State Of The Union

She dusted the earth from the top of the box and saw that the wood had begun to rot. Using the point of the shovel, she pried the top loose. Sealed in a clear plastic bag inside was her father’s old battered leather briefcase-the same one she had watched him leave for work with every day and return home again with at night. It had looked like any briefcase any ordinary father would carry to his office. Staring at it now and realizing that her father and his job had been anything but ordinary, the briefcase now seemed ominous. The fact that he had chosen to bury it in the relative anonymity of his garden plot perhaps meant that his almost unbelievable story might have been more than the mere ranting of a drugged man on his deathbed.

As she held the old leather case in her hands, she began to think that maybe the reason the story had seemed so unbelievable was because it was so frightening. She hoped that the contents of the case could tell her more, but she couldn’t examine it, not there. For a brief moment, she held the doll close against her cheek and stroked its hair. With a final kiss goodbye, she laid it within the rotting wooden box, replaced the lid, refilled the hole, and then returned with a heavy heart to her tiny Moscow apartment.

What she read that night filled her with swells of emotion. There was awe at the extreme ambition her father had uncovered and fear of what that ambition might still unleash. She also felt pride as she realized why her father had done what he had done. There was no shame in his failure. His motives were above all else those of a true patriot. He had put Russia first, and in its future he had seen his daughter and a chance still to unmask a terrible evil before it had the opportunity to strike.

It was the dossier her father had compiled that had put her on the generals’ trail. The contents of that briefcase had led her to be in the woods beyond the hunting lodge in Zvenigorod, risking not only her career, but also her life. What her father had started, she would see finished, but she needed her patient to break through the haze of his fever and give her some sort of clue as to how to proceed.

As she wrung out another damp cloth, the man moaned yet again and she reached for his arm to check his pulse. It had weakened significantly. Karganov was getting worse, and Alexandra Ivanova had hit the absolute bottom of her limited well of medical knowledge.

Chapter 14

RURAL VIRGINIA

I’m going to ask you again,” said the man Harvath had struggled with inside Frank Leighton’s house. “Who are you and what were you doing there?”

“Actually, I work for Martha Stewart, but times have been tough, so I pick up the occasional decorating job on the side,” replied Harvath as he glanced around the rural farmhouse where his captors had taken him. He had absolutely no idea where he was. All he knew was that after three hours in the trunk of a car with a hood over his head, he was happy to finally be sitting in an upright position.

“Very funny, wiseass. I suppose all of these are just tools of the trade?” said the man as he did a quick inventory of the gear which had been spread across the large kitchen table. “Looks like you were planning on doing one hell of a redecorating job on somebody-SIG Sauer semiautomatic in forty caliber with a fully loaded clip and two spares. Modified Beretta Neos, complete with silencer. IR camouflage suit. Night vision goggles. Lock pick gun…I’m not screwing around with you anymore. I want some answers.”

“Okay,” said Harvath, “you got me. I don’t work for Martha Stewart.”

“No shit.”

“Actually, I work forLadies’ Home Journal, and I’m doing an investigative piece on how to make your neighborhood a safer place to live. I’m hoping it’ll be a three-parter with photographs and the whole she-bang. You’d be great for it. Could I get you to agree to sit for an interview?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Now you’re sending mixed messages. You want me to talk, but you’re also telling me to shut up.Ladies’ Home Journal did a great article on this very same thing. It’s an age-old problem. Now, what I suggest-”

“That’s it, asshole,” said the man as he tipped the chair Harvath was handcuffed to over backwards. It landed with a loud crack and Harvath’s head thudded against the tiled floor. “From this point on, things only get worse for you. Do you understand me? I have no time and even less patience. You’re going to start answering my questions, or I swear to God Iwill kill you. Something tells me your government probably wouldn’t raise much trouble over losing you.”