State Of The Union

Suddenly, there was what sounded like large pieces of furniture being hurriedly dragged across the floor.Was the shooter creating more cover for himself? Was it some sort of ruse? Harvath didn’t know what to think. The one thing he did know was that his opponent could smell the smoke just as well as he could and was just as aware of how close the fire was getting. At that same moment, something else struck Harvath. If this man had started the fire, he wouldn’t have brought DeWolfe all the way up to the fourth floor without some plan for his own escape.But where would he go? Something Nixie had said about the King George was suddenly echoing in his mind, ‘The entire building is riddled with secret doors and passageways to help certain people sneak in and out during the Cold War.’

Why not?Thought Harvath. If his group had used one of the secret passageways, why couldn’t this person use others? It was possible, but it not only begged the question, how did this person know about the passageways, but also who the hell was he and what did he want?

There was no time for that now. Harvath needed to focus on getting himself and DeWolfe out of the building alive. He felt around himself and found a large cardboard box. Reaching inside, he wasn’t surprised to find what felt like leather cat-o’-nine tails, vinyl masks, and other assorted S amp;M toys, but it was something in the far corner of the box that gave him a new idea. Harvath pulled out a round tin, about the size and weight of a small can of shaving gel. Unscrewing the lid, he knew right away what it was-Vaseline.

The contents didn’t matter as much as the size, shape and heft of the container. Not only was it very similar to a small can of shaving gel, it was also very similar to a flashbang grenade. And sometimes, as Harvath had learned in his counterterrorism training a long time ago, throwing a dud could be better than actually throwing a live device.

Flashbangs, more properly referred to in the industry as NFDDs-Noise Flash Distraction Devices, often required the use of surprise in order to be fully effective. That said, there were three major physiological effects that could not be quickly protected against.

Flashbangs produced an incredibly bright light-approximately two million candela, which even with eyes closed would cause a bleaching of the rhodopsin, the visual purple in the eye, creating the spots and temporary blindness most people have experienced and referred to as theflash bulb effect.

Then there was the noise, right around 174 decibels, a thunderous roar that was just below the threshold of damage to the eardrum, but which was still likely to produce a startle reflex even in those expecting the concussion.

Finally, there was the pressure wave. The atmospheric pressure inside a room was raised so that it compressed the body, causing a level of severe uneasiness.

For those who were prepared for it, or had trained extensively in their presence, flashbangs were not a big deal, especially as most teams had trained to enter rooms just after the flash, and concurrent with the bang. But that’s where Harvath’s training and a little trick he had learned was about to pay off.

Harvath made sure the lid on the tin of Vaseline was on tight before calling out, “DeWolfe, flashbang!” and chucking the container toward where he had heard all of the furniture being moved.

If someone was familiar with NFDDs, which Harvath suspected their shooter was, one of the biggest distractions to present them with was an inert device that did not go off. When a flashbang has been loosed anywhere near you, it is nearly impossible not to pay attention to it because youexpect it to detonate. When it doesn’t, it is extremely disconcerting and you end up focusing on it and the direction it came from, wondering what the hell happened. The tactic was something that Special Operations personnel liked to refer to as UW-unconventional warfare-and in this case it worked like a charm.

Harvath counted off the appropriate amount of seconds and then popped up from behind the bench with his flashlight blazing and his pistol ready to fire. This time, he caught his opponent full in the face with the beam from his SureFire. The man was sixty, if he was a day. He had a full head of gray hair and worn, leathery skin-not at all what Harvath was expecting. There was also, at this moment, an expression of arrogant defiance on his face. Though Harvath had never seen him before, there was something familiar about him. It was a gut feeling and he had learned a long time ago that those feelings were seldom wrong.

Whether or not he knew him, the man was still a killer and Harvath wasn’t above helping make him a little more aerodynamic, so he took aim and pulled the trigger.