Chapter 5 - ETHAN'S REASON
Ethan arrived with counsel at six-thirty.
He looked less smug.
Still angry.
Caleb showed him only records counsel agreed could be disclosed.
Ethan read the event-mask line.
Then said:
“I remember.”
Vanessa stared at him from across the table.
“You remember?”
Olivia said nothing.
The three executives had finally been brought into one room with lawyers present.
Arthur sat at the far end by choice.
Ethan continued.
“The board chair's security consultant recommended masking continuity events during the stalking threat.”
Claire answered:
“No.”
Ethan looked at her.
“I was there.”
“So was I.”
Claire turned her laptop.
“The consultant recommended masking floor display in the passenger interface. Not disabling central event forwarding.”
Ethan's attorney leaned over.
“Mr. Brooks, don't speculate.”
Ethan stopped.
Then Caleb asked:
“Why did you enable the mask?”
Ethan looked toward Arthur.
“He gave us a system nobody understood.”
Arthur almost responded.
Then decided not to protect his pride.
Ethan continued.
The stalking threat did not end after seventy-two hours.
Someone mailed photographs of CEO Martin Shaw leaving his apartment.
Then photographed his teenage daughter at school.
Law enforcement became involved.
The security team worried too many people could access executive movement logs.
Ethan believed central elevator logs themselves were a security risk.
So he ordered continuity events masked.
“On whose authority?”
Caleb asked.
“Mine.”
“You were Chief Operating Officer.”
“Yes.”
“You did not control audit retention.”
“I controlled physical operations.”
“Not the same thing.”
“No.”
There.
Ethan had a reason.
A legitimate threat.
An illegitimate solution.
He used Arthur's derived token because it already worked.
He did not ask Arthur.
Did not tell Security.
Did not document the change properly.
Arthur stared at him.
“You knew my account would appear if something went wrong.”
Ethan looked at him.
“I didn't think anything would go wrong.”
“You renewed the token.”
“Yes.”
“Under my root.”
“Yes.”
“And when the Harbor investigation showed my credential—”
Ethan interrupted.
“I did not know the derived token would collapse attribution back to your root ID.”
Claire said:
“You should have.”
Ethan looked at her.
“Probably.”
Arthur studied him.
“Did you tell the investigators you had used my token?”
Silence.
Ethan's lawyer shifted.
Caleb said:
“You can answer or not.”
Ethan finally said:
“No.”
“Why?”
The answer came fast.
“Because I thought it would make me look responsible for the leak.”
Arthur almost laughed.
“And me?”
Ethan looked at him.
“I told myself your access controls were already a mess.”
There.
Not a plot to frame Arthur.
Something uglier in a more ordinary way.
Ethan saw suspicion moving toward a lower-level employee and decided not to redirect it toward himself.
Vanessa asked:
“What does any of this have to do with me?”
Caleb turned the screen.
11:53 p.m.
Her continuity profile.
Vanessa crossed her arms.
“I was on forty-nine.”
Her lawyer looked at her.
She ignored him.
Arthur blinked.
In 2022 Vanessa had denied being in the building after ten.
Caleb asked:
“Why?”
“I had a board packet to correct.”
“Which part?”
“The Harbor workforce appendix.”
There it was.
The same pages that leaked.
Vanessa continued before anyone accused her.
“The reduction estimate was wrong.”
“Wrong how?”
“It included contractor attrition as employee eliminations.”
“So you changed it.”
“I revised it.”
“After the board packet was circulated.”
“Yes.”
“Without the board secretary?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the meeting was at seven-thirty the next morning and I wanted accurate numbers.”
Arthur asked:
“Did you remove pages?”
Vanessa looked at him.
“I replaced pages.”
“Where were the originals?”
She stopped.
Olivia finally spoke.
“On the printer table.”
Everyone turned.
Vanessa stared.
Olivia looked directly at Caleb.
“That's what none of us told the investigation.”
Arthur's chest tightened.
May you like
Olivia continued.
“The leaked pages were the pages Vanessa removed.”
