State of the Union (20 page)

C
an we just back up here for a second?” asked Harvath. “Rick, start this thing from square one for me, would you?”

“Okay, from square one. The secretary of defense and the president briefed me on Operation Dark Night as well as the situation concerning the man-portable nukes we’re facing at home. Being the tactician he is, the secretary kept making military references to chess. As you probably know, the president—”

“Doesn’t play chess,” replied Harvath, finishing Morrell’s sentence for him. “He’s a poker man. We played a lot when I was on his protective detail.”

“And what’s the one thing you can do in poker that you really can’t do in chess?”

Harvath thought for a moment and then said, “Bluff.”

“Right again. Though there are some feints and deceptive strategies you can pull in chess, all of your pieces are out in the open for your opponent to see.”

“But all of our pieces have been knocked off the board, at least that’s what the president has said.”

“That’s true. The president green-lit a series of tactical teams to go to the European locations where our man-portable nukes were hidden, only to discover that they had all been removed.”

“By the Russians, of course.”

“That’s what we’re assuming,” replied Morrell.

“So, where’s that leave us?”

“It leaves us with only one operational nuke.”

“Frank Leighton’s,” said Harvath.

“Correct.”

“But if the Russians knew the identities of all of the other Dark Night operatives and the location of their nukes, how’d they miss Leighton?”

“We don’t think they missed him,” said Morrell.

“Wait a second. You think they not only know who Leighton is, but where he and his nuke are?”

“Yes.”

“But why would they purposely let him slip through the net?”

“He isn’t all the way through yet.”

Harvath wasn’t following. “I can understand them wanting to get their hands on Gary. He was in charge of the operation. He had knowledge that could prove valuable to them. They might have even believed he knew about more than just his own op, but Leighton doesn’t make any sense. If they let him get this far only to grab him, then…”

Morrell almost could see the light bulb go on over Harvath’s head as his voice trailed off.

“Then?” coaxed Morrell, leaning back in his chair.

“They would be catching Leighton, an American, in the act of actually trying to smuggle a nuclear device into their country,” said Harvath, the pieces beginning to tumble into place.

“And they could claim it was a covert attempt at a first strike by the United States.”

“But I’m sure we would disavow any knowledge of Leighton. It would be a tough sell, but
one
guy with
one
nuke
couldn’t
bring down an entire country. It would be somewhat embarrassing for us, but—” Harvath let the sentence hang in the air as he thought about it for a moment and then realizing said, “Shit.”

“What?” asked Morrell.

“If the Russians plan to blackmail us failed somehow, they’d have a huge ace up their sleeves. With ten other American-made man-portable nukes in their possession, they could lie and claim they had found them hidden all over their country. It would be no use for us to disavow Leighton. It would just look like he was the only American operative unlucky enough to get caught and that we were denying what everyone else would see as a fact. Add it all up and the Russians would have an overwhelming case against us as being the aggressors. Considering the state of international opinion against us these days, the rest of the world would probably buy the Russian story no matter what they had done to start everything.
That’s
why they let Leighton live.”

“That’s what we believe.”

“Then we’ve got to stop Leighton. The Russians probably have him under surveillance right now and are just waiting for him to sail into their territorial waters so they can pop him.”

“Well, you’ve uncovered the
man
part of the Minotaur. Now let’s get to the
bull
.”

As Avigliano slid three hard-shell equipment cases out of the closet and opened the lids so Harvath could see what was contained inside, Morrell continued. “Exact working replicas of the American nukes the Russians already have in their possession.”

“The beauty of it all is that they aren’t even a quarter of the weight of the real deal,” added Carlson. “One person can lift these without even breaking a sweat.”

“But that’s the thing. They aren’t real,” said Harvath. “You’ve got all the Preparation, but no H.”

“Yeah, but the Russians don’t know that,” answered DeWolfe.

“What are we planning to do, plant fake nukes all across Russia?”

“Not only are we planning to do it, we’re going to do it,” answered Morrell. “Carlson and DeWolfe will be on one team, and Avigliano and I will be on the other. We’re going to conduct a whirlwind photo tour of as much of the country and its critical infrastructure as possible.”

“They look awesome,” replied Harvath, “but there’s still only two of them.”

Morrell empty the contents of a padded manila envelope onto the table. “That’s why we have a little something I like to refer to as our force multiplier.”

Harvath examined the square metal objects. “Interchangeable serial number plates. Good move.”

“The Russians are going to enhance the photos we send them, just like we did theirs.”

“Let’s say they do buy it, where’s that put us?”

“At best, they think America had another ace up her sleeve that they never caught and the board is rebalanced.”

“And at worst?” asked Harvath.

“They don’t buy it and you sure as hell better pull off your part of the assignment.”

“Which is?”

“Taking down their air defense system.”

“Well at least I get the easy job,” said Harvath. “Russia’s about how big a country, do you think?”

“Six million, five hundred fifty-two thousand, seven hundred square miles,” offered Avigliano. “Please make sure you let Agent Kate Palmer know that in addition to being tall, blond, and
good
-looking, I also have quite a head for geography.”

“As I was starting to say,” replied Harvath. “Finding the command and control structure for that air defense system has got to be like looking for a needle in a six million, five hundred fifty-two thousand, seven hundred square mile haystack. Do we have any leads? Do I get any help on this at all?”

Morrell opened his briefcase and handed Harvath a folder. “When this whole thing broke, we conducted a search of our intelligence databases. The search came up with one hit. In the mid-eighties, a Russian KGB officer named Viktor Ivanov was engaged in trading information with the United States from time to time. He was deemed a somewhat reliable source, as far as double agents go, until he presented the CIA with a conspiracy theory so outlandish, they chose to write him off as no longer reliable.”

“What was his theory?”

“Ivanov said that he had uncovered a plot by five of the Soviet Union’s top generals to win the Cold War by convincing the USSR to roll over and play dead while they invested in a covert weapons program that would allow them to return stronger than the U.S. At this point, you’ve pretty much seen how the rest of their plan pans out.”

Harvath was shocked. “No one checked into this guy’s story?”

“Of course we did. The CIA took it seriously at first. Ivanov had never given them bad information before, but they worried that he might have been setting them up.”

“Setting them up for what?”

“Who knows?” answered Morrell. “Back then, everyone was suspicious. They were always on the lookout for not only the double, but the triple cross. The long and the short of it is that the Agency dug real deep, pulled a lot of their Soviet contacts in and tried to corroborate Ivanov’s story, but they couldn’t. So, in the end, they cut him loose and refused to use him any more. They thought he had gone around the bend and didn’t want to waste any more of their time or resources on him.”

“So where do I find him?” asked Harvath.

“You can’t. He’s dead.”

“Then what’s in that file?”

“Not
what
, but whom. Ivanov’s daughter, Alexandra Ivanova.”

Morrell opened the folder and handed it to him. Harvath’s eyes were immediately drawn to the picture stapled to the inside. Alexandra Ivanova was gorgeous.

“Former Russian military, Ivanova was recruited about eight years ago over to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, known as the—”

“SVR,” added Harvath absentmindedly as he focused on the dossier in front of him. “Following in the family footsteps.”

“Indeed. She has been posted in several international cities, including Hong Kong, London, and Istanbul. She speaks English, Arabic, and Mandarin in addition to her mother tongue and when her back is against the wall, has shown herself to be an extremely deadly assassin. Don’t let her looks fool you, this lady should be treated with the utmost caution.”

“She doesn’t look that bad to me,” replied Harvath.

“Be that as it may, you’re to be extra careful with her. Do not underestimate her at any time. Now, her father used her from time to time for some of his more delicate assignments and she was known to be a confidant of sorts to him. He was obsessed with this plot by the generals, and it eventually cost him his job, though the Soviets could never prove that he was trying to tip us off. Apparently, Ivanov was very Hoover-esque in the files he kept on people and that fact alone was probably the only reason he was never bumped off. He probably scared too many people with what he had buttoned down. We believe he most likely passed along some, if not all, of his files to his daughter before he died. At least that’s what our analysts think from the short amount of time they had to look at his dossier.”

“And what makes you believe that if this woman does know something, that she’ll share it with me?”

“The father was no Communist. He was more of a nationalist who put the good of his country, often to the detriment of his career, ahead of the self-serving desires of his government. From what we’ve seen, the daughter embodies a lot of that same ideology. If she has any information, the president has the utmost confidence that you will do whatever it takes to get it out of her.”

“What does that mean?” asked Harvath, who after taking one last look at Alexandra Ivanova’s photo, set the file down on the coffee table.

“Those are the president’s words, not mine, so you take them to mean whatever you want.”

“I bet I know what it means,” said Carlson, who had picked up the folder and was looking at the photo. “God, this chick is hot. You know, when this is all over, Harvath, maybe you could—”

“Put that folder down,” snapped Morrell. “You’re not cleared to see what’s in there.”

“If that’s what a ‘
hard
’ assignment looks like,” said Carlson, setting down the folder, “I’ll trade jobs with you right now, Harvath.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” replied Harvath. “I think I can suffer through this one.”

“What’s that girlfriend of yours going to think about you cozying up to a nice Russian hottie like that?” asked Avigliano, who had picked up the folder and was now looking at the picture.

“As far as I’m concerned,” answered Scot, “she’s not going to know.”

“Good for you,” said Carlson peeking over Avigliano’s shoulder to get another look at the photo. “What happens behind the Iron Curtain, stays behind the Iron Curtain.”

“Goddamn it! Nobody touches this file again, am I understood? In fact,” said Morrell, as he snatched the folder away from Avigliano and turned to Harvath, “have you seen everything you need to see in here?”

Harvath nodded his head.

“Good,” replied Morrell. “DeWolfe, toss me a burn bag.”

“Do I get to see the photo first?” asked the communications expert.

“What the fuck is this,
Let’s Make a Deal
? No you don’t get to see the photo first. You get to hand me a burn bag and you get to keep your fucking job. How about that for a deal?”

“Hey, everybody else got to see what this Russian chick looks like. I don’t know why I—”

“All right, goddamn it. If it’ll get you to shut the hell up, give me the burn bag and I’ll let you see the fucking picture. Jesus, you guys are a pain in the ass.”

DeWolfe winked at Harvath as he brought one of the special, heavy, lead-lined bags over to Morrell. True to his word, Morrell allowed DeWolfe a quick glimpse of the photo before dropping the entire file into the bag. Unlike diplomatic burn bags, into which shredded classified documents were placed and then taken to an incinerator room to be burned later, the modified field burn bag Morrell and his team were carrying provided one-stop shopping for destruction of sensitive materials. After sealing the top of the bag, Morrell set it on the floor and brought his foot down on top of it, breaking the vials of corrosive chemicals inside which quickly ate away at the file and left nothing behind in the bag but a soggy pulp.

“So how do I meet this Russian SVR agent?” asked Harvath, getting the conversation back on track.

“We’re working on that right now, but first we need to focus on getting you into Russia,” responded Morrell.

“And how do we plan on doing that? More bull?”

“Kind of. You’re coming with us to pick up Frank Leighton.”

“Where is he?”

“His op was a bit different than the others. We know his was Maritime. He was to sail his nuke right into St. Petersburg harbor, so unless he’s moved from where his nuke was hidden, which there’s no reason to believe he has, right now he’s on a small, uninhabited island off the coast of Finland. With the Russians knowing as much as they do about him, he’s no good to us anymore. The plan is for us to get him and his device to safety on the mainland, while you sail his boat out into the Baltic toward St. Petersburg.”

“Right into the arms of the Russian Navy. This doesn’t feel so good.”

“Don’t worry,” said Morrell, “You’ll have help.”

“Help from whom?”

“You’ll be working with a SEAL Team stationed aboard the
USS Connecticut
.” Morrell saw the sudden shift in Harvath’s expression. “Feeling a little bit better about it now?”