Playing Copperfield
Sark flew with Ilene to Los Angeles. Sydney was already a flight ahead of them, and Irina wisely went to Salt Lake City to wait for him near the Kennecott mine.
Ilene was fidgeting. She scratched at her hands and rubbed them together.
"What is it, Ilene?" he asked, glancing over to her as he drove to Sydney's. Ilene looked to her brother, caught by surprise in her nervousness.
"You're going to find them, right?" she asked.
"Of course," Sark answered, knowing she meant their family.
"Do you think," she started, but stopped herself for a moment. "Do you think they're safe?"
Her question was an interesting one. She asked what he himself wouldn't allow himself to think. That his family could be in danger was something that poked at his mind relentlessly, but without recognition. Irina said they left their guard, fearing him. What if someone else has them now?
Strachen. A bitter taste rose in his mouth just at the man's name.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But we'll find them."
"Where are you going to start?"
Sark hadn't thought that through, knowing he was headed to Salt Lake after this. The lying was necessary, he told himself. Ilene didn't need to know, and shouldn't know, what danger he was going to. The danger wouldn't bother her so much as her brother going back to an old life.
He sighed, drawing a look from his sister.
"I'll figure it out. Don't worry."
Sydney waited for them as they pulled up in the cover of darkness. She glanced around them before nodding at Sark to get out.
"I need to go soon," Sark said to her. She smiled understandingly, but Sark noticed the sadness in her eyes.
"Ilene, come on in," Sydney said. Ilene ventured forward, but paused to turn to her brother.
"Be careful, Julian." He didn't miss the emphasis on his given name, but let it go. Ilene hugged him suddenly, tightly. Sark bit his lip and hugged his sister back.
"I'll be all right."
Her eyes were misty, but she fought to stay strong. Sark smiled at her, then glanced at Sydney. She gave him a reassuring nod that told him Ilene was in safe hands. He knew it; two women he cared for greatly would be all right.
Now he had to go help another, to keep Sydney safe.
Irina waited for him a fair distance from the Kennecott mine. Her vehicle was cloaked in the darkness. The nearest city's lights shown miles away; they were virtually alone in this desert.
Sark glanced at his watch. It was 1 a.m. He had flown directly to Salt Lake from LAX, changed into tactical gear, and drove to the mine. Irina had all the gear they would need.
"Ready?" she asked him in her alluring accent. Sark smirked at her in response. "Can your body handle this?" Her eyes flickered to his left leg.
He glared at her questions. "Let's go."
The mine was dirt all around, except for a paved, narrow road that winded down the mine. The road circled, seemingly endless in depth.
Sark watched a mindless security guard patrol by them. He nodded at Irina, and they both scurried to the descending road. They walked silently but quickly. Ropes and bags of equipment hung from their shoulders. Guns waited in their hands.
He didn't expect any more guards until they got to the vault. Too many guards drew too much attention, something that on the surface the US government avoided well.
The darkness of the mine was astounding. The black was thick, even almost physical. The further he and Irina descended, the thicker and wetter the air got. Dirt . . . that clay and dust smell—it stank from the walls and floor.
Sark reached into one pocket for a gas grenade as they reached the bottom. He dared himself to look up, and saw a few stars, looking more like glitter than anything else. The dark walls around them loomed as giants. Sark looked away, and focused on the task at hand.
The vault was down a series of tunnels. Like everything else in the mine, the tunnels winded around. The maze-like quality challenged Sark's memory. He'd studied the plans to the mine and vault, and struggled now to remember with crystal-like accuracy.
Irina followed him wordlessly.
Until they both heard laughter ahead of them. They split up, melding with shadows of opposite walls in the tunnel. We must be close.
Sark crept forward and rounded a corner until he saw the source. Three guards stood chatting around a well-lit foyer, taking a break from guarding national secrets that influenced the world's safety.
They probably don't know that much, Sark thought, giving the idiots some leniency. Besides, this makes it easier for you.
He saw the cameras from the shadows, and gestured to them. Irina dug in a bag, and produced a small black device that looked more like a television remote than a surveillance transmission scrambler. Sark eyed the cameras as each one's red indicator light went off, signaling a stop in the feed.
Sark released the pin of the gas grenade and chucked it down the tunnel. The gas dispersed immediately. One by one the guards went down, almost before they could react to the grenade.
Irina and Sark hung back, watching until the gas was gone and harmless. The vault glowed in the hazy foyer. Blue lights cast an eerie effect on the target. Sark swallowed.
"Quickly," Irina said, moving forward. Sark pulled out another device, this one larger and more complicated. He glanced at a keypad on the wall. It activated an iron gate that separated access to the vault. The display screen on the device lit up when Sark wired it to the vault keypad.
It started to work immediately.
Numbers flashed on the display as the device broke through passwords and narrowed down the alphanumeric code. Sark glanced at his watch.
A loud buzzing sound almost made Sark drop the descrambler, but he realized the gate was rising.
One obstacle down. Irina rushed forward, ducking under the gate and moving for the vault's access area.
She suddenly stopped short.
"Lasers," she called over her shoulder. Sark froze. That wasn't on the plans. Sure enough, though, a thin blue beam of light shown just above the floor. Sark's eyes moved from the floor on up, and saw a succession of laser beams bursting intermittently from the walls. Irina was inches from the lasers.
"Alarm triggers," Sark mumbled. "If we break through the lasers, it'll quicken the response from the airbase." Already the nearby government airbase would send someone to investigate the break in the camera feed. But if the lasers were triggered, a whole tactical unit would be sent, and the NSC would no longer think of the cameras as a mere malfunction.
"If only we'd brought large mirrors," Irina muttered to herself. Sark smirked at that and began digging in his bag. It caught her attention, and he could feel her eyes on him.
"Forget the mirrors," he said. He pulled a fire blanket; it was metallic but paper-thin. It was also reflective.
Irina stared at him incredulously. "It's too flimsy. And the beams shoot from both sides—you'd need two blankets."
Sark reached into his bag and tossed another one to her. Then he draped himself in the blanket, crouching down and making sure it covered from his feet to his head.
He stepped into the beams.
With each step, he waited for the alarms, but heard none. All he heard was Irina's breathing and the blanket wrinkling around him.
As he stepped directly in front of the vault, he shed the metallic blanket and started on the next challenge.
"Coming, Ms. Derevko?" he called over his shoulder. She glared at him but followed his lead.
He heard the rustling of the blanket as she ventured forward. Sark fumbled with a tub of gel and some wires. The vault's access panel was incredible. Upon studying the plans, he knew there was no breaking into the system for a code, no conventional way to break in. Blowing the vault up was stupid, since it was in a mine, and drilling---well, Sark wasn't a driller.
Sark relied on something more sophisticated yet witty. He squeezed the tube of gel onto the panel. He smeared it into the cracks. The gel seeped into the system's circuitry.
The wires were some special metal that when connected to the gel, it cleverly shorted out the system and, with this particular vault, triggered a secondary override control. The wires and gel Sark didn't understand completely; after all, he was a spy, not a scientist. What mattered to him was the end result.
The override system wasn't a free entrance; Irina stepped forward, a drill in hand.
Sark raised an eyebrow at her as she confidently began drilling into the lock console.
"I thought you were a spy, not a thief," he said, goading her. She didn't even flicker a glance at him.
"You should know by now that sometimes you have to be an effective thief to be the best spy."
His smirk almost converted to a smile.
The drill was relatively quiet. Sark watched metal shavings fall to the floor.
Irina pulled out a thin cable and fed it through the hole she created. The cable had a small camera at one end, and she watched the feed on a small monitor in her hand.
Sark sighed and checked his watch.
Irina glared at that, but smiled victoriously as they both heard metal rods slamming back. She gave him a sugar grin as he opened the vault door.
"Nice job," he said reluctantly.
"Thank you."
Enough with the egos, he thought. Sark walked into the vault.
It was cool, no doubt to preserve the data and whatever else was inside. The floor was illuminated, a passive green light which glowed throughout the vault. Sark stepped around cautiously.
It was large—the vault had rows of shelves. He paced around inside, looking at random numbers that organized the data.
"A little guidance would be nice here," he muttered just loud enough for Irina to hear.
"Look for some circular storage device. Something maybe six inches wide," she said. "The catalog number will end in 89963."
His eyes scanned over the vault.
"Here," he said. He reached for the data, contained in a metallic shell. It was heavy, heavier than any storage device he'd ever come into contact with. He saw his reflection in the device, even his cool blue eyes.
Sark blinked, and turned to Irina, who was gathering her tools.
"How do we destroy it?" he asked. Irina looked up indifferently, but raised her hands as if to catch the device.
Sark tossed it to her. A wave a relief went through him. Almost done. The deception for Sydney's best interests, and lying to his sister . . . it was almost over, and he could move on. Again.
He ran a hand through his hair, sighing loudly. His leg twitched where the gunshot wound was still healing. He glanced down at it, rubbing it gently with his right hand.
Suddenly a blunt blow to his head sent him to the ground. The forceful hit made him black out for a second. He looked up from the vault floor, only to see Irina running for the iron gate.
All he could think was one word: No!