"Are you serious?" Doc's voice sharpened. "That's not?—"
"David's getting away. I need out. Now."
A pause. Then Doc's clinical tone: "Sharp inward twist. Don't hesitate. It has to be fast and decisive."
Sarah's whole body rebelled against the idea. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she positioned her thumb at that unnatural angle. Through the chaos, she saw David reach the door.
"Bear Spray, we're thirty seconds out," Ronan said.
Too late. David would be gone.
She took three quick breaths, fighting nausea at what she was about to do.
"On three," Doc coached. "One... two..."
Sarah wrenched her thumb inward with violent force.
The pain was beyond description—white-hot agony shooting up her arm. Her vision grayed. Bile rose in her throat. But her mangled hand slipped free, skin tearing against the plastic.
The guard noticed too late. "The woman!"
Sarah was already moving, cradling her destroyed hand, using adrenaline before shock set in. But she didn't run toward Griff or away from danger.
She went straight for David.
"David!" Her voice cut through the chaos.
He froze at the door, hand on the handle. Turned to see her coming, injured but unstoppable.
The woman he'd called "too intense" had just dislocated her own thumb to stop him. "Going somewhere?"
On the screens, Finn's voice narrated: "Financial architecture by David Pemberton, Treasury Department. Every death warrant bears his digital signature."
The FBI agents were closer now, seeing David at the exit, Sarah confronting him.
"This isn't—I was investigating—" David stammered.
"FBI, meet David Pemberton,” she announced, in case David wasn’t sufficiently recognizable. “David, meet the FBI."
More evidence flooded the screens above the stage—David's government emails, his meeting schedules with Stillwater, his authorization codes on every single death payment.
"You're done," she told him. "The kill switches are already disabled. All of them. Your murders aren't happening."
His face went even paler as the implications hit. No leverage. No dead man's switch.
A well-built agent stepped close, weapon drawn. "Sir, step away from the door."
David's hand tightened on the handle. For a moment, Sarah thought he might actually run. Make them shoot him rather than face justice.
Then Buckley's voice rang out from the stage, raw and desperate: "YOU SAID IT WAS PERFECT!"
Everyone turned. The senator had crawled to his knees, stained suit, eyes wild with rage. He was staring at David with pure hatred. "You said the system was untraceable."
David raised his hands, backing away from both the door and his employer. "Senator, please?—"
"Forty years of work." Buckley's hand moved to his jacket.
Through her earbud, Sarah heard multiple voices: "He's reaching?—"
