Currency of Trust (Secrets Of The World Storyline) (Patreon)

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Settled into a secret base in Australia (Away 4) Laylana and the Deep-Secret CIA team made ready to continue their efforts to take down a global broker of all things bad they had given the codename “Spectrum.”

|| "Currency of Trust" is a part of the Secrets Of The World storyline. ||

Once everyone on the team had assembled, some still finishing their coffee, Laylana called for their attention. “Gavin already has his bot up and running…”

Gavin broke in. “Most of them…”

Laylana nodded. “Most of his bots… Let’s take a moment to center our thoughts.”

She went over the intel she had picked up from her contact at NSA, Julia Ryan, regarding the suspicious money trail connected to their raid in France. “The money ended up all the way to Northwest Federal Credit Union, which is known to service accounts for a lot of CIA people. Combined with what went down after Indonesia, it’s pretty safe to assume our target is pretty high up in the agency.”

Natalie nodded. “The money trail draws the circle close to Langley…”

Laylana continued. “So, the pool of possibilities has decreased.”

Dawson then said, “Vals, here’s something I’m thinking…”

“What’s that?” Laylana said.

“How do we know who we can trust?”

“Say more,” Gavin replied.

Dawson nodded. “Okay, if we know who we can, without a doubt, trust, then we can eliminate them from being part of Spectrum.”

“I think it’s going to be a short list,” Mason said.

Dawson nodded. “From where I sit, it looks like this. Before Indonesia, Davis had you guys looking for Spectrum with an inkling of an idea the person might be in the CIA. Spoofing the face-match software dragged Vals into all this, then the wheels flew off. First question is this… Why did that happen? Why did whoever is behind this blow a gasket when he… she… thought Laylana was onto something?”

“They didn’t want to be found out,” Eva said.

“I was digging around in old CIA databases looking for Natalie,” Laylana added. “They assumed I was looking for them.”

“So they wanted to…” Owen said, “You know… neutralize you. Take you off the board.”

“Let’s get back to Dawson’s first question,” Mason said. “Who can we trust? Lay… why do you trust Natalie and the rest of the team?”

“They could have killed me many times over, but didn’t.”

Dawson then said, “Well, what if that was just to gain your trust so Davis could get you off the board?”

“To what end?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know…” Dawson looked at Mason. “What mission did she miss when they diverted her to Indonesia? Maybe that is the real thing and Spectrum is just smoke and mirrors.”

“Smoke and mirrors don’t move €100,000,” Laylana added.

“According to NSA,” Eva replied, “who could be in on it.”

Dawson held up his hand. “Okay, I’ll say I trust Jason Block who passed the lead to Laylana’s friend, Julia.”

Laylana interrupted. “Acquaintance …”

Gavin pointed at Mason. “Back to the mission we diverted her from… Dawson, go with that…”

“Okay, so you took her off the board… And she’s still off. You could be tied to whoever was on the other end of the op she didn’t show up for.”

Everyone looked at Mason. “It was back to South America for a street-view, boots on the ground photo session to confirm satellite images. Drug-cartel surveillance and confirmation work.”

“So I wouldn’t have uncovered anything new,” Laylana replied. “I’d put keeping me from taking pictures near the bottom of the list of reasons all this happened.”

“Why do we trust Davis?” Mason asked. “We’re in a bunker in Australia living off pre-paid Visa cards. We think we’re tapped into the grid, but are we just getting what amounts to a livestream of pre-selected data?”

“Why do we trust Dawson?” Eva said. “Hypothetically, of course… Hunky men are inherently trustworthy in my book… But all of Laylana’s problems started after she met him. And he sort of just called her up out of the blue when she left Detroit and got put on the bench for blowing an op.”

At that, Laylana shook her head. “Okay, we’re not getting anywhere on this path. Let me try something. If Davis was in on Spectrum, he wouldn’t have a team looking for it. If Spectrum is real, Davis isn’t in on it. If Davis was dirty in some other way, why would this team even exist? Davis and whoever above him knows about team Deep-Secret, has to believe Spectrum is a thing. Think about it… If Davis was on what Julia called Team Nasty, he wouldn’t have put all this together, then sent it off looking for something—Spectrum—that didn’t exist.”

“Good point,” Mason replied. “Davis created a team with the current mission to find Spectrum. He thinks Spectrum is real and he’s not on it.”

“So, that puts all of us in this room,” Laylana added, “on the same team. Davis has tasked us to find out who is at the top of what we’re calling Spectrum.”

“That’s right,” Natalie replied.

Laylana nodded and went on. “So, do we trust Julia Ryan? We already had an idea that someone at the CIA high enough in the ranks to burn a handler was involved. That person was likely at Langley. Her money trail just added evidence. Counterpoint? The person we’re looking for isn’t at Langley, but wants us to think they are, and they have somehow gotten the NSA to help convince us—either fabricating the money transfers or pulling Julia onto their team.”

Eva was nodding. “Vals, good summary.”

Gavin was also nodding. “So do we stick with the plan? Take down anything we can that looks like it could be Spectrum? Keep fishing and hope one of the fish we catch has something that leads back to Team Nasty?”

“That’s my vote,” Laylana replied.

Everyone agreed.

{{{{ FIN }}}}}

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Please remember that ALL characters in this story are AI models, characters, and the do NOT represent anyone known real people.