The First Commandment: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  “I am sorry for what Roussard did to her.”

  “If it’s all the same to you,” replied Harvath, “I’d rather not discuss my personal life with you.”

  The Troll put up his hands in defeat. “Of course. I understand. No one can blame you for feeling that way. The people you care about have been through an incredible amount.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Harvath grunted.

  “You don’t like me very much, do you, Mr. Harvath?”

  Harvath slammed his water bottle down, spooking his passenger and raising the ire of the dogs in the back, who started growling.

  Looking into the rearview mirror, Harvath ordered the dogs to be quiet and they immediately fell silent.

  Turning back to the Troll, Harvath said, “One of my best friends was killed in New York because of you. Running off Roussard with that flare gun isn’t going to make us even.”

  The Troll was quiet for several moments. The entire time, Harvath’s eyes drilled into him. Finally, he spoke. “I know there is nothing I can say or do to bring your friend back to you. If it’s any consolation, Al Qaeda still would have hit Manhattan, even without the intelligence I provided them.”

  “New York never would have been a target if it wasn’t for your intelligence,” snapped Harvath.

  “That’s not true. The individual in your government who sold me that information was offering it to the highest bidder. I just happened to have the most readily available checkbook. If it hadn’t been me, some other broker would have purchased it, and the information would have still found its way to Al Qaeda.”

  “And you think that makes what you did okay?”

  “No,” said the Troll. “It doesn’t. I want you to know it’s not easy to live with.”

  Harvath glared at him. “Thousands of Americans died in an attack worse than 9/11 and you find your role in that difficult to live with. Well, I’m glad to know you at least have a subtle pang of conscience.”

  “And you expect me to believe that you’ve never done anything you are ashamed of?”

  “Believe what you want,” replied Harvath. “My conscience is clear.”

  “Every single time you pulled a trigger, you knew the person on the receiving end deserved to die? You did it for America. Mom and apple pie, so to speak. Right? Never questioned if what you were doing was the right thing. Never questioned if maybe your superiors had made a mistake. You were simply following orders.”

  Harvath held the steering wheel in a death grip. “Let’s get something straight. The only reason you are sitting next to me and still breathing is that I think you still can be useful.”

  They spent the rest of their time in silence. Harvath’s thoughts were occupied with stopping Roussard, while the Troll’s were occupied with the thought that his fate was now inexorably entwined with Harvath’s. Roussard wouldn’t stop stalking either of them until they were dead, or the terrorist himself had been killed. Like it or not, the Troll understood that he and Harvath now shared a very dangerous enemy. He also understood that Harvath represented his best chance of neutralizing Roussard, permanently.

  The stakes at this point were well beyond getting his money and data back. His life, in more ways than one, was in Harvath’s hands.

  When the shops and businesses finally opened the next morning, Harvath used his Brauner alias to rent a small, walled villa overlooking the ocean outside town. The less attention they drew to themselves, the better.

  When Harvath returned from purchasing supplies, he found the Troll in the grassy courtyard playing fetch with the dogs.

  As Harvath approached, one of the two dogs began growling. The other trotted over and dropped the stick he’d been playing with at Harvath’s feet. The animal then sat obediently down and waited to see what Harvath would do.

  “I think Argos remembers you,” said the Troll as he came across the courtyard. Nodding at the box Harvath was carrying, he asked, “Do you need any help unloading?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, tilting his head toward the road. “There’s a bunch of stuff still in the truck.”

  As the Troll headed for the vehicle, Draco followed, but Argos remained right where he was.

  Once they were out of sight, Harvath sighed, balanced the box in his left arm, and bent over to pick up the stick.

  CHAPTER 96

  The villa Harvath had selected was outfitted with all the creature comforts: high-speed internet, plasma television with satellite hookup, an impressive stereo system, and a kitchen worthy of a master chef.

  The Troll was standing near the stereo with his laptop as Harvath put the rest of the groceries away.

  “Do you mind?” he asked. “I like to play music when I cook.”

  Harvath shrugged and continued to unpack the bags and boxes as the Troll connected his laptop to the stereo and uploaded one of his digital playlists.

  “Since you went to the store,” announced the Troll as he shoved his way past Harvath into the kitchen, “the least I can do is cook lunch.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” replied Harvath.

  “Yes, I do,” he said as he took a stepladder from the broom closet and dragged it over to the sink, where he washed his hands. “Done with a focused mind, cooking can be a Zenlike experience. I find it helps relax me. Besides, I don’t get to cook for other people that often.”

  Pulling a Brahma beer from its six-pack, the Troll held it out as a peace offering.

  Harvath needed the beer more than the little man knew and reached out and accepted the bottle. He found a church key, popped the top, and sat down on a bar stool at the kitchen island. His mind was racing. He needed to check in on his mom and Tracy. He also needed to check in on Kate Palmer and Carolyn Leonard, as well as Emily Hawkins and the dog. Jesus, he thought. It was no wonder he felt he needed a drink before getting into all that.

  He took a long pull. It tasted good. Cold, the way beer was supposed to be. It was a small pleasure, but one of the very few he’d allowed himself in a long while. The monastic life did not agree with him.

  As the Troll’s music began playing, he removed the wafer-thin stereo remote from his pocket and punched up the volume. “Cooking is all about the ingredients,” he remarked. “Even the music.”

  Harvath shook his head. What an eccentric, he thought to himself as he took another sip of beer. The liquid was halfway down his throat when he realized what they were listening to. “Is this Bootsy Collins?”

  “Yes. The song is called ‘Rubber Duckie.’ Why?”

  “Just curious,” replied Harvath, who owned the Ahh … The Name Is Bootsy, Baby! album, from whence “Rubber Duckie” came, on vinyl and CD.

  “What?” asked the Troll, a dish towel over his left shoulder and a chopping knife in his right hand as he prepared lunch. “You don’t think a guy like me can appreciate classic American funk music?”

  Harvath held up his hands in mock self-defense. “I just don’t meet a lot of people who are into Pachelbel and funk.”

  “Good music is good music, and when it comes to funk, Bootsy is one of the best. In fact, without Bootsy and his brother Catfish, there’d be no funk music at all. At least not like we know it today. James Brown never could have become the Godfather of Soul without the Pacesetters shaping his sound. And don’t even get me started on what they did for George Clinton and Funkadelic.”

  Harvath was impressed. “I’ll drink to that,” he said, raising his beer. There was a lot more to the Troll than met the eye.

  It was like watching a magician. Harvath considered himself a good cook, but he was far outside the Troll’s league. The little man had taken a small amount of fish, a little bit of bread, and a few other ingredients and had created an amazing fish soup with bread and rouille.

  As Harvath cleared the table, he picked up the remote and muted the music. “Something is still bothering me about all of this,” he said. “In all your dealings with Adara Nidal, you never asked her what her son was up to?”

 
The Troll pushed himself back from the table and dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “Out of courtesy, of course I asked. She wasn’t very forthcoming when it came to matters regarding Philippe. I think she was extremely disappointed in him. She would say things like, He’s working for the cause, or, He continues to show great promise as one of Allah’s most noble soldiers.”

  “Which was all bullshit, right?” stated Harvath as he set their dishes near the sink and turned around. “I mean, she never struck me as a devout Muslim. She drank and did a whole bunch of other stuff I think Allah would have frowned on.”

  The Troll laughed. “Despite the many habits she had developed to better blend into Western society, I feel she was still a true mujahideen at heart.”

  Harvath pulled another beer from the fridge and sat back down at the table with the opener. “So who’s running Roussard then? He didn’t spring himself from Gitmo. With Hashim and Adara dead, the Abu Nidal organization effectively fell apart. It wasn’t a many-headed hydra like Al Qaeda. We cut off two heads and the monster died.”

  “Or so your intelligence told you.”

  “Do you know something different?”

  “No,” said the Troll as he got up to make coffee. “Everything I have seen is in line with your assessment.”

  “So then Roussard became a free agent. Somebody had to have picked him up. The question is who?”

  The Troll slid the stepladder over to the stove and climbed up. “If we knew what kind of leverage was used to get the U.S. to release Philippe and his four fellow prisoners from Guantanamo, maybe we could begin to piece together who he was working for. But we don’t have that, and without it, I really don’t think we have very much to go on.”

  Harvath hated to admit it, but the Troll was right.

  He also hated to admit that the only way to get around the impasse he now saw himself at was to share a secret of enormous national security importance with a direct enemy of the United States.

  CHAPTER 97

  This time, Harvath really had committed treason. There was no doubt about it. The only saving grace would be if something of greater value came of it.

  It couldn’t be something of greater value to himself. It had to be something of greater value to his country. Failing that, Harvath very well could have just betrayed everything he stood for.

  He searched the Troll’s face, but there was nothing there. “This plot doesn’t sound familiar to you in any way? Adara or the Abu Nidal organization never mentioned anything like this to you?”

  “By targeting children, the plot sounds very much like what happened in Beslan. In fact, I’d say hijacking the school bus was an improvement. It’s a lot easier to capture a school bus than a school.”

  “But what about Adara? Did she or her people ever mention something like this?”

  “I didn’t talk tactics with her,” replied the Troll. “At least, not often. I deal in the realm of information. That is my stock-in-trade. If Adara or her deceased father’s organization had any plans for an attack like this she would have known better than to talk to me about it. She knew me well enough to know that I would be against it.”

  “That’s right. I forgot,” said Harvath. “Saint Nicholas.”

  “In the world we live in, bad things happen every day. Innocent people are killed. Sometimes these innocents are children. I believe in America you call it collateral damage. But to specifically target children is reprehensible. Whoever conceived of this attack should be strung up by his balls.”

  Harvath couldn’t argue. But his agreement with the Troll’s position didn’t bring him any closer to finding out who was behind Philippe Roussard and what else they had planned.

  He sat there for a long time in silence, thinking, until the Troll said, “I’ve been trying to find a connection, outside of ideology, between Philippe and the other men who were released with him. Maybe that was a mistake.”

  “How so?”

  “Maybe there is no connection. Maybe the other four were simply decoys. Like when multiple versions of your president’s helicopter lift off at the same time and go in different directions.”

  Harvath hadn’t thought of that. “I started with Ronaldo Palmera because he was close, proximitywise.”

  “It doesn’t matter who you started with. We’ve been looking for a connection between the five released from Gitmo and I don’t think there is one. I think this has been about Philippe from the beginning, and lumping him in with four others was a smoke screen.”

  Harvath was with him that far. “Okay, so let’s say the other four don’t matter for our immediate purposes. We still know nothing about who’s behind Roussard.”

  “Not yet at least.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  The Troll looked at Harvath and smiled. “The one thing we can agree on is that someone is helping Philippe. Whoever that person—”

  “Or organization,” added Harvath.

  “Or organization is, they’ve obviously got it out for you and they sent Philippe to stop me from helping you.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Then let’s break this down into the smallest, most logical bits of data we can,” replied the Troll. He was the puzzle master and completely in his element now. “Most likely, Philippe had neither the contacts nor the resources to mount that attack on me. Someone had to play matchmaker and paymaster for him.”

  “And he used Arabic-speaking talent,” added Harvath.

  “Which narrows down the pool of operators in South America considerably.”

  “Unless they were shipped here specifically for this job.”

  The Troll nodded. “It’s possible. But a lot went into this. Someone had to secure the weapons, the helicopter, and a willing pilot. Most likely surveillance was conducted. Even if the muscle came from outside, someone had to help them locally, and it had to be someone Philippe’s people had a relationship with and could trust.”

  Harvath watched him as he listened.

  “There’s one other thing,” said the Troll. “The most important thing of all.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The money,” he replied. “This would have been pretty expensive. They couldn’t have just walked into the country carrying that kind of cash. The Brazilians are very serious about money laundering and illicit activities. This would have required—”

  “Banks,” interrupted Harvath.

  The Troll nodded again.

  “Do you think there’s a way to track backward via the money flow?”

  Pressing his fingers into a steeple, the Troll thought about it. “If we knew what group or individual Philippe used locally to facilitate everything here, I think I could.”

  “What would you need?” said Harvath, careful not to let his enthusiasm show in his voice.

  “Two things. First, it takes money to find money. I’d need cash and a lot of it. You’d have to unfreeze a substantial sum. I’m going to have to go to market to get the facilitator’s name and background info. To get that information quickly we’re going to have to pay a premium. Antennae will go up among the brokers we’re going to approach. They’re going to smell blood in the water and will wonder if they can sell the information someplace else for more. We have to be able to offer so much right off the bat that they’ll be afraid to jerk us around and shop the intel.”

  “What’s the second thing?” asked Harvath.

  “Once we’re on the trail we’re going to have to move fast. I’m going to need a lot more computing power than I have now.”

  “How much more?”

  The Troll looked at him and replied, “Do you have any friends at the NSA or CIA who owe you a favor?”

  CHAPTER 98

  Harvath had friends at both the NSA and the CIA. In fact, he’d even recently taken a steam bath with the CIA’s director at his country club. But something told him that reaching out to anyone for help at either agency at this point would only make his problems worse.

  B
y having the Troll define his computing needs a little bit better, Harvath realized the NSA and CIA weren’t the only government agencies with the capacity that would satisfy him. There were others, one of them being the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, or NGA.

  Formerly known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the NGA was a major intelligence and combat support subsidiary of the Department of Defense. They also had serious computer power at their disposal and just happened to be the current employers of a friend of Harvath’s named Kevin McCauliff.

  McCauliff and Harvath were members of an informal group of federal employees who trained together every year for the annual Washington, D.C., Marine Corps Marathon.

  McCauliff had been instrumental in helping Harvath during the Fourth of July terrorist attacks on Manhattan and had received a special commendation from the president himself. It was something he was very proud of. Though he’d broken many internal NGA rules and more than a few laws in the process, he would have done it all again in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

  Since McCauliff had helped him with sensitive assignments in the past, Harvath hoped he’d be able to count on him again.

  It took the Troll two days and twice as much money as he’d anticipated to get the information he was looking for. But in the end, it was worth it. Brazil was a relatively small country, and he not only discovered who had assisted Roussard locally, but he also assembled a loose idea of how they washed and had moved their money.

  At that point it was Harvath’s turn, and he decided to call Kevin.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” asked McCauliff when Harvath got him on the phone. “No way.”

  “Kevin, I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important,” said Harvath.

  “Of course you wouldn’t. Losing my job for helping you is one thing, losing my life when I’m found guilty of treason is something completely different. Sorry, but we are done with this conversation.”