If Halcyon got the complete key, they wouldn’t just erase their financial trails. They would erase the burn files—the evidence of every murder, every bribe, every rigged election they had orchestrated. They would become untouchable ghosts. And then, they would kill us all anyway.
I unclasped the watch with my blood-slicked right hand. I tossed it across the smooth concrete. It slid to a halt at Voss’s boots.
Voss smiled. He picked it up, turned it over, and read the microscopic etching. He began typing on the tablet.
“Upload initiated,” Voss announced. “In three minutes, the Halcyon servers will be scrubbed, and the ghost protocol will be fully locked.”
I looked at Mercer. He was staring at the tablet.
“Maya,” Mercer whispered. “Let her go.”
“Oh, Jonah,” Voss sighed, not looking up from the screen. “You really are naive. The moment this upload finishes, the container in Long Beach gets dropped into the Pacific. Loose ends, you understand.”
