State Of The Union

His question was momentarily forgotten as Überhof, who had stopped to reload, now opened up from a new position-crouched behind a long row of antiquated communications equipment. For a moment, Harvath could almost picture the ghosts of operators sitting there with bulky headsets straddling canvas military caps, but a bullet whizzing by his ear snapped him back to the seriousness of the moment.

The communications console was perched upon a raised platform against the far wall, putting Überhof on the high ground, which provided him with a considerable advantage.

As Harvath studied the man’s position, he noticed that hanging behind the console was what appeared to be an enormous light-up map of Berlin, and it gave him an idea. After finally getting Herman’s attention, he motioned to the map and indicated what he wanted to do. After loading two new clips, Herman nodded his head and once again created a blanket of cover fire.

Harvath rolled out from his position and started shooting at the two brackets holding the heavy illuminated map to the ceiling. When the first bracket shattered and began to give way, he turned his H amp;K on the second. In a shower of sparks and twisted metal, the enormous map came crashing down, filling the narrow space behind the communications console and the wall, sending more dust and debris into the air.

Harvath and Herman waited, but nothing happened. It was all quiet.Too quiet. They knew that there were at least two more bad guys in that room,but where were they? Harvath motioned to Herman to hand him the Specter scope. He pushed the power button and waited for what seemed like an eternity for the device to power up. As he sca

“Don’t move,” yelled Harvath raising his weapon. “Stop where you are.”

The figures in the scope kept moving. Harvath was about to fire a warning shot, when all of a sudden they disappeared from view. It didn’t make any sense until he heard the unmistakable slamming of a heavy metal door.

Without thinking twice, Harvath got up and ran for the back of the chamber. When he reached the door and tried to raise the heavy iron handle, he was too late. It had already been locked from the other side. Once again, he was stopped dead in his tracks by another blast door with a red sign markedBetriebsraum, framed by two lightening bolts.

“Damn it,” he swore under his breath.

“Scot,” yelled Herman. “Get over here. I think I’ve found Gary.”

Harvath rushed to where Herman was trying to saw off the flexicuffs that bound Lawlor to his chair. Scot pushed him aside and knelt down. Taking the knife away from him he began working on the cuffs himself and said, “Check that guy behind the communications console, then get back over here. I’m going to need your help.”

Gary had been shot. A large red stain covered his chest and his breathing was slow and shallow. He had been knocked over backwards in his chair and once Harvath had the felxi-cuffs cut away, he sat him up, trying to make him as comfortable as possible.

Looking at his face, Harvath was amazed that Herman had recognized Gary at all. He had been beaten to a pulp. Both of his eyes were practically swollen shut, and his lips looked like they had been pumped up to five times their normal size. His face was covered with various cuts and contusions and his hair was matted with dried blood.

“What the hell did they do to you?” asked Harvath, more to himself than to Gary.

Lawlor tried to speak, but Scot told him to be quiet. He was gurgling as if blood was in his lungs.

Harvath tore Gary’s shirt open to the waist and tried to wipe away some of the blood from around the entry wound. This was what you always worried about in a hostage situation-that the hostage takers might go down swinging, starting with a defenseless hostage. It was every counterterrorism operative’s nightmare-not getting there in time.

As Harvath assessed Lawlor’s injuries, the man tried to push his hands away. He was rasping again in his fluid filled whisper, which Harvath couldn’t understand. When Herman began to make his way back over to them, Gary became even more insistent.

“Gary,” commanded Harvath, “calm down. You’ve been shot. I need to look at this wound. Now quit fighting me.”

Lawlor’s strength amazed Harvath as he continued to try to resist. It didn’t make any sense. The closer Herman got, the harder Gary began to thrash.

Finally, Lawlor gave one last push that was strong enough to topple Harvath over and grabbed his gun. Before Harvath could stop him, Gary had pulled the trigger three times and fired at another figure that had been creeping toward them.

“Is he dead?” whispered Lawlor, as Harvath stared at the body.

When Harvath didn’t respond, Lawlor repeated with more emphasis, “Is he dead?”

“Yes,” said Scot.

“Make sure.”

“Gary, he’s dead.”

“Make sure, goddamn it!”

Harvath went over and felt for Überhof’s pulse. There was none. “He’s definitely dead.”

Lawlor said something that sounded like, “good,” before dropping the pistol and collapsing into unconsciousness.

Chapter 27

I thought for sure he was trying to kill me,” said Herman, as he and Harvath sat just outside the operating room where Gary Lawlor was still being worked on. He had been in surgery for more than nine hours. When they had finally climbed out of the U-Bahn system and bundled Lawlor into an ambulance, it was well past ten o’clock in the morning.

Lawlor had lost a lot of blood, and getting him out of theGeisterbanhöfe had been a nightmare. Herman had managed to find an old stretcher in the bunker, but between his bad leg and Harvath’s bruised ribs, it had taken forever for them to retrace their steps back to the functioning Friedrichstrasse station where they could call for help.

A team of Sebastian’s men came back to theGeisterbanhöfe and after securing the empty rooms, used shape charges to blow open the locked doors markedBetriebsraum. Harvath had been right. TheBetriebsraum was indeed a mechanical room, complete with generators and an air filtration system, but there was also something else-a concealed passageway with a circular metal staircase, leading all the way up to the Russian Embassy. Once Sebastian’s men realized what they had discovered, they wisely backed off. They had enough explaining to do to their superiors already, especially with one of their team members dead. Besides, even if they had wanted to breach the Russian Embassy, which several of them were eager to do, it was considered sovereign territory and could have created a serious international incident.

Instead, Sebastian’s men secured the body of Karl Überhof, who, beneath his jacket, had concealed a small caliber sniper weapons system with full metal jacket nine-millimeter rounds. The mystery of who had been shooting at them from across the street of the Goltzstrasse safe house seemed at least partially solved. The remaining two questions were who the hell was Überhof and who had he been working for?

Sebastian had spent the rest of the day trying to keep his own ass, as well as those of his men, out of the proverbial fire. He had had no choice but to come clean with his superiors. Well,relatively clean at least. Out of respect, he had left Harvath’s name out of it. He told his commander that they had been operating on a tip from an informant. Though the story wasn’t going to hold forever, he hoped at least it would buy Harvath a little bit of time. It was the least he felt he could do for him. The phone call about Überhof’s sniper rifle and the hidden stairwell leading to the Russian Embassy had come in just moments ago and was the last “favor” Sebastian had said he could do for Harvath. He and his men were being watched too closely now.