Page 10 of Enemy Within
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” She rubbed her hands over her face, exhaling into her palms as she closed her eyes briefly.Jack, how do we do this? Where are you?It had been days since she’d heard from Jack. Russia was large, she reminded herself, near-constantly. Racing across a continent took time. Still, she held her breath every time she turned on the news or opened her email, fearing the pictures she saw in her nightmares would be splayed across the screen: Jack, bloodied and disfigured, captured or worse, in some far-flung corner of the globe.
Why had she agreed to his insane plan? What on earth had she been thinking?
“All right, we need options for addressing this threat that aren’t liable to blow the planet off its axis. What can we deploy immediately?”
Bradford tapped at his tablet, and a flag popped up on the map onscreen. A blip in the middle of the ocean. “We have a SEAL unit operating onboard a sub patrolling the north Atlantic. They tracked the Russians across the GIUK gap and have been monitoring deep underwater for any additional Russian subs or ships coming south out of Murmansk and making a run for the gap. They can make way for the Arctic and deliver the SEALs.”
Elizabeth nodded once. “Send them in, then send the sub back to monitoring Moroshkin’s movements.” The SEALs were the best. They could get this done. Put Madigan down once and for all, and then Jack could come home. The subs going out to meet him wouldn’t be needed for anything other than humanitarian relief, and then to join the fight against Moroshkin in Canada. And if Madigan fell, his puppet Moroshkin didn’t stand a chance either.
She could hope.
“Madam President?”
Mori’s voice broke her wandering thoughts. They shattered to the table, her fears falling into her center, a thousand pins hitting her heart. “Director?”
“About the other intelligence you have. The pilot who managed the overflight. Who is he? Where did you get this intel? What’s your source? How are you getting out information out of Russia—”
She stood, her chair pushing backward across the carpet too fast. “That information remains on a need-to-know basis. General, deploy the SEALs. Director, I want to know everything that comes out of the Arctic. Keep me updated on the gas and its growth. And keep your eyes and ears fixed on Canada and Russia. Canada’s flashed their hand. If they cave to the Russians, we’ll have an invasion at our back door faster than you can sayprivet.”
Mori and Bradford stood and nodded, their expressions drawn, exhaustion in their gazes and tension in their shoulders.
“This is war,” Elizabeth breathed. “Or the last gasp before it begins.”
5
Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean
THE AIRPLANE HUMMED AROUND Doc, the in-flight rattle of a jumbo jet hurtling at thirty thousand feet in the air and screaming halfway around the world. It was the second, no third, flight for the team, a mind-numbing series of trips that had spanned almost three days already. From Jeddah, they’d flown to Riyadh, and from Riyadh to London. Now, from London to Seattle. Back to America.
Scattered around the cabin, not sitting together, pretending to not even know or care about one another, were the rest of the team. Sergeants Coleman and Wright, each snoring in window seats. Park, Ruiz, and Kobayashi, the remaining junior members left after Fitz’s murder, were sitting through the third round of in-flight movies and numbly chewing crackers and pretzels. And Lieutenant Adam Cooper sat ahead of him, hunched and glowering at his feet.
Doc rolled his head along the seatback, looking to his left. A fat, snoring Brit sat between him and the last member of their team: Faisal.
For the length of each flight, Faisal sat silently in his coach seat, staring out the window at a shifting landscape of desolation and empty skies. His face betrayed nothing. As fucked up as Adam appeared, Faisal seemed practically impervious to emotion.
Fuck, the argument over Faisal coming with the team had been epic. Doc hadn’t thought Adam could get that pissed. Granted, he’d seen a brand-new side of him over the past few weeks, but the shit-fit Adam threw had been beyond anything he’d imagined.
And Faisal. Shit, did looks deceive. He stared hard at Faisal’s profile, remembering the final climax of Adam and Faisal’s argument. It had happened right in front of him, for fuck’s sake.
He’d been working with Adam in Faisal’s space-age kitchen, their truly astounding array of weaponry spread out in front of them. They’d already decided they were sneaking back into the States under the radar, which meant traveling commercial. Which meant no weapons. At least, none that could be found. Faisal had scrounged up secured, false-bottomed bags, and Doc had volunteered to help Adam disassemble their covert, untraceable assault rifles into their little hardened plastic pieces and load them up.
And then Faisal had walked in.
The argument was already days old, stale in the broken air of the Jeddah villa. The whole team tiptoed, as if walking on shattered glass, questions burning from their gazes. What wasupwith the L-T and Faisal?
Doc knew. But he kept his damn mouth shut.
“You’renotcoming,” Adam had hissed. “Jesus, Faisal. How could you even ask? You’re still recovering!”
Faisal’s eyes had narrowed. “I am doing fine. How couldyouimagine that I would be all right with you leaving?Yallah!Without being by your side?”
“Isworeto your uncle—” Adam’s voice had shaken, his words quaking as his hands balled into dark fists.
“You said you never wanted to leave.”
“I swore to keep you safe!”
“Wallah, Adam, the only times I’ve ever been hurt are when you are gone.”
