Chapter 11 - THE DAWNING STORMThe rain hammered against the reinforced glass of the black SUV as Colonel Carney maneuvered the vehicle through the slick, empty streets of the capital. Inside, the cabin was dead silent except for the rhythmic click of the secure laptop resting on my knees.
On the screen, lines of green hexadecimal code scrolled downward at a blinding pace. The master key—the unencrypted backdoor protocol my father had engineered twelve years ago—was fully compiled and ready for deployment.
“We’re thirty minutes out from the district plaza,” Carney said, his eyes scanning the rear-view mirror. “Sterling’s private security detail has been flagged moving toward the Capitol building. They know we didn't hand over the primary drives to the congressional subcommittee.”
“Let them look,” I said without looking up from the screen. “By the time they realize the data isn’t stored on physical servers in Washington, it will already be broadcasting across every secure military and civilian satellite network in the hemisphere.”
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Marcus Vance, sitting in the passenger seat, wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “Avalon, if this fails, we aren't just looking at contempt of court. We’re looking at treason charges under the Patriot Act. Sterling can legally have us detained indefinitely without trial.”
“It won't fail,” I replied, closing the laptop with a sharp snap. “Because the people protecting Sterling are bureaucrats who value their pensions more than a sinking politician. Once the public sees the transfer logs linking his offshore accounts directly to the Kandar supply leak, his own committee will vote to strip his immunity before noon.”
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