Chapter 40: Ominious Storm
Other than leaking the contract using the address of the Red Vulture group onto the net, Maximilian also deliberately leaked some false data—fabricated to appear as though the low-skill hackers from the Red Vulture group could realistically uncover it.
The data was fake, but it was carefully designed to be highly believable, based on what Maximilian had uncovered from Rebecca’s safe house.
For example, the information about the special dart suggested that whoever kidnapped her had connections to the UEC. The breach of the safe house further implied that someone with access to UEC contributor safe house locations had initiated the abduction.
It was highly likely that the ones who kidnapped her belonged to an independent faction within the UEC.
Maximilian deliberately set it up to appear as though the Red Vulture group had stumbled upon this information purely by luck. One of their old, jury-rigged servers—allegedly salvaged from a derelict military compound in the Wildlands—was made to appear as though it contained remnants of this sensitive data.
Of course, Maximilian had been tracking their every move, having already installed a backdoor into their systems when he first tapped into the building’s junction box.
He even kept direct contact with them about their progress. The moment they mentioned this fabricated intel, he rewarded them with an additional 100,000 as a bonus.
To Maximilian’s surprise, the clowns turned out to be quite efficient—in a chaotic, self-sabotaging way. No sooner had they received the bonus than they headed straight to a bar to celebrate.
Once the alcohol hit, they began bragging to everyone they knew about a clueless idiot but deep-pocketed client they had wrapped around their fingers.
One of them even bragged that they’d stumbled upon a goldmine of information for this client.
However, one must understand that the Fringe is a melting pot of many shady characters from various factions both inside and outside of The Fringe, each with different occupations and hidden agendas. Once word got out, these people started investigating.