“I seem to remember that there was one person vital to the success of this mission,” Tems snapped. “And that person is crouched here right now.Give us a minute.Or you may not get the war you wanted, after all.”
The man looked ready to argue back, but one of the other agents leaned over to him and exchanged a few quiet words that Sydney couldn’t pick up. The two discussed it for a second. At last, just when Sydney was starting to think that they wouldn’t agree, the agents rose in unison.
“Five minutes,” the man said to Tems.
Tems nodded once. Sydney watched as they filed out of the room. When the door closed behind the last of them, she turned back to face Tems. There were a million things she wanted to say to him, a million insults she wanted to throw in his face. But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was completing her mission and getting herself and Winter to safety—what mattered was finding a way to get Tems back to the States under arrest and revealing the rogue cell to Panaceaso that the evidence could stop the impending war. So that she could avenge Niall.
She looked at Tems and gave him a grave nod. “You don’t have to go down this path,” she said.
“I’ve been on this path since before I arrived at Panacea,” Tems replied.
Sydney shook her head. “I don’t understand why.”
“Why I joined them?”
“Why you wanted Niall dead. What did he do to you?”
Tems looked away at the window, paused for a moment, and then turned back to her. “His name was William Olsson,” he said. “No one will ever know that, or that we had been friends, or that he was killed in Stockholm because of me.” His lips tightened. “Because of Niall.”
Sydney searched his eyes. “What happened?”
“Niall sent me to Stockholm on a mission targeting a terrorist group stationed there. William was my informant. He risked everything to get me the information I needed. By the time you and I met up, he had already riled up the suspicions of the group we were targeting and had gone into hiding. While we were snowed in at the hotel, he was supposed to be smuggled out of the country.”
“By who?”
“Niallpromised mehe would be safe and accounted for. Hepromised methey would do their best.” He tightened his lips. “Then, at the last minute, the group made a move to Cairo, Egypt. Changed their plans on a dime, because they suspected someone was on to them. Niall was supposed to have sent backup to protect William that night. He didn’t. So Will was caught unaware at port. They found him floating near the shore, frozen half-solid, with a dozen gunshot wounds in his body.”
Sydney stayed quiet. She tried to remember whether Tems had said anything to her during their hotel stay about his friend, whether his mood had changed. But he’d simply been gone in the morning with her passport, leaving her nothing but a cryptic note.
“So you chased the group to Egypt?” she said.
“Niall ordered me stay in Stockholm, because the main cell was still there. That was my mission. But Will’s killers left for Cairo.” He narrowed his eyes. “So I went after them.”
“Niall wanted you to stay so that they could take down the group, once and for all.”
“If he had protected Will, like he promised, I wouldn’t have had to abandon my post. If he had kept his promises, I could have kept mine.”
“Yours?”
“I promised Will that he would be safe. I gave him my word. And he died.”
“Tems,” she said quietly, “this is the nature of our work. This is the sacrifice we make, that we’re still making at this very moment.”
“What’s the point of our work if we can’t be loyal? If we can’t keep our promises?”
“Loyal? You’re a double agent!”
“I worked as a double agent to ensure the stability of the world,” he snapped. “I did Panacea’s bidding when I thought it would benefit the most people. I worked with the rogue cell in the CIA when I thought Panacea needed to be kept in check. But I’ve never been responsible for the death of a good human.”
“That just means you haven’t had to make difficult decisions until now,” she shot back. “Niall was a good human. Imperfect, butgood.”
“You still think the world of Niall, don’t you?” He scowled at her. “Your precious father figure has clouded your judgment.”
Had he? Sydney thought of Niall’s grumpy exterior, the fear in his eyes whenever she was in danger out in the field, the grief in his words whenever he spoke about missing out on his daughter’s life.
“He has a daughter,” she went on. “You knew that, didn’t you? Quinn. He was about to retire, had been looking forward to this moment fordecades so that he could patch things up with her. Now he’s gone, because of you.”
Tems snorted in disgust. “You mean the daughter he abandoned?”
