Page 114 of Enemy Within

Luli Fan’s father folded like a bad hand at a Vegas card table.

Yue Ying, of the Central Military Commission in China, took the next flight to Washington DC and let herself into Luli Fan’s apartment.

Luli Fan had been selected for this mission, and if she came through, then her loyalty, her commitment, would be richly rewarded. The Chinese government would take the bounty off of her father’s head, for starters. And she’d be a wealthy woman at the end of the week.

All Luli Fan needed to do was stay out of sight. Stay unconscious and sedated and lying on her bed for the next week. Yue Ying would take her place. In another life, they could have been twins. The same light to their eyes, the same angle of their smile. Luli Fan had been picked for this mission because of her spooky similarity to Yue, a combination of genes and environment that had produced an almost identical twin, despite different families, different lineages.

Now, Yue was inside the White House. Inside the West Wing. The clothes she wore were Luli’s, along with Luli’s blue White House badge. She could move freely around the West Wing. Go to any office. Talk to anyone.

And who she wanted had just walked down the hall.

She slipped the trigger-loaded syringe into her palm and followed Levi Daniels.

He went down the hall, past the Cabinet Room, and turned. Padded his way down the staircase to the lower level. She followed, pretending to check her phone as she bounced down the stairs. If asked, she’d say she was on the way to the mess for a fresh cup of coffee.

No one asked. The lower level was quiet. Few people moved around, their faces buried in their phones.

Levi Daniels headed for the Secret Service bunker, but hesitated. His head tipped forward and his shoulders slumped. He turned away, heading instead for the entrance to the garage.

Yue followed him, and once there, kept to the shadows. She paralleled him down the line of cars, keeping low.

When he stopped outside a black SUV, she struck. Moving fast, she slid over the hood of the car beside Levi and rose, silently, behind him.

He stiffened, sensing something, and started to turn.

Too late. She stabbed the syringe into his neck. The trigger depressed automatically, flooding his body with the sedative.

“What the—” His hand flew to his neck, bumping the empty syringe. He whipped around, but the sedative had already started working. His legs gave way, and he pitched forward, falling against her. Yue caught him as his eyes slipped closed, and he fell unconscious.

She pulled out her phone. Hit the speed dial. After one ring, the line opened with a click.

“Colonel Song. I have Agent Levi Daniels.”

46

USS Honolulu

CAPTAIN ANDERSON WAITED BENEATH the forward bow hatch, watching water drip from the circular seal.

“Docking complete, sir.” Heavy bolts fromHonoluluclamped down on the airlock between his boat and the civilian sub he’d found floating beneath the ice cap. Boomer had picked up a faint S-O-S in Morse code, coming from someone banging against the side of the sub walls.

He’d sent over one of his divers.

After his diver had boarded, Boomer picked up a new message in Morse code.Americans. Bringing in to dock.

Who was inside the sub? How had they gotten there?

Water continued to drip slowly, the last drop from their docking being squeezed out. Above, he heard the mini sub’s airlock cycle open. He gave the nod to his chief, who started rotatingHonolulu’s hatch. Along the hallway, lights flickered. Creaking rumbled through the hull.

Honoluluwas barely holding together. Sierra One had wounded her, badly, beforeHonoluluput six torpedoes in Sierra One’s side and sent her to the bottom of the Arctic Abyss. Before that, though, Sierra One’s torpedoes had chased them under the ice, pressing them farther and deeper into dangerous waters and icy ravines. Pressed between underwater ice blades and the torpedoes, there’d been nowhere to go but down. Underwater blasts rockedHonolulu’ssystems and pressures from the Arctic Abyss crunched her hull, ripping open stress fractures in her plating. Water sloshed on the lower decks, too much for the bilge pumps to suck out to sea. Their shocked and shaken reactor was underpowered, damaged, and the engines were barely able to make ten knots. They were limping, wounded, and nearly broken.

A shivering, wet body tumbled through the open hatch, almost falling to the deck. Anderson steadied the man, helping him to his feet. He recognized him: Doc, the corpsman from Ethan Reichenbach’s Marine Corps team.

“Captain, I’ve got four in here!” His diver, Petty Officer Swanson, called from above. “They’re hypothermic. The seal on this submersible leaked on them. There’s freezing water in the hold.”

“Chief Liu is here.” Anderson passed Doc to Chief Liu, his own corpsman, andHonolulu’s sole medical provider. He arched his eyebrows up the hatch, meeting Swanson’s gaze. “I already gathered the hatch leaked.” Water dripped onto his shoulder.

Liu wrapped Doc in a blanket and passed him down the hall. They’d converted the wardroom to a sickbay. Their injured were already there.