The hearse arrived. The funeral home’s staff opened umbrellas. Klay did not recognize the pallbearers. Three looked to be ex-military. The pallbearers lifted a blue steel casket, and the minister led them across the wet grass to a grave under a canvas tent. He wondered how many plots Maggie had purchased. Neither of them was from the area, he knew. He hoped life would carry Maggie and her unborn child too far away to ever come back to Tenchant’s side. Tenchant’s mother looked frail and older than Klay would have guessed. He found himself trying to imagine what had happened in that home to create Tenchant. What had happened in Krieger’s home, or in Eady’s? He knew what had happened in his.

Fox and Snaps arrived in Fox’s Mazda. They waited for Erin and Grant before approaching the grave site. Erin’s heels stuck in the soft earth as she walked, and she took her fiancé’s arm for balance. Klay’s eyes lingered on the couple. Porfle showed up in an old brown MGB roadster he was restoring. A tear in the soft top had been patched with silver duct tape. He opened a pocket umbrella and joined the staff.

Sharon stepped out of a white Range Rover, popped an umbrella, and waited for her husband. She nodded hello as she passed Porfle and the journalists. She paid her respects to Maggie. Porfle broke off from the journalists and walked toward her. A gust of wind caught his umbrella, and he paused to fix it. Then he appeared unsure which way to go. He looked expectantly from Sharon and her people back to Snaps, Fox, and the others. In the end he stood alone.

“She’ll be taken care of,” a gravelly voice said. Klay stiffened. Eady took Klay’s elbow in his gloved fingers. “It was an Agency assignment, technically,” Eady said, looking down the hill at the mourners. “She and the baby will be taken care of. I will see to it.”

The boy’s family will be taken care of. I will see to it.

“Good,” Klay said. It was all he could manage.

Eady stepped into Klay’s view. He wore an Irish driving cap and a gray trench coat. “I thought I might see you sooner,” Eady said, studying Klay.

“I needed some time,” Klay said.

“It will be difficult,” Barrow had advised. “You’ll need to maintain your self-control. Give him no indication that you know. You’ll have talked to me. He’ll want to confirm that. Be honest. Make him curious.”

“Barrow reached out to you, I presume,” Eady said.

“He did.”

When Klay didn’t say more, Eady said, “We do what we do to protect them, Tom. The people here. This nation of ours. Sometimes we fail. Tenchant respected you. He was grateful to have had a chance to work with you.”