Farrington couldn’t shake the impression that the crew assigned to follow Young might not be on the varsity Russian team. More like junior varsity second string. He definitely found that to be at odds with what Karl Berg had suggested they might be up against. It certainly didn’t square with the greater conspiracy outlined in Helen Gray’s executive summary. Or maybe it did.

In the grand scheme of things, assuming Devin Gray had told the truth about his relationship with her, Marnie Young would be classified as a low-potential contact. Third tier out of four at best. The Russians wouldn’t park their best people on her, and they certainly wouldn’t risk burning an embassy operative, which meant they had brought in a network of low-level “illegals” to work the edges. This would leave their top-tier people available to pounce on Gray or Berg at a moment’s notice. Definitely something to keep in mind for tonight’s mission. They’d have to clear the area quickly to avoid a run-in with the Russians’ A-team.

“Any luck with the trackers?” asked Daly.

“No. They’ve had at least one watcher in each parking lot. It would have been too risky,” said Farrington. “It doesn’t really matter. We’ve ID’d three of their vehicles. Two with Tennessee plates. One from Kentucky. I’m sensing a trend. I don’t expect we’ll have any trouble picking out the rest of them tonight.”

“What about Young’s Jeep?” asked Daly, glancing over his shoulder at Gupta.

“Bugged up like a motherfucker,” said Gupta. “Three trackers in total. Two standard types transmitting every fifteen seconds. One dormant that I had to actively ping to get a response. My guess is it transmits less frequently.”

“Yeah. They’ve upped their game a little. Gray managed to ditch this crew after detecting and removing two standard trackers,” said Farrington.

“Did he check for the other type?” asked Daly.

“He ditched that car entirely and ran an SDR with a vehicle his mother had prestaged for him,” said Farrington. “Prior to that, he also executed two ninety-minute washouts to determine if anyone had somehow tracked him.”

A lengthy washout like that could theoretically entice a team tracking Devin by GPS signal into thinking he had stopped to meet with a contact. From a concealed location nearby, Devin could confirm he was under surveillance and ID a few more of his tails. It was a time-consuming process, but well worth the effort—and the mark of a true professional.

“Sounds like he knows what he’s doing,” said Daly.

“He better. He does this for a living,” said Farrington. “Anish. Anything else I should pass along?”

“No. But I think I found something that could be very useful later,” said Gupta.