The headmaster sniffed but deigned to oblige. “I was told displaying that photograph so prominently was a bit gauche.”
I heard the doorknob turn a second before the door opened. My wrists tensed against the ties that bound them to no avail. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fight back. I was helpless.
Henry had left me helpless.
Dr. Clark shut the door gingerly behind her. She knelt down in front of me. “Look at you, Tess.” Her voice was gentle. She murmured the words, like it grieved her to see me like this.
Like she hadn’t shot a Secret Service agent dead while I watched.
“This isn’t how I wanted this meeting to happen,” Dr. Clark told me.
“Moira, get away from that young lady or I will—” The headmaster’s threat cut off abruptly as he realized there was nothing he could do. Nothing he could say.
Dr. Clark gave no sign that she had heard him. Her warm brown eyes were solely focused on me. “I know how this must look to you, Tess. I know that you cannot begin to fathom what I’ve done here today, or why. I know that you cannot understand why a boy like Henry would listen to what I have to say—”
“What did you tell him?” I asked, my body tensing against the ties again, causing the chair to jar slightly.
She didn’t jump. She didn’t blink. “I told him what I am trying to tell you. What’s happening here today isn’t who we are. This”—she gestured at me, at the headmaster—“is not what we do.”
Mine is a glorious calling. The tone I’d heard in Daniela Nicolae’s voice in that video was present to the nth degree in my teacher’s. This was what zealotry looked like.
This was a true believer.
“I came to this life when I wasn’t much older than you,” Dr. Clark said softly.
“After 9/11,” I said, cutting her off before she could say more. There’s nothing you can say that will make you anything less than a monster to me. I hoped she could hear that in my voice.
Whether she could or not, she continued, “After the attacks, I wanted to do something. The world wasn’t safe. Everything had changed.”
“So you became a terrorist,” I supplied, my voice razor sharp. “If you can’t beat them, join them?”
“No,” Dr. Clark said vehemently. “No, Tess. I would never—”
I tuned out whatever it was she would never do. She’d killed a man as I’d watched.
“While I was abroad, I was approached by someone. A mentor. He thought that I might be interested in a life of service.” Dr. Clark paused. “He was right.”
“Service,” I repeated dully. “You call this service?”
“Our organization was designed to infiltrate terrorist groups. We influence their decisions. We stop them from the inside out. We play their game better than they do.”
I was on the verge of asking her how, precisely, the Hardwicke School qualified as a terrorist group. But I decided it wasn’t worth the words.
“To do what we do,” Dr. Clark said, leaning forward and trying to take my hand, “we need eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Eyes and ears?” I jerked my hand back. “I’m bound to a chair, I saw you shoot a man dead, and you want me to believe that you just observe?” She believed what she was telling me. She expected me to believe it, too. “You people bombed a hospital!”
“And no one was hurt in that bombing,” Dr. Clark said fiercely. “You think that was an accident? A mistake? We don’t make mistakes.”
“Then why—” I cut myself off. “You knew Walker Nolan would tip someone off. That was the point.”
“Sometimes the biggest threats come from the inside. Sometimes the system is broken, Tess. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Dr. Clark glanced at the headmaster, then turned back to me. “You know what it’s like to stand up to people in positions of power, Tess. I’ve always admired the way you defend people who are not in a position to defend themselves.” She paused. “Is it so hard to believe that someone like me might want to do the same?”
I knew, just listening to her say the words, that she’d said a variation of them to Henry. She’d told him that the system was broken, corrupt. She’d led him to believe he could fix it.
“You know what President Nolan is capable of,” Dr. Clark said. “You know what happened to Justice Marquette, and you know that the Nolan administration covered it up.”
“You told Henry that it wasn’t over.” I forced myself to look Dr. Clark directly in the eyes. “You told him that the president was responsible for his grandfather’s death.”
“I believe someone in that administration was,” Dr. Clark countered. “Marquette was killed by the president’s doctor and a Secret Service agent on the president’s detail. That doesn’t strike me as a coincidence.” She paused. “It shouldn’t strike you as one, either.”