From the national bestselling author of The Lions of Lucerne and Path of the Assassin comes another electrifying international thriller featuring all-American hero Scot Harvath, as he plunges into the frigid heart of the Russian tundra to save the fragile state of the union.On a cold January morning, the United States awakes to discover that an old enemy, one long believed dead and buried, has crawled out of its grave to lay siege to the world's only superpower.With the stunning discovery that enhanced Soviet-made suitcase nukes have been secreted in America 's major cities, President Jack Rutledge gathers his National Security Council to weigh the feasibility of a first strike against the Russian Federation. There's only one problem. For over two decades, the Russians have been funneling international aid money into a top secret air defense system, which has just been brought on-line and which will render any conventional attack upon their country utterly ineffective.After exhausting all of his other options, and with Soviet sleeper agents preparing to detonate their deadly payloads across the United States, the president turns to the nation's final hope, ex-Navy SEAL and Secret Service Agent Scot Harvath.Assigned to a covert section of the Department of Homeland Security and charged with defending the nation against all foreign aggressors by any means necessary, Harvath finds himself hand-picked by the president to unravel a brilliantly orchestrated, fiendishly timed conspiracy that has already shattered the fragile peace between the world's nations and which, if successful, will leave the United States in smoldering ruins.With family friend and former Deputy FBI Director Gary Lawlor nowhere to be found and suspected of betraying his country, Harvath embarks on an adventure that will test the bonds of loyalty and reveal a nation's deepest secrets.As high-voltage and timely as they come, State of the Union is a frighteningly real, headline-ripping tale of espionage and intrigue that will keep readers guessing until the last tantalizing piece of the puzzle locks into place.With exotic international locales, hair-raising suspense, and scenes of pulse-pounding action, Brad Thor has once again reaffirmed his position as the thriller writer readers and critics alike have hailed as Clancy, Cussler, and Ludlum all rolled into one.
The third book in the Scot Harvath series
For Sloane-
Welcome to the world, little one
Cunctando Regitur Mundis
Waiting, one rules the world.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 28TH
What I want, Chuck, is ten minutes of peace and quiet so I can think,” snapped the president to his chief of staff.
Charles Anderson had never seen his boss like this. Then again, America had never faced a situation of this magnitude before. With less than three hours until he was expected to deliver his State of the Union address, President Jack Rutledge had already made the tough decision of evacuating Congress and settling on a videotaped address from the White House. The hardest call, though, still lay before him.
“Okay, people,” voiced Anderson. “You heard the president. Let’s give him the room. Everybody out. We’ll reconvene in the Situation Room.”
Once the Oval Office had cleared out, the president leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and massaged his forehead with the heels of his hands. His oath of office called for him to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution-a body of laws, which obliged him, “to give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” Never in a million years could he have imagined that the execution of his duties would lead to the unraveling of everything America had fought to become.
He was reminded of the first State of the Union address given by George Washington over two hundred years ago at New York ’s Federal Hall. With the country in the fledgling stages of its great democratic experiment, Washington had focused on the very concept of union itself and the challenges not only of establishing, but of maintaining it.
How in the hell had things come to this?Rutledge wondered as he opened his eyes and studied the two folders on the desk in front of him. Each contained a different version of his State of the Union address, and each had the potential to be equally devastating. The fate of millions of Americans would be decided by what he said and did in the next three hours.
Though not a particularly religious man, President Jack Rutledge closed his eyes once again and this time prayed to God for guidance.
ZVENIGOROD, RUSSIA
THREE WEEKS PRIOR
Winter has come too early this year,” Sergei Stavropol complained as he threw his long overcoat onto a chair near the door. He was the last of the four men to arrive. “I think this will be one of the coldest we have seen in a long time.” Crossing over to the bar, he withdrew a decanter of brandy and filled a delicate crystal snifter. He was an enormous man with dark hair and a large nose that bore evidence of having been broken many times. At six-foot-three inches tall and two hundred seventy-five pounds, he was bigger than any of the other men in the room, but it was his dark, penetrating eyes which drew all of the attention and which had long ago earned him his nickname. Though he hated theRasputin moniker, he found that it instilled in his enemies and those who would oppose him a certain degree of fear, and therefore he had allowed it to stick. His salt and pepper-colored hair was trimmed in a military-style crew cut. His skin was severely pockmarked and his left eye drooped slightly due to a grenade that had exploded in his face as he was pushing one of his men out of danger’s way. While he was twice as brave as his assembled colleagues, he was easily less than half as refined, and as if to demonstrate that very fact, he downed his brandy in one long swallow.
The men around the table smiled at their friend’s behavior. Stavropol was as constant as the northern star. In over forty years, nothing had changed him-not money, not power, not even the knowledge that he would go down in history as one of the greatest soldiers Mother Russia had ever produced. In combat, he had saved the life of each man in the room, some more than once, but they had not gathered in this remote wooded area forty miles west of Moscow to relive the past. On the contrary, the four men seated around the worn oak table were there to shape the future.
Outside, a breath of icy wind blew across the gravel driveway of the centuries-old hunting lodge. From its stone chimney, tendrils of grey smoke could be seen only for an instant before being sucked upward into an ever-darkening sky. As the cold wind pressed itself against the formidable structure, it moaned deeply.
