The Kelleys had materialized in northwest Indiana during the spring of that year, when Brian took a job at one of the sprawling steel mills in the region—a job he held until his retirement in the late nineties. Kathleen had split her time between substitute teaching and staying home with their two children.

If the Kelleys were sleeper agents, as Sergei Kozlov had implied, they hadn’t done any obvious damage to United States national security from their blue-collar enclave in northwest Indiana. From what the FBI could initially determine, the family rarely traveled outside the state. The Kelleys appeared to have spent most of their leisure time and money on a no-frills pontoon boat they’d kept at a nearby marina on Lake Michigan.

Not exactly a social circle that implied a productive espionage career for the couple. That said, intelligence gathered from defectors during the Cold War heydays strongly suggested that some Soviet sleepers served purposes beyond espionage. Targeted sabotage and discreet assassination topping their list of potential assignments. Even more troubling, these “deep sleepers” typically remained completely inactive until called on to execute their grim tasks.

Possible confirmation of a long-dormant network of saboteurs and killers in the US scared the hell out of CIA leadership. Unfortunately, the results of a more thorough investigation into the Kelleys would take months. Time the CIA didn’t feel they’d had with Kozlov. The agency had dispatched Helen to meet him again, with instructions to demand a more compelling sample of what he hoped to trade for an exceptionally comfortable and secure life in the United States.

Her recall of the meeting was uncanny. She’d apparently sensed something was wrong the moment Kozlov arrived at the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden. He had appeared agitated and nervous upon arrival, glancing over his shoulder a number of times and snapping at the clerk while he’d purchased a ticket for a guided tour of the garden’s greenhouses. A stark difference from the stoic, unreadable GRU general she’d met a few weeks earlier.

He’d seemed to settle down once the tour started, the two of them keeping their distance and pretending to care about exotic plants for the hour or so it took the agency support team to give their meeting the green light. Deep inside the sprawling, densely wooded grounds south of the greenhouse complex, the two of them had sat for several minutes in the shade of a towering oak tree, on a small wrought iron bench facing a lily pad–covered pond.

He’d given her the name and address of Denise Holman, suggesting they study the similarities between Holman and Kelley. When she’d pressed him to explain the connection, he’d just stared at the pond for an uncomfortably long period of time—ultimately rejecting her demand. Kozlov had said the CIA needed to identify the pattern and draw the right conclusion on their own.