‘If you think I’m a monster, I’m a monster you created. I still played Pokémon when I was twelve. And if you hadn’t promoted me as quick as you did, for the reasons you had, maybe I’d still be that friendly ambitious kid now and still be playing bloody Pokémon.’

It was the closest Roth had ever come to directly referencing Marshall’s extinct assassination plan. He would go no further. Not today. There was a momentary twinge of fear in Marshall’s face before he replaced it with predictable anger.

‘Nobody goes through what I did without becoming what I’ve become,’ Roth finished. ‘You made sure of that.’

‘You’re wrong, Oliver. Everything you became is what you wanted to become.’

‘Did you want to be a miserable authoritarian moron then? Or a failed arms dealer?’

‘I made my own choices and I know who I am. Do you know who you really are, Oliver?’

‘Well I’m sure you’re going to enlighten me either way, so stop wasting my time and go ahead.’

Marshall’s top lip began to quiver and his face turned red. There was just a little part of him that seemed tempted to lose control: a sub-personality within him that looked like it wanted to throw his own advice out of the window.

‘Oliver,’ he began, ‘you are the result of a perfect storm of bad circumstances. Apathetic parents, enormous opportunity, and a complete lack of boundaries. And those circumstances have tricked you into thinking that no matter how little self-discipline you have, the world will just accommodate your errors of judgement. You are the school bully who never grew up to learn that the real world doesn’t care how cool you were as a teenager. You are the one person on Earth who has been given everything he ever wanted, and it has destroyed any possibility of you growing up to be a good man. But at the very bloody least, Oliver, be a decent soldier.’

Oliver Gabriel Roth might have been impacted by that little speech, if he had not had the defence barriers up in his mind. He gave no reaction.

‘Don’t you have a wife you’re pretending to care about back in your apartment?’ he asked. ‘I’m sure she misses you, and is pretending to care about you too.’

Marshall rolled his eyes and turned away. Roth knew, alongside so many other details about his boss’ life, that his relationship with Hannah and the kids had gone cold long ago. Still, he imagined that coldness was more comforting than the searing hot hatred of his colleagues.

As his boss and former mentor walked back towards his apartment, Roth checked up and down the corridor for witnesses. Since there were none, neither Iain Marshall nor anyone else saw the double middle fingers pointed towards his back as he walked.

Chapter 13