Page 3 of Enemy Within
One of Ethan’s arms rested under the blankets and wrapped around Jack’s chest, holding him tight.
His other hand gripped his pistol.
He’d kept hold of his weapon all night long. At the slightest noise, he’d had it up in the darkness, ready to fire.
Another snap, and then crunching footsteps in the snow, coming up the side of the jeep.
Ethan’s arm tightened around Jack, and his gloved finger hovered on the trigger. He held his pistol steady, pointed at the passenger window, and waited, not breathing.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Ethan relaxed at the familiar voice as Scott appeared at the window. Scott opened the door and peered in. He was bundled from head to toe, a balaclava pulled back to expose his face. His hair, perpetually messy, stuck up at odd angles. A thick, bulky sweater made his camo jacket puff out around him. Like Ethan, he wore dark gloves and cargo pants tucked into his boots.
Exhaling, Ethan lowered his pistol and groaned. “Already?”
Scott nodded and took a long pull on a cigarette, then blew the smoke away from the jeep. “Does sleeping beauty need more beauty rest?”
Ignoring him, Ethan blinked hard, trying to force himself awake. Night after night of being on edge had worn him thin.
Scott jerked his chin toward Jack as he took another drag on his cigarette. He arched his eyebrows.
“He’s good.” Ethan dropped a light kiss to the top of Jack’s blond hair. Jack shifted, burrowing against his chest, and ducked partially beneath the blankets. “What’d you guys find?”
Every morning, Scott and Sergey took a small team from their convoy out before dawn, scouting ahead on their route. They moved fast, reconnoitering the terrain, and then were back at camp by dawn. Speed was of the essence, but so was stealth.
So far on their drive from the Volga river valley to the east coast of Russia, Sergey had kept his insurgency, their convoy, off the main roads and away from the cities. They moved overland, on rough tracks and barely-stable game paths, slipping through dense-packed Russian forest. It slowed them down, but they made up for it with their grueling pace. There was no time to lose; they had to be at Simushir Island, in the Kuril Archipelago north of Japan and stretching toward the Arctic Circle, in just a few days.
But so much was stacked against them.
The convoy was moving farther into Siberia, and into the mountains, where snow built beneath their tires and the temperature kept dropping. It was late spring according to the calendar, but in Siberia, deep snow drifts and thick ice kept the ground frozen, and the temperature hovered in the thirties. It would only drop as they kept going.
Warm, according to the Russians they were moving with.
Every day, the air was thick with frost-laden clouds that tangled in the branches of the forest trees and alpine woodlands they’d plunged into. They followed tributaries when they could, sometimes named, sometimes not. For every named river in Russia, there were another ten that couldn’t be found on any map. Surrounding the convoy, encircling them in every direction, mountain peaks faded in and out of the harsh gloom, a mess of smeared steel skies and threatening snow clouds. Loose black dirt skidded beneath their tires and their boots, the whine of their jeeps’ engines and muttered curses in Russian and English the only noises in the vast wasteland.
Siberia was silent. Eerily so. Like the land had swallowed up all life deep within its frozen core. Behind every tree, ghosts seemed to linger, the foggy air heavy with a sense of harshness and cruelty that came from the land and its history. How many had died in Siberia, throughout her long, long history?
They were almost halfway to the Russian east coast, and, for Ethan, the faster they put Siberia behind them, the better. Ahead lay the winding, frozen mountains of central Asia, with frigid cold and late-season snow storms. To the south lay the tri-border region of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China. Another tense border region in an already too-tense world.
They had to keep going, keep moving. Had to make it all the way to the coast, and then beyond, to Simushir Island. It was an island so remote, it wasn’t on most maps. Of course, it also held the remains of a secret Soviet submarine base. That helped keep it hidden.
President Elizabeth Wall, president of the United States since the attack on Jack and Langley at the hands of Madigan’s most cruel agent, had promised to send aid and a submarine attack squadron to the base to meet up with them.
And from there, they were finally going on the offensive. Taking their fight—for no less than the safety of the world—straight to Madigan, and his ally, General Moroshkin, the self-appointed leader of Russia following his coup against President Sergey Puchkov, with Madigan’s aid and assistance. The coup that had left Sergey in hiding, leading an insurgency, and Madigan in control of his clandestine Arctic mission with his brutal criminal army.
There was no time to waste. They drove all day and into the night until they had to stop for just a few hours when the forest closed in and the darkness was practically a knife, slashing at their jeeps. No one wanted to pitch sideways down the mountain or slide into a ravine. Even their stops for supplies were lightning fast, darting into burned farmhouses and bomb-cratered villages to hunt for tins of food, eggs left in chicken coops, and cans of fuel. Blackened skeletons of vehicles lay in heaps in the few roads they crossed, bearing the scars of General Moroshkin’s war for the soul of Russia. Moroshkin may have taken Moscow, and a large part of the Russian military, but the populace fought him tooth and nail, especially in Siberia. And paid the price.
They were racing against time. Madigan hung on the top of the planet, intent on razing the world to the ground by igniting a thermobaric explosion that would incinerate the atmosphere. General Moroshkin led his Russian charge over the North Pole and into Canada, an invasion pointed at the heart of America. Elizabeth was locked in a heated standoff with Moroshkin and his forces, and the only intelligence anyone had on Madigan’s actions in the Arctic came from Sasha’s sacrificial flight in his MiG and a rickety, ancient Swedish weather satellite.
The world was falling apart around them.
Scott shook his head. “The route for this morning is clear. This deep inside Siberian territory, we should be safe from Moroshkin’s troops.”
From the Volga valley to Siberia’s borders, the convoy had dodged Moroshkin’s forces holed up in towns and cities, at roadblocks and checkpoints across highways and backroads, and in tanks and massive anti-aircraft weapons platforms deployed in fields and farms. Nothing flew overhead in Russia anymore, except for Moroshkin’s forces.
Scott sucked down more of his cigarette. “We’re getting off the mountain and back on the roads, too. No more navigating through the trees. We saw a couple farms around us. A destroyed village. We got some fuel out of the trucks they left behind. To the south, there were what looked like some Chinese units hanging out near the tri-border region. Guarding their border, or making a push into Russia, I couldn’t tell.”
Ethan frowned. “What did Sergey say?”
“Not much.” Scott fixed Ethan with a hard glare.
