Code of Conduct

by Brad Thor

  But even if he had, he knew he would still have to be here—right in the fight. It was who he was. It was where he belonged. He cared too much to turn his back. When things were at their worst was when you knew who you were and who the people around you were. The only easy day was yesterday.

  Harvath had made his decision. Now, he had to decide what he was going to do next.

  Like it or not, DHS was going to come for him. And at this point, it didn’t matter who had put him on the list— only that he was on it.

  And while Nicholas had said it could be anywhere from days to hours, Harvath had to imagine they were going to move on him quickly. From the screen grabs Nicholas had taken, he had been coded for arrest and placed in the highest-risk category. When they took him down, they were going to take him down hard. There would be no reasoning with whoever it was. They would come prepared for him to resist and would therefore employ overwhelming force. But then what?

  What happened once they had him? Would he be hidden away somewhere and left until he succumbed to the virus? Or did they have something worse than that planned? He didn’t intend to find out.

  “Lock up for me,” Harvath said, “and get out of there.”

  “Will do. Where are we going?”

  “Where DHS won’t be able to touch us.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Camp Peary.”

  •••

  On a good day, the drive from Reagan National to Camp Peary was two hours. Today wasn’t a good day. Not by a long shot.

  Leaving the Signature Flight Support building, Harvath had seen one of the Carlton Group’s best operatives, Lee Gregory, shepherding Nina through the sea of cars and people in the parking lot. He was a big, tough guy with a lot of experience. The Old Man had sent the right person to pick her up. No matter what happened, nothing would stop him from getting Nina onto that plane.

  They chatted briefly, before Harvath said goodbye to Nina and thanked Gregory for bringing her down. Lee had a family of his own and was probably anxious to get home to them.

  Exiting the parking lot, Harvath walked up the road to his Tahoe and hopped in. There was a little diner on the Richmond Highway in Tappahannock, about halfway to Camp Peary. He and Nicholas would meet there and ditch his SUV near one of the docks on the river.

  Before ending their call, he had asked Nicholas to tape a note to his front door that read MEET ME AT THE BOAT. He had no idea if it would throw DHS off his trail or not. But if it did, it would be worth it.

  After abandoning Harvath’s Tahoe, they would drive the rest of the way in Nicholas’s van. It was too valuable and too useful a piece of equipment to leave behind.

  When he turned WMAL back on, the Vice President’s speech was already in progress.

  “. . . your prayers for President Porter, and his family, who we trust will make a full and complete recovery. This evening, per Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, President Porter transmitted a written declaration to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives that he is temporarily unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office of the Presidency.

  “Until such time as President Porter is once again capable of executing his duties, I shall serve as Acting President of the United States. In this capacity, and in order to better assist state and Federal authorities, I am declaring a state of national emergency.

  “Together with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I am asking for the cooperation of all Americans over the next several days. All public gatherings such as concerts, sporting events, and conventions are hereby temporarily suspended. Schools will be temporarily closed, and we are asking churches to also temporarily suspend services. If you don’t have to leave your home, don’t. Only by slowing this virus can we hope to stop it.

  “I have spoken with all of the country’s governors who will be mobilizing their National Guard forces to help maintain order and deliver aid and assistance to those who need it.

  “We have experts working around the clock and they are in touch with their colleagues around the world. From Beijing to Baltimore, the brightest scientific and medical minds on the planet are doing all they can to find a way to halt this virus in its tracks.

  “During this time, you can do your part by staying indoors and cooperating with your local and state authorities. Please be mindful of the burden on first responders, and do not call 911 or approach your local hospital unless it is a life or death situation. Every minute hospital or emergency response personnel spend on non-life-threatening issues is a minute denied a heart attack or severely injured patient.

  “These are trying times for America, but America has faced trying times before. We have always prevailed in the past and we will prevail again. I know this because—”

  The old school telephone ringtone belonging to the Old Man began sounding and Harvath turned down the radio.

  “I need you to turn around,” Carlton said.

  “Turn around?”

  “Yeah, I need you to go back home.”

  Did Harvath hear that right? Home?

  “Listen,” Carlton continued, “this isn’t a revolution. It’s a goddamn coup.”

  “But the Vice President was just—”

  “That was recorded hours ago. They’ve already activated the continuity of government plan and evacuated people out of D.C. to Mount Weather.”

  Harvath was familiar with the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains about fifty miles from Washington, D.C., it was one of the bug-out locations for the United States Government in times of national emergency.

  In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, key members of the administration and Congress had been relocated there in order to assure that the government continued to function.

  It was also FEMA’s base of operations and housed the control node for the nationwide, Federal Emergency Alert System, which allowed the government to interrupt television and radio broadcasts in order to transmit emergency messages.

  Run by FEMA’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the facility resembled a small college campus sitting on just over four hundred fenced-and-barbed-wired acres. Right underneath it was a sprawling six-hundred-thousand-square-foot, reinforced concrete complex designed to withstand multiple nuclear strikes. It was provisioned with air purifiers, water access, electricity, and enough food, medicine, and supplies to keep hundreds of people alive for years.

  Most interesting of all, was that Mount Weather was less than fifteen miles from Pierre Damien’s estate.

  It would have been an incredible coincidence, if only Harvath believed in coincidences. People in his line of work who did usually ended up dead pretty fast.

  “The Vice President spiked a fever on the helicopter on the way out,” Carlton continued. “He threw up twice, a source tells me, before they even touched down.”

  “Where’s is he now?” Harvath asked.

  “The Mount Weather Infirmary under quarantine.”

  “Have they passed the baton to the Speaker of the House?”

  “He’s sick too, and so is the President pro tempore of the Senate. They’re both in D.C. area hospitals, along with the goddamn Secretary of State.”

  Harvath was floored. He remembered Mordechai’s comment about Presidential succession if the virus moved fast enough. “So who’s in charge?”

  “Unless he has magically taken ill in the last five minutes,” Carlton replied, “Dennis Fleming, the Secretary of the Treasury.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “And guess who’s running things at Mount Weather?”

  “Linda Landon,” said Harvath, not wanting it to be true, but knowing it was.

  “Correct.”

 
“But what does any of this have to do with me turning around and going home?”

  “Director McGee succeeded in persuading everyone on that Main Core VIP list to be transported to The Farm. Everyone that is, except for Chief Justice Leascht.”

  Harvath wasn’t surprised that a man like Cameron Leascht had refused to hide out at Camp Peary. It was in keeping with the judge’s personality to stand his ground and fight. But this wasn’t a legal case. This was literally life and death. Harvath, though, still didn’t understand what this had to do with him.

  “Where is Chief Justice Leascht now?” he asked.

  “DHS has him. They picked him up forty-five minutes ago.”

  “How do we know?”

  “Mrs. Leascht called McGee. She said a team in hazmat suits showed up and took him. When he argued, they mentioned a journalist he had been interviewed by the day before, said he has the virus, and that they needed to bring Chief Justice Leascht in for mandatory observation. They claimed it was a public health emergency and showed him the declaration the Vice President had signed.”

  “They’re not wasting any time, are they?”

  “No,” said the Old Man, “which is why I need you to get back home.”

  “And when they show up on my doorstep to grab me?” Harvath asked. “What then?”

  “First, don’t resist them. When they showed up at Judge Leascht’s, they brought a lot of firepower.”

  “They’d need a lot more if they came to my house.”

  “Don’t be stupid. They’ll be prepared for you too. They know your background.”

  “But why would I surrender to them?”

  “Because we have to get Judge Leascht out.”

  “With all due respect,” Harvath replied, “he had his chance. Why risk it now?”

  “Because symbolism is important,” said Carlton. “As Chief Justice, Leascht is the highest judicial officer in the nation. People know him; they respect him, and he has more gravitas than the Secretary of the Treasury and all the Congressmen and Senators combined. He’s someone the nation will rally behind.”

  “Are we still talking about a coup? Because it sounds to me like we’re moving into the realm of a revolution?”

  “If we can’t stop this coup, we need to be thinking about what we do next, how we take back the country. No matter what happens, the nation needs Leascht.”

  Once again, the Old Man was demonstrating his penchant for thinking several steps ahead.

  “So, I get detained,” Harvath relented, “and then what? I have to concoct some sort of jailbreak?”

  “No,” said Carlton. “I have a better plan.”

  CHAPTER 50

  * * *

  When the DHS team knocked on his door several hours later, it went down exactly as Chief Justice Leascht’s wife, Virginia, had described their own encounter.

  The team was polite but firm. In case there was any doubt as to the seriousness of their visit, they brought a lot of backup. They were extremely well armed and had brought along two armored personnel vehicles. And though he couldn’t see them, he sensed at least two snipers out in the darkness.

  It would have been a good fight. Hell, it would have been a great fight, but Carlton had been absolutely clear—no resistance.

  Their ruse was very convincing. They even took his vitals and conducted a brief intake survey. It was designed, as best he could tell, for two reasons.

  The first was to gain his cooperation—we’re from the government and we’re here to help you. The second was to put on a show for the neighbors—he must be sick, that’s why they came to take him.

  Using a public health crisis as cover for rounding up the people you wanted out of the way was clever. It certainly showed a lot more imagination than just pulling them out of their homes and shooting them in the head. If for no other reason, they got points for style. They even brought an ambulance and in doing so had answered one of his most pressing questions—was he immune? There was no reason to go to all of this trouble if he wasn’t.

  The same could be said for Chief Justice Leascht, as well as the members of Congress who had suddenly popped up on the new Main Core list. You didn’t expend these kinds of resources on people likely to die in the worst global pandemic in history.

  But if the people on the Main Core list were immune, how did that happen? Why them and not the President and so many others? He had raised that question with Carlton, as well the question of whether Pierre Damien had fled to Mount Weather. The Old Man was doing all he could to figure out both.

  As if there was any doubt that the ambulance was only part of the charade, soon after leaving Bishop’s Gate, their convoy pulled off Mount Vernon Memorial Highway into the parking lot for Grist Mill Park, where a DHS Astar helicopter sat waiting. He had wondered how they were going to maneuver through so much heavy traffic in order to get him to the transit point. Now he had his answer.

  When they were taking his vitals, Harvath had asked one of the hazmat-suited men where they were planning on transporting him. “Fort A.P. Hill,” he replied.

  “Why?” Harvath had asked. “What’s at Fort A.P. Hill?”

  “The hospitals are being overwhelmed. A wellness center has been established there.”

  Wellness center, my ass, Harvath had thought. It was an internment camp.

  While Carlton’s contact inside DHS didn’t know anything about Main Core, he did know that FEMA had identified a list of potentially infected citizens who were going to be sent to a supposed field hospital at Fort A.P. Hill, seventy-five miles south of D.C.

  When asked how they were going to get there, his contact had explained that they would be going by train from Union Station once the first wave had been assembled.

  Harvath was escorted out of the ambulance and handed over to another hazmat-suited crew sitting on board the helicopter.

  As the helo lifted off, he looked down onto the phalanx of DHS vehicles already streaming out of the parking lot, onto the next name on their list. He wondered how many other teams there were at this very moment, doing the exact same thing in every state throughout the country. How many other “wellness centers” were out there?

  The streets and highways leading in and out of D.C. were jammed-up rivers of red brake lights as people fled the city or fought to get home. From this elevation, Harvath could see that several fires had broken out. There were too many of them to be accidental. The thin veneer of civilization was stripping away. Looting had begun.

  The helicopter landed in front of Union Station. Traffic had been blocked off and barricades erected. Thousands of angry people were attempting to push through. There were families with small children, the elderly. A group of young men had already breached one barricade and were helping lift a man in a wheelchair over it. D.C. and Amtrak Police were overwhelmed. It was a tinderbox and now matches were being struck.

  Four uniformed DHS officers with heavy Kevlar vests, respirators, and latex gloves met the helicopter. As soon as they had cleared the rotors, Harvath was told to put his arms out so they could pat him down.

  Yelling above the roar of the idling helicopter, one officer shouted to him, “Where’s your paperwork?”

  Harvath just looked at him.

  “Your paperwork,” the man repeated. “Where are your papers?”

  Realizing Harvath had no idea what he was talking about, the officer ran back to the helicopter and banged on the copilot’s door before they could take off.

  Returning with a sheaf of documents, the officer nodded to his colleagues, and they led Harvath inside.

  A flow of civilians was being let in, but only if they already held a ticket or a train reservation. They were kept well away from DHS activities.

  A long folding table had been set up. Sitting behind it were more DHS officers, masked and gloved.

  “Harvath, Scot Thomas,�
� said the lead DHS officer as he handed over the paperwork. “One T in Scot.”

  The corpulent, ruddy-complexioned officer behind the table accepted the documents and then pointed a temperature gun at Harvath’s head to get a reading.

  “Ninety-eight point six,” he said, not even making eye contact.

  Harvath’s temperature had dropped back down. Considering how much physical activity he had been engaged in earlier, he hadn’t been surprised to see it slightly elevated previously.

  “Any symptoms?” the man continued.

  “Any symptoms of what?” Harvath replied.

  “Muscle aches, headaches, chills, vomiting, or diarrhea?”

  “No. There’s nothing wrong with me. What’s going on?”

  “You had contact with a known infected. You’re being transported to a FEMA wellness center for observation.”

  “What’s a wellness center?”

  “I don’t know,” said the officer.

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you at least know who I was exposed to?”

  The officer leafed through the paperwork. “It looks like somebody at your office.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, if it’s someone from my office, does that mean everybody I work with is going to this wellness center too?”

  “I don’t know,” the man repeated. He then made a couple notes on the paperwork, reached into a box behind him, and removed an oversized campaign style button with a bright blue square in the middle. “Put this on.”

  “What is it? Wait, don’t tell me, you don’t know.”

  “You’re a smartass, huh?” he asked, finally looking Harvath in the eye.

  Smiling at him, Harvath replied, “I don’t know.”

  “Get him out of here,” the officer snapped, before shouting, “Next!”

  Harvath and his entourage had made it only about twenty feet away from the table when the fat processing officer yelled for them to wait and came trundling up behind them. He was already out of breath.