State Of The Union

As he began walking back around the car, Herman said, “I’ve got body armor too.”

“I don’t plan on getting shot,” answered Harvath.

“No one ever does. I didn’t, and now everywhere I go, I’m followed by one leg that just can’t keep up with the rest of me.”

Scot knew his friend was right and returned to the trunk where Herman handed him a bulletproof vest from an American company called First Choice, the best body armor manufacturers in the world. The vest was made of an ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fiber material known as Spectra. It was considered to be far superior to Kevlar because it was much lighter and with its nicely tapered edges, was much more comfortable to wear. When properly fitted, Spectra was virtually invisible under clothing. Harvath had had a lot of experience with First Choice, as it was what both the Secret Service and the president always wore.

He fastened the Velcro straps firmly around his body, and then put his three-quarter-length black leather jacket back on.

Herman took the taxi light off the top of his Mercedes and after securing everything in his trunk, pulled out of the garage with the bakery van trailing four car lengths behind.

Even though Harvath had left DC at six in the morning, with the time difference, he hadn’t arrived in Berlin until just before seven p.m. local time. The weather was very much the same as in DC-overcast and cold. The temperature gauge on Herman’s dash read minus nine degrees Celsius. Harvath did the math and even though he had begun his SEAL career with their cold weather detachment known as the Polar SEALs, the thought of sixteen degrees Fahrenheit still made him shiver. He found the button for his seat warmer and set it on high.

Herman laughed, “I don’t like the weather here either, that’s why I live in the south. The winters in Berlin are terrible. Too damp. It’s less than two hundred kilometers to the Baltic. You’re lucky there was no fog. Your flight could have been delayed indefinitely. That’s the problem with Berlin. You never know what the weather is going to do.”

As they drove into Berlin, Scot loaded his empty magazines with.45-caliber rounds while Herman explained that he and his men had been watching Harvath from the moment he had entered the General Aviation terminal at Tempelhof Airport and had not seen anyone following him. Harvath knew that if he had had a tail, his exchange with Herman at the snack bar, establishing what was referred to in tradecraft as their respectivebona fides, would have revolved around a different subject and Harvath would have left his friend there and taken a bus into the city center where they would have met at an alternate location. Such was the way fieldwork was conducted. When it came to the location of clandestine meetings, all operatives held to the acronym PACE. It stood for: primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency. There was always a backup to the backup.

Herman spoke over the radio to the MEK operatives behind them in the van as they neared the Schöneberg neighborhood where the Capstone safe house was located. One of their men had been sitting in the café up the street from the apartment building entrance and was giving the word that no one had been in or out so far this evening.

Harvath and Herman drove slowly up Goltzstrasse, while the MEK van dropped men off on adjacent streets to make their way to their respective entry points. They found a parking space on Pallasstrasse, checked their weapons, and then got out and locked the car.

The temperature had dropped at least another five degrees, and Harvath turned up the collar of his coat and tucked his head down.

As he and Herman made their way towards the safe house, Harvath’s warm breath rose into the night air, moisture clinging to his eyebrows and coating them with ice.

Harvath’s pulse began to quicken as they neared the front of the building. He slid his hand inside his coat and touched the butt of the H amp;K USP. He had no idea if they would find Gary Lawlor inside or not, but at least it was a place to start. He took one last look across the street where the blood red color of a neon bank logo above two ATMs, caught his eye. He hoped it wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.

Refocusing his mind on the task at hand, Harvath walked up to the front door of the building with Herman, who appeared to be coughing, but was discretely radioing commands over the throat mike hidden by his heavy scarf. Harvath found the nondescript keypad in the entryway and entered the five digit code that the Defense Secretary had given him back in DC. The heavy door clicked open and Harvath and Herman entered.

The lobby was prewar Berlin with a vintage, cage-style elevator surrounded by a twisting staircase with wrought iron railings. The yellow plaster walls were cracked and peeling, and the black and white tiled floor was badly in need of polishing. The marble stairs were worn from generations of use. Battered bicycles with old, shabby locks leaned against each other in a haphazard array along an alcove at the far end of the lobby. A row of tarnished mailboxes was punctuated by what appeared to be a secondhand baby carriage that its owner most likely couldn’t fit into the small European elevator and had no desire to lug up God only knew how many flights of stairs.

An overpowering scent of cheap disinfectant hung in the air, and the smell reminded Harvath of some sort of third-world hospital. It was not a good thing to be reminded of before going into a potentially hostile situation.

Every move they made threatened to echo off of the lobby walls, so they took pains to move as quietly as possible. While Herman crept off to the service entrance to let in the other team members, Harvath remained in the lobby watching the front door and the stairs. He removed the sound suppressor from his coat pocket and screwed it onto the threaded barrel at the front of his pistol. He pulled the slide back and chambered a round, then activated the LaserLyte sighting system and pointed the gun towards the floor, sweeping the beam in a wide arc across the tiles.

Herman soon returned with several of the MEK members.

“We left one man at the service entrance and we have two more on the roof, ready to rappel down,” said Herman. “If anyone approaches the front door, our operative, Max, who’s in the café, will let us know. Are you ready?”

“For what, I don’t know, but I’m ready,” replied Harvath.

“If they’re holding him in there, we’ll get him.”

Harvath nodded his assent and Herman gave a series rapid orders over his throat mike. One of the men disabled the elevator, and then the team made their way up to the third floor.

By the time he reached the final landing, Herman was breathing heavily, but it was obvious from the look in his eyes that he was thrilled to be back in the game. Harvath wished he could share the same level of enthusiasm. He hadn’t told his old friend the full story of why he had come to Berlin. He couldn’t. All he was able to tell Herman Toffle, former GSG9 counterterrorism operative, was that he needed his help and that he would have to trust him, which he did. A combination of Herman’s word and the reputation of Scot Harvath in the international Special Operations community was all that was needed to get the MEK men onboard. If the truth be told, German Spec Ops operatives were no different from their American counterparts-if there was an opportunity for a little excitement, they were all over it.

The lead MEK agent, a very muscular man of medium height named Sebastian, waved over one of his operatives and instructed him to feed their snake-a long fiber optic camera, underneath the door and into the apartment to give them an idea of what might be waiting for them on the other side. The operative slid the snake slowly into the apartment and spent several moments looking into the monocle viewfinder before raising his head and giving Sebastian theall clear.