Something changes in her expression. Not surprise — something quieter. "I was afraid you would say that." She reaches into her coat pocket and places a second document on the car bonnet between you. "Before you decide, read this."
It is a personnel file. CIA, heavily redacted. Your name is at the top. Your service record. Your assignment in Copenhagen. And at the bottom, under a section headed OPERATION PROTOKOL, a single line:
*Asset confirmation: TRANSLATOR was informed of cache location during assignment. Asset is compliant. Handler: MARCUS J.*
You read it twice.
"You were never a civilian analyst," she says, not unkindly. "You were the mechanism. Marcus needed someone to confirm the cache in Western intelligence records without it looking official. You translated that document because you were chosen to translate it. Because your translation could later be used as corroboration."
The harbour wind is cold.
"You have been part of this since the beginning," she says. "The only question now is what you do with that knowledge."
You look at the document. At your own name. At the word: compliant.
You think about what it means to have been a piece on someone else's board all along.
And you make your choice.
✦ Ending C: You Were Always Part of It