The First Commandment

by Brad Thor

  Harvath didn’t like the sound of that. “Exactly what is your job?”

  “By order of the president, I have been charged with stopping you from taking any further steps in relation to the attacks on Tracy Hastings, your mother, and the U. S. Ski Team.”

  “So, the president does believe the ski team attack was by the same person?”

  “Yes, he does,” said Morrell. “They found a note at the scene matching ones from the other two attacks.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that the president wants you out of the picture.”

  “I’ve got every right to—” began Harvath, but Morrell interrupted him.

  “You don’t have any rights. Jack Rutledge is the president of the United States. When he tells you to do something, you do it.”

  “That’s not good enough.”

  “Well, it’s going to have to be,” said Morrell.

  Harvath looked at him with disbelief. “Jesus, you are an asshole. You know that? A minute ago you agreed that you would have done the same thing in my position.”

  “And I meant it.”

  “So what’s your fucking problem?”

  “My problem is that I and the other five members of my Omega Team on the other side of that door have been ordered to take you out if you refuse to cooperate.”

  The response took Harvath by surprise.

  “Dead or alive,” said Morrell as he read the expression on Harvath’s face.

  Harvath had felt betrayed when the president had first turned on him, but now there were no words to describe what he was feeling. “And for an extra twist of the knife, you were chosen to head the hit team up. Should I call you Brutus or is Judas a better fit?”

  “Rutledge didn’t choose me, Director Vaile did.”

  “What’s the difference? You still accepted the assignment.”

  “I accepted it all right. The DCI laid out a very compelling case.”

  “I’m sure he did,” replied Harvath, the contempt evident in his voice. “I always liked Vaile, but apparently he never thought that much of me. Hell of a poker player. He had me fooled.”

  “For the record,” said Morrell, “Vaile sucks at cards. And just so you know, he’s a decent guy. He’s probably one of the best directors the Agency has ever had. He’s a patriot who puts our country above everything else, even his own welfare.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Morrell waved his arm around the room. “He’s the reason you’ve been brought here instead of some federal lockup. He’s the reason I’m here heading this team.”

  “I don’t get it,” replied Harvath.

  “Vaile has a lot of respect for you. While he may not think going head to head with the president of the United States is a great career move, he understands why you’re doing it. At the same time, he understands why the president is doing what he’s doing. The bottom line is that Vaile knows you’re not a traitor.”

  “So then why am I here?” asked Harvath. “Why are we even having this conversation?”

  Though all the monitoring devices were supposedly offline, Morrell leaned closer to Harvath, his voice barely above a whisper, though no less intense than it had been, and he said, “Because Director Vaile feels partly responsible for what has happened—Tracy, your mother, the ski team, all of it. He wants you to know why it’s going down.”

  Chapter 65

  T heir time was short, so Morrell spoke quickly. “It is the stated policy of the United States government never to negotiate with terrorists. We all know it’s the nation’s first and most important commandment in the war on terror—Thou shalt not negotiate with terrorists.”

  Harvath was well aware of the commandment. “But somebody broke it,” he guessed as he thought about the five prisoners released from Guantanamo.

  Morrell nodded. “There is an exception to every rule.”

  “Was the president directly involved in the prisoner release?”

  Morrell looked toward the door and then back at Harvath. “Yes.”

  Harvath had suspected all along that the president had been involved, but now he had confirmation.

  “What I am about to tell you,” continued Morrell, “stays in this room. Your current status as a fugitive notwithstanding, you are still bound by your oath and the National Security nondisclosure agreements you signed before going to work at both the White House and DHS. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal,” replied Harvath.

  Morrell took a deep breath. “There is only one instance where the United States will break its own rule of not negotiating with terrorists.”

  In all Harvath’s experience he had never seen the First Commandment broken. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what would qualify as an exception.

  Harvath had seen many horrible things in his career as a counterterrorism operative. A part of him questioned whether he truly wanted to know what would warrant such an exception, but he needed to know why the president was holding him back from protecting the people he cared about. He needed to know why some sick terrorist had been granted blanket immunity to do whatever he wanted to innocent American citizens.

  “The exception,” said Morrell, “is when a terrorist or terrorist organization has targeted children.”

  “You mean whoever has been carrying out these attacks targeted kids as well?”

  “No. The five released from Guantanamo were still there when the attack in question took place. The group that brokered their release used the attack as leverage to get them out. I know you have been through a lot, but if it’s any consolation, the president had absolutely no choice in this.”

  Harvath wasn’t ready to give Rutledge a pass just yet. He needed to hear more and signaled for Morrell to continue.

  “Two days before the Gitmo five were released, a school bus filled with children as young as five years old went missing in Charleston, South Carolina. The terrorists threatened to begin killing a child every half hour until their demands were met.

  “An immediate news blackout was ordered and federal authorities went into overdrive to find the bus. Satellites were retasked, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was activated, and members of Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, SEAL Team Eight, and even elements of the CIA were brought in. This was a direct attack upon our nation, the psychological impact of which could have been extremely severe. The president stopped at nothing.

  “To demonstrate how serious they were, the terrorists killed the bus driver and left her behind the wheel of the abandoned bus. When the report came in about the dead driver and the fact that we were no longer looking for a bright yellow school bus, people got even more worried. Either the terrorists had the children at one central location, or worse, the group had been broken up and taken to several different locations.

  “Images of the Beslan school massacre in Russia were running rampant through everyone’s mind. Everybody knew that trying to take the children back by force could be a horrendous and deadly mistake. If the terrorists were attacked, there was little doubt that they would martyr themselves and take the children with them. There was absolutely no question, the United States’ only option was to negotiate.

  “Originally, the terrorists wanted all of the prisoners released from Guantanamo. Slowly, the negotiators whittled it down to five and agreed that the president would sign some sort of letter promising, among other things, that all the secret detention facilities the United States was using around the world would be shut down, that prisoners at Gitmo would be provided with better food and medical care and more frequent visits from the Red Cross, that all prisoners would be brought to trial for their alleged crimes, and that these trials would be transparent, with international monitors present to vouch for their legality.”

  “And the president went for that?” asked Harvath.

  “He had no choice. The terrorists had put a gun to his head and they were ramping up to kill their first child. Their leader directed the president to a web
site where camera phone photos of the child the hostage takers had selected to be the first to die were posted. From what I was told, the photo would have broken your heart. They picked the youngest and cutest of the bunch. The image would have played very, very badly on the news.

  “The NSA and several other agencies went to work on the website, while the president huddled with his advisors in the Situation Room. He had a very difficult and potentially historic decision to make.

  “And we all know how it ended,” responded Harvath.

  Morrell held up his hand. “No you don’t. It wasn’t over, not by a long shot. For the United States, the trouble had only just begun.”

  Chapter 66

  H arvath didn’t know what to think, or what to feel, for that matter. He’d figured that the president had been motivated to do the right thing for the country and that was certainly what he’d done in this horrible scenario, but it still didn’t explain why he’d sidelined him.

  He didn’t know if Rick Morrell had the answers he was seeking or not, but he knew each piece of information he got would bring him one step closer to solving the puzzle. Harvath knew they didn’t have much time left, so he decided to hold his questions and let Morrell finish.

  Morrell was obviously concerned with the time as well. He glanced at his watch for the third time and then said, “The secretary of defense suggested to the president that a highly classified tracking program be used to trace the five men once they were released from Guantanamo.”

  “Via a radioactive isotope,” said Harvath, sensing where this was going. “I’m familiar with it.”

  “The U. S. didn’t know who it was negotiating with. And it knew even less about the relationship among the men it was about to free. If they could track the men, it was believed they could locate the organization responsible for the bus hijacking and either bring them to justice or at the very least exact some sort of revenge.

  “The only problem was that somehow the other side knew about the blood-spiking program and fully transfused the five detainees in flight. They then used the extracted blood to lead the CIA on a fucked-up chase. The blood wound up in several containers that were tossed in multiple dumpsters and the trunks of several cars.

  “The DOD blamed the CIA for losing the men, and the CIA blamed the DOD for hanging their hat on a program that wasn’t as ultra-top-secret as they’d thought.”

  “So the U. S. lost them. I know that much,” said Harvath.

  “What you don’t know is that the terrorists placed a few conditions on the deal they struck with the president.”

  “Such as what?”

  “Such as the men we released were never to be hunted, harmed, or reincarcerated,” replied Morrell. “As an insurance policy, the terrorists provided surveillance photos of over a hundred school buses from across the country. The message was clear. If we welshed, they’d be back, and things would be a lot worse the next time. We’d be forced to suffer a gruesome attack against our children and this time there’d be no negotiating.”

  “That’s why the president wanted me sidelined.”

  Morrell put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “He didn’t want you sidelined, he had no choice. You’ve put him in a very difficult position.”

  “So what? He wouldn’t even fill me in on who he supposedly has hunting this guy down.”

  “Would it have made a difference? Would the president’s personnel decisions have convinced you to sit by while this nut job was targeting your friends and family?”

  Harvath didn’t know how to answer that question. Finally he said, “Probably not.”

  “Scot, the president knows you were in Mexico when Palmera was killed.”

  “How would he know that?”

  “The CIA has CCTV footage of you at the airport in Querétaro. They traced the plane you used. They also know who the plane belongs to. That’s how we figured out you were on your way back from Amman.”

  Harvath’s heart sank. If he was going down, he certainly didn’t want to drag people along with him, especially not decent, patriotic Americans like Tim Finney and Ron Parker. “The guys at Elk Mountain didn’t know anything about this.”

  “You and I both know that’s bullshit,” replied Morrell. “They’re on the CCTV footage with you. The only thing working in your favor is that witnesses claim Palmera ran into the street and was hit by the cab. As far as they’re concerned, it was most likely a cartel thing. Whether the terrorists who helped arrange his release from Gitmo believe that is another story.”

  “Where’s that leave us, then?”

  “I need to know what happened in Amman. Why were you there? Who did you meet with?”

  Harvath shook his head, no.

  “Scot, listen to me. The Palmera thing can be made to look like he got mixed up with some bad people from his old life. It’s only one death, and while suspicious, it’s nothing definitive. Two deaths and we’re in big trouble and the shit is most definitely going to hit the fan.

  “We have no idea how many school buses these people could potentially target. The only hope we have of avoiding more attacks is to manage this situation from out front. We can’t do that unless you give us what we need. What happened in Amman?”

  “If the president had been up front about all of this from the start I could have—”

  “Scot, what happened?”

  “Abdel Salam Najib is dead. His handler too.”

  “Shit,” cursed Morrell.

  “What did you expect? What did anybody expect? The lives of the people I care about are at stake here. I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.”

  Rick Morrell stood up and headed for the door.

  “Wait a second!” said Harvath. “That’s it? I thought you were going to help me.”

  “I did help you,” said Morrell as he kept walking. “The president said dead or alive. You’re alive.”

  Though he was still alive, Harvath realized he’d also been duped into revealing what had happened in Jordan. With two of the detainees dead, there was no way they were going to let him go now.

  What he did next was rash, poorly thought out, and just plain stupid, but considering the circumstances he found himself in, it was probably the only move Harvath could make.

  Chapter 67

  M orrell was almost at the door when Harvath slammed his sledgehammer of a fist into the base of the man’s skull.

  Morrell’s knees buckled as he lost consciousness and Harvath eased him gently to the floor. He then glanced down at his watch.

  Was Morrell telling the truth about the servers’ being offline for fifteen minutes? If he wasn’t, the other Omega Team members would be rushing to the room at this very moment. He counted to five. Nothing happened.

  Morrell had at least been telling the truth about the cameras, which meant that Harvath now had less than two minutes to get out of the house unseen.

  He grabbed his now ex-friend’s keys, unholstered his Taser, and rapped twice against the door.

  Harvath heard the heavy footfalls of the guard on the other side followed by the sliding of the deadbolt as he unlocked the door. He raised the Taser and prepared to fire.

  As the door swung open, the guard exposed himself and Harvath squeezed the trigger. The barbed probes embedded themselves in his chest and he was given the electric bull’s ride for five. He fell forward into the room, and after rolling him quickly onto his back, Harvath landed a series of brutal punches to the man’s face and head that rendered him unconscious.

  He stripped the guard of his .45 caliber Glock, his keys, a walkie-talkie, and a Benchmade tactical folding knife.

  Unlike the Taser Harvath had used in Mexico, this one had a spare cartridge in the grip, and Harvath quickly reloaded the weapon. While these men had been authorized to kill him, they were first and foremost Americans who were doing the job they’d been sent to do. Harvath didn’t want to kill any of them if he didn’t have to.

  Harvath stepped cautiously into the hallway. He co
uld hear voices coming from the main part of the cottage, which made his decision to go in the opposite direction even easier.

  As he crept closer to the end of the hallway, he could hear a television set. It was accompanied by an irregular whirring sound and an occasional thwack. Harvath had no idea what he was hearing until he neared the room and heard a shout.

  Peering around the doorway, his hopes for a clean getaway tanked. Two Omega Team members were playing foosball on one of the rattiest-looking tables Harvath had ever seen. Just past them was a doorway that led to the outside world and beyond it, freedom. The one problem was that Harvath had only a single shot remaining in the Taser.

  He had to think of something fast. His time was almost up. Sneaking a quick peek around the corner again, he took in as much of the room as possible and seared the image into his brain.

  Both of the men were armed, but Harvath had surprise on his side. He could buttonhook into the room with his Glock drawn and tell them to hit the floor, but there was no guarantee that they would comply. If they called his bluff, he’d be in a very difficult position. He had no desire to shoot them, not even to secure his freedom, but he’d do it if he had to. He could kneecap both of them, but the sound of gunfire would bring the other team members and then he’d really be in trouble. Having shot first, he would undoubtedly be targeted as an active threat that needed to be neutralized. Harvath could very well be signing his own death certificate.

  The key was getting out with as little noise and drawing as little attention as possible.

  Another shout erupted from the foosball game, and Harvath chanced a third look around the corner. Another goal had been scored, and the man who’d been scored upon was readying to serve the ball. The man opposite him had both his hands upon his metal rods ready for action. It was then that Harvath noticed that most of the handles on the ancient table were missing. The two Omega Team members were gripping bare metal.

  Harvath waited for the ball to be served. When the man reached for his other bare rod, Harvath raised the Taser sideways, swung fully into the room and squeezed the trigger.