State of the Union (31 page)

I
’ve been reviewing FEMA’s worst-case scenarios,” said the president to Harvath over an encrypted satellite link, “and not only is there no safe way we can evacuate the cities we think the Russians may be targeting, but if they hit more than four of our major metropolitan areas, our emergency response capabilities are going to be stretched to the max. Even if they only detonate a fraction of the devices they have, this is going to be the worst disaster the world has ever seen. Not only will the loss of life and injuries be terrible, but can you imagine UN planes and helicopters being shown on TV bringing in food and medicine because America’s infrastructure has been so badly decimated we can’t take care of our own citizens?

“We absolutely can’t let that happen. Do you understand me? We
cannot
let that happen.”

After agreeing, Harvath listened as the president continued to speak and then handed him off to various experts and analysts from the CIA and Department of Defense who briefed him that Rick Morrell and his team were wrapping up their operation and were being sent to rendezvous with him for his next assignment.

It was three hours later when Harvath was finally able to close the dome’s wooden hatch and replace the collapsible field antenna and satellite radio into his backpack.

Climbing down the stairs, Harvath rejoined Alexandra in the church.

“That was a very long phone call,” she said.

“You know how it is when you haven’t talked to people in a while,” replied Harvath.

“You said you might know where the mobile command system is. Did you find it?”

“I did better than that. I also found Stavropol.”

“How?”

“The location of the mobile system was more of a hunch than anything else. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s spyships were on the cutting edge of signals intelligence, but in the modern era, the way intelligence was being gathered rendered most of them obsolete and they were reassigned to other duties. That got me wondering if maybe one of these spyships was being used to transport the mobile command system. I learned a fair amount about them in the Navy. There was the
Bal’zam
class, the
Primor’ye
class, and then I remembered another class—the
Gagarin
class.

“Only one ship was ever made in the
Gagarin
class—
The Cosmonat Yuri Gagarin
. It was adapted from the unfinished hull of a tanker to control Soviet spacecraft and satellites from the open ocean. And best of all, it sports four huge dish antennae each the—”

“Size of a house?” interrupted Alexandra.

“And then some.”

“But how can you be sure the
Gagarin
is what we’re after?”

“Because our National Reconnaissance Office has satellite imagery of it along with three nuclear icebreakers leaving port in Arkhangel two days ago.”

“That still doesn’t mean—”

Now it was Harvath’s turn to interrupt. “Did you know that Stavropol was using a satellite phone?”

“No. I assumed he was using a cell.”

“Cell phones will operate sometimes up to a couple of miles out to sea, but it depends on how built out the network is back on dry land. A satellite phone is much more reliable in this case and Stavropol knew that. What he didn’t know was that you were going to be able to get a hold of his number.”

“Why? Were you able to trace it?”

“Yup.”

“But I thought those phones were encrypted,” said Alexandra.

“They are,” replied Harvath, “128-bit digital encryption standard, but he’s using one of the same models that embedded reporters used during the war in Iraq. The U.S. Military had to tell them to turn them off in many situations because they could broadcast their position via GPS.”

“And that’s how you found him?”

“That’s how we found him. The NSA was able to use his mobile ID number and pinpoint his whereabouts.”

“So where is he?”

“In the White Sea, just off the Kola Peninsula.”

“Most of which lies north of the artic circle and it’s almost the end of January,” responded Alexandra. “What are we supposed to do?”

“We’re supposed to stop him, of course,” said Harvath.

“Of course. And how are we supposed to do that? Wait, one thing at a time. Why don’t you start by telling me how we’re supposed to get out to a ship floating in the middle of an ice-encrusted sea. Is one of your American submarines going to take us there?”

“Not as long as the Kola Peninsula is still home to Russia’s Northern Fleet.”

“Then how?”

“Stavropol is going to help us.”

“How nice of him,” said Alexandra, her voice laden with sarcasm. “Why would he do that?”

“Because you have something I’m sure he’ll want.”

“And what’s that?”

Harvath smiled before responding. “Me.”

Alexandra was silent.
Had he lost his mind? He wanted to give himself up to Stavropol? The man would kill him in an instant.

“Oh,” continued Harvath, “and just to sweeten the deal, we’re going to throw in a nice little man-portable nuclear weapon. Does that sound fair? Do you think he’ll go for it?”

Now she knew he was crazy. “What are you talking about? You don’t have any man-portable nuclear weapons.”

“Not yet. You and I are going to pick one up.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“And where is this pickup supposed to happen?”

Harvath began walking toward the front door of the church. “We’re not exactly picking one up. It’s being delivered. Have you ever been to Archangel City before? I’ll buy you dinner on the way and explain the rest of the plan.”

Alexandra followed him out the door and into the snow. The sun had set and the air had grown bitterly cold. She couldn’t help wondering if the three hours Harvath had spent in the dome of the church hadn’t somehow affected his brain.

T
he next day, when Milesch Popov’s name came up on Stavropol’s Caller ID, he thought it must be some kind of a joke. Not only was Popov dead, but the police had found his bullet-riddled cell phone near the crime scene. There was no way it could be him calling. Immediately, Stavropol was on guard. Somehow, someone had connected him with that contemptible street thug. This was a distraction he did not need at the moment, as he was already preoccupied with pinning the murders of Generals Primovich, Karganov, and Varensky on Popov and a “wayward” accomplice. At this point, all they needed to do was locate the accomplice. Draegar had assured them that he had the situation well in hand, but just as in Berlin, he had once again disappointed them.

Stavropol had come to the conclusion that Draegar might no longer be a reliable asset and he would have to do the job himself, as he activated his Sat phone and tentatively took the call. “
Da
?”

“Comrade General, I hope I am not catching you at an inopportune time,” said the voice on the other end.

Stavropol didn’t need to ask who was calling. He could guess whom the voice belonged the minute he heard the first words. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. It was better than he could have hoped. She was the perfect person to frame as the wayward accomplice who had assisted Popov in killing Primovich, Karganov, and Varensky. “Agent Ivanova. It is a pleasure to hear from you, but how did you get my telephone number?”

Alexandra knew he was toying with her, but had been counseled to play along with him, to an extent. “I removed the SIM card from Milesch Popov’s phone right after he tried to kill me.”

“An unfortunate misunderstanding,” said Stavropol, who had not even thought about the SIM card. When he had gotten a hold of the police report detailing the evidence from the murder scene, including the damaged phone, he had assumed that Popov had taken the secret of their relationship with him to the grave. Obviously, he had been wrong.

“I think the misunderstanding here,” continued Alexandra, “is in your failing to recognize what a useful asset I could prove to be.”

Stavropol smiled. “Now it is you who must forgive me for disbelieving. I am well aware of what your father most likely told you.”

“Indeed. My father told me everything and as far as I am concerned, he was a fool to try and get in your way. He let his misguided feelings overrule his duty and obligation to his country.”

“Very convincing, Agent Ivanova. The SVR has taught you well, though you cannot believe that I would fall under your spell so easily. I know what you are doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“You were seen with Dr. Nesterov, as well as the American, Scot Harvath. You have been colluding with them in order to achieve your father’s reckless pursuits.”

“And I told you my father was a fool. I was using Nesterov for bait.”

Stavropol was momentarily taken aback. “
Bait?
How so?”

“I used him to lure the American.”

“But why? Why get involved at all?”

“Because I was interested in clearing my father’s name. Up until his death, I had only heard rumors and innuendos about his sedition. When I asked him, he would always deny it. Then on his deathbed, he made me aware of a dossier he had compiled.”

Stavropol had suspected as much, but his clean teams had never been able to find anything. There was nothing in Viktor Ivanov’s office or in his residence. “What dossier?”

“My family rented a garden plot outside the city. He buried the dossier there.”

Stavropol was fuming. There
was
a dossier, and his men had missed it. Viktor Ivanov had indeed been a cunning operative. Stavropol had wanted to kill him a long time ago when they had the chance, regardless of what information he might have compiled, but he knew that the man’s untimely demise, no matter how accidental it might have looked would have caused more trouble than it was worth. Instead, they silently drummed him out of the KGB. As it stood, when the Americans turned their backs on Ivanov and Stavropol was able to leak the story, a cloud of treason hung over Viktor Ivanov until his dying day and was enough to guarantee that no one ever trusted, much less listened to him ever again.

“And that dossier is what led you to General Karganov?” asked Stavropol, trying to put the pieces together.

“As well as Dr. Nesterov.”

“Where is the dossier now?”

“I’ve hidden it somewhere for safekeeping.”

For the most part, the bulk of the dossier’s contents would soon be immaterial, but there were still ways in which they could be very damaging. The file needed to be buried for good and Alexandra Ivanova along with it, but until she was, Stavropol had no choice but to deal with her. “Why are we talking?” he asked.

It was time for Alexandra to make her case. “We each have something the other wants.”

Stavropol laughed. “What could you possibly have that I would want?”

She wasted no time in getting to the point. “An American operative on Russian soil with a tactical nuclear weapon. Surely, you would like to have this man and his weapon in your custody.”

There were several moments of strained silence as Stavropol thought it over. Though he was loathe to negotiate with her, it seemed that she alone had the power to deliver him the prize that had eluded them on the Baltic and caused the loss of two of their patrol boats—an American agent who had smuggled a nuclear weapon into their country. He didn’t trust Alexandra Ivanova one bit, but she was dangling a very attractive carrot that was hard to resist.

Ever the tactician, Stavropol kept talking as his mind worked to develop a plan to gain the upper hand. “You said we each had something the other wanted. What is it you desire from me?”

Alexandra stuck to the script, just as Harvath had laid it out for her. “First, forgiveness. Though my father’s actions were wrong, his motivations were correct. He placed his country above all else and for that I want his name cleared. He is to get a proper burial with full recognition for his loyalty and years of service to Mother Russia.”

“What else?”

“Next, I want your personal guarantee, in writing, that I will be publicly recognized for my cooperation and loyalty.”

“That’s all?” asked Stavropol.

“No, that’s not all. In addition, I want a promotion within the SVR, to at least deputy director, complete with commensurate pay grade, a new apartment, and a new automobile.”

“Capitalism rears its ugly head at last.”

“No, it has not,” replied Alexandra. “While I support our country’s long overdue return to Communism, I also believe that outstanding service to the State should be rewarded. But if you do not agree with me, I’d be happy to release Agent Harvath and his nuclear weapon and let you try to retake him before the Americans have executed whatever it is they are planning.”

This time Stavropol didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not,” he replied. If Ivanova really was prepared to deliver on her offer, Stavropol couldn’t afford to let her go. “Where are you?”

“Archangel city,” she replied.

Stavropol told her to hold, while he cupped the mouthpiece and consulted one of the men standing next to him. There was no time for him to go to her. She would have to come to him. He gave her a time and directions to a location just outside the seaside village of Tova, about 150 kilometers up the coast from Archangel City, and then unceremoniously terminated the connection.

Before Alexandra could power down her cell phone and change out Popov’s SIM card, Harvath already had his atlas out and was speeding the Jeep Cherokee towards their destination. They would have to hurry. The last thing he wanted to do was to give Stavropol enough time to set up an ambush.

A
winter storm, accompanied by a brutal cold front, was in full effect when Scot and Alexandra dropped the rest of the team and then pulled into a desolate farmer’s field bordered on all sides by trees on the outskirts of Tova.

As the Jeep’s wipers fought to keep up with the heavily falling snow, Harvath alternated between staring at the temperature reading, which was now down to minus fifteen degrees Celsius, and staring out the windshield toward the far edge of the field.

When the appointed time arrived, he heard the staccato
whump, whump, whump
of helicopter rotor blades cleaving the frigid air. The low cloud cover and inclement weather made it impossible to see the craft as it circled above them and then moved off to the far edge of the field where it hovered still out of view.

Harvath assumed the helicopter was equipped with forward-looking infrared, also known as FLIR, and was right now scanning the perimeter of the landing zone. He hoped that they were only using first generation technology because if it was anything better than that, they were quite literally going to be dead.

With first-generation FLIR capability, it wasn’t impossible to blend in with trees and avoid detection. To be successful, though, several factors needed to be taken into consideration such as how long a person had been in the cold, what they were wearing, how much activity they had undergone just prior to the engagement and if they were carrying anything hot, like a recently fired weapon. Though second-generation FLIR could even spot the heat signature of a recently deposited hand-print and engage an automatic detection and targeting system, fooling a low-hovering, first-generation FLIR enhanced helicopter was by no means a walk in the park. It was still one of the hardest pieces of technology on the battlefield to beat.

Alexandra held up a pair of plastic flexi-cuffs and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Not really, but we don’t have much choice, do we?” replied Scot as he placed his hands behind his back.

“Don’t forget whose idea this was,” she said as she loosely secured his wrists.

“Don’t remind me,” responded Harvath.

Exiting the Cherokee, Alexandra swung Harvath’s pack over her shoulder and urged her “prisoner” forward. They walked toward the middle of the clearing as a biting wind tore at their clothing. With his arms behind his back, the best Harvath could do to avoid the weather was hunch his shoulders and tuck his chin into his chest. Alexandra kept her silenced Walther trained on him the entire way.

Suddenly, the sound of the rotors grew louder, and Harvath looked up through the snow to see the underside of a Russian-made Mi-17–1V Assault Helicopter as two long lines were kicked out the doors and a pair of commandos fast-roped to the ground on each side.

“Spetsnaz,” mouthed Alexandra, who then cemented upon her face a look of austere professionalism.

Harvath turned his eyes away from her and watched as the men, intimidating in dark uniforms and black balaclavas, fanned out with their silenced nine-millimeter AS assault rifles up and at the ready. Approaching Alexandra, they called for her to lower her weapon. She did as they commanded and watched as one of the men frisked Harvath, while another kept him squarely in his sights.

“I already checked him” she shouted in Russian, holding up his backpack. “His weapon is in here, along with several other pieces of equipment provided by his government.”

“Orders,” snapped the Spetsnaz operative, who then made his way over to her. Waving his gloved hand, he indicated in a very condescending manner that she surrender her weapon. “Also orders.”

Alexandra made a show of being very displeased at her treatment. After which, the Spetsnaz operative began to frisk her in a very inappropriate manner. Having brushed against her breasts no less than three times, and satisfied that she was clean, he withdrew a walkie-talkie and radioed the helicopter to land. Next, he turned to Alexandra and said, “I assume the nuclear device is in the car?”

Alexandra nodded her head.

“And the keys?”

“Also in the car,” she responded.

“You couldn’t have parked any closer?”

“And if someone had come along while we were waiting and asked us why we had driven off the road into the field? What should we have told them?”

“Good point,” said the soldier who got back on his walkie-talkie. He instructed the second team of Spetsnaz troops, who had secured the landing zone, to go get the Cherokee and drive it over to the helicopter so they could load the nuclear device onboard. As he finished his communication, he unshouldered his rifle and directed Harvath and Alexandra toward the helicopter, which was just touching down.

“He’s my prisoner!” insisted Alexandra as they approached the bird and she pushed Harvath ahead of the soldier, “I will see to him.” As soon as they stepped on board, all hell broke loose behind them.

Seeing Harvath and Alexandra climb into the helicopter, Morrell gave the go command over his throat mike. “The playground is ours. I repeat the playground is ours.”

Avigliano, who was hidden in the woods next to Morrell, dropped both of the Spetsnaz troops nearest the helicopter with perfect head-shots from his silenced M4, while Carlson and DeWolfe, who were hidden on the other side of the field, did the same to the other two soldiers approaching the Cherokee.

Back in the helicopter, Harvath wasted no time in slipping out of his flexi-cuffs and charging the cockpit. When the pilot happened to peer into the cargo bay and saw Harvath racing up the aisle, he immediately went for the nine millimeter Gyurza pistol strapped to his flight suit, but it was too late—Harvath was already on top of him.

Harvath landed a vicious punch to the man’s jaw and wrestled the pistol away from him just as the copilot grabbed the microphone of his helmet to radio for help. What happened next was more reflex than anything else. There was no time to think. Harvath pulled the Gyurza’s trigger and sent two rounds into the co-pilot’s head, killing him instantly. Turning the pistol back on the pilot, Harvath disconnected the comlink from the man’s helmet and said to him, “There’s been a slight change of plans.”

After Morrell and the rest of the team had stripped the Spetsnaz soldiers of their uniforms and deposited their naked bodies in the woods, they pulled the SUV alongside the helicopter, offloaded their improvised tactical nuclear weapon and then ditched the car.

When everyone was onboard, Alexandra climbed into the co-pilot’s seat and with her silenced Walther P4 pointed right at the pilot’s privates, ordered him to take off.