None of us saw Townsend that evening. He said nothing else of who he saw, and no one else brought it up either. Aunt Abby told me that he had to check-in with MI6, who was suddenly very curious as to where one of their top agents had disappeared to. It made me wonder how any of them were able to conduct secret operations like this.

Before going to sleep, I turned to Bex who was in the cot beside me and asked, "Bex, what do you want out of this whole thing?"

"To take down the Circle," she responded, slightly confused.

"I mean, do you want to do some surveillance and then pass off our findings to the CIA?" I paused, "Or do you want to actually do something?"

Bex sat up and looked at me with those condescending eyes everyone had been giving me lately. "Look, Cam, it's not like you going all James Bond on the Circle is going to bring your parents back. We have to do this right."

"When did I say that I thought it would?" I snapped. "But since when has trusting the CIA with this ever worked? They have agents everywhere. Hell, even the splinter group managed to break Mr. Solomon out of CIA custody last year."

"What other options are there? We can't take down the Circle alone," Bex explained.

"Maybe not." I dropped my voice, "but I'm going to try."

I rolled over to sleep, my head filled with plans. That's all I'd become: all plan, no action.

It's never a good thing to be woken up at 3am. Sure, in the spy world, we have to wake up early frequently, and it can never hurt to do a surveillance sweep at random hours of the night, but being woken up at 3am either means you made a mistake or something very bad happened.

"Bex, Cam, get up!" Aunt Abby commanded from the doorway of the bedroom.

Bex seemed to automatically leap up, while I lifted my head and said, "Gerrrwhaa?"

Abby shook her head, "Get some clothes. Grab your things. We're leaving in five minutes."

Suddenly I was very much awake, but I didn't move for the jeans that were right beside me. Instead I ran towards Abby, who had already left the room to finish preparations. "What's happened? Have we been compromised?"

"Get dressed," Abby growled. "Now."

"Why? Does this have something to do with Townsend checking in with MI6?"

Abby turned and glared at me with a look I hadn't seen in a long time, "No questions. Get dressed now."

I turned, knowing I wasn't winning this battle, and headed back to the bedroom, where Bex was already dressed and lacing her sneakers. Bex looked up hopefully, but I shook my head to let her know I couldn't get anything out of Abby.

I threw on clothing in silence and grabbed my bag of things. Bex and I were out in the living room of the condo before our five minute deadline. There was no sign of Mr. Solomon, Zach, Macey, and Liz, all of whom had been given evening watch shifts.

Abby finally came out of the kitchen to join us with a box of documents and a bag of shredded paper. The standard procedure for documents in the field like these were to shred them then dump a nasty combination of ink dye and some other chemicals on them to make it impossible to piece the strands back together. This didn't necessarily mean we were compromised because spies always trash documents before moving, but all signs pointed to it.

She motioned for us to follow her, clearly without question as well, but I decided to push my luck: "Where are we headed?"

Abby sighed, knowing she'd have to give us something, "A safe house."

We jogged down the stairs after her. "Another hotel?" Bex panted.

Abby shook her head, "No. A CIA safe house."

"Wait, what does the CIA have to do with this? Did they find out?" I asked. This made no sense. Something major must have happened. "Are the others meeting us there?"

Clearly question time was over because Abby said nothing as she thrust the box of files into the back of the van. Bex followed her lead and threw her stuff down, but I stayed firmly planted behind them. Abby turned to me again and said, "You want to be a spy, Cameron? Start acting like one."

I reluctantly threw my stuff into the car and climbed into the back, and Bex slid in next to me. Abby slammed the gas pedal, and we were off.

We hadn't been driving for long when Abby's phone rang. "Go."

"Yeah, we're clean."

"I don't know."

"Yep."

"Stay safe."

She hung up and continued driving. Bex piped up, "Any news?"

Abby shook her head. I asked, "Anything else you can tell us?"

"Alright," Abby groaned as if it physically pained her to tell us anything. "At about 1 am, there was an attack on the Circle's headquarters."

"By whom?" Bex asked.

"We don't know," she admitted. "Signs point to Catherine Goode and the splinter group, but we don't have any concrete evidence yet, other than Townsend seeing Catherine yesterday."

"That's who he saw?" I gaped. "Why didn't he tell me? Is that why he went to MI6?"

Abby nodded before yanking on the wheel as we went about 60mph through a hairpin turn. "He needed to report her whereabouts. She one of MI6's most wanted after all the chaos she's caused in Europe over the past few years."

"Zach and Mr. Solomon were on watch when it happened. They're on route to a safe house as well, but I'd imagine MI6 will have them on their way to their headquarters shortly, as they're the only witnesses. Macey and Liz were on the next guard shift, but they weren't nearby when it occurred," she explained. "They're already at the safe house courtesy of some friendly CIA agents that were in the area."

"Gallagher girls?" Bex confirmed. Abby merely nodded. We all knew they were in safe hands now.

"What happens next then? What's our plan for getting the splinter group and finishing off the Circle?" I pressed.

"There is none," Abby said. "This is out of our hands now. We go back to the Academy."

I shook my head, "We didn't do all this just to go back empty handed."

"Well, squirt, it looks like it did."

It was the first time she'd called me "squirt" in a long time. She wasn't looking at me like a nearly graduated spy anymore. I was just Cammie the kid who needed protection from her parent's line of work.

The van began to screech to a halt at an intersection. This is it. Turning point. I felt my pulse race. My fingers fluttered as a started wrap them around the door handle. I looked at Bex, who looked disappointed but resigned to the situation at hand.

"Bex," I whispered, "if you don't like the hand you been dealt, change the game."

Three movements: yank the door handle, jump out of the door, roll to cushion the impact. Exactly like in CoveOps practice. I ground to a stop on the hard asphalt. There was no time to inspect for injuries. I jumped up and ran. Time to start acting like a spy.