CHAPTER 55- NEW THEORY

Elias came to Luca’s study just before noon.

He knocked once before entering, carrying a thin folder under his arm.

Luca looked up from the reports scattered across his desk and immediately noticed the expression on Elias’s face.

"You look like you’ve found something," Luca said.

"I’m not sure I’d call it something," Elias replied as he closed the door behind him. "It’s more of another way to look at what’s been happening."

Luca leaned back in his chair and gestured toward the folder. "Another theory?"

"Possibly." Elias said.

"That usually means more work." Luca said.

Elias gave a faint, tired smile as he placed the folder on the desk. "It probably does."

Luca pulled the folder closer but didn’t open it yet. "All right. Tell me."

Elias remained standing across from him.

"For the past four months, we’ve been assuming the information was being taken deliberately," he began. "Someone knows what they’re looking for, understands when it matters, and knows where to send it. We’ve been trying to identify that person."

"And you think that assumption is wrong?" Luca asked.

"I think it may be incomplete," Elias answered.

Luca opened the folder.

Elias continued, "What if the person who passes the information doesn’t actually know what they’re carrying? What if they’re simply a messenger without realizing it?"

Luca’s eyes moved across the first page before he looked up again.

"A messenger?"

"Not necessarily someone working for Kozlov," Elias explained. "It could be a courier, a driver, a contact relaying a message, even someone inside the house who mentions something without realizing its value. They don’t need to understand the entire operation. They only need to pass along one useful piece."

Luca turned another page.

"Give me an example."

"A driver waits outside while someone discusses a shipment. He hears the destination and later mentions it to someone he knows. A guard hears that a particular vehicle is expected on Thursday and casually repeats it. Someone in the office mentions that a meeting has been moved from Friday to Wednesday because they assume everyone involved already knows. A name gets mentioned during a conversation, and someone remembers it."

Elias paused before adding, "Each piece sounds insignificant by itself."

"And someone collects them," Luca said.

"Exactly." Elias said.

Luca lowered his eyes to the papers again.

For several seconds, he read without speaking.

The idea was frustrating because it widened the field instead of narrowing it.

They had already spent months trying to reduce the number of possibilities.

Now Elias was suggesting that the problem might exist in a completely different form.

"If that’s true," Luca said slowly, "we could spend another months looking for one person who doesn’t exist."

"That’s the problem," Elias replied. "We’ve been looking for someone who understands the whole picture. Maybe the person on the other side never needed the whole picture. Maybe they’ve been collecting pieces from different places."

Luca closed the folder halfway and looked at him.

"That would explain why we haven’t found anyone who fits."

"It could," Elias said. "Look at the failures. We’ve been able to trace each one back to information that existed somewhere inside this house. What we haven't been able to prove is that one person had access to all of it."

Luca stood and walked toward the window.

"So we may not have a single traitor."

"I'm not saying we don't," Elias replied. "I'm saying we shouldn't assume every leak has to come from the same source."

Luca remained by the window, watching several men cross the courtyard below.

"A traitor can be found," he said. "Once we find him, we remove him."

"Yes." Elias said.

"But if the problem is carelessness…" Luca continued.

Elias nodded before Luca could finish.

"Then removing one person won't solve much. We'd have to correct the way information moves through the entire operation."

Luca turned from the window.

"That's harder."

"It is." Elias replied.

Luca returned to his desk and picked up the folder again.

"How do we stop something like that?"

"We start by reducing the amount of information people receive unless they actually need it," Elias explained. "Sensitive schedules stay behind closed doors. Shipment details stay with the people handling them. Security arrangements don't become casual conversation. And if someone overhears something, they don't repeat it simply because they think it's harmless."

Luca considered that for a moment. "We've been too loose."

"Maybe." Elias said.

Luca looked at him. "You think we have?"

"I think we've been operating the same way for a long time," Elias said carefully. "When a routine has existed for years, people stop noticing what might be dangerous about it."

That answer seemed to satisfy Luca more than a simple yes would have.

He closed the folder. "Then we change it."

"Immediately?" Elias asked.

"Immediately." Luca answered.

By that afternoon, Marchetti had been given the responsibility of informing the guards and staff about the new restrictions.

The briefing took place in the eastern hall, where several men gathered in small groups before Marchetti arrived. Their conversations gradually faded when he stepped forward.

"From today onward, sensitive information stays in designated rooms," Marchetti announced.

One of the guards frowned. "What exactly counts as sensitive?"

"Schedules, shipment details, security arrangements, movement plans, names connected to operations, and anything else that could give an outsider an advantage if it left this house," Marchetti explained.

Another guard shifted his weight before asking, "What if someone asks us about something we aren't directly involved in?"

"You don’t answer unless you've been instructed to," Marchetti said. "If they need the information, they can get it through the proper chain of command."

"What if it's another guard?" someone asked from the back.

Marchetti looked toward him.

"If another guard needs information related to his duty, he can ask his superior. You don't decide for yourself what someone else needs to know."

A few men exchanged glances.

One of the younger guards raised his voice slightly. "What about things we hear while doing our jobs? Sometimes we're around when people are talking. We can't exactly stop our ears."

A few quiet laughs came from the group.

Marchetti waited for them to settle before answering.

"No one is asking you to stop hearing things," he said. "If you overhear something, you keep it to yourself. If you're unsure whether it matters, ask someone above you. You don't repeat it in the courtyard, the dining room, or anywhere else simply because you think it sounds harmless."

The younger guard nodded.

"So we're supposed to be more careful about what we say?"

"Exactly," Marchetti replied. "You can still talk. You can still do your jobs. You simply need to understand that information travels faster than people realize."

An older guard crossed his arms.

"And if someone ignores the rule?"

"Then they answered me," Marchetti said firmly.

The hall fell quiet.

"There will be no exceptions," he added.

The briefing ended shortly afterward, but the effect was noticeable almost immediately.

Conversations that normally happened in corridors became shorter.

Men who were used to discussing schedules over coffee stopped doing so.

Guards began checking who was nearby before mentioning anything related to work.

Even ordinary questions were sometimes followed by a pause, as though everyone had suddenly become aware of how easily a harmless sentence could travel beyond the person standing in front of them.

The house felt different.

Not tense exactly.

More careful.

Elias noticed the change when he crossed the western corridor later that afternoon.

Two guards were speaking near the stairwell.

When they saw him approaching, one of them lowered his voice and the other glanced toward the corridor behind him.

Elias continued walking without interrupting them.

The new restrictions would take time to become natural. People had spent years working according to familiar routines, and changing those habits would require more than one briefing.

When Elias returned to the study later that evening, Luca was still working.

Elias placing another report on the side of Luca’s desk.

"The revised restrictions have already been passed down," he said. "Marchetti handled the briefing."

"Good," Luca replied. "That’s all for now."

Elias nodded and left.

Later that evening, Elena found Luca still in the study.

"You’re still working," she said from the doorway.

Luca looked up. "I was almost finished."

Elena walked inside and took the chair opposite him.

Her eyes moved over the reports on the desk.

"What is it about?" Elena asked.

"The messenger theory." Luca answered.

"The messenger theory?" Elena asked again.

Luca explains about that theory to Elena.

"And what do you think about that theory?" Elena asked.

Luca leaned back and rubbed his hand over his jaw. "It makes sense."

Elena watched him for a moment. "You don’t sound happy about that."

"I'm not." Luca replied.

"Because it makes the investigation harder?" Elena asked.

"That’s part of it." Luca picked up one of the reports, then set it back down.

"For months, I thought there was one answer. One person. One name that we simply hadn't found yet. I could work with that. We could narrow the list, question people, follow records, and eliminate possibilities."

"And now you're not sure there's one person to find," Elena said.

"Exactly." Luca replied.

Elena was quiet for a moment. "Could Elias be right?"

"I don't know," Luca admitted. "But the possibility is strong enough that I don't want to ignore it."

She looked toward the folder. "So now everyone has to be more careful."

"Everyone already should have been careful." Luca said.

Elena smiled faintly. "You know what I mean."

"I do." Luca stood and walked toward the window.

"Marchetti raised a concern earlier," he said. "If information has been leaving through careless conversations, then every person in this house has potentially been a weak point for months."

Elena followed him with her eyes. "That doesn’t mean they deliberately betrayed you."

"I know. Some people probably never realized what they were saying mattered. But that's exactly the problem." Luca said and then turned back toward her.

"A deliberate traitor can be found. We can identify him, remove him, and close the gap he created." He continued.

"And carelessness?" Elena asked.

"Carelessness is everywhere." Luca answered.

Elena nodded slowly. "That sounds worse."

Luca gave a tired laugh. "It is in some ways."

"Because you can't remove everyone" Elena said.

"No." He returned to his chair. "And I don't want to punish people for mistakes they didn't know they were making. That would create another problem."

Elena leaned back. "So what do you do?"

"We correct the system." Luca said.

"That sounds very much like you." Elena said.

Luca gave her a questioning look. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It isn't," Elena replied with a small smile. "I just think sometimes you make everything harder than it needs to be because you insist on carrying all of it yourself."

Luca looked at her. "I'm responsible for this house. And for everyone in it."

"I know." Elena said.

"That makes it difficult to simply stop thinking about it." Luca said.

"You don’t have to stop thinking about it forever. Just for tonight." Elena said.

He was quiet.

Then, after a moment, he closed the folder in front of him.

They stayed that way for a while, without discussing the investigation.

Outside the study, the house had grown quieter.

The new restrictions were already changing small habits. Men were speaking more carefully, passing information through fewer hands, and thinking twice before repeating something they had overheard.

It was an uncomfortable adjustment.

But perhaps that was what the house needed.

For months, Luca had been searching for the person responsible.

Now there was another question to answer.

How had the information moved in the first place?

Later that night, Elias returned to his room with several reports still unfinished.

He placed them on the desk, removed his jacket, and sat down.

The new restrictions would create additional work.

Old schedules would have to be reviewed.

Communication patterns would need to be examined. Conversations that had once been considered routine might have to be reconsidered in light of everything that had happened over the previous four months.

It was tedious work, but it was necessary.

Elias opened the first report.

The messenger theory was still only a theory.

There was no guarantee that it explained the failures, and there was no proof that careless information had played any role at all.

Still, the previous approach had produced very little.

It made sense to test another possibility.

He began with the oldest records.

Shipment schedules.

Meeting locations.

Names of people assigned to deliveries.

Routine communications.

One page became two.

Then three.

Outside his window, the house gradually became quiet.

Elias kept reading.

If information had been leaving through ordinary channels, the answer might not be hidden in one dramatic mistake.

It could be scattered across dozens of small details that nobody had considered important at the time.

And if that was the case, finding the leak would require more than finding a name.

It would require understanding how the information had been moving in the first place.

The investigation had changed direction.

For the first time in months, they were looking beyond the question of who had betrayed them and asking a different one,

How has the information gotten out?