Surrendering To Her Sergeant (46 page)

Rayna folded her arms.
“Uh-huh.”

“Ray, please. I can’t have this baby
without Garrett!”

Rayna dropped back down to
her friend’s side and clasped their hands. “Look at me.
Listen
to me. You’ve
slept in jungles. Scared off cobras. Slogged through swamps lined
in worms. Don’t you dare wimp out on me now, Sergeant Sage Hawkins.
Garrett has to get the attention he needs. While he does, I’m not
leaving your side.”

Franzen nodded decisively. “That
settles it. Z and Rayna will take Garrett and Sage to the hospital.
Everyone else, huddle up so T-Bomb can fill us in on what we missed
during our nap.” He turned his nearly black gaze straight toward
Ava. “Ms. Chestain, you’re not on my payroll. I can’t order you to
do this, but damn, we could use your help. Nobody knows the lay of
the land around here better than you.”

She stepped forward until she stood
next to the other guys, feeling like a sapling in a grove of
sequoias but returning Franzen’s stare without hesitation. “Nobody
cares about getting Ethan away from those shits more than me,
either. So yes, Captain. I’m in.”

Way, way in.

Deeper than she could bring herself to
admit.

“Cut! Great work!”

Cameron’s command boomed through the
set, followed by a wild burst of applause from the crew and support
staff. Today even Charlie Jenkow himself, normally too busy running
things to applaud them, joined the ovation. Ethan supposed that was
what happened when the leader of the free world was the guy in the
shot with Bella.

The woman herself clapped ecstatically
before hugging President Nichols. “You are so damn good!” She cut
her gushing short by slapping a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. I just
swore in front of the president.”

Nichols tossed back his head, full of
its famous thick hair, on the laugh that had charmed millions of
women into voting for him. Hell, even Ethan had voted for him, but
not for the laugh or the hair. The man was a worthy leader. It made
the necessity of watching his every move, not to mention those
around him, that much more important. The Secret Service detail,
bumped to ten agents because of the unusual circumstances, had
already acknowledged his diligence with respectful nods.

They still had no idea about the extra
reason for his extra attention: the opportunity to get at least one
of them alone for thirty seconds. He’d rehearsed his briefing well.
It was the only refrain that kept filling his head.

Cameron Stock is in
collusion with a paramilitary radical named Ephraim Lor, who isn’t
on set today because he knew you’d run a security check. The two
have been developing a plot involving hundreds of targets across
six states, and the CIA has reason to believe that it’s going down
soon. You have to get the president out of here
now
!

“What do
you
think, Sergeant
Archer?”

He hadn’t thought to pray for a
face-to-face with Nichols himself but the man himself filled the
bill, strolling over with an expectant smile on his
face.

“About what, Mr.
President?”

Nichols chuckled. “Well, am I ready
for prime time now? Are my ‘subterfuge moves’ filled with enough
sexy stealth to satisfy you SOF boys?”

“Looks pretty good from where I’m
standing,” Charlie murmured.

“Ooooo, baby. Presidential
hotness!” Bella swiveled her head in one of those
oh yeah, girl
moves that
only women could pull off until interrupting herself with a giggle.
“
Mamma mia
. Now I
just
flirted
with
the president. Thank God the press isn’t here yet.”

Ethan took advantage of everyone
getting distracted by the mirth to dare a step closer to Nichols.
He was conscious of Stock’s eyes on him, though none of the
mercenaries from earlier seemed to be here. That was either really
good or really bad. Right now, he had to bet on the
latter.

“Mr. President, please listen.” He
issued it fast and low. “Things here aren’t what they seem here.
You might be in—”

“Mr. President, we’re ready to run
through the next part of the scene,” Stock called.

You might be in danger. I
have nothing to back up that allegation except a map of the western
states rendered in rainbow dots, along with a phony TV producer who
isn’t even here and a whole battalion full of comrades who’d back
me up on this if they could, but they’re still passed out on
sleeping gas and—

Shit. Maybe it was better that he
couldn’t babble to his heart’s content.

Nichols, thank fuck, wasn’t a stupid
man. He studied Ethan for another second, his face reflecting
concern. “Why don’t we sit down and talk after I run this next shot
with Cameron?”

A sliver of pressure slid off his
chest. “That would be great. Thank you.”

He drew in a long breath. Okay, all he
had to do was sit tight for a few more minutes. Maybe that would be
the extra cushion T-Bomb needed to get here, too. Or any of
Colton’s teams. Or even a junior ROTC troop who’d made a wrong turn
while out on maneuvers. He’d work with what he could
get.

They’d moved to a set depicting a
fictional command center. Ethan gave a bittersweet grunt. The set
design team had made some upgrades to the computer consoles based
on Rhett’s recommendations. His teammate would’ve been proud to see
them.

Stock approached the president and his
leading lady. “At this point in the plot, you two have made your
way to the main missile deployment tower inside Vandenberg Air
Force Base.”

“That’s just north of Santa Barbara.”
Bella recited it like a dutiful schoolgirl. “Where my character,
Raven Ryder, has spent the week working with horses traumatized by
the war.”

Nichols earned another tick of respect
from Ethan for reacting to that with a serious nod. Several people,
Ethan included, had tried telling Bella that unless the world had
decided to start fighting wars with ceremonial parades, horses were
now safe from PTSD. Nothing had worked; the detail had
stayed.

“Okay,” Stock went on, “we’ve already
scripted the setup into early scenes of the show. To recap,
terrorists have gotten in, knowing that an arsenal of warheads is
parked beneath the base, stockpiled there by the military in case
thwarting a nuclear attack by North Korea ever becomes a necessity.
But they’ve also learned that a second round of firepower is in
place, designed to launch after the first warheads have been
deployed, enough to take out all of North Korea and half of China
if need be.”

Nichols shook his head and laughed.
“Your writers are very creative, Mr. Stock. I’ll give you
that.”

Only from years of
controlling his emotions
did Ethan not act
on what he observed next. While Stock walked Bella and him through
the first steps in the scene, Nichols turned his head and threw a
furtive glance at the floor. It lasted three seconds but it spoke
three thousand volumes of meaning.

It said that the plot was more real
than anyone thought. That there really was a nuclear stockpile
beneath Vandenberg.

If that wasn’t enough to grab his
heart and strangle it, the next moment would get the job
done.

Stock punched a button in the “fake”
computer console, igniting the large monitor in the wall about it
with a “fake” image. That picture was the same layout that Franzen
and Colton had showed Ethan last night, the map showing damn near
everything west of the Rockies covered in multicolored
dots.

Raw dread drove him forward by a
silent but steady step. All ten of the POTUS protectors shifted
with him. He caught the eye of the one nearest to him, letting his
clenched jaw do the talking for him. Something wasn’t right—but if
he gave them the high sign and made them shuttle off Nichols now,
no matter what the plausible reason, Stock would jam in on his own
alarms. God only knew what shit that would rain on Franzen and the
guys, let alone whatever scheme Stock and Lor were
mixing.

He had to keep his fucking wits about
him. Had to watch and listen. The appearance of the colored candy
map, here and now, led him to believe that the second laptop was
going to make an appearance soon. If the two were linked, he had to
learn how. And if that link meant the success of Lor and Stock’s
plans, he had to shatter it, with or without help.

“Ooohhh, look how pretty that is,”
Bella murmured.

“The scariest things often
are,” Nichols answered. Without knowing the entire scope of what he
looked at, the man already sensed the danger of the “plotline”
Cameron proposed. “All right, so…the story is, the bastards have
gotten in and redirected the missiles
at
the country instead of away from
it.”

“And the sexy-ass president is here to
save it all!” Bella did a girlish victory dance, then shrugged.
“Hey, I’m already going to hell. I might as well enjoy
it.”

Nichols carved an approving nod
through the air. “Okay. That works.”

Stock’s light blue gaze twinkled.
“Figured you’d approve, Mr. President.”

Nichols braced his hands on the set’s
large, round map table. “So brief me on how that
happens.”

Stock wiggled a couple of fingers,
motioning a prop handler forward. As Ethan watched the guy
approach, he thought the staffer looked more like one of the minion
soldiers in civvies. When he saw what the guy carried, he realized
his impression wasn’t wrong.

Holy
shit
.

The second laptop?

Stock took the leather case from his
man, hoisted it onto the table, and unzipped it. Inside, there was
another case. Industrial. Aluminum. So distinct, even Nichols let
out a guttural “Goddamn” of awe.

“Are you sure that’s a prop?” the
president charged. “It looks exactly like the real
thing.”

Stock nodded. “Pretty good, eh? I keep
thinking the same thing myself. But once you get inside…” He filled
in the rest of the sentence with an appreciative
whistle.

“The real thing of what?” Bella
asked.

Stock draped an
affectionate arm around her shoulders. “The slang term for it is
‘the football.’” He lifted expectant eyebrows back at Nichols.
“They still
do
call it that, right?”

Nichols managed a shrug. He was
considered a handsome guy, too—a job hindrance more than a help,
which Ethan really understood—but right now, every inch of his face
was taut with tension. Ethan also commiserated on that front right
now. “Uh, yeah,” Nichols finally answered. “It’s as good a word as
any.”

“A football?” Bella darted
a glance between them, expecting someone to cave and let her in on
their tease. “Even
I
know that’s not a football, gentlemen.”

“It’s called that because of its
portability,” Nichols explained. “The real one travels with me most
of the time, though it stays in a secure location, guarded
twenty-four and seven, because it gives me access to our nuclear
arsenal from wherever I’m at in the world.” He swiveled his gaze to
the Secret Service guy with whom Ethan had shared a cautious glance
a minute ago. “And Rob is about to confirm to me that the real one
is still safe so I’m not forced to have your boss arrested for
treason.”

After the agent nodded at Nichols to
confirm the real football was where it should be, the president
visibly chilled and traded a fresh smile with Stock.

“I think you’ll appreciate the bells
and whistles on our special version of the pigskin,” the man said.
He opened the aluminum lid, reached inside, and pulled out yet
another console, showing that the unit wasn’t a laptop, but instead
a bulletproof case for a sleek tablet. Ethan moved a little closer,
feigning curiosity, until Stock’s glare of warning froze him. He
got near enough to see that the console resembled a bigger,
marginally more sophisticated version of the handheld gaming
devices Rhett and Rebel were always battling each other
on.