Page 137 of Enemy Within

“Jack! Here!” Sergey’s hand stretched out, inches from Jack’s face.

It seemed miles away. He lunged, grasping Sergey’s hand as he hauled Ethan close. “Help him, Sergey!”

Sasha and Adam appeared by Sergey’s side, helping to haul them both from the waters and onto the ice. Hundreds of broken bodies littered the glacier and bobbed in the waves—men who had been holding them all hostage only minutes before. He recognized some of the American soldiers-turned-traitors who had met him at the loading dock. He didn’t see Kobayashi.

Jack shivered, rolling into Adam as Sasha and Sergey laid Ethan out and checked his breathing. His lips were blue, his skin nearly translucent. A moment later, Sergey began chest compressions.

Jack crawled to Ethan’s side and grabbed his hand. He pulled it to his lips, kissing each of his knuckles as Sasha breathed into Ethan’s mouth. Sergey resumed chest compressions, cursing softly in Russian.

Sasha leaned down for another breath. His lips locked with Ethan’s, and then Ethan sputtered, coughing against him. Sasha pulled back and rolled Ethan to his side as he coughed up what seemed like half of the Arctic.

Jack grasped Ethan and pulled him into his arms, trying to warm him. Immediately, Ethan started to shiver, and Jack ripped off his jacket, wrapping it around Ethan. Sasha helped, layering Ethan’s bare chest with what they had. Jack gazed into Ethan’s eyes, trying to pour his own body’s warmth into Ethan’s skin while the whole world seemed to fall apart around them. The sounds of chaos, of anarchy. Of breaking ice and shattered ships, and Madigan’s army trying to flee. Snowmobile engines roaring away, and bullets flying through the air. Adam and Sasha huddled nearby, each clutching a rifle they’d scavenged from the dead. More rifles lay between them, a small stack. Together, they sheltered behind a chunk of theVeduschiy, what looked like a blown-off bulkhead. It was some cover, at least, from the chaos around them.

Sergey kneeled beside Jack, one hand on his shoulder.

“Where is the other sub?” Sasha’s growl made Jack’s spine stiffen. He and Sergey twisted around, searching over the ice. The black sail that had thrust up through the ice cap alongside K-27 and theVeduschiywas gone.

“They might be going afterHonolulu. Captain Anderson fired on theVeduschiyand K-27. I ordered his attack.”

“So that is what happened.” Sergey smiled weakly. “I thought we were finished.”

Ethan pushed himself up, leaning against Jack. “Jack—”

Bullets chewed the ice in front of Sasha and Adam. Chunks flew, peppering their faces. Jack and Sergey rolled over Ethan as Adam and Sasha fired back, ducking behind the bulkhead as shots sparked off metal.

“Who’s shooting?” Jack shouted.

Two figures stalked across the ice, firing on their small shelter. Blood streamed down the sides of their faces. One, with a long, curved scar running down the length of his face, threw his rifle away and pulled out a knife. He stopped and pointed it toward them, gaze leveled right at Sasha.

Jack cursed when he recognized the second man: Cook.

A bullet whizzed past Jack’s head, a whistle-buzz that made him flatten to the ice.

If Cook had survived, then had Madigan escaped as well? Where was he? The rest of Madigan’s army had splintered, escaping across the ice and firing on each other, long-submerged inter-army hatreds seeming to explode with the loss of their commanders.

Jack searched the ice cap, looking everywhere.

There. Behind Cook and the others. A snowmobile screaming away, heading north. A single rider, a man with broad shoulders, wearing the same olive-colored jacket Madigan had been wearing on theVeduschiy. The hood fell back—

Madigan.Jack cursed.

Fire roared in his blood, a primal need flooding him to the depths of his soul. Madigan couldnotget away. After everything, after all that he’d done. Madigan could not escape again.

He grabbed Sergey’s arm. “Madigan!” he shouted into Sergey’s ear. “He’s escaping! Going north!”

Jack saw Sasha’s gaze flick toward Madigan, and then back to Jack and Sergey. “Go,” he grunted. “We will handle these men. Go get him!” He shoved two rifles toward Jack and Sergey and then turned back to Cook.

Ethan.Jack cupped the side of his face. Ethan still shivered, but some color had returned to his skin. “I have to stop him.”

Swallowing, Ethan nodded. His jaw clenched tight, and he tried to hide the panic, the terror, and the desperation in his gaze. “Be careful.”

“I’m with you all the way.” He pressed a quick kiss to Ethan’s icy lips. Their words, their promise to each other, enlarged, filling the spaces between them. In this life, and the next, Jack would be with Ethan until the very end.

Sergey pointed to a snowmobile abandoned in the snow, its driver shot dead and lying across the saddle. He squeezed Sasha’s shoulder, and then Sasha laid down covering fire as Jack and Sergey sprinted for it. Sergey shoved the body away, and Jack straddled the snowmobile. “Get on!” he shouted. “Madigan is getting away!”

Sergey jumped on and gripped Jack’s waist. “Go!”

Engine screaming, they roared away, chasing Madigan.