The First Commandment

by Brad Thor

  “Yes!” shouted Al-Tal, unable to bear his wife’s being tortured any further. “I will tell you how to contact Najib, you bastard. Just leave my family alone.”

  Chapter 54

  T ell him the imam is not well. He must come quickly so that they may read from the Koran one last time together.”

  When Tammam Al-Tal’s wife finished delivering the carefully scripted message, Harvath pulled the phone away from her ear and hung up. Now, all they had to do was wait.

  Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang. Mrs. Al-Tal didn’t need to be reminded about what would happen if she didn’t do and say everything exactly as they had rehearsed.

  Harvath lifted the phone back up to her ear and leaned in to listen.

  Abdel Salam Najib had a deep, penetrating voice. He spoke in quick, authoritative clips and was every bit as arrogant as his mentor. “Why did the imam not call himself?”

  “He is too weak,” Al-Tal’s wife responded in Arabic. Her words were thick with panic and fear.

  “He is dying, then.”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “How much longer does he have?” asked the man.

  “We have been told he will probably not live through the night.”

  “You are still at the apartment?”

  “Yes. The doctors wanted to move him to the hospital, but Tammam refused.”

  Najib scolded her. “You should know better than to use his name over the phone.”

  Harvath tensed. Was she trying to tip Najib or was it an honest mistake? Harvath had no way of knowing. Pulling a tactical MOD fighting knife from his pocket, he opened the blade and pressed it against the woman’s throat. Harvath agreed with Najib. She should know better, much better.

  Al-Tal’s wife choked back a terrified sob. “He wishes to be taken back to Syria, but the doctors have told us the journey would only hasten his passing.”

  “The doctors are right,” said the operative. “The imam should not be moved. Who is in the house with you?”

  The woman spoke slowly, careful not to phrase the information in any way that might get her into trouble. “Our son is here, of course, as is the imam’s nurse. There is also another friend who came with us from home and attends to the imam’s safety and comfort.”

  Najib knew both the bodyguard and the son. They could be trusted. The nurse, though, he didn’t know. “Have you learned how to administer your husband’s medications?”

  The question took her by surprise. “His medications?”

  “Yes. His morphine.”

  She had no idea how to answer. It wasn’t a question she had been expecting. She looked to Harvath, who firmly shook his head no from side to side.

  “I don’t know anything about that,” she answered.

  “Well, you must learn,” replied Najib. “There will not be much to do, not if the imam is actively dying. Command the nurse to teach you what to do and then let him go. The imam and I have important things to discuss before he leaves to see the Prophet, may peace be upon Him. I do not want the nurse in the apartment when we speak.”

  Harvath nodded and Mrs. Al-Tal’s voice cracked, “It will be done.”

  Najib was silent for several moments. Harvath began to worry that he might suspect something. He’d come too far to lose him. What the hell was he waiting for?

  Finally, Najib said, “I will be there by the evening prayer service. Is there anything special the imam would like me to bring to him?”

  Unsure of how to respond, the woman looked at Harvath, who shook his head. “Nothing,” she answered. “Just come quickly.”

  “Tell the imam that he must wait for me.”

  “I will,” responded the woman, the tears welling up in her eyes.

  The conversation over, Harvath took the phone and replaced it in its cradle. Najib had taken the bait and the hook was set. All that was left to do was to reel him in. But Harvath knew all too well that you never celebrated until the fish was actually in the boat.

  Chapter 55

  H arvath offered each of his captives a bathroom break, but only the male nurse had the guts to take him up on it. He relieved himself right next to the tub with its plastic-wrapped occupant.

  Having the nurse ambulatory made it a lot easier to move him to the spare bedroom. Harvath then brought in Al-Tal’s wife and son, and once they were all secure, made his way back out to the dining room.

  Al-Tal was sweating, his gray-and-blue-striped pajamas clinging to his wet body. He needed his morphine.

  Harvath released Al-Tal from his chair and, with one arm slung around the man’s waist, helped him back to the bedroom. After doing a thorough search of the pillows and bedclothes, Harvath helped the man up and eased him beneath his blankets. Al-Tal was so frail it was like handling a doll made from papier-mâché.

  Once he was in bed, Harvath reinserted Al-Tal’s IV and placed a fresh piece of tape over the needle on the back of his left hand. Like Pavlov’s dog, the Syrian’s dry mouth began to water with anticipation of the warm wave about to rush through his beleaguered body.

  Harvath laid the PCA trigger on the bed, but just out of Al-Tal’s reach. When the man bent forward to pick it up, Harvath pushed him back. “Not so fast. I still have a few more questions for you.”

  Al-Tal was angry. “I did everything you asked.”

  “And now you’re going to do more.”

  “Is it not enough that I have turned on one of my own agents? A man who trusts me implicitly?”

  Harvath ignored him. “Who arranged for Najib’s release from Guantanamo?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about I get your son and bring him in here? How about I go to work on him? Would you like that?” asked Harvath as he removed his knife from his pocket and flicked it open. “I’ll start by peeling back the skin from the fingertips of his left hand. I’ll keep going until I am at the wrist and the hand has been completely degloved. Just when he starts to become numb to the pain, I’ll prepare a bowl full of juice from the lemons in your kitchen and soak his hand in it. It’ll be a pain like no other he’s experienced in his life.”

  Al-Tal’s eyes closed. “I will answer your questions.”

  Harvath repeated his inquiry. “Who arranged Najib’s release?”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  “I’ll make sure to let your son know how cooperative you’ve been before I start in on him,” replied Harvath as he stood up.

  “I’m telling the truth,” sputtered Al-Tal. “I don’t know exactly who it is.”

  “But you do know something.”

  The Syrian nodded and then let his eyes wander to the morphine pump.

  “No dice,” said Harvath, comprehending the unspoken request. “You tell me what I want to know and then you get your morphine.”

  Al-Tal’s shoulders sagged as he expelled a woosh of air and settled into the pillows that were propping him up. “I was contacted with an offer.”

  “What kind of offer?”

  “For the right price, this person claimed he could get Najib released from American custody.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Of course not, not at first. Our government had already lobbied for Najib’s release. We claimed that they had captured an innocent man, a man whose family desperately needed him back home.”

  “But the U. S. didn’t buy that, did they?” asked Harvath.

  “No, they didn’t. So we tried another approach. We admitted that Najib was a very dangerous criminal who was wanted for a string of grave offenses in Syria. We promised to put him on trial and to even allow the United States to monitor the proceedings, but they still wouldn’t agree.”

  “And along comes this mystery person who claims he can get Najib out if the price is right.”

  “More or less.”

  “So what was the price?” asked Harvath.

  “I had to agree to nullify the bounty I had placed on you.”

  Harvath was dumbfounded. “What are
you talking about?”

  “We struck a bargain,” replied Al-Tal. “I canceled the contract and Najib was released from American custody.”

  Harvath was beginning to believe that the man was playing him. “How is that possible if you didn’t even know who I was?”

  “I still don’t know who you are,” responded Al-Tal as he drew a circle around his face—an allusion to Harvath’s ski mask. “Normally, hostage-takers only keep their identities hidden because they know at some point they will release their hostages. Is that why you haven’t shown us your face?”

  “I’ve kept my word and will continue to do so. The outcome of this situation is completely in your hands. If you cooperate with me, I’ll let your wife and your son go.”

  “What about my nurse?”

  “Him, too.”

  “And me?” asked Al-Tal as if he already knew the answer.

  “That, I am going to leave up to Najib,” said Harvath.

  Chapter 56

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  P resident Rutledge was angry. “I don’t want any more excuses, Jim,” he said to his director of Central Intelligence as he balanced the phone on his shoulder and bent over to tie his running shoes. “You should have had this guy by now. If you can’t start showing me results, I’ll replace you with somebody who can.”

  “I understand sir,” replied James Vaile. He deserved the admonishment. The team he had fielded to apprehend the terrorist stalking Scot Harvath was more than qualified to do the job. The problem was that the hunted was outsmarting his hunters at every turn. The only evidence he left behind was what he wanted his pursuers to find. While Vaile had no intention of admitting defeat, certainly not while American lives were at stake, everyone—including the president—knew that they were chasing a formidable quarry.

  “Now what about the alert?” demanded Rutledge, as his mind turned to the people behind the killer and the threats they had made against America.

  “I don’t think it’s necessary,” replied the DCI, “not yet.”

  “Explain.”

  “Even if the terrorists can ID Harvath from the closed-circuit footage from the airport in Mexico, we still have complete deniability. He’s gone off the reservation and we’re doing everything we can to apprehend him. And at the end of the day, they’re the ones who provoked him.”

  “And we’re the ones who couldn’t control him,” stated the president as he strapped his digital heart monitor to his wrist. “Frankly, I’m having trouble seeing any downside here. We quietly send the alert out to state and local law enforcement agencies and ask them to keep their eyes open. We don’t have to say we have specific intelligence of an imminent terrorist action, because we don’t. We won’t raise the national threat level. We’ll just leave it at that.”

  The DCI was silent as he composed his response.

  “With that many cops and state troopers on the lookout, we might get lucky and thwart any potential attack,” added Rutledge.

  “We might,” said Vaile, conceding the point. “We might also get a lot of questions, and I guarantee you someone is going to connect it to what happened in Charleston.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  “Mr. President, cops talk to each other, and they’re very good at connecting dots. Lots of them are going to draw the same conclusion. And the press is going to pick up the thread eventually too. Once word starts circulating about this alert, we won’t be able to put the genie back in the bottle.”

  “So your plan is to do nothing?”

  “Absolutely, if for no other reason than if the terrorists get wind of the alert, they could take it as an admission of guilt on our part. If they saw us girding for the exact type of attack that they had threatened, they’d know we were behind Palmera’s death.”

  That was an angle Rutledge hadn’t considered. “But what if they do attack and we did nothing to prevent it? Could you live with the consequences—especially in this case? I know I couldn’t.”

  “I probably couldn’t either,” replied the DCI. “But, we’re not at that point yet. This is about one man out of five. A man who, I might add, had a lot of enemies and who probably would have died a violent death sooner rather than later.”

  Vaile’s reasoning made sense. Though the president’s gut was telling him not to go along with the DCI’s plan, he decided to trust his intellect. “What about Harvath, though? He’s the wild card in this that could push everything into all-out chaos.”

  “That’s where we have some good news,” Vaile assured the president. “We’ve already got a line on him. If he doesn’t turn himself in by your deadline, we’ll have him in custody soon after.”

  “Good,” said Rutledge as he prepared to leave for his run. “I just hope we get him before he puts the nation any further at risk.”

  Chapter 57

  AMMAN, JORDAN

  H arvath had spent the next hour and a half interrogating Tammam Al-Tal, allowing only an occasional small dose of morphine to be pumped into the man’s cancer-ridden body.

  As good as Harvath was, Al-Tal was a tough read. Undoubtedly, the man had a lot of experience in interrogation, as well as counter-interrogation, and that made Harvath question everything he was able to extract from him.

  Harvath kept the questions coming—doubling and tripling back to try to snag the man in a lie, but it never happened. Al-Tal appeared to be telling the truth. He had no idea who had targeted Tracy or Scot’s mother or the ski team.

  Harvath was preparing to go at Al-Tal again when, his body wracked with fatigue and the mind-numbing pain that even morphine couldn’t assuage, the man drifted off into unconsciousness.

  Al-Tal was beyond the point of any usefulness.

  It was now time to focus on Najib.

  The distance from Damascus to Amman as the crow flies was about 110 miles. With only light traffic and a speedy entrance at the border crossing from Syria into Jordan, Harvath had at least another hour before Najib showed up at the apartment. It would be more than enough time for him to get ready.

  Harvath used Al-Tal’s wife to answer the intercom downstairs, and when Abdel Salam Najib entered the apartment, he was greeted by the butt of Harvath’s Taurus 24/7 OSS pistol as it slammed into the bridge of his nose.

  The man was taken completely by surprise. There was a spray of blood as he collapsed to his knees. Harvath drew the pistol back and swung again hard. It connected with a sickening crack alongside Najib’s jaw. His head snapped back and he fell the rest of the way to the floor unconscious.

  Harvath relieved the operative of all his weapons, which included a 9mm Beretta pistol, a stiletto knife, and a razor in his left shoe.

  He stripped him all the way down to his shorts and duct-taped him to one of the dining-room chairs. He wasn’t going to repeat any of the mistakes he had made with Palmera.

  After spending several moments peering through the curtains to make sure there was no one outside waiting for Najib, Harvath headed into the kitchen where he located a bucket and filled it with cold water.

  Back in the dining room, he hit Najib in the face with the water full force. The man came to almost instantly.

  He began coughing as his head instinctively swung from side to side to get away from the water. When his eyes popped open, it took his brain a moment to process everything that had happened, but he soon put it together.

  Working his jaw back and forth to see if it was broken, Najib looked up at the masked man standing in front of him and spat a gob of blood at his feet.

  Harvath smiled. Spitting to Middle Easterners was like giving someone the finger in the West. It was a macho show of bravado meant to exhibit a person’s fearlessness.

  Harvath didn’t move a muscle. He stood there like a statue as Najib’s eyes scanned the room. Harvath counted silently to himself, one one-thousand, two one-thousand…and then Najib saw it.

  The body of Tammam’s bodyguard lay on top of the dining room table—just to Najib’s right. It had be
en laid out as if part of some horrific banquet. Horrible things had been done to it. Skin had been flayed off the arms and legs, the chest cavity was wide open and gaping, black holes were the only remnants of where vital human organs used to be.

  Najib was a hard man, but he was clearly shaken by what he saw.

  “Let’s talk about your release from Guantanamo,” said Harvath, breaking the silence.

  Najib spat at him again and cursed him in Arabic, “Khara beek!”

  Al-Tal had told Harvath that Najib was one of the best operatives he had ever had, better even than Asef Khashan. He promised that Harvath would have a very hard time breaking him. As far as Al-Tal knew, the man wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. He had been sent into Iraq to assist in coordinating the insurgency. His reputation was known far and wide. Those who resisted his commands or, worse yet, failed him in their assignments, were dealt unspeakable punishments that Najib carried out personally.

  He was one of the most feared men in Iraq. His skill on the battlefield was rivaled only by his skill in a torture chamber. It was said that the use of short knives, purposely dulled, for videotaped beheadings of Westerners was his idea. To him, the scimitar was too efficient a tool. Victims needed to be shown being slaughtered like animals. One or two whacks with a long sword weren’t enough. They needed to suffer righteous agony at the hands of the brave warriors of the Prophet, and Najib was a master of agony.

  Harvath knew his type all too well. The only way to get a psychological advantage over him was to shock him so hard that he was thrown completely off balance. The body on the table was a good start, but Harvath knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  Still, he asked his question again, and this time more specifically in Arabic. “The night you were freed from Guantanamo you boarded an airplane. Tell me about it.”

  “Fuck you,” Najib replied in English. “I will tell you nothing.” His voice was even more unsettling in person.