“Ha. Yeah. That was pretty awful, and probably the whole scenario came about because my nerves are shot and my brain was glitching. So it’s interesting to me that all the frenetic energy I’ve been wearing seemed to just flow away on our walk to the car. The calm I feel around you and Tank is really nice. Thank you. But to answer your question: yes, I’m completely comfortable having dinner with you tonight. If you can say scampi instead of chili, then you probably know your way around the kitchen, and I’m not in danger of food poisoning.”
Dakota eased into the bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“So what’s worrying you most?” Dakota asked.
“One of my biggest concerns right now is that we’ve had three deployments, and three times we were hit with counterfeit money,” Rylee said. “The damaging effects to the morale of our teams as they find out about this new danger are going to be something WorldCares needs to navigate. If I can tell the teams that you caught the bad guy, it will help. You are going to catch the bad guy, right?”
“I’m going to do my darndest.”
“Did Jasper mention surveillance tapes to you?” Rylee asked.
“Last night he said that you had the tapes and offered to let us put them through an AI system, and we wouldn’t do that.”
Rylee twisted in her seat, adjusting her belt across her chest. “Do you mind my asking why?”
“The computers that could scan through the data, cull the static images, and make a nice neat binder of names and faces are all privately owned. We could contract to use them. That is possible. The problem is that then the data would be added to the AI database. Since that database is privately owned, we would no longer have control over who sees that data and how it’s used.”
Rylee instantly thought of Casey Andrews and how much danger it would mean to him to be out in the field when some rogue actor paid a fee to name him as a CIA field officer.
“So, for example, the bad guy could ask for instances when his face was searched and who had that information?” Rylee asked, her face flaming red with warning.
Langley told Neesa that Iniquus was safe. Thank goodness they hadn’t risked Casey’s image in a private security supercomputer.
“Exactly.” Dakota flipped on his turn signal and moved onto the on-ramp toward the highway. “I live in Alexandria.”
“Me, too. That’s nice.” She waited until he’d navigated past the accident on the right before she spoke. “This counterfeiting mess is potentially devastating to our organization and can have international ramifications. We serve over a hundred thousand people every year. People who are in the worst circumstances of their lives when money and prestige are meaningless as they deal with what is thrust upon them, volcanic eruptions, fires, droughts, deluges, all manner of catastrophe. If the public didn’t trust us with the stewardship of their donations, thinking we were a con, the funding would go away, and our expertise would no longer be available to the world. Thousands, even tens of thousands of people could potentially die.”
He turned to catch her eye, then focused back on the road.
From the way he held his face stoic and thoughtful, Rylee knew he was taking this in and fully understood the seriousness of the situation.
“Right now, there are charities that function the way we do with our specialties. We’re unique in the world because of our scope. We have one of the best records for the percentage of donations that go directly to those in need, versus big salaries and schmoozing. Believe me, as co-director of operations, I have a comfortable—not exorbitant—salary, and I’m not required to do any schmoozing.” She looked out the passenger-side window, with a sorrowful shake of her head, and whispered, “This is incredibly dangerous.”
“Rylee,” Dakota said, his voice pulling her focus to him. “We’ll do everything in our power to keep the circle tight to protect your reputation. But you’ll agree that the sooner the counterfeiter is identified and caught, the better. Working hand in hand with me—with us, I mean—will make for a better explanation afterward. You say something like, ‘It came to our attention, and we worked very closely with the Secret Service.’”
“Yes, of course. I’m not saying that we don’t trust you to help us navigate our proximity to these crimes. Our CEO said to go ahead and do whatever is needed to rectify this. Andthisfalls under Neesa’s and my jurisdiction. We don’t have a lot to offer. So I’m very hopeful for the data that we can get from those videos.”
“Iniquus is doing it for you, right?”
“Fortunately, yes,” Rylee said. “We have a good working relationship. Often show up at the same emergency events. After their team saves their contracted protectees, they often stay to lend a hand. But also, one of our best logisticians, Hailey Sterling, moved to Iniquus when she married a Cerberus Bravo operator. After speaking with Jasper yesterday, Neesa reached out to Hailey to see whether Iniquus could help us. It’s a bit of along shot that we’ll get anything, but their commander gave his thumbs up. Actually, they were grateful to learn about this issue because Iniquus, like us, uses the same cash system, and they’re worried, like we are, that their reputation will be tarnished if they inadvertently spread counterfeit money.” Riley shifted in her seat to face Dakota. “Neesa said she couldn’t tell the correct bill from the fake when you were looking through our safe, that the bills were that good.” She wrapped her hands around her knee. “I know we’re trying to help by allowing the Secret Service to find the guy. I’m wondering if, in helping you, we’re ultimately hurting ourselves. I wonder if we should just come clean on the news, tell people what’s going on, and what we’re doing to thwart it. Maybe by bringing in a little sunlight, it will disinfect the situation.”
Dakota didn’t answer, didn’t try to dissuade her, didn’t work to convince her that their way was the right way.
Rylee honestly didn’t know how to navigate this.
It was a chess game with an unknown opponent.
Dakota pulled into the driveway of a neat, mid-century modern with a flat roof and wide chimneys. The bushes out front were neatly trimmed to mimic the house's geometric symmetry. The glow of the lights through the plate-glass windows was inviting.
She’d been expecting a condo or townhouse.
“Nice,” she said.
Dakota pulled to a stop so that when she exited, her feet would be on the sidewalk.
She unbuckled then reached down for her bag. When she was upright again, Dakota was already at her door, opening it and extending his hand to assist her out.
Only then did he round to the back to release Tank.
