by Angel Payne
“And you tried calling it?” Rhett questioned.
“Fifteen minutes after we confiscated the thing.” Colton shook his head. “No answer; no voice mail.”
“Which means his calls to the bastard at the other end were set for prearranged times.” Rhett’s mouth went tight. “I’d bet both nuts it was disconnected the next time you tried calling.”
“Your gonads are safe, amigo.” Colton tapped his folded hands atop the table. “Which brings me to the reason why the LA bureau was a gift from the gods.”
Rhett smiled. “They knew the number?”
“Instantly.” The agent took a deep breath. Tait watched the guy, and the tension that still laced his posture, with even more care. “It belonged to a target they’ve been watching with increasing interest. His name is Ephraim Lor. But he’s better known as Enzo Lemare.”
For a group of guys trained to remember everything from license plate numbers to GPS coordinates in a single mission, summoning the man’s name from three hours ago, when Magneto ninja invoked it in Bella’s living room, wasn’t a hard jump. Still, Tait clarified, “The producer of Dress Blues?”
“And the guy who played hoochie target practice with Bella Lanza last night?”
Kellan stole his follow-up but Tait was grateful. It let him focus on Ethan’s reaction. Wasn’t every day that a guy discovered his college girlfriend had grown into a knockout TV star with a Malibu villa—and Bella had made no secret about her desire to rekindle a connection with Ethan. Had they done that tonight? If so, how would he feel about knowing the man who’d been between Bella’s sheets last night was now connected to a mysterious courier with the Aragon crime cartel?
“Yes and yes,” Colton answered to the queries. “And now that we know a great deal about Lor, thanks to the agent who’s stuck to him like moss on a cypress, we’re ready to start connecting dots.”
Nobody said anything. Ironically, Archer himself finally spoke up. “All right, I’ll bite. The dots to what?”
Colton pulled out a tablet. He woke it up then opened a slide show containing pictures of a sophisticated man with black hair, eyes that were too pretty for a dude, and a lean but rugged build. The first shots were clearly from the man’s younger years, showing him in ornate European settings. “Lor was born and raised in Rome. His father was Palestinian, his mother one hundred percent a Roma girl. She was a devout Catholic who worked as a cleaning lady at the Vatican. It seemed a love match until daddy had to return to his motherland, where he apparently reconnected with Allah. When he returned to Rome a year later, he became deeply involved with the Red Brigade paramilitarists. He was in charge of a secret plot to take down Vatican City from the inside out.”
Zeke emitted a low whistle. Other than that, everyone was quiet as Colton advanced to more photographs, grainier shots depicting Lor as a boy of ten or eleven, outfitted in soldier gear with a rifle over his shoulder. “According to our source, the guy grew up idolizing these rebels. They were his Avengers, his Luke Skywalkers, his Jack Reachers. But when the Brigade dismantled in the eighties, he was lost. His parents divorced, and though he remained with Mamma in Italy, he kept close contact with his father. He ran away on the day he was supposed to go to his First Communion, and quickly found his way to Cairo, where he hooked up with his father. Near as our bureau contact can figure, he was fully radicalized by the time he hit his fifteenth birthday.”
As newer pictures lit up the tablet, now showing Lor as a teenager in militant regalia, Rebel spoke up again. “After all those years of goin’ to Mass in Saint Peter’s Square?”
“Time can change a lot of things, Master Sergeant Stafford.”
The bottom fell out of Tait’s gut before he finished looking toward the source of the interjection. Sweet God. That voice. Silken enough for fantasies but rough enough to say don’t fuck with me. Or other things, like Stay where you are, Weasley. I don’t want to hurt you.
“Holy crap.” Garrett spat it as Luna planted herself in front of the table, flipping her long ponytail and bracing her hands on hips that looked poured into dark red denim pants. Hugging her torso was a short-sleeved black T-shirt, a fitting visual lead to the tattoo of angels and demons that ran down the length of her left arm. On her feet were black combat boots that were caked with beach sand.
Zeke looked like he’d been strangled in barbed wire, and sounded like it, too. “What the hell is she—”
“Calm down, Zsycho.” Franzen issued it in a growl. “That’s an order.”
“She’s supposed to be in prison!”
“I feel you, okay? I was there for all the reasons why.”
“Oh yeah? You sure about that? Maybe you need to be kidnapped, drugged, then abandoned in Vegas again as a refresher. Or watch me almost die because of the neurotoxin unleashed in my blood by the monster she aided and abetted. You remember those reasons, Franz?”
“Yeah. And I also remember that Rayna would be some foreign asshole’s sex toy by now if this woman hadn’t stepped up and done the right thing in the end.”
Zeke slammed back against the leather seat with a glare the temperature of an inferno. “This is bullshit. Unbelievable, unorthodox, unfuckingreal bullshit.”
Tait leaned forward. He balled his hands to prevent himself from doing two things. One was reaching for Z’s strained neck. The other? Grabbing Luna, hauling her next to him, and announcing to everyone that the next dickwad who contributed to the Luna Lawrence slur campaign could do so with his fist in their mouth. That helped get him gain enough control to say, “Z, maybe it’s a good idea to hear her out. If the bureau has trusted her—”
“Then the bureau’s a bigger bunch of imbeciles than I thought.”
He slid his hands off the table. Atop his thighs, they shook in rage. Z’s hands were still steady as an idiot preacher who’d sentenced an adultress to hell. It wasn’t fair. Yeah, Luna’s crush on Z had been a tad zealous and hadn’t wound up how she’d wanted after their intense scene in the Bastille dungeon all those months ago, but the woman had owned up to her misstep. She’d come clean and been responsible for saving Rayna’s life because of that. Had Zeke just tuned that part out from Franz? Didn’t that matter?
A glance up at Luna said the answer to that might be an ironic no. She dipped her head at Z in contemplative scrutiny. “To be honest, Sergeant Hayes, I don’t give a shit what you think anymore. Our heads can’t be there right now. Our job is bigger than that. Way bigger.”
Even through the vacation scruff on his face, Zeke’s jaw turned the texture of a granite wall. “Isn’t your ‘job’ supposed to be washing orange jumpsuits?”
Screw it. Tait shoved his elbows backward and prepared to lunge. “That’s more than enough, asshole.”
The only thing that held him back from Z now was Luna’s hand, cream skin accented with lavender nail polish, pressed against his bicep. “Chill. It’s okay.” Her profile was regal and gorgeous, even in the bar’s crappy lighting and even as she continued to endure Zeke’s glower. “Your panties are in a wad, Zeke. It’s understandable. Hopefully, the episode recap on this will hold you for now.”
Zeke grunted. “This should be entertaining.”
She pulled her hand back from Tait and folded her arms. “The night we dropped the net on Mua, my arresting officers were sweet about noticing what they saw as slick crisis management skills. Guess I’m a natural-born fast thinker. Imagine that.
“Fate helped me out a little the next day. A girl locked up with me in the prisoner processing cell flipped out, managed to get a gun off one of the guards, and threatened to kill everyone in the room.” She shrugged, almost as if confused. “I talked her off the ledge. Didn’t think it was a big deal, when the alternative was two dozen people getting bullets through their brains. Apparently, the bureau didn’t agree. They’d taken a look at my case, along with a bunch of personality tests I thought were a part of normal prisoner processing, and determined I might be a good choice for joining the field team on tracking our fr
iend Lor. And since the government owns my ass for another year and a half, I’m free labor.”
Though Z no longer looked like the walking Grand Canyon, he cocked his brows and murmured, “A ‘good choice,’ huh? And the thinking behind that was…what again?”
She waved a hand at the room like a game show model unveiling a car. “Behold Enzo Lemare’s regular late night stomping grounds. You know any normal spook that’d fit in here?”
Tait answered that one with dawning comprehension. “You work here. You’re the missing bartender.”
She tilted her head with just enough of an impish grin to make his chest tighten—and his cock surge. “You thirsty, soldier?”
Oh fuck, yes.
But the next moment she was all business again, turning to the rest of the guys. “We caught a break tonight. Lemare is attending the TV Critics Association gala. Normally, I’d be nursing Enzo through his third gin and tonic, listening to another rant about how the capitalist assholes of America are ruining the universe.” She patted the third earring up on her multi-pierced lobe. “And my homey Walter, somewhere in that big-ass building over on Wilshire, is getting every word of it. Hi, Wally!” She tossed a shrug at Zeke. “See? I’m free and fun. Maybe now the bureau can give Colton a raise. He needs the flow for a decent haircut.”
“Screw you, loony tunes.” The agent grinned as he said it.
“No thanks, Dan the man.” Her answering smile descended fast, and she shook her head. “No time for extracurricular anyway. After tonight’s mess at the Lanza villa, I’m afraid we’re back at square one for finding the codes to crack the intel on that laptop.”
A ripple of shock moved around the table. Tait dialed in his bearing at a careful neutral, hoping nobody would notice his own jaw hadn’t plummeted along with theirs.
Franzen threw a narrowed stare at his bureau buddy. “Mother of a fucking sand flea. That was you guys pulling the ninja hoedown earlier?”
Colton smirked. “I was the cute one next to the door.”
Franz pounded his shoulder. “Asshole! Why didn’t you say anything? Pull me aside? We thought you were some high-end thievery ring with balls for brains and—”
“The audacity to mix Marvel and D.C. characters.” Tait felt morally compelled to get it out.
Colton threw him a conspiratorial grin. “I was sickened too, man. But we had a Spiderman camp and a Batman camp, and neither was backing down.”
Franzen’s glower got darker. “You haven’t answered my question.”
Colton swung back an equally menacing look. “Okay, listen. We had no idea what we’d encounter at Lanza’s villa. We were hoping the woman would be out, maybe on Lemare’s arm at that gala. We came prepared for an army, just in case Lor was onto us somehow. We didn’t plan on finding the Army, let alone one of its finest SOF teams. We had to maintain some kind of edge on you guys, just in case—”
“What? We were all on Lor’s payroll or something?”
“Stranger things have been known to happen. You know that as well as I, cock noodle.”
The guys chuckled. They’d gotten a hidden surprise tonight, hearing someone give their captain lip like that and live to tell about it. Franzen rebutted, “A second ago, I was the leader of one of the finest SOF teams.”
“Yeah, but you’re still a cock noodle.”
Franzen’s parry to that was to ignore it. “So you were hoping to find a memory stick that the guy hid at the villa.”
Colton’s face tightened, producing lines around his eyes and mouth that instilled Tait’s respect for the guy. Pretty boys didn’t stay that way for long in their line of work—except for Ethan, who had to be working an Oil of Olay regimen when the rest of them were asleep.
“It was a wild hope, but yes,” Colton said. “It’s unlikely he’s had the thing directly on him since the courier was killed. We immediately pumped sources at the man’s dry cleaners, car detailer, private spa locker room… Nothing’s been found.”
Garrett leaned forward. “And you can’t get into his house?”
Luna answered that one. “He hasn’t been anywhere near his house. On the night they took out the courier, Lor worked late at the studio, then checked into a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel.” She winced. “Made it a garden view, too. We were blind for two days. The guy didn’t even order room service. Who gets a bungalow at the BHH and doesn’t order room service?”
“What did he do for fresh clothes?” Franzen questioned.
“Bought them new off the rack, down the street on Rodeo Drive,” she answered.
Zeke emitted another whistle. “So you’re saying the fucker’s rich.”
Franzen snorted. “I think she’s saying he’s paranoid.”
“Agreed,” Colton said. “We still don’t know where he’s bound tonight. The TCA gala was at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena but concluded an hour ago. Our eyes say he’s been at the hotel bar ever since, pounding G and Ts like they’re the last he’ll ever drink.”
“So he’ll likely check in there for the night,” Z offered.
“And then what?” Garrett directed his stare toward Luna. “That’s where you’re going with this, isn’t it? Lor’s clearly laying low, but not for good. Even Rodeo Drive will start to get suspicious of his ass.”
“So he’s waiting,” Zeke supplied.
“But for what?” Garrett scowled.
“Something on a time frame.” Tait’s statement came from the tightening knot in his gut. “Something like orders to abduct someone…or attack something.” The tautened faces of his battalion mates confirmed their thoughts had steered the same direction. “Shit,” he muttered. “Without that stick, we have no idea what we’re dealing with.”
Colton rolled his knuckles atop the table. “It’s big enough that Lor is working with scum suckers like the Aragons on it.”
Franz sucked in a harsh breath. “Yeah. Scum suckers with ties all the way over to the Balkan drug trafficking routes.”
“Which means Afghanistan,” Rhett put in.
“Fuck,” Zeke spat.
“We need that stick.” Garrett clawed a hand through his hair. “But I guarantee you, Lor’s planted it in a furrow close to the barn. When it comes time to jump, he’ll need it handy.”
Ethan had kept his gaze down, rotating a cocktail napkin on the table with his pointer fingers. When he lifted his head, it was to state the inevitable. “Then the stick’s at the studio.”
Tait watched Luna and Colton trade glances. They shared a telepathy that seemed purely professional but still chapped his hide with a fucker called jealousy.
“The bull’s-eye goes to Sergeant Archer,” Colton declared. “And leads to how you guys have now become our best friends.”
Rhett gave voice to the confusion making its way across everyone’s faces. “Runway may have just hit the target but we’re all still in the forest, my friend. How do we figure anywhere in this? We were visitors on the set of Dress Blues for one day only.”
Colton gave him a Ken doll smirk. “Not if the showrunners decide they need real-world military consultants for the show’s upcoming episodes.”
Luna dropped her gaze to Ethan. “And not if one of those consultants won’t have any trouble scooting closer to its star and producer.”
Ethan stopped circling the napkin. His fingers visibly tensed. “How much closer?”
“As close as you can, Sergeant. In any manner they’ll let you.”
Tait couldn’t help it. His snicker spilled out on top of Zeke’s and Garrett’s, though it was Rebel who put words to the moment.
“Aha! C’est bon. C’est trés bon, I think.”
“‘Bone’ it certainly is, man.” Zeke sputtered the phonetic equivalent of Rebel’s French. “All the way.”
“This is gonna be awesome,” Garrett agreed.
Ethan lifted his head, saying nothing. He didn’t have to. Tait had seen that look on a man’s face before. It had been in the sports bar on base, back at home—when a guy got to
ld he was being deployed to Iraq for the sixth time.
* * * * *
An hour later, they had a solid plan. Their “new role” on the Dress Blues set would be announced at a table reading for the new week’s script tomorrow afternoon—technically, later on today—with Cameron Stock, the show’s director, to be the only person actually aware of the charade. Orders were strict; nobody else on the show’s team could be told of the ruse since there was a good chance Lor wasn’t working alone.
Stock advised them the “consulting team” shouldn’t realistically exceed three guys, although nearby back-up teams were okay. Ethan was the obvious choice for the first inside slot. Grabbing his six in the trenches of the assignment would be Rhett, invaluable because of his tech skills, and Rebel, who could sweet-talk a nun out of her grannie panties if he had to. The rest of the team would take up tactical positions atop neighboring sound stages at the studio, in order to record anyone meeting with Lor outside, or engaging in unusual behavior. Tait had joined Kellan, Zeke, and Garrett in groaning about that one. What defined “unusual” when spying on a TV and film production lot?
As soon as the logistics were hammered out and lot badges issued, it was time to get to bed. Since Franzen had the rental van, everyone started filing out toward the street, grateful for the easy lift back to the hotel.
Everyone except for Tait.
“T-Bomb?” Kellan lingered at the back of the pack to call it out. “Come on, man. We’re rolling.”
He watched Luna’s backside disappear into the bar’s storeroom. And stopped in his tracks. More accurately, was jerked to a screaming halt there. The center of his chest throbbed, His palms broke out in a sweat he hadn’t felt since sixteen.
For fuck sake.
He wasn’t superstitious. Spiritual? Sure. You didn’t confront the possibility of your own mortality on a regular basis without squaring up your shit to the Power who created you, however you defined that. But chest-grabbing signs from that Power? Honestly, did God have time for this?
