The First Commandment: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  As Harvath had with the team on the West Coast, he gave the team leader a physical description and a full rundown on Philippe Roussard and told him to expect photographs from Finney and Parker soon.

  The guard passed his phone to Tracy’s father, Bill. It was an awkward conversation. There was nothing new to report on Tracy’s condition. They’d run several more tests, but unless they could wean her off the ventilator, there was no way they could perform an MRI. As it was now, her EEG showed significantly reduced brainwave activity, which the neurology team felt was an indication of permanent brain damage.

  The lack of progress didn’t surprise Harvath, but it still wasn’t what he’d hoped to hear. He spoke briefly with Tracy’s mother, Barbara, and then asked if she’d hold the phone up to Tracy’s ear for a couple of minutes.

  When he was sure the phone was in place, he began speaking. Soon he forgot all about the fatigue that had worked its way into every corner of his body. All he cared about was Tracy and being strong for her. He told her how much he loved her and how much he was looking forward to her getting out of the hospital so that they could pick up where they had left off.

  He ran through all the things they were going to do together—the fishing trip to Jackson Hole, Tracy’s favorite pastime of seeing the fall colors in New England, and going to Greece, where Harvath couldn’t wait to introduce her to the islands of Paros and Antiparos, as well as all his friends.

  Finally, Harvath ran out of things to say. Some people might have been ashamed by it, but he and Tracy had realized early on that it was a sign of their compatibility. They were able to enjoy being with each other without saying anything at all.

  He told her once more that he loved her and reminded her that she was one of the greatest warriors he knew. She needed to remain strong. She was fighting for her life and she’d make it as long as she remained focused on nothing short of complete and total recovery.

  Whether she could hear him, he had no idea. Harvath liked to think she could. He had read enough articles about coma patients to believe that many of them could hear and comprehend what was being said to them. If nothing else, it was a sign of how much he loved and respected her. As long as she was drawing breath, even if it was with the assistance of a machine, he was going to treat her the same way he’d always treated her.

  When Tracy’s mother took the phone back, Harvath said good night to her and hung up.

  Dialing room service, Harvath ordered dinner. Tomorrow was going to be a rough day, and he was going to need every ounce of strength he could muster.

  CHAPTER 80

  The sleek Mercedes sedan dropped Harvath at the heliport, where a bright blue Colibri EC 120B helicopter was ready and waiting for him.

  After a look at the maps he’d pulled and a discussion of what Harvath wanted, the pilot nodded, gave Harvath the thumbs-up, and helped stow his gear.

  They buckled themselves in, placed their headsets on, and the pilot fired up the sweeping rotors. Minutes later they were airborne.

  He flew them over Corcovado Mountain with the towering statue of Christ, the Cristo Redentor with its enormous outstretched arms. There was something about it that reminded Harvath of Atlas, holding up the earth.

  Harvath supposed there were parallels between Christ and Atlas. Judeo-Christian values were one of the few things holding up the modern civilized world against the barbaric hordes of Muslim extremists.

  Harvath had to laugh to himself. The term Muslim extremist was starting to wear on him. It was PC-speak, something he loathed in others and absolutely despised in himself. The term was meant to draw a distinction between good Muslims and bad, but as far as he was concerned every single day that good Muslims did absolutely nothing about the atrocities being committed in their name, the line between good Muslim and bad Muslim became even more blurred.

  All that was necessary for evil to triumph was for good people to do nothing. Harvath saw it every day, and he was determined that his nation would not be overrun by Islam. The French were already a lost cause and many other nations were following suit by allowing Islamic courts of law, banning historically significant symbols, icons, and pastimes as innocent as coed swimming to appease their rapidly growing and ever more vociferous Muslim minorities. Multiculturalism was bullshit. It was political correctness run amok and it made him sick. If these people wanted things to be exactly as they were in their countries of origin, why didn’t they just remain there?

  Many of Harvath’s opinions may have sounded xenophobic, but he’d earned the right to them. He’d been on the front lines of the war on terror and had seen what the extremists were capable of. Radical Islam was as much about carefully and deliberately applied creativity and ideas as it was about bombs and bullets.

  In America, expertly organized cells of so-called “moderate Muslims” were waging an ideological jihad, working to undermine everything that the country stood for. They were a patient and determined enemy bent upon turning the nation into the United States of Islam, and many people responsible for protecting America were not paying attention.

  Between the tidal wave of illegal immigration and the radical Islamic agenda in America, there were times Harvath felt like weeping for his nation.

  They flew over Guanabara Bay and the Pão de Açúcar. The pilot then buzzed both Copacabana and Ipanema beaches before putting the chopper on course for their ultimate destination, the bay of Angra dos Reis forty-five minutes south of Rio by air.

  They passed some incredible scenery along the way, most of it coastal villages and thick, lush forests. The ocean sparkled like countless shards of broken glass while enormous superyachts plowed through the water leaving foamy white trails of phosphorescence in their wakes.

  It was absolutely pristine and Harvath was developing a keen appreciation for why so many people fell so in love with Brazil.

  As they neared the Bay of Angra dos Reis, some forty-odd minutes later, the pilot brought the helicopter so low to the water its skis were almost touching the tops of the waves. Harvath had to look at him twice to make sure he wasn’t the same cab driver who had brought him in from the airport the day before.

  Like the quick tour upon takeoff of Rio’s most scenic sights, this little trick was probably meant as a way for the pilot to endear himself to his clients in order to get an extra-big tip. Harvath didn’t care for the man’s acrobatics and told him to knock it off. Helicopters drew enough attention as it was.

  Sufficiently cowed, the pilot increased his altitude and proceeded as instructed.

  From the satellite footage he had studied, Harvath knew that the island the Troll had rented for himself was particularly small. Nevertheless, he wanted to get as close a look at it as he could.

  Since an overhead hover was definitely out of the question, Harvath had opted for a straight traverse at a relatively good clip. He’d have to process a lot of information in a short period of time, but it was the only way he could see the island with his own eyes from above without drawing the suspicion of its current inhabitant.

  Angra was composed of 365 different islands. The pilot pointed to a tiny speck of land on the near horizon. As they got closer, Harvath studied his map, along with the size and shape of the other islands around the Troll’s, and realized the pilot was correct.

  He took it from exactly the approach Harvath had asked for. Leaning against the door, Harvath strained to take in as much of it as he could, burning the entire picture into his mind—the main building and its cottages, the helipad, the speedboat at the dock, the shape and layout of the island, all of it.

  He’d be coming back tonight, but by then it would be very dark, and the darkness would only contribute to the danger of what he planned to do.

  CHAPTER 81

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  James Vaile’s tenure at the CIA had not been marked by a particularly good relationship with the press. The devastating stories about the CIA’s secret prisons abroad and how the United States tracked terrorists through
their banking habits still weighed heavily on him. And while the stories had come from asinine members of his own agency who put their dislike of the president’s policies above their loyalty to their country, all of his attempts to prevent those stories from being run had failed.

  He had quickly learned that many newspapers had far more pride in their circulation than they did in their patriotism. That they were hobbling America and empowering her terrorist enemies made absolutely no difference to them. It was no wonder he held out little hope for being able to appeal to Mark Sheppard as an American.

  If patriotism couldn’t motivate a reporter, sometimes he or she could be swayed by a promise of an exclusive on an even bigger story. But as in the cases of the secret prisons and the terrorist banking programs, Vaile didn’t have anything bigger to bargain with. He was going to have to find another way, and he’d have to do it in such a way that the Baltimore Sun reporter had no idea that the CIA was involved.

  One of the first things Vaile did was to look into the man’s background. He’d met very few people in his life who didn’t have at least one skeleton in their closet. Unfortunately, though, Sheppard was clean. In fact, he was beyond clean. The man was practically a saint. Outside of a couple of speeding tickets back when he was in college, the reporter hadn’t so much as crossed against a light or faked the throw at an unmanned toll both.

  Scanning his extracurricular activities, Vaile was further disenchanted as he discovered Sheppard donated a significant portion of his time helping underprivileged children throughout the Metropolitan Baltimore area. He even sat on one organization’s board.

  Though Vaile didn’t want to do it, he quickly realized the only way to dissuade Sheppard from running his story was to threaten to go nuclear on him. If he didn’t cooperate, nothing would be left of the man’s former life but scorched earth.

  A few hours later, once it was confirmed that everything was in place, the DCI picked up his phone and made the call.

  The reporter picked up the phone on the first ring. “Mark Sheppard,” he sang, coming off a bit too eager. The DCI wondered if the journalist had already cleared space on his desk for his Pulitzer.

  Any reporter worth his salt would have a recording device hooked up to his phone, so in addition to making sure his call was untraceable, James Vaile employed a new piece of technology that would render any recording inaudible when played back. He also used a modulator to disguise his voice. One could never be too careful, and what’s more, the computerized voice carried with it an added gravitas that often had a very unsettling affect on the receiving party. “Mr. Sheppard, we need to talk,” he said.

  There was a pause as the reporter fiddled around for his record button, and then he said, “Who am I speaking with?”

  “Who I am is not as important as what I have to say.”

  “How do I know you’re for real then?”

  “You called the White House press office for comment on a story you want to run,” said Vaile via the deep, computerized voice.

  “And from what I’m hearing,” said Sheppard, “I’m going to guess that you’ve called to scare me into burying it.”

  “I’ve called to give you a chance to do the right thing.”

  “Really? What would that be?”

  “There are serious national security issues at play here,which you don’t understand.”

  “So as a patriotic American, I should kill the article, right? Forget it. I don’t buy it.”

  Vaile decided to give the man one more chance. “Mr. Sheppard, the people of Charleston needed closure on that bus hijacking and closure was provided.”

  The reporter stifled a laugh. “So the U.S. government is now in the business of making crime victims and their families feel better? Tens of thousands of crimes go unsolved every year. What makes this one so special?”

  “This was a particularly heinous crime against children—” began Vaile before he was interrupted.

  “That had national security implications,” said Sheppard as his mind put it all together. “Jesus Christ, this wasn’t some lone nut job. It was a terrorist act.”

  CHAPTER 82

  And you expect me to sit on this?” asked Sheppard. “Yes,” replied Vaile. “Your story would be devastating to the public trust.”

  This time, the reporter couldn’t stifle his laugh. “Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you dreamed this whole thing up.”

  The DCI was quickly coming to the end of his patience. Before he could say anything, though, Sheppard asked, “Are you going to arrange an accident for me the way you did with Frank Aposhian and Sally Rutherford?”

  “For the record, Mr. Sheppard, their deaths were an accident. The U.S. government is not in the business of murdering its own citizens.”

  “Then I have nothing to worry about, do I?”

  “That depends on if you’re going to cooperate or not.”

  The reporter had received so many threats over the years that he didn’t spook that easily. “Really? And if I don’t?”

  “Your story is tentatively entitled ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’—” began Vaile.

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “Shut up and listen,” ordered the DCI. “You have it in a password-protected file. The password is Romero. Open it.”

  Sheppard did as he was told. Inside, he saw that a subfolder named candy cane had been added. Instinctively, he clicked on it and was greeted by a page of images in thumbnail. He maximized one at random and his breathing stopped.

  “You fucking assholes,” said the reporter as he realized what they were planning on doing to him. “It’ll never work.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Vaile. “Guilty or not, the stigma of pedophilia is almost impossible to scrub away.”

  “Good thing I recorded this conversation, then,” crowed Sheppard.

  Vaile laughed. “I suggest you try to play it back first before you stake your career and the rest of your life on it.”

  His shockproof bullshit detector was telling him his caller wasn’t playing games. “You make me ashamed to be an American,” said Sheppard.

  “Don’t you dare wrap yourself in the flag now,” chided the DCI. “You had your chance. We are at war and wars involve secrets. This is about doing the right thing for your country and you passed on it. In spite of that fact, I’m going to give you one more chance.”

  “What’s to stop me from deleting them?” asked Sheppard, sounding determined to remain faithful to his journalistic integrity, but already losing his resolve.

  “You can’t delete these images. Even if you could, there are more on both your laptop and desktop at home. We also have several convicted pedophiles who are willing to testify to numerous unsavory proclivities of yours. It’s a hole so deep you’ll never climb out of it.

  “The newspaper will be the first to distance itself from you. Your body snatcher story will never see the light of day. You’ll be absolutely discredited. Next, your friends will disappear and even your family will start to fade away. And then there are all those children you so nobly mentored. You think anything you ever said or taught them will matter after they all figure out the only reason you were there was to get in their pants? Probably not, but that won’t be the end of your problems.

  “A conviction on the child porn discovered on your computers and in your house will be a slam dunk. You’ll go to prison, and as you’re a crime reporter, I don’t need to tell you what they do to guys in your situation. Once the rumors get around that you’re a pedophile who pled to lesser charges of possession of child porn for a reduced sentence, if you’re not killed in the first couple of days, they’ll make your life such hell that you’ll wish you were dead.”

  Sheppard had sat through the entire diatribe stunned. They had him. It was disgusting, but there was absolutely nothing he could do. His mind raced for answers, but he knew his only option was capitulation. Finally, he asked, “What do you want me to do?”


  Vaile instructed him to gather any and all of the materials he’d assembled in putting together his story, including his notes, photographs, and tape recordings, and bring them in a small duffel bag to an abandoned warehouse just outside D.C.

  Three hours later, the DCI contacted the president and shared with him the good news. After digging a bit deeper, the reporter from the Baltimore Sun had discovered that his sources were not as reliable as he had originally thought. Subsequently, he had decided not to pursue his story.

  Jack Rutledge was relieved to hear it. That was one problem down. Now, they needed to refocus all of their resources on stopping Harvath.

  CHAPTER 83

  ANGRA DOS REIS, BRAZIL

  Even in the limited moonlight, Harvath’s small boat appeared more to hover than float atop the amazingly clear water.

  He slipped the anchor quietly beneath the surface and slowly played out the rope. When the boat was secure, he gave his gear one last check and slipped over the side.

  Harvath swam with the confidence of a man who’d spent all of his life near an ocean. His strong, sure strokes propelled him forward through the warm waters of Angra dos Reis Bay.

  With a set of night vision goggles and a specially illuminated compass, he navigated his way through the darkness toward the private island known as Algodão.

  On the leeward side, he low-crawled out of the water and unclipped from around his waist the rope that he’d used to pull a small dry bag behind him.

  From the bag, Harvath removed the 9mm Beretta pistol that he had sent to himself via FedEx priority international shipping.

  Harvath checked the weapon and then set it aside as he removed a change of clothes and got dressed. He pulled out a flashlight, his Benchmade Auto Axis folding knife, some Flexicuffs, and a few other items and shoved them into his pockets. He buried his swim gear near a large rock on the beach and checked the remaining contents of his dry bag.