His gut tightened. She looked so soft. Innocent. Too good to be touched by such evil.
"Got something," she said suddenly. "These routing numbers all have embedded authentication codes. If I can just..." Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. "That's weird."
"What?" Griff crossed the room in three strides.
"These authorization codes—they're all following a pattern, but..." She pulled up multiple transactions. "Look at the timing. I’ve linked the payments from Stillwater to a couple deaths besides Tank’s. I’m sure the others will prove to be the same. But the payments to Stillwater were all made during Senate recess periods."
Doc leaned over her shoulder.
"Here, and here." Sarah highlighted dates. "Spring recess, August recess, winter break. Someone's authorizing payments when Congress isn't in session.”
“Less oversight,” Doc added.
This thing went deeper than even he’d imagined. "So it's a senator?"
"Not necessarily. Could be senior staff. But look at this..." Sarah's voice rose with excitement. "I found this weeks ago and couldn't make sense of it. Someone at Stillwater got sloppy."
She pulled up a different screen. "This is from the officialDOD procurement system. An invoice from Stillwater Defense Solutions for 'security consulting services.' Eight million dollars, dated December 18th."
"So?" Griff asked.
"So look at this." Sarah pulled up the black budget transactions. "December 17th, an eight-million-dollar payment authorized from the Senate Intelligence subcommittee's black budget. Same amount, one day apart."
Doc's eyes sharpened. "They double billed."
"Exactly. Someone at Stillwater submitted it through official channels by mistake, probably trying to maximize their take. But it creates a paper trail." Sarah tapped the monitor. "The official invoice was cancelled two days later, marked as 'submitted in error,' but the record remains. That single mistake bridged both ledgers—the Senate’s black budgets and Stillwater’s bribery accounts. It’s the proof that ties them together."
The proof his team needed to take down the rest of the conspiracy. "Can you prove it's the same payment?"
"The reference numbers. Look—" Sarah highlighted a string of digits. "The black budget payment has a project code. The Stillwater invoice references the same code in the 'services rendered' field. Someone was lazy, used the same tracking number."
He squinted at the lines of data. "So who authorized the black budget payment?”
“Exactly,” Sarah murmured. “The December 17th authorization happened during winter recess. Only four people have that authority level."
She accessed public records, cross-referencing schedules. "Senator Harrison was in Japan. Senator Martinez was recovering from surgery. Senator Walsh was at his daughter's wedding in California. That leaves..."
"Buckley," Doc said quietly. "Thomas Buckley."
Sarah pulled up the news article: "Senator Buckley Remains in Washington During Recess for Defense Briefings."
"He's the only one with access, authority, and presence." Sarah's voice was hollow. "And look at this pattern—every major payment correlates with his schedule. Only when he's in D.C., only during recess periods."
Doc eyed her own tablet. "The authorization code format—TB-4479. Senate protocols use initials plus badge numbers. Thomas Buckley, Senate ID 4479."
"He funds Stillwater through black budgets,” Sarah said. “They handle the wet work. Which explains what I saw earlier—their bribes. Buckley’s funds flow in, Stillwater pushes bribes out to keep the pipeline open. Everyone's hands stay technically clean."
"Except they're not clean," Griff gripped the table hard enough to crack wood. "Buckley paid for Tank's murder."
"A stupid invoice error," Sarah added quietly. "One moment of greed or carelessness, and they exposed everything."
Sarah's hand covered his—brief, warm, grounding. "There's more. Look at this pattern. Every payment preceded a veteran's disappearance. All had security clearances. The biological passport scheme never died. Buckley's running it now."
"Or protecting whoever is," Doc said, pulling up another screen. "These transactions go back three years at least. This is treason on a massive?—"
The television in the corner blazed to life—Doc had it monitoring news channels. Senator Thomas Buckley's face filled the screen.
"—proud to announce that the Charleston Summit on Defense Innovation will convene a week from tomorrow," Buckley announced. "We're bringing together leaders fromdefense, intelligence, and private security to reshape America's protective capabilities for the next generation."
