“Why did he leave?”
“His grandfather had just died,” replied Dwyer. “Mike revered him. Said he was twice the man Mike was.”
“I thought operators don’t generally engage in hyperbole,” Olivia said.
“Yeah. I had to think about that one for a while too. But around the time of his grandfather’s death, the country was going through another period of self-flagellation. A large part of the media and political class claimed that the US was the locus of evil in the world, that we’d brought all the bad stuff, all the terrorism, on ourselves by being so imperialistic, chauvinistic, and racist. Blame America First.”
“I saw it among some of my colleagues. Individuals who didn’t realize how good they had it and, more importantly, why it was they had it so good. Disparaging the things that gave them their security, their privileged status, their very ability to criticize,” Olivia said.
Olivia smiled upon seeing Dwyer’s surprised reaction. It was rare to encounter a civilian with a cold-eyed understanding of the real world.
“I think Mike felt bound to defend the country he and his grandfather loved. As I said, he’s a Boy Scout. He wanted to be in the fight. He wasn’t content with supporting it. The things the talking heads were saying about America were what his grandfather had actually experienced in the Soviet Union.”
“Wait,” Olivia interjected, letting it sink in. “His grandfather was a Soviet émigré?”
“Right. As I understand it, he was an officer in the Red Army, fighting in Germany during World War II. When the war ended, the political officers adjudged him to be anticommunist, or at least an insufficiently zealous communist, and he was arrested, destined for death or a labor camp. Somehow, he escaped and made his way to the American sector in Germany. A few years later, he came to America.”
“Garin’s family is from Russia,” Olivia said as if pondering an unfinished puzzle.
“Mike still has some distant relatives there,” Dwyer said, hoping to add a piece.
“Go on.”
“Mike thought it was his obligation to both his grandfather and his country to serve the latter as best he could,” Dwyer said.
“So he became part of the counter-WMD strike force.”
“It was pretty clear diplomacy wasn’t containing the spread of WMD,” Dwyer said. “A.Q. Khan was selling nuclear know-how to anyone with enough cash; the North Koreans were doing the same. Chechens were trying to get their hands on uranium. Every thug between Syria and Burma had nuclear designs.”
“And the UN does nothing but pass toothless resolutions,” Olivia added. “The IAEA is at best worthless and at worst enabling. There’s no meaningful penalty for violating nonproliferation treaties.”
“The administration — the one preceding Clarke’s, that is — understood that negotiations to prevent the development of WMD have only been used by rogue regimes to play for time until they acquired WMD capability,” Dwyer said. “The administration also knew that even if tough sanctions were imposed, they would find a way to circumvent them. So direct covert action was needed.”
“And the strike force was created,” Olivia finished. “But why not simply use Delta or SEAL Team Six to do the job? They’re already trained in nuke detection, recovery, and disposal.”
Dwyer said, “The strike force isn’t designed for detection and recovery. Its sole task is to seek and destroy.”
“Does it have a name?
“I don’t know. I can tell you that I’ve heard the name Omega once or twice. I’m not sure if that’s the unit’s official designation or if it’s what the unit members called themselves.”
“Omega,” Olivia repeated. “Makes a perverted kind of sense. The last resort before oblivion.”
Before Dwyer could respond, the piercing sound of a commercial-grade security alarm startled Olivia. A gun materialized in Dwyer’s hand and the compact bodyguard appeared at his side in an instant, weapon drawn. The guard outside had his rifle up at the ready.
Dwyer seized her elbow and pulled her roughly in the direction of the hallway.
“Come with me,” Dwyer commanded. “Now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Garin parked the Crown Victoria at the edge of a crowded shopping center lot in Binghamton, New York, and surveyed the parking area across from a convenience store that sold lottery tickets — a liquor store next door — and waited, counting on the beneficence of human nature. It would take a while, but inevitably someone in a hurry would park outside one of the two stores to get a ticket, a few sundries, or maybe some spirits — leaving their car unlocked and relieving Garin of the problem of breaking into a vehicle in broad daylight.
Sure enough, within mere minutes a stout, lumpy man in his forties, wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a stained white T-shirt, struggled laboriously from a Volkswagen Jetta that was much too small for him and that he parked in the fire lane in front of the liquor store. A bonus: The man was gracious enough to leave the car running. Just a quick pop into the store for a pint of Jim Beam, maybe a pack of Marlboros from the convenience store, and then back home to finish the tile grout in the bathroom. No worries.
Garin, carrying his gym and rifle bags, was already halfway between the Crown Vic and the Jetta by the time Lumpy had disappeared into the liquor store, its windows placarded with ads obscuring the view from the inside. Garin casually scanned the lot before sliding smoothly into the driver’s seat and driving out of the lot. He was already on the access ramp to Interstate 81 southbound by the time Lumpy emerged from the liquor store and stared blankly at the space where he’d left the vehicle, as if it would magically reappear if he just concentrated hard enough.
Garin drove the Jetta south on Interstate 81 until he spotted an Avis location on the outskirts of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He put the keys and, like a good Boy Scout, five hundred dollars in cash in the glove compartment of Lumpy’s car before locking it and leaving it in front of the Avis building.
Garin rented a blue Ford Fusion, driving within five miles of the posted speed limits to Washington, D.C., stopping only once to change clothes in the restroom of the gas station a few blocks from the Avis.
The traffic into Washington was fairly light until he reached the madness of the Beltway. He arrived at the safe house in the evening. The house was a small, slate-gray, two-story town house wedged between two others that were nearly identical. He circled the block once looking for anything out of the ordinary before parking along the street a little less than a block away.
Garin collected his bag from the trunk and proceeded up the narrow walkway along the side of the house to the rear. A row of three darkgreen plastic trash cans stood next to the back door. Garin found the house keys taped to the lid of the middle can and let himself in the back door. Recalling the security code from his days at DGT, he punched it into the touch pad inside the door and found himself in a small kitchen. Curious, he opened the door to the refrigerator and found it stocked with plenty of meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, and sports drinks.
Garin dropped his bag on the floor and performed a methodical sweep of both floors of the premises. A short hallway with a half bath to the right led from the kitchen to a living room at the front of the house. A large rectangular mirror hung over a small fireplace to the right. A narrow wooden staircase led to the second floor, where there were two bedrooms at opposite ends of the hallway. A laptop sat on the desk in the smaller bedroom. There was a modest full bath between the two bedrooms.