State of the Union by Brad Thor Read Free Book Online Page A

toward his bedroom to get something.
    Meg’s next words stopped him dead in his tracks. “Well, maybe we can agree on this. Gary Lawlor isn’t your father.”
    “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” said Scot as he came back into the dining area of his small apartment.
    “It means exactly that.”
    “Meg, if you’re trying to somehow evaluate my psyche, you’re wasting your time and my time. I don’t care what you think you learned from Oprah or Redbook , or wherever you’re getting this stuff, but there are some people out there that are perfectly fine and don’t have any issues whatsoever.”
    The statement was so patently defensive that Meg had to take a moment to remind herself of what it was she was trying to achieve before responding. She cared enough for Scot Harvath—no, scratch that. She loved Scot Harvath enough to want him to see it for himself. Shoving it in his face wouldn’t get her anywhere, but leading him to it might.
    “When was the last time you went skiing?” she asked.
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    “A lot. At one point in your past, you were a damn good competitive skier. Now, you don’t even ski recreationally.”
    “This has gone beyond ridiculous, I’ve got someplace I have to be,” said Harvath as he went into his bedroom, retrieved the last things he needed, and walked past Meg toward the door.
    “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
    I t 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