Page 46 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

His fingers hit the keys. “That sounds worse.”

“It is.”

On another screen, Kathryn Walsh opens as a new file. Beside it, Evan Mercer begins to build from banking records, consulting work, and a property-services company with a Boston office.

I look back at Cara’s suite feed on the corner monitor.

Yuri brings Oleg Baranov onto the main screen, and the man’s personnel file looks exactly as it should. Boring job. Small salary. Ordinary family without any background names worth protecting. His clearance is not high-level. It sits near daily work. He can approve small fixes, push old forms, change route notes, and leave nothing big enough for anyone to notice.

“He can’t create offshore wallets,” Yuri says, echoing my thoughts. “He can’t touch Blacklist visibility or approve anything above standard clearance. His permissions are dull.”

I look at the approval trail. “Pull his after-hours activity.”

Yuri clicks through dates. “Take these three humanitarian shipments. Saint Agnes Relief, New Harbor Medical Aid, and a pharmacy distributor out of Riga. Oleg approved timing changes after normal review, and each date matches Patrick’s account movement within four hours.”

He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “There are others. Small, and similar.”

“How did he survive this long?” Abramov asks.

“He knows where no one looks,” I say, pulling a chair beside Yuri. “Underpaid men learn who ignores them. Resentful men remember it when someone offers cash.”

“Bring Petrov and Leonid,” I tell Abramov.

Abramov steps into his office doorway and gives the order through the secure desk. Petrov arrives first with two finance men at his back, and Leonid follows with a sealed folder pressed under one arm.

Maksim comes in last, and every man in the office sits straighter.

Petrov points at the dates Yuri has marked. “These three clearances match the wallet jumps. Patrick moved money, then Oleg adjusted cargo paperwork within the same window. The shipment records gave the money a cover story.”

Leonid opens his folder and sets the vendor papers on the table.

“New Harbor Medical Aid was made through a shell processor,” he says. “The same processor touched a Blacklist handler query. Different company names. Same filing pattern.”

Maksim looks at the papers. “Explain.”

Leonid taps one line. “The charity front and the Blacklist query used the same paperwork path.”

Yuri looks up from the screen. “Patrick used old account pieces, vendor names, and Blacklist words he had picked up somewhere. The system saw the right words and let the query pass.”

Maksim’s eyes move to Abramov. “Inside help?”

“Yes,” Leonid says. “Someone approved old forms, changed route notes, and made the cargo paperwork look normal around it.”

Abramov looks down at the page. “Oleg could do that.”

Maksim closes the file. “Find out if he did.”

Yuri pulls internal logs and sends them across the screen. “The approvals came from Oleg’s credentials. The login pattern matches him. Short sessions, bad typing, repeated corrections. The problem is the routing language.”

Abramov looks over. “What problem?”

“This wording is cleaner than Oleg's,” Yuri says. “Someone gave him forms, phrases, and timing.”

No one speaks for a moment.

This is more than one clerk.

Oleg can approve small changes. He can move papers. He can hide bad work inside normal work. He can make a dirty file look boring.