Page 13 of Enemy Within

“We have a long history.” Faisal smiled, almost wistful. “That’s how I choose to remember us. What we were. Not this. Not what we have become.” Straightening he cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together. “Alhamdulillah, it is time for prayer.”

“You’re going toprayon an airplane?” Doc’s eyebrows shot sky high again. “Do you want to get jumped? There are about twelve dudes out there right now who wouldn’t think twice.”

“Not my full prayers.” Regret laced through Faisal’s voice. “But the practice grounds me. I find peace in the ritual when I seekal-nafs al-mutma’innah. My tranquil self. My peaceful self.”

“I think Adam could use some of that.”

Faisal sighed, a harassed, harried look crossing over his features as he stared at Doc. A moment later, he smoothed his expression back to his practiced neutrality.

“Sorry.” Doc raised both hands, and he shuffled sideways, trying to give Faisal space. “I’ll, uh. I’ll hang out here with you until you’re done. If that’s okay.”

“More than okay.” Finally, Faisal truly smiled. “I’ve always hated being alone.”

6

Northern Siberian Permafrost

HIS BREATH CAME FAST, fogging the air in front of his face. Cold sank its teeth into his back, right between his shoulder blades. The freezing temperatures squeezed his skull, made his skin feel slapped, and peeled his lips back from his teeth. At least his teeth had stopped chattering, though.

In some corner of Sasha’s mind, he realized that was a bad thing. He should still shiver. His teeth should still chatter. But he couldn’t remember why.

On he trudged, stumbling through the snow. Tree trunks faded in and out of focus, switching places in front of him. He held out his hands, trying not to run face-first into a pine that seemed to jump ten feet to the right in a moment.

He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore.

Dropping to his knees, Sasha buried his hands beneath his armpits, rocking in the snow. Slowly, agonizingly, circulation returned, lancing pain spreading fire through his fingers. Gritting his teeth, Sasha screamed, and a tear slipped from the corner of his eye.

It froze before it reached his chin.

Frigid cold penetrated his entire body, wrapping him like a shroud.

He was so tired.

Just lie down. It will be okay.

Sergey’s face flashed in the darkness behind his eyelids.

No, I have to get to Sergey. I have to.

Sasha tried to stand, stumbled, and fell to his knees again.

But a warmth started to spread through him, starting in his thighs. Finally, he wasn’t cold anymore.

Sasha rose, shaking, and took one step before collapsing face-first into the snow.

7

Southern Siberia

“HOLD UP. THERE’S SOMETHING AHEAD.”

Scott’s voice broke over the scratchy radio as Sergey’s brake lights flashed, their jeep ahead of Ethan and Jack slowing to a stop on the snow-dusted, two-lane Siberian track. Potholes the size of their jeep dotted the muddy roadway, and the convoy snaked around cracks and fissures. The road had been built sometime in the late Soviet period and never maintained, and it showed. Dense forest clustered close to the edges, and rugged mountainside stretched up one side and plunged into a dark ravine on the other.

Ethan and Jack shared a look before stopping their jeep. Behind them, the rest of the convoy ground to a halt, brakes squealing. Ethan grabbed the radio. “What do you see?”

Static, and then Scott’s voice. “Ethan, you’d better get up here.”

Another long look passed between Jack and Ethan. Jack put the jeep in park and clambered out with Ethan, both of them jogging ahead. Their breath fogged the air, the cold slicing at bits of exposed skin around their balaclavas as snow fell, blanketing the air with silence.