State of the Union

by Brad Thor

  Unshouldering the grenade launcher, Harvath took aim and waited. He had only one shot. Less than half a mile away, the fiery remains of theRebecca and the other patrol boat burned in tandem, painting the night sky with an eerie orange glow.

  As the remaining Sokzhoi barreled down on him, Harvath sighted his weapon, took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger.

  With an effective range of 350 meters, he worried that maybe he had overshot, but then he saw the Sokzhoi’s bridge explode in a colossal ball of fire, sending a hail of fiery debris in all directions.

  By the time the first flaming piece of wreckage hit the water, Harvath was already back below the surface, making his way to his rendezvous point.

  Chapter 38

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  P resident Jack Rutledge was beyond exhausted. While most of his senior staff had begged him to get some rest, Rutledge had rolled up his sleeves and spent every single moment in the Situation Room beneath the White House with the vast array of experts who came and went around the clock to put in their two cents worth on how the crisis with Russia could best be dealt with.

  Finally, Rutledge had had enough. Politely thanking the visiting experts, he had them shown out and then immediately restricted any further access to the Situation Room to representatives of the Joint Chiefs and his National Security Council. There were less than five days now until the State of the Union address and they still had no solid plan.

  After a couple of hours of catch-up sleep, Rutledge convened his “war council” and wasted no time getting down to business. “Ladies and gentlemen, you represent the best and the brightest this country has to offer and the future of this country might very well rest upon what you are able to come up with in this very room. For the next half hour I want to hear what our possible options are. Anything goes. If we have to tear the tail off the Devil himself, I’ll consider it, let’s just throw it all out there and see what we can come up with. This is a worst case scenario and I want to hear anything you can come up with.”

  The clock ran well past the half-hour mark with ideas being floated on everything from introducing a forward-engineered strain of the Ebola virus into Russia and then quarantining the entire country with an unprecedented land and naval blockade, to launching an all-out bombing attack with airplanes and nuclear weapons from the World War II era that many believed would be unaffected by the Russians’ new air defense system which seemed to affect modern electronic guidance systems.

  After Rutledge had had his fill of talk about killer satellites, commandos suspended from jet-propelled parachutes, and even plague-infested rats with plague-dispersing backpacks; he retired to the residence for a quiet meal with his daughter, Amanda, whom he had pulled out of school and was keeping under close guard at the White House around the clock—not an easy thing to do with a young woman who had just passed her seventeenth birthday.

  “Dad,” she said, after the steward set down their salads and then quietly left the room, “has America been fucked with a capital F?”

  While the president had been known to privately extend a certain amount of latitude to his staff in their vocabular selections, that policy most certainly did not extend to his daughter. “First of all,” he began, “I don’t care how close USC and college life may appear to you, I don’t ever want to hear that language again. Am I clear?”

  The rebuke was extremely embarrassing for Amanda Rutledge. It had been one of her first forays into an adult conversation with her father and it had failed miserably. Having overheard two of the agents on her Secret Service detail speaking, she had thought she might engage the president on a gritty, adult level, but the attempt had crashed and burned. Instead of relating to her as a knowledgeable young adult, her father had immediately shut her down as a child whose opinion didn’t matter. Nevertheless, Amanda Rutledge wasn’t one to be deterred. “I may not have used the best language, Dad, but I’m only repeating what I already heard. Is America in trouble?”

  “Of course not,” said the president, making sure he smiled as he reached for the salad dressing.

  “Then why’d you pull me out of school? I’m not stupid, you know.”

  Rutledge dribbled the salad dressing onto his plate for as long as he could and wished for the millionth time that breast cancer had never taken his wife. She was so much better at handling these things than he was. Tackling the truth head-on was his forte, but breaking it down in such a way so as to not completely shatter the world of a seventeen-year-old, was almost totally beyond his realm of expertise.

  No matter how much he wished things were different, though, his wife wasn’t with them anymore. He had no choice but to explain things to his daughter. “Amanda, I’m not going to lie to you. America is facing a potentially serious threat right now, but no matter what happens you’re going to be okay. I promise you.”

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “I’ll be okay too. We’ll both be together. So don’t worry. Okay?”

  “Dad?” Amanda continued as she stabbed her fork into her salad. “What about the rest of the people in America? Are they going to be okay too?”

  “I’m doing everything I can to make sure that they are,” responded the president.

  “I know you are,” she said, before turning her attention back to her salad.

  After several minutes of strained silence between them, Amanda asked, “Dad, are we going to die?”

  Chapter 39

  ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

  STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS—4 DAYS

  T he first thing Harvath noticed upon exiting St. Petersburg’s dingy train station, known as theFinlandsky Vokzal , was the bronze statue of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin standing atop an armored car. Harvath followed the statue’s finger to where it ironically pointed across the frozen Neva River to a large orange building with a tall antenna—theBolshoi Dom , literallyThe Big House , home of the Interior Ministry and local headquarters of the FSB. For a country that had supposedly sworn off Communism, it had always seemed strange to Harvath how many prominent statues and monuments from that era they still displayed. For their part, the Russians claimed that having been defined by Communism for so long, it was impossible to erase every vestige of it. After all, it was Communism that had brought them prominence, notorious though it was, in the modern world and like it or not, the experience of living under Communism had become part of the Russian soul.

  Well, Harvath didn’t like it. What had seemed up to now like an idiosyncratic clinging to a failed political experiment had taken on a new and graver significance for him over the past several days. The idea that the Soviets could have faked capitulation, only to now hold his own country hostage from within, made him sick to his stomach.

  Passing the statue, Harvath noticed a small stray dog pick up its leg and urinate against old Vlad. “Good boy,” he whispered, as he threw the dog the last cookie from the pack he had purchased from one of the countless vendors on the rickety train known by locals as theelektrichka . It felt good to find a kindred spirit so soon upon his arrival in Russia. He only hoped that Viktor Ivanov’s daughter would turn out to be one as well. The Defense Intelligence Agency had an asset who had worked with her before, and it was through that asset that she had agreed to meet with him. Harvath was counting on her willingness to help him with whatever she knew. At this point she was his only lead, and time was quickly running out. The State of the Union address was only four days away.

  Though he could have taken the St. Petersburg Metro, Harvath wanted to get the lay of the land before his meeting. Following the cheap tourist map he had picked up in the station, he headed south and crossed the Neva River via the Liteynyi Bridge. The air was cold and damp, much damper than it had been in Berlin. Heavy, snow-laden gray clouds crowded the sky, while a thin layer of silvery flakes covered the streets and sidewalks.

  As he walked, Harvath reflected on everything that had happened over the last four days, culminating in his misadventures on the Baltic with the two Russi
an Federal Border Guard Service patrol boats. After a long time in the water, he had finally rendezvoused with the Navy SEAL Team assigned to bringing him the rest of the way into Russia. They were operating a commandeered smuggler’s boat, which thankfully had a fully equipped galley. After changing out of his dry suit, Harvath downed about a gallon of water, then ate a meal of fried eggs accompanied by a cup of black coffee and a hunk of rye bread.

  They dropped him off just up the coast from a town called Zelenogorsk, where he caught theelektrichka to St. Petersburg. He wore a fisherman’s turtleneck sweater, jeans, boots, and his black leather jacket. He also wore a super lightweight KIVA technical backpack, which contained a hydration system, a change of clothes, and some other goodies the SEALs had provided him with.

  As he cut through the Mikhailovsky Gardens, Harvath saw his third group of Russian schoolchildren and decided that Fridays in St. Petersburg must be field-trip day. Beyond the gardens, stood his destination—the majestic Hermitage Museum.

  The museum was one of largest in the world, second only to the Louvre in Paris, and it occupied six buildings along the Neva. The most impressive of those buildings was known as the Winter Palace, former home of the Russian czars. Entering the green and white Winter Palace along theDvortsovaya Embankment, Harvath bought a ticket for 300 rubles and made his way through the Russian Baroque Rastrelli Gallery, with its massive columns and intricately vaulted ceiling, until he came to the Hermitage Café.

  He ordered a small, open-faced sandwich and a bottle of mineral water at the counter and then chose one of the few remaining empty tables. He slid his chair around so that he could sit with his back to the wall and after marking where all the exits were, pulled the Friday edition of theSt. Petersburg Times out of his backpack and set it to the left of his tray as he’d been instructed. It was now time to wait.

  As he ate his sandwich, Harvath alternated between gazing out of the large windows that looked out onto the central courtyard of the Winter Palace, and studying the faces of the other patrons in the café. The museum was packed today and the selection of the café, with its high ceilings, stone floor and attendant ambient noise, was an inspired choice for a rendezvous. Even if someone had wanted to listen in on a surreptitious conversation, it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible.

  Harvath kept watching the faces of people as they entered and exited the café. When Alexandra Ivanova finally arrived, it was nearly impossible not to notice her. She was even more stunning than her photograph.

  As she moved across the room, one of the first things Harvath noticed was her height. He put her at around five-foot-eight, maybe taller, but with the boots she had on it was hard to tell. They came to just about mid-calf and were only the beginning of her outfit. She wore winter leggings and a short skirt, which did little to disguise her very attractive, long legs. A tight, ribbed sweater was partially exposed beneath a heavy shearling coat, and to finish it all off, she had on a pair of funky frameless purple sunglasses and a tan crocheted cap that looked like it had come from an ABBA revival concert, beneath which her blond hair hung in two long braids.

  Not exactly subtle, thought Harvath as she came up to the table, but there was no way a woman this good-looking could disguise how attractive she was.

  “It appears as if you are alone,” said Ivanova. “May I join you?”

  “With over three million works of art in this museum, I would hardly consider myself alone, but you are welcome to sit down,” replied Harvath, using the phrase he’d been given to establish his bona fides with Ivanova.

  “Unfortunately, only a small percentage of it is ever on display at one time,” she returned, setting her tray next to Harvath’s and taking a seat. “This is a museum you need to come back to over and over again to really appreciate.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” said Harvath, their bona fides now established. “You’re late.”

  “I was busy.”

  “Busy with what?”

  “That’s none of your concern,” answered Alexandra. “I don’t have all day, so let’s, as you Americans say,get to the point .”

  There are very few things in the world as pleasing to the ear as English spoken by a Russian woman. The experience is made doubly enjoyable if the woman in question is as attractive as Alexandra Ivanova.

  Because of her very appealing accent, Harvath could almost forgive her for being so rude. Almost.

  “I’m sorry if I’m keeping you from something,” replied Scot, the condescension apparent in his voice. “I’ll do my best to keep this short.”

  Ivanova simply nodded her head with disinterest and began to blow on her tea.

  “I need your help. There’s information your father may have had that could—”

  “After all these years, the Americans have decided he is once again a viable source,” she responded, glaring over the top of her teacup. “I’ll be happy to give you the address where you can find him, though he’s not much of a conversationalist anymore.”

  Harvath could tell where this was going and did his best to diffuse the situation. “Listen, I can see that you’re upset—”

  “No, you listen to me. You have no idea how I feel or what my father went through because of you people.”

  “Maybe I don’t, but that was the world your father was living in. Double dealing in intelligence is a tricky business.”

  Alexandra set her teacup down. “You make it sound as if somehow he was disloyal. Every single thing he did was for the good of his country. You people sold him out.”

  “Sold him out?What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. Your intelligence services cut him loose and then leaked to the KGB that he had been cooperating with them.”

  “That’s ridiculous. We never would have done that. That’s not our style. We don’t reward people that way,” said Harvath.

  “The KGB could never officially prove it, but somehow they knew what he had done and they punished him for it anyway. You say the leak didn’t come from your side. Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I told you, that’snot how we do business.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  God, the woman was an ice princess. “Hey, I’m not the guy you’ve got an axe to grind with. You don’t even know me.”

  “Oh no?”

  “No,” replied Scot.

  “Scot Harvath. Former internationally ranked U.S. Freestyle Ski Team member who quit the circuit shortly after his father’s death. You left to study political science and military history at the University of Southern California, where you graduatedcum laude before joining the navy and passing selection to become a SEAL. After postings to both Teams Two and Six, also known as Dev Group, you were recruited to the Secret Service to help improve White House operations and presidential security. Your current posting is unknown.”

  Harvath was floored. “How the hell do you know all that?”

  “I keep very good track of people who have crossed me, Agent Harvath.”

  “Crossed you? I haven’t crossed you. I don’t even know you.”

  “You don’t?” asked Ivanova, fluttering her eyelashes. The move was not at all flirtatious. It was inappropriate and meant to be insulting.

  “Believe me,” replied Scot, trying to remain calm and not rise to the bait, “if our paths had crossed, I would have remembered it.”

  “Do you remember Istanbul?” she asked. “Five years ago. A prominent American businessman and his family taken hostage?”

  Of course he remembered,but how could she know about it?

  The scenes came rushing back. Harvath was with SEAL Team Six at the time and had been put in charge of the ransom exchange. He showed up with what the kidnappers assumed was the money, but in reality was an H&K MP5K submachine gun covertly mounted inside a briefcase with the firing mechanism incorporated into the handle.

  The expressions of shock and surprise on the kidnappers’ faces had barely had a chance
to register before Harvath took out every last one of them. They had never seen it coming. When the rest of Harvath’s team stormed the building, there was nothing left for them to do but help escort the businessman and his family safely back to the U.S. Embassy.

  “What’s this all about?” Harvath asked the woman.

  “I was stationed in Istanbul.”

  As well as London and Hong Kong, Harvath remembered from Rick Morrell’s briefing. “So?”

  “So the kidnappers you took out were part of an arms ring we were investigating, who were responsible for smuggling heavy weaponry to several rebel groups in the Caucasus.”

  “So?”

  “They were the middle men. They were going to put us next to the ones running the organization, but you killed them.”

  “Sorry,” said Harvath, turning his palms upwards.

  “I was in charge of that investigation.”

  “Sorry, again,” replied Scot.

  “We had an agent on the inside and you killed him.”

  Harvath had had no idea. His recent disaffection with the Russians notwithstanding, the fact that he had killed an innocent man did not sit well with him. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. But by the same token, what the hell was he doing mixed up with a kidnapping? He should have known better. He shouldn’t have been there when the exchange went down.”

  “He wasn’t,” said Alexandra.

  “What?”

  “He wasn’t there. He was working on putting together our meeting with the organization’s top members.”

  “So, I couldn’t have possibly killed him then.”

  “Not directly, but because he was new, the organization was already suspicions of him. His conspicuous absence from the bloodbath that was your ransom exchange was enough to tip their paranoia, and they shot him.”

  “The key word here beingthey ,” interjected Harvath. “Theyshot him.”