Chapter 4 - Twelve People
Forty-one was not an ordinary floor.
It housed Richard's office, Vanessa's office, the CFO suite, legal strategy rooms and the private board conference center.
Access required a badge plus biometric verification outside regular hours.
Twelve people had permanent authorization.
Richard.
Vanessa.
Malcolm.
Claire.
General counsel.
Three executive assistants.
Two security administrators.
The facilities director.
And Ethan.
Margaret Sloan read the final name twice.
“The engineer?”
Ethan, watching remotely from the security room despite Richard's order to rest, gave a tired laugh.
“Yes, apparently the sleeping criminal had executive-floor access.”
Vanessa winced.
Margaret asked, “Why?”
Claire answered.
“Emergency systems response.”
Malcolm folded his arms.
“That materially changes things.”
Vanessa looked at him.
“How?”
“The attack used Vanessa's credential from a floor Ethan could enter.”
Ethan appeared on the conference monitor.
His face hardened.
Malcolm continued.
“And Ethan conveniently discovered the breach.”
Richard spoke.
“Careful.”
“I'm asking what any responsible director should ask.”
“No. You're implying before the forensic review is complete.”
Vanessa heard the echo of Ethan's criticism.
She studied Malcolm.
He sounded reasonable.
That was what made him dangerous if he was lying.
Claire displayed the building logs.
“At 1:54 a.m., Ethan's badge entered forty-one.”
Several directors reacted.
Ethan closed his eyes.
“I was there.”
Vanessa stared.
“You didn't mention that.”
“Nobody asked.”
“Why were you on my floor?”
“Because the first irregularity pointed to an executive authentication server.”
Malcolm leaned forward.
“So you were physically near the terminal from which the attack originated.”
“I was twenty minutes early for an attack that started at 2:11?”
“You could have scheduled it.”
Ethan's exhaustion sharpened into anger.
“If I wanted to destroy Harrington Global, Malcolm, I probably wouldn't spend three hours stopping myself.”
“Unless stopping it made you indispensable.”
Richard raised a hand.
“Enough.”
Claire zoomed into the badge log.
“Ethan entered at 1:54.”
Then another record appeared.
“He left at 2:03.”
Vanessa frowned.
“Eight minutes before the session began.”
“Yes.”
“Where did he go?”
Ethan answered.
“Server operations.”
Claire verified it.
Camera footage showed Ethan entering the elevator at 2:03 and arriving on thirty-six at 2:05.
At 2:11, he was visible on another camera.
Malcolm leaned back.
“So someone else.”
“Likely,” Claire said.
“Likely isn't certainty.”
“No,” Ethan replied. “Evidence is.”
Vanessa noticed Richard watching Ethan.
Not like an employee.
Like an equal in the conversation.
That would have enraged her yesterday.
Today it made sense.
Claire showed the next layer.
At 2:07, one biometric reader on forty-one recorded an administrative maintenance event.
No person.
No badge.
Just an override.
“Who can issue that?” Margaret asked.
“Corporate Security,” Claire said.
“Names?”
“Three people.”
Vanessa glanced at Ethan.
“Could the override be falsified?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“From an internal admin terminal.”
“Where are those?”
“Security operations, IT infrastructure…and the CFO technical compliance office.”
Every face turned slightly.
Malcolm laughed once.
“So now my office is evidence?”
“No,” Ethan said. “It's geography.”
Richard asked Claire to continue.
At 2:09, a camera outside Vanessa's office froze for seventeen minutes.
The footage did not go black.
It repeated the same four seconds.
A loop.
“That takes expertise,” Margaret said.
Ethan nodded.
“Or instructions.”
“Could an ordinary executive do it?”
“Not easily.”
Malcolm stared at him.
“But you could.”
“Yes.”
The answer surprised everyone.
Ethan continued.
“So could at least fourteen other technical employees.”
Vanessa watched him refuse the easy defense.
He did not exaggerate certainty even when it helped him.
She thought about how quickly she had judged him.
Then another record appeared.
At 2:15, while the attack was active, a document had been printed from the CFO suite.
Malcolm's expression disappeared.
“What document?” Richard asked.
Claire opened the record.
It was titled PROJECT NORTHSTAR — CONTINGENCY VALUATION.
Malcolm spoke immediately.
“Confidential financial analysis.”
“About what?” Vanessa asked.
“A potential restructuring.”
“What restructuring?”
“Not relevant to the cyber incident.”
Richard's voice turned cold.
“I'll decide relevance.”
Malcolm looked toward the directors.
“This is privileged board strategy.”
Margaret Sloan frowned.
“I chair governance. I've never heard of Project Northstar.”
Neither had three other directors.
Richard's face darkened.
“Open it.”
Claire hesitated.
“It's encrypted.”
Ethan leaned toward his screen.
“What encryption?”
“Local certificate.”
“Whose?”
Claire checked.
She stopped.
Vanessa knew before she answered.
“Malcolm's.”
Richard looked across the table at the man who had been his friend for twenty years.
“Decrypt it.”
Malcolm's jaw tightened.
“No.”
The word dropped into the room.
Vanessa stared.
Richard's expression did not change.
“Why?”
“Because confidential strategic work becomes meaningless if every internal panic overrides privilege.”
Margaret said, “You don't have unilateral privilege against the board.”
Malcolm looked around the table.
Then he smiled.
It was small.
Almost sad.
“You're all reacting exactly as whoever sent that anonymous email intended.”
Richard leaned toward him.
“Then help us prove it.”
Malcolm stood.
“My counsel will contact the company.”
Richard's voice sharpened.
“Sit down.”
Malcolm stopped.
For a moment they were no longer founder and CFO.
They were two men confronting the possibility that decades of trust had different meanings to each of them.
Malcolm slowly sat.
Claire's tablet chimed.
A new forensic result appeared.
Someone had tried to delete Project Northstar remotely less than sixty seconds earlier.
The deletion failed because of Richard's legal hold.
Claire looked around the room.
“The request came from a phone connected to this conference room.”
Nobody moved.
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