The First Commandment: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  He also blamed his commitment phobia on the stress his father’s career had placed on his mother. In truth, though, they’d had an excellent marriage in spite of his dangerous profession and the all-too-frequent occasions when he had to disappear for weeks, sometimes even months at a time.

  Finally, one night as Tracy lay sleeping next to him, Harvath looked deep inside himself for a reason—the real reason he had used to push every good woman who had ever come into his life away from him.

  He saw the face of Meg Cassidy hover before his mind’s eye. As with Tracy, they had met under extraordinary circumstances. In Meg’s case it had been a hijacking. Afterward, they’d been assigned to an incredibly difficult operation. For all intents and purposes they should have been perfect together—maybe even as perfect as he and Tracy were. But things just hadn’t worked out. She was an incredible woman and someone Harvath regretted deeply having lost.

  Nonetheless, it was an odd image to fixate on. Meg had moved on with her life. She had met someone new and was going to marry him soon.

  His mind then went to a very dark corner that he usually worked hard to stay away from. He was in the right place. He knew it by the gut-wrenching feeling he experienced as he began to explore one of the darkest days of his life.

  It was his second assignment with SEAL Team Two. They’d been sent into Finland in the middle of one of the worst winters on record. The blinding wind-driven snow made it nearly impossible to see or hear anything. His team split up into pairs as they closed in on their target.

  Somehow, the men they were hunting had turned the tables and had snuck up on them from behind. How they knew that the SEAL team was there, Harvath never could determine.

  By the time the confrontation was over, he had taken a round through the shoulder and his dead teammate had taken one through the head.

  Though he managed to take out all the shooters, he found little satisfaction in it. The guilt he carried was immense. His teammate had a wife and two little kids.

  Harvath had insisted that he be the one to inform the man’s wife. Though she’d been a good, strong Navy spouse, the look on her face when she got the news broke Harvath’s heart wide open. He vowed to never cause another wife that kind of pain ever again.

  For years Harvath thought that meant making sure all of his men came back alive. It was a noble goal, but in their line of work people sometimes died. It was the biggest downside to what they did for a living. It was also one of the reasons that Harvath preferred working alone whenever he could.

  Lying there next to Tracy, Harvath had finally understood why he’d pushed all the good women from his life. And at that moment he made a new vow to himself. If Tracy turned out to be the one for him, he would never let her go.

  Harvath’s chain of thought was broken as the BlackBerry at his hip vibrated with an incoming call. “Harvath,” he said as he raised the device to his ear.

  “Scot, it’s Ron Parker. We’ve got something you should see.”

  “What is it?”

  “How quickly can you get over to the San Diego Marriott?”

  “The one on the bay?” asked Harvath as he looked at his mother. The doctors had told him that though she was stable, they planned on keeping her sedated for at least the rest of the evening. “Probably about fifteen minutes. Why?”

  “You’ll see when you get there. One of my contacts from the SDPD will be waiting for you. Ask for Detective Gold.”

  CHAPTER 25

  In the dead of night, the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina was an eerily beautiful composition of metal and curving glass. The slashes of red and blue from the strobes atop the various police vehicles parked at its base only added to its dramatic façade.

  After having to flash his creds and get in the face of a rather obstinate patrol officer who didn’t want to let him by, Harvath eventually found the detective named Gold. For some reason, Parker had failed to mention the detective’s first name, which was Alison. Not that Harvath had any problem with female detectives, it just seemed an odd detail to leave out.

  Knowing Ron as well as he did, Harvath figured Gold had been a guest at Valhalla and that she and Parker had probably had some sort of affair. Not mentioning that she was a woman was probably Ron’s way of trying too hard to paint her as a competent cop and one whom Harvath could trust. It wasn’t necessary. The fact that Gold was all right with Parker made her all right with Harvath. Very quickly, the tall, attractive redhead, whom Harvath placed somewhere in her late thirties, proved that she was very worthy of both Parker’s and Harvath’s respect.

  After introducing herself and apologizing for the patrol officer, Alison Gold led Harvath to a windowless, white Chevy Express cargo van. The rear doors were open and inside a team of specialists from the department’s Forensic Science Field Services Unit was collecting evidence.

  “According to a witness who was walking her dogs near your mother’s home shortly before the attack, there was a white commercial van parked on the street. We’ve already found magnetic signs in the van that come pretty close to matching the witness’s description of the lettering she saw.”

  Gold rapped on the side of the van to get the attention of one of the techs and had him show Harvath what she was talking about. “Anyone who saw the van would assume your mother had a pipe burst or something and that it was being repaired. Coronado police have already checked with all of the Servpro franchises in the area, and none of them had any requests for service even remotely near your mother’s home.”

  Harvath wasn’t surprised. “And the van?”

  “It was rented from a fleet leasing company in Los Angeles. We’re checking into that now, but don’t expect to come up with much.”

  Harvath didn’t either.

  “As far as prints and fibers, the vehicle is cleaner than clean. The Coronado PD hasn’t found anything in her house either.”

  “And I doubt they will,” replied Harvath.

  “Why is that?” asked Gold.

  “This guy’s a professional.”

  The detective raised her eyebrows in response.

  “I don’t know how much Ron told you, but a friend of mine was shot outside my home in D.C. a few days ago, and we believe it’s the same person who attacked my mother,” said Harvath.

  “Yeah, Ron explained that much. He also told me not to ask what you did to piss somebody off so bad that he’d attacked people you know on both coasts.”

  Harvath looked at her, but didn’t say anything.

  “That’s okay,” replied Gold, acknowledging his silence. “I’ve been to Elk Mountain. I understand.”

  She didn’t know the half of what went on there, but Harvath let it slide. Parker was every bit the patriot Finney was and would never spill items of national security just to create engaging pillow talk. Changing the subject, Harvath asked, “How’d you find the van?”

  “Based on our witness’s description, we rolled back the footage from the cameras on the bridge. We saw the van going over and coming back from Coronado. Using our traffic cams, we were able to track the vehicle here.”

  It was good police work, but all Harvath had to do was gaze out toward the marina and the hundreds of boats parked along the docks to know that this guy was already long gone. He had a good idea how, but he still had to ask. “So he dumped the van here, and then what?”

  Gold tilted her head in the direction of a hotel surveillance camera. “We’ve already pulled the footage. Like you said, this guy is a professional. He knew we were going to pull the tapes. He never looks directly into the camera. I’ll make sure you get a copy of everything, but I don’t think it’ll do much good. He’s wearing a baseball cap pulled down so tight you can’t see his face. He’s also wearing baggy clothes and is walking hunched over so that we couldn’t get a good gauge of his height or his weight either.”

  “Did he have a car waiting for him or did he go down to the docks?”

  “He went down to the docks,” replied the detective. “Th
e marina people are pretty strict about logging what boats are in what slips, registration numbers and all of that, but—”

  “But by now he’s probably already in Mexico.”

  Gold agreed. “If it was me I’d have a car waiting in Ensenada, if not someplace farther up the coast, and from there I’d just disappear.”

  She was right. It was exactly what Harvath would do, and it pissed him off. They were only hours behind the man who had shot Tracy and had attacked his mother, but it might as well have been days. With a boat and nearly two thousand miles of coastline on the Baja Peninsula, this guy could be anywhere.

  The only thing Harvath knew for sure was that he had not disappeared for good. He’d turn up again, and when he did, it wasn’t going to be over a cup of Constant Comment and a sob story about how he was misunderstood as a child.

  At some point the two of them were going to have to square off, and when they did, only one of them was going to walk away from it alive.

  CHAPTER 26

  ANGRA DOS REIS, BRAZIL

  The Troll looked at the list again and then pushed the pad of paper away. In a word, he was stunned.

  Getting hold of the list had been as close to impossible as he had ever come. The Troll had precious little to bargain with and was forced to call in the favor of a lifetime from someone extremely well placed whom he knew was sitting on a piece of information so hot, it was practically radioactive.

  Once he had that information, he had enough currency to go after what he was really looking for. Though Harvath had taken almost everything from him, the Troll still had a couple of aces up his short sleeve, and he played them masterfully.

  Picking up his empty coffee cup, he slid down from his chair and padded into the kitchen. A cold breeze moved through the house carrying upon it the promise of rain. That had been one of the few drawbacks of this private island paradise. On the infrequent occasions when it rained, it poured. This meant that all of his satellite transmissions had to be suspended until after the storm had passed.

  The pots of sobering Turkish coffee were burning a hole in his stomach. Removing the remnants of a half-eaten baguette, a wedge of Camembert, and a bottle of mineral water, he set them on a tray and returned to the table, where he looked at the list once more.

  A million different things were floating around his mind, and he found it hard to stay focused. With each piece he uncovered, the puzzle only grew bigger.

  One of the most interesting items he had discovered was that a little over six months ago, the Americans had secretly released five of the most dangerous prisoners they held at Guantanamo Bay. They had used a radioactive isotope to taint their blood in order to track them, but it had failed, and the Americans had lost track of them.

  That all formed the what of the equation. What the Troll couldn’t put together was the why.

  Had it been some kind of a hush-hush trade? If so, who was it with and why track the men? Were they hoping to get them back, and if so, from whom? Who wanted them in the first place?

  As far as the Troll could see, the prisoners were in no way connected. They all came from different organizations—even different countries. It didn’t make any sense.

  He supposed an Al Qaeda connection probably could be established among the five, but not in such a way that the release en masse made any sense. And they certainly hadn’t been released because they had been model detainees or had been wrongly incarcerated in the first place. No, these were very rough, very dangerous men.

  Their dossiers listed multiple escape attempts and multiple attacks on the Joint Task Force Guantanamo guards. While it was probably a relief to some of their captors to see them gone, the United States must have commanded a heavy price in return.

  That had been the Troll’s theory, but no matter how hard he tried to find a link, he couldn’t. There was an absolute black hole of information—a very rare intelligence phenomenon, especially by his standards. Information could be hidden, but it never simply evaporated. The fact that he had to drill down so hard to get what was sitting in front of him right now told him one thing—the United States didn’t want word of the release of these five men ever getting out.

  The soldiers who had been involved with releasing the prisoners that rainy night nearly six months ago had all been promoted and transferred out of Guantanamo. The United States had done a very good job tying up all its loose ends, but why? What were they hiding?

  The Troll let that question spin in his brain for a bit while he focused on another piece that didn’t seem to fit—Agent Scot Harvath.

  Over the last several hours, it had become quite apparent that Harvath had some exceptional resources at his disposal, but they weren’t resources that belonged to the U.S. government per se.

  On the contrary, for some reason the United States regarded him as a liability and, according to the Troll’s sources, wasn’t allowing Harvath to pursue the investigation into who’d shot Tracy Hastings. Harvath was working alone.

  Be that as it may, the man obviously had friends—and quite talented ones at that. The Troll was still chiding himself for having lost everything. His data, his fortune, all of it.

  At first, he had entertained the idea of putting a contract out on Harvath, but not only would it have been prohibitively expensive, if anything happened to Harvath, the Troll might very well never see his money or his data again. He had no choice, at least for the time being, but to let things play out. If an opportunity presented itself at some point in the future, and one always did, then he would make his move. But for now, he was going to have to give every appearance that he was playing ball.

  Reaching across the table, he pulled the thin pad of paper back toward him and studied the list of five names again. What should his next move be?

  As a clap of thunder roared from somewhere out over the bay, the Troll lifted his pen, crossed the top name off the list, and then logged back into the chat room. What Harvath didn’t know wouldn’t kill him.

  CHAPTER 27

  SARGASSO INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM

  ELK MOUNTAIN RESORT

  MONTROSE, COLORADO

  After talking with her doctors, Harvath had sat with his mother again and had watched her sleep. It was still too early to tell if the damage to her vision would be permanent, but they were hopeful that her eyesight would begin to return soon. The blows she had taken to her head during the attack were what concerned them the most at this point, and they wanted to hold on to her for at least the next several days for more testing and observation.

  After a little while longer, Harvath had stood. He loved his mother dearly, but no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn’t just sit there by her bedside and wait for someone else to be attacked. He needed to act. So with a group of her friends on deck ready to sit vigil, he had climbed back aboard Tim Finney’s Citation X and had flown back to Colorado.

  Though the trip was smooth and uneventful, Harvath couldn’t get any sleep. Tracy lay near death and his mother had been assaulted and tortured. He would have to live with the horrors of what had happened to them for the rest of his life. For a moment, he wondered if that was a part of the plan. The thought of it turned his stomach sour and once again he tasted the bile rising in his throat.

  Harvath was coming unglued and he knew it. He was not one to let his emotions get the better of him, but this was different. The victims were people he knew and loved who were getting attacked. Would there be others? Probably. Would the attacker become more emboldened and potentially kill? That was a possibility—one so big that Harvath didn’t even like to think about it, but he had to count on it.

  Everyone, no matter how good, left clues. This guy was dropping pretty obvious ones, but none that helped Harvath figure out who he was or how he could be stopped.

  Harvath wracked his brain all the way through the plane’s touching down and the ride up into the mountains to the resort.

  When he got there, Finney and Parker were waiting for him.

  “Did y
ou get any sleep on the way back?” asked Finney.

  Harvath shook his head no.

  His friend handed him a key card in a small folder with a room number on it. “Why don’t you knock off for a bit?”

  “What about the Boy from Ipanema down there in Brazil?”

  “We heard from him right before a storm front moved in. His comms are down for the time being. We’ll keep an eye on things. When the weather starts to break, we’ll come get you.”

  Harvath thanked his friends and headed for his room. At the door, he made a conscious decision to shut his mind off and try to leave all his problems outside. Sleep was a weapon. It kept you sharp, and right now Scot Harvath needed it badly.

  Opening the door, he kicked his shoes off and fell onto the bed. The resort was famous for its insanely high-thread-count sheets, down duvets, and featherbeds, but Harvath didn’t care about any of that. All he wanted was sleep.

  In a matter of moments his prayers were answered and he stepped off the cliff of consciousness into one of the deepest, darkest sleeps he had ever known.

  CHAPTER 28

  It was midmorning when Ron Parker called Harvath and told him to meet him in the dining room.

  Harvath grabbed a quick shower, throwing the temperature control all the way to cold at the end to help wake him up and shake off the remnants of the horrible nightmare that had visited him every night without fail since Tracy’s shooting.

  He dressed in the spare clothes Finney had arranged for him and then called both hospitals to check on how his mother and Tracy were doing.

  In the restaurant, Parker already had breakfast waiting for them. Harvath poured himself a cup of coffee and asked, “Where’s Tim?”

  “He’s glued to the markets this morning. There’s a stock in South America he has his eye on.”

  Harvath got the picture and didn’t ask any more questions. Once he had gulped down his breakfast, Parker drove him out to Sargasso.