"Everyone's afraid of spiders." Griff zip-tied the guard's hands and feet, then checked his pulse. Strong and steady. "He'll wake up with a headache in about ten minutes."
"Then we better work fast," Sarah said, her screen already filling with code.
The server room hummed around them—towers of black metal, cables everywhere, the cold that meant serious processing power.
"We're in," Griff reported to the team.
32
Sarah's worldnarrowed to the lines of code cascading down her screen. The server room's arctic temperature made her breath visible, but adrenaline kept her warm.
"That's the dead man's switch," Zara confirmed through comms. "Forty-seven accounts plus ten cleanup authorizations."
"Each one's different," Sarah muttered, studying the patterns. "This first one... Swiss numbered account hiding behind three shell companies. Got it. Account two... Cayman Islands with... wait, that routing is wrong."
"Wrong how?" Finn asked.
"It's deliberately misleading. The real account is..." She traced the digital path. "Singapore. Clever."
Behind her, Griff stood guard at the door, the unconscious guard zip-tied in the corner. Through the door, muffled voices drifted.
"—supposed to check in ten minutes ago?—"
"—probably taking a smoke break?—"
"—Daniels doesn't smoke?—"
Griff pressed his ear to the door. "They're getting suspicious about our friend here."
Sarah mapped three more accounts. "I need more time."
"Understood."
The voices outside grew louder. "Daniels, you there? Come in."
A radio crackled on the unconscious guard's belt. Griff quickly muted it.
"He's not responding. Could be a bathroom run?"
"For fifteen minutes?"
"I'll check the server room."
Footsteps approaching. Griff backed away from the door. "Izzy, we need that distraction. Now."
"I got you." Izzy's voice was casual. "You’re gonna love this."
The footsteps were ten feet away. "Izzy..." Griff's voice carried urgency.
"Patience is a virtue, Ghost."
Five feet.
"IZZY."
The footsteps stopped. "What the—do you smell that?"
"Gas," another voice said. "That's gas."
