If the couple in the Durango noticed that the cars were the same, a remote but existent possibility under the circumstances, trouble could escalate quicker than any of them had planned. And unchoreographed trouble was the last thing he was looking for tonight. Graves much preferred the kind the team could control, since they typically directed it away from him.

He wasn’t a combat type. Far from it. And he was here only as a favor. He’d emerged from his mostly permanent retirement because Anish needed his help on a short-fused job, and Graves was within easy striking distance.

He’d settled into a nice living on the southern Outer Banks, near Emerald Isle, where he’d vacationed as a kid. Hauling himself to Jacksonville to get on a flight to Baltimore hadn’t been any trouble at all.

“Good luck,” he said.

“Yep,” she said.

He got out and shut the door, the vehicle’s locking system immediately chirping behind him. A little early on the locks, Emily. The average system took a little longer than that to arm itself. Hopefully, nobody would notice. He’d never worked with Emily Miralles before today. She’d joined Farrington’s crew a year and a half ago, replacing Cassiopeia, a.k.a. Caz, who’d accepted a lucrative head security position for one of Capitol Hill’s more influential senators. Miralles didn’t say much, which, once again, suited him fine. The less he knew about any of these people the better, and the less they knew about him? Priceless.

It wasn’t that he disliked any of them. He’d enjoyed his years working for Sanderson’s program and subsequently with Farrington’s spin-off operation. They’d taken on some giants in that time and come out on top, making the world a better place—he hoped. It was just that he could count on one hand the number of people who had been around from the beginning. Some of them had split and gone their own way, like him, but most of them had been killed on missions or assassinated in retribution for some of their more notorious jobs.

The fact that this job involved the Russians had almost kept him from showing up. The Russians had long memories, and Farrington had done a number on them in the past. More than once.

He walked a block east on Foster Avenue and crossed the street at South Lakewood, heading for the tricked-out silver Suburban Anish called home these days. Graves had to admit that his former partner in crime had made some aesthetic and functional improvements to the original concept of their undercover communications hub.