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My dear Marcus,
in our profession, men devoted to their own survival such as myself usually lack surviving enemies, for obvious reasons. Or they do not regard the people in question as their enemies but as, shall we say, friends lost and waiting to be found again, one day. You know of whom I speak, of course.
You, however, are something of an exception. In the decade you worked for me, I always thought of you as an extremely competent agent, with only one flaw, which made you ideal for SD-6; you did not question authority. You never once doubted, and when you started to suspect Sydney was a double agent, you did report her to me, despite your years of friendship. Duty and loyalty to the state above all.
(A word among enemies, Agent Dixon: duty and loyalty usually isn't worth it, even in cases where the double in question is actually working for the state, and you are actually working for a rogue organization.)
You were not then my enemy, of course, though I assume I became yours the moment you found out the truth. Bringing down the Alliance with the CIA's gracious help, making my getaway and continuing my quest for Il Dire was very time consuming, and I cannot claim I thought of you, any more than I did of my other former employees, always excepting Sydney and Jack. No, what made you my enemy was a single shot months later.
You may not believe this, or care, either way, but I always knew you never meant to kill her. I knew that bullet had been destined for me; even as I held her in my arms and felt her blood on my hands, I knew.
That did not change a single thing.
It's a strange thing, that atavistic hate, isn't it, Marcus? You know it, I know it; and there is no rationality to it, and no temperance. Undoubtedly you have a statistic about the number of people whose death I was responsible for somewhere; your wife was the only one who died not because of any practical gain, not because I was told to - yes, in those far away days when I was young, I killed for the state, too -, but simply because my wife had died, and I wanted to see blood.
A few years later, we both believed I was about to die, ironically enough not for your wife's death or indeed any crime I had committed, but something I had not done, and you waited for me on my way to the execution chamber in order to tell me you had prayed for me. I always found that fascinating, later, thinking about it. (At the time, I was otherwise preoccupied.) With anyone else, I would have assumed irony, a more stylish version of gloating; not with you. At the same time, you are a good man but not a saint; this was hardly meant as absolution for my sins. When not on a field trip, you tend to be uncannily straight forward. If you had meant to say "I hope dying will take you eons, and you will burn in hell afterwards," you would have said so. If you had meant "your death frees me of my hate towards you, and I forgive you", you would have said that, too. And thus I am left with the conclusion that I still do not know what you were praying for.
As I do not intend to post this letter, my curiosity will remain unsatisfied. I did not die then; and only a few months later, you were working for me again, together with the rest of our old team. You must have wondered why I requested you, Marcus, and probably concluded that it was a tactical move, designed to reassure Director Chase of my sincerity. That was certainly one reason, but there was another. You see, my life was better than than it had been ever since Emily died. Jack and Sydney were with me again; I had found Nadia, and she had agreed to be with me as we; the CIA, instead of hunting me down, had chosen to give me my own secret organization.
If ever there was an occasion for relaxed satisfaction, or, as Jack would have put it, smugness, it was then. And you know what smugness does, especially to a man of my past. It gets one killed.
That was the other, more important reason for me to ask for you. Sydney and Jack might have distrusted and hated me in varying degrees, but they had also loved me once, and they knew as well as I that we were family. But not you. Your hate had always been free of anything else. With you working next to me, I would never get sloppy. I could never afford to. And so I would survive.
"You want us to believe you have changed," you told me during that year, "for love of your daughter. That she has brought out the better angels of your nature. But the truth is, Arvin, that you don't have any."
It is always good to know that one was correct in the assessment of an agent, Marcus.
You probably thought of your dead wife every morning you entered my office. I know I thought of Emily every time I sent you on a mission; confident that you would return.
Farewell, Marcus Dixon. I doubt we'll ever meet again. I will, however, pray for you.
Arvin Sloane
in our profession, men devoted to their own survival such as myself usually lack surviving enemies, for obvious reasons. Or they do not regard the people in question as their enemies but as, shall we say, friends lost and waiting to be found again, one day. You know of whom I speak, of course.
You, however, are something of an exception. In the decade you worked for me, I always thought of you as an extremely competent agent, with only one flaw, which made you ideal for SD-6; you did not question authority. You never once doubted, and when you started to suspect Sydney was a double agent, you did report her to me, despite your years of friendship. Duty and loyalty to the state above all.
(A word among enemies, Agent Dixon: duty and loyalty usually isn't worth it, even in cases where the double in question is actually working for the state, and you are actually working for a rogue organization.)
You were not then my enemy, of course, though I assume I became yours the moment you found out the truth. Bringing down the Alliance with the CIA's gracious help, making my getaway and continuing my quest for Il Dire was very time consuming, and I cannot claim I thought of you, any more than I did of my other former employees, always excepting Sydney and Jack. No, what made you my enemy was a single shot months later.
You may not believe this, or care, either way, but I always knew you never meant to kill her. I knew that bullet had been destined for me; even as I held her in my arms and felt her blood on my hands, I knew.
That did not change a single thing.
It's a strange thing, that atavistic hate, isn't it, Marcus? You know it, I know it; and there is no rationality to it, and no temperance. Undoubtedly you have a statistic about the number of people whose death I was responsible for somewhere; your wife was the only one who died not because of any practical gain, not because I was told to - yes, in those far away days when I was young, I killed for the state, too -, but simply because my wife had died, and I wanted to see blood.
A few years later, we both believed I was about to die, ironically enough not for your wife's death or indeed any crime I had committed, but something I had not done, and you waited for me on my way to the execution chamber in order to tell me you had prayed for me. I always found that fascinating, later, thinking about it. (At the time, I was otherwise preoccupied.) With anyone else, I would have assumed irony, a more stylish version of gloating; not with you. At the same time, you are a good man but not a saint; this was hardly meant as absolution for my sins. When not on a field trip, you tend to be uncannily straight forward. If you had meant to say "I hope dying will take you eons, and you will burn in hell afterwards," you would have said so. If you had meant "your death frees me of my hate towards you, and I forgive you", you would have said that, too. And thus I am left with the conclusion that I still do not know what you were praying for.
As I do not intend to post this letter, my curiosity will remain unsatisfied. I did not die then; and only a few months later, you were working for me again, together with the rest of our old team. You must have wondered why I requested you, Marcus, and probably concluded that it was a tactical move, designed to reassure Director Chase of my sincerity. That was certainly one reason, but there was another. You see, my life was better than than it had been ever since Emily died. Jack and Sydney were with me again; I had found Nadia, and she had agreed to be with me as we; the CIA, instead of hunting me down, had chosen to give me my own secret organization.
If ever there was an occasion for relaxed satisfaction, or, as Jack would have put it, smugness, it was then. And you know what smugness does, especially to a man of my past. It gets one killed.
That was the other, more important reason for me to ask for you. Sydney and Jack might have distrusted and hated me in varying degrees, but they had also loved me once, and they knew as well as I that we were family. But not you. Your hate had always been free of anything else. With you working next to me, I would never get sloppy. I could never afford to. And so I would survive.
"You want us to believe you have changed," you told me during that year, "for love of your daughter. That she has brought out the better angels of your nature. But the truth is, Arvin, that you don't have any."
It is always good to know that one was correct in the assessment of an agent, Marcus.
You probably thought of your dead wife every morning you entered my office. I know I thought of Emily every time I sent you on a mission; confident that you would return.
Farewell, Marcus Dixon. I doubt we'll ever meet again. I will, however, pray for you.
Arvin Sloane
