Chapter 43 - Someone Inside the Investigation
Just after midnight, the temporary investigation office lost power.
Only for seven seconds.
Backup generators activated immediately.
Computers restarted.
Security systems recovered.
Everything appeared normal.
Then the cybersecurity specialist frowned.
"That's impossible."
Margaret walked over.
"What happened?"
"The outage wasn't random."
He enlarged the network logs.
"Someone attempted to access our evidence archive during those seven seconds."
Arthur looked toward the monitor.
"Did they succeed?"
"No."
The specialist paused.
"But they knew exactly where to look."
Every investigator exchanged uneasy glances.
The archive existed only on isolated encrypted systems.
Its location had never been disclosed outside the investigation team.
Margaret slowly looked around the room.
"There are only two possibilities."
The legal counsel finished the thought.
"Someone who built the original network..."
"...or someone who knows our investigation from the inside," Margaret replied.
Silence settled over the office.
The specialist restored the surveillance recordings.
Every entrance remained locked.
No unauthorized person had entered.
No external device had connected.
Yet the intrusion attempt had originated using valid internal credentials.
Arthur folded his arms.
"Can you identify whose credentials?"
The specialist hesitated.
"I can."
He typed several commands before the name appeared.
His expression immediately changed.
"I... don't understand."
Margaret stepped closer.
The username belonged to an investigator who had been sitting in the same room throughout the outage.
No one spoke.
The investigator himself stared at the screen in disbelief.
"My credentials were cloned," he whispered.
Margaret did not rush to conclusions.
Instead, she quietly disconnected the investigation server from every remaining network.
Someone had just demonstrated two unsettling facts.
First—they were monitoring the investigation in real time.
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Second—they possessed technical knowledge far beyond anything the team had previously anticipated.
And somewhere beyond the walls of headquarters, whoever had remained invisible for nearly twenty years had finally made the first move against Margaret Hale.
