Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
After returning from Paris yesterday, Archer hadn’t had a break. No downtime, no respite. It was the norm, but for the first time in a long while, he felt it like a warning sign deep in his bones. Time was marching on with or without him.
He stood in the hotel suite in front of the temporary wall of screens and studied the camera angles while he rubbed his nape. He was tired and irritable, but duty called. He had an obligation to his members.
He needed eyes on the ballroom, but there was no way he was going down there. He wouldn't make it out without having to talk to half the people in the room. Instead, he'd made sure he could monitor the whole floor via video.
This wasn't a Lock and Key Society event.
His presence wasn't required. But there were enough members down there that it made sense to have a presence regardless, and Archer never did things halfway.
A presence meant eyes everywhere. If something went wrong, he wanted to know about it firsthand, not filtered through some hotel security guard's perspective.
"How's it looking?" Ryker Sterling asked from behind him.
"Fine." Archer's impatience rendered his tone more clipped than usual, and he didn't particularly care. "I see Austin Davis is holding court again. I had hoped after the hotel bombing he would have the good sense to fade away."
"I can make that happen," Ryker said. "Just say the word. We are well past the ninety-one days."
Archer grunted. He'd love to give that order.
He would take genuine pleasure in ending that particular chapter himself, but the former President had asked him specifically not to exact a pound of flesh, and even though the man was no longer in the Oval, his wishes still carried weight.
Some. There was also the practical reality that he and Davis were known quantities when it came to their mutual dislike.
If Davis suddenly disappeared, people would draw a straight line back to Archer.
No, if Davis was going to be dealt with, it had to be for something that left no room for doubt in anyone's mind that he'd earned it.
And when the time came, Archer would be the one doing it.
"Find out what he's up to," he said to Ryker.
"He's been invited to the event, and most people are acknowledging him with a nod or a quick hello.
But the ones actually listening to him seem to be Society members.
Find out what he's pontificating about and how deeply the thaw goes.
See if his former friends are reestablishing lines of communication. "
"Will do." Ryker headed toward the door, already talking into his comm set-up.
The suite door closed. Archer glanced over his shoulder to confirm he was alone, then picked up his phone and dialed a number he knew by heart.
"Yes?" the voice answered.
"Find out what Austin Davis is up to.” He ended the call. There was nothing more to say. His people knew what they were doing.
He set the phone down for a moment and looked at the screens. Then he picked it up again and dialed Armand.
The Frenchman answered on the second ring. "Mon ami. You are watching the party from above, yes? Like a hawk."
"Something like that." Archer almost smiled. "I need a favor."
"What do you need?"
"I want to know what Davis is up to. His movements, his conversations…who he's met with outside of the usual circles. Use your contacts. The ones you trust. I need you to take the temperature on him in D.C. as well."
There was a brief pause, the comfortable kind, the kind that meant Armand was already thinking rather than stalling. "Consider it done. Since Paris, I have been curious about him myself. He was too confident in that meeting for a man who lost the argument."
"My thought exactly."
"I will make some calls tomorrow. Give me a few days, and then we meet, yes? I will come to you. We can discuss what I have found in person."
"Good." Archer appreciated that Armand didn't need things spelled out.
"There is something else," Armand said, and his tone shifted just slightly, losing the warmth without becoming cold. It was the voice of a man who had moved weapons across three continents and lived to retire from it. "Fisher."
Archer said nothing. He waited.
"I have already been making inquiries about him. Separately, on my own initiative. I hope you don't mind."
"I don't mind."
"Good. Because I think we have both been making the same mistake.
" Armand paused. "We look at Davis, and we see the threat.
He is loud, he is ambitious, he is obvious.
Fisher is none of these things, and that is precisely what makes him dangerous.
Do not underestimate him, Archer. Whatever Davis is planning, I would be willing to bet that Fisher is several steps ahead of both of us and has been for quite some time. "
Archer was quiet for a moment. "What have your contacts told you?"
"Nothing specific yet. Only patterns. Movements that don't quite add up. Money going places it has no business going. I will know more in a few days." Another pause. "Just don't make the mistake of keeping your focus only on Davis. That may be exactly what Fisher is counting on."
"Noted." Archer glanced at the screens. "I'll expect your call."
"A bient?t, mon ami."
The line went dead.
Archer set the phone down and stood still, his brain running while his body remained motionless.
Armand wasn't a man who raised alarms without reason. If he was concerned about Fisher, then Fisher warranted a great deal more attention than he'd been getting.
He turned back to the monitors and noted Ryker entering the ballroom below.
Archer had made sure that Ryker and his elite team were the best in the business.
They didn't mind getting their hands dirty, which was a necessity when dealing with some of the most powerful people on earth.
Power had a way of making people less concerned with societal norms and more focused on keeping what they had.
It helped to have a team that would push back when they stepped too far over the line.
Ryker spoke briefly with several of his men, and they fanned out across the ballroom, working to get a line on Davis.
The gala was celebrating some charity that was popular at the moment, and it was a who's who of New York's elite. The type of event Archer loathed. He recognized, though, that if nothing else, he needed to know what the gossip would be come tomorrow morning.
His cell rang. He glanced at the screen and frowned. "Yes."
"Davis is traveling this week. Do you want me to follow him?"
"Where is he going?"
"Singapore."
Archer frowned. That was well outside of any pies Davis currently had his fingers in. "Yes. Keep me updated."
"Of course." The call dropped.
On the monitors, he watched the scene play out forty floors below.
Ryker and his team were easy enough to pick out.
The other team he'd just called was a different matter entirely.
Masters at blending in. He knew one of them was in the ballroom because he'd requested a presence, but he had no idea which member it was, and he wouldn't be able to pick them out from these cameras.
He would need to be up close and personal for that.
His ghost team, he called them privately.
Geniuses at changing their appearance, blending into any situation, and then disappearing again without a trace.
Ryker's team and the ghost team did not communicate.
They operated independently and without knowledge of each other.
Archer had made sure of that from the beginning.
Ryker and the others hadn't known of the ghost team's existence until Rush had stumbled across one of its members during the situation up in Maine.
Archer still wasn't entirely sure what Rush and the rest of the team had pieced together since then, and he didn't ask.
It didn't matter. The ghost team was not their concern.
His phone rang again. Ryker. "Davis is discussing fishing at the moment. Trying to curry favor with good old boy stories, but so far no one seems to be biting."
Archer bit back a response to the pun. "Fine. Keep an eye on him."
"Will do."
Archer stepped back and took in all the screens at once. He found this the most effective way to spot something wrong. Usually, it would simply present itself, his unconscious mind registering the problem before his conscious mind caught up.
There. In the corner. Someone standing slightly separated from the crowd, pulled back from it rather than part of it.
He focused on the screen and zoomed in.
Tatum Wellington.
A small pulse of something moved across his skin.
He wasn't surprised she was there. Her family's law firm was one of the best boutique firms in New York, and it would be strange if she weren’t at an event like this.
But faint alarm bells rang in his stream of consciousness, and he couldn't quite place it yet.
She looked stunning. Her long blond hair was up in a chignon, and she wore a long, deep-green ball gown that hugged her figure. He knew without needing to zoom in that it would bring out the green in her hazel eyes.
He watched her for another minute, trying to put his finger on what was bothering him. Then he moved to the keyboard and typed in commands until the screens filled with footage of Tatum from throughout the evening. He was halfway through when it came to him.
He leaned in and studied two clips more closely, then brought up the current feed. She was standing with a group of people, champagne glass in hand, but she wasn't engaged with any of them. She was scanning the room. Which, he now realized, was what she'd been doing all night.
He had assumed at first that she was simply bored. Now he understood her state of mind. She kept looking over her shoulder as if she expected someone to appear behind her. She'd jumped visibly when a waiter had dropped the tray. She looked frightened.
He zoomed in as she made her way across the floor. She was worn out. He was willing to bet that beneath the makeup, there were dark circles under her eyes. He watched her glance back once more and then slip through a staff door toward the kitchens.
That was unexpected.
Archer went back to the full bank of screens, but his mind wouldn't release the image of Tatum Wellington looking over her shoulder in a crowded room full of people she'd known her whole life.
What was she afraid of?
He frowned. It was time to do a deep dive on Tatum Wellington. She was a board member, and he couldn't have anything blow back on the Society. But beyond that, something told him that whatever she'd gotten herself into, she was in over her head.