State of the Union (23 page)

“And so she should be,” said Harvath. “But what we need now is
your
help. We have a chance to stop the men who killed your father, before they can kill anyone else. What do you say?”

Nixie was silent. She strode across the sunken living room to a cocktail cart where she dumped a scoopful of crushed ice into a stainless steel cocktail shaker and filled the balance with vodka. Placing a lid atop, she shook the canister while she retrieved a Martini glass from one of the lower shelves and sprayed the rim with a vermouth atomizer.

Filling the glass, she inhaled the martini’s deep aroma for a moment as if she were savoring a fine wine, and then took a long drink, draining the glass. Finally, she turned to Harvath and said, “Yes, I will help you, but on one condition.”

“What is it?” replied Scot.

“When you find the man that killed my father, I want you to kill him. No trial, no jail time. I want you to promise me that he will die.”

Harvath was up against it, and he knew that there was only one answer he could give. After a long silence, he answered, “I promise.”

“
…and the phone on the desk is her private line. It’s the most secure place my mother could have provided your friends if they needed to conduct this type of call,” said Nixie as she showed the men into the hidden room her mother used as a private office. “I know this is confidential, so I’ll wait for you downstairs in the reception area. Good luck.”

Harvath thanked Nixie as DeWolfe found the corresponding phone plugs in the small plastic case they had brought with them. DeWolfe attached the burst transmitter to the phone line first from the jack, and then ran another cord from the transmitter to the phone so that Harvath could either talk or burst without having to rearrange any of the equipment.

The transmitter connected, they sat down with a piece of paper and tried to figure out the encryption code Gary would have established with Frank Leighton, while Harvath continued to glance at his watch.

After seeing the stein in the Putzkammers’ livingroom, Scot had become convinced that the code somehow involved the serial numbers on the bottom of the team mugs.

“So what was Leighton’s number then?” asked DeWolfe.

“He was somewhere in the middle. Five or six, I think,” replied Harvath, trying to remember back to the stein he had seen in the laundry room that doubled for Leighton’s home office back in Maryland. “No, wait. It was seven.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” replied Harvath.

“That’s still only three digits—the seven and the twelve.”

“Not if you put a zero in front of it,” said Herman who was looking through some of the boxes of memorabilia that Gerda Putzkammer had stored in her office. “That would be the correct way to do it.”

“So it would read 07 of 12?” asked Harvath.

DeWolfe wrote it down and said, “That would work, but what about the rest of it?”

“I’ve been thinking about that too,” said Harvath. “Gary was a Patton fan. Actually he was more like a Patton freak.”

“As in General Patton?” asked DeWolfe.

“Yeah, he had studied the guy up and down. He knew all of his moves, and just like Gary, Patton didn’t care for the Soviets one single bit. In fact, at the end of World War II, Patton wanted permission to go after them. He said if the U.S. would give him ten days, he’d start a war with them that would make it look like their fault and the U.S. could be justified in pushing them all the way back to Moscow.”

DeWolfe, concerned with their dwindling timeframe, said, “So Gary liked Patton. Patton hated the Communists and wanted to get rid of them. Being army guys, Gary’s men probably also liked Patton. That is a legitimate connection. Now, what can we take numbers wise from him? It has to be something relatively easy to remember.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Harvath. “Patton commanded the Third Army in World War II, and they spent 281 days fighting in Europe.”

“Possible,” said DeWolfe with a certain degree of skepticism as he wrote it down.

“He invented the 1913 Patton sword.”

DeWolfe continued writing. “Okay.”

“Don’t forget the M-46 and M-47 Patton Tanks,” said Herman, picking up another catalog.

“I think we’re really reaching on these,” replied DeWolfe.

“I can also give you his birth date, death date, and the date he was buried.”

“That’s a bit better. All right, we’ll give these a try, but if we can’t crack it, you’ll have to wing it with Leighton. The mere fact that you located the proper emergency contact point should win you some credibility with him.”

Harvath nodded his head in response, but knew that if he couldn’t fulfill the full terms of the emergency contact plan, Leighton wasn’t going to listen to a thing he had to say.

DeWolfe powered up the burst transmitter and waited as it cycled through the welcome screen and then dropped him into the calendar program. “Okay. We’re in the calendar function. As I said before, the key here is to tap into the correct date. What do we want to try first?”

“Birth date,” said Harvath. “November 11th 1885.”

“The scheduler doesn’t go back that many years. Let’s just focus on the actual month and day,” replied DeWolfe as he found November 11th and went to the appointment scheduler.

“Anything?” replied Harvath.

“Nope. Just a regular page.”

“No prompts for a security code when you try to make an appointment?”

“No. Let’s try another date.”

They tried the date Patton died, the date of his burial and even the date of his car accident without any luck.

“How much time do we have left?” asked DeWolfe.

Harvath checked his tactical chronograph. “Less than fifteen minutes.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Try July 22nd.”

“What’s that correspond to?” asked DeWolfe as he scrolled to the date.

“Patton’s capture of Palermo.”

Harvath could tell by the look on DeWolfe’s face that the date wasn’t a winner. “Try August 16th. The capture of Messina.”

“Nothing,” said DeWolfe.

“Shit. May 8th. Victory Day in Europe.”

“Still nothing.”

“Well,” said Harvath, “does anyone have any other suggestions?”

Herman cleared his throat on the other side of the office and asked, “Did you ever see the movie
Patton
with George C. Scott?”

“Sure,” replied Harvath, glancing again at his watch, “I don’t know a single red-blooded American military person who hasn’t, but what does that have to do with what we’re trying—” Suddenly, he had an idea. Turning to DeWolfe, he said, “Try June 5th.”

“What’s June 5th?”

“The opening scene in the movie is the speech Patton gave the Third Army before the D-Day invasion. I should have thought of that earlier. It’s probably the greatest speech Patton ever gave.”

“You’re welcome,” said Herman who went back to reading his catalog.

“Bingo,” exclaimed DeWolfe. “The scheduler is asking us to enter a code. What now?”

“Let’s start running through some of the numbers we came up with. Try Leighton’s stein number and subtract the amount of days the third army was in Europe, plus today’s date.”

Harvath waited until DeWolfe looked up from the transmitter and said, “Negative.”

“Okay, Leighton’s number minus the 1913 sword classification, plus today’s date.”

Once again, DeWolfe responded, “Negative.”

“Patton’s sidearm was a .45-caliber Colt Peacemaker. How about substituting 45 for 1913?”

DeWolfe ran the equation, but still came up empty. “Zip,” he said.

“Damn it,” replied Harvath, his frustration mounting as the minutes ticked away. “I know Patton believed in reincarnation and really identified with Hannibal, the Carthaginian general. Hannibal began his march on Rome in 218. Try that.”

“Scot, you’re reaching way far here.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“No, but—”

DeWolfe was interrupted by a snort from Herman.

“What’s so funny?” snapped Harvath. “You got a problem with Hannibal?”

“I wasn’t laughing about Hannibal,” replied Herman.

“What were you laughing at then?”

“Never mind.”

“No. What is it? I want to know.”

“In the beginning of The King George, Gerda Putzkammer apparently offered her customers printed
menus
, just like in a restaurant. And no matter what it was, every price ended in sixty-nine
pfennings.
Very kitsch.”

Harvath was just about to tell Herman he wasn’t helping, when he got that ping in his head again and this time it shook something loose. “Take 68 and subtract Leighton’s 0712, plus today’s date,” he said to DeWolfe.

“But what’s 68?” asked the communications expert.

“Just do it.

Harvath was sitting literally on the edge of his seat until DeWolfe looked up with a smile and turning the transmitter toward him said, “We’re in.”

“We are?” said Herman, setting down his the materials he was looking at and walking over to the desk. “Where the hell did the number
68
come from?”

“Don’t ask me,” said DeWolfe. “Ask Harvath. He finally figured out the code.”

With his eyes glued on the burst transmitter, Scot replied, “When we were driving back to the hospital, DeWolfe and I were talking about how burst codes needed to be easy to remember. That made me think about Patton and how he said that when he wanted his men to remember something and really make it stick, he used eloquent profanity. Sometimes, so did Gary. You just reminded me of an old joke of his that I hadn’t thought about in a long time.
What’s a 68? It’s like a 69, except you do me and I owe you one
.”

“Are you sure Gary wasn’t a SEAL?” laughed DeWolfe. “How much time do we have left?”

“Three minutes.”

“Then you’d better get cracking on your message. Take the stylus and tap the icon for the keyboard. When it comes up, type it out just like we talked about and put it into the
waiting to be sent
folder. When it’s time to burst, you just tap the send icon. Okay?”

“Seems easy enough,” answered Harvath who wrote out the message as quickly and as succinctly as he could.

Less than three minutes later, Frau Putzkammer’s telephone rang. Herman and DeWolfe were completely silent as Harvath picked up the receiver and said, “This is Norseman.”

After a second of what could only have been shocked silence, Leighton said. “So you made it.”

“I told you I was for real.”

“That may be, but you’re not home free yet.”

“And neither are you. Are you ready to receive my transmission?” asked Harvath.

1200 kilometers away in the Gulf of Finland, Leighton checked his burst transmitter and said, “Go ahead.”

As the message appeared on his screen, Leighton was stunned by what he was reading:

The entire team has been terminated? They think I’m being watched?
Though a million other questions were racing through Frank Leighton’s mind, he knew he would have to wait to get his answers and so typed a concise and professional reply:

Harvath read through Leighton’s response and typed:

As Harvath was about to tap the
send
icon with his stylus, the lights dimmed and then went out, plunging the room into complete darkness.

“What the hell is going on?” asked DeWolfe.

“Maybe too many vibrators recharging at the same time,” replied Herman.

“Very funny,” said Harvath, retrieving his SureFire flashlight. “Hey, DeWolfe? Does this burst transmitter have a backlight function so I can see it better?”

“It should. Go to the star logo in the upper left hand corner and click on it, then select
settings
and there should be a
backlight
function box. Select
yes
and it should fire right up.”

Harvath followed DeWolfe’s instructions and the screen began to glow a deep red. It was an interesting color for a device masquerading as a civilian product, but made perfect sense for a piece of covert equipment that might be called upon to operate in difficult nighttime conditions where the least visible light spectrum would be required.

“Got it,” said Harvath, who, after tapping the screen several more times added, “Shit!”

“What’s going on?” asked DeWolfe.

“I’m getting a message that says
no carrier
,” replied Harvath as he started saying into the phone’s mouthpiece, “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?”

“No carrier?” continued DeWolfe. “That could only mean that—”

“The phone line’s dead,” said Herman as he withdrew his twin Beretta Stock 96’s from beneath his jacket.

“Jesus Christ,” exclaimed DeWolfe when he saw the weapons. “Who walks around with that kind of firepower?”

“Welcome to the Federal Republic of Germany,” answered Harvath, disconnecting the burst transmitter and illuminating his way around the desk with his flashlight to reconnect the phone directly to the wall jack. “If you think that’s impressive, you oughtta see what his cousins carry.”

“Forget about my cousins,” said Herman as Harvath picked up the receiver and listened for a dial tone. “What’s the situation with the phone?”

“Dead,” he replied. “So the problem appears to be on our end.”

“Coupled with a convenient loss of electricity. I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I,” said Harvath, removing the H&K from his BlackHawk tactical holster. “Either a car outside happened to ram the local power and telephone poles, or we’ve got a problem.”

“This part of Berlin doesn’t have power or telephone poles,” replied Herman. “Everything is underground.”

“Then we’ve got a problem,” said DeWolfe, the last to draw his own weapon, a “special order only” Beretta Model 93R.

“Talk about firepower,” quipped Harvath, eyeballing the extended twenty-round magazine of the handgun cum machine pistol, as DeWolfe flipped down the front grip and then switched the firing selector to three round bursts. “Where’d you get that thing?”

“I’ve got a good friend at Beretta and a healthy weapons allowance.”

“Like I said. When it comes to funding, you CIA guys aren’t hurting at all.”

Harvath tucked the burst transmitter into the back of his jeans and led the group out of the office. Cutting back through the living room of the penthouse, they found Nixie who showed them to another of the King George’s hidden features, a concealed stairwell. With the power out, the elevator was out of the question.

They were halfway to the ground floor when they heard the shots. Hurriedly, the group took the stairs as fast as they could. As they drew closer to the lobby and the shooting intensified, Harvath began to sense a whole new problem. Toffle, who had taken over the lead despite his bad leg, was picking up a good head of steam and dashed down the stairs two at a time. He seemed hell bent on charging through the lobby door, but something wasn’t right and Harvath yelled for him to stop.