The fear was a cold, quiet companion on the drive back to Alex's apartment. It wasn't the panic of a hunted animal, but the profound, bone-deep terror of a strategist who had just learned the true scale of her enemy. They had been toying with her. The woman in the museum, the phone call from Sterling, the vanished ally Ray—all of it had been a test. A way for the society to gauge her level of knowledge. And now, at the shipyard, she had failed the test. She had confirmed she had the files. The game of cat and mouse was over. They were no longer the hunters; they were the hunted.
Back in the apartment, Marcus poured two glasses of whiskey, his hands shaking slightly. He passed one to Alex, his eyes meeting hers over the rim of the glass. "They know," he said, the words a strained whisper. "We can't just leak the files. They'll have a team on us before we can even hit 'send.' We'll be dead before the first page of their roster even makes it to the internet."
Alex took a long swallow of the whiskey, the burn a welcome distraction from the cold knot of fear in her stomach. "You're right," she said, her mind already racing, her profiler's instincts taking over. She was no longer a civilian. She was a soldier, and she was in a war. "A direct attack is a suicide mission. So we don't attack. We create a distraction. We lure them out into the open, and while they're looking one way, we hit them from another."
"A decoy," Marcus said, a slow, grudging understanding dawning on his face. "We use something they want, something they'll send their best people for. We use it to draw them out, to keep them occupied, while we go after something else. But what do they want? They have everything."
"They don't have this," Alex said, tapping the encrypted flash drive on the table. "They want the files. They'll do anything to get them back. They can't risk the names getting out."
"But how do we use that as a decoy without getting ourselves killed?" Marcus asked, his voice full of doubt. "The only person they'll send a team for is one of us. We'd have to put ourselves on the front line."
"Not necessarily," Alex said, a dangerous idea taking root in her mind. "We don't need to put ourselves at risk. We use one of the names from your files. Someone high-profile, someone they can't risk a scandal with. Someone who would know enough to be a threat if they ever went rogue. Someone who is on their roster. We make them think that person has the files. We make them think that person is about to leak their secrets."
Marcus looked at her, his eyes wide with a mix of shock and horror. "You want to frame an innocent man?"
"He's not innocent," Alex said, her voice hard as steel. "Look at your list, Marcus. There are no innocent men on that list. They are all complicit. They're all part of the Gathering. We're not framing him. We're using him as a puppet. He will be the decoy. He will draw their fire while we go after a bigger target."
They spent the next hour poring over the files on the flash drive, a detailed dossier of the society's members. They looked at the CEOs, the judges, the politicians. They looked for a name that was powerful enough to be a credible threat, but not so powerful that his public downfall would cause a catastrophic scandal.
They found him. His name was Arthur Sterling, the CEO of a multi-billion dollar tech firm. He was a ruthless, ambitious man, but he was also connected to the society in a way that was both subtle and deeply personal. He had been a guest at the same event as the first victim, the history professor. He was a part of the original conspiracy, a man who had seen everything and said nothing. He was the perfect decoy.
"We make them think he has the flash drive," Alex said, a cold, clinical tone in her voice. "We send him a cryptic message, a coded symbol only a member of the society would understand. Something about 'The Labyrinth' and 'the Watchman.' We make him think he's been compromised. He'll panic. He'll call the society for help, and they will send a team after him. And while they're looking for him, we go after our real target."
"And what is our real target?" Marcus asked, his voice low.
Alex looked back at the files, her finger hovering over a different name. A man who was a ghost in the system, a man who had no known public life, no known address, no known family. A man who was, according to Ben's journal, the society's "Archivist."
"The archivist," Alex said. "He's the man who keeps the records. He's the one who controls all of their information. If we can get to him, we can get everything."
The plan was audacious. It was dangerous. It was cold and calculating and it was their only chance. They would use a man's life as a diversion, a way to lure a powerful organization away from their main objective. They would go from being the hunted to being the hunters, using the very tactics the society used against them.
The final step was the most dangerous. They had to send the message to Arthur Sterling. They couldn't use a phone, a computer, or an email. It had to be something that couldn't be traced, something that was both a personal threat and an urgent warning.
Alex had an idea, a dark, brilliant one, born from her years of profiling serial killers. She would use the Collector's own playbook against them. She would leave a message, a symbol, a chilling taunt that would make Arthur Sterling believe he was next on the list.
The hunt was no longer just about catching a killer. It was about exposing a conspiracy. It was a game of strategy and deception. And they had just made the first move.