Chapter 36 - Feeding the Rat
A mole relies entirely on the assumption that their treason remains undetected. I intended to weaponize that exact assumption. Instead of launching a massive internal inquisition that would disrupt operations and alert the traitor, Julian and I constructed a masterful digital labyrinth. We isolated the compromised server and created a perfectly mirrored phantom database, filling it with highly sophisticated, deliberately flawed data.
"The new blueprints are loaded into the phantom server," Julian reported three days later, sitting across from me in the penthouse. "They look completely authentic. The architectural ratios, the financial projections, the material costs—it all seems brilliant. But if Sterling actually tries to build according to these specs, the foundation load-bearing calculations will fail federal safety inspections by a margin of twenty percent."
"Excellent," I smiled, reviewing the flawless deception on my monitor. "Now we just need to give our traitor a reason to steal them. Call an emergency executive meeting. Tell the senior staff that we are accelerating the London timeline and that I have personally uploaded the final, unchangeable schematics to the secure server."
Within hours, the bait was set. The executive team gathered in the conference room, completely unaware of the digital snare waiting in the darkness. I delivered a passionate, demanding speech about crushing Vanguard's monopoly, explicitly highlighting the importance of the new blueprints I had supposedly just finalized. I watched their faces carefully, searching for the slightest flicker of guilt or anticipation. They all masked it perfectly.
That night, Julian and I sat in the dark command center, watching the server logs on the main screen. At exactly 2:14 AM, the trap was sprung.
"We have a bite," Julian whispered, watching a red alert flash across the screen. "Someone is accessing the phantom server. They are using the Chief Financial Officer's cloned credentials this time."
"Trace the destination," I commanded, leaning forward, the predatory thrill of the hunt racing through my veins.
"It’s bouncing through proxies in Berlin and Amsterdam," Julian said, his fingers a blur over the keyboard as he aggressively stripped away the encryption layers. "Got it. The final destination is a private, unlisted server located in a residential townhouse in Mayfair. I'm pulling the property records now."
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Julian’s screen refreshed, displaying the name of the townhouse owner. It wasn't Marcus Sterling. It was someone much closer to home.
"It's Elena Vance," Julian breathed in absolute shock. "Our Head of European Acquisitions."
