State of the Union

by Brad Thor

  He instructed a team of firefighters to get as much water on the car as possible. If the license plates couldn’t be salvaged, he wanted the VIN number, and he wanted it within the next five minutes.

  The firefighters had the VIN number for him in three. They were glad that’s all he wanted. Everything else was burned beyond recognition.

  Harvath asked the Fairfax police chief to run it. In the meantime, SIOC called Harvath with the latest update on the sleeper arrests. The evidence techs had been instructed to make lists of everything, no matter how insignificant, and to run those lists against what the other field agents were finding.

  They had come up with two commonalities, neither of which made very much sense. The first, was that each of the sleepers was carrying two portable hydraulic jacks with jack stands in the trunks of their cars and the second, was that in the last twenty-four hours, each sleeper had purchased flowers. Harvath put the controllers at SIOC on hold while he explained the latest development to Alexandra, only to find she was just as confused as he was. The jacks might have something to do with how heavy the devices were, but why would you need two of them, and what the hell could flowers possibly have to do with what they were up to?

  Harvath told SIOC they would get back to them and ended the call. He and Alexandra were still wondering aloud what the flower connection might be when the Fairfax police chief returned with a positive ID on the car sitting smoking in the driveway. He thanked the chief and then turned toward the backyard and yelled for DeWolfe.

  The communications expert came limping up on his damaged ankle and asked, “What’s up?”

  “We’ve got a positive ID on the car in the driveway. It’s a Dollar Rent-A-Car out of Dulles from two days ago.”

  “You want to know who rented it?”

  “No,” said Harvath. “I’ve got a pretty good idea who rented it. I want to know where it’s been.”

  DeWolfe was wiped out. He looked from Alexandra to Scot and in all sincerity said, “How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

  Harvath could read not only the pain from his injury, but also the stress that was written across the man’s face and replied, “When I was training with the Secret Service before I moved to the White House, I worked a counterfeiting case where some Colombian was bringing bogus fifties and hundreds into the country. The bills were almost perfect. He’d even run them through his clothes dryer at home along with a couple of hundred poker chips to give them just the right look. We were going crazy trying to nail him. He wasn’t considered a very big fish by the higher-ups, and therefore the amount of resources allocated to the case were less than what we would have liked to have seen.”

  “But you found a way to pop him anyway, didn’t you?” said DeWolfe.

  Harvath smiled and replied, “There’s something about flying into Miami International that automatically makes people forget about everything else. I don’t know if it’s the sea breeze, the palm trees, the beautiful women, or what, but this guy cleared passport control, then customs, and went outside and boarded one of the Thrifty buses to go get his big fancy four-door rental car.”

  “So? What does any of that have to do with this car here?”

  Harvath was still smiling as he responded, “Thrifty and Dollar both use the same company for fleet management.”

  “What the hell is fleet management?”

  “Something so innocuous sounding that they’ve been able to post it on top of their rental agreements for the last several years without anybody asking any questions.”

  “I still have no idea what it is.”

  “A Canadian company called Air IQ has contracts with rental car companies to install transmitters, like LoJacks, which allows all the movements of all the cars in their fleets to be tracked via satellite.”

  Suddenly, DeWolfe was with the program. “Are you telling me that Dollar knows where this car has been?”

  “Not Dollar,” responded Harvath, “but Air IQ. I need you to get a hold of them, give them the VIN number and find out everything you can about where this car has been in the last two days.”

  Chapter 55

  A graveyard?” said Harvath.

  DeWolfe scanned through the printout that had been faxed to one of Fairfax patrol cars. “That’s what it says here. Two visits to Congressional Cemetery over the past two nights.”

  “How’d he get a car in there at night? Don’t they close the gates?”

  “I asked one of the SIOC guys about that and he told me that the place is open around the clock.”

  “What about security?”

  “Nonexistent.”

  “And dead men tell no tales,” said Harvath as the pieces began to come together. Congressional Cemetery was only about three miles from the White House and half that distance from the Capitol. In fact, every major city the Russians had put sleepers in probably had some sort of cemetery close to its most populated area. Suddenly, the sleepers buying flowers didn’t seem so strange anymore. “I want the exact coordinates of where that car was parked. Have the NEST team ready to move and get SIOC to pull some real time thermal imaging of the cemetery from the National Reconnaissance Office.”

  “TheNRO ? Why not use the HRT bird?” asked DeWolfe. “It has second generation FLIR and can be over the target area in less than fifteen minutes.”

  “No. No helicopters. Tell SIOC it has to be satellite. If Draegar’s there, I don’t want him to have any clue that we’re coming. He’s switched cars now, which means he’s being even more careful. Find out the make, model, color—everything about the car Patrick drove—and put out an APB. If anyone sees it, they call it into SIOC, but under no circumstances are they to try to stop it. Got it?”

  “Got it. What are you going to do?”

  “I’ve got a score to settle for an old friend.”

  As the MH-6 Little Bird helicopter raced them due east for the Anacostia Naval Station, Harvath explained that Congressional Cemetery got its name not because one necessarily had to be a member of Congress to be buried there, but rather because of its proximity to the Capitol and the government’s frequent use of it over the last two hundred years.

  Alexandra was not completely unfamiliar with the Congressional Cemetery and made mention of the fact that the gravesite of former FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover had been a favorite clandestine meeting spot for KGB operatives throughout the seventies and eighties. As interesting as that fact was, Harvath had a feeling they weren’t going to find Draegar just leaning against Hoover’s tombstone.

  Landing at Anacostia, Harvath received word that the NRO satellite had failed to locate any human heat signatures in the cemetery. They did, though, pick up a warm car engine not too far from where Air IQ had placed Draegar’s rental over the last two nights.

  When Harvath asked if the engine was running, he was told that it wasn’t. In fact, it was in the process of cooling down. That could only mean one of two things. Either Draegar had ditched this car as well and was nowhere near the cemetery, or he had settled in and it was just a matter of finding him. But where could he be hiding? Short of joining the permanent residents, there weren’t that many places in a graveyard where the NRO’s sophisticated, high-tech equipment wouldn’t be able to pick up his heat signature.

  The Anacostia Naval Station was three miles downriver from the Congressional Cemetery, and Harvath had been serious about keeping any unnecessary helicopters away from the area. Of course, with the State of the Union address less than two hours away, the skies were being heavily patrolled, but buzzing the graveyard would only have served to tip their hand. The best way in was by water.

  Because of his bad ankle, DeWolfe was forced to sit this one out. Everybody else, though, was onboard, their minor injuries all but forgotten as they focused on what lay ahead.

  The fifteen-foot black Zodiac combat rubber raiding craft was ready and waiting for them as they made their way down to the river. Harvath and the rest of the team checked their weapons and their communications ge
ar one last time before pushing off. If anything needed fixing or replacing, now was the time to do it. Once they were underway, there was no turning back, not for anything.

  The silenced outboard drove the heavily reinforced, inflatable craft quickly up the Anacostia. They beached the boat just under the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge, and covered the rest of the distance on foot.

  Based on maps of the cemetery, it had been decided that the best entry point would be over the south wall. Harvath radioed SIOC for a final Sit Rep off the satellite before they went in. “Negative,” came back the voice from SIOC. “The graveyard is still cold.”

  No kidding, thought Harvath as he took a deep breath before scaling the wall.

  Once on the other side, the team fanned out behind the sea of headstones and Harvath pulled out his map of the cemetery. It was based on a grid system corresponding to range values and site numbers. Though he would have preferred GPS coordinates, it was nevertheless a fairly decent map. The tiny thoroughfares were well indicated and it wasn’t difficult to place their current position in relation to their objective—a series of family vaults on what the cemetery referred to as “Mausoleum Row.”

  It had been decided that Harvath and Alexandra would check out Mausoleum Row, while Morrell, Avigliano, and Carlson went to investigate the nearby car, which was parked unusually close to the grave of J. Edgar Hoover.

  The team split up and Harvath and Alexandra cut across a wide, grassy expanse. As they passed, the headstones glowed a ghostly greenish-white through their night-vision goggles. They hugged the side of a small road until they reached the first intersection, and Mausoleum Row.

  The vaults were built into a small hill with regular graves just above and behind them. Harvath was about to try the first iron door when he noticed the second mausoleum’s door was slightly ajar. He traded Alexandra the Beretta carbine for the pistol, which was much more suited for going into such a tight space, and had her stand guard outside.

  He listened at the door for several seconds until all he could hear was the pounding of his own heart as the blood rushed in and out of his ears. Harvath grabbed hold of the door with his free hand, and slowly pulled it back, praying there wouldn’t be any loud squeal of metal on metal that would give them away.

  The old door cooperated and didn’t make a sound. It effortlessly swung back as if on freshly oiled hinges. As Harvath stepped inside, he suddenly realized what the jacks in the trunks of the sleepers’ cars had been for. Still secured upon their stands, two hydraulic jacks balanced a marble faceplate easily weighing three or four hundred pounds. Harvath maneuvered around the heavy piece of marble and found a stone bench behind it, which he stood upon to look into the open crypt halfway up the wall.

  Instead of a coffin, the crypt contained a sophisticated communications array. It appeared he had discovered how Draegar planned on communicating with the sleepers. By now he would know they had been picked up and would be one desperate man.

  Harvath wanted Alexandra to see what he was seeing and engaged his throat mike, but there was no response. He was about to try one more time when he heard what he knew in the marrow of his bones was a grenade being rolled into the vault. Without thinking twice, he dropped onto the stone bench behind the faceplate, opened his mouth, closed his eyes, pushed his fingers as far as far as he could into his ears and curled into the tightest fetal position a man had ever attempted.

  Harvath had worked with demolitions before, but never in his life had he been so close to such an overwhelming explosion. Despite his desire to keep his mouth open to help equalize the pressure, he bit down so hard he thought for sure he had cracked all of his teeth. The pain of the blast was so intense it felt as if a hand had reached up inside him and was flattening all of his organs. And as for deadening the sound by plugging his ears, he was confident that even Quasimodo himself had never experienced the ringing he was now host to.

  As the initial shock of sharing a broom closet with a hand grenade began to recede, Harvath assessed the rest of his situation. The marble faceplate had absorbed most of the grenade’s blast and it now lay on the floor in several pieces. The walls of the mausoleum hadn’t fared much better and were charred and pitted by shrapnel.

  The ringing in his ears from the grenade was slowly replaced by the ringing of the words of the FBI’s director who asked Harvath what he was prepared to do if Alexandra Ivanova tried to run. How could he have been so wrong about her? Though his reply to the Director had been simple and to the point, right now putting a bullet in Alexandra Ivanova was a somewhat distant second to what he had been sent here to do.

  The mausoleum door had been closed, but not locked and Harvath quietly pushed it open. Knowing that Alexandra still had her radio, he ignored Rick Morrell’s repeated hailings demanding to know what his situation was, and maintained complete radio silence.

  He knew that Morrell, Avigliano and Carlson would eventually come and investigate the source of the explosion they had heard and as Harvath pressed himself up against the cold stone façade of the mausoleum, he started off into the most likely direction they would be coming from.

  Suddenly, he heard what sounded like the sharp clap of small arms fire, followed by the broken voice of Rick Morrell crackling through his earpiece, “…under fire…been hit and have two men down. I repeat, we are under fire and I have two men down.”

  Harvath began running toward them. He wished like hell that he could have called in for a Sit Rep to see where the shooter was, but it was out of the question. The greatest advantage he had going for him was that Draegar and Alexandra thought he was dead.

  As he passed the last mausoleum, an incandescent glow from inside caused Harvath to stop dead in his tracks. With his Beretta pistol clasped in both hands, he crept closer to the entryway and used his left elbow to pry open the iron door. The entire mausoleum appeared to be lined with lead and it was now clear why they had failed to pick up any heat signatures in the cemetery. He used his night vision goggles to scan the interior and what he saw scared the hell out of him. The marble faceplates of all six crypts had been removed and each one contained a Russian tactical nuke, their display panels flashing, indicating the weapons had been activated.

  It was now apparent how the Russians had been so successful in hiding their nukes all of these years. Harvath had been right on the money when he had said, “Dead men tell no tales.” It was also apparent that the previously unaccounted-for nukes were not in the cities of U.S. allies after all, but were right here in Washington.

  There was enough in this crypt to blow the entire capital off the face of the map and Harvath had a feeling that no matter what speech the president gave, the Russians fully intended to send an overpowering message that times had changed and that they were now in control.

  The Russians had made one fatal mistake—they hadn’t cleared their message through Scot Harvath, and he was going to be damned if those lying communist bastards caused the collective head of the United States of America to bow even a fraction of an inch in deference to the new world order they planned to unleash. He’d been to Russia, and he’d seen what a shitty country it was. As far as he was concerned, they’d gained too much prominence on the world stage, and it wasn’t time for the United States to step back, it was time for someone to shove the Russians the hell off.

  When a shadow fell across Harvath’s shoulder, he knew he was in trouble.

  “Don’t bother turning around,” said a voice from behind which he was sure belonged to Helmut Draegar. “Just put your hands up in the air where I can see them.”

  Harvath did as he was told.

  “Good. Now drop your weapon and kick it away from you, please.”

  Once again, Harvath complied.

  “I didn’t know if I would be seeing you again,” Draegar continued in English so perfect, there wasn’t even the hint of an accent, “but I’m glad you’re here. I’m going to slide a pair of handcuffs across the floor to you and I want you to clip one end to your left w
rist.”

  “Why bother?” asked Harvath. “The whole graveyard is surrounded. You’ll never make it out of here alive.”

  “Neither will you I’m afraid,” said Draegar as he laid a pair of cuffs on the ground and kicked them over to Harvath. “Now, do as I say.”

  “Why don’t you just shoot me?”

  “Your friend Gary Lawlor left me to die in much the same fashion and now I intend to return the favor.”

  “By what? Handcuffing me to one of these nukes? I hate to tell you, but when this thing blows—” said Harvath as he started to turn around to face Draegar.

  “No moving!” yelled Draegar. “I told you to stay still. And keep your hands up where I can see them.”

  “They’re up and I’m not moving anymore, okay? Let’s just all stay calm here.”

  “Mr. Harvath,” said Draegar as he regained his composure, “Naturally, once the bomb detonates, there will be nothing of you left behind to identify. I realize this. If my goal is to cause Mr. Lawlor an excessive amount of grief, he must be fully aware of how you suffered. Thankfully, I have a cell phone with a built in camera, which I borrowed from a young government aide who won’t be needing it anymore.”

  “So that’s your plan? You’re going to strap me to one of these devices and leave me to die?”

  “Like I said, it’s exactly what Gary Lawlor did to me. I’m sure the symbolism of my returning the favor won’t be lost on him. Of course, you’re free to try and chew through your wrist or arm to get free. Trapped animals in the wild, especially wolves, have been known to choose that option. I assure you it’s not a very pleasant alternative, but you do have that choice. You’ll need to make up your mind very quickly though, as the timers are set to give me just enough of a head start to outrun the blast.”

  “So regardless of what the president says in his State of the Union address tonight,” replied Harvath, “you’re still going to detonate these nukes.”