“I see this as more of a compartmentation issue around Helen Gray,” said Rudd. “She was obviously important to CONTROL. Same with that Wilson guy. They wouldn’t have scrambled two over-the-hill teams in the middle of the night to intercept them if they weren’t critically important.”

“Helen Gray must have really caught them off guard,” said Jolene.

“Right. And things went completely sideways—through no fault of our own,” said Rudd. “Now there’s nothing left to do but chase down a few pointless leads and possibly tie up some loose ends, so why bring in a new team? Even if they didn’t back brief the new crew, the whole Tennessee fiasco would pop up during the team’s first Devin Gray Google search. They’d be sitting around wondering, Why didn’t CONTROL tell us about Helen Gray and this Donald Wilson guy? Who are they? Et cetera. Et cetera.”

“I guess,” said Jolene. “It’s just that all we’ve done for the past thirty years are grimy-ass jobs that didn’t seem connected to anything important. Planting drugs, money, or kiddie porn on people. A few hit-and-runs on high school kids and military folks. Lots of blackmail pictures. This is all different, but not in the right way. The job they sent you on was important. No doubt about that. But it didn’t work out. Same with the job I did a couple weeks ago in DC. That was the first time I actually felt like I’d done something important, until I finally put two and two together and figured out that I’d probably killed two of our own. That didn’t feel too good then, and it doesn’t feel good right now.”

“We’re fine,” said Rudd. “I think they gave us this job because it’s low key, and it keeps the Helen Gray connection compartmentalized. They’re not expecting anything from us on this one. We just do what we’re asked. Do it right. And that’s it. Maybe we get to retire when this is over.”

“Or maybe they wipe the Helen Gray slate clean while we’re all in one place, busy doing nothing.”

“Not much we can do about that, I suppose,” said Rudd.

“I suppose not,” said Jolene. “But promise me one thing, Harvey.”

“Anything.”

“If we see it coming, we don’t go down without a fight,” she said.

“They aren’t going to get rid of us,” said Rudd. “Not after thirty years. They’ll put us on a—”

“Harvey. Promise me.”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek, which did little to ease his anxiety. The thought of being tossed aside like garbage after thirty years both terrified and angered him. Mostly it angered him. They’d served Mother Russia faithfully, never hesitating or questioning orders. If the GRU decided to sweep them under the rug like dead insects at this point, there would be hell to pay.