Chapter 32: Mandoble - a light slash of the point delivered by a flick of the wrist.
"Gee Syd, who'd a figured Graham Caplan for a Russian spy?"
Marshall's voice flared loud in Sydney's ear as she ran through the darkened woodlands toward a secluded L.A. villa. The Russian connection had been unearthed when she'd gone over old ground on the 'Caplan' case. She knew Dodgson was connected with Sark, and if she found Dodgson, she might find Sark. Sydney had gone after the only lead left, Graham Caplan. Checking his phone records, she'd spotted an anomaly and had gone back to kick the truth out of him. The man she now termed SpyHubby had coughed to it all. That he was a Soviet sleeper. That Dodgson was a mark, but didn't know it, and that she was chipped by a tracking device.
She'd had a fight with Dad, who'd told her that she wasn't chasing after Dodgson.
"Sydney, you are already under suspicion regarding Sark, I can only protect you so much, you are not chasing after a woman who is connected to him!"
Sydney loped on with Marshall squawking in her ear. Well, Dad was off the radar now on one of his stone-faced covert ops, and what he didn't know wouldn't hurt her.
Looking for help she'd cornered Vaughn. It had not gone well.
"I'm not helping you go against orders Syd! I'm not helping you go haring after that woman."
"Why not?"
"Because Kendall is already on your back.' Vaughn had looked almost pained. 'You don't need more trouble!"
"Trouble? This is about rescuing an American citizen! This is what we do!"
Vaughn had almost flinched, as though steeling himself to say something he'd much rather not.
"No Syd, this isn't about you finding her, it's about you finding Sark. The woman's connected to him. Find her and you find a lead to him and you know it."
She had felt stunned. Truth was, she had never thought Vaughn had that much insight. She had attacked out of fright.
"That's bullshit Vaughn. What are you, paranoid? Scared I'll run off and leave you for someone else?"
Vaughn had looked stricken, and as she ran on through the woods the memory of his hurt expression flooded her with a terrible guilt. She shook it out of her head.
She had wondered who else she could ask?
"Marshall, your hands are shaking. If you don't want to help me, then you don't have to. Honestly."
"Oh, uh, nuh. It's not that. It's er … I gotta date tonight. One of the visiting East-Coast Analysts … Carrie?"
"What? An actual girl?"
"Yeah, I know."
Marshall – the only person she could think of who would help her. Marshall – a scared, socially maladroit science geek who was a man of unimpeachable morality, great loyalty and would always do the right thing. He had agreed to help her straight away, she had saved him from Suit and Glasses once, and that was all Marshall needed to know. Besides, Sydney was going out to save a girl who had once been in his Quatzecoatl class … He had easily helped Sydney locate Dodgson, hacking into Soviet systems and extracting the information to track Dodgson. Sydney had taken it as an omen when the woman's signal showed up as being in L.A..
Recalling Marshall as she loped along in the dark, Sydney felt vaguely sick at it all, because she wasn't at all sure that what she was embroiling him in was the right thing.
Using night vision goggles she orienteered her way through the woodland, effortlessly loping along little used animal tracks; all in black. Combats and a close-fitting top, combat boots on, her small backpack fitted snugly over her shoulders. She was aiming toward a secluded, upmarket villa in thickly wooded grounds: if you wanted to keep someone a prisoner, it was a good place to do it – there was room for plenty of guards. She had parked up in the dark, off-road a mile away from the estate concerned.
Marshall had fallen silent in her ear.
"Mountaineer to Black Kitty," she whispered as she ran. Silence in return. "Black Kitty?" Silence again. "Marshall?" She stopped, pressing her earpiece to her. "Marshall? Come in? Remember, 'Black Kitty' is you?"
Her earpiece burst to life again and she winced slightly at the volume. "Oh yeah, right! Gee Syd, this is kind of exciting – in a scary way. Er I'm not breaking the law here am I? Because my mother says she couldn't go through it again, not after my father and those sheep - "
"Marshall, you are not breaking the law, you are merely utilising the CIA's intel facilities for a deep covert op." She set off again, her breathing unaffected by her loping jog.
"This isn't a Black Op right? Because I don't want to do - "
"Marshall, it is a grey op. Now, did you get anything on that address?"
Marshall, crouched over his desk back at the mostly deserted late-night Rotunda, filled her in; he may have been a nervous wreck with people, but show him a computer system, any system, and he was instantly it's new best friend. Now Marshall was concentrating on the house the tracker signal pointed her at; it was rental, on a short lease to a Mister Ormond Sacker – Sydney almost snorted at Sloane's pretentious pseudonym – and had the usual security. Perimeter fence, surveillance cameras.
"Any of those fully loaded extras these world dominating maniacs love? Minefields? Laser beams? Body heat detector triggering poison gas trap?"
"Nope, probably just the usual array of thugs with machine guns. Nothing you can't handle, hey Syd?"
Nothing I can't handle. She felt herself reel slightly as she ran, as though momentarily hit by low blood sugar dip as the reality of her situation interjected. I'm on the way to single-handedly face down, without any proper back up, Arvin Sloane, a bunch of heavies, possibly also Sark – her mind swerved away from that thought. No, not Sark. He probably wasn't here anyway. She wasn't ready to deal with Sark. This was just the preliminaries to getting one step closer to Sark, that was all. She still had plenty of time to think of what she was going to say and do when she did meet him. She had to get Dodgson first and then, maybe, she could find Sark. It was okay, she didn't need to panic, Sark was for another night and – goddammit – maybe even Mom's here, and I can handle it? I'M COMPLETELY UNSANCTIONED! WHAT AM I, CRAZY?
She ran on, mentally diverting herself.
"How did your date go tonight?"
"Terrible. We had fish. I sweated. Freakishly."
"Tell her it was food-poisoning, you'll be fine."
"Er … Isn't that lying?"
"No, it's 'dating skills'."
"The fish thing was terrible. It was sushi. I kept dropping mine on the floor." There was a pause. "You can handle this, right Syd? I mean, are you sure you don't want me to tell Vaughn or anyone?"
Sydney had a coughing fit, stumbling to a halt, bent forward at the waist, hands propping her up on her knees.
"Syd? I mean 'Mountaineer'! Are you okay?"
"Sure … just … swallowed a fly. Don't worry about me." Tell Vaughn? Just how much worse would it have gotten? "I'm okay Marshall. Don't call anyone for back up. Anyone! Got that?"
Marshall sounded doubtful but willing to go along with her. "Sure Syd."
"Okay Marshall, I'm now switching to radio silence for security reasons." She gratefully clicked her earpiece to 'off'. Not only did it kill the volume but also it stopped Marshall from asking any more uncomfortable questions.
Still bent over, hands on knees, she felt ever so slightly faint at the prospect ahead of her.
Could she handle it? Well, she knew what she couldn't handle, she couldn't handle any more uncertainty over Sark. She knew full well she had failed to even try to capture him in that stairwell in Stuttgart, and that meant that her issues with Sark were messing with her head. She needed to get herself sorted out about him and get fully back in the game, because if she were stumbling along, hobbled by her uncertainties, she was that much more likely to get killed.
She focussed her mind and drove it forward at the problem. She went over her game-plan: through the perimeter fence, sneak around the grounds, case the place, extraction of Dodgson if possible, retreat and call for help if not.
She loosened up and then started moving forward. She was going to get away with this. She was Sydney Bristow. She was the best damned field agent this side of an alternate universe. And then she tripped flat on her ass.
Goddamn tree roots!
She looked back accusingly at what had tripped her. Oddly, it didn't look like a tree root, it looked like – an arm. A dead arm attached to a dead body. She cleared the light covering of leaves and soil and saw a guard. A guard with a nice, neat bullet hole straight to the temple.
Crouching in the dark, vested up, black cap on to hide his blond hair but with stray curls peeking out over his ears and at the nape of his neck – okay now I really need a haircut – Sark scoped exactly the same villa from the vantage point of a slight rise. He was inside the perimeter fence, having neatly snipped his way through it after having first dealt with the electrical current. With his night vision lenses he could see the guards moving about below, they were slightly lackadaisical, not expecting trouble.
He gave no thought to the two men he'd already killed that night, long range patrol shot dead with a silenced sniper rifle and left to rot where they fell in the woods.
Sometimes there were advantages to a lack of introspection.
He'd fallen to earth earlier in the day and made his way to a private lock-up where he kept a stash of necessary equipment: weapons, surveillance gear, money, clothing. All shrink-wrapped against any possible damp. He had chosen one of his signature black suits for the mission. Combat gear made sense for crawling about in the woods, but if he got off the estate and into civilian territory then dressed as a pseudo-soldier he'd have a sign saying 'arrest me' flashing above his head. His transport was a rental car he'd parked a mile away.
He continued scoping the grounds, ticking off which guards he'd kill and mercilessly calculating the order in which he'd kill them. Dead men were neither here nor there to him, they were just so many pieces which had been eliminated in the course of his game. The ends justified the means, sometimes they had to, like it or not.
He knew that the 'ends' was James. He refused to focus on her though. He wasn't going to be de-stabilised by that sense of seething resentment he got when he even thought of her. He felt it rearing within him even now, it's splintered edge working away at him, but he shut it down. Focus was everything.
He scoped in on movement below, timing the guards and deciding upon his next hit: when one came round a corner of a poolhouse he could take him, the trajectory would spin him backwards into some bushes, covering the body. He did it and then, under cover of darkness, sprinted low out of the tree cover and across an open lawn, making for the cover of the poolhouse. He made it, rubber soled shoes making no sound against the concrete paving of the poolhouse patio. He skipped up the poolhouse wall, moving like a cat to reach the wires of the outside light, quietly snipping them before dropping silently back to earth.
He sensed the rough brick and stucco wall at his back as he crouched low in his newly created dark, the wall on one side, a jumble of folded deckchairs screening him on the other. He decided on his next target. The guard who patrolled to the rear of the house, making rounds every 12 minutes. The man passed over one vulnerable spot, a deeply shaded area near an outhouse. Hit him there and the dark would cover the corpse. Having started knocking off the guards he knew he had to do them all and do them fast before any of them became alert to why there were suddenly so very few others.
Sark waited another three minutes for the target to appear. Sark was flying solo, no back up, outnumbered, temporarily a sitting target and his heartbeat never got above 56 bpm.
The target appeared, blank eyed, bored, not concentrating on anything. Sark drew his sights upon him, the cross hairs settling on the man's forehead, Sark's finger resting in the curve of the trigger, the stock settling against his jaw. He attuned to his own heartbeat, intent on squeezing the trigger between two beats so his aim would be as still as possible: track, still, squeeze. And then the man dropped before Sark got to the 'squeeze' part, tumbling into the shade which Sark had already earmarked for his corpse.
What the fu? There's someone else here? He swung his sightssearching for movement.He got it, a slight trembling in some bushes from a mere ten feet away.
Shit, they're that close and I never even saw them? Sark suppressed a flurry of panic. He drew an aim on the foliage – fine, punch enough bullets in there and one of them is bound to hit, whoever they are, they're going down. He steadied his aim and began to squeeze the trigger and then got that tingle at the back of his neck that told him that …
He rested his rifle against the stucco and leapt through the air, landing in a soundless pounce, pinning his prey on her back beneath him, the impact driving the breath from her lungs. A tangle of struggling limbs and threshing movements as she fought to drive him off before he, with hushed half laughter, got a hand under her CIA standard issue ski-mask and ripped it off her head. A flash of moonlight illuminated them both.
"Well, if it isn't Nancy Drew, Girl Detective. Out for an evening stroll, Agent Bristow?"
She surveyed him from where she was sitting, chained, handcuffed and manacled to a metal chair. "You know, if you just wanted a date you only had to ask. A casual invite for coffee is the usual way it's done."
He surveyed her from across the room where he, in turn, was strapped onto a gurney. "Can you tell me one thing?" he ground out. "Were you always this glib or was it something you've really trained up on since we last met?"
"I was always this glib. It's one of my many natural talents."
Jack and Irina locked gazes with each other – she in the chair, he on the gurney - both trapped, help captive and what were they still doing? – fencing with each other!
"How do I know this isn't some double-dealing? That you're not in league with whoever grabbed me and are just pretending to be a victim so you can get secrets out of me?"
"Oh Jack, if I wanted secrets out of you I'd just tickle you until you were sick."
There was a silence as each weighed up the other. Irina knew that Jack's inherent nature – honed by decades of deceptions both given and received – would ensure that he'd never be the first to start sharing intel. She'd have to speak first. "Okay, how did you get here?" she asked. She noted his closed face. "There's no point in not telling me Jack. If I was working against you then I'd obviously already know how you'd been caught, so you wouldn't be giving anything away. As I don't know how you were caught, you're sharing what might be valuable intel."
She watched Jack's expression shift a millimetre, she could see he understood the logic of it. Would he speak?
"I was grabbed on a covert transport operation," he said, "shifting a Rambaldi artefact to a third party who would collect it and carry it further."
"What was it?"
Jack watched her face, there was no reason not to tell her, after all if she was working against him, she'd already know that too. "The Rambaldi Heart, the one that was lodged in di Regno's chest."
Jack got his first big clue that Irina wasn't in on anything when she went white. Skin change of that nature was an uncontrollable physiognomic reaction. Irina was shocked, and maybe a little scared. Someone, somewhere was in the shit and Jack began to get the uncomfortable feeling it was them.
"What's the significance of the Heart?"
She shook her head, indicating the room about her. Jack got the message: they might be bugged.
"Who grabbed you, Jack?"
"Unknown. If I had to guess I'd say private operatives."
"Who set you up?"
They both knew they were referring to how and why Jack's transport details had been intercepted: to just who had betrayed him.
"Unknown. Though I suppose it might have been an electronic hack-in to records and not an inside traitor."
He received Irina's reply by way of her quirking smile: don't kid yourself baby. Irina knew full well just how hard it was to infiltrate CIA Rambaldi databases, she'd had to spend months in a glass cell just to get a single crack at it.
"What about you?" asked Jack.
"Got jumped in an exchange deal with Sloane. 300 million for Rambaldi artefacts. Sloane now has the money and the artefacts."
"Sloane, eh? I was wondering when he'd come into this." Jack flicked her a glance. "Very unlike you to be so careless Irina."
"I'll take that as a compliment. Truth is, I found myself jumped by the biggest gang in America." She caught Jack's query, the arc of an eyebrow, and clarified, "operatives from the CIA." She knew from the way Jack flicked his gaze to hers that she had his full attention. "Yep, I think someone in the CIA asked Sloane to take you out - "
"And in return allowed Sloane to use the CIA to bring you in."
"Well, what do you know. 'Spies Are Us' are selling off Bristows: Buy One Get One Free." Irina's flippant tone faltered. "Do you think Sloane has Sydney?"
"She was securely in the Rotunda when I left her."
Both were aware that that meant nothing, both hoped it meant everything. There was a silence. The silence was interrupted by the door opening.
Jack appraised the person who walked in.
"Well," said Jack, "we would look surprised at seeing you - "
"Except that you never surprise us," finished Irina. She looked back to Jack as they both completely ignored Arvin Sloane, the man who had just entered. "There's something really important I want to know," she asked, still speaking to her husband. There was a quiet as she marshalled her words. "When I painted the dining room walls orange that time, did you really like it or were you just saying you did?"
Pinned flat beneath Sark, Sydney completely froze. Sark? It was so unexpected that she wasn't ready for it. All the things in her head, the expostulations, the pleadings, the confessions and the accusations – are you the White Devil, what were you doing firebombing that church, did you cover for me in Kandahar, do you care for me, were you watching me on those tapes, you are the bad guy! – couldn't get out.
That plus, staring up at him, for the first time ever in his presence she allowed herself to admit just how insanely attractive he was. Crazily so. It was as though Mother Nature had robbed a hundred people of their expected allocation of 'good-looking' so she could lavish the lot on Sark.
He was so beautiful, it was almost absurd.
When he had landed on her and she'd rolled over in a tangle of limbs and looked up, she had known it was him instantly. As she would know his distinctive voice anywhere, lying under him she realised it was the same with the stunning geometry of his face. One glance at one curve of one cheekbone – even in the dark - and she would know it was him.
"Sark?" it came out a disbelieving croak.
"Yes Sydney?"
His tone of polite conversational enquiry – completely at odds with their unorthodox position - rocked her even further. Her mind lurched, clutching for the nearest thing it could think of to say, however nonsensical.
"Dad sends his love."
She caught a flash of one of his trade-mark smirks as he spoke.
"Always knew he looked upon me as a son."
Sydney inwardly shrieked at herself. Dad sends his love? You couldn't think of anything better than that? You have a degree in English Literature but you couldn't at least crib some Jane Eyre? Above her she saw Sark's mouth twitch in amusement at her previous foolish statement and her mind reeled under the pressure of the moment. This can't be happening - this is … Sark? She mentally slapped some field agent instinct into herself. Sydney Anne Bristow, this is Mr. Sark goddammit, not Mr. Rochester – PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER - and where's your damned GUN?
She jerked her head in it's direction, knocked from her and lying in the soil a few feet away. She got a hand free and lunged for it. Hissing, struggling to hold her down, Sark pinned her wrist down inches from it and wrestled her other hand down to the dirt, the rest of her held down by his sheer body weight. She had greater agility, and might have been even faster on the draw, but he had weight of shot.
"Get off me Sark, I'm not going to stop struggling until you do!" she jerked and twisted beneath him.
"Feel free," he panted, struggling to hold on, "I'm enjoying it."
Damn, now the bastard was laughing at her! She steadied her gaze, glared at him, took aim, and then without warning jerked her head at up him, trying to whack him with it. She caught him on the cheekbone and he snatched his head back, grimacing. Mouth compressed in anger he glared down at her for a second, his gaze a blistering blue, and then darted his head down at hers.
Time slowed for her.
Her pulse seemed to stop.
She saw the gleam of the moonlight glance off the curve of his cheekbone, saw the flash of his blue eyes as they seemed to generate an inner light of their own. She saw and then sensed his eyes remain open as his face closed to hers, felt the faint rasp of his mild stubble against her cheek, the soft nudge of his lips opening against her skin. Her neck arched up to meet him and she gave the slightest of gasps as the incongruous thought filtered through her drifting mind: oh, he kisses with his eyes open.
And then he bit her.
Not enough to break the skin, but quite enough to hurt. She gave a suppressed squeal of pain and hissed up at him, eyes watering.
"Well what did you expect?" He looked down at her with a tone of irked puzzlement, "that I was going to kiss you? If you will try to head-butt me Sydney, you can hardly expect me to just let you."
Sydney's mind was a jumble as she fought to collect herself. "Only girls bite!" she hissed, hoping it covered her confusion.
"Really? That's nothing, you should see my infamous hair pulling manoeuvre." He caught both her wrists in one hand, grabbed a fistful of her hair and slammed her head back into the dirt. He grinned down at her. "See? Told you. Now, question time. Are you by yourself Sydney or can I expect Agent Dixon to come hurtling out of those trees in your defence?"
Sydney glared up at him and tried to think it through. Would it be better if she lied?
"I'm not alone. I have back up! And they are not going to just let you hand me over to Sloane!"
She saw Sark grin down at her, he wasn't falling for it for a second. "You're lying Sydney, it took you too long to think of the answer, and if you did have back up you'd never say so and give away their element of surprise."
Beneath him, Sydney closed her eyes. Oh for God's sake! Why does one of the biggest bastards on earth have the face of an amused Greek god and the sexiest accent ever?Her gaze flicked open and she saw his eyes glitter with a sly laughter. "Well," he continued, "I can honestly say that at least I'm not planning to hand you over to Sloane." Sydney's eyes closed again in relief and she felt Sark dart in to whisper teasingly in her ear, "I couldn't, he's not here."
"Oh, you're hateful!"
"I know. What can I say? - sometimes even I hate me."
She felt him settle himself against her as though getting comfy on a sofa in preparation for reading a good book with a nice cup of cocoa and some teacakes.
"You're heavy!" she gasped. "You're squashing me!"
"So," he grinned, completely ignoring her, "having established that you're here alone – why are you here Sydney?"
Sydney stiffened and felt her throat lock. What could she say? I'm here for you …? With her mind reeling it took her too long to think of another answer and she saw him draw his head back so he could survey her for evidence of lying. Sydney's eyes instinctively cut away, all the clue Sark needed. She felt him shake her slightly by the hair, precursor to another head-slamming.
"Now, now Sydney, don't think up a lie, answer me: why are you here?"
Below him, Sydney fixed her fiercest scowl to her face, but the fight was going out of her. She told, strictly speaking, the truth. "I'm here for Dodgson."
She saw Sark blink.
She definitely saw Sark blink.
Puzzled, flustered, she spoke.
"So Sark, why are you here?"
Sark looked down at the furious faced and hissing Sydney Bristow he saw beneath him – she still obviously resented and despised him, God knows why she hadn't shot him in Stuttgart - and wondered how the hell she couldn't hear the sudden snapping crack inside his head when his mind had practically exploded in his scull at her question.
Fuck!
Despite all appearances, Sark was assailed by confusion. And Mr. Sark hated confusion.
How many times had he fantasised about a situation such as just this – running across Sydney on a mission or bumping into her unexpectedly during 'down-time' somewhere, in some way being abruptly presented with a clean sheet upon which to make his mark? And now it had stunningly and unexpectedly arrived … and now he wasn't sure he wanted it.
All the resentments he felt for her, all the dismissals and rejections she'd put him through. And bloody hell, but she hadn't even done the decent thing and shot him in Stuttgart!
He closed his mouth and swallowed, which was not necessarily a good idea, as he realised he could still taste Sydney from where he'd bitten her: cinnamon and something vaguely like honey.
Shut up Sarkey! - he ferociously berated himself – You're not interested in how she tastes!
And now there was James in the equation!
At the thought of James he abruptly rolled off Sydney, closing up against her, some shutter coming down. "Same reason as you," he replied to her question with what he hoped was a studied neutrality, his face shifting into an unreadable, polite expression. As he moved, the soil from the ground seemed simply to roll off him, Sydney suspected his clothing was impregnated with Teflon: to look at him you'd never know he'd gotten his hands dirty. "Despite appearances Sydney," he could hear his voice coming out clipped and curt, "I'm not quite Mr. Sloane's lapdog. He has kidnapped Dr. Dodgson, and I intend to get her back."
"Sure, because you kidnapped her first, right?" Sydney's snapped response gave away her tension - something was wrong. He'd rolled off her – almost looking guilty – the instant she'd mentioned Dodgson. She stiffened. She'd hit a nerve with Sark, and suddenly she wasn't sure it was a good thing. Sark and Dodgson? There couldn't be anything between them, could there? Between a lethal-cocktail of a man and an eccentric academic? That couldn't be, it was ridiculous! She come all this way, gotten all this far, and now -
Sydney's increasingly wild thoughts were interrupted by a vibration in her hip pocket. Sark was sitting so close to her that he felt it too. Sydney caught the sneering arc of his brow and just knew what he was going to say. "Oh shut up you perve! That's my cell-phone!"
Sydney's expression put the unvoiced question: may I answer it? After consideration, Sark nodded and moved away from her just enough to let her access the phone. She flicked open the clamshell to see the screen, but also saw the muzzle of Sark's Glock swing up into her face. He conveyed an entire sentence with the single arc of a raised eyebrow: well you didn't expect me to let you answer unsupervised, did you?
The screen showed the caller name. Sark could tell from the flash of her eyes that she was surprised. "I have to take the call, it's Marshall," she whispered. Sark raised his brows, querying why? She blushed. "He's my …" she stumbled for the word, "this is going to sound so stupid - "
"What? - he's your boyfriend?" Sark was aghast. First James and now Sydney? What did that little guy have down his trousers, a python?
"He's my off-site backup!" hissed Sydney.
Sark convulsed with silent laughter, falling half on top of her and half on the earth next to her. Sydney rolled her eyes and wriggled her arm free from under his weight – honestly, he could be so annoying! "Marshall, it's me." She felt Sark instantly rest the Glock warningly against her cheekbone as he listened to the call with her, and whilst she was sure he would never pull the trigger she knew he was quite capable of using the gun as a cosh and knocking her senseless if she pushed it. She steadied her voice. "Marshall, it's kinda busy right now - "
"Syd! Weird stuff's happening!" She saw Sark's eyebrows draw together in puzzlement as he heard Marshall's alarmed interruption, his head close to Sydney's as he listened in. "The tracker signal – there's another signal boosting alongside it." Sark reached to his inside pocket and drew out his own tracker. "I don't know what's going on. It looks like some kind of countdown. And there's a word flashing. Looks like," Marshall tried to get his tongue round the circumlocutions of Russian, but he didn't need to, Sydney and Sark could see the word on the Sark's tracker screen in front of them, "looks like," fumbled Marshall -
"Looks like 'Endgame'," spoke Sydney calmly.
"Gee, Syd, You're really good, how did you know that from all the way over there?"
"Gotta go Marshall. Things are going to start running hot around here."
Sark was already kneeling up, his knees sinking into the vaguely damp dirt. "Three minutes," he croaked out, white-faced. "She's got three minutes? This is crazy. I knew about the Endgame protocol, but it wasn't a problem. They'd never apply it to her. There's no reason to!" His voice spiralled up. "She doesn't know anything! She's just a scientist!"
Sydney was astounded. Mr. Sark was on the verge of palpable hysterics? She felt a dislocated amazement, both at the astounding sight and at what it strongly implied: that Sark had feelings involved in all this. She felt herself drifting free of her moorings - Mr. Sark did feelings? That can't be, he doesn't know what they are! Sark continued to spiral into an uncontrolled panic. "This can't be happening! It's completely illogical! She can't be going to die! I - " Sark's voice yanked to a stop as Sydney did the only thing she could think of to get them moving forward: she slapped him. Once. Hard. Straight to the face.
He hissed, a snarling big cat. Evidently slapping Mr. Sark was something one did not do. His gaze targeted onto hers, she saw his anger crest within him and then … it subsided. It had been an almost frightening sight. His eyes had been lit by something within, something almost daemonic, but then he had held on to himself and he had not struck back. Part of Sydney's mind flittingly wondered if he had a thing against hitting women? He had hit her before, but that had been in on-mission, no-alternative, knock-down drag-outs …
Sark pulled himself together, interrupting Sydney's thoughts. He jerked his head in the direction of the villa. "Let's get to it."
They raced, bent low, over the lawn to the house; crouching low behind a raised parapet that fronted a terrace. A guard rounded onto the terrace, Sydney shot him down before he had seen them, using her CIA dart gun. She saw Sark looking at it askance.
"Well, it gets the job done," she said defensively.
"It's a toy. When will you CIA types learn that it's quicker, cheaper and more effective to simply shoot people?"
"You know, you are one patronising bastard. Remind me of why we're doing this?"
Sark craned his neck to peek through the stone balustrade. "French windows, flimsy lock, that's our entry. You're doing it because you're a saint, I'm doing it," there was a slight pause, as though he were screwing himself up to admitting something, "because Dr. Dodgson is … important to me."
He sounded as though the last three words had been dragged out of him with a pair of hot pliers. Sydney looked at him, astounded. Sark cares about Dodgson? What? - I'm too late? She took in his appearance and found herself flaring in a rage. "You must be the only operative I can think of who'd go on a pre-planned covert night op wearing an Armani suit!"
Despite their desperate situation Sark found himself biting back. "Well there's hardly a law against it!"
"And if there was you'd break it!"
Sark looked at his watch "One minute and twenty seconds. I don't think we can stealth it."
"Oh, fine! Let's just bust in on unknown numbers. You take the 30,000 on the left and I'll take the 30,000 on the right!"
"Well do you have any other ideas? And it's now one minute ten!"
They stilled and stared at each other. A woman who'd come on the most tenuous of excuses hoping it would eventually lead her to the man crouched next to her, and now that it had, didn't know what to say - and a man who'd come to risk everything for a woman who hated his guts and made him more angry that anyone else alive.
There was a single beat, and then without a pause Sark and Sydney leapt over the parapet, guns out, exploding through the french windows, not knowing what they'd find or what they'd meet.
Author's note: The '30,000 on the left and 30,000 on the right' joke was taken from the last ever episode of Angel. But hey, they essentially got the idea from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
