Chapter 8 - Unmasking the Mole
Kevin’s hands shook violently. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes. "He’ll kill me, Claire. You don't know the people Grant deals with. They aren't businessmen."
"Neither am I when someone threatens my grandfather’s life work," I said softly. "Unplug the bus. Give me the flash drive in your left pocket, and I will personally pay off your sister’s medical debt by noon tomorrow. If you don't, I will step back, let Briggs and the NYPD take you, and you will spend the next twenty-five years in federal prison for corporate espionage and computer fraud."
Kevin looked at the glowing screen, where the encryption progress bar had reached 78%.
He looked at me.
With a choked sob, he reached out and violently yanked the fiber connector from the terminal.
The screens flashed red, then reverted to safety failover mode.
`ALERT: INTRUSION TERMINATED. SYSTEM RESTORING TO BACKUP MIRROR.`
Kevin collapsed onto his knees on the cold concrete, sobbing into his hands. He reached into his pocket and placed a matte-black encrypted thumb drive onto the floor.
"He told me to run this script," Kevin wept. "It wasn't just supposed to wipe Aegis. It was designed to inject fabricated transaction records showing that you transferred forty million dollars of company treasury funds to an offshore account in the Seychelles yesterday afternoon."
I picked up the drive, feeling the cold metal between my fingers. "A scorched-earth short attack."
"Yes," Kevin nodded miserably. "Grant’s hedge fund, Sterling Capital, entered a massive short position against Whitmore Global at market close today. They bought hundreds of thousands of deep out-of-the-money put options through proxy brokerages in London. If the stock plummeted sixty percent at opening, Sterling Capital would have netted over four hundred million dollars on the crash."
The pieces fell into place with terrifying clarity.
Grant never intended to run Whitmore Global. He knew the board wouldn't let him keep operational control forever. His entire plan was to orchestrate a catastrophic collapse, blame it on me, short the stock into oblivion, make four hundred million dollars in profit, pay off his triad debts, and leave my mother and me with the ashes of a destroyed empire.
"Get up, Kevin," I ordered.
He looked up, terrified. "Are you calling the police?"
May you like
"Not yet," I said, turning toward the stairs. "First, you’re going to help Marcus restore the primary network. And then, you’re going to help me feed Grant Sterling into the shredder."
***
