Code of Conduct

CHAPTER 49

Once Harvath had said goodbye and knew Lara was safely on her way to the plane, he felt a sense of relief. It was just one last thing he had to worry about.

Stepping back inside the Signature Flight Support building, he looked at the text Nicholas had sent him out on the tarmac and tapped the icon to call him.

“Are you positive about this?” he asked when the little man answered.

“One hundred percent.”

“How long do I have?”

“Could be hours. Could be days. What are you going to do?”

“What would you do?” Harvath asked.

“Get my affairs in order and hope it’s painless.”

Harvath chuckled at the idea of a DHS Team coming to forcibly take him into custody. “Very funny. I thought you said whoever is running the Main Core database was good. You even called them sophisticated. How do you know we’re not being played?”

“Because as good as they are, I’m better.”

“But they still caught you in their database,” said Harvath, weaving his way through the crush of people.

“Something that will not happen again, believe me.”

“And how do you know they didn’t find your malware?”

“Because,” replied Nicholas, “it would be like trying to pick up a water balloon, in the dark, with a pair of razor blades. It wasn’t designed to turn on until they activated Main Core. Trust me, they didn’t find my malware. The information we’re getting from their servers is legit.”

Harvath still found it hard to believe that they were going through with it. “Who authorized it? Linda Landon couldn’t have ascended this fast. Could she?”

“Maybe she doesn’t have to pull the trigger herself. All she has to do is convince someone else to.”

That was a possibility Harvath hadn’t considered.

“Is Nina on the plane?” Nicholas asked, changing the subject.

“I haven’t seen her, but the parking lot is a mob scene. What about tracking down Damien’s staff from Clifton? Any luck?”

“It took a lot of work, but I was able to speak to the vet they use, and he in turn put me in touch with Damien’s farm manager who lives two towns over.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them that I had a bunch of feedstock that Damien had ordered, and that I didn’t know if he wanted it delivered to Clifton or to his other location.”

“What other location?” asked Harvath.

“Exactly,” Nicholas replied. “Neither of them knew of any other location beyond his houses and apartments overseas.”

“What about a housekeeper or landscaping service?”

“The farm manager said that his wife cleaned the house, and that his team maintained the grounds.”

“So it’s a dead end.”

“Sure seems like it,” Nicholas said, adding, “What’s your plan? Do I wait around here for you, or should I get out before DHS shows up?”

It was a good question.

Harvath had no intention of letting the Department of Homeland Security take him into custody. He was going to have to go to ground. That meant he couldn’t go home, he couldn’t go to the office, and he would have to avoid any friends or known associates. He would also have to shed his ATM and credit cards, all of his electronics, and his vehicle. However long it lasted, it was going to be a very dangerous pain in the ass.

Part of him thought very seriously of just turning around and getting on the plane with Lara right now. It had already stopped in Boston and had picked up her parents and Marco. He could have Nicholas hightail it down here, and as soon as he and Nina had arrived, they could all take off for Alaska. Harvath’s mother was already en route for Anchorage. They would connect there and disappear into the wild. It couldn’t be any easier.

He was truly tempted to let it all burn to the ground. Maybe that’s what this town needed — a massive reset. Maybe that was the only way to get things moving again, to clean all of the gunk out of the fuel lines.

Then he could come back after and help start over, help rebuild. Or maybe he wouldn’t. They could all just stay in Alaska. He had never thought that far ahead. He had never actually thought things could get that bad.

But even if he had, he knew he would still have to be here — right in the fight. It was who he was. It was where he belonged. He cared too much to turn his back. When things were at their worst was when you knew who you were and who the people around you were. The only easy day was yesterday.

Harvath had made his decision. Now, he had to decide what he was going to do next.

Like it or not, DHS was going to come for him. And at this point, it didn’t matter who had put him on the list — only that he was on it.

And while Nicholas had said it could be anywhere from days to hours, Harvath had to imagine they were going to move on him quickly. From the screen grabs Nicholas had taken, he had been coded for arrest and placed in the highest-risk category. When they took him down, they were going to take him down hard. There would be no reasoning with whoever it was. They would come prepared for him to resist and would therefore employ overwhelming force. But then what?

What happened once they had him? Would he be hidden away somewhere and left until he succumbed to the virus? Or did they have something worse than that planned? He didn’t intend to find out.

“Lock up for me,” Harvath said, “and get out of there.”

“Will do. Where are we going?”

“Where DHS won’t be able to touch us.”

“Where’s that?”

“Camp Peary.”

On a good day, the drive from Reagan National to Camp Peary was two hours. Today wasn’t a good day. Not by a long shot.

Leaving the Signature Flight Support building, Harvath had seen one of the Carlton Group’s best operatives, Lee Gregory, shepherding Nina through the sea of cars and people in the parking lot. He was a big, tough guy with a lot of experience. The Old Man had sent the right person to pick her up. No matter what happened, nothing would stop him from getting Nina onto that plane.

They chatted briefly, before Harvath said goodbye to Nina and thanked Gregory for bringing her down. Lee had a family of his own and was probably anxious to get home to them.

Exiting the parking lot, Harvath walked up the road to his Tahoe and hopped in. There was a little diner on the Richmond Highway in Tappahannock, about halfway to Camp Peary. He and Nicholas would meet there and ditch his SUV near one of the docks on the river.

Before ending their call, he had asked Nicholas to tape a note to his front door that read MEET ME AT THE BOAT. He had no idea if it would throw DHS off his trail or not. But if it did, it would be worth it.

After abandoning Harvath’s Tahoe, they would drive the rest of the way in Nicholas’s van. It was too valuable and too useful a piece of equipment to leave behind.

When he turned WMAL back on, the Vice President’s speech was already in progress.

“… your prayers for President Porter, and his family, who we trust will make a full and complete recovery. This evening, per Section 3 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, President Porter transmitted a written declaration to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives that he is temporarily unable to discharge the powers and duties of the office of the Presidency.

“Until such time as President Porter is once again capable of executing his duties, I shall serve as Acting President of the United States. In this capacity, and in order to better assist state and Federal authorities, I am declaring a state of national emergency.

“Together with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, I am asking for the cooperation of all Americans over the next several days. All public gatherings such as concerts, sporting events, and conventions are hereby temporarily suspended. Schools will be temporarily closed, and we are asking churches to also temporarily suspend services. If you don’t have to leave your home, don’t. Only by slowing this virus can we hope to stop it.

“I have spoken with all of the country’s governors who will be mobilizing their National Guard forces to help maintain order and deliver aid and assistance to those who need it.

“We have experts working around the clock and they are in touch with their colleagues around the world. From Beijing to Baltimore, the brightest scientific and medical minds on the planet are doing all they can to find a way to halt this virus in its tracks.

“During this time, you can do your part by staying indoors and cooperating with your local and state authorities. Please be mindful of the burden on first responders, and do not call 911 or approach your local hospital unless it is a life or death situation. Every minute hospital or emergency response personnel spend on non-life-threatening issues is a minute denied a heart attack or severely injured patient.

“These are trying times for America, but America has faced trying times before. We have always prevailed in the past and we will prevail again. I know this because—”

The old school telephone ringtone belonging to the Old Man began sounding and Harvath turned down the radio.

“I need you to turn around,” Carlton said.

“Turn around?”

“Yeah, I need you to go back home.”

Did Harvath hear that right? Home?

“Listen,” Carlton continued, “this isn’t a revolution. It’s a goddamn coup.”

“But the Vice President was just—”

“That was recorded hours ago. They’ve already activated the continuity of government plan and evacuated people out of D.C. to Mount Weather.”

Harvath was familiar with the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains about fifty miles from Washington, D.C., it was one of the bug-out locations for the United States Government in times of national emergency.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, key members of the administration and Congress had been relocated there in order to assure that the government continued to function.

It was also FEMA’s base of operations and housed the control node for the nationwide, Federal Emergency Alert System, which allowed the government to interrupt television and radio broadcasts in order to transmit emergency messages.

Run by FEMA’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the facility resembled a small college campus sitting on just over four hundred fenced-and-barbed-wired acres. Right underneath it was a sprawling six-hundred-thousand-square-foot, reinforced concrete complex designed to withstand multiple nuclear strikes. It was provisioned with air purifiers, water access, electricity, and enough food, medicine, and supplies to keep hundreds of people alive for years.

Most interesting of all, was that Mount Weather was less than fifteen miles from Pierre Damien’s estate.

It would have been an incredible coincidence, if only Harvath believed in coincidences. People in his line of work who did usually ended up dead pretty fast.

“The Vice President spiked a fever on the helicopter on the way out,” Carlton continued. “He threw up twice, a source tells me, before they even touched down.”

“Where’s is he now?” Harvath asked.

“The Mount Weather Infirmary under quarantine.”

“Have they passed the baton to the Speaker of the House?”

“He’s sick too, and so is the President pro tempore of the Senate. They’re both in D.C. area hospitals, along with the goddamn Secretary of State.”

Harvath was floored. He remembered Mordechai’s comment about Presidential succession if the virus moved fast enough. “So who’s in charge?”

“Unless he has magically taken ill in the last five minutes,” Carlton replied, “Dennis Fleming, the Secretary of the Treasury.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“And guess who’s running things at Mount Weather?”

“Linda Landon,” said Harvath, not wanting it to be true, but knowing it was.

“Correct.”

“But what does any of this have to do with me turning around and going home?”

“Director McGee succeeded in persuading everyone on that Main Core VIP list to be transported to The Farm. Everyone that is, except for Chief Justice Leascht.”

Harvath wasn’t surprised that a man like Cameron Leascht had refused to hide out at Camp Peary. It was in keeping with the judge’s personality to stand his ground and fight. But this wasn’t a legal case. This was literally life and death. Harvath, though, still didn’t understand what this had to do with him.

“Where is Chief Justice Leascht now?” he asked.

“DHS has him. They picked him up forty-five minutes ago.”

“How do we know?”

“Mrs. Leascht called McGee. She said a team in hazmat suits showed up and took him. When he argued, they mentioned a journalist he had been interviewed by the day before, said he has the virus, and that they needed to bring Chief Justice Leascht in for mandatory observation. They claimed it was a public health emergency and showed him the declaration the Vice President had signed.”

“They’re not wasting any time, are they?”

“No,” said the Old Man, “which is why I need you to get back home.”

“And when they show up on my doorstep to grab me?” Harvath asked. “What then?”

“First, don’t resist them. When they showed up at Judge Leascht’s, they brought a lot of firepower.”

“They’d need a lot more if they came to my house.”

“Don’t be stupid. They’ll be prepared for you too. They know your background.”

“But why would I surrender to them?”

“Because we have to get Judge Leascht out.”

“With all due respect,” Harvath replied, “he had his chance. Why risk it now?”

“Because symbolism is important,” said Carlton. “As Chief Justice, Leascht is the highest judicial officer in the nation. People know him; they respect him, and he has more gravitas than the Secretary of the Treasury and all the Congressmen and Senators combined. He’s someone the nation will rally behind.”

“Are we still talking about a coup? Because it sounds to me like we’re moving into the realm of a revolution?”

“If we can’t stop this coup, we need to be thinking about what we do next, how we take back the country. No matter what happens, the nation needs Leascht.”

Once again, the Old Man was demonstrating his penchant for thinking several steps ahead.

“So, I get detained,” Harvath relented, “and then what? I have to concoct some sort of jailbreak?”

“No,” said Carlton. “I have a better plan.”