Chapter 17: Botta De Tempo - countering or attacking when the opponent is distracted and/or unprepared.
Within minutes Sark regretted having told James his birthday. Christ, he wondered to himself, of all the problems he could have issued her, why had his split second decision been to pose one that gave her his birth date? Whatever aim he'd had, it had backfired, as once she had gotten over her derision at his 'star sign' she had twigged to just how young he really was. Aghast and astounded she had squealed, but you're just a kid! I knew you were young, but I didn't think you were that young!
It reminded him of just why it didn't pay to trade in personal details.
To say that Sark dealt harshly with those who denigrated his youth and thus who tried to undercut his authority was an understatement. He'd callously shot people dead for it before now, and had shot Schreiber in Switzerland partly to shut James up about it. Now he surprised himself by being angry not primarily at her but fundamentally at himself – why had he bloody well told her?
Did he want her knowing things about him?
"Doctor, I am a 'kid' who has run international crime syndicates, is feared across five continents," – dammit, she is not going to regard me as a boy – "who has personally assassinated three Third World Dictators - "
" - not that your bragging or anything."
" – and who," he lied, pushing his ranking up, "is nineteenth on the CIA's Most Wanted list, so let's just drop the 'boy' thing shall we?" He glared at her, intent on a crushing firmness. "Now – here's what we're going to do for the rest of the night."
Ten minutes later James sat, numb, looking up at him. Sark finished his exposition, looking down at her like a composed schoolmaster, confident that she had absorbed the lesson. She may have been sitting there with what he had come to think of as that 'gum chewing' expression on her face but he knew perfectly well her eidetic memory had captured and stored every last detail and that her mind had understood it. Mentally she was too much like him not to have.
"Any comments?" he clipped out.
"Yeah – birthday and Christmas on the same day huh? Pretty good. If I'm still stuck here come December I only have to buy you the one present."
Sark blinked and curved a smile, speaking with a tensile nuance. "I can see perfectly well that you're trying to annoy me, you know."
"Yeah – but I'm getting pretty good at it though, aren't I?"
He slid her a look of almost silky annoyance. "Do you have any questions about the matter in hand?"
"Well I don't know. Does 'bite me' count as a question?"
Sark decided enough was enough and stared her down, his unyielding gaze ending their little fencing-match. James closed her eyes, sighed with defeat and then spoke.
"Okay, to summarise: you expect me to accompany you on, effectively, a two-man assault upon an entrenched position held by numerous troops who are all heavily armed. And the aim of this mission is not even to kill large numbers of said troops – which by the way we could do just by blowin' the shit out of their place – but by going in there, decapitating the hierarchy and installing ourselves – well, installing you – as its new CnC? And in all that you're going to do the gunslinging thing while I ride electronic shotgun?" Sark had called her role, 'handling'. She looked at him in disbelief. "What do you think I am Sark, good at this shit?"
Sark compressed a smile. Actually, yes, he did think James Dodgson was good at this shit. As far as Sark was concerned, over the short time he had dealt with her, he had come to recognise James as a Drop In. A 'Drop In' to Sark was nothing remotely social, it was nothing to do with 'popping round for tea'. Instead it was a term he'd coined for himself to describe very rare people, those who when yanked out of civilian life and just 'dropped into' the game, not only survived the initial impact but got up to speed and started playing. Sometimes they even won.
James Dodgson was one of them, whether she knew it or not. The thought flickered through his mind that Sydney Bristow would have been one too if she'd not had any training. He mentally slapped himself. Oh for fuck's sake Sarkey, will you stop thinking about that stuck up CIA Princess?
He viewed James warily. On the very few occasions he had ever encountered Drop Ins, Sark had always been caught between admiration and alarm. Such people were unsettling, they had the gifts to call a winning play, but they hadn't had any training. Lack of training gave them a potential advantage in terms of left-field thinking but it equally left them prone to simple errors; it made them random.
And I'm Mr. Sark and I don't like random.
Before responding to James' challenge about his plans for the night he weighed up his options. In an attempt to gain her support he could either recap all he had previously stated, or he could just do it the quick way. He chose the quick way.
"James," he looked up at the ceiling and slid his hands into his pockets, "just shut up."
Sark took as many weapons as he could carry from their annihilated foe and got the black van started. The engine was jumping from the damage inflicted earlier but it would get them to where they needed to go. Sark knew where they were headed because he'd resuscitated the merely unconscious Frying Pan Guy and, speaking Russian, had given him the choice of an imminent and agonising death or of aiding Sark and then actually going on to benefit from his co-operation.
No brainer.
Frying Pan Guy was in the back of the van, alive, hog-tied, and quietly terrified. He'd told Sark everything he needed to know: who they were up against - Dmitri Skolvikov, mid-ranking ex-K-Directorate, now running his own criminal enterprise - and where to find him. Frying Pan Guy had become aware that he was dealing with none other than Mr. Sark. Sark's reputation alone tended to terrify, but having personally recognised that Sark had destroyed six of his enemies inside two minutes had added considerably to the effect for Frying Pan Guy.
The van bowled along, headed towards the east of the city. Turning up in the van made sense, Skolvikov wouldn't be alarmed by its approach, in fact his crew were expecting to see it. Sark and James sat up front. Sark drove.
A tense and frightened James slammed insults at an intent and focussed Sark. The part of Sark's mind that wasn't drilling down into the issue of what lay ahead, that wasn't probing for weaknesses, closing down on options and setting up for contingencies, slammed insults straight back because he knew that sarcasm was James' way of venting anxiety.
"Ass-whack," she spat.
'Irritant."
"Suit-boy."
"Annoyance."
"Lame-brain."
There was a pause, then Sark murmured slyly, "Swamp-dweller."
Swamp-dweller? James flashed about for a killer come-back and then got one. She looked at him sideways, "… Rambaldi-whore."
The van swerved slightly on the road before an irked Sark righted it, continuing to drive on. James' face split into a shivering grin. Okay, so she might be tense and frightened, completely unwilling to go on this crazy mission and convinced she was riding to her certain death, but hey, she'd just landed one on Mr. Sark!
She looked across at him. He was concentrating on the road again, the only sign of annoyance being that his gaze was even more intent than usual; that, and his teeth were snagging at his faintly crooked lower lip. She had realised somewhere along the way that he did that snagging thing when he was puzzled or annoyed – he did it whenever he was distracted. He was doing it now. Yep, she'd landed one on him alright. Well, what did you know, even in an extreme such as this, life still held some small pleasures!
Minutes later they swung off onto a side-road.
James made a last attempt at getting the whole thing called off. "Look," she was scared at what they were about to do, teeth chattering, she felt freezing cold even in the warm van, "this is a real long-shot. Even if you can take out the top guy, why're the rest just gonna fall into line behind you?"
"Because I'm Mr. Sark."
James gave a blurt of jagged laughter at what she saw as a ridiculous statement. Sark flicked her an irritated glance and concentrated on the road again.
"I should explain," he said. "You need to understand that with their top echelon gone they'll desperately need a credible leader. Without leadership they'll be wide open for a take over by another faction. They'll know that if they don't line up behind someone with a fearsome reputation this very night - me - then they'll all be dead by the next one."
James considered it, registering his targeted gaze and fierce determination. They wanted someone with a fearsome reputation? – well he was the guy for the job alright.
"Well then, look's like you got the gig."
A few minutes later they turned a tight corner and the swerve jolted James into Sark. She glanced up as she righted herself, pushing off him and catching his profile against a passing street light.
Lean elegant jaw. Shock of dark blond hair. Wide cheekbones. Intent blue gaze … perfectly carved profile. Within a jumble of confused thoughts, one of which was unsettlingly to do with 'cradle snatching', she was suddenly hit by the unavoidable recognition that Sark was personally beautiful.
Staring at him, suddenly caught up in him, almost unable to look away, she was slammed by his poised perfection. She saw that his was a precise, crystalline beauty, a glittering beauty, but she shivered because it was the glitter of frost. She recalled the incident in the kitchen earlier where he had made her take his finger into her mouth, how glintingly determined he had been when she had resisted. And then he had come at her with an almost blank-eyed intensity. She jerked her gaze out of the passenger window. Alarmed, she recalled what had really scared her about that incident: not just his sudden attack when he'd gripped her face and moved in on her, not just the startling realisation of just how much more physically capable he was than she, but the almost sick urge she had felt then to just give in to him. A horrible liquid urge to just submit and surrender. The sense that if she would just do that then he would wrap her up and carry her somewhere safe.
She could have slapped herself for thinking it. Because that was all wrong, wasn't it? Because he wasn't going to do that, was he? - because he was her goddamn kidnapper!
Sitting in the van with the man who was holding her captive, she was hit by a sudden claustrophobic urge to get away from him. He was so near as he drove along, that not only did he have freckles, but at this range she could count them. She fastened on the image of him as a creature of the cold: elegant, pristine but someone who would burn you if you touched him, even if he didn't mean to. She used that image to steel herself against him, against that sense that if she would just let go then he would catch her. She forced her voice to sound even and unconcerned as she made a key request. "Do I get a gun to use in all this?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you'd shoot me with it."
James swallowed hard, trying to sound as innocent as she could manage. "Oh, c'mon, now why would I do that?"
"Because I'm a devious bastard from Hell whom even Satan's disowned."
She slumped slightly. "Well, guess you can't argue with that."
Sark swerved the van over sharply, braked and turned on her. James gasped and almost flattened herself against the passenger-side door, a spike of adrenalin driving through her, terrified that she was about to be hit. He raised both eyebrows in genuine puzzlement and rustled in a pocket and offered her something from it: "Biscuit?" It was a crumpled packet of shortbread he'd presumably gotten from the kitchen. "We've stopped so I can keep an eye on their H.Q entrance," he explained, jerking his head to indicate a far street corner although he didn't take his gaze off her. Perplexed, he watched as she seemed to slump slightly in front of him as though in some great physical relief. Still puzzled, he internally shrugged and decided to slip back into seduction mode: he extracted a finger of shortbread. He looked down at it and then very pointedly looked up at her mouth. With a sly, slow, smirk he nudged it gently and slowly into her mouth: this time, unlike his previous finger, it hit the resisting portcullis of her closed teeth. He looked at her, teasingly, but not giving in. "Well, you'll need something to eat," he purred. She shook her head. He paused, realising he was getting no-where, and then remembered the kitchen, that all-engulfing pull he had felt toward her, that subsumation of self as she'd deliciously tugged on him - he didn't want that overwhelming sensation back. He shrugged, affecting a casual grin, and popped the biscuit into his own mouth. "Suit yourself."
James felt almost sick with relief, her heartbeat thumping in her chest. Remembering how mere seconds ago she had become poundingly aware of his beauty only added to her confusion.
Ten minutes later Sark had munched mindlessly through the packet, automatically shuffling shortbread to and from his mouth, his gaze fixed relentlessly on the far street corner. James felt faintly ashamed at her suspicion that Sark had been intent on hitting her, obviously hitting her was the last thing on his mind; hell, now he wasn't even hitting on her.
Cutting a sideways look at him she took in his blond hair, intense blue eyes, almost Slavic bone-structure and was struck by a sudden recognition – Sark wasn't British goddammit, he was Russian! Once again she felt an unsettling jolt, this time at an awareness of just how many layers there were to him, of how often he confounded expectation. She was struck by a sense of there being shifting, hidden aspects to him, hidden almost from himself. Something chimed within her that had rung before. An intimation of an old soul bent upon inhabiting a young body, or of a young soul peering out behind the face of someone older – someone who had lived too much life.
"What are we watching for?" she asked.
"We aren't watching for anything, I am."
Geez, put me in my place why don't you? She looked across at him as he bit down on a last piece of shortbread, his gaze still targeted across the street. "Do you realise you've eaten the whole packet?"
Sark looked down at his crumb-covered jacket and at the last piece of half-chewed shortbread in his hand. "Well I did offer you one." He spoke through a mouth full of biscuit. "You said you didn't want it."
"But you ate the lot."
He looked across at her. "Well I can't just have one, once I've had one I want them all." His gaze returned to its point of focus down the street.
James surveyed his still, watching profile. I can't just have one, once I've had one I want them all. His leitmotif, if he but knew it: all or nothing.
"Oh c'mon, what are we watching and waiting for?"
"I'm tallying activity, who goes in, who goes out. I'm waiting for a lull," he straightened up in his seat, casually brushing crumbs off him as he kept his eyes on the far corner, "and I think I've just got one."
Less than a minute later he drove under an archway into a quiet inner courtyard. Before them, across an ill-lit cobbled square, was an inconspicuous steel door set flush into an old, faintly mouldering brick wall. The entrance to the K-Directorate offshoot's H.Q.
"Look, can't I stay outside while you go in? We both know there's enough electronic equipment in the back of this van for me to cover you from here."
"Of course there is, but you won't use it will you?" Sark's blue gaze lazered straight to the back of her brain, "because you'll be too busy running for it." James set her jaw, caught between annoyance at being uncovered and guilt at the same. "Don't try to hide anything from me James, you're not practiced enough at it." He turned, opened driver-side door and hopped out of the van. "We've already gone over this, we're having no further discussion on it. Now get out."
Dressed in combat jackets and caps which they'd ripped off their slain enemies, the two looked inconspicuous in the poorly lit yard. Sark untied Frying Pan Guy and got him out the back and re-iterated his earlier offer: work with me and benefit, or betray me and die. Frying Pan Guy nodded his acquiescence.
They moved to the door, Frying Pan Guy up first with Sark pushing the muzzle of his now fully-loaded Glock against the Russian's spine. All thoughts of what had happened in the kitchen with James, of any confusion he might have felt, had been banished: he was totally back on the clock. Frying Pan Guy gave the code at the door and was let in – Sark announced his entrance with a silenced spitting of bullets, two each to the men guarding the corridor. He shoved Frying Pan Guy against a wall, the two men locking gazes. Frying Pan Guy was much bigger than Sark, but he was still terrified. Sark knew it was time to drill Frying Pan Guy's loyalties into his head one more time.
Sark raised his eyebrows in a friendly acknowledgement so incongruous it was alarming – Sark intended it to be - and then he spoke in Russian. "I intend to kill Skolvikov and take over this organisation tonight. Skolvikov isn't doing too well against the other factions, is he? Well I will. Back me and you'll be moving up in the world; try to move against me and you'll die." He added a last casual rider, "Oh, and by the way, I pay my employees in American Dollars."
The other man's eyes flared with sudden certainty. American Dollars? – why hadn't Sark just said that at the start! He nodded, Frying Pan Guy had picked his team.
They hid the corpses in a side room.
No sudden flurry of alarm met their entrance. As yet, none but they knew they had arrived. Sark looked over at James: how was she taking it? She looked tense, she was shaking, but her eyes – her eyes were calm.
With the help of intel gleaned from FPG they reached the surveillance room without difficulty. Although they would show up clearly on the internal closed-cap security cameras, it didn't matter. They were just three soldiers moving about as normal, besides, it was 2.30 a.m. and everyone was tired. FPG showed just whose side he was on by accepting a silenced weapon from Sark and machine-gunning dead the drowsy crew of the surveillance room.
Sark installed James at the controls. She already knew how to use them. Using the equipment in the back of the van he had let her practice. He had given her five minutes to assimilate a day's worth of information – no problem. He fitted a comm head set on her and one on himself. He dialled his in to the frequency the K-Directorate crew already used, and then created a fresh one for he and James. She and he could talk to each other and, via the surveillance she controlled, he could hear anything anyone else said over radio frequency and even address them in turn if he had to.
"Where's Skolvikov?" he demanded of FPG. The man searched the bank of screens before him and pointed to one. It showed a small group of men in a room, standing and talking, with a further one sitting behind a desk and four others playing cards at a table. Skolvikov was the man behind the desk. Sark could see the location of the room from the monitors in front of him. The layout of the building as given by FPG was fixed inside both his and James' heads.
Other screens showed men scattered around the building, some active, some drowsy, most sleeping.
He knew exactly where to go to get Skolvikov and how to get there, so he went. Before he departed he shot-up the PC in the room and confiscated the corpses' mobiles.
"Sorry James, but if you were thinking of calling long-distance, then change your mind. You are not getting away from me."
She shot a sideways look at him, voice shaking at all the violence around her but lip curled. "What a charmer you are, huh? The James Bond of Bad-asses, Agent 666 Licensed by Satan."
Sark split a slow curling grin, amused at what she'd said, admiring the sheer guts it took for her to say it. Looking her over, he exuded confident control and slowly put his fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss. He saw her flinch away from it, yet at the same time blush. He bit his lip, grinning. That was it, he'd decided: after he'd cracked down on Skolvikov he was definitely returning to very personally and very thoroughly 'collect' James. First things first though …
As he departed, locking James in behind him, the only thing left of him in the room was the echo of that confident, smirking grin; like the Cheshire Cat's, it seemed to hang in the air.
Nervous, James ground her teeth and then started mimicking his accent to relieve her tension. "Sorry James, but if you were thinking of calling long-distance, then change your mind. You are not getting away from me. Guh!" She mimicked him again, "I'm Mr Smartypants and I have a fancy accent."
She sat alone, the only creature left alive in the room, seething with frustration and shivering with fear. She got the urge to snark her anxieties away, but who at, dead guys? She cast a glance at the corpses and forcibly suppressed a keen memory of several zombie movies. Part of her mind thought it was odd that her situation amidst the recently dead didn't bother her as much as it should have. Another part of her didn't think it was odd at all, she'd seen so much danger and killing since Sark had snatched her out of normality, that every fresh enormity somehow carried less impact than the preceding.She just had to face it, she wished she wasn't there, but she was and that was that. She'd just have to get on with it. Sark's voice broke across radio silence, calling to her by the code-name he had chosen for her.
"All okay, Guttersnipe?"
She switched into Sark's solo frequency and took a deep breath before she spoke. When she did her voice was only slightly shaky. In devising his own codename he had rejected her vampire themed suggestion of 'Sarkula' and she resentfully called him by the name he had chosen for himself.
"Loud and clear, 'Prime Minister'."
Smirking at her grudging acknowledgement of him, Sark knew that the take-down was never going to be easy, but it was do-able, and given his limited options it was necessary. It risked himself, James, and thus ultimately Irina – in some ways a woman he thought of almost as a mother - but to do nothing would be fatal. When he heard James' voice in his ear at least he was sure of one thing, James was on his side; well, for now. She had to be, he hadn't given her any choice.
He had already told her that it was part of her role to give him information without him asking, so he could make the minimum noise. She provided a running update. "No change of status, everybody still nice and quiet." And then he heard a tense gasp in his ear. "Uh oh. Company's coming down the next corridor. One guy."
Sark's reaction was to drop back behind FPG so they were moving in single file. FPG nodded casually to the oncoming man as they passed, who then paid no undue attention to Sark. Easy. James saw it all on the internal video surveillance. Sark heard her breathless response in his ear.
"Whoah … cool," she commended despite herself.
Sark cracked open a fresh can of self-congratulation: if he didn't get her to like him, he'd at least get her to admire him!
He and his aide glided up and along through the levels of the building, forewarned by James and meeting no serious challenge. It was going better that Sark had expected, until it suddenly wasn't.
"Shit!"
Sark kept moving but stiffened slightly at James' note of panic in his ear.
"Sark, there's someone outside knocking to get in!"
Damn. "How many?" Despite the increased tension, Sark sounded as though he might be enquiring after how many lumps of sugar she took in her tea.
"How many men? A lot. Er … three, no … four! Sark, I can't get the door open, there's no electronic control, they're gonna know something's wrong when they can't get in!"
Oh bollocks! Sark felt the English schoolboy's swear-word detonate in his head. He kept moving forward, giving no hint of his inner frustration to the man accompanying him. First rule of leadership: always look like you're in control, especially when you're not. He ran a contingency analysis: fine, he'd got one. It was a bit desperate, but it might actually turn out for the best.
"Any notable movement inside the building?"
"No, everyone still looks normal."
FPG and Sark were continuing to move up and along towards Skolvikov. They'd passed several men coming the other way and pulled the same trick each time, radiating the blasé attitude that they were supposed to be there. Everyone bought it. They were on the same corridor as Skolvikov now, there'd only effectively be the men in the room with him to guard him. Everyone else was more or less behind Sark. Okay, time to go to Plan B.
"Sark, those guys are getting tense! They've got cell-phones out and -"
"Fine. Buckle up."
He went to Plan B. Sark picked a remote detonator out of his pocket, pressed a button and blew up the van outside. The explosion put the four men at the door out of action – in two cases forever – and immediately sent every guy in the building into a panic stricken Code Red. The K-Directorate channel which Sark had been monitoring leapt to life in a jumble of chaos, confusion and countermanded orders.
Just the way he liked it, when it involved his enemies and not himself.
Floors below him, James' eyes were riveted to the screen showing the room with Skolvikov in. She was half out of her seat. Everybody in that room was on their feet with a fucking weapon! What the hell was Sark going to do? It was suicide! He was going to be killed!
She made her play.
The whole place was wired for entry alarms. James tripped the one outside the window of Skolvikov's room and every man in it jerked toward the noise, they had their backs to Sark as he flung two stun grenades ahead of him into the room. James was intent on watching Sark. She wasn't watching the screen showing the corridor outside her room and so she didn't see two men running up it. She didn't even have time to gasp when she was hurled out of her chair by a man who'd kicked the door down and was shoving a gun in her face.
Upstairs Sark had Skolvikov covered point-blank whilst FPG covered the rest of the stunned men in the room. Skolvikov shook his head to clear his vision and heard the news from the men he'd sent to surveillance: they had a hostage. Sark heard it too on his own headset. Skolvikov grinned, issuing out an order for them to bring up whoever they had.
Stalemate.
Everyone in the room radiated tension, apart from the one man in it who had the most reason to: Sark. Not that he didn't feel it, it was just that Sark had learned not to show it.
Mr. Sark didn't do jittery.
An unblinking Sark had a gun to Skolvikov's head. Sark could hear the scatter of words in the room about him and over his headset, among them his own name and a scrambled, jabbered description of him from those many who knew of him to those few who didn't. One description referred to him as 'a White Devil'. Unbeknown to the Russians but known to Sark, 'The White Devil' was the title of a Webster Jacobean Tragedy. Sark had always been rather partial to Webster. He always had liked a good Revenge Tragedy.
Sark didn't pull the trigger on Skolvikov. He didn't know what shape James was in, and the best hostage he had in protecting James against Skolvikov was Skolvikov himself. Besides, if he shot Skolvikov one of Skolvikov's men might shoot him and that would leave James with no-one. James didn't even speak Russian and Sark knew that if he died then the men around her would just regard her as a loose end, one most easily tidied up by killing her.
Even though Sark and Skolvikov were at a stand-off, none of the other men in the room tried to shoot Sark. They could have easily, they couldn't all be held off by an increasingly nervous FPG, but something else was staying them. They all knew that this was Sark, the White Devil, a Legend of Mayhem … If Sark had wanted them all dead he would have just blown the building up; no, Sark was here for something, and it might not be to their disadvantage. Things hadn't been going too well for them recently. They'd gotten burned on deals and other factions were zeroing in on them, scenting weakness. Maybe it was time for a new direction, or a new director?
There wasn't just tension in the air, there was anticipation too.
The two men who'd stormed the surveillance room flung James through the door. She landed on her ass but immediately flipped the finger to one of the men who was still pointing a gun at her. "Fuck you, I'm all threated out already, okay?" She jerked her head towards Sark, explaining to the men, "you don't scare me, I've just spent five days with him!"
James had reached that state she was getting used to around Sark, being too angry to be scared, or maybe just being too scared not to be angry.
There was a slight ripple of laughter in the room at her words. A lot of the men didn't understand what she had said - they didn't speak English - but they all got the attitude.
Sark's eyes glittered ice-chip blue. James was in the room and she was alive and still in the game. Fine. He enjoyed the slight haze of uncertainty in Skolvikov's eyes – Skolvikov knew his own men were laughing and he wasn't entirely sure that somehow it wasn't at him. Sark grinned openly at the man, projecting utter confidence. Even if the game hasn't actually turned in my favour, I'm going to get that bastard thinking it has. Besides, you never knew, whatever else James was, she was getting to be lucky for him.
One of the men in the room looked at James, pointed at her and then pointed at Sark.
"Sark?" he said, the implied question cutting clear across the language barrier – are you with him?
She nodded. "Sure am, alright. You know, 'Mr. Sark, rhymes with Shark'? "
The few men whose English was good enough laughed at the joke, but the mood was catching and even those who didn't understand laughed. Any trigger happy setting among them went down a notch.
Sark's eyes had gone from ice-chips to sapphires. He was loving it. Oh James, you are a brilliant darling …
Skolvikov spoke in English to Sark. "Mr. Sark? How very strange to see you here, I didn't realise you were in Moscow, let alone alive. After all this time I - "
James rolled her eyes, "Oh can we just fast-forward through this shit already? I've been here once before tonight."
Surprisingly for a scientist, in a high pressure situation James wasn't the kind of person who formulated a game-plan; Sark had game-plans, James had … hunches, impulse, a vague impression of what to do and of which way to go. In extreme circumstances, whatever her gut feeling told her, she went with it – she never second guessed. In an aggressive environment she instinctively functioned in the mind-set which Government Military the world over spent millions attempting to drum into elite combat troops: when in a tight spot, make a call, any call, because any call is better than no call, because 'no call' means you've frozen.
James looked about her and made her call.
"Any one of you guys speak English?" A man nodded. "Well translate this Bi-Lingual Guy. 'Yes it's Sark', 'no he's not dead', 'yes he just wiped out an entire crew that idiot sent to get him'," she jerked a thumb at Skolvikov, "and 'yes he's here to whack out Skolvikov'. After that he'll be the head of your organisation and you'll working for him, the biggest, nastiest Bad-Ass in Moscow."
Bi-lingual Guy had been muttering a running translation for those who didn't speak English. At that last, everyone looked from Sark to Skolvikov and back again. The man pointing the gun at James had lowered it.
James seized the moment.
"Needless to say, with Sark in charge you'll be back on top of the game, and, seeing how's Sark's just slam-dunked Skolvikov's top lieutenant and five others, with Sark on top, guess what? – as far as the hierarchy's concerned, hey," she said cheerily, "everybody gets the chance to move up one!"
Locking gazes with Skolvikov, Sark grinned lazily, it was the last thing Skolvikov saw as he went down under a hail of bullets from his own side.
Sark didn't have it all his own way though, in the confusion nobody noticed that James had palmed a handgun. That fact only emerged later when the room had largely cleared, leaving just Sark, James, FPG and the senior crew. They only realised she had a gun when she yanked it out of her pocket and held it straight at Sark's head.
The K-Directorate men in the room froze. Sark slowly turned his head to look at her.
Christ, he was getting sick of people pointing guns at him tonight. It was getting repetitive. He looked at her levelly and unblinkingly. What had he always said about Drop Ins? Brilliant one minute and bonkers the next? This was a dumb play by James. Even if he caved, the others wouldn't and if she pulled that trigger she would never get out of the room alive. She looked like she was about to throw up with fright.
He wasn't sure what he felt. Anger? Disappointment? Not 'hurt' surely? Or was he just fucking bored? Either way, it had been a very long and tiring night and what he felt, felt cold. The camaraderie which he thought might have been building between them since the airfield suddenly felt a long way away.
His relentless blue gaze hit her like something physical. It was like being slammed into a wall of ice.
"Put it down."
She shook her head in response, unable to speak. She was shaking all over, but not as badly as she had back at his safe-house apartment, she was learning to command her fear. The gun looked ridiculously large in her small hand, it was almost too large for her to hold and she could barely hold it straight out she was shaking so hard. She got control over her voice just enough to speak.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, but I can't." Her gasping voice was stuttering and juddering, she was almost crying. "You have to let me go. I can't carry on doing this stuff, I can't - I'll get killed."
Sark straightened to face her. "Really? You want out? What a pity, and just when you were getting so good at it too." Sark's voice was breath-taking in its sarcasm. Anyone only listening to them would have thought he were the one holding the gun.
James backed off slightly but carried on speaking, voice and gun still shaking. If she were trying to get some distance between she and Sark, then it was a failure. For every step she took back he simply took one forward. As her gaze skittered about, looking for some safe haven, his remained coldly and calculatedly locked on her. After a few steps the gun was almost grazing his chest; he was arrogantly indifferent to it.
"Please! You don't understand." James' voice was cracking. "Even if you were never gonna kill me, you are a lightening rod for danger - I could get killed just from standing next to you."
True, but Sark wasn't going to consider even the concept of letting her go. Brushing an imaginary piece of lint from his clothing in a display of crushing disregard, he used the psychological advantage of his extra height to stare her down. "You could get killed crossing the road James, which on a scale of odds is a lot more likely than a lightning strike and a lot less interesting." His voice was silkily calm, and because of that all the more frightening. "Now put the gun down." A new, cold edge entered. "You're becoming tedious."
One of the ex-K-Directorate's moved for his gun. Sark moved faster. He ripped the pistol out of James' hand, turned it round on her, and shot her.
James let out a scream of pure pain as she fell to the floor, left leg shot out from under her. She couldn't stop screaming, the pain was too big. Part of her mind floated above it all, looking down in awe at how so much pain could come from one small wound. The James who writhed on the ground clutched her leg and sobbed helplessly.
In Russian, Sark explained the situation to the crew in terms they'd understand. It was on the tip of his tongue to say 'woman trouble' but it came out: "Business issues."
They nodded, they all understood.
James squirmed on the floor, eyes tight shut and tears springing from them, her screams now replaced with an odd little mewing sound that broke from her throat through compressed lips.
Sark repressed the recognition that the agonised mewing sounded even more horrible to him than the screaming. He clamped down on the knowledge, driving it back from him; instead he made a calm, cold display of ignoring her and, following his lead, so did everyone else. Whatever concern he might have felt for her, he suppressed. Whatever feelings he might have had, he flung aside. Memories of anything that might have gone on between them earlier went ignored. He knew he had to be seen by his new crew to be in control of this situation, to be in control of her. He screwed down on that horrifying little mewing sound, trying to drown it out with white noise. He wanted to put his hands over his ears to stop it. He felt confused by it, alarmed and … then he felt a hot rage rising within him.
The conniving little hellcat! How could she? She put me in an impossible position!She'd challenged him in front of his own men, a crew who weren't yet schooled to obey - I had to assert my authority over her! He considered that he had taken the only move he could. He'd had to shoot her to protect his own position and thus be in a position to protect her. She'd thumbed her nose at his authority in Switzerland, but here there was no fraudulent bond dealer to make a scapegoat of and her very public transgression had been so great it had demanded instant reparation.
Knowing he'd aimed carefully to only nick her with a slight flesh-wound in the calf he left it a full ten minutes before he allowed himself to unclamp his feelings and call for medical aid.
Later he stood over her by her bed, her pain dulled by morphine, his beginning to rage within him.
How could she have done that to me, after all we've just been through together? How could she have not trusted me?
"Get away from me," she hissed, half-crying. "The Government will find me, and when they do - "
For once Sark hadn't game-planned the meeting. He'd just felt an overwhelming need, a terrible compulsion to see her. He hadn't known what he was going to say, if anything. He never imagined that when he spoke it would be to jeer.
"What? The CIA?" Sark's bark of laughter sounded horrifyingly cold even to him. "Do you really think that an organisation staffed overwhelmingly by old men and young dullards are going to find you if I decide to hide you?"
James looked very small and pale in the bed. He felt a sudden gnawing disquiet, almost akin to panic. This was all wrong! It shouldn't be happening! But his words seemed to come from someone else, someone who knew that he had to gain an ascendancy over her. They were in a situation so delicately balanced that any perceived loss of control on his part would result in both of them being executed in a counter-coup that very night.
"The CIA are no more efficient than any other government department." He bit his next words out one at a time. "They are unimaginative, timeserving, clock-watching apparatchiks. They don't care if they find you or get you killed or simply wait for you to disappear at the bottom of a pending tray – just so long as no-one ever has to take personal responsibility for what did or did not happen. The CIA aren't spies Dr. Dodgson, they're bureaucrats!"
James looked so small, it was almost as though she had shrunk. Sark's disquiet broke loose.
Christ, what am I doing?
He furiously kicked back against that alarm and discomfort. He had to ruthlessly suppress any feelings he might have had. He had to get acknowledged dominance over the situation to protect them both from anyone who thought he was anything less than in totally in charge. He had to be in control! He was Mr. Sark, he couldn't be anything else!
Besides – she hurt me with more than mere bullets! That traitorous little vixen!
When Sark was angry he did not shout, the indication of his wrath was to the contrary. When Sark grew angry his voice grew ever quieter, ever lower, ever more cold and controlled: he was now leaning forward, only inches from her, almost hissing his words into James' face. His delivery was venomous.
"You put me in an impossible position Doctor. You flagrantly challenged my authority in front of a crew who would only work for me because they perceived I was strong enough to lead them. If I hadn't shot you, they might very well have shot us both! And I know you know it's true, because you're not stupid!"
He glared viciously at James, as though willing himself to see straight inside her head, to get some insight into what she was thinking. Her lack of game-face saw her expression crumple in recognition of the logic of his argument. At the sight of it, Sark suddenly felt a jolt of something truly unexpected: pure fear. He was terrified that she was going to start crying. He was terrified because he didn't know what he would do if she did.
Christ, I can't afford to lose it!
Something contorted within him, some emotion like a long unused muscle violently flexing and trying to break a bond. He felt threatened by it, lashed by a clawing panic at the fear of some ungoverned feeling arising within him and he found his words hissing out of his mouth of their own volition. "Know this - you publicly threatened to shoot me? Fine! It's payback time. You're back in Rambaldi Boot Camp."
He turned on his heel and quit the room.
When Sark finally slept, it was fitful. He kept starting awake, sweating, jolted out of sleep by thoughts that fled as soon as he roused.
The hour before dawn found him wide awake in his opulent private bathroom.
He was vomiting into the sink.
He rinsed his mouth and heaved in a breath, looking up into the bathroom mirror, remembering what he'd done and said to James. As sick as he felt, as appalled as he knew he was, he still saw only his impassive, imperturbable Mr. Sark reflection staring back. For a second he felt an almost overwhelming need to punch the glass and shatter the image. He ignored that need. He was used to ignoring needs, his own more than anyone else's.
When he awoke in the morning he simply told himself that his sleepless, sickened night just hadn't happened and then he buried the memory of it.
Among the many things that Mr. Sark didn't do was 'bad dreams'.
Away in Italy, Arvin Sloane told himself that he didn't have bad dreams either, even though he knew he did, after all he'd just awoken from one.
It had been about Emily's death.
She'd been lying on the floor, blood pouring out of a bullet wound, and when he'd looked down, the smoking gun was in his own hand.
He'd awoken in a crazed, fear-soaked panic, lurching about the bed, feeling for her in the dark. She murmured in her sleep and he wrapped his arms around her and curled against her, squeezing her tight to drive away his fears.
His face was wet with tears.
The dream had been so real.
In it he had known, for a few brief seconds, what it would feel like if Emily died with her life cut even shorter by the arbitrary injustice of another.
If that were to ever happen for real, he knew he would make the whole world suffer.
