State of the Union

by Brad Thor

  “Capable of a much larger yield than is normally associated with man-portable nuclear devices.”

  “My God,” said Herman. “And this is what the terrorists have planned?”

  “At this point we are confirming nineteen out of a possible twenty-five devices inside the United States.”

  “And the balance may be in cities of America’s Western allies?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’d these devices come from?”

  “Where do you think?” replied Harvath.

  “Russia?”

  “Bingo.”

  “But I don’t understand,” said Herman, leaning forward in his chair toward Harvath. “What about mutually assured destruction?”

  “Suffice it to say, the Russians have found a way around that.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “They have developed some sort of air defense system that is impregnable.”

  “And now what? They want to take over the United States?”

  “Just about. They want us off the world stage so they can fill the void and be the world’s predominant superpower.”

  Herman was floored. It was all too much. He had watched the Berlin Wall fall. In fact, he had even been there. He and several of his teammates had traveled to Berlin with sledgehammers and had spent hours cracking away at the enormous barrier, handing out pieces to anyone who wanted them. He had watched as people streamed across the no-man’s-land known as thedeath strip to be reunited with friends and loved ones in the West. Then the Soviet Union itself came tumbling down. At the time, it had all seemed beyond belief, but everyone had eventually gotten used to it. But what Harvath was telling him now, was absolutely beyond comprehension. “Is there more?” he asked, stunned.

  “There’s Gary’s involvement and how he fits into hopefully stopping this from happening, but that has to remain classified,” said Harvath.

  Both of the men sat back in their chairs, staring off into separate directions.

  After several minutes, it was Herman who broke the silence. “What’s the timetable?”

  “The deadline is the president’s State of the Union address in six days.”

  “And you’re sure the Russian government is behind this?”

  Harvath broke off from what he was staring at and said, “If it weren’t for the air defense system, we might have our doubts, but there’s enough evidence pointing to the people at the top. They claim they know nothing about what’s going on, but we believe otherwise.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Herman.

  Harvath was about to answer, when he noticed one of the admitting nurses walking in their direction.

  “Herr Harvath?” she asked in German as she approached the two men who immediately stood up.

  “Ich bin Herr Harvath,” replied Scot, wondering why it wasn’t one of the operating room staff coming out to give him an update on Gary’s condition. Suddenly, he had a bad feeling.

  “Es tut mir leid, Sie damit zu belästige—,” the nurse began.

  “I’m sorry,” said Harvath. “Sprechen Sie Englisch bitte?”

  “Yes, I speak English.”

  “Good. What’s going on?”

  “You have visitors.”

  “Visitors?I’m not expecting any visitors. Who are they?”

  “I don’t know. Foreigners of some sort.”

  “They’re not German?” said Harvath, thinking that it might be Sebastian or one of the guys from the MEK team.

  “No, these men are definitely not German. Only one of them spoke, and his German is very bad.”

  A man who speaks very bad German?Harvath shot Herman a look, before continuing. “What do they look like?”

  “Big,” replied the nurse, holding her hands way out.

  “How many are there?”

  “There are two of them. I explained that this area is off limits and that they are not welcome here. I offered the waiting area in the ICU, but they declined. They asked me for something more private.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “In the surgeons’ conference suite down the hall,” she said pointing. “Room 311. I can show you if you like.”

  “No, thank you,” replied Harvath. “I can find it.”

  The nurse smiled and walked away. Once she was out of sight, Harvath removed his H&K, made sure that a round was chambered and then tucked back beneath his jacket.

  “Who do you think it is?” asked Herman.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No. You stay here and watch over Gary. No matter what happens, don’t leave him. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” said Herman, putting his hand on Scot’s shoulder. “Be careful.”

  “Me? I’m always careful,” replied Harvath.

  Herman forced a smile as Scot walked off down the hall.

  Arriving at room 311, Harvath found the door closed. He listened, but didn’t hear anything coming from the other side. He pulled out his H&K and wrapped it in a towel he had taken from one of the hospital’s linen closets.

  “Zimmermädchen,” he said, not knowing what the appropriate term for housekeeping was in a German hospital. At the same time, he didn’t care because whoever was in this room wasn’t a very good German speaker to begin with. His goal was to get whoever was inside to peek their head out so he could get the drop on them.

  “Danke, wir haben schon gegessen,” replied a voice from the other side of the door.Thank you, but we’ve already eaten.

  “Ich komme morgen zurück,” I’ll come back tomorrow morning,replied Harvath, who pretended to be leaving, but instead stepped just beyond the doorframe and began counting. When he got to ten, he grabbed the handle and threw the door open.

  The men on the other side immediately reached for their guns, but then dropped their hands.

  “Where the hell did you learn your German?”

  “High school, Hogan’s Heroes, and the occasional trip to Milwaukee to visit my uncle for Oktoberfest,” replied a tall, muscular, blond-haired, blue-eyed man in his mid-twenties who looked as if belonged on a beach in Southern California, or in a Chippendales review somewhere.

  “You trusted this guy to do your talking for you?” asked Harvath to the other man.

  “My mistake. He said he could speak German. If I had understood what he was saying, I never would have let him open his mouth,” replied the second man who was just as tall, but slightly less muscular than the first. He looked to be in his mid-forties, with close cropped, jet-black hair with a little bit of gray showing at the temples. His impassive, angular face could have been carved from a solid block of granite, and the deep cleft in his chin looked as if it had been chipped there with an axe.

  Harvath lowered his weapon. The last thing he wanted to do was accidentally shoot two friends. Gordon Avigliano was a good kid and had a bright future ahead of him, and Rick Morrell was not only a skilled operative, but also someone Harvath had grown to respect. They were both members of the CIA’s paramilitary division known as the Special Activities Staff. Scot had known Rick Morrell during his SEAL days when Morrell had left to join the CIA and they had become reacquainted during a top-secret operation to track down the extremely deadly Middle Eastern terrorist duo of Adara and Hashim Nidal. “What the hell are you guys doing here?”

  “The boss sent us,” replied Morrell.

  “Vaile?” said Harvath, referring to the Director of the CIA. “Why the hell would he have sent you guys here?” Then it hit him and he raised his H&K again. “If he thought because we’re friends you two could just walk in here and take Gary into custody, he was sorely mistaken. He’s still in surgery, for Christ’s sake. He’s not going anywhere with you guys. You have no idea how far off the mark your boss is on this one.”

  “Easy breezy, cover girl,” said Avigliano. “We’re not going to take Gary anywhere.”

  “Bullshit,” said Harvath, backing away from the two men
. “How’d you even know we were here? I only made one communication and I know you are not surveillinghim .”

  Harvath was referring to the anonymous voice mail box that only the president had access to where Harvath could leave coded updates. He had only left one, stating that he had recovered the package, but that the package was damaged. As best he could, he explained the situation and that he would leave another message once Gary was out of surgery.

  “For fuck’s sake, Harvath. Would you calm down?” said Morrell. “Vaile didn’t send us. In fact, he has no idea we’re all here.”

  “Who’swe ?”

  “Carlson and DeWolfe are back at the hotel.”

  “Then if Vaile didn’t send you, who did?”

  “Ourboss,” repeated Morrell, as he waved his index finger in a circle, taking them all in. “Goaltender.”

  Morrell had used the president’s call sign assigned to him as part of the Dark Night operational plan.

  “And what exactly is your assignment?” asked Harvath, even more concerned now that it was obvious that Morrell and his team were on the inside.

  “There’s been a change of plans.”

  “Change of plans?”

  “Apparently something has happened. I was instructed to tell you that we don’t have any pieces left to rebalance the chessboard. Somehow the other side has found where we were hiding our toys. Goaltender said that would make sense to you. Does it?”

  Harvath’s blood ran cold. “They’ve found our nukes?”

  “I was just supposed to give you that message. Goaltender wants to talk to you,” replied Morrell. “We brought a sat-radio with us, and Carlson and DeWolfe are busy setting up a secure link.”

  “Why you?” asked Harvath. “Why send your team?”

  “Because he knows you trust us and therefore so does he. He knows together we’ll get the job done.”

  “And what job is that?”

  “When we get back to the hotel, you can ask him yourself.”

  “What about security for Gary?” said Harvath. “The people we’re after might not be done with him yet. They could come back. I’ve got a very old and trusted friend watching over him right now, but he won’t be able to pull all the shifts. And if these guys came back in force, as good as this guy is, I can’t guarantee what the outcome would be.”

  “Not to worry. We’ve arranged for a few visiting medical students to conduct a rotation here and keep an eye on Gary,” said Morrell, who signaled to Avigliano to open the door to the conference suite’s adjoining room.

  Harvath couldn’t believe his eyes. Standing there in surgical scrubs and white lab coats were two of his closest friends from the White House security detail, Secret Service agents Tom Hollenbeck and Chris Longo.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Harvath. “If it isn’t Doctors Moe and Larry. There’s just the two of you? You couldn’t get a third to play Curly?”

  At that moment, the sound of a toilet flushing came from the suite’s private bathroom and then the door opened revealing a third man in a white lab coat, tying the drawstring on the pants of his scrubs.

  “That figures,” said Harvath, as he recognized who it was.

  “Surprise, surprise!” crowed Doctor Skip Trawick with a mock Scottish accent. The semi-retired Special Forces medic had been instrumental in helping Harvath rescue the president from Gerhard Miner and his team of Swiss mercenaries two years ago.

  “Because Longo and Hollenbeck know absolutely nothing about medicine,” said Morrell, getting things back on track, “Goaltender thought it would be best to have at least one real doctor along for the ride.”

  Satisfied that Gary was now going to an appropriate level of security, Harvath marched the trio of “doctors” down to Herman Toffle, where he explained what was happening. While Longo, Trawick, and Hollenbeck worked out how they were going to handle shifts, Morrell and Avigliano followed Scot and Herman down to Herman’s Mercedes, where Harvath transferred his and Gary’s bags to the trunk of Morrell’s rental car.

  “Well, I guess this is it,” said Herman, extending his hand, a slight edge of disappointment noticeable in his voice. It felt good getting back in the game, even if it was short lived.

  “Actually, Herman,” began Harvath, “I was hoping you might stick around a little bit longer. Those are good guys back up in Gary’s room, but they don’t have near the experience that you do.”

  Herman brightened. “And, they speak lousy German.”

  “That’s true,” smiled Harvath. “Would you mind hanging in with them for a little longer? I’d feel better knowing you were up there with Gary.”

  “How can I say no to a friend in need?”

  “I was hoping you’d feel that way,” said Harvath. “I want you to keep me up to speed on Gary’s progress and call me the minute he’s out of surgery. He’s the only one that can help us make contact again with Frank Leighton.”If Leighton’s even still alive , thought Harvath.

  “Don’t worry,” replied Herman. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

  It was raining again as they pulled out of the parking structure and though the fog had dissipated, the evening still felt dense and impenetrable.

  As the small sedan became ensnarled in evening Berlin traffic, Harvath leaned his head against the leather headrest and looked out the rain-streaked window. A heavy sense of foreboding weighed on his mind. The surgeons’ lack of confidence in Gary Lawlor’s prognosis was definitely troubling, but more than that, he was concerned about the message Rick Morrell had delivered on behalf of the president.All of our pieces have been knocked off the chessboard .

  Chapter 28

  R ick Morrell pulled their car into the underground parking structure of the distinctive semicircular building known as Berlin’s Kempinski Hotel Bristol. After finding an empty stall, Morrell used his keycard to summon the elevator and the three men rode to the sixth floor.

  When the elevator doors opened, Gordon Avigliano led the way down the lavishly carpeted hallway to a rich mahogany door where he rapped out a quick code.

  “Housekeeping,” said Avigliano in a high-pitched voice, shouldering his way into the room as DeWolfe opened the door for them. “Fluff your pillow? Chocolate mint?”

  “Scot,” said DeWolfe, shaking his hand and ignoring Avigliano. “Good to see you again.”

  “You too,” said Scot, genuinely glad to see the operative who had helped rescue him from Adara Nidal’s terrorist compound in the Libyan desert last year.

  “Hey,” shouted Carlson, who walked over and grabbed Scot Harvath by both shoulders so he could look at him, “why wasn’t I surprised when they told me you were in trouble?”

  “Nice to see you too, Steve,” replied Harvath.

  “Now that we’re all reacquainted,” interjected Morrell, who had locked the door behind them and was making his way to the center of the room. “Maybe we can get started.”

  Morrell turned to DeWolfe, “How are we doing?”

  The communications expert was bent over a map of the world, complete with latitude and longitude lines, upon which he had placed a clear plastic slide. “I’m just working out our elevation and azimuth,” he replied.

  “What about the electronic countermeasures?”

  “I swept the room three times and placed the ECMs in the appropriate positions, so don’t worry. Not only is nobody listening to us, but even if they wanted to, they couldn’t. All of the equipment is working perfectly, and everything is tip-top.”

  “Good. This is the first time I have been handpicked by the president for an operation, and I don’t intend to screw it up. In fact, this is our first scrambled communication with him and I expect it to go off without a hitch. Is that clear?”

  “Yes sir, boss,” responded DeWolfe. He was aiming for one of the Defense Department’s dedicated satellites and as he computed the best ‘takeoff’ angle for their transmission, Carlson assembled a wire spider-web satellite dish the size of a dinner plate, connected it to t
heir fully digitized and fully encrypted Harris manpack SATCOM radio, and then placed the dish on top of the coffee table.

  According to DeWolfe’s calculations, they had twenty more minutes before they would pass into their optimal broadcast window, so Morrell allowed Avigliano to run out to pick up orders of the lamb and salad sandwiches packed in pita bread known as Döner Kebabs. Though Morrell would have preferred Cokes, when Avigliano returned with a beer for each of the men, he let it slide.

  Harvath had grabbed a quick shower and shave and after dressing in a black sweater and a new pair of jeans, joined the rest of the team in the living room. He sat down on one of the leather couches, opened up Gary Lawlor’s suitcase on the floor in front of him and began to go through it again.

  Carefully, he removed each piece of clothing and after thoroughly examining it, folded it and set it on the couch next to him.

  “Where’d you get that?” asked DeWolfe, as Harvath was emptying out the contents of Lawlor’s shaving kit.

  “What?” said Harvath, holding up a tube of toothpaste. “This?”

  “Not the toothpaste. That other thing you’ve got sitting there next to those clothes.”

  “This organizer?” asked Harvath, reaching for the oversized PDA that had been vexing him since he had first found it in Gary’s luggage.

  “Yeah, let me look at it,” said DeWolfe who crossed over to where Harvath was sitting and took the device from him. “Interesting.”

  “What’s interesting?”

  DeWolfe had powered the device up and was scrolling through its programs. “I haven’t seen one of these in ages.”

  “I know. It’s an antique,” replied Harvath as he looked over DeWolfe’s shoulder to see what he was doing. “Gary hates almost anything computerized, so I figured the organizer was part of his cover somehow.”

  “You mean to tell me you’ve never seen one of these things before?”

  “Of course I have, but by the time I got my PDA, it was about a quarter of the size of that thing.”

  “When you were a SEAL, didn’t you ever work with a burst transmitter?”

  Harvath’s eyes widened. “A burst transmitter?That’s what that thing is supposed to be?”