Page 1 of Enemy of My Enemy

Prologue

United States Disciplinary Barracks

Leavenworth, Kansas

Maximum Security Z Unit

Boots struck the metal grate,forty-two footfalls each minute.

A young military policeman—no more than a kid—strode along the catwalk overhanging Z Unit, the strictest supermax cellblock within the maximum security military prison at Leavenworth.

One half circuit completed.

In one of the cells beneath the catwalk, former Captain Ryan Cook sat in total darkness, listening to the fadingclang, clang, clangof the MP’s steps.

Z Unit’s prisoners were housed in total isolation and complete darkness. No outside privileges. No windows. No lights. Just a four-by-twelve concrete cell and an endless, impenetrable black.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Another half circuit completed. Cook started counting again, starting over at one.

Three more minutes—one hundred and twenty-six footsteps.

Stripped out of his orange prisoner’s jumpsuit, Cook squatted in the center of his cell, his eyes fixed to the ceiling. Fabric torn from his uniform stretched over his eyes, tied tight behind his head. He kept a silent count as his fingers spread along the cool concrete floor.

Once, he’d been a decorated Army captain. Once, he’d led men in the crucible of combat, and then after the invasion, when he was supposed to lead them in rebuilding a country ripped to shreds with nothing more than bullets and baling wire, he’d found a new purpose instead.

His men had loved him. Iraqis had feared him. No, not just feared him. Were in terrible awe of him. Cowered from him. The Butcher, they’d said, muttering in Arabic just barely out of earshot.Iblis Shaytan. The Devil himself.

Clang. Clang. Clang.Forty-two footsteps more. One half circuit. The MP would be on the far side of the catwalk, just past the single entry to Z Unit, an electrified sliding steel door over a foot thick.

Cook inhaled. Closed his eyes.

Forty. Forty-One. Forty-Two.

A whisper of sound, the slide of metal against metal as the locks disengaged on his cell door. Above Cook’s head, a circular cover of solid steel slid aside, the door to his cell not on the wall, but above him. Like a cage.

Light filtered through, halogens overhead meant to blind the prisoners when the cell holes opened for feedings or for hose showers. Through his blindfold, all Cook saw was a wash of orange and shadow.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Cook leaped, grasping the edge of the cell’s opening before pulling himself up and out. Muscles rippled along his back as he moved silently and landed in a crouch.

No alarms and no wailing klaxon for this. No alert to the slow-striding guard, pacing away from Cook.

Clang. Clang.

Cook sprinted toward the sound, following the pattern of footfalls he’d memorized in his sleep, heard day in and day out for years, an endless drone of rubber on metal, clang after clang.

The kid saw him at the last second—a blur of muscles and rage, naked and scowling, teeth bared like the feral creature they thought they’d caged. Spit flew from his lips as he snarled and leaped, throwing his full body weight onto the soldier.

“What the fu—” The guard reached for his weapon and his radio at the same time, grabbing neither. Cook grasped his neck, squeezing tight, and took him to the ground, focusing all of his impact, and all of his weight, onto the kid’s throat.

They hit the catwalk with a crash, the guard’s flak vest, rifle, and helmet clattering against metal. Beneath them, prisoners in the other Z Unit cell holes started to grunt, animal growls and shouts into the darkness. Then pounding, as they banged on their concrete walls and stomped on their steel toilets. A cacophony of rage, of violent men contained in blackness.

The guard’s hands grasped at Cook’s, fingernails digging into his knuckles. His legs pinwheeled, unable to throw him off. Cook perched like a gargoyle on the guard’s chest, a vulture of death. His other hand rose, grasping the kid’s scrabbling hands.

He squeezed. Bones crunched, ground together.