Brad Thor - The First Commandment

It was almost four o’clock when Leif Realty’s owner, Nancy Erikson, called him back and told him she could meet him at her office in fifteen minutes.

When Harvath arrived, Erikson unlocked the front door and let him inside.

The office was small and had been decorated to look like the interior of a lakeside cottage.

“Being able to close for a personal day, especially at the end of the season, is one of the perks of owning your own business,” she said as she powered up a Tassimo “cup-at-a-time” coffee machine.

She rattled off a list of hot beverages she could make, all of which Harvath politely declined. Erikson was his last lead, and he was eager to find out what she knew about the man he was hunting.

“He set up everything almost exclusively via email,” said Erikson as she pulled a file from the stack on her desk. “I’d say over seventy-five percent of our business happens through our website these days. You almost don’t need a realtor,” she added with a chuckle.

“Can you tell me about the house Boesiger rented?” asked Harvath.

The woman slid a flyer from the file and handed it to him.

“Nice place,” said Harvath as he studied the pictures. It was a large home right on the water. “Seems like a lot of house for one person.”

“I thought that too, but that’s the way a lot of Europeans are. They live such cramped existences over there that when they go on vacation they really want some breathing room.”

Harvath doubted that was what was motivating Roussard. He’d picked this house for another reason. “Can you show me where specifically on the lake the property is located?”

Erikson rolled her chair over to the bookcase and returned with a large book about Lake Geneva. She opened it to the center and unfolded a large map. Her finger hovered over the lake’s north shore until it came down with a plop and she stated, “The house is right about there.”

She spun the book around on her desk so Harvath could see where the property was located.

Lake Geneva was the second deepest lake in Wisconsin. It was 7.6 miles long, but only 2.1 miles across at its widest point. One of the possibilities that Harvath was quietly considering was that Roussard had selected the house because it provided an unobstructed line of sight to his target. A missile or RPG attack was not something Harvath was willing to rule out, especially when he knew it was one of the Secret Service’s worst nightmares and something that was all but impossible to defend against.

As soon as Harvath located the Lake Geneva Country Club along the lake’s south shore, he ruled out his line-of-sight rationale. He compared the location of Roussard’s rental to Meg Cassidy’s cottage as well as the estate of Rodger Cummings, the president’s college roommate, with whom Rutledge always stayed when he visited Lake Geneva. Neither of them fit the bill either. Whatever kind of an attack Roussard was planning, he wasn’t going to launch it from where he was now.

Turning back to the flyer, Harvath asked, “Do you have any other photos of the property?”

“We’ve got a couple more on our website,” said Erikson as she booted up her computer. When she had clicked through to the page for the house Roussard had taken, she turned the monitor so Harvath could see for himself.

“Can you click on the virtual tour, please?” said Harvath after she had scrolled through all the static images.

Erikson was halfway through the second 360-degree virtual tour when Harvath ordered her to stop. “Back up,” he said.

The realtor dragged her mouse, slowly moving the image back the way it had come. Finally, Harvath said, “Right there. Stop.”

The camera had been set on a manicured lawn that led down to the water. It provided a perfect view of the home’s short pier and the view beyond. What Harvath was interested in wasn’t the view, though. It was the hull of a sleek powerboat that sat beneath a striped awning in the pier’s sole boat slip.

“Oh, that,” replied Erikson, rolling her eyes. “That boat almost cost me the deal.”

“What do you mean?” asked Harvath.

“When Mr. Boesiger arrived, I had to explain to him that it had developed a problem with its fuel line and had to be taken in to the shop. The home’s owners offered a very generous discount on his rental rate but he didn’t care about the discount, he wanted the boat and was very angry that it wasn’t available.

“I know the family who owns the Cobalt dealership in Fontana. They agreed to lease me one of their best boats so Mr. Boesiger could have a comparable watercraft for the duration of his vacation.”

Harvath couldn’t believe his good fortune. “And how long is that supposed to be for?”

“Mr. Boesiger is paid through Sunday, but when we were trying to arrange a new boat for him he said he didn’t care when it came as long as he had it by today.”

As Harvath left Leif Realty, he knew he had uncovered a major part of how Philippe Roussard planned on carrying out his attack. It was going to come from the water.

Scenes of a USS Cole -style ramming attack briefly flashed through Harvath’s mind, but he discounted them. Roussard did not strike him as suicidal, and when it came to the Lake Geneva Country Club, there was nothing to ram. The club was perched high at the water’s edge and almost impossible to get significantly close to because of a series of wooden piers and boat slips.

There was a chance that Roussard could pack his boat full of explosives and try to leave it in one of the slips closest to the clubhouse, but it would be next to impossible for the craft to avoid Secret Service scrutiny. Well before the president had arrived they would have checked each boat over completely and matched it with its rightful owner, upon whom a thorough background investigation would have already been completed along with background checks of all the other members of the club.

Harvath backed out of his parking space and followed the directions Nancy Erikson had given him for the rental property. As he drove, he gave play to every conceivable scenario that might involve Meg’s wedding and Roussard’s access to a high-powered speedboat.

The SEAL team that accompanied the president whenever he visited marine environments would be on, under, and all around the water during the wedding. In addition, there would be numerous support craft keeping boaters a good distance away from the area. A straight kamikaze-style run by Roussard would certainly fail.

Reaching Highway 50, Harvath turned left and headed west, parallel to the lake’s north shore. There had to be something he wasn’t seeing; something about the boat, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

With a hard perimeter established around the country club, the only way it could be breached was with an attack that, once launched, couldn’t be stopped. Again, Harvath returned to the idea of a projectile of some sort, along the lines of a Stinger missile or an RPG.

Consulting his map, Harvath noticed that he was coming up on the turnoff for Roussard’s lakefront rental. When he saw the road sign, he eased off the gas and applied his turn signal.

Moments later, he was driving down a paved lane shaded by a canopy of tall oaks that had been planted at equal intervals along both sides of the road.

As Harvath drove, he focused on what lay ahead of him. Most important, he focused on the need to keep Roussard alive until he uncovered what the man had planned.

For all Harvath knew, the boat might have nothing to do with Roussard’s attack and everything to do with his getaway. He couldn’t close his mind off to any options.

As Harvath followed a gentle bend in the road, he was unable to see the dark SUV that had just turned off the highway behind him.