“They do appear to match.” Hall nodded. “And we know the location of this older one without question—definitely in Lorraine. Excellent eye, Miss Blackwell, as usual.”

She would have smiled at the compliment if her attention hadn’t moved to the figures. “The men, though. I don’t believe . . .” She hated to say she couldn’t identify someone, or that they’d never appeared in film she’d developed before. With a gusty exhale, she shook her head. “I don’t readily recognize them, so they’re certainly not frequent players. But I’ll look through the archives again.”

“In your spare moments. And as you do, keep an eye out for this fellow too.” He slid another image across her desk toward her.

This one was small, no bigger than two inches square. Clearly a passport photograph. Still holding the first picture, she picked up the second. And frowned. She was quite certain she’d never seen this face before; he was handsome enough that she’d have noted it. But that wasn’t what made something odd and cold curl up inside her.

Despite being completely unfamiliar, the man was, well, familiar. The eyes. The mouth. But where . . . ?

She flipped it over, in case there was writing on the back. There wasn’t. But she did the same to the larger photo, quickly finding the single line at the bottom. The single line written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Cyrillic—Russian. Her gaze shot back to Hall’s as the familiarity clicked into knowledge. “Is this Evgeni Marin?”

The admiral blinked at her. “Did I say it was?”

She placed both images on her desk. “This is what I do, DID.”

He chuckled. And stood. “I told Mr. Marin we would try to locate him. This is simply my first step.”

Looking for him in the photographs his field agents had taken over the last four years? And then adding in the larger photo . . . it didn’t make the cold knot unravel any. “Should I . . . should I be careful? Around Zivon, I mean?”

Hall paused, half turned to the door. “You’ve never been one to open your heart too quickly, have you? Not like your sister.”

It sounded like a compliment, yet landed like an insult. To Zivon as well as her, in this case. “Is that your answer?”

Something shifted in his eyes with his next blink. “Do you think I would have hired him if I didn’t find him trustworthy?”

No. Or at least most people wouldn’t have. But Hall could very well subscribe to the “keep one’s enemies closer” philosophy. “You could answer with a statement, you know, instead of another question.”