Spending Eternity 4/?
So sorry for the insanely long delay, everyone. Last semester was pretty awful. Hopefully I'll be more consistent now!
It had been a long time since Sydney had been able to sleep through the night. That night she lay in bed for nearly four hours, staring at the dark ceiling and trying not to disturb the snoring dog beside her.
At three a.m. she got up, went to her office, and booked a flight to Mongolia.
She arrived at the cave-the god awful cave that was the source of more than one of her nightmares-barely more than 24 hours later, after only a brief detour in Prague. She drove up the wide dirt road in a military-style truck, her hair pulled back tight from her thin face. Dark sunglasses covered her eyes and for the first time in a long while she wore tan camouflage garb.
The truck pulled to a stop before the cave, loose rocks crunching beneath its tires. The area was deserted; from what Sydney understood the cave was now considered by the locals to be cursed.
The mouth of the cave was well blocked by a pile of rocks that filled it entirely. It looked just as she remembered from the last time she was there. It was the same day her father had been shot, the same day her mother had fallen through a glass ceiling in a fruitless attempt at immortality. She had been battered and bruised, filled with a soul-deep weariness that threatened to pull her down into some dark place she did not dare to go. And then Vaughn had come with his soulful eyes and furrowed brow and she had recalled who she was, who she had to be. She was the strong one, the one who knew what needed to be done and did it.
“We need to go back to Mongolia,” she said, because she knew, just knew, that her father had not been evacuated by the helicopter they’d sent.
He swallowed and nodded and ran off to make the arrangements, leaving her to stare at the broken form of the woman who had said “for what it’s worth, I really do love you” and then tried to kill her. Sydney shuffled forward, body stiff, and bent to pick up the sphere that lay close to her mother’s outstretched hand. She stared at it for a long moment, running her thumb over its slick surface, and when she heard Vaughn approaching again she swiftly tucked it into her backpack.
By the time they got back to the cave, of course, it was all over. She stared at the wall of rock blocking the entrance to the cave, a lump in her throat as she thought about what it meant.
“We can dig our way in,” Vaughn offered, his hand comforting against the small of her back. “It’s possible that-”
“No,” she interrupted softly. The only one who could have set off the bomb that brought the cave in was Jack Bristow. She had no intention of digging into that rock and unearthing pieces of her father. She didn’t want that, and she knew that he would not have wanted her to. “No, Vaughn, it’s not.”
Staring at the blockage now, she searched for the new hole that must be there, one large enough for an adult male. At last she spotted it, a splotch of darkness against one of the uppermost corners.
With a decisive nod Sydney tucked a small hand-held pick into her belt. She set her foot against one of the lower rocks, feeling carefully for a steady handhold. She clambered up the short rock wall with imperfect grace until she reached the hole. She peered into the darkness and saw nothing.
She pulled a flashlight from her belt and clenched it carefully between her teeth, taking a deep breath as she wormed her way into the hole. The small tunnel was tight but not too tight; it had been made to accommodate a man larger than she was. She grunted as she pushed herself a short distance before she reached the end, letting the sturdy flashlight fall to the ground below to illuminate the small cavern. She heaved herself through the hole, lowering herself uneasily to the ground before picking up the flashlight again.
This was the place where her father died.
She shook away the thought. It wasn’t helpful at the moment, and he would have been the first to chastise her for allowing herself to become distracted by sentimental remembrances.
The beam of light swept around the cavern. Most of it was still buried in rock. One rock in particular drew her attention and her eyes narrowed as she approached it. It was a large boulder, resting fully upon the ground. The dirt beneath and around it was somewhat indented from years of having a human shape pressed hard against it.
Looking closer she grimaced at what she saw. What had looked at first like dark smudges against the gray rock were in fact smears of old blood. A fingernail was buried in one of the boulder’s many crevices, torn off from desperate clawing at the rough surface.
She sat back, rubbing the heel of her hand tiredly against her forehead. She tried to imagine Sloane’s imprisonment here, buried underneath a boulder that was impossible to lift. He must have broken his own ribs to pull himself free. It must have taken him months at least to get out. She wished she understood more about what the sphere had done to him; had he been weakened by the lack of food and water? Had he experienced pain, or simply the discomfort of physical restraint and solitude?
A thin smile spread slowly across her face. “Nice job, dad,” she whispered into the stale air.
She sighed as she stood, glancing around the cavern once more to make sure she hadn’t missed any important details. Then she left the cave as she’d entered it, careful not to dislodge any of the precariously perching stones.
Standing outside the cave again she found herself blinking in the bright sun. She stood unmoving for several long minutes. When she finally moved it was only to bend at the waste, trying to breathe past the blockage in her throat. She tried to will away the tears in her eyes but could not, could not restrain the sobs building in her chest and spilling out of her traitorous mouth.
Emelia Costa did not cry because she had nothing to cry about. It was impossible to be Emelia Costa when standing outside of Jack Bristow’s grave.
It was some time before her harsh breaths gave way to even breathing again. She stayed in the same position, bent over with her hands on her knees, staring at the ground where her tears had darkened the dirt.
Then she pulled a cell phone from her belt, the item that she had retrieved in Prague. She flipped it open with a steady hand, dialing in a quick stream of numbers. It rang once.
“It’s me,” she said. “Yes, that’s right. It’s time for a change in plan.”
************************
Sloane stood in the sun and tried not to cringe. It had been a long time since he’d subjected himself to the harsh Los Angeles sunlight, and though he had missed many things about California, this was not one of them. The sun here seemed brighter, starker somehow than the sun in Italy. It left him feeling peeled back, exposed even as he blended into the endless mass of people in the city.
A young woman hurried rudely past him, not apologizing as she knocked him slightly off balance, and he glared after her through his dark sunglasses.
At least when he’d lived here in the past he’d felt a sense of power despite his seeming physical insignificance. He enjoyed looking at the people around him-the tall man his own age, the mother with her three bawling children, the old woman with the walker-and knowing that with a stroke of his pen he could end their lives. He did not enjoy murder-despite what most of his enemies and all of his friends might think. What he enjoyed was the sense of power implicit in the ability to take the life of another human being.
Even now it would not be too difficult to arrange the death of any of the people he saw on the street today, but the thought did not hold the appeal it used to. Any such action on his behalf if traced back to him would undoubtedly bring Sydney’s wrath down on his head, and though he did intend to have significant contact with her in the future he hoped it would be slightly more amicable than with her simply attempting to kill him.
He walked past Credit Dauphine and kept going, though that had been what he’d come to the city to see. This place more than anywhere else in Los Angeles was a reminder of the time when he had been truly powerful, truly in control of himself and a significant portion of the world around him. He found that he did not miss it.
He flagged a passing taxi and directed the driver to a small park on the outskirts of town. He found himself a bench and settled down to wait. He didn’t have to wait long; not ten minutes later the people he was waiting for arrived: six year old Isabelle and two and a half year old Jack, accompanied by their babysitter, young Robin Dixon.
His breath caught at the startling similarities between Isabelle and Sydney. When Sydney was the same ago she was almost identical to this girl, except for the eyes. Isabelle had her father’s eyes and for that Sloane resented Vaughn all the more. Jack’s resemblance to his mother was more subtle; in fact, if Sloane had to pick he would say that Jack most strongly resembled his namesake. He, like his mother and sister, had inherited the charmingly large Bristow ears. He moved with a kind of cautious gravity, too, that reminded Sloane of Jack although it really might have been a result of his unsteadiness as his little legs moved over the wood shavings which covered the park floor.
Sloane counted three people besides himself who might have been at the park to keep tabs on the children. Two might have been there for another purpose; the way their eyes slid over the children to find other targets suggested that they might be waiting for someone, or something, else. The last watched the children intently, eyes flitting from her John Grisham book to the children and back again. Sloane stared at the young woman, wondering who she worked for and what their intentions were.
The woman looked up and met his eyes. He could tell from her reaction that she worked for Sydney. Her eyes widened, indicating that she recognized him, but she did not look shocked by his presence, as though someone had warned her to look for him. She did not go for a weapon, but lifted her watch and pointed it in his direction, very obviously taking a picture with the camera that must be hidden there.
He arched an eyebrow and nodded courteously in her direction before returning his attention to the children. Let the watcher assure Sydney that he did not approach them or make any threatening gestures. He simply came to see what it was about them that had enabled Sydney, the most loving and selfless person he knew, to leave them in the dubious care of their father.
Isabelle was pushing Jack on the swing set, eyes watchful and protective as the little boy’s face scrunched up with glee.
He watched for nearly an hour-until the sun began to set and Robin collected the children and ushered them home. Sydney’s watcher shot him another glance as she left, following the small party from a careful distance.
Sloane tapped his gloved fingers against his lips as he stared in the direction they had gone. Sydney had not left them for lack of love, that was obvious. Jack had just been a baby at the time, of course, and Isabelle…she was so like Sydney at that age that he could not understand how anyone, especially Sydney herself, could fail to love her.
So it must have been too much love that had driven Sydney away. A threat to the children, probably. Otherwise she could never have left.
He caught a plane back to Italy-with detours to several other cities just in case anyone should be following, of course-later that evening. He resisted the urge to visit his old home or the Vaughn household; either would be too risky. He had seen what he came to see.
*******************************
Sydney sprinted the last hundred feet to the front door of her house before allowing herself to collapse, panting. Sweat dripped down her face and Will, who had fallen behind in the last stretch, pounced upon her with a lolling grin and began to clean her face with his tongue.
One of her arms came up to shield her eyes from the bright sun. She gave herself a moment to recover before she began to stretch; she was not old by any stretch of the imagination, but she had begun to notice a stiffness in her limbs that had not been present before.
Probably the result of countless experiences with electroshock before she turned thirty.
Her cell phone chirped. She exhaled deeply before pulling it from the shallow pocket of her running shorts.
“Yes,” she said, her voice slightly less crisp than usual due to harsh breathing she couldn’t quite control.
The voice on the other end spoke and she groaned as an expression of mixed aggravation and amusement flashed across her face. “None of your business what I’m doing,” she said. “Why are you calling?”
At his words she sat up abruptly, eyes narrowed in fury. “When? He didn’t speak to them, do anything threatening? No. No, I’ll take care of it. Yes, I have it under control. You just stay focused.” She snapped the phone shut as she lay back down on the grass, but she was unable to recapture the peaceful feeling she had been experiencing just minutes before.
After several minutes of trying and failing she let out a sigh and sat up, pulling Will’s head into her lap. She stroked his fur for a few moments.
“Whaddya think, Will?” she asked idly. “Time to go see just how real that immortality is?”
The dog barked, tongue lolling in a grin from the side of his mouth.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, pushing his head away as she pushed herself purposefully to her feet.
The ache in her bones was gone as if it had never been.
*******************************
Sloane regarded the man across his desk with narrowed eyes.
“You did not get the dart,” he said, leaning back in his chair and feeling eerily reminiscent of his old SD-6 days.
Colin Acre, a handsome British national who had spent significant time in Zurich and the United States, blinked once. “No, sir,” he said smoothly, not intimidated by his employer.
Sloane’s lips twisted in a frown. “It took us nearly a month to determine the dart’s location,” he reminded the other man. “What went wrong?”
Colin met his eyes evenly. “I infiltrated the gala at the Argentine embassy, but by the time I reached the safe in which the dart was being held another man had beaten me there. I had not seen him before, but I recognized him from your description.”
Sloane sat up straighter. “Who was it?” he asked intently.
“Julian Sark.”
A sharp breath was Sloane’s instinctive reaction. Sark. He hadn’t thought of the man in years, beyond a passing speculation of what might have become of him.
“You fought?” he asked.
For the first time Colin showed some emotion, a light blush staining his pale cheeks. “I didn’t get the chance,” he confessed. “Someone struck me from behind before I could confront him, knocked me unconscious.”
“I see,” Sloane said, his voice heavy with disappointment. He ran his finger around the rim of a glass of water. “So we are back to square one.”
Colin cracked a smile. “Not quite, sir,” he said. At Sloane’s expression he explained, “I did some digging before I came here. This is not the first Rambaldi artifact which has been stolen recently. In fact, a number have disappeared lately, all over the globe. According to my contacts, Sark was seen at or near almost all of the sites from which the artifacts were taken.”
Sloane nodded. Colin’s competence was always a breath of fresh air; it had been the reason he had carefully cultivated a mentor/mentee relationship with the younger man during his later years at SD-6 and his time at Omnifam.
“Well done,” he said. “I do not believe Sark is working on his own; the last time I saw him he was far from being a mastermind himself.”
“There’s more,” Colin said, an excited gleam in his eye. “This is more rumor than certainty, but I dug a little further and I found something…very interesting. There have been whispers in the international community lately, whispers about a woman some say is pulling Sark’s strings.”
“Do you have a name for this woman?” Sloane demanded.
“Yes,” Colin said. He paused for a moment as if to build the suspense. “They say her name is Anastasia Derevko.”
A beat of silence passed before Sloane said, “Is it possible that this is an alias of Katya Derevko’s?”
The agent’s shoulders began to move in a shrug before he thought better of the motion and forced them still. “I don’t know,” he said regretfully. “No one’s caught sight of her. My guess would be that this is someone else.”
Sloane nodded thoughtfully, leaning back again. “Thank you, Colin,” he said. “Keep looking into the location of the map. If you learn anything else about this new Derevko…inform me immediately.”
“Of course,” Colin said. He nodded respectfully and turned to go. Sloane’s voice stopped him.
“Oh, and if you see Sark again-get rid of him.”
The agent’s smile widened, showing the tips of his white teeth. “My pleasure, sir.”
Sloane waited until the other man was out the door before relaxing.
Anastasia Derevko. The name sent shivers down his spine. He had thought that Katya was the only remaining Derevko. Like Colin he did not believe that Katya had assumed a new first name. Was it possible that Irina had had another child? The thought was simultaneously delicious and terrifying-her offspring seemed to live to influence his life. Elena claimed never to have reproduced-a fact for which Sloane had been supremely grateful-but then the woman lied more often than she spoke the truth. It was also possible that Katya had a child of which he had been unaware, though he had always thought that if that particular Derevko ever found herself pregnant she would abort it immediately.
He tried to decide which option he preferred before he realized that it didn’t matter. Whoever this Derevko was, she was collecting Rambaldi artifacts, and that made her a threat to both Sydney and Sloane himself.
Speaking of Sydney…It had been nearly a month since Sloane had last seen her. It was time to drop in on his favorite ex-agent again.
It had been a long time since Sydney had been able to sleep through the night. That night she lay in bed for nearly four hours, staring at the dark ceiling and trying not to disturb the snoring dog beside her.
At three a.m. she got up, went to her office, and booked a flight to Mongolia.
She arrived at the cave-the god awful cave that was the source of more than one of her nightmares-barely more than 24 hours later, after only a brief detour in Prague. She drove up the wide dirt road in a military-style truck, her hair pulled back tight from her thin face. Dark sunglasses covered her eyes and for the first time in a long while she wore tan camouflage garb.
The truck pulled to a stop before the cave, loose rocks crunching beneath its tires. The area was deserted; from what Sydney understood the cave was now considered by the locals to be cursed.
The mouth of the cave was well blocked by a pile of rocks that filled it entirely. It looked just as she remembered from the last time she was there. It was the same day her father had been shot, the same day her mother had fallen through a glass ceiling in a fruitless attempt at immortality. She had been battered and bruised, filled with a soul-deep weariness that threatened to pull her down into some dark place she did not dare to go. And then Vaughn had come with his soulful eyes and furrowed brow and she had recalled who she was, who she had to be. She was the strong one, the one who knew what needed to be done and did it.
“We need to go back to Mongolia,” she said, because she knew, just knew, that her father had not been evacuated by the helicopter they’d sent.
He swallowed and nodded and ran off to make the arrangements, leaving her to stare at the broken form of the woman who had said “for what it’s worth, I really do love you” and then tried to kill her. Sydney shuffled forward, body stiff, and bent to pick up the sphere that lay close to her mother’s outstretched hand. She stared at it for a long moment, running her thumb over its slick surface, and when she heard Vaughn approaching again she swiftly tucked it into her backpack.
By the time they got back to the cave, of course, it was all over. She stared at the wall of rock blocking the entrance to the cave, a lump in her throat as she thought about what it meant.
“We can dig our way in,” Vaughn offered, his hand comforting against the small of her back. “It’s possible that-”
“No,” she interrupted softly. The only one who could have set off the bomb that brought the cave in was Jack Bristow. She had no intention of digging into that rock and unearthing pieces of her father. She didn’t want that, and she knew that he would not have wanted her to. “No, Vaughn, it’s not.”
Staring at the blockage now, she searched for the new hole that must be there, one large enough for an adult male. At last she spotted it, a splotch of darkness against one of the uppermost corners.
With a decisive nod Sydney tucked a small hand-held pick into her belt. She set her foot against one of the lower rocks, feeling carefully for a steady handhold. She clambered up the short rock wall with imperfect grace until she reached the hole. She peered into the darkness and saw nothing.
She pulled a flashlight from her belt and clenched it carefully between her teeth, taking a deep breath as she wormed her way into the hole. The small tunnel was tight but not too tight; it had been made to accommodate a man larger than she was. She grunted as she pushed herself a short distance before she reached the end, letting the sturdy flashlight fall to the ground below to illuminate the small cavern. She heaved herself through the hole, lowering herself uneasily to the ground before picking up the flashlight again.
This was the place where her father died.
She shook away the thought. It wasn’t helpful at the moment, and he would have been the first to chastise her for allowing herself to become distracted by sentimental remembrances.
The beam of light swept around the cavern. Most of it was still buried in rock. One rock in particular drew her attention and her eyes narrowed as she approached it. It was a large boulder, resting fully upon the ground. The dirt beneath and around it was somewhat indented from years of having a human shape pressed hard against it.
Looking closer she grimaced at what she saw. What had looked at first like dark smudges against the gray rock were in fact smears of old blood. A fingernail was buried in one of the boulder’s many crevices, torn off from desperate clawing at the rough surface.
She sat back, rubbing the heel of her hand tiredly against her forehead. She tried to imagine Sloane’s imprisonment here, buried underneath a boulder that was impossible to lift. He must have broken his own ribs to pull himself free. It must have taken him months at least to get out. She wished she understood more about what the sphere had done to him; had he been weakened by the lack of food and water? Had he experienced pain, or simply the discomfort of physical restraint and solitude?
A thin smile spread slowly across her face. “Nice job, dad,” she whispered into the stale air.
She sighed as she stood, glancing around the cavern once more to make sure she hadn’t missed any important details. Then she left the cave as she’d entered it, careful not to dislodge any of the precariously perching stones.
Standing outside the cave again she found herself blinking in the bright sun. She stood unmoving for several long minutes. When she finally moved it was only to bend at the waste, trying to breathe past the blockage in her throat. She tried to will away the tears in her eyes but could not, could not restrain the sobs building in her chest and spilling out of her traitorous mouth.
Emelia Costa did not cry because she had nothing to cry about. It was impossible to be Emelia Costa when standing outside of Jack Bristow’s grave.
It was some time before her harsh breaths gave way to even breathing again. She stayed in the same position, bent over with her hands on her knees, staring at the ground where her tears had darkened the dirt.
Then she pulled a cell phone from her belt, the item that she had retrieved in Prague. She flipped it open with a steady hand, dialing in a quick stream of numbers. It rang once.
“It’s me,” she said. “Yes, that’s right. It’s time for a change in plan.”
************************
Sloane stood in the sun and tried not to cringe. It had been a long time since he’d subjected himself to the harsh Los Angeles sunlight, and though he had missed many things about California, this was not one of them. The sun here seemed brighter, starker somehow than the sun in Italy. It left him feeling peeled back, exposed even as he blended into the endless mass of people in the city.
A young woman hurried rudely past him, not apologizing as she knocked him slightly off balance, and he glared after her through his dark sunglasses.
At least when he’d lived here in the past he’d felt a sense of power despite his seeming physical insignificance. He enjoyed looking at the people around him-the tall man his own age, the mother with her three bawling children, the old woman with the walker-and knowing that with a stroke of his pen he could end their lives. He did not enjoy murder-despite what most of his enemies and all of his friends might think. What he enjoyed was the sense of power implicit in the ability to take the life of another human being.
Even now it would not be too difficult to arrange the death of any of the people he saw on the street today, but the thought did not hold the appeal it used to. Any such action on his behalf if traced back to him would undoubtedly bring Sydney’s wrath down on his head, and though he did intend to have significant contact with her in the future he hoped it would be slightly more amicable than with her simply attempting to kill him.
He walked past Credit Dauphine and kept going, though that had been what he’d come to the city to see. This place more than anywhere else in Los Angeles was a reminder of the time when he had been truly powerful, truly in control of himself and a significant portion of the world around him. He found that he did not miss it.
He flagged a passing taxi and directed the driver to a small park on the outskirts of town. He found himself a bench and settled down to wait. He didn’t have to wait long; not ten minutes later the people he was waiting for arrived: six year old Isabelle and two and a half year old Jack, accompanied by their babysitter, young Robin Dixon.
His breath caught at the startling similarities between Isabelle and Sydney. When Sydney was the same ago she was almost identical to this girl, except for the eyes. Isabelle had her father’s eyes and for that Sloane resented Vaughn all the more. Jack’s resemblance to his mother was more subtle; in fact, if Sloane had to pick he would say that Jack most strongly resembled his namesake. He, like his mother and sister, had inherited the charmingly large Bristow ears. He moved with a kind of cautious gravity, too, that reminded Sloane of Jack although it really might have been a result of his unsteadiness as his little legs moved over the wood shavings which covered the park floor.
Sloane counted three people besides himself who might have been at the park to keep tabs on the children. Two might have been there for another purpose; the way their eyes slid over the children to find other targets suggested that they might be waiting for someone, or something, else. The last watched the children intently, eyes flitting from her John Grisham book to the children and back again. Sloane stared at the young woman, wondering who she worked for and what their intentions were.
The woman looked up and met his eyes. He could tell from her reaction that she worked for Sydney. Her eyes widened, indicating that she recognized him, but she did not look shocked by his presence, as though someone had warned her to look for him. She did not go for a weapon, but lifted her watch and pointed it in his direction, very obviously taking a picture with the camera that must be hidden there.
He arched an eyebrow and nodded courteously in her direction before returning his attention to the children. Let the watcher assure Sydney that he did not approach them or make any threatening gestures. He simply came to see what it was about them that had enabled Sydney, the most loving and selfless person he knew, to leave them in the dubious care of their father.
Isabelle was pushing Jack on the swing set, eyes watchful and protective as the little boy’s face scrunched up with glee.
He watched for nearly an hour-until the sun began to set and Robin collected the children and ushered them home. Sydney’s watcher shot him another glance as she left, following the small party from a careful distance.
Sloane tapped his gloved fingers against his lips as he stared in the direction they had gone. Sydney had not left them for lack of love, that was obvious. Jack had just been a baby at the time, of course, and Isabelle…she was so like Sydney at that age that he could not understand how anyone, especially Sydney herself, could fail to love her.
So it must have been too much love that had driven Sydney away. A threat to the children, probably. Otherwise she could never have left.
He caught a plane back to Italy-with detours to several other cities just in case anyone should be following, of course-later that evening. He resisted the urge to visit his old home or the Vaughn household; either would be too risky. He had seen what he came to see.
*******************************
Sydney sprinted the last hundred feet to the front door of her house before allowing herself to collapse, panting. Sweat dripped down her face and Will, who had fallen behind in the last stretch, pounced upon her with a lolling grin and began to clean her face with his tongue.
One of her arms came up to shield her eyes from the bright sun. She gave herself a moment to recover before she began to stretch; she was not old by any stretch of the imagination, but she had begun to notice a stiffness in her limbs that had not been present before.
Probably the result of countless experiences with electroshock before she turned thirty.
Her cell phone chirped. She exhaled deeply before pulling it from the shallow pocket of her running shorts.
“Yes,” she said, her voice slightly less crisp than usual due to harsh breathing she couldn’t quite control.
The voice on the other end spoke and she groaned as an expression of mixed aggravation and amusement flashed across her face. “None of your business what I’m doing,” she said. “Why are you calling?”
At his words she sat up abruptly, eyes narrowed in fury. “When? He didn’t speak to them, do anything threatening? No. No, I’ll take care of it. Yes, I have it under control. You just stay focused.” She snapped the phone shut as she lay back down on the grass, but she was unable to recapture the peaceful feeling she had been experiencing just minutes before.
After several minutes of trying and failing she let out a sigh and sat up, pulling Will’s head into her lap. She stroked his fur for a few moments.
“Whaddya think, Will?” she asked idly. “Time to go see just how real that immortality is?”
The dog barked, tongue lolling in a grin from the side of his mouth.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, pushing his head away as she pushed herself purposefully to her feet.
The ache in her bones was gone as if it had never been.
*******************************
Sloane regarded the man across his desk with narrowed eyes.
“You did not get the dart,” he said, leaning back in his chair and feeling eerily reminiscent of his old SD-6 days.
Colin Acre, a handsome British national who had spent significant time in Zurich and the United States, blinked once. “No, sir,” he said smoothly, not intimidated by his employer.
Sloane’s lips twisted in a frown. “It took us nearly a month to determine the dart’s location,” he reminded the other man. “What went wrong?”
Colin met his eyes evenly. “I infiltrated the gala at the Argentine embassy, but by the time I reached the safe in which the dart was being held another man had beaten me there. I had not seen him before, but I recognized him from your description.”
Sloane sat up straighter. “Who was it?” he asked intently.
“Julian Sark.”
A sharp breath was Sloane’s instinctive reaction. Sark. He hadn’t thought of the man in years, beyond a passing speculation of what might have become of him.
“You fought?” he asked.
For the first time Colin showed some emotion, a light blush staining his pale cheeks. “I didn’t get the chance,” he confessed. “Someone struck me from behind before I could confront him, knocked me unconscious.”
“I see,” Sloane said, his voice heavy with disappointment. He ran his finger around the rim of a glass of water. “So we are back to square one.”
Colin cracked a smile. “Not quite, sir,” he said. At Sloane’s expression he explained, “I did some digging before I came here. This is not the first Rambaldi artifact which has been stolen recently. In fact, a number have disappeared lately, all over the globe. According to my contacts, Sark was seen at or near almost all of the sites from which the artifacts were taken.”
Sloane nodded. Colin’s competence was always a breath of fresh air; it had been the reason he had carefully cultivated a mentor/mentee relationship with the younger man during his later years at SD-6 and his time at Omnifam.
“Well done,” he said. “I do not believe Sark is working on his own; the last time I saw him he was far from being a mastermind himself.”
“There’s more,” Colin said, an excited gleam in his eye. “This is more rumor than certainty, but I dug a little further and I found something…very interesting. There have been whispers in the international community lately, whispers about a woman some say is pulling Sark’s strings.”
“Do you have a name for this woman?” Sloane demanded.
“Yes,” Colin said. He paused for a moment as if to build the suspense. “They say her name is Anastasia Derevko.”
A beat of silence passed before Sloane said, “Is it possible that this is an alias of Katya Derevko’s?”
The agent’s shoulders began to move in a shrug before he thought better of the motion and forced them still. “I don’t know,” he said regretfully. “No one’s caught sight of her. My guess would be that this is someone else.”
Sloane nodded thoughtfully, leaning back again. “Thank you, Colin,” he said. “Keep looking into the location of the map. If you learn anything else about this new Derevko…inform me immediately.”
“Of course,” Colin said. He nodded respectfully and turned to go. Sloane’s voice stopped him.
“Oh, and if you see Sark again-get rid of him.”
The agent’s smile widened, showing the tips of his white teeth. “My pleasure, sir.”
Sloane waited until the other man was out the door before relaxing.
Anastasia Derevko. The name sent shivers down his spine. He had thought that Katya was the only remaining Derevko. Like Colin he did not believe that Katya had assumed a new first name. Was it possible that Irina had had another child? The thought was simultaneously delicious and terrifying-her offspring seemed to live to influence his life. Elena claimed never to have reproduced-a fact for which Sloane had been supremely grateful-but then the woman lied more often than she spoke the truth. It was also possible that Katya had a child of which he had been unaware, though he had always thought that if that particular Derevko ever found herself pregnant she would abort it immediately.
He tried to decide which option he preferred before he realized that it didn’t matter. Whoever this Derevko was, she was collecting Rambaldi artifacts, and that made her a threat to both Sydney and Sloane himself.
Speaking of Sydney…It had been nearly a month since Sloane had last seen her. It was time to drop in on his favorite ex-agent again.