Page 58 of Enemy of My Enemy

“This evening. They land at Andrews just after nineteen hundred.”

“Anything?” Jack’s voice was full of hope.

Ethan shook his head. “Not a peep from Madigan. Not since he disappeared into Somalia a week ago.”

Jack’s head thunked back against his chair as he scrubbed his hands over his face. Madigan had raided the prison in Sudan and then moved south. Ethiopian scouts tracked a large caravan crossing through their highlands, heading straight for the destroyed failed state of Somalia. Since then, no one had heard anything. No prison breaks. No intelligence dumped to the Internet. Nothing at all.

Cooper had stayed in the region, hunkered down at Prince Faisal’s palace for a week, trying to find something, any sign at all of Madigan, Cook, the eleven SOCOM soldiers who had joined him, or the thousands of hardened criminals he’d busted out of prison.

Nothing. Not even Prince Faisal had been able to find anything. Somalia was, even to the Saudis, a lost cause and a nearly impenetrable lawless frontier.

So Cooper and his team were headed home.

“On to the next world crises?” Jack grinned at Ethan, trying to get a smile out of his lover.

“I’ll let you get back to work. I’ve got to make some calls.” Ethan headed for the door.

“I’ll see you tonight.”

Ethan nodded, avoided Jack’s gaze, and headed out of the Oval Office.

* * *

Chapter 21

Somewhere in Somalia

“The bastard is runningRussia into the ground!” Moroshkin slammed his fist on his desk, the sound echoing over the phone line. “President Puchkov is a puppet of the Americans! He is no Russian man!”

Madigan stayed silent, letting Moroshkin bellow.

“We have lost billions,” Moroshkin growled. “Our economy, ruined. But worse, far worse than that,” he seethed, “is the way this man,no, this traitor, has turned against his own motherland. Puchkov! He is no Russian man! He is nothing but an American flunky! He is too close to President Spiers! They must have something going on together.”

Madigan said nothing. Moroshkin’s fury was still building, the general still working up to something.

“He has been turned. He must have been. He has been turned by the Americans, by their CIA. He has been planted inside Russia, to tear us apart from within. This project of his. His love of homosexuals.” Moroshkin sneered. “Does he truly believe that Russians will ever accept these foreign corruptions? No true Russian could ever be a homosexual! It is a corruption of the West! Sent to destroy us!” Moroshkin’s harsh breaths flooded the phone line. “Perhaps I will get lucky,” he said slowly. “Some assassin, some Bratva hitman, will take him out for me. I can take the country after.”

“Some Russians call him a hero.” Finally, Madigan spoke, poking the proverbial bear. “They say he’s a visionary. Guiding Russia out of the dark ages into an era of modern equality. He’s bringing Russia into the first world. A true post-Putin leader.”

“Bah!” Moroshkin cursed in Russian, pounding his desk with his fist, over and over. “He is no hero! He is a disgrace! He is ruining Russia! He must be destroyed!”

“What will you do about it?” A little push and Moroshkin would go far. Inertia would take over, Puchkov’s actions and Moroshkin’s hatred coming together in perfect synchronicity.

Moroshkin breathed deeply, grumbling in Russian again. “I have moved my most trusted officers into key commands,” he growled. “We are in control of a majority of the Russian military forces. President Puchkov has some friends. But, they will not be a hindrance.”

“We can use them, actually.” Madigan played it smoothly, laying it all out for Moroshkin, and Moroshkin was walking down his path. Walking into his web. “We can use his allies and his friends against him.”

“How?”

“The best way to utterly break a man, General, is to take him to his absolute limits and then wrench him beyond them. Brutally. Rip away everything a man holds dear, one by one. Strip him of his security. His safety. His sanity.” Madigan smiled. “And then he’s yours to destroy.”

“In Russia, we are more direct.”

Madigan chuckled. “Yes, but I promise you. We do things my way, and you’ll be in charge of that country in no time. And then moving on to bigger and better conquests.”

“Once, Russia was respected. We were the greatest military on the planet.”

Madigan stayed silent.