Page 146 of Enemy of My Enemy

He dragged in a ragged breath, tasting sulfur and wet copper at the back of his throat. He bit down on his lip again, and blood oozed into his mouth. The pain grounded him, brought him back from his crazed high.

“You’re predictable, Ethan. You have a blind spot anyone can see from space.”

“You did this with all of them? All the clones?” He edged his way toward the boards, toward the stair ladder. But— Fuck. Cook had placed himself squarely between Ethan and the stair ladder leading up and out.

“Fuck no.” Cook laughed. “It takes forever. Leslie almost wasn’t ready in time. For the others, we just programmed targets and missions into their blank little minds. Williams blew his brains out when he was captured, right?”

Ethan stayed silent.

“Excellent. Just like his programming. He had his eccentricities. We cut him loose after he fulfilled his purpose. He was heading back here in a blind panic, and we were hoping to lure Lieutenant Cooper.” More keystrokes on the laptop. Screens shut down, and a file transfer began, files disappearing faster than Ethan could catch. “But you’ll do.”

“Why Cooper? What did you want with him?”

“Oh, I could flip him. I could get him to turn. Be one of us.”

“You’re out of your mind. He’d never turn.”

“I knowexactlywhat it is that he wants. And I know how to use that against a man. To break them.”

Ethan eyed the stair ladder, Cook, and the spaces in between. It was past time to go. He needed to get the hell out of there. Ideally, put a bullet in Cook’s brain on his way. Fuck bringing him in.

“You’re too dumb to know what it is I want?” Ethan snorted. “You’re not so smart.”

“I know exactly what you want, Ethan.” Cook chambered his rifle, the heavy bolt sliding back into place. “And I’m going to give it to you.” An instant later, Cook raised his rifle and fired, spraying Ethan’s cover with bullet after bullet.

Ethan ran, sprinting across the hold, trying to outrun Cook’s shots. He knocked down two floodlights and shot out a third, wildly firing behind him, trying to hit Cook. Boards fractured and a server hissed, the drives whirring as bullets slammed into their casing.

“Time to die!” Cook crowed. Gunfire blazed. Bullets pinged and ricocheted, sparks snapping in the blackness. One zinged too close, opening a line of fire across the small of his back, just beneath his bulletproof vest. Ethan spun, firing as he ran deeper into the darkness, into the cargo hold, and then dropped low, going still.

Cook’s fire stopped.

Silence filled the hold, save for Ethan’s breathless pants.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was trapped in the corner, backed into the darkness. The stair ladder was twenty feet away, and beyond that, Cook waited.

What now?

He reached out, his fingers resting on the rough iron of the hold. It was just enough, just porous enough, to get a grip. If he found a girder, he could shimmy up the beam in the darkness, maybe.

It was worth a shot.

Cook’s footfalls echoed across the hull and up the stair ladder, all the way to the top landing. Ethan watched his silhouette against the azure sky getting smaller as he climbed and climbed.

“Good-bye, Ethan!” Cook shouted into the blackness. He reached down, hefting something onto his shoulder.

Fuck. It was an RPG. The tanker was old enough to be a single-hulled freighter, and the RPG would rip right through her. Ethan scrambled, jogging for the stair ladder as fast as he could.

Cook aimed low. “When you see Jack in hell, and you will, soon, tell him I said hello.” He fired.

A burst of flame roared through the hold, illuminating the darkness for the moment that it sailed through, straight for the waterline. Ethan froze, three steps up on the stair ladder, and watched in horror as the rocket slammed into the ship’s hull.

Iron and steel cracked, wrenched apart in the blast. Water rushed in, a furious bellow of the ocean pouring into the hold, sweeping away everything in its path. Computers shorted out and boards fractured in two, tossed apart on the cresting wave. The water crashed, folding back on itself, and then rose again, raging.

Ethan ran, taking the stair ladder two steps at a time and hauling himself up, but the water was too fast. It slammed into him, throwing him from the steps. Waves crashed over his head, and he had just enough time to gasp a sulfurous breath of soaked air before the water sucked him down and pulled him under.

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Chapter 47