Brad Thor - State Of The Union

Stavropol was much cooler, more controlled in his interrogation than Draegar. He referred to what hewanted to know rather thanneeded. That made him all the more dangerous in Lawlor’s book.

“I don’t care how good you think you are,” said Lawlor. “You’ll never get him.”

“Really?” asked Stavropol. “What about Helmut? I’m thinking about letting him do it. I think he’d have a very good chance of succeeding.”

Gary knew that Stavropol was serious. He had no doubt that the man would fulfill his black promise to the very letter. He wished there was a way he could warn Scot, but that didn’t look as if it was going to happen. The one thing that Lawlor could take solace in was that he knew Scot Harvath would avenge his death. No matter how much cajoling, favoring, swapping, and pressure he had to put on people, Harvath would discover Gary’s real past and would eventually track down his killers. Gary only hoped that Harvath would do a better job avenging his death than he had Heide’s. The mere fact that Helmut Draegar was still alive, much less had managed to get the better of Gary and take him prisoner was more than he could bear. No, Scot was a better operative than Gary had ever been. Scot would see to it that Gary’s killers were brought to justice-theright kind of justice.

“So,” said Stavropol, removing a magnificently engraved pistol from beneath his suit coat, which shone with an amazing brilliance in the murky, semi-darkness, “are you going to make it easier on your friend, or harder?”

Lawlor’s mind struggled under the weight of what he was being asked to do. It was one of the most painful decisions anyone could ever be faced with. Scot was like a son to him. At the same time, there wasn’t room for choosing. He had an assignment and the freedom of his country hung in the balance. The only reason that Stavropol hadn’t killed him yet was because he had something they not only wanted, butneeded to know. He had no choice. He would take the information with him to the grave. Based on the photos of the slain Dark Night operatives he had seen, they hadn’t gotten to Frank Leighton. And if they hadn’t gotten to Frank Leighton, then there still was hope.

Gary cleared his throat and repeated, “Like a ghost. By the time you realize he’s in the room, it will be too late.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Stavropol as he pointed the gun at Gary’s chest and cocked the hammer. “I am not going to waste any time torturing you. Either you answer my questions or you die. Your decision is that simple.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” replied Lawlor. “Fuck you.”

At that moment, the rusted bulkhead door came flying open. It slammed against the inside wall where it cracked and fell off its hinges. Draegar yelled, “Grenade!” just as two flashbangs were pitched into the room.

Helmut and Überhof dove for cover, but not Stavropol. The roar of his Tokarev reverberated throughout the room as two blinding flashes of light accompanied by a pair of deafening concussion blasts erupted from the flashbangs.

The cacophony of sound bounced off the stone walls and came racing back with twice the amplitude. As Harvath and Herman entered the chamber, Überhof and Draegar, who had shielded their eyes with their arms and opened their mouths to counterbalance the overpressure effect of the grenades, began firing toward the entrance from different sides of the room.

The air had immediately filled with smoke and dust. With the reduced visibility, it was hard to tell where anybody was, much less who anybody was. The only thing for sure was that the room was much larger than any of the others they had seen in the bunker. It looked like some sort of abandoned command and control center.

Herman let loose with a high barrage from his twin Berettas in an effort to pin down their opponents while Harvath tried to pinpoint exactly where the shooters were, so that he could take them out without accidentally hitting Gary.

The echoing gunfire that filled the chamber was extremely deceptive. Harvath knew that they were looking for at least three men, but the intensity of shooting quickly dropped so that it seemed to only be coming from one person. The shooter was firing as he moved along the other side of the room.Where the hell were the other two? wondered Harvath.

His question was momentarily forgotten as Überhof, who had stopped to reload, now opened up from a new position-crouched behind a long row of antiquated communications equipment. For a moment, Harvath could almost picture the ghosts of operators sitting there with bulky headsets straddling canvas military caps, but a bullet whizzing by his ear snapped him back to the seriousness of the moment.

The communications console was perched upon a raised platform against the far wall, putting Überhof on the high ground, which provided him with a considerable advantage.

As Harvath studied the man’s position, he noticed that hanging behind the console was what appeared to be an enormous light-up map of Berlin, and it gave him an idea. After finally getting Herman’s attention, he motioned to the map and indicated what he wanted to do. After loading two new clips, Herman nodded his head and once again created a blanket of cover fire.

Harvath rolled out from his position and started shooting at the two brackets holding the heavy illuminated map to the ceiling. When the first bracket shattered and began to give way, he turned his H amp;K on the second. In a shower of sparks and twisted metal, the enormous map came crashing down, filling the narrow space behind the communications console and the wall, sending more dust and debris into the air.

Harvath and Herman waited, but nothing happened. It was all quiet.Too quiet. They knew that there were at least two more bad guys in that room,but where were they? Harvath motioned to Herman to hand him the Specter scope. He pushed the power button and waited for what seemed like an eternity for the device to power up. As he scanned the room, he caught movement in the far corner. Was it the other two hostiles, or was one of them holding Gary at gunpoint while another remained in hiding somewhere in the chamber? That was the problem. With the Specter scope, there was no way to tell.

“Don’t move,” yelled Harvath raising his weapon. “Stop where you are.”

The figures in the scope kept moving. Harvath was about to fire a warning shot, when all of a sudden they disappeared from view. It didn’t make any sense until he heard the unmistakable slamming of a heavy metal door.

Without thinking twice, Harvath got up and ran for the back of the chamber. When he reached the door and tried to raise the heavy iron handle, he was too late. It had already been locked from the other side. Once again, he was stopped dead in his tracks by another blast door with a red sign markedBetriebsraum, framed by two lightening bolts.

“Damn it,” he swore under his breath.

“Scot,” yelled Herman. “Get over here. I think I’ve found Gary.”

Harvath rushed to where Herman was trying to saw off the flexicuffs that bound Lawlor to his chair. Scot pushed him aside and knelt down. Taking the knife away from him he began working on the cuffs himself and said, “Check that guy behind the communications console, then get back over here. I’m going to need your help.”

Gary had been shot. A large red stain covered his chest and his breathing was slow and shallow. He had been knocked over backwards in his chair and once Harvath had the felxi-cuffs cut away, he sat him up, trying to make him as comfortable as possible.

Looking at his face, Harvath was amazed that Herman had recognized Gary at all. He had been beaten to a pulp. Both of his eyes were practically swollen shut, and his lips looked like they had been pumped up to five times their normal size. His face was covered with various cuts and contusions and his hair was matted with dried blood.