Thirty-One
Sitting at the head of the conference room table, Kamela Jones gave a start and looked at her Apple Watch. She tapped the watch, futzed with the crown, muttered, and stood.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Pressing affairs of state?” I asked.
“My daughter threw up on her teacher.”
“Or that.”
“Keep the room,” she said, hurrying out.
“So, Special Agent Hunter?”
“So what?”
“Do I get to call you Mel?”
“Fine. Whatever,” said Mel, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes. She was cute when she was adolescent. Actually, she was cute regardless, a fact that had just started to worm its way into my consciousness.
“Bringing you into this was the senator’s idea,” said Mel. “I think it’s stupid.”
“How did the senator know about me?”
“Bobby had to explain why we were talking to you, a known hacker—”
“White-hat hacker.”
“Right. White-hat.”
“What, you don’t believe that?”
“More like a dingy-gray hat, given what I read on Twitter.”
I looked at Jael. “Can you believe this?”
Jael had been looking into her smartphone. “There is a lot on Twitter. More death threats.”
“We told you to stay away from Peter,” said Mel. “If you’d listened to us, none of this would be happening to you.”
“Why did you tell me to stay away from Peter? Did you think he stole the senator’s video?”
“We know he stole the senator’s video. There was a clear trail from the link in Kamela Jones’s e-mail to Peter’s machine in East Boston. We had a warrant to watch his online activities to see what he did with the video. We told you to stay away from Peter because we didn’t want him spooked. But you screwed that up, and now he’s dead.”
“So you’ve got his computer now?”
“Yes.”
“And you found the video on it.”
“No, they didn’t,” said Jael.
“How do you know?”
“Because if they had found the video, then we would not have been summoned.”
“And you’d still be calling me Special Agent Hunter,” said Mel.
“How could all the signs have pointed to Peter and then he doesn’t have the video?”
“We think he handed it off to someone else in PwnSec.”
“What is PwnSec?” asked Jael.
“The group of idiots who keep pushing #TuckerGate,” I said.
“They were also Peter’s online friends.”
“With friends like that,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I think we’ll find that a guy named Earl Clary is in PwnSec.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He’s the guy whose Facebook comment linked Peter to his nickname, Runway. Earl accidentally doxed Peter.”
“Why do you think he’s in PwnSec?”
“I don’t know. It’s a hunch. It was a really familiar comment, something that a friend in both the online world and the real world would say.”
Mel said, “And that’s why you are in this meeting.”
“I’m sorry, why was I in this meeting?”
“It took the cooperation of the FBI, Homeland Security, and a judge for us to dox Peter. You did it in an evening on Facebook. Clearly, you’re good at this.”
“I’m also outside legal authority.”
“That too. You’re a private citizen. You can do whatever you need to do to dox someone, no warrant necessary.”
“And then I can report back to you.”
“Exactly.”
“So I’ll be kind of a spy.”
Mel looked at me, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. She stood, walked to the credenza, and poured herself a glass of water. She wore nicely-
fitting black pants, a blue shirt, and a brown leather jacket. Her brown shoulder-length hair rested on her shoulders and down her back. But her shoulders were hunched. She was clearly angry, settling herself.
She sat down across from me. “What is your problem?”
“My problem is that I’ve got an Internet shitstorm accusing me of being in cahoots with the FBI, and you’re asking me to be in cahoots with the FBI.”
“You said they were all idiots.”
“They are all idiots.”
“Then what do you care what they think?”
“I don’t care what they think.”
“Then what’s your problem? Why won’t you help us?”
“Because I don’t want to see the FBI screw anybody el—”
Jael, who had been sitting next to me the whole time listening, placed her hand on mine. I stopped, my train of thought interrupted by the rarity of the event. I looked from my hand and up to Jael’s gray eyes.
“You should help them,” said Jael.
“Help who?”
“The FBI. You should find these people with the video.”
“But you saw what happened with Peter. You see what’s happening online.”
“Are you afraid?”
Was I afraid? Of a Twitter storm? “No.”
“Then you should help this woman.”
“Mel?”
“No. The senator’s wife.”
“Betty?”
“She allowed herself to be recorded in order to please her husband. She trusted him. He was ignorant and foolish, and her trust was broken. If the video becomes public, she will be shamed.”
“Yes, but—”
“She is the innocent one here. She should be protected.”
Landon, you’re sure nobody will see this?
Jael’s moral clarity stopped me cold. Who was I defending here? A bunch of kids who thought pranking people was fun, who would drive a girl to suicide for the lulz? Was the FBI so terrible for catching them before they hurt someone else?
I looked toward the glowering Mel, then back at Jael.
“You’re right,” I said to Jael.
“So what does that mean?” asked Mel.
“It means I’ll help you dox PwnSec.”
“Because of Betty?”
“Yeah,” I said, “because of Betty.”
Mel stood, walked around the table. Stuck out her hand. I looked at it.
“Partners?” she said.
“So you don’t want to arrest me anymore?”
Mel left her hand out there. “No. I was wrong.”
I ignored the hand. “Apology accepted.”
“I haven’t apologized.” The hand stayed out. “Partners?”
“Sure, Mel, we’re partners.” I shook her hand.
“Good! What’s our next step?”
“You said you had Peter’s computer?”
“Yup.”
“Let me know if you find anything funky on it. Any malware.”
“Got it.”
With that Mel left, apparently happy to have a specific assignment. The door clicked shut behind her.
“Thank you,” I said to Jael.
“Thank you?”
“Thank you for helping me see the bigger picture,” I said, “and for getting me to think about Betty.”
Jael said nothing.
“What’s next?” I asked.
Jael took out her smartphone, opened the Twitter app, and handed it to me. The invective continued to stream.
@PwnSec: It’s time to do something about Tucker. #TuckerGate
@Eliza: Got a plan coming together #TuckerGate
I knew what I had to do next.