The ghost at the table – Draft 03 – Chapter 21

Logan

The night was a heavy blanket, and my thoughts were the suffocating heat beneath it. The keys clicked under my fingers, a rapid staccato like how rain on a tin roof sounds like a round of applause. Each tap was a reminder of the past—a memory embedded in the code I once used to exploit the vulnerabilities of others.

“Another sleepless night,” I muttered to myself.

My gaze flickered across the dual screens, their glow painting my face a ghostly blue. The scripts I wrote had been weapons—digital daggers aimed at the heart of privacy, security, and trust. They’d made me money; they’d made me someone in the shadowy recesses of the web. But they’d cost more than I was willing to pay anymore.

“Enough,” I whispered, pushing back from the desk. My reflection in the dark window stared back: blonde hair, the blemishes that marred my skin, eyes tired but determined.

I knew what I had to do. It was time to turn the tables.

I grabbed my phone, its weight a solid promise in my palm. Stephanie McBride’s number was burned into my brain, a lifeline I’d never thought I’d use. If anyone could understand the tangled mess of ones and zeroes we were up against, it was her. She had the know-how, the contacts, the drive. And if the rumours about her husband moving them to Adelaide were true, she was close—maybe too close for comfort.

“Stephanie,” I said when she picked up, my voice all gravel and resolve. “It’s Logan Robinson.”

“Logan,” her reply came, cautious. “What do you want?”

“Redemption,” I said simply. “I have information. About the network. I’m done being part of the problem.”

“Go on,” she urged, her curiosity piqued despite the tension.

I outlined my plan in broad strokes, the words spilling out like floodwaters through a breached dam. This was it—the turning point. I was putting everything on the line, including my trust in someone who, by all rights, should have turned me in already.

“Can you help me take them down?” I asked, letting the question hang between us like a challenge.

There was a pause, a breath held and then released. “Yes,” she said, and with that single word, a partnership was born—a union forged from the necessity to right the wrongs that haunted our digital playground.

“Meet me tomorrow at the old mill,” I said. “Noon. We’ve got work to do.”

“See you there, Logan.”

I hung up, a sense of purpose flooding my veins. For the first time in a long while, the future didn’t seem like a dark road. There was a flicker of light now, a chance to redirect the course of my story.

“Time to make things right,” I murmured, staring into the abyss of the night. The abyss stared back, but this time, I didn’t blink.

The old mill stood like a relic, its walls whispering secrets of a bygone era. Noon cast hard shadows over the cracked concrete. I waited, back against sun-warmed brick, hands fidgety in my pockets.

Stephanie arrived on the dot, her stride purposeful. “Ready?” she asked, no preamble.

“Born ready,” I said, but my gut churned.

Inside, we found a corner away from prying eyes and ears. Dust motes danced in shafts of light piercing the decrepit roof. We laid our tools of the trade on the ground between us—laptops, drives, scribbled notes.

“Here’s what we know,” I started. Our target: a conglomerate with tentacles in every dark corner of the net. My past actions had opened doors to their world, doors I now sought to slam shut.

“Patterns,” Stephanie said, cutting through the noise. “We track the money, find the patterns. They’re arrogant, they’ll slip.”

“Arrogance is a hacker’s best friend,” I agreed. She was sharp, her mind slicing through complexities like a knife.

“Let’s dive in.” Screens came alive with code and numbers, the language of our intent written in binary and ambition.

Hours passed. The hum of technology our soundtrack. We uncovered transactions masked as mundane, tendrils leading to a web of organized crime. Numbers didn’t lie, they told tales of corruption, deceit.

“Got something,” Stephanie’s voice cut in. A connection, a big one. An offshore account linked to a shell company—a front for laundering.

“Good work,” I grunted. Our piece of the puzzle clicked into place. We were mapping their sins, a digital cartography of crime.

“More than good,” she replied. “This could be the thread that unravels them.”

“Let’s pull it,” I said.

Our partnership, a fusion of her analytical prowess and my speed at the keys, was our weapon. Two minds beating as one against the ticking clock of criminal enterprise.

“Tomorrow, we hit them again,” I declared as we packed up. “Harder.”

“Agreed.” Her eyes held the fire of the hunt. “We’ll take them down, Logan. Together.”

As we stepped out of the mill’s shadow, the light seemed different, hopeful. The path was set. There was no turning back now. Friendship and justice, our guiding stars in the coming storm.

Sweat beaded on my forehead, a nervous tick in the stillness of the dark room. Stephanie’s eyes were wide, reflecting the glow of dual monitors. We knew they were onto us—the conglomerate’s security team—a shadow growing longer with each byte of data we siphoned.

“Logan,” Stephanie whispered, voice tight with urgency. “They’re tracking our IP.”

“Rotating proxies now.” My fingers danced across the keyboard, commands flowing like rapid gunfire. The chase was on, a digital game of cat and mouse, and we were the mice with lions on our tails.

“Good,” she said, eyes scanning lines of code. “Keep moving. I’ll run interference.”

Screens flickered, connections jumped continents. We were ghosts in the wires, but these spectres had fangs.

“Got it,” I spat out as my script breached their final firewall. Inside the belly of the beast, I found it—a network sprawling like a sick tree. Money laundering routes twisted through offshore accounts, drug trafficking deals cloaked in corporate doublespeak, human lives bartered in encrypted chats.

“Christ.” The word left me hollow. This wasn’t just cybercrime; it was a hydra of exploitation, every head as vile as the last.

“Logan?” Stephanie’s gaze locked with mine. Fear there, yes, but resolve too.

“Found the motherlode.” I pulled a drive from my pocket, began downloading evidence. “We expose this, it’s over for them.”

“Security’s getting closer,” she warned, her own hands flying over a secondary keyboard. “Logan, we need to wrap this up.”

“Almost there.” Data streamed into the drive, megabytes turning into hope, justice. But time was a luxury we didn’t have. The security protocols were adapting, learning. Not good.

“Done.” I yanked the drive free, killing the connection. “Let’s move.”

“Out the back,” she said, already grabbing her jacket. “I’ll wipe our traces.”

“Meet at the spot?” I asked, eyes meeting hers for a split second—enough to say all that needed saying.

“Two hours.” She nodded, determination etched in her features. We split, melting into the shadows of rural Meningie’s quiet streets. Just two more faces under a blanket of stars, carrying secrets heavy enough to bring down giants.

Friendship, a beacon in the night. Survival hinged on trust, ours forged in fire and binary. And as I ducked through alleys, the cool air whispering freedom, I knew Stephanie would be there. We were in this together, till the end.

The phone rang. Stephanie’s voice, hushed and urgent. “Got word from an inside man. Meet me at the docks.”

“Anything solid?” I asked.

“Solid enough to nail them,” she replied, a hint of steel in her tone.

I hung up, my heart thundering. This was it.

The docks were quiet, shadows stretching like thieves across the concrete. Stephanie stood beneath a flickering streetlight, files in hand. Her eyes were wary, scanning the perimeter.

“Talk to me,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“Bank records. Wiretaps. Testimonies.” She handed over the stack. “It’s all here. We just need to keep it safe.”

“Safe is a luxury,” I muttered, thumbing through the papers. “They’re onto us.”

“Then we be smarter.” Her gaze didn’t waver.

“Smarter,” I echoed, thinking back to the countless keystrokes that had led us here. To this precarious edge where one slip meant a plunge into darkness.

A screech in the distance. Headlights turning into the lot. “Company,” I said.

“Time to vanish,” she replied.

I nodded. We split up, disappearing into the labyrinth of containers. My pulse was a drumbeat in my ears, the weight of the evidence now a physical burden. I ducked behind a stack of crates, catching my breath, mind racing.

Stephanie knew people. Cops with conscience, agents with honour. Together, we’d built a case not even the conglomerate could spin. But first, we had to survive the night.

A flashlight beam cut through the dark. Voices, close. I stayed low, thanking the stars for the RAAF training that had honed my instincts. Stephanie was out there too, using her smarts to dodge these mongrels.

“Clear!” a voice called out, frustration seeping through the word.

“Keep looking,” another snapped. They were searching for ghosts; we made sure they found none.

Minutes or hours passed—the chase a blur of near misses and silent prayers. Finally, the silence returned, as heavy as before.

“Logan.” Stephanie’s whisper carried on the wind.

“Here.” I emerged, every muscle tensed for flight.

“Got a plan?” There was no fear in her question, just the calm of someone who had faced down worse.

“Always.” I tried to match her cool. “First light, we get this to Delmonte. He’ll know what to do.”

“Right.” She nodded once, decisively. “We survive the night, then we strike at dawn.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I offered a tight smile.

“Friends do that. Plan.” Her smile was brief but genuine.

“Friends survive,” I added, feeling the weight of our shared secret lighten ever so slightly.

“Then let’s make sure we do.” She turned, ready to move again.

“Stephanie,” I called softly. She paused, silhouetted against the industrial glow.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“Save it,” she said, already moving. “When this is over.”

“Deal,” I whispered to her retreating form.

There was strength in numbers, even when those numbers were few. Our trust was our lifeline, our friendship the thread pulling us through the eye of the needle. The conglomerate loomed large, but together, we were giants too.

Dawn was coming. Justice was waiting. And we’d be ready.

The predawn darkness clung to the Australian countryside like a shroud. We huddled in the lee of a rusted shed, its corrugated iron whispering secrets to the relentless wind. Stephanie checked her watch, then met my eyes. Time ticked away in silent agreement.

“Logan,” she murmured, passing me a thumb drive. “All our work.”

“Weight of the world,” I muttered, feeling the cool metal bite my palm. Our evidence. Our ammo.

“More than that. It’s accountability. For them. For us.” Her gaze held mine.

“Power,” I said. It wasn’t a question. The conglomerate had power. Money. Influence. But we had truth. And it was molten, ready to burn through lies.

“Consequences too,” she added, her voice steady but eyes betraying the gravity of what lay ahead.