Chapter 9 - The Encrypted Signal
I kicked the combat knife away from the fallen operative and rushed to the flickering master terminal. Most of the data arrays had been wiped by a remote kill-switch, but the secondary offline drive was still spinning, blinking with a steady green light.
I plugged Emily’s micro SD card into the secondary port. Instantly, a decryption script began running automatically, pulling a massive, hidden file structure out of the encrypted partition.
A geographic map of the United States materialized on the screen, dotted with dozens of blinking red nodes spanning across major metropolitan areas—Washington D.C., Atlanta, Miami, and Chicago. Each node represented an active financial conduit funneling illicit funds into various political campaigns and municipal police departments.
At the center of the web sat a single, unredacted corporate identity: The Meridian Group.
Suddenly, the screen flashed bright red. A text dialogue box popped open, bypassing the local interface entirely:
May you like
“Nice try, Colonel Hart. But you’re holding a match in a room full of gasoline. Put down the drive, walk away, and maybe your daughter lives to see tomorrow.”
My breath hitched. I whipped around, weapon raised, scanning the shadows of the dark server room. The threat wasn't just remote—they were watching me through the building’s internal closed-circuit camera network.
