Brad Thor - State Of The Union

“Exactly,” said Hilliman.

Harvath couldn’t believe he was having this discussion. “Not only is this whole thing insane, but there is no way they could ever get away with it. You’ve spoken with the Russian president about this already I assume.”

“I was on the phone to him the minute we verified the device was one of theirs,” answered President Rutledge. “We spoke again when I received the letter.”

“And?” said Harvath expectantly.

“And he said very much what we thought he would say. After we gave him the serial number from the device at the Mall of America, he looked into it and called us back. He claims the suitcase nuke was a regrettable loss from a storage facility raided three years ago by Chechen rebels, the fashionable Russian scapegoats. He claimed the Chechens must have sold the nuke to a terrorist enemy of the United States. The thing is, because of the Russian manifest we have, we know the device was never anywhere near that storage facility and that it couldn’t have been stolen three years ago because it hasn’t been in Russia in at least twenty.”

“So he’s lying,” said Harvath.

“But, why is he lying?” responded the president. “Is he lying because he’s embarrassed that Russia lost a nuclear device, which has turned up in a plot against the United States or is it something else?”

“What did he say about the letter?”

“He denied any knowledge of it and said that it was regrettable that a terrorist organization was claiming to be operating under the mandate of reestablishing the Soviet Union. He, of course pledged any assistance the United States might need from Russia and asked to be kept abreast of all events as the situation developed.”

“How nice of him,” replied Harvath. “Do you believe him?”

“Absolutely not,” said the president as he took the note back from Scot.

“Mr. President, if I may?” said Defense Secretary Hilliman.

“Please,” responded the president, who folded the note and put it back inside his breast pocket.

“Agent Harvath, American intelligence, in particular the FBI, has long suspected the Russians might have smuggled man-portable nuclear weapons into the United States, but until now, we had never had any concrete evidence. We have dispatched Nuclear Emergency Support Teams to cities across the country where those photos were taken, but we’re holding out little hope of uncovering any of the devices.”

“Why not?” asked Harvath.

“For the same reason we haven’t uncovered any over the last twenty years-they’ve been too well hidden, and even when they come out of hiding, the fissile material is incredibly well insulated. We’ve alerted law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for suspicious activity involving the kinds of cars and trucks pictured in those Polaroids, but for all we know showing us the devices inside of cars and trucks was just a way to further throw us off the scent. Besides, every car and truck in those pictures was different and there has been nothing that the FBI can use to track even one of them down.

“As far as the Mall of America device is concerned, we’ve got it at a secure facility now and we’re taking it apart, trying to discover if it has any sort of unique signature that could aid us in our search for the other nukes, but it’s not looking good.”

“Could this get any worse?” asked Harvath.

“Yes,” replied the secretary. “And it has. Now comes the Gary Lawlor connection.”

“If you are going to try and tell me that he is somehow aiding the Russians-”

“No, that’s not why he left the country.”

“He left the country? Then why is his house being watched, and why was I taken down at Frank Leighton’s?”

“Agent Harvath, what I am about to tell you goes beyond top secret. You are not to discuss this with anyone other than the president or myself. Am I understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Are you familiar with the code namesLast Dance andDead Hand?”

“Of course. Last Dance was our code name for the procedure that would automatically launch our nuclear missiles at Russia if they ever struck us first. They had the same setup in case we ever preemptively struck them called Dead Hand. The guarantee that either side would always retaliate with overwhelming force is what gave birth to the acronym MAD-mutually assured destruction, but we haven’t threatened the Russians, so what’s the point of all this?”

“The point could be one of two things,” said the secretary. “Either we really are dealing with a terrorist organization that wants to strike fear into the heart of every American while simultaneously turning us against an old enemy who, at best, has been a very shaky ally, or this is a bona fide move by the Russians to try to finally win the Cold War.”

“If it was the latter, that would explain their behavior over the last couple of years. They did everything they could to keep us out of Iraq. They’ve gone to insane lengths to help the Iranians with their nuclear program. In fact, I can’t think of much of anything the Russians have done in recent memory that wasn’t directly opposed to our international policies. In fact, their behavior has actually been pretty arrogant, especially in light of the deplorable state of their own country.”

“Agreed,” responded Hilliman.

“But even so,” continued Harvath, “we still have a ton of ICBMs with some damn sharp tips, and though we don’t talk about it much anymore, mutually assured destruction is just as real now as it was twenty years ago. Nothing has changed.”

“What if it has?” asked the secretary. “We know the Russians still have sleeper agents here in the United States. For every Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, there could be God only knows how many others we have never gotten wise to. If Russia wanted to hold us hostage, all they would have to do is strategically place their man-portable nukes around the country and let us know that we had the proverbial gun to our heads. We’d go looking for the devices, but if they were well hidden enough and we couldn’t find them in time, tens if not hundreds of thousands, even millions of Americans could be killed.”

“But we would retaliate,” responded Harvath with even more conviction. “And our allies would retaliate, even if devices were detonated in their cities. The Russians would be signing their own death warrant. We’d wipe their country off the face of the earth.”

The president looked at Harvath and said, “What if we’d lost the ability to respond with conventional nuclear weapons?”

“Mr. President,” replied Harvath, “I don’t understand. Are you saying that somehow the Russians have gained control over our launch capabilities?”

“We have no idea, only suspicions at this point.”

“Based on what?”

“As far as we’re concerned,” said the secretary, “the integrity of our nuclear weapons has not been compromised. Every one of them, whether they’re in a silo, on board a submarine, in a secure Air Force depot, or someplace else, all check out as fully operational.”

“So where do your suspicions come from?” asked Harvath.

“Over the last eight months, the Defense Intelligence Agency has been investigating what the air force believed to be random guidance system control problems in some of its patrol flights over the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia.”

“What kind of problems?”

“It only happened a few times, but pilots reported hitting what they referred to as an invisible wall when they were a specific number of nautical miles out into the strait. Their otherwise perfectly functioning electronic systems all began to fail and they lost control of their aircraft. The only thing that saved those planes was turning around and coming back. Since the problem could never be duplicated, we began looking into all sorts of natural phenomenon from sunspots to magnetic interference from the North Pole. Then, quite by accident we heard that the Finnish Air Force had experienced a similar problem. In fact they even lost one of their F-18 Hornets to it.”