Brad Thor - The First Commandment

Morrell shook his head. “I don’t think it would make any diff-”

“He’s Adara Nidal’s son, Rick,” replied Harvath, cutting Morrell off again. “This whole thing is about revenge. Payback for whatever twisted thing they think I did to her. And it’s why he saved Meg for last.”

A flood of images sped through Morrell’s mind. He remembered all too well the mission to take down Adara and her brother that he and Harvath has been assigned to years ago.

“All that matters,” continued Harvath, “is that we stop Roussard. After that, I’ll put the cuffs on myself, but we’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

Morrell lowered his weapon and said, “How?”

The twenty-nine-foot-long Cobalt speedboat his realtor had provided was more than up to the task Roussard had set for it.

Affixing the commercial-grade tripod to the deck in the rear seating area had proven to be a little more time-consuming than he had anticipated, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. The specially milled joining plates provided a perfect mount for the weapon.

Originally, Roussard had thought he’d have to wait until the very last moment to seat it, but then he witnessed the family a few docks over returning home from an evening of waterskiing and tubing. The next morning, he purchased a similar oversized neoprene-covered “ski tube” and found that it concealed the tripod-mounted weapon perfectly.

The 20mm M61A2 Vulcan was an electrically fired, six-barreled Gatling-style gun that could spit out over six thousand rounds per minute. Not only would Meg Cassidy and all of her guests be ripped to shreds before they knew what had happened, but so would all the bystanders on the shore behind them. The Polaris itself would also be so badly damaged that it would very likely catch fire and sink.

There was no doubt that the waters of Lake Geneva would run red with blood, the fulfillment of Roussard’s final plague.

His body coursed with adrenaline as he bobbed silently in the water a safe distance away. Through his binoculars, he watched as the last of Meg Cassidy’s tardy guests were loaded aboard the oblong pleasure steamer moored at the end of her pier. It was only a matter of minutes now.

Roussard had picked the perfect spot for the attack. The bar at the Abbey Springs Yacht Club would be loaded with early-bird customers, as would its restaurant and the terrace outside. Beneath the terrace, the Yacht Club’s beach would be populated with families barbecuing, as well as beachgoers who had not yet called it a day.

The scene both on the Polaris and behind on the grounds of Abbey Springs would be nothing short of horrific. Roussard shook with anticipation.

Peering through his binoculars once again, he watched as the last of Meg Cassidy’s passengers boarded and the crew began to untie the lines.

The water was calm and there was little wind to upset the boat’s orientation and equilibrium. It was a perfect night for the type of killing Philippe Roussard was about to do. He smiled as he reflected on how proud his mother would be. He almost didn’t want it to end, but of course it had to. And after tonight, he had only one last name to check off his list. After tonight, he would finally begin to hunt Scot Harvath.

Three sharp blasts of the Polaris ’s steam whistle signaled its departure from the pier. Roussard reached down and turned the key, firing up the citron-yellow Cobalt’s engines.

He had already piloted the route several times during the day. As the Polaris passed the subdivision before Abbey Springs known as the Harvard Club, Roussard would uncover the Vulcan and move in for the kill. By the time he reached Meg Cassidy and her guests, they would be parallel with the Yacht Club and the fun could begin.

As he watched the Polaris cruise past a small spit of land that jutted out into the lake, which he’d learned from his maps was called Rainbow Point, he could hear laughter and the tinkling of glasses accompanied by jazz music.

The passengers of the Polaris were blissfully unaware of what was about to happen, and Roussard’s sense of power soared. Nudging his throttles forward, he picked up speed.

He took in the positions of the other boats around him, noting that the lake looked no different than it had over the last two days. The small number of law enforcement boats the lake did have were actively tied up at the Lake Geneva Country Club, preparing for the president’s attendance at a wedding that would never happen. In essence, Roussard’s getaway was all but guaranteed. And if any do-gooder was stupid enough to give him chase after the attack, he would have more than enough ammunition left to blow him right out of the water.

Seeing the Polaris approaching the Harvard Club, Roussard peered beneath the ski tube to make sure the weapon was “hot” and ready to fire.

Satisfied that everything was exactly as he wanted it, he straightened up and focused on the target.

As the steamship neared the Harvard Club, Roussard bumped the throttles farther forward and began to pick up speed again.

When the Polaris pulled even with the Harvard Club’s swim pier, Roussard threw the ski tube overboard and pushed the Cobalt’s throttles all the way forward.

It took only a moment for the speedboat to pop out of the hole, and once the craft was on plane, it accelerated like a jet off an aircraft carrier.

He’d already opened the boat all the way up earlier in the day, but the sensation was nothing like what he was feeling now. He rose from his seat, feeling his body become one with the craft. With the Vulcan, the three of them combined to create the perfect killing machine.

Roussard watched as the distance between him and his unknowing victims aboard the slow-moving Polaris narrowed.

As he got within a thousand meters of the steamship he began to count down in bite-sized chunks. Seven hundred meters. Six hundred meters. Five hundred.

He wanted to shout the attack cry of his ancestors as his boat ripped through the water and he closed in on the final several hundred meters. Already he could see passengers on the Polaris taking notice. At first their faces reflected bewilderment and then terror as they realized what was happening and comprehended that they were powerless to stop it.

He was within a hundred meters of where he needed to bring the boat to a stop so that he could man the Vulcan. Seventy-five. Now fifty meters!

As Roussard cut back the throttles, the engines failed to quiet. Instead they roared and grew louder.

It took the killer but a fraction of a second to comprehend what was happening, and by then it was too late.

The hull of the bright-red Cigarette boat sliced right through Roussard’s Cobalt. At the moment he realized what had happened, the deed was done. Roussard was barely able to throw his hands up in front of his face before impact.

Passengers aboard the Polaris began screaming as soon as they saw that the low-slung Cigarette boat was doing nothing to avert an impending collision with the bright-yellow Cobalt.

The sound of the impact was sickening. Fiberglass was ripped apart and rent asunder as the Cigarette plowed right through its victim and kept going, grazing the stern of the Polaris.

The Cigarette finally stopped when it ran aground halfway up the rolling hill that met the thin strip of rock, sand, and grass that composed the Harvard Club’s shorefront.

The first thing Harvath heard as he came to were the terrified screams from the Polaris. Blood was dripping into his right eye, and he raised his hand to his forehead and felt a gash several inches long. Looking to his left, he couldn’t find Morrell and assumed he’d been ejected.