Surrendering To Her Sergeant (35 page)

He grunted softly. Did he remember?
The more apt question was, how did he make himself
forget?

Did the tremors in her lips mean she
hadn’t forgotten, either? And was maybe reconsidering her words…a
little?

He decided to latch onto that hope,
even if it was false, to get him through the second half of the
shoot.

Thwack.

He grunted in satisfaction after
rounding the corner into the next play area and testing the crop at
full strength against the red leather pad of a full bondage bed.
The big, black-painted piece featured at least twenty rig points,
as well as cups in the posts to hold extras like lube or clamps. As
it had a dozen times since he’d even glanced at this thing, his
mind filled with all the decadent ways he longed to do take Ava in
it, on it, next to it. Thank fuck Grant had decided they’d done the
“sexy bed” theme to death during their Arabian reenactment at the
Huntington, and taken this shoot in a different direction. He
wasn’t sure an ice pack jammed down the front of his leathers would
sit well with the photographer, but was damn sure it’d be the only
thing hiding his erection if he and Ava were in the same vicinity
of the bed.

“You’ve got a good arm
there.”

He looked up and smiled at
the source of the sultry statement. The statuesque strawberry
blonde, with curves that were
all
hers and a smirk that told him she really meant
the statement, had already been pretty awesome to them tonight. As
the owner of Ricochet, Hudsy Hawn had not only opened the club
exclusively for the shoot, but had a full spread of sandwiches and
snacks ready for them, too. The woman hadn’t stopped the
hospitality there, either. In the gracious style of the switch she
was, every one of Grant’s requests or needs got seen to
personally—right before she gave the guy a minute-long lecture for
spilling soda on the floor and not cleaning up after himself. Ethan
had to actually admit agreeing with Grant when the guy called Hudsy
“a helluva sexy ball breaker.”

Finding himself at the receiving end
of his own one-on-one time with the model, actress, singer, and
club owner, he looked to the woman with sincere respect. “I’m
rusty, but thanks.” He offered the crop back to her. “You don’t go
wanky on your equipment, do you? Is it custom?”

Her smile inched up a little,
conveying her own deference in return. “Yeah. I have a
guy.”

Ethan chuckled. “Just one?”

She laughed. “Well done.” After she
took the crop, she refilled his hands with something else. The
black T-shirt displayed a gray version of the club’s logo: a bullet
unpeeling from its casing in blatantly phallic symbolism. “While
I’d love to stand here and trade one-liners until one of us caves,
I’ve come to fetch you back to my office.”

He narrowed his gaze.
“Why?”

“Some guy called and asked if I could
link you up to him on a video call. His name is Franzen? Says he’s
your CO? Built like Thor of Polynesia? Kinda hot? Okay, maybe a
little more than kinda—”

“Shit.” He weathered a hit
of both relief and unease. Had they finally caught a break with the
memory stick that Luna lifted off of Lor on Friday? The USB key had
at last unlocked the laptop but the information on the device was
gibberish, a combination of numbers, symbols and pictures that
seemed a more insane puzzle than the
Kryptos
sculpture that greeted the
spooks out in Langley. It had taken the experts eight years to
crack the code embedded into the artwork. They didn’t have
eight
days
for
this. Ethan wondered if they even had eight hours.

“Shit
,” he repeated after taking two steps. The dungeon’s colored
lights picked up the threads in his shirt and reflected them across
the wall in a kaleidoscope that screamed
use this fashion disaster against me
forever
. While that ball-wrencher was going
to be inevitable once the photos were published anyhow, he wasn’t
about to give Franz, and whoever was on the call with them, any
extra ammunition for the cause.

“Came to the same conclusion,” Hudsy
drawled. “Which is why I brought the new threads.”

After whipping off the disco magic
shirt, he pulled the cotton over his torso and emitted a grateful
groan. No more threads that felt like a thousand scorpions had
turned his torso into their dance club. Unable to help himself, he
gave Hudsy a mushy cheek kiss. “I adore you.”

She whacked his shoulder. “Those are
only pretty words to me, Sergeant.” Her hand curled in except for
one chiding finger. “Save them for the one you really mean them
for.”

As they started down a hallway that
led past the club’s kitchen and storerooms, he gave a dismissive
snort. “Bella gets lots of adoration, each and every day, I
guarantee—”

“I wasn’t talking about
Bella.”

She tossed another knowing
smile in emphasis before stopping at a door with a sign that read
Bow to the Queen, Boys. On the other side of it was a small office,
though not so tiny that an old-fashioned school desk and a spanking
bench couldn’t occupy one wall. The desk to which she
directed
him
was
clearly used for the real business side of the club. She pulled out
the leather chair located in front of it but Ethan didn’t sit yet.
Instead, he squared his stance to the woman and cut to the
proverbial chase of things. She was clearly as good a Domme as she
was a sub, which meant coy and cute were a waste of time
here.

“Ava and I…let’s just say it’s
complicated.”

Hudsy angled an elegant hand against
her latex-clad hip. “The best ones usually are, honey.”

He locked his teeth. “I’m
not her Mr. Right. I’m not even her Mr. Right
Now
.” He sank into the chair. “Not
anymore.”

She hitched her hip onto
the desk and cocked her head. “And that creepazoid of a
producer
is
?” When
Ethan returned only a sullen silence, she scooted back to her feet
with a huff. “Fine. Talk to your boss. I have some things to take
care of.”

Before she stomped out of the office,
she hit a couple of keys on the computer to bring up the window to
which Franz had obviously directed her. He wondered if Hudsy
thought it odd that “Thor of Polynesia” had given her a Victorian
home-decorating site to bring up as their conference portal but
pushed back the concern as he navigated the triple firewall into
the screen where Franz waited with Colton at his side. Neither of
them jolted when his ping sounded on their end. They were
ready.

“Runway!” his leader declared. “Good,
you’re on. Are you alone?”

Ethan frowned. Urgency soaked
Franzen’s tone. “Yeah,” he replied. “I’m in the club’s office.
Can’t guarantee how thick the walls are, though.”

“Understood. We’re going to be as
quick and as general about this, anyway.”

“Okay.” He drew it out as half a
question. Franz was a smart guy; he’d pick up on the subtext. If
this call was classified as “quick and general,” why had they
called the club and brought Hudsy in on the exchange instead of
just hitting him on his cell?

The answer punched him in the
gut.

They didn’t want anyone to know he was
getting a call. At all.

Franz cleared his throat before
continuing. “I’ll get to the point. We’ve only scraped the fucking
iceberg on breaking through this code. But somewhere between the
cartoon conversation bubbles, the algebra questions in Dr. Seuss
form, and the paragraphs that look composed by a toddler, your
friend Rhett hooked up with a new friend from the FBI encryption
team, and they hit what we think is a significant
breakthrough.”

He leaned back with a deepening frown.
“How significant?” Was it good enough so they could pull the plug
on this part of the op? Could he finally cuff Lor and his octopus
arms and drag him in for interrogation? Best of all, were they
telling him they had enough to authorize a kill order on the
bastard?

“What do you make of this?” Franz
clicked the mouse on their side, sharing an image from their screen
to his. If the guy was thinking to dispel his confusion with it,
Ethan had disappointing feedback.

“Looks like you had some
play time with those toddlers and told them to make a
C
with a pack of colored
candy.” The rainbow of dots was scattered into a rough
representation of the letter, curving only slightly at the top and
bottom.

“Good analogy. How about
now?”

He clicked up another shot of the same
dots. This time, the boundaries of California, Oregon, and
Washington were laid on top of the mess. Some dots appeared in
parts of Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona, as well.

“What the hell?” Ethan
muttered.

“The next view is where we’re hoping
to grab your help.” Franz didn’t waste any time clicking to the
third version of the map. This time, each candy piece had an Asian
symbol superimposed on it.

Ethan’s pulse kicked up as he examined
the images. The characters weren’t exclusive to their own color.
The assignation of the characters seemed random but logic told him
that wasn’t the case. There had to be a concrete reasoning behind
the coupling of a character and a color. But what?

“It’s Chinese,” he declared after a
few seconds. “Korean has circles and sweeping curves. And Japanese
has simpler strokes.”

“We’d deduced the same thing,” his
captain replied. “We just don’t know what the symbols
mean.”

“Give me a second.” The
language wasn’t considered the world’s hardest to learn for
nothing. Every word had its own character, and many had more than
one depending on the context. “Okay, one of them is ‘party,’ as in
a birthday or anniversary of some sort. The one that looks like an
upside-down
pi
symbol with arms attached is ‘happy graduation.’ The one with
the duplicated characters is for ‘wedding.’ There are a few more
that are variants of the ‘party’ theme.” He shook his head. “What
is all this?

The map didn’t disappear so he
couldn’t observe Franzen and Colton’s reaction. He could only wait
through their long, all-too-telling silence.

“Fuck.” Colton finally snarled it. A
second later, his face reappeared along with Franzen’s.

“What?” Ethan countered, though
another thorough study of their faces filled in a lot of the reply
already. “Come on. You don’t think this is a target grid, do
you?”

Franz drilled a hard look into the
camera. “Every single one of these events has terrorist catnip
written all over it. High civilian attendance, happy occasions full
of what’s perceived as classic overindulgence.”

“So they’re going to drop a suicide
bomber in on every single one of them?” He dropped a finger onto
the desk. “That’s a supersized bag of Skittles on that map,
boss.”

Franzen gave him a respectful nod.
“Agreed. So what’s your take?”

“It’s an elaborate drug drop grid.” He
rendered the reply almost immediately. “Granted, I’ve never seen
any hustler, even for the high-end blow and smack the Aragons are
getting into, keep a delivery grid that elaborate—”

“Or encrypted,” Colton
inserted.

“Yeah, there’s that.” He shook his
head. “But it still doesn’t add up. I still vote smoke screen.
That’s a map for a party planner, not a terrorist. Not even one
with ties to the big guns in the Middle East.”

Franz glowered. “I should have Hudsy
whip you for a pun like that at a time like this,
Archer.”

Under less stressful circumstances, he
would’ve pressed Franz for details on how he knew the beautiful
switch in ways that seemed more than “just business” but right now,
his brain was racing, working to detangle the mystery that the grid
introduced. “The symbols,” he murmured, “are Chinese, not Arabic or
even Italian. If Lor’s behind this, why the different
language?”

“Another smoke screen?” Franzen
suggested.

“Or part of the code we have yet to
crack?”

His leader dropped his head into both
hands while Colton looked on with a dreary stare, torturing a paper
clip in his own frustration. “Runway,” Franz finally uttered, “I’m
afraid this means we’ve got to move forward on the op at status
quo.”

“Roger.” He would’ve summoned more
enthusiasm if they’d said he was bound for a water
boarding.

“Get creative, man. Step up the
bromance with your pal ‘Enzo’ in any way you can, all
right?”

Terrific. Just the
motivator he needed right now. Getting ordered to spend
more
time with the man
who was operating under a fake name to cover a paramilitarist
identity, while pawing the woman who still sucked a lung from his
body every time he saw her. “Got it,” he said from clenched teeth.
There was nothing more to say and certainly no small talk he wanted
to dawdle on, so he mumbled, “Archer out,” and disconnected the
line.

Fuck.

Back to work. And that meant back into
the Satan-spun silver sparkle shirt, too.