Chapter 8 - THE MAN WE WERE WATCHING WAS NOT THE ONLY MARK
The ballroom became operational in seconds.
Security sealed Mark’s corporate credentials.
Sterling contacted headquarters.
I called our chief security architect.
Mark kept repeating, “How can biometric access match me?”
I knew the answer before anyone said it.
His executive authentication profile had been enrolled during a security upgrade six months earlier.
Voice.
Face.
Fingerprint.
Behavioral signature.
Enough data to create dangerous copies if someone had access to the enrollment archive.
Jessica looked sick.
“I introduced him to the consultant.”
Mark turned.
“What consultant?”
She covered her mouth.
“Daniel Frost.”
Sterling cursed.
Daniel Frost had led part of NovaStream’s identity modernization program.
He resigned three months ago.
No scandal.
No warning.
Just gone.
Apparently not gone far enough.
Adrian looked furious.
“Mason used Frost?”
Jessica stared at him.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
That told me something important.
Adrian and Mason were no longer partners.
They were rivals running overlapping plans.
And Mark had been the shared vulnerability.
Sterling received an update.
“The intruder passed the executive lobby.”
“How?”
“Deepfake confirmation on remote review.”
My stomach tightened.
Technology I had helped build was being used against us.
I turned toward Mark.
“Where is your company laptop?”
He hesitated.
“At home.”
“And your backup security key?”
Silence.
Jessica whispered, “Mark.”
I knew.
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“I gave it to Jessica.”
The ballroom actually groaned.
Someone muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
Mark snapped.
“She said she needed temporary access to a market folder.”
I stared at him.
For years, he had told me I was unsophisticated.
Background noise.
A housewife.
Yet he had handed executive credentials to his mistress because she smiled.
I almost admired the symmetry.
Jessica cried out, “I gave it back!”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“To him?”
She pointed toward Adrian.
Adrian’s face darkened.
“No.”
Jessica froze.
“I gave it to your driver.”
“I don’t have a driver.”
Silence.
There it was.
Another layer.
Sterling’s phone buzzed again.
The intruder had reached the server vault corridor.
But instead of opening the archive room, he stopped at a secondary storage suite.
Our legal records repository.
That made no sense.
Unless Mason was never after source code.
Sterling opened the live security map.
The intruder entered Storage 4B.
I recognized the number.
My grandmother’s sealed corporate records had been moved there after her death.
The room contained one physical file no one had digitized.
Her final founder memorandum.
And suddenly I remembered the last thing she ever told me about NovaStream:
“If they ever come back, don’t protect the code.”
I had asked what I should protect instead.
May you like
She said:
“Protect the truth about who paid for it.”
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