15. Caleb
CALEB
The rockslide bought us forty-five seconds.
In combat, forty-five seconds can feel like an hour.
Or vanish in a heartbeat.
Rook’s team reaches the upper trail as the helicopters pull away from the dust cloud.
Mac sinks against a pine tree.
His breathing is ragged, but his eyes are still calculating every exit, weapon, and person around him.
I’ve known men who looked less alert after a full night’s sleep.
I don’t trust him.
But I no longer believe he gave Graves our emergency codes willingly.
Fathom secures the evidence case against his pack.
Evie kneels beside him. “Can the drives be tracked?”
“I already removed the transmitters.”
“Already?”
“One inside the case. Another embedded in a drive housing.”
Mac shakes his head. “There will be a third.”
Fathom looks at him. “Where?”
“If I knew, I would tell you.”
Cobra folds his arms. “Would you?”
Mac’s bruised mouth curves. “If I wanted to survive the next ten minutes.”
Rook steps between them.
“We deal with Mac later. Right now, we have federal teams approaching from three directions and Graves’s mercenaries below us.”
“They’ve stopped moving,” I say.
Rook raises his binoculars.
Walter’s men are reorganizing around the base of the mountain.
No one is chasing us.
That bothers me.
Evie notices. “What is it?”
“They quit.”
“I thought that was what we wanted.”
“No. When a man like Graves stops attacking, it means he no longer needs to.”
Fathom’s tablet chirps again.
His expression changes.
“What?” Rook asks.
“Every news network just received the same federal bulletin.”
He turns the screen toward us.
A photograph of Rook fills the display.
Then mine.
Cobra.
Fathom.
The rest of Shadow Division.
The headline beneath our photographs reads:
ARMED PARAMILITARY GROUP ATTACKS CLASSIFIED FEDERAL FACILITY.
Evie moves closer to the screen.
“They already had this prepared.”
“Yes,” Fathom says. “This was released less than four minutes after the first federal response team was dispatched.”
Mac closes his eyes.
Rook looks at him. “What?”
“They were never going to kill you here.”
“Explain.”
“Graves needed survivors.”
Cobra’s expression hardens. “Why?”
“So the country could watch you run.”
The full shape of the trap becomes clear.
The helicopters.
The open eastern road.
The federal teams.
The cameras Graves allowed Fathom to access.
“They recorded the attack,” I say.
Mac nods. “Edited footage will make it appear Shadow Division breached a government station, freed a traitor, and stole classified material.”
“By tonight,” Evie says, “we’ll be the most wanted people in America.”
“No,” Mac tells her. “They already are.”
Her hand closes around mine.
I don’t think she realizes she did it.
I do.
I look down at our joined hands.
Then at her.
She doesn’t release me.
Neither do I.
Rook studies the surrounding terrain. “Options?”
“North is federal,” Fathom says. “East and south are blocked. Graves’s teams hold the lower mountain.”
“West?” Cobra asks.
“The ravine exits near an access road,” I say. “But they’ll expect us to use it.”
“So we don’t?” Evie asks.
“We do.”
Mac laughs weakly. “You enjoy walking into traps.”
“I enjoy knowing where the enemy is.”
Rook nods. “We move west.”
Fathom closes his tablet, but the screen flashes before he can store it.
A decryption window appears.
“I didn’t start that.”
Everyone looks toward him.
“What do you mean?” Rook asks.
“One of the drives opened itself.”
“That’s not possible,” Evie says.
“It is if someone inside the archive wanted us to see something.”
A single folder appears.
No password.
No encryption.
Only a name.
MCDOUGAL.
Every man on the ridge turns toward me.
Fathom looks at me. “Caleb?”
“Open it.”
The folder contains a scanned personnel file.
The photograph is old.
The man in it is younger than I remember him. Dark hair. Straight shoulders. Eyes identical to mine.
My father.
A line at the bottom of the page reads:
FIRST CIRCLE CANDIDATE—RECRUITMENT UNSUCCESSFUL.
Evie looks from the photograph to me. “Your father knew about them.”
“No.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“He would have told me.”
Mac pushes away from the tree. “Not if telling you would put you on their list.”
Fathom scrolls farther.
Another document appears.
This one is recent.
My photograph fills the page.
Below it is a complete history of my military career, every classified operation, every confirmed kill, and every member of my family.
Across the top, someone has stamped one word in red.
LEGACY.
A sound moves through the trees behind us.
Dozens of boots.
The federal teams have reached the ridge.
Rook lifts his weapon.
Cobra and Fathom do the same.
Evie releases my hand and draws her pistol.
I stare at my father’s photograph for one final second.
Walter Graves didn’t choose this listening station merely because it held the First Circle archive.
He chose it because of me.
And somewhere inside the organization, someone has been waiting years for Caleb McDougal to come looking for the truth.