Page 140 of Silent Target

“Once.”

“When?”

“Twenty years ago. After my evaluation.”

“What kind of evaluation?” I ask.

Mac’s eyes move across the shelves.

“They wanted to know if I could become one of them.”

The words barely leave his mouth.

“I spent three days answering questions. Loyalty. Duty. Sacrifice. They showed me classified operations and asked which lives I would trade to protect the country.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That some choices shouldn’t belong to one man.”

Mac laughs bitterly.

“They smiled. Thanked me for my honesty. Wished me luck.”

“You thought they let you go,” I say.

“I thought I’d won.”

“You were marked.”

His gaze meets mine.

“The moment I refused them.”

I move deeper into the archive.

Each shelf carries a date.

Some go back more than seventy years.

I open the nearest ledger.

Photographs cover the first page.

Names.

Positions.

Operations.

A senator killed in an aviation accident.

A judge whose apparent suicide ended an investigation.

An election altered through money routed across six countries.

A war extended because someone inside the First Circle profited from it.

My stomach twists.