State Of The Union

“Crossed you? I haven’t crossed you. I don’t even know you.”

“You don’t?” asked Ivanova, fluttering her eyelashes. The move was not at all flirtatious. It was inappropriate and meant to be insulting.

“Believe me,” replied Scot, trying to remain calm and not rise to the bait, “if our paths had crossed, I would have remembered it.”

“Do you remember Istanbul?” she asked. “Five years ago. A prominent American businessman and his family taken hostage?”

Of course he remembered,but how could she know about it?

The scenes came rushing back. Harvath was with SEAL Team Six at the time and had been put in charge of the ransom exchange. He showed up with what the kidnappers assumed was the money, but in reality was an H amp;K MP5K submachine gun covertly mounted inside a briefcase with the firing mechanism incorporated into the handle.

The expressions of shock and surprise on the kidnappers’ faces had barely had a chance to register before Harvath took out every last one of them. They had never seen it coming. When the rest of Harvath’s team stormed the building, there was nothing left for them to do but help escort the businessman and his family safely back to the U.S. Embassy.

“What’s this all about?” Harvath asked the woman.

“I was stationed in Istanbul.”

As well as London and Hong Kong, Harvath remembered from Rick Morrell’s briefing. “So?”

“So the kidnappers you took out were part of an arms ring we were investigating, who were responsible for smuggling heavy weaponry to several rebel groups in the Caucasus.”

“So?”

“They were the middle men. They were going to put us next to the ones running the organization, but you killed them.”

“Sorry,” said Harvath, turning his palms upwards.

“I was in charge of that investigation.”

“Sorry, again,” replied Scot.

“We had an agent on the inside and you killed him.”

Harvath had had no idea. His recent disaffection with the Russians notwithstanding, the fact that he had killed an innocent man did not sit well with him. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry. But by the same token, what the hell was he doing mixed up with a kidnapping? He should have known better. He shouldn’t have been there when the exchange went down.”

“He wasn’t,” said Alexandra.

“What?”

“He wasn’t there. He was working on putting together our meeting with the organization’s top members.”

“So, I couldn’t have possibly killed him then.”

“Not directly, but because he was new, the organization was already suspicions of him. His conspicuous absence from the bloodbath that was your ransom exchange was enough to tip their paranoia, and they shot him.”

“The key word here beingthey,” interjected Harvath. “Theyshot him.”

Alexandra asked, “Do you know how long it took us to get inside that group?”

“Probably longer than for us to take them out.”

“That is not amusing, Agent Harvath.”

“I think it is. You want to blame me for things I had absolutely no control over. While you’re at it, why don’t you talk about the 1980 Winter Olympics and how I blew it for the Soviet hockey team and handed the Americans theMiracle on Ice.”

“I think we’re done here,” said Alexandra, pushing her chair back.

Things were quickly falling apart. “Wait a second,” offered Harvath, getting himself back under control. “I apologize. You lost an operative and had a serious investigation compromised. That’s not something to make jokes about.”

“You’re right, it’s not,” replied Ivanova.

“Then why don’t we get back to the matter at hand?”

“The information my father may have had.”

“Exactly, although it’s not a question of whether he may have had it or not. We know he did.”

“You mean,now you know he did.”

Harvath understood the anger she felt on behalf of her father for having been rebuked and subsequently disavowed, but that didn’t mean that her obstinacy wasn’t getting under his skin. He reminded himself of why he was there and what he was after-what hung in the balance. “Your father had information about a plot by five Russian generals to take the United States hostage.”

“Is that how your country is viewing it? As ahostage situation? How very American.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Scot.

“I always understood that a hostage situation involved the potential for bargaining. From what I understand, the goal was the complete and total surrender of the United States.”

“So your father did take you into his confidence.”

Not until he had died, thought Alexandra, but that was none of Harvath’s business. “Your code name is Norseman, is it not?” she asked.

“What does my code name have to do with anything?”

“Are you familiar with the Russian word,Varangians?” she continued.

“My knowledge of Russian is somewhat limited.”

“Varangiansis our name for the Norse princes invited in to restore order to Russia in the Middle Ages. We don’t need any more Norsemen here. We can solve our own problems.”

Harvath had finally had it with her. “This isn’t just your problem, it’sour problem. If we don’t do something, these men are going to start World War III.”

“Who says I’m not doing something?” asked Alexandra.