Stefanie gave him a little time. She knew Nash well enough to know that if she just waited, he wouldn’t be able to help himself.
Nash’s eyes darted between her and Joey. Finally, he sighed. “Okay, this might sound a little strange, but it’d be a great way to learn about submarine activity near our coastline.”
“What would make you go there?” Joey tilted his head.
“My brother is in the Navy and he serves on a submarine. Our readouts are sometimes affected by marine activity. It’s not a big leap. Full disclosure, I also stay up way too late most nights reading technothrillers. Yes, a seismometer would detect geological activity, but if it’s right off of the California coast, they could get early warning of our Navy’s location. San Diego would be the obvious choice, but the Bay Area is far enough away they wouldn’t raise any warning flags.” Nash pulled out his cell phone. “I need to call my brother. He’d probably know something about this.”
Stefanie shot a wild look to Joey. She reached out a hand towards Nash’s phone. “Nash, I don’t want you to get in trouble. I’ll take care of it.”
Nash lowered his phone, but his face was pure suspicion. Yes, he’d definitely read too many thrillers. Although, in this case, his paranoia was well-founded.
Joey stood up and walked over to the door, then closed it. Nash’s eyes darted between them. Waffle, sensing his panic, got closer to him. “I don’t want to scare you, Nash. But I think you’re right.” He looked at Stefanie. “We need to tell him.”
Stefanie rubbed her face with her hand. “Is that a good idea?” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she realized asking the question alone rendered its answer unnecessary. “Nash, you might want to sit down.”
Joey put a hand on Stefanie’s shoulder. “Stef, let me take this. Nash, Stefanie already knows this, but I’m actually not an intern. I work for the U.S. Navy and we were worried a foreign government might plan something like this. With Stefanie’s permission, I embedded myself here to see if there was anything to be worried about. Obviously, there is. I just didn’t expect anyone but Stefanie and me to notice.”
“But you knew what you were doing in the lab.” Nash eyed him carefully.
“Did I?” Joey raised his eyebrows. “I thought I was just following your instructions.”
Nash looked away for a moment, then looked back at Joey. “Were you checking on me?”
Joey shook his head. “Not just you. You passed our background check well enough that I wasn’t especially worried, just cautious. However, now I’m fairly certain you’re on our side. Like Stef.”
“Fairly certain?” Nash narrowed his eyes.
Stef snickered. “Don’t take it personally, Nash. Joey doesn’t trust anyone.”
Waffle rested his head on Nash’s knee. Nash patted Waffle’s ears, then looked back up at them with more trust than they deserved. “Okay. So, what do we do? Are you going to call your management? Do we confront them?”
“The best way to help us is to just focus on your job.” Joey leaned in. “Keep an ear to the ground and let me know if you hear anything. Just like Stefanie. She’s only here to let me know if she sees anything, nothing more.”
Stefanie fought the urge to correct him but understood the need for the deception. Nash could likely be trusted, but he’d been here longer than either of them. He had more than ample opportunity to be a player in this mess. Stefanie nodded earnestly. “Joey keeps what I know to a minimum. Mostly, I just know he’s here to help.”
Nash scratched his chin. “I mean, we should at least tell Cole.”
Stefanie shook her head a little too furiously for someone who was just playing a bit part. “No. We don’t know if he’s involved. He set up the meeting, after all.”
“Okay. I’ll let you know if he tells me anything else about our customers.” Nash nodded, with finality.
Joey gave Nash a card with a phone number on it. “Thank you, Nash. If, for some reason, I’m not in the building, call me if you see anything. I don’t want to make a bigger deal of this than it actually is. These guys may just be three consultants doing their jobs. We can learn a lot by just watching and waiting to see what they do. We might let them continue with their experiment just to see what happens. If we know what they’re doing, we can put false signals nearby. But we need to keep this between the three of us. Not Peggy, not Cole, or anyone else.”
Nash crossed his arms. “Speaking of, Stef and I have a call with Cole soon to let him know how the meeting went. I usually call from our small conference room. Want to listen in, intern?”
Joey grinned. “You bet.” He let Nash leave the room first, then turned to face Stefanie. “You alright?”
“I mean, I have to be.” Stefanie swallowed hard. “At least we know they’re probably being cagy because Dmitri wants to spy on our submarines. Thank goodness it doesn’t involve explosives.” She leaned down to give Waffle a pat, and he wagged his tail by way of reply. Joey put a hand on her back, and she leaned into him for just a moment. “You’re not nearly the pain in the butt I thought you’d be.”
Joey laughed. “Wow, thank you. Let’s head to the meeting and see if letting Nash into this, even a little, was a bad idea. Then, once we’re out of the room, Alexis will come get the box your customers left and see if we missed anything. And ensure Nash didn’t expose himself to anything when he picked it up. Gang, we’re signing off so we don’t get distracted. You should be able to catch us on the surveillance cameras. Turn on our earpieces remotely if you need to talk.”
Joey turned off his earpiece and
