They’re put in different rooms when they arrive at headquarters.
Interrogation rooms. Great. Colin can only imagine the panic attack Emmalee must be having. This has to be the worst recruit mission he’s ever been on. It’s never been this difficult before.
Perhaps it’s time for him to retire.
Colin chuckles at this thought. Retire? Hardly. The Agency will work him for all he’s worth, until his death if he isn’t more careful.
“Colin,” Harlem says as he enters the room.
He takes a seat at the steel table across from Colin, and Colin shakes his head.
“You’re wasting time being angry with me,” Harlem says. “We both know this is standard protocol considering what happened. And it wasn’t my fault.”
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure it’s your job to make sure I don’t go on a mission blind.”
“You didn’t. You had just as much sight as we did on the subject.”
“Right.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Unless it’s in your job description.”
Harlem sighs. Colin crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair.
“Well, let’s get this over with, shall we?” Colin says.
“We’ll start with your statement. What happened?”
Colin tells the story, starting with the night he crashed Emmalee’s escape flight to Brazil and ending with them boarding the plane back to headquarters.
“And where was Lydia when you were taken by Emmalee’s father?” Harlem asks.
“According to her, she was saving the world. Which I presume to mean on some sort of side mission meant to earn her a promotion.”
Harlem wrinkles his brow in concern, and rubs a hand over his aging face.
“Promotion,” Harlem says, chuckling and shaking his head. “Lydia was dismissed from the Agency six months ago. She was accused of performing rouge operations using agency assets. We haven’t been able to track her since. And now you’re telling me she was there, using agency assets, with you?”
“Fuck!” Colin shouts, pounding his fists on the table in front of him. “She did it again!”
Lydia had set him up.
