The First Commandment: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  “You’re going to explain this letter to me right now,” asserted Kirkland, drawing Harvath’s mind back to the matter at hand. “What the hell are you trying to do?”

  “Nobody’s trying to do anything, Todd,” said Harvath calmly.

  “My ass you’re not,” he responded. “This is all about you. You’re in cahoots with that crazy bitch who lives next door, aren’t you? She’s always asking Meg questions about you, especially when I’m around and—”

  “Todd, Jean Stevens and I aren’t in cahoots together in anything.”

  “Really? Then how’d she end up with this letter for Meg? Keep in mind that it’s kind of hard to deny you sent it when you were sitting exactly where the letter said you’d be.”

  “I’m not denying anything. I needed to talk to Meg,” replied Harvath.

  “And you couldn’t do it over the phone?”

  The waitress had returned and Harvath waited for her to set their beers down before answering Kirkland. “No. I need to speak to Meg in person.”

  “About what? The fact that you still have feelings for her? If that’s the case, I can tell you with absolute certainty that she is one hundred and ten percent over you, pal.”

  Harvath hated when people called him pal, especially ignorant assholes who not only were most certainly not his pal, but also didn’t know what the fuck they were talking about. “I’m assuming Meg doesn’t know about my note?” said Harvath, trying to keep the conversation on an even keel.

  “No, and she’s not going to, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Harvath hated the high road. He took a long sip of beer and tried to maintain his composure. Finally, he said, “I have reason to believe that Meg is in danger.”

  “Which is why you had the Secret Service assigned to protect her, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Yes, my ass,” spat Kirkland. “You just did it to flex your muscle, and I’m pretty goddamn sick of it. Every time I turn around I’ve gotta be reminded of you. It stops right here, right now.”

  Harvath had to tell himself to ease up on the grip he had around his beer glass before he broke it. “Don’t turn this into a pissing match with me, Todd. This is a serious threat.”

  “So why aren’t you talking to the Secret Service about it, then?”

  The man did have a point, and Harvath hated to concede it to him. “Because we don’t yet know the exact nature of the threat.”

  “We? Who’s we? DHS? FBI? CIA?”

  When Harvath didn’t answer, Kirkland responded, “See, I didn’t think so. This is all about you. You and Meg—at least in your mind. But I’ve got news for you. There is no you and Meg, not anymore. It’s over. So stay the fuck away from us,” he added as he rose and pushed his chair in.

  Harvath pushed the chair back out with his foot for Kirkland to sit back down. “Don’t be such an ass. I’m here because a credible threat exists. This guy is serious and he’s going to be gunning for your wedding.”

  Meg’s fiancé wasn’t interested in sitting. “Something tells me that with the president attending our wedding, if there was a real credible threat you’d be working with the Secret Service to stop it, not trying to meet up with my wife in the middle of the night at some bar.”

  Kirkland fished a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet and threw it on the table. “And just for the record, the only reason Meg sent you an invitation to our wedding was that she wanted to show you she had moved on with her life. Maybe you should think about doing the same.”

  CHAPTER 109

  Todd Kirkland climbed back into his Bentley Azure feeling pretty damn good about himself. He’d longed to tell off that prick Harvath once and for all and he’d done it. A huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  Dropping the Azure’s top, he adjusted the rearview mirror and smiled at himself.

  Harvath had been the one thing about his wedding day that had really bothered him. He’d argued repeatedly with Meg about her reasons for inviting him, but none of that mattered now. Based upon the look on Harvath’s face when he’d told him off, Kirkland doubted he’d have the balls to show up at the ceremony. With Harvath out of the picture, he could focus on enjoying the rest of the weekend and the rest of his life with Meg Cassidy. After all, he’d won. He had Meg and Harvath didn’t. That’s what it all boiled down to.

  Kirkland pulled out of the parking lot and turned on to south Lake Shore Drive for the quick jaunt back to Meg’s cottage. As he was thinking about how good he had it, he felt something eating away at him. He tried to push it from his mind, but it refused to go away. What if Harvath was telling the truth?

  Kirkland never really knew what Harvath did for a living other than that he was employed by DHS and that Meg couldn’t talk about it. It was one of those secrets that she shared with her ex-beau that really burned him up. Could there be a threat the Secret Service wasn’t aware of? Could Meg be in greater danger than anyone knew?

  As he reached the turn-off for Meg’s cottage, Todd Kirkland decided it would be in everybody’s best interest if he had a little chat with the Secret Service agents who were standing guard outside.

  An hour and a half later, Rick Morrell’s cell phone rang. After taking down all the information, he alerted the members of his Omega Team. They’d located Harvath. He was in Wisconsin.

  CHAPTER 110

  When the FedEx truck pulled beneath the Abbey Resort’s porte cochere, Harvath was ready and waiting for it.

  Presenting his Hans Brauner ID, he signed for his package and gave the valet the ticket for the pilots’ rental car.

  Powering up the onboard navigation system, he entered the address for U.S. Bank in Lake Geneva and got on the road.

  He removed his Heckler & Koch USP compact tactical pistol, his Benchmade knife, his BlackBerry as well as his DHS credentials and two spare clips of ammunition Ron Parker had thrown in out of courtesy and then tossed the empty FedEx box into the backseat. As he drove, he asked himself what the hell he had been thinking when he had attempted to set up a rendezvous with Meg.

  What could he possibly have achieved? Was he hoping that she would call off her wedding? Or was he hoping that somehow she would speak with the president on his behalf and everything would be made all right?

  As the answers raced through his mind he knew none of them were correct. What he had wanted to do was to warn her.

  Harvath wanted to give Meg the chance that Tracy, his mother, and all of Roussard’s other victims hadn’t had. But it was more than that. Looking deeply into himself, Harvath discovered that what he wanted more than anything else was to alleviate the guilt he was feeling that he still had not been able to stop Roussard. If anything happened to Meg, at least he would have known he had warned her. What bullshit.

  No matter what he did or didn’t tell Meg Cassidy, if anything happened to her, it would fall squarely upon his shoulders, and he knew his guilt would be just as great as the guilt he carried over what had happened to Tracy Hastings.

  He was the only person at this point who could stop Roussard.

  That said, it didn’t mean the Secret Service shouldn’t be aware of what he had discovered. Todd Kirkland had been right about that, and Harvath had contacted Gary Lawlor and had filled him in.

  Gary would see to it that the Secret Service was informed, but Harvath knew there was only so much they could do with the information.

  Harvath emailed Lawlor the full dossier he had on Philippe Roussard, including the photographs. He trusted his boss to scan it and pass along all of the pertinent details. The Secret Service would make sure all of their agents were carrying Roussard’s photos.

  The Secret Service in turn would ask their local and state law enforcement contacts to be on the lookout for him. But that’s where it would end. If any of them happened across Roussard, it would most likely not be until it was too late.

  The cops had gotten lucky with Roussard in Virginia Beach. Harvath doubted it would happen again.

&
nbsp; CHAPTER 111

  The Lake Geneva branch of U.S. Bank was located on the east side of the lake in the town of Lake Geneva near the intersection of Geneva and Center streets.

  Carrying a plain manila envelope, Harvath entered the bank, presented his DHS creds to one of the loan officers, and asked to speak with the branch manager.

  He was shown into a private office, where an attractive woman in her late forties stood and introduced herself as Peggy Evans.

  “How can we be of service to the Department of Homeland Security?” she asked once her visitor was seated and she had finished looking at his ID.

  Harvath reached into his envelope and pulled out the pictures of Philippe Roussard he’d printed at his hotel’s business center. “Do you recognize this man?” he said as he handed them to Evans.

  The woman studied them for a few minutes and then asked, “What is this in regard to?”

  “The man in those photos is a wanted terrorist. We have records indicating that he received funds via wire transfer at this bank two days ago.”

  “Are you suggesting the bank has done something wrong? Because I can assure you that—”

  Harvath held up his hand and shook his head. “Not at all. We’re just trying to gather as much information as we can about him.”

  “Do you have any specific information about the transaction?”

  Harvath handed her copies of what Claudia had emailed him from the Wegelin & Company bank in Switzerland.

  Evans studied the records, then picked up her phone and dialed an extension. “Arty, will you come in here, please?”

  Moments later, a heavyset Hispanic man in his early thirties knocked and entered the office. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, I did,” said Evans as she introduced the man to Harvath. “Arturo Ramirez, this is Agent Scot Harvath from the Department of Homeland Security. He has a few questions he’d like to ask about a customer we had in the bank two days ago.”

  Harvath rose and shook the man’s hand.

  “Arturo handles all the wires,” the woman continued. “He also never forgets a face. Do you, Arty?”

  Ramirez smiled politely at his manager and accepted the series of photographs. “Yes, I remember him,” he said after studying the pictures. “Peter Boesiger was his name, I believe. Nice guy. Swiss.”

  “Interesting,” replied Harvath, as he pulled a pen from his pocket. “How do you know he was Swiss?”

  “He used a Swiss passport for ID. I assumed that meant he was from Switzerland. He spoke with an accent too.”

  “Did you make a copy of his passport, by any chance?”

  “Of course,” said Ramirez. “It’s standard bank procedure.”

  “May I see the copy, please?”

  Ramirez looked at Evans, who nodded.

  He disappeared from the office and returned several minutes later with a photocopy of Roussard’s Boesiger passport.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about him?” asked Harvath.

  Ramirez looked at him. “Like what?”

  “Did he have anyone else with him?”

  “No,” answered the portly teller. “He came in by himself.”

  “How about his vehicle? Did you notice what he was driving?”

  Ramirez shook his head no. “Didn’t see it.”

  “Did he make small talk with you at all? Did he mention where he was staying, anything like that?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  At this rate, Harvath was quickly coming to the end of possible questions he could ask.

  Then Ramirez said, “Wait a second. He asked me for directions. It was an address for a real estate office. It was near here, but I can’t remember which one. We talked about walking versus driving there. I told him that if he was already parked, he’d probably be better off walking it than trying to find a new spot once he got there.”

  Having remembered the crucial piece of information, Ramirez’s broad face was cleaved with a wide grin.

  As Harvath accepted a phone book from the bank manager, he wondered how many real estate offices there could be in a resort town like Lake Geneva.

  CHAPTER 112

  When Rick Morrell and the members of his Omega Team arrived in the village of Fontana, they split into two squads and, posing as FBI agents, interviewed Todd Kirkland and Jean Stevens simultaneously.

  Neither of them was able to provide any concrete leads to Scot Harvath’s whereabouts. Next, they visited the bar and restaurant where Harvath had been the night before, Gordy’s Boathouse. While the waitress remembered serving Harvath once Morrell had shown her his picture, she hadn’t spoken with him other than to take his order.

  With only a handful of hotels in the village, Morrell and his team got to work trying to figure out where Harvath was staying. They started with the hotel in closest proximity to Gordy’s Boathouse, the Abbey Resort.

  Very quickly, the resort looked like it was going to be a bust. There was no one registered under the name of Scot Harvath, or any of his known aliases. None of the front desk staff recognized his photograph. It was the same with the bell staff.

  Morrell and one of his men were on their way back to the car when they passed the valet stand and handed Harvath’s picture around.

  “Yeah, I know that guy,” one of the valets said. “I brought his car up to him this morning.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Morrell whipped out his cell phone and text messaged the rest of his team to come back from the other hotels they were investigating. They’d found where Harvath was staying.

  With the valet’s recognition of Harvath, Morrell and his men began the slow process of piecing together where Harvath was in the hotel.

  First, they sifted through the morning’s vehicle claim checks. Once they weeded out the ones the valet was certain hadn’t belonged to Harvath—two Porsches, an Audi, and a new Mercedes convertible—they took the rest inside.

  With the help of the front desk manager, they were able to ascertain which checks belonged to guest rooms with guests who had checked in within the last twenty-four hours. Morrell doubted Harvath had been here longer than that.

  The only guest to have checked in within the last twenty-four hours and to have had his vehicle go out first thing that morning was a man named Nick Zucker, registered in room 324. Having already established himself as an FBI agent pursuing a fugitive from justice, Morrell asked the front desk manager for a passkey.

  The manager made up a keycard, and no sooner had he handed it to Morrell than he and his men moved quickly out of the lobby.

  There was a housekeeping trolley at the end of the hallway, and flashing his badge, Morrell conscripted a young housekeeper. Outside 324, Morrell and his people took up positions on either side of the door, and he nodded for the housekeeper to knock.

  She gave a loud rap, calling out, “Housekeeping.”

  When no one answered, Morrell waved her away, slid his own keycard into the lock and opened the door.

  He and his men swept inside, but the room was empty. They found a small toiletry kit in the bathroom with prescription medications labeled for a Nick Zucker from a pharmacy in Phoenix and a pilot’s uniform hanging in the closet that couldn’t possibly fit Harvath.

  A small overnight bag contained a change of clothes, a worn paperback thriller, and a Sudoku workbook. Inside the workbook were several pictures of a man and his family, one of which showed him in his pilot’s uniform next to a plane with his teenaged daughter and son.

  They’d made a mistake. Scot Harvath was not posing as Nick Zucker. Morrell had his men put everything back the way they’d found it.

  They were halfway down the hallway when the front desk manager appeared and held up two additional keycards.

  “I did a little more looking,” he stated when he reached Morrell. “Zucker checked in with another man named Burdic. According to their registration cards, they both work for the same aviation company. The
re was a third man who checked in at the same time; his name is Hans Brauner. He told the clerk last night that he would be paying for their rooms and also arranged for golf and lunch for them today.”

  Burdic’s room was as useless as Zucker’s, and the one belonging to the supposed Hans Brauner had nothing. Morrell, however, knew they had zeroed in on Harvath.

  Instead of having the desk clerk from the previous night come in to work to ID Harvath’s photo, they simply emailed it to him. Over the phone, he confirmed that the photo belonged to the man registered as Brauner who had shown up with the two pilots.

  So now Morrell not only knew the alias Harvath was using, he also knew how Harvath was getting around, both in the air and on the ground. Through his contact at Langley, Morrell had credit reports pulled for Zucker, Burdic, and Brauner.

  He wasn’t surprised that nothing came back for Brauner. Zucker and Burdic, though, were another story. Among the run-of-the-mill crap one would expect to find—mortgage payments, department store charges, and so forth—was a particularly serendipitous find. Zucker had rented a car at the airport yesterday.

  Not only was the car from a national chain, but Morrell also knew that they used a GPS tracking system in their vehicles as part of something known as “fleet management.” It was beginning to look as if Harvath might not be that hard to catch after all.

  CHAPTER 113

  As it turned out, there were eight real estate offices in downtown Lake Geneva, and each employed a multitude of agents. The proverbial needle in a haystack analogy didn’t even come close to what Harvath was facing.

  It took him all morning and well into the afternoon to make his way through the offices and to track down the realtors who might have had contact with Roussard/Boesiger in the last two days.