enemies of the state (31 page)

Silence. Jack’s jaw clenched.

“You have to get to safety. Everyone else is already inbound to the
Arleigh Burke
. You’ll meet up with Secretary Wall, Directors Irwin and Luntz, and your chief of staff. Work with them to figure out what went wrong.” Collard looked away, clearing his throat. “But listen to me, Mr. President,” he growled again. “I will be staying here. I will be going back out there. And I won’t be coming back without Ethan.”

This isn’t happening. This isn’t fucking happening
. Jack exhaled as his head swam, colors and sounds bleeding together. He heaved a gasp.

“Bring him back to me,” he finally whispered. His voice trembled. “Please.”

Collard nodded. “Go, Mr. President. For Ethan.”

He nodded, even though he was blinking back tears. Together they walked back to the Marine lieutenant colonel. “Colonel,” Jack grunted, wiping his nose. “Gather your operators together. Agent Collard has a mission for them. And take me to the
Arleigh Burke
.”

* * * * *

The embassy doctor insisted on checking him over before he clambered into the Marines helicopter. Aside from cuts and bruises, he was fine. Daniels was loaded up afterward, bandaged in a sling and holding his own bag of IV fluids. Jack managed a smile for the young agent and clipped the IV bag to the main cargo rail of the helo for him. In minutes, Daniels was asleep.

Three other Marines sat in the chopper with them, silent and staring out over the city. Addis Ababa faded away, replaced by the scrub highlands of Ethiopia and the barren, dry cliffs abutting the Horn of Africa. The helo skirted Somalia, heading instead for the waters over the Red Sea before turning southeast.

Jack stared out over the water. How had this happened? What had happened? They were on their way to the capital and everything had been fine. The CIA had repeatedly assured him and Ethan that there weren’t any active threats. There weren’t any indications of movement into the country by foreign fighters. Ethiopia was stable, they said. It wouldn’t happen there.

Well, it had happened. They’d come under attack in a big way.

And Ethan…

Jack’s throat clenched. He shuddered, exhaling quickly, and squeezed his eyes closed. His blood ran cold, icing within his veins, even as his heart pounded out a terrible rhythm, a demanding bassline echoing in his head.
You left him; you left him! Go back; go back! You’ll never see him again!

Looking down, Jack tried to smother the rising sob building in his chest. He closed his eyes, but the sight of Ethan, flat on the ground with a jihadist digging the barrel of his rifle into his forehead was stained on the back of his eyelids. He didn’t want to see that, not ever. He’d never close his eyes again.

The pounding pressures within his head and his heart boomed, deafening him with their roar.

No. This isn’t the end. It isn’t
. Collard was going back out there. He was going to bring Ethan back. He was going to bring Ethan home. There was so much he hadn’t said to Ethan, so much he still needed to say. So much they still needed to do. This was too new, too special, to end. It couldn’t end here, not in a backstreet battle in Addis Ababa. This wasn’t the end.

Jack clung to that hope, to that prayer, with everything in his soul.

* * * * *

When they landed on the
Arleigh Burke
, Gottschalk was waiting on the flight deck with a grim, sullen look. He’d ditched his suit jacket, but soot and blood stained his normally crisp white dress shirt.

Jack helped Daniels out of the helo and onto the Navy stretcher waiting on the flight deck before jogging to Gottschalk. “What’s the situation? And where is Director Irwin?”

“He’s in medical. Shrapnel in the leg.”

“When he’s out, I’m going to rip that leg off myself. Where the fuck did this come from?”

“Unknown, sir.” Gottschalk swallowed. He licked his lips. “Sir, there’s been a development. The Commander has set us up in the Ward Room. We’ve got operations going in there. There’s something you need to see.”

* * * * *

Jack walked into the silent Ward Room and stopped dead.

On the far vidscreen, Ethan’s face—beaten, bloody, and disfigured with a broken nose and two black eyes—stared out from the monitor.

The
Arleigh Burke’s
commanding officer stood, as did Secretary Wall and NSA Director Luntz. Both looked rattled. Elizabeth’s hair was in disarray, and soot stained both of their cheeks.

“What the hell is this?” Jack growled. His blood boiled, burning his veins.

“This was broadcast about twenty minutes ago, Mr. President.” The
Arleigh Burke’s
commanding officer, Commander Conrad, stepped forward. “My intel guys picked it up.” Commander Conrad hesitated. “It’s not pretty, sir. Do you want to see it?”

“Yes.” Jack’s hands balled into fists. Gottschalk stepped close, bracketing Jack from behind. His shoulder leaned into Jack, silent support.

Commander Conrad signaled for the video to play.

Onscreen, Ethan jerked, pulled back by the hair by an unseen person. He was thrown down, moaning, and silhouetted men started wailing into him, kicking and punching his prone body. Ethan slowly curled up, shielding himself, but he was coughing, and his breaths were wet and labored.

“Americans!” a heavily accented voice shouted. “We have one of your Secret Service Special Agents! He is in our custody! He will be sacrificed to pay for the crimes of the American government! As Allah wills it, the great Satan will be destroyed!” One of the fighters withdrew a long knife from a sheath on their belt.

“No!” Jack shouted. He stepped forward, collapsing against the conference table as he grasped the edge. “No!”

The video went dark.

“What happened?” Jack shouted, whirling on Commander Conrad. “Did they— Is he—”
No, no, no!

“We don’t know. There’s no demand on this video. Usually in a hostage situation, we see a demand. Here…” Conrad exhaled. “We’re not sure if they plan on executing him publicly, or if there will be further demands coming.”

Jack’s mind whirled. He tried to breathe, drawing in short gasps that only made him dizzier.
Focus, focus!
He dropped his head, hanging it between his shoulders, and rubbed his temples. Blood flaked onto his fingers.
What would you do if this wasn’t Ethan? Go through the steps. Go through the process.

“Can your people trace the signal? Do they know where this came from?”

“We’re working on that now, sir. We can have a team on location in thirty minutes after we zero in.”

Fuck the usual process. This is Ethan!
Jack shook his head. “No. No, get on the line and call the embassy in Addis Ababa. Agent Collard is taking a team out of the embassy. Get them the information. He can move faster.”

“Sir, a ground team moving out of an American embassy—”

Jack cut Commander Conrad off with a snarl. “I don’t want to hear it, Commander! I don’t want to hear anything other than that we’ve rescued our missing man! So get the information to the embassy! Now!”

Conrad nodded. “Yes, sir.” He slipped out of the Ward Room as Jack started pacing.

* * * * *

Groaning, Ethan curled into a ball. He tried to count his injuries based on the waves of pain rolling through his body. Bruised ribs, possibly cracked. His knee was flaring. His shoulder was out of joint. His stomach ached. Maybe internal bleeding. And his nose was definitely broken.

Spit landed on the side of his face. “You American pig!” the jihadist shouted. Drool dripped down the side of Ethan’s face. Another jihadist laughed, cold and full of malice.

Someone grabbed Ethan’s hair, yanking his head back. Overhead, a single bulb illuminated the dank room. Stone walls and a dirt floor contained Ethan and the group of fighters. He tried to count them, but he lost count somewhere between seven and ten.

A long blade glinted in the bulb’s light. Heavy and stained, the blade had seen so much action. So much death. Ethan shuddered, trying to back away from it.

“I will cut your head off like a dog,” the jihadi hissed.

“Wait!”

Across the room, a heavy metal door slid open, creaking on ungreased slides and old hinges. An older fighter with his face uncovered and clothed in mismatched fatigues walked in, flanked by two more fighters. Bodyguards, if Ethan read them right.

The newcomer strode to Ethan and stood over him, glaring down. His face was dark, blocked from the light, but Ethan squinted still. He winced when the newcomer’s boot dug into his dislocated shoulder, pushing him back until he was flat on the ground.

“So,” he crooned, laughter in his voice. “You are the American president’s lover.”

Shocked gasps rang out around the room, followed by chuffs of laughter and short, bitten off curses in Arabic. Ethan caught the slang for “butt-fucker” in the mix of fast Arabic.

“He’ll never negotiate,” Ethan managed to grunt. “I’m worthless to you.”

A wicked smile iced Ethan’s spine. “Your death,” the man said, chuckling, “will devastate your president.” Slowly, he knelt next to him. Ethan wished he had the strength to move, to fight back, to reach out and grab his neck and strangle this man until his eyes turned blue and his tongue hung out of his mouth. “I will enjoy your death. I will savor it, and cherish it, and know that I have hurt your president where others could not.”

As the man stood, Ethan finally saw his face.

Al-Karim.

* * * * *

When Commander Conrad came back to the Ward Room, he wasn’t alone. CIA Director Irwin trailed behind him, limping, and with a thick bandage wrapped around his thigh.

Jack stared him down, like he stared down rotten food or yesterday’s garbage.

“Mr. President,” Conrad said, interrupting Jack’s seething rage. “We got the video’s location and transmitted it to the embassy and to the Pentagon. They will be providing drone footage of Agent Collard and the Marines from a launch out of our base in Djibouti. Also, General Madigan has assumed personal command of this mission. He will be coordinating operations from the Pentagon situation room and has launched support helicopters from Djibouti for your team.”

Exhaling, Jack leaned back in his chair at the conference table.
This will work. They’ll bring Ethan home. They will
.

At Jack’s side, Gottschalk shifted, scooting closer. Jack smiled at him, though it was thin and lined with fear.

* * * * *

Collard moved with the Marine Special Forces Raider team leader, Lieutenant Cooper, as they advanced on the partially hidden bunker buried in the Ethiopian hills eighty klicks southeast of Addis Ababa. Arid tracks of land lay open to the sky, windswept and barren, with only a scattered tree here and there to break the desolation. Tumbled rocks sat in piles, and the bunker entrance almost looked like another mound of boulders and scrub Ethiopian highland.

But a signal from Ethan’s jihadi kidnappers had come from these grid points.

Collard gripped his weapon tighter and shuffled behind Lieutenant Cooper.

One sentry sat outside the bunker, eating a fig. He sucked at the juices and spat seeds on the ground, and left his weapon propped up against the bunker’s stone entrance.

A single shot from Lieutenant Cooper’s rifle ended the sentry’s life. He flopped to the ground, a hole in his head.

They moved quickly, lining up on either side of the bunker’s entrance. A dark tunnel disappeared underground, leading to depths below. They couldn’t hear anything, but if anyone had heard their gunshot, they’d be welcoming more fighters to the party any moment.

No one burst from the tunnel entrance. Everything was silent.

Quick hand signals from Lieutenant Cooper distributed the team. Cooper took the lead, Collard at his shoulder, as they started down the dark tunnel. Once inside, the men folded NVGs down from their helmets and over their eyes. The tunnel ahead changed, morphing into a tumble of green and white shapes, harsh angled and barren.

The tunnel branched, forking left and right. Cooper set three men at the entrance to the left fork and led the rest of the team down the right, silently.

Laughter bounced down the stone halls.

The men fell silent. Cooper gave the signal to freeze, a fist held in the air.

Ahead, a door squeaked on old hinges, gone rusty from disuse and dried out from the arid desert.

Two jihadis turned the corner ahead of Cooper. They didn’t see the blacked out Marines in the dark tunnel.

Cooper and Collard waited until they were close, then reached out and grabbed both men, palms tight over their mouths. The jihadis flailed, but Cooper and Collard pulled them in, wrapping them up in a sleeper hold. They squeezed, and then jerked, and the men fell to the ground after a loud crack, dead.

Cooper motioned the team forward.

They came to a sliding metal door, rusted out and warped. Cooper lined up his men behind him, ready to breach. Collard stood opposite, his rifle raised and ready.

On three, they threw the door open, jerking it down the rails and pouring into the room behind. Cooper’s men cleared the corners, firing bullets at masked fighters and jihadis stunned motionless by the surprise attack.

In the center of the room, a tarp was stretched from corner to corner. Ethan knelt in the center beneath a bare bulb, his head pulled back by his hair and his throat exposed. Masked fighters stood behind him, all wielding assault rifles.

One held a machete.

Cooper and Collard put three bullets in the machete-wielder’s chest each, dropping him to the ground. The rest of the team opened fire, taking down the jihadis surging forward. Ten fighters in all jostled elbows in the room, shouting and trying to fire back on the surprise Marines, but only three got off any shots before Cooper and the team brought them all down.

“Clear!” Cooper finally said, his voice ringing through the dark room. Overhead, the dirty lightbulb swung back and forth, painting the room in dusty light and deep shadows.

Cooper’s men echoed his words, calling the all clear in their corners.

“Ethan?” Collard ran for Ethan, crumpled on the tarp and not moving. “Ethan, dammit, answer me.” He sniffed as he crouched down next to his friend. The room stank, a combination of third-world sweat and piss, and something deeper. Something that hit the back of his tongue and made him gag. Something that tasted like fear.