Page 120 of False Flag

Once he did that, they’d have a window into the system, and Vicki could find a way to turn off the alarms and then take down the blockers entirely.

But Staci knew none of this. No one had been able to get in touch with her for six days. Every email he sent to her Lost Civ email address—no matter what sender name he used—bounced. Was Staci receiving emails—generated by Casper’s scambot—that claimed to be from Jake and others? Did she know about Drew’s death?

He hated that he wasn’t there for her. He couldn’t imagine how he’d have coped without her in those first hours and days after Lloyd died.

She’d been cut off from the world for six endless days and had no idea that there was a whole team working to liberate her or that they were close to unraveling Gerard’s scheme.

FMV—with assistance from NSWC in the form of Teague Collins, who’d been permitted to go to DC to assist Victoria Graves—had identified Gerard and Casper’s most likely target. At last, they knew when and had a good idea of where. They just didn’t know how Archaeology Truthers intended to pull off the ultimate false flag attack.

Chapter Forty-Two

Day seven.

She should stop counting. Jake wasn’t coming back. It would be more useful to count the number of days she’d been on the island. Or the number of days since Lloyd died.

But seven days was also the number of days since Drew died.

Drew. Her friend from her first day in the PhD program. Study buddy. Paleo pal. He was light and joy and exuberance, and now he was gone. He’d been driven from academia by the Truther attack, but she’d always believed he’d come back once Gerard was discredited. Drew didn’t believe such a thing was possible, so she’d set out to do just that.

The last call she’d made before boarding Osborne’s jet was to Drew. He’d been understandably worried for her, but she’d also heard the excitement in his voice. The hope.

Now he was gone, and he’d been targeted because of her. Twice.

The loss was as profound as losing a brother. She felt the same rage that must infuse Jake, and probably a thousand times more guilt. The fact that Jake left the same day Drew died made his absence sting even more.

At this point, Jake knew one of her closest friends had been murdered. He must know she was grieving. But he hadn’t come back. Hadn’t held her as she wept.

She’d believed he left because he was forced to go, or because he could do more for their shared goal off the island, but the fact that Jake knew Drew was dead and he still hadn’t come back for her changed things.

It was hard not to feel betrayed.

The world had been without Drew for seven days. The same seven days since Jake left. One was infinitely more awful than the other, but she felt both.

Today, however, she would take action.

She was certain now that Gerard had no intention of conducting any real fieldwork, ever. The project was a joke, likely pulled together once he realized that after taking money from so many fans to fund it, he had to actually make a token effort.

Plus, there was another goal he and Casper had cooked up. Gerard was biding his time, and she was trapped here, cued up to be his patsy when whatever he had planned went down.

Today, she and Gerard would record a new second half of last week’s interview, removing Casper’s segment with his pro-Nazi and fake ancient bioweapon reveal.

She arrived early in the studio, ostensibly to review the first half of the original interview. Dahlia set her up with headphones at the control panel, then disappeared upstairs to confer with Gerard.

Staci had no need to listen. She knew exactly what had been said, so instead, she peeked at the podcast files. Gerard published his podcast on a half dozen platforms, including his own website. He made bank at Spotify and YouTube. Unsurprisingly, those accounts were locked tight.

She felt a flutter in her belly as she realized she had unfettered access to the internet from this computer terminal. She glanced at the door. Had Dahlia done it on purpose?

Not that it mattered. She wouldn’t waste this opportunity.

She plugged her digital recorder into the USB-C port, then opened a browser and went to Dropbox. After logging in, she uploaded her audio-only version of last week’s interview—the one she’d recorded herself, along with a file that contained her notes describing everything she’d seen and heard in the last week, including that she’d been successful in dropping the spider drone in the techbro office. She then generated a share link for both files and sent it to Vicki’s personal email address, adding a message to share the audio interview file with all the major YouTube Channels that posted videos calling out pseudoarchaeology, with instructions to upload the interview at two p.m. Pacific time.

Drew had run one of those accounts, but now it would be their colleagues who would carry his torch.

Uploads completed and files shared, she ejected the digital recorder and tucked it into her pocket, then logged out of Dropbox. She closed the browser, erased the history, and cleared the recent files log. Once the recording was shared, Gerard would know what she’d done and even guess how, but she still covered her tracks as best she could.

She resumed listening to the podcast and was nearly to the end of the first segment when Gerard and Dahlia entered the studio. She gave Gerard the same tight smile she always used with him, but inside, she felt positively gleeful.

She’d finally found a way to give FMV the heads-up on Casper’s manufactured biotoxin. It was too late to test Lloyd’s remains, but Drew could be tested.