Chapter 543 - APOLOGIES AND FAVOURS (1/2)

Director Yojima rushed from his office after hearing the pinging sounds.

The other people in the office were looking at the computer warily as if it was going to blow up at any moment. Their caution was warranted since Akira was taken away by Interpol. Moreover, the former aide to the minister implied that Akira was a traitor.

”Why are you all sitting like stones?” Director Yojima asked with annoyance.

He could not believe that his people were afraid of a pinging computer. The other departments always made fun of his people for being scared because they always stayed safely in the office. He always thought it was an unfair assessment.

But he could now see that his people were a bit too cowardly.

He walked to the computer and two of his top employees followed quickly.. One was involved in hacking, and the other was a data analyst. Their faces looked a little cautious still, but they did not dare to show weakness before their boss.

Director Yojima scoffed as he reached Akira's workstation. He planned on organising a few outdoor team building activities for his department to build up their courage. Otherwise, who knew how they would react if they actually faced danger.

He leaned and peered at the large monitor at the workstation. As the head of the information technology department, he was not unfamiliar with tech work. However, he was much older than he used to be, and the field changed constantly.

He tried his best to keep up but he could not compare with the young ones who were born in the true age of technology. Still, it was not a problem for him to understand the satellite image of Tokyo on the screen.

It looked like Akira was running some kind of search program that had identified three locations. Those locations were highlighted with small red triangles.

Director Yojima felt excited, but he was not sure if it was not what he was thinking. If it was his imagination, he would take back the threat he made against Akira earlier. Despite her history, it was clear that she was not playing around.

He wondered if it was possible that the information on Bonnie and Clyde's connection to Shadow Brotherhood was not shared by Kaito. If that was the case, Akira was a top-notch expert. He was glad he did not alienate her too much.

”Both of you, check on the parameters Ms Yamazaki was using for this search.” He ordered the two employees.

”Right away, sir!” The two answered.

The hacker sat down on the chair at the workstation and tried to trace back the background of what Akira was doing on the computer. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he attempted to dig into the activities taken.

However, he got stuck after a minute or two. It was like the computer had not been used. He could not figure out the things Akira had done while she was using the workstation. His face turned ugly as he tried looking at the log of keystrokes.

Unfortunately, there was nothing.

”What is the problem?” Director Yojima was annoyed by the delay.

”Ms Yamazaki seemed to have used some kind of technique to conceal her earlier work. There is no way for me to recover the history of the computer activities.” The hacker answered in a small voice.

He was deeply ashamed because, in his heart, he was sure that Akira was faking her success with the discovery she made. He was sure she was fed the intel and reported it misleadingly so that people would think she was smart.

He looked down on such people in their field.

However, if she was an idiot, he would have at least found the message that she sent to their technical reports specialist. But there was nothing! Even the background processes that caused the loud pings were concealed from him.

”Have you looked at the keystroke logging?” The data analyst at the side asked.

The hacker almost rolled his eyes at his unhelpful co-worker. How could the idiot think that he did not check on this obvious thing?

”The keystroke logging software did not record anything. If I am not wrong, Ms Yamazaki disabled the function before doing any work. Therefore, we cannot look at the significance of the location.” He said unwillingly before looking at Director Yojima with apprehension.

Director Yojima dismissed the two people because they were not helpful before going back to his office. His eyes were sparkling, but his face kept changing from excitement, to happiness to anxiety, like a kaleidoscope of information.

He dialled the executive chairman's number.