She hadn't felt this terrible in years. Maybe since college, even. She lay on her side, waiting for the next wave of nausea to overtake her, so she could go visit the revolting toilet in the tiny bathroom, the room so tiny she couldn't even close to door to stand puking in private.
This was the worst thing about being partners with someone, she noted mentally. They saw everything about you; your best and your worst sides. This was definitely not her best side.
The last thing she could distinctly remember was his unhooking her bra and her laughing at something. She didn't understand now what had been so funny.
Sark appeared to be fine; bastard. He had been awake and reviewing the intel on Wells for the thousandth time when she'd awakened and run into the bathroom. He had the decency not to talk to her when she came out and laid back down, cautiously, so as not to jar her fragile stomach. Even the thought of food made her want to vomit all over again.
After four trips to the bathroom, he'd gotten up and walked to the door.
"I'll be back," he said, pulling on his coat.
Fine, go, she thought, miserably. Leave me here sick.
What had happened last night? They had gone to dinner, drank way too much, he'd tried to make out with her, but she'd passed out. What had she been doing, trying to match him shot for shot? She knew she couldn't drink that much. She disliked how much he made her feel out of balance, like her own rules didn't matter.
Her irritation was causing her stomach to churn more. Think of pleasant things, like… the ocean. Like the mountains. Anything besides this stupid weird hotel and stupid Sark.
As if on cue, the door opened then and he strode back in, a small package in his hand.
"Here," he said curtly, throwing the package in her general direction. "You need to drink one of those, dissolved in some hot water. I'll get some from downstairs."
The door closed behind him and she picked up the package. Vitamin C? Yuck. She hated trying to swallow any kind of pill.
A few minutes later he returned with a small metal teapot of water and a ceramic cup that had a fairly large chip out of the lip. He took the package from her hand, where she'd been holding it since he'd left, and pressed two of the tablets from the blister pack into the cup. Water.
"Give it a minute to dissolve, then drink it," he fairly commanded her, before his tone softened a little, "It tastes horrible, but it can't be worse than the stuff in your stomach tastes."
She blinked her eyes in agreement, afraid if she moved she'd vomit again.
He stood over her, just looking at her. She knew she looked dreadful. She needed a shower.
He sighed and said, "I shouldn't have let you get so drunk. That wasn't very… considerate of me." He peered into the cup. "It's ready."
She forced herself to raise her head, and take the cup from the table. He was right, it tasted god-awful; bitter, with an aftertaste like chalk. She sipped carefully at first, afraid she'd vomit as soon as it hit her stomach. But her middle didn't revolt, and she kept drinking. To her great surprise, she was starting to feel better.
"What is that," she croaked, "How did you know to do that?"
"My mother did it for me once, when I was really young," Sark shrugged. "It's come in handy a time or two."
"Can you remember your mom?" she asked, suddenly realizing she had no idea if he did, or not.
"Just little things," Sark said, honestly. "That she smoked this particular brand of Russian cigarettes, how she fought with Lazarey… her trying to protect me from him."
She looked away, not sure what to say.
"Sydney, it was a long time ago, it's in the past," he absolved her of needing to say something supportive. Thank goodness. Strength in awkward situations wasn't really her forte. She got that from Jack.
"I think I can work now," she said at last. "But I need to take a shower."
"Yes, do," he agreed, "And for the love of God, brush your teeth as well."
By 3:30, they were parked outside Wells' apartment again. Sark was distressed to find that the Bucharest he remembered, one of stately old Baroque buildings and gracious parks, a city not unlike London, was gone. Many of the existing buildings had been torn down and the skyline was cluttered with poured concrete high rises.
He remembered more about Anastasia than he'd let on to Sydney. Like how they'd go to the park when Lazarey wasn't around, which was… most of the time, luckily for them. He vaguely remembered having some visits from a friend of Anastasia's, a tall proud woman with a mane of dark brown hair. Then the day came when he went to spend the night with her friend. That "night" wound up lasting 10 years.
As if on cue, Wells emerged from his apartment, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
"Da, da," they heard him saying, rushed. "I'll be there in 10 minutes."
He walked again to the little Traubi, which backfired impertinently as Wells gunned its motor. They waited until he was almost out of sight before starting the engine of their car.
They tailed him cautiously, letting him get nearly out of sight before they would turn a corner, then speeding up to catch up with him. They kept at least three cars between them in traffic, at all times.
Sydney clutched the edge of the seat, as if she were worried the car might suddenly skitter onto two wheels. He felt a glimmer of sympathy for her; her stomach was probably not the strongest after her quality time in the bathroom this morning.
Wells sped into an underground parking garage, and Sark pulled over with a sharp jerk of the wheel.
"Hurry up, get out!" he commanded her, and reached across her to fling the door open when she looked at him stupidly.
"What are you doing?" she cried, reaching to shut the door.
"He won't recognize you," Sark explained rapidly, "Get out and follow him, I'll park the car somewhere up here and meet up with you, go!"
She sighed impatiently as she unhooked her seatbelt and threw her leg out of the car. "You'd better not leave me here in the middle of the East Bloc," she warned, but he was already rolling off to find a place to ditch the car.
She didn't like the feeling of this. At all. Nothing good ever happened in parking garages. Like the time the men from Security Section had tried to kill her and her father had shown up to save the day. The day she found out he was a spy.
She strolled, as calmly as possible, down the pedestrian walkway that ran along the driveway into the garage Wells had disappeared into. She took her hair out of its ponytail in a fluid movement, shaking her long hair free. She was… a woman about town. She regretted not paying closer attention to her surroundings—she didn't think they were in a shopping district—but there was no time for that now. The garage was small, maybe 200 spaces. There weren't many places for Wells to go.
A fluorescent light buzzed and snapped above her, as if a large, obstinate bug were trapped inside its glass tube. The light flickered accordingly. She tried to keep striding confidently, remembering her safety training as a freshman at college—walk with a purpose, keep your head up—but nerves were making her slouch. Water dripped somewhere behind her.
Just then, the muted whump of a car door slamming, albeit a rickety, never-well-made car door, gave Wells away. She crouched behind the rear wheel of a Mercedes and glanced under back end of the car towards where she'd heard the noise. She saw Wells, striding towards the stairwell in the corner, shoving his keys in his pocket.
She waited until the door to the stairwell had clicked closed before she reached into her jacket pocket and dialed Sark's number.
"Where is he?" Sark picked up before it had even finished ringing.
"He's heading up to street level, in the stairwell on the northwest corner of the structure," she whispered.
"I see him," Sark's voice was low, predatory. "I assume you're close behind."
"I'm on my—"
Something hard struck her in the back of the skull, just before she had risen back to her full height. She pitched forward, her cell phone tumbling away from her, and the heel of her hand scraping the dirty concrete floor of the parking garage. Before she could even catch herself, someone's shin and ankle connected with her midsection. She doubled over in pain, and just as she tried to roll over to fight back, the unseen assailant pistol-whipped her into unconsciousness.
Damn, she had hung up; Sark pressed 'end' without looking at his phone and hurried after Wells. They were outside a large building, what was it?
Wells turned and hurried up the sidewalk towards the entrance of the building, unaware of his presence.
Sark noticed the signage, carved into the stone next to the doors: CITY LIBRARY.
Mr. Wells staged his meets in a library? That certainly didn't seem conducive to secrecy. Then again, libraries were full of secrets, the kind waiting to be discovered.
He paused for a second outside the doors, waiting for Wells to hurry up the stairs and around the corner. He scanned the area for her, but didn't make her out anywhere amongst the throngs of pedestrians on the street. Where was she, what was taking so long?
As if on cue, his cell phone rang—it was her.
"Sydney, this really is no time for sightseeing," he said, dryly, "Where on earth are you?"
There was light breathing on the line. "If you want to see Ms. Bristow again, I suggest you go to the second floor, to the archives."
The voice was deep, gravelly, almost certainly disguised with a voice box. "Who is this," he demanded, his stomach doing flip-flops. They'd been made.
"I'm afraid that's need-to-know," the voice said, chilling Sark to his very marrow by parroting his own favorite phrase. "Just follow Wells."
Click.
Sonuvabitch, Sark cursed silently. He rarely cursed, it really wasn't his style, but this was not how he envisioned this going at all.
He pushed the swinging glass door open and strode to the information desk. "Excuse me," he said, not very politely and in fairly bad Romanian, "Can you please direct me to the second floor archive?"
The desk clerk was a mousy girl, maybe 18, who looked a little like Nadia Comaneci before she'd gone glam and married Bart Connor. Before she was allowed to eat. "Um… you go, like, up the stairs, to where it says '2', and then you like, make a left turn?" She sounded like an East Bloc Valley Girl, and not terribly convinced of her own directions.
"Are you certain, or are you like, not sure?" he mocked her. He loathed her for her lack of appreciation for the urgency of his situation.
"No, that's where it is," she said, chewing her thumb nail. "You're like, welcome, sir."
He bolted towards the stairs without thanking her, and sprinted up them two at a time. He rounded the corner to the left, and pushed through the glass doors with the words ARCHIVE spelled across the glass.
The vault was as silent as a tomb. There didn't appear to be anyone in here, except for the librarian working at an ancient computer terminal behind the high countertop.
"Excuse me," Sark said, breathless from his run, "Was there just a man through here, someone slightly taller than me, not shaven?"
The librarian nodded, and finally looked up at him after she continued typing for several seconds longer than he thought he could bear. "He's in the stacks," she replied, and pointed towards the door that appeared to lead into the archive itself.
"Thank you," he said, already on the move.
He burst through the door into the heavy silence of the stacks. It was just rows and rows of shelves, no tables or desks. He stood still, trying to hear footsteps or breathing. There was nothing but the quiet rumble of the building's ventilation system pushing the warm, stale air through the cavernous room.
He reached under his right arm, and drew out his pistol. Eased off the thumb safety.
He stepped into the first row of shelves, easing his weight heel-to-toe, as silently as possible. Where had Wells gone? When he reached the end of the first row, he glanced lengthways down the far aisle of the stacks.
Wells was standing at the far end, leaning on the wall, hands in his pockets.
"Julian, put your gun down," Wells said, his English clipped and haughty in a way not unlike Sark's.
"You first, Daniel," Sark said, calmly. He could take this fucker. He had done it when they were kids, he'd do it now. Just like he'd taken Wells' accent for his own.
"I'm unarmed," Wells shrugged as Sark edged closer. "It wouldn't be seemly for a gentleman to kill an unarmed adversary. Besides, I would hate to leave a mess for the librarians to clean up. They hate when people leave gum or drinks near the materials. Imagine what finding brain matter would be like for them."
"What is this," Sark asked, "Where is your contact?"
"She's not here," Wells said, honestly. "I believe she is babysitting your partner."
Sark raised his gun to Wells' face when he was within 10 feet. "You killed my mother."
Wells chuckled. "I see my letter reached you. It's always good to hear from old friends, isn't it."
The hairs on the back of Sark's neck prickled at the phrase. You're not the only one who spies on old friends.
"Where is my partner," Sark asked, his voice dangerously calm now. "Or I shoot your pretty face off."
"Julian," Wells sighed with the satisfaction of knowing he had the upper hand, "That would make an awful mess for the librarians. And no one likes to upset a librarian, now, do they?"
Sark lowered his gun, slowly, ever so slowly, waiting for Wells to jump and shoot him. To his surprise, Wells continued to watch him.
"That's better," Wells said agreeably. "Now, how about you and I walk out of here like a couple of old chaps, and you make acquaintances with my employer. She's dying to get to know you."
"What about Sydney?" He didn't trust this setup for a second.
"Ah, you're on a first name basis with the lovely filly," Wells' eyes glittered with a smile. "Who is she? You always were the popular one with the ladies, Julian. Ah, well—we'll have plenty of time to discuss this, in due course."
Wells beckoned, slowly, for Sark to follow him and put his gun in its holster. Sark followed, reluctantly, through the stacks without sheathing the weapon.
He didn't like this one bit.