White Spider meets with fellow Serpent member Purple Ant in the city of Mitouza in the United States. White Spider explains that the Tolfa Economic Conference will begin soon, which will attract spies from all over the world, and orders Purple Ant to eliminate them all, including Klaus. Meanwhile, Klaus assigns Thea to lead the mission, but she remains self conscious about her failures to deal with Corpse and Matilda. After Klaus and Thea visit Corpse at a secret prison, Klaus realizes that Annette has sabotaged their car in an effort to get him to admit defeat. Klaus if forced to ditch the car where he is ambushed by Lamplight, but he is narrowly able to win due to calling the police ahead of time, forcing Lamplight to flee. However, Klaus is impressed with their growth and tells them their next mission will also double as their graduation exam. Realizing Lamplight was able to pull off such an ambitious plan without her involvement, Thea grows even more self conscious. Klaus and Lamplight then arrive in the United States and quickly infiltrate various areas of Mitouza to gather intelligence, though they also learn that foreign spies are being killed. It is also revealed that they had brought Corpse with them as their prisoner in order to identify Serpent.