Page 39 of Enemy Within

Jack stepped back. “We do need to go. Ethan’s probably out of his mind by now. I need to get back to him.” Something didn’t sit right, deep inside him, going this long without Ethan. It reminded him of the days when they were apart, Ethan still in Iowa and the two of them only able to see each other for forty-eight hours at a time. He’d missed Ethan then, soul deep. Somehow, between falling in love with Ethan and now, his life had been remade, reformed into something that required two hearts beating as one. Two souls in tandem with each other: his and Ethan’s. Being without his other half felt like a piece of his own heart, his own soul, was missing.

And Sergey… His heart was missing a piece named Sasha, and Jack worried that that hole would never be filled.

“We should try to find a radio. Maybe get one working. It’s a long way to Ust’Ilga by foot.”

“Lead the way—”

Jack broke off, going silent as the walls trembled, dust rained from the ceiling, and a crashing boom bellowed from the far side of the prison complex, shattering the silence.

Sergey paled. “The gas tanks are on that side of the prison. They were never dug up!”

“Milos,” Jack breathed. “He found us.”

18

Ust’Ilga - Southern Siberia

LIKE THE FIREBALL BLOOMING on the distant ridgeline, flames ignited in Ethan’s veins, crackling fury going off like a line of det cord winding straight to his heart.

“Jack. That’s Jack.” Conviction sat heavy in his voice as he jumped out of the jeep. Now was the time to act, to do, to go. It had been too quiet. Too damn quiet. They hadn’t seen or heard a damn thing since the river. Whoever it was on their tailmusthave found Jack and Sergey. Tailed after them instead.

No longer. He and Jack had been separated for a day. That was a day too long.

He was going back to get his other half.

Scott followed, meeting him at the tailgate. “You don’t know for sure,” he said carefully.

Ethan flipped down the tailgate and reached for a stack of cases packed three high. He pulled them close, flipping the lids open, and pulled out the weapons one by one. First, an AK-47 with a grenade attachment. “If you were in trouble, with no way to reach out on the radio, what would you do?”

“Send a signal.” Scott crossed his arms and frowned.

A five-inch caliber Barrett sniper rifle, a weapon that could make a man disappear in a puff of bone dust and a smear of blood, and could blow holes clean through armored vehicles. “Exactly. Something that could be seen for miles. Something that would draw our attention.”

“Draweveryone’sattention. Everyone around saw that. What if it’s a trap? What if someone is trying to draw us out?”

Two handguns. “Not us.Me.I’m going.”

“Ethan—”

“No, Scott.” He slammed the tailgate shut. “I’m going. Alone.”

“Likefuckyou are—”

“One of us needs to be at Simushir when those subs arrive. Jack, me, or you. If it’s not all of us together, then it’s going to be just you.”

Scott swallowed. He stayed quiet.

Ethan stared into Scott’s eyes. Over half his life had been lived at Scott’s side, through the Army and into the Secret Service. His best friend, a man he called a brother. And, before Jack, there’d been no man he’d loved more, either.

Theirs was not a relationship for goodbyes. “You need to get everyone to Simushir. You have to meet those subs. Get them up to the Kara Sea. Keep to the plan, Scott. I’m going to go find Jack.”

Scott’s face twisted in furious facial gymnastics. He looked away, shaking his head. “You drove here once. You know how to fucking drive back once you get him and Sergey.”

“You have to move out tomorrow. No matter what. We’re already delayed.”

Silence, as Scott stared him down.

Somewhere, between national security and the safety of the world, between trying to prevent an apocalypse and looking into a man’s eyes, there was a line in the sand called loyalty. Love, even. When did one outweigh the other? How did a man make the choice to cut the thread tying him to another in the name of saving everything?