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Pinpointing when fate became synonymous with life was like catching a fly
between your hands. Sark remained convinced that he had read his fate
writ large that night in Paris, when Sydney had roused every man in
the club with her serenade. He smiled to himself, his face betraying
nothing. He had known it was her, even then.
Sydney had never seemed more like her mother than when she had charmed
Khasinau. Sark would return to the parallel often as he crossed the globe,
alternately luring and chasing her. Just as Irina had been his mentor,
Sydney would be his challenge, the one to whom he would be bound in a tireless
duality. Like two children circling a shed, one chasing the other until
predator reverted to prey.
A thermal-sensing device allowed him to track Sydney’s movements through
the snowy cave with the accuracy of a hunting dog sniffing the afternoon’s
kill. The pelt of a polar bear lined his jacket, masking his heat as he
hunted hers.
He did not dictate the terms of the game, he merely followed the rules
set by Irina. Prior to surrendering to the CIA, she had offered him a disk
containing every ounce of intelligence that she had collected about Rambaldi
and a promise that she would reveal the same to Sydney piece-by-piece.
“
Agent against agent,” Irina had proposed, dangling his fate before him. “Challenge
Sydney and she’ll be forced to seek my help if she wants to catch you.”
The barbs flew from Irina’s lips, mellifluous darts that compelled him
to agree.
Of course, he was now privy to certain secrets that would have eluded him
had he not accepted her terms. Irina had revealed that Sydney was a double
agent, but had forbidden him to speak of it. To Sydney, he was a free agent,
angling for control over the remains of her mother’s syndicate and that
was all he would ever be. Like a character actor, he could never transcend
his stereotype.
Sark checked his watch. Soon shots would ring out as his men eliminated
the other SD-6 agents. They could likewise confront Sydney, but he preferred
to strip her of the spoils himself, to claim the music box as his own.
As he reached the entrance to the cavern, he peeked inside. First he spied
her shadow, then the steam of her breath. Sometimes they stood so close
that he wondered whether she sensed him as well.
He pulled a small mirror from his pocket and watched her standing beneath
a field of stalactites. Cocooned in white and fur, she had her back to
him. He anticipated the look on her face, how it would contort when she
lost the box. As a double agent, her defeats were two-fold and personal.
The snow crunched beneath his boot, and her body stiffened with awareness.
Before she could react further, he clamped her mouth and locked his arm
around her body. “A scream can be deadly in these caves.” His whisper warmed
her ear as her pant thawed his icy fingers.
She resisted, kicking at the ice as she bucked roughly against him. He
imagined that this was her performance, that she was playing the game as
well as he did.
“
I believe you have something of mine.” He let her breathe again. She gasped,
choking down the cold air. He shoved her toward the silver box. “Open it.”
He stood poised, his gun trained on her as she unbuckled the latches. She
glared at him. “There’s nothing left,” she claimed. While her tone echoed
the surprise of a disappointed child, the corners of her mouth turned up,
revealing her complicity. “Nothing but rust.”
“
That’s impossible,” he said. The box hadn’t naturally rusted, of that much
he was certain. Rambaldi went to great lengths to protect his creations.
While losing the box angered him, he couldn’t help admiring her ingenuity. “I’ll
still be taking it as a souvenir.”
As he reached for the shiny case, a sharp pain shot up his leg. He had
been so focused on the music box that he never saw the pickaxe coming.
Like a lover transfixed by Cupid’s arrow, Sark pulled the tool from his
leg and fell to his knees while Sydney darted past him, box in hand.
A crack pierced the air. He turned and watched her slip through a hole
in the ice. There was no time for muffled screams as she drowned in a frigid
bath. The hole grew smaller as its edges turned from water to ice until
a thin sheet had formed.
Like a child staring through the shop window at an object she was destined
never to have, Sydney pressed her hands against the clear barrier that
divided her from the living and him from the nearly departed.
Just as she had punctured his leg, she now pierced his conscience with
the fear that flashed in her eyes and electrified him like a lightning
strike in a storm. The apprehension that he had seen before was nothing
compared to the panic that bled into her features as she watched him pull
his gun from its holster.
There were rules governing the relationship
of predator and prey. The haunting voice was his own.
He took careful aim and fired at his target.
The bullets fractured the integrity of the ice. Cracks radiated from the
holes like spokes on a wheel, stretching ever outward. He grabbed his machine
gun and rammed the butt through the ice. He then flipped it around and
thrust the barrel into the water. Reading his mind, she seized it and he
hoisted her from her wet grave.
While no part of the cave could be considered safe given the rounds fired
and ice shattered, he wrapped his arms around her unconscious form and
dragged her away from the hole until her shivers forced him to stop.
He laid her down, removed her sopping headband, and watched as the water
in her hair congealed to form crunchy tangles. He took off his gloves and
ran his bare hands across her cheeks, melting the drops that had frozen
into what looked to be shiny tears.
Rules of the games dictated that she devise her own escape. He had already
violated that tenet once. If his men had done their jobs, Dixon wouldn’t
be alive long enough to rescue her either. Sark couldn’t get her out of
here, nor could he order his men to help her.
Sydney’s eyelids fluttered, then opened fully. Panic had turned to shock. “Why—”
“
You sabotaged the music box, but I’m betting that you captured the tune
before you did. Give it to me or I’ll shove you back in the water.” God
help him, he enjoyed tussling with her.
“
I’m not about to sing for you.” Even half-drowned, Sydney dared to taunt
him. She shook her head and that same gloating smile curled the corners
of her mouth. “Guess you’re going to have to drown me.”
He cocked his pistol and affected a menacing glance. “Don’t think I wouldn’t
enjoy holding you under as you gasped for air.”
“
Would you? Are you sure you wouldn’t
rather do something else?” Sydney wasn’t fooled. She knew exactly what
he wanted.
“
Sydney!” Dixon’s cry echoed through the caves.
Sark put away his pistol, then reached for his machine gun. The tune wasn’t
worth risking capture. Irina’s endgame ensured that they would control
all of the artifacts, eventually.
Sydney was still awaiting a response to her gibe. He looked her up and
down. “Ravishing, as always,” he muttered. He took the machine gun and
fired several rounds into the ice adjacent to Sydney, destabilizing the
cavern.
“
Please give Mr. Dixon my regards,” Sark said calmly. He left the cave,
comforted by echo of Sydney’s struggle to avoid drowning twice.
There were rules that governed the interaction of enemies, of predator
and prey, of a man and a woman. Destined, they were, even if Sydney only
learned her fate piece by piece.
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