The technician shook his head. "These aren't backup packages."
"What are they?"
He opened one transfer manifest. The file categories included license plate histories, traffic camera locations, municipal access events, and vehicle location records.
Maya looked at the destination field. "Who owns that endpoint?"
"I don't know yet."
"Find out."
A second transfer showed the same pattern. Then a third. These were organized exports, not accidental transmissions.
Rebecca looked at the screen. "Calvin's company supported analytic systems for the city. There could be a legitimate reason."
Maya asked, "Is there a contract authorizing external distribution of this data?"
Lena answered, "Not one I've ever seen."
Maya turned back to the technician: "Preserve every transfer record before the retention cycle reaches it."
He began copying the logs. Nathan Cole's case had already established that Asheford's official evidence could be changed. The hidden server now showed that the same undisclosed system was sending city surveillance data outside the department.
Maya looked at the growing list of destination addresses: "Trace where those files went."
The federal technician opened the first outbound transfer record and isolated the destination address from the rest of the network traffic. "This endpoint doesn't belong to the city, the county, or the contracted disaster recovery provider," he said.
Maya stood beside him. "Can you identify the owner?"
"Not from the address alone. I can trace the hosting account and preserve the routing information."
"Do that before anything changes."
Lena opened Asheford's approved technology agreements on a second monitor. She searched for outside data processing services while the federal team examined additional transfers.
The pattern repeated: vehicle locations had been exported in batches; license plate histories were organized by date and geographic area; traffic camera records had been grouped around specific intersections and municipal buildings. Some packages contained repeated location histories connected to the same vehicles over several weeks.
Rebecca moved closer to the screen. "Calvin's company handled traffic analytics. That could explain some of this."
Maya looked at Lena. "Does the contract authorize Sloan Integrated Systems to send raw surveillance data to outside parties?"
"No."
"Any subcontractor agreement?"
"Not in the records I have."
Mercer spoke from behind them: "There may be vendor services that aren't described at this level of the contract."
Maya turned toward him. "Then the vendor invoices should identify them."
Mercer did not respond.