Page 139 of Enemy Within

Munoz nodded once and spun back to his console. His hands shook as he armed six torpedoes, more than would normally ever be fired.

As the boat rose and the deck tilted again, Anderson spared a glance for the last four members of the strike team. Faisal stared back, his dark eyes somber as if he’d already accepted what Anderson feared, unspoken in the center of his chest: they most likely wouldn’t make it through this. Doc slumped beside Faisal, a practiced indifference hanging on his thin frame. But his face was pinched, drawn with more than just his endless seasickness. On either side of Faisal, Sergeants Coleman and Wright stood with their legs spread and arms crossed, jaws clenched tight. Classic Marines, stoic to the last, to the very end.

60

Kara Sea – Madigan’s Base Camp

AFTER THE TORPEDOES SLAMMED into theVeduschiy’shull, Cook shepherded Madigan through the emergency hatch and down the midship external ladder.

On board the sinkingVeduschiy, he watched Madigan drop the last few feet to the ice and scramble away as the hull of theVeduschiychewed through the edges of the glacier.

Two of Madigan’s criminal army had raced across the splintering ice cap on snowmobiles, the first to arrive from their shantytown redoubt.

Madigan shot both in the forehead. They tumbled backward, falling sideways, lifeless as the snowmobiles petered out. Madigan climbed on one of the snowmobiles and barked orders into his radio to their remaining sub.

Those orders echoed in Cook’s earpiece as he disappeared back into the bowels of theVeduschiy.

He had to buy Madigan time.

Cook headed for his cabin, stumbling through the tilted hallways and holding on with both hands. There was something he had to get.

He’d taken over the executive officer’s cabin on board, a palatial space compared to his jail cell. The metal walls made the room frigidly cold, almost like he was back home in the cellblock of Z Unit. There was a narrow bunk built against the cabin’s hull, but he’d always slept better on hard concrete or steel. He rested on the floor.

His guest had been handcuffed to the bunk, anyway. After his failure, he was lucky to be alive. Madigan had insisted on keeping him alive, and Cook had insisted on keeping him under watch. But now, he’d serve a purpose.

Cook spun open the lock and shoved the hatch to his cabin open.

His guest was already up, standing beside his bunk and bent awkwardly as he strained against the restraints. His shirt was bloodstained, the rough stitches on his chest and back oozing blood. A knife lay on the floor, tossed from Cook’s shelves. He’d obviously been trying to reach it.

Well. It had been his, after all.

Cook grabbed the knife and ripped it from its sheath. He stalked across the cabin and cut through the man’s restraints, then spun the knife around, offering him the handle.

The man’s dark eyes flicked from the handle to Cook’s face. He said nothing.

“There’s someone here you have unfinished business with,” Cook growled. “A pilot.”

Reichenbach and Spiers had survived. Lieutenant Cooper had escaped. The Russian president, too.

And Puchkov’s constant companion—the mysterious fighter pilot who had overflown their base the week before.

Lieutenant Paloshenko, SiberianSpetsnaz, took the blade from Cook. His fingers wrapped around the handle slowly. “I will slit his throat,” he growled, his vowels rolling in his deep Russian accent. He raised the blade, pointing it in Cook’s face. “And then I will slit yours. You will face me.”

He grabbed Paloshenko and shoved him across the wildly tilted cabin, through the hatch. “Fucking move, before this whole ship is underwater.”

61

Washington DC

“SENATOR, GENERAL, IN HERE!” Welby ushered General Bell and Senator Allen into Horsepower and left them behind, racing across the bunker-like room to the weapons lockers.

Alarms wailed, sirens and old-fashioned alert bells clanging in the hallways. Horsepower’s main screens were red, the offices of the West Wing highlighted and blown up on-screen, showing the details of Jennifer’s attack. She and her team had stormed into the West Wing by the Press Briefing Room. She’d shot up Pete’s office, the empty Cabinet Room, and then made her way down the hall toward the Roosevelt Room and Oval Office. The first wave of Secret Service had held her and her team off long enough to evacuate the Roosevelt Room.

Welby had Pete to thank for that.

He’d been in Horsepower, reviewing footage on all cameras, searching for any sign of Levi and President Wall leaving the premises. Damn it, but Levi was too good. He’d been trained by Ethan, and Ethan knew all the tricks. Hell, he’d used them all to date President Spiers. If Levi had been the one to smuggle President Wall out of the White House, he’d covered his tracks personally.

He’d been grinding through another playback when his phone had rung.