Chapter 15 - THE HUNT FOR THE TRAITOR
While Rachel and Oliver rested, I set up a makeshift intelligence command center on the cabin's dining table using a air-gapped laptop and a portable satellite transceiver I had modified to scramble our location telemetry.
"We need to know who leaked our position in Seattle," I told Hayes as he cleaned his service pistol nearby. "The breach happened within four seconds of my accessing the primary decrypted index. That wasn't an external hack—it was a automated ping sent from inside the DOJ’s secure network."
"I've worked with my team for eight years," Hayes muttered, his face dark with suppressed anger. "I’d lay my life down for any of them."
"Don't look at your team," I said, rotating the laptop toward him. "Look at the routing logs. The ping wasn't authorized by an field agent. It was initiated from the executive office of Deputy Director Deputy Director William Sterling."
Hayes froze, his eyes widening in disbelief. "Sterling? He’s the head of the regional organized crime task force. He’s the one who authorized this entire sting operation!"
"He didn't authorize it to arrest Vance," I explained, pulling up a series of cross-referenced wire transfers I had uncovered from the drive. "He authorized it to locate Rachel. Vance paid Sterling fifteen million dollars in offshore cryptocurrency to ensure that Rachel and the hard drive never made it to a courtroom."
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Hayes slammed his fist onto the wooden table, splitting the pine finish. "That miserable bastard. He set us up to be slaughtered."
"Then we are going to use his greed against him," I said, a cold, calculating smile playing on my lips. "Sterling thinks we're running and terrified. He doesn't know I still have a secondary mirror of the master key. I'm going to send him an invitation he can't refuse."
