The First Commandment: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  Gone were the caged bulbs strung along the rough-hewn walls. They had been replaced with sophisticated fixtures recessed at the edges of the ceiling that replicated bright, outdoor light. The floors were polished granite and the offices were walled in with sheets of soundproofed glass, the opacity of which could be dialed up or down based on the occupant’s desired level of privacy.

  Impossibly slim, high-definition monitors suspended on the glass acted like windows to the outside world. As they passed scenes of Alpine Switzerland, the Bolivian rainforest, and a spit of rocky coastline from Maine, Finney explained that employees were allowed to choose their own “view” from a database of digital backdrops from around the world. It was just one of the many small touches Finney had created to make his employees’ time below ground as pleasant as possible.

  At the end of the next hallway, the group turned left and arrived at an office where the virtual window displayed a river with jagged mountains in the background. In the midground a man in waders was flyfishing. The sound of river water gently moving by played from a hidden speaker somewhere in the room.

  “Tom should be right back,” Finney said in regard to the office’s absent occupant. “We can wait in here for him.”

  On top of the polished chrome desk was a neatly arranged stack of files, a lone silver pen, and a pad of Post-it notes. Whoever this guy was, he either didn’t have a lot to do or was extremely well organized. Based on what Finney had told him, Harvath figured it had to be the latter.

  He had turned his attention to the virtual window and was admiring the scene when Tom Morgan entered the office. “That’s the Snake River,” said Morgan as he set a paper coffee cup and his laptop down on his desk. “One of the finest dry fly rivers in the world.”

  “This particular spot is just outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Island Park, isn’t it?” asked Harvath as he turned around.

  “You’ve fished the Snake, then.”

  Harvath nodded. “Both the Henry’s and the South Fork. In fact I think I’ve fished that exact spot,” he added as he pointed over his shoulder at the screen. It was a scene he recognized immediately.

  He’d been planning to take Tracy there that fall to teach her how to fish. The summer crowds would be gone, the leaves would be turning, and the mountains would be gorgeous. He’d already reserved a small cabin at a place called Dornans just inside Grand Teton National Park. He wondered now if they’d ever be able to go anywhere together again.

  “I love the Snake, but there’s some pretty good fishing around here in Colorado. That’s part of the reason I took this job,” said Morgan, pulling Harvath’s mind back to the here and now.

  Harvath acknowledged the remark with a knowing smile as Tim Finney made formal introductions. Tom Morgan was ex-NSA and somewhere in his late sixties. He wore glasses, had a mustache, and walked with a limp—the result of a field operation gone bad, which he never discussed.

  After a lifetime of suits and ties at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, Morgan had embraced Elk Mountain’s somewhat casual dress code. Tonight, he was wearing jeans, a plaid shirt, and a tweed sport coat. He appeared very fit for his age. When he spoke, there was a slight New England accent to his words, and Harvath placed him as a native of Rhode Island or New Hampshire.

  “Tom’s the reason I asked you to come out,” said Finney as they all sat down.

  This was the part Harvath had been waiting for. “What have you got?”

  Morgan didn’t mince words. “I think we’ve located the Troll’s lockbox.”

  Harvath looked at him, his eyebrows arching. “Everything?” he asked.

  Morgan looked at him and replied, “Bank accounts, data deposits, everything.”

  CHAPTER 12

  So the way we see it,” said Finney as Tom Morgan wrapped up his presentation and closed his laptop, “we’ve got this little runt’s nuts in a vise. The only question is how hard do you want to squeeze?”

  Harvath was impressed. Finney and his Sargasso Intelligence Program had been able to do what the United States government wouldn’t or couldn’t do. They had located the Troll’s stock-in-trade, his highly classified data.

  It wasn’t a tough decision for Harvath to make. The Troll had helped Al Qaeda carry out the attacks on New York City.

  Then there was the whole matter of Tracy.

  Looking at Finney, Harvath said, “I want you to squeeze so hard his eyes roll back into his fucking head.”

  The Warlord nodded at Morgan, and the former NSA employee picked up his phone and dialed. The Troll’s field of play was about to be dramatically upended.

  CHAPTER 13

  ANGRA DOS REIS, BRAZIL

  Three hours southwest of Rio de Janeiro by car, or forty-five minutes by helicopter, was the hottest getaway in Brazil, the bay of Angra dos Reis.

  Known for its warm waters, white-sand beaches, and lush vegetation, Angra dos Reis, or simply Angra as it was called by those in the know, boasted 365 islands—one for every day of the year. Angra was a mystical place, its breezes laden with the scent of exotic tropical flowers that intoxicated its visitors.

  Upon its discovery by Portuguese naval officers in 1502, one of the officers wrote home saying that they had discovered paradise.

  Angra was indeed a paradise. The kind of paradise one could easily get lost in. And lost was exactly what the Troll had wanted to be, though not without certain creature comforts.

  The private island he’d leased was a half mile long and a quarter mile wide. It was known as Algodão. It boasted a helipad, speedboat, and accommodations rivaling the greatest luxury hotels in the world. Though it could easily sleep eighteen, at present there were only three souls ashore—the Troll and his two snow-white Caucasian Ovcharkas, Argos and Draco.

  Weighing close to two hundred pounds each and standing over forty-one inches at the shoulder, these giant animals were the dogs of choice for the Russian military and former East German border patrol. They were exceedingly fast and absolutely vicious when it came to protecting their territory. They made the perfect guardians for a man who stood just under three feet tall and had very powerful enemies—many of whom were his clients.

  The Troll lived by the motto that knowledge didn’t equal power; it was the precise application of knowledge that equaled power. He had also learned very quickly that it could also equal incredible wealth.

  It was in following this motto that the Troll had made a substantial living for himself dealing in the purchase, sale, and trade of highly classified information. Each piece on its own had a certain value, but the skill—the art if you will—was in knowing how to join together just the right tidbits to create a true masterpiece. That was where the Troll excelled in his profession. It was quite amazing, especially for someone whose prospects in life had been seen as so dismal that even his parents had given up on him.

  When it became obvious the Troll was not going to grow any further, his godless Georgian parents made no attempt to find a suitable loving home for their son, nor did they try to find even a half-decent orphanage. Instead, they abandoned the boy, selling him as if he were chattel to a brothel on the outskirts of the Black Sea resort of Sochi. There, the boy was starved, beaten, and made to perform unutterable sex acts that would have shamed even the Marquis de Sade himself.

  It was in the brothel that the Troll learned the true value of information. The loose-lipped pillow talk of the powerful clients proved a goldmine once he had learned what to listen for and how to turn it to his advantage.

  The whores, most of them life’s castoffs as well, felt a kinship with the dwarf and treated him well. In fact, they became the only family he ever knew, and he repaid that kindness by one day buying their freedom. He had the madam and her husband tortured and then killed for the inhuman cruelty he had spent years suffering at their hands.

  From the ashes of his youth, the Troll rose a fiery phoenix armed with a cutthroat business acumen and a gluttonous appetite for the best of everything in life.


  In his palm-thatched living room, he cradled a glass of Château Quercy St. Emilion Bordeaux between his two small hands as he stared through the villa’s glass floor at the colorful starfish and vibrant sea life playing in the illuminated water below. He had indeed come a long way since the brothel in Sochi. But was it far enough?

  Draco looked up as his master slid off his chair and padded across the room in his handmade Stubbs & Wootton Sisal Pajas. Argos remained in a deep sleep, still recovering from the wound he had suffered in Gibraltar. It was good for all of them to get away from his estate in the rainy Scottish Highlands. The weather was much more agreeable in Brazil. It was also a safer place.

  Though few knew of Eilenaigas House, he would not feel safe there for some time. After what his clients had done in New York City, he knew the Americans were quite literally out for blood. He’d seen it for himself firsthand in Gibraltar. If he lived to be a thousand, he would never forget the horrifically macabre death the American operative Scot Harvath had visited upon Mohammed bin Mohammed. It was something no sane man could have ever devised. Yet it was perfect. Mohammed had deserved it a million times over, especially for the sadistic acts he had visited upon the Troll as a young boy in that brothel near the Black Sea.

  Harvath had been incredibly cruel in meting out the punishment to Mohammed, but in almost the same breath he had shown himself to be incredibly compassionate. Argos would have surely died if Harvath had not given him medical attention himself and found him an able veterinarian. Harvath had even gone so far as to pay the doctor out of his own pocket for the animal’s surgery. Though the Troll had never been very fond of Americans, this was a man he respected. He was a ruthless, cold-blooded killer, who also possessed a marked degree of humanity.

  Turning his mind to dinner, the Troll removed several large Kobe steaks from the refrigerator, part of a special shipment he’d had flown in from Japan.

  The Japanese were famous for the beer-and-sake-laced diet they fed their premium cattle—and of course for the massages the cows received. Nothing was too good for Kobe cattle, and the painstaking efforts showered upon the animals yielded an incredible meat. It was finely marbled with fat that was less saturated than the fat in other beef, was significantly lower in cholesterol, and was without rival in flavor and tenderness.

  As he set the steaks up on the counter, both of the dogs appeared by his side, their nostrils flaring at the scent of the beef. They both asked so little from him and yet gave so much in return. They were his ever-present companions, truer and more loyal than almost any human being he had ever known.

  The Troll plated a steak for each of the dogs and set them down on the floor. Immediately, they fell upon them and the beef disappeared.

  When his food was prepared, the Troll set it upon the dining table, uncorked another bottle of Château Quercy, and climbed into his chair to eat.

  His steak was perfect. Cutting into it was like slicing into a piece of soft, ripened Brie.

  He savored every bite of his meal, and when his plate was clean and his wine glass empty, he removed his dinnerware to the kitchen.

  Pouring himself a snifter of Germain-Robin XO, he took a long sip and closed his eyes. For all of his accomplishments, the Troll’s life was a lonely place.

  CHAPTER 14

  The living-room windows were on sliding tracks and had been pulled back to open the room onto the sea. A light breeze carried the smell of the ocean mixed with the tiny island’s exotic flowers. Only the Brazilians could create a night so perfect, mused the Troll as he climbed up to the table he used as a desk and opened his rugged General Dynamics XR-1 GoBook laptop. Via a small, inflatable satellite dish positioned outside, he was soon connected with his rack of dedicated servers secretly housed in a bunker deep within the eastern Pyrenees Mountains.

  A British entrepreneur had rolled the dice on an idea that the Swiss approach to banking could be replicated in the digital realm.

  The Brit’s facility in the European principality of Andorra boasted redundant power supplies, redundant network feeds, FM200 fire suppression, redundant air-conditioning, and multistage security identification processes. His servers were connected to generous bandwidth allocations, fully burstable, with multiple aggregated providers, ensuring 100 percent availability for maximum uptime.

  It had all been music to the Troll’s ears. Relying on the servers at his estate was out of the question. Eilenaigas House was beyond dangerous, at least for now. If he kept a low-enough profile, the U.S. intelligence services would give up on him eventually, but until they did, he’d have to stay far away from his home in Scotland.

  When it was all said and done, there were much worse places to pass one’s time than a private island in Brazil. And he would know. He’d been to them.

  Listening to the music of the waves as they gently washed against the rocks outside, the Troll logged on to his primary server and began the authentication process to gain access to his data. He still had not sifted through the windfall of intelligence he had gleaned from raiding the NSA’s top-secret files in New York during the Al Qaeda attack. The amount of data he’d stolen from the Americans had been beyond his wildest dreams.

  The NSA program had been named Athena, after the Greek goddess of wisdom. Apparently the Greeks didn’t have a goddess of blackmail.

  It had been a deep black data-mining operation. Using both the Echelon and Carnivore systems, the NSA had been gathering intelligence that could be used as leverage against various foreign concerns—governments, heads of state, and influential foreign businesspeople.

  In short, the Athena Program had been created to collect and sort extremely dirty laundry. Once they had their teeth into something particularly juicy, such as the Princess Diana crash, TWA 800, or the true cause of Yassir Arafat’s death, they assigned teams of operatives to flesh out the big picture and uncover as much supporting data as possible. That way, when it came time to use it, they had the victim pinned against the wall so tightly, there was absolutely no room for him or her to wiggle free.

  And when they uncovered a conspiracy involving several powerful foreign figures, it was like hitting the jackpot.

  The Troll had to smile. It was devious, deceitful, and utterly un-American. And now, all of the NSA’s data belonged to him. The gift that will keep on giving. There was enough in there to keep him busy for three lifetimes. The biggest risk was jumping the gun and selling off the pieces of information too quickly. He would have to study all of it and understand how it interrelated before he began assigning values. Fortunately, the Athena analysts had already done a lot of his work for him.

  The Troll clicked on the subgroup folder he’d been working in and waited for its contents sheet to appear. It didn’t.

  He clicked on the icon again and waited, but still nothing happened. He checked his uplink status. Everything appeared to be okay. So why then wasn’t his data coming up?

  He tried another file and then another. They were all the same—empty. The Troll’s heart caught in his throat. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening.

  He quaffed the balance of the brandy in his snifter, wiped his bearded lips with the sleeve of his linen shirt, and went through every single file on every single server.

  All empty.

  As he neared the end, he saw an animated icon that didn’t belong there. It was a little bearded man with a horned helmet, a sword in one hand, and a shield in the other. The figure hopped from one foot to the other and on every fourth hop banged his sword against his shield.

  It looked like a little Viking, but the Troll knew better. This was no Viking. It was a Norseman—the codename of American counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath.

  CHAPTER 15

  Enraged, the Troll clicked on the icon and opened the folder. It took a maddeningly long time for the file to load. For a moment, he thought it might be a trick—a way to purposely keep him online so that American intelligence could pinpoint his location.

  Finall
y, the file loaded. It was a series of screen captures for all of his bank accounts. Every single balance reflected the same amount—zero.

  A scream welled up from deep inside his tiny body as he hurled his brandy snifter against the wall. The dogs leaped up and began barking.

  His entire life’s work was gone. Everything. The only thing that was still his was the estate in the Scottish Highlands, but if the Americans had been this thorough, the Troll had little reason to doubt that they had found a way to tie that up and keep him from doing anything with it as well. British antiterrorism laws were quite severe. It wouldn’t take much for the Americans to convince the U.K. authorities to play ball.

  The dogs were still barking. The Troll grabbed a pewter dish filled with pistachios and was about to launch it when he thought better of it. “Silence,” he ordered, and the barking dogs fell quiet.

  He needed to think. There had to be some way out of this.

  He spent the next two hours going through his servers, remotely connecting to his various bank accounts scattered around the globe. Then began a series of angry phone calls, during which he suffered through excuse after excuse from each of his bankers. They plied him with empty promises to get to the bottom of what had happened, but the Troll knew it was no use. The Americans had done it. They had gotten everything. He was ruined.

  While the Troll had no idea what he was going to do next, he knew one thing for certain. Scot Harvath was responsible, and he was going to make him pay.

  He went back to the lone computer file that had been left behind. The dancing Norseman mocked him as it hopped from one foot to the other. Slowly, the Troll scrolled through the data. On his third pass he found it.