"Then your messages should prove it."
Maya turned to Owen. "Preserve the purge request, its authentication, the exact archive selection, and any command response. Document what was and wasn't completed."
Rebecca crossed her arms and looked away. She had the unsettling sensation that each attempt to defend herself was producing another record she could no longer control. Mercer stood nearby, silent now. On the monitor, a certificate linked to the hidden server carried his executive identity. He suggested that such a certificate could have been installed during ordinary configuration.
Maya asked whether he knew it existed on the undocumented system. He said he did not. She asked whether he knew the hidden room existed. Again he said no.
Rebecca gave a short, humorless laugh. "That's convenient, Chief."
"You're not helping yourself," Mercer said.
"Neither are you."
Maya directed an agent to escort Rebecca to a separate office and preserve the records she said would support her account. The objective was not to turn a heated accusation into proof of conspiracy. The objective was to prevent the exchange from replacing documents, actions, and individual responsibility with a contest over who could speak more forcefully.
A federal agent appeared at the doorway as Rebecca was leaving. "Agent Williams, Nathan Cole has arrived for his interview."
Maya looked from the command console to the hallway. At the start of the morning, Nathan had been a name in a digital archive with a disputed video. Now the agency had recovered source evidence contradicting the official account of his initial search, and the department's own administrative environment was proving less reliable with each discovery.
"Don't interview him here," Maya said after a moment. "Move him to the secure federal location outside Asheford. Tell him the reason in terms he can understand. He's a witness, not a prisoner. We need his statement on an environment we control."
The agent nodded. Nathan was led to a federal transport vehicle waiting by the service entrance. Maya met him there briefly. He was a lean young man with tired eyes and an inexpensive brown jacket, younger in person than he had looked on the body camera. He watched the station door as if expecting somebody to call him back.
"Because of the records?" he asked when Maya explained the change of location.
"Because systems connected to your case are under investigation. I want your interview protected from those issues."
"Am I in danger?"
"Not from anything we've established. I won't invent a threat just to make the situation sound urgent. But we're being careful."
Nathan studied her. "That's a very careful answer."
"It's the answer I can support."
He entered the vehicle without another question. Maya watched the doors close, then returned to the evidence office. Behind her the transport departed along the county route. Ahead of her, the screens still showed contractor sessions associated with a network whose true architecture the city had never officially acknowledged.
Lena called out before Maya had reached the workstation. "Something just accessed the vehicle-routing interface."