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Spoilers! Do not read unless you've seen Season 1 Episode 19, The Only Light in the Darkness.

Eric Koenig becomes very suspicious during the interrogation of Ward.

ERIK
S.H.I.E.L.D. no longer exists. The agency has been labeled a terrorist organization. So why are you here?

WARD I'm an agent. It's my duty.

LIE DETECTOR
beeping, whirring

ERIK
I need you to give that to me again.

WARD
It's my duty.

LIE DETECTOR
beeping, whirring

ERIK
picks up pistol
I'm gonna ask you a follow-up. Agent Ward, are you associated with Hydra?

WARD
Yes. We all are. They've infiltrated the highest levels of our organization.

ERIK
cocks pistol
Like you mean it. Are you Hydra?

WARD
I'm loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D... To Agent Coulson... And to my team.

ERIK
Do you have another agenda here?
Agent Ward, why are you really here?

WARD
Skye. Came back for her. I want to spend time with her.

ERIK
Skye.
lowers pistol
Cool.

WARD walks off wearing a lanyard

Later it is revealed that the lanyards are actually tracking devices so that he can monitor everyone's movements around the bunker.

Does Erik actually know that Ward is most likely Hydra? There was the possibility that the lie detector had given a false positive due to the pain Ward was in, so this small chance may have left a doubt in Erik's mind preventing him from shooting Ward on the spot. Additionally, at the time, Coulson and his team considered Ward to be one of themselves, so shooting him while the two were alone would have upset the team and turned them all against Erik. Because of these reasons, did Erik Koenig issue the lanyard to Ward with the intent to track him?

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No, Eric didn't know that Ward was Hydra or he would have killed him on the spot. Ward did pass the test using some tricks of his own against The Lie Detector.

One more point to note that Lanyards weren't manufactured after Eric's suspicion for Ward (if any). The tracking technology in Lanyard was already in existence as a part of generic safety measures (for the agent or against the agent; any agent could go rogue).

Keeping a Hydra agent inside the base could be dangerous too when you can simply kill or arrest that guy based on solid data from The Lie Detector which could be shown later to others.

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  • Except Erik may not have been 100% certain that Ward was Hydra, especially due to the pain he was in. It also wouldn't have gone over well with Coulson's team if he had shot Ward while the two of them were alone, since they all viewed him as part of their team at the time. These are two reasons Erik may have wanted to monitor Ward rather than shoot him on the spot, hence this question.
    – Keavon
    Oct 5, 2014 at 5:12
  • @Keavon But, he could have arrested him.
    – Satellite of Sin
    Oct 5, 2014 at 5:29
  • 1
    One does not simply arrest Ward.
    – Keavon
    Oct 5, 2014 at 5:32
  • Seeing how Eric kept turning his back on Ward (which got him killed,) I doubt that he was too suspicious. As far as Eric was concerned, Ward passed the lie detector test.
    – Chahk
    Oct 6, 2014 at 19:24

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