Page 9 of Enemy Within

“Moroshkin is trying to appeal to the Canadians.” Elizabeth let out a slow breath as she squeezed her hands together. “They know what’s most important to them: their people. If we strike first and hurt anyone up there, we’re opening the door for the Canadians to turn against us.”

“They wouldn’treallyallow the Russians to invade their territory—” Julian Aviles, Secretary of Homeland Security, protested.

Elizabeth’s mind ticked ahead, her years of backroom diplomatic deals and tit-for-tat negotiation providing the twisted roadmap. “If the Russians and the Canadians sign an agreement after the fact, then it’s not an invasion. It’s the Canadians inviting the Russians to use their land. In exchange for the protection of their population.”

General Harris snorted.

Elizabeth’s eyes flashed to him. “General, wake up. The United States has taken some pretty big hits in the past few years, if you haven’t noticed. Several huge blows in the last week. We lost our president, and a rogue general—your predecessor—has played the bulk of our intelligence agencies and military like fools. We’ve been caught with our pants down, and we don’t have many friends in our corner right now.”

Silence.

“The Canadians and the world might very well pivot to the next big player that gives us a bloody nose. Moroshkin knows this. He’ll push us until we bleed, and he’ll force the world to take sides.”

“NATO has condemned the invasion,” Heng said in the silence that followed. “But none of our NATO allies are offering military aid to us or the Canadians at this time. This could be the final break.”

Elizabeth exhaled and dropped her head forward, letting it hang between her shoulders for a moment.

“Madam President?” Admiral McDonald spoke while Harris kept quiet, looking like he was chewing nails. Bradford glared at the map on the far wall as if he could make the lines move with his concentration alone. As if he could banish Moroshkin’s Russians from the map, and the world.

Elizabeth frowned.

“You personally ordered a deployment of four subs from our base at Pearl Harbor. I can’t get answers about where they’re headed or why. Everyone is buttoned up tight. Underyourdirect orders.”

Heads all around the table whipped toward Elizabeth, unasked questions building into a near-crackling tension in the air.

She caught Bradford’s eye. He stared right back, not blinking.

Harris scowled and looked around the table as if searching for someone to come forward with the answer. “Madam President—”

“Their mission is classified.” She rested her hands on the tabletop. “I want to know the instant the Russians or the Canadians make a move. Any move. And I want to see options for addressing the Russians that the Canadians will be on board with. Insertion teams. Special Operators. A small footprint. And—” She sighed. “See if you can find anything about the Americans who were up there. Let’s not leave them behind.”

Hard gazes and narrowed eyes speared her from around the table, the rest of the Situation Room standing slowly after her. She hadn’t won any points with that one.Jack… You made it look easy. “Thank you, everyone. You’re all dismissed. General Bradford, Director Mori, stay behind.”

Padfolios closed, papers shuffled, and feet thudded toward the door. Weighty silence clung to the paneling, to the sound-dampened wooden walls, almost as loud as a scream. Mori and Bradford stared at their notepads, not meeting anyone’s gaze as their colleagues trudged out of the Situation Room. By the door, Secret Service Agent Levi Daniels gave Elizabeth a long look, a different heaviness etched into his gaze.

The last staffer slipped out of the Situation Room, leaving Elizabeth alone with Director Mori and General Bradford seated at the table, and Levi at the door. Bradford’s eyes flicked to Levi.

“He stays.” Elizabeth dared Bradford to protest, glaring down the table at him. “There are precious few people IknowI can trust. He is one of them.”

Bradford said nothing.

“Now,” she said, sighing. “What’s going on in the Russian Arctic?”

Bradford changed the screens, calling up a new series of grainy satellite images, the detail nearly obscured, the picture a wash of white snow and gray clouds. Unusable. “We’re still having a hard time getting accurate intelligence.”

A new series of images, data from a weather satellite with the raw scientific information in Swedish still displayed on the bottom of the picture, came up on screen. A wave of gas, colored in a haughty, vibrant fuchsia, leaped off the black-and-white image, stretching across the northern tip of the Russian nation, across the Sakha Republic, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, with wispy fingertips pointing toward Alaska.

“We can confirm the gas cloud is growing,” Mori said. “And it’s growing at a rate that doesn’t suggest natural release from the seabed or the Arctic ice,” she finished carefully.

“Madam President, why don’t we launch a full strike against the location immediately? Obliterate this man once and for all?” Bradford’s cheeks were dark, his mouth pursed like he’d sucked the bitterest lemon.

“For the first time in a year, we know exactly where he is.” Elizabeth sighed. “And we can’t launch a damn thing against him. The science advisors tell me that any significant explosion at that location, where the density is highest, would trigger the ignition of the entire gas cloud. A cascading fireball that would sweep through the entire damned thing. From Russia to Alaska.”

Bradford didn’t look convinced.

“Are you familiar with the Tunguska explosion in Siberia? In 1908? Two thousand kilometers of forest was flattened and burned to ash. Trees the size of buses were shattered like toothpicks. Every single thing was destroyed. One theory about how that destruction was caused is exactly this.” She pointed to the screens. “A methane fireball erupted, burning its way through Siberia. Now, imagine that level of destruction rolling across the globe. Wecannotlet this happen.”

“Madigan will detonate it when the cloud is larger. Detonate it like a missile strike.” Mori shifted in her seat, the briefest flicker of pain scratching across her bruised face. “He must have some means of creating a large enough blast to ignite the gas cloud.”