C27 The Dynamic

The transition from a prisoner to a spy requires a rearrangement of your own mind. You have to take the emotions that make you human—the raw, suffocating terror, the knee-jerk instinct to scream, the deep, oily layer of shame—and compress them until they form a stone-hard wall. Behind that wall, you watch and wait.

By Wednesday afternoon, I had gotten exceptionally good at building that wall