He breaks off. The rage collapses into grief.
“I’m a traitor,” he says. Hollow. “Not because I chose to be. Because my own body betrayed me while I was too sick to stop it.”
“The infection was a consequence of the IV site,” I say. “If you require a target for your anger, I am the appropriate focus.”
He laughs. Broken, jagged.
“You think I’m angry at you?” He shakes his head. “I’m angry at myself. For getting captured. For being weak enough to get sick. For having a brain that keeps talking even when I tell it to stop.”
He pauses. His eyes meet mine.
“I’m angry because you’re right. You did exactly what you’re supposed to do. You extracted intelligence. That’s what the Monster does.”
I wait.
“But you also stayed.” His voice drops lower. “You stayed all night. You treated me yourself. You could have sent me to medical.”
“I could have.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
The question hangs. I search my operational parameters. I find nothing suitable.
“I do not know,” I say. The admission costs me. “I should have maintained professional distance.”
“But you did.”
“I did.”
He is silent. The tears have stopped.
“I don’t know how to feel about you anymore,” he says finally. “You saved my life and you used my sickness against me in the same night. You’re the reason I’m alive and you’re the reason I’m a traitor.”
“Both statements are accurate.”
“How am I supposed to process that?”
I do not have an answer.
“The soldiers at the safe house,” he says. “How many?”
“The preliminary report indicated four personnel present. Two captured. Two killed.”
He closes his eyes. “Did you get names?”
“Mikhail Gorev. Yuri Federov. The captured operatives are Anton Krasinski and Dima Sorokin.”
“Dima.” The name emerges as a whisper. “I used to play chess with Dima. He always let me win.”
I say nothing.
“He’s going to be interrogated, isn’t he? The way you’ve been interrogating me.”
“That is likely.”
