State of the Union (15 page)

K
arl Überhof’s apartment was located just off Unter den Linden, once one of the best known boulevards in all of Europe and the preeminent thoroughfare of East Berlin. With the information they had gathered from the bank footage, Marc Schroeder was able to scan the digital stills from the traffic cams until they had found what they were looking for. A black BMW had in fact blown through a red light at the intersection of Grunewaldstrasse and Goltzstrasse. By comparing the time code stamped on the digital traffic cam photo with the time code on the bank footage, they knew they had a match. The picture gave them a complete license plate number, which jibed with the partial they already had. With one phone call, Sebastian was not only able to get the registration information on the car, but his contact was able to fax him the drivers’ license photo of the man it was registered to—Karl Überhof. Though the quality wasn’t the best, it was still good enough for their purposes.

Harvath had been against storming Überhof’s apartment, especially after what had happened at the Capstone safe house. Though he didn’t believe Überhof had any idea they were on to him, at this point, he was their only lead. After weighing all of the potential outcomes, Harvath decided they would be better off shadowing him to see where he might go.

Sebastian didn’t agree. He and his men had checked Überhof’s parking garage and had verified that his black BMW was there, which likely meant that the man was upstairs asleep. Sebastian wanted to surprise Überhof in his bed, confront him with what they knew, and force him to talk.

‘And if he’s a professional?’ Harvath had asked. How long might it take until they finally broke him? What if they couldn’t break him? What if they screwed up and killed him? What then?

No
, Harvath had reasoned, it was better to let Überhof take them right to Gary Lawlor. And though Sebastian had eventually agreed, he had also brought up a very good argument. What if Gary actually was in Überhof’s apartment? Merely staking out his place wasn’t going to tell them that. What’s more, what if Überhof and whoever he was working with were torturing Gary? What if when they got to him it was too late? How long was Scot prepared to sit outside and do nothing?

It was one of those textbook
damned if you do, damned if you don’t
scenarios that all too often presented themselves in hostage situations. The weight of the decision was not one Harvath enjoyed riding on his shoulders, but he accepted responsibility for it nonetheless. In the end, he agreed with Sebastian that a time limit should be set. It was the decision that made the most strategic sense. If Überhof didn’t show his face by the appointed time, they would kick the door in and take down the apartment.

Having not slept much over the last two days, Harvath appreciated being able to close his eyes for a while, even if it was stretched out in the back of the MEK’s mock bakery truck. He’d slept in worse places and if there was one thing his training had taught him, it was that sleep was a weapon.

Because of the damage to Harvath’s ribs, Sebastian had offered to take his shift and give him more time to rest, but Harvath had refused. He awoke at the appointed time and walked over to his position at an all night café on the other side of the Bebelplatz. He passed an illuminated piece of art—a hollowed out-chamber with empty bookshelves that commemorated the Nazi’s famous book burning on that spot in May of 1933. He stopped to read the inscription by Heinrich Heine, who saw his books burned along with other “subversive” authors such as Sigmund Freud. The plaque read, “Nur dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”
Wherever books are burned, ultimately people are also burned.

Harvath, per Herman’s suggestion, kept his German speaking to a minimum. He took a table in the corner by the window and simply ordered, “
Ein Kaffee, bitte,
” and when the waitress returned with the small pot that contained about two cups known as a
Kännchen
, he paid her and then reached for the newspaper from the empty table next to him. He pretended to read as he watched the street outside.

The current shift of MEK operatives were similarly placed at strategic points around the block, the idea being that if Überhof made a move, he was likely going to engage in a maneuver known as an SDR—surveillance detection route. In other words, he was going to make darn sure that he wasn’t being followed. By having men placed in different locations, they would be able to follow Überhof, hopefully without him knowing.

After sitting for two hours in the stiff wooden café chair, Harvath was glad that his shift was coming to an end. Outside, it had grown warmer, turning the snow to a cold drizzle, but the unusual change in temperature brought with it a very undesirable side effect—fog.

Where Harvath could see clear across the Bebelplatz when he had first entered the café, now he could barely see three feet outside its windows. As he set the newspaper in front of him and pushed back from the table, the voice of one of Sebastian’s operatives crackled over his earpiece. Überhof had been spotted leaving his apartment and was making his way across the Bebelplatz. The operative was following, but having trouble keeping him in sight in the thick fog.

As Harvath made his way to the large, etched glass doors at the front of the café, he spoke into his sleeve mike and asked the operative to give him an idea of where he was. “
Staatsoper
,” replied the man, referring to the opera house on the other side of the square, “coming toward you.”

“Good,” said Harvath. “When you get to the café, I’ll take him.”

“
Kein Problem
. I’ll let you know as I approach.”

Moments passed and Harvath waited impatiently in the café’s vestibule, his face turned away from the entrance as he pretended to appear interested in a flyer for a meeting of some working people’s consortium. It looked like communist propaganda to him, but then again he shouldn’t be surprised, the Communist Party was still very much alive and well in Europe.
What people will waste their time on
, he thought to himself. Just then, his earpiece once again crackled to life.

“Crossing the street now. Arriving at your location in—” said the operative, but his transmission was suddenly cut off.

“I didn’t hear you,” said Harvath, pushing the earpiece further into his ear. “Say again.”

Harvath waited but there was no response. He tried to hail the operative again, but still there was nothing.

A loud cracking sound drew his attention toward the entrance of the café. The etched doors shuddered on their hinges, and Harvath spun just in time to see the bloody body of the MEK operative who had been trailing Überhof slide down the glass. The small group of patrons inside began screaming and several of them rushed toward the windows in the front of the café to see what was happening.

Harvath bolted outside with his H&K drawn, but couldn’t see Überhof anywhere. The fog was too thick. He could barely see his hand in front of his face. He pulled the fallen operative away from the door and turned him over. “Man down. Man down,” he repeated over his radio, but it was too late. The man’s throat had been sliced from ear to ear. How could Überhof have known he had a tail? For a moment, a tidal wave of images threatened to flood Harvath’s mind—the faces of men that he had lost in previous operations, men whose safety he had been responsible for. All of a sudden, he felt a large hand grab his shoulder. Harvath spun, his H&K raised and ready to fire.

“Come on,” said the voice of Herman Toffle. “Überhof’s getting away.”

“Wait,” said Harvath, as he turned back to the dead operative. “There’s something not right here.”

“I know,” replied Herman, “He’s dead. Let’s go. I’ll radio Sebastian to come get him.”

The radio! That was it.
“No,” said Harvath. “His radio’s gone. Überhof took it. He’ll know every move we make.”

“Then we’ll figure something else out, but we need to move.”

“How are we going to follow him in this?”

Herman held up a long black tube about the size of a tennis ball can, which Harvath immediately recognized. It was a SpecterIR portable thermal infrared imaging weapon sight. Weighing only three pounds, the SpecterIR used next generation hybrid uncooled FPA heat imaging detector technology, which offered true “see in the dark” infrared capability. Darkness, smoke, dust, rain and most importantly fog, were all rendered virtually transparent to the simple to operate scope.

“Where’d you get that?” asked Harvath.

“I borrowed it from one of the sniper rifles in the back of Sebastian’s van,” replied Herman, “but none of this is going to matter if we don’t get behind this guy and see where he’s going.”

“Okay. Let’s go. You lead.”

“No, you lead. You’ll be my eyes. I’ll track him with the scope and you walk in front of me,” said the much larger Toffle as he put his beefy paw on Harvath’s shoulder and shoved him towards the edge of the square. “Move out.”

As Harvath led the way up Unter den Linden, Herman kept one hand on Harvath’s shoulder for balance while his attention was focused on their target, who was almost a full block ahead of them. Using the BlackHot thermal imaging option, every item seen through the Specter’s lens with a high heat signature was rendered black. Herman preferred it to the White Hot option, as it was easier on his eye during such prolonged use.

Überhof knew what he was doing and was proving himself to be quite a pro. Though he moved at a good clip, he still stopped repeatedly to check and see if he was being followed. In the fog, though, the best he could do was listen. Without his own thermal imaging device, he could see only what was right in front of him. For all intents and purposes, the man was completely blind, but when one sense is taken away, others become heightened, and both Harvath and Herman knew they had to be careful.

They quickly developed their own unspoken language. A slight squeeze of his shoulder told Harvath to slow down. A harder squeeze called for an all-out stop as it indicated Überhof had halted somewhere up ahead and was trying to detect if anyone was behind him.

At Friedrichstrasse, Überhof made an abrupt turn and Harvath and Herman were forced to cautiously hightail it up to the corner out of fear of losing him. When they caught sight of him again, he was making his way toward the entrance of one of the stations for Berlin’s subway system known as the U-Bahn. Herman pocketed the SpecterIR scope and suggested they approach the station from different directions. Harvath agreed and crossed the street.

Entering the station, Harvath did a quick look around without breaking stride toward the brightly colored automated ticket machines, but so far, there was no sign of Überhof. He peeled a note off of the thick wad of Euros he had been given before leaving the United States and bought a three-zone, all-day ticket, not knowing where this little chase might lead them. He was just about to validate his ticket and make his way down the escalator to the platform, when Herman quietly whistled to get his attention.

“So much for us not being together,” mumbled Harvath as he joined Herman in front of the station manager’s glassed-in control booth.

Herman grabbed a system map and pretended to search for their destination as he said, “Look at the station master’s closed-circuit cameras. What do you see?”

“I see our guy standing towards the end of the platform,” replied Harvath.

“What else?”

“Nothing really.”

“Exactly,” responded Herman. “This early in the morning, there aren’t many people using the U-Bahn. I’m concerned that if we go down to the platform too soon, he might spot us.”

“What are we supposed to do then?”

“He’s on the U6 platform waiting for the train going south—”

“That’s the train that goes to Tempelhof Airport. What the hell is he up to?”

“I don’t know, but here’s what I want to do. We wait here until the train enters the station. It looks like he is going to get onboard the last car. There are always people running into the U-Bahn at the last minute. We’ll do the same. We’ll run down to the platform, hop on one of the forward cars and then make our way back so we can watch him.”

Harvath didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of it. Tailing someone on a subway was one of the most difficult things to do. If the subject got off and you followed and then the subject jumped back on at the last minute, what could you do?
Nothing.
In plain English, you were fucked. Harvath had come too far to get fucked at this point. He was racked by the age-old surveillance dilemma—
Do you play him? Or do you pop him?
With one man already dead, his ribs killing him and a surveillance scenario in the subway system of Berlin that was severely less than optimal, he was beginning to think that they were quickly closing in on the only sane alternative—to pop Überhof and lean on him like a C-17 Globe-master full of bricks until he told them what they needed to know.

Herman seemed to sense what he was thinking. “We have a few minutes before the next train arrives. I am going to call Sebastian on my cell phone and let him know what we’re doing. He can space men along the line and have them get on at different stations. Don’t worry. We’re not going to lose him.” And with that, Herman walked back towards the stairs to the street level and got on his phone.

Harvath had to admit, it sounded like a halfway decent plan. By switching the members of the surveillance team, maybe they could still follow Überhof without his knowing, and
maybe
he would lead them to Gary Lawlor. Then again, that’s how they had started this whole thing and someone had already died. But maybe Überhof had just gotten lucky. Maybe the operative had screwed up somehow.

Neither of those ideas sat well with Harvath. He reminded himself of how well trained Sebastian and his men were. Writing off the operative who had gotten killed as careless or unlucky, wasn’t right. That being said, the fact that Überhof had picked up on a tail so fast and in such thick fog really unnerved Harvath.
Not only was Überhof good, he was dangerous
, Harvath decided. Underestimating him any further would be a big mistake.