Chapter 7: The Trace Inside the Network
The door opened.
Le Gia Bao from
the technical section came in and set a laptop down in front of Phong.
"You haven't
gone home?"
"Neither have
you."
"You told me
to trace the sender. I've got preliminary results."
Phong pulled his
chair over at once.
"Go ahead."
Bao opened a data
table.
"The message
came through a newly created account using an address-masking service. The
registered number is a burner and is no longer active. If that were all we had,
we'd never trace him."
"You said
'if.' That means there's something else."
"The attached
image file still carries a device identifier that wasn't fully scrubbed. The
sender probably assumed the app strips that automatically, but part of the data
survived on the receiving server."
Phong looked at
the dense strings of characters on the screen.
"Can you
identify the device?"
"Not a
specific serial number. But I cross-checked the history, and the same
identifier has appeared once before."
"Where?"
Bao did not
answer.
He enlarged one
line of data and pointed at the screen.
"On the
Provincial Police internal network."
Phong thought he
had misheard.
"Say that
again."
"The device
that sent the tip has connected to the internal network at headquarters. Not
today. About three weeks ago."
"You're
certain?"
"I ran it
three times. Same identifier, same device parameters. The chances of a random
match are almost nothing."
Phong sat back.
The room went
quiet enough to hear the air conditioner running in the ceiling.
"Which
section did it connect from?"
"The archived
data only records the shared access gateway. It can't pinpoint a room. For that
we'd need the full system logs."
"Pull
them."
Bao hesitated.
"That
requires authorization. The system holds data from several units. I can't go
that deep on my own."
"I will
request it."
"Sir, there's
one more thing."
"What?"
"The
departure time and the roster for the search team were only uploaded to the
internal system less than thirty minutes before we left. But Hai Long looked as
though they had been braced for us well before that."
Phong thought back
to the doors standing open.
The keys laid out
and accounted for.
The steward
answering every question cleanly.
Even Vu Khai,
after those first seconds of surprise, had recovered a calm that was suspicious
in itself.
"Any sign the
deployment file was accessed?"
"So far I
have only checked the general log. There was one unusual access after the
search order was entered."
"Which
account?"
"The shared
administrator account for the technical section. I can't pin down the user
straight away."
"Time?"
"Nineteen
minutes before the convoy left headquarters."
Phong stared at
the number on the screen.
Nineteen minutes.
Enough for one
phone call.
Enough for
evidence to disappear, if the evidence had ever existed.
Enough, too, for
Hai Long's people to build a trap and wait for the task force to walk into it.
The phone on the
desk buzzed.
Trinh Manh Hung's
name lit the screen.
Phong signaled Bao
to keep quiet and answered.
"Yes,
sir."
The man on the
other end sounded worn out.
"Are you
still at the office?"
"Yes."
"I've looked
over the search report. Nothing found, correct?"
"No evidence
recovered."
"I told you
that source wasn't solid enough. You were in too much of a rush. You pushed for
that warrant until you got it."
Phong glanced at
Bao.
The younger man
bent over his screen at once and made a show of checking the data.
"The source
knew the exact time and place. I could not ignore it."
"And the
result is we're being laughed at."
"Which is why
I have to find whoever sent it."
There was a pause
on the line.
"Find them
how?"
"The
technical section is going through the data."
"Anything?"
Phong let a beat
pass.
Something told him
to hold the discovery back.
"Nothing
significant yet."
Manh Hung exhaled.
"No evidence,
no identified sender. Digging into this file any further only burns manpower.
Close it for now. Draft the explanatory report in the morning, and I will take
the blame for having approved your proposal."
"You want it
closed immediately?"
"It's not a
matter of wanting. There's no basis to continue."
"The sender
had internal information."
"Hai Long's
been around a long time. Is it strange they keep eyes and ears here and
there?"
Phong put it to
him directly.
"Are you
saying there is someone inside the force feeding them?"
Manh Hung laughed,
and the laugh came out forced.
"One stumble
doesn't mean every man around you is a mole. This isn't a marketplace where
anyone can wander in as they please. Perhaps an officer was careless on a phone
call. Perhaps Hai Long had us watched from outside."
"Or the
person who sent the tip is inside the building."
This time the
silence on the line ran longer.
"Phong."
Manh Hung's voice
dropped.
"I know you
want a win. I know you can't stand having Vu Khai in front of you and not being
able to touch him. That's exactly why you have to stop at the right moment.
Don't drag yourself into trouble."
"I only want
to know who used my task force as a tool."
"Submit the
report in the morning. Then move on to something else."
"And the
source data?"
"Sealed with
the file."
"I have not
finished investigating."
"That's an
order."
Phong's knuckles
went white on the phone.
"Understood."
He ended the call.