Page 95 of Silent Target

“For Graves?” Rook asks.

Mac swallows. “For the First Circle.”

The realization moves through us.

Walter isn’t escaping.

He’s taking the seventh drive somewhere it can be protected—or transmitted.

“He’s going home,” I whisper.

My burner phone vibrates.

The sound startles everyone.

Only one person had the number.

A former Langley contact named Daniel Morris.

Daniel was listed among the dead.

I carefully remove the phone.

“I shouldn’t be receiving anything.”

Caleb moves beside me. “Don’t open it.”

“If Daniel survived⁠—”

“If Graves has his phone, it can expose our location.”

Fathom holds out his hand. “Air-gap it.”

I switch the device into isolated mode and pass it to him.

He removes the network card before opening the message.

There’s no text.

Only an old black-and-white photograph.

Seven men stand outside a government building.

One is a young Walter Graves.

The others wear military uniforms and dark suits.

Across the bottom, someone wrote:

THE SECOND CIRCLE WELCOMES ITS NEWEST MEMBER.

“I thought the First Circle was the organization,” I say.

Mac stares at the photograph.

“There isn’t only one circle.”

“How many are there?”