* * * * Sark turned to meet Jack’s gaze. Jack could see a myriad of emotions flash through his eyes - surprise, anger, confusion, hesitation. None of these came as a shock to him. He doubted that the boy ever expected him to authorize such a meeting, much less arrange it. The anger could be explained as much by Sark’s dislike of being unprepared as it might indicate his feelings on the subject of Irina in general. The confusion was perhaps a result of seeing his adversarial parents in collusion. And as Sark’s hand rose automatically to his ear, Jack knew the hesitancy was caused by the knowledge that the radio transmitter had no off-switch.
The earring was more of an annoyance than a serious deterrent, Jack thought. He suspected that it would take Sark slightly less than three seconds to slice it out - with or without a blade. The real deterrent, as far as the CIA was concerned, was the fact that Jack never allowed the boy out of his sight - or more preferably out of arms’ reach. The earring was merely a token gesture to remind Sark who held his leash. This simple operation had been little more than a test of how much he could be trusted. It was ironic, Jack mused, that it was he and not the boy who had chosen to commit the breach.
Silently, he took a device from his briefcase - a twin to the one Marshall had shown them at the briefing. Sark stared at it for a moment, his mouth drawn tightly and his forehead wrinkled in frowning contemplation. Then he nodded once and bent his head. Jack desensitized the trigger mechanism in the earring and nodded in return that the boy could remove it. Sark did so, clenching it almost involuntarily in his fist before dropping it into the small, soundproof container that Marshall had also provided.
“You don’t have to talk to her,” Jack said quietly once the box was sealed.
Sark snorted. “You went to an awful lot of trouble to make sure that I would.”
“That you could,” Jack corrected.
“Why? As much of a fight as you put up to keep Sydney away from her, I’d think you would be considerably more worried about any sort of influence she might have over me.”
“I am. But I also think that you’re better able to assess her attempts at manipulation than Sydney was.”
“And if she’s not trying to manipulate me?” Sark asked. “Aren’t you the slightest bit bothered by the possibility that you’re the one being played?”
“Yes,” he admitted again. “But as I have yet to discover any practical benefit to either of you in this particular method of emotional extortion, my concern is rather slight.”
“So now that you’ve removed the threat of that charming little trinket,” Sark nodded at the box. “What’s to stop me now from walking over there… and continuing out the door?”
Jack smiled humorlessly. “We all know that earring has no more been stopping you from vanishing than Sloane’s radioactive wine did.” He paused and gave the boy a hard look. “You are my son, but even my sentimentality has its limits. I have no illusions about what you are capable of and, like your mother, I would have no qualms about shooting you should I deem it necessary.”
“My life really was so much simpler when I was still an orphan.” His tone was as flippant as usual, but Jack detected the note of truth beneath it.
Sark continued to hesitate, not exactly asking for permission, but still apparently looking for some sort of reassurance. Despite the boy’s outward bravado, Jack knew that he was apprehensive about speaking with Irina. He had been her protégé for years, her favorite employee, and her most trusted right-hand man. There had been a degree of respect and even a certain measure of closeness between them. Now Sark was entirely unsure where he stood with her. Jack couldn’t fault him for his anxiety. He didn’t doubt that the boy had spent countless hours in his cell wondering what, if anything, of their former relationship had been real. But solitary speculation couldn’t actually answer that question.
“You have ten minutes, fifteen at the most, before Dixon arrives. Do you want it?”
The boy looked down briefly, closed his eyes for an instant, and nodded. When he looked up again there was a new resolve in his expression. With one last, unreadable look at Jack he squared his shoulders and crossed to where Irina stood waiting. Jack watched as Sark stopped several feet short of easy conversational distance; arms crossed, hands tucked beneath his elbows in an unmistakably hostile stance. Although their voices didn’t carry across the vast warehouse floor, Jack was not at a disadvantage. He unobtrusively slipped the second earpiece into his right ear. The microbug that he had planted on Sark’s coat hours earlier transmitted their words clearly.
“Stephen…”
“Don’t,” Sark stopped her. “You never called me that. Not even as a child. No reason to start now.”
Jack watched Irina’s calculating expression as she studied the boy. “You let your father call you that,” she speculated.
Sark shrugged. “He doesn’t do it on purpose. He doesn’t know why he does it.”
“But you don’t stop him, do you? And you don’t know why either.”
Her canny observation was met with a stony silence. Jack noted absently that here was another similar expression Marshall would have been able to recognize had he been present.
“I suppose you would like an explanation,” she said at last, when it became clear that his relationship with Jack was no more a topic for discussion with her than their relationship was with his father.
“No. I think I’ve managed to put most of the important pieces together on my own already.” He gave her a sardonic smile. “Apparently I come by my analytical skills quite naturally. It seems that I only have one question left… Did you have a choice?”
“About leaving you at St. Michael’s? No, that wasn’t my choice. You were taken…”
“No,” he interrupted. “Did you have a choice about whether to bring me into the Halcyon program?”
There was a lengthy pause. Jack supposed that she was trying to decide what the boy wanted to hear, which version of the truth would appease him… if there even was any answer that would satisfy him.
“No,” Irina said at last. “I have to admit that part of me was selfishly glad that I would have you so close once again… but no, if I had been allowed a choice, I would not have brought you into Halcyon. I never wanted this life for you… for either of my children. There are so many other things that I would have wished for you, but my wishes were irrelevant. Your genetic profile, your inherited traits, your undeniable potential… all of these ensured your recruitment regardless of how vehemently I could have protested.”
“Could have,” Sark repeated. “But you didn’t protest at all, did you?”
“I am sorry.”
“That would be much more convincing if both of us were clear on what exactly you believe you’re apologizing for.”
“I’m sorry that you aren’t happy,” she said simply.
Sark stared at her nonplused for an instant before recovering and throwing up a quick rejoinder. “What makes you think I’m not happy?”
She gave him a gentle, knowing smile. “You are not happy,” she said again with conviction. “And I know much of that is my fault.”
“Like handing me over to the CIA?” he asked. “Because I have to agree, my displeasure with this particular situation is entirely your fault. Was that really necessary? You knew where Sloane was. You could have just as easily told Sydney how to find him as you told her how to find me. What grand scheme did you fail to fill me in on?”
“So you do have more than one question,” she said lightly. “I have never failed to tell you anything you truly needed to know.”
“I suppose the subject of who I really am is a relatively insignificant matter then? A minor irrelevant detail?”
“Would it have done you any good to know it sooner?” Irina asked. “Surviving Halcyon required a certain mindset. Could you have maintained that knowing what you know now? It wasn’t my choice to bring you into that program, but if you were going to be forced to become a covert agent then I would have done anything to ensure that not only would you survive, you would be the best operative they produced.”
“Anything to produce the best,” he repeated derisively. “Letting a nine-year-old believe that he was and always would be completely alone certainly does foster a particular sort of bloody-minded dedication to one’s work. Someone who never had any emotional attachments in his life would be consummately indifferent to such weaknesses in others. The ultimate professional.”
“It got you through. You survived.”
“At what cost?” he snapped, his accent blurring in his anger. “Allison is dead,” he said. “And thanks to your flawless training, I almost don’t care. Occupational hazard. Survival of the fittest. Part of me actually wants to blame her for not being good enough. And you’re the one who raised me to think like this.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. You’re standing there thinking, ‘better Allison than Sydney’.”
“You’re right.”
They stood staring at one another - Sark’s anger slowly ebbing away as Irina refused to fuel it.
“What do you want me to have done differently?” she asked when he seemed composed once again. “If I had told you when you were a child you would have expected things that I could not provide and you would have died for those erroneous beliefs. I couldn’t get you out and I couldn’t protect you myself. The only option I had left was to make sure that you could defend yourself and I am not sorry for that. I’m proud of you, what you’ve become.”
“A cold-blooded monster?”
“You are not a monster,” she said, taking an unintentional step toward him. She caught herself and stopped as his already rigid posture stiffened even more. “Despite all your training to the contrary, you are still capable of caring. And regardless of how old you think you feel, you are still young enough to learn so much more.”
The boy twitched involuntarily toward Jack before he could stop himself. “You set me up just so Daddy could complete my education?” he said in disbelief.
Irina shook her head. “That was not my intention… but I’m not disappointed with the results. You know now that you are not and never will be completely alone. You are beginning to understand that people do care about you very deeply. And you are finally starting to form some of those dangerous, necessary emotional attachments of your own.” She smiled faintly at his darkening scowl. “He’s your father, Stephen. Although he may be in no better position to be a parent to you than I was, let him try. Making those attachments now is what is going to keep you alive, not detachment. Your world has changed. Change with it.”
“I don’t know how,” he said quietly.
Her smile broadened fondly at that. “That has never stopped you from doing anything before in your life. You’re going to be fine.”
“But…”
“You are going to be fine,” she repeated firmly. “I know it’s a lot to absorb, but there is one more thing. Something I’ve wanted to tell you every time I saw you for the past fourteen years,” she said, her features softening once again. “I love you. If you take none of the rest of this with you, if you choose to believe nothing else - believe that.”
There was a long, long silence.
It was broken by the beeping of the timer on Jack’s watch. Sark turned toward him and now Jack could see the raw emotions on his face. He looked as lost and overwhelmed as he had the first night that he’d known who he truly was. Jack wanted to give them just a little more time, but didn’t dare. He crossed quickly to them, taking the soundproof box out of his pocket as he walked. Irina lingered, knowing as he did that she shouldn’t risk it, but unwilling to leave just yet.
Sark fumbled with the small explosive earring as if his fingers had gone numb. Unaccustomed to wearing such an accessory, Jack half-expected that he would end up stabbing another hole through his ear. What he did not expect was for Irina to gently take it from the boy and reach up to fasten it herself. Sark’s eyes closed at her touch. When her hand moved tentatively to his cheek, he tilted his head ever so slightly to lean into it and opened his eyes once again. In them Jack could see the little boy who had never before been touched by the hand of his mother. There was at the same time a desperate longing and a sense of long-denied peace in the boy’s expression.
“Mathair,” he breathed. It was scarcely loud enough to be heard. The microphone would have picked up only a sigh.
Irina smiled softly, knowing that she could make no verbal response. Instead, she brushed her lips lightly across his other cheek. She reached out to touch Jack’s arm as she turned to go and mouthed, thank you. With a final glance at the boy, she disappeared back into the shadows. Father and son stared after her.
Neither of them spoke again until Dixon arrived a few minutes later. The boy seemed understandably subdued on the airplane and Jack deemed it wisest to leave him alone with his thoughts for the moment. In truth, he had more than a little contemplation of his own to do. As he passed Sark’s seat on his way to the cockpit, however, the boy stopped him.
“Here. I almost forgot.”
Jack reflexively caught the small, dark object that fell from his hand. It was the microbug. The boy gave him a tired grin.
“When are you going to realize that I am as good as I say I am?”
* * * *
next