Page 89 of Silent Target

“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.”