“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.
“If they come for us, we go out fighting,” said Rudd. “From now on we don’t leave the hotel unarmed.”
CHAPTER 21
Rich Farrington pulled the silver Suburban up to the Whole Foods entrance and waited for Scott Daly. The lanky operative, dressed in jeans and an untucked light-blue oxford shirt, emerged a few moments later and got into the passenger seat. He immediately tossed his phone between the seats to Anish Gupta, who sat in the second row rapidly typing on a laptop. He’d upload all the photos taken by Daly in the Whole Foods for future reference. Behind Gupta, the SUV’s remaining space housed the surveillance and communications suite they’d custom configured for this vehicle.
Gupta had worked with a body shop crew they trusted to install and conceal all the antennae used by the gear. Satellite for their primary data link. Dedicated VHF and UHF for working with P25-encrypted communications. RF detection and pinging. Multiband antennae for frequency scanning and eavesdropping. Even to a trained eye, the oversize SUV looked no different than any of the other behemoths carting kids and families around the DC suburbs.
He drove out of the parking lot and turned south on Broad Street, heading in the same direction as the convoy of vehicles trailing Marnie Young’s Jeep. First, a black Subaru Outback, which parked on the fringes of the lot and waited for Young to depart. The driver, a gray-haired guy with a giant head, made little effort to look as though he was doing anything but waiting. No sandwich on the dashboard or drink in his hand. Not pretending to talk on his phone or scroll through social media. He just sat there as though he were invisible.
Then the maroon Dodge Durango driven by the couple photographed by Devin Gray outside of a Starbucks in Hyattsville—who had at some point inserted themselves into the coffee shop with Marnie Young. They’d parked across the street in the Trader Joe’s parking lot after inexplicably following the Outback almost bumper-to-bumper into the Whole Foods parking lot and taking a quick spin around.
Finally, the gray Nissan Pathfinder they’d identified outside of the coffee shop, driven by a dark-haired guy who also looked to be in his early fifties. He’d trailed Young’s Jeep to Whole Foods and followed her inside, keeping his distance inside the store—under Daly’s watchful eye. The man had forgotten to grab a handbasket or shopping cart on the way in and ended up following her around with a bag of tortilla chips in one hand and his phone in the other.
Farrington couldn’t shake the impression that the crew assigned to follow Young might not be on the varsity Russian team. More like junior varsity second string. He definitely found that to be at odds with what Karl Berg had suggested they might be up against. It certainly didn’t square with the greater conspiracy outlined in Helen Gray’s executive summary. Or maybe it did.
In the grand scheme of things, assuming Devin Gray had told the truth about his relationship with her, Marnie Young would be classified as a low-potential contact. Third tier out of four at best. The Russians wouldn’t park their best people on her, and they certainly wouldn’t risk burning an embassy operative, which meant they had brought in a network of low-level “illegals” to work the edges. This would leave their top-tier people available to pounce on Gray or Berg at a moment’s notice. Definitely something to keep in mind for tonight’s mission. They’d have to clear the area quickly to avoid a run-in with the Russians’ A-team.