Mr. Baxter sighed. "They clip their wings so they can't fly away."
And then, despite the icy wind, my face felt hot. My hands were sweating inside my gloves while I pulled at the scarf around my neck, suddenly dizzy as I stood in my socks on the frozen ground, while the skaters kept circling around and around.
Mr. Baxter stood. "What is it, Cammie? What's wrong?"
I shook my head. "It's . . . nothing."
But something was coming over me - like déjà vu, only stronger. There was something in the crowd that I should know. Something I should see. I shook my head, and for a split second I thought I saw a tall graceful woman from the rooftop in Boston.
"No," I muttered.
I looked at Mrs. Baxter and her colleague with the backpack who had been following us all day. They each held cups of coffee in their right hands - the sign that our tail was clear, that things were fine. But things weren't fine. There was a ghost in that crowd -
something I should see. Something I should know.
"Cammie?" Mr. Baxter's hand was on my shoulder. "What is it?"
"I don't know." I shook my head. "It's just -"
Before I could finish, I heard a burst of static from the comms unit in Mr. Baxter's ear - a distant muffled cry. Across the ice, the woman with the backpack spun, as it looking for something - someone. The cup fell from her hand and tumbled toward the ice. And in that moment, my mind flashed back to D.C., and then further back, to Boston.
Get her. The words echoed in my mind.
Get me.
And then the lights went out.
Chapter Three
Even in the pitch blackness, I knew that commands were ringing in the ears of the agents at the rink. In an instant, Mr. Baxter grabbed me, pulling me away from the ice and closer to the shelter of the Tower's stone walls.
The ground was hard and cold against my feet, but there was no time to grab my boots -
not a second to do anything but run and listen to the cries that floated through the dark. I kept on hand against the rough stone wall and the other tightly in Mr. Baxter's grasp as we moved deeper into the crowd of panicking tourists - pushing through the chaos - until, suddenly, Mr. Baxter's hand pulled free of mine.
"Cammie!" he yelled, and I reached for him through the dark, but there were too many people.
"Cammie!" he called again, but before I could answer a pair of strong arms locked around my waist, and someone pinned me against the stone wall. I started to strike out, but the man countered as if he'd known exactly what I'd been trained to do. He squeezed my arms to my sides so tightly that I only had one choice: I pulled my head back and struck with all my might. I felt the blow land - heard the man wince. The something else - a familiar voice in my ear saying, "Cammie, calm down."
For a second I thought I must be wearing a comms unit - that my teacher's voice was coming back to me, telling how to save my own life.
And I heard him whisper, "Run."
"They're coming, aren't they?" my breath fogged in the cold air, and yet my arms kept pumping, my feet kept moving, and my teacher kept a solid grip on my hand, pulling me across the Tower's dim grounds toward a busy London street while I said the words I'd been dreading for weeks:
"The Circle . . . they're here."
"Ms. Morgan, we only have a minute until they find us, so you have to listen to me carefully," my teacher said, tightening his hold on my hand, urging me through the steady stream of traffic and onto Tower Bridge.
"Are you on comms? You have to tell the Baxters you have me. We have to call in an extraction team and -"
"Cammie, listen!" his order seemed to echo in the dark, and something about it made me stop there in the middle of the bridge. He sounded angry and frantic and scared.
Joe Solomon was scared.
He grabbed me by both shoulders. "Cammie, we only have a minute until they find us, and then they'll take you away -"
"No!" I shouted.
"Listen! Any day now they're going to take you back to school, and when you get there, you have to -"
"Hello, Joe."
When Bex's father appeared on the dark bank of the river, his voice was even and calm, but he wore the same expression that Bex does when she's focused and angry and when there's no force on earth that can stop her.
And yet Mr. Solomon didn't turn to look at him. He was still gripping my shoulders as if no assignment in my entire life had ever been more important than the one he was about to give. "Cammie, listen to me!"
"Come on, Joe," Mr. Baxter called across the bridge, easing forward like a man bracing for a fight. "Turn yourself in. Let the girl go."
I shook my head. Nothing made sense in that moment - not what Mr. Solomon was saying or the way Mr. Baxter was looking at us. Neither of them seemed to know what they were both on the same side - my side.
"It's okay, Mr. Baxter," I said, turning to Bex's father, thinking maybe he didn't recognize my teacher. "This is Mr. Solomon. Joe Solomon. He's -"
"I know who he is, Cammie."Bex's father inched closer. "And he's going to come with me now - fly to Langley and get this mess straightened out."
"Cammie!" Mr. Solomon shook me slightly. "Don't listen to him. Listen to me!"
But Bex's father kept talking. "Joe, you've got to let her go."
Bex's mother walked out of the shadows behind her husband. "Cammie, sweetheart, I want you to walk over to me now."
The bridge was cold and rough beneath my feet, but I didn't move. I scanned the shadowy banks of the river, looking for Bex, needing her to help me explain to her parents that they were making a terrible mistake. But all I saw were guards and operatives who were closing ranks around us, and in that moment I realized that no one was searching the crowd. Now a soul was looking for the Circle. Instead, the people who had sworn to protect me were staring as if that bridge were the most dangerous place in the world that I could be.
When the operative from the observation tower appeared on the opposite end of the bridge, I knew we were surrounded.
"Cammie, now!" Mrs. Baxter ordered, but I stayed frozen in place.
"Her father was my best friend!" my teacher shouted, the words echoing off the river and out into the night.
Bex's father nodded and eased closer. "I know."
"This is crazy, Abe." Mr. Solomon shook his head.
"Sure it is," Mr. Baxter said calmly. "But protocols exits for a reason, Joe. We know -"
"We know how this ends!" my teacher shouted.
"Not this time," Mr. Baxter said. "Not necessarily. Not if you let Cammie go, and come with me."
"Mr. Solomon . . ." I didn't recognize my own voice. It sounded far off and frail. I saw the way I stayed in the shadows, not fighting against my teacher's grasp. Weak. I felt weak.
And so I pulled away.
"Cammie, come here," Bex's mom ordered again. I could see Bex behind her, not moving. Dazed. "Cammie!" Bex's mom snapped, but I looked at my teacher.
"Mr. Solomon, what is going on? Why are you here? Why didn't you meet Zach? Why do they keep looking at you like . . . Why are they talking like you're the enemy?"
"The CIA has some questions for him, Cammie," Mr. Baxter answered. "That's all. He just needs to answer some questions."
"You're gonna try to turn me in, Abe?" Mr. Solomon laughed, then turned to Bex's mom.
"Grace? Are you going to cuff me in front of Bex and Cammie?"
Bex cried, "No!" but her mother's voice was even as she said, "You know we have to."
"Mom!" Bex cried.
"Rebecca, stay out of this," Bex's father warned. Then he turned to look at the man we all knew - the man only Bex and I still trusted. "You should have known better than to come here, Joe."
"I had to talk to Cammie."
"Cammie was safe with us," Bex's mother told him.
My teacher just shook his head. "Cammie isn't safe anywhere."
I didn't want to cry then, but I couldn't pretend anymore either. I wasn't on vacation. I was hiding. I was like the ravens, a prisoner of a destiny I didn't know and couldn't control. So I looked at the grown-up I knew I knew best - the only man I'd truly trusted in a very long time.
"Mr. Solomon, please, what's going on?"
And then his hands were back on my shoulders. "Cammie, you have to follow the pigeons."
"I . . . I don't understand."
"Promise me, Cammie! No matter what, promise me you will follow the pigeons."
It didn't make any sense - not the words or the look in his eyes or the way my best friend's parents stood staring as if the moment they'd been dreading for days was finally here.
A siren sounded, and I felt suddenly unsteady on my feet as if the earth was moving.
"Mr. Solomon," I spoke slowly, calmly, "maybe you should come with us . . . We'll call my mom and she'll explain that you're a teacher and that there's been some kind of mistake and . . ."
But then I couldn't finish because the earth was moving. The siren was growing louder; spectators were beginning to call out from the riverbanks. In a terrible flash, I remembered that Tower Bridge is a drawbridge, and Mr. Solomon and I were standing in the center.
The bridge lurched and Bex yelled, "Cammie!" but her mother held her back. I grabbed at the rail as the bridge rose higher and steeper, and Mr. Solomon reached for my shoulders, holding me, steadying me.
"Cammie, you have to promise me!"
"Okay, Mr. Solomon. Of course. I promise."
"Thank you, Cammie." He relaxed his grip and lowered his head. For the first time, he seemed to breathe as he sighed, "Thank you."
"Okay, Joe" Mr. Baxter inched closer. "You talked to Cammie. You got your promise.
Now, come on. Let's go get this settled."
But Mr. Solomon was backing away, his gaze still locked on me.
"The pigeons, Cammie."
"The pigeons," I said.
And then one of the greatest spies I've ever known ran toward the rising edge of the bridge and propelled himself over the top, flying falling. Bex's parents rushed after him, but I was already there, staring into the Thames.
And Joe Solomon was already gone.
Chapter Four
During winter break of our seventh-grade year, Bex helped her parents expose a double agent who had been working inside M16. The summer she turned fourteen she swears she disabled a bomb beneath the royal family's box in the bleachers at Wimbledon. But as Bex and I sat in the back of an M16 van with the words "Handy Helpers House Painting Service" painted on the side, I knew no Gallagher Girl had ever brought a story quite like this one home from school vacation.
I tried recounting the facts for myself - how the first agent to reach us was left-handed and had green eyes, how the phone number on the side of the van had a Surrey exchange.
I remembered all the details - every single one. After all, Mr. Solomon had trained me well. And that was the problem, really.
Mr. Solomon had train me.
Mr. Solomon had taught me.
And then Mr. Solomon had dragged me onto that bridge and jumped into the cold, dark waters of the Thames. So I sat quietly with Mr. Baxter on one side of me, and Mrs.
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