Brad Thor - The First Commandment

“The largest number of detainees come from Saudi Arabia, followed by Afghanistan and then Yemen.”

“No surprise there,” responded Finney.

“Indeed,” agreed Morgan as he activated his laptop and the screens throughout the room glowed to life with the first slide of a hastily assembled PowerPoint presentation.

“How does Mexico tie in?”

“For some time, both American and Mexican intelligence agencies have been aware of highly specialized, paramilitary training camps throughout Mexico, a number of which are located within a day’s drive of our southern border.

“The camps are operated by a group of former Mexican military special forces troops, known as the Zetas, who deserted in the mid-1990s to work as enforcers for high-paying drug cartels.”

Morgan advanced to the next slide-a collage of surveillance photos. “The camps are frequented by a variety of Arab as well as Asian nationals, including Thais, Indonesians, and Filipinos.”

“Representatives of all the world’s Islamic radical hotspots,” remarked Finney. “It’s a regular terrorist Disneyland down there.”

Morgan nodded and advanced to his next slide. “I have a colleague in D. C. who has said for years that via the Zetas, terrorists are exploiting the ability of the drug cartels to smuggle men, weapons, and explosives across our porous border with Mexico. As investigations continue, I think someday in the future we will be able to prove that men and materials involved in the attacks on Manhattan over the Fourth of July weekend came into this country via our southern border.”

“If we knew about all of this before, why didn’t we do anything? Build a fence, take out the camps, anything but just sit here while we were being invaded?”

Morgan grimaced and said, “For that kind of question you need a political analyst. As far as American intel people and a few enlightened members of Congress are concerned, the barbarians aren’t at the gates, they’ve already blasted their way through. In addition to Al Qaeda cells in northern Mexico, we’ve seen activity by Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, among others. They’re all down there.”

The former NSA man advanced to his next slide. “Not only are they down there, but they have absolutely no fear of anyone moving against them. Their balls are so big they’ve actually begun building mosques like this one outside Matamoros, Mexico -only a few miles across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas.”

Harvath had heard all of this before and had seen the evidence. The congenitally corrupt Mexican government had neither the desire nor the guts to take a stand against the Zetas and the drug cartels. They couldn’t care less about the clear and present danger the two groups posed to American security.

Finney was aghast. “What the fuck, Scot? Is this for real?”

It was one of the few things about his country Harvath was ashamed of, and his failure to respond spoke volumes.

“Why doesn’t the president or Congress do anything about this?”

“It’s complicated,” replied Harvath.

“So is prostate surgery, but you do it regardless of how much of a pain in the ass it is. The alternative is unacceptable.”

“Listen, I agree. The terrorists, the drugs, the tidal wave of illegal immigrants. I’ve got friends on the Border Patrol. This is criminal, and we’ve only got ourselves to blame. As far as I’m concerned, how can we call America the most powerful nation on earth when we can’t even secure our own borders? We’re being overrun, and if we don’t get a handle on it immediately, we’re going to wake up real soon to a very different America -one that even the most liberal among us isn’t going to enjoy very much.”

“So what are we going to do about it?”

Harvath loved Finney, but now wasn’t exactly the time to be solving this particular problem. “Short of loading up your Hummer with cinder blocks, mortar, and gas money to get to the border,” he said, “there isn’t much we can do.”

“Actually,” said Morgan, focusing his attention on Harvath, “that’s not exactly true.”

“So now we get to the specifics of the presentation,” replied Harvath.

“Precisely,” replied Morgan as he advanced to the next slide-a grainy surveillance photo. “Ronaldo Palmera, forty-three, born two hours outside Mexico City in Querétaro.

“A Zeta and visiting instructor at several of the camps, Palmera was known for his expertise in paramilitary warfare and exotic explosives. According to Mexican law enforcement officials, he was also known as one of the most ruthless of the cartel enforcers. In particular, he was known for the horrific ways he invented to torture and kill his victims.”

The more Harvath listened, the more he was certain that this was the right guy.

“At some point, Al Qaeda was impressed enough with Palmera to offer him a boatload of money to come to Afghanistan and work in their training camps. He was already somewhat conversational in Arabic, but added Dari and Pashto as well. Soon after, he converted to Islam.”

“The Troll said that all of the men on the list had multiple confirmed kills against American soldiers, intelligence operatives, and private contractors, so I’m guessing Palmera wasn’t brought to Gitmo just for his involvement with the Al Qaeda camps,” said Harvath.

“No,” replied Morgan as he advanced to another slide, “he wasn’t. After 9/11 the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom. In advance of putting ground forces into Afghanistan, highly specialized CIA and Special Operations teams were sent in to collect intelligence, help form alliances, and so forth. Without question, it was one of the most dangerous and important missions immediately after 9/11. It was also one of the most successful. It would have been even more successful if it hadn’t been for Palmera.

“With bin Laden’s blessing, Palmera assembled his own teams to track down the Americans that Al Qaeda knew were going to be slipped in in advance of the ground campaign. The five U. S. teams you see in this photo were taken out by Palmera, many in ways that are so gruesome, they don’t even bear mentioning.

“Suffice it to say that Palmera did most of the wet work himself-torturing and killing his American captives after they had been disarmed and could no longer fight or defend themselves. It’s said that he liked to keep trophies from his kills. In the case of the American advance teams, it was their tongues. He cut them out while the soldiers and CIA operatives were still alive and then had a shoemaker in Kandahar cobble a pair of boots from them.”

Harvath thought of his friend Bob Herrington, who had been wounded in Afghanistan while helping another wounded Delta Force operative and had seen his career come to an end because of it. Although he had been forced out of a job he loved, he hadn’t hesitated to step up once again when his country needed him. Harvath knew what kind of men those soldiers and CIA operatives Palmera had killed were. They were incredibly brave, incredibly capable, and put their love for their country above all-just as Bob had.

Harvath knew that when he located Ronaldo Palmera, he was going to make him pay for a lot more than what he had done to his mother and Tracy Hastings.

Harvath was about to say as much when Ron Parker looked up from his laptop and interrupting his thoughts by saying, “We’ve got activity in the chat room.”

SANTIAGO DE QUERÉTARO, MEXICO

The city of Querétaro was hot, dirty, and crowded. Though its population was just under 1.5 million, most of them seemed to crowd into the historic downtown-a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so recognized for its well-preserved Colonial Era architecture.