Chapter 36: Coup de Jarnac - a crippling blow to the back of the opponent's exposed knee or hamstring.
Vaughn steadied himself, taking aim: arms out before him, slightly flexed at the elbows, both fists wrapped around the gun, feet planted, legs apart, knees slightly bent. He was aiming squarely at Sark's head. Sark surveyed his stance.
"What's that, your 'looking butch' routine?"
"Back up against the car and spread. I'm cuffing you to it." Vaughn sounded tense, strung out, edgy.
"Up against the car, spread and cuffed? Planning to have sex with me?"
If Sark hadn't been under the pressure of trying to factor in where James was, of having to reckon up the time before Sloane's crew arrived, of having a ticking countdown to saving L.A. - presuming that could even be done – and of having a subliminal worry about Sydney, he would probably have laughed outright at the expression on Vaughn's face: pure aversion, a disgusted horror.
"You know Vaughn, sometimes I think the lady-boy doth protest too much?"
Vaughn blinked and then shook his sweat damped hair out of his eyes. He steadied the gun again. "Shut up … you fuck!"
"And now with the dirty-talk … Why Vaughn, you never swear."
"Toss me your piece!" Vaughn's voice held a cracked, splintered tone that Sark was almost puzzled at.
"Toss you my piece? Be careful Vaughn, or I'll think you're flirting again."
"I said give me your gun!" That same alarmingly cracked, almost squeaking, splintered note.
"My gun's on the passenger seat of the car behind me. For me to give you my gun I would have to pick it up. Now, is that something you really want?"
Truth was, by rights Sark knew he should have simply reached across and beaten Vaughn unconscious by now. Somewhere out there Allison was on her way, leading Sloane's extraction team. He was up against a deadline however he cut it, and he was wasting time on this pratt? He should be just whacking him out. So what was stopping him?
Sark flicked a pebble hard with his foot and wondered why he just didn't flick it up into Vaughn's eye, take his gun off him and get this over with.
Does Vaughn have help nearby?
"Where are your CIA chums Agent Vaughn? Been a naughty boy and come out without permission, have you?"
Vaughn blinked the sweat out of his eyes.
"Shut up. I'm calling H.Q. for back-up." That stressed, strung out note again.
Calling H.Q. for back-up … So no-one else was here then. Part of Sark relaxed. He had been worrying that Vaughn was here on a tip-off from Sydney to the CIA, that she'd set him up after all. But Vaughn's statement implied that he had come alone on some bizarre off-chance …Vaughn had his comm out, but had half-dropped it and was trying to wrangle it whilst keeping his gaze and gun trained on Sark.
Sark didn't want Vaughn to get back up. Extra men, satellite surveillance: far too tedious. In the still, heavy dark the perfect diversionary tool came to him: he suddenly knew why Vaughn was so strung out.
"Did you enjoy watching Sydney and I say farewell? Really, who would ever have thought it of you, Vaughn: voyeurism."
The words dropped like pebbles down a scree: discrete, curt, clipped, each seemingly inconsequential in themselves, but the beginnings of a landslide.
"Don't you even mention her name!" It was a raw scream; the gun shook in Vaughn's hand.
"Or what? She'll re-appear in a puff of smoke?"
Vaughn's emotionally hurt, distorted face reddened. "Where is Sydney? I saw her leave. Where did she go? Why was she here?"
Sark regarded him. Vaughn must have been here all the time. He'd only made his move after Walker had gone, just waiting for the numbers to even up.
Sark knew that Vaughn - sweating, red-eyed, unshaven - had come out alone, following Sydney, getting out of his depth. It was the kind of stupid thing Vaughn would do. The kind of stupid, hubristic, proprietary thing Vaughn would do because Sydney was his girlfriend …
"Sydney's not here." Sark hissed the words out. "She's gone. Oh she's quite safe, in fact I helped her leave as you well know."
"Shut up!"
Don't want to talk about it Vaughn? Sark almost sneered, but he was surprised at how furiously angry he genuinely felt.
"She's gone to rescue her father on a sanctioned CIA mission," he continued, his words like arrows: poison tipped. "One you'd be on if you weren't pissing about here, playing Boys Own Rescue Mission for people who don't need to be rescued."
The stuttering look on Vaughn's face told Sark he'd hit a target. It didn't lessen Sark's anger, just fanned it.
"As to why she was here Vaughn, maybe you should ask her, if she lets you catch up with her. I got the distinct impression that," - damn whatever her real reason was! - "it was becauseshe wanted to see me and she thought I'd be here." Sark smirked: provocative, elegantly vicious. His words came out like honey poured over razor blades. "Sydney and I do so enjoy our … little games together. I'm sure even you must have noticed."
It was like pressing a Pavlovian button.
"I told to you not to mention her name!"
"Why not? I like her, she certainly likes me. You saw how we are together."
"What I saw, it was … it was nothing!" That cracked top-note again. "There's … it could have been anything! It could have been …" There was almost a sobbing note to it now, "there's things like brainwashing …"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, face up to it." It was one of the few times Sark had ever sworn out loud, but he felt the spur of bitter scorn. "Sydney and I have a connection between us that you can never possibly sever. Just accept it."
Because I'm having to …
"I'm telling you to shut up!" That fractured, sobbing note again.
"Or what, you'll shoot me? You're not man enough. What are you Vaughn, mid to late 30s? - and you're still just a little boy."
And I'm the opposite, an ancient monster hiding behind a boy's face. Sark startled himself, and then slapped the unbidden thought away. He didn't even know where it had come from. His face betrayed nothing of it.
"Christ, they even call you Boy Scout. In England they'd laugh at your codename. In England a Boy Scout is a mummy's boy, a nancy," he thought of an American word, "a wimp," and then fell back into Brit-speak, reeling off the insults. "A trainspotter, a spindle-shanks, a wazzock, someone who's a bit nesh, a pansy, a wet, a milk-sop, a stamp-collector, an anorak, someone who's a bit …" he bit his lip thinking for the precise description, "someone who's a bit like you Vaughn."
Vaughn had the gun. Sark had his hands in his pockets and was ostensibly unarmed. Vaughn was the one under siege.
"You don't even know her!" That same, broken, shattered, half-sobbing note.
"No, you don't, you sad git! You just think you do!"
And then Sark knew why he hadn't left sooner, why he hadn't slammed Vaughn senseless already: this exchange wasn't about getting Vaughn away from his comm, it was about Sydney. He had wanted a fight with Vaughn about Sydney. He had wanted a face-off, and here it was.
Sydney: the one thing he and Vaughn would ever have in common, the one thing they would never agree on.
"You think you know her?" Sark continued, hissing, "how can you, you've never even met her! That person you think you know? – she's just another one of Sydney's disguises! The one she wears every day: Little Miss Bristow who tries to be perfect for everyone. I'm amazed she hasn't split into a thousand pieces trying to live up to everyone's different expectations. Who is she for you – Little Suzy Home-maker? Super-Agent By Day, and 'dead from the neck up and polite from the waste down' by night?"
Vaughn flinched.
"Well I've met the real Sydney, I met her in Paris when she was purring it up like crazy as a nightclub singer, thinking it was safe because she thought no-one would see it was the real her doing it. I met her in FAPSE headquarters, verbally trick-shotting me, when just for a second she couldn't hide the fact she was interested. I used to meet her at SD-6 when she was so desperate to keep her hate-face on for me that I knew there had to be a reason behind it. And I met her again tonight! The real Sydney, warm, passionate, and needing someone who'll let her know it's safe to show it. The real Sydney is someone you will never meet because she'll never let you meet her! She knows you'd be ashamed of her, and," Sark heard a white hiss in his head as he hit the truth, "and that makes her ashamed of herself!"
He was almost breathless. He hadn't realised he had that many words in him about someone. He didn't know he'd done that much thinking about Sydney.
Vaughn's words bawled out, jerking Sark's attention back to him. "Don't tell me I don't know her! It's you who don't know her! You just wish you did!" His voice held almost a screaming note. "You're just someone on the outside of life, looking in! Well the rest of us – the humans on the planet, Sydney, me - we don't want you here!"
Something in Sark's gut twinged … outside of life, looking in … a confused, far-off memory of an ant-farm and … He pulled himself into the present. As sneering, cool and goading as the shattered Vaughn was hysterical.
"Vaughn, it's strange, but have you ever wondered how odd it is that we're almost two opposing male archetypes? There's me: ruthless, controlling, decisive, action orientated, goal directed, achievement focused, and then there's … you. Wonder which type Sydney will pick in the end?" He let his gaze dismissively trawl over Vaughn. "Reckon she's already tried you. Maybe she'll try me? And if it doesn't work out between us … well," he snickered, mimicking the line from Casablanca, "we'll always have Stuttgart."
Sark had only been guessing at Stuttgart, but when he saw the other man snarl he knew he'd found another Pavlovian button: the stairwell incident in Stuttgart, Sydney's non-shooting of Sark.
Must hurt to know that your lover risked you for the sake of another man, especially for one she purportedly hates.
Sark had pressed a button alright, Vaughn looked wild and then his voice filled the night air with an angry roar.
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT STUTTGART MEANS TO ME SARK? IT SHOWED UP THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US! WHEN I PUT A GUN TO SOMEONE'S HEAD, I DON'T JUST SHOOT!"
"Neither do I Vaughn, or you'd obviously be dead." Sark held his counter-poise against Vaughn, his voice a poisoned blade, smoothly toxic. "We both know I had plenty of time to shoot you in Stuttgart, but I chose not to. You're alive because I let you live. Deal with it."
Silence reverberated. Vaughn's breath filled the night with the sound of raw, fractured hitches. His eyes were reddened. He looked as though he was barely holding himself together. After what he'd seen tonight he knew he'd lost Sydney – after all he'd done to try to keep her, to show her his love - and he'd lost her to Sark: his greatest fear come true.
Sark wondered if Vaughn were actually going to start crying.
He cocked his head, genuinely querying yet still managing to somehow drip contempt, pushing the knife in as far as it would go.
"What's it like, knowing she won't ever love you, no matter how hard you love her?"
The ultimate flash-point, and Vaughn did not pull the trigger.
Sark knew then that the poor bastard just didn't have it in him: shoot in the heat of battle, yes, but in cold blood? – no. Strip it down to it's core and Sark knew it went like this: Vaughn was a human being struggling to hold down a job he should never have been in, and Sark was a machine-tooled, ruthless bastard. Training or no training, Project Birthday or no Project Birthday, each were what they were born to be.
If Sark had no training whatsoever, and Vaughn were still a fully prepped field agent, then Sark could still have taken him.
A trickle of sweat that had nothing to do with the hot L.A. night ran down Vaughn's face, and Sark knew another thing then: not only was Vaughn not going to shoot him, but that he, Sark, wasn't going to kill Vaughn.
What's the point? I know Sydney doesn't love him … and so does he. I don't need to save her from him – Sydney isn't Vaughn's to lose. He doesn't even know her, not the real Sydney, not the Sydney I saw on a stage in Paris. She'd never let him meet the real Sydney anyway, she knows he'd be scared of her.
Sark abruptly turned toward the car. He didn't even make a pretence of it. He simply turned to the car and walked toward it. When he reached it, he'd lean on the horn and call for James. Sark was leaving. There was nothing to stay for.
Vaughn didn't have Sydney so Sark didn't need to fight him. Game over.
"Stop!" yelled Vaughn, voice fractured, almost sobbingly angry, but still unable to make himself do anything about it.
Sark waved a hand over his shoulder, a dismissive gesture.
"I said STOP!"
"You're not going to shoot me Vaughn – an unarmed man who didn't shoot you? - you haven't got it in you."
"You're going down if I have to use my bare hands!" screamed Vaughn.
Reaching the car, Sark cast his reply over his shoulder, not even bothering to look. "Vaughn, the only way you could beat me up is if I was handcuffed to a chair."
Sark was completely disdainful. Vaughn had nothing he wanted. Vaughn wasn't worth dealing with. Vaughn would never shoot him. Sark reached over to press the car horn. Sark had forgotten his own maxim: words can do more damage than bullets.
Vaughn called up from behind him, a last, defiant, hoarse, desperate, shout.
"YOU'LL NEVER BE ANYTHING BETTER THAN TRASH!" It was a scream that filled the night. "You think Sydney will want to be your friend? You think you can change? – well you can't! You're just a killer. You're scum! You'll never be anything better! YOU'LL NEVER BE ANYTHING BETTER EVEN IF YOU TRY!"
Whether Vaughn knew it or not, that was the only thing he could ever have said that would have stopped Sark in his tracks.
"YOU'RE JUST A PIECE OF TRASH!"
Sark's hand poised over the car horn as memories detonated inside his head.
… Oh puhleeze, cut the soulful 'I'm hurt' routine, you bastard. You haven't got it in you to be hurt! … a vicious killer who'll never be able to change or be any better? You think I feel any CONNECTION to you? … And then a different voice … I don't need you to wish me luck you bastard … we're not friends and we're not going to be friends …
All the times I've let myself be treated as a servant, have carried out terrible orders … done terrible things I've known I shouldn't … and I can't ever change …
Vaughn's continuing screams reverberated in the still, night air.
"YOU CAN'T CHANGE!" he screamed. "YOU DON'T EVEN WANT TO! - AND EVEN IF YOU TRY, YOU'LL FAIL!"
Sark turned, one thought blasting through his head: I'M NOT LIKE THAT!
For a second nothing happened and then … he bore down on Vaughn. Swift, implacable, covering the gap. He saw Vaughn's face abruptly pale and thought it was with anger, he didn't realise it was with fear. Sark's face was a death mask: his mask, someone else's death. A shocked Vaughn got his gun up. Sark ignored it and just kept coming.
"You're just out for what you can get," Vaughn roared, "and if you can't get it then you'll take it anyway! You'll work for anyone. Everyone's little servant! They snap their fingers and you just jump. You work for people who firebomb churches!"
Sark started sprinting at him.
Vaughn started stumbling backward, trying to keep space between them, somehow unable to bring himself to pull the trigger even as he carried on roaring his rage.
"You're the kind of creep who thinks there's no place for decency in this job! That's where you're different from Sydney. BECAUSE SHE KNOWS THERE IS!"
Don't talk about Sydney – I know her, I knew her even before I was born… I -
Vaughn's roar came again. "What Sydney deserves is a chance with a man who's a decent human being - not a piece of filth like you!"
Sark sprang.
Vaughn scrambled backwards, almost falling. "YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THAT SHE HAS FEELINGS FOR YOU?" he screamed as Sark was on him, with Sark punching and kicking, Vaughn's gun hand kept at bay. "She denies that she cares, she tries to hide it, but she's LYING! I KNEW EVEN BEFORE TONIGHT! Do you think I'm STUPID? But I'll do my damndest to make sure she doesn't go to scum like you! I might not deserve her, BUT SHE DOESN'T DESERVE YOU!"
It occurred to a calm, far off part of Sark's mind that Vaughn was pushing him so far so hard so that he could finally make himself shoot: in hot-blooded self-defence.
"She's lying to herself!" choked Vaughn as Sark grabbed him by the throat, strangling him, trying to stop the words from coming out. "She thinks you can change. That if she can just hold on long enough, you'll turn some kind of corner. Well you won't! You can't! YOU HAVEN'T GOT IT IN YOU!"
And then Sark knew why he'd stuck around to fight a man who had nothing worth taking: because this squeaky, squealy, pen-pushing, angst-prone, decisiveness-free-zone who held a gun on him, did have something Sark wanted. He'd had a decent childhood, the choice of a career, a clean sheet with the forces of law and order, the prospect of love untainted by any previous damage: he had the life Sark wanted. Sark could have raged: the little git had a life, and with his endless shillly-shallying he didn't even know how to live it!
Half-snarling, something snapped inside him and he flung Vaughn from him, releasing him. He wasn't going to kill him, not for committing the crime of making Sark partly envy him.
Vaughn staggered back, free hand to his wealed neck, sucking in rasping breath, and with the gun – by accident or design - raising at Sark.
Sark blinked. What? Vaughn was going to shoot?
"And if you don't put that gun down, your head is coming straight off. Oh, and by the way, when I have a gun pointed at someone's head? - I do just shoot."
James held a gun straight to Vaughn's head. She'd gotten it off one of the dead guards back in the house. In her other hand she held the Rambaldi Wand.
Vaughn was startled, his gaze flicking about. "I am a CIA agent," his voice was raw from his shouting and his near-strangulation. "I am a CIA agent, and you are threatening to kill me."
"Nah. I've got the gun pointed at your head and in your case that's a non-lethal target. If I wanted to shoot your brains, I'd have it pointed at your ass. Drop it." She meant Vaughn's gun.
Without any preamble Sark did what he'd been telling himself to do for the past five minutes, he knocked Vaughn's gun out of the way and then knocked the man out. Vaughn slumped to the floor like a sack of potatoes that hadn't even been tied in the middle.
Sark's head swirled, a kaleidoscope of exploding colours, threaded through with disbelief. He felt he were floating. … What? … James just picked me? … She had a chance to escape with Vaughn … to hand me in … to even let him kill me … and she picked me? … She had a choice? … And … she sided with me! … And then he felt a horrible vertigo, a sense of panic because he remembered her words. Oh, and by the way, when I have a gun pointed at someone's head? I do just shoot …
A screaming horror ran through him.
She had heard Vaughn's comment about Stuttgart. How long had she been standing there? Was she standing there even before then? How long after? How much had she heard? What had she heard about Sydney?
Vaughn and I were fighting like madmen over Sydney.
Does she think I love Sydney? Do I love Sydney? How much of what Vaughn had said, of what I had said, did she believe? Worse still, how much of what Vaughn said about me was … true?
Horrified, Sark could not make himself look up from Vaughn's prone body, scared of what he might see on James' face.
James betrayed nothing of what she had heard or thought and instead looked down at the unconscious figure of the previously hysterical man. She peered over him: small, dainty, birdlike.
"Jeez, who stole his bicycle?"
Sark's throat locked, but then he was saved from having to comment, because his gaze was drawn across the vast expanse of lawn to where, through a belt of trees, he could see a speeding cavalcade of three cars whipping up the long, curving drive: Allison.
He was almost relieved, it rescued him from the agonies of introspection and discussion and questioning. It put off having to sort things out.
He yanked James by the wrist, hurtling across the car pound. He knew that the car he'd picked was no good for this new job, it wasn't even off-road: to get past those cars coming up the driveway they'd need something very fast and very nippy. He'd seen a vehicle that fitted the bill. It even had the keys in it. As they passed the car he had intended to use he got his gun out of it and she hauled out the angle grinder and some of the other stuff she'd wanted. He almost told her to leave it, that they wouldn't be using it, that they weren't going to save the world after all. He'd made up his mind. There wasn't enough time left, it couldn't be done, they were just going to get killed trying. They got on the wheels Sark had spotted, James dropping the equipment she'd salvaged into it's pannier carriers; the wand tucked down the back of her trousers as Sark had his gun holstered on his ankle. He flicked the ignition and they ripped off.
"Who's bike is this?' he called over his shoulder as he punched the black BMW up through the gears, flashing toward the oncoming cars.
"Walker's!"
In the rapidly increasing windstream James heard Sark's gleeful snicker trailing over his shoulder. "Good. Let's wreck it!"
The bike whammed up the drive, speeding between the oncoming cars, presenting a target too fast to hit, but not too fast to see. The cars pulled 180s to get after them. Evidently Allison was not to be cheated of her quarry. They ripped up toward the estate's gates, Sark pulling ahead on the curved drive: the cars had as much top as the bike, but he had greater acceleration.
He could hear James screaming to be heard behind him, her voice fighting against the whistling wind.
"We've got to turn right at the gate to get into the city!"
And to turn left to live.
"There's time, we can still do it!" she screamed.
There isn't, we can't!
The bike decelerated smoothly at the open gate, and then … turned left.
"Sark!"
James' scream was ripped away in the wind.
"Sark, stop! We can still do it!"
He accelerated away from the city.
"Sark! It's our responsibility! If you don't do this now -
He heard James' screaming voice being clawed away by the wind … she'd hate him forever for this, but at least she'd be alive to do it. Her plan could not be done.
And then another voice came, one that was clear, definite, speaking from inside his head not out, another voice which had spoken to him that night: Vaughn's.
You haven't got it in you.
Sark felt a white rushing noise of rage in his head.
YOU HAVEN'T GOT IT IN YOU.
His vision narrowed to a dark focal point, blistering with anger.
YOU HAVEN'T GOT IT IN YOU.
He didn't have it in him? WELL … FUCK IT! – HE DID!
He pulled a u-turn so brutal that it burned rubber into the tarmac and suddenly they were headed right. He clicked up through the gears again … and then felt a sense of panic. He wasn't wearing a crash-helmet. He didn't have a visor on him. At the speeds he was pulling he was blinded by the wind and dust. He didn't know which way to go!
And then it was alright, and then he could see clearly, and then he did know the way because James had reached into his inside jacket pocket and popped his Oakleys on his nose.
