Brad Thor - The First Commandment

Even so, the president wanted the reporter from the Baltimore Sun taken care of. How the hell Vaile was supposed to do that was anybody’s guess, especially as Rutledge had made it crystal clear that no harm was to come to the man.

With two of the five Gitmo terrorists dead, the biggest point of contention between the president and the DCI was what they should do next. Rutledge was all but convinced that a carefully worded Homeland Security directive needed to be sent to all law enforcement agencies about the possibility of an attack on American school buses. Vaile, though, still had his doubts and fell back on many of the same arguments that he had made before.

One thing was certain, there was no way any alert could go out with the threat of the Baltimore Sun article looming. It would throw everything that the president did from that point forward into question. His credibility would be severely undermined, and every single terrorism directive that came out of Washington would be second-guessed to death.

Vaile already had the beginnings of a plan in the works and welcomed the opportunity for a little peace and quiet out on the links. Many of his best breakthroughs came when he simply quieted his mind and concentrated on his game.

Though the DCI tried valiantly to do just that, his next drive was what was known in golf parlance as an “elephant’s ass”-high and stinky. It came up short and rolled down the shaved embankment into a watery grave.

“Except for the distance and the direction,” quipped Vaile’s golfing buddy, “that was a pretty good shot.”

Vaile wasn’t in the mood. He tee’d up one more, just to prove that he could put it on the green, which he did. It was his putting, though, that proved to be his final undoing.

It should have been a tap-in, but Vaile ended up four-jacking the hole. He was a man of considerable temper, and it took everything he had not to break his club over his knee. Vaile’s chum couldn’t decide what he found funnier, three shots off the tee to get to the green, or four putts to get the ball into the hole.

As the man wound up to bust his friend’s chops once more, Vaile looked at his watch and informed him that he needed to be on his way. The pair shook hands and Vaile’s foul mood notwithstanding, the DCI promised to pick up lunch after their game next week. The CIA director then disappeared toward the clubhouse with his protective detail in tow.

Hitting the locker room, all Vaile wanted to do was take a short steam before heading back to his office in Langley. He prayed to God no one would recognize him, or if they did that they would have the good social grace to leave him the hell alone.

Stripping out of his clothes, Vaile grabbed a towel and headed toward the steam room. His security detail was familiar with his routine and wouldn’t expect him to exit the locker room for at least a half hour.

Though he wasn’t crazy about his people seeing him naked, the real reason Vaile had them wait for him outside was that he just needed time alone. Being the director of the Central Intelligence Agency was hard enough; being constantly surrounded by bodyguards because so many nut jobs wanted him dead only made it harder. Sometimes, even if it was only for half an hour on Sundays, James Vaile wanted to forget who he was and just be anonymous for a while. And considering the day he was already having, he could use a little escape time more than ever.

Yanking open the door to the steam room, the DCI was greeted with a heavy cloud of thick mist scented with eucalyptus. He grabbed a seat on the lowest tier of the white-tiled benches and listened for the beautiful music of the door clicking shut.

When it did, his body began to relax. For the next few minutes he was completely cut off from the outside world, enveloped in blissful silence.

Vaile leaned back and closed his eyes. He was finally alone.

His mind began to drift, but as soon as it did, his thoughts were interrupted.

“That was one of the ugliest games I’ve ever seen played in my life,” said a voice from one of the benches above him.

Vaile was a well-known figure at the club, and he wasn’t surprised that his play had been noticed. Still, he had to fight back the urge to tell the hazy figure sitting above him what he could do with his opinions. Vaile simply wanted to tune everything out.

“This hasn’t been one of my best days,” he replied, his voice trailing off-a clear signal that he didn’t feel like talking.

“You can say that again,” replied the man as he leaned forward and cocked his pistol.

Despite the intense heat of the steam room, Vaile’s body turned to ice. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want?”

“You’ll forgive me, director,” said the voice, “if I save us both time and ask the questions.”

“My security people are-”

“Not even in the locker room and won’t expect to see you for a little while still.”

Vaile recognized the man’s voice but couldn’t place it, at least not right away. “I know you.”

Harvath came down off the upper bench and took a seat next to the DCI.

When the curtain of fog parted, Vaile couldn’t believe his eyes. “Harvath. Are you crazy? Aren’t things bad enough for you? Now you pull a gun on the director of the CIA?”

“First,” responded Harvath, “I don’t see how things could get much worse for me. And second, I didn’t pull a gun on you, I cocked one that wasn’t even pointed in your direction.”

“I’ll make sure to note that subtlety when I report this meeting to the president.”

“I know we’re in a steam room, but let’s not jerk each other off, okay?”

“Listen,” replied Vaile, “we both know what this is about. The president was forced to make a deal with the devil and-”

“ And the people I care about are the ones who are paying for it.”

“We had no idea things were going to turn out this way.”

Harvath was ready to punch the DCI’s lights out. “But now that they have, I don’t see anybody doing a hell of a lot to stop it.”

“You don’t know the first thing about what we’re doing,” snapped Vaile.

“What do you mean we ? ”

“The president asked me to put a covert team on the case.”

“He assigned a CIA team inside the United States?” asked Harvath. “In addition to the FBI?”

Vaile held up his palms. “The president wanted hefty counterterrorism experience on this and that’s what I gave him.”

“But they haven’t made much progress, have they?”

Vaile didn’t bother responding. It was painfully obvious that his people hadn’t made much progress.

“Were Morrell and his Omega Team in charge of that too?”

The DCI shook his head. “No. We fielded a separate team. I picked them myself. They’re all solid operators with Spec Ops experience, there’s just not enough for them to go on.”

Harvath shook his head. “And you saved Rick Morrell for the real dirty work so that you could use our friendship against me, didn’t you?”

“It was the fastest way to get the information we needed.”

“I should have known better.”

The DCI took a deep breath and then let it out. “Scot, negotiating with these terrorists was a bad choice, but it was the only choice the president had. We weren’t going to let these animals kill American kids. And we’re still not. That’s why you’ve got to turn yourself in.”

It wasn’t an easy call. Harvath didn’t want to provoke terrorist attacks on American children, but the fact that Vaile’s people hadn’t made any progress in catching the person responsible for hunting his loved ones only served to reinforce his decision. “I’m not stopping until I nail this fucker.”