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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 something up 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.

Chapter 5
    WASHINGTON, DC
    T hroughout 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