The Heat

7. Trouble in Paradise

Lou hit the same command on the keyboard for the third time, and smacked the side of the laptop for good measure.

"I don't think that helps," Debbie said.

They were sitting together in the corner of a quiet coffee shop, huddled over a small laptop that displayed a complicated-looking screen full of code. The bug that Debbie had planted in Yelnick's phone at the night club could not, for some reason, access the phone data without another means of hacking. Yelnick was more cautious about his tech than they thought.

"I can't hack this fucker," Lou said at last. "There's no way."

"Try writing the code one more time—"

"Debbie, this guy's up to his balls in protection."

"Okay," Debbie said. The coffee shop owner was giving them strange looks. "We'll need to find another way."

Lou hesitated, biting her lip in concentration. Debbie watched the blue eyes dart. "What are you thinking?" She asked.

"There is a way," Lou said, "but you may not like it."

"What?"

"So, I know this hacker." Lou leaned in closer, lowering her voice, and Debbie could smell the mingled scent of coffee and spearmint on her breath. "I hired him once for an internet scam case back in Melbourne."

"I'm sorry, what? A hacker?" Debbie couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"He goes by the code name Nine Ball. He's excellent. It'll be hard to hire him, since he's in such high demand, but it's worth a try, no?"

"Are you telling me that we as law enforcers should hire a hacker to track our mark?"

"Eye for an eye," Lou said with a wry smile.

Debbie looked back at the laptop screen. She rubbed her temples. "No. No. That isn't right. For one thing, it's illegal to hire hackers. For another, the risk is too high. How can we trust this–this 'Nine Ball'? For all we know, he could work for the Russian mafia, or ISIS, or use our data and blackmail us with it."

"Look, I told you I worked with him before. He doesn't give a shit who his clients are as long as the pay is good enough."

"The pay? How do you know if he's even a man or not? Have you spoken with him?"

"Actually, I don't know," Lou admitted. "We only ever communicated over online text. But what I'm saying is, he—or she—did the job. We caught the internet scammer."

"How much did you pay him?"

"Fifty grand."

"That's the price he requested?" Debbie demanded.

"That's the price we offered." Lou twisted her rings against her fingers, an impatient habit that Debbie had noticed. "Listen. We don't have much time. Shady guy like Yelnick, you think he won't change his phone every month—or even every week? If we can reach Nine Ball, we can infiltrate Yelnick's phone faster than the FBI can. We can use a code name if you want. Fake a scenario."

Debbie closed the laptop and slipped it back into her briefcase. She shook her head. "This is madness," she said. "I could get fired."

"You have shit priorities, you know that?"

Debbie rounded on her. "Excuse me?"

"How do you care about your goddamn promotion more than this mission? People's lives are at stake, time's running out, and all you care about is your stupid job."

Debbie felt heat rising in her face. "I care about this job more than you could ever guess. Excuse me for having a moral code."

"It's not a question of morality. You're the most stoic person I've ever known, and that's not a compliment."

They glared at each other, and Debbie felt the stone come over her heart again. It hurt her more than she wanted to admit to hear Lou's words. As if Lou thought, after all she'd seen and heard, that this mission was nothing more than an opportunity for promotion to Debbie. As if she hadn't been crying in Lou's arms that very morning. In a matter of seconds, both women were separated again by that invisible wall that so painfully splits a friend into a stranger.

At that moment, the coffee shop owner walked over. "Trouble in paradise, ladies?" He asked. "I'm going to have to ask you guys to try to save your marriage outside, since you're disturbing the other customers."

Debbie flushed with embarrassment. She hadn't realized how loud they were, and she stood up, clutching her briefcase. "I'm sorry," she said to him in a clipped voice. "And we are most certainly not together."

She stormed out of the coffee shop then, not caring whether or not Lou was following her.