Chapter 207 - Your dad was one smart man, Shreya.

When Shreya opened her eyes, she was lying down using Zack's legs as her pillow. She sat up groggily and looked around only to find all the guys napping leaning on the glass wall in one or other corner of the glass room with Pritham sleeping with his head rested on the computer table and the system in front of him was still running some program or something he must have designed to most probably decrypt the drive.

Shreya got up from her place and just as she was about to approach the system, the system dinged and everyone in the room sat up with a start except for Pritham. Everyone looked around dazed and out of it. Only two alert people were Zack and Srinivas. Most probably came from being trained to be on toes all the time.

Zack's eyes sought beside him in search of Shreya as soon as he opened his eyes only to find them empty. He then looked around and found her standing behind Pritham.

"Wake up guys. We have work to do…" Shreya said with a chuckle. She was amused by everyone's reaction to a small ding on the computer. Showed how much importance they gave to the whole affair even when they were asleep.

Akash and Adam took a minute to actually come out of their sleep. The only person who was still sleeping was Pritham.

Shreya then went ahead and swatted on Pritham's head waking him up. Within seconds, everyone came approached the desk and gathered around looking at the screen like hawks.

There was pin-drop silence except for Pritham clicking away from one doc.u.ment to another… to one picture to another. It took them almost 10 minutes to just brush through them. Once that was done, there was absolute silence.

"Damn!" Pritham exclaimed after a while.

"No wonder Naren is pissing his pants just with the thought of us having this…" Adam continued.

Adithya was too smart actually. He did not acquire evidence that Naren, Abimanyu, and Abishek had been responsible for The Prime Minister's demise. He should have known that they should have covered their tracks pretty thoroughly when it came to the murder of the leader of the country. They wouldn't have done a sloppy job when it came to it. It should have been well planned and premeditated.

So instead, Adithya actually got the evidence that these three people were responsible for framing Karthick- who was originally convicted of the crime. Adhitya found evidence for each and every step as to how they had gotten around to framing him.

From how they brided the police, forensic labs to how they had paid Karthick off- Adithya had evidence for every last thing. The whole damn thing read like a freaking mystery novel. And since the syndicate's greatest threat within the country- the Prime Minister Girish had been taken out of the equation- they had become brazen and failed to cover their tracks properly when it came to the framing which made Adithya's job a lot easier than normal.

They never even found out about Adithya having all these until he actually approached the police to reopen the case.

There was a written and video testimonial from Adi Trivedi who was the main witness in the case. He had stalked it along with Adi Trivedi's original testimonial which actually contradicted with each other in almost every manner possible. The only difference was that Adithya had found additional evidence to support Adi's secondary testimonial.

Adi contended that he was threatened to give false testimony and he even had the recording of the conversations. It was his insurance policy to keep himself and his family safe. And he had given it to Adithya and Adithya had traced the phones back to Naren's second-hand man.

And of course, there was also a television clipping of Adi fleeing the scene of the murder sight proving that Adi had not been anywhere near the murder to have actually witnessed it.

The main reason why they picked Adi Trivedi as their scapegoat was because he was quite close to Girish himself when he was alive. And in order not to raise any suspicion, the syndicate had cornered him to give such a testimonial. If the testimonial was to come from someone close to Girish, then people will be inclined to believe it more easily than not.

But it also played in Adithya's favor since Adi actually cared about Girish at some level. The main reason he had given such testimony was that he was scared for his family and he had nobody else to go to. SO, when Adithya approached him, he was only too pleased to co-operate as long as Adithya could keep him and his family safe. And Adithya did exactly that by making Adi disappear altogether.

"Your dad was one smart man, Shreya…" Zack said rubbing on her shoulders. From finding this to hiding the drive in such an inconspicuous place… Adithya had played them well. If not, Shreya couldn't have it now. It would have been long taken away by the syndicate never to be seen again.

"Take me back to the bank statements. I think I saw something there…" Shreya said without really commenting on anything anybody said around her. She did not even listen. Her mind was working… analyzing and plotting as to how to use it to her best advantage.

Pritham pulled up the bank statements Shreya had asked for.

Her eyes ran through them in quick succession.

The main problem they had when they were trying to track down the syndicate's finances were that they did not have a starting point.

Usually, when people have income earned from illegal means, they always tend to keep them under the radar. Off the books. Away from your legal income so as to not have any negative effect.

But syndicate on the other hand actually did the opposite. After Shreya's parents' death and the initial breach, they had actually centralized the finances. That way it was almost impossible to separate one from the other.

The people she sent in as clients were made to make payments directly into the corporate's sales account while the people who sent uncover as workers were paid from the corporate's employee salary account. So, to isolate the illegal part of it was impossible.

"The opening payment… it's a wire transfer. You should be able to trace it. There is your starting point Pritham…" Shreya instructed.

But now they knew Kathick's payments should have come from illegal accounts as they were made before centralization and the transaction cannot be traced back to the corporation. So, that gave them a starting point. Even if they can't find the current accounts, they could still trace back the money they would have made at that time. And the same money should have gone somewhere… thus like a domino the current account will fall into place.

She then pulled Pritham out of the chair and started thoroughly looking through all the other photos and doc.u.ments. It took her about half an hour by which the guys went out and freshened up.

"Are you done yet, Shreya?" Adam asked as soon as he came back into the server room. Pritham was the only one missing since he was taking a quick nap. After all, he did not get much sleep the whole night. Not that anybody else did… Shreya is probably the one with the least amount of sleep seeing as she was the only one working the whole day yesterday.

"Done!" Shreya said as her eyes simultaneously ran through the last doc.u.ment.

Everybody gathered around her just as she started giving away instructions.

"Okay, guys. I need a background. On each and every person in this drive. From the cops, they had bribed, to the jailors around Karthick. One of them got to be Naren's guys. Or else they wouldn't have known that Karthick was talking to my dad. Adam and Akash start making calls."

She then turned towards Zack and Srinivas and continued, "Zack and Srinivas, reach out to your contacts… I need the personnel files on Operation Red tape. Do it under the radar. I do not want to spook anyone just yet."

"And when Pritham wakes up… ask him to make me an encrypted copy of the drive and to start on tracing the payments… Also, remind him to encrypt this drive and put it back in the painting. I do not want the fact that we have evidence leaving this room." She then got up from the chair and walked out.

Just as she reached the exit, she turned back and left one last instruction, "Oh, yes… I almost forgot. We will debrief in the evening at 6 pm today. Call everyone up. And mail me everything you find… Now I have a meeting at the Imperial. I should probably be back by lunch…" She then walked out without really looking back.

"Shreya… get some sleep…" Zack called from behind but Shreya never heard it as the doors closed behind her. He just let out a sigh and went back to work.