Chapter 193: Transections of Money?

Nobody looked back at the old personnel document. "But someone listed him."

The employee hesitated. "Sir..."

Aiden asked,"What?"

"I found one thing." He opened another record. A single line appeared.

Employee ID: MC-0517

Below it was a status.

Record Archived.

Aiden stared at the screen. "Why would an archived employee record disappear from the main database?"

The employee swallowed. "Because someone manually removed it."

Nobody slowly turned toward Aiden.

Aiden understood immediately. "This wasn’t a system error."

"No," Nobody said. "Someone cleaned up the records."

Toma opened another folder. "This gets worse."

Nobody walked over. "What now?"

She pointed at the screen. The folder contained internal correspondence between several executives.

The messages were short and strangely careful. No one mentioned Project 05-17 directly.

Instead, they repeatedly used the phrase:

"The matter."

One message was dated two weeks after the project was terminated.

The matter has been transferred to legal.

Another followed three days later.

Daniel Cross will handle the remaining documentation.

Then another.

No further communication should be made through company channels.

Aiden’s expression hardened. "They knew."

Nobody looked at the final message.

There was no sender name. Only an executive authorization code. Chairman’s Office.

For several seconds, no one spoke.

Then the System appeared beside Nobody.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Corporate conspiracy indicators detected.]

[Current investigation difficulty: Increasing.]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody glanced at it.

"Can you give me something useful?"

A pause.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Yes.]

[Stop standing around and investigate.]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody stared at the window.

"You’ve become increasingly disrespectful."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[User improvement detected.]

[Sarcasm resistance increased by 3%.]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Nobody sighed.

"Whatever."

Aiden closed the file.

"We need Daniel."

Toma nodded.

"And we need to find out who Marcus Hale was."

Nobody looked at the encrypted archive again.

There were still dozens of files they hadn’t opened.

Whatever Project 05-17 had been, it wasn’t a forgotten incident.

Someone had spent years removing its traces.

And now that Nathan Industries had recovered the original records, someone else might already know they had been found.

.......

Aiden remained seated in front of the archive terminal, staring at the final message from the Chairman’s Office.

No further communication should be made through company channels.

For several seconds, no one moved. The room had become unusually quiet. Even the IT employee seemed hesitant to touch the keyboard again.

Nobody finally broke the silence. "So..."

Aiden looked at him.

Nobody pointed toward the screen. "Are we going to pretend that sentence isn’t incredibly suspicious?"

Toma sighed. "Nobody."

"What?"

"You always say exactly what everyone else is thinking."

"Someone has to."

Aiden stood and walked back toward the terminal. "Let’s stop guessing." He opened the next document.

This one was different from the others. It wasn’t a report. It was a financial summary.

At the top was a five-year-old date.

PROJECT 05-17

CONFIDENTIAL EXPENDITURE SUMMARY

Below it were dozens of transactions.

Aiden slowly scrolled through them. His expression changed. "These payments weren’t made directly."

Toma stepped closer. "What do you mean?"

Aiden enlarged the document. "Look at the payment chain."

The first payment had been made by Nathan Industries to Westbridge Consulting. Westbridge had then transferred the money to another company. That company had transferred part of it to another account. Then another.

Nobody stared at the screen. "That’s a lot of companies."

"Exactly," Aiden said.

Toma frowned. "Why would Nathan Industries send money through so many companies?"

"To make the original destination difficult to trace."

Nobody nodded. "Money laundering?"

Aiden shook his head. "Not necessarily. But it looks like someone wanted to hide where the money ultimately went."

Nobody leaned closer. "Can we follow it?"

The IT employee adjusted his glasses. "The records inside this archive only show the first two transfers."

"Why?"

"Because the later transactions were recorded outside Nathan’s accounting system."

Aiden’s eyes narrowed. "Outside?"

"Yes. Someone manually entered the first transactions, then removed the supporting documents."

Nobody looked at Toma. "So someone built a financial trail that stopped right before the important part."

Toma nodded slowly. "And they made sure Nathan Industries couldn’t follow it."

Aiden opened another document.

This one was a list of contracts. There were twelve in total. Every contract had been approved during the same six-month period.

Aiden read the first one. Then the second. Then the third. His expression became colder. "They’re procurement contracts."

Toma looked at him. "For what?"

"Equipment, office renovation, transportation services, consulting and security."

Nobody raised an eyebrow. "That doesn’t sound very exciting."

Aiden continued scrolling. "It isn’t." He opened the payment section. "Until you compare the prices."

The room fell silent again.

Aiden highlighted two contracts.

One company had charged Nathan Industries nearly twice the market rate for transportation services. Another had charged almost three times the normal cost for office equipment.

Toma stared at the numbers. "That’s impossible."

"It’s not impossible." Aiden pointed at the authorization field. "It was approved."

"By whom?"

Aiden clicked the approval record. The screen displayed an executive authorization code.

Chairman’s Office.

Nobody slowly exhaled. "So Project 05-17 wasn’t just hiding information."

Aiden nodded. "It was hiding money."

Toma crossed her arms. "Then why call it a project?"

Aiden didn’t answer immediately. He opened another document. This one contained an internal organizational chart. Several departments were connected by lines.

Legal, Finance, Procurement, Security, Executive Management. At the center was a small label.

05-17 Coordination Office.

Nobody stared at it. "There was an entire department?"

"Not officially," Aiden said.

"What does that mean?"

"The department didn’t exist in Nathan’s public organizational structure."

Toma frowned. "But people worked there."

"Apparently." Aiden zoomed into the employee list.

Twelve names. The same names they had found earlier. Marcus Hale was among them.

Nobody pointed at the name. "That explains why his employee record was erased."

Toma nodded. "He wasn’t supposed to appear in the normal company structure."

Aiden continued reading. "Most of these people were temporary transfers."

"From where?"

"Different departments." He opened the transfer records.

Finance, Procurement, Legal, IT & Security.

One by one, employees had been temporarily moved into the 05-17 Coordination Office. Then, after the project was terminated, they were transferred again. Some left Nathan Industries. Others moved to companies connected to the contracts they had approved.

Nobody looked at Aiden. "That’s convenient."

"Very."

Toma opened one of the employee records. "This person moved to Westbridge Consulting."

Nobody immediately looked at the screen. "Wait." He leaned forward. "Westbridge?"

Toma nodded. "Three months after Project 05-17 ended."

Nobody looked toward Aiden. "That’s not a coincidence."

"No," Aiden said. "It isn’t." He opened another record. A second former Nathan employee had joined a different company. Aiden searched the company. His face tightened. "That company received payments from Westbridge."

Nobody stared at the screen.

"So the people running the project ended up working for the companies receiving the money."

Aiden nodded. "Some of them did."

Toma looked at him. "Then Project 05-17 was designed to move money out of Nathan Industries while making it look like normal business expenses."

Aiden remained silent.

Nobody looked at the organizational chart again. "And Daniel?"

Aiden opened Daniel’s personnel record. The transfer order was still there.

Nathan Industries Legal Department.

Reason: Confidential Corporate Documentation Management.

Nobody frowned. "That’s the official reason."

Aiden nodded. "But now we know what kind of documents he was handling. Contracts, Financial agreements, Vendor records, Internal approvals."

Toma’s expression became serious. "And information about Project 05-17."

Aiden leaned back. "Daniel wasn’t moved into Legal because they trusted him."

Nobody looked at him. "They moved him because Legal gave him access to almost everything they needed."

The IT employee suddenly spoke. "Sir."

Aiden turned. "What?"

"I found another folder."

"Where?"

"Inside the Project 05-17 archive."

The employee opened it. There was only one document.

INTERNAL RISK ASSESSMENT

Aiden clicked it.

The first page contained a list of potential risks. Most were routine.

Audit exposure, Contract inconsistencies, Unauthorized payments, Employee transfers. Then they reached the final section.

Primary Risk: Internal Discovery

Underneath it was a recommendation.

Reduce the number of employees with direct knowledge of the operation.

Toma’s expression hardened. "They planned for someone to discover it."

Aiden nodded. "And they planned for what to do afterward."

Nobody pointed at the document. "That’s why the records were deleted."

"Yes." Aiden scrolled further.

There was another line.

Individuals with continued access should be reassigned, monitored or removed from sensitive positions.

Nobody’s eyes narrowed. "Daniel."

Aiden didn’t respond.

Nobody looked at him. "They didn’t just use Daniel."

"They controlled his access." Toma slowly looked toward Aiden. "And when he stopped cooperating with Eclipse..."

Aiden’s expression darkened. "They had a reason to come after him."

Nobody remembered Daniel’s confession.

Five years of supplying information to Eclipse. Five years of watching the company he worked for being quietly infiltrated. And eventually, he had tried to stop.

Nobody folded his arms. "So the Chairman wasn’t just attacking Nathan Industries recently."

Aiden looked at the archive. "No." His voice was quiet. "He started years ago."

Toma stared at the screen. "Then Eclipse didn’t suddenly infiltrate Nathan Industries."

Aiden shook his head. "They built connections inside it."

The IT employee suddenly froze.

Nobody noticed. "What’s wrong?"

The employee didn’t answer.

Aiden stood. "What happened?"

The employee slowly pointed at the monitor.

A small notification had appeared.

REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED.