He’d just gotten to Wall Street Station, had just begun walking down the stairs, when he received a text from a number he didn’t recognize. The single line of characters was in Cyrillic, Russian, and translated they read, The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. Instantly Mozgovoy stopped, turned, and ran back up the steps, hearing the curses of several commuters while doing so. Once back at street level, with a shaky thumb he tapped out a response. The second best time is now. It was the challenge response, a fail-safe way for him to receive information from the GRU in emergencies,
...more
