enemies of the state (41 page)

Ethan blinked. Daniels blinked back. Then he mouthed out the ten-code for all good.

Nodding once, Ethan held Daniels’s stare. Then he looked to Jack, then back to Daniels.

Daniels blinked, long and slow, once.
Good to go
.

Ethan tapped three fingers against his chest. Then two. Then one.

He burst into the Oval Office, bellowing at the top of his lungs. Shock and awe should work in his favor. He was a dead man, after all, bursting out of the darkness in a hail of bullets. He fired as Daniels lunged, springing from the floor and tackling Jack back to the carpet. Gottschalk flew back, knocked on his ass as Daniels collided with Jack and covered him with his body.

Bullets flew, slamming into the Black Fox soldiers.

Ethan didn’t go for the chest. He aimed for the head.

Soldiers fell around the office, blood misting through the air and spattering the carpet and walls. Shouts rang out, mixing with the crack of the bullets. Wild curses flew amid Black Fox’s death screams. Ethan shot and ran, moving behind the couch for cover as he aimed for Directors Luss and Luntz.

Director Stahl fired on Ethan, and the bullet tore into the silk couch. Stuffing exploded, silk threads snapping. A throw pillow shattered, puffing feathers wildly into the air. Another shot breezed by Ethan’s cheek, a caress of hot air and bitter lead.

Ethan fired back, hitting Stahl in the neck. He went down gurgling, choking as he reached for his neck.

Two more in sight. Luntz was covered behind the Resolute desk and Luss behind the couch opposite. Ethan dropped down, looking beneath the couch for the director’s feet. He lined his shot up and then fired through the couch.

Luss dropped to the ground. A stain of red spread out across the carpet.

From the ground, Inada rolled, leaping to his feet and grabbing his pistol. He was pale, grunting and coughing, and he hissed with every step, but Inada joined Ethan as he stalked across the office, heading for the desk. Inada fired over the desktop, keeping Luntz pinned down.

Inada covered while Ethan dropped to the ground, landing on his right shoulder, and fired on Luntz’s hiding spot. He missed first, and wood splintered and flew, shattering of the side of the desk. Cursing, he fired again as Luntz lunged.

Luntz slumped forward with a bullet to the back of his brain.

“Enough!” Gottschalk jumped up from where he’d hidden, opposite Ethan on the side of the Resolute desk. He stood, holding Jack in front of him, and pressed the barrel of his pistol to Jack’s temple. The backpack swayed as Gottschalk jerked Jack, the nuke slipping sideways. He hovered behind Jack, keeping his head and his body squarely behind Jack’s, using him as a full-body human shield.

Daniels groaned on the ground, a third bullet in his shoulder. Gottschalk kicked him in the face. Daniels stopped moving.

Gottschalk’s eyes burned, mad with fury and insane rage. He breathed hard, and his gaze darted around the blood-soaked Oval Office, taking in the bodies of his dead friends. “You’ll fucking pay for this, Ethan,” Gottschalk hissed. “You were supposed to stay dead. You were supposed to have your throat fucking cut and your headless body viewed online ten million times.”

Next to Ethan, Inada wheezed. Broken ribs, Ethan guessed. Inada must have been wearing his bulletproof vest. He was in a world of hurt though. Still, Inada stood next to Ethan, his weapon trained on Gottschalk.

Ethan’s eyes met Jack’s.

Jack was the only thing that Ethan had ever truly wanted.

He’d had his duties, his obligations, his career. His life had been mapped out, a series of assignments and missions and responsibilities that had led him down the years of his life. He’d been happy, or at least, not unhappy.

Everything had been changed by Jack. Everything in his life had changed. Jack, was the only thing he’d ever yearned for, had ever truly, to the depths of his soul, wanted. Every piece of his heart, and of his life, had grown so completely full with his love for Jack. He hadn’t known, not at all, what he’d been missing before Jack.

Oh, but he knew now, though. Gazing into Jack’s eyes and seeing the love bursting free, the joy, the relief. Ethan had fought back from the dead for Jack, and Jack was right there, waiting for his return.

But Jeff Gottschalk had his gun to Jack’s head.

He should have been there to stop this. He should have seen this coming. He should have ripped Gottschalk’s face off the moment he met him. He should have done more to protect Jack, the love of his life.

If Ethan hadn’t known the limitless love he was capable of, he likewise didn’t know the capacity for hatred his soul held. His heart had twisted so many times in the past few days, raw fury and clenching anxiety tearing him to pieces until there was nothing left but wrath. Cold, vengeful wrath.

Ethan’s fury coiled tight around a thirst that was deadly, burning at his soul. Revenge. Vengeance. He would kill Gottschalk for this, for what he’d done.

He had one bullet left.

“Jack,” Ethan called. “I love you.”

He fired.

Ethan’s bullet slammed into Jack’s shoulder, tearing through skin and muscle, before passing through and driving into Gottschalk’s heart. It had already started to fracture apart in Jack’s body, and the splintering bullet shattered inside Gottschalk’s chest. Fragments shredded his aorta, sliced open his heart, and pierced his lungs.

Staggering backward, Gottschalk gasped, reached for his chest, and fell to his knees. He pitched sideways, coughing as blood poured from his lips. He was dead before he hit the floor, face first.

Ethan ran to Jack, catching him as he fell forward. Jack cursed, reaching for his shoulder, breathing fast.

“You shot me!”

“In the shoulder.” Ethan ripped his stolen police uniform shirt off and balled it up, shoving it against Jack’s bullet wound. “It hurts, but you’ll be fine. Just muscle.”

“Easy!” Jack tried to push Ethan away. “This is a nuke—”

“I know.” Ethan slowly peeled the backpack off Jack’s shoulders, around the bloody shirt, and set it to the side. Jack hissed, wincing, but helped slide his arms free. Ethan kept one hand on Jack’s wound, holding pressure.

The backpack slumped forward, heavy. The Army could deal with the nuke. His focus was Jack.

Jack stared up at him. “Ethan?” He blinked. “That email— Are you really here? Is this really happening? Or am I already dead?”

“I’m here, Jack,” Ethan breathed. His hand rose, bloody, but he cupped Jack’s face and stroked his cheekbone. “I will tear through the whole world to get to your side. Always.” He smiled. “I’m with you all the way.”

Jack grabbed him behind the neck, pulling him down for a heated kiss. Jack moaned, desperate and tinged with panic, and then Ethan’s arms were full, and Jack’s body was crashing against his, Jack’s hands were clutching his face, and warm lips crushed against his own. Behind them, Inada was cradling Daniels’s head in his lap and staunching the flow of blood from his bullet wounds, all while shouting on the phone, calling out and trying to get his agents up on the radio. Pounding feet echoed down the hallway, boots running full speed.

When Cooper and his men burst into the Oval Office, they found Ethan and Jack locked in an embrace, arms wrapped around each other, as they kneeled in the middle of the blood-drenched and devastated Oval Office.

Chapter Seventeen

“Back from the Dead” Hero Saves President from Attempted Coup; Rogue Military Unit behind Middle East Terrorism

In an unbelievable turn of events, Special Agent Ethan Reichenbach, the supposedly deceased lover of President Jack Spiers, seemed to return from the dead, along with Special Agent Scott Collard and the Marines from Raider team, to save the day when the White House and President Spiers were attacked by the rogue black ops military unit, Black Fox. Agent Reichenbach and the others had been targeted by Black Fox, led by disgraced General Porter Madigan. The men were presumed dead after being attacked by US forces on orders from General Madigan while engaged in a rescue mission for Agent Reichenbach. After escaping, Agents Reichenbach and Collard and the Raiders made their way to an allied safe house. Sources inside the White House say that the men then uncovered intelligence implicating Black Fox in an ongoing plot to destabilize the Middle East, as well as stir animosity between the Russians and the United States.

For the length of Spiers’s presidency, Black Fox had been actively working against the president’s efforts around the world. The ultimate goal of Black Fox’s plot was the murder of President Spiers and the takeover of the US government. Had Black Fox managed to detonate the stolen tactical nuclear warhead, most of Washington, DC, including the White House, Congress, and most of the leadership in the administration, would have been killed. Experts agree that martial law would have been declared, paving the way for Madigan and Black Fox to assume control of the government. Black Fox also intended to attack the Middle East, which would have resulted in the deaths of millions, including the deaths of the deployed Russian, Chinese, and UN peacekeeping forces in Syria and Iraq. The president has ordered a top-level investigation into Black Fox and into the directors and departments compromised by the unit.

* * * * *

Ethan walked out of the White House a hero.

He helped Jack out, supporting Jack as he walked, and Jack helped to support him in turn. Jack had refused a stretcher, insisting instead that Daniels, Inada, and every other wounded agent be seen first.

Cooper’s men had arrived moments before the Army stormed the White House. It had been a tense few moments—Cooper and his team looked like out of place college hipsters, armed to the teeth, and they took offense to being ordered to the ground and zip-tied. Collard managed to clear the confusion, and he snipped off the teams’ restraints as Doc bitched a blue streak.

As Ethan helped Jack down the White House steps, the eyes of the world had been on them, watching from every television camera and newsfeed. Medics swarmed, helping Jack to sit down on a gurney as they slapped a bandage over his bullet wound. Jack threaded their hands together, and while one of the paramedics was prepping Jack's vein for an IV bag, Ethan leaned in and pressed his lips to Jack’s exhausted smile. They were blood covered and filthy, but they were alive.

That image was plastered on every newspaper and website within the hour.

Jack spent the night in the hospital. Ethan was given a quick evaluation at Jack’s bedside by one of the doctors who then promptly admitted Ethan as well. He’d undone nearly everything Faisal’s careful doctor had mended, and bones and bruises had to be seen again, and stitches resewn. Ethan slipped out of his hospital room and sneaked into Jack’s, and they spent the night together curled up in Jack’s hospital bed, hands twined together and Jack’s head tucked against Ethan’s neck and over his heart.

* * * * *

The Army pitched an absolute fit when they discovered the stolen tactical nuclear warhead. The entire White House was quarantined, and bomb techs were called in for the nuke’s transfer to a secure facility.

Within an hour of the thwarted attack, FBI agents, briefed by Collard and Irwin, stormed General Madigan’s office and home, as well as the homes and offices of other named perpetrators of Black Fox. Luss, Luntz, and Stahl were dead, as was Gottschalk and his team of fake Peshmergas. Members of the Secret Service who had worked for Stahl were either dead or arrested.

But Madigan managed to slip away. He disappeared, vanishing from Washington. In his house, FBI agents found a pile of counterfeit cash, passports in fake names, and airline tickets to every major city in the world. Interpol went on high alert, but Madigan went to ground, disappearing into the ether.

* * * * *

Jack addressed the nation the next morning from the steps of the hospital. He had a black eye, a bandage on his broken nose, and his arm was in a sling, but he stood tall and proud.

He revealed almost everything. Everything about Black Fox, their plot, their intensions, and how they’d worked against his entire presidency. Their support for Al-Karim, and their support of his rise through the Mideast. Their attack on Nairobi, and again in Ethiopia. The attempted assassination of Ethan and the Raiders. The attempted coup, his almost-murder, and the plan to devastate the Middle Eastern region. He promised a new dawn of transparency and an investigation into the depths of Black Fox. He swore to expose their darkness and to banish them from the face of the earth.

“Anyone who murders in darkness is an enemy of freedom everywhere,” Jack said, his voice ringing loud and clear. “The world had many enemies. Standing together, our world today can confront evil men who wield wicked plans. I thank every partner around the world that helped save this day, and save so many, many lives. I swear, on my presidency, to make this world a better, safer place. Starting today.”

He left out Faisal. And Colonel Song.

Still, his popularity soared.

* * * * *

Director Irwin was named Jack’s new chief of staff. The administration—and Jack personally—moved into Blair House across the street from Lafayette Square while an army of engineers descended on the White House for repairs and cleaning.

Irwin’s first task was to oversee the investigation into Black Fox and the corruption of the officials who had joined the attempted coup.

* * * * *

Ethan was released from the hospital after five days. Each night, Jack came to visit, staying until well after midnight. Then he’d head back to Blair House. The media camped outside the hospital, filming Jack’s arrival and departure every night. On the fifth day, Ethan slipped out the back of the hospital to avoid the press and hopped into a black SUV. Jack took the afternoon off, and they disappeared up to the Blair House’s residence, their arms wrapped around each other’s waist.

At the end of the week, the administration was allowed back into the White House. Jack moved back in to the Residence on Friday.

Jack had already revealed his and Ethan’s relationship to the world. Ethan’s return from death, and his new status as an American hero, only added to the media frenzy surrounding the two of them. There was no reason to hide, not with everything out in the open, so they just didn’t. Ethan came with Jack to the Residence on Friday, and he didn’t pretend to leave.