State Of The Union

“St. Albert. He’s the patron saint of scientists. I knew I knew that name. I went to a Catholic grade school, and St. Albert’s picture hung in our science lab. The teacher would look up and literally refer to him on a daily basis.”

“Then this must be Nesterov’s Albert,” said Alexandra. “What else would a Catholic saint be doing in a Russian Orthodox Church?”

“Keeping an eye on the competition?” offered Harvath as she ripped the screen away from the wall.

Alexandra didn’t answer. Ignoring the adjacent plaque recognizing the Nworbski family for its generous donation, Ivaona unceremoniously tore the hinged painting from the wall and dropped it onto the floor.

“Not much of an art lover, are you? I guess you didn’t see the hinges?” said Harvath as he bent down and easily flipped over one of the sidepieces, revealing a manila envelope taped to the back of it.

“So maybe I’m a little overzealous,” replied Alexandra, ripping open the envelope and shaking its contents onto the floor.

Harvath didn’t bother arguing. Instead, he helped her sift through the documents, which comprised pages of schematics, printed pages, and a sheaf of handwritten notes.

“I speak Russian a lot better than I read it, which isn’t saying much,” he offered as he handed the notes to Alexandra and returned to the schematics. “Let me know if there’s anything interesting in there.”

Alexandra skimmed the pages and read Nesterov’s account of how he progressively became aware of the true purpose of the project he was working on. After his last meticulous, laser-printed entry were a series of handwritten notes. “Scot?” she said, drawing his attention. “You need to take a look at this.”

Harvath set down the schematics he was looking at and turned his attention to Alexandra. “What is it?” he asked.

“The notes on the bottom of this page. They’ve got yesterday’s date. Nesterov must have stopped here on the way to St. Petersburg to-” she paused.

“To what?”

“To update his memoirs in case something happened to him.”

“Let me see those,” said Harvath as he stuck out his hand.

Alexandra handed over the page, and Harvath looked down at the hastily inscribed entry. The notes obviously referred to his meeting with Ivanova, but there was also a reference to the final deployment of the technology that he and his follow scientists had been working on.

It appeared to be a command and control system capable of feeding commands up to a series of Russian military satellites. When Harvath read that the system was designed to be mobile, the blood in his veins ran cold. If it was mobile, it could be anywhere.

At the bottom of the page, Nesterov had written two words and placed a question mark next to each-Arkhangel? Gagarin?

“Do you know the significance of these words?” asked Harvath.

“Arkhangel. It means the same in English,archangel. Maybe it’s the name of the program.”

“But why would Nesterov have placed a question mark next to it? Wouldn’t he have known the program’s name?”

“Not necessarily. Maybe the scientists weren’t told. Maybe they called it Project 243 or something like that.”

“True,” said Harvath. “What aboutGagarin?”

“The first thing that comes to mind is Yuri Gagarin.”

“The Soviet cosmonaut?”

“Yes. He was the very first human being to fly in space and became a national hero for all of Russia.”

“And the air defense system incorporates satellites, so maybe there’s a connection.”

“Or-” Alexandra said, trailing off.

“Or what?”

“Or it’s a place. Maybe it has something to do with where the mobile command center is. There’s a city named after Gagarin southwest of Moscow in Smolensk,” she said, her enthusiasm quickly fading, “but there’s also the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City just outside of Moscow and I think there’s even a Gagarin Seamount somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.”

“Wonderful,” responded Harvath. “Another needle in the proverbial haystack.”

“That’s not all. Arkhangel is also a place. In fact, it’s the next region just east of here. Its capital city, also called Arkhangel, is a major port on the White Sea.”

“The White Sea?” he repeated, sitting up straighter. “That would make sense.”

“What would?”

“Look,” he said, spreading out the drawings in front of her, “I can’t even believe that equipment of this magnitude is even considered mobile in the first place. Whatever they’re using to transport it has to be very big. The satellite dishes alone that it requires are the size of a house.”

“So, what? You think it is on some sort of cargo ship?”

“Maybe. Do you still have the information from Popov’s SIM card?”

“Yes,” answered Alexandra, fishing the folded piece of paper from her pocket. “But what’s that going to tell you?”

“I don’t know, yet. Which of these numbers is Stavropol’s?”

As she pointed to it, Harvath made a few notes on the back of one of the schematics and then picked up his backpack.

“Where are you going?” she asked as he headed toward the stairs that led up into the church’s dome.

“To make a phone call. I think I might know where our mobile system is.”

Chapter 43