But at the word encrypted, Liz had snatched the journal form my hands and was holding it up to the light.
"It's the pigeons!" she shouted, and I worried that Tina, Eva, Courtney, and the rest of the junior class might come barging into our suite with crossbows and curling irons.
"This is it," Liz said, jabbing her finger onto the page. "See, look at this. It's almost more like hieroglyphs in a way. Almost like a -"
"Language," Macey said.
Liz's eyes shone in the dim room. "Yeah, that exactly it."
"And you don't crack languages - not really," Bex said. "You learn them."
"Or you translate them," Macey said.
"Exactly. Mr. Solomon didn't leave a bunch of crazy scribblings on a board . . ." Liz started.
"He left a key." Macey reached out to take the book. She ran her finger over the page. "Is this Mr. Solomon's handwriting?"
"No," I found myself whisper. "It's my dad's."
Chapter Thirty-Two
Covert Operations Report
(Translated by Operative Morgan and Sutton)
Day 1
Joe's nightmares are back.
He says they're nothing, but I can hear him screaming down the hall - something about Blackthorne and Vatican City. Last night I ran to his room and found him reaching, half asleep, for a knife.
He says he had an op go bad there. Only problem is, according to Langley, Agent Joseph Solomon has never been to Rome.
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.