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Julius nodded and swiveled his chair around, his fingers hovering over the keys. “What do you want to say?”
“How about, ‘TheUpsideDown, don’t know about a file. Willing to help you look. For a fee.’”
“Oh, I like the way you think. Never do something for nothing when you can get paid.” Julius cracked his knuckles and typed out the message.
“Now what?” I asked. My body felt like it was on high alert. I wanted to do something, anything, but we still didn’t know what we were up against, and now there was a new element in whatever this was. In the pit of my stomach, despite not knowing anything about hacking or the dark web, I had a feeling this file was going to be important.
“We wait,” Julius and Felix said in unison.
“Got it. For how long?”
Felix shrugged. “As long as it takes them to get back to us.” He twisted back and forth in his chair. “Julius, since you got kicked out of the bank records, have you gotten any other messages? When I got kicked out, I had the email with the picture of me within minutes.”
“No, nothing.” He shook his head. “My guess is they don’t know who I am.”
That sentence tugged at something in the back of my mind. “If they don’t know who you are, how did they know who Felix was?”
Julius frowned. “That’s actually a good question. I’ve seen your work. If I hadn’t known you were in my system because you told me, I wouldn’t have been able to find a trace of you. You’re good. Really good. Good enough not to get caught.”
Felix was chewing at his bottom lip again. “I wish I knew.”
“Could it be someone who knows you or at least knows what you really do for the FBI?”
“Nero has a point. That makes sense. You mentioned you have a handler at the bureau, but who else knows what you do?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know who has access to that information. I work exclusively through the special agent in charge of the Seattle field office. Her name is Naomi Stone.”
“Maybe we should dig into her and see if there are any red flags. Maybe she’s saying there is a mole in her organization because she’s trying to throw everyone off her scent.”
My mate nodded. “At this point, it can’t hurt.”
“Where do you want to start?” Julius’s fingers wiggled over his keyboard.
After that, I lost Felix to my brother as they strategized around the best way to start looking into Agent Stone. I stood over their shoulders for a while longer until I realized I wasn’t needed, and then I made myself comfortable on the couch. I didn’t want to be too far away from Felix, just in case he needed me.
“We got a response.” Julius shook out his hands before resettling them over the keys.
“Read it.” I could feel Felix’s excitement through our bond. I knew he was hoping the same thing I was, that the list the other hacker had talked about would give us a new lead, a real lead.
“Caesar. Don’t know what’s in the file, only that there is one, and it’s been missing from the FBI’s classified server for a while. Willing to discuss payment terms. Proving harder to find than I thought. TUD.’”
“TUD. Could be willing to help for $500K. Will take half to start. The rest when I find what you’re looking for. Caesar.” Julius looked at Felix. “Good?”
“Yeah. Send it.”
“If the file he’s looking for is on a classified FBI server, you can access that, right?” I asked.
Felix shook his head. “My access isn’t carte blanche. They open up the servers I need if and when I need them.”
“But you told us you have hacked the FBI before,” I pointed out, reminding him of the conversation we’d had with my brothers the morning after we decided to form ORCA.
“That’s true, but it takes time. Plus, I had a lot of tools built out on my computer to make it easier. I have all the code on the drives I grabbed from my place, but it took me a long time to set it up, since the first time I hacked the FBI back in college. I’m not sure I can reestablish my backdoor access without alerting whoever is looking for me that I’m there.”
I sighed. “What about asking Agent Stone for access?”
Felix laughed. “You remembered that I’ve hacked the FBI, but you forgot what I said about why. The red tape to get access, especially to a classified server, is ungodly. We’ll be waiting for literal ever for approval just to find out I have twenty minutes to wade through the data before they kick me out and lock things down again.”
“Besides, this guy—I’m assuming it’s a guy—said the file is missing from the server, which means someone within the FBI who would normally be able to access the information can’t find it.” Julius rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This just got a lot more complicated. How do we find a stolen file if there’s no trail?”
