Page 31 of Enemy Within

Wherever he was, it was filled with people. Trucks drove past, rumbling, and men called out to one another, the rough language of street thugs and his rougher countrymen. Deep laughs, and what sounded like a fistfight. Bandits? ABratvanest? Had the mafia moved into the Sakha Republic? What were they doing with tribesmen?

“Where are the others? The others who were with me?”

“Shut your face, deserter!” The man gripping his neck shook him hard, and he nearly lost his footing.

Finally, a door opened before him, squeaky hinges and the sound of wood on wood. The man shoved him, and he stumbled into an open room, uneven floorboards catching the toes of his boots. He went down, landing on his knees.

He stayed silent. Clenched his jaw, and breathed through his nose.

“We picked him up with the tribesmen. They brought down thatSpetsnazchopper.”

“Tribesmen?” A new voice spoke. Sasha’s blood froze, and then burned, boiling in his veins. His heart pounded. Heknewthat voice.

“And him. He is military, must be. A deserter or something.”

“Let us see who our stranger is.”

The hood slipped over his head. He blinked, the sudden brightness of the room almost blinding him. Maps were tacked up on one wall, and tables had been pushed around the room in a ring, covered with papers. Photos were pinned to another wall.

He squinted, turning back to the man who had plucked the hood from his head. He was staring at Sasha, his mouth open, jaw hanging. “Sasha?”

“Ilya.” Exhaling, he slumped forward, his muscles releasing their burning tension, the coiled need to fight. Ilya Ivchenko, head of the FSB. Sergey’s best friend. And, when Sasha had worked in Moscow for Sergey at the Kremlin, his boss. Ilya had vanished after the coup, no sight or sign of him since. Sergey thought he’d been killed, and one day they’d find his bones in a ditch outside of Sochi.

But Ilya was very much alive, and in hiding in Siberia in what seemed like a thieves’ den. Why?

Ilya went white at the sight of Sasha. Slowly, he crouched down, his wide eyes revealing more than Sasha had ever before seen on the man. Fear, and a quiet sort of pleading. “Sasha… Where is Sergey?”

His heart stilled. “You have not found him?”

Ilya shook his head. “You would never leave him… Unless—” His face darkened as his eyes narrowed. “What happened?” he hissed, gripping Sasha’s shoulder.

“That American general! Madigan!” He swallowed hard. What did Ilya know? Where had he been? Why hadn’t he made contact? Whose side was he on? “Madigan is in the Kara Sea. He released some kind of gas, a cloud that is in the atmosphere. If it ignites, the skies will burn. It is over Russia, and spreading around the world.”

“A Tesla weapon?” Ilya’s eyes darted over Sasha’s face, seemingly searching. He squeezed Sasha’s shoulder hard, digging his thumb into the soft skin and, beneath, into a raw nerve. “Butwhydid you leave Sergey?”

“I flew over the Kara Sea!” Sasha barked, trying to twist away. “I volunteered! To help him! Get him information! Try and stop Madigan!” He groaned, clenching his teeth. “I was supposed to die.”

Ilya released him, knocking him back on his ass on the wooden floor. He stood, staring down at Sasha. “You are the pilot from last week? Your jet exploded. Computers from here to Moscow picked it up.”

He nodded, pulling himself back to his knees. Ilya, for all the time they’d spent together, was still FSB. Sill blood-loyal to the state. And, it seemed, to Sergey. Theywereon the same side.

“That is why theSpetsnazwere after you. They are Moroshkin’s men.”

“Madigan’s men now. They tracked me down.” He looked at the maps, the photos. The men standing clustered by the door, staring. Some had tattoos, spiders on their necks, and crosses. A Virgin Mary on one man’s arm. They were criminal tattoos. “What is going on here?”

Ilya sighed. He beckoned Sasha to his feet. “This is my resistance movement. I built it from Russians who want Moroshkin gone. And,” he said, nodding to the tattooed men by the door as he spun Sasha and cut the tape binding his wrists, “from men who have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

“Criminals?”

Ilya scowled. “That traitor Moroshkin has declared war on Russia, and on Siberia in particular for not supporting his coup. He is doing everything he can to destroy this place. It is total war.”

“What about the people?”

“He does not give a damn about our people,” Ilya growled. “Moroshkin sent his units deep into Siberia. They attacked all the prisons. Slaughtered the guards. Released the prisoners. Punishment for not supporting his government. I offered the thieves and the drug dealers a trade. Their support in exchange for their sentences. And they also have to track down the rest of the escapees. Murderers. Rapists. Terrorists.”

No.Sasha’s heart pounded again. Sergey, and Jack, and Ethan, and everyone else. By now, they would be deep in Siberia, deep in the middle of the blackest depths, where the darkest prisons were hidden from the world. “All the prisons were hit? Black Dolphin too?”

Ilya nodded. He hummed, his expression fierce. “Completely empty.”