Page 86 of False Flag

Staci had maneuvered herself into a unique position that gave her the chance to stop him. Her personal guilt and trauma were irrelevant now. It was time to get back to work.

It didn’t matter what NSWC thought of her or her mission. If they pulled Jake back to Virginia, she’d return to the island alone.

It was what she’d expected from the start anyway.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Staci stepped out into the main room to see Jake sitting in front of her laptop, which he’d set up on the coffee table, propped up on an upside-down soup pot he must’ve found in the kitchen cupboard. It was still low, but better than sitting on the floor or leaning over the table. “Joint meeting with NSWC and FMV is being set up now.”

He was back in control. Emotions banked.

She poured a cup of coffee from the pot he’d made while she showered, then sat on the couch. “Anything we can’t say?”

“No. I mean, my CO and XO don’t know we hooked up at the paintball party, but that’s hardly relevant now.”

She nodded and sipped the coffee, feeling nervous. She’d never participated in any of these joint meetings with NSWC, although over the last ten months, as Vicki combed through the Laskin files, they’d become a regular event in FMV’s offices.

What did his CO and XO know about her? They might not know about Jake, but did they know about Rand? “Do we…pretend there’s nothing going on between us now?”

“There’s no reason for us to conceal anything from a military code standpoint. Why? Do you want to hide it?”

His composure slipped, and she knew her question hurt him. She placed a hand on his thigh. “Not at all. I just…” She sighed. “They probably know about Beau. If they know about Rand and you… This is too important for them to waste time judging me.”

She spent enough time judging herself for her relationship with Beau. She didn’t need others piling on. Especially not now, when the stakes were so high.

“I don’t know what they know, and I don’t give a damn as long as they support me staying here to see this through.” He glanced at his watch. “The meeting has probably started. Ready?”

“I doubt it.”

“You got this, Anastacia.”

This was about Lloyd’s death. It was selfish to focus on her insecurities, given what Jake was dealing with. She took a deep breath and said, “Ready.”

He tapped a few buttons to initiate login to the secured meeting. Because this was Staci’s computer and she didn’t have a CAC reader for him to use for login, they were using an FMV portal set up by Freya. It took longer for the remote security to authenticate, verify, and verify again. Finally, the screen split into different windows, one showing Morgan, Freya, and Vicki, another in a conference room with a half dozen men and one woman in uniform sitting around a table.

One of the men spoke first. “Thank you for joining us, Lieutenant Burns. As I said when we spoke before, everyone at NSWC is deeply sorry for your loss.”

Jake sat erect beside her. His body language had shifted in the time it took for them to join the meeting. He was focused. Serious. Fiercely calm. He wasn’t the grieving brother, nor the potential lover. This was the Navy SEAL on the job. Determined to convince his superiors to allow him to stay in the Pacific Northwest.

“Thank you, Captain. I’d like to introduce Staci Allen. Staci, this is Captain Huang, Commander Gleeson, you know Commander Fallon. We’ll skip introductions for everyone else.”

Staci nodded to Rand, and, after another quick nod to Freya, Morgan, and Vicki, they got down to business.

Commander Gleeson spoke first. “Immediately after being informed of Lloyd Burns’s death, we reached out to the Vic PD and asked to be kept in the loop when a determination on cause of death was made. They honored our request even as they made it clear they were under no obligation to do so. I’m afraid there is nothing we can do as far as challenging the ME’s finding.”

Jake simply nodded, but his body was stiff. Tension radiated from him like an impenetrable force field.

Gleeson continued. “With your brother’s passing, your ability to gather intelligence is compromised.”

He took a slow breath and spoke with deliberate calm. “He didn’t die of natural causes.”

“While that might be true, there’s no way to prove it. And if it is true he was murdered, returning to Letora Island puts you at risk of the same fate. Especially if Gerard Campbell no longer believes you are a follower.”

He responded in the same measured tone. “I know the risks.”

“Do you, Lieutenant? Your brother was in excellent health except for an asthma condition that was presumably under control. And this isn’t like sending you into enemy territory with a team. This is covert intelligence gathering in a foreign country, on an island we cannot penetrate physically or electronically. Letora Island is a goddammed vault.”

“Which is why you sent me here in the first place. I have access no one else can get. And Canada is hardly Belarus. We’re still ostensibly allies.”