Page 60 of Code Name: Admiral

Pershing pulled the only other chair in the room close enough that our bodies touched, scattering my thoughts in the best possible way.

“Do you think it could be our mole?” he asked.

I shrugged, unable to focus on this new information when my mind was still spinning with how to decipher what I’d found about Grit in a way that made sense.

“Alice? What aren’t you telling me?”

I turned to face him, struck by how quickly he’d read me. “I found evidence about the leaks that feels wrong. It’s too pristine. My gut is telling me it was planted.”

“To incriminate Grit?”

Again, his perception stunned me. “In my experience, when evidence appears this flawless, it isn’t real.”

Pershing’s hand moved through his hair as though he was working to wrap his head around what I’d just told him. “If someone is setting him up, that means…”

“They’re onto us and are redirecting our attention.”

“And gauging how we handle what we find.”

A chill ran through me. This could be a way of mapping our investigation methods. “Fuck,” I muttered for the second time this morning, pulling up real-time network-traffic analysis. “There are anomalies in the background noise around here. It could be interference, or it could be surveillance hiding in the static.”

A branch snapped in the predawn darkness, making me jump like Pershing had.

“It’s just a deer,” he said, showing me the video feed on his phone.

I shuddered. “Right.”

“I know the last thing you want to do right now is take a break, but I want you to anyway.”

I opened my mouth to balk, but immediately closed it. It was the kind of thing Sarah would’ve said. And, as I predicted Pershing would, she’d be relentless until I finally gave in.

He was right about my needing a break. Between my tight shoulders and scattered energy, I desperately needed both mat time and a cup of Matcha, not necessarily in that order. I stood when Pershing did, and took his hand when he held it out to me.

“Shit,” I said under my breath when a new alert pinged on one of the computers. “Hang on. Let me look at this real quick.” I wriggled my hand from his and sat back down.

Another large transaction was moving through a suspected front company, but this one had natural flaws and organic routing. Either someone had grown sloppy, or this was genuineactivity separate from the planted trail. I had to figure out a way to differentiate authentic evidence from false leads. And as fuzzy as my brain felt, I needed help.

I was about to reach for my phone to text Tex, then stopped. Until I had a better idea of how the data was being manipulated, I couldn’t involve him. Not to mention Tank’s continued insistence that we use satphones.

I glanced up at Pershing, realizing he hadn’t moved a muscle.

“Sorry,” I said, standing again and taking his hand this time.

“Coffee’s ready,” Tank announced from the other room. “And Bryar dropped off breakfast burritos.”

As I walked away from my work area, my feet trudged like I was wearing heavy boots or as though a bungee cord was pulling me back to my keyboard.

We weren’t all the way out of the room when Pershing stopped, turned to face me, and embraced me. “I don’t know which of us needs this more,” he said.

The longer he held me, the more I felt my need to get back to work lessen. Yes, I believed someone had gone to great lengths to make Grit appear guilty. I was certain the real evidence was there, buried under false trails. I’d find it eventually. It didn’t have to be right this instant.

“Feel better yet?” Pershing asked.

“Getting there.”

“What would make it happen faster?”

“Hmm. Let’s see. A cup of tea, a half hour on my yoga mat, a bath in that ginormous tub…”

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