Page 3 of Fox in Plain Sight

“The hacker in exchange for your freedom. You know I’m not bluffing. Tell me you understand.”

“I understand.”

“Good, then here’s what you do: find him, but don’t spook him. If he finds out that you’re onto him, he’s gone. Do you get that? You have ten days. If you can’t deliver him by then, our deal is off, and you’ll be prosecuted. Not as an American, but as a terrorist. You should have thought twice about what you were getting yourself into when you hacked into the Department of Defense’s servers. You committed an act of terrorism.” He clicked his tongue. “Very despicable indeed.”

“I never—”

His hand on her shoulder made her swallow her words. The urge to turn around to look into the face of her tormentor was strong, but she suppressed it, knowing it would earn her a bullet in the head.

“No more excuses.”

Her heart raced, and her pulse thundered in her ears. Rage made her clench her teeth. She wasn’t a terrorist, far from it. She and her fellow hackers at Anonymous had been trying to uncover documents about the United States’ involvement in the latest Middle East conflict and the real reasons behind their support for a regime that tortured its own citizens. She’d wanted the American public to know the truth. That wasn’t terrorism. It was freedom of speech. She hadn’t hurt anybody by hacking into government servers.

Nevertheless, she was paying for it now. They’d tried to get her to give up the other members of Anonymous who’d taken part in this project, but she’d refused. She was no snitch. Besides, Michelle hardly knew who the others were, only knew them by their screen names.

The sudden silence made her pause in her thoughts. She listened intently, but there was nothing. Not even the sound of breathing.

“Mr. Smith?”

There was no reply. Michelle spun around. She was alone in the dark underground parking garage. Alone, except for a few parked cars.

Clutching her messenger bag that held her laptop, she walked toward the elevator. Ten days was all she had left. Judging by the little she’d accomplished in the previous four weeks, she had a snowball’s chance in hell of delivering the elusive hacker Smith was looking for. Without any clue as to what the person was actually after, she couldn’t narrow down her search. Did Smith have any idea how many hackers attacked governmental servers every single day? Despite that obstacle she’d come across one particular individual who’d piqued her interest, but she hadn’t been able to get a lock on him yet.

Essentially, she was looking for a needle in a haystack. A needle she couldn’t afford to search for any longer, because if she didn’t get away before the ten days were up, she’d be as good as dead.

It was time to plan her escape while continuing to pretend that she was following Smith’s request, so he wouldn’t catch on to her deception until it was too late.