The five largest stones receded, revealing a small compartment and a rusty lever.
"Cammie!" Liz exclaimed. "No. You're not supposed to leave the mansion! What are you doing?"
But she was too late, because the door was already swinging open, a rush of freezing wind was blowing against my face and across my bare legs, but I didn't feel the chill.
I just turned to look at my best friends, who stood in the light of the doorway, and said,
"I'm following the pigeons."
We'd been here before, of course. Just a few months ago we'd sat on the dusty, overturned crates that were the last relics of the Gallagher Academy's once-proud covert carrier pigeon breeding program. We'd sat there for hours, looking out onto the lights of Roseville, talking about the people who were after Macey. After me. But now, the space looked totally different.
"What . . ." Liz started, looking around. "What is all this?"
Chalkboards lined the inner wall of the rampart, far away from the glassless windows that over looked the grounds. The crates were stacked neatly to one side. A lone chair sat in the center of floor, facing the blackboards, as if someone had spent hours in that place, trying to solve an impossible equation.
"This must be what Mr. Solomon wanted us to find." I stepped closer to the blackboards that had Mr. Solomon's words scrawled over every inch. "He risked everything - just to tell me to find this," I said.
"Cammie . . ." Bex started. "You know as well as I do he was talking crazy. He wasn't Joe Solomon."
"But we're here," I snapped back. "It's not crazy if we're here."
"What does it say?" Liz's voice was soft, her eyes focused as she stepped slowly closer to the board, and I knew she wasn't talking to us; her mind was lost in code, tying to see through the chaos.
"What is it, Liz?" Macey asked.
Liz shook her head. "I . . . I don't know. I've seen anything quite like it."
"It's crazy, is what it is." Bex banged her fist against the board.
"Think about it, Bex. Think. He's one of the most wanted men on the planet, and I'm the world's best guarded girl. Why come to me in London? If he's working for the Circle, why take that risk?"
"I don't know, Cam. Why did he kill your dad? Why did he join the Circle in the first place? Maybe he snapped or broke or . . ." I thought that she might cry. "Maybe this is what he is now."
"Was he crazy during finals week? Was he crazy in D.C.?" I felt Mr. Smith's words washing over me. "If he's not crazy, Bex, then he came to London for a reason." I threw out my arms and stepped closer to the boards. "He came to London for this."
The four of us were standing in the very place Joe Solomon had stood, staring at the words and numbers and diagrams that he'd written. There were answers here. Clues. He'd risked his freedom - his life - to bring me to this rooftop. I had followed the pigeons, and that night I stood without a coat in the freezing cold, trying to decipher what they had to say.
Behind me, a pigeon cawed. The sound was eerie and loud as I squinted through the dark toward the ledge. It cawed again.
"Stupid birds," Liz said, shooting her hands toward the lone pigeon that sat perched on the railing.
Most people don't know that anything could be a cutout, a go-between, a messenger for spies. This part of the mansion existed because pigeons had once been some of the best.
They never talked when interrogated; even the best spy satellites in the world couldn't track them.
"Go on," Liz said again. "Get -"
"Wait," I said, reaching for my best friend's hands, staring at the small bird that sat stoically, waiting in the dark.
"Cam." Bex's voice was soft. "Cam, what is it?"
I inched toward the bird and reached for the tiny slip of paper wrapped delicately around its leg.
If you're reading this, you've found it. And if you've found it, you know. Must see you.
Meet me at the place where we did the brush passes. Send me back the time.
Please come.
And please be careful.
The words were neatly typed. There was no signature - no name of any kind. And even though I know it had been reckless to send it, reckless for me to read - totally and completely foolish to even think about doing as it said - the truth of the matter is that a spy's life isn't about never taking chances. It's about taking chances that are worth the risk.
Chapter Twenty-One
"What about the old ventilation shafts in the basement?" Bex asked as we sat beside a roaring fire in the library late the next night.
I shook my head. "Covered with eight inches of fresh concrete."
"The trick fireplace on the second floor?" Macey tried.
"Maybe." I considered the locks and bars that had been added over winter break.
"Assuming we could get a blowtorch. Do any of you have a blowtorch?"
Liz perked up as if she were about to say that yea, she did have a blowtorch in the back of her closet.
"I'm afraid to know," I said, holding out my hand to stop her.
"Boy, they really want to keep us in, don't they?" Macey said.
"No." Bex shook her head and stared at me. "They want to keep the Circle out." She waited a second, as the truth of the matter settled down on the three of us. "This is dangerous. Too dangerous."
"I'm with Bex," Macey said. "He's asking you to take a really big rick, Cam"
They were right, but all I could think about was the way he'd walking into the center of the very people who were scouring the world to find him. "Maybe it's my turn."