Page 155 of Enemy Within

But Adam was alive. He wasalive.

Faisal flew at him, leaping the last few feet and throwing his arms and legs around Adam. Adam caught him, staggering back, and would have fallen if it weren’t for Scott’s bracing hold.

“Adam!” Faisal shouted, shrieking, out of control. “Yallah, Adam! Adam! Adam!” His hands cupped Adam’s face, stroked down his bruised and battered cheeks. He couldn’t stop saying his name, repeating it over and over.

Adam sank to the ice, dropping to his knees as he held Faisal tight. He buried his face in Faisal's neck, breathing in deeply, ragged breaths that sounded like screams. “You’re alive, you’re alive...” His hands gripped Faisal, running over his back, squeezing his shoulders, his hips, sliding up into his hair. Touching him everywhere, as if making sure he was really there, alive and in one piece. “The others? Is everyone—”

“Coleman is shot. Doc has him stabilized.” Faisal looked down into Adam’s eyes. Rage pulled at his heart. “Wright… He was with Madigan.”

Adam’s eyes slipped closed, and he curled forward, pressing his forehead to Faisal’s chest as his expression cracked, anguish pouring from him.

“He’s gone.” Faisal wrapped his arms around Adam again. Even to his own ears, his voice was hard, rough in a way he never was. “You’re hurt.” He pulled back enough to get his hands on Adam’s abdomen, lift his jacket and poke at the wound. A gunshot, clear through, above his hip.

“I’ll live,” Adam breathed. His face was wet, his eyes were dazed, but he stared at Faisal like he was the sun. “Allah u Akbar, you’re alive…”

“Habibi…” Faisal cupped his cheeks again and pressed their foreheads together. “Ana bahibak, Adam.Ya rouhi, enta habibi hayati.”You are my soul, the love of my life.

ETHAN ROSE AS JACK and Sergey zoomed across the ice. Scott puttered between him and Sasha, trying to plug every wound with gauze and bandages. He’d demanded a med kit from one of the Russian soldiers, and so far, he’d opened nearly every little paper packet, searching for the right bandages amid the unfamiliar Cyrillic script. Sasha had a thick eyepatch pressed to a wide cut on his neck, and forty pieces of tiny gauze covering his sliced palm.

Ethan’s eyes met Jack’s as Jack braked and slid off the snowmobile. Elation and exhaustion warred in Jack’s gaze. Weariness, too. And, buried in his eyes, fear. Shame.

His hands shook when Ethan went to him. “Madigan is dead,” Jack breathed, burying his face in Ethan’s neck. “I—” He shuddered, leaning into Ethan.

Ethan held Jack tightly, resting his cheek on Jack’s hair. He kissed the curve of his ear, stroked his back. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “You did the right thing. But I know it hurts.”

There was a difference in distance when taking another’s life. Jack had fired on Madigan’s men, had taken a few of them out. Had shot a man trying to kill Ethan. But he’d never killed personally, right up close, watching the light fade out of another man’s eyes. Even with a man as vile as Madigan, a man who deserved to die, what Jack had done would still leave a mark on his soul.

“I’m here, Jack,” he breathed. “I’m with you all the way.”

Jack’s arms tightened around his waist, and his hot breath ghosted over Ethan’s skin, trembling. He pulled back. “We did it,” he said, swallowing slowly. “We actually did it. We saved the world.”

“Again.”

Jack smiled. “Again.”

“You know what this means?” Ethan’s hands stroked up Jack’s back again, smiling through his own pain, his own exhaustion. “We get our honeymoon. You… me… an empty beach…”

Beaming, Jack caressed his face, cupped his cheeks. “Music to my ears.” He leaned in, kissing Ethan.

The kiss stretched on and on, Jack cradling his cheeks as Ethan’s hand slid into his hair, cupped the back of his head. He pulled back, dropping kisses to Jack’s cheeks, his eyelids, the center of his forehead. “I’m so proud of you,” Ethan breathed. “You did this, Jack. You turned this into a victory. You are my hero, Jack. You’re the whole world’s hero.”

AS ETHAN WENT TO Jack, Sasha headed for Sergey.

Silently, Sergey opened his arms, and Sasha folded into his hold, resting his forehead against Sergey’s temple. “You did it,” Sasha murmured. “Now you must go back to being Russia’s president.”

“Just because Moroshkin’s forces are here cleaning up Madigan’s trash does not mean I am safe. We can still make a break for it, Sasha.” He kissed Sasha’s temple. “I just want to be with you. No more people shooting at us. No more plane crashes.” He pulled back, mock glaring at Sasha. “You are forbidden from flying again. Two crashes in two weeks.Nyet. No more.”

Sasha stepped back, away from Sergey. “Sergey—”

A new sound roared overhead, thundering jet engines and the bellow of troop transports rumbling up from the south. Helicopters, chewing through the air in a long line, with teams of men sliding down ropes and hitting the ice. Thousands of men, Russian policemen this time, the black-and-blue uniforms of the federal police forces and of the FSB. They swarmed the ice, racing to Moroshkin’s men and forcing them to their knees, arresting Moroshkin’s traitorous forces. Still more took over guarding the remnants of Madigan’s criminal army.

Sergey’s jaw dropped. “Ilya…” A smile broke over his face as he tipped his head back and laughed. “Ilya, you son of a bitch! You did it!”

A lone helicopter broke away from the southern fleet, zipping over the ice as if searching for something. It banked hard, circling over Sergey and the group before starting its descent fifty yards to the north. Snow blasted over the ice, whipped up by the propeller blast, stinging their faces. Sergey raised his arm, squinting at the chopper as three men hopped out.

Ilya strode toward them, flanked by Aleksey and Anton. All three were smiling, and Ilya opened his arms to Sergey as he drew near.

“Yobaniy nasos,” Sergey growled, beaming. He grabbed Ilya and pulled him into a bear hug. “You son of a bitch. What have you done?”