He’d show up in a few days, which actually worked out better. Kari was a little more like herself when he wasn’t around. A lot more. Mom’s downward spiral had really done a number on her. Five years younger than Devin, she had been around for the worst of it, while he’d been away at college. He still felt guilty about that. He’d gone to school thirty minutes away, unaffected and mostly oblivious to their mother’s unraveling. Kari had spent her high school years struggling with their mother’s rapidly worsening psychosis and a just as swiftly dwindling collection of friends.

Falls Church, Virginia, was a small, densely packed community a few miles west of the National Mall, which put it just south of McClean, Virginia, home of the Central Intelligence Agency. Growing up, all Devin’s friends’ parents had either worked on Capitol Hill in high-visibility jobs or “for the government.” Most of the kids had known to stop asking questions when you got the generic answer. Even the new kids caught on, because word got around—even when it wasn’t supposed to. As it had with their mother.

Kari had pulled a Houdini after graduation and never looked back—more like she never came back. She had applied to schools on the West Coast and had gotten accepted to UCLA, spending nearly all her vacation time with friends and her summer quarters loading up on prerequisites. She had graduated in five years with a master of social welfare degree and had immediately been hired at a major nonprofit organization, where she’d worked nonstop for the past five years. She’d been home twice since leaving for college almost fifteen years ago. Dad had visited her at least once a year, usually with Devin. She wouldn’t let Mom visit and had seen her only once during the two times she made it back east. Mom had seemed to understand, or she hadn’t cared. It had gotten harder to tell over time, until he’d pretty much stopped seeing her, too. Devin didn’t want to think about it anymore.

He opened the compact nylon satchel he’d thrown on the passenger seat and removed his phone. MINERVA required them to leave all personal items behind during operations, especially electronics devices. At the start of each operation, they were given a slim wallet preloaded with a basic identification card and enough cash to fulfill their mission, an encrypted and presumably untraceable smartphone, and any additional personal gear deemed necessary by the operation leader. They handed in their phones and wallets before departing for the mission staging area and retrieved them upon return.