Page 157 of Enemy of My Enemy

“You had us terrified, Mr. President.” Scott helped him sit up and passed him a cup of water. “When we dug you out, we all thought you were dead.”

“What happened?”

Scott sighed. He rubbed both hands over his face, rubbed his fingers against his eyelids. “What do you remember?”

Sights and sounds played back out of sequence. Leslie in the interrogation room, screaming. Welby kicking down his door. Irwin in the back of a dark SUV. Leslie breaking her arm, and then Irwin diving on top of him. Heat, so much heat, and the world seeming to collapse.

“Her arm.” He coughed again. “She broke her bones.”

“Her disfigurement was a ruse. We think, based on the video, that her radius and ulna had been hollowed out and explosive compounds packed inside. None of the doctors picked it up. The bone hid the explosives. And, when she broke her arm, they met.” Scott looked down. “A quarter of Langley is gone.”

“How many?”

“Don’t know yet. It was late—or early—so the numbers were down.” He squinted. “Lawrence Irwin is dead. Director Campbell and Secretary Aviles were injured, but they’ll be all right. Director Mori is still in surgery.”

He didn’t need to ask about Flynn. Nothing made it out of that room. Not with that kind of blast. “You said there was a video?”

“Acting President Elizabeth Wall confiscated it. Only three people have seen it. Her, myself, and Welby.”

Acting President. His heart stuttered. “How long have I been out?”

“Hours. Morning news has been going insane. Someone leaked a photo of you being carried out of the rubble. It’s… not a good picture.” He chewed on his lip, his heels bouncing on the hospital’s squeaky linoleum floor. “Your heart stopped on us. You have twenty stitches across your ribs. You have damaged organs. You nearly fractured your pelvis and half your body is black and blue. You’re damn lucky, Mr. President.”

“I’m not lucky. Lawrence saved my life. He took everything.”

“We haven’t said anything about your condition yet.”

Jack’s mind raced, thoughts moving too fast to cling to. “Good. Keep it quiet for a little while longer.”

“I have to call Acting President Wall. She wants to talk to you in person.”

“I need to talk to her, too.”

Scott rose, pulling his cell phone out with a sigh. He stood in the corner, talking softly, and Jack’s head rolled to the side, his cheek resting on the cool pillow.

Irwin, gone. Ethan, gone. What was it not-Leslie had said? This had all been for him? Him and Ethan? They’d gotten in the way.

But now they were separated, driven apart by Madigan’s schemes, schemes he’d played right into. Ethan was God-knows-where, and the only person who had known about Ethan’s mission was dead.

What now, Mr. President, when you’ve been played so perfectly? So completely, utterly perfectly. Everything Madigan had done, everything, had been a game. A game designed to agonize. Dig deep into his heart and wrench it apart, split it in half with broken memories and a rusty crowbar.

What now? How did he evenbeginto pick up the pieces from this?

There was only one place to start.

Hehadto find Ethan. Had to stand side by side with him and face the world. Had to hold tight to Ethan for the rest of their days.

Madigan wanted them apart. Damn that madman; Jack would find Ethan, and he would never, ever let him go again.

Together, they’d stop Madigan. They’d end his reign of terror, obliterate him from the planet.

Deep within him, something shifted, some kind of sea change moving parts of his soul across a line in the sand he’d naïvely drawn so many, many years ago. A conviction to play by the rules, to be an upright man in a sea of shady politics. To commit to good deeds and good actions, and believing that the world was made of fundamentally good people doing decent things.

Oh, how his lines had been blurred.

And now, evaporated. Gone.

His hands shook, and the beeps on the monitor at his bedside sped up, louder, faster. He could feel his heart in his chest burning. Raging. Wailing.