Chapter 28
The food truck's interior hummed with electronic equipment.
Griff adjusted his earbuds while watching Sarah transform Doc's mobile command center into a digital war room—laptops, multiple monitors, cables snaking across every surface.
The smell of coffee and gunpowder lingered from Doc's morning preparations.
"Ghost online," he said, the familiar weight of tactical comms flooding back after six months of silence.
"About time." Maya's voice, warm despite the words. "Thought you'd forgotten how to use comms."
"Children, focus." Ronan's interruption carried relief beneath the command. "Buckley moved up the timeline. We need eyes on—"
"Problem." Deke's voice cut through, tense. "Our credentials just went red. All of them."
Griff's blood chilled. Through the truck's reinforced window, he could see the Charleston Place Hotel's elegant facade two blocks away, its old-world architecture hiding modern dangers. They'd lost their primary approach.
"Define red."
"Flagged as persons of interest. Security has our photos." A pause. "Boss, there's Stillwater contractors at every checkpoint. They've locked down the Charleston Place."
"Classic misdirection." Doc's cultured voice cut through from her monitoring station. "Make you the threat while they execute the real plan. I've seen this playbook before—Prague, 1989. Same tactics, different decade."
Sarah's head snapped up from her screens. "Oh no. Griff, look at this."
She turned one laptop toward him. Knight Tactical's operational accounts—the ones only the team knew about—showed new activity. Transactions appearing in real-time. Deposits from shell companies with names that screamed foreign interference.
"Someone's creating a paper trail." Sarah's fingers flew across keyboards. "These are payments to Knight Tactical from known terrorist organizations. The transactions started eight minutes ago."
"Can you stop them?"
"I can document them. Track them. But stop?" She shook her head. "They're using legitimate banking protocols with high-level authorization codes."
Doc moved closer, studying the data flow. "These aren't random amounts. Look—they're structured to trigger federal monitoring thresholds. Someone knows exactly how to make you look guilty to automated systems."
Through his earbuds, Griff heard Ronan: "Ghost, what's your status?"
"Buckley's not just moving early—he's framing us. Financial trail being created as we speak."
Silence on the comms. Then Ronan: "We abort."
"No." Sarah grabbed Griff's arm, activating his throat mic so everyone could hear.
"If you run now, this frame job becomes fact.
These transactions require two-factor authentication.
Someone has to physically approve them from inside the hotel.
They're there right now. I can track them backward, but I need time. "
"How much time?" Ronan asked.
Sarah was already deep in her screens. "Give me ten minutes. Maybe less."
"You have five," Doc announced, checking her tablet.
"My sources just pinged me—federal marshals are mobilizing three blocks out.
Someone gave them your location." She pulled up a schematic of the Charleston Place.
"But here's what they don't know—the hotel has service access through three adjoining buildings.
Kitchen deliveries through Market Street, laundry services through the basement of the Riviera, and maintenance access via the old Charleston Bank building next door. "
"Stillwater's only watching the main hotel entrances," Doc continued. "They're contractors, not strategists. Hammers, not scalpels."
"Maya, Izzy, you're on infiltration," Ronan commanded. "Use Doc's routes. Deke, Axel, create a distraction at the King Street entrance. Let them see you, draw their focus."
"Copy that." Deke's amusement was audible. "Haven't played decoy in years."
Doc handed Griff a tablet showing real-time positions. "I've been tracking their security rotations since dawn. They change posts every twenty minutes, but there's a forty-second gap when they swap. Your window's in six minutes."
Griff started reaching for his rifle, but Sarah caught his arm. "I need you here. Someone has to coordinate between what I'm finding and what the team's seeing. I don't know tactics."
"She's right," Doc agreed. "You're more valuable here as her translator. Let your team do what they do best."
Every instinct screamed at him to join his team in the field. But Sarah was right—leaving her was impossible.
"Ghost staying with command," he said into comms.
No one commented, but he sensed their understanding.
Sarah's screens filled with data streams. She moved through them like she was reading music, seeing patterns where others saw noise.
"There." She highlighted a terminal location. "Terminal 4B, second floor of the Charleston Place. Every transaction routes through there." She paused, frowning. "Wait. These authorization codes..."
"What?"
"The formatting. The routing preferences. The way the security protocols are layered." Her fingers froze over the keyboard. "I know this style."
"Style?"
"Everyone has patterns." Her face drained of color. "I trained someone in this exact methodology. At Treasury, before I moved to FBI."
Doc leaned over Sarah's shoulder. "Someone from your past? That's not coincidence, dear. That's targeting."
She pulled up the summit's attendee list with shaking hands, scrolling rapidly. "He wouldn't be listed as Treasury anymore. He left right after I did—"
Her breath caught. "And now, he’s back. David Pemberton. Financial Advisor to Senator Buckley."
"Maya, approaching Terminal 4B," came through his earbuds. "Second floor, near the Palmetto Ballroom. There's someone here. Male, suit, brown hair, about six feet—"
Sarah grabbed Griff's arm hard enough to hurt. "That's David. My ex-boyfriend David.”
Griff's protective instincts roared to life. "The one who said you were too intense?"
Sarah nodded, looking devastated. "This is new. I had no idea he was back in DC.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “This is just Buckley’s way of adding to the torture.”
She shook her head. “It’s worse than that. David has my old federal authorization codes. From when we worked together. He's not just framing Knight Tactical—he's using my financial signature to do it."
"Personal and professional betrayal wrapped in one," Doc observed, her voice sharp as glass. "But that's also his weakness. Emotional decisions create patterns. He's showing you exactly how to destroy him."
Through the earbuds, Maya's voice: "Target is at the terminal. Inputting something now."
Sarah checked her screens. "Another transaction just hit. Fifty thousand from a Romanian account." Her voice cracked. "That's my old routing sequence. If anyone investigates this, it'll trace back to me."
Her hand went to her throat, fingers closing around Tank's dog tags hidden beneath her shirt. The gesture seemed to steady her.
"Can you prove it's him?"
"I'm documenting everything. But Griff..." She met his eyes. "He knew I'd recognize his work. This is personal. He wants me to know it was him."
Doc squeezed Sarah's shoulder. "Then he gave you ammunition. Use his ego against him. Men who need you to know they're hurting you always leave breadcrumbs."
"Maya," Griff said into comms, his voice deadly calm. "Eyes on target. Do not engage, but don't lose him."
"Copy that. He seems nervous. Keeps checking his phone."
Sarah's laptop chimed. Another transaction. Then another. Each one using her old protocols, her digital signature.
"Lord, please help me see what I need to see," Sarah whispered, then dove back into her screens with renewed focus. "He's using a pattern. Every three minutes. If I can predict the next one..."
"Got it!" She highlighted a different terminal. "The next transaction will hit in forty seconds from Terminal 2A, near the Georgian Room."
"Izzy, Terminal 2A, Georgian Room level, intercept," Griff commanded.
"On it. Taking the service stairs now."
Doc was already pulling up alternative routes on her tablet. "Federal marshals entered the hotel's main lobby. They're not being subtle—they want everyone to know they're there."
Sarah's hands trembled as she worked. "I worked with him for two years. Trusted him with—" She stopped, jaw tightening. "He's using our old departmental codes. The ones we created together."
"Ghost," Maya's voice. "Target's moving. Heading toward the main ballroom."
Sarah looked at Griff, hurt transforming into determination. "We can't stop what's already gone through. But I can document everything. Create a trail showing the real source."
"Do it."
She turned back to her screens, fingers flying. Griff kept one hand on her shoulder, feeling the tension there.
Through his earbuds: "All units, we have federal marshals converging on the Meeting Street entrance."
Doc checked multiple feeds on her tablet. "They're sealing exits. Standard federal containment protocol. But they're doing it wrong—they're treating this like a criminal capture, not a terrorist threat. That means they don't really believe the intel they've been fed. Someone's forcing their hand."
Sarah's laptop showed the final piece clicking into place. "The frame's complete. Knight Tactical now appears to have received 1.5 million from known terrorist cells." She looked at Griff. "And my authorization codes are on every transaction."
Maya's urgent voice. "Pemberton’s meeting Buckley in the lobby. They're heading toward the private elevator to the penthouse conference room."
Doc's expression turned predatory. "That's where the real activation will happen. Above the chaos, isolated, with dedicated communication lines."
Sarah closed her eyes briefly, her hand finding Tank's tags again.
When she opened them, her expression had hardened into something Griff recognized—the look of someone who'd decided to fight back with everything they had.
"Then we'd better make sure we document everything because they just declared war on the wrong accountant. "
Doc smiled grimly. "That's my girl. Now, let's show them what happens when you corner intelligent women with laptops and nothing left to lose. I'll get the team through the federal perimeter. You focus on burning your exe’s world to the ground."
"Ronan," Griff said into comms. "Sarah's building the evidence trail. But we need more time."
"How much?"
Sarah glanced at her screens. "That sixty-second window we talked about? Forget it. When Buckley activates the real Charleston Option, I'll need at least three minutes to capture everything—the assassinations, the money, all of it."
"Then we'd better make sure you get it," Ronan replied. "All units, new objective: buy Sarah time. Whatever it takes."
Doc was already working three phones simultaneously, her network of old intelligence contacts spinning into action. "I can delay the marshals another four minutes. After that, things get interesting."
Through the truck's window, Griff could see federal agents taking positions around the Charleston Place's historic entrance. Inside, Sarah worked with fierce concentration while Doc orchestrated chaos with the calm efficiency of someone who'd toppled governments over afternoon tea.
They were out of time, out of options, and about to be framed as terrorists.
But they had something Buckley hadn't counted on—a betrayed forensic accountant with the skills to unravel his conspiracy, a former intelligence officer with more tricks than a magician's convention, and a team willing to risk everything to give them the chance.
"David always underestimated me," Sarah said quietly, not looking up from her screens. "Said I cared too much about the details. Guess he's about to learn why that was a mistake."
Griff squeezed her shoulder. "Make him regret it."
Her smile dazzled him. "Count on it."