I made myself as comfortable as possible and allowed my eyes to drift shut, slowly slipping back into a world as dark as that on the outside of the plane, but a world in which Sydney was still within my reach. I heard Sark finally begin to speak, but whatever he may have said was quickly blocked by Sydney's voice. I was already drowning in her, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
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Chapter 39
When I awoke sometime later, I was once again alone. I stood slowly and stretched, my back protesting against all of the airplane sleeping. I made my way to Irina's office, but found only Jack in there.
"Where are we?" I questioned tiredly.
"Austrian airspace. We should be arriving in Munich within the next 45 minutes." With a nod, I yawned and sat down on the couch, watching Jack intently staring at the computer screen, which I could see but not quit read.
"Where are Irina and Sark?" I asked. It seemed to take a while to register, but eventually Jack looked over at me.
"I don't know," he said briefly before turning back to the computer.
"Can I ask what has you so strictly focused?" he barely glanced at me before replying.
"You can ask, but that doesn't mean I'll answer." I almost laughed; I should have expected that. So I leaned back, got comfortable, and resigned myself to a long wait before I got any answers from anyone. The next 15 minutes passed in companionable silence before the door being shoved open roughly drew the attention of both Jack and myself. Irina entered briskly, not even sparing me a sideways glance as she commandeered her computer, causing Jack to scoot to the side. She stood there, typing busily for a few minutes, before swiftly clicking the mouse and leaving much the same as she'd entered. Jack and I exchanged curious looks as the door slammed shut in her wake.
"Any idea?" I questioned.
"Not a clue."
"Right." A short time later, the door opened once more, this time admitting Sark into the room much more calmly than Irina. He gazed at each of us in turn before focusing his eyes on me.
"Irina has asked that I inform you both that we'll be making our landing in approximately seven minutes." I acknowledged him with a nod, but Jack, who hadn't taken his eyes off the computer for even a second when Sark entered the room, continued to ignore him. With a glare at Jack, Sark turned and left, slamming the door much as Irina had. I rubbed the back of my neck and turned to look at Jack, who was still intently focused on the computer.
"Ok. Did I miss something here?" I asked.
"Wouldn't be the first time," he replied smoothly.
"Funny, Jack. Real funny." He said nothing, and I shook my head in consternation. "Seriously Jack. What's going on?" He finally turned and looked at me, giving me his full attention.
"Michael, I'm being completely honest with you. I don't know any more about their combined attitude than you do. Irina will tell us when and if she feels the time is right." I sighed.
"So basically, never."
"Quite likely."
"Great." He gave me a sympathetic nod before looking back to the computer. I watched him for a few moments until he seemed satisfied and began to shut the machine down. "I bet you've just been playing Solitaire for the past hour," I mumbled. He peered at me over his shoulder.
"How'd you guess?"
"Did Jack Bristow just crack a joke?"
"Tell anyone and you're a dead man."
"That's more like it." He smirked and motioned towards the door.
"Come on. Should be landing any minute now." I stood up and followed him out, and as we joined our allies, he grabbed Irina's hand and lead her off to the side. They spoke in imperceptible whispers for a few minutes before Irina moved off and sat with Sark. I watched Jack curiously; he gave me a sharp look before seating himself next to Irina. I turned to watch the view outside, knowing- or at least, hoping- that meant he would tell me later.
"So what's the plan?" I asked as we drew closer to the runway.
"Once we get off the plane, we leave via the nearest exit; a contact, one apparently well known to all of us, will be waiting nearby." Irina's answer was short, and even I could tell that something about the plan was not to her liking.
"We don't know who this contact is, nor if they are friend or foe to us. We were given no fail-proof way to identify the person, just that one hint- each of us is familiar with him. Or her," Sark elaborated slightly on what Irina had told us.
"Do we have time to come up with some kind of list? Try to narrow down the possibilities?" I asked.
"If we'd received the information more than ten minutes ago, we might have been able to," Irina said angrily.
"As it stands, we're touching down right now; if we're to follow the instructions Irina was given, there's no way we'll have the time to even begin scratching the surface of a list of any kind," Jack stated. He gave me a knowing look as I sighed and rubbed my forehead, feeling frustrated.
Ten minutes later, we were making our way through the terminal and outside, in search of a potential contact. The fairly large throngs of people milling about made our task near impossible, and we were all quickly beginning to lose hold of any patience we had left.
"Split up," Irina ordered brusquely. "We may have a better chance of finding this person quickly if we aren't all searching the same places." She and Sark melted into the masses, and Jack led me in the opposite direction.
"This is hopeless," I gritted out, feeling the sudden urge to rip out handfuls of my own hair.
"I imagine you've figured this out on your own, but when Irina barged into her office like that, it was indeed to check some facts regarding the information that had just come in." I nodded.
"Yeah, that was my guess." We continued searching in silence. A short time later, I spotted a familiar face leaning against the wall, looking around casually. I stopped dead and grabbed Jack's arm.
"Jack. Look." I pointed, and Jack shifted his gaze. He frowned, looking puzzled.
"He must be the one. We need to find Sark and Irina."
"You get them. I'll go let him know we're here." Jack nodded and made his way back to where we'd last seen Sark and Irina, while I approached the man we hoped was our contact. He smiled as he spotted me, and reached out to shake my head. I accepted, somewhat reluctantly.
"Agent Vaughn, good to see you. Where are the others? They're here, right?"
"Yeah, they are. But, I don't understand… what are you doing here, Dixon?"
"I'm… well, I'm honestly not completely sure. But I'll wait until Jack, Irina, and Sark are here too, and I'll tell all three of you what I know." I nodded and moved to take a seat on the edge of a flowerbed as we waited.
They emerged from the crowd moments later, making a direct line towards us. Sark and Irina looked just as puzzled as Jack had when he first caught sight of Dixon.
"What's going on?" Sark asked wearily. Jack and Dixon shared a warm handshake before Dixon turned to face all of us. Before he could begin speaking, Irina held up a hand.
"Wait. As much as we're all quite curious to know how you're connected to all of this, I wouldn't classify this as a safe place to talk. We need to go somewhere more private."
"I have a hotel room not far away," Dixon offered.
"Paid for by whom? SD-6?" Irina questioned, and he nodded. "No. That won't do. We need something we can be sure is safe."
"I have a friend and contact in the area… as well as a key to his private office," Jack mentioned, holding up said key.
"How far from here?" I inquired. He turned and slowly surveyed the surrounding structures before indicating one down the street, no entirely too far from us.
"The Bavarian State Archives?" Dixon asked.
"Yes, he works there. On such short notice, this is as good as we're going to get." Irina nodded her agreement.
"Lead the way Jack." We hurried down the street, attempting to move quickly but also keep a low profile. Less than half an hour later, Jack had managed to get all of us into his friend's office without being spotted by anyone, so far as we knew.
As we got settled in, Jack and Irina went through and checked for bugs as best they could, closing windows and curtains in the process. Finally seeming satisfied, Irina sat down while Jack fixed his gaze on Dixon. The friendly exterior of earlier had long since vanished, replaced by a cool detachment and a heavy warning in his eyes.
"So, Marcus… you've got a lot of explaining to do. I might suggest you start talking- right now."