Page 5 of Silent Target

The moment they do, I pull out the recorder.

The elevator is part of Langley’s secured network. I can’t risk transmitting from here, so I remove the encrypted memory card and slip it beneath the lining of my coat.

Then I take a second card from my wallet, insert it into the recorder, and copy the file.

One truth.

Two chances for it to survive.

The elevator begins to rise.

My phone shows no signal, but I compose a message to the only secure contact I believe might still exist beyond Graves’s reach.

Shadow Division is being framed. Senator Vance is the target. I recorded Graves, Miller, and Rhodes. Graves knows someone heard them. Find Caleb McDougal.

The elevator reaches the main level.

The doors open.

Two security officers are waiting in the lobby.

Neither one looks at me.

That frightens me more than if they had.

I walk past them, scan my identification, and step through the final security checkpoint.

Rain pounds the pavement outside.

My phone finds a signal.

The message sends.

I make it halfway to the parking garage before the lights behind me go out.

Not all of them.

Only the ones covering my path.

I reach inside my coat and close my hand around my pistol.

Then I start running.

Behind me, somewhere inside the dark halls of Langley, Walter Graves picks up a phone.

I don’t hear his order.

I don’t need to.

I already know what it is.

Find Agent Hart.

And make certain she never leaves Washington alive.

2

CALEB