“Yes, ma’am, thank you. Jasper Lee texted me that he’s running five minutes late. My apologies. We usually run a tight ship, but last night our colleague ended up in the hospital with a life-threatening condition, and Jasper wanted to stop by this morning to check on the family.”
“Of course.”
Neesa flicked a hand toward Rylee’s office. “This is Sun Yu with legal.”
Dakota bobbed his head in greeting without walking Tank farther into the room. Some folks were intimidated by Tank’ssize; better to hang out by the door and give everyone the necessary space.
With a hand signal, Tank lay neatly at Dakota’s feet, pillowing his chin on his paws and closing his eyes.
“My co-director is involved in a training evolution this morning. I’ll do my best to answer all your questions, and I’ll note the ones that need more research or Rylee’s input. I expect her later today.” She turned to the PA. “Erica, we’re expecting one more. Just show him in when he gets here.”
“I understand from Sun that three of our teams have caught your attention.” She picked up a pen and held it with both hands. “I wish I had known right away, so we could try new security protocols to protect our people.”
“Not a team,” Sun clarified, “in the first two incidents, the concern centered around a single individual. In this latest incident, three of our team members carried the unused cash back to the United States. All three teams involved were our fast-reaction teams.”
“How many teams do you have?” Dakota asked.
“Twenty disaster teams, their size depends on their mission focus. Seven of those are the fast reaction teams, Kilo through Quebec. They can either work together, each performing their specialty at a site, or they can break off and work alone. Each team develops different skill sets. For example, we have an avalanche team. They train out of Newfoundland, so they can drop down into the Arctic region quickly. They develop mainly European language skills, which are becoming less relevant as most people under 35 speak amazing English. Our teams work with older generations, too, so part of our training protocol includes survival language skills of the more populous language groups, so we don’t always have to rely on a translation app. Which becomes clunky in an emergency. Oscar had the right skills and languages for Colombia.”
“Out of curiosity, how do you handle it if your teams don’t have the language for the deployment?” Dakota hoped that some banter and curiosity would ease WorldCares into a comfortable relationship with Jasper and him. They weren’t here as adversaries. Quite the opposite.
“There are locations that aren’t on our language list, so on the way over, you’ll find our group sitting on the airplane learning basics: stop, go, come, water, food, shelter. Simple-simple, there’s only so much you can learn in a few hours. And for much of their travel time, they prioritize sleep. Sleep becomes a precious commodity once they’re boots on the ground.”
Erica showed up at the door, showing Jasper in.
It was interesting to see him stall out when he met Neesa.
She stood and walked from behind her desk, extending her hand. “Neesa Meesang and you’re Jasper Lee? I’m so glad to meet you.”
The handshake hadn’t ended.
“Yes, Jasper. I’m sorry to be late.”
Still, the handshake hadn’t ended.
“Traffic in this part of town is difficult,” Jasper explained.
Erica came back to the room, pushing a rolling chair.
“Right here,” Neesa said, gesturing to the open space by her desk. “Thank you.” She turned to Jasper and ended the handshake with a gesture toward the chair.
Interesting.
Dakota introduced Sun and gave Jasper a quick summary of what had been said.
Jasper unbuttoned his suit jacket. “At the airport yesterday, we were surprised at how much cash your people were carrying.”
“Which they declared at customs after your interrogation, correct?” Sun asked.
Neesa looked at Sun, then turned to Jasper. “I imagine you have access to the border records, and you’ll see this is the norm for our organization. If you need them, I can provide you with our records. Everything is accounted for.”
“Yes, thank you,” Jasper said. “The thing I’m trying to understand here is why there is so much cash flowing over the borders with your organization.”
Dakota noticed that Jasper had pitched his voice lower and smoother than usual. Dakota tucked that away so he could ride Jasper about it after they left.
“That cash is kept here on site or in a bank?” Dakota asked.
“Here we have a walk-in safe and a security guard,” Neesa said. “Tank is the dog that smelled the fake money on my team?”
