Brad Thor: State Of The Union

As he passed the BMW, Lawlor stole a quick glance at the passenger out of the corner of his eye. What he saw stopped his heart cold. It couldn’t be. The man he was looking at was dead. Lawlor knew this because he had killed him himself fifteen years ago. What the hell was going on? Was he paranoid? Was he seeing things? No, he had no reason to doubt his eyes, or his memory.

Even though nothing was making sense, Lawlor had to trust his instincts and his training. Raising his left shoulder and subtly turning his face away, he continued on. Despite what he had seen, he never once broke his stride.

Now two car lengths past, Lawlor began to entertain the thought that he might be home free until he heard what he knew were the sounds of the men getting out of the BMW and closing the doors behind them.

“Entschuldigung, mein Herr?” said the man who had been reading the paper in the car. Lawlor pretended not to hear and kept walking.

“Herr,” said the man again, “bitte Halt!”

In the reflection of a black panel truck, Lawlor could see the men quickening their pace behind him. If it hadn’t been obvious that he was the one they were speaking to, all doubts were erased when the man Lawlor thought he had killed said in English, “This is the last time we will ask you to stop.”

Lawlor knew that the men would be armed. Outrunning them, at least at this point, was not even a consideration. That being said, he was prepared in case something like this might happen and quite literally had somethingup his sleeve.

As he wouldn’t risk coming into the country with any weapons on his person or in his luggage, he had made a quick stop at a small shop near the train station in Nürnberg.

Lawlor stopped walking, his back to the two approaching men. He could still see them in the reflection of the black truck. Carefully bending his left wrist, he gently maneuvered the polished blade of the knife, which was hidden inside his sleeve, until he could feel the point in the palm of his hand. He then slowly shifted his weight to his right foot and drew his left arm across his chest. In one swift move he would drop his arm, delivering the handle of the blade into his palm, and lash out with the knife, hopefully killing the first attacker while he hit the other with the empty titanium briefcase he carried as a prop in his right hand. Unfortunately, Lawlor never got the chance.

The laser sight of the TASER X26 Shape Pulse Weapon painted a perfect red dot right in the center of his back. The men following him were more than six feet away when they saw his left arm disappear and his weight subtly shift to the right side. They didn’t plan on letting Lawlor get the better of them. There was a quick pop as the nitrogen propellant sent the barbed ballistic probes ripping through the air at over 180 feet per second and straight through his trench coat. The probes were attached to thin insulated wires, which delivered a series of high-voltage energy bursts, overwhelming Lawlor’s central nervous system. The result was an instant loss of neuromuscular control. In less than a second, he had slumped helplessly to the pavement and curled up into the fetal position, unable to think, speak, and-more importantly for his attackers-cry for help.

Stunned onlookers saw the knife drop from Lawlor’s hand. When they saw the two men expertly cuff and place their victim into the backseat of the BMW, they were convinced that they had just witnessed a very legitimate undercover police action.

As the car sped away in a cloud of burning rubber, no one had any idea how dangerously far off the mark they were.

WASHINGTON, DC

Throughout the entire flight back, Scot tried to figure out what in the world could be going on.Where the hell was Gary and what was the urgent matter of National Security that Driehaus was talking about?

Upon their arrival at Reagan National Airport, there were two cars waiting. One was there to take Meg Cassidy back to Scot’s apartment in Alexandria, while the other brought Harvath directly to Homeland Security headquarters.

When Harvath entered the director’s secure conference room, Driehaus gestured to a chair about halfway down the smooth oak table. Sitting to his right were CIA Director Vaile and FBI Director Sorce. Harvath nodded at Vaile and Sorce as Driehaus said, “We appreciate your coming back so quickly, especially considering the circumstances which had taken you out to California in the first place.”

Harvath was feeling guilty as hell for backing out of his father’s memorial service and wanted to put those feelings behind him for the time being. “You said this was a matter of urgent national security?”

“It is,” replied Driehaus as he extracted a thick blue folder from the accordion file sitting on the table in front of him, removed a series of glossy eight-by-ten photographs and handed them across the table to Harvath. “Do you recognize any of these men?” he asked.

Harvath was taken aback to see that the pictures were a mix of crime scene and autopsy photos of ten men who looked to range in age from their late forties to mid-sixties. Most looked to have been shot in the head while a couple had had their throats cut. After going through them a second time, he slid them back over to Driehaus and said, “I’ve never seen any of them before. Do their deaths have something to do with Gary ’s disappearance?”

“Maybe,” responded FBI Director Sorce. “The bodies were found over the last several days and from the limited amount of information we’ve been able to uncover, all of these men were part of an Army Intelligence unit based in Berlin at the same time Gary was. What they were doing was highly classified and there is no record of it.”

“So what? Gary was already out of the army by the time he moved overseas. The fact that these guys were also with Army Intelligence is nothing more than coincidence.”

The minute the words were out of his mouth, Harvath wished he could take them back. He knew how lame he sounded. He also knew that even he didn’t really believe what he was saying. Of all people, Harvath was usually the first to say that there was no such thing as coincidence. That simple belief had saved his life more times than he cared to remember and he knew it was one of the primary tenets of the intelligence community.

“Agent Harvath, let’s back things up a bit here. I can appreciate your loyalty to Gary,” said Driehaus. “Why don’t we begin by having you tell us what you know about him.”

Harvath reached for the carafe of water on the table in front of him and poured a glass. He took a long sip as he collected his thoughts before speaking. “Gary Lawlor was a friend of my parents before I was even born. He’d been involved with Army Intelligence and met my father, who was a SEAL, when they were both in Vietnam. Through their work, they became pretty good friends and undertook several missions together. During one mission in particular, my father told me Gary had even saved his life. So, I guess you could say that if it wasn’t for Gary Lawlor, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Harvath paused and studied the faces across the table from him before continuing. “After leaving the Army, Gary and his wife lived in Europe for a while before he returned to pursue a career with the FBI, where he specialized in areas ranging from counterterrorism to white-collar crime. He was eventually promoted to Special Agent in Charge of the San Diego field office and that’s when I really got to know him.

“When my father died in the accident at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, Gary took a leave of absence from work to be with us and help us begin to put our lives back together.”

Remembering his father’s death and its aftermath caused Harvath to pause and seizing the opportunity, FBI Director Sorce asked, “Agent Harvath, did anyone ever talk to you about the death of Gary ’s wife?”