Chapter
Chapter 23
The Following Takes Place Between 4:00 A.M. and 5:00 A.M.
The Santa Monica Mountains cover most of West Los Angeles, and generally overlook the wealthiest sections of the city – it borders Beverly Hills on the southwest, and overlooks Westwood, Century City and Van Nuys. Though the hand of man has paved over most of the land around the mountains, there are still several wildlife preserves, which overlook not only these sections of the city, but much of Eastern Los Angeles as well.
It was that prospect of it that Arvin Sloane had seen the potential for destruction. However, he seemed to have overlooked one minor detail when he had ordered Sark and Espinoza to scale the highest point of the range. It was virtually inaccessible by car or truck. A helicopter could have gotten them there slightly quicker, but would have struggled to find a landing spot. Therefore, the only practical way to reach the summit was to go by foot, and it was not an easy climb..
Sark was beginning to think that this part—from the moment he'd been ordered to help break Anna Espinoza out of custody a little more than three hours ago—was his punishment for his failures of the day, as well as a way to make sure that he couldn't contact Sydney or anyone else at CTU. Since that moment, none of the three 'assistants' that Sloane had insisted accompany him had let him leave his sight since that moment. And he was certain that after he and Anna finally completed this mission, the last job that they do would be to put a bullet in his brain
For that reason, he had welcomed the slow climb up the hill, and then working relatively slowly to finish assembling the miniature air cannon that they would be using to disperse the virus as the only way he could find to stall for time. But now it was beginning to look that his efforts at playing out the clock had just about run down.
"All right," Anna told him. "We are ready to load the vial."
"Are you sure?" Sark asked.
"Nervous, Julian?" A teasing smile quirked up one corner of her lips.
"Hey, I know how deadly this thing is supposed to be," Sark reminded her. "And the idea of having to be in the range of this cannon's spray when we set it off is not one that leaves me breathless with anticipation."
"Considering all the ways you've helped blow this whole mission," Anna pointed out, "I would consider myself fortunate that I was still drawing breath at all."
"You're one to talk," Sark countered. "You think that Arvin had you liberated because he so enjoys the pleasure of your company? He's tying up his loose ends, which is what you and I are now."
"If that were true," Anna said coldly, "I would be doing everything in my power to make sure that I didn't screw up the one last thing that we've been assigned."
"And that's enough for you?" Sark asked unbelievingly.
"I'm a soldier," Anna shrugged. "I knew the moment my cover was blown that there was an excellent chance that I was going to be killed by one side or the other. However, I have to believe that should the apocalypse actually come, Sloane will be forgiving of those initial failures if they eventually led to success."
With that statement, Sark realized two things. First, Anna was incredibly ill-informed about Sloane (but then in all the years of war and peace, they had never worked together until now) if she thought her mistakes would be overlooked. Of course, she could be lying, and planning to score points by killing him herself.
Second, right now his chances of surviving this whole nightmare came down to, of all people, Sydney Bristow and Jack Bauer. If the sniper hadn't killed them, if they found the route to the mountains and caught up with them, if they managed to kill Anna and stop the virus from spreading, and if they decided he had done just enough to help, he might end up seeing the sunrise. There were a huge number of ifs in that chain of reasoning, but then again he had been underestimating the two of them all day.
For that matter, Sloane still was.
4:03:52/4:03:53/4:03:54
Mandy and Vaughn had been at a standoff for the last few minutes, except that Vaughn only had three bullets left in his .45, and he still had no idea what Mandy had left. However, since shooting wasn't resolving this, Vaughn decided to run a bluff.
"The game's over, Mandy," he said deliberately. "Even assuming you manage to kill me, you don't have nearly enough bullets to take out my backup."
If Mandy was surprised he knew her name, there was no sign of it in her answer. "Bullshit," she replied. "CTU has its numbers spread so thin they couldn't play a game on two on two with whatever you've got."
"You were responsible for blackmailing a Division director, and murdering her daughter," Vaughn answered. "You'd be surprised how that upsets the people in charge." Even as he responded, he couldn't believe he was asking her to buy this load of crap; he certainly wasn't shedding any tears over the deaths of the Driscolls.
"Saying you have enough people to kill me isn't going to make me want to stop shooting," Mandy pointed out.
"You've done some pretty contemptible things in the last few hours," Vaughn admitted. "But compared to the machinations of the people who paid you, it amounts to being little worse than spitting on the sidewalk. We'd be willing to offer you your freedom in exchange for whatever information you can give us on Arvin Sloane."
There was a brief pause. "You're assuming a lot," Mandy countered. "Sloane's the smartest operator in the business. You think he'd be foolish enough to talk with someone who's part of the rank and file?"
"You came here to lend assistance to Stephen Saunders," Vaughn countered, "who is high enough on the food chain to deal with Sloane."
"Last I checked, Saunders was on a plane that's right outside the door," Mandy countered. "Why make a deal with me instead of him?"
Vaughn, who wanted nothing more than to rip Saunders' throat out with his teeth the minute he got the location of Nadia and Isabelle, knew this was a good point. "We don't think he's going to be as reasonable as you are," he tried.
"So, what, you're dealing over here so they don't have to over there?" Mandy asked sarcastically.
"You've stopped shooting at me," Vaughn pointed out. "Which would seem to indicate you're more amenable than he is."
There was a longer pause. "I'm coming out," she finally shouted. "Don't take the opportunity to kill me."
Vaughn waited until Mandy was in his line of sight before doing the same, keeping his gun at his side.
"What do I have to do?" the hired gun asked.
"One: you find a way to get Stephen Saunders out of the airplane he's holed up in. Two: where did Saunders take my sister-in-law and Irina Derevko? Three: where do I find Sloane?" Vaughn stated bluntly.
"This a multiple choice quiz, or is there an 'all of the above' option that you haven't played yet?" Mandy asked.
"Think of it as… a formula," Vaughn deliberately responded. "In order to obtain your goal, certain conditions have to be met."
Mandy considered this. "Total immunity for everything I've been responsible for," she said. "And I don't tell you shit, until I get word from the Attorney General."
She'd done her homework. "Give me a minute," he said, holstering his weapon and taking out his cell.
"Dixon, CTU."
Marcus sounded a little more tired than he had a few minutes ago, but Vaughn didn't respond to this. "The woman known as Mandy is willing to give up her contacts with Saunders and Sloane in exchange for immunity," he told her.
"You're sure that she can deliver?"
"Have Sydney and Jack made any progress finding Sark and Anna?" Vaughn countered.
"They think they may have a location," Dixon told him, "I sent a chopper to get them out there, but they haven't reported in and it's been nearly twenty minutes."
"Then this may be our only option."
"Vaughn—"
"Hey, I don't like dealing with the devil any more than you, but unless we've made any other progress on getting Saunders out of the plane—"
"There has been a development there," Dixon didn't seem to be happy to be revealing this.
"What kind of—"
"Saunders uncoupled the plane from the hangar. Jack Bristow tried to take advantage of him—" now Dixon sounded very bad "—and Saunders shot him."
It took all of Vaughn's self restraint to not react to this. "He's dead?" he managed in a remarkably calm voice
"Seems to be," Dixon told him as calmly as he could manage, "and Saunders sent out one last message over the transmitter, saying that he would kill one hostage every five minutes until the plane was allowed to take off. So far, he's been making good on his threats."
"What are you telling me?"
"I'll call the President and tell him to rush this, but if this woman can't resolve this, and soon," Dixon took a deep breath, "we may have to go to our contingency plan."
Vaughn had known about this, but hadn't wanted to dwell on it. "You're saying that…"
"In order to stop Saunders, we may have to either take the plane by force, or shoot it down."
4:11:26/4:11:27/4:11:28/4:11:29
Unlike Sark, Jack had known enough about the mountains to know that at some point using a car wasn't going to be feasible. Therefore, he had radioed ahead for a helicopter to meet them when they got to the intersection of Mulholland Drive and the 405.
Meanwhile, Sydney had gotten enough information from Marshall to realize that they were going to have trouble touching down when they finally caught up with them. Her way around this particular knot was to make sure that the chopper they rode had parachutes. She knew that traditionally choppers didn't fly high enough to make parachutes a particularly valuable item, but she and Jack had enough experience in using them that they could work around this problem. Of course, there was a possibility that Sark and the others would be looking for them in the air, and would shoot them down with a rocket launcher, but right now, they would have to take this heading under acceptable risks. They would also have to do this without backup—Dixon had a devil of a time just getting a helicopter out to them.
"You know there's also the possibility that Sark and Anna were finished with their work, and are in the wind again," Sydney told Jack. "Got any plans should that eventuality arise?"
"That last thing we got off the sniper's vehicle had to have come from Sark," Jack pointed out. "We've run into some dumb hostiles before, but they'd have to pretty thick to leave directions that clear in a place they knew CTU would find."
"You're still betting that Sark is keeping his word," Sydney countered.
"You've known him longer than I have," Jack argued. "But last time we dealt with him, he did keep his word, after a fashion. So far, he's done his part."
Sydney clearly didn't buy this. "For all we know, this is just another trap," she pointed out.
"That is possible," Jack admitted. "However, I don't think it is. After all, given all the problems we've given Sloane today, and how close we are to the deadline, I don't think they're going to be that elaborate in killing us anymore."
"Too bad real spies aren't like they are in the movies," Sydney noted.
At this point, the pilot yelled back at them. "We're approaching the highest parts of the mountain."
"Tell Dixon that we're jumping out at 4000 feet!" Jack yelled at the pilot. "If we're right about how this will work, Sark and Anna should be at the summit!"
The pilot nodded, and began to pull into his final position. Both Jack and Sydney put on their biological masks in case the chemical was already airborne.
"You ready for this?" Jack asked.
Sydney nodded. "It's time we finished this."
And Jack knew she wasn't just talking about the prophecy this time.
*
"Papers are being drafted and sent to you now," Dixon told the President. "However, some new information has come to light that I feel you are entitled to know before you sign off on this."
"Did you find something about her history?"
"The pardon is made out for a woman named Amanda Krieg," Dixon began "Using that name, one of our techs was able to do a somewhat limited background check, and found out some of her former associations."
"She's worked for Sloane before?"
"Not as far as we can see," Dixon told him. "However, we were able to track payments to her from an LA banker named Ted Kofell. From then on, it wasn't that difficult to find links almost four years ago to Ira Gaines and Andre Drazen."
"Why are you telling me this?" the President asked. "I already gave a similar deal to Julian Sark, and his crimes are far worse than the ones that this woman has owned up to."
"You really want to let one of the people who was behind the plot to assassinate you walk away scot-free?"
"Mr. Dixon, I appreciate your loyalty, but right now we are faced with nothing less than the possibility of the death of the world," the President reminded him. "This country can not afford for me to value my vengeance at a higher cost. If there ever comes a way that we can grab this Krieg, then I have faith we will do it. Right now, we have larger concerns."
The President had to know that given this pardon, Amanda Krieg (if this was even her real name) would do her best to turn invisible the second the government no longer required her assistance. Under other circumstances he might have argued, but he knew that the crimes this woman had committed today were minor compared with the ones that Sloane was planning. So he simply said: "A copy of the document should already be at your office."
4:18:47/4:18:48/4:18:49
Vaughn got off the phone. "The President's signing your pardon now," he told Mandy. "Now you're going to start talking. Where the fuck do we find Arvin Sloane?"
"I was supposed to contact Sloane once I completed my primary protocol," Mandy began. "The murder of Stephen Saunders."
Instantly Vaughn was baffled. "I captured a man who said you used him to get Saunders on the plane."
"Which is how we're going to kill him," Mandy said. "Though I have to admit, I don't believe the bullshit that Sloane was spinning when he told me what he said was going to happen.."
Great. She never knew the whole details of the plan. That makes the possibility she has direct contact with Sloane very unlikely. With a sinking feeling, Vaughn motioned for her to continue.
"Supposedly, Sloane has this fluid or formula or whatever running through his veins that makes him indestructible," Mandy began. "Sounded like a load of crap to me, but he believes. He also made a diluted version of that fluid that had similar effects that was to be given to certain people."
"And you weren't one of them?" Vaughn asked doubtfully.
"I just go where the money is," Mandy said with a shrug. "I haven't got any use for this Rimbaldi horseshit. I'm not a nut job like Sloane."
"What do you know about this fluid?" Vaughn asked
"It had similar effects to the real deal, but it wasn't nearly as strong as what he had," Mandy continued in a tone that just oozed doubt. "You'd survive a gunshot to the head or a knife to the throat. But if there was a massive explosion, your body wouldn't do that Terminator CGI stuff that Sloane says he's got working for him."
"Let me see if I've got this straight," Vaughn said. "The only reason you got Stephen Saunders on the plane—"
"—was so that we'd have to blow it up, yes," Mandy said in a blasé manner. "You hadn't figured that out yet? He planned the same kind of thing for Li Chen Wang."
Vaughn wouldn't have thought it possible, but his blood began to run cold.. "You're telling me Sloane was planning to take out the ship carrying Wang back to China?"
"No," Mandy said, looking at her watch. "I'm telling you that as of an hour ago, one of his associates already has."
*
Getting shot was nothing like it was in the movies. You did not roll when you hit the ground, into a doorway, and return fire. Even with Kevlar, that was nowhere near the case. Your body goes into shock, and you fall over. Being shot in the chest will more or less do double that effect.
And so, while Steven Saunders fired at the emergency vehicles that blockaded his plane on the runway, and chaos happening all around, several things were going on.
First, the passengers at the back of the plane were more than happy to start an evacuation. On a 747, one man could not control everyone on board. So, while the people in first class and business, at the front of the plane, were well within Saunders realm of influence, the people in coach didn't have a problem with grabbing what luggage they could, opening the emergency exits, and sliding down the inflatable ramp.
Second, Saunders, fully aware of it, kept firing at the crews on the ground. The more people left now, the fewer he would need to control later. He didn't want to have to deal with a whole bunch of police officers or jocks from coach to get any brave ideas—a few dozen pantywaists in first and business class were easier to handle. Several bullets had struck him, ripping through his body, but they healed within short order.
Third, the CTU spotters had seen Jack Bristow, blood pooling around him, leaking from his chest, aspirating from his mouth, and declared him dead... and if he wasn't dead, then he would be by the time anyone could get close enough to rescue him.
And then, with a groan, Jack Bristow rolled over onto his stomach.
With his usual precision—this time a little less brisk than usual—Sydney's father looked at his watch. A quarter of an hour had gone by. Wasted time. Can't have that. What was Bauer's constant refrain? "There's no time"? This was truly the case. Dealing with Saunders was going to get people killed, drawing off precious resources that couldn't be diverted now.
Saunders had to be stopped.
Bristow reached into his jacket and drew his weapon. This would be difficult if the plane were moving, but since that wasn't an issue...
He tapped his comm unit. "Boyscout...come...in..."
Jack took a moment to take aim... squeezed off one shot. That was only one in an exchange of a thousand rounds a minute bursts of automatic fire. It hit the mark immediately. The gas tank on the left wing sprung a leak.
A moment later, Vaughn's voice came on. "Jack, is that you?"
Bristow coughed to clear out his lungs. More blood. Bright red blood. Arterial. That wasn't good. He only had minutes left. "Evacuate....the area... from around... the...plane."
"Jack, what are you doing?"
"There's.... no... time. Do it... now!"
There was a pause, and the shooting stopped from the other vehicles. They ran to the right of the airplane, staying out of Saunders' line of fire.
"Jack," Vaughn came back on again. "My spotters say that you shot open the gas tank in the wing of the airplane. What are you—"
"Tell Sydney... I said goodbye."
Before Vaughn could go on shouting in his ear, Jack pulled the comm unit out.
He looked at the pool of gasoline and smiled as he squeezed the trigger.
Steven Saunders had just enough time to see the fireball that killed both him and Jack Bristow.
4:29:14/4:29:15/4:29:16/4:29:17
They had landed on the easternmost face of the mountain, which according to Marshall, was less than a quarter mile from the summit. Since they had neither been shot at as they fell or blown out of the sky on approach, both Sydney and Jack assumed that they were on the other side of the mountains. Of course, there was also the possibility that they had heard their approach and had already begun to bolt, but Syd knew that Jack was right: they didn't have much in the way of options.
Now as they stopped roughly two hundred feet from the top, Jack took out his binoculars and looked up ahead. "Looks like somebody's here," he whispered as he looked to the west.
"See any familiar faces?" Sydney asked in the same whisper
Jack looked for a few more seconds. "Well, there's definitely one woman there," he told her.
Sydney managed to maintain a façade of calm even as dull rage ran through her. "What's the head count?" she asked calmly.
He looked around another few seconds. "Unless they've got some in reserve, I count five," he told her, handing her the binoculars. "It looks like they've just finished loading some primitive air cannon."
Sydney took the glasses and looked up ahead. "Sloane must be running on a limited budget if that what he's planning on using to disperse the virus," she told him.
"He's already short on manpower," Jack reminded her. "And we've taken out a lot of his gadgets already."
Sydney in the meantime, was swallowing back some bile. In addition to confirming that Anna was there, she had just spotted Sark. "Looks like the gang's all here, save for the Big Bad Wolf," she told him. "How do you want to play this?"
"Three guards have set up some kind of perimeter around the summit," Jack told her. "I say we work so that one of us sneaks up behind them, take a couple of them out, and while they're distracted, the other one secures the vial and takes out the others."
"You still insist that we bring in Sark alive?" Sydney asked.
"We only need one of them to tell us how to find Nadia and Isabelle, and right now, he's the most likely one to have the information," Jack pointed out.
"And I suppose I don't have to raise the question as to how we handle Anna," Sydney argued.
"Just one thing," Jack said. "When you kill her, make it hurt."
Even through the biological mask she was wearing, Jack could see the hints of a predatory grin. "Then let's end this."
*
Ironically, had the men who were obdurate lookouts actually done the job they were here to do instead of keeping an eye on their prisoners (as Sloane had instructed), they probably would have survived what happened next. Instead, the one guarding the easternmost edge of the path didn't notice Sydney climbing up the hill...
Sark, however, being his usual observant self, did notice her. Anna's attention was diverted by loading the air canon, but Sark had made a point of surviving by staying aware of what was going on around him, in addition to doing the job. He sighed, and shook his head. This was so familiar, his head nearly hurt from the deja vu.
He casually strolled over to one of the men guarding him—most likely ready to kill him and/or Anna at first opportunity—and wrapped an arm around him.
Sark then lifted his sidearm and shot him with it.
Sark whirled, shooting Sloane's men as though they were figures in Hogan's Alley.
Anna cursed as she pushed the button, firing the air cannon, then she pivoted, swept up a rock, and threw it with such precision that it took the weapon out of Sark's hands. "I knew you couldn't be trusted," she said, pulling out her weapon.
"I'd worry about myself, if I were you," Sydney said as she fired a couple of shots towards Anna.
Even though, like Sydney, she was covered in protective gear, Anna was fast on her feet, and she easily rolled away from the shots. She retaliated by jumping at Sydney, and the two of them tumbled over each down the hill. Both managed to maintain grips on their weapons, but Anna managed to yank Sydney's biological mask off her face.
When they finally came to a stop on a ledge nearly twenty feet below where they had started, a rock had punched a hole through Anna's suit and there were little holes in the suits that they each wore. If the virus was already airborne, both of them risked the possibility of infection; right then, neither woman gave a shit.
They both looked down at their ruined suits, then at each other, and almost by mutual consent they ripped their bulky and restrictive biohazard suits from their bodies. If they were infected, then one wanted to live just long enough for the other to die.
Anna, however, got rid of hers first and drew down on Sydney.
Anna fired two more shots before her gun started clicking. Sydney managed to dodge both and charged her. "You're out of ammo," she snarled at her archenemy.
"So are you," Anna snarled back before lashing out and kicking Sydney's legs out from under her.
Sydney and Anna looked at each, circling, each feeling considerably worn by everything that had happened today...rolling down a hill didn't help.
Sydney felt her heart rate accelerating and she looked at Anna. She tried to convince herself to be professional, that they needed the woman, but she couldn't accept it. Her daughter and sister had been abducted, her mother was probably bleeding to death, and she was thinking about being professional with this vapid whore.
"By the way, Sydney," Anna said, smirking, "I haven't checked yet, but Sloane says he wants Nadia dead, and I'm more than willing to finish what I started."
Sydney didn't even know if she was moving, time was dilating, her synapses firing like automatic weapons. She slammed into Anna with a full tackle, her hands wrapping around Anna's throat, before the other woman had an idea what was happening. As they hit the ground, Syd drove her knee into Anna's gut, with all the force she could muster.
Anna released her, and decked Syd with a right hook so fierce Sydney felt teeth loosen in her jaw. But she didn't even feel, driving up with her own uppercut and following with an elbow against Anna's face, crushing her cheek. Anna roared, bucking Sydney off.
They came to their feet, and closed again. Sydney threw a hook of her own, but Anna blocked it, both of her hands going for her face, meaning to gouge. Sydney twisted her head and charged forward ramming against the bridge of the nose. When Anna moved in with her other hand, Sydney went with the pull, so when Anna's fingers found their target, her eyes were closed but her mouth was open.
She bit down into the fleshy part of Anna's hand, hard and deep. A good chunk of flesh came out. Espinoza withdrew, howling in pain. However, Sydney gave her no time to recover, charging with an enraged yell, driving her shoulder into Anna, lifting her off the ground, and slamming her into a tree. She snapped an elbow in Anna's face, then launched a hammer blow. Anna leaped forward, into Sydney's defense, reaching under Sydney's arms and grabbing her hair.
Sydney's right hand went up and grabbed Anna's left ear, driving through the cartilage with her nails. Getting a good grip before she yanked. A good part of her ear came off.
Either the adrenaline was running hard, or Anna, like Sydney, was no longer feeling pain, because all Anna did was launch forward, and driven them both to the ground. Anna kneed her in the gut, twice, then got two shots at her rib cage and one at her crotch
Then Sydney grabbed Anna's wrists, locking her into position, pulling her head forward. She didn't even notice a large, bloody hank of hair coming out. All that matter was that she was face-level with her adversary.
Which is when Sydney bit down into her nose. Anna thrashed reflexively, which was the worst thing she could have done. She grabbed at Sydney's jaw with both hands. Which is when Sydney let go.
Then her left hand came up the side of the face like a caress—until her thumbnail pierced Anna's eyeball. Then she flexed her fingers, her thumb scooping out the eye, and her other fingers digging into the flesh of Anna's cheek.
Anna was now past sense or reason, she was just following her instinct, screaming at her to get away.
At that same moment, Sydney raked the hand down her face in a tae kwon do move known as a bear claw, which did exactly what it was advertised to Anna's face.
At this point, the blood loss alone Anna had suffered would have killed her, but Sydney was long past such things as that. She kept coming, a sidekick, followed by a hammer-fist. Then a roundhouse, a reverse to a hammer blow, another elbow, and then another hammer blow.
Sydney launched forward, straddling her, pinning her arms with her knees, and hooking her thumb into the dead socket to turn Anna's head.
Then Sydney just starting hitting. For every bullet fired at her. For every threat to the people she cared about. For every blow she herself had taken. She hit Anna until her knuckles were bleeding, and was about to switch to her palm, when she finally looked down, and saw that her enemy was no longer breathing..
Whether it was the chest pain or the blood loss, Syd didn't know, and ultimately why was irrelevant.
Anna Espinoza was finally dead..
"We're done, you cunt," Sydney whispered numbly. She looked at her fingers, covered with blood and gore, as were her clothes. She imagined she looked like a vampire in need of a napkin.
For a long moment, Sydney felt like screaming, whether in pain or triumph, she did not know.
Instead, she began to climb back up to Sark to see if he was going to fight. She almost hoped he was.
4:41:09/4:41:10/4:41:11/4:41:12
Sark had been more than willing to give up without any kind of fight, much to Jack's dismay.
"I never had a moment of doubt. You and Agent Bristow have a way of always coming out on top."
Then why did you help with this scheme in the first place? Jack thought but didn't say. "Give me a reason I shouldn't blow your brains out and say you resisted arrest," he said instead in a remarkably level tone.
"You need me to find Sloane?" Sark asked.
"Oh, you're going to tell me where to find him," Jack said, as he stepped over one of the men he had killed getting to Sark. "What I'm asking is why you should be allowed to live the moment after you finish."
It seemed like Sark's eternal calm was finally fractured; sweat was pouring down his cheeks. "You know as well as I do the meaning of deep cover, Mr. Bauer," he said, swallowing. "I needed to keep Sloane's trust, and the only way to do so was to make it seem like I'd betrayed you."
"Did that betrayal have to include bombing CTU and kidnapping Nadia?" Jack said in his eerily calm voice. "Or leaving a sniper to try and kill us?"
Sark would have started backing away, but there was no ground behind him. "Short of drawing you a map, I did everything to make sure you could always find me," he said frantically.
"All the deaths that followed because of what you did are a violation of that agreement you signed last night," Jack told him. "There's no reason for me to show you any mercy at all."
Sark's eyes widened. Not just because of the steel in Jack's expression, but because Sydney had just appeared from the hill, looking like a refugee from a George Romero film.
"Your friends are all gone, Julian," Sydney said in a slightly disconnected voice. "And judging from the way you're acting, I'm betting Sloane didn't trust you enough to give us a dose of whatever Rimbaldi fluid he's got running through his veins." She looked at the fired air cannon. "Not to mention that you just killed LA. So what could you possibly give us in order to make us even give a second thought about keeping you alive?"
He twisted the helmet off of his suit, placing it on the ground. Sark smiled, smug, sat and leaned back, his arms folded around him. "Actually, I happen to be the hero this time."
Jack and Sydney exchanged a glance. "Excuse me?" Syd asked.
Sark smiled. "Did you think I was going to keep my word while letting the whole world burn?" He leaned forward. "It may be true that I have breached the letter of the written agreement, but I have kept my word every step of the way. Including this." He patted the box he sat on.
"What is it?'
Sark smiled as he stood up, taking the box with him. Inside the box had been a small suitcase. "There is your vial. The air cannon was supposed to fire a canister of the virus diluted with saline for better air dispersal. Instead, it fired out saline, pure and simple." He dropped the box on the ground and put one foot on it. "Now then, shall we continue, or shall we continue to spout threats at one another?"
4:48:34/4:48:35/4:48:36/4:48:37
"You're sure about this information?" Vaughn asked Dixon.
"Marshall's trying to get the rest of the details," Dixon admitted, "but how often has he been wrong?"
Vaughn knew better than to answer. "What does the President have to say?"
"We put him in a position remarkably similar to this one a couple years back, remember?" Dixon said. "He made the best decision possible."
"And it blew up in all our faces," Vaughn reminded him
"Yeah, but now the stakes are even higher than Sloane managing to slip through our grasp," Dixon pointed out. "We screw this up—"
Before he could finish the sentence, the other line beeped. "Hold on," Vaughn said. "Yeah."
There was a pause. "Vaughn?" said a voice that sounded more exhausted then he could ever remember it being in all the skirmishes and battles with the Covenant, or Rimbaldi, or almost anything else.
"Sydney? Are you all right?" The moment the words were out of his mouth he regretted them, because he knew what the answer had to be.
"Anna's dead," she said, in lieu of an answer. "I had to literally tear her limb from limb, but it's done."
"What about Sark?" he asked.
"For now, he's alive," Sydney said calmly. "He's giving us the last locations of the virus, and he's going to tell us where to find our daughter and Nadia. Just a little longer, and this horror show will finally be behind us."
Vaughn could hear the barest trace of hope is Sydney's voice, and he knew right now, he was going to have to delay it, if not altogether dash it. "Sydney, there've been some developments in the last hour or so."
There was a long pause. "I think we're long past the point of euphemisms, Vaughn," Sydney finally said. "What the fuck's gone wrong now?"
Vaughn decided to go with the least painful news first. "Li Chen Wang never made it to China," he began slowly.
There was a definite pause. "What? How do you know this?"
"I just got off the phone with the Navy. They provided passage of the freighter that was taking Wang back into Chinese territorial waters. Approximately four hours ago, the U.S.S. Manchester received a distress call from one of the crew. He claimed that Wang had somehow escaped from his shackles, and begun to attack the men onboard."
"What the hell went wrong?" Sydney demanded.
"We have no idea," Vaughn continued grimly, "because seventeen minutes later, there was an explosion originating below deck. There was less than a ten-minute gap between that and the arrival of rescue teams, but that was more than enough. The waters were shark infested, and by the time they got there, no one was left alive, including Wang."
There was a long pause. "And the Chinese are claiming what, exactly?" Sydney finally asked. "That we did something to either Wang or the ship and that violates whatever conditions they negotiated with the President earlier?"
"Their language was pretty restrained, but yes," Vaughn told her. "They're now saying that unless Sloane is brought to justice immediately, their government will follow through with the original plans and announce a declaration of war before the United Nations by the beginning of tomorrow's session, which begins in a little more than an hour."
4:53:30/4:53:31/4:53:32
Sydney did not despair often, but now she felt like someone who, having climbed Kilimanjaro or the Matterhorn, had been told that they have to do it all over again.
"Will they settle for seeing his rotting corpse?" she said, managing to keep her tone level.
"I think that would fit their standards," Vaughn said, "but from what we now know, it may be impossible for us to give them that."
Sydney took a deep breath. "Sark says that he knows how to find Sloane," she told him.
"And you believe him," Vaughn began.
"Not for a microsecond," Sydney assured him, "but it's not like we have many options right now."
"He give you or Jack any specifics?"
"Not yet." Sydney paused. "I was calling in the hope there was another way."
Vaughn considered this. "Marshall managed to translate a bit more of the document we recovered."
"Any clues?"
"Just the opposite," Vaughn said. "He says that while the virus may serve as the impetus for launching Rimbaldi's final solution, it can be circumvented if the devastation is caused another way."
The prophecies aren't the problem. It's the loopholes that break our backs, Sydney thought to herself. "So what you're saying is if this war begins simultaneously with the sacrifice, it'll serve the same purpose as the virus."
"That's what I get from it," Vaughn told her grimly. "And as for finding Sloane, I was face to face with the woman who was responsible for a huge amount of the chaos that took place the last few hours, and she told me that she can't give us a current location on Sloane."
The hits just keep on coming. "So it's Sark or nothing," she said.
"I'm afraid so," Vaughn paused, because compared to everything else that he had just told her, that was the good news. "Syd, your father and I spent the last two hours trying to locate Stephen Saunders. In the process of chasing him, he took some hostages in an airplane—" he swallowed. "He was going to kill everyone. Most of the passengers got off, but he couldn't be stopped. He shot your father...and your father shot into the wing of the airplane. He stopped Saunders, and blew him to hell. But he... your father was caught in the explosion."
For a moment, it seemed that Sydney couldn't understand what she had just heard. "Dad's dead?" she said dumbly.
"I'm so sorry, Syd," Vaughn told her, knowing as well as anyone how hollow he must sound.
There was another interminable pause. When Sydney came back on the line, there was the slightest hint of a quiver in her voice—so faint, only someone who loved her would have noticed it. "I'll tell Dixon to honor the original agreement," she told him. "Then I'm going to get my sister and our daughter out of the hands of that madman, and I will do to him what I did to Anna. It might not kill him, but I'll feel better."
"I'll get there as fast as I can," Vaughn assured her.
"It's time to finish this."
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