State Of The Union

Having attended many barbecues in Gary Lawlor’s back yard, Scot was familiar with the motion-activated security floodlights installed around the outside of the house. This was probably another part of the reason the FBI had felt the need to only post one team to watch his residence.

As Scot pulled the trigger for the first shot, he said a silent prayer of thanks that the neighbors’ houses were set far enough apart not to be able to hear thecrack of the silenced rounds as they slammed into and disabled the floodlight sensors.

He disassembled the Neos, put it back in his backpack and put his night vision goggles back on. After slowly scanning the perimeter for any signs that someone might be watching, he made a run for the rear of the house. Fifteen feet before the back door, he already had his lock pick gun in his hand. A few moments’ work on the deadbolt and he was inside.

He hoped Gary hadn’t changed his alarm code. He found the panel in the mudroom, next to the door leading in from the garage and entered the four-digit code Lawlor had given to him the last time he was out of town. It worked. Like most people, Gary was a creature of habit.

Five or six coats, including the Holland and Holland hunting jacket he had received as a gift from the president, hung from an orderly row of pegs above a wooden storage bench where Harvath stowed his backpack and night vision goggles. He attached a red filter to his compact M3 Millennium SureFire flashlight, making the beam virtually invisible to anyone outside the house, and continued on.

The kitchen was neat and orderly, just like Gary himself. There wasn’t a dish in the sink, or a spot of grease on the stovetop. Harvath hadn’t thought about it before, but the degree to which Lawlor kept his house in order was almost sad. Who did he do it for? He lived alone and besides the occasional summer barbecue, no one ever saw the house except for him. It didn’t seem healthy.

Placed above the cabinets were mementos Gary had collected during his travels throughout Europe. There were German beer steins, a drinking bowl from Sweden, a ram’s horn cup from Hungary, a hand-painted Irish jar-the assortment covered almost every country and every type of drinking vessel. Each one, Gary had once explained, had its own special story and special meaning. At the far end of the cabinets was the collector’s edition bottle of Maker’s Mark Harvath had given Lawlor as a Christmas present. It made Scot glad to see that his gift occupied such a place of prominence in his home.

There were fresh vegetables in the fridge along with a new carton of milk. Whatever had caused Gary ’s disappearance, it certainly hadn’t been something he had seen coming.

Harvath decided to focus on where he knew Lawlor spent most of his time. He sat at the desk in Gary ’s study going through his bills and personal papers trying to find some sort of clue as to what had happened. Numerous commendations and meritorious service awards lined the walls, along with pictures of Gary and Harvath’s father in Vietnam and later with his mother as the three of them enjoyed parties at the house in Coronado and took fishing trips to Mexico. The centerpiece of the room was an enormous oil painting of General George S. Patton and his bull terrier, Willie, short for “William the Conqueror.”

Gary had modeled himself in many ways after the hard-charging general and was a compendium of Patton information. He was always citing one or another of the general’s famous quotes:Do not fear failure. Do more than is required of you. Make your plans fit the circumstances. There is only one type of discipline -perfect discipline.

Harvath felt guilty for being here alone and going through Gary ’s bank and retirement account statements, but he knew he had to do it. It was only after he had computed Lawlor’s healthy, yet not by any means legally unachievable net worth, that he realized how ridiculous the exercise was. If Gary had been selling out his country, he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to hide his ill-gotten gains in plain sight. Then what was it? Harvath had come to believe that everyone, no matter how careful they were, always left behind some sort of clue, but there didn’t seem to be anything here at all.

Frustrated, and wondering if the FBI had already bagged any promising items, he left Lawlor’s study and climbed the stairs to the second floor. The guest bedrooms and baths were clean-both literally and figuratively. He approached the master bedroom with a sense of déjà vu. Prowling around Gary ’s empty house like this reminded him of what it felt like to return to his parents’ house after his father’s burial ten years ago. His mother had been too distraught to do anything. Closing out his father’s affairs had been left to Scot and Gary. Going through his personal effects, his papers, his clothes-it all felt just like this. It was as if Gary had died. He hoped to God he was wrong.