Page 50 of Silent Target

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.”