“They’ve got everything,” Tems said. “No need to make contact. I’ll check that they’re in place for us.”
“Ordering them around now, are you?” she said with a raised eyebrow.
He gave her a sidelong smile. “I’ve built a nice enough rapport with them.”
“What about Seah?”
“Force him to get up out of his seat, however you can, as soon as you can. Before he can settle down to do anything. We’ll need to move fast and immediately.”
Sydney nodded. “This will be a better job for Winter.”
“Fine.” An edge appeared in Tems’s voice. “Whatever works. Have Winter get Seah to the hallway leading to the main entrance, past the coat check. I’ll be waiting there with the CIA to arrest him. We need himawayfrom the president, understood? I have a suspicion he has a backup plan in case things go wrong, and we can’t afford for him to be near Rosen when he realizes we’re onto him.”
“And then we head out for the waiting plane,” she finished. “Winter returns to his team.”
“And we’re done,” he said.
And we’re done.
“Done,” Sydney confirmed, keeping her answer crisp and cool. But the storm in her chest twisted painfully.
In the silence that followed, Tems glanced down at his feet. “Syd, do you remember the day we graduated from Panacea?”
It had been an unseasonably warm afternoon in May, the sky overcast. Sydney had sat at a table in the Claremont’s restaurant with Tems and several other graduates, had listened to a series of speeches, had received the hotel’s business card and tucked it into her wallet.
“Of course,” she said.
“Do you remember what we said to each other that day?”
She’d only exchanged a line or two with Tems, who had been seated at the opposite end of the table. “I told you, ‘Congrats on marrying our work.’”
He smiled at her. “And I told you, ‘Thanks for coming to my wedding.’”
They both had to chuckle at the memory, and Sydney found herself missing that more innocent version of themselves. They were so young and so eager to get out in the field, so excited to dedicate their entire lives to this profession, so clueless over what that sacrifice really meant.
“I shouldn’t have left you behind in Stockholm,” he said after a pause.
She glanced at him. “Why did you leave so suddenly, anyway?”
“A friend of mine had been killed that night.” He stared out at the city. “I had to act quickly, before his attacker got away.”
Killed in action. So that was the reason. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s all part of marrying this job, isn’t it?”
“You never told me.”
He gave her a sidelong look. “You know I couldn’t have.”
And he was right, of course. They had grown closer during that unexpected tryst, their paths intersecting longer than they should have. Tems was never meant to share the details of that mission with her.
“I know,” she replied.
“It’s hard to have casual conversations,” he went on, “when you don’t know whether or not you’ll live or die the next day.”
She imagined what might happen tomorrow, how a million things could go wrong. How they might not make it out at the end. She remembered the stricken look in Winter’s eyes, the fear that had shot through his expression after the first attempt on her life. This was familiar ground, at least, this not knowing. Tonight might be the last time she exchanged words with any of them.
“It’s all part of marrying this job,” she said, echoing his earlier words.
