Page 133 of False Flag

“If you can do that,” Gleeson said, “I’ll sign off on your leave.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

It was with great reluctance that Jake pulled on his pants as he watched Staci do the same. “When we’re done here, you and I are going to spend a week in bed together.”

She chuckled. “But what if you have to do SEAL things? You intend to go AWOL?”

He pulled her close and kissed her. “For you, it would be worth it.”

She pulled his head down for a deeper kiss, then pushed him away. “No. Because if you get kicked off the team, you won’t be invited to the next paintball war.” She bent down and picked up her bra.

He laughed. “Would you miss me?”

“Maybe. A little.” She raised her arms to pull her sports bra over her head and struggled against the tight elastic band. When her arms were trapped, he lowered his head and took a nipple into his mouth as he cupped both breasts in his palms.

She let out a soft groan, stopped fighting with the bra, and leaned toward him.

He shifted and took the other breast into his mouth, his thumb running over the damp nipple he’d just abandoned. He raised his head but continued teasing with his hands. “The problem is I’m going to need several days to properly worship your body.” He dropped to his knees and tugged at the waist of the pants she’d just pulled on and undid the plastic buckle. “So many perfect parts to explore with my mouth.”

She stopped him from pulling down her pants with a staying hand on his. “Fine. A week. I’m sure the Navy will understand. But I need to get back to Geoduck House, and you need to disappear again.”

He rose to his feet and helped her pull the bra over her breasts, then held her close as he met her gaze. “I hate leaving you again. Especially now. Osborne is going to flip when he realizes you exposed him.”

“Exposed him by releasing a recording of an interview he participated in.” She stepped back and pulled on her shirt. “He’s used to making blunders and other people cleaning up for him like Gerard did when he didn’t release the interview a week ago.”

“He thought trapping you on his island and controlling your access to the world would protect him.”

She turned and crossed to the signal blocker that was in the dark shadows at the back of the rotting shelter. “I can do a lot more damage if you show me how to disable this. You can take care of the ones in the forest, but I can dispose of the one closest to the harbor and the one by Orca House.”

“I hate the idea of you taking that risk by yourself.”

She crossed her arms and glared at him over her shoulder. “Might I remind you that not only did I sign up for this—before I even knew who you were—but also that you left me for a week without a word, and I have been fine. I even got Casper to spill info on the bioweapon and Dahlia to confide in me.”

He stepped up and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back to his chest. “You are amazing, brilliant, and capable. I have no doubt you can take that prick down and you’ve never needed me nearly as much as I need you. I’m scared because I love you, and these assholes have already taken one person I love. They’ve taken your friend too.”

She turned in his arms. “You’re scared?”

He took her hand and pressed it to his pounding heart. “When I’m on an op, my heart doesn’t race like this. It’s not that I don’t feel fear, it’s that I can control it. This is different, and I’ve been terrified from the moment I sat in a meeting at NSWC and realized how much danger you were in.”

“You did come here for me.”

“Hell yes, I did.” He pressed his face into her neck and took a deep breath, then spoke, his lips brushing against her skin. He’d let this woman see all his grief after Lloyd died. He never would have guessed that sharing fear would be even more terrifying. But then, fear was the thing he’d trained hardest to hide. “My fear won’t go away until you’re off of this fucking rock.”

She touched his head, nudging his face up until he met her gaze. “Then let’s finish this. Show me how to disable the signal blockers.”

An hour later, Staci returned alone to the housing complex on the south end of the island. Jake was, presumably, swimming to a boat waiting in the channel between Letora and Vancouver islands.

She hated that he swam without a partner, but understood that this mission was best accomplished alone. Plus, had he been discovered, he, at least, was a US Naval officer who had permission to be on Letora Island from the property owner. Any other US citizen with him wouldn’t have that excuse, and there was zero doubt that Osborne would get litigious.

As she neared the compound, she was happy to see Osborne’s helicopter was still absent. She wondered where he was and if he’d be returning to the island anytime soon.

She made her way down the path toward the harbor, searching for the faint trail that led to where the signal blocker was hidden in the woods. She passed it twice before she spotted it on the third pass. Seeing no one around, she slipped into the patch of forest several meters from the trail.

Once she was concealed by the thick vegetation, she pulled out her compass. Sure enough, it was bouncing from north to west like a metronome. Jake had shown her on a map where the device was believed to be, and she made her way carefully, following her mental map and the broken compass, finding it five minutes later, concealed in a hollow cedar—ironically caused by cedar-bark harvesting centuries ago.

It only took a minute to access the control panel, and slightly longer to reset the system timer, setting it to shut off for thirty minutes starting at midnight to test the system and alarms.

This was a chance to copy source code and connect with the spider drones Staci had dropped—a wedge propping open the door through which Vicki would disable the system permanently after she created and uploaded a program that would report the signal blockers as active even when they were offline.