Chapter 15

“You’ve got a story, but you haven’t written a story yet,” Isabelle Rousseau, Amy’s editor, said.

“What do you mean?” Amy asked, despite knowing what was coming. Isabelle had not gotten to her current position by sugarcoating criticism.

“A lawyer might pore through this mess, but a reader won’t. Why would they care about this chain of transactions and payoffs? It’s just another hbunch of corrupt officials,” the blunt professional said.

While her trip to Connecticut had not provided a smoking gun, it did expose the business she had looked at. Sommers Special Acquisitions and Sales was a very private auction house that rumor tied to some unsavory businessmen. She couldn’t prove exactly what the bogus transaction had been for, but it seemed plenty of nefarious individuals did business with the auction house. Some of her contacts had told her to stay away from it. Only bad things would happen to her if she stuck her nose in too far.

“It’s our elected representatives buying and selling little girls for money and political favors. How can people not care?” While she had no proof, her sources informed her that is what happened at the auction house, and that it was not the only one in and around the city.

Isabelle shrugged. “It’s not why they won’t, it’s what you can tell them to make them care? How does it affect them? You don’t have that story yet, and without it, we won’t run it. Why should readers care?”

Amy sighed. “It’s a hard message to give,” she said.

Isabelle’s look softened. “Look, kiddo. I get this is important. I get that this is news. But you can’t create a sense of outrage and need, people aren’t going to even try to do anything about this. The congress-critters will circle wagons to protect themselves and their compatriots. The military-industrial complex will cover its own assess with more obfuscation. The various government agencies will hide behind national security and need to know. You must have that sense of outrage.”

Amy sat back, resisting the urge to feel dejected. She had the paper trail sorted out after weeks of work. Now she required the story.

“I need to find the victims,” she said.

Isabelle nodded. “And not just a kid or two who were trafficked. Get the victims who lost jobs because of shady deals. Find the taxpayers footing this bill and getting screwed in the process. Make this a story everyone can feel something about.”

Amy took a deep breath. “Okay, I get it. I’ve got a few ideas.”

“Good. If this goes as deep and high-up as you think, make sure you are covering your tracks. Don’t let the feds get wind of what you are researching.”

Amy nodded. She knew what Finn had instructed her to do and had added a few of her precautions to keep her movements and research randomized. It slowed her progress, but as the scope of the story became clearer, she knew the precautions were warranted.

“This place is larger than your home in New York,” Elara said as she looked around the well-appointed apartment.

“Fully furnished, and just a couple of blocks from a Yellow Line station.” Finn said. “It is a bit further out than I wanted, but Alexandria isn’t that far from where we want to be.”

They had traveled the train into town, arriving in the afternoon and spending the night in a chain hotel not far from the station. Finn had immediately began searching for more permanent accommodations. The apartment south of the city had been the result.

“The coffee shop looked promising,” Elara added. They had casually walked by the building Finn was interested in spying on, even if they hadn’t spotted anything yet. A sign in the window had advertised for servers. Elara had the paper application in her bag.

“It did. We’ll get the forms filled out, and I’ll make sure your background is discoverable.”

“What?”

He smiled at her. “I mean the background you’ll use for the application, not your real background. I could just see putting down ‘Acolyte to the Temple of the Moon Goddess’ in the prior experience section of the form.”

Elara stared at him, wanting to retort in-kind and tease him, but not being able to come up with anything witty now. “What about stocking food?” She asked to change the subject.

“There’s a small store a couple of blocks away. Shall we drop our things and check it out?”

Finn insisted they stop at what he called an ATM on the way to the store. His mystical phone produced some code allowing him access, and soon he had replenished his supply of cash, carefully counting out more than half of it to her.

“Why so much?” She asked. They had practiced with the money and making change in New York, but she had not needed much cash on the infrequent trips out.

“You’ll want to have some handy, and it would look strange for you to work at a coffee shop and not be comfortable with cash, even if most customers will use cards or their phones for purchases.”

“I suppose.” Every time she thought she was getting acclimated to this strange world, something new or different would crop up.

Back at the apartment, they settled in side-by-side at the kitchen table after food was put away. Finn opened his laptop and had her pull out the employment form. Elara practiced each word she wrote on the form on a pad of paper before committing it to the official document. Finn opened multiple windows and typed similar information into them as she read aloud and considered her responses.

“Here’s the name and social security number you’ll use,” Finn said at one point. “I hacked the various databases, so if anyone checks, they should confirm your identity. I’ll procure a passport later tonight.”

“Will they check that for a simple job as a server?”

He nodded. “Especially this close to D.C. they will want to confirm you are in the country legally.”

“Why?”

“So, the owners of the shop can’t be accused of depriving some lazy citizen of a job they are unwilling to perform. Cheap labor from illegal immigrants is a problem or at least perceived as a problem. Too many people who could hold jobs would rather not do the work, so now everyone must prove they are legal to make money and pay taxes.”

Conflicting emotions swirled around Finn as he spoke. There was passion buried in his words. But she wasn’t certain if it was aimed at the masses who didn’t want the work, or the illegal immigrants who did want the work but needed papers to take the job. It was so much simpler in her worlds.

“What about all these items?” She asked as she looked over the remainder of the form.

“Don’t worry about them. You’re going in tomorrow and will hand this to the manager or owner there. We’ll do it after the morning rush is over. After dinner, I need to go out alone for a bit, to meet a contact who can make the passport for you. It won’t stand up to a full check yet but will confirm your identity for working. I’ll insert things into the IRS and DHS systems once I have the passport number from him.”

It was nearly gibberish to Elara, but she trusted him and sensed his feelings that it needed to be done this way.

“I trust you, Finn. I want to start our hunt for these people as much as you do.”

“How did you do it, Finn?” Alex whispered as he pored over more data on searches from New York. He had been alerted to the manhunt occurring and expected anomalies in the semi-random search pattern he had spotted. The fact that there hadn’t been much change in the pattern during the full search made him suspect a bot of some sort was pulling data for the hacker.

He walked over to his fancy coffee machine and pushed a button after putting his mug beneath the spigot.

How would I do it? He thought. A modified mobile phone programmed with the searches. A script to automatically connect to open wi-fi signals. Then tape it under a seat on a bus and let it roam the streets of Manhattan. I could call it to get an IP with another script and then download the data haul.

It could work. It would take him a lot of time to code and test such a set-up, but Finn was a crafty coder and fast. He could write clean code quickly, which was one of the reasons he had been tapped for their special projects.

Focus on the why, not the how, he thought as he retrieved his refilled mug of coffee. Why would Finn want the records on politicians if he already had their banking records from the first hack?

He wouldn’t!