“Where are you?” Jasper asked over the speaker phone.
“In my car, heading out to run Tank, why?” Dakota rolled to a stop at the red light.
“Kumar’s a hound dog on a scent.”
“That’s never good. Hey, start with Benny.”
“He’s going home tomorrow if everything goes as planned. Boggles the mind that he was dead on a Metro platform, two strangers jumped on his chest, and now he gets to go home and be with his family.”
“It makes me believe in miracles. So why’s Kumar working on a Saturday morning?”
“Yesterday, when you and Rylee were taking your sweet time swaying across the field at Iniquus. I called him to let him know about the two names that showed up in all three of the WorldCares events that also had a counterfeit episode.”
“Correlation is not causation,” Dakota said, pressing the gas and easing onto the turnoff for the park. “But I can tell that got him jazzed.”
“Kumar’s got us busy. Put all your weekend plans on hold.”
“Okay. Hey, did you know that WorldCares is spooling up? Rylee’s going to deploy with team Quebec to be eyes on the ground.”
“She’s not thinking she’s going to single-handedly take down the counterfeiter, right?” Jasper asked.
“We know she could. We saw her—well, I saw her—deck a guy at the bar. But she has no authority. I don’t think her goinghas anything to do with our case at all. I think she’s observing to better understand what her people are up against in the field to provide better support. Your turn, what does Kumar need?”
“He took that information Iniquus provided from the camera footage to a judge and asked for an opportunity to do a walk-through of Lewis McLeod’s house with a K9, and if the K9 indicated in any area, that we have the right to search it for any paraphernalia associated with counterfeiting.”
“He has the search warrant in hand?”
“Yeah,” Jasper said. “He’s over there now.”
“Okay. I need to run Tank because he’s Tank and he needs running. And then I need to go home and put on a suit because my showing up in my jogging shorts is a poor representation of the Service.”
“Which is fine. We have a little latitude since the guy’s out of town.”
“Turkey?” Dakota asked as he parked.
“Israel for Spring Break is what his social media says.”
“Do we trust it?” Dakota asked.
“Time and location stamps in the data all look right,” Jasper said. “Look, I think on this one, since it’s not out in public, you can’t loop Reaper into the mix.”
“Where is McLeod’s place? Are we talking apartment building?”
“House in Fairfax that is considerably more expensive than what you’d think could be afforded by an adjunct professor,” Jasper said.
“Yeah, what does he teach?”
“You’re going to love this.” Dakota could hear Jasper’s smile. “Fine art.”
“And that jazzes you because Benny just showed us those bills that the art major made by gluing Bible paper together,” Dakota said.
“I see the symmetry,” Jasper said.
“I can get to Fairfax by ten hundred. Do you want to text me the address?” Dakota pulled into a parking space and cut the engine. “You’ve got to have a cop team together. Otherwise, Kumar can break down the door. My breaching days were over when I said farewell to the Navy.”
“On it.”
“Alright, Tank,” Dakota said after he hung up. “Here’s the schedule. Because of the time constraints, instead of going on a long run, we’ll go at it hard, catch our breath, then Fifi’s mom said you can go over and play this morning. I know! Fifi! So while you have a date, I’ll get spiffed up, then it’s right back in the car and out to Fairfax. Ready?”
