CHAPTER 48
H
arvath and Palmer cleared the entire house. There was no one there. It was the same for the pool house, guesthouse, and other outbuildings. Damien and the rest of his security people had gone. But gone where?
They searched the bodies of the dead security operatives—all of whom were foreign nationals carrying blue, UN-issued Laissez-Passer passports. There was nothing on them, not even on their phones, indicating where Damien was. The truck was devoid of clues as well—no slip of paper with an address, no map with a circle on it, no preprogrammed GPS with a destination for the supplies.
Fetching a box of glow sticks from the storeroom, Harvath gave them to Palmer and sent him out to mark an LZ for the helicopter. After radioing the pilot, he then returned to the mechanical room.
Mordechai sat on the floor next to Helena, attempting to comfort her. They both looked terrible.
“Helicopter is on its way,” said Harvath. “We’re going to get you out of here.”
Ashby had fashioned a sling for the Israeli, and after uncuffing Helena, had found a painter’s cloth for her to cover herself with.
She pulled Harvath out of earshot and said, “Not only did they beat and torture her, but I’m pretty sure Damien’s men raped her too.”
Harvath shook his head.
Animals
. “Can she talk?”
“I haven’t heard anything, but I think she’s in shock. Her jaw may be broken as well.”
“We need to know where Damien went.”
“You can ask her, but I don’t think you’re going to get anything. You should give her a little time.”
“I wish we had it,” Harvath replied.
Gently, he approached Helena and Mordechai and explained that he needed to know what happened and where Damien went. Helena didn’t reply. Mordechai tried some delicate coaxing, but she just closed her eyes. Harvath let it go.
Stepping outside, he helped Palmer collect the bodies. The side-by-side was still operable, and so they used that, stacking the corpses like cordwood and then hiding the vehicle in one of the outbuildings.
By the time they returned to the entrance of the passageway, they could already hear the helicopter approaching.
Palmer helped Mordechai and Harvath thought it better, given what had happened, that Ashby assist Helena. Though they moved slowly, they were at least both ambulatory.
Nicholas radioed that he wasn’t picking up any additional heat signatures anywhere on the property, and that it looked safe to land. He made sure to keep the drone out of the helicopter’s path.
When the helo touched down, Harvath stood guard until everyone was on board and then he joined them. The surveillance team would recover the drone.
The pilot lifted off fast, banking and taking several evasive maneuvers just in case there was a gunman, or worse, hidden somewhere out there in the darkness.
The torque was obviously painful for Helena and Mordechai, but neither of them complained.
As soon as they cleared Damien’s estate, the pilot raced toward the Reston Hospital Center.
Looking down, Harvath could see that the traffic was still terrible. He had some decisions to make.
The first had to do with Mordechai and Helena. They couldn’t go to a regular hospital. Not with his gunshot wounds and her trauma, and not with the virus spreading. There was only one option.
Asking Ashby to hand him the sat phone from his bag, Harvath called Lydia Ryan.
“Agreed,” he said, after explaining the situation to her and listening to her response. “You’ll have that relayed to the pilot?”
When Ryan said she would, Harvath thanked her, put his headset back on, and handed the phone back to Ashby.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
“We’re dropping you and Chase in Reston to pick up his vehicle. The pilot will drop me at my place, and then he’ll fly Helena and Mr. Mordechai to The Farm for medical treatment. Lydia Ryan is already there waiting for them.”
“Once we have Chase’s truck, what do you want us to do?”
“Since you’ll be in Reston, you might as well go to the office,” said Harvath. “Get a shower, get changed, and start figuring out how the hell we’re going to find Damien.”
“Roger that,” she replied.
•••
When the helicopter landed in his front yard, Harvath grabbed his gear and hopped out. He would have just enough time to toss everything inside, take a quick shower, and grab something to eat. He was worried about getting Lara safely to her plane, and wanted to do it himself.
He found Lara and the Old Man seated at the kitchen table watching the news. They both had plates of Arroz Carreteiro in front of them, but neither was eating.
“What’s going on?” Harvath asked.
“Someone talked,” Carlton replied. “The entire world now knows that the President is under observation at Bethesda.”
“Are they saying he’s sick? Have we gotten any classified updates?”
“Publically, they’re downplaying it.”
“And privately?”
The Old Man didn’t respond.
Harvath looked at him. “He’s got it? African Hemorrhagic Fever?”
Carlton nodded.
“My God. How long does he have?”
“They don’t know. You know how fast this thing moves. It could be hours, it could be days.”
“Or he could beat it.”
“I think we better get ready for what happens if he doesn’t,” said Carlton.
“And the Vice President?”
“They’ve already invoked the Twenty-fifth Amendment. He’s going to address the nation shortly.”
“This is bad,” Harvath replied.
“Any idea where Damien is?”
Harvath shook his head. “None. They worked Helena over real bad. Whatever information she gave up was enough to spook Damien into taking off. Speaking of which, we’re watching his plane, correct?”
The Old Man nodded. “And I’ve put a team on his pilots as well.”
“Good. I told our surveillance people at his estate to stay in place in case somebody comes back. He lost a lot of men. If it were me, I’d want to know what happened.”
“If he was worried enough to flee, he’ll chalk up their disappearance to whatever he’s running from. He’s not coming back. We need to let those surveillance people get home to their families.”
“What about Damien’s staff? The people who come in to maintain the grounds? The people who take care of the animals? If they show up, they might have an idea of where he went.”
Gesturing toward the TV, the Old Man said, “That’s a big
if
. I don’t think anyone’s going to be showing up for work for a while.”
Harvath disagreed, especially when it came to whoever was responsible for taking care of the animals. They’d have a hard time staying away. In fact, it was probably someone local who did it, someone in town. He made a mental note to get Nicholas on it.
Lara offered to fix him a plate, and he thanked her as he sat down at the table and watched the crisis unfold.
Though the newscasters didn’t have all of the information, they had enough.
He ate in silence as he listened to the reports. Then, once he had finished his meal, he ran upstairs to grab a shower and change.
After soaping up, he threw the temperature selector all the way to cold and stood there for as long as he could stand before climbing out and toweling off. The news that the President had contracted the virus had
left a desperate pit in his stomach. It had been all he could do to get his food down.
Throwing on jeans and a shirt, he returned to the kitchen. Lara was waiting there with her bag. He looked around, but didn’t see the Old Man.
“Where’s Reed?”
“He said now that you’re back, he needed to get going.”
Harvath peered out the kitchen window. He saw Nicholas’s van in the drive, but Carlton’s vehicle was gone.
“He said you’d understand.”
Harvath did understand. “Did he take any supplies with him?”
“No. He told me he’d figure everything out later.”
That
, Harvath didn’t understand, but the Old Man was stubborn. He was also proud. Still, he should have taken something. Things were going to get much worse. Harvath could feel it. He was glad he was getting Lara and her family to safety.
“You ready to go?” he asked.
“Am I ready?
Yes
. Do I want to?
No
.”
Harvath reached out and pulled her close to him. “You’re going to be okay. Jon and Anya are going to take good care of you.”
“We don’t need taking care of.”
He smiled. “I’ll be out there as soon as I can.”
She tried to smile back, but it came off looking as forced as it felt.
“Hey,” he said, lifting her chin. “We’re all going to be okay. I prom-
ise you.”
He thought she was moving in to kiss him, but instead she buried her face in his shoulder.
They stood there like that for several moments, and he wondered if she was crying. When she finally pulled away, she turned so he couldn’t see her face.
“I want to say goodbye to Nicholas,” she stated, walking toward the front door.
“I’ll put your bag in the Tahoe,” he replied, watching her go.
Reaching the entry hall, he remembered that he had left something in his study and jogged down the hall to get it.
It was a children’s woodworking kit, a present he had purchased for Marco. He had intended to give it to Lara on their fall colors trip.
Returning to the entry hall, he slipped it inside her suitcase and stepped outside.
Nicholas was standing outside his van, the dogs at his side, chatting with Lara. He watched as she bent down and gave him a long hug and then scratched each of the dogs behind their ears. He let them enjoy their moment before stepping out of the house and walking over to his SUV.
“All good?” he asked.
Lara turned and smiled, her eyes moist. “All good.”
He looked at Nicholas. “How about Nina?”
“She just got picked up. She’ll probably arrive at Reagan right about the same time you do.”
“I’ll give her a hug for you,” Lara stated.
“Thank you,” Nicholas replied. Then, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the inside of his van, he added, “I’ve got to get back to work.”
The two hugged once more, and as Lara walked over to get in Harvath’s SUV, Harvath added another item to Nicholas’s to-do list—tracking down any of the staff that worked at Damien’s estate.
Rolling out of his driveway, he activated the “avoid traffic” feature on his GPS and then tuned his radio to WMAL.
Iconic D.C. broadcaster Larry O’Connor was calmly breaking down the story, but he followed his analysis with one chilling question, “If the President of the United States couldn’t be protected from the virus, how could anyone else hope to be?”
It was the right question to ask, and the answer was simple—no one was safe. A panic like nothing before was rapidly consuming the United States, and with it, the rest of the world.
CHAPTER 49
P
RESENT
T
IME
O
nce Harvath had said goodbye and knew Lara was safely on her way to the plane, he felt a sense of relief. It was just one last thing he had to worry about.
Stepping back inside the Signature Flight Support building, he looked at the text Nicholas had sent him out on the tarmac and tapped the icon to call him.
“Are you positive about this?” he asked when the little man answered.
“One hundred percent.”
“How long do I have?”
“Could be hours. Could be days. What are you going to do?”
“What would you do?” Harvath asked.
“Get my affairs in order and hope it’s painless.”
Harvath chuckled at the idea of a DHS Team coming to forcibly take him into custody. “Very funny. I thought you said whoever is running the Main Core database was good. You even called them
sophisticated
. How do you know we’re not being played?”
“Because as good as they are, I’m better.”
“But they still caught you in their database,” said Harvath, weaving his way through the crush of people.
“Something that will not happen again, believe me.”
“And how do you know they didn’t find your malware?”
“Because,” replied Nicholas, “it would be like trying to pick up a water balloon, in the dark, with a pair of razor blades. It wasn’t designed to turn on until they activated Main Core. Trust me, they didn’t
find my malware. The information we’re getting from their servers is legit.”
Harvath still found it hard to believe that they were going through with it. “Who authorized it? Linda Landon couldn’t have ascended this fast. Could she?”
“Maybe she doesn’t have to pull the trigger herself. All she has to do is convince someone else to.”
That was a possibility Harvath hadn’t considered.
“Is Nina on the plane?” Nicholas asked, changing the subject.
“I haven’t seen her, but the parking lot is a mob scene. What about tracking down Damien’s staff from Clifton? Any luck?”
“It took a lot of work, but I was able to speak to the vet they use, and he in turn put me in touch with Damien’s farm manager who lives two towns over.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them that I had a bunch of feedstock that Damien had ordered, and that I didn’t know if he wanted it delivered to Clifton or to his other location.”
“What other location?” asked Harvath.
“
Exactly,”
Nicholas replied. “Neither of them knew of any other location beyond his houses and apartments overseas.”
“What about a housekeeper or landscaping service?”
“The farm manager said that his wife cleaned the house, and that his team maintained the grounds.”
“So it’s a dead end.”
“Sure seems like it,” Nicholas said, adding, “What’s your plan? Do I wait around here for you, or should I get out before DHS shows up?”
It was a good question.
Harvath had no intention of letting the Department of Homeland Security take him into custody. He was going to have to go to ground. That meant he couldn’t go home, he couldn’t go to the office, and he would have to avoid any friends or known associates. He would also have to shed his ATM and credit cards, all of his electronics, and his vehicle. However long it lasted, it was going to be a very dangerous pain in the ass.
Part of him thought very seriously of just turning around and getting on the plane with Lara right now. It had already stopped in Boston and
had picked up her parents and Marco. He could have Nicholas hightail it down here, and as soon as he and Nina had arrived, they could all take off for Alaska. Harvath’s mother was already en route for Anchorage. They would connect there and disappear into the wild. It couldn’t be any easier.
He was truly tempted to let it all burn to the ground. Maybe that’s what this town needed—a massive reset. Maybe that was the only way to get things moving again, to clean all of the gunk out of the fuel lines.
Then he could come back after and help start over, help rebuild. Or maybe he wouldn’t. They could all just stay in Alaska. He had never thought that far ahead. He had never actually thought things could get that bad.
But even if he had, he knew he would still have to be here—right in the fight. It was who he was. It was where he belonged. He cared too much to turn his back. When things were at their worst was when you knew who you were and who the people around you were.
The only easy day was yesterday.
Harvath had made his decision. Now, he had to decide what he was going to do next.
Like it or not, DHS was going to come for him. And at this point, it didn’t matter who had put him on the list— only that he was on it.
And while Nicholas had said it could be anywhere from days to hours, Harvath had to imagine they were going to move on him quickly. From the screen grabs Nicholas had taken, he had been coded for arrest and placed in the highest-risk category. When they took him down, they were going to take him down hard. There would be no reasoning with whoever it was. They would come prepared for him to resist and would therefore employ overwhelming force. But then what?
What happened once they had him? Would he be hidden away somewhere and left until he succumbed to the virus? Or did they have something worse than that planned? He didn’t intend to find out.
“Lock up for me,” Harvath said, “and get out of there.”
“Will do. Where are we going?”
“Where DHS won’t be able to touch us.”
“Where’s that?”
“Camp Peary.”
•••
On a good day, the drive from Reagan National to Camp Peary was two hours. Today wasn’t a good day. Not by a long shot.
Leaving the Signature Flight Support building, Harvath had seen one of the Carlton Group’s best operatives, Lee Gregory, shepherding Nina through the sea of cars and people in the parking lot. He was a big, tough guy with a lot of experience. The Old Man had sent the right person to pick her up. No matter what happened, nothing would stop him from getting Nina onto that plane.
They chatted briefly, before Harvath said goodbye to Nina and thanked Gregory for bringing her down. Lee had a family of his own and was probably anxious to get home to them.
Exiting the parking lot, Harvath walked up the road to his Tahoe and hopped in. There was a little diner on the Richmond Highway in Tappahannock, about halfway to Camp Peary. He and Nicholas would meet there and ditch his SUV near one of the docks on the river.
Before ending their call, he had asked Nicholas to tape a note to his front door that read
MEET ME AT THE BOAT
. He had no idea if it would throw DHS off his trail or not. But if it did, it would be worth it.
After abandoning Harvath’s Tahoe, they would drive the rest of the way in Nicholas’s van. It was too valuable and too useful a piece of equipment to leave behind.
When he turned WMAL back on, the Vice President’s speech was already in progress.
“. . . your prayers for President Porter, and his family, who we trust will make a full and complete recovery. This evening, per Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, President Porter transmitted a written declaration to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives that he is temporarily unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office of the Presidency.
“Until such time as President Porter is once again capable of executing his duties, I shall serve as Acting President of
the United States. In this capacity, and in order to better assist state and Federal authorities, I am declaring a state of national emergency.
“Together with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I am asking for the cooperation of all Americans over the next several days. All public gatherings such as concerts, sporting events, and conventions are hereby temporarily suspended. Schools will be temporarily closed, and we are asking churches to also temporarily suspend services. If you don’t have to leave your home, don’t. Only by slowing this virus can we hope to stop it.
“I have spoken with all of the country’s governors who will be mobilizing their National Guard forces to help maintain order and deliver aid and assistance to those who need it.
“We have experts working around the clock and they are in touch with their colleagues around the world. From Beijing to Baltimore, the brightest scientific and medical minds on the planet are doing all they can to find a way to halt this virus in its tracks.
“During this time, you can do your part by staying indoors and cooperating with your local and state authorities. Please be mindful of the burden on first responders, and do not call 911 or approach your local hospital unless it is a life or death situation. Every minute hospital or emergency response personnel spend on non-life-threatening issues is a minute denied a heart attack or severely injured patient.
“These are trying times for America, but America has faced trying times before. We have always prevailed in the past and we will prevail again. I know this because—”
The old school telephone ringtone belonging to the Old Man began sounding and Harvath turned down the radio.
“I need you to turn around,” Carlton said.
“Turn around?”
“Yeah, I need you to go back home.”
Did Harvath hear that right? Home?
“Listen,” Carlton continued, “this isn’t a revolution. It’s a goddamn coup.”
“But the Vice President was just—”
“That was recorded hours ago. They’ve already activated the continuity of government plan and evacuated people out of D.C. to Mount Weather.”
Harvath was familiar with the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains about fifty miles from Washington, D.C., it was one of the bug-out locations for the United States Government in times of national emergency.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, key members of the administration and Congress had been relocated there in order to assure that the government continued to function.
It was also FEMA’s base of operations and housed the control node for the nationwide, Federal Emergency Alert System, which allowed the government to interrupt television and radio broadcasts in order to transmit emergency messages.
Run by FEMA’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the facility resembled a small college campus sitting on just over four hundred fenced-and-barbed-wired acres. Right underneath it was a sprawling six-hundred-thousand-square-foot, reinforced concrete complex designed to withstand multiple nuclear strikes. It was provisioned with air purifiers, water access, electricity, and enough food, medicine, and supplies to keep hundreds of people alive for years.
Most interesting of all, was that Mount Weather was less than fifteen miles from Pierre Damien’s estate.
It would have been an incredible coincidence, if only Harvath believed in coincidences. People in his line of work who did usually ended up dead pretty fast.
“The Vice President spiked a fever on the helicopter on the way out,” Carlton continued. “He threw up twice, a source tells me, before they even touched down.”
“Where’s is he now?” Harvath asked.
“The Mount Weather Infirmary under quarantine.”
“Have they passed the baton to the Speaker of the House?”
“He’s sick too, and so is the President pro tempore of the Senate. They’re both in D.C. area hospitals, along with the goddamn Secretary of State.”
Harvath was floored. He remembered Mordechai’s comment about Presidential succession if the virus moved fast enough. “So who’s in charge?”
“Unless he has magically taken ill in the last five minutes,” Carlton replied, “Dennis Fleming, the Secretary of the Treasury.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“And guess who’s running things at Mount Weather?”
“Linda Landon,” said Harvath, not wanting it to be true, but knowing it was.
“Correct.”
“But what does any of this have to do with me turning around and going home?”
“Director McGee succeeded in persuading everyone on that Main Core VIP list to be transported to The Farm. Everyone that is, except for Chief Justice Leascht.”
Harvath wasn’t surprised that a man like Cameron Leascht had refused to hide out at Camp Peary. It was in keeping with the judge’s personality to stand his ground and fight. But this wasn’t a legal case. This was literally life and death. Harvath, though, still didn’t understand what this had to do with him.
“Where is Chief Justice Leascht now?” he asked.
“DHS has him. They picked him up forty-five minutes ago.”
“How do we know?”
“Mrs. Leascht called McGee. She said a team in hazmat suits showed up and took him. When he argued, they mentioned a journalist he had been interviewed by the day before, said he has the virus, and that they needed to bring Chief Justice Leascht in for mandatory observation. They claimed it was a public health emergency and showed him the declaration the Vice President had signed.”
“They’re not wasting any time, are they?”
“No,” said the Old Man, “which is why I need you to get back home.”
“And when they show up on my doorstep to grab me?” Harvath asked. “What then?”
“First, don’t resist them. When they showed up at Judge Leascht’s, they brought a lot of firepower.”
“They’d need a lot more if they came to my house.”
“Don’t be stupid. They’ll be prepared for you too. They know your background.”
“But why would I surrender to them?”
“Because we have to get Judge Leascht out.”
“With all due respect,” Harvath replied, “he had his chance. Why risk it now?”
“Because symbolism is important,” said Carlton. “As Chief Justice, Leascht is the highest judicial officer in the nation. People know him; they respect him, and he has more gravitas than the Secretary of the Treasury and all the Congressmen and Senators combined. He’s someone the nation will rally behind.”
“Are we still talking about a coup? Because it sounds to me like we’re moving into the realm of a revolution?”