His mother had identified seventy additional sleeper couples that fit the same profile as the Kelleys, Holmans, and Wilsons. Materialized out of thin air in the early seventies. Regular jobs. Nothing that would require a background check beyond running a basic police report. More than half of them had made their grand entrance in college. One moment they didn’t exist. The next—they were college freshmen.

Like the Kelleys and Holmans, none of them had appeared to have ever held a position that might pose an espionage threat to the country. Sabotage or assassination was a different story. The traditional assumption had always been that the Soviet Union would activate sleeper agents if the two countries went to war, to create chaos in the United States. But according to Helen’s theory, it had never really been about the parents. It had always been about the children. That was what his mother had figured out, and why she had become so obsessed with unraveling the sleeper network.

Helen’s wall listed three members of the House of Representatives. An assistant secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. A principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. A one-star Air Force general working in the Pentagon. A one-star Navy admiral serving as commander, US Forces, Japan. Several other high-ranking officers spread throughout the four branches. Two FBI special agents in charge. A few other high-ranking FBI agents. State Department personnel, including our Ukrainian ambassador. And at least two suspected CIA officers working at Langley, both of them in counterintelligence.

Karl Berg visibly reeled when they came across those two names. The Soviets had successfully launched an extensive second-generation network of sleepers who could breeze through the most rigorous security clearance investigations. The parents checked out. They checked out.

The only flaw in Helen’s conspiracy theory was that she had absolutely no proof that the identified individuals were indeed Russian sleeper agents.

Devin’s stomach growled, mercifully distracting him from the grim thought. He’d been running on Red Bull all night. There was no point in continuing this without eating. He could barely concentrate at this point. He searched online for a nearby breakfast spot, finding something within fairly easy walking distance. He got up from the desk, the sound of the chair scraping the floor and jolting Berg awake. The retired CIA officer lifted his head off the kitchen table, which they’d dragged into the room last night, and yawned.

He still didn’t know what to think of Berg, but his mother had trusted him implicitly, according to a note he’d found on the first page of Helen’s executive summary file.

“How long was I out?” asked Berg.

“Maybe an hour,” said Devin. “I was thinking we could use some breakfast—and a lot of coffee. There’s a bagel and breakfast sandwich shop about a fifteen-minute walk from here. The food ranges from moderately healthy fare to a guaranteed heart attack.”