28. Caleb
CALEB
The first rule of surviving a sniper is simple.
Never be where he expects.
The second is harder.
Make him believe you are.
“Stay behind the support,” I tell Evie.
She catches my sleeve. “Caleb—”
“Please.”
I almost never ask.
She hears it.
Her hand slowly releases me.
“I’ll stay.”
“Thank you.”
The tunnel falls silent.
Specter is patient.
He won’t waste ammunition or reveal his location to force a shot. He’ll wait until someone makes a mistake.
I’ve used the same tactic.
Shark eases beside me.
“You see anything?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
“He built a hide.”
Rook moves the others deeper behind cover.
Cobra kneels near the rail and removes two infrared strobes.
“I have an idea.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Falcon murmurs.
Cobra tosses the first strobe into the left side of the tunnel and the second toward the right.
Invisible light spreads across my optic.
Dust drifts through the air.
Most of it is undisturbed.
One section near the ventilation pipes moves differently.
A faint current.
Air passing around an object that shouldn’t be there.
“There.”
Shark follows my line of sight. “I still don’t see him.”
“You won’t.”
Specter fires.
The bullet strikes the concrete where my head was a fraction of a second earlier.
He anticipated my movement.
Good.
So did I.
I roll left.
His second round passes close enough for me to feel the air move beside my ear.
He expected me to go right because that’s what I did on the mountain.
He studied me.
My deployments.
My previous engagements.
Maybe even the battle where my brothers died.
He thinks my history tells him who I am.
He’s wrong.
Evie changed the pattern.
I wait.
One heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
Specter expects me to become impatient because he’s targeting her.
I don’t.
Fear for Evie becomes something cold and precise inside me.
The barrel shifts.
Emergency light glints against the edge of an optic.
A reflection no larger than the head of a pin.
I fire.
The sound rolls through the tunnel.
No shot answers.
Five seconds.
Ten.
Twenty.
Rook signals the advance.
We move one step at a time, watching every seam, pipe, and recess.
The hide emerges from the wall.
Concrete blocks.
Steel mesh.
Painted camouflage screening.
Someone spent weeks building it.
Specter is slumped behind his rifle.
My round struck high in his shoulder, knocking him backward into the ventilation frame.
He’s alive.
Barely conscious.
Rook kicks his rifle away.
Mac stops when he sees the silver coin around the sniper’s neck.
“You recognize him,” I say.
Mac nods.
“I trained with him.”
“Real name?”
“No one knew it.”
Specter’s eyes open.
They move past Rook.
Past Mac.
Directly to me.
“You missed.”
His voice is little more than breath.
“I didn’t.”
He glances at the blood spreading across his shoulder.
“You could have killed me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I need answers.”
A faint smile pulls at his mouth.
“Then you missed after all.”
He bites down.
I catch his jaw, but I’m too late.
His body convulses.
Foam gathers at his lips.
Poison hidden inside a false tooth.
Evie reaches us and drops beside him.
“Turn him.”
She tries to clear his airway.
Mac catches her arm.
“It’s too late.”
Specter’s body goes still.
Evie sits back on her heels.
The tendons in her neck tighten as she stares at the dead man.
The First Circle killed him long before the poison stopped his heart.
It trained him to believe death was preferable to truth.
Shark searches the body.
“No identification. His fingerprints have been burned away.”
Mac touches the silver coin.
“The Inner Guard.”
Fathom checks the evidence case.
His expression changes.
“The seventh drive stopped moving.”
“Disconnected?” Rook asks.
“No. The connection transferred again.”
“Where?”
Fathom turns the screen.
The signal is no longer ahead of us.
It’s behind.
Far above.
Back inside the command bunker.
Mac looks toward Specter.
“He wasn’t trying to kill Evie.”
My gaze drops to the dead sniper.
“He was keeping us here.”
The Chairman used the train as bait.
Used Specter as a delay.
While we chased both, the seventh drive never left the bunker.
The speakers hidden inside the tunnel crackle.
The older voice returns.
“Congratulations, Mr. McDougal.”
I rise slowly.
“You defeated one of my finest marksmen.”
“You murdered him.”
“No. He fulfilled his purpose.”
Evie’s face hardens.
The Chairman continues.
“And while he occupied you, Walter completed his work.”
The six drives stop flashing.
For one second, I believe we’ve lost everything.
Then every indicator turns green.
Fathom stares at them.
“The purge stopped.”
“Did we save the files?” Evie asks.
“Yes. But something else was transmitted.”
The Chairman’s voice fills the tunnel.
“The First Circle no longer needs to hide.”
Every light above us turns white.
At the far end of the track, a door begins to open.
Beyond it waits a room filled from floor to ceiling with files.
The Chairman didn’t destroy the archive.
He opened it for us.