“This isn’t a big-picture question. It’s a little-picture question, a detail. You told me about an ace surgical team that performed three procedures on three agents. I’m just wondering about the members of that surgical team. Where are they now?”

Collins blinked hard. “Damn you, Janson. You’re asking a question you know the answer to.”

“I just want to hear you say it.”

“Security on this operation was mammoth. The number of people who were in the know could be counted on the fingers of two hands. Each and every one with clearance on the very highest level, proven reliability—intelligence professionals.”

“But you needed to enlist the services of a topcaliber plastic surgeon. A team of outsiders, by necessity.”

“Why are we even talking about this? You understand the logic perfectly well. You said it yourself: each one of them was necessary for the program’s success. Each one, inherently, posed a security risk. That simply wasn’t supportable.”

“Ergo, the Mobius Program followed protocol. You planners had them killed. Every last one.”

Collins was silent, bowing his head slightly.

Something burned within Janson, although Collins had done nothing more than confirm his suspicions. They had probably allowed themselves a twelve-month period for the mop-up. It would not have been difficult to manage. A car crash, an accidental drowning, perhaps a deadly collision on a double-diamond ski slope—top surgeons tended to be aggressive sportsmen. No, it would not have been difficult. The agents who arranged their deaths would have regarded each as a task accomplished, another check against a to-do list. The human reality—the bereavement of spouses, siblings, sons and daughters; the shattered families, shadowed childhoods, the knock-on effects of desolation and despair beyond consolation—that was not a reality to be considered, even acknowledged, by those who issued the deadly directives.

Janson’s eyes drilled into Collins’s. “Small sacrifices for the larger good, right? That’s what I figured. No, Collins, I’m not going to get with the program. Not your program, anyway. You know something, Collins? You’re not a songbird and you’re not a hawk. You’re a snake, and you always will be.”

Janson looked out toward the water, saw Jessie Kincaid in the idling craft, saw her short hair ruffled by the gentle breeze, and all at once his heart felt as if it might burst. Maybe Collins was telling him the truth about the role of Consular Operations in what had gone down; maybe he wasn’t. The only verifiable truth was that Janson could not trust him. There’s a lot you need to know … . Come with me. That’s just the sort of line Collins would use to lure him to his death.