If any of the six operatives sitting in his basement were grabbed by the FBI, they could lead the authorities here, where it wouldn’t be very difficult to piece together the rest of the puzzle. He’d be surprised if CONTROL kept them here. He just hoped they would be able to live off their retirement savings after they were recalled. A silly concern in the grand scheme of things, but a worry, nonetheless. One of a thousand worries that surfaced when they had been notified of the meeting—at their house.

He took a seat on a folding chair he’d brought into the basement from the garage and placed in front of the group.

“Everyone good with the drinks and snacks?” asked Rudd.

Nobody had touched the assortment of sodas, chips, and candies he’d set out on the coffee table in front of them. Probably thinking the same thing: One of them had orders to eliminate everyone else. Jolene reached out and grabbed a handful of potato chips.

“The chips aren’t poisoned,” she said. “Only the M&M’s.”

A few thin smiles, but nothing beyond that—and nobody made a move for the snacks.

“Fine,” said Rudd. “I know this is highly irregular. How do you think we feel? They picked our fucking house. This is obviously the end for us here.”

“Or the end of us,” said Logan Walsh. “And you get to live happily ever after—right here in this lovely house.”

“Come on. How the hell would that even work? We have six cars, three with out-of-state plates, parked in front of our house,” said Rudd. “We never have people over. It’s probably big news on Nextdoor right now. How are we supposed to move all of your cars without someone noticing?”

“What’s Nextdoor?” asked Leo Ward.

“It’s a neighborhood-based social media platform that none of us are supposed to use,” said Walsh.

“We’re not members,” said Rudd. “We joined for a few minutes just to see how active our neighbors were on the site. Trust me, someone has noticed that we have guests for the first time ever. I’m pretty sure we were all supposed to create an account for that purpose, and then delete it.”

“We are,” said Walsh, glaring at Ward.

“What? I live out in the sticks,” said Ward. “My nearest neighbor is a mile away.”

“This wasn’t some kind of trick to get us all in one place,” said Rudd.

“No offense, but I’ll still pass on the snacks,” said Walsh, a slim grin on his face.

Rudd honestly couldn’t tell if he was serious about the poisoning stuff or not.