State Of The Union

“My God,” breathed Harvath, “if this is some sort of new technology and it could be applied to missiles as well, the Russians would be virtually-”

“Impervious to attack,” said the president, finishing his sentence for him.

“What if it doesn’t guard against missiles?”

“Based on the sophistication that we’ve seen,” replied Hilliman, “we’re assuming that it does. The only way to be completely sure would be to launch a strike of our own and at this point, we can’t justify that.”

“But they’re holding a nuclear knife to our throats.”

“That’s where this gets tricky,” said Hilliman. “Everything points to Russia, but it’s all circumstantial. The Russian government claims they know nothing about a plot to plant enhanced suitcase nukes in different locations around the United States. Yet, when asked about one of the devices specifically, the Russian president gave us a bullshit response. The letter President Rutledge received calling for America to step off the world stage was slipped in between his briefing papers, which suggests that whoever is behind this has the ability to control someone in a not-so-insignificant position within our government. Then we add another ingredient-a number of pilots who claim to have lost control of their aircraft near Russian airspace. It’s still not enough to make a case for striking first.”

“Are you telling me that you’re not convinced?” asked Harvath.

“No, the president and I are very much convinced.”

“But if we can’t launch our missiles, then we’re dead in the water.”

“Maybe not completely,” replied the secretary. “Twenty years ago it was decided that we needed a backup for our backup. If the Russians were ever able to somehow take away our ability to launch missiles, we needed a way to rebalance the chessboard; if not entirely in our favor, then at least enough to help put us back on equal footing and reestablish the reality of mutually assured destruction. We did that by creating an operation codenamed,Dark Night -a team of twelve Army Intelligence operatives who could sneak man-portable nukes into Russia underneath their radar so to speak, and hold them hostage from within. Much in the same way we are being held hostage now.”

The pictures of the men Harvath had seen in Secretary Driehaus’s conference room suddenly reappeared before his eyes and though he was afraid of the answer, he asked the question anyway, “Have you activated them?”

“We have.”

“And?”

“They’re all dead. All except for two of them.”

Chapter 16

You’ve heard of the tip of the spear? Well, these guys were the bolt on the door-our absolute final line of defense,” said Secretary Hilliman.

Harvath listened intently, taking in every piece of information.

“During the eighties, we had a lot of assets forward deployed in Europe. There was no point in having teams stateside that could lift off in under two hours if it was going to take at least six more to cross the Atlantic. The Dark Night operation evolved from a group of Army Intelligence operatives based in Berlin. They could not only quickly respond to terrorist incidents on the continent, but they had also been trained to blend in with the locals and organize resistance if the Soviets ever overran the wall and they found themselves behind enemy lines. They were expert marksmen, possessed exceptional language abilities, and were highly skilled in their tradecraft. In fact, the CIA used them to help train many of their own people. In short, they were not only highly trained counterterrorism operatives, but also some of the best intelligence agents the United States has ever produced. And the man in charge of them all was Gary Lawlor.”

Harvath raised his eyebrows and looked as if he was about to speak, when Hilliman held up his hand and continued. “After Vietnam, Gary remained attached to Army Intelligence. He retained his rank and received four promotions as he worked his way through the FBI. As far as they’re concerned it was because of his Russian skills that the government borrowed him to recruit foreign intelligence agents in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. In reality, he had been called upon by the Defense Department to assemble and coordinate the Dark Night team.”

“What about Heide, his wife?” asked Harvath. “I heard a lot of things in my debriefing with Secretary Driehaus.”

“She was a bona fide recruiter of foreign intelligence agents.”

“So that’s why she was sanctioned and not Gary?”

“Correct. But the reason she was sanctioned in the first place was because she was so good at what she did,” replied the secretary.

“What about what Driehaus said about her suspicions of Gary toward the end?”

“Like I said, she was good at what she did. That also made her a good student of human behavior. In the weeks before her death, there had been a lot of suspicious activity in some of the Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe. The Russians were moving nuclear missiles into places like Prague and Budapest. Gary and his team were sent in to investigate. Something he did had obviously made Heide suspicious and she looked into it. She spoke with her handler, and he came back and told her he couldn’t support any of what Gary had been telling her. Shortly thereafter, she was killed in the hit and run. We needed to develop a cover for Gary’s actions because other U.S. agencies that had no idea what he was really up to started looking into his life. The Dark Night operation had to remain out of their reach and totally classified.”

“Hence the alternate codename the president is using right now?”

“Yes.”

“And this facility?”

“Was created several administrations ago in case any of our established command centers were ever compromised. It was all part of the overall plan. The need for secrecy overrode all else. Though he fought it in the begi

“He has always put his country first,” said Harvath.

“As did Heide, which I think was his one consolation. Somehow he knew she would understand why he had to do what he did. There was no choice. After the wall came down and Russia began to fold in on itself, we put the whole Dark Night operation out to pasture. In fact, all of the guys, except for Gary, eventually retired from the military.”

“You never replaced them?” asked Harvath. “You didn’t update the team with active operatives?”

“As far as the Defense Department was concerned, we had won the Cold War and the need for the team had passed.”

“But you left the nukes in place.”

“They were hidden well enough and it was easier to leave them there than to try and smuggle them back out. We looked at it as sort of an insurance policy. If the need ever arose, we’d have them on the continent ready to move.”

“But not the men to move them.”

“That,” said the secretary, “was a possibility we hadn’t fully considered.”

“You’ll have to find replacements for the Dark Night team.”

“We have to tread very carefully,” said Hilliman. “If this is the greatest Trojan horse in history, the Russians will be throwing everything they have into it. We know the Soviets probably have planted long-term sleepers in the U.S., but obviously we don’t know where. They may be in the government, the military, or possibly even in the administration. There are very few people we can trust. Even as the FBI and CIA are looking for Gary and trying to get to the bottom of who killed those ten Army Intelligence operatives, they still don’t have the full picture. We have to assume that the Russians essentially have eyes and ears everywhere.”