Helen Gray hadn’t entirely agreed with the agency’s assessment of the retired general’s motivations, but it hadn’t made a difference what she thought. Kozlov had been a dead end, along with the names he had provided. Despite the puzzling Cold War enigma surrounding the Kelleys’ and Holmans’ seemingly unexciting three-decades-long stint in the United States, nobody had wanted to put any more serious time or resources into the matter—including Helen.

Until she’d discovered a folded index card in the front pocket of the bomber jacket she had worn to the botanical garden in Saint Petersburg, accompanied by a note.

Fairly sure I won’t be around for a third meeting. Consider this a parting gift. Don’t let them waste it. Donald Wilson. Springdale, AR. The glue that holds the others together. Sergei Kozlov.

Kozlov couldn’t have put the card into her pocket. The two of them had never come within three feet of each other at any moment during that afternoon. He must have directed someone else to do it after she’d left the garden. A real street pro, because neither Helen nor the surveillance team watching her had detected it. Kozlov must have suspected that the GRU was onto him. There was no other way to explain the card and the note.

But had he triggered its delivery after leaving the garden, or had it been his plan to give it to her all along? Had he committed suicide to keep the revealed names a secret from the GRU, or had he been murdered? Questions that would never be answered. Answers that didn’t really matter. The only meaningful question that remained to be asked was, What should she do with the third name?

The obvious answer was to hand it over to her superiors at the agency, but Kozlov had covertly given it to her for a reason—along with a warning. Don’t let them waste it. She’d understood what he had meant, which was why she hadn’t turned over the name immediately upon her return to Langley. The agency had effectively closed the Kozlov file. They’d either deep-six the name with the rest of the file or hand it off to the FBI with a nonurgent request for a background investigation, where it would meet a similar fate.

General Kozlov had given her the third name, knowing his time had run out. He had ultimately decided that passing her the note card had been more important than taking Donald Wilson’s name to the grave. She’d looked into Wilson on her own, ultimately ending up in the same place as Kozlov. Dead by her own hand instead of revealing what she’d discovered: a widespread, multitiered sleeper network—unlike anything the FBI or CIA had ever caught wind of.