Page 124 of Enemy Within

By the time the quick reaction team thundered up the stairs, he’d cleared the floor, and the truth was sinking in: the president was missing.

He slammed his fist against the wall outside Ethan and the president’s bedroom. Brass candle holders along the wall clattered, and an ivory candlestick toppled to the carpet. It rolled toward Welby’s feet and brushed his shoe.

Dread pooled inside him, a waterfall of sickening terror. Had he trusted the wrong man? Had he placed his faith in the wrong person? He leaned against the wall, pressing his forehead to the cream and buttercup striped wallpaper as the QRT agents spread throughout the empty, silent residence. Their commander hovered behind Welby, waiting for orders.

His eyes slipped closed and let out a soft sigh as he slumped forward. “Where are you, Levi?”

51

Kara Sea - Madigan’s Base Camp

ETHAN AND ADAM LED the breach. Sergey followed, and Sasha brought up the rear.

They moved fast, winding through the groaning ship silently, rifles up and ready to fire. Deep in the bowels, they heard the creak of the ice scraping over the hull, crunching and sliding as the ship bobbed in the swells. Water lapped, a rhythmic slap and clap. The air was frigid, biting. The metal hull acted almost like a refrigerator. Their breath fogged in front of their faces. Only a few lights worked, flickering red bulbs in steel cages set every ten yards. Dark shadows clung to the bulkheads, the hatches.

Inside, theVeduschiywas almost decrepit. Water dripped from leaky pipes. Rancid puddles, covered in frost and a thin layer of ice, pooled beneath joints and junctures. Mold raced up the rivets. Rust and rot chewed through bulkheads and hatches. Broken machinery lay abandoned in dark, dank hallways. Like everything from the Soviet period, the ship was a study in contrasts: a statement of power, a promise of violence and viciousness, but hobbled by crippling ineptitude.

And yet, the Soviet Union had still been a devastating superpower, responsible for bringing the world to the brink of destruction more than once. Underestimation was a dangerous game, as they’d learned the hard way.

Adam froze and spun to the right, peering through an open hatch that led to a ladder, rising within the ship.

“Contact?” Ethan breathed behind Adam, keeping his voice as low as possible. Even whispers carried too much of a risk. Their radios were useless now, after Kobayashi’s betrayal.

Sasha and Sergey waited a few feet behind them. They moved as one, Sergey’s FSB expertise dovetailing into Sasha’s military training. Back to back, covering each other’s blind spots, working as a team. In this, at least, they were united. Action. Purpose. They still had other areas they needed to work on.

Adam squinted into the darkness. “I thought I saw—” He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

Ethan nodded. “Move out.”

Down they went, to the center of the ship, to the engine room. He memorized each turn and how many steps they’d taken. When they blew the engine room, they’d have to book it, fast.

At the engine room, they stacked against the hatch, Ethan in the breach position, followed by Adam, Sergey, and Sasha. The hatch was open, and they hung in the shadows beyond the entrance, peering within. Low red lights mixed with the old green glow of eighties technical screens gave the room an eerie glow. Dials flickered, the bulbs within on their last legs.

Ethan’s belly button clenched. The ship, everything about it, was creepy. Apprehension made his blood pump, made his ears ring. He exhaled slowly.

“Zero contacts,” he breathed over his shoulder. He didn’t see, or hear, anyone inside. “Breach on my count.” He held up three fingers, against the glow of a red-caged bulb. Then two. Then one.

Ethan stormed into the engine room and turned left. Adam followed on his heels and turned right. They snaked around the bulkheads, rifles up and sweeping in arcs before them. Sasha and Sergey followed, hot on their heels, sweeping and trailing their movements.

The engine room was massive. Cavernous, the hollow space swallowed them up. Their footfalls echoed, clanging on the grated metal deck. They’d entered on the upper level, onto a catwalk ringing the engine room. Beneath them, in the center on the lower level, sixteen overpowered diesel engines stretched in rows, massive cylinders bigger than Ethan on each engine. The Soviets had loved to build large; anything worth building was worth overbuilding.

Most of the engines were cold and offline, save for two that rumbled away, keeping the ship at minimum operations. The stench of diesel and stale saltwater almost gagged him. He blinked fast, his eyes stinging. Clearly, spilled fuel wasn’t a concern of the Soviets. The ship’s steel was marinated in it.

A rickety metal ladder stretched from the catwalk to the lower level. Ethan motioned to Adam and then to the ladder. He and Adam headed down.

Sasha and Sergey stayed above, circling slowly on the catwalk, keeping watch.

They moved fast, ducking beside a row of engines and pulling out a block of C4. Adam peeled off the sticky back and stuck several to the incoming fuel lines, hoses as thick as Ethan’s chest. They scrambled to the hull, ducking behind broken machinery burned black in a fire decades before, it seemed. The sounds of the waves were stronger down there, a heavy beat against the metal hull. The frigid ocean kept the engine room almost frosty, and no doubt bled heat away when the ship was fully operational. Adam slapped more C4 on rusted joints, shorn rivets, and rotten, rusted sections of the hull. Last, he flipped the arming switch on the remote detonators, a simple radio receiver that waited for the right signal. Ethan had the transmitter in his jacket pocket.

Adam signaled he was good to go; all C4 placed. Ethan nodded, and started back toward the ladder, picking his way through the dark engine room.

Above, on the catwalk, metal creaked, long and loud. He froze.

He heard Sasha and Sergey freeze as well, their soft footfalls go still.

A rubber band snap whipped through the darkness.

Ethan’s blood turned to ice.That was a gunshot.