After removing his handcuffs, Harvath’s interrogators gathered all of the equipment from the long table and left him alone in the kitchen. It only took a few minutes to confirm his suspicions that though nobody was in the room, he was still being watched. The entire kitchen was covered by several strategically placed miniature cameras. A further visual exploration of the room revealed sophisticated intrusion detection systems and a discretely mounted air quality monitor, the kind used to check for airborne particles a lot more dangerous than pollen and ragweed. Whoever owned this place had certainly put a lot of money into it and took its security very seriously.
Harvath found a clean mug and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot brewing next to the stove. Peering out of the window above the sink, he learned several things. The first was that the window was made from thick synthetic glass, most likely bulletproof. The next was more of a confirmation of an earlier gut feeling-he was indeed in the middle of nowhere.
Finally, after much persistent squinting against the light from behind him in the kitchen he was able to discern several men in winter camouflage on patrol outside. Whoever this Goaltender was, he took his security seriously and money seemed to be no object. Though it was good, there was still no way it could be anywhere near as thorough as what the United States Secret Service provided the president.
That thought was still swirling around Harvath’s head along with what possible clandestine purpose the fortified farmhouse could possibly serve and what these people wanted with him, when he heard the telltale sounds of an approaching helicopter. It came in quickly and landed even faster. Whoever the pilots were, they were very good. Harvath had no idea the helicopter was even there until seconds before it landed.
Through the swirl of snow kicked up by the unmarked, blacked-out craft, Harvath could see a group of people hop out and quickly make their way toward the house. As soon as the party cleared the rotors, the helicopter lifted off and disappeared. It was done with military precision and Harvath had to admit he was more than a little impressed.
He assumed that the mysterious Goaltender was a member of the party who had just been dropped off outside and he readied himself for the encounter.
Two of the men who had taken him prisoner at Frank Leighton’s house entered the kitchen and instructed Harvath to set his coffee cup down. They quickly searched him to make sure he hadn’t secreted anything outside the view of the cameras that could be used as a weapon and then pointed him to a lone chair on the far wall of the kitchen. These people were obviously extremely careful and took nothing for granted. Harvath had to hand it to them. It was exactly the way he would have done things.
He took his seat as instructed and waited. From beyond the kitchen, there was a chorus of indistinguishable voices as the party from the helicopter entered the house. Several minutes passed and then the voices grew louder as the party approached the kitchen. When the first member of Goaltender’s security detail entered, Harvath’s jaw nearly hit the floor.
“Palmer?” he said, the confusion clearly resonating in his voice.
“Harvath?” replied Secret Service agent, Kate Palmer. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Apparently, the local 4H club has an interesting way of soliciting new members,” said Harvath as he began to stand up.
“Don’t stand, Scot. I need you to remain seated until I say otherwise,” replied Palmer as three other agents entered behind her and swept the kitchen.
Harvath recognized two of the other three Secret Service agents as former colleagues of his from the president’s protective detail. Though he nodded to them, they ignored him until they had determined that the room was completely secure.
“What the hell is going on here?” asked Harvath.
Kate Palmer spoke to the agents, who then left the room, before turning her attention back to Harvath. “We’ve got a very big problem that I am not at liberty to go into. You’re free to stand up now if you want.”
“Thanks,” said Harvath as he rose from his chair. “What do you mean, you can’t go into it?”
“I’m not authorized to discuss it.”
“Well who is?”
“I am,” said a voice from the entryway to the kitchen, which Harvath immediately recognized.
“Mr. President,” he replied even before he had fully turned around.
Kate Palmer spoke into her sleeve microphone, “Goaltender will be ready to travel shortly. All teams be prepared to move.”
Harvath looked back at Agent Palmer and then turned to the president and said, “You’re Goaltender? Your call sign has always been Hat Trick. Why the change? What’s going on here?”
“You and I have a lot to talk about, Scot,” responded President Rutledge. “Agent Palmer, if you would be kind enough to show the defense secretary in and give us the room, please.”
“Right away, Mr. President,” said Agent Palmer as she exited the kitchen.
Once Defense Secretary Robert Hilliman had entered the room and the rest of the Secret Service agents had left, the president said, “Scot, I’d like you to meet Secretary Hilliman.”
“Mr. Secretary,” replied Harvath as he shook hands with the man.
“I have heard a lot about you, Agent Harvath. I’m sorry that we should have to meet under these circumstances.”
“I’m the one that’s sorry, Mr. Secretary,” replied Harvath. “I have no idea what this is all about.”
“That’s why we’re here,” said the president, as he motioned the two men toward the long kitchen table. “We don’t have much time, so let’s get started.”
When the trio was seated at the table, the president said, “Scot, I need to know what you were doing at Frank Leighton’s house.”
Harvath shot an uneasy glance at the defense secretary.
“Don’t worry about Bob. He’s one of the few people in Washington I know I can trust. That’s why I appointed him,” said the president.
“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 connect him with Frank Leighton?” asked the president.
“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 winning the Cold War. After we created NATO, the Soviets created the Warsaw Pact. There didn’t seem to be a local conflict anywhere in the world where the U.S. didn’t choose one side and the Soviets another. This maneuvering eventually gave way to the arms race, where both sides competed to have the most advanced military weapons possible.”
“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 planning by the United States?” asked the secretary.
“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 annual inflation. A lot of people could argue that it is worse now than it has ever been.”
“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 funneled, into Russia since the early nineties?”
“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, Minnesota, received a tip and discovered a Russian suitcase nuke hidden within the NASCAR Silicon Motor Speedway exhibit.”
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.”
“How potent?” asked Harvath, studying the photograph of the device.
“Somewhere between forty-five and fifty kilotons. And although we live in a megaton world today, I don’t have to remind you that the device the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima nicknamed “Little Boy” was only a twelve point five kiloton device and “Fat Boy” dropped on Nagasaki was just twenty-two.
“With the amount of people who visit the Mall of America on a daily basis, the death toll would have been astronomical. Factor in the right weather patterns to disperse the radiation and the fact that the mall is only fifteen minutes from the downtown areas of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and the death toll would’ve skyrocketed even higher. The entire country would have been put into an immediate panic, with everyone wondering if it was an isolated incident or if their town would be next.”
“Was the device active?”
“Thankfully, no.”
“How was it smuggled into the mall in the first place?”
“We don’t know,” said Hilliman. “The FBI has been poring over security footage, but they haven’t come up with any leads. For all we know, it could have been broken into several pieces and then reassembled inside.”
“Why do I get the feeling this isn’t the end of the story?” said Harvath.
“Because it isn’t,” replied the president. “Bob, show him the rest of the photos.” As the defense secretary slid a stack of Polaroid photos across the table the president continued, “We found these pictures in an envelope taped to top of the Mall of America device. Apparently, we were led to the first nuke so there’d be no doubt in our minds that we are dealing with very serious players.”
Harvath studied the photos, which showed similar devices placed in the trunks of cars and inside nondescript vans parked in front of recognizable landmarks in major cities like Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle, Miami, Denver, New York, and Washington, DC. After he was finished looking at them he asked, “Are we positive that this isn’t just one device that has been on a grand tour of the United States?”
“We’re sure,” answered the president. “Several years ago, we began helping the Russians implement a real-time computerized monitoring system to keep track of their nuclear weapons. Before that, every Russian nuclear device had a paper passport recording where and when it had been made, where it had been transported and stored, when it had undergone maintenance, and so on.
“It was in our best interest to help the Russians put into action an accounting system for their weapons, which would hopefully prevent them from falling into the hands of any third parties. It was also an opportunity to try and peek behind the curtain and see what was in their arsenal. Suffice it to say that they did everything they could to limit our access to sensitive information. One of our operatives, though, did come across a list of weapons from the early eighties that had been exported to undisclosed locations outside of the USSR.”
“And were those weapons suitcase nukes?” asked Harvath.
“Correct,” responded the president. “By enhancing the photos we could clearly make out the serial numbers. They’re a match for the ones on our Russian manifest.”
“How many devices were listed as exported on that manifest?”
“Twenty-five.”
“How many pictures were in the envelope?” asked Harvath, as he reexamined the photos in front of him.
“Nineteen.”
“So with the Mall of America device, that makes twenty. What about the other five from the Russian manifest? Do we believe those devices are also in the United States?”
“They could be,” said the president. “Or they could be in major cities of our international allies.”
“Why? Concurrent strikes?”
“Or more likely, to be used as a means of dissuading our allies from coming to our aid.”
“Coming to our aid for what?” asked Harvath.
The president removed a folded piece of paper from inside his suit coat and handed it to him. “It was slid in between briefing papers I received from the National Security Council. And before you say anything, it is being vigorously investigated, but no, we don’t have a single lead at this point.”
Harvath didn’t allow his face to reflect the utter shock he was feeling as he read the letter:
President Rutledge:
By now you have authenticated the device we strategically placed within your Mall of America and you have seen a representative sampling of the other weapons we have at our disposal. These weapons have been repositioned throughout your country where they will be guaranteed to wreak the most physical and psychological damage to the United States. Neither small town, nor large city will be spared the horror of nuclear destruction. Americans will be forced to live in fear, never knowing where the next device will be detonated. The realization that no place in your country is safe will soon impact every American.
The era of arrogance and America’s misguided international policies has come to an end. In your State of the Union address on January 28th, you will announce to the world that the United States has seen the error of its ways and is removing itself from global politics to focus upon pressing domestic issues. In addition to removing all of your forward deployed troops on the Korean Peninsula, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, you will close down all of your International Development Missions, will surrender all of your seats at the United Nations, and will immediately divest the United States of any involvement with any of the organizations listed at the end of this letter.
If you have not made this announcement in full within the first three minutes of your State of the Union address next week, a device will be detonated promptly at 9:05 eastern time, and every hour thereafter, until you come to your senses or America lies in smoldering ruins.
So has the world and the balance of power changed. Pitiable is the leader who does not know when he is beaten and arrogantly leads his people into the mouth of the abyss itself.
Sincerely,
The New Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
As Harvath finished reading the list of international organizations at the end of the letter, which included, among many others, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, and the G8, he said, “This is insane. What they’re talking about is tantamount to economic suicide.”
“And that’s what the Russians want,” replied the defense secretary. “The business of Americais business. It’s not our military that makes us strong, it’s our economy. Take that away and we’d have no military. We’d have nothing.”
“But if the U.S. even hinted at such an isolationist policy, we’d be done for. Confidence in everything we stood for would evaporate. Faith in our currency, our economy, even our way of life would fail. Our markets would collapse and we’d be plunged into an economic winter that would never thaw.”
“Exactly,” said Hilliman.
Harvath couldn’t believe he was having this discussion. “Not only is this whole thing insane, but there is no way they could ever get away with it. You’ve spoken with the Russian president about this already I assume.”
“I was on the phone to him the minute we verified the device was one of theirs,” answered President Rutledge. “We spoke again when I received the letter.”
“And?” said Harvath expectantly.
“And he said very much what we thought he would say. After we gave him the serial number from the device at the Mall of America, he looked into it and called us back. He claims the suitcase nuke was a regrettable loss from a storage facility raided three years ago by Chechen rebels, the fashionable Russian scapegoats. He claimed the Chechens must have sold the nuke to a terrorist enemy of the United States. The thing is, because of the Russian manifest we have, we know the device was never anywhere near that storage facility and that it couldn’t have been stolen three years ago because it hasn’t been in Russia in at least twenty.”
“So he’s lying,” said Harvath.
“But, why is he lying?” responded the president. “Is he lying because he’s embarrassed that Russia lost a nuclear device, which has turned up in a plot against the United States or is it something else?”
“What did he say about the letter?”
“He denied any knowledge of it and said that it was regrettable that a terrorist organization was claiming to be operating under the mandate of reestablishing the Soviet Union. He, of course pledged any assistance the United States might need from Russia and asked to be kept abreast of all events as the situation developed.”
“How nice of him,” replied Harvath. “Do you believe him?”
“Absolutely not,” said the president as he took the note back from Scot.
“Mr. President, if I may?” said Defense Secretary Hilliman.
“Please,” responded the president, who folded the note and put it back inside his breast pocket.
“Agent Harvath, American intelligence, in particular the FBI, has long suspected the Russians might have smuggled man-portable nuclear weapons into the United States, but until now, we had never had any concrete evidence. We have dispatched Nuclear Emergency Support Teams to cities across the country where those photos were taken, but we’re holding out little hope of uncovering any of the devices.”
“Why not?” asked Harvath.
“For the same reason we haven’t uncovered any over the last twenty years-they’ve been too well hidden, and even when they come out of hiding, the fissile material is incredibly well insulated. We’ve alerted law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for suspicious activity involving the kinds of cars and trucks pictured in those Polaroids, but for all we know showing us the devices inside of cars and trucks was just a way to further throw us off the scent. Besides, every car and truck in those pictures was different and there has been nothing that the FBI can use to track even one of them down.
“As far as the Mall of America device is concerned, we’ve got it at a secure facility now and we’re taking it apart, trying to discover if it has any sort of unique signature that could aid us in our search for the other nukes, but it’s not looking good.”
“Could this get any worse?” asked Harvath.
“Yes,” replied the secretary. “And it has. Now comes the Gary Lawlor connection.”
“If you are going to try and tell me that he is somehow aiding the Russians-”
“No, that’s not why he left the country.”
“He left the country? Then why is his house being watched, and why was I taken down at Frank Leighton’s?”
“Agent Harvath, what I am about to tell you goes beyond top secret. You are not to discuss this with anyone other than the president or myself. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Are you familiar with the code namesLast Dance andDead Hand?”
“Of course. Last Dance was our code name for the procedure that would automatically launch our nuclear missiles at Russia if they ever struck us first. They had the same setup in case we ever preemptively struck them called Dead Hand. The guarantee that either side would always retaliate with overwhelming force is what gave birth to the acronym MAD-mutually assured destruction, but we haven’t threatened the Russians, so what’s the point of all this?”
“The point could be one of two things,” said the secretary. “Either we really are dealing with a terrorist organization that wants to strike fear into the heart of every American while simultaneously turning us against an old enemy who, at best, has been a very shaky ally, or this is a bona fide move by the Russians to try to finally win the Cold War.”
“If it was the latter, that would explain their behavior over the last couple of years. They did everything they could to keep us out of Iraq. They’ve gone to insane lengths to help the Iranians with their nuclear program. In fact, I can’t think of much of anything the Russians have done in recent memory that wasn’t directly opposed to our international policies. In fact, their behavior has actually been pretty arrogant, especially in light of the deplorable state of their own country.”
“Agreed,” responded Hilliman.
“But even so,” continued Harvath, “we still have a ton of ICBMs with some damn sharp tips, and though we don’t talk about it much anymore, mutually assured destruction is just as real now as it was twenty years ago. Nothing has changed.”
“What if it has?” asked the secretary. “We know the Russians still have sleeper agents here in the United States. For every Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, there could be God only knows how many others we have never gotten wise to. If Russia wanted to hold us hostage, all they would have to do is strategically place their man-portable nukes around the country and let us know that we had the proverbial gun to our heads. We’d go looking for the devices, but if they were well hidden enough and we couldn’t find them in time, tens if not hundreds of thousands, even millions of Americans could be killed.”
“But we would retaliate,” responded Harvath with even more conviction. “And our allies would retaliate, even if devices were detonated in their cities. The Russians would be signing their own death warrant. We’d wipe their country off the face of the earth.”
The president looked at Harvath and said, “What if we’d lost the ability to respond with conventional nuclear weapons?”
“Mr. President,” replied Harvath, “I don’t understand. Are you saying that somehow the Russians have gained control over our launch capabilities?”
“We have no idea, only suspicions at this point.”
“Based on what?”
“As far as we’re concerned,” said the secretary, “the integrity of our nuclear weapons has not been compromised. Every one of them, whether they’re in a silo, on board a submarine, in a secure Air Force depot, or someplace else, all check out as fully operational.”
“So where do your suspicions come from?” asked Harvath.
“Over the last eight months, the Defense Intelligence Agency has been investigating what the air force believed to be random guidance system control problems in some of its patrol flights over the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia.”
“What kind of problems?”
“It only happened a few times, but pilots reported hitting what they referred to as an invisible wall when they were a specific number of nautical miles out into the strait. Their otherwise perfectly functioning electronic systems all began to fail and they lost control of their aircraft. The only thing that saved those planes was turning around and coming back. Since the problem could never be duplicated, we began looking into all sorts of natural phenomenon from sunspots to magnetic interference from the North Pole. Then, quite by accident we heard that the Finnish Air Force had experienced a similar problem. In fact they even lost one of their F-18 Hornets to it.”
“Where did they experience their problem?” asked Harvath.
“At different spots along their border with Russia. We asked the Signal Intelligence division of the NSA to get involved and they began monitoring electromagnetic radiation, in particular radar emissions, around Russia. At the same time, we began to quietly look around for any other similar invisible walls around the former Soviet Union that either military or civilian aircraft may have come up against.”
“And?”
“Apparently the Chinese, the Poles, and the Ukrainians have all encountered similar problems. When we compared the pilot accounts to the intelligence the NSA had gathered, we discovered that at the same time the pilots reported losing significant control of their aircraft, certain portions of the Russian Air Defense system were operating unusually.”
“Unusually?” asked Harvath. “How?”
“The electromagnetic signature emitted by all of the radar installations within range of the incident was somehow different. The NSA people couldn’t explain it. All they could say was that the anomaly was present in all confirmed cases of pilots who reported losing control of their aircraft near Russian airspace.”
“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.”