One of them pulled the door shut behind her and she was immediately overcome by the smell. Three men, cramped in a confined space on eight-hour stints, eating as much takeout as they wanted.

“You Everlane?”

“Yes I am.”

“This your stakeout?”

The guy asking the questions was sitting up front. The other two were in the back with the equipment.

“Roth’s,” she said.

“What’s he hoping to find? Because we ain’t seen a peep.”

They had a camera inside the store feeding them a live view of the mailbox. Someone had drawn a circle around it with a sharpie right on the monitor.

“That the one we’re watching?”

“I can see why they like you,” the guy said.

Laurel sat back.

She took a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket and the guy in front said, “Oh hell, lady. You’ve got to be kidding.”

Laurel smiled. “I thought it would mask the body odor.”

“That’s musk,” he said.

Laurel looked at him.

He said, “Hey, you want to sit here all night, let’s see how you smell at the end of it.”

“Well,” she said. “I guess I can take a hint.” She wrote her number on one of the takeout containers. “Call me if anything happens. I’ll be close by.”

“You don’t want to wait with us?” one of the guys in the back said. He was wearing an Oakland A’s ball cap.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I feel like I’m cramping your style.”

They’d been cooped up so long they were going stir crazy.

“We could crack a window,” he said to the guy up front.

“Let her smoke,” the third guy said.

“Fine,” the guy in front said.

She leaned back and lit her cigarette, blowing the smoke toward the tiny crack in the window.

She looked out at the mail store.

Whoever sent them the message had been careful. They knew enough to leave the envelope where it would find its way into the consulate. They knew how to avoid the CCTV cameras.

Whoever they were, they were sending a warning, and they’d risked their life to do it.

It had to mean a deal. A defection. She knew Lance had been right about it being a Russian.

Russia had the bioweapons labs. They contravened every treaty they ever signed. They sent agents to places like Istanbul and New York and gave them reason to want to defect.

“I’d bet dollars to donuts we’re waiting for a Russian,” she said.

The guys nodded.

“I bet it’s a woman,” the guy in the A’s cap said.

“What tells you that?” Laurel said.

“Stakeouts like this are all we do. You get a feel for them.”

“A feel?”

“Yeah, like the location. Lots of people around. Nothing too secluded. Women don’t go in for secluded meets.”

“Unless they have to,” the guy in the front said.