State Of The Union

“All I’m saying, Scot,” offered Meg, “is that it’s not your fault that you and your father weren’t speaking when he died.”

Once again, Harvath stopped in his tracks. Without turning he said, “It was at least fifty percent my fault.”

“And the other fifty was his,” said Meg as she walked over to him. She put her arms around him as she turned him around to look into his eyes. “I want you to know that if he was here right now, he would be proud of you.”

“You didn’t know him.”

“No, but I know you and I know what your mother has told me about how much you two were alike. You carry around a tremendous amount of guilt about what things were like between the two of you when he died. Even if you had continued skiing, he would have been proud of you.”

“I’m saying goodbye now.”

“And I’m saying that Gary Lawlor’s approval is not going to make you feel any better about what happened between you and your father. Let the government find him. You deal with enough danger in your life without having to go and look for it. You don’t need to do this.”

“Yes I do. Ten men have died. I won’t just sit here and cross my fingers and hope that Gary isn’t marked for the number eleven slot,” said Scot, as he turned and walked out the door.

Chapter 9

It was a blustery night with heavy snow predicted in the forecast. Though Harvath didn’t relish having to cover footprints made in freshly fallen snow, he welcomed the cloud cover as it helped to block out the moonlight.

On his initial drive down Lawlor’s street, he had missed the surveillance. It wasn’t until an hour later that he dared to make another pass and noticed them cleverly hidden in a house across the street.

A white Lincoln Navigator sat cleanly off to one side of the driveway up against one of the garage doors, but why not tuck it away in the oversized three-car garage and protect it from the impending storm? When Harvath drove by for the second time, he got his answer.

As one of the garage doors opened, a casually dressed man whom Harvath assumed was the owner the house, stepped outside to take his recyclables to the curb. Sitting inside alongside a silver Mercedes coupe and a red Volvo station wagon, was a car that screamed FBI-a slightly worse for wear dark blue Dodge four-door. Either these people were concerned about the ability of their maid’s vehicle to weather the approaching storm, or they were trying to help keep the Ford out of sight from people who would recognize it exactly for what it was. Harvath was willing to bet it was the latter.

The most commanding view would have been from one of the upper floor windows facing the street, and a quick glance up was all Scot needed to confirm that he had located one of the surveillance teams. The only question remaining was who was covering the back?

Meg’s words were still ringing in Scot’s ears as he pulled his black Chevy TrailBlazer onto a deserted side road about a mile-and-a-half behind Gary Lawlor’s home. Though he didn’t want to, he had been thinking about what she had said. Unzipping the duffle bag in the cargo area, he tried to put it out of his mind and concentrate on what lay in front of him.

After suiting up and placing the rest of his gear into a small, camouflaged backpack, Harvath set off.

He moved quietly, using a small GPS device to lead him through the forest to the rear of Gary ’s property. When he reached the edge of the tree line, he found a spot with a good view of the back of the two-story Colonial-style house and removed a set of night vision goggles. The wind was blowing in fierce gusts, and a light snow had begun to fall.

Harvath took his time scanning the perimeter and didn’t see anything-no intrusion detection measures and no FBI agents. Either the Bureau wasn’t holding out much hope that Lawlor would return to his house or, more likely than not, they had already been inside and the team across the street had been left in place to ‘sit’ on the residence while they applied, ipso facto, for a full blown FISA warrant to search the premises and catalogue anything they had previously found as evidence. Either scenario was fine by Harvath. The absence of a surveillance team in back wouldn’t make his job a complete walk in the park, but it would make things easier.

He took off the night vision goggles and reached into his backpack for his modified Beretta Neos. With its modular design, it looked like a weapon straight out of aStar Wars movie. Its magazine held ten rounds of.22 LR-caliber ammunition and the full length of the weapon, before the modified stock and silencer were attached, was only twelve inches, making it very easy to conceal. It was also an extremely accurate weapon, especially when coupled with the advanced, next generation Starlight scope Harvath had brought along for the job.