Page 19 of False Flag

Now, if she exposed herself to Gerard Campbell’s followers, proving herself here would be moot.

She needed to stop thinking about that and focus on the game.

She pulled out the map of the forest they were all given and tried to narrow down where Yellow team’s HQ was. A Raptor operative had the Trident and was now on his way to headquarters with it. He had the advantage of knowing these woods and the location of blinds like the one she now hid in, but the six Raptor players were evenly divided on the two teams, so neither team had an advantage there. No one from Raptor was a trafficker for the same reason, which narrowed the suspects on her team to twelve.

Was Jake a trafficker?

She glanced around the blind, thinking of one way she could find out. It would even be fun. But first she’d have to find him.

His start point had been quite far from hers, but they were now ninety minutes into the game. He could be anywhere. Or dead.

That thought shouldn’t bother her. But she also shouldn’t find him attractive, or like the way he confidently declared himself hot as fuck.

But she did on both counts.

She tucked the map away and carefully emerged from her hidey hole. Break was over. She had artifacts to find and enemies to destroy.

She hadn’t gone twenty meters before she spotted Morgan, covered in a white cloth, heading south. She hadn’t expected Morgan to be eliminated. Not only was she a good shot, but she was tiny, like Staci. She figured being able to hide in small spaces was her one major advantage.

Noise up ahead alerted her that a skirmish was taking place. She tucked down at the base of a tree and crawled along a fallen log until she could see the action.

And there he was. The man she shouldn’t find appealing, caught in a shootout with Vicki, FMV’s best hacker.

Staci had been bummed Vicki was on the other team. They were friends, but also, Vicki had scoured all available mapping data for Raptor’s training facility in preparation for the game, making her a formidable enemy.

But there was no need for Staci to worry now that Jake took Vicki out of the game and the artifact she possessed became his.

Go team Red!

They weren’t very far from the hunting blind. Time to put her plan for Jake into action.

Jake not only had a yellow token to add to his blue one, he also had an artifact—a plastic replica of the titular statue from the movie The Maltese Falcon.

He supposed the falcon represented Raptor, but there was also a nod to Kira and Rand—Valkyrie and SEAL—in that they had been in Malta last summer when they uncovered a plot to attack two Navy bases in Virginia.

The replica was the size of a football, forcing him to carry it with his wounded arm. He tucked it in the crook of the band, leaving his hand free to support his weapon if he needed it.

Which he certainly would.

A horn sounded, indicating fully half the players had now been eliminated. Fireworks popped in the distance. One artifact had left the playing field. No way of knowing if it had gone to Red or Yellow’s HQ or if it was now on the black market.

Movement ahead got his attention, then a voice called out. “Jake! It’s me. Don’t shoot.”

Anastacia? She should know better than to shout out like that—there could be half a dozen Yellow players in their vicinity—but she wasn’t an operative. Rand had told him last night that she wasn’t trained for covert work. Her role with FMV was primarily as a researcher and teaching assistant.

He slowly approached her, well aware that if she was a trafficker, she’d shoot him the moment she spotted the Maltese Falcon.

But if she wasn’t a trafficker, she could help clear the field for him to bring the artifact to Red HQ. They’d both get credit, but he didn’t mind sharing, especially if she protected the Falcon and, by extension, him.

She grinned when he drew near enough to see her face. She’d raised her face shield, which probably wasn’t wise, but again, she wasn’t trained in this.

“I’m so glad it’s you. I got lost for a bit. Then my rifle jammed. I found a blind to hide out in and have been hoping to find someone from Red team to help me.”

Wow. She really wasn’t trained for this. It was amazing she’d lasted as long as she had. Not a speck of yellow or blue paint on her.

“I left my rifle in the blind. Maybe you can fix it?” She turned her back to him and set off between the trees.

He wanted to point out that paintball guns didn’t have rifling, but she might think that was pedantic, and he wanted her to like him. “I need to get this artifact to HQ.”