Page 170 of Enemy of My Enemy

“You are fine now.” Sergey waved away Scott’s glower. Jack smiled as he pulled out of Sergey’s long hug.

“Jack.” Sergey’s eyes gleamed in the low light. “Jack, we found him. We found Ethan.”

* * *

Chapter 57

Russian Caucasus

The Forest

“Five more klicks.”

Beside Jack, Scott checked his rifle again, sighting down the scope. Sasha drove and Sergey sat in the passenger seat. Behind and in front of their jeep, five more vehicles full of Sergey’s insurgents crept through the early morning fog toward their target.

Jack’s elation had been muted when he’d realized Sergey didn’t have Ethan there at the bunker but knew where he was being held. He’d been captured, Sergey had said, by Moroshkin forces working against them from the east. They’d intercepted communications back to Moscow talking about an American they’d captured, a wild man on a seemingly suicide mission.

Sergey had laid out their plan to recapture Ethan and Scott had pitched in while Sasha rallied the forces for the predawn raid.

Jack had started to pace.

He’d never been a religious man. Had never quite believed, after losing too much and seeing too many prayers go unanswered. Couldn’t reconcile the world as it was with the hope of faith. But for a moment, pacing beneath a flickering bulb burning in a bunker in the Russian wilderness, he’d thought about it. Thought about tipping his head back and begging God, begging for Ethan to be all right. For them to get through this without losing another person.

He’d kept pacing, one foot in front of the other.

Jack bounced in the back of the jeep beside Scott, waiting.

Scott forbade Jack from joining the raiding party, but Jack refused to be left behind. Sergey intervened before the shouting got too outrageous, plopping a medical kit in Jack’s hands and telling him to wait in the jeep for when they brought Ethan out.

He clutched the medical bag, his muscles burning.

Finally, the jeeps pulled to a stop on a rise overlooking a tiny mountain outpost. It was long abandoned, an old mining dump, but Moroshkin’s forces used it as a drone base and a communications center. Sergey sent short orders through the radio, dispatching one team to knock out the comms tower and another to detonate the drone base. He, Sasha, and Scott would storm the small main building in the center.

“Ethan is in there,” he said, leaning close to Jack. “We’ll be back with him. I promise.”

Sergey, Sasha, and Scott set off, creeping away and leaving Jack alone with the radio, a medical kit, and the silent forest.

* * *

Scott movedwith Sasha and Sergey down through the trees, keeping his eyes locked on the sentries manning their posts. At Sergey’s signal, the snipers he’d placed above would take the sentries out. They would rush the main entrance.

Sasha stacked in front of Sergey, despite Sergey’s glare, and Scott stayed out of that snapping Russian argument.

Three claps shook snow from the fir branches above. The sentries dropped.

They moved together, racing forward. At the same time, the comms and drone teams would be moving in, packing explosives around the communications tower, generator, and drone hangars. They had three minutes from the snipers’ shots to get in and get out.

Sasha fired into the door lock and kicked it down, rushing inside and sweeping right and left. Sergey came in behind him, taking the left side while Sasha pressed right, clearing the hallway. Scott went down the center, his rifle ready to fire.

Shapes appeared down the hall. He squeezed the trigger. Three rounds spat out, and the soldiers ahead dropped.

More shapes huddled around the corner, shouting in Russian. Scott flattened himself against the wall, shouting to Sergey and Sasha just before shots rang out, pinging off the concrete next to their heads.

Unfazed, Sasha dropped to one knee and pulled two grenades from his belt. He looked to Sergey first, and when Sergey nodded, he ripped the pins from the grenades and hurled them down the hallway.

Their impact echoed, steel against concrete. The Russian soldiers shouted, frantic hollering as they spotted the grenades.

Booming shook the corridor, concrete dust and plaster raining from above. Screams sounded, shrill. Then silence.