"Maya, status?" Griff kept his voice steady despite the chaos erupting through his earpiece.
"Clear. Made it through the tunnels under the bookstore." Maya's breathing was controlled, professional. "Museum exit was clean. Repositioning now."
"All units, emergency protocol seven," Ronan's voice cut through. "No physical meet. Encrypted channel only."
Protocol seven—complete operational restructure while maintaining zero physical contact. They'd only used it once before, in Syria when everything went sideways.
"Sound off," Ronan commanded.
The confirmations came in sequence: Ghost with command, Maya mobile, Deke repositioning, Izzy going dark, the cyber team operational. Doc added her confirmation from the driver's seat.
Silence where Axel's voice should have been.
"We need to get him out," Deke said immediately.
"Negative." Griff cut him off, though every instinct screamed to agree. "That confirms guilt. Makes everything worse."
"He's right," Sarah said, loud enough for the comm. "There are news crews at the federal facility. They're waiting for a rescue attempt."
Through the laptop speakers, Finn's voice crackled: "Guys, I'm seeing something. Financial authorizations just updated in the system."
Sarah pulled up the data on her main screen. "These are all timestamped for..." Her face paled. "Seven-fifteen tonight. During the evening reception."
"What happens at 19:15?" Ronan asked.
"The assassinations." Sarah's voice was hollow. "All of them. Nationwide. The system auto-triggers during Buckley's keynote speech."
Griff checked his watch. 15:47. Less than four hours.
"He'll be on live television," Sarah continued. "Perfect alibi while people die across the country."
"Can Finn and Zara stop it?" Ronan asked.
"Already trying," Finn responded. "But this is complex. Multiple fail-safes, distributed architecture. We need time."
"Time we don't have." Sarah pulled up more screens. "Wait. There's something else. These payment structures... they're doubled."
"Meaning?" Griff asked.
"Two systems running parallel. The seven-fifteen trigger isautomated, but there's another layer. Insurance protocols, they keep calling it." Her fingers paused over the keys. "Oh no. It's a dead man's switch."
Doc glanced back from the driver's seat. "Explain."
"If Buckley doesn't check in every twenty-four hours, a second set of contracts activates. Forty-seven targets." Sarah's voice cracked. "Even if we stop tonight's attack, if anything happens to Buckley, everyone still dies."
"Two systems," Zara said through the speakers. "We need to disable both."
"The automated one we can handle remotely," Finn added. "But a dead man's switch? That's usually air gapped. Physical access only."
Zara chimed in. "Hotel basement. Server room B-3. High power consumption, dedicated cooling. That's got to be it."
"So we need someone inside," Ronan said. "Tonight. During the reception."
"When security will be at maximum," Maya added.
Griff made the decision before his brain caught up. "I'm going in."
"Griff, no." Sarah turned to him. "Your face?—"
