* * * * Jack studied the men around the table as Kendall briefed them on their latest assignment. Marshall was fidgeting nervously and Jack cast a quick glance at the seat across from him. Sark gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look as if to say, “I didn’t do anything”. Jack resisted a sigh. It was probably true. Just being in the same room with the boy was enough to give Marshall hives. As a gesture of goodwill, Sark flashed Marshall a bright reassuring grin that was anything but. The engineer sloshed his coffee in agitation and Jack gave the boy another warning glare. Sark’s smile was utterly unrepentant as he made a quiet show of folding his hands carefully on the table and turning his attention dutifully toward Kendall. Jack resisted another sigh and for the moment he was thankful that he had not been responsible for raising this boy after all. He was beginning to suspect that one or the other of them would not have survived.
He turned his focus to the man seated beside Marshall. Tippin was no more comfortable in this situation than Marshall was. Whereas Marshall’s fear of Sark was tempered with curiosity though, Tippin’s was mixed with anger. Recollecting Will’s condition after being abducted and ransomed by Sark a couple of years ago, Jack could hardly blame him. Seeing Will was always a good reminder, he thought regretfully, of just what his son was capable of doing. It was encouraging to know how resilient the one-time reporter was however. He had adapted to a career as a CIA analyst rather quickly and in the past year had become a common fixture at many lower level meetings. Jack doubted the wisdom of having him at this particular briefing, but Kendall had thought that his input would be valuable. Tippin hadn’t met Sark’s eye throughout his presentation, a tactic that Marshall would have done well to emulate.
Beside Sark sat Dixon, already a veteran of several previous missions with the boy. He had no fear, but harbored a healthy skepticism about Sark and appeared to be resigned to working with him once again. He had merely given Jack a knowing look as Kendall began to outline their mission and shaken his head in unenthusiastic acceptance. As he had predicted several weeks earlier, Sark had found a way around the poison capsule… although the alternative wasn’t entirely to his liking either.
“It’s not really my style,” Sark said, frowning critically at the box and its contents.
“I tried to make it as tasteful as possible,” Marshall explained hurriedly. “You know, Harrison Ford has one just like it. Well, not just like it because I’m pretty sure that his doesn’t transmit and receive radio waves. It might, but… no, probably not.” He took the box back out of Sark’s hands. “I based this on the earrings that your… ahem, sorry… The earrings that Derevko, your former employer gave to Sydney, her daughter…” He paused briefly, his gaze darting nervously from Sark’s slightly bored expression to Jack’s equally impassive one. “Right, anyway… There are a few modifications of my own. This earring is an all-in-one combo of voice transmitter, receiver, and passive tracker. And I wouldn’t try to remove it yourself without this handy device,” he waved another small piece of electronic equipment at the boy. “Or you’ll be doing a very messy Van Gogh impersonation and probably be deaf in that ear… er, the remains of that ear for the rest of your life.”
Sark scowled at him. “I thought we’d agreed to no C4 accessories?”
“Um, no… you sort of asked for that, but it was kind of overruled. Don’t get me wrong. I mean, you’re still intimidating as hell, and believe me, annoying you is one of the last things I want to do. But he…” Marshall pointed over his shoulder at Kendall. “He can fire me, and frankly that’s something that I’d rather not have to explain to my mother.”
“Marshall, would you just put the damn thing in his ear?” Kendall interrupted.
“Sure, sure.” The engineer fumbled with the box for a moment. “Just have to… Here, hold this for a minute while I…” He handed Sark a hypo-gun, much to the chagrin of several of the room’s other occupants. “Relax,” he told them, still tugging at the earring in the case. “It’s not like it’s loaded or anything. I just have to… Got it… Just have to put this in there, and then line it up.” He had taken the gun back, loaded the C4 stud, and now stood with it aimed straight-armed at Sark’s head. “I’m not really a professional at this or anything and I don’t want to hurt you…”
“I’ll do it,” Will volunteered cheerfully. “I don’t mind.”
Sark mouth twisted into a smirk. “Still a bit resentful about Taipei, Mr. Tippin? How many times do I have to apologize for that unfortunate incident?”
“Once would be a good start.”
“Then I do apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Inconvenience?” Will said indignantly, rising from his chair even as Jack moved to intervene. “You shot me! I was tortured!”
“No need to take it so personally,” Sark replied unperturbed. “I have nothing against you myself. If you’ll recall, I never touched you, and I sincerely doubt that tranquilizer dart hurt at all.”
Jack was fascinated as well as appalled by the instinctive way that the boy seemed to distance himself from the torment Tippin had endured. Sark seemed to effortlessly shrug off his own responsibility by reasoning that it had not been his decision to abduct Will nor had the actual subsequent torture been his doing. This was the side of his son that disturbed Jack the most - this blithely amoral persona that simply couldn’t see anything wrong with what he had done. It troubled Jack to see how easily the jaded operative could overshadow the charming young man and the lonely little boy that also lived behind those clear blue eyes.
“You are not unique, Mr. Tippin,” Sark continued. “Every man in this room has had similar disagreeable experiences - and most of us more than you. I suggest that you either get over it or get a new job.”
“That’s enough!” Kendall said sharply. Jack discovered that he had clamped a hand on Tippin’s shoulder to hold him in his seat. Across the table he noted that Dixon had subtly shifted into fighting readiness despite the fact that Sark hadn’t twitched a muscle. “I don’t care how big a hole you have to put in the side of his head, Marshall. Just do it.”
“Yessir, sir,” Marshall stammered. “This might sting a little.” The hand holding the gun shook unsteadily and Sark raised his own hand to stabilize it.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Flinkman. I’ll survive this and I promise you will too.”
There was a soft pneumatic thump and the snap of the earring’s pieces clicking together. The boy’s expression never changed.
“There now. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t too…” Marshall’s voice trailed off as he realized that Sark was being sarcastic.
“Just remember,” Kendall said to Sark as the rest of them rose to leave. “You step one toe out of line and they have authorization to shoot you now- no hearing, no trial. They don’t need anything but reasonable cause.”
Sark gave him a disingenuous smile. “And here I thought they had always been authorized to shoot me,” he said.
Jack put a hand to his back and propelled the boy into the hallway before he could further annoy the director. “One of these days,” he hissed at Sark. “Somebody really is going to shoot you out of sheer exasperation and I might just do it myself. That stupid stunt, baiting Tippin…” He regretted the words immediately as Sark choked on strangled laughter.
“I do so enjoy being part of this family,” Sark murmured in amusement. “Nothing says love like opening fire on your children. You and Irina really are very well matched.”
“And your remarkable sense of self-preservation seems to be fading,” Jack said grimly. “You might want to consider revising your tactics.”
“Sorry. Point taken. I’ll be sitting quietly in the lounge, not baiting anyone, until the mission is ready to depart.”
“You’ll be sitting silently in my office not doing anything at all until we leave.” He frowned at the boy, daring him to make just one more smart remark. Sark seemed to be considering his options before shrugging his capitulation. Jack wondered briefly how Irina had kept his insolent sense of humor in check. It occurred to him that Sark was more afraid of her than he was of him. Considering their current relative positions, Jack wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or offended.
* * * * “I can’t believe that this is the most feasible approach your people were able to come up with,” Sark muttered.
“Shut up,” Jack replied through clenched teeth and a fake smile as they drew near the receptionist’s desk. “Godaften. Jeg hedder Frederick Brenner,” he said to the woman as she looked up at them politely. “We’re here to see Mr. Kronsberg. We have a two-thirty appointment.” Marshall had hacked the Danish firm’s intranet to insert their names into the corporate calendar and the woman smiled back at them brightly.
“Yes, Mr. Brenner. If you’ll just sign in here.” She pointed to the appropriate line on the clipboard then turned her attention toward Sark. “And you…?”
“My personal assistant,” Jack said, hoping that the boy at least had the grace to not be smirking right now. He was admittedly relieved to see that Sark had managed to conjure up a suitably mild expression as he signed in as well. They accepted their visitors’ passes and walked through the metal detectors. The guard inspected Jack’s laptop and both of their cell phones before ushering them on to the elevator.
“I still think this plan is needlessly complicated,” Sark said when the doors had closed.
“And how would you have done it differently?”
“Through the garage level and up the service elevator.”
“Guards?”
“Trank darts.”
“Elevator card?”
“Stolen from one of the aforementioned guards.”
“And if an unconscious guard is discovered before you’re finished?”
Sark shrugged as he followed Jack off the elevator. “At least they wouldn’t know who they’re looking for. Unlike those of us on this mission who stood still for three minutes at the front desk and posed for their security cameras.”
“And how would you have handled the rest of the internal security cameras?” Dixon’s voice crackled over their earpieces. He was currently monitoring those very cameras from a surveillance post set up in the building next-door. “The hallway is clear for about ninety seconds,” he added.
“EMF disruptor,” Sark replied.
“And the electronic locks?” Jack asked, waving one of Marshall’s skeleton cards at the boy before sliding it into the panel beside the laboratory’s door.
“Presuming that I didn’t have Mr. Flinkman on my personal payroll, I suppose it could be done the old-fashioned way - descramblers.”
“That would take more than the minute and a half you’d have in this hall,” Jack pointed out as they entered the lab.
“Trank darts,” Sark said again with another shrug.
“You can’t solve all your logistics problems by shooting people.”
“It’s worked fairly well so far.” He sat down at one of the terminals. “Bay three,” he called to Jack after a few moments of tapping at the keyboard. “The prototypes should be in bin seventeen.”
Another of Marshall’s keycards opened the bay’s door and Jack quickly located the system components that they’d come to disable. Sark joined him and they began opening the casings of each of the devices.
“You wouldn’t have had time to sabotage all of these with a one-man mission,” Jack said as they worked to remove and replace the essential chips.
“True,” Sark replied. “But I wouldn’t be bothering to substitute defective chips. Simply stealing the originals could be done quickly enough.”
“Short-sighted,” Jack shook his head. “This substitution will gain us a few extra days at the least. A few weeks if we’re lucky.”
“Wouldn’t be an issue. I shot a guard on the way in, remember? They would know someone had been here anyway.”
“Doubly short-sighted then.”
“Three days won’t matter one way or the other. My plan is faster, more efficient, and less risk to fewer people. From a purely economic point of view, it’s the cheapest means to the highest yield.”
“You’d resell the chips.”
“Of course. And a one-man job doesn’t require splitting the profits. Done.”
“Done.”
“Hold your position,” Dixon stopped them. “The guard is sweeping your hallway right now… Okay, go.”
“For what you intend to accomplish,” Jack said as they rode the elevator back to the lobby. “It’s a reasonable plan. For what we intend to accomplish, however, it’s a little inadequate.”
“You’re entirely too accustomed to having a governmental budget at your disposal. When you’re having to front operational costs on your own account, sometimes the short-term gains are preferable to the long-term benefits.”
“Just out of curiosity,” Dixon asked. “How much profit would you estimate that you could make on those chips?”
“Five million apiece if I could sell them fast enough.”
“You are keeping an eye on him, aren’t you, Jack?”
“Both of them. We’ll meet you at the rendezvous point in forty-five minutes.”
* * * * Jack and Sark reached the rendezvous location rather quickly. Dixon hadn't arrived yet and pick-up wasn't scheduled for another twenty-five minutes. Jack continuously scanned the shadows of the dim warehouse, far past second and even third thoughts about the prudence of the imminent unsanctioned assignation. Sark had sensed his unease and stood mutely beside him, hands jammed into his coat pockets, scanning with the same edgy intensity although Jack knew that he had no idea what he was looking for. There was a sudden, sharp intake of breath and Jack realized that the boy had discovered it after all.
"That's not playing fair, athair," Sark said softly as Jack followed his line of sight.
Irina Derevko stood at the edge of the shadows, waiting expressionlessly for a signal to either approach or depart.
* * * *
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