Brad Thor - State Of The Union

“I am sure and that is very kind of her, but these men were very serious, elite soldiers. We’re not talking about ordinary American GIs. This group, Frau Putzkammer would definitely remember.”

Nixie’s façade seemed to soften. “When would these men have been in Berlin?”

“Before the wall came down. They were a small group charged with-”

“Für die Sicherheit?” asked Nixie, cutting off Herman’s sentence.

“Yes,” answered Harvath. “But how could you know that?”

“Let me get someone to take over for me, and we can talk,” said Nixie as she pressed one of the many buttons on her phone and spoke in rapid fire German. Moments later a stunning redhead emerged from a discreet side door to relieve Nixie, who then showed her guests out of the reception area and into a small elevator.

They rode to the fifth floor where the elevator opened up onto a gorgeous, antique filled penthouse apartment.

This was a part of the King George even Herman had apparently never seen before. “Frau Putzkammer’s abode?” he asked.

“Actually, it isour home,” replied Nixie.

“You meanyou and Gerdaare?”

“Mother and daughter,” said Nixie, cutting Herman off before he could say what he really thought their relationship was. “My full name is Viveka Nicollet Putzkammer.”

“I had no idea,” offered Herman, stunned.

“Not many people do. That’s the way mother has always wanted it. After private boarding schools in both France and Switzerland, I received my bachelor’s degree at the University of Southern California and my MBA at Kellogg in Chicago, then I returned home to Berlin to help run the family business.”

“And from the looks of everything,” replied Herman, “you’ve been doing a very good job.”

“But how did you know aboutFür die Sicherheit?” interjected Harvath.

Nixie motioned for her guests to take a seat in the sunken living room, as she crossed a series of beautiful oriental carpets and retrieved a large beer stein from atop one of the many bookshelves lining the far wall. Returning with the mug, she smiled as she handed it to Harvath and said, “One of my mother’s most prized possessions.”

He didn’t need to read the inscription on it to know what it was. Seeing the piece of barbed wire wrapped around the bottom was enough.

“Where’d she get this?” asked Harvath.

“It was a gift,” replied Nixie.

Harvath recalled the stein that Hellfried Leydicke had above his bar and half-assumed that Gerda Putzkammer had been another helpful outside supporter of Gary’s team. But when he flipped the stein upside down and saw the serial number, he was stunned. 10/12.Ten of twelve.A real team mug. A quiet, subconscious ping echoed in Harvath’s mind as if his mental radar had bounced back off of something he had been looking for.

“The man who gave that stein to her was named John Parker,” said Nixie. “My mother loved him very much. Enough to let him go back home to America when he was recalled after the wall fell.”

“Did he know that your mother was pregnant?” asked Herman, taking a guess.

“No. In fact, my mother didn’t even know until he had already gone.”

“She never tried to make contact?”

“You have to know my mother. She is a very proud woman. The last thing she would want is for people to think that she needed a man to take care of her.”

“How about you?” asked DeWolfe. “Don’t you want to have a relationship with your father?”

“I do have one. Although not the kind you’re thinking of,” replied Nixie. “My mother told me that my father had died shortly after I was born, and for many years I believed her. Then, one day, I found the room where she hid her diaries and other personal effects. I spent weeks sneaking into that room. I read everything that I could get my hands on and eventually discovered who my father was. That’s why I decided to do my undergrad work at USC.

“I nannied for their family in Thousand Oaks for four wonderful years. He had married his old sweetheart shortly after returning to the States from Berlin. Though I would have preferred he had married my mother, his wife was a wonderful woman and he is a wonderful man. I like to think that had he known my mother had gotten pregnant, he would have done the right thing by her. But it was Mother’s decision to keep things quiet and knowing her the way I do, I can respect that. Though my father didn’t really know who I was while I was working for him, he nonetheless treated me as if I was one of his very own daughters. We still keep in touch via email.”

Harvath hated to do it, but he took a deep breath and said, “Nixie, I’m sorry to tell you this. John Parker is dead.”

“No,” said Nixie, blanching. “That can’t be true.”

“I’m afraid it is,” replied Scot. “They killed almost all of the people on his Berlin team.”

“Who killed him? And what do you meanalmost all of the people on his Berlin team?”

“At this point, I’m not at liberty to tell you who killed your father, but I can tell you this. Two people on the team are still alive. One of those people was your father’s commanding officer. That man has been like a second father to me and the same people who shot and killed your father have shot and tortured him. Right now he is being operated on in a Berlin hospital and no one can say for sure if he is going to make it.”

Nixie was doing the best she could to control her emotions. “Who is the other man?” she asked.

“The other man,” said Harvath,” is another of your father’s teammates. The King George was a covert contact point for them a long time ago.”

“That comes as no surprise. This entire building is riddled with secret doors and passageways that helped certain people sneak in and out during the Cold War. My mother was very proud of her involvement in foiling the Russians and their East German counterparts.”

“And so she should be,” said Harvath. “But what we need now isyour 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.