Garin lowered his head slightly, conceding the point. Then he looked at his sister. “Sorry, Katy. You didn’t ask for this. You shouldn’t be burdened with this. It’s not your fight.”
Katy glanced at her husband and then took a step closer to Garin, an intense look on her face. She spoke in a quiet, controlled voice, but her tone was insistent. “I don’t want to hear that sorry crap, Michael. We’re hiding in a damn bunker. In the United States of America. My kids’ lives are in danger.” She pointed her right index finger at his chest, jabbing for punctuation. “You go on offense right now. Find out who these bastards are and take it to them. No excuses. That’s what Pop would do. That’s what Pop would expect you to do. He would expect you to make things right. And it seems to me that means making absolutely sure that the people responsible for all of this can never do it again.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CRYSTAL CITY, VIRGINIA
JULY 14 • 10:15 A.M. EDT
The morning haze didn’t burn off until well past nine. The forecast promised temperatures in the mid- to upper nineties, with oppressive humidity. The sidewalks were nearly empty and the traffic sparse. It was a slow, lazy Sunday morning in July in Washington, D.C.
Olivia Perry was scouring the classified briefing materials from the National Counterproliferation Center regarding US WMD protocols. Before leaving Brandt the previous evening, she had asked him to call the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and request any information he could provide on US efforts to contain the spread of weapons of mass destruction and any information available on an individual by the name of Michael Garin.
Olivia’s only concession to its being a Sunday morning was her casual attire and her decision to work from home. She wore a pair of white cotton running shorts and a tank top and sat on a cushioned deck chair on the small balcony of her apartment overlooking the Pentagon. A cup of espresso sat on a circular coffee table next to her laptop and a manila file folder.
The requested information had arrived by courier at Olivia’s apartment in Crystal City shortly after eight A.M. It consisted of a CD and a thin manila folder. The CD contained the material on WMDs. The folder contained information about Michael Garin.
Olivia hadn’t expected that the information the DNI sent over would be anything more than generic, open-source information. She wasn’t disappointed. Most, if not all, of the data could’ve been obtained through a diligent Internet search.
Still, the material saved Olivia a considerable amount of research time, and given Brandt’s desire to get as much information as quickly as possible, it was a useful starting point.
Olivia began by reviewing the WMD data on the CD. She was already familiar with much of it. SEAL Team Six—DEVGRU—based in Dam Neck, Virginia, was trained in WMD. As was Delta Force. No mention was made of any WMD task force assigned to destroy or otherwise compromise the WMD programs of rogue nations and terrorists. No mention was made of anyone named Michael Garin or Thomas Lofton. Olivia would have thought it a spectacular breach of security if there had been.
The only references to the destruction of WMD programs was a file on the CD that consisted of publicly known or suspected WMD programs that had been delayed or destroyed by deception or force. The majority of these, unsurprisingly, related to actions taken by Israel against some of its neighbors. A nation faced with existential threats didn’t have the luxury of engaging in detached deliberation about the pros and cons of destroying a murderous dictator’s nuclear weapons program. Among the actions were the bombing of Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1982, the bombing of Syria’s al-Kibar nuclear reactor in 2006, and several acts of sabotage against Iranian nuclear facilities in the last several years. It was widely rumored that the attacks on the Syrian and Iranian programs had been accomplished with American assistance, but there was no evidence confirming such rumors.
After Olivia completed a review of the data on the CD, she opened the file on Garin. The contents were so sparse as to be mildly amusing. Had Olivia not been informed by the president’s national security advisor that Garin led an elite team of operators tasked with destroying renegade WMD programs, the file would’ve caused her to think Garin was nothing more than an honorably discharged veteran with six years of service in the US Navy. In fact, it appeared from the file that Garin’s last military or government service ended nearly ten years ago.
According to his file, Garin had enlisted in the Navy at age twenty. He had been stationed at several bases, including Coronado, California, where he had gone through BUD/S and SEAL Qualification Training as a member of Class 226. He didn’t become a SEAL, having failed to complete the course. He was discharged sometime thereafter. That, and a three-by-five black-and-white file photo, constituted the complete official record of Michael A. Garin’s service to his country.
The file was practically useless. Sitting back in her chair, Olivia gazed at the Air Force Memorial in the distance and plotted her next move. She wasn’t a private investigator and Brandt hadn’t charged her with acting as one. She had suggested to Brandt that he simply requisition Garin’s entire file, but he dismissed the idea as unproductive. Even if he knew what agency Garin worked for, without presidential clearance all he was likely to get back would be a heavily redacted, compartmentalized file. And Brandt wasn’t inclined to go to the president’s bedside at Walter Reed and pester him for the file of some GS-14 who might be able to shed some light on the not-unexpected cooperation between Russia and Iran on a resolution condemning Israel. Afterward, Brandt, sensing that Olivia felt chastened by her naïveté, apologized and reassured her that he, too, was struggling with the ways of Washington bureaucracy.
Olivia decided to follow up on Garin’s tenure in BUD/S and SQT. Since that was the beginning of his special operations training, and since he evidently was still in some form of special operations, she thought it could be fruitful to explore any connections between Garin’s SEAL training and his current occupation. She planned to start with finding out who the instructors for Class 226 had been. Maybe one or more of them still had a relationship with Garin.
But first, Olivia decided to try something easy. She Googled him. It took her ten minutes of scrolling through hundreds of dead ends before she linked to a fifteen-year-old article in The Cornell Daily Sun. It was a sports-section report on the Cornell football team’s 21–17 victory over Yale. A free safety by the name of Mike Garin had returned two interceptions for touchdowns, including the game winner. She scrolled to the bottom of the piece, where there were a series of game-related photos including one of a Cornell player standing next to a stocky, tough-looking man who appeared to be in his mid- to late sixties. The caption read “Big Red Star Congratulated by Biggest Fan.”
Because the player in the photo was wearing a helmet, Olivia couldn’t be sure if Mike Garin, Cornell football player, was Mike Garin, special operator. She hit the link under the player’s name and a few seconds later a page of statistics and honors appeared. This Garin was six foot two inches, 210 pounds, and had been honorable-mention all-American, as well as all-Ivy. Olivia knew enough about football to recognize that it was uncommon for an Ivy Leaguer to be named an all-American—even an honorable mention. She thought it even more uncommon, however, for an Ivy Leaguer to be a lethal commando.
At the bottom of the page it showed that Cornell’s Garin was from Cleveland, Ohio.
She hit the link under Cleveland and more honors appeared—this time from high school. By his senior year, Garin had been a second-team high school all-American in football and small school division state four-hundred-meter champion in track.
Her father having played at Alabama, Olivia knew full well that high school all-Americans generally got scholarship offers from major powers such as Alabama, Ohio State, and USC. It was unusual for someone like that to end up at an Ivy League school with its rigorous academic requirements and lack of athletic scholarships. This Garin, whether or not
he’d gone on to become the special operator Garin, was a peculiar specimen.
Olivia went to the bottom of the page, where there was a grainy photo of a taciturn high school football player standing beneath goal-posts on a football field. Olivia took out the photo from Garin’s file and placed it next to the photo on the computer screen. Both subjects had black hair, although the adult Garin’s was short and the high schooler’s was long and curly. Both had angular features and pugilistic jaws. But it was the intense, purposeful look in their eyes that convinced Olivia that the two Garins were almost certainly the same. It was a look uncommon for the Ivy League elite. It was, thought Olivia, the rather chilling look of a man capable of taking another man’s life.
Olivia spent another half an hour looking for more information on Garin before returning to the Cornell Daily Sun article. She reread the article carefully for anything she might have missed. She then went to the link for Garin’s college stats and to his high school stats. Olivia noticed that she had missed the link underscoring the term “all-American.”
She clicked on the link and was directed to an article from The Plain Dealer describing the recruitment of area high school stars by various college programs. She read the paragraph that mentioned Garin:
After receiving offers from a number of programs, including Ohio State University, Michigan, and Notre Dame, the Blue Devils’ Mike Garin narrowed his choice to the Naval Academy and Cornell, before ultimately choosing the latter. “We were really disappointed,” said the Academy’s Dan Dwyer, who had recruited Garin heavily, “but we wish Mike the best of luck. He’s going to be a fine college player.”
There was nothing more about Garin in the story. Olivia got out of the chair and stretched. Standing with her hands on her hips, she looked down at the computer screen and contemplated taking a short break before running down the instructors for Garin’s BUD/S and SEAL Qualification Training classes. That would take a lot of time, she thought, and even then she might not get anything more useful than what she had just learned on the Internet.
She decided that she should call Brandt and give him a heads-up that progress on the assignment was slow and she was skeptical of finding any substantive information on Garin. The Cornell Daily Sun article was fifteen years old, the Plain Dealer article even older. And any information gleaned from Garin’s BUD/S instructors would probably be more than a decade old. Olivia opened the sliding glass door and stepped from the sweltering July heat into the air-conditioned kitchen. She poured herself another cup of espresso and searched for her cell phone, which, miraculously, was in the first place she looked. She punched the speed dial for Brandt. It rang twice before she abruptly disconnected and placed the phone down on the kitchen counter next to a stack of the last week’s editions of The Washington Post.
Olivia stared at the newspaper as if trying to remember where she had put her keys. A few moments later she walked back onto the balcony and looked at the laptop screen, which still displayed the Plain Dealer article. “‘We were really disappointed,’ said the Academy’s Dan Dwyer . . .”
Olivia hurried back inside and rifled through the stack of newspapers until she came to Thursday’s edition. She opened the first section and leafed through the pages before stopping at page five. There, at the top of the page, was a story titled “President of DGT to testify Monday before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.” Olivia traced her index finger down the column until it rested on the phrase “DGT president Dan Dwyer, a former Navy SEAL, maintains that the company’s contracts with the Defense Department—” Olivia’s cell phone interrupted. The caller identification indicated it was Brandt.
“Olivia, I understand that you called.”
“Professor, let me call you back in an hour. I’ve got to talk to a man about a SEAL.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
NORTHEAST OHIO
JULY 14 • 1:22 P.M. EDT
Garin stood in the pantry of the bunker, sipping his second cup of strong black coffee and waiting for the caffeine to work its magic. He’d spent much of the night thinking about what was happening and who was behind it. When he had finally crawled into his sleeping bag, he had planned on taking a brief nap before heading to upstate New York in the morning, but the effects of the Pakistan op and the previous day’s events conspired to keep him asleep past noon, and when he rose, he was much stiffer than he’d been the day before.
The rest, however, was beneficial. His energy level was good and his mind clear. Joe had recommended that Garin use the old Burns family farm in Spencer, New York, as his base of operations. Joe had grown up there, but after his parents died, he and his four siblings, who had dispersed across the country, used it only occasionally as a family vacation home. Because the property had been held in trust under the name Craigy-Creek Farms for nearly two decades after probate of their parents’ estate, there was no paper trail connecting the place to the Burnses. They allowed a local farmer, an old family friend, to grow corn on a portion of the land in return for performing the odd maintenance job. Since Garin had no connection to the place, no one, including the FBI, would ever think to look for him there. Garin decided it was perfect.
Katy came into the pantry and gave him a bear hug. She seemed in good spirits given the circumstances.
“Michael, you gotta tell me, how in the world did you build this place? I mean, setting aside the whole idea that anyone would ever need something like this, it’s amazing you did it by yourself.”
“I didn’t.”
Katy looked slightly puzzled. “But I thought you told Joe that no one knows about it.”
“No one does.”
“Okay, wise guy, stop it.”
“Pop helped me. More accurately, I helped Pop. He worked on it almost nonstop for nearly two years. I helped him when I could between deployments. The cabin above already had a cellar. We made it a little larger and Pop did most of the rest. He finished it less than a year before he died.”
Katy had a faint smile of wonderment on her face. “I saw him every day. I would go over to the house to fix sandwiches, his favorite soups, do laundry. I had no idea. He never said a thing.”
“I guess when you go through the kinds of things he went through, you know how to keep things to yourself. In many respects, this place was his idea. My old boss used to say guys like us needed to be able to disappear at a moment’s notice. But he was talking about holing up in some fleabag motel in Tangier or Bangkok. Pop said if people can see you—even people who don’t know you—your enemies can and will find you.”
Katy shook her head, still trying to comprehend how her grandfather could have kept a project like this secret from her. “That tough old SOB. So when he died, no one else besides you knew the place existed.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I ever expected to use it. It was more a security blanket than anything else. I’d come up here every once in a while—usually when I was in town to visit you—and do a little upkeep. But it was mainly out of respect for all the work Pop put into it, not because I actually thought I had to keep it ready for action.”
Garin led Katy back into the main room, where Joe and the kids were wrestling on the floor. Upon seeing Uncle Mike, the kids ran over and performed their ritual of hugging his legs.
“Before I go, just a few things you should know. The temperature stays pretty constant, but if you need to run some fresh air through, just turn on the air for a few minutes, preferably at night. The exhaust is under the porch so no one should see it, but don’t take any chances.”
Joe held up his hands. “Mike, not going outside is going to be tough, especially for the kids.”
“I know, but people do it all the time—subs, air raid shelters. That doesn’t make it any easier, but you’ll adjust. Now, if you feel you absolutely must get out or you’ll kill each other, do it at dusk. The park closes at nine P.M. Heck, I’ve never seen anyone anywhere near this p
lace, but to be safe, we have to presume someone is looking for us in the park and that they’re using all of the resources at their disposal. Thermal, drones, nightscopes, the works.”
“Thermal? Drones? Are you serious?” Joe sounded incredulous.
Garin chose his words carefully in front of the kids. “Taking out my team was the work of extremely serious, sophisticated people who are involved in something extremely big. They will spare no resource.”
For the first time since last night, both Katy and Joe had worried looks on their faces, as the gravity of the situation continued to sink in. Garin tried to reassure them.
“Look, I’m not without resources either, and they’re very good. When I get to Spencer, I’ll begin putting them in motion. I know you don’t think it can be done in a few days, but believe me, it can.
“Joe, in the locker I showed you last night there’s a bunch of cell phones with prepaid minutes. Don’t use them unless you’ve been discovered. Don’t even turn them on. They’re programmed to call only one number. That number will bounce the call all over before relaying it to me. Wherever I am in the world, you’ll be able to reach me.”
“But what if you need to reach us?” Joe asked.
Garin thought for a moment. “Turn on the phone for five minutes at six A.M. every day. If I need to reach you, I’ll call then. You know what, I’ll call then anyway just to check in. Otherwise keep the phone off unless you must call me.”
“What if you don’t call at six?”
Garin remained silent. Joe understood.
Garin bent down to hug the kids good-bye and then gave Katy a kiss. He shook Joe’s hand and, before climbing up the stairs, whispered, “I know you’ll take care of my sister and the kids, Sergeant Major. Just try not to scare the living hell out of the bad guys.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Target Omega Page 10
