Under attack (3)

Sarah called Aiden and two of them went to Jeff's office to discuss the incident.

Once they were done talking, Sarah excused herself. "I gave you copy of all files, and told you what happened, as well as my conclusions. If you need anything else, let me know. I'm going to work on the report for the project myself since at this point, I don't know who is trustworthy." There was nothing else for her to do there. Jeff and Aiden can continue further investigation if they want, but there was no more evidence to follow, so Sarah thought that staying will be a waste of time.

"Sarah is very capable." Jeff praised when she left his office.

Aiden smiled in response.

"Why would Evalina do something like this?", Jeff could not understand the motive. Evalina is in Aiden's team for three years without issues. Something must have triggered her.

"This is not the first incident. For the first project Sarah did, Evalina removed some important data on purpose. Sarah caught it on time and filled out missing pieces herself.", Aiden told Jeff.

"You are saying that Evalina is targeting Sarah? Is there some story between two of them?", Jeff was confused.

Aiden looked at Jeff with a complex expression. "It seems that... Evalina has a thing for me..."

Jeff was shocked. "You are kidding, right?"

Aiden shook his head.

"Jealous? She wants to ruin projects worth hundreds of thousands, cause thousands in equipment loss, not to mention exposure... because she is... jealous?" Jeff felt a headache coming.

It took some time for Jeff to compose himself before he reached for the phone and called director of HR. "Evalina Robinski. Terminate her... effective immediately. Give her salary until end of month... for violating privacy practices and damaging company property... Yes... Yes... Thank you."

Jeff looked at Aiden. "And there is a chance she is not working by herself. Based on what Sarah found, it means that either Fox or Daniel assisted her."

Aiden nodded. "Yes, it's a possibility. But there is no evidence. For two of them, the best course of action is just to keep them under close watch."

"How much those three know about what we are doing? Are you still handling work so that they are in the dark?"

"Yes, don't worry about that. The only thing that connects them to the content of what we are doing are reports. We are still following the same process where they work separately with filtered data, and when they are done. I fill in the gaps.", Aiden assured Jeff.

"Because of what your team is doing... my concern is that Evalina might not take this well, and talk about it outside.", Jeff voiced his concern. "Even if she does not have the whole story, someone might start connecting the dots."

"They believe that we are taking part in securing servers for White corp. and all their work will be part of our next anti-hacking product. In that context, Evalina's job is to create scripts that scramble traffic against hackers.", Aiden explained.

Jeff sighed, "If you are confident that even after all this time, they didn't get a whiff of what you are doing, then all is good. The only vulnerability we have is report creation. We should see to automate that... I still remember that quality of report that Sarah showed me at first was not bad..."

Aiden could not believe his ears, "Are you still eyeing Eve? You need to let go of that idea."

"Maybe just for reports...", Jeff's voice was faint, but Aiden heard him.

"Let me talk to Sarah about that.", Aiden knows that if Jeff talks to Sarah again about using Eve, she might quit.

Jeff nodded in approval. "Sarah did a good job. Even with all this, she was unfazed and handled it well. Project is done, and she collected the evidence against Evalina."

"If you think she did so good, maybe you should reward her."

"I will think about what is appropriate." Jeff agreed, and then continued. "There is nothing worse in a team than a bad apple. It's good that Evalina is exposed, and we have this ironclad evidence in case she retaliates." Jeff thought for a bit before he continued, "With Evalina gone, you will need to hire another person for scripting."

"Yes. I will work on job description..." Aiden got a phone call. It was from within company, so he answered it. "What!? Where?"

Jeff looked at Aiden, wanting to know what is going on. 'Is it another hack attempt?'

Aiden muted his phone and told Jeff. "Evalina is causing a scene, she does not want to leave with security until she talks to me."

Jeff frowned. "Tell them to bring her here. Let's avoid further commotion in front of everyone."

Aiden got back to his phone. "OK. Bring her to CEO office... and call for additional support. If she does not want to leave after talking to me, carry her out."

Few minutes later, Evalina entered followed by one bigger man from security.

Evalina looked at Aiden, her face was pitiful, accusing him of mistreatment. "So, that's it? I just need to go? After three years of a great record, this is how it ends between us?"

Aiden was taken aback by her choice of words.'...ends between us?' He decided not to clarify that and stay on topic. She is being fired and needs to go. "Do you know why?"

"No" She looked as if she is about to cry any minute.

Jeff responded instead of Aiden, "Some of your scripts failed executing today as expected. Due to that we suffered a loss in equipment, and data. Logs show that you are the one who tampered with them."

"Oh? So, you could look at the logs?" Evalina mocked Jeff.

Jeff didn't show that he noticed her mocking tone and expression. "Yes. We have logs. Is there something you want to add?"

Evalina snorted. "It seems you know everything, what else is there for me to add?"

After some silence, Aiden spoke. "I don't understand why you did it."

This triggered Evalina, and her voice was rising, "Why? ... Why don't you ask the new girl? She is a smart one... so she should know."

"Sarah?" Aiden was surprised that Evalina didn't address Sarah by name, but as 'the new girl'.

"Yes. She is a genius, right? How come genius was not able to handle such a small thing with script failures? If company suffered any loss, that is because she is incompetent. Any genius would be able to handle the situation. If she can't handle it, that means she is not a genius... I did you a favor by exposing her." Evalina was rising her voice by the second. At the end she almost screamed.

Aiden remembered that when he told the team that Sarah will be joining, he described her as a computer security genius. His intention was to let them know that Sarah is very knowledgeable and that they should not to look down on her. He didn't know that his choice of words will trigger Evalina like this. "Are you jealous?" He had to ask.

Evalina's face got red tint. "Me? Of her? For what? For the fact that you gave her office next to yours? Because you spend time with her outside office hours? And you act all intimate during breakfast? Not to mention your cozy walks in the evening..."

Aiden was stunned. 'She is following us?' That thought disturbed him. If she is following them, who knows what else she is capable of? Aiden's temper was rising.