State of the Union

by Brad Thor

  H arvath and Herman drove through the Schöneberg district once again, though Herman made sure to steer well clear of all of the police activity near the Goltzstrasse. They passed the Rathaus Schöneberg, which Harvath recognized as the site of Kennedy’s famousIch bin ein Berliner speech, and when they finally reached Mansteinstrasse, they turned left and found a parking space. The minute Harvath laid his eyes on the Leydicke Pub at number 4 Mansteinstrasse, he knew why Gary Lawlor had chosen it.

  It was in a relatively quiet neighborhood with easy access to public transportation. Though it might attract some tourists, by and large its clientele was going to be regulars, which made picking out anyone who didn’t belong there a lot easier. The pub was close enough to the safe house to be easy to get to, yet far enough away so that when coming or going, you had plenty of time to make sure you weren’t being followed. Scot saw a sign outside proclaiming that the bar had been operated by the Leydicke family for over one hundred years. If Gary Lawlor and Frank Leighton had patronized this bar often enough to get their own steins, chances were very good that somebody in the family was going to remember them. Harvath’s real hope was that one of those memories would be a recent one.

  The Leydicke was a traditional German drinking establishment, known as aKneipe , with lots of carved wood and heavy oak tables. There was a distillery on the premises, and in addition to a wide variety of beers, the Leydicke offered a superb selection of sweet wines and liquors. They looked to be the only people in the place and easily found an empty table. As they sat down in the semi darkness of the dimly lit bar, it felt like they had stepped back in time. For ambiance alone, Harvath would have given it five stars, but he wasn’t writing a review, he was here for information.

  When a waitress failed to arrive and take their order, Herman suggested they go up to the bar.

  “Ich möchte gerne zwei Bier, bitte,” said Scot when they got there.

  “Big or small?” responded the barman in English, picking up on Harvath’s American accent and the fact that he asked so politely, unlike a local who would have simply said, “zwei Bier, bitte.” The man was short, about five foot four with a large stomach that hung over his white apron. His wire rimmed glasses rested upon a rather bulbous nose, which stood guard over a thick and unkempt mustache. He was easily in his late sixties, if not older, and balding.

  “Big, I guess,” replied Harvath.

  “We’re closing, so you get small,” said the barman.

  “So much for German hospitality,” responded Harvath under his breath. Herman just rolled his eyes.

  When the bartender placed their small beers in front of them, Scot withdrew a picture taken of him along with Gary Lawlor at one of Gary’s summer barbeques and handed it across the bar. “Look familiar?”

  Before the man could say anything, Harvath caught the slightest hint of recognition on the man’s face, which he quickly masked.

  “Nein,” he said, handing the photo back.

  “You’ve never seen the man standing next to me in that photo?” asked Harvath.

  “Nein.”

  There it was again. The tell. Most people would have missed it, but his Secret Service training to detect what scientists referred to as microexpressions, the subtle and almost imperceptible facial cues that subjects unknowingly give off when they are not telling the truth, made it clear to Harvath that the man was lying.

  “Maybe we could talk to one of the managers?”

  “There is no manager here.”

  “Well what about one of the family members? One of the owners?”

  “I am Hellfried Leydicke, the head of the family and the owner of this bar.”

  “Maybe you should look at the photo again,” said Harvath as his eye was drawn to one of the shelves behind the bar, above the liquor bottles. “This man was a pretty good customer of yours a long time ago.”

  “I am sorry, but I do not know him. Please finish your beers, the bar is now closed.”

  Herman shook his head. “No large beersand no information.”

  “Herr Leydicke,” interjected Harvath. “This man’s name is Gary Lawlor. He’s a very good friend of mine and he’s in a lot of trouble. I came a long way to help him. Look at the photo once more.”

  “I don’t need to see the photo again,” commanded Leydicke, “You need to go.”

  Scot gestured to Herman and then pointed behind the bar. “See that beer stein up there? The one with the barbed wire?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do me a favor and get it down. I think it might help jog Herr Leydicke’s memory.”

  Herman leaned over the bar, reached up, and grabbed the mug.

  Having explained Gary’s Berlin connection to Herman on the drive over, Harvath said, “Flip it over. Gary’s team consisted of twelve guys. Each man was given a custom-made mug just like that one. On the bottom was a number out of twelve. What does Herr Leydicke’s have?”

  “Zero out of twelve.”

  “That seems fitting enough as he wasn’t actually an official team member. But you were a member of the family, so to speak, weren’t you? Those men spent a lot of time in here, didn’t they?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Those steins are simple tourist items,” replied Leydicke.

  “Really?” said Harvath remembering what Defense Secretary Hilliman had told him toward the end of their meeting when he remarked on how Gary and Frank Leighton had the same numbered beer steins in their houses. “Because they way I heard it, the team members had all taken turns sneaking up onto the wall at night to snip their own authentic piece of history. How’d you get the barbed wire on your mug? Did you slip on your night vision goggles one evening and scale the wall praying that the East German border guards wouldn’t see you and open fire? Something tells me you didn’t. Somebody else risked their life to get it for you. On the back of the mug where it talks aboutFür die Sicherheit , For the Security, that was their unit motto. What security did you help to protect?”

  Leydicke was silent. Harvath knew he had hit the nail right on the head. “Listen,” he continued, “we need to talk. Most of those men you knew are dead, and not from old age either. Someone has killed them. There are only two left and I don’t want to see anything happen to them.”

  After several moments, Leydicke relented and said, “Let me lock up and we’ll talk.”

  The bar closed for the evening, Hellfried Leydicke set a tray of food along with threelarge Bären Pils beers on the table in his office.

  “I don’t understand any of this,” said Harvath as he reached for one of the beers. “Gary just arrived on your doorstep two days ago, dropped his bags and said he’d be back in a little while? That was it?”

  “More or less,” responded Leydicke. “We hadn’t seen each other in years, but I could tell that something was wrong.”

  “Why is that?”

  “After all this time, he didn’t ask any questions about the family, how business had been—you know, no chitchat.”

  “Did he say anything at all about what he was up to or where he was going?”

  “No, he simply asked if he could leave his bag here and that he was going to be back later.”

  “But he never came back?” asked Harvath.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  Scot set his beer down and began to look through Gary Lawlor’s suitcase. After several moments, he pulled a sleek black device that looked like the old Apple PDA known as the Newton out of the bag.

  “What’s that?” asked Herman.

  “It looks like an oversized handheld computer,” replied Harvath, flipping open the cover and powering it up. “One of the early ones from the eighties.”

  “Your friend doesn’t keep too up-to-date on his technology, does he?”

  “No, he doesn’t. In fact he hates computers. He always gives me shit for the Ipaq I carry. He says that if it ever goes on the fritz, I’ll be screwed. He never would have owned something like this. He still carries around a paper
Day-Timer scheduler. It’s as thick as a phone book. This PDA doesn’t fit his personality.”

  “Have you looked through the programs on it? Anything interesting?”

  “Not really,” said Harvath as he scrolled through. “He’s got a contact database—”

  “Any listings in Berlin?”

  “None that I can see. The appointments, the To Do list—they’re all pretty innocuous,” he answered, convinced now more than ever that the PDA was something other than it appeared.”

  “It must have been part of his cover,” said Herman.

  Harvath powered down the unit and asked Leydicke, “Has Gary gotten any deliveries here, Hellfried? Maybe somebody stopped by looking for him?”

  “Nobody has been here looking for him,” replied Leydicke, “but there have been a few phone calls over the last two days.”

  “Phone calls?” said Harvath. “From whom?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did the person say?”

  “It was a code, something the team used to use years ago,” he answered. “For security reasons, there were never supposed to be more than four of them in the same public place at one time, but they always disregarded the rule and came here to drink together. If they wanted to know if any of their teammates were in the bar, they would call up and ask if Alice was here. Like in the song.”

  “You mean as in, ‘Alice? Alice? Who the f—’ ” began Herman.

  “Yes,” said Leydicke, cutting him off. “The Smokie song from the seventies.”

  “I don’t get it,” replied Harvath. “What’s this song?”

  “It was originally a polka tune, but it got remade as a pop song,” said Herman. “After the singer sings, ‘ ’cause for twenty-four years I’ve been living next door to Alice,’ everybody in the bar, the nightclub, wherever, would respond, ‘Alice? Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?’ Even if you were alone in your car, you still shouted it out.”

  “It was a popular joke at the time,” added Hellfried. “If none of the guys were here and someone called and asked for Alice, I’d say Alice doesn’t live here anymore. And if any of the guys were here, I’d answer—”

  “Alice? Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?” said Herman with a smile, obviously anxious to finish the phrase.

  “Cute,” said Harvath. “What does this have to do with these phone calls for Gary?”

  “That’s just it,” said Leydicke. “After his team was sent back to the States, I never received anymore calls like that. It was their special code. Now all of a sudden, I’m getting several calls a day asking for Alice.”

  “Are the calls from different people?” asked Harvath.

  “No the same man,” said Leydicke.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “At first, I told him Alice didn’t live here anymore. Then when Gary dropped off his bags, the next time I got the call I said Alice had gone out and should be back soon.”

  “Can you tell if the calls are local or long distance?”

  “With the German phone system, you never know, but I don’t think they originated inside Berlin.”

  “Why not?”

  “There was a pause on the line.”

  “You mean like a delay?”

  “Yes, a delay.”

  “So, there’s a delay and it’s the same person calling you. Did you recognize the voice? Could it be one of the team guys?”

  “According to you,” answered Leydicke, “all but two of the team members are dead. So if Gary’s alive, who would that leave?”

  “Frank Leighton,” said Harvath. “Is it his voice?”

  Leydicke paused a moment as he tried to remember his old customer. “It could be, but it has been a very long time.”

  “When does he usually call?”

  “It varies.”

  “There must be some pattern to it. He would know that somebody from his team would be here at a set time if he needed to call in.”

  Leydicke smoothed down the few loose strands of hair on his bald pate and thought about it a moment. “It was strange to hear a call like that after all these years. At first, I thought it was one of the old guys making a joke, but when I tried to talk to him, he just hung up.”

  “Do you always answer the phone here?”

  “Of course I do. It’s my bar.”

  “Okay. Now I need you to think. Is there any pattern to when the calls come in?”

  “No,” said Leydicke. “Except—”

  “Exceptwhat?” prompted Harvath.

  “There seems to be one last one in the evening. He’ll call right as we’re about to close.”

  “And what time do you normally close?”

  “In about half an hour.”

  “Good,” said Harvath. “That gives us just enough time to get ready.”

  Chapter 23

  H arvath knew it was Frank Leighton on the other end of the line when Leydicke responded to the caller’s inquiry with, “Alice? Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?” and then handed the phone to him. The next several seconds were going to be very tricky and though he had spent the last half hour trying to figure out what to say, Harvath needed to tread very carefully. For all intents and purposes, Leighton was quite literally a walking time bomb. The last thing the United States needed was for that bomb to go off before they were ready.

  “Mr. Saritsa,” said Harvath, using Leighton’s alias, “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I have a message from Goaltender. He needs you to hold. I repeat. He needs you to hold.”

  “Who is this?” said Frank Leighton after a brief pause.

  “For the moment, you can call me Norseman,” replied Harvath using the call sign that he had acquired in the SEALs and which had followed him through the Secret Service. It had been given to him not so much because he looked like a Viking, though he was as ferocious a fighter, but rather because of a string of Scandinavian flight attendants he had dated during his SEAL days. “You need to listen me. The person who should have taken this call has gone missing. Goaltender sent me to find him. Until I do, you need to remain in place.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because there’s been a death in Alice’s family. In fact, most of the family has tragically passed on. Do you understand what I am saying? You’re the only one left who can run the family business. In memory of Alice, we’d like to put some people in place at some of her other offices, but it is going to take a little time to do that.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “Not much.”

  “If you are who you say you are, you’ll know how to execute the emergency contact plan. You’ve got twenty-four hours, or else I roll,” said Leighton, who then promptly hung up.

  Harvath handed the phone back to Leydicke. He knew Leighton wouldn’t call back. As he sat back in his chair and massaged his temples, he wondered how the hell he was going to figure out what the emergency contact plan was between Gary and his operatives.

  “So?” asked Herman. “How’d it go?”

  “Just great. We’ve got a whole twenty-four hours.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that, is after that. Let’s focus on what’s in front of us now,” said Harvath, concerned that he may just have pushed Leighton beyond recall.

  Herman was about to make a comment when his cell phone rang. “Ja?” he answered after flipping it open. He talked back and forth with someone for several moments. Looking at his watch he said, “in eine halbe Stunde,” then closed the phone and put it back in his pocket.

  “What’s up?” asked Harvath.

  “That was Sebastian.”

  “Did he and Max get the footage?”

  “Yes, we’re supposed to meet them in a half hour,” said Herman, standing up from his chair.

  After gathering up Gary Lawlor’s suitcase and PDA, Scot and Herman followed Leydicke to the front of the bar where he unlocked the door, shook their hands and watched the two men disappear into a steadily falling snow.


  The oddly named Küss (Kiss) Film und Video Produktion company was located in an old derelict warehouse building in a rather seedy and run-down section of the former East Berlin. Herman found a parking spot a few spaces away from the entrance and he and Harvath walked up to a reinforced security door where Herman rang the intercom. A voice over the speaker responded, “Wer ist da?” Herman identified himself and a buzzer sounded as the door’s automatic lock released.

  Harvath followed Herman inside past numerous wooden pallets stacked high with large cardboard boxes emblazoned with the company’s not so subtle logo—a glossy pair of red lips pursed in a kiss. He noticed conveyor belts with shrink wrapping machines and off on the other side of the beat-up warehouse, transparent pneumatic doors leading into a pristine clean room with racks of video duplicating equipment. He also had counted no less than seven security cameras since they had walked through the front door.

  “Where the hell are we?” asked Harvath as he and Herman approached a large, padded door at the rear of the warehouse. It was covered in deep, red leather and studded with brilliant chrome rivets.

  “I’ll let Max explain. This is his friend’s business,” said Herman as they opened the door and stepped into an opulent lobby area that stood in stark contrast to the warehouse behind them. The floors were covered in black marble that was so highly polished it shone like a mirror. Hanging on the wall behind a granite receptionist’s station was the company’s logo done up in bright neon. A low-slung, brushed aluminum table fronted an opulent white leather sectional, and when Harvath caught sight of a series of framed movie posters on the wall, his suspicions of what kind of films and videos the company produced were all but confirmed.

  He was about to say something to Herman when Max appeared from the adjacent corridor and called them over.

  “Max, what the hell is this place? Peter’s Porn Emporium?” asked Harvath.

  “Actually,” said Max, “it’s Marc’s Porn Emporium. Better known as Küss Film und—”

  “Video Produktion,” interrupted Harvath. “I know. I saw the sign. The lips are a nice touch. What the hell are we doing here?”