Page 125 of Enemy Within

Sasha groaned. A body slumped to the catwalk above, rattling the grates.

“Sasha!” Sergey ran across the catwalk, not at all stealthy. Ethan shrank into the shadows, ducking behind an engine, and watched Sergey’s shadowy body kneel by Sasha’s prone form. He reached for his front pocket, for the transmitter.

All at once, the overhead lights flicked on, blinding him. He dropped low, squeezing his eyes shut as the bright lights stabbed his eyeballs. Bullets slammed against the engine casing he hid behind, impact sparks raining down on him. Adam cursed, and Ethan spun away, searching for a way out. Adam tried to follow, but bullets sparked the deck between them, and he dove back. He was pinned.

Overhead, lining the catwalk on three sides, a dozen of Madigan’s men stood, their rifles pointed down at Ethan and Adam. Another group had their rifles trained on Sasha and Sergey. Sergey tried to fight back. He got a kick in the face for his efforts. He landed face-down beside Sasha, blooding pouring from his split lip.

More men stormed in through the hatch they had used, blocking any hope of escape.

Ethan ducked as a bullet whizzed by his ear. He slid behind one of the massive engines, tucked between two giant cylinders, and reached for the transmitter again. A block of C4 stuck to the engine just feet from him. He could see another six blocks within ten feet.

He palmed the transmitter. A flick of the switch cover, and then a press of the button was all he needed.At least Jack can get away. He swallowed and closed his eyes.Goodbye, Jack.

“Drop it!” The barrel of a rifle pressed against his temple, digging into his skull. “Drop it now!”

His eyes flew open. One of Madigan’s men snarled at him, hatred burning from his gaze as he held Ethan’s stare. This was one of Madigan’s handpicked officers. One of his South American men. He wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Ethan, drop him at the slightest twitch. Already, his finger was half-squeezed on the trigger. Ethan was millimeters away from death.

He hadn’t flipped the switch cover yet. If he tried, he’d be dead before he even got it open.

Slowly, he lifted his thumb off the switch.

In one move, Madigan’s officer slapped the transmitter from his hand and slammed the butt of his rifle against Ethan’s skull.

He slumped to the deck as darkness swallowed the world.

52

Russian-held Canada

“WHAT THE HELL IS going on, Levi?” Elizabeth’s strained voice leaked from behind her hands. She’d buried her face in her palms and leaned forward, balancing her elbows on her knees as the private charter jet started its descent. “What are we doing?”

Levi sat across from her. He chewed on his lip, watching the lines on her forehead furrow and the crinkles around her eyes deepen as she screwed her eyes shut. He reached out, resting his fingertips on the edge of her knee. “What we have to do,” he said softly.

“Butthis?” Her hands slid down her face until they cupped her mouth, as if keeping in words she wanted to say. “I can’t shake the feeling that we’re making the wrong choice.”

“You didn’t have a choice.” Levi looked away, staring at the clouds passing by as they descended. It had been nothing but clouds, an endless void of leaden gloom all the way from Maryland to Canada. They’d slipped out of the White House in the middle of the night, dodging the monitors and the security checkpoints like Ethan used to do. Elizabeth had lain in the back of his SUV as they drove together up to Maryland.

Colonel Song and Yue Ying picked them up in a sleek private jet. One fabricated flight plan later, and they headed first for Niagara, and then turned north, sprinting across the border into Canada, just barely skimming over the treetops and below the radar ceiling.

Hours later, they finally came in for their landing. Colonel Song and Yue Ying stayed up front in the cockpit. Elizabeth stared silently out of the window for the whole flight. She looked at nothing, but her gaze was heavy. Levi watched her weigh her choices deep within her soul.

Colonel Song came out of the cockpit and sat across the aisle from Elizabeth on the long cream couch that stretched the length of the jet. He crossed one leg primly and stared at her.

“What happens now?” she finally asked, frowning. Outside the window, the bleak Nunavut landscape appeared: drab, frost-covered scrub and barren rock. In the distance, dark Arctic waters lapped at a fog-shrouded shoreline. Beneath them, two concrete runways lay at acute angles. A single hangar squatted at the juncture of the runways. A few forgotten bush planes sat parked beside the hangar, their propellers spinning slowly in the breeze.

Jeeps bearing a Russian flag painted on their doors waited in a line at the end of one of the runways.

“When we land, we will meet with General Moroshkin.” Colonel Song spoke, carefully, deliberately. “We will meet in the hangar.”

“And then?”

Colonel Song stared at her. “That will depend on you.” He stood, smoothed his suit jacket, and headed back for the cockpit. “We land in five minutes.” The cockpit door clicked shut.

Elizabeth buried her face in her palms again. Dark, wavy locks shook free from the clip holding her hair back. Levi pushed one curly strand back, tucking it behind her ear.

“If this doesn’t work, I’ll be the biggest failure of a president the United States has ever seen,” she breathed. “Or the world. I’ll be a traitor. Benedict Arnold… and Elizabeth Wall.”

“And if it succeeds,” he said softly, “you’ll be the president who saved the entire world.”