"Ma'am, just show me some ID and we can clear this up."
"No, I don't have to show you ID for walking on a public sidewalk. I know my rights."
"You're being uncooperative. That makes me more suspicious."
"I'm Dr. Tamara Wallace. I'm the principal of North Side High School. I've lived in this house for seven years, and I'm not showing you ID because I haven't done anything wrong."
A little after 8:00 in the evening, three police officers approached Maya Williams' booth at Harrison Street Diner. Ryan Keller stood in front of her while Mason Trent and Cole Barrett blocked both sides of the aisle.
"Stand up. We're checking your bag."
Maya kept one hand on the leather bag beside her. "You don't have a warrant, and I'm not handing over my personal property."
Keller reached for the strap. Maya pulled the bag against her body. "Take your hand off my bag."
Several customers turned toward them. A waitress stopped near the counter as Trent stepped closer and grabbed Maya's wrist. Maya rotated her hand, slipped out of his grip, and stood.
Keller immediately reached behind her, grabbed the fabric at the back of her dress, and pulled it down. The zipper opened, and part of the dress came loose.
"Stand still and cooperate," Keller said loudly enough for the diner to hear.
Maya held the dress closed with one hand while keeping the bag tight against her body. "You pulled my clothing to distract me."
Cole Barrett remained behind the other two officers. He was not watching Maya. His attention was on Keller's other hand, which had already moved toward the inner compartment of her bag.
At the booth behind Maya, a sixty-two-year-old man stood and stepped between her and Keller. "Take your hands off her. Step back now."
Trent raised his baton. The older man moved to the side, caught Trent's wrist, turned his arm behind him, and removed the baton. He placed it on a nearby table and pushed Trent off balance, forcing him to step back.
Keller moved toward him. The man caught Keller at both elbows, turned him, brought his arms behind his back, and pressed his upper body against the table. Keller could not continue forward. The man did not strike him and did not continue once Keller was under control.
Cole took one step closer. The older man looked directly at him. Cole stopped, then stepped back half a pace.
Helen Ward, the diner manager, came from behind the register and told everyone to stop. The older man released Keller immediately and moved back in front of Maya.
Keller straightened his uniform. "You're interfering with law enforcement."
Two patrol officers entered the diner after being called by an employee. The older man turned toward them. "Preserve the diner surveillance footage. Document the attempted search of her personal property."
One of the officers asked, "And you are?"
"Document it." He gave no title or explanation.
Helen stepped forward. "My cameras recorded the entire incident. Nobody is taking the original system without proper paperwork."
An older customer near the counter said he had seen Keller reach into Maya's bag. Another customer gave Helen his name and phone number as a witness.
A supervisor arrived and ordered Keller, Trent, and Cole to leave the immediate area while statements were collected. Keller objected but complied. Trent followed him. Cole was the last to leave. Before he stepped outside, he looked back at Maya. She noticed, but did not know why.
Outside, Maya held the back of her dress closed. The older man removed his jacket and handed it to her. She put it on and walked with him to a dark gray Ford Explorer parked nearby.
After they got inside, Maya closed the door and looked at him. "Thank you, Dad."
Raymond Williams started the engine, but remained parked.
Maya opened a hidden compartment inside her bag. Her wallet, identification cards, keys, and documents were still there. The zipper to the inner pocket, however, had been opened. She removed a small metal case and placed it on her lap.
Raymond watched as she opened it. Inside was an encrypted memory card. Maya checked the card, closed the case, and looked at her father.
"They weren't after my wallet."
Raymond waited.
"They wanted this."
He looked at the diner through the rearview mirror, then checked the parked cars along Harrison Street. "The incident inside wasn't random," he said. "It was a targeted ambush."
Maya held the metal case in both hands.
Raymond turned toward her. "Who knew you had it?"
"Not many people."
"That wasn't what I asked."
Maya paused before answering. "Six people. Six people knew I was carrying an offline integrity copy tonight."
Raymond adjusted the heater toward her side of the vehicle. "Then we don't go home."
Maya looked down at the case. "I wasn't planning to."
Raymond shifted the Explorer into drive and pulled away from Harrison Street.
As they headed west, Maya went through the incident again in her mind, focusing only on what Keller had done. He had not searched the entire bag. He had gone directly to the inner compartment. That meant someone had told him where to look.
Raymond reached the same conclusion without asking another question: the three officers had known Maya would be at the diner; they had also known she was carrying a small storage device in a specific part of her bag.
The card was still safe, but that did not solve the larger problem. Only six people knew she had taken the offline copy with her that evening. One of them had given that information to someone outside her company.
Raymond drove west through evening traffic while Maya kept the metal case in her lap. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. She checked the side mirror twice, then looked through the rear window. No vehicle appeared to be following them.
Raymond noticed, but kept his attention on the road. "You said six people knew."
Maya nodded. "Six people had enough access to know I created the offline integrity copy. Fewer should have known I was carrying it tonight."
"Should have."
"My schedule is shared internally. If someone connected the audit activity to where I was going afterward, they could have worked it out."
"That still means somebody was looking."
Maya closed her hand around the metal case. "I know."
They reached the West Loop and entered the underground garage beneath a glass office building. Raymond parked near the elevator. Maya adjusted his jacket around her damaged dress before they went inside.
The security guard at the lobby desk recognized her immediately. "Miss Williams, are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Curtis. Keep building access normal, but log every privileged entry from this point forward. Nobody changes security permissions without written approval."
"Yes, ma'am."
Raymond glanced at her as they entered the elevator. "You could have locked the building down."
"That would tell whoever did this that we know there's an internal problem."
"You already think there is."
"I think something happened. I'm not naming a person until I can prove it."
The elevator opened onto the operations floor of Williams Digital Integrity. Several employees were still working. Some looked up when Maya entered wearing Raymond's jacket over her evening dress, but no one asked questions.
A tall man in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms crossed the room toward her. "Maya."
Adrien Vale stopped in front of her and looked at the jacket, then at her face. "What happened?"
"Later. What did you call me about?"
His concern shifted immediately to business. "One of the backup sets failed integrity validation about twenty minutes ago."
Maya's expression tightened. "Which one?"
"Secondary encrypted archive. We still have the primary mirror and the cold storage replication."
"Cause?"
"Not yet. Could be an indexing fault."
"Could it be deliberate?"
Adrien paused. "Possible, but I don't have evidence for that."