“I’m sure Putin will get over it,” said Berg. “But this raises an important issue. Ms. Young will most definitely have to remain off the grid—the entire grid. I know we discussed this earlier, because Baltimore PD will be looking to question her as a possible witness to last night’s festivities, but the Russians have a nasty habit of throwing names into the mix out of spite—and in hopes of getting the feds involved. They do this all over the world. The FBI will be keeping an eye out for Ms. Young by the afternoon at the latest. Same for myself and Devin. The entire team, essentially. It won’t take them long to figure out who lent me a hand with this. We should also strongly consider taking precautions to thwart facial-recognition software.”

A new set of faces emerged. He recognized one of the faces from the photos he’d taken in front of the Starbucks near the University of Maryland. Gupta nodded at him.

“I thought you might find this particularly interesting,” said Gupta. “We did a deep dive through the bowels of the internet and found three deaths directly linked to patients transferred from the W Hotel to area hospitals on the night of your honey-trap sting. Two men, in their early to midfifties, succumbed to the angel of death the morning after they were stabilized. The angel of death being Jolene Rudd, who you photographed following you a few days ago and who we photographed dead in front of the town house. She was caught on security camera entering and exiting both of their rooms posing as a member of the Howard University Hospital.”

“Busy lady,” said Rich.

“Even more interesting? Her husband was photographed right next to her outside of the town house. Harvey Rudd. Both from Chattanooga, Tennessee,” said Gupta.

“Driver’s licenses collected at the town house put the whole group within easy driving distance around central Tennessee and Kentucky. One from northern Georgia,” said Graves.

“Odd that they would be working this far away,” said Rich.

Devin had a theory. “Not if they were involved with my mother’s situation. The Russians would have wanted some continuity for compartmentalization reasons. Right? If they had something to do with intercepting my mother in Tennessee, it makes sense to use them again on a related operation.”

“Very good point,” said Berg.

“Who the fuck are these people? They look like people you’d trust to watch your house when you went on vacation,” said Alex, one of the most nondescript people Devin had ever met, by design, no doubt.

“Based on their ages,” said Berg, “I’d say they were planted here in the early nineties, right after the Soviet Union collapsed. Possibly for the express purpose of supporting the sleeper network Helen discovered. I think the connection to DEVTEK needs to be considered. What role does Brian Chase fill at the company? The Russians clearly wanted something from him.”