Page 15 of Enemy Within
Jack stared after him, frozen. Ethan rested his hand on the small of Jack’s back and felt him tremble, felt the anger pouring off him. “Jack—”
“Let’s go.” Jack interrupted. “Whatever he’s not saying has him spooked. Let’s just get out of here as fast as we can.”
Ethan nodded, and they jogged back to their jeep together. Sergey was already behind the wheel in his, and Scott was slamming the passenger door, rocking their vehicle on its snow-crusted wheels.
They were moving a few minutes later, Jack once again behind the wheel. Ethan couldn’t rest any longer, not with the adrenaline from the discovery of the mutilated prison guard still swimming in his veins. And with worry for Jack, too. His eyes slid sideways, watching as Jack drove. He sat stiff-backed with his gloved hands squeezing the steering wheel hard enough to creak the old leather, his jaw clenched hard, the artery in his neck pulsing fast.
Ethan rested his hand on Jack’s leg.
A moment later, Jack’s hand dropped and covered his.
DARKNESS FELL EARLY IN the mountains, but the convoy pressed on.
“We should push ahead,” Sergey said through the crackling radio, static almost washing out his words. “The river is only a little farther.”
“You want to cross at night?” Ethan frowned, dropping the handheld and waiting for a response.
“Da!Of course!” Sergey’s harangued voice spat back through the radio. “Is the safest time! Is coldest, so the ice is least likely to crack!”
Slowly, Ethan exhaled. Sergey was right, but still. It was nearing the end of the winter season in Siberia—not that anyone could tell by the temperature—and the rivers were warming beneath the ice. What had been feet-thick ice roads across and up solid rivers months before were far thinner sheets. By now, the trucks and tractor-trailers were no longer using the ice roads over frozen rivers. What would the weight of their convoy do to the ice?
There was no other way around, though. They had to cross the frozen Angara river in-between the cities and towns that dotted its banks. And they had to move fast.
The snow that had fallen so gently earlier had turned into a snarling storm. Wind rocked the jeeps on their tires, the vehicles swaying like seesaws as snow pounded through the air. Their pace had slowed, and frustrations had skyrocketed. One jeep had almost slid off the road, its occupants cursing and shouting into the radio about the weather and the road for a good ten minutes until they were able to move again.
The weather was against them, as was time.
And the specter of the gutted prison guard hung on everyone’s minds, and at the forefront of Ethan’s. It was like a beacon signaling danger, a klaxon alert that had him obsessively keeping even closer to Jack. Even though he wasn’t Jack’s detail agent anymore, that urge, that need to protect him, had only grown stronger. He stayed near, moving as if they were a protective duo again, and his body was Jack’s life shield.
He looked to Jack for the final decision. Push on to the river?
Jack nodded.
“All right,” Ethan sighed into the radio. “We head for the river. We’ll cross if we can do it safely.”
Sergey’s grumbling came back, but they both ignored him as the convoy started moving again.
An hour later, they pulled their jeeps off the road, following a track toward the frozen Angara. They parked along the snowy bank, their headlights shining on the rough river ice. Doors squeaked and slammed as everyone piled out, staring across the wide expanse.
Around them, a ridgeline encircled the river, dark peaks soaring and disappearing into the thundering snow clouds. At least with the ridge surrounding them, the wind had slowed. It wasn’t howling as hard, the harsh bite softened to a sting.
Ethan and Jack trudged to the river’s edge and stood beside Scott and Sergey. Scott had his face tucked into his zipped-up jacket, even though he was wearing his balaclava.
“Just like that winter in Afghanistan, huh?” Scott bumped Ethan’s shoulder. “Tracking that opium dealer through the river valley.”
Ethan snorted. They’d hiked sixteen miles up a frozen river, freezing their balls off as they tracked what the locals claimed was a solid source of terrorist intelligence, but what had ended up being a wild goose chase after an opium trader who had stiffed the villagers. Revenge by proxy, courtesy of the US government, according to the villagers.
“So,” Sergey grunted. “Who is going to cross first?”
ETHAN WATCHED, HOLDING HIS breath, as the first jeep rolled onto the ice. Across the river, Aleksey and Anton waited with two LEDs propped up on sticks to guide the drivers across. The two had crossed first on foot, checking out the ice and radioing back danger zones and areas where the ice was too thin.
“Is not great,” Aleksey said, once he crossed. “But it is only way.”
“Stay slow,” Ethan warned over the radio. “Don’t make any waves beneath the ice.”
The jeep slowed, almost crawling. Still, Ethan could hear the creaking of the ice beneath its tires. His stomach clenched, and he peered into the darkness, trying to pick out details that were too fuzzy in the falling snow, the outline of the jeep against the darkness smearing into night outside the halo of their taillights on the bank.
Jack stood silently at his side, and on the other side of Jack, Scott. Standing apart and alone was Sergey. Snow wrapped around him, wreathing him in solitude.
