Brad Thor - The First Commandment

Rutledge rubbed the hairline scar where his right index finger had been reattached, an ever-present reminder of his own gruesome kidnapping several years ago, and said, “Well, there’s one thing I can prove. I can prove that these people already hijacked one school bus and killed its driver. Those victims and their families were terrorized and traumatized beyond belief. It made national headlines, and as president, I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that never happens again.

“So I am going to allow DHS to issue the alert and I’ll deal with the Baltimore Sun or whomever else I have to deal with if and when they become a problem. In the meantime, I am ordering you to find Scot Harvath and stop him. No more excuses. You tell your people to do whatever they need to do to get their job done. And damn it, you remind them that when I said dead or alive, I meant it.”

ANGRA DOS REIS, BRAZIL

The Troll had dropped a bombshell on Harvath and the impact was intense. Philippe Roussard wasn’t the assassin’s real name after all. It was the name that had been given to him as a boy to protect him from his family’s enemies. His real name was Sabri Khalil al-Banna.

He began to explain who Roussard had been named after, but Harvath held up his hand to stop him. “He was named after his grandfather.”

The Troll nodded his head.

There was an acidic gnawing in the pit of Harvath’s stomach. Before Osama bin Laden, Sabri Khalil al-Banna had been the world’s deadliest and most feared terrorist. His exploits were bloody, ruthless, and the stuff of legends in both the terrorism and counterterrorism worlds.

As was common with Islamic radicals, he was known by many names, the most famous being Abu Nidal. Philippe Roussard was almost a dead ringer for his late grandfather. Now Harvath knew why he had looked so familiar in the material Vaile had sent.

He also knew why he, or more appropriately the people he cared about, were being targeted.

It was payback for a mission he had led several years ago, code-named Operation Phantom. His assignment had been to decapitate a resurgent Abu Nidal terrorist organization. The reins of power had been handed to Nidal’s daughter and son, twins who had been born and raised without the knowledge of Western intelligence agencies. Based upon what Harvath was hearing, it seemed something of a family tradition.

“As far as we know, Abu Nidal had only two offspring.”

“Correct,” said the Troll, “the son, Hashim, and the daughter, Adara.”

Just their names had the power to send a chill down Harvath’s spine. They were two of the most vicious terrorists he had ever come across, Adara even more so than her brother, Hashim.

Harvath remembered her all too well. Her hatred for Israel and the West consumed her to such a degree that it poisoned what would have otherwise been ravishing features. She was tall, with high cheekbones and long dark hair. Her eyes, though, were her most striking feature. They were gray to the point of almost being silver, like the color of mercury. But when she was enraged or under stress, they underwent an amazing transformation and turned jet black.

It was in the midst of a hijacking by Adara Nidal and her brother that Harvath had met Meg Cassidy. Together, they had tracked the twins to a vineyard outside Rome, only to be beaten to the punch by a veteran Israeli intelligence operative named Ari Schoen-a former top-ranking member of the Mossad who had his own axe to grind with the Nidal family.

It had ended very badly. The memories had haunted Harvath for a long time, and he did not care to be reliving them now.

Hashim had appeared like a wraith out of the vineyard and had run right at them with hand grenades in each hand. Harvath prepared himself for the attack, but Hashim ran right past them. He took Schoen and his team completely by surprise. Screaming at the top of his lungs, Hashim jumped into the van just as the door began to close.

Harvath had thrown himself on top of Meg. The grenades detonated and the van exploded into a billowing fireball, taking Schoen, Hashim, and his sister, Adara, along with it.

The horrible smell of gasoline and burnt flesh was one Harvath would never forget.

So now someone from the Nidal family tree was out for blood. The only question was which branch Philippe Roussard represented.

“So whose son is Philippe? Hashim’s or Adara’s?”

“Adara’s,” replied the Troll.

“Who’s his father?” asked Harvath.

“An Israeli intelligence operative who died before the boy was born.”

“Daniel Schoen?” responded Harvath, stunned that the twisted operation had come back to haunt him so. “He was Ari Schoen’s son.”

Harvath was good. “How did you know that?” asked the Troll.

“I didn’t.”

“But then-”

“The night Adara was killed,” said Harvath, “Schoen confessed to having broken up her relationship with Daniel. He called her a whore and she said something about Daniel wanting to have children with her. But I sensed there was something more-something that she wasn’t saying.”

“Obviously, there was. She had the child out of wedlock shortly after leaving Oxford where she and Daniel had met. Since the elder Schoen had done such an admirable job of making it look like Daniel wanted nothing further to do with her, Adara raised the boy in secret. She placed him with a French family she had connections with, and they raised him as their own. He wanted for nothing and went to the finest Western schools. But he always knew who he was and where he came from.”

“Just like his mother,” said Harvath.

Once again, the Troll nodded.

“You still haven’t explained your connection. Was it with the Nidals, or the foster family, the Roussards?”

“It was with the Nidals,” replied the Troll. “Abu Nidal was one of my earliest clients.”

Harvath looked at the dwarf with contempt. “You keep rather distasteful company. Birds of a feather, I suppose.”

The Troll took a long sip of his brandy. “Like I said, in my line of work, a person collects enemies very quickly. Friends are much harder to come by. Abu Nidal was one of the best and most loyal friends I ever had. His daughter, Adara, was the second best. Normally, a man like me has to pay for a woman’s attention. With Adara things were different.”

Harvath had heard some boasts in his time, but this guy was full of shit. “You and Adara Nidal?” he asked.

“A gentleman wouldn’t ask such questions,” said the Troll as he took another sip of brandy.

From what Harvath knew of her, Adara Nidal was a raving psychopath with unparalleled bloodlust. She was a woman of strange appetites, and the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Adara Nidal and the Troll would be perfect for each other.

At the moment, though, none of that made any difference. Harvath had a killer to catch. “So Adara’s son is targeting the people around me because he holds me responsible for his mother’s death?”

“It’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense,” replied the Troll.

“What about tying his attacks to the ten plagues of Egypt? The lamb’s blood above my door, the attack on Tracy, my mother, the ski team, the dog, and all the rest of them are tied in to the ten plagues, but in reverse order-ten through one instead of one through ten.”

“Hold on a second,” said the Troll. “The dog I left for you?”

Harvath nodded.

“What about it?”

Harvath realized that he might have just touched a nerve. “Roussard took great joy in torturing it. He severely beat the puppy and then put it in a body bag infested with fleas. He hung the puppy upside down from a rafter and left it there to die.”