Title: In Tenebris (1/1)
Author: Rez
Rating: PG-13
Summary:
Spoilers: Finale, Season Two. Post-ep "Missing Time" speculation.
‘Ship: S/I
in retrospect.
Archive: Please ask first.
Disclaimer: Alias and its characters are the
property of J.J. Abrams/Bad Robot Productions.
Feedback: lo_rez @ adelphia.net
Author’s note: This piece precedes Cynara,
for those who wish to read them in order.
Gratitude:
—To
—To
—And to Meghan, Rach, and Vanzetti, beta readers,
whose work is a constant inspiration.
In
Tenebris
One
After two weeks he knows that Irina hasn’t been
found. After three, that Sloane’s managed to pull something off, something big.
He pieces it together, out of the questions they ask.
He’s protested that he’s adaptable, his loyalties
flexible. They’ll buy that, up to a point.
*
“I need one month,” she’d said. She knew what she
was asking. She didn’t touch him that time. She observes a certain delicacy in
these things, with him.
“This is the end,” she’d said. “We’re almost
there.”
Almost where, he doesn’t know or care. He’d walked
into the club in
One month.
*
“I’ll see to your extraction personally,” she’d
told him, and little else. Meanwhile, he would rather have something more
interesting and less painful to occupy him. But his notoriety had grown enough that
he’s an effective distraction, buying time from inside while she does—whatever
it is she does.
He doesn’t share this obsession of hers, but he
misses their partnership. He’s never matched the exhilaration of working with
her, of stretching instincts and abilities to meet another’s with such perfect
accord. He’s never told her.
One month and counting.
He’s alive. There’s been some rough play but nothing
to what they could do if they chose. They haven’t moved him.
Either they’re finding him useful or banking him
for trade, believing he might be worth something to someone. He does the permutations,
in the endless time between interrogations, trying to fit the questions against
some pattern of suspicion or understanding. It would help to know what they’re really
after.
Waiting is an art he learned early. Events will
unfold, in time, as planned—or not. He’ll deal with it however things fall out.
But he does miss her.
*
He knows the layout, of course, from making the
trip so often. They vary the route but for some reason always bring him to the
same room. He knows the intersection
where a fault in the ventilation system has warped the marble cladding off its
bed against the concrete wall. Sub-par workmanship, poor maintenance—not that
it matters. There’s nothing there he can use.
“Jesus, kid, she really had you whipped.” A sympathetic
face, a sympathetic voice, inviting him to agree, knowing he won’t.
“You had to know about Khasinau,
right? And you’re gonna be different? She must really
be something.”
The taunts are predictable:
“Fucking the boss—kid, that’s stupid. Or is she
your mother?”
And the tactics more so:
“Pretty blue eyes—” and a caressing thumb
along his jawline. He turns his head, presses his open mouth against the palm
of the man’s hand. The answering blow all but cracks his cheekbone.
So that’s out of the way, for now.
The cell is never dark. There’s never a moment when
he’s alone, unwatched. He holds her name in his mouth, unspoken, as he sinks
into the meditative trance she taught him.
*
The more intense physical sessions, which begin during
what he believes is the second month, leave him unable to maintain his
accustomed baseline of strength and speed. He loses mass, and the extreme
physical coordination that has always served him, saved him, till now. The
bigger danger is loss of integrity, self-disgust.
“—Why hasn’t Sloane made his move? Where would he
go after Mexico? What’s his deal with Derevko?”
They aren’t really expecting answers, or they may
already know the answers. These questions are just for—kicks. The pain
eventually makes him vomit. That puts an end to it, for a while; they don’t
like the mess.
Humiliation is a never-ending game they play. He loses
often enough to satisfy them.
He keeps inventory of each physical failure, a list
for later, when he can rebuild. Without her hands knitting his body and brain
together, it becomes difficult to care, the link more tenuous than he’d
thought.
He sees this dependency clearly for the first time,
begins patiently to construct an armature of his own resolve, of hard lessons,
thoroughly learned. Her touch was always a test, never just a pleasure. Pain is
also a test, then. The chill air of the cell replaces her warmth against his
skin.
Three months now, he guesses, though he can’t be
sure.
He doesn’t think, in retrospect, that there was any
special finality to their last conversation. “This will be difficult,” she’d said,
as to a child, and he’d been irritated. He wonders, now, if she weren’t talking
to herself. She’s not without feeling.
They hadn’t made love. But he was never satisfied
that way, anyway. He always wanted her, was always, it seemed, waiting for her
smile, her hand leading him to whatever bed she slept in that night. She would
laugh at him sometimes.
“Moy malyi sver,” she would say. Little
beast. “Find someone your own age. I’m busy.” He would smile and try to coax
her otherwise.
“—Sydney?” he’d asked once, hoping to test her
temper. But she’d only smiled back, something unreadable moving through the
ophidian ice of her gaze, and he’d let it drop.
He hasn’t seen her daughter since Stockholm—or the
lover, the green-eyed galant.
Amusing that Irina had once made it his task to
keep her daughter safe, while she herself lay here, perhaps in this very cell.
He wouldn’t mind seeing Sydney. He could always get a reaction out of her. And
she looks like her mother.
*
A certain calm, he finds, has descended to replace
his unquestioning reliance on his own physical skill. He accepts it cautiously,
knowing it will curdle to despair unless he’s watchful.
He forces himself to eat what they give him.
Keeping it down is a problem as the chemicals build up in his system. His nails
are brittle. His wrists and knees are perpetually sore.
He can’t be sure anymore what they’ve learned from
him. He knows all the tricks, but drugs and pain are powerful, and men only
men. Half the time he isn’t really conscious.
He’s still trying to get what he can, data in every
question, every jolt, even in the boot to the ribs or the jab of another needle
in his arm. He’s still giving them information, as he knows Irina intended.
Timing is everything—almost the first lesson she ever taught him.
“What did Sloane offer you to sell her out?”
—That’s interesting, he thinks hazily. Might be
able to do something with that.
He figures they believe him less than half the time
anyway.
He lies awake, eyes blind, his hunger for her a
live coal in his belly. He could forget the cameras, get himself off, relieve
the immediate need. He snuffs the impulse, turns onto his side, shielding
himself until he’s calm again.
It’s not unusual for plans to change. There’s
always a fallback. He tries to calculate the likelihood that she’s still
counting on him. He thinks it’s probable.
But it’s surely been more than three months, now.
He begins to plan for other contingencies, as much
to blot the constant thought of her from his mind as anything. He wonders about
loose ends. The matter of Allison, and
the others, but especially Allison. He’ll need to remedy that, at some point, if
possible. If Irina hasn’t.
Two
It’s all part of the show. After enough iterations,
the reaction starts when they appear outside his cell, unlock the door, motion
him forward. The body understands what’s coming. The feedback loop begins: Dry
mouth, cold sweat, tremors in the hands, the knees. It’s fear. The body knows.
The same door, every time, solid steel, three-ply
glass window reinforced with wire mesh. They walk him through the corridors—always
two men, rarely the same two—one before, the other behind. They haul open the
door and shove him through and it locks behind him. There’s a single chair. He
sits and waits. Sooner or later the next detail shows up and the session
begins.
There’s always a point at which one of them nods to
the presence behind the two-way glass. That’s when they switch off the cameras.
Even fear is tedious after a point—even pain. He’s
so bored he’s put a name to every face. Today’s guides are Sheena, a platinum-blond
gorilla with a silky moustache, and the Dickensian Sikes, who has a remarkably
villainous face but who overacts just slightly, grimacing for effect. He’s
never heard either of them speak.
He gets the familiar shove and finds himself facing
a woman just rising from her seat across from an empty chair.
Blonde. Clever, pleasant face, measuring blue eyes;
about Irina’s age. Something in her expression reminds him—but anything might, now.
Don’t anticipate. They’ve decided to try something different,
that’s all. This one’s seen all the video, he’s sure, maybe watched through the
glass. She’ll know every humiliating detail. That’s fine.
He’s engaged in spite of himself. She’s certainly
the most interesting thing he’s seen in—four months? His reckoning’s
hazy but it’s a little late, surely, for the good cop to show up. He shuts down
his interest, irritably. Whatever it is, he’s certain he won’t like what this
one has for him.
She inclines her head politely, gestures at the chair.
“Please sit down,” she says, and resumes her seat.
The chair’s a little too close to her. He kicks it
back, pointedly, and sits. She’s considering him, blue eyes steady and grave,
and he gets the feeling of familiarity again—and a sudden rush of emotion so
pure he’s not even sure what it is. He censors it automatically.
He meets her gaze—I’ll see your blue eyes and raise
you a smile. He knows he’s gaunt, face hollowed, eyes blank as an animal’s after
four months and all those needle tracks. He’s caught flashes of himself in the
two-way glass. He sees her note the smile, but she doesn’t return it. She
doesn’t seem worried.
“We were wondering,” she says, “whether you might
talk to Jack Bristow.”
Oh, Christ, he thinks in disgust, each new tactic
more threadbare than the last. He tilts back his head, the picture of fatigue.
“Certainly,” he says to the ceiling, eyes closed.
“Although as I’ve probably fucked his wife more than he has, I doubt he’ll be
very keen.”
Silence.
He opens his eyes, looks back at her, finally,
wanting to get on with it.
“Agent Bristow’s been—out of touch recently,” she says
quietly. She lets that drift for a moment.
“We think they might have met up—he and Derevko.”
She’s looking at him with something like
compassion—ah. There’s the angle, the new thing. And she is not, he
understands, anything resembling a good cop. In fact, the drugs are likely hers.
She’s probably advised on the pacing and intensity of his interrogation, if not
the actual lines of questioning. He’s sure she’s a very good liar.
His heart rate is picking up. He forces himself to
breath slowly. Careful, now. He looks back up at the ceiling, says wearily:
“Then I suggest—doctor—that you leave the man in
peace. He’ll have a lot of catching up to do.”
He can’t process what she’s told him. Its
destructive potential is too great and it’s probably a lie in any case; it’ll
have to wait for when he can evaluate it more carefully. But there’s more,
apparently.
“We believe—if we put the word out where he’ll hear
it—that he’ll want to see you,” she says. He doesn’t move, except to close his
eyes again. “He’ll think you might be able to help find his daughter, whom we suspect
has been taken by Arvin Sloane.”
She delivers each statement with the abstracted air
of a card player selecting the next discard. She surely knows that he waits for
her next words with something that he recognizes, from some arctic mental
distance, as terror.
It’s probably not true, or not entirely. She’ll have
put it together, made the right psychological inferences, constructed a scenario
likely to force his remaining defenses. Carefully engineered the lies. Don’t
anticipate.
But the doubt is incidental. His real problem, suddenly,
is this: he needs to walk out of the room with one more piece of information. She’ll
try to make him ask; lies or not, that’s part of the game.
Because if it’s true—and it could be true—he really
doubts that Sloane is involved. How long, doctor? How long since they’ve
been gone? When it’s clear he isn’t going to say anything more, she tells him what
she knows he’s waiting for, her blue eyes watchful.
“Sydney Bristow disappeared the week she brought
you in from Stockholm,” she says in that conversational voice, and a wave of nausea
hits him. He forces himself to relax. Irina taught him this, to achieve passivity
and just take it—pleasure or pain, let it wash through you and leave you behind
when it goes. He knows there’s more. She gives it to him.
“Her father’s been gone for more than three months,”
she finishes, and just that simply, he learns what it feels like to break.
He fades out, dizzy with vertigo and the sudden cold
sweat it brings. It’s too visible a reaction; he knows she’s reading every
ragged breath. He has to look down or he’ll be sick.
Three months, and the conclusion stares him in the
face. No, he thinks, Sloane isn’t in the picture, or only peripherally. The woman
understands, or she wouldn’t be here, watching him so clinically. He’s
helpless, he finds, to imagine any other contingency. The picture is all too
vivid, too much what Irina has worked for, in her way, all along.
The picture is this: Jack Bristow—Sydney Bristow.
And Irina. The family circle closed at last, and if she ever had any intention
of pulling him out, it’s expired three months since, at a minimum.
He can’t close his eyes; he’ll be overcome by
nausea. He’s completely still, limbs useless, because any move will make
obvious the shuddering sickness that cripples even his breathing.
—Deal with it, you fool, he thinks. You’ve got the
resources. But his body’s not listening and if he unclenches his teeth the sound
clawing its way out of his throat is going to escape. He takes one jagged, desperate
breath and forces down the urge to howl like a beaten dog.
They sit there together, he and the woman, for
another few minutes, not speaking. He’s still looking at the floor, slightly steadier
now, breathing more evenly. He wonders whether he’ll be able to walk back to
the cell. She gets to her feet, finally, stands looking down at him for a
moment.
Well done, doctor. Brilliantly intuited, perfectly
played.
She heads for the door. He hears her tap on the
glass. Without turning in his chair, he says, “Doctor.”
No sound of the door opening. His back is still
turned to her but he’s smiling for the cameras and the observers behind the
glass.
“My compliments.” No reply. “You’re the best so
far.”
She waits, giving him the chance to go on, but he’s
finished. She taps on the glass again and the door opens this time. But doesn’t
close. He turns, finally, not liking the feeling of her at his back. There’s a
species of professional regret on her face.
“My name is Barnett,” she tells him. “Ask for me if
you want to—talk.” His crack of laughter echoes in the empty cube of a room.
And here comes Sheena, followed by Sikes. He makes them pull him out of the
chair, which they do, with displeasure. Back to the cell.
Hope’s a useful thing at times, but on the whole,
it’s a relief when it’s gone.
*
The following day he interrupts the interrogation. He
wants a drink of water: the only thing, in more than four months, that he’s
asked for. He knows his captors will make the desired assumptions.
They bring him cold water in a paper cup. They
watch while he drinks, holding the cup lightly with both hands, like a child,
because his wrists are bound. He lets them see the slight tremor, otherwise
tightly controlled.
He thanks them. Sets the cup clumsily on the concrete
floor, next to his chair, claiming it as his. They allow him to keep it.
It’s still there, half full, when they move him
back to the cell.
Three
They leave him alone for several days between the
next few sessions. He knows the rhythm. By the time they come for him again,
he’ll almost be glad. That’s how it’s supposed to work; he would come to love even
the pain, eventually, if he were stupid enough let it happen.
His plans are as definite as he can make them. He
lets himself drift, in the long idle time when there’s no way to advance things.
Not repining, really. Remembering.
Irina, years ago, showing him a photograph of Agent
Sydney Bristow; and his first thought, looking at the image. Christ, he’d said to
himself, not two of them. Amused, the fear camouflaged, because the picture
made her uncannily like her mother.
His first sight of Sydney, in the flesh, and the
trickle of icy pleasure down his spine. And then, for some reason, that first day
he’d faced her across the conference table at SD-6. He’d been transfixed, had
to force himself to look away from Irina’s child. With Irina’s husband sitting
just to his left.
—Jack Bristow. Never a doubt in his mind who’d
claimed Irina first. But never a belief, either, in his most conservative
assessment of risk, that there would ever be a time when what she’d broken
would be made whole.
And that brings him back to the cold cell and the
constant pain, but he’s tolerant of both, having so much more to occupy him
now. They won’t want to wait too long. He’s weaker by the day, and they want
what he can still give them without the trouble of rehabilitating him. He
hasn’t tried to bargain, yet.
And here they are, but he’s shed the physical
reaction by this time. There’s a lot at stake now; today’s the day, if he’s
calculated accurately. They’re walking a different route to a different door.
Another cube of a room, but this one’s carpeted. A table, with a chair on
either side of it. A man, facing him.
Untidy hair, tired face with deep lines around the
mouth. Long hands clasped lightly on the table; dead green eyes. The Boy Scout,
no longer so pretty. His heart clenches fiercely for an instant because this is
what he’d planned; this is the beginning of the end. He calms his breathing and
waits.
“Sark.” The voice is quiet, flat. “Sit down.”
He does, awkwardly. They’ve bound his hands behind
him this time. Michael Vaughn looks at him wearily.
“You’ve played this just right and here’s the
reward. You say you don’t know where Sloane would go, where he would take
Sydney. But you know where the trail might start.” Green eyes looking into his,
cold and indifferent.
“So you get one chance, Sark. We’ll take you to
Mexico City. You come out with solid evidence of his whereabouts—hers—and we’ll
think about letting you take us another step. You come out with nothing, we’re
done. And you can spin this out—yeah, we understand that. But only so long. Because
here’s the deal, Sark. It’s three moves to Sloane. Or Sydney. Or we’re really
done.”
But it’ll only take one to get himself loose. It’s
going to be this one. He stares at the other man for a moment before nodding
his head. And because there’s now something to gain by testing him, he says
softly:
“Sloane, I take it, is the priority, Agent Vaughn?”
The man’s face is blank but the eyes holding his
have come to life. Cold fury, but the voice is still flat.
“You’ll be carrying an implant next to your spinal
cord; we’re trying out a new paralytic neurotoxin, soluble capsule. There’s a
36-hour time limit and the effects, if you happen to miss your deadline, are slow
but not reversible.”
So, well. The Bel Air clinic will have a little
more to deal with than he’d thought. But that was his first stop in any case—a
private organization staffed by specialists in anonymity and forgetfulness. He
experiences a wave of longing for the simple fact of health, movement, freedom
from pain, and nearly gasps with the intensity of it. He lets it go.
Almost there. He’ll be there tomorrow.
Michael Vaughn adds casually, “And I’ll shoot you
if you so much as twitch out of turn at any point in the next 36 hours.”
He withholds his smile. The delivery’s impressive
but Vaughn’s missed him before. He’s probably adequate with a paper target.
Vaughn nods at someone standing at the door behind
him, and here they come to take him away. He holds the agent’s gaze until they
force him around, wondering whether Sydney’s choice will make or break the man—or
perhaps neither. He feels a distant amusement at his own recognition that their
situations share certain ironies.
Like mother, like daughter, though Irina’s body
count is undoubtedly higher. He wonders whether she’d planned to abandon him
from the beginning. It might simply be a case of new priorities. In the cold
equations that express her reasoning, he’s only one variable.
*
They implant the capsule later that day, none too
careful about the anesthesia. He can neither sit nor lie down comfortably, but
that’s been true for weeks.
There’s a certain comedy to the whole thing that
threatens to undo him, at times. What a nuisance she must occasionally have
found his devotion, and how forbearing she was. He plays with the notion that
gratitude might be his best response, in the end. There was Khasinau,
after all—and others. Her indifference is a gift to him, perhaps.
In lieu of sleep, he evaluates his role as a
placeholder in her life: neither child nor consort, neither son nor mate. He
reminds himself that he’s always known what she really wants. The solution to Rambaldi’s puzzle. Sydney, her image, creation, and heir.
And Jack Bristow, the only man alive who burns but is not consumed in Irina Derevko’s fire.
Fair enough. Irina’s protégé has no grounds for
complaint. Irina’s lover was never faithful, never expected faith in return. And
Irina’s employee has been made redundant twice over, sacked without notice, and
owes no further allegiance on any score.
There’s an ember of something, though, that flares
now and again behind his eyes as he tries to rest in the perpetual glare of the
cell. He experiences it as a kind of pain, since pain is now the defining fact
of his existence. He moves restlessly on the unpadded steel shelf, still sick
from the last session, his bones now too prominent for any position to be
comfortable for long.
Tomorrow, one way or another—poison or not, bullet
or not; his appetite for risk is now huge. It’s beyond time. He wonders, now,
why he held out so long.
One month, she’d said. As much mercy as she’s ever
shown anyone.
Four
As always, it’s luck as much as anything. There’s certainly
no need to feign weakness. They come for him early and the dry retching when he
swings his feet to the ground is real. They back away till he stops, then stand
him up and bind his hands in front of him. He looks at Michael Vaughn, outside
the glass door.
“Is it really necessary, Agent Vaughn?” Tiredly,
holding up his hands, the wrists already swollen and scabbing from previous
restraints. The guards always tighten them too much, glad to contribute their mite
to the general regime, and plastic is worse than metal, in the long run.
“Shut up,” Vaughn says. But then, to Sheena,
“Loosen them. Not too much.” The guard allows the cutters to tighten the
plastic further as he positions them to break the disposable cuffs. He takes a
new pair from the holder on his belt.
“Motherfucker,” he says under his breath, jerking
the loops over Sark’s hands and pulling them closed. Sark smiles lovingly at
him.
“You’re lucky I haven’t eaten breakfast,” he
murmurs, swaying slightly. “But I’ll try to avoid your shoes next time.” The
big man moves back abruptly.
*
Three checkpoints before they even get to the Ops
Center staging area, three more once they’re in the van. Vaughn and two guards
with Sark in the back, the driver and his backup in the front. The rear doors
and the slider lock from the driver’s console. No windows and no weapons in the
back.
The van’s a relief. He’s guessed that they’re
flying out of Van Nuys. A helicopter would have made things much more
difficult, the distance between the helipad and the jetway shorter, more open.
As it is, they’ll have to cross a perimeter, he knows, go through at least one
building to get to the aircraft. Something will offer itself, some chance; all
he needs.
It’s not even light yet but the traffic’s heavy
through the Sepulveda Pass; the driver brakes and accelerates with sickening
frequency around the curves. Sark retches again, his body protesting the
too-sudden changes of attitude in the horizonless space. Flanking him, Sheena
and the other guard edge away.
Vaughn, from a safer distance, says, “I’ll kill
you.” Sark laughs.
*
They let him step out unaided when the van finally
pulls up and stops. He’s shaky but knows, after a half-second look, exactly
where he is. Most of the fixed-base operators at Van Nuys are on the far side
of the field. Raytheon’s aircraft services facility is one of the few on the
tower side, fronting the longer of the airport’s two runways.
From a gap between buildings he has a view across
the field, with single and twin-engine craft queuing for tower clearance the
minute the noise ordinances will allow them to fly. They’ll be doing
touch-and-goes on the shorter runway all day long.
He’s lucky again. The terminal parking lot is large
and almost full; the passenger terminal will be busy—or as busy as it ever gets.
Even if his handlers have special clearance, they’ll have to take him through
the building. Security, he knows, is good on the field and around the hangars
and ramps, but very light in the few passenger areas.
He’s even been inside the Raytheon terminal before.
He knows exactly which door he needs to get through.
The air is laced with hydrocarbons and already
warming at this early hour. He fills his lungs. Almost time now.
*
He’s not fast enough to suit Sheena. Before they
reach the terminal he gets a shove.
“Move it, asshole,” is the other guard’s
contribution. It takes almost nothing to turn the honest stumble into a fall.
He goes down shoulder first, rests with his cheek against the asphalt. Sheena’s
inventive profanity is bitten off. A pair of polished Rockports approaches and
stops.
Vaughn’s voice, quietly furious: “He’s got 26 hours
left, Larson. Am I going to be reporting a delay to AD Kendall?”
“Sorry.” Sark can almost feel Vaughn’s lust to strike
the man.
He’s got 26 hours. He can work with that. The
guards get him to his feet while Vaughn watches.
Larson. How dull.
Five
Inside now. He misses a step, halts for a moment, unsteady
again. No need for extra verisimilitude; he knows he’s pale as a corpse. He
takes a shaky breath, moves forward before the trio can make an issue of it. He’s
at the center of a loose group, Michael Vaughn in the lead, the other two
flanking him, denying other passengers the sight of a man in restraints.
And there it is, Employees Only, with a
men’s room just beyond. Another three steps. Sark stops again.
The terminal smells of fresh coffee; the guards are
inattentive. They continue a few strides without him.
“Agent Vaughn.” A furious backward glare. They all
come to a halt, turn back toward him. People move past them in clots, walking
briskly. Nobody’s paying particular attention and the soothing clatter of
footsteps on the old industrial linoleum swallows the conversation.
“It might be wise,” he says, and stops, swallowing
hard. Still almost no need for playacting; he could easily hit the ground
again. “Perhaps these gentlemen would accompany me—“ pointing with his chin. Lucky
a third time: if Vaughn spent more time in the field he’d see the setup in a
heartbeat.
Sydney would have him trussed and spitted for
roasting by now, Sark thinks. His mouth twitches.
Vaughn exhales sharply, staring at him with
loathing. He flicks open his mobile phone, speed-dials a number. “Prager,” he
says to the second guard, “check in with the pilot. Larson, take him in and for
godssake stay out of his way. This is Vaughn,” he adds into the phone, goading
the reluctant Larson with an impatient jerk of his head. Prager is now headed
up the concourse toward the gate.
Sark sways again, looking at Larson. After you,
my dear Alphonse. And the big man turns in disgust and leads the way to the
restroom. Ten seconds.
He follows just quickly enough that the guard’s
over-the-shoulder check shows him nothing alarming. He’s almost level with the
door he needs; there’s a chest-high steel barrier that ends two feet from the
floor, shielding the entrance from the public. No auto-lock, no card-reader;
old facility. Eight seconds.
Without acceleration or superfluous motion he ducks
smoothly and rolls under the barrier, reaches the handle and shoves the door
open just enough to slip inside, rolls to his feet out of view of the concourse.
More luck than he deserves: the room’s empty. A shout is cut off by the closing
door. He throws the lock. Six.
Move, move, move. The bank of shelves for employees’
possessions. A cap to cover the telltale blond hair: IAMAW. A windcheater, flung
awkwardly over his shoulders: Los Angeles Lakers.
He needs keys, car keys, car keys with an
electronic lock. He scrabbles clumsily through a backpack, a gym bag—there.
Larson’s slow but close. Vaughn’s inexperienced but
smart. Between the two of them they’ll have the building covered in short order
and time’s up, time’s up: move.
Out the door to the employee lot, passing a few
stragglers coming in after the shift change. A hell of a lot of cars. He
presses the lock, listens for a chirp. Nothing. Still nobody coming out the
door.
Again, moving through the rows of cars, trying to
look like he knows where he’s headed. Again. Nothing.
Get to it, man, he thinks to himself. Again—and the
answering peep from the automobile. He pings it once more, finds a nondescript
Honda, several years old. He’s in, starts the car, gives himself no time to
think; puts his right knee on the passenger seat, braces his cuffed hands underneath
it, and wrenches the left hand with all the strength he’s got against its
plastic bond.
Halfway. He shuts his eyes, forcing out the tears
that have risen involuntarily. Another brutal wrench. The plastic loop comes
over, dislocating his thumb, and he grays out against the seatback. But his
right hand is only bruised, and the car, mercifully, has an automatic
transmission. He shrugs into the windcheater and nearly faints getting the left
arm into the sleeve. Focus, damn you.
He joins the short queue at the exit. The key card’s
in the visor but he has to lean out and feed it right-handed to the reader.
He’s out on the street when he sees the ramp guards coming at a dead run from
their normal posts out to the parking area. They’re armed. He’s in traffic and
moving.
The freeway on-ramp is three blocks. He’s got to
get on and get over the pass to the Sunset exit, then negotiate the Bel Air
meander, where the clinic’s compound sits on prime lakefront acreage. It’s ten
miles, fifteen maximum.
He forces down a surge of bile at the back of his
throat. Don’t jar the left hand, idiot. He props the elbow on the armrest and
joins the morning rush hour on the 405.
Six
The remote end of Stone Canyon Road is overhung
with eucalyptus, excellent cover against aerial search and pursuit, though it’s
probably still too soon for that, he thinks. He’s negotiating the narrow road
but only just: Eyes on the white line, keep tracking. Five more minutes to go.
The clinic fronts a small lake at the very end of
the road: twelve hectares comprising structures, grounds, and three
successively tight security perimeters. The facility protects its clients with
inaccessibility, space, and, discreetly, a hell of a lot of firepower. The
security staff is large, seasoned, and very well compensated.
He passes the guardhouse, pulls around the carriage
sweep, enters the building. If you know the way, you can get this far with no
trouble whatever.
The woman behind the glass is dazzling, as
beautiful as anyone he’s ever seen, and deliciously cool. She assesses him head
to foot with her dark, dark eyes. He’s holding on by a thread but he manages a
smile.
He tells her: “I’d like to check in. There’s a car
outside. You’ll need to have someone drive it back to the Raytheon employees’
lot at Van Nuys airport, quickly.” She smiles back, unruffled.
“Inform the medical staff that the capsule I’m
carrying under the incision in my back holds a timed-release poison. I’m—“ he looks hazily at the clock over the angel’s
shoulder— “twenty-five hours from zero—so I’m told.” She raises an eyebrow.
“And I’ve dislocated my left thumb, which is
uncomfortable. I’d like to have that seen to immediately, please.”
She looks him over for another few seconds.
“Carlos,” she says. One of the four armed guards
behind him approaches with a pair of cutters. His right wrist is divested of
its plastic cuff.
“If you would step into the booth, please,” the
woman tells him coolly, nodding at a spot over his shoulder. “You’ll be scanned
for biometric identification. You’ll find a point-of-sale terminal to your
right. Please authorize access to the institution and the account of your
choice.”
He does admire the dispatch of it all. And her
voice: beautiful, with an understated lilt that’s surely a memory of her native
country, wherever they breed women this lovely.
He submits, patiently, to the scan: facial
geometry, retina, thumbprint—right hand only. Sways, increasingly distant,
while the hard-encrypted files are sent out to one of the private banks where his
personal accounts are of sufficient magnitude for the clinic to admit him with
confidence. While the decrypts are submitted to several discrete databases at
several sites, and the search for a match is run, and the re-encrypted response
tunnels its secret way from backbone to backbone, node to node, and hits the
clinic’s firewall in turn. Is gathered in, thoroughly scrubbed, and decrypted
once more.
No sound heralds the arrival of succor and aid,
merely the inner door opening silently onto white-coated figures, a stretcher
with IV threaded and waiting. He lingers a moment more to see the smile on the
face of the angel at the desk, and is rewarded.
“Mr. Sark,” the woman says. “Welcome.” He stumbles
on his way to the door, but they catch him before he can fall.
One of his private bolt-holes, held in reserve,
never used until now. He thinks Irina probably won’t bother looking, in any
case. He imagines her amusement, her shrug of disappointment that he’s wasted himself,
denying the obvious.
She had all of him there was for anyone to have. He
thinks of Khasinau, of Jack Bristow, and smiles again,
lips skinning back over his teeth as they help him onto the soft, cool stretcher.
If she’s lucky, she’ll never see him again.
End
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