Page 74 of Enemy Within

Lawrence Irwin had carried his briefcase with him into Langley, before the blast. Welby remembered that night. He remembered every moment of what happened, a picture-perfect clarity set in Imax quality in his mind. Waiting in the SUV, equal parts bored and on edge, wondering what was happening within Langley. Why had they taken Leslie Spiers into custody? Was she working with Madigan? What would they find during the interrogation?

And then, the blast. He and his team racing into the still-burning, still-collapsing building. Tearing through concrete and debris, searching for the president as fires roared and smoke billowed around them.

Pulling back blocks of concrete, adrenaline tearing through him faster than a Formula One racecar. Finding Irwin’s broken, bloody body. And then the president lying beneath him in a spreading pool of blood.

President Spiers had seemed so light, so fragile, when he scraped him off the ground. Floppy like a doll in his arms. Limp, too limp. He’d carried him over the shattered remains of the CIA’s headquarters as helicopters and rescue workers and firetrucks arrived, sirens blaring, lights flashing. People shrieked, crying for help.

He’d carried the president’s broken body, staring down into his pale, empty face.

Assassinated.

The word hung like cobwebs in his mind, like a whirlpool that sucked down all other thoughts. It had beenhimon duty,himthat night.Hehad let his president be attacked.Assassinated. He had let the nation down. He had let the president down. And, he had let Ethan down.

Or had he?

Desperation redoubled his efforts, and he clenched his jaw as he rifled through Irwin’s briefcase. Where would Irwin have sent Ethan to search for proof of Leslie Spiers’s betrayal? Out of the whole world, where would he have gone?

One folder caught his eye. Bright-red Top Secret borders lined the edges, and a giant seal warned him away from the contents. “Operation: Vigilant Fury” was the codename.

He snorted.Vigilantwas President Spiers’s Secret Service codename. What could be better for a Top Secret operation to hunt down Madigan? The government did not have the best sense of humor, but they excelled in irony.

He flipped the file open.

Photos, dozens of them, from prison breaks around the world. Satellite imagery over South America, the Maghreb, and Somalia. Dossiers from a dozen military officers, one from a man named Noah Williams, supposedly dead sixteen years prior. Welby’s eyes narrowed. Leslie Spiers was supposed to be dead, too. He knew how that had played out.

Intelligence reports. Memos and intelligence analysis and mission briefs from a Marine Corps strike team sent to Ethan. Pages and pages of reports, each one detailing more of the team’s actions and missions.

Ethan must have run the strike team, secretly. In addition to being Jack’s first gentleman, he must have been running a black strike team, working hand in hand with Irwin. No wonder Irwin turned to him. They werealreadyhunting Madigan together.

And the Marines. Were they the missing piece he needed? They must be the ones Ethan had turned to when he needed to follow Leslie Spiers’s tracks.

Who were they?

Welby dug deeper. The mission briefs had been signed by an “AC, LT1”.

Not good enough. He needed a name.

Finally, at the bottom of the file, he struck gold. A sheet of paper, torn from a notepad, with scribbles of Irwin’s that he should have thrown away months ago. “LT Adam Cooper, SOCOM. General Bell, Commanding Officer. Possible team lead. Check background. Current disciplinary action? Investigate connection to F.”

He had a name. A place to start searching. Finally.

Welby put everything back into the briefcase, exactly as he found it, and slid it back into the bottom drawer.

He took theOperation Vigilant Furyfolder with him, hidden inside the manila envelope. He clenched the paper with Lieutenant Adam Cooper’s name on it, tight enough that his hand shook.

One step closer to the truth.

EXCEPT LIEUTENANT ADAM COOPER was a ghost.

Welby slammed down the phone in Pete’s office and groaned. Across the desk, Pete stared at him, his wide eyes almost bulging from his skull. “Nothing? Again?”

“Not a damn thing,” Welby growled. “Irwin and the CIA must have scrubbed him from the system when they brought him on board. His record is a shell. I can’t get any working information for him. No current posting. No current duty assignment. Nothing.”

“What about this?” Pete spun the scrap of paper and jabbed his finger in the middle. “His commanding officer was General Bell at SOCOM. Can you get in touch with him?”

“I tried. The general is ‘unavailable’. And his secretary has no idea who any Lieutenant Adam Cooper is. Never heard of him. Which is bullshit, because if he was in disciplinary trouble, then his secretary would have run the paperwork. Shehasto have heard of him.”

Pete sighed and threw himself back in his chair. He ran his hands through his hair and laced his fingers behind his head. “You searched all the military databases, right?”