The First Commandment: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  “Let me help you find him.”

  “No,” stated the handler. “Focus on your next target. I will find him myself.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I will decide how he is to be disposed of and you will follow my orders exactly. Is that clear? We are getting very close now. I do not want any more surprises.”

  Though the bile choked his throat, Roussard kept his anger under control. When this was over, he would deal with his handler.

  His voice barely above a whisper, the operative replied, “Yes, it is clear.”

  CHAPTER 69

  Philippe Roussard pulled off the crushed-gravel drive and allowed his vehicle to roll to a quiet stop. From here, the car would be out of sight of any vehicles passing along the main road, as well as from anyone in the small, stone farmhouse about a half mile away.

  He gathered the items he’d need from the trunk and proceeded the rest of the way in on foot.

  It was actually quite a beautiful day. The sun was bright and only a few thin clouds drifted overhead. Roussard could smell the distinct scent of freshly mown grass from a nearby property.

  As he crept through the woods, a variety of birds called out from the treetops above him, but other than that, there were no sounds but his own footfalls to be heard.

  At the tree line, he removed the binoculars from his pack and made himself comfortable. This wasn’t anything he needed to rush.

  Twenty minutes later, the woman appeared, and snapping at her heels was the dog. He was surprised that she trusted the animal enough not to run off. Harvath had left her with it only a matter of weeks ago, but the accursed dog was still young, nothing more than a puppy, and apparently bonded easily with anyone who paid attention to it.

  The woman was older, but not elderly in any sense of the word. She was in her late sixties, tall and attractive, with a face bronzed a deep copper color by the sun. Her steel-gray hair came to her shoulders and she walked her small farm with a haughty self-confidence that Roussard assumed was a prerequisite for anyone who had ever worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  She was tending to her daily chores—gathering eggs from the small henhouse, feeding the chickens, then slicing open a bale and dropping hay into the corral of her two horses.

  There were two atrocious potbellied pigs, which only a culture like America’s could have ever warmed to as pets, and a clutter of cats that delighted in asserting their dominance over the tiny dog.

  As Roussard studied the woman, he found himself thinking of his own mother. It was entirely unprofessional and entirely inappropriate. He was here to do a job and this American woman’s similarities, or lack thereof, to his own mother had no bearing on what he needed to do.

  The unwelcome distraction edged Roussard into action. He had no desire to sit alone in the woods with his thoughts. It was time.

  He would take the woman in the barn. His only concern was the dog, but Roussard believed he had that figured out.

  As the woman disappeared around one of the farm’s outbuildings, Roussard picked up his backpack and ran.

  Ever the pragmatist, he stopped near the small stone house and disabled her vehicle. Should something go wrong, he did not wish to leave her a convenient means of escape.

  From the old Volvo station wagon, he then crept to the woman’s house. He pressed himself up against the façade, the stones of which, even in the morning’s increasing warmth, still felt cool to the touch.

  Peering around the corner of the farmhouse, he waited until he could see the woman. When he saw her unwind a long garden hose to clean out the horse trough, Roussard made his move.

  He chose not to run for fear of startling the horses. He walked quickly and with purpose, his hand clamped around the butt of the silenced pistol he had withdrawn from his backpack. If the woman noticed him and attempted to cry out, or to flee, he could easily take her even at this distance with a single round.

  Once inside the barn, he concealed his pack and made himself ready. There was a gap between the exterior boards where he stood, and it gave him an excellent vantage point from which to observe the woman’s approach.

  His heart pounded in his chest and he loved the sensation. There was nothing so exciting as lying in wait for one’s prey. The adrenaline surged through his bloodstream. Anything else, any other experience of life, was merely a fitful and incomplete dream of reality. To have the power to kill and to take and use that power—that was what life was all about.

  Perspiration had begun to form on Roussard’s brow. He stood inhumanly still, the beads of sweat slowly trickling together and rolling down his face and neck. Soon, he thought to himself. Soon.

  When the woman appeared again from the corral, the killer’s body slipped into a completely different state. Immediately, his breathing slowed. Next his heart rate began to decrease. His field of vision narrowed until all that he could see were the woman and the puppy at her feet. He stood as steady as a granite statue, his muscle fibers tautly spun coils ready to spring forward in sweet release.

  When the woman neared, the killer stopped breathing. Nothing else mattered but this. She was almost at the wide open doors. A second later he could see her shadow spilling into the barn.

  Finally, she crossed over the threshold and he sprang.

  CHAPTER 70

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Harvath had dumped the Omega Team member’s Ford pickup almost immediately. Once he’d put some good distance between himself and the safe house, he had begun cruising the waterfront homes north of Coltons Point. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.

  It was a large and obviously expensive house, and Harvath was amazed that it didn’t have an alarm system. It was almost comical how little people thought about security once they left the big city behind them.

  The keys for the magnificent thirty-six-foot-long Chris Craft Corsair had been hung on a peg in clear sight. While Harvath didn’t care for taking things that didn’t belong to him, given the circumstances, he wasn’t left with much choice.

  The Corsair had a fully charged battery, a full tank of fuel, and fired right up. He was “borrowing” a boat with a retail value of over $350,000, and Harvath vowed that its owners would get it back in exactly the same, mint condition it was in now.

  He pulled the sleek pleasure craft out into the Potomac, pointed the bow northward, and bumped the throttles all the way forward.

  The twin, 420 horsepower Volvo Penta engines growled in response. Like captive lions being set loose from their cages, the throaty engines popped the boat out of the hole and brought it right up on plane.

  Harvath rolled up his sleeves and kept his eyes open as gusts of spray frothed up from the sides of the boat. He’d hidden the pickup in the house garage before climbing aboard the Corsair, but there was no telling how close his pursuers were.

  The only thing he knew for certain was that even with Rick Morrell at their helm, the Omega Team would stop at nothing, not even killing him, to remove him from the picture.

  At the Washington Sailing Marina, Harvath limped in feigning engine trouble and docked the Corsair. The staff left him alone to call his supposed Chris Craft dealer in Maryland, but instead, Harvath dialed a local cab company, and ten minutes later he was being driven the short distance to Reagan National’s extended parking lot.

  Because the trip to Jordan had been not only personal, but also highly sensitive, he had left his DHS credentials, his government-issued BlackBerry, and his weapon with Ron Parker back at Elk Mountain.

  While the taxi waited, Harvath located his black Chevy Trailblazer. From the hitch vault under the rear bumper he retrieved a spare set of keys, a rubber-band-wrapped wad of tens and twenties, a preloaded debit card, and a duplicate driver’s license to replace the personal effects Rick Morrell had taken from him when they off-loaded him from Tim Finney’s plane.

  After exiting the extended parking lot, he paid the cab driver and headed toward D.C. As he drove, he remo
ved one of the throwaway cell phones he kept in his bugout bag and dialed his boss, Gary Lawlor.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for the last two days,” said Lawlor when he answered. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Never mind where I am,” said Harvath. “I need you to listen.”

  Lawlor was quiet as Harvath spent the next several minutes filling him in on everything that had happened and everything he had learned since they last spoke.

  When he was finished, Lawlor said, “Jesus, Scot, if what you’re telling me is true, you’ve been killing the people the president promised to protect! You’re undermining our word and making the president look like a liar. It’s only a matter of time before these people decide we’ve screwed them and they keep their promise about going after more kids.”

  This was not exactly the kind of support Harvath had been hoping for when he brought his boss up to speed. “Look,” he replied, “one of those men released from Gitmo is killing innocent Americans. The president promised to leave them alone based on their past actions, not current ones. But did anyone stop to think that this may be precisely why the terrorists negotiated the deal in the first place? So they could have blanket immunity while they carried out new acts of terror?

  “Sorry, Gary, it was a bad bargain. I didn’t make this mess, but I guess I’m going to be the one to clean it up.”

  “Good,” stated Lawlor. “I want you to nail the son of a bitch.”

  Harvath could tell by the tone of his voice that he had misread him. Something else had happened. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Emily.”

  Harvath didn’t need to be given a last name to know who Gary was talking about. Emily Hawkins had been Gary’s assistant and right arm while he’d been at the FBI. She’d been like a second mother to Harvath since he’d moved to D.C., and he had left the puppy with her after Tracy had been shot.

  “What happened?”

  “He got to her. Her and the dog.”

  Lawlor was not an overly emotional man, and Harvath could tell it was taking everything he had to keep it together. He was completely choked up. “Tell me what happened.”

  “He was hiding in her barn out near Haymarket. He beat both her and the puppy severely. They’ve each got multiple broken bones and contusions. He did a real number on them, but that was just for starters. This sick bastard had brought along two body bags, one for an adult and one for a child. He placed her in one and the dog in the other, but before he zipped them up, he tossed in something to keep them company.”

  Harvath’s stomach started to churn. He knew that body bags were nonporous. It was a horrible way to die. Harvath was definitely going to kill this guy. He pulled over to the side of the road and asked, “What did he throw in there?”

  “He filled Emily’s bag with horseflies. She was bitten over two hundred times.”

  Horseflies? That didn’t make sense. The next plague was supposed to be boils. “Gary, you’re sure that’s all there was? Just flies?”

  “The EMTs that showed up said he put over a thousand fleas in with the puppy.”

  “So fleas and flies? That’s all?”

  “No, that’s not all. He strung them both upside down from one of the rafters. If Emily’s neighbor hadn’t shown up when he did, they’d be dead.”

  “Wait a second,” said Harvath. “They’re alive? Emily and the dog?”

  “Yes, but only barely. I’m on my way to the hospital in Manassas now.”

  “When you get there, make sure the doctor and the vet monitor them both for boils and any sort of plaguelike illness. In fact, you should recommend that they start courses of antibiotics right away. This guy has been combining scenarios from the ten plagues of Egypt. The flies and the fleas were the third and the fourth, or in this guy’s case, the seventh and eighth. Just tell them to be on the lookout.”

  When Lawlor said, “Scot, there’s something else I need to tell you,” dread seized him.

  “Who else?” was all Harvath could manage.

  “Carolyn Leonard and Kate Palmer. They were infected with some kind of staphylococcus aureus–bubonic plague hybrid.”

  The knife had been shoved into Harvath’s heart the minute he found Tracy lying in a pool of blood on his doorstep; now it felt as if acid were being poured down the blade. The pain of having it twisted for Emily and the dog was one thing, but with Kate and Carolyn added to the mix, it was almost too much to bear.

  “Where did it happen?” he asked.

  “At Tysons Galleria,” replied Lawlor.

  “The shopping center? In public?”

  “Some guy was offering perfume samples. We think he had the hybrid aerosolized. Kate gave the Bureau guys a description. Macy’s sent over pictures of all their employees, contracted or otherwise, and none of them are a match.”

  “Are they looking at CCTV footage?”

  “The tapes have already been pulled and both Kate and Carolyn are working with sketch artists.”

  “Will they be okay?” asked Harvath.

  “This bug is very fast-acting. They showed symptoms in less than twelve hours, which is pretty much unheard of with either staphylococcus aureus or bubonic plague.”

  “If I remember my medical training right, staphylococcus aureus causes some pretty nasty boils.”

  “And can be a real bear to treat because of resistance to most antibiotics,” said Lawlor. “The best thing they have going for them is the fact that it was caught early. Even so, the medical people are pretty concerned about how fast-moving it is. They’ve both been quarantined.”

  “There’s no question in my mind that we’re dealing with the same guy,” stated Harvath.

  “Nor in anyone else’s. They found a card in Carolyn Leonard’s purse, the kind perfume samples are sprayed onto. It had the name of some bogus perfume and a tagline written in Italian.”

  “Let me guess,” said Harvath. “That which has been taken in blood, can only be answered in blood?”

  “Exactly,” stated Lawlor.

  “Does the president know?”

  “Yes, he knows.”

  “And?” asked Harvath.

  “And it doesn’t change anything. He still expects you to turn yourself in.”

  “Well, he’s going to have to wait until I’m finished.”

  CHAPTER 71

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  Jack Rutledge prided himself on his ability to read his people. When Charles Anderson was shown into the residence, the president knew he hadn’t arrived bearing good news.

  “We’ve got a problem, sir,” said Anderson, confirming the president’s suspicions.

  Rutledge closed the report he’d been skimming and motioned for his chief of staff to take a seat. “What is it?”

  “I just heard from Director Vaile. His team managed to take Harvath into custody.”

  “That should be good news. What’s the problem?”

  “Harvath escaped.”

  “He what?” demanded Rutledge. “How the hell did that happen?”

  “It’ll all be in the DCI’s briefing,” replied Anderson, “but there’s more.”

  “How much more?”

  The chief of staff lowered his voice. “Before he escaped, Harvath was debriefed about his recent trip to Jordan. Apparently, he was able to lure Abdel Salam Najib out of Syria to Amman.”

  The president could feel his chest constricting. “Harvath killed him. Didn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir, he did.”

  “God damn it!” Rutledge bellowed. “First Palmera and now Najib. When their people realize what’s happening they’re going to strike back. We need to assemble the National Security Council.”

  The president had his work cut out for him. He knew there was no way the United States could provide continuous protection for every single school bus in the nation. It wasn’t just a logistical nightmare; it would also create widespread panic. American citizens would rightly wonder if school buses weren’t safe from terrorists, what w
as. Would movie theaters be safe? Would shopping malls? How about public transportation? Should they even keep their children in school? Should they even be going in to work?

  The specter of terrorism, especially when given weight and legitimacy by the government, had an amazingly corrosive effect on society. The president had read the classified reports on the impact of the D.C. sniper shootings and had studied the extrapolations of how quickly the U.S. economy would suffer if a similar threat was played out nationwide. After the economic ramifications began to unfold, the societal problems would erupt. If law enforcement couldn’t bring the perpetrators to justice, citizens would begin to take matters into their own hands. Hate crimes would spike, and groups who felt they were being persecuted would begin to strike back. If the situation was not addressed quickly and effectively, rioting would ensue. In a word, the situation would devolve into anarchy. The psychological effects of terrorism were absolutely insidious.

  The president’s chief of staff interrupted his thoughts by saying, “There’s also something else we need to talk about.”

  Rutledge shook his head as if to say What else could there be?

  “A reporter from the Baltimore Sun contacted Geoff Mitchell’s office for a statement on a story he’s about to run. As you know, being the White House press secretary, Geoff gets asked a lot of wild, conspiracyesque questions, but this reporter has his teeth into something. Geoff’s afraid it could get some traction if not put down immediately with a direct repudiation from you.”

  “What’s the story?”

  “The reporter is going to claim that you authorized the removal of a John Doe corpse from the Maryland Medical Examiner’s Office to dupe the people of Charleston, South Carolina, into believing that their school bus hijacker had been shot and killed.”

  Rutledge gritted his teeth and grabbed the arms of his chair. “Where the hell did that story come from?”

  “At this point, sir, it doesn’t much matter. What matters is that it’s pretty damaging, and he’s going to also allege the White House was complicit in a homicide.”