9. Caleb
CALEB
The second round strikes six inches lower.
The shooter is good.
Patient.
Confident enough to use us to test the wind.
For the first time in years, I feel something I didn’t expect.
Respect.
It won’t keep me from killing him.
“Stay against the trunk,” I tell Evie.
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere yet.”
I remove a compact mirror from my kit and angle it beyond the tree.
No movement.
The shooter will change positions after two shots.
If he’s as good as I think he is, he’s already gone.
My radio crackles.
“Sniper.”
Rook.
“I’m here.”
“We have company.”
“I noticed.”
“Cobra and I are twenty minutes out. Fathom is trying to get eyes on the compound.”
“Twenty is too long.”
“I know.”
A pause.
Then Rook says, “Mac is inside.”
“I saw him.”
“We’re hitting the compound.”
“No.”
Silence answers me.
Then Rook speaks again. “What?”
“It’s exactly what Graves expects.”
“You have another idea?”
I look through the trees toward the facility.
Dozens of operators protect one prisoner.
Snipers cover the mountain.
Walter Graves walked into the compound knowing Shadow Division would come for Mac.
But the security isn’t positioned to keep us out.
It’s designed to keep us from leaving.
“They don’t care if we attack,” I say. “They care if we escape.”
Rook is quiet. “What are you thinking?”
I study the satellite dishes.
The underground bunkers.
The communications arrays.
Then I understand.
“They protected the wrong thing.”
Evie peers around the tree. “That smile worries me.”
“It should.”
“What did you figure out?”
“Mac isn’t the real objective.”
Her eyebrows draw together. “They brought him here under armed guard.”
“As bait.”
“For Shadow Division.”
I nod toward the facility. “Graves knew we would follow. He chose this location because he already had something here worth protecting.”
“The listening station.”
“Yes.”
“What could be inside?”
“Communications. Files. Financial records. Operational orders.”
“The Black Banner archive.”
The name hangs between us.
Project Black Banner.
The hidden organization beneath Graves’s conspiracy. Men and women buried in intelligence agencies, military commands, corporations, and Congress.
An organization that survived because no one could prove it existed.
Until now.
I key the radio. “Fathom, access the station’s network.”
“I’ve been trying,” he answers. “It’s isolated. No conventional exterior connection.”
“Meaning?”
“Whatever is inside is too sensitive to risk putting online.”
Evie’s eyes sharpen. “Which means we need physical access.”
“Exactly.”
Rook’s voice joins us. “We still have to get Mac out.”
“We will.”
“How?”
I look toward the compound.
“We rescue Mac and take whatever Graves is desperate to protect.”
Cobra whistles over the radio. “Just those two things?”
“For now.”
Evie gives me a look. “Do you ever choose the easy mission?”
“No.”
“At least you’re consistent.”
Movement flashes between the trees.
I grab her and pull her down as a burst of gunfire rips through the branches overhead.
The search teams have reached the ridge.
“Move,” I order.
We descend along the rocky slope, staying below the compound’s line of sight.
Evie keeps pace without complaining.
She’s exhausted. I hear it in her breathing. See it when her left foot slips.
But every time I reach for her, she’s already moving again.
I lead her beneath the roots of a fallen pine where the mountain has formed a shallow hollow.
It isn’t protection.
It’s concealment.
For the moment, that’s enough.
“Rook,” I say. “Give me your position.”
“South ridge. Eighteen minutes.”
“They have at least two snipers and four search teams above the compound.”
“Can you clear them?”
“Yes.”
Evie watches my face as I say it.
No hesitation.
No doubt.
I’ve killed men at greater distances under worse conditions.
But the sniper across this valley already knows my name.
That means he has studied me.
My operational history.
My preferred positions.
The way I move after firing.
This isn’t simply another hired rifle.
Graves chose him for me.
The first shot strikes the fallen pine.
The bullet tears through the trunk inches above Evie’s shoulder.
I throw myself over her.
“Caleb.”
“I’m fine.”
“That went through your jacket.”
I feel the heat across my side where the round grazed me.
“It missed.”
“Barely.”
“Barely is enough.”
I scan the opposite ridge.
The shooter has changed his angle.
He knew I would lead Evie downhill.
He’s predicting me.
But predictions are built on patterns.
And patterns can be broken.
“ predictionsEvie, I need your coat.”
She stares at me. “Why?”
“I’m giving him what he expects.”
I drape her coat across a branch, then attach a strip of reflective material near the collar.
From nine hundred yards away, it will look like a piece of equipment catching the light as someone moves.
I pull the branch upward.
A shot comes immediately.
The coat jerks.
I see the muzzle flash.
High ridge.
Eleven o’clock.
Nine hundred and twelve yards.
Wind moving right to left.
I settle behind my rifle.
Evie watches me.
Everything else disappears.
The search teams.
The shouting.
The pain burning across my side.
There is only the scope.
The target.
The math.
I inhale.
Exhale.
Wait between heartbeats.
Then squeeze the trigger.
The rifle bucks against my shoulder.
Across the valley, a dark shape pitches backward from the rocks.
“One down,” I say.
Evie looks toward the distant ridge. “One?”
A second shot strikes the dirt beside us.
I pull her lower.
“Unfortunately.”
There’s another one.
And he now knows exactly where I am.