Page 104 of Enemy Within
He just needed Ethan to hesitate. To see that all was not right. Question why he wasn’t waiting outside for them. Cook would most likely ambush Ethan and the presidents, and Sasha and Scott.
But if he jumped in front of Cook’s rifle. If he took the bullets meant for Ethan. If he died to save the presidents. Ethan would then have time to turn the tables and save the day. Save his people. Save Faisal.
He could die and make up for his betrayal, the way he’d slid a knife into Ethan’s back with his transmission.Allah, please, let none of my people die because of me. Shield them. Protect them. In shaa Allah. Please, please.
And then, he’d wait for Faisal. He’d wait fifty, sixty, seventy years. More, even, gladly. Maybe Faisal would find someone new, another lover to care for him for the rest of his years. It was still too new, thinking of Faisal moving on when they had only just married minutes ago. But Faisal should be happy. He deserved to be happy, to be loved. Of all the people Adam had ever met, Faisal deserved joy, love, and life more than anyone else. If he had to share Faisal in the garden, play the part of second husband, or hover in orbit around whatever love and life Faisal rebuilt for himself in the years to come, content to only gaze on Faisal’s smile and the brilliance of his soul, well—
It would be worth it. It would all be worth it.
The door burst open. Cook stormed across the radio room, his boots creaking the bare wooden flooring. “Time to go.” He hauled Adam up, grabbing him by his arms and dragging him out. Adam’s broken ribs jarred, and agony scorched across his side, like a blazing fire igniting in his nerves. He clenched his teeth, straining, but refused to shout.
Adam twisted when they passed the main room. He spotted Doc and Coleman, lying on their sides with their hands and ankles taped together, Wright taped up but still lying on the floor, and Faisal, staring at him with his huge tawny eyes. Love and sorrow poured from Faisal’s gaze, like a waterfall that would flow across the floor and sweep Adam away in a rescuing tide.
Doc and Coleman’s gazes, on the other hand, were hard and bitterly cold. If looks could kill.
Cook dragged him out of the station and down to an array of parked snowmobiles. Four of Cook’s men were revving their engines, eager to go. Equipment sleds had been lashed to the backs of three snowmobiles, laden down with parts and tools that Adam had seen beneath the antenna farm. Nuclear reactor components. Radiation suits. Masks.
“Get down.” Cook threw him onto the back of one of the sleds. Adam landed in a skid, and his head banged against something frigid and hard, wrapped in parachute silk. A slender steel radial jutted into the air from the folds of the silk, and beneath him, thick lengths of rubber cable lay neatly coiled. The satellite. It had been Cook’s, and Madigan’s.
Cook shoved Adam’s head down and looped a thick chain through his elbows and then the sides of the sled, securing him as a prisoner. Shit. Adam tried to jerk, twist away, but stabbing pain from his ribs stole his breath away. Gasping, he flopped to his back.
And then he saw it.
The oil drums, the ones actually full of fuel, had been dragged out and placed beneath the stilts of the station. They were packed in beneath the main room, all side by side.
Captain Martin squatted beneath, messing with one of the barrels. Adam’s breath quickened, fast pants that made his agony bloom, but he didn’t once think about the pain.Please, Allah. Please, no.
Martin jogged back to the snowmobiles, and Adam’s worst fear was confirmed: on the front of the barrel, fixed to the explosive plastique he and his team had carried in themselves, a timed detonator counted down, square numbers flashing brightly.
“No!” he bellowed. Thrashing, Adam jerked against the chain holding him back, kicking his legs and rocking from side to side. The sled wobbled, but all he did was make noise. “No!” he shouted again. “You said they would live!”
Cook grinned. He straddled the snowmobile ahead of the sled Adam was chained to. “I never said that. You did. You bought your own lie.”
“You motherfucker!” He kicked again, pounding his taped-together boots against the side of the sled, against the cables, against the crazy satellite, anything he could reach. Rage boiled in his blood, stole his breath. He flung himself as far as he could, trying to reach Cook on the snowmobile. He’d strangle the bastard. Knock him down and break his neck. Something. Anything. Anything to stop what was to come.
The chain jerked him back. He fell to his side, landing on his broken ribs. Pain lanced through him like he’d been stabbed, staked to the sled, run through by a hot poker.
Cook laughed and gunned the snowmobile’s engine. “I told you, Lieutenant. You’re ours.”
Engines roaring, Cook and his men set out, snow arcing behind their snowmobiles as they skidded over the ice cap. Adam rolled and watched the station shrink, turn to a dark dot in the gloom.In shaa Allah, he whispered.Ethan. In shaa Allah, please be careful. I am so sorry.
Wind from the drive pelted Adam’s face, his exposed cheeks, and dry snow and chips of ice flew through the air like razor blades, slicing his skin. He welcomed the agony, and the flare of his ribs twisting inside him. Pain was all he deserved now.
ETHAN AND SASHA RODE ahead on their snowmobiles, taking joint lead in a diamond formation. Jack and Sergey followed behind. When they’d set out, Sergey and Jack had shared a small, private smile and a long look as Ethan and Sasha jockeyed, again, for the point position, the vanguard protector of their little party. In some ways, Sasha and Ethan were cut from the same stubborn cloth.
Scott seemed content to perpetually bring up the rear. Jack saw him watching Ethan, tracking his movements everywhere he went, on the ice and at the station.
It was nice having Scott also watching Ethan. Protecting him. Ethan would throw himself across a crevasse for Jack to walk on without a second thought. Jack just wanted Ethan to be protected with the same fervor and force that Ethan gave him.
The RusFuel station appeared on the horizon, a dark shape in the gloom. Bitterly cold, cutting katabatic winds flowed off the glacier, sweeping down the ice cap, and swirled through the team. The winds did nothing to pierce the fog, the arctic smoke that crept over the open waters and built cloud castles above the ice caps. It was like being lost in a dense soup made entirely of ice that slapped them silly and a cold that bit into any exposed skin.
Jack stayed close to Sergey and kept Ethan’s broad shoulders in sight. If he got lost, only a polar bear would be able to find him.
Ethan edged ahead of Sasha on the final stretch, taking point. Jack and Sergey shared another quick look. Sergey shook his head, the trim of his jacket’s hood flaring as they rode.
And then, Ethan slid his snowmobile to a stop, braking hard. Sasha overshot him, but swung around and headed back. He stopped nose-to-nose with Ethan as Jack, Sergey, and Scott joined them.
“What’s up?” Jack breathed hard and ran his tongue over his cracked lips. Even with his jacket zipped up to his nose, the dry air was sapping him.
