17. Caleb
CALEB
The tunnel is barely wide enough for one man.
Cold water runs along the floor, and rusted cables hang from the ceiling. The passage hasn’t been maintained in decades.
Mac moves ahead of us with one hand against the wall.
He’s injured.
Exhausted.
Still, he knows exactly where he’s going.
That doesn’t make me trust him.
It makes him useful.
The federal team breaches the entrance behind us.
Voices echo through the passage.
“Stop! Federal agents!”
We increase our pace.
No one returns fire.
Those officers aren’t the enemy.
Graves is counting on our unwillingness to hurt them.
Mac reaches a junction and turns left.
I grab his shoulder.
“Why?”
“The right tunnel exits beside a county road.”
“Which will be blocked.”
“Yes.”
“Left?”
“An old service shaft beneath the western trail.”
Cobra studies Mac. “Or another ambush.”
“Possibly.”
“Comforting.”
Mac gives him a tired look. “Would you prefer I lie?”
“I’d prefer you hadn’t spent years helping traitors build secret tunnels.”
Mac looks away. “So would I.”
We keep moving.
Evie falls into step beside me.
“Can I ask you something?”
“You usually do.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Her shoulder brushes mine in the confined passage.
“When did you start thinking like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like Walter.”
I look at her. “I don’t.”
“You predict him. You know where he’ll go before he goes there.”
“My instructor taught me something on the first day of sniper training.”
“What?”
“Never chase a man.”
She waits.
“If you’re chasing him, you’re already behind him. Learn what he wants. Then reach it before he does.”
Behind us, Mac laughs quietly.
“You had a good instructor.”
I stop.
Everyone else does the same.
I turn toward Mac. “You know him?”
His smile disappears. “No.”
“But?”
“Whoever trained you understood predators.”
Rook watches both of us. “What aren’t you saying?”
Mac hesitates.
“Most operators learn tactics. Caleb was taught to hunt.”
The words linger in the tunnel.
Fathom’s tablet chirps.
He checks the signal from the drone he left above the mountain.
“Graves is moving.”
“Where?” Rook asks.
“West. One armored SUV and four escorts.”
“The seventh drive,” Evie says.
Mac nods. “If the bunker contained seven archive drives and you recovered six, Graves has the last one.”
Fathom opens the padded case.
Six drives rest in seven protective slots.
One space is empty.
“What’s on the seventh?” I ask.
Mac’s face tightens. “The master index.”
“The membership list?” Evie asks.
“More than names. Recruitment histories, current positions, leverage files, succession orders. The other drives prove crimes. The seventh tells you who still controls the First Circle.”
“And Graves has it.”
“Yes.”
A sharp metallic blow echoes behind us.
The federal team is getting closer.
Rook gestures forward. “Move.”
We reach the end of the tunnel less than two minutes later. A steel ladder rises through a narrow shaft.
Cobra climbs first.
Then Fathom and Mac.
Evie starts up.
I follow directly beneath her.
She reaches the top and looks down. “You aren’t staying in this tunnel either.”
“I’m behind you.”
“Remain there.”
“Bossy.”
“You noticed.”
Her hand appears through the opening.
I don’t need help.
I take it anyway.
She pulls as I climb onto the western trail.
Rook seals the hatch behind us.
Fathom’s drone feed shows Graves’s convoy leaving the lower compound.
“He’s taking the old Ranger trail,” Mac says.
“No,” I answer. “He’ll abandon the vehicles where the trail narrows.”
Mac stares at me. “How could you know that?”
“It’s the only route I would take.”
For the first time since we rescued him, Mac looks shaken.
“No wonder Graves is afraid of you.”
I adjust the sling on my rifle.
“He should be.”
Evie studies the map on Fathom’s screen. “We’re not escaping anymore, are we?”
“No.”
“What are we doing?”
“We’re taking the seventh drive.”
Cobra grins. “I was hoping he’d say something crazy.”
Rook looks toward the western ridge. “Plan?”
“We don’t attack Graves’s convoy. We reach the trail ahead of him.”
Mac shakes his head. “There are federal teams on every road.”
“We aren’t using a road.”
I point toward the ridge.
The climb is steep enough to be nearly vertical.
Rook follows my gaze. “That looks unpleasant.”
“It will be.”
Cobra adjusts his pack. “Better than prison.”
Evie moves toward the slope.
I catch her arm. “You stay between Fathom and Mac.”
“I can climb.”
“That isn’t why.”
“You’re worried about me.”
“Yes.”
The answer stops her.
I don’t soften it.
Don’t take it back.
Something warm enters her eyes.
Then a rifle cracks above us.
The round strikes the rock beside Rook’s shoulder.
Two more shots follow.
Not kill shots.
Barriers.
The enemy isn’t trying to eliminate us.
They’re steering us.
Evie looks toward the ridge. “Where do they want us to go?”
Fathom’s tablet sounds.
A second convoy has separated from Graves’s main force.
This one turns south.
The route means nothing at first.
Then Fathom displays its destination.
Eagle River, Texas.
My brother.
Blaze.
Graves wants me to choose between hunting him and protecting my family.
He doesn’t understand that my family already knows how to fight.