“How little?” Mike asked. Jack exhaled. “Hours. Maybe less.” Sarah gripped the drive. “What do we do?” Jack turned the tablet toward them. A news feed from DC was playing on the screen. “I’m not just sending this to the cops,” Jack said. “I’m sending it to everyone.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “You’re leaking it to the media?” Jack nodded. “The media, the ACLU, the dark web—everywhere. If it’s everywhere, they can’t bury it.” Mike raised an eyebrow. “And if they try to spin it?” Jack smirked. “That’s why I’m sending the raw bank records, too.”
He showed them the queue: thousands of emails addressed to journalists, bloggers, and federal investigators. It was a digital carpet-bombing. Mike whistled. “You always were a fan of overkill.”
Jack shrugged. “In this business, it’s the only way to be sure.” Sarah took a breath. “Do it.” Jack hit the ‘Send’ button. In an instant, the world changed. It started with small pings on news sites, then grew into a roar. “Senator Miller Under Investigation,” “The Sterling Files,” “Massive Corruption Uncovered”—the headlines began to scroll.
Sarah watched the screen, her hands shaking, but her eyes were bright. Her father’s empire was crumbling in real-time. Suddenly, the lights in the warehouse flickered and died. Mike’s instincts screamed. “Get down!” he yelled, grabbing Sarah and pulling her behind a stack of heavy crates.
Jack drew a sidearm and scanned the darkness. Gunfire erupted, the echoes bouncing off the metal walls like thunder. Mike pressed Sarah to the floor as bullets shredded the crates around them. In the strobing light of the emergency lamps, he saw shadows—men in tactical gear. Silas’s “cleaners” had arrived to finish the job.
“We need to get out of here!” Sarah cried. Jack, firing back, shouted, “Not through the front!” Mike gritted his teeth. They were pinned down. He looked around and saw an old industrial generator in the corner. An idea formed. He grabbed Jack’s arm. “Cover me!”
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