State of the Union (27 page)

H
arvath gave everything on the
Rebecca
a final check before raising anchor and sailing the old trawler through the island’s narrow channel and out into the open sea.

The noxious blue smoke of the coughing diesels couldn’t mask the smell of the salt-laden air. The scent stirred up a flood of memories in Harvath. Despite the amount of time he had spent in and around the ocean as an adult, its smell always reminded him of time he had spent with his father as a young boy. As far back as Harvath could remember, the ocean had been part of their life. They lived near it, swam in it, fished in it, and sailed upon it. While some fathers and sons talked and bonded over baseball or other sporting pursuits, Scot’s father, who was not a very communicative man to begin with, was always able to talk about the ocean. He spent hours teaching his son about navigation by stars and currents, sextant and compass. The younger Harvath had incredible recall and could name any type of navy vessel in San Diego Harbor after only seeing it one time. The same went for battle ships, frigates, and the like which his father would point out in books. By the time he was twelve, Harvath had read all of the Horn-blower novels, courtesy of his father’s vast maritime library. In fact, Scot had long suspected that had it not been for the navy, his father would have very likely selected some other seafaring profession that would have kept him connected to the mistress he loved so dearly.

And there was no doubt in Scot’s mind that the sea was his father’s mistress. Many times in his young life, Scot felt that the sea mattered more to the man than his own family, but then, Scot himself had joined the Navy and began his own affair with it. Though Scot had very much enjoyed his career as a competitive skier, if he was honest with himself, he would have to admit that there had always been something missing.

The U.S. Ski Team, as much as he had cared for his teammates, was really no team at all. It was every man and woman for themselves. All that mattered was you and the judges. There might not have been any “I” in team, but there was “me.” Harvath had been hungry to be part of something more than just his own selfish pursuits and the SEALs had given him that opportunity.

For the first time in his life, he had discovered the true meaning of the word
team
and what it meant to be part of something greater than yourself. It didn’t take long for him to realize what the SEALs had meant to his father. In a way, Scot’s time on the Teams had given him a sense of something he had never before experienced, a sense of belonging—belonging to something that really mattered and really made a difference in the world. With the SEALs, character, honor, integrity, loyalty, and duty meant something. They weren’t just empty words. And though he often liked working on his own, being able to still do that as part of a team, where everyone had a shared objective and where every participant’s performance mattered, was one of the most fulfilling undertakings he had ever pursued.

As he thought about it now, he wondered if maybe his decision to follow in his father’s footsteps was less about searching for something from his father and more about searching for something in himself.

Harvath’s concern over his mission drew his mind back to more relevant issues. As he glanced out the back of the wheelhouse to check on his Diver Propulsion Vehicle, which had been tied to the rear of the trawler, he hoped the rest of the team had made it to their objective safely.

After Frank Leighton’s nuke was retrieved and brought down to the beach, it was placed in a long, streamlined tube, which Carlson and Avigliano gently slid into the water and connected via towropes to their DPVs. Once Leighton was outfitted in his own dry suit, flippers, facemask, and rebreather, the men submersed themselves beneath the water and headed for the Advanced Swimmer Delivery System waiting a few miles offshore. From there, it was a short cruise to the Finnish mainland, where a group of three cars would be waiting for them with money and instructions on how they were to cross into Russia, as well as what Leighton’s new mission parameters were.

As Harvath headed further into the Eastern Gulf of Finland, he monitored the trawler’s antiquated radar system and tried to assess the proximity of the Russian patrol boats he knew were shadowing him. The
Rebecca’s
equipment was useless. Random islands, fishing boats, patrol boats…they all looked the same on the cracked, green display screen. It was only a matter of time before the Russians would be on top of him.

Almost as if rushing to meet the challenge head on, Harvath shoved the trawler’s twin throttles farther forward, trying to coax as much speed as he could from the struggling old engines.

Three hours and twenty-seven minutes later, after a short stop to change the trawler’s registration markings from Finnish to Russian and substitute one country’s flag for another, Harvath found himself less than three kilometers inside Russian territorial waters when the trap was sprung. A lone Federal Border Guard Service high-speed Sokzhoi-class patrol boat had appeared virtually out of nowhere and was bearing down on him off the starboard bow. Harvath, per the plan outlined by Rick Morrell, quickly turned the
Rebecca
around and attempted to head back into Finnish waters. Even though he knew he’d never outrun them, it made him look guilty as hell and that’s exactly what was supposed to happen.

A second Sokzhoi joined in the chase and fired a warning shot from its 30mm cannon across the
Rebecca’s
bow. Though the plan had called for Harvath to throttle back to neutral at this point, he decided to push his luck a little further. The Baltic water was freezing and the shorter he could make his impending swim, the better. Besides, the prevailing assumption was that the Russians wanted to take Frank Leighton alive. If they blew up the boat they thought he was on, not only would that put a serious dent in their plans, but it might also detonate the device they believed he was carrying. Harvath glanced out at the Sokzhois and hoped he was right.

Pressing the throttles as far forward as they would go, Harvath heard the engines groan in protest. Just then, another 30 mm round was loosed, landing much closer to the bow than the one before, throwing up a large sheet of spray that covered the wheelhouse. Harvath began to realize that dead or alive, the Russians had no intention of letting him leave.

With the high-speed crafts staring him right in the face, Harvath’s decision to get back into the cold water was made a lot easier. He doused all of the
Rebecca’s
lighting and then “lit the candles” as Carlson had put it, on the special “cake” he had baked for the Russians. Blocks of C4 had been placed strategically throughout the vessel, with special attention focused on the engine room and its remaining stores of diesel fuel. As Harvath grabbed the boat’s flare gun and exited the wheelhouse, he activated a waterproof timer strapped to his wrist. It was synched to Carlson’s digital fuse aboard the
Rebecca
, which had already begun its own deadly countdown.

Arriving at the rear of the trawler, Harvath was suddenly illuminated by one of the most powerful spotlights he had ever seen. A voice over a loudspeaker commanded him first in Russian and then English to stop where he was and prepare to be boarded.
Fat chance of that
, Harvath said to himself as he readied the flare gun. Aiming it over the top of the patrol boats, he pulled the trigger.

The bright red signal flare soared high into the night sky and hopefully carried with it the eyes of the Federal Border Guard agents so intent on capturing him. Placing the regulator in his mouth and flipping over the side, Harvath was far beneath the surface when the crews of the Sokzhois began strafing the water with rounds from their 14.5mm machine guns.

As he was no longer carrying his M4, the bulk of Harvath’s gear was now contained in a medium sized buoyancy bag, which could be partially inflated via a small, attached bottle of air, thus rendering the bag weightless underwater. Harvath inflated it to the proper buoyancy and using carabiners, secured the bag to two eyehook style receivers mounted beneath his DPV. Cutting the cord that connected the Farallon Diver Propulsion Vehicle to the
Rebecca
, he let himself drift downwards for several meters while he got his bearings before firing up the DPV.

His rendezvous point was off another island, just inside the Russian maritime border, about five kilometers away. It was a tiny, insignificant port where fisherman stocked up on fuel and supplies, as well as waited out storms or repairs to their boats before putting back to sea. The vessel Harvath was meeting, complete with the SEAL team that had commandeered it, would fit in perfectly.

As Harvath fixed his location with the DPV’s Global Positioning System, he wasn’t surprised to hear the low grumble of Zevzda high-speed diesels coming from one of the Sokzhoi patrol boats on the surface. It had made a beeline straight for the
Rebecca
the minute he had abandoned ship. It was exactly what he had been counting on.

Depressing the trigger switches of his DPV, Harvath began to move as quickly as he could away from the
Rebecca
and the Russian boarding party that was probably already clambering over her gunwales.

Despite his dry suit and all the other precautions he had taken, the water was still freezing. Not only was the suit not keeping him as warm as he would have liked, but along with the buoyancy bag suspended from the bottom of the DPV, it was also creating a lot of drag. Had he been more streamlined, he might have been able to get away a lot faster from what was about to happen.

Illuminating the timer strapped to his wrist, Harvath counted down the final seconds before the
Rebecca
exploded. When the timer reached zero, he said to himself, “
da sveedanya,
motherfuckers,” but was unprepared for the incredible concussion wave that followed.

Had it not been for the MkX’s locking forearm cuffs, Harvath would have lost the DPV for sure. His ears were ringing and he was completely disoriented. He fought to hold on to consciousness as the change in pressure slammed his body into a deadly spin. It was like being caught beneath the biggest wave he had ever imagined. Over and over he turned as the force of the blast threatened to squeeze the life out of him. The regulator was knocked from his mouth and he had no idea which way was up.

There was a tightness in his chest and as he struggled against the blackness overtaking his head, he realized he was holding the triggers of the DPV in a viselike death grip and that it was pulling him straight down. Harvath let go and the machine’s propeller came to a halt. Unlocking one of his arms, he located his regulator and placed it back into his mouth. For several seconds, all he did was breathe, but the air tasted funny and was searing his lungs. He looked at the depth gauge strapped to his other wrist and saw that it read forty-three feet. He had transcended the thirty-foot threshold and his oxygen was becoming toxic. He needed to climb.

As the DPV pulled him on a gradual ascent toward the surface, Harvath felt the pressure on his body lessen and his mind began to clear. There was no way the blast he had felt was from the
Rebecca
, he was too far away when it had gone up. It had to have been something else.

Approaching the surface, Harvath could once again hear the low diesel grumble of one of the Sokzhoi patrol boats. This one was very close. Though he was tempted to take a look, he decided against it. Pointing the DPV in the opposite direction, he depressed the triggers and set about putting as much distance between himself and the Russians as possible.

Surprisingly, the sound of the engines didn’t fade. In fact, they grew louder. Harvath changed course again and so did the patrol boat. It was if they had some sort of lock on him, but how? Then he realized—
sonar.

The Sokzhoi was one of the most efficient, best-equipped patrol boats the Russians had. There was no doubt that it would have been outfitted with all the bells and whistles and with his DPV, Harvath was unquestionably giving off a small, but distinct sonar signature. Though a small, moving target was hard to hit, if the Federal Border Guard agents were using grenades to force him to the surface, they wouldn’t have to be dead-on accurate, just being in the general neighborhood would be enough. Harvath had to act fast.

Diving, Harvath pushed the limits of toxicity for his rebreather as far as he dared. At just below thirty-two feet, he hovered and braced for impact. Moments later, the explosions came. The first two were far enough away, but the third rattled him so hard, he almost blacked out.

Using the sound of the high-speed diesel engines as his guide, Harvath slowly made his way toward the surface. As the patrol boat’s bright searchlight swept the water looking for him, Harvath located the dark shadow cast by the vessel’s hull. Now, it was all just a matter of timing.

Harvath dove back down and unlocked himself from the DPV’s arm cuffs. The patrol boat was right above him and had come to a dead stop as its searchlight continued to carve through the water. Goosing the Diver Propulsion Vehicle just to the edge of the Sokzhoi’s shadow, Harvath then opened the attached buoyancy bag’s air bottle as far as it would go and released it.

The carabiners snapped tight and the buoyancy bag began to pull the DPV upwards as Harvath swam toward the bow of the boat and began his ascent.

When the DPV broke the surface, it was immediately spotted by several heavily armed Federal Border Guard agents crowding the ship’s railing. With their attention diverted, the first thing Harvath did was take aim at the Sokzhoi’s searchlight.

The silent dart raced from the H&K P11 underwater pistol and hit its mark dead on. The searchlight exploded in a shower of sparks that rained down upon the forward deck of the patrol boat. For the moment, Harvath had the advantage, but it wouldn’t last long.

Just beneath the surface of the water, he activated his night vision monocle, and took aim at the men along the railing. The first three were felled with shots to the chest while the fourth, who was seating another 40mm round into his grenade launcher, caught his in the stomach.