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bothered to put in the effort.Intimacy wasn’t very high on her checklist anymore. Walking over to the window, she studied her reflection in the glass.
    When her blond hairwas pulled up in a high ponytail you could see the beginning of a tattoo. It was a line from Sartre in delicate, thin blue script that ran from the base of her neck down to the midpoint of her spine. Il est impossible d’apprécier la lumière sans connaître les ténèbres. It is impossible to appreciate the light without knowing the darkness.
    Above her right hip was a scar from a bullet that hadgone straight through. A couple of millimeters lower and it would have shattered her hip, sabotaging the mission she had been on at the time. While she had bled profusely, she had managed to accomplish her assignment. The scar in front and in back were reminders—both of the dangers she faced in her job and that she should never take anything for granted.
    Her striking appearance was rounded outby large blue eyes, full lips, and impossibly high cheekbones. For all of the damage she had done to herself, she hadn’t lost her looks. In fact, some were saying that she looked better now than before her leave of absence from NIS.
    It was amazing, she supposed, what being high as fuck and losing your appetite could do for your appearance. There was only one obvious place the drugs had takentheir toll—her teeth. Carl Pedersen, though, had fixed them. Or more appropriately, he had paid to get them fixed. A private dentist in Bergen—someplace far away from anyone she may have known or bumped into from Oslo. That was also where he had gotten her into a private drug treatment program. Quite simply, he had rescued her.
    When everyone else had given up on her, when she was at her absolutelowest, rock-bottom moment, and most needed saving, that’s when he had appeared.
    Gathering her up, he had taken her away to some safe house—halfway between Oslo and Bergen—a place she doubted even the NIS knew about.
    It was a gorgeous ski lodge in the town of Geilo and obviously belonged to someone with a lot of money. Who, though, he never said.
    That was just like him. Carl Pedersen knew peopleeverywhere. Not just in Norway, but around the world. He was either the best friend orthe worst enemy a person could ever have. She couldn’t believe he was gone.
    The pain caused by his death felt like someone had shoved a glowing fireplace poker through her chest. He had not only saved her, but he had also helped her sober up and had gotten her reinstated. If not for him, she didn’t know whereshe’d be right now.
    Scratch that. She knew where she’d be—if she would have still been alive—and it wouldn’t have been pretty. She owed him everything, including her life. He had been her second chance.
    And unlike other men she had known, he had never asked for or had expected anything in return—only that she do her absolute best. That was why he had brought her into NIS in the first place.He had seen the potential in her. And she had delivered on that potential. Big-time.
    Sølvi worked harder than anyone at NIS. She understood the threats Norway was facing. The real threats.
    While governments and their pet political initiatives came and went, she saw the bigger picture. Because Norway was so wealthy, it could afford to be both high-minded and kind. Those were noble attributes,but only if the nation was prepared to be narrow-minded and tough when it had to be.
    For instance, calling out China for their human rights violations and awarding the Nobel Prize to a dissident critical of Beijing was all well and good, as long as you were ready to punch back twice as hard once Chinese hacking of Norwegian banks, businesses, hospitals, and critical infrastructure went into overdrive.

    That was one of the most important things Carl Pedersen had taught her. As the Soviet Union had begun to dissolve, Norwegian politicians had cheered. While it was indeed worth cheering, Pedersen urged the