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Chapter 115
Sarin's monitoring system went live three days later, a modest script running quietly against the six remaining server nodes' traffic, flagging any activity spike that matched the twenty-seven-minute pattern she'd identified. Ryu checked it obsessively between his increasingly tedious liaison duties, aware of how strange it felt to split his attention between raccoon mascot appearances and a countdown that might, at any moment, cost someone their life.The alert came on the fourth evening, while he was drafting a press release about a youth basketball tournament the department was sponsoring. His phone buzzed with Sarin's urgent message, and he abandoned the half-finished document immediately.*Node four. Activity spike confirmed six minutes ago. Timer's running.*He called Jin Rae from his car, already pulling out of the precinct's lot. "Twenty-one minutes left on the clock. Where's node four located?""A property near the old cathedral district," Jin Rae said, her own voice carrying
Chapter 114
The formal transfer notice arrived within the week, considerably faster than Osei had expected, and Ryu's reassignment to the community liaison office became public almost immediately — a brief item in the department's internal newsletter, a handful of congratulatory messages from colleagues who clearly understood none of the strategy behind it, and a noticeable, uncomfortable silence from the people who'd watched him build the Cold Case Division from nothing just weeks earlier.He spent his first official day at the liaison office exactly as unglamorously as he'd expected — reviewing a stack of school visit requests, drafting a statement for a community newsletter, sitting through an orientation meeting that covered procedures he suspected he'd never actually need to use. It was, by any measure, precisely the kind of quiet, unremarkable work meant to make him forgettable.He met Jin Rae and Sarin that evening at a coffee shop three blocks from the precinct, deliberately chosen for it
Chapter 113
Osei called him into his office the following morning, closing the door with a deliberateness that immediately set Ryu's instincts on alert — the particular care the captain reserved for conversations he'd rather not have at all."Sit," Osei said, and waited until Ryu had settled into the chair across the desk before continuing. "I received a request yesterday. Formal, through proper channels, which is what makes it difficult to simply dismiss.""What kind of request?""A transfer recommendation." Osei slid a printed memo across the desk, and Ryu scanned it with growing unease. "Deputy Commissioner Reyes-Walton — no relation to Officer Reyes, before you ask, I checked — wants you reassigned to the department's community liaison office. Public relations work, essentially. Visiting schools, giving interviews, attending ceremonial functions.""That's not investigative work at all.""No," Osei agreed grimly. "It's a polite way of removing you from anything sensitive while making it look l
Chapter 112
The former Meridian Secure Solutions technician, a thin, nervous man named Castillo, agreed to meet Jin Rae only after she'd spent two days tracking him through three different temporary addresses, each one suggesting a man actively trying to stay difficult to find. He'd finally settled at a coffee shop on the city's north side, choosing a table near the exit, his eyes flicking toward the door every few minutes throughout the conversation."I only worked installation," he said, before she'd asked a single question, his hands wrapped tight around a cup he hadn't touched. "I want that clear from the start. Whatever those things actually did once they were live, I wasn't involved in that part.""Nobody's accusing you of anything yet," Jin Rae said carefully, keeping her tone measured despite his obvious agitation. "I just need to understand what you actually installed, and what you were told it was for."Castillo glanced toward the door again before continuing, his voice dropping lower.
Chapter 111
The alert came through Sarin's monitoring system two days later, a quiet notification she almost missed amid the division's ongoing inventory work — one of the eight server nodes, the ones they'd discovered hidden in the homes of Meridian City's most respected citizens, had registered activity."That shouldn't be possible," she said, pulling up the log with visible alarm. "We seized the physical drives from Hargrove's cellar and Davies's office. The other six were supposed to be under department monitoring, passive observation only, until we had resources for a full coordinated search.""Which node?" Ryu asked, crossing to her desk."Node seven. A property belonging to a retired judge named Ellis, before you ask," Sarin added, already pulling the address. "The log shows an active data transfer three hours ago. Incoming and outgoing both."Ryu felt the familiar tightening in his chest that accompanied every confirmation that the quiet they'd been cautiously enjoying remained, as he'd s
Chapter 110
They spent the next two days running a complete inventory of every file in the division's possession, Sarin building a master spreadsheet that cross-referenced transfer dates, authorizing signatures, and originating departments against the staff roster she'd requested from HR — a document that had taken considerably longer to obtain than it should have, given how routine the request technically was."I count thirty-one files total," Sarin said, turning her monitor toward Ryu and Jin Rae on the second afternoon. "Eighteen came through proper channels — legitimate cold cases, genuinely assigned to us by Osei's original request. The other thirteen""Thirteen unauthorized transfers," Jin Rae finished, studying the spreadsheet's color-coded rows."Thirteen," Sarin confirmed. "All bearing forged authorization signatures. Four from me, as we already found. Five more using Osei's name. Three using yours, Ryu and one using a signature that doesn't match anyone currently on this department's st
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