Page 18 of Enemy Within
A teakettle whistle, the tell-tale, high-pitched scream of an incoming RPG, broke over the ice. Scott whipped his head toward Ethan, his eyes wide. “RPG!” he hollered. “Someone is shooting at us!”
“Where?” Frantic, Ethan twisted in his seat, trying to spot the incoming rocket. Did he accelerate and risk the ice fracturing, or slam on the brakes? “Where the fuck is it? I don’t have eyes on!” He scanned the black night, trying to peer through the driving snow. Nothing. Whirling again, he turned back to the riverbank, searching for Jack on the snow’s edge.
With a sick crunch, the RPG slammed into the ice just ahead of them and to their left, shattering the frozen river. Ice exploded, turning into windblown daggers swirling with the snow and slamming into their jeep. Their windshield shattered, thousands of pieces of glass raining into the cabin. Ethan flew forward, his forehead cracking against the steering wheel.
Beneath their tires, the ice crumbled into the rushing waters of the Angara, larger chunks breaking into smaller ones as they collided. The jeep rocked and rolled on the river’s waves as frigid water sloshed around their ankles.
With a lurch, the jeep tipped forward, falling nose-first into the river. Scott cursed as Ethan gripped the back of the seat, clinging on tight. Raging waters rushed at their faces, foaming white and bitterly cold.
And then, the jeep screeched to a halt, suspended over the open waters.
Ethan glanced to his left and right, wide-eyed. The doors, open for the crossing, had caught on chunks of ice in the river, large sheets bumping and colliding before being crunched to smaller fragments and swallowed by the rapids. They had moments before the ice would no longer hold the doors and the jeep would plunge into the river.
“Gotta go.” Ethan reached for Scott and shoved him sideways. “Climb!” Moving fast, he clambered onto the seat, standing on the worn leather as he hauled himself onto the jeep’s roof. Snow pelted him, and the wind over the river was howling more fiercely than it had been on the shore. Ahead, he could make out the hazy halo of the headlights from the rest of the convoy waiting on the other side of the bank.
Scott crouched beside him. “It’s a four-foot jump over open water to the ice!” he shouted over the wind. “If we miss, we’re dead! The current will pull us under the ice!”
“If we stay in the jeep, we’re dead too.”
“Then don’t miss.” Scott’s grumble belied the wide set of his eyes, the ring of white circling his irises. Ethan held his stare, one hand steadying his friend.
A rubber-band snap, followed by the clang and plink of metal striking metal blurred the world.Bullets.Someone was shooting at them.
Scott flattened himself to the roof. Ethan ducked and lost his footing, sliding onto the hood of the jeep, half-submerged in the river. His weight made the jeep groan, and the ice holding the doors creak and crack.
“Ethan!” Scott shouted. “It’s breaking apart!”
“Jump, Scott! Now!”
Who was shooting at them? Who had fired an RPG at their jeep? Those questions had to wait until they weren’t about to be swept into the jaws of the icy river. Ethan held his breath as Scott leaped, flinging himself as hard as he could from the roof, over the rapids, and landing in a slide on the ice, skidding to a stop feet away.
Ethan’s turn. He didn’t have the right height to make the jump. He couldn’t climb back onto the roof, though. Someone was shooting at them, and he’d be an easy target back up there. He had to jump, and he had to jumpnow.
Inhaling, he pictured Jack. His smile. His laugh. The way he looked at Ethan.
Roaring, Ethan exploded off the hood, hurling himself through the air with no finesse. He pulled up his legs, trying to propel himself farther, and barely brushed the edge of the ice and the gurgling rapids before he landed in a skid on his belly on solid ice.
Scott scrambled to him on all fours, grabbing at his arms, his shoulders, and hauling him away from the fractured ice and their sinking jeep. Cracking shattered the night again, and the river groaned, and then another giant section of ice fell away, and then another, and then another, until most of the frozen river was gone.
They huddled on a patch of ice near the embankment, sheltered beneath a low-hanging pine.
Breathing hard, Scott pitched forward, resting his forehead against Ethan’s shoulder. Ethan fumbled in his jacket, searching his pockets. One hand found the rings he carried, squeezing them tight. The other pulled out his radio.
Static and frantic voices choked their secured channel, Russian voices and Jack, calling his name. “We’re all right,” he croaked. “We made it to the other side.”
“Ethan. What happened? God, I thought—” Jack broke off. “Are you sure you both are all right?”
Aleksey and Vasily ran toward them, sliding on their boots and shouting in Russian. “We’re okay, Jack. We made it to the others.” Sighing, Ethan pressed the radio to his lips, silently mouthing curses against the plastic.
They’d made it, but Jack and Sergey were stranded on the other side.
And someone was shooting at them.
ALEKSEY AND VASILY HELPED them off the ice, guiding Scott and Ethan to the rest of the convoy on their side of the now-rushing river. Giant chunks of ice hung in the waters. Slabs the size of small cars bobbed and rocked, crashing into one another and splintering apart, creating more ice chunks that clogged the rapids. There was no way to cross the river now, not with the ice grinding and crashing through fast-moving eddies and swift, frigid currents.
Ethan cursed himself and the world. Leaning against the front grille of Aleksey’s jeep, he faced the opposite riverbank where he’d left Jack and Sergey. If he squinted, he could almost make out the halo of their headlights in the driving snow.
At least, with visibility dropping in the snowstorm, whoever had shot at them would have a hard time doing so again.
