Brad Thor - State Of The Union

With enough of a false trail in place to occupy the police and the military until they could make it out of the country, they headed for the Russian border with Norway, using back roads whenever possible.

Two hours later, they ran out of road and had no choice but to abandon the UAZ and hike the rest of the way in on foot. When they made it to the rendezvous point, the Norwegian Special Forces unit allowed them a few minutes to catch their breath before making their presence known. Harvath, having been tasked to SEAL Team Two-the Navy’s cold weather experts, also known as the Polar SEALs, was well versed in winter warfare and noticed the soldiers before anyone else. The rest of the team was taken somewhat by surprise, as the men appeared virtually out of nowhere.

Once identities had been established, the unit commander called in a Royal Norwegian Air Force Bell 412 helicopter for their extraction. They were transported to Kirkenes Airport about forty kilometers away where the CIA Air Branch Cessna Citation X, which Harvath had flown over to Berlin on six days ago, was de-iced and waiting.

The Mach.92 Citation X traveled nearly at the speed of sound. With a range of three thousand nautical miles it was necessary that they put down in Greenland to refuel. They stopped at Sondre Stromfjord airport and were on the ground for less than fifteen minutes before being airborne again. Harvath and Alexandra hardly noticed the minor interruption and declined to exit the craft to stretch their legs and instead remained on board and continued to pour over Stavropol’s journal.

The man might have kept extensive notes, but he was no fool. Sensitive information was encoded somehow and it was only now, after almost three-and-a-half hours and two thousand miles of flight that Alexandra was beginning to get a handle on it. The fact that the man wrote in cursive Cyrillic and had terrible handwriting to boot, relegated Harvath to the back seat while Alexandra twisted her hair in knots, broke pencil point after pencil point and wore down several erasers trying to crack Stavropol’s code. The code itself wouldn’t have been such a problem had they not lost the first journal. Much of the encrypted information seemed to directly relate to earlier entries in the other notebook.

Leaving Greenland’s airspace, Harvath had received an intelligence update. He was told that Gary Lawlor’s condition had stabilized and that he’d been transported to the Landstuhl Medical Center in southwestern Germany, near Ramstein Airbase. That was the good news. Then came the bad. Not only had none of the Russian nuclear devices been discovered, but until they were verifiably locked down, president Rutledge wasn’t taking any chances. With less than twenty-four hours left until the State of the Union address, his aides were preparing two separate speeches. Though giving the speech the Russians wanted would create worldwide financial chaos and do immeasurable harm to America’s economy, he was not willing to risk the greater damage to American lives and infrastructure that would be created by the detonation of nuclear weapons on American soil.

Being cooped up in a plane over two thousand miles from home, Harvath had never felt so impotent in his life. Sitting on his hands was driving him insane.

They were over Newfoundland when Alexandra began excitedly rifling through her stack of notes, pulling out several pages in particular and laying them in front of her. Next, she tore four pages out of Stavropol’s journal and placed those to her side. Without even looking up from what she was doing, she told Harvath to go find her more paper.

When he returned, she grabbed a sheet off the top of the small stack he held in his hands and told him to sit down. He slid into the seat across the table from her and said, “What is it?”

“I finally figured it out,” she said, as she placed one of the pages from the journal side by side with a blank piece of paper and began writing. “It’s a combination of something we callPoluslovitsa, or half-word, where certain letters are purposely left missing, and an old form of Russian fast written characters.”

Harvath watched as she filled in the missing Russian words and then translated the text into English. As its meaning became clear, Harvath scrawled down a message and rushed it to DeWolfe, who encrypted his words and sped them ahead of the plane to Washington.

When the Cessna Citation X landed just a few miles southeast of Washington, DC, at Andrews Air Force Base, it was met by a contingent of agents from the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group.

Established in 1994, the CIRG represented the FBI’s highest-end tactical and investigative resources. CIRG teams could be deployed anywhere in the country to handle critical incidents requiring an immediate law enforcement response such as hostage takings, child abductions, prison riots, and terrorist attacks. One of the CIRG’s best-known units was the FBI’s famed Hostage Rescue Team, which had a helicopter standing by to transport Harvath and the rest of the team to FBI Headquarters at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue.

As the Bell 412 helicopter raced across the dark Metro DC sky, agents of the Behavioral Analysis Unit pumped Harvath and Alexandra for anything they knew about Helmut Draegar that might give them the edge in stopping him before he could carry out his assignment.

The questions continued as they rode the elevator down from the improvised landing pad on the roof and made their way into the FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center, or SIOC.

The main operations area was pulsing with activity as harried operatives simultaneously worked the phones and computer terminals. Large, flat-panel monitors surrounded the room and tracked everything from street traffic to air traffic. Utility and public works departments were being monitored, as was the main 911 Emergency Call Center. Representatives from the Capitol Police Containment amp; Emergency Response Team were present, as well as representatives from the US Park Police SWAT team, the Federal Marshal Service’s Special Operations Group, the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department Emergency Response Team, the Secret Service’s Counter Assault, Uniform Division Emergency Response, and Counter Sniper Teams, the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Emergency Support Team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council, and a host of other agencies.

Security was always extremely tight leading up to a State of the Union address, but with a confirmed nuclear terrorist threat in the works, the CIRG had been operating at an exhausting, almost overloaded capacity for the last week.

Harvath and Alexandra were shown to a conference room above the frenetic main floor, while Morrell and the rest of his team were taken to another part of the Center to be debriefed by both CIA and Defense Department officials.

As the door to the crowded conference room opened the first voice Harvath heard belonged to Homeland Security Director Driehaus. “Ifit’s found in time.”

“If it’s not, then the president is reluctantly prepared to evacuate the Congress and give his address from the White House,” replied the chief of staff, Charles Anderson.

“Taped, of course.” said CIA Director Vaile. “Your people can record it now and then feed it out tonight while he’s safe and sound aboard Air Force One.”

“The president’s not very happy about that option,” answered Anderson. “It’s not his style. He doesn’t like the idea of hiding out while millions of American lives are at risk.”

“But like it or not, it’s his duty to remain alive,” interjected Driehaus. “If this thing does come down, the American people will want to turn to him for his guidance and leadership in the aftermath.”