Jack had moved farther into the cell room. He took the remaining mattress in the third cell as a sign that it had been occupied. It was impossible to tell how long ago that had been; there was no way to check if Sark had been telling them truth. He moved swiftly towards the next room, the door of which he found locked. It wasn't too difficult to open; it swung back on its hinges after he pushed it. Jack walked inside, there were plug outlets around the wall, desks at the sides, the curtains were closed and the room was otherwise empty. Jack's concentration was interrupted by Sark "you may want to leave there...now, preferably." A few seconds later the room exploded.
Chapter Three
The door to the study was pushed open, most things had been taken out, a desk remained and a chair had been pushed underneath it, it wasn't very light in the room but it had a warm feel to it due to the deep red it had been painted. There were shelves with a few books remaining and these were scattered in no particular order; Vaughn and Sydney flicked through them as they listened to Sark instructing Jack. Pictures were hung on the wall, scenic paintings of mountains and the French countryside. It was what Sark said next that got them actually listening to him properly, and not just as background sound.
"You may want to leave there...now, preferably" they heard him say over the speaker. The explosion was, naturally, unexpected and both the younger agents jumped, startled. Sydney practically threw the book she had been browsing through back on the shelf before darting from the room.. "I did warn him."
"Sark shut up!" Sydney shouted before calling out to her father.
They had reached the top of the stairs when a muffled voice called out to them. "I'm fine" the door of the room Jack had been in was balanced precariously against the frame, Jack was just getting to his feet when they saw him. The right shoulder of his coat was torn, blood smearing the tattered edges. He saw Sydney and Vaughn's worried faces and calmly brushed off their concerns. "It's nothing."
Sark's voice was heard again. The three agents were seriously starting to contemplate destroying the speakers. "Sloane says hello...if he really wanted you dead the house would have been rigged to explode the second you stepped inside." The speakers become muffled and then he spoke again "you were very close before...but for now I must be leaving" everything grew quet again.
"We don't need Sark's help to find a basement that may or may not hold something of value to us" Jack reminded them. He pushed past the broken door and made for the stairs, his two companions were halfway down.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Sydney looked back at her father, watching him carefully for any sign that he was masking an injury so they could continue on.
He didn't seem too bad. "I've suffered worse than being hit by a door. I'll live" Jack answered nonchalantly before stepping to the front, leading the way into the study. "Access to the basement will probably be in here, Sloane's private office, but the original will be around somewhere" he deduced before once again leaving the two of them alone.
The master bedroom had already been checked and Sydney and Vaughn were in the study so Jack began searching the second bedroom, nearest the bathroom. A single bed was next the right wall, the white sheet and thin purple blanket had been neatly folded and placed at the foot of the bed. Curtains blew away from the window, which was open slightly; the room was cool and the breeze refreshing. A desk with oval mirror attached was against the back wall and a chest of drawers beside that, a chair was tucked underneath the desk and a thin black coat draped over the seat. He could smell a trace of perfume in the air but it was fading, even quicker with the open window. There was something familiar about the room but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. Seeing nothing amiss or out of place he exited the room, looking up and down the corridor he spotted the door leading underneath the stairs.
The door, surprisingly, was unlocked. Immediately in front were boxes of various sizes, he opened one of them and peered inside. It was full of Styrofoam and scrunched up paper, but nothing else. Jack pushed through the boxes, they weighed next to nothing, they were purely superficial. A voice crackled through Jack's radio "we found something" Vaughn reported.
Jack responded straight away. "Me too" he spied, through the piles of boxes, the top of a door.
"We're going to check this out" Vaughn responded.
"We'll meet back here in ten minutes" Jack instructed and walked towards the inner door. It was locked and Jack made quick work of getting through. It was dark and he switched on the torch he had carried in with him, it was eerily silent down the staircase and the sound of Jack's footsteps echoed. He reached out and felt yet another closed door, this time to his right. The lights inside were on and as Jack entered he regarded the room grimly "some things never change" he mused. Everything within the 'conversation room' he had seen before, some of the instruments had been used on him before, but that was something Jack would rather not remember. He backed out of the room, directly in front of the staircase was a wall, concrete and grey like the outside and the first floor. He turned around to walk back upstairs when he felt cool air blowing onto the back of his neck and head. He turned back around and stared at the wall, there was the tiniest of cracks at the top, which he traced with his fingers. It was a false wall.
"There's nothing down here" this time it was Sydney that reported her and Vaughn's progress, or lack thereof. "Just a wall."
Jack had retreated back into the 'conversation room' and was looking around the area closest to the door with a careful, well-trained eye. "Look carefully..." he spoke into the radio "there should be a button or switch somewhere." As he told his daughter that, he noticed a switch, which wasn't that unusual, except it was supposedly a light switch, and he had already spotted the real one on the other side of the room when he first walked in. He flicked it upwards and heard the false wall slide noisily open. "Go back to the study, look around the door for a false light switch." A few minutes later Sydney responded that he was right, and they were going to check out whatever was at the bottom of the stairs.
Jack was already down there. Past the 'wall' was a corridor, he roughly estimated that it was about ten foot wide and twenty foot long, and factory lights lit it up. So far the 'basement' was uninteresting and Jack wondered what it was that Sark thought they would want to see. It had crossed his mind that Sark was just playing them. The only way to find out was to continue searching. But then, that wasn't easy when he didn't know what it was he should be trying to find. There was another door around twelve feet in front of him, on the left, and he made for that. Seconds later and Jack came to a stop before it, he couldn't explain how but he knew someone was in there. He was surprised to find the door unlocked, surely if someone was in there, Sloane wouldn't be so lax in his security. In the left hand corner of the room was a key and Jack picked it up, it was pitch black in there and only by the light of the torch did he see the small item. He swung the torch to the right. At first he didn't see anything, it was the soft sound of breathing that made him step closer to the bars of the cell. "There's someone down here" he said into the radio.
"Anyone we know?" Sydney asked. The younger Bristow and Vaughn had come upon another, smaller room. It had been a Lab, which was evident by the few remaining beakers and test tubes, everything else had been cleared out. "We're heading your way."
Jack didn't say anything; as yet he was not close enough to the prone form, whose back was facing him, to make a positive identification. He moved cautiously, conscious that this could be a trick. Then the person moved, having heard him, and was trying to get a better look at him. They hissed as though in pain. Jack began unlocking the door, the torch lighting up the floor, he was prepared for the prisoner to attack. A hand clutched one of the bars, a nail scarped on the metal causing rust flakes to fall to the ground. "Get me...out of here" a familiar voice ordered.
His hand stilled, the key still in the lock, Jack shone the torch into the face of the prisoner. She turned away, blocking her eyes from the light; it hurt her eyes for she had become accustomed to the dark. She stepped back, watching him curiously, as though unsure of whether he was a friend or foe. Then she heard someone else, a female voice. "Who is it?"
Jack tore his eyes away from her to see his daughter and Vaughn standing by the door. "It's your mother."
Irina eyed them inquisitively as they conversed in hushed tones; she looked at each of them carefully. "Am I supposed to know who you are?" all three agents swung to face her again. From the looks on their faces she guessed she should have some recollection of them. But all she could see in her mind; were blurry faces.