Enemy One (Epic Book 5) (100 page)

“I see,” said Kang, facing Blake again and smiling. “I understand now why Kenner was involved. That is all I wished to know. Thank you, Mister President.”

Eyeing Kang curiously, Blake turned back to the door only when the director resumed his pacing. Reaching for the knob, he turned it to pull the door open.

Norilsk, Russia

ANTIPOV WENT ON. “While EDEN’s primary satellite system has many layers of security, their backup systems do not—for they are only meant to shoulder a workload for brief periods of time. And so in these systems, I hid a Trojan. It is called
Torchlight
. The Trojan was designed to deliver itself to its target only when the backup system came online, as to remain hidden. It would be lost among the millions of other files being transferred naturally in the switch. It would arrive at its destination completely unnoticed, just waiting for someone to activate it.”

“What is its destination?” Valentin asked. “What does it do? And who would be there to activate it?”

Wryly, Antipov looked at him and smiled.

EDEN Command

BLAKE WAS HALFWAY out of Kang’s office when the director called his name again. Raising an eyebrow, Blake stepped back through the door and looked at him.

“I have one final question for you, Mister President.” Once again, the director stood, motionless. The ancient Chinese man was staring at Blake eye-to-eye. “Please explain to me, if Mister Kenner was informed of our operation by his friend, Captain Faerber, why he booked a flight to Japan two days before the operation was ever conceived?”

Staring flatly for several seconds, Blake’s eyes narrowed with confusion and curiosity. He waited for Kang to answer the question for him, realizing only after a short span of time that the director couldn’t. The office fell into silence.

Far away from the Intelligence wing, making his way through the twisting halls of EDEN Command, Todd Kenner—the black sheep of Vector—strode toward a hall terminal. Tapping his fingers rapidly on the screen, he followed a very specific path to a temporary folder. A place where no one would look without having a reason. A folder with a single executable file. A light unto EDEN’s world. Dragging the cursor over it, and without a second’s hesitation, Kenner activated it.

Buried deep inside EDEN’s master server, a signal ping was sent out. It traced the invisible highway that connected it to EDEN’s satellite system, then whipped around like a slingshot toward its final destination. One buried deep within the mountains of Norilsk, Russia.

Chirp!

Upon hearing the sound come from his comm, Antipov slid it off his belt and looked at the display. Examining it for a moment, seemingly in thought, his expression finally shifted into the faintest of smiles. Chuckling a single time, he simply said, “Interesting choice.”

“Papa?”

Lifting his eyes from the comm, Antipov’s smile widened when he saw his pixie-haired daughter approach. “Marina, my love.” Glancing briefly at Valentin, he handed the keeper the comm. “Make sure someone writes that down.” Turning his focus purely to Marina, Antipov opened his arms to accept her embrace.

Valentin watched them for a moment before he himself looked down at the comm’s display. Narrowing his eyes curiously, he beheld the simple numerical data that was there.

A latitude and longitude.

Though the keeper raised a bewildered eyebrow, the reaction only lasted a moment before it was replaced by dawning comprehension. His eyes widening, Valentin felt the hair on his arms tingle then stand on end. Lifting his head slowly, he stared at Antipov from behind in disbelief and awe.

*
      
*
      
*

Standing with his hands behind his back, Benjamin Archer watched Scott through the glass of his high-end security cell. Not once did Scott turn to face him, nor even indicate that he knew Archer was there at all. The outlaw leader was facing the back wall of the cell, slumped limply against the wall as if he was sleeping. Had it not been for the fact that Archer could see Scott breathing, he might have thought their newest capture dead. But death would come in due time.

Inhaling a slow, dark breath through his nostrils, the British judge lifted his chin. In a hushed voice, far too low for the guards around him to overhear—not that it would have mattered—he spoke. “Hello, courier of H`laar.” As they stayed fixed on Scott, Archer’s amber eyes narrowed. “It’s time for us to talk.”

Location: Unknown

Time: Unknown

SHE WAS SO CLOSE. Contorting her body in a way that made the effort look more like a stretch of some sort than an attempt to ascertain an object, Svetlana rubbed her left thigh against the corner of Nagogg’s chair and the floor. There, barely an inch away from her skin, sat the magnetic key to her clasps. She’d spent the past several hours trying to figure out a way to touch the device—to somehow, someway set it on a course closer to her left hand, still clasped to the floor. It was a much more difficult goal than she’d imagined.

Svetlana had yet to figure out what exactly her plan would be upon possessing the key. She only knew that, inevitably, Nagogg would order Svetlana and Mishka—who once again sat perched above her on the bridge—back to the animal pen. When that happened, Ka`vesh would realize that the key was missing. Pieces would be put together, and he would look toward her. The jig, and any hope to catch the Bakma off guard in a coup, would be up.

Gritting her teeth, she again caressed the side of Nagogg’s chair with her torso. She was
so
close. At times, she thought she could even feel it. Pushing her body further than she had at any point in the effort thus far, she bit her lower lip and strained for all she was worth.

On the near side of the bridge, sitting at his console near the door that exited into the hallway, Gabralthaar looked Svetlana’s way. As the blonde slowly rubbed her body against Nagogg’s chair, the titan tilted his head curiously. His bulging eyes narrowed behind his faceless sentry helmet.

Come on!
Svetlana urged herself. Her hips were fighting the shackles so hard, she felt like she was going to dislocate them. But it was right there. It was so incredibly, incredibly close. If she could just…

…she felt it.

The key was pressed against one of her love handles. Freezing in place, she thought rapidly on how to lift it and move it forward. She could figure this out.

Rising from his console, Gabralthaar stepped out from around it. The titan crouched to the floor and bent his head to observe Svetlana’s now rigid body. As Svetlana’s head was on the floor in concentration, he peered beneath her.

She could move it. If she pinned the key against the chair hard enough, if she stroked forward with her skin carefully enough, she could move it. This could actually work.

Across the bridge and unbeknownst to her, Gabralthaar began walking her way.

Svetlana had just begun her first stroke when the connection clicked in her head. Ed’s voice resonated urgently.
Cease your efforts! You are seen!

Blinking, Svetlana looked up at the Ithini, then to her side. Standing just before her and looking down at her, stood Gabralthaar. Her heart stopped as he slowly bent down.

Freeze, Sveta
, she said to herself.
The key is pinned against the chair! If you do not move—if it does not fall—he will not see it.

Reaching beneath her, his massive, gnarled fingers probing between her hip and the chair, Gabralthaar took hold of the device. Svetlana pressed harder—she did everything in her power to keep the device in place as if that would somehow dissuade the titan from pulling it out—to no avail. Withdrawing his hand, Gabralthaar stared at the small, magnetic key. Behind his helmet, his pupils drifted to meet Svetlana’s.

The medic froze. There was no playing this off. There was no explaining it away or running. She’d just been caught with Ka`vesh’s key. Gradually, she turned her head to look at Gabralthaar. She knew what would happen the moment she saw the coldness in his stare.

Rising to his feet, the key held out in his fingers, Gabralthaar looked at Nagogg. “Lord,” the titan said. The chieftain turned his head Gabralthaar’s way. When his sunken eyes spotted the key, he blinked. Across the room, his own attention now on the object in Gabralthaar’s possession, Ka`vesh inhaled and rose to his feet. Frantically, he searched his wardrobe. His key was gone. As Nagogg stared at Gabralthaar in bewilderment, the titan said simply, “She had it.”

I am dead.
Svetlana’s mind raced frantically, trying to find any way out of this situation. There was none. They were going to kill her.

Nagogg’s face twisted with rage. Rising from his chair and with spear in hand, he marched around Svetlana until he stood just before her. With a murderous gaze, the chieftain said, “Bring her to her feet.”

Kneeling down, Gabralthaar used the key to unlock her clasps. Before she could even rationalize the potential of running, the titan grabbed her by her blond roots and yanked her up. Svetlana yelped out in pain.

Turning away, Nagogg strode to the very spot where he’d slain the Kalarael. Without looking back, he pointed to the canrassi. “Release him.”

As Svetlana was dragged before Nagogg and shoved down to her knees, she managed the faintest of glances back toward Nagogg’s chair. Ka`vesh, having taken the key back from Gabralthaar, was now unlatching Mishka’s clasps. There was only one reason why they would ever do that. Nagogg was going to order the canrassi to eat her alive.

…he didn’t know.

In the midst of the fear, a new feeling arose deep in Svetlana. All that while, she had been trying to maneuver herself free—to catch Nagogg and his crew off guard. It was still going to happen. Her blue eyes narrowing, Svetlana stared at Nagogg’s emaciated face as he stared down upon her. Huffing gutturally, Mishka stood at the rider’s side.

Through his wide skeleton’s grin, Nagogg rasped, “Time and time again, you have resisted what you were destined to face. Despite the truth that surrounds you, you have clung futilely to a hope that offers nothing.”

Nagogg will not expect this—he will be caught off guard the most.
Head angling faintly, she looked at Ka`vesh in her peripherals.
Gabralthaar is wounded. Of he and Ka`vesh, Ka`vesh is the threat.
Far behind her, on the other side of the room, she knew the starved Uguul was observing. That left only Nik-nish, and the pilot didn’t have feet. Five threats in all.

“You would be no worthy offering to Uladek. To offer a creature like you would be an insult.”

The cache of assault rifles were still stacked by Ed. It wasn’t fifteen feet away. Drawing in a breath of calm—a calm before a storm—Svetlana closed her eyes.

Lifting his chin, Nagogg said, “Do not waste your last breaths begging for mercy. You will receive none.”

I have never let go of my hope in You. Across the stars, I may be, but I have always been in Your reach. My God, I call upon You now.

Taking a step back, Nagogg grabbed Mishka by the collar. Jerking the canrassi toward him, he led the beast before Svetlana. Saliva still falling from Mishka’s maw, he angled his head down at her.

Make me what I need to be. Make me Your weapon.

“Prepare to meet your false god,” Nagogg said.

So be it.

Pointing at Svetlana, Nagogg’s skeleton grin opened to issue the order. The medic spoke first.

“Mishka,” she said calmly. An obedient purr emerged from the canrassi’s throat.

Nagogg blinked. Angling his head, he stared at the two.

Opening her eyes, Svetlana looked up at the canrassi. She and the beast locked gazes. “My God is real, Nagogg,” she said in perfect Bakmanese. The moment the words came out, an audible gasp spread through the bridge. The Bakma chieftain flinched. “And He has found me, even here.”

It was time.

Angling her body, Svetlana pointed at Ka`vesh. “Devour him.”

Turning his massive maw to Ka`vesh, Mishka rose on his hind legs and roared. Ka`vesh’s bulbous eyes widened; the warrior stumbled backward. The revolt had begun.

There was no time for Svetlana to wait to see the charge. Lurching forward while Nagogg’s eyes were on Mishka, the nose-less medic snagged the end of the chieftain’s spear. Before Nagogg could even register what was happening, Svetlana shrieked and jabbed her fingers forward, digging her nails into the chieftain’s eyes. Nagogg howled as he flailed his arms to grab her.

Behind Svetlana, Gabralthaar leapt into a defense stance, then froze, his focus shifting between the canrassi and Svetlana. In the midst of his hesitation, the massive beast charged at his counterpart. Its gaping jaws open wide, it slammed into Ka`vesh at full speed, its teeth clamping around the soldier’s midsection. Ka`vesh shrieked in horror as his body was shaken like a rag doll.

Snatching a firm hold onto Svetlana’s wrists, Nagogg pried her away from him and glared through watering, bloodied eyes. Wrenching his spear out of her grasp, he pulled it back to strike with its blade.

Pow!

Svetlana’s knee collided into the chieftain’s groin. Releasing a yell of agony, he released his hold on her and crumpled to the floor. Svetlana spun her head around. Past the rigid Gabralthaar and Ka`vesh being torn apart, her blue eyes found the weapons. The medic made her move.

Simultaneous with Svetlana’s darting, Ei`dorinthal reached into the weapon stack to pull out an assault rifle—the Ithini tossed it haphazardly in Svetlana’s direction.

Gabralthaar reached her first. Colliding into Svetlana’s side at full speed, the massive, armored titan slammed her body against the wall. The medic’s body hit the control board sideways—all wind was knocked out of her. As the assault rifle clinked past her, out of her grasp, Gabralthaar grabbed her by the throat and hoisted her up. Once again, she was slammed against the wall.