Brad Thor - State Of The Union

After lighting a candle, Ivanova sat down by herself on one of the long pews in the center and closed her eyes. At first, Harvath thought maybe she had come to pray, but as she repeatedly stole furtive glances at her watch, he realized what she was really doing was killing time. Either someone was coming to meet her, or something else was going on.

Harvath watched as a stream of worshippers and tourists moved through the church, each guided by their own calling, but none of them tried to make contact with Ivanova. After an hour had passed, she glanced at her watch one final time and then stood up and walked slowly to the exit.

By the time she emerged, Harvath was already secreted on the edge of the small esplanade waiting for her. When she hailed a nearby cab, Harvath quickly followed suit, telling the driver in his somewhat passable Russian, “slyedooytyeh ta jensh-cheena.”Follow that woman.

They came to a stop in a neighborhood of run-down factories lying cheek by jowl. Up ahead, Harvath could see a line of people standing in the cold beneath a brushed aluminum sign that readbreathe.

Harvath watched as Ivanova walked to the front of the line, said something to the bouncer and was granted admittance to the club. Once she was inside, Harvath paid the fare and climbed out of the cab. He waited until the cabbie had driven away before casing the perimeter of the building and finding a place to hide his backpack. Bypassing the line just as Ivanova had done, Harvath approached the bouncer, slipped him a hundred-dollar bill and asked if it was possible to get a table.

The bouncer showed Harvath inside where a scantily clad hostess led him to a table, presented him with a menu, and wished him a pleasant evening.

Glancing around the crowded nightclub, Harvath could see that it had once been a foundry or a factory of some sort. The focal point was an enormous riveted vat with large portholes, around which the bar had been built. Harvath could see patrons with masks clasped to their faces indulging in the latest trend to sweep Russia-scented oxygen.

When the waitress arrived to take his order, Harvath was tempted to ask for a martini, but thought better of it when he realized the ice would be made from St. Petersburg’s foul-smelling, foul-tasting, pollutant-laden, giardia-infested water. Russian vodka could kill a hell of a lot, but Harvath doubted it could conquer what crawled out of local spigots. He opted for a beer instead.

By the time hisVena Porter arrived, Harvath had politely chased off three hookers. Obviously, word had quickly spread that there was a wealthy American at table number one. Knowing that it was much more difficult to hit a moving target, he left some money for his drink and got up to check out the rest of the club.

The clientele were all New Russians, sporting the latest in trendy designer fashions. While Ivanova’s outfit had seemed a bit much at the Hermitage Café, now it made complete sense. Though she was a tall gorgeous blond, there were a lot of tall gorgeous blonds here and she was proving very hard to locate. Harvath tried to put himself in her shoes. If he was going to conduct a clandestine meeting in a crowded, noisy nightclub, he’d want to position himself somewhere on the fringes of the action, someplace with the best view possible, yet concealed enough so that the meeting wouldn’t draw any undue attention.

Harvath approached the large dance floor and kept his attention on the clusters of seating areas on the other side. The DJ had just begun spinning “One Nation Under a Groove” by George Clinton and the Funkadelics when the crowd parted and Harvath caught a glimpse of Ivanova. She was sitting in a somewhat secluded booth and had just been joined by a middle-aged man in a bad suit with an even worse comb-over. He looked like he’d be more at home at a book binding convention than at a hip Russian nightclub, but whoever he was, Ivanova had gone to a lot of trouble to meet him and therefore Harvath wanted to meet him too.

He worked his way around the edge of the dance floor, trying to move through the thick crowd but as he got about halfway to the booth, something was wrong. Ivanova had disappeared.

Moments later a voice from behind said, “Why am I not surprised?” as Harvath felt something hard jabbed into his back.

“Of all the oxygen bars in all the towns in all the world-” he mumbled as he looked over his shoulder and saw Alexandra using her coat to hide the gun she was holding.

“Quiet,” she replied, turning him around. “I had a feeling I was being followed.”

“Guilty,” replied Harvath, as he tried to put on his most charming smile, “but now that I’m here, how about introducing me to your friend in the booth?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” said Ivanova as she scanned the crowded dance floor. “If I let you go, you’ll hang around and wait for him, won’t you?”

“Probably,” replied Harvath as he watched Alexandra scan the dance floor yet again. She seemed nervous and very tightly wound. “Are you expecting somebody else?”

“I don’t know.”

Bad events seemed to radiate a certain electricity that Harvath was often able to pick up on. The hair on the back of his neck began to rise and seconds later he heard someone scream.

Alexandra wasted no time. She pulled the silenced Walther P4 from beneath her coat and ran for the booth.

When she finally fought her way through the crowd, she found the man in the bad suit laying slumped in the booth and bleeding profusely from several stab wounds to his neck and chest. It was soon complete pandemonium, with patrons screaming and running toward the front of the club. Not knowing how close the attacker was, Alexandra turned and swept her weapon back and forth, looking for any face in the crowd that didn’t look right.

Harvath was only two steps behind her. He arrived at the booth with his H amp;K drawn and he Ivanova both saw the attacker at the same time, but it was too late. Expertly using the stampeding crowd as cover, the man smiled before disappearing into the sea of rushing people. Harvath had seen the man’s face before. It was the same man who had pulled off the attack at the King George, but how could he have followed Harvath all the way to St. Petersburg?It was impossible.

Harvath glanced at the man slumped in the booth and leaned in to feel for his pulse. It was very weak, and Scot was taken by surprise when the man suddenly reached out and beseechingly grabbed for his arm. He told him to stay calm, that help would be there soon, but the man just shook his head. He withdrew something from his pocket and pressed it into Harvath’s hand. He opened his mouth to speak and but collapsed before he could get the words out. Harvath once again felt for the man’s pulse, but there was none. He was dead.

“Cover Nesterov!” Ivanova said as she kept her weapon trained on the quickly dissipating pack of fleeing customers.

“There’s nothing to cover,” replied Harvath as he stepped away from the booth. “He’s dead.”

“Damn it,” swore Ivanova.

Who was he?”

“A scientist.”

“What was he working on?”

“It’s not important now.”

“Not important? Obviously somebody thought it was important enough to kill him over. Do you have any idea who was shooting at us?”

Ivanova stood and said, “Russian military.”

“Well that makes sense,” responded Harvath.

“If you knew the depth of what was going on here, itwould make sense,” snapped Ivanova.

“I think I understand well enough. The man who killed your scientist, I’ve seen him before. He tried to kill me two nights ago in Berlin.”

“Helmut Draegar was in Berlin? What was he doing there?”

Harvath was floored. Gary Lawlor hadn’t been ranting. He had been trying to warn him. “That doesn’t make any sense,” continued Harvath. “Helmut Draegar was killed fifteen years ago.”