Day 26
I wish someone would tell me that it's okay to spy on my best friend. I keep this journal in code. I listen to his calls. Tonight I followed him to a dead letter drop in Georgetown.
I wish someone would tell me that I'm crazy. It would be far better than being right, because all I can think about is the passport I found in his safety deposit box (yeah, I also broke into his safety deposit box).
Three years ago he went to Rome on a passport not issued by the CIA - at the same time that someone tried to kill the Pope.
With a knife.
I really hope I'm going crazy.
Day 92
I think I know what Jose was. What he is?
But . . . no. it can't be true.
I don't want it to be true.
Day 96
Some people say the Circle doesn't exist - that there is no ancient association of spies and assassins out to manipulate the world order, but it turns out they are real.
Turns out my roommate is one.
Turns out a people are.
Day 100
Joe told me the truth tonight. Joe told me everything.
We're going to stop them. It might be the last thing we ever do, but we'll do it.
I didn't dare linger on those last words - think about what they meant.
"How old were they when they wrote that?" Bex asked.
I looked at the date at the corner of the page and did the math in my head. "Twenty-three," I said, and then I re-did the math, because it didn't seem right that my father had started chasing the Circle of Cavan before he'd even started dating my mother - that this mission was officially older than I was.
"Turn," Liz said, not trying to hide her impatience at being forced to read at a non-speed-of-light pace, but these were the last things my father would ever say to me. I wanted to make every sentence count.
Day 219
After nine months of bureaucracy and protocol, Operatives Morgan and Solomon have concluded that the criminal organization known as the Circle of Cavan has too many double agents placed within official intelligence organizations to be effectively neutralized through official channels.
It's a good thing Operatives Morgan and Solomon and very good at being unofficial.
Day 290
After two weeks in Rome, The Operatives have ascertained that the Circle's base of operations here has been shut down or relocated since Operative Solomon was sent to Vatican.
They have also learned that a person will really get sick of pasta. Eventually.
Day 407
Today, Hungarian officials positively identified the body of the man found in a river in Budapest as the man who was thinking of providing intel to The Operatives about the Circle's Eastern European operatives.
They killed him.
He was the best lead we'd had in over a year, and they killed him.
The air around us was warmer; it was almost spring; and yet there were goose bumps on our arms. It still felt a long, long way from summer.
Day 506
The Deputy Director warned The Operatives again about taking on the Circle themselves, but Operative Solomon insists that the Circle has recruited too long and too well to be effectively targeted by a large-scale operation.
The Circle has spies. Literally. The Circle has spies everywhere.
The Operatives must go alone.
The more I read, the faster I turned the pages until, finally, I flipped to the end, desperate to read the last pages first - as if, maybe, this time it might have a different ending.
Day 5,860
The Operatives received word that their asset in Athens had had a breakthrough.
Operative Solomon had begun preparations to travel to Greece, but the Deputy Director of the CIA suspects The Operatives are still taking on the Circle on their own, so he has placed Operative Solomon on desk duty. Operative Morgan will go instead.
My father was thirty-nine when he wrote that, and the book was almost out of pages - the story, in a lot of ways, was almost at its end. So I held my breath and turned the page and saw that the handwriting changed. My father's lazy scrawl was gone - replaced with the precise penmanship that I'd seen scribbled across the sublevel blackboards for the past year and a half.
Day 5,869
Cutout made contact today with word that Operative Morgan did not appear at their meeting. Cutout will follow backup protocols again until Operative Morgan shows.
Day 5,878
Operative Solomon arrived at Operative Morgan's safe house in Athens, but it appears he never made it this far. Will begin backtracking immediately.
Day 5,892
CIA has been contacted. Full force of The Agency is now involved in the search for Operative Morgan.
Day 5,900
Three weeks of looking and trail has gone cold.
He's gone.
He's just gone.
Someone has to tell Rachel.
Chapter Thirty-Three
THINGS THAT WOULD NEVER BE
THE SAME, NEVER, EVER AGAIN
(A list my Cameron Morgan)
·Macey's pajama pants: because grass stains and air shaft dirt never come out.
·Agent Townsend's reputation: because if word ever got out that the four of us had done what he'd been trying to do for months, I'm pretty sure they'd take away his double-0
status (If Tina was even right that he had one).
·Liz: because the Pigeon Code had opened up a whole new world of cryptography (and she was already pretty obsessed with the old one).
·Bex: because her parents had been right.
·Bex: because her parents had been wrong.
·Me: just because.
____________
The next night I walked toward my mother's office carrying my father's journal and my teacher's secret. I had no idea which one was heavier.
"It wasn't Sodium Pentothal, was it?"
I spun at the sound and saw Agent Townsend standing in the Hall of History, staring at me through the protective glow of Gilly's - I mean Cavan's - sword.