Chapter 116
Chapter 116:
“And no one outside this room knows what we’re doing?” Camille surveyed the small team.
“No one.” Hannah lowered her voice. “We’re logging all our work as routine pre-launch inspections. The construction teams think we’re just being extra thorough.”
Camille’s gaze swept over the exhausted engineers. “You’re all taking an enormous risk. Rose and her partner have already shown they’re willing to hurt people to get what they want.”
The room fell silent. Until now, no one had openly acknowledged the danger they might be in.
“We believe in the Phoenix Grid,” Hannah said after a moment. “And we believe in you, Ms. Kane.”
Something flickered across Camille’s face—surprise, perhaps, or a deeper emotion Hannah couldn’t quite name. Camille quickly turned away, examining one of the circuit boards.
“How soon can the corrections be completed?” Camille asked.
Hannah checked her timeline. “Three more nights, if we work straight through. We need to replace forty-three physical components that have already been installed.”
“And what about James Walsh?” Camille asked, referring to the electrician they had identified as Rose’s mole.
“We’re… handling him carefully.” Hannah pulled up a security feed on her tablet, showing a middle-aged man with thinning ginger hair installing components at one of the secondary Grid sites. “We’ve kept him assigned to non-critical systems. Everything he installs gets quietly removed and replaced after his shift ends.”
Camille nodded, satisfaction briefly crossing her features. “Good. And he’s still reporting to Rose?”
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“According to Mr. Pierce’s surveillance, yes. Daily updates.” Hannah hesitated, then added, “He has no idea we’re onto him, or that we’re correcting the sabotage.”
“Keep it that way,” Camille said. “We need Rose and her partner to believe their plan is working.”
James Walsh wiped sweat from his forehead as he finished installing the modified circuit board. His hands shook slightly—something they always did now, ever since he’d gotten involved in this mess. The empty construction site felt eerie at night, lit only by temporary work lights that cast long shadows across the unfinished walls.
The job had seemed straightforward when he’d agreed to it. A man claiming to represent one of Kane Industries’ competitors had approached him with an offer: make some small modifications to the Phoenix Grid components, get paid fifty thousand dollars. Enough to finally pay off his ex-wife’s medical bills, enough to maybe start seeing his kids again.
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