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some value they could trade for favors or some other advantage. But there was enough in the papers to ensure she would lose sleep tonight trying to dissect the puzzle Maines had left behind. One line in the Russians’ dead-drop letter stood out in her mind.
    This is why we suggest you use some money in this package to meet us in GLENDA very soon as we asked in our previous contact.
    Kyra had parsed the words so many times that she’d lost count, but the implication never changed, like a quiet voice in her mind. They’re in a hurry , she thought. The Russians knew that they had a rich source to tap and they wanted to start mining him immediately. Maines imagined that it was so they could talk face-to-face, issue him taskings, and settle on a communications plan in hours that would take them weeks or months to work out through dead drops alone. But if Jon’s theory was right, the Russians were more impatient than that. Maines could’ve been a long-running source, like a deep mine in a mountain, full of endless veins that could produce valuable ores for years. Now the Russians were prepared to strip-mine that resource in a single stroke, looking for only a few tidbits of Maines’s information that they considered more valuable than his long-term potential.
    What operation is so important that it’s worth burning an asset like him? Kyra wondered. Any of the answers she could imagine scared her more than she wanted to admit even to herself.
    She finally heard Jon enter. “Barron approved your plan,” the man said.
    Kyra stared at her mentor, taking in his face. “You’re worried about it.”
    He nodded and his eyes stared off at some point in the distance as he always did when he was talking and thinking at the same time. “The Russians are vicious. We’ve tangled with the Chinese and the Iranians and the Venezuelans and came out with everything attached, but the Russians play on their own level. Anyone who isn’t scared of the Russian intel machine is either stupid or ignorant.”
    â€œThey’re not perfect,” Kyra said. “You’re the historian. You know our people outplayed them plenty of times during the Cold War.”
    â€œâ€‰â€˜Quantity has a quality all its own,’ ” Jon quipped.
    Kyra frowned. “What are you saying?”
    â€œThat was something Stalin said when a critic pointed out that his enormous army was mostly untrained conscripts. When the other guy has enough people on his side, he can afford mistakes. It’s the one who’s outmanned that has to be perfect, and even that might not be enough. If the enemy is big enough, sometimes he only has to hit you once and the fight’s over. The only question is whether you’re humble enough to stay on the mat. Can’t fight when you’re dead.”
    Kyra felt an ache in her arm, under the scar that a Venezuelan bullet had left behind years before. “Jon, we have to help.”
    He glared at her. “Leading with your heart is a fine way to get yourself killed.”
    Kyra smiled. She’d seen him surrender to the inevitable before. “God hates a coward,” she said.
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    â€œYour plan is only marginally insane,” Barron said. To be fair, the analysts had only worked on it for an hour before approaching him, but he supposed that time was working for traitors today. The proposal Kyra had offered him had taken less than two minutes to explain.
    â€œI’m open to a better one,” Kyra told him.
    â€œI called Langley. No one there has anything either. Honestly, I don’t mind a little insanity when it’s called for. The Russians practically sent us an invitation to come talk, but they’ve got some agenda and I’ve got no idea what it is,” Barron admitted.
    â€œI could talk to the ambassador . . . see if he’d be willing to send one of these State Department