Chapter 8
"The flash drive, Leo. Place it on the desk," Victor ordered, his hand resting near a compact silver revolver hidden beneath a stack of financial folders. His eyes gleamed with a desperate, greedy hunger as he stared at the small silver device.
Leo looked at the drive in his palm, then up at Director Vance’s frozen, expectant face on the digital monitor. "You know, Director, you made one fundamental mistake when you planned this operation with my brother."
Director Vance frowned on the screen, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "And what is that, Captain?"
"You forgot that a Ghost never operates without a secondary extraction plan," Leo said softly.
He didn't hand the drive to Victor. Instead, Leo slammed his thumb down onto a hidden button built into the side of the silver casing. It wasn't a standard data storage device; it was a high-frequency remote relay trigger that connected directly to Iron Gate’s primary electrical sub-station deep in the basement.
Instantly, a massive, deafening BOOM rocked the entire prison structure.
The main backup power generators downstairs exploded into a shower of blue sparks, completely wiping out the facility's auxiliary energy grid. The classical music died, the designer lamps went dark, and the entire fourth-floor penthouse was plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness, illuminated only by the faint, silver moonlight streaming through the massive glass windows.
Simultaneously, down on the lower tiers, every single electronic cell lock clicked open automatically as a safety default for a total power failure. Within seconds, a loud, roaring wave of sound began to echo from the basement levels—the sound of hundreds of inmates rushing out of their cells, screaming, slamming metal chairs against the walls. A full-scale prison riot had just been activated.
"The power is dead! Shoot him! Shoot him now!" Victor screamed through the dark office, his voice filled with sudden, frantic panic.
The four Black Crow mercenaries raised their rifles, their laser sights cutting through the dark in chaotic red lines, but Leo was already gone from the center of the room. He had moved like a ghost the moment the lights went out.
THWACK! CRACK!
Jax didn't need night-vision to fight. He let out a primal, animalistic roar, swinging his heavy submachine gun like a club in the dark, smashing the weapon into the face of the first mercenary. The man’s ballistic mask shattered, and he tumbled backward over the sofa with a loud groan.
Leo moved through the green-tinted darkness of his own military instincts. He stepped inside the guard of the second mercenary, grabbing the barrel of his rifle and forcing it upward just as the man pulled the trigger. A burst of automatic gunfire flashed in the dark, chewing up the ceiling plaster, before Leo drove a sharp combat knife directly into the man’s shoulder joint, disabling him instantly.
He snatched the rifle from the falling soldier, spun his body, and fired two precise, controlled bursts into the chests of the remaining two mercenaries. The body armor absorbed the force, but the sheer kinetic impact knocked them backward through the glass panels of the office bookcase, neutralizing them completely.
The digital monitor on the wall was flickering violently, powered by a small separate battery pack. Director Vance’s face was twisted in an expression of pure, unadulterated rage on the screen. "Vance! What have you done?! This is treason against the state!"
"No, Director," Leo's voice answered from the darkness right next to the screen. "This is a hostile takeover."
Leo reached up, pulled the secure cellular transmission wire from the back of the monitor, and plugged it directly into his tactical tablet. "Roxie, the node is open. Broadcast the files."
A thousand miles away, in a dark apartment filled with glowing monitors, Roxie’s fingers flew across her keyboard with a lightning speed. "I got it, Leo! The data stream is active! Victor’s complete international client ledger, his offshore routing numbers, and the Director's private black-budget transaction records are uploading to the Department of Justice main server right now! It’s over for them!"
"No! No, it's not over!" a voice screamed from the far side of the room.
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Leo spun around. Victor was standing by the broken glass window, holding his silver revolver with both hands, his white suit covered in plaster dust and blood. His eyes were wild, wide, and entirely psychotic. He wasn't aiming at Leo. He was pointing the gun directly at the heavy metal casing of the satellite uplink tower mounted on the balcony outside.
"If I destroy the uplink, the file transfer stops!" Victor roared, his finger tightening on the trigger. "We all go down together, Leo!"
