State of the Union Read Online Free PDF Page B

Europe.”
    “Did your mother tell you where in Europe they were when it happened?”
    “It was in Germany, I think. What difference does it make?”
    Now it was Director Vaile’s turn to speak. “Agent Harvath, do you know what they were doing in Germany?”
    “Heide’s family was from there, and she owned an art gallery while Gary worked in investment banking.”
    FBI Director Sorce looked first at Vaile then at Driehaus who both nodded. “Scot, Heide did own a gallery in West Berlin and Gary was on the rolls of an American investment banking firm there too, but that was just a front for what they were really doing.”
    “What are you talking about?” asked Harvath, who leaned closer into the table as if it would force Sorce’s words to make more sense.
    “Did you know that Gary speaks fluent Russian?”
    “Gary? Russian? Are you serious?”
    “Extremely.”
    “No, I didn’t know he spoke Russian, but there’s lots of people that—”
    “His grandmother was from Minsk,” continued Sorce as he removed a file of his own and began reading from it. “She emigrated to the U.S. after her husband died during the First World War. She remarried and had three children, one of whom was the daughter who married Gary’s father. Gary’s parents worked long hours, and the Russian grandmother practically raised him herself.
    “He was somewhat of a prodigy. By the time he was six years old, he not only could speak Russian fluently, he was reading and writing it as well. It was a cradle language for him and he took to it as well as he did English.”
    “So he’s of Russian descent. Big deal. So are a lot of people in America. If being from a country that embraced communism at one point is a crime, you’d better get ready to lock up over half of the people in Miami and a good majority of downtown San Francisco,” said Harvath.
    “Let me finish,” replied Sorce. “It was precisely his Russian skills that made him so sought after in the Army and later with the FBI. Do you have any idea what Heide was really doing for a living before she was killed?”
    “You said so yourself. She was an art dealer. My mother still has a lot of paintings from her gallery hanging in the house back in California.” A bad feeling was beginning to build in Harvath’s stomach. He didn’t like the way things were going and he assumed that they were only going to get worse. When CIA Director Vaile chimed back in, he knew his premonition had been correct.
    “Gary and Heide Lawlor,” said Vaile, “were two of the United States’ top recruiters of foreign intelligence agents during the Cold War.”
    There was a chuckle in Harvath’s voice as he spoke. “Heide Lawlor worked for U.S. Intelligence turning spies for us?”
    Nobody else at the table was smiling. The three faces staring back at Harvath appeared to be carved of granite.
    “Their focus was on Eastern Europe,” continued Vaile. “Heide Lawlor spoke German, Polish, and Czech. Gary handled the Russian transactions.”
    “You’re not kidding, are you?” asked Harvath.
    “He’s not kidding,” said Sorce. “In fact, Gary and Heide were so successful, they even received medals from the president in eighty-one at a top-secret ceremony at the White House.”
    Harvath had never heard any of this. And though it was difficult to believe, it did fit Gary Lawlor’s character perfectly. The thing that scared Scot the most, though, was the realization of how little he might really know about Gary’s past.
    “I had no idea.”
    “What you also probably didn’t know was that Heide’s death was no accident.”
    Though Scot tried to maintain an impassive countenance, today would not have been a good day to play poker. Heide Lawlor had always been his “Aunt Heide.” As she and Gary didn’t have any children of their own, she chose to spoil him every chance she got. Christmases, birthdays, it didn’t matter. Heide never needed a reason to show how much she cared for him. Now,