Sark couldn't have picked a better place to hide out, she mused as she walked through the downtown of Cheltenham. The place was crawling with tourists, mostly American college students, from what she could tell. She checked herself into a bed and breakfast on the outskirts of town for that night, one that could only be described as "impossibly cute" in a travel guide, and rented a bicycle from the kind couple who seemed overly concerned that she was a young American woman traveling alone.
"Don't worry, I know ka-raat-tay," she'd joked with them. They loved Friends, it turned out, and got the reference to Ross's fictitious exercises to relieve his sexual tension when Carol had turned out to be a lesbian.
Now she wore a sleek, dark bob, and was wearing good fitting sneakers (hah, sneakers, she laughed as she put them on) in case she had to run. Sunglasses in place, backpack with camera, a bottle of water, a piece of bread with butter and cheese that the couple had forced on her, and of course, her extra gun. Her regular was stashed firmly in her shoulder harness, under the zip-up hoodie she was wearing. She didn't care for how it pressed into the soft part of her left side when she pedaled the bike uphill, but the safety was on. No use in shooting her good side with her own gun.
She biked up the macadam road, up away from the town and into the rolling hills surrounding it. The driveway for the manor, as nearly as she could tell, was quite long, and was guarded by a pillar with a stone fox atop it.
She ditched the bike in a hedgerow and entered the woods at the side of the property. Her senses were on full alert, now- who knew what was in the brush, in the trees. The satellite scans of the area had been cold, but…
Closer, closer, closer she crept, walking heel to toe to keep from crunching in the underbrush.
The forest was growing lighter with each step- she was reaching the edge. Get low, she heard her father's deep voice in her head, as if he'd been right there along with her.
Slow and slower she crawled to the edge of the trees, and then finally hid behind a clump of long grass. The forest gave way to a gentle slope down to the property where the manor and outbuildings stood.
She pulled her camera from the bag, and screwed the telephoto lens firmly into place. Through it, she could make out a sandy rectangle of earth behind the house, next to where some horses were grazing and swishing their tails in a pasture. So those were horses in Nigel's pictures, she thought. Someone must live here, they look well taken care of. She hated when people abused animals. That show, Animal Cops on the Animal Planet, broke her heart.
As if on cue, a horse and rider appeared out of the woods at the back of the property. Was it- her heart beat slightly faster- yes.
Through the lens she watched, watched the horse's every stride as it strode towards the arena. It was a large grey, with a mane shorn so that it stuck up like the crest on Roman soldier's helmet, and small ovals of darker color in its coat, mostly on its legs and flanks. What were those spots called, she wracked her brain. Dapples? That sounded right.
It was Sark. No helmet, she noticed, that didn't seem too bright. He rode into the arena, the grey swinging its long neck from side to side ever so slightly on the loose rein. He wore gloves, the tall black boots, little silver spurs. He didn't know he had an audience, she grinned. Sark seemed barely older than the last time she'd seen him. His blonde hair was still shorn quite close, but his skin on his face and arms seemed very tan. Maybe it was the light- the sun was starting to fade into the line of the horizon. Either way, unfair. Men had it easier.
After a time or two around the arena, and a few photos had been snapped, Sark gathered up the horse's reins until they seemed, to Sydney, to be impossibly short for the horse's long neck to be comfortable. But the horse responded, curling itself into what seemed like a terribly tight frame, like a spring being wound up. It swished its tail and stepped off into a canter, apparently at an aide from him that was imperceptible to her, at this distance and to her untrained eye.
They rode around the edge of the arena, past letters marked distinctly in black on painted white squares of plywood: A-F-B-M-C-H-E-K and back to F again before cutting, diagonally, across the arena towards H. The horse shook its head slightly, and started… it looked like skipping to her. It threw front legs out and hopped into the air with every stride, the bend of its body changing left-right-left-right-left-right depending on which front leg it pushed out first. Sark's body barely moved in the saddle, she noticed, so it must not be as bumpy as it looked.
They reached F, and the horse settled on being bent to the right. They reached M in a few powerful springy strides and went diagonally again, this time towards K. But this time, the horse didn't skip- about a quarter of the way across the area, it bent strongly right and started pivoting around its right hind leg. She frowned, not sure of the point of this exercise. The horse didn't look uncomfortable, though- no, its ears were placidly to the sides and occasionally flicked back towards Sark- was he talking to it?- and it lowered its hindquarters so that its front end could swing around. In 6 strides it had completed the pirouette, and they were striding towards K at full steam.
The horse hopped again at A, and bent this time to the left- the pair left the edge at F and repeated the pirouette to the other direction, this time with less labor, it appeared. Sydney realized she'd forgotten to take any pictures. Just as they came out of the left pirouette, she snapped a shot that captured the absolute concentration on Sark and the horse's face.
They made it to H and the horse hopped again, back to the right. They cut up the center of the arena, leaving the rail at C, and in the dead center (X marks the spot, Sydney almost giggled out loud) they stopped. The horse, she noted, hadn't slowed down so much as it had simply ceased to move forward. It was still wound up tight, ready to strike off at Sark's command, but instead, he leaned forward and… caressed its neck with his closed, gloved hand without releasing the grey from the tight rein. The horse blinked and chewed, a glob of white foamy saliva dripping from its mouth.
Sark let the reins slide through his gloved fingers then, as the grey unwound from its tight frame; she was amazed how much longer the horse seemed. It shook its head and scratched its front leg with its lips as it walked languidly forward.
After what was ostensibly a walk to relax the horse's muscles- since it didn't appear sweated- they stopped again and Sark dismounted, his boots raising a tiny puff of dust when they hit the sand. He walked beside the horse into the dark of the barn, without a hand on its reins then, and they were out of her sight.
She lie very still, trying not to shiver, and waiting for the cover of dark. Her head itched under the wig. He'd left the barn some time ago, after turning off the lights and releasing the grey back into the pasture with the other horses. The grey had kicked up its heels and run over to a dark brown horse with a black mane and tail. The two had stood, nose-to-tail, biting at each other's necks, before the grey had wheeled and kicked the brown one solidly in the shoulder before running off, snorting and squealing.
He'd stood at the gate, watching, and she thought she saw him smile through her binoculars. It wasn't as creepy as when Sloane smiled, she thought, at least Sark had a sense of humor.
Boring so far, she told herself. So Sark likes horses? Somewhat unsurprising for a guy who'd been raised in England, she thought. After Charles had married Camilla, one of the newbies had sent around an email joke back at the Ops Center, a picture with the caption, "Charles meets Camilla for the first time". Someone had altered a photo of the prince in hunt garb, sitting on a white horse, so that the horse's eyes and mouth had Camilla's features pasted over them. Cute, in a cruel kind of way.
The light in the upstairs of the house finally flicked off, and she sighed. It was time.
She would go in the barn first, she had decided. No sense in risking the house this early in the mission. She crept slowly down the hill, darting between trees and the occasional large boulder.
Once inside, she drew her gun and clicked the safety off. It was very dark inside the barn. She could taste the smell of manure on her tongue, mingled with the sweet grassy smell of hay and what smelled like… soap? Ok, even horses needed baths, she supposed. Down the main aisle past the stalls, to a room with a door.
She eased the doorknob to the right, and froze when it squeaked under her touch. She was beginning to sweat a little under her arms. Deep breath, deep belly breath.
The door swung soundlessly inward to reveal a small, square room full of…
Saddles. And bridles. They were hung neatly on pegs, covers on the saddles, the bridles on racks lining the far wall. The metal mouthpieces of the bridles glinted in the moonlight coming through the small, high window. Everything looked well taken care of, she noted. And nothing seemed suspicious.
She licked her lower lip and tasted dust as she eased the door closed again. Just as the latch clicked into the frame of the door, she heard the safety of a gun click off behind her head.
"What a pleasant surprise, Agent Bristow," he purred in his silky British accent, pressing the barrel of his gun to the nape of her neck.
"Sark."
The circle of cold metal was raising the hairs on the backs of her arms under her sweatshirt.
"Turn around, slowly," he commanded evenly, "And put your safety on."
"Alright," she acquiesced, her thumb on the butt of her gun. She was a good negotiator, but… she turned, digging her right heel into the dirt.
She was met with his smirk as he pressed the gun into her shoulder. "I see your spy skills are ever evolving," he taunted her. "I spotted you in the woods while I was out hacking with my horse."
"Cute wig," he touched her hair, his free hand so close to her cheek that she could feel the heat, "Though I don't think it's really your color."
The last thing she remembered seeing, after his hand next to her cheekbone, was the little silver buckle on the strap of his spurs as her cheek hit the dirt floor of the barn and she succumbed to the darkness.