"The kill switches are dead," Griff continued, inching toward Buckley. "The people you planned to murder are safe. Tank's death? Avenged. Game over, dude."
"I still have codes." Buckley fumbled for his phone with his free hand. "I can still?—"
The lights cut out.
Izzy's work. Complete darkness for three seconds.
Griff moved on instinct, muscle memory from a thousand missions. Buckley would aim where Griff had been standing—classic amateur mistake. He rolled left as Buckley fired blind—once, twice.
The lights blazed back on.
Buckley stood center stage, gun sweeping frantically, looking for targets. His expensive suit was ruined, his political career destroyed, his empire in ashes.
Griff spotted Sarah. She'd used the darkness to reach the podium, was standing at the microphone, left hand cradled against her chest, clearly injured but still fighting.
Griff's gut twisted. The woman he—no, not the time for that realization—was in Buckley's sights. Injured. Exposed. Too far away to reach.
The gun swung toward her.
Griff didn't think. He moved.
The tackle came in low and brutal, his bad shoulder driving into Buckley's midsection. They crashed to the stage together. The gun skittered away. Buckley fought with desperate, manic strength, but Griff had done this before. Had done this in places far worse. Against far more lethal opponents.
A knee caught his head wound. Stars exploded across his vision. Buckley got a thumb toward his eye, but Griff twisted, using his weight advantage.
Then Deke was there, and Axel, pulling Buckley off him, zip-tying the senator while he screamed about conspiracies and frame-jobs.
"Secure," Deke reported.
Through blurred vision, Griff saw federal agents swarming the stage. "Everyone down! Weapons on the ground!"
"We're Knight Tactical," Ronan announced, hands visible. "Admiral Knight's team."
"Where's Pemberton?" Griff asked, trying to sit up. The room spun violently.
Maya's voice came through comms: "Got him. Trying to crawl out the kitchen exit. Real classy."
Sarah's voice rang out from the podium, clear and strong: "My name is Sarah Winters. I'm a federal investigator. And the evidence you've seen tonight is real."
Griff tried to focus on her, but his vision was graying at the edges. Someone was calling for medics. His head wound was worse than he'd thought—probably needed stitches, maybe worse.
But they'd done it. Buckley in custody. Pemberton captured. The conspiracy exposed. Forty-seven people saved.
Tank would have been proud.
The last thing Griff saw before the darkness took him was Sarah at that podium, battered but unbroken, telling the truth to the whole world.
Then nothing.
39
"We need to go NOW,"the EMT said, wheeling Griff toward the exit.
Sarah didn't care about her mangled thumb, the reporters shouting questions, or the FBI agents trying to establish order. Griff's eyes had rolled back. He was unconscious again.
She pushed after the stretcher. "I'm coming with him."
"Ma'am, you need medical attention?—"
