Page 144 of Silent Target

Shadow Division was built on trust. Graves wants suspicion to destroy what bullets couldn’t.

I examine the handwritten code.

“The ink is fresh.”

“Less than a week old,” Evie says.

I look at her.

She touches the edge of the notation without smearing it.

“The ledger is decades old, but that writing hasn’t oxidized. Someone added it recently.”

“Graves,” Cobra says.

“Maybe,” Evie replies. “Or someone wanted us to find it.”

I study the camera above the aisle.

The Chairman opened this room.

He knew exactly what we would see.

“This is another weapon.”

Rook follows my gaze. “The code.”

“He couldn’t kill the team on the mountain, so he’s giving us a reason to stop trusting one another.”

Mac slowly nods. “That’s how the First Circle operates. It doesn’t attack institutions from outside. It makes them destroy themselves.”

Fathom begins photographing every shelf.

“If this bunker comes down, we take its history with us.”

“You can’t copy all of it,” Rook says.

“I don’t have to. I need enough to prove the archive existed and identify the living members.”

Evie walks along the shelf, stopping where the dust ends abruptly.

“Someone removed files.”

Three spaces are empty.

Fathom checks the shelf labels.

“Current operations. Active financial networks. Domestic assets.”

“The most damaging records,” Rook says.

“Or the information the Chairman still needs,” I answer.

Mac wanders toward an old desk.

His face grows paler with every step.

He touches a series of scratches cut into the wood.