Page 66 of Enemy of My Enemy

Sasha whipped away, scowling.

Ethan tried again. “I don’t remember you from the delegation last year. Sergey said you were new? How did you join his team?”

Silence.

Ethan flagged down a waiter and grabbed another two flutes of champagne as Jack and Sergey continued to dance. Sergey spun Jack and bulbs flashed.

Sasha’s jaw clenched.

Ethan passed him a glass.

Sasha played with the stem, rolling the crystal between his fingers before draining half the flute in a large swallow. “I was fighter pilot,” he grunted. “President Puchkov…” Sasha’s eyes narrowed. “He saved my life.”

There was more to that story, like all Russian stories. Ethan waited.

“This,” Sasha said, waving one hand around the room, “is very different from what I used to do. I am… uncertain what to do for him.” He glanced sidelong at Ethan. “How to make him proud.”

“I think you’re well on your way,” Ethan said carefully. “Fighter pilot, now a senior aide. One he wants to keep close.”

Sasha’s scowl deepened.

The song ended. Ethan spotted Sergey and Jack searching them out in the crowd. Sergey spotted Sasha first, and Ethan watched his face brighten and a smile break out over his narrow, hawk-like features. “He already sees you. That’s something.” He didn’t want to give Sasha false hope, though. How many weeks had he agonized over Jack, trying to decipher smiles and secret looks and their growing friendship? “I know how it feels. It sucks, it really does. I… really didn’t think this would ever happen to me.”

And then Sergey and Jack were back, both beaming, and Sergey nodded once to Sasha before turning to Jack, replaying the dance they’d just shared and laughing at the shocked and befuddled gazes from the crowd. Ethan watched Sasha’s eyes linger on Sergey, his fingers restlessly playing with his half-full champagne flute, for the rest of the night.

* * *

The guests leftclose to midnight, and Jack, Ethan, Sergey, and Sasha made their good-byes to their staff and guests and trudged up the stairs to the Residence.

“Vodka?” Sergey appeared from the Lincoln Bedroom with an unmarked bottle sealed with wax and a smile on his face. He’d undone his bowtie, and the loose ends dangled down the front of his shirt.

Jack collapsed on one of the couches in the East Sitting Hall outside Sergey’s bedroom. “Bring it on,” he said, tugging at his own bowtie.

Sasha joined them, sitting silently at the end of the couch while Sergey poured four hefty shots of vodka into crystal tumblers. “To friends,” Sergey said simply, raising his glass in a toast.

Jack and Sergey talked and laughed while Ethan wrapped his arm around Jack’s waist and leaned back on the couch. As Jack and Sergey wandered into discussing the business lease and investment deal again, soft snores floated up from Ethan. His head rolled until his cheek was resting on Jack’s shoulder, eyes closed, sound asleep.

Sergey grinned, halfway through comparing the Russian and American auto industries. “Like a little baby.”

“Yours is out, too.” Jack nodded to Sasha, asleep and slumped against the end of the couch, still buttoned up in his dark suit.

“Good.” Sergey leaned back with a sigh and gazed at Sasha. “He needs the rest. He is still recovering. I was not sure about bringing him along, but leaving him behind was no option either. I am protective of him.” Sergey chuckled. “And he insisted on not leaving my side, with the threats and all.”

“I can see that. He’s protective of you as well. Watched you nonstop during dinner.” Jack smiled at Sergey’s scoffing dismissal. “Who is he?”

“For that, we need more vodka.” Sergey poured another round for him and Jack, larger than the first. Slowly, he managed to tell Jack Sasha’s story, about his beating at the base and his desperate gambit coming to Moscow, broken, bleeding, and feverish. About Dr. Voronov collecting him, half-dead, and bringing him back to health. About meeting him in the middle of the night and listening to him sob.

Jack stayed silent.

“I do not know what to do for him. His unit listed him as a runaway and presumed dead before he even arrived in Moscow. Even sending the FSB to the base got nowhere. They are not budging from their make-believe story, and Sasha does not want to pursue charges.”

“The betrayal cut him deeply.” Jack swirled his vodka and glared out the Sitting Hall’s window. He remembered the taste of betrayal, the color. The sound. Betrayal had come in the form of his closest aide, Jeff Gottschalk. A man he’d called a friend. A man he’d known for years, a man his wife had been friends with. “It’s hard to recover from that.” He shook his head, turning back to Sergey. “How’d he end up as your aide?”

Sergey looked a little helpless as he answered. “I want to help him. He is a good officer. A good Russian. If I had done more, sooner, perhaps…” He trailed off. “He has been very good so far. Learning a lot. I know he’s stiff here, but…” Sergey smiled. “I think he will be okay.”

Jack held his glass out for another toast. Crystal chimed, and a warm, gentle rightness settled over Jack’s mind. The touch of liquor and the edge of inebriation. “Thank you. For what you did in Russia. What you said about your people.”

Wordlessly, Sergey held his glass out again, a final toast. “I told you to watch the newspapers, did I not?” He grinned and knocked back the last of his vodka. “Jack, you have my support, and you have my friendship. Always.”