#TariffsPause TariffsPause

The digital clock blinked 02:17.

At that moment, the entire trading network “Eastline Tariffs” came to a halt. The automatic exchanges froze. Contracts hung in the air.

Leila Crawford, a cyber detective from the financial investigations department, was already sitting in the shadow of the monitors, tracking an invisible trail.

Someone paused the entire tariff system.

And did it so carefully that ordinary analysts wouldn’t even notice: the price at the ports for copper changed by a negligible 0.01%. But for those in the know, it meant millions.

On Leila's table lay the only clue: a strange file marked #TariffsPause.

No signature. No date. Just a line of code:

IF PAUSE == TRUE THEN ROUTE FUNDS TO SIGMA_NODE

She understood: someone had embedded a pause timer in the core of the network. And now, amidst the noise, they were zeroing out accounts, siphoning assets into dummy banks where they were already waiting.

Leila accessed the shadow logs. For a moment, she thought she heard a door creak behind her.

She didn’t turn around. In her line of work, there was always someone behind her.

A name flashed in the logs: “S.Paxton”.

— Well hello, Simon, — whispered Leila, — who would have thought that the old partner still plays.