Brad Thor - The First Commandment

“The newspaper will be the first to distance itself from you. Your body snatcher story will never see the light of day. You’ll be absolutely discredited. Next, your friends will disappear and even your family will start to fade away. And then there are all those children you so nobly mentored. You think anything you ever said or taught them will matter after they all figure out the only reason you were there was to get in their pants? Probably not, but that won’t be the end of your problems.

“A conviction on the child porn discovered on your computers and in your house will be a slam dunk. You’ll go to prison, and as you’re a crime reporter, I don’t need to tell you what they do to guys in your situation. Once the rumors get around that you’re a pedophile who pled to lesser charges of possession of child porn for a reduced sentence, if you’re not killed in the first couple of days, they’ll make your life such hell that you’ll wish you were dead.”

Sheppard had sat through the entire diatribe stunned. They had him. It was disgusting, but there was absolutely nothing he could do. His mind raced for answers, but he knew his only option was capitulation. Finally, he asked, “What do you want me to do?”

Vaile instructed him to gather any and all of the materials he’d assembled in putting together his story, including his notes, photographs, and tape recordings, and bring them in a small duffel bag to an abandoned warehouse just outside D. C.

Three hours later, the DCI contacted the president and shared with him the good news. After digging a bit deeper, the reporter from the Baltimore Sun had discovered that his sources were not as reliable as he had originally thought. Subsequently, he had decided not to pursue his story.

Jack Rutledge was relieved to hear it. That was one problem down. Now, they needed to refocus all of their resources on stopping Harvath.

ANGRA DOS REIS, BRAZIL

Even in the limited moonlight, Harvath’s small boat appeared more to hover than float atop the amazingly clear water.

He slipped the anchor quietly beneath the surface and slowly played out the rope. When the boat was secure, he gave his gear one last check and slipped over the side.

Harvath swam with the confidence of a man who’d spent all of his life near an ocean. His strong, sure strokes propelled him forward through the warm waters of Angra dos Reis Bay.

With a set of night vision goggles and a specially illuminated compass, he navigated his way through the darkness toward the private island known as Algodão.

On the leeward side, he low-crawled out of the water and unclipped from around his waist the rope that he’d used to pull a small dry bag behind him.

From the bag, Harvath removed the 9mm Beretta pistol that he had sent to himself via FedEx priority international shipping.

Harvath checked the weapon and then set it aside as he removed a change of clothes and got dressed. He pulled out a flashlight, his Benchmade Auto Axis folding knife, some Flexicuffs, and a few other items and shoved them into his pockets. He buried his swim gear near a large rock on the beach and checked the remaining contents of his dry bag.

The dogs the Troll kept were one of his biggest concerns. Since rescuing one of them in Gibraltar, he had done a little research on them. Caucasian Ovcharkas were amazing animals-swift, agile, ferocious when need be, and fiercely loyal. It was obvious why they’d been the breed of choice for both the Russian military and the East German border patrol. It was also obvious why the Troll had selected them.

Harvath thought about his own Caucasian Ovcharka, or rather the poor dog he had asked Emily Hawkins to take care of while he made up his mind about what he wanted to do with it. He had a big problem with keeping a “gift” from a man who’d been complicit in the slaying of countless Americans, including one of Scot Harvath’s best friends.

To be honest, with Tracy in the hospital and everything else that had happened, he hadn’t really thought much about the puppy until Gary shared with him the animal’s grisly torture. It was a horrible picture that Harvath forced from his mind. He needed to focus.

Harvath listened long and hard before slinging the bag over his shoulder and creeping into the island’s interior. Except for the narrow spits of sand on each side, the island was nothing but trees and luxuriant vegetation. The Troll’s lair was at the tip of the island, built outward on stilts above the water.

Harvath had thought hard about how he wanted to handle the dogs. A tranquilizer gun would have been the easiest method, but he didn’t have one. The only things he had access to for this trip were those in his safety-deposit box, as well as a small storage locker he kept in Alexandria. It wasn’t a lot to choose from.

Though he had his Beretta, he didn’t have a silencer for it, and therefore killing the dogs was out of the question. It would make too much noise. He had to find another way to incapacitate them. But to do that, he’d have to isolate them without arousing suspicion in their master-something easier said than done.

The dogs were the Troll’s own private security force. They never left his side- except when they went outside to relieve themselves. That was their moment of greatest vulnerability. And that was when Harvath planned to strike.

Based on satellite imagery he’d studied, Harvath had noticed that the Troll let the animals out a final time around ten o’clock in the evening. It was now just after nine-fifteen, which meant that Harvath had less than forty-five minutes to lay his trap and get himself into position.

Dogs in general, and the Ovcharkas in particular, excelled at night vision and the detection of movement, so it was imperative that Harvath be nowhere near the bait when they came outside.

Opening his dry bag he removed a football-sized object wrapped in paper. He’d had it prepared especially for this situation. It was ten kilograms of freshly ground beef into which Harvath had the butcher in Angra dos Reis grind a kilo of fresh bacon for added irresistibility.

Then, once safely away from shore, Harvath added his own special ingredient, a high-powered laxative from the pharmacy he’d visited in Rio.

Picking his spot now on the narrow trail that led from the Troll’s retreat, Harvath divided the meat into two sections and placed them close enough together that the dogs would be able to smell them, but far enough apart so that whichever dog got to the meat first, wouldn’t be able to wolf down his portion and then beat his partner to the other.

With the bait set, Harvath stepped into the brush, making sure he stayed downwind as he crept toward the house.

He found a perfect vantage spot among some large boulders near the shoreline. The house glowed with soft lighting and all of its window walls were retracted to let in the evening air. Harvath could hear classical music coming from inside. It was Pachelbel’s Canon in D, and he recognized it immediately. It was one of Tracy ’s favorites. She had it on her iPod and played it on the audio station in his kitchen when she cooked breakfast.

Harvath wondered if she’d been playing it on the morning she was shot.

Drawing his pistol, Harvath pulled back the slide to make sure the weapon was charged and said into the warm night air, “This one will be for you, honey.”

Since Harvath hadn’t skimped on the drug, it didn’t take long for the laxative-laden meat to work its magic. Both dogs began howling almost in unison. The rumbling tearing through their bowels had to have been horrible.

The music was turned off, and Harvath caught his first glimpse of the Troll. It brought the memories of their first encounter in Gibraltar flooding back to him.