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 a Star 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.
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 the crack 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