The Mole

The city was quiet at this hour. Most office buildings stood dark, their windows reflecting the lights of the streets below. Only a few floors in the surrounding towers were still occupied. James N. Calloway preferred it that way. He had never been particularly fond of working with an audience.

He stood across the street from the building, his hands resting in the pockets of his dark coat. For a moment, he simply watched the entrance. The company had its headquarters in one of the more expensive office buildings in the financial district. A fitting address for a business that made a considerable amount of money in the technology sector.

James had done his homework. He knew the company's structure, its key employees and, more importantly, its connections to a competitor. His client suspected that this company had planted a mole in his firm to gain access to confidential information. There was little evidence to support the theory, but enough to make the client nervous. And nervous clients were usually willing to pay well. James had been given a simple task: find out whether there was a mole, identify the person involved and provide proof.

He checked his watch. A little past two in the morning. Perfect. He crossed the street and approached the building. Getting inside had required some preparation, but the security measures were not quite as impressive as the company probably believed. A few minutes later, he was inside the building and standing in the dark lobby. He paused to listen. Nothing.

The silence was almost complete, interrupted only by the low hum of the ventilation system. James glanced towards the reception desk before making his way to the elevators. He had already taken care of the building's security measures, at least for the time he needed. Still, he preferred not to take unnecessary risks. The elevator took him to his destination, and James got out.

He walked past open-plan offices. Glass walls separated meeting rooms from the open workspace, while rows of desks stood neatly arranged beneath the soft emergency lighting. Everything looked expensive, modern and carefully planned. He noticed a few framed awards on the walls and a collection of photographs showing the company's executives at various business events. He briefly studied one of them. The man standing in the center was Richard Hollister, the company's managing director. His name had appeared several times in the information James had collected before accepting the assignment. 

He continued down the corridor until he reached the executive offices. The room he was looking for belonged to the head of corporate security. According to his research, the man had access to internal reports and confidential personnel files. If someone had been placed inside his client’s company, there was a good chance that traces of it could be found here.

James entered the office and closed the door behind him. The room was tidy. A large desk stood in front of the windows, with a computer, two monitors and several neatly arranged folders on top. James approached the desk and took a moment to examine the surroundings. He did not rush. Rushing was how people made mistakes. He checked the computer and found that it was protected by several security measures. Nothing unexpected. He had anticipated that much. Getting access took longer than he would have liked, but eventually the system gave way. A small smile crossed his face.

"Not particularly impressive," he murmured, grinning.

He sat down and began searching through the company's internal records. At first, he found little of interest. Financial reports, employee information, meeting schedules and endless amounts of paperwork. Most of it was irrelevant. Then something caught his attention: a folder containing several files. He opened the first file, which was a spreadsheet with a list of payments made through a subsidiary company. They all went to the same person. The amounts were not particularly large, but the regularity of the transactions caught his attention. He examined the dates and compared them with the information he had received from his client. There was a pattern.

James leaned back slightly in his chair. His expression remained calm, but his interest had increased considerably. He opened another file. This time, it contained a series of internal reports and correspondence between senior employees. Most of the messages were ordinary business communication. However, one name appeared: Daniel Verbeke.

James thought about the name for a sec. It was on the list of his client's closest associates. A senior project manager. He carried on reading. A few minutes later, he found an encrypted archive with copies of internal project documents Verbeke had leaked. Some of the files were a few months old, while others had been created only a few days earlier. Verbeke had been sending confidential information on a regular basis.

James copied the relevant documents and made a note of the file locations. He wanted more than a name. A name was easy to obtain, but evidence was what his client was paying for. He also found a short exchange of emails between Verbeke and an unidentified contact. The messages were brief and carefully worded. Nothing that would immediately attract attention, but enough to confirm that the two had been communicating outside normal business channels. James saved a copy on a memory stick.

Then he noticed something else. A notification appeared in the corner of the screen. Security system alert. Unusual access detected. He stared at it for a second.

"Well, that's unfortunate."

He checked the time. Damn, he had spent longer than planned inside the system. Someone might already have received the alert. He closed the files, removed the evidence of his session as far as the system allowed and stood up. There was no reason to stay. James put the memory stick back into his coat pocket. Before leaving, he took one last look at the desk. Everything appeared to be exactly where he had found it. Then he switched off the monitor and walked towards the door. The corridor was still empty, but the building no longer felt quite as quiet as before. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the faint sound of an elevator. He stopped.

For a moment, he considered his options. He could wait, or he could leave through the emergency staircase. The latter seemed considerably more sensible. He made his way towards the stairs without changing his pace. By the time he reached the ground floor, the lobby was still deserted. He stepped outside and disappeared into the darkness of the street.

The night had been productive, but he was not quite ready to call the job finished. Verbeke might've been the mole, but James was keen to know who had recruited him, how much info had been passed on and, most importantly, who was really pulling the strings. After all, finding the guy who opened the door was one thing. Finding the person who gave him the key was something else entirely.