Page 135 of Enemy Within
“No one expected anything from you. Which made you the perfect target for my coup. No one could be disappointed in a man they expected nothing from. You are aninsignificantpresident and aninsignificantman. Always in the wrong place at the right time.”
Jack opened his eyes. Stared into Madigan’s.
Maybe it was all true. Maybe he had been about to lose Leslie, and maybe his rise in his party was only because he’d been a moderate, a man dedicated to building bridges across the aisle for the length of his career. Maybe he was seen as weak, and every criticism from Congress, every attack in the press, every dark thing whispered about him by his detractors was true.
But he’d also found Ethan. Had fallen in love with him, and found the man who’d unlocked the depths of his soul. Found the love of his life.
Thatwas true. Their love, their life together. What they built. What they shared. The vows they made, first by their choices and their actions, and then by their rings and words. Their love was the foundation of his life, the very definition, the meaning of his life. Beyond politics, beyond the presidency, beyond even the world; Ethan was everything that made his days worth waking up for.
In the length of his entire life, he could point to one unwavering truth: he loved Ethan to the depths of his soul. And Ethan loved him in return. And if that was the worth of his life, if that was what all he had, well—
He was the wealthiest man who had ever lived.
Jack grinned. “Wrong place at the right time?” He nodded, counting down in his head.Five… Four…“I can live with that.”
He imagined the torpedo streaking in under the ice cap, silent in the dark waters. He could almost feel it, thrumming through the ocean. Closer, closer, any moment now. He stared into Madigan’s dark eyes.
Deep beneath their feet, in the bowels of the ship, two torpedoes struck the hull under the ice, right on her midline. She shuddered, quivering like her hull was a gong that had just been rung. For a moment, there was silence.
And then theVeduschiyheaved, rising up in the air, tossed from the sea, before crashing back down. A torrent of freezing water shot high, massive waves rising over the deck. Madigan’s men tried to run, but most were swept off their feet as the waves broke over the bow, knocking them down and sending them careening toward the railing and the side of the ship. Shouts rose, everyone searching for a handhold, scrabbling fruitlessly to hang on.
Water pounded down on them, scouring Madigan’s men off theVeduschiy’sdeck. Shrieking, they bowled over the edge and plummeted to the hard ice below, where their bodies broke, snapping in half or smearing to paste against the glacier.
The man who had held Ethan’s chain, who had strangled him, screamed as the waters swept him off his feet and slammed him into a steel gun cage. His spine cracked, the snap loud enough for Jack to savor, and he flopped over the side of theVeduschiy, plunging to the ice, limp and broken.
The bridge, rising over the top deck in a tower of rusted steel, crumpled, folding in on itself as rivets popped and blew, and girders collapsed. Metal groaned and screamed, torn apart as theVeduschiyslammed onto the ice cap. Another wave crashed over the deck, soaking Jack and spinning him around. Shouts turned to warbles, shrieks to rumbling whale song as he flailed under water, almost swept away.
Jack dove for Ethan, gritting his teeth as he clung to the deck through the pounding wall of water crashing on top of him. Madigan’s men swept away before his eyes, but he pushed forward, grabbing Ethan and holding on with his fingers, digging into a deck plate with all of his strength. Ethan’s weight tore at him, and he screamed as his arm pulled hard. God, it felt like it was going to rip out of its socket.
And then the wave subsided, and he hauled Ethan close. Shivering, blue-lipped, and pale as a ghost, but alive. He palmed Ethan’s cheeks, ran his fingers through Ethan’s soaked hair, and unwound the chain from his neck. Rusted links pulled chunks of his skin away, and more blood trickled from his wounds.
Metal shrieked, the ship ripping apart like a toy twisted in half. Her keel was blown. Her back had broken. Her two halves groaned as they were pulled apart by the waves.
She’d split in half, and theVeduschiywas going down.
Beneath their feet, the bow tilted, slowly tipping backward as it began to sink into the black, frigid waters.
Somewhere, Madigan was shouting, trying to bellow orders in the madness, but most of his men had already been washed overboard. Jack spotted Cook hauling Madigan away, escaping from the chaos and the destruction.
“Jack…” Bloodstained tears rolled down Ethan’s cheeks. “You said— You shouldn’t have—”
He kissed Ethan’s temple. “I can never leave you, no matter what’s at stake.Youare my world, Ethan. My everything.”
Ethan pitched forward, into his arms. Jack grabbed him and helped him stand. Already, the deck beneath their feet was dangerously slanted.
Adam had managed to shake free from his captors at the first blast. Jack saw him beating one of the men who had restrained him, the pipe that had been in his mouth raining blows on the man’s face and head, over and over, turning his captor to a bloody pulp.
Sasha had thrown himself over Sergey when the wave crashed, but now one of Madigan’s last fighters hauled him away, trying to strangle him with the loose end of Ethan’s chain. Sergey worked his bound arms beneath his feet and in front of his body, and then tackled the fighter, looping his arms around the man’s throat as Sasha rolled away. Coughing, Sasha pulled the chain off his neck as Sergey slowly strangled his attacker. Sergey’s arms strained, shaking, and he grit his teeth, screaming the last few seconds until the man went limp and slumped to the deck.
Adam threw his captor over the railing and turned to Jack. Blood covered half his face, and he clenched the pipe in one hand. Sergey grabbed two guns and a knife off the man he’d killed. He cut Sasha’s restraints, and then Sasha cut his, squeezing Sergey’s shaking hands after. Jack watched them, watched Sergey close his eyes and sway into Sasha’s hold before they joined Jack and Ethan.
Sasha sliced through Ethan’s restraints, and Ethan wrapped his arm around Jack’s waist, leaning hard against him.
The remnants of Madigan’s army in the shantytown raced toward them, firing blindly at the sinking, brokenVeduschiy. Giant fissures opened in the ice cap, cracking and snapping, broken apart by theVeduschiy’s blast. Spider lines stretched all the way to K-27.
K-27 rolled, rocking on massive waves that bounced her practically out of the black water and onto the ice.
They shuffled away, trying to keep their balance. The deck tilted wildly, and they grabbed for anything to keep them upright.
