Page 55 of A Ballad of Blackbirds and Betrayal

Atticus maintained his grip on Mitchell, whose face was beginning to redden from the pressure.“Where are the devices?How do we disarm them?”

Mitchell laughed, a harsh, rattling sound under Atticus’s grip.“You can’t.Once activated, only my death stops the countdown.Dead man’s switch, Cameron.Even if you kill me, the charges still detonate.You’ve lost.”

Sabrina caught Atticus’s eye, a plan already forming.“Let the team locate the devices.I’ll stay with you.”

“The detonator signal—it must run on a specific frequency,” Atticus said, his tactical mind working through the problem even as he maintained his hold on Mitchell.“Cal, can you isolate and jam it?”

“Already trying,” Cal confirmed, the sound of furious typing audible through the comms.“But I need to know the frequency range.These older buildings have so much interference?—”

“Check his watch,” Sabrina said suddenly, her gaze fixed on Mitchell’s wrist.“The detonator’s built into it.That’s what he activated.”

Atticus wrenched Mitchell’s arm upward, confirming Sabrina’s observation.The senator’s custom timepiece was no ordinary watch—the back panel had slid aside to reveal a sophisticated electronic component.

“Cal, I’m sending you visuals,” Atticus said, angling his tactical glasses to capture the watch’s details.

“Got it,” Cal replied.“That’s military-grade tech, similar to what we saw in Kazakhstan.Give me two minutes.”

“We don’t have two minutes,” Eden interrupted.“This place is about to become a stampede.”

The panic was spreading faster now, diplomats and dignitaries pushing toward the exits as security tried to maintain order.Through the growing chaos, Atticus spotted movement at the main entrance—Deputy Director Kessler had arrived with a team of FBI agents, attempting to secure the area.

“Max, coordinate with Kessler.Get these people out in an orderly evacuation,” Atticus ordered through comms.“Jade, Eden, Nate—find those devices.Cal will direct you from the building schematics.”

“What about him?”Sabrina asked, nodding toward Mitchell, who had begun to struggle against Atticus’s grip.

“He’s coming with us,” Atticus replied, his voice carrying the cold determination of someone who had waited eight years for this moment.“If those charges detonate, he goes with them.”

He dragged Mitchell toward a service corridor, away from the panicking crowd, with Sabrina following close behind.The senator fought against Atticus’s iron grip, but years of grief-fueled training had made Atticus impossibly strong.

“You’re making a mistake,” Mitchell gasped, his polished veneer crumbling completely.“I have contacts in every agency, in every branch of government.You think this ends with me?There are a dozen people ready to continue my work.”

“Then we’ll hunt them down too,” Atticus replied, shoving Mitchell into a maintenance room and securing the door behind them.“But first, we deal with you.”

“Devices located,” Jade’s voice came through the comms.“First one’s on the main support column near the east entrance.It’s…sophisticated.Military grade.”

“Same here,” Nate reported.“West stairwell.Timer shows seven minutes, twelve seconds.”

“I’ve analyzed the detonator frequency,” Cal reported.“Working on the jamming signal now, but there’s something else—the devices appear to have redundant triggers.Even if we jam the primary signal, they’re designed to detonate if they lose contact with the controller for more than sixty seconds.”

“Dead man’s switch, like he said,” Atticus confirmed, turning to Mitchell.“So if you die or the signal is jammed too long, everything blows.”

Mitchell’s smug expression returned.“I told you.No way out.”

Sabrina had been examining the watch with a clinical eye.“Wait.These components—I recognize the design from a military project I consulted on.It’s not just a transmitter; it’s also the master control unit.The deactivation code should be accessible through the watch itself.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Atticus said, the cold fury in his voice making even Mitchell flinch.

In one swift, brutal motion, Atticus seized Mitchell’s arm and twisted it at an unnatural angle.The sharp crack of breaking bone was followed by Mitchell’s agonized scream as his wrist shattered under Atticus’s grip.Without hesitation, Atticus removed the watch from the senator’s now-limp wrist.

“Eight years,” Atticus said quietly as Mitchell gasped in pain.“That’s nothing compared to what my wife suffered.”

Mitchell slumped against the wall, face pale with shock and pain, his broken wrist cradled against his chest.His eyes burned with hatred, but the senator remained silent, his arrogance finally giving way to the reality of his situation.

Atticus turned his attention to the watch, examining it with focused intensity.“Cal, can you access the interface?”he asked, holding the device up to his communication device.

“I can try, but that level of encryption would take hours to break conventionally,” Cal replied.“We need the direct access code.”

“Which Mitchell won’t give us,” Sabrina said, her gaze locked with the senator’s.“But there might be another way.”She leaned closer to Atticus, lowering her voice.“These systems often have biometric backups—fingerprint or retinal scan—in case the primary code is forgotten.”

---