Page 171 of Enemy of My Enemy

Scott waited, counting down. Nothing.

They crept forward, picking their way through the dead. It had been a small team, just a skeleton crew holding down the main building. Granted, it was a tiny base, but there should have been more men.

Not everyone was home.

“We’ve gotta move fast,” he grunted.

The building was a T-shape, the first corridor where they entered intersecting with the cross hallway. Offices and locked doors stretched on either side. Sasha turned to the right. Sergey padded silently down the left. In the smoke of the grenade, his tall, lanky frame seemed to vanish. He moved like a predator, and Scott’s stomach clenched. Sergey, for all his friendship with Jack, was still a dangerous man. He’d been a spy and a soldier all his life before becoming a politician.

And this was the man Jack had thrown his lot in with.

Swallowing, he set off after Sergey.

Sergey blew locks off doors, searching empty office after empty office. He dropped to one knee and patted through the dead, pulling out papers and CDs and flash drives as he moved. They reached the end of the hall.

No Ethan.

Was he even there?

“The other end. Go.”

Echoes of shots from Sasha blowing off locks bounced through the corridor. They jogged to catch up with him.

Scott slowed, though, his gaze catching on a glinting bit of metal shining beneath the neck of a dead Russian soldier. Sergey ran on, but Scott stayed back, reaching for the dangling chain falling free from the soldier’s jacket.

Two dark rings, each with a channel of tiny diamonds buried in their middle. A chain that looked suspiciously like the one he was missing.

Ethanwashere.

Scott’s fist closed around the two rings. He yanked, snapping the chain’s release, and the dead man’s neck jerked. He wanted to throttle him, empty his rifle into his face. Whoever he was, he’d taken the rings from Ethan, and if there was one thing Scott knew,knew, it was that Ethan wouldn’t let go of those rings without—

“Scott!” Sergey’s bellow sounded from the end of the hall! “Scott! Down here!”

Scott pocketed Ethan’s rings, glaring down at the dead Russian, and took off.

He skittered to a stop outside the farthest door. A dead Russian lay on the ground, fresh blood still oozing out of him.

Sasha was inside, kneeling in a pool of blood. In his arms, he cradled Ethan’s bone-white and unmoving body.

* * *

Jack wasa bundle of blown nerves and clenched teeth when the drone hangar exploded, followed by the comms tower. Metal shrieked, shattering, and steel blew through the air. Flames roared to the sky, trees nearby alighting. Snow hissed as drone parts rained down around Jack, dull thumps crashing into the earth. He waited, trying not to panic, next to their jeep.

Shouting in Russian, and then feet running back toward the convoy. His heart seized, but started again when he recognized Sergey’s men. Doors slammed, engines roared. Jeeps around him started up.

Where were the others? Where were Sergey, Sasha, and Scott?

And Ethan. Where was Ethan?

Three figures emerged from the smoke, running toward Jack. One of them had a body thrown over his shoulder.

Time slowed, the burning steel, the raining destruction, the roaring of the jeeps and bellowing Russian all fading away as he stared at the three men running toward him. The next moment could break him, break him entirely. Could shatter him like the base had exploded. Could scatter his heart in burning fragments.

Sasha hopped into the driver’s seat, shouting into the radio in harsh Russian. Scott raced past Jack, Ethan over his shoulder, a river of Ethan’s blood running down his side.

“Move, move!” Sergey rushed Scott, pulling Scott back after he threw Ethan into the back seat. “Get up front!”

Whirling, Sergey reached for Jack. “Jack! Get in and hold his head! We have moments! They tried to kill him when we stormed the base!”