Chapter 9 - WHAT GRANT WAS SELLING
The atrium was cleared.
Applicants were moved into a conference room.
Ava and I stayed because I was now a witness.
Cole stayed too.
Federal investigators arrived ninety minutes later.
That was how quickly corporate embarrassment became something larger.
I gave my statement.
The cloned badge.
Grant removing it.
The physical assessment.
The wallet.
Ava finding it.
Cole confirmed everything.
So did Victoria.
The badge encoder changed the investigation.
Grant was not simply using Martin’s stolen credentials.
He had been copying access cards.
Why?
That took longer.
Two weeks later, Victoria called me.
“We found the answer.”
I had almost forgotten what her voice sounded like outside the atrium.
“What answer?”
“Grant was selling temporary access.”
I sat down.
“To whom?”
“Contractors. Vendors. At least one outside consultant who had no authorized reason to enter engineering.”
“For money?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Possibly eighteen months.”
My stomach tightened.
“And Martin?”
“Martin noticed inconsistencies in the logs.”
That explained everything.
Grant stole his wallet.
Used his credentials.
Created access records under Martin’s identity.
Then helped accuse Martin of negligence.
“What about the cloned badge I found?”
Victoria sighed.
“It belonged to a visiting defense liaison.”
“Grant cloned it?”
“Apparently.”
“And left it in the training room?”
“Not intentionally.”
Finally, the missing piece.
Grant had been testing the encoder before candidates arrived.
Someone called him away.
The cloned credential remained in the simulation suite.
Then I found it.
He had spent the rest of the assessment trying to turn me from witness into failed applicant before Victoria could take my observation seriously.
The rabbit.
The insults.
Cole.
The shove.
None of it was random.
Grant wasn’t simply vicious.
May you like
He was afraid.
And frightened men with authority are sometimes most dangerous when they can disguise retaliation as procedure.
