Chapter 41 - the night of the blackout
The outage affected the headquarters, factories and backup center simultaneously.
Owen confirmed that someone had used executive credentials to shut down the internal network before launching a deletion program against the audit files.
Only four people possessed the required access: Nora, Malcolm, Owen and Simon.
Simon was under protective supervision.
Nora was with Elias.
Malcolm was being interviewed by investigators.
That left Owen—or someone using the credentials Malcolm had previously stolen from him.
Nora drove toward headquarters while Grace instructed the audit team to disconnect every remaining server physically.
Emergency lights illuminated the lobby. Employees crowded beside the exits, receiving conflicting messages about a cyberattack.
Owen waited inside the control room.
“The deletion began from Dad’s office,” he said. “But the terminal was activated remotely.”
“Can we stop it?”
“The main backup is already damaged.”
“What about Elias’s drive?”
“It was connected to Grace’s secure portal when the blackout began.”
Nora called Grace.
The drive remained accessible, but files were disappearing one by one.
Gideon had prepared a hidden command inside the encryption system. Entering the final password activated the deletion.
Elias had unknowingly carried the trap for years.
“The first-transfer file is gone,” Grace said.
Nora closed her eyes.
That single record could have connected Gideon to the original theft.
Owen searched the archive logs.
“The file was opened once before tonight.”
“By whom?”
“The system cannot identify the user. But it was accessed on the night of the fiftieth-anniversary gala.”
Nora remembered the ballroom screens, speeches and historical video presentation. The event company had imported old Vale Meridian photographs and documents into a temporary production server.
The audit file might have been included accidentally.
“Where is the gala equipment?” she asked.
“The production company stores it for one year.”
The anniversary had taken place eleven months earlier.
Maya contacted the company.
The original server was scheduled to be erased the following morning.
Gideon had failed to destroy one copy because he did not know it existed.
But someone else did.
May you like
Security footage showed a man entering the production warehouse twenty minutes earlier.
Judge Holloway.
