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“No offense, Mr. Secretary,” responded Harvath. “It’s just that someone very close to me has disappeared under some very strange circumstances.”
“No offense taken, Agent Harvath. I assume we’re talking about Gary Lawlor?” asked the secretary.
“Yes.”
“How were you able to co
“When I was in Gary’s house earlier tonight-”
“Wait a second,” interrupted Hilliman. “That was you? You were the one who got inside and used his phone?”
“Yeah. I needed to find out what happened to him,” answered Harvath.
“And what did you find?”
“Probably not much more than you already know. He had apparently gotten off his flight to San Diego, come home, repacked for another destination and hastily burned something in a trashcan in his bathroom.
“He had erased his caller ID log, so I picked up his phone and punched star sixty-nine to see who his last call had been from. That’s how I got Frank Leighton’s number. I traced it and then got the address in Easton.”
“I’m not going to ask,” said Hilliman, “how you got into Agent Lawlor’s house. You must have gotten into Leighton’s house the same way. I saw the impressive array of gadgetry that my people picked you up with.”
“Yourpeople?” said Harvath. “Those guys work for the Department of Defense? What does the DOD have to do with Gary’s disappearance?”
“In a moment. Do you know where the termCold War comes from, Agent Harvath?”
“If I remember correctly, there was an American journalist named Lippman who wrote a book in the late forties called,Cold War. The title was meant to reflect the relations between the USSR and its World War II allies-the United States, Britain, and France-which had deteriorated to the point of war without actual military engagement.
“Foreign policy on both sides seemed singularly focused on wi
“And what brought about the end of the Cold War?”
“That was actually a year before I was graduating and it was all we talked about,” replied Harvath. “There were a lot of theories floating around, but the one that made the most sense to me was that we simply outspent the Soviets. That’s how we won the Cold War.”
“Are you aware, Agent Harvath, of how that affected defense pla
“Sure,” answered Harvath. “The Berlin Wall came down in November of 1989. Germany then united less than a year later and joined NATO. The Warsaw Pact disbanded and we signed a conventional arms control treaty that provided for major cuts in both American and Soviet forces. Basically, all of the intense debating over nuclear policy came to a sudden and screeching halt.
“Our greatest enemy was defeated, so we began slashing our military spending starting with our presence on the European continent and then what we had invested here at home. The once formidable Red Army was suffering from not only a lack of supplies, but also from a lack of morale. If they couldn’t even put down revolts in their own country, how could we expect them to pose any threat to us? They were finished.”
“Or so we thought,” replied the defense secretary.
“What are you talking about?” asked Harvath.
“What if the Cold War hadn’t ended?” said the president.
“Are we talking about a hypothetical here? Like what if there had been a different outcome?” asked Harvath.
“No,” replied President Rutledge. “What if the Cold War didn’t end? What if we thought it had ended, but the Soviets were just playing possum?”
“That would be the greatest Trojan horse in history. But it would be virtually impossible. I mean, look at the condition their country has been in since the end of the Cold War-life expectancy falling, rampant corruption, fifty percent a
“And many opinion polls out of Russia would agree with you,” offered the defense secretary. “An overwhelming percentage of middle-aged and older Russians believe that their lives were significantly better under Communism.”
“But why are we even talking about this?” asked Harvath.
“Agent Harvath, do you have any idea how much the international community, both private and public, has fu
“I don’t have an exact figure, but it has to be in the billions of dollars.”
“Try tens of billions. Of which, several billion have gone astray.”
“I’ve read about that,” said Harvath. “The Russian mafia has slithered its tentacles very thoroughly into the Russian banking system, right?”
“You’re half right. As far as we’re concerned, there is no Russian mafia.”
“No Russian mafia? What are you talking about?”
“After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the KGB underwent several face-lifts. When it emerged, it had a new name, had placed one of its own colonels in the president’s seat in the Kremlin, and was making megabucks by taking even greater control of its country’s illegal activities,” said the secretary.
“Are you telling me the Russian mob is actually run by the Russian Federal Security Bureau, formerly known as the KGB?”
“You catch on quick, kid,” said Defense Secretary Hilliman.
Harvath ignored the remark and studied the graying, sixty-some-thing Defense secretary with his neatly pressed Brooks Brothers suit, wire rim glasses, and blue silk tie. “I guess not,” said Harvath. “With all due respect, does this have something to do with Gary and the deaths of the Army Intelligence operatives from Berlin? Because this isn’t making any sense.”
“That’s enough of the questions, Bob,” interjected the president. “Let’s focus on the answers.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” responded Hilliman, as he placed his briefcase on the table and extracted a large manila envelope. He fished out an eight-by-ten color photograph, handed it across the table to Harvath, and said, “Three days ago, security staff at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Mi
Harvath was at a loss for words. “I can’t believe this. TheRussians? That’s insane. Why would they do something like that? Are you positive the device was one of theirs?”
“There’s no question. Both the Cyrillic markings and laboratory tests on the fissile material have come up positive for Russia.”
“How could they have gotten a suitcase nuke into the United States?
“During the Cold War, our borders were a lot more porous than they are now,” said the Secretary.
“You think that’s when this thing came in?”
“According to interviews we’ve conducted with Russian defectors over the years, the Soviets were actively trying to smuggle these things in. We even had a former Russian nuclear scientist testify before Congress about it.”
“So why haven’t we conducted an all-out search for them?”
“We did. In fact we conducted several searches and spent a lot of money but always came up empty. Either the stories were bogus or the devices were too well hidden.”
“Wait a second,” said Harvath. “Even if the Soviets had been able to pull it off, we’re talking at least twenty years ago.”
“At least.”
“Then in this case, time to a certain degree is on our side. Russian suitcase nukes, just like our backpack nukes, needed to be refreshed at least every seven years to assure maximum potency.”
“Unfortunately,” responded the defense secretary, “your information is incorrect. Both the United States and the Russians had been experimenting with a hybrid fissile material with a seriously expanded potency and shelf life.”