Chapter 12 - The Inside Man
The honeypot trap was set, a digital labyrinth designed to lure The Vanguard’s top hackers. While Chloe monitored the servers from a secure federal location, Sarah realized they needed a human element to truly break the syndicate. They needed someone on the inside, someone who understood the corporate hierarchy of The Vanguard.
She thought back to her days at Sterling’s firm. Most of her former colleagues were either indicted, unemployed, or terrified into silence. But there was one man—David Hayes, a senior compliance officer who had always kept his head down. David had never participated in the fraud, but he had turned a blind eye out of cowardice.
Sarah met David in a crowded, noisy subway station—a location too chaotic for easy surveillance. He looked ten years older, the stress of the fallout etching deep lines into his face.
"You shouldn't have contacted me, Sarah," David muttered, keeping his eyes fixed on the arriving trains. "They are watching everyone."
"I need to know who is running the London firm," Sarah demanded, skipping the pleasantries. "I need the names of the actual board members, not the shell executives."
David shook his head frantically. "If I give you those names, I'm a dead man."
"If you don't give me those names, you'll go down as a co-conspirator when the feds finally raid them," Sarah countered, her voice hard and uncompromising. "Sterling protected you because you stayed quiet. The Vanguard doesn't care about you. You are entirely expendable to them."
David closed his eyes, a shudder running through his thin frame. He knew she was right. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, encrypted USB drive.
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"This is the master ledger," David whispered, sliding it into her hand. "It doesn't just have the names. It has the bank routing numbers for the offshore accounts. The man at the top... his name is Elias Thorne. He’s untouchable, Sarah. He owns politicians, judges, police chiefs."
"No one is untouchable," Sarah said, gripping the drive. "Not anymore."
