Bucharest's Otopeni airport was small, maybe 12 gates. They had changed planes in Vienna, and the difference between that city and this one, between Western Europe and the former Soviet bloc, was still palpable. People here were skinnier, leaner around the hips. The women were all kind of bitchy looking, he decided.

As they strode through the terminal to baggage, he watched her without actually looking at her, in his peripheral vision. She was already working, starting to put on her alias.

He was beginning to enjoy having her along as a partner, he decided. He rarely worked with anyone. It was his good luck to work with someone who was as skilled as she was. Such a pity she had to be so moralistic and go over to the CIA. He knew she ignored it, the irritating incompetence of her employer and fellow CIA agents, but he figured it was only a matter of time until it got her killed.

They had a current address for Wells in the capital city, and made their way to a nearby hotel. Sark negotiated the rooms with the clerk; his Russian was more passable than hers, and he didn't want them to be suspected as anything else besides a couple on vacation in a nearby country.

He asked the clerk for a room with two beds, but that wasn't going to be possible, the little man informed him.

"Not even for an extra fee?" Sark hinted at a bribe.

"I'm sorry," the man said without an iota of regret, "But I think you can make this work." He looked pointedly at Sydney's ass where she was leaning over their luggage.

Sark was slightly disgusted; since when could one not buy someone off in eastern Europe? Whatever.

They got in the elevator without touching, and wound their way through the maze of hallways. It was obvious the building had been built haphazardly, a series of additions that didn't exactly add up.

Eventually they found room 147 and Sark had to try the key several times before the door opened.

The room was as small as a closet. There was barely room around the edge of the full bed for them to squeeze around it. The bathroom was so small you had to stand next to the toilet to shut the door so you could sit down.

Thank god men can go standing up, Sark thought. The maid appeared to have ignored the toilet for the last several cleanings.

She took in the room without comment. When she finally spoke, she said, "I wonder if the TV works."

"I don't think that's the reason we're here," he said, obviously. "Unless you planned to catch up on your Russian rap music videos?"

He sank down on the edge of the bed and sighed. "Alright," he said, "If we get out of this, I promise I will make this up to you."

She studied him curiously. "That's going to have to be one expensive hotel to make up for this deathtrap."

He nodded. He was sleepy. "We should take a nap—Wells is a night owl."

She tossed her purse onto the credenza next to the TV and flopped on the bed beside him. The springs were so squishy it was like lying on a bed of curly nails covered with lumpy cotton balls.

He lay back, not touching her, before turning away from her on his side. Maybe he wouldn't be able to feel the springs quite so prominently, if he exposed less surface area of his body to them.

When they awoke, it was pitch black in their room.

And was he… spooning her? She lay very still, almost not breathing, trying to tell if he was awake or not. He was taller enough than she that she fit neatly into the curve of his body. If spooning were acceptable, that is. Which it wasn't.

"Sark," her voice was sharp and seemed unusually loud in the quiet of the room, the hotel.

"What?" he started, automatically reaching for the gun that wasn't in his holster. "What, what is it?"

"Are you spooning me?"

"Oh. Sorry."

He rolled onto his back and stretched. "What time is it?"

She glanced at her watch. "It's 9:47."

"Oh, we overslept," Sark said, "We need to get to work."

They sat in their rental car, parked on the street outside the apartment that Wells was supposedly renting. The light was on in the bathroom of the apartment, but they couldn't see any movement.

"So," Sydney tried to make small talk, "You didn't get along with Wells when you were younger?"

Sark considered her question without taking his eyes off the apartment. "Yes, I suppose you could say that."

"Why?"

"I think you know me well enough to know that I'm not easy to get along with," he replied. "I didn't like him. I thought he was weak. That's all. I had no tolerance for him."

"So what ever happened?"

He finally looked away from the window and at her, indirectly though; he was looking more past her head to the sidewalk outside the car, behind her.

"Nothing happened. He finished out his time at boarding school, and I was withdrawn when I was 15, by your mother. I started working for her then."

"And you haven't seen him since?"

"No."

"And you think he killed your mother."

"Yes."

"Or he was working for someone who wanted you to think he killed her. Or maybe someone who hired him to kill her."

"Yes," he said, his voice betraying his irritation, "Isn't that what we're here to find out? The entire point of this little junket?"

"Yeah. I'm just saying, maybe Wells' involvement has nothing to do with your prior relationship. It could've been anyone. You would've hunted them down just the same."

"I suppose, yes."

"So maybe someone did this to bring you out of hiding."

He stared at her. "What would the point of that be? Last time I checked, my bank account is still missing the eight hundred million dollars used by your dear old auntie to run the Covenant. Look how well that turned out."

"Maybe they don't want your mon—" she stopped when he pointed to the window. The bathroom light was off. Just then the front door of the apartment building opened, and Wells stepped out onto the sidewalk.

He now had a beard, and his hair was longer than in the pictures they had from Jack, but it was him. He paused to light up a cigarette in the dusk. They were close enough to smell the sulfur from the match, but he seemed oblivious to their presence. After a few drags on the cigarette, he threw the mostly intact fag to the pavement and ground it out with the toe of his shoe.

He glanced around, at the sky, then walked almost directly in front of him to a puke-green Trabant, courtesy of the former East Germany, and started up its noisy two stroke engine.

"Should we follow him?" Sark asked, suddenly uncharacteristically unsure what to do, now that he was faced with the possibility of actually finding out what had happened to Anastasia.

"I think we should wait until tomorrow—it's Thursday, maybe his contact will call and we can trail him then. It might be too early to make a move."

"Right," Sark agreed, not sounding convinced. "So, now what?"

"Are you hungry?"

"I suppose I could be," he replied.

"Well, I don't know about you," she smiled, "But I don't think our five-star hotel has a restaurant. Want to check someplace else out?"

"Alright," he said, and started the engine.

Hours later, they stumbled back to Room 147, more than a little tipsy. The bartender at the bar they'd eaten at had brought out his best vodka for the couple on vacation from Moscow. They'd had more than a few shots each.

"You..." Sark said, pointing a waving finger in Sydney's direction, "Are too much of a lightweight to have had… that many shots." He couldn't exactly remember how many it had been.

"Thanks for telling him 'No thanks'," she giggled. "Since my Russian embarrasses you."

He lay back on the bed, the room swaying underneath him. Her Russian really was atrocious. "One of us has to keep up appearances."

He glanced up and was pleased to see she was in the process of taking off her clothes. He could see, when she stripped off her pants, that the bruises he'd left on her stomach in England were nearly gone. Of course, they'd been replaced by a fresh crop from two days before, plus that unseemly scrape down her back. How had that even happened?

As she unbuttoned her shirt, she noticed him staring at her. "What, I'm too warm," she said, as if he needed an explanation.

"Yeah? You are pretty hot," he grinned.

"Sark," she gave him a withering look, but she was blushing. "That is the worst pick-up line I've ever heard."

He patted the comforter beside him. She eyed it with suspicion, like perhaps she didn't want to put her mostly naked body against the strange pattern of greens and browns. Apparently the alcohol overcame her just then, because she stumbled towards the bed and fell, face down, next to him in a fit of laughter.

He wasn't really in the mood for laughter anymore, but he was amused by her. He lay next to her, watching as silent shudders of laughter wracked her body, shaking the old decrepit bed. She lay with her forehead on her arms, her hair curtaining her face. As she laughed, one of her legs bent helplessly at the knee and her foot lolled stupidly in the air above them.

She laughed for a good five minutes. She'd almost stop, then something would set her off again, and she'd start laughing so hard it sounded like she almost couldn't breathe. Finally the spasms of laughter subsided, and she raised her head to look at him. There were tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

"What's so funny," he asked.

"Everything," she whispered before starting another hysterical fit of laughter.

Oh, crap, he thought, this kind of laughter is not an aphrodisiac.

He rolled towards her, propped himself up on his left elbow and fumbled with the clasp of her bra with his less-able right hand. The bra had left a dent in her skin, a red mark where her flesh had been pressed into for hours. The kind of little wound you don't even notice until the offending piece of clothing was removed, and then you couldn't understand how you had born the irritation for so long.

"Hey, scratch my back," she said, her voice muffled by the comforter and her arms.

Instead, he leaned over and kissed the spot, tasted the light salt of her skin. He did scratch her back a little, the curve of her spine, but really more tickling her. She was incredibly ticklish, he'd noticed. But that could be bent to his advantage.

"Mmm," she moaned without lifting her head. "Can you even get it up?"

He laughed out loud then. "Why don't you find out?"

She giggled a little, but stopped. "I think I might pass out if we did it like this."

She raised her head and looked at him. "But I still want to."

"If you're not in the mood, it's fine," he said, beginning to doubt his own ability to remain conscious long enough to see this endeavor through.

"Nooooo," she pleaded, "Please?" She scrunched closer to him on the bed, close enough for him to kiss her shoulder lightly.

He was surprised at how much he wanted her, even being as silly as she was. She seemed the freest he had ever seen her. She was glowing, probably more from vodka burning its way through her than from him, he supposed, but she was so silky and warm under his fingers.

"Turn the light off," he whispered, and motioned with his chin towards the light on the rickety bedside table.

"Why are you whispering," she whispered back, "It's not like anyone else is here."

"You don't know that," he said, his lips on hers. She felt wobbly in his arms, boneless with inebriation. "Sydney?" She wasn't really returning his kisses.

She had passed out. He scrunched his eyelids shut in disappointment, but yawned despite himself. After clicking the light off, he rolled her onto her side, away from him, and draped his arm over her. She was too drunk to wake up and beat him up for spooning her. Besides, she felt nice, curled against him like this.

He closed his eyes and tried not to think too much.