State Of The Union

“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.”

Chapter 16

You’ve heard of the tip of the spear? Well, these guys were the bolt on the door-our absolute final line of defense,” said Secretary Hilliman.

Harvath listened intently, taking in every piece of information.