CHAPTER FOUR
“What?” Cami said to Fraser, incredulously.
She was aware that the same word had burst out of Connor’s mouth at exactly the same moment. For the first time ever, and probably the only time, their thoughts had been as one.
Now, Cami saw that Connor was staring at Fraser with exactly the same shell-shocked expression she was sure was on her face. Was this guy for real? He couldn’t mean this!
But he returned her astounded gaze calmly. He didn’t blink. He didn’t look away. He didn’t look like he was trying to hide anything. She could tell that he wasn’t joking or playing games. Even so, this was beyond what she’d ever thought. She couldn’t get her head around it. For a start, how did they expect her to say yes? To this? For the FBI?
Cami felt like she’d had the wind knocked out of her.
Connor was the first one to speak again, sounding incredulous.
“You can’t be serious.”
Fraser almost smiled. “I’m very serious. She has the skills we need. As of yesterday, our team lost three bright, tech-savvy agents. These are skills we urgently require now in this case. And even though we got some results before Symmons left, he took longer to get the information. She did it in what? Five minutes? Speed will help us now. It’ll give us the edge we need.”
“But she’s a hacker,” Connor said in disbelief.
“She’s a student,” Fraser corrected him. “A student who is about to graduate. Yes, she’s hacked in the past. But it’s not her full-time occupation.” He turned to Cami. “What you do, going forward, is your choice. You’re good. You could be useful to us. You could help us on an important case,” he said smoothly.
Cami opened her mouth, then closed it again. She waited for a moment, trying to decide what to say.
“Look, I don’t want to work for you,” she said. “I…I have ethical problems with the FBI.”
“You? Ethical problems? With us?” Connor sounded genuinely appalled.
She ignored him as she continued, “I didn’t just hack your homepage to cause trouble. I did it because I have an actual issue with you. A grievance. With you as an organization. I don’t have faith in you. Or the police, and you’re like an even more bureaucratic version of the police. You don’t get results. You don’t care about the people you’re supposed to help. I changed the homepage as a protest. So, I can’t take the job. I hope I’ve helped some in your research, and you find out who killed those women,” she concluded, wanting to show sympathy for the victims even though she had no love for the FBI.
She knew this would mean a jail sentence. It was probably a reckless decision, but she had to stand up for what she believed.
“Well, there you go,” Connor said, sounding vindicated and also, Cami thought, relieved. “She doesn’t want to help. She’s just a hacker. Not someone we could ever use, anyway.”
He looked at his boss as if thinking Fraser might have been briefly delusional to suggest it.
She anticipated Fraser might look disappointed. That having said some pretty nice things about her skills, he might realize that she had a serious grudge against the organization. That it might give him a picture of how she perceived things.
But no, it clearly wasn’t going to work that way. Fraser didn’t look disappointed at all but strangely calm.
“You have a grudge against law enforcement. I see that.”
“I’m glad you do.” Cami nodded.
“I am not going to go into the details about why. I’m guessing there’s a valid reason for it—in your perception, anyway— and that you do have a genuine grievance. Perhaps you didn’t get closure on a case that someone close to you was involved in. That happens.”
She felt surprised. Fraser was being more perceptive than she’d thought.
“Every organization is made up of people. It rises or falls on the shoulders of the people involved in it. We can’t solve every case. We do try our best. Unsolved cases are something we hate. Right now, there are people sitting in your situation. The friends and family of the women who have died. They’re looking to the FBI to solve this, to give them closure. And we are giving you an exceptional chance, a deal that can keep you out of jail, because we currently have a skills shortage. You have the skills, right now, that could help catch this guy. And that can bring some comfort to those grieving people. You see what I’m saying?”
Cami did, in fact, see. His logic was sound. She nodded as he continued.
“You can’t criticize the FBI for not being good enough, when you’ve been given a chance to be part of it, to add value, and to change it for the better. And you’ve said no. So, from now on, if you do say no, you have to live with the reality that you chose not to help. You chose not to contribute your skills. You’ve criticized without being willing to help. And you’ll be thinking about that from a jail cell.” His face looked so stern and hard that she blinked. “There are no further options for you, Ms. Lark. It is jail, or it is this offer. A deal like this happens very rarely.”
He glanced at Connor, who nodded his agreement as he continued.
“We’ve arrested probably a hundred people statewide, in the course of this year so far, for interfering with FBI business, for attempting to sabotage us in various ways. Do you know how many have been offered a second chance?”
Cami shook her head.