The First Commandment

by Brad Thor

  Harvath put his hand on top of hers and lowered the phone to the table. “This is complicated.”

  “Most things in life are, honey. Listen, I’ll make daiquiris and you two can talk. I don’t even have to be here. I can take a walk if you’d like. It would probably be better if you two were alone anyway.”

  Harvath couldn’t help but smile. He’d never met anyone who’d meant well more than Jean. “By complicated, I mean professionally, Jean. Not personally. I shouldn’t be here.”

  “If you’re worried about Todd—”

  This time Harvath laughed. “No, I’m not worried about Todd, believe me.”

  “Cloak and dagger stuff, huh?” she replied with a conspiratorial wink.

  “Kind of. Listen, no one can know I’m here. Meg doesn’t know yet and this has to be kept very quiet. Can I trust you?”

  “Honey, nobody keeps a secret like me. My lips are sealed,” she said, accepting the envelope. “Consider it done. Now, how about something to eat?”

  “I’m sorry,” replied Harvath as he stood. “I can’t stay.”

  “Well, as long as we’re both single, how about being my date for the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night? It should be pretty swanky. We’re getting picked up on the dock at five-thirty for a little cocktail cruise and then it’s off to the club for dinner.”

  “I have to say no to that too,” replied Harvath, shaking his head.

  Jean stared at him. “Honey, can I ask you a question?”

  Harvath had already pressed his luck by coming within thirty yards of Meg’s place and the Secret Service detail assigned to watch her. “Okay,” he conceded, “one question.”

  “Are you happy? I mean honestly happy.”

  The question was quintessential, get-right-down-

  to-it Jean Stevens, but it still took him by surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think I mean? It’s a simple question. Are you happy?”

  “I guess it would depend on how you define happy,” said Harvath, anxious to get moving and also maybe a bit uncomfortable with how the woman he was standing in front of had always had such an uncanny ability to read people.

  “Being happy boils down to three things. Something to do. Someone to love. And something to look forward to.”

  She said nothing more. As her words hung in the air, she studied him. He and Meg had been good together. Harvath was a great guy and reminded Jean a lot of her husband, strong, good-looking, and exceedingly kind to the people he cared about. It was a damn shame that things hadn’t worked out between him and Meg.

  Harvath stood there for several moments, the uncomfortable silence growing between them. Finally, he bent over and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for getting my note to Meg,” he said, and then he was gone.

  Chapter 107

  P hilippe Roussard stood on the end of his private pier and looked out across the darkened lake. Closing his eyes, he felt the breeze as it moved around him. From somewhere off in the distance, he heard a chorus of sailboat halyards clanking against aluminum masts as the craft bobbed up and down at their moorings.

  Roussard had spoken with his handler again, and again the conversation had ended badly. They had argued about the botched attack on the bar in Virginia Beach. His handler blamed him for its failure, because he was the one who had changed the plan at the very last minute. The RV was overkill, as was the amount of diesel fuel and fertilizer. Roussard should have stuck with the pickup truck with a lesser amount contained within its enclosed bed. Had he proceeded as instructed, everything would have been successful.

  The pair was also still at odds over how the last plague attack would be carried out, as well as how Scot Harvath should be killed afterward.

  Roussard was tired of arguing. He was in the field and he would make the decisions as he saw fit. He had a means to get out of the country once his work was done and he also had enough money at this point to finish the job. The incessant bickering was counterproductive.

  The simple truth was that they were strangers to each other. Too much time had passed, and blood alone was not enough to bridge the gap between them.

  Roussard opened his eyes and lit another cigarette. He knew he was going to do exactly what he wanted. The last attack would be dramatic. It would be chilling in its audacity and a fitting finale to all that had preceded it.

  He took a long drag and thought about where he would go when it was all over. In his day-to-day existence in Iraq and then during his absolutely hopeless incarceration at Guantanamo, he had never thought much beyond the next hour, much less the next day, week, month, or even year, but that was beginning to change inside him. He could see a value in preparing for the future, in setting goals for oneself.

  He had tasted real field work and he liked it. He did not fear capture, although he was smart enough to realize that his days in America were numbered. He needed to be leaving soon, but not before his crowning achievement.

  Raising the night vision binoculars to his eyes, he took one final look at his target and then walked up the dock and retired to his rented cottage. It was time to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be a very busy day.

  Chapter 108

  T hough asking Gary Lawlor to arrange for a special security detail for Meg had been the right thing to do, it only made Harvath’s job harder.

  He needed to talk to Meg face-to-face, and meeting her in broad daylight was out of the question. She’d have too hard a time shaking the detail.

  Losing them at night, after they already thought she’d turned in, was something Meg could pull off.

  Harvath sat in the back of Gordy’s Boathouse, one of Fontana’s most popular waterfront bars, and looked at his watch for a fifth time. He tried to compute how long it should have taken for Jean Stevens to get his note to Meg and then for Meg to get out of her house and walk the old Indian footpath along the lakeshore to Gordy’s.

  The bar was crowded with the young, the wealthy, and the good-looking who made Lake Geneva their summer playground. A DJ spun records while bright strobes of colored light knifed across the dance floor.

  As Harvath watched, he remembered the good times he and Meg had had here. He was still watching the crowds of people dancing when he felt a hand, a man’s hand, fall upon his shoulder.

  He’d been looking for Meg, and while he’d noticed the man’s approach in his peripheral vision, he hadn’t paid him much attention. To be honest, he wasn’t that remarkable. It wasn’t until Meg’s fiancé, Todd Kirkland, actually touched him that Harvath realized who he was.

  “We need to talk,” said Kirkland.

  “About what?” asked Harvath, though he knew why the man was there.

  Meg’s fiancé held up the note Harvath had given to Jean Stevens and said, “This.”

  They moved away from the dance floor to the front of the bar where they found a freshly vacated table and sat down.

  “You want to tell me what this is all about?” asked Kirkland, waving the note in Harvath’s face.

  Harvath ignored him as a waitress approached. Picking up the table’s empty wineglasses and handing them to her, he asked the waitress to please bring them two beers.

  The minute she walked away, Kirkland was back at it. “Who the hell do you think you are? You think you can just…”

  As much as Harvath had tried to take the high road with Jean Stevens, she’d been right. Kirkland was a jackass. He was arrogant and rude, which no doubt stemmed from a deep sense of insecurity. Harvath didn’t know what the guy had to be insecure about.

  He made a shitload of money as a commodities trader and his looks weren’t all that bad, especially after he supposedly had gotten his nose, eyes, ears, and chin done by one of the best plastic surgeons in Chicago.

  Despite his faults, Meg had found something in him that she loved. If he was indeed manipulative, controlling, and overbearing, that was Meg’s problem. Nobody was forcing her to marry him.

  Nobody had forced Harvath to sabotage his relat
ionship with her either, and as he sat across the table from the man she was going to marry in less than forty-eight hours, he couldn’t help but wonder what it was she saw in him.

  “You’re going to explain this letter to me right now,” asserted Kirkland, drawing Harvath’s mind back to the matter at hand. “What the hell are you trying to do?”

  “Nobody’s trying to do anything, Todd,” said Harvath calmly.

  “My ass you’re not,” he responded. “You’re in cahoots with that crazy bitch who lives next door, aren’t you? She’s always asking Meg questions about you, especially when I’m around and—”

  “Todd, Jean Stevens and I aren’t in cahoots together in anything.”

  “Really? Then how’d she end up with this letter for Meg? Keep in mind that it’s kind of hard to deny you sent it when you were sitting exactly where the letter said you’d be.”

  “I’m not denying anything. I needed to talk to Meg,” replied Harvath.

  “And you couldn’t do it over the phone?”

  The waitress had returned and Harvath waited for her to set their beers down before answering Kirkland. “No. I need to speak to Meg in person.”

  “About what? The fact that you still have feelings for her? If that’s the case, I can tell you with absolute certainty that she is one hundred and ten percent over you, pal.”

  Harvath hated when people called him pal, especially ignorant assholes who not only were most certainly not his pal, but also didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about. “I’m assuming Meg doesn’t know about my note?” said Harvath, trying to keep the conversation on an even keel.

  “No, and she’s not going to, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Harvath hated the high road. He took a long sip of beer and tried to maintain his composure. Finally, he said, “I have reason to believe that Meg is in danger.”

  “Which is why you had the Secret Service assigned to protect her, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Yes, my ass,” spat Kirkland. “You just did it to flex your muscle, and I’m pretty goddamn sick of it. Every time I turn around I’ve gotta be reminded of you. It stops right here, right now.”

  Harvath had to tell himself to ease up on the grip he had around his beer glass before he broke it. “Don’t turn this into a pissing match with me, Todd. This is a serious threat.”

  “So why aren’t you talking to the Secret Service about it, then?”

  The man did have a point, and Harvath hated to concede it to him. “Because we don’t yet know the exact nature of the threat.”

  “We? Who’s we? DHS? FBI? CIA?”

  When Harvath didn’t answer, Kirkland responded, “See, I didn’t think so. This all about you. You and Meg—at least in your mind. But I’ve got news for you. There is no you and Meg, not anymore. It’s over. So stay the fuck away from us,” he added as he rose and pushed his chair in.

  Harvath pushed the chair back out with his foot for Kirkland to sit back down. “Don’t be such an ass. I’m here because a credible threat exists. This guy is serious and he’s going to be gunning for your wedding.”

  Meg’s fiancé wasn’t interested in sitting. “Something tells me that with the president attending our wedding, if there was a real credible threat you’d be working with the Secret Service to stop it, not trying to meet up with my wife in the middle of the night at some bar.”

  Kirkland fished a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet and threw it on the table. “And just for the record, the only reason Meg sent you an invitation to our wedding was that she wanted to show you she had moved on with her life. Maybe you should think about doing the same.”

  Chapter 109

  T odd Kirkland climbed back into his Bentley Azure feeling pretty damn good about himself. He’d longed to tell off that prick Harvath once and for all and he’d done it. A huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  Dropping the Azure’s top, he adjusted the rearview mirror and smiled at himself.

  Harvath had been the one thing about his wedding day that had really bothered him. He’d argued repeatedly with Meg about her reasons for inviting him, but none of that mattered now. Based upon the look on Harvath’s face when he’d told him off, Kirkland doubted he’d have the balls to show up at the ceremony. With Harvath out of the picture, he could focus on enjoying the rest of the weekend and the rest of his life with Meg Cassidy. After all, he’d won. He had Meg and Harvath didn’t. That’s what it all boiled down to.

  Kirkland pulled out of the parking lot and turned on to south Lake Shore Drive for the quick jaunt back to Meg’s cottage. As he was thinking about how good he had it, he felt something eating away at him. He tried to push it from his mind, but it refused to go away. What if Harvath was telling the truth?

  Kirkland never really knew what Harvath did for a living other than that he was employed by DHS and that Meg couldn’t talk about it. It was one of those secrets that she shared with her ex-beau that really burned him up. Could there be a threat the Secret Service wasn’t aware of? Could Meg be in greater danger than anyone knew?

  As he reached the turn-off for Meg’s cottage, Todd Kirkland decided it would be in everybody’s best interest if he had a little chat with the Secret Service agents who were standing guard outside.

  An hour and a half later, Rick Morrell’s cell phone rang. After taking down all the information, he alerted the members of his Omega Team. They’d located Harvath. He was in Wisconsin.

  Chapter 110

  W hen the Federal Express truck pulled beneath the Abbey Resort’s porte cochere, Harvath was ready and waiting for it.

  Presenting his Hans Brauner ID, he signed for his package and gave the valet the ticket for the pilots’ rental car.

  Powering up the onboard navigation system, he entered the address for U. S. Bank in Lake Geneva and got on the road.

  He removed his Heckler & Koch USP compact tactical pistol, his Benchmade knife, his BlackBerry as well as his DHS credentials and two spare clips of ammunition Ron Parker had thrown in out of courtesy and then tossed the empty Fed Ex box into the backseat. As he drove, he asked himself what the hell he had been thinking when he had attempted to set up a rendezvous with Meg.

  What could he possibly have achieved? Was he hoping that she would call off her wedding? Or was he hoping that somehow she would speak with the president on his behalf and everything would be made all right?

  As the answers raced through his mind he knew none of them were correct. What he had wanted to do was to warn her.

  Harvath wanted to give Meg the chance that Tracy, his mother, and all of Roussard’s other victims hadn’t had. But it was more than that. Looking deeply into himself, Harvath discovered that what he wanted more than anything else was to alleviate the guilt he was feeling that he still had not been able to stop Roussard. If anything happened to Meg, at least he would have known he had warned her. What bullshit.

  No matter what he did or didn’t tell Meg Cassidy, if anything happened to her, it would fall squarely upon his shoulders, and he knew his guilt would be just as great as the guilt he carried over what had happened to Tracy Hastings.

  He was the only person at this point who could stop Roussard.

  That said, it didn’t mean the Secret Service shouldn’t be aware of what he had discovered. Todd Kirkland had been right about that, and Harvath had contacted Gary Lawlor and had filled him in.

  Gary would see to it that the Secret Service was informed, but Harvath knew there was only so much they could do with the information.

  Harvath emailed Lawlor the full dossier he had on Philippe Roussard, including the photographs. He trusted his boss to scan it and pass along all of the pertinent details. The Secret Service would make sure all of their agents were carrying Roussard’s photos.

  The Secret Service in turn would ask their local and state law enforcement contacts to be on the lookout for him. But that’s where it would end. If any of them happened across Roussard, it would mos
t likely not be until it was too late.

  The cops had gotten lucky with Roussard in Virginia Beach. Harvath doubted it would happen again.

  Chapter 111

  T he Lake Geneva branch of U. S. Bank was located on the east side of the lake in the town of Lake Geneva near the intersection of Geneva and Center streets.

  Carrying a plain manila envelope, Harvath entered the bank, presented his DHS creds to one of the loan officers, and asked to speak with the branch manager.

  He was shown into a private office, where an attractive woman in her late forties stood and introduced herself as Peggy Evans.

  “How can we be of service to the Department of Homeland Security?” she asked once her visitor was seated and she had finished looking at his ID.

  Harvath reached into his envelope and pulled out the pictures of Philippe Roussard he’d printed at his hotel’s business center. “Do you recognize this man?” he said as he handed them to Evans.

  The woman studied them for a few minutes and then asked, “What is this in regard to?”

  “The man in those photos is a wanted terrorist. We have records indicating that he received funds via wire transfer at this bank two days ago.”

  “Are you suggesting the bank has done something wrong? Because I can assure you that—”

  Harvath held up his hand and shook his head. “Not at all. We’re just trying to gather as much information as we can about him.”

  “Do you have any specific information about the transaction?”

  Harvath handed her copies of what Claudia had emailed him from the Wegelin & Company bank in Switzerland.

  Evans studied the records, then picked up her phone and dialed an extension. “Arty, will you come in here, please?”

  Moments later, a heavyset Hispanic man in his early thirties knocked and entered the office. “You wanted to see me?”