Then, standing on the granite steps, he made the call to Martin Cole, the company's General Counsel.
"Fire every one of them."
The View from the 32nd Floor
The call lasted four minutes and thirty seconds.
Logan sat in his car in the subterranean parking garage, his phone resting on the console. Martin Cole had answered on the first ring; Harrison Carter had already alerted the legal team that Logan’s field observation was reaching its conclusion.
Logan gave three precise instructions:
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Issue an immediate, sweeping legal hold on every digital record, email thread, chat log, and security feed associated with the 14th floor going back four years.
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Convene the Board of Directors and the executive committee in the main boardroom at 2:00 PM.
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Lock down all internal system credentials for Vanessa Brooks, Derek Walsh, and Paula Simmons quietly, without altering their physical access badges yet.
When Logan finished, he sat in the quiet dark of the garage for a moment. He wasn't angry. Anger was an emotional reaction to the unexpected, and nothing that had occurred on the 14th floor had surprised him. He felt only the cold, clinical clarity of an engineer who had finally located the exact point of structural failure in a bridge.
He rode the private executive elevator directly to the 32nd floor.
The contrast between the floors was jarring. Down on 14, the ceilings were low, the lighting was harsh fluorescent, and the air was thick with competitive anxiety. Up on 32, the ceilings were soaring glass, the carpet swallowed all footfalls, and panoramic windows looked out over the entire metropolis.
Harrison Carter was already in the boardroom. The old man was standing near the head of the polished walnut table, wearing a dark, unstructured suit. Beside him stood Martin Cole and two senior forensic IT specialists.
Sitting nervously at the far end of the room was Sandra Pruitt, the HR Director. Her hands were folded tightly over a leather binder, her eyes darting between the father and the son as Logan walked in.
"Logan," Harrison said softly, his voice carrying the deep gravel of a man who had spent forty years commanding men. "Martin has the initial server pulls."
One of the IT specialists tapped a key, projecting a series of system logs onto the massive wall display.
"It took less than fifteen minutes to trace," the specialist explained. "The data extraction executing the breach on the 14th floor did indeed use Logan's credentials. However, the physical MAC address and local IP point directly to a terminal assigned to Derek Walsh. Furthermore, security cameras in the 14th-floor East Wing show Mr. Walsh at that terminal at 11:41 PM last night, holding a physical keycard bearing Logan's temporary ID."
Sandra Pruitt turned pale. "I... I was presented with the initial breach report by Ms. Brooks this morning," she stammered, her voice shaking. "I was told it was an open-and-shut security matter."
Logan looked at Sandra. "You were handed a weapon, Sandra, and you didn't bother to check if it was loaded before you fired it. That makes you either incompetent or complicit. We will determine which one later today."
Harrison stepped toward the head of the table. "An all-hands meeting has been called for 4:00 PM in the main atrium. Every employee in this building will attend. Martin, prepare the severance packages—and the criminal referral files."