Chapter 11 - Aftermath and Audits
The executive conference room was unnaturally quiet when Rachel Monroe laid a printed network access log across the polished oak table.
'We pulled the complete packet capture from the firewall logs,' Rachel explained, pointing to a highlighted subnet address. 'Ethan didn't just guess his way back into your archive portal. He had active assistance from someone inside Bennett Event Systems.'
Claire stared at the IP subnet designation, her brow furrowing deeply. 'That subnet belongs to our regional operations division in Boston. Who had clearance for that tier?'
'Marcus Vance,' Priya said quietly, walking into the room with a supplementary personnel file. 'Vanessa’s cousin. He was hired six months ago as a junior systems integration specialist through an internal referral program.'
A heavy silence settled over the room. The plot had suddenly expanded far beyond a simple domestic betrayal. This was premeditated corporate sabotage from within.
'He used his own credentials to bypass the secondary firewall authentication, creating a temporary proxy tunnel that allowed Ethan to upload the forged sponsorship documents without triggering our primary intrusion detection systems,' Rachel summarized, her eyes gleaming with prosecutorial intent. 'That elevates Ethan’s charges from grand larceny to a coordinated enterprise conspiracy involving insider threat vectors.'
'Can we prove collusion?' Claire asked, her voice dangerously calm.
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'We already have the digital paper trail,' Priya replied, tapping her tablet. 'Encrypted messaging logs recovered from Marcus’s work terminal show a direct financial agreement between him and Ethan: ten thousand dollars in cash upon successful processing of the fraudulent vendor sponsorships.'
'Terminate his employment immediately,' Claire instructed, standing up and walking toward the glass wall. 'Revoke all access credentials, freeze his corporate accounts, and hand the complete dossier over to the federal prosecutor handling Ethan’s case.'
