William watched Yuri pace across the office. The small Russian man dismissed the guards but left William’s hands bound.
William knew he had to buy time. It was his only chance of escape, and the team’s only chance to complete their mission. If he could stall long enough, maybe Desmond and Avery could get out of the building and upload the list to the US government servers. Or maybe Peyton and Charlotte could find something they could use.
And if he was really lucky, the Marines would arrive to save them all.
In the years William had known Yuri, the smaller man had always been stoic, his face made of stone. William had wondered if that was a result of his growing up in Stalingrad during World War II, where life was a living hell. Day and night, the Nazis had pounded the city to rubble and slaughtered its people, including Yuri’s parents and two brothers.
But now, in the fourth-floor corner office, William saw a softer, more reflective expression on his old friend’s face. He hoped he could use that.
“There’s still time to stop this, Yuri.”
“There isn’t. We both know it.”
“It was you, wasn’t it? The purge.”
Yuri sat on the end of the desk. “Yes.”
“They were our friends, Yuri. And you slaughtered them.”
“You didn’t know them the way I did. You protected them, but you weren’t one of them—you weren’t a scientist. You never saw some of the things they were working on. Or what they were really like. Obsessive. Vindictive. Ruthless. I knew a long time ago—long before anyone else—that there could be only one Looking Glass device. The other cells wouldn’t have stopped. We would have created a completely new type of warfare. A techno-war. Looking Glass projects competing, consuming resources, pitting nations against each other. It would have ripped the world apart. I saved us. I don’t regret that.”
“Do you regret sending those men to my home to kill me?”
Yuri looked away.
“Why didn’t you finish the job? You found me years later—when I was close to finding you and stopping you.”
As he said the words, William realized the truth—why Yuri couldn’t do it back then. The man had killed every one of his friends—except for William. He was his last true friend. Perhaps Yuri had realized that after the purge.
“I owed you. You saved my life in Rio. I pay my debts.”
“Yet you took my son’s life.”
“I did no such thing.”
A relief beyond words swept over William. It was true—the theory he had harbored for so many years: his only son was alive. His suspicions had grown when he found the old picture in Kazakhstan—it could have belonged to Lin or Andrew, William didn’t know which. But what had happened during the last twenty-five years?
He took his best guess.
“Andrew has been your prisoner?”
“For a time.”
“And then?”
“My partner.”
William shook his head. “Impossible.”
“You would have been proud of him. He resisted far longer than we expected. His re-education took years. But we broke him, showed him the truth. He found in the Looking Glass what we all see: a way to fix our broken world. And himself. The bargain we presented was simple: one last pandemic to end them all. An end to disease. And for himself, a world where he has two arms, where he is just like everyone else, a world where no other boy will have to sit on the sidelines while the others play ball, where no person is born with a disability.”
Rage built within William. “You brainwashed him. Chose him—to get me out of the way.”
Yuri seemed unconcerned by William’s anger. “And to complete my own work. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
William strained against the plastic zip ties, causing them to cut into his wrists. A trickle of blood rolled down his hand. He desperately wanted to rush the monster who stood before him, but he maintained his composure. Yuri had one commodity he desperately needed: information.
He considered what Yuri had done: enlisting Andrew, Desmond, and Conner to complete the Looking Glass. They were all broken in a way, all completely dedicated to the cause. They were all perfect examples of the type of person who could be radicalized, made to do terrible things in the name of a brighter future. In a way, they were mirrors of Yuri, William, and Lin. They had all grown up in a desperate and broken world, had come to the Citium seeking a balm for their pain, as well as for the pain of the world.
William wondered if the cycle would ever be broken.
Another question had always bothered him, and Yuri was the only person who could answer it.
“The night of the purge. Lin was tipped off. She left while I was in the air en route to London. She was on a flight to France when I landed. It was you, wasn’t it? You told her to get out.”
Yuri raised his eyebrows. He was impressed. “Yes.”
“You couldn’t kill her either.”
“I needed her to complete my work.”
“And she went along?”
“To a point. Taking Andrew as a hostage helped.”
“She didn’t know, did she? About the pandemic.”
Yuri’s reaction told him it was true.
William pressed on, hoping for more answers. “And Hughes didn’t either. That’s why he went off the reservation when he found out. Why he contacted me.”
“A minor setback.”
“You underestimated his morality. That’s how he’s different from you.”
“We’re a team for a reason. He lacks the fortitude to do what must be done. I do not. I did those things in Stalingrad. And during the purge. And now.”
“What’s happening now isn’t courage, Yuri. It’s mass murder. You made the world sick.”
“The world was already sick. It just didn’t know it. I’ve seen that sickness in a way few have. During the war, you were spared the horror; they evacuated you to the English countryside for tea and playtime. Death and misery were on every doorstep where I grew up. I’m saving future generations from that. Soon, our solution will be distributed.”
The words struck fear into William: Our solution will be distributed. “The pandemic…”