he provided all those months ago. He'd had the answers all along.

In the morning, he booked a flight to Los Angeles.

XXXIII. A World of Fragile Things

Acrid smoke caught at the back of Jack's throat as soon as he stepped out of his SUV onto the loose, dry dirt of the hilltop turn-out. Dust, reddish-brown and pale, roiled up and coated his shoes and pant legs. Six o'clock and the sun still reigned high, swollen red and malignant through the choking pollution. The smoke lent the light a sickly, gray-yellow tinge.

Even the winds couldn't relieve the heat that hung like a pall over the city, no matter how late the hour. The prickly feeling at the back of his neck was more than sweat, though. He felt uneasy and wondered if it wouldn't be better to blow off the rendezvous and drive away, even as he knew he wouldn't.

When he turned north, Jack could see hills burned bare and black, while others remained untouched, with straw-brittle grass and brown scrub waiting to flare into flame with a single ember's touch.

Beyond the edge of the turn-out was a scrub-choked gulch. The lank, shaggy form of a coyote slunk into the open briefly, moving steadily south, driven toward the urban sprawl by the massive wildfires. Jack followed it with his eyes until it disappeared into the shadows again. Clever, tough survivors, coyotes; that one would probably dine on someone's unfortunate cat come nightfall.

The hum of an approaching vehicle jerked Jack's attention back to the road. He waited patiently as an anonymous, sage-green Lexus slowed and pulled off the road to park next to his SUV. Sark, eyes hidden behind black sunglasses, stared at him through the tinted windshield, fingers drumming along the top of the steering wheel.

Jack started to wonder if Sark wouldn't decide to drive away without speaking to him. This wasn't some ploy. Finally, Sark opened the door and got out. He held a crumpled file in one hand and stopped with his free hand resting along the top of the open door, still facing Jack.

"Sark," Jack said cautiously.

Sark moved then, slamming the car door and stalking forward. Jack felt relieved he could see both of his hands.

"Bristow," Sark snapped. He shoved the file at Jack, pushing it into his hands jerkily.

Sark turned away, shoved his hands into the front pockets of his black jeans, and began pacing as Jack opened the file. Jack paged through it, keeping the edgy young man in the corner of his eye. The contents were mostly familiar, duplicates of the report Sloane had dropped on him, minus only the portion describing Sark's sojourn at the Project School. The police photographer's shots of Giselle's corpse in situ were new and the notation that Sark had been at the scene.

And the birth certificate for Alexander Bristow Sorenssen, a son born to Jack Bristow and Giselle Sorenssen.

Jack lifted his eyes.

Sark had turned away from him and was facing west, smoke-fouled light reflecting off his sunglasses. The sulfurous wind molded his loose, dark silk shirt to his back and shoulders, along the sharp line of a shoulder blade and the smooth delineation of his spine. He spun around restlessly to face Jack again. One side of his mouth turned down.

"You knew," Sark said flatly, folding his arms. "A year ago, when you extracted me, you knew. You used my bloody name on the ID you handed me."

"Yes."

He'd wanted to see if Sark would react to it.

"It was a test," Jack said quietly. He added, trying to explain, "I found it . . . difficult to believe that you weren't aware of our . . . connection. It was . . . hard to accept."

Sark laughed darkly.

Jack shoved the file under his SUV's windshield wiper and walked over to the edge of the gulch, stopping beside Sark. Sark didn't look at him.

"You didn't always know?" Sark asked.

"Arvin Sloane provided me with the proof a little over a year ago," Jack replied. He could see Sark was rigid with displeasure, the tension almost vibrating off him, but he relaxed minutely following Jack's words.

"Khasinau and Derevko always knew." He turned his head toward Jack. "---That file came from Stockholm. It was Khasinau's. The first time I tried to retrieve it, Irina burned me to the CIA to stop me." He faced away again. "This time she tried to kill me."

"Sloane tipped me she would be in Stockholm. We just missed her," Jack said, because there were no words to ease the pain in Sark's voice.

"Sloane knows. How delightful."

"Sark . . . " Jack stopped and tried again. "Alexander."

Sark winced and Jack wondered if using his name had been a mistake. He wanted to see Sark's eyes. Sark's long fingers were digging into his elbows. On impulse, he set one hand on a taut shoulder; with the other he lifted the sunglasses away.

Narrowed, furious blue eyes met his, then Sark knocked his hand away. Fast. Sark was so fast. And dangerous, maybe more dangerous than ever, with new knowledge and emotions pushing him to the edge of his control.

"No." No, don't touch me, no, don't call me Alexander; no, no more. Jack heard it all.

He handed the sunglasses back and nodded. "All right."

Sark lifted his chin and stared past Jack to the south. The wildness, the sharp edge of temper, still simmered in his voice, but the professional had it in check. "Someone tagged you," he said quietly. "We're under surveillance."

Jack twisted and followed Sark's nod to the flash of metal where the highway curved down through the hills. A plum colored car was half hidden by brush, parked along the edge of the road where a turn provided a direct line of sight. His thoughts flashed to Kendall's easy acceptance of his early exit at the conference.

"What did you see?"

"One man. Binocular reflection," Sark said. Then he shrugged, "Maybe a long lens camera."

"Damn it."

Sark raised an eyebrow. "Not your idea?"

"If I'm lucky, it's Dixon."

"If not---"

Jack shook his head. "Then we're both in trouble."

Somehow, he'd said the right thing. Sark looked at him solemnly. "You could say you were bringing me in."

"You could tell them I got you out," Jack parried. That offer, if offer it had been, startled him. But he didn't know what to expect from a Sark who knew Jack Bristow was his father. Certainly filial devotion seemed unlikely. Anger, obviously, along with bitterness and resentment. The same emotions Sydney had thrown in his face so often.

That smirk, the one that infuriated everyone who met Sark, answered him. Jack was growing almost fond of it. He knew now it masked Sark's sense of humor and a surprising vulnerability.

"Sark---I wasn't a good parent."

"Are you telling me I didn't miss anything?"

"No, but---" Jack forced himself to go on. "Sydney." He swallowed. "Sydney told me . . . that I took away her choices. " He needed to say these things while he had the chance. Sark was listening attentively. He looked weary, bruised, with the quick fury drained away; Jack didn't know if it was the tainted air or how hard Sark had been running since Stockholm. "I deliberately distanced myself from her after her . . . mother's disappearance. I let her go on thinking Laura---Irina---was dead. I wanted to keep her safe. She felt I abandoned her."

Sark blinked slowly. The incessant wind tugged at his hair; otherwise, he was still. Behind them, metal popped and ticked, cooling under the Lexus' hood. A bone-deep drone marked a helicopter with CDF markings moving north, heading back to the creeping infernos there, light blinking dimly from its tail. More distantly, like a dream, Jack could hear the constant, seething din of the city.

"I can't . . . undo that," Jack went on. "It's too late. But she should have had those choices. You should have had those choices. Irina and I, we took that from you, both of you. I'm sorry for that."

A flicker of those blue eyes, darkening as the light slipped away, and a tipped head were Sark's response. He was still alert to any other signs of their watcher, but otherwise impassive. Training and instinct would have told him to abandon a compromised rendezvous immediately though, and he'd stayed anyway. Jack took that as a good sign, though the agent in him decried the chances they were both taking.

"Our watcher's moving," Sark observed. He walked back to his car and retrieved a Glock .17, casually clipping the holstered pistol to his belt at the small of his back. He set the sunglasses on the dashboard and left the driver's door open. Jack watched. His son was graceful and lethal and perfectly collected.

He thought of the way Sydney handled a gun, of how she'd mourned killing a man the first time. He'd taught her that much, but it hadn't been enough. He'd still failed; failed to protect Sydney from Sloane, from the Agency, and from Irina. Failed Sydney, first, and Alexander, later, without even having an opportunity to do more or better than he had done with his first child.

Sark was the killer Irina had meant him to be, whether he answered to her any longer or not. Alexander was a boy Jack had never known.

Briefly, he felt a surge of anger at Giselle. Not for Alexander's existence, only for keeping it from him. She'd had five years. She'd kept the secret of his son from him for five years and given Irina the opportunity to take him, without Jack ever knowing.

Sark had placed himself where he could easily take cover behind either the Lexus or Jack's SUV. Jack walked over and took a place that would let him cover the boy's back. The SUV sported run-flat tires and had been modified by op-tech with light armor and bulletproof glass. He wanted Sark between him and it.

His cell rang as he checked the SIG Sauer he usually carried, popping the clip out and testing the resilience of the spring, before snapping it back into place. A weakened spring in a clip had jammed more than one automatic. He re-holstered the SIG and answered his phone.

Sark looked at him inquiringly.

"Bristow."

"Jack, don't shoot me," Marcus Dixon said. "I'm coming up the road---"

"Is this official?" Jack interrupted harshly. He wanted Alexander to get out if the Agency had decided to pull him in. He pointed at the SUV and mouthed, "Get in." He'd trust the big vehicle's V8 to get through a chase or roadblock better than the rental Lexus.

"No. No, Jack," Dixon said hurriedly. "I guessed you were meeting with him. I thought you could use someone to watch your back, but you both made me, so I thought I'd better step up."

"If this is a setup, Dixon, I will shoot you," Jack said and cut the call off. He could hear and see Dixon's car approaching up the highway. Sark hadn't moved.

"I told you to get in," Jack snapped. "Why didn't you? "

A hitch of one shoulder, not quite a shrug, was Sark's only response. "I assume that Agent Dixon is about to join us?"

"Yes.

"Perhaps luck runs in the family," Sark said.

"Stubbornness," Jack offered. He had a feeling Sark could be as obstinate and flat out pigheaded as Sydney on her worst day.

Sark ducked his head and most of the tension between them sifted away as Dixon arrived and parked beyond their vehicles. The former SD-6 operative got out of his sedan slowly, clearly trying not to spook Jack or Sark. He looked unhappy, his dark eyes moving from Jack's set expression to Sark's soured smile.

"Jack," he said. "I'm sorry, but I don't trust him."

Sark cocked his head and taunted, "Your opinion wasn't solicited, Agent Dixon. And without Miss Bristow along, your field skills are looking a little rusty."

"Alexander!" Jack said harshly. Sark's eyes flashed back to him, startled by the commanding tone and the name Jack chose. "Stop it."

Sark went still and Jack wondered if he wouldn't find that Glock pointed at him in another instant; instead, Sark held up both empty hands and said, "I don't think calling me that will resurrect who I was."

No, it wouldn't, Jack acknowledged, but it had certainly brought him up short.

Dixon stood at a distance, clearly puzzled by their interaction.

"It's just a name," Jack said. "Better than the one Derevko gave you."

Sark shifted slightly. "So is Bristow."

Jack flinched this time. Sark noted it.

"It doesn't matter. Call me what you want to," he offered. He turned toward Dixon and added, "Are we confusing you?"

Dixon ignored him to appeal to Jack, "What the hell is going on?"

"Going to tell him, Agent Bristow?" Sark asked, a challenge in eyes gone indigo in the dusk. He considered Jack's stone face and laughed derisively. "I didn't think so."

Jack sighed soundlessly.

Sark was stalking Dixon and not so coincidentally moving away from Jack. "It's simple, Agent Dixon," Sark explained lightly. "My former employer, Irina Derevko, and I have come to a final parting of ways. She has terminated our association in a rather emphatic fashion, by trying to have me killed." He was close enough to Dixon to use a knife and exuding menace. "Now I have a small window of opportunity while what I know about her operations is still viable. I'm willing to give it to the CIA."

"Why would you do that?" Dixon asked cautiously.

"Spite?"

Dixon thought about it, but obviously didn't buy it. "You're smarter than that---"

"Why, thank you, Agent Dixon."

"---and if it was spite, you'd sell your information to the highest bidder. Someone like Sloane."

Sark shrugged. "Perhaps."

He returned to the Lexus, confidently turning his back on Dixon. If there was any man on earth who wouldn't shoot you in the back, it was Marcus Dixon. Jack wanted to knock some sense into Sark for that little display, though.

Dixon caught Jack's eye and inclined his head toward the file stuffed under the windshield wiper on the SUV. Jack shook his head, but did nothing as the other agent approached and slid it free. He felt suspended by indecision.

Sark retrieved one more item from the Lexus, a case of mini-discs that barely filled his hand. He turned and froze, his eyes widening, as Dixon flipped through Khasinau's file. There was just enough light left to see its contents. His eyes flashed to Jack, filled with questions. His face was open, uncertain, and Jack knew he'd never believed he would be acknowledged.

"Holy Mary, mother of God," Dixon said. He looked from Sark to Jack and back.

"I would appreciate a certain amount of discretion in regards to that . . . file's contents," Sark said in the choked silence that followed. He closed the distance to Jack and handed him the case full of discs thoughtlessly. "It would only complicate an already fraught situation." He looked back at Dixon. "And bring Agent Bristow's loyalties into question again."

"Dixon---" Jack started.

"Jesus, Jack," Dixon blurted. "This---" he lifted the file, "---this is a fucking bombshell. You can kiss your security clearance good-bye, even with Kendall and Devlin behind you. You'll be lucky if you're just fired and not locked up."

"Is that going to happen?" Sark asked and the Glock was in his hand, aimed at Dixon. His head was tipped to the side while he considered the best place to shoot the agent. Dixon jerked back several steps, ready to dive for cover in another instant. Jack suppressed a smile, fairly sure Sark was bluffing, and wrapped his own hand around Sark's wrist, diverting his aim.

"Alexander," he said quietly. He'd been right. Sark wasn't fighting him.

Dixon was shaking his head. "I don't believe this."

"Your word, Agent Dixon," Sark demanded.

Dixon looked to Jack. He couldn't see much, Jack thought, in the last fading remnants of dusk, only the horizon holding a dim reddish glow, the sun sunk under the sea. The wind was rising, catching at them with pickpocket fingers. Dixon's face was little more than a chance gleam of skin over cheekbone, a silhouette, the striking whites of his eyes shining within it.

Stretched out to the south, LA was a plain of lights, highways like rivers of red running away, high-rises checkerboarded white on black, against a night sky with no stars.

"It doesn't make any difference," Jack assured him.

His hand, still on Sark's arm, gave the lie to his words. But Marcus Dixon had children of his own. He let it pass.

"All right," he said. "My word. I'll say nothing." Dixon snorted. "To anyone. ---Who would believe it?"

Jack released Sark. Sark tossed his head, stepping away as though only then realizing he'd let Jack hold him back. A soft chuff of amusement---at himself or at Jack or just the situation?---escaped him. He casually holstered the Glock again. The safety hadn't even been disengaged.

Satisfied by Dixon's promise, Sark reverted to business. "Those discs have everything on Derevko's operation. Consider it an updated bible."

Jack weighed them in his hand. So Sark had been thinking ahead, even while he set up this meeting. Confrontation. Clear eyed and resourceful, Sark would have already decided destroying Irina would be his nearest approach to safety and the CIA the best tool to turn toward that end. Jack was his conduit. Whatever Sark felt over what he'd discovered, he wouldn't allow it to interfere with his plans.

Coming to him had been a brutally pragmatic decision on Sark's part. He might never have seen the boy again, otherwise.

"You need to raid the Glasgow office block," Sark said. "Irina moved someone there through Marseille. She's pulled in several experts on genetics and sent them to Scotland lately, along with a physiotherapist specializing in maintaining comatose patients' health."

Dixon addressed Sark. "You think Derevko has Sydney there."

Jack couldn't get his breath. It had been almost two years now. The thought that he might be close was almost too much. That Alexander might provide him with the chance to find Sydney seemed too much to believe, too much to bear.

"Yes. But not for long."

"Sark. I still don't know if I trust you."

"Agent Dixon, you're holding the only guarantee you need in your hand."

Dixon nodded. "Kendall will want to know where the information came from, Jack. He won't authorize another operation so close after Stockholm without something more than your anonymous source."

"Then I'll hire mercenaries," Jack said in a grim tone. He'd taken a bad risk to get Alexander out of custody. Now he had an opportunity, a very narrow window thanks to his son, to retrieve his daughter. To hell with the Agency if Kendall refused. He had his own contacts and suspected--no, knew---Sark would provide others. He would go rogue and never regret it.

Sark spoke quickly. "Tell the Assistant Director I'm your source. The Glasgow facility's security includes retinal scanners, along with voice and facial recognition programs. You'll need me there to get into the secure portions of the building, anyway."

"He's going to go ballistic," Dixon predicted.

Jack had to agree, but he knew Kendall would go along.

Sark was a slender shadow, his face a dim blur, hair a pale and shifting gleam in the distant glow of night-time LA. He held out his hand to Dixon. "The file, please."

Dixon handed it over. It didn't matter anymore. He'd seen it, read it, and could uncover the same information again without much effort. The secrecy lay in making sure no one ever asked the right questions.

"I'll---" Sark stopped.

"Make arrangements to get us both to Glasgow," Jack directed. "Whatever happens, I'm going in there."

"If Sydney's there, we have to get her out," Dixon agreed.

Sark cocked his head, then laughed. "You're both mad. --I'll make some enquiries, there's a seven man team basing out of Malta that's reliable. For enough money, they could be in Scotland by the day after tomorrow. And I'll have a jet waiting on stand-by for you by morning."

"We'll need to stay in contact," Jack said.

"The number I gave him---" a tip of the head toward Dixon's silhouette, "---in Peru is still good."

"Sark. If we get Sydney back, I'm going to tell her," Jack said as Sark went to the driver's side of the Lexus. As he opened the door, the interior light let Jack see his expression. It was closed, a mask of indifference.

"If you get Sydney back, she'll have enough problems after two years in limbo, without a half-brother who's wanted throughout the Western world," Sark remarked. He hesitated though, obviously thinking about it.

"Derevko may have moved her again, to some place I don't know about."

"I'll take that chance."

Sark gave a jerky nod, slid into the Lexus, and started it. The headlights flicked on, their harsh brightness catching the haze in the air and cutting jagged black shadows. Jack fingered the discs Sark had given him. Irina Derevko's operations bible. The Holy Grail of counterterrorism intelligence handed over as a gift. Happy belated Father's Day, Jack Bristow, he thought, and chuckled silently.

The passenger side window hummed down. One hand on the steering wheel, Sark leaned over and caught Jack's eye. He knew Dixon wouldn't be able to make out what they said. It wasn't much, but he wasn't surprised that Sark would think of a fallback option.

"After services, at St. Mary's Cathedral, in Glasgow. If something goes wrong . . . I'll rendezvous with you there."

Jack memorized it.

"Lulu's Diner, three blocks from my apartment," he replied. "If I don't get an orange juice there by six tomorrow morning, assume I'm under coercion, get out of LA and stay away from Glasgow."

Sark met his eyes.

"What about Sydney?'

"You wouldn't be able to help her if you walked into a trap," Jack told him roughly. "We don't even know if she's there."

"Understood," Sark said softly.

"Go," Jack prompted him.

"Good luck with your Assistant Director Kendall," Sark laughed and reversed out of the turn out and onto the highway. A brief flash of brake lights and his car disappeared down the road, heading into LA.

Jack watched the car disappear around a curve and finally turned back to Dixon. The other agent joined him, leaning against the big SUV and staring into the night silently for a time.

"I don't know what to say to you, Jack," he murmured after the silence had grown too heavy.

"We should get back to the Ops Center. Call Kendall. Let the analysts start work on the discs Alexander---Sark---handed over. We need to start making plans for Glasgow," Jack said tiredly.

"Jack . . . The Rambaldi manuscripts the NSA is working on, they've found more references to the woman on Page 47, references to a brother." Dixon paused. "They've stopped thinking that the woman in the prophecy is Sydney."

"And in consequence, no longer assign any priority to retrieving her," Jack replied roughly. "I'm well aware. But this operation will be about apprehending Derevko on the face of it."

Dixon was choosing his words with utmost care. "But it is Sydney, isn't it? Sydney . . . and Sark."

"The folio Sark gave you in Peru was missing a page." Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't like talking about this, but Dixon already knew too much. Better to trust him with the whole story. Otherwise, he might make a mistake that drew attention to just what Jack wanted to stay hidden. "A picture. I destroyed it."

"No wonder he was so on edge then. Do you think Derevko knows? Was that why she---"

"I want Irina Derevko dead," Jack stated.

He felt Dixon face him. Felt the silent disapproval along with the man's understanding and acceptance.

"I want her dead for what she's done to my children."

"You can't change what he is, Jack."

"I know."

Jack straightened up and sighed. It was time to head back.

"I'm not fooling myself, Dixon, but that doesn't mean I won't protect him if I can," he added. He opened the driver's door on the SUV and got in. The conversation was over; there was nothing more to say. He thought Dixon understood.

XXXIV. You've Never Seen Everything

The River Kelvin and the Clyde were lapping at the tops of their banks, black and cold and fast, and the rain kept falling. Everything was black with it, soaked dark, glistening, streetlights glittering quicksilver through the glass.

Lauren Reed looked out the safehouse window at the night and thought all the lights in Glasgow couldn't touch the black hollow of the storm, couldn't reach into the miles of clouds, could never delve the opaque depths of the waters.

She was the only woman in the room. It didn't bother her, but she did wish her husband was with them. Michael had handed in his resignation, though, and Kendall had immediately confined him to desk work until he was completely debriefed and shown the door.

Eric Weiss was good. He was a friend. He would be running oversight from outside the building as they went in, and Lauren trusted him. Maybe Jack Bristow did too, she'd heard he had requested Weiss specifically.

Marcus Dixon joined her.

"Time to gear up," he said.

Lauren nodded.

She paused on her way back to the empty bedroom she'd staked out as her own when they had arrived at the safehouse.

"Dixon," she asked carefully, "do you know what's going on with this op?"

Dark eyes regarded her steadily, secrets shuttered behind them. Sometimes she wondered about Dixon, about Marshall Flinkman and Jack Bristow, the agents that had come into the Agency from SD-6. What had they really known? She tried not to, because thinking about SD-6 inevitably led to thoughts on Sydney Bristow and her husband had been in love with the woman.

Some questions shouldn't be asked.

Dixon sighed. "Are you asking me if you can trust Jack Bristow?"

Maybe she was. Stockholm had been a disaster. She was lucky Sark had chosen to shoot the gunman still on the street rather than her. David MacKenzie was still in the hospital. Taylor's memorial would be held in a few days, but all field agents had been discouraged from attending. The orders were literally, 'don't show your face there.'

"No," she answered. That wasn't what she'd meant, at least, no matter what her doubts were. "It's just---we've gone over and over the ops plan for after the teams insert into the building. I've got that memorized. But no one's said how we're getting in and shutting down security."

She laughed and added, "Bristow acts like we're just going to stroll in the front door."

Dixon patted her on the shoulder. "We are. ---Now, go get your vest and radio."

Twenty minutes later they were slowly infiltrating toward the modest six-story office block sandwiched in the Glasgow Harbour development's commercial district. Lauren was already wet to the skin. She felt sorry for the guys on the assault teams, carrying twice as much gear as her and forced to wait until the infiltration group had the security neutralized.

A crackle in her ear heralded a transmission from Weiss.

"This is Romany. All teams hold. We've got an unknown at the rendezvous. Over."

Jack Bristow's voice overrode Weiss.

"That's our contact. Gypsy One, Gypsy Two, with me. Everyone else, take your places and wait. Reply and confirm. Gypsy Alpha, out. Over."

Lauren waited as Dixon acknowledged the order. "Gypsy One, roger." Then she checked in, subvocalizing, knowing the throat mike would pick it up. "Gypsy Two, roger."

The assault team leaders each radioed in and Lauren fell into step behind Bristow and Dixon as they crossed the landscaped frontage and headed for the building's side entrance. Weiss was in one of the nearby buildings, scanning his monitors, watching the rendezvous point, keeping track of everyone. Orange halogen lights haloed in moisture illuminated the blue-tinted glass walls, but Bristow's contact stood in the shadows of a small overhang and she couldn't make out anything more than his presence.

Bristow slowed a step and wrapped his arm around her elbow, effectively immobilizing her gun hand. "Don't react," he warned her in a low voice. She only had an instant to wonder what he meant and then their contact shifted into the light and she recognized Sark.

Bristow's hand tightened on her arm.

Lauren shot a look at Dixon and saw he wasn't alarmed. Sark's appearance wasn't a surprise. For one awful second Lauren wondered if the operation wasn't a twisted setup and the two older agents actually doubles for someone---Derevko, Sloane, the Triads---and about to kill her.

"Agent Bristow, Agent Dixon," Sark said smoothly. He nodded toward Lauren, smiling mockingly, reading the shock on her face. "And the lovely Agent Reed. A pleasure to see you again."

Memory took her back to Stockholm, frozen like a rabbit as Sark's ice-cold eyes locked onto her, knowing she had been made. Michael had been screaming something about Jack and hostiles on the radio. The whole disastrous scenario unfolded all over again. She had to close her eyes for a second.

He'd shot Taylor and MacKenzie before she could even reach her weapon. Blood had exploded into Lauren's face, hot, almost blinding her. Part of her mind had been registering the rale of automatic fire outside. Part of her had heard Michael begging her to get down, or get out, the grenade concussion had drowned out everything after that.

Lauren opened her eyes, pushing the memory back, but not completely.

Sark had spun, she remembered, pushed the bank manager into her way and raced down the hallway. She'd still been trying to draw her weapon. He'd stopped where the hall opened into the lobby and fired at someone on the street, then turned back. MacKenzie had been choking, blood from the chest wound staining the hands he'd clamped over it.

Lauren had finally had her gun out, but Sark had moved too fast---had already been too close---he'd knocked her gun arm aside, slammed her elbow into the wall, pushed her back until her shoulders hit it too. His fingers had bitten ruthlessly into the nerve in her wrist. She'd dropped her weapon.

She locked eyes with him now, remembering how he'd stared straight at her in the bank hallway, pupils dilated, irises dark as slate He hadn't even been breathing hard. He'd tilted his head slightly, studied her, and the only expression she had been able to identify had been . . . curiosity.

"You're one of Bristow's," he'd muttered then, which had confused her, and backhanded her brutally. She'd slid down the wall, trying to gather her wits as he'd stepped back, and heard him say, "One choice. Stay and save your fellow agent or follow me--- and you both die."

The awful, frothing gasps from David had told her the agent needed her help. Bristow had told them over and over Sark wasn't the target. She'd nodded, her vision grayed at the edges, and staggered to her feet, heading for David. She'd been aware of Sark retrieving his briefcase and going, but all her concentration had been bent on staunching the blood bubbling from MacKenzie's chest wound.

Just the memory made her stomach roll. A pleasure to see you again. Bastard.

She looked from Sark to Bristow and then Dixon. Sark was smirking, enjoying the scene. Bristow was intent, focused, and impatient. Dixon gave her a sympathetic look and remained serene.

"Can't say the same," Lauren managed to mutter at Sark.

He laughed softly.

Jack looked at his watch. "You have five minutes, Agent Reed. Ask your questions."

She pointed at Sark. "He's getting us inside?"

"Exactly," Jack replied.

She glared at the blond. "Why?"

The amusement drained from Sark's features. His mouth pulled to the side, a small tell, an expression of displeasure. "Perhaps you will find it sufficient if I mention Derevko was trying to kill me in Stockholm," he commented.

"Perhaps I won't," Lauren snapped.

Sark shrugged. She really looked at him for the first time since their arrival. Sark was dressed in black, but managed to make combat gear look chic with the addition of a long leather coat. Damp curls clung to his temples. "I really don't care," he said. His lucent blue eyes and attention switched back to Jack Bristow. "Was her addition necessary?"

"Kendall insisted," Dixon interjected.

Slow blink as Sark processed that. His eyes never strayed from Bristow. "Just as long as she doesn't have her own agenda."

"Agent Reed's a professional," Jack said. Then he surprised Lauren and said, "No one is going to double-cross you tonight, Sark."

Sark nodded nonchalantly, but the corner of his mouth twitched up, and he said dryly, "What a relief." He checked his watch and raised an eyebrow. "It's exactly one hour and fourteen minutes until the end of the second guard shift. The floating patrol will be on the third floor. They should all be rather complacent by now. ---Shall we go in?"

Jack said, "Yes."

Sark proceeded to the entrance flanked by Dixon and Bristow. Lauren followed. He used a keycard to access a panel with a keyboard, microphone and retinal scanner, typing in a series of phrases while reciting a different set. Then he leaned forward and stared into the scanner for a moment.

Lauren held her breath as they waited.

"What if Derevko's pulled your access?" Dixon asked Sark.

Sark sighed impatiently, sounding remarkably like Jack, then smiled as the door unlocked with soft chuff and opened. "I designed the security protocols for several of Irina's holdings. Not this one, but she used my design, so . . . . She may have tried to block my access---" Sark stepped inside and waved them in with him, "---but Khasinau taught me always to have a back door. I expanded that to a front door, and made sure I could always get in, if I wanted to."

"Good work," Jack said. Lauren caught the satisfied grin on Sark's face before he carefully wiped away all expression. She rubbed the rain off her nose and shook her head. He'd looked like a pleased little boy for a second.

Jack radioed Weiss.

"Romany, we're in. Proceeding to the security control center. Over."

"Gypsy Four, Five, and Six are good to go. Waiting on your signal. Over."

"Hold in place, Romany. Over."

"Roger wilco, Gypsy Alpha. Romany, out."

Sark was already on his way, not waiting for them. Lauren had to hurry to keep up with the longer legs of the men. The heavy carpet on the floor absorbed the squelching sounds of their wet boots. Sark was almost loping, the long coat flaring behind him.

Twice they stopped while Sark entered a code into a keypad to release a door, fingers dancing. Dixon had his weapon out and was watching their backs. Lauren drew her own pistol and held it at ready. Bristow was braced for whatever lay on the other side of the door each time. She felt a little better that Sark hadn't drawn a weapon too, but knew exactly how quickly he could produce one.

Sark took them up one flight of stairs and stopped before a white-painted steel door. He nodded toward it. "We can shut down everything from in here. There should be two security people inside, a guard and a man on monitoring duty. He has a dead0man switch; the instant someone enters the room, he's supposed to trigger the alarms and lock the building down. We'll have approximately three seconds to secure the room." He looked into Bristow's eyes. "I'll take out the man at the monitors. You'll have to deal with the guard."

Bristow stared at him hard.

"I'll do it," Bristow declared.

Lauren swallowed hard. Bristow and Sark had just divided up the job of killing two men, without blinking. It made her a little sick, thinking about it. A quick look at Dixon told her nothing; the big agent had his game face on.

Sark's eyes flickered over her. "Ready, Agent Reed?"

She held her pistol up and pushed the safety off ostentatiously. "For everything."

Sark raised an eyebrow. He shrugged out of the coat, dropping it on the floor carelessly, and drew a Glock 17 with a matte black combat finish from the shoulder holster he wore over a heavy, ribbed black sweater. He popped the clip out, checked it and slapped it back in the receiver, with the unconscious smoothness of reflex, then disengaged the safety.

Without another word, he began entering the release code on the keypad next to the doorknob with his left hand.

The instant the lock clicked open, Sark side-kicked the door wide open. He took three steps in and his arm came up and he aimed and fired at the balding man spinning in his desk chair and gaping at him. He fired again. Double tap. The man fell across the desk in front of the monitor bank.

The security room was small and packed with equipment. The two reports echoed more loudly than normal. Jack was in through the door, tracking the second man, the guard. Lauren was close enough behind him to see the guard back along the wall, bringing a gun to bear on Sark's back.

Jack saw him too and tackled Sark, knocking him to the floor as the guard fired. A monitor exploded.

Lauren shot the guard. Two shots to the chest and he staggered back against the wall and slid down it, leaving a wide swathe of blood across the pale gray paint. The air reeked of spent powder and cordite; it burned the back of her sinuses.

Jack rolled off Sark, who gave the dead guard a dark look and moved immediately to the control console. He set the Glock on the desk, nudged the dead man out of the chair, sat down, and began typing in commands, shutting down building security.

Jack got to his feet and nodded at Lauren.

"Thanks."

She swallowed bile and nodded. It had all been reflex. She had to look away from the man she'd shot. She looked at her hands instead. They were still perfectly steady. Training.

"Dixon, you've got the door," Jack directed. He keyed his mic. "Romany. We're in the control room. Prepare for go. Over."

"Way to go, Gypsy Alpha," Weiss replied. "All Gypsy elements are standing by, five by five. Out."

Jack walked over and leaned close to Sark, peering at the monitor screens intently. "Where's Derevko?"

Sark's fingers clattered over the keyboard. He was biting his lower lip. Lauren would have bet it was a habit whenever he concentrated. "There's an apartment attached to the executive offices on the fifth floor," he said. One of the dead screens flared on and displayed a comfortably furnished room. An indistinct figure moved in the upper left corner.

"Zoom in," Jack commanded.

Sark shook his head. "If I shift the camera angle, Derevko will know it's live."

"I'm going after her."

Sark's fingers stilled and he turned to look at Bristow. "No," he said in a low tone. "Wait. Just one minute. Let me get your damned assault teams inside first."

"I can't take the chance of losing her again, Sark," Jack said. He headed for the door and Sark began cursing and typing faster.

"Dixon, give the go order as soon as Sark okays it," Jack directed. "I want you and Reed with him at all times, so the teams don't mistake him for a hostile."

"Jack, don't go after her alone---"

"Dixon, I'm trusting you," Jack told him. "Do whatever he says, but keep him alive."

"Damn it, Jack, you don't make it easy," Dixon said, but he stepped out of Bristow's way. "Watch your six."

"Reed, you hear that?" Bristow called.

"I've got it," Lauren said. She looked to Dixon, feeling completely out of her depth.

"Good," Bristow said and went out the door. Sark's head whipped around.

"Sukin sin," Sark muttered and glared at Dixon. "Go with him."

Dixon looked at the blond levelly and said, "I've got my orders."

"Stupid, stubborn, bloody-minded---" Sark muttered, returning his attention to the keyboard and seeming to work twice as fast. Dixon shrugged at Lauren. "---serve him right if she blows his head off. Don't know why I'd care---" The lights on the status board flashed red then amber. Sark held his hands up. "That's got it. Send in the clowns."

"Romany," Dixon said into radio. "This is Gypsy One. The order is go, I say again, the order is go. Over."

"This is Romany, Gypsy One. Three, Four, Five, you have a green light. Weapons free. The order is go. I say again, the order is go. Out."

Downstairs, the three assault teams were boiling inside, overtaking anyone and everyone still present in the building, setting up a perimeter to keep anyone from escaping.

Lauren expected Sark to get up and go after Bristow, the way he'd acted, but the blond was hunched over the desk, surfing through the surveillance cameras, scanning for something. Abruptly, he stopped on one shot of an apparently empty medical laboratory on the second floor. An empty hospital bed stood in the center of the room, the sheets rumpled, and the surrounding machinery disconnected.

"Damn it," Sark breathed. He triggered the next camera in the series and it displayed a view of a hallway filled with figures, armed guards and a woman in a lab coat, surrounding and pushing a gurney with an anonymous figure strapped on it toward a freight elevator. "It has to be her. It has to be."

He scooped up the Glock from beside the keyboard and headed for the door. "Come on. We have to get to the roof," Sark yelled at Dixon. He grabbed Lauren's arm and tugged her with him. "Come on, we don't have any fucking time to waste here!"

"What about the elevator?" Lauren yelled as Sark sprinted for the emergency stairs. He was already tearing the door open and charging up two and three steps at a time.

Dixon was right behind her, catching her waistband in one big hand and lifting her as Lauren stumbled, trying to keep up with Sark.

"Elevators are out along with the security system," Sark snapped. "I locked them down when I cut it off."

Lauren had found her stride and was keeping pace with the two men. The metal stairs clanged under their feet, the echo catching and bouncing back to them in the concrete-lined hollow space they were ascending. The walls were strobing white and bloody red from the emergency lights; her heartbeat seemed to be keeping time with the flashes.

"Then why are we heading for roof? Whoever that was can't get there without an ele----"

"The freight elevator in the lab is running off a separate system with its own generator," Sark replied. "I couldn't get through the firewall and disable it in time. And we have to stop them."

"Why?"

"It's Sydney," Dixon rasped from beside her.

Sydney? Sydney Bristow? Oh, Jesus, Lauren thought. The figure on the gurney . . .

"I think so," Sark said hoarsely. Even he sounded slightly breathless as they passed the third floor landing and fire door.

"Irina's lab people have standing orders to evacuate if there's a security breach There's a helicopter waiting on the roof landing pad."

A fire alarm began shrieking, adding to Lauren's disorientation, but she kept determinedly on.
In the interval between one burning inhalation and the next, she caught the sound of the third floor door slamming open and recognized the danger.

"The floating patrol!" she yelled.

The guards began firing up the staircase, ricochets sparking off the white-painted railings, and screaming off the suspended metal risers. Sark slowed a step, grabbed Lauren's free hand off the railing and slammed her flat against the wall, taking her out of the line of fire.

"Thanks," she gasped in disbelief. She was going to have bruises, but that beat getting shot.

"I pay my debts."

Dixon dropped to his knees on the stairs, angled his gun between the railings and began firing downward blindly. "I've got it," he panted. "Just keep going. Don't lose her!"

Sydney had been Dixon's operational partner in the field when they both worked for SD-6, Lauren remembered. It seemed like everyone wanted her back---even Sark. But what an insane rescue this was, with the rescuers made up of the woman's revenge-obsessed father, her partner from a defunct terrorist organization, a---former?---enemy, and her old boyfriend's new wife. At least now, Lauren understood why Jack Bristow had taken the chance of trusting Sark; the man would do anything to get his daughter back. Dixon would go along for the same reasons.

And Sark? Lauren thought she would never understand Sark.

Sark gave Dixon a brusque nod and bolted upward.

"Go!" Dixon shouted at Lauren. "Watch his back or Jack will skin both of us!"

Shit, she'd never understand any of them. She raced after Sark, ignoring the gunfire behind her.

***

Jack knew Sark had taken down the security as promised when the main lighting went out. He was already outside the office that titularly belonged to the head of the firm that owned the building and in fact was occupied by Irina Derevko.

The electric locks were disabled. That meant he could kick the door in with ease and he did. He went in fast, as fast as Sark had gone into the control room, wishing he could have waited for the boy to back him up.

Irina was in the middle of the room, talking swiftly into a cell phone, heading toward the door Jack had just come through. "Is the helicopter ready? Evacuate now."

Her dark eyes widened at his appearance.

Jack aimed his gun at her and said, "Drop the phone and keep both hands where I can see them, Irina."

Irina ignored him long enough to say into the phone, "Send down a backup team to stop anyone coming after you."

Then she opened her fingers and let the cell drop to the deep red carpeting. "I wasn't expecting you, Jack. You've gotten better these last two years."

"And you've let playing games get in the way."

Her hair was loose. She slid several strands behind her ear. Still playing games. She was smiling, but it was a tight, hard smile, and joyless.

"Do you really think this is a game, Jack?" she asked. One hand curled into a fist. "My daughter will change the fate of the world. She's too important---"

"Is that how you justify it to yourself? Holding Sydney prisoner? And what you did to Sark---Alexander?" Jack demanded angrily. "What did that accomplish?"

"As long as Sloane has Il Dire it is vital he can't reach Sydney." Her eyes narrowed. "---I couldn't have you. I couldn't have Sydney. So I had Sark," she said. "I made him."

"And you'd rather see him dead than let him know the truth."

"He went to you once he read Khasinau's file, I suppose," she said, tilting her head thoughtfully. "How did you feel, Jack, finding out he's your son?"

"He was working with me before that," Jack taunted. "It didn't make any difference."

"You're lying, Jack. I know Sark. All he's ever wanted was a connection and once he learned he had one to you . . . "

"He knows whatever warped relationship he had with you was a lie," Jack said. "I haven't lied to him."

"Oh, Jack, if you've let him think for an instant that you'll care for him as father, you've lied to him," Irina murmured. "You weren't even a good father to Sydney, and you love her." She moved toward him. "And when you disappoint him, he'll turn on you---"

"Enough. I'm taking you back into custody and this time there will be no immunity agreements, no Sydney to delude into believing you've reformed."

Irina was dressed in a black slacks and a silk tank top. She had on black flats. She looked like she'd been relaxing, perhaps reading one her old favorites. George Eliot. Laura had liked George Eliot. Jack didn't know what Irina liked to read. Intelligence reports, he supposed. Rambaldi manuscripts.

She looked harmless, standing before him empty-handed and still so damned beautiful despite the years and the deceptions, but Jack knew Irina Derevko stripped naked would be more dangerous than a Navy SEAL with a twenty-pound satchel of C4.

"If you do that, you'll sign Sydney's death warrant, Jack," Irina said. Her head jerked to the door as the fire alarm began blaring and a stutter of gunfire drifted from somewhere in the building. "Or perhaps you already have." She turned her gaze back to Jack. "Sark won't hesitate to kill her."

"You're wrong about him," Jack insisted, stifling the sick fear that Irina was right. He didn't know what Sark felt toward Sydney. Maybe even Sark didn't know.

"Then let's go, Jack," Irina said, approaching him with a slow swing to her hips, a deliberate invitation he hated himself for even noticing. She saw that he'd responded too. "No one ever compared to you, Jack, not even Sark."

"Christ," he muttered.

Irina laughed, that rich, sensual laugh he'd fallen in love with a lifetime ago.

He waved her past him to the door. "Down the hall to the stairs," he directed.

Irina nodded. "Sark shut down the security for you. I shouldn't have trusted any system he designed would be proof against him. I didn't anticipate that move," she admitted. She looked back over her shoulder at Jack. "Do you see yourself in him, Jack?"

"Just keep moving," he said wearily.

"No more questions, Jack?" Irina stopped with her back to him, her hand on the pushbar that opened the fire door onto the stairs. "Don't you want to know where Sydney is?"

"If she's here, we'll find her," Jack said grimly. He couldn't let Irina distract him this time. He couldn't pursue Sydney until Irina had been secured. He couldn't let her feed his doubts about Sark. Dixon and Reed were with him; if Sark had a hidden agenda, they would stop him. He believed that, if nothing else. And he didn't believe the boy meant Sydney any harm. "If she isn't, you'll tell me where she is. Understand that, Irina. You will tell me where Sydney is."

"Not if Sark gets to her first."

"Move."

Irina pushed open the door and stepped onto the landing.

***
He'd lost his mind. What the hell was he getting out of this? Sark thought as he pounded up the stairs. Agent Reed kept pace just behind him. He would have preferred Sydney. Or Jack. Even Dixon, though he was relieved to have the man slowing down the security patrol in the stairwell below them. Dixon wasn't as good as Sark, but he was reliable.

Reliable counted for a lot in Sark's estimation.

Not that Reed wasn't good. She'd gotten past the hesitation at shooting a live target for the first time and taken down the guard in the control room. It was just . . . Sydney had been better, maybe even better than him. And Jack Bristow was . . . Jack. Looking back, Sark thought Derevko would have been taken in Stockholm, if Jack hadn't intervened early, triggering the ambush meant for him. That---sacrifice---wasn't something Sark had much experience with, not working for and learning from Derevko.

He hadn't decided yet how he felt about having a father, a name, and an identity that didn't stem from Derevko, but it didn't seem so bad when Jack tackled him in the control room. It wouldn't last of course . . . Bristow would remember just what Sark was soon enough and his paternal impulses would turn back toward Sydney.

He did know he meant to find Sydney. Turn her over to her father safely. Her father . . . his father. He couldn't let himself starting thinking like that, though. Find Sydney. After that, he had no idea.

Fourth floor landing and the door was opening, one of Irina's Ukrainian bodyguards----brown eyed Yevgeni----stepping through it. He had a Czech-made Skorpion submachine gun in his hand. Sark didn't know if Reed had on body armor, but he didn't, and one spray of automatic fire could take them both out.

Yevgeni recognized him. They'd seen each other often in Cyprus. His mouth opened in surprise and a single word, Nyet. Sark didn't know if Yevgeni simply didn't expect to see him or had been briefed that Sark was no longer part of the inner circle. It didn't matter. He used the moment and Yevgeni's hesitation and shot him before he could react.

"Jesus," he heard Reed gasp behind him. He dodged and cleared Yevgeni's body as it tumbled down the stairs. The Skorpion landed with a clatter on the landing. He ignored it, caught the door as it started to fall closed, and went through.

Yevgeni had been one of Irina's most trusted men and Sark had spotted him on the monitors among the group pulling Sydney out of the lab. He hoped the rest of them were on the fourth floor too.

He wanted to keep running, but knew it would be idiotic to blunder into the squad of armed guards accompanying the doctors.

Reed ran into him as he slowed and he barely stifled the trained reflex that would have had him turning on her. "Okay, Sark, what the hell are we doing now?" she breathed from just behind him.

He turned his head, checking an office number and comparing it to the fourth-floor blueprints. "Yevgeni was with the group we're after. They must have got off the freight elevator. We need to intercept them if they're heading for the stairwell," he explained in a low voice.

"Great," she muttered. "How many of them are there?"

"One less than before."

Reed glared at him in dislike. She was probably thinking of the two agents he'd shot in Stockholm.

"You knew him," she said. "Don't you feel anything?"

He almost ignored her. Almost, but adrenaline and the camaraderie of a shared mission and danger loosened his tongue. "I'd rather not," he said softly. He'd felt more, hurt more, in the last few months than ever in his life. He didn't like it. "It only hurts in the end, Agent Reed."

Reed grimaced. "Don't make me think you're human, Sark."

He nodded. "That would be a mistake."

Hers and his.

They took opposite sides of the hallway, hugging the walls, without any more discussion, and began working their way forward. They had to check each office and clear it before proceeding. Sark started to grit his teeth, knowing this was taking too long. They should have seen some sign of the lab group if they were on this floor.

"This is wrong," Reed whispered.

He angled a look at her. "Agreed."

He started out of the latest empty office first. As he did, the door to the room opposite swung open and Yevgeni's regular partner and two others fanned out into the hall. All three were armed with Skorpions and Sark froze. Reed stayed in the room behind him. They wouldn't expect anyone to be with him, he hoped.

"Anatoly," Sark greeted him.

Anatoly was Ukrainian like Yevgeni but several years older. He grinned, showing a steel-capped tooth. "Sark," he replied. He handed the Skorpion to the man on his right then waved both of them back. "I've wanted to do this for a long time."

Sark waited while Anatoly cracked his knuckles, cataloging the man's strengths and weaknesses. He still had the Glock in his own hand, though Anatoly's two confederates were covering him. Reed was behind him in the office, armed with a hand gun and a full clip. He was one round down. Anatoly was almost six inches taller than him, with a weight-lifter's physique. He was slower than Sark, older, reliant on his size and strength rather than skill. In a fair fight, Sark would take him apart in seconds.

None of that meant anything when the other two men would shoot him full of holes afterward.

Sark allowed himself a cold smile.

"All right, Anatoly," he said and holstered the Glock.

"Come on, traitor," Anatoly rumbled.

Sark began circling, staying out of reach of those big hands, watching how the man moved, where his eyes focused, waiting for his own chance. He wanted the Ukrainian between him and the office where Reed waited. He needed to be within reach of the other two men.

Anatoly engaged before Sark had the grouping his plan required. A flurry of kicks and blows followed; fast, brutal moves meant to maim or kill. Sark didn't try to think as he fought, just to block and hit and dodge Anatoly's piledriver blows. Every time he missed Sark, every time Sark hit, Anatoly's rage and frustration ratcheted up a notch. That worked in Sark's favor.

The Ukrainian finally connected, sending Sark staggering back. It put him in the alignment he'd been waiting for. He shook his head as though dazed. Anatoly sneered. "Can't take it, pretty boy?"

Sark let himself sway. He stumbled two steps closer to the first man and into line with the second man and Anatoly. Now he was where he needed to be to make his plan work.

"Fuck you and your syphilitic mother," Sark said to him in the Ukrainian dialect he'd picked up in Kiev.

Anatoly roared and charged him. Sark dived into the legs of the man just to his left, knocking him into the wall. Anatoly couldn't stop his rush and bowled over his own confederate.

Sark tore the Skorpion from the guard's hand---breaking his finger in the process---and used it, emptying the clip at Anatoly and the third man. They dropped. He spun back and hammered the skeleton stock of the empty weapon into the last guard's face, shattering the man's nose and teeth.

The guard clutched at his ruined face with a gurgling scream. Sark dropped the Skorpion and levered himself away from him. For two long, deep breaths, he let himself stay there on the floor, on hands and knees, feeling the damage Anatoly had done. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. When he had the pain under control, he looked up at Lauren Reed, who stood beside him, waiting and watching for any new threats.

The last guard was curled into a fetal ball, hands over his face, keening in pain. Sark ignored him. He was no longer a threat.

"Need a hand?" Reed asked.

Sark got to his feet on his own. "No."

"Be that way."

Sark looked down the empty hall and frowned. "This was a delaying action."

Reed got it. "Shit. ---So we head for the roof again."

"Let's go."

He pulled the Glock from its holster and headed back for the fire stairs.

"What about that guy?" Reed said.

"Shoot him if you want to," Sark called back.

Reed didn't. She followed him up the stairs, past the fifth floor and up to the roof access. Sark never slowed, but he knew they were too late before they exited onto the rain slick landing pad.

The helicopter was gone, the heavy throp-throp-throp of its rotors fading into the night, its running lights blurred and distant through the sheets of rain pouring down. The empty gurney lay tumbled on its side, a twisted sheet spilling off it, the green color faint in the dim illumination of the city night. It was already soaked.

Sark walked out onto the empty landing pad and lifted his face, letting the rain hit him and run down over his nose and cheeks and chin. He'd failed. If it had been Derevko, he'd know what the reaction would be, but not Jack Bristow. He didn't know what Bristow would think or do.

Reed walked out and joined him. She stared at the helicopter's disappearing lights.

"We don't even know if it was really her."

That wasn't the point, he wanted to say. Instead, he tipped his head back and let the rain soak him.

***

The gunfire was louder in the stairwell, echoes ringing off metal, channeled upward.

Jack hesitated. "Irina. Stop." The firefight sounded like it was in the stairwell. Irina stopped compliantly, standing in profile to him. She was listening too. The dim crimson light lent her a disconcertingly bloody appearance and gleamed off the toned muscle of her bare arms.

He keyed his radio.

"Romany, this is Gypsy Alpha. Give me a status report, over."

Weiss' voice replied immediately, the transmission to Jack's earpiece tinny but clear. "Jesus, about time you checked in." He could hear the nerves in Weiss' voice, but the agent reverted to professionalism fast. "--- Gypsies Four and Six have secured the building perimeter and are holding in place. Gypsy Five is engaged by fire from at least six hostiles in the north emergency stairwell, just below the third floor. Gypsy One is pinned down on the stairs above the hostiles. Gypsy Two and Rogue are somewhere above him and out of contact. What's your status? Over."

"Status green, Romany," Jack said. He kept his eyes on Irina. "I have the objective. Give me an alternative route from the fifth floor. Over."

"Give me your location, Gypsy Alpha. Over."

"Fifth floor landing, north emergency stair."

Irina shifted her weight, standing hipshot, interpolating the situation from Jack's side of the radio transmission, as she was unable to hear Weiss. She turned toward Jack, her eyes black.

"Problems, Jack?" Irina asked.

"No. Be quiet."

"Okay, you need to get down one floor to the fourth," Weiss said. "Rogue took down everything---the elevators are still out, along with anything else except the emergency lighting. Fourth floor has an entrance to a secondary set of stairs on the south side of the building. According to the blueprints I'm looking at, you can take a straight shot from the north stairs to the central elevator banks, jog around them and at the end of the hall find the south stair's doorway. Over."

"Anything from Gypsy Two?" Jack asked, gesturing Irina down the stairs with his gun. "Over."

"Nada, Gypsy Alpha. Romany, out."

Jack sighed, wondering where Sark had disappeared and if Reed had managed to stick with him. Not if the boy didn't want her with him.

Irina reached the fourth floor landing ahead of him and gasped, stumbling, "Yevgeni---?"

She fell, hitting her knees and stretching one hand toward the foot of the corpse stretched over the next section of stairs. Surprise at her reaction cost Jack. Irina wasn't reaching for Yevgeni. Her hand locked onto the fallen Skorpion lying on the landing.

Irina rolled onto her back and fired one handed at him. The shots were wild, but they forced Jack back up the stairs, and gave Irina the instant she needed to wrench open the door. He returned her fire, but she had the door---reinforced steel---open and between them. His shots ricocheted off with a painful whine, one chipping the concrete wall next to him.

He flinched and then did the only thing he could: he went after her.

***
"We need to get back to Dixon," Reed said. She touched Sark's arm. He moved away. They were both wet to the bone, warmth leaching from their bodies. He shivered. After action letdown, Sark told himself.

He had to start thinking again. No more reacting.

"No," he said. "We need to find Bristow and Derevko."

Reed stared at him until he snapped.

"What?"

"You really wanted to find Sydney Bristow, didn't you?"

Sark didn't answer. He headed for the stairs again. Reed trailed him.

"Do something useful," Sark told her. "Contact Agent Weiss and find out where everyone is."

"Aye, aye, sir," Reed muttered. But she did comply. "Gypsy Two to Romany, come back, over."

Sark cocked his head, waiting . They were standing at the top of the stairs, out of the rain, two blond headed shadows bathed in red light, dripping onto the floor. He should have insisted someone supply him with a headset too. A few stutters of gunfire reached them, the frequency dying down even as Sark listened, stretches of silence lengthening between each burst.

"Give me a location on them, Romany, over," Reed said. She listened, eyes abstracted. "Okay, we'll proceed to rendezvous with Gypsy One then follow up on Gypsy Alpha and the target. Out."

He raised an eyebrow at her.

Reed lifted her chin. "Dixon's coming up. Agent Bristow radioed he had Derevko and is taking the fourth floor route to the south stairs. One of the assault teams is cleaning up the last resistance right now."

Sark didn't acknowledge her, just started down the stairs.

"You're welcome," Reed griped.

"Why should I thank you for doing your job?"

"Did you take lessons at the Jack Bristow school of ingratitude?"

"No, it must be genetic," Sark replied under his breath. The renewed and much closer burst of fire from a Skorpion wiped everything from his mind. He started running down the stairs, leaping three and four steps, outstripping Reed without a thought.

"Hey---!"

Sark spared one glance down the rest of the stairs as he reached fourth floor again. Yevgeni was still sprawled head down over the risers. The Skorpion he'd dropped was gone. Dixon was running up toward him.

He heard the agent call, "Sark, wait---"

He wasn't waiting for anyone.

He sprinted down the hallway, leaping the dead bodies of Anatoly and the other man. Around the shaft that housed the central elevators and slowing, moving silently now, listening, looking for Bristow and Derevko.

He saw them. Irina was running. Jack was pursuing.

Jack shouted. Sark didn't hear it. His world had narrowed to a tunnel that included only Irina Derevko as she spun and fired at Jack Bristow. No sound. Slow motion.

Bristow fell back.

Irina stalked back toward him.

Sark took in a long shuddering breath. Don't, he thought, don't, as Irina lifted the Skorpion. Just go. Go. Bristow had lost his gun. He couldn't stop her. No one would stop her. She could get away. All she had to do was turn around and keep going.

She was saying something to Bristow, not smiling, while he pressed a hand over his wound.

She was so intent on Jack Bristow she didn't see Sark at the end of the hallway. Had she ever seen him as more than a tool? He lifted the Glock and lined up the sights on her. Head shot. If he had to do it, he'd make it fast.

His hand wanted to shake. Cold. He was cold, from the rain, from the roof; he wasn't hesitating, he never hesitated to pull the trigger.

'I should have shot you in Firenze.'

She should have.

He dragged in another breath.

Suddenly, he could hear again.

"---Goodbye, Jack."

No.

Sark pulled the trigger.

XXXV. Family Snapshot

"Irina!" Jack shouted. She didn't hesitate, didn't turn back, dark hair flying loose behind her as she sprinted toward the south stairway.

"Stop!" He knew it was useless.

He stopped running; trying to steady his hands despite his heaving breaths, raising his pistol, the motion learned so long ago it was as unconscious as his heartbeat. Even now, he was reluctant to fire, the knowledge of all that tied them together and forever held them apart slowing his decision.

Even as he pulled the trigger, he understood he'd again waited an instant too long. Irina threw herself to the side, spinning, the Skorpion in her hands, and his bullet went wide. She fired and the muzzle flash coincided with the blunt blow as he was hit. The pain was sharp and clear and almost familiar. Jack stumbled, falling back against a wall, his own pistol lost on the floor.

He stared up at her as Irina walked closer. She kept the Czech-made machine gun aimed at him. There was no smile, secret or otherwise, on her face.

"Sorry, Jack," she said casually.

He found the wound, low on his side, bleeding but shallow, with his hand. The hot, wet push of his blood through his fingers seemed more real than the pain. He didn't look down, instead kept his eyes locked with Irina's gelid gaze.

"No, you're not," he contradicted.

That smooth smile that he'd come to understand was just as empty as her heart curved her lips.

"Not really," she agreed. "---This is the end. Good-bye, Jack."

The crack of a 9mm round firing startled Jack. He jerked, pain jolting through him with the movement, but nothing more. Irina staggered back and collapsed. Her finger convulsed on the Skorpion's trigger, emptying the clip in a deafening roar, but the bullets stitched up the pale plastered wall and into the ceiling. It was just the last reflex of a body already dead, unaimed, unintended, unknown.

Her body folded to the floor with a heavy thud, in a sprawl of suddenly swkward limbs, bent and folded and utterly still as nothing living could ever be.

Jack stared at the dark and bloody mess left by a bullet fired at close range impacting with a human head. One dark eye remained open, opaque brown, blank and unseeing. Death hadn't startled Irina; it had come too fast.

He wanted to feel something, regret or relief, but his emotions had become glacial things, solid and slow to move. Sometime in the days to come he might mourn his memory of who he'd once thought she was. He would empty a bottle of Scotch again, sitting in a dark room, and shake with relief. But that would be later, when there was no one to see.

The soft scuff of a shoe heralded the shooter's arrival. A pair of wet, black combat boots stopped between Jack and Irina's corpse. Jack raised his gaze, first finding the dangling hand that still curled loosely around the grips of a matte black Glock, then moving up fatigue-clad legs and a damp black turtleneck sweater to the ruffled blond head and hollow blue eyes. Sark was staring down at Irina, not even blinking, as though waiting for her to stir and return to life.

He'd lost track of Sark and dismissed the matter in his own blind pursuit of Irina.

Sark sank to his knees gracefully.

His head hung, showing a slim slice of pale neck above his collar. He looked slight and disarmingly boyish, rather than lethal, despite everything.

Jack pulled himself up against the wall.

"Sark."

Sark turned his head slowly and looked at Jack. His eyes were looking for something, asking for something, but Jack didn't have it to give. Sark's shoulders slumped. He turned his face away, kept it turned away, even when Jack laid a hand on his tense shoulder.

"I wouldn't have done it if she'd just kept going," he said hoarsely.

Jack squeezed his shoulder. It was all the acknowledgement he could give to what Sark had just admitted to knowing. Feeling. He couldn't offer any comfort. He could never find any for himself, couldn't find it for Sydney, and now, there was none for Sark. Whatever pain and regrets his son felt, Sark would have to live and deal with himself.

He said only, "I know."

Sark nodded, dashed the heel of his free hand over one cheekbone, and twisted back to face Jack. If his lashes were still wet, there was nothing else to give away that he felt anything over what he'd just done. He'd learned all of Irina's lessons well. He gestured to Jack's side. "How bad?"

"I'll live."

The faintest trace of that half-smile Jack had grown almost familiar with quirked Sark's lips. He murmured dryly, "That was the idea."

"Help me up and then get out of here," Jack said.

Sark rose smoothly, holstered the Glock he still held, and drew Jack up with surprising ease. When Jack was leaning against the wall, Sark retrieved his dropped pistol and proffered it. Jack took it, a solemn pact forming between them. Both of them carefully kept their eyes away from the wreckage of what had been Irina Derevko.

Sark paused, looking uncertainly down the white walled hallway, clearly wondering how soon the rest of the CIA assault team would arrive and whether he needed to stay with Jack. It reminded Jack exactly how young he was. Years younger than Sydney, yet so much harder than she had been---was---and even more experienced. There had been something still innocent about him, though, until now.

Now his eyes were dark with the choices he'd made.

Jack made himself speak harshly.

"Go. Go while I'm still willing to let you go."

Sark jerked and stared at him. Then he left, using the same stairs Irina had been trying to reach. He didn't look back. Had he understood what Jack had meant?

He couldn't keep him.

Jack closed his eyes, breathing through the pain in his side, and the other pains, holding onto the picture of Sark nearly smiling at him. Alexander. But the image faded, disappearing the way everything he'd ever been foolish enough to love did. He opened his eyes to glare down at Irina's body, resisting the urge to kick it.

He was still there when Marcus Dixon and Reed arrived. When Dixon asked if he was all right, he could only say, "I've been worse."

It was the truth.

Dixon looked down at Irina's corpse.

"Sark?"

"Gone."

XXXVI. El Niño Perdido

There is something we want from him---that he remember us, maybe,
Or know, at least, we were he and now talk
With his tongue


St. Mary's.

Stone and stained glass, wood well polished by a hundred years of hands, and the stillness of the soft blue hour before dusk filling the nave. The windows were dim, the church half dark already, the scent of beeswax, incense, and candle flame mingled with damp and age.

Jack lit a candle for Sydney when he came in, the half forgotten ritual of his Ontario childhood guiding his steps. The past was always with him. He sat on an empty bench away from the softly lit altar and let his eyes almost close. The candles were a smear of unfocused, amber light, never still or steady. He was tired, still weak, and dispirited. He had hoped to find Sydney in Irina's last lair, but there hadn't been even a clue left to tell him where to search next.

It had been almost two years since he'd seen his daughter. In that time he'd realized that Sloane didn't have her and almost succumbed to the man's invitation to work with him again. A little more than a year and a half had passed since he'd learned who Sark was and calmly chosen him over his loyalty to the Agency---though no one knew that. Not quite three days had passed since his son had shot Irina to save him. The lines--of loyalty, of blood, of operational necessity, friendship and professionalism, even love---were all tangled and knotted within him.

He didn't know what he thought or felt anymore. There was no one left to guess that he did feel anything. All that really remained was the drive to find Sydney. If he could know she was safe and well . . . He would dismiss the rest.

There wasn't enough of him to extend that to Sark, no matter what the young man deserved from him.

Another regret.

He watched Sark glide into the church and light a candle himself. The combat and assault gear had been replaced with elegant, dark blue Italian tailoring. Idly, he wondered if the young operative was only performing the ritual to present the proper appearance or if he actually prayed for someone. He didn't know his son enough to guess. Did Sark mourn anyone? His mother? Khasinau? The Doren girl? Would he mourn Irina?

Sark seated himself at the bench beside Jack, head dutifully bowed. A sidelong glance revealed a lurking smile on his lips, though.

"Arvin Sloane sends his regards . . . And regrets," Sark murmured. A sly look conveyed Sark's skepticism over that.

Jack lifted a brow.

"Are you playing messenger boy for him now?"

Sark replied lightly, "Only with you."

Jack absorbed that.

"Sloane didn't get her, you know," Sark went on. "He doesn't know where she is."

"I know."

"He wants me to use everything I know about . . . The Organization to figure out where Sydney is." Sark's voice hitched when he might have said Irina, but he remained otherwise poised. He faced Jack. "It won't be easy. She never told anyone everything." A duck of his head and he looked up through his eyelashes almost winsomely. His tone turned sardonic in contrast. "Certainly not me."

"And if you do find Sydney?" Jack asked, keeping his own voice level.

"I'll tell you first," Sark answered. His lips twisted in displeasure. "It's the best I can do."

Jack wondered if this wasn't something of a game to Sark.

Sark sighed as though he'd read Jack's thought. "I'm never going to be one of the good guys, but I'm not utterly without feeling." Blue eyes flickered to Jack's face and away. "I would have liked . . . Something." He shrugged, unwilling or unable to articulate more. Jack understood it anyway.

All that they could have had was already gone. What was left was this. Stay alive. Stay out of my way.

"So would I."

Sark nodded.

They both fell silent, watching as parishioners came and went through the gloomy church. Sark didn't seem bothered by memories of what he'd done in Mexico City. Maybe he didn't see it as his guilt; he'd only pushed the button for Sloane and Kabir. He was like one of those Rambaldi devices, himself: a superb and strange creation, shaped by a genius into a weapon and a work of art. Almost human---enough so that he had turned on his creator.

Sark broke the silence.

"A good thing you didn't need a transfusion," he remarked. "I'd have made a donation and wouldn't that have raised a few eyebrows back at the CIA."

Jack coughed.

"There would be questions, certainly."

"They still don't know you helped me escape?"

"They can't imagine why."

Sark grinned. "So I have blackmail material too."

Jack shook his head. "I'm more useful to you where I am."

"As am I," Sark said, his mood suddenly dark. Jack remembered saying that to him in Copenhagen, implying that he'd freed him to use him. It hadn't been true. Clearly Sark was remembering the same conversation.

"I'm not Derevko," Jack said. "I wouldn't sacrifice you for expediency."

"But for Sydney . . . ?"

"I don't know."

Sark didn't flinch. He hadn't expected anything else. He simply got up and made his way to the aisle. "I rather wish I could hate her," he said. He met Jack's eyes. "I don't. ---But don't expect anything more from me than that."

"None of this was Sydney's fault."

"Her saving grace."

"It wasn't yours, either---Alexander."

"No?"

"No."

Sark looked as weary as Jack felt, then.

"Then who do I blame?' he asked plaintively and walked away.

Jack sat for a while longer, trying to absorb the peace others found in their religion, before walking out of the church. He couldn't find it.

Jack stopped at the top of the church steps. The rain sleeting down changed the sound of the car tires on the pavement. It sent the people on the sidewalks hurrying faster, ducked under colorful umbrellas, trying to get away from it as the day faded into twilight. It darkened stone and brick as it slid down the faces of buildings.

Jack ignored the cold, wet touch of the droplets hitting his face, pulling in the cool damp air and letting the last of the incense empty from his lungs. With an expert eye he catalogued his surroundings, as always, searching for anything out of place.

The figure standing still among the moving crowd caught his eye. The rain-damp, blond head was turned toward him. Jack locked gazes with the slim figure, wondering why Sark had lingered.

Sark just stood still, his hands jammed in the pockets of his long gray coat. Jack watched him just as steadily, fruitlessly wishing for a different past, a different present, a different future. Sark tipped his head to the side and the image of the black-and-white photograph, of Alan Bristow in his RAF uniform and lopsided smile, returned to Jack. He wished he could have shown it to Sark.

It was all so futile.

Jack nodded at his son.

Sark dipped his head, and then began to turn away. A woman with a green-and-white striped umbrella passed before him and when she'd gone, Sark had disappeared.

Jack waited another few minutes, then pulled his coat collar up against the rain that wanted to run down the back of his neck and walked away.

But there in the rubbish of hours
He looks at us, acknowledging nothing.

Fin


All quotes are from Pablo Neruda's El Niño Perdido, translation by Ben Belitt, in Pablo Neruda Five Decades: Poems 1925-1970. ©1974 Grove Press.

The Glasgow Harbour development is real, but unfinished presently. I have projected an office building there that does not exist and never will.

NIMA: National Imagery and Mapping Agency
NPIC: National Photographic Interpretation Center
NRO: National Reconnaissance Office
NSA: National Security Agency
IMINT: imagery (photographic) intelligence
IDP: imagery-derived products
CDF: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
Sukin sin: son of a bitch, Russ.

Rach did her usual top notch beta.

Klaus-Peter Dietrich's name is courtesy of Eretria. Many thanks for all her excellent suggestions that improved this.

Thanks also to Rez, who had the unenviable task of babying me along as I wrote this, reading bits and pieces out of order, patiently sending me the beta-ed draft four times, and for first asking long ago: Is it okay if I kill Irina? I told her it was and then did myself.

Auburn, 9.9.2003