Read Online Enemy by Paul Hughes - Free Book Online

Jennings’ face.
         “This is your last chance to step down peacefully, you crazy son of a bitch.”
         Jennings faced the gun, unblinking.
         Cervera pulled back the hammer.
         Jennings’ eyes glanced to the left for an instant, just long enough for Cervera’s own eyes to widen in terror before the sound of two gunshots filled the room, and her Marine guards fell lifeless to the floor behind her. Cervera distracted, Jennings wasted no time in swatting the revolver from her hand and drawing his own weapon, which hung inches from her face. His Milicom guards stood in the open doorway, assault rifles trained on Cervera.
         “You think you have loyalists, Tony? So do I. And I’m going to expose you as the Styxie traitor you are.”
         Cervera uncertainly looked behind her at the armed Milicom troops, weapons still pointed at her. Blood had stained the neutral gray carpet a sick crimson.
         “You won’t get away with this.”
         Jennings grinned. “Oh, but I will. I’m the President of the Allied States of America. And I believe that the penalty for treason is death.”
         Cervera’s jaw dropped and she inhaled sharply before Jennings pulled the trigger. A fine mist of blood mingled with the gunsmoke in the confined space of the room, and Cervera’s lifeless body fell with a meaty thud to the floor, head torn apart by the armor-piercing bullet.
         “Get them out of here.”
         Jennings’ guards bent, began to drag away the bodies. Jennings casually righted his chair, slumped back into it. He placed his now-heavy revolver on the desktop. He watched blankly as Cervera’s bloody corpse was dragged from the room. The shield door cycled shut, and he was alone.
         Seconds later, there were gunshots from down the hallway.
         Jennings bolted upright, startled.
         Gunshots.
         One of his loyal Milicom officers burst into the room, blood pouring from a flesh wound on his arm.
         “Mister President, they have the White House surrounded! All of Wind River’s been cut off. Cervera’s men, they killed three of—”
         “Is there any way out?”
         “All the entrances have been taken by her loyalists. They’re coming this way, sir.”
         “Air Force One?”
         “It’ll take twenty minutes to prep her.”
         “Are there any other planes down there?”
         “The Spear you ordered hasn’t left for Santa Fosca yet, sir.”
         “Looks like that’s our only way out, son.”
         More gunshots, closer.
         “Come on!” They ran to the back of the Red Room, where an express elevator led down to the White House hangar. Hearing more gunshots from above, Jennings and the soldier descended into the hangar, where a VTOL Spear-4 stood ready for takeoff.
         They ran as quickly as they could to the ramp of the near-vertical jet. The launch doors slid open many stories above them. As they ascended, Jennings turned around just in time to see several of Cervera’s loyalists exit the elevator, weapons drawn. As they opened fire, the officer pulled the hatch shut behind him, and the weak lead slugs bounced harmlessly off the bulletproof surface of the plane.
         “Mister President, it’s highly inadvisable for you to accompany us on this combat run. We don’t know what we’re going to find on that island.”
         “I’m sure I’ll be safer with you than if I stayed behind with Cervera’s forces. Proceed with the mission, and I’ll try to stay out of your way.”
         “Thank you, sir. And may I say that we’re with you all the way. My father and three uncles were killed in War Three, and I lost two brothers in the Quebec War. I don’t want to see our country forced into another war any time soon. Cervera will pay for her treason.”
         “Yes, she will,” Jennings whispered. “Yes. She will.”
         The plane