#Chapter 84: Disavowed

Richard Adam was sloppy. That was what finally did him in. Not the suspicious timing of David’s press pivots or the briefing inconsistencies Amelia had flagged weeks ago. It was the dumb arrogance of thinking no one was watching, that he could poke around the internal draft files for talking points about the forestry subsidies vote and not leave a fingerprint. But we were watching. Nathan and I had set that trap days ago, a fake document with just enough flavor to be tempting. And Adam took the bait. Nathan flagged a sequence of IP activity just after sunrise. One of the bait files, “Forest Revenue Rollback, Draft 3”, had been accessed remotely from a terminal in the intern bullpen, one that hadn’t been used since the original orientation tour. It was sloppy. Amateur. And it was enough. I sent for Adam and let him sweat outside my office for thirteen minutes before opening the door. He walked in with a smirk like he was about to be congratulated for something, like maybe he thoug