Brad Thor - The First Commandment

Gathering up the folder and his notes, Harvath excused himself from the conference room and went to Tom Morgan’s office.

He needed to check on his mother and Tracy. He dialed his mother’s hospital first. She was awake and he spent twenty minutes talking with her, reassuring her that everything was going to be all right and that he’d be back out to see her as soon as he could. As he was preparing to say good-bye, another of his mother’s friends arrived at her room, and he was heartened by the fact that she wasn’t alone. It would have been better if he could be there, but he couldn’t be in two places at once.

He clicked over to a new line and called the hospital in Falls Church, Virginia. Tracy ’s parents had already gone back to their hotel for the night. Her nurse, Laverna, was on duty, and she gave Harvath a full update on her condition. It wasn’t good. While her overall condition had not changed, small signs were materializing that suggested her situation was beginning to deteriorate.

Glancing at the fly-fishing scene on Tom Morgan’s wall, Harvath asked Laverna for a favor. When she held the phone up to Tracy ’s ear, he began to tell her about the wonderful vacation the two of them were going to take as soon as she got better.

Leaning back in Morgan’s desk chair, Harvath closed his eyes. There had to be something he wasn’t seeing, some sort of thread strung just beneath the surface of everything.

At this point, he knew of only one man who could answer his questions. Though already rebuffed by him once, Harvath decided enough had changed to warrant trying again. Picking up the phone, Harvath dialed the White House.

He knew better than to ask for the president directly. No matter how much Rutledge liked him, he had multiple layers in place to prevent direct access. The best Harvath could hope for would be to reach the president’s chief of staff, and even then there was no knowing when or if Charles Anderson would pass the message along to the president.

He needed someone he could trust and someone who would get the president on the line right away. That someone was Carolyn Leonard, head of Jack Rutledge’s Secret Service detail.

Getting to an agent while she was working, much less getting her to step away from active protection to take a phone call, was a near impossible task. When Carolyn Leonard picked up the phone, she wasn’t happy. “You’ve got five seconds, Scot.”

“Carolyn, I need to speak with the president.”

“He’s not available.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s in the cement mixer,” replied Leonard, using the Secret Service codename for the Situation Room.

“Carolyn, please. This is important. I know who carried out the attack on the U. S. Olympic facility in Park City today.”

“Give it to me and I’ll have it run down.”

Harvath took a deep breath. “I can’t do that. Listen, I need you to tell the president that you have me on the line and that I have important information for him regarding today’s attack. He’ll want to hear what I have to say. Trust me.”

“The last time I let a man slip that one past me I ended up pregnant with twins.”

“I’m being serious. People’s lives are at stake here.”

Carolyn thought for a moment. Harvath was clearly violating the chain of command. He had come to her as a shortcut, which meant that either time was of the essence or other avenues were unavailable.

He was a legend in the Secret Service, and his heroism and patriotism were above reproach, but Harvath was also known as a shoot-from-the-hip maverick who often chucked the rule book in favor of expediency. His “ends justifies the means” way of doing business had also become legendary in the Secret Service and was always held up as an example of what not to do.

Often, Harvath was characterized as having more balls then brains, and agents were admonished not to follow his example. It had been made crystal clear throughout the organization that Harvath’s success as a U. S. Secret Service agent had been due more to luck than anything else.

Leonard’s ass was on the line. Her job was to protect the president, not to decide what phone calls should get passed through to him. Going to the president with this would clearly be overstepping her bounds and could very well lead to a demotion, transfer, or worse.

“Scot, I could get fired for this,” she said.

“Carolyn, the president is not going to fire you. He loves you.”

“As did, supposedly, my ex-husband who left me with said twins, a mortgage, and over twenty-five thousand in credit card debt.”

“For all I know, Jack Rutledge may be on this whackjob’s list as well. Please, Carolyn, this guy is a killer and he needs to be stopped. I need your help.”

Leonard had always liked and admired Harvath. Regardless of what the powers that be said about him, he was a man who got things done, and never once had his motives been questioned. Everyone at the Secret Service knew that he put his country before all else. If there was ever someone more deserving of a favor, Leonard had never met him. “Hold on. I’ll see what I can do.”

WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM

Four and a half minutes later, Jack Rutledge picked up the phone. “Scot, I heard about your mother and I want to let you know how incredibly sorry I am.”

Harvath let his silence speak for him.

“Agent Leonard tells me you have information about today’s bombing that I should know about,” continued the president. “She says you know who’s behind it.”

“It’s the same person who shot Tracy Hastings and who put my mother in the hospital.”

Rutledge’s blood began to boil. “I told you to stay out of this.”

Harvath was incredulous. “While this guy continues to prey upon the people I care about? Two are in the hospital, two more are dead, and plenty of others who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time have been killed or injured. I’m sorry, Mr. President, I can’t just stay out of this. I’m right in the middle of it.”

Rutledge struggled to remain calm. “Scot, you have no idea what you’re doing.”

“Why don’t you help me? Let’s start with that group of detainees you released from Guantanamo Bay a little over six months ago.”

Now it was the president’s turn to be silent. After a long pause, he spoke very carefully. “Agent Harvath, you’re treading on extremely thin ice.”

“Mr. President, I know about the radioisotope that was supposed to track them and I know it was found in the blood above my doorway. One of those men is sending a message by targeting the people close to me.”

“And my word that the people I have on this are doing all they can isn’t good enough for you?”

“No, Mr. President. It isn’t,” replied Harvath. “You can’t shut me out any more.”

Rutledge bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t have any choice.”

Harvath didn’t believe him. “You’re the president. How’s that possible?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss any of this with you. You need to obey my orders or else you and I are going to have a very big problem.”

“Then it looks like we’ve got a very big problem, because there’ve already been three attacks and they’re going to keep coming unless I do something.”

The president paused as his chief of staff slid him a note. When he was done reading it he said, “Scot, I need to put you on hold for a minute.”

Clicking over to the line where the director of Central Intelligence, James Vaile, was waiting, Rutledge said, “You’d better be calling me with some good news, Jim.”