Before the President could ask another question on the subject, Rogers advanced to a new series of photos and picked back up with his briefing.
“So the team kills everyone in the house but Harvath. One of them, who may have been wearing Harvath’s watch, gets in Harvath’s rental car, drives to the end of the driveway, and throws Harvath’s cell phone out the window, then drives off.
“Based on other cameras we were able to collect footage from, the rental car crosses the bridge from Governors Island to the mainland, makes a beeline for the interstate, and heads north on I-93. It was later abandoned near Franconia Notch State Park, about seventy-nine miles south of the Pittsburg-Chartierville Border Crossing. Which brings us to the secondary vehicle, the one we believe the hit team used.”
The SPEHA brought up a new series of pictures and videos and continued speaking. “Kopec flew commercial from Reagan National to Portland, Maine, which is about ninety miles away from Governors Island.
“He was met at the Portland airport by a car service with instructions to bring him to the cottage on Governors Island. FBI has interviewed the driver, but he wasn’t much help. He says the passenger was pleasant enough, but that’s about all he remembers. They drove in silence most of the way there and back. The passenger made a few phone calls in a foreign language, which the driver couldn’t place. He thought it sounded Eastern European.”
“What about the second vehicle?” Nicholas asked.
“Panel van, rented at the Portland airport the day before,” said Rogers, as he picked back up with a video feed from the counter. It showed a tall, muscular man in his late thirties. “He presented a credit card, proof of insurance, even an American driver’s license—all of which, we know now, were fakes. Highly sophisticated, backstopped fakes, but fakes nonetheless.
“The next day, this panel van can be seen on multiple cameras. It begins by following the Town Car from Portland airport all the way to Governors Island. When the Town Car turns into the safe house driveway, moments later you can see the van drive past and keep going. Unfortunately, wherever it came to a stop and parked, none of the other homes there have cameras.
“Then, several hours later, as Harvath’s rental car is seen leaving the island and heading north, the panel van is about ten minutes behind it. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol found it abandoned the next day, less than a mile from the border.
“At that point, the trail went completely cold. Even the Canadians were unable to generate any leads. Then they got a hit on the car rental counter footage we sent them. Two days ago, a private jet left Montréal-Trudeau International. Someone at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service decided to go back, sweep FBO security footage, and run it through facial recognition. Our car renter popped up, along with four other men. At that point, they were traveling on Finnish passports with several large pieces of luggage, a couple of which could have been used to smuggle Harvath on board. They had—”
“But no one saw Harvath,” interrupted the President.
“No, sir,” replied Rogers.
“Okay, continue.”
“The jet’s crew had filed a flight plan for Ivalo, the northernmost city in Finland. Considering the number of people on board, plus the fuel capacity, it was at right about the outer range of the aircraft. According to the Finnish government, the plane was forty-five minutes from its destination when the pilot radioed in a change. They claimed they were going to St. Petersburg, Russia, instead—but that’s not where they went.”
“Where’d they go?”
“A bored Finnish air defense officer continued tracking the aircraft. It ended up landing in Murmansk.”
“What’s in Murmansk?” the FBI Director asked.
“Lots of polar bears and terrible food,” Nicholas replied.
“Do we have any satellite imagery?” asked President Porter. “Any visuals on who got off that plane?”
“No, we didn’t have anything on station,” Rogers answered. “Even if we had, a severe weather system was beginning to build, and it would have been difficult to get definitive imagery.”
“So that’s it?”
“Not exactly. After we received the FBO footage from Canadian Intelligence, we shared it with our other Five Eyes partners. MI6 came back with a hit.”
“What kind of hit?”
“Four of the men were identified as active Spetsnaz soldiers. The fifth, though, is the most interesting,” explained Rogers as he brought up a photo. “Meet Josef Ilya Kozak. Also Spetsnaz, but, more important, a colonel in Russian Military Intelligence—specifically, the GRU’s special