Page 57 of Enemy Within

He didn’t want to say goodbye. He didn’t want Jack’s legacy to end in a bomb blast.Assassinated.His friend.Assassinated.

Pete breathed in. “I—”

Knocking at the door made him clamp his lips shut. He looked up.

Welby stood in the doorway, his piercing eyes burning into Pete, blazing even from across the room.

Pete stood. “What’s up, Agent Welby? Everything okay?” Maybe Welby was there to escort him out of the White House. Not like he could blame the Secret Service, if they chose to do so. He straightened up and tried to tuck in his wrinkled button-down. How many days had he worn this shirt?

Welby’s eyes darted from Jason to Jennifer. “It’s about this morning.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry for my behavior. I’m… I’m going to take Agent Daniels’s suggestion. Take some time.” He swallowed.

“Not that.” Welby stared him down, not blinking. “Not that, Pete.”

His blood froze, going quicksilver in his veins. Vindication, and a rush of relief, giddy joy, burst within him. He almost couldn’t breathe. “What did you find?”

Welby looked from Jason to Jennifer again, pointedly. Both were frowning, confusion etched on their furrowed faces, their gazes bouncing between the two of them like watching a ping-pong match.

“They’re solid. I trust them.” He nodded. “What’s going on? What did you find?”

Welby gave one last look to Jason and Jennifer before shutting the door behind him and crossing Pete’s office. He pulled out a folded photo, printed from Horsepower, and set it on Pete’s desk.

It was a surveillance image, Scott and Jack captured talking in the lower level hallway outside Horsepower. Jack had on Ethan’s sweatshirt. Pete’s heart clawed up his throat, screaming, as he gazed at the photo, at his friend.

“President Spiers and Agent Collard?” Jennifer frowned at the photo.

“This was taken the day the president was attacked. He and Scott talked… about Ethan. The president was trying to find him.”

“Jack didn’t even know where he was?” Pete’s hands went to his hips. His friends always called that his thinking pose.

Welby shook his head. “Hedidn’t. But Scottdid. He said Ethan was staying at his place, but Irwin had wanted to see him. And then Ethan disappeared. And, Irwin was the one who sent someone to find out the truth.” Welby pointed at the photo. “Irwin sentEthan.”

“Ethan found out about Leslie being a clone…” Jennifer deflated, exhaling and covering her hand with her mouth.

“Which means—” Jason rubbed his fingers against his thumb as if his thoughts were moving just as fast. “Jesus, Ethan couldn’t have been in the States when she attacked Jack. He’s not even here now.”

Welby nodded. He turned back to Pete. “And what did Levi say? ‘Scott’s with Ethan’? Where? Overseas? If so, why did Scott leave the US? Why did he go to Ethan?”

His thoughts were going too fast, too many possibilities. Government secrets, government cover-ups. He’d always scoffed at the conspiracy theorists, but damn it, he really was one of those paranoid men. What was true? What was really happening?

“And,” Welby said, pulling out another photo and unfolding it on Pete’s desk. In this image, Scott passed Jack a cell phone. “Scott gave the president Ethan’s phone. I pinged its location. Where do you think it went off?”

“Nota hospital in Bethesda?” Pete practically hyperventilated.

“It came back with its location blocked. Someone has put a scatter block on his phone, routing his data access through proxies across the globe.”

“Couldn’t his phone just be off?” Jennifer chewed on her lip, but hope shone in her eyes.

“The ping would come back different if it was off. Or out of power. It would come back as not found. Not scatter blocked. Not like this.”

“So…” Jason paled, and he gnawed on his lip. “Where’s the phone? Where’s the president?”

Pete grinned, his cheeks burning. He tipped his head back, laughing, and pumped his hands in the air. “Yes, damn it, yes! Thereissomething going on!” His fist hit his desk hard, sending the photos skittering across the surface. “Jack isnotgone,” he hissed. “We need to find out what’s happening. Where he is. And why.”

“And Scott and Ethan, too. Where are they? Why did Scott leave and go to Ethan?” Welby plucked the photos from the desk and folded them back into his jacket.

Jennifer spoke in the quiet that followed, spinning on Pete’s desk, her dress shifting on the dark wood surface. “What if they’re all together?”