Grant eventually led Peter into the central library without him being aware of it. As they moved through into the vastness of the main reading room, Peter suddenly felt the incredible void above his head. Grant saw the surprise in Peter’s face as they made their way to the far end of the great hall. Peter watched as Grant sat with his back to one of the largest windows he had ever seen and gestured for him to sit.
‘I love coming here – so much effort to write so many books. You know, Peter, if you sat in here for the rest of your life and started reading from one end you wouldn’t get half-way down a single row.’ said Grant.
‘It’s definitely a very imposing building, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t like to clean it!’ returned Peter. Grant smiled and paused for a moment, drinking in the grandeur of the place before he continued.
‘To business,’ he murmured, drawing a deep breath,
‘You, Peter, are our new linkman. Your job is to liaise with our field operatives, of which we now have only one and he is in line for a transfer. You’re the thread between us, passing information back and forth. Nothing is on paper; everything is kept in your head and passed directly to your delivery man. You will develop a very close relationship with him, whoever he turns out to be,’
‘So who exactly are we after – are they a special kind of criminal?’ asked Peter, feeling as though he may be getting somewhere at last.
‘They fall into a very simple category… They’re killers, pure and simple. They have their own agendas and they don’t do anything on the spur of the moment. Everything is pre-planned and executed professionally. Since the inception of The Circle we have taken out a great number of undesirables and made the U.K. a safer place. What you’ve got to get your head around is that when we get targets, there is absolutely no question that they have to be taken out. Every possible question has already been asked; every other option investigated leaving only us. The O.S.L.’
‘What does O.S.L. mean?’
‘Only Solution Left,’ Grant replied with a wry grin and then went on,
‘That’s why no one in the team needs to think about the rights and wrongs of what we’re doing. Somewhere, someone has already thought about it and the decision has been made for us. It’s as simple as that, Peter. Now, we don’t have new people join us very often, but every selection we make takes a long period of time. We already know that you think the same way we do.’ Peter tried to articulate one of the hundreds of questions which were swimming through his mind, but found the more he concentrated on one, the more the others clamoured to be heard. Grant continued.
‘All of our information comes from the very top of MI5 – Sir Thomas Ellis – and after they are finished with an investigation, a target file is discreetly placed in the bottom of a filing cabinet and seemingly forgotten about. Or rather, they forget about it, but that’s when our job begins. Everything is kept under wraps and we aim to clean up after ourselves. Sometimes, if, for whatever reason that’s not possible then we invent a cover story. Each one is different and is made to fit the particular situation.’ Peter reviewed the sparse information he had been given so far and took a deep breath. One thing was resoundingly clear – his new post was never to be mentioned, never to be discussed. In essence, he had become a ghost.
‘So essentially, we don’t exist?’
‘That’s a perfect description. You’ll pick up the rest as we get through this latest problem.’ Peter thought for a second then asked.
‘So we’ve just lost two men which we hope to replace with one.’
‘In our game, two isn’t always better than one.’
‘Silverman is good then?’
‘You could say that.’
‘He must be something very special.’
‘Schhh.’ Grant touched his forefinger lightly to his lips.
‘Christ, that’s good?’
‘Let’s just say if a thousand people had to pick a soldier from a line up to save them from a plague of fundamentalists, then Jake Silverman would be left standing.’
‘Why’s that.’
‘I’m afraid that in the world of fighting superheroes our Jake looks like a lost little boy… No that’s probably a little unfair – he looks more like a pile of shite.’
‘Now you’ve lost me completely.’ Grant leaned forward in his seat and waited for Peter to do the same. He continued.
‘A real soldier doesn’t have to be 6’5”, 250 pounds, with a 50” chest and biceps like a gorilla’s neck. It’s not about how you look, not for us anyway. It’s what you’re made of. It’s having the ability to find your targets wherever they may be located, in any kind of weather. It’s having the strength to walk through the day and night, again and again until you drop. Then pick yourself up and do it all over again. That’s when Jake Silverman becomes something very unique and very special. When he finds his targets something deep inside him changes. His modus operandi never changes, only him.’
The two men stayed in the library for the remainder of the day as Grant went through the history and development of the organisation and after a while Peter began to regard his new post with a degree of fascination. The fact that a covert unit could exist for years without it ever being discovered gripped him completely. It didn’t take long for him to decide that he liked what he was hearing and want to become a part of it. Despite Grant’s insistence that Silverman looked like ‘a pile of shite’, the mysterious figure began to grow into something of a superhuman in Peter’s imagination and the urgency of The Circle’s predicament increased accordingly. He could feel the almost palpable urgency to convince Silverman that his skills were once again required by the unknowing general public.