“Thank you for talking with me today,” said Dr. Kowalczyk.
“I’m glad to be here,” said 003.
Surprise flickered over Dr. Kowalczyk’s face. She was young to be the psychiatrist on duty at Shrublands. A small woman with bulging eyes, which Johanna Harwood put down to overactive glands, magnified by a pair of rimless glasses. The effect was like sitting under a microscope. The office was dressed up the same as any therapy room: a small table with an innocent box of tissues, a vase of wilting flowers, a cheerful clock, a sofa, and an armchair for the doctor. Stale, warm air. She’d been encouraged to kick off her shoes at the door, as if this were the living room of a friend. All designed to relax. To make you believe Dr. Kowalczyk was here to help, rather than evaluate. There was no two-way mirror. Harwood guessed a camera was embedded in the clock.
Dr. Kowalczyk said, “Previous Double O’s have made it clear to me that they’re only here under orders.”
“We’re a touchy bunch. I promise not to make your life difficult.”
Those hungry eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you can tell me how you’re feeling, 003, in yourself?”
“Tired.”
“You look like you might be in pain.”
“Yes,” said Harwood. “My shoulder. And my left arm.”
“Are you comfortable there? Would you like another cushion?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Dr. Kowalczyk pulled a cushion out from behind her armchair. Harwood did nothing to hide her grimace as she reached out.
“What words might you use to describe how you’re feeling emotionally?”
“Tired.” Harwood laughed. “That’s not really a feeling word, is it? I guess I’m . . . relieved. Happy.”
“Happy about what?”
“Happy I’m alive.”
“Yes, I can imagine that. Anything else?”
“Frustrated.”
“Frustrated at what?”
“Myself. For getting captured. And that I killed the man who did this to me, instead of capturing him for interrogation.”
“Might frustration be an understatement?”
Harwood crossed her legs. She flicked an invisible bit of fluff from her trousers. “Yes, you’re probably right. I’m angry. Angry I was caught, angry I was treated like an object of amusement by cowards and sadists, angry I killed the bastard, angry I have to be angry that I killed the bastard.”
Dr. Kowalczyk took off her glasses, cleaned them, and slid them back up her nose. “You said you weren’t going to make my life difficult.”
Harwood opened her hands. “Save us both some time.”
“Do you have another place to be?”
“I have a week of massage and saunas until I’m fighting fit. I should nearly die more often. But you—it’s six o’clock in the evening, and you’re drinking a large cup of coffee.”
“What does that tell you?”
“It tells me it’s been a long day, with a long night ahead. It tells me you might be as tired as I am. I just want to go to bed. So, I’m not going to hold things up. I’m all yours.”
“Good observational skills,” said Dr. Kowalczyk.
“That’s what they pay me for,” said Harwood.
“You have a background of medical training, is that right?”
“I was studying to be a surgeon before I joined the Service, yes.”
“That was your dream?”
“It was my intention.”
Dr. Kowalczyk made a show of opening the file balanced on her knee, though Harwood would lay down good money she had it memorized. “It says here students in medical schools are ranked on skill and knowledge. You came top of your year on that metric. Then they rank students on interpersonal skills. Bedside manner. Getting a patient to trust you, or divulge sensitive information. Defusing difficult situations. Usually the student who achieves the number one spot on skill and knowledge drops to the bottom of the pile when it comes to interpersonal skills. They’ve been so busy studying, they’ve forgotten how to talk to people. But not you. You achieved the number one spot in interpersonal skills as well.”
Harwood felt herself blushing, though she knew she wasn’t embarrassed. “So?”
“So they pay me for my observational skills too.”
Harwood pulled the cushion out from behind her and fiddled with its seams.
“And what I’m observing,” continued Dr. Kowalczyk, “is that while other Double O’s conceal their discomfort and disdain for this process—their fear—with bluster, you are concealing it with openness. You know what I want to hear and see. You know how to defuse this situation. You started with transparency. Now you’re trying vulnerability.”
Harwood’s fingers stilled on the cushion. She tossed it onto the floor.
“Want to stop bullshitting me, 003?” said Dr. Kowalczyk.
“I hope they pay you the big money,” said Harwood, looking at the clock. “Shoot.”
“Interesting choice of word. Let’s start there. The bastard, as you call him, could have been a high-value capture.” She turned a page in the file. “Identifying feature: a moth tattoo on his neck and chest. Known as Mora, developed from the Kikimora, a folk character: a spirit, usually female, that enters a house at night through the keyhole, and sits on her victim’s chest until he suffocates to death. We have traces of Mora leading Rattenfänger in Lebanon, Libya, Albania, the US, Russia, and Indonesia—his activities blur the already hazy lines between multinational terrorism, multinational organized crime, legitimate business, and narcotics money laundering. What we know for certain is that he’s considered a nightmare by those experienced in giving nightmares. So why did you kill the bastard, instead of capturing him for interrogation?”
“I was pumped full of chemicals. He was kneeling on top of 009. I took the shot I had. It wasn’t supposed to be a kill shot.”
“Which is it?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did you make a kill shot because you were pumped full of chemicals, or because you valued Aazar Siddig Bashir’s life over capturing the target?”
Harwood’s jaw pulsed. “I took the shot I had.”
Dr. Kowalczyk said, “Why didn’t you take your cyanide pill after you were captured?”
“I like my life.”
“Do you?”
Harwood opened her mouth to snap a reply, then stopped. “What makes you think I don’t?”
“Look at you. Is it worth it?”
“I discovered a chemical weapons stash in Syria and reported it to Moneypenny, potentially saving thousands of people. Yes. It’s worth it.”
“So that’s your motivation? Saving lives?”
“Of course it is.”
“You have a license to kill.”
Harwood sat forward. “You’re not that naïve.”
Dr. Kowalczyk blinked. “What about the Hippocratic oath? You swore as a doctor to do no harm.”
“I took another oath.”
“Your word is worth so little?”
Harwood tilted her head. “You’re trying to rattle me. You’re testing for PTSD.”
“Do you think you have PTSD?”
“I don’t have any of the symptoms.”
“Is that a no?”
“That’s a no.”
“It says here you were given a lie detector test to find out if you were telling the truth—that you didn’t divulge any information to your interrogators.”
“Yes,” said Harwood.
“And you were telling the truth.”
“Yes,” said Harwood.
“Do you resent the implication that you might lie?”
“It’s standard procedure.”
“Lying, or checking whether you lied?”
No answer.
“How did you stop yourself divulging any information?”
“We’re given training.”
“You didn’t persuade them to go easy on you, somehow?”
“How exactly would I have done that?”
Dr. Kowalczyk said, “Tell me about your childhood.”
Harwood wriggled her toes. “When testing for PTSD, we ask rapid questions on different topics, and observe how the patient responds. You don’t want to hear about my childhood. You want to test how I stand up under stress. They know they can trust my loyalty. Now they need to know if I can be trusted to return to the field.”
“And you don’t want to talk about your childhood.”
“God, who does?” She’d been sitting here for twenty-five minutes. “It’s all in that file, anyway.”
Dr. Kowalczyk said nothing.
Thirty-five minutes to go. “Fine. I grew up in Paris. My mother worked for Médecins Sans Frontières. I followed in her footsteps. I got into medical school in London. Then I joined the Service.”
“Do you call that the redacted version?”
“I call it the hurry-up-and-go version.”
“What about your father?”
“Is this the part where I flinch?”
Dr. Kowalczyk said nothing.
Harwood looked at the floor. Then, slowly, she smiled, and shrugged. “My mum and dad met in Paris. He’d moved from Belfast. He was older. A failed photographer fantasizing about a second life, falling in love with a pretty Parisian girl. He got his wish. My mum—I don’t know if she was in love. But she was pregnant, so they got married. We lived with my grandmother. Money was tight. When my mum got a job as an administrator with MSF, it was a good opportunity. She was promoted quickly. They saw her abilities.”
“She traveled for her work.”
“Yes.”
“Leaving you with your father.”
“She didn’t leave me. She traveled for work.”
Those eyes opened and closed in empty semaphore. “Your father didn’t have a job?”
“He looked after me.”
“With the help of your grandmother.”
Harwood fingered her necklace. “He couldn’t hold a job.”
“He was a paranoid schizophrenic,” said Dr. Kowalczyk.
“We didn’t know that. Not at first. When he was diagnosed, he took the medication. He managed it. Most of the time. It was hard for him.”
“What effect did it have on you?”
“I learned adaptability,” said Harwood. “That’s what you want to hear, right? I learned how to defuse situations.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“I guess if I told you I’d never really thought about it, you wouldn’t believe me?”
Dr. Kowalczyk raised her eyebrows. “Let’s say I’d be highly surprised.”
Harwood smiled again. “He’d see things, sometimes. He’d think people were following us. When I was young, I believed him. As I got a little older, I realized it was in his head, but it was best to go along with it. We’d spend days riding on the Métro, evading pursuit. Sometimes I had to talk him down from attacking people he thought were after me. He wanted to protect me.”
“How much did your grandmother and mother know about this?”
“You think they were endangering me?”
“Do you?”
“I think they were doing the best they could under difficult circumstances.”
“And your mother? She didn’t change jobs so she could be at home more?”
“You don’t change the course of your life for an accident.”
Dr. Kowalczyk slowly pushed up her glasses. She linked her hands.
“You’re just going to leave that lying out in the open?” said Harwood, gesturing to the space between them.
“Tell me about Frankfurt.”
Harwood ran her tongue over her teeth. A minute passed. “My dad said we had to get away from Paris. We were in danger. He made me get on the train to Frankfurt. He said he had to meet his handler in the post office outside Frankfurt Süd Bahnhof. He believed he was a spy. Funny how things turn out. When we got there—he said we should wait for his handler. We slept outside. A man tried to take me in the night. I always thought he was homeless. I’m not sure why. Anyway. My dad stopped him. He broke his hand on the man’s face.”
“How old were you?”
“Nine.”
“What happened to your father after that?”
“Hospitalization. Then he disappeared.”
“Did your mother try to find him?”
“We all did. My grandmother was too old to look after me.”
“So your mother took you with her, around the world. You were home educated. Except you didn’t have a home. You moved to London to study. And you found your father.”
“He was living in the Barbican. He was very ill. He’d starved himself.”
“You were with him when he died.”
Harwood scrunched her toes into the pastel-blue fibers of the carpet. “That’s right. Was that all?”
“You managed to free yourself when 009 arrived. Convenient timing. You didn’t want to free yourself before?”
“I tell you, the cuisine there is just to die for. Why bother with a little thing like freedom?”
“Do you bother with freedom?”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ve signed your free will and body away in service to your country.”
“In service of an idea.”
“Tell me about that.”
“I want to stop bad things happening to good people.”
Dr. Kowalczyk said, “You’re not that naïve.”
Harwood lowered her lashes. “Nothing more dangerous than an idealist, right? I must be setting off alarm bells right now.”
“Your father is Northern Irish, your grandmother was an Algerian radical. Don’t you think you set off alarm bells the minute you appeared as a candidate for the Service?”
“She fought for independence.”
“You wouldn’t call her a radical?”
“Only if you call the notion a country has a right to freedom and justice radical.”
“Freedom again. Tell me how you got free.”
Harwood ran through it: hearing the explosion; how she forced her heartbeat to slow down, making them think they’d overdosed her so they wouldn’t kill her once they realized they were compromised; withstanding their efforts to “rouse” her; simulating coming round once most of the guards left; talking the remaining guard, a Syrian soldier low down on the command structure, into believing the SAS were staging a rescue—he’d better escape now, and take her as a hostage for his own safety—then disabling him once he’d cut the restraints.
“Did you kill him?”
“He was just doing his job. Not very well, but still . . .”
“Have you ever failed to persuade someone to do something you wanted?”
Harwood squinted. “I suppose it would gratify you to hear I couldn’t talk my father out of dying?”
“Tell me about joining the Service.”
Harwood ran her hand through her hair. “I was doing a trauma fellowship in a hospital in Beirut.”
“Unusual choice.”
“Not really. I’d lived there for a while with my mum. I had a patient—I can’t tell you his name. He came in for burn treatment. It was a resource-poor environment. We were left alone and got talking. He trusted me. Next time I saw him, it was chemical burns. That’s when Moneypenny made the approach. She told me he was a bomb maker. MI6 needed to know certain things. He would talk to me. I was in a position of trust.”
“And you abused that trust.”
Harwood straightened up. “I got the information they needed. I saved lives.”
“Then what?”
“He took me from the hospital one night. He forced me to go with him to a house where a friend of his was hurt. There was a young woman being held captive there. A girl, really. I talked my patient into letting her go. But his friend wouldn’t go along with it. He started waving his weapon about. He said he’d sell me and the captive.”
“What did you do about it?”
“I had my medical kit. I used my scalpel. I killed the friend. My patient was going to shoot me. I didn’t let him. I saved the young woman. After that, Moneypenny asked if I’d like to serve my country.”
Dr. Kowalczyk said, “You don’t change the course of your life for an accident.”
Harwood glanced at the clock. “Like I said, the big money. That’s our hour. Have I passed? Or do you think Rattenfänger’s game of pin the tail on the donkey has left me a shaking wreck?”
“That depends. You said you discovered a chemical weapons stash in Syria. Is that all you were looking for?”
The minute hand quivered. “No.”
“You went off mission, afterward, to follow a lead in the search for a missing agent. That’s when you were captured.”
Time spilled over. “Yes.”
“Under whose authority?”
“Call it a question of loyalty.”
“You realize you jeopardized two more assets—yourself and 009—in search of this missing agent?”
“Yes.”
“And that this missing agent is likely dead, or turned, by now?”
“He wouldn’t turn.”
“Because he’s loyal to you?”
Harwood laughed. “No. Because he’s loyal to an idea.”
“Would you call your love for James Bond a danger in the field?”
“I don’t accept the premise of the question.”
“That love constitutes a danger, or that you love him? An agent, by all accounts, of significant weaknesses—women, drink—and mental health that was, at best, exceptionally unreliable.”
Harwood breathed out slowly. No answer.
Dr. Kowalczyk wet her lips. “One more question.”
A sneer. “Shoot.”
“Ms. Moneypenny asked if you’d like to serve. You said yes. Why?”
“I decided I didn’t want to mop up the damage the world wreaks. I wanted to prevent it. And I do, every time I accept a job. Good enough?”
Dr. Kowalczyk closed her file. “Do you ever see your mother?”
“You’ve had your last question.”