MTLNOVEL Chapter 262: Frustrated
Kara froze, eyeing Vance and Sandy. "My bad. Agent... Greaves. But what I was saying was that the routing data resides in deeper network diagnostic logs. Here, I'll show you."
She gestured to Rico. "Rico, pull up Node Diagnostic Set NDS-7 for Navarro, time-synced." Rico navigated complex menus. A new, dense table of IP addresses, ports, and routing paths appeared.
Lilian pointed a perfectly manicured finger at a specific, seemingly random entry. "This gateway. `gateway.zephyr.aux`. Its IP trace doesn't resolve to any standard Steele Complex subnet. Explain."
Deborah, who also worked in IT, stepped forward slightly, her voice calm and analytical. "Zephyr is an internal codename, Agent Greaves. It refers to a legacy load-balancing protocol we inherited during the Navarro site acquisition. Its subnet was deprecated but still pings during high-load tests as a failover check. Purely internal, non-routed. You can see here," she gestured to another column, "the destination IPs are all internal monitoring servers. No external egress."
Lilian's eyes narrowed, flicking between the data and Deborah's grinning face. "You're Deborah Smith. You worked for Google once."
"Yes."
"Interesting to see you've ended here."
Darren didn't say anything, but took note of that encounter.
Lilian returned to what Deborah had told her. It was plausible. Annoyingly plausible. But she wasn't going to give up yet. "I want the raw packet capture for `gateway.zephyr.aux` during the largest spike."
"Raw PCAP?" Kara raised an eyebrow. "That's… intensive. And contains massive amounts of proprietary protocol data unrelated to your investigation."
"Nonetheless," Lilian stated.
Vance intervened, his voice a low rumble. "Agent, our agreement stipulates access to logs, not wholesale network captures containing trade secrets. We can provide filtered packet headers relevant to destination IPs for the period, demonstrating no external transmission from this gateway. Would that suffice?"
Lilian frowned. "But Navarro—"
"Why do you keep bringing up Navarro?" Darren interrupted. "That facility hasn't even been launched yet. Everything you see here are just location pings. Navarro is a warehouse for shipment containers, not a site for Bitcoin wallets."
Lilian's eyes remained on him for a moment.
"My client is right," Daisy added. "All the transactions you've checked concerning Navarro have been legal. And... it's temporary. Continuous probing is becoming pointless and is heading to forceful investigation without due evidence."
Silence. Lilian had to accept defeat here.
"So would the filtered packet headers suffice?" Daisy finished with the question.
Lilian held her gaze for a long moment, the hum of the servers the only sound. "For now," she conceded, the words clipped. "Proceed."
Rico worked quickly, applying filters. Kara exchanged quick glances with Darren and Sandy, understanding how close that was.
When Rico was done, the display updated, showing only header data for `gateway.zephyr.aux`.
Every destination listed was indeed an internal Steele Complex IP. Lilian scrutinized it, finding no gap, no hint of an Estonian shell or a Croatian aggregator. It was all freaking legitimate.
Her lips tightened. She moved on, the frustration a subtle tightening around her eyes. "The R. Talmor wallet. Show me its association within your internal records. Proof it's a vendor or partner."
Darren watched, impassive, from the back.
Kara took a breath. "Rico, bring up Vendor Management Portal. Search 'Talmor'."
Rico did just that and a new window opened on a secondary screen, showing a clean, corporate interface. Rico typed. A single entry appeared: "R. Talmor Solutions LLC. Status: Inactive. Services: Legacy hardware procurement consultancy (2010-2011). Primary Contact: Discontinued."
"Discontinued?" Lilian pounced.
"Common when small consultancies fold," Sandy offered smoothly. "We maintain the record for historical financial reconciliation, but the contact path is dead. We haven't engaged them since Q1 2011. Long before Navarro was even a blueprint."
"And the address linking it to Navarro?" Lilian pressed.
"Was their registered address at the time we used them," Kara explained, pulling up an old contract snippet. "They sublet space in a warehouse complex Navarro now occupies. John Brittle was the former owner but he had connections to Talmor. Purely coincidental geography. The flagged transfers happened after their contract ended."
Lilian stared at the screen. She stood straight and folded her arms. "Feels like plot armor if you ask me."
Everything was watertight. Too watertight.
She turned and headed out. "Cold storage. I want to verify the holdings linked to Steele Complex primary wallets. Specifically, anomaly detection during the aggregation window."
This was the heart. Accessing cold storage logs, even hashed summaries, risked exposing the lattice if their mirroring failed.
Kara led them to a separate, even more secure section behind a retinal scanner. Inside, terminals glowed softly. "Cold storage access is air-gapped and multi-sig," Kara stated.
"We don't pull live logs. We generate hashed, time-stamped balance attestations." She sat at a terminal, inserted a physical key, then looked at Sandy. "Authorization code, please." Sandy recited a complex string. Kara entered it, then placed her thumb on a scanner.
The screen displayed: `Generating Attestation Report: Steele Complex Primary Vault - Timeframe: [Flagged 72-Hour Window]`.
Seconds ticked by, feeling like hours in the tense silence. Lilian watched the screen unblinkingly. Finally, a report populated. It showed wallet addresses, their public keys, and a complex hash representing the balance at the end of the 72-hour window. No transaction history. Just snapshots.
"See?" Kara pointed. "Steele Primary Vault A. Balance Hash: `a3f8d...`. Steele Primary Vault B. Balance Hash: `c901e...`. No significant, unexplained inflows during the window matching 41 BTC. The aggregate holdings here," she gestured to a total line, "aligns with our reported treasury figures. No anomaly."
Lilian leaned in, her eyes scanning the hashes, the addresses. "Verify the hash against a live checksum now*" she demanded.
Kara didn't hesitate. "Rico, run live checksum on Primary Vault A and B." Commands were entered on another secure terminal. Moments later, codes appeared: `a3f8d...` and `c901e...`. Matching the attestation hashes exactly.
There was no flaw. No discrepancy. The mirror drive and zero-trace partition had worked. The lattice, the phantom transfers, the dummy accounts – all remained hidden behind the sanitized view. The R. Talmor ghost had vanished into the digital ether.
Lilian Greaves straightened up. The relentless energy that had propelled her through the inspection seemed to drain away, replaced by a cold, hard realization. She had been outmaneuvered. Prepared for.
Every question anticipated, every potential crack sealed before she could prove it. Darren's team hadn't just hidden things; they had constructed an immaculate, parallel reality for her to inspect.
She turned slowly, her storm-grey eyes sweeping past Kara, Rico, Sandy, Vance, Daisy, finally landing on Darren. He met her gaze, his expression still unreadable, but a faint aura of satisfaction seemed to radiate from him.
"Thorough," Lilian stated, the single word devoid of any warmth. "Your systems are... meticulously documented."
Darren gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. "We strive for transparency, Agent Greaves. Within the bounds of security and proprietary interest, of course."
Lilian held his gaze for a beat longer, the unspoken battle hanging heavy in the humming air. She had come for blood, for the truth behind the ghost name, for the proof of Darren Steele's circumvention. She had found only polished surfaces and perfectly rehearsed explanations.
"You don't think this is over, do you?" she asked.
Darren shrugged. "We're not at war, Agent Greaves."
The dark angel scoffed. "We'll see about that."