"I heard that." Finn protested, appearing in the doorway. "It's a cautionary warning for other drivers."
"It's an advertisement that you can't ride," Izzy corrected, following him in. "Bear Spray here has better tactical awareness."
Sarah nearly dropped the tomato she was cutting. "Did you just call me Bear Spray?"
"It's a compliment," Axel assured her, stealing a piece of cheese from the counter. "You've been officially nicknamed. Welcome to the team."
Doc swatted his hand away. "Touch my mise en place again and you'll be eating MREs for the next month."
As Sarah chopped vegetables, the team gradually gravitated toward the kitchen. The formal briefing was over; this was something else. Family gathering before battle.
"Alright," Ronan said, pulling up a tablet. "Let's reviewwhile we eat. The activation sequence—Sarah, walk us through it again."
Sarah's hands trembled slightly as she set down the knife. "The command center goes live at 1800 hours. Buckley will have a biometric scanner that requires his thumbprint and retinal scan to access the system."
"Once he initiates?" Maya prompted.
"The system takes ninety seconds to complete the activation sequence," Zara explained. "During that window, it's vulnerable to interruption, but after that?—"
"After that, people start dying," Griff finished quietly.
"But that's not all," Sarah said, her voice tight. "When the activation happens, there'll be automatic financial transfers. Insurance payouts, contract reassignments, offshore accounts activating. I'll be tracking those in real-time."
"The money trail," Ronan said. "That's our proof."
Sarah's hands trembled. "Exactly. The moment Buckley initiates, millions of dollars will start moving. I need to capture those transactions as they happen—account numbers, routing information, authorization codes. That's what will prove he’s eliminating people. And profiting from it."
"What if the transfers are delayed?" Maya asked.
"They won't be," Sarah said, though her anxiety spiked. "These systems are automated. The money moves the second the activation begins. But I'll only have that ninety-second window to capture everything before they can scrub the records."
The room went silent. The weight crushing her. What if she missed a transaction? What if she couldn't track all the accounts fast enough?
"You'll have the Federal Reserve tracking system up?" Doc asked.
"And the SWIFT network monitors," Sarah confirmed. "Plus the offshore banking portals I've already compromised—I mean, accessed."
"While Zara handles stopping the actual activation," Kenji said, "and Finn monitors their internal systems."
"I'm following the money," Sarah said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "It's what I do."
"So we let him start it," Deke said. "Get him on camera initiating a mass murder conspiracy."
"But stop him before the ninety seconds are up," Axel reminded them.
"Sixty seconds to be safe," Ronan corrected. "Account for lag time."
Sarah's anxiety spiked. Sixty seconds. That's all they had. And she'd be in a van, watching data streams, trying to catch the exact moment?—
"Hey." Zara appeared at her elbow. "You've got this. Your algorithm will catch the activation the moment it starts. I've seen your code—it's elegant."
"Elegant code doesn't mean I won't freeze when?—"
"Remember when Tank convinced the entire base their barracks were haunted?" Axel said suddenly, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
The room went still for a different reason. It was the first time someone had told a Tank story without prompting.
Kenji picked up the thread. "Three months of 'unexplained' phenomena."
