The Agency allowed its officers to take leaves of absence for up to five years while they pursued interests in the private sector. The supervisors who had signed off on McEwen’s leave looked at it as a pleasant fiction for a field agent who was well past the freshness date but wanted to save face.

“I can have my bags packed in ten minutes,” she told Danny, who was still having trouble believing the woman was, in fact, the CIA op he’d come for. “We must be going to the Ukraine. It’s about the NATO thing, right?”

Hera whistled. “Good guess.”

“More than a guess, sweetie. Russia must be plotting to keep them out, right? Of course.”

“She’s sharp,” said Hera.

It didn’t sound quite like a compliment.

“I, um—I have to talk to Reid,” said Danny.

“I don’t have a phone,” said McEwen.

“That’s all right.” Danny took his sat phone out. “I’m going to just make the call outside.”

The dog started barking again.

“Don’t worry about him,” McEwen told Danny. “His bark is worse than his bite.”

Outside, Danny went over and leaned against the car before dialing.

“This is Reid.”

“Jonathon, this is Danny Freah. I found Ms. McEwen.”

“Is she willing to help?”

“She’s more than willing. But she’s—old.”

Reid didn’t answer for a moment. He wasn’t exactly a spring chicken himself. If anything, he was several years—maybe even a whole decade—older than McEwen.

“Let me ask you a question, Colonel. Why do you want Sally on the mission?”

“I don’t want her, not her per se,” answered Danny. “I need someone who knows Kiev, who can talk the language like a native, and who can help make arrangements.”

“And you think she’s too old for that?”

“Yeah. And she’s a moonshiner.”

Reid laughed. “I don’t think that disqualifiers her. Assuming, of course, it’s true.”

“Seriously—”

“Who you choose is up to you, Colonel. You know that. But I wouldn’t have recommended Sally if I didn’t think she could handle the job. You’re not asking her to jump out of planes, correct?”

“No.”

“She could probably do that.” Reid laughed. “I know she’ll pass whatever physical the Agency offers.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Your call.”

Reid hung up.

Danny put the sat phone back in his pocket. He thought of himself as pretty old. In fact, he’d questioned himself several times during the last mission, wondering if he was still up to the rigors of an operation.

But McEwen—she was at least seventy.

He walked back into the house, not quite decided what to do.

Hera and McEwen were back by the paintings. Laughing.

Hera, laughing? That was a first.

Danny found McEwen pointing to a building in one of the paintings. He hadn’t looked at it very carefully before; now he realized it was a street in Kiev.

“They had rented the flat out to a prostitute,” said McEwen, continuing her story for Hera. “The prostitute got evicted, and we got it. Of course, we didn’t know about the previous occupant. So here we are, trying to set up a safe house, and men knocking at all hours of the night, asking for Olga. Ulll-ga.”

“Olga,” repeated Hera, laughing hysterically.

She must be pretty good with people, thought Danny, to get Hera on her side so quickly. He’d had a lot of trouble winning her over.

“So what did Johnny say?” asked McEwen.

Danny had never heard Reid called Johnny by anyone. Reid didn’t seem like a Johnny. He seemed like a… Mr. Reid.

“He said that you know Kiev better than I know the back of my hand,” Danny told her. “And that you can help me make some arrangements there.”

“Damn straight. Let me get my bag.”

“What about your store?” asked Danny.

“Ah, I don’t get but two customers a year, except for the ones what want some old-fashioned.”

She disappeared down the hall.

“That’s the local White Lightning,” said Hera.

“No shit,” said Danny.

“She just sells it for her father’s cousin. He lives out in the woods.”

“She told you that?”

“We bonded.”

“You think she can do the job?”

“What? Rent hotel rooms, find us rental cars? Hell yeah. God, she’s perfect—who’d expect her? Little old lady a spy? No way.”

McEwen returned with her bag.

“I’m gonna have to stop at the hardware store on the way out,” she said. “ ’Cause I gotta leave a message for Cuz, but he don’t read.”

“You’re not going to tell him where you’re going, are you?” asked Danny.

“Colonel—I’ve been in this business since before you were in diapers. Credit me with a little common sense.”

“Cuz won’t worry that you’re gone?” asked Hera.

“He’ll be a little sorry that he’ll have to go back to cookin’ on his own, instead of coming around and mooching off me every night,” said McEwen. “But he’ll be glad that he won’t have to go splits on the profits. And that no one’s yellin’ at him to get his teeth fixed. Don’t worry about him. He’s not a bad cook when he puts his mind to it. Especially if you like barbecue on Christmas.”

“It shouldn’t be more than two weeks,” said Danny.

“I hope we’re going for a long time,” said McEwen. “Much as I love this place, I’m done with it for a spell.”

“I got a question,” said Hera as McEwen put the Closed sign in place on the front door. “What does it mean that this is a notions shop?”

“It means I sell anything I have a notion to,” said McEwen, closing the door behind her.

5

The Pentagon

Breanna Stockard was just about to leave her office at the Pentagon when she got an urgent alert on her encrypted messaging system asking her to call Jonathon Reid. She reached for the phone and dialed, knowing that the meeting she was headed to was unlikely to break up much before seven, and she had promised her daughter she’d be home soon after.

Reid picked up on the first ring, his raspy voice practically croaking in the receiver.

“That was fast,” he told her.

“I have a meeting upstairs,” she said. “What’s up?”

“More data on the Wolves.”

“And?”

“There’s a Moldova link,” said Reid. “It may just be a coincidence, but I thought I’d better tell you.”

“What’s the connection?”

“Transactions. I’ve forwarded the report to your secure queue,” said Reid.

Breanna clicked the file open and waited while it was unencrypted. The system used a set of temporary, real-time keys, and occasionally the process of turning it from unreadable hieroglyphics to clear text could take several seconds.

The file opened. It was a listing of plane tickets that showed transit in and out of Moldova, a small landlocked country between Romania and Russia.

“Those accounts will be backtracked,” said Reid. “They’ll look for patterns, connections to other accounts. We may have more of a profile in a few days.”

“Moldova may simply have been chosen because of its banking system,” said Breanna. “The banking system is notoriously opaque to outsiders. Even insiders. And there are plenty of suspect mafia connections.”

“Always a possibility.”

Breanna looked at the data. None of the transactions were recent.

“These are all connected to the Wolves?” she asked.

“They’re connected to accounts that were associated with the Berlin activity,” answered Reid. “As I say, the Moldova connection is still tenuous.”