“Why?” I bolted to my feet. “What’s wrong?”
“Right this way, dear,” Buckingham said. She swept her arm toward the big double doors, and I didn’t have a choice. I followed.
“Hello, Cammie.”
For a moment, I couldn’t move—couldn’t speak. I stood just inside my mother’s office door looking at the man I’d last seen sitting in a van with Ambassador Winters in Rome. I remembered everything about him—the moment he’d given me his business card two years before as I snuck out of our school to see my first boyfriend; the look on his face two days before as they were driving Preston and his father away. I knew exactly who I’d been brought to see. What I couldn’t imagine was why.
He seemed to doubt my memory, though, because he extended a hand.
“We met once—a long time ago. I’m Max—”
“Edwards,” I filled in. “Formerly of Interpol. More recently of a high-level task force in charge of arresting high-level Circle leaders and their teenage sons.”
He laughed a little, amused by my moxie, then said, “It’s nice to see you again, Cammie. I’m sorry we didn’t get to speak in Rome. I’ve become something of…a fan.”
He had a way of speaking, low and almost under his breath, as if I were the only person in the world who was meant to hear his words, even as we stood three feet away from my mother.
“Oh. Really?” I said, almost mocking, as he looked at me over the top of his glasses.
“It’s a compliment, Cammie. You’ve made quite a name for yourself, you know?”
I did know. But I was also pretty sure that it wasn’t the kind of compliment covert operatives usually wanted.
He lowered his voice even further. “I was very sorry to hear about your father’s passing. And what you went through. You have my condolences, Cammie.”
But I didn’t want his sympathy. So I just turned toward my mother. “What is he doing here?” I asked.
“He’s here with a request,” my mother said.
“As you are well aware, Cammie, the Circle of Cavan is currently engaged in a record level of activity,” the man told me. “As such, there is a new interagency task force. CIA. MI6. Interpol. Israeli Secret Service. All the usual players are taking part, and—”
“I know all this. Get to the part I don’t know,” I told him, my patience running out.
“What you saw in Italy, Cammie. That was the result of this task force. We’re going to track the Circle leaders down.”
I glanced at my mother, and Agent Edwards must have read the look that passed between us.
“I know what you’re thinking, Cammie. The Circle has double agents, moles, traitors at every level of every agency. Well…that’s why this task force doesn’t report to any agency. We are very small. We are very select. We only have people we trust completely. And one of the people I trust most…is you. That is why I’ve come to ask a favor.”
“I’m not doing any favors for you,” I snapped.
“Hear him out, Cammie,” Mom warned, but I raged on.
“Did you bring Preston here?” I asked, but I didn’t really let myself be hopeful.
“No,” Max Edwards said. “But there is something you and I need to discuss.”
“Make no mistake about it, Agent Edwards, you can try to make me talk—you wouldn’t be the first,” I reminded him. “But that didn’t work out so well the last time, so you can save yourself the trouble.”
I started for the door.
“I’m not here to question you, Cammie.” The man’s words stopped me. “Not about Preston. Not about anything.”
And I couldn’t help myself. I turned and glared at him. “Then why are you here?”
He shrugged, as if looking for a way to finally say, “I guess because we need your help.”
“I’m not helping you.”
“It’s not for me,” he said, and I didn’t move again. “As you know, when possible, we’ve been taking Circle members into custody. A few of the lower-level assets have been somewhat cooperative. But Mr. Winters…he is refusing to speak to anyone.”
“What did you expect?” I laughed a little at his naïveté.
“I’m sorry.” He smiled a condescending smile. “What I meant to say is that he refuses to speak to anyone…but you.”
And at last I was surprised. For all of his experience and training, Agent Edwards and his task force needed me.
“As I told you earlier, Agent Edwards,” Mom began, “my daughter does not have to go anywhere with you. She doesn’t have to help you. She will not—”
“I’ll do it.”
“Cammie,” my mother said, “you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to go and you do not have to help. It could be dangerous,” she added, the last part a warning.
“That’s true, Cammie,” Agent Edwards said, walking toward me. “Your mother is right. So what do you say?”
“Yes,” I told him. “I’ll do it. I’ll—”
But I never got to finish, because in the next second a syringe was in Agent Edwards’s hand, and the needle was in my arm, and just that quickly my mother’s office began to spin, the whole world spiraling quickly into black.
Chapter Thirteen
The room was black around me. A pounding, throbbing ache filled my head. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, but they didn’t. Instead, I was swallowed by the hollow emptiness, uncertain how to break free.
I shivered and realized I was freezing cold. My uniform felt familiar against my skin, and I knew that no one had bothered to change my clothes in the time that I’d been unconscious. But how long had that been? A few hours? A few days? The last time I’d woken up in a strange place, I’d just lost months of my life, and that memory came pounding back then. My head hurt. My arms and legs ached. I felt something churning in my stomach, and I couldn’t help myself, I was sick—vomit covered the floor, and I started to cry. I started to scream. I wanted out. I needed out. So I stood and pressed my hands against the walls.
I felt cold steel. Metal. Something man-made and foreign. And I knew that even though I was no longer being held by the Circle in Austria, I most certainly wasn’t in the Gallagher Academy anymore, either.