It took her 15 minutes to verify what the engineers at Nexus had confirmed in 45 seconds. The patch was legitimate. It was brilliant. And it was the work of someone who understood systems architecture at a level most PhD candidates never reached.
She called Preston Hayes, the CEO of Nexus Systems, directly. She had his personal number from a conference two years earlier.
"Preston," she said, "you have a serious problem, and it's not the kid in your lobby."
Preston Hayes had spent the last six hours watching his company's stock price drop 14%. He had watched the video. He had read the emails. He had not yet spoken to Grant Hollister.
"I'm listening," he said.
"The boy's patch is clean. It's better than clean. It's exceptional. Your VP buried a critical vulnerability for four months to protect his quarterly numbers, and now he's trying to frame the only person who fixed it."
She paused. "I'm prepared to publish my independent verification tonight, but I wanted to give you the chance to do the right thing first."
Preston was quiet for a long time.
"Give me until morning," he said.
Grant Hollister went home that night and slept well. He had filed the FBI complaint. He had locked down the investigation. He had Terrence's ID in a drawer at the security desk. He believed, truly and completely, that he had won.
He had no idea that the morning would be the last time he walked into Nexus Systems as an employee.
The boardroom on the 14th floor of Nexus Systems had floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the entire campus. At 9:00 a.m., every seat at the long mahogany table was filled. Board members, corporate attorneys, and two representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission, who had arrived unannounced at 7:30.
Dr. Sandra Cole sat at the far end with a laptop open in front of her and a folder thick enough to stop a door. Preston Hayes sat at the head of the table. He looked like a man who had not slept, because he had not.
Grant Hollister walked in at 9:04, four minutes late, carrying a coffee and wearing the expression of someone who believed the meeting was about damage control. His kind of damage control. He sat down, adjusted his cuffs, and nodded at the board members like a man greeting colleagues at a routine quarterly review.
"Before we begin," Grant said, "I want to update everyone on the cybersecurity investigation. I've filed a formal complaint with the FBI regarding the individual who accessed our systems yesterday. We have strong reason to believe..."
"Grant." Preston's voice was quiet, the kind of quiet that makes a room go still. "Stop talking."
Grant blinked. "Excuse me?"
Preston pressed a button on the conference phone. The wall-mounted screen lit up. It showed an email.
Subject: RE: Authentication Layer, Potential Vulnerability, Urgent.
Dated four months and 11 days earlier. Sender: Grant Hollister.
The body of the email was three sentences long. The last one read: "Bury it. We're three weeks from my quarterly review. Nothing touches the board until after my numbers are locked."
Grant's coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth.