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But there was no way around this.
She sat patiently while the three of them told her she was crazy and then told her in detail exactly how crazy. Operators from the Sommers group were undoubtedly staking out her apartment. Even moving from the safe house was insane. Did she have a death wish? Did she even realize what she was asking?
Riley sat, barely listening, while they unspooled their thoughts, then waited until they both wound down. Jacob Black in particular looked astonished and vexed at the same time. He was clearly used to being obeyed instantly. When he’d finished his reasoning, he sat back, sure that he’d made his point.
Pierce, however, was more emotional. His voice was raw, hoarse. His jaws clenched and there was a line of perspiration along his hairline. “Do you remember that a couple of hours ago you nearly died at the hands of Sommers Group assholes? They were shooting at you, and it was a miracle I managed to arrive in time. Something really bad is happening and we need you to stop it. If something happens to you, the bad guys win. Is that what you want? For them to win because you want your own laptop?”
She understood where they were coming from, so she didn’t snap back. Jacob Black was used to being obeyed, instantly, and Pierce and Nikolai, as former SEALs, were probably used to getting their own way, a lot.
They were also, all three, big men. Big and tall and strong. No one ever tried to bully them or intimidate them. It was the way of the world. Very few people told big, strong men what to do.
But she also wasn’t used to being told what to do. No help had ever been forthcoming from her family. Her mother had been too wrapped up in the smoky craziness in her head, and her father had had no desire to be involved. So she’d made her own way in the world. Luckily, she was smart, had inherited some money from her grandmother, had sailed through three colleges with full rides, and had been recruited for good jobs before even graduating. The only road block had been the Boss from Hell at the NSA, but she’d had Felicity, Hope and Emma.
But this wasn’t about her being difficult or making a point of not obeying. It was something else.
Riley sat up straight and looked at each of them in the eyes.
“I know you disapprove, all three of you, but I really need my computer and I am the one who has to get it. With all due respect,” she touched the laptop Pierce had provided, “this is like the stone age club inA Space Odyssey. More or less as effective. My laptop has two programs that, no, are not in the cloud but even if they were, I couldn’t download to this.” She flicked her finger against the cover. “I worked on uncovering the deepfake at home, on my laptop, on my own time, because I wasn’t sure of what I was seeing, but the fact is, proper proof is there and only there. Otherwise what we have is an improbable story and that’s it. Not only that … I have a fail-safe security system, which requires my thumb print and no, I am not going to cut off my own thumb and give it to you. This is the only way we’ll get solid proof. With my laptop. Which is in my apartment.”
“Proper proof won’t help you if you’re dead!” Pierce said heatedly.
Riley took in a deep breath to respond, then Jacob Black chimed in. “Riley,” he said in his deep, grave voice. “If anything happens to you, we cannot do anything. I understand you need your laptop. God knows I hate going on a mission without proper gear. We all do. But essentially, it’s not what’s on your laptop that’s going to convince everyone. It’s what is in your head. I think I can safely say that neither Pierce nor Nikolai nor I understand one tenth of what is necessary to prove that that video is a deepfake. Without you, we don’t stand a chance.”
“Can you send a drone?”
“Excuse me?”
“Can you send a silent drone to my house? To see the situation? We’ll talk when we know what’s going on.”
Black exchanged a glance with Nikolai. “Sure,” he said. He consulted his cell. “As a matter of fact, there’s a drone of ours not five minutes from where you live.” He held up a finger when he saw her outraged expression. “It’s not what you think. When I got a message from ASI and from Pierce, your address was included in the package of data. SOP.”
She subsided. It probably was SOP and not him checking her background.
“There,” he said, having sent a message. “The drone will be there soon.”
“Does it have IR capability?”
“Yeah.”
“Ok, let’s use these minutes.” She gave a little 5-minute seminar on imaging tech, but could see that all three of them looked relieved when a soft chime sounded from Black’s phone.
“Send it to the monitor on the wall,” she suggested, and the big screen on the wall lit up, showing the familiar scenes from her neighborhood. She didn’t know Washington, DC well, because since she’d gotten the job at NSO, her life had been the job and home, home and the job. But she was a walker and a runner and knew her neighborhood intimately.
It was getting dark. People and animals were showing up more as heat images than regular images. But Riley could read the heat images perfectly.
She got out her laser pointer from her fanny pack, highlighting the areas she described.
“Okay, here’s my place. It’s a former mansion built in 1920, now divided up into six apartments. I’m on the third floor, here. Send the drone over the roof, please.”
Black murmured something into his cell and the drone moved over the roof and she highlighted her apartment.
“This is mine, in the southeast corner. And I’ll bet—” She turned to Jacob Black. “Can I have control over the drone?”
He looked startled, which she was sure didn’t happen often. “Ahh, sure. But it’s fairly complex. We have people in-house to run the drones. They’ve been specially trained.”
Riley just looked at him. He sighed, texted, got an answer. “Okay, control passing to you … now.”
Riley studied the drone dashboard. Complex, but not too complex. And the drone had real capabilities. Good.
