Porter hoped that his visitors were correct, that their plan was as well thought through and airtight as it appeared, because the alternative was almost unthinkable.
“All right,” he said, leaning forward and setting his cup down in its saucer. “We’re going to move forward with this plan. I want to be perfectly clear, though. We all need to be prepared for what happens if it doesn’t work. So, if you’re not fully confident—if there’s some other idea you’ve been holding in reserve—now’s the time to get it on the table. Once we pull the trigger, there’s no putting this bullet back in the gun.”
He paused to let his words sink in. Slowly, he looked at Rogers and then Nicholas. Neither of the men seemed eager to offer any alternative.
“That’s it then,” the President decreed. “Let’s start calling everybody in. In the meantime, I’ll make sure they get you everything you need.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Rogers said as he stood and shook Porter’s hand.
Nicholas followed suit.
As he watched the men leave the room, the President was gripped by a singular thought. What they were about to launch would go down as one of the most courageous rescues in history, or it would be viewed as one of America’s greatest mistakes.
Either way it would be pinned to him and to his legacy. He wouldn’t lose sleep over that, though. That wasn’t why he had accepted this job. He had accepted it because someone needed to be willing to stand up and do the right thing for the nation, no matter what the personal cost. All he cared about was getting Harvath home.
He prayed to God that they had made the right decision.
CHAPTER 63
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MURMANSK OBLAST
Harvath had stood at the door listening, his blanket still wrapped around him, while Christina had curled up on one of the sauna’s benches and fallen asleep.
Standing still went against everything he had ever been taught. All of his training had hammered into him that the key to escaping and evading enemy forces was to keep moving.
Waiting for Jompá and Olá to show was beginning to feel like a mistake. So much so, that part of him wanted to take his chances in the snow, to wake up Christina and run for the Finnish border. The other part of him, though—the rational, sane, experienced part—told him to stay put, take a deep breath, and relax.
He needed to dial his anxiety down, to think of something else that would move him off code red to at least code orange, or maybe even code yellow.
Normally on an operation, he didn’t allow his mind to wander. He had become an expert at compartmentalization, and could remain focused, no matter how badly his mind wanted to wander. But for a few moments, he allowed himself to wonder what he might do once he made it out.
He knew one thing for sure: whatever he did, it wouldn’t involve snow and it definitely wouldn’t involve cold. There was a little hotel he liked in the Florida Keys. He had taken solace there before. Maybe that’s where he would go—warm sand, warm water, and a bottomless bar bill.
He couldn’t go home, at least he couldn’t stay there—not for long. Home was Lara. Her clothes were hanging in the closet, her makeup in the bathroom, her fancy teas all organized in the kitchen.
At some point, he would have to make his peace with what had happened, but not until he had settled the bill. It would happen on his time, and only when he was ready. There was no other way it would work.
Leaving the sound and smell of the ocean, he brought his mind back to the here and now.
As the sauna had no windows, he had felt okay snapping a couple of chem lights and using them to dimly illuminate the tiny space.
He looked at Christina. She had been through a ton. He had been trained for this kind of grueling exhaustion, she hadn’t. It was good to see her sleeping. The more rest she could get, the better. The biggest push was still ahead.
He knew she could handle it, though. She was amazingly resilient. When he had explained all of the risks that faced them, she had smiled and simply said, “Let’s go.”
It wasn’t hard to understand why, but she had explained it to him nonetheless.
There was nothing left for her in Nivsky, nothing left in Russia, except pain. She had made up her mind to go