Page 131 of Enemy Within

Moroshkin froze. She watched his shoulders tighten, watched his uniform stretch across his back. “For resources exploration,” he growled. “He says United States has advanced procedures for finding oil beneath the ice. He offered to search, in exchange for half profit. He will do the same once we take Canada’s Arctic, as a deterrent against the United States.”

She shook her head. “General, you’ve been lied to. The United States military possesses no advanced military or naval tactics for oil exploration.” He snorted at her again, but she kept going. “Madigan fed you a lie and used your greed to steal ships from you. Ships that he is using to engineer the end of the world as we know it.”

Moroshkin’s eyes narrowed. He said nothing.

Elizabeth unclasped her hands, letting them swing forward. She held out a tablet, the screen displaying the Swedish weather satellite data. Violent fuchsia overlaid nearly the entire northern hemisphere and streaked into the southern. “These are satellite photos of the Arctic. They show the dispersal of methane hydrate into the atmosphere, into the jet stream. Do you see how over half the world is covered? This is from hours ago.” She pointed to each country she named. “The United States. Europe. Russia. China. And Canada. Each completely covered. Madigan’s plan, we’ve discovered, is to saturate the jet stream with enough of this gas to ignite a firestorm that would cascade through the atmosphere. Scorch the earth. It would be like a nuclear blast rolled into an airborne tsunami wave, burning across the planet. We uncovered a saying of his, what he motivated his troops with. ‘A new dawn is coming’. Have you ever heard that from him?”

Moroshkin said nothing.

Elizabeth zoomed in on the scan. “Madigan is operating out of the Kara Sea. Deposits in the ice, and from your undersea oil wells, have fed him a limitless supply of what he needs. He’s almost ready to ignite everything.”

Moroshkin paled. His lips pressed together.

She looked him dead in the eye. “Have you ever heard of K-27, General?”

He whipped away, pacing. “Nonsense! This is nonsense! Madigan is my ally. He came tome. He would not turn on me!”

“General, Madigan has turned on everyone.” She held out the tablet, offering it to him. “Look at the data, General. Madigan plans to burn the world down. He wants to kill us all. The only safe spot on the planet is right above Russia, just north of the Kara Sea. Not Canada, and not where we are right now. He’s going to incinerate every single one of your troops in Canada.”

He glared at her, and then snatched the tablet from her hands. He scrolled through the series of images, from the start of the gas cloud to the present, his glower growing darker, and he spat curses under his breath.

“You were sent to Canada as a distraction,” she said. “And to keep you away from Madigan’s plans.”

Moroshkin’s shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes, his fingertips pressing against the glass screen.

Colonel Song stepped forward, holding out his own tablet. Made of clear glass, it had holograms floating above the surface. It was far more advanced than hers. He poked one of the floating holograms, and a projection rose, playing through Chinese satellite data showing the growing cloud, and then an animation of the atmosphere lighting up. A wave of fire rolling over fields and mountains, bursting towns apart like film of early nuclear tests from the fifties and burning the earth to ruins. Finally, a clip of the Chinese president, speaking to his security council. The clip had a Russian translation already overlaid, followed by an English one. “We must stop this global destruction,” the Chinese president said, “by any means necessary. Madigan is our enemy now. He is the world’s enemy.”

The clip ended and the projection faded back into Colonel Song’s tablet.

Moroshkin’s heavy breathing filled the hangar. He clenched Elizabeth’s tablet in both hands, bending the case as his hands shook. He stared at the dented and rusted hangar walls. Wind whipped through gaps and cracks in the steel, whistling a tuneless, eerie call.

She crossed to Moroshkin’s side. Her heels clicked against the cold concrete, as loud as hammer blows. “We have a common enemy. Madigan is a danger to us all. A danger to the world.”

“A common enemy means that we are united.” Colonel Song stepped forward as well, bracketing Moroshkin on the opposite side of Elizabeth. “For the moment.”

“What do you propose?” Moroshkin finally growled. “What is it you want to do?”

Elizabeth stepped in front of Moroshkin and stared him down. “Turn your ships around, General. Put your fastest jets in the air and boats in the water. Send your subs back under the ice. Get your forces back to Madigan andstophim.” She swallowed hard. “We had a team going up there, but we’ve lost contact with them. We’re blind in the Arctic right now. General, yours are the only forces that are close enough to put a stop to this madman.”

Moroshkin looked up, into her eyes.

57

Washington DC

PETE TAPPED HIS FOOT in time to the beat pouring from Jennifer’s phone. “What station is this? It’s pretty good.”

“An online one I follow.” Jennifer smiled at him as she took a sip of coffee.

Beside her, Jason furrowed his brow as he compared a handwritten list to a stack of folders. “Jen, I don’t see your name on this list.”

Jennifer and Pete frowned. “What list are you working on?” Pete shuffled through the madness of files in front of him. They were back at work in the Roosevelt Room again, sifting through files of West Wing personnel. General Bell had vanished, as had Welby and Levi. Pete grumbled about their dwindling numbers, and he’d locked the door to keep anyone else from entering.

“This is everyone who was on the flight to the Russian state funeral. The trip to Moscow.” Jason frowned at Jennifer. “You were on the flight. We sat together.”

“You asked me out when we landed.” Jennifer grinned.

“Yeah, but you’re not on this list.”